Storydriven

Please Understand Me

No, that's not a personal request (though isn't it what we all want, really?). It's the title of a book by psychologist David Kiersey that discusses, in depth, the 16 MBTI types: How each perceives the world, how each works, the most effective communication style to use with each - and also how each type functions in relationships and as a parent.

I swear, it's not a cult. It's not astrology. It's nothing like Six Sigma. It's just a better way for us all to get along (who brought the CokeTM?)

(full disclosure: my father mentored Isabel Briggs-Meyers while she was developing the test in the 1950s, I think. He thought she was brilliant, but the rest of his staff couldn't stand that she walked around in sneakers, and apparently they told him she drank all the coffee. I would've liked her.)

Days of wine and... no, just wine.

The new trend in spas is “vinotherapy,” or wine-based treatments.

I’m not kidding.

We’re not talking Sideways or spas with endless cellars. We’re talking bathing in Pinot Noir while having a Merlot grape seed facial. Before you go to bed, you use a crushed cabernet scrub to exfoliate your body. Presumably the bath is watered down, or the new status symbol will be a literal port wine stain on one’s entire body.

It reminds me of the line from the movie The Truth about Cats and Dogs, where Janeane Garofalo tells a caller (whose cat has been licking the man's face for three hours), “It’s okay to love your pet. Just don’t loooooove your pet.” I mean, some of my best friends are wine aficionados. But isn’t this going a little overboard (or, more aptly, over the barrel?). At the very least, one would hope these places confiscate their guests’ car keys for the duration of their visit.

We all know that, in reasonable amounts, red wine is good for you. It’s not only the wine. The grape, grape skin, grape seed and grape vine all contain powerful antioxidants, according to this MSNBC article.

“Luxe resorts such as The Inn at Camelback in Arizona and the Shore Club in Miami are offering wine treatments using Olavie’s Le Vin range of oils made from Chardonnay grape seed. Across Europe, spas are using ISHI Elements — creams and oils from Chianti, Chardonnay and Pinot grapes sourced from organic vines in Tuscany. And New York City's first entirely wine therapy-based spa, Delluva Vinotherapy Day Spa, opened in Tribeca in January 2007, featuring TheraVINE products derived from the Pinotage grape in South Africa.”

The top 10 wine spas in the world span the globe, from South Africa to Argentina to, understandably, Bordeaux in France. The only American resort to win the accolade is the Kenwood Inn and Spa in Sonoma, California. If you’re going to go luxe enough to make a wine spa your destination, it only makes sense to make the destination an area of the world renowned for wine.

“To your health” has never been more apt. Hiccup.

How to hire the best

In two years, the oldest Baby Boomers will begin to retire (in their own Boomerish way), which means that job opportunities are beginning to open up – big time – for younger workers, and managers are getting nervous about finding enough good talent. This means that those people within Gens X and Y that have desireable skill sets (most notably technology and creativity) will have their pick of jobs. Instead of college graduates sending out dozens of resumes, it’s likely employers will be lining up on campus to entice the best and the brightest. The paradigm of supply and demand has shifted, and the onus is now on employers to beat out the competition for the best talent (and keep them happy).

Google raised its profile (like it needed to?) when it started recruiting engineers by placing algorithmic problems on billboards. If you could solve the puzzle, the ads said, you’re the kind of person we want.

That’s pretty cool, but not nearly as cool as this: a personalized pitch from the CEO of a company, explaining why you would be a good fit.  The iPod nano, Russian nesting dolls and Matrix references show that the company knows the psychographics of the people it wants to hire.

Moral of the story: If you (we) want to work with the cream of the crop, we can’t wait for them to find us, because other companies are already out there wooing them. 

How can we actively seek out the top talent that will keep us at the front of a growing industry, rather than waiting for them to come across our ads?

What's your (Myers-Briggs) type?

We all know that our minds work in different ways; we have – as someone said – diversity in our brain processes. Sometimes that can make it really hard to communicate, especially in an environment that is both creative and strategic.

The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator is a test, based on Jungian archetypes, of the ways in which individuals perceive and interact with the world, process information and recharge their batteries, across four axes:

Introversion/Extraversion – Not how outgoing you are, but whether crowds (or solitude) make you feel energized or depleted – how do you recharge?

Sensing/Intuition – Are you a logical type who makes decisions based on the concrete feedback your five senses are giving you? Or do you use that sixth sense and go with your gut?

Thinking/Feeling – This one gets tricky, because many “feeling” types have well-developed “thinking” sides. This result really has to be interpreted in the context of the other results.

Judging/Perceiving – I’ve never quite understood this one, which apparently confirms that I’m a “P”. Js like order and schedules and matrices - tangible, quantifiable results, while Ps are more “go with the flow” and could care less if their living room is a wreck (mea culpa). Again, the other results need to be taken into account for a full understanding.

So there are 16 possible combinations within the four key pairings (SP, SJ, NF, NT). I’m an INFP, which often gets the layperson label of “the healer” or “the mystic” or “the dreamer.” What this means (in a very watered-down way) is that while I like having coffee or drinks with one or two friends, a “girls’ night out” at a club will leave me drained. I’m a dreamer – which has been a problem in relationships with people who are more earth-bound. I spend a lot of time in my head, in situations that don’t exist. And – no surprise to anyone who knows me (which is probably everyone who’s read this far) – I’m highly, highly sensitive. Which is the perfect personality for a creative.

Many HR departments use the MBTI when hiring to determine if a candidate is a good fit for the job requirements. The only true way to know your “type” is to pay a professional MBTI administrator (usually a psychologist) to administer the test. There are many rip-offs – I mean, derivatives – online, the best free one is at Human Metrics. I’ve been told that if you can’t choose between the two options, think back to yourself in childhood – before age 12 – and answer as you would have then.

Once you know your type, check out Team Technology, which deals with personalities at work. The best thing about this site is that it discusses what each type is like under stress and under extreme stress.

I know from experience that all my closest friends are NFs. I love intellectual banter with NTs and often wind up dating men in this group, but ultimately the conflict between rationality and dreaminess gets in the way. They are a great work complement for me. SJs and I really struggle to understand each other.

What’s your type? Take the test and leave a comment below.

(p.s. There's a reason Calvin is my icon - he's the fictional embodiment of an INFP)

The sound of brands

Fast Company has an interesting presentation on the importance of audio in branding. It makes sense, especially given that people take in information in different ways - some will more easily associate a sound with a brand, some with a logo and some with a tag line.

I'm not sure about including McDonald's here - "I'm lovin' it" is relatively new (when you're talking about brands that have been around for decades), and personally, I associate it more as a tagline than a jingle (and Justin Timberlake?!). It seems about as timeless as "Whassup?!"

Intel and, for moviegoers, THX, are by far the most recognizable.

AOL...Can't dispute that "You've Got Mail" is iconic, but it's become synonymous with email in general, not just AOL. Besides which, the ability to customize mail delivery sounds (or ban them entirely) renders this one irrelevant. Seriously, do you know anybody who still gets that generic message? Even back in the mid-90s, we were recording celebrity voices to cover for the generic computer voice. If anything, it's now either ironic or retro, kinda like "I can't believe I ate the whoooooole thing."  I'd say AOL's start-up sound is more significant, though I can't bring it to mind.

Windows - though I haven't tried Vista, being a Mac gal and all - has a very distinct audio brand.

NBC - definitely the most recognizable audio signature in television.

CNN - James Earl Jones's participation led to a whole spate of JEJ voiceovers (and sound-alike voiceovers), because his voice is so resonant with authority. I dunno, though. The "This is CNN" pronouncement seems so... 1990s to me. Maybe because they always have all those flashy banners declaring the Crisis! Du! Jour!

Mac startup is pretty distinctive, though non-Mac users wouldn't know it.

Where does a tag line or brand word leave off and a brand "sound" pick up? Yahoo! has the best combination of the two (annoying as it is).

Honestly, I think the best "brand sound" around is that double bass line in the intro to any of the Law & Order shows, the one they play between scenes. In 1995, I used that as my "critical stop" sound (back in the Windows days), until it gave me so much anxiety I had to change it.

Eats, Shoots & Leaves, part deux

If you're not a grammar geek or writer, you may want to skip this item.

The NY Times has a Q&A column with the woman who manages copy desks across the newsroom, Merrill Perlman. Talk about a tough job.  As a contributor to the most recent New York Times Manual of Style, she plays a large part in determining what is considered grammatically correct.

One of the nuances she points out both clarifies and makes more complicated the whole apostrophe thing (writers know what I'm talking about):

Ordinarily form a possessive by adding 's to a singular noun (the boy's boots; the girl's coat), even if the noun already ends in an s (The Times's article). If the word ends in two sibilant sounds (ch, j, s, sh, x or z) separated only by a vowel sound, drop the s after the apostrophe (Kansas' climate; Texas' population). But keep the s after the apostrophe when a name ends in a silent sibilant letter (Arkansas's; Malraux's).

For most plural words, the possessive form is s' (girls' coats; boys' boots). But for a plural word that does not end in s (women; children), the possessive is formed by adding 's (women's; children's). And when a plural is formed with es (on a proper name and a common noun equally), the apostrophe follows that ending: the Joneses' house; the buses' routes; the Mercedeses' doors.

So there you have it.

De-branding Starbucks?

Wow. We often talk about different companies that have leveraged their brand equity to move into different areas while retaining their core strategic story. One of those companies is Starbucks, which genuinely says it's not in the coffee business; it's in the experience business. Providing a great "third space," somewhere that's not home and not work, has been their goal, and with that, they've been able to expand  into the most complicated beverage titles known to mankind, as well as food, music, books and movie promotions, to name a few.

That's what I thought, at least.

In Brand Autopsy, a great brand blog, John Moore (a one-time Starbucks marketer in ye olden days) carries on an extensive post-for-post dialogue (blogalogue?) with Paul Williams of Idea Sandbox (also a former Starbucks marketer and colleague of Moore's). Moore suggests that, if Howard Schultz is to see through his vision of 40,000 Starbucks around the world (aren't there more than that already?), the company would do well to return to its roots: coffee. Period.

Starbucks has changed the in-store conversation from being about the coffee to being about the Starbucks brand. No longer is it a customer experience inside Starbucks—it’s become a customer’s “Starbucks Experience.”

Once again, the brand is focused on itself, rather than the consumer. (Then again, Moore's suggestion makes it sound as though the focus should be on the coffee, rather than the consumer's connection to the coffee.)

The post, and the series, is worth reading in full, but I can't resist adding another (admittedly out of context) quote here:

Howard passionately talks about how Starbucks is the early chapters of a long, enduring story... So, if indeed Starbucks is in the beginning chapters of a much longer story, the company can afford to prune now. Take the time now to reposition the company and redirect the Starbucks ship back to true north, focusing on making a great cup of coffee and delivering unparalleled experiences to each and every customer. Smart investors will wait. Loyal customers will be patient. Store partners will be jazzed. And Starbucks will once again redefine how a company can grow its brand without forsaking its soul.

This is serious food for thought. Or caffeine for thought, as it were.

Creative Workspaces

Boing Boing points to a great ongoing blog about creative workspaces. Notice that most of them are messy.

There's been an ongoing debate at E+S about clutter. The creatives invariably have cluttered, often messy desks (but organized in their messiness). This gives the administrative staff fits, in part because our office is also our showroom, and clients come to visit.

The creatives (including me) say: If I'm a client, I want to see clutter, as long as it's evidence of creativity. A clean work area indicates to me that nothing's happening (or worse, the creatives are repressed).

The left-brainers say: It has to be clean and sparkling to show off the "showroom" as intended.

The cliche says: a neat desk is a sign of a disturbed mind.

(You might have guessed I'm a bit messy)

The question is not only who is right, but what are the circumstances for each individual client? And if a client isn't coming through, why does it matter? The workspace/showroom was designed a long time ago, when the needs of staffers were different and it could be "shown" as needed. Today, we're nearly 50 people, and to the company's credit, renovations are about to begin to create more effective workspaces for each group within the company.

Some people thrive on interaction, love the open concept and have no trouble concentrating. I, on the other hand, am allergic to noise - highly sensitive and incapable of doing any but the most menial tasks when not a) alone and b) in a completely silent environment. Interestingly (or not), once I've written a draft, I have to take it somewhere else, physically, to edit it. That place is often a coffee shop - seems like noise doesn't interfere so much with my critical-thinking processes as it does with my creative ones.

Anyway, creative people are messy (it's rare that I don't have a dozen books and magazines surrounding me, open to relevant passages or articles). It's like a metaphor for having a mind in which everything, every concept and idea is fluid and dynamic; our spaces are, too.

How (not to) tell a story

Fast Company has a great blog today about the US Air/America West merger and the million-plus resulting screwed up reservations.

US Air attempted to do damage control by sending out a form letter (which you can read at the FC site), essentially the story a big computerized mess. As the FC blogger points out, the letter, ostensibly written by the VP of Sales and Marketing (or his assistant) is filled with street-casual language  (as opposed to business-casual) that undermines the author's credibility. I'm all for casual language - in context. When you know your demographic will respond to it, for example. I'm guessing US Air's business traveler demographic did not appreciate the attempt at hipness.

There are two other glaring problems with the non-apology:

1) the letter focuses on what US Air has had to endure ("woe is us"), rather than focusing on the customer (apologies without excuses would be nice) and the solution - which is given, sort of, in the kind of language you have to read five times prior to understanding. We get that employees at these airlines have had a hellish time with the transition. That's irrelevant to how it affects the consumer.

2) the letter is entirely too long. If I'm a US Air (or America West) customer, and I'm already pissed off that my reservation has been lost in cyberspace, the last thing I want to do is spend 15 minutes reading a defensive rant about difficult - and admittedly outdated - technology.

Who knows? Maybe the guy's already been fired over this computer systems problem, and he doesn't care.

COMPARE THIS to an article in today's NY Times about the art of apologizing (also known as great customer service). The examples here are also stories, but concise ones, without getting defensive or whiny. Plus, most of the airlines - notably Southwest - take positive action to appease their customers...before they even get a complaint.

As a frequent flyer, which airline am I most likely to use, given these pieces of information?

Postscript: It sure is a day for airline stories. Just came across this one, courtesy of Tom Peters, about how British Airways handled not only the death of a passenger in-flight, but also the subsequent complaints (the answer to both: badly). In the extensive comments section of the Daily Mail article, respondents mostly berated the man who complained because he had to sit across the aisle from a corpse for six hours. Maybe that's a British thing. What appalled me was the response of the British Airways customer service rep: "Get over it."

Two things: If, as I think is true, overseas flights have crew rest areas, why wouldn't the crew have put the "expired" (their words, not mine) woman and her family there, where they would have real privacy, instead of placing the deceased - in the words of the complaining passenger - "like a sack of potatoes" in a first-class seat? (Note to self: least expensive way to upgrade...)

Second thing: I discovered that cruise ships have morgues. And coroners. Lots of people - not a high percentage, but some - die on cruises. Some go on cruises precisely because they know they're going to die, and they want to go out happy. When I took a trip with my elderly father in 2000, I had to research the grim details of what happens when someone dies at sea (and the ship's crew gave me the gory details on thing like people who want to die at sea). I'll save that for another time, but the point is... why wouldn't a plane designed for long-haul flights have a similar compartment?  

It's 4:00. Let's see if we can make it another hour without yet another edit/addition to this post.

Eye Candy

Strategic storytelling is as much about design and visual storytelling as it is about words. The full strategic story needs to be told in words, but the ways in which that story is communicated to others, especially consumers, is often more visual than verbal. Ideally, the two areas complement each other.

So we at E+S try to keep ourselves and each other inspired, not only by staying current on things like trends, sustainability, branding, psychographics, etc. but also on design - things that will help us communicate stories in groundbreaking visual ways.

With that, here is a site recommended by Sebastien, one of our designers: Candy, "an independent venture developed to showcase exceptional creativity worldwide through original innovative formats."