Brand Noise

Psychology of Leaving (Your Social Network)

Last week, our favorite femme fatale announced she was leaving Facebook until further notice. 48 hours, nay — 36 hours, later she was back posting status updates like nothing ever happened. (Harrumph.) At the same time, another friend was MIA on Facebook. He slipped away without a word months ago. There’s been no trace of him on FB since. We know he’s alive. Four Square and Twitter tell us he’s getting around quite well.

Common wisdom says we leave to move on to cooler and better things. Back when social networking was new, some left Myspace for Facebook, didn’t we? Now, leaving seems to be more a form of martyrdom. Because — let’s be real — are there cooler, better networks to move on to — yet? Do we care? Of course, we do...

Read the rest on Uncluttered White Spaces. (Thanks, Ben Rennie!)

Applying Filmmaking Tools and Techniques to Interaction Design

Applying Filmmaking Tools and Techniques to Interaction Design

View more presentations from Adam Connor.

Innovation & Collaboration (Saneel Radia/BBH)

Innovation & Collaboration

View more presentations from Saneel Radia.

Curious. How will you be engaging consumer research this year?

BETAcation, a proposal for an education API

A Transformative Narrative Grid API for Education
An API that connects curriculum and learning with the real world and empowers students of all ages to leverage curiosity by engaging a sustainable network of resources as they work through narrative processes. A malleable, evolving code, the API would interplay with existing curriculum, exercising right brain techniques beyond school.

BETAcation, proposal for an eduction API

View more presentations from Tim Stock.

Education Needs Sustainable Networks to Evolve

 

Part of the education problem is that we live in a culture filled with self-doubt and lack of confidence. That’s undermining–especially to parents. Progressive parents can engage creative programs full throttle, and yet even they screech the brakes when standardized testing looms over head. The announcement of those tests is paralyzing. The same parents who rally for PTA funding for arts and cultural programs shift their energies to finding tutors to make sure their kids pass upcoming tests with flying colors. And then the right brain momentum fades away. They don’t have the wherewithal to let the right brain and left brain co-exist. We’ve got an identity crisis going. Do we really want to be Tiger parents? Should we want to?

For parents, the evidence that right brain is the key to a life well lived is non-existent. We qualify success by numbers. If we can’t quantify a theory, its validity is lost. We all succumb to that flaw. It’s distractingly evident in our own advertising culture. We ask questions of qualitative concepts like ‘Can you quantify that?’ ‘What does the data say?’ We judge creative directors by the number of awards they win. Websites are measured by their number of hits. Listening tools read for the number of times a brand is cited. We don’t promote change. We promote numbers. What we really need to be judging is long-term impact.

We can’t teach impact to kids when they are siloed away from their futures. That gap needs to close. Synergies need to be built that engage students early on. They should be allowed to forge bonds, collaborate and engage a range of mentors and peers in and out of school. Yes, there are field trips; there are class visitors; there are penpals. But kids too need a sustainable network–a better grid that connects their learning with the real world and empowers them to leverage their curiosity. That’s how you fight to be a right brain person. Or, better yet, that’s how the fight to use the whole brain begins.

How to make right brain/left brain evolve in education has been twisting our own brains over the years at scenarioDNA…thanks for creating a forum! Okay, back to work on fleshing this out.

 

- Marie Lena Tupot Partner, scenarioDNA

- Tim Stock, Partner, scenarioDNA

Communication Missteps are a Big Fail

Today, I blocked @AskCiti from my Twitter because I didn’t think listening to me was a productive way for them to spend their time. Here’s the backstory.

Last spring, I accepted the challenge of being a Brownie leader for my daughter’s troop. How hard could it be to school them in leadership, respect and entrepreneurship? All that’s been a piece of cake. Then, we got to the cookies.

According to the WSJ, profits from Girl Scout cookies last year rose from $700 million to $714 million last year, after six years of falling about 1% a year. That’s no small change. Fast forward to Citibank, the bank entrusted with these funds. In two branches in New York City, where Girl Scouts is headquartered, tellers couldn’t figure out how to deposit our Brownie troop’s funds. The first time, I sent my husband. He came back grumbling about how he needed a store number. And then I tried at different branch. What’s your store number, said the teller. Huh, I’m not a store? No store number. No deposit.

Once I got back to the office, I come to find that the “store number” is the number plainly printed on the lower left of the deposit slip. The account number is on the right. Shouldn’t these huge entities be in sync on collecting funds and know how to read a pre-printed deposit slip? Instead, thousands of dollars sat in my backpack over a weekend.

I was frustrated so I twittered. That Twitter got a direct message from @AskCiti, asking for my phone and the best time to call. A Citibank social media rep was happy to help me. Really? This was the time to call into action the team in charge of the Citibank Girl Scout account. Just because I express myself through Twitter, doesn’t relegate the issue to social media.