Net Cotton Content

About Your Complaint

Remember my grandfather, Andy Sokol, of blessed memory? Net Cotton Content is named for him. (That story is here.)

As a self-made man, a true-life, up-from-the-boot-straps Horatio Alger, my grandfather didn't have much patience for people who kvetched about their daily problems.

He preferred to get on with it. Solve the problem. Ignore it. But, most of all, stop complaining.

Here's How He Stopped Complainers.
Andy would simply hand them a small card. He had a stack of these printed, back when printing was a much more hands-on, more expensive activity.

They were business-card sized, but they were big enough to produce a laugh from everyone — and get the conversation back on track.

Of course, this was before the invention of the Complaint Desk.
It was before we were a service economy.

For Andy, the customer was always right. But not every complaint was worth the time it took to voice.

We know not why we are doing.

Finkelman showed this to me in his office on Finkelman Friday.

So, What's This About?
Oddly, this is about everything.

It's about all of us, because it's about human behavior.

Dan Ariely on Irrational Behavior.
By "irrational behavior," I mean, of course, "your and my behavior."

Could be buying bread and milk in the grocery in the afternoon. Could be getting a tattoo at night. (Because Dan is a survivor of third-degree burns over 70 percent of his body, there is some aspect of Skin Deep here, too.)

I'm going to read Dan's books.
He's brilliant in a plain-spoken and engaging way. Or so I think, through all my irrationality.

You be the judge. You might be somewhat less irrational than I. I hope so.

Here's Dan Ariely.

Creative To Be Fit

Jack LaLanne died Sunday. He remains a worthy hero.

It might seem morbid for me to share an obituary, but The New York Times obituaries provide a stunning series of role models: very creative people who made themselves famous and, often, greatly improved the world. The only thing wrong with most of these folks: they're dead.

Glorious Oddball
LaLanne was a peculiarity, especially early on, but that's how innovators appear.

His introduction of fitness is a classic representation of the introduction phase during the product life cycle, though his "product" was a concept and a call to action. He focused his communications on technical superiority — you'll live better through exercise — which is the perfect brand messaging strategy for a new product introduction.

If you jog or lift weights, swim or stair-master, cycle or skip rope, then you have been influenced — however indirectly — by Jack LaLanne.

He invented Just Do It long before the adguys took over.

Be Inspired
Please enjoy Richard Goldstein's beautifully written "Jack LaLanne, Founder of Modern Fitness Movement, Dies at 96" in this morning's issue of The New York Times.

And — if you want to pursue your next (or current) creative adventure with me, I'll be at the Columbus Museum of Art's Center for Creativity three Sundays during the next six months, starting February 6th. Perhaps you have a friend you might recommend for this? Here are the details.

Because All Creatives Die
Someday I want to teach a course called Dead Creatives, with obituaries as the only reading assignments.

Though, as Mr. Goldstein writes about LaLanne: "'I can’t die,' he most famously liked to say. 'It would ruin my image.'"

All Mixed Up

Long from now in a place probably not that far away... 

"Tell us that old story again, Zayde," my grandchildren will ask. 

"The one about how you used to go to that place where everyone worked. You know, the Workplace! And you worked with the same people every day — until they were thrown out or they stormed out on their own. And you kept all your big secrets from everyone outside the building. Tell us that story again. I love that story."

"Oh, and then tell us the story about how someone used to chop down trees and grind them up and soak the dust in water and roll the whole mess flat and spill ink on it and leave it on your doorstep in the early morning for you to play with at breakfast. Tell us the part about how this news-paper was your connection to the outside world. I love that story."

"Ugh, children. It's time for Zayde's enema. Leave me alone."

The world is changing. (Duh.)

Because Ideas Are Getting Frisky
So here's a great example of ideas having sex.

It comes from a website called hitRECord, where creative individuals upload their work with the explicit intention that other people will take that work and change it; add to it; making it more, less or better.

It's a highly creative example of crowdsourcing.

The following video is an example. I don't know the true order of its development, but we can imagine: 

• A person posted a video of a fast-motion traffic scene.
• Another person liked it and doubled it into a mirror-image. Then reposted it.
• Yet another person saw that, liked it, and wrote the text. And reposted it.
• Another person added the music (reposted), someone else recorded the voiceover (reposted) — and then someone decides she's going to add the subtitles. 

And they don't work in the same building, nor — in fact — have much of an idea who the others are. 

It's just a couple minutes. Enjoy.

Ideas Having Sex

Why do ideas get to have all the fun?

It's The Creativity
This is a great video from Ted.com, wherein British author Matt Ridley describes how we are evolving ever more quickly and ever more substantially because we are cross-breeding our ideas like never before. 

Here's his TED talk When Ideas Have Sex. 

It is, as so much of Ted is, a fascinating 20 minutes.

Three Inspiring Paragraphs on Creativity

Perhaps you saw this during 2008.

It so wonderfully considered and expressed; I am enjoying reading it again today.

The Obama Arts Policy Committee asked committee member and author, Michael Chabon, to describe the critical importance of the arts at this moment of remarkable opportunity and challenge in our nation's history. Here is his statement in reply:

Every grand American accomplishment, every innovation that has benefited and enriched our lives, every lasting social transformation, every moment of profound insight any American visionary ever had into a way out of despair, loneliness, fear and violence—everything that has from the start made America the world capital of hope, has been the fruit of the creative imagination, of the ability to reach beyond received ideas and ready-made answers to some new place, some new way of seeing or hearing or moving through the world. Breathtaking solutions, revolutionary inventions, the road through to freedom, reform and change: never in the history of this country have these emerged as pat answers given to us by our institutions, by our government, by our leaders. We have been obliged—to employ Dr. King’s powerful verb—to dream them up for ourselves.

America’s artists are the guardians of the spirit of questioning, of innovation, of reaching across the barriers that fence us off from our neighbors, from our allies and adversaries, from the six billion other people with whom we share this dark and dazzling world. Art increases the sense of our common humanity. The imagination of the artist is, therefore, a profoundly moral imagination: the easier it is for you to imagine walking in someone else’s shoes, the more difficult it then becomes to do that person harm. If you want to make a torturer, first kill his imagination. If you want to create a nation that will stand by and allow torture to be practiced in its name, then go ahead and kill its imagination, too. You could start by cutting school funding for art, music, creative writing and the performing arts.

Our children need training and encouragement and support—they need rehearsal space and tempera paint and bass violins, teachers and tap-shoes; they need constant, passionate exposure to the great artistic heritage of their people, so that even if they don’t grow up to be artists themselves, they will still have been blessed, as Americans have always been blessed, with the artist’s gift for seeing the possible in the impossible, the fellow soul on the other side of the fence. Our artists need freedom to pursue the solitary investigations into which their art inevitably leads them. America needs that untrammeled flow of creativity, of the willingness and ability to innovate, to skylark, to tinker, to daydream out loud: over the course of two and a half centuries now, our creative flow has filled the world’s libraries, museums, theaters and recital halls, its academies, movie houses and marketplaces, with works of genius to break the heart and boggle the mind. And the people of the world--our world--need an America that remains in full, confident possession of its mighty gift of imagination, not merely to meet the global demand for our entertainment and art and literature, but so that they--and we--need never fear the brutality, the arrogance and the inhumanity to which a nation in want of imagination must, inevitably, descend.

Michael Chabon is the Pulitzer-Prize winning author of THE AMAZING ADVENTURES OF KAVALIER AND CLAY. His other books include THE MYSTERIES OF PITTSBURGH, A MODEL WORLD, WONDER BOYS, WEREWOLVES IN THEIR YOUTH. His work has appeared in The New Yorker, Harper's, Esquire, and Playboy and in a number of anthologies, among them Prize Stories 1999: The O. Henry Awards. He lives in Berkeley, California, with his wife, Ayelet Waldman, also a novelist, and their three children.

An Autotelic Life

We've lost a master of life.

Martin Gardner remains an inspiration.
Even his obituary tickles the heart and rings like a wake up call

Here it is, from yesterday's New York Times.

May he be buried in that empty space on the diagram.

"The Best Present Ever"

Thanks to the talented AmyD (and her generous friend Holly) for this great gift-giving suggestion.

It's a beautiful reminder that the best gifts are given, but not necessarily bought.

All The News To Make You Fit

I love David Brooks.

Not because I always agree with him.

Rather because he's always thoughtful and articulate. Sometimes, he's a wee too conservative for me. But he's always as smart as he is conservative. And that's all I ask.

I believe that a great sadness of our times — and a great self-limiting factor for our future — is that we only want to hear from those with whom we agree. As major news organizations cut back to nothing, we increasingly have our own daily dose of news from the Interwebs, culled only from the sources we choose.

Ask Not For Whom The Media Toils.
Do you get all worked up when you hear from someone on the other side of the spectrum?

Do you really think you are so right that you don't ever want to hear — and I mean really hear, calmly, quietly — the other side?

Can you sit and engage — again, truly engage, with a smile, leaning in, arms uncrossed — with people who support the party against which you vote?

Can you imagine that the other side has good intentions, if somewhat flawed implementation? Can you find the good the Other has done?

Or do you get breathless? Dig in your heels? Damn the opposition as evil, barking at their failings?

Do you enjoy the opportunity to learn during dinner with those who disagree with you — or does that always end up with you howling at the moon?

Do you think it is your mission to change the other person's wrong-headed mind?

Or can you appreciate that there is some logic and heart in the opposing decision?

And there might be — perchance — egad — some failing in your own position?

What News Do You Choose?
So here we are.

You get to choose.

I think it's healthy to talk with people from all sides.

Is this the making of a new year's resolution? To live 2010 with an increasingly open mind? To enter the new year with a willingness to consider how the Other might be right and You might be (just sometimes) wrong?

Here's Brooks today. He has brought me to my senses on the Christmas Day airline security failure. 

Read Brooks to learn, rather than to confirm your own pre-existing opinions.

It's healthier that way in the long run.

A Pic of His Junk

Thanks to Peter for bringing the Give It A Ponder campaign to my attention.

It's so great.

I don't know if it will sell any telephones.

But I do know that it raises issues of the ethics of speech. And deals with it intelligently.

The very existence of this campaign tells us that somewhere, someone cares about what you say.

I'm grateful.

My compliments to the actor James Lipton and the rest of the team:

Advertising Agency: Y&R New York, USA
Chief Creative Officers: Ian Reichenthal, Scott Vitrone
Global Creative Director: Darren Moran
ACD/Copywriter: John Battle
ACD/Art Director: Jeff Blouin Art Director: Evan Benedetto
Art Director: Jan Jaworski
Copywriter: Tara Lawall
Exec. Directors of Content Production: Lora Schulson, Nathy Aviram
Executive Producer: Alex Gianni
Production Company: Smith & Sons
Director: Ulf Johnansson
DP: Stephen Keith Roach
Executive Producer: Philippa Smith
Producer: Nicola Smith
Line Producer: Nancy Cannava
Editorial Company: Final Cut NY
Editor: Carlos Arias
Assistant Editor: Sonejuhi Sinha
Executive Producer: Stephanie Apt
Producer: Viet-An Nguyen
FX’s Company: Smoke & Mirrors NY
Lead Flame Artist: Nic Seresin
Creative Director: Sean Broughton
Executive Producer: Sue Romweber
Producer: Barbara Kontarovich
Audio Companies: Sound Lounge NY, Final Cut Audio NY

Mixers: Philip Loeb, Terressa Tate