The intersection: fashion + art + technology

Growing up in the 80's, hip hop was the soundtrack to my early teenage years. Musically, (in the late 70's early 80's) pioneers of the art form and culture, such as Kurtis Blow, Grandmaster Flash and Cool Herc, would be just some of the artists to lead the way.

In 1986 Run DMC (hip hop pioneers in their own right), on their Raising Hell album, did a cover of Aerosmith's 1975 release "Walk This Way." This song revolutionized the new hybrid sub-musical genre of rock and hip hop music. Arguably, Run DMC is one of the greatest hip hop groups ever and this album is an all time classic.

For me this is my earliest recollection of my love affair with the intersection. My inquisitiveness for seeing interesting dots connect. The melding of seemingly disparate ideas into one space and bringing into the world someting creative,  fresh and leading edge. 

Fast forward just over two decades, and I'm still smitten by this bug.

Just a few weeks ago I was reading through a newsletter from my good friends over at Eighty Eight and as I was going through it I came across a link they included about Ralph Lauren's presentation of the world's first 4-dimensional experience. It included cutting-edge light-mapping technology featuring 3D imagery, digital sound effects and scents from Ralph Lauren Fragrances.

It's experiences like this that will continue to show how the intersection of different fields will lead the way to incredible ideas and off the chart innovations. It's this type of convergence that will determine re-imagined products and services of the 21st century.

This show is AMAZING. Enjoy!

The future will not be scripted

Ok folks, question...

What would your answer be if a close friend asked,  “where do you think you’ll be five years from now?” I would venture to say that your answer would be “I have no idea.”

None of us are fortune-tellers. We have no idea what’s going to happen to us when we reach the end of a hallway and turn the corner, let alone tomorrow, next week, or even next month.

Friends, the future cannot be scripted. Your ability to be on top of the game in the near or distant future will be determined by your company's ability to manage unpredictability happening right now. So the question becomes: is your organization designed to react in real time?

My good friend Mike Bonifer believes in the improvised brand narrative. The concept that, in a highly matrixed communications environment, brand narratives cannot be scripted, they must be improvised in collaboration with the brand's audience (i.e. its stakeholders and customers). I truly believe in this too, as it reflects one of our own core principles that we live by: when on the verge, persist and surrender.

Everyday we’re on the verge…of new ideas, new opportunities, or new potential. Being persistent with your goals is key to success. In order to succeed, though, you have to surrender to what you can’t control. This is improvisation. Act and react. Persist and surrender. Be agile, fluid and savvy in a world where we do not know what will be encountered around the next bend. 

For example…

In 2009, three years after I founded my company, it would soon cease to be called Vosica. In April of last year we organized a highly successful mini conference here in DC. with the theme being Convergence. Attendees really embraced the theme and got a lot out of the event. Afterwards many of my colleagues, (whom opinions I highly respected) and a few sharp event participants, really thought the theme reflected the nature and work of what we were doing and suggested that we re-brand the company (the last thing I thought about doing). After a few days of some heart to heart conversations and some serious contemplation, it became official. The company would be re-branded and called Cnvrgnc. Totally unplanned and unscripted we embraced valuable interplay between our brand and our community. .

Twitter knows improvisation as well, too.

In a recent ad age article Simon Dumenco makes some excellent points about the evolution of twitter. He discusses how the social networking platform has gone from a site concerned mainly with "what are you doing?" (banal self absorption) to a new kind of identity. Their new tagline is “The best way to discover what’s new in your world.” This didn’t happen because of what founders Biz Stone, Evan Williams and Jack Dorsey strategically set out to do, but because twitter users decided how they wanted to make tweets work for them. They customized twitter for their use and  in an unplanned and organic way, took over product development. What better example can you have of how to persist and surrender? Pursue your idea, but surrender to another way should the market show you a better direction.

Not knowing what is going to happen tomorrow has always been a reality. But the deterioration of typical marketing strategies and traditional business models and the current ambiguity pervasive in today's market, is something entirely new. 

Ladies and gents, businesses and brands, in today's market, ambiguity is your concierge. Improvisation is critical. How to persist and surrender will be and art worth learning. 

The quicker it's understood that the scripts of the industrial age having less and less sway, the quicker you can begin adapting to the new rules of the 21^st century.

Brand + Business = Design

About ten years ago, I graduated with an architecture degree from Prairie View A&M University. I actually stumbled into the field unintentionally. After a miserable freshman year studying engineering,  I came to the conclusion that I had to make a change.

During that first semester I had randomly decided to take an intro to architecture course and I really enjoyed it. So during that summer, while thinking about the direction I want to take in the fall, I remembered how I enjoyed that class and decided to make the switch to architecture. One of the best decisions I have ever made in my life.

A little over a decade later there isn’t a day that goes by that design doesn’t influence or even determine how I think.  It’s the foundation for how I approach our business of developing brands and engaging in creative marketing for our clients.

With all the hoopla around technology and the emerging digital landscape, conversations around design have gotten a litttle quieter. In my opinion, as inexorable as digital media is in today’s market, design thinking and how to effectively embrace it, trumps everything.

Below are some quotes that speak to the the value and power in knowing and understanding design.

Design creates culture. Culture shapes values. Values determine the future.

                                                                                               — Robert L. Peters

People think that design is styling. Design is not style. It’s not about giving shape to the shell and not giving a damn about the guts. Good design is a renaissance attitude that combines technology, cognitive science, human need, and beauty to produce something that the world didn’t know it was missing.

                                                                                               — Paola Antonelli

Design is the search for a magical balance between business and art; art and craft; intuition and reason; concept and detail; playfulness and formality; client and designer; designer and printer; and printer and public.

                                                                                               — Valerie Pettis

Design is a means toward accomplishing the end goals of serving markets and generating profits. Furthermore, design is an element in social responsibility. Good design allows “form to complement performance.” The way things look is not irrelevant to the way things work: how they work is how they should look.

                                                                                              — Thomas F. Schutte

Most [clients] expect experience design to be a discrete activity, solving all their problems with a single functional specification or a single research study. It must be an ongoing effort, a process of continually learning about users, responding to their behaviors, and evolving the product or service.

                                                                                              — Dan Brown

Always design a thing by considering it in its next larger context - a chair in a room, a room in a house, a house in an environment, an environment in a city plan.

                                                                                              — Eliel Saarinen

Ahem...can I have your attention please.

Why?

Because it is human.

It is wired into our DNA.  It is an inextricable part of who we are.  We want to be paid attention to.

In what way?

Maybe you want to be noticed by that person across the room at a party.  Maybe you want to be recognized by a scout from a top athletic program. Then there's also you closing your eyes and hoping a prayer gets the attention you hope for and a loved one you care about recovers from an illness.

You can run from it. You can try to ignore it if you want. But you cannot hide. It will find you.

In today’s market being able to get people to ‘dial in’ is a skill-set one cannot afford not to have. With media available to us just about everywhere we go, the game is (and has been) on for the battle for your attention.

So how does this happen? Numerous ways. But by far I think the most powerful way to get attention is by being influential.

Influence happens in many ways for different reasons. One day maybe you happen to say the right thing at the right time and you simply get lucky. Maybe you’re incessantly working hard at communicating your ideas and through sheer persistence people begin to give you their time.  Perhaps you have the right relationships in place and just by affiliation things begin to turn your way.

Any of these scenarios are possible, and yet with these, you have only just begun to scratch the surface.

The below video by R-I Creative, does a great job of not just exploring influence but they also discuss ideas, creativity,  and culture. Lots of great themes discussed and some really great information is shared.

Enjoy.

The E & M Factors

For reason, ruling alone, is a force confining; and passion, unattended, is a flame that burns to its own destruction.                                                                                                                                                                                         - Khalil Gibran

Just over ten years ago I had the incredible opportunity to live and work for two and a half years in post apartheid Namibia (located just northwest of South Africa). While there I received an education that no post-graduate degree could give me here in the states.

Working in community development and education program training in a developing country, I learned in some of the most challenging of situations, the enormous benefits of both creative and analytical approaches to solving complex problems.

When I wasn’t working, reading proved to be an excellent way to escape my immediate surroundings, as well as a way to become more familiar with it too. I devoured books on southern African literature and history as well as other books on philosophy, politics and culture. The Prophet by Khalil Gibran became one of my favorite books (as I read and re-read it often).

In the book a gentlemen speaks about life by answering questions asked by individuals in a crowd as he waits for a ship to take him back to his homeland. About halfway through the book he discusses the ideas of passion and reason and the need for both to be embraced in each of our daily lives. From a professional standpoint, this proved invaluable for me in my daily work. Whether I was organizing an education workshop for the teaching staff or developing a fundraising strategy for a community project, balancing my passion with cool-headed practicality, helped to move ideas forward in a way that was intelligent, thoughtful and effective.

About a decade later, that same approach continues to prove valuable - especially looking at where we are today. Businesses and organizations need both right and left brain thinking to begin solving for today’s market Rubik’s cube. In our work, here at Cnvrgnc, we unofficially refer to it as our Essence and Mechanics Factors. We don't see these ideas as advantageous, but almost necessary. Essence is the ideas and application of culture, narrative, improvisation, sensibility, story and empathy,  used in tandem with the mechanics of strategy, execution, prototyping, tactics, process and finances, in the deveopment of business.

The two have to co-exist. When all you have is mechanics, void of essence, there’s no meaning. There’s nothing of substance that allows for a deeper relationship with either your employees or your customers. New developments for the business simply become a bunch of (possibly) improved maneuvers. Essence, on the other hand, with no mechanics is insanely great stuff with no way to measure how great it really is. There's no way to determine how you should bring it to market, where to sell it or who even wants it.

Sad is the day an idea is born that can bring joy to your community, yet it’s unable to happen. The inability to see the value in E & M Factors (and effectively act on them) isn’t a shame; it’s tragic.