PSFK gives and gives and gives. so a shout-out today for adding fuel to the fire, as i’ve been thinking about retail quite a bit of late.

first up is using google maps to browse a store: businesses can add layout/floorplan and images from the interior of a store to their location on google maps.  helps to get a sense of what’s there.  makes me think of this great map of London high streets – came in quite handy when i needed a pair of boots for a lunch meeting in Paris. oh, i’m such a frakkin’ jetsetter.

then there’s ‘next-besting‘ – a more optimistic yet still pragmatic version of trading down. i know i’m finding myself browsing shopittome a lot more than nordstrom. online retailers who make this easy are winning.

and finally, how the iPad is going to change the (user inter)face of online retail.  i’ve seen the gilt app and it’s beautiful, but apparently the gap is also doing some good work for this device. again, where the hell is my iPad??

[gratuitous use of a puppy is within my rights]

i’ve been working in and around advertising for 12 or 13 years.  i’ve been a copywriter and a web designer and a planner and a strategic consultant and a qualitative researcher and an innovations lead and a ‘corporate intellectual’.  yesterday i was described on a phone call as an ‘expert on brands, strategy, research methodologies and implementation. and she’s a wild blogger.’  practically feral, i’d say.

but wait – “implementation.”

now that takes me back to the beginning, when i was making websites and ads and games.  and it reminds me of a really early conversation i had with a client who wanted to get into the e-commerce world.  this had to have been 1999, it was Ron Herman, who owns the Fred Segal store on Melrose.  he was turned on by Helmut Lang‘s website, but also by the Gap. but he didn’t have the fulfillment capabilities to ship everything anyone wanted, and he didn’t have the inventory system to know what he had and link it to his stores in both a virtual world and a brick-and-mortar one (remember how we all used to say that? i’m so glad it’s gone).

what he did have was a line called RH Vintage – which still exists, though at the time it was basically bedazzled vintage bought out of poundage.  the line was comprised of jeans or cords, t-shirts, and belts.  no two of anything was alike.  the prices were comparatively reasonable for a Fred Segal shopping trip.  we thought – let’s experiment:  let’s put up your jeans, your cords, your tees and your belts.  you have three choices to make as a customer: which of these 4 categories do you want to shop from, are you a guy or a girl, and what’s your size.  tick those boxes, and the good people at RH Vintage will pick out your clothes and send it to you.  it’ll probably fit.  it’ll probably be what you want.  it’ll definitely come in a branded bag, with a branded receipt.  it’ll make you think that you actually got in your car and went to Fred Segal.  you can pretend to your friends at Brown and Wesleyan and Amherst that you shopped there (and you sorta did), and you’ve got the threads to prove it.

Ron loved the idea – i’m not sure what happened next, but here was an answer that wasn’t an ad.  it was a micro-model for doing business.  it was a branded product line with a branded distribution system and a branded user/shopping experience.  yes, it would have a website.  probably taglines would need to be written and designs made &c.  but it wasn’t an advertising idea – it was a business idea.

the best stuff i’ve ever done in anything related to advertising has always been ‘this is what you should do‘ not ‘this is what you should say‘.

i was talking to Seth Wolk the other day at Saatchi about who in the business is making things.  (he’s so great – really smart and candid and clear and open.  frankly, a rarity.)  but he did cut to the quick: maybe i’m barking up the wrong tree.  maybe i’m expecting places who don’t, as a matter of course, do what i do, to want to do what i do – and to know how to package it, sell it, and implement it.  maybe people like me need to find a new roof. or build our own house.

it’s really important to not only think about what you do as the definition of who you are, but to make sure you’re in the right place, the place that will not only let you be you, but wants you to be more of you, is hungry for you, is receptive to you.  people like me should be in places where people say ‘this is what you should do’ – and then adds, ‘we’ll build it for you.’

and here, then, is my question:  where are those places, really? lots of places claim to be doing that, but are at heart still ad agencies or branding companies.  is it, as Seth suggested, media properties and platforms?  is it tech startups?  who are the companies that are looking at brands on a holistic level and then suggesting – and implementing - action instead of talk?

You’re definitely going to see this as a key theme to what I hope to explore here – that in the quest to get ahead, most companies and brands find themselves mired in cultures and processes that actually can only truly accomplish keeping up.  And keeping up is what they can do when the engine is firing on all cylinders.

As part of their quest to keep up, most companies and brands spend significant resources on ‘keeping their finger on the pulse’ of their consumer.  This is usually done with only the best of intentions, and with a goal of responsiveness.  But responsiveness is taxing and time-consuming.  What trends do you watch?  Which consumers do you track?  How do you know what’s important to respond to and what is not?  It’s classic Stephen J. Covey stuff – what is important, and what is urgent?

For many brands this results in what I think of as chasing consumers, following them around.  A lot of fads in strategy, planning, research and brand management are reinterpretations of ‘responsiveness.’  The strongest brands – and we all know who they are – live and breathe the worlds their best, most influential, most discerning customers experience, they interpret the signs and signifiers of that world, and they think deeply about how that leads their product development and how it leads the consumer to the brand or product.

In other words, they anticipate problems and solve them; they anticipate changes and adapt to them; they, simply, make good things and treat people with respect.

My friend and former colleague Susan Coghill (now of The Campaign Palace in Sydney) noted this WARC article about Coca-Cola’s quest to get ahead of the curve and to ‘shape change.’

“It’s not about following the change as quickly as possible – that’s being reactive. It is about helping your company to shape change.”

In order to achieve this goal, consumer insights specialists will need to radically rethink their traditional techniques, which typically emphasise understanding previous or present behaviour.

“We spend 80% of time on ‘rear-view’ research – brand-health tracking, validation, and risk-avoidance research,” Sthanunathan stated.

“On top of that, we spend 80% of our remaining time debating report cards. And, whether it’s good data or not, it’s all about explaining the past.”

“No company has become great by using the past to predict the future. Companies become great by dreaming of the future and then taking the company there.”

Definitely worth a read-through – but more importantly, worth a meaningful debate about what it will mean, day-to-day for brands and companies.  Time to get beyond whether to do things differently and start figuring out how.  And then of course, you have to commit to it.  But that’s a post for another day.

PSFK did a little write up on mainly R/GA (though it also mentions Razorfish).

R/GA has termed its approach for acting as an innovation engine for its clients as ”platforms plus campaigns.” The central idea being that clients, many of them in commoditized industries, need innovation before communications. Long-lasting digital innovation will supply a message and value that a campaign can then communicate, and draw people in with. In other words, “build it, tell them about, and they will come”…vs. telling them to come without having substance to engage consumers with.

Once upon a time, I hosted a dinner at H&P on the topic of ‘innovation.’  We invited people we knew through our own networks who were starters of businesses, makers of things, dabblers in ideas, creators of stuff.  We told them we chose them because they were actively engaged in ‘making’ and ‘new.’  We had a great group of people – here are a few of them:

• one of Charlie Rose‘s producers, who at the time was responsible for developing a series on future newsmakers
• Benny Rietveld, a professional musician (touring bassist with Santana, among many other accolades) and the producer of a beautifully produced film about what goes in to being a guitar player – not just a guy on a stool playing chords, but a real meditation on creativity and music and spirit
• Doug Jaeger, who at the time was running a shop called thehappycorp and doing great, subversive, immersive, co-creative things with brands and people and is currently president of the Art Directors Club
• Meghan Keane, a staff writer, editor, contributor to the NY Sun, Wired, Reason, The Awl, and on and on (and why, I ask, does she not have a website I can easily discover? Stalk her @keanesian on twitter. It’s brill.)
• Jason Olim, founder of CDNOW, and now of the Freshman Fund, and in general a fascinating, pragmatic and prolific entrepreneur
• Jonah Keegan, formerly of the Freshman Fund, and basically a genius who I think sort of pioneered the word cloud
• Stephen Tasker, an engineer and designer of juvenile furniture
• And there’s more, but I’m blanking on names and feeling very bad about myself as a result

A few interesting things emerged straight away – a definition of the word ‘innovation’ is tough to come by.  And our group of people felt that it was irrelevant.  They were interested in problem-solving, experimenting, prototyping, not ‘innovating.’  They even balked at the moniker of ‘innovators.’  They were passionate about bringing together interesting people to solve interesting problems and figuring out a way to turn that solution into a business or business model.

And they were right – despite some of my colleagues’ best efforts, pinning down a definition of ‘innovation’ or ‘innovative’ is a silly exercise, and one that keeps you from the essential point.  Noah Brier was talking about a process that is like this the other day (or at least, this is the picture in my head):

I have begun to think that often what we mean when we say ‘innovation’ – especially when we use it as a noun – is ‘invention.’  And invention, to my way of thinking, happens at that inflection point between having a problem and not knowing of or having an available solution. No readily apparent device, app, service, etc. to fix my situation?  I’ll fix it myself.  Innovation then is the routinizing of the invention, and diffusion is basically what happens when you apply it broadly, and sell it.  This is my interpretation, anyway.

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Today, Ad Age’s Creativity put out its list of the 2010 Creativity 50.  There are some expected people/brands in here; and then there are a few surprises.  These are people who, in other contexts would be described as ‘innovators.’  Creativity just calls them creative.  I think this is probably for the best.

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Even bobulate had something to say about the overuse of the word (or the misuse of the word) ‘innovative’ – basically, stop it.  Be clear about what you mean when you want to use the word innovative, and say that instead.  She linked to a nice, concise piece on the perils of overusing the word via The Economist, called “Stop Saying Innovation“. It’s worth a quick read.

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Actually, this makes me think of something I used to do.  I used to tell Ed Madrid that I loved him.  Constantly.  Every few minutes throughout the day.  And we would sometimes spend 25 hours a day together.  I would, in varying tones and accents, say, “Ed, I love you.”  He hated it.  He told me that I was devaluing the concept of love.  I knew that this was true, but I also knew that I totally did love him because the man is a freakin’ pop culture icon and artist and genius.  There were actually two things I did that creeped him out: tell him I loved him, and continue typing for paragraphs while making direct eye contact with him when he spoke to me.

Anyway, I digress – the point is, don’t overuse this term. It’s sloppy, and it devalues things that really are innovative.