It looks like the young inventor Boyan Slat has improved his incredible design to efficiently extract plastic from the Pacific gyre. The project goes into action next year. And if all goes as planned, the enormous pile of plastic floating in the Pacific Ocean will be reduced by 50% in 5 years.
Considering the Great Pacific Garbage Patch covers such a huge area, that is simply amazing.
The brilliant Seth Godin (how many times have I typed that phrase?) explored the issue of trust in one of his blog posts about a year ago, and he raised a fascinating point.
All the ways that we think we — individuals or companies — need to act in order to build trust might be wrong.
They’re not wrong in the sense of creating mistrust. But they might not be very effective compared to the shorthand heuristics we actually use as consumers, voters or friends to decide whom to trust.
Why do we trust brands like Apple or Google or Evernote? Have they been so transparent, so altruistic, so consistent, so authentic that we should hand over our most sensitive data to them? Do we know enough about them in order to truly trust them? And would we even be willing to take the time to find out?
No, probably not. Our lives are just too complex, too fast-moving, and there’s too much information to evaluate. Instead we trust online reviews, Consumer Reports, MSNBC or Fox (your call), or even Seth Godin himself, to tell us the truth and help us make decisions. The world is so large and we are so small and fallible, there’s no way we can know the future or predict the kind of complex behavior of which humans and their companies are capable. So we jump off the cliff in good faith, using our best guess, and hoping we’re right.
What are the clues we use? For people, it’s body language, choice of words, a look in the eyes, a sense of the familiar. For brands, it’s product design, packaging, graphics, warranties, a voice, a website. And for both it’s referrals. Other people’s experiences are the biggest touchstones. Making sure their experiences are good ones— keeping your promises, correcting your missteps, treating people with respect — all are indicators that trust is a safe choice.
Unfortunately, charlatans know how to play us. We trust our gut instincts and sometimes those instincts are wrong. But mostly, I think humans have evolved to have pretty good bullshit detection systems. We can be suckered to a point. But if we trust our antennae, we usually head down the right path. Eventually.
Want to read more? Check out Seth’s blog.
Previously, I wrote a post about our e-fax provider and how painful and silly it is when they have to go through a giant litany of scripted attempts to keep you as a customer.
Here’s a contrasting experience.
After 10 years with DirecTV, we decided to save some money and consolidate our internet, phone and television signal under Time Warner.
I expected the same sort of runaround. But instead, I had a friendly, helpful, almost touching experience canceling my DirecTV service. Their rep, Misty, was understanding, funny, and utterly charming.
Of course she tried to keep me as a customer. But her approach was thoughtful and genuine, and not scripted. In the end, she realized they couldn’t compete with the package our cable company was able to provide. So she created a reasonable, non-defensive transition for me. No crap. No whining. No blaming. Just pleasant and helpful.
That goes a long way toward building DirecTV’s brand and means I’d happily reenlist if they meet my needs in the future. And here I am, unsolicited, telling everyone in earshot that they were wonderful. How much advertising and PR would they have to do to achieve that kind of result?
Wow! We did it again! We received another Silver Award from Graphis, the international design journal. This one was for the same project — the rebranding of Legistics, international providers of practice support services and equipment to law firms. This time, the award is part of Graphis’ Logo Design 9 annual — a different competition, and still pretty damn cool.
We’re delighted that the work we did for Legistics continues to be recognized by our peers and our industry. And continues to make an impact on our client’s business as well.
Huge thanks to Anat Rodan and Amy Crossan for their stunning design concepts and execution. It’s gratifying to be leading such a great team.
Absolutely fascinating to see how far Boston Dynamics has taken the independent, untethered robot. The agility, speed and accuracy are incredible. Watch how the ‘bot balances when it picks up a package — its “head” is used to counterbalance the weight of the box. Looks alive, and smart. Yikes!
Dropbox has sent us all a Valentine. If you have the app installed, you probably got an email or two from them about their new collaboration product, Dropbox Paper.
So, either Paper is a “low-end disruptor” that will transform the way people collaborate online, or maybe it’ll be a hammer searching for a nail, and nobody will really use it. If it can make things easier or better for non-traditional, distributed teams like our own, or for those of us with clients in many cities, that would be a welcome addition to our arsenal of tools.
Scott Rosenberg says, “At its launch state it looks like a simplified browser-based document editor with comments — as if Microsoft Office or Google Docs got reincarnated as the love-child of Medium and Slack. “
But it looks like there’s great potential here. In his article about it on Backchannel, Rosenberg concludes:
“[One] thing…stood out for me: Although the half-dozen managers and execs I spoke to there were all straining a bit to bring the elusive vision of the new Dropbox into sharper relief, they presented a remarkably united front and consistent picture…The secret? Kavitha Radhakrishnan, Paper’s product manager, told me that Dropbox used eight Paper documents, total, to plan the whole product launch. In the middle of the last-lap scramble before the event, everyone was noticeably — as promised! — in sync.”
Can’t wait to test it out on a real-world project. What do you think about Paper and online collaboration?
There’s been a recent competition for the architectural design of a UK Holocaust Memorial. It’s down to the short list.
On seeing the proposals, my first reaction was that nobody could top the concept by Anish Kapoor and Zaha Hadid Architects in the big photo at the top of the article on Design Boom. Its impact is immediate, visceral and brilliant.
But as you watch the short videos from each firm, you see the depth of thinking that went into these designs. And the blandest presentation is actually one of the coolest ideas. It’s absolutely worth checking them all out.
For the past year, we’ve been working on a complicated, many-faceted brand refresh for Sealy — part of the world’s largest mattress manufacturer, Tempur Sealy International.
It involved a major rethinking and overhaul of the entire structure of their product line, brand architecture and marketing presentation.
On January 20, at the enormous Las Vegas Market trade show, the company announced the update and revealed the new line to stellar industry reaction. The brand was re-energized — and so were Sealy’s own sales staff and their national retail customers. The excited response was universally positive. We’re relieved (whew!) and delighted!
FreeAssociates was involved from the earliest stages, meeting with the brand experience team and brand managers, sales execs, product designers, ad agency and strategists to help define the brand, clarify its position, and craft its messaging.
Dozens of concepts were floated and vetted, tested and refined, through a grueling but thorough process that left no stone unturned. Over many months the design vocabulary was established and tweaked, until a powerful, unified evolution of the brand emerged.
Under the watchful eyes and thoughtful leadership of Director of Brand Experience Karl Myers and his Senior Manager Jonah Nelson, we crafted a comprehensive new branding system.
FreeAssociates has developed a refined version of the logo, color palette, the master brand style guide, point of sale displays and materials, product labeling, a feature icon system, sales guide, product guide, trade show campaign graphics and all the displays and information graphics for Sealy’s 14,000 s.f. permanent showroom at Las Vegas Market (interior designed by Jhipo Hong).
We’re truly grateful to be working with this talented Sealy team and to have an opportunity to help affect the course of their venerable 130-year-old brand.
For the full story, take a look at this article in Furniture World.
If only Seth Godin would stop having important things to say, I’d stop referring to him in my blog, Facebook posts and general conversation.
Today he sums up the disastrous dumbing down we are all experiencing all the time. Fortunately, it’s not that difficult to change, if we just pay attention to it.
The decline of thoughtful media has been discussed for a century. This is not new. What is new: A fundamental shift not just in the profit-seeking gatekeepers, but in the culture as a whole.
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Clickbait works for a reason. Because people click on it.
The thing about clickbait, though, is that it exists to catch prey, not to inform them. It’s bait, after all.
So? Click this instead.
We’re excited to report that the Legistics Porsche team won their final race this month — and with it the national championship! It was a hard-fought season, with a serious rain of bad luck in the last couple of outings. Water created hazards. Snapping clutch cables made things worse. Hopes and dreams crashed and burned (metaphorically, not literally) as our drivers struggled to hold their own.
Then, finally, luck and skill combined at the Road Atlanta track in Braselton, GA —and the IMSA Continental Tire Sportscar Challenge championship was theirs.
You can read about the intensely dramatic final race —as well as the painful disappointments at Virginia International Raceway and Circuit of the Americas in Austin, TX, that preceded it — on the Legistics blog.
Congratulations to drivers Nick Galante and Spencer Pumpelly, to Justin Bellinzoni and the entire RS1 team, and to Phil Frengs, CEO of Legistics (our client). It’s been an amazing season. Let’s do it again next year!
