Inquisitiveness by Design, Beautiful questions not just beautiful answers

“If you look at 4 year olds, they are constantly asking questions and wondering how things work. But by the time they are 6 ½ years old they stop asking questions because they quickly learn that teachers value the right answers more than provocative questions.”

This is quote from Professor Hal Gregorson of the business school INSEAD, in a new Harvard Business Review article titled, “How do Innovators Think”. The author Bronwyn Fryer is discussing the findings of a a six-year study, conducted by Gregorson and Professor Dyer of Brigham Young, surveying 3,000 creative executives and conducting an additional 500 individual interviews. During this study they found five “discovery skills” that distinguish them.

They list these skills as,

Associating – The ability to link seemingly unrelated questions, problems, or ideas

Questioning – The ability to ask, “what if”, “why”, and “why not”

Observation – The ability to see details, especially the details of people’s behavior

Experimentation – The interest in “trying on new worlds and exploring new worlds”

Networking – The ability to network with other smart people who they may have little in common with

Professor Dyer suggests that the most important of these skills is “associating”, “because new ideas aren’t created without connecting problems or ideas in ways that they haven’t been connected before. The other behaviors are inputs that trigger associating–so they are a means of getting to a creative end. They end with the suggestion that the sum of all these skills is fundamental “inquisitiveness”.

One of the things we as package designers must always do is keep asking questions, not just creating beautiful answers. It makes you wonder whether the best creative presentations, and frankly the best creative development processes as a whole, might be the ones that ask the most beautiful questions of our clients, and not just show them what we think are the the most beautiful answers. The final solutions might be richer and more surprising.

On a personal note, I think that is what this blog is doing for me. It keeps the inquisitive tool sharp.

Acknowledgments,

Photo above is from the the Davis Food Coop web site.

The Netflix $1 Million prize and package design research

Is it possible that computer scientists might help the consumer products industry with fundamental package design research? Could the same kind of software that helps Netflix customers choose their favorite movies, or iTunes customers their favorite music, also be used to help consumers choose their favorite package design directions? Just maybe.

Noticed a piece today in NYTimes.com. It reported that Netflix had awarded a $1 million prize to a group of computer researchers for a better piece of software that could do a more efficient job of accurately predicting what movie customers would like. I don’t pretend to be a statistician but the concept seems applicable to package design.

If it is worth $1 million to Netflix to more accurately predict customer preference, what could this be worth to large consumer product companies?

Here is another link to the wired.com coverage of the contest.

Acknowledgments

The photo above was taken by Ozier Muhammad for the New York Times. It shows Robert Bell, left, and Chris Volinsky, among the seven-person winning team of statisticians, machine-learning experts and computer engineers from the United States, Austria, Canada and Israel, called BellKor’s Pragmatic Chaos.

Retail Narcissism

There is an awful lot of screaming going on. Kanye screams at the MTV awards, Serena screams at the US Open, Joe screams at Obama.

And there have been a bunch of recent comments on the civility, or lack of it, in our lives. David Brooks and Frank Rich at the NY Times, Robert Brunner in Fast Company, have all suggested, in the last week, that things are getting a bit less polite. They each agree that this has become a much more narcissistic world, where it’s more about “me” less about “us”.

And there is a long history of the consumer being yelled at by products on the shelf. Just imagine that you are walking through the OTC aisle of a local Wal-Mart. What would it sound like if the packages shown above could talk? A lot of narcissistic screaming, right.

I am working on the design of a product in the OTC category. We have been having great discussions with the client about product functionality vs. benefit and the resulting question; Is it best to talk about the product content and function or best to talk about the product benefit.

Or more succinctly should the discussion, and what the package communicates on the shelf, be about me (content and/or function) or the them (benefit). Not an easy question to answer, because historically the emphasis on the OTC shelf has been about screaming content and/or benefit.

This may be changing, at least the screaming part. During our retail audit we were noticing significant signs of a calmer, more relaxed, and dare I say more respectful approach beginning to creep into the conversation on the shelves of CVS and Walgreens. A few companies are beginning to recognize its not always about the technology, and it certainly is not always about them. It is about the consumer!

There are examples of brands that get it. They speak more gently, more politely, and more confidently to the consumer. Its a conversation not a screaming match. Less about “me” and more about “us”.

And if civility is beginning to break out on the store shelves, maybe there is hope in the streets, and perhaps even cable TV.

Galapagos brands

Much like Darwin’s finches, a new generation of sophisticated cell phones have evolved in isolation on the Island of Japan. A recent NY Times article about Japanese phones mentioned that even the average phone in Japan has technology that is far more sophisticated than the rest of the world. The problem is they can’t leave the island because they can’t talk to the networks elsewhere.

It made me wonder if this is true with brands, and whether in our modern world there can ever again be islands of isolation, where brands can evolve, slowly, and unnoticed.

While I suspect that it will be hard for brands to grow unnoticed, islands will remain. But these new islands are probably cultural not geographic. They will be based on lifestyle not neighborhood.

Here’s what I mean. I am an avid bicycle racer and don’t play golf. That means on my island we know a lot about the latest bike toys and nothing about the latest putters. And this interest is very finely tuned.

Folks on my island are very attentive to the evolution of materials like carbon fiber, titanium alloys, ceramics, and the latest research on aerodynamics, but only as they apply to bicycles. Wherever my island-mates are in the world we share an interest in these things, but we won’t know or care much about how all this same stuff applies to golf clubs or the flight of a golf ball. Even though these technologies do build on one another. As evidenced by the recent evolution of golf-ball-like dimples on Zipp’s new high-end time trial wheels. Supposed to make them faster. See its pretty esoteric stuff.

In the last couple of decades most of my clients have struggled with the evolution of their brands. They continue to spend a lot of time on questions like how to grow, where to grow, are we truly global, and what does this mean for the appearance of our package design in Argentina, India or Belgium.

My suspicion is that global, as it relates to geography, is increasingly an old school way of thinking. Many of my clients with large brands are thinking about what divides different types of consumers rather than land borders. Package design is beginning to respond to this new aesthetic, as more brands evolve based on cultural shifts, and fewer based on geography.

Maybe Jimmy Buffet was right when he sang “It’s these changes in latitudes, changes in attitudes, Nothing remains quite the same”.

Aluminum wine bottle advantages

Noticed a piece about an aluminum wine bottle being used by the French winery named Volute, and thought it was an interesting follow up on my blog entry last week about aluminum beverage container recycling rates. Although we may question the overall rate of beverage container recycling and whether the rate is going in the right direction, there is no doubt that aluminum has the highest recycling rate.

I can’t speak to the quality of the wine, but the bottle raises some interesting environmental issues. As the company says,

“We chose aluminum not only because it brings qualities identical to glass in terms of compatibility with wine, but it also protects the wine from light, which accelerates the (bad) aging process. Our bottles are unbreakable, single-serve and lightweight  .  .  . Aluminum is 100-percent recyclable  .  .  .  and results in significant reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, thanks to it lower weight.”

An aluminum bottle also has a lower carbon footprint than glass packaging, and chills 5 times faster than glass, requiring less energy.

They explain, “The Volute bottles are made of aluminum, which is recycled at a rate of over 50% in the US (and over 90% in Sweden) vs. 20% for glass  .  .  .  the volute bottles weigh 4 times less than glass bottles  .  .  .  This difference generates 30% less carbon emissions than transporting the same volume of wine in glass bottles.”

Not bad.

State Sponsored Package Design and Skyscrapers

Package designers, like architects, get great pleasure in solving the needs of their clients. And as part of that process we also understand how to accommodate the requirements of Uncle Sam. In our case this includes things like legal descriptors, ingredient listings and nutrition facts. In the case of an architect this might include building codes and zoning regulations.

What sets architecture apart from package design is a third step; regulation by local planning departments or review boards. Can you imagine going through the entire design development process, and then having to also deal with this capricious and seemingly arbitrary last step.

Nicolai Ouroussoff, an architecture critic for the NY Times wrote a great piece yesterday called, “Off With Its Top! City Cuts Tower to Size”, describing one such episode in New York. He tells of a tower being planned next to the MOMA that will be about as tall as the Empire State Building. The City Planning Department apparently said this about the design, “The development team had to show us that they were creating something as great or even greater than the Empire State Building and the design they showed us was unresolved.”

Unresolved! I love it. Can you imagine having to submit your work to a government agency and have them reject it because they felt it was  .  .  .  unresolved.

Recognize that I write this piece on 9/11 and can’t help but acknowledge, as we all must do in our own way, that the world has changed much in the last 8 years. And none of us who live in the NYC area look at tall buildings, or the New York skyline, in the same way.

Ouroussoff’s main concern with the decision of the Planning Department also has an interesting analogy to the world of brand design. He says, “the notion of treating the Midtown skyline as a museum piece is more disturbing. The desire of each new generation of architects and builders to leave its mark on the city, to contribute its own forms, is essential to making New York what it is.”

We feel the same way in the branding community, where the long-term support of a brand’s heritage and history is always balanced with the need for brand vitality and renewal. And as we all know New York is certainly a global brand.

Imagine you were helping to develop a new product. You had it nailed. The client had approved a design that everyone felt was in the best interests of the brand, consumers were nuts for the idea, and you had made all the legal accommodations that you must for the marketplace. You were ready to launch and only needed to submit your work to the whims of a commission for the final decision on its market viability. Only to have them say, sorry, this is no Coke, or Nike, or Starbucks! (or name any major brand in any category). Or worse, sorry, its simply unresolved.

I knew there was a reason I chose package design.

Acknowledgments

Image by Jean Nouvel for the New York Times

Recycling rates are going down.

Just read a piece on the Packaging World eClip newsletter that mentions aluminum cans are the most recycled of all beverage containers. Sounds good so far, right.

Well, maybe not. It goes on to say that 54.8% of all aluminum beverage containers are recycled. Doesn’t seem like good news to me. This suggests that 45.2% of all aluminum beverage containers end up landfilled, littered or incinerated. And this is the best beverage container.

In fact Robert Budway, President of the Can Manufacturers Institute sounds very upbeat announcing the news. He says “”This shows recycling rates for cans (are) strong and can makers are committed to their continual increase.”

Well actually no. I did a little checking and it turns out that aluminum beverage container recycling rates are down about 15% to 20% in the last 10 years, depending on what measure you use. And these are industry statistics from The Aluminum Association. In 1998 about 64 million cans were collected and 62.8% of were recycled. In 2008 53 million were collected and 54% were recycled. Seems to me the numbers are heading in the wrong direction.

And if aluminum is best, what’s the news for glass or PET. Here are the 2006 numbers according to the Container Recycling Institute, the US totals are as follows, they say aluminum is recycled at a 45% rate, PET plastic at 23%, and glass bottles at 35%. It is interesting to note that in the 11 deposit states, the recycling rate is almost double the national average.

Sheila Lukins’ first customer

The recent passing of Sheila Lukins, the food icon and Silver Palate founder, was celebrated in our house with sadness and the sharing of fond memories of our first apartment, just off Central Park West in the late 1970s. And while most of the recent press has focused on her undeniable contributions to the American food landscape, I would like to celebrate The Silver Palate’s contribution to design as well.

We were her first customers. Columbus Avenue was just beginning to show signs of coming back to life, shedding its serious grittiness of drugs, homelessness and abandoned buildings. Rents were still cheap, $350 a month for a renovated one-bedroom brownstone apartment, with a fireplace even, half a block off Central Park. Stuff was happening, you could feel it every time you walked down the Avenue, and food was always part of it.

Of course the upper west side was no stranger to food establishments. A favorite for Saturday night was Zabar’s for love & garlic salami, then H&H for warm bagels and a container of cream cheese and chives, finally the Sunday NY Times at the newsstand on 72^nd and Broadway then back to the apartment for the night.

The times were changing and one large apartment building at 81^st and Columbus reflects the extremes that were taking place. Geraldo Rivera, at the time just a TV reporter for a local channel, spent a week inside masquerading as a homeless person documenting the toxic mixture of rodents, cocaine, mental illness, and crime that wandered the halls. Just 4 years later this same building, now filled with renovated park-view condos, became home to the DDL Foodshow. A huge retail food extravaganza owned by Dino DeLaurentiis, grandfather of Giada.

Every retail store opening brought renewed life into the neighborhood and was a celebrated event. In the summer of 1977 one tiny store front at 74^th Street began to catch our attention. We had watched with interest as signs of life began to appear. And we knew this would be no ordinary store, as designers you could sense a difference, the logo on the little red awning, the graphics on the brown paper covering the windows, the obvious detail taken with fixtures and finishes. It was scrumptious, how could the food inside possibly be anything else.

Walking up the avenue late one afternoon we noticed it had opened. In we went, and there was Sheila, alone at the counter and obviously a bit nervous on opening day. She looked up excitedly and said something like, “oh my, welcome, you’re my first customers”, in a way that suggested she herself couldn’t believe someone, finally someone, after all the planning and construction, had actually walked into her store. And the tarragon chicken salad was heavenly.

Everything about the food, the design of the store, even the take out containers felt fresh, new, exciting. I haven’t come up with an image of the original retail packaging yet, but it won awards, sold tons of product, and had a very strong impact on all food packaging that was to come in the next decade. It may look a bit traditional now, and the current packages are, politely, not very inspiring, but that is only because the original look had such a huge influence on much of the upscale food packaging.

Sheila I salute you for the wonderful innovation you brought to American cooking, the new spirit and uniqueness you brought to the design of food packaging, and most of all the memories of west 76^th Street.

Crowd-sourcing revolt nicks Crispin Porter + Bogusky

This crowd-sourcing and work-on-spec thing is starting to make my hair hurt, and maybe yours too, but a serious conversation about this issue is critical to our industry and its viability, so here we go again.

Designers have revolted against CP+G for crowdsourcing a logo for Brammo the new electric motorcycle company, and fastcompany.com is all over it in a recent post. And again the simple lesson for all designers seems to be  .  .  .  Just Say No!

The post is interesting enough, but scroll down to the comment by John Chen. It is one of the most thoughtful, honest, and searing criticisms I have read on the subject of crowd-sourcing and spec work. And he pins the blame squarely on individual designers and what they have learned, or really haven’t learned, about professional practice.

A short excerpt,

“We all know this sorta stunt has been around forever. Group A knows Group B’s weaknesses, and takes advantage of them. Group B is dysfunctional enough to fall for it every time and whines about it. Lucy, Charlie Brown and her football, right? Kudos to CP+B for tapping an industry of suckers who think too much of themselves, yet cave at every slim chance to have their delicate egos affirmed. If someone were to crowdsource for a doctor to treat their stubbed toe for a chance to win $1,000, would +700 physicians respond and treat at no charge?”.

Ouch. Obviously he, and I, think the answer would be overwhelmingly no. Can you imagine a crowd-sourcing website for doctors, attorneys, accountants or even plumbers.

This is the kind of language the design industry needs to hear. Just Say No!

References

Here are a couple places to look for background on the issue, AIGA position on spec work, and no-spec.com