New format is a go: Image. Text. Image. Text. Image Text. …. Monster.
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Something I’m excited about: I have some thoughts about trends that are going to be featured in Matt Klein’s Zine newsletter. 3_TRENDS is a recurring installment where historically a lot of really smart people have talked about the future and what deeper cultural trends they see emerging, and Matt responds with thoughts of his own. I’m excited to be featured, and it’s a good read. Look for that to drop likely the Tuesday after Thanksgiving.
Put yer email in the box to make sure not to miss that
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Speaking of thanksgiving, as well as the coming onslaught on “2022 trend predictions” something that I think we need to remind ourselves of is “The Turkey Problem" – This comes from the example story of a turkey in November. If they were to predict the future based on the recent past, they’d likely predict that the rest of the year would involve more over eating and being cared for by the farmer (or the friendly factory farm robot). But they’d be mistaken. The moral is that predicting the future based on a narrow view of the past is a mistake.
(This is not to be confused with the other turkey problem I’ve talked about– where if you’re an agency, and the hand that feeds you can also wring your neck, you’re a turkey).
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Something I read about recently: the industrial revolution was a result of hobbyists with free time. A vast majority of major innovation was not the result of concentrated scientific effort, but randos tinkering in the barn.
What’s ironic is that we essentially tinkered our way into a society that doesn’t leave room for tinkering. And as a result, we’re not inventing cool new shit at anywhere near the same rate. The things we are inventing are being invented by assholes like Musk paying people to work 20 hours a day.
We need to tinker more as a species.
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Alcatraz was supposed to be impossible to escape from.
Even if someone managed to get past the guards and into the water, the waves constantly crashing against the shore would just bring them right back to the rock in the middle of the San Francisco Bay.
However, in 1962, three prisoners – Frank Morris, along with brothers John and Clarence Anglin – broke out of their cells and escaped from the prison.
They escaped because they understood what others didn’t. If you watched the waves closely enough, you could understand the current. And that’s what really matters.
Brands tend to jump in the water trying to ride the latest wave. But once a wave is visible, it is usually too late. Instead, you need to understand the current that cause the waves and anticipate when to jump.
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A collection of quotes I jotted down recently from sources I’ve since forgotten:
“We don’t see things as they are. We see them as we are”
“True empathy is understanding that we may never understand anyone else.”
“Because we choose with our hearts and use numbers to justify what we just did.”
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A good story/ad/idea sets up an expectation and then adds something unexpected. But it’s really hard to justify something random and unexpected in an ad. Especially outside of TV/video scripts.
This is one of my favorite vintage ads:
Works fine if you don’t notice the extra hand. But the extra hand grabs your attention and makes your brain scrunch.
We need more extra hands in ads.
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^ All the elements of a brief. The most common mistake I see is confusing 5 and 6 for one another. 6 is optional and if we’re being honest, does you a disservice unless you’ve nailed no. 5.
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