Big Data Meets Big Idea

J. Walter Thompson wondered whether big data could be assembled to paint "The Next Rembrandt" for client ING.

So a team of art historians, scientists, developers and analysts created scans of Rembrandt's 346 extant paintings and used a computer to catalog the data based on commonalities.

They then asked the computer to paint a Rembrandt.

The resulting portrait combines 160,000 fragments of the artist's oeuvre.

HAT TIP: Appraiser Todd Sigety alerted me to this story. 

Happy Accidents

Christopher Columbus discovered America while seeking a sea route to Asia.

Alexander Graham Bell was hoping to help teachers of the hearing impaired when he stumbled on the telephone.

Three PayPal employees built YouTube to compete with the dating site Hot or Not.

Objectives feel good, but accidents often outshine them, as researcher Andrew Smart says in Harvard Business Review.

"Our objective obsession might be doing more harm than good, causing people, teams, and firms to stagnate," Smart says.

Statistics and stories about inventions prove that.

"Reports indicate that half are the result of not direct research but serendipity—that is, people being open to interesting and unexpected results."

Smart says we should ditch all the goals for "detours" that might lead to "something new and interesting."

"The more time we spend defining and pursing specific objectives, the less likely we are to achieve something great."

No Agony, No Ecstasy

Like popes of old, today's venture capitalists have no patience with the tortured perfectionist.

"Perfection has no business in the world of entrepreneurship," Charlie Harary says in Entrepreneur.

Today's marketplace is "supersonic," so entrepreneurs must tightly cap opportunity costs—and quality.

He quotes LinkedIn founder Reed Hoffman: "If you are not embarrassed by the first version of your product, you’ve launched too late."

Products need only be "minimally viable," Harary says, and businesses thick-skinned.

"A little criticism or failure never killed anyone. Learn to embrace it and use it to make you great."

In other words, scrap excellence for the quick buck and one day you, too, will run a respected company.

This wolfish mindset explains why so many of the apps we buy are broken; the books, riddled with typos; the drugs, full of dangerous side effects.

It's not because we lack talent.

It's because we're in such a goddamned hurry.

As novelist Irving Stone said in The Agony and the Ecstasy, “Talent is cheap; dedication is expensive."

Creativity Carries a Big Stick

“You can’t wait for inspiration, you have to go after it with a club,” Jack London once said.

Creative problem-solving is a free-for-all, as creative problem-solvers know.

It's toilsome work that British psychologist Graham Wallas said, in his 1926 book The Art of Thought, unfolds in four stages:

Preparation. The problem-solver acts like a hunter/gatherer, finding and grabbing materials she can use to construct new ideas.

Incubation. The problem-solver takes an indefinite time out. "The period of abstention may be spent either in conscious mental work on other problems, or in a relaxation from all conscious mental work," Wallas says.

Illumination. The problem-solver arrives at the eureka moment. That moment, Wallas says, is "the culmination of a successful train of association, which may have lasted for an appreciable time, and which has probably been preceded by a series of tentative and unsuccessful trains."

Verification. The problem-solver hunkers down to serious work "in which the results of the inspiration are verified and the consequences deduced."

The four-fold process may be serial, but creative problem-solving isn't, Wallas says.

Creative problem-solving proceeds like music, with wandering and overlapping parts.

"In the daily stream of thought these four different stages constantly overlap each other as we explore different problems. Even in exploring the same problem, the mind may be unconsciously incubating on one aspect of it, while it is consciously employed in preparing for or verifying another aspect."

Compartmentalized Thinking

In the 1980s, when mapmaking kingpin Rand McNally first saw the signs of coming industry disruption, what did it do?

It unleashed an all-out PR campaign to persuade carmakers and consumers to call the "glove compartment" the "map compartment."

Duh.

While thinking like that might have worked in the 1950s, by the 1980s it was nothing other than magical thinking.

Magical thinking, psychologists say, is a product of Darwin's "struggle for existence." When faced with an existential threat, we look for saviors everywhere, as Rand McNally did.

Sometimes those saviors are efficiency experts; more often, salespeople; most often, marketers.

But when your industry's fragile, none of those folks can save you.

To borrow a thought from the 1990s, you have to think different.

On-Demand Undermines Even Investors

In the 19th century, an enterprising forebear of mine owned a block of houses in the mining town of Franklin, New Jersey, that he leased to workers.

Unbeknownst to the workers, he also leased his mineral rights to the local mining company, which promptly dug a shaft beneath the houses.

According to family lore, my forbear had to skedaddle one dark night, when all the houses and their occupants vanished in a mine-shaft collapse.

Lesson learned.

When investors undermine workers, everyone gets the shaft.

The halo's fast falling from the Uberization of work, Caroline Fairchild writes on LinkedIn.

Millennial entrepreneurs are shifting workers from 1099 to W-2 status, because they're learning that, to succeed, they have to do things like train people and ask them to show up at 9.

You know, 19th century stuff.

As Fairchild shows, on-demand startups that want to appify black markets in everything from home delivery to hospitality face harsh critics.

"As these venture capital darlings walk the fine line between saving on labor costs and breaking the law, regulators and politicians are watching, and critiquing, their every move," she writes.

"The lines being drawn here raise critical questions: Should workers embrace the freedom the digital world offers? Or should they try to hold onto the rights that their predecessors fought over 100 years to win? Is this new economy moving us forward or backward?"

Forward or backward? What do you think?

Where Have You Gone, Corporal Agarn?

When media were scarce—as they were when I was young—our states seemed united.

Nearly everyone, if not delighted, was at least familiar with Corporal Agarn, Samantha Stephens, Norman Mailer, Helen Gurley Brown, Perry Como, Chubby Checker and Walter Cronkite.

Today, no one knows who's who, or what’s happening.

You can no longer catch the pulse.

But we yearn to.

That's why Taylor Swift and Star Wars: The Force Awakens are blockbusters, while Vine and Snapchat aren't.

We long to consume and communicate as a nation.

Life in tribes can grow stultifying.

The Internet of Experiences

The Internet of Things is coming, David Pierce writes in Wired, "like a molasses tidal wave."

Not so the Internet of Experiences, if event marketers have their way.

Last year saw quantum leaps in product design by the tech companies that serve event marketers (firms like Cvent, DoubleDutch, Eventbase—even Facebook).

Those improvements practically assure event marketers will embrace event tech—and with gusto.

While gizmos galore have been dispensed at events, none ever became indispensable.

In 2016, finally, that will change.

DISCLAIMER: My employer is an investor in DoubleDutch.

Make a New Year's Revolution

Next year, instead of a resolution, make a revolution.

Rewrite your "fail script." 

Leave the catastrophes for the nightly newspeople.

Self-talk about rejection predicts both long-term success and long-term failure, psychologists have proven.

Your default fail script goes, "This always happens. It's all my fault. And it's going to ruin everything."

Instead, when you're next rejected—and every time thereafter—tell yourself, "It's temporary. Situational. And not about me."

Novelist James Lee Burke once said, "Every rejection is incremental payment on your dues that in some way will be translated back into your work."

Vive la Revolution!

Disruption is for Idiots

Technology journalist Michelle Bruno's most recent article, "What Disruption Really Looks Like," prompted me to phone her. 

In the course of our conversation, she asked me why tech company executives—disruption's tireless cheerleaders—so often rest on their laurels.

In my answer, I fell back on one of my favorite words, hidebound.

Tech company execs who succeed, with few exceptions, turn hidebound; and their standpatism leaves their companies exposed.

Hidebound is often applied to larger-than-life figures of military history.

Major General Ambrose Burnside, a West Point-trained insider, was one.

In December 1862, he caused 13,000 casualties in one day, when he threw his troops against Robert E. Lee's entrenched Confederates in two assaults at Fredericksburg.

Burnside wasn't an idiot. He simply assumed he could use tactics that had worked for his century's greatest soldier, Napoleon. But Napoleon's soldiers faced smoothbore muskets, not rifles.

Too bad he wasn't an idiot.

Like all West Point insiders of his day, Burnside was blind to the effect of a disruptive change in technology.

Idiot comes from the Latin word idiota, an "outsider."

Disruption takes an idiot: an outsider unschooled in the assumptions, unversed in the tactics, and unacquainted with the rules, the business models, and even the names of the players.

The insiders are all hidebound.

Disclosure: The hero of Michelle Bruno's extraordinary story is my employer.

2016: The Creative Comeback

The Creative Revolution inspirited marketers in the mid '60s.

Will the Creative Comeback do so again in the mid teens?

CMO predicts it will, in a year-end roundup of expert opinions.

The technicians have had their day.

The results?

One in three campaigns fizzle.

Perhaps the creatives' time has returned.

"Blow up any process that isn't dynamic and collaborative," Darren McColl, SapientNitro, told CMO. "Creativity in a world of technology takes constant collaboration, not process."

Here's what others had to say:

Marketers, please come out from behind your tech and data and start acting like humans. You’ll be amazed at what can happen. — Jeff Pundyk, The Economist Group

Do something unexpected, launch a breakthrough, challenge a leader, 'wow' consumers, make memorable moments, engage in new conversations. — Ed Vlacich, National Brands

Effective creativity now requires pairing shrewd psychology with showmanship. In 2016, I resolve to channel, daily, Daniel Kahneman and P.T. Barnum. — Marsha Lindsay, Lindsay, Stone & Briggs

In an age where brands know more than ever about our customers, embracing creativity and fearlessness should no longer be seen as risk taking but instead as smart, innovational thinking. — James Earp, Razorfish

Be bold, be creative, but be human. Think beyond getting attention; design for engagement. And design beyond impressions, think expressions. — Brian Solis, Altimeter Group

Next year, we’re daring to go from being valued to being loved. We’ll be showcasing the power and value of creating an emotional connection. — Susan Ganeshan, Clarabridge

Child Speed

Every week, my two-year-old granddaughter dashes past another developmental milestone.

She's unafraid to ask questions or state her observations. 

For their part, the googly-eyed adults around her make a willing audience. 

Of course, it does't hurt to be adorable.

Eighteen years ago, designer Bruce Mau wrote his 43-point Incomplete Manifesto for Growth to inspire the designers in his studio in Toronto.

Point 15 of the Incomplete Manifesto reads:

Ask stupid questions. Growth is fueled by desire and innocence. Assess the answer, not the question. Imagine learning throughout your life at the rate of an infant.

Were it possible to learn for a lifetime at my granddaughter's present speed, we'd all be geniuses. 

Unfortunately, brain physiology holds us back.

In fact, most minds fossilize before their owners turn 30.

But destiny shouldn't deter you from asking stupid, innocent, childlike questions.

Who knows?

Once in a while, you might get an adult answer.

Disclosure: Bruce Mau is now my employer's Chief Design Officer.

Harvest Time

Salesman Ray Kroc was 52 when he asked the McDonald brothers to let him franchise their drive-in burger joint.

Composer Ludwig van Beethoven was 54 when he wrote Symphony No. 9.

Pharmacist John Pemberton was 55 when he started to sell his invention, Coca-Cola.

Actor Ronald Reagan was 55 when he first ran for public office in California.

Former slave Nancy Green was 56 when she was selected to portray the trade character "Aunt Jemima" by the Pearl Milling Company.

Philosopher John Locke was 57 when he penned An Essay Concerning Human Understanding and Two Treatises of Government, his magnum opuses.

Pamphleteer Daniel Defoe was 58 when he penned Robinson Crusoe.

Filmmaker Alfred Hitchcock was 59 when he directed Vertigo. 

Actor Sidney Greenstreet was 61 when he began his film career.

Gas station operator Harland Sanders was 65 when he opened his first fried chicken restaurant.

Architect Frank Lloyd Wright was 70 when he designed Fallingwater. 

Artist Grandma Moses was 78 when she first picked up a paint brush.

Even though I've worn out two dozen erasers in my Saturday afternoon drawing classes, I feel a thrill every time the marks resemble the thing in front of me.

Any gardener will tell you, patience and blind faith are the keys to an autumn harvest.

"Here's to the late bloomers, holding on 'til our time arrives," says songwriter and storyteller Korby Lenker.

Learn more about later bloomers from Dan Pink and Malcolm Gladwell.

"Autumn Leaf" by Robert Francis James. Charcoal on paper.

The Positive Side of Rejection

Washington, DC-based freelance writer Dan Bailes contributed today's post. His clients include the MacArthur Foundation, National Geographic, the Smithsonian and the State Department. Between assignments, Dan explores storytelling through his blog, The Vision Thing.

Whenever I present a creative project to a client, there's always the possibility they'll have problems, will want to change it, or just won't like it. No one wants to have their work rejected or sent back for fixes. Still, there's a positive side to rejection. After creating and presenting hundreds of projects for clients, here's what I've discovered:

1. Not everyone will "get it" or like it, whatever "it" is. You should expect that.

2. When you present your project for review or comment, people rarely say, "It's great!" It's more likely they'll say something needs to be changed or fixed. If you expect that, it won't upset you when it happens.

3. It's not personal. Learn to keep a professional distance between you and your work. Stay objective and keep an open mind.

4. Everyone has an opinion. Just because they have one doesn't mean they're "right." Even so, listen to the comments and try to understand what they are telling you.

5. Ultimately, you have to decide if the criticism is useful. That's why keeping an open mind is important. A comment may ultimately help you think about a problem in a new light.

6. When someone criticizes your work, listen to what they tell you, then repeat back what you hear so you both know you're on the same page.

7. Don't be afraid of criticism—it can help you improve the work. You should be focused on improving the work too.

8. Instead of trying to defend your work, ask questions until you are clear about what underlies the comments and criticism. Then you have an opportunity to find a solution that will work for everyone.

9. Stay positive and don't be discouraged. Follow these guidelines and you can turn rejection into an opportunity.

Edward Bellamy's Incredible Crystal Ball

“Marty McFly Day” is as good a day as any to look back at another time-travel entertainment—one that electrified our grandparents' grandparents.

Published at the height of the Gilded Age, Edward Bellamy's 1888 utopian novel Looking Backward became the Number 1 best-seller of its time.

It tells the story of a Boston Brahmin who time-travels to the year 2000 and discovers that life in the future is pretty comfortable:

• War, waste, global warming, crime, unemployment, income inequality, gender differences, advertising and political parties have disappeared.

• Everyone is at least bi-lingual. People speak a native language and the universal language.

• The only form of money is the debit card. People use it to shop at vast warehouse clubs like Costco, but act with civility towards one another, because everyone's well educated. All purchases are delivered to shoppers' homes, via pneumatic tubes.

• Employee engagement approaches 100% and job promotions are based solely on merit. People who refuse to work are imprisoned, and receive only bread and water.

• People retire in comfort at age 45.

• Housework is fully automated.

• Congress meets only once every five years.

Bellamy sold more than a half million copies of Looking Backward. His blueprint for the year 2000 was so talked-about, over 160 "Bellamy Clubs" sprang up across the US.

Forty-seven years after the novel's appearance, Columbia University named it the most important book by a 19th century American.

Tomorrow's B2B Sales Professional Needs a Blue Ocean

One million B2B salespeople will lose their jobs by 2020, replaced by e-commerce systems, according to a study by Forrester.

The job-loss can be blamed on Millennials, who prefer what I call M2M (Millennial to Machine) over F2F (Face-to-Face).

First on the chopping block are entry-level "order taker" jobs.

For over a century, order-taker jobs have allowed high-school and college grads to readily enter the workforce as salespeople.

But the tightening market means tomorrow's wannabe sales pro must find a fresh opening gambit.

Inventiveness will be key.

You might have to think like comedian W.C. Fields.

To drum up business for Atlantic City hot-dog vendors, Fields worked one summer in his youth as a professional drowner. 

Twelve times a day, he would wade into the surf and begin to scream and flounder.

Mammoth crowds would rush to the scene to witness Field's "rescue"—and buy lots of hot dogs from the nearby vendors' carts.

Here's a great source for more innovations: The Sales Blog.

What's the Most Revealing Interview Question Employers Could Ask?

What's the most revealing interview question employers could ask—the one that would guarantee they hire the best talent available every time? The killer question you should ask every job seeker.

With apologies to the management gurus, it's none of these:

• Why will you thrive in this position?
• What's your greatest weakness?
• Who's your role model?
• What did your parents do for a living?
• What things do you dislike doing?
• Why are manhole covers round?
• Why did you leave your last job?
• What's your spirit animal?
• What's the most significant thing you've done since breakfast?
• What would you like to ask me?

I learned the killer interview question not from an HR manual, but a former boss; and it worked like a charm.

Adman Bill Kircher, founder of Fixation Marketing, posed the killer question at the close of every candidate interview he conducted. 

With it, he built an exceptionally creative, productive and tight-knit team; one that attracted loyal and prestigious clients, enjoyed a reputation for high quality, and earned handsome profits.

His killer interview question: What book are you reading right now?

What makes the question killer?

It's simple. Candidates didn't have to ask Bill for clarification.

It's tricky. The qualifier "right now" essentially disqualified as honest answers To Kill a Mockingbird, Of Mice and Men, Lord of the Flies, and other sophomore-year reading assignments.

It's decisive. Hesitation, blank stares, or answers like "I mostly watch TV" eliminated candidates from consideration.

It's nondiscriminatory. Any title sufficed as a correct answer. Bill didn't care what you read, as long as it was sandwiched between two boards. After all, John F. Kennedy loved From Russia with Love. Ronald Reagan raved at a news conference about The Hunt for Red October. And friends spotted James Joyce in a cafe once reading Gentlemen Prefer Blondes.

Reading books proved to Bill's thinking a job candidate was curious, diligent, self-caring and culturally engaged.

And his results proved he was spot on.

Make Crazy Moves

I dropped into my Ur-Starbucks this week and was reminded, you can't go home again.

The once-sparkling and cozy suburban store, where I spent many an hour reading, writing, ruminating and conversing with friends and strangers, is now bleak and unwelcoming.

No matter their age, businesses decline not merely because their standards flag, but because the formula that worked so brilliantly in the first place becomes an excuse to avoid risk.

Meanwhile, 67 year-old singer Robert Plant is on a world tour, belting out experimental post-metal songs, disco tunes, and newly interpreted rock classics, including some from Led Zeppelin's catalog rendered in Celtic style.

In his review of Plant's show, music critic Brian Ives praises the singer for dodging a Led Zeppelin reunion, "despite the fact that it would surely be worth tens of millions of dollars to him." Plant instead has taken the road less traveled.

"There’s a lesson to be learned," Ives says, "and not just for musicians, or even artists."

Before the end, no one's story is ever over, he says. No one's bound to an original formula. You're a work in progress and can re-imagine yourself, at any age.

"You can make crazy moves, change the way you’re doing things, and bust out of your comfort zone," Ives says.

"Listen to music you’ve never listened to before. Go to a restaurant that serves food you’ve never tried. Hang out with people you don’t know that well. Learn a new skill. Your story isn’t over."

Your Event is Either an Experience or a Waste of Time

While they puzzle over details, many event organizers never grasp the key to a satisfactory event.

It has to deliver an experience.

In the same way a restaurant is not about food, an event's not about tables, chairs, booths, badges, busses, signs or even speakers.

An event is about an experience.

Restaurateur Danny Meyer says the restaurant's job isn't to serve food.

It's to create an experience of wellbeing: to instill in each patron the sense that "when we were delivering that product, we were on your side."

Delivering an experience justifies the patron's expenditure—not of money, but of time—Meyer says. "When they leave, are they going to say, 'That was a good use of my time?'"

"The most precious resource we all have is time," Steve Jobs once told a reporter.

Are you delivering an experience, or wasting your attendees' time?

Elementary

You can hire a hack with an app, so why not a PI?

Washington, DC-based Trustify disrupts the burgeoning market for private eyes by offering an app that, according to the startup's website, "makes it easy for anyone to hire their own private investigator on demand and at an affordable price."

The app eliminates retainers, making gumshoes no longer a luxury of only the rich.

"The customer simply taps a button on their phone or computer, provides a few key details and is then linked up with a private investigator, who gets to work instantly," the company claims.

Coming next: Uber adds a button reading, "Follow that car!"