Subtle Changes, Big Impact

It’s interesting the subtle shifts in technology that effect how we interact. These happen every day with us barely noticing and each of them in isolation really don’t mean much. But compounded by a hundred, a thousand, tens of thousands of these small actions every day, the aggregate impact will be mind boggling.

Two subtle examples:

Snapchat’s addition of a birthday lens. While seemingly innocent, it represents another form of clever data gathering where we as consumers are paying for free access with our information. As they say information is power, in todays world, information is also money. Read the full article here:

http://www.ibtimes.com/snapchat-adds-birthday-party-lens-encourage-users-share-age-data-231955

The other subtle update was to Siri, a week ago I got a little reminder that Siri is always on once plugged in, transforming the virtual assistant from a passive service to an active one. In one fell swoop, Apple now competes directly with echo (or Alexa). And in that one small way, the product moved from the potential as a mobile assistant to a home assistant.

All these little things happen around us everyday without us barely noticing. As these small changes compound it will be interesting to see how we engage in just a few years.

Ian Chee

 

The Etymology of Function

I’ve been thinking a lot about where things come from. In the past inspiration came only in the form of people and culture. Today with the world changing so fast, inspiration can come from a million different places. One space that is often ignored by business and brands is function.

I break that down in this little piece of analysis. It’s a theme that I’ve been exploring for some time.

http://www.clickz.com/clickz/column/2405725/the-etymology-of-function

The topic of failure on the web

I was recently reading a blog post by Lidiya K on the topic of failure. She was kind enough to like one of my posts and as I explored her writing, she sites one of my favorite Thomas Edison quotes, “I have not failed, I’ve just found 10,000 ways that wont work.” In her post she samples many powerful ways that failure is in fact a positive.

In creating new digital interactions, campaigns, products and service you cant help but fail sometimes. I have failed many times in different ways and those times though often painful helped me to achieve the greatest areas of learnings in life. When I failed as a manager, I worked harder to be a better manager. When I failed at a pitch, I worked harder to win the next one. I’m far from perfect but for me at least, times of growth often come through lows not highs.

To add a slight web angle to this top it’s interesting to note that failure is almost objectively a good thing when you research it on the web.

1) The conversation around failure online is surrounded by success: I have done a social sentiment analysis on the word failure. The conversations online around failure are not conversations about defeat but conversations about progress. If you do a simple word cloud around the term, words that appear are words such as success, progress, learning.

2) Failure is a topic that people can relate to: If you do a google search trend analysis on the term failure vs. success. The topic is searched for almost 5 failures to 1 success. People are seeking out this information because they too are going through it. There is empathy on the topic and its a universal human truth that at some point you will fail. It’s relatable.

3) There is humor in it if you can open your eyes to find it: I once spoke to Ben Huh, the owner of fail blog about this topic. Why is that blog and that meme so popular I asked. Because everyone can relate. There is humor in the lows, and when you find that humor, that’s when you learn and grow. There is a reason that comedians often talk about when things go wrong. If they only gloated about success, there is less to relate to.

Don’t forget that the greatest successes were wrought with failures. Walt Disney’s patent for a theme park was rejected 302 times before acceptance. Steve Jobs was at one point fired from Apple, the company he built. Oprah was seen as unfit for TV. The chairman of Sony’s first endeavor was rice cookers that couldn’t cook rice. Do you remember Virgin credit cards?

In creative, innovation and design we need to use failure to our advantage. Learn from it and grow from it.

 

 

Trying new things

It’s interesting how often we get into a routine and are resistant to breaking the mold. You would think that being in a creative field, change and breaking the mold would be the consistent norm. But more often than not we fall into patterns, ways of doing things, old habits.

http://www.adweek.com/adfreak/heres-what-would-happen-if-ad-agencies-hired-drones-employees-163251

That’s why we are constantly trying new things in the work place, what’s next, how can we morph. One silly example of this is our recent experience with drones. Im personally really interested in the technology, I guess we have to find now it’s practical application. Enjoy the video below.

Momentum

There are a lot of things that motivate us in work. Some people are motivated by power, some by money, some by pride. One of the things that makes me happiest of all is making things that make a difference, that actually add value in peoples lives and gets our clients and teams noticed for their hard work. It’s fulfilling to make things I can show my friends, my family, that make them laugh, think or that they find useful. That motivates me. Within 3.5 hours this evening a few of the things that me and my team have been working on for the past few months all of a sudden got noticed, and it felt nice. But it was nicer the fact that it all happened within a few hours of one another.

5:50 PM – My sister texts me this image – a project we did for Pizza Hut made the “Love It” list for the Time magazine print edition. Even in a world of pixels, for some reason when they print it on paper it feels a bit more substantive.

At 6:30 PM a creative director I worked with and respect, posted on Facebook about a financial product that MRY recently helped incubate in house. He offered his critique. Then I noticed that it hit the top of product list. Here is a snap shot of the product ranking on producthunt.com where it reached top ranking yesterday.

At around 9:00 PM after a few drinks with my friend Tal, I noticed a NY times article on FB from a friend who works there talking about a session and a brand idea that MRY Health had come up with and a strategy the team created.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/03/technology/how-facebook-sold-you-krill-oil.html

In a creative world, it’s nice that the work is gaining momentum. Onward and upward.

Positive Reviews

I’ve hit somewhat of a small milestone. Writing and publishing online though a paradigm that I understand professionally is not a dynamic I pursue personally. Since starting on this journey, I have not promoted this blog and have made this more of a personal and counterintuitively subtle experiment in online publishing.

Today I got a nice surprise. I just got my first positive review for the writing on ClickZ.com as well as hitting the top of the list for most read. It’s a small milestone but motivates me to continue on this journey. To the 3 people who read this blog who probably include my wife and sister. Thanks.

 

What the History of Counterfeiting Can Teach Us About the Future of Digital Marketing

It’s great having one of the most read articles on ClickZ, a bit motivating to keep on writing. I always try to apply my personal life experience to my work experience. One can not help but be influenced by the way you grew up and what you saw as a young person. This article on is one representation of my life experiences intersecting with how I see my work life.

I hope you all enjoy!

http://www.clickz.com/clickz/column/2346393/what-the-history-of-counterfeiting-can-teach-us-about-the-future-of-digital-marketing

The Definition of Insanity

I am a real believer in not doing the same thing over and over again expecting a different outcome (a thought widely attributed to Einstein). But in my work and personal life, I see this paradigm of perpetuating past behavior play out daily. It’s amazing how incredibly hard habits are to break. We often think of bad habits as something only exhibited in our personal lives (eating too much, smoking). But in fact , routine can be a huge deterrent to professional innovation. Here are two pieces that speak to this theme.

http://www.agencypost.com/the-problem-with-habits-a-lesson-at-sxsw/

This article covers how habits force us into similar activities as exhibited in themes at SXSW.

http://www.mobilemarketer.com/cms/news/television/17810.html

The years of relying on TV as a primary driver for marketing is a powerful habit, one that will take years to shift.

From Text to Touch to Talk

I’ve been thinking a lot about the future of interactions. Creativity is often seen only through the lens of content. The funny video, the interesting graphic, a joke. It’s what people see, and have a human visceral reaction towards. Content is very important but the way we interact with that content is that subtle layer that is equally as critical. I recently wrote an article on shifting interaction trends as it pertains to verbal cues.

http://www.clickz.com/clickz/column/2336941/how-talking-to-your-fridge-will-change-marketing

I know there’s been a lot written about the way we interact with home appliances. This article is more about shifting interaction models when verbal cues are introduced. How will our lives change when talking to your xBox becomes a ubiquitous act.

Thanks for Humoring Me

I know one thing: the web doesn’t need another blog. But I’ve recently been doing a lot of writing and decided I needed a place to house all of this work. I will aim to not add to the clutter and deliver a new perspective built on the unique convergence of ideas.

Personally, I have often found myself at the intersection of unique vantage points; always having one foot in the door of two or more point of views. It all started with where I was born, in Hong Kong, a cross between Chinese history and British opportunity while attending an International school that taught me American creativity (whilst for some odd reason holding a Belgian passport). My parents were one of the few Asian parents who actually encouraged their young son to pursue the arts. I spent a summer at R.I.S.D. oil painting, but then decided that was too impractical and leaped to the counter-point, a Columbia education where I, at first, aimed to major in economics, but landed instead with a major in Philosophy.

My career has spanned cities from Hong Kong, Shanghai, Seoul, to New York. I was first taught branding and story telling first hand by some of the masters of the craft. Always looking to mix it up, a little less than a decade ago I made a conscious decision to see its application not in 30 second video or print but through the lens of technology. I’m really lucky because my day job as the Chief Strategy Officer at MRY and previous jobs at AKQA, McCann, allows me to take all of these disparate points and connect them in new ways.

My simple hope is to share this perspective, not to develop more clutter but a unique vantage point on the intersection of humanity x creativity x technology.

Thanks for reading, I hope I can in some small way help.