Pow! Right Between The Eyes! Andy Nulman's Blog About Surprise

Highly Contagious

True story.

I am posting on my B-Berry from a diner in Manhattan (hence the unusual "no frills/no hues" look).

I come in for a quick breakfast and a quite hour alone before a long day of meetings with fashion mogul Mark Ecko.  Seating is communal, and a 60-something guy in a ball cap sits down next to me and tries to strike up a conversation and show me pictures of his trip to Washington, D.C.(!!!!)

After a few polite grunts (so sue me; I cherish my "alone time"), I finally say:

"I'm really sorry, but I'm blogging now."

He looks at me with concern, and asks (seriously!):

"Uh, is that contagious?"

"Horribly!" I reply.

He gets up and moves to another seat on the other side.

Peace on earth.

Something Stupid

I love stats.  Maybe it's because of my deep-rooted passion for sports and showbiz (I used to read Billboard and Variety charts like Moses read the 10 Commandments), but I can't get enough of data, and the Talmudic-like analysis of it.

Data generation and its crunching is the responsibility of a group called "Business Intelligence" (B.I.) at Airborne, and is the spawning ground of much Surprise (sparking multi-voiced choruses of "Hmmmmm," "I Didn't Know That," and the classic Surprise battle-cry, "Well, I Never"). 

But I got to thinking at a recent R&D meeting that while B.I. allows us to adjust to What Was or What Is, planning What Will Be is a different story...thus needs a different impetus. 

This is why I plan to lead a "Business Stupidity" group at Airborne.  By twisting the logical,  looking at the world through prism-lensed glasses, or--as my mentor Roger Von Oech would put it--"playing the fool," we can come up with the type of perspective that will put the Pow! into our future product development.  Thinking of the "what can't be" is an ideal tool for tomorrow's tech applications, wouldn't you say?

This skewed vantage point and devil-may-care attitude is a fun and effortless way to come up with Surprise for any business.  If indeed the whole point of Surprise is to shock the system, you ain't necessarily do it by being intelligent.  Some of the world's great Surprises have come from going so far and ridiculously against the grain that the obvious result is sure failure.  Until it succeeds. (Then watch B.I.'s data points shoot through the spreadsheet!)

And will wonders never cease?  Just check out the serendipitous acronym to the Business Stupidity group:

B.S.

Ball of Cracks

And speaking about Roger Von Oech, I may have to sue you, my friend! 

The Ball of Whacks you sent over has become so addictive, it has taken away my focus during important meetings as I fiddle incessantly with the red pyramids.  I enjoy the satisfying "thwack" the pieces make when they stick together so much that I ignore other sounds, like phone calls or people knocking on my office door.  What's worse, I turn into a wildebeeste whenever my employees whine and ask for "their turn" with the orb. 

Productivity is down, I may not hit my Q4 numbers...

But I'm coming up with more good 'n' creative ideas, so maybe there's something to the side effects.

Whack on!

Watercooler IP

There used to be this phrase, "Watercooler TV."  It described that special kind of show that everyone watched, say on a Wednesday night, then gathered around the office Watercooler on Thursday morning to share opinions, reflections and gossip. 

Well, the PVR and YouTube have essentially obliterated the collective "same Bat-time, same Bat-channel" TV viewing experience while the blogosphere, MySpace and Facebook have become the places to gather for community chit-chat.

Yet the Watercooler has retained its importance, albeit with a different missive.  No longer is it the social gathering spot for review, but for preview.   To wit, it's where the young, whip-smart denizens of Airborne Entertainment hang out to tell tales of cool things they have discovered. 

On Friday alone I learned about Microsoft's PhotoSynth data app (which can assemble your vacation snapshots into a David Hockney-like, multi-imaged panorama), its Google Earth-battling Virtual Earth 3D,  the survive-on-less-sleep pill called Modafinil, and listened in on discussions about Parkour and Heelys.  All this while waiting for my coffee to brew.

Watercooler Talk 1.0 was "outside-in," where a common, mass-market theme was distilled and shared amongst the few. Watercooler Talk 2.0 is "inside-out," where new ideas are exposed by the few, then disseminated and spread to a mass market.  (A perfect fit at Airborne, where we've been discussing the benefits of "Work Less; Think More, Listen More, Talk More.")

Gotta hand it to the old H20-head. While most of its ultra-analog brethren have been relegated to antique shops or tossed onto this nostalgia pile, the Watercooler has become even "cooler"  still, reinventing itself for the digital age.  It may masquerade as a liquid dispenser, but it's more substantive role is that of a Fountain of Surprise.

You Will Read This Post

Ahhh, if it were only that easy, I'd be so rich right now that Bill Gates would be my secretary, and Sergey Brin (left one) and Larry Page (right one, watch the laces!) would be shining my shoes. 

And if it worked that flawlessly, you'd already know I am posting about Predictive Software, the next stage in the online search business.   You'd have also already bought the book.  And the t-shirt.  And attended my speech on the subject.

In a fascinating piece in Fortune, Jeffrey M. O'Brien profiles a handful of companies--like Slide, WhatToRent, and my old fave Pandora--that are making great strides in the coming up with the next "next big thing," namely the programs and applications that will "get to know you better than you know yourself" and make piles o' cash by recommending you products and services you really want.   

And in doing so, he shoves another gold certificate into my rapidly thickening Vindication File.  Says  Jeffrey:

"The web...is leaving the era of search and entering one of discovery.  What's the difference? 

Search is what you do when you're looking for something. 

Discovery is when something wonderful that you didn't even know existed...finds you."

Fortune's dictum echoes what I said in my very first post here.  Wanna succeed in business?  Then give people what they don't expect!

How important is this?  Well, take a cold shower or two to soften the hyperbole, but O'Brien goes onto say that the optimum personalized discovery mechanism "could change not just marketing, but all of commerce."

This isn't just a Pow!, it's a 21-gun salute.

I knew it all along.  The future belongs to Surprise.

And by now, if the algorithm worked, you should already know it, too.

Giving Great Head

Barry Base is a legendary adman, and writes a provocative column in Strategy Mag; so provocative that it's the first thing I turn to every issue.  He’s got balls, and he knows how to swing them.

This month's piece misleads you off the top with a brief rant on frequency (a concept covered so well by Seth Godin a few weeks ago), but hits home and hits hard when Barry shifts gear into bemoaning the decline of Pow! in advertising creative.  Says he:

"Try to find a print ad that provokes you to read it, with some headline like 'Lemon' or 'Attention Jews.'"

Students of the game know well that the former is from the legendary Volkswagen ad (which, as a wild Andy Warhol screenprint, now hangs above my living room fireplace), while the latter, Base explains, was "on a handbill on a post outside the Brooklyn apartment of a friend and New York ad guy who used it ever after as an example of a head masterfully crafted to grab the attention of its target audience." (Read more on it here.  And chill out.  He's no Michael Richards.)

Great ad headlines epitomize Surprise.  They're the ones that tear your attention away from the article on the other page, the ones that make you rub your eyelids in disbelief to make sure you're not hallucinating.  They're the worm that gets you hooked and reeled into the sales message.  The dearth of whup-ass headlines (Base uses the example of Jaguar's okay-what-the-hell-does-that-mean "Designed To Outperform...") make for boring ads and uninspired consumers.  (I’ve always said that people don’t hate advertising, they hate BORING advertising.)

As poetic as the words may be spun, nobody remembers copy. 

Even the boldest images fade. 

But great headlines, like great Surprises, endure.

Hearing Jewelry, Hearing Art

I have a confession to make.  A loud one.

My name is Andy, and I have a hearing problem. 

As a rock ‘n’ roll journalist from the age of 16 to 23, I was out at concerts almost every night. The end result of such aural abuse is a little medical condition called “Otosclerosis,” which has severely limited hearing in my left ear…and which is why I subtly turn to my right when in conversation.

I’ve been given two possible solutions to the problem—an operation or a hearing-aid. And I’ve eschewed both; the former for the risk (a 50:50 chance that it will work wonders or completely cut off hearing to the ear), the latter because of the stigma attached to wearing one.

That explained, here’s an excerpt from “How To Do The Impossible,” a book I wrote eight years ago:

“…I realize that hearing is one of the five senses and that many people suffer from the diminishing functioning of another one of the five senses—sight. They too can change their predicament by wearing a ‘seeing-aid,’ namely eye-glasses.

“My whole point here is that there’s less of a stigma to wearing glasses. Glasses can be cool; not so hearing aids. Why? Maybe I can convince Giorgio Armani to create a line of designer hearing aids, with his winged logo sticking out of my eardrum. Maybe I could start a new trend, a new industry…”

Well, it’s taken me close to a decade, but being the spokesman for Surprise has empowered me to get off my ass and act on my relatively revolutionary hearing-aid idea. I need one, and I’ll wear one…but only as art or jewelry.

Or put another vain, immature and ridiculous-but-true way, I’d rather be deaf than uncool.

One of my co-conspirators in this endeavor is hearing health maverick Nick Laperle. His company Sonomax sent shockwaves through a staid and ultra-conservative industry when he announced a deal with Wal-Mart to do for hearing-aids within their stores what LensCrafters has done in malls throughout the continent: custom fit ‘em and deliver them within one hour at a value price.

The other co-conspirators are artist Frank Cipra and jeweler David Maidor. They’ve been playing around with Sonomax prototypes for a few weeks now. Frank paints the wild designs on masks for the majority of NHL goaltenders, and has shrunk his canvas somewhat to detail my potential hearing aid with skulls, bombs exploding and other less-than-subtle imagery. David, who custom-makes baubles for the rich and famous, is working to fit Nick’s technology into a white gold shell, which he will (hopefully) cover in pave diamonds.

I’ll keep you up to date on progress, show you a couple of photos of finished units and report back on public reaction.

That is...assuming I actually hear something.

When It Reigns, It Pours

At the risk of sounding like a swell-headed egomaniac, in addition to the Sports Business Journal piece (look down one post), I was also interviewed by uber-entrepreneur Austin Hill at his textbook-worthy Billions With Zero Knowledge blog.  When you evangelize the art of Surprise, you're often called on it, hence Austin's questions about the rather unconventional way I hire. 

Perhaps my favorite hiring story (and one I forgot to tell Austin) was that of Farlan Dowell, an Airborne Entertainment product manager, and former Price Is Right contestant, who's leaving us for to work for a competitive company (the quisling!) in L.A. 

Farlan was exuberant and rather "out there" during our first interview three years ago, and I sent him away with the challenge of doing something special to convince me to hire him.  About a week went by and I heard nothing, and figured he'd copped out and joined the ranks of the uninspired and insipid.  But the next day I got a call from a store owner down the street.

"You Andy Nulman?" he asked.

"Well, you called me," I replied.  "Who are you?"

"You don't know me, but there's this guy outside my window in a box."

"A box?"

"Yeah, and it says 'I Want To Work For Airborne Entertainment.  Call Andy Nulman at 289-9111.'  So I'm calling you."

I got about a half dozen similar calls from different people on St. Laurent Boulevard.  I opened my window and stuck my head outside my 7th floor office, and sure enough, there was this goof parading up and down the street, head and limbs protruding from a large cardboard box emblazoned with my name and my company's (see it in all its glory below) , causing a traffic jam of curious onlookers and horn-honking supporters.

I called him upstairs and he got the gig immediately.

And if he wasn't such a traitor...he'd still be with us.  You could read the interview here.  And you can get in touch if you think you can fill Farlan's rather large shoes...uh, box.

 

"Call Him Crazy at Your Own Peril"

So said the Sports Business Journal about this blog's humble author in its back page, One-On-One feature this week.  Gotta admit it was quite the honor to appear in that prestigious space, as previous interview subjects included NASCAR legend Michael Waltrip, author Michael Lewis(Moneyball, The New New Thing) and blogging superstar (not to mention Washington Capitals owner) Ted Leonsis. 

Over my 31-year career (sigh...) I've done hundreds of interviews, but few were as much fun, or as well-captured, as this one by Kris Johnson.  Sports Business Journal and its more frequent sister publication Sports Business Daily are sub-only (Booo!), but the folks here at Surprise Central grabbed and adapted the piece for your easy read right here.  Enjoy.

Squeezing Too Much

Big buzz around the Airborne Entertainment offices—“Five Myths of Consumer Behavior” co-author Paul Allen Smethers is coming to meet the staff and impart words of wisdom next week to help us as we develop our new mobile product lines.

Five Myths is one of my fave bizbooks for the year for two reasons—its merciful brevity and its laser-beam relevance to everyday consumer marketing. While all five “myths” are pertinent, the most Surprising of the bunch is #5, the one about product features. Daily advances in technology allow manufacturers to squeeze more and more of everything into just about anything.

But it seems that it’s all for naught.

‘Cuz we don’t want ‘em. 

Not in our cellphones, our PVRs, our TVs, or our cars. Our products, while shrinking in size, are bloating in complexity. Even the iPod, the celebrated consumer product of eternal happiness and goodwill, isn’t immune to this.

I guess I shouldn’t be Surprised. One of the non-negotiable rules of marketing I learned from the late, great Don Tobin back in junior college was the “KISS” rule—Keep It Simple, Stupid (although I had my own interpretation of the KISS rule at that time, which included partying every day…but I digress).

This concept morphed into another adage I coined during my days producing TV and Live shows at Just For Laughs:

"The Audience isn’t as hip as you think they are, or want them to be.” 

In other words...go deep, but not over their heads.

Sometimes, even as the world changes so rapdily, old time wisdom is still relevant.  Or, as I said earlier in my original Surprise manifesto, “Everything new is old again.”

Just Desserts--More Vindication!

Great Seth Godin post about a little Surprise with your after-meal coffee. 

Without going into great detail, it's in response to a piece about McCain's "Sweet Classics" mini-desserts,and how they can add an extra buck or two to your restaurant bill.  Now, as a fitness nutter, I'm all for smaller portions, particularly the sinful sweets. But if I owned a restaurant, I'm sure that by eating the few cents these sugar-bites cost and include them with the after-meal beverage, I'd make it up in Surprise spades with upbeat buzz and return customers. 

Or if I was really hungry--money-wise--I'd ratchet up my overall prices a tad and shout out "Free Desserts!" 

The World’s Most Expensive Umbrella

If they ain't got a blockbuster attraction, museums are a tough sell these days. I remember reading a study which revealed that one of the main draws for a museum is its café (which is why Elizabeth Esteve-Coll, Director of London’s famed Victoria and Albert, once adopted “An Ace Caff With Quite A Nice Museum Attached” as its slogan).

Tough to swallow, but you gotta fill the halls somehow, so kudos to Montreal's McCord Museum and its unapologetic Fair-Weather Friends campaign.

In a simple but inspired coup, the McCord becomes a refuge from inclement climes by cutting its entrance price in half on rainy days. No catches, no fine print, just a brilliant idea that must’ve not just Surprised, but scandalized, the stuffy museum establishment.

Congrats McCorders! Not even David Copperfield in his prime could convert a museum into an umbrella.

Battle Cries of Surprise

I spent Sunday trolling the web, checking out vintage newsreels and public service announcements on YouTube and Waybackmachine for another project, and two near-obsolete expressions fed me a Pow! Right Between The Eyes moment…and perhaps fed the Surprise movement two immutable battle cries.

The expressions?

“What WILL They Think of Next?"

and

“Well, I Never!”

For the benefit of my readers of the Bubble Generation (a term coined by Tom Hayes at his sparkling TomBom blog), "What Will" was usually uttered by those up-tempo, silky-voiced narrators showing off wacky technology like flying car prototypes in 1940s news shows; "Well I" was standard statement of older women with grey hair pulled tightly into a bun (think of the painting American Gothic), usually delivered with popped eyes and O-shaped mouth in black-and-white movies.

The more I heard them, the more I repeated them over and over, the more I realized that these expressions are WAY too relevant to remain buried in nostalgia.

“What WILL They Think of Next?” epitomizes the wonder and innocence of discovering something new, and glows with optimism for the future. And rid of its prudish roots, “Well, I Never!” is the culmination of great Surprise; an explosive reaction to a new idea, a new experience, a new product.

One day (when my speech is ready to roll and the book is at the printer’s), I’m gonna start merchandising this blog, and you can bet that these slogans will emblazon my first two t-shirts. CafePress, here I come.

Until then, I wish you the opportunity to shout ‘em out. Often.  And loud!

The Dark Side of The Moo

How do you sell something as sucky as chocolate milk to a generation of kids playing Grand Theft Auto and watching Saw DVDs? 

You make it EVIL that's how.

By launching a campaign the antithesis of those clever yet benign “Got Milk?” ads, Quebec’s Federation of Milk Producers and BBDO (four floors downstairs from us at Airborne Entertainment) have not just won top honors at advertising's prestigious Cassie Awards, but saw a 17% increase in sales of the gooey brown stuff. 

The ads, which outraged many (so three cheers from the gang at Surprise Central!), showed that chocolate milk was actually created by crushing, chopping and microwaving chocolate bunnies and doggies (which explains all those facetious “Lost Pet” posters plastering city telephone poles and fences throughout the summer). 

See the results and do the dirty work yourself at www.mechantchoco.com (“Nasty Chocolate” for those of you not fluent in the language of Moliere).

Great Surprise Quotes 3

I gave up playing chess about the same time I picked up snowboarding, but I've always admired those who could sweat buckets just by thinking.  One such athlete is Garry Kasparov, the long-time #1-ranked player in the world and nemesis of IBM's Deep Blue.  Here's his take on life at a grand-master level:

"Ultimately, what separates a winner from a loser is the willingness to do the unthinkable.  Intelligence without audaciousness is not enough."

Check, mate.

All You Need

Screw the Playstation 3! The new release I’m really stoked about is Tuesday’s launch of the first “real” Beatles album of the millennium, George and Giles Martin’s mash-up called “Love.” On the surface, it’s the soundtrack to the Cirque du Soleil collaboration of the same name in Las Vegas, but lift the veneer of hype and you find the true Surprise—this not only exceeds expectations by light years, it breathes new relevance into both The Beatles and the Cirque.

The Beatles, while undisputedly the soundtrack and conscience of a generation, were slowly succumbing to a numbing state of nostalgia and over-merchandising. They morphed into sellers of lunchboxes and ties, not of revolution and spirit.  And where else could the Cirque go after demolishing the definition of the circus with early shows like “Alegria” and “Mystere” and then smashing their own standards with one-syllable tech marvels like “O” and “Ka”?

The answer, my friend, ain’t blowing in the wind. The answer is a near miracle of taking raw material that we all know all-too-well and spinning it into something so fresh and innovative, it’s like discovering the band for the first time. The Martins take what Danger Mouse did with The White Album, go one step further with a fuller slice of the Fab Four oeuvre, and actually improve on the original. Then Cirque plies it with visuals so hallucinatory that the music almost takes a back seat.  What a feat for both parties!

I saw “Love” in Vegas about a month ago with 12 high school buddies; hacks all of ‘em, none of whom I thought would appreciate it one iota. When they emerged shell-shocked, some teary-eyed, I knew that this show and its sonic band had transcended mere entertainment.

That’s why as bowled over as I was with the show, I came out of it depressed, because I knew that no creative project I could ever muster up on this earth—not even this blog!—could even approach the brilliance I had just borne witness to.

If you can’t make it down to the Strip, “Love” is well worth standing in line at Wal-Mart or Best Buy for. Just don’t mug anyone.

The "Power" to Surprise?

I heard a radio ad this morning for Kia, the South Korean car manufacturer which is using  "The Power to Surprise" as its tagline.  Misappropriating it, really.

Now you don't have to convince me of the power of Surprise, but to convince North American consumers, Kia has a long, long way to go to. Better fill up that gas tank, boys.  This from the company website:

"The Power to Surprise"- represents Kia's global commitment to surpassing customer expectations through continuous automotive innovation while epitomizing the exciting and enabling values of the Kia brand. Everything we do at Kia, from providing one of the best warranties in the business, having more standard features, or enabling someone to have a car in the first place, is done with this in mind. Throughout a full line of cars, from the all-new Rio - the most affordable four door sedan in America, to the reintroduced Sportage sport utility vehicle, and now the totally redesigned Sedona minivan, Kia demonstrates its ability to achieve The Power to Surprise...

Still awake?  If so, are you thinking what I am?  Sure does sound like the same-old-same-old, doesn't it?  Buzzwords that no longer buzz.  And the site itself is dull, standard and lame.  Colorless and void of personality.  The whole experience does to Surprise what Paris Hilton does to fame--devalues the concept.

Two last points

1. If Kia REALLY embraced Surprise, their radio ads would wobble our earlobes.  Their site would be filled with Easter Eggs, trap doors and a colorful design that screams Pow!  Perhaps if they hired North Korea's Kim Jung II as Chief Marketing Officer...
2. Wanna know a Surprising car company?  Try Jaguar.  I bought an X-Type two years ago.  I didn't love it; I bought it because it was cheap.  EVERYONE told me what a lemon it would be, how it would be in the shop incessantly, etc.  As a former Mercedes driver, I was a little apprehensive, but again, I got such a great deal, so...  End result?  Two delightful years of a peppy, reliable, dependable, comfortable and luxurious car that is rugged and Jeep-like in the nightmarish North-Eastern winters.   THAT'S the real "Power to Surprise."

Down Under (Again, But Different)

Had lunch with Len Blum, screenwriter of such films as Howard Stern's Private Parts, the animated hit Over The Hedge and Steve Martin's Pink Panther, among others.  Len is also the husband of Heather Munroe-Blum, the Principal of McGill University, which brought up the subject of the last time I guest-lectured at the school in October. 

Coming home, so to speak, to my old Faculty of Management on Career Day, I expected to be feted in the school's Exec Lounge on the 6th floor, or in the main auditorium on the entrance level.  Instead, I was a little bummed to find out I was sequestered in the last room in the building, tucked into a far away corner in the basement.

But after entering the room, filled with motivated, interesting and interested students, I realized that I had lucked out. 

The basement is where "the coolies" hang out.  It's where the exciting, close-to-the-edge stuff is born.  When I was a kid in my parents' house, that's where my room was.  It was filled with posters, albums and all sorts of junk.  I was able to be me, without pretense.

So back to McGill.  We had a rollicking time for 90 minutes, and neither I nor the students wanted to leave. Meanwhile, up in the auditorium, a packed room fell asleep listening to a blue-suited captain of industry drone on.

Wanna create Surprise?  Don't just accept going where others won't...seek it out.  Take the plunge into life's basements.

(And speaking of Surprise, one of the best reactions I ever had at a speaking engagement was at said McGill event, when one of the students asked as I started to settle in: "Uh, where's the real guy?")

Remote Out-Post

This is a test. I'm at my son's hockey game, and posting from my Blackberry. If this works, it means that I can post from eveywhere. Despite the fact she's at a meeting 20 miles away, I can hear my wife groaning.

Speedbandits No More

Now that Mitch Joel has destroyed any sense of this blog’s decorum, I apprehensively pass along this eye-popping video of how Copenhagen is dealing with its speeding problem.

A Surprise, yes…but not a farce.

It’s actually produced by The Danish Road Safety Council, and gets a very serious message across in a way that, uh, only the Danes...and perhaps the Dutch...can.

A great idea, but perhaps not for Northern climes.

Down Under…But Uh, Not Australia

You know, I try to run a respectable blog here. While I may curse like an exorcized demon in real life, I go about as far as the word “ass” amongst you bloggers and blogees. For you, I eschew the lurid and neo-pornographic and try to concentrate on the insightful and mentally stimulating.

Then someone like prolific blogger and podcaster Mitch Joel sends over a Surprise story like this from AdAge:

"Betty Beauty,a New York startup is getting big PR play by marketing hair color for the nether regions, billed as ‘color for the hair down there’." 

Yup, pubic hair dyes.

Now, while this story most definitely follows the Surprise Convention set out in this blog’s inaugural post-cum-manifesto (oh great, now I said “cum”), while it indeed does shock and will set tongues wagging (calm down, I mean people talking), it smashes to smithereens the limits of decency I have so hard tried to set (and by “hard,” I mean difficult).

Besides, with so much pop culture savvy tucked away under my belt (oh please, that’s not a dick joke), this down-below dye job is nothing new to me. In fact, I saw my first set of blue pubes back in the mid-‘70s.  Settle down, it was in the film Pink Flamingos, and they belonged to the nasty David Lochary (as Raymond Marble, one of “The Filthiest People Alive”), pictured with matching blue head tresses below.

Anyway, not only has Mitch’s story hurled my blog’s once-pristine reputation deep into the abyss of depravity, the traffic onslaught caused by his mention of my “Pow!” in his extremely well-read TwistImage scandal sheet has crashed the servers over at TypePad, and they have sent me a whopping bill for the repairs.

Like colored pubic hair, I guess some stories are best left seen by a select few.

Surprise of the Year?

Two great showcases of Surprise are Time Magazine's annual "What's Next" and "Inventions of the Year" issues, the latter which I just finished.   This year's top laurel goes to YouGuessedIt--YouTube.  And in the accompanying piece, Lev Grossman explains why Chad Hurley and Steve Chen's baby can also be considered the "Surprise of the Year." 

"Even though they built it, they didn't really understand it," he says.  "They had no idea.  The opened up a portal into a new dimension."

What started as a simple video-sharing tool--a moving Flickr, if you will--was usurped, hijacked by the masses and made into a phenomenon.  This is why there's a rage a-brewin' down in the marketing community, as folks on Madison Avenue debate whether or not YouTube's Julie Supan should've been annotated as one of Brandweek's "Marketers of the Year."  It wasn't HER, the critics cry, it was US who made YouTube. 

Grossman agrees.  "(Hurley) and his partners may have started YouTube, but the rest of us, in our basements and bedrooms, with our broadband and our webcams, invented it."

Two guys innocently toss something into the public fray, we adopt it for a slightly different purpose than they originally intended, and turn into the Surprise hit of all hits.  Maybe that's way even though it's gone big biz since the Google buy-out, we can still find YouTube's ascension to be heartwarming and inspiring.

And gratifying, too.  I'd rather discover something like YouTube on my own or from my friends than have something like Zune force-fed down my throat. 

Shock Car Racing

Now here's a Surprise--after 15 years of record growth, NASCAR TV ratings are slipping.  This from USA Today today (kinda redundant, wasn't that?):

"TV audiences sagged for 31 of 35 races this year. For 12 of those races the decline was at least 10%. Ratings on Fox, which broadcast the first half of the season, dropped 7%. TNT and NBC were down, respectively, 5% and 12% for the second half.

"I've told everybody I know to tune in," Dale Earnhardt Jr., says with a laugh. "But I'm only one guy. The racing is really the same. The drivers are the same. That big splash is gone. Maybe it's not quite as dramatic as we believe."

Oooof!  Now there's a punch in the pants.  I could launch into my usual howl about how Surprise needs to be continuous and all that, but frankly, I think NASCAR has done a fine job of keeping itself fresh.  And with its always-unsure outcome, the world of sports is tailor-made Surprise. 

Methinks the problem isn't the product, but the medium of broadcast itself.

Look at Major League Baseball.  A recent Globe and Mail article about MLB.com gushed about the site's 1.7 billion visitors, 1.3 million paid subs, $19.5 million 2005 revenue and (pant, pant!) $4-to-5 billion valuation.  Whew!  Take me out to the IPO!  Yet every year we're met with the same October headline: "World Series TV Ratings Reach All-Time Low."

We kicked this around at a recent R&D meeting at Airborne Entertainment, and the very wise John Bowie came up with this sage explanation: 

"Maybe people are more interested in data than lying around watching the games."

Think about it.  Sports in general--baseball, racing and football in particular--are stats driven and data intensive.  Who needs to sit through the entire event when granular results can be fed to us instantaneously?  And if we're really interested, we can watch the eye-popping highlights on TV, on the net, or on our cellphones almost immediately after they happen...and for days to come.  If we're gonna spend time on the couch, we're gonna watch doofuses dance with stars, or sexy medical dramas, or pirated DVDs.

The big Surprise is not that sports are changing.  No, the big Surprise is the way  we are consuming them, and how they will be adapted for us because of this in the near future.  (And not just on TV.  Check out this CNN piece on the high-tech ballfield Cisco is proposing.)

Madness To Their Method

Anybody who flies Air Canada knows about its wacky pricing system, ranging from Tango to Tango Plus to Latitude to Business Class (which Air Canada could at least call Pamper or Waltz or Fawn All Over You or something to keep the silly name flow). 

While the same seat can go for a multitude of different prices, at least they scale up through the classes.  Well, most of the time.  Seth Godin, in a post entitled "By Surprise" (hence my two-fold interest),  points out some ludicrous goings-on at Canada's national airline, where the Tango Plus is actually cheaper  than Tango.

If this were (oh I wish, I wish, I wish) on purpose, it would be the type of Surprise that gets tongues wagging widely and emails buzzing broadly.  Instead, we all know that it was some sort of computer glitch that was hastily taken down a nanosecond after someone noticed it.

Too bad. This is the type of stuff that Southwest would do intentionally, and reap rewards for months.

Instead, it lives as the specter of a mistake in the blogosphere. 

Only in Canada, you say?  Pity...  (You Canadians over 40 know what the hell I'm talking about.)

Service is for Servants

Got an email challenge from a skeptic named Norman about my Starbucks coupon story. In essence, he said: “Nice heartwarming Norman Rockwell-like story, but isn’t that just great customer service?”

No.

As I’ve stressed before, great customer service is what’s expected these days. Using Starbucks as an example, you EXPECT to be greeted, have your (usually rather complicated) order taken efficiently, pay and pick up your drink down the counter shortly after.

What this girl did by diffusing a potentially negative situation went way beyond mere "service."  Frankly, "service" is a weak term.  It conjures up visions of the deaded "Service Manual," you know, the ones that make employees greet you with a robotic "Can I help you?" and follow the corporate flow-chart of "Do this if..." or "Do this when..."

Alfred Hitchcock once said:

“There’s no terror in a bang,
...only in the anticipation of it.” 

With Surprise, it works the opposite way: The excitement IS the Surprise, not the expectation of it.

Service is for servants. Surprise is for those who rule.

Dead as a Dynasty

Great article about the fall of the sports dynasty in this weekend’s Windsor Star. In it, Bob Duff makes the argument that the concept of one dominant team winning championships year after year after year is history. He explains that the World Series was won by seven different teams over the same number of years and that the Yankees, the Indianapolis Colts and the Detroit Red Wings, all powerhouses in their respective sports throughout last season, made early exits in the playoffs.

And he stresses that this is a good thing. Chalk one up for the folks at Surprise Central. This from his piece:

"I think any time you can go to a sporting event and not know the outcome of the game, it adds to the excitement. These days, that most every time you go. There are no guarantees, even when the games mean the most."

Want a guaranteed win? Play solitaire. Without Surprise, sports don’t exist.

Beck Is My Hero

Beck gets it.  Every time I hear someone whine "It's too hard to maintain constant Surprise!" I'm just gonna send 'em over to beck.com.  This guy has reinvented himself so often he makes David Bowie and Madonna look like Luddites. 

In an age of digital downloading (legit and ripped-off) he still sells CDs thanks to some brilliant packaging ("Guero" included pop-art videos of each song and his latest, "The Information," has four different sets of randomly-inserted stickers enabling you to create one-of-a-kind, customized album covers, like the one right here).

And while most artists play it safe on live TV performances (leaving "chance" to the ultra-controlled environment of big-buck music videos), Beck's recent Saturday Night Live appearance, TRUE performance art, has already become legendary.  If you haven't seen it (doubtful if you're reading this), it's been taken off YouTube, but here's another version from German TV.

You're my hero, Beck.  Maybe there is something to all this Scientology stuff...

The Thrill Is Gone

I'm bored. More examples of Everything New Is Old Again:

1. Send in photos/videos of you doing something, and everyone will vote, and you'll become something. Current examples include Oscar Meyer's "Sing The Jingle, Be A Star," Yahoo's Talent Show...must I continue?
2. Win an iPod.  I love iPods.  I have two of 'em.  But every flashing web banner is giving one away.  Every bank is giving one away if you open a new account.  It's the door prize at every raffle or charity event.  And still my beating heart: Oscar Meyer is also giving one away as part of its "Sing The Jingle" contest!  Whoo-hoo!
   

More to come!  Unfortunately..

Super Starb

The Place:  Saturday morning at the neighborhood Starbucks (you know, the one just down the road from the...uh, other two neighborhood Starbuckses).

The Situation: A growing line of people waiting for their beverages to be barrista-ed.  Old friends reunite and chat.  Everyone somewhat friendly.

The Catalyst:  One person gripes, albeit in hushed tones, about how long she's been waiting.

The Surprise! Before the gripe can begin to spread, the much-pierced girl performing octopus duties behind the espresso machine (and she was a girl only in age, but certainly not in biz smarts), calls out: "Sorry about the slight wait people.  Please accept these coupons as an appreciation of your patience."

The Coupon:  Good for one free beverage of any kind upon the next visit.

The Regret:  That I didn't get the young lady's name.  What a pro!  She diffused a bomb before the wires could be connected to the explosives. She puts the "Star" in Starbucks.

The Conclusion:  As I said in this blog's inaugural post, today's consumers expect everything, so to really impress 'em, give 'em what they don't expect.  Today, I am among many in that line walking away impressed.  And talking about it.

Levi’s—The Saga CONCLUDES!

Okay, now I love Levi’s even more.

I just got a call from Megan Wright, a uber-polite-and-polished customer service rep from Levi’s Concierge Program, which was the subject of an earlier post. And here's the news you've all been waiting for:

The program actually exists
              …or to be more precise, did exist.

Megan explained that “Concierge” was a program put into play about the time I originally bought my smacked-up jeans last year, and despite the fact that I was a few months late in responding (Note to Self: Next time you find a phone number emblazoned on your pants, call it immediately), she offered me the “personal fit” service in New York, San Francisco or Beverly Hills any time before the Thanksgiving holiday.

Anyway, I ain’t gonna be ‘round those parts by then (big bummer—was in New York twice in the last three weeks!), but the response, the attitude and the professionalism of Megan has cemented my admiration of, and allegiance to, Levi’s.

That, and the fact they make my butt look nice and tight.

Plug For You-Know-Who

Well slap my ass and call me Sally--this has little to do with Surprise and a lot to do with me.

I "public speak" a lot.  I actually find it a lot of fun, and am way more comfortable on stage with a mic in front of 5,000 than at a party with a drink amongst 50.   My next big gigs are with the mammoth Power Within series on March 6th and 8th, alongside  Anthony Robbins, Suzanne Somers, fashion magnate Kenneth Cole, former President of Mexico Vicente Fox and others.

A couple of weeks ago, I keynoted to a group of high school kids about alternative career options.  They were kind enough to send me the link of their compilation video on YouTube (hey GoogleTubers--when will you enable us TypePadders to insert video directly?).  I come in at the 25-second mark and speak for a mercifully-short 90 seconds or so. 

For you to judge...

Levi's--The Saga Continues

Day Three and no reply from Levi's and their "secret" Concierge Phone Line.  I'll give them one more phone call, and until the end of the week.

Watch this space.

Wii The People (a.k.a. Great Surprise Quotes 2)

The gaming world is buzzing about the release of Nintendo's revolutionary (and I do mean that in the most non-hyperbolic manner) Wii entertainment system on November 19.  I tried this out at the Javits Center in New York in June and was knocked out by its easy intuitive play, natural feel and pure, outright fun.  I hope it sells a zillion.

Nintendo President Satoru Iwata is taking a huge stride (note I didn't say "gamble") with this system, which goes after regular folk and eschews the industry's traditional hard-core gamer audience.  Here's how he explains the relationship between Wii and them:

"(Wii) was unimaginable for them.  And because it was unimaginable, they could not say they wanted it.  If you are simply listening to requests from the customer, you can satisfy their needs, but you can never surprise them."

Surprise is greater than satisfaction.  A mantra for the age of Pow!

(Ironically, this comes as no Surprise to me, as this type of thinking is common amongst entertainment/tech enterprises in Japan.  My company, Airborne Entertainment, is majority owned by a Tokyo company called Cybird, and we've been exposed to this more emotional, people-centered approach for 18 months now.)

Treading Fred

Vitamins, Enzymes, Energy, Caffeine, Designer Names-–what more could people do to screw around with bottled water that hasn’t already been tried twice and succeeded once? 

Well, if you’re Fred, you can give the seemingly flavorless and colorless liquid a personality.  Instead of tinkering with the product, Fred’s stroke-of-genius was changing the packaging from the standard chunky and round to an eye-catching sleek and flask-like. 

Now not only does this water slide sexily into the back pocket of jeans, but it overflows with attitude.  It even has its own blog and MySpace page(!).

Coming up next--Fred gets married (a female-shaped bottle), has kids (mini-bottles) and buys a home (a case featuring all three different bottle-types). 

Then, he cheats on the wife (slinkier female-shaped bottle), and is sued for divorce by Heather Mills' lawyer (huge honking jug).

Then he...jeez, who poured vodka in my Fred?

The Highlight Reel of Life

In addition to its role as an idea-aggregator and business tool, this blog is beginning to spark thoughts of a multi-media project (book, DVD, audio recording…let’s see where it goes). Because of that, I spend some time re-reading it to tie together some of the ideas I randomly spew forth within.

Friday’s post about Costco got me thinking about the earlier post about Surprise afterlife, and while watching an ingenious TV show during my cardio workout this morning, they all merged into an epiphany.

To explain, the TV show is called “30 Moments/30 Minutes.” Essentially it’s 30 great moments from the world of sports, categorized and broken down into three sets of 10, and played out over a half-hour. This morning’s episode showed 10 “Plays of the Week,” 10 eye-popping hockey saves and 10 messed-up soccer goals from international archives over the past 20 years or so. All the fat has been trimmed away to leave viewers with the uttermost high of highlights. It’s simple, but superb, television.

So, the connection? I realized that more than merely a collection of long-living stories, great Surprises provide us with what I call “The Highlight Reel of Life” (well, that’s what I call it now, after hours of trying to come up with a suitable tag).

Think about it. Think back to the great Surprise moments in your life, the highlights you STILL talk about. Not just the bargains or exquisite service, but the unexpected visit from a friend, the Surprise birthday party, the time your spouse’s simple haircut became a high-flying Afro perm, the $100 bill you found in the street…

I could go on and on, but the point here is that hopefully, so can you.

I can’t help but thinking how great it would be to actually bring  The Highlight Reel of Life to a physical reality! Never mind a photo album; imagine a DVD or disc drive filled with the great Surprise moments in your life, captured real-time in chronological order. According to (yet another) fascinating article in this month’s Fast Company, the cover story about Microsoft’s Gordon Bell and his digitally-never-forget-anything “My Life Bits” project, this may not be as far-fetched, far-out or far-off as you think.

Until then, The Highlight Reel of Life can live virtually, stored in your memory banks. Keep collecting!

File Vindication The

Yup, the Vindication File is getting thicker. 

This from Entertainment Weekly, where film critic Owen Gleiberman was asked why showing scenes out of sequence in movies like Pulp Fiction or Memento is such an effective technique:

"This...has evolved, in no small part, because audiences today are so attuned to the detours and ruses of conventional story-telling.  When a story is told out of order, it's far easier to conjure up that surprise, that what's going to happen next? rush."

That was just the set-up.  Gleiberman then slams home the kicker:

"The real news is that what started as a novelty has now edged into the mainstream..."

Yesterday's rush is today's mainstream.  I couldn't have said it better myself. 

Is it any wonder that filmmaker M. Night Shyamalan has suffered diminishing box-office returns on each of his films since the breakthrough hit The Sixth Sense?   The final scene twist in that film was so mobius-like, it sent a buzz through the movie-going public louder than billion bees in honey season.  His next project, Unbreakable, followed the same pattern; okay, we were somewhat fooled again, but not as profoundly as last time.  By the time Signs came around, we were impatiently waiting for it, and his most recent two ,The Village and Lady In The Water, were met by tidal waves of  "So Effin' What."

I think Shyamalan is a gifted writer/director, but if he REALLY wants to Surprise us, his next film should have no Surprise ending at all.  Imagine the shock when what we're all expecting never actually comes.

Maybe he should show some scenes out of sequence...

Levi's Secret Service

Okay, this could get interesting...

Last night at dinner, my son Hayes pointed out that I had a phone number written on my jeans.  This defacement came courtesy of Levi's, and was one of many (including buckshot holes, swirling tears, tattoo-like inking and a red tartan back pocket) on an extremely customized pair of jeans I bought from their flagship store in San Francisco. 

Lemme just say that I love Levi's. Here's where I sound like that movie trailer guy:

"In a world of $300-plus designer denimeisters, Levi's put out an under-rated, superbly-priced and most importantly, perfectly-fitting product."

That's why I have eight pairs of 'em.

This pair, I've had for about a year.  You can't help but notice the phone number (it's on the upper right quad), but I assumed that it was the number to the S.F. store, and left it at that.  Frankly, compared to the rest of the action taking place all over both legs, it was kinda overshadowed.

But last night,  sparked by Hayes' inquisitiveness, I called it.

Are you ready for this?  The number led to what purports to be a Levi's Concierge Service, and perhaps because of the time of day and week (Sunday eve at about 8:00 p.m. eastern), it played a cheerful recorded message inviting me and three guests to a champagne-fueled, one-hour shopping experience...ON THEM!  The message asked me for my name, a contact number, the names of my guests, and the city in which I want to enjoy this experience.

So, the curiosity is severely piqued.  The Surprise meter is warming up, humming in anticipation.

Is this one of those stories I'll tell forever?  A hoax?  A true find or a crushing disappointment?

To be continued...

Great Surprise Quotes 1

Yes, another start of a quantified collection, this one of great musings about Surprise.

To kick it off, within the book “Blue Ocean Strategy” by W. Chan Kim and Renée Mauborgne (capsule review: Somewhat pedantic, but an ultimately exquisite look at how to create new market spaces untouched by competition) is the story of Samuel “Roxy” Rothapel, who was a cinema owner at the turn of last century (and the source of the "Roxy" moniker for movie theaters throughout the world, starting with his own at 50th and 7th in New York).

As movies became an increasingly popular form of mass entertainment for Americans, Roxy knew how best to impress the growing hordes of customers:

“Giving people what they want is fundamentally and disastrously wrong. The people don’t know what they want. Give them something better.”

This quote is close to 100 years old, yet still unequivocally relevant. 

The Big Bang of Bargains

I just spent two days trolling the high-end shops of Manhattan.  And while I love the attention, and the attention to detail, one experiences while swaggering through the luxury boutiques of Fendi, Versace, Vuitton, Cartier, Pucci, Gucci, Ferragamo and the like on 5th Avenue, I must admit that the element of Surprise is somewhat lacking.

The king--and by a wide margin--of Surprise retailing in North America is yet another only-one-name-needed shopping emporium, but found far, far away from the main drags of downtown:

COSTCO!

Yup, they may seem like giant grey warehouses, but when it comes to Surprise, Costco can outshock any tony designer store.  Surprise isn't just a strategy at Costco; it's the company's DNA.  This taken from a crisp little piece by Matthew Boyle in the most recent Fortune Magazine:

"While Wal-Mart stands for low prices, and Target embodies cheap chic, Costco is a retail treasure hunt."

Once more with increased emphasis:

A RETAIL TREASURE HUNT!

Holy Jeez, can it be described any better than that?  Think about it--a different experience, new excitement every time you're at the store.  No wonder, the article goes on to say, that...

"Costco's card-carrying legions come in droves, waiting anxiously in fancy foreign cars on Saturday mornings for the store to open.  Carts in hand, they display a fervor not usually seen outside of houses of worship."

But then Boyle really nails it:

"Why?  Because we all love a bargain."

What better embodiment of a retail Surprise than a bargain?  Your expectations are  always exceeded.  You are counting on X, but are served up X%-off. And Costco does this day after day after day after day.  New stuff. At wild prices.  No consistency except Surprise.  No wonder they are second only to Best Buy in annual sales per square foot (and lemme tell you, Costco has to sell quite a few jars of mayo to equal one of Best Buy's flat screen purchases).

I'm a big shopper, but this has really opened up my eyes and blown a breeze of menthol into 'em.  Think about what I said before:  the Surprise of bagging a bargain works big time for you, AND continues to live long after as you rave about it to all your friends ("You'll NEVER guess how much I paid for this! And where I got it!).  You never hear people bragging about paying full retail price (unless they are pompous asses who have more dollars than sense).

This ain't about shopping.  It's about addiction.  Surprise is a concept that keeps on demanding.

And Costco is a concept that keeps on delivering.  Well done, guys.

Double Whammy

Over the past few weeks, in reading and searching and head-scratching and debating and hypothesizing the subject of Surprise, I have kinda lost sight of its core value.  And that is:

Surprise Shocks Euphorically!

Go figure I would rediscover this...at the airport, of all places.  But it wasn't two hours ago, after landing from New York, that I was hit with a double dose.

1. My wife and I checked one bag.  And it was the FIRST ONE through the rubber-strip curtain and onto the belt.  Frankly, I never believed there was a real "first bag"; I always thought that it was a decoy, a prop, sent out to alert those waiting that perhaps something like this belonging to them will be coming soon.  Perhaps.
2. We did some shopping, and went over the spending limit allowed by Customs by a relatively substantial manner.  I declared this overage, and was ready to pay the duty and fees associated with it (I learned my lesson last year when I forgot to declare a $100 t-shirt I bought as a gift and paid the price not just by losing my Canpass privileges, but by being subjected to a search so thorough that the only thing missing was an anal probe). Instead, when we got to the checkpoint, we were--are you sitting?--waved through with a smile and a "Have a nice day!" 

Unimportant?  Trite?  Of course, but who ever said that Surprise has to be serious and substantial?  Two stupid little deviations from the norm and I'm having a great day!  Don't underestimate the power of even the smallest Surprise in everything you and your business do.

(Oh, and on top of this, the bill for my car maintenance--I picked it up on the way home from the airport--was about half of what I expected.  Jeez, I'm gonna go get me a lottery ticket...)