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

Shocking Behavior And Continual Disatisfaction

Working on the launch of Airborne’s TXT-TV network has re-sparked my insatiable quest to understand all things about television (remember my Just For Laughs TV producing background?), most notably the screen’s place in the world of social and other newly-relevant media.  That said, the November issue of Fast Company’s very complete piece on Hulu and its CEO Jason Kilar (that's him looking up below) is a great read. 

Amongst Chuck Salter’s detailed reporting and crisp storytelling are a couple of pearls of wisdom; the first very at home here at Surprise Central, the second an odious tell-tale warning to anyone venturing into any business that deals with the public.  To wit, from Kilar:

“Consumer behavior is one of the hardest things to change.  The gap between the existing and the new has to be materially better that it shocks you into a behavior change.”

Early adopters may cut new swaths, particularly in the digital blogfacetweet space, but the vast majority of the real world takes the path of least resistance. Read Neale Martin’s underrated book “Habit: The 95% of Behavior Marketers Ignore” for a deeper understanding.  Getting them off that path is perhaps marketing’s greatest challenge (which is why I megaphone the shock of Surprise on a constant basis, but you already know that…).

But even if you’re smart and daring and persistent enough to bump a market off said path, you’re far away from easy street.  As said here ad nauseam (but for good reason), Surprise must exist as a continuum to be fully effective. One shock is never enough. Hence the article’s second mammoth point, from analyst Will Richmond of Video-Nuze:

“Hulu was a breakthrough service but people are never satisfied.  It (ostensibly the market for TV on the net) was a desert and Hulu provided water, but now the people also want food and table settings.”

And while you’re giving ‘em that, you’d better be preparing dessert.

Mssng

A simple point explained efficiently, with style, grace and relevant anecdotes.

Such is the mid-way review of the entrancing "In Pursuit of Elegance," a truly thought-provoking read by Matthew E. May.  The book's seven-word subtitle--"Why The Best Ideas Have Something Missing"--not only describe its subject matter perfectly, but walks the talk by piquing one's curiosity to want to find out more.  And find out fast.  Which is what I've been doing ever since I got my little hands on this one.

A kindred spirit in many ways--we share a speaking agent, a love of contemporary art, and a profound appreciation for the aesthetically-pleasing--Matthew and I also agree on the power of Surprise...well, if you can believe this insightful passage from the "Seduced By Nothing" chapter of his aforementioned tome:

"Seductive ideas rest on our ability to spark the kind of intrigue that will keep the imagination engaged.  Not knowing exactly what's going to happen next...keeps us glued to our seats when watching a thriller and quickly turning the pages in a mystery novel. 

"If we can too easily guess the outcome, or if the conclusion is not surprising enough, we are disappointed.  As soon as we become confident in our conclusion, we may lose interest entirely."

And now...time to jump back in and finish the oh-so-elegant rest.

Friends, Romans, Countrymen...Lend Me Your POW!

Some blogs get the knuckle-scrapers as readers, this one gets the brainy bunch, including the wordsmith and writing teacher Roy Jacobsen.  Roy was kind enough to send over this most classsic example of Pow!

Andy,

I’m reading The Elements of Expression by Arthur Plotnik, and he quoted some bits from a Roman named Cassius Longinus (who died AD 273) (Andy: that's him at left, a dead ringer for my cousin Lorne Goodman) that made me think of your favorite thing:

“The startling and amazing is more powerful than the charming and persuasive…to be convinced is usually within our control whereas amazement is the result of an irresistible force beyond the control of any audience.”

Incredible.  So I guess this ain't as new as I thought.  Go figure...I wonder if Plato was blogging about Surprise back then?

Return of The Genie (And Me)

Well, I'm back.

Lots to talk about, particularly reflections on the death of a parent, but we'll save that until later.

For now, something a little more fun. 

Read this interview in a recent Brandweek, and loved the cheekiness of Yahoo's chief research scientist Duncan Watts.  Debunking marketing's beloved "Influencer Model," Watts rubs the magic lamp and evokes the all-important spirit of The Genie when he asked about how a consumer phenomenon (in this case, the Crocs line of shoes) spreads:

"I don't think anyone knows. 
Somebody asked the publisher of the
Surprise best-seller Eats, Shoots & Leaves
why that book was so successful...
he said it was successful
because lots of people bought it."

Finally...a concrete, and no-bullshit explanation of how hits happen!

Unthinkable Surprise...

Finished the magnificent Joshua Cooper Ramo tome "The Age of the Unthinkable" over the weekend, and although sometimes our political views clashed, we were 100% synchronized in the vision of our future. 

In a sea of brilliance, here's one of my favorite quotes...particularly apropos to the headspace at Surprise Central:

"We owe everything to human creativity.  Everything that lasts, that changes our lives, that emerges from what was once unimaginable, has its roots in that initial spark of innovation. 

"What we need now is a way to spread the capacity for peer production of our own future. We need a global order in which those 'irrational' forces of invention and surprise...can be used to improve the parts of the world in which we can't seem to make progress."

...and Surprisingly Eccentric

I always knew that author (if you haven't read "My Start-Up Life," you should), blogger (if you don't read his, you should) and entrepreneur (if you haven't invested in him...well, you get my point) Ben Casnocha was bright. 

But with this post, he proves to be a bright kindred spirit.  The full monty over here (thanks Fitzy!), excerpts below:

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The Capacity to Surprise

One of my favorite questions to ask people is, "What do you look for in a person?"

One friend recently gave an interesting answer: he looks for people who can surprise him. He said that if someone doesn't surprise him, he doesn't get a sense of the person's presence.

I'd have to agree: there's nothing more boring than a person whose sentences you feel you can finish every time. Or who fits squarely into a stereotype such that 90% of their beliefs perfectly align with a broader political or religious label.

What I usually answer to the question which opened this post, when I'm choosing friends, romantic partners, or conversation companions, is "eccentricity." I like eccentric people. They're usually very fun. They are unique, like keys. And they regularly surprise me.

One of my favorite questions to ask people is, "What do you look for in a person?"

One friend recently gave an interesting answer: he looks for people who can surprise him. He said that if someone doesn't surprise him, he doesn't get a sense of the person's presence.

I'd have to agree: there's nothing more boring than a person whose sentences you feel you can finish every time. Or who fits squarely into a stereotype such that 90% of their beliefs perfectly align with a broader political or religious label.

What I usually answer to the question which opened this post, when I'm choosing friends, romantic partners, or conversation companions, is "eccentricity." I like eccentric people. They're usually very fun. They are unique, like keys. And they regularly surprise me.

Thoughts Spawned by "The Unthinkable"

Spent last weekend devouring Joshua Cooper Ramo's "The Age of the Unthinkable."  Joshua is way smarter than anyone has a right to be, and while he frowns on those who render the complex and intricate into the simple and easily-explained, he does just that with such heady subjects as the new world order and the public policy needed to deal with it. 

Yeah, my usual weekend reading.  Can't wait to get back to it later today. 

So much of what Joshua, a former high-ranking editor at Time Magazine, has to say is brain-expanding, but given this blog's raison d'etre, this passage, about the credentials needed for today's foreign policy careers, was particularly appropos (bullets mine):

• "(They) should be able to speak and think in revolutionary terms.
• "They should have expertise in some area of the world where fast change and unpredictability are the dominant facts of life.
• "They should have mastered the essential skill of the next fifty years: crisis managment.
• "Most of all, however, we need policy makers and thinkers who have that intuitive revolutionary feel for the inescapable demands of innovation."

For years, one of the theories I've espoused is that proactivity is overrated and that being reactive is not just underrated, but the more desirable and essential skill, particularly these days.  How does one plan in a world of increasing unpredictable chaos?  Well, happy to see these thoughts valdated and vindicated by someone way wiser than yours truly.

And now, back to the Ramo opus...

Wired's Mystery Mag--A Full Issue of Vindication

This month's Wired magazine dedicates its entire issue to "Mystery," and is guest-edited by a master of Surprise, the ridiculously over-talented creator/producer/director J.J. Abrams. 

As all FOPs know, Mystery is part of the Surprise family;  a first cousin, I believe, if my family tree diagram is correct.  One sets the stage, while the other delivers what usually hits one, well, right between the eyes.

That said, not only has the theme brought a swift current of buzz to a moribund medium (a magazine printed on paper!), oft-dismissed of having one foot in the grave and the other on a banana peel, but obviously vindicates a lot of the ramblings that have filled this space for 701 posts now. 

Here are two quotes from the issue that I happen to adore.  The first is from an article about the psychology of magic, featuring a very intellectually-verbose Teller, the usual silent partner of the Penn & Teller team:

Unless Teller sees the symptoms of astonishment--mouth agape, eyes widened, pupils dilated (a.k.a "The Surprise Face" here)--he doesn't consider the trick a success. 

"The magic show is a competition," he says. The audience is trying to figure you out.  They aren't suspending their disbelief, they're trying to expose you as a scam artist."

And this from the piece penned by Jacobs himself, talking about the ultra-secretive film trailer to the Surprise hit Cloverfield:

"When the trailer hit the screens right before Transformers, people freaked out. Not necessarily because of the content of the trailer, but because it was a surprise—they knew nothing about it beforehand.

"That was the point: The intended effect was to make a teaser trailer that actually teased. It worked like gangbusters, all because we hadn't prepublicized the film on entertainment shows and in magazines.

"It was a small experiment that proved what most everyone knows: Having all the information isn't always better."

The Truth--It May Hurt, But It May Sell

Love this.  From the Shock and Ahh... school of generating Surprise--and sales!--comes this quote from Kenneth Hein of Brandweek in a provocative piece called "Marketing to the Unemployed":

"Optimism isn't a strategy.  I'm sorry.  Last I checked, most ads were already optimistic before the shit hit the fan.  It's not like Coke or Pepsi is going to trot out a pessimistic ad.  Maybe they should.  A more authentic advertisement might say:

'Hey, things really suck right now,
but our new 16-oz. Coke is only 99 cents. 
If you need a little pick me up, spring for it
and maybe you'll feel a little better'."

Ouch.  This bluntness won't work for everybody, but for those for whom it WILL work, it will work big-time. 

Use at your own risk...and reward.

Another Damn Good Surprise Quote--Laurels From Hardy

If you're looking for someone to blame for all of this, then blame Steve (Shardy) Hardy. 

The quiet-on-the-surface/turbulent-under-it creative generalist is the reason I started blogging in the first place; a former Airborne employee, the way Steve expanded his intelligentia network via his blog impressd the hell out of me, and a little bit of advice later, well, here I was.

That said, the kind words he recently published about the Pow! book were most appreciated indeed.

But what really hit home was a comment published to his post, from a former colleague of Steve's named Alan Wiggan. 

"You might remember a Creative Director we worked with, Trevor McConnell, whose - very successful - mantra was: 'Arrive unexpectedly and leave understood.'  

"There is a very important element in this formula and it is 'understanding'. Surprise without meaningful purpose is a party trick; linking surprise to a meaningful end is damned hard to do well and those who can are deserving of our admiration."  

The brilliant adman really hit the nail on the cranium--a "stunt" is for today, true Surprise is everlasting.  In fact, Alan's eight word summation deserves repeating, albeit in a very un-Shardy-like uber-bold, shout-out fashion:

Surprise without meaningful purpose is a party trick

Hit or Myth

Spent part of the holidays reading Karen Armstrong's heady but fascinating "A Short History of Myth," and came across a majestically eloquent explanation of the need for constant Surprise.  To wit:

"Every day
we are forced
to die to the self
we have already achieved"

In other words, the "same ol' same old" leads you the the precarious position that companies like Starbucks, GM et al find themselves in today.

Re-birth.  No longer an option.  A necessity.

Uh, look at the calendar...what a perfect time to start, n'est-ce pas?

Here's Something To Think About...

Spent the weekend catching up on my reading (things going crazy good at Airborne keeping me over-busy), and gleaned yet another pearl of wisdom from Chip Heath and Dan Heath.  As faithful FOPs know, the brothers' now- classic book Made To Stick was one of the elements that helped concretize my theories about the powers of Surprise, which is why I don't miss anything they do...well, professionally, at least.

Their column in this month's Fast Company is ostensibly about improving PowerPoint presentations, but more profoundly touches upon the difference between being telling something or making others want to discover it, a key Pow! factor. To wit:

"Curiosity must come before content. 
Great presentations are mysteries, not encyclopedia entries. 
The best presenters don't structure their presentations by thinking:
'What's the next point I should make?' 
Instead, they decide
'What's the next question I want them to wrestle with?'"

Compare this to just about every corporate PowerPoint presentation you had to suffer through, where the standard operating procedure seems to be: "Here's way too much writing that you will read in 30 seconds and that I will spend the next seven minutes repeating."

Yes, there are killer PowerPoint improvement books like Garr Reynolds' Presentation Zen, but you can still blow it following his minimalism advice if you give away more than you tease. 

The Heaths' advice goes way further than what you see on a presentation screen.  It's a secret to solidifying business relationships--hell, ALL types of relationships.  Use frequently.

Waiting For The Next Shoe To Drop

It's October.

It's an election year.

And you know what that means, don't ya? 

Time for the time-honored tradition of an October Surprise!  (Read the Wikipedia definition and list of previous OctSurps to fully understand of what I speak.)

And what will it be this year? 

Speculation runs rampant, but Patt Morrisson's prediction piece--and comments to it--in the L.A. Times is the fave of everyone here at Surprise Central.  As he says:

"We've had so many surprises sprung on us, starting with the August Surprise of the Sarah Palin nomination, what could astonish us any more?"

Click here and read the rest.

The Pizza Scale of Pow!

Despite the fact that I vehemently disagree with his front-cover quote ("Guys don't wear orange or citron") and am living proof to the contrary, the Fortune Magazine story on fashion magnate and J. Crew CEO Mickey Drexler was notable for all of us here at Surprise Central due to this very astute quote, vindicating our oft-repeated call for a continually expanding the boundaries of delightful extremes:

"Designer goods have become too available,
either through their own distribution
or through logo counterfeiting. 
The more you see of anything,
the less special it becomes. 

"It's like the first slice of pizza vs. the sixth. 
The first you're like 'God, this is amazing!' 
The sixth you're like, 'Enough already'."

Think of your business, and where you are on the newly coined "Pizza Scale of Pow!"  Are you on that first, piping-hot bubbling slice, or that coagulating, tepid sixth? 

From Candles to Nukes

You never know where you're gonna find profound Surprise wisdom.  If the words of the prophets are written on the subway walls, I guess I can accept this from Mary McCormack's character "Mary Shannon" on the USA Network's In Plain Sight:

"There are two kinds of Surprises:
birthday and Pearl Harbour."

Can't ask for a better range than that, can I?

Criss Cross

In doing some research for a project here at Airborne, for some random reason, I happened upon a town named Christchurch in New Zealand.

"Intriguing name for a city," was my first thought.

My second?  "I wonder if they have a Jewish community?"

Well, Surprise of the day is that it appears that they do, and have had one for quite a while.  Here's a picture of Christchurch's Temple Beth-El from 1906:

Not that this is wildly out of the ordinary, but the dichotomy of the Christchurch Jewish Synagogue is kinda cool.

In fact, I think it opens up a world of international merchandising opportunities.  Imagine these t-shirts:

"I had my Bar-Mitzvah in Christchurch"

"Ouch! I had my briss in Christchurch"

Today Christchurch; tomorrow, the Vatican!

P&G D-lites

FOPs (you know, the ones to whom I don't have to explain the acronym means Friends of Pow!) know by now the fixation that Surprise Central has with P&G's always Surprising CEO A.G. Lafley.

Here's another reason why.  This from The Game Changer, an upcoming book (available April 8) that Lafley co-wrote with management guru and serial author Ram Charan, where Lafley explains his approach to consumers:

"Three billion times a day P&G brands touch the lives of people around the world.  Our goal is to DELIGHT consumers at two 'moments of truth':

"First, when they buy a product and second, when they use it."

Clutter Cutter

So, last week I end with a great Surprise quote, this week I begin with one.

But this one's a little more esoteric and heady, so put on those thinking caps.  It comes from Gavin Potter a.k.a Just A Guy In A Garage), a brilliant British consultant who is now working towards his PhD in Machine Learning (I learned about him the old-fashioned way, reading about his quest to win the Netflix Prize in Wired).  His words of wisdom:

"The 20th century was about sorting out supply.
"The 21st is going to be about sorting out demand."

What's the Surprise relevance?  Well, as per the Wired piece, "The Internet makes everything available, but mere availability is meaningless if the products remain unknown to potential buyers."

And, uh, what's one of the best ways to get pro ducts known?  Pow! You got it, kids.

The paper towel brand Bounty is known as the Quicker-Picker-Upper.

That said, based on Potter's quote, I guess we could consider Surprise the Quicker-Clutter-Cutter.

My next call--A.G Lafley at Procter & Gamble...

Fresh New Answer

Had a great time speaking about Surprise Marketing at McGill U's Graduate Business conf last week.  Although I closed a long day loaded with content, panels and keynotes, the audience stayed attentive and focused, and kept me there past the 5:00 p.m. shutdown (on a Friday yet!) with sharp questions about the relatively un-academic topic.

One query really hit home:

How do you keep people Surprised when your brand has a long-standing and strong identity?  Wouldn't radical change negatively affect the equity built-up over the years?

Whoa!  My answer was that the Surprise didn't have to be radical, just unexpected, and being unexpected doesn't always mean starting from scratch. 

Not bad, but not as good as it would've been had I read Ted Matthews's book "Brand: It Ain't The Logo."  In it, he (and co-authors Greg De Koker and Andris Pone) really nail the balancing act a Surprise marketer must perform with this explanation:

"New happy creatives may or may not realize that coming up with something fresh is actually a lot harder than dreaming up something new. 

"Being fresh requires that you always work in a single, unchanging context: what the brand actually stands for. 

"New, on the other hand, means the freedom to start over on a clear canvas every time.

Uh, that's what I MEANT to say...

Perchance to Dream

As a frequent road warrior, I find myself enamored with stories about improvements and innovation in the hotel trade.  Last week, Time had a great piece about how hotels are becoming centers for "sleep therapy."   

But what I really dug was the quote by Mari Balestrazzi, VP Design for the Morgan's Hotel Group, in the most recent Fast Company.  Seems she's more interested in keeping you awake.

"One of the company's original ideas was 'hotel as theater.' It's this whole notion of risk taking and creating environments that are unexpected."

Now if they could only mix the two...

The Surprise Tool

Mucho buzz surrounding the impending--and much delayed--release of Will Wright's next computer game, Spore.

Like his previous magna-hit franchise The Sims, Spore allows players to create worlds and infrastructures of their own.  But according to a piece in Fortune, with Spore, Wright and Exec Producer Lucy Bradshaw have designed a modeling tool that gives players the power to take the things they create within the game outside its confines and into other digital realms, a la YouTube, Facebook, 3D printers, et al.

The beauty of this--and relevance to the nature of this blog--comes in a quote from Wright himself, who explains the relationship between mass input and the ensuing Surprise output:

"When you unleash a new level
of creative tools at a mass level,
it usually explodes into
something unpredicatable."

Here's to a year of unpredictable Spore outputs...and the blog posts they inspire here.

Currency Exchange

As per yesterday's mega-post about Accessvia and Voodoo Doughnuts, these words of wisdom from Made To Stick's Dan Heath, taken from his keynote speech last week:

"Lunatic ideas generate
word-of-mouth currency."

...and at the greatest exchange rate around.

Remember this as you choose your Valentine's Day Gift today.
 

Diss Loyal

These words of Pow! from Anne Bologna, Prez of the butt-kickin agency Toy, direct from the stage of the Retail Advertising Conference in Chicago:

"Forget 'Loyalty Programs';
Touch hearts instead."

In the end, most loyalty programs become ignored...or a prison. 

And you don't touch hearts by doing the same-ol' same-ol'...

What's in the Box

Cloverfield.

Hollywood's first big Surprise hit of the year.  (Last year's, Juno, has just been nominated for a shopping cart-full of Oscars).

No big stars.  No easily-marketable assets.  It's just Producer J.J. Abrams and his box. 

This quote, in Entertainment Weekly, from Cloverfield Director and long-time Abrams friend Matt Reeves:

"The very idea of a box,
and wondering what's inside a box,
is just as engaging--if not more so--
to J.J. than the actual contents
of a box."

Obviously, it's equally engaging to filmgoers...and to faithful FOPs (Friends of Pow!).

Pow! To The Max

Bob Thacker is a smart guy.   And other Surprise Central hero.

As SVP Marketing and Advertising for OfficeMax, he's been responsible for, as Brandweek put it, adding "some levity and fun into the stodgy office supply category."  Recent tactics include Punk'd-styled pranks on kids and the creation of the world's largest rubber band ball.

His strategy for the company captures the Pow! spirit and distills it to two simple words:

"Unexpected events."

Couldn't have said it better myself...

Standing Up For Standing Out

As a follow up to the recent posts about standing out (like this one here, and this one), I came across this quote while perusing Fortune Magazine over the weekend.  In an essay entitled Creativity To The Rescue, former Young & Rubicam CEO Peter Georgescu spun these words of vindication:

"Commoditization--what I see as the cancer of 21st century commerce--has fueled ferocious price competition. 

"With price as the only real differentiator, producers are left with a challenge:

They must find a way
to stand out in a crowd."

This ain't about being flashy, or merely grabbing attention; it's the core of today's commerce.  Stand out or be stomped on.

Starck Raving

Okay, so sue me; I "borrowed" the title of this post from the article in Fast Company about iconoclastic designer Philippe Starck. Within the piece--which is an incredible mindboggle of a read--was this definition of how one "knows" they are in a Starck-designed building:

"When you open the door
and walk through the lobby,
you will go 'Oh, it's weird.' 
Everything is too big, too small. 
But it will give you some energy. 
For me, I am just a producer of Surprise."

Just?  Puh-lease. 

Producing Surprise is why Starck is one of the world's most in-demand designers of everything from furniture and buildings to homewares and private yachts.  Check out this Professor of Pow! at his website...or at the hippest hotel near you.

Sometimes, Size DOES Count

This one from Shelly Lazarus, CEO of ad powerhouse Ogilvy & Mather, in the most recent Fortune Magazine, about how the ad and media business will survive the chaos it's facing:

"One thing that hasn't changed and never will...the importance of a big idea. 

"You can put in on the Internet or (on a billboard) in Times Square, but you have to have an idea to begin with."

One of the credos that cascades throughout this here blog (like here, here and here), is that in creating Surprise, little things can have a wildly disproportionate, gigantic effect.

But don't be fooled by size, or lack thereof.  Even the most minute of "little things" you put into play needs to be backed up by a big idea. (How many times have we been sadly saddled with the inverse, like a multi-million-dollar Super Bowl TV ad with vapidly little thought put behind it.)

Your tactics you choose may be small, but the larger your idea, the more powerful your impact.  Before you make your next marketing move, ask yourself that old line that cops say to kids in those 1940s black-and-white films:

"Hey...what's the big idea?"

Think or sink.
   

A Holiday Surprise

Well, if today is supposed to be a holiday, I guess I should let somebody else do the work...

And I can't think of a better person than Stephan Patsis.  This is from his brilliantly-twisted Pearls Before Swine comic strip of last week.  Those old enough to remember Abbott & Costello's classic "Who's On First" routine will get an additional kick out of it. (Click on the comic itself to see it in full if, for some reason, it gets cut off on your screen.)

(And as all great FOPs will tell you, there indeed IS a place called Surprise, Arizona...a dastardly locale that is Pow!'s main competition in the brutal battle for the Google ranking of the term.)

Knowing What Wii Wanted (Great Surprise Quotes Redux)

Back in November, I kinda predicted that Nintendo's Wii would take the world by storm. 

While this is far from a Nostradamus-like feat of prognostication (truly obvious to anyone who ever picked up the gyro-controller), it is heart-warming and gratifying to see that a seemingly down-and-out, also-ran can stick to its guns of Surprise and Pow! an entire industry.

The accolades have been fast and furious, and the most recent ish of Fortune Magazine gushes over Nintendo's success.  Within the piece, written by Jeffrey M. O'Brien, are several Surprise quotes that vindicate the type of strategies spewed within this blog for months.

Quoth O'Brien:

"More difficult to comprehend is how a company founded 118 years ago as a maker of playing cards came to be pummeling Microsoft and Sony. The answer has something to do with reinvention.

Nintendo has shown a knack for leapfrogging its industry. Sure, some initiatives failed but the company rarely fails to surprise.

This time, in changing perceptions of gaming, Nintendo has surprised even itself."

This from president and CEO Satoru Iwata:

"We are not competing against Sony or Microsoft.
We are battling the indifference of people who have no interest in videogames."

And the final word goes to Nintendo's legendary videogame designer Shigeru Miyamoto, the soul of the company for decades:

"What I want to do, is to make it
so people can actually feel
something unprecedented."

Mission accomplished.

Until the next time...

The Formula

This from Linda Tischler's article on Northwestern U's Essentials of Industrial Design class in Fast Company.  In it, Linda profiles design guru Mark Dziersk, who teaches his students about the innovation process behind great products.

His parting words to his class as they pick up an assignment can be considered the mantra for Pow!, the formula for great Surprise.  So simple, but so true, and worth repeating ad nausem:

"Remember:
Creativity plus risk
gets you the grade"

And not just in class.  In business.  In life.  Everywhere.

 

What Goes Around

Leave it to the fast-forward-thinking Japanese mobile operator NTT DoCoMo (the pioneers of the mobile content industry) to succinctly and elegantly summarize the continuum theory of Surprise.  This from one of their trade ads:

"So Radical Today,
So Obvious Tomorrow"

Yin, meet Yang.

No Win Situation

Despite the hype and heat of all those bombastic car shows, the American auto industry is in the dumps. 

There are dozens of explanations, but at the root of them all is this one:  BORING CARS!

(Before you motorheads descend on me like vultures with news and pix of futuristic, gas-saving concept vehicles, lemme remind you that those sexy "Concept Cars" are akin to the photos people use on dating sites--nice, but far from reality.)

This is an industry that could use some more champions of Pow!, like Ralph Gilles, the guy who designed Chrysler's 300 but don't bet on it anytime soon.  Instead, heed the words of former Chrysler marketing head Jim Schroer, who groans:

"Most of the
auto companies
are playing to tie."

What Is New

Saw this on CBS Sunday Morning while pounding the elliptical machine at the gym (the headphones were cranked to Arcade Fire, but luckily, the closed-captioning was working). 

Taken from the show's annual "Money Edition," the adage sums up the Pow! philosophy in a mere five words:

Be New...
    or
Be Through.

Sounds a bit like the classic "Innovate or Die" dictum, but to us at Surprise Central, innovate connotes incremental improvement, while New means starting all over again...and again...and again.

The Why Behind The What

Way, way back in the Surprise Central time machine, October 27, '06 to be exact, I explained the essence of this blog's logo, calling it:

"...the semblance of a face, wide-eyed and open-mouthed...the epitome of what we look like when we're Surprised."

Well, the brothers Heath--Chip and Dan--take this explanation a step further in their excellent tome Made To Stick.  (Actually, it's their expansion of The Surprise Brow, a term coined by Paul Ekman and Wallace Friesen in THEIR book "Unmasking The Face"...but hey, there's a limit to how much I can read.)

The Pow! logo is what we look like when Surprised; here's why we look like that:

"When our brows go up, it widens our eyes and gives us a broader field of vision--the Surprise brow is our body's way of forcing us to see more."

Surprise doesn't stop with the eyes, though.

"In addition, Surprise causes our jaws to drop and our mouths to gape.  We're struck momentarily speechless."

You know what?  This stuff doesn't merely vindicate the ramblings of this street marketer; it's actually quite interesting.  So one last intellectual look at Surprise before I let you go. Go ahead, Heath bros., add some more importance to my beloved subject matter:

"If emotions have biological purposes, then what is the biological purpose of Surprise?  Surprise jolts us to attention.  (It is) triggered when our schemas fail, and it prepares us to understand why the failure occurred.  When (they) fail, Surprise grabs our attention so that we can repair them for the future."

Pow!--Not just fun and games, but clinically proven to be important.  And recommended by four out of five doctors.

Surprise Candidates

From someone who knows well the profound importance of Pow!, (her eponymous ad agency lives loud with its BANG! philosophy) Linda Kaplan Thaler gazes into her crystal ball in the most recent Fortune Magazine and sees Surprise in 2008's political campaign ads:

"They'll all have to ante up the 'E' factor.  We have become an entertainment-centric society, where the path of least resistance is the one that amuses or startles us most."

Just don't leave any of them unattended around Boston, okay?

Waning Wonderfulness

Another one in a series of great Surprise quotes, this from the bright and equally amusing  Daniel Gilbert in his book "Stumbling On Happiness":

"Among life's cruelest truths is this one:
Wonderful things are especially wonderful the first time they happen, but their wonderfulness wanes with repetition. 

"Psychologists call this habituation, economists call this declining marginal utility, and the rest of us call it marriage."

Happy anniversary, Mr. Gilbert!

Awe Shucking

This from David Mamet, Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright of ear-ringers like Glengarry Glen Ross and Speed-the-Plow, but taken from his most recent book, the ultra-provocative "The Wicked Son":

"Each human being has a certain amount of awe that must be discharged."

Words of wisdom from a man whose work over the past three-and-a-half decades discharged more than its fair share of awe. And shock, for that matter.  David continues to do so with his uniquely illustrated blog, found here.  Open your mind and enjoy.

May your 2007 be filled with many positive reasons to discharge awe!

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!

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.

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.)

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.