Something stuck me today while reading this article on bacterial decision-making. We all need more receptors. Now, that statement doesn’t make a whole lot of sense without the context, so here’s the context:

“As bacteria’s ability to make decisions goes, E. coli is kind of dumb, which makes it easy for researchers to study sensing and information processing — essentially, decision making — in this bacterium,” says Alexandre.

E. coli has only five receptors that direct its decision-making process about movement, while Azospirillum brasilense has 48, making it comparatively much “smarter” in its ability to detect changes in its environments and as a result, to make complex decisions regarding where to move. (via www.ScienceDaily.com)

You see, the article was all about some pioneering research in the understanding of how bacteria make what would best be described as decisions. It’s all based on the input they receive from their receptors. The more receptors, the more information a given bacterium can use to make its decisions.

It’s the most basic form of stimulus-response behavior. But I think we humans can forget what an asset it can be, instead getting all hung up in our fancy-schmancy analysis and reasoning.

If you want to know more about the world, use your receptors. Learn something new that you didn’t know anything about previously. Listen to someone or read something you really don’t agree with. Put your hands in some dirt. Look under the hood of your car. Visit a museum. Take a trip.

Using your receptors will only make you want to use them more. And in a world where everyone’s a specifist and an expert, you’d be amazed how valuable a little bit of general knowledge and experience can be.

Cheers,

jae

You know that saying when it rains it pours? Well, it’s never been more apropos.

With economic woes, energy crises, renewable fuel debates, healthcare haggling and climate concerns, it’s not surprising that the importance one of our basest biological needs, water, has been sorely neglected. I’m not immune to the apathy; I was supposed to finish this post more than a week ago.

I guess it makes sense. The price per gallon of water is a pittance compared to what we pay for gasoline or diesel fuel. And for most folks in the U.S. access to water is as simple as turning the tap or spigot. It’s an incredibly important part of our lives completely taken for granted. But just because that’s the way it is doesn’t mean that’s the way it should be.

The U.S. debate about water will be a debate about access and rights. Who has the right to use a certain water source and how can they use it? It’s a tug of war that’s already starting to play out between states and between economic sectors. And the situation is only going to get more severe – because just about every good, service and action has a cost in water. It’s not just showering and brushing teeth. It’s the production, transportation, preparation and sanitation of the food we eat. It’s crucial to production of electricity and manufactured goods. It plays a role in every facet of our biology and our society.

The smart money in agriculture and energy is already looking at ways to make better use of water. Makes sense, as these two sectors are the largest consumers of water, according to a USGS report released in 2000 and updated in 2005. It’s the consumer market that’s lagging.

At O&B, we’re organizing some events to examine our office-wide and individual water use figures. It’s a way to shed light on an emerging issue that will have a profound impact on the markets we serve. And it’s a good way to remind ourselves to appreciate what we have, especially something as fundamental as water, which is a life or death issue for people around the world (See: Lifestraw, the situation in Mexico, MSNBC global shortage predictions, Foreign Policy failed state reporting, this World Bank worksheet).

I’d challenge you all (yes, all ten of you, dear readers) to take a look at the ways in which you use water. I’ll post some helpful links below. If you have suggestions for others, please leave a comment or send them via Twitter.

Water footprint calculator
Water use it wisely
Good magazine
WaterDrop

Cheers,

jae

I’ll admit it. I’ve anthropomorphized a time or two. In any creative profession, it’s an easy fix to ascribe a like mind to an object or creature. It helps make old stories new again or create a more compelling interpersonal narrative where one doesn’t naturally exist (see: Cars, WALL-E, Toy Story, the entire Looney Toons catalogue, the Disney empire, Babe, Charlotte’s Web, California Cheese marketing, Chick-fil-a’s long-running gag and the Honda Fit commercials).

You can see from the list, anthropomorphizing can be helpful. It can be fun. It can be useful.

Most of the things on that list I like, remember and enjoy, save the Disney catalogue. With a younger sister, I watched a crooning Caribbean crab serenade two young lovers one too many times.

But there are a few places where anthropomorphizing shouldn’t be taken lightly. Like the animal welfare debate. For every happy cow, there’s a very unhappy cow nipping at your heels in the Google results.

You see, people are very clever, but our brains are even more clever.

I once took a seminar on Philosophy of the Mind, and we spend a good chunk of time discussing Theory of Mind. Basically, it’s our ability to, by attributing our own self-understanding to another, figure out what he or she may be thinking, what he or she intends to do or what underlying motives the subject may possess. It’s the mechanism that helps you anticipate and respond to questions in a meeting before they’re even asked. It’s what helps us offer helpful advice to a fellow sojourner. It’s the reason you talk to your dog like a baby. It’s the mechanism that allows us to function as a society without coming across as total dullards or feeling as if we have to constantly explain ourselves.

Theory of Mind makes the world work. It’s also what makes it so easy for groups like HSUS to solicit enormous amounts of money with heartstring-tugging ads and so difficult to sell a story of animal care based on sound science. Being a science buff myself, I kinda hate those odds.

By the way, if you’re interested in reading it, you can download the CAST paper from that last link for free. It’s a good read if you’re the type of person who gives a damn about the conclusions of logical, critical minds who study these issues day in and day out.

So maybe it’s a good thing we have a heifer from Wagner farm in North Dakota tweeting her story, following in the footsteps of the first four-legged Twitter star, Sockington.

After all, it should be a hell of a lot easier for good-hearted producers and veterinarians, who spend time around them every day, to write a better story about our anthropomorphized animals than the people with all the bucks but none of the science or experience on their side.

So here’s a call to arms. For all the folks out there with the ability to do so, give a tweet on behalf of your favorite sow, hen, heifer or steer. People want to know what they’re eating, but you have to reach them in a way they’re compelled to pay attention to. All the science in the world doesn’t go half as far as a great narrative that exploits the built-in mechanisms of the brain.

Cheers,

jae

With more web-savvy clientele, I spend a lot of time preaching the need for fresh, compelling content. While that’s incredibly important, I just realized today, I probably don’t spend enough time talking about the importance of context to my clients or my co-workers.

In the real world, we’re judged by our associations every day. Who are your friends? What are your hobbies? What’s your job? Where’d you go to school? On and on.

We can blame our brains for this. Essentially, inside each of us there’s a master file clerk attempting to organize the information we’re bombarded with each day. The file clerk can only file information based on its difference or similarity to other information already in the catalogues.

So, if I meet a new colleague with terrific taste in music, my file clerk puts him under Cool People I Know and People I Work With. I then find out this new colleague is an avid Ultimate Frisbee player, and my file clerk also adds him to the Kind of A Douchebag section. This is how we metabolize context to build a working profile of the people around us.

We do the same thing with brands. We judge them on who they choose to partner with, where we tend to run into them, what kind of editorial content they choose to surround themselves with and how they behave in relation to other brands with which we’re familiar.

Our little filing homunculi help us easily understand and make our respective ways through the world with associative memory and knowledge. What do your associations say about you? What about your brand’s associations? In a hyperlinked online world, this has sweeping implications. A quick search can unearth your entire history of associations.

Make the right kind of associations for yourself and your brand by understanding how the brain processes associative knowledge. You can learn more about the role of the frontal lobe from this Wikipedia article.

For a focused exploration of the underlying processes, the NIH has a great article here. The meat and potatoes of the discussion begin in section two.

If you’d like to see associative knowledge put to practice on a social scale, visit thisislike.com.

Cheers,

jae

That’s an analogy, for my my fellow word nerds. My folks made me do those before I was allowed to play outside as a child. Hated it then. Glad for it now.

Anyway, The idea is, your brand can (and should) be different things to different people. The trick is making that quantum state look like the only one there is to the people observing.

Informative lay science tangent:
Schrodinger’s Cat refers to a quantum paradox of one thing being able to inhabit two different states at once. In Schrodinger’s example, a cat in a box with a flask of poison can be to be both alive and dead at the same time based on a prior random event, but, when observed, be found to be either alive or dead. (wiki your brain)

The root of the problem came in the realization that in experiments on the wave/particle nature of photons (bits of light), these photons could behave as both a wave and a particle, but when observed, chose to behave as one or another. (wiki your brain)
End science tangent

You too can be both a wave and a particle. Inevitably, you’re trying to reach out to an audience that’s anything but monolithic. If you’re smart, you can be Schrodinger’s cat and be one thing to one observer and quite another thing to another observer. It’s a tall order, but if a cat can do it, you have cause for serious concern if you can’t manage.

The trick is to figure out where your audiences are. Different observers have different vantage points. Thus, by exploiting the spaces where they don’t overlap, you can be two things at once.

Of course, in an interconnected world, everyone is going to figure out that you’re two things at once. Funny thing is, observation makes the heart grow fonder.

Your old college friends may love you for the occasional drink-fueled reunion exploits that remind them of earlier days. Your co-workers may love you for your diligence, punctuality and reliable sobriety. One could argue you’re still the drunken debaucher at the same time you’re the reliable co-worker, but you choose to be one or the other based on who’s observing and a previous random event (in my case, usually that first drink). To point, neither group is going to think any less fondly of you as long as the behavior they observe outweighs the behavior they just hear about.

Be the wave-particle duality. Be two things to two different observers. It’s easier than you think, and a whole hell of a lot more effective than treating every audience as if they’re the same.

Cheers,

jae

I was picking up some tortillas at the grocery the other day. As I’m surveying the choices (and there are startling number for an item that’s just flour, fat and water), the woman beside me turns and asks what kind of beans she should get for a corn and bean salsa. I say black beans are definitely the way to go because they’re more squishy than the pintos, and a nice offset to the crunchy corn.

She furrows her brow, smirks and points to her Bluetooth headset. I fucking hate those things.

Pardon me, lady, for thinking your eyes looking directly at me while your mouth formed a question implied that question was directed to me.

This is what failure to properly segment looks like to your customers. It’s speaking at, not speaking with, and it makes you seem tone deaf and out of step.

A well-tailored message in the proper venue speaks clearly and unambiguously to the people who need to hear it. Fail to put in the legwork to identify your audience, and you’re just another clueless Bluetooth user shouting questions down a tortilla aisle.

Cheers,

jae

Part 2 – Paying to be ignored OR how I learned to stop worrying and love the angry letters:

People who write angry letters (or E-mails or tweets or posts) are an interesting breed. I’ve met a few, and I don’t think there’s any unifying personality type there. I think, generally, they’re just people who’ve taken enough interest in a given topic to complain but not enough to propose a workable solution. Actually, I don’t have a single angry letter (or E-mail or tweet or post) in my files where someone genuinely expected a response to their concern from someone who could address it.

I suppose I should take a moment to say that I’m talking about people who write angry letters to companies with which they have an issue. Not to the Consumerists or to legal counsel. Those people are out for blood.

Anyway, one thing I can say about angry letter writers is, “To whom it may concern. Thank you for your interest. You make my job worth doing.”

The thing is, when you reach out to people for a living, there’s a real emptiness that sets in when you don’t solicit any response whatsoever. At the very least, when I do something on behalf of a client, I hope they receive an angry letter or two. After all, the law of averages in a world with a population of over six billion makes it a given that you can’t please all the people all the time. And if you’ve displeased a few, you’ve at least made a few happy.

If you’ve ever communicated in such a vapid, innocuous way that no one was even remotely impassioned by what you had to say, that’s a real problem. You’ve just wasted time or money or both. Simply, you’ve made a conscious decision to be ignored.

So, if you’re not tracking the effectiveness of your communications in any more formal fashion, at least be glad for those angry letters. It means you said or did something in a way that was worth the effort.

Cheers,

jae