WUMPWORLD

A Definition For Humanitarian Design?

After reading the many posts and articles discussing Emily Piloton of Project H and Bruce Nussbaum about Humanitarian Design, I’m left thinking there is a lot of hot air and chest puffing going on. I’m not sure there is an easy, clear answer to this debate and maybe there does not need to be one. The center of this debate is the role designers play in solving problems faced by cultures around the world versus solving problems where they live. How equipped are they to be involved in different cultures and provide lasting and necessary impact?

Nussbaum contends that designers wanting to save the world need to tread carefully when playing in other people’s back yards. They might actually be adding to and creating bigger problems with their intrusion and interference. Why not work on problems at home? He points a finger directly at organizations like Project H, Architecture for Humanity and Acumen Fund with his personal account of seeing how local cultures react to their presence. The reaction to Nussbaum from Emily Piloton is to be careful where you are pointing. She fully admits to mistakes her organization made with their first project the Hippo Roller. Moving forward, Project H has made a commitment of partnering with local designers within local cultures. To prove her point, she discusses how she moved the organization to Bertie, North Carolina where they will be working with local school districts to improve the quality of education. Other thought leaders have gotten into the debate including Alex Steffen, Robert Fabricant, and Cameron Sinclair.

A few weeks ago I attended an event by the local Seattle IDSA called “Can Designers Save the World”. This event contained many of the same discussions of this debate featuring a panel of designers who practice design in many cultures all over the world. I enjoyed the event, but found more insight when talking to Kara Pecknold from Emily Carr University of Art and Design (one of the panelists) afterward about her experiences in Rwanda. To be honest I went into that event thinking much like Bruce Nussbaum. Why are we so focused on problems in other countries when we have some real and significant problems right here. As I talked to Kara, I realized that she was changing my perspective on this. Not that she was convincing me to start working on design projects in far away lands (not her intent either), but that you need to be passionate about the work you do for others. For me personally, that means working on issues right here in the Pacific Northwest. Just because I believe my efforts need to be spent here, does not mean every designers’ efforts should. It is not my right to judge what is appropriate for other people.

If you are genuine in your approach, you will find a way to make the work you do beneficial to your chosen cause. Maybe, this is a bit naive and simplistic. After all, not all good intentions work out, but I think that is part of the equation. When you want to give yourself freely to a cause it is not going to be easy. If you fail or run into a wall no one is going to take over and do it for you. That is part of the journey. It is hard work that takes the effort of hundreds of thankless hours, tenacity to get up after being knocked down time and time again, and vision to look beyond the unknown future and darkness ahead of you. This focus of the debate is in agreement in all the discussions I have read. Western trained designers are not going to swoop down into an impoverished area and make everything right with the flip of a switch.

We all have life experiences and skill sets that are uniquely ours. Some of us are prepared to do specific types of design in certain environments that others are not. This is not by chance. While external events may cause us to move down certain paths, I find they are often enough preparing us for a challenge in the future. Everyone has made many choices in their life to get to where they are today. While many people may share similar experiences, thoughts and view points, you alone, truly know what is in your heart. I sit in no place to judge others on the best use of their time and energy. They must decide that for themselves and be honest with what they hope to achieve. This is not a cop-out, because in many cases the people you are collaborating with are most directly affected by those actions and will hold you accountable.

Do we need to categorize Humanitarian Design and determine what it is and is not? I hope not. Doing good work for people should not be defined by others who have not walked the same path of life you have.

Design Your Impact

One of the main problems we have as designers in a time of climate change and over-consumption is how to avoid adding to the problem. After all, our profession promotes branding, advertising, and marketing to companies that make stuff. We design the packaging, paper products, ads, reports, websites, and any other communication device that connect our clients to their audiences. We get paid to communicate every need and desire to consumers whether they need it or not. When we are successful it leads to more services and products being consumed. This leads to our clients growth in wealth and resources and the ability to make more stuff. They become thrilled by our work and hire us to do more. As a designer conscious of the problems we face for our future humanity, how do you balance economic success for yourself and the impact it has on the planet?

The first thing for graphic designers to do is rethink how the product or service we are promoting is communicated. How do you optimize a product or service touchpoint? If that product is a sneaker sitting on a self-serve shelf, how is the item packaged, displayed and transported? What materials are used to accomplish this? What are the upstream and downstream effects of producing these materials? What can be done to lessen the impact of that packaging? If you are designing communications for the services of a Massage Therapist you would have a different set of questions. What media or device has the best reach for their specific market? Are you designing a website, flyer, postcard, brochure, gift box, trade show booth or a combination of any of these? Is it necessary to use any of these communication devices to reach the goals of the project? How do you maximize ROI (return on investment) with the least environmental impact? Once you have a good understanding of what the project consists of, then you can design it to your specific goals. Can it be lighter, smaller, minimize waste, use less materials, reuseable or multi-functional? Can you use recycled, reclaimed materials and renewable resources to make it? Can you avoid toxic materials? Is it sourced from local, socially and environmentally responsible companies? These are design problems that weigh the economic, environmental, social impact versus the communication needs that meet the end goal for the project. What do you hope to accomplish with the project and what are the externalities resulting from it?

I have developed my own project report card for weighing these options and helping guide Riverbed Design through the process. You can find it here. Here are a few of the many resources that I would recommend for framing sustainable communication design methods; AIGA’s Living Principles, renourish and the book Green Graphic Design by Brian Dougherty. All of these have similar approaches and philosophies that will greatly help any designer. These resources cover the many aspects of sustainable design practices. They speak of the physical standpoint of environmental impact and the other two areas of the triple bottom line, economic and social impact. When I started my own company I had a vision of a truly sustainable design practice that has a positive impact on the world. I wanted to be able to wake up every morning and be excited and happy about the work I would do. I did not want to worry about what my work was actually achieving and who it was ultimately benefitting.  To accomplish this, I knew my company had to involve all three parts of the triple bottom line. Who I work for is just as important as the work I do and who benefits from it.

Everyone has their own idea of what “positive impact” means. You can make the case that working for Walmart will have a positive impact. They have a massive amount of influence on their corporate partners (wholesalers and manufacturers) with their purchasing power. This gives Walmart a great deal of leverage. Currently, they are using that influence to change the packaging for the products they sell. This is their sustainability mission that is reducing carbon in millions of metric tons and at the same time saving them a great deal of money. Personally, I would not work for them because of the negative economic impacts they make on local economies and how poorly they treat employees. This is based on my own value system.

Every designer or design firm has to answer this question for themselves: Who do I want to work for and why? It is important to have a value system in place that you can refer to as a guiding light. When times get murky and it becomes hard to trust your own instincts a value system can tip the decision matrix to making the right choices for yourself. It is paramount to do good research and make sure you will feel positive about the work you will produce for your client. There are plenty of companies that say they are doing the right things, but as soon as you scratch the surface things falls apart. Weigh the cost of the job, the type of work, the opportunities it provides, and what you will be paid against your value system. Interview your potential clients to make sure you understand them as well as provide yourself the ability to inform them on your particular approach. Do not lose the chance to show your strengths and knowledge. Building trust with a client will allow you to advise them on anything they consider you as an expert. On a small scale, this could mean the difference in whether they will explore recycled papers for a project, or on a larger scale, auditing their communication channels for a “green” friendly way. This can give you the best foundation to make the greatest impact. An important lesson I have learned is there is an abundance of companies wanting to do the right thing and they are waiting for someone to show them how. Sometimes you can make a more substantial impact by working for the company that wants to be green versus the one that already is. As a designer working in a the age of climate change and over-consumption, this is your chance to make a difference and feel good about the work you do.

Design Lives in Intuition and Logic

Over the past couple years there has been significant discussion about design thinking and how it is impacting the business world. The spokesman are people like IDEO’s Tim Brown and RISD’s John Maeda. Public corporations like Apple, Target and Proctor & Gamble attribute part of their success in the value they place on design within business process and innovation. Dan Pink’s “A Whole New Mind” outlines how our world of analytical thinking is changing. He makes a case for the need of design to lead America into the future. Business Week and Fast Company have both gotten into the game with many articles on design thinking.
Design Thinking…What is That?
Business Week Exchange: Design Thinking

People see the buzz and the success, but it is still hard to comprehend what exactly is “design thinking”. We know this is important but why? Even as a designer this can be hard to explain sometimes. Talking with other designers we all “get it”, but when discussing it with non-creatives it can be hard to capture that “aha” moment. I recently read the book“The Design of Business” by Roger Martin. He does an excellent job of outlining the process and showing how design thinking works successfully in business. He breaks it down into two main components; analytical (reliability) and intuitive (validity). These two components need to work in a “real time” cyclical basis through the knowledge funnel. A system that captures all ideas and feeds them through three process stages till they become a working algorithm.

“The distinction between reliability and validity, is at the heart of the innovation dilemma. The goal of reliability is to produce consistent, predictable outcomes. The goal of validity is to produce outcomes that meet a desired objective.”

Again this gives a great understanding of the importance of design thinking and the balancing of analytical and abductive logic. Undersanding reliability and the need to measure, report and predict based on past events makes sense. There can be difficulty in setting up the right systems to get the data that you need. Many organizations spend vast resources to make this happen. It is effective and proven to be well worth the expense. The part of design thinking that is harder to grasp is the intuitive. Is this a matter only for designers? Do you need only to hire designers to make this work? Part of the answer is yes and part of the answer is no. If you need to make it happen right now and your company does not have this skill set, then you need to hire a designer. Most likely this is the case, since intuition and abductive logic are not supported or emphasized in our current business culture. Designers have been trained to hone these abilities, recognize their effects and demonstrate why.

You hear the term “look and feel” associated with design and separated from content. “Look and feel” is emotion and emotion lives in the world outside of logic. I spend quite a bit of time observing and listening to my clients. As I listen, I let my thoughts create images and free associations in response to what I hear and see. These are intuitions. Some of these thoughts or visualizations happen because of associations to past experiences and the need for my mind to make sense of new concepts and categorize them with other similar ideas. Sometimes these thoughts are not associations at all. They are a feeling. When I sketch, I start with these feelings, ideas, words, concepts, and attributes written down next to me or floating through my mind. As I draw and work through ideas, I might control the designing of these concepts with particular strategies. On other occasions, I do not control it at all and let things happen. It takes time, patience and practice to perfect the honing of intuition. It also takes time and practice to gain the ability to see and identify why certain elements work or do not work. This is my own knowledge funnel of implementing strategies, experience and proven techniques in contrast to seeking out new innovations and ideas in a constant feedback loop.

As a visual communicator you learn how value, hue, line, space, rhythm, relations, symbolism, composition and depth can have an effect on design. How a tweak here or there can make a vast difference on how a viewer reacts to a what they see. This is the “look and feel” that others react to, but cannot always describe why. This is what you hire a designer to do for you today. In contrast, many organizations can start down the path of design thinking by creating processes that value intuition and practice it within the organization. It may take awhile for this new process to work. In the long run the practice will create muscle memory through proven success and innovation. This success will lead an organization to trust using intuition and logic together in a design approach.

Visual Development of a Logo

Last month I had the pleasure of teaching a one day class on logo design for the LINK program. For those of you unfamiliar (which a majority are), this is a program aimed at High School students with interests in Art and Design. It is affiliated with the local Seattle AIGA chapter, where I am on the board.

“The AIGA Link Program connects Seattle area high school students with creative professionals through nine monthly workshops. Every third Saturday of the month, students complete artwork that demonstrates an understanding of the medium presented by a guest artist. Seniors participate in a portfolio-building workshop to create a professional presentation of their work. Finally, the AIGA Link Program awards scholarship opportunities for qualified graduating seniors.”

I really enjoyed the session and was amazed by the talent of the students. In my preparation for the class, I put together a presentation that talks about logo design and branding. With this, I ended up creating a visual case study of my work on the Seafair logo to get the students primed for the same process they would go through. It was fun to put together and I thought I would share it here. If you want to see some of the particular ideas and concepts for how this process works, you can check out this previous post “Paint a Picture with Your Brand”.

This was the original logo we redesigned for Seafair. After going through a strategic branding process with Seafair, we developed key messaging, values and these six attributes.

The first step in logo design is pick up a pencil. Here is where the key ideas develop and sparks fly.

These are the first design concepts presented to Seafair. Things were off to a good start, but we needed to push it farther.

This was the second phase of the designs. Ideas were starting to coalesce but it they were not perfect yet.

This is the final logo. It has the right tone and combination of elements we were working for. The mark matched up with the attributes and represented the main aspects of a Seattle summer; sun and water. We also started developing ideas on how to incorporate the logo with the other 9+ logos in the event family matrix.

The final Seafair logo and brand family logo system

Internal Dynamic Communications

When two different pair of eyes view the same object, how can they see it or comprehend it differently? Because of the experience they bring with them. If you give a paddle to someone who has never been exposed to boats they will not know what a paddle is intended for. So how do you see things for what they truly are or meant to be? Or the question for any company; how do you tell your company’s unique story in a way that everyone comprehends it? You have to account for the context. Claude Levi-Strauss argued “it is only the way in which different elements of the content (form and context) are combined together which gives meaning.” You need to have context in order to have meaning. The solution is to create context within the form. This system gives structure to the form and therefore the context to explain the concept to new eyes experienced or not with the system. Put the uninitiated paddleman in a non-motorized boat on the water and give them a paddle. They will instinctively know the paddle is a tool to be used for this situation. They might not know exactly how to use it, but they will figure it out eventually.

Everything that evolves or is created within the form has a reference point. If this element changes within the form it delivers a new experience. Now give the newly experienced paddleman a new tool that looks like a paddle, but has an added feature like being lighter weight or an adjustable shaft for different sized people. The context you have created allows their comprehension to grow. This is called internal dynamics. You are not relying on general education of the masses to provide shared context to give meaning.

In communication or experience design you rely on shared context and internal dynamics. A web site is a perfect example. The usability of a web site is based on the instinctual nature it contains; how easy it is to navigate, to find information quickly and to understand how to use it. The level of someone’s experience in surfing the web is part of this, and other factors like how a culture reads, understanding of visual space, and readability of a typeface. Designers want to use these external elements that are part of our shared context to make communication happen faster and get straight to the center of meaning. What they do not want to do, is use external context to play a major role in the communication of a unique message. You need a good portion of internal dynamics to create the story.

If someone comes to a web site and easily gets the structure, that is good. But if they too easily perceive the content, that can be bad. That visitor will lose interest because they feel like they have seen it before and there is nothing new to experience. Seen that, done that. What keeps people intrigued is a new experience and delivering that consistently. This requires a system that relies on internal dynamics to drive the engine. A good blog site will often refer back to previous articles. This sets the tone and understanding for the current article or leads someone to learn more. Design uses this also. An often used example is Apple. You can take the Apple logo off of any of their ads and you will still know who the ad is for. Apple’s success means their style and approach will be copied. Again, when a design, thought or message is copied what benefit does it bring? In the short term it plays well and can give a quick boost. As time changes and trends fade the imitator will continually have to look for the newest fad to copy. Trend followers rely on external context to survive and thus are left to the whims of the trend setters. They are reactionary. Companies or organizations that rely on internal dynamics naturally evolve without the same struggles. These companies are proactive and do not use external forces to position themselves. They continue to push themselves by building upon their foundation of context. Each new idea carries with it a part of the original DNA. Because of this, internal dynamic companies do not have to explain themselves over and over again. Instead, these companies can concentrate on deepening their content and pushing innovation. They can afford to try new things because they have a structure to support them.

At Riverbed, we make our client’s communications successful through internal dynamics. We are lucky enough to work with clients that are innovative and full of rich experiences and services. We want to keep it that way. By concentrating on demonstrating their unique qualities and values, and developing an internal context for that experience, our clients can continue pushing the boundaries of their great work.

The Picture of Sustainability

I met with Alan Alabastro this week. He is a photographer that photographs cultural events and architecture. We had a nice discussion about our businesses and found we connected on a variety topics. At one point, I was discussing the plethora of green leaf logos, water drop icons and planet earth globes, that are the typical arsenal for designers branding sustainability. These logos devalue the true nature of the businesses they represent. By using the green leaf icon they look like all the other “green” companies and programs out there. A great question he had for me is what does an image (photo) of sustainability look like? What a great question. How do you get to the basic principals of sustainability in a visual way? Alan’s own insight into this question was capturing the moment someone is putting their coffee cup into the right container whether that is recycled, compost or trash. This is the most direct and topical. It deals with where we are today and serves as an instruction guide to actions we can make to have an immediate impact on climate change. It gives guidance and informs people of what they do not know and what they could be doing. If everyone does their part, then we would make a tremendous impact on the problem. How this type of direct representation of imagery relates to individual organizations, movements, and companies is a case by case issue. A green product or company has its own direct action that needs instruction on why they are green or sustainable. That was at the center of our conversation; creating the right imagery for the businesses we work with.

I take it a step farther. Showing the object (in this case a coffee cup), and what to do with it, is a specific problem that relates to a moment in time. Each business has a cup and problem (what to do with it) and therefore a solution (recycle, compost, trash) that serves the interest of sustainability. This is what you can do today with the choices we have. But what about capturing the cup, the person holding it, the environment around them and how they all relate together? At first glance, this might seem like an insignificant variation on the original idea. The idea is to pull back our focus on the individual problem or object and capture the bigger picture. The image is showing the process that we can use to be more sustainable but the focus is no longer one action, but how does that one action relate to everything around it. If the background contains a hint of people walking by, a swath of blue sky, or cars rolling through traffic, we get this sense that there is more to the image than the cup and the decision of the person holding it. Part of this is direct in communication (the cup, person, container), and part of it has an emotional impact that we feel viscerally (the environment surrounding the action).

Whether it is the overall problem of climate change or an individual organization’s sustainable product or service, the imagery has to go beyond object oriented. It needs to tell the bigger picture or experience. Some organizations by their nature are dealing with huge concepts like 1% for the Planet. Their organization unites companies across all industries to make an impact together. On the flip side most companies, whether they are green or have green initiatives, are promoting individual products. An architect designs a LEED Gold Building. How do you capture that building, so that it represents the true impact it makes? Create an image of the building with people using it and the environment it surrounds. The aesthetics are important. People are attracted to beautiful things. Combine the beautiful building with the meaning of the building and what it does. This creates the context for the product or service and gives an emotional impact.

Give people a vision. Let them have more to look at and they can have a better understanding of what the choices are. It is hard to fathom how a slew of individual objects (sustainable programs, products, buildings, etc…) within the narrow scope of their own settings, leads to sustainability for everyone. Images that capture these objects as well as their surrounding elements begin to form connection points of interest. Like a giant jigsaw puzzle, people can visualize or feel how these bits and pieces start to fit together. The context is no longer individual, but holistic. It is no longer trapped in a single action of now, but how all these actions relate together towards a shared future vision. This is the marriage of the right brain and left brain. The analytical reasoning on a finite point of time matched with the emotional impact of seeing the forest beyond the trees.

Do we want to only create images that tell people what they must do and drag them down the path kicking and screaming? Or show them the bigger picture so they can make their own choices based on more information. Give context to sustainability and people will be drawn towards doing the right thing or at least buying or participating in it.

Branding 101 with Toys

When I was a kid my favorite toys were G.I.Joe and Transformers. These toys did not need to be explained or taught. They were a rich detailed world of imagination and creativity. I could pick one of these toys up and immediately dive in. My brother and I could create our own scenarios and stories to entertain ourselves for hours. Each of us would gravitate towards specific characters that we liked. Sometimes these characters were the same, but most of the time they were different. Our choices tended to follow our personalities. My brother preferred the outwardly brash characters that were at the center of the action. I preferred the secondary characters that were heroic but understated. You did not have to see a cartoon or comic book to start categorizing these characters and fitting them into certain slots like the strongest, fastest, or smartest. As the world of these toys expanded I could put new characters within certain gaps that might have been missing. For toys, these characteristics were stereotypes that enriched the story telling. The packaging and toys themselves communicated all of this.

How does this work even at a young age? Why is it so much fun and mesmerizing for kids? It is part discovery, part creativity and part making sense of the world. This process did two things for me as a kid. One, it made the characters easily understandable. Two, because I was involved in the process, I became personally connected to them through my understanding and imagination. I began to identity with the characters and anticipate how they might think or act. Later when I watched the cartoon, the storytelling matched up to my viewpoints and gave me more story to learn and explore. This all came from my need as a child to understand the world around me. These toys and characters are a language of archetypes that teaches universal ideas. When I came across similar stories, I applied these universal ideas to comprehend the new stories more quickly and completely. It allowed me to dig deeper into understanding the world. As the characters developed I started to attach more meaning to them and they became more complex.

These characters are symbols to an intricate web of ideas and concepts. When the characters interact with each other the complexity quantifies and patterns start to emerge. These patterns are similar to archetypes and symbols you can find in mythology, literature, fine art, music and other communications involving storytelling. Another communication method that works this way are brands. Brands, toy characters, music, stories, fine art are all communication devices that represent an abstract concept, idea, thought or a system of concepts, ideas and thoughts. Some are easier than others to translate. I’m sure the people that designed G.I.Joe and Transformers purposely made them outwardly simple and left room for the toys to grow with imagination and understanding. They used universal symbols with the toys in order to get the messages across easliy and therefore catch on quickly. The marketplace for toys is aggressive and demanding. New ideas like brands or stories depend on universal symbols, but they also need to be delivered in different combinations to fine tune that particular message. This is why it is important for companies to distill their brand down as far as it will go. Once the first message is delivered and understood, brands can start adding more complex ideas to build a true connection to a single individual. Brands must answer our needs for matching to universal symbols and work dynamically to differentiate internal characteristics and quality of that given product or service.

Man Made Image

“We can recognize random logos of corporations but cannot identify a tree in our front yard.” I was inspired by this from the documentary “11th Hour” by Leonardo DiCaprio. It reinforces the idea that nature is not relevant to our daily lives. If it is not a part of our culture and daily interactions, then how do we expect to understand the magnitude of what we have done to the planet. In “Blessed Unrest” Paul Hawken describes how much we miss if we are not looking for it. Right now we are looking for corporate logos because we feel they have more relevance in our lives than the tree you stare at everyday outside your window. It makes sense because we have been trained to think and look at things this way. The abstract symbolism of a corporation we buy products from becomes ingrained in how we look at ourselves. Thanks to designers and brand strategists like myself, the force of brands connecting to individuals is powerful.

The tree outside, while it lives in our physical environment it does not actively try to interact with us. It does not send you emails or connect to you on Facebook. It does not know about the latest trends or best buys. What that tree does is far greater. It takes the carbon dioxide we produce and turns it into oxygen that we breath. It prevents the foundation of your residence from being flooded. It traps moisture in our environment to help support a water rich ecosystem. We do not see these things happening. These processes are not as eye catching as the latest Hollywood blockbuster or beer commercial. This tree does not effect our conversation we have with our friends, family or co-workers. The tree is not relevant. We need to change that. I’m not saying world peace will happen if everyone can identity 30 trees. What I am saying, is we need to take a deeper look at what we consider important in our lives. We need to change our perspective. If we as individuals knew as much about what was happening in our environment, that truly effects us, we could accomplish amazing things.

We need to create new images that represent more than one organization’s success. If Coca Cola’s brand is worth billions of dollars, what could we make the ocean’s brand be worth? What is it worth today? I think we could all survive in a world without Coca Cola (at least the majority of us), but could we survive without a healthy ocean? These issues are not only about the environment or nature. Everything is dependent upon each other.Humans are part of nature whether we like it or not. In many ways we have thought and acted as if we are separate from nature. Now is our wake up call to reassess that idea. How does poverty affect toxic levels of mercury? Overcrowded prisons affect air pollution? I’m not a scientist so I could not tell you, but I do know that all things are interconnected. The cause and affect might have dozens of steps in these examples or seem unrelated altogether, but at some point they connect. By changing how we perceive and approach these issues we can change our understanding and how we see ourselves in relation to the world. We can turn selfish consumption and our instinctual need for production towards bigger tasks that ultimately save the human race. Humans possess a great gifts in innovation and creation. We just have been using them to gain independent wealth. Fathom what it might be like to live in a world where we work in harmony with the planet. Our skills at creation and innovation could spur a better world for us and the trees.

Buy What Matters

Do you consider yourself as part of the masses? Then why do you act like it? We have more freedom now than anytime in human history to buy the things that express ourselves and meet our needs. Why do we continue to follow companies that do not represent our interests?

It’s in our DNA. We learn at an early age to follow the path of least resistance. Our brains program connection points and map out our understanding with each new experience. When we do things a second time we expect it to be similar to the first time. If it is not, we feel it is different or not right. Ever drive somewhere a second time and feel like it took less time, but in reality it did not? That is because you are not paying attention to every detail like the first time. It is easier and less work because you know what to expect. That is the power of the big brands. They create an environment of consistency. We can expect the same product or service for the same cost over and over again anywhere in the world. This creates trust to the consumer because they reinforce our expectations. Whether you like it or not you know what you are going to get. The choice to go with these brands becomes the path of least resistance. You do not have to think about it. Even if you do not get exactly what you want you get something you kind of like for a cost that feels right. Who knows what the true cost of that product or service is to the planet or human society. “The grass is always greener” cuts both ways. Most of us desire something different, but rarely do we choose to change unless we are forced to.

We have a chance now to break from this structure, if we can get out of our habits. The opportunities to show people the “grass is greener” is right in front of us. The big brands today must work harder to keep our attention because the internet and social media provide a forum for people to share an opinion about anything. New companies can reach directly to a consumer without building a brick and mortar presence or advertise in traditional media. Not only can they talk about themselves, but so can consumers passionate about their new product or service. That is the power of blogs, twitter, facebook and the many other social media outlets. It is still an exposure game but the diverse number of people’s interests create a more specific communication outlet that can drive to a specific niche. If companies can find those “influencers” they have a chance to make an impact overnight.

Follow the brands that represent your interests and make sure you let people know about it. You have the chance to change the way we do business and give a good company a chance to compete with the big brands. We should not accept mediocrity or morally questionable products because it is easy. There is plenty to go around when people follow what they like versus what has been presented to them at the “global” neighborhood store. Use your buying power to voice the products and services that mean more to you and create a diverse marketplace.

Valley of the Wind

Recently I watched the “Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind” a film by Hayao Miyazaki. With the release of Miyazaki’s latest movie Ponyo, I wanted to take a look at some of his other films. I started to watch Nausicaä and realized I had seen it years before. Looking back I did not get the full impact of the movie until now. Partly because the original American release was missing 20 minutes and titled “Warriors of the Wind.” Hollywood/Disney did not think Americans would get it.

This movie is beautiful. Not only is it aesthetically wonderful, but the story is compelling on many levels. It takes place in a time unrecognizable to us today. The world has been completely changed due to an apocalyptic event and the birth of a poisonous forest dominated by giant insects. The source of these epic problems is man and his need to consume. I have read and seen several apocalyptic style books and movies over the last couple years. The great ones being “The Road” by Cormac McCarthy and “I am Legend” (original book) by Richard Matheson. These stories are dark and gritty and show the struggle of humanity’s last days. The next phase of the Earth is desolate and empty of what we humans consider to be beautiful.

What Nausicaä shows is that the earth will continue on and it could very well be beautiful without us. The poisonous forest teem with a brand new life looking like an alien landscape that is deadly to humans. It gives a glance of how humans would struggle with a new paradigm of our own creation. What we see as antagonistic like a poisonous forest and giant insects, are a way for the Earth to bring balance back to its’ ecosystem. How do we fit into this? Do we continue to struggle for our normal way of life? Do we find a way to have a symbiotic relationship with the evolution? Nausicaä does a great job of showing how hard those decisions are and how we can be completely blind to the environment around us. Often times those answers are sitting right in front of our faces. Let us hope it does not take a thousand years for us to figure it out like in the movie.