Long Tail and Shelf Life

Has the demand curve flattened as choices and access to those choices have exploded? Do the many little guys now have a chance to dislodge the few big guys? Or do people still want to do and buy what most other people do? Do we like the bandwagon or jump off of it? I say short-tailed big bodies still beat long-tailed small-bodies. A crowd draws a crowd. We like social validation. We like to participate in what others are participating in. Read Lee Gomes in the WSJ.

However, it is also true that when something big sticks around so long as to become predictable and boring, it will be slowly knocked off its perch by a fresh, growing replacement. The crowd will cross the street to see something newer, better, more special. Is shelf life growing shorter in the new world? Read Noah Brier about Metcalfe's Plateau.

Nada

More Life Imitates Clichés

Today my hand was caught in a cookie jar, one used as a container for packs of Splenda. Oh yeah, on my way out to drive my car I sneaked past my dogs napping on the kitchen floor. I did not want them running in front of my car, so I let sleeping dogs lie.

Life Imitates Clichés

Today on the farm. Watching ducks, I saw that those with the same feathers stuck together, the ducks were in a row and there was one ugly ducking. I had a pebble in my shoe that was annoying but not debilitating. Our kitchen was so hot I had to get out.

What's True?

Everything, in degrees. To what degree is a matter of conjecture.

More About So-called "Graphic Identity"

This subject has reared its ugly head yet again with a client. So... one more time, with gusto. 

Ten reasons why corporate "standards" do not matter: 1) no customer gives marks for consistency and neatness, 2) all things are consistent... depending on what criteria is used, 3) any adult can argue that x is actually consistent with y, 4) independent business units should look different from each other and the corporation -- they are discrete, 5) most practitioners are precious charlatans, 6) the practice lives in a time warp that rarely accommodates online media, 6) corporate programs of almost any sort are expensive, bureaucratic and abstract, 7) graphic standards are commonly mistaken for a means to "unifying a culture" -- they are not, 8) standards are unenforceable, 9) much time and energy is spent that could be applied to meaningful business endeavors, 10) the jargon used is unintelligible and theories bankrupt. 

Using Your Body Parts

Leg up, nose to the grindstone, eye on the ball, ear to the ground, arms around it, toe the mark, no bones about it, elbow grease, a slap on the wrist, finger on the pulse, in my gut, off my chest, load off my shoulders, palm of my hand, eye teeth.