Fred Wilson's Artistic Uncertainty Principle

Fred Wilson is a fascinating man. A little under six foot with an owl face, full beard, gray hair and a kind yet mischievous twinkle clearly visible from the last row in the Nasher Museum auditorium, Fred Wilson’s Semans Lecture Tuesday night helped breathe new life into a jet lagged brain. Wilson’s simple idea is context matters.

Wilson, a MacArthur Genius Grant recipient and Whitney Museum Trustee, uses conceptual art to re-imagine museum space, display and legitimacy. Mr. Wilson turns museum “best practices” on their head exposing hidden virtues, values, prejudices, truths and deceits. Mr. Wilson generously spent several hours explaining his art and process. Starting with an installation in the Bronx, Mr. Wilson changed attributes and characteristics of art’s display. His work with the Maryland Historical Society was a clear highlight in a lecture full of funny interesting moments.

Image the Maryland Historical Society. Could there be a stuffier context for Mr. Wilson’s “museum mining”? Mr. Wilson’s personal ambivalence is why he spent a year re-installing a complete floor within the Historical Society. Ambivalence has many dimensions. Mr. Wilson is an African American New Yorker. He felt like a stranger in a strange land visiting the Maryland Historical Society secretly interviewing to see if he wanted to mine their museum. All art requires courage. Mr. Wilson deserves attention and kudos for turning directly into discomfort. The Maryland Historical society deserves similar reward for offering their treasures for recontextualization, some of which was bound to be less than flattering. “Surely the doll house is sacrosanct,” one exasperated museum employee said. It was not.

Mr. Wilson’s Museum Mining
Fred Wilson creates installations and juxtapositions often using a museum’s existing art, sculpture and artifacts. “I am like Rod Serling controlling your TV set,” Mr. Wilson explained. Mr. Wilson’s genius uses a museum’s “treasures” to tell a different story by changing almost nothing. “Museums always put things out like everything is the same,” he explained. Fred Wilson doesn’t treat everything the same, his subtle changes to display and treatment creates HUGE changes for museum patrons altering everything on view and everyone viewing.

What happens when a slave shackle is included innocently in the middle of eighteenth century fine silver? Mr. Wilson isn’t shocking simply for the sake of it. Changing context changes all AND much of context’s hidden hypnosis comes forward. Mr. Wilson helps us see the unseen. “Things in a museum’s storage can tell you even more than what is on view,” Mr. Wilson said. I experienced this truth. I was granted an extensive tour of the Vassar Museum’s storage as an undergraduate writing about art for my friend Alex Agnew’s upstart paper The Syllabus. For every item on display thousands sat in storage. Display, I understood standing surrounded by amazing unseen art, is editing as much as anything.

Museum guards are unseen, edited out of our active view. Mr. Wilson was a museum guard after graduation at the Museum of Modern Art and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. His seen yet unseen status as guard helped him think about deeper meanings associated with our tendency to selectively see. One favorite story Tuesday night was when Mr. Wilson warned Whitney museum staff he would create his most recent work “in costume.”

“I don’t know if they thought I would show up in a bunny suit or what, but I put on my guard uniform, stood by a sign and disappeared to staff members I just lunched with. I loved the reaction of patrons as I led Whitney staff through the exhibit in my guard uniform,” Mr. Wilson said of his Whitney experience.

Questioning Museums
Mr. Wilson’s lecture and art exposes a well kept museum secret. Museums use space and real or perceived legitimacy to change history, art and us. Mr. Wilson’s not so hidden question is why is a museum’s a priori presentation correct. Museums interpret, clean up and modify. Museums have a point of view.

All too often, Mr. Wilson proposes, a museum’s view is created reflexively from existing theories, prejudices and petty power brokering. Who died and made Alfred Barr (MoMA’s founder), Thomas Hoving (famous Metropolitan Museum of Art Director) and Thomas Krens (Guggenheim expansionist Director) God? Mr. Wilson doesn’t cast aspersions but he does connect dots. Museums, even those dedicated to questioning, often become sources of hidden self-perpetuating context.

Listening to Mr. Wilson I thought of several supporting thinkers: writer Malcolm Gladwell, Black Swan author Nassim Nicholas Taleb and physicist Werner Heisenberg.

Heisenberg’s and Mr. Wilson’s Uncertainty Principle
Heisenberg noted the “observer effect”. The act of observing something changes it. In physics it is impossible to know a particle’s position and momentum. Observation actively exerts influence as Mr. Wilson’s upside down museum displays show. Mr. Wilson's observer effect is how we are changed by his contextual tinkering.

Taleb’s And Mr. Wilson’s Black Swan Theory
Taleb’s influential book The Black Swan proves how poor supposed “experts” forecast the future. Humans, Taleb points out, tend to work within degrees of some anchor. Anchors can be historical, cultural or purely random. Anchoring as a psychological phenomenon is also widely covered by Duke’s behavioral economics professor Dan Ariely’s in his increasingly well known marketing book Predictably Irrational: The hidden forces that shape our decisions. What Taleb, Ariely and Wilson show is how powerful self perpetuating anchors can become. Museums gather around a collective hearth adopting “best practices” that may legitimize accidental, cultural or hidden aesthetic.

Malcolm Gladwell’s and Mr. Wilson’s Tipping Point Outliers
Gladwell’s Tipping Point may explain how anchors perpetuate, how anchors move through space and time like viruses. Museums, Mr. Wilson points out, “acquire” they don’t “steal”. Museums are good, enlightened, and fair not prejudiced, petty and trite. Gladwell points out how easy some cultural ideas transfer becoming sticky quickly seen as truth. Mr. Wilson’s slave shackle and other seen / unseen racist museum examples point to how easy viral transmission of bad ideas can be. Anchors once set can be very hard to reset or even see.

Gladwell’s Outliers suggests how random super success can be. Gladwell doesn’t deny hard work’s value. He understands the need for 10,000 hours of work before competence and insight replace naïve trust. Gladwell and Mr. Wilson point out how easy the path is for some and how random the reasons including when and where one is born. The tail to that coin’s head is how hard a path others have for those same random reasons. Gladwell advocates more equitable distribution. One immediate reaction to Mr. Wilson's art is a similar feeling.

Don’t Know What We Don’t Know
Mr. Wilson’s primary gift may be sharing a secret. When Mr. Wilson “mines a museum” he displays often hidden, automatic and self perpetuating context. Mr. Wilson’s chiaroscuro ability to see invisible mores helps us see hidden selves. We may trust museums less after walking one of Mr. Wilson’s installations, but we understand art and life better.


Thanks to the Semans Family
A member of the family who helped make Mr. Wilson’s lecture possible was in the audience. Funding and providing a platform for an artist who questions art’s tenets is a brave act. Thanks to the Semans family and Nasher Museum of Art staff for continued courage and excellence (read my review of their recent Picasso and the Allure of Language exhibition). I spent the week before Mr. Wilson’s lecture at a great museum, The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, a museum I love (read my review of the Avedon exhibit). Duke’s Museum of Art isn’t as big, but I would bet the over on Nasher’s staff expertise and creativity against any museum. The Nasher Museum of Art at Duke is a Durham and national treasure.

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Blank Slate Steven Pinker

Love this Colbert interview with Harvard Psychology professor and writer Steven Pinker. Ridiculously smart, Steven Pinker is pitching his book The Blank Slate (need to read this). Stephen Colbert turns to Pinker trying to put him on the spot and asks, "Your specialty is the brain and how it works, so how does the brain work in five words or less." Pinker responds, "Brain cells fire in patterns." This answer had to be spontaneous as Stephen Colbert watched Pinker count the five words on his fingers. Loved the fact that Pinker, whose IQ has to be north of 150, counted the five words out on his fingers. Too funny how straight Pinker plays it despite Colbert best efforts:

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
Steven Pinker
www.colbertnation.com
Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor Religion

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College Essay Writing Advice

College Application Season
Every year a few students (or parents) find my offer for free college essay writing advice. I love helping students with their dreaded college admissions essay :). I wrote a college essay in smudged ball point misspelling every other word. Miracles happen as my admission to Vassar proves. My first job was Assistant Director of Admission at Vassar College. Seemed the least payback owed (lol). I asked Brian, a favorite student last year (2008), to share what it was like to work with me on his college application essay:

Brian's Note About Martin's College Essay Writing Advice
Martin was more successful in making me a better writer than all of my English teachers in high school. I was extremely lucky to receive his help and would not change a thing about my college essay writing process. He gave great constructive criticism and always made pragmatic suggestions. My writing process was long but the final results were worth the effort. I sent Martin a series of drafts that he marked up and sent back for revision. He always highlighted possible changes I should make in yellow and never changed anything I had written. I really like how I had complete control of the paper and how Martin always gave an explanation for why a specific change should be made. I was improving my essay and learning how to write better simultaneously.

Most of his criticisms focused on eliminating verbosity, ambiguity and run-on sentences. I was amazed at how removing personal pronouns from my essay made it flow better. Martin helped me learn how to grab the reader and cut out non-essential paragraphs. His advice to change sentence structure to use shorter sentences made a noticeable difference in the clarity of my essay. I found that my sentences were less convoluted and made my admission essay easier to read. Furthermore, Martin pointed out flowery vocabulary that only detracted from my essay and suggested more crisp ways of phrasing sentences.

His suggestion to “never run yourself down” was applicable to my essay and I am fortunate to have heeded that lesson for my essay. Overall, his constant mantra of “edit, edit, and edit some more” made my admissions essay into something I could be very proud of. It didn’t hurt that I got into the college of my choice either. It would be very foolish not to enlist the help of Martin in one's essay writing endeavors. He offers quality assistance at an unbeatable price: the commitment to improve one's essay. He is a great guy and you will not regret embracing this opportunity.

-Brian

Emphasis above is mine pointing to common lessons. Most high school seniors need to remove personal pronouns (entirely if at all possible) and reduce teenage angst (not the venue). One of my first English professors wrote, "Good, Mr. Smith I am glad you kept reminding me I, Me and Myself was writing this drek so I could remember who to fail" in nasty red ink after severe personal pronouns abuse. Afraid to write "I" or "Me" to this day :). It is possible to learn to write around personal pronouns. Read a favorite writer. Do they smack you over the head with personal pronouns (betting not)? A college admission essay with few personal pronouns will stand out in a good way (trust me I've read thousands of them). It takes extra work to write a college essay without personal pronouns, but it sounds SO MUCH BETTER. Want to be one of the handful of essays remembered in your year? Learn to write around personal pronouns. Here is a link to other college application writing tips and other admission's secrets:

Martin's College Essay Writing Tips & Getting Into College Secrets

Need help with your college (or graduate school) essay? Email your application essay to: MartinSellingZoe(at)aol in MS Word format. I use Word 2008 on a Mac, so please save in a format that will open. If you don't have word you can embed in an email. Word is best. I turn on "track changes" so you can see editing as it happens (as Brian described). I like to give students an "edits accepted" version too. I have to see college application essays as an Admission's staff will read them and usually make a few more edits lol. Brian is right. The first three rules of writing great college essays are: edit, edit and edit some more.


Free Application Essay Advice
Free has a bad reputation. It can take hours of work with a single student's essay. How can I afford to give my time away? Helping students is a "give back", something I do because Vassar took pity on a poor preppy thirty years ago. Some day I may need to charge for editing time. At least for the moment, there is no charge to receive Martin's college application essay advice. I've helped hundreds of students like Brian. I will continue to provide free college application essay writing tips and advice as long as possible.

Take deep breathes, let me know how I can help and KEEP WRITING (LOL),

Martin

Martin's College Essay Writing Tips & Admission Secrets

The link above is to a master page with links to several articles on writing great college essays and getting into college.
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Digital Strangelove

David Gillepsie is rocking the web with Digital Strangelove: or How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love The Internet. It may be the best presentation about generation next I've ever read AND its design may be the best use of PowerPoint I've ever seen (makes mine look over taxed). If you haven't heard about it yet, you will:

Digital Strangelove (or How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love The Internet)

View more documents from David Gillespie.

Edmund Besh

I’m Leaving San Francisco on a jet plane on a damp morning. I’d forgotten how rice paddy like the bay looks flying over. There are jigsaw puzzle lines cut into the water with no corner pieces. Brice Marden’s flowing lines painted naturally into bay and hill. It’s dark. I can’t see the water’s reds, oranges and yellows. Looking down lights and settlement quickly give way to dusty brown bumps, the big western nothingness until Salt Lake and then Minneapolis, change planes and home to Durham.

There is something about twenty thousand feet, some unique thing as we head toward our cruising altitude. Patterns in the now ridged land below help recall a day twenty plus years ago fishing with my artist / painter friend Edmund Besh. Edmund looks as Germanic as his name sounds. He is small, pale, blond and blue eyed.

We fly over dusty colored hills below with a large lake out in the mist. We quickly leave civilization to the west. On a similar October morning twenty odd years ago Edmund and I were going to fish the Connecticut River. Edmund wanted to share a favorite discovery so we set out to walk the mile through the woods to the river. Arriving at an opening Edmund held his hands wide like a Ringmaster. An old house with rotting walls and floorboards but a serviceable roof stood next to a small pond.

The wooden house was loosing a battle with nature and time. A tipping point would arrive soon. The house would complete its slow implosion. We could carefully walk around the first floor. There was a lot of material in the house: a molding mattress, rusting cans and bug-ridden piles of books and old magazines. Picking through I found a tightly packed tube in one of the cleaner rooms.

“What’s this,” I called to Edmund as if he must have discovered everything in this hunted house. It was October only days from Halloween making the long abandoned house seem spooky. “I’ve never been in here just walked by,” Edmund told me as I pulled twenty large Hamden aerial maps out of the tube, a thrilling discovery for two artists. I was creating large collages then. Edmund finished the cow that now hangs in my foyer days before our arrival. Edmund’s knowing cow with hammers falling like rain drops above its too mortal head. “Wow,” Edmund said jumping up and down as our map grid grew one large map at a time. There were twenty maps. I tried to connect grid numbers, but some maps were missing.

“I will make you a deal,” Edmund said excited, “You take half and I will take half and let’s do something.” I loved Edmund’s idea. Our approaches to creating art were very different. It was why I liked the idea. Starting from the same basic source material, we would end up miles apart. Edmund wanted to start. I convinced we should fish first. The tea colored maps weren’t going anywhere and I liked fishing with Edmund.

Edmund’s father owned an insurance agency in Westfield, New York south of Buffalo. We didn’t know it then, but this period when Edmund lived in Hamden with his wife and my good friend from M&M/Mars Patrice was an anomaly. Edmund was painting and Patrice was working for M&M. Patrice’s promotion moved them to Hamden. Max, their first child, was a little over a year. Patrice was thinking about another baby. Soon this anomaly, this time bubble, would be over. Edmund would move back to Westfield taking over his father’s agency. This October day over twenty years ago was an exception. We were men in the woods hunting fish, finding mystery, thinking future thoughts. We walked to the river in search of stripped base.

Edmund’s father, a kind and gregarious man, taught him to fish Walleye, Pike and Bass on Lake Erie. Erie, one of the Great Lakes, is so great it feels like an ocean. Today’s trip to the river would be our last fishing trip. Responsibility’s collar wasn’t as tight as it was going to become. Edmund loved being a father. Days when men could play as boys were coming to a sure close.

We must be flying over the badlands now. Wind swept brown scars with no signs of civilization with snow covered peaks on the horizon remind how much “off the grid” space exists in America. We travel east heading into the sun. Shadows below become longer.

There was an October chill in Connecticut twenty years ago. I blew on my hands for warmth about every fifth cast. I didn’t care the fish weren’t biting.. I kept the space between us tight, enough distance not to plant a hook in each other but close enough we could talk. Becoming a father changed Edmund. Past conversations were about art. Edmund liked and was influenced by German Expressionism particularly Max Beckmann and the new school emerging from California: Schnabel, Salle and Fischl.

Before leaving Buffalo Edmund’s “Hung Up On A Rock” painting was accepted into the “Young Artists To Watch” show at the Albright Knock Museum. Hung Up On A Rock is a one of my favorite paintings (by anyone). I own six of Edmund’s paintings (all included in Art I Like folder on my Facebook page). Edmund wouldn’t part with Hung Up On A Rock. Hung Up On A Rock is six feet by almost four feet, perspective is behind a man in a boat. The man is bent grasping at oars. The boat’s bow is hung on a large dark rock. Water speeds by on either side of the rock. The man works furious to regain purchase and grip oars. It isn’t clear moving is a good idea. The boat seems fragile and small, the water strong and overwhelming.

“It reminds me of the Niagara River,” I told Edmund when he showed me the paining. “Yes,” Edmund said with a big smile, “I was thinking of a point beyond failsafe.” Failsafe on the Niagara River is a huge warning sign. Be in a boat unlucky enough to lose power and float past failsafe and a long deadly drop waits. Edmund is every bit as good a painter as Schnabel, Salle or Fischl, but being able to paint large canvases for a living is about many things and talent may be the least important. Edmund’s talent made me want to quit my day job and help him.

“Hey remember that time you made me start painting again,” Edmund shouted to me letting a long cast fly. “Yeah, why,” I asked. After seeing Edmund’s work I insisted he start painting again. Edmund was beyond broke in those days so I paid for canvas and paints. A Seat For Victor, the painting I have in my office was the result. Best $300 I’ve ever spent (lol). “I just wanted to say thanks,” Edmund said softly. Patrice brought Edmund over to the Carriage house we were renting. I liked him immediately. There was something very punk and rebellious about Edmund. It wasn’t just his two sizes to big black leather jacket, torn jeans and paint spattered keds, Edmund was disarming. He spoke fast, could spiral off in rapid-fire tangents moving from Renaissance to Ramones in three sentences. Patrice found Edmund in a club and, before the ink was dry on her divorce, she claimed Edmund and a different future. Patrice would be an artist’s wife.

This lasted until Patrice found out how little this Buffalo artist was making. Sure there was a Buffalo contingent of well-known artists. Hallwalls birthed Cindy Sherman, Robert Longo and Spain Rodriguez. Edmund may have found traction too, but babies and bill paying came first.

Flat dunes are giving way to the Rockies below. Leaving one last low dark ridge with only a whisper of snow I see taller peeks covered in snow ahead. Stripes mark time in some of these low dark hills, times when monsters ruled the earth before dying to fuel this plane and our cars.

When we arrived back at the house carrying a large tube and no fish Janet and Patrice met us in the driveway. “We made sandwiches,” Janet told me and by “we” I understood she made lunch. Max was fighting colic and Patrice was ready for help. Our Hamden trip was almost over. “What is that,” Patrice asked pointing to the tube. Edmunds voice went up and his word speed increased something he did whenever we discussed art. “We found the most incredible maps, maps of Hamden, aerial maps,” Edmund said. “Martin is going to take half and I am going to use the other half and we are going to do something,” Edmund concluded. If looks could kill I would have lost one of my best friends in that moment. “Oh,” was all Patrice said handing Max to Edmund and walking in the house. A look over to Janet told me it was time to go. “Hold Max for me while I split up the maps,” Edmund said handing Max to me.

“Wait, I have to have a picture of this,” Patrice laughed out the door. A minute later she arrived with a camera taking the only picture with me holding a baby that exists in the world. Max quieted for a moment too. Max Besh stopped crying, looked directly in my eyes and held my stare for half a minute. Change is in the air Max was telling me on that October day more than twenty years ago. Change is in the air.

We won’t be in the air for much longer. Rocky peeks and badlands are giving way to America’s breadbasket. October’s chill will become November’s thanks and December’s snow soon. In there somewhere I will turn 52, Max and his sister must be in college now. Edmund and Patrice if you are reading this give an old friend a call so we can catch up, go fishing and remember a time when life was an idea and time seemed suspended if only for a moment.

Picture of my den with Hamden maps on bottom left and right, Shepard Fairey Obey Giant is the Andre portraits, triangles in the middle are by Colorado artist Corky Dean and the two wood cuts are by Michael Reese.

Word Portraits of Friends and Famous

If I could paint portraits of my friends like Chuck Close or Alex Katz I would. Since I can't paint nearly as well as Close or Katz. I write instead. Read "word portraits" of friends and people I've met by using links below:

Word Portraits: Martin's Friends

Red Maxwell

Mary Kay O'Connor

Edmund Besh

Tim Storm

Rebecca (Vassar friend)

Julio (Vassar friend)

Word Portraits: ex-wives

Janet McKean

Janet's Always Help Rule

JAM's Birthday and Charlie's Passing

Word Portraits: Famous People

Elizabeth Edwards

Seth Godin

Jamie Lee Curtis

Meeting Robert Rauschenberg

Meeting Annie Leibovitz

Clobbering Yoko Ono

Seeing Miles Davis

Seeing Miles Davis 2

Bruce Springsteen Played My Prom

Artist Shepard Fairey

Yochai Benkler at TED

Richard Avedon SF MoMA

Painting With A Camera
Trying to locate why Richard Avedon's photographs always hit like a ton of bricks is easy. His 2002 retrospective at the Metropolitan changed photography. Prior to Avedon's 2002 show photography was something done for newspapers. Art required paint, steel or balls (not necessarily in that order). I'd had a southern fling at Vassar. I read Walker Percy and dove headlong into Walker Evans. Stuart Taft, a Vassar friend and fair southern photographer in his own right, tried to teach me to see camera as medium and photography as paintings or drawings equal.

I didn't follow college conversations with more study. Meeting Annie Leibovitz started a new curiosity about photography and photographers. Annie came to Chicago to sign books at my ex-wife Janet McKean's museum store at the Museum of Contemporary Art in 1992. Annie was generous, kind and creating every minute of the several hours we spoke with her (as she signed books to be sold after she left). At one point Zack, an artist who worked for Janet, asked Annie Leibovitz if he could take her picture. She readily agreed. Zack handed her a rusted hunk of metal about six inches long and a half an inch thick. The metal had a hole in one end. Annie held the metal loop to her eye and stared at Zack. Zack took pictures. We were so at ease none of us thought to hand the camera to Annie (lol).

I wanted to know more about contemporary photography after meeting Annie Leibovitz. I studied Herb Ritts, David LaChapelle and landed at Richard Avedon. Avedon's picture of artists I admire: Warhol, Johns and Bacon set the hook. Seeing Avedon's 1955 picture of a beautiful model standing between two elephants, Dovima With Elephants 1955 Paris, set the hook for life. Anyone who could create such a surrealist moment three years before I was born was an artist who used a camera instead of brush.

SF MoMA's Avedon exhibition evokes the Met's retrospective but is much more fun. The Met show had an agenda: photography as art. SF MoMA, as only a west coast museum can, simultaneously exalts celebrity, art and fun. The Met's focus on bee keepers, farmers and rattle snake holders seems, in retrospect, ham handed. There is a small room dedicated to Avedon's "real people" photos (some of my favorites), but this show is about how Avedon's camera told celebrity truth. Celebrity truth telling is hard. Image is controlled except in front of Avedon's camera. We see celebrity wrinkles, scares, humanity, loneliness, fear, humor and truth.

Three photographs stand out (for me): poet Samuel Beckett, Francis Bacon and Marilyn Monroe.













Samuel Becket, 1979 Paris
Avedon's Beckett diptych shows an aged poet staring hard into Avedon's camera (left panel) and the crew cut poet standing with head bowed (right panel). There is so much INFORMATION in this photo. You see Beckett's hard won creativity. Taken ten years before the poet's death, you see Beckett's mortality even a hard edge frailty (if such a thing can exist). Beckett will meet his elusive Godot soon Avedon's narrative diptych explains. Avedon is an artist. Viewing Samuel Beckett's photograph we understand our appointment with Godot will come soon too. We feel man's triumph, tragedy, piety, sin, kinship and individuality.

Francis Bacon, 1979 Paris (pictured at top of this post)
Avedon's Bacon diptych shows a full faced strong but tired painter (left panel) next to an artist with something to hide (right panel). Bacon's strength and addictions come through. The painter, known for twisting and disfiguring human subjects in paint something Gary Tinterow curator of a recent Bacon retrospective at the Met called "Bacon's bestiality" , lived a hard life. You see Bacon's hard life in this accurately spooky portrait. Underneath the well known, Avedon captures another side. Bacon's love and optimism is fully present even as the right panel mocks such ideas. Bacon's "injuries" and dissonance has never been better understood. Bacon. Avedon's picture teaches more about Bacon's life than anything I've read.

Marilyn Monroe, 1957 New York
How do you see inside a star? Avedon's Marilyn dresses the part, but her performance fails. Avedon's camera sees past meaningless automatic staged emotion. Avedon shows us a tiny distracted woman fearful of a painful future. The ability to see and capture mortality even in in this young bombshell is one of Avedon's unique gifts. There is a death mask quality to this Monroe portrait. Five years from her death, Avedon's camera sees the inevitable. There is only one way her journey will end. Avedon shows us the end in the beginning. We know now what Avedon saw then. Marilyn's inevitable end would come much too soon.

A wall of portraits printed in a 5" x 7"size is another outstanding installation element. This wall is Warhol-esque. Each portrait is individual but formless as a group when stacked in such a Warhol-like grid. Avedon's ability to recreate accidental truth over and over has never had a better example. If, as Bacon said, art is accident this wall proves Avedon's ability to call accident almost at a conjurer's will.

Avedon died in 2004 but his surrealist spirit lives on. If you are anywhere near the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art before November 29th be sure to visit with a few of Avedon's friends.

Why does life suck?

Before my friends write because they are worried, I don’t think life sucks, at least not in aggregate. As a marketing guy I've learned negative headlines asking intriguing questions are more likely to grab attention than “life is wonderful” bromides. Why is that?

Michael Shermer in his masterful book Mind of the Market shares studies reinforcing how much we hate to lose. We hate to lose more than we desire gain.Think about examples from your life. In college I found $100 on the street one day. I was home in Greenwich on break walking a busy street. A stack of $20 bills caught my eye as only cash can. I was joyous at an unexpected windfall and a tad guilty for not turning over the cash to the police.

Got back to school in January and lost my wallet with $50 in it. I searched my dorm room, recent paths around campus and called campus security all to no avail. I probably spent $100 in time trying to never recover the $50 lost. Losing half the money I found felt bad. The feeling of losing was much worse than the high from “gaining” twice as much. I had $50 and then through inattention lost it.

Been reading a lot of Eckhart Tolle lately: A New Earth: Awakening To Your Life’s Purpose. ET knows the locus of this problem. In Chapter 7: Finding Who You Really Are, one of my favorite New Earth chapters, Tolle explains how much of self definition comes from things. Seeing oneself as ones possessions creates an “addictive” need. We can’t locate our true selves in things but we keep looking (lol). Here is one of my favorite New Earth Lines:

“Attachment to things drops away when you no longer see yourself in them. “
E. Tolle A New Earth, Chapter 7

This single sentence can solve a lifetime of useless shopping and help life suck a lot less. Maybe the next time I lose $50 it won’t smart quite so much because life doesn’t suck it just comes and goes.

Martin

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Small Distribution Loosely Joined

Further, we can read a new reminder of an old truth in the distracting nature of the Web: our interests control us more than we control then. We’re more like the fish than the fisherman: we’re interested in what hooks us. We’re passionate about what sets us on fire.
Small Things Loosely Joined, Weinberger page 66

David Weinberger, one of the authors of the seminal Cluetrain Manifesto, is right. Think of implications of such a statement. Marketing looks different when it is about passion, truth, justice and the American Way. But hasn’t marketing always been about big magical things? Not so much as it turns out.

I started selling Ivory Soap in 1981 for the largest advertiser in the world. Procter and Gamble (P&G) was the largest advertiser AND they had an army of boots on the ground (i.e. in grocery stores). My pair of young boots went to upstate New York. I got to cut my green salesman teeth on the best grocery store chain on the planet – Wegmans (if you’ve ever shopped a Wegmans you know, if not hang on they are expanding rapidly out of their Rochester / Buffalo New York hub) . I’ve already declared the P&G I worked for dead (read My Death of Procter and Gamble post ), but, as David Weinberger’s book Small Pieces Loosely Joined points out, more than a company’s strict military approach passed away.

Easy stuff is gone. When shelf space limitations controlled the known marketing universe there was a different battle. Consumer packaged good companies such as P&G and M&M were forced to deal with Grocery Store Buyers becoming land barons. Food companies pay for grocery store shelf. I remember praying our product would sell fast enough M&M wouldn't have to keep paying. P&G and M&M/Mars claimed they never paid “slotting” allowances directly to grocery store chains when I worked there (1981 to 1989). “We are big enough so they need us,” went the argument. I can testify statements like that are bunk. M&M’s 16 ounce, one of the fastest selling candy products on any grocer’s shelves typically, never paid slotting. M&M's 16-ounce sold fast enough its profit more than paid for the space needed.

Twix was a different story. Twix was a moderate success for M&M’s during my tenure. Twix was plagued by short shelf life, only about five months before Twix would hit its “sell by” dates (meaning it was stale) and moderate sales success. Twix couldn’t earn its slot. Every quarter we received Twix distribution goals from M&M's national office in Hackettstown, New Jersey. Every quarter we bought shelf space needed to achieve those goals. We never paid an outright “slotting” fee, but we paid “local marketing promotions”, what P&G used to call FAP’s or field activated promotions. Semantics aside M&M’s paid slotting fees on slower moving brands. Grocery buyers are graded on revenue. They get paid in product sales or slotting. We FAPPED Twix until the cows came home and everyone won. The grocer got blood money for shelf space. National Office got distribution without “paying slotting fees” maintaining a “we never pay slotting fees” illusion. The M&M’s sales team’s backsides didn’t get roasted over an open spit for not achieving unrealistic goals. A convenient fiction was created for everyone's benefit.

The Right Marketing Conversation
The right question was why wasn’t Twix’s marketing strategy working?

Every salesman I worked with knew Twix's marketing problem - impossible distribution. Shopping in a grocery store is different than working in one. Shoppers think products get put on shelves by store employees, but fast selling products (soda, chips, cookies) are managed by “jobbers”. Jobbers are hired hands who work for big food companies such as Frito-Lay, Nabisco and Keebler. Ever see the Coke guy filling the shelf? Coke controls its shelf inside the store. Coke rents the space. They own it. They bring coke in on their trucks and pack it out. Ever notice Coke is rarely out of stock and holes are filled in half the time of your favorite candy?

Candy comes into a grocery store from their warehouse (for the most part). The candy aisle is controlled by a combination of grocery store clerks AND sales people from major companies like a much younger Marty Smith. Because Headquarters ships Halloween candy to a store DOESN’T mean our candy was in the Halloween display. It was my job, back in the day, to check for stock stuck in the back. I wold offer to work the stock out to the floor (an offer almost NEVER refused BTW). We called this activity “back room merchandising” and it may be the valuable thing a consumer products goods sales force does. “Hard to sell anything out of the back room,” my boss would remind me as we looked at four cases of freshly shipped Snickers or Milky Way sitting in a corner. We would roll up sleeves, cut the cases down and move them out to display.

P&G’s soap also shipped through grocer’s warehouse systems, but soap, thankfully, isn’t seasonal (lol). There isn’t a single day where people take ten times as many showers. Halloween on the other hand ONLY happens on 10.31. I spent long September and October days carting Halloween candy, M&M/Mars and our competitors, out to displays, cutting cases and loading candy. Candy was fun for the first month I worked at M&M. I gained the M&M 20, this is the twenty pounds you put on when you start working for Mars. I had to destroy candy in all kinds of shape (stale or nasty) and worked my first Halloween. Candy lost much of its “wow isn’t this fun” after :).

One of the two Mars brothers who owned the largest privately owned Food Company in the world, Mars Incorporated, decided Twix should be shelved in the cookie aisle. Any person asking for such a thing has NO IDEA how grocery stores work. The cookie aisle is jobbed out. Keebler and Nabisco controlled those shelves just like the Coke guy controlled his. Walk down a cookie aisle after reading this post, note how much space Keebler and Nabisco have. Note how neat the dividing line is. Note how few holes there are in their stock (because their jobber was probably in the store that day or he will be there tomorrow). Stocking chips, soda and cookies is daily job by an army with five times as many boots on the ground as Mars.

M&M paid some healthy SLOTTING FEES for placement in the jobber-controlled cookie aisle. The irony of this story is M&M’s, the company that “never paid a slotting fee” broke out the checkbook so fast you would think they were about to be robbed (because they were). M&M couldn't pay slotting fees fast enough.

Here is another old time grocery marketing truth. What happens at HQ is a guarantee of nothing. Grocery stores are controlled by Plan-O-Grams. Plan-o-grams chart each shelf and product facing. “Product Facings” are literally each facing of every product in the store. Plan-o-grams could change for seasonal reasons or greed. If a grocery chain’s profits were down they announce a plan-o-gram shift selling space to highest bidder. There was never a shortage of high bidders. Warehouse delivered, i.e. non-jobber, products inside of a grocery store may be the bloodiest trench warfare on the planet. You gain one facing here give up three there. You fight for facings because they translate into “case pack”. Case pack, or “pack out”, is putting a full case of your product on the shelf. If you couldn’t put up one or two full cases sales would be lost to OOS (out-of-stocks). OOS’s can kill you. Ever see a tag below a blank space in your grocery store? Somewhere some poor schmuck just like the young Martin Marty Smith is sweating that hole. Have enough of those holes and sales decrease. People can't buy what isn't there.

Any market gets distracted when fighting over wrong things. M&M’s artificial created product acceptance couldn’t be secured against an army of “jobbers” who were in stores we visited monthly every other day. I would reset a Wegman's store to plan-o-gram (something that usually took several hours), walk out and know the jobber would return in two days, remove the Twix shelf tags and take the facing. The crazy things you do in your youth :).

Wrong Goal, Wrong Approach
Where did questions about Twix’s quality and consumer acceptance came into play? THEY DIDN’T. At no point did I ever hear, “Twix ain’t making it with customers and we are NEVER going to get it slotted into the cookie aisle.” Instead we kept Dr. Strangeloving it up and down, up and down.

David Weinberger's Small Things Loosely Joined puts a stop to such madness. He locates the bar high. “Consumer acceptance” is where he begins and ends. Once the Web comes to town inventory management moved from physical space controlled by greedy grocer buyers to an infinite number of possible touch points (web sites). Is it still easier to pay some grocery store graft? Possibly, but better to create a website for your Bacon Flavored Beef jerky and create your own market. Maybe Harris Teeter never calls. Maybe it doesn’t matter. I guarantee you will enjoy conversation with Buyers more if you’ve established a unique THING people are passionate about and want.

Distribution has hidden costs that can kill your brand and company. Our friends at P22 Fonts pushed Found Objects, the company I co-founded with my ex, to sell P22's art fonts to Barnes and Noble. They thought of B&N as the mountain top, the market maker. This is wrong. Barnes and Noble and ANY OTHER BIG BOX store add velocity to an established market. They don’t make markets. They make markets get an order of magnitude bigger. Wal-Mart is the exception except it really isn’t. Wal-Mart will hammers price. You will have to mortgage your house, your mother’s house and your uncle’ s house to make razor thin margins. Wal-Mart may, at any time, decide the widget they asked you to modify and change so completely you don’t recognize where you stared just isn’t selling fast enough. They kill your last 3 PO’s (purchase orders) and you go directly to bankruptcy court. Don’t build a market and you are at the mercy of people who will step on your company without hesitation, care or a second thought.

VC love to see interest from big box stores. I am less impressed. It took the better part of three years to sell Magnetic Poetry Kit to Barnes and Noble. I pitched their buyer, Carol Panque, for years at shows, in the mail and on the phone. Finally I gave up. Found Objects was selling MPK so well in small specialty gift stores we decided to Hell with B&N. It was October. Christmas shipments went out in August and September, so we were done and would pick up the argument next year.

This is always when you get the least expected call. We got the call form Barnes and Noble placing a tiny test order to ship the second week of October. “Carol,” I remember begging, “ you are going to blow through 5,000 units in half a day. “You let me worry about that,” a clearly nervous buyer told me. Sellers thought they need Buyers more than the other way around. That is NEVER true, but boy Buyers, the bad ones anyway, will cop an attitude and slap a poor defenseless seller silly. Good buyers understand they need help and sellers are a great, inexpensive source for help.

Part of the reason B&N didn’t get MPK was my fault. I pitched Carol on how well we were doing with this museums and specialty gift stores. B&N, like most large companies, doesn’t really think of a cool corner gift store as competition. Barnes and Noble represents the Pros From Dover and everyone else can just eat it. I was making a Crossing the Chasm mistake. Geoffrey Moore, in his excellent book by the same title, points out the only thing bread basket players like B&N understand is other B&N-like companies (Borders, Books-A-Million). Tell Carol PAINque we only had 30,000 units and Borders was about to buy half and she would have placed the order she did the MONDAY after her wimpy order blew out in a single day. Carol called only slightly humbled ordering 30,000 Magnetic Poetry Kits. We sold MPK wholesale for around $10 so do the math (a $300,000 order).

The Tricky Part
Getting a Barnes and Noble PO for $300,000 would seem joyful and it was. I am smarter now. All products climb a bell curve. The B&N order was a sign. MPK was about to return to its mean. I need more time than I have here to explain this, but any product’s distribution is an organic living thing. How a product reaches a market INFLUENCES how the product is perceived. When Carol finally placed an order red lights should have been flashing. Greed got the best of us and we missed it. MPK was about to lose cool specialty gift stores. It was about to lose the very people who believed in the product in an evangelical way. The net effect was a short spike as both specialty stores and B&N came in followed by falling down the other side of the bell curve. MPK’s market top happened with the B&N order. Another small irony. Found Objects was fired not long after Carol's order. When asked if we helped get the order Carol said, "No Found Objects didn't do anything." I should have named Carol as a contributing factor in our divorce since she surely was one. Buyers can be nasty and mean.

Hope you enjoyed this neo-marketing story. If you have a product you are about to launch THINK about how you are launching and with whom. You only get one chance to make a first impression. Any questions email me and I will give you my 2 cents (for free as I am currently gainfully employed that changes and this free stuff is gong to have to go LOL).

Good luck and here is hoping you never meet such superficial stupidity as we did, you will but one can dream right?

Peace,

Marty

Martin's Shining

Events happening thousands of miles away don’t register. All fires are local. I arrived in Berkeley in October 1991 knowing there were fires in the hills, but understanding little of what "fires in the hills" meant. Now a policeman was explaining, “I can’t let you into the Claremont sir, it is closed for the fires.” I am not from here, I explained in my most naïve Midwestern accent something hard for a boy from Texas / Connecticut. The policeman looked up to his partner standing on the historic front step of the inn’s portico. I saw a slight nod. “Alright sir I will let you drive up to where my partner is standing, do you see him,” an exhausted policeman said pointing his right hand to his now waving partner.

I drove the short distance from intersection to the front of one of my favorite hotels. “Sir the hotel has been closed for days,” the second policeman explained, “but there are several employees here now so if they are willing to take you it is fine with us.” I listened intently and asked, “are the fires a safe distance now?” “Seems so, at least that is what we are hearing. We are pulling out,” the 2nd policeman finished. With a quick tip of his head he turned and walked to his car. I drove to the Inn's door, parked my rental and moved from noisy intersection chaos to the quietest hotel lobby I’ve ever visited. “Hello,” I said waiting for an echo.

No response. I put my bag down and leaned on the front desk, picked up a paper and started to read. It was cover-to-cover fire coverage. “Yes, I heard from behind me.” “I have a reservation,” I said laughing a little. “We are closed,” a tall European man said with little room for misinterpretation – I was to leave and leave now was said just beneath the words he actually spoke. “I have a meeting with Dryers on College Avenue tomorrow and I understand it is impossible to find a room in Berkeley tonight, so I am sleeping here in the lobby, my car or a room,” I said removing my smile.

“Of course sir,” my new friend said smarting a little from my tone. “It has been a long week,” he said walking behind the front desk. “I saw it on the news but that is not the…”I said looking out to the congested intersection. A large Fire truck noisily drove away from the Claremont. It was only Wednesday and already a long week. “I’m not sure phone lines are back yet,” the man told me with his head down in a computer. I nodded but decided to stay quiet until asked for my company credit card. After about five minutes the man, Hans was his name I learned later, looked up, smiled and took my credit card. He made an imprint the old fashioned way with carbons. “You will be the only guest tonight Mr. Smith,” Hans said handing me a key with a lower room number than I ever saw before. “We won’t have any phones or food service and I would ask that you not leave your hall until tomorrow morning as, for the moment, I am the only one here,” Hans finished. I was so glad to not have to sleep in my car I readily agreed. “Of course, I appreciate your help and will not wander around,” I promised knowing it would be an irresistible temptation. I saw the Shining. Redrum, redrum. (Murder spelled backwards.)

Quiet is an understatement. I took the elevator up to the first floor. My room was a short walk from the elevator. Street noise inside the big C that is the Claremont is hushed. Weary police and firemen where packing up. Little traffic moved. Shut down and run was the order of the day for the last few days. Nothing was going to get back to normal for weeks. I couldn’t stay in my too silent and creepy room. I walked down to the lobby and waved to Hans heading out to find dinner.

Few businesses were open. I found a bar with a few people discussing the fires and drinking. A man came in calling hello to his friend the bartender. The new man sat down. The bartender had his drink half poured before he sat. The barman asked a silent question with his eyes and a slight upward tilt of his head. “It is all gone,” the man who had just sat down said. “The only thing I have are the clothes on my back,” he concluded. I admired the level way he said devastating words. He was too tired to get emotionally worked up again. He let his life and all its requirements and stuff just go. I could almost see his life float away like a slow moving erratic butterfly.

I felt strange and small. I’d flown from Chicago with a single purpose – have my monthly meeting with Dryers. Dryers used NutraSweet to make “sugar free” ice cream and “frozen novelties”. NutraSweet was the only food ingredient creating an Intel inside brand strategy, "ingredient inside" we named it. The strategy was born to retain business after NutraSweet’s patent expired. NutraSweet, a division of Monsanto, required customers to co-brand. One thing big consumer package companies don’t appreciate is being told what they have to do on their packaging. The strategy worked. NutraSweet survived patent expiration but “Ingredient inside” was moot the day after patent expiration and gone within months (as soon as the old packaging ran out I suspect). If you have an old pack of jello with the NutraSweet red dot logo keep it. It is a collector item.

1991 was years before patent expiration and this October night I was the only guest in Berkley’s “Overlook Hotel”. I ate dinner in silence as two friends hardly spoke. The enormity of personal and community loss lay on the bar like a wet towel. No one wanted to pick it up. I didn’t want to explain my hubris. I didn’t want to share how single minded I became when chasing a rabbit. My blinders were on. My mission was to get to Berkley and meet with Dryers. Anything not related to that goal I shut out. Now I was sitting with a half eaten dinner next to a man whose clothes were it, all he had in the world. Quietly I made the universal pen writing sign asking the bartender for my bill. When my $30 dinner tab came I wrote in a $100 tip asking quietly to pay for the bartender's friend's dinner and drinks. “Won’t this cause you some trouble,” the barman asked seeing the company card. “Probably,” I laughed heading out. I would fight that battle later and write a personal check if I couldn't convince my boss of why I bought a man dinner who couldn't buy a pound of NutraSweet much less the millions needed to get me on a plane. I hoped I could convince my boss since I remember being beyond broke in 1991.

I returned the the white whale of an Inn around ten. The Claremont’s main door was locked. I knocked. Hans came jogging up. “Mr. Smith I was waiting for you,” he said opening the door. “Thanks Hans I am off to bed,” I said heading to the elevator. “Good night Mr. Smith and thank you for understanding,” Hans said. I thanked Hans and remember thinking, “I didn’t understand at all until about an hour ago.” After dinner thoughts of exploring the rambling turn of the century hotel seemed childish and stupid. I went straight to my room. I opened the heavy soundproof curtains, no sounds tonight in the hotel or in Berkeley. I could see twinkling lights out in the bay. I thought about a man whose only possessions where clothes on his back, my "dog with a bone" determination and a growing suspicion the only thing I owned where the clothes on my back too. Before dropping off I saw an erratic butterfly float its way out toward the bay.

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College Admission Essay Writing Tips

I've read thousands of college admission essays as an Assistant Director of Admissions for Vassar (1980 to 1981). I've provided free advice for high school students and their parents ever since. Much information about applying to college is wrong, urban legend or propaganda. I try to cut through BS helping students focus on the goal - gaining admissions to a college of their choice. A great admission essay won't get you into college, but a poor one might keep you out. When you face a situation where the under, what you stand to lose, is greater than the over, what can be gained, best to proceed VERY CAREFULLY.

I am telling you, your son or daughter to do as I say not as I actually did (lol). I wrote my college essay in ink and, knowing my spelling and poor hand writing, it is amazing I am here to tell this story (LOL). I help students three ways:

• I write articles sharing secrets of college admissions linked to this page: Getting Into College Secrets.
• I help local students prepare for admission interviews.
• I help students from anywhere on the globe write better college admissions essays.
  

Martin's College Essay Review Is Free
For the moment I am gainfully employed Director or E-Commerce. These days my employment status could change at anytime :). As long as I have a roof over head and money to buy food I will help students for free. I'm working on a book to collect experiences and thoughts on how to get into college. Martin's Insider's Guide To College Admission should be out in early 2010. In the meantime, I will share college admission tips on ScentTrail Marketing and continue reviewing admission essays from students generally willing to help in any way possible.

College Essay Assistance
Send your college admission essay to my personal email martinsellingzoe(at)aol(dot)com in a MS Word document attachment (if possible). If you are answering a specific application question please send the question too. If you don't have MS Word send your essay in the body of an email.

I provide two edits. The first edit has Word's "track changes" tool on so you can see my "redlines". Redlines are the first editorial pass and can be a little hard to track. I attach a "MSblack" version that accepts my changes and may make a few suggestions not included in the first pass. My msblack version of your essay represents thoughts after working with your college admission essay for a couple of hours. There is nothing set in stone or sacrosanct about my edits. It is your essay, so accept or rejected edits as needed

BUT, remember my edits represent TWO things.

• First I work on how you are telling your story. Spelling and grammar matter in college admission essays. Typically, I remove personal pronouns (read my I, Me writing problem article for more on why), shorten sentence structure and lower teenage angst (writing an article on why lowering teenage angst is important).
  
  
• Secondly I edit based on how college admission people think. I know, for one example, what it is like to read hundreds of student applications in a few days. I know what it like to be functioning on little sleep as you and your admissions peers put together a class. Putting together a class is like playing a huge SIMMS game where diversity, board scores, teacher recommendations, high school reputation and the college's brand all play together in almost equal measure. Some students write things that make them sound bad. I had a GREAT student write an essay that made her sound a little crazy. She wasn't. She was a normal teenager, but the experience she decided to write about, at least until I convinced her not too, made her sound kooky. She violated one of my main rules - NEVER RUN YOURSELF DOWN IN A COLLEGE ADMISSIONS ESSAY. Tricky part is she thought she was helping her chances when she was hurting. Remember the over / under on your essay. You stand to lose much more than you can gain, so GO SLOW and BE CAREFUL.
  

Martin's Getting Into College Secrets
Here are some of my notes from a student from India I helped today:

This was another tendency I saw in your writing. You zero in on 3 themes: change, your confidence due to being grounded and love of your parents. These are all GREAT things to discuss in response to the question asked, but you make your response less strong with every repetition (there are at least 3 repetitions I counted). This is what I call Martin's Rule of Threes. Most writers make the same point three times. Great writers make their points less than once.

How can you make a point less than once? Great writers such as Hemingway, Faulkner, Sartre, Camus, Updike, Cheever or John Irving sketch their points. They use a light touch knowing such a touch requires more engagement from readers. Make no mistake, they deal with the big questions: what is life's meaning, why are we here, what are we meant to do? They just do so with a light touch. They leave space in their writing, space designed to be filled by their readers. Your writing needs a little space. Here are some tricks I use to get space in my writing:

1. Go slow = this is the hardest thing for modern minds. We fly through things now at the speed of the Internet, but slowing down can help build space into writing. I am not suggesting your voice should be slow, in most context and especially in your college admission essay voice should be FAST. Writing and/or editing at about half your normal pace will help build space into your writing.



2. Change your sentence structure to use shorter sentences. I try to never have a sentence over 20 words. If I have two sentences joined by a conjunction I tend to break that sentence into its component parts (two short sentences instead of one long one). The reason you, and all beginning writers, should do this is it is easier for your reader to locate themselves in your space and time. It is easier for writers and readers to get lost inside of long sentences.



3. Don't over modify with adverbs. I detest adverbs as they tend to needlessly lengthen a sentence while rarely providing any needed detail. Words such as "very", "extremely" and "badly" are crutches of over modification for most young writers. Everything that happens to most teenagers ends in "ly", so avoiding over modification can bring your essay back to earth while other applicant's may sound over the top.
   

What Martin's College Essay Editing Does
I had a student thank me yesterday. She said my "critique" was different than anything her family or friends provided. They would read her essay and say, "Looks great," or something as unhelpful. I am not a student's parent or teacher. I don't have a dog in the hunt. My position makes it easy to provide honest college essay feedback. Am I 100% correct? Never, but you have my money back guarantee my edits help. Giving such a guarantee when you aren't charging money is easy, but I've yet to find a student's college admission essay that doesn't sound better AFTER editing. That sentence sounds more arrogant than I am, but you get the point.

I treat high school seniors like adults. You are undertaking an adult activity - getting into college - so I treat students who send essays to me like adults. I don't pull punches or provide false praise. I do provide praise when earned, but I'm here to help you find an inner truth, what you are writing about, and an outer truth, how your story will land in an admission's office. I ask students to research anything I say they don't know. If I mention an unknown, writer, thinker or concept I ask students working with me to look it up and be able to repeat it back (more or less) in future edits. I approach writing college admission essays in this way for a simple reason - looking things up you don't understand and incorporating them into your world view is what college is all about. If you sense an irony you are correct. You must act like a college student before someone will grant you the ability to become one. Irony thy name is college admissions :).

Things that made you LARGE and IN CHARGE in high school are important only in so far as you can tell the story in your college application. In and of themselves those things that made you important in high school are NOT IMPORTANT to college admission. You receive no credit for an untold story. There are worse things than an untold story. Tell a story that causes admissions officers to wonder who did what and why to lower your chances for admissions. All college applications have some dissonance - some things that don't add up. Admissions personnel look for college application cracks like Hawks watching for field mice. If you have cracks, and every college application does, explain them. Context and good writing might SAVE your application. Lack of context and bad writing WILL sink an application.

Now that you are too scared to breathe (lol), I will conclude saying this too shall pass. You will get into a good college (where good is defined as right for you) and life will be good. I was thankfully turned down by my early decision college, Hobart-William Smith, and wrote my poorly spelled essay in smudged Bic pen. Relax, breathe deep and enjoy your high school life even as you understand and act on the sure knowledge that it will end and become something else - your college life.

Peace,

Marty

Walking Social Media Talk

Paul Isakson Knows What's Next
Paul is the Head of Strategy at space150 a Minneapolis and LA ad agency. Here is Paul's SlideShare PowerPoint on walking your social networking talk:

Social Media: It's Not What You Say That Matters

View more documents from Paul Isakson.

Marty

Seth Godin Risks

Life, Liberty and Risks
Seth Godin is one of my favorite writer / thinkers. Seth sees behind the curtain right past the lonely wizard. He is working on a new book. I told our mutual friend Red Maxwell I am jonesing for a new Seth book. While waiting, I read Seth's Blog. Here is a great recent post:

Read Apparent vs. Actual Risks (linked to Seth's blog)

I know the truth of this statement:

When things get interesting is when the apparently risky is demonstrably [less safe] than the actually risky. That's when we sometimes become uncomfortable enough with our reliance on the apparent to focus on the actual. Think about that the next time they make you take off your shoes at the airport.
Ref: Seth Godin Blog

Here is a flash. Life is riskier than you think. Think, as Black Swan author Nassim Nicholas Taleb suggests, about the humble turkey (timely analogy). A turkey's life moves along a predictable path. Each day folds into the next. A little more feed yesterday maybe, but sun, fun and Turkey surf. Yep, fun right up until Thanksgiving when a HUGE black swan hits Turkeyville (lol).

Here is what I know. Life is risk. Routine is the anomaly, the true exception. Since we are all turkeys, there is an expiration date on our lives too, then we need to belly up to the apparent risk bar and order a double. I suggest reading Pema Chödrön especially The Places That Scare You and When Things Fall Apart.

I also suggest reading any book by Seth as we wait (for his new book) including: Purple Cow, All Marketers Are Liars and Meatball Sundae.

Peace,

Marty

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Visiting Red Maxwell

Winter arrived in North Carolina on a single fall day today. Driving through increasingly dense rain I reached Winston-Salem to have lunch with Red Maxwell, President of OnRamp Branding. Red, one of the smartest people I know and a good friend, is testimony to the power of serendipity. I met Red years ago when I flew to New York to "Work with Seth Godin".

Working with Seth Godin

I like Red. He understands the always help rule and makes time to listen carefully and advise. I've written about Red several times:

Reid Hoffman and Red Maxwell

Red Maxwell

Red's company OnRamp Branding is located in Winston-Salem, but I think Red helps companies from all over. If you have a brand or brands who are in the "brand hospital" I would recommend Dr. Red Maxwell:

OnRamp Branding

Red's LinkedIn Profile (read my recommendation on Red's LinkedIn Profile)

Red is an entrepreneur. He is a founding member along with Seth in the social networking site squidoo and he is a regular at the TED conference.

Red gives back too. He walks the talk giving away his time and expertise to help fight diabetes:

Stay Hungry

A Parent's Guide To Diabetes

It was great to see Red today. Red always helps. Deep listeners like Red can help turn the rubik cube normally trapped inside your head in new ways. I've noticed this tendency in other really great listeners. Great listeners internalize your thoughts well enough to provide new perspective, a new way to look at something you may be turning over and over to no good end.

We had a long talk about "the new Altruism" discussing NonZero by Wright, Mind of the Market by Shermer. Red sees evidence of new altruism too believing, as I do, systems are reinforcing a "help others" trend. "This next generation has a very different idea about what it means to live, work and think," Red said. "Much less about me, me, me and more about community," Red concluded. I promise to send Red my copy of NonZero, so Robert Wright if you are reading this could you send me another copy (lol). I pitch NonZero to people on the street, so I will never have enough copies :).

Winter arrived all in one day today, but I had a great lunch with a good friend. It was worth the trip to some old stomping grounds. Nabisco, once headquartered in Winston-Salem, was my "Key Account" at NutraSweet years and years ago. A much younger Marty spent many days a stone's throw from Red's office. Strange I had to fly to New York to meet such an important friend. Red is a constant reminder of serendipity's power.

Marty

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Crowd Wisdom, Virtuous Cycles, Death and Taxes

Our world is so interdependent. Everything we do adds to some one's virtuous cycle. Here is how authors Don Tapscott and Anthony Williams discussed being trapped in some one's virtuous cycle:

Blogger and media consultant Jeff Jarvis points out that even a simple act of consumption in this new world is an act of creation. Acts like searching on Google, tagging bookmarks with del.icio.us and sharing photos on flickr all have private benefit, but these acts create collective benefits as well. These collective benefits yield a richer Web experience and enhance "the Wisdom of Crowds."

The latest trend is to question the "crowd" in the Wisdom of Crowds.

Is Crowd Sourcing A Myth

The Dirty Little Secret About the "Wisdom of the Crowds" - There is No Crowd

These articles miss the point. Jarvis and the book Wikinomics understand crowd wisdom is built into everything now. When you manage large web sites you start to relate to people differently. I remember reading science fiction writer Isaac Asimov's concept of "pscyhohistory". Psychohistory is happening now. Asimov's idea was man's future was predictable. That is man as the collective had a predictable, mathematical future. Man as an individual remained the great unknown. Man as a collective animal was mathematically knowable in Asimov's Foundation universe.

Those who debate crowd wisdom don't understand virtuous cycles. Wikinomics authors and Jeff Jarvis understand. EVERYTHING we do is contributing to some body's algorithm. Your contribution to my math helps me, in an Asimovian way, know the future for my tribe. Smooth the numbers and individual aberrations disappear.

Writers who debate crowd wisdom don't understand how "behind he curtains" works. For example, they write an article about crowd wisdom not being all it is cracked up to be. Their article goes out to Google. Social Networks pick it up. Links are created. In other words, even when you write an article questioning the Wisdom of Crowds you contribute to crowd wisdom. Life is a bitch, you contribute to some one's algorithm and then you die (lol). There is no escape, no way to avoid, no remote corner to crawl up into. Let's rewrite another cliche. The only sure things used to be death and taxes. We can rewrite this old adage to: The only sure things in life are death, taxes and your every action is captured and helping some body's algorithm.

Peace,

Marty

Helpful Books:

Wisdom of Crowds by James Surowiecki

Wikinomics by Don Tapscott and Anthony Williams

Foundation Series by Isaac Asimov



.

Martin Marty Smith

Martin Marty Smith biography:

Martin's Wizard Training

Death of Procter and Gamble

Martin Marty Smith

Monkeys on Main

My Dad's Hunting Lesson

Dolphins and Sharks

Texas 1965

Central Junior High School

Martin's First Web Site:

November, 1999 FoundObjects.com

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Marty

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Irony's Irony: Meaning in Hamlet's Zombieland

Zombieland Movie Review
Zombieland is a mess. Woody Harrelson’s latest movie creates one conclusion – we are a mess. Don’t misunderstand, there are funny moments as Harrelson’s Tallahassee and Jesse Eisenberg’s Columbus kill their way west, but the effect of watching four people kill hundreds of drooling, stumbling zombies leaves a hole much like eating one of the Twinkies Tallahassee obsesses over.

Unlike Harrelson who finally gets his Twinkie, watching this movie creates hunger for movie making basics. Plot, character and meaningful dialog give way to a road movie with nowhere to go. I’m sure everyone involved got a big check for a month’s work, but such a petty truth underlies what is wrong with this movie and, to a lesser degree, our times.

It is risky to draw universal conclusions after watching the visual assault that is Zombieland, but it is inevitable to reach for some meaning after experiencing such a black hole, a place where meaning has long ago been expanded to infinity and disappeared. On the one hand Harrelson and crew could be a new wave of movie making. Maybe aimless wandering through a desolate future world is our destiny, but I doubt it. Ruben Fleisher’s major motion picture directorial debut creates a thin world where Mad Cow begets zombies and, as everyone knows, zombies just don’t know how to love.

Because you CAN do something doesn’t mean it is the right thing to do. Zombieland was the wrong thing to do. There is a good chance Zombieland is not the problem but a symptom of a larger illness. How does a film like this get green lighted in the first place? The film looks as if checks were large and time commitments small. As a poor man (read my Third Generation Money riff) I have no experience with gravity pull of such a combination (big bucks for nothing). Would I sell my acting soul for millions and a month of my life? Probably. What is that great line from Back To School when the dean explains why he offers Rodney Dangerfield’s Thorton Mellon admission? “It was a really big check,” the dean explains simply.

If Zombieland doesn’t herald a New Wave what is it? The film is an accurate reflection of a too fast, too complete time. It is possible to know too much too soon. When galaxies of information are “always on” then something is gained, as much is lost. Our since of human space, time and care seem slow and inauthentic. Ironically our real lives seem petty and inauthentic even as our fantasy lives seem real and connected (Twilight Zone anyone). We crave speed and knowing. Irony’s irony is when we create art based on such a small premise we are collective fools, damned fools.

What would Shakespeare think of Zombieland? Shakespeare knew intentions make men large even as realty shrinks them. Man’s majesty exceeds his grasp. Our only important irony is just as we get it time to leave arrives. Hamlet may have been right:

HAMLET

Let me see.

Takes the skull
Alas, poor Yorick! I knew him, Horatio: a fellow
of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy: he hath
borne me on his back a thousand times; and now, how
abhorred in my imagination it is! my gorge rims at
it. Here hung those lips that I have kissed I know
not how oft. Where be your gibes now? your
gambols? your songs? your flashes of merriment,
that were wont to set the table on a roar? Not one
now, to mock your own grinning? quite chap-fallen?
Now get you to my lady's chamber, and tell her, let
her paint an inch thick, to this favour she must
come; make her laugh at that. Prithee, Horatio, tell
me one thing.

Even suggesting reading Hamlet instead of paying for Woody’s vacation is fruitless and irony’s irony.

Peace,

Marty

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Neo-Customer Service

I love art. New art movements can easily be designated with a "neo" in front of some catchy name. Neo-Expressionism, Neo-Dada and Neo-Minimalism are only a few examples (there are more). It may be time to strap "Neo" to customer service. Customer service as was practiced is gone. Neo-customer Service is here.

Here is a good example of a now ancient definition of customer service:
According to Jamier L. Scott. (2002)[1], “Customer service is a series of activities designed to enhance the level of customer satisfaction – that is, the feeling that a product or service has met the customer expectation." Ref: Wikipedia

Tom Peters talks of a "customer service culture" and getting to "wow". There is nothing wrong with these definitions of customer service except they seem small and wimpy compared to the adrenalin rush life we live in this hyper-connected, fast and furious world. Passivity is the other problem. Customers are many things now passive is rarely one of them.

Neo-customer Service is about how we live now. There is no script, no passivity and certainly no single expectation. As a Sales Director at NutraSweet I explained what my friend Nathan Gillette founder of the company Social Target calls The Listening Organization this way, "Customers cut whatever I say in half," I explained to our R&D group before a visit from Dannon, "they know I am paid to sell things, anything you say, on the other hand, is worth three times the propaganda I preach," I finished with a smile and a laugh. Ever pitch to R&D folkes? My little joke went over like a balloon made of lead, tough crowd not a smile among them (lol).

NutraSweet's R&D group didn't laugh with me, but they heard my message. NutraSweet’s R&D expertise, our daily tasting panel and Dannon's R&D team's ability to speak technically with our team impressed tough to impress consumer products marketers. Their geeks loved our geeks.

The deep truth in this experience, now more than ten years old, is any company's neo-customer service is only as good as its weakest link. Every person in every company is a neo-customer service agent. Customer conversations happen any time, any place. Driving to work yesterday an 18-wheeler tried to kill me. It wouldn't be hard to squash my ten-year-old Nissan Sentra like a bug. It was hard not to see the large Midstate Mills logo on the truck as I almost went under his wheels.

To be fair to the driver was probably late. He was living in his head like we all do forgetting he was a neo-customer service agent AND a truck driver. There is no such thing as anonymity anymore especially while driving an 18-wheel billboard with a massive logo. I emailed Midstate my thoughts about their driver when I got to work. I take that back. The first thing I did was research the company. Learning Midstate Mills is family owned and very customer focused, I emailed their "sales" email my displeasure at surviving cancer to almost end up a splatter on their truck's wind screen.

Here is the note I received back:

Dear Mr. Smith

I am the Transportation Manager for Midstate Mills, Inc. here in Newton NC. The sales secretary forwarded your message to me concerning the incident with our truck driver. First of all, let me apologize to you. I certainly hope that you are alright and am glad that no contact was made. I for one am certainly aware of how dangerous incidents with big vehicles are and how frightening they are. Yes, we are a family owned company and we take great care in protecting who and what we are. We constantly strive to hire and train good, safe, and trustworthy people.

Let me assure you that I will speak to the driver and see what has happened. I will remind him of his responsibility to the company and to the general public that he drives around daily.

I do want to assure you that we have an impeccable safety record and we constantly remind our drivers, who are professionals, of their responsibilities in all aspects of their jobs. I am sincerely glad that you are safe and assure you that I will address this situation immediately.

Sincerely

Sam Birchfield
Fleet Manager
Midstate Mills, Inc.
Newton, NC.
*** Toll Free was here
*** Sam's direct line was here

Good job Sam. Sam understands his title says "Fleet Manager" but his responsibility is bigger. Sam is a neo-customer service agent whose honest, considerate response was appreciated so much I am writing about it. Sam moved me from upset to spending my most valuable asset, time, to share this story and his exceptional performance.

Moving customers to advocacy is a defining characteristic of neo-customer service. Old customer service wanted to make customers happy. It was uni-directional; the company was in charge while customers waited for resolution. Neo-customer service is about engaging customers in conversations, listening to ideas and needs and responding in specific and helpful ways. The goal isn't simple resolution. Neo-customer service is about creating word-of-mouth marketing for your brands and company. AND every interaction in every company has this advocacy magic inside it (usually well locked away).

Achieving customer advocacy is simultaneously simple and complex. It is simple because customer service, for the most part, sucks. Neo-customer service is complex because connecting with members of our over-marketed, under served, cynical, time compressed and overwhelmed US is hard. You won't win with form letters and shallowness. We got plenty of those. Neo-customer service is about connection, meaning and truth. Sam's note didn't take long to write, but his honesty and commitment come through. Sam didn't send a form letter or pawn me off on someone. He took a few minutes to emphasize and connect.

Quick note to all companies. Every website needs a "Feedback" button. Keep the button generic and make sure a real person who cares responds to every "feedback" note. Post ways you've changed due to feedback. Make sure the highest levels of your company know what you are hearing from your feedback button. Neo-customer service means your company makes it easy for me to communicate with you."But my site is B2B," I hear some readers thinking. Doesn't matter. If you sell anything to someone on planet earth you need an easy way to give you feedback. Why would you EVER want to frustrate someone's desire to help you? Wikipedia is created largely by volunteers for FREE. Make it easy to help and help you will receive. Learning to LISTEN is worthy of its own post :).

Is your company practicing neo-customer service or doing the minimum? Here is a flash. Every one can create what you are creating. In fact they may be able to create what you are creating cheaper. If every company can, if they so choose, create anything, where do you think differentiation, what my P&G bosses called Unique Selling Propositions (USP), live? If you answered neo-customer service you get a cookie and a book recommendation (you know me and books).

Read How by Dov Seidman to understand why what you do doesn't matter nearly as much as HOW YOU DO IT in this time of neo-customer service.

Good luck and great job Sam.

Marty

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