Matter/Anti-Matter

(Credit: Modernism Gallery)

The overlap with the title of this blog, Matter/Antimatter, is completely coincidental, but since most meaningful events are coincidental, it makes perfect sense that it prompted San Francisco-based conceptual artist Jonathon Keats to send me a note pointing to his upcoming exhibition "The First Bank of Antimatter."

Keats' previous artistic enterprises include applying string theory to real estate development, and in the wake of global economic collapse, Keats is now introducing a hedge against future catastrophe by creating a mirror economy designed to skyrocket as world markets plummet: the first holistic response to the great recession.

"Economic equilibrium is upset by our unbalanced pursuit of material wealth," explains Keats. "My plan is to offset materialism with modern science, by exploiting the economic potential of antimatter, which is the physical opposite of anything made with atoms, from luxury condos to private jets."

Backed by private Swiss funding, his scheme will be implemented beginning on November 12, 2009, when the First Bank of Antimatter opens in San Francisco's Monadnock Building, the location of Modernism Gallery. The bank will serve as a hub for antimatter transactions worldwide, eventually financing the building of antimatter infrastructure and providing the public with a full range of investment opportunities. "But our first order of business will be printing money," says Keats. "Cash is the foundation of any economy, and an anti-economy is no exception."

Issued in three convenient denominations, ranging from 10,000 positrons to 1,000,000 positrons, and initially trading at an exchange rate of $10 to $1,000, the anti-money will be backed by antimatter stored in the bank's vault. Because matter and antimatter annihilate each other on contact, antimatter positrons will be continuously produced on location by decay of the radioactive isotope potassium-40.

"We want our customers to be confident that the antimatter is available on demand, but we're advising clients to conduct transactions strictly in paper currency," says Keats, who has used his artistry to design the money in multiple colors including red, blue and green. "The paper is cotton rag, archival enough to survive economic Armageddon" he promises. "It's an essential asset in any balanced portfolio. Antimatter is a natural haven for wealth when everything becomes worthless."

Like advertising guru Rory Sutherland said at TEDGlobal: "Most of our problems are problems of perception." And: "We need more intangible value." I always knew we could rely on artists (and advertisers!) to (re)-build an anti-economy of meaning, and I am thrilled to see this vision finally materialize.

(Credit: Digital Labor)

My mom always told me “Make your passion your profession, and you’ll be a happy man.” She was right, and I am glad I followed her advice. Yet I appear to be part of a minority. In an article about growing disenchantment at work (“Hating What You Do”), this week’s Economist cites a survey conducted by the Center for Work-Life Policy, an American consultancy. It found that between June 2007 and December 2008 the proportion of workers who professed loyalty to their employers slumped from 95% to 39%, and the number voicing trust in them fell from 79% to 22%. Furthermore, the article refers to a more recent survey by DDI which found that more than half of the respondents described their job as “stagnant,” as in “nothing interesting to do” and “little hope of professional growth" within their current organization. Half of these “stagnators” said they were planning to look for another job as soon as the economy recovered. These survey findings are flanked by several recent cultural events in the US that indicate a shift in the way we negotiate the meaning of work, for example Michael Moore’s “Capitalism – A Love Story” and a whole New York Times Magazine issue on “Anxiety.”

And yet, Americans will be surprised to hear that the most dramatic manifestation of this apparent misery-at-work trend occurred in “socialist” France. A spate of attempted and successful suicides at France Telecom that occured over the past twelve months, many of them explicitly prompted by stress and dissatisfaction at work, forced the deputy CEO to resign and sparked an emotional national debate about life in the modern corporation.

“You are what you do,” German philosopher Immanuel Kant contended long before we started talking about Work/Life balance. Having always been an idealistic concoction most fervently promoted by those biased towards Life, this balance wouldn’t even need to be promoted if it were indeed a battle of equal powers. It isn’t. Work has invaded every single aspect of our lives, and it has infiltrated our society Mafia-style: controlling and demanding every hour of our lives without appearing to do so. Increasingly, Work is no longer visible as such and is instead embedded into Life, which makes its power even more frightening: If you do things that are work but don’t feel like work, then Work has ultimately prevailed.

With the advent of digital media, the relationship between Work and Life has again dramatically changed. Social computing has turned the workplace into the living room and the living room into the workplace. For the digital knowledge workers of the attention economy, it has become harder, if not impossible, to separate Work and Life. The concepts of live-to-work and work-to-live, often pitted against as a clash of American and European cultures, are too one-dimensional to truly capture the reality of most professionals today. Work is Life, and Life is Work, and there is not much in between. The question is no longer how we can balance our digital lifestyle with our professional lives, the question is: How were we able to get any work done before the digital era? And how did we have a life before Twitter?

The new digital work lifestyle has profound implications for one’s (professional) identity: What do you do when everyone else does everything all the time? With everything and everyone connected, the once clear contours of our existence give way to an indistinguishable maelstrom of stimulation: the story of our life is no longer a curriculum, it is a non-linear stream. You can go swimming, fishing, snorkeling, and sailing in it. You can choose to stay on the surface or take a deep dive. But you can never leave. And you can always drown. With Work and Life being the Big Blend, it is shocking but not surprising that for some the only way to take a break from Work is to take a permanent sabbatical from Life, as in the case of the France Telecom workers.

The borderless Work/Life experience creates agoraphobia, an anxiety about an indefinite space of self-actualization possibilities and one’s position within. As Alain de Botton, the philosopher for the knowledge worker, put it: “It’s perhaps easier now than ever before to make a good living. It’s perhaps harder than ever before to stay calm and be free of career anxiety.”

The Economist suspects that companies aggravate this anxiety by a new, ill-conceived form of Taylorism: “Giant retailers use ‘workforce management’ software to monitor how many seconds it takes to scan the goods in a grocery cart, and then reward the most diligent workers with prime working hours. The public sector, particularly in Britain, is awash with inspectorates and performance targets. Taylorism, which Charlie Chaplin lampooned so memorably in ‘Modern Times,’ has spread from the industrial to the post-industrial economy. In Japan some firms even monitor whether their employees smile frequently enough at customers.”

These are all measures that will very likely deter Generation Y workers, the digital natives who have grown up with the Internet and expect organizations to provide them with much more ambiguity and empowerment than these were willing to give to their parents. For the Gen Y’ers, Work is no longer just what you do; Work is another way of Life – a meaningful life. It implies a Work-Life package that reconciles passion and profession, meaning and earning, impact and income. A good job is what you believe in – as long as you can abandon it at will. Sure, Work has become invasive, but so has Life, as work performance is being constantly disrupted by the micro-events in one's digital life feed (email, Twitter, blogging, social networks, etc.). Companies need to learn to convert this distraction into productivity. In fact, this might be the biggest management challenge for the next ten years: Learning how to leverage the tools of distraction to increase productivity – and happiness.

No matter where on the Work/Life continuum you’d place yourself, you will acknowledge the one premise that unites us all: how we are going to work in the future will determine how we’re going to live in the future. Consequently, the Berlin-based creative collective Palomar 5 believes that the best way to find out about the future of work is to let people from different backgrounds work together. Palomar 5 has therefore organized a six-week long Innovation Camp in Berlin that gathers, Big Brother-like, 30 handpicked uber-achievers under 30 to explore (and live together) a vision of work in the digital future. The Camp’s agenda and workflow have been carefully crafted and encompass various modules, guest experts, and collaborative creative assignments that tackle Work/Life as one big design challenge.

In a similar vein, The Internet As Playground and Factory: A Conference on Digital Labor will be held at the Eugene Lang College of The New School in New York City on November 12-14. An overview Introduction sets out the seminal questions arising “in the midst of massive transformations in economy, labor, and life related to digital media.” The conference is free, with advance registration required.

There’s no dearth of books on the subject either: If I had to pick two, I’d go with Alain de Botton’s The Sorrows and Pleasures of Work (with a poignant chapter on accountants) and Don Tapscott’s Grown Up Digital which provides a comprehensive overview of the aspirations and habits of the Gen Y workforce.

(Credit: Maple and Leek)

Twitter’s “suggested users” list is a Who’s Who of Twitter celebrities, featuring the likes of Al Gore, Lance Armstrong, Ashton Kutcher, John McCain, Martha Stewart, and others with millions of followers. The New York Times claimed that a spot on the list would guarantee 500,000 additional followers and reported that social media guru Jason Calacanis had offered $250,000 to be listed.

Last Friday, Twitter did something remarkable. It added a number of well-known social entrepreneurs and innovators to this list, among them Social Edge, Skoll Foundation, Kiva, Matt Flannery (Kiva co-founder), Acumen Fund, Jacqueline Novogratz (Acumen Fund founder), charity: water, GOOD Magazine, Kjerstin Erickson (FORGE founder), and Room to Read. Not knowing what was going on, Kiva’s Flannery thought there was a spam attack and complained about the 500 new users a minute he was getting. But not for long.

Twitter’s move is huge, not only because it propels social entrepreneurs to enter mainstream but also because the microblogging service--THE trading floor for attention on the Web--has decided to give away some of the attention it attracts to promote good causes. Consider it the New Socialism: a redistribution of attention, not of material wealth. What’s even more remarkable is the reaction of one of the benefitting organizations, Social Edge, which immediately sent out a message to all its new users pointing them to a list of 100 other social entrepreneurs and innovators on Twitter. Give more than you take: that’s the power of meaningful marketing and exactly the kind of giving that makes companies thrive in the ‘share economy.' Good creates more good.

There are other, even more immediate ways in which Twitter can be used for doing good. My colleague Jacob Zukerman proposed it the other day, and I found the concept instantly compelling: instant social action, enabled by Twitter. Tweet Mobs for collective action. The idea is simple: Convert all the attention on Twitter into real-world action--in real-time. With some twitter users attracting more than a million followers, their social influence is significant--why not use it for social good, especially when you can “eventize” it by creating artificially scarce moments of real-time public collaboration?

The link between tweet and deed is not new on Twitter and exists in various formats (Mashable has provided a great overview): Cause-related fundraising (Tweet fund drives) via Twitter has been made popular by Twestival, Tweetsgiving,12for12k, Tweetathon, and others. An alternate concept is Twollars, a Twitter-based currency with no hard money value that allows users to pledge money to charity using Twitter. Describing itself as “a currency of appreciation for Twitter,” it effectively connects micro-payments with micro-blogging. (Speaking of currencies, PollyTrade links Twitter accounts to E*Trade account and allows brokers to trade stock via Twitter.) And there are Tweet-Ups--offline events initiated and organized via Twitter--but in this case, too, the tweet and the deed are asynchronous. Carrotmob, a congenial social media platform for social activism, uses Twitter, but it still requires a moment of translation as well: good will and a commitment to a cause can be immediately “socialized,” however, the output--the action--still occurs via intermediary.

All these formats do not convert instantly into offline action in the way Flash Mobs do. What if followers not only follow but do (in the best “Here Comes Everybody” style)? What if Blog Action Day became Twitter Action Minute? These Twitter Mobs or Smart Tweets would capitalize on the unique combination of peer pressure, presence, location-based eventization, and of course, sheer reach. The train wreck Sarah Lacy-Mark Zuckerberg interview at SXSW 2008 was a negative example of live-mobbing on Twitter, a disaster unfolding in real-time, amplified through the synchronous meta-conversation on Twitter. The #CNNfail campaign in response to CNN’s deficient coverage of the Iranian election, was another one. The enormous power of these real-time conversations is frightening, but it is also promising. The more optimistic equation goes like this: Attention = social capital = social action. What if a group of Twitter followers all picked up one piece of garbage from the street? What if they all gave food to a homeless person? What if they exchanged money, products, hugged a stranger, etc.? And so on. It’d be a real-time, real-world transaction that would be as swift as the transactions taking place at breathtaking pace every second in the highly virtual realm of international finance. A smart attention-to-action cascade. A Good Mob.

Maybe a fantasy--but a good one.

(Credit: LA Times)

My own fascination with airports started at an early age thanks to the location of my parents' house. I grew up with planes taking off and landing at the nearby airport, and as a student I spent one summer vacation working as a baggage handler on the tarmac. Ever since, aircraft noise makes me feel at ease, and if I could, I would become a permanent tenant of Narita's Star Alliance lounge, where I would watch planes all day.

Airports have also long piqued the interest of artists of course--from Brian Eno's "Music for Airports," to Steven Spielberg's "The Terminal," to 747-turned-designer hotels. Exhibiting equally the technical routines and the emotional excesses of 21st century civilization, airports serve as mundane settings for the dramatic and dramatic settings for the mundane--de Botton, as Heathrow's writer-in-residence, set out to capture both.

The assignment was simple: De Botton was commissioned by the British Airports Authority (BAA) to spend a week in the middle of Heathrow's bustling Terminal 5 and write about life at the airport. He got his own desk, was awakened by Air Canada every morning, and immersed himself into the airport logistics while living his usual ascetic life (judging from all photos, he wore his signature blue shirt all week). Most of the time he observed and conducted what design researchers would call ethnographic research--knowing that you can best study human behavior, on any given scale, when you're close enough to the action but not part of the commotion. The personal union of researcher and writer raises some interesting questions: Where exactly do you draw the line between observation and interpretation? Where does research end and authorship start? Is research even possible without storytelling?

But these are technicalities. Of bigger concern for reviewers appears to be the "precarious line between creative independence and commerce," as the Guardian calls it. Blog site Gawker, among others, was fast in chastising the unconventional book deal as a shameless and rather desperate PR stunt, but the alleged cynicism reflects more poorly on the critics themselves: Isn't the greatest cynicism of all to look for the cynical in all things? For the record, de Botton insists that BAA gave him complete editorial freedom and that his writing was thoroughly subjective and as unbiased as it can possibly be. He is not the first writer to experiment with commercial book mandates (bestselling author Fay Weldon shocked the arts world in 2001 when it emerged that her latest novel had been sponsored by Bulgari) and smart enough to know that his "Heathrow Diary" project might stir up a controversy. It would have been much safer, from his PR point-of-view, to not pursue it.

Yet de Botton's interest in airports seems genuine: "There are many places in the modern world that we do not understand because we cannot get inside them," he told the Guardian. Moreover, he believes the project is philosophically sound and in fact truly innovative as it revives an old tradition of underwriting: "That one of the largest organizations in the UK should take an interest in a book is almost quaint, like sponsoring a poet," he said. "On behalf of my fellow beleaguered writers, it's nice that writers seem to matter."De Botton already has plans for the next underwritten project: "I'd like to be a writer in residence at a nuclear power station."

And sure--why not? I think we have to overcome the notion that a distinction between marketing and publishing is still possible. Herman Miller's See magazine was one of the most artful and best-curated print magazines out there, Strategy + Business by Booz is one of the sharpest business publications, and there are countless other examples of high-quality corporate publishing. What is wrong with the idea that not only marketers need to be good writers, but writers can be good marketers, too--for the common good of public life? Brands, advertisers, and PR agencies shape the cultural fabric of our societies as much as museums, galleries, artists, and writers do--if the mechanics of their complex interactions are more exposed these days, this can only be a good thing. As long as the involved parties' agendas are transparent--as they were in De Botton's airport project--readers can judge for themselves how valuable they find the products of such collaborations: there is no free lunch, there is no free content, after all.

Aside from that, it is naïve to assume that PR agencies and brand marketers are all evil and unconditionally push for a lopsided, overwhelmingly positive expression of their brands. By now, most of them are happy to tune into the choir of conversational marketing evangelists who understand that authenticity trumps news which may be good but lacks credibility. In this vein, Dan Glover, creative director at Mischief, BAA's PR agency, told the NY Times that "If we funded a brochure that said how wonderful the airport was, people would switch off because they'd think they're being marketed to." Instead, he added, the Heathrow Diary campaign sought to stimulate "branded conversations" among travelers "through the experience of seeing a top literary figure at the airport--and potentially being a character in the book--and by receiving an exclusive copy to read on your travels. The overarching objective is to make a passenger's time at Heathrow the best memory of the trip."

It all goes back to the pillars of "meaningful marketing": Add value, create a (social) event, be a change agent, engage the audience, don't market products, produce! Clients turning to artists and storytellers to create "meaning" for their brands intend that the return-on-meaning transcends the original assignment--the wealth spreads and generates a "meaning surplus."

In this case, De Botton wasn't hired to write an image brochure for an airport whose bad reputation is well known. The "Art of Travel" author took advantage of the opportunity to study one of his favorite subjects first-hand, and rather than just bitching and moaning about the notoriously inhumane experience of having to spend time at Heathrow, he and his client actually did something to make the experience better for travelers. The result of his work, "A Week at the Airport: A Heathrow Diary," was published on September 24, and BAA is distributing 10,000 free copies of the book to Heathrow passengers (it is not devoid of irony to create artificial scarcity by limiting the book's free distribution to one of the world's most frequented travel hubs). Afterward the book will be available for sale through Amazon's British Web site and traditional bookstores. De Botton's "Heathrow Diary" benefits the publisher, the writer, BAA, and travelers--a win-win-win-win and a story with a happy landing.

Read excerpts from "Heathrow Diary"

[Image credit: LA Times]

Frog Design's promised series on “Meaning-Driven Business” is taking shape. After introducing the concept of “Chief Meaning Officer” in the “Power” issue of design mind, we are going to formally launch this new forum in our upcoming special TEDGlobal issue (to be released on Sept. 21, 2009) as well as on a special microsite to be launched in a couple of weeks.

For the first round of essays, we are delighted to have received contributions from three industry and thought leaders: Beth Comstock, chief marketing officer of GE and one of the world's most influential Fortune 50 marketing executives, will take the economic crisis as an opportunity to make the case for marketing-driven innovation. Werner Bauer, Nestle's chief technology officer and head of innovation, will describe his company’s concept of “Shared Value” and how it enables a more socially responsible business. And Dev Patnaik, founder and chief executive of innovation consultancy Jump Associates and author of the book Wired to Care, will illustrate how “high-empathy organizations” of all kinds prosper when they tap into a power each of us already has: the ability to reach outside of ourselves and connect with other people. Stay tuned!

The conversation is continuing in other outlets, too, and some pundits want “meaning” to not only be an abstract concept, but a movement. Economist Umair Haque is one of them. His "Generation M (as in “meaning”) Manifesto" stirred some controversial reactions (just read the comments on his blog)--from unconditional endorsement to accusations of arrogance and naiveté. It is one out of many manifestos that have recently been published on the new “new economy”--this, too, is a sign of the times. Manifestos indicate an increased need for ideological alternatives – and meaning. ... Read more

(Credit: Unicef)

The $10 billion market for baby and young children’s furnishings (cribs, other case goods, layette, nursery decor, and the like) and accessories (car seats, strollers, baby monitors, diaper bags, etc.) is a lucrative market, and the baby stroller is one of its most competitive sectors. Hundreds of models vie for the attention of parents-to-be, and the level of detailed research, due diligence, and individual preferences may come close to the decision making process by an airline for the purchase of a Boeing 787. There are only few things – at least that’s what the industry makes you believe – that are as personal and intimately important to consumers as a baby stroller. The stroller embodies the commitment, care, and love that a couple chooses to devote to their newborn. It is the most visible representation of good parenthood. And in the US, the baby stroller market combines three quintessential American traits into a mind-boggling mix of over-commercialism: an abundance of choices, an obsession about mobility, driving, and vehicles, and a profoundly whacked out paranoia about deficient baby care. All that turns the stroller into a status symbol, especially after the chic Bugaboo arrived on the scene (thanks to Sex and the City) and became the must-have stroller for every DINK (double income-no kids), oops, with kids now – from Los Angeles to New York.

All the more rewarding then is to see a baby and kids super store that defies this irrational exuberance by taking it even a step further, turning a farce into a comedy. Lullaby Lane in San Bruno, CA is a paradise for stroller shoppers precisely because it doesn’t try to be one. It runs three stores and a warehouse in the suburban town south of San Francisco, and surprisingly, the town isn’t named after the brand yet - as perhaps one of the biggest non-big-box baby gear suppliers in the world. The town of San Bruno is adjacent to the San Francisco International Airport (the noise of planes taking off may disrupt your shopping experience at Lullaby Lane every other minute, but my wife used it as an extra lever to lure me into the shop – “if you get bored, you can watch planes.” I love watching planes almost as much as I hate shopping).

But bored I was not. Lullaby Lane is a one-of-a-kind store, independent, grassroots, not slick and shiny – but having been in business for 57 years and family-run, it is the anti-Babies R Us. Almost like a garage sale with sales reps that are a charming mix of car mechanic, Formula One engineer, and precocious kindergartener. Adhering to an old-fashioned model of super-personal customer service, they master folding and unfolding hundreds of different strollers, and go to great lengths to thoroughly analyze each and every feature of the many brands of strollers that they carry – including a live comparison of the performance of the inflatable wheels of the Bugaboo Frog versus the non-inflatable wheels of the Uppa Baby Vista (the Bugaboo is the clear winner). The best thing about Lullaby Lane, however, is its product reviews on YouTube, enhanced by a delightfully ill-placed soundtrack (AC/DC’s “Hell’s Bells”) and astonishing, unexpected outbreaks of stroller stunts. You have to see them yourself; here's one example:

The videos are smart. They’re rough, low-budget, authentic, fun, and laden with just enough irony so they don’t turn off hardcore parents-to-be but also cater to the more enlightened shoppers who (wrongly) think that they aren’t succumbing to the baby industrial complex. The videos feature men and are designed to appeal to men, highlighting the strollers’ features and the competitive nature of their performance. You feel like they’re selling you a sports car. Once you’re in the store, however, the sales reps pay closer attention to the mothers-to-be, knowing they will ultimately make the purchasing decision. Even though I was the one asking more questions, our sales rep would always face my wife when answering them. When we left the store, we had bought two strollers (I learned that you need one for home and a lighter one for travel), and we swore we’d come back. There’s always more you need for your baby. Yes, we care. And then we watched planes.

By the way, you may think the Lullaby Lane videos are edgy, but they pale in comparison to the guerrilla marketing campaign conducted by UNICEF in Finland. Wanting to raise awareness for children rights, the “Be a Mom for a Moment” campaign placed fake blue strollers with a crying baby audio track in crowded places in 14 cities. If people looked in the strollers, they would find a note with the message: “Thank you for caring, we hope there are more people like you. UNICEF – Be a mom for a moment.” Apparently, the media and public reaction was overwhelming, with coverage in all the major TV, radio and web news. The estimated media reach was more than 80% of Finnish population after two days.

Lullaby Lane and UNICEF’s campaign share a commitment to meaningful marketing. They successfully connect with their audiences by applying what I call the "five principles of meaningful marketing (pdf):” be social, be personal, be dramatic, be disruptive, and be responsible. Lullaby Lane embraces the idea of generosity (“give more than you take”) and originality (the videos) to create long-term customer loyalty, and UNICEF’s campaign was a perfectly choreographed moment of “disruptive realism.” Both create meaning – events and experiences that you can relate to other events and experiences and that are at the same time so scarce and unexpected that they’re worth sharing.

Happy Father's Day!

(photo credit: UNICEF)

(Credit: Travelchinaguide)

I’m nervous, seriously nervous. In a few hours, in the Olympic stadium in Rome, FC Barcelona (or “Barca,” as its supporters call it) will face Manchester United, the other soccer superpower, in the game of all games, the final of the UEFA Champions League, the most important club competition in Europe (and the world, for that matter). Both teams have already won two trophies this season (their national leagues and national cups, respectively), and a victory in Rome would see either one clinch the “treble.” For Barca, it would be a historic accomplishment–no other Spanish soccer team has ever won all three possible titles in one season. That’s not the only superlative in the lead-up to the game: Messi, Eto'o, and Henry–Barca’s offensive trio–have scored more goals together this year than the entire squad of any other European club.

I’ll be watching the game at a resort near Santa Barbara, and it’ll be the end of journey for me, in many ways: I have been following Barca’s triumphant season leading to today’s final  in different cities all over the world on TV. I saw the team struggle against Lyon in an earlier round in a packed sports bar in Amsterdam; I bit my nails in a smelly pub in Austin when Barca remained goalless in the home tie against Chelsea; I took a day off from work in San Francisco to enjoy them trashing Bayern Munich 4-1; I was in Barcelona in a bar without any Euros but a kind bartender (the comfort of strangers) who even accepted a few lousy dollars for a beer that helped me make it through a dramatic away game; I followed games on the Internet live-ticker in Sonoma County in lack of TV; and I celebrated euphorically the decisive 1-1 goal in Chelsea in the semi-final with my best friend in Hamburg. After all these memorable moments, I realize that I am emotionally exhausted. There’s just enough sentiment left for today’s game. I will use it to cheer Barca to victory.

So I am a Barca fan, but you may wonder why in the world would an otherwise level-headed (I hope) German professional, living in San Francisco, be so crazy about a Catalan soccer team? Joan Laporta, FC Barcelona’s president, asked me exactly that question (more diplomatically phrased) when I met him briefly two years ago at an event at Stanford University, and I uttered something like “because Barca is more than a club.” I felt stupid and exposed as succumbing to the marketing formula the club had promoted for years: “Mes que un club.” But then I thought of that one remarkable moment in Bill Maher’s documentary “Religulous” in which he tries to make fun of the actor who plays Jesus in a Christian theme park in Florida. Not a difficult task, it seems, until that very actor asks him back, with great sincerity and earnestness: “So you think this is all made up and crazy talk. I get it. But what if you're wrong?” There’s a short pause, and Maher, the cynic, has just been disarmed. That’s exactly how I feel about my passion for Barca. Not that Barca is like a religion to me, but it is a matter of faith. It is something to believe in–the why doesn’t matter.

And yet, I could cite very good reasons for why Barca ought to be the favorite club of anyone who loves the “beautiful game.” In fact, Albert Schweitzer must have had Barca in mind when he coined his famous aphorism: “Do something wonderful, people may imitate it.” Much has been written about Barca’s aesthical  play and its underlying philosophy. Barca’s style is a showcase of sparkling creativity, but what one must not overlook is the enormous tactical discipline and the intelligent organization that serve as the platform for the magic moments of Messi, Eto’o, Henry et al. The Barca superstars wouldn’t be able to shine without the works of Xavi, Iniesta, and Toure in midfield, and what pundits have rightly dubbed an “efficient ballet” is a collective movement of great fluidity and elegance, and a unique series of human-ball, human-human interactions that are a true pleasure to watch. One must also credit the incredible discipline that coach and former Barca player Pep Guardiola has introduced to the club this year. When a few players showed up one(!) minute late to a training session last week after winning the Spanish cup the night before, Guardiola reprimanded them and fined them – a symbolic act, of course, but one that reinforced the high standards of professionalism.

One of the other key elements of Barca’s supremacy is anticipation – the ability to predict the opponents’ moves and be just one crucial tick faster than them. This ability is based on the philosophy of “Total Football” that the Dutchmen Johann Cruyff and Luis van Gaal brought to Barcelona, and that Barca still cherishes. Total Football requires every player on the pitch to master any position at any time and to “read” the whole game from any angle. In this fluid system no player is fixed in their intended outfield role; anyone can be successively an attacker, a midfielder, and a defender. Total Football depends largely on the adaptability of each footballer within the team to succeed.

Barcelona embodies Total Football and is yet so much more than just football. To learn more about the genuine element of drama that no other club embraces in the way Barca does, I recommend you read Javier Marias' “All Our Past Battles,” a wonderful collection of stories around the “el classicos” between Barca and arch rival Real Madrid. You’ll understand the melodramatic quality of Barca’s defeats (and wins!), and the great poetry that surrounds all of its appearances, on the pitch and off. More than just once, Barca squandered opportunities to close in on a victory that was thought secure because the team’s abundantly talented players gave in to a seemingly insatiable quest for inspiration, artistry, and class rather than scoring a simple goal. The simple way is never the easiest for Barca. Barca’s striving for excellence feels nostalgic but at the same time very relevant and timely.

Franklin Foer also dedicates a whole chapter to the “Blaugrana” (Catalan for blue/red) club and its political undercurrents in his excellent “How Soccer Explains the World.” FC Barcelona was one of the first soccer clubs to be founded in Spain, and it became a haven for Catalan sentiment when Catalan self-government and culture were proscribed during Franco’s dictatorship. The club emerged as the playful manifesto of Catalonia’s spiritual independence, and since then, nowhere has soccer been more fundamental to the sense of identity than in Barcelona. Former Barca full back Oleguer even published a book which was about politics as much as his own career. Barca supporters joke that he only played when he was not on a protest march.

It is ironic that a club rooted deeply in Catalan nationalism has such an international following. But Barca’s appeal is so global precisely because its roots are so local. Barca represents the Catalan people while at the same time creating a sense of \belonging to “beauty and quality.” The meaning of Barca transcends the boundaries of sports and nations, and embodies the universal values of sportsmanship and integrity.

Every brand can take a page from Barca’s “magic ingredients”:

Aspiration: Barca has always set itself and its members daunting challenges to strive for and rally around. The latest one is “The Great Challenge” campaign which aims at growing the membership, fostering Barca as the biggest and greatest club in world soccer. Before the beginning of this season Barca also declared that its goal was to win all three competitions it participated in. Some may call this arrogance, but for Barca it's a brand driver. The “Big Hairy Audacious Goals” set by excellent teams always need to exceed the past ones. Motivation originates in the belief and opportunity to achieve the extraordinary–no matter what it takes. Underpromise and overdeliver is just good execution. Overpromise and overdeliver are the signs of a class act.

Only the best: Barca’s management and members are never satisfied with average, and they despise mediocrity. They understand top quality, tactically advanced soccer as a moral obligation. Only the best players make it to Barca where the competition is brutal. Analogous to GE's famous 10 percent rule, the lowest performing players in the team usually have to leave the club.

Social responsibility: Barca is fully owned by its members, unlike most other big soccer clubs--which are either in the hands of  large corporations or American (Manchester United) and Russian (FC Chelsea) billionaires--and they possess significant voting power. This “power to the people” tradition reflects a distinct social conscience that is expressed in many ways. Sure, other clubs are using the power of their brands as well to do good, but no other club’s social responsibility is so deeply engrained in its DNA as Barca’s. Based on its spirit of independence, the club has always taken on broader social issues and played a pivotal role in promoting diversity, tolerance, and peace worldwide. Barca’s partnership with UNICEF is a statement of the club's continuing efforts to be at the forefront of solidarity projects with a global reach. Under the agreement, which bears the slogan “Barcelona, more than a club, a new global hope for vulnerable children,” Barca contributes to the financing of UNICEF humanitarian projects and endorses UNICEF on its shirts–as the only major European team not to wear an advertisement. Club president Joan Laporta rules out any type of commercial shirt sponsorship and  instead seeks to promote a humanitarian message: "FC Barcelona is not only a football club, but a club with a soul.”

The real thing: To a European soccer fan living in the US who has grown accustomed to hyper-commercialized sports events, it is reassuring to see how purist the soccer experience still is in Barca’s stadium, the Camp Nou – a few pre-game commercials, no half-time show whatsoever, and all attention on the players, even during their warm-up exercises before the game. In Camp Nou, it is all about the “beautiful game.”

Charismatic reference point: Messi, arguably the world's best soccer player, serves as a reference point for team mates and fans alike. There is no one else like him, and he outshines all other soccer superstars with his playfulness.

Disruption: Powerful brands need an element of surprise. They should always take the freedom to ignore the quest for consistency and do what they want--irrationally, passionately, and with no regrets. Every three years or so, when a cycle ends, Barca’s management disrupts the existing team structure and builds a new squad. The rule is: Always change a winning team! By all standards of modern business, Barca is a professionally managed club but yet there is a sense that anything could happen anytime – almost like in a soccer match.

The Champions League final today will be another milestone in the saga of the Barca brand, regardless of who wins (2-1 for Barca, my prediction). Humility and hard work have been the traits of Barca's season so far, and in the end, dignity will matter more than titles and trophies at a club that is “more than a club.” And that exactly is the hallmark of a great brand: “Keep yourself clean and bright. You are the windows through which you must view the world,” the ancient proverb goes.

Credit: next09

I just came back from the next09 conference in Hamburg, one of Europe's leading digital/creative/marketing forums that stands out in the conference circuit because of its unique German-international focus (bilingual program, 80 percent international attendees, many international speakers). This year's theme was "Share Economy," and the 1,300 attendees comprised of European VCs and angel investors, Web 2.0 entrepreneurs, media, creative agencies, and executives from German corporations (from BMW to Deutsche Bank to Deutsche Telekom).

In talking to many German attendees, my impression was that the German creative community shows no signs of a downturn. The German start-up scene in particular, if that is any indicator, is alive and kicking. There are many new promising Web 2.0 firms run by smart entrepreneurs (many of them are funded by entrepreneurs who made a fortune during the dot-com heyday), and there is a lot of money to go around. Notwithstanding this newly found confidence, however, Germans still look to the U.S., and in particular to Silicon Valley, for technology trends and innovative business models--this is nothing new but next09 was a stark reminder of how powerful the Valley myth still is. Consequently, there was a large contingent of social media folks from the Bay Area.

I met several great people including Lane Becker, the founder of Adaptive Path and co-founder and president of Get Satisfaction (the "people-powered customer service" that seems to be everybody's darling these days), Natasha Friis Saxberg, the founder of Mentory, a Web-based mentoring network, Maria Sipla from social network marketplace Linqia, Daniel Reckling from Neckermann.de, Germany's largest online retailer, Stephan Loyen from Simyo (a German discount telco), Darius Miranda from Wells Fargo (which appears to have a pretty sophisticated social media B2B strategy), and many others.

In conversations with Jackson Bond and Johannes Haus from Xing, the European equivalent to LinkedIn, it became evident that for social networks and other Web players "conversations" are the next big frontier. The business world is ready to embrace an enterprise Twitter, and many business communities (social networks and intra-company networks alike) are working on proprietary internal micro-blogging services--micro micro-blogging, if you will, that can be better customized and controlled. Yammer for everyone. In one of the main stage sessions at next09, Stowe Boyd ("Unmarketing") presented the Open Enterprise 2009 study, which predicts that in a few years 80 percent of knowledge-based tasks in corporations will be happening outside of formal organizational boundaries and will be open-sourced, crowd-sourced, social, and conversational.

In this vein, I was invited to speak about "The Shrinking Brand--Marketing in a Small World," a talk I had given before at the eMarketing conference in San Francisco. But after listening to Jeff Jarvis' terrific key note on "The Great Restructuring," Umair Haque's pledge for "Constructive Capitalism," and Andrew Keen's passionate rebuttal of both, I felt the need to change the focus of my talk and approach it from a broader view. It was also more fun to present something new. And so I came up with the "Seven Rules of the Chief Meaning Officer" (I know, I know, 10 would have been better, but sometimes there are only seven...), based on a concept I've been blogging about over the past few months. This was the first time I ever shared it at a public forum.

My key points, in a nutshell: As brands face an unprecedented level of competition, transparency, and consumer empowerment on the social Web, "meaning" is becoming the new powerful currency that connects brands with their brandholders in the "share economy." The new marketing leader, the chief meaning officer, is a strategic activist, social media entrepreneur, constant innovator, and integrator. The chief meaning officer has the potential to transform business through meaningful marketing--marketing that consistently creates added social value, not as an afterthought but a sine qua non. While marketing has always been the art of turning friends into customers and customers into friends, it is now the art of finding, befriending, and activating the like-minded for a common cause, for the common good--and for profit. Brands that have a reason to exist, an argument to win, will be more appealing than ever.

The Seven Rules:
1. Listen and converse (and converge)
2. Atomize your brand
3. Activate your customers
4. Think and act like a media company
5. Give more than you take
6. Be the change
7. Be yourself

Here are the slides:

More about the other next09 talks--and the emerging 'Share Economy' (that you may also call a "Twitter Economy")--in the next couple of days…

(Credit: Wikia)

I wrote earlier that "marketing with meaning" has the ability to "activate" customers. An effective way to activate customers is by activating the dormant social networks they inhabit (often without even knowing it). While social networking has visualized the so-called six degrees of separation, all business transactions have a social component and can be seen as expressions of the underlying social micro-universes, the "worlds within worlds," in which--shifting time and place--individuals travel and interact. As marketers face the daunting challenge of connecting with fragmented audiences that are increasingly split into billions of social atoms populating myriad micro networks, activating dormant social networks is their foremost task.

KLM's Africa and China clubs, launched in 2007 and 2006 respectively, provide an interesting case study. The Dutch airline offers business customers the opportunity to meet fellow travelers who do business with or in either of these two regions, before take-off or during the flight, online and in person. KLM plays the role of the matchmaker and adds value to the otherwise somewhat value-free hours frequent travelers spend at airport lounges. It is the principle of the social networking site Dopplr, applied to the exclusive crowd of business or first-class travelers: connecting travelers who share the same connections. KLM prefilters the club members so that travelers who sign up for the exclusive network are warranted a certain quality of contacts.

The clubs are a win-win-win: trade groups and business offices from the travel regions are provided with a highly targeted way to advertise their services; travelers benefit from a true value-add and a richer travel experience; and, lastly, the clubs bolster KLM's reputation as an airline that cares about its customers. Of course, these networks already exist, they're just dormant. KLM does not make immediate revenue but it generates "social wealth" as long-term equity.

The KLM clubs exhibit all the characteristics of "meaningful marketing" (see chart below):

• Social: The clubs help people connect.


• Personal: The clubs are relevant for the people they serve, and the service is exclusive and highly personalized.


• Storytelling: The clubs make sense of disparate information, perspectives, and events. They facilitate crossing paths by creating--quite literally--a common goal and therefore a joint narrative.


• Disruptive: The clubs disrupt the usual travel routine; they make it comfortable for business travelers to leave their comfort zone and go off the beaten path to meet new people.


• Responsible: The clubs generate social capital by bringing together business people in pursuit of related goals. The KLM Club Africa, in particular, has helped African entrepreneurs to get in front of influential business executives (investors) conducting business in Africa.