ALL THE HUES THAT'R FIT TO PRINT

Our penchant for Variety-like headlines got inspired by the latest publishing news.

Which is that coloring books for adults have reached the 15 million mark in sales last year (from one million 12 months earlier).

Why the rebirth?  Psychologists position it as a form of mindfulness, even a block to distraction.  [Coloring inside the lines does, after all, take a lot of concentration.]

Others talk about its inherent creativity, pointing to completed pages posted on Facebook and Pinterest.

And a third group cites all things nostalgic, satisfying a yen for childhood stuff.

[Of course, there are detractors.  One calls it the sign of an infantilized culture.]

Regardless, this not-so-new trend has many pluses for us communicators and marketers, especially its work application.   It’s clear that our world today lives in the eye (and, yes, the “I”).  After all, most audiences prefer to receive visual communications, whether an infographic, a video, or a great series of photographs.  So adopting the ready-to-color book seems to be the next best thing to a business-focused graphic novel.

Some top-of-mind ideas:

• Why not, for instance, promote family-friendly products/services through a generation-spanning coloring book? 
• Or hold an internal contest (with a company-sponsored book) awarding prizes for children of employees?  
• Even educate new hires about the business using a series of illustrated, black- and-white outlined pages? 

It’s what we call down-to-earth doodling, for profit.

OF FENG SHUI AND FORECASTS

With any new year, East or West, almost everyone succumbs to the temptation to predict.

This time, it’s the Lunar celebration, with more than a billion of our Asian neighbors at home with family.

Some of the media’s annual visions are way too easy … and snore-able.  Like Canadian pop star and “we’re so over him” Justin Bieber will get into more trouble again.  Setting records in temperature and natural disasters, unfortunately, seems to prevail, given climate change.  Fighting looms over local conflicts – in the Middle East in particular.

Other forecasts depend on a wide application of common sense:  The economy’s slated to be up in the West, subdued in the East, with scaled-down spending on luxury items.  The Affordable Care Act will still be in the hospital, holding a diagnosis of “wait and see.”  Cost-cutting continues in the business arena, with corporate chiefs still uncertain about full-speed-ahead profitability.

This Year of the Horse, though, doesn’t address the trends in our profession.  Again, instinct and experience say that change is our constant.  What will matter is how well we accept change, indeed, how smartly we anticipate it.  It doesn’t take a brain surgeon to recognize that digital dominance is here and now.  Or that employees will continue to seek meaning in work.  Or that consumers need to be segmented into even more and smaller cohort groups.  Or that advertising is forever searching for the magic metric.

Our task is to figure out how to best use these trends, these changes – to our advantage and to our employer’s.  Why wait for the next best disruptor?  We could, using what we’ve learned, develop our own crystal ball – and what’s more, activate it.  Master the realm of the new and newer and yet-to-be media.  Emphasize individual contributors, holistically.  Network with and review group formations on different e-platforms.  Apply New Age measures to campaigns. 

No crystal ball needed.  Just wisdom, a shot of courage, and the ability to take change in hand. 

OF SELFIES ... AND MES

If the Oxford English Dictionary is already tracking a word (in its online version), then we call it a fact of life.

In August, the word “selfie” debuted in the OED, though Russian Grand Duchess Anastasia probably counts as the first perpetrator (in the early 1900s) of the “self-portrait photo, taken with a hand-held camera or smartphone.” 

It’s so popular today that Time magazine named it one of its top ten buzzwords last year.  And numbers don’t lie:  23 million photos have been uploaded on Instagram with the hashtag #selfie (versus 51 million with the hashtag #me). 

Wait:  Further proof that the millennium’s second decade is “all about me” lies in the growing numbers of self-tracking smartphone apps.  Once apps are active, users can count sleep gained, food digested, fitness goals achieved.  These seven thousand-plus devices are wearable, tote-able, and generally affixed to almost any part of the body, quantifying and qualifying how an individual’s day is going.   [Like a smartphone, but oh-so-much-more personal.]

In a related bit of I/me research:  University of Texas research academicians probed the use of the word “I” versus “we.”  Surprisingly enough, professors found that those saying “I” more frequently were less powerful and less sure of themselves.  Those adopting the “we” language were higher status, preferring to look outside on the world, not inside. 

To us, selfies, self-tracking, even the “I” word could be seen as the ultimate symbols of self-absorption – among all generations, not just Millennials or Boomers.  For sure, today’s economy alone would prompt that “let’s take care of me first” feeling.  As would the boom of social “me” media, from Twitter and Facebook to Snapchat and Vine.  It’s something that we as communicators and marketers need to be more conscious of and more deliberate about … regardless of the reasons for self-focus.  After all, an inward perspective – am I genuine, am I honest? – is always a subject worth probing, with ourselves and with others.

MR. BELL SEZ ...

Futurists, from Al Gore to Google’s Larry Page, see a world filled with multiple robots and complex automated “things,” ready to do our bidding at the touch of an app.

Many are here right now:  Kitchens that talk.  Fitness monitors limiting TV time if wearers don’t meet fitness goals.  Driverless cars and un-peopled fulfillment warehouses.   Robotic surgery and microprocessor plants.

Soon after IBM’s Watson won Jeopardy in 2011, words started flying.  Will “they” replace “us”?  How many will be unemployed after the automatons take over?  Need we fear for our long-term livelihoods?

Truth?  A few of these worries might be valid. 

Remember, though, what these technological innovations are intended to do:  Replace simple and repetitive activities.  They can’t make decisions (Watson, to the contrary).  Nor can they perform complex and dynamic projects (though technology greatly aids us in analysis and scenario building).

Which brings us to our point:  Yes, there is a slight risk for communicators, marketers, designers, change agents, and brand gurus.  The risk:  Not keeping up with the Gores of this world.  Sure, computers can’t write … yet.  [One did act as the late Roger Ebert’s voice when he lost his speaking function.   But couldn’t substitute for his elegant prose and generous mind.]  But if we can’t understand the latest and greatest of trends, automated and otherwise, if we don’t commit to always-on continual learning, yeah, Watson could put us out of business.  No matter what we might think, personally, of all the technology wars or social media or networking or sustainability or [you fill in the blank], it’s our responsibility to be more than aware of what’s going on around us.  To practice and get even better at our profession.  And to share what we know about machines and their impact with our clients, our bosses, our companies, and our customers.

Watson, I want to see you.  Now.