I was having a conversation with someone I consider to be a good colleague the other day, and they expressed an interest in how I go about my creative process, yadda yadda, and said they’d be curious to see something more long form on that. it got me thinking that I should, after about a month of ramp up, probably start thinking with that sort of structure when writing these blogs; at least some of them.
today will not be a day for factoring my creative process, although, if you’ve been reading my posts for a while now, the word ‘factoring’ might look familiar. it’s a big clue in how I go about my creative process, in an R&D context.
anyway, if you’re that colleague and you’re reading this, which, I’m assuming you will, thanks again for the chat, and for the subsequent food for thought.
today I am going to shill my own organization, but hopefully not in a “here’s why we’re r3ally cool and why you sh0uld hire us” kind of way, but rather a “here’s what we do and why we think it’s important” kind of way. let’s begin.
for context: I run an org called Fade Media Collective (FMC) (the collective) and we do consulting. we’re pretty open to most industries, but we specifically focus on Media Communications, Yield Management, and Political Positioning. big words! abstract!
chill, it’s not that crazy.
Media Management: communication is a fundamental pillar of what drives society. everywhere you go, everything you do, you have to exchange information with another party; minimum one person, but often more. this exchange of information is Communication, live, in the flesh, happening before your eyes, in the moment.
There’s a lot that goes into good communication, much of it being context dependent, but there’s a few low-hanging ideas that everyone should be aware of when crafting a message.
formatting: geometry is a fundamental way in which we perceive the world around us. media is not exempt from this perception filter. this doesn’t necessarily mean “some graphics should be circles” or “copy can’t be written in a triangle shape”; rather what I mean when I talk about formatting is what often constitutes a good PowerPoint presentation. you have key, definitive points that you are trying to convey, and each point and piece of information has enough time and space in the user’s mind so that the audience isn’t overstimulated.
language: this one is obvious. don’t use french if you’re speaking to english-dominant audience; don’t use english if you’re speaking to a spanish-dominant audience. there are arguments to be had by some that “if people are going to live in a certain place, they should learn the language”. we’re not getting into that here. looking past the obvious things like language barriers, the words you use in communication should be as simple as possible without detracting a significant portion of meaning from your message. a good way to do this is by counting syllables. read what you’re trying to communicate using the voice in your head. does it sound good? is there a good flow? if yes, good, nice. if no, ok, then change what you think needs to be changed in order to have a fluid, prosodic experience. this is largely applicable to all writing practices.
culture: understanding the culture of your audience helps you stay within the boundaries of relevant aesthetics and etiquette, and as we know, all fluid, healthy interactions in the socialsphere rely on an, at least adequate, understanding of a culture’s aesthetics and etiquette. New Yorkers don’t care about what’s going on in Eastern Kentucky on any given day. they just don’t. nothing wrong with that, by the way, just is what it is. understanding culture is about understanding the day-to-day experiences of the audience you’re addressing. you really have to understand the psychographic data behind their lives.
Yield Management: When I worked one of my first jobs, I doubled the annual income of the ecommerce portion of the business? How did I do this? Something I have since come to articulate as yield management.
There’s always a market for something. from trashes to treasures, there’s someone out there who wants to buy whatever you’re selling.
the key for me in my situation was packaging and focusing on form factor. it was about standardization. it was about simplification.
packaging: when you’re shipping physical products, it helps if, you know, the product actually arrives in working condition. when I would package hardware with more than enough bubble wrap and peanuts, I would get chided by management. “it’s not an art project, man, just pack it up.” here’s the thing though, management isn’t the one spending money on this stuff. you know how many messages I got about “thanks for the exceptional packaging!”? enough to retain >50% of customers, for whatever that’s worth. the point here is that you should go (just a little) above and beyond, if not because you have good work ethic, then at least so your customers don’t have anything to complain about.
form factor: some things simply aren’t worth the effort to ship when you look at the production costs. the margins don’t make sense. I realized fairly early on to identify what customers were actually buying. are they buying a piece of hardware for the purpose of having the hardware or because they need something specific on the inside? this is vague for a reason, but the point here is that by playing with the form factor of the product I was able to move high volume and shave off shipping costs. presentation matters.
standardization: this ties into the previous point about form factor. people really like doing tiers and offers and A/B testing and it’s like, yeah man all that can work well enough, but I personally found success in offering one thing, standardized, with a quick and intuitive purchasing experience. people seem to appreciate knowing exactly what they’re getting, knowing exactly what it’ll cost, and knowing it’s going to work when it gets there. the thing I learned most by standardizing a product catalogue is that…
you’ll always have a primary customer. focus on them, because they’re your primary source of revenue.
save on expenses by making burst, bulk sales. if you can sell 30 of something at once, with one shipping fee, that’s a lot better than selling 30 of something 30 different times with 30 different fees.
all of this harkens to the underlying goal: simplification. packing, form factor, standardization, these are all operational activities. they’re involved in the fullfilment, in this case of physical product. when you make things simple, it makes everything else easier.
easier to train new hires on systems and ops
easier to find customers
easy to fulfill orders
easier to fix mistakes
simple is slow, slow is smooth, smooth is fast. making things simple will make everyone want to do business with you, because it’s easy. it’s convenient. nobody wants homework so don’t give them a bunch of extra shit to think about.
Political Positioning: just going to be honest here: we live in a very politically charged and volatile world. just what it is. everyone is hyper-focused on their tribe, other tribes, what people are doing. it’s inescapable and more so because the world is so connected. every statement made by your organization is going to be under the microscope of the socialsphere.
lucky for you, I have experience with political research and a formal education in psychology, philosophy, and anthropology.
if you’re a bit nervous about how people are going to react to some shit you want to say, I’m literally the perfect person to help you make sure that doesn’t happen.
what I’m essentially saying here is that you never have to worry about looking stupid online again (unless you want to. unless that’s part of your schtick, which is fine, I love shitposting and encourage the art).
so, how is this possible? at FMC, our political positioning service involves things like…
SMOSINT research: very simple concept. what are people saying on social media? what’s the current thing and narrative? what are people talking about, and how are they talking about it? basically, a thermometer for public social media sentiment.
digital ethnography: pretty similar, but more community focused and long-term. if you want to know how people in a certain market behave on a fundamental level, you know, with naturalistic observation and thick descriptions, this is where you’re going to find that.
public positioning and diplomatic communications: everything is about stories. everything is about aesthetics and etiquette. this is something that helps you publicly position yourself in a desired way, and communicate that positioning in a way that falls within positive public perception.
honestly to be direct about, this sort of service does what the mainstream media often gets accused of — manipulating narratives, creating propaganda, all that fun stuff — just not for the people who have historically benefited from it. it’s like open-source propaganda created by media mercenaries that benefits the layman.
so, yeah, that’s what I’ve been doing and building and creating and selling and working on and pushing into the world. my attention sort of faltered there towards the end, but if there’s every any questions about this stuff, you guys know where to reach me.
remember, we are in the attention economy, and attention is like carrying around a loaded gun. some people use it wisely, as a tool, hitting their marks and advancing in the competition. other people are stupid and blow their hand or head off.
something to think about.