Strands of Genius: Twisted + Straight, Conformity Be Damned, Teaching Smart People
Plus: Liquid Death interview video
WRITING FROM | Chattanooga, TN
WORKING ON | edits to some articles, writing a new talk, plans to paint the stairs, health
LOOKING AHEAD
July 29-Aug 13 | Chattanooga, TN
Aug 15-18 | Charlotte, NC
Aug 18-?? | Chattanooga, TN
Sept 25-28 | New York, NY
:: WHAT’S NEW & WEEKLY GRATITUDE ::
Hello there Stranders! Geniuses? Thieves? Lol. We love you and hope you are well. As we mentioned last week it’s been a tough year for many in the business, especially in the freelance sector, and we are still offering to promote any jobs or gigs to this community so get in touch if that’s of any interest.
We popped to Nashville for a last minute visit and it was wonderful to see everyone! However, we have since learned that people in the house have since got covid womp womp. We are currently testing negative but keeping an eye on it and Faris is shoveling immunity supplements into his mouth because, well, it probably can’t hurt. Anyway, we have heard from a number of people who have got it recently so we wish you all excellent health for the rest of the summer and beyond. Crikey - it will be halloween in no time, where does the year go, and the rest of this year through November is just going to get louder and weirder in USA, and probably globally, since this election is of great interest to many powers around the world. Rest up, when and while you can, and read Strands (of course! lol), for what is inspiration but glimmers of light in the darkness. Ultimately, I think of our core here at strands is anything that might inspire some or hopefully most of you. <3
This week, we’re especially thankful for:
Judy, Marion&Nate&Beck, Lillian&Jason&Simon&Porter&Vera, Messi the rabbit, Wolf 359 (fiction podcast), San Antonio Taco Company, House of the Dragon, vaccines, Hit Man (Netflix), health, & YOU.
:: THE LINKS ::
TWISTED + STRAIGHT
Of late there has been some discourse about print advertising, especially that which wins awards, (nearly) always being a visual pun. Visual puns are powerful metaphoric devices no doubt but the art director’s ‘ideal’ of ‘no copy’ at all is probably not the most powerful way to use the medium. This post on LinkedIn (I know!) explores this pretty well and makes a strong case for the power of art AND copy. “If you have a strong visual idea, the payoff line should be simple. If you have a strong headline, the visual should be simple. Basically, when one element is really strong, don’t steal its shine.” This makes the most of the combinatorial power of art and copy and highlights how you can make something interesting by marrying twisted with straight. (LinkedIn)
Of note: I found this through a recent ‘newsletter’ (I think someone linked to it) which appears to be generated by an SEO company for SEO, which has embedded the entire LinkedIn post from 2020 as their post with an ‘ad’ notice, which I guess is attribution?…link here for interested.
CONFORMITY BE DAMNED
Eric Markowiz writes about the ‘black sheep paradox’ which I think of as the ‘rebellious people pleasing paradox.’ I’ve always had a rebellious spirit and don’t love just taking things at face value. But rather than challenging something aloud, I’ll go to the bathroom and Google, and then come back and make a muted argument. My rebellious spirit has served me well, but sometimes it’s constrained (for better and worse) by my desire to please people. Markowiz writes that, “In order to achieve success — be it as an investor, entrepreneur, writer, intellectual, artist, or really any creative field — one must resist the temptation to conform, often when it is the most painful to do so.” He goes on to say that being overly contrarian is not the goal, but when you just ride the waves of the crowd, you’re destined to be average. He suggests that it’s not just deep learning, but diverse learning that helps us hold multiple view points and connect thought laterally, across fields. (Big Think)
TEACHING SMART PEOPLE
Following a tip from strategy heavyweight Roger Martin, Faris read a pamphlet called Teaching Smart People How To Learn. His response was “ouch that stings” in an unusually direct humble brag but he thinks it applies broadly to graduate types in professional services especially if they wholeheartedly embrace the prevailing orthodoxy of their industry, narrowing the set of solutions they will consider because they know what works.
It might also be a source of disciplinary conflict inside an org. Different departments, say finance and marketing, might have different beliefs about what is causing whatever and react strongly to being challenged, based on their deep knowledge of their own domain. The pamphlet was originally a HBR article (1991) so you can read it online.
“Those members of the organization that many assume to be the best at learning are, in fact, not very good at it. I am talking about the well-educated, high-powered, high-commitment professionals who occupy key leadership positions in the modern corporation… Because many [of these] professionals are almost always successful at what they do, they rarely experience failure. And because they have rarely failed, they have never learned how to learn from failure. So whenever their single-loop learning strategies go wrong, they become defensive, screen out criticism, and put the “blame” on anyone and everyone but themselves.” Read more for how to develop awareness of and practice introspective ‘second loop’ learning. (HBR)
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:: VIDEO KILLS THE PODCAST ::
Mediacat have rebooted their Youtube channel with none other than the video of Faris’ interview with Andy Pearson, VP Creative, Liquid Death.
If we can ever be of help to you, even outside of a formal engagement, please don’t hesitate to let us know.
rockON,
faris & rosie | your friends over at geniussteals.co
(still want more? @faris is still “tweeting” while @rosieyakob prefers instagram stories)
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It's called Genius Steals because we believe ideas are new combinations and that nothing can come from nothing. But copying is lazy. We believe the best way to innovate is to look at the best of that which came before and combine those elements into new solutions.
Co-Founders Faris & Rosie are award-winning strategists and creative directors, writers, consultants and public speakers who have been living on the road/runway since March 2013, working with companies all over the world. We have a distributed team ourselves, an accounting team is based in Tennessee where our company is registered, our admin extraordinaire is based in Playa del Carmen, and our collaborators are all over the world. Being nomadic allows us to go wherever clients need us to be, and to be inspired by the world in between.
Hit reply and let’s talk about how we might be able to work together :)