Yesterday on the kitchen table was a newspaper. That in itself would be unusual given that I don’t subscribe to a newspaper, but this one was particularly different.The masthead of this paper said, “The Pirate News.” It was hand-written, photocopied, then colored by some eight-year-olds. It was fantastic. I asked my son what the story behind the newspaper was and he explained that he had started a pirate club with his friends. Obviously, Rian was the captain and his friends all became his first, second, and third mates respectively. I asked him where he got the idea and he said, “It just came to me. I like pirates so I thought I would start a pirate club.”

Beyond just being a proud dad, I love seeing what my son is interested in. He is at an age where you can visibly see him learning. You see it on his face when he makes a new connection. A look of determination relaxes into accomplishment as he uses his hands to build something. But most of all he is excited about what he is doing. He can’t wait to show me the things that he is creating. The same thing is true of Camden, our 9 month old. Everything he sees and hears is a fascinating new discovery. Wouldn’t it be nice to have that kind of excitement as an adult?

Somewhere along the way to becoming grownups we get the idea that you have to have a really good reason to create something. So when we meet someone who is spending their free time building things we ask questions like, “How do you find the time?” or “How long did that take?” We wonder how people can justify quitting their job to pursue a crazy dream. We roll our eyes at the dreamers and say, “It must be nice to have that much free time.” And the worst question is just, “Why?” Because we expect a profound answer that might push us out of our complacency. And when the answer is “because I like pirates” we are disappointed. Just loving something isn’t a good enough excuse for most people to take the risk. I think that’s why most grown-ups have lost the enthusiasm for learning that they had as children.

I am not big on resolutions, but this year I am going to worry less about justifying my creations. I will create things because I love them, and that will be enough. It might be a chess app, a camera made of Legos, or a Scotch tasting club. Will you join me in embracing this attitude? Will you join my pirate club?

For the last week or so I have been thinking about the term zugzwang. Have you ever heard that word before? Zugzwang is created when you put someone in a situation where they are forced to move even though any movement would weaken their position. Isn’t that a beautiful idea? In our hyper-competitive society it seems foreign to use a strategy like that, whether it is in sports, business, politics, or even our relationships. Instead of praising the silent winners, the people who get the attention are the ones who defeat their opponents as graphically as possible. It is refreshing to think of someone with so much skill that they win by simply forcing their opponent to make a move – any move.

The thing that appeals to me about zugzwang is the idea that you can be in a situation where doing nothing is better than doing something. How un-American is that? Could it be possible that we are in constant self-imposed zugzwang? How long could you sit at your desk in silent contemplation without actually producing something? Deep thought might be what we really need, but instead we surround ourselves with devices that ping us constantly. This puts us in a constant state of motion and it kind of feels like we are doing something meaningful. And we get used to that feeling. Silence makes us uncomfortable. Stopping seems like an unthinkable strategy for success. Are we our own worst enemy, always overfilling our schedules, always promising more than we can deliver, and never saying no? We feel forced to do things that actually hurt us. And don’t get me started about procrastination. That sounds an awful lot like zugzwang to me.

So what is the secret to escaping zugzwang? First you have to do is be aware that it is happening. Life isn’t a chess game where you are required to move your pieces. You rarely if ever are in a situation where you absolutely have to do something. Seriously. You can find the time to isolate yourself from distraction. You can tell your spouse/boss/friends no. You can reduce your work load. You can stop procrastinating. You can be decisive and stop relying on others to make decisions for you. Easier said than done, but it at least is something to think about. I better wrap this up – I have work to do…

If you happened to catch my recent Facebook or LinkedIn update you may have noticed I have a new job. Less than two weeks ago I started working for Burns Marketing and Communications. I am starting to get the hang of things and I am finally able to take a breath and make a quick blog post. Not to diminish the great places and talented people I have worked with in the past, but Burns Marketing is an amazing place. I am not easily impressed, but I find myself being stunned by the talent of the new people I will be surrounded with.

For a shy guy like me, joining a large team has been a bit exhausting. In addition to the regular stress of starting a new job, trying to forge new relationships with twenty-nine new people is a big task. How do you connect with people when you only have a few minutes a day to interact? How do you earn the trust of your teammates as quickly as possible? How do you shake off the jitters and start creating quality work? Is it creepy to follow people you just met on the various social media sites? How do you carve out a place for yourself when the territory is claimed by people better than you? All these kinds of questions will fall into place on their own in time. I can’t tell you how excited I am to have this new adventure ahead of me. When I described my new job to a friend recently I said something like this:

“In the past when brainstorming for a project I would say, ‘Wouldn’t it be cool if we could do [insert crazy/brilliant idea here].” Now I am going to be in a position where those kind of ideas don’t (always) end up on the cutting room floor. The new challenge is going to be figuring out how to finish a project when the client is saying yes instead of no.

So wish me luck as I start the new job. I still have a handful of side projects in the works that I look forward to sharing in the near future. At the top of that list is my second iTunes app that will hopefully be approved this month or in early February. Stay tuned for more details on that, and thank you to everyone who has congratulated me and offered support with my new job. It’s much appreciated.

Seth Godin is encouraging people to post lists of things that we shipped in the last year. The idea is that we have a tendency to kill ideas, procrastinate, and make excuses. The result is that we don’t complete things. Our projects don’t ship. He explains it better than I do, so if you aren’t familiar with his riff, jump to the end of this post and watch his video. I feel like I learned quite a bit in 2010 and can’t wait to keep it going next year. Here are the things I am proud to have shipped last year:

1. My first app was accepted into iTunes: Free Chess Clock.

2. I released a few more WordPress Plugins:
Google Fonts WordPress Plugin
Browser Specific CSS
Chess Game Viewer Plugin
Chess Puzzle Widget

3. I completed my 10 month documentary of the Windsor Town Hall building

4. I had my design work shown in Art Show: Pre-Consumer Artifacts at the University of Northern Colorado.

5. Completed the rebrand of Red Rocket Web Specialists.

Here’s Seth Godin talking about the lizard brain and how to defeat it by shipping:

Disclaimer: Before I lose 90% of you when you realize that this post is chess related, I urge you to stick with me because I think there are some ideas here that you can actually benefit from even if you have never played a game of chess in your life!

In preparation for an iTunes app that I am developing, I have been studying some of the greatest chess games ever played. I expected these games to pivot on a moment in the game when one player had a spark of insight that led to a crushing defeat. I suppose to a certain extent that is true, but the impression I am left with isn’t how “good” the player’s moves were but exactly the opposite. These players weren’t making extremely “good” moves, they were actually making amazingly “bad” moves – that are only later realized as being correct. This has got me thinking about how our minds work and what we might be able to do to train ourselves to identify the difference between “bad” moves and moves that just look bad but prove to be correct in the end.

To me this is the fascinating thing about studying great chess players. While a computer can plow through massive amounts of data to find the answer, humans have a huge burden of experience tied to their analysis of game situations. In order to make a move that goes against everything you have ever been taught is a rare achievement that takes real courage. Brilliance occurs not by following the established formulas precisely but by knowing when it is appropriate to break the rules. The amazing only happens when canonical knowledge is abandoned in favor of a decision to do something that everyone else in the world would agree is “wrong.”

A computer doesn’t have to worry about breaking from tradition. All it has to do is crunch numbers. Humans can’t possibly process as much data as a computer so we create shortcuts. We boil things down to rules that are easy to remember. We make lists of exceptions to our rules. We look for patterns that match scenarios that are familiar. We survive based heavily on the shortcuts we make. We memorize answers in school because it is easier than solving problems repeatedly. We paraphrase. We summarize. And so we become a population of know-it-alls even though our knowledge is based on generalities and abbreviated summaries. Like walking CliffsNotes we each carry a knowledge base that is very wide, but rarely very deep. We get the “big picture” concepts and let Wikipedia fill in the blanks if we ever need to support our claims. This works really wonderfully except for the times when…

We make mistakes.
Our shortcuts fail us. The stats and research that was once so reassuring ends up being flawed. We are so used to trusting our machines that we stop questioning conventional wisdom. Oops. But that’s just the exception – most of the time we get it right. Right? I am not so sure. While we rarely run into catastrophic mistakes, we also rarely encounter amazing victories. Our days are filled with predictable, mundane, uninspiring, unexciting routine. You know that tomorrow will be pretty much like yesterday. Millions of games of chess are played every day and almost all of them are just like our every day life. They follow the established ideas. Risk is avoided at all cost. At the end of the day there are winners and losers but nobody really cares enough to figure out which is which. And most people are comfortable in this scenario. After all, it seems better to be moderately successful than to be a complete failure.

But maybe you don’t want to be mediocre. Maybe you aren’t satisfied with the status quo. Maybe you want to do something big and memorable. If you are serious about setting yourself apart you might want to seriously consider making more “wrong” decisions. It would be counterproductive to try to debate what exactly a “wrong” decision would look like, so let me just wrap this up by giving you three thoughts that may or may not prove to be helpful to you…

Three Rules For Breaking the Rules:

1. Deep Trumps Wide
With wikipedia only a click away it is much easier to understand a little bit about everything than it is to be the world’s authority on a single subject. That is why there are so many “jack-of-all-trades” and so few true masters in any given field. Strive to be a master. Know even the tiniest detail inside and out. Know exactly what you know as well as what you don’t know. Don’t ever “fake” knowledge on a subject that you are fuzzy about. Dig deeper, work harder, and never stop learning about your area of expertise. If you can truly attain mastership of something then making the “wrong” decision is no longer a risk. While everyone else is blinded by their incomplete knowledge you will be able to see the solution they are dismissing.

2. iPhone Defeats iClone
It would seem that patterning your project after someone else’s success would be a foolproof way of avoiding failure. Contrary to poplular belief, Apple doesn’t have the market cornered on innovation. Anyone can create the next revolutionary product. And yet the biggest competition of the iPhone isn’t from competing ideas. The only competition is from phones that function and look remarkably similar to the iPhone. This happens in almost every market. As soon as one company innovates there is a competitor waiting to copy their success. Don’t be the copycat. Embrace concepts that don’t look like something your competitor would make. Champion ideas that don’t fit nicely in the marketplace as it exists today. Look at how different the phone market is compared to pre-iPhone. This might feel like a mistake since it puts you all alone and separate from your competition. You won’t be alone for long.

3. Conviction or Death
If you are going to boldly break the rules there is one thing that you can’t do without: conviction. If you aren’t willing to defend your idea to the death then you might as well not even try. Lack of conviction leads to compromise. Compromise results in watered-down versions of your vision. Mediocrity is sure to follow and you will be left with nothing. But if you have conviction, the hard decisions will come easily because you know what needs to be done. This is the only way to achieve the impossible.

Since the difference between insanity and genius is measured by success, you should understand that fully embracing these ideas means that people will probably question your sanity. But what really do you have to lose? Go crazy.

P.S. Oh, I didn’t want to leave you hanging without a great chess game for your enjoyment. Here is a classic Bobby Fischer victory:

I have been thinking about the term “problem solver” today. Problem solving seems like such a desirable trait, but is it really all it’s cracked up to be? Isn’t that just the entry level skill that everyone must posses just to be considered qualified to do the most basic of tasks? While the education system is (arguably) failing to deliver graduates with even this most basic skill, I wonder if we should be expecting something more from people. We can set the bar much higher. So what is better than a problem solver? How about the ability to identify problems before they need to be solved? Let’s call that skill “problem identification.” Here are some thoughts about the difference between a problem solver and a problem identifier:

1. A problem solver is reacting to mistakes that have already been made. A problem identifier can see potential mistakes and eliminate them before they become a problem.

2. A problem solver looks good only when things go wrong. A problem identifier’s work may go unnoticed because their work isn’t accompanied by calamity.

3. A problem solver is threatened by creative, untested ideas because they can’t apply their pre-determined formulas to fix problems they haven’t fixed before. A problem identifier can confidently embrace bold ideas without fear because they can address problems on the fly.

4. Problem solvers are by definition looking for opportunities to do damage control because this is their opportunity to shine. Problem identifiers hate damage control because they see it as the result of poor planning.

5. Problem solvers see job security in things that routinely fail. Problem identifiers will never make the same mistake twice.

6. Problem solvers can identify blame quickly (as long as it isn’t their fault). Problem identifiers can identify mistakes just as quickly, but use these moments as teaching opportunities for the team.

7. Problem solvers love the postmortem because they are good at pointing fingers in hindsight. Problem identifiers have sought out feedback throughout the process and rarely learn much after the fact.

8. Problem solvers prefer problems that they know the solution for. Problem identifiers love new problems because they lead to new insight.

9. Problem solvers don’t see the status quo as a problem that needs to be solved. Problem identifiers resist the status quo because it is the equivalent of stagnation.

10 Problem solvers need conflict and failure to maintain their comfortable existence. Problem identifiers need new challenges and become uncomfortable when things become routine.

11. Problem solvers don’t speak up until the problem is obvious. Problem identifiers have deep insight into a project and can articulate the implications of subtle adjustments within the plan.

So the next time someone asks you whether or not you have good problem solving skills tell them no. They will undoubtedly be surprised by your answer and ask you why. You can answer confidently that you specialize in something far more rare than problem solving. You are a problem identifier.

My wife gave me a short list of groceries to pick up on my way home from work last week. One of the items that proved to be elusive was the Velveeta cheese. As I searched up and down the aisles at Safeway I started thinking about the implications involved with where a store stocker places this non-cheese. For some reason the experience has stuck with me through the week. I keep coming back to it because I think it illustrates the “gray area” that marketer’s often find themselves when the try to do “the right thing.” Let me explain…

The Velveeta Paradox
If you owned a grocery store, where would you stock the Velveeta cheese? This question seems simple enough, but let me walk you through the moral implications embedded in this seemingly simple question…

Answer 1: The Dairy Aisle
It seems logical to stock Velveeta with the other cheeses. This is the first place a customer will typically look when searching for Velveeta. In case you didn’t know, Velveeta isn’t truly a cheese and doesn’t need to be refrigerated. This raises some problems. First, since dairy products need to be refrigerated it costs more for you to keep the product here. How do you pay for this extra cost? Do you markup the product and charge the customer for the luxury of finding the product where they expect it? Is it deceptive to sell imitation cheese as if it were actually cheese?

Answer 2: Near the Dairy Aisle
If you choose a location close to the dairy aisle you face a different moral conundrum. The nature of the refrigerated section of the grocery store is that there rarely will be a good spot near the cheese. If there is a shelf in eye sight of the cheese, chances are the items found here will not be a context where you would look to find cheese. Stacking bricks of Velveeta between loaves of bread or between coffee grounds puts the macaroni lubricant severely out of context. If you truly value your customers you won’t want them to miss the location and walk aimlessly around the store for hours. Or perhaps you are the kind of person who would hide the cheese intentionally so that customers will load their cart up with other non-essentials as they search for the holy grail of cheese products.

Answer 3: The End Cap
To compensate for the lack of visibility caused by taking Velveeta out of the context of the cheese section you may decide that an end cap is the best place to stock your loafs of lard. End caps, however, are the prime real estate in the store. Can you afford to give up this space (and possible revenue) just to make the orange jelly easier to find?

Answer 4: The Chip Aisle
Since imitation cheese is a common ingredient in dips, it might make sense to stock it in the chip aisle with the junk food. You are now presented with a different type of question. Velveeta has very few redeeming health merits. If you are concerned about the health of your customers, should you really be promoting I-can’t-believe-its-not-cheese in the first place? How do you avoid feeling guilty about providing a substance that kills people?

Answer 5: The Cigarette Counter
If your conscience gets the best of you, guilt might cause you to pull the toxic cubes off the shelves all together. Perhaps the cigarette counter is a more appropriate spot. You can add warning labels, age restrictions, and generally make people feel guilty about buying the irresistible yellow sludge. This would of course have the negative side effect of offending the responsible Velveeta user who uses it in moderation in the privacy of their own home.

Answer 6: Anywhere Else
There aren’t any other places left in the store that make sense to put the artery arsenic. Again, if you value your customer’s time it has to be in a place where they know to look. Additionally, as a store owner you will lose sales on Velveeta if people can’t find it. Can you afford to put it somewhere where it won’t be found?

I hope you found this analogy entertaining. As funny as it sounds, these are the kind of moral decisions that we all have to make on a daily basis. Although advertisers are often lumped into the same category as politicians and lawyers when it comes to measuring the “most loathed human beings,” almost all the marketers I have ever known have been good honest people. For the most part, the average human has nothing but good intentions when it comes to their careers. We want to help people. We want to produce quality products that people will find useful. We want to invest our lives in things that we consider good. Inevitable this will eventually put you in a catch-22 situation. Sometimes there just isn’t a safe answer to questions like these. If you are sincerely trying to be a good person you will regularly be confronted with situations that compromise your integrity. What do you do when you are between a rock and a hard place?

By the way, I am giving out high-fives to anyone who leaves a comment with a good slang phrase for Velveeta. I think my favorite so far is “the holy grail of cheese products.”

Oh, and if you were wondering where Velveeta actually gets stocked, you will usually find it in the refrigerated dairy section next to the other cheeses. You can be sure that the store passes the unnecessary refrigeration cost on to you…

I suppose I have pretty much based my design career on my intuition. Through trial and error I have pretty much stumbled upon a set of concepts that work. While this has served me well, trusting your gut can only get you so far in the business world. If you really want to have an impact you need to supplement the intuitive mentality with concepts that can be appreciated by people who aren’t interested in trusting somebody else’s gut. And let’s face it, that is pretty much everyone. When paying thousands of dollars for an advertisement, a logo, or a website there are very people in the world who would be satisfied by the rational of “take my word for it.” I believe that is probably the biggest reason for the disconnect between “creative” and “non-creative” professionals. You can create a masterpiece logo, but if you can’t communicate why it will be effective, you will be sent back to your desk to execute client requested tasks that you know will make the logo worse.

Many designers are happy with this arrangement. Endless client revisions translates to more hours, which translates into more cash. It is easier to accept the destruction of your work if you can cash bigger checks as a result. Some designers can’t handle the hypocrisy and either drop out or become the stereotypical designer making fun of the clients behind their backs.

Luckily there is an alternative besides occupational hypocrisy and pessimistic burnout. The answer is to entrench yourself in the psychology and research behind what powers your intuition. Trusting your gut is important, but it isn’t enough. Your intuition works for a reason, and you can learn to explain why. If this type of thinking appeals to you, I urge you to read a few of the books I have been enjoying recently. They are:

“Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion” is a great look at why people are fooled by marketing. I think that too many people assume that the public is dumb, when in fact people are amazingly consistent and intelligent creatures. This book comes to conclusions that you couldn’t arrive at if you simply trust your intuition.

“Predictably Irrational” is a book I am just starting but I am already hooked. The problem with trusting your gut is that it makes mistakes because so much in the world is counter-intuitive and irrational. Learning how to predict the irrational is a great skill to have.

Here is some practical advice if you are trying to supplement your intuition. Study your reactions to marketing, art, and design. Sensitize yourself so that you can take mental inventory of things that you see that “work” and what doesn’t. Question everything you see. Never take anyone’s word for anything. Filter everything and never accept surface level answers to questions that seem straight forward. As you carefully study your own responses to your surrounding as well as the reactions of others you can start to apply the things you learn to your work.

First of all, thanks to everyone for the comments in response to my post about skipping church. I appreciate everyone’s concern and it is interesting to see how wide of a range my friends have regarding the importance of regular church attendance. If you were wondering, yes, I did attend church today and last Sunday. Whoopidy doo.

In other news, I have put my dreams of owning a Corvette on hold for a while. What? I didn’t tell you about that? Well, I have been saving for a new car for a while and it turns out that Craigslist is a great place to fantasize about owning your childhood dream car. Finally reality set in, however, and I decided to put the money I have in savings towards paying off credit card debt. Whoopidy doo.

I have been taking some photos recently. I will save the technical details for a future post on Found Photography, but the shots are panoramic and/or HDR. The panoramas take multiple photos and stitch them together into one continuous shot. The HDR shots take multiple exposures and blend them together to create images with high dynamic range. I am enjoying the processes enough that I finally purchased a high quality tripod. It should arrive tomorrow. Whoopidy doo.

Yesterday my son asked me if I was going to church tomorrow. I said “maybe.” He turned to his mom and asked, “Is daddy going to heaven?”

Thinking back to confirmation class in seventh grade I remember the pastor asking us if we knew whether or not we were going to heaven. The result of this discussion left us with this bit of unsettling advice. “If you believe Jesus died for your sins then you will have eternal life.” I say unsettling because it had the unintended consequence of causing me to fear my thoughts that question my belief in God. If heaven hinges on belief, then you have to stifle thoughts of doubt and pretend that you are a perfect unquestioning Christian soldier. And while I have never been shy about questioning Christianity and expressing my doubt, recently the Christian act has bothered me more than usual. I have stopped going through the motions of attending Church on Sundays. I don’t want to pretend to be a Christian, I want to actually be a Christian. Actually, I am not so sure I want to be a Christian, I just want to be honest. I don’t want to pretend to support a church that leaves me feeling spiritually empty. I don’t want to endorse a doctrine that produces empty and corrupt leaders. I don’t want to be ashamed when I question my faith.

So this morning I am skipping church again. I have been reading a magazine that I picked up earlier this weekend called Relevant. It is a Christian publication that I have been aware of but never spent much time with. I purchased the issue because there was an article on the iPhone and some bands that I like. I wondered what “relevant” Christians thought about the music I enjoy and their thoughts on technology. Honestly, I was skeptical because I was afraid the publication was going to be a watered down Christian philosophy that loosened the definition of “Christian” to accept the products of pop culture. I was relieved that this was not the case.

One article in particular really spoke to what I have been struggling with recently. The article is called “Insert Soul Here: How Honesty About Your Doubt Can Save Your Life.” I encourage you to read it if you get the chance. David Dark says,

“If we think we have faith because we faithfully protect ourselves from anything that might call it into question – as if God is counting on us to keep ourselves stupid, closed off to the complexity of the world we’re in – I’d like to argue that we don’t have faith in God at all. We have faith in our own faith rather than the God who transcends it, faith in a faith that somehow saves us. Not faith in God, but faith in a false god of our own conceptions, a god too afraid to entertain a question or doubt.”

I can’t tell you how comforting it is to accept my Christian struggle not as a weakness, but as an integral part of actually being a Christian. And now I don’t feel bad about skipping church today. The question is how do I explain this to a six year old?