I had this ridiculous idea once that involved billboards, graffiti, hidden video, bumper stickers, and a fake drink. If I had raised the funding I was going to conduct an experiment in Boston to prove that a brand could be created before a product, and even sold to Coca-Cola before the first bubble of fizz was added. The plan was this: I would concoct a mysterious energy drink called Reverse, and initiate a ground swell of demand through viral and guerrilla marketing tactics combining the humor of YouTube’s “Charlie Bit My Finger” and the social impact of Banksy. Was I on the road to Abilene? Maybe.

Reverse never materialized, but the idea kept returning like the way root beer comes back to tickle your nose. I was reminded of it again, as dabbled in my new addiction “Kickstarter.”  As you can read here on CrunchBase, “Every week, tens of thousands of people pledge millions of dollars to projects from the worlds of music, film, art, technology, design, games, fashion, food, publishing, and other creative fields. Since its launch on April 28th, 2009, more than one and a quarter million people have pledged $130 million to projects by creators who always maintain full ownership and complete creative control of their work.”

I ran across a recent Kickstarter project called Flint and Tinder, billed as Men’s Basics (i.e. undies and t-shirts) Made in America. The topic is near and dear to my…heart, for two reasons. The first reason is that once I ordered $300 of Jockey underwear sometime in the middle of the night, while on my first and last Ambien. I have no recollection of it, but this is a topic for another blogpost.)

The second reason is that Flint and Tinder has pulled a Reverse. They’ve not just developed a product concept, but more importantly have created a brand before a stitch of elastic has met a thread of cotton. Amazing. Beautiful. And, so American. I love it.

Well, here’s another idea. I want all of American consumer goods companies to listen. I want you to try something that I believe will improve the success rate of new product development, and change the face of innovation forever. Take the laboratory wonks, secret test tracks, and testing kitchens out of your bunkers. Your products have a 6 in 7 chance of failing anyway, so what’s all the fuss. Drop the idea that greater secrecy leads to greater product success. I think it’s a pile. Your brands live in a new world of co-creation, and American ingenuity is alive and thriving. Every consumer goods company should be running a Kickstarter, and not some secret Communispace-like community, but an open public forum to which people can thoughtfully and monetarily invest. It is called Kickstarter for Business, and you must be a billion dollar brand to join. Imagine 100,000 people contributing financially and publicly to the development of a new electric car by Apple, or maybe an entirely edible playground by Hershey. Who knows what may happen…

The idea gives me goose pimples. The benefits go beyond developing better products. It fundamentally changes the nature of the consumer/producer relationship. We all become investors, and invested people care. Imagine a country of investor/consumer/owners versus the antagonistic triad of overweight consumers, detached producers, and invisible shareholders.

American business it’s time to drop that Ambien, because it’s likely when you wake up you’ll find you’ve slept-walked all the way to Abilene. Believe me I know.

So there’s this mouse who wants to cross a river, and a poison snake who offers the little fellow a ride. “Will you bite me?” squeaks the mouse. “Of courssse not,” replies the snake. The mouse gets on the scaly back of the helpful snake, and they begin crossing. The snake flips around and mortally bites the mouse. “But you said you w-w-w-wouldn’t bite me,” cries the mouse, as darkness descends around him. The snake merely replies, “I’m a snake.”

I feel bad for the mouse.  And, I feel sort of bad for Gregg Smith formerly of Goldman Sachs, or anyone for that matter who spends a quarter of their career traveling down a path they never should have been on. All of our careers have been on the road to Abilene at one time or another. (To paraphrase a bit…Let he who has not imagined smashing a cheeseburger in the face of a horrific boss throw the first Big Mac.)

So Gregg…you rode on the back of a beast that uses “Atlas Shrugged” as its owner’s manual, and sharpens its claws on the bones of its competition. Did you really expect a culture rivaling that of Habitat for Humanity? These are not people looking for win-win situations. They are fierce competitors, and ultimately most of their clients remain fabulously happy, or they don’t remain clients. It regulates itself.

Looking past the press memes and poor career choices, it is fair to ask whether Goldman Sachs should learn from this. The answer is yes and no. Reputation is everything, as evidenced by the $2.2 billion drop in Goldman’s market cap, but I’m sure no one in the company is going to respond well to sensitivity training.

There are 14 principles already embedded in the corporate culture at Goldman, which are as good as any out there. Perhaps, though, it is time to revisit them. I believe there are two principles (#13 and #14) that seem to be most at odds with each other, and perfectly capture the conundrum of having to act like a shark with table manners:

13.  Our business is highly competitive, and we aggressively seek to expand our client relationships.

14.   Integrity and honesty are at the heart of our business.

It is the word “Aggressively” that bothers me here, especially in the context of Integrity and Honesty. Aggression contains a Darwinian nastiness that permits sharks to eat each other in utero. I think the word they were looking for was actually “Assertively.”

It is a fine point, but with vastly different connotations. On the one road, your client is at your side, and on the other your client follows you. With your client at your side, you’ll always know where they are and where you should be headed. With your client traipsing behind, you may one day turn around and find them gone, and the road you’re traveling paved with fool’s gold all the way to Abilene.

I’ve spent the last 20 or so blog posts bringing to light how employees, committees, and organizations can participate in folly that as individuals they know to be ridiculous. This is the focus of The Road to Abilene: my puny contribution to an imagined world of corporate excellence in which every person remains awake, interested, engaged, and productive. (When the heck did I become an optimist…)

In any case, last night I saw a YouTube video that illuminated another road to Abilene. It is a road that is so wide an entire planet’s population can walk it. This dark route is followed not when we choose to go against our better judgement, but rather it is travelled because our focus drifted away from what truly matters.

I’m referring to the viral YouTube video Kony 2012, which at last count 70 million people have watched. It’s almost 30 minutes long, so wait a minute before you watch it. My first reaction to it was as a fellow human being. My second viewing was of course as a branding professional. I know that seems ugly and coarse, but it is an intellectual reflex that is not without a little merit.

You’ll see how a simple idea that is no more complex than “Crest Fights Cavities,” or “Coke Adds Life” is brought to the fore through the basic imperatives of iconic branding. (See this white paper by MillwardBrown.)

Iconic brands:

1. Find strong cultural roots that tap into society’s values.
2. Identify physical or symbolic features and make them instantly recognizable.
3. Have a compelling story and remain true to their original values, while reinterpreting them in light of contemporary culture.

The Kony 2012 “brand campaign” does exactly these. Take a look. Devote the required 30 minutes. You won’t regret it.

In this case the message is “Get Joseph Kony,” and ignoring it leads us all to a place we would never want to go. What this documentary also proves is that there is a basic underlying decency to all of us (well…probably 96.3% of us) that transcends national boundaries, and it has found a home in social media. Think Arab Spring.

Now an allusion you’ll only get if you watch the video… In the words of Qui-Gon Jinn from Star Wars Episode One: Phantom Menace: “Your focus is your reality.” The right focus allows you to walk in the light. The wrong focus? Well that takes you to a galaxy far, far away to an unfortunate little place called Abilene.

Much has been discussed already about the lack of great advertising during Super Bowl 2012, and so I don’t need to spend any time here rehashing that. One ad though has continued to remain in my thoughts well past the others: Wieden + Kennedy’s Clint Eastwood Half-time ad.

My previous definition of a “1984” moment is when ad is so astounding that while watching you could be induced to join Scientology. This year it didn’t happen for me. In fact it hasn’t happened for me since 1984. Then I began thinking: maybe my definition is flawed. Maybe.

Well, here’s my new and improved checklist for determining the existence of a “1984” moment during Super Bowl, and how “Half-time in America” fairs:

1. The production value is astonishingly good. Check.
2. The writing is perfect. Check.
3. The message inserts itself into an acutely felt cultural tension. Check.
4. The ad gives me goose bumps or a lump in my throat. Check.
5. The tone of the commercial is distinctly different than all others playing during the Super Bowl. Check.
6. It only needs to run once, and the world continues to discuss it. Check.
7. It pisses off “The Man,” (or at least Karl Rove). Check.

Not that you haven’t seen it a dozen times, but please take another look, and see if it doesn’t hit all these attributes squarely in the face like Hillary Swank in Million Dollar Baby. 

http://youtu.be/1NrklYQbbZM

Oddly enough, when I first watched it I thought it was a rip-off of Ronald Reagan’s “It’s Morning in America” spot, and in fact it seemed very conservative to me. Clint is my favorite gun lover. On the other hand, those in politically conservative circles viewed this as pay back for political patronage (to put it mildly). In this case, both sides are right, and that’s the beauty of the spot. It allows for multiple, intensely felt interpretations. It’s like that joke about the psychiatrist who is accused of sharing dirty pictures, even though he keeps explaining to his patients they are just inkblots.

Even if you think that Chrysler will never produce a product as significant or wonderful as Apple can, one thing’s for sure. The Chrysler ad did what few ads will ever do. It continued to move our jaws well after we were done gnawing on buffalo chicken wings, giving us pause long enough to look down to make sure our feet are pointed in the right direction -180 degrees away from Abilene.

As you have probably figured out by now, I believe the truth is best told with a heavy dose of humor. In fact, in Shakespeare the fools always told the truth before others realized it (and often too late). With this in mind, I would like to share with you my great advancement in measuring advertising effectiveness, The Abilene-O-Meter. It came to me during the Super Bowl last night, as I watched millions upon millions of advertising dollars evaporate like the dreams of Patriot fans. Poof!

In the mere 18 hours of its existence, it has proven more reliable than the free Scientology Stress Tests you can get at the mall, and more accurate than 90% of mutual fund managers. Here is how to read it. First, you must understand the unit of measurement, as it is quite groundbreaking. All are animals that can be found in Texas. (A State that I adore, btw.)  At one end of the scale is the devilish poison armadillo, symbol of that wonderful place great corporate minds come together to produce mediocre results, i.e. Abilene. At the other end of the scale is the proud bald eagle, representing the rare and inspiring actions of brave business people who create the icons we measure our lives buy (oops…I mean “by”). Think of this as a “brand menagerie,” if you will, with each lovely vertebrate standing for a certain metaphorical distance from Abilene. Eagle, good. Armadillo, very bad. Cow, meh.

In order to calibrate the Abilene-O-Meter, I first measured the Fiat commercial that aired on the Super Bowl.

This charming spot for the struggling vehicle sent the needle rocking with the first slap from Romanian supermodel Catrinel Menghia. Within seconds the secret love we have for all things Italian was reawakened. Of course, The Richards Group who created the ad relied on the age old truth that sex sells, but who cares. In this case it really worked. In fact, Edmunds.com reported that Fiat had the highest cumulative increase in web traffic after airing, with a rise in activity of 138 percent. I’d say that’s soaring with the eagles.

To complete the calibration, I then measured the Old Navy ad for Corporado, a make believe brand designed to mock Dockers. As the logo emerged like a leak from what seemed to be the actor’s pant leg, I was afraid I might have pushed the Abilene-O-Meter to its limits. It took me three viewings to realize it was all a joke, which usually means it ain’t that funny.

Despite the Texas inspired satirical name “Corporado,” Old Navy came up all armadillos. I’m afraid the only way out of Abilene for Old Navy will be to take off the Corporados and do the walk of shame pant-less out of town.

If you would like to submit an ad for Abilene-O-Meter testing, please feel free to send it along.

What sparked this memory was a recent trip to a good Dunkin’ Donuts. You know what I mean by a good Dunkin’. There are Dunkin’ Donuts and then there are Dunkin’ Donuts. All the food is the same across the franchise: the donuts are fresh, the coffee is hot, and the bagels toasty. The employees even smile the same amount. Until now I couldn’t put a finger on why I felt a difference between my favorite Dunkin’ and the rest. I think I know now.

The secret is in the hands.

The next time you go to a retail establishment, be it Fast Food or a Car Wash, watch the employees’ hands. They tell a story. At my favorite Dunkin’ the employees’ hands move like olympic synchronized swimmers. They exhibit fluidity, speed, deftness, and the practiced hand movements of concert pianists. At my least favorite Dunkin’, the employees seem to be wearing invisible weighted baseball mitts. To watch them mix cream and sugar makes me crazy, and don’t get me started on spreading cream cheese. It’s like watching a glacier move across the tundra. Eyes may be the window to the soul, but hands hold the light of truth. Hands don’t lie.

Our hands connect us to the world. They are our interface. Our language is filled with metaphor incorporating the word hand. “Let’s get a handle on this.” “He’s got the upper hand.” “Let’s give her a hand.” “He’s got the whole world in is hands.” For some, physical hands are the primary means of communication.

My theory is this: you can tell a great brand by how deftly the employees’ hands interact with their environment, from handling merchandize to ringing up items to filling out return forms. I think hands are a leading indicator. Slow, hesitant, close to the body, clumsy = brand in trouble. Snappy, outstretched, active, practiced = brand on the rise. The hands are in the driver’s seat. More precisely, they are on the wheel, and the moment they come off, you’re on the road to Abilene.

One way to be certain you remain off the road to Abilene is to chart your path in bookstores and make sure you spend equal times in every section, including cooking, science fiction, self-help, and children’s books. It’s all too easy to put a rut in the carpet from the entrance to the business section. In my attempt to keep a certain balance in life, I try to mollify the effects of over-consumption of the latest “business must-read” with a frequent dip into the philosophy section of the actual “bricks and mortar” Barnes and Noble. (I suppose I’m trying to become a two-rut reader.)

Here’s my usual and unenlightened route at B&N:

Recently I came across “Eastern Wisdom, Modern Life: Collected Talks: 1960-1969, by Alan Watts.” In one of his talks, Watts describes the Hindu view in which the fundamental game of the universe is Hide and Seek. “It is as if the Lord God, or Brahman, had said in the beginning, ‘Get lost, man. Disappear. I’ll find you again later.” Something clicked when I read those words, which made me think of the choices business people make (back to my other rut) all along their career. How risks like jumping off the corporate ladder feel suicidal. How following the “obviously” right choices leads to beige outcomes for which no one gets fired, IRA plans are funded, and no one does anything remarkable.

A long time ago, when I was at U.C. Berkeley, I read the “Tao of Pooh,” in which Piglet and Pooh are lost in the fog and cannot find their way home. After many trials of looking for the way home, Pooh declares perhaps they should try to get lost, since trying to find their way home has proved so unsuccessful. Of course, it works.

The notion of getting lost as a means of finding the right path is so foreign to Western thought and the commonly accepted climb to success. Ironically, it is essential to the spirit of adventure shared by successful entrepreneurs. Here’s a list of 11 college drop outs who are not Mark Zuckerburg, who got lost:

1. Henry Ford, dropped out at 16
2. Bill Gates, dropped out at 19
3. Larry Ellison, dropped out at 20
4. Larry Page of Google, graduated at 35 (show-off)
5. Kirk Kerkorian, dropped out at 12
6. Michael Dell, dropped out at 19
7. Paul Allen, dropped out at 20
8. David Geffen, dropped out at 21
9. Steve Jobs, dropped out at 18
10. Richard Branson, dropped out at 16
11. Ralph Lauren, dropped out at 20

I fully acknowledge that more dropouts fail than succeed, but you do see a certain pattern, don’t you? The combined fortunes of these icons exceeds the GNP of many countries, yet for many of us the “right path” is a straight line from kindergarten through MBA to cubicle to dreams of leaving the rat race that never occur. Somehow we look at these business icons, these great personalities, get inspired, and dig in harder on a path they never took.

As we begin the new year, I’d like to suggest we all add one more resolution. Try to approach our careers and endeavors like someone with all the time in the world to wander through the bookstore. The road to Abilene is perfectly straight with deep ruts from those that travelled before. My advice for a happy new year? Get lost. Here’s a map:

So HP’s new logo is not going to be their new logo. A company spokesperson definitively quashed the rumor by letting us know that “HP is one of the world’s most valuable brands and has no plans to adopt the new logo.” Honestly, I wasn’t comforted. Since April of 2010, the market cap of HP has dropped by 50%.

Well, it’s not the first time I got all excited for nothing. I am after all a closet optimist. That is to say, while sometimes I let go of a belly laugh when Olympic skaters kiss the ice rink floor after a quadruple axle to the melodies of Tchaikovsky, I actually think everyone who gets to the Olympics deserves a gold medal. (I know. I’m complicated and probably immature, but spandex, human flight, gravity, and classical music are hilarious when combined in appropriate amounts.)

So this brings me to HP, whose mission is to create  “…new possibilities for technology to have a meaningful impact on people, businesses, governments and society.” I’m a sucker for mission statements written to improve human lives, since I’m human and I get to benefit regardless of buying a printer. The almost new logo seems the very embodiment of these possibilities.  To my point, even though HP probably drives you crazy, I’m sure the better part of you saw that new logo and said, “Ooh, look. HP did something inspiring amid the slippery ice of leadership decisions and product launches.” It’s like, say, a gold medal for the Jamaican bobsled team.

As CEO of a firm that often designs logos, there is nothing more frustrating than good work that is not adopted, so I’m biased in my appraisal. They should have adopted the mark, and with some flair and a little PR deftness, they could have adopted it up until the statement by the spokesperson. The reaction to the “misunderstanding” contains something more insidious; that is, design is a distraction from the business at hand, which includes bringing the stock back and managing the tablet mess.

Design is always the business at hand.

Ironically, great design in many ways shares HP’s mission of creating new possibilities. Great logos are not merely symbols. They are catalysts.  As Professor Anthony Dunne, Head of the Design Interactions Department at the Royal College of Art in London points out…

“This space of probable, preferable, plausible and possible futures allows designers to challenge design orthodoxy and prevailing technological visions so that fresh perspectives can begin to emerge. It is absolutely not about prediction, but asking what if…, speculating, imagining, and even dreaming in order to encourage debate about the kind of technologically mediated world we wish to live in. Hopefully, one that reflects the complex, troubled people we are, rather than the easily satisfied consumers and users we are supposed to be.”

Beautiful. This perspective feels like a shaded Sunday stroll in the English countryside along the green shires near the River Rea.  And management decisions targeted at the “…easily satisfied consumers and users we are supposed to be?” Well, we all know this road. Its hot steaming asphalt leads only one place – right into the heart of Abilene.

I am not without sin when it comes to living green. I drive a german automobile that gets 16 mpg in the city, and I have a gas powered leaf blower that could clear out a freshly filled grave. (For the record, I have purchased a carbon offset for my bad deeds, and I don’t disturb the recently departed.) Honest to goodness, I’m happy when I drive my car, and especially when I use my satanic leaf blower. Go figure.

What I am most self-righteous about is that I’m honest in my sinfulness. I don’t pretend to be something I’m not, and I think that’s part of my brand, so to speak. This brings me to a sensitive issue. Can going green put you on The Road to Abilene?

I recently found out from a friend of mine in Germany that McDonald’s is changing a portion of their iconic signs green to signify their growing commitment to greener practices. According to the Huffington Post, this is a Europe-wide initiative, including the U.K. and France. This will include just a small portion of their 32,000 restaurants worldwide.

“With this new appearance we want to clarify our responsibility for the preservation of natural resources. In the future we will put an even larger focus on that,” Hoger Beek, vice chairman of McDonald’s Germany, said in the statement.

Oh for goodness sake. I just want to enjoy my burger, and not save the world for five minutes. Las Vegas is NOT a family destination, and McDonald’s is not a healthy part of anything.

Let’s get real for a moment. All companies need to work on becoming greener. This an indisputable axiom, as far as I’m concerned. However, please don’t try to make me feel better about trans-saturated french fries by making me feel that clogging my arteries will help the environment. This seems relatively manipulative. Let’s applaud McDonald’s for their efforts, but this attempt to wear it on their sleeve (signs) seems disingenuous.

To help my friends in Oak Brook, Illinois, here’s my new Mickey D’s Mission:

1. We make food that is yummy, and convenient.
2. It is part of a balanced way of living in which you treat yourself sometimes to yummy things.
3. We promise we won’t try to make you eat here every day. In fact, you shouldn’t.
4. We are not the answer to the world’s problems, but we will try to be a good corporate citizen.
5. We know that pictures of kids playing soccer on a happy meal box does not encourage athletic activity in any way. We’ll stop that.
6. We’ll work on the salads.
7. We encourage all of our employees to exercise three days a week, and to eat a balanced diet.
8. It’s alright to like us for what we are, and we’ll like us for what we are. A greasy, albeit iconic, burger joint that you can visit anywhere in the world.
9. We’ll leave the signs red and yellow. The green ones kind of made us a little queasy anyway.
10. We promise to make the roadside McDonald’s more accessible on the highway out of Abilene than on the way in.

My multitouch Apple trackpad quietly stares up my nostrils with the malicious muteness of the Berlin wall. I’ve watched the Quicktime videos on how to operate my MacBook Pro with “simple” gestures. A single flick for this. A backwards triple swipe for that. A reverse axle double knuckle twist for something else. My hand looks like an epileptic octopus attempting to breakdance. I reach back for my trusty mouse with the speed of a gunslinger. Safe again. My little pointer finger is now back in control.

My first computer was an Apple that used a tape recorder to store data. As I type this I realize I might have to explain “tape recorder.” Here’s a link you young whipper snapper. With the emergence of the Lion operating system, I now hear Mac addicts saying things like, “Oh don’t worry. You’ll get used to it.” Really! I’ll get used to it. Yeah, like I got used to Vista. The whole point of Apple, its raison d’être, was to make me feel that I was born “used to it.” The products knew me better than I knew me.

Much has been made of the power of Steve’s visionary leadership. As he once said, “It’s not about pop culture, and it’s not about fooling people, and it’s not about convincing people that they want something they don’t. We figure out what we want. And I think we’re pretty good at having the right discipline to think through whether a lot of other people are going to want it, too. That’s what we get paid to do. So you can’t go out and ask people, you know, what’s the next big [thing.] There’s a great quote by Henry Ford, right? He said, ‘If I’d have asked my customers what they wanted, they would have told me ‘A faster horse.’’’ Hmmm…”We figure out what we want…” Let that sink in for a moment.

Technically speaking, I think the multitouch mistake was simple. The wild success of the iPad convinced Apple of the power of interacting with software through touch. So why not try to replicate that on laptops and desktops. However, the core of the problem is not technical, but rather the result of the cognitive dissonance that comes from being right a lot. Welcome to the world of AOL, Microsoft, Kodak, and Polaroid. Being right a lot can thoughtlessly send a company down a path it never would choose to go. The logic looks like like this “I’m right a lot, so therefore I must be right again.” And our customers will just get used to it…

Opportunity comes disguised in many forms. Giant killers are born out of the arrogance of those that are “never” wrong. Peering from under their garage doors, or working from their basements, they see a world that can be different. They are tired of being forced to live a certain way and decide to do something about it. Like those two young entrepreneurs Steve and Woz at 2066 Crist Dr. in Palo Alto, California, who were humble, eager, brilliant, and iconoclastic.

The Birth Place of the First Apple Computer.

The future success of Apple does not lie in trying to encode Steve’s fearless decision making. Rather it depends on building in the willingness to turn right when everyone is turning left, and that is much harder for a company with the largest market cap in the world. Not to worry though. Abilene’s bigger than it looks.