The100: Creativity crises, fictional empathy and the Carolino effect

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jeff@amazon.com

In case you’ve been living under an extra large parcel, Bezos is stepping down as Amazon CEO. 

In addition to the airtime, wordtime and 21-gun salute recognising Jeff’s achievements, the ineffable Ritson has explained how Amazon’s success is due to their obsession with the customer.

Insight is not the enemy of invention. It is its mother, waving from the window with a warm mug of tea and a proud look on her face.

Read the article. Read it all. And then read it again. Please 🙂

The Great Millennial Scare

Well, no-one seems to have learnt their lesson from 2020, but if you are interested Spacecadet has gathered all of the predictions for 2021. Or you can learn to read Tarot Cards here. Same difference. 

Talking of piffle, the Hoffmeister General has written a typically brilliant assault on marketers’ nonsensical obsession with Gen Z and continual shun of our aging population:

In 1950 there were twice as many humans on Earth under 5 as over 65. Just one hundred years later there will be three times as many humans over 65 as under 5.

“Don’t look him in the tooth”

Readers, meet the Carolino effect. Carolino effect, meet our esteemed readers. The effect relates to the incremental errors that seep into information as it passes through disconnected factions. Think Chinese Whispers, but without the party hats.

Planners in qualitative research, passing information to clients writing a brand purpose, passing a brief along to the creative department, passing advertising along to consumers to motivate them to purchase […] everyone merely understands and attends to their own individual part of the process, then passes it along.

Side note: If you have any recommended readings on information flow and how we process it, please fire them over. I’m thoroughly intrigued by the subject. 

Emotional truths dressed up as plotlines

Succession, for those who haven’t watched it, stars some truly horrible characters. And yet us viewers care for them, their trials, tribulations and backstabbing in a way that we wouldn’t for their real life Trump of Murdoch counterparts. Weird.

As James Caig points out, fiction can teach us empathy.

In more masterful TV, this advert from MacMillan is just off the charts when it comes to raw emotion. I can’t say anything more than Rob has said in his piece, but take the time to watch the video (with a tissue). 

Creativity is hard work

Has lockdown caused a creativity crisis? 

In short, yes. 

How do we get it back when we’re all remote working? Not easily. 

As Andy Haldane, chief economist at the Bank of England, said:

Exposure to new and different experiences – sounds, smells, environments, ideas, people – is a key source of creative spark […] These external stimuli are fuel for our imaginations and the imagined, made real, is what we typically mean by creativity.

“There is a magic in information graphics”

It’s been a while, but we’re back with 2 visualisations that are rather special. 

Who else but the New York Times could build and a 2020 election map like this one? It’s detailed to the point of zip codes and caused quite a stir in our US bureau. 

And this is something to spend time browsing – data visualisations from yesteryear.