Insta-Gratification

The original Instagram, circa 1977

I am a visual person. I remember as a kid I never had the patience to take a picture, drop the film off at the local D&S Pharmacy, and wait the five-to-seven days while the film was sent out to be developed. So when my stepdad Jim showed up with his Kodak Instamatic camera, I thought it was the greatest thing on earth. I remember he even bought me an instant camera one time when we were going on vacation, a Kodak Handle, the original crank-style “Instagram,” which is actually in a box in my attic. I should find it.

My Grandson, Lennox

The magic of photography is that it holds still, forever, a moment in time. Now, with all the photo apps and services -- like Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, and my current favorite, Instagram -- those captured moments can be instantly shared with people we love and even strangers ... in some ways shrinking the world but I also think, in the best way, making the world bigger. 

Tennessee storm

There’s a joy when your phone chirps, burps, jingles, vibrates or tingles, and you open it to find that somebody has sent you an image ... a face, a flower, a grandchild, a storm. They could be sitting across the room or a thousand miles away and you instantly know what their world looks like. 

No bueno

I even use my Android phone camera in conducting business every day: is this the granite you like? How about this hardware? Or this tile? Or, this is the broken pipe we found in your bathroom floor under your shower. The fun and the frustrating. 

So, send me a picture. Let me know what your life looks like, what interests you, what your eyes see that mine don’t ... yet. 

Out of Awe

Have we lost our sense of awe? The world flashes by us and we barely have time to conquer the mundane, much less the awe-inspiring. To be awe inspired takes time, precious time. Pausing to see the imaginative, the beautiful, those things worthy of our admiration would most likely make us late for a meeting or even worse, cause us to miss our favorite TV show ... God forbid. 

I am just as guilty as the next person. I am busy, I am inundated with information, buried in a pile of data. Don't get me wrong, I see things I "like" everyday. I even see things that "move" me but it is on rare occasion that I am actually in awe. Sitting here thinking about it, the last moment of actual awe was a visit to the Art Institute of Chicago. I sat in a room full of Monet and Seurat; I actually sat for over an hour absolutely engulfed in the beauty of the work ... consumed. I only left because I didn't want the security guard to think I was casing the joint. I have to admit, It was emotional. I took the images with me in my mind and played them a million times during the remainder of the day.

I have, of course, had other moments - visiting Edinburgh Castle in Scotland or seeing my grandson for the first time -- but these are all events that have the context of creating awe. I am already predisposed to shut off the "noise" around me and focus. But what about the everyday moments in life, what am I missing? There is a great story from 2007 where the Washington Post did an experiment to see if extraordinary beauty would be recognized in the hurry of the day. Virtuoso violinist Joshua Bell, one of the most talented musicians in the world, would play one of the most intricate pieces ever written, on a violin worth $3.5 million dollars in the lobby of the Metro Station in DC, and see if anyone would stop to listen. They didn't. The analysts ... who, of course, analyzed ... came to the same conclusion they have been concluding for years: for something to be awe-inspiring it must be presented in the proper context. Basically, we need to be told something is inspiring to be inspired by it. How sad!  

I will make a promise to myself: I will take the time to find the awe in the everyday. I will not rely on others to create context, I will create it for myself. I will open my eyes, ears, heart and mind to the possibility that what is happening right before me is awe inspiring.

What will you do? 

The Perfect Tree

My Christmas tree is a mess, a hodgepodge of items that neither match nor make good sense color-scheme wise. Wood, glass, plastic, paper … unknown substances hang from its branches with no apparent rhyme or reason. It's PERFECT!

I am not so sure that a Christmas tree should be a reflection of the latest and greatest decorating trend. I am of a mind that it should be a story of life, its branches heavy with thoughts and memories, scattered about like jewels. The hand-blown glass ornaments purchased in Colorado for the first Christmas. Four small hand-painted glass balls from the late 1930s, their colors dulled by time. My mother gave them to me a few years back -- they were hers as a child; they hung on our tree when I was a child. Cheap satin red balls purchased at Big Lots, reminders of lean financial times. Three tiny rocking horses which were originally flower arrangement decorations received when our son was born. I made them into ornaments complete with his birth stats handwritten on each one … in Sharpie, of course. I see a green and red construction paper wreath framing the face of my son when he was in kindergarten; he has a son of his own now. Ornaments from friends and family that have come from all over the world and now reside in my world. And it is all topped off with an angel from Sears, her mauve cardboard dress a bit tattered after 27 years. She was a gift from my great-grandmother who passed away in the ‘90s -- in her 90s.

To me, it's not about what my tree contains, but who. I sit looking at each eclectic treasure and see a loved one captured in a moment in time … that is the true gift. So my 2011 Christmas design advice is, if you want a decorator tree with matching black and silver ribbons and bows, go for it. But also take the time to decorate another tree -- fill it with memories. Look at each piece you hang and remember the moment and the person it represents … soak it in. I bet I can guess which of the two trees will bring you the most joy.

What is your favorite Christmas ornament or memory?

Jocks and Nerds

It was almost like being back in high school -- the "cool" people didn't want to be seen with the "un-cool," the jocks giving noogies to the nerds, and those band geeks like me stuck in-between with no social status at all. (By the way, this post has nothing to do with design ... please file under "Ramblings.") 

Photograph: Roy McMahon/Zefa/Corbis

I am, of course, not talking about high school; I am making reference to my recent little experiment with Klout. For those of you who don't know what Klout is, it is one of a growing number of "social media influence measuring services." In its own words, Klout is THE measure of influence. Really?! Let me tell you what bothers me about Klout and the other social media indicators out there: in a word, they are divisive. They tell the jocks who the nerds are and bid them to keep their digital-distance for fear of digital cooties. They stratify people according to their ability to influence the so-called influencers. They make those among us who enjoy social media for the right reasons (being social) doubt our worth once we and our friends are stuffed into neat and tidy high-school-esque boxes. Now, the service may not do it outright but the matrix by which they reduce you to a mere number is the world's largest schmooze-fest. 

When I started this little journey, my Klout score was actually decent, even though I had never heard of or pandered to my score. I looked into how they quantified my social media interactions and decided to play their game for a few weeks ... just for fun. Within a few days I took my very average score of 36 and power "klouted" it into a 71. That is up there with the big boys like Conan and social media celebrities. I then made the mistake of tweeting a friend my new score. They were devastated, not because my score was higher than theirs but because I seemingly reduced our social media relationship to a competition. I later found out this person had been un-followed by a group of muckety-mucks who didn't want to reduce their own scores by being associated. How incredibly juvenile. 

Though I was a band geek in school, my mother had taught me to respect people for who they are inside. My best friends were a jock, a speech club nerd, a student council president and a fellow band geek who was teased mercilessly because of his acne. They are all wonderful people with great hearts and minds; they are not numbers to be manipulated, reduced or artificially inflated. I have since gone back to my normal social media routine which consists mostly of being goofy and occasionally linking to this blog or something that is actually cool, and my Klout score is dropping faster than a high school prom dress.  One of my favorite people to follow (who has a Klout score of 15) has my attention; when he speaks, I listen. I see him as a person not a number. 

I have decided to start my own social media grading system -- I'll call it B-Dubs. If I think you are a human, I'll give you 100 B-Dubs. If I think you are an internet bot without a soul, I will give you zero B-Dubs. Enjoy the people in your path, open your ears to jock, nerd and every so-called status above, below and in-between. Life is meant to be shared and if you do this, yours will be richer.

Feeling a Little Blog

I have a little blog. If you are reading this, you have seen it. Not a lot here, a thought or story once a month or so -- ramblings, mostly. I have two friends that have completely opposite takes on blogging. One blogs every day. Every day. I am not sure I even think every day, much less gather those thoughts and write them down for the world to comment on. His blog is insightful, funny, snarky, smart. It is his goal to write everyday, part of his routine to wake, eat, brush teeth, jog ... and blog. He shares huge portions of his life with the public at large. On the flip side, my other friend thinks blogging would put too much of her life on display; even if the blog were about things other than her, she believes it would always come back to her interpretation, mind and heart, and expose too much. Funny, her Grandmother journaled and those journals were eventually made into a book - a blog in hardback?! I fit right in the middle. I blog when I want, and hope people read it and find a nugget to take away. I neither market it to the masses or keep it hidden ... it simply exists. I feel there is nothing wrong with any of these approaches.

I spent today at the World of Whirlpool as a guest of Jenn-Air appliances and Digitas, a digital branding agency. It was a bloggers' luncheon and a chance for the Whirlpool corporation to show off its new Chicago facility and get a buzz going in blog land. By the way, WOW, as they call it, is quite apropos. With the exception of me, they invited big-time bloggers, industry-leading bloggers, blog gods (small "g"), even. I expected a room full of smelly hipsters sipping chai; what it turned out to be was a room full of ladies: professionals, moms, singles, and everything in-between. Being the only guy there, I stayed at the back of the group and tried to blend in with the Whirlpool employees. I stuck out like a sore thumb. We looked at each brand in the Whirlpool family, snapped pictures with our smart phones, tweeted, re-tweeted, ate a fabulous lunch, learned about invisible stains, which seems a bit of an oxymoron but has apparently plagued mankind since creation, and asked lots of questions.

Now, here is my take on the event. I think it is grassroots marketing at its finest. Peer-to-peer is the best way to sell your brand -- in the old days we called it "word of mouth." One of the ladies in the group summed it up with a great comment concerning the purchase of an Induction Cooktop. "I need a friend to buy one first," she said. Advertising is great, but we all want someone we trust to tell us it's OK. I looked back over the Twitter feed from the event and saw the conversation that had already started ... induction, stain removal, home brew laundry concoctions. I would also venture a guess that at some point these bloggers will do what they do and blog. There was no hard sell, no "But wait, there's more" gimmick. What a great idea, to pull the curtain back at Oz and let people see what you have.

The Key to Salsa is Passion

I recently spent a very passionate four days in Chicago with 14 other people. I was at the inaugural meeting of the Jenn-Air Appliances Design Advisory Council, of which I am a member. This is an intense group of designers, architects and industry professionals that Jenn-Air has assembled to advise the company on a myriad of topics. Needless to say, when you get in a roomful of designers and architects, everyone's pretty sure that they're right. But I don't see this as ego; I see it as passion.

During the four-day event, we met with representatives of each of the departments at Jenn-Air--cooking, refrigeration, dishwashing, etc.--and were even allowed to see and give our feedback on prototype appliances that won't hit the market for a few years (insert confidentiality agreement here). The thing that stood out most about the Jenn-Air individuals who presented to us was their passion for their product. This wasn't a meeting to just get us to head-nod at their ideas; they wanted honest and real feedback from the group and honest and real feedback they got.

One night the group had dinner at a restaurant called "Moto." The restaurant was chosen because of its innovation, which had been an ongoing theme during our meetings. The restaurant and food are a science-based theme. Most of the food looked nothing like you thought it would taste, or tasted nothing like it looked. The chefs at Moto break their recipes down not just to the ingredient level but down to the molecular level, and then reassemble them in unique and innovative ways. Even beyond that, it was the wait staff that blew me away. Our waiters John Vegas, Chakra and Trevor, pictured below, were really REALLY passionate about their job. As a matter of fact I don't think they would call it a job. To them it was more of an adventure in food. These were young men, in their early 20s, and to have them be a) so knowledgeable, b) so passionate about their work and c) so fun, clever and creative was refreshing when, quite honestly, this age group is usually a little lost. I think the bug that had bitten them was passion--not just a job or a paycheck, but something they related to and could hold as their own. It was inspiring to see these young men so deeply immersed.

I want to do the things that I am passionate about; these are the things that we pour our hearts and souls into. And I'm lucky that it is my occupation, though it doesn't necessarily have to be -- your passion can be art, or music, or cooking, or wine, or helping people, or a million other things.

Have you encountered anyone lately who displayed passion or intensity, and did it inspire you?

17 Hours in the Baked Apple

Is it hot in New York or is it just my career? Last week I was treated to a trip to New York City by my friends at Jenn-Air appliances to see the "House Beautiful" 2010 Kitchen of the Year, designed by Jeff Lewis. The only thing hotter than the new line of Jenn-Air appliances featured in the kitchen may be the midday temperature in Times Square. If you read my earlier post, "A Lot of Hot Jenn-Air," you know I was recently won over by their new appliance line and the forward thinking of their design team.

It was a bit of a whirlwind trip; I was in New York City, from touchdown to takeoff, for less than 17 hours, during which I attended a private viewing in Rockefeller Plaza. I would have to say my first impression of the kitchen was that it was a bit predictable, though there were features that did stand out. It was a California Contemporary but the designer had used some interesting elements to add texture, including a three-dimensional backsplash, reclaimed wood as a counter and seating top, and a "wine wall," which was a great use of space and very visually appealing. The dark, stark European flat-faced cabinetry and white Corian countertops were something I had already seen and I wish the designer would have been a little more aggressive in his palate choices. Then again, he did get Kitchen of the Year and I didn't... note to self: I need a hit TV show!

It was, for all intents and purposes, a beautiful room. I think my issues have less to do with the aesthetics and more to do with the fact that I hoped to see ideas and execution that are way beyond what I might currently design or even be aware of. I wanted to be inspired by the creative use of materials; I wanted to be intrigued by its originality, not just in awe of its scale. (Remember the 1950s and '60s "Kitchens of the Future"? Where were the robots, conveyer belts and and hovering skillets?!)

What would you expect to see in the Kitchen of the Year?