Tiny Gigantic

Since 2005, the design collective Rebar, has been claiming metered parking spots and using them as public parks. They lay down grass, picnic benches, and lounge in downtown parking spots, simply feeding the meter when the time is running low. Yeah, I know: brilliant. Now, they’ve made a mobile, peddle-powered park, called PARKcycle. Once again, file this under Things I Wish I’d Thought of First.

Lately I’ve noticed that I’ve become super sensitive—even a little bitchy—around bad conversation. I mean conversation of all kinds, from branding and advertising to small talk between acquaintances and deep talk between friends. But it isn’t the subject matter that bothers me. It’s the manner in which those conversations happen or don’t happen.

Here’s what I mean:
Once I was sharing a hot tub with two friends, both known for their propensity to talk. It seemed at first like they were talking to each other. But as we spent more time in the water it began to feel to me like they were talking at each other. They weren’t listening to what the other was saying. Or if they were, they weren’t engaging with it. They weren’t responding to it. They were so focused on expressing their own personal point of view that what they were having stopped being a conversation and became a competition for air time. After a while, you could tell they weren’t even talking about the same thing.

Now, it’s normal for people to offer up their experience of a given topic—that’s one way of empathizing. And empathy is good. But most often, if you’re talking about yourself, you’re not listening to someone else. Sure, an anecdote about your experience is fun and sometimes useful, but conversation works best when you’re as unselfish as possible. It works best when you share the spotlight, taking turns talking and listening:

Shut up and listen.
Seriously. Shut up. That means more than just quieting your mouth. It means more than simply waiting your turn to talk. It means quieting the noise in your head so that you can really hear what the other person is saying.

Now prove you were listening.
That’s right. Show me you care. Ask genuine questions that send the conversation in new directions. Talk to me about what I’m talking to you about. Otherwise, we’re just making noise.

Don’t worry, you’ll get your turn.
It’s not likely that anyone will listen to you, if you don’t listen to them first. Because when you really pay attention, and you show it, you build trust. You build rapport. You get a reputation for being smart, and thoughtful even, no matter that you’ve said very little. And suddenly people will want to hear what you have to say.

Whether you’re an organization trying to start conversation in a community, or a dude at a party, a good conversation is a hard thing to make. I’m still figuring this out myself, but I’ve got a feeling that if you just listen, if you really respect the attention you’re getting (someone chose to talk to you, of all people!), and if you talk to them about them, you’ll make all kinds of unexpected friends. Which might be what conversation’s all about.

Seems like it’s gun week here at Tiny G. These pics from Kyle Cassidy’s book “Armed America: Portraits of Gun Owners in their Homes” are truly amazing. Whoa.

Our friends at the vega project have just launched their new blog, red pill. Go give ‘em some love.

My mother, of all people, sent me this really smart anti-gun ad.

For some reason, this awesome ad for the X-box got pulled, while game ads showing a swastika hanging from the statue of liberty are running rampant on primetime tv. Um. Does that seem backwards to anyone else?

A few days ago I ran into an old acquaintance who also works in the creativity business. He said he’d heard that I’d started a studio. Was that true? I said yes.

Then, he looked me in the face and said, “So, what’s it about? Give me your elevator pitch.”

Now, up until that point I had been genuinely happy to see this person, and this request kinda ruined that a little, because it meant he wanted a neatly packaged sound-byte, one that had been scripted, and used many times before. He didn’t want the story of how I spend my days. He wasn’t interested in conversation.

Another story:
This weekend, I met a girl in a bar (no, not that kind of girl). She asked what I do. And because explaining what I do requires a real, honest-to-goodness conversation with someone who may or may not get it anyway, I shrugged and hemmed and hawed and then said, ” It’s sort of hard to talk about. But basically I run a design studio.”
“What kind of design?”
“Communication.”
Then there was a pause, which I tried to fill by saying, “See? Now we have to have a conversation.”

What happened next surprised me: she looked me in the face, and said, “Yes, let’s.”

Here was a person who was willing to spend time learning about me. She didn’t want the short version that she could immediately fit into the pre-existing file tab in her head and then promptly forget. She wanted the one with all the nuance, with all the interesting bits, the one that she could actually engage with.

See, here’s what I mean: An elevator pitch is meant for people who don’t really care. A conversation is for people willing to invest some time to understand the value of what you do. Who would you rather work with?

This is fucking awesome. But here’s a question: why does a sandwich shop somewhere in the mid-west need “viral” videos?

No matter. It’s an example of a kind of generosity marketing that we should all follow: make cool stuff and give it to people for free and the world will take care of you.

So I’ve been wondering about inspiration lately: where to find it, how to use it, and how to maintain it. You could argue that finding it is the easy part—as long as you’re paying attention as you make your way out in the world, there’s a million things that might inspire you.

But do you know when inspiration’s lacking, and you need to fill up? Do you have specific places you look? Do you alternate those places? Are you conscious of the places you find inspiration and the things you’re then inspired to do?

Go watch this beautiful beautiful animation made of paper. And yes, according to the site, each frame is really a hand-cut sheet of paper.

This is one of the weirdest ways of doing business in the Information Age I’ve come across in a while. I can’t even tell if it’s real or not.

From the company’ site:

A death switch is information insurance. Don’t die with secrets that need to be free.

Fucking freaky.