Daniel H. Pink's Blog, page 11

Sign of the day: New Year's Edition

John Re spotted this on a street in North Adams, Massachusetts. Seems like good advice for 2012.

10 predictions for 2012

The other day, I retrieved my crystal ball from the Pink family self-storage unit. Here's what I glimpsed through the haze about the coming year.

1. American Politics. In the 2012 presidential race, one candidate will win the popular vote but the other the Electoral College.

2. Economics, I. On Election Day 2012, the US employment rate will be 8.1%. (Job growth will improve, but more discouraged workers will re-enter the labor force, pushing up the rate.)

3. Economics, II. In the 1970′s and 1980′s, America had U-shaped recoveries. In the 1990′s, we had a "Goldilocks recovery" (not too hot, not too cold). What's happening now will be known as the "tortoise recovery" — heading in the right direction, but moving very, very slowly.

4. Business, I. A year from today, two out of these three entities will no longer exist: Groupon, Kodak, Newsweek.

5. Business, II. The hot new investment area for venture capitalists will be synthetic biology.

6. Technology. The year's must-have technology product won't be the iPad 3 or iPhone 5, but the Lytro camera.

7. International affairs, I. The next big popular uprising — 2012′s version of Arab Spring — will take place in China.

8. International affairs, II. The Cameron-Clegg coalition government in the UK will not survive through November.

9. Culture. The year's big novel will be Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk by Ben Fountain. (I read the manuscript last week. It's amazing — Tom Wolfe meets Joseph Heller.)

10. Sports. The Washington Nationals will make the 2012 National League playoffs. You heard it here first.

Got a prediction of your own? Add it in the comments and I'll Tweet out the most interesting ones over the next few days.

From Argentina to New Jersey, 4 more emotionally intelligent signs

Those emotionally intelligent signs keep pouring in to the Pink Blog. Below are four from the last few weeks that our elves especially liked.

Clare Conroy offers a nice example from a JB Hi-Fi store in Canberra, Australia, of how to use signage to empathize with guests and change the experience of being in a space:

Federico Sfrégola of Buenos Aires sends our first spray-painted sign, which he saw in Rosario, Argentina. It's not exactly empathetic, but it is emotional and, no doubt, effective. Translation: No parking please. Beware! I have more paint.

Driving the streets of Morristown, New Jersey, Michele Russo found this one, which instructs drivers how to pass a Stanley Foam truck:

And Jay Kim, a systems engineer at NASA, shares how one teacher tried to limit student texting in her classroom:

5 cool holiday gifts for $25 or less

I'm terrible at picking gifts for people. So when I find presents that work, I never let go. Here are five terrific items — all costing no more than $25 and all available online.

1. ARTIFICIAL TURF COASTERS

For the baseball fan in your life, get these four drink coasters fashioned from artificial turf. Trust me. Every guest to our house wants to know where we found these things. ($12.95 from Bergino Baseball Clubhouse.)

2. FIELD NOTES

These are my favorite pocket notebooks — by far. I can't live without them. Lots of groovy designs.  And for the nerd in your life, you can even choose graph paper pages. ($9.95 for a three-pack from Field Notes.)

3. A KIVA CARD

Transform your friend or relative from an ordinary schmoe into an international microlender with a gift card from Kiva. The recipient can lend the money you give to a small entrepreneur in the developing world. ($25 from Kiva.)

4. ONE STORY

A literary magazine with a twist. Every three weeks or so, One Story sends you — wait for it — one short story published in an elegant, pocket-sized format. Great reading for airport security lines. ($21 for a year's subscription from One Story.)

5. TABLE TOPICS

This is one of those products I wish I'd thought of. It's a cube containing 135 cards, each with a question meant to spark a conversation. I'm partial to the family set — a fixture at the Pink dinner table — but other varieties are also cool. ($25 from many retailers.)

*****

BTW, if you'd been a subscriber to our irregular, irreverent (and free!) email newsletter, you'd have heard about this list much sooner.

More newsletters worth reading

Back in November I posted my list of five email newsletters worth reading, and asked PinkBlog readers to nominate theirs. I received loads of suggestions. Here are some of the best:

Yulia Ivanova nominates the "wonderful" Brain Pickings and StartupDigest "for all things startup."
Nate suggests Big Think, which offers both a weekly round-up and a daily IdeaFeed.
Randy gives Heidi Grant Halvorson the nod for her monthly newsletter on the science of success.
Matthew Platts says Web Design Weekly is "an essential newsletter to keep up with the fast-paced world of web development."
Jeb subscribes to the Farnam Street Blog for behavioral economics news.
Miriam Philips recommends the Thinking for a Change newsletter because it's "short (99% of the time), pithy, and actionable."
Darryl Warren enjoys the "contrarian" viewpoint of Black Swan Capital's newsletters.
With Martha Stewart's Everyday Food newsletter, Sabet Stroman never has to worry about what's for dinner.
Marsha Friedman writes, "Anyone who loves fiction and wants to preview before buying will love" the Read-it-First newsletter.
Shilpa Nicodemus likes the "surprisingly interesting" MyFonts newsletters.
For keeping on top of healthcare industry news, Kathleen Goryl recommends Becker's Hospital Review.
Jamey Stegmaier likes Trend Briefings, a monthly newsletter for all things trendy.
Check out Brainmail, "a free monthly newsletter about new ideas, innovations and trends," recommended by Mike Ronkoske.
Nathan Sudds is inspired by daily quotes from Heart Math, as well as emails from A Smart Bear and The Art of Non-Conformity.
Marcus Mann wrote to tell us about MIT Technology Review: "Concise headlines, and great articles when you want them!"
Lars Leafblad is the curator of Pollen; directions for joining his tribe of "civic-minded connectors" can be found at this link.
Artist Kirk deFord calls Robert Genn's twice-weekly letter "a short, readable, and timely newsletter that many of your readers, artist or not, might find informative and inspiring to read."
Tina Schneidermann's must-read recommendation is her own Hot Spots Movement's Newsletter on the future of work.

Innovation for those who hate meeces to pieces

If you "build a better mousetrap," Ralph Waldo Emerson supposedly told us, "the world will beat a path to your door."

But, c'mon, who does that anymore?

Roger Arquer, it turns out.

Using off-the-shelf items such as beer glasses and soy sauce bottles, Arquer has built traps designed "only to catch mice, not to kill them. It's up to the catcher to decide the future of the mouse."

One of his coolest designs he calls Mouse in a Light Bulb. He cuts a large light bulb, lays it on its side, and then inserts a small weight and, natch, a chunk of cheese. When the critter enters, the weight "is released and the light bulb tilts straight up, catching the mouse inside."

You can see the magic in the three photographs below.

Warning: 1 in 5 teenagers will experiment with art

The College for Creative Studies, the excellent art and design school in Detroit, has launched one of the smartest ad campaigns I've seen this year. The objective: Get students (and parents) to consider a BFA or MFA. The technique: The posters you see below.

Death to Pennies!

For the last maybe 20 years, I've been complaining about pennies. At first I was impressed by the spontaneous order in solutions like the "Have one, leave one. Need one, take one" dish. Then I realized that such accommodations only propped up an evil regime — and I griped to anyone who would listen that we should just get rid of the penny altogether.

Most people either nodded politely at my suggestion or edged away as one might from a mangy dog. But now at last, I've found the best (and best-presented) argument for abolishing the penny that I've ever seen.

Watch this video from C.G.P. Grey and tell me you don't disagree.

 

Emotionally intelligent signage in the Big Apple

In an apparent (if perhaps momentary) triumph of emotionally intelligent signage, New York City is trying to tap hidden reservoirs of empathy among pedestrians and drivers alike by using — get this — haiku.

As NBC New York explains:

"Colorful 8-inch square signs featuring safety messages in haiku are being installed at high-crash locations near cultural institutions and schools, including the Bronx's Grand Concourse, MoMA, downtown Brooklyn and the Brooklyn Botanical Garden . . .

"Half of the signs will be hung in pairs, with the image and haiku text appearing. Others will be equipped with technology to allow New Yorkers to access the safety message via smartphone."

You can find all the designs on this PDF — and glimpse a few examples below.

If emotionally intelligent signage can make it here, it can make it anywhere.

A boss who says thanks

Any time a marketing guy sends an email about how awesome his boss is, I react with an emotion that registers somewhere between deep suspicion and utter disregard.

But earlier this month I received a note from Christopher Jensen, Marketing Team Lead for Modern Survey, whose CEO, , I happen to know.

Jensen's story rang true. So, on this day before a U.S. holiday devoted to gratitude, I'm sharing it with you:

Don always says that Thanksgiving is his favorite day of the year. Unlike most of us, he spends it at the office. In fact, he comes in early and starts calling each employee and telling them how much they mean to him and to Modern Survey and he cites specific examples of their exemplary work. I have to admit, on my first Thanksgiving after I joined Modern Survey, when I saw a call coming from the office, I got a little nervous. Something had to be wrong, right? Nope. Just Don calling to fill me up with kind words.

After he gets through calling all of Modern Survey's employees, he moves on to clients, thanking them for their support and loyalty, and finally friends and family members with personal touches about how they've helped him become the person that he is today.

I've never had a boss like that. Nor have I ever done anything like that myself. How about you?