Item #13: On Research

Advertising people who ignore research are as dangerous as generals who ignore decodes of enemy signals.
David Ogilvy

Much of the messy advertising you see on television today is the product of committees. Committees can criticize advertisements, but they should never be allowed to create them.
David Ogilvy

I support research. I am also passionate about creative. And I don’t think these two statements are in opposition to each other.

We are living in an Age of Analytics. But we are also living in an Era of Creativity. And I believe that Creativity and Analytics must learn to work together – even better, they must learn how to help each other.

Here’s why research is important:

- We create for consumers – products, services, ideas, and communications. Therefore we must realize that as the masters we answer to, their input is important, and we can gather that input through research. There is no suitable proxy for the voice of the consumer (not yet at least).
- Research can help us understand what we need to create for our audience of consumers in order to deliver products, services, ideas and communications that bring value to their lives, versus piss them off or just accomplish nothing.
- Research can help us create better products, services, ideas and communications – that meet the needs or wants of our audience AND that we can feel proud of as the creators.

Here are the imperatives for research:

- Research must be done well. Research must be customized, to achieve a specific goal for a specific task with a specific audience. With research, more than ever before: ‘garbage in is garbage out’; ‘ask a bad question in a bad way and you’ll get a bad answer’;
- Research must be used well…and this does NOT mean to direct decisions. It is not smart to use research as a proxy for decision-making: strategic or creative. Research is only one of many inputs into the process of strategic and creative development. Research is a source of information and, if done well, insight which aids decision-making.

And here’s the research concern:

- The concern is that the advertising industry has traditionally held research, particularly creative research, in great doubt. While not necessarily without good reason, this has created a divide between agencies and clients around the issue of research. And because of this, over time, clients have turned to building strong direct relationships with research companies, which runs the risk of hindering the collaborative pursuit – by client, agency and research company together - of ultimately ‘creating’ products, services, ideas and communications that bring real value to consumers.

Way Forward:

- Embrace the role for research, when executed and used well, to support the development of strategies and creative solutions that will bring value to consumers. Work collectively and collaboratively as a team – client, agency and research company – to be innovative and progressive with research methods. In the interest of continuous improvement.

Item #12: On Being Responsible and Collaborative.

Only five years ago, I recall sitting in boardrooms talking about how ‘cause-related marketing’ and ‘being environmentally aware’ were factoring so heavily into our communications discussions. Words like transparency, authenticity, socially responsible and ‘green’ featured frequently in conversations.

The outcomes of these conversations included large-scale corporately sponsored and successful projects like Fashion Targets Breast Canada, the (Red) Project, and all the printing now done on recycled materials. All good.

But now I am excited to see business begin operating in a way that is consistent with the practices defining CSR: Corporate Social Responsibility. CSR advocates the adoption of business operations that “embrace responsibility for the impact of its activities on the environment, consumers, employees, communities, stakeholders and all other members of the public sphere.” (Wikipedia) I am eagerly watching the emergence of the SuperCorp (Rosabeth Kanter), and the company that works to a triple bottom line: People, Planet and Profits.

To this end, I’ve noticed a recent increase in exchange around a couple of thoughts:

Collaborative Product Use: Movie, DVD and Video Game rental companies have been doing it for decades. Now Zipcars is making a mint off the same concept. Rent or borrow whatever you need, wherever and whenever you need it. Paris has the world’s largest collaborative bicycle use system in place – just ‘borrow’ a bike, get to where you need to go, and hand it back in.

Responsible Communications: Recently an advertising agency in Maryland launched a protest movement - ‘Stop the Adness’. The originators believe that the social contract between advertisers and consumers has been violated. We are all aware of the extent of consumer ‘tune-out’ to advertising – well, more specifically, to bad advertising. Responsible communications gets back to being successful in the essential task of communication: “a two-way process in which there is an exchange and progression of thoughts, feelings or ideas towards a mutually accepted goal or direction.” (Wikipedia)

Collaborative product uses and responsible communications – two things among many I’ll be thinking more about while I confront marketing challenges in this blossoming era of corporate social responsibility.

Item #11: Strategic Planner as Chief Synthesizer

Exploring the notion of Strategic Planner, or Strategist of any title, as Chief Synthesizer.

Process: To Synthesize

- To combine the parts into a coherent whole;

- The pulling together of ideas or information to develop a common framework for understanding or to create a new idea; 


- A thinking skill in Bloom's Taxonomy including generalizing from given facts, relating knowledge from several areas, and using old ideas to create new ones.

Outcome: A Synthesis

- A deduction requiring reasoning from the general to the particular, or from cause to effect; 


- The formation of something complex or coherent by combining simpler things; the examining and combining of processed information with other information and intelligence for final interpretation;

- Involving or of the nature of synthesis as opposed to analysis.

Person: The Synthesizer

- An intellectual who synthesizes or uses synthetic methods;

- The synthesizer extracts the equivalent logic circuit functions from a library and connects them together to form a complete circuit.




(www.glencoe.com/sec/teachingtoday/subject/analyze_this.phtml; www.peninsula.wednet.edu/learningteaching/curriculum/CurricDocsWrtg/Preschool/6.Glossary.doc; www.sd54.org/eo/literacy/continuum/essentials_glossary.htm)(wordnetweb.princeton.edu/perl/webwn;
en.wiktionary.org/wiki/synthesis
; P.S.Welch)(www.ami.ac.uk/courses/topics/0100_gls/glossary/glosss.htm)

Item #10: Insight Into An Experience

I recently set up an old turntable in my house. I also acquired a small number of vinyl records to launch my collection. The experience felt remarkably structured and also extremely satisfying, so I mapped it. And I find that this provides a path from the discovery of a need, to having that need satisfied, as well as some clues to the kind of content that might follow that journey and the emotional experience surrounding it.

Point A: NEED. My digital music collection was leaving me intensely unsatisfied. I was consuming new music voraciously and finding decreasing levels of satisfaction with each new discovery. I was very bored. But loving music so much, also increasingly frustrated.

Point B: SHARE. I found I was sharing my frustration freely with anyone who would listen. It started with me asking my reliable go-to music-lovers for recommendations on new music, which I continued to purchase, and which continued to leave me unsatisfied.

Point C: DISCOVER. One music-lover who I was talking to launched into discussion about records, and a passionate conveyance of his love for the hobby. I felt it, and decided I would get a turntable and some records. That would be the cure for my state of music boredom.

Point D: PLAN. Excitement Ensued. The process of discovery became my focus: where would I get this turntable, should I get an old one or a new one; maybe my Dad has one in the basement. And think of all the old music I’ll be able to listen to.

Point E: ACQUIRE. Acquired Turntable and Records. Admittedly, there was a mini-crash of excitement around here. Once I had the pieces that would relieve my music boredom state, I had nothing to be immediately excited about. I had a wait until it was actually hooked up and a record was playing. This was kind of a flat stage in the process.

Point F: EXPERIENCE. Turntable Installed and Record Playing. Joy Ensued. My experience came to full bloom. And what made it so full? Just like any good positioning strategy: part need satisfaction i.e.: cure for my state of music boredom, but mostly an emotional experience.

Next post: The Anatomy of an Experience.

Item #9: The History of Love by Nicole Krauss

Once every few years, I find a book that takes my breath away. And one of those came along for me, by fluke more than anything, recently. The History of Love by Nicole Krauss was sitting there amongst many others on its display table in a downtown bookstore. Something drew me to it: something made me buy it, and then reading it gave me moments of absolute elevation. I saw words brought together on a page in such a way that I’ve never seen before. I experienced a story that was so finely woven that I can only wonder at the finesse of the magical mind behind it. The clear recommendation is to go read it, revel in it, lap up every poetic line… but in the meantime, captured here is some of its splendor, out of context and thus not nearly full in its experience, but a taste nonetheless. (Slight spoiler alert)

“Once upon a time there was a boy who loved a girl, and her laughter was a question he wanted to spend the rest of his life answering.”

“She said: Maybe I shouldn’t make up everything because that made it hard to believe anything.”

“Out of habit, I turned and checked for my footsteps. When I arrived at my building I looked for my name on the buzzers. And because I know that sometimes I see things that aren’t there, after dinner I called Information to ask if I was listed.”

“She’s kept her love for him as alive as the summer they first met. In order to do this, she’s turned life away.”

“To paint a leaf, you have to sacrifice the whole landscape. It might seem like you’re limiting yourself at first, but after a while you realize that having a quarter-of-an-inch of something you have a better chance of holding on to a certain feeling of the universe than if you pretended to be doing the whole sky.”

“The idea of evolution is so beautiful and sad. Since the earliest life on earth, there have been somewhere between five and fifty billion species, only five to fifty million of which are alive today. So, ninety-nine percent of all the species that have ever lived on earth are extinct.”

“Part of you thought: Please don’t look at me. If you don’t, I can still turn away. And part of you thought: Look at me.”

“Only now that my son was gone did I realize how much I’d been living for him. When I woke up in the morning it was because he existed, and when I ordered food it was because he existed, and when I wrote my book it was because he existed to read it.”

“The fact that you got a little happier today doesn’t change the fact that you also became a little sadder. Every day you become a little more of both, which means that right now, at this exact moment, you’re the happiest and the saddest you’ve ever been in your whole life.”

“What about you? Are you the happiest and saddest right now that you’ve ever been?” “Of course I am. Because nothing makes me happier and nothing makes me sadder than you.”

“As the rifles were pointed at his chest he wondered if what he had taken for the richness of silence was really the poverty of never being heard.”

“He was an average man. A man willing to accept things as they were, and, because of this, he lacked the potential to be in any way original.”

“At the end, all that’s left of you is your possessions. Perhaps that’s why I’ve never been able to throw anything away. Perhaps that’s why I hoarded the world: with the hope that when I died, the sum total of my things would suggest a life larger than the one I lived.”

“(If you don’t know what it feels like to have someone you love put a hand below your bottom rib for the first time, what chance is there for love?)”

Item #8: The Future of Advertising IV

Recently, I spoke as a panel member to the MBA class at the York University Schulich School of Business on the topic of The Future of Advertising and Marketing. I shared my thoughts with the audience as a series of headlines, which I’ve shared as a little series. Here’s my last in that series:

Headline 4 and Final: Culture Will Matter More








In Headlines 1 through 3 thus far, I’ve talked about the notion that Content that Engages is bound to live on. I’ve talked about the need for Agencies to begin to behave again like partners of clients, but within the parameters of an Evolved Definition of Partnership. I’ve also noted that our measurement of success requires Metrics of Impact, not Eyeballs or even Engagement.

If I wrap it all up, I believe that The Future of Advertising belongs to those agencies that place their organizational focus in three (slash four) areas: Analytics is one; Creativity is another and Style is the third. And consequently, that Culture Will Matter More.

Analytics is the large bucket I use referring to the information we need to derive insight, make smart decisions, plan well and measure our success, in the interest of continuous improvement.

Creativity is the process by which the synthesis of vision, information, idea and craft are brought together to produce original, interesting, game-changing content that people want to engage with. We know that creativity is one of our most important resources today. You only need to spend some time with Daniel Pink’s A Whole New Mind to know that it is creativity that will take society, especially North American society, to it’s next level.

And Style… Style is the word I’m choosing to use to describe a new manner of interaction between people who work together, whether colleague or client or supplier. Rosabeth Kanter has outlined the 5F’s for the Corporation of the Future: Fast, Focused, Flexible, Fun and Friendly. These are factors of human interactional style identified here… as much as, if not more than, they are operational factors.

Which brings me to Culture. And why Culture Will Matter More. More than any time in history perhaps, agency success depends more on soft human intangible skills than machines, formulas or even processes. Which is why Culture Matters More. Culture is the element that establishes the behavioural patterns, attitudes, and values that spread and become shared and hence characterize an organization. And “Culture is not only a way to foster identity, it is a source of creativity, an essential element of innovation.”*

Culture will be more of a proactive consideration for the leaders and managers of agencies, and it will be more of a point of evaluation for employees, clients and suppliers.

* (The Impact of Culture on Creativity, A Study prepared for the European Commission (Directorate-General for Education and Culture).

And thus marks my last headline in the series from The Future of Advertising talk at York University. What now?

Item #7: The Future of Advertising III

Recently, I spoke as a panel member to the MBA class at the York University Schulich School of Business on the topic of The Future of Advertising and Marketing. I shared my thoughts with the audience as a series of headlines, which I’ll share as a little series. Here’s my third in that series:

Headline 3: We Need New Focus on Metrics of ‘Impact’

















For as long as I can remember, we’ve had a hard time measuring communication effectiveness. We know that when we advertise, sales increase, and when we don’t, they drop off.

With broadcast mediums like TV, magazine, newspaper and radio, we are able to measure how many people see or hear an advertisement (reach) and how many times (frequency). In the online space, we’ve gotten fancier and we’re able to track impressions and click-through rates and time spent. Measurement in the online space is considered advanced because suddenly we are able to get past measures of ‘eyeballs’ to measures of ‘engagement’.

So we have communication metrics: how many eyeballs did we presumably reach with this advertisement and how long did we keep those eyeballs engaged. And we have business metrics: how did sales react.

But as the marketplace grows increasingly tentacled and complex, the words of Trout and Ries resonate louder and louder in my head: ‘Marketing is war. It is a battle waged in the mind of the consumer’ (recalled, not exact).

But we don’t measure what’s going on in the mind of the consumer. At least, not enough. We don’t focus enough on measuring ‘impact’ on this battleground. But we need to. We need more focus on ‘impact’ metrics.

If the battle is in the minds of consumers, then we need to be measuring how well a brand is owning and protecting its distinct territory in the minds of consumers. Communications are designed to do that – carve out a distinct and compelling territory for a brand in the minds of consumers. So we need better ‘impact’ metrics to help us determine how effective we are being in doing just that. And then, we need to be mapping those ‘impact’ metrics against communications activities to really begin to understand what’s doing what.

Because it doesn’t necessarily matter if we reached 5 million eyeballs and kept them for 12 minutes. And arguably it might not be that much of a point of success to have driven high levels of sales if it’s only a short term return. What is important is that the communications brands deploy have ‘impact’. And that ‘impact’ must be in owning and protecting a distinct and compelling territory for your brand inside the minds of consumers. Because that will lead to long-term business success.

Item #6: The Future of Advertising II

Recently, I spoke as a panel member to the MBA class at the York University Schulich School of Business on the topic of The Future of Advertising and Marketing. I shared my thoughts with the audience as a series of headlines, which I’ll share as a little series. Here’s my second in that series:

Headline 2: We Need New Language










I propose that a big part of The Future of Advertising is that we need new language.

I say this in reaction to having recently overheard someone say that “Advertising is dead”. Maybe this is true. If we are talking about the old kind of intrusive, boring, ‘let me tell you, viewer, what I want to tell you and hope you will do precisely what I expect you to do’ kind of ‘advertising’, then, indeed, that kind of ‘advertising’ may very well be dead.

But I contend that engaging content with a commercial message is alive and well.

This year, the Superbowl, the Grammy Awards, the Olympics, and the Oscars all drew record audiences. And, definitively in at least two of those cases, the ‘ads’ were a crucial part of the tune-in interest. This year, viewers could log into a Youtube channel to view all Superbowl ads and rank those they liked most. And a flurry of comments in the online space blossomed on Day 1 of the recent 2010 Vancouver Winter Games with viewers commenting specifically on the Olympic ads.

http://www.youtube.com/user/adblitz

http://www.edmontonjournal.com/sports/2010wintergames/Brilliant+immigrant+another+golden+Olympic+moment/2629960/story.html

Just look to the incredible success of pass-on viral phenomenons like Dove Evolution (at more than 10 million youtube views, yes, it’s still worth referencing) and more recently the Old Spice ‘ads’ (with more than 5 million youtube views in just over a month), or even the instant success of brand-loaded video-film Telephone featuring Lady Gaga and Beyonce (already almost 4 million youtube views in less than two weeks).

Here, we see that the audience is hungry for engaging content even with a commercial message.

I also heard someone say that advertisers need to focus on placing their advertisements where people are watching; the recommendation was to find those properties where people are attentive, and unable or unlikely to skip the commercials and to place your advertisements there.

BUT… if we change our language, and we place our focus on creating engaging content even with a commercial message, then we won’t have to find places to stick ‘advertisements’, they will take flight all on their own.

Item #5: The Future of Advertising I

I spoke as a panel member to the MBA class at the York University Schulich School of Business yesterday on the topic of The Future of Advertising and Marketing. I sat on the panel alongside a Globe and Mail Editor and a Professor of Marketing from York and we followed a keynote from a representative of Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment Marketing.

We were asked to respond to a series of questions, loosely summarized as:
- How is the role of the advertising agency changing?
- What skill sets do marketers need today that they didn’t need previously?
- Where are the eyeballs?
- Do you think the days of mass marketing are over?
- Evoking Seth Godin, should you just try to reach the people that are listening?
- What are the ways to reach the consumer and improve stickiness of the message?

I shared my thoughts with the audience as a series of headlines, which I’ll share as a little series over the next couple of weeks. Starting with:

Headline 1: Client and Agencies Are Moving Towards a New Definition of Partnership

50 years ago, think Mad Men, clients and agencies were partners. They worked together, to outline long-term plans, to lead strategic thinking, to determine scope of work, to share resourcing discussions, and most importantly, to take risks. There was a relationship basis to that partnership, and hence working styles and a working environment that fell out of that. Clients and agencies were more invested in each other, there was more trust, and hence there was more risk-taking.

Somewhere around 20 years ago, advertising agencies became suppliers; the valuable planning and strategic leadership work was being done by hub offices in London or New York and ‘global’ plans and platforms were distributed to regional offices for adaptation and execution. Hence, replacing partnership, trust and the resulting relationship, the measure of performance became ‘do what we say’, fast, affordably and effectively.

But both clients and agencies are beginning to realize the shortcomings of that approach now. We can’t have globally developed platforms work in that way anymore, just farmed to regions for adaptation and execution. It just doesn’t work. Canada is not America, is not Europe. New York is not Toronto, nor is it London. And certainly someone has to be understanding and addressing the uniquenesses of sub-cultural places like Montreal, Halifax and Vancouver. Strategic leadership is required again, to meaningfully create communications that live off global platforms but that are relevant and compelling to regional audiences.

So, the opportunity is being created again, slowly and differently, for agencies and clients to again work in partnership…. BUT…. big caveat here… all that was expected and altered by the era of supplier-ship has not been forgotten nor will it be abandoned. The demands, driven mainly by the market, are still for fast, and effective. Now, agencies need to bring the best of partnership – strategic leadership for the creation of relevant compelling BIG IDEA communications PLUS flexible, fast, accountable execution of all aspects of building and deploying those communications.

Item #4: Barbie Gets Modern

Recall a comment I made on a Brandchannel discussion wall about a year ago:


Up until recently, I, all-powerful Mom, would indeed have answered ‘No’ and not bought the toy. But… interest has been piqued of late. It seems as though Barbie might be realizing she needs to woo ‘Mom’ more than the girl.

Now, Tory Burch, Philip Crangi, Kate Spade’s Deborah Lyyod, Lorraine Schwartz, Isaac Mizrahi, Rachel Roy, Monica Botkier, Justin Giunta, Albertus Swanepoel, Betsey Johnson and Alexis Bittar are all ‘dressing’ Barbie. (http://blogs.glam.com/glamchic/2010/01/25/barbie-gets-new-designer-duds/)












Betsey Johnson’s Barbie

And most recently, Christian Louboutin has collaborated with Barbie on the limited edition 'Dolly Forever' doll.












Photo via Net-a-Porter http://www.fashionmagazine.com/blogs/fashion/fashion-news/2010/03/04/fashion-news-louboutin-barbie-the-power-of-alexa-chung-and-halston-to-relaunch-menswear/

Finally, and lest I forget, just last month, Barbie announced her two new professions - computer engineer and news anchor. (http://newslite.tv/2010/02/15/new-barbie-jobs-computer-engin.html)








So I am drawn back to the topic of the Brandchannel discussion:

Does the Barbie brand represent modern feminine identity?

Betsey Johnson? Christian Louboutin? Computer Engineer? News Anchor? This Mom is much more inclined to think ‘Yes she does’. And darling daughter might just be getting one for Christmas.

Item #3: Why Words Matter

My inbox greeted me recently with a daily message from an industry publication. The headline caught my attention because it compared a client relationship issue to a serious mental disorder. The association was meant to draw attention, and it did, but it nagged at me, for the following reason:



Language affects thinking. We should concern ourselves with the words we use to describe things as a responsible response to a principle called the linguistic relativity principle, or the Sapirs-Whorf hypothesis.

What this principle states is that “thinking is shaped by language, that linguistic categories define conceptual ones. The idea is that discourse doesn't just convey thought but partly determines it.” (wikipedia.org)

Or more simply:

“If we change how we talk for the better, we'll change how we think for the better.”

(C.G. Prado, 2006, Political Correctness: Changing language to change thinking).

Item #2: The Emotion of the Aesthetic

In 2005, Jonathan Haidt, a psychology professor at the University of Virginia, published a book called The Happiness Hypothesis. It’s a great read. In the book, Haidt refers to the eight primary emotions identified by Robert Plutchik's psycho-evolutionary theory of emotion; they are: Anger, Fear, Sadness, Disgust, Surprise, Anticipation, Acceptance and Joy.

The fascinating thought and the basis for this Item #2: The Emotion of the Aesthetic is that he postulates that we may be able to classify a ninth primary emotion: Elevation.

Emotions, and engaging them, as we know, are tremendously important in the development of creative communications for advertising purposes. So the discovery of a new emotion can be extremely useful, especially if we know how to trigger it.

It appears that Elevation is real, and that it can be triggered via Aesthetics. Here’s why:

Emotions drive decision-making. The experience of positive emotion sets in place scripts in our minds, scripts that initiate behaviours. (Nico Frijda, American Psychologist). In fact it appears that without the triggering of emotion, we lose ability to make decisions (Antonio Damasio, changingminds.org).

Emotional appeal in communications drives persuasive impact. “Emotionally based campaigns are not only more likely to produce very large business effects, but also produce more of them, outperforming rationally based campaigns on every single business measure” (UK IPA Effectiveness Awards).

Elevation might just be the big kahuna of emotions for advertisers. University of Virginia moral psychologist Jonathan Haidt, who coined the term ‘Elevation’, writes, "Powerful moments of elevation sometimes seem to push a mental 'reset button,' wiping out feelings of cynicism and replacing them with feelings of hope, love, and optimism, and a sense of moral inspiration...." Wow.

And it looks like Elevation can be triggered through Aesthetics. According to philosopher Immanuel Kant (1724-1804), aesthetics is the philosophical notion of beauty. He states that beauty is objective and universal, thus certain things are beautiful to everyone; aesthetic judgment refers to the sensory contemplation or appreciation of such. Starts to sound a little like Elevation? Haidt and Keltner more recently observe this in scientific studies whereby experiences of Awe/ Responsiveness to Beauty and Excellence (A/RBE) (a.k.a. Aesthetics!) generate reactions that can be described as this feeling of Elevation. And there’s more who have hinted at this connection: Edmund Burke in a 1757 treatise on aesthetics; Clive Bell in his book Art (1914); and, more loosely, though linked, philosopher G.E. Moore (1903) who considered aesthetic value to be an intuited form of goodness.

If it’s true, what does it mean? Well, it means that the appreciation of aesthetics in and of itself triggers a positive emotional response of elevation. In communications, this means that the mere aesthetic appeal of creative can engage emotionally, powerfully, independently, bringing persuasive strength.

Proof that: Design matters. Beauty engages. And Art persuades.

Item #1: Tavi Gevinson

The small ‘c’ controversy of New York Fashion Week surrounded Tavi Gevinson, the 13-year-old fashion blogger phenomenon (http://tavi-thenewgirlintown.blogspot.com/). Apparently the little-known wonder has made a name for herself as an influential style commentator, enough so, that she garnered herself a front row seat at some of fashion week’s most coveted shows.



http://www.interviewmagazine.com/blogs/fashion/2010-01-26/tavi-hat/

Tavi’s apparent faux-pas centred around her chosen pink bow headpiece – which was, as an aside, glorious and I’ll be getting a slightly smaller version for myself. But perhaps there was a statement being made here, unconsciously or not?

Tavi chose to mark her appearance at New York Fashion Week with a headpiece, one in the shape of a bow. Hmmm. Let’s briefly investigate the significance of this move.

According to tradition, head-gear was worn by those of status or authority. Whether a crown or a hat of plumage, the head-piece accessory was unnecessary and often featured costly accoutrements – such as jewels, or exotic feathers.

The old saying goes 'if you want to get ahead and get noticed, then get a hat'.

A royal crown, for example, symbolizes power, legitimacy and victory or triumph. In custom, a new monarch is crowned. Reference wikipedia.org.

And I’ll leave the bow (tie) symbolism explanation to the far more eloquent Warren St. John from The New York Times:

"To its devotees the bow tie suggests iconoclasm of an Old World sort, a fusty adherence to a contrarian point of view. The bow tie hints at intellectualism, real or feigned, and sometimes suggests technical acumen, perhaps because it is so hard to tie. Bow ties are worn by magicians, country doctors, lawyers and professors and by people hoping to look like the above. But perhaps most of all, wearing a bow tie is a way of broadcasting an aggressive lack of concern for what other people think."

—Warren St John, The New York Times

So perhaps Tavi’s head-gear wearing choice was purely random and unintentional, or… perhaps Tavi was ‘crowning herself as one of status and authority, earned as a result of her acumen and contrarian point of view’.

Introducing Curated, by Heidi McCulloch.

The term curate comes from the Latin word curatus which has multiple meanings including: to attend to; to heal or cure; to provide for; to take care of; and to care about. From that root come the associated words: cure and care, as well as form the foundation for the modern day profession of Curator.

A Curator in modern-day is most often employed by museums, art galleries or other cultural institutions and is charged with maintaining a collection of items, items which often have some commonality: paintings, photographs, fashion garments, jewelry, or even books or cookware. A Curator is expected to bring a philosophy, a point-of-view and a certain taste to the items they personally select to form the collections they curate. Essentially, and true to the root meaning of the word, a curator’s collection represents that which they care about and hence take care of; perhaps they serve a healing purpose of some kind, for the curator, as well as those who experience the collection.

I will serve as Curator of the collection that will be presented here, on these pages. It will be a collection of finds, words, thoughts and perspectives that will be representative of my own philosophy, point-of-view and certain taste… this collection will be Curated, by me.

Heidi McCulloch, Curator