A new version of the 'Make Things People Want' presentation I gave at Clearleft's Skillswap as part of the Brighton Digital Festival 2012. With improved structure around the four key ideas. And a bigger, juicier rant about Star Wars.

1. john v willshire, smithery twitter - @willsh
Skillswap @ The Lighthouse, Brighton Digital Festival 2012

2. smithery is a
one-man-studio
it’s an
innovation
works

3. i take some
raw
materials
like these

4. and help
businesses
make
things
with them

5. I also
make things
to help
other
people
make things
artefact cards in the FT, July 2012

7. ideas have A
shape
that you can
step
inside

8. working
like this
helps
you see big
problems

9. marketing
needs to
rebalance

10. creation of exploitation
demand of demand

11. creation of exploitation
demand of demand
not a
choice,
a balance

12. creation of
demand
exploitation
of demand
yet we
seem to do
more of This >>

13. it made me
think of these

15. easter island - 1722
• population of 2000
• 64 square miles
• 1,400 miles from the
nearest inhabitable place
• 2,000 miles from the
nearest continent

16. no trees

17. 200 giant statues
30ft high
80 tons

18. how?

19. the original
settlers arrived
in massive canoes

20. the island they found was
covered in trees

21. survive thrive
finite
resources

23. 3. you can’t survive
1. too much
of this...
2. this all
disappears...

24. there are over 700 unfinished
statues on easter island
they kept making them right
until the trees ran out...

25. marketing needs to
rebalance

26. people would
not care if
70%
of brands
disappeared havasbrand study
meaningful
Media

27. creation of exploitation
demand of demand
finite
resources

28. four ways to find balance

29. 1. making is marketinG
2. show the value inside things
3. look between people
4. want to make brilliant things

30. 1. making is marketinG
2. show the value inside things
3. look between people
4. want to make brilliant things

32. antonio
Stradivari’s
workshop
created the
finest
stringed
instruments
of all time

33. Stradivari left his
workshop to his
sons, who had
worked beside him
all their lives.

35. the workshop
closed within
twenty years.

37. “he could not
teach either of
them how to be
a genius.”
Sennett on Stradivari

38. even the most
brilliant minds
cannot cheat death

39. Though they try...

40. Though they try...

41. branding was the next best thing

42. [ ]
long section on
100 years of
brand evolution

43. yet we’re now incredibly
focussed on ‘the maker’

44. “when the founder is still
there, people respect the
brand in a way that
doesn’t happen when the
reins have been handed
down over and over”
Entrepreneur magazine Apr 12

45. “when the founder is still
there, people respect the
brand in a way that
doesn’t happen when the
reins have been handed
down over and over”
Entrepreneur magazine Apr 12

46. “when the founder is still
there, people respect the
brand in a way that
doesn’t happen when the
reins have been handed
down over and over”
Entrepreneur magazine Apr 12

47. so when they do depart...
who replaces
the maker?

48. Sometimes
there are
weird
replacements

49. product designer at hp?

50. packaging
designer at
diet coke?

51. creative director of polaroid?

52. creative director of intel?

53. but usually
there are
safe
replacements

54. “accountants
drift to the top
”
stephen king, jwt, 1985

55. 0.6
51%
0.45
36% ftse 100
0.3
24% ceos with
0.15
finance
0 backgrounds
1996 2008 2012
source - Robert Half / Hendricks & Struggles

56. Make
Things
Make
people
want
people
want
Things
Safe pair
of hands

57. those nice people in
finance
like the wrong sort of
marketing

58. Has Marketing
Failed, or was it
never really tried?
1985 paper by Stephen king, JWT

59. four marketing
routes to failure

60. 1 thrust
marketing

61. 2 marketing
department
marketing silo
marketing

62. 3 marketing
accountant’s
payback
january december

63. 4 marketing
formula
x + Y
success =
z

64. four essential
aspects of
real
marketing

65. 1 start with
the customer

66. 2 over time
working

67. 3 resources
using all CEO
marketing
manufacturing

68. 4 innovation
creativity that delivers value

69. all deeply
linked to the
product

70. “I don't believe in
brands. People
buy our product,
not our company.
You're only as
good as your last
product.”
James Dyson

71. 1. making is marketinG
2. show the value inside things
3. look between people
4. want to make brilliant things

72. 1. making is marketing
2. show the value inside things
3. look between people
4. want to make brilliant things

73. what do marketers know
about making things...?

74. you are the
ruiners of all
things
good bill hicks on marketers

76. C3po
demeans
himself
for a washing
machine

77. really?

78. sexy.

79. what next?

80. doesn’t the
Holiday
special
look pretty
special right now?

81. you are the
ruiners of all
things
good

82. though actually...

83. people stopped
caring in
1999

84. so what is actually being ruined here?

85. WHY RUIN your brand WITH STAR WARS?

87. “there is nothing
interesting
about our
universe...
...let’s borrow
someone else’s”

88. It’s never really yours to borrow
so anyone else can borrow it too

89. you are the
ruiners of all
things
good

90. marketing
has drifted
too far from
product
reality

92. the atoms of a product,
or the seconds spent
with a service

93. the feelings we get
from buying, using or
experiencing the thing

94. the two
cannot be
separated

95. pre-industrial industrial network

96. pre-industrial brands suffered
the stradivari problem

97. mass-production
branding helped
solve that problem

98. strip out and
replicate the
essence of
the maker

99. the art of
branding was
compression

100. companies
still seek
their fortune
in the ideas
of a long
dead mind...

103. compression
don’t work for
this world

104. every time
we blink
a brand
changes

105. which can be disconcerting
if you are used to
consistency

106. “I struggle to identify a
consistent set of
measures across our
digital campaigns”
John Woods
Coke, GB & Ireland

107. wait until
marketing
automation
kicks off
properly...
The NEw yorker, 1946

108. it will only
get a lot,
lot
stranger

109. “Nostalgia isn’t a
business Model”
john naughton
http://memex.naughtons.org/archives/2012/04/05/15944

110. don’t pretend it
isn’t happening

111. “We are born of
complexity, shaped
by complexity, and
interact with a
world that is
inexorably
growing more
complex.”
Bud Caddell
graphic from http://whtebkgrnd.tumblr.com/

112. don’t fight
fragmentation
accelerate it

113. fragmentation doesn’t
destroy brand value
it demonstrates value
....or lack of it

114. there’s a different way to
think about value...
the labour
theory of value

115. developed ...and later
by adam by karl
smith... marx

116. modern economics:
the value of a thing is
determined by what one
is willing to give up to
obtain the thing

117. The labour theory of value
the value of something is
determined by the labour
that went into its production

118. the making of ‘it’ -
where the making
is part of the
story of the ‘it’...
thomas heatherwick

119. “marketing is
world building.
With unlimited
bandwidth we
can now show
you the world.”
@TobyBarnes

120. £0.99 £3.33
per pad per pad

121. it’s easier to
buy this world...

122. ...than
this world

123. Labour theory
of brand value:
make every product
with the infinite
canvas of the
internet in mind

124. “The internet is biased
towards fact. People
don’t care about your
brand mythology, they
care about where your
product is made and
what’s in it.” douglas rushkoff

125. world building world borrowing

126. 1. making is marketinG
2. show the value inside things
3. look between people
4. want to make brilliant things

127. 1. making is marketinG
2. show the value inside things
3. look between people
4. want to make brilliant things

128. staring
at people
is rude

130. staring down at
people is a force
of habit...

131. “We do what we do largely because
of our interaction with - and under
the influence of - others.
And mostly without realising it.”
Mark Earls, Herd

132. stop staring
at people
start looking
between them

133. different
people
want
different
things

134. how do you look
between people?

135. anthropologish*
*not hardcore anthropology, before anyone gets angry

136. archeology culture
four disciplines
language social

137. fuck yeah
archeology !

138. oh..... that
archeology

139. digging
around in the
things folk
leave behind

140. unseen UK, 2006
photos by the people at royal mail

141. look for the things that
show you what people
are capable of...

142. language

143. we want a...
strapline
three values
proposition

144. 200
million
we need a...
dictionary
lexicon
tweets phrase book
per day

145. it matters what they say about you
not what you say about you

146. culture
don’t look for
things that unite
look for things
that divide...

147. “We seek out these
obsessives, maniacs
and eccentrics
because they can
help us get to big,
breakthrough ideas”
Brian MillAr,
Sense Worldwide

148. social...
...hang on, we know
about this one...

149. social...
...hang on, we know
about this one...

150. facebook offers
a partial glance
of the intangible
half of your
social
footprint

151. galvanism:
when we
thought
electricity
would cure
from “The Craftsman” by Richard sennett
all disease

152. facebook does
not offer
intimations of
the sublime
http://jeffberryman.com/2011/05/19/counting-on-the-sublime/

153. always look through
two lenses
Material
& virtual
_____.jpg by Alan Belcher

154. what’s fascinating is where
the two now begin to meet
People like the
clothes online,
appears on
hangers in store
C&A, Brasil

155. “It wasn't a real flag, it was
a flag on a video graphic”
Paul deighton, locog chief executive

156. archeology culture
look between people
language social

157. 1. making is marketinG
2. show the value inside things
3. look between people
4. want to make brilliant things

158. 1. making is marketinG
2. show the value inside things
3. look between people
4. want to make brilliant things

159. three
different
wants
peter doyle,
Value-Based Marketing

160. incipient wants
things which
people want, but
have no idea about
until they see it.

161. the things
that sell
themselves

163. latent wants
things there are
no present
solutions for, but
are easy for
people to describe

166. existing wants
things we already
know we want, for
which there are
plenty of willing
suppliers...

167. existing wants
...this is where the
interesting shit is
let’s think about
coffee, for example

168. “like yacht racing,
modern markets are an
environment defined
solely by the position
of the competitors,
rather than by any
absolute geography”
John Cronk

169. Coffee was the Vendée globe

170. you needed a
super-yacht
to be in the
race, never
mind score
points

171. The internet is
a very lenient
race judge
it lets any
small boat
join in...

172. i am a bit picky
about coffee...

173. i can find a
great place to
buy coffee
whenever I’m
out and about

174. I can blend
my own
coffee to
suit my own
taste
profile.
And name it

175. I can watch
509 videos
about how
to use an
aeropress

176. I can read 19,200,000 internet
links on coffee farm soil reports*

177. I can read 19,200,000 internet
links on coffee farm soil reports*
*i haven’t

178. ikawa coffee system
i could even start roasting coffee at home

179. amongst my
friends, I am a
novice

180. so what’s happening?

181. Talent hits a target
no one else can hit
genius hits a target
no one else can see
arthur Schopenhauer

182. the big boats find it hard
to see all the little boats

183. all of their
research tools are
geared to look at
the direct
competitors
marketers copy
each other just
like everyone else

185. It should still be possible
to do something though...?

186. this
is your
best
response?

187. barista style....?

188. barista
style is
free
hugs

189. no
free
hugs

190. but we have
market
share?

191. it never starts with people
who want market share...

192. you are the
ruiners of all
things
good

193. make something they can believe in

195. you have to want to
make a difference

196. To Do a common thing
uncommonly well
brings success

197. To Do a common thing
uncommonly well
brings success
henry john heinz

198. uncommonly well
is now a lot harder to achieve than it used to be

199. want to makes things well

200. want to tell
your story

201. want to create demand

202. people will
only want
the things
you make
as much as
you want to
make them.

203. 1. making is marketinG
2. show the value inside things
3. look between people
4. want to make brilliant things

204. that sounds... hard
where do i start?

205. think of it
this way
you are an
operating
system

206. they’re not
consumers
they’re users

207. they will make
great things
that you are
afraid to make
by David Lee, howstrange.com

208. they will take your things and make other things

209. but they always have
Jingle Bells, Batman smells,
Robin flew away.
Kojak lost his lollipop
And bought a Milky Way
trad. children’s song, 1960’s onwards

210. open up your operating system

211. remember which side you are on

212. we
fight
for
the
users

213. thank you
john v willshire
twitter - @willsh
http://smithery.co http://shop.smithery.co