Mike Arauz's Blog – The Archives

Three years ago I was lucky enough to discover The Feltron Annual Report, a beautifully designed and wonderfully idiosyncratic catalogue of one man's life during the previous year. I purchased a hard copy of the 2006 Annual Report, and have been a huge fan of Felton's work ever since.

This past year, I got to work with Felton on some stuff for Undercurrent. And as a result of Felton's new methodology, I actually got to contribute to this year's report. After every encounter Felton had, he would hand the person a business card invitation with a unique code and a url, where they would go to fill out a form to record the details of their meeting with Felton.

Last week Felton released the new 2009 edition.

I think it's his best one, yet. I highly recommend doing yourself the favor of purchasing a hard copy.

I dropped Felton an email, and he was generous enough to answer a few questions. (Thanks to my co-workers and fellow Feltron fans Bud Caddell and Clay Parker Jones for contributing some of these.)


Your Annual Report must take an incredible amount of time and effort. Why do you do it? What's the most rewarding thing about it? What's the most challenging part?

It is a pretty time-consuming project, but it's also my favorite part of the year. The project evolved from earlier attempts to draw content for personal design projects from my daily activities… but was encouraged and fueled by bloggers and fellow designers commenting on how much they enjoyed it. Today it has a number of facets: research and development, professional self-promotion, personal curiosity, as well as it's own incredible momentum. Ultimately, keeping the endeavor fresh is the toughest part, but I am thrilled that (to date) the directions I have explored keep finding favor with an audience.


This year, instead of recording all of the data yourself, you asked everyone you interacted with to fill out a survey about your time together. Why the new format? How did it meet your expectations? How did it surprise you?

There have always been questions about my behavior that I have felt unqualified to track. My mood is one of those qualitative traits that I would rather not judge for myself, and the reporting system I devised provided a less biased way of recording it. Overall I was interested in how others see me, and what is memorable about an encounter with me. Ultimately, we all have our own self-image, but your public persona is how other people see you, and what they remember and tell others. This was what I hoped to record, evaluate and communicate. Of course, it has it's limitations. I didn't find that anyone recorded their dissatisfaction. I presume that if we had a negative encounter, that person was not interested in telling me my faults.

One of the most surprising things was how high the response rate was. Many of my friends were extremely committed to the project and recorded nearly all of our encounters in exacting detail. It even became a part of the routine of our outings… and is a little missed in 2010.


As a result of your new approach, this year's data was much more qualitative than in past years. Can you tell me about the tools and method you used to parse the data for this year's report?

In order to quantify all the responses, I had to essentially transcribe each entry into tags that I could sort and filter. For each question, I would run through the responses and extract the pertinent information… the things I ate or drank, where we went, the topics we discussed. Everything was reduced to a tag with as much specificity as provided.

Here's an example of what was submitted for a food entry:

"some sort of entree along with a beet from the beet salad, a turnip from the side of turnips and strawberry rhubarb and some other dessert"

I could determine that YES, food was consumed, there was a SALAD an ENTREE a DESSERT, and that the VEGETABLES BEET, TURNIP and RHUBARB were consumed along with the FRUIT STRAWBERRY.

Once everything is transcribed in this way, I can tally the results, and look at the patterns over the course of the year.


How has this project (and the burden of recording all this behavior) changed how you live?

Well, the project has always been structured to record my natural behaviors, rather than influence them... which is why I refrain from tallying the results until the end of the year. Of course, recording other metrics with Daytum.com starts to create feedback loops. If you can see the miles you walk daily starting to fall, then there's an impetus to walk more. But truthfully, it only takes a few minutes a day of recording to create a pretty detailed data set of the year, and for the most part, I don't let it burden my activities.


This is a great example of a project that brings together personal and professional passions. What makes projects like these worthwhile? And what advice would you have for anyone considering their own project?

The beauty of the project for me is the virtuous cycle it creates between the personal and professional. The more annual reports I create, the more work of this type comes my way, and the more data visualization work I create, the better my annual reports become.

I made plenty of personal projects before I found one that resonated with an audience. I would say that you have to keep plugging away until you find something that sticks and that a small passionate audience can quickly swell into something larger and more significant once you have a toehold.


and...What's your favorite typeface?

That's the toughest question of the bunch. I typically have a compressed grotesque, a serif and sans that are in favor. Heroic has been a go-to compressed face for several years, while Hoefler Text and Futura are old standbys that would certainly make a desert island list.

Last week's New Yorker included an excellent Malcolm Gladwell article called "The Sure Thing" (abstract only). The article is about how entrepreneur's are rarely the risky mavericks that we like to imagine; rather, most successful entrepreneurs are extremely rational and risk-averse. They get ahead by doing their homework and limiting the potential downsides to their decisions.

The entire article is worth a read, but the part that stuck out was a little anecdote about John Paulson, a hedge fund manager who made billions of dollars betting against the housing market. This guy had a hunch that the housing boom was too good to be true. His team did the homework, and were convinced that housing prices were sure to come back down to earth. So they spent millions of dollars placing bets (in the form of housing insurance policies for banks) against the inflated housing market. Everyone thought that they were crazy. Conventional wisdom said that the housing market was a never-ending gold mine, and you were a fool if you weren't taking advantage of it. Conventional wisdom was wrong.

It got me thinking. If I was going to bet against a commonly held belief in our industry, what would it be? What are the assumptions that everyone is making right now (and putting real dollars against) that will prove to be foolish investments in the future?

My colleagues at Undercurrent had a healthy debate about this last week. One idea that got some attention was the assumption that there's a profitable business to be had in porting digital display advertising to mobile devices.

Personally, the assumption that I've been questioning most often recently is that more fans/followers = better. I think that holding your online relationships to a high standard, and limiting the quantity of relationships that you maintain, could ultimately provide more business value for the brand.

What commonly held beliefs in our industry would you bet against? Comments welcome.

Interesting question that my friend Nick Braccia, a contributor at Culture Hacker, raised the other day:

Are personal brands of individuals within agencies supplanting the brands of the agencies themselves?

Which is more famous on the web? Alex Bogusky or CP+B? Steve Rubel and David Armano or Edelmen? Tony Hsieh or Zappos?

I'm not sure that there's a definitive answer to this; it certainly depends on your perspective. But, no matter what the answer is, there is clearly a tension here.

It's a fascinating conundrum because as more companies encourage a more open and porous presence, encouraging their employees to tweet and blog on their own profiles, a natural competition will emerge. Ideally it's a healthy competition. In the case of Zappos, for instance, it's a mutually beneficial arrangement. And I think the best lesson that other companies can take from Zappos is that you're best served by going all in. If everyone in your organization is participating, then it tends to sort of level out.

That's sort of the tack that we've taken at Undercurrent, where I work. Our company's online brand is really the sum of the online brands of the individuals who work there.

I wonder if what we're seeing among digital agencies, which are obviously early adopters when it comes to internet behavior, indicative of what we're going to see across all companies and industries?

And I'm very interested in hearing from people who have insight into Human Resources, hiring, and retaining talent. Do you see this as a benefit or a necessary evil?

Comments welcome.

Yesterday Forrester Research released a new update to their Social Technographics model. Based on a survey of web users, they describe the level of participation across a range of common online behaviors. This is intended to serve as a base and framework for comparing unique brand communities or audiences to the general population.

These are not mutually exclusive behaviors. And contrary to the ladder metaphor that Forrester prefers, there is not necessarily a hierarchy to the behaviors, e.g. you do not necessarily have to be a Collector before you become a Critic.

The big addition this year is "Conversationalists": people who regularly post status updates to places like Facebook and Twitter.

I've created this re-design of their findings which hopefully makes the findings a little bit clearer, and also compares 2009 to previous findings from 2008 and 2007. As you can see the largest increase is within Joiners, people who have created profiles for themselves on various social network sites.

Click image for hi-resolution version

We've trained ourselves to recognize videos, images, and messages that will be most appropriate for spreading, repeating, and remixing. The concepts of "viral" and "memes," i.e. things that spread on their own without human control or volition, are dead (Read Henry Jenkins and co. if you don't believe me). And with each new Susan Boyle we discover, the creation of overnight internet celebrities becomes an even more deliberate and conscious act.

Case in point: this week's Internet Idol, General Larry Platt and his original performance of "Pants on the Ground"




Within 24 hours we had an official gangster remix (could it be the next Soulja Boy?).




Jimmy Fallon performed the song as Neil Young on late night TV.




It was part of Brett Favre's post-game celebration.




Even other American Idol contestants got in on the action.




You can even buy the t-shirt.




Content doesn't spread on the web by accident. Content spreads because real live human beings choose to spread it. We spread it because of what it means to us, and what it means to the people we want to relate to. And now we're even spreading it because we recognize it as something to spread.

Apple's new tablet device will be both a portable computer and a multi-touch controller for our existing desktops.

As the anticipation builds for Apple's big announcement at the end of this month, I've been thinking more about what an Apple tablet device might be like. I agree with John Gruber from Daring Fireball:

...there’s one question at the top of the list, the answer to which is the key to answering every other question. That question is this: If you already have an iPhone and a MacBook; why would you want this?

Gruber makes a very well reasoned case for what this device could be, and the ways that it will be more innovative than we've imagined. There's no doubt that Steve Jobs subscribes to the Henry Ford school of technological innovation, i.e. "If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said 'a faster horse.'"

Jobs wont give us a bigger iPod or a more portable MacBook.

Apple's new device will be a fundamentally unique computing device that is both a multi-touch location-aware and motion-sensitive personal portable extension of our desktop computing experience and a multi-touch peripheral controller that we will use to interact with our desktop computing experience.

This is what will make it such an important new step in the evolution of digital experiences as we know it. This device opens a gateway to an entirely new way of interacting with a computer. A new behavior based on the more intuitive gestural abilities of our hands and ten fingers.

For years now I've thought that eventually the keyboard and mouse would be replaced by a multi-touch interface directly layered over our existing desktop. But, what was missing for me is how that might actually work.

Four months ago, a Chicago-based designer named Clayton Miller (@claymill) made this enlightening concept video for how a multi-touch interface for our computers might work.

10/GUI from C. Miller on Vimeo.

UPDATE: Further evidence for here in the details of Apple's multi-touch gesture patents.

The mythical Apple multi-touch tablet could be this device, and more...

What are your bets?

Facebook is earning most of its money these days by selling huge advertising deals (hundreds or millions of dollars) with major brands who are looking to connect with their fans. Facebook offers advertisers a suite of different types of advertising that in one way or another help the advertiser to recruit new members for the brand's Facebook Fan Page.

But, from the brand's perspective, isn't the point of collecting fans on your Facebook Fan Page that the brand gains the ability to communicate directly with people who are interested in the brand, its products and services, without having to buy advertising?

Seems to me Facebook is currently putting most of their business development effort into selling a product that is destined to make itself obsolete.

Is this all part of Zuckerberg's grand plan?

The more I speak to clients and colleagues about what Facebook has to offer, the more I hear research and insights.

Facebook is currently sitting on world's largest research panel ever assembled. It just hasn't been called that, yet. This is ultimately where I see the big bucks coming from.

One more looking-back post, my third annual round-up of the new-to-me blogs that inspired me most in 2009. (2008 Edition, 2007 Edition)

Most of my best ideas and inspiration come from other people and sites around the web. If it wasn't for these sites...

Mag.ma - Must Watch
Mag.ma is a new video aggregating and tracking tool. The site is monitoring all of the most popular video sites and bubbling up the hottest clips. This is my new favorite source for staying on top of the videos that everyone across the internet is talking about and sharing.

LiveJournal - Oh No They Didn't and All Things Amazing
As we spend so much time looking for the next new site and following each other from one buzz-site of the week to another, it's easy to forget about a platform and community like LiveJournal. LJ turned 10 years old in 2009, and is still going as strong as ever. These are two of LJ's most successful blogs.

Oh No They Didn't is a celebrity gossip blog. It gets as much traffic as Perez Hilton. But, instead of being an oozing pool of bile and schadenfreude, it's kinda sweet and a lot nerdy. It's the celebrity gossip blog for people who identify more with geek fandom and the Comic-Con crowd than with the TMZ crowd.

All Things Amazing is the site where all my favorite Tumblr photo blogs find their most bizzarre and beautiful vintage photos. Often verging on the NSFW, the blog has an incredible abundance of vintage photography and other art images. This blog never fails to amaze me with the breadth and strangeness of the images posted (it's almost like a sophisticated art-y version of 4Chan).

The Selvedge Yard
This is my other favorite new photography blog. The Selvedge Yard combines carefully curated collections of classic photography organized around a particular slice of historic culture. Some of my favorites: Kiss Fans, Dorothea Lange: The Great Depression, Nashville Portraits Part 1 and Part 2, The Bird, The Finger, The Legend, and Sinatra.

The Whoa
This is a dude site that occasionally posts NSFW pictures of sexy women with bikes. But it also brings the LOLs with a healthy dose of funny images and videos, e.g.:




I spent the last year paring down the number of industry/digital marketing blogs that I was reading, because I felt like I was getting a little lost in the echo chamber. But, 3 new blogs made the cut and consistently challenged me with provocative discussions and insightful commentary on how digital technology is changing our world.
BBH Labs: The innovative underbelly of a global advertising superpower, responsible for some of the great new work you've seen for Google Chrome. Some of the brightest minds in the industry, together on one blog.
Made By Many: A small digital agency based in London with a heavy focus on designing for communities and social interactions. I felt like they're one of the few groups of people out there who are asking the tough questions about the social space.
and
Rick Liebling: Someone who's earned a great following and reputation over the past year by being generous with both his link love and his own smart thinking. Rick's blog is a consistant source for some of the most comprehensive and eye-opening discussions about the most complex aspects of how things are changing.

Flowing Data
Lastly, I spent more time than ever this year mired in data. We have so much data, and it's hard to make sense of it all. Flowing Data is an excellent source for both data design inspiration and very well informed critique. It's more than just a great author, but an entire community of people who take data very seriously and hold other people's work to a very high standard. If you want to step up your information design skills, then start reading this blog religiously.

What were your favorite new-to-you blogs of 2009? Link 'em up in the comments.

This is Part 10 of a personal look back at the sites, tools, behaviors, platforms, and technologies that have changed my life in the past 10 years. Please add your own thoughts and memories in the comments. Read Part 1 - 2000, Part 2 - 2001, Part 3 -2002, Part 4 - 2003, Part 5 - 2004, Part 6 - 2005, Part 7 - 2006, Part 8 - 2007, and Part 9 - 2008.

Most brands started taking the ideas that we had to argue for in 2007 and 2008 for granted in 2009. The idea that you need to go to where your consumers are, not just get them to come to you. The idea that you have to participate in the conversations, not sit back as a spectator. The idea that building meaningful relationships with people who care about your brand is the best thing that you can do with this stuff.

As Clay Shirky has said, "this stuff doesn't get socially interesting, until it gets technologically boring." It's not until the technology is so familiar that we take it for granted that we start to actually find some innovative uses for it.

My own online presence and my collecting, sharing, and publishing habits also became more dispersed. I now push found links and content out through 9 active chanels: here, Twitter, Tumblr, Facebook, Google Reader, Delicious, Buzzfeed, Foursquare, and Slideshare. Back in 2008 I had 4.

I think that there's actually something to this. I think that if you want to be well known on the web, or if you want a lot of people to be exposed to your ideas and thinking, then you will be well served by spreading yourself across many platforms - as long as you can maintain an active and social presence there. And I plan to embrace this approach even more enthusiastically in 2010.

Maybe 2009 didn't turn out to be the long-promised "Year of Mobile", but for me 2009 was definitely the year when I started to finally try out some pretty cool mobile experiences first hand. We saw mobile social location-based platforms in their infancy: Loopt, Gowalla, and Foursquare to name a few. We actually started to take our internet-learned behavior of sharing the places and experiences that are most interesting to us and our friends to the physical world around us. It's a natural evolution of digital living. When we are in constant communication with our entire social network, then we will constantly be making choices about what we want to share, and everything we see, hear, and do is a potential candidate.

I finally got an iPhone in 2009. And along with it a real taste for a future of personal location-aware and motion-sensitive mobile computing. Mark my words: within a few years, our mobile devices will become our primary computing devices (if they aren't already). And if I have one prediction to make about this new part of the digital world, it's that Google will replace Microsoft as the most-used Operating System. But, Google's sneaking in through the back door that is the mobile device. They have very quickly gained market share within the mobile space; as that mobile space becomes the dominant computing space, Google will become the dominant computing system.

The one other thing I spent a lot of time trying to figure out in 2009 is how brands should measure the effectiveness of their investments in the social space. This is a big challenge that we're only beginning to figure out. I'm looking forward to the next year in which brands demand tougher answers. What does a new Facebook fan or Twitter follower actually do for business? How much are they worth?

For the past couple years most brands have been chasing the numbers that are easiest to count: number of fans or followers. In 2010 I think we're going to get better at knowing how to count the numbers that are the most meaningful for helping to achieve core business goals.

But, enough about me : )

Thanks to everyone for sticking with me on this little bit of navel gazing.

Now I'd love to hear your thoughts about the decade gone by, where you think we've arrived, and where we're headed. Please add your thoughts and comments below.

This is Part 9 (Read Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7, and Part 8,) of a personal look back at the sites, tools, behaviors, platforms, and technologies that have changed my life in the past 10 years. Please add your own thoughts and memories in the comments.

In February 2008 I started working as a digital strategist at a new little company called Undercurrent. Twitter and Facebook were starting to get a lot of attention from big brands and we helping them to figure out what to do.

Although I had created my Twitter profile back in 2007, it wasn't until I started working at Undercurrent that I really started using it. Knowing the people that I was following and the people who were following me made a huge difference. I knew who my audience was, and I started tailoring my tweets to suit them.

It's pretty incredible to think about how suddenly Twitter and Facebook became such behemoths in the online landscape. They've fundamentally altered the marketing industry. After only a few short years in existence, you can't talk about marketing a brand or product without considering its presence on these two platforms. And 2008 was the year that things really changed.

Along with the rest of Undercurrent, I dove head first into the deep end of this emerging space.

I also devoted myself more seriously to this blog. It was now part of my job.

I learned a ton in 2008 about how to foster and grow a personal community of interested colleagues. I used Twitter to find new readers for my blog by posting regular links on Twitter back to my posts. I also posted clips from blog entries to Facebook, in order to encourage the people I already knew to visit the site regularly. Most importantly, though, I started posting more frequently. Everyone says that the best way to grow a blog is to be religious about posting frequently and regularly. It's true. At the end of the year, I started posting 4 or 5 times a week, and within about month I had doubled my readership.

I also started my Tumblr blog, but didn't really get into it until 2009.

(Only one more to go...)