books – Page 2 – sara mcguyer

Books, Meet Vinyl (Please)

Fair warning:
I’ve been on my soapbox about the book industry since 2010. A recent shopping trip dredged up all my old rants. I think I’ll keep shouting until I get a call from a publishing giant wanting to hire me as a consultant to help with digital strategy.

Oh! Better make one more disclaimer:
I worked at Barnes & Noble for seven years. I loved working there (or I wouldn’t have stayed so long) and I still adore them. I write this out of love for books in printed form, and from a place of some knowledge about the industry.

Now for a bit of background:
In 2010, I made a conscious choice to rekindle my vinyl-collecting habit, after years of going the download-only route. I am just old enough that I had a tiny vinyl collection in the eighties. Thriller was the first album I recall having, but my sister and I also had gems from Tiffany, Lisa Lisa & Cult Jam and more. In high school and college, I started collecting again, albeit sporadically, as indie rockers started releasing interesting stuff on vinyl. It wasn’t until 2010 when more and more releases bundled vinyl with a digital download that I amped up my collecting. I love the best of both worlds, what can I say? Having the collector’s item and superior listening experience of vinyl, while still being able to listen on my iPhone? Win-win.

I’ve been saying since then, wouldn’t it be wonderful if the publishing industry followed suit? If you bought a hardcover or a trade paperback and you got a digital download code as well?

Cut to the winter of 2014, to that recent shopping trip I mentioned. I spied this little sticker on a book at B&N:

Buy this book, get the eBook for $4.99

Okay, that’s a start… bundling the two. It’d be better if it was just bundled into the price, no separate purchase required. But progress is progress.

Then there’s the fine and even finer print. Uh oh. Things start to fall apart…

Limited-Time Offer
Valid in story only.

So, if I buy the book as a gift for someone, they can’t add the download later. I must choose right then and there, or lose the option altogether.

Here’s a chance to think bigger, beyond increasing the average ticket sale. The digital download shouldn’t be some few buck upsell, it should be a key part of the product that keeps people buying print. My fear is that this experiment with the add-on download option will fail, not because it’s a bad idea to bundle them, but because asking for a second purchase won’t jive with a world where free downloads are all around.

In the Neilson SoundScan 2014 Mid-Year Music Industry Report, overall music consumption, both sales and streaming, was down 3.3%, while vinyl sales were up 40.4%. For now, print books are still outselling digital books, but why wait for crisis? Could the book industry see similar hardcover sales percentage gains as vinyl, if the industry plans for the reader of the future? This is no time for heads in sand.

This post is part of Think Kit by SmallBox
Prompt: “Rants & Raves. Get on your soapbox. What issue, idea, or stance were you vocal about this year? Or did you let it internally build up? Was there an event, person, or time that triggered your strong reaction? Or was it a slow-burn? Why do you feel so strongly – is it personal? Emotional? Strictly reasonable? Show us some passion – make your argument from the mountaintop!”

Triading

Before I met him, I’d heard a lot of stories about Jeremy from Jeb – he’d moved around, taken a big leap of faith that didn’t exactly work out. A vinyl collector, a VW bus rehabber. He was really into “Tribal Leadership,” and by the way, I just had to read this book.

So I did read that book. The things that captured my attention – it offered a lens to run an organization’s language through to determine overall health. And there was this business about forming triads, getting people together in groups of three being a magic number. I understood, sort of, but it’s hard to really “get it” until you see a triad play out.

Someone decided the three of us should get together, either Jeb or Jeremy, to form a triad. It was impossible to build an expectation for this experience. I only knew that Jeremy would take us through some exercises, and we’d talk about stuff – some work-related, some more personal. I didn’t know Jeremy much at all – at that point we had met once over lunch. In hindsight, I knew Jeb less than I thought I did, as I’d come to find out.

Back in February, we met at the Speak Easy, a tech co-working space in Broad Ripple. Jeremy asked us to share three types of stories. First, a high-five moment, featuring a highlight, an achievement, a celebration. Then there was a time we got angry, or a hell no moment. Finally, the most difficult to share: a low point, when things got really bad.

I can be sort of guarded, until I’m not. I had a choice to make: I could make up some fake low point story, or just tell part of it that gave a sliver of truth, or I could be open and tell the real thing. Here I was, in mixed company – someone I barely knew, and someone I knew-but-didn’t-know.

I went with truth. And I cried in front of a stranger and my boss. I felt weak and vulnerable. But then, that passed. They each told their stories, too, and we shared a collective raw honesty that I would expect only amongst old friends.

As we shared our stories, Jeremy noted some key words he heard us repeating and shared insights along the way. Without intention or design, the things I shared had a common “challenge” theme. I never said this explicitly, but in my choice of stories and words, I had told him that challenges were really important to me, that I was wired to need a good challenge to do my best work.

It was an emotionally-charged and deep learning experience. Giving into vulnerability, losing all facade, steeled me with an unexpected fearlessness. Sharing our stories had drawn us closer, invited trust. We continued to meet, to share things we’d written, to serve as a sounding board for one another.

Being one to poke fun at trust falls, let’s-hug-it-out type sessions or anything touchy-feely, I didn’t know how I’d feel about this. But it was different. We built towards the low point. There was (thank goodness) no hugging it out or anything of that ilk. Jeremy asked the right kind of questions, had the right demeanor to create a low key atmosphere without a lot of pressure or stress. It was a small enough group.

Three is kind of a magic number.

This post is part of Think Kit by SmallBox
Today’s prompt: “Who made a difference for you this year?”

Telephone Sketch

Brainstorming can be a randomly beautiful thing, with no structure, just shouting it all out: a worthy idea appears. Sometimes that is enough. Other times, putting a new lens or technique on a problem is helpful. If you need more of that, I’d recommend checking out Graphic Design Thinking: Beyond Brainstorming by Ellen Lupton.

Many of the techniques will be familiar for creative agency types. Mind-mapping. Sprinting. Co-design. Each description is simple and concise, and as a whole, the book provides a great overview of techniques. Even if you already know them, no matter. Where the book really shines is the real world examples paired with each technique. It’s incredibly inspiring.

One example of collaboration, the Reinvent Mural really struck me. A group of designers collaborated to create a a series of images for a gallery installation. Each image leads to the next, a similar shape, but also something new.

It got me thinking of it as a sort of a visual version of the telephone game, or chinese whispers. Remember that old game? The one in which words are whispered into the next person’s ear, on down the line, and then, ta da! Out the other end comes, more often than not, an entirely different word or phrase.

It might be a silly child’s game, but it very effectively illustrates the potential for re-framing, even total warping in human communication. Each individual perception, each new touch has incredible power to shift things.

I played around with this idea in a quick sketching session. Oh, the strange paths that can unfold out of the brain!

The first:
Parentheses >; Black-eyed peas >; Macaroni >; Old school telephone handset >; Magnet >; Lightning bolt. This ended pairing the pea and the bolt, a bit of nonsensical fun.

Next:
From Indiana >; Creepy bird mask >; Tornado >; Stairs.

Or another path:
Indiana >; Thought bubble >; Whale.

Another:
X >; Pliers >; Tooth >; Rockin’ guitar >; Rocket >; Spotted shark.

This was a solo experiment, but as fascinating as it is to marvel at the leaps one mind can make, a group application is what I’m more interested in. For this experiment, I’d set it up so that only the first participant sees the source image, and each to follow would see only the most recent sketch in the series.

The reason I’m so taken with this is this: it reminds me of how brands evolve as they’re carried. As an organization, we may design a logo, choose our words or how we want people to feel, but the moment it’s out in the world, it gets touched, shaped and shifted by others. Customers, fans, friend or foe can perceive what they will and share your brand with others through their own filter. Like it or not.

Think about this: if you were to telephone sketch your logo, where would it take you? If your customers or fans did it, where to then?