Open up your mind and say, ahh...

Some of you know me through my work in studying how social media and disruptive technology impact business and culture. Others have worked with me in translating insights into action and change within the enterprise.  Every now and then, I share another side of myself that evokes the aspiring social scientist in me as I explore how all of this is affecting us as individuals and human beings.

Not a day goes by when I’m not asked about whether or not the social media bubble will finally burst. Twitter, Facebook, Google+, Foursquare, Pinterest, this all has to be too much right? More often than not, I’m expected to assume the role of psychologist to either validate their digital existence or help individuals understand, and in some cases cope, with what is most often diagnosed as information overload.

This isn’t a new phenomenon by any means. The sensation of being overwhelmed by information has been linked to every media revolution. With every new innovation and the mass adoption of disruptive technology, the volume of information available to us grows exponentially. With media now so pervasive and portable, information, of any focus, is available, on demand, and more importantly, resides in our hands to create and consume at will. We are, for better or for worse, always on. And this is both part of the problem and part of the solution for how we evolve as individuals and as an information society.

Social media has gifted us a new democracy. And with it, the ability to connect to people around the world and create, share, and devour knowledge, entrainment, and irrelevant information at will. It’s as intimidating as it is beautiful. We have passed the Attention Rubicon and there is no turning back. The towers of social media will not come crumbling down upon the foundation of a former reality when we or the generations before us led a much simpler life. The key for us now is forged in self-control or some form of aspirational governance that focuses our connects and interactions.

Indeed, there is a very real human cost of social connectivity. But, the symptoms of information overload are only a reflection of our inability or lack of desire to bring order to our chaos. See, we are the engineers of the media levees that prevent overflow.

The challenge lies not in the realization that we are empowered to curate our social streams and relationships, but in the consciousness of what is and what could be. Meaning, that we must first understand that how we’re connecting, consuming, and creating today is either part of the problem or part of the solution. We, and only we, are in control of information overload and everything begins with acceptance.

Where do we fall in the contrast of where we are and where we want to be? For these dichotomous positions are separated only by our vision and actions. But even still, with the glut of information and the overwhelming sense of responsibility to duly engage, we succumb to fatigue.

Like in anything, there’s a dark side to all of this. One of the quiet perils of living in an always-on society is the need to stay connected. In part, we’re driven by relevance or the fear of irrelevance. If we are always part of the conversation, we remain top of mind. Additionally, we’re driven by a sense of vanity. We need to see what, if anything, people are saying about us, how they’re reacting to our engagement, and who others are talking about or to whom they’re connecting.

There’s a perpetual sense of “missing out,” which is I think at varying levels, true for all digital denizens. These networks after all are homes to very emotional exchanges. We laugh, love, fight, cry, but most of all, we live…and for some of us, we live online differently than we live in real life. The difference is, to what extent are we compelled to plug in and participate, how often, for what duration, and at what emotional depth. The answer either defines are digital lifestyle or our digital lifestyle defines us.

In 2010, Pennsylvania’s Harrisburg University of Science and Technology introduced a week-long ban of social media in an effort to curb the media diets of students. What was the inspiration for the ban? According to Harrisburg University provost Eric Darr, stress and potential addiction played strong roles in the cold turkey experiment.

Darr shared his concerns in an interview with Fast Company, “I’m sure that we have some students who are clinically close to addiction…that aside, it’s clearly the case that this set of technologies has the possibility of taking over our lives.”

Following the ban, the university conducted surveys that revealed some disturbing realities. One such result was the level of duress students were under in checking status updates on a variety of social media sites. Sound familiar? Roughly 15% of students admitted to spending between 11 to 20 hours on social media sites such as Facebook every day. This reminds me of the science fiction novel by Philip K. Dick, “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep.”

Our digital lives will only become far more challenging to manage. With smart phones, tablets, in-car technology, wifi in public spots in addition to planes, trains, and automobiles, the temptation to connect is pervading. And it doesn’t just stop there. Social networks are investing technology and marketing in expanding your online relationships. Through recommendation engines, they lure you to link outside of your social graph, those you know to now form an interest graph, those with whom you share common interests.

Information overload is a real phenomenon, but it is I believe, by design. It either works for us or against us and it is our choice as to which way the stream flows. To be clear, information overload is a symptom of over consumption and the inability to refine online experiences based on interest and importance.

Early in 2012, I hosted a poll across Twitter, Facebook, and Google+ to get their perspectives on information overload.  I asked a simple question, “Do you suffer from information overload because of social media?” The answers were revealing…You can see the detailed results here (comments are worth reading too).

Just over 800 people in 41 countries responded and the results while scattered, told a compelling story. If we look at a simple take on yes or no, only 14% say that they feel overwhelmed with 21% affirming that they are in control of their online experience. Another 57% however feel that they are sometimes overwhelmed with social media, but they do believe it’s in their hands to manage. Interestingly, when you combine Yes, Sometimes, and “I’m addicted,” you can get a better idea of the pervasiveness of information overload, or aspects of it.

In his new book, “Too Big to Know,” good friend David Weinberger shares why Information overload is our new golden age. Weinberger believes that facts have been replaced by “networked facts,” which are the result of a collective repository of shared experiences and exchanges in any digital network. In his book, Weinberger makes the case that technology can now easily feed our endless curiosity. And, as a result, how we learn, connect, interact, and work is forever changed…for the better.

Access to information and people is intoxicating. Creating an online portrait of who we are or who we want others to see is equality alluring.  But without direction, governance, and discipline, we are at risk of giving ourselves to the very networks we value rather than managing the platforms to our advantage. Our participation must be inspired by purpose and parameters. No, we are not obligated to connect with everyone who connects with us. We are obligated to maintain balance in who we are, what we value, and equally the value we invest in the communities in which we participate.

As Clay Shirky once observed, “There’s no such thing as information overload — only filter failure.”

My take? “Information overload is a symptom of our desire to not focus on what’s important.” It’s a choice.

Perhaps said another way, information overload is a symptom of our inability to focus on what’s truly important or relevant to who we are as individuals, professionals, and as human beings. But then again, maybe that’s the problem.

The reality is that we are learning how to use these networks and what to expect in return. We’re learning what’s possible. However, we learn as we go. We discover where the proverbial line is only after we’ve crossed or are witnesses to those who do. Our teachers, parents, role models and peers, they to coming to grips with the evolution of social media and digital culture as it affects online and offline behavior along with us. Therefore, this is a time when we are all students. But at some point, we must also become teachers

Image credit: Shutterstock

I saw a YouTube advertisement for the fast food restaurant, Wendy’s, where they were promoting the use of the Twitter hashtag #upgradeyourmeal (click that for your own real time search). Running over to Twitter to see what they were getting for responses, I saw the sampling above.

Do any of those look like loyal Wendy’s diners to you? Do any of those tweets make the restaurant proud? Will this earn the restaurant any more buyers?

When I see this, I wonder just how it was sold. I wonder what was promised. I wonder what the agency said to the client.

Hey, Sometimes It Works

When I searched on #doritoslocostacos, the new hashtag to accompany the Taco Bell sensation of a Doritos-flavored taco shelled taco, I saw a lot more love and praise.

Why? My gut (pun intended) tells me that Taco Bell has more of a fan base than Wendy’s, and that Taco Bell might be a slightly better natural demographic fit. But what if it isn’t? Maybe Taco Bell’s agency spent more money and got a bunch of people to tweet some nice words. Maybe this is a pay-per-tweet project or another kind of “word of mouth augmentation” campaign (read as “not necessarily trustworthy”).

And Is This Really Moving The Needle?

Wendy’s wants you to “#upgradeyourmeal.” Is a trip to Wendy’s an upgrade? I like their chili a great deal. I like their Frosty. I sometimes eat their other products. No part of my mindset while there is “upgrade.” Is it for you?

I don’t normally write posts that complain about a marketing methodology, but I guess I’m just asking whether this is what we think these tools were built to accomplish. If I’m some VP of marketing at Wendy’s, who sold this to me, and why did I think it was okay? What metrics did I ask to see?

And are you selling this? How’s that working for you?

Are Love and Trust the Missing Ingredients?

I am willing to believe that people love Taco Bell. Not all of us. But I think they have a fan following. I think they have people who choose that brand of fast food over any other type. I’m fairly sure people trust Taco Bell to deliver on a certain kind of experience, however you choose to view that.

Has Wendy’s earned that? And if not, how will they get it back?

Food for thought. Yep. I said it.

Even at 250 million Tweets per day in addition to the updates across Facebook, Google+, Pinterest, and every other feed that we willfully subscribe to, information overload is in of itself a fallacy. But the feeling the overload of information is very real and a reflection of our inability to pull the levers necessary to decrease noise and improve signal. Doing so, requires some very blatant actions that don’t simply reduce the volume of the information we don’t care to see as often, it requires disconnecting from human beings. Whether we’re severing ties with individuals or those representing an organization we once supported, it’s emotional. It’s an action that carries an element of guilt knowing that at some point, our action will cause an incremental blow to the psyche of the individual we’re unfollowing.

I know…so what right?

It still is what it is. Yet, we don’t unfollow or unlike as often as we should. So by not reminding people to not be more thoughtful about their posts and updates, we are by default enabling their objectionable behavior.

Think about why you Tweet or update your status. It’s part self-expression, part therapy, part fulfilling, and of course, part egocentric. You share something and naturally, you await or anticipate a response. There’s a bit of anticipation that builds up around it. Have you ever tried Qwitter? It’s an old school service, when compared to the overall history of the Twitter ecosystem, that tells you who unfollowed you, when, and gives you the Tweet that sent them over the edge.

We are as guilty by our inaction as others are for their action. And at the same time, we are also guilty of contributing to the noise. The truth is that it’s easier to blame others than hold up a digital mirror.  But now, some very interesting reports are substantiating what we’re feeling. In one such study conducted by researchers at Carnegie Mellon University, MIT and Georgia Tech, people on Twitter said that only one-third of Tweets that hit their streams are worthwhile. All others are either at best “meh” or not worth reading at all. It’s not a surprise of course that a well-received Tweet is not all that common.

So, what makes a Tweet worthy of response or sharing? The team is currently studying the specifics, but initial findings point to tweets that included questions, featured curated/relevant information with added personality, and those used for self-promotion, such as including links to original content.

Paul André, a post-doctoral fellow in Carnegie Mellon’s Human-Computer Interaction Institute (HCII) and lead author of the study explained an important outcome of the research, “If we understood what is worth reading and why, we might design better tools for presenting and filtering content, as well as help people understand the expectations of other users.”

While we await tools that will save us from ourselves, the research team documented nine best practices to use as an editorial guideline of sorts. While the information is drawn from insights on Twitter, I’m sure that they apply across other networks as well. The idea is that these lessons will improve our own streams while inspiring others to do the same…

9 Ways to Improve the Signal to Noise Ratio in Social Networks

1. News No Longer Breaks, it Tweets: Old news is no news. Twitter places emphasis on real-time information. Followers quickly get bored of even relatively fresh links seen multiple times – unless they’re repackaged through a different lens of context or perspective.

2. Add Perspective: Opinions in social media tend to spark dialogue. So, add an opinion, a pertinent fact or move the conversation forward rather than simply sending your update or hitting Like or Retweet. Consider the MT (modified Tweet) if you will to express your views. It is the difference between who you know you are and who others think you are that is fortified through your words.

3. K.I.S.S.: I often say, in brevity there’s clarity. Of course, it’s easier said than done. Studies show that followers appreciate conciseness. Keep it short. Using as few characters as possible also leaves room for longer, more satisfying comments on retweets. But even that’s not enough. Think about a new K.I.S.S. where simplicity is replaced with significance and short is substituted with baked-in shareability (Keep It Significant and Shareable).

4. Don’t #geekout with @’s and #Syntax LOL It’s pretty easy to geek out on Twitter…especially when using 140 characters is already too complicated (kidding). Often we’re compelled to overuse Twitter syntax such as #hashtags, @mentions, code, and abbreviations. But, if you study the art and science of Retweets, you’ll quickly learn that syntax might make you seem cool, but these tweets are harder to read, interpret, and by default, are unshareable. However, syntax can be helpful when context is inherent in the Tweet. For example, if posing a question, adding a hashtag that explains the nature of or the inspiration for the Tweet helps everyone follow along, which also lends to reactions.

5. Strengthen Your Inner Voice: For some reason, Twitter debilitates our ability to practice self restraint and therefore we are somehow inspired to express nonessential experiences. As the study found, these cliched “sandwich” Tweets about pedestrian or personal details were by and large disliked. If Tweets had an “unfavorite” button or if Facebook employed an “unlike” button, people would learn in real-time the hard lessons delivered through services such as Qwitter.

6. Context is King: As discussed early with K.I.S.S., short isn’t always a #winning strategy. Sometimes Tweets that are too short leave readers unable to understand their meaning. How many times have you read a Tweet where context, intention, or tone was impossible to discern? The study found that by simply linking to a blog or photo, without providing a reason to click on it was “lame.” Think about each Tweet or update as contributing to an experience or image that you want others to see of you or of your perspective.

7. If You Don’t Have Anything Good to Say…:  This is interesting to say the least. It should be no surprise that negative sentiments and complaints were disliked. Yet, people complain every day. In fact, there’s a bit of an inside joke on Twitter. It seems that only “social media experts” have problems with airlines because we’ll hear about it every time.  Studies show that too many complaints only turn off followers. The same is true on Facebook. Coincidentally, we are also learning that by taking to Twitter to vent, it’s both becoming the quickest path to resolution and also the act of expressing frustration proves cathartic. The community is far more forgiving of negative Tweets aimed at companies. But, if you aim your negativity at individuals regularly, you will lose favor among your followeres. Find.the.balance.

8. Introduce Brain Teasers: Savvy marketers, producers, and editors alike figured out long ago that building anticipation creates an appetite before an official release. While this isn’t new to the world of distribution, simply releasing content isn’t good enough. The idea is too build strategic and thoughtful anticipation for big Tweets. Often, if we’re caught up in conversations or observations, we miss an opportunity to alert followers that something big is about to come. So when we say something important, the response is stunted. Additionally, like news or professional organizations that want readers to click on their links, add a compelling hook. It’s important to not give away all of the news in the Tweet itself. Intrigue your followers.

9. Brands are People Too:  The study found that individuals or businesses with a public persona should pay particular attention to how their status updates lend to the brand they wish to portray. Sounds incredibly commonsensical, but it’s not as it ties to several of the bullets above. People often say things that erode the mystique or the grandeur of a persona by measure of the expectations of the community.  As the authors of the report share, “People often follow you to read professional insights and can be put off by personal gossip or everyday details.” I believe this is true for any individual or organization and as such, what’s shared and what isn’t shared should contribute to the perception desired.

Of course, it doesn’t take technology to introduce the importance of self-control and governance. But that’s part of the marvel here. We may in fact need tools to do what it is we cannot, tune out people en massé or withhold from expressing what we think in the moment or only say the things that reinforce the “personal brand” we envision. Whatever it is we do moving forward, what’s clear is that, according to research, Twitter, Facebook and other social networks are only reflections of our real world society. In the digital realm, by tweeting our lives, one can proudly exclaim, “I Tweet therefore I am.” And at the same time, one must consider whether or not simply Tweeting what comes to mind isn’t just contributing to a far more likely reality, “I Tweet and therefore I am…adding to the noise.”

One of the biggest challenges of long-distance running is staying hydrated–well, that and the whole long-distance running thing. Unless you live in a miraculously runner-friendly place, with water fountains around every turn, you have to either carry a water bottle in your hand (bulky and annoying) or attached to one of those fanny pack-style belts (bulky, annoying, and geeky).

Here’s an alternative: the Bübi Bottle, a 22-ounce vessel that collapses into a smaller package with every sip you take. When the bottle is empty or nearly empty, it rolls up into a ball about the size of your fist so you don’t have to grind through the last couple miles of your run with an awkward, sloshing object in hand. A ring slips over the ball to lock it into place.

Bübi comes in nine electric colors and costs $29.99. That’s pricey for a water bottle, especially when you can buy something similar for less than half as much. The portable, reusable 16-ounce Vapur bottle is every bit as scrunchable, if not more so–you can fold it, roll it, and flatten it, and it doesn’t require any sort of locking mechanism. The main difference is in the material. Whereas Vapur is made of flimsy BPA-free plastic–one customer compares it to drinking out of a plastic bag–Bübi is molded from (also BPA-free) silicone, which is sturdier and used in everything nowadays, from cupcake liners to baby bottles. Is it worth the extra $18? Guess it depends on how much of that water you want to end up in your mouth.

Images courtesy of Bübi Bottle

A Danish startup has created a fairly straightforward Web-based application that lets organizations invoice each other online. But humble though it may sound, in the long run, this Nordic venture could well end up disrupting not just the business software industry but the banking industry as well.

That’s because the invoicing application is just the tip of a much larger iceberg that the company, Tradeshift, is envisioning–one that leverages big data to reinvent how credit ratings are set for small and medium-sized businesses.

Its most potentially disruptive idea is Instant Payments, a service which allows suppliers to get paid immediately once a customer accepts an invoice on the Tradeshift system, instead of having to wait the usual 30, 60, or 90 days.

The money still comes with an interest rate, but the size of that rate gets determined based on the buyer‘s credit rating, not the supplier‘s. Which is good news for small- and medium-sized suppliers, which often get hit with higher rates because they are perceived to be riskier bets.

Large companies, however, often have better credit ratings. And when you combine that with the fact that Tradeshift can see that a buyer has accepted an invoice (thereby declaring that they do intend to pay the bill), the risk for Tradeshift (and its financing partners) plummets.

“We can do real-time credit assessments,” CEO and cofounder Christian Lanng tells Fast Company.

Lanng says that Fortune 500s are sending “millions” of invoices through the system annually, and that the overall volume of transactions has tripled since January.

Instant Payments is currently being beta tested in England and Denmark and is slated to be available in the U.S. in the fall. The long-term implications of the real-time visibility Tradeshift now has are powerful. ”You cannot even begin to imagine what big data will do to finance,” Lanng says. “As we get more data on transactions, that changes the whole credit picture.”

Lanng and his cofounders, Mikkel Hippe Brun and Gert Sylvest, came up with the idea for the e-invoicing service while building a similar system system for the Danish government. The initial goal was simply to help businesses around the world become more productive. Invoices are still largely delivered in paper or pdf format, which means parties on the receiving end have to spend time re-typing the details into their own systems. (The Danish government estimated that this cost 15 minutes of worker time per invoice.)

Since businesses of all size and shape share the same challenge, Lanng, Brun, and Sylvest decided to tackle the problem on a global scale. Tradeshift launched in 2010, with Morten Lund, one of Skype’s early investors, helping to arrange seed funding. (Lund is now chairman of Tradeshift’s board.)

The company initially launched just in Scandinavia, Germany, and the UK. But since companies frequently do business trans-nationally, the system rapidly swept across the globe.

Today 100,000 businesses in 190 countries use Tradeshift, including the UK’s National Health Service, the French government, and Kuehne+Nagel, one of the largest transportation and logistics companies in the world. About 2,000 new companies join every week, up from 1,000-1,500 a week six months ago.

With 20,000 companies on the system, the United States has the largest number of users (including Dell and Accenture). India and Malaysia are the fast growing countries, though, and CEO Lanng tells Fast Company India could soon overtake the U.S.

The company won’t disclose the exact number of transactions processed, but Lanng says that Fortune 500s are sending “millions” of invoices through the system annually, and that the overall volume of transactions in the system has tripled since January.

The service is free to use. Tradeshift makes its money off its developer ecosystem. The company quickly saw that the main value they were creating wasn’t solely in productivity. All of a sudden, its databases contained massive amount of real-time data about economic activity that businesses would want to access and put to use beyond simply checking the status of invoices.

About 30 third-party apps have been built on top of Tradeshift so far (with 20 more on the way), Lanng says, including ones that create heat maps of your suppliers and customers and others that integrate with Google Docs and PayPal. In addition to public apps that anyone can use, individual companies can build proprietary apps to use just with their own supply chain.

“This is what happens when you take the Facebook model and apply it to business,” Lanng says. “You get some very powerful business possibilities.”

Privacy is not an issue, Lanng says, because the apps don’t give users access to all the data in the system, only to data relating to their own businesses. “A lot of this data is data they share with their business partners anyway,” he explains. But instead of delivering it manually and partners having to re-key it into their own systems, they can now access it in real-time through the centralized system.

Tradeshift takes a percentage of the fees charged by paid public apps (30 percent, on average) and negotiates independent deals with companies that build proprietary apps.

If the developer ecosystem expands, the Tradeshift model could one day steal market sharefrom business software stalwarts like Intuit’s QuickBooks, as small and medium-sized businesses choose to work on Tradeshift and use its app ecosystem because of the convenience of connecting real-time with their business partners elsewhere.

Image: Flickr user KrissZPhotography

If startup entrepreneurs are to the teens what stockbrokers were to the ‘80s, then the FoundersCard is, as the Observer put it, this era’s very own AmEx black card. Launched by New York-based Eric Kuhn, FoundersCard is a rewards program for innovators (Foursquare and Facebook are members) who pay an annual membership fee for exclusive deals on hotels, airfare, and advertising, among other services. It exists, in other words, to make the entitled arrested adolescents who people today’s business class feel even more entitled. Yay!

Here’s something to make them feel even more entitled: FoundersCard has gone and tapped Brooklyn’s Hovard Design to create slick packaging for delivering cards to new members. The designers wanted to make something literally “out-of-the-box” to match the clientele’s entrepreneurial spirit, creative director Bill Hovard tells Co.Design, and thusly considered ideas like self-folding envelopes and matchbooks. The design also had to be casual enough for dudes who go to board meetings in flip-flops and hoodies (recall, Facebook is a member). “The concept was to design a package that was special and welcoming, but not fussy, so that it would appeal to the FoundersCard members,” he says.

Finally, Hovard settled on a short black tube and a twee postage label that looks like it was mailed over from France in 1944. “We took inspiration from old maps (graphics and packaging) and mailing labels that we felt spoke to the idea of exploration, entrepreneurship, and innovation,” Hovard says.

Yesterday’s rich guys loved Italian suits and gold-plated everything. Today’s love faux-vintage chic (and apparently really hate boxes). Privilege has gone retro. Soon enough, rich guys will just start carrying around scepters and oversized turkey legs.

Images courtesy of Hovard Design; h/t The Dieline

The story of Kris Kristofferson, Johnny Cash, a helicopter, and how thinking a little bit bigger about networking will get you a lot further.

Landing a helicopter on Johnny Cash’s lawn unannounced in the late ‘60s is the kind of thing that could put you on the wrong end of a shotgun. But for country legend Kris Kristofferson, it’s the stunt that finally made Cash take notice of the songwriter.

Kristofferson had tired of the handing off demo tapes to Cash and his associates to no avail. It wasn’t getting him anywhere because Cash wasn’t even listening to them. (Cash later told Kristofferson he threw the tapes in the lake.)

Instead of giving up, Kristofferson decided to go guerrilla. By thinking big, thinking creatively, and using the resources at hand, the former Army pilot was able to cut through the noise of ho-hum networking and stand out from the crowd of Nashville songwriters hoping the Man in Black would record their songs.

It was a high risk, high reward approach–and one that’s become near-apocryphal in the details–but that’s what guerrilla networking is about. And as long as the risks are measured, payoff can be big. “I think there’s a big risk in any type of networking or marketing endeavor,” says Monroe Mann, author of Guerrilla Networking: A Proven Battle Plan to Attract the Very People You Want to Meet. “But if you’re trying to play it safe, you’re probably not going to get noticed.”

To break the tedium of traditional networking, Mann advocates that people stop trying to meet as many people as they can. Instead, he says, seriously consider what kind of person other people in your field want to meet–and then be that person. “Networking isn’t about just banging on doors over and over. If you have nothing to offer to other people, it doesn’t matter how persistent you are. Johnny Cash probably said ‘If this guy has the creativity to do this, maybe his music is just as creative.’”

As an actor and filmmaker, (with a film out that showed at the Cannes Film Festival recently) Mann has had success using guerrilla networking tactics to navigate a very competitive industry. Here are some tips from his playbook.

Consider Your Audience

Thinking only of what you want to get out of a networking contact is not only self-centered, but anti-productive. You’ll be viewed as a parasite–you want to be viewed as an asset. If you can sit down and figure out what your target wants and needs, you’re more likely to be welcomed in.

The good news is that everybody needs something. “If you want to meet Steven Spielberg, think about who he wants to meet,” says Mann. “He wants to meet a guy with an amazing script. He wants to meet somebody that can introduce him to 20 million bucks.”

Produce Your Own Projects

As a struggling actor, Mann was blue in the face begging for acting parts. It seemed a waste of energy, so he put his efforts into producing his own films. Soon, his inbox was filling up. “All of a sudden I wasn’t just a stupid actor. Now I was a filmmaker. I was a producer. I had hundreds of people people sending me head shots, I had cast directors saying ‘we can help you.’”

Having a product to show people pulled a lot more weight than trying to convince others he was a good actor. “A world opened up because I had become the kind of person that all these people wanted to meet.”

Don’t Rush It

People tend to approach networking as a numbers game, thinking the more at bats, the more likely they are to get a hit. But Mann suggests people take more time to create a solid strategy before spending time implementing it. “People do traditional networking by just pushing their way in and giving out business cards thinking that’s what’s going to make progress.”

Guerrilla networking takes more time and effort but ultimately the results are often superior. “It takes longer because you’ve got to think creatively like Kristofferson did, and it may take resources to put that into play–a helicopter, finding where to land, clearing it with FAA or whatever it may be. That’s a lot more than just trying to put it in the mail.”

Be Memorable

Several years ago, Mann employed a small but very creative tactic in order to get the attention of agents in Canada: He sent agents checks for a million dollars, writing “void” on the back, but also indicating that that could be their payday if they worked with him. “It was enough for them to remember the name ‘Monroe Mann,’” says Mann, who got ten or fifteen calls back and couple agents representing him.

Don’t Fear Rejection

Basically, you have to be willing to fail when it comes to guerrilla networking. But there are some calculations that can be made when determining whether an idea is worth the risk. “Whenever I make these decisions,” says Mann, “I’ll often brainstorm what’s the worst that can happen if I do this and then write down all the different possible scenarios. You don’t want to cross over the line from persistent to a pest–or god forbid you get a restraining order against you.”

Image: Flickr user Steven Martin

In a recent issue of The New Yorker, Adam Gopnik wondered if there’s a “sweet spot” for retro-nostalgia. He calls it the Golden Forty Year Rule: whatever was popular around the time you were born is what you’ll end up mimicking later in life. Gopnik’s rule holds up for a ton of cultural phenomena, including Mad Men, Fleet Foxes, and this ridiculous hair salon by Slovenian architects Kitsch Nitsch.

The architects, who self-identify as “aspiring commercial sluts,” were asked by a Slovenian salon chain to design the interior of their newest shop, Young Mič Styling (or YMS), which targets a younger clientele. Kitsch Nitsch responded by skewing really young–like, back to the time when the intended customers were still in diapers.

“We believe design is taken too seriously, life is taken too seriously and styling is not taken seriously enough,” say the designers, who have crafted the space into a veritable encyclopedia of 80s visual ephemera. Every surface is covered in a different pattern, collapsing space into an Atari-esque flatness. Some of these patterns look like MTV’s old logo, some look like David Hockney paintings, and still others are reminiscent of the sassy model decals you still find in older nail salons. Custom-fabricated mirrors seem referential to a lost era of clip art, where squiggles and zig-zags were it. Pastel supergraphics and furniture that only Charles Moore could love round out the space, which ultimately ends up looking like a three-dimensional GIF.

Speaking as a child of the ’80s, Kitsch Nitsch succeeds in doing a pretty dead-on caricature of the era. I can’t look at these images without feeling déjà vu. And true to their generation, the duo have this to add about their work: “We dabble in recent retro, which is still a hell of a lot better than the present. And we are genuinely afraid of the future.”