Meeting a friend in the corridor, Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889-1951) said: "Tell me, why do people always say that it was natural for men to assume that the sun went around the earth rather than the earth was rotating?"
His friend said: "Well, obviously, because it just looks as if the sun is going around the earth."
To which the philosopher replied: "Well, what would it look like if it had looked as if the earth were rotating?"
[The following interview was conducted by David Armano of Logic + Emotion and originally published in his blog on June 3, 2009.]
David Armano: With Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference coming up on June 8-9, it's time to check in with L+E's favorite iPhone App developer, Roger von Oech.
Earlier this year, Roger turned his Creative Whack Pack card deck into an iPhone App called the Creative Whack Pack. Roger refers to it as "the App's store's premier creative thinking/innovation tool." I did several posts on it the week it launched in March.
So what's happened with the Creative Whack Pack app since you launched it in mid-March?
Roger von Oech: I've learned that visibility is everything at the App Store — there are 30,000+ apps all competing for attention but only a few get noticed; the rest get buried. Selling an app is like having a booth at a huge bazaar. You probably won't get noticed unless you're near one of the entrances or on a corner.
David Armano: How did you get visibility for the Creative Whack Pack?
Roger von Oech: The blogging community was vital in my launch. I've been blogging since 2006, and I was able to turn to a number of fellow bloggers for help in promoting the Whack Pack and get the word out.
You were kind enough to post about it. Chuck Frey of Innovation Tools did an in-depth review. Guy Kawasaki tweeted about on Twitter. Robert Scoble had me on his TV show for forty-five minutes. Mark McGuiness and Paul Williams did interviews with me.
These posts led to about twenty-five other posts about the product and generated a lot of good word of mouth. I worked hard at this, but I felt that this was a better strategy than buying ads or relying on iPhone review sites. I'm really grateful to the bloggers who supported my marketing efforts.
David Armano: What did that do for product sales?
Roger von Oech: It helped enormously. Within several weeks, the Creative Whack Pack rose to the Top Ten of the Business category. This was crucial. Far and away the best exposure you can get for your app is on the App Store itself.
There are a limited number of places where apps are high-lighted on the
store: "New and Noteworthy," "What's Hot," and "Staff Favorites." Each
of these has room for only 32 Apps.
The only other place for visibility is the Top 100 of your category,
e.g., Games, Lifestyle, Sports, Utilities, etc. One media firm has said
that there's "an order of magnitude" difference between being on the
Top 100 and being buried further down. And obviously being higher up,
i.e., in the top 20 or top 10, is better.
David Armano: What happened then?
Roger von Oech: At this point I get very, very lucky. I was ranked #6 in Business. This got me enough attention for Apple to place the Creative Whack Pack on the front page of their "What's Hot"
listing. Most of their selections are games, but the Creative Whack
Pack is different enough that I guess they wanted to add some variety.
Basically, the "What's Hot" section is four pages of 8 App icons each. If you're selected, you spend one week on page one, one week on page two, and so on. The impact was immediate: sales jumped to a thousand units a day for the first days and then slowly declined over the four weeks I was there.
The best part was that the Creative Whack Pack was ranked #1 in the Business category for two weeks.
David Armano: What happened after your app went off the "What's Hot" list?
Roger von Oech: This is when I learned some important lessons about price sensitivity on the App Store. "How much should I charge for my app?"
is one of the biggest questions developers have, and I'm not sure
there's any one right answer. I will, though, share my experience.
For the first two months, I charged $4.99. I thought this was a fair price because I had a similar product in the real world — the Creative Whack Pack card deck — that sold for $16. I was able to get away with this price because my early traffic consisted mainly of blog referrals, and these people were positively predisposed to the Whack Pack and thus prepared to pay a premium.
When I was on "What's Hot," I was able to keep my price at $4.99, again because Apple said this was a good product.
But after I went off "What's Hot," sales dropped significantly, and the Whack Pack fell to #10 in Business. I quickly realized that without a lot of blog referrals (these were all a month in the past and we all know how ephemeral the blogosphere is), I could no longer command a premium price.
At this point I cut the price to $2.99 (which is where it is now), and my unit sales immediately went back up. I decided that it was better to have more units sales (although with a smaller margin). I was getting an instant lesson in pricing!
David Armano: What does this tell you about price sensitivity on the App Store.
Roger von Oech: I think the App Store is quite price sensitive. I think that's why so many apps are free or $0.99. A lot of people just want to play with an app for five minutes or so a few times and then move on. You've got to have a pretty compelling reason to get them to spend more money.
I'd be curious to see what your readers think about pricing on the App Store.
David Armano: What advice would you give to someone who is thinking about creating an App for the iPhone App Store?
Roger von Oech: I've had a number of people ask me for my advice to help them turn their "winning ideas" into an iPhone App.
The most important thing (from my point of view) is: Don't do it for the money. I think you need to be clear on what your motives are for creating your app. If getting rich is at the top of your list, then you're setting yourself up for a big disappointment.
A lot of people are jumping in because creating an App Store for the iPhone is the "Gold Rush of 2009." I don't have any Apple inside information, but my gut tells me that over 90% of apps that go on sale in the App Store don't make back the money it cost to produce them. I see a lot of Apps "newly released" each day, but few of them show up in the "Top 100" of their category.
These were my motives for creating my App (in descending order):
All of these happened for me, but I'm not so sure this would have been the case if I had these motives in the reverse order initially.
David Armano: What's next for the Creative Whack Pack?
Roger von Oech: I've just released Version 2.0 this past weekend. The big new feature is "Note-Taking Creative Workshops."
In my years as a creativity consultant, I've found that when attendees
write down their ideas and answers to prompts and questions, their
inspiration increases an order of magnitude. The result: note-taking
leads to more productive creative sessions!
I hope to keep listening to my customers, and add some of their suggestions to future releases.
David Armano: Thanks for your time Roger. Good luck with the product!
Roger von Oech: Thank you, David. Let me just add that selling on the App Store has been quite an interesting experience. I recommend it to anyone willing to pursue it!
Release 2.0 of my Creative Whack Pack iPhone App has just been made available at the iTunes App Store.
The big new feature is note-taking creative workshops! This release is FREE for current owners of the App. For more info, go HERE.
In my years as a creativity consultant, I've found that when attendees write down their ideas and answers to prompts and questions, their inspiration increases an order of magnitude. A switch goes off in their heads when they're required to commit their thoughts to writing.
Thus, note-taking leads to a deeper engagement with this product's creative strategies. It's all too easy to look at a "Whack Card" and think, "Hmmm . . . I do that."
But if you have a specific issue that you're focusing on, and you write down your ideas as you reflect on the Whack Pack strategies, you'll have a significantly more production session.
Here are a few notes from one of the workshops. They show a few responses from some of the "Whack" cards. These can then be shared.
Have a go at this: Switch the frogs to the opposite side within two minutes. (Supposedly a second grade computer test in China.) Click the picture for link.
Chuck Frey at Innovation Tools is asking for participants in a study surveying their creativity abilities, how their being utilized in the work place, and what the organizational climate for creativity looks like today.
Based on answers from early respondents, Chuck thinks the results will be quite interesting.
Click HERE for more info and to participate (it only takes 2 minutes). Did I mention there's a prize?
Beware of urinating on electrical power lines. Illustration from the 1931 electric safety book Elektroschutz in 132 Bildern (hat-tip: Tim Siedel).
Metaphors are great for giving us a fresh picture of a complex situation. Today's metaphor o' the day comes from Wall Street Journal reader Henry Ahrens who wrote the following letter (May 19):
"California's Proposition 1A seeking to increase the size of the state's rainy-day fund is like ordering umbrellas to be stockpiled in a warehouse while one stands in the middle of a thunderstorm. California, look up. The rain is falling."
One thing can lead to another . . . and another!
I've always had a soft spot for falling domino videos. Here's the best one I've seen in 2009 (hat tip to Alexander Gartley). Two minutes in length.
Dominoes Everywhere from Jared Lyon on Vimeo.
I'm pleased to announce my latest invention and newest product: the X-Ball®, a set of 30 X-shaped magnetic design pieces (available from Creative Whack Company). The X-Ball is a companion product to the award-winning Ball of Whacks.
The inspiration for the X-Ball is the "skeletal" icosidodecahedron, an orb-like geometric figure long admired for its beauty (it was one of Leonardo da Vinci's favorite shapes).
The X-Ball comes with a 96-page page creativity guide that's filled with exercises and brainstorming tips. It's lots of fun to play with!
Use the X-Ball in a creativity workshop.
Use it to design and create new shapes.
Use it as a relaxation aid to free your mind from other concerns.
The X-Ball: it'll put "white caps on your gray matter."
Several weeks ago, Wendy and I were in Argentina. I did a seminar for Pepsico (South American Foods) at the Andean town of Bariloche.
The highlight of trip was the time we spent much farther south at the Perito Moreno Glacier near El Calafate.
El Calafate is located on Lago Argentina in the very south of Patagonia (see map, above left). On the right is a Google satellite photo showing the Perito Moreno Glacier heading into Lago Argentina.
We drove for 75 minutes from El Calafate to an embarkation point in Glacier Nat'l Park. Then we took a 30 minute boat ride.
And then — wow! The Perito Moreno Glacier.
It's one of the few glaciers that's actually growing each year. It is 3 miles wide. It rises 200 feet out of the water (and is 400 feet underwater for total thickness of 600 feet). It advances about 6 feet a day and loses mass at almost the same rate.
We saw the glacier "calve" four or five times while we were there. Huge chunks would break off into the water and send big ripples far out into the lake. The sound was loud.
We spent 2.5 hours climbing on the glacier (wearing crampons, of course). What a thrilling experience!
The water was quite tasty. And the blues — well, they were glacier blue! Here's Wendy drinking some very fresh glacier water.
Late afternoon return from the glacier. One of my top twenty days ever.
I called up noted industry pundit Robert Scoble on Saturday morning, told him about the new Creative Whack Pack iPhone app, and he said, "Come on over to Half Moon Bay."
I thought we'd chat for about 15-20 minutes. Instead, he put me on his TV show and we went for about 45-50 minutes (in two parts as we lost sound temporarily in the middle).
We talked about the old days of Silicon Valley, innovation, and creativity. What fun!
Here are the links to it if you are care to watch it.
Part 1: http://www.kyte.tv/ch/6118/396110
Part 2: http://www.kyte.tv/ch/6118/396117
Completely out of the blue!
I've turned the popular Creative Whack Pack card deck into an iPhone app. Go here for more information.
I spent the past three months working on it with Phil Dhingra, an Austin developer. It was a fun and energizing experience.
Like the card deck, the App consists of 64 creativity strategies that will provoke and inspire your thinking.
But App contains many, many more stories, examples, illustrations, and questions. In addition, it has features such as a "Whack of the Day," creative workshops, and an in-depth Index for quick strategy retrieval.
Lots of playability! Use it by yourself or with others!
Apple was really good to work with on this project. I had been an Apple developer in the early 90s, and back then Apple seemed out-of-touch and arrogant. On this go around, it has been significantly easier to create product with them.
I'm quite happy with the result. Go ahead check it out: info.
Here's a very nice review by Chuck Frey at Innovation Tools: The Creative Whack Pack Makes an Impressive Transition to iPhone/iTouch Platform.
David Armano at Logic + Emotion had some good things to say here A Creativity Workshop in Your Pocket and here.
Also Free Mac Blog and Lateral Action
Today marks the second anniversary of the Creative Think blog. I've written 300 posts and received about 2,500 comments. It's been an interesting experience and I've gotten to meet many people from all over the world.
To mark this occasion, I thought that I'd take a card from my trusty Creative Whack Pack. Here goes. It's Pause for A Bit. Let's see what it says.
Poet Doug King on the value of incubating: "Learn to pause . . . or
nothing worthwhile will ever catch up to you."
Allow the Muse to
whisper in your ear. How would your problem benefit if you paused in
the next hour? Day? Week? Month? What might you gain or learn?
What can you back away from? What issue would benefit from a pause?
This seems like pretty good advice. So I think I'll pause for a bit and let a few worthwhile things catch up with me!
[If you're looking for some good creative thinking ideas: click here and scroll down, and there and scroll down.]
Then I stumbled on this map. And I thought, "What is going on here?" If you haven't seen this before, take a few moments to study it and see if you can figure out the key.
The First Right Answer: It turns out that it's an "economic production equivalence" map. The country whose name is inside of each state has a GDP that is approximately the same as the state in which it is placed.
For example, California and France have approximately the same GDP. Some of the "equations" are off by as much as 20%, but I think this map paints a fascinating picture, namely one of the US as an economic powerhouse.
I just love it when someone's able to show me something that I've seen many times before in a fresh way!
The Second Right Answer: By joining together states and countries with similar GDPs, the map creator (perhaps inadvertently) has given us a big plate of "forced connections" to stimulate our thinking. This is one of the places I go with it:
the cultures of the two places?
For example:
Iran + Alabama = ? (Would Bear Bryant have been the Ayatollah)
Netherlands + Pennsylvania = ?
Algeria + West Virginia = ?
Oregon + Israel = ?
Creative exercise: What connections can you make between the above states and countries?