Discover Keen

Foiled by spellcheck (or, in praise of the proofreader)

Tue, 17 Nov 2009 08:08:50 GMT

by Cody Griggers - Editorial Director

We've all had it happen. Academics. Students. Journalists. Novelists. And yes, destination branding copywriters – we especially feel your pain.

You run that final spellcheck on your document, and it saves the day by cleaning up those typos that would have otherwise detracted from your brilliant prose.

Except when it doesn't.

Editorial team, I know we make you proofread every ad that goes out the door at least 18,000 times. And don't think I can't see you mentally rolling your eyes when the production team asks you to review that one last proof. But if you love your words (and I know we all do), you'll make sure you see them through.

Because if you don't, you might find it hard to live with yourself (Ask Riga).

Digital Ethnography

Mon, 09 Nov 2009 01:19:15 GMT

by Ron Edwards - Strategy Director

‘Send us all the invite on Facebook’.

‘I’m going into withdrawal. I haven’t looked at the camera blogs in over a week.’

‘This is a Blackberry office. Just Ping him.’

‘I so don’t want to friend her. I guess I’ll accept but I’ll just switch on all the privacy settings.’

Society has been digitized – that’s no surprise to anyone. The sky is blue, and the internet has changed our lives. But what people don’t realize as often, what hasn’t sunk into our collective consciousness, is how the rules of online communities differ from those of physical communities – and exactly how extensive and deep-rooted the cultural framework of each community is.

Many of today’s people spend six, eight, ten, twelve hours per day, sometimes over half their day, interacting in online communities. That’s not even taking into account the multi-taskers who spend their waking minutes living in the ‘real’ world while simultaneously existing, conversing, participating in a handful of digital cultures. If you add up a multi-tasker’s daily hours in online communities, it might be more than 24 hours per day – more time than spent in the ‘real’ world.

Each online community – from a group of friends on a social network, to a circle of professionals who inhabit their own specialized region of the blogosphere, to the citizens of an industry forum – possesses their own customs, their own rules, their own politics, their own communication methods and etiquette.

First, just think about cultural essence that comes to mind when you envision different kinds of communities. The narcissism of Myspace. The reciprocal altruism of a programmers forum. The not-so-subtle courting rituals of Adult Friend Finder versus the soulful outreaches on eHarmony.

But then go deeper. How does the narcissism manifest itself? Why? To whom? When? Certainly you don’t find shirtless men flexing in towels at every reflective surface on a city street. Nor do you find women walking at such an awkward angle that every onlooker can see down their shirt. Not many people want to have 2,387 friends in real life. And ghetto blasters are a blip in the past – do two-thirds of the people you see in daily life force you to listen to their personal taste in music at every encounter?

The reasons why behaviour of an online community manifests itself the way it does are just as substantial as the underpinnings of behaviour for an offline community. Because of this depth of cultural development and organization within online communities, the implications of digital ethnography for commerce stand tremendous. We’ve all heard about some of the grand marketing failures of the past when companies branch into a new culture. Just as much care and background research and localization strategy needs to take place when you branch into an online community. You can’t throw your print ads onto Facebook, just as you can’t throw your Hong Kong marketing strategy onto a French market.

The emergence of digital ethnographers such as Micheal Wech and danah boyd (yes, she writes her name uncapitalized as some kind of digi-political statement) shows how seriously academics are now taking digital culture. In fact, some of them already have a decade of specialization in the subject under their belt. And now, technology companies are also piling onto the train and incorporating ethnographic research as a vital component of their working process. For just a few brief examples, see this cnn.com article that touches on the efforts of Microsoft and Nokia.

The tech companies may be early adopters, but online communities affect every product. If other industries don’t follow suite, they may soon find themselves with a Chevy No Va on their hands.

A frappuccino by any other name...

Tue, 27 Oct 2009 12:42:29 GMT

by Cody Griggers - Editorial Director

If you've been hanging around our side of the office these past few weeks, you will have no doubt seen the open dictionaries, books of Roman mythology, lists of Greek roots ending in fricative consonants, web pages scrolling through poems in Esperanto and perhaps the odd Scrabble board. You may even have been privileged (or standing still long enough) to have been called into one of everyone's favorite agency meetings: The Naming Session.

The Naming Session can at once make you feel exhilaratingly erudite, gratified for taking all those university electives ("I remember there were great words for 'flower' in my Early Modern Aramaic Poetry class!"). They can also make you feel hopelessly cliché ("But I really LIKE 'Jasmine'!") or just downright clueless ("Zam? We're actually considering Zam?"). Having taken part in these sessions throughout my five years at Keen, I have seen firsthand the months of brainstorming, researching, testing, competitor analysis, dissecting, linguistically mapping (who knew that class would actually come in handy?) and agonizing over the perfect name. That elusive one word – sometimes even a single syllable – that encapsulates everything a brand is about, forging that instant, lasting personal connection deemed so essential for success.

Which is why I almost spit out my grande double-shot latte when I read this.

Starbucks, you see, is apparently taking its cue from the likes of other simultaneously loved and reviled celebrities the world over – it's going incognito. And how does a multi-national coffee empire throw on baggy sweat pants, oversized dark sunglasses and a floppy hat when it ventures out into a new neighborhood so that it won't be recognized? It loses its name.

That's right. The newest kid on the block in Seattle's Capitol Hill neighborhood, 15th Ave. Coffee & Tea, is drawing public ire for being nothing more than a Starbucks in disguise. Inspired by the original, small-scale coffee houses that put Seattle on the coffee connoisseur map (and which, ironically, spawned the birth of the Starbucks brand in the first place), this new concept appears to make every effort to distance itself from its parent, a brand synonymous to many with all that is wrong with globalization, and to some, with civilization itself. Menus are redesigned, drinks are "handcrafted" using high-end (rather than mass-market) machines, and that green logo you're used to passing at least 3 times on your way home? Completely hidden away, banished to a single fine-print tagline on the door: "Inspired by Starbucks".

Is this deception, as many have decried? Is it a further sign of the evil that Starbucks has inflicted upon life as we know it? We all know that spin-off brands are a dime a dozen in just about any market, and that some of the most celebrated of them – from boutique hotels to skincare products to seemingly niche foods and beverages – can trace their lineage to a parent often criticized for being a global behemoth.

As we rack our brains from our cubicles and meeting rooms to create brands that people will remember, it just strikes me as a bit sad that there could actually come a day when success may become more dependent on having them be forgotten.

A nod to persuasion

Tue, 27 Oct 2009 12:41:22 GMT

by Yingyos Vuttisant - Strategic Analyst

I was recently trying to figure out the best approach when it comes to persuading consumers when I remembered a great insight I read about a while ago in the 'The Tipping Point' by Malcolm Gladwell; that the act of simply nodding one's head repeatedly can be a powerful persuasion tool.

Gladwell talks about a piece of research on persuasion where students were told that researchers worked for a headphone company. The subjects were given headsets and asked to perform specific motions while listening to music and a piece of editorial about a rise in tuition fees. A third was told to nod, a third to shake their heads, and a third (the control group) to remain still.

Afterwards, they were asked some questions to gauge how persuasive the article was to them. Those in the control group were unmoved by the editorial. Those who shook their heads while listening were strongly opposed to the editorial. Those who nodded their heads found the editorial to be very persuasive. The simple act of nodding while listening to the editorial was enough to get them to agree to policy that they would otherwise most likely be opposed to.

The authors of the study concluded that "television advertisements would be most effective if the visual display created repetitive vertical movements of the television viewers' heads”.

Could there really be a link between the ability to persuade with the repetitive movement of one's head? If so, then can this insight into persuasion be used in other forms of media and contexts? Would consumers, for example, be more compelled to click on a banner ad which features repetitive vertical movements? This would be an interesting idea to test for in further studies or during concept tests.

Discussion: By looking at this Sony Bouncy Ball ad, do you feel like you’d be more willing to buy a Sony Bravia? And, is it possible that the commercial success and market leadership of the Sony Bravia is due to this little insight?

The Beauty of a Billboard

Mon, 14 Sep 2009 04:42:49 GMT

by Caroline Loevner - Editorial Assistant

Fiercely proud of their skyline, the NY Times printed this interesting article on banning billboards on the Long Island expressway.

The title “Free Speech vs. Beauty” got me thinking about the conflict between advertising and aesthetics in general and when we consider it okay to “ruin the view” for commercial purposes.

If advertising is a scourge on the face of beauty, who decides where to draw the line? Ads in magazines and newspapers have been the norm since the beginning of time but no one wants a full page on Moroccan Travel Agencies in the middle of their novels. We’ll sit through (and even enjoy) trailers at the beginning of films but when we go to the opera, we don’t expect a preview of the Pirates of Penzance.

I am from New Jersey, and like all true Jersey girls, I have a tumultuous love-hate relationship with the Jersey Turnpike and with the billboards that define it. On the one hand, they are hideous. On the other hand, the Jersey Turnpike is an ugly highway already and those billboards provided hours of amusement when I was younger. Advertising is always forgiven when it provides entertainment, like the constantly running ads on the Skytrain here in Bangkok, which people stare at glossy-eyed every morning though they have seen the same ones every day for weeks.

There are places where I wish that billboards would be banned. There is an a gorgeous stretch of I-90 that runs through the Badlands of South Dakota with the most breathtaking views of the Great Plains and the Black Hills: it’s also littered with horrendous advertisements for “1880 town,” “Dinosaur Hill” and “Wall Drug Store.” Neither clever, nor amusing, these billboards simply ruin a naturally beautiful view.

So let the New Yorkers have their skyline back, as long as they realise that their outrage is a little arbitrary. The real enemies to aesthetic beauty are hanging out beneath a life sized plastic stegosaurus on Dinosaur Hill.

A good read? Well, of course!

Wed, 26 Aug 2009 11:53:14 GMT

by Oratip Nimkannon - Concept Developer

Just got a tip from a friend the other day to read this book called "A Whole New Mind". I didn't know much about the book, so I searched Amazon.com.

I typed in "A Whole New Mind", then clicked "search".

The full title came up "A Whole New Mind: Why Right-Brainers Will Rule the Future". Oh, interesting!

Right brainers, in this book, are creative people and those who come up with concepts behind an advertising campaign, a book cover, a store layout/design, a candy wraper, a hotel experience, a desk calendar...and a host of other things that we see, hear, touch, taste and smell everyday.

I was a left-brainer in college, now a complete right-brainer and sometimes wish I could go a little more towards the left. But never mind, then.

Naturally, I scrolled down to the customer reviews. The first review by John H. Hwung:

"The title of the book is very appropriate. For the age that we are in, we need a whole new mind. However, the book promised a mansion, but ended up giving us an apartment. It begins like a Porsche, but ended like a VW Beetle...."

Oh wow, this is even more interesting. I want to find out for myself whether this book is a mansion or an apartment, a Porsche or a VW Beetle.

So, if you were to ask me if this book will be a good read? I'd say "well, of course. I'm a right brainer (now) and I will rule the future, according to Daniel H. Pink, the author."

Did I convince you? Or have you read the book? If you have, was it a mansion or just an apartment to you?

The bandwagon is fully loaded

Wed, 19 Aug 2009 11:21:44 GMT

by Oratip Nimkannon - Concept Developer

The internet boom (and bust) came and went, but it has just dawned on me that the internet really was (and still is) a huge thing. I don’t mean in the commercial or social networking sense. Rather, I am talking about the URL hoarding business.

Try searching for a dot com domain name for “monkey”. I tried this the other day. Any combination that makes sense has been taken, obviously. But when I actually visited these sites, about 70% of them don’t really have any relevant content. Some even flash the “Make an offer for this domain name” sales pitch on the page.

Among those that I tried, from the obvious to the ridiculous:

monkeytree, monkeyculture, monkeystudio, monkeyplay, monkeyfun, monkeyway, monkeyme, mymonkey, memonkey, gomonkey, funkymonkey, twomonkeys, threemonkeys, fourmonkeys, and so on…

As a joke, a friend said, “try monkeymonkey.com”. Taken.
“What about monkeymonkeymonkey.com?” Taken.
I tried sevenmonkeys. Taken.
Even ****ingmonkey is taken.

Could be a frustrating process. Somehow I had fun with it.

And in case you are wondering, monkeymonkeymonkeymonkey has not been taken. But who would actually use this as their URL?

I'd say, you never know.

Getting strategic

Fri, 07 Aug 2009 10:35:50 GMT

by Amelia Salyers - Concept Developer

As we at Keen continue to develop and finetune our strategy department, it's good to see that we're in the company of the big boys on Madison Avenue ...

Food for Thought?

Fri, 31 Jul 2009 13:41:48 GMT

by Pradon Sirakovit - Strategic Analyst

Modern-day lifestyle calls upon us 'young professionals' to look after ourselves more often than not. But realistically, as busy young professionals, it is almost impossible to take care of ourselves 100% day in day out. That's why we are now bombarded with industrially made products that claim to serve the needs of consumers on the basis of efficacy, effectiveness and most of all, convenience.

We usually consume food to look after our bodies, but how many times is there an inherent need to consume something to fuel the 'brain'? How often do we say to ourselves 'I'm going to eat this and that just to be smarter'? Yet either way, the nutritional value from the food we eat does eventually make its way up to the brain doesn't it? Apparently not fast enough, according to a research study in Japan.

Protein-based products such as milk, meats, fish, nuts and egg yolks are thought to stimulate the brain, increase IQ and make you concentrate better. So when we think better, we can, subsequently, function better.

Here in Thailand – birthplace of the global energy drink phenomenon that is Red Bull, don't forget – a number of companies are going into overdrive to market convenient health tonics in a bottle to serve that growing need for a quick health fix. Let's look into the growing line of 'Functional Brain Drinks' on the market at the moment. There is a small market here in Thailand directed mainly at health-conscious individuals which has seen 100% increase in revenue growth over the past year, indicating its lucrative potential. Of course Thailand is not alone, as any trip to an American or European convenience store will remind you, with their refrigerators stocked with a full array of vitamin waters and even diet sodas enriched with essential nutrients.

The latest player to jump on that bandwagon here in Thailand is Peptein Original Soy Peptide, which is making an audacious bid to grab a piece of that lucrative pie. This product is made from the humble soy bean, readily available in the market, sold at modest prices as a commodity, and as a finished product at retail level in various forms. When looking at the brand value proposition, it claims to make you smarter, which is no different from any other 'smart drinks' out there in the market. But wait, I forgot to tell you – it makes you smarter, quicker! Yes, it is supposed to be absorbed into the system within half an hour as a opposed to eating your traditional meals that can take 6-8 hours to be absorbed. So says the brand's own scientific research team, that is.

Peptein, spearheaded by Osotspa, had a budget of 400 million baht allocated for marketing and advertising activities when it first came out. I am not kidding. It was the talk of the town. Brand awareness and brand recall was startling. Everyone knew about it, or tried it at least once. You could see its product from all corners of Bangkok; traditional media, new media. You just couldn't get away from it. Osotspa used 'educational-marketing' as the core mechanism to drive awareness, trial and recall.

But wait. There's a catch. It sounds great and all but, how do you prove that by drinking Peptein, you become smarter, faster than any other product? Especially within 30 minutes. It is a bold statement for a product made from soy. Do we reign in customers, sit them down, analyze their brains and count the amount of neurotransmitters generated by this drink? It's almost impossible to tangibly audit a functional benefit that is directed at the brain. Tsk tsk.

Their previous ad campaign was revoked by Thai FDA due to making unsubstantiated claims about the product's benefits. In additional to this dilemma, market perception of the taste had not been well received, as consumers compared its taste to other energy drinks already on the market. At price point, (approximately US$1 for 4000mg & over US$2 for 8000mg), consumers view it as too expensive for what it essentially is – the humble soy bean – in contrast to readily available soy bean drinks on the market which can be had for less than US$0.25!

Furthermore, people are finding themselves confused with the 'Original Soy Peptide' nutrient when compared to the well-known nutrients such as Omega-3s or DHAs, which have been well-received in the past. Now, they are faced with being singled out as a black sheep on the market.

This leads to my conclusion that huge marketing efforts built on the backbone of astronomical budgets and the goal of being the first mover don't necessarily guarantee business success. In the end, consumers shape the product's value. The iPod didn't invent MP3 players. A group of German investors did back in the late 80s but didn't really rise to prominence until the new millenium. But look now – the iPod has stolen the show completely, with over 80% market share worldwide.

The campaign described above lacked emotional benefits that are necessary create an affinity for the brand. It just makes the claim that you will be smarter, quicker. But what it does not do is tell you what that means to you, the consumer, i.e.: 'You will be smarter, quicker, and will be able to engage in more intelligent conversation, achieve greater career success, raise your own profile, etc.'. This is just an example. Consumers fail to identify any emotional benefit and it is not their fault. I'm not sure they had accounted for all the consequences of a bad repuation and limited media channels to work with because of the FDA's refusal of Peptein in claiming ambiguous benefits. Let's wait and see what they've got up their sleeves in a new bid to reposition themselves, having been in the market for less than 2 years.

Do we all need faster brains?

Thu, 11 Jun 2009 07:19:36 GMT

by Oratip Nimkannon - Concept Developer

If you are one of those people who constantly keeps yourself up to date with online news, fashion trends, web gossip, Twitter, Facebook status, stock market updates, e-mail alerts, beware!

Some researchers believe that the digital age has opened a floodgate of information and is threatening to freeze our brains with an information overload, thus turning us into zombies with little or no empathy towards others.

One of the solutions, as we all know of course, is to ignore all the bombarding messages around us. But some researchers are suggesting that there should be a way to upgrade our brains. Yes, the same kind that we give to our computers, so that we can multitask and process information at an ever faster rate.

Here I quote from an article “Warning: Brain Overload” by The Times' John Naish:

Singularity is the term created to define the point at which machine intelligence surpasses that of human beings. Nasa and Google are funding a new institution, Singularity University, to explore this future. Salim Ismail, one of its leaders, says that we should re-engineer the human brain with computer-style upgrades. “The current system is flawed,” he says. “We need computer chips monitoring our neural networks. Evolution isn’t going to do this for us, so technology must do it.”

(Read his article and scroll all the way down to "Faster Brains"?

If we were to get a chip implanted in our brains, can you imagine what a mess that would be? How fast is fast enough?

I have always wished my brain could think and process information faster. But no, thank you, not THAT fast. I have a better method for a brain upgrade: meditation. Believe it or not, in stillness and silence, our brains can think and process ‘faster’.

The big picture or the little details?

Tue, 02 Jun 2009 02:43:19 GMT

by Oratip Nimkannon - Concept Developer

Which of these do you think is more important? The big picture or the little details?

I think these days people tend to look at the big picture. If the big picture looks good, then who cares about the little details?

In Malcolm Gladwell’s book The Tipping Point, he asserts that it’s the little details that start the fire (in the branding business, it’s word of mouth). One of the examples he gave in the book particularly captured my interest, although it also seems so ordinary (you almost want to say ‘anyone can think of that’, but then you will immediately counter-argue yourself that no one will ever implement it because it’s too minute, too detail and therefore unimportant).

His example was about how the subway system in New York got cleaned up. He said that in the 1980s, the subway system in New York was at its worst in terms of the daily crime rate and assaults on the riders by gangsters. And then in 1990s, the system got cleaned up and the crime rate spiraled downward.

If you were assigned the task of cleaning up this system, how would you approach this task? I almost want to bet that no one would probably start by cleaning up the graffiti and getting rid of the fare-beaters. But that’s what made all the difference (according to the book). By cleaning up the little things, the authorities were sending out the message about how the system could no longer be messed with. He also gave an example of the broken window theory, which supports this idea of how one broken window in a neighborhood, if left unfixed, can send a message to robbers about how no one cares about keeping order. And very soon more windows will be broken.

Gladwell also talks about how little things can start all kinds of epidemics (fashion trends, crime, particular behaviors, etc.), given all the ‘right’ elements. This book is a very interesting read and definitely is useful for people working in the branding business.

BETA fever

Tue, 02 Jun 2009 02:42:26 GMT

by Oratip Nimkannon - Concept Developer

We have google chrome (BETA), MSN Live (BETA), Firefox (BETA) and this and that with the beta tag next to them.

Now we have beta chocolates. This is what you get when a group of techies turn chocolatiers. Check it out at http://www.tcho.com/ . The owners say it's a way to engage their customers. I think it's a great way to test the market and also get the customers do part of the research for you.

Would anyone like to try the 1.0 Nutty?

Tourism & Authenticity

Mon, 01 Jun 2009 07:54:14 GMT

by Ron Edwards - Strategy Director

Mmmmmmm SPAM!

Most 'indigenous' experiences in the travel industry are canned ham. Chopped up from the dregs, reconstituted, moulded into shape, injected with some artificial colour, and VOILA! Authentic Thailand.

This questionable authenticity has been at the top of my mind for years. So when I came upon this blurb recently while doing research for a client, I was really intrigued. It’s the product description for a book by anthropologist Edwards M. Bruner:

“Recruited to be a lecturer on a group tour of Indonesia, Edward M. Bruner decided to make the tourists aware of tourism itself. He photographed tourists photographing Indonesians, asking the group how they felt having their pictures taken without their permission. After a dance performance, Bruner explained to the group that the exhibition was not traditional, but instead had been set up specifically for tourists. His efforts to induce reflexivity led to conflict with the tour company, which wanted the displays to be viewed as replicas of culture and to remain unexamined. Although Bruner was eventually fired, the experience became part of a sustained exploration of tourist performances, narratives, and practices.”

I loved this. Partly because of the sadistic streak in it. Maybe someone should have given the Indonesians cameras so that they could fire back and assault each unsuspecting load of tourists as they stepped off the bus. I bet after about four of five stops, they’d get the picture. I also loved it because someone was blowing holes in the magic.

A lot of this cultural packaging is developed by well intentioned people. They think this is what tourists want. Slap some people in artificial costumes that are a semi-approximation of what some people wore 400 years ago. Throw in some headlines about golden glimmering shimmer of gilded wonder of Thailand. Add some body copy about centuries-old tradition (never mind that the copywriter, who very well may be Thai, is wearing Levis and Burberry and probably spends that traditional holiday out at a bar with friends instead of prancing around in a costume and bowing their head).

Even the sophisticated versions of cultural authenticity are, to be honest, more like something culturally inspired than culturally genuine. Then again tourism is not anthropology. Most tourists are not looking to toil in rice paddies for a week or to immerse themselves in an experience that is basically the same as home except the surrounding skin tones may be a little different.

And tourism infrastructure can also provide a safeguard for local communities. Herd the camera-toting crowds into an amphitheatre, for a couple hours. Do a song and dance routine. And then get them the hell out so you can go back to your own authentic life without the voyeurs around.

Maybe that’s how it should stay?

Can authenticity be profitable? Should it be?

Making Virtue of Vice

Fri, 29 May 2009 07:06:12 GMT

by Amelia Salyers - Concept Developer

Check out this intriguing article by Andrew Adam Newman about a magazine which uses its writers to staff its sister company, a marketing firm. I wonder if these kind of talent-sharing ventures are the way of the future in media - or if this is an isolated case, successful not due to the business model but because of the "tastemaker" niche it has carved out. What do you all think?

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/28/business/media/28adco.html?ref=media

A Keen Celebration: A Photo Album

Mon, 02 Mar 2009 04:28:19 GMT

by Patr Srisook (Ten) - Graphic Designer

During the celebration of Keen's evolved identity on Wednesday, January 14, Khun Ten - Keen's resident photographer - snapped a lot of great shots. Scroll down for a selection that gives you a taste of life at Keen.

String Theory

Thu, 15 Jan 2009 09:41:50 GMT

by Amelia Salyers - Concept Developer

It began with string. Sturdy, unassuming white string, the kind of string that ties up brown paper packages and conducts important conversations between tin cans. As I puzzled over the latest Brand DNA at my desk on Monday, I began to notice the string quietly strung from the ceiling tiles. Carefully and unobtrusively, it skirted the perimeter of the office, encircling my officemates and me. Not wanting to break my concentration, I let the observation go for the time being.

That evening, as I left the office and walked into the elevator bank, I saw that the string wasn’t unique to the office I work in – it hung next to the elevators and extended into Keen’s two offices on the other side of the floor. Huh. Was there some kind of game going on between the offices that I didn’t know about? Was Keen going retro with an actual revival of the tin-cup-phone-and-string communications strategy? Given that we had recently had an elaborate company-wide Ping-Pong tournament (complete with a live-feed and digital stats on screen – thanks, Khun Neo!), I knew that there were any number of creatively zany possibilities.

The question of the string was answered yesterday morning, however. As the climax of a months-long process to redefine Keen, the whole company gathered in the lounge space normally occupied by that (in)famous Ping-Pong table. Replacing the table was a row of Buddhist monks, invited by Keen to bless our new logo and new vision for the company. Upon filing in to kneel before them, I saw the end of the string’s trail – twined around a statue of the Buddha and draped over the hands of the monks. Suddenly, it struck me. The string was a conductor but not in the way I had imagined. Rather than words, the string was conveying the monks’ blessings all around the office, connecting each and every person with the blessings and what was being blessed. As the chanting – at once ancient and ethereal – filled the room, I closed my eyes to listen more closely. Though I didn’t understand the Pali verses, I could begin to understand the way they bound us together.

Like the foreign words of the Buddhist chant, the people of Keen come from diverse backgrounds and sometimes don’t even speak the same language. Yet, just as the experience of the chanting was shared by all, so too does the experience of working at Keen bring all the different personalities and backgrounds into a common whole. Indeed, our very differences give our team the edge it needs to find fresh perspectives and craft original designs.

After the monks had spritzed our heads and walls with water and left the office, we all stayed together for a company-wide lunch of Thai favorites. For a little bit, we (well, most of us, anyways) put aside our thoughts of the next deadline and the next project to eat, laugh, and generally enjoy each other’s company. The sounds of Thai, British English, American English, and French English, as well as near-constant laughter, floated around the room. If the string wasn’t still vibrating from the blessings, surely it was now humming with this unique chorus of Keen voices. Of course, I don’t need the string to remember how each one of us is tied together. I see that bond manifest itself every day as we work together to bring our creative visions to fruition.

I wouldn’t mind if we left the string up for awhile, though. I haven’t spoken over a tin-can two-way in a long time.

New year, new media

Tue, 13 Jan 2009 09:56:32 GMT

by Cody Griggers - Director, Advocacy Communications

Ah, that time of year is upon us again—a time of rebirth, renewal, refreshment and yes, in this year, recession. It comes as no surprise then that as companies and organizations across the board are making their resolutions for the new year, one of the first on their list is “cut costs”. And what is often the first line item to go under the knife, for both private enterprises and non-governmental organizations? You guessed it–communications.

Disclaimer: I work for a brand strategy and integrated communications agency, so don’t expect me to take this lying down. But I promise I am not going to launch into a sales pitch or tell you why communications should be the last thing sacrificed to the gods of financial austerity. Instead, I have one simple resolution that I would urge all the non-profits, UN agencies and NGOs I work with here at Keen to set for this new year: get more bang for your communications buck–and go digital.

I direct this towards my friends in the non-profit world not to single them out, but because this is something that the commercial world has already got a head start on. Keen’s multimedia team has been building interactive digital maps, on-line meeting planners, flash and video presentations and content management systems for hotels, resorts, residential developers and other private sector enterprises for years as a way of taking information that would have once been relegated to the static medium of print and sharing it with the world–with just one click.

Our Advocacy Communications division has been happy to borrow from the experience we’ve honed creating digital and online communications strategies with our commercial clients–because what is advocacy if not “selling” an idea, needed information, a new way of thinking or a social cause to your target user? And we’re happy to see that NGOs and non-profits are steadily coming onboard.

Over the last year, we worked with UNESCO to adapt an HIV/AIDS awareness education for teachers into an online learning module, have developed an online knowledge management system for project managers in the International Labour Organization, built a web-based database of communications tools for emergency response with UNICEF, and most recently, collaborated with IUCN on creating a multimedia presentation advocating for mangrove preservation.

All have had a worldwide reach, and all can be updated with just a few clicks–compare that to the time, effort and resources that non-profit organizations tend to spend on printing (and subsequent distribution), and you can see why we think digital is the way to go in 2009–whether you’re a business with a product to sell, or an organization with an issue that demands the world’s attention.

Don’t get me wrong–we like paper and love print design, and can’t imagine a world without it. But the next time you sit down to compile another report or publication, think about its purpose–who you’re reaching, where you want it to go, how you want it to be used, and how long you want it to last. And then think about how much further your message might go if it is instead powered digitally.

Panegyric

Fri, 09 Jan 2009 14:32:55 GMT

by Ron Edwards - Concept Director

The Concept Department’s first workshop of the new year went brilliant as expected. I’ve found these sessions to be so useful and the team loves them as well. Without boasting I could probably say that as a whole, we’re the most intellectual department of Keen (no offense all you other guys – but don’t lie, we can see you rolling your eyes every time we mention deconstructionist philosophy… again).

For those who don’t know, Keen – especially the Concept Department – tends to hire the young and bright. The ‘kids’ always say that these workshops bring them back to their Ivy League college days.

Topic of Workshop 2009 #1 was the “Panegyric” (or Πανηγυρικ for you other nerds and linguists who prefer to see it in the original Greek). It’s a literary and oratory form of the ancient Greeks and Romans. (And quite similar to the قصيدة for any Arabic scholars out there.) The goal was to praise someone as highly as possible, without going over the top and losing credibility. The speeches were judged by how close they could get to the threshold, how amazing and desired and wonderful you could make someone appear while still coming across as completely authentic. Which is really exactly what copywriting and marketing and branding is all about.

Full Disclaimer: No, we didn’t look at any real panegyrics. We are a commercial enterprise after all, but we did use the basic notion of the artform to explore how we could praise our clients in their branding and communications while simultaneously infusing the messages with credibility. Just in case you think three hours of this sounds interminably boring, we also took the opportunity to watch plenty of YouTube clips of ridiculously horrible advertisements.

This one below was probably our favourite.