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Lighting and Creativity
I’m feeling creative.
In yesterday’s article about daydreaming and creativity, I noted that daydreaming is negatively correlated with parts of the brain that process visual stimuli. I suggested that this might relate to inattentional blindness. If you’re daydreaming, your mind wanders and you don’t consciously see things even if they’re directly in front of you. Some part of your subconscious may see the object (and direct you around it) but the object never registers in your consciousness.
Now there’s evidence that not seeing may enhance your creativity. An article in The Journal of Environmental Psychology (“Freedom from constraints: Darkness and dim illumination promote creativity“) reports on six different experiments on the relationship between physical environment and creativity. The research found “…that darkness elicits a feeling of being free from constraints and triggers a risky, explorative processing style.” (See additional commentary here and here)
The study focused on 114 German undergraduate students who were asked to solve several creative insight problems under different lighting conditions. The upshot: students in dimly lit rooms solved more problems than those in brightly lit rooms. They also reported that they felt fewer constraints on their thinking. The research also suggested that mental priming could effectively imitate a dim environment. In other words, you don’t have to be in a dark room; you just have to think about being in a dark room.
The researchers also note that creativity involves at least two processes: 1) creating or generating ideas; 2) analyzing and implementing those ideas. A dimly lit room seems to facilitate the first process but not the second. In the authors’ words: “Creativity may begin in the dark but it shouldn’t end there”.
Daydreaming, Default Networks, and Creativity
Is your mind ever really at rest? Does it ever switch completely off? Apparently not. Something is always going on. You may be focused or unfocused, thinking or dreaming, but something is always happening.
When we’re engaged in an attention-absorbing activity (AAA) – and especially a pleasurable AAA – the task-positive network kicks in. It helps us stay focused, pay attention, and accomplish specific tasks. It generally keeps us conscious of what we’re doing.
When we’re not engaged in an AAA, the default network kicks in, allowing our mind to wander. We can daydream, think about the future, “correct” mistakes we made in the past, and generally “zone out”. It’s what happens when your mind wanders away while reading or driving. It’s “negatively correlated” with parts of the brain that process visual stimuli, which may very well be related to inattentional blindness.
On average, some 30% of our waking time is devoted to daydreaming. The default network switches on and the task-positive network switches off. (They can’t both be on at the same time). Often, we are not aware that we are daydreaming, unless someone asks, a penny for your thoughts. Then we realize that we were somewhere else. Researchers on daydreaming essentially offer a penny for your thoughts at random intervals.
Why would we spend so much time daydreaming? It’s not completely clear. But people who have suffered long-term stress (like PTSD or child abuse) or who have some forms of autism seem to have difficulty activating their default network and daydreaming. As Josie Glausiusz writes in Scientific American, “The default network appears to be essential to generating our sense of self, suggesting that daydreaming plays a crucial role in who we are and how we integrate the outside word into our inner lives.”
Daydreaming may also be related to creativity. Researchers at UC Santa Barbara used the Unusual Uses Task (UUT) to measure creativity under different conditions. (The UUT present you with a common object – like a brick – and asks you to come up with as many unusual uses as possible). The researchers found that “higher levels of mind wandering” were associated with improved performance on the UUT. On the other hand, thinking specifically about the UUT did not improve performance.
To promote creativity through daydreaming, however, it appears that we need to be conscious of our daydreaming. That’s not as easy as it sounds. When I’m daydreaming, I am indeed zoned out and the bright ideas I get while in that zone may never pop into my consciousness. The trick seems to be to ask the penny for your thoughts question of yourself. As you return from your daydream, think about what you were thinking about and capture it consciously. You may find a good solution to a problem … or a good topic for your blog.
Digital Segmentation
The future isn’t what it used to be.
As I read reports from McKinsey, Bain, Boston Consulting Group, and others, it appears that we’re moving into a phase of digital segmentation. Analysts used to be content to write about digital consumers in the very general sense. They compared the online (or digital) consumer to the offline (or traditional) consumer in very general terms. Now they’re comparing the different segments of digital consumers to each other.
As part of this process, McKinsey seems to want to brand the term “iConsumer” and has put out a series of reports on how digital consumers are changing the value chain. A recent report (April 2013) includes a summary of six fundamental shifts in the digital landscape that can help us understand segments and trends. I’ll summarize them here and will refer back to them in future posts. Here are McKinsey’s big six:
Device shift – from PCs to mobile/touch devices. In 2008, the PC accounted for 78% of all personal computing usage. By 2012, the PC’s share of usage had fallen to 57%. Mobile was 33% and tablet was 11%. About 60% of consumers in the US now have smart phones.
Communication shift – from voice to data and video. What do we use phones for? Well, it’s not for talking anymore. Only 20% of our phone usage is voice, down from 60% five years ago. Essentially the phone is now a data terminal, for games, web browsing, music streaming, and social media.
Content shift – from bundled to fragmented. Newspapers and traditional television channels bundled together news and entertainment programs. Bundling added significant value until the rise of the modern search engine. Now we can find whatever we want, whenever we want. We buy apps for specific, point solutions, further fragmenting the market. Getting your message across to a large audience depends much more on search engine optimization than on courting the bundlers.
Social shift – from growth to monetization. About a quarter of our personal computing time is now devoted to social networking. Social networks have grown with incredible speed but now seem to be leveling off. Social networks are now trying to monetize what they have. The results are mixed – to wit, my experiences advertising on Facebook.
Video shift – from programmer to user controlled. As I was growing up, my family got together every Sunday night to watch Bonanza and drink homemade milk shakes. No more. We now watch on DVRs, on video streaming services, or on DVDs. We’ve shifted time and place and device. We watch what we want to watch when and where we want to watch it. I sort of miss Bonanza though.
Retail shift – from channel to experience. E-commerce has grown dramatically but still only accounts for about 5% of all retail sales. However, e-commerce – especially mobile – is transforming the retail experience. While we shop in brick-and-mortar outlets, we use mobile devices to enhance our experience and find better bargains. Successful retailers will invest in true multi-channel integration.
News Is No Longer Newsworthy
My how times have changed. We used to send newsletters to our customers and prospects. Back in the day, these were actually printed on paper and distributed via snail mail. Then we started sending out email newsletters; they were nicely designed and tried to capitalize on the news of the day. Then news and content aggregators came along, and people could find their own news, thank you very much.
So how do you get your news across in today’s accelerated news cycles and shortened attention spans? A lot of it has to do with the subject line strategy. A good subject line can increase open rates and click rates. A poor strategy can consign your news to the virtual wastebasket.
What makes for a good subject line? Adestra, a British digital marketing agency has just published a study on subject lines that boost or depress readership. Adestra surveyed hundreds of different words in 90,000 campaigns and analyzed how those words affected open rates, click rates, and unsubscribe rates. The word “newsletter”, for instance, marginally increases the open rates but seriously suppresses the click rate and increases the unsubscribe rate.
The word “newsletter” simply describes what’s in the email. It’s all about content. Other content words, including “report”, “learn”, and “book” all suppress both open and click rates. Apparently, people are tired of just reading stuff. On the other hand, words like “alert”, “daily”, and “weekly” tend to increase open and click rates. I was surprised at “daily” and “weekly” – they seem like passive words to me. But Adestra argues that “…customers begin to expect your emails … and get into the habit of reading them.”
We all know that people like to save money but different ways of saving produce different results. For instance, the words “sale” or “save” have a modestly positive impact on open and click rates. The term “free delivery”, on the other hand, has a much more pronounced positive impact.
Interestingly, many terms used as calls to action suppress rather than boost open rates. Words like “get”, “register”, “subscribe”, and “don’t miss” all suppress open rates. On the other hand, words like “breaking”, “alert” and “update” tend to boost readership.
Some email campaigns have used “fwd:” and “re:” to try to convince readers that the message relates to a previous thread or is being passed along by a colleague. Both, however, moderately suppress open and click rates and dramatically increase unsubscribe rates. Recipients apparently feel tricked and quickly unsubscribe.
The Adestra report compares effective and ineffective words in B2B, B2C, retail, and charity campaigns. Refer to the report to find your type of business. But remember that these trends can change quickly. Best practice still calls for split testing: divide your campaign into random subsets and use different subject lines on each. You’ll soon discover which ones work best for you.
Inventing Tradition
That shirt is illegal!
When I was a Boy Scout – many years ago – I learned the proper way to handle and display the American flag. The basic idea was simple: the flag is a symbol and an inspiration.
This simple idea led to numerous rules:
- You should raise the flag at dawn and lower it at sunset. Never fly the flag after dark. How could it be inspirational if you can’t see it?
- There’s a very specific way to fold the flag. Don’t lower the flag unless someone is present who knows how to fold it. When folding, don’t allow the flag to touch the ground lest it get dirty.
- Never disrespect the flag. Among other things, don’t make clothes or jewelry out of the flag. That would convert a symbol into mere merchandise.
In fact, we still have a Flag Code which says, among other things, that, “The flag should never be used as wearing apparel, bedding, or drapery.” In 1968, Abbie Hoffman (pictured), an antiwar protester, was arrested for wearing a shirt made from an American flag. Such behavior was not only disrespectful; it was also illegal.
Today, of course, we have new “traditions” regarding the flag. Everyone seems to want to show it at all times. We make jewelry and clothing from it. We fly it day and night. While on the campaign trail in 2008, Barack Obama was criticized for not wearing an American flag pin on his lapel. From Abbie Hoffman to Barack Obama, we essentially reversed our “traditional” view of how to treat the flag respectfully.
We invent new traditions all the time. While many traditions seem to be “the way we’ve always done it”, many are quite recent. As Eric Hobsbawm and Terence Ranger point out in The Invention of Tradition, we tend to invent new traditions, “…more frequently when a rapid transformation of society weakens or destroys the social patterns for which ‘old’ traditions had been designed….”
Hobsbawm and Ranger write that we invent some new traditions by “grafting on old ones” and others by reaching back into “well-supplied warehouses of official ritual [and] symbolism…” and giving new meaning to old symbols. Apparently, this is what happened to the Scottish kilt, tartans, and bagpipe.: “This apparatus, to which we ascribe great antiquity, is in fact largely modern. … Indeed, the whole concept of a distinct Highland culture and tradition is a retrospective invention.”
Why do we invent new traditions when we already have perfectly good ones? We may want to preserve an older, supposedly “purer” set of beliefs and loyalties. Or we may want to draw together in the face of a common opponent. (The Highlands “tradition” was invented in opposition to England). We may want to divide people between true believers and those who may be untrustworthy. Sometimes, we simply want to slow down the pace of change.
We need to remember to question our traditions. If we simply accept them as they are, then we lose perspective and see an invented history rather than an accurate one. We see only what we’re intended to see. This applies to organizations as much as to cultures and societies. The next time you hear, we’ve always done it this way, just say, “Is that really true? Let’s find out.”
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