Stemato.com - Stephen Tompkins’ Blog

A couple weeks ago, I read Bruce Nussbaum’s blog on the growing gap in China between Chinese designers and Western designers. I found it to be a really fascinating look into China’s economy for a number of reasons. For years, they have primarly relied on cutting cost and driving efficiencies to become the Global Supply Headquarters. Now that many other countries have begun to catch up to the Chinese, they are transforming themselves to meet the future needs of the world.

This transformation according to Nussbaum’s article is in the form of becoming more innovative and creative.  Apparently the Chinese government is throwing millions of Yuan into the design education departments at many of the universities in China. This is a great first step but I think to truly begin to transform the mindset of the people is to foster creativity from the start. You cannot just start in college.

Innovation and creativity is something that is nurtured over a lifetime and can take years to fully blossom. You cannot simply think that pouring money into design schools will solve a cultural problem. Chairman Mao squashed many of the innovative thoughts of his people during the Cultural Revolution.

I visited China last year and was instantly in love with the place. It’s a vast and amazing culture that spans thousands of years and has morphed from innovators to efficiency experts and more. But in order to meet the new innovation needs in this complex global economy, it’s going to take a major shift from the current thought process. Design education is a great step but its going to take a massive cultural transfomation in everything from education to social systems to clothing design to meet this challenge head-on.

One thing is sure to me though. If anyone can meet this challenge because of their diverse history and succeed, it’s the Chinese!

Today I ran across the Queensboro Bridge into Manhattan from my apartment and along the way I had some time to reflect on a few things. First off, it was five years ago today that I moved to New York from Florida. I remember being so full of anxiety and anticipation. What would happen? Would I find a job? Would I like it? (Considering I had only visited here once before moving here)

Well, I can say with some confidence that I have made the most of my time here and still seem to be in love with New York. Its funny all the change I have seen in my short time I have lived here. I worked my way to Microsoft (my current work), visited quite a few countries (China is still the best), attended a few weddings (Congrats to you all) and watched my Little Brother graduate from College and move onto Medical School (Congrats Dom). All these things were truly great but not all things have been this good. Here are a few of the bad. My grandma got sick (the worst thing ever - I hate seeing people get old), I still feel homesick every so often, I gained some weight (not much but jeez its hard to get back to high school weight when you are 34) and I am still single.

Anyway,  I am digressing from my thought. I wanted to take this time to say thanks to everyone I have met in the five years since I moved to New York. Its been truly great learning from everyone and I look forward to five more years of learning. I read a Dale Carnegie tip a few months ago and I have tried to eternalize it. It says “Perhaps you will forget tomorrow the kind words you say today, but the recipient may cherish them over a lifetime.” So in the spirit of that quote I am going to leave this post open. I will from time to time post personal thank you messages to people I meet and have met as kind of a memorial to my thankfulness.

Check back often and if you want to say thanks to someone please feel free to leave it as a comment.

Stephen

My list of thanks.

#1 - Mom and Dominic - thanks for all the support since I was a kid. Its truly the cornerstone of all that I am and will be.

Dynamic logic recently released a study that says graphic ads integrated into the content of a campaign drive better brand awareness than so-called framing ads that are on the edge of pages. Interestingly, these ads to seem to stick in my mind more but not because they are driving brand awareness but because they are interrupting my experience. An interruption that ultimately undermine’s my confidence in the brand.

It sometimes feels as if we just took everything that did not work in television advertising and applied it to the web. Saying that it was ultimately better because we could slap fancy analytics on the backend and show ROI. The web is not TV. It has infinitely more opportunities for engaging users and requires a different mindset.  One recent advertisement that I particularly like is the one my company Microsoft did with Federated media called Exec Tweets. Basically,  they aggregated biz exec tweets into a Microsoft branded background. Useful, not interrupting and excellently done upholding the brand’s integrity.

I wonder why more companies are not exploring these type of branded experiences with their media. Perhaps its fear of challenging the status quo or maybe its just ignorance to these models. When will we learn by raising your hand the highest you are not always getting the teacher’s attention in a good way?