• In A Down Economy, Spam Sales Are Up
  Sales up for spam, pancake mix, instant potatoes, frozen pot pies and side dishes, rice, beans, Kraft macaroni and cheese, Jell-O, Kool-Aid, Velveeta. Sales down for paper towels, socks, shoe polish, women’s fragrances. Interesting, I guess, but why do they imply a comparison between foods on the upside and other items on the downside?

• User Research Friday review by Lane Halley @ Cooper
  “Should it be before or after design? Ideally, Steve recommends research and design, as a loop, done continuously.”
• User Research Friday review by Celeste Roschuni
  “Steve Portigal…This talk wound up going around in circles just a tad.”

• A rather wonky discussion of design processes
  Jared Spool proposes the following hierarchy:
  0) Unintended Design
  1) Self Design
  2) Genius Desig
  3) Activity-Centered Design
  4) User-Centered Design If you enjoyed my recent interactions column (available upon request) Some Different Approaches to Making Stuff, the discussion linked here might be of interest.
• Brandweek on Design Thinking
  Which is now apparently referred to as DT. Yuck! This article most clearly presents what Design Thinking refers to: the same stuff that design firms and creative agencies and innovation teams and the rest of us have been doing for a long time now: observe, ideate, implement. The examples presented here could be the same examples used in all the classic business press articles about ethnography over the last 10 years. Only now it’s DT. At least they quote Tim Lebrecht from frogdesign saying the same thing; that there’s nothing new here. The article makes a strong case for ethnographic research up until the point that they highlight how Web 2.0 lets customers document their own lives easily. So, umm, how does Brandweek use the term? Anything that gets you a flavor of customer lives, I guess. Hooray for the further championing of this approach. Boo for the lack of clarity and the buzzword boosterism.

Yesterday’s NYT Magazine article about the check cashing industry offered an insightful anecdote about the sometimes counter-intuitive tradeoffs people make:

I met Oscar Enriquez leaving the Nix branch in Highland Park, a working-class area near Pasadena. He was skinny and just shy of middle age, with a quick grin and tattoos down his sunburned forearms. Enriquez worked in the neighborhood as a street cleaner; he picks up trash and scrubs graffiti. The job paid about $425 a week, he told me, a good chunk of which he wired to his wife, who has been living in Mississippi and taking care of her ailing mother. He told me he tries to avoid debt whenever he can. “If I don’t have money, I wait until the next payday,” he said firmly. “That’s it.” But he pays a fee to cash his paychecks. Then he pays even more to send a Moneygram to his wife. There’s a bank, just down the street, that could do those things free. I asked him why he didn’t take his business there.

“Oh, man, I won’t work with them no more,” Enriquez explained. “They’re not truthful.”

Two years ago, Enriquez opened his first bank account. “I said I wanted to start a savings account,” he said. He thought the account was free, until he got his first statement. “They were charging me for checks!” he said, still upset about it. “I didn’t want checks. They’re always charging you fees. For a while, I didn’t use the bank at all, they charged like $100 in fees.” Even studying his monthly statements, he couldn’t always figure out why they charged what they charged. Nix is almost certainly more expensive, but it’s also more predictable and transparent, and that was a big deal to Enriquez.

Banks (and phone companies, cable companies, airlines, etc.) are institutions that are not easy to use. There’s a lot of fine print, arcane legalese, hidden fees, and a general lack of transparency. Here’s someone with a limited amount of income that makes the calculation and pays a significant amount of that limited income to avoid going through that. The relationship with the bank failed for Oscar, and he’s paying money to avoid dealing with them.

We normally think of the privileged as those who buy their way out of inconvenience and hassle, but really, it’s something we do at all income levels. It’s just that our experiences frame what is and isn’t a hassle. If we’re middle class then we expect to be jerked around by Big Business because we have all our lives-as-consumers. If we’re lower class and we haven’t had those experiences, it may be less likely that we’ll tolerate them.

• “Is It Time to Have a Money Talk, Child to Parent?” or has the NYT become Parade Magazine?
  So this week, please consider starting an intergenerational conversation about money, perhaps in writing, which might reduce the risk of a knee-jerk response that leads to an argument. I’ve suggested an approach below, for an e-mail message or letter to a parent and a possible reply, though you could easily tweak it if you’re initiating the chat with your child.
• Interesting Wall St. ritual - “deal toys” - and the impact of the financial crisis on the makers of those toys
  Of all the sad Wall Street scenes—Lehman employees shuffling out of their offices in shorts, “reduction in force” victims commiserating over drinks on Stone Street—one of the saddest might be the headquarters of Icon Recognition, a company that makes deal toys, the desktop trophies (sometimes called “deal gifts” or “tombstones”) collected by a lot of finance types to commemorate deals.

• Wired To Care: Jump has a book
  I didn’t know (Thanks JMcM for the tip) - looking forward to seeing it.

• REACH: The Global Design Research Network
  We’ve partnered with a number of other small firms around the world to pull this network together, enabling us to easily take on engagements that address multiple markets.
• :CueCat received a patent 8 years after it failed
  HERE’S MY BIGGEST GRIPE about technology: Unnecessary devices that greedy corporations try and pass off on the public as cutting edge convenience. So it is with a silly little thing called Cue Cat, a sort of mini-scanner that a bunch of big national magazines, media companies, and major corporations have been giving away to anyone they can talk in to taking one. Boosters include Radio Shack, Coca-Cola Co., Young & Rubicam Inc. advertising, NBC Inc., Belo Corp., and E.W. Scripps Co.

Today you can go and buy Age of Conversation 2, a sequel to the incredibly successful Age of Conversation. This is a book written collaboratively by 237 (or so) people, including yours truly, each of whom blog (although some of us reject the title blogger), and most of whom work in some capacity connected to marketing (although some of us might not identify ourselves that way).

The effort is also a fundraiser for Variety.

And just look at all these authors!
Adrian Ho, Aki Spicer, Alex Henault, Amy Jussel, Andrew Odom, Andy Nulman, Andy Sernovitz, Andy Whitlock, Angela Maiers, Ann Handley, Anna Farmery, Armando Alves, Arun Rajagopal, Asi Sharabi, Becky Carroll, Becky McCray, Bernie Scheffler, Bill Gammell, Bob LeDrew, Brad Shorr, Brandon Murphy, Branislav Peric, Brent Dixon, Brett Macfarlane, Brian Reich, C.C. Chapman, Cam Beck, Casper Willer, Cathleen Rittereiser, Cathryn Hrudicka, Cedric Giorgi, Charles Sipe, Chris Kieff, Chris Cree, Chris Wilson, Christina Kerley (CK), C.B. Whittemore, Chris Brown, Connie Bensen, Connie Reece, Corentin Monot, Craig Wilson, Daniel Honigman, Dan Schawbel, Dan Sitter, Daria Radota Rasmussen, Darren Herman, Dave Davison, David Armano, David Berkowitz, David Koopmans, David Meerman Scott, David Petherick, David Reich, David Weinfeld, David Zinger, Deanna Gernert, Deborah Brown, Dennis Price, Derrick Kwa, Dino Demopoulos, Doug Haslam, Doug Meacham, Doug Mitchell, Douglas Hanna, Douglas Karr, Drew McLellan, Duane Brown, Dustin Jacobsen, Dylan Viner, Ed Brenegar, Ed Cotton, Efrain Mendicuti, Ellen Weber, Eric Peterson, Eric Nehrlich, Ernie Mosteller, Faris Yakob, Fernanda Romano, Francis Anderson, Gareth Kay, Gary Cohen, Gaurav Mishra, Gavin Heaton, Geert Desager, George Jenkins, G. Kofi Annan, G.L. Hoffman, Gianandrea Facchini, Gordon Whitehead, Greg Verdino, Gretel Going & Kathryn Fleming, Hillel Cooperman, Hugh Weber, J. Erik Potter, James Gordon-Macintosh, Jamey Shiels, Jasmin Tragas, Jason Oke, Jay Ehret, Jeanne Dininni, Jeff De Cagna, Jeff Gwynne & Todd Cabral, Jeff Noble, Jeff Wallace, Jennifer Warwick, Jenny Meade, Jeremy Fuksa, Jeremy Heilpern, Jeroen Verkroost, Jessica Hagy, Joanna Young, Joe Pulizzi, John Herrington, John Moore, John Rosen, John Todor, Jon Burg, Jon Swanson, Jonathan Trenn, Jordan Behan, Julie Fleischer, Justin Foster, Karl Turley, Kate Trgovac, Katie Chatfield, Katie Konrath, Kenny Lauer, Keri Willenborg, Kevin Jessop, Kristin Gorski, Lewis Green, Lois Kelly, Lori Magno, Louise Manning, Luc Debaisieux, Mario Vellandi, Mark Blair, Mark Earls, Mark Goren, Mark Hancock, Mark Lewis, Mark McGuinness, Matt Dickman, Matt J. McDonald, Matt Moore, Michael Karnjanaprakorn, Michelle Lamar, Mike Arauz, Mike McAllen, Mike Sansone, Mitch Joel, Neil Perkin, Nettie Hartsock, Nick Rice, Oleksandr Skorokhod, Ozgur Alaz, Paul Chaney, Paul Hebert, Paul Isakson, Paul McEnany, Paul Tedesco, Paul Williams, Pet Campbell, Pete Deutschman, Peter Corbett, Phil Gerbyshak, Phil Lewis, Phil Soden, Piet Wulleman, Rachel Steiner, Sreeraj Menon, Reginald Adkins, Richard Huntington, Rishi Desai, Robert Hruzek, Roberta Rosenberg, Robyn McMaster, Roger von Oech, Rohit Bhargava, Ron Shevlin, Ryan Barrett, Ryan Karpeles, Ryan Rasmussen, Sam Huleatt, Sandy Renshaw, Scott Goodson, Scott Monty, Scott Townsend, Scott White, Sean Howard, Sean Scott, Seni Thomas, Seth Gaffney, Shama Hyder, Sheila Scarborough, Sheryl Steadman, Simon Payn, Sonia Simone, Spike Jones, Stanley Johnson, Stephen Collins, Stephen Landau, Stephen Smith, Steve Bannister, Steve Hardy, Steve Portigal, Steve Roesler, Steven Verbruggen, Steve Woodruff, Sue Edworthy, Susan Bird, Susan Gunelius, Susan Heywood, Tammy Lenski, Terrell Meek, Thomas Clifford, Thomas Knoll, Tim Brunelle, Tim Connor, Tim Jackson, Tim Mannveille, Tim Tyler, Timothy Johnson, Tinu Abayomi-Paul, Toby Bloomberg, Todd Andrlik, Troy Rutter, Troy Worman, Uwe Hook, Valeria Maltoni, Vandana Ahuja, Vanessa DiMauro, Veronique Rabuteau, Wayne Buckhanan, William Azaroff, Yves Van Landeghem, James G. Lindberg