cube grenades

[Update: Essen­tial Rea­ding– “Work With Hugh: Everything You Always Wan­ted To Know About “Cube Gre­na­des’ But Were Afraid To Ask.”]

Above is a photo that one of my friends on Twit­ter sent me. He basi­cally down­loa­ded one of my car­toons off my blog, prin­ted it out, and stuck it outside his cube at work, for other peo­ple to see, hope­fully to com­ment on, and hope­fully, to start a con­ver­sa­tion.
This, I believe, is where my car­toons work the best– “Cube Gre­na­des”- small objects that you “throw” in there in order to cause some damage– to start a con­ver­sa­tion, to spread an idea etc.

[The Blue Mons­ter]
The Mic­ro­soft Blue Mons­ter is pro­bably my best-known Cube Gre­nade, which is why I made it into a limi­ted edi­tion print even­tually.

Seth Godin first put his Pur­ple Cow book into a pur­ple milk car­ton for the same rea­son– he gues­sed [quite rightly, as it tur­ned out] that peo­ple would see the car­ton on somebody’s desk, inquire about it, and a con­ver­sa­tion about the mar­ke­ting ideas con­tai­ned in the book would be star­ted.

[The Pur­ple Cow print]
And the Pur­ple Cow print was desig­ned the same way. OK, it might be a bit big to dis­play in a cube– you need a lot of wall space for this one– but the idea is the same– Con­ver­sa­tions that hap­pen around the object are more inte­res­ting than the actual object itself.
“Cube Gre­na­des”. Exactly. Car­toons desig­ned to affect change as “Social Objects”. Exactly.
[Check out some of my limi­ted edi­tion prints over at gapingvoidgallery.com.]

[Update:]

Since I pos­ted this “Cube Gre­na­des” idea yes­ter­day, I’ve been giving it A LOT of thought. Here are some notes:

[More “Cube Gre­na­des” in action. Click on image to enlarge etc.]
1. Like I said, my car­toons work best when they’re used as “Cube Gre­na­des” i.e. small objects that you “throw” in there in order to cause some damage– to start a con­ver­sa­tion, to spread an idea etc. But other social objects can be used as well– pur­ple milk car­tons, home­made coo­kies, funky mou­se­pads, rub­ber toys, news­pa­per clip­pings etc. It’s the peo­ple that mat­ter, not the object they socia­lize around. I don’t claim to have a mono­poly.
2. Repeat After Me: Cube Gre­na­des are Social Objects. Cube Gre­na­des are Social Objects. Cube Gre­na­des are Social Objects…
3. All big change in com­pa­nies come from the peo­ple in the trenches, who do the actual day-to-day work. To change their beha­vior, you have to change the way they inte­ract. Peo­ple inte­ract around social objects. Change the social objects, and you change the com­pany.
4. My friend, Mark Earls once told me a story about a friend of his. The friend pla­yed a key role in the mas­si­vely suc­cess­ful cor­po­rate tur­na­round recently under­ta­ken by McDonald’s.
His friend told him, “We knew we were scre­wed, NOT when the nutri­tion and green issues star­ted hit­ting the news­pa­pers, but by the sim­ple fact that our staff on the floor just weren’t clea­ning the tables and the bath­rooms like they used to. We knew THEN that our peo­ple had lost faith in our com­pany.“
What social objects were peo­ple using, both during the company’s dec­line and during its tur­na­round? What cube gre­na­des were being thrown about, both before and after? I bet you they weren’t the same.
5. Yes, I am fully aware that your cus­to­mers are paying for the qua­lity of the pro­ducts and ser­vi­ces your busi­ness pro­vi­des, not for the qua­lity of the cube gre­na­des flying around your cor­po­rate head­quar­ters. But they are all rela­ted. Everything of value that your busi­ness crea­tes is the pro­duct of a already-existing social dyna­mic. Busi­nes­ses are peo­ple, not machi­nes. And peo­ple socia­lize around objects.
6. An Open Let­ter to Ad Agen­cies: Guys, you are NOT selling mes­sa­ges any­more. You are selling social objects. The work that you create will affect the cube gre­na­des and social objects, that your clients and their cus­to­mers use to inte­ract with each other.

[More Cube Gre­na­des. “I use them as covers for my bin­ders strewn about my desk, to start con­ver­sa­tions”, says the per­son who e-mailed me the photo. Click on image to enlarge etc.]
7. You see a guy wal­king out of an Apple store, loo­king all exci­ted about his new Apple com­pu­ter he’s carr­ying under his arm? Why is he so exci­ted? Sure, he just got him­self a nice-looking piece of kit, but what REALLY exci­tes him is all of the COOL, DISRUPTIVE STUFF he’s going to MAKE with his new machine. Videos, music mixes, wha­te­ver. For his FRIENDS and his PEERS. Again, it’s the SOCIAL that makes it inte­res­ting. Apple makes cube gre­na­des, just like the ad agen­cies. Just like you do.
8. Peo­ple down­load my car­toons and stuck them on their walls by the THOUSANDS. A much sma­ller num­ber spend money to buy the more expen­sive ver­sions i.e. my prints. But the idea is the same i.e. a way for peo­ple to inte­ract. As I’m fond of saying: The con­ver­sa­tions AROUND the object are FAR more inte­res­ting than the object itself. And what is true for me is true of your pro­duct, as well. “Peo­ple Mat­ter. Objects don’t.” Exactly.
9. So when do I start char­ging? You can down­load my stuff for free, so why should you buy a print? Who says you should? I’m gues­sing that if one of my car­toons is mea­ning­ful enough to you, you’ll get tired of seeing it prin­ted on the office laser­prin­ter paper in low-resolution, get­ting all worn and torn, with the Scotch tape get­ting all yellow and crinkly. If you like the dra­wing enough, even­tually you’ll want to upgrade. The same way, back in college, that I would upgrade to vinyl or CDs, once the cheap and nasty cas­sette tape of my favo­rite band star­ted get­ting all fuzzy and worn out. The same way I gladly paid $20 to hear the band play live, rather than hear the same songs on the cas­sette. “Mea­ning Sca­les”. The more cube gre­na­des I throw out there, the more mea­ning­ful inte­rac­tion I create for other peo­ple, the more peo­ple will want to pay for it even­tually. If I loc­ked it all down as a cash-only tran­sac­tion, it would all die a horri­ble death over­night.

[Privately-commissioned “Cube Gre­na­des” i.e. limi­ted edi­tion, fine art prints that I did for my Bra­zi­lian client, agen­ciac­lick. Click on image to enlarge etc.]
10. Pro­bably the job I’m most proud of recently, is when I was hired by a Bra­zi­lian ad agency, agen­ciac­lick to create a pri­va­tely com­mis­sio­ned edi­tion of cube gre­na­des i.e. fine art prints. See photo above.
They didn’t want these prints for them­sel­ves; they wan­ted to give these out to their clients, as con­ver­sa­tion star­ters.
“All brands are open brands? Huh? What does that mean? Do you agree with it? Why? What does “open” actually mean? What does “brand” actually mean…?” You get the pic­ture. The same idea that made The Blue Mons­ter so suc­cess­ful. Again, it wasn’t about the mes­sage, the object. It was all about the social.

11. My long-term goal is to make more privately-commissioned “Cube Gre­na­des” for more clients like agen­ciac­lick. It was a won­der­ful wor­king expe­rience for me, and I want to spend more time in that busi­ness. If you find this idea inte­res­ting, please feel free to e-mail me at gapingvoid@gmail.com. Thanks.

[Update:]

To keep everything on the same page, I copied & pas­ted the entire “Ad Agency Pitch” from May 30th below. Thanks.

[Sig­ning the agen­ciac­lick cube gre­nade a cou­ple of weeks ago…]
Over the last cou­ple of weeks I’ve been tal­king with various adver­ti­sing and PR folk about the Cube Gre­nade idea. Here are some notes:
1. In terms of the adver­ti­sing and PR indus­tries, the Cube Gre­nade is basi­cally con­cei­ved as a rela­ti­vely cheap and effec­tive Social Object to arti­cu­late the Purpose-Idea of a brand or com­pany.
2. If the agency has an idea they REALLY want to sell to their client, they might have bet­ter luck if they first arti­cu­late the idea via a Cube Gre­nade desig­ned by me, rather than the tra­di­tio­nal “agency pitch” model. The agency’s idea is somehow arti­cu­la­ted as a com­mis­sio­ned print, the print is given out as a gift, to peo­ple within the rele­vant cons­ti­tuency. The print hangs on a wall, other peo­ple see it, and if the idea is any good then peo­ple will start tal­king about it. That con­ver­sa­tion will lead to other con­ver­sa­tions. If the idea is any good, other ideas [and oppor­tu­ni­ties] will be spaw­ned from it.
3. The Cube Gre­nade is not a glo­ri­fied adver­ti­sing pos­ter. I’m not pri­ma­rily inte­res­ted in why peo­ple should buy the client’s pro­duct per se. I’m far more inte­res­ted in the human dyna­mic, the collec­tive human drive that makes the client’s peo­ple want to get up in the mor­ning and go to work. That is where THE REAL VALUE is crea­ted.
4. Because the Cube Gre­nade is given as a gift– an act of love, as it were– AND NOT A DELIVERABLE WANTING TO BE SOLD, it will break through the cul­tu­ral barriers of the client com­pany a lot more cheaply and quickly than your stan­dard “Big Adver­ti­sing Idea”. The game here is not about “Selling An Ad”, the point is to make the client more alive, more human, more aware of their own human poten­tial. Again, this is where is where THE REAL VALUE for the client-agency rela­tionship is crea­ted.
5. Whether the Cube Gre­nade “works” or not in the end, both agency and client will find out if the thought behind it works A LOT soo­ner and inex­pen­si­vely than exe­cu­ting your ave­rage ad cam­paign. Like all com­mu­ni­ca­tion, the idea needs to RISK FAILURE if it’s ever to be any good. “Fail cheap, fail often”, as the great ven­ture capi­ta­list, Esther Dyson likes to say.
6. As I’ve said before to the ad agen­cies: “Guys, you are NOT selling mes­sa­ges any­more. You are selling Social Objects. The work that you create will affect the Cube Gre­na­des and Social Objects, that your clients and their cus­to­mers use to inte­ract with each other.” This is why I’m tal­king to adver­ti­sing folk. At the end of the day, we’re both in the same busi­ness.
7. To get more back­ground rea­ding, please visit my Cube Gre­nade archive here. You might also want to check out “The Hugh­train” to get a bet­ter unders­tan­ding of where my ideas are coming from.
8. As always, if this idea is of any inte­rest to you, please feel free to con­tact me at gapingvoid@gmail.com. Or if you know someone in the adver­ti­sing industry, please send them along to this page [Here’s the link]. Thanks!