Hasta La Creative!

I’ve got too many Firefox tabs open, each waiting to be blogged about at just the right time. Well, I need to restart the browser, so here’s everything at once.

– I’ve been looking for self-help books published during the first dot-com era. Drop a comment if you have an interesting one in mind. Here’s one with a funny cover on e-Branding (love the “e-“) from 2000.

– Dropclock, a really cool screensaver (video below) with Helvetica numerals falling in water in slo-mo.

– Polaroid has come up with a portable instant photo printer to bring us back the beloved functionality of the classic camera.

– How about computer-generated books? Here’s a story about a professor who has his computers scrape and digest content from the Net and spit it out as books. Here’s one out of some 200,000 created to date.

Out of curiosity, I went through Amazon’s bestseller list for the business category and plucked out all books related to advertising:

• Authenticity: What Consumers Really Want
• Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die
• How to Win Friends & Influence People
• Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions
• Meatball Sundae: Is Your Marketing out of Sync?
• Presentation Zen: Simple Ideas on Presentation Design and Delivery
• Guerrilla Marketing
• Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion

It’s amazing how Dale Carnegie’s self-help How To Win Friends book is still on the top of the list (120th sales rank overall) after so many years. It is a great book, too; one of the few that I keep re-reading to discover new ideas. After Carnegie’s, a lot of the recently published books seem rather derivative or reduntant.

The Psychology of Persuasion and Made to Stick should be fun to compare — the seem to cover similar grounds. I’m really looking forward to getting my hands on Predictably Irrational written by a professor at Sloan. It is also #1 on the bestseller list right now.

Act like you’re shopping: a map of public restrooms in Boston and around the world at safe2pee.org.

On the one hand, Boston’s frequent bathroom visitors want to legislate access to retail-based restrooms: “Patients suffering from intestinal disorders urged lawmakers yesterday to pass a bill requiring private businesses to open up their bathrooms to people during medical emergencies or face a fine of $100.” (Metro).

On the other hand, Westminster’s (that’s in the center of London) city council created a system where people with the urge send a “toilet” text message and get locations of the nearest facilities sent to their cell phones. “Stores started signing up almost immediately, according to councilor Alan Bradley. And, once through the doors, there is every likelihood that the potential customer will relax and become an actual customer.” (Retail Wire via Store Media News).

Of course, Charmin bathrooms show just how appreciated a good branded bathroom at the right time could be. And I think it was Paco Underhill in Why We Buy who suggested that bathrooms in supermarkets can be used to sample relevant products from the suppliers — paper towels, soap, toilet paper, towels, napkins, perhaps also combs or mirrors.

If you are interested in bathroom (re)design for your company or a client, take a look at Public Toilet Design.

Public Toilet Design: From Hotels, Bars, Restaurants, Civic Buildings and Businesses Worldwide

Paperspine runs on a model similar to Netflix’s, but for books. For a monthly cost of $9.95 and up + postage, you can get two or more books out at a time. Their collection isn’t huge — 150,000 books — but they do have a few books on advertising that I’ve been meaning to read forever, like the Confessions of the Advertising Man, and more good fiction than I’ll ever have time for. Don’t know if they have this entire social recommendation thing figured out, but it’s a great idea for anyone who moves a lot and hates accumulating stuff. There’s also Booksfree.com, a competing service with similar plans.