dumb luck: how happy accidents can spark creative genius

8/14/2019 Dumb Luck: How Happy Accidents Can Spark Creative Genius

1/5 2008 Razorfish, Inc. All rights reserved. Razorfish is a registered trademark. Dumb Luck1

Dumb LuckHow Happy Accidents Can Spark Creative GeniusDavid Deal, August 2007

About 30 years ago, an unknown movie director named Steven Spielberg was in the throes ofdespair. He had been entrusted with filming a best selling novel about a shark that terrorizes atown in Martha's Vineyard, and everything was going wrong. The movie was over budget, theon-location shooting was a hassle, and, worst of all, the mechanical shark built expressly for themovie, and crucial to the plot, kept breaking.

Faced with the prospect of shutting down production (which would have sabotaged his fledglingcareer), Spielberg decided to shoot the movie differently. Instead of relying on the presence ofthe shark to provide shock value, he created tension by suggesting the possibility of the sharksappearance in many scenes.

You know the rest of the story: his project, Jaws, was one of the most commercially successfulfilms of its time, and influenced the future of movies. And critics agree that Jaws was scarierbecause it only hinted at the shark in most scenes, leaving it up to the viewers imagination toconstruct more terrifying images.

Jawsbecame a better movie as the result of a happy accident. But how do these moments ofserendipity come about? Can we actually learn something from them, or is it just a matter of

accepting dumb luck?

Lets see what a few great artists and athletes can teach us.

When Bad Things Happen to Good People

Sometimes, a little conflict and tension can produce brilliant results. We just dont always knowit at the time, as Paul McCartney can attest.

In 1973, McCartneys life was in turmoil. His band, Wings, was falling apart (two band membershad resigned suddenly), and recording in Nigeria for his new album was a nightmare. Heendured being robbed at knife point -- and losing his master song tapes to the thieves --primitive recording conditions, and oppressive weather. Not only was he forced to re-record

songs from memory, he had to scrape together musicians to fill in for his ex-band mates. At onepoint while recording, driven to the extreme by the Nigerian heat and humidity, he suffered aphysical collapse. But, he persevered and created one of the undeniable masterpieces of hiscareer, Band on the Run, which went multi-platinum and spawned three Top 10 singles.

Cary Grant learned the lesson of conflict when filming screwball comedy The Awful Truthin1937. At the time, his career was in a rut. He consistently chose one-dimensional roles thatdemanded little of his acting skills and consigned him to minor notice. On top of that, filming


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The Awful Truthwas a nightmare because Grant clashed with the director, Leo McCarey. Grantwanted to work from a finished script; McCarey used an improvisational style. Grant wanted toportray his character with sensitivity and subtlety; McCarey demanded a more physical type ofhumor appropriate for a screwball comedy. Eventually, Grant tried to quit the film. The studiotold him to stop whining and get back to work. The result? In the words of Grant biographerMarc Eliot, the performance McCarey got from Grant was nothing short of astonishing. As itturns out, Grants performance somehow meshed his understated style with McCareys physicalapproach to create a leading man who possessed both physical grace and emotional depth.And, some of his improvised lines, which Grant loathed, turned out to be the best in the movie.The Awful Truth, a critical and financial smash, galvanized Grants career. As Eliot points out,the tension and conflict he experienced while making the movie contributed to Grants portrayalof a more fully realized leading man.

This is not to suggest that you should encourage dissension and conflict when youre at worktrying to develop a website or strategize on a new digital marketing campaign. But, on the otherhand, dont be afraid of tension if it arises. In fact, there may be a way to make tension work foryou instead of against you. Disagreements over ideas and approaches can be good. Tensionproduces friction, which can ignite a firestorm of creativity.

The Razorfish Corporate Marketing team has certainly learned this lesson first hand helpingexecutives develop thought leadership and presentations over the past several years.Invariably the most inspiring presentations have challenged the collaborators to reach beyondour comfort zones and ask thorny questions for which we dont always have answers. Althoughchallenging our own ideas can lead to an inspiring outcome, the journey is not always enjoyable.Why? Because pushing our boundaries sometimes creates tension and disagreement.

But, the tension produces the progress.

Take It to the Limit

Johnny Cash taught us that a limitation can set you free.

In 1955, Cash was an appliance salesman recording music in his spare time with a guitaristnamed Luther Perkins and bass player named Marshall Grant. Together, they recorded a song,Hey Porter, which combined a forceful bass, a jangling lead guitar, and heartfelt vocal thatlaunched one of the most storied careers in modern music. And yet, the song almost nevermade it out of the studio. As Grant relates in Johnny Cash: The Biography, all three musicianstried to add more polish and sophistication to the basic track. But they lacked the skills to do so

fortunately for Cash, because the enduring power of Hey Porter remains its spare guitarsound and power of Cashs voice, which complicated overdubs would have destroyed. As

Grant says to author Michael Streissguth, We couldnt change it. And Im just damn lucky andthankful that we couldnt. We werent musicians. We were just two mechanics and anappliance salesman.

Limitations can take many forms, such as a limited budget. Great designers figure out how touse the limitations to their advantage, as Joe Crump can attest. Crump, a Razorfish executivecreative director, remembers the time when his team was working under a tight deadline tolaunch a website and online advertisements for a consumer products company. With the


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deadline looming, the client was falling behind in the production of TV spots and photos ofmodels required for the online imagery.

As Crump puts it, We had a big fat lemon, and we had to make lemonade. The solution:create the website and campaign using striking silhouettes of the models, which formed thebasis of a viral campaign that actually worked better with the flat images. The result: the mostsuccessful product launch in the clients history.

Vice President and Technology Lead Ray Velez knows something about making lemonade outof a lemon. Many years ago, his team was designing a website with complicated contentmanagement requirements. Everything was moving along fine until the client moved up thedeadline to a date that seemed impossible to meet.

Velez remembers everyone on the team swallowing hard and then trying an experiment. Theteam did away with the traditional approach to Web site application development, which is tohave programmers wait for completed functionality and wireframe specifications beforedesigning code. Instead, to speed up the process, programmers quickly created "rough drafts"of the final design and then constantly revised the drafts as the development progressed. Theteam didnt know it at the time, but they were tapping into an emerging style of webdevelopment known as agile programming, which has since become a web design best practicefor projects that require rapid completion. Since then, Razorfish has applied agile programmingfor many clients over the years, including major brands like FranklinCovey. And publicationsranging from Forbes to InformationWeek have highlighted the growth of this industry-widephenomenon.

So what are we suggesting here that our clients should slash our budgets and acceleratedeadlines to spark ingenuity? Hardly. Great work comes at a price. But if an unavoidablesetback happens, get ready to improvise. Kick your imagination into overdrive.

A Massive Screw-up

October 12, 1971: the Pittsburgh Pirates were battling the Baltimore Orioles in the bottom of the7th inning of pivotal World Series Game 3. Two superb teams stocked with future Hall ofFamers like Roberto Clemente and Willie Stargell. Pirate First Baseman Bob Robertson was atthe plate against Oriole Ace Mike Cuellar with two men on base and the Pirates clinging to a 2-1lead. Third base coach Fank Oceak signaled for Robertson to bunt. But Robertson didntrecognize the sign, and instead he swung away at the next Cuellar pitch for a three-run homerun that gave the Pirates the game.

The miscommunication between Oceak and Robertson was a massive screw-up in the midst of

a do-or-die situation and were the Pirates ever glad. Aided by Robertsons home run, thePirates went on to win the World Series.

But was it simply dumb luck that Robertson's mistake turned into a home run? No. Talentedteams, whether in sports or business, turn screw-ups into success routinely because more oftenthan not, their mistakes are just the flip side of smart risk taking, regularly performed with theencouragement of a progressive coach. Companies like 3M encourage risk taking and acceptmistakes. Sometimes those mistakes turn into incredible innovations, the most famous beingthe creation of the Post-It Note, which resulted from a botched glue job. At Razorfish, were


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learning how to make mistakes that yield surprises and good ones. For instance, wevedeveloped innovation labs where we test different ways that consumers interact with emergingmedia, based on experiences working with consumers to observe their behavior as part of clientwork.

As Account Planner Andy Pimentel can attest, those client experiences dont always turn outhow you expect. Pimentel recalls a time when he was reviewing alternative web page designsfor a new online social media Web site with a test group of target end users, in this case, teen-aged girls.

We were reviewing rough layouts that contained simulated content and banner ads, Pimentalsays. All we wanted to know was whether the design was attractive. One girl thought theplaceholder ads were unattractive. I pointed out they were dummy ads that really had nomeaning because we wanted her to focus on the layout and content. I casually asked her whatkind of ads she would have chosen, meaning which type of ads shed prefer. Well, she perkedup.

You mean I get to choose my own advertising on this site? she asked, astonished. Asignificant portion of the focus group after that was spent exploring how the idea of choosingyour own ad might work and what it would mean. We could tell from the animated discussionthat we had an idea with legs.

As it turned out, the client, who was observing the miscommunication, was struck by the notionof consumers choosing their own ads. It was an idea that had been discussed but notimplemented due to the difficulties posed. How would such ads be served? How would theclient charge for them? But seeing the excitement of the respondents firsthand put the ideaback on the clients agenda. It made the client willing to create the infrastructure and salescapability to offer such a novel approach. So, the media site today indeed allows teen girls to

select ads that appear on their personal pages. All because of one casual miscommunication.

The experience goes to show that even the sterile, mistake-laden world of the focus groupfacility can yield happy mistakes if you are willing to work with them.

The next time youre in New York, check out our Living Lab, where were learning how to testideas like how the digital living room is evolving. We are about to conduct a TV-deprivationstudy in the Living Lab to see how people might act in a living room equipped with only theinternet for stimulus. We hope to make some amazing mistakes the kind that will spark ideas.Some of those ideas will lead to inspired client work. We will make plenty of mistakes along theway.

And, hopefully, well experience a little dumb luck of our own.


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About the Author

David Deal is the vice president of marketing forRazorfish, where his responsibilities include leading themarketing team and collaborating with the agencyssocial media experts to help Razorfish embrace SocialInfluence Marketing. David also writes a blog aboutmarketing and pop culture, Superhypeblog.com. Before

joining Razorfish, David was a marketing executive atinternet services firm Lante, and before that he foundedAndersen Consultings global industry analystprogram. David also worked as an editor in the bookpublishing industry and helped develop a book about

rock singer Jim Morrison. Davids personal passions are his family and teaching at hischurch. He holds a bachelor of science in journalism from the University of Illinois.

For More Information:

David DealRazorfish600 W. Fulton StreetChicago, Illinois [email protected]://www.twitter.com/davidjdeal

About Razorfish

Razorfish, formerly Avenue A | Razorfish, is one of the largest interactive marketing andtechnology companies in the world, and is also one of the largest buyers of digital advertisingspace. With a demonstrated commitment to innovation, Razorfish counsels its clients on how toleverage digital channels such as the Web, mobile devices, in-store technologies and otheremerging media to engage people, build brand loyalty and provide excellent customer service.The company is increasingly advising marketers on Social Influence Marketing, its approachfor employing social media and social influencers to achieve the marketing and business needsof an organization. Its award-winning client teams provide solutions through their strategiccounsel, digital advertising and content creation, media buying, analytics, technology and userexperience. Razorfish has offices in markets across the United States, and in Australia, China,France, Germany, Japan and the United Kingdom. Clients include Carnival Cruise Lines,MillerCoors, Levi's, McDonald's and Starwood Hotels. Visit www.razorfish.com for moreinformation.

Razorfish821 2nd Avenue, Suite 1800Seattle, WA 98104Phone: 206.816.8800Fax: 206.816.8808

dumb luck: how happy accidents can spark creative genius

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