The Friday Thing #687

Yes, that was a lot of words last week….all in the quest to suggest fewer words. Well, plainer words I suppose…

The Friday Thing #687 is a collection of things that have piled up on my “FT list” over the last few weeks. I’ll start with storytelling as it’s sort of my job and I spend a lot of time thinking about it. In fact, just this morning I was recording a short video sharing my philosophy on storytelling. In short, I think stories matter because they capture people’s imagination in an era when our attention is under attack. We’re bombarded with information and data in our digitally mediated world – much of which is ephemeral. I mean, there is a reason Snapchat and TikTok are huge….because they’re ephemeral and often not memorable for more than a few moments. But stories stick with us – they’re shared, retold, embellished and pass through the ages. Even with stories though, you need to find the right moment to capture someone’s attention. You can share a story in email but if it’s buried among 1200 other emails, it may never get the attention it deserves. Which is why a few years ago, we decided to use coffee cups as storytelling devices at Microsoft. The story goes like this:

 A small group were trying to work out a good way to help spread the message of Growth Mindset at Microsoft. A concept we knew would initially be met with some cynicism. This group were stood in one of our coffee break rooms and noticed the standard, paper, white coffee cup – adorned with a small, Microsoft logo. Hmmm….could the 2 minute visit to the coffee break room be a moment in which there was room to interrupt and offer a story? Could this humble cup be the most unused communications devices in our company? Maybe. So we set about creating a series of branded coffee cups that became known as our ‘luminaries’ series. The cups had illustrations of famous people such as Coco Chanel, Sir Ken Robinson, Maya Angelou, Mahatma Gandhi and others. Each illustration was paired with a quote from said luminary that championed a growth mindset. And finally, each cup had a URL to an internal site where one could learn more about Growth Mindset.

We had the cups printed and distributed to coffee break rooms across our Redmond campus. Hundreds of thousands of cups. And then we waited. And waited. Traffic slowly started to come to the site….and then, the image below showed up – on Instagram. People were not only using the cups, they were collecting them, building towers with them, taking photos of them, and sharing them on Instagram and Twitter with the hashtag #microsoftlife. At that point, we knew we’d captured the imagination. Now, I will confess that these short quotes on these cups are not in themselves stories – but the cup tells a story. The cups captured the imagination. They compelled people to take an action. That’s what stories do. 

….which is why I am now eager to travel Sydney to buy a cup of coffee. From a coffee shop called Story. Because they’re using a similar technique and supercharging it to be at the heart of their humble coffee shop. The fact that I heard about this shop from 7700 miles away and they don’t even have a website speaks volumes. Their story has traveled because they’ve built great ‘social objects’ as my friend Hugh calls them. From the coffee cups to the napkins, the receipt and the coffee beans they sell. Everything tells a story, often with a wink and a smile. Click the link or image below to see all of their work and the stories in detail. 

And now, a few other quick things to share this week. First up is a quick bit of education I enjoyed from The Atlantic this week about why vaccines are given in the upper arm. 

….and finally, my favourite new playlist of the week. LEGO White Noise. No, I am not kidding this is a real thing and it’s strangely VERY satisfying. Here is how LEGO explains it – “Each LEGO element makes a unique noise, which is why designers experimented with over 10,000 in their quest for the perfect soothing sounds. The result is a soundscape that includes tracks such as ‘It All Clicks’ which perfectly captures the joyous sound of two LEGO elements joining together, and ‘The Waterfall’ created by pouring thousands of LEGO bricks on top of each other.” Trust me, you are going to love it. Or hate it. 

That’s all for this week. Kudos to Dawn for all the coffee cups. And Pip/Tash…..please visit Lane Cove and collect some stories for me ??

 Cheers and Happy Lunar New Year.

 -Steve

 p.s.: You know that saying about not picking a battle with someone who buys ink by the barrel? Here’s another - never try to compete with Starbucks for cup inventory during the ‘holiday season’.