We've got a busy week at DLB this week, so in lieu of my standard, more substantive Monday post, I thought I'd share a visual lesson from one of our perennial favorites, Paul Arden.

The "More Shirt-Sleeve than Pin-Stripe" page from Paul Arden's Whatever You Think Think the Opposite

Failure seems to surround us these days: the failure of the stock market; the banking industry; the automakers. On a personal scale, we might feel the pain of our lost retirements, jobs, and businesses. Even if we’re not technically in a depression, it’s certainly a depressing set of circumstances.

Why not be proactive, even optimistic, then? Rather than drowning in fear and shame over our defeats (or in anticipation of future defeats), we should remember the potential upsides to failure.

Fail confidently.

Failing is essential. Science is all about getting it wrong (at first). Most experiments don’t work at all. But those failures are necessary to arrive at the right answer. Ditto evolution. Failures of individuals and species result in adaptation and fitness to the environment. It’s a form of cognitive bias that we dwell upon the success stories without considering the contribution of messing up along the way.

In our lives, failure is a great teacher. Better than success most of the time. You're more likely to remember the questions you got wrong on a test than those you got right. Make a bad choice and suffer for it and you are less likely to make the same mistake again.

Sometimes we don’t take the hint that failure gives us. We blame bad luck or circumstances. Or worse, we stop trying. If we take responsibility and try again, every failure is an opportunity to discover something about yourself, your product, your company. Who knows? Maybe you're in the wrong business?

I am reminded of Mark Fenske’s missive Maybe You Suck.

Maybe advertising is your calling.
You should find that out.
…
Or, maybe you suck.
Equally important to discover.

Rather than hide or stigmatize failure, we ought to be honest about it. We should embrace it.

Homework: Read Paul Arden’s Whatever You Think, Think the Opposite. It’s practically a whole book on the topic.

Paul Arden says: "What is a good idea? One that happens is. If it doesn't, it isn't."

Is this egg drop a failure, or a success? (via xkcd)

Paul Arden taught us that one of the most effective tactics in advertising is to think the opposite. Unfortunately, he didn’t talk much about what takes to pull it off successfully.

In this respect, I find the lessons of comedy instructive. Comedy is built upon a foundation of doing the opposite of what people expect.

This is not to suggest that Steve Martin's humor is cheap. He's pictured here to illustrate what it would look like having an arrow in your head.

Stick an arrow in your head. Right away, you probably look foolish. People will laugh. The joke is on you, but at least you’ve got their attention. This kind of humor is cheap, but it works. All it takes is a little bit of courage.

Then there’s another kind of humor. Humor that is not merely absurd, but actually changes one's perspective. It's risky, but if it is successful, the comedian causes the audience to join him in thinking the opposite.

A recent example of this is Norm MacDonald’s set at the Comedy Central Roast of Bob Saget:

Click on the picture to be taken to a page with the full video. I can't embed the clip for some reason and this is the only version online that has the full, uncut set.

In this clip, MacDonald invokes the opposite of roast: being deliberately un-funny and G-rated. It’s awful, but he endures. As a result, he ends up having the best routine of the night.

Some people don’t quite get it. The jokes aren’t the point; the whole routine is the joke. In a delightfully subversive (practically meta) twist, MacDonald is roasting the roast.

Channeling Arden:

Do the opposite. Keep doing it. Do it for a long time. People will still laugh at you, but then they will get uncomfortable. The joke is on them. Eventually, people will stop laughing and start moving in your direction. This takes a heroic level of courage.

"What happens to a hamburger is what happens to the people."
- Mark Fenske, I Hate Capitalism, Branded Food & the Internet (ruminations from a drive across America).

A standard Fenske blog post takes the form of a letter to his students. Here is an example excerpted in its entirety (sans picture):

Q: What Does the Pilot of an Airliner Do if the Plane Suddenly Drops 2000 Feet?

A: Look up from his newspaper.

Dear Students,
You're not going to get any preparation for this in your classes.
But you should know it.
The key to success in big time advertising: learn to live out of a carryon.
Don't get into this business unless you truly love airplanes.
Merry Christmas.
The holiday dedicated to us not having to get what we deserve.

I quote his post here in verbatim, as I can't think of a more effective advertisement for his inimitable style. He's like Paul Arden, if Arden were a character in a Kafka story.

Among my favorite of his aphorisms: A Promise is an Infomercial, Maybe you suck, and this image, from It's February. Time to let Mr. Wacko in:

His blog is markfenske.com.

Adaptive Path wrote a nice post a while ago answering a question they had been asked by a client. The client, showing uncommon wisdom, asked them "how they might make the most of [their - the client and AP's] design engagement."

This is a sort narcotic story for designers (or at least myself), who, qua Shirky's arrogant designer, fantasize about a world where clients ask us how they could make the most of our time. Unfortunately, it's a rare occasion when a client is going to ask you a question like that, much less be capable of hearing and internalizing the answer.

In the remainder of situations, unfortunately, our interactions with clients are going to be influenced by, if not symptomatic of, internal disorganization, a lack of project clarity, monetary shenanigans, or any combination of the three. This means more often than not, being a design professional means putting our ability to be humble to the test.

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