http://www.cheskin.com/blog/perspectives/ en-us http://www.cheskin.com/blog/blog/archives/000897.html The New York Times recently predicted the beginning of the end of "American Idol." The writer confidently anticipated that, because voting for your favorite singer is so easy, it therefore has no meaning and would soon lose any value it may have. If only he were right. The idea that... Meaningful Experience Steve Diller 2007-03-01T17:49:13-08:00 http://www.cheskin.com/blog/blog/archives/000782.html When you try to re-imagine any practice, you generally have to re-purpose language. The reason for this is simple- all words have connotations and a history of usage that invariably reinforces earlier concepts. New ideas need new language to bring them to life. Take "meaning" in life. We view it... Meaningful Experience Steve Diller 2006-01-11T10:30:41-08:00 http://www.cheskin.com/blog/blog/archives/000769.html When you write a book, you pay a little more attention to what other people are writing. You also pay attention to the way their books are being promoted. We just received notice of a new book on "cult" brands that claiimed it was "the most original book on the... Positioning & Branding Steve Diller 2005-12-16T12:05:37-08:00 http://www.cheskin.com/blog/blog/archives/000763.html A friend recently emailed me to point out an apparent contradiction in "Making Meaning," the book I co-wrote that's out in late December, and a recent blog of mine. The blog, entitled "How Cheskin Destroyed Civilization as We Knew It," argued that Louis Cheskin came up with the idea for... Meaningful Experience Steve Diller 2005-11-30T17:14:26-08:00 http://www.cheskin.com/blog/blog/archives/000753.html One advantage in writing a book about meaningful experiences was the opportunities it provided to plumb the depths of Cheskin's history. It's a pretty illustrious history, with engagements that often had impacts far beyond what Louis Cheskin, our founder, might have anticipated. It also has implications for all of us... Innovation & Design Steve Diller 2005-10-26T17:00:22-08:00 http://www.cheskin.com/blog/blog/archives/000590.html As I've mentioned in an earlier entry (I think), I've been writing a book on the design of meaningful experiences with Nathan Shedroff and Darrel Rhea. We're at the point now where the book's largely written, and we're in discussions with a few select publishers. One of them has noted... Innovation & Design Steve Diller 2005-01-25T15:01:07-08:00 http://www.cheskin.com/blog/blog/archives/000470.html I had the dubious pleasure of some laser eye surgery last week. The design of the experience of eye enhancement has undoubtedly come a long way in the last few years. The Nob Hill boutique I went to, plush in a mid-century style, seems designed to simultaneously create feelings of... Innovation & Design Steve Diller 2004-08-10T11:00:10-08:00 http://www.cheskin.com/blog/blog/archives/000387.html I've been working on a book, in collaboration with Nathan Shedroff, on Designing Meaningful Experiences. The process of pulling our ideas together has been hugely exciting and stimulating. One key aspect of the work has involved trying to read everything I can get my hands on on design, meaning, and... Innovation & Design Steve Diller 2004-05-23T19:01:19-08:00 http://www.cheskin.com/blog/blog/archives/000339.html Just came back from an incredible week in Shanghai. The reconstruction of the city is arguably the most important urban design initiative since the rebuilding of Paris in the 1800s. Undeniably glamorous, the new Shanghai is consciously, centrally-designed, to project an image of the ultimate in internationalism. Architecture is about... Innovation & Design Steve Diller 2004-05-05T11:36:44-08:00 http://www.cheskin.com/blog/blog/archives/000246.html Thomas Friedman had an interesting column in the New York Times this morning about a dilemma Mexico is facing. When the country signed NAFTA, the leadership there may have assumed that they could take advantage of free trade with the US by offering low-wage manufacturing labor to multinationals. Now, however,... Steve Diller 2004-04-01T10:58:45-08:00 http://www.cheskin.com/blog/blog/archives/000121.html I had the privilege to be the keynote speaker at the ASTECH Conference in Vail, CO last week. ASTECH is a yearly get-together of no-nonsense newspaper executives concerned about the nuts and bolts of profitability. They're very smart people, being asked to do the impossible. As in much of post-bubble... Positioning & Branding Steve Diller 2003-09-02T09:43:29-08:00 http://www.cheskin.com/blog/blog/archives/000122.html Journalists despairing of ever attracting young adults to newspapers and magazines have been theorizing lately that one major problem is navigation. It's assumed that young people can't make sense of the organizing principle of newspapers, since they've supposedly been conditioned to look for the menu on websites. Is menu-driven navigation... Steve Diller 2003-08-04T09:45:30-08:00