iPlot

Maradona and Messi: A Complicated Tango

The New York Times calls the relationship between Argentina’s national coach and legendary player Diego Maradona and his star player Lionel Messi a “complicated tango,” but, hey, a tango it is! Just take a look at the breathtaking resemblance of these two famous goals and the synchronicity of the players’ movements (Maradona’s goal against England at the World Cup 1986 – still considered the best goal of all times – and Messi’s goal in a Primera Division game against Getafe in 2007).

“More Than a Club” or What Brands Can Learn from “Barca”

I’m nervous, seriously nervous. In a few hours, in the Olympic stadium in Rome, FC Barcelona (or “Barca,” as its supporters call it) will face Manchester United, the other soccer superpower, in the game of all games, the final of the UEFA Champions League, the most important club competition in Europe (and the world, for that matter). Both teams have already won two trophies this season (their national leagues and national cups respectively), and a victory in Rome would see either one clinch the “treble.” For Barca, it would be a historic accomplishment – no other Spanish soccer team has ever won all three possible titles in one season. That’s not the only superlative in the lead-up to the game: Messi, Eto'o, and Henry – Barca’s offensive trio – have scored more goals together this year than the entire squad of any other European club.

I’ll be watching the game at a resort near Santa Barbara, and it’ll be the end of journey for me, in many ways: I have been following Barca’s triumphant season leading to today’s final  in different cities all over the world on TV. I saw the team struggle against Lyon in an earlier round in a packed sports bar in Amsterdam; I bit my nails in a smelly pub in Austin when Barca remained goalless in the home tie against Chelsea; I took a day off from work in San Francisco to enjoy them trashing Bayern Munich 4-1; I was in Barcelona in a bar without any Euros but a kind bartender (the comfort of strangers) who even accepted a few lousy dollars for a beer that helped me make it through a dramatic away game; I followed games on the Internet live-ticker in Sonoma County in lack of TV; and I celebrated euphorically the decisive 1-1 goal in Chelsea in the semi-final with my best friend in Hamburg. After all these memorable moments, I realize that I am emotionally exhausted. There’s just enough sentiment left for today’s game. I will use it to cheer Barca to victory.

So I am a Barca fan, but you may wonder why in the world would an otherwise level-headed (I hope) German professional, living in San Francisco, be so crazy about a Catalan soccer team? Joan Laporta, FC Barcelona’s president, asked me exactly that question (more diplomatically phrased) when I met him briefly two years ago at an event at Stanford University, and I uttered something like “because Barca is more than a club.” I felt stupid and exposed as succumbing to the marketing formula the club had promoted for years: “Mes que un club.” But then I thought of that one remarkable moment in Bill Maher’s documentary “Religulous” in which he tries to make fun of the actor who plays Jesus in a Christian theme park in Florida. Not a difficult task, it seems, until that very actor asks him back, with great sincerity and earnestness: “So you think this is all made up and crazy talk. I get it. But what if you're wrong?” There’s a short pause, and Maher, the cynic, has just been disarmed. That’s exactly how I feel about my passion for Barca. Not that Barca is like a religion to me, but it is a matter of faith. It is something to believe in – the why doesn’t matter.

And yet, I could cite very good reasons for why Barca ought to be the favorite club of anyone who loves the “beautiful game.” In fact, Albert Schweitzer must have had Barca in mind when he coined his famous aphorism: “Do something wonderful, people may imitate it.” Much has been written about Barca’s aesthical  play and its underlying philosophy. Barca’s style is a showcase of sparkling creativity, but what one must not overlook is the enormous tactical discipline and the intelligent organization that serve as the platform for the magic moments of Messi, Eto’o, Henry et al. The Barca superstars wouldn’t be able to shine without the works of Xavi, Iniesta, and Toure in midfield, and what pundits have rightly dubbed an “efficient ballet” is a collective movement of great fluidity and elegance, and a unique series of human-ball, human-human interactions that are a true pleasure to watch. One must also credit the incredible discipline that coach and former Barca player Pep Guardiola has introduced to the club this year. When a few players showed up one(!) minute late to a training session last week after winning the Spanish cup the night before, Guardiola reprimanded them and fined them – a symbolic act, of course, but one that reinforced the high standards of professionalism.

One of the other key elements of Barca’s supremacy is anticipation – the ability to predict the opponents’ moves and be just one crucial tick faster than them. This ability is based on the philosophy of “Total Football” that the Dutchmen Johann Cruyff and Luis van Gaal brought to Barcelona, and that Barca still cherishes. Total Football requires every player on the pitch to master any position at any time and to “read” the whole game from any angle. In this fluid system no player is fixed in their intended outfield role; anyone can be successively an attacker, a midfielder, and a defender. Total Football depends largely on the adaptability of each footballer within the team to succeed.

Barcelona embodies Total Football and is yet so much more than just football. To learn more about the genuine element of drama that no other club embraces in the way Barca does, I recommend you read Javier Marias' “All Our Past Battles,” a wonderful collection of stories around the “el classicos” between Barca and arch rival Real Madrid. You’ll understand the melodramatic quality of Barca’s defeats (and wins!), and the great poetry that surrounds all of its appearances, on the pitch and off. More than just once, Barca squandered opportunities to close in on a victory that was thought secure because the team’s abundantly talented players gave in to a seemingly insatiable quest for inspiration, artistry, and class rather than scoring a simple goal. The simple way is never the easiest for Barca. Barca’s striving for excellence feels nostalgic but at the same time very relevant and timely.

Franklin Foer also dedicates a whole chapter to the “Blaugrana” (Catalan for blue/red) club and its political undercurrents in his excellent “How Soccer Explains the World.” FC Barcelona was one of the first soccer clubs to be founded in Spain, and it became a haven for Catalan sentiment when Catalan self-government and culture were proscribed during Franco’s dictatorship. The club emerged as the playful manifesto of Catalonia’s spiritual independence, and since then, nowhere has soccer been more fundamental to the sense of identity than in Barcelona. Former Barca full back Oleguer even published a book which was about politics as much as his own career. Barca supporters joke that he only played when he was not on a protest march.

It is ironic that a club rooted deeply in Catalan nationalism has such an international following. But Barca’s appeal is so global precisely because its roots are so local. Barca represents the Catalan people while at the same time creating a sense of \belonging to “beauty and quality.” The meaning of Barca transcends the boundaries of sports and nations, and embodies the universal values of sportsmanship and integrity.

Every brand can take a page from Barca’s “magic ingredients”:

Aspiration: Barca has always set itself and its members daunting challenges to strive for and rally around. The latest one is “The Great Challenge” campaign which aims at growing the membership, fostering Barca as the biggest and greatest club in world soccer. Before the beginning of this season Barca also declared that its goal was to win all three competitions it participated in. Some may call this arrogance, but for Barca it's a brand driver. The “Big Hairy Audacious Goals” set by excellent teams always need to exceed the past ones. Motivation originates in the belief and opportunity to achieve the extraordinary – no matter what it takes. Under-promise and over-deliver is just good execution. Over-promise and over-deliver are the signs of a class act.

Only the best: Barca’s management and members are never satisfied with average, and they despise mediocrity. They understand top quality, tactically advanced soccer as a moral obligation. Only the best players make it to Barca where the competition is brutal. Analogous to GE's famous 10% rule, the lowest performing players in the team usually have to leave the club.

Social responsibility: Barca is fully owned by its members, unlike most other big soccer clubs - which are either in the hands of  large corporations or American (Manchester United) and Russian (FC Chelsea) billionaires - and they possess significant voting power. This “power to the people” tradition reflects a distinct social conscience that is expressed in many ways. Sure, other clubs are using the power of their brands as well to do good, but no other club’s social responsibility is so deeply engrained in its DNA as Barca’s. Based on its spirit of independence, the club has always taken on broader social issues and played a pivotal role in promoting diversity, tolerance, and peace worldwide. Barca’s partnership with UNICEF is a statement of the club's continuing efforts to be at the forefront of solidarity projects with a global reach. Under the agreement, which bears the slogan “Barcelona, more than a club, a new global hope for vulnerable children,” Barca contributes to the financing of UNICEF humanitarian projects and endorses UNICEF on its shirts – as the only major European team not to wear an advertisement. Club president Joan Laporta rules out any type of commercial shirt sponsorship and  instead seeks to promote a humanitarian message: "FC Barcelona is not only a football club, but a club with a soul.”

The real thing: To a European soccer fan living in the US who has grown accustomed to hyper-commercialized sports events, it is reassuring to see how purist the soccer experience still is in Barca’s stadium, the Camp Nou – a few pre-game commercials, no half-time show whatsoever, and all attention on the players, even during their warm-up exercises before the game. In Camp Nou, it is all about the “beautiful game.”

Charismatic reference point: Messi, arguably the world's best soccer player, serves as a reference point for team mates and fans alike. There is no one else like him, and he outshines all other soccer superstars with his playfulness.

Disruption: Powerful brands need an element of surprise. They should always take the freedom to ignore the quest for consistency and do what they want - irrationally, passionately, and with no regrets. Every three years or so, when a cycle ends, Barca’s management disrupts the existing team structure and builds a new squad. The rule is: Always change a winning team! By all standards of modern business, Barca is a professionally managed club but yet there is a sense that anything could happen anytime – almost like in a soccer match.

The Champions League final today will be another milestone in the saga of the Barca brand, regardless of who wins (2-1 for Barca, my prediction). Humility and hard work have been the traits of Barca's season so far, and in the end, dignity will matter more than titles and trophies at a club that is “more than a club.” And that exactly is the hallmark of a great brand: “Keep yourself clean and bright. You are the windows through which you must view the world,” the ancient proverb goes.

In the Middle, Somewhat Elevated: Anyone Still Striving for Perfection?

I saw the Royal Ballet of Flanders perform William Forsythe's "Impressing the Czar" last week at the Rose Theatre in New York. It was a mesmerizing experience: a demonstration of the possibilities of the human body and its bold orchestration as part of a stampeding, Dionysian collective.

As I followed the breathtaking, ultra-structuralist choreography, especially the acclaimed "In the Middle, Somewhat Elevated" part, I couldn't help but draw parallels to other high-performing teams: Why, I wondered, can't businesses (and governments, for that matter) accomplish the same level of perfection? What is it they lack compared to world-class ballet ensembles (and world-class orchestras)? Why are business organizations so often so dysfunctional? Why do the regimen and the elevated standards of consistent, superior performance that apply to ballet and orchestra not seem to translate to the world of business?

Sure, one difference is that art-performing ensembles execute creativity, whereas business teams need to be creative before and when they execute. Innovation is a key ingredient of their successful performance. But still, the operational rigor and prowess that has long been a calling card of companies like GE -- has that become a nostalgic idea in the work-life balanced world of millennials? Do commitment and attention to detail still matter? Is perfection a desirable goal at all in the accelerated economy of permanent beta?

Without wanting to romanticize, there is something romantic about the stories of Tiger Woods practicing his swings for hours every day in front of a mirror, violinists playing the same note over and over again until they reach perfection, and ballerinas sacrificing their bodies for someone else's imagination.

Today's young professionals seem skeptical about this kind of work ethic: For them, good is good enough. They are committing themselves to doing good and living well rather than living up to a vague concept of excellence. Most of them are not interested in sacrifice and excess and would rather save themselves. But for what?

The Next Big Thing: Table Tennis Triples

The Table Tennis Triples and Modular Table Tennis System was a finalist in the Australian Next Big Thing Awards.

I love how the invention's "unique benefits" are listed on the award site:

"- More people play on one table: social benefits, reduced waiting times
- Greater shot range, fairer 'Triples' scoring system
- Conventional tables can be reversibly 'Triples' retrofitted
- Numerous games/table shapes possible with the MTTS sectors"

Hat tip to Jordan Kanarek from frog

Russia, the Netherlands, and the David Effect

Yesterday Russia celebrated an emphatic 3-1 victory over the Netherlands in a EURO 2008 quarterfinal. The Dutch were drifting from the first whistle on, and unable to "find into the game," as they say in soccer. In the end, the Netherlands' worst nightmare became a self-fulfilling curse. Because they were afraid of – once again – ultimately not being rewarded for their widely admired sophisticated and beautiful style of soccer, they chose not to play it.

That proved to be a fatal error. Marco van Basten, the Dutch coach, has to take the blame. He let his team play too conservatively, bent on maintaining the balance of power, which saw the Dutch as the technically and tactically superior team. But you can't protect the status quo if you're not willing to take a risk.

Russia, by contrast, took full advantage of the historic opportunity to impress as an emerging soccer nation on the world stage, and the Russian players, in particular the mesmerizing Arshavin (his performance will probably have raised his price by 10-15 million) have surely been added to the buying lists of many top European soccer clubs now. Russia won because they were the hungrier team and because their determination to surmount the insurmountable (that is, to eliminate a soccer powerhouse like the Netherlands from the tournament) was palpable throughout the match. They taught the Dutch that it is a thin line between confidence and arrogance, and that somewhere in between lies faith. The Russians had faith – in their own abilities but also in fortune, or whatever you prefer to call that "invisible hand" that directs the dramaturgy of a soccer game (and the world, for that matter).

But there was another force at work here. The Netherlands' defeat marks a larger trend. In all the EURO 2008 quarterfinals so far, the group runner-ups and alleged underdogs succeeded (Germany against Portugal, Turkey against Croatia, and now Russia against the Netherlands). This indicates that the most decisive action may take place before the game: the manipulation of public opinion, the "expectation management," and the narrative framing to the psychological advantage of the one side that looks weaker on paper. All the winning teams’ coaches bent over backwards to downplay their own team's chances and didn't waste a second in the public limelight to assume the underdog role – the David against the Goliath.

It's obviously good to be branded as the challenger. Challenger brands (i.e. Virgin America in civil aviation or salesforce.com in enterprise software) are born out of the quest to catch up with the established expert or leader, which keeps them on their toes and provides the extra-motivation needed for accomplishing tasks beyond routine. Challenger brands have nothing to lose and everything to gain. The opposite is true for the favorite: Research shows that in sports the pressure of being the favorite can lead to "shortened breathing on the sideline, slower reflexes and increased fatigue, a tangible physical effect as the panic of falling as favorites begins to set in."

Winners act like a champion but think like an underdog.

Frank Rijkaard: A Long Goodbye With Style

Frank Rijkaard, the Dutch coach of Catalan soccer outfit FC Barcelona (Barca), left the club after five years. He won two Spanish league titles as well as the Champions League, but he failed to get any silverware for the proud club in the past two years, which left Barca’s president Joan Laporta no other choice than to ax him. It was a long goodbye that had been on the horizon for a while. Not even titles may have changed things. Everyone knew that Rijkaard’s time in Barcelona was over.

He was sacked with style, though, and he himself showed remarkable consistency and humility throughout not only the overall very successful five years but also the past two months at the helm. It was “unbearable,” Rijkaard admitted after a humiliating 4-1 defeat against arch rival Real Madrid a few weeks ago, which marked the absolute low point of a tempestuous season. Yet the way he kept up his optimism and integrity in the face of the unfolding tragedy was impressive. Rijkaard always defended his players and never criticized them in public. He assumed full responsibility for disappointing performances, and never blamed the referee or the circumstances. Instead, he absorbed the anger and frustration of the fans with stoic calm and an unshakable work ethic that was always directed towards the next game.

In his last game for Barca, a romping 5-3 victory over Murcia, young striker Giovanni Dos Santos scored a hat-trick. Each time the teenager scored, each goal eclipsing the previous one for deftness and beauty, he turned towards Rijkaard. Highly unusual for him, the coach was on his feet, all smiles, lifting both hands in the air and cheering as if his team had just won the Champions League final. It was a remarkable moment, a moving outburst of joy in the overtime of his tenure. When nothing really matters anymore, everything matters – especially the small gestures that distinguish a man from a gentleman and a successful coach from a great one.

Rijkaard understood all too well that, in the end, dignity mattered more than titles and trophies at a club that is “more than a club.” That’s the hallmark of a great brand, a great vision: Never let the critics doubt it, and never let them destroy your spirit. “Keep yourself clean and bright. You are the windows through which you must view the world,” the ancient proverb goes. "Frank has been true to himself from beginning to end," Rijkaard’s assistant said in the last press conference. “It has been an honor to work for this club,” Frank Rijkaard added.

God Has a Voice, She Speaks Through Me

Indeed.

...Just Making Something Look Nicer?

Just a mirage? Rick Poynor, in a beautifully honest article for ID Magazine ("Down with Innovation"), takes the "design thinkers," the "innovators through design," or the "design-ovators," as he calls them, head on:

"Design thinkers set great store by business targets, by driving the enterprise forward, because it is exactly what their clients want to hear and it gets them work. Seen from outside the cozy bond of service provider and client, this is a severely limited way of viewing design, and the total domination of current design discussion by this kind of commercial rhetoric is a worrying trend."

And furthermore:

"It is hardly surprising that designers try to put as much distance as possible between themselves and the accusation that they are hung up on making things look pretty. Belittling language of this kind suggests that the visual is inherently trivial, easy to do, and beneath consideration, that form is not a powerful medium of expression and carries no meaning for the viewer. Design thinkers like to talk as though we have somehow passed beyond the stage where the way things look needs to be a primary concern, and designers, browbeaten and demoralized, half seem to believe them. They have been too ready to accept the caricature of themselves as airheaded stylists who care about insignificant niceties of no concern to anyone else."

"Yet the rhetorical reduction of design to frivolous prettification reveals a willful blindness to the power of expressive form-making, if not a deep, philistine ignorance of the history of design and visual culture. The scale of the oversight is so colossal, and frankly baffling, one hardly knows where to start. Are the great cathedrals of Europe—Rheims, Lincoln, Chartres—merely pretty? Are the gardens of Kyoto? Is Alvar Alto’s Paimio armchair? Was Alexey Brodovitch’s Portfolio magazine? How about Leica cameras? The patterns on Moorish ceramic tiles? Or the PowerBook and the iPod? There is surely no need to go on."

In the same article, Michael Bierut of Pentagram supports him: "The business use—the specific goal that motivated the client or sponsor to initially fund the work—often fades away, sometimes quickly," he says. "In some ways, you might argue that aesthetic value—for an enduring design, at least—is the only lasting value, since over time functional needs can change and business moves on to the next goal." Bierut goes so far as to modestly propose that "just making something look nicer" or "replacing something ugly with something not so ugly" is an admirable goal for designers.

That's quite a statement in a climate where proving the business value of design is the profession's Holy Grail (and complex), and "design thinkers" keep demanding designers should become CEOs. Can they? Yes, perhaps, but only if they can get over themselves. Leadership in business is about empowering others. Designers and particularly "design thinkers," however, are still busy yielding power for themselves.

At this point, it may be more aspirational to be humble. Rather than touting design as the ultimate problem solver in all aspects of social, professional, and political life, the (relative) power of design may lie in balancing the possibilities of convergence (media; devices; platforms; disciplines; processes) with the unleashed forces of divergence in a web 2.0 world -- design as the facilitator between software and hardware; mobile, web, and desktop; analysis and creativity; virtual and real; professional and consumer; individual and crowd; business and art; function and beauty.

Hartmut Esslinger, the founder of frog design, teaches design at the University of Applied Arts Vienna. The mission statement he has crafted for his students may provide some much needed clarity and guidance in this debate for practitioners:

"The holistic challenge for Design is to create physical and virtual objects which are useful art, and inspire spiritual values by as few atoms and bits as possible. Design is our modern-day continuation of 'technical' functionality converted into human-historic and metaphysical symbolism. When designers create a new and better object, a mechanism, a software application or a more inspiring, human-centric experience, this will become a 'branding symbol' in itself by meaningful innovation, good quality and ethical behaviors. People will recognize the resulting visual symbols as a cultural expression of humanized technology and subconsciously connect it with historically learned visual shapes and patterns that connect. Design cannot be just a fashionable statement, but must advance our industrial culture by providing sustainable innovation, cultural identity and consistency so it can create emotional and social belonging. Designers have a humanistic responsibility that connects and coordinates human needs and dreams with new opportunities and inspirations in science, technology and business in order to make the results and their usage culturally relevant, economically productive, politically beneficial and ecologically sustainable.

The accelerated globalization is posing both huge challenges and offering new opportunities which require designers that are both talented and competent to influence and define new trends in regards to mastering outsourcing to 'lower cost' economies and reversing the current excesses of overproducing generic and hard-to-use products. Designers also need to invent new concepts for “homesourcing” by converting local and tribal cultures into beneficial concepts.

To succeed as competent and respected 'executive partners' in the rational world of business, designers must become creative entrepreneurs or creative executives themselves. However, ultimately, design must rise above all commercial-functional benchmarks and aspire to near-eternal cultural relevance and spirituality."

SFZero - A New Interface for San Francisco

Remember the movie "The Game" with Michael Douglas and Sean Penn as unlikely brothers, shot before the backdrop of vertiginous San Francisco?

Well, here's a a new interface for San Francisco: SFZero is "a new representation for the data that's already there. Your mind is full of /inaccurate/ representations that are affecting the way you use the San Francisco dataflow: steering you away from interaction and collaboration and towards unproductive reflexive data loops (forNext). SFZero designers are working double-shifts to engineer this next-generation interface that will bring you together with your cohabitants to experience the freedom that is /hard-coded/ into San Francisco's protocol."

Sounds enigmatic, looks enigmatic, and is enigmatic. I am therefore not sure if I fully get it, but in any case SFZero seems to be a new kind of ARG (alternate reality game) -- a "Collaborative Production Game," as they call it.

"Let Someone Else Plan Your Day! Release total control of your life to an anonymous source that supplies you with instructions and directions!"

How can you not sign up for that?

Ps. Hat tip to Chelsea Holden Baker.

Sunny Levine on KCRW