Cyberspace, cognitive mapping and design: some stray thoughts

I apologize in advance because this is going to ramble. And be wonky. If it helps, please know that it all makes sense in my head.

Our professional development program at work – yeah, my new job has an actual interest in professional development – has us doing some reading each week and informally discussing the insights. This week we were asked to read a section from a human-computer interaction text. It got me to thinking about some issues, and then one of my co-workers had a comment that took me even further down the rathole. Continue reading

Ad recall?

Greg Stene, who’s an ad guy and a professor specializing in creativity (and one of the smartest people in general that I’ve ever met) has some interesting thoughts on advertising recall (or the lack thereof) in a new post over at Scholars & Rogues. A snippet:

Secondly, simply because one can recall an ad, doesn’t mean it has had a positive influence in brand preference. Certainly, there is the facile argument that you can’t choose a product if can’t you remember the ad – but that is so disingenuous in its suggestion that the rest of the world (friends’ recommendations, past experience, competing ads we may remember, etc.) has no greater profound effect on our product choice.

A good read from one of the brighter (if lesser known, so far) minds in the world of advertising.