Corpus Clock

Online on Wired Magazine today they posted an article about a clock at Corpus Christi College designed by clock aficionado, John Taylor.

As you may guess from its inclusion in this post, Taylor’s clock is no ordinary clock.

True, it is clock-shaped but instead of hands it has glowing LEDs on its face that indicate the passage of time. It also has a horrific grasshopper-like beast called the “Chronophage” ticking away the seconds, minutes, and hours on the top.

The Wired article bi-line is “Ravenous Clock Runs Backwards, Scares Children” and after seeing this clock, I am now thinking they weren’t joking with the “Scares Children” part.

The closer you get to the grasshopper, the scarier it looks. It makes one wonder (especially if one is a psychologist) as to Taylor’s feelings about time. Maybe something about time being devoured by a ferocious beast until the plate is empty?

Chronophage close-up

That is something else about this clock, it lends itself to metaphors – probably because it’s inventor uses numerous metaphors (and puns) in its design. For example, that horrible grasshopper?  It is actually a grasshopper escapement, which is a device that slowly moves the gears of a clock forward with each swing of the pendulum. In the case of the Corpus Clock, it is a grasshopper escapement made real. Watch the embedded video below to see the grasshopper’s legs reach and grab the clock face to move it along.

By watching the video with its narration by Taylor, you get to see how some other concepts associated with time are embedded metaphorically into the clock’s design.  For example, the clock sometimes runs more slowly or more quickly. Taylor says that this is, in part, because he wants the clock to capture people’s attention (it is usually a good idea to be mindful of the time). However, he says it also captures the subjective quality of the perception of the passage of time. When you are doing something you enjoy, then time seems to pass very quickly. When you are doing something you do not enjoy, a minute feels like an hour.

The video doesn’t indicate whether the clock, in general, accurately records the time. I do know that it is a fully mechanical clock and that it is beautifully crafted. I agree with the article in its assessment of Taylor’s Corpus Clock as “steampunkeriffic”

Because the analogy and its use for innovative thinking is presented so well, I am going to go all recursive on you and use the article as a showcase of the right ways of using analogy for innovation and for communicating about innovation.

The first step in any analogy is pointing out to the audience the relevant correspondences between the concepts:

“Baseball teams have to assemble the best talent possible, just like companies have to bet on the best innovation opportunities. A baseball team chooses between acquiring talent on the free agent market or drafting and building talent. A company chooses between acquisitions or organic growth.“

A good analogy focuses on deep structural correspondences between concepts:

“Acquisitions are expensive, but perceived to be lower risk, because the talent (or idea) has proven itself demonstrably in the marketplace (for baseball, that means success on a major-league diamond). Organic growth is typically cheaper, but perceived to be risky because many times highly touted initiatives or prospects don’t pan out.“

What this means is that the author isn’t just drawing correspondences between the elements of the two concepts (e.g., “acquiring talent on the free agent market” = “acquisitions”). He is explaining how elements and the relationships between them in one concept correspond to elements and the relationships between them in the other concept.

These correspondences then lead to certain inferences. Inferences, that are important to the point the author is making about innovation:

“Just as a baseball team doesn’t have complete information about what a player’s true level of ability is on draft day, you don’t know the real potential of any one innovation project…. Good teams collect as much data as possible. They have sophisticated models to project how rough performance can project to the major league level.“

Leads to the inference that for companies:

“With a well-organized scouting team, you should gather multiple data points in preparation to “draft” innovation opportunities.”

By pointing out the correspondences between rich concepts such as the ones being used in the Baseball Analogy article, the audience is then able to make their own inferences using their own detailed knowledge of the concepts in the analogy:

“Of course, the market for companies is more liquid than the market for baseball players. We bet you if you ran the data the absolute best return on investment would be acquiring a hitter who has proven himself at a critical midpoint….Ask yourself: What is the equivalent inflection point in our market?“

It is by working out the inferences resulting from correspondences such as these that innovation is made possible. However, these inferences are not possible unless your audience possesses detailed knowledge of the concepts used in the analogy. I, for one, know next to nothing about the Major League Baseball draft. Consequently, I can follow the analogy made by the author and the points being made but would be absolutely unable to determine an “equivalent inflection point” at which I would be most likely to receive the “absolute best return on investment.”

Using analogy for communicating about innovation or for innovation itself requires knowledge of BOTH the concepts used in the analogy. This knowledge can be provided by the person making the analogy or through personal experience, but acquired it must be for innovation to happen.

The first of these commercials was the 1984 “Big Brother” commercial. It is considered to be a groundbreaking commercial by many in the advertising industry.

Beautiful! The analogy? That PC clones created a clone-like hive mentality with Big Brother IBM setting the standards for a monotonous and bleak computer experience. Ground-breaking, liberated, unique Macs would save us from this and bring color back into our world.Subsequent Mac vs PC commercials over the intervening years continued this theme using a range of analogies to communicate the superiority of the MAC over the PC. For example, the analogy of the PC Intel Pentium II chip to a snail:

And this one comparing the PC 2000 bug to 2001: Space Odessey’s HAL:

What I haven’t liked are the current slew of MAC vs PC commercials, mainly because the analogy doesn’t hold up for me. Now don’t take me wrong. I like both Macs and PCs. I’ve used both over the years and think they are equally useful, each in their own way. The reason the analogy in the new set of commercials doesn’t work for me is that the idea being communicated by the commercials through a variety of analogies (the bloated PC commercial, the PC that can’t speak to the Japanese “camera” commercial, etc) is that Macs are “fun” and PCs are for work. My experiences with both is that it is just the opposite. Most MAC users I know are in the arts or advertising and they appear to spend all their time slaving at their computers. If they want to play, there are precious few games they can play with. The “fun stuff” pushed by Mac just appears to be tools for artistic professionals to do their jobs. Kind of sad.This is actually relevant to the use of analogy for communication. By using an analogy to tap into user’s existing knowledge, you tap into ALL of that knowledge. This is actually one of the problems with using analogy to communicate and why it is so important to choose the correct analogy to describe an innovation or to make a point. All the conceptual baggage comes packaged in an analogy – the good with the bad. By activating that knowledge in the audience, you run the risk of them making some unwanted inferences (should any exist). In my case, the knowledge of how Mac users actually use Macs runs counter to the message implied in the commercials and just rubs me the wrong way.

This is not a good way to win friends and influence people.

The clip below illustrates one of the current Mac vs PC ads for those unfamiliar with the commercials just discussed: