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vgr's profile
Venkatesh Rao
Venkatesh Rao
Venkatesh Rao
@vgr

Tweets

Venkatesh Rao

@vgr

This is my conversational account. For my work follow @ribbonfarm, @breaking_smart, @artofgig. Tweets are 90% vacuous views, apathetically held. Mediocritopian.

Los Angeles, CA
venkateshrao.com
Joined August 2007

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    1. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr 22 Sep 2018
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      A sentimental memory is a persistent goal for which the associated desires are illegible to you. You can only let such a memory go when the desires become legible enough to pursue via a simpler mechanism than recreating the remembered experience. Brands are sentimental memories.

      2 replies 7 retweets 71 likes
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    2. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr 22 Sep 2018
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      The idea of branding as differentiation is a misunderstanding of this psychological phenomenon. You don’t want to keep adding real features till you are ‘unique’. The competition can *always* copy features given time and expired patents. You want to tap into illegible desires.

      2 replies 4 retweets 25 likes
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      Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr 22 Sep 2018
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      You do that by making the product an increasingly harmonious compression of its features, and adding features that add functionality while ideally also increasing harmony. “Design” in short. Strengthen the sentimental memory first, the capability second.

      10:58 PM - 22 Sep 2018
      • 3 Retweets
      • 13 Likes
      • Zach Kowalik Chris Anderson Cyril Sam Chris Clark Y Beau Butler Luke Gibson зануда, душноват wenjimi
      2 replies 3 retweets 13 likes
        1. New conversation
        2. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr 22 Sep 2018
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          This is why there is something essentially backward looking and reactionary about good design. It recognizes that the main feature being sold is not in the product at all, but in the user’s head: a memory they’d rather recreate than replace.

          1 reply 1 retweet 18 likes
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        3. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr 22 Sep 2018
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          This is of course rather dark commentary on us as consumers. We are slaves to the memories that made us feel good in the past. We fear killing the golden goose of an illegible desire that works by examining it too closely. Identity is slavery to your own memories.

          1 reply 0 retweets 16 likes
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        4. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr 22 Sep 2018
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          Equally we want to forget, deny, or repress bad experiences while retaining enough memory to avoid recreating them. That’s the logic of aversion/fear products and brands. Details left as homework. It’s just the positive desire story with a flipped sign.

          1 reply 0 retweets 7 likes
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        5. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr 22 Sep 2018
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          A growth-and-future oriented mind relates to memories in a very different and unnatural way that requires a kind of learning. You have to remember in ways that don’t let the future be imprisoned by the past.

          1 reply 0 retweets 10 likes
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        6. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr 22 Sep 2018
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          It’s not about forgetting. If you forget the past you have no future either. Just a blooming-buzzing-confusion if a present. To be present in the present, the past needs to be an unsentimental memory, and the future as open as it can possibly be. A maximum potential mind state.

          1 reply 1 retweet 14 likes
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        7. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr 22 Sep 2018
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          Think of this as the potential energy side of elan vital which is sort of a current/flux. Could you reimagine consumption behaviors to catalyze and enable such states? What does branding look like for such products?

          2 replies 0 retweets 4 likes
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        8. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr 22 Sep 2018
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          I think this is the branding associated with the most hackable and designed-for-repairability type products. Where consumption segues towards production via maintenance. There is still sentimental memory but it’s of agency, not pleasure. An improvement.

          2 replies 0 retweets 5 likes
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        9. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr 22 Sep 2018
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          This can be even more reactionary of course as in sentimental memories of factory jobs. John Henry memories. Memories of mom’s apple pie might make you a sentimental bore but memories of being a steel-driving man might make you a resentful fundamentalist.

          1 reply 0 retweets 8 likes
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        10. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr 22 Sep 2018
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          Is there a way out of this bind? I think so. Still working out the details. Maybe I’ll continue this thread in a year or three if I figure it out.

          3 replies 0 retweets 12 likes
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        11. End of conversation
        1. New conversation
        2. Farooq Butt‏ @fmbutt 22 Sep 2018
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          Replying to @vgr

          Poor brands are clever names Good brands are promises Great brands are emotions Sublime brands are identities

          1 reply 8 retweets 39 likes
        3. Don‏ @goldblatchikens 22 Sep 2018
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          Replying to @fmbutt @vgr

          I wonder what Macdonalds rates like on this scale 🧐 I guess promise

          1 reply 0 retweets 1 like
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