Multi-tasking is a myth, in the sense that a person can only do one thing at a time, otherwise there is no true focus. We can process on many parallel levels, but our actions happen in sequence. Skilled players can perform tasks so quickly in sequence that it looks like they’re doing two things at once. This is an illusion, like a flip card with a bird on one side and a cage on the other. Twirl the card fast enough and the bird appears to be in the cage. Skilled players can make you think the bird is in the cage, when in reality it is the fast juxtaposition of bird and cage that creates this illusion.
Good theater improvisers weave together ideas so quickly and seamlessly that the audience is often amazed by how it all fits together. A thousand sequential choices–a whole flock of birds–appear to be inside the ‘cage’ of a performance. In reality, the choices being made by the performers and the structure of the performance that contains them are two different things. To the audience it appears as though they are one.
Innovative brands and businesspeople are often in the business of creating Caged Birds, combining ideas or concepts in sequences that are so fast, compelling and/or unique as to be proprietary. Here are some examples of the ‘Caged Bird Effect.’
John Lasseter obsesses almost exclusively about storytelling. Ed Catmull doesn’t do storytelling. He obsesses about technology and organizational culture. The way these obsessions have been juxtaposed (under the entrepreneurial direction of Steve Jobs) for the past 20 years has become the Pixar brand.
When you buy a pair of Tom’s Shoes, Tom’s provides a free pair of shoes to a shoeless person somewhere in the world. You are buying shoes, and someone who has never met you and probably never will is getting a pair of shoes for free. You are not really giving shoes to a shoeless person, but that is the Caged Bird Effect the Tom’s brand creates.
A realtor selling a house to a married couple may sell the wife on the backyard and the husband on the safety of the neighborhood. The couple might not relate to the house until the realtor connects their interests and the house in his or her narrative . The house is the cage that contains the birds of buyer concerns.
Finally, attention Trader Joe’s shoppers, there is no such bird as Tofurkey (or Tofurky). The product is actually a ‘tasteful sequencing’ of various grains, broths, herbs and spices, and a ‘conceptual sequencing’ of tofu and turkey. All these are birds in a cage given the commercial name of Tofurkey (or Tofurky).
Bird by Charles and Ray Eames; Caged Bird by GameChangers LLC
Tags: Caged Bird Effect, Ed Catmull, Focus, Innovation, John Lasseter, Multi-Tasking, Pixar, Speed, Tofurkey, Tom's Shoes, Trader Joe's
What a great way to look at partnerships and combinations. Possibly good inspiration for how to look for potential opportunities as well.