Greater>Than Clothing

On Tuesday, Joey and I had a ‘planned’ meeting. I say planned because many times if Joey and I are hanging out, the conversation can just turn towards G>T. However, this time it was on our calendars…and that meant I would be taking notes…which means it’s business time.

We decided to meet in Ballard at the Old Town Ale House. We found a parking spot just down the street from our meeting destination and noticed a sandwich board on the sidewalk for Raw Threads. We decided to check it out and I’m glad we did. It’s a small boutique filled with unique and (for the most part) locally designed clothing. It was good to see a newer shop like that in Ballard. I’m sure there are many more like it that would be a good fit for Greater>Than apparel. To me, the visit to Raw set the stage nicely for us to proceed with our meeting.

Old Town Ale House is a clean, older place with good drafts, plenty of open tables, pretty good food and it’s apparently awesome for Greater>Than meetings. I started to jump right in and express my need for an online idea sharing space and it hit me. I had been eager to pay homage to the great (and fictional) Murray Hewitt, band manager for Flight of the Conchords and a Deputy Cultural Attaché at the New Zealand Consulate. If you have not seen Flight of the Conchords on HBO, please do so. See, Murray does not believe that ANY meeting can officially begin until role is taken. So we stopped everything and took role. Joey…present. Ryan…present.

Murray takes taking role very seriously. 

Now we can get down to business. The goals (for me) going into the meeting were simply to find out where we were financially and set some timeframes for completing certain critical tasks. From this, Joey had a great idea of creating a list of steps to complete in order to go from where we are ‘today’ to actually printing our first shirt. Ideally, we will create a list of tasks with important details about each task such as time dependancy, resources needed and essentially who will own it.

The hope is that we will be able to target and schedule larger more difficult objectives while identifying the smaller items that we can complete at anytime. The list will let us know exactly what we can do to move the project forward at any given moment.

It’s business time. 

Work on this infamous list will start immediately and we hope to share some of the tasks with you as well as the progress we make as we tackle them. We’re making progress and having this meeting was a big part of keeping the momentum going. Look for future posts with more details of the list and the actions we are taking to make the list a bit shorter.
Thanks for checking in!

One of the many fun things about starting your own company is that you get to make up a title for yourself. Publicly traded companies officially have to have CEOs, etc., but private companies like Greater>Than have no such constraint. The founders of Cranium Inc., for example - Richard Tait and Whit Alexander - call themselves the Grand Poo-bah and Chief Noodler, respectively.

I’ve been searching for something a little more descriptive of what I want my role in the company to be. Ideally, it should be fairly general, as I plan to have a presence in many of our operations, even long term. But, although I am and will continue to be an owner/leader, I never want to position myself as a “boss”. I’m not “bossy”.

So here’s my draft title: Chief Creativity Enabler

I like it because it clearly shows that our priority as a company is to give people an outlet to do the sort of work that they want to do. We are a platform for creative work, and my job as a leader is to make sure that the platform is as functional as possible. Of course, not all of my work is going to contribute directly to enabling the creativity of other people. I’m thinking here about development or sales activities, the more “businessy” stuff I have to do to make the company successful. I think the title covers this side of my role as well, reminding everyone (including especially myself) that building the business is necessary because it will allow us to enable more creativity, and not the other way around.

What do you think? Over-explained and hopelessly cheesy? Heavy handed compared to your more succinct idea? The perfect title for such a visionary genius? Let me know (or let me have it) in the comments.

Update: After some great discussion in the comments (thanks Sarah!), I’ve decided to revise my title. I think the revision still encompass the points above, but it adds an extra dimension. Here it is: Chief Creativity Catalyst. A catalyst assists in a chemical reaction by speeding it up or making it happen more efficiently, but the reaction can happen without it. I think that’s an apt metaphor, since one of our base assumptions is that there is a lot of latent creativity out there. We want to help people discover or re-awaken their creative sides, but the call to create is innate.

When I am working on a problem, I never think about beauty but when I have finished, if the solution is not beautiful, I know it is wrong.

–R. Buckminster Fuller

I came across this quote in a great article in GOOD Magazine* (which, incidentally, was founded and is published by a friend of mine from college). I thought this was relevant for Greater>Than because the article makes the point that Fuller was, above all, a designer. I love this quote because it reminds us that the “form follows function” idea doesn’t mean that we should settle for ugly, “functional” objects.

As Donald Norman argued in Emotional Design, attractive things actually work better. That book is very highly recommended, and I found that particular point both surprising and convincing. It’s not much of a slight to Norman to note that Fuller beat him to the punch by about 75 years, as most people are much farther behind.

For those of you not familiar with Fuller, here is a quick list of some of his notable achievements:

• The Geodesic dome
• The Dymaxion Car
• The concept of “Spaceship Earth“
• The Fuller Projection, a “one island in one ocean” map, which happens to be my favorite projection (I even have the poster):

Imagine living your life as an open-ended exploration for the betterment of mankind, with beauty as your compass.

*Look in the sidebar on the right for links to the rest of the Buckminster Fuller feature. The rest of the magazine is worth checking out as well. Its purpose is to chronicle and support the movement toward smart, sustainable business and life, a movement to which Greater>Than is similarly committed.

I’m an Atlantic reader and an unabashed word-nerd, so naturally one of my favorite features is the Word Fugitives column by Barbara Wallraff, (who wrote a book of the same name). Readers write in with requests for words to express particular situations or feelings, and other readers try to coin terms to fit the bill. Wallraff sifts through the results then writes her column, highlighting representative and outstanding examples. It’s fun collective nerdery and there are usually one or two gems.

In the most recent issue, answers to the following prompt are given:

“that happy feeling of kinship one feels for the driver of a car of the same make and model as one’s own”

My favorite answers included carma, carcissism, carmraderie and autobond. I told you I was a word-nerd.

Two Greater>Than-related things caught my attention while I was reading this month’s column:

I realized that Word Fugitives is just like Greater>Than

In fact, it’s an almost perfect illustration of the “curated crowdsourcing” model we use. The editor sets the rules of the game, a community member provides a prompt to focus the creativity of the group, solutions are submitted, the editor sifts through the submissions, then publishes the results back to the group. So simple!

Over time, the community becomes self-defining; the tone and quality of the output determined, is maintained and evolves over time through the collective efforts of the community. Think of an Ouija board. Nobody is “controlling” it, but everyone has a hand in determining direction. To put it another way, it is controlled by everyone and no one (no “one”).

One submission in particular blew me away Read the rest of this entry »

In addition to welcoming Ryan to the Greater>Than team, I wanted to follow up on the change in strategy he described in his intro post. My original plan was for Greater>Than to play a design consulting/curation role, working with designers to help them achieve their visions and selecting the most promising designs for production. We would then contract with another company to get our shirts made.

This had proven a bit frustrating, especially since the company I had chosen to work with was in another state, and we were conducting all of our business through e-mail. Plus, we don’t want to compromise at all on quality, and I felt like there was an element of risk involved there, since the quality of the print itself (a crucial component in overall quality) would be out of our hands.

While I was trying to force my way through the frustration, Ryan saw this problem as an opportunity, deftly demonstrating one of the key operating principles that I had set out for the company (but had failed to live up to myself): use problems to identify opportunities. This principle of ‘probletunity*’ is a reminder to bring creativity to bear on issues that hold us back, so that they can be not only overcome but transcended. Read the rest of this entry »

In this post, I’ll describe the second of two prototype designs that are currently in the works, as mentioned earlier. The first can be found here.

Continuing with a theme of learnings from other cultures (I now realize), this tee is inspired by the Bushidō code of the samurai warrior class of feudal Japan. I have long appreciated the stoicism, honor, and discipline that the memory of these legendarily deadly men continues to evoke. I think a big part of what I dig about the samurai, as opposed to other fighters respected historically for their effectiveness, was their lack of blood lust. Killing was their vocation, and they went about it with the utmost seriousness. Much of the Bushidō code revolves around preparation for death, which couldn’t help but remind the samurai of the gravity of ending someone else’s life.

In that context, it makes sense that one of the seven virtues of the way of the warrior was “jin”, best translated to English as “benevolence”. Far from dispassionate killing machines, they were trained to maintain a charitable disposition, to live their lives with kindness in their hearts. On the other hand, of course, they were called upon to kill without mercy when the situation called for it. It is this dichotomy that I hope to explore with this design.

Read the rest of this entry »

This is the first of two prototype designs that I have commissioned (as I explained earlier). I present the idea here as part of my attempt to demonstrate (rather than simply explain) what Greater>Than Clothing is about. I am also a firm believer in the power of creative cross-pollination; I’ll be ecstatic if this idea inspires you in your own creative work (whatever that may be). Greater>Than is also committed to being open to new ideas, so if you have something to say about this design, please get in touch with me by leaving a comment on this post or by visiting the contact page.

Huginn and Muninn were the ravens of the norse god Odin. They would perch on his shoulders and keep him informed by whispering in his ears. Huginn represented thought, news, learning; Muninn represented memory, wisdom. Odin relied on them, and feared that something would happen to them. Without them, he would be cut off from the world, without the knowledge necessary to govern his people. As Odin explained, as much as he feared the loss of Huginn, he feared losing Muninn more. Remembering what you have learned is more important than learning new things.

I think this lesson carries new resonance today, as the blessed Interweb has given us access to so much raw information. In an age of RSS-enabled hyper-throughput, Odin reminds us to be careful what we retain. Not all knowledge grows up to be wisdom (Wisdom>Knowledge). The shirt is about this idea, and the design uses the ravens to deliver the metaphor. Read the rest of this entry »

I majored in Philosophy in college, so forgive me for this little conceptual digression. On the heels of the recent comment bonanza, a few more interesting “x>y” comments trickled in. A clever young man named Diego chimed in with “nothing is > god”. That statement seems simple at first, but as I thought about it more I became less and less certain that I understood it.

I’ll take Diego’s quote at face value first. I think he means it as a statement of faith: “There is nothing greater than God”. Indeed, for religions that conceive of their gods as omnipresent, it’s almost trivial. If God is everywhere, then of course nothing could be “greater” (read “bigger”). Even if we take “greater” to mean “better”, this reading still works. It’s hard to be better than an omniscient and benevolent deity.

But what of Diego’s mysterious non-capitalization of “god”? I’ll bet it’s a typo or a simple oversight, but what if it was intentional? Thinking about this, I realized that using a negative statement (nothing) in conjunction with “>” puts you on semantically shaky ground. If nothing is greater than god, does that mean that god is less than nothing? And if something is less than nothing, does that mean that it is not simply nonexistent but rather a net negative? Perhaps this is a way of expressing the nihilist’s view of God as a broken promise.

So, it seems that the statement works as intended if and only if the opposite statement can also be made: “god > nothing”. I can’t think of another sentence in English that could coexist so peacefully with its own negation. Can anyone?

Far be it from me to inject commerce into such an interesting theological puzzle, but I can’t help but think that this could make a great t-shirt experiment. How would the average person interpret a t-shirt that had a blank space, a greater than symbol, then the word “god”? It could be like a religious Rorschach test; what you think it means depends on your preexisting associations with the concept. I wonder…

Anyway, thanks for the puzzle, Diego. You packed quite a conundrum into three words and a symbol.

Greater>Than Clothing received several highly original and inspiring “G>T’s” in rapid succession recently (that’s what I call ideas expressed in the form x>y). This blog is still young enough that I get excited about every comment I get, but these were especially fun, as they were posted by a gaggle of enthusiastic (and optimistic!) middle school students. They happen to belong to one of my mother’s classes at Gavilan View Middle School in Salinas, CA. Thanks for being such an enthusiastic Greater>Than booster, mom. The word of the day is “nepotism”, kids.

Their ideas universally display a tremendous positivity; they are child-like in the best possible sense, yet they contain a lot more wisdom than I remember having at that age (actually, I think I might still be trailing in the wisdom department). Reading them made me feel like a jaded old man. Unfettered creativity and joyous collaboration are pillars of my vision for this company, and I’m going to look back at these comments when I need to recapture that initial start-up optimism. Here they are in G>T form:

• Generosity>Competition
• Giving>Taking
• Dignity>Popularity
• Sportsmanship>Winning
• Beauty from the inside > Beauty from the outside
• Celebrating life > Mourning death
• Looking towards the future > Regretting your past

You’ll also find these on the G>T’s page, and you can see their original context in comments in these previous posts (highly recommended).

Thank you Eddie, Tan, Alex, Cecilia, Sherilyn and Ashley!

Great ideas can come from anywhere at any time. My vision is to make Greater>Than Clothing as idea-friendly an organization as possible so that we can take advantage of any and all the great ideas that come our way. Further, I hope to encourage people to send in those ideas by making interacting with Greater>Than as rewarding as possible. I’m all about giving credit where credit is due and I firmly believe that if you create ideas with value you should be able to reap tangible rewards. I’m looking forward to the opportunity to put my money where my mouth is. Intrigued?

Of course, it’s hard to create in a vacuum. How is one to know if his idea is a Greater>Than contender? First, I’ll say err on the side of inclusion. Greater>Than is young and still largely undefined. You can influence what it is and what it isn’t by letting me know what you think it should be. Second, I’ll be using this site to define the idea as I currently understand it and as it develops. It is in that spirit that I present an idea that I’ve been kicking around for a while, an idea that I think could easily make the jump from concept to Greater>Than product:

Sparrow>Snail

I have no problem admitting that I had a Simon and Garfunkel phase. Those two guys were really on to something for a while there. Plus, Paul went on to release Graceland a decade and a half later, and that album still rules. It is, however, important for me to make it clear that my S&G phase is behind me, and I realize that I’m risking that as I admit that as I started to think about Greater>Than, the juxtaposing lines from their song “El Condor Pasa (If I Could)” inspired me:

I’d rather be a sparrow than a snail.
Yes I would.
If I could,
I surely would.
I’d rather be a hammer than a nail.
Yes I would.
If I only could,
I surely would.

These lyrics carry an air of truth that transcends experience. This is a trivial point at first glance. Of course I’d rather be a hammer than a nail. Everyone would; you don’t need to have been hit with a hammer to come to that conclusion. But the song isn’t about choosing up sides, it’s about wishing you were what you aren’t. It’s the snail who’s singing, and we’ve all been there before. Read the rest of this entry »