Writing, Marketing, Plastic Bags, and Piss Mats

I recently completed a project where I had to write a marketing product brief for a new software product. When I finished it, the client was impressed. He said he was pleased because he thought the product was confusing. By the time I’d finished my thinking and writing, though, I hadn’t found the product confusing at all. I’d employed a technique of mine that revolves around—sigh—piss mats. I’ll explain. But before I dip my, er, toe into those funky waters, a little setup is required.

In our rental years, my wife and I were habitués, as most starting-out couples are, of laundromats. Having been banned from our favorite establishment for using too much detergent—not being good enough for a laundromat constitutes a new human low—we retreated in shame to a dark little alternative in a small upstate New York town. Pacing to kill time, I noticed a vending machine that advertised “Exciting, New Plastic Bags!” After a brief chuckle over what seemed like a uniquely laughable morsel of marketing bullshit, I suddenly flashed back to discussions I’d witnessed at companies I’d worked for.

Every season, each company had to come up with new products. Often, they were just new versions of last year’s model. It’s the way businesses stay in business. And the thing is, everyone in these discussions was absolutely sincere in their belief that the new models’ new features had real value. Part of it was Kool-Aid drinking. But a lot of it, I’m sure, was a result of the fact that we want to feel that whatever it is we do all day is worth doing. And then I realized that someone, somewhere, really did find those plastic bags exciting. And also, I bet there was someone who gave serious thought to finding just the right adjective. Maybe there was even a discussion about it.

Not long after the laundromat epiphany, the other shoe dropped (ick) as I took advantage of a urinal provided by the New York State Thruway Authority. I was watching what I was doing—I’m a responsible guy, after all—and I started noticing the weave pattern of the little plastic mat I was peeing on. I also noticed the mat had a rounded pentagonal shape. I started thinking about what went into the decision to use that particular weave. Less splashy? And what about the shape? Maybe a pentagon fits more perfectly in a urinal’s bottom?

And then, boom, I’m eavesdropping on a serious technical/mathematical discussion within the R&D department of Piss Matts R Us, and drifting in and out of a marketing meeting at which the latest product is launched. And it hit me: Somebody cares about every single product I encounter all day long, and all night long, and everywhere I go. Even piss mats. Somebody has uncynically thought about it and cared about it. Someone somewhere has a reason for the way all of this stuff is, and presuming average human intelligence at least, those reasons would make sense to me if I understood the issues involved. Again I say: piss mats. If this grosses you out, think about paper-clip designers.

In my career as a writer, I’ve encountered a lot of products and features that seemed confusing at first. But what always I do in these cases, and it works every time, is put on my piss-mat hat—goddammit, yes, I’m being metaphorical here—and, starting with a presumption of caring and intelligence on the designer’s/programmer’s part, I try to understand the intent of the product or feature. Especially when it’s not obvious. If something seems pointless, I’m probably just not grasping its intended application. If something seems hyper-complicated or bizarre, I’m probably just looking at it from the wrong angle.

And here’s what’s so useful about this approach: Once I take just a little time to figure out why something is the way it is, writing about it becomes easy, and my text becomes nice and linear and clear. I even tend to get genuinely enthusiastic when I understand why someone thought this thing was cool enough to make. The process requires two assumptions:

1. Someone cared enough about this to want to do it well.

2. They probably are at least as smart as me.

So was that product I just wrote about actually confusing? Only at first. Once I starting thinking about plastic bags and piss mats, I was home-free.