CAUSATIVE THINKING - KEEP YOUR GOALS ALIVE

CAUSATIVE THINKING - KEEP YOUR GOALS ALIVE!

What is it that causes someone to win in this world?

If we leave the unrealistic world of movie screen
aside, the real winners are not superheros and
exceptional geniuses.

The real winners are normal people but with one single
distinction:

They think causatively.

They hang onto their dreams and goals and just refuse
to let go!

Causative thinking is the most underrated of all our
abilities. Innate to every human being, it works far
too "slow" to make the news.

The media looks for sensational miracles, big and
sudden changes (good or bad) created in a space of few
minutes or hours.

That's news.

Causative thinking goes unnoticed because its results
are slower than the average attention span of TV
audiences.

And yet it is perhaps the most potent of all powers
on Earth!

For all its seeming insignificance, for all its
apparent lack of immediate and spectacular results,
it can produce positive developments which are
nothing short of miraculous.

Every single great achievement of Mankind was created
by it. It is the prime cause behind the Western riches
as well as the Wall of China.

And the great thing is that every human being HAS the
ability to think causatively!



KNOWING WHERE YOU WANT TO ARRIVE AND TAKING SMALL
STEPS EVERY DAY

Causative thinking is simply setting a goal and then
taking a small step on that road every day.

Heroics have nothing to do with it.

Power or even inventiveness aren't the effective
ingredients in it.

All it takes is to HAVE the goal and KEEP YOUR
ATTENTION ON IT every day.

That's called persistence and just like water carved
its way through billions of tons of rock to form the
Grand Canyon, so will your determination eventually
cut through all obstacles that stand between you and
the attainment of your goals.

What makes it seemingly impossible is that it can take
A YEAR OR TWO to get there.

Along the way, there'll be barriers which can make us
have to walk backwards until a detour is found around
the obstacle.

During the time it takes to get to the goal, there'll
be many devils' advocates telling you how you're
wasting your time, how it can't be done and how it's
folly to have such impossible dreams and goals...

There'll be OTHER alternatives offered for reaching
similar or different goals FASTER with all kinds of
miraculous short cuts, inviting you to take your
attention away from this one and change your course.

There'll be all kinds of distractions.

And, taking into consideration that it can take a
couple of years to reach the goal with daily small
steps, the combining effects of these distractions
become a mighty enemy which can pull us off our
course before we even get close to reaching the goal.

The power of causative thinking is huge... but only
if we follow through and persist on our chosen course
until we reach the goal.

Those things which can pull us off the course are
woven into the fabric of our daily lives.

Causative thinking is so unspectacular and seemingly
insignificant.

It can be REAL only for the person himself... and it
isn't easily perceived nor understood by those around
him.

But if you hold onto your dream, if you won't let go
of your goal and if you simply REFUSE to stray off
your chosen course... nothing, but NOTHING can stop
you reaching it eventually!



PUT YOUR ATTENTION ON SIMPLE, DOABLE THINGS EVERY DAY

Taking causative thinking into the realm of practice
management and expansion, we notice that many of those
obstacles stopping us reaching the goal have to do
with the "How" of it.

There are many systems available, multiple choices of
various ways to reach the goal of continuous, healthy
expansions.

We're spoilt for choice when it comes to the "How" of
it.

My advice is to go for the simple and practical
alternative.

Causative thinking lives best when paired with DOABLE
SIMPLE THINGS which are SMALL ENOUGH TO DO on daily
basis.

Go for the tested and proven practical things and
leave the more ambitious (and fancy) stuff for the
big boys.

See, most of those services are created for BIG firms.
They have a budget for such things, countless branches
with countless directors whose entertainment is an
essential part of any such course.

But for a practitioner with his or her own firm they
offer perhaps too much theory and too few doable
things.

Go for step-by-step practical instructions,
ready-to-use tools which other small-to-medium-sized
practices have used successfully.

Go for what has been proven to work.

And go for what is inexpensive to use.

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For nothing can take you off your course easier than
choosing a system which drains your funds before it
brings results!

Huge undertakings - such as doubling your clientele -
become far less challenging if broken down to daily
tasks lasting from few minutes to half an hour during
a period of 2-3 years.

Now, don't think it will take that long to being
seeing tangible results. You'll BEGIN to see results
within a couple months... and reach the goal of
doubling the number of clients in a couple or years!

In our world of instant gratification and miracle
pills, we are offered solutions which claim fast and
miraculous results.

But do you trust those claims?

Right. Of course, you've been right all along to
distrust them. The suspect item is the SPEED with
which they're supposed to produce miracles.

Miracles are produced, but only through causative
thinking during a longer period of time... and with
a practical step-by-step system breaking the goal
down to objectives which in turn are divided into
doable easy things to do on daily basis.

It's not spectacular while you're on the way to your
goal.

But, once you reach your goal, in retrospect, the end
result will be nothing short of a miracle in the eyes
of those who don't know the power of causative
thinking!

That's how your practice came to be.

That's how you've already achieved FAR more than the
average human being on this planet.

Well done on that... and keep using the proven formula
of causative thinking to reach new goals!



Have a great week,

Best wishes
Harry Kafka
http://www.architectmarketingtips.com

The potential in failure

Failure is part of any success.

Fear of failure will inhibit anyone from attempting anything, while embracing it in your search for success will guide your way towards more optimal, efficient and innovative solutions.

Advice to my young very shy son, when he pressures me to ask the store clerk to ask for the Playstation he has been paining for, for the past 6 months. Failure to ask for what you so much desire guarantees the most feared result : rejection, failure. So, by asking, you increase your chances astronomically.

This same advice applies in business. By over-analyzing and justifying failure to attempt a new, rizky venture you are guaranteed of your biggest fear : failure. By launching an attempt, any attempt you drastically improve your chances. You might have to try a number of times, but not trying guarantees failure...

100%...

Do it. Now

The "3X" Theorem

Communicate!
Communicate!
Communicate!

Over-communicate!
Over-communicate!
Over-communicate!

Whatever amounts to "sensible communication," triple it!

Immediate "command":

Play back the last 24 or 48 hours. Is there an instance where you have
failed to Fully Inform a client, or other stakeholder, of a delay (wee
or grand) or glitch (wee or grand)? If your answer is "nope, all is
well"—you are a liar. (Sorry, it just slipped out of the keyboard.)

Fix it.
Now.
Make the call.
(And if you have, in fact, good for you, let someone know about a glitch
... call 'em again to update the status of the fix, or relay the sad but
honest news that the fix is more complex than first imagined.)

Quoted from Tom Peters

What Firefox says about you

A quick glimpse at just about any profession shows you that the vast

majority of people who succeed professionally also went to college.

This could be because college teaches you a lot.

Or it could be because the kind of person that puts the effort into
getting into and completing college is also the kind of person who
succeeds at other things.

Firefox is similar.

Example: 25% of the visitors we track at Squidoo use Firefox, which is
not surprising. But 50% of the people who actually build pages on the
site are Firefox users. /Twice/ as many.

This is true of bloggers, of Twitter users, of Flickr users...
everywhere you look, if someone is using Firefox, they're way more
likely to be using other power tools online. The reasoning: In order to
use Firefox, you need to be confident enough to download and use a
browser that wasn't the default when you first turned on your computer.

That's an empowering thing to do. It isolates you as a different kind of
web user.

If I ran Firefox, I'd be hard at work promoting extensions and power
tools (I love the search add-ons) and all manner of online interactions.
Think of all the things colleges do to amplify the original choice of
their students and to increase their impact as alumni.

And if I ran your site, I'd treat Firefox visitors as a totally
different group of people than everyone else. They're a self-selected
group of clickers and sneezers and power users.

In the lingo of Nancy Reagan, Firefox is a gateway drug.

Quoted from Seth Godin's Blog

The Essence of success

I (Tom Peters) was lucky to get to London for the Tom event yesterday.

Repeating his message from this blog post Tom told the
story about Conrad Hilton, founder of Hilton hotels. At a gala
celebrating his life, he was asked, "What was the most important lesson you've learned in your long and distinguished career?" His reply was,
"Remember to tuck the shower curtain inside the bathtub."

At first glance, one may think, that's it? But, think about it ...
paying attention to detail makes all the difference when we are trying
to achieve excellence. When we miss the little things, we miss the
opportunity to achieve excellence; we fall just short of it.

My question of the day is, "What shower curtain do you need to tuck in?"

Quoted from Tom Peters

Snippets you remember

/Too whom it may concern:/

That's the way the letter of reference started off. I confess, I didn't
make it to the second sentence.

And that store with the really loud electronica music? I left.

But I still remember that kid I met a year ago. I can't tell you what
grade he was in, but the energy in his face and his enthusiasm was
enough to get my full attention.

The facts:
Too many choices.
Too little time.

The response:
Quick decisions based on the smallest scraps of data.

It's not fair but it's true. Your blog, your outfit, the typeface you
choose, the tone of your voice, the expression on your face, the
location of your office, the way you rank on a Google search, the look
of your Facebook page...

We all jump to conclusions and we do it every day.

Where do you want me to jump?

Quoted from Seth Godin

Ideas spread when they are remembered

Yesterday, I visited my friend Tara's place and noticed that she put a large piece of paper on her bedroom wall, next to where she slept.

On it was written some quotations and general life principles. Tara
wanted to remind herself of these words when she woke up everyday and before she went to bed. It's a self-improvement trick to overcome negativity and focus on the important things.

So I got curious and read what she wrote. After I came home, I tried recalling what I read but could only come up with two lines. The rest
were a blur.

If it was up to me, I would split the large piece of paper into little
post-it notes, each with one message and paste them all on the wall or
different parts of her room, perhaps one in the closet, two on the
bookshelf.

I think they'll have more impact than a large piece of paper, crammed to the brink with powerful lines. *Ideas spread when they are remembered*. And they stick in the mind better when they stand alone, without competition from other opposing ideas.

A persuasive blog post or sales letter argues one point and accentuates it thoroughly with analogies, metaphors, examples and references. Just one point, because too many and you'll not only lose your own focus but *the attention of your audience*. You don't want to distract them from taking action.

Too many statements and important points can be an obstacle. When you want your audience to remember a message, make it clutter-free and uncomplicated. Good marketing campaigns condense the entire event, website or product into one slogan, a few buzzwords and a tagline. And it works marvelously well.

If you can't sum up your business in one sentence, if your visitors can't figure out the purpose of your website in 10 seconds, you're not communicating. You're not sticking in their head. And that doesn't help your ideas or brand to spread.

Quoted from doshdosh.com

Hug Your People

Some of you may recall Jack Mitchell's last book, Hug Your Customers. In it he discussed how to nurture and maintain customer relationships using his "hug" method. In his new offering, Mitchell's embrace of his customer base has been expanded to his employees. He noticed that if there is not praise or recognition for a job well done, there isn't the same incentive to try again--even when one maintains the monetary comfort from the job.

It is not complicated to comprehend that people are happy and content when they are rewarded in humane ways, but people often forget that they are dealing with, well, other people. Mitchell stresses that we shouldn't lose the humanity in business relations and that everyone needs a hug. A random hug in this day and age may result in sexual harassment, so hugs can and should take on different forms. He suggests many ways to do this, from using a nickname, to a quick email recognizing a good job or an unexpected little token/gift from a superior or co-worker.

The Mitchell Blueprint to hugging your employees has five principles: Nice, Trust, Pride, Include and Recognize. He goes into all these aspects in the book, giving examples of each principle. In the Nice chapter, for instance, he explains how important it is to just be nice to people, and how easy it can be. He shows how easy it can be to forget this as well. One simple way companies stay "Nice" is by getting "Nice" employees. Mitchell suggests different ways to notice these traits, many in an interview--the handshake, meeting eyes, the way they sit--and offers open ended questions to use in this situation such as "Share the nicest thing you've done to another person" or "Who is the nicest person you know."

Mitchell also talks about the importance of maintaining a fun working atmosphere. Sure, business has to get done, but like his son Bob tells his people during a meeting, "Let's all make twenty customer calls today, but let's have fun doing it." It is in this atmosphere that the Trust Principle comes into play. People that work for a "fun" place also have to take responsibility for their actions and how they affect others.

The Mitchell Blueprint, with its five principles, helps companies develop ways they can incorporate "hugs" in their company. Each principle makes up a part of the book, and each part contains a study guide. This may seem elementary to a lot of business people (and it should) but it is a great reminder that people like to be assured, patted on the back and given a hug once in awhile, and this book reminds us all of that.

Hug Your People: The Proven Way to Hire, Inspire and Recognize Your Employees and Achieve Remarkable Results, by Jack Mitchell, Hyperion, 288 pages, $19.95, Hardcover, March 2008, ISBN 9781401322373

Quoted from : http://800ceoread.com/blog/

The Go-Giver

Bob Burg and John David Mann have written an interesting parable around the life of "Joe," a highly ambitious guy who comes to a dead end when he can't create the two things he needs to succeed: clout and leverage. In his pursuit of obtaining these things, he meets "Pindar," a smart, kind, and extremely wealthy man who seems to have everything Joe wants. After meeting with Pindar, Joe realizes that he's on a much bigger quest than he anticipated, and learns through Pindar and his associates that the most optimal way to receive is to give. By learning and practicing Pindar's "Five Laws," Joe obtains not only clout and leverage, but a life fulfilled far beyond the old goals he used to have.

The process is much more complicated than he expected though. In fact, a constant shift in perspective, a breaking of usual habits, and an adoption of seemingly illogical business practices had to take place. In his meetings with Pindar and associates, Joe examines such things as why people crowd into restaurants with good food while tables sit empty at places with excellent food; he sees meeting rooms with executives using finger paints as part of their creative process; and he learns about creating a huge network of influence by placing other people's interests first.

Each lesson is themed with the idea that the more you put other people first, and the more you provide for them, the more you'll be able to receive. The book states, "Your true worth is determined by how much more you give in value than you take in payment." In business, it is typical to focus on what we are going to get and how we are going to get it. The Go-Giver reminds us to focus on the important point of what we are going to give to people. As shown throughout the book, this focus turns business from a 50/50 proposition to a 100% success.

The Go-Giver: A Little Story about a Powerful Business Idea, by Bob Burg and John David Mann, Portfolio, 112 pages, $19.95, Hardcover, December 2007, ISBN 9781591842002

Quoted from : http://800ceoread.com/blog/

The Back of the Napkin: Solving Problems and Selling Ideas with Pictures, by Dan Roam.

"You see, Freddie," I said, "Lots of people these days are very worried and confused about how to create a useful website. But the way I think about it, there are really only three things that we need to define. The first is the brand itself. The other two are the content and the function." Then I drew in two more circles and labeled them appropriately, then continued, "If we can determine what to put in these three circles, then we can build any site to serve any audience."
"The question is: how do we know what these three should contain. The answer is this." I drew a little smiley face next to each circle and wrote a caption for each. "What people want to DO (or what we want them to do) determines function; what people want to KNOW (or what we want them to know) determines content; and what we want them to REMEMBER determines the brand."

Quoted from : 800CEOread blog

The drive for mediocrity

Maybe it should be, "the forces for mediocrity"...

There's a myth that all you need to do is outline your vision and prove it's right—then, quite suddenly, people will line up and support you.

In fact, the opposite is true. Remarkable visions and genuine insight are always met with resistance. And when you start to make progress, your efforts are met with even more resistance. Products, services, career paths... whatever it is, the forces for mediocrity will align to stop you, forgiving no errors and never backing down until it's over.

If it were any other way, it would be easy. And if it were any other way, everyone would do it and your work would ultimately be devalued. The yin and yang are clear: without people pushing against your quest to do something worth talking about, it's unlikely it would be worth the
journey. Persist.

Quoted from Seth Godin

New interactions, not just moved interactions

By Seth Godin

eBay is basically an auction online. It's a great idea, I wish I'd had
it, but it's still an auction, same kind we've had for a million years.

Jeff Jarvis points us to a new feature
<http://googledocs.blogspot.com/2008/02/stop-sharing-spreadsheets-start.html>
in Google Docs. Think this through for a moment:
You send an email to your permission list. It points to a spreadsheet
online. People can fill it out without logging in. You get the
summarized data back, and can present it as a chart, a graph or just run
with the numbers themselves. The depth of analysis you can generate is
far deeper than a simple poll. My guess is that 99% of the people who
use it will do a simple one dimensional poll. It's more powerful than that.

Now, what else do we need?

How about a simple system that lets you run a new kind of auction for an
event with limited seating? Say you want 200 people to come to a
networking event, the sort of thing that's no fun if only a dozen or two
show up... Instead of charging $50 a ticket, why not charge $1 for the
first five tickets, $2 for the next five, and on to $500 for the last
ten? You'll earn just as much (if not more) but reward the brave who
sign up early. (The folks who like to wait until the last minute 'to be
sure' end up paying for the privilege). It's easy to imagine a simple
interface to set up whatever graduated pricing model you'd like.

Or, how about a geography-based system for pricing? Many services are
sold by a flat fee, but add a zip code and a map and it could completely
change the pricing model.

Why don't airlines have tools in place to make it easy to integrate
charter flights with conventions so flights run when (and where) people
are going? Flights for passengers instead of passengers for flights...

There was a lot of this discussed 9 years ago. The world wasn't ready.
It is now.

I guess my point is that this is just the beginning of using internet
tools to change the world we interact with, as opposed to trying to make
it easy to interact with the standard world using the Internet.

Quoted from Seth Godin's Blog

Fear, hope and love: the three marketing levers

By Seth Godin

Where does love come from? Brand love?

The TSA is in the fear business. Every time they get you take off your shoes, they're using fear (of the unknown or perhaps of missing your plane) to get you take action.

Chanel is in the hope business. How else to get you to spend $5,000 a gallon for perfume?

Hope can be something as trivial as convenience. I hope that this smaller size of yogurt will save me time or get a smile out of my teenager...

And love? Love gets you to support a candidate even when he screws up or changes his mind on a position or disagrees with you on another one. Love incites you to protest when they change the formula for Coke, or to cry out in delight when you see someone at the market wearing a Google t-shirt.

People take action (mostly) based on one of three emotions:

Fear
Hope
Love

Every successful marketer (including politicians) takes advantage of at least one of these basic needs.

Forbes Magazine, for example, is for people who hope to make more money.

Rudy Giuliani was the fear candidate. He tried to turn fear into love, but failed.

Few products or services succeed out of love. People are too selfish for an emotion that selfless, most of the time.

It's interesting to think about the way certain categories gravitate to various emotions. Doctors selling check ups, of course, are in the fear business (while oncologists certainly sell hope). Restaurants have had a hard time selling fear (healthy places don't do so well). Singles bars certainly thrive on selling hope.

Google, amazingly quickly, became a beloved brand, something many people see as bigger than themselves, something bigger than hope. Apple lives in this arena as well. I think if you deliver hope for a long time (and deliver on it sometimes) you can graduate to love. Ronald Reagan was beloved, even when he was making significant long-term errors. So was JFK. Hillary may be respected, but Obama is loved.

I don't think love is often a one way street, either. Brands that are loved usually start the process by loving their customers in advance.

The easiest way to build a brand is to sell fear. The best way, though, may be to deliver on hope while aiming for love...

Quoted from Seth's Blog

Ambition and Productivity

Tom Peters

Last week the Associated Press reported that "Worker productivity, the
key factor in rising living standards, slowed sharply in the final three
months of the year while wage pressures increased." This drop in
productivity coupled with the news that the service sector shrank for
the first time in five years has many economists talking about how big
the impending recession will be rather than debating whether one will occur.

At tpc we have long advocated enabling IT efforts and structures to
increase organizational productivity. Many of you are familiar with
Tom's rants on the white collar revolution and the advent of white
collar robots. We also believe there is another, powerful mechanism for
improving productivity. People will become more productive when they
want to become more productive! And they want to when their output is
moving the organization closer to a compelling shared purpose, vision,
or what we call "Ambition" in our Future Shape of the Winner model.

Many of us have probably known someone in the workforce who was going
through the motions, fulfilling their job duties with no particular
zeal, and sometimes even beginning their retirement while they were
still on the payroll. And yet this same person may be a hardworking
volunteer for a charitable organization they believe in. The difference
is having a purpose that has real meaning. Being part of something that
really matters! And improving the return for investors (although the
lifeblood of a successful business) is not compelling enough to pull out
that voluntary discretionary effort we all have available. It has to be
a statement of the common cause for the common good.

That is why we advise our clients to start with ambition. Who do we
intend to be and what part might the individual members play? Why does
it matter? When it is important, it becomes a "want to" driver, rather
than the "have to" necessities of my job. And the work we perform when
we want to is always more productive than the work we do because we have to.

What do you think? Agree or disagree that it's the place to start in
your strategic plan? Can that raise productivity? Do you have any ideas
for building passion through purpose?

<http://www.tompeters.com/cgi-bin/mt/mt-tb.cgi?__mode=view&entry_id=10263>Posted
by Mike Neiss for Tom Peters

It's good to talk

There has been a lot of talk on this blog lately about how an
organisation's structure and infrastructure (which, in Future Shape of
the Winnerparlance, we call its Architecture) can affect the ability of
its people to innovate, or even just to get things done. For many of our
clients there is a limit to what they can do to change organization
structure or infrastructure, and yet, if they want to release the
potential of their people, we believe there has to be a way around this
dilemma.

So, it was with great delight I read a recent study done by Google, that
has uncovered some fascinating insights into how information flows
around their organisation. Google has been able to correlate information
flow amongst their employees with a whole variety of factors; a person's
department, their membership on email lists, projects they had worked
on, friends, where they went to college, etc., etc. ...

What they have discovered is that by far the most significant influence
on who knows what is their physical location at work. Their study has
found that social and professional proximity matters very little,
whereas people who sit near each other in the office tend to know the
same things.

Over the years, I have seen a number of situations in which my client,
apparently restricted by organisation charts and structures, has simply
decided to sit people together who ought to collaborate, without
changing any reporting relationships. Particularly when there is a
customer service dimension to the work, the natural outcome of such a
relocation is that everyone settles into a pattern of sharing that has a
significantly positive effect on the work.

The study findings were rather surprising to me in today's world of
multiple virtual connections. And yet one conclusion is rather
depressing–if you really want to influence a person's behaviour, must
you live in their world? So, what can we do in our dispersed
organisations? Are we doomed? How are organisations that you know well
overcoming the problems of distance in getting their messages out there?

Quoted from Tom Peters

Innovation + design

The Center for Creative Leadership recently released the findings of
their study of senior executives' opinions of the future trends they face. It is no
surprise that the increasing complexity of their challenges was
forefront on the executives' minds. As authors Corey Criswell and André
Martin noted in the introduction to the report, "Senior executives face
increasingly complex challenges that involve organizational changes,
market dynamics and talent shortages. One popular response to increasing
complexity is to lean on innovation. Our respondents believe that aiming
for innovation through overt processes (systems and structures) and
talent development is paramount to creating a culture that is agile
enough to address complex challenges."

I certainly hear the cry for innovation often in my client work. Simple
logic would argue that creation of an innovative culture cannot occur
without first innovating current business practices. All too often the
stories I hear of innovation revolve around the lone wolf who somehow
beat the existing system. Innovation will not be widespread until the
systems, practices, policies, and procedures are changed so that
innovation becomes the path of least resistance. It may even be
counterproductive to preach innovation and fire up the troops if they
run smack into barriers that discourage it. Cynicism often occurs,
followed by disengagement of talent when they wonder why they should
bother.

In our model for analyzing and creating solutions we recognize this
architecture as being a key component of successful change. If
innovation is the goal, perhaps the focus shouldn't be restricted to
encouraging the players. Instead we should look seriously at the playing
field. Some examples I am seeing include rigid organization structures,
project teams being populated by those who are available rather than
those who are necessary, resource allocation that doesn't value
investment in innovation, and metrics that reward traditional practices
over innovative approaches. There are, of course, many forces affecting
innovation or the lack of it. But examining current architecture seems
to me to be a good place to start.

What are you seeing? Examples? Challenges? Emotional outbursts?

Quoted from Tom Peters Blog

Tribe Management

Brand management is so 1999.

Brand management was top down, internally focused, political and money
based. It involved an MBA managing the brand, the ads, the shelf space,
etc. The MBA argued with product development and manufacturing to get
decent stuff, and with the CFO to get more cash to spend on ads.

Tribe management is a whole different way of looking at the world.

It starts with permission, the understanding that the real asset most
organizations can build isn't an amorphous brand but is in fact the
privilege of delivering anticipated, personal and relevant messages to
people who want to get them.

It adds to that the fact that what people really want is the ability to
connect to each other, not to companies. So the permission is used to
build a tribe, to build people who want to hear from the company because
it helps them connect, it helps them find each other, it gives them a
story to tell and something to talk about.

And of course, since this is so important, product development and
manufacturing and the CFO /work/ for the tribal manager. Everything the
organization does is to feed and grow and satisfy the tribe.

Instead of looking for customers for your products, you seek out
products (and services) for the tribe. Jerry Garcia understood this. Do you?

Who does this work for? Try record companies and bloggers, real estate
agents and recruiters, book publishers and insurance companies. It works
for Andrew Weil and for Rickie Lee Jones and for Rupert at the WSJ...
But it also works for a small web development firm or a venture capitalist.

People form tribes with or without us. The challenge is to work for the
tribe and make it something even better.

Quoted from Seth Godin
<Tags> Seth Godin, connect, tribe, challenge

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Workaholic

A workaholic lives on fear. It's fear that drives him to show up all the
time. The best defense, apparently, is a good attendance record.

A new class of jobs (and workers) is creating a different sort of
worker, though. This is the person who works out of passion and
curiosity, not fear.

The passionate worker doesn't show up because she's afraid of getting in
trouble, she shows up because it's a hobby that pays. The passionate
worker is busy blogging on vacation... because posting that thought and
seeing the feedback it generates is actually more fun than sitting on
the beach for another hour. The passionate worker tweaks a site design
after dinner because, hey, it's a lot more fun than watching TV.

It was hard to imagine someone being passionate about mining coal or
scrubbing dishes. But the new face of work, at least for some people,
opens up the possibility that work is the thing (much of the time) that
you'd most like to do. Designing jobs like that is obviously smart.
Finding one is brilliant.

By Set Godin

<Tags> workaholics, Seth Godin, passion, curiosity, fun, fear, drive

Vestiges

Unless you just started, your organization is different than it used to
be. It has evolved.

The marketing you do, the decisions you make, the hurdles you have to go
through probably have vestiges of the old model. Sometimes, like the
little feet on the back of a whale, it's easy to ignore the vestiges.
Other times, it's entirely possibly that they prevent you from achieving
your goals.

Example: years ago, Prodigy, the original big online service, reflected
its origins from Sears, CBS and IBM when they unveiled chat and
discussion boards. Every single message posted was read by a censor
before it went online. At one point, they had literally hundreds of full
time editors sitting in an office tower outside of NY, painstakingly
reading every single post.

Example: the production values of an HD TV show are lost in the YouTube
environment, yet plenty of studios and advertisers are having trouble
giving up the staffing and hierarchy that served them so well in the
other medium. So the vestiges remain, slowing down the entire process
(and making it a lot more expensive.) 25 people to film a three minute
clip is just silly, but it makes sense if you look back at how they got
there.

Example: local banks with limited hours were the norm just a few years
ago. The move to online hasn't changed the way they all see the world...
it's a skeleton staff at night, because that's the way it always was.

If you're working hard to work around a vestige, maybe it makes sense to
work just as hard to get rid of it all together.

By Seth Godin

<Tags> : Seth Godin, vestiges, origin, optimization

The problem with perfect

When was the last time you excitedly told someone about FedEx?

They're perfect. The only time we notice them is when they screw up.

And that fancy restaurant with the four star reviews? They've got the
fine linen and the coordinated presentation of dishes... it costs
hundreds of dollars to eat there, but it's okay, because they're perfect.

Which is a problem, because dinner consists of not much except noticing
how imperfect they are. The second course came five minutes later than
it should of (ten, even!). The salad was really good, but not as perfect
as it was last time. And the valet parking... you had to wait in the
cold for at least ninety seconds before your car came. What a let down.

A let down?

The place is a gift, a positive bit of karma in a world filled with
compromise. And all you can do is notice that it's not perfect.

As the quality of things go up, and competition increases, it's so easy
to sell people on perfect. But perfect rarely leads to great word of
mouth, merely because expectations are so hard to meet.

I think it's more helpful to focus on texture, on interpersonal
interaction, on /interesting. /Interesting is attainable, and
interesting is remarkable. Interesting is fresh every day and
interesting leads to word of mouth.

I think our FedEx delivery person is interesting. I like her. I talk to
her. And yes, it changes my decision about who to ship with. I also
think that Spicy Mina is an interesting restaurant. So far from perfect,
it's ridiculous. But I talk about it.

By Seth Godin

<Tags> perfect, Seth Godin, fed ex, complain, promise, interesting

Indonesian traditional medicine

Dramatically re-orient healthcare from after-the-fact "fixes" to before-the-fact attention to prevention-Wellness.
(And "kindly suggest" that the "acute-care industry" give some passing thought to Quality.)

Tom Peters

Tags:Indonesian traditional medicine, jamu,tom peters

Freedom to create and serve

Effective enterprise always, but today (the creative age) more than ever, is a product of maximizing human freedom to create and serve.

Organizations exist to serve. Period.

Leaders exist to serve. Period.

Respond to customers' desires with products and services and experiences (think Cirque du Soleil) that are "gaspworthy," and a lot of
"other issues" will mostly take care of themselves.

-Tom Peters-

Tags:Tom Peters, Service,

The essence of business

"To me business isn't about wearing suits or pleasing stockholders. It's about being true to yourself,


your ideas

and

focusing on the essentials."

—Richard Branson

Greatness

"Groups become great only when everyone in them, leaders and members alike, is free to do his or her absolute best."

"The best thing a leader can do for a Great Group is allow its members to discover their own greatness."

-Organizing Genius-
Warren Bennis and Patricia Ward Biederman

Problems : Deal with it.. or, run!

There are three ways to deal with a problem, I think.

* Lean into it.
* Lean away from it.
* Run away.

You lean /into/ a problem, especially a long-term or difficult one, by
sitting with it, reveling in it, embracing it and breathing it in. The
problem becomes part of you, at least until you solve it. You try one
approach and then another, and when nothing works, you stick with it and
work around it as you build your organization and your life.

Some people choose to lean /away/ from the problems that nag them at
home or at work. They avoid them, minimize them or criticize the cause.
Put as little into it as possible and maybe it will go away.

And sometimes, a problem is so nasty or overwhelming that you just run away.

I'm a big fan of the first approach. And sometimes, quitting isn't such
a bad idea. The second approach, alas, is the one that many of us end up
with by default, and the one that's least likely to pay off.

If that helps with this year's resolutions, it was worth thinking about...

Seth Godin

Stasis vs. Dynamism

Do we crave predictability, or relish surprise? These two poles, stasis and dynamism, increasingly define our political, intellectual, and cultural landscape."
—Virginia Postrel, The Future and Its Enemies

"Wealth in this new regime flows directly from innovation, not optimization. That is, wealth is not gained by perfecting the known, but by imperfectly seizing the unknown."
—Kevin Kelly, "New Rules for the New Economy," Wired, September 1997

"The secret of fast progress is inefficiency, fast and furious and numerous failures."
—Kevin Kelly

www.tompeters.com

Yeah, We Got Lucky

November 10th, 2007

As I enter the office for a meeting, the receptionist behind the counter stands. She stands for no other reason than to afford me respect and shake my hand as I'm welcomed.

Receptionists are usually friendly and professional as they answer the phone and announce the arrival of yet another visitor. But I've never experienced one standing to honor my presence. I take note!

As my meeting with the firm's CEO proceeds, I explain how demonstrating a brand is more important than talking about a brand.
"How is branding different from marketing and sales? What do you mean by Brand Ownership? Don't quality products and hard work speak for themselves?" - all common first-time questions from prospective clients.

As our meeting progresses during lunch I explain how strong brands must be both different and relevant. Midway through our meal, the CEO asks, "You've been to our office. Did you notice anything different and relevant about us?"

I told them of my experience of being greeted by their receptionist and how important it made me feel.
The CEO was not surprised - he receives raving comments about his receptionist all the time. He did admit her actions were not an intentional part of living out their company's brand – she just has good instincts and knows people. Lucky for him he hired well.

The receptionist's actions were even more relevant in this case since she worked for an outplacement firm. Chances are when a person walks through their doors it's someone who's just lost their job and a lot of their sense of value.
Creating a remarkable and relevant brand experience is sometimes as simple as remembering what it feels like to be a customer, then designing different and relevant actions around what you remember.
You can't always bet on hiring a very perceptive receptionist!

Quoted from ownyourbrand.com

Unforgettable

November 15th, 2007

"My memory flows like a movie - nonstop and uncontrollable!"

Known in medical literature only as AJ, she remembers everything about her life – even the mundane. There have been people with great memories in the past, but AJ is unique. Her extraordinary memory is not for facts or figures, but for her own life.
In fact, her inexhaustible memory for autobiographical details is so unprecedented and so poorly understood the scientists who have been studying her for the past seven years, had to coin a new medical term to describe her condition: hyperthymestic syndrome.
Wouldn't it be great if your customers and clients remembered you the same way – or would it?
There are two ways you become important enough to become a rock-solid memory:

1. Work long and hard to identify the right set of promises your "sweet spot customer" will call useful and unique. Then focus every ounce of your organization's energy on keeping those promises.

OR

2. Make promises to the marketplace and fail to keep them.

Customers remember promises made and kept and promises made and broke. Both are important, but for very different reasons.

So, how do you want to be unforgettable?

Quoted from ownyourownbrand.com

Competitors Formerly Known As Your Employees

OwnYourOwnBrand.com

September 16th, 2007

We, who are your lowly employees feel the time has come to tell you that every Thursday we have been meeting, as a group, to devise ways to keep you in perpetual uncertainty, frustration, discontent and torture by neither listening to you as much as you want, nor quitting you without notice.

Your CPA is in on it, plus all your key suppliers and your ex-partner; and we have agreed to disappoint you and your customers as long as you "boss" us without leading us.
In letting you in on our Thursday meetings we realize we have placed in your hands a possible antidote to your frustration and indeed to your loss of customers. But since our Thursday nights
have united us with entrepreneurial spirit and ambition with you as the heart of our motivation, we feel hopeful you will continue to make unreasonable demands on all of us while we discover our own brand and seek financing to launch our own business.

This bit of blog poetry was inspired by the real life employees who have become brand owners of their own ventures having learned what to do and not do under the many "bad bosses" we all have known.

Quoted from ownyourownbrand.com

STRIVE FOR INNOVATION ARC

A story arc is a continuing storyline. Its purpose is to move a character or a situation from one state to another, or to galvanize change. This is a pattern evident in work and play, in life itself.
Innovation is more than one shot, more than a chapter. What it constitutes is a narrative series in which one episode of change unfolds into another. Like a story arc, innovation can result in dramatic effect but it is and remains hard work. Innovation can be described as episodic reaching of a high point. It brings out the best in us. The motivation of innovation-charged groups can be striking. Cooperation, not competition, is the driver of positive outcomes toward an empathic future.

"The amplitude and velocity of change is such that companies are more at risk," says Paul A. Laudicina, author of World Out of Balance. The word "companies" means people. In as much as there is a drive to have a strong command of preparation when disasters happen in order to respond to sudden change, there is a drive to help people live and work collaboratively and efficiently. This same drive embodies innovation. In asking the tough question "What if…?" innovation's intent is that the best, not the worst, is yet to come.

Innovation is more than a new year's resolution, it is the pursuit of betterment in a world both troubling and interesting at the same time. like disaster's continuum of change, the continuum of innovation also persists. Individual efforts are conducive to leaving our world a little better. Aligned to Grandin's passionate practice of "doing practical things" and "creating systems," innovation is not beyond one's abilities. With this in mind, anyone can innovate.

Mastering Disaster by Jennifer Reingold, Fast Company

The Elegant Solution : What’s the next big thing?

This question is plastered throughout media and can be misleading.

When it comes to innovation, size and scope does not matter in improving lives. One's sphere of influence, however small, can lead to critical and incremental change, from home to classroom to workplace.

Toyota's Formula for Mastering Innovation"
by Matthew E. May

Big Ideas (Meatball Mondae 11)

In a factory-based organization, little ideas are the key to success.
Small improvements in efficiency or design can improve productivity and
make a product just a bit more appealing. New Marketing, which exists in
the noisy marketplace, demands something bigger. It demands ideas that
force people to sit up and take notice.

At the same time that we see how game-changing ideas (like the iPhone)
can trump little improvements, we're also noting the end of the "big idea" in advertising.

There's a difference between a big idea that comes from a product or
service and a big idea that comes from the world of advertising.

The secret of big-time advertising during the 1960s and '70s was the
"big idea." In/ A Big Life in Advertising/, ad legend Mary Wells
Lawrence writes, "... our goal was to have big, breakthrough ideas, not
just to do good advertising. I wanted to create miracles." A big idea
could build a brand, a career, or an entire agency.

Charlie the Tuna was a big idea. So was "Plop, plop, fizz, fizz."

Big ideas in advertising worked great when advertising was in charge.
With a limited amount of spectrum and a lot of hungry consumers, the
stage was set to put on a show. And the better the show, the bigger the
punchline, the more profit could be made.

Today, the advertiser's big idea doesn't travel very well. Instead, the
idea must be embedded into the experience of the product itself. Once
again, what we used to think of as advertising or marketing is pushed
deeper into the organization. Let the brilliant ad guys hang out with
your R&D team and watch what happens.

Yes, there are big ideas. They're just not advertising-based.

The whole series is here. http://www.meatballsundae.com

http://www.meatballsundae.com/

Quoted from Seth Godin's Blog

Thanks for calling, please go away

Most customer service organizations are architected around a simple
idea: interacting with customers is expensive, driving costs down is a
good thing, thus getting people to go away is beneficial.

Think about it: most inbound customer service people are rewarded for
on-phone efficiency. Calls per hour. Lack of escalations. Limited
complaints. What's the best way to do that? Get people to go away.

If you're on this system and a long-time customer calls in with a
complicated problem, one that's going to require supervisor intervention
and follow up, what's your best plan? Is it to spend an hour with this
person over three days, or is the system designed to have you politely
get them to just give up?

I'd focus on building a system that measures [sales rate before call]
vs. [sales rate after call]. If the sales rate goes up, give the call
center person a raise. It's that simple.

Paypal seized the money in my account on Friday. After seven years as a
user, they decided my new DVD project was suspiciously successful and it
triggered all sorts of alarms. The first step was a call from them... a
cheerful person asked me a few questions and all seemed fine. Then, with
no warning, they escalated the process. The system they put me in
treated me like a criminal and at every step they made it difficult for
me to keep going. Phone calls were made, and I spoke with two incredibly
friendly people who were clearly unable to do anything other than be
friendly. Both people were happy to talk to me for as long as I wanted,
but neither person was able to do anything at all. The system is clearly
designed this way... to insulate the people who make decisions from the
actual customers. The desired outcome (I go away) doesn't seem like it's
aligned with the corporate goals (I stick around).

The question I'd be asking is, "Do people who go through process and
manage to prove that they are not criminals end up doing more business
with us as a result of the way we treated them?" If the answer is no,
you're probably doing it wrong.

The last straw was this: After I put together all the documents they
wanted (including a copy of my passport) and created a PDF, I tried to
upload it. They don't take PDFs, the alert box said, just JPGs. So I
sent the images and get this notice:

I followed up with the email address on the screen and got an email
back, informing me that the email I had mailed to at PayPal wasn't
monitored.

Sigh.

[PS in the ninety minutes after I posted this, I heard from a slew of
people. Guess what? Every single one had a Paypal horror story to share.
Once you teach an entire organization to mistreat customers, it's hard
to fix.]

Quoted from Seth Godin's Blog

"Just Ask" says Tom Peters

Exec: "But Tom, how do we find out what it is that people really want?"
Tom (after a long pause and a lot of thought—and I'm not kidding): "Ask
'em."

Of course I acknowledged that it's not so easy as that. If you are a
close-to-the-vest sort, folks will wonder what your true agenda is—or
what seminar you're just back from. So you'll just have to practice and
be persistent. (And actually care about what you hear!) I recalled this
little exchange when, last night at Georgetown's Barnes & Noble
, I happened across /Listening Is An Act
of Love: A Celebration of American Life from the StoryCorps Project/ ,
by Dave Isay.

Isay, MacArthur Fellowship winner
among many other things, started StoryCorps;
in 2003. Guiding principles are:

* "Our stories—the stories of everyday people—are as interesting and
important as the celebrity stories we are bombarded with ...
* "If we take the time to listen, we'll find wisdom, wonder and
poetry in the lives and stories of the people all around us.
* "We all want to know our lives have mattered ...
* "Listening is an act of love."

I probably bought the book because I randomly opened it at page 60, a
5-pager titled "Ken Kobus, 58, tells his friend Ron Baraff, 42, about
making steel." It was wonderful, in the truest—filled with wonder—sense
of that wonderful, if overused, word. (An equally compelling 2-pager on
Samuel Black, a Cincinnati public school teacher, followed. Etc.)

I loved the stories—and truly /loved/ the "Listening is an act of love"
idea. To "get" the idea, I think you must truly ponder the meaning of
"love" as used here. Listening is probably-doubtless the premier "act of
love." True for the husband or wife or preacher or doctor*—and, I'd
contend, equally true for the IS project leader heading a 6-person team.
(*Docs are notoriously lousy listeners, but that's another day's
comment.) In fact it seems to me that "listening is the ultimate
leadership skill" ("listening with love"?) is an idea, and a practical
idea at that, well worth pondering—and operationalizing.

As I say all this, I am of course mostly parroting Matthew Kelly, author
of /The Dream Manager/
and our recent Cool Friend . He
contends that we are all driven by our dreams, and if leaders make a
"strategic" commitment to discovering the dreams of their followers, and
then provide opportunities to pursue those dreams (shape the
organization's culture around the pursuit of those dreams),
"organizational effectiveness" and "customer satisfaction" will vault to
the top of the league tables.

So: the Six Big Words I take from the above are:

Ask.
Listen.
Story.
Dream.
Universal.
Love

I'll say more later, but for now, /write/ the Six Words on a 3X5 card,
/stick/ it in your pocket, /read/ it before—and after—your next meeting
or phone call or even email, and ponder it.

Lemme know if it makes sense-works.

Quoted from Tom Peters' Blog

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“Out of our minds. Learning to be creative”

All children are born artists, but it is our educational system that is killing the creativity of our children.

Digital natives ( born after 1985) and digital immigrants (born before 1985)

Imagination is the fundamental distinctive character of human intelligence. It's the capacity to bring into our minds what's not visible for our senses.

Creativity is the process of screening ideas that have value. To be creative, you have to do something. Creativity is applied imagination.
Innovation is putting ideas into practice.

Often brillant people became brillant when they recovered from their education.

The question is not : "Are you creative but how are you creative?"

The habitat of a company has a huge impact on thinking and creativity of the co-workers.

Quoting Sir Ken Robinson

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The Greatest Mistake

"The greatest mistake you can make in life, is to be continually fearing you will make one".

By Elbert G. Hubbard

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Seth : Making your customers uncomfortable

Tomorrow is the ridiculous Black Friday ritual, gaining in steam every
year, in which large American retailers run big sales that start at 6
am. People line up even earlier to get in first. Kids are stampeded.
Muscles are pulled. Friendships frayed. Credit cards exhausted.

Why? In an always-on internet world, why force people to do something
they would ordinarily avoid?

Because they like it. It feels special. They are somehow earning the
discount. The store creates discomfort and then profits from it. And the
customers save money...

Southwest did the same thing to load their planes. By getting rid of
boarding passes, they create a small sense of panic. People line up and
push and shove to get on the plane in the mistaken belief that somehow
they won't get on.

Southwest created discomfort and then got their planes out faster. And
the travelers save time...

Better is not always better, at least according to some measures.

Quoted from Seth Godin's Blog

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Tom Peters On the subprime crisis and The Art of War

I'm focusing on "common sense stuff" lately that I've picked up over the years—and presenting it in as straightforward a way as I can. (I have recently begun my public remarks with, "I am here under false pretenses. I have nothing interesting to say. I have flown 5,000 miles for the sole purpose of reminding you of things you've known for years or decades—which, alas, get lost in the shuffle of daily affairs.") I believe to my marrow that we fail to achieve excellence by failing to obsess on the basics—not because we couldn't decide precisely where in
the blue ocean we wanted to drop our anchor.

Thinking about sub prime mortgage mathematically derived packaging instruments and sports agents with sophisticated spin-driven negotiating tactics, doubtless based on "game theory" math, led me to a pair of quotes from an 18th century leader, N Bonaparte: "The art of war does not require complicated maneuvers; the simplest are the best, and common sense is fundamental. From which one might wonder how it is generals make blunders; it is because they try to be clever." "A military leader must possess as much character as intellect. Men who have a great deal of intelligence and little character are the least suited. It is preferable to have much character and little intellect." (Source: Jerry Manas, /Napoleon on Project Management) Manas claims that Napoleon's "six winning principles" were:
exactitude—sweat the details, speed, flexibility, simplicity, character,
moral force. This makes sense to me, especially since Manas' sextet
matches perfectly the approach of the two military figures I most
respect, Horatio Nelson and Ulysses Grant.)

There's one other quote that comes to mind, from Picasso: "Every child
is born an artist. The trick is to remain an artist." So, if we
(Napoleon's generals or commanding officers of 4-person training
departments) can somehow manage to hold dear those beloved basics of
childlike artistry, we will be well served, regardless of our chosen
field of practice.

Quoted from Tom Peters' Blog

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The New Theory of Relativity

Relationships = Productivity

By Noah Blumenthal

Leaders give employees and their views no respect. The leaders of today must make it impossible for anyone in their organizations to believe that they are not valued, or feel that they are not an integral part of a strong community. Leaders of today must help people shed the self-image of a hamster in an exercise wheel.

There is still hope . . .

The new theory of relativity abides by the principle that relationships drive productivity. Valuing people (who should never be referred to as human capital) stimulates productivity, and thought and reflection lead to efficiency and effectiveness. Attending to people's needs is an end result. time taken away from the day to day activity of corporate life and dedicated to building trust, raising awareness, and understanding others is equally or more important to the bottom line.

The new theory of relativity is like the original. It is simple in concept, but difficult to grasp in reality. The five actions, that can take an organization there if they are followed with dedication and consistency. These steps can be followed by anyone, at any level of the organization, and in any function or position.

The first step in relativity is defining new goals for yourself and those around you.

The next step is to find ways to support others' goals.

The third step is to ask others how you affect them.

Fourth, ask what could be done better.

Finally, be patient and persistent.

Welcome to the new relativity.
It is simple in concept but difficult to grasp in reality. It takes time and patience, but the payoffs are commitment to valuable goals, relationships built on trust, and motivation to improve.

Adapted from The New Relativity manifesto by Noah Blumenthal

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Flanders DC, District of Creativity

http://www.flandersdc.be

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Flanders District of Creativity or Flanders DC is a non-profit
organization founded by the Flemish government, on 7 May 2004, to make
the Flemish economy more competitive through creativity,
entrepreneurship, and further internationalization.Contents [hide]

1 Goals
2 Projects/events
3 External links
4 See also

*Goals*

Research : analysis of the role of creativity in the economic growth of a region, and how companies/organisations can get to more creativity and innovation (Flanders Knowledge center in collaboration with Vlerick Leuven Ghent Management School). Creating awareness: stimulating policy makers, general public, companies & schools to tap into their creative potential Internationalization of creativity, innovation and entrepreneurship through collaboration with 11 other Districts of Creativity. Besides Flanders, these DC's are Catalunya (Spain),Lombardy (Italy), Québéc (Canada), Rhône-Alpes (France) Karnataka (India),Scotland (UK), Baden-Württemberg (Germany),Oklahoma (US),Shangai (China),
Nord-pas-de-Calais (France),Qingdao (China).

*Projects/events*

Creativity World Forum (The DC's meet @ the CWF)
GPS For Entreprises (free idea generation tool)
Flanders DC Fellows (50 entrepreneurs, managers testify on creative entrepreneurship in schools)
De Bedenkers (TV Show in collaboration with Flanders DC)
The Future Summit (Event on trends)
TriO (schoolkids go to companies to brainstorm with them about their products/services)

See also...

Institute for the promotion of Innovation by Science and Technology
Flanders Investment and Trade
Agoria
SIRRIS, knowledge centre for the technology industry

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Matthew Kelly : Dream Manager

Got dreams?

Our new Cool Friend Matthew Kelly says that a lot of people have simply
stopped dreaming. "And if they've stopped dreaming in their own life,
good luck trying to get them to subscribe to a dream that you have for
your organization."

Find out more about the kind of impact dreams and ambitions have on an
organization in the Cool Friends interview or in Matthew Kelly's book.

Tom called it magnificent

He saw it in an airport bookstore, and though he was a bit wary of its parable presentation, he skimmed it, got hooked, and Kelly was on his way to becoming a Cool Friend.

So, read the interview

pick up the book, and judge for yourself. And, should Kelly's message really resonate with you, he offers the Dream Manager Program
at his company, Floyd Consulting , to help others bring dreams to life.

Quoted from Tom Peter's Blog

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Small business success

Three things you need:

1) The ability to abandon a plan when it doesn't work,

2) The confidence to do the right thing even when it costs you money in the short run,

and

3) Enough belief in other people that you don't try to do everything yourself.


Seth Godin
Link to Seth's Blog

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A pearl of wisdom

"When people aren't having any fun, they don't produce good creative work"

Adapted from David Ogilvy

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The Meeting

..when you make your presentation, don't sit the client's team on one side and your team on the opposite, like adversaries. Mix everybody up.

Rehearse before a meeting, but never speak from a prepared text, it locks you into a position which may become irrelevant during the meeting.

Above all, LISTEN. The more you get the prospective client to talk, the easier it will be to decide whether you really want the account.

Tell your prospective client what your weaknesses are, before he notices them. This will make you more credible when you boast about your strong points.

David Ogilvy

Take 2 : Queuing,..check in..waiting..

The amount of time spent waiting in preparation to boarding your flight is.. to put it bluntly an excessive waste.

Why has no one come up yet with a solution to this horrendous waste of time ? After all, what is the difference between flying and riding a bus? How is it possible with the ever increasing volume of air traffic that we cannot devise a more efficient system?

Does anyone benefits from this? Or do we need to just accept and wait till we, or the company buys us a private jet?

I don't think so.

An impressive amount of time and creative effort has already been spent on bringing the price of flying down. I was just reading that RyanAir is going as far as not charging for its flights! But would it not be an even greater challenge to reduce not just the time in the air by speeding up the flight but also the time spent on preflight processing.

An idea came to mind while spending the predetermined waiting time plus.. a delay.. in one of many typical airports.

Can you develop a rating system based on all the considerations which constitute the cause for these extended waiting periods and give frequent flyers special benefits with this in mind?

Any ideas?

Sirk.

Give It a Try: Put Brands in Consumers' Hands (Literally)

Beyond Sampling: Advertrying Gets Target to Experience Product When and Where It's Most Relevant

By Brian F. Martin

Published: October 22, 2007

One of the greatest challenges facing corporations today is deciding where to invest their marketing dollars at a time when there are more choices than ever. Marketers and their agencies are searching for new ways to profitably persuade consumers to buy. In this quest, some have found the answer lies in the product itself. ...

Read the full article at Advertising Age

It's not worth it?!?

That's not true.

At least it's not true almost all the time. Very few of your prospects
literally can't afford it. What they are really trying to say is, "it's
not worth it." As in, it's not worth reprioritizing my life, not worth
the risk, not worth what I'll have to give up to get this, not worth
being in debt for.

One response to repeated cries of "I can't afford it" is to lower your
prices. A better response is to tell a better, more accurate story, and
to tell it to the right people. The best response is to make something
worth paying for. Quoted from Seth Godin's Blog

I personally do have to admit that as a consultant it is not always easy
to make your client see the value of the services you offer. This is
especially the case in an environment where the client can easily obtain
a competitive offer whereby they focus on cost while losing the value
offered by you. It is now our responsibility to tell the right story
that will justify the additional expense(in this example) in exchange
for superior results.

What's a logo worth?

Have you noticed that every single car made has a logo on it? Jeans, too. Not business shoes, but computers, certainly. Phones. Not ties, except maybe Hermes. Not most jewelry, either.

It's funny. We probably wouldn't take $50 or $100 to plaster a logo on the back of our business suit, but we pay extra for a logo on a TV set.

Pencils, yes. Very few foods, except maybe Oreos. Watches, certainly. But not most of the furniture in your living room (though if anyone could do it, it would be Barbara Barry).

Is a logoless car worth more or less than the typical kind? Why do we not only put up with it, but expect it and like it?

Apparently, it's not just a pencil, it's a lifestyle.

Quoted from Seth Godin's Blog

The need to be right

I don't think you can underestimate how important it is to most people
to be right.

People choose jobs, products, partnerships... just about everything... in many ways because it makes them feel right or at least diminishes the chance that they will be 'caught' being wrong.

The customer is always right When they're wrong, they're not your customer any more, because it's better to flee than be wrong.

My post on wikipedia really hit a nerve with a large number of readers. In many cases, the feedback I got was that the article in wikipedia might be wrong or vandalized. And if the underlying article is wrong, well, then you would be wrong. And being wrong is... bad.

I like being wrong. Not enough to make a habit of it, but enough to realize that I'm actively testing scenarios. Take a fact of dubious authenticity, riff a scenario around it and see if it feels right. That act of scenario building is a key factor in brainstorming, creativity
and in problem solving. If you need the core fact to be guaranteed right and perfect, you're doomed, because facts like that are in short supply.

Are you setting up your customers to be right and to feel right? Or is the risk of 'wrong' holding them back?

[I know, there's a huge need to have right facts and right practice, particularly in jobs where quality of service is essential. Got that. My point is that we're so good at getting those sort of facts right that maybe, just maybe, we need to spend more time teaching people the other
stuff. Short version: if your job can be completely written up in a manual, it's either not a great job or it's going to be done by someone cheaper, sometime soon.]

Quoted from Seth's Blog

Return to Ideasirkus Blog Homepage

Is viral marketing the same as word of mouth?

I got a note from a college student last week, explaining that his
professor told him he couldn't use the term 'viral marketing' in a
paper. It doesn't exist, apparently, it's just a new-fangled form of
word of mouth.

I found the interaction fascinating ("I'm not certain what benefit is
gained by arguing with an instructor" is my favorite quote from his
teacher) but I got to thinking about whether the instructor had a point.

"Viral marketing" shows up 2,000,000 times in Google, "ideavirus" shows
up 200,000 times. Of course, you could argue that just because millions
of people are using a term doesn't make it legitimate (though you'd be
wrong).

Anyway...
*
Viral marketing [does not equal] word of mouth. *Here's why:

Word of mouth is a decaying function. A marketer does something and a
consumer tells five or ten friends. And that's it. It amplifies the
marketing action and then fades, usually quickly. A lousy flight on
United Airlines is word of mouth. A great meal at Momofuku is word of mouth.

Viral marketing is a compounding function. A marketer does something and
then a consumer tells five or ten people. Then then they tell five or
ten people. And it repeats. And grows and grows. Like a virus spreading
through a population. The marketer doesn't have to actually do anything
else. (They can help by making it easier for the word to spread, but in
the classic examples, the marketer is out of the loop.) The Mona Lisa is
an ideavirus.

This distinction is vital.

For one thing, it means that constant harassment of the population
doesn't increase the chances of something becoming viral. It means that
most organizations should realize that they have a better chance with
word of mouth (more likely to occur, more manageable, more flexible) and
focus on that. And it means, most of all, that viral marketing is like
winning the lottery, and if you've got a shot at an ideavirus,
<http://www.ideavirus.com> you might as well over-invest and do whatever
it takes to create something virus-worthy.

And yes, I happen to think that arguing with the instructor is a very
good idea.

Quoted from : Seth Godin's Blog
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The Curious Misnomer of 'Global' Brands

And How 'Mamma Mia' Demonstrates Localized Globalism
Martin Lindstrom's Weekly Video Reports

MOSCOW(BRANDFlash) -- When you travel the world studying marketing patterns, you soon realize what a misnomer it is to talk about "global" brands. In fact, you may even question if such a thing truly exists. Coke, for instance, comes in 30 different variations in much the same manner as Ronald McDonald comes with different personality traits depending on what country he's found in. Or look at the world's most popular musical: ABBA's "Mamma Mia," which here in Moscow is surprisingly different from the same play as performed in London. Global marketing today is really more about localized customization than centralized distribution.

FULL ARTICLE from adage.com

Harnessing the power of informal employee networks

Most large corporations have dozens if not hundreds of informal networks, in which human nature, including self-interest, leads people to share ideas and collaborate. Informal networks are a powerful source of horizontal collaboration across thick silo walls, but as ad hoc structures their performance depends on serendipity and they can’t be managed by creating formal networks, companies can harness the advantages of informal ones and give management much more control over networking across the organization.

The steps needed to formalize a network include giving it a “leader,” focusing interactions in it on specific topics, and building an infrastructure that stimulates the ongoing exchange of ideas.

Read the article at McKinsey

Start Thinking Like Investment Managers

Talk Like Them, Too: Marketers Must Explain How Their Strategy Decisions Drive Shareholder Value

They say the first stage of starting a revolution is to begin with the language. OK, here's an attempt: What if marketers started to change the marketing lexicon? For example, instead of referring to the marketing budget, what if they were to call it a loan? One that needs to be paid back, with interest? And that ROI should be recast as a profit or loss? And advertising and marketing channels should be viewed as alternative investment funds designed to maximize marketing profits?

Read the article

How to organize your exhibition

If you arrange your own exhibit you must have objectives, a strategy and a
detailed plan.

The first thing to do is to research the trade fair. Find out which other
businesses will be exhibiting and the number and type of customers
expected. This will help you design a strategy and develop realistic
objectives.

When devising objectives and strategy you should consider :
- Who you are targeting.
- The information you want to provide to visitors to your stand.
- How you want to differentiate yourself from your competitors.
- How you will promote or display your products.
- The materials you will use to build your display.

The potential power ... shaping of opinion ... persuasion

When we approach our communications just to inform, we relinquish our
potential power, the opportunity to persuade, to shape opinion and the the
way your audience makes decisions. Do not leave the potential opportunity
atyour disposal.

1. Set your goals : Spend time considering what they would be most interested in. Think about
   their reservations. Develop answers to the questions they will ask.
   Structure the presentation around concerns and topics critical to
   influencing their thoughts and actions.
2. Articulate clear points and recommendations
   Once the audience is clearly understood, it is easier to align key points
   and recommendations with issues important to them.
3. Provide clear action steps
   Clearly outline your team's plan of action, allowing the audience to know
   what to expect.

The message becomes memorable
The message is easier to remember when you structure it considering their
position, providing clear recommendations and action steps.

Inspired by David Brenner's "Move the word".