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4/25/2007

Equity VS Ubiquity

Seth Godin got me to thinking about this issue in a recent post.

Awareness of your product or service isn't the ultimate goal. Knowing WHO you are doesn't count if the potential buyer doesn't know WHAT you can DO for them.

A very wise man once told me that confusion is the mother of indecision.

If they're confused by your message the only choice they can make is to ignore you and go on to someone else. You may have the best product on the market, but if they can't see through the clutter of other crap you're throwing at them - they'll walk.

4/24/2007

Top Brands of 2007

What's in a name?

Google beats Microsoft - because people love Google and tolerate Microsoft.

4/17/2007

New vocab term - WILF

Stands for "What was I looking for" -

Refers to people who get lost while online and wander aimlessly through the net.

"What did you do this afternoon?"
"Oh, I was bored so I wilfed around."
"Yeah? Find anything cool?"
"Actually yes - this blog from a guy named Jim Seybert."

Found it on MediaLife

4/10/2007

Keep 'em talking about you -

Found this on the AAFSmartBrief email this morning







STOP
what you're doing right now and ask, "Are people talking about us?"

They better be.

4/09/2007

How bad do you stink?

I recently wrote about the difference between "the" and "a" - encouraging organizations and the individuals who populate them to accentutate their uniqueness.

Here's another good example of that concept from Seth Godin.

As you read this, replace references to the fruit with thoughts of your own situation and ask, "Do we smell bad enough?"

4/06/2007

Looking Past Pigment, Language and Gender

I'm always on the look out for "new ways to do things" and a recent piece in AdAge.com explains the concept of identity marketing where you look past the obvious demographic segments to get a better understanding of messages that will resonate well with your target audience.

4/05/2007

User Generated Content in the Soda Wars

It wasn't that long ago that marketers gave themselves goldstars when a consumer would alter their lifestyle to use the product (leaving the house earlier and driving to Starbucks versus brewing your own coffee at home) -

Now, everywhere you look consumers are altering our products to fit their lifestyles -

Here's the latest -

For you, the question isn't WILL this become an issue for my industry, but rather WHEN will it happen and WHAT will we do to give consumers some input in our process?

4/01/2007

Give Your Ideas Time to Ripen On the Vine

Long-time readers of this monthly newsletter know that I will occasionally write on an idea I have not explored to its ultimate conclusion. I do this because the idea is intriguing and worthy of open consideration, despite its nascent existence.

This is one of those -

I spent the past week leading a client's strategic planning retreat on a tiny island 45 kilometers off the eastern coast of Nicaragua. Little Corn Island is like no place I've ever been. On its 900 square acres there's not one single road, which is OK as there are no motorized vehicles. Bicycles substitute for cars. Wheelbarrows serve as trucks. Electricity is provided by solar panels and generators. Our hotel has one computer, connected to the Internet by satellite. It works when the power is on, which last Tuesday it was not.

At about 8:15 Tuesday morning, the power went out. No computer, no water, no fan. My cell phone had been out of range for two days already.

The lights had gone out previously but they normally came right back on. This time, the hotel said it was a problem with the generator and no one had any idea when it would be repaired.

I found a shady place with a decent breeze, picked up a pencil and did some old-fashioned, hand-powered "analog" word processing.

Over the span of 4 hours, I did by hand - in slow motion - what I had planned to zing out in 30 minutes on my computer. I didn't find something else to do until power was restored, I just did what needed to be done - by hand, at a much slower pace.

And you know what? The end-product was better. It took longer, but it was more intuitive and met the needs of the client in ways that a "digital" effort might not have done.

Vine-ripened tomatoes are immensely superior to their artificially matured "hot house" cousins because chemical reactions that result in the perfect fruit aren't rushed on the vine.

Because things are so automated these days, it is too easy for us to pound thoughts into our keyboards, without really thinking about them. And, just like hot-house tomatoes, our end-product suffers for lack of time to ripen.

So, take a moment to think about this -

What would happen if your company had a "black-out period" when everyone in the place was forced to work in "analog mode" - by hand?

  • No computer access - turn it off at the server.
  • No phones - find a way to kill the ringer.
  • No copier, no musak, nothing electronic.
Tell them to spend the time writing letters, reviewing agendas, thinking through strategies, looking for ways to be more effective (rather than simply more efficient).

As I said at the beginning, this idea hasn't been fully explored, but it certainly has potential.

How often should you do this? I don't have a clue what would work for you, but after this week on Little Corn I am going to try and go "unplugged" for about 4 hours a week. I wish I were the CEO of a big company so I could pull this off and watch what happens on a grand scale.

At your next staff meeting -

Read this to your team and ask:

    1. What benefits might we enjoy by doing something like this?
    2. How extreme should we be with the elimination of electronic tools?
    3. When are we going to have Seybert lead a strategy retreat for us on a tiny Caribbean island?