Category: Rant

Today Nat from Simple and Loveable is riffing about bad service and it made me turn my brain on. As consumers we are used to frustration and poor service. We expect it and we live with it. It reminded me of the difference I noticed on a recent trip to Melbourne where I was struck by the great service and friendly people — it is a place where service is about creating a great experience. A place that is about "being", resting and enjoying, not just "appearing" or "performing".

And the sheer fact that I noticed the difference made me realise how little we, as consumers, often demand of our service providers. As Nat says:

"Isn’t an on-time doctor’s appoinment virtually an oxymoron?"

And as I read this, I was thinking of the 9 hour flight I just had from Sydney to Hong Kong, and the following one through to Shanghai. The first leg just didn’t work for me … the seat was uncomfortable, there was a strange smell in the air (ok maybe it was me) and the in-flight entertainment was boring. There wasn’t anything in particular that was bugging me, but it was the combination of many, small annoyances that added up. The point, however, is that my expectation was so low, that I didn’t really care (that much).

So when I rocked up to my connecting flight, I was handed a piece of paper by the gate attendant. I read it on my way down to the plane. It told me that there were a number of issues with flight clearances on the east coast of China, and that we may not find out about them until after boarding has been completed. It also explained that this was completely out of control of the airline but we would be informed as soon as possible. "Great", I thought.

So when the pilot announced that there may be a small delay of around 10 minutes, I was not bothered. Then, a few minutes later, he informed us that the delay would actually be 2 hours! But again, I was not that bothered because I had been prepared. A steady stream of communications that could be read and listened to perfectly prepared me for such a situation. This demonstrated the use of multi-channel communications — something to read when you need to take in facts and details — and then quick announcements when news comes to hand. Very impressive work from Dragon Air!

Shame they don’t fly to New Zealand, or they may pick up Nat’s business … (BTW If you have not checked out the blog by Natalie Ferguson and Tim Norton, then you really are missing out on some great insight, cool commentary and a practical approach to using new technology in your business.)

Stay tuned … more from the Land of Chin later.
S.

I am in the middle of upgrading my computer, moving from one notebook computer to another. Now, I am a fairly technical type, but even after many such upgrades I know one thing for sure … as soon as I hand over my old computer I will have lost something that I need.

It wont be my bookmark list of websites, it won’t be My Documents, and it won’t even be my WIP files or dowloads from ChangeThis. But it will be something important that is easy to overlook. I just hope that I don’t wake in the middle of the night remembering WHERE that file is!

Know what I am talking about? I am sure you do!

S.

It is a story that you could not write. I sat here, glued to the telecast, wondering how with only 8 minutes to go, the Socceroos would be able to get to a draw against Japan. And then it happened.

Tim Cahill somehow changed the game fundamentally. Not only one, but two goals in quick succession. John Aloisi’s goal was just the icing on the cake.

Time for sleep!

S.

I could feel a rant coming on the moment I glanced at the summary … I have been glancing over at marktd for the past week or so and checking out the reviews of the world of marketing professionals, and then came across this — "Online Video Ads Need Revamping".

Not only do they need revamping, they need rethinking. It is NOT simply good enough to shoot a commercial and then digitise it … such an approach indicates a fundamental LACK of understanding about the web and the people who use it. Tourism Australia took this approach recently and claimed it was a viral success … and just the other day I was interrupted by some ad for a car on the Sydney Morning Herald website. Both approaches appalled me. Considering the budgets that some of these agencies are working with, you would have expected them to come up with something truly innovative and engaging. But no …

OK … I feel a little better (if anyone is still reading).

So then I clicked through to the actual article about online video … and found that there was at least a little value. I do actually like the idea of "telescoping" as outlined in Jeremy Allaire’s speech … being able to telescope into a video scene to interact with "product related messages" could be interesting … it may even make someone some money. But this is another advertising technology that will need to get past the annoyance factor before it will be accepted.

Me? I am just surfing over to some other site where those ads wont annoy me.
S.

I am constantly surprised by the number of posts, books, articles or consultancies out there who offer to help you build your blog traffic "the easy way". There are tips, tricks, discussions, YouTube videos … anything you could possibly want, but at the end of the day, blogging comes down to discipline. If you spend as much time actually thinking and writing as you do chasing links and downloads … then … surprise, surprise … you may end up with a blog that is useful or interesting to us readers.

Darren Rowse is a well-known blogger and is responsible for the ProBlogger website and has a lot of practical tips on blogging. It is a great source of information because it deals with all the blogging issues in a simple, problem solving way. This post in particular has a great link through to advice for launching your blog.

And, of course, once you get to Yaro’s blog there is plenty more to read! But then we are back to reading and NOT writing. So while there are plenty of links to follow, things to read and so on … none of this means anything if you don’t actually DO something. Please write. Give it a go. Send me a link and I will read it — there are plenty of others out there who will do the same (read Mike Wagner’s blog for inspiration).

But don’t just think you can do it easily. Readers come to you one link at a time!

S.

Giveaways are great … they can create buzz, generate a lot of excitement and even (sometimes) help you achieve your business goals. But when it comes to trade shows and festivals, you need a much wider strategy to make your booth stand out from the crowd.
Seth Godin asks us all to think about what would make our efforts remarkable. But there is another question that we should also ask (leads partly to the same answer). What would you need to do if you charged ADMISSION? How would that change the way you think about your strategy? How would it affect your thinking?
And importantly, how would it change the way you think about your booth’s visitors?
Giveaways are fine, but use them as conversation starters!
S.

Some people like to throw a lot of ideas at a client, while others like to hone their ideas down to one or two — presenting only the best. But how often do we ask "when are too many ideas too much for a client"?

Russell Davies points out that perhaps we should be happy with our strategies, show faith in our approaches and show only the gold. This is based on a simple question — are you obtaining maximum value or are you hitting on a good approach and then committing to it? The former tends to show many options, yet always leaving clients unsatisfied, whereas the latter tends to generate stronger support with higher levels of commitment. Personally I like the settle on a good strategy approach (ie go for strategy happiness rather than strategy genius) and then go for it in implementation.

The challenge, of course, is client expectations — and we all know how difficult they can be to manage. What happens if your client expects to see 100 ideas? How do you talk them down? Can you put forward your two favourite ideas and a third weaker one — and if so, what happens when the client chooses "badly"?

Russell in turn points us to this great post by the Noisy Decent Graphics guy. I like the way he sums it up:

We have an internal rule to never present more than 3 ideas to a client. Any more than that is confusing. Any more than that and you haven’t read the brief properly. You certainly haven’t answered the brief properly. So, we say never present more than 3. But I can’t remember the last time we showed a client 3 ideas. Usually it’s 2 and more often than not it’s just 1.

It makes me think … the problem is not in creativity or ideation, but in implementation. We have plenty of ideas but how often do we get caught up in that world, rather than rapidly implementing, learning and improving?

S.

Title: With thanks to the Spell with Flickr words folks.

It is easy to avoid learning things and I often find that I make excuses to myself about thing that I have not done. So this weekend I have been forcing myself to learn some of the things I have been avoiding. (And sorry Terry, this doesn’t mean I have finished MoonLander — see Terry’s version here.)

I started out looking at 37signals’ Get Real eBook. I had been putting it off for some time but finally relented. It is a fast read and has some great tips and approaches for web development. However, the cool thing is that much of what they say can be translated to many other forms of business. I like the way that the focus on saying "no" to new features. It is their default response. Of course, if the same request keeps coming back then it becomes obvious that it is an actual need … this means that there is no need to keep logs of requests.

And, of course, buried within this document is a spiel about Ruby on Rails, which is another thing I have been avoiding. So while I was dealing with demons, I thought I may as well take on the beast. So I downloaded the software, followed the tutorial and built the test application. Now this is seriously fast and fun! It is nice to feel excited about some web software again (in that I spend most of my blogging time talking about stories, branding and marketing).

The next challenge, of course, is to see whether I can use Ruby on Rails to actually do something without instructions! Where to start? At the beginning of the Get Real eBook the 37signals team urge us all to under-do our competition — so that is where I will start. I may be on the rails, but there seems to be a long track ahead. I will let you know if I make it to the first station.

S.

The Internet makes us all more measurable. We can not only see the actual results of our marketing efforts, but we can see these results in (almost) real time. This has positive and negative aspects.

On the one hand it allows us to adjust our strategies and tactics as an online campaign unfolds. We can follow the clickstream up and down and see what works and what doesn’t.

On the other hand, it can mean that we rush to respond, becoming more reactionary in our efforts. By pre-emptively changing our approach mid-campaign, we can wreck our strategic approach before it can take hold.

I am all for measurement, but I am also (more importantly) all for ANALYSIS. By all means measure, but make sure you analyse the results carefully before communicating them to your client (or your boss). Hey, why don’t you keep your analysis to yourself for a day or two to see if anything else happens in the meantime. Sometimes it takes longer than a day or two for a trend to emerge. Have faith in your strategy, listen to your audience, and then give them something good to talk about!

S.