Category: Rant

Link: Let the Good Times Roll–by Guy Kawasaki: Get in Their Shoes Campaign.

Continue reading “Does Guy Have a Cape?” →

Do you remember your first big lie? Do you remember how delicious it was? Do you remember the fear? What is it that makes it so memorable?

Undoubtedly there were many lies before the "first" … but they are lost to memory. Certainly my earliest "memorable" lie had precedents – but "the" lie stands out because of its audacity, its scale and the passion with which I told it. It was my first exposure to building my own personal brand. It was a significant investment in the brand ME.

When I was about the age of 9 I heard the story of a child being born on a cruise liner. It sounded fantastical. So I adopted this story as it was far more glorious than my own boring, hospital birth. I became the "boy born on a boat".

I soon learned that the lie was not enough. It needed a story. It needed characters and drama … it needed energy. BUT most of all, it needed consistency.

Like most 9 year olds, I knew that managing a good lie required commitment. But this was no problem, because I had carefully mapped out the details of my story … I was born on the Indian Ocean (specifics are important), my parents were returning from an extended holiday (the supporting cast) and it was unexpected as I was 13 weeks early (well this is true, but that ALWAYS helps — and you do need drama).

My celebrity grew. All my friends were able to repeat my carefully crafted story. They told friends who told friends, and very quickly there was a buzz that was hard to believe. I was invited to "hang out" with the older kids, given sandwiches and cakes. My 9 year old life had been turned upside down by this story (note the lie had been lost in the story).

So why is this important? Isn’t there a problem with lying? Seth Godin claims all marketers are liars, so perhaps I was just an early developer!

No … the reason this is important, is that stories have a life of their own. Once you release them, they are no longer your own. Of course, stories have a beginning, middle and end — and sometimes the ending is tragic. This story stays with me because of the wide range of emotional experiences that it brought to me. And I learned many lessons … the most important one being "to tell the truth".

Believe you me, there is nothing nice when your teacher looks you in the eye and asks you to confirm your lie. Though I do think I could have held out longer if I knew that the non-blinking eye she trained on me was actually glass! (Second lesson in this — don’t try to win a stare war with a teacher with a glass eye.)

Got a good lie to share? I would love to hear it!

S.

There is often a divide between Account Planners on one hand and Creatives on the other. They are both (roughly) engaged in the same activity, but seem to speak in different languages. By way of bridging the gap there are two posts on Russell Davies blog:

• Assignment 4: Account Planning School of the Web — a project that will test the breadth of knowledge and agility of mind of many account planners
• Meet a designer — an interview (available as a Quicktime file) with Stefan Bucher.

The assignment is great because it provides Creatives an understanding of the steps that (good) Account Planners follow in approaching a marketplace. And the interview is great because it talks about the things that go wrong in the process of bringing creative ideas into that market.

Now I am sure you all have stories to tell from both sides. Come on, now, don’t be shy (I will post mine later).

S.

Wing has an update! Some new tracks have been released, entitled "Wing Sings Elvis". $5.85 for 5 downloadable tracks … what more could you ask for?

Ok … sometimes we all feel like this.

Special thanks to Olivier Blanchard for this one!

A good story, a brand worth talking about and products that make you wish you had invented them – these are the things that I feel are important. Sure, technology can be interesting, great even, but story wins every time.

So it great to see this line in Russell Davies’ massive and hugely interesting post on the eg2006 conference:

The content isn’t in what we make. It’s in our audience’s heads. They’ve got processors in there.

He is referring to game development here … but makes the point, that as communications professionals, it is important to NOT just concentrate on the medium (whether it is print, online, TVC, outdoor etc), but to allow the story to germinate in the minds of our audiences. That way we get true engagement.

S.

When writing emails, it is easy to forget that we are writing very small stories. We dash off an email and hit send without a second thought and then wait for the response.

Emails can turn into long stories or (importantly for business), conversations. They can also turn into dates, relationships, marriages, jobs, contracts and many other things. Sometimes the turning point in an email conversation may be way, way down in the history of your correspondence. And because we are not always close readers, it can be easy to miss the change in tone (for better or for worse), or some piece of sarcasm that has been read too literally. Don’t get me wrong, email has changed my life, and I could not do the work I do without it. BUT it does have pitfalls for all of us.

Guy Kawasaki has penned a neat checklist of things you should remember when writing an email. Check it out here. My favourite is "Chill out". He suggests that you wait 24 hours before responding to a "pissy email". My approach (after taking a few deep breaths) is to write my response and save it as a draft. Then I come back to it a day later to see whether I still feel the same way.

This works for two reasons. One … it allows you to articulate your own response in the heat of the moment. This allows you to capture the emotional energy of your response at the time of reading. Two … you often miss links in your story when you respond in this way. If you do want to win the argument, you will do so by considering your approach first and then crafting a response that covers all the bases.

Also, remember, the person sending you the email has probably given their own email a great deal of time and consideration. If they want to give you a kick (or if they want to praise you), they will want to make sure it works … give their response the time and focus it needs. Email has one great advantage in that you CAN respond when you are ready — so take advantage of the opportunity.

S.

Big companies love creativity, and they love innovation. They love research and development and sometimes they excel in these areas. And while they may love it, they do not necessarily foster it. It is good for marketing, morale and PR, but in the end, it does not necessarily boost number of billable hours.

The paradox, of course, is that creativity is necessary. But creativity in a large company has to be systematised, mandated or tolerated in some form, and in the process, can lose its authenticity. The challenge is to find a way through the red tape, the demand for "shareholder value" or accusations of "contributing to overheads".

Here are a couple of tips for staying creative within a large company:

• Get a sponsor: Find someone more senior in the company who can champion your work. Make sure that you make your sponsor look good at every opportunity.
• Brand your project: Apply the principles of marketing and communication to your efforts. Sure you need good results, but when you get them, make sure everyone knows about them. And make sure you have a "brand" that signifies "creativity".
• Grass roots wins: Encourage others to be part of your projects in their spare time. If your ideas are true innovations, the talent will come to you. (And let’s face it, you can’t do it alone.)
• Deliver early successes: Do something easy early in your program. Put up a website, talk to disaffected team members or managers, publish a newsletter … it does not matter exactly what it is you do, but just do it quickly so you can build momentum and attract interest.

There are plenty of others … feel free to share yours by commenting.

S.

This blog has been a great way for me to work through ideas. Regular readers will note that I have been grappling with concepts of authenticity, marketing, humanness, messaging, technology etc etc. So eventually I had to come across someone who has already taken the path and cleverly articulated a framework in which this all fits.

Johnnie Moore has a whole site dedicated to what he calls Open Source Marketing. His push is to focus on marketers, to challenge them (us) to understand the audience … and realise that the game has changed. He wants to put the humanity back into branding. He wants messaging to be authentic. He even has a workshop that you can participate in to learn how this may work for you.

There is plenty to chew on in these pages … Of course, the reason we read this stuff is because it provides pointers towards the things that we may need to address in our own work and private lives. Johnnie gives us the framework, now we need to go forth and use our creativty and energy to bring it to life — create results.

Better stop procrastinating (writing) and start generating (writing too).

S.

It is now 30 days since Guy Kawasaki began his blog, and he is now kindly sharing his statistics. What does it show … some very interesting information:

• Plugging in postings: You can generate 20-30 times the number of clickthroughs by placing direct links in your posts rather than simply placing an item in the sidebar. My take: by providing a story, some context and a call to action, you are engaging with your audience, and giving them a reason to follow the link.
• Blogs beat lists: three times the number of click throughs are generated by entries on the blog as opposed to listserver mailouts. My take: addressing the impatient (ie those that come to your blog as opposed to those who wait to receive your information) is always the way to go.
• Funnel your readers: Generate 2-3 times more traffic to your main site by providing a place for your readers to congregate — that is, blog on!  My take: remember that those impatient souls that come to visit you will also follow the stream of links from your blog. Make sure you link back to your own site (sorry I this is it for me!).

Again it comes back to the story. Make it compelling and make it easy … and surprisingly an audience will follow.

S.