I’m jumping on the bandwagon. In the past two days the book The No Asshole Rule by Robert Sutton has been referenced by Guy Kawasaki, John Moore, Mike Rothman, Doug Mitchell, Andrew Luter, and MANY others … now me too. I’ve pre-ordered the book and look forward to a very interesting read (the decision to do so based on this video).

Other than the Starbucks test …

If you hear someone at Starbucks order a …€œdecaf grande half-soy, half-low fat, iced vanilla, double-shot, gingerbread cappuccino, extra dry, light ice, with one Sweet-n…€™-Low and one NutraSweet,…€� you…€™re in the presence of an asshole.

… I’m not sure yet if anyone has given a really good test that can be given to determine if an individual qualifies as “an asshole”. We recently hired a local business consultant to come to our office to give a half day workshop as a follow up to a DISC Assessment that was conducted for each of our employees. (BTW, DISC is a very interesting process and an amazing approach to doing personality assessments!) We were told that a person scoring a very high “D” as well as scoring a very low “I” will qualify as a “flaming A-hole”. Come to think of it, anyone who places an order at Starbucks, as described above, would qualify as a high-D-low-I. Verrrrry Interesting.

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I have two degrees … a B.S. in Biology and a Minor in Fine Art. Whooptie doo …€” so what. It means I’m fairly unique in that I use both frontal lobes equally well. This comes in handy with things like … ummm, say, building model cars or other activities that require a sense of logic/precision AND a sense of aesthetics. It’s terrible for things like doing brain surgery or painting water lillies at Giverny (Leornardo was a rare exception).

In this article in The Hindu (referred to by Dan Pink in his post called “Up The Value Chain“), we find that IIT Madras is establishing a centre of excellence in engineering design that will attempt to teach aesthetic design in addition to the traditional engineering curiculum. Is this just a waste of time? No ….. BUT! (Isn’t there always a big “but” in these kinds of things?) But, you’d have to temper your expectations with an understanding that this is not an approach to get all the greatest work you’ll need out of a single individual. If the new graduate excels in computer design, they’ll very likely be pretty mediocre at industrial/product design, which uses the other side of the brain.

The advantage of taking this approach is that you’ll get engineers that will be able to better communicate and understand the thought processes of their design cohorts. This would certainly lead to an improvement in most complex teams. Conversely, artists and designers would benefit from courses on logic, math and engineering principles. Please, no BioChem … that just about made my head explode!

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The pyramid scheme at mmmzr.com was referred to in a blog post by Seth Godin.  Then came the backlash.  Later, he did a fine job of pointing out the differences in various types of marketing pyramid schemes, Ponzi schemes and MLM.  In the follow up post he stated;

Marketers are working hard to corrupt the way we feel about our friends
and the people we respect. I think, in the end, it’s not going to work.
We’re hardwired to respect real authenticity, and at some level, that
means trusting the motives of the person we’re listening to.

Then, I later read this article about the trend to pay individuals to post positive comments about their products/services on their blog.  My suspicion is that no matter how the writers craft their words, the end result will read like it is largely without authenticity… because it IS!

The best approach to take in marketing; Don’t worry about forcing the numbers and moving statistical targets.  It’s not about all that.  It’s about being authentic and true to who you are.  If you identify how to speak in that authentic voice, use authentic messages AND base your marketing on a powerful emotional connection, then you’ve got your strategy.  Don’t waver from it.

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JUST KIDDING (sort of)! Like the Pot of Gold, it’s something that has been hyped, faked and talked about for years. All of this wasted energy stems from a deep desire for somebody … anybody to come along and invent a cell phone that’s not more complex than a VCR … one that looks great, works great, is intuitive and doesn’t take a 50 page manual to figure out. People, are we just dreaming? Meet the “Serene” by Bang & Olufsen.

So, a cool phone like that doesn’t need to complete on price, right?! Right! A product review like this points out stellar thinking in design and product development … no status quo here! The price tag is hefty but will assuredly come down when other manufacturers get a clue.

“Bottom line” question; Is your product or service differentiated to the point where you can work this far away from the price war?

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Last week I met with a small group of local business owners to talk about how we might be able to improve the “branding” of their community. This was a group of B&B, cottage and hotel businesses who have been running their businesses for many years in the Lakes Region of New Hampshire. We got around to talking about the Web and I was a little taken aback by the number they responded with when asked “how much of your business comes from the Internet?” The answer …. 90%+!!! Holy cow, things have changed for them in just a short while!

Outside of our little paradise, the speed at which things changes isn’t too different. Although it’s just speculation at this point, this article from ReadWriteWeb has BIG implications on what the landscape of online advertising will look like in the next year-ish.

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Take a long hard look at typical B2B brand strategies and you’ll find that they, on average, fall woefully behind their B2C and CPG counterparts.  From the BtoBOnline.com web site, here’s a little nugget that should make you sit up in your chair;

“… over the last five years companies with higher than average brand
development are up 30% in market capitalization compared with those
with below average brand development …€” a spread that…€™s expected to grow
wider.”

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“Early to bed, early to rise, work like hell and advertise”
…€” Ted Turner

I’ve never been a Turner Broadcasting or Atlanta Braves fan, but I like the way he thinks! 

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