22 Nov

I would maintain that thanks are the highest form of thought; and that gratitude is happiness doubled by wonder. —Gilbert K. Chesterton

I would maintain that thanks are the highest form of thought; and that gratitude is happiness doubled by wonder.Gilbert K. Chesterton, A Short History of England

As we get ready to celebrate Thanksgiving next week in the US, reflecting on what we’re thankful and grateful for over the last year is the norm.

But, it’s important to regularly reflect on gratitude and thankfulness as individuals and as organizations. Too often we take employees and customers for granted. Yet, it is those employees and customers that we owe our success to.

22:20 / Inspiration / Leadership / Personal Development
15 Nov

Go through a magazine and pick out the advertisements you like best. You will probably pick those with beautiful illustrations, or clever copy. You forget to ask yourself whether your favorite advertisements would make you want to buy the product. --David Ogilvy

What is a good advertisement? An advertisement which pleases you because of its style, or an advertisement which sells the most? They are seldom the same. Go through a magazine and pick out the advertisements you like best. You will probably pick those with beautiful illustrations, or clever copy. You forget to ask yourself whether your favorite advertisements would make you want to buy the product.David Ogilvy, Ogilvy on Advertising

Does this sound familiar: you hire an agency for a campaign, but what you get back doesn’t fully capture your brand or it isn’t in line with what you thought you made clear during preliminary meetings? And, you end up running the ad anyway because there’s no time or budget to do anything else.

This isn't out of the ordinary.

Many agencies try to convince their clients that they have unique expertise and creativity that the client doesn’t have access to without them.

22:36 / Leadership / Marketing
08 Nov

To create a company where creativity is driving force, you have to reward the creative process--the behavior--not the outcome.

Yet everyone should be cautious not to make something impossible that nature would not allow, unless it would be that one wanted to make a dream work, in which case one may mix together every kind of creature.Albrecht DĂŒrer, Four Books on Proportion[1. Translation from: Peter Parshall, "Graphic Knowledge: Albrecht DĂŒrer and the imagination," The Art Bulletin, 2013.]

When people think about creativity, they typically think of it in terms of three Ps: Person, Problem, and Product. A person solves a problem in a new way and creates a new product.

The problem with thinking about creativity in this way is that it ignores the fourth and most important P: the Process.

23:49 / Creativity / Inspiration / Leadership
01 Nov

When you're creating innovations, you're likely not going to get it exactly right the first time. You're going to fail.  Failure’s relation to producing creative results has to do with how people perceive failure. It is related to what psychologists call goal orientation. Goal orientation operates at the individual level and is driven by both individual and environmental factors.
22:47 / Creativity / Inspiration / Leadership
25 Oct

Innovation is usually the result of connections of past experience. But if you have the same experiences as everybody else, you’re unlikely to look in a different direction.Steve Jobs in Roger von Oech’s A Whack on the Side of the Head

Highly creative people don’t have special abilities. But, many of them naturally do what others have to train to do.

And, training to be creative begins with constant learning. 

19:20 / Creativity / Personal Development
19 Oct

Don’t get me wrong: I love data. But, I have issues with the way businesses treat data.

There are two main problems with data: one is the way it’s collected and the other is the way it’s used.

The problem with the way it’s collected is that more is treated as better. 

03:04 / Marketing
11 Oct

Consistency-Heinz-Branding

Successful Brands Are ...

Successful brands are many things. To appeal to customers, organizations must be credible, with actions that are in alignment with their messaging. There must be no disconnection between what a brand promises and what it delivers.

A brand must be meaningful, with specific relevance to customers’ lives. Successful brands are unique, with a distinct identity in the marketplace. Successful brands are holistic, meeting customers’ needs on multiple levels. Successful brands are sustainable, engaged in business practices they can maintain over the long term.

12:35 / Marketing
04 Oct

3-Forces-That-Motivate-Your-Customers-Decisions Do you know what motivates your customers to buy from you? Do you know why they choose one brand over another? Do you know what drives one customer to become loyal while many others do not? These are important questions, the answers to which will inform virtually everything your organization does.
18:33 / Marketing
27 Sep

Make Purpose Your Bouncer -Priya Parker

Make purpose your bouncer.Priya Parker[1. Priya Parker, The Art of Gathering: How We Meet and Why It Matters, 2018.]

If you had 100% clarity, every decision would be obvious. How great would that be?

Although 100% clarity isn’t possible—none of us are oracles that can predict the future—it is possible to achieve much greater levels of clarity than your competitors because if your competitors are like most businesses, they’re operating in a light fog instead of clear air.

23:53 / Inspiration / Leadership
21 Sep

Your job as a manager is to get better outcomes from a group of people working together. —Julie Zhuo

It seems obvious that you should hire managers that want to make the organization better. Yet, few organizations evaluate people based on their desire to serve the organization’s purpose. 

This often results in a broken leadership system that is about self-promotion rather than the betterment of the organization and everyone the organization affects.

00:39 / Leadership / Personal Development