Two big lessons came courtesy of my young children this past weekend.
My six year old son’s soccer team celebrated their season’s wrap-up party this weekend. It was his first year playing team soccer, and as he picked up his trophy and certificate for “Winning Spirit” of the team, I reflected on his pensive start to the season and his tendency to hang back and over-analyze the game. As the season progressed, so did his skills, his actions in the game progressing a bit faster than his “vision” of scoring goals. As the season started winding down, his aggressiveness, drive and vision kicked in, and weekend before last, he scored two goals, driving one from mid-field.
A vision without action is just a dream Action without vision just passes the time A vision with action can change the world
- NELSON MANDELA
My wife and I have been earnestly trying to get our three year-old daughter to give up her binky. Our tactics in this battle included “losing” them (only to discover that she stashed others), talk about how “ickky” they were, cut holes in them…nothing we tried convinced her. Late last week she had a dentist appointment. The dentist too, agreed the binkys had to go, but instead of attempting to convince her to “hand them over”, he persuaded her to donate them to Santa. On Friday night, she grabbed a tupperware container, dumped her binkys into it and handed it over to her mom. She requested that we leave it for Santa, who would have the Polar Express come and pick them up.
Strategy without tactics is the slowest route to victory. Tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat.
- Sun Tzu
Thanks kids for teaching your mom and dad some big lessons
Got nothing to say here except that in some strange way, this guy, his technique, his expression and choice of song pretty much describe the week I’ve had. It’s just under 6 minutes, but well worth it.
Zooming in on the embedded map here, you can see that Google highlights in orange and red where the fire is and also notes where there are relief and evacuation centers. Clicking on any of the icons provides news updates from KPBS.
I’ve said it before. Community means something, and it has nothing to do with trying to get on the friends list of someone you’ve never met before.
As far as I’m concerned, this is, by far, the most useful and relevant thing I’ve seen come from web 2.0 and the online community space — ever.
When I first started reading Jeremiah Owyang’s latest post, I thought it was going to be a humorous take on bloggers and their tactics. But when I got to really thinking about it, the 7 steps he outlines as tactics for “A Lister” success really do reflect how most of the top blogs out there operate! As much as new media preaches that old media tactics are done and over, it seems to be every day closer to morphing into the same modus operandi — style over substance.
Sure “asserting your knowledge and domination” over a topic you’re not really an expert at will likely get you some traffic and win you some controversy points in the form of comments and trackbacks, but in the long term your reputation for quality, substance and relevance will suffer.
That’s why I really enjoy reading the content from my friend Victor Howard and my brother-in-law, Brian Pearson. They bring it, and bring it strong and real. Both of them discuss topics they understand and have years of real experience in. Neither get a ton of trackbacks or comments, but I know they both affect their readers deeply at times.
Real change comes when one person is affected deeply and passionately and motivated to move on an issue as a result of your words and non-celebrity. Nothing of real consequence occurs when 200 or more think you’re an idiot.
…Not when inverse kinematics with live preview, photographic seam carving and the ability to create custom interfaces for mobile phones are apparently coming down the pike from Adobe.
Check out Peter Elst’s site for all the juicy details and videos from the Adobe Max conference.
Hmm…might need to rethink those minimalist web designs.
Last night, I posted an article based on the unfortunate mangling of a response by a Ms. Teen USA contestant, stumbling upon her words in a truly tragic way. My point was to use that situation to point out why content is more important than keywords. If you’ve seen the video or the transcript, you know what I’m referring to. If not, you don’t have to search really hard on Google or Youtube (or even one of the morning news shows) to find that information or to view the video.
After pondering it for a while, I decided to delete the post. She’s taken enough of a beating.
The point I was attempting to make though is still valid, I’ll just use a more appropriate example for the forum established here.
When reading through the transcript of the bungled response of this beauty pageant contestant, it struck me as interesting how she sought out certain keywords (not all of them appropriate to the question) to define where she stood — US, Americans, Iraq, education, South Africa…
I saw a correlation between how she threw out those keywords in an effort to sound credible, and people looking to establish a presence on the web, who do — essentially — the same thing. Focusing all their SEO efforts on tags and keywords, instead of just plain genuine and simple content leading toward the building valued relationships and credibility.
Church of the Customer has a great article which serves as a wonderful example of content over keywords. The story of United Airlines pilot Denny Flanagan is inspiring.
From the CotC post,
The reason why Capt. Flanagan is a rogue is because his work isn’t the result of formal training. I’ll bet his techniques make some colleagues uneasy or nervous. Even United’s “Chief Customer Officer” isn’t quite sure what to do with him other than “hope” Flanagan’s techniques rub off on other pilots.
The SEO message here for online businesses (and also for Ms. Teen South Carolina and myself) is to focus on who you are and what you do. Develop a good story and great experiences for your customers and/or audience and build your network of supporters through those experiences. Do that well, and they will assign all the keywords you will ever need through their word-of-mouth support.
Being in business, doing business and trying to build a life around the fruits of business is an emotionally packed challenge, that occurs 8 - 10 hours (or more) a week for most of our adult lives. Regardless of whether you work for someone else or yourself, doing client work or creating your own products — days are packed with moments of…
I LOVE my job
I HATE what I’m doing
I’d KILL to get them as a client
This is my DREAM company
We need to WIN them over
We cant afford to LOSE this contract
It’s a RISK we’ll have to take
Papers get ruffled, phones slammed and high fives fly all around as “booyahs” go around the room like so many Kramer wannabes looking for the 5th cup of coffee before 9:27 am.
Our daily pursuit of happiness in business can put incredible strain (especially in start-up phase) on other relationships. Alternatively, it can provide a virtual utopia of joy for others.
So given this roller coaster of sometimes intense feelings and experiences, why are business conferences, seminars, workshops and the like almost always overwhelmingly uneventful, monotonous and unemotional events?
Athletes and musicians deal with these same raw feelings and adrenaline — yet when was the last time you attended a concert or sporting event that had all the intensity of Ben Stirling droning on about voodoo economics?
Great advertising is not about hawking or pushing or rudely interrupting. It’s about reminding us, in a truly natural way and one that sincerely touches us on an emotional level, that you have what we need.
Now that we’re just a little over halfway through the year, it’s time to go back and consider those goals set back in January. How are they coming? Still on the forefront of your mind and intentions?
If you’re like me, and some of your best laid plans have slipped a bit in the importance of implementation, the Be Excellent blog offers some great ideas on moving forward with getting those things done,
Keep your goals with you always.
Keep your goals present in your environment.
Keep your goals present where you can?t possibly miss them during the course of a day.
Keep reminders in interesting and unusual places to shake up your patterns.
World class athletes attribute their success to years and years of practice, resulting in the commitment of their muscles (muscle memory) to the movements — to the point where the activity becomes second nature to them. Achieving goals, I believe, requires this same repetitive process over time.
So, if you’re finding it difficult to get those things done which you set out to do, find creative ways to interrupt your routines with reminders.
After all, it’s the squeaky wheel that gets the grease, right?
When handled professionally and amicably, the releasing of a “demon customer” burden, we’ve found, can actually help improve a relationship going forward. The secret, I believe, is the parties involved have to essentially feel that weight being lifted off their shoulders, and be relieved by it.
Sprint Nextel has fired 1,000 of it’s 53,000,000 customers. Brand Autopsy, in summing up their article, states that “Sprint will feel no pain” over the firing. I would have to counter by asking if removing 0.0018% of the customer weight bearing down on them is really providing any ease either.
surmising essentially that, “Knowing which customers are angels and which are demons presents an enormous opportunity.”