To Go Where Your VisionPoints, a few inspiration points for you and your business.
Ralph Lauren has always stood for providing quality products, creating worlds and inviting people to take part in our dream. We were the innovators of lifestyle advertisements that tell a story and the first to create stores that encourage customers to participate in that lifestyle.
—Ralph Lauren
You don’t have to like Ralph Lauren’s dream. But I’m betting that almost all of my readers, almost anywhere in the world you may be reading this, know what that dream lifestyle is. It happens that Ralph Lauren, a scrappy little guy from the Bronx, hitched his wagon to a dream many folks have, and staying incredibly focused on that image for the company made him a billionaire.
We don’t buy Ralph Lauren. Not the scrappy Jewish kid, not the dreamer, not the climber, not today’s 69-year-old billionaire.
We don’t buy clothes. You can get those at WalMart.
We buy youth and leisure and effortless elegance and a romantic past we have nostalgia for without ever having lived it, because Ralph, that savvy businessman, made his Vision as pervasive as the air we breathe, all around the world. He never lets up.
“I’m no billionaire, Kelly. People buy me!”
Tell that to Ralph R. Lifshitz, tie salesman in his 1950s Bronx high school, who’d soon change his name to Lauren and start a little tie company lifestyle brand named Polo.
We’ve talked about it a lot here, but a recent conversation at Men With Pens got me thinking about Vision and Purpose all over again.
Even when your business is as small as young Ralph’s, people don’t buy you.
No. They don’t.
They buy the story you tell, the lifestyle you’ll help them achieve—even if it’s as simple as “Joe’s Cat Litter gives me more time in my day to enjoy my neglected husband.” Joe’s Cat Litter=Peaceful Love Nest. You’ve got to know your Vision backward and forward, then you have to tell me. And I’ve got to believe the story.
If you’re really lucky and really talented, you might tell a story we already deeply want to believe, like Ralph did. It’s no 1960s bygone fantasy. People do it all the time. Like Christian Lander does. Like Naomi Dunford does. Like Barack Obama did. They’re telling stories we want to believe.
The alternative? If you don’t define yourself, your customer will. And they might get it “wrong.”
Find your Vision. Tell your ONE story, every day, in all your customer interactions. Do your damnedest to find a story you have a unique angle on, that we already deeply want to believe, and hitch your wagon to it.
To Go Where Your VisionPoints, a few inspiration points for you and your business.
It is true that no one can harm the person who wears armor. But no one can help him, either.
—Kristin Hunter
I’m thinking she meant life and love here. I mean work and business, and if you’re the owner of a smaller business, you know what I’m talking about. You want to hold up your corner of the world. You want to seem bulletproof. So you pile on the protection. You’re powerful, knowledgeable, Super-preneur. Fully armored.
Need help? Get some. Not sure if you need help? (Who, at some point, on some topic, doesn’t fall into that category?) Read a book or a blog; write an email to someone who can offer advice; hire a consultant for a few hours.
How hard is it for you to ask for help at your place of business, when you’re fully armored, ready to “take on” the world?
To Go Where Your VisionPoints, a few inspiration points for you and your business.
It’s wonderful what we can do if we’re always doing.
—George Washington
I’m a planner. I believe in it for myself and for my clients. Planning gives shape to your intentions, breaks massive goals into smaller tasks, and makes it a lot more likely that you’ll achieve what you meant to.
Thing is, I rarely complete everything on my planned list. (For the day, for the week, even for a project. Something usually gets left out.) Not too unusual, a lot of you may make a To Do list for the day and find that a third of the items on it don’t get finished. Does that mean planning is a flawed process? I had a little debate about that subject yesterday.
I argued no. Planning allows you to look at the full scope of a day or a project in its ideal form. It allows you to write things down and then forget them; if you aren’t wasting mental energy on remembering what’s next, you can concentrate much more fully on what’s at hand. And it allows you to prioritize and even strategically skip items, when it becomes clear that you can fit the entire ideal into the time you have available. For me, rather than inducing guilt (“I didn’t finish it all”), it gives pride (“look what I got done”). Most folks I’ve converted to planning were worried about the guilt, but found the same, that deliberate planning gets rid of that awful floating feeling and gives pride and a sense of accomplishment.
Yeah, so?
So, I planned my day as usual yesterday morning. Then with every star aligned in my favor, I worked that plan. End to end. I dogged through the whole thing and got every single thing finished, in spite of a very rough start with a human who seemed to want to eat my self-esteem for breakfast (sorry, you picked the wrong lady). I honestly don’t know when the last time I finished an entire list was. (This post is last on my list!)
You know what? It’s pretty awesome. S’Marvelous. I’ll go back to never quite finishing things tomorrow, but for now, if you’re like me and you rarely see the end, make that list for yourself, or for you and your staff, and promise to apply yourself with all your might once in a while—maybe even once a week—and bust it all out. It’s wonderful what we can do. Your business will thank you.
If you’re like George Washington, and you already finish everything on your list every day and bust out all sorts of accomplishments with no problem, feel free to leave me a tip. Otherwise… What’s your planning strategy, and how has it helped you over the years? Or—are you a floater, letting life and work happen to you? How is that working for you?
To Go Where Your VisionPoints, a few inspiration points for you and your business.
I hope these quotations will grab you no matter where you call home, though I’ll admit, I’m both off-topic and a bit U.S.-centric today.
In the shift from direct democracy to representational democracy, the printed book became an embodiment of thought for the physically absent author; and so the popular art form of the popular book and the pamphlet re-presented ideas and contributed to the public space of political philosophies of the Enlightenment.
Television, however, now brings forth this new kind of public space, and it calls into being this new world, not of the educated citizenry in a republic, but of the electropeasantry in the state of Entertainment. Recall how people stopped singing in pubs when they brought in the TV set, and you will appreciate the new passivity in which people stop voting for their representatives as TV takes over the electoral campaigns.
—William Irwin Thompson
Inform yourself. Don’t wait for the t.v. to do it for you. You’ve got a critical job to do in less than one week, and the “new passivity” just doesn’t cut it.
The right of voting for representatives is the primary right by which other rights are protected. To take away this right is to reduce a man to slavery, for slavery consists in being subject to the will of another, and he that has not a vote in the election of representatives is in this case.
—Thomas Paine
Feeling lazy? Skip voting, and you’re enslaving yourself to the will of the hundreds of millions of us who will get out next Tuesday. I can decide your fate if you want me to….
I hope that no American … will waste his franchise and throw away his vote by voting either for me or against me solely on account of my religious affiliation. It is not relevant.
—John F. Kennedy
Or on account of his skin color. Or on account of his age. We’re better than that. Vote for the mind, and the heart, and the visionary, unflagging spirit of your country’s next leader. Whomever you believe that should be.
Finally, some of my favorite words I’ve ever read:
Let every man or woman here, if you never hear me again, remember this, that if you wish to be great at all, you must begin where you are and what you are, in Philadelphia, now. He that can give to his city any blessing, he who can be a good citizen while he lives here, he that can make better homes, he that can be a blessing whether he works in the shop or sits behind the counter or keeps house, whatever be his life, he who would be great anywhere must first be great in his own Philadelphia.
—Russell Herman Conwell
Conwell gave this public address more than 6,000 times from 1877 until his death in 1925. He tailored his speech to individual cities by changing Philadelphia, his home town, to the name of the city where he was speaking.
To my Dear Readers in the U.S.: Vote next Tuesday. This is how we begin to make our own Philadelphias better.
In my humble opinion, there’s nothing more important that you’ll do all year.
To Go Where Your VisionPoints, a few inspiration points for you and your business.
If A is a success in life, then A equals x plus y plus z. Work is
x; y is play; and z is keeping your mouth shut.
— Albert Einstein
You won’t forget to work right now. Who could forget work at a time like this? (You must write, “at a time like this,” in italics. So it sounds dramatic. Because “times like these” are made for drama.)
I know you’ve heard a million times about the value of listening. I think he recommends it wonderfully.
Here’s what strikes me about this quotation:
Albert Einstein, famous for his work, says Go Play.
I hope you’ll be famous for your work one day, too.
If you don’t make time for play, I firmly believe you won’t get to that day. So try not to get your knickers in a knot over things we can’t control, and instead, take control of your attitude: Laugh. Run. Make a horrible joke at work, and get someone to spit out their coffee. Take time with your kid, your niece, your grandchildren. Draw stick figures. Kiss your spouse.
Go Play. That’s a big part of “having it all,” and you can have that part right away.
To Go Where Your VisionPoints, a few inspiration points for you and your business.
The future is uncertain… but this uncertainty
is at the very heart of human creativity.
—Ilya Prigogine, Belgian physicist and Nobel Laureate chemist
It’s not just now, folks.
The future is always uncertain.
Call this a reality check, says Brett Legree, in one of the best darned posts you’ll read about our global economic crisis. He says don’t fall prey to the uncertainty. “Get out there and create something of value.”
If your company is already creating something of value, now is not the time to hide. Shout it, creatively, while everyone else hides. You’ll sound a lot louder. And if you’ve been waiting for a quiet someday to observe the big picture, connect with your Vision, and create a plan for the future?
Hello! Grab a Nametag and a Doughnut—Let’s Get Pixelated
What’s a Pixelated Blog Conference?
Round tables make for a congenial feel as you fill the room today. Lucky you, you can come as you are to a pixelated conference—even you with the pink bunny slippers. The chairs are as easy as your sofa (glad you like it), or as rough as the swivel chair at your office desk (sorry about that!).
You’re shaking hands, reading nametags, and getting to know each other before the lights dim and the first PowerPoint comes up. That’s great. We’ll all be close by the end of the day. Now scoot those chairs around to face the stage, folks, and prepare to attend a conference like no other. In these brief speeches lies the key to increasing your bottom line by improving your Customer Experience.
I would like to thank all the presenters and attendees, and my inspiration, Chris Brogan, for making this a fantastic day. It’s officially a meme now, though you didn’t hear Chris say that. If you want to know how you can play along, just click on Chris’ link.
I apologize in advance (which, by the way, you should never do) for the enormous variations in sound and video quality represented here. These speakers are some of my favorites—utter geniuses you have got to see today, wobbly-cams or no. They’re guaranteed to illuminate the deepest recesses of Experience Design, rejuvenate your thinking, and generally get you jazzed to go forth and create not just Maximum, but Rockin’ Customer Experience.
My criteria for choosing presenters:
Quick
Entertaining
Punch-you-in-the-gut revelations
Pretty simple. The first ever Maximum Customer Experience Go Where Your VisionPoints Blog Conference, not-at-all-live, with a super roster of experts speaking about strategic, integrated Experience Design, has my personal, double-your-money-back, Kelly Seal of Approval.
Maximum Online Conference Experience begins now! (Would somebody hit the lights?)
WELCOME:
Guy Kawasaki: The Art of the Start (2:37)
“If you make meaning, you will probably make money.” The ever-engaging Guy Kawasaki starts our conference with a bang. Whether you’re an entrepreneur just planning your start-up business or trying to recapture some of that energy, take a listen to Guy, author of How to Change the World, Silicon Valley venture capitalist, founder of Alltop and Truemors, and oh, yeah, former Chief Evangelist of Apple Computer. When he’s not too busy, he emails me. Guy would love for you to do well by doing right. So would I!
Phil Van Hooser: The Fear of Failure (3:12)
Ever been paralyzed by fear? You are not alone. Most folks in small, growing businesses have felt it at one time or another. A quick reminder of the perils of falling prey to that fear. Phil Van Hooser is a funny, touching speaker whom I could listen to all day.
KEYNOTE:
David Kelley: The Future of Design is Human-Centered (17:12)
David Kelley—founder of the legendary design firm IDEO; designer of the first mouse, among many other icons; Stanford University professor—says that product design has become much less about the hardware and more about the user experience. Pick his brain for seventeen minutes on this TED video, but trust me, it won’t be nearly enough.
PERSPECTIVE:
Access Eye Tracking: Hotel Room Customer Experience (2:15)
Silent film in the modern era! Where’s the effing light switch? Get the basics wrong, and no one will care about your fancy, flashy frills. Minimum customer experience at work. You have to see this one, from Australia’s Access Testing, to believe it.
Your Business on MSNBC: J.J. Ramberg Goes Mystery Shopping (9:46)
What’s it like, getting outside Perspective from a professional firm? There’s no better start to improving the Customer Experience. Great roundtable discussion of the value—and costs—of a mystery shopping program at the end of Ramberg’s field trip.
OBSERVATION:
Ad Awareness Test (0:54)
You’ll finish laughing, though it’s no laughing matter. Being observant counts; are you?
Break for lunch. No more than two martinis, okay?
PINPOINT YOUR ESSENCE:
Kerry Bodine: Delivering A Great Customer Experience (4:26)
Forrester Research Principal Analyst Kerry Bodine starts slowly, but once she gets into her case study, what she has to say is electric. An amazing story of an old, entrenched company Master-fully reinventing themselves and growing their business by leaps and bounds in the process. Proof that you can redefine your direction, too.
PERCEPTION & EXCEEDING EXPECTATIONS:
James Feldman: One Size Does Not Fit All (5:13)
I dare not say a word. Well, maybe just a couple of words… James Feldman of Shift Happens delivers essential an Customer Experience message with perfect comic timing. Don’t miss the surprise ending on this one!
Kevin Karschnik: WOW Customer Experience (3:16)
A stellar example of WOW! Customer Experience. Can you deliver delight like the printer for iSpeak’s Kevin Karschnik?
INTERACTIVE EXPERIENCE:
Nikki Key: How to Provide Good Customer Service (5:12)
“The tools to defuse almost any situation,” from The Daily Idea. This clip is an ultra-snarky mid-day pick-me-up for MCE conference attendees—and yet, so true!
SOCIAL MEDIA, WEB 2.0, AND YOUR BUSINESS:
Neighborhood America: Enterprise Social Networks—World Changing Concepts (3:55)
Get your company involved in online social networking—not just as a participant, but as an active organizer. Neighborhood America speaks to some high-level executives and gets their thoughts on this global phenomenon.
Loren Feldman Interviews Chris Brogan: Social Media in the New Business Landscape (8:28)
Are you building a community, or building a marketplace? In an interview with 1938 Media’s Loren Feldman, Chris says you must make a move, but you can’t do both. A lesson in defining your Purpose in new media.
Andy Sernovitz Interviews Matt Dickman and David Armano: B2B Blog Use (5:09)
Andy Sernovitz, author of one of my favorite spots for inspiration, Damn, I Wish I’d Thought of That!, interviews Matt Dickman, author of Techno//Marketer and Vice President of Digital Marketing at Fleishman-Hillard, and the brilliant David Armano, author of Logic + Emotion and VP of Experience Design for Critical Mass, about creative B2B (business-to-business) uses for the humble blog format.
STAKEHOLDER BUY-IN:
Neighborhood America: Mission Impossible—So, What Does Your Company Do?
If you’ve ever wondered why I emphasize making sure your employees are on board with your message here at MCE, watch this unintentionally (?) funny video by Neighborhood America. Time for a staff meeting. Like, now. (And bravo to them for putting it up like this.)
INNOVATION:
Mashup Corporations: The End of Business as Usual (5:11)
With a simple role-play, Andy Mulholland of the UK’s Capgemini shows the difficulties of change management in established companies, and the long-range benefits of user-driven Customer Experience. Will you recognize players at your own company?
Seth Godin: Ideas That Spread, Win (8:27)
He’s not just required reading, he’s a required speaker at any (online) conference. If you’ve only read his wonderful books and followed him at Seth Godin’s Blog, you’re in for a treat. Enjoy his simple speaking style and take notes: as usual, his flashes of brilliance will astound you.
CLOSING RANT:
Pazazz Printing: Printing’s Alive (3:37)
Vous voulez voir un grand déploiement? You don’t need to go as far as Pazazz’s website. This clip is proof that the hottest humour comes from the coldest climes. Comic relief from a printing company? Let’s just say don’t try to drink your coffee while you’re watching this one.
AFTER HOURS PARTIES:
Philippe Starck: Why Design? (17:19)
The über-brilliant Philippe Starck, redesigner of every user experience that catches his attention, says he feels useless. I couldn’t disagree more. A riotously funny look at the purpose of his goodgreat genius! design.
Stefan Sagmeister: Yes, Design Can Make You Happy (15:42)
The multitalented designer discusses moments of his life that have made him happy. Charming and fun.
PUT the LAMPSHADE on YOUR HEAD, and SOMEBODY GET ME a CAMERA, PLEASE
You’re ready to let loose and rock out. What conference is complete without the more… adventurous among us demonstrating their hidden talents?
Chris Brogan Karaoke Apocalypse (1:31)
Enter Sandman.
Thanks, Chris.
Let’s breakout: Who blew your mind, and why? Who gave you that gut-punch revelation you can use to change your company’s direction? And the most important post-conference question: Was it worth the price?
Grow and be well,
Kelly Erickson
P.S. We’re going in with a bang and out with a high, dear readers. Please don’t forget to Twitter, Stumble, Digg, or otherwise bookmark using the “Share” button below, because I want our comment section to roar today with the din of as many conference attendees as we can fit in this global room. And if you’re new to MCE, welcome! I hope you’ll subscribe and become a regular part of the Experience here!
Worse yet, does your advertising (website, blog, brochure, DVD… ) say “Look how pretty” and expect the customer to decide that means you can help them out?
When it comes to promoting yourself, forget overly clever, forget loud, and definitelyforgetlong-winded. I don’t want to know you’re good, and I sure don’t want to know your writer/ designer/ ad agency is good. I want to know that when I buy from you, I’ll feel good.
Would you rather buy from the company with the coolest ads, or the company who wants to make you cool? How does your company sell without drawing attention to the sales materials?
Grow and be well,
Kelly Erickson
The Big P.S.: Monday, we talked about connections. Coming up, I’m going to connect you with some great voices in Experience Design.
Tomorrow something very different for MCE: A Pixelated Blog Conference, inspired by Mitch Joel by way of the inimitable, life-changing Chris Brogan.
The first ever Maximum Customer Experience Conference, not-at-all-live, with a super roster of experts speaking on some of my favorite aspects of strategic, integrated Experience Design.
Does Experience matter? Can you really engineer it? Does your company matter to your customers? Can you make more money by improving your Customer Experience? (Haven’t you been reading here?) Get fresh takes on the questions that keep you up at night when you listen to what these folks have to say tomorrow. “Attend” as many “breakout sessions” as you like. I’ll write a quick intro to each so you can find the topics that interest you.
I hope you’ll come out from behind the firewall make some time in your day for a few of these brief videos, to learn and laugh (you know I’m looking for a few funny guys) about growing your business with Maximum Customer Experience.
Hey, why am I hyping it so much? You know if it’s here at MCE, it’s free, right? So come on back tomorrow. But today, subscribe, leave a comment, or bookmark this post to share with others.
To Go Where Your VisionPoints, a few inspiration points for you and your business.
Your customers are marketing geniuses— They know exactly what they want and it is your job to find that out…. When you know what type of a company they want to deal with—you have your ticket to fortunes. People deal with you because they want you to change their life—do you deliver on their wants?
—Troy White, at The Total Package
Nope, I’m not going to add a word this week, but I would like to hear it again: “Your customers are marketing geniuses— They know exactly what they want and it is your job to find that out.”
Ever need to give a speech or a presentation for your job but find there’s way too much conflicting advice out there for how to make your words rock your audience?
You need simple rules for creating a great speaking Experience, and you are in the right place.
How can you speak better than ninety percent of the yawners out there?
From the Mouths of Babes, Part 4*
I love my kid. She’s got a million talents. However, I don’t think of her as a public speaker, more like a typical nine-year-old public mumbler. So when she announced that she was running for President of her class and that she’d be giving speeches, I marveled at her bravery.
She sat, she wrote, she asked what I thought about some phrasing, she put a tremendous amount of strategy into it. No kidding. The class had discussed what they wanted in an ideal candidate, and my NYO thought about how her interests could be framed to match their desires, and how to cover all her talking points most persuasively.
It was uncannily like being on the campaign trail with [insert name of candidate whose brain you’d like to pick here].
A little scary, if you must know. All manner of grown-up thinking processes tumbled out of her. Wag the (4th Grade) Dog.
The Speech in the Candidate’s Own Hand
The transcript, in case the handwriting’s tough to read:
smileenunciateloud
Hi!… You should nominate me for class president because I am interestid in the environment, and in helping our school do more for the earth. I am a greatlistener and I would love to take our wholeclasses ideas to share with the student council. I have a lot of good ideas and i’m awesome at saying them.
likeum…brethepausesmilefrownenunciate
Last year, I worked with other students to write & print the Recycling News. Whith this newsletter we even got a couple of people to recycele at home! This year I want to take my experience working with others to be your best class president ever!
Please don’t get your spelling tips from my kid. (I said, “Hey! You can spell a lot better than this!” and she replied, “I don’t need to spell to be President. I just have to rock this speech out.” Scary.)
The Tips:
Smile. Enunciate. Speak loudly.
No “like.” No “um…” Breathe. Pause. Don’t frown.
Best tip I ever learned, many years ago: Mark up your script. You’ll thank us both.
I heard her practicing, and I can tell you it was better than she’s ever given before, because the messy markup did its job.
Grow and be well,
Kelly Erickson
P.S. You want to know how she did, eh? Field of twelve candidates, in a class of twenty-five. She didn’t make it to the final vote, but she wasn’t sad about it, either. In fact, she was thrilled.
Why? She’s the campaign manager/ art director for the kid she thinks will win. She told him, he can’t do it without her, and he agreed. She’s very persuasive. She told me, it’s way better to be behind the scenes—the guy out front gets hammered!
Scary.
*Want more posts where I let the kid do the talking? Read From the Mouths of Babes, Part 1,Part 2, and Part 3.
