December 16th, 2007
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8qVk2Di1EMA]
This piece of research (that beautifully rolls up into a great viral piece) by the makers of Drambuie, is a great introduction on how paying yourself out and using negative customer feedback can improve your sales.
I think Guy Kawasaki’s advice on the value of polarising your customer base comes true in this piece.
Ive never tried Drambuie, but given this bunch of yokels hate it, it makes me want to go and try it 
October 29th, 2007
Interesting news from the ACCC who say that Consumers consider blogs as reliable and as influential as mainstream media.
Sounds like call to action for online reputation monitoring 
Its also interesting to consider how the ACCC see’s its role in new media. Will they try to control and censor australian bloggers and online review sites.
“CONSUMERS who get their news from the internet are likely to trust a blog for reliability as much as a mainstream media site, the competition watchdog said today.
“For a growing base of users, these are all equally valid sources of news, information, entertainment and gossip, and users are not necessarily discriminating between traditional and new sources.”"
“For regulators like the ACCC, it means ensuring regulation relied on during the last century does not become an irrelevant fallback position that fails to serve the public’s best interests,” he said”.
This is very cool but also scary, what has made the internet great is its total freedom. Will that be eroded by Australian governments and what can we do to ensure that bloggers cannot be held legally liable if they critisise an Australian Company online.
October 4th, 2007
Apparently sprinters reach their highest speed right out of the blocks, and spend the rest of the race slowing down. The winners slow down the least. Its that way in most new business too.
The earliest phase is usually the most productive.
The striking thing about this phase is that its often completely different from what people think “business” looks like. When you think business you think suits, offices, boardrooms, reports. However most successful businesses are the opposite of this, and whats more they are probably the most productive part of the whole economy.
Why the disconnect? I think there’s a principle at work here: the less energy people spend on performance, the more they spend on appearance to compensate.
Whats worse is that the energy people spend on seeming impressive, actually makes their performance worse!
Suits, for example, don’t help people think better. I bet most executives at big companies do their best thinking when they wake up on Sunday morning and are making coffee in a bathrobe (or in the shower or reading a bedtime story to their kids). That’s when you have really big ideas! Just imagine what a company would be like if people could think that well at work all the time.
I don’t have a proposal for how to achieve this in the real world, but it did seem interesting to pry this topic open.
Sometimes i think professionalism is a dieing fad from the 1970’s. Today we want authentic, genuine products, partners, clients, suppliers and friends. Real people who do real work. No longer does the bland, fake “take a number and get in line” sterility of professionalism cut it for the informed, seasoned, advertising-hardened consumer.
What do you think, leave a comment on the blog…
Disclaimer: Thanks to Jessica Livingstone and Paul Graham for Inspiration
September 20th, 2007
Every new project (or job, or hobby or company) starts out exciting or fun. Then it gets harder and less fun, until it hits a low point: really hard and not much fun at all.
And the you find yourself asking if the goal is really worth the hassle.
Maybe you’re in a Dip – a temporary setback that you will overcome if you keep pushing.
But maybe its really a Cul-de-sac, which will never get better no matter how hard you try.
What really sets superstars apart from everyone else is the ability to escape dead ends quickly whilst staying focused and motivated when it really counts.
Winners quit fast, quit often and quite without guilt – until they commit to beating the right dip for the right reasons. In fact, winners seek out the Dip. They realise that the bigger the barrier, the bigger the reward for getting past it.
Losers, on the other hand, fall into two basic traps. Either they fail to stick out the Dip – they get to the moment of truth and then give up – or they never find the right Dip to conquer.
Whether you;re a graphic design, a sales rep, an athlete or an aspiring CEO, this fun little book will help you figure out if you;re in a dip thats worthy of your time, effort and talents. If you are, The Dip will inspire you to hang tough. If not, it will help you find the courage to quit 0 so you can be number one at something else.
September 12th, 2007
Here is the latest Video from our WebTV Show – Get Shifted! TV
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hVSaWUjRfwc]
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