Bring your humanity to work

I'm loving this new office. And my mum loves it, too! (Always important)

I brought her in yesterday before taking her grocery shopping. Somewhere between breakfast cereal and coffee, an announcement came over the speakers.

It was something about free paring knives. Fantastic offer, I'm sure, but delivered in a flat monotone. It was almost comical. Hell, it was actually a real hoot!

"Attention shoppers, this is a special announcement. Any Foodtown customer over the age of twenty one can receive a high quality paring knife by coming to the stand covered in red beside aisle 18. Please come now."

As language goes, it was clear and unambiguous, but it didn't make me feel good. It made me feel slightly patronised, and not really like getting a free knife.

Sometimes we approach our work in a deadpan, flat way. It's just transactional. That was the tone of this man's voice. There was no hint of the human being that (may have) lay behind the voice.

This morning I heard Anna Farmery interview Dr Ellen Weber about many things, including Two-Footed Questions. In a nutshell, a two-footed question tackles content (eg. what constitutes good customer service) and the person (eg. and how can you improve your service to your customers?).

It was a great reminder to bring my humanity to work today, and to make my business one that helps others do the same!

Jack Yan: the Persuader Blog: Advertising’s next big thing

Jack Yan: the Persuader Blog: Advertising’s next big thing

Several big things, actually. Good summary of what's going on in advertising from a publisher who knows branding.

Music publicity, Gen C style

The songbird who's outselling Take That with her homemade album | Showbiz | This is London

Thanks to Skip Press for passing on this fantastic story of DIY marketing for quality music. I think we're getting closer to a time where the high quality stuff does just find an audience.

Jaffe Juice: Anatomy of Top Marketing Bloggers

Jaffe Juice: Anatomy of Top Marketing Bloggers

It's good to have a goal: I want Mad Young Thing to be in the top 25 marketing blogs by this time next year.

The Social Customer Manifesto: "Sony, You Went Wrong With Your PS3..."

The Social Customer Manifesto: "Sony, You Went Wrong With Your PS3..."

A beautifully produced, consumer-generated movie and song about Sony's Playstation 3. It is hilarious and shows the level of marketing savvy there is "out there". It also shows how level the playing field is. No agencies were involved in producing this (or were they?) yet it's of a very good sound and video quality.

Nice work!

Facing the fear

An article I wrote in the current Idealog is coming back to haunt me - in a good way.

It's called "What I've learned about ... beating fear", a conversation I had with improv expert and general inspiring guy Wade Jackson (in the centre with the gun). He talked about how to deal with stage fright - perhaps the ultimate fear for some, and a good metaphor for all kinds of fear that we face.

Since then I've signed the lease for a pretty fancy office in the heart of Auckland City. It's a little different from the corner next to the fridge at home that has served as my office in the last 3 years.

It's part of a number of big changes in my business this year. Changes that can be frightening as well as exhilirating. Wade's words come back to me and remind me:

Stage fright is purely losing connection with your audience. If you focus on the people you’re there to serve, you’ll do well. The same is true for business. Stage fright for an entrepreneur is simply when he or she loses connection with the reason for being in business.

As someone who's done a bit of acting in the past, it's a helpful metaphor: business as performance.

Marie (my wife and collaborator) has been reading Fish! A Remarkable Way to Boost Morale and Improve Results this evening. It sounds like the chapters on "Play" are telling us the same thing.

Love your work.

Sifry's Alerts: The State of the Live Web, April 2007

Sifry's Alerts: The State of the Live Web, April 2007

Bottom line: there are still a heckuva lot of blogs out there.