It’s freezing in New York, but fun and stimulating!
First thing, check into my hotel. I am staying at a small boutique property on upper West Side (I’ll share the details on this property at the end of my trip). Are you traveling to a big city and want a great deal on cool hotels? I always use Hotwire.com. You can pick the number of stars and which part of the city you want to stay in. You get a choice of many, showing prices and star rankings. I’ve never been disappointed and sometimes save 50% off rack rate.
Worried about bedbugs? Go to Bedbug registry and make sure your chosen hotel won’t have uninvited guests in your bed. My hotel is awesome – it was not listed, WHEW!
Our first adventure: A food tour of the Lower East side via City Food Tours. This is a great way to taste and learn some history about New York’s fabulous food. Most tours are a couple hours long and range from 40-90 bucks per person. They include a knowledgeable guide, outside exercise and samplings of 5-6 culinary bites along the way. We discovered: The Essex Food market, a gem, which houses Roni-Sue chocolates, an artisan spot with truffles and to die for chocolates in every variety. The Pickle Guys, one of the few pickle places around. Economy Candy, a massive store that feels like a mall of a million sweets. The Roasting Plant, a great coffee cafe founded by a former Starbucks staffer who turned a vacuum into a Javabot® coffee roasting system and lastly, one of the best slices of pizza from San Marzano Brick Oven Pizzeria.
A great afternoon! More marketing commentary coming. Packed agenda.
Robert’s at the Museum of Design.
Prohibition a neighborhood spot for live music acts. Rachel Platton performed and was an amazing, fresh and entertaining sound. She’s a New Yorker who is hitting the world tour scene. Check out her schedule, and check her out.
Tues. night
Went to Jimmy Fallon Live with Jack Black, recap coming, was tooooo much fun and got to hang and dance with the Roots. I’m now the proud owner of an official drum stick too.
Weds.
Got to run, sorry for the short hand, promise to fill in. Headed to Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown. Review coming too with lots more street stuff.
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Working on a plane is nothing new, but FREE Internet access sure is. As I write this blog way up in the sky, Google Chrome is gifting all the passengers with some holiday cheer day via Boingo. Gracias!!
Yeah the weather was just not cold enough in Tampa (32 degrees this last week), so I’m headed to The Big Apple for some creative inspiration, culture, food and yes, Jimmy Fallon, (Tues. night, I know it late for some of you, but it’s a holiday week, take a nap Tues. day).
I’ll be in the city all week, trend spotting, pigging out, drinking good wine, consumer research and sharing with you the Oddpodz readers what I learn on my journey.
I’m so excited and grateful that as an American, an entrepreneur and a free agent I can do this!! Get on a plane, in 2.5 hours be headed to such a cool, freaken, maybe snowy mega of ideas and enterprise and wear my red mittens.
. . . That was fast, flight attendant just gave me that look, “turn off all electronics, NOW”, more later from Manhattan.
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I have a pile of business books that I have been meaning to read, and I am now determined to finish them by the end of the year. I had a great excuse last week when my power went out. I ran my laptop until the battery died. When it did, I decided not to relocate to a place where I could power up and sat down to read instead.
Tribes
I started with Seth Godin’s Tribes. It is a collection, I believe, of blog posts on leadership. If you are an entrepreneur, or if you work for a company and have the desire to champion a cause, this book will help ignite that fire. A few key takeaways for me were:
1. The definitions of a tribe and its dynamics. “A tribe is a group of people, connected to one another, connected to a leader and connected to an idea. A group needs only two things to be a tribe: a shared interest and a way to communicate. Tribes need leadership. Sometimes one person leads, sometimes more. You can’t have a tribe without a leader–and you can’t be a leader without a tribe.”
2. A tribe is formed when someone sees a group that is asking to be led. For example, “Fox News didn’t persuade millions of people to become conservative; they just assembled the tribe and led them where they were already headed.” Capitalize on a non-obvious moment/opportunity; get there first.
3. A manager is not a leader. A manager operates within the status quo of the “factory.” The leader sees an opportunity to do things differently (and better) and sees a group that is willing to move toward that change. The leader doesn’t wait to be asked to lead, he or she just does it.
4. The internet provides unprecedented opportunities for leaders and tribes to connect. One person with a YouTube.com account can impact the world in 24 hours with the right video. The power quotient has shifted. Just look at the power of blogging, anyone can broadcast their thoughts or ideas and lead or form a tribe.
5. Necessary ingredients for a tribe leader. Genuine passion and charisma – if you don’t have that, people will see through you and a tribe won’t follow. Authentic generosity – a true leader doesn’t need credit for his or her ideas, he or she is happy for them to be spread. The ability to use criticism to improve, curiosity, heresy (vs status quo), faith, remarkability, fearlessness, leadership/empowerment, passion and reinvention.
6. Recipe for starting a micromovement: a manifesto, connectablity and tracking progress. Making money can’t be the ultimate goal of the micromovement, that will guarantee its failure.
7. Persuasion: don’t start with opposition, seek the uncommitted passionates.
8. Elements of leadership: challenge status quo, create culture, be charismatic, communicate vision, connect.
9. Do not get stuck in the way things were or are, get busy turning things into what they could be.
10. Change isn’t made by asking permission. Change is made by asking for forgiveness later.
11. True leaders understand that change is not only omnipresent, but the key to success.
12. Great leaders listen to tribe members. However, truly great leaders can listen to the other opinion, still do what they had intended and retain loyal tribe followers. He used Ronald Regan as an example of a leader with this quality.
Looking for more great books, visit our book store. Please share your comments too.
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Monday I’m doing a segment on FOX TV with Russell Rhodes. The subject is tattoos, what do tattoos say about the beholder of them, has the tide turned with regards to acceptance in the professional world, is there a tattoo volume that’s cool and one that’s an over done gross look?
The New York Times cites in Europe they are all the rage even in politically active circles.
What do you think? Trend, tragedy or forever fashion?
If an executive is sporting one does that change how your feel about their leadership?
If a job applicant is covered in them, will you invite them back for a second interview?
If your mother got one, would you need a double martini?
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Power packaged-good brands have earned a place in marketing history. Once an industry where brands were built with 30-second TV spots, and where generations of families passed down the trusted brand; today it is a whole new ball game. Shelf space is expensive and limited and consumers have over 3000 choices every time they enter a store. Their brains have limited attention and their hearts even less loyalty.
To compete and win, CPG marketers must embrace a new world of connecting to consumers and buyers. The days of pure hard selling are now balanced with conversations that offer help, education, and category expertise. Instead of buying your way into their minds, the CPG company must think about earning attention and deserving loyalty. Disruption is now annoying and engagement is how you build lasting relationships.
Below are five trends cited by in an Information Resources, Inc. (IRI) report on CPG; followed by some commentary reflecting real-world market observations and idea opportunities.
1) Trip-Based Merchandising
2) Solutions Merchandising
3) Sustainability
4) Merchandising as an Educational Platform
5) High-Tech Merchandising
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Again, we quite agree with Gawker’s assessment that SWPL is dead, partly by overanalyzing by wonkish, humorless reporters looking to make a name for themselves with overly-earnest “think” pieces on race in America and partly by the site’s own hand. As Gawker notes, a far more subtle but much more on-target satirical take-down (and thusly less popular) site exists: White Whine. Read it.
But here’s the really interesting thing about White Whine. From a branding and marketing perspective it is a treasure trove of perceived brand identify.
I went through the most recent 50 “whines” and found the following brands, all used to varying degrees of positive/negative:
- Trader Joe’s
- Maxwell House
- Cremora
- FreshDirect
- J-Crew
- Zappos
- Amazon
- iPhone
- Fruit of the Loom
- Threadless
- American Apparel
- Microsoft
- Firefox
- Diet Coke
- Landrover
- Honda
- Airborne
- HBO
- iPod
- Papa John’s
- Whole Foods
- Wii
- Vitamin Water
- Bellagio
- Barnes and Noble
- Fed Ex
- Men’s Health
- publix
- Wachovia
Moreover, it seems that almost every other whine is, in one way or another, about being a consumer. What does that say about what white people like? Or maybe, who white people are, whether they like it or not?
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Coming in at the top of heap in the branding survey, Apple certainly seems to have a number of people drinking the Cool Aid. But in two of the questions it is just stunning and hard to believe that Apple could come in not just first, but far ahead.
1. What brand, if sent back 100 years, would have the biggest impact on the course of history?
Coming in first with 15.5% is Apple. This, of course, is absurd when Google is coming in third here with only 8.4% of the vote.
And then:
2. What brand can you not live without?
Again, 15.2% chose Apple, making it Number One. 5.5% of respondents told the truth and answered Google. I don’t care how much you love Apple; the brand simply does not do what Google does on a daily basis.
But what does this show about Apple’s brand? To me it demonstrates that Apple is not nearly as powerful as I had once believed. It simply has louder advocates who are devoted on a level so completely that they are blind to answering anything but “Apple” on any survey.
Full disclosure: I sometimes write for Brandchannel. Particularly, I have written about product placement. Apple maintains a special place in the world of product placement in that it is constantly appearing in films. It has benefited from nearly 20 years of on-screen promotion, from 1986 hit films like “Short Circuit” and “Star Trek IV” to a stunning 13 of 2007’s total Number One box office hits.
And yet, despite all of this “can’t live without it” admiration and screen time, the Apple brand controls only 8% of the computer market. These numbers just don’t add up.
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NPR of course has been all up in the hizzat this week about it with Science Froday host Ira Flatow quite literally, maybe, peeing his pants about the devastating prospects of an almost guaranteed global water shortage. (Hey Ira, treat that spill and it’s potable!).
The future global water situation is something you better just ignore because it. is. horrific. That whole Darfur thing George Clooney keeps getting his handsome undies in a bunch about between robbing Las Vegas casinos with Mr. Jolie? Yep, all started because of water. And it’s only going to get worse. Read about it if you must (we recommend against it because, IT’S SATURDAY! Ugh.)
But seriously, you ask, what can I do how can I get rich off this?
Well, Ira probably recommends that you do something like become a vegetarian, don’t flush and/or stop having a lawn. The problem with this is that, like all other precious commodity markets, somebody else will just use more, in effect, drinking up all your milkshake (I’m looking at you, Georgia.). So what you can do to help AND maybe enrich yourself in the process? Invest.
Siemens just opened its new Global Water Research and Development Center in Singapore.
Here’s Google Finance on “water.”
Water Stocks is a clearing house with directories of publicly traded water companies. There’s a lot of info there and it might seem a little daunting but it will be worth it. If you get confused just invest in ANY of these companies; they’ll all probably be the next Exxon.
Or navigate over to them via their awesome because it’s true URL: www.waterthenextoil.com.
Then someday you can cash in and use the profits to buy $850-a-barrel “reclaimed toilet sewage” Evian.
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Porfolio’s reasoning is that, comparatively, $1 billion buys a lot more than, say, Microsoft’s $500 million to promote Vista. One gets you written into the history books and access to the purse strings to the most powerful nation on earth; the other, a substandard OS upgrade that will be replaced in a half-decade But by these guidelines, the Presidency is nothing compared with the bargain that is health care.
Knee replacement surgery, even at its most expensive, runs about $40,000. Compare that to $20,000 for a new Chevrolet Malibu. One buys you the ability to walk again. The other, a rental-agency-quality car.
In an even more extreme example: Appendectomies run about $35,000 (and as low as $14,000). Compare that life-saving dead-without-it surgery to one academic year at Sarah Lawrence College: $36,088.
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In these times of uncertainty – will I have this job next week? will I have to take out a third mortgage to pay for my daily commute to the office? can I get a third mortgage? – some choose to explore making the jump from working for the man to working for thyself. We found a couple of links with things to consider when making such a decision. They are also worth perusing if you’re already out on your own.
1. A reason we are glad we don’t have to commute. Public transportation is cheaper than driving oneself, but being able to skip THIS is worth singing for our own supper.
2. A list of over 100 reasons that some think Freelancing is the cats meow. Take a look, then come back here and tell us what you think.
3. If the list above has convinced you to hang out a shingle, you should still ask yourself these questions that we found over at copyblogger.com. How to achieve Freedom and how to avoid a Personal Branding Prison. Also, check out our discussion on the importance of Personal Branding (in the Forum).
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