Greatness.
Photography by Antony Spencer.
Greatness is everywhere if we care to look and find people to admire.
These people are not just the powerful and famous.
They can be teachers, nurses, craftspeople, social workers, and story tellers.
Observing and reading about greatness reveals a common pattern.
The great have been forged in a furnace of challenges and formed in a foundry of experiences.
Their challenge, and experiences have led many to some foundational beliefs, core fundamentals they leverage and first principles they turn to.
They have an ability to combine great focus with flexibility in ways that make them a force.
Photography by Antony Spencer.
Forged and formed in the furnace of time and experiences.
Even if one is lucky to born with prodigious skills it takes time to hone one’s expertise where it can have a powerful impact.
Only with the feedback and continuous iteration that comes with experiences does one learn to connect dots, see patterns, and identify processes that work.
Malcolm Gladwell proposed that it takes 10,000 hours of practice to build expertise.
Many people who are seen as “overnight successes” have spent thousands of nights learning.
Time is its own unique furnace but so are moments of acute challenge.
Recently many leaders whether they be CEO’s, schoolteachers or nurses were forced into the furnace of Covid-19 and its challenges. Many rose to the occasion and in midst of this great distress their greatness was formed.
Most recently millions of Ukrainians and their leader have revealed their greatness.
Under pressure people who you thought might be coal turn into a diamond.
The pressure twists and transforms them into new shapes.
The furnace of challenges and the foundry of experiences is what sculpts and chisels greatness.
Photography by Antony Spencer.
Foundational Beliefs. Fundamentals. First Principles.
Great practitioners often have a framework of some fundamental and foundational beliefs and first principals.
A way of doing or filtering, a check list, a smell test, a feeling of prescience or a sixth sense.
Some things that they have come to believe as absolutes, such as a belief reality must be faced, facts are stubborn things, and one cannot look away from the data. There may be first principals on how to deal with and inspire people or how to problem solve or best ways to integrate different companies and cultures.
There is a “way” or “ways” that they use to frame and filter what they see.
This fundamental understanding allows them to see patterns that many others cannot just like great chess players can sense an underlying design to the game or great investigators combine what seems to be disparate dots to identify patterns.
Photography by Antony Spencer.
Focus and Flexibility combining to create a Force.
If you see Monet’s water lilies or listen to Beethoven’s Late Quartets, you will find utter simplicity and focus on some key elements fused with a flexibility of craft and style that combine to have an impact and force.
The best in a field can speak and explain with simplicity by focusing on what matters and leaving out the rest while customizing (flexibility) the communication to ensure the outcome.
The best nurses or doctors know exactly what to focus on when treating a patient but are flexible in how they apply their craft to ensure the best medical result.
It is an odd combination of The Mandalorian, Lawrence of Arabia and Yoda.
The focus is on recognizing there “is a way”, the flexibility is in understanding that when applying this to a situation “nothing is written” and by combining these two the “force is with them”.
Photography by Antony Spencer.
Learning from the great and unleashing our own greatness.
Look around and most people you see are great at something or the other. We all have superpowers and instead of focusing on our weaknesses we may want to hone in on our strengths and celebrate and leverage the strength of others.
First, we must realize that time, experience, and circumstances are necessary to get to a level of greatness. It cannot be hurried or willed into being. Seasoning matters.
Second, we should interrogate ourselves to better understand what fundamental skills, foundational beliefs and first principals drive us. Better understanding these allow us to confirm their validity and if so leverage them. We should ask those that we admire what they leverage and filter to make decisions.
Third, we should both watch and learn from ourselves and others to hone our ability on how to keeping our eye on what matters and learn that less is often more.
Finally, be open to new data that allows us to flex and iterate our way to remain relevant.
Next time observe those around you and yourself.
The potential for greatness is everywhere.
Find something, somebody, or some ways to admire.
New Narratives
The human tragedy on the ground in Ukraine is hard to fathom or look at and no amount of imagination can match the pain and the destruction on the ground.
It is one of the reasons that Putin has for the first time in his twenty year reign shut down everything that is not under his control (including social media and every small independent newspaper, broadcast or online service) and has promised 3 year to 15 year sentences for even carrying a placard with the word “War” on it ( because in Orwellian speak it is “a special military operation” to liberate and “de-nazify” a country).
But the world of storytelling and media has changed. Not just in the past decade but very dramatically in the last two or three years and this changing narrative landscape plus a new generation of narrators and voices combined with new media behaviors is increasingly difficult to control from top down.
This post samples these new narratives through the lens of the Ukraine war…
New Narrators/New Narrative Publications.
Today arguably among the best writers on the war if not the best writer is Julia Ioffe from a new journalist owned and controlled publication called PUCK which believes “ in this new media age, the creator is the heart of the business equation”
Julia is deeply sourced, rational and tries to get to the truth even if we do not like to hear what she reports.
In this piece which includes an excellent interview she notes that half to two-thirds of Russians support the Ukraine war. That most Russians have not yet felt the big impact of the sanctions since it is really a tiny fraction of the population who has been first hurt (the upper middle class and rich who own the assets and use rouble/dollar accounts that have plummeted). The impact of the sanctions will begin to impact the country shortly with inflation and some initial shortages ( the closing down and discontinuing of the major global brands in the country will also prompt some questioning and therefore is likely to be very impactful).
However, there is a vulnerability for Putin which is that Russians under 35 who because they did not grow up during the Soviet era and most importantly because they do not get their news from newspapers and tv are anti-war and it is through this information wormhole plus the shrinking of the economy that will pierce Putin’s media black hole.
Here is Julia on Putin’s black hole.
To read the entire piece you may have to subscribe which I highly recommend for two reasons. First these are some of the best writers anywhere. But as importantly I believe like Substack (where you are reading this), Puck is another new model where the creators are grabbing back control and their livelihoods from aggregators and traditional content owners. This is just a preview of the explosion in the way we hear, see and fund a large part of narrative from creators as we enter the Web 3.0 world.
The Tik-Tok Take-Over
While Puck, Substack and other new forms are scaling we have already seen the power of social media particularly Tik-Tok in how narratives are made, and opinion shaped. In a wonderful piece from the New Yorker we learn that…
“The invasion of Ukraine isn’t the first conflict to play out over social media. The Arab Spring uprisings and the Syrian civil war used Facebook and Twitter to organize protests and broadcast D.I.Y. footage. But in the intervening years, social platforms have become more geared toward multimedia, and smartphones have become better at capturing and streaming events in real time. Large numbers of Ukrainian civilians are taking up arms to defend their country against Vladimir Putin’s reckless imperialism; they’re also deploying their mobile cameras to document the invasion in granular detail. The war has become content, flowing across every platform at once. One video that has circulated in recent days appears to show a Ukrainian man gingerly moving a mine, a cigarette dangling from his mouth, off a road and into the woods. A single tweet earned the clip more than ten million views, but it could also be found on YouTube, TikTok, and the sites of various news publications. Perhaps owing to Western sympathies with the plight of Ukrainians, their videos have overwhelmed American feeds in a way few foreign news stories ever do.”
“The flood of TikTok videos is perhaps more likely to evoke our bemused awareness, a feeling of sympathy that lasts only long enough to keep us scrolling. Yet as the Russian convoys outside of Kyiv continue attempting to penetrate the city center, traditional news organizations are pulling their journalists to safety. Social media is an imperfect chronicler of wartime. In some cases, it may also be the most reliable source we have.”
More here…https://www.newyorker.com/culture/infinite-scroll/watching-the-worlds-first-tiktok-war
Influencers today often have more power than media companies.
Given the power of Tik-Tok influencers both sides are reaching out and trying to influence the “influencers” but at the current time the Russian ability to dis-inform is less effective the global army of influencers arrayed against it each with their unique audiences, voices and styles.
The Biden Administration earlier this week briefed influencers…
“On Thursday afternoon, 30 top TikTok stars gathered on a Zoom call to receive key information about the war unfolding in Ukraine. National Security Council staffers and White House press secretary Jen Psaki briefed the influencers about the United States’ strategic goals in the region and answered questions on distributing aid to Ukrainians, working with NATO and how the United States would react to a Russian use of nuclear weapons.
As the crisis in Ukraine has escalated, millions have turned to TikTok for information on what is happening there in real time. TikTok videos offered some of the first glimpses of the Russian invasion and since then the platform has been a primary outlet for spreading news to the masses abroad. Ukrainian citizens hiding in bomb shelters or fleeing their homes have shared their stories to the platform, while dangerous misinformation and Russian propaganda have also spread. And TikTok stars, many with millions of followers, have increasingly sought to make sense of the crisis for their audiences.
The White House has been closely watching TikTok’s rise as a dominant news source, leading to its decision to approach a select group of the platform’s most influential names.
Teddy Goff, a founder of Precision Strategies, a consulting firm, said that the White House’s strategy of embracing the next generation of media voices was crucial. “There’s a massive cultural and generational shift happening in media, and you have to have blinders on not to see it,” he said. “The reach of a piece in a traditional news outlet is a fraction of what a big TikToker gets.”
The entire article is here…https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/03/11/tik-tok-ukraine-white-house/
Imagine five years ago reading the paragraphs above. You would ask what are “Zoom”. “Tik-Tok” and “Social Media Influencer”?
If it is real time it is Twitter time.
After Tik-Tok, Twitter is being leveraged to shape and keep up with new narratives.
There is a Ukraine-Russia list (a list is composed of a number of people worth following on a topic, a.k.a. members) that you can engage with by just following the list versus each person. The list gets updated as the curator of the list adds new members to the list. The best list to keep updated in real time on Ukraine is the Ukraine-Russia list curated by Noah Smith. It has a list of 75 key accounts (members) worth hearing from.
It is followed by many journalists and leaders of countries.
You can follow the list by clicking here :https://twitter.com/i/lists/1492242776825552896
It is hands down the go to source for real time news, analysis and much more.
Imagine access like this to world class experts with one click for free without Twitter!
A single voice and a shared list can shape narrative in a world of ESG where customers and employees hold their leaders and bosses accountable.
“Founder of the Chief Executive Leadership Institute, Sonnenfeld has spent four decades pushing CEOs to act to benefit society, not just shareholders, on social issues ranging from gun control to voting rights. But nothing has drawn as much attention or support from business leaders, media, or the public as his inventory of companies that have cut ties with Russia.
“So many CEOs wanted to be seen as doing the right thing,” Sonnenfeld, 67, said in a telephone interview. “It was a rare unity of patriotic mission, personal values, genuine concern for world peace, and corporate self-interest.”
The list, updated hourly by his research team, has grown to more than 330 as of Friday.
“What these lists do is give courageous CEOs the confidence to keep going, and the wannabe courageous ones the reinforcements to deal with their boards so they come off as responsible business leaders when they can see a stampede of their peers leaving Russia,” Sonnenfeld said.
Sonnenfeld said the “laggards” followed this week, when the public relations arms of more than two dozen consumer products, fashion, fast food and packaged goods companies contacted him in a single day to be included.”
To see the entire list and much more on how companies are grappling with this situation please click here: https://som.yale.edu/story/2022/over-300-companies-have-withdrawn-russia-some-remain?te=1&nl=peter-coy&emc=edit_pc_20220309
The Power of Podcasts.
New narrators and voices and newly empowered established narrators and voices are leveraging a spectrum of new techniques and media, one of which is the humble voice in your ear via podcasts.
Podcasts are amazing in their ability to unleash the eye and the heart of your imagination and reason thorough the power of spoken word. They are cheap to produce and can be heard everywhere including in the dark. Most importantly they can truly go deep into a subject and bring in superb voices who are deeply informed and knowledgeable to you.
Sam Harris this week had a live conversation over Zoom (but then provided as a podcast) with Garry Kasparov the Chess Grandmaster and champion who has been warning about Putin for years. This conversation will unleash new perspectives. (Sam Harris podcast requires a subscription but 40 minutes of the interview are free, and you will learn a lot from it)
Here is the link: https://www.samharris.org/podcasts/making-sense-episodes/275-the-russian-war-in-ukraine
Web 3.0 is playing its part.
Web 3.0 is so misunderstood by so many often equated with the Metaverse or valued by the latest NFT craze. It is much more and just a couple of its key elements (Wallets and DAO’s Decentralized Autonomous Organizations) are described by Packy McCormick in amazing Not Boring Substack.
“Ukraine Crypto Wallets
If you’re looking for a way to donate crypto, the Ukrainian government solicited donations in ETH and BTC on Twitter:
The addresses have been verified, and I donated without issues. Over $5 million (over 50 million since this piece was written) has been donated via ETH alone, and you can see the wallet on Etherscan here for live updates (the amount on Etherscan is lower because they sweep out money periodically).
UkraineDAO
UkraineDAO, organized by Pussy Riot and PleasrDAO, among others, is taking a slightly different approach to fundraising, more in line with ConstitutionDAO with a twist.
The group set up a PartyBid on an NFT of a Ukranian flag so that anyone could contribute any amount. All contributors will receive $LOVE tokens which “have NO utility nor value but are a beautiful testament and reminder of your contribution to a noble cause.” UkraineDAO has raised $3.3 million already, and proceeds will go to Come Back Alive.
Lastly, this Notion doc has a long list of ways to help, financial and otherwise. It’s the most comprehensive I’ve found.”
You Tube.
You Tube remains as impactful and important as ever.
Please watch the video embedded above of a speech that the President of Ukraine gave to the British Parliament.
You will see what a leader and the ongoing power of William Shakespeare and the oratory of Winston Churchill sound like in combination.
The video is being watched all over the world millions of times a day can teach us all about why leadership matters, right matters, history matters, words matter and all of these combined with truth amplified by the power of new narratives will play a huge role in the difficult days ahead.
To Be !
S.A.V.E.
S.A.V.E is a heuristic and filter that one can deploy both for business and personal interactions.
S = Solutions
A = Accessible
V = Value(s)
E = Experience
Solutions
People and potential Clients look for solutions, but companies often focus on products, services, and processes.
This is understandable since the purpose of an organization is to provide products and services and often the way to differentiate oneself is by focusing on the special inputs (e.g., data), ingredients (e.g., saffron), processes (e.g., “bespoke”, “hand curdled”), approaches (e.g., some sort of diagram of how the company comes up with results) or organizational structure (e.g., “our special way of working and organizational structure that is silo-less, client focused and efficient”)
All of this is well and good and often necessary but never sufficient.
Because what the buyer is asking is “can you show me some cool shit instead of showing me how your colon works?”
Ask how much of your selling efforts are about broadcasting a colonoscopy on your company’s methods, tactics, history, purpose, and strategy and how much is simply “here is an amazing solution, idea, innovation”.
Accessible
Today, most people are constrained for time and want things fast, friction-free and optimized for their personal situation.
Simplicity in understanding what is available.
Convenience in buying.
Flexibility in delivery and returns.
Optionality in payment terms.
Are our solutions easy to buy and ourselves easy to deal with?
For an organization this means being easily discoverable on all major platforms. Using language that is simple and free of buzz word bingo and jingo lingo. Being available to purchase or interact with across all channels and offering varied methods of delivery and payment.
People will not adapt to the way of the company, but the company needs to re-tool its spine to adapt to the way of the people.
Today when someone watches a video on Tik-Tok and comes across a shoppable commercial which offers them the choice of picking up a product from a physical store one wonders the following:
Was the transaction above the line or below the line?
Was it about marketing since it was an ad or sales since there was a special deal at the store that was featured?
Was it online since it began there or offline since it ended there?
Was it mobile since it was a phone, social since it was Tik-Tok or was it was e-commerce?
The customer or consumer journeys (and there are many and no longer one) has become a mongrel mix and fusion as technology like hydrochloric acid has dissolved the definitions, containers, and organizational structures of the past.
In many organizations now marketing and sales, regular commerce and e-commerce, and a lot more need to be re-thought around making the firm and its solutions accessible.
Value(s)
Value is always a key since in addition to time, money is often a constraint for most.
This often requires competitive pricing but is not necessarily about selling out with the lowest price.
Ideally one finds a way to price the outcome versus the input.
Buying cheap pigs could lead to poisoned hot dogs.
Smart archers use fewer arrows and can get to the bullseye of solution faster, so quality has great ROI but often one must find ways to illustrate and numerate quality.
Some approaches include truly differentiated solutions or people where the result or experience are so clearly superior that premiums are justifiable.
It is important to note that Apple, LVMH, Disney and many others do not differentiate on price but value.
In addition, today like never before the values of a company or person matters.
Purpose.
A stance on ESG.
Approach to DEI.
Care and growth of employees and community.
All these now become ways to signal value and values.
Experience.
In the end people remember the experience and pay for the experience.
And much of business and marketing is creating seamless experiences or rectifying and correcting lapses in the experience.
Experiences have always been key but in the next few years as Web 3.0/The Third Connected Age scales with increasingly open, decentralized and composable systems, AR/VR interfaces, new organizational structures (DAO’s) and new currencies of trust and monetization (Blockchain driven tokens) it is likely to be the KEY differentiator.
One reason is that brands such as packaged goods which may have struggled to create experiences are likely to be unchained and unleashed using the next generation Web 3.0 tool sets (metaverse anyone?) and create truly valuable CRM programs using tokens that deliver value and unlock opportunities.
A creative age for building experiences is upon us.
The Question to Ask.
Is your company offering solutions that are accessible and deliver value while enabling experiences?
Or is it selling poorly differentiated products and services in ways that are friction-filled for the buyer at cheap prices with a so-so quality of interaction.
Most companies are somewhere in between but using the S.A.V.E filter and focus efforts.
But this also works for each of us as individuals.
Do we look for solutions or fester and brood over problems?
Are we easy to understand and deal with? Are we easy to get a meeting with or communicate with? Do we speak English and make things accessible to understand?
What and who do we value? Are our motivations and methods transparent? Can we get people to trust us?
Do people have positive experiences with us. Do we leave people with clarity, energy and inspiration or do we collapse the mood of the room?
S.A.V.E
Solutions. Accessibility. Value(s). Experiences.
Photographs by Rishad Tobaccowala.
Generosity.
Sculpture by Antony Gormley.
What is generosity?
The University of Notre Dame’s Science of Generosity Initiative defines generosity as the virtue of giving good things to others freely and abundantly.
The definition is further articulated in greater depth as follows:
Generosity is a learned character trait that involves both attitude and action—entailing as a virtue both an inclination or predilection to give liberally and an actual practice of giving liberally.
Generosity also involves giving to others not simply anything in abundance but rather giving those things that are good for others. Generosity always intends to enhance the true wellbeing of those to whom it gives.
What exactly generosity gives can be various things: money, possessions, time, attention, aid, encouragement, emotional availability, and more.
Generosity, to be clear, is not identical to pure altruism, since people can be authentically generous in part for reasons that serve their own interests as well as those of others. Indeed, insofar as generosity is a virtue, to practice it for the good of others also necessarily means that doing so achieves one’s own true, long–term good as well.
The key points here are that a) generosity is more than about money, and b) being generous is usually a win-win where both sides gain.
Sculpture by Antony Gormley.
Generosity and life.
A CEO shared a story about how a poor family of immigrants stopped to help someone who had a flat tire in bad weather. After the tire was changed, the individual offered money to the family. They turned it down saying “Today it was you. Tomorrow it might be us.”
Sooner or later, everybody finds themselves needing help and depending on acts of generosity. It might be some form of aid, guidance, a person to talk to who will listen, a leg-up or sometimes gently delivered difficult to hear advice.
By being there and helping when someone is in need ensures good “Karma.”
If what goes around comes around it may make sense to send good stuff people’s way.
Sculpture by Antony Gormley.
Generosity and emotional well-being.
Several research projects have indicated that helping others has significant benefits from making your body “glow,” to reduced stress and anxiety and a longer life!
Generosity enables greater human connection, a sense of community and a higher social standing.
Importantly, generosity is not about wealth and a number of studies indicate that those less well-off tend to be more generous with their resources than those with resources often giving their time and energy and often even money from their constrained budgets.
Being more exposed to the challenges of limited resources they may be more compassionate.
Generosity, compassion, and empathy are three emotional states that are deeply inter-connected.
Sculpture by Antony Gormley.
Generosity as a strategy.
If strategy is future competitive advantage, generosity is smart for individual or company strategies.
Generosity builds good will which is both an asset and a moat.
It is an asset in that it can be tapped in the future.
It is a moat because when an individual or a company has been generous in times of trouble their employee or customer are less likely to switch to a different firm for a lower price or higher pay.
Generosity is also a key differentiator in that usually when a person or firm needs help there are few people willing to help someone out of power or in trouble. Those individuals and brands who do help stand out and their showing up and helping when others are not burns into the emotional and mental memory of the recipient.
Emotional connections are harder to sever or replace than financial connections.
Sculpture by Antony Gormley.
Generosity and modern marketing.
We are at the Dawn of a New Era of Re-invented Marketing where Brands are increasingly differentiated through experience, purpose and employee joy.
One way a brand delivers a great experience is when it surprises you with generosity.
Last week’s post Tattoo resulted in many people sharing stories of how a brand or company’s generosity made a lifelong impact.
Here is one:
“Long ago, must be 30 years ago or more, I went into Tiffany’s to purchase one cufflink.
The night before I had attended a black-tie event and one cufflink must have worked itself free (it was the solid type, and was difficult to get on and off), and I lost it off my sleeve. Just wasn't there when I got home.
I said to the counter person that I just wanted to buy one cufflink to match the other one.
She left.
She returned with the typical Tiffany's blue box with the white ribbon. "Here you go...no charge," she said.
I couldn't believe it.
You must be -- at least -- the 400th person I have told this story to.”
Brands today cannot succeed unless their employees are happy. It is the employees who after all provide the service to customers and clients. It is the employees who generate the ideas and solve the problems. It is often the employees who are most believed and can be the greatest ambassadors and advocates of a brand. Often employees are far more authentic ambassadors than a celebrity that companies give tens of millions too. Why not be generous in care, money, and attention to employees?
The CEO of the company where I spent my full-time working career recently awarded many tens of millions of dollars in bonuses to thousands and thousands of employees who were not eligible or expecting such largesse. The impact of that generosity has been very significant and builds on many other acts of generosity of care and attention through the very difficult circumstances that people have had to deal with due to the tragedy of Covid-19.
Culture is not just a place or a history but a way of being and behaving. Great cultures always have some form of generosity whether it is compensation, benefits, forgiveness of mistakes that encourage risk taking and more.
Generosity is a key to brand experiences and brand employees, but it is also a corner stone of brands purpose driven marketing. Smart companies recognize that purpose ensures not just attraction and retention of talent but also that ESG, DEI and other initiatives truly help the company economically.
Generously helping community, environment and others helps the brand.
Stake-holder capitalism usually helps stockholders when balanced and managed well.
Sculpture by Antony Gormley.
Be generous.
Generosity is aligned with life and happiness.
It is strategic and a key to the future of marketing.
It scales by helping you build a reputation.
Talent wants to collaborate with talent that gives versus talent that takes,
As we move to the Third Connected Age of the Internet with open web and DAO’s (Decentralized Autonomous Organizations) generosity will be a key edge and signal that attracts collaborators and unlocks opportunities.
Being generous reminds us that a zero-sum, transactional, closed mindset makes little sense in a world driven by abundance, relationships, and openness.
And it makes us feel big regardless of how small or junior or resource constrained we might be.
Finally, it aligns with one’s self-interest because when you give you often get back much more than you gave.
The generous thrive both in the short and long run.
Tattoo!
Illustration by Gabriel Moreno
The official definition of “tattoo” according to Webster is:
1: a mark, figure, design, or word intentionally fixed or placed on the skin:
a) one that is indelible and created by insertion of pigment under the skin
b) one that is temporarily applied to the skin, resembles a permanent tattoo, and usually lasts for a few days to several weeks
c) one that is composed of scar tissue intentionally created by cutting, abrading, or burning the skin
2: the act of tattooing : the fact of being tattooed
But what if the real tattoos are internal and not visible for all to see?
The moments, experiences and events that mark a person’s life but leave no external sign.
The transformative moments that impact what we feel, think, and believe.
Moments that resonate for a while or forever.
These are tattoo moments.
Illustration by Gabriel Moreno
Tattoo moments and identity.
We are what we are because of what we were, where we have been and whom we have intersected with.
We are in large part what we remember.
Often, we try to define a person by demographic or behavioral criteria.
We segment by media exposure, search history, geographic location, political affiliation, product ownership and leisure activities.
The fumes of people’s digital usage and external badging are read like entrails to understand and reveal motivations.
But do they truly paint a picture of who a person is, what they care about or what makes them tick?
Data, data everywhere.
So much data under which we sink
Data, data everywhere.
Does it paint a picture or help us think?
Imagine getting all the data you could collect about a person to paint a profile.
The reality is any individual is many different people depending on the specific mood and situation and in many ways may not be knowable.
So, we will parse the data depending on what we are looking for.
As has been written “we see as we are.”
Imagine if instead you could have a conversation with that person and ask questions like these:
a) What events and or people in your past have made you who you are today? Why?
b) What beliefs have you given up on and/or what beliefs have you aligned with more strongly? Why?
c) What makes you most happy and most fearful?
We might understand someone as a person and a human versus a consumer, user, or target.
We are not a compilation of our purchases, downloads, page views or other numerical juxtapositions.
The meaning is not often in the math.
Illustration by Gabriel Moreno
Tattoo moments and marketing.
For decades marketers have found certain stages in a person’s life where they are more susceptible to messaging and marketing.
Whether it is the impending birth of a child to a physical re-location there are times where people are more open to change or to paying attention.
Marketers also recognize that there are moments of interaction where up-selling or cross-selling is likely to be more successful, such as when someone is opening an account or when one is about to pay for items in one’s real or digital shopping cart.
Basically, marketers look for moments of greatest attention and interest.
The challenge is that everybody knows these rituals and some combination of high costs and fees to show up at these moments or a certain weariness and understanding by people of what is happening, makes these less differentiable.
If instead of thinking only about where someone is on a customer/purchase journey we think about where we can surprise them positively the most, or turn a negative to a positive, we find compelling tattoo moments.
For instance, if we want to get people to speak well about our product or service instead of advertising to them or desperately try to get likes or influencer mentions, why not give them a sample of the product for free? Why not re-allocate a portion of the communication budget to enhance the quality of the product or service which will then speak for itself and get its satisfied users to speak about it. In today’s world brands are more likely to scale through people if they have a superior product or service rather than just telling people they have a superior product or service.
Imagine if you were a cable company or publisher and re-allocate the “stop them from unsubscribing” budget where you slash prices, increase channels in a bundle or enhance broadband speeds to people who are quitting, to instead reward the most loyal customers by going to them and cutting their fees and/or upgrading their services to simply say thank you.
When someone least expects an act of generosity it has a tattoo like impact.
It means they are special, and they are not being taken for granted.
So many marketers promise to “surprise and delight” customers but do we really?
Instead of a yearlong spray of pellets that have little impact why not focus spending by delivering a couple of cannon balls of high impact interactions, gifts, or surprises?
One or two “surprise and delights” might be worth a year of messaging
Less is more. The rare is meaningful. The special resonates.
Traffic in scarcity to stand out in a world of abundance, sameness, and noise.
Find and fund the tattoo moments by asking “what can we do and where can we do something that will make someone come away different”?
Illustration by Gabriel Moreno
Tattoo Moments and Talent.
A combination of new technologies and the challenges of Covid-19 have forever changed the future of work and how talent views things.
A colleague of mine recently noted that most work could be segmented as “heads down”, “heads up” or “heads together”. “Heads down” would be tasks like reading documents, working on developing content and other primarily solo work. “Heads Up” is where we attend presentations and meetings primarily to share and gain information. “Heads together” is when we need to work together to collaborate, brainstorm, and network.
Cultures are important to companies. Connections with other people in the analog world can be important for people particularly early in the career to learn and build relationships. While much of the “heads down” and a majority of the “heads up” work can be done in a distributed and unbundled fashion, a large part of the “heads together” work can gain from in-person connections particularly early in a project or when teams are first getting together.
But the reality is that for most people the five day or even the three day a week model may be replaced by a few team interactions a quarter and many of these may happen outside the office at an off-site event, a restaurant, or a conference.
Companies are going to have far fewer opportunities to build the fabric of their cultures and managers are going to have far fewer in person opportunities to interact with their teams.
Therefore, every company must re-think how to manage the growth and development of their talent, the fabric of their culture and the strength of human connection when there will be just a few occasions a year.
How does make these interactions count and meaningful?
A significant investment in great training to help people grow themselves is a way companies will create tattoo moments that matter.
Ensuring that managers are trained to make the most of in-person interaction and to learn to empathize with the situation of their teams (family or other pressures, need for flexibility) or enable acts of generosity and kindness that will forge emotional links between people is another area that companies should focus on.
Increasingly companies will recognize that attracting and retaining talent means sculpting moments that matter. Powerful experiences, employee joy and a diverse fear free culture can be built around a few tattoo moments.
Regardless, we can all make our mark on each day by living it italicized, bold and with an exclamation mark!
Every day we should ask what made it memorable and special and how we tried with each interaction to help someone come away different and better.
Tattoo!