Worthwhile (which, BTW, is one of the great publication names of all time, online or offline) had this interesting item a couple of days back under their “thought for the day” heading. It’s an (ahem) worthwhile issue for communicators to ponder:

Entrepreneur and environmentalist Paul Hawken: “Every age has a critical shortage. In the industrial age, it was money. People in industrial society were willing to give up time for money, and in many areas of the country that is still true. In a postindustrial age, the critical shortages are time and meaning. And people will only give up their time for meaning.

“It follows then, that one of the challenges facing American business is to add meaning to commercial life. That’s difficult for a company to do unless it is able to impart to its employees the meaning of the company. A lot of companies have lore; they have history; they have tradition; they have huge markets; but they have no meaning.

Ask yourself, your clients and/or your employer: What’s your meaning?

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Hard to know whether to file this under Business Development or Marketing — but it’s spectacularly bad practice in any event.

The folks over at Vaughn Whelan & Partners attempted to hijack the agency review under way by Molson Canadian. Their site, established especially for this effort, lays it all out in 22 points. Bottom line: They weren’t invited to the party and thought they should be, so they took their case public.

Ballsy? That’s not the half of it. Airing an unauthorized commercial for your potential client’s product is the ballsy part. And it blew up in the agency’s face.

Read more …

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Hugh, the same smart (and yes, deparaved) brain who offered up wise words on how to be creative, has updated his “Hughtrain Manifesto.”

Pithy wisdom and plenty of funny, interesting (and sometimes shocking) illustrations. But here’s the thing that matters, and it’s right in the subtitle: “The market for something to believe in is infinite.”

Not marketing as ROI. Not marketing as strategicparadigmcustomerrelationship. Marketing as an interface to transformational — and ultimately spiritual — experience.

Read more …

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Beyond Bullets has a great article — to call it a mere post would be a disservice — about using PowerPoint to test ideas. Since I’m usually first in line to rant about poor use of that medium, it seems only fair to point out where it really shines. An excerpt:

Tip: The next time you have a new idea, try field-testing it first in a PowerPoint presentation. If it’s a brief idea, present the idea on a single slide, and then ask other people what they think about it. Or if you have a much larger idea or a sequence of thoughts, put a single idea on each slide and develop it out in a storyboard… When you challenge yourself to do the counter-intuitive, like writing your slides first, you open yourself to new possibilities you may not have seen from a previously limited view.

Thanks to Steve Rubel over at Micro Persuasion for pointing out the site.

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The twisted genius behind Gaping Void has a brilliant post on “How to be Creative.” Lots of insight there whether your business is PR, advertising or just figuring out how to sell the next guy who walks on the car lot. My favorite:

Sing in your own voice: Piccasso was a terrible colorist. Turner couldn’t paint human beings worth a damn. Saul Steinberg’s formal drafting skills were appalling. TS Eliot had a full-time day job. Henry Miller was a wildly uneven writer. Bob Dylan can’t sing or play guitar.

(A note for the easily shocked: Most Gaping Void posts come with brilliant little pen-and-ink drawings. Not all of them are work-safe…)

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John over at Duct Tape Marketing makes a great point about the power of personal notes: They work precisely because they’re so rare these days.

Too rushed to go read the link? Commit this to memory and do it:

Every Friday I make a point of jotting off 5 handwritten notes. I say thanks, I say howdy, I say let’s have coffee, I say saw you in the paper last week…whatever comes to mind.

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