I came across an article in The Economist recently, “Simplify and Repeat.” The article, based on the book Repeatability by Chris Zook and James Allen, talks about one of the elements of successful companies, an obssession with simplicity. A few of the examples cited are Lego, IKEA, McDonald’s and Nike. The authors highlight three virtues of success:
Reading Susan Cain’s book Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World that Can’t Stop Talking certainly leads to thinking about the world we live in, our own ladders of inference and the value we place on personality.
To find a solution to a problem, most of us need to engage in a dialogue with a solution provider. As a solution provider, you need to find people with a problem who can use your particular brand of solution and then engage them in a dialogue about why you have something that will meet their needs. Whether you are solution-searching or solution-selling, the nature of the dialogue is essential to the delivery of the right solution.
As the high DISC* “S-C,” of the Human Resources Team at SIGMA Marketing Group, I am responsible for a large portion of our behind-the-scenes compliance and detail. Sure, that includes administration of benefits, payroll, and policies, among other responsibilities, but there is another area that is a critical role of the job…miscellaneous communication.
Creativity is not a trait that we inherit in our genes or a blessing bestowed by the angels. It’s a skill. Anyone can learn to be creative and to get better at it.”
So says author Jonah Lehrer in his new book, “How Creativity Works.”
Three key thoughts from his book reminded me how we have committed to a culture of creativity here at SIGMA:
Last month, President Obama signed the JOBS Act (Jumpstart Our Business Startups) into law. If you’re unfamiliar with the fundamentals at hand, here’s a high-level overview of the fundraising ramifications: It is now easier for startups and small businesses to raise money, as “non-accredited” investors (read: less wealthy) are now able to participate in venture funding.
One of the most gratifying aspects of the consulting trade, aside from the trading cards with your picture on them and the free-flowing Super Tuscans in the break room, is delivering a level of web analytics understanding to clients who, because of their industry or their team’s focus or some other reason, neither thought they could get it nor ever thought it was relevant.
In the midst of preparing for an internal training session on data visualization, I was thinking about why we don’t remember to do all the simple things to improve our analyses and reports so they can be more easily interpreted by others. The GEICO commercials came to mind as a perfect metaphor. If you can save 15% on insurance in 15 minutes, then why not improve your analysis by 15% in 15 minutes? I challenge all of us who share data with others to take 15 minutes to make a few improvements before we hit the send button for an analysis or report.
Many of the leaders in the direct and database marketing field started their professional lives as bank marketers – your name was on a bank database and mixed into a predictive model before nearly any other industry started thinking of such things. Sadly, bank marketing today has lost much of that early competitive edge, as other industries have caught up and surpassed them with the use of marketing technology and analytics. We’ve been thinking lately about how more banks should be pushing the envelope and using more of the tools available to them to customize and improve their customer experience. Below are five ideas for the bank marketers –
This infographic from Social Colleague screams relevance about social media marketing and the content revolution. Imagine if you had just a tiny role in the social dialogue going on below. 175,000 tweets per minute… and 2 million videos viewed on YouTube per minute. Yes, I said 2 million per minute. If you are not producing content for these channels, you should be.
