There are at least 200 working days a year. If you commit to doing a simple marketing item just once each day, at the end of the year you have built a mountain. Here are some things you might try [don't do them all at once, just one of these once a day would…
The Legacy of Bra Hugh Masekela
A lot of people can tell much better stories about the impact that Rre Hugh Masekela has had on the world stage. There are so many lessons we can learn from Bra Hugh, as he is affectionately know. He left a rich legacy. He was a master at storytelling. His music was storytelling, in his song Stimela…
Marketing lousy products: Barbershop stories
Yesterday I went to the barbershop to cut my hair, or rather shave it, as I usually do every week. The thing with going to the barbershop is that you will get to hear stories of what's happening in the neighbourhood. More like gossip of who did what, when, etc. As I was having a…
Marketing lousy products: Wallpaper
Is Marketing more needed when the product is bad? If we think marketing is the wallpaper we put over a worn-out wall to make it look pretty enough to sell the house, then the answer is yes. If we think that marketing is speaking truth to the engineers, the product developers, the customer service people…
Marketing lousy products: non-starter
One of the cardinal rules of starting and growing a startup is that you must not grow your startup until you know your product in a must-have, why it is a must have, and to whom it is a must have: in other words, what is its core value, to which customers, and why. The…
“I get it”
No, I don't have to attend that workshop, I have a degree, I'm qualified. No need to get a mentor, I have got this under control. I don't need to read the user manual, I know how to use this. No need to read the whole book, I can just glance over the back summary...…
Treating people with kindness
One theory says that if you treat people well, you are more likely to encourage them to do what you want, making all the effort pay off. Do this, get that. Another one, which I prefer, is that you might consider treating people with kindness merely because you can. Regardless of what they choose to…
Do Work That Matters: Rejecting a Lamborghini as a gift
When he was presented with a gift of a white-painted, special edition Lamborghini Huracan, which sells for around 180,000 euros, perfectly matched his white cassock, the Pope rejected it. Instead he announced that the vehicle will be auctioned at the proceeds to go to three of his favoured charities. In a materialistic world we live in, where…
Hummingbird effect in innovation: Telescope and microscope
Let’s rewind to my earlier post about hummingbird effect in printing press and reading glasses. We have established through Steven Johnson that the hummingbird effect means: An innovation in one sector leading to another innovation in another sector. As a result we have established that Johannes Gutenberg’s innovation of the printing press democratized access to books…
Hummingbird effect in innovation: Air conditioning
Before the air conditioner was invented, keeping rooms cooler was a tedious near impossible task. One way to keep rooms cooler then was by selling snow blocks in cold countries to hot countries so that folks at hot countries could use them to keep themselves cooler. A Boston entrepreneur, Frederic Tudor began carving blocks of…
Hummingbird bird effect in innovation: Printing press and reading glasses
Steven Johnson writes a lot about the Hummingbird effect in his amazing book: How We Got to Now. It is through nectars provided by flowers that we have birds extracting nectar midair. Despite the restrictions placed on them by their skeletal structure, hummingbirds evolved a novel way of rotating their wings, giving power to the…
The simplest customer service frustration question of all
"Why isn't this as important to you as it is to me?"