I received this email from a friend’s email address.
I know that she didn’t send it. All I have to do is to click the message and all my friends will get a similar message. The company can now claim that they are seeing a huge surge in the traffic
It is sad that companies resort to these tactics rather than trying to build something remarkable (a.k.a Purple Cow) so that people will spread the message for them.
This is not marketing, it is a demonstration of desperation!!!
So many people send me new books and I am sure they hope that if I like the book, I will spread the message about the book. Sometimes I will write about it in my blog, send out a note to my newsletter subscribers, tweet about it. Sometimes I recommend this to companies that are looking for good books to buy as gifts to their employees, vendors or customers/prospects.
And sometimes I may not do anything. Not because I didn’t like the book but simply because I ran out of bandwidth or things simply fall through the cracks with all the things I am involved in.
But I try my best to do justice.
Having said that, these people took a chance and sent their books. If nothing happens, they lost their money. That’s why it’s called a chance.
There is another way of doing this. Many people send me a message asking if I would be willing to review a book. They would offer me to send a chapter and based on that I am supposed to review that book. Some are more sophisticated. They say that I can read the first three chapters and if I like the book, I can request for the book and they will send the book to me. Then I can read the book and write a review.
That’s a circuitous path to get what they want.
You can make it easy for yourself but not at the expense of the person from whom you are asking for help.
I have used the same dry cleaner for my clothes for more than five years. During my last visit, the person asked me whether I received a coupon by email. I told him I did but I just ignored it. In fact I asked him – “You take care of me anyway. If there are discounts, you would give it to me. Why should I bring a coupon?”
The person was insisted – “That is true. Sometimes I might forget to apply some special discounts and I don’t want you to miss it. You are one of my long-term customers and I DO want to take care of you very well.”
I was not convinced and probably he could see that. When I was leaving, he said – “Also I want to make it easy for you to refer me some of your friends. Now you can just forward this coupon and it will be like a gift.”
I smiled and left.
I really admire the person for going out of the way to use technology to DO something about his business. His persistence gets extra points. More important his creativity of “trying to make me feel that the actions I take (forwarding a coupon) will take care of my concerns (giving a gift to a friend) more than his concerns (getting new customers.)”
They say, a picture is worth a thousand words. So, here is the story of Venture Capital activity in Q4 2008 in pictures – ok, interactive charts powered by iCharts.
Here is the first interactive chart that shows total VC dollars invested – quarter by quarter
You can see more than 25 charts sliced and diced by sector (software, life sciences, clean tech), stage (first time, follow on financing), industry etc at the NVCA (National Venture Capital Association) website here:
Here is a 2 minute video on ‘Twitter in Plain English” created by Common Craft. While the video is very interesting, it also demonstrates how cool people in Common Craft are.
For many services companies, their product is their marketing. They don’t need anything else. By making things seem dead-simple, Common Craft demonstrates that their craft is, quite Uncommon
I am so late to Twitter (Twitter Id: @UpbeatNow) that it’s not even funny. I am getting educated day by day on what are the best practices on Twitter. Being in the student mode puts me in a state of “wonder” which makes it easy to learn.
In that regard, I looked at the “State of the Twittersphere” report from HubSpot. One thing that caught my attention was a graph that showed the spread of Twitter users by the number of followers. Here is the chart for your quick reference: Quick thing to note – only 1.4% of the Twitter users have more than 500 followers. Saying it differently, 98.6% of Twitter users have less than 500 followers. If you observe closely, only 25% of Twitter users have more than 50 followers.
So in other words, most of Twitter is dominated by a small subset of Twitter users.
Taking a deeper look, I also searched for people who have a VERY large number of followers and found that a large majority of them are involved in some sort of social media work. So having a large number of followers is in a way a statement of fact that they know how to make this work in social media (Twitter being a subset of Social Media)
During my conversations with new Twitter users, I see that there is a sense of urgency to be on the “Twitter Elite” by getting as many followers as possible. So, that will lead to strategies such as:
* Follow everyone who follows you
* Follow a lot of people who might in turn follow you
* Re-tweet messages from Twitter Elite so that they notice you and possibly mention you in their tweets
* Ask a question to a Twitter Elite. In their response you are mentioned and hence their followers might notice you.
* Use Twitter like you would use a social bookmarking tool. Go and carpet bomb Twitter with links
I can list a lot of things but the fundamental question is – “Why would you want to be in the Twitter Elite?”
The above question is more valid if your offer to the marketplace is NOT directly in the social media world. Let me explain further:
Things take time and gaining a set of followers on Twitter using “strategies and tactics” will take longer. If you notice, you will see that celebrities and others who have powerful personal brands (with demonstrable set of accomplishments in a particular domain) find it easy to have a lot of followers. Since you have only 24 hours in a day, you now have to make a choice whether to spend that time on
a) Using strategies and tactics to grow your Twitter followers
OR
b) Use the time to demonstrate accomplishments in your domain so that more followers are attracted to you
OR
c) Focus on b) and get help on a) from experts
Social Media popularity contest can be an oasis. For you to reach your business and personal ambition, it may not be required to be popular on the social media. All you need to do is to leverage your expertise to contribute better to the audience that you can build on social media and vice versa.
Two weeks ago I was at the Farmers Market in Mountain View. There was one stall where a person was selling balloon arts. It was interesting to watch him create characters out of balloons. He was quite successful at what he was doing (in terms of business) as there was a big queue of kids waiting for their turn.
One simple twist to the whole thing was the setup. Here is what I observed. Not only was the stall VERY big for what he was doing, he had set the stage extremely well. Around the stall, he had placed two dozen small chairs ready for small children to sit and watch as he creates those balloon characters. This was probably the “killer app” for the show. I saw at least two dozen kids glued to their chairs. Of course their parents were behind them.
I am sure many of those kids sitting and watching became his customers.
This is a simple example of “staging the sale” – making it easy for prospects to engage without the pressure to buy and then finally get them emotionally involved and transition them from “prospects to customers”
It’s a magnificent book (527 pages, full of beautiful pictures) about what happens inside elBulli in one day.
elBulli is supposed to be the world’s most famous restaurant. Owned by Ferran Adria and Juli Soler, they have had an amazing run for the last two decades. The restaurant is open only from April to September. They serve only 8,000 people in a season. But the number of reservation requests they get: 2 Million. There is no waiting list as it would take years to get through the waiting list.
This book is a brilliant introduction to this fascinating place and the people behind them. It is an inspiring story for ANYONE and EVERYONE – not just the people in the restaurant business. As a starter, please watch this 10-minute video about elBulli (from YouTube)
So I have compiled a few notes from elBulli to serve as an inspiration as you start the new year.
1. “You don’t have problems if new ones arrive every minute”
Ferran is so busy setting himself challenges that he does not have the time to stop and see them as problematic. In fact, solving them is essential to helping him keep an active and creative mind. Seen this way, his problems are not problems at all.
2. “Ambition without patience is a dangerous thing”
Forcing things gets you nowhere and patience is essential. This is the attitude elBulli has tried hard to adopt over the last twenty years.There is a painstaking process of trial and error behind the development of every dish, and the creative process cannot be hurried.
3. “Ideas are easy – you just need to have some”
It is impossible to say where ideas come from but it helps to be curious all the time, and to keep trying.
4. “A concept is an idea that can open new doors”
A concept is the set of essential qualities that characterize a dish, not the recipe itself. One concept can lead to many different elaborations and new dishes.
5. “A creative person tries to do what they don’t know how to do”
6. “Being innovative is much harder today than it was ten years ago”
After many years of creative development, it becomes harder to push the boundaries, and now there are many more chefs striving to invent new techniques. This is why Ferran , Oriol and Albert continue their creative sessions until 19.30. They dedicate nine hours a day to creating.
7. You have to find the balance between what you want to do, what is possible and what the guests would like.
8. The Challenge: Maintaining the intense concentration needed to server 1,500 dishes over five hours is as challenging as ever.
Creative methods of elBulli
1. Association: This consists of making lists or tables of ingredients, cooking methods, sauces and finished dishes as an aid to the chef who is trying to think new ways of cooking an existing ingredient, or new ways of putting ingredients together. The lists of association are built up over time, and those at elBulli are the product of many years of creating dishes. They can provide a starting point to which chefs will add their own imagination and knowledge.
2. inspiration: This requires a reference from any field – art, fashion, music, gastronomy, architecture, native – to form the starting point of a dish, which then emulates in some way the form or spirit of the original dish.
3. Adaptation: In its most basic form, adaptation means taking a dish that already exists, which could be an icon of classic French cuisine or a traditional spanish dish, and remaking it according to one’s own tastes, style of cooking or aesthetic vision.
4. Deconstruction: In deconstruction, every part of the original dish, including its form, is modified, whether in appearance, texture or all the above. Deconstruction depends even more on the guests knowledge of the original dish, as without a reference point the dish is a construction based on nothing. In order to work, the game being played by the chef needs the participation of the guest.
5. Minimalism: Difficult to define with a culinary context, minimalism as a creative method at elBulli has come to mean the method by which maximum “magic” or sensory appeal, can be created with minimum ingredients.
Although the context is a culinary business, there is a lot for all businesses and individuals to learn from elBulli.
Quick thing to note – only 
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