going out in style

I was sorting through some stuff last night and found these photos from a specialist coffin shop I once went to in Ghana.

Even death can be fun.

desperate times call for desperate measures

I think I'm living on top of a natural spring. Unfortuanetly it doesn't look like I'll be making my fortunes opening up a Stepney Onsen or bottling artisan water though. So I've brought in the hardware courtesy of HSS Hire. It sounds like Heathow run way over here at the minute.

micro vs macro

To me my previous little big voice post kind of comes back to micro vs macro. Let's take two examples and pretend I'm a planner for a minute.

Go on, humour me.

Example one: Cadbury's Gorilla.

This is our macro. Big idea, big budget, big reach. Kind of like one of those really good fire works displays that is so big it sets off car alarms. When I think of fire works displays I think of what Nicholai once said to me on the beach of Cannes though. "Smell that? That's money burning". And fuck me can you smell the gun powder with the macro, that's what it's all about after all.

It's the big bet of marketing. Get it right and you're laughing, get it wrong and you're crying. If you were to plot it I'd imagine it would look something like this:

A: Before launch B: Big media spend C: A bit more press D: A slight renaissance.

Example two: A blog.

Any blog, let's say innocent's for the sake of argument though. Small ideas, small budgets, small reach. Kind of like a £10 back garden fire work display but without the 3rd degree burns. A blog is a series of small bets however, if you mess one up you learn your lesson and move on. You're consistently learning, that's the main thing. If you were to plot a blog it would look something like this:

A: Blog launches B: The week we tried to cross sell products too much C: The week we forgot to update the blog.

Don't get me wrong, I think there is a time and place for both. And one is going to far more significantly improve your sales than the other let's not kid ourselves.

The thought being is this though; that as time goes on one line is on the fall where as the other is on the rise.

You're wearing stuff in, not out.

little big voice

Anyone who doesn't need to click here to find out who Philip Howard is (above, centre) will know the power of a single voice, self belief and consistency. Phil was a living legend to Londoners until he got his ASBO. He even had his own tone of voice (scouse ramble via mega phone) and catch phrase "are you a sinner or are you a winner?".

The facinating thing with this is that he got a massive reach although he was just one guy with a megaphone on a well placed corner of Oxford Street. Better reach you could argue than the global mights of Nike and H&M who he stood between. If you did a straw poll of Londoners and asked them if they recognised Phil or could remember what he preached or even what his strap line was I'd imagine you'd get a much better result than if you asked what floor mens running shoes are on at Nike or who did the celebrity collection at H&M in 2006.

Here's to Phil and his megaphone.

likeminded

I went to likemind for the first time this morning. And had a nice chat with Jamie and Amanda.

Then geeKyoto tomorrow at the mighty Conway Hall. Because I can't make interesting this year. And because it looks great of course.

no song. no dance.

I got a bottle of Jones Soda today to add to my collection of drinks bottles at work. Mainly because of that photo thing they do. When I was nearly done drinking it I noticed the above message on the inside of the cap.

I like this. I like that they are doing something good but not making a huge song and dance about it (I imagine the vast majority of people don't even find the message). I like that they hide it away and it's something they 'just do'. It makes their intentions feel really genuine and not (as much as it could be) marketing related. And I like that only people who buy and drink the drinks will ever know about this.

That's how it made me feel anyway.

happy talk

I'm going to be giving another talk at the fuel conference for entrepreneurial type people in mid June. It will probably be something like this again, maybe with a few tweaks. Happy days.

on the cover of a magazine

Salma's already done her magazine front cover this year, so here's mine.

You can have a butchers here.

tribe wanted

I went to a chat by Ben Keene from telly's Tribe Wanted this morning. Facinating fella. Here's some of the all important transferable wisdom I picked up from him.

go with your instincts
This nearly scupered the project before it even started. It's still the number four return on a google search on 'tribe wanted'. When it first came about Ben wanted to address it with the author directly and transparently, his American PR with lots of tradional PR experience told him not to fan the fire and it would go away. It didn't and registrations for the project fell from £1,000s per day to a couple of hundred. He wished he'd gone with his own instinct now and engaged the critisism as soon as it appeared.

storytelling
Although he had a community and infastructure to build he quickly learnt that his most important task was documentation. Creating a direct line between the island and the online community. That was the whole point of the project after all. (Note more direct lining here, I'm building a theme).

being generous with your time and making a true commitment
He did the above by making a genuine commitment to making at least one update to the tribe wanted website and blog every 48 hours. Then as many other updates on top of this as humanly possible. He did this with a team of two others.

use the best of the web (for free)
Tribe Wanted is probably one of the better examples of entrepreneurial use of social media tools out there. They have a twitter feed, variety of blogs, youtube channel, flickr group, myspace page, facebook profile, and message boards. The major development cost of all of these will be the man hours to keep them up to date.

He was a very nice bloke on top of all that as well. I love that transferable wisdom stuff.