Tito’s Vodka: How A Story Can Make Things Better
James Paden points us to this story about vodka.
Kind words…
Thanks to
Dina Amadril for the nice review of a past seminar.
And I didn’t even have to send a Fez!
Please come to a seminar in my office
Click on this link–> Seminars and you can read all about my two new Whiteboard Sessions.
One is Tuesday, April 19th (for big and small companies) and the other is two days later (a free seminar for non-profits).
I don’t really make much money doing these, and they’re exhausting, but the feedback I get makes it totally and completely worth it. I don’t think I do anything that generates the same sort of impact on an organization. I don’t sell anything (no consulting or whatever) and sometimes you win a door prize like a fez or a milk carton.
If you click on the link above, you can find out all the details about pricing, about location, about hotels, about testimonials, about the guarantee.
It’s a very small-scale event, so please don’t dither, dally or delay.
Who’s watching whom?
John Battelle pointed me to: trendmapper � Add a new search!.
This is a cool service that let’s you watch the google hits of a phrase or site over time. That’s interesting. What’s really interesting, though, is the list of phrases that people are watching. Some are not surprising (Joi Ito) and some are just sort of puzzling (ninja–did they not understand what this is for?)
Most interesting of all, though, is the way a small community of bloggers and webheads are always doing the next great thing. If you have a brand or a site or a cause, you should do this. But how does the word about it disseminate? Watch the link above to see who else is tracking…
You too can be famous!
As a shameless promotion for my new book (Link: Seth Godin – Liar’s Blog) I’m promising to post your picture and your story here on my highly trafficked blog.
Once a week I’ll pick the best submitted photo and story and post it, together with a link to your website.
All you need to do is send me a picture wearing the special liar’s nose. Don’t have a liar’s nose? Don’t worry! I just got a case of them. Send me $5 plus a self addressed stamped envelope (Seth Godin, Box 305, Irvington, NY 10533) and I’ll send you back your very own nose. (While supplies last, void where prohibited, your mileage may vary). I don’t expect to turn a profit here, but if I do, all proceeds will go to roomtoread.org.
Think of the fame. The traffic. The groupies. Tell me about the stories you tell, the lies your customers want to believe and how you’re making things happen. No promises, naturally, except that your nose is 100% virgin latex and you can get your money back if you don’t like it.
Shortcuts
I did an interview yesterday with a magazine that specializes in marketing. They’ve got hundreds of thousands of readers, most in the direct mail business.
The reporter didn’t like the answer I gave her about how to build a email marketing list. I told her that the first step was to offer something in your email newsletter that people would actually want to read. That the second step was to promise people exactly what you intended to give them. And the third step was to create content that was so remarkable that people wanted to share it. I explained that if you take your time and keep your promises, it’ll build if it deserves to build.
She wanted to know about shortcuts.
At least three times she asked me what the shortcuts were. How to do it if you were in a hurry. Most important, how to do it if your message wasn’t that interesting.
Sigh.
It appears that marketing America still has plenty of time to do it over, but not nearly enough time to do it right.
If there were shortcuts, people smarter than you and me would have found them already. There aren’t. Sorry.
Spec it… done.
I just bumped into elance.com. (Link: Search: Service Providers.)
I picked a page at random. I discovered developers in Israel, Washington DC, India and Rochester. These are firms that earning $80,000 or more every six months just from elance work.
It’s now very clear that just about any organization can have what it wants online.
It’s got to be something real (no fair using the back of a napkin.) Find a site online that’s doing something that will help your mission. It could be a style of layout, a backend database, a search facility–it doesn’t matter. If it’s out there, you can have one too. One more excuse for delaying or mediocrity, shot to hell.
You Can’t Change the Game
But you can change the story.
A brief interview with Brian at LightBox5: Link: Like It Matters.
Amazon’s Time Machine
This link will probably be broken by the time you read this, but give it a try: Amazon.com: Computers: VIEWSONIC TPCV1250S PM-1G 40GB ( TPCV1250S-1303 ).
Gizmodo pointed out that the description of the machine includes a 30,000 GB hard drive. Obviously a typo, but that didn’t keep 56 different people from rushing over and posting sort of funny reviews (sort of funny if you think bill gates knock knock jokes are funny).
The question here is: why don’t online stores do stuff like this on purpose? Why don’t they slip in ridiculous items or funny descriptions? It’s not like they’re going to run out of shelf space or have a problem with inventory.
People like to smile. Lightening up is a good idea.
I got one of these for the multi-OS capability. So far, it runs HP-UX, Red Hat, BSD (2 flavors), XENIX, OS X, AIX, AppleDOS, Solaris, DG-UX, Netware, Debian, Mandrake, CP/M, QNX, Win 3.11, Win95, Win95b, Win98, Win98se, WinME, WinCE, Os/2, NT [34], Windows server 200[03], DR-DOS, & BeOS, all in separate windows. Couldn’t load SCO – licensing issues.
We also managed to get Lotus Agenda working pretty well; we dumped the entire Internet into Agenda and were able to solve most of the world’s crimes and determine who on the planet is related to whom. And we were able to use the included Cray Supercomputer Simulator (4 instances simultaneously) to beat Deep Blue and Baby Blue at chess, at the same time.
Nice machine. But I think soon I’ll need an upgrade.
On the short list
Hans Eisenman sent me this article from the Washington Post.
Link: Losing Sleep Over Online Bed Purchases (washingtonpost.com).
Without copying the whole thing, it’s impossible for me to convey just how stupid (that’s the best word I can find) this marketer is and how bad he is at his job.
Some people are destined to fail. Green Culture (the company in question) is now on that list, in my opinion.