THINKing

Buzzword & Jargon Tools

Let’s all agree right now that we will try to communicate like humans and not mind-numbed corporate zombies. Who is with me?

OK. To help you out, I’m offering a few buzzword and jargon fighting tools. Here you go:

Business Jargon Generator -  This one is not a buzzword fighting tool but generates some funny phrases.

Buzzwords

Buzzword Bingo

BuzzWhack

Financial Buzzwords

Creativity 2010 - Week #13

Here’s your weekly dose of creativity:

Babies & Creativity

Optimism Boosts The Immune System

How Do You Measure An Idea?

Creative Block #6 - The Inner Critic

Simple Productivity Tips

Creativity 2010 - Week #12

Wow, can you believe 2010 is 12 weeks old? Here’s our weekly installment of creativity links to help you become more creative. Do you have some to share?

10 Tips & 20 Questions For Unleashing Innovation

There’s More To Innovation Than Good Ideas

Strategies For Capturing Ideas

Creative Block #7 - I Don’t Know What I Want To Say

Creativity Tool - The Idea Lottery

What Marketers Can Learn From Zombies

A great creativity technique is to fill in the blanks “what ______ can learn from ________.” Then select two disparate items as I have for this post: What Marketers Can Learn From Zombies.  It pushes you to think about things differently. So, let’s give it a try.

Zombies are relentless, mindless, slow-moving, flesh-eating beings usually found roaming in mobs. What lessons could a marketer draw from zombies?

Lesson 1 - Zombies are relentless. They have but one mission: find flesh and eat it. Nothing stops them. Marketers too often are fragmented in their approach to the market. They hit a roadblock and swerve. Usually that change of direction takes them away from their objective. Like a zombie, be true to your mission.

Lesson 2 - Zombies move slowly. There is a fine line between too slow and too fast, when it comes to marketing. For instance,  marketers often trot out a marketing tactic and when it doesn’t immediately gain traction, they move on to the next thing. Most marketing tactics require time to become effective. At other times marketers hang on to the tried-and-true and don’t give new things a try.We should try to find some balance, and always - like a zombie - keep moving.

Lesson 3 - Zombies eat only one thing.  As a wise marketer once told me, you are what you eat. This means that you need to find the clients that are right for you and the way you do business. If you find the right clients, you’ll find more of the right clients. But if you get the wrong customers and don’t weed them out, they will bog you down and you will attract even more of the wrong types of customers. This is a nightmare for all concerned. So, don’t be an omnivore. Focus on a single food group.

Lesson 4 - Zombies roam in mobs. Since zombies are slow, it makes sense for them to move in a mob.  It takes a mob of slow zombies to take down a quicker, more agile non-zombie. This is the way IBM grew to prominence. Their phrase for this approach was “number 2, with power.” In other words, let someone else innovate and then come in to overwhelm the competitor with great numbers. Here’s the downside of mob movement: everyone gets something to eat, but not much. Being smarter than the average zombie, I’d zig while the zombie mob was zagging. As an example, marketers today have beaten the green, eco-friendly movement to a pulp. A smart marketer would find a novel way to grow his business and let everyone else fight over being environmentally friendly.

What other lessons can we learn from zombies? You tell us.

Creativity 2010 - Week #11

Here’s week 11’s installment of creativity links.

16 Creative Ways To Supercharge Your Presentations

Enthusiasm - The Key To Creativity & Innovation

Creativity Tool: Google Sets

Blog Post Idea Generator

Creativity Block #5:  Being Disorganized

Show Up For Success

Your minister of the church of marketing has some words for you to ponder today: if you want to succeed you must show up. Woody Allen has often been quoted - incorrectly - on this subject. What he really said was, “80 percent of success is showing up.”

He was not talking about making a cameo appearance or a movie walk-on. He was suggesting that being there fully focused, giving your best effort and doing it on a consistent basis is the formula for success. Allen knows that most people just try to phone it in. And even then they don’t follow through every time, nor give it their all.

Friend Brent Dees says it another way during his Focus Four business coaching sessions. “Do what you say you’re going to do and do it on time. This applies to everything you do in life, from being an employee, a father, a business owner or a friend.”

Let’s consider it from a marketing perspective. I have written and distributed my e-newsletter monthly since April 2002. That’s 95 issues and counting.

Every month, rain or shine, I worry about what to say that will most help my readers in their businesses. Researching the subject and the links follows. Then, writing, editing and newsletter layout come next. Finally, I distribute it and then respond to any reader questions or requests. It takes roughly eight to 10 hours of my time each month and that is really cutting into my naps.

Do I ever want to take a break? Silly question. But the newsletter has long been my primary awareness vehicle. Every piece of business I landed for my first 6 years in business can be traced back to the newsletter in some way. Consistently getting it out at the same time each month has paid off for me.I think about what the president of window blind giant Levolor once said to me, “we can’t afford to do everything from a marketing perspective. But what we do, we can execute violently.”

The bottom line here is this: pick a few things and execute them to the best of your ability on a consistent basis. That’s showing up. Do that and 80 percent of success is yours. We’ll discuss the other 20 percent later. But right now, I need a nap.

Please, Please Me

Gave a social media presentation last night to a group of about 45 small business owners as part of Bank of Commerce’s School of Commerce program. I was one of two presenters. While looking at the evaluation forms, I was struck again by how there are always one or two people who don’t get their expectations fulfilled from presentations.

For the sake of transparency, I’ll give you my numbers from the 23 evaluation forms that were completed:

Overall, the course was Excellent/Very Good - 17 attendees; Good - 5 attendees; Poor - 1 attendee

Harry Hoover was Excellent/Very Good - 20 attendees; Good/Fair - 2 attendees

As I read through the comments, it become clear to me who the two disgruntled attendees were and why they were disgruntled. This comment said it all to me,

As a small business, none of the info provided helped me in my marketing plans. The Q&A was better than the presentation.

I told the group that if they don’t remember anything else from my presentation that I want them to remember this: Focus. You must focus on your current customers and clearly understand them, know where they are going in social media and follow them there.

Based on the business owner comment above I think I know who wrote it. He was the guy that kept asking questions specifically applicable only to his business. The disgruntled owner was mad at me because I didn’t do the work for him. That’s asking a lot from a free one hour workshop.

It’s true that you are never going to please everyone when you give a presentation, particularly when you have such a diverse group with an understanding of the topic ranging from 0 to 100. But I do take all the comments - good and bad - to heart and try to improve my next presentation. Have you had similar experiences with your presentations?

Top 5 Posts

Here are the Top 5 Posts From THINKing this month, in case you missed one. Let us know which is your favorite.

The Rule Of Reciprocity

Twittering Journalists

Say What You Mean, Mean What You Say

Creativity 2010 - Week #7

Face Time

Creativity 2010 - Week #10

Here are our creativity links for week 10 of 2010:

Three Enemies of Innovation - If innovation’s such a good thing, a good idea, the secret of success, then why isn’t everyone doing it?

The Levity Effect - Having fun with innovation.

 How far should you let people peek inside your creative process? - Should your creative process be transparent?

Does Stress Limit Creativity?  - A relaxed attitude boosts creativity.

Actions To Increase Your Creative Thinking -  Draw a picture, daydream: these are a couple of things that can help move your ideas along.

Get Stimulated

Creativity is a major topic for us here at My Creative Team. So, we began a weekly series of posts that will run 52 weeks, providing five creativity links in each post. As you might imagine, we look through a lot of creativity-related material to find some really top-notch ones.

If you are an iPhone user, this creativity tool we ran across is for you. It’s caled the Idea Stimulator from creativity coach Nigel Collin.  According to the Idea Stimulator website, the .99 cent app is:

designed to help you come up with ideas and keep coming up with them.  So when you’re stuck for creative inspiration and just need something to help trigger your creative mind to inspire ideas, just open up the ‘Idea Stimulator’ and get going. There are over 100 different ideas and exercises which randomly appear to help you. There’s also an articles page with some great information and useful tips.

I have it loaded and am using it already. If you buy it, let us know how you like it and how you are using it.