Pow! Right Between The Eyes! Andy Nulman's Blog About Surprise

The Uninvited Silent Partner That Haunts Every Success

Last week, I was invited to speak at Montreal’s seventh annual StartupFest, perhaps the continent’s most important gathering for emerging business ideas and those who want to invest in them.  

Like other events of its ilk, the mood at Startupfest covered the entire spectrum of optimism, from wide-eyed hope to bubbly euphoria, and this year’s event theme--Lucky 7th--served to top it off with an additional sprinkling of unicorn dust.

This is why I felt it necessary to turn the tables a bit, and deliver a somewhat contrary cautionary tale as my contribution.  Here it is verbatim:

So tell me...why are you here at this conference?

You probably all share the same reason--you’re chasing the dream, the big win, the home run.

And on this journey to your promised land, you’re learning so much.

How to pitch.  How to get funded.  How to scale. How to get acquired.  Those aren’t just concepts, but actual titles of sessions here.

But one lesson you’re not learning is the dirty little secret that as build, establish and grow, there’s a silent partner stalking your every move.  Yup, every move.  Every one of you.

Worst of all, he doesn’t rear his ugly head until you actually attain your dream.

His name?  The Devil.

This is not a joke, and shouldn't be taken lightly.

Trust me, when you close your big deal, when all the money’s tucked away in the bank, before you even take your first step, The Devil is there smiling, hand extended to shake yours...and demand his 10%.

Just when you think you’re invincible, invulnerable, that you finally made it big, The Devil will be there with a kick-in-the-gut reality check.   

Ask any successful entrepreneur.  I can name dozens of household names I discussed this with, most recently Shopify’s COO Harley Finkelstein. Like all of them, he just shook his head sadly in agreement.  On a personal note, the challenges I faced after bringing Airborne Mobile to a nine-figure exit were greater than those faced while building it. The Devil’s handiwork--bad luck at best; disaster at worst--awaits every big win.

Sometimes, it’s self-inflicted:

• Hubris
• Drugs
• Alcohol
• Gambling
• Poor decisions
• Wild egomania

Sometimes, it’s out of your hands:

• Mental health problems
• Sickness
• Jealousy
• Family breakups

But whether you suffer personally or observe as a weakened, wounded bystander, The Devil’s always by your side.

You may say: “Hold on, this isn’t unique. Sickness, addiction, jealousy...come on, that stuff happens everyday!”

True, but the difference to a winning entrepreneur is that they’re on such a high, they’re blindsided, they don’t see it coming.

But it does come.  And it will come.  It’s not a question of “if,” but “when.”

This "Devil as your deal’s silent partner" is an important cautionary tale. Everybody lives through it, but nobody talks about it.  Until now.

So be smart; put the Devil in your cap table.  Give him his own line: Satan--10%.  If nothing else at this point, it’ll at least make your investor pitches and board meetings more intriguing.

So as you grow your business, you may not need to make a deal with The Devil.

But if you get to the promised land, you will most definitely have to deal with The Devil.

Consider yourselves warned.

Godspeed to you all.

What I Learned This Week--The Strange Math of Creativity

I've been doing a lot of thinking about creativity these days.

A heckuva lot.

Given my career, my past, my current job, my personality, and my inbred passion for the subject, that's nothing out of the ordinary.  But what's taking my thinking to a new level is a presentation I have to give in May at the second annual C2-MTL conference (see the ad above, one which greeted me at the airport baggage claim after my flight from Vail).  

While I'll get into more details here in upcoming weeks, my appearance amongst heavyweights like Sir Richard Branson, design God Phillippe Starck and gamechangers like TOMS Shoes founder Blake Mycoskie and Whole Foods pioneer John Mackey, is based on somewhat of an audacious (some may say foolhardy) dare.  

Rather than merely "speak" at a creative conference, what I proposed to organizers was to go one step further and actually "create" something...in this case, a fully improvised dissertation on creativity based on user-generated photos I will have never seen until they are flashed on the screen behind me on stage.  Without attempting something this audacious, without eliminating the middle ground between sink or swim, there's no way I would be able to compete for attention against the A-listers who dwarf me in importance and buzz level.

So for a few blissful hours every weekend, I gorge myself on creativity...because the only way to be able to improvise on a subject is to be submersed in it. 

During this week's cerebral swim, I stumbled across a statistic about Atlanta's Oxford Industries, the parent company of fashion brands like Tommy Bahama and Ben Sherman.  The telltale stat showed that the 13 of its stores that have taken the risk of integrating a pricey in-house restaurant among its pricey clothing generate two-and-a-half times the sales per square foot of its stores sans food. That's a huge win.

Restaurants in stores may not be new (as a toddler, I remember hitting the lunch counter with my mom in Woolworth's countless times), but the seemingly disparate mash-up of haute-ish cuisine and high-end apparel is.  Hence this week's learning:  

In creativity,

two wrongs

make a right.

Creativity Math can be likened to algebra, where a negative number multiplied by a negative number equals a positive number.  Going for the obvious never produces something eye-popping or worth talking about.  Mixing chocolate and nuts doesn't; mixing chocolate and bacon does (or at least it used to, when it WAS uncommon).

Which brings me to a pair of shoes I bought recently in Chicago.  Conservative grey suede Oxfords...with SKY BLUE shoelaces (as well as a RED pair for different moods, or if I want to mix it up even further, a one blue/one red combo).  Two VERY wrongs...but a very cool, "look at me" right.  This incongruent shoelace concept may have been born on the streets with hip-hop kids and their collector Nikes, but now, it has moved to the office...well, at least the resto/stores of Ben Sherman and co.

Taking this creative thought (pardon the pun) one step further, I suspect that sooner than later, shoes themselves will come in mis-matched pairs; in other words, I'll have one grey suede Oxford, and one navy blue.  Already the Camper shoe company offsets its pairs ever-so-subtly; the day is fast approaching when this incongruity will become more blatant...perhaps when we'll team up a grey Oxford on the left foot with an Adidas sneaker on the right.

This counter-intuitive Creativity Math may be risky, but it's vital.

In order to REALLY move the creative needle in this day and age, you've got to do something wrong.

Twice.

The Future of Books vs. The Future of Reading

To paraphrase John Lennon, in a most blasphemous manner,

"So this is Christmas, and what have you bought?"

In my case, over the past couple of weeks, I bought an Amazon Kindle for myself, and the special edition three-volume set on the history of Chanel as a gift.

While both are, ostensibly, reading material, the polar opposite nature of the two got me to thinking about the lifespan of books as we know it.

Since the launch of the Kindle (and its Sony eBook / Barnes & Noble Nook brethren), old and new media alike have been abuzz about how the device heralds "the future of books!" (Check out this piece from the New Yorker.)

Well, after toying around with the Kindle, and gingerly handling the quilted-leather-bound Chanel set (that's it at left), I have a slightly different opinion.

Kindle is indeed the future, namely the future of reading.  It's ideal for novels, textbooks, newspapers, nonfiction and all other tomes or periodicals that actually need to be read.  It provides a most necessary service to those of us who want to simplify and unclutter our lives, and what it in turn does for the environment, more specifically our forests, should guarantee Jeff Bezos a Christmas card from Al Gore and David Suzuki for the rest of his life.

But the Kindle will not, as many fear, kill books. (Won't kill magazines either, as this article shows...but I digress.)

Frankly, I think the Kindle will open up a new market for books that are not necessarily meant to be read, like the aforementioned Chanel box set. 

The Chanel books are published by Assouline, a ten-year-old French company that, as is says on its website, creates "fine illustrated books, luxury editions and an exquisite gift line dedicated to fashion, photography, art and design."  The books range in price from a $40 bio of chef Daniel Boulud to the Goyard Trunk, which houses 100 of Assouline's signature Memoire photo-biographies on art, fashion, design and architecture in a trunk from luxury luggage maker Goyard, and will set you back a mere $20,000.

(I bought the Chanel box at a bookstore called Librissme, a most tony spot where I actually put on white gloves to handle some of their volumes, including a $10,000 history of golf that was housed in its own plexiglass-covered coffee table.  Check out this joy-to-walk-into, anti-Borders below.)

Forget the price point; the point here is that thanks to the Kindle, books will be elevated to enjoy a newfound respect and positioning in the literary world.  Books will become gifts (even more so than they are now), display items, rare collector pieces, "you snooze, you lose" limited editions, focal points in one's home or office (and that's just new books; as the world becomes more Kindlified, the market for antique and out-of-print books will soar). 

The Kindle will give new life to books like "The Light in Darkness," my friend Lawrence Kirsch's new fan-sourced, photo-filled tribute to Bruce Springsteen (that's it at right), the follow-up to his best-selling--and now unavailable-- "For You Bruce."  For as good as the Kindle may be with words, it can't capture the thrill of looking at crisp, sharp, emotional photos of a band, a landmark, a child, a puppy or a historical event. 

As publishers flock to the electronica of the Kindle, passionate entrepreneurs like Lawrence will find--and fill--a tangible, tactile gap in the marketplace.

The Kindle will also give new life to books like this:  Electronic Popables, an interactive pop-up book that sparkles, sings, and moves.  Check it out below:

The great thing about all the above is that in a world of disintermediation (have you spoken to a typesetter or record-store owner lately?), there is most definitely a future for the world of publishing...one where books and reading both live, but in most cases, independantly and mutually exclusive.

Mssng

A simple point explained efficiently, with style, grace and relevant anecdotes.

Such is the mid-way review of the entrancing "In Pursuit of Elegance," a truly thought-provoking read by Matthew E. May.  The book's seven-word subtitle--"Why The Best Ideas Have Something Missing"--not only describe its subject matter perfectly, but walks the talk by piquing one's curiosity to want to find out more.  And find out fast.  Which is what I've been doing ever since I got my little hands on this one.

A kindred spirit in many ways--we share a speaking agent, a love of contemporary art, and a profound appreciation for the aesthetically-pleasing--Matthew and I also agree on the power of Surprise...well, if you can believe this insightful passage from the "Seduced By Nothing" chapter of his aforementioned tome:

"Seductive ideas rest on our ability to spark the kind of intrigue that will keep the imagination engaged.  Not knowing exactly what's going to happen next...keeps us glued to our seats when watching a thriller and quickly turning the pages in a mystery novel. 

"If we can too easily guess the outcome, or if the conclusion is not surprising enough, we are disappointed.  As soon as we become confident in our conclusion, we may lose interest entirely."

And now...time to jump back in and finish the oh-so-elegant rest.

Funalytics--The New Math

About 20 some-odd years ago, right about this time, I was in a state of gut-wrenching dread.

Like dozens of other students just like me, I was lining up to see if I had pulled off a minor miracle and passed Dr. Morty Yalovsky's dreaded Statistics class at McGill University.

The barely-just-over-the-wire sympathy mark of 60 restored my faith in a higher power, and solidified my view that numbers were bad, unless they were yours in the bank.

So here's how I know times have changed big-time:

Numbers have become entertainment.

Analytics, once the raw material and domain of accountants and the most hardcore geeks, have gone mainstream and have become--may I even suggest it?--fun.

Yeah, fun.

Google Analytics slices, dices, shreds and dreadlocks visitation to Surprise Central, not to mention my company Airborne Mobile's site, in a manner so detailed that I know what clothes you are wearing and what you're sipping while reading 'em.

Lijit, the majestic search engine I use for this blog (and a Godsend while researching my own stuff for my Pow! book), provides me with a weekly analysis--for free!--that just five years ago, I'd have to pay some consultancy thousands of dollars for. (And makes me wonder why in the world people are searching here for "Pink Polka".)

Then there's Xobni, the greatest thing to happen to Microsoft Outlook since...well, since Microsoft Outlook.  While it does an incredible job of tracking emails and searching for people and things within them, it also crunches them into a statistical treasure trove of the essential and the sublime. 

For ex, Xobni (that's "Inbox" backwards; how clever) ranks my contacts' email behavior by how many they sent me, how fast they respond, what time of day they do, what day they do the most (I can go on for hours here if I want to).  I can also reverse the look and see how I do amongst all these parameters as well.  The stuff is so fascinating and revealing that sometimes I find myself ignoring the emails themselves, instead too absorbed in the minutiae about them.

The "Funalytics" movement goes further.  In this month's Fast Company, USC prof Marientina Gotsis talks about merging real-world physical activity into a gaming framework (one step further than the Apple/Nike+ iPod/running shoe marriage I suppose, itself documented as part of Wired's cover story this month).  She says:

"It doesn't make sense that your Wii Fit data shouldn't be consolidated into the same system that your doctor uses for tracking your health. 

"Right now, there are practically no interesting applications out there that let you use your personal sensor data or health records to have a fun gaming experience.  That's going to change."

Change it will.  And in a manner guaranteed to Surprise and open up new doors of perception. In fact, I suspect that stats and data, and those who can interpret them in a unique and somewhat twisted manner, will become the new breed of media stars. 

And perhaps even more importantly, it may do for college stats classes everywhere what video games, the 'Net and CGI did for computer classes--make them hip.

Making Meetings More Memorable

One of the challenges thrown at business authors is to adapt the expertise, theories and tactics contained within their books to different industries, usually in the form of op-ed pieces or lengthy blog posts.

The following is both.  I wrote this for Pow! on a rainy Sunday back in March, but it just ran last week in SuccessfulMeetings.com (and in the Successful Meetings magazine).  You can link over to the post here...or just enjoy in below, courtesy of yours truly, author of both the book and the article:

---------------------------------------------------------------------

Surprise: The Secret to More Memorable Meetings

Let's face it—most conferences are stultifyingly boring. Sessions are the perfunctorily-attended "necessary evil" between networking opportunities at the bar. Conference floor booths are aisles of sameness; pamphlets, people in logoed shirts and takeaway promotional items that run the gamut from bouncy balls to mints to keychains. We attend, but we tend to forget as soon as we leave.

But it doesn't need to be this dire, because the element of surprise is the antidote to stale, stuck meetings. Not only do surprise tactics wake up a moribund crowd, but they bring attention to your company, product, panel discussion, or event, and more importantly, ensure that attendees talk about you and your event long after the physical gathering is over.

You don't need big budgets to pull these off, either; in the world of surprise, little things mean a lot, and guts are more important than bucks. Here are a number of tricks and tips to delightfully surprise your meeting's attendees, and create Pow! moments that will get them talking, keep them motivated, and ensure they remember.

1. Beat the Clock

A small tactic that will have an epic, exponentially disproportionate effect: Let people out 15 minutes to 20 minutes prior to a session's scheduled end-time. This is a meeting's equivalent of a three-day weekend. In all my years, I've never heard anyone complain: "Man, that meeting was too short."

2. The Best Booth Giveaway Ever

We all have enough pens, keychains, t-shirts, and the like to last us a lifetime. The best premium items I've ever seen in a booth were doled out by Austin-based Bazaarvoice—a series of adhesive, tongue-in-cheek tags to personalize those bland and clunky badges conference-goers are forced to wear. The ribbons shouted out slogans like "I Need Coffee" and "I'm Kind Of A Big Deal" and solicited smiles from everyone who saw them. More importantly, they also solicited cries of "Where'd you get them?" and drove traffic straight back to the booth.

3. Taking The Mountain To Mohammed

Speaking about giveaways, some people are still shy to plunk their hand in your booth's fishbowl for a chocolate or fridge magnet. Don't wait for traffic, go to where the traffic is and hand out your stuff. Wait for people in elevators, hit 'em up in line at snack booths, or hang around for them in the washroom. Radical, yes. Effective, also yes.

4. Hidden Agendas

Most conferences are like big boxing matches—there are a couple of headliners, and a whole lot of undercard. Rather than try to sell the less-than-famous speakers, hide them instead. Describe them, and their topics of discussion, wildly and cryptically and reveal the name (and face) behind the hype only when they take to the mic at the podium or table. Yes, they may still be unknown, but the proper intro and walk-on will set the stage a whole lot better for them ... and for your audience.

5. Mismanage Expectations

Yes, the meeting may be called for Conference Room B, but it doesn't have to stay there. Like the late Andy Kaufman did when he took his entire Carnegie Hall audience out for milk and cookies, start at point A, but take your attendees somewhere obtuse and/or exotic. Or better still, start them off somewhere different. Set up chairs in a pedestrian mall, in a bookstore, coffee shop, or clothing boutique. Sorry Mr. McLuhan, but the location may be the message.

6. Break The Dress Code

Clothes make the man. And the woman. And the meeting. Customize your meeting by costumizing it. Unveil your road map in a formal, black-tie setting. Call a pajama party to discuss the 24/7 nature of modern communications. Break out the '60s-wear for a keynote from an industry old-timer. Like Halloween, half the fun will be seeing what the other folks will be wearing. Instant buzz.

7. Power Pointers

Give an underworked actor (which describes most of them) a break—hire them to act out your speech's salient, important points. Improv comedians will provide you with something far more memorable than PowerPoint.

These are just starting blocks. The end results depend on your imagination, risk tolerance, and sense of adventure. But no matter what tactic you choose, the goal of any surprise is to generate what I call "Euphoric Shock," that moment that expands the boundaries of delightful extremes and is the difference between "Holy Jeez!" and "Who Cares?"

And trust me on this, whatever business you may be in, I guarantee it'll work better with a "Holy Jeez!"

How To Pow!--Ignore The Consensus (Theory 24)

Was asked a provocative interview question by the shinin' bright Paul Williams of The Idea Sandbox. 

As much as I dug his question, I dug my answer to it even more.  Hope you will, too.

Q) So... how do you really know if what you're doing is 'Surprising' or Pow-worthy? Many companies think their services or products or marketing is awesome... when it's really humdrum. Is there a b.s. rule-of-thumb you can offer?

A) There's an easy barometer: Ignore the consensus. 

Here's what I mean:  If the proposed idea--any one!--is universally adopted and admired within your company, you know it's not just humdrum, but a loser.  Surprising ideas shock, challenge and enrage the public, but usually start their "dirty work" inside company walls.

That said, you know you've got something good when your own colleagues get pissed off at it, bark "I won't put my name on that!" or, better yet, threaten to quit because of it.  Every time I see a great Surprising marketing move, I say to myself "I wonder who quit or got fired over that one?"

The NEW Rules of The Book Tour--Pow!'s Boston Week #1

Despite the happy faces of myself and Dave (Manager of Borders Downtown Boston store) above, times have changed in the book biz…and not for the better.

Times are tough in the book biz…and are set to get tougher.

Whoo-hoo!  Wow, what a great time to release Pow!

The only saving grace is that my book's subject matter gives me the excuse for what I’m about to spring on you.

Let’s be blunt: desperate times call for desperate measures, particularly in book stores, which are being eaten alive by the rise of online giants and the fall of discretionary income.   

Well, like the lounge lizard who misguidedly pops a Viagra ten minutes before a bar’s closing time, this over-reaching author understands the concept of desperation…and how to act on it. 

Fast.

So instead of embarking on the standard book tour (a nightmare best captured in this Village Voice article), visiting stores to sit behind a rickety bridge table and scratch out my moniker for a handful of people who most probably have mistakenly come thinking they’re about to meet legendary songster Randy Newman, this is the way I plan to turn the book biz's lemons into my lemoncello:

-- I will not read from my book. Not one word.  Instead, I will work with a local group of young musicians, spend the afternoon rehearsing, and regale customers with a chapter sung as if it were a rock opera. Pow! will thus be the first business book made into a musical; a hip “Mamma Mia” for the corporate set, of you will. It’ll have a good beat and yes, you can dance to it. 

-- I will set up a day care and baby-sit customers’ kids.  I can change diapers, wipe noses and recite both “Goodnight Moon” and “Caps For Sale” from memory.  One Pow! book buys mom or dad 30 minutes of offset responsibility.  If this works, I can expand the book-for-service concept into walking customer dogs, washing their cars, picking up their dry cleaning.  Their errand list can bring me to the best seller list.

-- I will pitch a tent like you see in county fairs and pitch my book with the infomercial-standard volume, pace and pitch of an over-caffeinated Billy Mays trying to shatter his monthly sales quota of Mighty Putty and Hercules Hooks.   (And if they act now, I’ll throw in this amazing apple peeler!

-- I will sell one-to-one.  Literally.  I will follow and pursue customers—upstairs, downstairs, out the door and down the street if need be—waving my book as if it were some holy scripture, until they acquiesce and buy it.  Call it short term gain (mine) for long-term pain (unfortunately, the bookstores’). 

-- I will unfold a cot and sleep in a store’s main window for an entire weekend.  Welcome to the human zoo.  Let customers gawk and throw me treats (for the record, I dig sushi, hotdogs in blankets and one-bite muffins for dessert).  Not only will I set the Guinness Book World Record for “Longest Book Signing,” sleeping in stores will allow my publisher to save on hotel and per diem costs.

-- I will kiss and/or dance with any female customer that buys a book (well, one of mine, of course).  No mere chit-chat or “move along, now” from me.  If this doesn’t cement the bond between reader and writer, nothing will.

-- I will boldly challenge each male customer to an arm wrestle.  I win, they buy a book.  I lose, they buy two.  Ouch, but worth it.

-- I will take the above one step further and set up a series of competitive poker matches.  Strip poker, that is (note: this is only for the most liberal of booksellers).  I win, they buy.  I lose, I disrobe.  End result:  record sales…or a police record.

-- I will hit up old Lottery Commission contacts and introduce “Loto-Book” where I’ll hide $50 bills in random books piled behind me.  Buy one for your chance to win!  Or better still, a “Scratch and Win” where customers scratch the cover of my book with a coin to see what they’ve won, which will be nothing other than a defaced book.

Well, there you have it.  Radical, industry-shaking ideas designed to surprise, make noise and, most importantly, sell truckloads of books.

And if these don’t move the needle and put me atop the New York Times Best-Seller List, I’m ready to take the most desperate action of them all:

-- Head to the Supreme Court and legally change my name to “J.K. Rowling.”

What's In-Store for the Music Biz

A band that was always close to its fans got even closer when Linkin Park played a secret show inside New York's SoHo Apple Store last Thursday night (you can read all about it here).  They called it a "warm-up for their Madison Square Garden show," but the buzz generated by the band's 200-person boutique concert outweighed and overshadowed anything they did in the arena. Concerts may be big and bombastic, but it's the Surprise of a secret show that grabs the attention.

While some may say the Linkin boys may be just a little past their prime, you can't get any hotter a venue than an Apple store these days (they've become the primary gathering zone of the hip; the "New Starbucks" if you will). Which got me to thinking...

You've got two industries on shaky ground (the music biz and the retail sector), and both shaken by the same hand--the digital revolution.  Yet, like two negatives multiplied make a positive in algebra, it seems that pairing bands and stores may be a tonic from which both can benefit. 

The bands will bring in traffic.  Every show will be packed.  They can sell music, merch and seed fan bases. 

Individual stores or retail chains (whose backing would spawn more "tours" than one-offs) will not just jam their locales at off-hours, but associate with the all-important image-generator of modern music. (And who says it has to be modern?  There are a lot of old-school artists who can use--and generate--some intimate, in-store lovin').   

Working together, this concept can break new bands, introduce new products and multiply audiences.  It would breathe new life into stalwarts looking to renew, like The Gap and Starbucks (who can go from selling CDs to selling live shows).  It would give label-less talent a chance to play live, not just on MySpace.

This ain't exactly a new concept.  Record stores did this for years, but except for a scant few, they don't exist anymore (and they're not where kids get their music anyway). And the use of malls to launch teen faves (like Tiffany and Debbie Gibson) was a fad during the '80s.

But it is a new world.  And as we've said over and over at Surprise Central, everything new is old again.

Today Hot Topic, tomorrow CBGB's!

Vacation Rules...Again.

Vacation time is here again. (Well for me, at least.  YOU are still prowling the blogosphere, looking for ditties like this to read.)

And like I did last year, I have compiled two lists of posts designed to regale old FOPs (Friends of Pow!) and to give cherished newbies an idea of the philosophy, the headspace and the raison d'etre of this blog:

List #1 is what I'll call The 12 Posts of Christmas. What I did was pick out the one post each month over the past year that best exemplified the spirit that drives the theme of Surprise marketing.

List #2 is a simple collection of faves; rants, raves, theories and experiences of 2007 that were a blast to write and stand the test of time...even though they may stray off topic a bit.

So there we go.  And before I leave you for the season, I also make state the Vacation Pledge that "postings will be sporadic"...but I said the same thing over the summer and last year this time.

So until January 7--or more likely, until inspiration hits--thanks for being such an interesting, interactive and faithful audience, and for making my commitment to this blog a labor of love.

LIST #1: The 12 Posts

December        Infoverflow and SNAM
November        Here Today
October           The Worst Surprise is No Surprise
September       The Eel Effect
August              We NEVER Close!
July                  Reverse Shoplifting 
June                 Thirsty, But Non-Committal
May                  Theory Why
April                 The Day After
March               A Tale Of Two Ads...Part 2
February          The Why Behind The What
January            The Lubricant To Yes

 LIST #2: Rants, Raves & Faves 

Arrested by The Police
Taxing Cabs
Free Advice (Marketing's New Ps)
How To Sell Art (or Anything Else) Better
Tell Me What I'll Say
It's ALL User-Generated Content!
Designer Thievery

 

Pump Up Your Volume

Last week, I promised you a primer on how to stand out.  But before I give it to y'all, let me explain from whence it comes. 

Back in April, I was one of 100 bloggers worldwide asked by Drew McLellan and Gavin Heaton (two of the People I Dig listed at left) to be part of a collaborative book project called The Age of Conversation.  We were given free reign to write what we wanted, as long as our "chapter" focused on communicating with others. 

Well, given the focus of my entire life, never mind just this here blog, I decided to hone in on what has brought me to this point--the ability to shout (without pissing too many people off).  If you dig the following, you'd be well-served by buying the book, as there are 99 more such heartfelt and headspilled pieces within it.

So, without any further ado, here's my 400-word opus.  Turn up the volume.  And repeat often.

-------------------------------------------

HOW TO SHOUT!

All our lives, we’ve been told to keep quiet. 

As babies, we’re told to “Hush,” to stop crying.

As kids, we’re told that we should be seen, and not heard.

Even as adults, the e-world’s rules of etiquette frown on EXCESSIVE USE OF CAPITALS lest it disturb all the other poor ones-and-zeroes that make up our emails.

Well, this “minifesto” explodes the notion that silence is golden.  In fact, to borrow the famous anti-aids slogan, to effectively converse in today’s all-pervasive multi-media environment, Silence = Death.

Imagine how ineffective Martin Luther King would be had he whispered “Shhhh…I have a dream.” Would art thieves continue to pursue Edvard Munsch’s “The Sigh”? And would Billy Idol have had as big a hit with the song “Rebel Murmur”?

For years, the art of shouting (yes, the ART) has endured a bad rap… probably because those who used it most are crass, aggressive boors.  It’s time to break that stigma. Just like paint can be used to create a masterpiece or a mess, when in the right hands, shouting is a deft, expressive tool.

Consider conversation to be shades of black, white and grey; shouting is the color. 

If conversation is made up of periods, commas and the occasional semicolon, shouting is the exclamation mark.

Like singing, great SHOUTS come from the gut, not the throat. They are emotional, not rational; inspired, not contrived.

Shouting is not about making yourself heard. It’s about making yourself interesting. And making yourself into someone people will want to converse with.

And shouting doesn’t necessarily mean pissing people off. It doesn’t necessarily mean speaking, either. Used properly, a raised eyebrow can be louder than a jackhammer. It’s all about context, and the courage to stand out from the norm.

Yup, it could still backfire. Think of Howard Dean’s guttural yelp during 2004’s Presidential race. There’s a fine line between raw emotion and madness. But who’d you rather have in the White House today—screamin’ Dean, or quiet, condescending Bush?

So shout, shout, let it all out. Don’t be afraid to live life loud. Puff up your chest when you walk into a room. Stand out, don’t fit in. Do it with your clothes, your accessories. A wallet (brown, boring) can hold credit cards, or (Paul Smith-striped) make a statement.

Let everything you have scream your name and establish your personal brand as one of animal magnetism.

ROARRRRRR!

Theory 15--The Eel Effect (Slippery, Electric & Wiggly)

I've been asked to speak to a class of graduating business students at my old school (sounds like a Steely Dan song, but I digress). 

This is a common occurrence at this time of year, but unlike most other times I've been asked, this one came with a special condition.

The condition was a simple one--given the rise of Airborne, this speech would have to provide special advice to budding entrepreneurs "who don't want to work for some 800-pound gorilla company"; in other words, a large behemoth that has 240,000 employees in 24,000 countries and tries to stomp all over the competition...and everybody else.

So I got to thinking: What's the antithesis of an 800-pound gorilla? What member of the collective zoology can be recruited to symbolize the traits and tenacity needed to start something from scratch, keep at it, and (well, I had to get the spirit of Pow! in there somehow) manage to Surprise a few people along the way?

Like half a Noah, I scraped the animal kingdom inside and out, from aardvarks to zebras and everywhere within, looking for the perfect fit.  And I was stumped...until last night when I had some takeout sushi before my workout. 

And there it was...laid out on a cot of rice, held in place by a ring of seaweed.

The eel.

What a revelation! Just think about it.  Here's a fish that looks like a giant worm, but acts more like a snake.  Despite their relatively dull appearance, these slippery guys are mean monkey-mofos; almost all eels are predators, and if hungry enough, will even eat their own family.  The electric eel variety are capable of generating powerful shocks, which they use for both hunting and self-defense. Ouch.

And although they lack pelvic fins and the associated skeletal structures common to their fish brethren, eels manage to rip through the water at speeds up to 30 km/hour. 

No ivory towers for these guys.  The CEO sharks may get their own week of glory on the Discovery Channel, but it's the eels who are the unsung streetfighters.

So let's compare the qualities common to both the entrepreneur and the eel:

--Deceptively dangerous
--Fast as hell
--Hungry
--Tough
--Hard to catch (despite the sushi...)

The most important factor though, and greatest similarity between eel and entrepreneur, is HOW they move. 

As mentioned before, the eel is a speedy little critter.  It knows where it wants to go, and gets there fast.

But NEVER in a straight line.

The wiggle of the eel is an important part of is physiology and its survival.  Same with an entrepreneur.  Having your eyes on the prize, but not being glued to a set roadmap and direction, is what separates the successes from the failures.

True entrepreneurs roll with the punches...and there are many.  Markets swing, tastes change and general shift just happens.  True entrepreneurs can change direction often and rapidly, without losing sight of where they're going. 

And how to get back there if they're knocked wildly off course. 

And how to find a new place to go if the original destination is blocked.

Just like the eels do it.

Obviously, I still have to add to the speech, but at least I have found a mascot for entrepreneurs everywhere. (One that shares a common initial to boot!)   

I'm no fool though.  I accept that on the corporate battlefield, an 800-pound gorilla can still stomp all over an eel.

Provided, of course, it can actually catch one...

Theory 5--The Lubricant To Yes

Why do I love Surprise marketing so much?

Because it’s the lubricant to “Yes.”

There’s nothing more that marketers want to hear than that word. You can yammer along about customer retention, building community, unaided recall, blah, blah, effin’-blah all you want, but no other term really matters.

It’s the word with the most buzz—Yes.

But when it comes to getting you there, so many marketers do it so damn wrong. They drive you crazy, flash strobes at you, get in your face and spew spittle on you as they talk.  They pounce on you as you enter the store, and spam you for eternity once you leave.

In an article in The Economist late last year, Joe Staton, the head of JWT's Knowledge Center, summed it up best when he said:

“Selling people things has become more difficult than it has ever been.”

And for good reason.  The problem is simple, and deep-rooted:

People don’t want to be sold.

When I was at Just For Laughs, I would be deluged with hundreds of phone calls, emails, letters and packages every week by well-meaning-but-insanely-overbearing agents and managers, all trying to push their clients with bribes, threats, promises and oodles of dubious achievements like: “He’s the second hamburger in that hot new Wendy’s commercial!”

And I would tell them the same thing.

Over and over again:

Don’t try to sell me;
just make it easy
for me to buy.

Let me discover your product, service or offer.

Don’t make me feel that somehow, it was forced on me.

Don’t, not for a second, make me feel that the decision was yours, not mine.

Seth Godin (yes, here I go again) has laid down a great post about four levels of marketing effort, the last being the Zen-like approach of No (Apparent) Effort. It’s almost an "anti-marketing," one which sells you by not selling.

Such is the raison d’etre of Surprise: Delight first…they’ll buy later.

As I said at the start...

Surprise is the
lubricant to “Yes.”

That’s the ultimate marketing destination.  The place we all wanna get to.

So stop pushing. Instead, make it easy for me to pull.

 

Vacation Rules

If the Gods loosen their grip on Denver and allow the airport to open more than two runways, then I should be off on my way for a few days of snowboarding in Vail as you read this. That said, there are two rules about this blog while yours truly is on vacation.

1. Posts will be sporadic
2. Posts will be less-than-sexy due to primary posting by Blackberry

However, out-of-sight doesn't necessarily mean out-of-mind.  For my more recent FOPs (Friends-of-Pow!), I have put together two compilations; a "What It's All About" and a "My Five Faves" collection.  The former should give you a good idea of this blog's philosophy and raison d'etre (dontcha just love it when I switch lingos?), while the latter should give you some insight into the headspace of its author.

What It's All About
Welcome Back(wards)
Theory 2--Intimate Goes Big
Watercooler IP
New vs. Nu?
Theory 1--Everyone's a Kid in Disneyland

My Five Faves
Hot Wet...
The Highlight Reel of Life
You Will Read This Post
Down Under (Again, But Different)
...And Now, A Response

Enjoy both lists, feel free to explore more if you wanna, and if we don't catch up over the Holiday, let's make a date to regroup on January 5th, when I put the gloves back on and start whacking you where the nose meets the eyebrows.

The Highlight Reel of Life

In addition to its role as an idea-aggregator and business tool, this blog is beginning to spark thoughts of a multi-media project (book, DVD, audio recording…let’s see where it goes). Because of that, I spend some time re-reading it to tie together some of the ideas I randomly spew forth within.

Friday’s post about Costco got me thinking about the earlier post about Surprise afterlife, and while watching an ingenious TV show during my cardio workout this morning, they all merged into an epiphany.

To explain, the TV show is called “30 Moments/30 Minutes.” Essentially it’s 30 great moments from the world of sports, categorized and broken down into three sets of 10, and played out over a half-hour. This morning’s episode showed 10 “Plays of the Week,” 10 eye-popping hockey saves and 10 messed-up soccer goals from international archives over the past 20 years or so. All the fat has been trimmed away to leave viewers with the uttermost high of highlights. It’s simple, but superb, television.

So, the connection? I realized that more than merely a collection of long-living stories, great Surprises provide us with what I call “The Highlight Reel of Life” (well, that’s what I call it now, after hours of trying to come up with a suitable tag).

Think about it. Think back to the great Surprise moments in your life, the highlights you STILL talk about. Not just the bargains or exquisite service, but the unexpected visit from a friend, the Surprise birthday party, the time your spouse’s simple haircut became a high-flying Afro perm, the $100 bill you found in the street…

I could go on and on, but the point here is that hopefully, so can you.

I can’t help but thinking how great it would be to actually bring  The Highlight Reel of Life to a physical reality! Never mind a photo album; imagine a DVD or disc drive filled with the great Surprise moments in your life, captured real-time in chronological order. According to (yet another) fascinating article in this month’s Fast Company, the cover story about Microsoft’s Gordon Bell and his digitally-never-forget-anything “My Life Bits” project, this may not be as far-fetched, far-out or far-off as you think.

Until then, The Highlight Reel of Life can live virtually, stored in your memory banks. Keep collecting!

How Logo Can I Go?

I always believed in visual branding.  I remember as a 10-year-old, trying to come up with a sweeping Hollywoodesque signature to separate me from those classmates who just wrote out their names in shaky cursive (imagine how I beamed with pride when Olga Kalyniak, a teller at the TD Bank in St. Laurent, explaimed "Well, will you look at that!" when I signed the signature card to my junior account).  Years later, when Garner Bornstein and I came up were bouncing around logo concepts for Airborne Entertainment, one of my main criteria was: "Would a kid want to wear it on a t-shirt?"

That said, I recently overhauled the look of this blog, and had the very talented Scott Brooks adapt an original idea of mine into the logo that not only adorns this blog, but hopefully will serve to visually define the word "Surprise."

Let's dissect it, shall we?

In the center is your standard exclamation point, vise-gripped by two gaping circles.  While they give off strong vibes of staring down the barrel of a shotgun (quite the fitting metaphor for "Pow! Right Between The Eyes," wouldn't you say?), they are actually meant to symbolize the eyes themselves.

Put together, the circles and punctuation mark form the semblance of a face, wide-eyed and open-mouthed...the epitome of what we look like when we're surprised.

Tom Peters seems to have first dibs on the exclamation mark as a symbol, and has used to to connote "Wow!"  I've taken it a bit further, if I must say so rather immodestly.  As I explained in my second-ever post, Surprise trumps Wow.

And, if I may be so bold in describing my logo, the addition of the two circles takes the common exclamation mark...and gives it the balls it needs to truly Surprise.

Pow!  Right Between The...well, you know where.

The Ghost Of Surprises Past

Here's a Surprise paradox.

On one hand, Surprise is a journey.  Once you get there, you have to start all over again.  Its original effect dies.

On the other hand, once a Surprise is finished for you, it can still bring you an almost equal pleasure by turning someone else onto it .  That's why all great Surprises benefit from a virtuous circle of word-of-mouth marketing; in Seth Godin parlance, they give rise to armies of sneezers.  Just think about the last time something really Powed You Right Between The Eyes.  How quickly did you tell somebody? How many people did you tell? 

This viral element is crucial for the growth of any Surprise.  Like a ghost, the spirit lives on long after the original has ceased to be.

New vs. Nu?

There used to be an old expression: "Everything old is new again."  It works the other way 'round in creating Surprise,  because

"Everything new is old again."

It useta-be that an innovative company would enjoy a little bit of breathing room after introing a new product.  No more.  These days, product life cycles are increasingly short.  New products and ideas go from hot and hip to ho-hum in record time (think PT Cruiser or Who Wants To Be A Millionaire.  I could go on for hours).  Rabid competition leads to rapid indifference.   New becomes nu? (a great Yiddish term that roughly translates to "So, already?") real fast. 

That's why more than just being creative once, true Surprise requires "shocking the system."  Again.  And again.  And again and...

Any one Surprise doesn't last; the concept must exist as a continuum for it to pay dividends.

Here's a perfect example of what the hell I'm talking about:

Many moons ago, 1974 to be exact, singer/songwriter Jim Stafford had a huge hit with the novelty song My Girl Bill. "Holy jumpin' jeez," was the initial reaction, "this guy's singing about his girlfriend, who's name is Bill!" (Remember, this was the early '70s, when this was somewhat shocking...) 

The end of the song pays off the lame-o joke.  He wasn't singing about "My Girl Bill," he was singing about "My Girl, Bill" (note the placement of the comma; he was talking to his buddy Bill about his girl).  I know, I know...you're just about splitting your sides right about now.  Pull yourself together for the point of all this:

• The first time you heard My Girl Bill on the radio, you were taken aback. 
• The second time, you watched to see if anyone you were with didn't know the twist, and waited to enjoy their reaction. 
• The third time, you wanted to shoot the radio. 
• The fourth time, you wanted to shoot Stafford. 
• The fifth time, you wanted to shoot yourself. 

Like anything majestic, rare and delicious, Surprise is a perishable good.  A rapidly perishable one at that. 

An old Surprise is like a rotten peach.  At one time it was gorgeous, fresh, tasty and  good. 

Now, it's just yuck.

(And by the way, you can still catch Jim Stafford's act in Branson, Missouri. Tell him I sent ya!)

Def-in-ishin'

I guess great cliche # 2 is to lay down a dictionary definition of the term "Surprise" to put in into context.  Most dictionary definitions are boring, so I've come up with my own to serve the purposes of the business of Surprise:

SURPRISE: 
The constant expansion of the boundaries of extreme

Here's the explanation.  People remember extremes, they forget the standard.  Yet the most important word in my Dic's def is constant, not extreme.  The problem with extremes--and perhaps its saving grace as per my hypothesis--is that extremes turn into standards fast.

Really effin' fast!

First time around, it's a surprise.  Second time on, it becomes accepted.  Expected.  A staple.

The moral of the story?  The only way to ensure surprise is the constant search for a new extreme.

Tough?  You betcha.

But consider the alternative.

Title Origin Revealed!

Oh, by the way, the title of this blog comes from a lyric within an obscure Joe Walsh tune called "Life Of Illusion." It goes:

Pow, right between the eyes
Oh, how nature loves her little surprises

If you don't know Joe, he's one of rock 'n' roll's all-time great iconoclasts/flakes.  While he's been a member of The Eagles for years, his early work solo and with The James Gang is what makes him so much fun.  He deserves a look and listen at www.joewalsh.com.  Thanks for the inspiration, Joe!

 

Everyone's a Critic

Jesus Christ!  Two hours after my first post and I already have to defend my stance!

One of my Airborne Entertainment colleagues is guiding me through TypePad, and while checking up to ensure that I didn't completely screw up the Internet while posting he said in passing: "Uh, isn't 'Surprise' is just another name for 'Wow'?  And Tom Peters kinda owns that word..."

Well, it ain't.  There's a big difference between the two. To put it mathematically:

Surprise > Wow

Surprise is the next level of Wow; a form of differentiation like no other.  In fact, my obsession with Surprise began last year on a trip to Japan, where I learned the difference between atarimae hinshitsu (quality that is expected) and mirokuteki hinshitsu (quality that fascinates), terms I first gleaned from Alex Wipperfurth's excellent Brand Hijack book.

I'll get to the Japanese anecdotes in a later post, but to counter my colleague, here's the diff between the two:

Wow = Exceeded expactations  Surprise = Shock!
Wow = Incremental                    Surprise = Quantum Leap
Wow = A great ballgame            Surprise = A major upset
Wow = A new haircut                 Surprise = A new hair color

Surprise is one of the seven basic human expressions (anger, contempt, disgust, fear, happiness and sadness being the six others).  Yet it's potential for business remains untapped.

Until now.

Wow!

Welcome Back(wards)

Hello and thanks for coming.  Chances are that if you're reading this, you are backtracking to see how this whole thing got started, 'cuz during the first couple months of posting, I think NASA's Mars Rover saw more traffic than I did. 

But the barren wasteland of this space back then allowed me to gather my thoughts, post prolifically and build my case to convince you of my premise, the raison d'etre of this blog. 

So drumroll, please...

The element of surprise is the most important aspect of contemporary marketing.

That's the premise.  Shocked?  Don't be.  Or rather, I'm happy that you are. Just proves my point.  Surprise is that "Pow! Right Between The Eyes!" moment that jumpstarts a modern marketing relationship. 

And it's more important than ever in our world of tough, jaded consumers; consumers who have access to more information and opinions than any society in history.  They know it all, have seen it all, and have commented on much of it.  When it comes to price, quality, service, the experience, they know what they want.  They want it all.

The way I see it, consumers won't accept trade-offs.  They expect everything to be right.  Every time.  And there's only one way to please people who expect it all:

Give 'em what they DON'T expect!

You know, in my many diatribes at conferences and at Airborne Entertainment's famed Monday Morning Meetings, I have always shouted that consumers don't know what they want.

Well, I lied.

They know what they want. 

They WANT to be led.
They WANT us to lead them.
They WANT to follow.
And despite the sucky Holiday Inn slogan ("The Best Surprise is No Surprise"), they WANT to be surprised.

That's what I hope to convince you of throughout the lifeline of this blog.  Yeah this may evolve into a book or morph into another one of my speech topics, but for now, I hope to keep surprising you with theories, anecdotes and examples. 

And I hope to hear from you.

So go ahead...

Surprise me.