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Wednesday, July 4, 2007 |
I'm a member of the Sidney/Shelby County YMCA where I workout every day that I'm in town (also take and teach Yoga there). One of the people on the trip to Israel with me was the Executive Director of our Y. He set up a meeting with the Jerusalem Y for the group. I was greatly impressed with the ministry of this Christian organization in the middle of Jewish and Muslim strife and misunderstanding. They put on a lot of programs meant to stimulate both sides' understandings of each other. The Director said that it is well understood that when you come to a program at the Y you agree to listen and be civil--even if you don't agree. And people abide by that understanding. That's a ministry I can be proud to be (at least peripherally) associated with. Check it out if you're there.
4:29:42 PM 
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I just finished a book that should be the next one read by every marketing and PR person who reads this blog. It should also be read by every executive pondering what business they are in and where they are going. It is also must reading for all you engineers and managers who are looking for ways to sell your ideas to the executive suite. The book -- Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die by Chip Heath and Dan Heath.
I don't know if it's the advice of the PR people or instructions from clueless marketing people, but every time an editor gets an application "story" from a supplier the hero of the story is a thing--the product. When is the last time you read a story about a thing and just couldn't put the book down? How about a story about someone just like you--or someone you would like to be like? I always tell PR people that at Automation World, we want to tell stories where our readers are the protagonist--or hero if you will. After four years, I still get raised eyebrows. Of course they use products and services--but I find it much better reading when I read about someone doing it rather than four paragraphs of product specs sandwiched between a company name and "they all lived happily everafter."
Anyway, one of the secrets to developing an idea that sticks is to tell the right kind of story. The full acronym for the authors' ideas is SUCCESs--simple, unexpected, concrete, credible, emotional and story. Read it and see how they develop the theme. It is a powerful book. If you can read this and still do marketing in the same old way, then you must be already a genius.
3:48:09 PM
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Happy Independence Day for those of you in the USA. It's a good time for Americans to refresh their understanding of the Declaration of Independence and perhaps some of the Federalist Papers--some of the most important writings that explain what the founders were thinking when they formed this government. It's probably also a good day to reflect upon what has happened to our liberty and whether (like the people in Dostoevsky's story of the Grand Inquisitor within The Brothers Karamazov) we are willingly letting it slip away. We should also reflect upon the witness we have to the world about the ideals of liberty. Then--go and celebrate. Safely, of course.
3:36:12 PM
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© Copyright 2007 Gary Mintchell.
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