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I ran into a friend the other day while plunking away on my laptop in a cafe. He gasped. I thought my fly was down, but he exclaimed, “You use a PC? I thought for sure you’d be a Mac person.”  I got a little excited by his consideration of me as an Apple person for I feel like one. Sadly, the price of a Mac was a deterrent when I needed a laptop a few years ago. In an attempt to eradicate the loser cloud cast by my ancient PC, I whipped out my iPhone and asked if he’d seen the new LightSaber app. (Yeah, nothing like a LightSaber app to prove you’re cool, but I digress)

Once my PC shame subsided, the exchange got me thinking about brands and how much they’re entwined with the personas of the users. Apple is an anomaly in that it’s transcended the phase of user-makes-product-cool. See a geek with a Mac on his lap and you think, maybe not so geeky after all. It took Apple a long time and lot of hard work to arrive at this exceptional state of influence. The majority of brands still rely on users to up their fab cache, not the other way around.

When a brand is introduced, a target audience is identified. Marketing textbooks will tell you that a target audience is the group whose demo and psycho graphic data most closely resembles the need solution of the product. But let’s get real, a target audience is the group you hope and pray will make your brand cool.

In a brand’s infancy, the product itself, its availability, distribution channels, and marketing are all success factors, but it’s the early users that play a large part in shaping public perception. I call it Association Magic. A cute, young, and fashionable girl riding by on her Public bike glamorizes the Public brand more than any website or clever ad ever could. It’s why companies give free stuff to rich celebrities and not the homeless who really could use a hand-out. I’m not immune. Susan Sarandon rockin’ Ray-Bans on the red carpet makes me want to buy them more than if I saw the same specs on Howard, my neighborhood eccentric.

This is why discounting can be risky. I used to work for a hotel that booked a lot of bands and celebrities. A big draw of staying there was that you might ride in the elevator with someone famous.  When tourism plummeted after 9/11, we discounted deeply on travel sites where people booked on price alone. Suddenly the hotel was filled with camera-wielding tourists in souvenir t-shirts who shouted, “Oh my gawd, would ya just look at that man covered in tattoos!” These folks were bad for business. We may have filled a few rooms, but we harmed our image with loyal customers by virtue of the fellow clientele. That’s why I caution clients to think hard before using discount tactics as they can backfire.

Brands looking to create Association Magic should aim to get influencers using or talking about their product, now more than ever with social media allowing people to immediately share what they love.  Get the cool kids to “Like” it and the rest will follow. Get Apple users to “Like” it and prepare for a stampede.

I love analogies. They contain a bright pearl of clarity in the parallel revealed between seemingly disparate things. I also have a funny habit of noticing them in unlikely places, like the zoo last summer. Somewhere between the meerkats and the monkeys, I encountered an exhibit on reproduction and the coolest analogy between a scientific principle called biotic potential and getting real about organizational growth.

Biotic potential is a living creature’s maximum reproductive potential without accounting for factors that may inhibit proliferation. Just imagine how many frogs would hopping around if they didn’t have to worry about mortality variables like being a tasty snack for otters.

I immediately recognized an analogy between biotic potential and branding through my work with new companies. An idea for a new product or service is a gleam in an entrepreneur’s eye that I’m asked to help turn into cold hard cash. Often I meet with starry-eyed folks so enthusiastic about their new idea, so sure of its impending success, that they’re unwilling to consider the variables that may kill it once it’s released into the wild yonder. I get it. They’re in love and let’s face it, love can be blind.

If you’ve read my Facebook or Twitter posts, you’ll know I’m often the drum major leading the enthusiasm parade about new things – “Check this out!,” being one of my oft used lead-ins. Consequently, I loathe being the one to toss sour lemons in the punch bowl of a festive New Idea Party.  Yet, for a new idea to succeed, it’s crucial to fully consider all the potential harm factors. Like it or not, it’s my job to toss in the lemons.

So, let’s talk about some of the biggest and baddest mortality factors of biotic potential and their analogous organizational counterpart:

Predators – The obvious parallel is Competition. When evaluating the competitive landscape, it’s not only important for new companies to distinguish those who already do what they intend to do (and kudos if the idea is so original that no one already does), but it’s important to consider those who could do what they intend to do. If an idea is good enough, large companies with ample capital, technology, and human resources may quickly surpass the original. Organizations need to be prepared for this kind of predatory assault.

Disease - As any doctor will tell you, disease comes in many forms. Likewise in an organization, disease comes in many infestations from poor leadership to low morale and rampant gossip to outright corruption. Diseases like these can kill a company faster than Mad Cow can blight a herd of heifers. Companies should aim to detect and inoculate against organizational diseases before they strike.

Weather – Sometimes the economy is stormy and sometimes it’s sunny. Sometimes the forecast is correct and sometimes you wonder how the heck those people at weather.com keep collecting paychecks after being wrong so much of the time. You just never know. A plan is essential for when the economic weathervane inevitably starts spinning out of control.

Poor Adaptation – Evolution is survival. Apple could have kept making computers, but they noticed the trend toward mobility and the fact that computers are anchored. Even laptops are only mobile between anchor points. So Apple started making phones and not just any phone, but one with the capacity to do more than any had ever done before. This was not just adaptation, but elegant evolution – the kind that would have had a binocular-wielding Darwin taking furious notes in the bushes.

Migration - While poor adaptation describes a failure to change towards opportunity, migration describes a failure to move toward opportunity. Like polar bears packing up for more solid land masses or birds flying south for warmer climates, it’s necessary for companies to think about where the epicenter of opportunity lies for them. Sometimes it means moving closer to resources like skilled labor pools or crude materials. Other times, it requires relocating closer to where customers live.

Food Supply -
This one is pretty simple.  If you don’t have food, you die. If companies don’t have the organizational equivalent of food – capital, both monetary and human – they won’t survive either.

Accidents - An accident can threaten a company’s ability to survive depending on how it reacts. Right now I’m working with Miss Pearl’s Restaurant & Lounge. A few months ago, they had an unfortunate incident when a felled fire hydrant flooded the space. The restaurant could have been devastated, but instead, they turned the accident into an opportunity
to renovate and undergo a name change. Accidents can be a tricky variable to
plan for, so it’s important to form and foster an organizational culture that
will react quickly, efficiently, and smartly to incidents as they arise.

Well, one excursion to the zoo to entertain my son and there you have it – a whopper of an organizational analogy. I hope it’s inspired you to think about the potential inhibitors of your venture’s biotic potential without losing an ounce of enthusiasm.  Who knows, maybe sour lemon are the secret ingredient in the punch after all.

Recently I ran across an article suggesting that marketers should switch from “I” marketing to “You” marketing in their communications. I Marketing is that narcissistic bore at the cocktail party stuck on monologue setting.

“I’m so smart. I’m so good-looking. I am totally and undeniably awesome.”

I agree that I Marketing is an ineffective communication strategy. Use that feature-based approach and you’ll lose your audience as often as the party bore hears, “Gosh, nice to meet you, but I’m gonna go check out the bean dip.”

As an alternative, the article suggested You Marketing; shut up about why your
company is so great and start talking about the customer. The author provided an example of You Marketing:

“After meeting you, it’s clear that your business is on the verge of tremendous
growth. You’re facing some challenges that many companies at this stage of
growth have faced before.”*

While I agree that I Marketing is a poor strategy, You Marketing isn’t the answer. If I received the message above, I’d be turned off. First, it’s presumptive of the writer to say they know about my business with authority. Second, the author claimed that You Marketing is not manipulation, but that’s exactly what this feels like. The marketer is leveraging information that I’ve shared or they’ve researched for their own personal gain.

I suggest we try a more elevated and progressive approach, We Marketing. “We” as in together or us. Instead of yammering on about ourselves or what the customer needs, let’s envision unique possibilities of working together and share those instead. An excellent example is Obama’s simple and inclusive, “Yes We Can,” 2008 campaign slogan. The creative magic happens in partnership, so let’s enroll and excite potential customers about the collaborative “We” and leave the divisive “I” and “You” pronouns behind.

*I didn’t credit the author of the article intentionally because I’m disputing
his/her theory. If you are the author and would like to be credited, please
contact me and I will happily do so.

I’m often asked, “Kristin, how do you come up with ideas?”  That’s a very good question with an answer I’m not entirely sure of.  What I do know is that staring at my laptop while earnestly willing ideas to pop into my head is the best way send my creativity on a one-way trip to Nowhere, USA.

For me, idea generation feels like those 3D optical illusion stereogram posters in the 80s. The trick is to look at the artwork, but allow your eyes to go out of focus so that the real artwork emerges from within. Ideas are the same. They can be shy. I have to focus attention when seeking them, but not too intently, otherwise they won’t appear.

When a client asks for a big idea – whether it be a new name, tagline, or concept – I get clear on the task, set an intention for the idea to come forth, and then shift my focus onto something else. When my husband first observed this technique, he thought it was procrastination re-branded as process, but he soon learned that indeed, the ideas come out of hiding.

Here are my nine favorite ways to unfocus and open the idea valve:

1.  Go For a Run – Runner’s World Guide to Running says that running helps you to reach creative breakthroughs (p.25). I believe it. Something about the rhythm of running eases my brain into ideation. I can’t write ideas down while in motion, yet this is a good test.  If I still remember an idea by the time I get home, it just might be the one.

2. Shower – Maybe the hot water relaxes me or my minty body wash perks me up,  whatever the case, some of my very best ideas have bubbled up while lathering. Like running, it’s tough to write things down in the shower, but an idea may be a keeper if it makes it to the rinse cycle.

3. Clean – I laugh with  my friend Darilyn, designer-extraordinaire of DK Design, about how we both break out the vacuum when we need to be creative. I think the sense of accomplishing something, even just clean floors, combined with a newly uncluttered space, gets the juices flowing.

4. Slow Down & Notice - Legend has it that Steve Jobs was inspired to design the curved necks of the first Apple flat screens by staring at sunflowers in his backyard. I like to sit on a bench and watch the world go by. It could be the fashion sense of a pedestrian, the bark of a dog, or the shape of a cloud that brings forth an idea. I just
have to slow down long enough to notice.

5. Eavesdrop – Yep, I’m that weirdo listening to your conversation. It’s just that you say really interesting things. I love eavesdropping in physical spaces like busses and cafes, as well as virtual spaces like Facebook, Twitter, and comment sections. Often I hear a word or phrase and voila, an idea is born.

6. Maker Muses - Some people get inspiration at tech or industrial design conferences where the creativity has a wow factor. When seeking my muses, it helps to have an element of “I could do that too,” and let’s face it, I’m not the designer of the next smartphone. I gravitate toward maker fairs or etsy.com. When perusing t shirts with cute slogans, a million versions of a hand-painted owl, or a terrarium gallery, my own ideas start to flow.

7.  Seek Art – While galleries and museums are obvious art havens, I also try to notice the art all around for inspiration. For example, someone has transformed a telephone pole in my hood into an incredible sculpture with keys, locks, and metal miscellanea. My very favorite place to get ideas from art is Burning Man where creative boundaries are challenged, pushed, and broken in the very best way.

8.  Travel - In our daily lives, we create mental models of our surroundings that serve as efficiency short-cuts.  It’s nice to not have to look for the coffee every time I need it, yet these mental models can be a real creativity killer. I stop noticing all the rich nuances of my experiences. My answer is to get out of town; even a one day trip helps to cleam my creative lens.

9. Hang With a Kid - There’s no better cure for idea constipation than my 5-year old son. He asks the questions others don’t think to ask. He makes few assumptions. He looks up and looks down. We walk around the hood and I’ll say, “Tell me what you see,” so that he can help me notice things that open my mind to new ideas.  I bet you can guess who spotted the telephone pole first.

If you’re looking for ideas, think about the ways you can unfocus a bit to allow them to come forward.  Ideas may be shy, but once you find them, they can be the life of the party.