simplerich

The Star Spangled Banner, like you’ve never heard it

I first discovered this oral history of the Star Spangled banner by Francis Scot Key on Jan Mickelson‘s show on 1040AM, WHO Radio. If you can listen to it with a dry eye your a damned dirty ape!
Happy 4th!

I listened to his music for a 3 hour drive last night, and spent quite a while on the net today watching some of his videos and live performances.

At his peak there was nobody like Michael Jackson in my lifetime. (Maybe Madonna) He was one of the only two superstars I ever paid much attention to. Madonna is the other. They’re the only two to this day I cared anything about meeting. If I had a list of people I’d like to meet it would have just gotten shorter by one yesterday.

He had drama in the last 10 years and God knows he did some outrageous things to himself with plastic surgery. It’s too bad. He was immensely talented and the world is a more interesting and vibrant place because of his having been here. His music changed things.

I quit a job to see one of his videos. It was a second job and a part-time one and I’d asked for the time off in advance and they didn’t give it to me. So, I quit to see the premiere of the video after an episode of The Simpsons. I was old enough to know better. But it was Michael Jackson and there was a group of friends gathering to watch the premiere. I didn’t want to miss it.

I’d hoped this come back tour would be the one for him. I’d have happily bought his next CD, probably on Amazon.com for a DRM free MP3 version of it, but I’d have paid for it, like I have the rest of his music.

Take care Michael, and thanks for the music.

What is that? (Τι είναι αυτό;) 2007

One of the dangers of management is that while we have heard a question 21 times the person asking us hasn’t asked it 21 times. It’s their first time asking it.

The solution to the financial crisis is too late in coming but here you go folks. This is what we should all be doing. Just because some of us have debt doesn’t mean it’s too late to start now! So… Don’t buy stuff you can’t afford!!!

All customers aren’t the same. This is true on several levels. Gary Vaynerchuk gets it. Here he talks about internet users specifically but there’s so many other types of customers out there. They all look the same when they walk in the door but they’re not the same other than typically being bipedal and mostly symmetrical along their vertical axis.

We were recently resetting a store and some of the product got put in three different places. When I go to Home Depot looking for paint I will also possibly need paint brushes, hole filler, and putty knives. I would fully expect all those things to be near the paint. They typically are. Later looking at the sheet rock I will now need a putty knife to spread out the seam and tape sealer mud stuff (Sorry to have gotten all technical on you with no warning.)  If I’m looking for a way to get gum off my floors and am in the cleaning section with the floor cleaning supplies there’s a good chance it will occur to me that a floor scraper may well look an awful lot like a putty knife. All three of those things are aimed at different people in spite of being the same part number.

I, as a retailer, need to make sure I have my product wherever it is the customer will be looking for it. That sounds simple, but for 14 years we’ve put all the widgets in the widget section, whether they also went well with whizfiddlers or not. The leap there was a big one for us as a company… in spite of being painfully obvious. If The Powers That Be were asked before we were told “If I want a widget I’ll look in widgets! Why would I look in whizfidlers?!?” We weren’t allowed. Same item, different spots was a “Bad Thing.” (Notice the capital letters there.)

This isn’t what he’s talking about and I know it. He’s talking about those people who will get excited about something and share it with others. I think Malcolm Gladwell in The Tipping Point, referred to those people as ‘mavens.’ It’s one thing to like a guy’s video… it’s another to click the “share me” link on the page or copy and embed it into another blog somewhere to get the message out. The transition from consumer of information to sharer of information is what advertisers, and anybody in sales who doesn’t consider themselves an advertiser should probably look into other work, should be after. The people who make that shift… the people that go from listeners to talkers & story tellers, those are the people advertisers and sales people need to identify and court.

Anybody walking in the door intending to leave money in your business is good to have. The people who are going to tell other people to go throw money at you are great to have. That’s all I’m saying… It’s all Gary Vaynerchuk’s saying… and it’s sort of what Steve Woodruff appears to be talking about as well.