Tag Archives: business

October 28, 2013 · 10:31 am

The Scenic Route

I’ve been doing a bit of driving in places with which I’m unfamiliar lately.

Map of Gray's Inn Road

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Way back in the dark ages of the 1980’s, doing that sort of thing required one of two actions. Either one bought a map from someplace such as a gas station or the AAA or one called ahead for directions. I vividly recall a moment of panic on a business trip years ago when I thought I left a folder full of routing instructions to get me through a day’s worth of appointments in a hotel room.  The thought of finding a pay phone (remember them?) and having to write down turn by turn directions when I was already on a tight schedule gave me agita before the day was very old.

Today, of course, getting from point A to point B is as simple as pushing a button and announcing the destination. Every “smart” mobile device (which means about 60% of the mobile phones out there) has some sort of mapping/driving directions program.  The device speaks, we listen, and somehow we arrive despite having no clue as to where we are or how we got there.  Occasionally the devices are even smarter than we are.  While we might know a shorter route than the one we’re being told to take we don’t know about traffic, construction, or other delays en route.

There is no doubt that Waze, Google Maps, and other software are great for when we’re driving.  I am fond, however, of “getting lost” a little bit when it come to taking about business.  Have you ever just got in the car and driven around?  Maybe you see a sign for a town you’d heard of but never seen.  Along the way there might be a diner or fruit stand.   It might not be the most direct route and if you get lost for real you can announce to the GPS system you want to go home, safe in the knowledge that you’ll get there.  But discovery often comes when we get off the fastest route and maybe try the scenic route.

The pace of business is demanding but turning off our business GPS and “wandering” can often pay off handsomely if we can be disciplined enough to get off the beaten path.  Oxymoron?  No – imagining new things and being creative is hard and takes discipline.  Losing our directions without getting lost is tricky.  Can you do it?

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October 23, 2013 · 8:35 am

Tossing It

Somewhere along the line it became most cost-effective to throw things away than it is to fix them.

broken ipad screen

(Photo credit: 3dom)

I know people who buy new printers rather than spend the money on the ink – it’s about a wash financially and they get a new printer.   I recently replaced a small appliance (ok, a little wine storage unit) because when I found out how much it would cost to fix the fan that had broken, a new unit, complete with warranty, made more sense.

Tech may be among the worst offending industries.  I mean, if the battery goes on your iPhone or MacBook Air, you can’t replace it.  We toss the unit and get a new one.  TV‘s are so cheap that the notion of repairing one is pretty alien these days, particularly when we consider that the new item will inevitably be better technology than what’s being fixed.

There is a problem with this mindset, however.  Too many people and businesses extend it to their thinking about customers, employees, and others.   When a relationship gets broken, we weigh the costs of fixing it against the expense of replacing it.  Rather than “fix” an employee who might have underperformed, we fire them.  That results in a few things – writing off the investment we’ve made in that person thus far as well as incurring the time and expense to replace them with no guarantee of better results.  Rather than investigating each and every customer complaint about service, we try to placate the disgruntled customer with some token gestures (the hotel room isn’t clean?  Oh, have a free bottle of water!) and don’t really mind when they don’t return again – they’re a pain.  We don’t look at them as fantastic suppliers of information about our failings – we consider them to be pesky children who rouse us from our daily business sleep.

Business relationships – with staff, with customers, with the public at large – are not disposable.  In many cases they are not replaceable and all efforts must be taken to repair them.  It’s almost never more cost effective to toss them.  You agree?

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October 22, 2013 · 9:38 am

Cover Me

TunesDay! Today I want to write about the cover tune, one of the most overlooked forms of music. Way back when in the ancient days before the Beatles and Buddy Holly, musical artists rarely wrote their own music. Instead, they either discovered songs on their own or, more often, worked with A&R people and managers at their label to find music that was optimal for their voices. Arrangers would figure out the musical backing and that arrangement was often more important than the vocal. Think of the sound of Frank Sinatra singing a Quincy Jones  arrangement versus one by Nelson Riddle.  Same voice, very different sound.

Today most artists write and perform their own music rather than “standards” or songs produced by writing houses such as those found in The Brill Building.  Covering another artist‘s work is the exception, it seems.  When done right, however, it can make that interpretation something unique and your own.  For example, this:

Became this:

Which is the business point today.  I have clients who stress out from time to time about being original, and I agree that making something one’s own is really important in business.  After all, consumers expect us to be authentic and to speak in our own voices.  However, doing a brilliant cover version of someone else’s song in the business world can be a fantastic and successful strategy.  After all, Amazon wasn’t the first online commerce site nor was eBay the first online auction site.  Both interpreted the “song” they chose and did it better.  They became hits while the original artists faded away.

Rather than worrying about the “new” or the latest shiny object (or technology) out there, maybe we should focus our energies on rearranging what has proven to be appealing and covering it in a way that adds new meaning.  Maybe that’s another example of everything old (covering songs and rearranging them) being new again but if it is, I’m in.  You?

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