Tag Archives: life

May 6, 2014 · 10:13 am

Turn The Page

English: Picture of Bob Seger. Cropped version...

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Happy Birthday Bob Seger!

One of Michigan’s favorite sons turns 69 today and I thought we’d get a quick business lesson from his 1973 song “Turn The Page“  for our subject this TunesDay.  It may be one of the best “road” songs ever written.  As is our custom, a quick listen and then a business point:

You might be familiar with Metallica’s version in which the road-weary musician is transformed into a stripper/prostitute.  The song’s been covered by many other musicians as well, probably because its message of the hours of boredom, bone-crushing travel in between performances resonates with anyone who’s ever lived that life.  Then again, you don’t have to be a musician – the 100,000 miles I used to travel a year (fortunately when air travel was much less painful) had me singing this song to myself more than once.

You hear the weariness in the sax line – it sounds like a late night after a long day.  You also hear the challenges of dealing with people who judge you for how you look and not who you are.  It’s a song about putting up with “all the other stuff” for this:

Out there in the spotlight you’re a million miles away
Every ounce of energy, you try to give away
As the sweat pours out your body like the music that you play

The moment when you can do what you love and bring joy to everyone involved.  Isn’t that a little of what we all live with each day?  It may be the slog through traffic or a stuck train.  It might be working on a the parts of a project – footnotes, cleaning up a presentation – that are really drudgery.  It’s knowing that even though it’s raining at the moment, there will be a glorious day of sunshine.

Happy Birthday, Bob.  Thanks for reminding us that we need to keep turning the page and looking ahead to the good stuff.

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April 8, 2014 · 9:38 am

Your Own Worst Enemy

I can see in the analytics that many of you skip our little TunesDay celebrations each week.

Springsteen Tour, Album, and Free Single

(Photo: Brian Sawyer)

Maybe you’re still recovering from the previous day’s post (Mondays can be hard, I know) or maybe you don’t care for the song analysis.  Since I’m rather insistent in this space that we all listen to our audiences, I’m going to do less song analysis and take a more thematic turn this week.

The song is from The Boss and is off of the “Magic” album (2007) and is called “Your Own Worst Enemy“.  This is an acoustic version:

I’m not going to get into the lyrics which you can read here because it’s the notion of being our own worst enemies that’s the business point this week.  I’m as guilty of this as anyone – just ask my golfing buddies.  I know – he’s off the track again and wandering to the golf course.  Not really.  You see once one has learned the basic skill of the golf swing the game becomes incredibly mental.  People who are successful can ignore all their bad shots and “get out of their own way” as golfers describe it.  Then there are folks like me who make several excellent shots in a row, hit a bad one, and allow that one bad shot to be a distraction for the rest of the round.  we become our own worst enemies.

Business is the same although in a less physical way.  Once you’re past entry-level jobs, you’ve learned the basics.  While the learning needs to continue, most of the negative things that occur are due in part to us getting in our own ways.  You might be reading this thinking “oh not me.”  Hopefully not.  But if you negotiate against yourself, talking yourself out of making bold proposals because “they’ll never go for that,” then look in the mirror to find your negotiating opponent.  We all talk to ourselves even if it’s only internally.  If that conversation contains statements that aren’t helpful to the situation (“this guy hates me”) or are actually inaccurate (“there is no way I can handle this job”), the only one with whom you’re fighting is yourself – the enemy lies within.

Next time I see my own worst enemy coming to town, I’m putting him on the next train out.  You?

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April 7, 2014 · 9:59 am

Don’t Be An Idiot

Over the weekend, CBS and Turner tried an interesting experiment around the Final Four broadcast. They set up “homer” channels which have nothing to do with The Simpsons and everything to do with a particular team. Called TeamCasts, the channel would have announcers who openly rooted for a particular team and called them “us.” There was also a traditional, play it right down the middle broadcast available.
Apparently, not everyone got the message (or managed to decipher what the on-screen graphic meant that said it was a TeamCast) and Twitter filled up with complaints. Leave it to Charles Barkley to explain the problem:


Maybe a little harsh, but Chuck makes an excellent point, one we should remember.  People ARE idiots.  OK, not you and not me.  But there are idiots in the world.  Ever notice when you buy a cup of coffee that it says “this cup is filled with very hot liquid”?  That’s thanks to an idiot.  Ever see a piece of wrapped food that instructs the purchaser to “remove wrapper before consuming”?  Another idiot.

I don’t raise this to degrade my fellow humans.  I’m pointing it out because many of us assume the consumers are a lot smarter than they often demonstrate.  I am very aware of David Ogilvy‘s famous quote – “the consumer is not an idiot; she is your wife” and I agree with his point.  You can’t treat people like idiots.  You also cannot, however, assume that they’re a lot smarter than they are. They may not realize they have a problem that your product solves.  They may believe a competitor’s silly claim  that has no basis in fact because most people are too lazy to seek out the facts (just turn on one of the many news channels and you’ll be able to see hours of undocumented “facts”).

Don’t be an idiot.  As a marketer, strike the balance between respecting consumers and treating them as if they’re not really very bright.  As a consumer yourself, pay attention to facts and don’t go jumping on social media to proclaim your outrage when in fact you’re demonstrating ignorance.    Simple enough, right?

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