Things that endure.

I’m so excited about this find for our house. It is a RCA Victor television circa 1959/60. I’ve been looking for a Philco Predicta but alas, nothing so far. Still, I love this RCA.

Why am I blogging about this?  Well, I guess that I’m nostalgic for the 1960s (perhaps a desire to return to childhood) because I long for things that are authentic and enduring. This television weighs about 150 pounds, is so solid it could bring down a charging bull and the best part … it still works. After 50 years.

Unlike newer things. I have a laptop I bought 4 years ago that is worthless. Ready for Mac-tirement. Few things endure anymore. TVs, computers, cars, people. Even brands. Think Chuck Wagon dog food. In 1950 something, that covered wagon appeared out of nowhere and screamed across my television almost every other minute when I was a kid until late in the 1970s. I loved that commercial. Thought that brand of dog food would be around forever.  So what executive somewhere in 1980 one day said “stick with the chuck wagon, people know it and love it,” until the brand seemed dated, obsolete.  I don’t even know if Chuck Wagon sits on a shelf in the grocery store anymore.  Anyone know?

Unwillingness to evolve while at the same time remaining the same (huh?) is the enemy of endurance.

So what does that have to do with this television. Like the chuck wagon, it hasn’t changed. Yet it endures. Because while the commercial was an “idea” the TV is a thing. Ideas have to mature, grow and be flexible to change. Things just have to be what they are. Stand proudly until the day they seem obsolete. Sit in a basement until one day someone realizes it still is beautiful, it still can be loved and it has endured.

I want to be like this television. Reliable. Sturdy. Beautiful even after 50 years and above all else to endure. So like the television I will be a thing and stay true to myself. My character though, my “idea” if you will, I will keep flexible and light on its feet so that the Tony I want to be, will be … and endure.

Vocabularious

So I was talking to my sister yesterday and asked her to tell me the most recent funny story about my God son Evan. He is always doing and saying something hilarious. Evan is an intelligent and creative 7 year old (I know, I’m biased, but seriously, he is).   Cheri tells me on Halloween night when they were trick-or-treating Evan went into a neighbor’s ‘haunted’ house. After exiting he expressed his anxiety by saying: “Well, I vowed never to go into one of those again and there I went ahead and did it anyway.” Vowed.  Ha!

Still amazes me a 7 year old has this kind of vocabulary.

Contrast that against last night’s episode of The Amazing Race, where contestants had to find a candelabra with a special number on it and then hunt down the corresponding door marked with that number. One of the players (a 30-something guy) was completely confused and had no idea what a “candle bra” was, going so far as to ask someone in the room if he was a “candle bra.” Of course, ultimately his team came in last place. In my opinion, a well-deserved placing.

Am I being elitist?

You see, when I was a child, my mother read to us from the classics: Treasure Island, Peter Pan, Call of the Wild. To this day I am thrilled when I read Jane Austin. Her dialogue and descriptive narrative are a challenge to read, yet ultimately satisfying because of her wit and command of language.  She is arguably one of the greatest English writers in history.

Watch practically anyone on TV and they can barely speak, and forget sports figures (presumably college graduates) who can barely grunt, let alone form grammatically correct and sensible sentences.

Sounding intelligent.  When did that become something to which few aspire?  Even still, something to ridicule as is often the case?

I don’t know.  But thankfully, we have a new generation like Evan who speak creatively and sensibly. And whether or not their vocabulary is extensive, at least it’s expressive and cause for a smile. And by the way, to my friend from the Amazing Race, a candelabra  is used to illuminate one’s way, much as a book illuminates another kind of way … the path to intelligence.

Perspective

For my Jewish friends, today starts the beginning of a new year. Sort of paraphrasing what I’ve heard before, I think a great way to start any year is to remember:

Each of us, is a piece of this world, a part of the whole package, individually not very important. So it’s not about what we think we deserve, it is about what we can give and what we can share, that’s when you become significant as a piece of the whole.

Give your time, your energy and your talent (when you can and even to the point it hurts) and you will be surprised at the impact you have.. Whether it’s you personally or your company. If you do it without thought for what you will receive in return, everything you ever wanted comes to you in time.

What kind of footprints are you leaving?

Turning over a new … doorhanger

Yesterday I took a poll about a door hanger design for a client. Yes, believe it or not doorhangers are actually delivering great results for my retail clients, followed closely by social media.

You’ve seen those door hangers at home, waiting for your notice before one of two futures: the recycle bin or hanging on the fridge until you make a purchase decision. The point is, it needs to be memorable and clever enough to be picked up and turned over.

Take a look at the design below and click on it to reveal its back side.
What do you think? Be sure to look at it before reading on.

Click the image to see it's backside-placeholder graphic from dreamstime.com

Our idea was to create something funny and completely unrelated to auto repair.  It’s ridiculous, but in a good way. We’ve received a mixed reaction.  Nearly 75% like the concept and the humor and would turn it around if they found it on their door.  That’s a good number in our opinion. If 75% of 5,000 turned it around and found it clever and at least half were interested and 1% ready to make a buying decision today the ad would have paid for itself and generated a return on investment of nearly 8%…pretty darn good.

At what point do you step in?

What should you do when a colleague’s employee is getting a reputation for being a “troll” online?  What’s a troll? It’s someone who consistently posts comments on blogs that are intentionally inflammatory, derogatory or full of hate-speech.  What would you do?

Julia and Me

© Columbia Pictures

I had the lucky fortune of seeing “Julie & Julia,” last night. When I heard that Meryl Streep was cast as Julia Child I remember thinking, “I love Meryl but as Julia Child…mmmm, I don’t know about that.”

What an incredible performance by Streep. She crafted the character with all of the quirkiness, charm and wry humor that one remembers of Julia but she also brought an unexpected lustiness to her that was brilliant. And I loved her all the more for it.

On to the story.  Although the theme  was to parallel a journey by both characters on separate paths yet united by food and the contemporary character’s sharing of her journey through writing a blog, I found my self disappointed when the film bounced from Julia Child’s story to the present day story line. As sparking as Amy Adams is, I still wished the story was entirely about Julia.

Still, I am left with wonderful feelings for the film. It was one of those rare occasions where I honestly did not want the film to end. I fell in love with Streep’s characterization and wanted to know more about Julia Child’s adventures.

I felt both fulfilled and still hungry for more.

I believe I enjoyed the film on two different levels connected by a common thread. What I mean is, both Streep’s performance as well as the true nature of Julia’s personality could be distilled into one word: authenticity. Julia was about “I am who I am and that’s enough.” Streep dug into that and revealed it in a magically effervescent, genuine performance that could easily be turned out in a lesser actor’s hands as a one-dimensional or over-the-top.

Authenticity is a powerful thing.

Everyday, I celebrate authenticity with my clients.  I want my clients to project authenticity with great story telling.  Making promises that they can keep and telling the truth. As individuals we want to be moved, we want to be inspired and we want to feel important.

Those chords within us are only struck by authentic actions, and the resulting tone is pure, fulfilling and lingers long.

TB4T

Too Busy for Twitter. That’s where I’m at today. After taking a short but very needed vacation, I’m back in the office and probably more overwhelmed than when I left. But that’s a good thing right?

Which get’s me thinking. How much do I let myself get bogged down in details that I could put off for later or for the weekend? Twittering is a very important part of my business, both for my clients as well as myself. I literally had to DRAG myself over to the twitter.com web site today to engage with my tweetpeeps. It got me thinking that I need to institute a morning, noon and night strategy for twitter. Meaning that I will make it a point to engage in conversation and share in the morning, at lunch time and in the evenings to catch up with what’s happening.

Monday night was the third anniversary for our client Ticoz. It was a huge success. As I greeted guests and tag teamed with the host on managing the event, my New Media Advisor, Tony Arranaga was busy as ever taking photos, posting comments on twitter and Face Book and engaging his audience in a play by play account of the action.

Having someone on staff who gets this and who is constantly thinking of ways to make our news vibrant and rich with content is truly a great thing. We’re working together in both the real and virtual worlds.  Yes, social media takes time from your day.  Yes, it can seem less important that other pressing issues.  But the reality is that social media is an essential part of our company’s success as well as the success of our clients.  Enough said.

Now, if I could just make more time for my blog….

I Bitz and Got the Bait and Switch

Come on in, the water's misleading

So I’ve been seeing these commercials for Orbitz with their offer “if you buy a ticket from us we will charge you no booking fees and guarantee your price so that if someone else books a ticket cheaper than yours we will refund you the difference.”  Fine. Sounds like a deal. Yeah right. It’s a deal all right.  Should’ve known there is a catch. See, what they don’t tell you is that when you supposedly choose seats, Orbitz does not send that information over to the airlines. It’s a ruse.

Yesterday, being a thorough and organized travel (or so I thought), I checked to see if the tickets I purchased last month were selling for less. No. Ok. So then I checked our seating assignments on the Northwest airlines site and found that I could not choose our seats even though we had secured seat assignments over a month ago.  So I called Northwest Airlines site directly.  I found that I did not have a seat assignment on the flight but my traveling companion did.  I tried to choose a site but the only seat that I could get was at the back of the plane in the center.

I discovered that when you choose a seat on Orbitz that they do not even send that information over to Northwest.  Orbitz purchases tickets in bulk and only pretends to offer you the opportunity to choose your seat.  What they don’t tell you is that you may not even be confirmed on the flight.  Unless they tell you in the small print somewhere, I don’t remember seeing anything about that. And Northwest? Refuses to do anything to help. Period. Airline policy. Whatever.

So, I called Orbitz and spoke to a lovely woman in India whose command of the English language was, well lets say interesting.  Nothing she could do. Then after much gnashing of teeth on my end she claimed that she was able to seat us together in 9A and 9B.  So, I went to the Northwest site, and again, only one seat confirmed the other with no assignment at all. Did she lie to me?

We called again and got a gentleman with better English and much compassion but no seat assignment.  We were told that the airline might be able to assign our seats together at the gate.  If we are one of the 30 or so passengers to arrive at the gate first.

Our lesson.  I find it crazy that with airlines and air travel in the tank that 1) Orbitz would mislead customers and 2) that Northwest would offer such crappy service.  Even though I was told by the NWA agent Northwest controls 70% of the seating arrangements online or over the phone I would still have to go to the airport no more than 24 hours before the flight in order to confirm a seat assignment.  So much for hanging on to customers and encouraging Americans to travel again.  So, the bottom line: 1) no seat assignment or confirmed seat as of today, 2) $35 in handling fees for 2 checked bags and 3) If I’m lucky, one of us gets to sit at the back of the plane between two strangers.  Am I being unreasonably picky? Our tickets are just under a thousand dollars round trip.  I don’t think so. Is it unreasonable to want to sit together when the chief part of the travel experience is to enjoy the exploration together?

What do you think?

Pssst…I’m talking about you.

I read a blog post by Linda Vandeverde today at Valley PR Blog about the changing world of old school PR and this new social media covered by the New York Times in regards to PR in Silicon Valley.  So, it got me thinking this would make a good post on my own blog.  See, we’re not talking just Silicon Valley here. This new kind of PR is everywhere, the point Linda makes.

Yesterday I *twittered* that, as I was writing the marketing and PR plan for a new client, I realized that the days where social media had its own section in the plan are gone.

Instead, we are motivated to reach specific audiences in support of various strategies by incorporating both the real and virtual worlds. Why? Because people are having conversations instantly and shaping the way we think about other people and brands every single moment.  But haven’t we always done this? Of course.  But now, technology gives us the opportunity to share these conversations with others, around the world, instantly.  Not just with a few friends over long stretches of time.  Instantly.  Now that’s a helluva word. Instantly.

Social media–this hybrid between print and verbal communication– is fascinating.  Just this weekend, out with friends, many of them were taking pictures and posting them to Facebook, real time, and talking about where we were and what we were doing. All the while, they were mentioning the name of the restaurant and commenting on the experience we were having. This was all to the benefit of the restaurant whose owners had no idea we were talking about them.  Basically, free PR and advertising. And who doesn’t want that?  Hold that thought.

So this got me thinking: how will this new social media affect not just PR but customer service and experience marketing?  Is anyone thinking about that?  They should.  Because, the stakes are higher. Here is where every second you interact with your customer is more important than ever.  You can’t afford to give lousy customer service.  You have to back up your product and service and make the whole experience fun. Memorable.  Something to talk about.  Are you doing that? Are you sure?  Every second?  Every employee buys into that idea? Why?

Because that diner over there in the corner, the one siting by himself, is talking about you right now…with thousands.

My Top Five Tips for Social Media

In social media, there are “rules of engagement” like any other type of social interaction. These common-sense rules are a must when engaging others and building an audience. It’s best to think of this like you would a networking event or a party. Would you approach someone, interrupt their conversation, start talking about yourself or selling your product with no introduction or relevance at all? Unlikely. So too, your foray into social media requires you to behave yourself.  Remember, people can’t see you or hear your voice (video cams/chat aside).  They don’t know you are a fun, likable person. So, you could be putting your virtual foot in your mouth so to speak. The appendage, a fait accompli in your social faux pas.

With that, here are my personal views about online interaction.

1. Be relevant (on topic)
2. Be timely (don’t go back to a conversation from four days ago and comment)
3. Be respectful (don’t jump in on other people’s conversations unless you are really good friends)
4. Be thoughtful (share insight, news people can use).
5. Be lighthearted (share anecdotes, funny stories completely unrelated to you or your brand)

If you follow these sensible rules than you will know instinctively when you can safely interject stuff about you and your brand.  Toot your own horn when you feel it’s worthwhile or newsworthy.

Whether you are on Facebook, Twitter or other social sites it’s important to remember that you only get one first impression and you can quickly become irrelevant and even annoying if you diminish the value of others around you.

And folks, please don’t share with us how many followers you have, what your twitter rank is or how many friends you have on Facebook.  Popularity grows from the value of your interaction, not the number of people who follow you.

These suggestions apply mostly to business and brand interaction with audiences though common courtesy is appropriate in any situation.  See you online and I can’t wait to see what you have to say.