Hey everyone, here we go. . . . . .
IN OUR WORLD
Last weeks scheduling nightmares gave me something I seldom get, so free time. I jumped into the final phases of my new web site content creation and have a huge hunk of it done. This is a big project for me as I create a more uniform look to the descriptions of presentations, education and our consulting or application side of the business.
The new web site will be a great example of the new simple and minimalist design allowing an intuitive navigation by users. It will have new content, video and other cool stuff!
The big personal branding project launches May 1 and I am good to go on my end. I am excited to see the impact and traction this gigantic initiative will get. The design of a program impacting 500 sales professionals scattered all over North America was one of the key challenges. Supporting the idea after launching in 50 state offices as well as in Canada was another hurdle to get over. Keeping everything to three parts took weeks and weeks of thoughtful reduction. Well, the pedal hits the metal on 5/1!
Next week I am off to California and will deliver some rather radical ideas to a group of Junior High School teachers. It’s always fun to shake things up!
HEY, YOU CAN FOLLOW ME ON TWITTER –CREATIVEVENTURE
AND ON FACEBOOK – STEPHEN HARVILL!
THINGS YOU SHOULD KNOW
Nothing creates a sense of urgency faster than seeing everything around you change. You end up thinking, “what should I do?” When should I do it? Is it going to be right?
Let me give you a couple of examples from the entertainment industry.
- MUSIC: It was not that long ago when the big guys in the music industry enjoyed a monopoly of distribution. But then the internet opened the door to the idea of music sharing and the once granite solid domination began to crumble. In a couple of years the existing economic structure was doomed. The sense of urgency that was being felt by the music giants caused a sense of panic and they lost track of the road to the future. They sued everyone and asked the government to help them get back their fantasy wish of a past driven control. Steven Jobs and Apple allowed this sense of urgency to give way to iTunes, a reality altering idea, so simple in its form and function that it became the new norm. Change is not always crisis.
- PUBLISHING: Newspapers, long the bastion of the morning coffee ritual, are a vanishing model of information distribution. As the electronic media world found new and faster ways to give an information addictive populous their new fix, the sense of urgency felt in newspaper offices caused a real sense of paralysis. One by one you saw the great and grand papers fall to a lack of advertising revenue and a dwindling readership. But it’s not just newspapers feeling that sense of a tidal wave of change. The book publishers are feeling kind of urgent themselves. Though they might be smiling as book sales rose 4.19% in 2009, eBooks (electronic books for devices such as the Kindle0 rose 176.6%. Once a blip on the horizon they are now creating a big bunch of urgency.
When change is exploding you need to act counter intuitively. Instead of speeding things up you actually need to slow down. Create a trend committee of people whose job it is to track market trends. Meet regularly just to discuss the “jazz” of market conditions. Be open to new idea and find connections that point in a direction of impact.
Urgency is a good thing when channeled by thinking people!
ENTERTAINMENT
MOVIES: Date Night. Come on – it looks funny with Tina Fey and Steve Carrell.
NetFlix Fans: A Beautiful Mind: This movie proved to me that Russell Crowe was as talented an actor as my generation has seen.
TV: The Masters is an annual journey into beauty, tension and championship focus. Also, make sure your DVR is capturing Justified on the FX Network on Tuesday nights.
BOOKS: Getting Organized in the Google Era – Merrill/Martin: Ever wonder why during multitasking you are not producing your best work? Multitasking is inefficient – PERIOD. These authors provide a neat little system to allow you to get away from doing a bunch of stuff and focus on important items.
MUSIC: This is a crappy, kind of nothing video, but it is a magical Peter Gabriel version of Flume and worth the listen.
WEB SITES: Bookmark this site NOW!
SOUTH OF NORMAL
My favorite business idea from California (where else?) –
www.tatmash.com allows you to upload a photo of yourself then click and drag a tattoo to your photo to see what it would look like on you. Kind of a tattoo test drive. They have a huge catalog of images to choose from.
Drop me a note with your comments at steve@creativeventures.com
Thanks for stopping by and until next time, Adios and Aloha.
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