This is a busy time of the year for most of us. (And while I have this strange compulsion to not skip writing my blog twice a week, you are under no such obligation to read it.)
In keeping with the festive nature of the season, today’s blog is about wine; some good ideas on do’s, don’ts and maybes of purchasing, serving, ordering and enjoying.
From insights into how to hold your wine glass, to a guide to the best values in restaurant wine lists, to when to actually smell the cork (spoiler alert: never), it’s filled with valuable thoughts. (I have spent countless wasted hours trying to convince my daughters to hold a wine glass by its stem, as Kevin Zraly taught me. Perhaps this piece will convince them.)
I have absolutely no actual rationale for including this information in a blog devoted to small businesses and creativity. But as Shakespeare said, “…good wine, good welcome, can make good people.” And occasionally good ideas.
This year, even with the recent East Coast weather disaster, many of us still found much to be thankful for. And scores of websites, tweets and blogs will celebrate the many individual reasons for giving thanks.
So I will provide this offbeat thanks to you: be thankful I didn’t share this website with you sooner.
It is more addictive than gummies and dried pineapple (rings, not chunks).
Original Author: Mike Horvath New version by jacobolus (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
If you like ideas, then you also like gadgets. And while I have no scientific evidence to back up that statement, it is at least as accurate as most of the pre-election polls were.
So I know you will get a kick out of this idea, though it is only a concept at present. This color picker pen enables colors to be scanned and then immediately used for drawing. As the site says, “The sensor detects the color and matches it to the color display, then the RGB cartridge located within the pen mixes the inks together to create the color that has been scanned.” Good idea, isn’t it?
Then I discovered another site, with 14 other innovative pen/pencil concepts. From the T&T Pen-Ink Chamber—which doubles the amount of ink in a pen, by making the cartridge a spiral—to a marker that stays crisp and clear when wet so it will write through water.
Despite compelling evidence to the contrary, I am not a pen fanatic. But boy do I like good ideas, of every form, technique and category.
So, if you are a fan of Stephen Sondheim, you should check out the works of Frank Loesser. As with Sondheim, Loesser started out writing just the lyrics, then did both words and music in the 40s, 50s and 60s for shows such as Guys and Dolls, The Most Happy Fella and Where’s Charlie. Like Sondheim, Loesser never repeated himself; each show was completely different in tone, style and subject matter.
(I feel awkward using only their last names, but would be more uncomfortable with the implied familiarity of using their first names, or adding “Mr.” Any advice?)
The way this post ties in with Valentine’s Day is that I really love Sondheim and Loesser's work.
And the way it ties into good marketing ideas is the way NBC used a song from Loesser's How To Succeed In Business Without Really Trying for their Super Bowl promo. If you missed it, here's a link, since NBC won't let anyone embed the promo (but let's hope it means Community is coming back.)
Never use a verb other than "said" to carry dialogue.
Never use an adverb to modify the verb "said”…he admonished gravely.
Keep your exclamation points under control. You are allowed no more than two or three per 100,000 words of prose.
Never use the words "suddenly" or "all hell broke loose."
Use regional dialect, patois, sparingly.
Avoid detailed descriptions of characters.
Don't go into great detail describing places and things.
Try to leave out the part that readers tend to skip.
If you don’t recognize the name of the author, Elmore Leonard, you surely know his books and films, such as Get Shorty, Hombre, Out of Sight. Along with his latest credit, the TV series Justified, based on the U.S. Marshal character he created, Raylan Gibbons.
He has formulated ten rules of writing, that, although designed for writers of fiction, are interesting for anyone who puts pen to paper, or keyboard to computer screen. And certainly his last ‘rule’ applies to any marketing material you may be creating.
It’s only reasonable for me to share what I consider to be funny with you. It’s one way for you to decide if you agree with the way I look at things in general, including my viewpoint regarding good ideas in particular. (Just as with creating humor, generating good ideas often consists of unexpected new ways of putting ordinary elements together.)
So here is something that popped up on my TV screen that I thought was unexpectedly, unintentionally hilarious.
The juxtaposition of two names, (Gain, a laundry detergent, and Jenny Craig, a weight loss program) when the announcer said, during a station promo, “Brought to you by Gain and Jenny,” just struck me as hilarious, and worthy of being included in one of the New York Times advertising columnist Stuart Elliott’s “ 20 questions about advertising” columns.
You may not agree that the coincidence of the two names was funny. And you may not agree that when your bank contacts you to let you know that they are shortening the hours you can access your safe deposit box, and their letter starts off, “In order to serve you better…” is comical.
And you may not even agree that when you are in a crowded, stuffy, stalled New York subway car, and the electronic lady’s voice tells you to “Have a nice day” there is an element of humor.
But you must agree that I have gotten a rather interesting blog post out of a very flimsy premise.
Try to follow this logic, flawed though it may be. If you read this blog you are interested in ideas. If you are interested in ideas, you enjoy the way people use graphics and words. And if you like words, there is something you probably find fascinating about wit and a sense of humor.
Which I guess is an admission that I really love a well-fashioned turn of phrase, for its cleverness and for its grace, especially for insults. I am not talking about those who resort to boorish vulgarities or clichéd epithets. As Dorothy Parker said, Wit has truth in it; wisecracking is simply calisthenics with words."
So here is a list someone has put together (if it’s yours, please let me know so I can credit you), of some classic rejoinders and put downs that made me smile. If any of them provoke the same response in you, I consider this a blog well done.
• The exchange between Churchill & Lady Astor: She said, "If you were my husband I'd give you poison." He said, "If you were my wife, I'd drink it."
• A member of Parliament to Disraeli: "Sir, you will either die on the gallows or of some unspeakable disease." "That depends, Sir," said Disraeli, "whether I embrace your policies or your mistress."
• "He had delusions of adequacy." - Walter Kerr
• "He has all the virtues I dislike and none of the vices I admire." - Winston Churchill
• "I have never killed a man, but I have read many obituaries with great pleasure." Clarence Darrow
• "He has never been known to use a word that might send a reader to the dictionary." - William Faulkner (about Ernest Hemingway).
• "I didn't attend the funeral, but I sent a nice letter saying I approved of it." - Mark Twain
• "He has no enemies, but is intensely disliked by his friends. - Oscar Wilde
• "I feel so miserable without you; it's almost like having you here." - Stephen Bishop
• "I've just learned about his illness. Let's hope it's nothing trivial." - Irvin S. Cobb
• "He is not only dull himself; he is the cause of dullness in others." - Samuel Johnson
• "His mother should have thrown him away and kept the stork." - Mae West
• "Some cause happiness wherever they go; others, whenever they go. - Oscar Wilde
• "He uses statistics as a drunken man uses lamp-posts ... for support rather than illumination." - Andrew Lang (1844-1912)
• "I've had a perfectly wonderful evening. But this wasn't it." - Groucho Marx
• “He has all the spontaneity of a Supreme Court decision.” - Jay Heyman
You make the phone call, though it’s the fifth time you have
left the same voice mail. You text the potential client (again). You spend more time
and money on the proposal than you really should, because, as in every one of
the prior examples, you say to yourself, “Hey, you never know.”
Well, guess what…most of the time, you do know. You do know
you have less chance of getting a positive result than you do of getting hit by
the lottery. In your heart of hearts, wherever that is, you realize the odds
are really stacked against you. You even know that if you do win the bid, it
will be a bad fit. But in the battle of avarice vs. logic, greed will win every
time.
So, you rationalize. You’re not that busy, someone has to
win, the more pitches you are in the more likely you are to win one of them, it’s
a valuable exercise.
That’s one reason I keep blogging every Monday, Wednesday and
Friday. A reader may decide to publish my next book, or make a movie out of my
last one. Someone may suddenly give my ad agency a big account. A Paris
corporation may want me to give a series of talks, which will require meetings
at the hotel Lutetia.
I liked this sign promoting the new issue of the Zagat survey restaurant guide. But it got me thinking of dinosaurs.
Which is what I think their print issue is, or will soon become. Though it is the most recent edition, it is already out of date, since restaurants have opened, closed, hired new chefs, etc. since it was printed. The Internet offers easier access, more up to date restaurant guides, food blogs, foodie discussions, actual menus featuring diner opinions and links to restaurant web sites than any print edition can hope to match. And most are free. (Zagat online is an exception; it requires a paid subscription.)
Okay. Enough about Zagat. What about you? Where are you on the endangered species list? And what are you going to do about it? Do your products feature the latest technology? Are you offering 512M flash drives in an 8 gigabyte world? Do you have a phone tree for customer service that has more pushes than a cold blackjack table in Vegas?
And is your marketing antediluvian? Are you taking advantage of modern selling tools, podcasts, social networking, pay per click? They may not be right for you, but you should at least be aware of them, their strengths and weaknesses. Sure, they are just the mechanics, and you still need to first have your good idea. But aside from the classic cocktail, old-fashioned is not where you want to be.
Seth Godin is the main marketing guru, and has written more books on marketing than I have read in total the past year. Though I have never met him, I have seen him speak on TED, follow his blog every day, have always been very impressed with his energy, style and insights, and am always jealous when I go to a bookstore and see his many facings in the marketing section nestled near my solitary spine.
Yet I am puzzled. He recently announced, on his blog, his formation of a members-only "Tribe." It is, and I quote, "A tribe for marketers, for leaders, for those focused on building communities or creating products or spreading ideas. This online community will live on a site we've created that will feature blogs, forums, social networking, comments, photos, videos and a job board. And it's by invitation only until October. Spots are limited and early members get privileges and bragging rights."
Okay, seems interesting, has all the right marketing calls to action, such as invitation only, exclusive, limited time, only on my blog, for leaders, privileges for early enrollment. But I share a concern that was also mentioned on MediaBistro/Agency Spy. As Seth points out, "It's not about selling more books, of course, it's about creating a small hurdle to get the right people in the door."
Well, it seems to be that someone as marketing savvy and intelligent as Seth could have figured out a method of creating a small hurdle that did not involve purchasing his book, if it were really not about selling more books. And the fact that he thought it necessary to say it was not about selling more books, even adding "of course," reinforces to me that it is about selling more books.
It may be a great way to do it, and another wonderful Seth marketing idea. And the Tribe might be a fantastic community. But couldn't the hurdle be a contribution to a charity? Or the title page from one of his previous books? Or, well, Seth is better at this than I am. But I somehow feel these are the types of comments Seth would make if he saw the same idea and hurdle on someone else's blog. What do you think?
(Photo credit: Wikipedia)
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