September 24, 2006
Clippings from the BetterComms Garden
Shel is ‘on the money’ again with regards to CEO blogs. In passing, he cites Dr. Henry Mintzberg as someone who has studied senior leaders. For organisational/organizational psychologists Mintzberg is a BIG figure! I was presenting a poster at an international convention of psychologists in Montreal many years ago (after which I wanted to move there, it was so beautiful a city, plus it was the home of Cirque du Soleil and other circuses, PLUS they have — or at least back in 1995 had — an amazing understanding of how to keep teenage boys out of trouble) and everyone was dropping Minztberg’s name.
Says Shel:
About 20 years ago, I met a successful Fortune 500 CEO of a thriving company who was speaking at a conference. I’ve never forgotten what he told the audience. The initials CEO may stand for Chief Executive Officer, he said, but they also stand for “Customers, Employees, and Owners.”
Oh yea, tell it like it really is, Shel!
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Our Nev has a great link off to an amazing e-report/white paper. Fard Johnmar has written a phenomenal paper on why social media is so important to businesses. Granted, Fard focuses on the health industry, but the lessons are apposite to all. I will be emailing this pdf paper to all of my contacts — it really IS that good! Thanks, Nev, for finding it.
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Today is OneWebDay.
What it means to me:
- Words fail me to describe the richness that has enveloped, engulfed and enlarged my life.
- Without the web I would never have found the IABC, Shel, Neville, Donna PepsiCola, Donna Tocci, Allan, Dan, Ben, BadgerDan, the divine Miss Heidi, Andrea (who is closer to my heart and prayers than she may realise), Kami, Douglas Fortesque Arbuthnot and his wife Jen, Trevor Cook, Paull Young, Crescenzo, Rubel, Scoble, Stibbe, Robert French and the marcom students, Ross Monaghan, and a thousand other folks who have immeasurably enriched my life
- Without the internet and its technologies I never would have ‘found’ and been able to interact with such incredible business communicators like Amy Gooen, Brad Bellaver (formerly of The Memo), Catriona Byrne, Isobel Redmond, Meryl David, Peter Vogt, and others who have/are going to be interviewed by me about ‘communication’ and why it is so important to business and indeed family life.
- Finding ‘my home’, where I have never felt so ‘at home’ before. It has enabled me to find a rag-tag collection of like-minded souls across multiple disciplines and world views. Adelaide was always too small a world to encompass my world view — no one here could encompass such diversity as Status Quo, Led Zeppelin, Cold Chisel, Midnight Oil, Tom Waits, The Police and Sting, Ryuichi Sakamoto, Howard Jones, Peter Gabriel at his darkest and my all-time musical ‘hero’, Thomas Dolby.
- Finding my ‘passion’. I was an avid songwriter, moving to the UK to ‘try my hand’ at the big time. I didn’t make it but perhaps unsurprisingly once I accepted my ‘failure’ and removed the pressure of ‘making it’ I wrote my best material. I love desktop publishing and writing lyrics and music, but nothing has fired my creativity and passion so much as the global conversation that is the internet. It enables me to tap into every single one of my passions (I occasionally play my own music in the background of my FIR reports) and develop and grow them to greater heights of ecstacy than ever before.
I feel like the Blue Nile, who I am currently listening to. I have been a devoted follower of them since their first album, A Walk Across The Rooftops. Every now and then I pull one of their cds out of my collection and remind myself why they are every romantic British-er’s band. As they say in their own biography, people have either every Blue Nile cd in their collection or they’ve never heard of them.
I remember having dinner with one of my then Professors at Surrey Uni, John Groeger, who had just recently discovered Walk Across The Rooftops. I felt duty-bound to put him onto the then newly-released Hats, with the proviso that if he thought a couple of tracks on ‘Rooftops’ were ‘emotionally touching and humbling’, wait until he heard ‘Hats’.
The Blue Nile, having released just four albums in 21 years, recognise that everyone has their ‘Tinsletown in the Rain’, their ‘Family Life’, their ‘From a Late Night Train’ (my late night train is a woman called Jenny Boulter). I can track my love life, and by extension my life, by these songs, as I equally can by Tom Waits‘ songs.
The internet, for me, is a powerful part of my life and who Lee Hopkins is. To think of Lee Hopkins without the internet is to think of Lee Hopkins prior to 1994. Some of my wonderful friends, who I have known since school days and we are a very close knit bunch (do your beloved friends stretch back 35+ years?) sometimes forget that I am not the brash, vodka-drinking teenager I used to be. I’m a late 40-something vodka drinker…
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Glenn Reynolds continues his marvellous series of posts on the magic and perspicacity of comics. Mandatory reading if you believe that connecting with your audience, by what ever means available, is important…
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Steve Crescenzo. The most funking amazing blogger I have ever come across, because he lays himself wiiiiiiiiide open and wears his heart on his sleeve. I used to get in all sorts of trouble for wearing my heart on my sleeve (”pansy”, “gay”, “faggot”, “not a real man”) because I had emotions. So I learnt to bottle them up, play the corporate game, be ‘the man’.
Then comes Crescenzo, who has more credibility and absolute adoration amongst those who have heard him speak than anyone I know of. And he wears his humanity, his failings and his heart on his sleeve, right there in the open for people to gawp, to snigger, to ridicule, to mock, to vilify.
But in this age of ‘conversation’ he is a hero. Perhaps largely because his is such a beguiling, engaging, funny speaker (says everyone who has ever seen him talk — I am yet to have the privilege). I envy him his honesty, his integrity, his guts. Were we all like him…
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Seth Godin, the marketer’s marketer, asks the question that every business that’s been around a while should ask:
Where are the talented individuals and small firms that want a closed-end engagement… not to completely redesign a site that’s working, not to do any coding, but just to mess with the html and css a bit.
To take their learning from many clients and figure out that this works better than that.
We consultants equally ask, “Where are the clients who recognise the value in moving past an internet business model that is two years of out date?” “Where are the clients who recognise that the internet world moves on and their website needs updating more than just a colour and logo change?”
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Rubel points to yet another bit of ‘cluelessness’ by the company that has done so much to bring “Oooh, ahh!!” coolness factor to modern technology — Apple.
It seems that Apple are yet again firmly bent on annyoing the buggery out of ordinary citizens and trying to alienate the vast populace. They want to own the term ‘podcast‘, it seems. Good luck with that!! Is there any limit to the depth to which Apple’s lawyers and PR people will fail to understand the marketplace they so dominate?
Stumble it!
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13 Responses to “Clippings from the BetterComms Garden”
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September 24th, 2006 at 9:28 am
To be mentioned in the same post as Midnight Oil and most of my favorite bloggers is pretty heady stuff!
I’m just home from a dinner with Eric Schwartzman & some of the Copenhagen geekosphere. Odd how often your name turns up at these events. And, generally, in a positive way.
September 24th, 2006 at 10:46 am
Well, I hope you put them straight, mate!
You going to blog about the dinner? Me, I’d give my son’s right arm to be at a dinner like that!
September 24th, 2006 at 10:09 pm
Lee:
Thanks for being so personal in writing about how the Web has changed your life. It’s certainly put us in touch, and I’m grateful for that. I never knew that writing music was one of your passions - excellent! Maybe you could write the next round of jingles for FIR?
September 25th, 2006 at 3:50 am
I’m sitting here at the Orlando airport killing time due to a flight delay and I read your wonderful post. Thanks for the kind thoughts Lee!
September 25th, 2006 at 4:49 am
Now, THAT’s funny, BryPer!
September 26th, 2006 at 8:58 am
Bry — you know how some people ‘compose’ music? Well, close friends reckon I ‘decompose’ music… [grin]
Andrea — thank you!! {smile}
Allan — I’m sending Lenny & Stinky out after you, mate! Watch your back and get your little floral perfumed hanky ready to mop your tears, nancy boy!
September 26th, 2006 at 9:29 am
Sending Lenny & Stinky after me because I don’t like FIR jingles? Well, color me puckered. It’s just that sort of day. Oh, by the way, remember to send your FedEx info… last time, it cost a fortune to send them home to you.
September 28th, 2006 at 6:46 am
Lee:
I enjoy your spots on FIR greatly. Thanks for talking about the e-book and I’m glad you found it helpful.
September 28th, 2006 at 9:29 am
G’day Fard — your white paper is fantastic, mate! Thank you for your very kind comments about my FIR segment — you should also check out Allan Jenkins’ and my chats at http://www.commscafe.com
Cheers,
Lee
October 4th, 2006 at 10:41 am
[...] I recently commented about Steve Crescenzo’s ability to both educate with and ‘personalise’ through his blogposts. Steve wrote to me to thank me and kindly commented that he is a fan of my own writing style — which is similar to his but nowhere near as expressive, powerful and wise. [...]
October 5th, 2006 at 3:04 am
[...] A few weeks ago, I announced that I published an e-book, “From Command & Control To Engage & Encourage” designed to help players in the healthcare industry get a handle on social media. I’ve been very happy with the response to the e-book and honored that people like Nedra Weinreich, Toby Bloomberg, Neville Hobson, Lee Hopkins and Dmitriy Kruglyak have found it helpful and recommended it to others. [...]
November 29th, 2006 at 7:06 pm
[...] Rousseau returns shel is on the money again with regards to ceo blogs. in passing, he cites dr. henry mintzberg as someone who has studied senior leaders. for organisational/organizational psychologists mintzberg is a big figure! i was presenting a …Read more: here [...]
December 2nd, 2006 at 5:59 pm
[...] Read more: here [...]