Marketing Secrets

I saw an absolutely brilliant post by Seth Godin today. These top ten marketing tips account for nine of the obstacles I'm dealing with right now. The tenth - budget - fortunately isn't my problem on this one, although I am going to be looking out for those bright coloured alarm bells.

I'm trying to decide whether the image of a company, its history, its values and ambition are best represented by a mission statement or by a human being.

It's easier to follow a guideline as they are not the moving targets CEOs invariably are, but I can't help feeling it's much more human to follow a leader.

Also what happens when the PR agency comes up with the mission statement? Who gets the identity-kudos then? I might be wrong here, but my gut feeling is that a physical point of reference is easier to focus on than a slick slogan.

Now all that's left to do is convince "them"......

Last night a filter saved my life...

I'm having trouble with Gator news.

Learning to navigate through a new program or service is bad enough, cramming all that information into a single day is asking too much of myself.

My eyes are bigger than my mind.

Is St. Francis online??

I'm still in awe over my Umbria trip. There's always going to be a natural affinity between a Brit and that region of Italy. Hey, I'm no different the the next guy!

This week has been a sort of awakening. Seth repeats Nike's Mantra and he's right. When you do start something, the rest just can't stop itself from falling on you.

On the one hand I'm still finding my way around the blogosphere, carefully tiptoeing from blog to blog in a vain attempt to see life from the outside. On the other I have learnt that sometimes, people you are taught to fear are often your greatest allies.

High profile social media is like the main event at a Las Vegas a boxing event. Yet for every testosterone-filled thug bulldozing his (so far not her) way through other people's reputations, there are just as many willing to stick their own necks out for you.

Umbria was magical, but the blogosphere is even more surprising.

Umbria and the long tail of tourism

Assisi 10,
originally uploaded by lingolook.

Shel gets his baggage sent to Azerbaijan, we get to bask in the fabulous Italian Indian Summer in Umbria.

Umbria is just south of Tuscany, and shares quite a bit with its famous neighbour.

Yet as it isn't Tuscany, there are far, far fewer tourists (although we did have to wade through thousands of American and German faithful in Assisi).

Which got us thinking. OR me at any rate. If I were looking for somewhere to escape to, somewhere to take my wife when we've had enough, I would choose the long tail of Italian tourism every time. It worked this week-end, why wouldn't it work again?

But as there isn't an aggregator, a collective, personal view of long tail tourism for runaway parents, maybe we just stumbled on an idea...

Anything to get out of Milan really ;-)

Scratching the surface

I'm impressed. I never imagined blogging could be the new realm of like-minded professionals but this social medium has uprooted and tossed aside my fear of identifying myself and has, once and for all, demonstrated that even someone as far out on the long tail as me can add considerable weight to the debate.

I am a ghost writer. More than simply writing in someone else's shadow, for the majority of my clients, I simply do not exist. I've been hidden away for so long I almost forgot my identity. But then along came a spider, sat down beside her, and scared my fear away.

There is something magical about the moment something clicks. The instant it dawns on you that what you have been doing so far was just scratching the surface, and that if you push a little harder, you can actually overcome obstacles you'd become so used to they have become part of your scenery.

Call it inspiration, call it discovery but from where I stand, that moment is happening right now. What's really strange, is that the biggest encouragement has come from one of my client's single largest competitors.

This form of encouragment is, I believe, a clear demonstration of just how important mutual professional respect is for healthier comptetition and, ultimately, a better relationship with the market as a whole.

So many thanks to Richard for his unexpected yet thoroughly appreciated comments both on and off the beaten track.