Expand!

You would not rate the death of a loved one on the same scale as say breaking a cup. The emotion is different; the intensity of the pain varies hugely. Yet when your life is filled with small things the scope for level of intensity narrows immensely.
Everything is so small that the same emotion gets attached to everything. That is why people can become paralysed by the smallest infraction in their little world.
A few years back in the UK a drivers’ strike caused panic buying by people who feared massive food shortages (they obviously knew nothing about Zimbabwe).
A woman in the supermarket was overheard complaining that “there is no butter!” because her particular brand had run out, despite there being 10 brands available. Small thing. Narrow world.
It is the perspective that matters. You can choose to focus on the pebbles on the path or you can look to the top of the mountain you are climbing and imagine the view from the top. Keep small in its place. And let the small help you accomplish the big, not the other way around.

A Coffee Experience

Follow the story of Thou Mayest Coffee Roasters as reported by Emerging Ideas. Some great lessons on bootstrapping, a vision and some excellent coffee.

How to Build an Oscar Winning Business

It was with tumultuous joy and celebration that I went off to the newly refurbished Eastgate movie house to watch a 3D movie. Not just any movie, mind you, but a recent release less than a month after its US release date. Well done to the crew at Ster-Kinekor. They not perfect yet (I had a glitch at the ticketing system) but they are making a stand for the way things should be. The movie was excellent, the theatres clean and the popcorn good. It is with great pleasure that I shall watch their effect on the pirate movie scene. I had already spotted a copy of the film I watched at the flea market happily promising an impossible 'DVDrip' quality. I don't know about you, but I would much rather pay a dollar extra to watch a flick on the big screen than trying to make out the sound on a poorly-recorded, ripped version. Ster-Kinekor have set their pricing most competitively and are using social media to market what is coming out. Should they continue to provide up-to-date movies they will continue to have my support.

The movie in question that I went to see was the much acclaimed, first instalment of 'The Hobbit'. Based on the book by J. R. R. Tolkein, at the time of writing it has generated nearly USD500 million in revenue (against an estimated budget of 300 million) and has lived up to the hype and expectation surrounding it. Which brings us to the question 'What makes a successful movie?' Note that I said successful and not great, sorry to all the 'Twi-hard' fans in the world but the Twilight franchise is successful, not great (but that is a matter of personal opinion). Many great ideas often fall short because they never go on to be a success and generate enough income to sustain their viability.

Well a successful movie has a good story (well usually). A storyline that can be followed easily, and sustains the suspense till the last credit has rolled off the screen. Basic stories involve a protagonist (the good guy), the antagonist (the bad guy) and a problem to be solved (which creates suspense or you would stop watching). The product you sell is the protagonist in your personal story to solve a problem that your client has (which usually doubles at the antagonist). Include a bit of emotion and you have a potential best seller.

Movie makers have a plan. Most movies have a long planning stage. Budgets, scripts, casting, location choice, shooting schedules, costume design, set design, the list goes on. Too many people start a business with a half-baked plan and then wonder why they end up with a half baked business. Plan properly. If you have never done this before then ask someone.

Successful movies develop a cult following. Once in a while what is considered a 'B grade' film captures a niche market's attention, the first 'Underworld' managed this and was able to spew out sequels based on the initial success. You have a group of core believers that utilise your product to the exclusion of all else. This clique are your best sneezers and the people you can market to. 'The Hobbit''s success can be attributed perhaps to the legion of 'Lord of the Rings' fans that have been awaiting the release date for the last year. In many ways the groundwork for 'The Hobbit' was laid when Peter Jackson first started filming 'The Fellowship of the Ring' a dozen years ago. Which brings us to the next point.

Successful films have an appropriate marketing strategy. The trailer timeline for Jackson's latest saga started nearly a year ago. There has been a year of ingraining the fact that the movie is coming into the world's subconscious for a year or more. The best unexpected marketing however was the disputes over directors and acting guilds that gave the film free publicity in the press. Go study their website and examine all the little bits that are thrown in not just to give you something to do, but to help sustain the image of the movie in your mind. Free ringtones that reinforce anticipation everytime you hear them. Games targeted at people who will appreciate the story. Games targeted at people who won't appreciate the story. Smart marketing. Smart design. It is a SIMPLE website that offers, for the ease of navigation, a huge amount. Has it been a successful website....well USD500 million in under a month tells me that it probably has been.

Success, even the overnight version, is based on conscientious planning and hard-work and some good choices. Let us engage in some more of that this coming year. All the best for 2013 and Happy New Year.

The Icarus Deception

So I am a couple of chapters into Seth Godin's new book (as promised Amazon dropped it into my Kindle this morning) and I am already gripped with excitement. By his own admission he stepped out of his comfort zone to write this, but it is already hitting a chord. He is pointing out a simple truth that we all miss; the world has changed but we have not changed with it, and if we do then it is a liberating experience.

During my childhood I remember a cartoon where the technology of the world failed and a time of magic began. The world today is akin to that. The industrial revolution set boundaries on how like should be and what 'the dream' should be. Those boundaries no longer exist but we still act as though they do.

Now excuse me while I go back to reading.

Happy New Year!

Seth Godin's New Books.

Seth Godin brings out three new books at the end of this year. Rather than try tell you about a book I havn't read yet I'll let his do that here. Preordering mine took 30 seconds on Amazon. Epic. Roll on New Year's Eve.

A good reason not to sue.

How to run into trouble in business.

1. Find a way of creating a cheaper processed food product (think beef).
2. Don't tell the public about it.
3. Sell it to schools, hamburger chains etc who will sell it to an unsuspecting public as 'normal' food
4. Wait for someone else to tell the public about it-especially how it is made
5. Watch someone else make your production process look really really bad
6. Wait for negative public reaction
7. Watch sales plummet
8. Try sue
9. Watch even more negative public reaction

With last weeks news of a worker suing Jamie Oliver for his expose on Lean Finely Textured Beef, otherwise generally called 'pink slime' by its haters, the process has once again been foisted into the limelight. Now people get to read about it all over again, reprocess the feelings of revulsion they felt the first time, and reinforce the decision not to ever buy it again.

How To Avoid Taking Responsibility

Seeing as we are all so good at avoiding responsibility I thought I would help make it easier for you by collecting some of the best ways of blame shifting for us all to use.

Committees, action groups, and investigative boards are a great way to avoid responsibility. Set one up, deliberately do not name a head, give them a vague enough frame of reference (nice technical term that, throwing technical terms around that no one understands is also a great way to shift blame), and when they fail to deliver after consuming a nice padded budget there is no one to blame because the committee will go round in circles pointing fingers at each other.

If you cannot get on a committee or use technical jargon here are a few other ways of avoiding people blaming you for something you should have done. Always have a scapegoat, pick on someone else in the organisation who you can blame, preferably in a different department. Practice the shrug, shrugging your shoulders with a vacant expression on your face is a great way to ignore an issue. It is the non verbal equivalent of “I am not the one” and is guaranteed to send people storming off in a rage, and if they are storming away from you then they are not bothering you are they. Never pick up litter, you did not put it there, you are not the cleaner, it is not your job. Likewise never actually mention to the person littering that the bin is five meters away, again its his litter not yours. Practise the turnabout argument, shift the blame back to the other person like a rapist blaming the rape victim for wearing clothes that were too alluring with an “I raped her because her skirt was too short” type excuse. Blame the equipment, it cannot fight back. Blame Econet/Netone/Telecel, everyone has cellphone issues at some point. Create long and arduous, bureaucratic chains of command. The more steps there are to doing something, the more likely someone else can be blamed. Never, never, never work through a tea break or lunch break to meet a deadline, these are your God given right and must never be sacrificed, you can always blame the poor work hours though cause there is never enough time to do everything.