• Be Remarkable

    Posted on February 22nd, 2012 by and currently 11 commenting.

    A man sat in a metro station in Washington DC and started to play the violin; it was a cold January morning. He played six Bach pieces for about 45 minutes. During the rush hour, it was estimated that more than 2,000 people passed him, most on their way to work.

    Three minutes after he started playing, a middle-aged man noticed the musician. He slowed his pace and stopped for a few seconds, then hurried on. A minute later, the violinist received his first dollar tip. The woman threw the money in the hat without stopping and continued on her way. A few minutes later, a man leaned against the wall to listen, but then glanced at his watch and started to walk again. Clearly he was late for work.

    The person who paid the most attention to the musician was a three year-old boy. His mother was rushing him along, but the child stopped to look at the violinist. So the mother nudged the child forward and the child continued to walk – turning his head back toward the musician along the way. This scenario was repeated by again and again by several other children. All the parents, without exception, forced their children to keep walking, hurry up and move on.

    In the 45 minutes the musician played only six people stopped and stayed for a while. About twenty gave him money, but continued walking on. The musician collected $32 in total. When he finished playing and silence took over, no one noticed it. No one applauded, nor was there any recognition.

    The violinist was Joshua Bell, one of the most renowned musicians in the world. Two days before the subway serenade, Joshua Bell sold out at a theater in Boston at a seat price of $100 per ticket. That morning in the subway station, Bell had played one of the most intricate pieces ever written on a violin worth 3.5 million dollars.

    Joshua Bell’s incognito performance in the metro station was organized by the Washington Post as part of a social experiment about perception, taste and priorities of people. They sought to answer several questions. Mainly, in a  commonplace environment at an inappropriate hour do we perceive beauty? Will we stop to appreciate it? Do we recognize the talent in an unexpected context?

    If people do not have a moment to stop and listen to one of the best musicians in the world playing the best music ever written, how many other things are we missing?

    In a busy world, message matters. It is estimated that on any given day we are exposed to 3,500 to 5,000 marketing messages. Is your brand Joshua Bell playing for a sold out crowd? Or are you just a guy in the metro playing a violin?

    In order to thrive YOU MUST BE REMARKABLE. In order to be remarkable, YOU MUST CREATE REMARKABLE EXPERIENCES FOR OTHERS. You must have passion and a point of view. You must elevate people, invite them to the table and empower them to share your story – by making your story their story, too.


  • Courageous Marketing.

    Posted on February 21st, 2012 by and currently 4 commenting.

    Years ago someone added a word to my title at Brains on Fire. And overnight, quietly and without fanfare, I became the Courageous President of Brains on Fire.

    It gets a laugh when I’m introduced at speaking gigs and meetings.

    Even though I admit I like the smile it produces, it’s more. It’s a one word mantra, and a constant reminder to myself. To be fearless. To follow my heart. To choose the path uncharted. To say yes. To listen harder. To keep an open heart. To dream big, crazy dreams. To trust people. To trust my gut. To speak from my heart. To find forgiveness against all odds. It can mean many, many things depending on the day.

    I Believe I can Fly ( flight of the frenchies). Trailer from sebastien montaz-rosset on Vimeo.

    Last week, this video (thanks to our very own @bethdelo) reminded me that being courageous also means doing what makes your heart sing. Yup…

    Being courageous means telling yourself the truth and doing what makes you truly happy.

    Someone sent me a note recently about something they heard on NPR about happiness. It was wise words from a 89 year old man:

    “In my 89 years, I’ve learned that happiness is a choice, not a condition.”

    Since I’m always talking about happiness, emotions and things like courage, I want to share why I think those topics matter so much in this new world of marketing we’re living in.

    In this crazy, swirling, wonderful,fast-changing, connected world of ours, all of us in marketing need to add “courageous” in front of our titles.

    Organizations must to be courageous to succeed. We all need to remind ourselves these things:

    To be fearless. To follow our hearts. To choose the path uncharted. To say yes. To listen harder. To keep an open heart. To dream big, crazy dreams. To trust people (our customers and our employees). To trust our guts. To speak from our hearts. To find forgiveness against all odds. And more importantly we need remind ourselves to find our purpose and fly that banner high. Because happy organizations grow.

    Be brave. Be happy. Be fearless. CHOOSE happiness. Become a Courageous Marketer.

  • Fandom Acts of Fanatics

    Posted on February 17th, 2012 by and currently 0 commenting.

    We are the stories we tell… being a part of a great story compels us to share.

    photo credit Birmingham News

    We are the stories we tell – and being a part of a great story compels us to share.

    Meet Alabama Freshman Jackson Blankenship, a University of Alabama basketball fan. A fan willing to really be a part of the story.

    While most fans shout, yell or make a handwritten sign to interrupt an opposing player’s attention, Jackson does something remarkable. He puts himself into the story in a big way by holding up a giant, bug-eyed cut out of himself. You might call it funny (or maybe frightening.) Icall it awesome.

    I can’t think of a team, or a brand that wouldn’t want a fanatic like Jackson, willing to share their passion in authentic, original ways. But, that’s easier said than done. Fans come at a price. They share what’s authentic tothem, it falls on us to accept these actions.

    A wise client once told me “let’s be fans of our fans.” What a whack on the head. Wouldn’t it be awesome for the Alabama basketball team to return the love, and become a fan for Jackson Blankenship

    I’ll close with Jackson’s twitter bio. It’s classic: “publicly embarrassing myself since 1992.” Jackson, I hope you keep doing it.

  • Popsicles, Sparklers and Creative Inspiration

    Posted on February 1st, 2012 by and currently 4 commenting.

    Life through the lens of our dear friend Libby Williams

    Last weekend the weather was delightfully warm here in Greenville. The sun was shining, the birds were singing – it felt like spring. On one of several strolls with my dog, I came across three little boys playing with a box in their front yard. As I watched them play, it was obvious the box was not just a box. It was a fort, a playhouse, a tank, an infinite number of possibilities limited only by their imaginations.

    My Saturday stroll was a good reminder of how differently we think as children. When kids look at a box, they don’t just see a box – they see possibilities. They see a box not as it is – but for everything it could be. Childhood is an infinite summer (even when it’s just a winter reprieve in late January.) As time marches on, we begin thinking more concretely. We see a box where we see a box. Our days cease to be defined by quickly melting popsicles and tire swings, bellyflops and neighborhood games of “Kick-the-Can.” We begin to mark our days and months with rituals of responsibility – bills paid, inboxes cleaned out, items marked off our TO DO list. Slowly, in a little boat for one, we allow the splishing and splashing of the tide to draw us out into the sea of adulthood, drifting further and further away from fun, imagination and possibility.

    For the creative adult, we spend most of our lives trying to find a way to return to the eternal summer of childhood. A place where the mind and imagination work in harmony – one challenging the other to be better, do more and dream bigger. A time when mistakes were nothing to be feared, just a spark for improvisation. A moment when night writing with wildly twinkling sparklers made all of us feel like the poet laureate of our front yard.

    Hemingway once said, “The thing is to become a master and in your old age to acquire the courage to do what children did when they knew nothing.” I am inclined to agree.

    Today I’m encouraging all of us to think differently. Tap into our imaginations. Change up the drive home. Stand on our heads. Challenge yourself to see something you’ve seen a thousand times before in a new light. Try to describe the taste of  a strawberry. Pick up a piece of sidewalk chalk and write a love letter to someone in your life. Practice seeing possibility instead of accepting reality. Find your inner child and give him/her a spin on the tire swing.

    It’s Wednesday, after all.

    ps: I stumbled across this video over the weekend. A look at well-known logos through the eyes of a 5-year-old. If you haven’t seen it – take a peek. And enjoy.

  • Roll Call Time, Again.

    Posted on January 20th, 2012 by and currently 23 commenting.


    I have done this before, and I cherished your responses. So let’s do it again. AND the photo above is LIBBY. Thought you might like seeing a face behind the beautiful photos we often use on our blog.

    Remember your childhood days in school, when the teacher called out everyone’s name and you said “Present”.

    I did this once a while back and enjoy hearing from you so much I decided to do it every six months or so. So, will you humor me again today?

    I often look at the numbers of people who read our blog and on top of being amazed, I wonder:

    “Who’s out there? Who is present today? What do you do? And what do you like reading about?” So we can do more of that.

    And since I don’t have YOUR names to call, let’s do a backward version of roll call. Come on. It will be fun. Check in, say hello, tell me a little bit about you. Whatever you are comfortable doing, saying or not saying is fine with me.

    If you are feeling brave and to make it a bit more interesting, give me one sentence to let me know one thing you did this week that made the work you do in the world more meaningful, happy and/or productive. What has made you proud of you lately.

    Me? I taking more time to write real letters. (You know the ink on paper kind?) And it has been making ME feel connected in a way I can’t explain. Try it!

    Happy Friday!

    Now, don’t be shy. Let’s take a moment and just be “present” together.

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