Field Notes

My team rocks Normally, I post things I find interesting or educational. For today, I want to brag and reflect on how awesome our creative team at work really is. We are inches away from shipping our latest project, a mixed book of case studies and a short story. Just this morning, I hear from a very important supplier of ours. His email subject said, “sorry, I need to throw in the towel on this one.” We commissioned him to help us with some pretty detailed stuff and with only hours before we were scheduled to go to press, he admitted he wasn’t going to be able to pull through. While this was pretty uncharacteristic, considering all of the crazy life events he’s faced recently, I wasn’t surprised. ...

The greatest responsibility of a project manager I’ve shipped tons of creative projects, both on my own and as part of a team. Working with others is always more rewarding and always much more of a challenge. You have to make trade-offs when you work on a team. You have to be accountable to others on the team. As a project manager, you have to manage the contributions and expectations of team members, customers and partners. Amidst all these jobs of a project manager, you have one that stands on its own as the most critical. ...

Education is the new marketing The chief job of a marketer is to generate trust with a group of people on behalf of a brand. As Seth Godin points out in this conversation with Gary Vaynerchuk, to get trusted you need attention. How do you get attention in a world where we can’t skip ads fast enough? Lots of different methods exist. I’m noticing brands building consistent, valuable and generous lecture content to teach people something. Not a bad idea. ...

On being right When fixing a problem with a machine, there is always a right answer. There is always a bug to be fixed. It doesn’t mean it’s always easy to find, but there is an end to the search eventually. People problems don’t have consistent answers. What works with one person may not with another. This is one of the main reasons I think engineering types dislike doing sales and marketing work. ...

What’s the difference between an intrapreneur and entrepreneur? Who cares? As soon as some of these startup enthusiasts find out I work in a corporation, they either apologize or look for a way out of the conversation. It’s like all of a sudden they think we are on two different sides of the planet. They act like there’s no way I could comprehend all the troubles they must encounter working in a startup. Sure, there are differences. This Forbes article attempts to highlight some. The article is very thought-provoking, but I’d like to expand on the four points the original author makes with my own experiences. ...

The key ingredients of a good story… I’ve been in a bit of a story-writing frenzy this week. We have a big deadline to meet for a corporate client that involves several story vignettes for each team. The challenge is making sure we have honest, compelling, interesting and short stories ready for print by next week. All this story-writing has made me think more about my approach. Figured I’d share a few things I find helpful when drafting (and re-drafting) stories. ...

You don’t get paid just for being good at something You just graduated school. You are ready to begin your creative journey. Yes, we get it. You can code. You are an expert design thinker. You can draw. You can take pictures. You are so talented. Why must this greedy corporation insist on paying you that entry-level salary? Don’t they know your worth? Don’t they know how much skill you have? ...

My Complicated relationship with “sweat equity” Working in corporate America and being very involved in the startup community means I can’t help but notice some similarities between the two. Both seem to fall in love with $2 words like innovation. You don’t release prototypes anymore; they’re MVPs*. Startups love to “disrupt.” Corporates are busy “transforming.” No matter which world you occupy, it still comes down to a bunch of people trying to stamp their version of a better world on us. It’s necessary. It’s beautiful. It’s messy and I love it. There’s just one distinction I make between the two:* sweat equity*.* ...

Getting below the top layer I took a crack at making my first meal tonight involving roasted garlic - Lemon Orzo Soup. I was challenged to write a blog about marketing and relating it to garlic. I’m going to talk about a marketing tactic that gets used all the time and compare it with this delicious “food enhancer.” The tactic is called euphemism. Its purpose? To get past people’s tough exterior and help them appreciate all the goodness you have to offer. Stay with me on this one… ...

We are this, but not that One of my favorite exercises to do when I help teams with their identity is the “We are this, but not that” game. Business owners tend to have difficulty when it comes to owning their brand. They’ll usually start with the more visible stuff like a logo, a name and some colors they like. But what about after the “new brand smell” starts to wear off? How do you build a brand that goes deeper than these superficial elements? How do you build one that lasts? ...