Pow! Right Between The Eyes! Andy Nulman's Blog About Surprise

Motivation 101

A little Airborne Mobile anecdote today, but an inspiring one. 

Here's a verbatim recounting of a quick conversation I had with Alexei Prosverine, a one-time Russian cosmonaut hopeful who's been doing technical marvels for us almost since our beginning, passing each other near our kitchen the other day.

Me (said perfunctorily):  "Hey Alexei, what's going on?"
Alexei (said with a wide smile): "Everything!"

Hope you enjoy your day, and your job, as much as he seems to.

Exes vs. Innies--The Next Business Battle

At first glance, Dorothy Wetzel's recent commentary piece in Brandweek ("Why ROE Should Be Your New ROI") appeared to be yet another biz op-ed that re-hashes an old idea as a cure for what ails us now that the world economy has gone into the crapper. 

Luckily, I took a second glance.

Dorothy is the Managing Director of Glow Worm, a Publicis Consumer Healthcare company, and is a vet of pharmaceutical marketing.  And while the basic tenet of "Return on Engagement as a marketing tactic" has been oft-discussed (Max Levchin's take on the subject was particularly profound), I think that Dorothy's observations on the difference between company personalities that practice ROE and ROI was eloquent and very bright...and thus bears repeating:

"Put another way, think of ROE as an extrovert and ROI as
an introvert. Extroverts get their energy and ideas through interaction with others, while introverts thrive on inward contemplation.

"An extroverted company, therefore, drives growth by
seeking out and implementing customer ideas, while the introverted company builds sales through analysis"

Love the distinction and the simplicity--the business world divided into two, Introverted and Extroverted.  Three cheers from everybody here at Surprise Central, who know that our core idea and passion is the tool that helps turn the former into the latter.

And stay that way.

Question #2: The Word on Worthiness

Well, I got myself into this last week, so I guess I should continue...

Motivation may have "The Secret"; business has "The Questions."  And the way I see it, there are three of them that need to be answered not just for success, but for the peace of mind that comes with knowing that you're actually doing something positive with your working day...and your working life.

The inspiration for the second question comes from conversations I used to have with my late buddy, comedian Richard Jeni.  A complex man of much introspection, Jeni and I would spend hours on the balcony of his Hollywood high-rise condo, ruminating on how life was a series of trade-offs. 

Trade-offs like:

"Yes, the weather in L.A. is spectacular, but then there are those things called earthquakes."

"Yes, the you can choose not to be sucked up into the vortex of the Hollywood lifestyle, but you'd have to live in some small town in Idaho, and lord knows it's hard to base a showbiz career there."

And on we would go for hours, always coming to the same conclusion: Life is a portfolio--there are wins and losses, and true peace only comes to those who can accept the balance between the two.

So here's Question #2, a quick ponder with mammoth ramifications:

IS THIS WORTH THAT?

Many times, we never ask the question and have to pick up the aftermath pieces of the answer; in other words, "Well, that wasn't worth it..."   Too bad.  Just a little proactivity can prevent a whole maelstrom of post-negativity. 

There is no easy way out, and nothing without consequences.  The current financial meltdown could've benefited big time--and possibly have been avoided--from a little time spent reflecting on Question #2. (Can't say we weren't warned--"Wanna keep your money safe?  Then accept a 3% annual return.  Want more than that?  Gotta take a risk."  Hey, as I said, it's all about trade-offs.) 

Even the basic premise of this blog--creating Surprise--works best with a "Is This Worth That?" filter.   By its very nature, you know that a Surprise is a game changer.  You just have  to decide how much game you want to change. Without it, you're status quo and boring.  But if you go too far... (As I've said before, Surprise is like nitroglycerin; a little bit gets your heart pumping, too much blows up in your face.)

No matter what you do, want to do, are thinking of doing...every action could benefit from a bit of reflection upon the four RED words above that together make up Question #2. 

Frankly, asking it is the easy part.

The tough part is accepting your answers.

So, to re-cap:

Question #1:   What is the gift you give
Question #2:   Is this worth that?
Question #3:   Coming next week

Open Bar!

Charlie Hoehn is a bright young guy (check him out here), and one of the most faithful FOPs out there (another offshoot of my son Aidan's remarkable network).  He's got great taste, and a detective's nose for what's cool.

Like this:

From Japan comes these Barcodes that aren't just artistic and creative, but actually work when scanned.  Decades ago, Mad Magazine ran a piece that actually predicted something like this (don't recall the whole thing, but one barcode had mascot Alfred E. Neuman cutting it like grass), but the fact that the D-Barcode company can make something eye-catching, creative and functional out of the most mundane of imagery once again eliminates excuses for those too lazy or afraid to try something new.

Take this one step further with Limited Edition, "Collector's" or famous artist Barcodes (can you imagine what Takashi Murakami would do?), we could soon see products being purchased not for what they are, but for the scan-able tag stamped upon 'em.

See more of them here. 

And thanks again, Charlie!

Laughing in the Face of Crisis

Gotta love the folks at Kemo Sabe, the outrageously opulent western wear emporium in the tony towns of Vail and Aspen, Colorado. Here's why--

Of the nine Surprise-generating tactics introduced in my upcoming Pow! book, Tactic #7 is one called "Business Stupidity" (the polar opposite of Business Intelligence, I suppose), where you do things so ridiculously wrong, they come out very, very right.  Case in point is the attitude of the aforementioned cowboy outfitter, who goad people into overspending with corporate slogans like:

"Calling all cowboys with 10-gallon wallets!"

Well, you'd figure that with the world of finance imploding, a place like Kemo Sabe would lay low for a while while the dust settles.  But these guys are obviously nasty sidewinders and varmints, who believe that austerity is for sissies.  Yes, they may recognize that the going is tough, but they've got their own special way of dealing with it:

Gutsy, refreshing, ballsy, and double-barreled Pow!  Well done, Kemo Savvy!

Theory 21 and Question #1--Giving The Gift (A Lesson From Len)

My friend Len Blum is a former screenwriter (Private Parts, The Pink Panther to name just two) and a current yoga instructor.  He's also one of the wisest guys I know...and I mean that not in a Mafioso way.

At lunch last week, Len's zen-like manner managed to sum up in six words the solution to the age old problem: how do I sell something?

Before enlightening you, let me put everything into context.  We were discussing a video project he had pitched to an author, who's one and only question to Len was the succinct: "Will it sell books?"

Len's answer to him was simple, and brutally honest:  "I don't know."

That's not the enlightening part.

But as a guy who is overseeing four new product initiatives at Airborne Mobile, not to mention anxiously awaiting the February launch of my oft-mentioned Pow! book, the obsession on how to best sell something--and better still, to know how it will sell in advance--eats away at me incessantly.

So here's what Len said that threw me for a loop:  If you really want to know if what you have is going to sell, ask yourself this:

"WHAT IS THE GIFT YOU GIVE?"

It's really that simple, that profound, and that difficult.  All in one.

What are you giving your customer, your client, your audience, that they will un-wrap?  That they will cherish?  That they will display and show others?  That they will care about?

The gift is not a feature, or a gimmick, or an add-on.  It's the core of the product or service itself.  It's the thing that bonds it to someone who will buy it. And no matter if you're selling something that can slide into a wallet or be too big for an airplane hangar, the gift is not the physicality, but the intangible. 

Too often, we get caught up in systems.  In what has worked before.  In process.  But that was then.  This is now.  And as our financial markets show us, even when we know, we never really learn.

Taking this one step further, it's one of the key integral questions of business (the other two will be the subject of future posts...and perhaps the basis of my next book).  So before you make your next move, no matter what you're selling, ask yourself Question #1:  What is the gift you give?

And if you're not delighted with the answer...you'd better keep shopping

The Power of Pow!--Two More Examples

A little bit of vindy is always a treat, especially when the sources are as mega as Amazon and Seth Godin, who both unleashed a little Surprise in their recent marketing tactics.

Godin, like most authors are wont to do, urged fans and followers to lay down some advance orders his his new book Tribes.  His difference is that not only did the fan boys and girls (of which I am unabashedly one) receive the book from Amazon.com, 800 CEO Read or wherever, on Day One, but they also were sent a Surprise second copy IN ADVANCE of the first, which Le Godin urged recipients to pass along to friends, co-workers, etc.  Great, textbook, unexpected, value-added Pow!

And then there's Amazon, which proved that Surprise tactics are for everyone, no matter how behemothian you may be.  I recently ordered a CD for my son from them, which was followed up with the usual service messages...and then this:

Hello from Amazon.com,
Thanks to the recent purchase(s) you made in the Music store at Amazon.com, you are eligible to receive a 12-issue subscription to Rolling Stone, a $6.48 value.

To receive your 12-issue subscription, please click on the link below, which will direct you to a secure form at Amazon.com where you can sign in to your account, and sign up for your subscription.

What's the catch? None. We're happy to provide our customers with the benefits of partnering with a top magazine publisher. This is a bonus offer, and there is no automatic renewal.

Yeah, yeah...you can say that Amazon is huge and can strong-arm people into giving stuff away like this, or that Godin is the dean of new marketing and will be supported by his publisher in such an expensive undertaking.  But the fact is this:

Neither one HAS TO do this

And even better still:

They both understand THE VALUE in doing this.

So...what's your excuse again?

Pow! The TV Series

Well, close.

The people at 800-CEO-Read, the specialized homestead for business books on the Web, have been very kind to me and to my upcoming Pow! book, and have offered me five months of "behind the scenes/making of a business book" Guest Post promo on the company's influential Daily Blog.

But in true Pow! fashion, the company's dynamic duo of Aaron and Dylan Schleicher and faithful sidekick Kate Mytty threw me a challenge by saying: "Given the nature of your book, we expect it to be different from what anybody else has done."

Here we go again.

Well, the end result starts today, as 800-CEO-Read has posted the first of five Pow! Right Between The Eyes! videos.  Each one focuses on a specific topic, and although kinda tongue-in-cheek, each has a serious underlying theme (hey, it still is a business book after all...).  They're all homemade, written by yours truly and directed my Airborne Mobile's madly creative Scott Brooks (who designed the look of this here blog as well).

The first is about the pressure to have a gimmick to sell business books these days.  So why are you still here?  Click THIS and check out Video #1 right now. 

Talking At You in November

Okay shameless plug time.

A couple of important speaking gigs for yours truly throughout November, starting with another appearance at the Sports Business Journal's Media and Technology Conference on the 19th and 20th, where I'll be talking about the integration of mobile content with sports.  Other folks spouting wisdom there include the legendary sportscaster Jim Nantz, the acerbic President and CEO of Major League Baseball Advanced Media Bob Bowman, and the newly-installed COO of the NHL (a longtime Airborne Mobile client), John Collins. 

The last time I did this event, I went for a jog along the waterfront before my scheduled appearance time, got lost in the gorgeous fall day, and ended up having to appear on stage in my drenched shorts, sweatshirt and Under Armour skull cap.  As goofy as I looked, I must've said something right, because the Sports Business Journal had this to say:

"Call him crazy at your own risk."

Hmmm...wonder what I should wear this time?

Moving right along, a couple of weeks later, on Friday the 28th, I'll be in Vancouver as part of The Art of Sales, alongside best-selling authors like Jeffrey Gitomer, the King of Negotiators Herb Cohen, Frances Cole Jones and Neil Rackham in the prestigious, 2000-seat Centre in Vancouver for Performing Arts.

Scott Kavanagh and his crew have put together a great PDF about the event, which is well worth looking at even if you can't make it there.  Feast your eyes upon it by clicking here.

I'll have the laptop and Berry with me at both gigs, so check in for posts here and Twitter tweets there.

Virgin Kleenex--Tissues as an Emotional Crutch

Okay, there's a serious message coming, but I'll start this post off rather sophomorically by projecting myself back to the hallways of Sir Winston Churchill High, where Kleenex and other tissues were known by the male population of the school as "snot-rags." 

That was the amount of respect we gave these squares of delicate paper.  They were there to do a job, usually a most unpleasant one, and then unceremoniously tossed away.  My crude-ish high school label aside, I suspect your feelings about the product weren't much different than ours. 

Cut to last week's post about Knorr selling soup as colors, to the Pow!-generating tactic of Wearing Virgin Contact Lenses (the ability to look at something familiar as if you've never seen it before)...and maybe you'll find yourself smiling at Kleenex's new ad campaign, which sees it positioned as an emotional crutch.

I'm trying to track down the genesis of the idea, but one of its defining moments had to come, perhaps as the ultimate coincidence, in the late Randy Pausch's best-selling memoir "The Last Lecture," where he describes the moment of learning of his terminal diagnosis this way:

"I had just learned that I would soon die, and in my inability to stop being rationally focused, I found myself thinking: 'Shouldn't a room like this, at a time like this, have a box of Kleenex? Wow, that's just a glaring operational flaw'."

This ain't about wiping away bodily fluids any more; the "Let It Out" campaign tugs at the heartstrings and shows Kleenex to be an accessory to the more "touchy-feely" moments of our lives, both good and bad.  This from the Kleenex site:

"Have you ever laughed until you cried?
Had a tear-filled hello or goodbye?
It's times like these when we just have to let it out™ — because it helps us feel better.
The Kleenex® brand invites you to let it out™ on this site."

That's just the beginning.  A couple of clicks and you're on a page where you can "Experience The Release" of catalysts like Laugh, Cry, Love, Sing, Joy, Stuff, Scream and Blow (which is more about exploding than it is about expelling mucous from your nose).  What's more, the company also lets you customize your own box to fit the occasions where you may act out one of the aforementioned catalysts.

Off-beat?  Of course, but something's gotta be done for an iconic brand that not only has to overcome the genericization of its brand name, but a 5.9% sales decrease over the past year.

All this said, I am truly touched that a brand so massive is heeding the advice of Surprise Central.

I think I'm gonna cry...

What The World Needs Now...

This gem from faithful FOP Tim Kelly, who is enamored with the slogan from Hammocks.com:

"Accomplish Nothing"

As Tim puts it:

"Killer hammocks with the right attitude.
If everyone spent a half hour or so everyday in one of these,
the world would be a better place."

Send one to your favorite stock broker...

Talking The Talk 2

Today's the day.

One of the great collective publishing projects returns.

237 authors (including yours truly).

15 countries.

1 book (albeit the second time around for it). 

Welcome to The Age of Conversation 2--Why Don't They Get it.

Available now.  Order it here.

There are two great reasons to do so:

1. It raises money for Variety, the Children's Charity.  Every dollar from the book goes to them.
2. The collective wisdom of the people gathered within.  Editors Drew McLellan and Gavin Heaton have assembled some of the brightest bloggers/thinkers in the marketing world and challenged them with eight different themes.  In fact, in addition to them in AoC2, it's well worth your while to check them all out in their respective corners of the blogosphere:

Adrian Ho, Aki Spicer, Alex Henault, Amy Jussel, Andrew Odom, Andy Nulman, Andy Sernovitz, Andy Whitlock, Angela Maiers, Ann Handley, Anna Farmery, Armando Alves, Arun Rajagopal, Asi Sharabi,

Becky Carroll, Becky McCray, Bernie Scheffler, Bill Gammell, Bob LeDrew, Brad Shorr, Brandon Murphy, Branislav Peric, Brent Dixon, Brett Macfarlane, Brian Reich,

C.C. Chapman, Cam Beck, Casper Willer, Cathleen Rittereiser, Cathryn Hrudicka, Cedric Giorgi, Charles Sipe, Chris Kieff, Chris Cree, Chris Wilson, Christina Kerley (CK), C.B. Whittemore, Chris Brown, Connie Bensen, Connie Reece, Corentin Monot, Craig Wilson,

Daniel Honigman, Dan Schawbel, Dan Sitter, Daria Radota Rasmussen, Darren Herman, Dave Davison, David Armano, David Berkowitz, David Koopmans, David Meerman Scott, David Petherick, David Reich, David Weinfeld, David Zinger, Deanna Gernert, Deborah Brown, Dennis Price, Derrick Kwa, Dino Demopoulos, Doug Haslam, Doug Meacham, Doug Mitchell, Douglas Hanna, Douglas Karr, Drew McLellan, Duane Brown, Dustin Jacobsen, Dylan Viner,

Ed Brenegar, Ed Cotton, Efrain Mendicuti, Ellen Weber, Eric Peterson, Eric Nehrlich, Ernie Mosteller,

Faris Yakob, Fernanda Romano, Francis Anderson,

Gareth Kay, Gary Cohen, Gaurav Mishra, Gavin Heaton, Geert Desager, George Jenkins, G.L. Hoffman, Gianandrea Facchini, Gordon Whitehead, Greg Verdino, Gretel Going & Kathryn Fleming,

Hillel Cooperman, Hugh Weber,

J. Erik Potter, James Gordon-Macintosh, Jamey Shiels, Jasmin Tragas, Jason Oke, Jay Ehret, Jeanne Dininni, Jeff De Cagna, Jeff Gwynne & Todd Cabral, Jeff Noble, Jeff Wallace, Jennifer Warwick, Jenny Meade, Jeremy Fuksa, Jeremy Heilpern, Jeroen Verkroost, Jessica Hagy, Joanna Young, Joe Pulizzi, John Herrington, John Moore, John Rosen, John Todor, Jon Burg, Jon Swanson, Jonathan Trenn, Jordan Behan, Julie Fleischer, Justin Foster,

Karl Turley, Kate Trgovac, Katie Chatfield, Katie Konrath, Kenny Lauer, Keri Willenborg, Kevin Jessop, Kristin Gorski,

Lewis Green, Lois Kelly, Lori Magno, Louise Manning, Luc Debaisieux,

Mario Vellandi, Mark Blair, Mark Earls, Mark Goren, Mark Hancock, Mark Lewis, Mark McGuinness, Matt Dickman, Matt J. McDonald, Matt Moore, Michael Karnjanaprakorn, Michelle Lamar, Mike Arauz, Mike McAllen, Mike Sansone, Mitch Joel,

Neil Perkin, Nettie Hartsock, Nick Rice,

Oleksandr Skorokhod, Ozgur Alaz,

Paul Chaney, Paul Hebert, Paul Isakson, Paul McEnany, Paul Tedesco, Paul Williams, Pet Campbell, Pete Deutschman, Peter Corbett, Phil Gerbyshak, Phil Lewis, Phil Soden, Piet Wulleman,

Rachel Steiner, Reginald Adkins, Richard Huntington, Rishi Desai, Robert Hruzek, Roberta Rosenberg, Robyn McMaster, Roger von Oech, Rohit Bhargava, Ron Shevlin, Ryan Barrett, Ryan Karpeles, Ryan Rasmussen,

Sam Huleatt, Sandy Renshaw, Scott Goodson, Scott Monty, Scott Townsend, Scott White, Sean Howard, Sean Scott, Seni Thomas, Seth Gaffney, Shama Hyder, Sheila Scarborough, Sheryl Steadman, Simon Payn, Sonia Simone, Sreeraj Menon, Spike Jones, Stanley Johnson, Stephen Collins, Stephen Landau, Stephen Smith, Steve Bannister, Steve Hardy, Steve Portigal, Steve Roesler, Steven Verbruggen, Steve Woodruff, Sue Edworthy, Susan Bird, Susan Gunelius, Susan Heywood,

Tammy Lenski, Terrell Meek, Thomas Clifford, Thomas Knoll, Tim Brunelle, Tim Connor, Tim Jackson, Tim Mannveille, Tim Tyler, Timothy Johnson, Tinu Abayomi-Paul, Toby Bloomberg, Todd Andrlik, Troy Rutter, Troy Worman,

Uwe Hook,

Valeria Maltoni, Vandana Ahuja, Vanessa DiMauro, Veronique Rabuteau,

Wayne Buckhanan, William Azaroff, and

Yves Van Landeghem

Available in hardcover, paperback and instant download, so stop reading this and start reading this.

When An Email Blast Truly Is One

Email "blasts" are rarely so...especially for those on the receiving end.  Dull, uninspired, unwelcome and ultimately ignored.  Almost always more a "pfffftttt" than a Pow!

And then there's Woot!  Check out this email I got last week, which I will reprint verbatim:

WOOT, INC. INTERNAL EMAIL
STAFF EYES ONLY

Attention Woot employees -

We are now entering the final phase of preparations for the Woot-Off planned for midnight tonight. This is when we depart from our usual deal-a-day model and sell one product after another, offering a new deal as soon as the previous one sells out. For some reason, Woot members like Andy continue to have high expectations for this event. We must make every effort to ensure that they feel disappointed and betrayed.

All workers should be physically and mentally straining to make this Woot-Off a success, like every muscle in a wolf's body strains to capture and devour its prey. We expect total compliance with the following objectives:

• Make sure the stables are thoroughly cleaned and the horses properly groomed and shod. As you know, Commander Rutledge prefers to lead us on horseback during Woot-Offs. Charge!
• Customer Service department: all vacation requests for this week and next are approved. If you have not filed a vacation request, take one anyway.
• The little green pills in the kitchen are there to keep you alert and working. Take as many as you need. Officially, Woot does not believe in the concept of "overdose".
• Take at least one of our servers offline, just for laughs.
• Go to the landfill and dig up some more Sansa media players. If you see any Digipro Graphics Tablets (and you will), grab those, too.
• Place crap bags in company latrines so those orders can be "filled". To this end, the company will provide free lunch today from El Feo, the filthiest burrito joint in Dallas. Do your worst, guys.
• Neutralize all negative thinking among our members. We simply cannot tolerate any more posts like "do not want" or "Woot-Off killer". If electronic means like word filters and IP bans do not work, we must reactivate the rapid-response teams to physically eliminate all threats to our reputation.
• Last time, spot checks revealed that approximately 25% of products shipped are broken, incomplete, or excessively dirty. This is unacceptable. For this Woot-Off, defective shipments must make up at least 40%.
• Remind SmartPost that there's no need to hurry on these orders. Prompt delivery makes our customers spoiled and argumentative. Let them learn humility and gratitude while they wait.

Above all, we must strive to make this Woot-Off even more tedious, disappointing, and lucrative than the last one. The employee who achieves the most toward this end will be rewarded with one brown Zune. Second place: two brown Zunes.

Forward into battle! Remember: to give one's life for Woot is glorious!

Larry Stalin
eCommerce eKommissar
Woot, Inc.

THIS EMAIL WILL SELF-DESTRUCT IN 90 SECONDS

Lengthy, indeed.  Goes against every rule.  But compelling, funny, filled with "in jokes," and directed at a faithful clientele. Pokes fun at the foibles of the company, and is ripe for forwarding to a friend, if only to say "can you believe this?" 

Of course, the Woot-a-thon was a massive success.  Thanks to 453 words in black-on-white. No color, no pix, no sound, no lights.  Compare this to the other newsletters or email offers that beseige you.  And realize that despite all the wizardry brought to us by Web 2.0 and its cohorts, words are still important.

The right ones, though.

A Steaming Bowl of Yellow

One of the nine tactics in generating Surprise--well, if you can believe my upcoming book on the subject--is "Wear Virgin Contact Lenses," i.e. to have the ability to look at something familiar as if you've never seen it before.  This new perspective allows you to re-frame a product, a service, a problem in a new light, and breathe new life into things that may have gone moribund. 

The Virgin Contact Lens example I love using is the 100-calorie pack concept, launched by Kraft in 2004.  To quote myself:

"Given the growing concern about health issues and rampant obesity, the company was looking for a way to avoid the vilifying of this multi-billion-dollar slice of its pie.

"In an inspired vision, Kraft decided to shift focus away from the food itself, and onto the food’s caloric content.  The Pow! Moment resulted in a new form of packaging, the “100-Calorie Pack,” which delivered the win-win of minimizing guilt and maximizing margins. 

"Now consumers wouldn’t be buying snacks per se, they’d be buying a small portion of their daily calorie intake."

Now, in a culinary vision equally as inspired, Knorr, the maker of soups and side dishes (Surprise fact: it's the largest brand in the Unilever conglomerate) has plopped in its own Virgin Contact Lenses and is selling soups not as tastes or ingredients, but as colors.

Say goodbye to tomatoes, carrots or broccoli and say hello to Red, Green, Yellow and Orange, the new Knorr bowlfuls.  And you don't merely sip these molten hues, you (and I quote):

• Let the warmth of Orange fill your bowl with fun
• Enjoy the cheerful, optimistic side of Yellow
• Relax with the refreshing calming colour of Green
• Stimulate your senses and dial up your Red

To stimulate sales as well as senses, the company is supporting its rainbow effort via a downloadable "Eat in Color" cookbook (including before and after pictures of the bland and the vibrant). 

Who's the market for this?  Parents who may be able to sell kids on the taste of crayons easier than the taste of veggies?  Fashionistas looking to coordinate their appetizers with their wardrobes or decor?  No matter whom, kudos to Knorr for making the most artistic statement about soup since Andy Warhol.

And for faithfully adhering to Pow! Tactic #1

But Is It Art?

I think so.

Okay, so it's no Sarah Palin goalie mask, but that big guy you see below is world-renowned pop artist Steve Kaufman and a jacket he hand-designed to coincide with the release of my Pow! book (yeah, I know, pre-orders here).

Steve has his own book coming out shortly (which you can preview here).  Hmmmm...I wonder what I can design for him in return?

Sarah Palin: Time to Show Your True Hockey Mom Colors!

Given the 2008 Presidential race is now entering its final two weeks, expect the heat to turn up, more mud to be flung, more barbs to be slung...hence more need for protection.

That said, Pow! Right Between The Eyes and artist Frank Cipra are offering this custom-painted campaign trail mask to Republican VP candidate Sarah Palin at no charge, a gorgeous piece of headgear that can withstand even the most powerful Democratic shot.  All her people have to do is tell us where to send it, and it's hers.

The mask is yet another masterpiece from Cipra, the incredibly talented designer who has created unique mask looks for countless NHL goalies like Curtis Joseph, Rick DiPietro, Jose Theodore, Grant Fuhr, Ron Hextall and dozens more. The right side is a portrait of the V.P. candidate (above), while the left side is her pit-bull alter-ego (seen below).

Don't wanna take sides, but let's just say that this would look great in the White House...or in the Governor's mansion in Alaska.

Ms. Palin, operators are standing by! 

 
(Check out the lipstick near the cage)

Screwing Around With New Words

As a voracious reader and obsessive writer, I love words.  Like I am with clothes, I have a few favorites I sport way too often, and I'm always up to finding new ones.

Marketers are renowned--sometimes infamous--for creating new terminology, as an addition to the everyday lexicon, a la Malcolm Gladwell's "Tipping Point" or Chris Anderson's "Long Tail" (jeez, that's the second mention this week; the tail gets longer indeed) is perhaps one of the strongest sales tools around.

That said, my new pet term is

"Gastrosexual"

...a word examined in detail by Martyn Tipping and Robert Sprung of branding agency Tipping-Sprung (no relation to Gladwell's book) in this week's Brandweek. They explain that it describes a male demographic, aged 25-44, upwardly mobile, and the target for such products as "an action-packed Videogame featuring Hell's Kitchen chef Gordon Ramsey," "a kitchen designed by Porsche" and "$200 a pair Peugeot electric salt and pepper mills."

(Note: This is not to be confused with the term "Castrosexual," which I believe describes a demographic of people who like to fool around with Communists.)

I think it's time for me to make myself a peanut-butter sandwich.

The Face May Be Off, But The Stomach Churns

One of the nine major Surprise-generating tactics is "Shock And Ahhh..."

This video epitomizes what I preach.

Enjoy.

Uh, I think...

Here's Something To Think About...

Spent the weekend catching up on my reading (things going crazy good at Airborne keeping me over-busy), and gleaned yet another pearl of wisdom from Chip Heath and Dan Heath.  As faithful FOPs know, the brothers' now- classic book Made To Stick was one of the elements that helped concretize my theories about the powers of Surprise, which is why I don't miss anything they do...well, professionally, at least.

Their column in this month's Fast Company is ostensibly about improving PowerPoint presentations, but more profoundly touches upon the difference between being telling something or making others want to discover it, a key Pow! factor. To wit:

"Curiosity must come before content. 
Great presentations are mysteries, not encyclopedia entries. 
The best presenters don't structure their presentations by thinking:
'What's the next point I should make?' 
Instead, they decide
'What's the next question I want them to wrestle with?'"

Compare this to just about every corporate PowerPoint presentation you had to suffer through, where the standard operating procedure seems to be: "Here's way too much writing that you will read in 30 seconds and that I will spend the next seven minutes repeating."

Yes, there are killer PowerPoint improvement books like Garr Reynolds' Presentation Zen, but you can still blow it following his minimalism advice if you give away more than you tease. 

The Heaths' advice goes way further than what you see on a presentation screen.  It's a secret to solidifying business relationships--hell, ALL types of relationships.  Use frequently.