Never a Cookie Cutter Fit
One of the first things a new business must do is determine their target market. What is the goal or objective of the service you will provide? What’s your niche?
A builder will secure the best fit replacement window for your home. It is less expensive to go with original fittings, rather than to cut into drywall and the frame to install a different sized window.
Human nature is to place our lives into a cookie cutter. We create business that fill a perfect fit cut. We make home improvements within the constraints of our current house frame. We even place people we meet or interact with into a certain cookie cutter ideal.
Sometimes, we will never fit the cookie cutter.
I remember a childhood goal of mine was to play the part of Helen Keller in a play. In high school, the opportunity was presented. I gave a knock out audition (you know this when everyone in the room gives you an standing ovation ;-). Everyone agreed, the part of Helen was mine. Except, I didn’t fit the cookie cutter.
My physical presence didn’t fit the part of Helen. Bright blonde hair and too far developed to fit the image of a young girl, the part was handed to younger, brunette girl. It took four rounds of auditions, each one our director squinted at me and at her. I could see him trying to “visualize” the perfect cookie cutter fit for his play. I just wasn’t it.
Sometimes in life, it doesn’t matter if you give an outstanding performance and your perfect for the part. If you don’t fit the cookie cutter, you’ll never be it. It’s not about failing or changing who you are. It’s about learning to be dynamic and fluid enough to move with life. Because you will never be the cookie cutter fit, and cutting the drywall is too much work.
Making Movies!
Came across this really cool site off another blog. At Xtranormal, you can make your own movies…a bit hard to direct with correct emotion, but it’s still cool!
Cause you gotta love Tori Amos
Tori’s new cd comes out May 19th…you know I am salivating until then!
Oh Gen Y, how I love thee so!
Two things happened today, completely independent of each other. Combined they signify a turning point in my overall feelings toward Generation Y.
First, I was doing a bit of spring cleaning when I came across an enormous box of old pictures. The pictures where mostly of my 20 something years when I lived overseas. I am at that “age” when people stop taking pictures of you and you’re the one taking all the pics. It’s a typical evolution of life when several years go by without current pics. Unless of course, you are one of those self-loving bloggers who take an abundance of pictures of themselves at strange angles (you know who you are!).
I realized how much I smiled in all the pictures. Whoever says high school years are the best, lied. The best years of my life (um, so far) is from 22-26yrs. Sometimes, I miss that period in my life.
Later on in the evening, I was fumbling though some my RSS feeds and Alltop pages reading different blogs. Typically, my response to most Gen Y (not all) blog posts have been the “WTF? You are so missing major historical points in the discussion.”
Tonight, though I started to say “WTF!”, I stopped before the end of the post. I realized Gen Y is that perfect years of innocent innovative thinking to which a person will never reclaim. Twenty somethings are old enough to know Kraft cheese slices come from cows, but are not jaded with the ugly truth of the dirty, unpublicized processes that go into making that cheese slice.
So tonight, I fell in love with Generation Y for the first time. It’s the love of an elder who listens and smiles as the younger generation speaks with flamboyancy and energy, hoping they won’t loose that spark completely as they grow up.
Incognito
Sometimes you just need a disguise to get you through the day.
If every day was perfect, would we be innovative?
I hate struggling with everyday tasks. I think we all do. For me, I struggle with getting the trash bag out of the receptacle every damn time. It’s a curse.
It made me wonder how in life we have our struggles, our moments of really big hills that never seem to cease, and how it affects us as people. If everyday we woke up living the ideal life, perfectly happy, and no need for improvement, would we be innovative?
Every process, social welfare program, invention, or social cause, comes from seeking change for the better. Our country was founded by individuals who where innocent with current government and saw an opportunity to make life better. Alexander Bell saw a need and public discontent with communication systems. The discontent drew him to be innovative.
Everyday we come across struggles big and small. Everyday we deal with them. Eventually we come to the conclusion that change is necessary and we start to think creatively on ways to ease our struggles. If we woke up everyday perfectly happy with no need to improve, would we even bother waking up? Isn’t it the core essence of humanity to seek change for the better? To analyze and respond to hurt, pain, and discontent in the world around us by being innovative with ideas to improve our life.
As much as we don’t like pain or struggles, they are necessary. If it wasn’t for the HOPE that tomorrow would be better or be the change we desperately wished for, life wouldn’t be worth living. Embrace the struggles and make them your reason to be innovative.
*Maybe someday Hefty will make a trash can a bit more user friendly! :-)*
Social Media Blue Eyes Gone Red
“Anger is that powerful internal force that blows out the light of reason.” - Ralph Waldo Emerson
I came home from work today and realized I have been harboring a lot of anger inside. It wasn’t like I was calmly waiting for my evening coffee to be brewed that a light of insightfulness appeared. It was after I blew up at other’s around me. I was screaming at them to listen to what I was saying. Unfortunately, they where the ones who where listening.
Is Social Media a Scream Tunnel?
I have to believe, the beginnings of social media / blogging was a means for us to “let out our voices.” Rapidly, the space evolved to everyone speaking, more and more. Comments on blogs are rarely read or noticed. So what is the purpose? A false sense of our opinion being heard? Yet social media gurus still claim the purpose of social media is to share ideas. Sharing involves listening and speaking. Not just speaking.
There are numerous blogs who don’t even allow comments. Seth Godin wants you to voice your opinion on your own blog. What it yields is a group of independent thinkers talking and talking, but no interaction or listening. As a community, how are we to learn and thrive off each other if we fail to listen?
The deep dark truths of social media is you have to own the bigger megaphone and scream more often then your neighbor. Link building, networking, and all the false sense of “community” building with social media is only successful if you build your OWN community. A community that only listens to each other. Resembles more a cult than a community.
Social Media’s Impact on Society
I was taught by my father to have an independent voice. Often I find myself butting up against stereotypes, both being a blonde and female. The problem is, I can independantly think all I want, but it seems as no one cares to listen.
Starting on Monday, my day goes like this:
Clients refuse to listen to your advice, ignore the limitations of a contract, and just throw expectations at you to move mountains. Friends and lovers who provide unwanted advice with out regard to what YOU want. I can’t take anymore people telling me what my business “is”, what is “should be”, what I should “do”, what I should “want”, what I should “read”, what I should “think”, what social media should “be”, how to use social media the “right” way, the “wrong” way this, that, OMG JUST SHUT UP!
I am 100% for independent thinking but more so for the use of communication. Communication allows us to share information and ideas. It’s a two-way street, not a one way. The growth of social media, and “start your own blog”, is making us all speak independently of one another. What are the outcomes on society outside of social media?
If we are so used to being able to speak for 500 words without interruption on a blog, why would we interrupt our work process to communicate to another worker? We are so ingrained in just doing it our way, to stop and think about the effects on another would be abnormal. Where else are we doing this?
Are we slowly becoming deaf to one another? Is the constant push of your brand, your business, your blog, slowly making us into selfish thinkers? What about the guy in the cubicle next to you? What will be the impact of blogging on our children? Will they learn to read, comment, and listen to each other? Or will they just learn they can do and say whatever they want with no regard to anyone else because, well, that’s what everyone else does.
I found a recent blog post interesting on how social media is changing our expectations of work, accomplishments, and to-do lists. Below is a statement from the author:
“The problem is that language and grammar are both the form and the content of so much 21st century industry. We struggle to recognise the distinction between the means and the ends, the production method and the product. So we just keep on talking.”
If we keep on talking and never stop to listen, will our work days ever end? Will we hear our spouses? Will we hear our employer? Will we hear our children, and will they hear us?
WTF JC Penney!
What did brands learn from the Motrin Mom fiasco? Obviously nothing! JC Penney’s attempt at using social media to tap consumers’ interest, specifically the female shopping, is yet another fumble by big brands.
Smartblogs post on brands social media campaign at SXSW, pointed out JC Penney’s “Doghouse” video went viral to the point of servers crashing. Some will argue bad PR is better then no PR, but I disagree.
What did JC Penney and Motrin do wrong with social media?
Advertising has and always will play off of stereotypes and social generalizations. It’s never really ok. JC Penney and Motrin social media campaigns took stereotyping to the extreme. It went from playful joking (which is never innocent) of men trying to find the best gift for their female counterpart to bashing male intelligence. More specifically, here’s what’s wrong with the video:
Stereotype 1: Folding laundry and household chores are forms of male punishment. I know many dual working families who split the household chores. I know many men who are better at folding laundry and cleaning then their female spouse. Does this belittle a man’s intelligence? If household chores are form of “punishment”, then what where woman in the 1940’s being punished for? I highly doubt single men or single dad’s view the laundry as punishment for not meeting a woman’s demands.
Stereotype 2: Woman make all the rules, men are only there to please. Thank you Saatchi and Saatchi for making it appear that all woman’s liberation did was form a band of demanding, spiteful, man hating woman. I am so proud of one of the top American advertising agency’s can portray woman in such an insightful and intelligent role as a bitch.
Stereotype 3: Men have no idea how to buy gifts or make a woman happy. The joke of a man never buying the right gift is overrated and not funny. In fact, men and woman a like have problems gift buying in general. If the woman in the video walked around all day whining about the size of her thighs and on a constant diet, a thigh master would seem perfectly acceptable gift. Why wouldn’t it? I don’t see men jumping over joy to get a wrench for Christmas, it just means more work for them to do.
What JC Penney Should Have Done
JC Penney most likely approached Saatchi and Saatchi to create a social media campaign which would reach out to female buyers. The problem is Saatchi and Saatchi didn’t look at the campaign from positive generalizations or stereotypes. There are a dozen softer ways to play on the stereotype of gender based gift buying. The video could have depicted a man commanding his entire family on a secret mission to discover what mom wants for Mother’s day. Using product placement of JC Penney towels, apparel, fitness equipment, or cookware. For Saatchi and Saatchi, it shows limited creativity and consumer insight of their marketing team.
JC Penney has always been viewed as the family department store. Where a family together can get everything they need or want. This campaign contributes nothing positive to the JC Penney brand. Instead, it has hindered the brand from being the all American family store.
Timing is everything
Timing is everything in life. The right time to buy a house, right time to make a career change, or right time to have children. Life doesn’t always have the best timing.
For years, I have known I wanted to be an entrepreneur. This past year started a legal corporation in hopes of building it to be the center of my world. Right now, this moment, I am at the cross road of either pushing forward to make it or pull back to be an employee.
In reality, 6 months ago I could have pushed forward and had revenue stream to live off. Something held me back. I questioned and deliberated in my mind, whether it was a subconscious fear of success (not failure) which tied me down. It’s not. It’s the timing.
If you have ever thought about venturing off on your own, you will find endless articles stating there is never a better time then the present. I disagree. There is a RIGHT time and a wrong time. Timing is completely dependent on the individual.
I look at entrepreneurs such as Shama Hyder, who at 23 is more successful than majority of American small businesses. I ask myself what is taking me so long to achieve the same success? It’ just not the right time. Anyone who says entrepreneurship is easy, is full of shit. Creating a successful business takes endless hours of dedication. Long, sleepless nights. It’s incredible hard work. Completely worth it in the end.
In life, there are moments we can never get back. Sometimes the driving force behind those moments who consume our time is only temporary. Instead of fighting nature, I think it is best to embrace the moments and live them to the fullest.
In order for me to live my life to the fullest right now, it is best for me to pull back. If you are a person who does not see work as a 9-5 job, then being an employee is not so bad. Especially if you find a position in an industry which is exciting, challenging, and you can learn from it.
It’s the journey, not the destination that matters. Right now, my journey is a bit slower then the flaming Gen Y’s. I guarantee it will be just as fulfilling in the end.
Coffee Deja Vu
This weekend I encountered a chilling deja vu moment of when my favorite coffee cup broke. Long gone is the chunky pieces of ceramic that I once loved so dearly. Though my cupboards fill themselves with mugs of various shapes, colors, sizes, and personalities, none will ever be replacement for my favorite mug.
I become strangely attached to inanimate objects. Their familiar texture and shape comforts me. I am sure Freud could uncover the strange attachment, but for me, it’s just one of my quarky personality traits.
Since July 2003, I have become attached to one single wine glass. It’s fuller shape, and thick glass always looked elegant with soft red Oliver wine. This weekend, it shattered. For almost 6 years, this wine glass has held every sip I have taken from wine poured at home. Even when I have entertained guest, that wine glass was mine.
Now, it is gone.
Just like my favorite coffee cup, my wine glass will never be replaced. It’s a symbol of historic value that carries secret legacy’s of mine. The array of emotional moments I shared with my coffee cup and wine glass will forever be gone. I may sound strangely attached but it’s the constant things in life that make us feel like we are at home regardless the location. When the constant things disappear, we feel displaced.
Whether it is the town you grew up in, first house you purchased, favorite pair of jeans, or a wine glass, these things are tokens of our life. Tokens of our legacy. When they break, it is a symbol of our legacy slowly breaking down into indecipherable pieces.
