One of my favorite marketing authors, Seth Godin is releasing his new book in New York on January 15. But he teamed up with some 70 others popular in what they do and released a new (free) e-book. The e-book is titled “What Matters Now” and is available for download here.

Lot of great authors and ideas in there. You will find people like Michael Hyatt of Nelson Publishers, Chris Anderson, Tom Peters, Guy Kawasaki, Mark Hurst etc.

(If you are not much of a reader, you will like the format of the book. Each author has only page to him or herself. They convey the message in less than 200 words. S0 every page you turn, you finish a chapter. The sense of accomplishment comes faster! :p )

Creating value is a difficult thing. If you market products or services, you need to provide value in terms of quality, functionality and pricing. If you are marketing yourself, you create value by doing things differently and making it work by doing it differently.

But what do you do when you have competition? Creating value is easy when you are the single player. But when there is someone else offering something similar, what kind of value would you create? A better one. And value is always created for the customer.

If you and your competition have the same product or offer the same services, the difference you offer is consistency. Consistency, really is a rarity in today’s world. Offering the same high value over and over again drills down one concept in your customer’s mind – trust. If your customer can trust you, it does not matter who your competition is – they will keep coming back to you.

Creating consistent value can be tough. But if you keep at it, they will notice you and stick with you.

Image courtesy: singing

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Proof that winter has started in South India. I haven’t seen a foggy morning in Kochi for a long time. Pretty cool here but it would get warmer during the day.

When I started writing this, I thought English was the largest spoken language. But Chinese Mandarin is. English is ranked third. English is the official language in 53 countries. And I kinda get the feeling that it is one of the most abused languages in the world too. (Abused may be too harsh a term but you get the idea!) :)

If you find it difficult to write something, what do you do? Do you stop? Do you give up? Do you tell yourself, “This is not my cup of tea!”. I have friends who have thoughts I have never heard before, ideas that are unique, stories that would make people laugh. But those stories get limited to our circle of friends. They wouldn’t start a blog or write a web page because they fear their language. They think it is not good enough. (And I keep telling them, who cares! They should just write.)

Here are some tips that have helped me in my writing. They may not be the life-changing stuff you expect. But I believe if you apply these in your writing, you should be able to see some improvement.

1. Keep it simple. If you use complex words, it does not make you hip. Using hard-to-pronounce words or words-that-make-me-look-up-a-dictionary-too-often is not really stylish. It puts me off sometimes. It does not mean that you don’t have to learn new words and use them at the appropriate time either. E.g. I came across the word ectoplasm used in a movie review – “When I was small, this movie would have scared the living ectoplasm out of me”. That was a new word for me. I would have just said, “it would have scared the living daylights out of me”. :)
2. Spell it correct. Always use the right spelling. Use the spell-check feature on any text editor you use (unless of course you use Notepad!). Even browsers and online text editors come with this facility. Why is spelling so important? To give your writing a professional outlook. Your writing style may be casual, even targeted at people who couldn’t give two hoots for spellings but it definitely makes you look good. Typos, as they are popularly known nowadays, can be avoided using technology. So why not?
3. SMS is for mobile phones. But not for online writing and that includes blogs, facebook, twitter etc. Avoid SMS jargons. E.g. “I luv wrtn tis way ten so i dun hv 2 wry abt splngs.” Unless you want to give your reader a headache, you don’t want to write like that. (I don’t agree to use them even in mobile texting.) Twitter sometimes forces you to use them because of the 140 character limit. But even then, please keep such usage to the bare minimum. Maybe one word. Definitely not more than two words.
4. Don’t repeat words. Not too often at least. E.g. “I could say what I want to say when I want to say it.” There is nothing wrong with that statement. But you could just say, “I can say what I want, when I want to”. This is important because if you keep repeating your words, the text would drag and become boring. To keep your readers tuned in, be crisp and to the point.
5. Try get the grammar right. This is the tough part. I really don’t know how to make this easy. Reading helps. Read anything you get – newspapers, magazines, online articles, bumper stickers. Listen lots. I used to love listening to the radio when I was younger. That helped me develop my language. Television can help you there too (assuming you watch English programming). Speaking helps. The more you speak, the more comfortable you become with the language. Ask a close friend who is good at the language to correct you when you make a mistake. And when they correct you, be willing to swallow your pride and accept that correction.  You may also want to check out the Grammar Girl’s podcasts too.
6. Write first. Edit later. You don’t have to get it right the first time. Neither the second or third time. Just keep writing. You can polish your work later. I always start with a framework – a list of things I want to cover in the article and then add the bacon and cheese. I think only Mozart was able to write masterpieces the first time he wrote it. So if you get an idea, just start writing. You can edit it later.
7. Definitely Edit. Having said my previous point, it would be sin not to review your work before you publish it. Someone once told me he reads what he has written at least three times before he publishes it. He catches most of what he can change in those three reads. You owe it to yourself and your reader to give it your best. If it is important work, ask your wife, friend, colleague to review it for you. They have the advantage of giving your work a fresh eye that could catch mistakes you overlooked.
8. Write. And write. I am happy that the greatest writers in the world are not literary geniuses nor do they hold doctorates in literature. They are people like me and that tells me I have a chance. I believe that you only need a desire to communicate your passion to the world and do it.

If you haven’t started writing yet, will you pick up that pen (or open your word processor)?

Did you find these tips useful? Do you have any tips you would like to share. Share them in the comments below.

Pictures courtesy:
Black book & pen: http://www.sxc.hu/photo/1176000 (typofi)
Bottle & Cork: http://www.sxc.hu/photo/632972 (sritenou)
Coffee cups: http://www.sxc.hu/photo/1214847 (Pintaric)
Reading glasses: http://www.sxc.hu/photo/1232904 (mihow)
Typewriter: http://www.sxc.hu/photo/966154 (abcdz2000)
Pencil Eraser: http://www.sxc.hu/photo/1123441 (nkzs)
Paper with writing: http://www.sxc.hu/photo/441337 (hopee)

Would you unfollow Barack Obama’s (so-called) Twitter account, now that you realize it has always been somebody else updating the account for him?

Would you decide not to get yourself a Mac because Apple so insists on you getting their own hardware and software in the name of total user experience?

Would you continue your credit card because they charged you annual fees and reverted it back only because you called them?

Would you spend three days on a train to travel across the country? Would you still do it if airline prices were not so prohibitive?

Would you trust a business without a website?

Would you stop your doorstep newspaper delivery because you get all your news online?

Would you choose a product/service because they have a bigger/active presence among today’s social media platforms?

Would you switch from Microsoft Office to Online Office platforms because they say they will be ready? Would you switch if you think they were ready?

Would our choices remain the same tomorrow?

Here are some videos I watched and loved this week:

1. The Soda Pop Store

This was one of my favorites. The Soda Pop Store (Galcos) in LA is unique. It sells sodas. And it does not sell Pepsi or Coke. It sells 500 different varities of soda pop from around the world. To be able to do something you love and have the freedom to do it and make money off it too! And mind you, he has built and is sustaining his own eco-system. Both different, small-scale soda pop suppliers from around the world, end customers and restaurants. A definite inspiration.

2. Procrastination

You should see this video if you think you are so busy that you keep stalling from doing the important stuff. What does it mean to procrastinate? I will tell you that another day. ;)

3. Taylor Mason – The World’s Worst Blues Song

Taylor Mason is a comedian, ventriloquist and musician. He has amazing talent with puppets. In fact, he is the only guy I have seen who can talk interchangeably for six puppets (including himself :)). But one of my favorites with him is his music. He plays the blues. This one’s called the ‘happy blues’!

Do you have favorite videos? Share them in the comments section below.

Now that’s one brand I would never expect to win something like that. I have seen Hyundai ever since I was in school and it has always been a Korean car company. And we were told that “Korean car companies do not make good cars”.

But lot has changed over the years. They made better cars. They made better noise. From the Indian perspective, they entered the Indian market and are doing quite well. September 2009 saw record sales for Hyundai with a 25% YOY growth. And now they seem to be doing well in other markets, especially the US market which has been dominated by Japanese brands. You can read more about it here.

Here are the Hyundai Assurance ads that made them quite popular during the economic recession. You can hear the voice-over say, “Now finance or lease any new Hyundai, and if you lose your income in the next year, you can return it. That’s the Hyundai Assurance. An automaker that’s got your back. Now isn’t that a nice change?”

Very few brands actually looked recession in the face and made something of it. Congrats Hyundai!

It always works. At least, most of the time I have seen it.

This time, it is Seth Godin’s (wooden) boxed set of five books with a special gift at $64. He says it would cost $100 to buy the books separately from the bookstore.

There are going to be only 800 boxes sold. And when this post goes public, it is already come down to 41 boxes. And it has only been three hours since he made this post.

I wonder if I can sell software like this! :)

C’mon, who are we kidding? There are many of us who have used our cellphones while driving. I have used mine (for talking and not texting).  For most of us, we either think we are very good drivers or such accidents couldn’t happen to us. But history has proved many wrong and we wouldn’t want to push our luck that far. As Bill Gallagher said (of course in a different context), “Life’s too short to make all your own mistakes, better to learn from the mistakes of others”.

The video was made in the UK by the Gwent police department in South Wales. They teamed up with filmmaker Peter Watkins-Hughes to produce the PSA (Public Service Announcement). The film seemed to have raised quite an uproar ’cause of its ‘bloody’ details. But if you compare this with the violence our kids are exposed to in today’s video games, what is the big deal?

Here is another video made by CarandDriver.com studying the reaction times of a texting driver and a drunk driver. The results are quite interesting!

So if you are driving today and you need to use your cellphone, pull over first. At least for the sake of the others on the road. Thanks!

How to Advance Your Career Without Selling Your Soul by by Joe Hodas
http://adage.com/talentworks/article.php?article_id=140010

20 Top Blog Posts on Public Relations
http://adnews.us/?p=2185

Visions of Earth 2009 – Photos on National Geographic
http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/visions-of-earth/visions-earth-2009

Will Motorola get it back with the Droid? (Strategy of New Chief at Motorola Appears Poised to Pay Off at NYTimes)
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/29/technology/companies/29moto.html

What tech vendors really think: The customer is a cow
http://infoworld.com/t/user-problems/what-tech-vendors-really-think-customer-cow-950