Pirate Movie Workflow

Source: http://cache.gawkerassets.com/assets/images/17/2010/02/pirate-vs-pay.png

Ben and Jerry Memorial Plaque

1. The Old Gas Station, where they opened the first Ben and Jerry’s ice cream parlor

2. Their Waterbury plant, where they manufacture their delicious ice cream

It was an experience. Unbelievable! Better than going to Graceland.

That experience led to a fascination with socially responsible companies. The most obvious one was the Body Shop and Anita Roddick (R.I.P.), another fascinating entrepreneur who pushed the envelope of social consciousness in her company’s operations. Others like it include Whole Foods and Stonyfield Farm.

The one idea that most struck me from these companies’ experience was the idea that marketing should be purposeful instead of “polluteful”. To me, the traditional advertising route has always meant wasting a great deal of money on communication means that make our life worse instead of better.

Everyone hates commercials during a 24 episode. Everyone despises flyers stuck under their windshield. Everyone detests going through junk mail.

What’s the alternative?

As Ben and Jerry point out in their great book Double Dip, marketing with a conscience strives to add even more value to a business’s customers. Here are some of their ideas:

1. Create a festival for local families.
2. Leverage your business as an art gallery.
3. Hold magic shows on your premises for kids.
4. Hire a storyteller during afternoons.

As I revisited Double Dip a few days ago, I realized that most of these strategies could amount to a Purple Cow for many businesses in various industries.

And then, a question struck me and ramified into various ones.

How can I bake in more value?

1. How can I bake more value into my marketing?
2. How can I bake even more value through my finance?
3. How can I bake even more value into my service?

The most puzzling one is finance. I’m fascinated by it, and I’ll leave it in your mind right now.

How could you bake in even more value for your customers through your finance?

He’s also committed to making a serious difference in the health of our children.

I found particularly invigorating the statistics he showed about death causes in the United States. Wow! How much time do we spend trying to solve problems that don’t have nearly as many consequences in our life as our massive eating disorder.

Way to go, Jamie! Way to get attention, way to get leverage, way to propose solutions, and way to get tangible change.

An inspiration for all of us.

Watch his passionate TED Talk on food and healthy eating.

The temperature was brisk and I simply enjoyed an acoustic tune by Roch Voisine on my walkman.

Suddenly, I came across a little memorial plaza, close to the Brazilian Embassy. As I got closer, I noticed it paid a tribute to the magnificient Lebanese poet and philosopher Khalil Gibran.

Cast in the marble of the memorial were these words I’ll never forget:

“I love you, my brother, whoever you are
Whether you worship in your church,
Kneel in your temple, or pray in your mosque.
You and I are all children of one faith,
Fingers of the loving hand of one Supreme Being
A hand extended to all.”

It’s great to remember magic moments like this one, that can only happen in solitude.

What’s one of yours?

A toast to us.

It’s magnificient and it’ll feed your soul.

A lot of these fans and followers are faux. Sunny day friends. In one experiment I did, 200,000 followers led to 25 clickthroughs. Ouch.

Check out the graph on the left. The curves represent different ideas and different starting points. If you start with 10,000 fans and have an idea that on average nets .8 new people per generation, that means that 10,000 people will pass it on to 8000 people, and then 6400 people, etc. That’s yellow on the graph. Pretty soon, it dies out. Read more

This article was originally published on Seth Godin’s blog.

Vince Lombardi’s “What It Takes To Be #1: Vince Lombardi On Leadership”.

Often times, we mistake leadership and being #1. They’re different things.

The gold medalist at the Olympics is #1, but he’s not necessarily a leader.

I don’t know if Gandhi was #1, but he certaintly was a leader.

In the 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing, Al Ries and Jack Trout talk about the Law of Leadership, which alleges that the leader of the category is the#1 brand.

Coca-Cola is the #1 brand, but it’s not a leader.

Apple is the #1 brand in MP3 players, but it’s not a leader.

Steve Jobs is a leader, but he’s not #1.

What are you trying to do? Are you trying to be #1 or are you trying to be a leader?

I’ve been following David’s work for four years now. It just keeps getting better and better.

It’s fascinating work. Beautiful design, thoughful productivity forms, and insightful blogger. Winning combination.

David’s latest creation is a Groundhog Day Resolutions Tracking system (David doesn’t do New Year’s Resolutions anymore). It’s a motivator-productivity booster-focus system all packed into a gorgeous form.

You’ll like it.

Over at the how-to guide site wikiHow they’ve put together a guide to decreasing your appetite when you’re trying to avoid overeating. Their list contains several gems like:

Brush your teeth or use mouthwash. Most people don’t feel like eating right after they do this, especially since it makes many foods taste bad.

Drink some coffee or tea. The caffeine suppresses appetite in some people. Don’t add sugar if you’re trying to lose weight.

Read more.

This article was originally published on Lifehacker.