Refractions

Refractions

Refractive Communications  //  A matter of message perspective and customer communications.

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Jan 5 / 6:33pm

GPS. Architect. Notebook. 2010.

I am not a natural list-maker. I am not even a natural list-checker to a list I did happen to draft into existence. Therefore, I am a poster child New Year’s resolution-maker in the time-honored tradition of make’ em and miss ‘em, which is fine unless I really want to achieve certain goals in the coming year.

So, if not a list of goals, what then to bring about the new me in 2010?

My natural state is a creative, big picture strategic thinker, quickly seeing connections, opportunities and possibilities in nearly all situations … and now I see my goals for 2010 coalescing around Chris Brogan’s “3 Words for 2010” approach.

Chris uses three words to guide his actions and the projects he takes on throughout the year. As he says, “… what I’m trying to do with the words is come up with something that would take more than a sentence to describe, but that when you think about it, the ideas explode out to fill your head with thoughts of how you might want to conduct yourself.”

Just three words: Got it.

No long list: Excellent.

Big picture thinking: Naturally.

After much pondering and, yes, a LIST of thoughts and ideas, I brewed it down to these three words that have meaning and direction for me in 2010:

1. GPS (God-Positioning System) – On track, attentive and in motion

2. Architect – Build up ideas, build up people, build up situations

3. Notebook – Note what I can learn from others, draft creative ideas in the margins

For another Three Words example, see Cheryl’s.

This’ll be an interesting year for me. I can tell already. A year of changes and achievements in three-part harmony. 

Naturally.
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Jan 4 / 8:21am

They Got It Wrong, Daddy

My youngest daughter sparked some thoughts on team management Sunday morning. She walked up to me in the dress she picked out and said, “They got it wrong, Daddy.”

Apparently after careful consideration, she intentionally put the dress on backwards. In her 8-year-old wisdom and opinion, she felt the dress looked better that way. It didn’t matter to her that a well-known brand, its century of experience, its bevy of educated designers and its well-established manufacturing processes clearly marked the back of the dress with the fancy tag now residing under her chin. She tried the dress on backwards, liked the result and came to me with her idea.

Can your team confidently come to you with your product on backwards in an off-label application that’s obviously not the way we do it around here? How would you respond if they did?

I like creative ideas. I encourage disruptive brainstorming. I’d rather back a crazy idea down to a brilliant idea than try to process-build up to one.

But do you, the leader, allow it? Have you given your team permission to generate wild ideas? Are you willing to consider them?

An open-door policy does little good with a closed mind sitting at the desk.

My daughter and I carefully considered her idea. We looked at how the dress fit, how it felt when she sat down and how the bows tied. After testing her idea, we agreed that the dress worked best with the tag in the back.

But, with what she knows now about testing her opinion, if I hear “They got it wrong, Daddy” again, I bet she walks out the front door wearing her dress backwards.

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Oct 8 / 8:45am

Who's Your Orca?

Wired's article on a few intrepid albatrosses meeting up with a killer whale to feast together got me thinking about business relationships. 

Say you're a small business entity, expert at what you do, squabbling with a flock of like-sized companies for your daily fare. Willing to try something new, you go way out of your tried-n-true sales channel and make an unusual connection with an unlikely, large entity from a different industry. 

For example, you're a graphic designer that contracts to make quick-sketch/photo portraits at a Pet Shop mega store. Or a tech-savvy marketer that sets up Facebook accounts for residents at retirement communities, so they can keep in touch with their families. Or (your company) doing (your company's skills) for (unusual, big firm).

Focus on your skill (not your product) and the big firm's intent (not product) to uncover ways to join the feast: pet/owner relationship, residents' well-being.

So, who's your orca? Got an orca idea to share?

Wired article: http://bit.ly/mRUYc

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