Manifesto: Drawings that will change your life

There’s something magical about a drawing. Drawings give life to ideas. They help groups to brainstorm better. And they help the presenter articulate an idea. While I was doing my graduate work at Emerson I would often poach (with permission of course) great drawings from other professionals to use at brainstorming sessions with my teammates. The exercises were fun, but more important they worked as a catalyst to get all of us students, with varying degrees of work experience, on the same page. Once that was accomplished the possibilities, and ideas, were endless. Because of my affinity for drawings I would like to share with you a recent manifesto from ChangeThis titled Drawings that will change your life by Ralph Perrine. I hope it inspires you, like it will me, to bring a drawing to your next brainstorming session.

Valerie Conyngham

The American Express Plum Card

American Express has always been the leader in creating exclusivity around credits cards. Their best example of this is the Centurion Card (a.k.a. the black card) which was once available by invitation only. Now you can apply directly for the card, but you have to be a big spender (at least $250k annually) to be approved. American Express’ newest attempt at massclusivity is their Plum Card. Designed for small businesses, this card gives the card holder access to trade terms and/or deferred interest for two months on purchases. In order to give the Plum card that infamous American Express allure American Express is limiting the initial offering to 10,000 cards and using the tag line “Who is getting one?” in their advertising. I’m not sure how American Express landed on the number 10,000, but I’d argue it’s a number that doesn’t create demand. 5,000 maybe, but 10,000 is just too large. If I said you were 1 in 10,000 would you feel special? Probably not. My guess is American Express set the limit at 10,000 to see how many people take advantage of the trade terms, a potentially costly offering. If after six months of experience American Express notices there’s not a lot of uptake on the trade terms you can bet there will be another “offering” on the table. On the other hand if there is a big uptake on the trade terms American Express may decide to stick with their original 10,000 plum card members (provided they get 10,000 plum card members), maybe even create a wait list (one card member gives up his or her card another person gets in). If that should happen American Express would have 10,000 plum card members with no easy way of entry for non-plum card holders. And because nobody likes to be told no that’s the strategy that would give the plum card the allure that I suspect American Express is looking for.

Valerie Conyngham

10 Simple Ways to Make an Environmental Impact

I was inspired to write a Top 10 list after reading The Bad Pitch Blog’s Media Relations’ Everlasting Gobstopper post. My Top 10 subject was born out of inspiration found earlier in the week via Stan Rapp’s post on Jaffe Juice and further inspiration came from my looking forward to attending The Green Goat’s holiday party tonight. With that, I introduce my Top 10 Simple Ways to Make an Environmental Impact:

1. Carry your groceries in stylish canvas instead of plastic.
2. Clean the green way.
3. Say no to bottled water – if that’s too much opt for an eco-friendly bottle.
4. Support your local farmers.
5. Support businesses that invest in eco-friendly business practices.
6. Take public transportation, just make sure to carry a bottle of hand sanitizer.
7. Stop the junk mail madness.
8. When you print, print on both sides of the paper. If you work for a company that has their printers set to single sided printing (and the company will not switch to double sided), bring home the paper you would normally throw in the recycle bin and use the clean side in your home printer.
9. Plant a tree, or donate to an organization that will plant one for you.
10. Stop using disposable cups, plates and flatware. If you own your own company give your employees a company mug instead of supplying them with an endless supply of disposable cups.

Also of note, as I was putting together this post I came across an article in the Austin Business Journal announcing that Whole Foods will be banning plastic bags from their stores by early 2008. Kudos to Whole Foods for doing their part.

Should businesses invest in niches or wait for trends?

Developing niche products and services are where many businesses are investing today in an effort to grow their profits. Finding that niche is sometimes easy, as it currently is in the healthcare market (offering an individual plan is the niche to be in since group plan offerings are reaching saturation), but most often finding a new niche is an arduous process. My question is will we reach a point where so many niches have been created that they become too small to reasonably support? The book Microtrends argues that we’re moving away from an economy that produces for the masses to one that produces for many small niches. While I agree with that assessment I also argue that our society has become so entangled in finding the cheapest possible source that it becomes seemingly more difficult to personalize products and experiences and stay competitive. Think big box stores vs. mom and pop shops. Microtrends goes on to say that when a niche reaches one percent of the population a trend is born. Perhaps the solution is to ignore the niches and wait for the trends. Of course that’s a passive approach and could result in a company missing out on a trend because their competitor has already built its reputation around the niche and created immense customer loyalty while doing so; leading us back to the classic marketing book Positioning which argues that a company first to market with something is most likely to remain the market leader. What are your thoughts?

Handwritten Notes Impress Customers

I recently ordered a beautiful letterpressed calendar and package of letterpressed Christmas cards from Linda & Harriett (read their blog). I had never ordered from the company before so I didn't know what to expect, but I had read about them in Daily Candy and I have a soft spot for letterpressed anything. The items arrived promptly and were ever prettier than I expected, but what impressed me the most was the handwritten thank you note (see above image) included in the package. In a world of automation and attempts at personalization it was wonderful to see a company that understands that their customers are actual people (not mere numbers) and are smart enough to know that the Dear John personalization of mass emails is just a computer attempting to make a good impression. It took an extra 20 seconds for a Linda & Harriet employee to write the thank you note and include it in my package, but it made me feel like a valued customer, so valued I'm willing to tell all of my friends about the experience. My challenge to you is to think about the extra 20 seconds you could add to your own processes to start really connecting with your customers.