Posts filed under 'Learning'
Johnnie Moore has posted a fascinating little
snippet from Wilco’s Jeff Tweedy
, regarding the free online distribution of Wilco’s latest album. Says Tweedy:
A piece of art is not a loaf of bread. When someone steals a loaf of bread from the store, that’s it. The loaf of bread is gone. When someone downloads a piece of music, it’s just data until the listener puts that music back together with their own ears, their mind, their subjective experience. How they perceive your work changes your work.
To which Johnnie says:
Big message here, and not just for the music business. Do you want to treat your customers as collaborators? If so, you have to let them make their own meaning out of what you say and lighten up around “owning” ideas. (It’s called conversation).
Spinning off from that, my thoughts turned to consulting. Too many people - both clients and consultants - treat consulting like stationery, to be bought, used up and replaced.
For clients, the problem with this approach is that when all your “thinking” is outsourced, your staff don’t learn anything new. So when more thinking is required in the future, you have to get another agency to do the work instead of doing it in-house. In the end, those people who do have a mind to be creative will get bored and leave your firm.
Consultants and other external advisors have done much to encourage this situation with “proprietary methodology,” the consulting equivalent of Tweedy’s “pieces of plastic, packages of intellectual property.” But so much good quality business education is available now, so freely, on the web and elsewhere, that this approach to selling consultancy will eventually backfire. In the end, clients reward those suppliers who give them choices, instead of locking them in.
To distinguish themselves, consultancies and agencies of all stripes must collaborate with their clients at every level. We must leave our clients empowered by, not dependent upon our services.
If you are a consultant, build client learning and development into the engagement from the outset. Clients? Demand that your consultants do so, and fire them quickly if they fail to deliver.
May 18th, 2005
According to
The Week
, the definition of
dog whistle politics
, like that being practised in the UK by the Conservatives on the immigration issue, is to:
sieze on issues that send a sharp message that, like a dog whistle, is only audible to the listeners it is aimed at
I was reminded of the phrase when I saw big name bloggers’ reactions to the new
Gourmet Station blog
. Gourmet Station is
blogshit
said Tom from True Talk.
Beyond lame
said Hugh from Gaping Void. Gourmet Station’s crime? To start a marketing
blog
authored by
a fictious character
.
Hugh and Tom are not wrong. In my five minutes as a blogger, and in my extended time as a lurker, I know that the personal connection between blogger and audience is where the magic lies. But isn’t there something bloggers could say to Gourmet Station other than simply
you’re lame
?
Cathy at
Authentic Voice nails it
, in a post which is full of provocative questions, before sending us on to Paul at Radiant.
Paul defends the blog marketer
behind Gourmet Station, before opening it up to comments. And, boy, have you commented. That’s more like it.
Paul’s follow up post
contains this absolute gem:
there is something else at stake here, and it’s that “something else” that complicates matters tremendously and causes the controversy. There is a “spirit” of blogging that transcends the technology and gives blogging its greatest power. It is the purity of intention with which bloggers approach their craft that sets blogging apart from any other form of web publishing.
Blogging is honest and from the heart.
If I was advising Gourmet Station right now, I would refer them to
Hugh’s work
on the
English Cut
blog, and to
True Talk’s ongoing analysis
of
GM Fastlane
. I would send them to some of the great food blogs like Elise’s
Simply Recipes
and Clotilde’s
Chocolate and Zucchini
. And I would advise them to drop T. Alexander and start again with a real person at the helm.
But this post is not about Gourmet Station. It’s about how a blogger can choose to speak to everyone, or just to a select few.
Hugh and Tom blew the blogwhistle. As a rallying cry to bloggers -
Let’s protect the blogosphere from those who don’t ‘get it’
- their posts where most effective. But if Hugh and Tom hope to reach marketers who are thinking of setting up a lame blog, then on this occasion, they have missed the mark.
Blogs need not be exclusive. Honesty and authenticity need not preclude debate. By all means, blow your blogwhistles from time to time - say the things you know your friends will love and to hell with everyone else - but when you want to reach a wider audience, remember to speak in a language everyone can understand.
April 7th, 2005
Rosa Say
has very graciously linked to
The Fabulous Baker Boy
on
173 Drury Lane
, a blog I guest author with
Johnnie Moore
,
Freddie Daniels
and
Max Blumberg
. I had drawn my own conclusions about the meaning of my story - that new skills, pride in one’s work, and ownership trump any amount of customer service training - but Rosa highlights another important lesson:
For me the story also perfectly illustrates how empowering new knowledge is for people, and how learning that is internalized just must be shared.
Of course! And what’s really exciting is that being a
teacher
also makes you a better
learner
. I find Stephen Covey a little preachy, but this line from
really hits home:
I suggest you shift your own involvement in this material from the role of learner to that of teacher… read with the purpose in mind of sharing or discussing what you learn with someone else within 48 hours after you learn it.
I guarantee that if you approach the material in this way, you will not only better remember what you read, but your perspective will be expanded, your understanding deepened, and your motivation to apply the material increased.
Years ago, as a postgraduate student, I used to tutor small groups of undergrads. Often during tutorials, they would ask me questions to which I didn’t know the answer. A more experienced tutor had told me that the best technique for dealing with that situation is to say:
Let’s explore that issue together… .
At the time I thought what a terrible cop out: how would my students learn if I couldn’t teach them what they needed to know? I now realise that the
explorations
we had when I didn’t know the answer - and we all had to teach one another - were really my students’ most valuable learning experiences.
Blogging is fantastic for this: learn something new, add your own thoughts, pass it on. It’s a virtuous cycle.
April 7th, 2005