Friday 13th meme for hire

Posted on January 10, 2012 by andy

Imagine you are a surfer.

Do you just plonk your surfboard on the sea surface and hope somehow you will be propelled forward.

It’s obvious you wouldn’t. You don’t need to know much about surfing to appreciate that a key skill of a surfer is to spot the potential swell, the current that starts small but grows into a powerful force to overcome all before it – and provide the best potential vehicle for riding on.

As a surfer you read your territory.

If most communicators were surfers they would probably have a very shiny, attractive looking surfboard. And the board would probably bobble up and down resting on the surface, but not really go anywhere. Most communicators fail to read their territory.

A mememaster (or mistress) in communicating a message would be like the surfer: observing currents and trends; some may be well established, others can swell in an instant. (Calling out for a dog named ‘Fenton’ for example)

The trick is to harness these currents to advance some part, or the whole of your message.

A meme is a self-replicating message. Think of the song ‘Happy Birthday’ – you know the words, but you haven’t been on a ‘Happy Birthday’ training course, or read a ‘Happy Birthday’ training manual; somehow you:

a) Know the words and

b) Know to use it on social occasions to celebrate someone’s birth anniversary.

Doesn’t it make sense to harness established memes, especially an event that you know is going to happen which can somehow get people talking about you and remembering some part, or even the whole of your message.

My favourite phrase at the mo’ (inspired by Cocal Cola’s excellent Content 2020 report) is ‘gaining a disproportionate part of popular culture’; if you want to gain a disproportionate part of popular culture wouldn’t it make sense to follow a line of least resistance and piggy-back on a relevant bit of surf to your message?

It has intrigued me that no out there has sought to tame one of the best established memes going. With just the slightest of prompts and provocations you can get people talking about overcoming adversity, tempting fate, or something even scary, or even about luck.

I am of course talking about Friday the 13th.

Each year typically has three ‘Friday 13ths’ (if the month starts on a Sunday then it will have a Friday 13th )

A morbid, irrational fear of Friday the 13th is actually called friggatriskaidekaphobia: Friday is ‘Frigga’s Day’. Frigga (Frigg) was an ancient Scandinavian fertility and love goddess, equivalent to the Roman Venus who had been worshipped on the sixth day of the week. Christians called Frigga a witch and Friday ‘the witches’ Sabbath’.

The Friday 13th phobia is also called ‘paraskevidekatriaphobia’ as well as ‘triskaidekaphobia’.

Curiously, for both Greeks and Spanish-speakers, the 13th of the month is considered unlucky if it falls on Tuesday, instead of Friday. 

Will you be using Friday 13th to bring your campaign extra impact, or are you fearful of trying to using it?

I offer these views as I am an innovation consultant delivering training creativity, creativity workshops, creativity courses, innovation training, innovation seminars, creative thinking training and training innovation. 

I also help people with innovation creativity, innovation entrepreneurship, creativity coaching, business innovation, creativity exercises, creativity innovation, managing innovation, brand consultant and brand public relations.

People use me for group facilitation, workshop facilitation, facilitation training, strategic business planning, innovation business, providing innovation tools, and creative problem solving.

And honest, I don’t charge scary prices!

 

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Wakefield College Masterclass programme

Posted on January 9, 2012 by andy

I will be launching a new initiative by WakefieldCollege to equip Yorkshire businesses and their managers with crucial skills to survive and thrive, at a lunchtime event on Thursday January 19th

I will be talking on ‘Essential Skills in Innovation & Creativity for Management’ – the seven things you and your business need to do differently to kick-start the bi-monthlly series of lunchtime events focussing on different areas of business expertise.

The masterclasses will feature a leading expert, accompanied by the opportunity for 1:1 mini consultations, networking – as well as a free lunch. 

Due to international commitments, this is the first opportunity for two years that I have had the opportunity to talk to local businesses in Wakefield, where I aim to pass on tips on how businesses can be more innovative and find new ways of surviving and thriving in these difficult times.

Andy is also a partner with award-winning digital PR and marketing agency GREEN Communications and a director of the Wakefield Media Centre.

‘Essential Skills in Innovation & Creativity for Management’ will provide local business managers and executives with valuable tips and insights on how to transform their innovation and creative idea generating skills, opportunity spotting and the ability to make their ideas spread. All delivered in my trademark style of wit, engagement and insight.

Issues addressed will include does your business need to do things differently? Is it looking for new ideas, services, products or markets? Does it need to reduce costs, improve profits and somehow also improve customer service?

The session will cover how you can improve your own innovation skills, how to nurture the creative talents of your colleagues, cleaners and chairmen, along with quick, easy-to-methods to trigger outstanding new ideas.

The  Masterclass also offers 1:1 mini consultations to address any individual business challenges or problems.

“The old adage that there’s no such thing as a free lunch is being proved wrong by the Wakefield College Masterclass series with food for thought, inspiration and practical advice to help any manager improve their performance during 2012.” said Anne Cox ,Development and Partnership Advisor atWakefieldCollege

Admission is by ticket only which are free. Places are limited and can be booked at  

http://www.wakefield.ac.uk/Events/Essential-Skills-in-Management/

Looking ahead Anne Cox said: “Make it a successful year for your business. You cannot succeed by keep doing the same things. The Masterclass series will equip you and your business with the effective skills, to survive and thrive.”

 

 

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Two types of 100 Club need preserving: the punk and the piemash

Posted on January 8, 2012 by andy

Two news items highlight the danger of losing valuable, irreplaceable parts of our cultural heritage – and both curiously linked by the name of ‘100 Club’

According to the Sunday Times, the 100 Club inLondon’sOxford Streethas failed to get listed consent, while earlier this month Duncans Pie and Mash shop shut its doors onGreen Street,UptonPark – an early victim of the Olympic stadium development.

Imagine you are a young tourist coming toLondon, and, like many of your generation, a great admirer and follower of British popular music. Where can you go to check out an authentic experience and encounter?

The 100 Club inLondon’sWest Endhas not just been there got the T-shirt, but was the place where the ‘where’ happened. Jazz, early R&B, 60’s rock and progressive, punk, you name it and it has the encore.

And it stands probably as the last remaining real testimony of this cultural sector.

Its future however has been under threat from landlords wanting to get in a higher paying tenant  with presumably a pizza chain moving in,  with campaigners desperately fighting to protect its future.

One response was to get a form of listing as an historical site. A move, now sadly rejected by the Government.

On the other side of townGreen Street,UptonPark will apparently welcoming a new Ladbrokes betting shop. Obviously, this is a crucial and welcome addition to the area’s culture and history.

It replaces Duncans Pie & Mash shop which closed its doors for trade last week.

For those not familiar with pie mash culture, it is a crucial part to defining what is ‘cockney’, as well as being  an emblem ofLondon, and particularlyEast Endheritage and history.

OK, it may be not be the Crown Jewels orBuckinghamPalace, but for ordinary working class people, their favourite grub was not just dished up as food, but also served as a cultural icon for their identity, who they are, and what they are about.

There are now just about a hundred pie mash shops across theUK(well mainly in Londonand the South East). About 20 have closed in the last 10 years. If the trend continues….

The lesson for both ‘100 Clubs’ is the need for pro-active and determined support to make sure we have the reality we want.

It’s about each and every person who cares to do something, at the very least buy the product. It’s also about Government – both national and local, to have pro-active strategies in place to manage and protect.

Otherwise these crown jewels and palaces of popular culture will be lost for ever.

What sort of world do you want? One with real, authentic experiences, recognizing its cultural roots and heritage: or a world of betting shops and pizza chains?

I know which one I want. And I am now looking at what positive, constructive steps I can take to ensure I create the world that I want.

 

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What’s going to be your 70:30:10 of how you do things in 2012?

Posted on January 6, 2012 by andy

At last the magic ingredient of Coca Cola’s success is now being shared.

No, I am not talking about the tightly-guarded ingredients of its flavoured water.

Rather, how it allocates its precious resources for brand communications to ensure its future success by ‘gaining a disproportionate share of popular culture’. (Isn’t this what you are about: aiming to gain a disproportionate share of your stakeholders’ culture?)

For several years now, when facilitating Brand Communications Reviews or Strategic Awaydays I had been advocating an 80:20 formula – 80% of the things you do, you play safe, tried and tested; 20% you go for innovation, try new things, play, experiment, and engage more with risk.

By using this recipe, I believe you can get the best balance between safety/change and risk.  

Coca Cola in its major strategic review Coca Cola 2020 goes even further. It uses a 70:20:10ratio.

70% of activity is Low Risk, bread and butter stuff;

20% is Innovative on what works, tending to be activity engaging more deeply with  specific audience (but still has broad scale)

10% is for the High Risk, potentially tomorrow’s 20 or 70% activity, where learning intent is declared upfront, and you are prepared to fail by celebrating both failure and success. 

Coca Cola is taking a lead in putting Brand Story at its heart of communications. Its video Content 2020 is both a masterpiece of production, and an essential must-see for any serious marketing communication professional.

Check out the video – it only lasts 7 minutes

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LerdMmWjU_E

Also, it is great to see the format used by the Royal Society for Arts in its Animate series being used as a model for spreading messages.

In the year ahead it’s going to be tough, But it’s not about the survival of the fittest, but rather the survival of the best fitting: who can best adapt to chnages, new demands, and capitalise on  available opportuntities. How are you going to devise your 70:30:10?

Here are some key strategic tools I will be harnessing in the brand workshops I will be running for clients during 2012:

1.  Be uncreative Part One:Do a faster/quicker/cheaper review of what you currently do.

2.  Be uncreative Part Two: Plan for 70 or 80% of your resources to be conservative, low risk, safe bet.

 3. Do a Traffic Light Analysisof your activity: what do you need to stop, what needs to continue and in what areas do you need to go ahead

4.  Do something awesomewith your 20 or 30%

5.  What would your role model do?

6. Do a pre-mortem. Imagine yourself in a year’s time looking back on the previous 12 months in a scenario where your plans created a disaster. Examine why it was a disaster. This is a great technique as it legitimizes doubt and gets you to challenge much-cherished activity.

7. Just do the right thing

If you are not planning a strategic review for 2012 – will you still be here next year?

Are you seeking a ‘disproportionate share of popular culture’ in your communications in 2012? (So long as long as its part of a coherent Brand and Brand Story strategy.)

What are you going to do different in 2012? How are you going to be best fitting to your new world?

I have available during the next three months a limited number of  half, 1 and 2 day workshop sessions , where I work with the best experts of your reality – you and your team – to devise new strategies, do faster/cheaper/better analysis, improve creative thinking skills to identify/nurture new opportunities and ways of doing.

Quote this reference blog01 and get a 10% reduction in fee or 20% extra service.

 

Posted in Brainstorming, Brand Story, business innovation, business strategy, creativity innovation, creativity workshop, group facilitation, Icon strategy, innovation consultant, strategic business planning, training creativity, training innovation, word of mouth | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment

How are you telling your Brand Story?

Posted on January 4, 2012 by andy

http://youtu.be/LerdMmWjU_E

I have been preaching the need for any organization and individual to have compelling brand stories at their heart.

The Coca Cola Content 2020 video, which announces their change of strategy and emphasis on Content Marketing is truly remarkable. Continue reading →

Posted in Brand Story, Brand You, business innovation, business strategy, creativity innovation, Icons, innovation entrepreneurship, memes, strategic business planning, training creativity, training innovation, Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Your New Year’s resolutions need Squeezesteps

Posted on January 2, 2012 by andy

If you have made New Year’s resolutions the critical challenge is to make them happen.

Here’s where you need to use ‘Squeezesteps’.

The dictionary of the future will define a ‘Squeezestep as: “Actively breaking down into smaller, more do-able, nudgeable or more compelling steps in any change requiring you or others to take.”

It implies there is an onus on anyone engaged with change to recognize the need for making change easier for the other person.

Creativity fundamentally works in the same way as if you were making a snowball. It is an incremental dynamic where you add one thing to another, and another, and another….  Every idea you create is a stepping stone to take you somewhere different.

Making small steps is far less frightening than making big ones. It’s far easier, and also gives you more options, for example to shuffle to the right or left, forwards or backwards rather than to make just one massive leap forward.

Nature also works by following lines of least resistance; a river does not flow in a straight line. In your strategy you don’t need to identify the straightest line between you and your objective. You need to identify lines of least resistance.

These lines of least resistance are identified by the easiest squeezstep forward. By being prepared to make many different probes forward – and also being flexible enough to go back and start another route if necessary, you can overcome the biggest obstacles.

How do you eat an elephant?  One bite at a time is the old gag, but it’s perfectly true in your gameplan when tackling any big task you face.

One of the key reasons why an idea, a new business venture, or a lifestyle change is unsuccessful is that you may have been required to make too many unbridgeable steps.

Equally, it may have required you to say an immediate ‘Yes’ to your idea, to travel too far for their small steps.

When you have an idea in your head, the tendency is for it to be in concrete detail in your mind. The picture is a vivid, yet self-contained vision. But it fails to take into account the niggling little things, the minor interventions, hurdles and diversions that people have to overcome to also get to your destination.

Whenever you have an idea you need to ask yourself beautiful questions of : ‘What are the small steps I need to ask people to make?’ and “What squeezesteps do I need to introduce to make the change happen?”

I would recommend identifying five Squeezesteps – between where you are now and the place where you want to be. The crucial trick is that two of your five squeezesteps you should have  already done.

The reason for this is that it makes starting easier – you have already made the first step. By identifying the second step you have already done, this creates a sense of momentum to make your next step even more compelling and likely to happen.

You can diagnose the optimum step ladder for you to reach the place where you are at by using these 4 motivations:

1. When looking at the detail of your situation, explore beyond its immediate features, identify its benefits – what it does for you, both on a practical and emotional level and the inter-relationship between different elements of your situation.

2. In what ways can you go the extra yard compared to what is already being offered?

3. What niche opportunities are there to the left or the right, foreground or rear of your situation can you take advantage of? 

4. Making, consuming and experiencing as many squeezesteps as possible expands the range of opportunities available to you and gives you more to think flexibly around.

Taking squeezesteps helps your flexible thinking move quicker. It can also bring you dividends for you when you least expect.

Here’s to you fulfilling your New Year resolutions and taking Squeezesteps 3,4 and 5.

I offer these views as I am an innovation consultant delivering training creativity, creativity workshops, creativity courses, innovation training, innovation seminars, creative thinking training and training innovation. 

I also help people with innovation creativity, innovation entrepreneurship, creativity coaching, business innovation, creativity exercises, creativity innovation, managing innovation, brand consultant and brand public relations.

People use me for group facilitation, workshop facilitation, facilitation training, strategic business planning, innovation business, providing innovation tools, and creative problem solving.

Posted in Brainstorming, business strategy, creativity workshop, Ideas, innovation consultant, strategic business planning, training creativity, Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Be a Twixtmas masterchef -make the most of your festive leftovers

Posted on December 28, 2011 by andy

Make the most of your festive leftovers this Twixtmas

Spend more time changing your world for the better this Twixtmas by keeping your time in the kitchen to a minimum.

Do you feel that your festive season consists of worrying about ‘feeding the five thousand’ as well as numerous trips to your local supermarket to get more ingredients?

Put an end to all that with a range of recipes that are entirely made up of luscious leftovers from the festive feast.

Twixtmas is all about taking time out to do something for yourself or others during the five days between Christmas and New Year, December 27-31.

Twixtmas campaignerAndy Green suggests theTurkey leftovers offer the perfect excuse to do five good deeds in the kitchen this Twixtmas.

Day one  Have a go at cooking something you wouldn’t normally attempt, be adventurous in the Kitchen.

Day two Cut down on the kitchen waste and reuse some of the Christmas dinner leftovers.

Day three Encourage someone who wouldn’t normally be found in the kitchen to pull on an apron and have a go at cooking.

Day four Add some festive ‘zing’ to one of your favourite dishes –maybe a drop of sherry or a twist of orange.

Day five Write down three cookery skills you would like to master during the year ahead.

Twixtmas masterchef Andy Green has three recipes to try with the festive leftovers this year:

Simple yet scrumptious is the hot turkey sandwich. This mouth-watering recipe is the perfect way to finish off that left over turkey and gravy. Simply heat gravy in a saucepan, arrange 2 slices of lightly buttered bread and top with turkey. Drizzle with hot gravy and sprinkle with salt and pepper. Serve with leftover cranberry sauce or for something a little different, add some mandarin slices.

Saintly yet delicious is the warm turkey salad, angelic in the calorie count whilst not affecting the succulent taste. This recipe is perfect for the healthy eaters this holiday period. Combine turkey with French dressing. Fold in a drizzle of sherry, mayonnaise, lemon juice and onion and place on to crispy lettuce. Top with bacon for a flavoursome finish.

Bubble and Squeak is back! This is the perfect winter warmer for all vegetarians out there and for the people that simply just love vegetables. Fry butter and chopped onion in a pan, increase heat and add mashed potato and vegetables. Stir for ten minutes, once fully reheated press the potato mixture to the base of the pan. Cook for one minute, flip over and repeat. Finish with a twist of fresh orange juice and serve with a warmed baguette and leftover cranberry sauce for a hearty finish to your winter warmer.

Commenting on the new Twixtmas festive recipes,Andy Green said: “All these recipes take under ten minutes to prepare and have been designed to contain the left over food from your Christmas dinner, with the aim that the time saved in the kitchen over Twixtmas will be spent on yourself and changing your world for the better whilst completing your five Twixtmas good deeds.”

The campaign web site www.twixtmas.com offers practical advice and inspiration to encourage everyone to make the most of this under-usedperiod of time. The site also provides a free facility for sending a Twixtmas e-greeting card, and you can also download a Twixtmas pledge form.

 

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Twixtmas is here! Give yourself a 5 day ‘happiness workout’

Posted on December 27, 2011 by andy

Twixtmas is here! You can transform your personal happiness by doing a five-day work out during the Twixtmas break between the Christmas and New Year holidays.

By following some easy-to-do ‘happiness work-out’ tips devised by Professor Richard Wiseman, you can make yourself happier, be more optimistic, and even exercise more.

The binge happiness five day programme simply consists of completing a diary for each of the five days of Twixtmas which focus on the happy, positive in your life.

Writing down positive feelings has been proven to beat just talking about them: scientists believe that writing encourages the creation of a story line and structure which helps people to make sense of what has happened in their past and encourages them to work towards finding solutions.

Talking however, is often unstructured, disorganized, and even chaotic. As a result, it can add a sense of confusion to your emotional state.

According to Professor Richard Wiseman in his book ’59 seconds’ he highlights how: “Expressing gratitude, thinking about a perfect future, and affectionate writing have been scientifically proven to work, and all they require is a pen, piece of paper, and a few moments of your time. “

Professor Wiseman advises people to follow a five day schedule consisting of:

Day 1 – write down three things over the last week which make you feel grateful.

Day 2 – write down to recapture how you felt about one of the most wonderful experiences in your life.

Day 3 – write about your future where everything has gone as well as you have hoped.

Day 4 – write a short letter to someone who you care for telling them how important they are to you.

Day 5 – make a note of three things that went really well for you over the five days of Twixtmas

According to Twixtmas campaign organiser Andy Green: “The five days of Twixtmas between December 27th to December 31st are an ideal time to do your very own ‘happiness work-out. Most people put things off or don’t get round to doing them because they say they don’t have time. There is no excuse for most of us over the Twixtmas break to enjoy some ‘binge happiness’.”

The Twixtmas campaign is a new idea to change what is seen as a dull, fallow holiday period into a massive opportunity to get people to do small acts of goodness to create significant social good for themselves and others.

Instead of binge shopping, or binge drinking, the not-for-profit campaign is trying to encourage binge doing and ‘binge happiness’ to overcome the problem of ‘time poverty’ – where people perceive they do not have enough time to do things for themselves or others – or the planet. 

If just .1% of theUKpopulation did five good things this would create 250,000 acts of goodness.

The five days of Twixtmas campaign between the Christmas and New Year holidays – December 27th to 31st is often the time of the year where people complain of being bored and not having anything to do.

Twixtmas however, is a time when most people are time rich.

The campaign web site www.twixtmas offers practical advice and inspiration to encourage everyone to make the most of this under-used opportunity. The site also provides a free facility for sending a Twixtmas e greeting card, and you can also download a Twixtmas pledge form. 

The campaign was originally conceived by social enterprise the Flexible Thinking Forum.

Further details about Twixtmas can be found at www.twixtmas.com

 

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The high-five meme – and its new meaning for Twixtmas

Posted on December 24, 2011 by andy

Imagine you are a Martian and you are watching humans behave.

You will probably note how, in human society, certain physical actions are used to create a non-verbal message: if, for example, you are happy with a performance you do a repeated motion of smacking the palms of your hand together to create a noise.

One comparatively recent physical-gesture-that-also-denotes-a-message is what is know as the ‘High Five’.

The Oxford English Dictionary defines the ‘High-Five’ as a noun describing a gesture of celebration or greeting in which two people slap each other’s palms, usually with their arms extended over their heads and also as a verb meaning to greet a person in this way.

The High-Five is also a meme: a self-replicating message that virally spreads.

As far as I can tell, there has never been a High-Five Marketing Promotion Board: the message has spread of its own volition.

Believed to have originated in the 1980’s, from either American Basketball or in African-American urban culture as a greeting – or a symbiotic fusion of the two, I was pleasantly surprised by its prevalent use elsewhere; watching tennis doubles, it seems no good shot goes unacknowledged by the pair without its High-Five variant.

Although the High-Five grew in popularity through the 1980s leading to being included in dictionaries and the popular vernacular, there has been a High-Five backlash perhaps regarding it as non-cool.

The High-Five can be either used as an ironic, self-deprecating gesture, or still simply as a gesture of celebration and saying ‘well done’.

But can we give new meaning and impetus to the ‘High-Five meme’ by making it a gesture for the Twixtmas celebrations?

The 5 days of Twixtmas – between the Christmas and New Year holidays where everyone is encouraged to do 5 good things to make the world a better place – you could give someone a High-Five accompanied by saying ‘Have a good Twixtmas’.

Have a go, here are the instructions:

  1. Hold your hand out
  2. Gently smack the palm of a friend, colleague, or family
  3. Say ‘Have a good Twixtmas’. 

If the ‘Twixtmas High-Five’ is not your style, you can still send a Twixtmas e greeting via the Twixtmas campaign web site, www.twixtmas.com

Have a good Twixtmas and make sure you share the Twixtmas feeling and spread the word.

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What new skills can you learn over the 5 days of Twixtmas?

Posted on December 22, 2011 by andy

You have a great opportunity to learn a new skill, do something different, make your world a better place and feel better about yourself.

You have a five day break where you are ‘time rich’ instead of the usual ‘time poor’ – when you use the excuse you do not have time to learn or do new things, or put them off.

The opportunity is the five days of Twixtmas – between the Christmas and New Year holidays – usually a period where people complain of being bored, restless, fed up with shopping and what to get out of the house.

If Christmas has become overwhelmed with materialism and New Year soaked in hedonism what about transforming the holiday break in between as a celebration of skills development and learning something new?

Could you learn a new skill, or teach others to learn new skills?

The non-commercial Twixtmas campaign is aiming to encourage everyone to make the most of the opportunity between December 27th to 31st to take small practical actions to make their world better in some way.

The campaign web site www.twixtmas offers practical advice and inspiration to encourage everyone to make the most of this under-used opportunity. The site also provides a free facility for sending a Twixtmas e greeting card, and you can also download a Twixtmas pledge form.

The idea was originally conceived by social enterprise the Flexible Thinking Forum, as a simple way of creating social good by thinking differently about the period between the two public holidays of Christmas and New Year, and make use of untapped resource, energy, and opportunities.

To help people get the most of period the campaign has themed each of the five days with a focus;

Day 1 is about spoiling yourself and thinking more positively about you.

Day 2 is do something for someone else, ideally a stranger – help a neighbour or good cause

Day 3 is help a friend

Day 4 is doing something for the planet

Day 5 is do something for your future

“Imagine if most people learnt to do something new, or did five things during Twixtmas to make the world a better place. Would it be great if you did some small thing to help make this happen?” said Twixtmas campaigner Andy Green of the Flexible Thinking Forum.

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