Jeff Widman (.com)

New here? You may want to visit my welcome page. Thanks for visiting!

Despite the silence, I’m still here… Working at a camp in North Dakota for the past one and a half weeks–I’ll be here through the end of next week.

While I originally intended to post here, the 26.4 kbps has stifled my online presence–takes 15 minutes just to upload a blog post!

The time here has been well spent in reflection, mentoring young men, and being offline.

See you in a week and a half!

Some marketers lie on purpose. You know who I’m talking about.

The rest of us are tempted.
By definition, a good marketer is an expert in creating WOW experiences.
We understand the importance of a great story. But sometimes…
…it’s impossible to surpass customer expectations…
…the competition has a better product…
…the deadline won’t be met…
…the XBox has a flaw…

That’s when stretching the truth seems the path of least resistance.

Ever heard a fisherman tell a whopper?
The audience wouldn’t call it a lie. Fact is, they like the adventure–it’s fun. But they won’t trust his next story. So combine the best of both worlds. Craft a fantastically exciting story around an honest product description.

The North Face is known for over-rating their sleeping bags. Their Wasatch is rated at 40 degrees, but I wouldn’t trust it below 50 degrees–with additional warm clothing! Contrast that with Western Mountaineering, a company known for under-rating their bags. Funny thing–I’ve never slept in a sleeping bag from either manufacturer. Word gets around. One over-rated product affects the entire brand.

Being honest isn’t morally wrong. Lying is. If you don’t have a game-changing story, don’t exaggerate. Hope isn’t reality. Reporting bad news isn’t bad. 

Be the first to tell the client bad news (e.g., slipped delivery); his intelligence sources will tell him fast—you want to be there first with your story and to enhance your rep as truthteller! - Tom Peters

It may not be your fault, but it is now your problem. Transform the obstacle into an opportunity.

Soon, you will be tempted.
Not to lie, but to stretch the truth.
Unfortunately, that’s the same thing.
Don’t!

Not all neighbors are as friendly as Mr. Rogers. While some invite you in for a cup of tea, others limit you to the porch. A few merely gawk from behind shuttered windows.

The same responses happen when you market to consumers. Seth Godin is a genius for reminding marketers to mind their manners, and ask permission rather than barging in.

But you can’t afford “yes” or “no” answers when asking permission.

You’ll either forgo deep relationships by staying on the porch, or have only a few relationships with those willing to share a cup of tea. Instead, find a way to build the deepest-possible, permission-based relationship with both the gawkers and Mr. Rogers.

Offer more than two answers when you ask permission. Add another channel.

Allow Mr. Rogers to invite you into the house. Allow the gawkers to feel comfortable lurking. Provide a highly personalized e-mail list, and an informative (and anonymous) website.

Vary the frequency.
Provide a daily RSS feed and an annual e-mail list.
Create a daily Twitter feed for your group.

Unfortunately, most consumers don’t even know what they want. Offer them three choices, and most will pick the middle. (Tip: Define the middle.) Restaurant menus are great examples of this. Most menus have four (or more) price-levels.

The final twist: Consumers love to feel powerful, but hate making decisions. So provide choices, but not too many. Don’t annoy people by asking whether they’ll allow you two steps inside their house or three. Besides, the less you push their boundaries, the less threatened they feel–they shouldn’t be second-guessing their choice.

Build a decision process that customers enjoy. A good restaurant menu makes ordering fun!

In January, I spent a week with Genie Industries participating in a kaizen event. This week was special–Genie paid a lean manufacturing Sensei upwards of $30k to supervise.
(Shingijitsu’s website looks like crap… Yet my Genie contact told me, “We’re working hard to wine/dine them–otherwise they’ll fire us.” That’s abnormal.)

I’ll never forget asking the Sensei a question; he grabbed my arm, moved to the middle of the process, planted me there, and said “Watch. What do you see?” The more questions I asked, the more questions he asked me. My brain spun. I learned.

I was reminded of this quote:

After Seth’s keynote this morning, I reviewed the notes that I was taking… The notes had nothing to do with what he was saying and everything to do with a fistful of creative sparks that were inspired by what he was saying. - Mitch Joel

Did you catch that?
Seth’s talk cast vision without constraining the answers.
Communicating like this requires discipline–it’s easier to tell people what to do than to patiently inspire them.

Where does your brain go after reading this story?

8 sec’s left in the third period; America 6, Religion 7. God loses the puck at center ice, Charlton picks it up. Heston shoots, Jesus saves! - Aidan Nulmann via Twitter

In 140 characters, Aidan got me thinking about America and religion. For twenty minutes. If he’d written a 4-page article, I’d have left after two paragraphs.

Listen to your market.
Discern their needs.
Collaborate on the answers–clarify the problem, and get out of the way.
(Be patient.)

Leverage their brilliance.

Back in March, best-selling author and thought-leader Seth Godin announced a summer internship:

Send your application (you decide what’s on it, that’s part of the application) as a pdf of no longer than four pages…

So I created this PDF.

| View | Upload your own

Unfortunately, the text is only readable in full screen.
Click View to visit the Slideshare site, then click Full Screen.

There are no shortcuts to wall-able content: creating this took over fifty hours. During the brainstorming process, I filled an entire notebook. Occasionally, I became bored… even frustrated with my lack of direction.

I’ve received nothing but rave reviews.
It’s rewarding to have others say they were inspired to be exceptional.

How can your resume or sales brochure inspire consumer belief?

I never thought of my friend Matt as clairvoyant. Until recently:

“So ABC happened…” - Jeff.
“Of course you did XYZ…” - Matt
“How did you know that?” - Jeff
“You responded that way to DEF and HIJ.” - Matt

Matt pulled together two situations to predict my response to a third situation.
It shocked me; I saw no connection between the three situations–they each involved completely different thought processes. But Matt, knowing my actions and not my thought processes, recognized a pattern.

Marketing researchers spend millions of dollars on focus groups, trying to recognize patterns. It’s hard work. It’s imperfect work. And understanding a pattern is different than recognizing it.

I think people are wired to recognize patterns in two ways:

1. Action–>Reaction. The tangible, concrete people–like Matt–watch life and say: “Whenever ABC circumstances happen, people respond with XYZ actions.” These people identify simple cause-effect relationships where others become distracted by complexity.
2. Thought-Process–>Reaction. The abstract people–like myself–watch life and say “Whenever people go through ABC thoughts and emotions, they respond with XYZ actions.” These people pull together a wide range of scenarios to see patterns when there is no apparent connection.

Neither way works better all the time. And I know from hanging out with Matt that sometimes he recognizes the pattern. Sometimes I recognize the pattern. You need both types because they identify different patterns.  Matt alternately shocks me with the patterns he recognizes and the patterns he misses.

Do you involve the other type of person in your decisions?
(I’m so abstract that I forgot the details of my conversation with Matt. :-))

Here’s the kicker: Patterns are always changing.

The always excellent Paul Graham just published his latest essay… on distractions. Nothing very surprising–the internet is tricky because it’s necessary yet distracting–but as he observes, the key is simply visibility.

I tried the Firefox Time Tracker extension but it was small and unobtrusive. Now I recognize I am 50% split between consumer and producer. So I work to create a lifestyle that ties them together. And I regularly evaluate major timesinks: Bloglines, Twitter, Facebook, and surfing.

I also build moats–low-tech ways of inserting pauses into daily life. I discovered these when my laptop crashed at 2 am, and I’d simply go to sleep rather than reboot it. When my laptop was working, I wouldn’t unplug to fall asleep. When it crashed, I realized my work could wait until morning. Now I try to create pauses. I don’t always unplug from Firefox after a pause, but it refocuses me.

What are your moats?

Doing dishes in the kitchen listening to Pandora.

High-speed inexpensive internet access is here. Right now. (My parents pay $40 a month for Sprint EVDO service.)

With a laptop, an EVDO modem, and a cassette adapter, I can listen to whatever I want. Legally. I can search by author, genre, song title–you name it.

Why XM??

Someone asked me how I ran a marathon without training.

I’m not sure… it’s one of those feats that evokes “I wish I could do that” emotions–only to realize I accomplished it!

The 50 miles in 24 hours (with full packs) came first—that was hard!
(Once you’ve done the first 30 miles, the next 20 seem easy… which is probably why we didn’t worry about tending blisters—which is why we limped the final 5 miles.)

Pushing myself physically strengthens my stamina throughout my life–work, integrity, sports, studying. A marathon is one of the quintessential marks of an endurance athlete (Ironman next), and I’ve always wanted to run one. When my younger siblings invited me to run with them, it was a perfect example of strategy following vision.

How did I do it?
-With others. During the 50-miler, my buddy fell asleep mid-stride. Neither of us would have completed it alone.
-Build your mind. For years I’ve maintained a lifestyle of pushing physically pushing myself “Just a bit further…”
-Pick your heritage. My grandpa tells of being the slowest sprinter, but able to keep that pace forever.

By not training, I meant I hadn’t gone running more than once a month for the previous year. But a summer of manual labor kept me in good health.

It’s mostly mental.
Set a goal.
Strengthen your mind for the challenge.
Reduce the challenge (get in shape.)
Do it!

Several months ago, I was doing some rough conceptual work for a personal logo.

Here’s my steps:

• Need–do I need a logo?
  (I do enough creative content that I thought a logo might enhance my personal branding.)
  
• Vision–what do I want to communicate with a logo?
  (Vision involves injecting yourself–your ability, passion, and experiences into a solution for the need.)
  
• Design–how am I going to communicate my vision with my logo?
  (Create a wall-able design. Understand how shapes relate to emotions.)
  
• Iterate–try something, revamp, and do it again. And again. 
  (Target: 100% reader accuracy in the Retail Alphabet Game.)
  
• Implement–spread the logo love.
  (But please, not on every single slide!

Ultimately, I got hung up on vision, only to realize that a personal logo is a little too corporate right now. It’s a nice touch, but instead I just need something for favicons, the occasional slidedeck, and avatars. A stylized comic of my head is probably more appropriate than a shape-based logo.