How be to a Mastermind

There has been a lot of talk in the blogosphere recently around the topic of the 'Mastermind'. Eben Pagan says 'Possibly the most important and profound action you can take to create change, transformation and success in your life is to build and participate in a “MasterMind.”'

So I guess your wondering what is a MasterMind?

A MasterMind is a group of people who have common interests and goals, who get together on a regular basis to support each other in growth and development toward actualizing those interests and goals. It’s a dedicated group of people who share at least some values, perspectives and objectives in common, who understand that the power of the “group mind” is exponentially more powerful than the sum of the individual minds from which the group is composed.

The first person that explicitly described the concept in detail is Napoleon Hill (in his book “Think And Grow Rich”).

Hill said that no individual can achieve great power with out a MasterMind. My experience (and the experience of every powerful person I know) confirms this idea.

One of the most “magical” powers of the MasterMind is that it affects you on a subconscious level… without you having to “do” anything.

We humans are programmed by everything that happens around us. We tend to be MOST programmed by what we see, hear, and experience others doing.

Not what we read, not what we think, not what we feel. We’re influenced by the OTHERS around us. We literally become those that we surround ourselves with.

Want to know how much a person makes per year? Find their five closest friends and average their incomes. That’s the answer.

Want to know how healthy a person is? Find their five closest friends and average their health.

Want to know what a person’s aspirations are?

You get the picture.

So how does one create a MasterMind group, and how does one make sure that they’re doing it “right”?

Here are a few pointers, based on my experience:

1. Make sure most of the people in the MasterMind are FAR beyond you. At least 3-5 years down the road you’re trying to travel. 5-10 years is even better. This isn’t a non-profit organization or a charity event, so don’t treat it like one. You’re in this to GROW. (All the while knowing that if you grow to your full potential, you’ll be able to do much more effective charity work later in your life.)
2. If you do allow others who are behind you on the road to success in your chosen area, make sure that they have MASSIVE POTENTIAL. You’d better be feeling in your gut that they’re a super-star, and it’s only a matter of time before they pass you.
3. Meet regularly in person. If you are located in different geographic locations, it’s fine to meet by phone often. But get together live, in-person regularly.
4. It’s great to have a few different MasterMinds for different parts of your life. A physical-health based MasterMind can be just as valuable to you personally as a financial MasterMind. Again, just make sure that the members are beyond you.
5. Make sure that the people you invite to the MasterMind can add massive value to the OTHER MEMBERS. Remember, you’re inviting people who are beyond you. They’re going to get a lot more value from the group and the other members than they are from you. Carefully select members who will get value from each other. Keep yourself out of the equation mentally.
6. Be the “hassle remover” for the group. Handle the schedule. Handle the details. Do the annoying administrative stuff that noone else wants to do. You be the one to set up the teleconference bridge meeting line, or the meeting space reservations. You be the one to walk next door and tell the neighbors to be quiet because they’re disturbing your meeting. You be the one to go out and get more drinks for the group because everyone is thirsty.
7. Remember, the value to you isn’t the tangible things you’re going to get. Don’t focus on material gain. What you’re going to get is the personal GROWTH that comes from being around evolved beings. Let the others have the perks and material rewards of the group. You sit back like the “dumb fox” and allow your mind to receive the higher-level transmissions that are coming from the others around you.

Design , Marketing, Service ?

Russell Davies the planning messiah recently brought a interesting point to my attention that i have given some thought to. The business model that supports creative industries is fundamentally wrong, most large organisations operate in 3 silo's doing design or content, marketing and aftersales or service, dealing-with-the-consequences-of-what-the-other-two-silos-have done.

What makes this model wrong is no silo ever talks to any other, because the process almost always proceeds steadily from left to right. Design make stuff and pass it to marketing who then work out what to say about it. There will probably be some broader corporate direction that will attempt to make this stuff more seamless, integrated and coherent and to connect the end to the beginning, but it always gets swamped by the organisation. By the time a product gets to someone like the advertising agency no-one wants any more thoughts about how the product might be improved.

This isn't a revelation is has been the way organisations operate for years. However, it should be noted that people actually experience the product in a different order. People's experiences of most consumer products starts with the communications or marketing. The experience starts with the product or service second. It's not because integrating marketing and design thinking isn't a good idea, it's because it's organisationally / politically impossible.

The secret of the web

For all those that are yet to follow Seths blog, below is in his view, his best blog in the last two years entitled: The secret of the web (hint: it's a virtue)

Patience.

Google was a very good search engine for two years before you started using it.

The iPod was a dud.

I wrote Unleashing the Ideavirus 8 years ago. A few authors tried similar ideas but it didn't work right away. So they gave up. Boingboing is one of the most popular blogs in the world because they never gave up.

The irony of the web is that the tactics work really quickly. You friend someone on Facebook and two minutes later, they friend you back. Bang.

But the strategy still takes forever. The strategy is the hard part, not the tactics.

I discovered a lucky secret the hard way about thirty years ago: you can outlast the other guys if you try. If you stick at stuff that bores them, it accrues. Drip, drip, drip you win.

It still takes ten years to become a success, web or no web. The frustrating part is that you see your tactics fail right away. The good news is that over time, you get the satisfaction of watching those tactics succeed right away.

The trap: Show up at a new social network, invest two hours, be really aggressive with people, make some noise and then leave in disgust.

The trap: Use all your money to build a fancy website and leave no money or patience for the hundred revisions you'll need to do.

The trap: read the tech blogs and fall in love with the bleeding-edge hip sites and lose focus on the long-term players that deliver real value.

The trap: sprint all day and run out of energy before the marathon even starts.

The media wants overnight successes (so they have someone to tear down). Ignore them. Ignore the early adopter critics that never have enough to play with. Ignore your investors that want proven tactics and predictable instant results. Listen instead to your real customers, to your vision and make something for the long haul. Because that's how long it's going to take, guys.

New Music Strategies

We have all been hearing the talk for a while know that the music industry is dying etc etc, well I recently met a guy called Andrew Dubber at a conference and he has laid out some fresh approaches for online music business.

Thing 1: Don't believe the hype - There’s a great deal of discussion about music online in the mainstream press, and there are a couple of predominant threads to that coverage. Mostly, it’s not true.

It pays to be able to separate fact from fiction and hype from reality when it comes to the online music environment. Especially when your livelihood depends on it. Here are the two most important things to watch out for:

1) Technological determinism
2) People tend to lie

Thing 2: Hear / Like / Buy - There are lots of sophisticated tricks and tips for marketing music, online and off. But if you mess up this one fundamental principle, you might as well not bother at all.

Music is pretty much unique when it comes to media consumption. You don’t buy a movie ticket because you liked the film so much, and while you might buy a book because you enjoyed reading it so much at the library, typically you’ll purchase first, then consume.

But music is different — and radio proves that. By far the most reliable way to promote music is to have people hear it. Repeatedly, if possible — and for free. After a while, if you’re lucky, people get to know and love the music. Sooner or later, they’re going to want to own it.

Thing 3: Opinion leaders rule - How do you know what music to buy? Often, another person tells you - generally in some mediated way. Different media, different people, same principle.

Other than hearing, then liking, the most common and reliable way to find out about music is via the opinion leader. Often this will take the form of a press review or column — or some sort of radio feature. Occasionally, it’ll come from the telly. If you happen to respect the opinion of the person or institution telling you that the record is great, the chances you’ll be persuaded are reasonably high.

Thing 4: Customise - All this talk about the music industry online overlooks one simple fact: there isn’t one. There are many. One size does not fit all.

You’ve seen the website. It has a landing page with a photo on it and a little bit of blurb. There may be one or two things that move on it, or it might even have an animation. It has a fairly simple navigation system along the top or down the side. The links say things like About Us, Gallery, Downloads, Contact, Our MySpace — and the links take you to exactly the things you might expect when you get there.

Thing 5: Connect - It might seem an obvious thing to say about using the internet, but if you don’t connect, then you might as well not bother switching the damn thing on.

Having a website is not a promotional strategy. If you’re going to have a website, you need to have a promotional strategy.

Your promotional strategy should generate traffic — and, more importantly, repeat business. In order to get people to check out your website, it can’t just be tucked away on its own little shelf in the world-wide-library (to stretch the metaphor).

You can download the complete ebook here

OBEY - Shepard Fairey

OBEY is a company/brand that I always look out for, and take inspiration from its success story. Fairey created the "André the Giant Has a Posse" sticker campaign in 1989, while attending design school. This later evolved into the "Obey Giant" campaign I'm pretty sure you would have seen the posters on a wall near you. This campaign has grown via an international network of collaborators replicating Fairey's original designs. Fairey has also spun off the OBEY clothing line from the original sticker campaign, He uses the slogan "The Medium is the Message" borrowed from Marshall McLuhan.

Fairey's story shows how a simple sincere idea, can grow into multi-million company with a vision, a bit of talent and lots of dedication.

Check out Fairey explaining his story at detail here.

Key Points:

* “A lot of stuff for corporations – it’s not even that they don’t mean well, it’s just that they’re a little bit clueless as to the right way to go about addressing what skateboarders, street artists, punks, and hip-hop kids want to see. So finding someone who can be a liaison to that culture and help them deal with it authentically can be a real benefit for the artist and the company.”

* “After getting some attention for my stickers, it really opened my eyes to the idea of putting something in public that people see and get curious about. It really opened my eyes to the power of communication in public space.”

* “I think almost everything I’ve achieved has come from me perusing what I felt really strongly and passionately about and not second guessing my instincts and trying to have a level of authenticity.”

* “My idea was always to make my work seem bigger and more important that it really was. The result was, it started to resonate with a lot of underground culture types – skateboarders, people into punk music, etc – but additionally from people representing companies that wanted to identify with that demographic as well.”

* “There’s so many times where you go, ‘OK, should I be spending more time on my art or on my business?’ And I’ve found that I’m not happy doing either exclusively – that its all important.”

Go Hard or Go Home

Over this bank holiday weekend I was selling drinks at carnival, what seemed to be easy money turned in to the hardest two days of work I have ever done. Although it could have also been the best, sometimes its easy to forget what hard work feels like, when your in the business of creative thinking. Over the last two days I definitely proved that i still had the hard graft in me. I turned from a savvy marketer to a blue collar street trader, the thrill of the hard sell kept the adrenaline going. It had been a while since my direct selling days, but I found my self quickly into the swing of things using all my charm and wit to sell drinks. I had forgot how much skill it actually takes to judge and adapt your communication style to so many different people.

The main learning from my carnival experience is poor planning is certainly a recipe for disaster. Possible due to ignorance or arrogance I assumed due to the sheer amount of people any sort of drink would be easy to sell. Not so true we managed to sell out all the red-stripe on the first day, and just a few soft drinks. Had I done my research I probably would have found out that beer was going to be the best seller and not bought an equal amount of Giuness and soft drinks.

It was the quick thinking to concoct a punch and give away free samples that really saved the day. We managed to create a frenzy around our Carnival punch, this turned an almost waste of time, effort and money, into a great learning experience and profit.

Moral of the story is always research and plan a strategy for the task at hand, and if you don't be prepared to work, like my basketball coach use to say GO HARD OR GO HOME.

Solving Problems

One of the things that everyone, everywhere has to do on a regular basis is solve problems. I thought it would be worth jotting down a few of the different ways you can go about solving problems from what I have learnt from my agency days (but I think that this applies to anyone in business - creative or otherwise).

So the first part of solving any problem is to question. The time honoured Who? What? Why? When? How? Is a great place to start. In advertising this could be are we talking to the right people? What are we trying to achieve? Why do we want to do this? When do we want to do this? How are we going to achieve it?

Each one of these questions can trigger a whole load of new questions that help to understand what it is your trying to achieve and the best way to achieve it.

Which takes us nicely on to arguably the most important part of solving any problem, working out what the problem or objective actually is. Often the problem you’re given isn’t the real problem.

The more specific the problem the better. It’s much easier to work out the answer to a problem when it’s absolutely clear in your mind. So rather than trying to solve “increase brand affinity by 10%” how about “help people to fall in love with the brand again”?

It’s often easier to solve a problem if you can break it down into more manageable chunks. For example, Sainsbury’s famously reframed their problem from “add £4 billion of sales annually” to a far more comprehensable “Increase the average basket size by £3.32″.

Now you know what your problem is you need to read as much as you can on the subject. James Webb Young, one of the greatest advertising men of all time, had a specific technique for generating ideas was:

1. Gather the raw materials - the immediate problem & your general knowledge
2. Work these over in your mind (To this I’d add: Write your first thoughts down, no matter how bad they might be. Keep on writing more stuff. Give it time. Write more stuff down.)
3. Do something else/sleep on it
4. Have the idea
5. Shape the idea to make it useful and practical.

He also believed that “ideas are new combinations”. So when trying to create that little bit of inspiration try combining two unexpected elements e.g. big but personal (HSBC The World’s Local Bank) or small but tough (VW Polo).

Another technique is to think of great ideas in other sectors and categories and apply them to your problem. So if there’s an idea that always works in fashion retailing you might want to think about whether it’ll work in publishing.

Once you’ve got your solution, remember to keep the explanation as simple as possible so that anyone can understand it and pass it on.

Throwaway Society

We buy more stuff and throw it away faster than at any point in our history. The House of Lords has criticised the British fashion industry for contributing to a throwaway society. A Science Committee report today attacked 'fast fashion' outlets such as Primark for selling clothes so cheap there is no incentive to repair them.

Similarly buying a basic television has never been so cheap, relatively speaking. In the past, people would call a television repairman to fix the telly if it was broke. Nowadays you would pop down to the high street to buy a new one - which probably doesn't cost more than you're old one did five years before.

"Our attitude to technology has changed from using something until it breaks beyond repair, to constantly replacing it because something cooler is in the market," says Tom Dunmore, editor-in- chief of the gadget magazine Stuff.

Mark Strutt, senior campaigner at Greenpeace, says: "We consume vast amounts of electronic goods and throw them away. Mobile phones are a classic example, where they are more or less designed to be thrown away after a few years. Another prime example is the MP3 player, which does not have a battery that c be changed or recharged."

This thought came whilst taking one of my regular West End trips, as I always leave with something to write about. Although the way things are going Primark will soon have killed the high street. Yes I am saying this now in gest, but I wonder in five years how false that statement will be.

Anti-social marketing

When is the business world going to fully embrace this thing we call social media. A recent report has revealed that brands are still unsure of how best to leverage the large communities on social networking sites such as Facebook.

Tim Hoang reports. 'Despite the clamour by the marketing industry to affix 2.0 to all things vaguely Internet-related, it would appear that marketers are still struggling to fully utilise social networks as a channel of communication.'

That said there has been an increasing spend by marketers on social media sites. eMarketer recently predicted that by 2012, £285 million will be spent advertising on sites such as MySpace and Bebo. The popularity of social networking sites continues to be strong with around one-third of the total number of Internet users in the UK accessing them last year.

In the report, JupiterResearch underlines how difficult it can be for marketers to fully embrace social networks. However, it has made a series of recommendations in order to get the most out of social networks:

• Marketers should promote their pages with paid adverts rather than relying on viral marketing to get the message out. The vast majority of marketers attempting to generate viral buzz don't succeed in getting users to pass along their messages.
• Advertisers need to engage users on the page. Even simple forms of engagement, such as contests, on average doubled the number of friends acquired by each branded page.
• Marketers must appeal to social networkers' love of multimedia to get noticed. Social Networkers are twice as likely to visit a branded page focused on media content than a branded page focused on products.

Read the full article here

Designing Effective Virtual Environments

How often to you surf the web, and come across a site that is full of clutter. Clutter is the stuff that has no “place”, doesn’t belong with its surroundings, and serves little to no purpose. Honestly this happens to me quite often, so it’s no wonder most web pages are abandoned within a few seconds of viewing.

Whether intended or not, a person’s home and the way you present it are physical manifestations of your personality just as the design and content of a corporate website are virtual manifestations of a brand. Environments, both real and virtual, affect human perception and behaviour.

Here are few points to consider when designing online environments to attract, comfort and retain visitors:

Visual Elements: On a website, color, typography, iconography, and other imagery should be considered as carefully as an interior designer considers surfaces, furnishings, and art. Are they appropriate for the target user?

Colour: There are appropriate uses of colour for specific messages targeted at specific end users. Once an appropriate colour palette is defined, a designer can use it to direct users to specific content, organize that content, and create an appropriate environment.

Typography: Too many typefaces in one place is like cramming a room with furnishings from different eras. Stick to a theme, and visitors will be more comfortable and get a better sense of the message the type is sending.

Imagery: Imagery (photos, illustrations, icons) should enhance an environment by promoting a message or feeling. Iconography can be a helpful cue for web users, or it can be unnecessary and even misleading.

Content: A clearly defined hierarchy of information is crucial to helping users understand what a site has to offer and finding the information they seek.

Navigation and User Feedback: If a visitor has to think about where they can click to get more information, or click through multiple pages to get to specific information, they are not likely to stick around.

7 Design Guidelines

Smashing Magazine, recently posted an article '7 Essential Guidelines for Functional Design', this is a great article, but more interesting to me is how easy it is to adopt these functional design guidelines to most aspects of life.

At the heart of every piece of practical design, whether it be a website, product package, office building, manufacturing system, piece of furniture, software interface, book cover, tool, or anything else, there is a function, a task the item is expected to perform. Most functions can be achieved in a variety of ways, but there are some basic elements a designer needs to take into account to create a product that best fulfills its intended function.

The guidelines:

1. Consider the product’s goal.
2. Consider who will be using it.
3. Consider what your audience intends to do with it.
4. Is it clear how to use it?
5. How does your user know it’s working?
6. Is it engaging to your users?
7. How does it handle mistakes?

Read the full article here

Releasing creativity

Everyone has been there, that dreaded mental void when everything goes blank, and you enter a creative block. LifeDev recently put together a list of 15 tips to help relieve this situation.

And it goes a little something like this:

1. Start cleaning your immediate area
2. Impose a deadline
3. Use a different medium
4. Define the problem clearly
5. Surround yourself with materials
6. Relax your breathing, cool your nerves
7. Create a mind map
8. Ask a friend
9. Think with your eyes wide shut
10. Sleep on it
11. Don’t be afraid to use Google
12. Don’t be afraid to ask questions
13. Crank on some tunes
14. Exercise
15. Perspiration, not inspiration

Read the full article here