I love this video! This is truly cognitive communication at its best. Oh, and the subject matter is truly eye opening as well. Some very interesting research about what motivates people. It’s worth the 10 minutes to watch this.

I had to share this video. I am fast becoming an iPad fan. I hear all the objections…it’s just a giant iPhone, it doesn’t play Flash, it doesn’t have a camera, you can’t combine ATT  3G accounts with your iPhone, etc, etc. But all that aside, this may simply be the most “business-lifestyle-marketing-sales-productivity-daily-task-altering-object-of-desire” the common man has ever seen.  This little video shows iPad’s awesome versatility using an inexpensive velcro strip.

iPad + Velcro from Jesse Rosten on Vimeo.

I’ve heard it said that failure equals growth. Well, if that is truly the case, then a lot of growing’s been going on in 2009! How do you handle failure in your life? What is your attitude when the bottom is dropping out of your industry, your project, your business, your life?

According to John C. Maxwell, author of  Failing Forward: Turning Mistakes into Stepping Stones for Success we either panic and repeat failure over and over again, or we learn from our failures and grow.

Check out this great video…

Here are The Five Rules of Life
1. You will learn lessons
2. There are no mistakes, just lessons
3. A lesson is repeated until it is learned
4. If you don’t learn the easy lessons they get harder
5. You’ll know you’ve learned a lesson when your actions change

My wife and I saw this video this morning and were reminded again how failure is part of life and a stepping stone to success if handled properly. So let’s all learn our lessons and fail as achievers!

One of the biggest challenges for businesses in this current market is to avoid the temptation to figuratively curl up in a ball under our desk and wish it was 2005.  Sure the market is soft and customers are tentative but instead of taking a reactive position we need to be active.  There are upsides to the recession- there is less noise in the market and an incredible assortment of digital tools for you to better engage your prospects in a one-on-one conversation.  Seth Godin is spot-on in his recent blog post Death spiral!

As Tom Peters says, “You can’t shrink your way to greatness,” and yet that’s what so many dying businesses try to do. They hunker down and wait for things to get better, but they don’t. This isn’t a dip, it’s a cul de sac. It’s over.

Right this minute, you still have some cash, some customers, some momentum… Instead of squandering it in a long, slow, death spiral, do something else. Buy a new platform. Move. Find new products for the customers that still trust you.

Change is a bear, but it’s better than death.”

2010 is just around the corner- let’s make something of ‘09 while we still can- cause times may not be optimal but this is the only time we have.

I hope no one takes offense to this video but I had to laugh at the similarities to many real world situations in business. I have to admit I’ve been on both sides of this scenario myself and it helps me keep perspective and treat my vendors as I expect to be treated by my clients. A picture truly can be worth a thousand words!

Seth Godin is one of my favorite writers on all things marketing and business. I just had to reblog his post about Dolphin Leather because it hit me between the eyes. He nailed it. So many business owners are struggling with a doom and gloom attitude because their business isn’t working the way it always did before, and yet I am seeing and hearing about so many that are going out and reinventing themselves, getting serious about their marketing, improving their systems, rethinking their processes, and staying (or getting) excited about their businesses. Read Seth’s post and enjoy.

There’s a story in the bible with very specific instructions for building an ark. Included in the instructions is a call for using tanned dolphin leather. Regardless of your feelings about the historical accuracy of the story, it’s an interesting question: why create an impossible mission like that? Why encourage people who might travel 100 miles over their entire lifetime to undertake a quest to find, capture, kill, skin and eventually tan a dolphin?

My friend Adam had an interesting take on this. He told me that the acquisition of the leather is irrelevant. It was the quest that mattered. Having a community-based quest means that there’s less room for whining, for infighting and for dissolution. Having a mission not only points everyone in the same direction, it also creates motion. And motion in any direction is often better than no motion at all.

All around you, people are telling you two things:
1. whatever you want, forget it, it’s impossible, and
2. sit still, preserve resources, lay low.

And yet, the people who are succeeding, creating change and (not coincidentally) are happier aren’t listening to either of these pieces of advice. Instead, they’re on the search for dolphin leather.

Frank Sinatra had it wrong. Your dream shouldn’t be impossible, but it sure helps if it’s improbable. Don’t choose your dreams based on what is certain to happen, choose them based on what’s likely to cause the change you want to occur around you.

I absolutely love this talk by JJ Abrams at TED. Now I know why I am so drawn to all of Abrams’ work, Lost, Alias, Cloverfield, Mission Impossible. It has to do with Abrams’ mastery of mystery.

He talks about buying a Mystery Box at a little magic shop in NYC. It was decades ago that he went there with his Grandfather and bought the box for $15, completely sealed with a big question mark on the front. I can’t imagine the discipline it took to leave the box unopened on a shelf in his office! But a few things he said really rang true for me. Here are a few highlights if you don’t have the 18 minutes to watch his talk…

• To Abrams, the unopened mystery box represents infinite possibility, infinite hope, infinite potential.

• Mystery is the catalyst to imagination, it’s more important than knowledge, and mystery boxes are in everything.

• He is an Apple fanatic (as am I) and when he sits down at his PowerBook laptop, he feels inspired by the technology in front of him. His Mac asks him “what are you going to write worthy of me?”

• The blank page is a mystery box, waiting to be filled with spirit, thought, and emotion.

• Going to the movies, watching the lights go down is a mystery box.

I love what he implies about technology inspiring creative people to be creative, which inspires technology people, an endless look of inspiration.

Check out the video for yourself and be inspired!

I guess I’m a creature of habit, for good or for bad. One good habit I’ve developed is my New Year goal setting exercise. I love the opportunity to “reset” my life for the new year, throwing out old habits and starting on some new ones.

My favorite book to read this time of year is The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey. He’s an undisputed authority on leadership and success principles and gives us 7 things that can improve every area of our lives in 2009. I’ve also come to realize these principles apply brilliantly when it comes to the marketing of your business. Consider reading this timeless book and follow his suggestions:

1. Be proactive.
I don’t think you can be proactively reactive. And yet much of our daily lives are spent in a reactive state, reacting to emails, reacting to interruptions, reacting to our circumstances, the weather, the news, other people’s opinions. As humans, we have the freedom to choose before we respond to stimulus. Covey suggests a thirty-day test of proactivity and see how it affects your circle of influence. Let’s act on it in 2009.

2. Begin with the end in mind.
One of the most effective ways to begin with the end in mind is to develop a personal mission statement. I’ve used and was very pleased with the Mission Statement Builder at www.franklincovey.com. It’s a great tool that I highly recommend using to start your new year right.

3. Put first things first.
This is one of the hardest things for me to do consisently. I think I have a bit of a self-destruct mechanism that pulls me easily off my best intentions. This one chapter alone is worth the cost of the book as it outlines the Four Quadrants: 1) Important, Urgent, 2) Important, Not Urgent, 3) Not Important, Urgent, 4) Not Important, Not Urgent. The goal is to live your life in Quadrant 2 which is close to impossible if you are not in control of your time management.

4. Think Win/Win.
Is it really possible to create win/win situations in every interaction and relationship in your life? Covey believes the answer is yes. The problem is that many of us have Win/Lose scripting deeply embedded in our internal code. How can you seek mutual benefit in each of your relationships in 2009?

5. Seek first to understand, then to be understood.
First I always laugh now when I hear this statement, ever since watching Mystery Men where one of the “Super Heroes” uses this statement and others like it ad nauseum in his comical admonishment of Ben Stiller who calls him Captain Conundrum. In all seriousness though, I believe life would be much easier if we took the time to learn and practice the art of “empathetic communication.

6. Synergize.
Covey believes that valuing the differences is the essence of synergy–the mental, the emotional, the psychological differences between people. Think about people who typically see things differently than you do. Look for ways to synergize (the highest level of communication) with those people, instead of being defensive (lowest level of communication), or even respectful (compromising level of communication).

7. Sharpen the saw.
The seventh habit is about renewing the four dimensions of your nature–physical, spiritual, mental, and social/emotional. What steps do you take to renew each of these dimensions? Exercise, prayer and meditation, reading good books or taking a course, taking time for friends, family and community…these are just a few things you can consider in your goals for 2009.

Good luck with your 2009 goal setting and Happy New Year!

In an online world filled with blogs and online articles by self-proclaimed marketing gurus, is there really room for one more? I believe so, since so much of what I see is either marketing industry techno-babble or online marketing-specific information, neither of which does much for the average business owner trying to cost-effectively promote their business in a hurting economy.

My blog will hopefully shed some light on tips, techniques and strategies that really help in a practical, affordable way. I’ll do my best to keep it simple enough for the layman to understand, yet cutting edge enough to keep you coming back for more.

As I see it, there is no shortage of good information out there. It just needs some filtering to bring the gems to the surface. That is what this blog is all about. I hope you enjoy it and find it helpful!

Here’s to your success,

Paul McQuade