TED is brilliant – the problem I have is that it’s addictive – I just have to look at one more video. You could argue that it’s research (well I do!), so that’s ok!

In no particular order, here are 3 more well worth watching:

Richard St. John’s 8 Secrets Of Success

Dan Pink on ‘motivation’

Jamie Oliver on ‘Teaching Kid’s About Food’

TED is all about ’ideas worth spreading’ – you could do yourself a big favour by spreading some of these ideas to people in your business and network.

Try this: pick a video, send it to your team (or watch oit together) and then spend 30 minutes discussing the question ‘what does this mean for us?’

Bookmarks:

Hey Jill!

Team YO! Sushi

Nice, simple stuff, and yes, I know it’s ‘automated’, but they didn’t have to send it…..and it’s valid for a couple of weeks!

The idea of ‘planned spontaneity’ is a great way of delighting customers – here’s an article I wrote all about it on the Management Issues website.

How could you build ‘planned spontaneity’ into your business?

Bookmarks:

 Netflix Article            Netflix Slideshare Presentation       Lord Kirkham Interview 

Previous 3D Thoughts

Bookmarks:

On reflection, I don’t think that those figures are that surprising (hey, I’m on holiday, and I’m still ‘at it’!), but some of the key issues to consider might be:

• What media are your customers (and prospective customers) paying most attention to?
• How can you ‘stand out’ in these incredibly crowded markets? 
• How are you ‘maximising’ your own time and efforts when your doing this stuff?

In other words, are you ‘plugged in’ to what your customers are ‘plugging in’ to? The really customer focused businesses understand and maximise this.

Finally, it’s also worth pointing out that, even with all this ‘modern technology’,  sometimes the ‘old fashioned’ ways of communicating are still a great way of making contact with people and differentiating yourself!

If you want any tips on how, have a look at this article I wrote for Management Issues called ‘Don’t write off those old fashioned ways’.

Bookmarks:

So what? Well, I think it’s a fantastic illustration of the impact of progress on our lives and of course on business and the way we do it. Massively reduced costs, technological advances, ever increasing ease of use and a need for total flexibility are all things we face – they pose both opportunities and threats.

Are you embracing ‘progress’ to your advantage?

Bookmarks:

Click below on the links:

Institute Of Customer Service report           ABTA customer complaints      Previous 3D Thoughts

Hear how Asda handled this complaint:

Bookmarks:

 It’s not about what you had for breakfast, how brilliant your business is, and why people should only buy from you, it’s about ‘adding value’ and contributing!  Here are 10 things they do well.

They:

1. Share ideas

2. ‘Engage’ with others

3. Add value and don’t ‘push’ their products and services

4. Link people together 

5. Collaborate with others, and help others collaborate

6. Create communities of like-minded people

7. Contribute to those communities

8. Create ‘dialogue’, not ‘diatribes’!

9. Generate conversations with others

10. Seek opinions and ideas

Any more for any more? Would love to hear your ideas!

Bookmarks:

They are without doubt Dramatically and Demonstrably Different in everything that they do! But, that’s not been done by chance. It’s clearly a very proactive approach that they’ve taken, and it seems to be working with huge queues outside their Madison Park store! 

If you get chance, have a look at this video of CEO Randy Garutti explaining their approach. There are some great lessons for any business, whether you’re in burgers or not!

Randy Garutti (Shake Shack) at Gel 2010 from Gel Conference on Vimeo.

I particularly like their approach to questioning every ‘rule’ by asking ‘whoever wrote that rule?’ and then working out how they could break it! They took a proactive approach to ‘breaking all those rules’ and seem to have hit the spot! Here’s just one of them: rather than the  ’no dog’s allowed’ sign that you see in most places – they have the ‘pooch-ini’, a treat specifically for dogs made out of frozen custard, peanut butter and a dog biscuit! Guess where the burger lovers with dogs go?

It’s a great example of someone entering a market and using all the ‘norms’ and ‘rules’ to creating a business that’s ‘dramatically different’ by breaking them!   What ‘rules’ should you break?

Looking forward to my next trip to New York!

Bookmarks:

It was a worldwide study, and the figure for the UK small businesses was 33% compared to 52% inIndia!

It’s clear that many businesses ‘get it’, but it’s also true that many obviously don’t! Clearly, there’s no ‘one thing’ to ‘get’, but if you are one of those who hasn’t yet, perhaps you need to start looking!

Amazingly and totally coincidentally, as I was writing this blog post an email popped in my inbox from Smarta which featured a video by Doug Richards talking all about this. Even more coincidentally (and a bit spookily!) he explained that he’s running a 2 day workshop all about it…..on my own doorstep, here in Sheffield! 

Made In Sheffield looks great! Think I might be booking to help me ‘get more of it’!

Bookmarks:

So, here goes… remember, you don’t have to download anything, simply ‘click and listen’… oh yes, and DO something!

Global Customer Service Report            Stanford University e Corner

Bookmarks: