The book and associated digital materials bearing this trade name — “The Only Story That Matters” and/or “TOSTM” — are in progress. The materials sum up the basis and benefits of the metro tribal method of understanding customer and employee […]
Once in a while (OK, really often), someone comes along and says something you always try to say, only they say it much better. Drake Baer wrote a great article for Entrepreneur magazine explaining why so many companies are seeking […]
As a follow up to my last post, I feel it’s important to float the idea that often, very often, perhaps most often, the greatest learning comes when you ask no questions at all. You simply observe and listen. And […]
Very often in life, the most important lessons are simple ones. For some time, I have shared with clients that when conducting customer research, or research of any kind, you get answers to questions you ask. That’s a simple, yet […]
If you’ve been to school, you’ve been socialized. If you were raised in a family, you’ve been socialized. If you’ve watched TV for any period of time, you’ve been socialized. What does that mean? It means that you’ve come to […]
So important to realize that we measure what we value and what we value is based on what we believe. Excellent post by Seth Godin today that talks about how we can tend to use false proxies for measuring our success. False […]
When you design your product or service, who are you designing for? When you market your product or service, whose world are you using as a reference for how useful the product or service will be? A) Yours? B) Some […]
In our daily lives, some of us like rules, others don’t. Depends on your personality and world view. In our social and business lives however, increasingly we are relying upon rule-based processes: search engines, lending, investing, the computers that tell […]
So, Albert Einstein is famous for saying that if he were given one hour to save the world, he would spend 59 minutes framing the problem. Not for the faint of heart, but who am I to question Einstein. I’ve […]
If the 20th century will be remembered for being the “media age,” the 21st century, so far, will be remembered as the “social age.” How brands are marketed and understood are different for each age. In the “media age” brands […]