Have A Great Week Ahead!

"We're starting a new week...so help us God."

The quote above is from a friend's update in Facebook. I'm a bit perplexed by the tone of this message. The author obviously wants to pass it off as some sort of joke, but one can sense the feeling of dread and fear of someone who's ill-prepared to face the new week or whose week will be exactly the same as last week or the one before that. In a fast-moving world, we need solid anchors or we get adrift, at the mercy of the waves and eddies created by others.

Who do you work for?

Modern business and the constant demand for social interaction in a wired world tend to make us forget who our real employers are. Some people work for themselves, and that's fine. Others, like myself, are motivated by their families - spouses and children. It may be counter-intuitive in the face of the current crisis, but if you do work for yourself, don't wait until you're sixty before enjoying and pampering yourself, you deserve it.

Details of a montage my daughter Aya and I created for a school project

If you work for loved ones, don't wait to land the big one before spending some great time with the kids. If you don't give them time and make them an integral part of your schedule, no one else will, and soon you'll have strangers growing under your roof that you're gonna take to the park or the movies...someday. Trust me, I'm a dad, I learned this the hard way.

On self-discipline

Self-discipline is a bit tricky working from home; perhaps even more difficult than having a 9-5 job working for someone else, because that someone else will be there to give you a hard time if you don't do things the corporate way.

When you're your own boss, there's obviously no one else to enforce discipline. It's all up to you. It doesn't mean, though, that you have to be extra-hard on yourself and work crazy hours (like I did when I first started the business). Strike a balance between work, family, and time for yourself. Too much of one thing is always a bad thing.

Control your thoughts. Self-discipline comes from within. Have a conscious awareness of the thoughts that go through your brain. Positive, disciplined thoughts create a positive and disciplined reality. Avoid brain-numbing habits (TV, the news, online games) that kill creativity or put your brain in one track for long periods. I try to, but it's a an uphill battle, for the moment - Huffington Post and Ikariam are eternal distractions in my fight for mental discipline.

Just some random thoughts for the new week. Let's all have a productive and great week ahead.

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Glory Revisited

The other day, I watched for the nth time, a rerun of one of my favorite war movies of all time - Glory (1989, Tristar Pictures) on cable's Star Movies. I can hear Tony Robbins now, telling me to get a life. Well, it's one of my favorite movies from the eighties (arguably, the best decade to grow up in), I guess that gives you an idea of how old I am, but no matter.

Every time I see a powerful movie like Glory, there's always a new perspective, a new turn of phrase that I must have heard (and ignored) before, but has found a new sense of relevance in my current circumstances. I guess great works of art, literature, and the cinema have that effect. You always discover something new every time.

You haven't seen it? Why not?

Well, too late now for a wide screen viewing (unless you own a theater). Grab your DVD copy, you're missing out on something truly epic and powerful. The film received five Oscars, including Best Cinematography, in 1989. Denzel Washington's performance remains as riveting as ever, and the prayer scene on the night before the big battle is as poignant and emotionally-charged (for me), just like the first time I saw the movie.

But it was the words of Col. Robert G. Shaw (Matthew Broderick) that struck a chord this time:

There's more to fighting than rest, sir. There's character, there's strength of heart. You should have seen us in action two days ago. We were a sight to see! We'll be ready, sir. When do you want us?

Replace fighting with life, and you will see the universal truth in this statement. Character, shaped by immutable principles (like honesty, integrity, compassion, fairness, excellence), will forever remain to be the deciding factor of how we fare in this life, of how we grow with our individual businesses.

As Dr. Stephen Covey suggests in "The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People," principles are like a lighthouse on a rock in the middle of the ocean (I hope he forgives me for mangling the analogy). We can have our course shaped by their presence, or we can ignore their power and destroy ourselves in those rocks.

What has this got to do with web 2.0 and marketing?

Everything, actually. The web 2.0 environment is a venue so powerful that it can potentially magnify any message (good or bad), for anyone who's good at it, or who hires someone good at it. But that's all it is - the internet is only the medium NOT the message.

You still craft your own message, you're still judged by that message, and by your own actions. And because of the highly interconnected nature of web 2.0, people will discover soon enough if you're true to your message, and if you're really doing business based on integrity, fairness, and excellence. Or, if you're just someone out to make a fast buck.

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10 Great Ideas to Market Your Product (And Yourself)

This seems to be the perfect time for it - the beginning of the year and the beginning of this blog - the ideas expounded by 37signals in this December 18, 2007 article will hopefully set the tone for all my Manila Connection posts. I'm excerpting the entire article here as a guidepost for the future.

If you think this is about marketing, you're absolutely correct. But think about these ideas in two levels. First, the apparent corporate marketing framework, of course. Second, and I know you'll realize this when you're done reading the first concept, marketing in the personal level. Will any of these ideas affect your effectiveness as a person and the quality of your relationships? Here's the article:

10 ideas that come to mind when I think about ways to get people to notice you/your product:

• Provide something of value. The first step is recognizing that marketing is asking for someone else’s time and attention. You need to provide something worthy of those valuable commodities. So keep your message brief and interesting. When you educate or entertain other people, they’ll pay attention. If you bore them, they won’t.

• Know your hook. Imagine you are a reporter who wants to write an article about your company. What’s the hook? What’s the angle that will be interesting to someone who normally wouldn’t care about your software? We’ve got a lot of mileage in the press out of staying small and focusing on “less.” What’s unique about your story?

• Stand for something. Know and expose your company’s philosophy and mantras. 37signals started with a manifesto back when we launched as a design firm. Even though it’s from 1999 and our company has evolved a ton since then, you can see the seeds of many of our current ideas there. That sort of belief foundation will help guide you (and others) to your story.

• Get your face out there. It’s tempting to think you can do it all from a keyboard. But emails are a poor substitute for real, face-to-face interactions. Go to conferences and meetups, take someone you admire out to lunch, etc. It’s ok to “network” — just don’t be a douche about it. Which leads to…

• Try to build real, sustained relationships. Actually be a friend instead of a guy trying to get something. Keep your interactions human (a sincere, honest note will go a lot further than a buzzwordy press release). Seek out ways to help others. It’ll all come back to you.

Image courtesy of www.crowdhacking.com

• It’s the message, not the amount you spend on it. Companies that spend tons of ad/PR dollars to convince people their products are worthwhile are like guys who spend lots of money on gifts and dinners to woo a woman. What kind of relationship are they really building? Successful customer relationships are like any other long-term relationship: They start with a foundation of communication and showing you care about the other person.

• Give stuff away for free. (I don’t think this contradicts the previous point but maybe?) People love free. Offer a free version of your product, provide coupon codes, etc. Whenever we include a coupon code in a newsletter, there’s a big uptick in upgrades.

• Ride the wave. Seek momentum and ride it. Is everyone buzzing about the iPhone? Then make an iPhone app. Are people interested in rapid development processes? Then blog about building your app in, say, under a month. Find out what people are talking about already and then figure out a way to get in the picture.

• Be in it for the long haul. Recognize that promotion, like other aspects of building a company, takes time and effort. If you’re starting from scratch, you have to claw your way up. It’s uncanny how many “overnight success stories” you hear about are actually people who busted their asses for years to get into the position where something might take off. Don’t expect instant recognition.

• Be undeniably good. Steve Martin was on Charlie Rose last week. At the very end, he gave his advice to someone who’s trying to make it in any field: “Be undeniably good.”

"When people ask me how do you make it in show business or whatever, what I always tell them — And nobody ever takes note of it ‘cuz it’s not the answer they wanted to hear. What they want to hear is here’s how you get an agent, here’s how you write a script, here’s how you do this — But I always say, 'Be so good they can’t ignore you.' If somebody’s thinking, 'How can I be really good?', people are going to come to you. It’s much easier doing it that way than going to cocktail parties."

That’s some good advice. Go out and make something that kicks ass and people will notice.

_________________

I got to this article from a post by Seth Godin, and as always Seth's take that it's all about "you promotion" as opposed to "I promotion" makes perfect sense. People are more receptive and responsive to your marketing message as soon as they realize you've taken their best interest to heart. And when it comes down to the brass tacks, going down to the personal level, you're a guaranteed winner, when you walk that path.