love
32 posts
The Right Thing
Long before digital platforms, social media and online reviews we’ve had the incentive to do the right thing. The need for the protection of our tribe and a sense of belonging to our community meant we adhered to rules and norms for the benefit of the collective good. We needed to do right by others
On Certainty
Nobody creates from a place of certainty. You can’t predict the future. You never could. Nobody can. Despite this fact, you took action in the past. You made brave decisions without absolute proof. You loved without knowing if your love would be rejected or returned. You did things you were not sure
What Separates This From That?
When we’re not simply driven by price how do we choose what to buy? We tell ourselves a story about quality, design, durability, or provenance. But often as we rationalise about the advantages of one product or service over another, the differentiator we perceive is the degree of love and care that’
Growing Small
I remember landing my first ‘real’ job like it was yesterday. One of the big British supermarket chains was opening a huge store not far from where I lived in Dublin. It was good news for the hundreds of people who would be employed there—more jobs, more choice for consumers—a win-win. At fifteen, I
The Stories We Live And Leave
In the end, all that will be left of us is the stories other people share about us. How can we make those the stories worth telling?
Better Work Happens By Design
My parents both left school in their early teens. They and most of their peers were manual labourers, who didn’t get to choose the kind of work they did. They worked in factories or on building sites for most of their lives. Work for them was a means to an end—a way to contribute to…
Heartwork
These words spoken by Director of The London School of Economics, Minouche Shafik, in an interview last year ring true: ‘In the past jobs were about muscles, now they’re about brains, but in future they’ll be about the heart.’ The truth is our best work always has been about the heart. And the good
Lucky By Design
The cathedral was packed. More than a thousand people arrived on a warm Tuesday morning to attend cafe owner, Sisto Malaspina’s funeral. Many more stood outside—others watched the service at home on their laptops or giant screens in Melbourne’s Federation Square. We were there, not to mourn Sisto’s
The Difference Between A Weak Brand And A Strong Brand
The biggest mistake a brand can make is to try being all things to everyone. Weak brands settle for doing what’s easy or obvious. They appeal to the market of everyone, avoid the edges and thus become interchangeable with their competitors. Strong brands know they are this and not that. They intenti
In Praise Of The Ordinary
We devote a lot of resources to creating the momentous. Dressing the window for the big sales event, crafting the sales pitch for a product launch, planning the grand family celebration—those orchestrated events to remember, where we can shine. The truth is we have the potential to make the most imp
A Thousand Times
The young mother explains the dangers of running across the road to her toddler for what seems like the thousandth time. The Japanese furniture maker begins sanding the chair his customer in Sydney ordered six months ago. The app developer reads every review of his beta looking for ways to make it b
Why You Need To Build A Story-Driven Business
What drives our desire to get better at telling the story of our products, services and companies? We’re used to thinking of story as a way to create and communicate value. We know the running shoe with a tick on the side is more valuable than the one without because of the expectations and meaning…
Success Is…
Not surprisingly there’s been a lot of talk in the news lately about winning. It’s a subject that’s never far from our minds, especially if we’re leading or building a business. Conventional wisdom dictates that someone has to come out on top, and if we believe this is true we want it to be us…
Want To Vs. Have To
The famous fashion designer doesn’t have to pay a fair wage to the workers in the Indian village, who hand bead the $600 dresses she sells to affluent Melburnians. Her customers would never know—and yet she does. The busy graphic designer doesn’t have to make suggested improvements to the slide deck
How To Avoid Getting Lost In The Crowd
It’s natural to want to create something for the most people we think we can reach. The runaway successes we aspire to emulate seem like they succeeded by appealing to everyone. But if you look a little closer you’ll find that even the big hits started at the edges. Soul Cycle, Starbucks and Secret
How All Marketing Should Be
This is the story of two homes that are for sale. “Elegantly renovated, exclusive address. This gracious residence set amid professionally landscaped gardens (approx 600sqm), close to schools and parks, offers formal sitting room, expansive living dining, flowing onto the verandah……” You get the ide
The Business You’d Want To Visit
Matthew Weiner, the creator of the wildly successful TV series Mad Men carried that script around with him for four years, shopping the idea to whoever would listen. During that time people asked him if he was aware of how uncommercial his idea was before they rejected it. The reason the folks at AM
My New Book—Marketing: A Love Story
My new book is here. You can buy it now on Amazon in paperback and in Kindle. I’ve wanted to find a way to juxtapose the concepts of marketing and love in a book for a long time. I like to think that even if you never opened the book, just owning it—seeing it on…
How To Get The World To Beat A Path To Your Door
Traditional marketing in essence has been about doing something today in the hope that your business will reap the rewards in sales tomorrow. The marketer then has her eye firmly fixed on the future. Asking the question, ‘what do I need to do to get us from here to there?’ And yet the best marketing
The Biggest Problem Facing Entrepreneurs…
…is love. People with great ideas (and average ones too) are in love with the idea itself. Because we’re human, we become irrationally seduced by the potential of our own solutions. This blinds us to what matters most, to the thing that gives the idea the best chance to fly. Being in love with the…
