I do words. She does pictures. That’s the deal. Now my friend and work partner has gone rogue and started writing her own material. Here’s the part that makes me bitter. She thought she was writing a funny little story to introduce a golf tournament. But what she did (and I’m not telling her) was create a back-story, a loopy convergence of fact and fiction that enriches the context of the event and actually entices more people to participate.

Personable not Personal

We constantly create short hand narratives of the events in our lives. From personal profile pages on Facebook to corporate web sites, we’re sharing lots of information. But what’s often absent is a context, a sense of the person without it getting all too personal. A story is a great way to bridge the gap between the unfettered ickyness of too much info and the projection of a personable presence. The irony of the online networks that bind us together is that the realtime unfolding of our lives is less compelling than the constructed experiences we share. A story is profoundly human precisely because the doings and dilemmas of the individual have universal appeal. It is interesting that we (people, organizations, businesses) become more authentic versions of ourselves, not because of the facts we share, but because of the stories we tell.

Susan’s Secrets to a Better Back-Story

Okay. Keep this quiet because Susan doesn’t even know she knows this. But you can use her model to craft a better back-story for anything you care about.

1. Keep it short. Ask Mark Twain how hard this is. Ernest Hemingway seemed to have the knack, but getting to simple did take its toll. 250 little (or even big) words.

1. Keep it true. That means true to you and your experience. Authentic works. Sure you can change things up as long as you remain true to the spirit of events. Check out Two Fisted Science by Jim Ottaviani for an entertaining and illuminating treatment of a real event. Or, just add a big old disclaimer saying that ‘the facts have been changed to make me more interesting’.

1. Mix in some mythic. Make your back-story engaging with a mash-up of the mundane and the mythic. Origin, quest, transformation and redemption. It worked for the Bible and Danielle Steele too.

And now, the best back-story ever in recent history.

Tater, the crappy Bassett statue

The Princess and the Pup, or How the TATER CUP was Born.

By Susan Bachman

Once upon a time, there was a tiny kitty named Sarah. The Princess loved her because she was soft and fuzzy, and well, all kitteny.

Excitedly, the Princess ran to show the mean Ogre the soft and fuzzy kitty.

“Grrrr” said the Ogre “We don’t need no stinkin’ kitty.”

The kind Knight said “I don’t like the name Sarah, and perhaps neither does the Ogre.”

So the Princess named the kitty Tater.

“Can we keep Tater, mean Ogre, I mean darling Husband?”

Flash forward to almost present times…

The Princess wandered about, searching for a Tater to call her own.

The King, taking pity on the Princess said “Here you can have this crappy Bassett statue and call it Tater.”

And Tater, the crappy Bassett statue was born.

The Princess took it home. But something was amiss. Tater wasn’t soft. Tater wasn’t fuzzy. And Tater definitely wasn’t kitteny.

One evening, the Princess and the Ogre were sitting on the balcony of their castle and wondering what they should do with Tater.

“Grrrr” said the Ogre, “We don’t need no crappy Bassett Statue.”

“I KNOW,” screeched the Princess, “we must have a joust, a tournament. We shall tie iron to sticks and hit rocks about. We will invite only the fiercest competitors, and the tournament will be long and arduous, and last many months.”

“And at the end, only one team shall stand victorious. And they shall be the winners of the illustrious TATER CUP – and be presented with Tater, the crappy Bassett statue!”

The End.

Eggs as art.

Easter has come and gone. But a well-decorated egg lasts forever, at least in pixilated form. So what’s the dipping, the designing and the unpredictable process of creating colorful eggs have to do with choosing a marketing firm? More than you might think.

Pricing: There’s no denying that cost is a consideration when choosing a partner to promote your business. Just be aware that you will get egg-zactly what you pay for. Store-bought eggs are uniform in color, they’re mass-produced in un-chick-friendly environments, and they’re devoid of the very characteristics that makes them genuinely eggy: an orange sun yolk, a resilient white, and a yummy, buttery taste. If you’re the real deal and you want others to know it, you might want to invest just a little bit more to work with people who know how to market (and even create) colorful characters.

I Changed It So It’s Mine: Okay, I borrowed this from Lawrence Clore, an ardent foodie who knows how to cook up a storm. His particular gift is to start with someone else’s recipe and then reinvent the formula so that the finished dish is entirely his own. He’s married to my work partner so we often joke that he should write a cookbook with the title I Changed It So It’s Mine. But the ability to change things up is what the right agency can do for you. This goes beyond business book stuff like ‘your unique selling proposition’. What’s uniquely human about what you do, make, or sell? Why would someone tell a friend about what you offer? You see, anybody can make egg salad. But only Larry Clore can make HIS egg salad – which, by the ways is delish. And only you can provide the thing that is uniquely yours – even if you start with eggs like everyone else.

The Invaluable Immeasurable: Everybody’s talking about metrics. How do we track page views, click-throughs, time spent, impressions, word of mouth and more? How do we validate results? I’m all for the thoughtful consideration and assessment of marketing activities. But I do worry that we are so obsessed with the means of measurement that we forget some things of genuine value are immeasurable. Yes, we can break people into parts, analyze their online behavior and adjust campaigns accordingly. But the risk is reactive marketing, like leading by a poll. I’d rather help people discover something they didn’t know they wanted, couldn’t have imagined they needed, and wouldn’t have said they would purchase. Measurement can inform your decisions, but it cannot remove risk. If you want someone to take your pulse, go with a metrics-driven group. If you want someone to breathe new life into your business, take a look at the invaluable factor of creative thinking.

You can’t give people egg-zactly what they want because they often don’t know what that is. Instead, why not delight people? Be a good (and colorful) egg. Be resourceful and serve up your brand of egg salad. And when you choose an agency, see if they measure up in all the imprecise ways that will make them egg-zactly right for you.

Cereal Marketing

What could be easier than starting the day with a bowl of cereal? It’s simple, right? Well, not exactly, especially if you’re me. Think of Rachel Ray and her trademark grabbing of an overloaded armful of ingredients. That’s me in the morning with my four boxes of cereal; mixing and measuring like an alchemist seeking to transform base elements into a grainy kind of gold.

It’s not important WHY I do this (quirky accounts for most of it). So the relevant question is really this. What does cereal-making have to do with social marketing?

Repeatable not Repetitious

I love my breakfast mix. That’s how I start most every day. I repeat the process but it never seems repetitious. That’s because I have the freedom to add more raw oats one day, pull back on the bite-size goodness, and regulate the amount of crunchy stuff I choose to chow down on. I’m taking a product and creating my own platform, uh, breakfast. The act of making it mine is a comfortable routine but it’s not boringly repetitious. It’s me being me. It’s mine. I own it.

Personalized Mix

I’m pretty sure that cereal makers didn’t have me in mind (or anyone else for that matter) when it comes to my personalized mix of multiple brands. What’s cool is that the product comes in discrete packages that can be consumed any way you like: by the handful, in a bowl, with lite vanilla soymilk (anyway, you get it and yeah, as my husband reminds me, soy beans produce soy liquid – not milk as he defines it).

But it’s the box, man. The box lends itself to a mash up of massive proportion. It’s made in a factory. It’s churned out on a massive scale and yet I have the ability to make it personal. Here’s the point. Companies that produce a product that acts like a platform are the companies who get ahead. If you can help people do what they do only make it easier, you win.

Your Brand is What I Say It Is

Don’t panic if people use your brand and make it their own. This is opportunity knocking if you know the rule. And the rule is: you’re not the only one who gets to tell people what your brand is. People can now tell you what your brand is to them. That’s the prize that shows up in the box between your ears if you’re ready to listen.

Jan's Swag

My friend Susan is cool. She makes cools stuff. Best of all, she gives cool stuff to me. This is worthy of celebration and, obviously, comment since I’m motivated to write about it.

Being the fortunate recipient of unique designer gifts has made me consider the importance of giving cool stuff to people. Sadly, I lack the ability to create one-of-a-kind handbags, lavish beaded bracelets, or stylin’ cowls that make a fashion statement while eradicating the winter chill from necks bereft of a turtleneck sweater.

But my friend’s largesse raises the question of what are the rest of us doing? Are we giving cool stuff? What does that really mean? And how is it relevant as we encounter the necessity to earn a living? Rarely at a loss for words (ask anyone who knows me), I believe that my good fortune in having a gifted (and generous) friend reveals something important that the rest of us can use in the quest to be remarkable.

The sharing of the cool thing is just as important as the cool thing . You can be the creator of cool stuff (yeah, I know, I’m overusing the word). Or, you can be the conduit for sharing this useful, genuine, worthy-of-comment thing, idea, insight or information. It’s the selfless sharing of something that is meaningful to people. Even an intensely personal declaration like “I love my kitty”, can create a connection. Especially if it’s attached to a bigger idea (rescue kitties) or a diverting video clip of stupid cat stuff that makes people smile. But beware of sharing that forgets about the recipient. In some circles that’s called ‘blurting’, and it’s almost always boring.

Personal relevance equals remarkable. People talk (if you’re really good) they rave about you, your product, your service or your cause. Why? Because it’s relevant to their experience. And if you’ve done something remarkable, like salvage a customer service problem gone horribly wrong, that’s cool. And people will share their experience because, well, it’s remarkable. The opposite also applies, so serve up some cool and save yourself a lot of grief.

Appreciation is a pay back that pays off. When someone gives you something cool (a referral, an insight, or the name of a good facialist) appreciation is the way you pay it back. Then your sincere appreciation (this has to be communicated not just thought inside your head) inspires you to engage in a cycle of sharing and exchanging. And, one step at a time, this is how relationships are built. Let’s not forget, you can also pay it forward and be proactive about sharing your appreciation. Reciprocity isn’t a given, and you sure won’t get it if that’s why you’re doing it.

I appreciate my friend and creative co-conspirator Susan Bachman. Yeah, she makes cool stuff and better yet, she gives cool stuff to me. Best of all, she gets me and I get her. And, on occasion, I get her handbags at Banana Republic. They’re not handmade, but they are cool, and they’re given with sincere appreciation.

What about you? Are you or your company creating, sharing and showing appreciation for cool stuff? I’m talking about the world of ideas and information too, not just swag or lumpy objects large and small. If you are, I’ll say it one more time. That’s cool. And it’s worth talking about.