Idea Market

The last year or so has been quite easily the most difficult in my life. (I guess my very first year was a tricky one, too (lots of crying!), but I don’t remember much about that.) There have been lots of bad decisions, lots of bad things that just sort of happened, lots of bad luck. I was forced to recognize things about myself and how I did things that needed to change if Idea Market was going to survive. The good news is that I have learned at least a few things from all this and I’ll share those in future blogs.

There’s a place between failure and learning, though, and for me it was a time of shame, depression and loneliness. It’s hard to admit that you screwed up and let people down and it’s equally hard to face those people afterwards. OK, where am I going with this, other than trying to make you feel sorry for me? I’m not really sure – hang on…

Yesterday I had a meeting with a client who had just brought in a new person that would likely be my new primary contact on the project. Oh, and it just happens to be one of the people that I failed the most with and have been avoiding ever since. Perfect. After the initial reaction of pure dread, I knew I had two options:

1. I could maintain this weird barrier between us based on my past mistakes and carry it forward onto the current project.

2. I could move past that and recognize that this was a new thing and that I wouldn’t make the same mistakes I had made before. Besides, this person was actually really good to work with and I really liked her on a personal basis.

Obviously, I went with option 2. We had a really good meeting and I’m confident the project will go very well. I’ll do things differently this time and I know she’ll keep me accountable. And I’ll report back here when it’s all done – promise. Most importantly, though, it forced me to emerge from my hole, face the light and start moving forward. Exactly what I needed.

I have so much more to say about failure and lessons and the graciousness of good people, but I really should be working on this client’s sitemap now…

Let me start by saying that I have a bit of a man-crush on Merlin Mann. He is an erratically brilliant guy that talks about productivity and other stuff. He speaks in metaphors and parentheses and I mostly don’t understand any of it, but once in a while there’s a shining gem of wisdom. The latest was when he was talking about the four options that his book publisher gave him for the cover design:

“[It's] like somebody giving you four piles of poodle poop and saying ‘which one has the least corn?’”

The problem was that they didn’t understand what he or his book was really about and they whipped up a bunch of cover designs without any of his input. And it wasn’t that long ago that that was the default for most design work. “We don’t really understand (or want to take the time to understand) what you’re about and we don’t really want to have to work together with you on this, so we’ll just whip up three designs and hope you like one.”

Now I won’t lie: we still do multiple concepts when it comes to logos. I’m not sure why – maybe we should change that. But we do not do this when it comes to web design and here’s why:

We have two possible uses for our time in a web design project:

option 1. Lock the doors, put our heads down and put together three different designs, hoping that one will catch the client’s fancy.

option 2. Talk to the client, go visit their place of business, do some research, talk to the client some more, look at the competition, take a bathroom break, talk to the client even more and then start designing the “right” solution for this particular project. (Our ongoing process is also fairly collaborative, but I’ll talk about that some other time.)

While each of these two options will likely take about the same amount of time, the outcomes are different:

option 1. The selected design may or may not be “right”. Meanwhile, the other two options are thrown away; they’re wasted effort.

option 2. We end up with a better, “righter” design, we learned a lot, and we made some new friends.

We like option 2.

PS. We have never ended up with a “wrong” solution using option 2.

I really like the idea of blogging, but (as should be obvious here) have a really hard time actually doing it. In general, it’s the common problem of “paralysis by analysis”. I like to research the crap out of everything and have 100% of the information before I start. As a result, every little thing I want to write ends up being a giant project that, quite frankly, I don’t have time to tackle and so it never happens.

As I struggled with this (again) recently, my brain landed on something Merlin Mann (or perhaps Don Murray) says about writer’s block: “just move your hands”. In other words, open up Google Docs (or whatever you use) and start typing. So that’s what going to start happening here. None of it will be perfect. Heck, a lot of it probably won’t be relevant or even make sense. I’ll talk about things I learn and things I feel. I’ll probably end up talking about music I love and hockey teams I hate. And I’m sure I’ll talk about a bunch of other stuff in between those things.

No, it won’t be perfect or relevant or sensible. But it will be something.

This week I attended the Growing Rural Tourism conference in Camrose, which is always a great time of networking and learning. Since the Lacombe Regional Tourism Association was so nice to send (and pay for) me, I had their particular situation in mind as I listened to the various speakers. That said, I’ve tried to generalize my thoughts on it a bit to make it useful for other areas as well. Note that what follows is really just a combination of notes from three smart people (Ian Hill, John Young and Ed McWilliams); I don’t take any credit for any of this (except where I’m wrong).

I heard three key messages over the conference as it applies to branding and marketing a region:

Figure out who you are.

What do you have to offer? What is your “differentiating factor”? What will entice to people drive an hour to see you? There needs to be enough reason for people to come visit and there has to be enough support services (accommodations, dining, shopping, entertainment, etc.) to round out the trip. Don’t think simply in terms of goods and services, though; people want experiences that then turn into memories.

The key here is that it must be authentic and you must be able to deliver on it. There cannot be a gap between the visitor’s expectations and their experience or they will leave disappointed and your marketing will look like exaggerations or lies.

Deliver your experience.

Assuming that you’ve identified who you truly are and what you can offer people, the next step is to deliver your experience effectively. According to Young, you can provide visitors with experiences in four ways:

• Engage (make it interactive and fun)
• Enrich (educate people)
• Captivate (provide an escape from the norm)
• Sensate (appeal to the senses)

It’s not enough to just meet expectations, though. You must deliver those experiences extremely well. Exceed expectations. Give your visitors something worth talking about when they get home.

Get the word out.

The nuts and bolts how to spread the word is a design and marketing function and is worthy of a whole blog article itself. However, two points that came up at the conference were:

1. Embrace partnerships. Strong destinations (think Las Vegas) have their tourism stakeholders partner in their marketing efforts. The point is to just get people to the area; eventually they’ll spend money at your individual place. In Central Alberta, the Sweet 16 project is a great example of a regional partnership.
2. Leverage social media. Get your visitors to tell your story for you through Facebook, Twitter, TripAdvisor, etc. Make it as easy as possible for them to do so.

There was of course, much more said at the conference, but these were the highlights for me. For more excellent comments and resources, check out the Growing Rural Tourism conference page.

Louise:

Graeme:

Mike:

1. The session “Techies Can Save the World, Why Aren’t They?” Insight into how techies can translate their app developing skills into solutions for environmental and humanitarian issues.
2. The interesting cross-over of film, interactive, and music at one conference. Plenty to listen to, watch, and interact with.
3. Learning about HTML5 (politics included) and how we can use it to build a better internet.
4. The great taste of brisket straight from the Texas grill.
5. The endless amount of free stuff, no matter where you went.

I know some of you have the attention span of small children in an art museum, so let me get right to the point:

We’re all packing up and heading to the SXSW Interactive Festival in Texas from March 10th-16th. That’s right, no Idea Market for a week! Whatever will you do? Answer: I have no idea, but we’re going to be having a lot of fun in a much warmer place than you! Oh, and we’re going to learn stuff relevant to our jobs, too. Honest. So, yeah – if something is an emergency go ahead and email us, but most everything else will have to wait until we get back.

For those of you who didn’t go chasing a gum wrapper down the hall yet, I’d like to say thank you to everyone who made it to what became known as The Bacon Party last month. It was a great time with our favourite people in the world, eating our favourite food in the world. You can read all about it on our blog.

Unrelated diversion #1: it was 28 degrees in Austin yesterday. Just thought you might want to know that.

Now we’re not really that excitable by design awards, but a couple months ago we decided to nominate one of our clients for the Canadian E-Tourism Awards. Then we forgot to tell the client about it. Oops. Anyway, it turns out they won! Vivien from the Danish Canadian National Museum is in Toronto at the awards show at this very moment to accept the Best User-Generated Content award. Congrats to everyone at the museum on their awesome website!

Diversion #2: I’m going to hang out with Mike Tyson this Sunday! Maybe we’ll get face tattoos together.

Another website that we’re kind of proud of is the newly re-design site for Central Alberta Theatre. As you may have heard, they’re getting ready to move their operations to downtown Red Deer, so they wanted to get the excitement brewing with a new online presence. You can check it out for yourself (and maybe find a show to go to) at: centralalbertatheatre.ca.

Diversion #3: A trip to Texas wouldn’t be complete without a roller derby bout. Unfortunately, we’ll just be going as spectators, not participants. This time.

Remember when I used to try to keep these newsletters short? Ha!

In our last newsletter we talked about the various non-profits and charities we work with. We’re proud to add another to the list: Safe Harbour Society. I’d tell you to go to their website to learn all about the great things they do in Red Deer, but the site really doesn’t say much. Which is why they called us, I guess. We’ll also be re-branding the organization, putting together stationary, designing a brochure and display banner, and whatever else they ask of us. Watch for all that soon!

Diversion #4: Did I mention the temperature? Yes? OK, how about the fact that as a group we will collectively gain 35 pounds in barbecued ribs alone? Believe dat.

This is the point where I give you a little teaser to keep you on the edge of your seat until the next newsletter. OK, so you know how we’re supposed to be focusing on web and not doing so much branding work? Well things don’t always go the way we plan. We’re in the process of re-branding both the Town of Innisfail and the City of Wetaskiwin – coming soon to a giant highway sign near you! Oh, and a centennial logo for the Town of Sylvan Lake. And re-brands for The Leadership Centre and True North Realty. That’s a whole lot of logos for a web company! Watch for at least some of those to be revealed in our next newsletter…

Until then, enjoy a little chocolate-dipped bacon in our honour and remember… we love you.

First off, if that title doesn’t make sense to you, you need to do two things:

1. Read Seth Godin’s book Purple Cow
2. Not miss the next big Idea Market event.

Let me explain. On February 9th, we held our client appreciation Christmas party. Say whaaat? Here’s the thing: if we had held our Christmas party in December like sensible people, it would be just another Christmas party in a string of Christmas parties at a time when the last thing you want to do is go to another Christmas party. So hey! – let’s have ours in February!

That’s the first “purple cow” of our story. For those that don’t know, a purple cow is something that stands out from the crowd; something that makes your head snap back and say “what was that?!” It’s also something that you remember and want to tell your friends about after.

Paeton Cameron - live!

Now if we had served wine and cheese and had iTunes running in the background, the party would still have been largely forgettable, even in February. So instead, we shook it up a bit. As our guests approached our office, they were greeted with a finely-dressed 9-year-old who gave them a blue carnation corsage and their choice of custom-made Idea Market buttons. Once inside, they were enveloped by live music (thanks, Paeton Cameron!) and the sweet smell of bacon. Lots of bacon. Nothing but bacon, in fact: maple bacon, applewood smoked bacon, turkey bacon, bacon dip, bacon chips, bacon & chicken skewers, bacon-wrapped scallops and… chocolate-dipped bacon. That’s right: chocolate-dipped bacon. Trust me on that one; it was a real hit. Finally, we gave a parting gift of a home-made mix CD to each guest with four options to choose from, compiled by each of the four Idea Market team members. (My CD was most popular, but only because I was the only one to include Bette Midler.)

Mike vs. choco-bacon

The result? That evening, both Twitter and Facebook were abuzz with comments about the party, especially the chocolate bacon. Two days after the fact, people are still talking about it with their poor friends that weren’t there. We successfully created a purple cow event: one that was different, memorable and word-of-mouth-worthy.

Was it any harder to put together than a more “standard” party? Not at all. It just took a little creative thinking and the willingness to be a bit on the unorthodox side. Were the results different? Dramatically. Can you apply this same thinking to your own business’s marketing? Certainly. Look at what your competitors are doing. How can you differentiate and truly stand out from the crowd? How can you zig when they zag? How can you ensure that what you’re doing will be both remembered and talked about? Be bold; go where no man (or woman) has gone before. And reap the rewards.

Happy New Year!

Ish. (Give me a break – I wrote five blog articles this year already! Writing this kind of brilliance takes time! But seriously, can I be serious for a minute? (5-7 minutes for you slower readers.)

First, let me just say that I won’t bore you with a review of 2010 here. No! Instead, I’ll bore you with it here: http://www.ideamarket.ca/2011/01/idea-markets-2010-in-review/

Bored? A little sleepy? BAM! Let’s kick it up a notch! Let’s talk about 2011! We have so many changes to talk about! And by “so many”, I mean “two”:

1. We’re going to focus clearly on the web this year. That’s not to say that we’re abandoning branding or print completely. Two of our first projects of the year are branding projects for the Town of Innisfail and the City of Wetaskiwin and we just finished a 324,000-piece print run for realtor Richard Pochylko. So what’s the point? We’re already pretty good at web. This allows us to focus more and get even better at it. We’re also broadening our scope of online services to include mobile, writing for the web, social media etc. Check our services page for more details on that stuff.

2. In the past, we have been guilty of having an attitude of wanting to do things “great” or not doing them at all. If a client didn’t have the budget for “great”, we often turned them away. So what happens then? Do they go elsewhere with lower standards? Go without completely? It felt like we were doing them a disservice. So we’re dropping the elitist mentality. We still strive to do great work, but we understand that not everyone is ready for the moon. It’s not about lowering our standards, but rather offering people more options. Maybe you don’t need a completely new website; maybe we can help spruce up what you already have. Or maybe you’re happy with your design and just need a CMS put in behind it. Maybe all you need is an hour of advice. We’re here to help. Call us. (I’m making that hand gesture with my thumb in my ear to emphasize the point. You know what I’m talking about.)

What’s not changing in 2011? For the love of numbers, man! A grand total of two things:

1. We’re still going to be really social. In fact, just the other day we visited Patrick Galesloot of Century 21 fame to drop off a birthday card and present. (Want your own present? Email us back and tell us your birthday and we’ll hook you up! Don’t be shy…) We’re also having regular open houses and workshops, so keep an eye on our website for that. Hint: be sure to keep February 9 open…

2. Working with charities and social groups. We love working with the Red Deer & District Community Foundation, the Red Deer Kinsmen and the United Way (check out the site we did for them at http://www.caunitedway.ca/). We’re also adding one more to the mix in the Central Alberta AIDS Network Society. We both volunteer with them as well as help with design work. (Watch for their annual report soon!) Let us know if you’d like to help out in any way with any of these great organizations and we’d be happy to point you in the right direction.

In conclusion:

1. I grew a moustache in November. If you didn’t see it in person, you really didn’t miss much.

2. Idea Market still loves you. Don’t ever forget that.

One of our clients – Medicine River Wildlife Centre – recently made an interesting move. They bucked a major trend and moved from an e-newsletter back to a print version. Why? in their own words:

“An interesting thing has happened since we began sending out email newsletters; we have seen a dramatic decrease in donations, membership renewals and gifts from our wish list. When you receive a hard copy it gets left out for you to read over and over, show a friend and remember to stay involved in Medicine River, but an email can get read, deleted and we are forgotten. We have come to the conclusion that the extra cost and time of preparing a hard copy newsletter is probably worth the effort and is more personal so for now we will be returning to a mailed hard copy.”

Perhaps this is just a small example of the purple cow concept: when everyone else is doing one thing, the best way to stand out is doing something different. Even if that thing is the thing that everyone else used to do. It’s a strange world.

What was it that Talking Heads said so eloquently in their song “Psycho Killer”?

“fa fa fa fa fa fa fa fa fa fa better
Run run run run run run run away
OH OH OH
AY AY AY AY AY WOO”

No, not that part – this one:

“You’re talking a lot, but you’re not saying anything.”

If you’re not careful, that can be exactly what happens on social media. An example of this was brought to my attention on Twitter recently. I noticed a user that was kind of irritating with their updates; it was to the point where I questioned the value of their efforts. Then I reasoned that it maybe that was OK for them as long as it was outweighed by the benefits. So I checked their follower list to see who they were potentially talking to. The list was small: well under 100. Looking more closely, it became obvious that most of their list was filled with spam accounts, competitors, other businesses looking for follow-backs and other irrelevant users. How many were real, actual people? About seven. How many of those might really, actually care about what they’re saying? I’m guessing one or two, max. I know for a fact that their negative tweeting habits have turned off more people than that.

I’m not saying that social media or Twitter is a waste of time; far from it. I’m saying that you have to think about what you’re doing, how you do it and who you’re doing it to. And that the number of followers or friends you have can be deceptive. Take a closer look.