Pictured: Why would anyone want to smurf it up on a tropical island when there's important brainstorming to do? ... you mean this is real pineapple in my pina colada?
I still haven't been able to view that insanely popular site for the Island Caretaker job in my home country. ("Get paid $100K to swim snorkel ...")
Big bucks, bottomless Sex on the Beach (aka Sand Up Yer A**) cocktails, a casual schedule and most appealing of all: no stated requirement that you look like Pamela Anderson in a tanga. It's Work/Life balance (skewed heavily towards "life" for once) on a stick.
It's so jammed, it can't even manage a polite apology like the New York Times threw up after getting crash-tackled for its $14.95 Obama re-print. I suspect that's part of the clever strategy. Keep me banging "Refresh" on my browser like a lab monkey drip fed dopamine, why don't you!
It's a good ad for Australia - far more engaging than Australia.com's bout of cinematic seasickness featuring a dog-paddling VP of Sales limpidly gazing into the camera "coming back as Kate". Unless a character is making a disarming fool of herself, human envy is such that we won't be putting ourselves in her flip flops any time soon. As a straight shooting Aussie, this ad embarrasses me. The Hamilton one, with a big wink in its eye, does not.
As I Googled around, looking for a way to view the application procedure for this 2000-unique-visitor-per-second site, I noticed that no one has taken it on to copy the details.
Imagine the traffic you could be getting, by being the alternative go-to site to the real deal? A bit like those now-annoying USA Greencard Lottery sites, that prey on people those never make it to the dreary governmental portal where the process is essentially free of charge.
Has someone thought to come up with a similar offer too? 6 months in the Bahamas, rent free. I'd say they could dispense with the sweet salary to get the seasonally affected depressed and disorderly clamoring.
Work/life balance is still that holiest of unholy grails, even in a recession, when keeping your job is a blessing.
If you can appeal to that part of us that is arguably the next most desirable thing to sex (it sure lasts longer) you will get discretionary dollar yet.
And I'm not talking about having sandy island sorties to throw around, nor re-inventing wheels. I'm talking about cheap'n'choosy ideas, small but powerful tweaks you can easily implement within your world – and with people working partial weeks, it's the perfect time to do brainstorm.
Let's do it now.
It's winter, I'm sitting here, snowed in, seasonally affected, down and disorderly ...
I'm holed up in my burrows, surfing the web, researching my next new toy. In this case some wool sox that your toes don't poke through after a week. There's something already, sock manufacturers. We hate a perfectly good sock rendered useless by hole, which only returns, lumpier, no matter how much we darn it.
Back to me. I'm on the web, not standing in your store. Unless your Amazon or Ebay, you've probably been saying, "I need to fix my website" for the past year. I know I have. Do it now. Not only is it unselling you as you sleep, you're already losing to the competition economy picks up. Why? A bad website means the product is bad. That's how we think. Unless you're selling toilet paper or tampons, your sales are probably down, so reduce your sales staff and deploy that money towards upgrading your site.
I'm turning up the heat now ... why haven't I seen a better range of S.A.D. lights? Why are they ugly, like something you get your wisdom teeth pulled under? Lighting manufacturers, why not make fixtures look like Artemide classics but lift our spirits at the same time?
My green tea is getting cold ... How about a personal heat pad for my favorite mug to keep it warm and cozy? No one really wants to drink coffee from a paper cup through a hole in a plastic top. Perhaps it could be candle driven? The warmth of a flame ...
I just warmed it up in the microwave, despite being browbeaten by a naysayer from the Toast Oven Lobby. I had to push several buttons before I got it right. Whatever happened to the simple and elegant dial from years back, that you could spin to get the minutes and then hit start? Microwave manufacturers, you're supposed to make my life easier.
I did have to step out in the snow just now, and realized that despite my balaclava, my eyes were being battered with sleet – and it was too dark to wear sunglasses. How about a pair of light winter goggles, cleverly tinted (rose gold?) to protect my eyes and make the day seem warmer? An indoor version would do wonders for my awful fluorescent lit carpeted cubicle ...
Let's move away from cheap'n'choosy products, to cheap'n'choosy MO's:
What about changing your dreary phone menu script? Get rid of "Please listen to the following options as some of them have changed" and say something more conversational, we'll like you for it, and it will make me forget my neighbors either side never talk to me. Voice recognition software is still not perfect, and I'm tired of an electrovoice telling me "Sorry I didn't get that" over and over. Give me a button to push, please.
How about changing your "hold" music to an informative and entertaining listening program, offering tips on how to use your product, stories from happy customers, jokes and so forth. Make it like we're at your dinner table. You're selling to us even while we wait our turn.
And please, doctors, and anyone with a receptionist - fire him/her if he/she is not the most loveable creature on the end of a phone line. That voice is the face of your income stream. I called about 10 doctors and hung up in frustration because the receptionist made it sound like I'd called the wrong number.
Restaurants. Why is your server/waiter giving me the bill before telling me about dessert? I appreciate the concern for my waistline, but enrolling me in the creme brulee is part of the reason you can still pay the rent, and keep your best waiters employed. Waiters. don't take my dish away without asking. Do you want a tip or don't you? And it's a recession. I'm gonna eat that last potato.
The Staples Easy button is one of my favorite cheap'n'choosy ideas.
We want life to be easy, we want it at the push of a button, and we want to play. They captured it in a little non-executive toy.
I read somewhere they've sold millions of dollars of this product. So much so, up to a million dollars each year is donated towards a worthy charity, Boys and Girls of America.
They've made it even easier - you can now download it to your desktop, though I'd like them to add this caption: "Although this is a more convenient, lower carbon footprint version of our famous Easy button, we urge you to buy the real deal, support our Boys and Girls of America, and get your hand off that damn mouse for once."
This is a simple idea, executed all the way to where it counts – our psyche. Yair, I bought one, I don't hit it as often as I should, but when I look at it over there, it brings a smile to my face. A little bit of Work/Life Balance, a little bit of sunshine and sand, a bit of the easy life - while sitting in a snowstorm.
The Galfromdownunder believes that cheap'n'choosy ideas are hard currency in a recession. She likes to celebrate them on her Cheap'n'Choosy blog.
Twice a day my phone emits a little Bewitched-like brrrring.
I don't bother checking it, because I instantly know who it is - and where they are.
The "who" is Rickshaw Dumpling, a Chelsea restaurant I've patronized more times than is decent, for its scrumptious nowhere-found-in-Chinatown Peking Duck dumplings.
The "where" is the exact location of its new, mobile chuck wagon.
The bearer of this otherwise mundane, sub-140-character missive is Twitter, your friendly internet stalking program. It's a bit like the text equivalent of a webcam trained on a college freshman's digs, promising a rare glimpse of her bloomers.
In the morning, the cart seems to loiter deep in the Financial District, wooing hedge fund managers - who've still got a cubicle to call home - with its edamame purses and matching ginger dipping sauce. By lunchtime it pops up a few streets north in Midtown, proclaim "yum yum come and get 'um'. On weekends it competes for "king of the curb" with other carts in the Meatpacking district.
Get this - I don't actually ever go chase it down, which is the whole purpose of the alert.
But every time I hear the brrring, a little smile crosses my face. Occasionally I'll pick up the phone and forward the message to pro-dumpling but anti-twitter friends working in walkable distance from the latest stakeout.
I can't blame my friends – I too, have been slow to adopt Twitter, because the last thing we all need is another tab on our cluttered browsers, right? Rickshaw is the only "tweet" I follow, and no-one's twailing me with any great conviction.
Yet, there goes the brrrrring and it brings a smile to my face.
How the har gow has Rickshaw managed to rent such a compelling corner of my brain?
In the back of my mind, I just like to know Rickshaw is still out there, still making money, still viable in this recession. When I hear that brrring I find myself re-running the story about a Halal cart hell bent on defending its territory with a smoking shawarma. I see the two carts comically cat-and-mousing around the block, dumplings and dona kebabs drawn and cocked.
Twitter is a clever tool, but it's not rocket science. Its value is in reinforcing a basic tenet of Customer Evangelism: make people feel intimately involved and a part of something good, profound, or just pretty durn cool. The resultant community is key to resilience in a downturn.
Not everything is worth tweeting. After stalking several friends, frenemies and a couple of celebs, I got bored with "Now taking a bath", "About to eat dinner", "Watching SNL" "Taking a dump" would have been marginally more interesting for the voyeuristic mental picture it conjures up - even more fun if it was Obama or the Queen - but no such luck.
It was reasonably easy to 'tweet' - ie to send twitter messages - during my travels, and it was only a concern for overloading people following me with excessively trivial messages that limited my tweets ...
I ended up deleting these tedious tweeters from my list almost immediately. Worse, I started drawing all kinds of irrational conclusions about them; that they were actually pretty boring people with nothing much to say, and had somehow hoodwinked me into thinking they were worthy of my friendship. Such is the effect of ADHD technology.
This led me to thinking of Twitter an excellent, free training tool for aspiring advertising copywriters, speech writers and sound bite engineers. Why? Advertising 101 says, unless you want to bore the Crocs off your audience, keep it short and sweet. In 140 characters or less:
ØThe more you say, the less people hear.
or, as Sao Paulo Creative Director Marcelo Serpa put it:
ØSay too much, you lose money
The more compelling your tweets, the more people will appreciate your ability to string letters together and stay on your tail. And who knows – it could lead to a job writing lines surpassing "New. iPhone." for Apple.
To use it as a self-copy training tool, try setting up a second account and follow yourself. If you bore you, chances are you'll bore everyone else unless a) you're a celeb whose fans hang on your every 'the', 'a' , 'but' and space b) you're a jealous or controlling spouse/parent/beau who likes to know your victim's every twitch c) you're a bona fide stalker with the blessing of the stalkee.
I've just set up a twitter account for the company I work for, Bike Friday, and given all staff access. Since our customers love to get the inside dope on us, I'm hoping individuals in the company will tweet about all the interesting things they're doing and thinking, giving followers a "glass against the wall" view of what goes on in the company.
So far, I'm the only one who's posted. I'll wait.
Meanwhile, there goes that brrrring ...
The Galfromdownunder thinks that many adwriters should use Twitter to hone their headlines. She put the above doozy into the Twitter and guess what it came out as?
In a 'bring your doggy bag' of epic proportions, the invitation attracted over 40,000 scavengers to the Miller's farmlands, literally scraping their land back to the earth's mantle.
Google tells me that's half the capacity of the new Dallas Cowboys stadium in Arlington, Texas, which will hold approximately 80,000, but it still doesn't help me get my head around it.
"Everybody is so depressed about the economy," said an otherwise plucky potato picker.
Now swing your Google Earth crosshairs over to the 9th Avenue area between Chelsea Markets and 22nd st in Manhattan, where I polled the purveyors of some of the most delectable comestibles to find out just where dead Financiers (the almond blueberry kind, not the Wall St kind) go, along with bread rolls, croissants, custard Danish and other unbought goods, at close of business?
Prepare to be shocked - that left over Danish doesn't even go to the dogs.
"In the trash."
And you thought there were these charitable "food banks" distributing the abandoned burgers to the needy and deserving ...
It seems it's one of those urban myths that people so want to be true, that it becomes accepted as true, even when it's not.
"Surely you could at least sell it off at half price in the last half hour, like the Fat Witch graciously does in Chelsea Markets," I asked of the proprietors as I overpaid for my frosted folly.
"The owner doesn't want a line outside," said the server in a French patisserie on the corner of 9th and 20th. Not a good look for a boutique bakery for sure.
But hey, this is a recession.
Why not sell it off half price so that a) it doesn't go to waste, and it b) it brings in some income?
A cake shop across the road also admitted that they toss the tiramisu at COB.
"People might think it's not fresh if we mark it down," said the manager.
"Well, I am sure we can let the people decide," I ventured, knowing full well that price is a pretty convincing decider.
A sushi bar owner on 17th and 8th grunted when I expressed dismay that his bento boxes got the boot come 7pm. Would he be willing to sell me one at half price? He gave me a look dirtier than a post dim-sum tablecloth and banished the bentos (not the unagi, thankfully) into a hungry trash bag.
Perhaps they're actually saving our waistlines by being so wasteful – I'd be supersizing my doggie bag nightly at these places if they gave me a half price chance.
Be that as it may, I say, let's band together and tell them where to put their leftovers at the end of the day – in our shopping bags, not garbage bags.
No one's saying you have to give it to us for free – just let us take it off your hands for a nice price - or give it to someone who could really use it.
I just picked up the "Travel Winter 2008" issue of the New York Times Style Magazine. You know, that freebie treebie that slides out of the Sunday edition with a thud on the coffee table, its glossy pages demanding a sniff and flick before your brain can handle the real news.
On the front cover is a stunning image of a glacier. In the foreground, a piece of carry-on luggage floats, corpse-like, in water. I say corpse-like because it's white, and instantly made me think of the Mt Erebus airline tragedy. It's actually a Ferragamo rollaway for $2500, no doubt now worth a water-damaged $20 on Craigslist.
The cover is part of a photo spread within called Frozen Assets, which features more scenery not uncommon in the news these days – our rapidly melting polar caps.
The grand scenery is juxtaposed with more accoutrements of what must be some rich airline tragedy victims, like the $6845 black and white pelt of a mammal formerly known as endangered.
Another page shows a $3195 Chanel bag on a shard of melting ice that a small polar bear would long have fallen sideways off of.
Served on the rocks are two pairs of $2000+ towering stiletto boots made for doing something other than walking. An abandoned GM executive's briefcase glitters on the tundra.
In short, I am utterly amazed at the inappropriateness of this spread. If it was done by Millionaire Monthly and captioned "Sorry, Green Doesn't Go with My Loafers" or "Sod the planet, I'm here for a good time, not a long time," I'd understand it. If it was done by the Onion with the headline "To Hell with Global Warming" I'd applaud it. But the New York Times?
Someone in that glassy, "no bikes allowed" building needs to stop hanging out with the stylists and all their freebie props and do time in the local Salvation Army Thrift Store.
Am I sounding "greener than thou"? As someone who is a militant opponent of rampant political correctness, I don't think so.
"Burberry did a similarly tasteless spread for some magazine recently," said a friend who works in the luxury goods business - but still has a conscience. "They went to India plucking hapless souls from the slums of Delhi or Mumbai to use as models. They photogaphed one holding one of their beyond-pricey umbrellas and others with obscenely expensive articles of their clothes. It just shows out out of touch some people are, that they don't recognize how offensive they are."
And did they, like GM, either fail to consult, or completely ignore, their PR department before um, letting 'er rip, as we say downunder?
"I don't think they even think about that," said Andrew Metcalfe, a top strategist. "Zero strategy - they probably just take pictures of products on cool backgrounds and that's that."
"But did you read the accompanying article?" said a literary friend.
"Why should I?" I respond. "Those images have gotten me so riled up I don't want to waste my rods and cones on it."
My friend took the magazine off me and read the article.
"Hm. Strange. Kind of part travelogue, slight environmental statement, but mostly seems like it's there to justify the photo shoot."
I took the mag off him read the article, scanning for clues.
The ice in Greenland is of course, the global talking point of environmental degradation.
Yup – just look at how fast that ice floe is melting under that hot $2200 Louis Vuitton suitcase ...
As the ice melts, the world waits to see how many billions of barrels lie beneath the frost ...
AHA! Why did I ever doubt?
Oil money and ostrich feather luggage - I knew the Times' famous reputation for timeliness and relevance would never let me down.
Obama's victory was not just about color - it was all about color. Whether you're black among white, gay among straight, blind among the seeing, one-legged among bipeds, your difference can become your biggest asset. In a world becoming vanilla with fear, Obama's skin color is his not-so-secret "weapon of mass construction".
AT ELEVEN p.m. last night, when a voice on the TV said evenly, "Barack Obama, is the new president-elect of America" someone downstairs started banging incessantly on a pipe. He or she didn't let up for a full five minutes.
On any other day you'd assume outrage, a wack job or plumbing in dire need of attention. But today, and especially given the predominantly black neighborhood I'm staying in (near what is called "the projects"), it could only be elation. The elation of a nation that needs change with a capital C.
"People partied hard," said Pei, a friend who cellphoned me a shot she took at 1.18am in Union Square. I switch on my Blackberry and it fills the screen – in the foreground a pair of hands thrust a full page shot of PRESIDENT OBAMA on the cover of The Daily News. It's blurry with movement; you can read "Nation Changes" and that's all, but you get it.
On the cover he looks poised and presidential already - the image of a black world leader isn't unfamiliar. It's just astoundingly unfamiliar if you're talking about the CEO of certain first world countries - Britain, Australia and the USA are really the only three that spring to my mind.
In the background, you can make out the small figures who have climbed a statue, arms waving and scarves flapping. They're all white. The big face dominating the foreground is black. For me, Pei's grainy cellphone shot is the yin-yang image of the decade.
I opened my Facebook account and the first banner ad that pops is "Interracial Dating Only – Date Black, Asian, Hispanic …"
Black is certainly the new black.
For people who say this race was "never about skin color but the economy", I say, thankfully, it is about skin color.
Obama's youth and scant experience has been cited over and over as reasons to not vote, or perhaps to vote, for him.
Regardless there are no guarantees that whatever he says he can, will or even want to implement, as has been shown time and time again in politics – at least in a democracy.
As Google told me today, "You tend to campaign in black and white. You tend to govern in gray," said Richard Haass, the president of the Council on Foreign Relations, who has worked for four presidents, most recently Bush.
We certainly hope he will do something for the economy, but being black, showing the world that the mindset of America has shifted in this symbolic way – is enough to set the ball rolling. And we just needed to get that ball rolling.
You'd think it got rolling with all these fictitious movies showing Morgan Freeman type actors in the role of President, Overlord, King Cop etc. It always seemed like politically correct fantasizing until now.
I say, Barack being black is enough for me.
"But he's not really black," some of you say. Ya, he's black.
He's black enough to do the job, the job of breaking through one more barrier, one more glass ceiling, one more Berlin Wall, one more Iron Curtain, one more velvet rope. Even more fortuitous, is his middle name Hussein, which he joked about ("when they gave me that name they must never have thought I'd ever be running for President.") This country needed a double/triple/quadruple whammy of a catalyst – now if he'd been female, gay and in a wheelchair too, or just plain Native American … ok, one step at a time.
For the first time skin color is a real advantage, in the same way that being blessed with good looks can make you a movie star, or good calves can make you an athlete good brains can make you a Nobel Laureate. Being different may shut some doors, but can open bigger doors that lead to better places.
So if you want to make a difference, be noticed, be heard, how can you use your God-givens – even ones you see as a disadvantage - to do it?
Go where you're exotic, different, surprising, delighting - and stay away from where you're not.
Examples:
Years ago I went for a job in the JET program, as a teacher of English in Japan. I made it through 2 interviews, and was then ruled out the moment they saw my picture. I wasn't offended - being brought up colored in a white country tends to make you philosophical pretty early in life - I simply mused at how yes, if I was a Japanese person living in an essentially racial monoculture, and I'd been bombarded with dreamy imagery of Paul Hoganish crocodile wrestlers and sun-bleached Kylies tossing burgers on the Barbie talking Strine, I'd want that of my Australian English teacher - rather than be taught English by someone who looked like me.
I am not saying this is right and good. I am just saying what is.
"But you don't look Australian," I still get from surprisingly educated people – even though trans-oceanic transportation has been invented for quite some time.
When in Australia on business with our customers, I keep a lower profile, allowing my swashbuckling American colleague to take the floor. It delights the local troops, whereas I risk been seen as operating "above my station."
"It's because you're not exotic in your own backyard," says my ever-wise boss. "But in the USA, you're this Customer Evangelist with incongruous combo of being small and Chinese with a delightful Aussie accent."
For the same reason, our Caucasian-American Sales Rep - who was actually born and raised in Japan - is doing gangbusters in Asia.
Another example: one of my customers, a Little Person (this is the correct term, dwarf is another) holds a research position working for a local member in the Capitol building – same office as Arnie Schwartzenegger. He was headhunted out of Washington DC. Dan is 4'6" tall. He wears a suit and rides a bike to work in its. Without doubt he's well qualified for the job, but I had to ask him what most wouldn't unless you're an infernal Aussie – has he experienced positive discrimination?
"Oh probably," he laughs, "And everyone in the building knows who I am."
Like Obama, Dan is achieving great things for himself, his community and his minority group. Equal to the politician he works for, he's a catalyst for change in his own swivel chair. Watch Dan in action
Find out where are you different – do you have a wooden leg? Good … work it.
McCain and Palin put in a fine effort. I learned a lot from listening to them speak, respond on their feet, deal with the unrelenting pressure we put on anyone who dares rise above their station.
But they never really had a chance this time. Barack was a little too black*, and they were just a little too white.
The Galfromdownunder, often barred by doorman even though she loves to dance, once wanted to become a Chinese Suzi Quattro if only to change the then-perception that Asians are just quiet, studious types who are good at math. Lucky she didn't, but she dreams about it …
* I stopped referring to blacks as African Americans after the last two times I did so I was politely told "I'm Jamaican".
WITH THE non-American speaking world marveling at how a would be pipe fitter (to give Google a whole new phrase to index) is doing a real life Chauncey Gardener, let's stop taking his pontifications on foreign policy so seriously, and recognize his real contribution:Joe the Plumber - not Obama or McCain - will save our flagging economy.
Sales of faucets and fixtures are set to soar as the word 'plumbing' and all its contractions are mouthed at potluck dinners and gallery openings.
Martha Stewart Bathing mag and wordless Taschen tomes showcasing avant-garde tubs and toilet cisterns will temporarily reverse the slow but steady decline in periodical publishing.
An extreme makeover TV show will focus wholly and solely on the smallest room in the house, hosted by a Joe look-alike if not Joe himself.
Fluffy toilet seat covers will make a comeback in red and blue fur.
Sarah Palin toilet dolls will once again rule the the cistern.
Sales of collaterals like bubble bath and soap will increase.
We've seen this phenomenon occur in bicycle sales - the phrases global warming, escalating gas prices and climate change led to a surge in the number of bike shops opening in the past two years - just ask any one of them.
What else?
Sales of flannel shirts will skyrocket. Calvin Klein's washboard stomachs will peek out from unbuttoned plaid shirts on a billboard near you; models will clomp down catwalks in chunky work boots, girdled by fully loaded designer tool belts.
Artists will scour junkyards for plumbing accoutrements and create scary and and meaningful sculptures, crediting Joe as their muse.
That ADD-inducing Windows 98 Pipes screensaver will reappear on desktops.
Jewelry will be fashioned from plumbing paraphernalia (bracelets made of bicycle chain are now passé).
Enrolments for courses and apprenticeships will increase.
Old plumbers who didn't die will get a new lease of life as waterworks wizards, instructing young apprentices on how to use the Faucet, Luke. A Dead Plumbers Society of sorts...
There'll be J.T.P. remix of Six Months with Leaky Tap on iTunes, and a clubland cocktail that resembles Blue Loo on ice. Don't think of getting past the velvet rope without a good looking toolbelt.
Joe himself need never poke a gloved finger down a hair-clogged drain again. A starring role in at least one new reality series awaits – the Real Plumbers of Orange County. No, think sequels – the Real Trades people of Orange County, complete with handsome boilermakers winking in the shaving mirror as they work.
Even if Joe does hang up a shingle, it will be emblazoned with smiling caricatures of McCain and Palin with plungers poised. He will be obliged to autograph those plungers – in Republican Red rubber of course – with a special "Joe the Plumber" Space pen, produced especially by the makers of THAT instrument to write upside down in a cistern full of water.
He'll be invited to endorse every bathroom cleaner known to anyone born with a bowel.
Of course he'll be asked to write a book.
Even the competition benefits. Googling 2008's most memorable catchphrase since "lipstick on a pig" reveals a plumber in California who's already been hounded by the media even with a distracting 'Lara' in his URL.
Another in Texas who actually owns www.joetheplumber.com is doing a brisk trade in souvenir t-shirts. I suspect that site is probably a front for a blogger who doesn't know his USJ from his USB but sure knows how to make money.
So stop worrying about the recession and see if YOUR business can benefit, directly or absurdly, by this plumber called Joe.
The Galfromdownunder wonders why They Inc. can make a harbor tunnel but can't make a toilet cistern that doesn't unhook itself and go ssssssssss … I'd call Joe, but he's already making a million by not being a plumber.
While meandering around the Murray Hill district of Manhattan, I was stopped dead by an intriguing sign: "Sal Anthony, famous Italian chef, has gone raw!"
An Italian Chef going raw? Is that like a Chanel shopper going Goth?
Delightful oxymorons scotch-taped in windows always sucker me in to find out the backstory. On stepping inside the pristine café, which reeked of fresh picked iceberg lettuce, I spotted the man himself. He was dressed in full chef's regalia, crouched over a Magi-Mix instructing an intern about the correct way to process the unprocessed.
His food was good. Clever, in that offered more than the usual crudités and hummus variants and expensive dehydrator wafers, the usual standbys of raw foodism. But I'm not here to talk about the food.
A bit of Googling reveals a backstory - a community-minded restaurateur offering patrons a good deal ($14.95 prix fixe) falls victim to hard capitalism – the only kind of capitalism our self-serving society seems to understand. His rent octuples, he's forced out. Concurrently, or perhaps karmically, he becomes interested in health and fitness. Not an automatic progression for an ossobuco maestro. So he develops his own brand of yoga and opens a fitness studio, or in his words, a movement studio.
"They Inc." will tell you that when you get in touch with your body – and I don't mean slathering it with $200-a-gloop body lotion and dressing it in Prada - you ever so magically start to think of others.
His self-styled movement salon tries to offer a good deal as well. 1.5 hour classes packaged come in at around $12. I am reliably told this is a bargain in Manhattan, even when it's no-initiation season at the skankiest gyms.
All this is what Anthony calls "soft capitalism".
Google "soft capitalism" and you land on some vaguely unsatisfying and nebulous definitions involving the words socialism and communism. Anthony's definition:
"Soft capitalism says 6 people sit down, I get up, I make all the money, you five make nothing. Soft capitalism is: six of us sit down, we all make a couple of bucks and get on with our lives. It works, I've proven it."
So it seems. In his "Vanishing New York" clip, he candidly states he's "very close to bankruptcy every day", but "I'm not starving, I'm living, I'm raising children, and I do it through soft capitalism." That includes running a raw food cafe, a yoga studio, a florist and two other restaurants, and - perhaps the real test - he seems to be having fun.
I can tell when people are having fun. They're busy but they have time for you. Anthony didn't know me from a bar of soap, yet put down his large chef's knife, wiped his hands and came out from behind his blender to explain to me what his cause was about. He encouraged me to try his modestly priced carob, date and nut balls, but sensibly, didn't give out any free samples - remember, this is soft capitalism, not a charity. A little bit of money makes the world go round.
"Make no mistake, I need money, I have to pay rent, I have to feed my family, I like money," says Anthony, speaking for everyone on the planet except Carthusian monks. "I like capitalism, I don't like communism, I don't like socialism. Capitalism could work. But soft capitalism. Not raw capitalism."
Raw capitalism?
"Get the most, give the least, give the least, get the most. Where the hell are we going to go with that? We're going to hell with that. We’re all on the same rowboat and it's going to sink."
When I rode my bike through Cuba, someone watching the government propaganda channel (the other channel screens nonstop Mexican soap operas) told me that Fidel Castro was heard to say, in essence, "Capitalism isn't the answer because it destroys community. But Communism isn't the answer because it destroys individuality. What we seek is a way to achieve both." Whether that someone was just passing off his own private ideal as that of Castro I don't know, but I now feel there is a label for that ideal, and it's called, soft capitalism.
Anthony's message goes beyond yoga and uncooked food. His Vanishing New York film project joins the chorus against the cancer of greed that is destroying the whatever community is still left in the streets.
He's talking of luxury condomania, the rents that wipe out beloved, 40 year old institutions in a single hike, increasingly long commutes to work and even longer hours at work, and questioning what will happen to us if we don't start tossing some tenderizer on hard capitalism.
As a newcomer to New York I wander around the city, concur with Curbed, and wonder if anyone has ever thought of developing even semi-luxury condos. That is, making a tropospheric rather than stratospheric profit, thus providing a service to their fellow man and really, helping to keep our street corners interesting. I will grudgingly concur that Banana Republic, Starbucks et al have a right to exercise their hard capitalism – but does it have to be on every street corner?
A few short years ago I was fortunate to visit a unique little development called Pen Park Commons in Portland, where two guys got together and re-developed an old duplex into 6 ,1-2 bedroom condos and priced them from a very affordable $92, 000.
What makes this a seminal achievement in modern co-housing is honoring appropriateness in every respect. Here is a renovation which left most of the modest but characterful fixtures, fittings and finishes intact – repairs were made where they mattered. The entire complex was spruced up in the most delightful and livable way with paint and that magic ingredient – good taste. 5 single people who did not own a car, and 1 couple with a baby, were able to move in. We're not talking the usual restrictive co-housing scenario where you're required to sit through endless meetings leading to unimaginative decisions, suffer forced weekly dinners, and where the childless have to endure freewheeling screaming kids. We're not talking a bunch of weed whacking hippies in and out of each other's bean chairs and ice boxes, either. The residents are professionals who simply live a simpler, Design (Actually) Within Reach lifestyle, and they get together as a community when they want, and when it matters. It's one of the few places I felt I would want to – and more importantly, could afford to – live.
Back to Anthony's $12.50 classes, which I am preparing for as I type this post.
So he can make money offering that kind of deal?
"I'd rather charge $60 and hour rather than $100 an hour, $12 a class rather than $30 a class. I try and keep things in keeping with what's going on, so we can sort of afford to stay healthy. I always say, what can we do, what can we afford to do, for ourselves and others?"
Even more affordable is the excellent free soup, bread and cake served daily to his yoga customers - soft capitalism owes its flavor to generosity.
If you can make it in New York, you can make it anywhere. If, like Sal Anthony, you can do it using soft capitalism, we'll get out of this mess yet.
Down the street I see triple gelatos being passed over countertops. Cupcakes, judging from the crush at Billy's Bakery last night, are waddling out the door in threesomes. An upscale nosherie called Cookshop, which managed to sell me a salad plucked from the lanes of my childhood athletics field, is packed every night. In Trader Joe's, I thought I was in a Soviet Russian supermarket, with queues of abnormally patient locals laden with life-saving salsas, bruschetta spreads and those demonic black bean chips.
[Eating ice cream etc] … is fairly classic marketplace behavior - when you can't afford the big things, you treat yourself to small luxuries instead of big luxuries.
Nothing new here, but ... are we really in a recession? According to PR pro Fred Iannotti, the media is crying wolf but the wolf is presently muzzled by a bowl of bi bim bap:
We actually have not been in recession - the economy is actually still growing - I think the correction for the last quarter put it near 4 percent growth rate, and although unemployment is up slightly, something like 94 percent of everyone who wants a job has a job. People don't remember what a real recession is like, e.g., under a J. Carter, when interest rates for buying a new house were 22 percent! (Today you can get a mortgage for 5.75 percent). This was the mid- to late 1970s, when we had "stagflation."
As my father once said, "I'm not short of a few dollars, I'm short of a few thousand dollars."
In other words, when times are tough, and unless you're a Telfar model, people continue to eat ice cream. Especially when it's very, very good ice cream.
I first heard the "supersized" version of the more prosaic "find out what people want, and give it to them" in a TV ad for Homer Hudson Ice Cream. Invented in the excessive 80's by Unilever employee Lawrence Vincent, Homer Hudson was a "super premium" ice cream, meaning it "incorporates the least amount of air possible, and high levels of inclusions". According to Sugarblog, "inclusions are things like choc toffee pieces, which make up as much as 12.5% of the contents in Homer Hudson, compared to about 5% in other premium ice creams." This, in a market where a lot of so-called ice cream is just turbo-whipped trans fat.
Homer Hudson's most lethal flavor, Chocolate Rock, remains in my opinion, the only serious attempt at chocolate ice cream ever made by anyone within spitting distance of a cacao plant. On opening the lid, you are faced with what resembles a vat of black boot polish, except it's very cold boot polish, with none of the toe-curling bootpolishy smell. It's basically solid, spoonable dark chocolate. You can only eat a couple of spoonfuls at a time or start twitching all over and yammering at high speed. If there is a death by chocolate, Chocolate Rock is the Resurrection.
Homer Hudson disappeared in the late nineties - perhaps a result of the new focus on diet and aerobics at the time. Google tells me it resurfaced in 2004, just in time for a recessive millennium.
Why am I going on about ice cream, when I hardly touch the stuff? I want to illustrate that in challenging times, rather than pulling back on features, services and "inclusions", try finding out what people want and giving - and including - a lot of it.
Were not just talking spoonables. Let's talk airlines.
The Travel Insider, a chatty, nosey, airline-watching e-letter, talks of companies like United coming up with all kinds of ways to cut costs, whereas companies like Virgin are keeping the customer firmly in mind.
From an August issue:
Fortunately, not all airlines are closing down - some are making improved profits instead. Virgin Atlantic reported a 38% lift in their annual profit, going up to £61 million this year ($119 million) compared to £44 million last year. And while the loser airlines are trying to make money by cutting services and quality at every turn, Virgin's CEO, Steve Ridgway offers a different view. He says "...the winners will be those airlines that focus on offering the best customer service. We have ... focused on providing the best product in Upper Class, Premium Economy and Economy...
First Emirates, now Virgin Atlantic - two airlines reporting increased profits and attributing their profit in part to their successful pursuit of excellence. Meanwhile, money losing United is cutting back on any and all reasons why higher fare paying passengers would ever wish to fly with them.
This seems so simple - there's no need even to be innovative, but rather just to do what the airlines like to do so much. Play copycat. But choose the 'high road' as exemplified by Emirates and Virgin Atlantic, rather than the low road, as exemplified by most US carriers."
Indeed, Just Copy It.
When I needed to change my trans-Pacific flight with United, three times due to family illness, I was charged $150 each time. I couldn't just "suspend" my flight until I could work out a better departure time closer to the date - hell no, I had to "hard commit" on the spot - costing me $150 each time. And a change of routing would incur more penalties. When I fronted up to the counter with a single checked bag 2 lbs overweight, I was given grief, despite saving the airline a lot of fuel and space by not bringing 2 checked bags. (And by weighing only 95 lbs myself, but that's for a future world).
I won't even mention the disastrous vegetarian meal, other than to say if you can't find a chef who can get beyond a few shards of nutritionally deficient iceberg lettuce and white pasta, please give the job to Wendy's or Subway - anyone, please.
Contrast this with Southwest Airlines, where your ticket is treated as the next best thing to cold, hard cash. Can't fly on the date booked? No problem, it goes as a cash credit against your name, none of this $100+ penalty nonsense. Want to go somewhere else instead? They'll apply your credit to the new ticket. Recently, I was bumped and accepted a travel voucher, worth $510. I was not able to use it by the expiry date, so sold it to a customer who was looking for a deal. I just emailed him the PIN, got Paypalled cash, and the next day he flew. It left both of us in a state of euphoria - here's an airline that really knows what people want - and gives them plenty of it.
In Testify! you can read about a customer so evangelistic of Southwest, she personally wrote to tell them how she would do what she could to make sure they stayed in business. That was 2002.
Do you want customers to love you like Southwest? Who will stand by you when times are tough? Just find out what they want - and give them lots of it.
And how deep is that love? Deep is good, deep and wide is better. The Travel Insider tells us about "The Southwest Effect":
The 'Southwest Effect' is described as the two things that happen when Southwest starts flying into a new city. Airfares drop across the board as established carriers match Southwest's typically lower fares, and air travel increases in response. Here's an interesting example of the other side of the Southwest effect: for reasons best known to itself and to no-one else, Southwest only publishes its schedules (and therefore fares) a little way into the future, unlike most airlines that will accept reservations up to 11 months in advance (and even further in advance for group type bookings). So guess what happens on the particular day when Southwest's future bookings stop being available? Yes - airfares typically rise on other carriers. Here's a wonderful example of this in chart form, courtesy of farecompare.com - at present, you can book with Southwest through until 6 March 2009. Look at the leap in fares on United that occurs on 7 March - from an average of about $385 up to an average of about $440. If you're flying anywhere in the US, plainly it is best not to book further in advance than Southwest has its schedules published for...
I do applaud United's green sensibility in eliminating that silly paper boarding pass folder that doesn't fit into any neckpouch, but really knowing what people want, and giving them lots of it, will inspire the kind of rampant customer evangelism enjoyed by Southwest and Virgin. If an airline is really bent on fees and schedules, why not ping us with little details - a moist towelette to sanitize our hands (remember those?), a pot of Haagen Daaz if you can't get Homer Hudson, anything but those mundane pretzels, a place to stash our rubbish unless you want us to force it in our seat pockets. How about giving us a crisp apple? How about not charging me when I am good enough to front up with 1 bag slightly overweight rather than 2 and I weigh half as much as the other passengers? How much are we talking here? Was it MidWest Airlines that supplied me with a "Cowpat" – a giant, fresh baked cookie in an envelope? Three consecutive legs with the same cookie did wear thin, but I remember the airline with fondness 6 years later …
I read that some time ago United hired a Chief Customer Experience Officer. She can't have spent much time in cattle class or on the phone to their call center, or she would have picked up on everything I am talking about.
In apparently challenging times, whether it's ice cream or airlines, "find out what people want, and give them a lot of it" is a strategy that is well within reach, if you just perch yourself on the customer's stool for a moment. If you can't save them time or money, just try to delight them - a spoonful of ice cream makes the recession go down.
The Galfromdownunder would love to see WholeFoods and Trader Joes have a special express lane for customers with ice cream and other meltables.
Pictured: A superlative almond studded Magnum munchalike from Euphoria Chocolate Company, Eugene, Oregon, which knows what people like and gives them lots of it - nuts over chocolate!
"Patronize your local, even if it's a little more expensive. Otherwise, one day, it won't be there."
My mother's words, which I've adhered to for years, even when relatively skint.
But do you "support your local" when it's clearly not up to par?
I celebrated my 46th birthday by landing in NYC and taking a quick reconnaissance around the block where I usually stay.
Cool! A new eatery right outside my door!
Opened just one month, said the server, stark as a niche statue against the empty bowels of the restaurant – at lunch hour.
I looked at the sandwich board, then the menu. The sandwich board is what drew me in – it said "Fresh Fruit Mojitos." I didn't even get those in Cuba. (Aside: never underestimate the power of the humble sandwich board. It's what you scratch on it that counts. I remember one that drew a bunch of us across a busy road - it simply said: Food. Good. Signs that are jiggled around on street corners by paid human posts – don’t laugh – we all look at those to as we turn right ...).
As I went over the offering I started to get confused. "Asian Bistro" it said on the sign overhead. On the sandwich board it said "Quesadillas" and "Fish & Chips". Inside the menu were "Nachos" and "Kung Pao Chicken". I've learned that an appearance of trying to be all things to all people not only confuses, it signals impending mediocrity.
My Zagat-thumbing friends had plans for a dozen other places, but I was intrigued by this brave new business, opening right outside what NYers like to call "the projects". I like to support honest new ventures. I know business owners have way more guts than career wage-earners like me. The least I can do is promote them – as long as they're doing a good job – and bring my friends along.
Undaunted and unZagatted, I rounded up a few customer friends at a loose end and arrived at 6pm as promised.
I asked the server about some of the dishes. She didn't know about half of them, and hadn't tried most of them. Hello, restaurant owners! Your servers are your salesforce. Not only do they need to eat your food to sell it properly, they need to know what the soup of the day etc is, without running off and asking.
A server need not like a dish. One server told me "I'm not a great fan of xxxx, I prefer the yyyy because …" Paradoxically, this is far more useful that the popular and wishy-washy "Oh everything on the menu is really good." People like to be given a strong, informed recommendation, and, with the exception of very, very good restaurants, "everything on the menu is good" is rarely true.
Servers also need to refrain from dumping the check on the table without enthusing about the dessert menu, and let the diner refuse. I learned that in restaurants, sales of an extra salad means tips and whether you'll be open for business next week. Running a restaurant is not a charity.
The Cobb salad that arrived was large but mediocre – the leaves were a limp and dry, like when you open packaged arugula then shove it to the back of the fridge and discover it a week later. The ingredients were by and large what you'd taste from the markdown Safeway Deli counter. The Peking duck wraps were oversauced – with commercial plum sauce. I'm no gourmet, but in a crowded market, there is just too much competition at this level to get it wrong. You're better off opening a greasy spoon and doing really, killer, greasy spoon. In Brisbane, I saw a scruffy guy in Fortitude Valley doing gangbusters against all the fancy coffee houses. He set up a coffee bar in a virtual demolition site. He just did killer coffee. People said so. And the occasional killer croissant. You couldn't even sit down unless you were one of the two who snagged the two stools. It made me wish I drank coffee so I could copy his style and retire at 50.
I remember a friend Barney being served some traditional French provincial steak dish. The owner asked Barney for feedback. Do you really want to know, said Barney? Nod. OK, it was good, but you could slice this steak in half this way and make more money, because the traditional way this dish is served is with a wafer thin piece of steak …. Even as he spoke, you could see the owner glazing over and resenting Barney even daring to open his mouth.
Constructive feedback is so valuable, yet people are primed to be offended by it. I've known businesses to ask for customer feedback and spend all their time saying "Yesbut" or thinking "what would they know" (the eyes and hunched shoulders don't lie). They won't take free feedback from the people who are actually opening their wallets, so they pay consultants to paraphrase that feedback and still don't listen. A permanently empty Indian restaurant near my apartment in Sydney asked my advice and it was simple: Turn up the heat, light some candles, cover the cement walls with saris, just a start. Cheap ambience, I read Martha Stewart too. Weeks later I went back and nothing is done and the restaurant is still empty. I can only assume restaurants who do this are a front for drugs or laundering and don't need the money.
And one more thing – when you ask customers for write feedback, make it sound like you'll actually read the card and do something with it.
I just filled in a United Airlines survey that seemed entirely statistical - a fashion buyer told me some department stores operate that way, re-ordering purely on numbers, rather than how frightful the mohair caftan "that looks like a rainbow threw up on it" (thanks to Janet Fitch for that one) actually looks like on the average Josephine.
How do do it right? Start by reading this booklet:
by CustomerEvangelists.com duo Ben McConnell and Jackie Huba. After having it on my shelf for 4 years, and even after they mentioned Bike Friday so many times, I am ashamed to say I only just got round to reading it fully, on the plane to NY. 18 businesses describe how they use customer evangelism in bringing their customers closer, including the correct solicitation and processing of criticism and feedback - an crucial part of the relationship.
If you only read one book this year, make it this little one. Why? It's a free download, it's short, and it's not just telling. It's showing. It's free of pomp and high handedness. Unless you're someone who can't be told a damn thing, you'll think about business differently. Now that's a rare steak.
COPYWRITING CORNER – feedback card for a restaurant.
I'm always ranting about the power of the fine copyline - it extends to every little thing people read from you – even the "wash your hands" signage in your toilets.
Old copy:
Your feedback is important to us. Please take a moment to tell us about your experience at xxxxx.
New copy:
We like making good food as much as you like eating it.
We also want to be here when you next visit.
Please don't leave without telling us anything – and we mean anything - we ought to know right now. We won't be offended, no decent restaurant can afford that luxury. If you come back, please tear off the bottom portion card and bring it along for a complimentary dessert – and see how we've taken your suggestions on board.
Too many words? Better than too few. If you have multiple choice questions to ask, let's use the excellent example given in Testify! by the Delaware Curative Physical Therapy and Rehab Centers submission. Their simple card said:
HEY BETH! I am ...
Impressed
Pleasantly Surprised
Satisfied
A Bit Annoyed
Mad as the Dickens (though I would have written, "Mad as Hell" by I'm a spade's a spade Aussie)
Get the idea? Start re-writing stuff that people read, don't try to be all things to all people, listen to what they say, resist the temptation to kee-jerk "what would they know"? They know one thing - how to spend money that enables you to be paid.
The Gal learned more about life than how to assemble a dessert sampler as a failed waitress and commis chef when she did the dishes in County Kerry. She also believes she found the worst salad on Route 66.
Pictured: "Stay off the tracks! Or cop a $150 fine. So don't say
you didn't know." Talking to people in their language, without being
patronizing, cuts through the clutter - and they're more likely to do
what you ask. That includes giving valuable feedback. Seen at Brisbane
train station, Australia.
FROM the world stage of Beijing and the uproar over "ugly little girls who can sing"
comes a diverting sequel from the boonies of Mt Isa (Google it, make sure you type in 'Australia').
Entitled "Beauty-disadvantaged singles outcry", sitcom journalism doesn't get much better than this:
"May I suggest if there are five blokes to every girl, we should find out where there are beauty-disadvantaged women and ask them to proceed to Mount Isa," Cr Molony was quoted in the Townsville Bulletin as saying.
Molony's not a one-quote wonder either:
"Quite often you will see walking down the street a lass who is not so attractive with a wide smile on her face. Whether it is recollection of something previous or anticipation for the next evening, there is a degree of happiness."
The comments "sparked outrage among the town's single women, who have organized a protest rally tonight on the lawns of the Civic Centre."
Who needs Hollywood scriptwriters when you've got real life writing the hell out of itself like this?
Now whether you agree or disagree with the face-saving Chinese or Mt Isa's foot-in-mouth Mayor, there's a clue here for thankless marketers and spin doctors. Looks are valuable buzz currency – whether hot or not.
Billions of bytes now choke the blogosphere about the Lin-Yang performance, and apparently place-without-a-postcard Mt Isa, once famous for heatwaves and silver, lead and zinc is now internationally known as a potential sister city to Alaska, where "the odds are good but the goods are odd". All because someone said someone isn't an oil painting.
Now what does this mean for you, dear marketer?
Contrary to what the media tell you, we love ugly as much as we love (or love to loathe) beauty. We love underdogs.
For every Maxim or FHM coverbabe, there's a supermarket checkout rag making megabucks showing the beautiful at their ugliest. If you can't be Heidi Klum, be an Ugly Betty. Even better, be a real UB, not a stunning woman with a pair of glasses and braces pretending to be ugly. Ugly is way cheaper and easier for all of us to do, just like it's easier to be a lousy rocket scientist than a Nobel Laureate. We've all got the power to be ugly – embrace it, get attention, get sympathy, and make a bunch of money ...
Lin may be getting all the movie offers, but Yang will probably get the speaker's gigs at personal development megameets. People are probably going to be writing to Yang telling her how beautiful she is, in fact, I'm surprised there isn't a site for her where people can log their praise. Lin won't need any consoling, the world is kind enough to physical beauty. And we love things in twos to bounce off each other, equal and opposite, similar but different, think Kylie and Danni, Paris and Nikki, Elle and Mimi, Obama and Hillary… yin and yang.
I don't need to point out the real beauty of being ugly - it’s a wonderful filter for summoning only those of substance into your life.
Ah yes, and since when would Mt Isa get any international airtime other than in the stock pages thanks to the resources boom Australia is currently enjoying? Watch out, I see a desert-loving singles resort, casino, theme park, not to mention an inflow of products and services for the excess of intelligent and eligible women ...
Just out of interest, I consulted my Shanghainese father for his take on the Lin-Yang performance. His response was unsurprisingly, Chinese.
"There's nothing wrong with having the prettiest little girl representing the country," he said, slurping a bowl of pig's blood and noodle soup in the local Asian food court.
"You must always create the best impression to represent your country. A perfect face, and one that can act."
Ah, yes, not unlike that defining moment in the movie American Beauty: "Always project an image of success" …
But, father did concede that, in their obsession with perfection, the Chinese made a mistake.
"They got the perfect voice, the perfect face, and think they can just put them together and make a perfect result. Typical Chinese ..."
Meaning, two perfects don't make a peach, otherwise there would not have been such a furor.
"Looks are still #1, so they should have just trained the pretty little girl to sing good enough," he said. "As long as she was in tune, people would forgive a pretty face who can act. Besides, there was a lot of noise in that stadium anyway."
Or conversely, why not find a pretty-enough girl who could sing? Surely in a population of a billion ...
"No, you have to show your best face," insisted my father.
Ah the face, and saving face, so very Chinese.
Being a sorta-Chinese ABC (Australian Born Chinese, with all the associated and lingering cultural schizophrenia), I beg to differ. I would have chosen that soaring voice of an angel emanating from that little round face with the crooked teeth any day. It would have sent a profound signal that anyone not blessed with a dial to die for could still capture the heart of the world. Besides, it's tough enough growing up Chinese let alone giving the poor kid a complex over something outside her control.
In the same way, imagine if Nike did something delightfully unexpected yet utterly impressive, and gave 10 grand to every impoverished minority school in the USA, rather than millions to one beautiful spoiled brat.
It would get my attention, and in a culture where some say all Asians look the same, it's the face and voice of Yang, not Lin, that brings a smile to my ugly face.
Asked to provide a poster child for Bike Friday, The Galfromdownunder would readily put forward any of her fabulously flawed Super Senior and Special Needs customers.
