Today, instead of covering one post in depth or giving you a digest of what everyone wrote about this week by topic, we're just going to share some of our favorite bits of wisdom from the last few days. No editorials or summaries. Just the beef. Enjoy.

"If you treat people like adversaries, they’ll act like adversaries. And, if you act like employees are just out to steal from you, they’ll very likely – um – steal from you. At the very least, they’re not going to come to work with a song in their heart and a spring in their step, ready to go that extra mile for you and your customers." - Mary Schmidt.

"Brands should put their customer service at the center of their brand universe. Customer service is where people give you real feedback about their brand "experiences," and most often when things start going negative, as was the case when Jeff Jarvis started documenting his negative experiences with Dell on his blog - it starts off in the customer service department. In fact, Pete said, "the value of the customer service department may be 10 times as valuable as bean counters account for..." - Francois Gossieaux (paraphrasing Pete Blackshaw of Nielsen Buzzmetrics)

"I have a personal theory about surfing. It takes riding a thousand waves to become a surfer. It doesn’t matter if you catch 20 waves a day for 50 days or one wave a day for a thousand days; you just can’t get around the experience of learning the hard way.

"Just as in surfing, there is no substitution for one thousand waves, or in this case, a thousand personal interactions with your customer. I know it seems like an overwhelming number, but there is just no way around it. Mastering the seven steps above takes lots of practice. And practice will give you the chance to develop your own style of engaging in a bottom-up strategy with your customers and the marketplace, giving you the opportunity to drive real innovation." - John Winsor.

"When you’re getting hit from all sides with daily work and firefighting, it’s difficult to fit in much else. So, in market scanning, it’s easy to get into the habit of reading the same industry pubs, talking to the same analysts, tracking the same competitors, etc. All the usual suspects. However, to really be prepared (and spot new opportunities) it’s necessary, to ask questions such as, “What changes could make our product obsolete?” We also have to look at things outside our own industry. What’s going on in our society? Legislation (existing & pending)? The economy? Demographics? Weather patterns? (Got a critical supplier in a hurricane zone? ruh-roh.)" - Mary Schmidt.

"With the partial exception of truly image-driven categories (such as fashion, perfume or liquor), which offer no tangible benefit to speak of, companies become and remain leaders by offering consumers a tangible reason to choose them over the competition. Soon after they fail to deliver, they fall from grace." - Mark Babej and Tim Pollak.

"Authority is rather different from popularity. For some subjects, you might find BoingBoing has the most linked posts, but that doesn't mean their voice is the most influential." - Johnnie Moore.

"Marketing is all about today, not yesterday. Experience is valuable, but the ability to read and react and think on one’s feet is a far more precious commodity. In a marketing environment where performance data is available instantaneously and myriad variables come into play that were unimagined years or even months ago, street smarts trump book smarts. A marketer schooled in the marketplace…or trained to think broadly…enjoys the upper hand. When everyone has the same wisdom, it soon becomes conventional wisdom. And conventional wisdom, in a fluid and dynamic market, is the kiss of death." - Tim Pollak .

And finally, this gem:

"The arrogance of success is to think that what you did yesterday will be sufficient for tomorrow."

- William Pollard.

Pow.

Have a great weekend, everyone. :)