Hi everyone!

Yes, the hiatus is over. Summer's coming to an end, the projects that have kept me away are almost complete, and I am finally back. (Yey!)

Aside from my long-awaited return (ahem), since this is "back to school" week in the US, let's focus on a handful (actually, two handfuls) of great marketing lessons, rather than on the usual timely and insightful commentary on the latest trends in the ever-changing marketing world. (No worries, we'll get caught up next week.)

Whether you're just starting in your marketing track in college this year or have been in the business world for fifty years, if the advice you find in this column over the next few days doesn't help you breathe new life into your business and make it even better than it already was, my name ain't Nathan Arizona! (Thanks to Tom Asacker for the incredible series of posts that this week will be based upon.) This stuff really should be taught in college. Maybe even high school.

Note: These bits of advice are way to good to be refered to as "the basics..." so let's just call them "the new basics."

Hmmm... that kind of has a ring to it.

Okay, let's get started with #10 and #9:

Truth Ten: From Rah Rah! to Ah Ha!

"To flourish in a rapidly changing world you need the ah-ha’s! and not simply the rah-rah’s! Success is a by-product of childlike inquisitiveness and rapid experimentation. And it comes from a culture of curiosity and caring, not from a head down, plow ahead mentality."

Pow! Take a minute or two to digest that. Go brew yourself a cup of tea or press yourself a cup of coffee, file a few folders, return a phone call or two, then come back and read it again. It's worth it.

"When they asked Wayne Gretsky, arguably the greatest hockey player of all time, what made him more successful than other players, he replied, "Most players tend to play where the puck is, whereas I play where the puck is going to be." Or as the professional trend-spotter may explain, Gretsky smartly followed the "drift" or "general course" of the puck. Now, to anyone who has played a game in which hitting or catching a moving object is essential, Gretsky’s insight is absurdly obvious. And to anyone who has developed a successful business from the ground floor up, so is trend-spotting customer behavior (regardless of the fact that major corporations spend a ton of money to frequently have it done for them). Because the truth about trends - and staying ahead - is that it has nothing to do with the future. It’s about being intimately involved with your audience today! Being part of the dynamics of change now!

"(...) Disturb the comfortable. Comfort the disturbed. Never let your brand become bland. Surprise people! You’re not in the "make stuff" and "do stuff" business. You’re in the life improvement business. So use your brand to heal the psychologically wounded, and to bring some excitement to the complacent and uninspired. Remember: Feelings are the only value proposition left in our developed economy. So rediscover your unbridled imagination and idealistic hopes and tap into that proposition and create new and preemptive benefits. Shatter what conventional wisdom tells you that your audience needs. Try wild ideas. Go for the extremes. Stay passionate!

Truth Nine: From Knowledge to Wisdom

"Knowledge speaks. Wisdom listens. Go into every situation with an inwardly calm mind, and be a learner, not a teacher.

"... Wisdom is all about aligning interests. It’s about using the best means to achieve the best ends. Knowledge, on the other hand, tries to win. To out-reason, to conquer. Knowledge is one sided. Wisdom works reciprocally. Knowledge is about getting the deal done. Wisdom understands that the purpose of each interaction is to grow the strength of the relationship. I meet a lot of very knowledgeable people in my business travels, but very few wise ones. Most people feel that they have to do all of the talking to prove their value, and to show how smart and dynamic they are. In fact, the key to building enduring relationships is to forget about you, be attentively silent and help the other person feel appreciated and valued.

"Why do we forget? Why do we continue to push our agenda, instead of doing what’s best for our audience? Because we’re in a hurry, goal driven and attention hungry. We’re listening to the facts and to the little voice in our head, trying to quickly figure out how to get others around to our way of thinking. Instead, we should be listening to their feelings. Slow down, relax, be engaged, try to understand, be empathic. Tune out your turbulent thoughts - your techniques, obsessions and personal biases - and tune in your audience’s need to be heard, acknowledged and uniquely understood. Thoreau once wrote: The greatest compliment that was ever paid to me was when someone asked me what I thought and attended to my answer. There is no greater gift you can give others than to be fully present with them, to make them feel that they are at they very heart of things.

"Empathic listening is the very first step in making people feel good about themselves and in creating richer relationships and deeper trust. And it’s also the first step towards a compassionate heart. And it’s compassion that inspires us to improve people’s lives with our creativity and resourcefulness. To make them feel loved, appreciated and cared for. In fact, the closer we get to our audience and their problems, the more unbearable we find their suffering. We feel a responsibility to improve their well-being. We are compelled to take action. I love inventor David Levy’s curse method for developing new products: "Whenever I hear someone curse, it’s a sign to invent something." And that desire to improve life is the key to innovation, differentiation and success in today’s marketplace."

Tomorrow, we will look at truths # 8 and 7: Authenticity and caring.

Have a great Monday, everyone.

Technorati Tags: Tom Asacker, marketing,web designback to school, business lessons, customer service, marketing 101, corante, branding

Hi everyone. I am blogging live from the lobby of the Hilton San Francisco today, and the good news is that the Wi-Fi here is as spectacular as the home-made curry I just had across the street. (Hey, you know that information is going to come in handy one of these days. Just you wait!)

Of all of the Corante Marketing Hub posts of the last couple of days, this the one I thought would be most interesting to bring to your collective attention on this fine workday:

John Winsor points us to this article published this week in the NY Times, which takes a cursory look at customer engagement, co-creation, and what Eric von Hippel, head of the innovation and entrepreneurship group at the Sloan School of Management at the MIT, calls "lead-user innovation.". Here are some of the most telling bits of commentary from some of the company leaders interviewed for the piece:

"It's getting cheaper and cheaper for users to innovate on their own," Professor von Hippel said. "This is not traditional market research — asking customers what they want. This is identifying what your most advanced users are already doing and understanding what their innovations mean for the future of your business." - Eric Von Hippel, MIT.

"Customers want to express themselves, to be involved with the brand. For so long, people would hand me a drawing of their personal design for a shoe or ask if I had considered an idea they liked. This program is a natural outgrowth of that desire for connection." - John Fuevlog, John Fuevlog Shoes - on open source footwear.

"So what is Jones? Are we a soda company? Are we an Internet company? Are we a social networking company? We're all of that. Our goal is to keep creating more ways for customers to exercise ownership of the brand. (...) We started this company with the philosophy that the world does not need another soda. That forced us to look at things differently: How could we create a new kind of connection with customers, let them play with the brand, let them take ownership of it? Everything at this company is about sharing ownership of the brand with our customers. This is not my brand. This is not our soda. It belongs to our customers." - Peter van Stolk, founder and CEO of Jones Soda.

"WE'VE got four rules we follow: We let the community create the content. We let the community build itself — no advertising. We let the community help with the business; we add features based on user feedback. And we reward members of the community for participating." - Jacob DeHart, co-founder of Threadless.com.

Also worth a read today:

Chris Carfi's "WWW - The World Wide WE."

Johnnie Moore's "Diagrams."

Neville Hobson's "Branding Your Memory", "Why No one trusts politicians and CEOs" and "The legacy of Bill Gates."

The BrandBuilder's "Enter The Code Breakers."

Susan Getgood's "No More 2.0."

Special Mention: Definitely do read Tom Asacker's "Truth Three - From Capture to Attract." It's a gem of a post. (The kind you will want to bookmark so you can read it again in a few weeks... or better yet, email to some of your colleagues.)

Whew! That ought to do it for today. Have a great Tuesday, everyone. :)