Dec 08 - Merry everything

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Fish fountain in the park at Bathurst NSW

So here it is end of the year. My summer will be filled with art classes (off to Mittagong for the first week of January) and hopefully the opportunity to catch up with people after the frenzy of Christmas and pre-Christmas.

I'm noticing that people and especially organisations are thinking in the short-term a lot at the moment (who knows, they think, what will happen in a few months?). That's maybe closer to being in the moment than we've been as a culture for a while, so I guess it could be a blessing in disguise, right?

May 2009 bring you pleasant surprises from quarters you never expected!

Cindy

In this month's ezine we have:

• Improving your consultancy: dealing with a tough market, selling in a competitive environment
• Managing better: Outliers and Success, Make your own magazine
• Fascinating: Living books, customised music, old cigarette ads
• Fun: Virtual tour of New York, "I feel" tours, William Shatner, sketch books,and animals on the underground

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Bathurst High School

Dealing with a tough market

Here are 3 sales tips for a tough market from go-to-market. They are:

1. mine your existing customer base
2. create an economical option (so clients know you understand their pain)
3. network, network, network.

Read the whole article.

Influencing in Competitive Situations

Read this interview with Robert Cialdini, who continues to discover how best to influence people! He suggest that sales programs teaching us to get the buyer to like us are wrong: in fact, we need to like the buyer. Suggestions on how to work in a competitive selling situation - don't ask them what they like about their existing provider - it just reinforces the old provider. Ask instead what they'd like to improve on (and then show how you already do that).

Managing better

Bathurst High School again .

Success: it's not just one thing!

Malcolm Gladwell, author of Blink and has a new book - Outliers, which is about success at work. This link's to an interview in a Canadian newspaper, where he talks about the key ideas - these include the fact that it takes 10,000 hours to get good at something, that where people are born in the year has an impact on all kind of educational outcomes, and that "poorer" kids learn the same as "rich" kids, except they don't learn anything during the school holidays, so that's the disadvantage.

I just finished reading the whole book this afternoon, and it's a marvellous set of stories, eclectically mixed to come to a very heartening conclusion: No one becomes successful alone, firstly, and secondly we need to make sure more people get the opportunities to be more successful (and our world will be a better place). I very much recommend it!

Make your own mag

Check out tabbloid.com which is apparently a Hewlett Packard idea: you enter an RSS feed address (or choose from a list), and they email you a pdf of the content at a time you specify (weekly, monthly, etc). It makes online content readable on the train on your blackberry, iphone, or (wow) printable. I've just subscribed, so can't tell you how good it is, but looking forward to finding out!

Fascinating

Birds in the trees on a sunny Spring day - Bathurst NSW

Living books

I thought this was fascinating: living books. Living Library is a program where readers "borrow "an expert in their field, has significant experience to share, or is passionate about a hobby. Experts and borrowers turn up to a central place (like a library, for example), and converse on the topic. What a great way to learn something.

Customised music in night clubs

Now this is a use for technology that would have been inconceivable a few years ago - customised night club music. You register with a website called Twones, then when you enter a night club they get info about your most recently listened to music, so they can put it on the playlist for the evening - talk about customisation! There is a complex system of permissions, and it's just the beginning, I'm sure, of a new level of customisation!

You like them fresh?

I love these old ads for cigarettes - "more doctors smoke camels than any other cigarette", "More scientists and educators smoke Kent with the micronite filter", "Reach for a lucky instead of a sweet". from the Stanford School of Medicine

And Fun, fun, fun

Chimneys on Bathurst Court House.

Butcher's shop, Portland NSW

Virtual tour of New York

Having spent 2 weeks in New York in April this year, I was captivated by this site (mostly for remembering things I'd already seen). Check out the virtual tours of New York (i took the one down Broadway from Times Square, and will be back! Pretty low tech, which is kind of nice.

Or if you're visiting New York, Toronto or London, try touring by your mood. The idea is still in beta, and you can add your own spots. An energetic New York would include running round the Reservoir in Central Park, a few nightclubs or a circus school. What do you feel like?

Play me I'm yours

Part of the Sydney Festival brainchild of Luke Jerram - 30 street pianos will be hanging out in Sydney and you are invited to play, sing and make music. You can watch film of overseas versions on the net. The purpose of it is to give people some reason to talk to each other in the street.

Just for fun

And here are 3 things to do to make you smile this month:

• Be surprised by William Shatner "singing" Rocket man. The fun starts at about 0:35 seconds, and after about a minute it's pretty old, but do watch for just one minute - you'll be glad you did!
• And then for some culture, check out some artists' sketchbooks: John Clapp a nd Anna Warren, one of my art buddies.
• Animals on the Underground takes the London Underground map and finds embedded animals. Really cool - check it out!

May your festive season be indeed festive. May the connections you make now bring you joy now and in 5 years time.

C

Cindy Tonkin The Consultants’ Consultant
Certified Management Consultant

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This month's images are ©2008 Cindy Tonkin.

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