Yesterday I met a fellow called Joseph Gagnon. We were both doing a talk at the same gathering. Before either of us went up on stage we really connected philosophically. You know, that echo chamber of existing beliefs the world is quickly becoming…. well, this was one of those moments. So, when he told his story I scribbled a heap of his soundbites down, knowing they’d be enjoyed on this blog too. He also stimulated some of my own thoughts which I’ve mashed in among these. There’s no particular order, other than the order of goodness they deliver. Enjoy.
– How do you know if someone really cares about you? Here’s two things they often do: (1) Think about you when you are not there. (2) They help you before they help themselves.
– Things just work today. Complete functionality is just a cost of entry. How things connect is far more important, even with cars. We no longer look under the bonnet, but we look for connectivity.
– Why is texting and Instant Messaging so powerful? It’s both synchronous and asynchronous. It’s developing it’s own dialect of which we are the authors. It blends immediacy and even emotions :-). It’s verbal, auditory, visual and pithy…. and yet it can say so much so very quickly.
– While we all aim to sell something, the number of people who actually use it is far more important than the number of people just buying it.
– The role of the teacher is changing, but has to change more. It’s not about instruction or even facilitation. It’s really about dream making. If they don’t help with that, then why bother learning what they are teaching?
– Voice mail is dying. People don’t want to leave them, and people don’t want to retrieve them. While you’d think a voice recording is superior to an IM, our humanity senses the moment is less authentic and there’s a mismatch between the dialect and the delivery tool.
– The moment customers are after is a moment when the only response they can give a company is, “Wow, I can do that?” This is a moment most front line staff and CEO’s know how to deliver, but don’t have the authority or the courage to make happen. Fear is the main driving corporate emotion. The fear response is: It might not scale, it might have a short term cost impact.
– When presenting our personal stories are more powerful than those of some external success story. We know that matter to us more. And our experience is probably more like theirs. The probability of connection and inspiration transfer is far higher.