thinking Archives - Steve Sammartino

The 2 types of reading

Posted on October 8, 2013 by Steve Sammartino

Now that we all have reading devices permanently placed in our pockets we can catch up on our reading at any time. For me this presents an interesting set of considerations we should be aware of:

Does it increase the amount of reading we do, or just change when we do our reading?
Are there only so many words we want to read each day?
What do we read during our ‘mobile’ reading times: Social media, news, articles, books or all of them – versus our home reading time?
Are we in a space for which quiet consideration and reflection is even possible when we read?

It got me thinking that much of the reading we do now is more disposable than ever. A type of mind junk food for which there is often little intellectual nutrition. I’ve been as guilty as anyone wanting to know the latest business, technology and startup news. The type of stuff which is interesting to know but wont compound our knowledge.

I feel like reading has now split into two categories much like food has:

Fast Reading – The latest stuff, a quick mind fix, but with little long term value. Disposble.
Slow reading – Tome orientation which has a longer term perspective, directional postulations and philosophical musings. Timeless

I’m trying to focus on the latter, because if we have a foundation of thought we can easily digest the latest trends or factoids. But more importantly, add a rounded perspective which instigates a personal opinion. We go beyond regurgitation and develop thought leadership.

The key question I now ask myself is this: Will what I am reading be relevant 5 years from now? In truth it doesn’t matter where, how or with what device we consume it, but the reality is our immediate environment often shapes our consumption behaviour. We need new habit awareness during times of technology transition.

At the end of the day, it becomes a choice between knowing the latest news or tactics, or having understanding of the larger shifts and building a philosophy. I know which one I’d rather choose.

Re-introducing boredom

Posted on June 21, 2012 by Steve Sammartino

I feel like my brain is seriously with being overloaded with data. To the point where I am becoming addicted to it. I am constantly seeking the next idea, the next great blog post, and the next piece of technology news. And now I feel like my brain needs a bit of rest. Not from sharing ideas, or continuing my projects, but during my down times. My down times have sadly becoming momentary bridges of media consumption – there is no ‘down’. Whether it is checking my tweet stream, checking into foursquare and perusing instagram, it just feels like I am bombarded with other peoples thoughts. So here’s what I am going to do.

I’m actually going to ‘re-introduce boredom’ to my life.

So instead of checking my twitter stream while I wait in line, or read in bed until my last waking moment, I’m going to give my brain a rest and let it just be. Let nothing exist. Let my brain do what it wants, not what I want it to do (oxymoron?)… and just see what happens and where it leads me…. just be a little less demanding on my brain and see if it likes it better. Might be worth a try for all of us to avoid the overload for a while.

Love Stevie.

What comes first

Posted on April 14, 2011 by Steve Sammartino

Making stuff is what we must do. But it isn’t as important as the thoughts that lead to the making process. Thoughts themselves are things.

What we must do is ensure we allocate enough time to the thinking, so that we end up making.

The office & the factory

Posted on February 3, 2011 by Steve Sammartino

I’ve been thinking alot about the differences of various businesses I’ve been involved with. I invested the formative years of my business life working in consumers goods companies. Classic fast moving consumer goods companies that thrived through industrial revolution and then boomed during the TV industrial complex.

I’ve since invested most of my time in service based internet businesses, startups and advertising. They both have relative advantages and disadvantages that I only ever realised once I had time to digest the dynamics in each of them. The most interesting observation I’ve made is the difference when the office and the factory are the same thing. This occurs in service / web based business. In consumer goods the office and factory tend to be separated.

The key advantage that the consumer goods scenario has is that the office is not linked to output. It creates time for thinking. The immediate concerns of what needs to ship today are somewhat removed. The urgent, doesn’t get in the way of the important. Yet, the challenge here is that we can become out of touch with how things work.

The key disadvantage of the service scenario (office is the factory), is we don’t have as much time to think and consider. There is always something that needs to be created, done or fixed. Over time our mental flexibility declines as we get absorbed in shipping what we make and meeting deadlines. Yes, we know what is happening, but we get too close to it. We lose vision and creativity via also ‘being’ the production process.

The important thing for startups and marketers alike is to know which environment we are operating in, and to work real hard on the area of disadvantage.

Fail with pride

Posted on March 28, 2010 by Steve Sammartino

I teach Marketing At Melbourne University on a part time basis. One of the things I try to do is stretch my students thinking beyond the traditional marketing arenas. It seems every week we are going through another consumer goods example, or the car industry and lately social media. This week I tried something different and I had a massive fail.

The task was for students to pick a market dominated by 2 brands, and to discuss the points of partity and difference, and how the brand communications and positioning vary. After the students gave me the expected brands:

Herald Sun vs the Age

Facebook vs Myspace

Coke vs Pepsi

Nike vs Addidas

I thought I”d mix it up and asked the group to discuss Capitalism vs Communism.

In the first instance I had to convince the students they were actually brands, and it didn’t improve much from there. The idea fell on deaf ears. It was so far outside of their expectations on what marketing is (consumer goods, shiny products and TV advertising) that they lost interest. I ended up spending the remaining 45 minutes of the tutorial explaining why they are both brands which are managed exactly the same way corporations manage them. It was meant to be a discussion. I failed.

After the initial disappointment and embarrassment wore off, I was pretty happy with it. I’m glad I tried to stretch the students. I’m glad I tried something different, and maybe next week, their minds will be more open.

Startup blog says: Fail with pride.