Now that the Vancouver 2010 Olympics are over, we take it all back

In which Beg to Differ eats crow on behalf of the whole nation of Canada, and proposes 10 truly Canadian Vision Statements to replace Own the Podium.

Hey world,

How’s it going? This is Canada here. And look, you know that whole “own the podium” thing? That thing where we 1) claimed we were going to kick butt in Vancouver 2010, and then 2) actually kicked butt by winning more gold medals than any country has ever won at an Olympic Winter Games – like, ever?

Well, that was totally rude of us.

I know, your athletes came to Canada hoping to win, but then you had to watch Canadians win, and win, and win. You wanted to hear your national anthems, but then you had to listen to ours over and over: you must have thought, “Oh Canada, here we go again”.

We know how that feels; we’ve been there (i.e. at every other Olympics).

And then, beating the Americans at ice hockey for gold not once, but twice… okay, we don’t take that back, but you get the picture.

And then the actual words: “Own the Podium”. Ah, that little three-word Vision statement. Did you know that was actually written by a government agency? Weird eh?

It set a simple, audacious goal that everyone clearly understood, and that we could hold the Canadian Olympic Committee accountable for. It was oddly bold, clear, even unapologetic.

Whoa, did we mention we’re sorry?

Seriously, that kind of cocky self-assurance was totally un-Canadian of us. We are SOOO sorry, and we’ll just go back to being Canadian again, eh?

So, in the spirit of re-capturing the old Canada you all knew, loved, and mostly ignored, here are:

10 possible replacements for “Own the Podium” that we think you’ll like better:

1 ) “Earn the podium.”

2 ) “Share the podium please.”

3 ) “Own the snow (except in Vancouver, where we’ll own the drizzle).”

4 ) “Owned the podium; but dude, you can have it back now.”

5 ) “Own any podium that involves pucks.”

6 ) “No matter how well we do, we will always suck at ski jumping.”

7 ) “Own the floor beside the podium where the 4^th place finisher stands.”

8 ) “Own the bouquet, but donate the medals to poor American families who can’t get health care (sorry).”

9 ) “Own the right to collectively agonize, apologize, and fail to recognize those areas where we actually are awesome.”

10 ) “Un-the Podium” (in which we basically write a Vision statement that is more typical of a government program):

“Our Un-the-Podium Truly Canadian Vision: Continuously improve world-comparative indicators of success in a wide variety of fields of athletic endeavour, and demonstrate greater-than-incremental improvements across events using Target Excellence Peak Indicator Data (TEPID), as determined by Canadian Olympic Performance Optimization Utility Thresholds (COPOUTs).”

Whew, that feels much better.

Postscript: SARCASM INTENDED. Thanks world for an excellent two week party. Let’s try this again in a couple years okay?

A collection of the most influential diagrams explaining Social Media

After we needed to explain to a client (again) the difference between “Social Media” and Twitter or Facebook, Beg to Differ went out looking for diagrams to show the range. And boy did we ever. The SlideShare deck below includes the 6 examples we found including entries from consulting heavyweights like Brian Solis and Robert Scoble…

Social Media: apparently it's pretty complicated...

But be warned: these diagrams are pretty geeky

So if you have a low tolerance for dense, logo-heavy graphics with more than a smattering of techno-speak here are the take-aways:

1. “Social Media” includes a huge and growing range of Web-driven conversation tools;
2. As Social Media gets more diverse, sub-genres are defining – and re-defining – themselves;
3. There are many ways of viewing this universe; but
4. There’s still a lot of noise… clarity is hard to find.
5. But it is possible. See example #6 below.

The true job of “packaging” (hint: it’s not just to wrap stuff)

Beg to Differ is focusing on a great blog post today by Seth Godin which asks a question we all need to ask ourselves: “does your packaging do its job”? But of course when Beg to Differ (and Seth)  thinks about “packaging” we don’t mean a disposable wrapper…

Image (uncredited) from sethgodin.typepad.com

Mmm. The Land of Chocolate.

Okay, I don’t always agree with Seth. Actually I almost never agree with him when he talks about product naming (Squidoo?!?) or brand architecture (Apple’s  iMac / iPod / iPhone convention sloppy?!?). But today he’s dead on in his assessment of the packaging for the chocolate product above, from the company Madécasse (pronounced mah – DAY – cas).

Now, you may look at it and say to yourself: hey! That’s not bad. It’s actually really well designed. And you’d be right: it’s a simple, elegant design that looks like craft-made – and probably expensive – chocolate. And again. You’d be right. You’d also be right if you noticed the effective use of repeated elements across the packaging, the solid little icon, and the nice differentiating touch of the little ribbon tied at the top.

You might also guess that this is fair trade chocolate. And again, you are a smart reader.

All very nice. All very professional. Yay.

So what’s wrong with a nicely-designed package?

Nothing wrong. That is, there’s nothing wrong *if* the design also helps customers to find you quickly in a store full of high end chocolate bars – which is where these bars would be most  likely to be sitting.

Nothing wrong. If your attractive design doesn’t actually act like camouflage – hiding you from their eyes.

Nothing wrong. If your design doesn’t also hide the fact that your product has a very different story (Madagascar chocolate! Made in Africa by Africans!) that could create an emotional bond – if only people could see through the wrapper to you.

Nothing wrong. If you listen to Seth for a moment:

I don’t think the job of packaging is to please your boss. I think you must please the retailer, but most of all, attract and delight and sell to the browsing, uncommitted new customer. – Seth Godin

How about you?

When you think about all the “packaging” around your product, service, or person-brand, are you just following the “nice design” conventions? If so, your package may be actually hiding you from your customers.

Instead, think about how the outer packaging acts as a transparent window to the really important differentiators that for the heart and soul of your product.

Or in Seth’s words:

And like Seth did, I’ll end by wishing you a happy Valentine’s Day. Why not celebrate by sharing a fair trade chocolate bar with someone you love? Even if it’s not well-packaged and clearly differentiated (yet), it’ll make you feel great!

Seriously. It’s an awesome story. Here’s why I never tell it.

Beg to Differ wonders: is the story of your company or product worth telling? Maybe it is, but will anyone ever listen? Or more to the point, tell? Take some lessons from my best-ever story of travel disaster.

Image from Falcon Puzzles - The Wasgij Express www.puzzlegallery.com

My best-ever story

Okay, so I’ve got this killer true story from when I was backpacking in Eastern Germany back in the early 90’s. Truly epic. Rich with wacky characters,  exotic locations, humour, truly stupid blunders by me, and once-in-a-lifetime coincidences.

10 highlights from my best-ever story:

• A dead body that stops a train.
• A dozen angry skinheads with big dogs.
• An unlikely partnership between a Kurdish refugee, a giant Russian, and a hapless Canadian (that’s me)
• An interrogation by burly East German police officers (see dead body above).
• A midnight train to Moscow.
• A great line: “Who do you think you are? The president of the United States?”
• A helpless German girl in distress.
• A leap from a moving train.
• A night on the streets of Berlin.
• A touching lesson in brand authenticity.

Sounds unbelievable but it’s all true. Trust me. The few people I’ve told it to over the years have said that I need to write a novel or a movie script or at least a really really long blog post…

Maybe some day. Just like some day I’ll finish those five Great Novels I started in university.

But for the moment, if you want to hear it, you’ll have to buy me a beer when you have an hour or more to kill. Because, as great as it is, I never tell my story any more.

Here’s why I don’t tell my story

1. The whole story takes time. And the dedicated time to sit and listen to one person tell long stories  is a luxury most of us don’t have.
2. The story has mixed messages. Like real life or art or the story of a dream, it’s a sprawling narrative without a single theme and lots of ambiguities. The point is unclear. It asks you to think hard but without the clear “payoff” of a joke or a shorter story.
3. Most people don’t care: I don’t mean that in a bad way. My friends, family, and colleagues a caring  people, and they care about me. They just don’t necessarily care about my big long story at the point where I might want to tell it.
4. There are great little stories within the big story. I’ve found that the best way to use this experience is to pull out smaller, more focused anecdotes. I break my big story down to simple messages that fit the conversation.
5. In a social setting, people want to be participants not an audience. This is the biggie: if I’m in a group of people having dinner or a glass of wine, or heaven forbid, at a business meeting, it would be pretentious to start telling my story because it is so long and involved. Why?
   Because it’s a conversation, not my personal soap box.

Hard truth: a great story isn’t enough

As a guy who helps companies and charities tell their stories, I run into clients all the time who have a fascinating story of their founding, evolution, or the inspiration that drove their early success.

That is, the story is fascinating to me, because I take the time to ask, listen, and prod for details.  But that’s cheating, because I’m getting paid to care.

The trick is translating that into a simple brand story  for customers. And that always involves keeping it simple. Then, if the listeners are interested, they’ll ask for more.

So how about your story?

In your marketing, are you trying to monopolize the conversation with a story that’s too complicated? Are you listening to other people’s stories? Are you finding the right bits of your story for the right moments?

Tell me your story. I’m listening.

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