Imagination, empathy, and fresh perception
Let’s talk about something that almost never comes up in a business discussion: Love.
Yes, that many-splendored thing. Emotions seldom arise in business (even branding) discussions. Love least of all, perhaps because it’s so rarely relevant. But sometimes true love happens. When it does it’s remarkable, worth our attention.
Two recent events brought love to mind: Steve Jobs’s death and Netflix’ clumsy self-destruction. Both offer lessons.
In the weeks before Steve Jobs’ death, if you clicked on Amazon.com you saw Jeff Bezos’ open letter to customers, which began as follows:
Dear Customers,
There are two types of companies: those that work hard to charge customers more, and those that work hard to charge customers less. Both approaches can work. We are firmly in the second camp.
Thankfully, Amazon had the sense to take this down when Steve Jobs died. It was unworthy of a leading company, and Jeff Bezos was lucky it wasn’t posted longer.
Moneyball, the critically acclaimed new movie starring Brad Pitt, brings to life Michael Lewis’ best-selling book about the spectacular rise of the Oakland A’s baseball team through masterful use of statistics and mathematical analysis. This would seem to be complete vindication of left-brain thinking over fuzzy-headedness.
Like other patriotic Americans, I spent some time over Labor Day weekend shopping. Just doing my bit.
The retail world is in perpetual transition, but I thought I could always count on a few eternal verities, namely:
• Bloomingdales has overpriced brands but great sales
• Lord & Taylor has the best dress department
• Nordstrom has wonderful service but infrequent sales
• You’re a chump if you pay full price at Macy’s
HubSpot is well known for its expertise in inbound marketing. Its founders, Brian Halligan and Dharmesh Shah, quite literally wrote the book: Inbound Marketing: Get Found Using Google, Social Media, and Blogs. (Highly recommended!) Tech innovation from a successful software firm is not surprising. What is both novel and exciting is to find nuanced human […]