Carpe Via

I spend a lot of time alone thinking. I like it. This is my view yesterday morning (sans the computer screen which just mucks up the whole view):

But I also spend a lot of time in meetings. Which I also like. This is my afternoon yesterday, brainstorming and putting the ideas up on the wall:

Brainstorming is where people get together and ‘bounce ideas off each other.’ The people who write the ads (the art director and the copy writer) do this all the time. And over the past several years, account people and strategist and even (gasp) clients have started grouping together into small rooms to do it as well.

There are a few (often unstated) rules. First is the idea that it’s ok to speak up with any idea. Second is that there is no judging. The reasoning is that if you can get that kind of atmosphere going -where people genuinely feel free to say stupid things -then tender new ideas are then safe to come out.

And the beautiful thing is that it works. There’s a magic that can happen where 1 + 1 =3. You get ideas that better and bigger than any one person started with.

But it’s hard to get that atmosphere. It’s business after all. And we need a solution now. And don’t waste my time with something bad. And don’t tell me about your idea when mine is so brilliant. But when it works, it truly is magic.

I’ve gotten much better at setting my ego aside but what I do forget, in the rush of ideas, is the power of listening. It’s like there are two ways to get ideas in a brainstorm: you can either go inside to troll through the ol’ brain or you can coax them out of others by listening and adding your thoughts.

The second way is just as powerful but I have to remember to do it. Why? Because when you’re the listener, you don’t get the credit for the idea. Even though it would have died like a piece of half-lit wet kindling had you not picked it up and held it tenderly and blown on the little flame until it was big enough to burn alone…No credit.

Of course I can picture an ideal way around this. Where the individuals work together to build the team that then builds the individuals. But that takes a lot of trust and perhaps an organizational structure that supports it.

Until then it’s a struggle between the I and the we. Between the need for credit and the potential for that magic.

Anyway, that’s what I was thinking about yesterday.

What is it about real estate agents? I know they’re not all alike but we’ve met some doozies on this current bout of searching.

What’s interesting is that when we’ve been viewing houses for sale, these people are quite friendly -taking our number, chatting us up, laughing brightly as Charles’ jokes. But when we’ve been looking for rentals, it’s as if we walked into the French perfume shop wearing ripped jeans and in need of a shower. We’re the same people -same clothes, same duel-income, same bad jokes. But we get no eye contact (their busy scanning the room), no returned calls, and no chuckles for Chuck.

Now, I understand that we’re not worth as much to them in the rental circumstance. But I’ve gotten better service buying a pair of shoes. Which is crazy, because not only do we want to rent a house but we also need to lease ours out. And will certainly be in the market to buy again in the next several years. So there’s a huge opportunity with us if they think of us as a longer relationship.

It would do a lot for the ‘brand’ of real estate agents if they thought that way (at least on this end of the multi-million dollar sales). As it stands now, the stereotype is not very positive.

We were trying to define what makes up the image we have of them now. We’ve decided that it’s a combination of trying to look older, polished and Professional (like a conservative banker), fused with the haughty impatience that you get with sales clerks in high-end boutiques (trying to look rich on a lower income).

It’s that dismissive attitude that gets me. I know it comes from a kind of insecurity and a need to establish footing in a relationship that will inevitably come down to negotiation. But the attempted intimidation just doesn’t work for me.

Now, I can only imagine how they must get treated on a daily basis. Switching that interaction around to one of openness and trust would be really hard to start with (especially since people are expecting the opposite), but the first one who does this with us, gets all our real estate money.

Ok, I’m going to respond to another blog.

Today marketing guru Seth Godin points us to VINCON, an online store that features it’s bestsellers but also it’s leastsellers.

What a great idea, I agreed with Seth. Some people don’t want what the masses want. Some people zig while the others zag. They find the little restaurant that has yet to be discovered while the others crowd the ‘popular’ places with huge waiting lists. Clearly it’s cooler to buy the things that others have overlooked in their stampede to be the same.

And then I looked at their list of least sold and found this:

The feminist in me loves this new Dove campaign.

The cynic in me giggled at whoever answered these all the way down the escalator.

And the advertiser in me thinks this is a great example of the hazards of opening up your message for audience participation.