I Wrote a Book!

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For years, many of my clients, founders I’ve advised, and mentees have asked me to write a book; it took one of them to push me to do it*.   So, I wrote a book, Value Proposition: Positioning for Success, on continually creating, testing, and building compelling value propositions that meet or exceed real customers’ real needs. You’ll learn about some famous and not-so-famous successes and flops, highlighting obvious and not-so-obvious causes and solutions. Since I can’t ignore my “professor” tendencies, there are a lot of questions for you to reflect on, ask yourself and your team, and use to guide the development of your product or service. 

I hope you enjoy the book.  I hope it helps you build things that matter, make a difference, and improve the lives of your customers and those around them…and you.  Please let me know!

 

*Thank you, Charlene Wang, for nudging me and mentoring me.

I need more STAN in My Life - Do You?

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I need more STAN in my life - for myself, my clients, my students, my family! STAN? Yup, Science, Technology, Art & Nonsense - STAN. STAN takes STEAM (Science, Tech, Engineering, Art, and Math) to another level.

Nonsense, the essence of STAN, puts the whimsical, visionary, inventive and innovative on equal footing with Science, Technology and Art (and engineering and math). Nonsense isn’t frivolity ~ it’s the power of wonder, imagination and creativity we had as children and somehow lost along the way.

Our organizations and companies are suffering from a lack of Nonsense. They are starving to imagine what is possible. Hey, Blue Lobsters may be 1 in 2 million, but they exist! So, this week, infuse a touch of STAN into your day ~ a wisp of whimsy into a meeting, an iota of the improbable into a project, a slight to the status quo. Please email me about what you discover!

A special thank you to Scott Nash, co-founder of 1 of my favorite organizations, The Illustration Institute, for coining the term STAN. See some of his whimsy here.

 

What Will You Learn Today?

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Sunset off the dock #NoFilter

The other day was a normal, uneventful day, which is why it stood out when 3 seemingly normal things hit me:

Downtown Damariscotta ℅ marinas.com

  • Cherish the availability of street parking in Damariscotta while ya can! I needed to pick up a book at the library and voila - a spot was wide open in front of the bookstore and cafe! That won’t be the case for a week from now until September! Little things can bring joy and glee into one’s day - like a parking space! It may seem trivial, but it filled my entire day with a sense of accomplishment (almost like when I lived in NYC and got a parking space 😊).

  • Don’t drive to Rachmanioff’s Piano Concerto #2 in C Minor. There is a reason I listen to news and podcasts and not music in the car. Every molecule in my body gets absorbed into the music (especially Mendelssohn and Rachmaninoff) and you shouldn’t do “air piano” and drive to the tempo! Since I was little, I can’t listen to classical music, an opera, without it being a whole-body experience - not idea for Rt 1 in Maine! The power of art to bring us alive and make us whole is strong and necessary - and incorporates our entire self.

  • Swimming Upstream, as a metaphor, isn’t fully appreciated til you watch fish do it. Our fellow village of Bristol Mills built a fish ladder to make it easier for the alewives (an important bait and ecosystem fish) to make their long arduous journey from the ocean to the Pemaquid River up to Pemaquid Lake or Biscay Pond to spawn. It’s a gorgeous fish ladder surrounded by nature - by water, trees, birds, fish, sounds - all the flora and fauna and fascination. Nature never ceases to teach us, if we’re willing to see and listen.

So, what 1 or 2 things can you learn today - from the mundane things, meetings, errands, glances out the window, things you drive by every single day? And the learning doesn’t have to be deep, complex, life-changing - just a new thing or new way of perceiving. Give it a try!