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Thursday, September 10, 2009

Authenticity: From Strategy to Decision Making

As promised, I have returned to Authenticity.

This week the focus is on 'being true to self', i.e. making what you do, produce or how you do it as an extension of your own values, rather than trying to do something that contravenes your own principles( a nutritionist experimenting with genetically oriented foods for instance).

Failure to 'stay true' gives you the worry not only of being inauthentic, but appearing inauthentic, thus potentially damaging your long term reputation-very hard to rebuild. The book then takes you through a model of Minkowski Space(don't bother looking at unless you are a physics nut), to get you to the following:

"Executives often lay out strategies that prove not just difficult but, given the company's heritage and current circumstances, actually impossible....they adopt strategic positionings that their customers cannot hope to appreciate or even comprehend. "

The chapter then takes you through the case study of Disney who lost their way by trying things outside of their execution zone(such as buying ABC and producing NC-17 movies) so as to erode the trust of many parents in the Disney brand to 'provide fun family experiences for kids of all ages'.

The authors then ask you to run your strategy through "Here and Now Space Model"

1) Study your heritage

2) Ascertain your positioning

3) Locate your trajectory

4) Know your limits

5) Zoom in your zone

6) Scan the periphery

7) Affix the future

8) Execute well

I'll get to this in a later post and perhaps run The Event Mechanic! strategy through the model as a test.

Until then,

Monday, September 7, 2009

Happy Labor Day

I thought I'd take some time out of the holiday weekend to wish my readers a happy day and a much more fruitful Q4 than last year.

What I am going to focus on for the rest of the year?
  • make my writing much more frequently(at least once a week);
  • finish Authenticity(see my earlier blog posts for the earlier chapter summaries);
  • get 2+ more customers;
  • making a big splash at Expo! Expo!
  • Enjoying some social media education at The Inbound Marketing Summit;
  • Lose ten pounds.
Here's to you hitting your goals, financial and otherwise.....see you out there.