In 2018, Fast Company had an article about how much money you need to be happy. (There does seem to be a dollar amount, but after that, it doesn’t really make you feel that fulfilled—it takes other stuff in your work to do that.) The article was featured on LinkedIn. It was fascinating see how people reacted to the article’s research. A number …
Horn Sections Make Rock Better: No One Knows My Plan
Like the Bunnymen and their Echo, They Might Be Giants originally performed and recorded with a drum machine. That includes all the way to their breakthrough album, Flood. Flood turned 30 last year, which is weird since I’m pretty sure it was just yesterday. The Giants have been churning out genius for decades now. I’ve always imagined John Henry, the …
Fast Company on the power of vulnerability
An incredibly successful client had an employee team blow up. They were originally excited to be tasked by management to address a big employee headache. It was to improve a process that touched a lot of people in the organization. And then the team self-destructed. It was due to poor communication and ego. (But isn’t it almost always that?) The …
Horn Sections Make Rock Better: Sweet Pear
This is the song that inspired this series. I already had Elvis Costello in my top 5. But when I first heard this song a few decades back, I had a new favorite Elvis song. You’re hearing the Dirty Dozen Brass Band take EC to a new level.
A sector that thrived in 2020
If there was one word I became sick of in 2020, it was “unprecedented.” It was a good way to hedge bets: Things can be unprecedentedly good or unprecedentedly bad. So I appreciated this article from automotive vendor Roadster sidestepping “unprecedented,” “good” and “bad,” going straight for the obvious: “crazy.” But dust is starting to settle in Crazy Town. The …
Engineered customer experience: Walk matching talk
Engineered customer experience I work with Soft Shoe, a phenomenal store in Richmond, Ky. that takes customer experience seriously. (That’s why its Facebook page has almost 34,000 likes!) We ended up partnering after the owner and I were geeking out about the following engineered customer experience I had: In 2015, a client recommended I visit Unger’s Shoe Store in Ironton, …
Horn Sections Make Rock Better: Feelin’ Stronger Every Day
My final horn-related rock song of the year: Chicago. Thanks to a good dad, I grew up with a lot of vinyl in rotation: Statler Brothers and Marty Robbins. Willie Nelson and Barry Manilow. Santana and Pink Floyd. This weird New Age band called Mannheim Steamroller (before the Christmas albums) and folk groups like Steeleye Span. And Chicago. Lots of …
Time for a corporate diagnostic
This Forbes post came from somebody in insurance. So it is marketing when he suggests that every business is like a car, needing a multipoint inspection (“MPI”) of its risks–a corporate diagnostic. But he’s right. Insurance is always more affordable than disaster. Car maintenance is always more affordable (and more convenient!) than repairs. And, in nightmare scenarios, life-saving. I once …
CHRISTMAS DAY: The Christ Candle
Advent is a season. It celebrates the first Advent, or coming, of Christ in Bethlehem. And it anticipates the final Advent of Christ to set all things right. No artwork, videos or allusions today. Savor the beauty of the King James translation that ends the Bible. These are quotes from Revelation 22, relating the vision revealed to the Apostle John, …
Horn Sections Make Rock Better: Angel of Harlem
It happens to be a cold and wet December day here. Since those are the opening lines to this one, it’s a good excuse to play the Memphis Horns again.