Uncompromising On Your Experience

Posted on July 31, 2009 by Scott Gould

I founded Aaron+Gould on August 12 2008, and in order to get cash flow through the door I did some work at a really cheap rate – I mean, stupidly cheap. You tell yourself that you’re building your portfolio, or building your network, but after it all you realise it’s just one of the things that you do to make ends meat.

Side note: most business people would never be this honest – they’d be too busy posturing – but I know that you learn just as much from the scars as you do from the successes. Anyway…

So I took the job late last year. To cut a long story short, we finally got the last bits of copy we needed this week (after 7 months of silence) to wrap the project up. Thing is, our rates are now exceedingly more, and thus I faced the dilemma: do I do the bare minimum, quickly and to a low standard, and say “that’s it”, or, do I treat them just as valuably as our other clients?

My solution was found in the following Gucci slogan: Quality is remembered long after the price is forgotten.

Let me rephrase using my favourite word: Experience is remembered long after the price is forgotten. Every person I am in contact with, every client my agency serves, every visitor that enters my church, every follower on Twitter and reader of this very article – every single one deserves a compelling experience, and it is that experience that they’ll remember above all the other factors that fade over time.

To this end, I resolved not to compromise this client’s experience. I’ve decided that providing a compelling experience is now one of my personal and business non-negotiables. I won’t compromise it.

What won’t you compromise?

Exeter Tweetup on Thursday 6th August

Posted on July 30, 2009 by Scott Gould

We are having a Tweetup. This means all of us Digitalls and Digicools who use Twitter are going to gather in a physical location, and most likely, talk about Twitter while using our phones to tweet little messages saying “I’m standing here with @scottgould !!!”

OK – if you don’t understand a word of that, then why not dive in the deep end and come? I’ll be there to hold your hand, literally. Plus, most of us guys are actually not that geeky. Especially people like @sophynorris @jamesmb @rokkster @ExeterCCM . Trust me.

It’s happening on Thursday 6th August, in two parts:

5:30pm – 8pm, Fresha Café, Sowton. We will be joining a networking event called TBX1. You can get more details by clicking this link: http://bit.ly/11XUuq.
Then, we will all be going to the Barn Owl, Sowton, 8 – 10pm for a drink after the networking event. You can get directions here.

This is the third official Exeter Tweetup (that I know of) and will be a barrel-o-laughter because all your favourite Exeter Twitter ‘celebrities’ will be there!

So what are you waiting for? Let us know you’re coming!

Hacking Yourself

Posted on July 29, 2009 by Scott Gould

If you know me at all, you’ll know I’m a man of fads. Example: once upon a time, I decided it would appear intellectual to read The Times, and for a period of a few weeks, I carried a copy of The Times with me wherever I went. I then decided to go one step further, and carried both The Times and The Guardian with me, wherever I went. There was the time I’d only drink Costa coffee. The time I’d only buy clothes from certain stores. The time I’d wear suits to college.

Or there was the time when I got into fitness training. Every morning I would do skipping and running, and bought all the equipment I needed including a stop watch. Suffice to say, that all now lives in a sports bag in the closet!

What I have come to know about myself is that I’m obsessive. When I get into something, I immerse myself in it and become as close to an expert as I can over a very short period of time. The trouble is I often do this to the neglecting of other priorities in my life, and it is because of this that my wife Faye is so wonderful because she completes me and brings balance to my obsessions. The benefit, however, is I have acquired a spectrum of in-depth knowledge in random things, which is really useful when I meet new people because I have a wealth of experience in different things to connect to them with.

It was at the beginning of 2009, when Faye and I needed to get our finances in check, that I had the revelation that I can control this obsession to my advantage. In other words, I hacked myself. I put immense focus for a month into budgeting and being very strict – but the result now is that we are beating our budget – something we’ve rarely done before.

I’ve written about how GTD saved my future. The way I did this was to obsess about getting things done, sticking to a system, and forcing everyone to email tasks to me, rather than text or by voice. I hacked what has been a weakness, and made it a strength.

How do I control my obsession? Firstly it is through my obsession, that I obsess about controlling my obsession – if that makes sense! Secondly I have multiple obsessions at once – that way I don’t over balance on one over the other. For areas in my life, like work or running a particular project over a long period of time, I inject new obsessions into it in order to stimulate my creativity and motivation. I also have time everyday where I disconnect and just relax.

I am an obsessive person, so my question is, how can other people hack themselves who aren’t like me? What traits, personalities, feelings, obsessions can you manipulate in order to gain results where you previously had failure?

Life Isn’t Lego

Posted on July 28, 2009 by Scott Gould

Being a kid I loved Lego. I rocked at it. The fact that using those bricks you could build what was in your imagination excited me, and today I am still excited by things that allow me to translate what is thought into reality.

In many ways life is like Lego. You piece together the bricks that you do have to form your building. You put your house, job, kids, car and annual leave together – and hey presto – that’s your life. But unlike Lego, you can’t tear it down and start over whenever you get bored.

You also don’t get given all the bricks in a nice shiny package, nor a manual instructing you how to put it all together to look like how it should do. The reality is this: you have to find the building blocks, and you have to learn how to build them.

But the biggest difference between life and Lego is this: when I built Lego as a kid, I did it all by myself. Life, however, is lived with other people.

You can stand on the shoulders of those around you. You peers, your parents, your pastors. You can read biographies and books and blogs. You can get their blueprints, their hindsight, their mistakes and successes.

Where are you finding your bricks?

Real and Fake, False and Authentic

Posted on July 27, 2009 by Scott Gould

This is the first ‘you’re old’ card I’ve ever received. I got it a few weeks ago as some of our Aaron+Gould interns finished and moved on. I’ve been called ‘old’ for a while now by the young people I work with, sometimes even being mistaken for someone in their ‘late twenties’ – but this card was simply a malicious attack

The fact is I’m not old. I never once considered I was when they presented it to me with smirks on their faces. It’s a prop, a staged event.

It’s the same with theatre. No one actually believes that the performers are really orphans on the streets of Paris, or socialists being haunted by some Phantom. But just because the illusion is fake, doesn’t mean that it isn’t authentic.

When I’m staging experiences people often comment how fake it all is, hinting to the fact that it is insincere. But just because sometime is staged doesn’t mean it isn’t genuine and authentic.

When a store assistant or waiter helps you and delivers a wonderful experience, that is staged. They have been paid and trained to do it. But none of that detracts from it being authentic.

A reality TV show however, that has been acted in parts and edited to portray something that wasn’t naturally there, is not authentic but false. But the TV show that is a drama, and doesn’t even suggest it is real, is no longer false but authentic.

When I meet someone for the first time, I quickly find common ground and learn by asking questions, I’m not being fake, even though I’ve used this well-manicured system of building rapport thousands of times. I am genuinely interested and authentic in my questions. When they ask for my business card, and I purposefully keep them in my wallet so that I have to go into my pocket, pull out my wallet and pull out a single card just for them, this is an experience that I have staged to make them feel like they are getting one personally, just for them, as opposed to the networker who has a stack in their hand ready and slides it into your hand before you’ve even opened your mouth. Is this experience I stage false? No, it is authentic, and I genuinely want each person to feel personally engaged by me.

But if I meet someone and act as if I’m something I’m not, and say I know things I do not know, then this is no longer authentic but false.

The line between the two can (almost) be reduced to this: integrity. Being true to what you say you are, and what you say you will deliver.

Why Starbucks Is An Experience

Posted on July 24, 2009 by Scott Gould

I’ve had some great discussions this week on Twitter as to whether Starbucks is a good example of the experience economy or not.

This is a video response from Qik, which I filmed – naturally – in Starbucks. Unfortunately it goes a bit funny at the end because someone called me, but, you get the point Also, shoutouts to @banksy6 for perpetuating the myth that I live there!

[flash width="425" height="335" flashvars="rssURL=http://qik.com/video/caf83005349245f8b075a04029c8a382.rss&autoPlay=false&polling=false"]http://qik.com/swfs/qikPlayer4.swf[/flash]

My points are thus:

Starbucks pioneered western coffee culture as we know it and are leaders in the area. If you go to Italy, they don’t have to-go cups and Café Latte – these things are mostly a construction. Update: Italians do coffee the authentic, pure way which is the way I like it.
Starbucks excel at transactional experience, which is why they have been cloned. They experientialised coffee. Admittedly, the situational experience of Starbucks does leave much to be desired.
Starbucks personalise coffee. This is a hallmark of the experience economy, which according to the history of economic progression, is a customisation of the service industry. They sell at an experience markup – more expensive then any other high street coffee house.
The personalisation is integral to the experience. Drinks are called ‘Hand Crafted Beverages’. The markings of your personalisation are on your to-go cup, making it memorabilia.

Now I will make it clear that I quite readily appreciate the situational experience is lacking, and that the transactional customisation is lacking against most artisan coffee houses – but then those coffee houses are not the world’s number one coffee chain that has been the model for others to follow, are they?

Or, am I just going waaaay over the top here?

UPDATE: I am not being vindictive against Italians here, as someone has suggested. Let me stress the fact that I love Italy and honeymooned there. I studied the language for a year. I plan to live there. I love the way they do coffee and far, far prefer authentic, artisan coffee as it is prepared in Italy. I am simply saying that in the same way ‘Chicken Tikka Masala’ is a constructed curry that isn’t an authentic Indian dish, Café Latte and Starbucks’ ‘Caramel Macchiato’ and Frappucinos, etc, are mostly constructed drinks for our western market that do not actually exist in Italy.

UPDATE: The Qik above was the featured ‘Hot Video’ on the Qik.com homepage today (Friday 24th July). Yes – that’s my ugly mug taking up the whole screen. Insults can be made at my Posterous.com account.

Why Monday Is Quiet On My Blog

Posted on July 20, 2009 by Scott Gould

Mondays are quiet for me because Sunday is my game day. At our Church:

90% of the congregation are there on a Sunday
90% of our visitors come on a Sunday
100% of our income comes on a Sunday
80% of our teaching is given on a Sunday
70% of our pastoring work is done on a Sunday

Sunday is my favourite day of the week because everything from Monday to Saturday is building up – to Sunday.

When is your game day?

A Compelling Experience: The Original Word Of Mouth

Posted on July 17, 2009 by Scott Gould

Women In Touch did a conference last week (my client and church initiative), which I was heavily involved in. The thing that I always hear people repeat about WIT, believe it or not, does not major on the two ‘selling points’ of most Christian conferences which are the teaching and the music.

What I hear people saying about WIT and the Touch Conference is this: ”it’s just the whole experience.”

A compelling experience is the original word of mouth. Go back 6,000 years of documented human history, and you’ll find that what we’ve been recording ever since isn’t the boring stuff. It’s the compelling stuff.

Everything about this conference – from the little touches of décor, to the excellent teaching, and from the rebranding of the cafe to the ‘pitstop’, to the photos that were taken and then given away – everything was carefully building the overall experience. This is important. Because if experience is the eye of the beholder, and you are banking on the décor to provide the experience, then what about the non-visual person who doesn’t even notice the décor?

Therefore “it’s just the whole experience” is a better compliment than “the décor was great” because you know that you have hit multiple senses. A multi-sensory experience therefore gives your advocate multiple words for mouth. When they are talking to one friend, it is the teaching. To their musician friend, it’s the music. To their hurting friend, it’s the emotional benefit they received. To the lonely friend, it’s the friendliness.

Now I’ve just rememberd that my friend Olivier Blanchard actually wrote about word of mouth yesterday, so I’m not going to go on and on – just pop to his site and read up there.

But before you go, let’s just note a few things about the nature of compelling:

Compelling is never mediocre, unless something was so mediocre it got you determined to do better.
Compelling means the experiences induces a decision, which rouses that most precious human resource.
Compelling inspires you to action, and your first action is to talk about it.

Digitall, Digicool, Digitool and Diginots

Posted on July 16, 2009 by Scott Gould

Earlier this year, some aliens visited earth. They came to do some research and enjoy a Starbucks – but unfortunately for them, they left this research behind at the table they were sitting at and I happened to pick it up. Lucky me.

I had a good read and discovered that they were researching social media. They mistakenly called us humans Digi’s, and accordingly they observed 4 different social media users:

Firstly, the Digitalls. I am, and some of you are, in the Digitall tribe. We use technology for everything. We use multiple social media sites, experiment continually, have lifestreams, and are on FriendFeed. Trouble is, most of the Digitalls – who are early adopters of technology – are trying to imitate the elite group of innovators. They copy their blogging habits, produce more and more content for other early adopters, and create plenty of noise. Thus, the gap between early adopters and the early majority is increasing in size because it is getting harder and harder for the average Digi (the ones with the money) to understand what the Digitalls are talking about.

Watch this video, made by the Aliens, which interviews the Digi on the street. I don’t just like it because the interviewer is called Scott, honest.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o4MwTvtyrUQ

Cue the Digicool. They are some of these people. They don’t know what a ‘browser’ is and they don’t care – but they do know that Google is not synomous with Internet Explorer. They have Facebook. And they have it because it’s cool. My wife has an iPhone, because it’s cool. They might have a Twitter account, and probably only make use of it if they can link it to their Facebook status – why? – because it’s cool.

Digicools are an a giant untapped resource. As the early majority, they appear smart to most people (largely, to parents), but appear slow and sluggish to the Digitalls. They would use services like Flickr for their personal photos if they knew about it – but, they don’t. Everyone is up in arms because a 15 year old Digi researched 200 friends and discovered that teens don’t user Twitter. But the reality is there is a huge gap between the Digitall and the Digicools, and only the daring few are stepping beyond Facebook or Bebo into these new waters.

The iPhone app Shazaam is a great Digicool product. As a party piece, my wife loves to use it. But unfortunately for Shazaam, she’s never bought anything through it, because once it’s told her the track, it’s no longer cool. She hasn’t parted with any money for a digital service. And Digicools seldom do.

The Gap Widens

In the late adopters crowd we have the Digitools. My father-in-law is a Digitool who uses Skype purely for the utility of speaking to his daughter in Australia. When he isn’t calling his daughter on VOIP, Skype is switched off. It’s a tool for a job. My mother-in-law uses Facebook to keep in touch with friends. If she isn’t thinking of that friend in Canada though, weeks go by without her status changing.

Digitools aren’t bound to generation. One of my brothers, a 23 year old in Australia, will also use Skype and Facebook when he needs to communicate, but no more. And this it he hallmark of the Digitools – need to. The aliens did observe that this need does change according to what the Digitalls did five years ago and the Digicool did two years ago – so it’s not absolute need. But the strange thing is there are few from the Digitalls who try to empower this majority – they are content to rather ramble with other Digitalls than engage with these slow, but faithful late adopters.

This group is confused over what a browser, Google, the internet and search is. The mixing of an address bar and a search bar also confuses them, and accordingly, they are subject to phishing from time to time.

Finally, it is the Diginots – not the ‘Digifools’, through it rhymed – who hear about everything all the other Digi’s are doing, and decidedly don’t understand it. They are not social media users, in the modern sense. A computer, Microsoft Word and the internet are all the same thing in their mind. And every time they sit down at a PC, it is the computer that does something wrong; not the user.

They peaked at DVD, and occasionally, with assistance, can navigate the website of their favourite sports team. But when finished, they call their teenager child technical advisor to close everything down for them.

In Conclusion

So that’s the report I found. I hope it’s been enlightening for you as it has been for me. The one thing I am convinced of, though, is I must start looking more at the Digicools and their market share, than pandering to the fickle nature of the Digitalls. Because if I start talking to them, I have plenty of opportunity to be the one who bridges the gap – because few others are.