Well,
I cannot get the image of those poor cows, pigs and chickens out of my head. They were fighting hard for the last second of their lives before the cruel man-made machine - or sometimes the man himself!- cut their throats and spill their blood. It was horrifying.
But, at the same time, we should ask what would happen if we start compete with the same cows over veggies?! What would the landscape look like in the long-run? Can the cows survive without us? What incentive would people have to keep them and feed them and not to kill them to eat them?
Something does not sound right!
Feb 1, 2009
Sexual PETA and Super Bowl
It costs over 3 million dollars to air a 30-second commercial in super bowl. However, PETA, animal right activists, took advantage of the super bowl exposure and yet did not pay that 3 million dollars. How did they do it?
They made an ad which was too sexual for TV and purposefully got banned from the super bowl and yet, as you can guess, people swarmed to their website to see it!
Interesting enough, once you watch the 30-second sexy commercial, the 2nd commercial, which I suspect was the original one,
will be played instantly with a much stronger and convincing message.
To watch the commercial click here
Reza Sabernia
They made an ad which was too sexual for TV and purposefully got banned from the super bowl and yet, as you can guess, people swarmed to their website to see it!
Interesting enough, once you watch the 30-second sexy commercial, the 2nd commercial, which I suspect was the original one,
will be played instantly with a much stronger and convincing message.
To watch the commercial click here
Reza Sabernia
Jan 7, 2009
Short-termism
Do you jab at the elevator button? You are not alone. Every day, instead of taking stairs to my office on the 2nd floor, I take the elevator to observe how people jab at the already-lit elevator button. To me, this is the sign that our species have reached our limit for human productivity.
Busy with our immediate goals, we are completely oblivious how miserably we are stuck inside a short-termism trap. Instead of democracy, we exported this short-termism to the rest of the world. We start a war for the same reasons that we want to end it immediately. In EU, we enticed a budding market into bankruptcy with exporting our financial benchmarks! In the Middle East, to satisfy our own voters, our elected presidents, choose short-term turmoil over long-term solution to a nearly-one-century-old problem. Even corporate America is not immune. Many companies train their salespeople to deceive potential customers and lure them into long-term contracts. These are all manifestation of a society that sacrifices a long-term goal for a short-term gain.
Reza Sabernia
Busy with our immediate goals, we are completely oblivious how miserably we are stuck inside a short-termism trap. Instead of democracy, we exported this short-termism to the rest of the world. We start a war for the same reasons that we want to end it immediately. In EU, we enticed a budding market into bankruptcy with exporting our financial benchmarks! In the Middle East, to satisfy our own voters, our elected presidents, choose short-term turmoil over long-term solution to a nearly-one-century-old problem. Even corporate America is not immune. Many companies train their salespeople to deceive potential customers and lure them into long-term contracts. These are all manifestation of a society that sacrifices a long-term goal for a short-term gain.
Reza Sabernia
Dec 27, 2008
To: Georgio Armani
Your Two-Step View:
1. Based on Harvard-recommended marketing textbooks, you must only focus on your target market.
2. Your target market is the rich minority since no one else can afford what you have to offer.
Your Conclusion: Ignore everyone but the rich.
Your Action: Skin the rabbits and make expensive fur coats.
***
The Missing Step:
3. In the post-Twitter world, everyone, regardless of his socio-economic class, can “afford” your reputation.
A Better Conclusion: Don’t ignore anyone.
Possible Action: Hold your promises, even those made to the not-target market: Let the rabbits live.
Till then, no matter how irresistible your Boxing Day sale is, I choose not be a member of your target market.
Reza Sabernia
1. Based on Harvard-recommended marketing textbooks, you must only focus on your target market.
2. Your target market is the rich minority since no one else can afford what you have to offer.
Your Conclusion: Ignore everyone but the rich.
Your Action: Skin the rabbits and make expensive fur coats.
***
The Missing Step:
3. In the post-Twitter world, everyone, regardless of his socio-economic class, can “afford” your reputation.
A Better Conclusion: Don’t ignore anyone.
Possible Action: Hold your promises, even those made to the not-target market: Let the rabbits live.
Till then, no matter how irresistible your Boxing Day sale is, I choose not be a member of your target market.
Reza Sabernia
Dec 22, 2008
Don't Become You.Com (119 words)
How do you portray yourself when communicating with others using online social media e.g. Twitter and Facebook? Are you just simply you? Or do you transform yourself to an engineered entity? In virtual world, some people attach a corporation to their identity, believing this lends them credibility and professionalism. Does it work?
Personally, when online, I’d rather to communicate with a real person with whom I share certain interests. I, also, avoid those whose identity is stranded in the organizations and communities they are involved with. To me, social media are for deep and meaningful connections. If you have never experienced such connections, well, that is too unfortunate since you are missing out very early in the game.
Reza Sabernia
Personally, when online, I’d rather to communicate with a real person with whom I share certain interests. I, also, avoid those whose identity is stranded in the organizations and communities they are involved with. To me, social media are for deep and meaningful connections. If you have never experienced such connections, well, that is too unfortunate since you are missing out very early in the game.
Reza Sabernia
Dec 15, 2008
Your Virtual Persona Won't Cut It...
Have you ever wondered how many of your virtual friends can be your BBQ buddies? They are on your Yahoo’s friend list. You spend a few hours to chat with them every day and overtime you may share a secret or two with them. You also have seen a few of their photos on Facebook. They send you incessant tweets on Twitter. Why not physically hang around with them? At the end of the day, John is funny in the chatrooms and Janet sends very thoughtful tweets. Does that make John good for parties and Janet suitable for an intellectual conversation?
I can safely say that not that many people are willing to meet their online buddies unless there are very strong shared interests. The reason for this reluctance is the nature of the Internet itself. As a medium, it has enabled us – and others - to impersonate, intentionally or subconsciously. While our social persona acts as a mask to cover our weaknesses and insecurities, the virtual persona is the potion we always needed to transform ourselves into our role models. In the chatrooms you can be Elvis flirting with other women; In your blog, you can be an investment banker fighting over proposed economic plans.
What does that have to with reputation? I don’t think someone who establishes a solid reputation in the virtual world can easily carry it outside of the Internet. Well, some Internet pioneers did it during the Internet bubble. Some are still trying this using the hype for social networking. But at the end of the day, the people in the brick-and-mortar world, who are comfortable with dealing with you based on your “real” persona, will think twice to build a relationship solely based on your virtual reputation. Your virtual reputation might get you to their doors, but as soon as you knock, it will become obsolete and you need to present your “real” you. That means for building a holistic reputation, whether as an individual or business, one needs to simultaneously fight two battles: real and virtual.
Reza Sabernia
I can safely say that not that many people are willing to meet their online buddies unless there are very strong shared interests. The reason for this reluctance is the nature of the Internet itself. As a medium, it has enabled us – and others - to impersonate, intentionally or subconsciously. While our social persona acts as a mask to cover our weaknesses and insecurities, the virtual persona is the potion we always needed to transform ourselves into our role models. In the chatrooms you can be Elvis flirting with other women; In your blog, you can be an investment banker fighting over proposed economic plans.
What does that have to with reputation? I don’t think someone who establishes a solid reputation in the virtual world can easily carry it outside of the Internet. Well, some Internet pioneers did it during the Internet bubble. Some are still trying this using the hype for social networking. But at the end of the day, the people in the brick-and-mortar world, who are comfortable with dealing with you based on your “real” persona, will think twice to build a relationship solely based on your virtual reputation. Your virtual reputation might get you to their doors, but as soon as you knock, it will become obsolete and you need to present your “real” you. That means for building a holistic reputation, whether as an individual or business, one needs to simultaneously fight two battles: real and virtual.
Reza Sabernia
Dec 10, 2008
Thank you Seth Godin and Malcolm Gladwell
Here, I want to thank Seth Godin, Gladwell, Guy Kawasaki, Hugh and many other avid bloggers for their hard work. I thank them not because what they say is necessarily right -in fact, often it is not the case. However, I thank them for showing me new things to ponder about and teaching me new thinking patterns. A few weeks ago, Seth Godin wrote a blog about the top-notch MBA programs. In that post, he enumerated certain points that have made these schools so popular and selective. One of those points was “scarcity” of these school’s graduates.
But what is human scarcity? How can someone, as an individual, become so scarce that even in these tough times he demands an overnight ten-percent raise, the employer complies with his request happily? What sorts of skills, talents, abilities or advantages have transformed an otherwise average person to a scarce resource? Does a scarce human have scarce talents or just have a rare combination of relatively common talents, skills or abilities?
By no means, I intend to answer these questions. Not because I am selfish and I want to keep the answers to myself to prevent you from becoming successful. I just simply don’t know the answers. But I know someone who might be able to shed some lights. He has accomplished a lot. He is known for finding controversial strong correlation among seemingly unrelated facts. He is loved equally as he is disliked. He is well-spoken, smart and entertaining and he makes weird hand gestures when talks. Malcolm Gladwell. In his recent book, outliers, he discussed why some people have succeeded and some have failed. I think scarcity and being scarce definitely fall into outlier category and he probably have something to say about it.
I would love to have a personal interview with him and asks those questions. But I can’t. So I am better off to go back what this blog is all about: Reputation management. What I wrote above was my entire thought process. Thinking about the scarcity talk initiated by Godin, my personal desire to be a scarce resource and ended with Gladwell’s obsession with outliers. Gladwell and Godin are “remarkable” – a term overly used by Godin – in explaining things you might already know. They do it in an entertaining, educational and even-if-you-know-it-you-still-enjoy-it way. That is their signature. They know how read the most boring ideas and research papers, package them, add a story line to them and present them. Try to recreate one of the best Godin’s presentations and see how bored your audience will become shortly. This is their scarcity. They have established a solid reputation based on this scarce ability. Yes, reputation is one of those scarce qualities. I don’t intend to discount their efforts and reduce them to just story tellers. But essentially what transforms them from good to remarkable and differentiates them from other good marketers and authors has a lot to do with their presentation and "gift wrapping" skills.
I feel I answered my initial question. To be scarce you don’t have to possess scarce skills. It will work but it is not a necessity. You can also become scarce by amateurishly pursuing different – preferably unrelated – things and combining them. Looking at an everyday fact of life with different view point can make you as scarce as a NASA scientist responsible for the next space mission. Thank you Godin and Gladwell. You are not always right. But you always give me new lenses to see things differently.
Reza Sabernia
But what is human scarcity? How can someone, as an individual, become so scarce that even in these tough times he demands an overnight ten-percent raise, the employer complies with his request happily? What sorts of skills, talents, abilities or advantages have transformed an otherwise average person to a scarce resource? Does a scarce human have scarce talents or just have a rare combination of relatively common talents, skills or abilities?
By no means, I intend to answer these questions. Not because I am selfish and I want to keep the answers to myself to prevent you from becoming successful. I just simply don’t know the answers. But I know someone who might be able to shed some lights. He has accomplished a lot. He is known for finding controversial strong correlation among seemingly unrelated facts. He is loved equally as he is disliked. He is well-spoken, smart and entertaining and he makes weird hand gestures when talks. Malcolm Gladwell. In his recent book, outliers, he discussed why some people have succeeded and some have failed. I think scarcity and being scarce definitely fall into outlier category and he probably have something to say about it.
I would love to have a personal interview with him and asks those questions. But I can’t. So I am better off to go back what this blog is all about: Reputation management. What I wrote above was my entire thought process. Thinking about the scarcity talk initiated by Godin, my personal desire to be a scarce resource and ended with Gladwell’s obsession with outliers. Gladwell and Godin are “remarkable” – a term overly used by Godin – in explaining things you might already know. They do it in an entertaining, educational and even-if-you-know-it-you-still-enjoy-it way. That is their signature. They know how read the most boring ideas and research papers, package them, add a story line to them and present them. Try to recreate one of the best Godin’s presentations and see how bored your audience will become shortly. This is their scarcity. They have established a solid reputation based on this scarce ability. Yes, reputation is one of those scarce qualities. I don’t intend to discount their efforts and reduce them to just story tellers. But essentially what transforms them from good to remarkable and differentiates them from other good marketers and authors has a lot to do with their presentation and "gift wrapping" skills.
I feel I answered my initial question. To be scarce you don’t have to possess scarce skills. It will work but it is not a necessity. You can also become scarce by amateurishly pursuing different – preferably unrelated – things and combining them. Looking at an everyday fact of life with different view point can make you as scarce as a NASA scientist responsible for the next space mission. Thank you Godin and Gladwell. You are not always right. But you always give me new lenses to see things differently.
Reza Sabernia
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