Blame no one.
Expect nothing.
Do something.
- Bill Parcells

Instead, there is a new trend happening: We’re not really paying attention to our friends we’re connected to online. Take Twitter, for example. Twitter used to be a great place for many early adopters to talk tech. It wasn’t so long ago that there were few enough people on Twitter that you could read every single tweet in your stream.

Read the full article here

In London in 2011, however, bibliophiles can breathe easy: despite the riots, books have tended to stay safely on their shelves, their subtle power blithely overlooked.

Often the book stores are the only ones not looted by the retarded mob. One Waterstone’s employee went on saying: “If they steal some books they might learn something,”. Which is very, very true.

Read the full article here.

With regards to EJ, we let her down, and for that we are very sorry. We should have responded faster, communicated more sensitively, and taken more decisive action to make sure she felt safe and secure. But we weren’t prepared for the crisis and we dropped the ball. Now we’re dealing with the consequences.

It doesn’t make it okay, but at least they own up to the fact that they screwed up. And that takes what a company like Airbnb needs; guts.

The full story can be found on the AirBNB blog.

Ever had the feeling you know what you want to say but it’s hard to actually say it? The core of your message is crystal clear in your mind’s eye, but as soon as you start explaining you’re completely lost? It happens all the time. Almost all companies have a unique identity, a core, an essence that makes them who they are. But how many companies do you know that communicate exactly and just that? So you probably agree that it’s hard, but the question remains, why is it hard and what can we do to make it a little bit easier?

The reason this is hard is because if you are trying to put a feeling, a sensation or even an general sense of meaning into words you are working to grab the essence of something that has been taking shape (and changing its shape) in your head for quite some time. For me personally it’s like covering a big word-cloud with just one sentence. We are often working on a brand’s identity or positioning, which requires us to really capture the core in both feeling and words. To get a true sense of what a brand is about we almost always start on getting the feeling right; we should completely understand a brand’s identity. To do this we talk to the people working at the company, we study the product, we study the customers and we study the market. Seems like a lot of work to get the feeling right doesn’t it? It is, but it’s worth it, because the end goal is not having a set of words that correctly say what you are. The goal is to inspire and enable people (ex- and internally) to experience the same values and focus that your brand or company is built on. So it has to feel right.

Feelings and rationality are often opposites, which is obviously why these are hard to connect. Our brains also has separate wiring for both;  a creative (right) and a rational (left) side, which probably is why artists and accountants don’t get along very well. Another, supposed (we are not completely sure of anything concerning the brain, difference between both is that the right side of the brain looks at things as a whole while the left side looks at things in part. So to be able to put an idea into words we need to grab the whole thing and start breaking it down. We think there are unlimited ways to do this because everybody is wired differently, but we would like to mention a few ways we break down ideas in order to reconstruct them in words.

Discussion - Us being quite rational we find that extensively talking about an idea or concept offers insight into how an idea is constructed. You find out what are the basic elements of the idea, what’s the ultimate ambition, what association do you have with it. By helping each other understand an idea you also construct the building blocks necessary to rebuild the idea on the left side of your brain.

Mind mapping - By just thinking about something and writing down whatever comes into your mind you can explore all aspects of the idea without taking it out of your creative side. I think it’s important to mind map with pen and paper instead of using the computer, because I think true creativity is limited by this rational tool, but on this people also disagree. What most people do agree on is that it’s a valuable tool for anyone. Some additional reading (link)

Analysis and research - This is basically the most complete way of capturing an idea. By researching and analyzing what made this idea come to be and how it developed it is possible to completely map the core elements of the idea and starting building on top of it. We find this works especially well in finding corporate identities, even though we often see that true creativity is needed to actually connect the building blocks.

Get more creative - While most people belief they are not creative others say that creativity can be found in anyone. One of the people that is a firm believer in this is James Altucher, who often blogs about all aspects of his life. He says:

The “idea muscle” atrophies within days if you don’t use it. Just like walking. If you don’t use your legs for a week, they atrophy. You need to exercise the idea muscle. It takes about 3-6 months to build up once it atrophies. Trust me on this.

And I think De Merkelijkheid can agree with mr. Altucher on this; it takes real practice to put ideas into words. But the fact that’s its hard to find the essence of your company or brand is only testament to the fact that there’s a big idea behind it, waiting to be discovered.

While it is not strange that focus changes, normally if a focus is connected to a major interest it just stays up on the lists.

It got me thinking, what other interests have fallen away just because one or more of my key influencers quit? Or even more interesting; what are YOUR major interests that are mainly fueled by a key influencers activity?