We don’t need scare tactics, we need care tactics.

Organizations brave enough to interact and connect with customers holistically, in a way that actually engages the whole self, and not just the small part of it the company finds interesting and important.
The perfect venue for this type of innovation is your company’s signup process.
What if registering for your product involved much more than simply submitting your name, age and social security number? What if you let customers pick from a collection of lifestyle images to express their whole personas? What if the signup process was a canvas for people to talk about their futures, goals and dreams? And what if the data from the registrations was aggregated anonymously to help the company listen loudly and give people more of what they want?
That’s care.
Nothing overly personal, just something with more personality. Nothing too private, just something that commends people for engaging in the journey of life.
Like the doctor who treats you beyond the disease, it’s time for organizations to treat customers beyond the niceties, beyond the pleasantries and beyond the techniques, and more like a whole person.
It’s time to actually start with the customer, not just with the customer in mind.
Tell people you care about the whole self, and then do something to prove it.

Twelve million of us are unemployed.

And in addition to the obvious downsides of financial hardship, fear of the future, loss of control, boredom, lack of momentum, feelings of humiliation, decline in motivation and lack of human contact, perhaps the hardest part about looking for work is the devastating affect it has on the human psyche.
Offices are where we do some of our most important existing. Work informs our identity more than most things, so it’s a primary means to express our sense of who we are. And if we lose our daily expression of that, if we don’t have a consistent platform for being creative, passionate and personal in our interactions with other human beings, there’s a noticeable emptiness that starts to grow.
Eric Maisel calls this a meaning crisis, in which meaning has leaked out and unhappiness has leaked in.
The secret is to take action on something meaningful. Anything. By deciding to bite into something and do it really well, by making the most of our talents and inner resources, we feel more alive. It’s a form of living our principles and values.
Even if it’s a tiny step, as long as it helps us create meaning in our lives, at the end of the day, it feels like we’ve met our quota of usefulness. Besides, it’s only one part of a larger repertoire of activities that are pretty much guaranteed to provide us with the experience of meaning.
The point is, without asking ourselves what tiny steps we can take, today, that will help us create meaning in our lives, it’s going to be an empty journey.
You can only do the dishes so many times in week.

Loneliness is a permanent feature of the human condition.

If you can find a way to remind customers that they’re not alone, that they’re not the only ones having an experience, and that the roller coaster isn’t as scary when you have other people to scream with, it will be hard to keep your name a secret.
Connecticut Working Moms wants the members of their community to feel more empowered, less guilty, less isolated and to realize that someone else feels the same way they do, so they built a digital confession booth. A destination where users can anonymously share the raw truth of their struggles, as their lives really are.
Dove Lewis Animal Hospital offers free support groups where owners can share stories to cope with the loss of a pet, along with art therapy workshops where first timers can learn from veteran members who have navigated, survived and even laughed about the grieving process.

Greenpoint Coworkers holds jellies, free coworking days where freelancers can leave their den of solitude and join a community of fellow independent professionals to work together for a day, bounce ideas off of, and have a structured, professional workday in a beautifully designed, naturally lit work environment.
How are you connecting the disconnected?

Every couple needs a common enemy.

Some force to fight against together, some adversity to triumph over together, some experience, that’s bigger and stronger than the couple itself, that forces them to stand at each other’s shoulders, and with tears dropping like stars, bring their collective will to bear.
Whether it’s moving across the country, starting a business together, having children, fighting illness or grieving the loss of a family member, every great partnership needs a good low. Something to call upon their resiliency, test their spirit and remind them that they’re alive and real and human and imperfect, and by depending on one another, they will come out on the other side.
Otherwise they’re just roommates.

Here’s to year one, baby.

Wait time is the single most important factor in customer satisfaction.

And yet, it seems no matter how fast we work, how hard we try, how much we promise, how big we smile, how friendly we act and far we reach, customers always find ways to complain about how long it’s taking.
So if we can’t make more time, why not try to bend it?
We can change the customer experience of time so that its passage is more enjoyable. We can keep customers happy by keeping them company. And we can employ a few artistic measures to influence the mood, modify the energy, enhance the environment and up the vibe, thereby changing the dismal experience of waiting into something more interesting.
What if you commissioned local cartoonists to create work for your walls that started conversations, offered hope and delivered inspiration?
What if you hired a team of local magicians to work the room and entertain so guests lose track of time while they wait for their table?
What if you projected on a screen that aggregated a stream of pictures, tweets, reviews and other mobile updates from customers who used branded hashtags?
What if you had live cigar rolling demonstrations to authenticate the evening and leave patrons with an artifact they could keep forever?
What if you stationed a glass blower in the lobby to create small sculptures on demand for people while they stood in line?
That way, people won’t look at their watch, they’ll forget that they’re wearing one.

The universal archetype of mainstream masculinity is over.

And it’s time for men to woman up.
After all, we live in a post industrial, high touch, high context, service economy that rewards openness, intimacy, emotional intelligence, communication, focus, patience, listening and relationship building.
And considering women do all of those things better than men, I think it’s time men finally got over themselves and crossed a few gender lines.
No operations necessary, just a willingness to adopt behaviors typically reserved for the gentler sex.

A receipt is a written acknowledgment that money has been collected for the purchase of goods or service.

And originally, the function of the receipt was largely managerial. After a sale was made, the receipt established time of customer arrival, kept record of the inventory, enhanced fraud protection, helped reconciled financial statements and stopped employees from pilfering company profits.
But that was over a hundred years ago.
Now, the receipt is less of a static record and more of a sharing device.
When our favorite band releases a new album, we don’t just go to iTunes, pay our ten bucks, download the files, stick our ear buds in and start rocking out.
We share.
And the receipt, the record of that purchase – a picture, a link, a tweet, a status update, a wall post or a check in – becomes the social object that tells our relevant network, hey everybody, I’m listening to this music right now and I want to share it with you so we can experience this moment together.
The receipt becomes, as Brian Solis suggests, a platform for extending experiences.
Paying is just the beginning. Transactions are becoming social objects.
It won’t work for every product. And it won’t work for every customer. But for the brands that dare to expand their definition of what a receipt can become, look out.

The secret to creating value is answering one question, honestly and deeply.

Why do I do what I do?
Once we know that, anything is possible. Once we dig down through the many levels of why and find a way to activate our own internal generators, there’s no reason we can’t make a contribution wherever we go.
As human beings, each of us is motivated by a small collection of intrinsic means. 

Recently, I sat down and fleshed out the drivers that motivate me. I hope this list inspires you to create your own.
A blank canvas. Making things has always been the most natural way for me to engage with the world. When I get up in the morning, there’s a mechanism inside me that asks what I’m supposed to make next. I am motivated by the freedom to express myself.
A personal ritual. I can motivate myself to do just about anything, as long as there’s a ritual attached to it. Ritual is an intentional, purposeful experience I layer on top of an activity to make it more worthwhile. And I have one for everything I do. I am motivated by a repeatable process.
A captive audience. I believe human interaction is a divine transaction. Engaging with people, even for a moment at a time, fuels me more than anything. And every time I go out of my way to earn people’s attention, I reward them for giving it to me. I am motivated by a chance to perform.

A challenging situation. Creativity is my gift. As a lifelong thinker, the moment something activates the problem solving impetus of my brain, my body has a physical reaction. I start obsessing, imagining and zealously deconstructing everything in my path until the internal monologue stops. I am motivated by solving problems.
A meaningful contribution. I’m genetically wired for hard work. It’s just my nature. I’m happier when I’m being productive and prolific. And there is a place in me that starves if I go more than a few days without nudging the world in a positive direction. I am motivated by the chance to work.
Why do you do what you do?

Ideas don’t sell themselves.

If you’re lucky enough to get a meeting with someone who can say yes to you, be ready to present more than just another high concept pitch.
After all, single assets in isolation don’t have much value. But when you come through the door with an arsenal of weapons, your ideas will be very hard to resist.
Try a few of these.
Research is the new black. Smart people do their homework, but a genius works over an idea like a train hobo with a chicken bone. Don’t feel compelled to present every thread of your research, but make sure people know you put in a hell of a lot of work when nobody was watching.
Give your idea a handle. Labels make it easier to classify and comprehend what’s going on around us. By putting something into words, you give people the ability to choose. Don’t be afraid to name your ideas. If you do so correctly, people will comprehend them correctly.
Bring props. Instead of building a hype engine around your idea, physically make one. Build a prototype of your idea and have the dummy ready to go. Then, when the time is right, slap it down on the table. And instead of talking, you’ll have something to do the talking for you. You’ll be interesting before you open your mouth.
That’s the secret of selling ideas.
High concept, high context, high content and high contact.

Entrepreneurs secretly want to lose it all.

To burn everything down, salt the earth and see if we can do it again. To throw a curveball and test how much faith we have in ourselves. To start from scratch, letting go of everything we’ve tried and built and accomplished, except for the person we’ve become, recognize that we are the only thing we have to offer, and reinvest that into something brand new.
It sucks to be wired this way.
But for entrepreneurs, not unlike gamblers, the thrill is in the bet. We’re addicted to the rush. If we can’t get in trouble, it’s not an adventure. And if it’s not an adventure, we’re not fulfilling our whole capacity for living.
Our hearts simply don’t understand settling.