The Twelfth Day of Life-Changing Gifts - Look for the Improbable to Happen!

We don't have kids, something we came to terms with relatively early in our marriage and have accepted as part of life. While it means missing out on a range of incredible experiences, we've been able to do things for others (particularly our niece and nephews) that wouldn't have been possible otherwise. The net of it is accepting what life hands you and making the best of it.

Last year, our niece Valerie called and asked to speak with me. This was unusual, but as I've written before, Valerie has lived an unusual life. That includes getting married initially in a group wedding ceremony on Valentine's Day 2008 at Loveland Pass. This was an event the family first learned about when my mother-in-law saw it reported on the Weather Channel!

When Valerie began talking about a second wedding ceremony where friends and family could be present, I was hesitant since we'd have to play a big role in putting it on.

As the phone conversation began, I told her our ability to help was limited since her cousin was getting married about the same time and we might have to get Valerie's grandma to it. While stating my case, Valerie interrupted to ask, "Would you walk me down the aisle?"

Walking a bride down the aisle was something I'd long ago come to accept as an "I'll never get to do it" moment. Suddenly my tone changed and being able to do something I never thought I would do completely changed my perspective. I was all for wedding ceremony #2 and making it happen.

The life-changing lesson here is the important reminder to remain perpetually hopeful. Things you think can never happen can happen. If there are possibilities you've shut out of your life, maybe it's time to open them back up.

And in true Valerie fashion, she followed her life-changing comment with another incredibly touching one. As we were getting ready to walk into the ceremony, she told me, "Who else would I have asked to give me away. With everything you guys have done for me, you're like my father."

That's Valerie!

Wrap-up: Hope you enjoyed this series on life-changing words! For the rest of 2009, I'm going to focus on getting ready to consolidate the Brainzooming and MikeBrownSpeaks blogs into a new location that Seth Simonds has done great work in setting up.

The new site will have the blog and include more information on the Brainzooming business and our service offerings. It will also feature additional tools not able to be included on the Blogger platform. The transition date is still TBD, because when it happens, I want to make sure it's as seamless as possible for email and RSS subscribers.

That's what's coming, so in the meantime, have a great holiday and rest of 2009! Thanks for reading Brainzooming! - Mike Brown

Branding Lessons with the Newlyweds at Elitch Gardens

Last Saturday, my niece Valerie and her husband Jerry treated me to roller coaster riding at Elitch Gardens amusement park in Denver. The afternoon provided great lessons on aligning branding and customer experience implementation.

A ticket booth sign promoted Rapid Ride passes – $14.99 add-ons permitting, as the materials stated, time savings by moving to the front of the line for rides. It was touted as providing more family time together at the park.

We decided to get three passes. When Valerie bought the tickets, she received a receipt for one pass, but nothing we could actually use. The ticket taker told us to check with Guest Relations. The Guest Relations worker said the receipt was an internal stub, and that although she could sell the passes, none had been delivered to Guest Relations yet. She sent Valerie back to the ticket booth to wait in line. After redoing the transaction for three passes, they didn’t have the passes either. By the time a manager brought them over, we’d blown thirty minutes getting passes to speed up our park experience.

So think about these branding and customer experience defects:

1. A brand really is more than the name; it’s a customer’s experience with a product or service. When something’s called “Rapid,” everything about it better be “rapid.” It shouldn’t take thirty minutes for anything whose promise is based on rapidity.
   
2. Don’t get focused on narrow brand attributes during naming. While they emphasize speed in the name, we also got to select our seats before anyone else. For roller coaster lovers, riding at the front or back every time is nearly as good as cutting in line. But the name obscured this attractive feature.
   
3. Provide honest information about the experience customers are purchasing. At the first coaster, it was unclear how to use the passes - there were no signs. Turns out there wasn’t a special line Saturday; we had to walk up a ride’s exit line. And only after checking the passes did we learn they were good only five times and only on certain rides.

All three of these are important mistakes to avoid in reconciling what’s important to customers, the brand promise, and actual experiences!

Valerie

Careful What You Write and Who Reads It

I had a disastrous presentation last week. The webex was ready and working when right before the presentation was to begin, the computer completely froze. Next steps involved restarting by yanking the laptop battery, yanking my other laptop from its docking station, and trying to get one of three computers back on the webex. We ultimately had to email a file to all participants, delivering an originally designed interactive presentation on using Twitter from a 4-to-a-slide pdf, after a 20 minute late start.

Arghhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!

Venting my frustration that evening, my niece, who signed up for Brainzooming via email last year, reminded me of the recent column about envisioning potential problems and being ready to wing it.

Great point Valerie! Arghhhhhhhhhhhhhh!

The presentation failure scenarios I had imagined focused on webex problems, so I got there early to ensure people could see the computer desktop on the webex. What I hadn't anticipated was the computer freezing. While there was a nearly-current version of the presentation on a USB drive, anticipating the computer failing would have led to sending the presentation upfront with another computer ready to go.

Under stress, there wasn't time for problem diagnosis; the only alternative was implementing multiple potential solutions. Not until afterward did the problem's source occur to me: the LCD projector had a long ago history of jamming computers with USB-based clickers. The problem hadn't occurred in years, and I'd forgotten about it.

So let me amend the first bullet in the previous post's advice:

• Invest a little effort ahead of time imagining what complete system failure scenarios could develop. Really go for it - if Armageddon were taking place before a presentation, could you still get things up and running on time? And what's the backup to the alternative?

There, that feels better. Maybe I'll be better prepared next time. - Mike Brown

Favorite Posts from the Past Year

Perusing other blogs, one featured an annual favorite articles icon where the blog author shared a retrospective of stories throughout the year.

Since many readers started following Brainzooming during the year, it seemed like a fun idea to adopt. Here are my 10 favorites from the past 12 months:

December 26, 2007 – Aunt Ollie’s Strategy – A wonderful demonstration that great strategy shouldn’t be complicated or confusing. This real-life story about going to visit my aunt during the Christmas holiday is a favorite because it’s become the closing piece for my strategic thinking presentations.

January 11, 2008 – How Fast? vs. Half-Assed – This relationship was drawn several years ago amid frustration over an unrealistic deadline coupled with an expectation for outstanding quality. The idea actually sprang from someone asking, “How fast?” but it hitting my ears as, “Half Assed.” The sketch sat in a folder as a “good idea” with no outlet until starting the blog.

January 14, 2008 – Why Do You Persist in Playing the Organ Weakly? – I took a little heat over this article about how bad the organist is at our Church. The article came about after personally snapping due to her inability to play even common Christmas songs. Imagining myself in her place, I considered options available to improve. It hasn’t worked, because she’s gotten worse during the year. Now, I’m offering it up.

February 29, 2008 – What Would You Do with an Extra Day? – I hate it when great people leave. But often it’s the right thing for them, even though it’s painful. This column’s theme came about because a great co-worker and friend picked “Leap Day” as her last on the job. I wanted to express my appreciation of her growth, my hopes for her future, and cause a few tears. Several people said it delivered on all three!

March 28, 2008 - Periodic Table of Corporate Behavior – This came from a conversation about “periodically” exercising. Somehow, that spawned contemplating if you could label behavioral compositions at work as we do chemical compositions in the periodic table. It seemed hilarious to me and is among the blog’s most frequently viewed pages. It just never generated much activity with people submitting behavioral formulas for co-workers or famous business people. Just figured out the March 28, 2009 column!

May 30, 2008 – Fixing the “Hail Mary” - This is a fave because it involves spirituality and is the most farfetched piece this year: imagine improving something 450 years old because someone with completely fresh ears misunderstood what everyone else was saying. A great testament to actively soliciting fresh perspectives and not always doing things the same way every time.

June 20, 2008 – “The Starry Night” – A story I'd been telling people informally for several years about a truly wonderful, creativity-enriching teacher. Once again, the blog provided the opportunity to finally share it with the broader audience that Matt Barr’s creativity deserves.

August 29, 2008 - “It’s a Masterpiece!” – Another real life occurrence. A parent, who could have been gruff, impatient, or indifferent, excited his child beyond belief and reaffirmed the young guy’s creativity by giving him the best possible answer to a question about his drawing. The young man was so full of creativity, he inspired another post with his fun questions during our flight to Washington, D.C.

September 22, 2008 – Giving the Bride Away – Attending our niece’s wedding inspired a variety of posts about expertise, branding, and seeing things from different perspectives (i.e., backwards at 65 mph). This post started the week, touching on the unconventional life Valerie’s created for herself and the learning opportunities it provided her uncle, who was able to do something he never thought he’d do: walk the bride down the aisle!

November 17, 2008 - Pumpkin Carving Squirrels – Number ten is probably my favorite because of its surprising ending and my sense of utter stupidity. I’m very willing to admit when someone is more creative than me, even if they are only seven inches tall!

Enjoy the look back! Thanks for your readership and here’s to a 2009 full of innovation and great successes!

Celebrating an Unconventional Life

We were in Denver this past weekend for my niece’s wedding. Travel always spurs blog ideas, so this week touches on ones from the trip.

Living an unconventional life isn’t something to which I’m inclined. My life tends to fall within some fairly standard bounds, allowing for the uncontrollable events that life always holds.

As I pointed out in the toast at the wedding reception, my niece, in stark contrast, had an unconventional life thrust upon her almost from birth.

Growing up amid a care group that depended on her extended family and close friends, she’s an interesting blend - a very loving young woman with certain traditional views surrounded by some very different experiences and twists on life. At several crucial junctures though, she has made incredible decisions that I view with tremendous respect and pride in her judgment. And among traditional aspects of the ceremony and reception, there were multiple unconventional elements for those that wanted to look for them. It was quintessential Valerie!

The whole trip was a reminder that it’s important to be open to and learn from life perspectives and behaviors that are very different from your own. Try to look for points of agreement where you may share views. And maybe wait a few minutes (or a few days, or even until the next trip) to provide your wisdom on life and how to live it. In so doing, you may get to learn all kinds of new things about tattoos, snowboarding, and what it means to be a polite graffiti artist!

Elitch Gardens Part II - Doing It Backwards

There are several posts here about looking at situations in different ways.

Another new way to look at things became evident while riding a backward roller coaster at Elitch Gardens. These coasters go out and then return you backwards along the same track. The Boomerang roller coaster provided a wonderful and surprising sensation since it was impossible to match up the forward and backward experiences as mere opposites. Going through the ride backward created completely different sensations.

We likely all have processes that we’ve run in a particular direction time after time. Take a cue from the new sensations created by the Boomerang and step through a familiar process backwards. Starting from the end and working your way to the beginning of a process can yield truly new insights to help make the forward process even stronger.

Valerie

You Find Experts Everywhere You Look

Experts are everywhere so in unfamiliar situations look for them to help you perform better. How to spot them?

• Focus on people displaying multi-dimensional talents or responsibilities
• Observe who others go to with questions – irrespective of formal title or position
• Watch for people who look as if they know what they’re doing
• Pick out those who appear to informally take charge

Setting up wedding reception music the night before my niece's wedding ceremony in Denver, Chris was clearly the expert. Though never sure of his official title, he was a wealth of information about the hotel sound system, the reception set up, and how long the event would last and wind down. He predicted that after 4 hours there would be 15 people left; the next day, 3 hours and 50 minutes into the reception, there 16 people remaining. Chris knew what he was talking about!

Another advantage of finding experts is that it’s fun to push them to tap their knowledge to devise innovative approaches.

The wedding was on the hotel’s patio, and that morning Nate (my nephew) and I were still determining how to get enough volume through our small speakers. There were, however, four speakers outside playing house music. While Chris wasn’t available, Warren, who had cleared our table at breakfast (see the bullet about multi-dimensional responsibilities), was. I explained what we hoped to accomplish, showed him a hidden audio jack on the wall, and within 15 minutes, we were playing the ceremony music through the speakers. The hotel had never done this before, but now plans to make this available for future events.

The key was being open, willing to learn, and allowing ourselves to be seen as knowledgeable but uncertain. That’s when an expert will almost always go out of his or her way to come up with an ingenious solution. So remember, look for telltale signs of expertise to help you get smarter when you need it most.

Valerie