Learn this

[Tim Wilson]

FANTASTIC video! Thanks!

Two more things to learn:

1) New York is not just the greatest city in the world. It is the center of the galaxy, if not the entire universe. Go with the flow.

2) As amazing as that cab driver was, never take a cab from La Guardia to midtown. Ever. Almost without exception, American cabs are used police cars. The back seat is where the PRISONERS used to sit.

Spend the few extra dollars for a town car. You’ll arrive feeling comfortable and fresh, and not like you’ve been riding for 30 minutes in a prisoner compartment. Dude, not even the WORST prisoners spent that long in the back of that cop car. Town car.

Seriously, though, this is a truly great presentation. Thanks again!

Tim Wilson
Associate Publisher, Editor-in-Chief
Creative COW Magazine

My Blog: “Is this thing on? Oh it’s on!”

Don’t forget to rate your favorite posts!

[Mark Suszko]

1) New York is not just the greatest city in the world. It is the center of the galaxy, if not the entire universe. Go with the flow.

We Chicagoans are easy-going enough to let you folks keep on believing this, long as it makes you happy.

[Tim Wilson]

>>>We Chicagoans…<<< ...live in the SECOND City.

[Mark Suszko]

Hey, New York is a lovely city too…. you gots a very nice place over by dere…

…be a shame if somethin’ was to… “happen”… to it….

ANYWAY… let’s concentrate on this guy’s speech and what we can take away from the cab driver story.

[Tim Wilson]

In all seriousness, here’s a bold suggestion: show me your mission statement, I’ll show you mine.

The thing is, I don’t have one. I used to. Not just for my job as a whole, but for every mission my team undertook. It was that simple idea that if you don’t know where you’re going, you won’t get there. It’s actually bigger than that. Distilling the essence of your job/role/task, etc. to a sentence that makes sense when spoken aloud gives you clarity, and even power.

None of these fake “marketing” sentences, either. No words that your parents or kids don’t understand. The goal is clarity. The adjectival form of “essence” is “essential.”

So I’m going to work on this. Everyone else should too, and share the results with the class. We can help sharpen each other’s focus, and maybe even learn something about what each of us actually DOES.

I said this in my first post on this thread, and will again – a GREAT video.

[Terry Mikkelsen]

For those struggling with a start, here’s the mission statement for my Dad’s greenhouse business:

“Your supplier of choice, for premium propagated plant material.”

I’ve always loved the first part (your supplier of choice). We realize that you have chosen us. We intend to do business respectfully so that you continue to choose us.

Tech-T Productions
http://www.technical-t.com

[Mark Suszko]

My informal one is just this: Solve the client’s communication problem, and advise the client, thru your expertise, as to what you think is in their best interest; not just what they want to hear, but what they need to know.

end of line

That mission statement doesn’t say anything specific about video, because frankly, not every problem is truly solved by making a video. If there is a more effective thing they can do, as the guy they picked to advise and solve their need/problem, you are honor-bound to say “this may cost me business, but you should do x instead”.

The few times I’ve had to do that, it has never cost me business. Not any that I would miss, anyway. The guys that just nod unquestioningly and take orders to make crap product that they know won’t work, don’t make lasting relationships with clients, and are the first ones cast aside when the ill-advised project doesn’t meet expectations. I think they give our business a bad reputation, which only depresses the market for all.

We are in the communications problem-solving business. Not a commoditized hardware business. We use whatever techniques and technology we need to do the job the way we think best.

Oh, and I’m taking this goldfish out of the office with me. Anybody coming with?

[Steve Martin]

I like a challenge. I’ve never actually stopped to think about our mission statement.

When I read the Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, the author, Steven Covey, indicated that the exercise of developing a mission statement can be painstaking process of writing and re-writing. I gave it some thought at the time, but never actually did it.

So here goes the first rough-cut. From a professional standpoint as it relates to what we do, I think my company’s mission statement might go something like:

To use technology to effectively tell our client’s stories with creativity, honesty, and integrity.

Sounds accurate, but kind of lofty.

Production is fun – but lets not forget: Nobody ever died on the video table!

[Tim Wilson]

[Mark Suszko] “We are in the communications problem-solving business. Not a commoditized hardware business”

Brilliant point. While I’m still chewing the cud on a bovine mission statement, we talk a LOT about how we are NOT in the web business.

Your informal statement is a wonderful start. To Steve’s point below, you can probably turn that into two sentences for readability, and still take full marks for clarity, brevity and impact.

[Steve Martin] “….t the exercise of developing a mission statement can be painstaking process of writing and re-writing.”

It really is! Especially when you have a whole lot of people working on it. It’s funny, too – the first suggestions are almost to tweak a word or two, but it doesn’t take long before somebody offers something COMPLETELY different. Often a direction that has nothing to do with the original one. They start to reflect what each of the stakeholders feels is most important.

Having a unified mission statement starts to feel like a uniform, in the best possible sense. You have your individual contributions to make, but when you put it on, you’re ready to GO. You feel pride in being a team, and ready for anything.

[Steve Martin] “‘To use technology to effectively tell our client’s stories with creativity, honesty, and integrity.”

Sounds accurate, but kind of lofty.”

Lofty can be a problem for a slogan or motto, but is perfect for a mission statement. How often do we meet our own standards? The mission statement is a reminder of what those are, and challenge ourselves to do better.

Not to be all rah-rah, because by nature, I’m not. But the process of distilling vision was always my favorite part of being in the “business” world.

Tim Wilson
Associate Publisher, Editor-in-Chief
Creative COW Magazine

My Blog: “Is this thing on? Oh it’s on!”

Don’t forget to rate your favorite posts!

[Mark Suszko]

Tim, you reminded me of the scene in Robocop 2, when they “update” Robocop’s Prime Directives. In the first movie, he had three basic generic rules in a clear hierarchy. In the sequel, the company focus groups and marketers get involved in his update, and add in hundreds more imperatives, some of them conflicting, many of them trivial, and Peter Weller’s cyborg character can’t hardly walk and talk, much less fight a bad guy, because his processors are maxed out grinding thru all the glop.

My feeling is that mission statements, like some video projects, can get bogged down when the clients try to put too many things in with equal weight and conflicting goals. Kind of like email sig files: if they are longer than the message they are attached to, you’re doing it wrong.