Yay my blueberries are ripening up quite nicely!!
I’m one of those people that you have to keep your eye on or I’ll wander off into the woods and forget to come back.
“
| — | Jack White (via flightless) |
9. DO master the game – so that you know how and where and when to break the rules. DO be brilliantly and strategically disruptive.
10. DO learn how to take the heat. We are forged in fire. Stand up to controversy, criticism and conflict. People will shout us down because they rely on us being polite and turning away. Surprise them.
11. DO seek out mentors, guides, coaches and role models. DO ask for help.
12. DO turn around and mentor others.
13. DO embrace the struggle. Those are our defining moments.
It’s something a lot of brands forget, though. It brings to mind the death spiral Blackberry is in at the moment. It was just announced that its mobile platform has lost another half of its market share, year to year, from 2011 to 2012. It’s now at a paltry 6.4%, as opposed to Android’s 59% and Apple’s 23%.
Remember when Blackberry was the mobile “weapon of choice?” Sometimes I’ll catch an old TV show or movie where a character has to obsessively check his Blackberry and shake my head; it already seems like a different era. But the company blindly counted on that market dominance to continue, despite the fact that its users wanted what new devices, such as the game-changing iPhone, were delivering.
Blackberry stopped dancing with the people who brung them.
Gatorade almost fell victim to the same fate. For years, the brand could do no wrong. As the energy-drink market mushroomed, Gatorade’s sales soared. Seeing no downside, the brand decided to broaden its marketing from the traditional high-performance athlete to general consumers. But the brand hit the skids in 2009, falling almost 14% in the first quarter of the year, as well as losing a six-point share of the sports drink market in three months, their biggest dip ever.
Why? Well, for those everyday consumers, Gatorade was just a fad they could easily give up. When the recession took away a lot of purchasing power, they simply turned to lower-cost carbonated drinks (and even tap water) instead of Gatorade. Meanwhile, the base Gatorade had taken for granted—athletes, coaches and trainers—had been taken away by new lower-priced competition, such as the heavily promoted Powerade.
In 2010, Gatorade changed course, abandoned its broad consumer marketing, and put its focus back on the basics—athletes. Sarah Robb O’Hagan, president of Gatorade, knew where the company needed to go. O’Hagan, who was #23 on Fast Company’s list of The 100 Most Creative People in Business 2012, is now reaping the benefits of Gatorade’s recommitment to its roots, with sales rebounding with a robust 9% increase year-to-year in 2011. Here’s what she did right:
A Dream Deferred
by Langston Hughes
What happens to a dream deferred?
Does it dry up
like a raisin in the sun?
Or fester like a sore—
And then run?
Does it stink like rotten meat?
Or crust and sugar over—
like a syrupy sweet?
Maybe it just sags
like a heavy load.
Or does it explode?
When I look around me, though, whether it is sports or military personnel or people with Ph.D.’s, I see the same thing …
Some really, really good people
Some unmitigated bastards
And a whole lot of people in between
Someone on twitter said this quote came from John Wooden,
“Sports don’t build character so much as reveal it.”
Sautéed squash, onions, green, red, and yellow peppers.
Basil Spaghetti.
Bertolli Organic olive oil, basil, and garlic sauce.
