Kathie Melocco - Health Activism

Blog dedicated to Social Justice and Health and Wellbeing Activism

September 29, 2010

Marketing Mastery Bootcamp – a passionpuslator event

I was reading Sir Ken Robinson’s wonderful book ‘The Element’ and was struck by a wonderful story he led with as his opening and to illustrate that all of us have a natural wonder about us, it is just that over the years life experiences, education and our own belief processes eventually get in the way of us being creative and thwart for many of us our own natural talents and passions.

It goes something like this: ‘An elementary school teacher was giving a drawing class to a group of six year old children. At the back of the classroom sat a little girl who normally didn’t pay much attention in school. In the drawing class shed did. For more than twenty minutes, the girl sat with her arms curled around her paper, totally absorbed in what she was doing. The teacher found this fascinating. Eventually, she asked the girl what she was drawing. Without looking up the little girl said, “I’m drawing a picture of God.” Surprised the teacher said, ‘But nobody knows what God looks like.”

The girl said, “They will in a minute."

A beautiful story,it certainly reminds us young children are wonderfully confident in their own imaginations. Sadly most of us lose this confidence as we grow up. Ask a class of first graders which of them thinks they are creative and they’ll all put their hand up. Ask a group of university students this same question and most of them won’t.

We are all born with tremendous natural capacities, and we simply lose touch with them as we spend more time in the world. Ironically, one of the main reasons this happens is education. The result is that too many people never connect with their true talents and therefore don’t know what they’re really capable of achieving.

This week I spoke to a large group of business owners keen to learn the in's and out’s of social media. All attendees had participated in a 7 day social media learning intensive from how to use twitter, facebook, linkein and so on.

My presentation was about putting it all together and guess what? All the training in the world won’t deliver results unless you put together a creative campaign that is different, innovative, fresh and inspires others to take action.

So I spent a lot of time during the presentation talking about creativity, innovation, the long tail and social media best practice campaign models. Why? You can learn all the how to’s of social media but if you fail to develop a creative campaign that resonates with your audience you miss a wonderful opportunity to inspire others to take meaningful action.

Why am I using the words inspire and meaningful? Maybe because I have yet to meet a business owner that doesn’t have a real purpose that they enjoy sharing and, this purpose has the potential to transform their brand into something that adds value and makes a difference. Be it a cause they contribute to, the way their culture provides service, a unique product offering and so on.

Just look at the great case study of Zappos. They sell shoes! But their whole customer and cultural experience is about delivering a unique customer experience no matter the channel of communication and in so doing they have empowered their employees and customers as evangelists for the brand. Be it on the phone, via email, in social media and more.

At our forthcoming Marketing Mastery Bootcamp in October we are going to explore exactly that with each attendee identifying what is the unique selling point of their company and how can this be turned into a campaign that makes a difference. Sure we’ll cover the nuts and bolts but it is my goal to ensure that everyone leaves with a complete A-Z blueprint for how they are going to drive marketing through their business to deliver the results they are seeking to achieve. That requires tow things: 1. The uh huh moment of what communication can truly make a difference and 2. A sense of personal passion to stay the course to deliver that and not get sidetracked by other things.

I’m really looking forward to working with 50 dynamic business owners and hoping you will join us too.

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