Monthly Archives: October 2009

A day in the life: global misfits

Posted on
Reply

Tonight was a typical day in the life of a Global Misfit. I was at a fabulous event hosted by Lionbridge at Localization World (full disclosure, I am totally biased here, remember who I work for) . No matter how many years pass in this industry, I never cease to be amazed by the eccentric company I’m lucky enough to keep.

We celebrated in a great bowling alley space and the party was, at least on the surface, not unlike any other Silicon Valley conference …with one rather notable exception, in the form of an army of global citizens we had the privilege of hosting, such as:

  • The Peruvian (photography hobbyist) from Adobe who moved here with every intention of going home after grad school and never left.
  • The start up CEO from New Zealand who speaks perfect Spanish (seriously, hardly any accent at all!) with a slightly South American flavor despite having lived in Guatemala.
  • The Argentinian from Cisco who lived in Colombia, speaks Portuguese and likes to argue with his colleague from Cameroon about soccer and who beat who in the last world cup.
  • The sales guy with a Southern drawl, who lived in Spain, sold industrial agricultural shipping containers in Guayaquil, Ecuador, now lives in DC and spends a week a month selling into Apple & Cisco.

Team_outing_Aug_2009 014

As I walked around the room full of the wild cast of characters, I was reminded of an article I read yesterday on Noreena Hertz. In it she says she believes “in a globalist agenda, but globalization isn’t just allowing companies to trade freely all over the world. It’s about what rights and responsibilities come with that.”

And I couldn’t help but wonder how one might go about bottling the collective wisdom in tonight’s room full of multilingual, global misfits. If it’s true that you have to walk in another person’s shoes to truly have empathy, then no one understands better than this group, the rights and responsibilities that come with globalization. Most have lived it first hand, and live it every day.

And at the end of the day, reaching people in the global market is -at it’s very core- about connecting and understanding people’s culture, language, and tastes…which is what empathy is all about, right?

All that to say, I realized tonight, I’m in the business of empathy! It’s not about going global, it’s about getting local…and empathy is the key doing it, and doing it well.

Peace.

Share on Facebook

Drink the water!

Posted on
2

I’m reminded of a time when it seemed like everyone on our team in Dublin was getting pregnant and going on maternity leave. Happy as I was to see their dreams of motherhood come true, I was a little panicked about the resilience of the bare-bones team that was left behind to hold the fort, and I [half jokingly] warned the last ones standing not to “drink the water!”

ferry

I see another interesting and quite different pattern emerging, and I feel like telling everyone quite the opposite….please, please, drink the water!

After being pretty well down for the count with something that I can only call the champion of all colds (no, no swine flu here!), I came back this week to an overwhelming to do list. Nothing new there. What was different this time however, is that I am equally overwhelmed (in a good way) with the inspiring signs of a paradigm shift all around us.

Rather than waxing endlessly about everything I’m seeing, I thought I’d give you a little snapshot here. Take a look for yourself, I doubt you’ll be able to finish without being a little excited about what’s in the air (or in the water?):

  • Nicholas Kristof’s Half the Sky Movement (I was lucky enough to meetkristof him last at the World Affairs Council event last Thursday!)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  • Kushal Chakrabarti’s microfinancing brainchild, Vittana, kushalcrowdsourcing student loans to the developing world (who I also had an opportunity to meet, along with several other young social entrepreneurs who are making things happen!)

 

 

 

 

This is a fraction of some of the amazing things happening around me, and I am giddy with excitement. What are you seeing?

Rethinking philanthropy, entrepreneurism and yes, even capitalism. It was time, wasn’t it? I must admit, I’m still processing and taking it all in, but whatever this is, I’m loving it!

Island Soul: People notice!

Posted on
Reply

Here’s another “are you kidding me!?” story from the consumer trenches.

I had a little gathering in my home a couple Sundays ago, and hired my favorite local Caribbean restaurant to cater the event. To give you some background, this is a small, but well-trafficked restaurant in a busy main-street of what is currently a trendy, up and coming neighborhood. They’ve been written up in all the local papers and websites, and even host a regular musical event twice a month.

While I can barely fathom how, Theo (the charming and cheerful owner) always recognizes me and comes over to check in on the latest happenings in the neighborhood. He spends as much time with me and my group when the place is bursting at the seams as on a quiet evening on a slow night. So while I wasn’t surprised that Theo decided to deliver the catered food to my house himself. I was surprised however, when he noticed that I was running around the house like a chicken with its head cut off, and promptly decided to take over manning the kitchen for me!

I was inordinately grateful just to have the owner of a popular local business deliver warm food! On time no less!

DSCN0687

Instead Theo went to work putting together a gorgeous buffet spread that was presented so beautifully (with things he dug out from my cupboards that I didn’t even remember I owned!) that I noticed my guests hesitated to eat it when the time came! He found some pans and warmed things that needed warming and even made sure that the various garnishes were presented just so.

Then when the first few guests started to trickle in, he snuck away and gave me a big hug on his way out the door!

Are you kidding me!?

Theo has owned multiple businesses and spent his early days learning customer service the Nordstrom way, so he knows customer service…but this time he really went off the deep end. Thankfully!

And the resulting goodness is hard to measure, but here is a quick run down of the things I saw come from this, (mainly for anyone who ever wonders if their good work ever goes unnoticed):

  • The event was a book signing with Rosanne Olson, who apart from being well known in her own field (she was on the Today Show promoting her book last year), is very well connected locally and took Theo’s business cards home with her that evening.
  • Before Theo left I was able to introduce him to a number of other guests who all ended up gushing about his food and going home with his cards and plans to visit him soon.
  • In chatting about his business while we prepared for the event, Theo told me about his plans to franchise, and I gave him a copy of my absolute favorite book on the subject, and offered to introduce him to a number of gurus in the field who I know will be great contacts to have.
  • It’s been two weeks and I still think of Theo daily (how many multi-million dollar marketing campaigns succeed at that?).
  • I don’t plan on catering with anyone else anytime in the near future (and I have about 5 large events I’m planning in the next month or two) .
  • I am extremely grateful for his help last month, and it’s come up in MANY conversations.

Olson_event

While it seemed like over the top customer service at the time, if you think about the results (customer loyalty, glowing references, word of mouth advertising…) and the fact that this all represented about an hour of Theo’s time, it’s really baffling why more of us aren’t camping out in our customer’s kitchens cooking them up something  nice!

:-)

Peace.

Impulse purchase

Posted on
1

This is a lovely little notepad I bought yesterday with fine paper and a strong, well-built spine, just begging to be scribbled on.

Notepad

Every once and a while you find something with just that right combination of timeliness, wit and brashness to be both impossible not to bring home AND not to laugh (embarassingly) out loud about.

People buy from people

Posted on
1

Doing research recently for piano purveyors, I found myself in a bit of a quandary.

I am a huge believer in the benefits of letting your personality shine (and I’m in good company). In fact I think that businesses that do well today, are showing their human side and tapping into the idea that people buy from other people.

People! Not bots, or telephone prompts. Real people, with personalities, quirks and little idiosyncracies that make the process of interacting with a business, a true exchange between humans. While it’s understandable that this becomes harder as growth happens, if the success of companies like Zappos teach us anything, it’s that it is -in fact- possible.

pianoSo the decision to steer clear of the large piano franchise in the area (with the polished but largely uninspired website and a not-so friendly salesperson) and instead go with a local business (with a rudimentary but highly informative & charming website) was a very simple one. The website looked like something from 1997, but contained the entire life story of the owner as well as a lovely -if slightly verbose- chronicle of his passion for pianos. The owner’s personality most certainly did shine through, and I was convinced this is where my business would land.

Fast forward to a few weeks later, and I am sad to report that I have compiled a litany of business basics that appear to have completely escaped my friend, the local piano guru. From returning my phone calls in a timely fashion, to reading emails or delivering when promised…the list is long, painful and unfortunate.

And here we come to my quandary…

  • the big dogs without personality don’t get my business
  • the little mom and pops without business acumen don’t keep my business
  • will someone sell me a piano already!? sheesh!

Having existed as both a bootstrapped entrepreneur and a director in publicly traded industry leader, my take away is this:

The proverbial holy grail of success, in any venture, lies in the carefully choreographed dance between being good at what you do (expertise), while also being great at letting your personality shine and connecting with your audience through phenomenal customer service.

In my experience, few businesses do both of these things, and the ones that do, hold the cards for the future generation of businesses. And to the little ones who blame their size and limited resources for customer service failures, I would simply say…look over at the big dogs, blaming their size and scale for the distance and difficulty connecting to their audience.

Big, little, broad, or niche, no one has the edge here…let your personality shine. People -have always, and will continue to- buy from people!

Wish me luck on my search!