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Negativity is highly underrated. Instead of insulating your business against it, consider these ways to leverage it. Own the hate, mitigate the sting. What if, instead of getting defensive when customers leave negative online reviews, you printed those nasty comments on employee shirts, carry out menus and other marketing materials? Turn feedback into inspiration. What if, instead of ignoring negative mentions of your product, you offered refunds as a…

Anything worth doing is worth making memorable. Considering how absurd and transient life really is, there’s no good reason not to add personality and surprise and bounce to the interactions that make up our days. That’s what gives our moments weight. That’s how we make each other feel alive. Think of it as an exercise in creative mindfulness. A mental recipe. An awareness plan for perceiving, experiencing and thinking…

Business is best when it’s about the service above what you really sell. But you can’t just claim, “We’re all about service.” You have to be more specific. Highly personable tech support, tightly connected user groups, fanatical logistics, unforgettable live events, capturing and using customer feedback, lighthearted social media engagement, amazing return policies, human beings answering the phones, classy employee interactions, elegant mobile technology, complete customization, accurate recommendation algorithms,…

Insight doesn’t come from expertise, it comes from doing detective work. Approaching the problem in a holistic, intelligent, comprehensive and systematic way so that the solution presents itself. Here’s a snapshot of the strategic process I’ve been using for more than a decade: Macro investigation. Issues including historical patterns, economic, social and cultural forces, the regulatory environment, any industry, distribution and technological concerns, and whatever other big picture trends…

A few months ago, the woman behind the counter at a grocery store asked me if I was wearing a nametag for any particular reason, or just to be ironic. “Actually, I always wear it,” I smiled. “Makes people friendlier.” She shrugged and handed me my receipt. And on the walk home, I thought to myself, “Ironic? Why would wearing a nametag be ironic? And if so, does that…

Any idiot can take notes. But if you want your voice to reverberate through people’s bones, if you want to make an impression that matters, you have to be more than a listener. Be a translator, a courageous interpreter of the world’s vagaries, adding facets, angles, new dimensions and refractions of light. Be a craftsman, using the source code as inspiration to create your own form of art that…

Word of mouth drives most of our country’s economy. Not because traditional marketing sucks, but because human beings, a species whose prime feature is its social nature, rarely do what they do by their own volition. The agent of decision making is interaction, not interruption. If we’re going to buy something, it’s because somebody we know already bought it. The catch is, few silver bullet solutions exist for getting…

Changing the world has never been easier. We have the tools, we have the power, we have the resources, we have the connections, we have the initiative, we have the people and we certainly have enough problems that need to be solved. What’s missing is a beacon to guide us, give us hope and show the way forward. A manifesto that serves as the poetry of a revolution. It’s…

The point isn’t to consume the content. The point is to be the first to comment on it. The point is to be the best at publicly deconstructing it. And to the point is to outdo everyone else in making fun of it. That’s why the volume of comments far exceeds the volume of content. Because that’s what nerds do, they obsess. They have hyperactive internal monologues passionately deconstruct…

Innovation isn’t about reinventing the wheel. It’s about taking two wheels that already work well on their own, but haven’t met yet, and helping them intersect in a novel way. The first step toward innovation is combination. Which of your two ideas need to have a baby?