Tag: inspiration

Yesterday one of our team members shared his results on a recent Glassdoor office personality quiz. Sparking great interest, each of us decided to take the short questionnaire and see what our results were. So what did the results tell us about the dynamics of our office?

My flight was delayed from Atlanta to Los Angeles and it didn't matter. I was in high spirits, drinking sparkling mineral water in the Amercian Airlines Lounge and writing down my ideas of how I would now change the company's business plan in highsight of the first quarter of this year.

I am inspired beyond belief and like many entrepreneurs, having the motivation to kick goals, climb any mountain and put on a brave face even though you may be scared shitless - is something that comes very naturally to me.

It's not by accident that creative marketers are paid more money, are in greater demand and hold the key to a successful marketing campaign. 

Some are born that way and can come up with a creative campaign on the way to work, other's like to spend their time being inspired by the environment in which they live in, and of course, the one's who are time poor and like to surf the net, find the internet a great source for inspiration.

I personally like a combination of both and collaborative creative ideas always seem to draw the best inspiration from each of the different sources.

If you are looking for inspiration online, here is where I like to go:

1. Behance: 
This is a designers go to point for inspiration. Mostly the designs are clean and creative, and they cross many industry sectors allowing for creatives to be inspired by variety and relevancy which is very important.

How many people can relate to "I started from the bottom and now I am here"? I certainly can. There are literally millions of people who can relate to the lyrics and inspiration that hip hop / pop artist Drake uses in his songs and his everyday sayings.

I spoke with a young lass that worked behind a bar the other day mentioning that I was going to the concert and she said, "Every woman wants to be with him, and every man wants to be like him."

Twitter has become and integral part of my life since I joined in 2011. The microblogging site helps me to keep up with happenings in pop culture and events around the world.

Coming up on my 5th year anniversary on Twitter, I have compiled a list of my top 10 Twitter accounts to follow. This is by no means an exhaustive list, but these 10 are my must-follows.

My 10 Favorite Twitter Accounts to Follow:

According to Business Insider, the average full-time employee in America works about 1,700 hours per year.

If you don’t like the people that you work with, 1,700 hours is a lot of time to be stuck around them. That is why the work family is an important, but majorly overlooked, aspect of employment.

Like a real family, you don’t get to choose your work family, but making the best of who you have around will make your days a breeze.

"Every day do something that will inch you closer to a better tomorrow"

Inspiration is something everyone needs and admires. 

I've been terribly inspired of late. It all started with the beautiful and hugely talented Kristina Karlsson sending me a gift pack of inspirational products from her Kikki.k range. 

There is one thing that employees can learn from a Navy Seal that will be life changing - and that is to make your bed every morning to perfection. By completing this task, according to Navy Admiral William H. McRaven, who gave a talk to 8000 graduating students from the University of Texas last month, you would have completed the first task of the day.

I watched the video of his speech that clocked up 1.7 million views in 2 weeks on YouTube a few weeks ago and was inspired.

Of his 10 Life Lessons From A Navy Seal, here are 4 that resonated most with me:

1. If you want to change the world, start off by making your own bed. This makes perfect sense to me as once you have completed this task, it is easier to complete others. It also signifies that its the little things that we all have to do in our lives that at times we may see as pointless, that are instrumental in helping us achieve our goals.

2. If you want to change the world, find someone to help you paddle. You cannot do it by yourself no matter how good you think you are. Working as a team can help you accomplish things more quickly and effectively, keeping employees accountable to each other and increasing motivation to achieve the end goal.

3. If you want to change the world, don't be afraid of circuses. This means that you should not be afraid of failing and the repercussion of that. There will be times where you fail and as McRaven says, it will be painful, discouraging and will test you to your core. The ability to get through this and know that not only have you come through to the other end, but there will be more circuses in the future, will make you stronger and more determined to succeed.

4. If you want to change the world, don't ever, ever ring the bell. Giving up means you won't have to have any more circuses and it will give you immediate relief from the pain or challenges you may be facing, but if you do this, you will have the same situation pop up over and over again in life and you will do the same thing - ring the bell. It is impossible to succeed if you keep ringing the bell.

It caught my attention by accident. I was in an airport and Scarlett Johansson popped up on facebook. Apparently, after eight years of being a global ambassador for the anti-poverty group Oxfam International, their relationship had come to an end due to her doing a Super Bowl commercial for SodaStream.

Now, that's a word I haven't heard since I was a child. SodaStream was in every home when I was a child and at some stage, went down the same route of so many other popular brands that are "fads" and became a thing of the past.

The uproar was because SodaStream operates in Ma'ale Adumim, a large Israeli settlement in the occupied West Bank.

The pedigree marketing background in consumer products that CEO Daniel Birnbaum credits to his name, was the reason that SodaStream fell in his lap. A friend asked him some years to have a look at the operations with him as he thought it was undervalued. After much consideration, it was decided that for $6 million, they would buy SodaStream and Birnbaum would take over as CEO. 

I have watched Birnbaum and I would say that he has a "Steve Jobs" style about him and without doubt the same marketing nous.

Instead of selling SodaStreams to sit on your kitchen bench, he revamped the design so that it looked great on the bench and then started a multimillion dollar marketing campaign to showcase how much more environmentally friendly SodaStream is compared to Pepsi and Coke.

It was this head on approach that caused an uproar over this years Super Bowl Advertisements, causing SodaStream's original advertisement to be banned by Fox. Instead the advertisement was placed up on YouTube and received almost 13 millions worth of hits and was shared on every social media platform imaginable. On top of that, they received tens of millions of dollars in free editorial worldwide, literally putting SodaStream back on the map. It didn't harm them any having one of the most beautiful women in the world, sipping SodaStream from a straw. 

In an interview with USA Today, Daniel Birnbaum said of the whole debacle of using the phrase "Sorry, Coke and Pepsi." : "Which advertiser in America doesn't mention a competitor? This is the kind of stuff that happens in China. I'm disappointed as an American."

As a marketer, I think Daniel Birnbaum is a genius. He may be using big agencies, but I suspect that he has alot to do with just how successful SodaStream has become. From a $6 million investment, the business now has a billion dollar market cap and while they don't have the marketing budget of Coke and Pepsi, they are giving them a good run for their money by clearly differentiating their value proposition. Who doesn't want an environmentally friendly solution and to save money at the same time? As for taste, I am neither here nor there. They both taste different but I am fine to carbonate my water with a SodaStream if it means that I don't have cages of landfill that is directly contributed to my laziness of buying on the run.

John Rich, one of America’s most successful country music singers and star of US-version of Celebrity Apprentice, was one of the most inspirational people that I met during a recent trip to the United States.