In the spring of 1984, Chris resigned from her job at Good Morning America and moved to Chicago to produce a new local talk show. A.M Chicago.
The host, an unknown from Baltimore, was a woman called Oprah Winfrey.
For the next seven years Chris was part of a very small group that managed the development of the show, the studios and Oprah’s personal profile. She and Oprah travelled the country together, building both the business and the brand by balancing the need to expose the message with the importance of protecting its value.
As in all great and enduring relationships they taught and learned from each other. And marveled at the journey of a black woman from “nowhere” (as Oprah described her background) to the most powerful media influence on the planet.
That no one could forecast how far this would go is true. But the practices that were instilled in those early days created the platform that have allowed Oprah to do what she wanted on her terms. Including deciding how and when to evolve.
In today’s news the media is reporting the final episode of the Oprah Winfrey Show as an end.
It is in fact a transition. To see if she can build something that has value beyond her own personal reach.
The Oprah Winfrey Network may outlive her. Or it may simply prove that without Oprah, there is no business. But she is unafraid to try. Or to let go of her lifeboat.
And though it is easy to decide that a billionaire has little at stake, this ignores the fact that every founder is emotionally intertwined with their business. Often to a point of paralysis.
One of the things we do most successfully is to help owners take responsibility for their business by separating themselves from it. Which creates the possibility that the business can exist without them.
It’s taken Oprah 25 years to do so. But this is her first step to discovering whether when she is gone, she has created a legend.
Or a legacy.
This One Is Personal
I had pause to reflect last night on some personally significant events this week.
The least of which was to notice that I passed 60,000 words on this blog since I began. Which is the size of a decent size book. And a process that has taught me more specifically what I think.
Along the way a lot of people have said they’re glad I write every day. And no false modesty here, I value the fact that more and more people are spending a minute or so a day reading these thoughts.
Both because it’s gratifying as a human being to know what you're doing is worthwhile. And because I am certain it is possible to be more present in how you build a business. And certain that when you are, it creates a better life. For the business owner and for everyone around them.
This is an altruistic view as well as an economic one. A trait I have discovered becoming more important to me. A benefit of getting older.
I have come to recognize the trust and faith that clients place in us when they hire us. Clients who in many cases have been doing the same things the same way for a long time, and have come to two conclusions.
There is no silver bullet.
There is a better way. And we have discovered what that is.
I share many of those discoveries in this blog. And that and my work with PAWS Chicago are reasons I feel excited about what is ahead.
If there are topics you'd like answered, add a comment and I'll cover them in future posts. And anything else you want to debate. I'm going to do what I can to turn this into a two way street.
And the other events of the week that prompted this pause to reflect?
I saw my step mother for the first time in ten years. My father launch a new book. And someone very close to me undergo a routine medical event that involved general anesthetic.
Which I have discovered makes the word ‘routine’ a medical marketing tactic.
Thank you, as always, for your time.
Playing The Percentages
“The dumbest decision I’ve ever seen.”
This was one of the kinder epithets thrown at Bill Belichik over the last two days. Bill is the head coach of the New England Patriots. He’s won three Super Bowls already, and is generally regarded as having already earned a place in the Hall of Fame as a coach. Everyone who has an opinion regards him as the best coach in the NFL. Everyone. By some distance.
On Sunday night, in the biggest game of the year so far, he made a decision. 4th down. His team’s 28 yard line. 2 yards to go. 2 and a half minutes to go. His team leading by 6.
He decided to go for it.
In the moment that it happened, there was a gasp. From the crowd. The announcers on tv. And from every person watching around the world. All of us were stunned.
The play gained 1 yard. And the Patriots turned the ball over on their own 29 yard line to arguably the greatest quarterback in the game. Peyton Manning of the Indianapolis Colts.
1 minute 47 seconds later the Colts scored. And 13 seconds after that, the Patriots had lost.
For 24 hours, the airwaves were filled with commentators berating Belichik. Include me in that group. ‘You don’t do that,’ was our collective consideration. Ever. Period.
Bill Belichik made mistakes that night. But that decision, I have come to realize, was not one of them.
People judge decisions by the results all the time.
Which is categorically and absolutely wrong.
Decisions should be judged by the quality of the thinking and information that went into them.
Not by what happened afterwards. The results of which are affected too much by chance and external forces.
When a decision creates a bad outcome, the predilection to focus on the result means we learn almost nothing from the outcome. And a bad result and no learning is the ultimate lose-lose.
Worse, it convinces us that the alternative option was correct. Which is the case far less often than we believe. A lose, lose, lose.
In Bill Belichik’s case, the decision was derided because it didn’t work. And yet, the logic behind it was absolutely sound.
If the Patriots had gained two yards on the play, not one, they would have won the game. They could run the clock out and prevent the Colts from getting the ball back. One play, win the game. 100%
If they punt the ball, they give away the 100% option. Most pundits believe the Colts had a 33% chance to drive 70 yards in two minutes and score the winning touchdown. Better, they said to make them go 70 yards than 29.
Which ignores the fact there was a 100% option on the table. Which beats 66% every time.
Bell Belichik is a thick-skinned guy. But even he appeared rattled by the aftermath. I suspect if a similar situation comes up, even he won’t try it again.
Which would itself be a mistake. Because the real question he should analyze is why the play he called gained one yard not two. And whether there was a play more likely to create the outcome he wanted.
To win.
Learning from our mistakes is critical. In business and life. It’s how we evolve as a species.
Which means first recognizing what is a mistake.
Why The 12 Days of Christmas Are Worth Only 9.6.
In 1993, the Wharton School economist Joel Waldfogel published an article called ‘The Deadweight Loss of Christmas”.
He contended that when you matched the cost of each gift with how much value the recipient attributed to it, there was a shortfall of $12 billion.
Thus empirically proving the concept that it is better to give than receive. About 20 percent better in economic terms.
Which strikes me as a lesson for any business.
Knowing what you can sell your customers and knowing what they would like to buy are two different value propositions.
And when your customers finally figure out that they are more valuable to you than you are to them, they won’t be thinking about how to ‘re-gift’ you.
They’ll be thinking about how to return you.
Unopened.
6 Steps To Using The Commercial Real Estate Bubble To Your Advantage
I’ve been working on a novel for longer than I care to admit. Having finished it some time ago, I have finally started the re-write.
Every writer has a process that is natural to them. Mine, I have leaned, requires I first place the location of each chapter before my characters start to do anything. I read somewhere that character + location = plot. That is certainly true in my case. And a vivid location gives context and purpose to the people that come alive in my book.
The same applies in the real world. Finding an office space that supports and enhances the purpose of your business has a lot to do with the quality and originality of the work the company produces.
Commercial real estate is forecast to be the next great bubble to burst in the economy. Unlike residential loans, commercial real estate typically operates under five to seven year terms. The downward pressure on landlords through defaulting tenants and shrinking demand for office space reduces income to real estate owners, just as many mortgages are coming due for renegotiation.
The consequence puts renters in good standing in powerful positions to negotiate more favorable terms. Lengthening the term of a commitment in exchange for lower rent and space improvements for instance creates both an economic and emotional win at a time when either are hard to come by.
If you rent from a landlord who owns multiple properties, and almost all of them do, exploring their other buildings, even if you still have two or more years to run under your current lease may create a win-win.
If you have less than two years left on your current lease, have your broker analyze every building in your target area.
In either case, here is a six step plan for improving your real estate situation:
- Define the five best and five worst aspects of your current space situation. This should include things like expansion rights, sound, light and temperature quality, and convenience to transportation and restaurants. Issues that affect your staff’s daily experience and your company’s future growth.
- Ask a real estate broker to give you a list of the other buildings your current landlord owns together with current occupancy rates and most recent deals
- Ask your broker to analyze each building against your list of best and worst features - color code each improved feature as green, each equivalent feature as orange, each lesser feature as red
- Any building that you evaluate as all or predominantly green with no red features is worthy of a serious negotiation with your landlord. This negotiation should include: base rent; term; escalation rates; loss factors ( an enormous issue in New York City where loss factors can often exceed 20-25%) landlord build-out allowance and number of months of free rent.
- Compare the new deal to the cost and disruption of moving: moving costs; changes to printed collateral, websites, and information systems; technology infrastructure; and potential loss of business during any physical move.
- Decide. If the comparison is close, go back and ask for one major concession that would make the deal a no brainer.
This economy has wrought a lot of destruction to small businesses. But it can also provide the foundation for sustained, long term growth.
Whether you choose to use it that way is just that. A choice.
Philosophical Friday: Loyalty
Most business owners value loyalty.
In themselves and their staff.
Which makes it hard for them to fire anyone.
And rarely before things become untenable.
Which is loyal to the employee in question.
But disloyal to everyone else.
What Napoleon Can Teach Us About Business
Edward Tufte is one of the world's leading authorities on presenting vast amounts of complex data in such a way that it tells simple, powerful stories.
He has self-published four books that are filled with incredible examples that range from the evolution of music to the design of the Vietnam War Memorial - the genius of which is that it lists the names of those it remembers not alphabetically, but by date. Which allows any visitor to see the context and the relationship in which lives were lost. The story of their sacrifice. Not simply the fact of it.
One of the most illustrative examples that Tufte presents is shown below - sadly in limited resolution. You can buy the poster or his books through his website.
The image is a graphical representation of Napoleon's march on Moscow in 1812. The brown line represents proportionally the number of men under his command on the march to Moscow. The black line, the number during the return.
At various points you'll see the line's thickness changes dramatically, with the corresponding event provided in a call-out below. For instance, at one stage more than half the remaining force was lost crossing a river, a story that is suddenly brought to dramatic and vivid reality based on the thickness of a black line. The date is recorded, as is the temperature. No small factor in Russia.
This diagram represents a historical reflection of fact. But it's not very hard to envision this approach being used as the projection of a proposed strategy. Afer all, many of the facts were known in advance: seasonal temperature; distance; position of major obstacles.
Sadly, it's the kind of analysis that escapes most business owners who, like Napoleon are fixated on the next big win, as opposed to serious consideration of what they are actually trying to achieve and instead rush headlong into short-term glory. Or worse short-term survival. Worse because surviving is the first step to dying.
As we expand our consultancy and talk to more business owners I'm struck by three things.
1. How much potential exists to build truly great businesses
2. How much effort, money and intent is being expended
3. How much of that is being mis-applied
Napoleon was not the first person to have big dreams.
But as the diagram shows, the difference between a dream and a nightmare can be the thickness of a line.
Do You Want Your Company To be The Best In The World? Go Ahead.
One of the most influential voices in the fashion industry today lives in the suburbs of Chicago. Her name is Tavi Gevinson.
She is 13.
She’s passionate. Has a point of view. Uses the web to express herself. And didn’t know all this shouldn’t be possible in the cynical, political world of The Devil Wears Prada.
One of the first things we do when we work with a new company is to discern their underlying greatness. Then we look to see if there’s an area they can own. As in ‘best in the world’ own.
It often takes a little while for us to convince them that they have the capacity to be truly great.
And sometimes a little longer to convince them they have the right to be.
But once they accept that they do, the energy that releases is extraordinary.
In today’s world, you can lead an industry from anywhere.
What does your company do better than anyone, and what are you going to do about it?
A LinkedIn Test
Depending on when you get this, today is a two-for-one day.
I participate in social media for a number of reasons. And I've come to use Twitter and Facebook for two different purposes.
Twitter is becoming a modern form of journalism. Real-time in which I provide the editorial filter. Facebook is more personal, and lets me stay in touch with people I probably otherwise couldn't for reasons of time and distance.
I have begun to get more and more requests to join some people's LinkedIn networks. I haven't yet found the value of LinkedIn - though 80% of businesses now use it as their primary tool for finding candidates.
One of the features on LinkedIn is the ability to give and receive recommendations. In 3 years I've given one and received none. Fairly typical I suspect. And an indicator of the antipathy most people bring to LinkedIn. Obligation as opposed to expectation.
Tonight I read that LinkedIn and Twitter are now connected. And so I thought I'd clean up my LinkedIn profile just in case.
In the process I discovered you can ask for recommendations. From up to 200 people.
I only have 61 connections.
I asked them all.
I'm curious to see how many respond and what comes from this.
I'll let you know.
Or you can join me on LinkedIn and see for yourself.
Why The Web is A Bad Business Model
The internet is the greatest missed opportunity in the history of business.
Doubt that? Compare how much you have received from the internet to how much you have paid.
You’ve paid the people who laid the wire. The people that made the modems. The people who make the processors, the keyboards and the screens and the smart phones. And the people who sell you things through it.
But have you ever paid for it? And would you now?
At a breakfast meeting in LA last week, a group of highly influential media and communications industry executives were asked how many read the Wall Street Journal. Everyone raised their hand. Then put them down when asked if they would pay for an online subscription.
We all regard the internet as free.
Not because anyone decided to make it so. But because no one decided not to.
An event that went unnoticed at the time. Because no one was looking.
Today, YouTube streams 1.2 billion pieces of video. Per day. Which means every person on the internet, on average is watching one YouTube video per day.
A recent analysis suggests YouTube’s financial performance is improving and it may only lose $170 million this year.
Although Credit Suisse back in April forecast a $470 million loss this year.
Either way, imagine creating something that is being used 1.2 billion times a day worldwide and worrying how much money you’re losing. If they charged a nickel, they’d be pulling in $60 million a day.
A lot of people are spending a lot of time trying to figure out how to monetize the web. And eventually, undoubtedly they will. Mobile apps are part of the solution.
But as you build your own business, the history of the internet offers an important lesson.
What happens today affects tomorrow. Often more than we want.
Changing that around means being conscious that today has two agendas. The present and the future.
Ignore the latter if you wish. You’ll see it again soon enough. Only this time, it will be calling the shots.
What I Learned From Jon Miller
I’ve been in LA for a week, working with our remarkable associate Jamie Gutfreund. We’ve met a lot of people and created a lot of work. Powerful signs of optimism in an environment that will be difficult until well into 2010, and evidence of why entrepreneurs are such drivers of the economy.
We’ve met with business owners, venture capitalists, professional service providers, lenders, and corporate leaders.
The best known of these was Jonathan Miller, the CEO of Digital Media for News Corp which owns Fox, Sky, the Wall Street Journal and MySpace, among others.
Jon talked about the explosion of mobile web access. In China, 350 million people will be on the web in two years. More than the entire population of the U.S. Most will access it exclusively through a mobile device.
As he said, it’s not the next big thing. It’s the big thing.
He talked about the difference between My Space and Facebook, and thinks the reason the former is struggling and the latter exploding is that MySpace was built for the short term, and Facebook for the long haul.
And he talked about Rupert Murdoch’s relentless energy to figure out what’s next. Of everything he discussed, this struck me as the most enduring.
Entrepreneurs big and small share Mr Murdoch’s limitless curiosity.
The thing that separates the successes from the failures is not money or hard-work.
It’s a plan that makes every action meaningful.
Not successful. Because even the best business owners only get it right slightly more than half the time.
But until you know what you’re trying to achieve, there’s no way to measure whether you are.
Philosophical Friday: Perfection
We live, according to Plato, in a shadow of the real world.
Here, each thing is an imperfect representation of its perfect form. The perfect chair. The perfect smile. The perfect company.
The shadows are beginning to lift. Albeit slowly.
All the more reason to remind ourselves of how we see perfection.
And to raise our sights a little higher in its pursuit.
Partnership
We are regularly hired to resolve partnership issues.
Having managed an ownership structure of seven partners ourselves, it’s an area we understand practically and emotionally. Two components that play heavily in every case.
Partnerships are formed at times of hope and expectation. Too often they end in discord and angst.
There is no reason they should.
Partnerships focus too much on the benefits of working together. And too little on the needs of each individual.
Only by planning for your differences, can you build a partnership that ends as well as it begins.
The Purpose of a Company
Defining the purpose of a company is the hardest and most necessary step to building a Better Business.
Peter Drucker, probably the most acclaimed management consultant in history, believed the core purpose of any company is, ‘to create a customer.’
I mis-understood this the first time I read it and replaced ‘create’ with ‘get’.
Which is a bit like replacing ‘sell’ with ‘buy’ in your view of the world. A mistake which many companies are making at the moment.
Getting a customer is child’s play. And usually a one-way transaction. They win. You lose.
Creating a customer means selling something of value.
To them. And to you.
Never Mind The Beef. Where’s The Plan?
Sad news in the advertising industry this week with the demise of Cliff Freeman & Partners, the legendary ad agency whose founder was responsible for, among other noteworthy entries, Wendy’s “Where’s the Beef?” campaign.
The Ad Age article that describes the company’s closure cites various causes, including lack of a succession plan, an inability to evolve with the changing media landscape, and failed merger attempts.
Creative service companies often end up like Mr Freeman’s. From king of the hill to an industry by-line in a decade.
These three reasons are present in virtually every case:
The inability or unwillingness of the founder to make themselves irrelevant. By the time Mr Freeman tried to do so, the company was operating from a position of relative weakness, and the management evolution appeared borne of desperation.
A relentless focus on the service that made them successful, without ever understanding the core strength that made those services valuable - as the creator of memorable brand personalities, in any medium.
Failed restructuring attempts. 80% of all mergers fail. When the underlying motivation is a shotgun wedding to fix a fundamental weakness, that number goes up into the high nineties. Mergers and acquisitions work when the chemistry is instinctive, or there is a clearly defined and articulated vision that one person takes responsibility for.
Mr Freeman isn’t the first to make these mistakes. And he won’t be the last.
But every one of them is avoidable.
At a time when the marketing food chain is changing before our eyes, the advertisng and production industries are in desperate need of better business models.
Head meet sand, however, is not one of them.
Eight Tips For A Simpler Life
1. Walk backwards to get your lunch today. So you can see where you came from.
2. Ask you kids’ school bus driver to make the journey tomorrow in reverse. So that he doesn’t get distracted by having to look ahead.
3. Next time you go food shopping, don’t think about what you’re going to make for dinner, just buy the first ten items you can find that are on sale.
4. If you discover your roof is leaking, throw a bucket on the floor and appreciate how great it is to have electric light in your house.
5. If your property taxes go up, demolish a bedroom. And a bathroom.
6. Ask everyone in your family to write down what they want to do next weekend. If you don’t get unanimous agreement, do nothing.
7. If your cable company over-charges you by $1.50, spend as much time as you need on the phone to get the mistake corrected, so that the mistake never happens again. Visit them in person, if necessary. No matter how far away.
8. If your accountant tells you your income tax bill is higher this year, ask to have your salary cut.
You probably won’t take any of these suggestions in you personal life. Who would?
Which makes us wonder why so many businesses and organizations are being run like this.
But leaves us less surprised at the results.
Philosophical Friday: Trust
It takes time to earn trust.
Consistency and transparency accelerate the process. But as employees or customers, we withhold wholehearted emotional investment until a company proves it deserves that from us.
I heard this week of a company which is dominant in its industry that has cut its staff salaries by ten percent this year. Across the board. Including its receptionist.
When asked why he had taken this step, the owner is reported to have said, “because I can.”
How you define success is entirely personal.
Which doesn’t mean it affects only you.
Your Business is Unique. Your Problems Are Not.
A little while ago, I put up on our website a list of the nine biggest mistakes we see entrepreneurs make. You'll find it here.
I re-read it again this weekend to see if the list needs updating. Instead, I was struck by how consistently we come across these issues, even in the most diverse businesses.
In the past month, we have started to see another.
Companies that believe the economy has turned around and that their problems are subsiding. That is now number ten.
We see ourselves as business optimists. We look for what can be done. Not what can't.
But we're also pragmatists. Who don't often accept the first answer as the whole story. And the story on this recession is a long way from being over.
House sales are up but prices are way down. The single largest deflationary influence in the American consumer's portfolio. Earning are up, but based on one-time savings in the form of lay-offs. Of consumers who can't contribute to the recovery until they get a job. And unemployment is forecast to rise through the first quarter. At least. Which doesn't address catastrophic vacancy rates in commercial real estate which don't have thirty year mortgages to act as safety nets. Many in fact come due in the next year, with the majority of borrowers upside-down on an asset-value to debt ratio.
If your business has still to define its essential value to its customers, and you're still acting reactively to surrounding events, you are guaranteeing only that you will continue to be a victim of other people's mistakes.
Not all companies have suffered in this economy. Hyundai and Apple, for instance, are having record breaking years. At a time when a new car and a new computer would seem low on anyone's list of priorities, understanding why they are thriving is valuable information.
The answer is simple. Value.
What's yours?
How do you release it?
And what are you going to do with it?
Business Unusual: Boards Summit '09
Earlier today Chris and I hosted a session at the Boards Summit called Business Unusual. It was an exploration of how companies can and must fulfil their long term potential if they are to meet the seismic changes facing creative businesses today.
I opened the presentation with a recap of the issues as we see them, then turned it over to Chris who hosted a compelling conversation with the owners of three companies: Furlined, Epoch and Motion Theory.
The text of my talk is here, together with the extraordinary images from Rodney Smith's work that I used to bring the narrative to life.
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Good morning. Welcome to Business Unusual. 
To start, can I ask how many of you have a definition of what business AS usual means today?
Or are comfortable predicting what the rules will be a year from now. Or five years from now?
The reason that no-one raised their hand is that the advertising food chain is dead. The model on which this industry has depended for fifty years, advertiser - agency - production company - post production and music doesn’t exist any more.
Today, everyone in this room faces a future that is entirely unknown.
One of the themes of the last two days has been the advertising industry’s adaptation to the digital age. Bob Greenberg’s talk this morning describes how the production model needs to adapt to the demands of digital technology.
Clearly, he’s right. He’s also one of the best, and only examples so far, of a company that started as one thing in the advertising supply chain evolving into something quite different. In the ten years since he led the way, you could argue no one has followed him.
But, in my view, talking about digital at all misses the point. It’s not the demands of digital that this industry is responding to.
It’s the demands of the consumer.
Which starts with the inability of traditional agencies to connect clients to audiences with the insight and impact they used to. Which in turn is creating all kinds of opportunities for other companies to step into that void.
Today, some of it is being filled by companies who are mastering the fact that connections to consumers are evolving weekly.
But even companies like Mekanism and Motion Theory and the Barbarian Group are faced with the reality that for all their fluidity and media ambivalence, where we will be as a society a year from now will require a completely new perspective.
Because the differences we’re participating in require a much bigger leap than even the introduction of television demanded.
The first television commercial was broadcast in 1941. To 6,000 homes in the New York metropolitan area. If the media planner had added Chicago to the buy, they would have reached another 50 television sets.
It took television 13 years to reach 50 million people.
It took facebook 9 months to add 100 million users. The same time it took Apple to download a billion iPhone apps.
The world is changing in real time. And when, almost certainly next summer, we are introduced to devices that finally merge entertainment and information into one by combining the best of our laptops and our televisions, it will all change again.
And yet, while the way society communicate undergoes a revolution, the advertising production community is gingerly exploring evolution.
The introduction of AICP Digital for instance, while clearly a step forward, also highlights how far this industry has to go. After all, today, what’s not digital?
The production community is trapped by its past. And can’t yet see its future. Which is no surprise. Give that we’re living through an epoch. A period of history that will be measured by what came before and what comes after.
Which makes the production community its own greatest obstacle.
Creative companies are usually started by people with a single-minded passion for a craft.
After working for someone else, they realize they’d rather work for themselves. Their talent and determination establishes their success. They focus on the work. Which attracts other like-minded people, the business grows, bringing financial success, more talent, perhaps another office, and for a number of years, 8-15 typically, they run a successful, and largely satisfying business.
Of which they are an integral and usually essential part.
Which isn’t a problem until one of two things happens.
One, the founders start thinking about what they want to do next, even if that is simply less of what they do now. Which reduces the company’s emotional and talent power supply.
Or two, the industry changes overnight, and redesigning the business model means the founders have to see themselves entirely differently.
Because they are the business.
After working for someone else, they realize they’d rather work for themselves. Their talent and determination establishes their success. They focus on the work. Which attracts other like-minded people, the business grows, bringing financial success, more talent, perhaps another office, and for a number of years, 8-15 typically, they run a successful, and largely satisfying business.
Of which they are an integral and usually essential part.
After all, what’s MJZ without David Zander? Radical without John and Frank? Smuggler without Patrick and Brian?
We see this model all the time. It’s why there are very few creative service companies that are more than twenty years old.
A tiny handful that are thirty.
And only one that we can think of that is forty.
Because creative companies almost never outlive their founders.
Which if you think about it as an industry, is an extraordinary waste of human, emotional, financial and creative capital.
After all, why shouldn’t there be great long-term brands in the creative services arena. Why shouldn’t Smuggler, Epoch, Human, or Framestore be just as relevant thirty years from now? Adapting, innovating, leading the change into the beam-me up Scotty world of 2040.
We believe every company has the potential to outlive its founders. And that would change everything.
Because when no one can predict what the world will look like even five years from now, those are exactly the kind of companies we need to build.
Companies that are fluid and adaptable.
Companies that see Business Unusual as Business AS Usual.
Companies that in our vernacular Plan The Last Day First.
This would represent a sea change. One that would unlock innovation in torrents. After all, creativity is the fuel of innovation, a natural resource in this industry.
It requires four things.
First. That we see the industry differently. Which the last two days have started to bring into focus. And which Bob’s talk provides one lens on. Though one that I think is still too agency centric.
Second. That we see our companies differently. And specifically, that we see what makes them great. Which is usually not what we think. After all, for 100 years Kodak thought they were a film company. They weren’t. They were an image capture company. A difference they realized too late.
Third. That we see ourselves differently. As innovators. Not passengers. Today, you can sit as high on the creativity food chain as you think you have a right to.
And Fourth. That as founders we learn how to make ourselves irrelevant. A condition most business owners avoid pathologically until it is too late to make a meaningful difference. But which is essential if your business is to outlive you.
Today the advertising food chain is one link long.
The advertiser.
What you do about that depends on how you build your company from here.
Faith
I am inspired by dogs.
They are not perfect creatures. One of ours has apparently taken to chewing the curtains.
But they imbue each day with an endless sense of the possible. And given one percent of an opportunity, they will take you along for the ride to joy.
They are resilient, optimistic, and forgiving. And they spend much more time trying, than they do feeling sorry for themselves.
Traits common to a better business and a better life.
In an email from my mother-in-law yesterday, I was introduced to Faith.
This is her story.
I am inspired by dogs.
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This is 'Faith' 
This dog was born on Christmas Eve, 2002. She was born with only two rear legs. She of course could not walk when she was born. Even her mother did not want her.
Her first owner also did not think that she could survive and he was thinking of 'putting her to sleep'.
But then, her present owner, Jude Stringfellow, met her and wanted to take care of her .
She became determined to teach and train her to walk by herself.
She named her 'Faith'. 
In the beginning, she put Faith on a surfboard to let her feel the movement.
Later she used peanut butter on a spoon as a lure and reward
for her for standing up and jumping around.
Even the other dog at home encouraged her to walk.
Amazingly, only after six months, like a miracle,
Faith learned to balance on her hind legs and jump to move forward.
After further training in snow, she could now walk like a human being. 
Faith loves to walk around now.
No matter where she goes, she attracts people to her . 
She is fast becoming famous on the international scene and
has appeared on various newspapers and TV shows.
There is a book entitled 'With a Little Faith' being published about her . 
Her owner Jude Stringfellew has given up her teaching post and plans to take her around the world to preach that even without a perfect body, one can have a perfect 'soul'. 
In life there are always undesirable things, so in order to feel better
you just need to look at life from another direction.
I hope this message will bring fresh new ways of thinking to everyone and that everyone will be thankful for each beautiful day.
Faith is a continual demonstration of the strength and wonder of life .
