On a recent trip to the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam, my son and I stumbled across an app entitled, “Touch Van Gogh.” It was an easy to use tablet application that demonstrates the impact time and light on Van Gogh’s most famous paintings. Iconic images we see in our mind’s eye are many shades from their parental color DNA at the time of inception. Blues were purples, yellows were heavier, stars shown differently, and even the brown of the floor had richer hues. Sliding the bar across the images, the before and after transformation of aging on each painting was remarkable. The experience was such a vivid and palpable reminder of the power of demonstration. The app oriented us to the images that were directly in front of us and provided a paradigm shift. No words or explanations were needed. The results were evident and I was hooked on the story and the impact of the museum’s curating and restoration consideration. The power of a hands-on experience manifested itself by letting me join the narrative..
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The Benefit of Sharing
A whole bunch of books is not remarkable in itself. However, when the collection represents the lifetime assemblage of art history texts, as is pictured above from the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, it serves as a beacon for those who share a passion for the arts. There is a fine line between hording and assembling. Hording is for our own benefit, cataloging is for the benefit of others.
Listen
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Listening has nothing to do with hearing the words spoken. Listening is understanding why the words were spoken.
~Simon Sinek
Do you understand what is being said by those who support the cause and those who have concerns?
Storytellers
Saw Lyle Lovett and John Hiatt in concert. What made the evening remarkable were the stories each artist told between songs.
“Stories are our attempts to share our values & beliefs with the hopes that we may attract those who believe what we believe. This is the basis of forming a trusting relationship. Story telling, therefor, is only worthwhile when it tells what you stand for, not what you do.”
Simon Sinek
In A Cloud
If you know where you are going, even when the way is not immediately visible you will find that you are not alone and have a committed band of followers traveling with you.
What Would You Remember?
If you competed in the Tour de France, what would you remember after riding for three weeks and over 3,400 kilometers? Would one stage be more memorable than another? Would you recall all the start and finish towns? How many sections of the course would be etched in your memory? Would you be more likely to recall a specific day if it were the hottest or rainy and extremely cold? What about pedaling climbs pitched at over 10% for hours to reach a mountain pass? Or the descents with hairpin turns and straight sections where you descended at over 100 kph? If you managed to secure one of the leader jerseys for a day, would that alter your focus?
Turns out that extremes stand-out. The moments that are anything but normal. So often we wonder why our cause does not get all the attention as we finish with the peloton (pack) every stage. In the Tour de France riders take inspiring chances to gain a stage win, attacking in the first minutes of a stage that might last five hours only to be caught in the final thirty minutes of racing. Why? For 90% of the race they are the story. The commentators spend the majority of the time talking about the breakaway. The cameras are tuned to them because until they are caught these riders represent the chance that something extraordinary might happen.
What do your fans remember? How do you stand out?
Service and Curtains
International travel is always an adventure. Magical moments mixed with ones that make you wonder why you paid for the adventure. Traveling to and from one’s destinations comes with its own special mindset. Many times we all just hope that nothing remarkable happens. The trip to the airport goes smoothly, security screening is predictable, the flight takes-off on time, you survive the in-air experience, land safely, and reach your chosen destination. Put your head down and keep out of the way is the mentality on the day.
What ones notices on an international flight is that the curtains that separates First, Business, and Economy classes seemingly carry a spell worthy of a Harry Potter movie. The same flight attendant who cheerfully fluffed the pillow of a First Class passenger, grabbed a water bottle to refill drinks in Business Class, can then walk the aisle of Economy ignoring pleas for special requests. Mathematically it makes sense, six First Class passenger, forty seated in Business Class, and two-hundred packed together in Economy. It is difficult to offer special attention to everyone so it is easy to draw a line of distinction at Business Class. The experience of sitting on one side or the other of the curtain can be remarkably different.
Is there a service break (a curtain between airline classes) in your enterprise? Does everyone receive the same experience? Do you divide customers and patrons based on a specific criteria? Have you sat in all the sections to understand their perceptions? What spell gets cast on your team when working with you biggest fan versus the most transactional members?
Contests- Wanna Race?
Have you noticed the numerous contests offered by social sector causes? Many are being generated from social media platforms or via organizational websites.
A very quick web search delivered the following contests:
Contests are relatively easy to run at a low cost. They can drives traffic to your website or social media platform, provide contribution from your fans and general public, engage community, and amplify your cause.
The Case Foundation has a great tutorial on how to run a video contest for your nonprofit.
Tattoo
Under what motivations would an individual get a tattoo of a Fortune 500 company on their arm? Which corporate seal would you be willing to walk around with to display every time your bare arms were visible? How much would you need to cheerish their product?
What if you could not even own the product? Would you get the tattoo then?
The company needs to represents something greater than its products, perhaps a movement. The next time you see a Harley-Davidson tattoo on an individual, ask them why they felt compelled to advertise for Harley-Davidson for the rest of their life. My guess is that their answer will not be about their ‘hog’. It is what the motorcycle represents. It is a movement. It is about freedom. It is about patrotism.
Would anyone put a tattoo of your organization’s logo on their arm? Is your logo representative of your programs and services or a movement? Is the logo tied to a static enterprise or a cause in motion? Is there a point of entry where I can align my reasons with your enterprise’s purpose.
Why would tens of thousands of people walk around with a yellow rubber band on their wrist? Why would politicians and heads of state add this accessory to their wrists? The LIVESTRONG campaign provided a perfect opportunity to align a cause in a public manner and bring one’s own story. It was a symbol of solidarity and support with those who were fighting, survived, or been lost to cancer. But more importantly it allowed the wearer to bring their own story. To be part of the movement and represent the personal. The wearer could share their connection to somebody impacted by cancer and yet be part of a cause.
What is the point of engagement for those seeking to intersect your cause with their own stories?
Put Your Signature On It
How does your staff and board put their signature on their actions?
What-if-concepts 