Sitting in Seoul with C after turning a night of focus groups into a long weekend together in a very cool city. I’ve been a bit of a workaholic lately, but mainly because we’ve got lots of interesting stuff going on at PropellerFish. New people, new projects, new IP, new applications for what we do that I hadn’t anticipated… It looks like 2010 will see us spending half of our time helping entrepreneurs turn their ideas into investment ready startups and the rest of our time helping more traditional clients innovate. I think there’s something very Robin Hood about bringing the spirit of entrepreneurship to multinationals and bringing commercial rigor to startups. Especially in an economy that’s begging for reinvention. Off to London this week for a two-day workshop followed by a week of workshops with some interesting folks in Toronto.

Photo by PhotographyPhilosophy

I just finished a two week mediation course and walked away with about three hours’ worth of wisdom. It’s good wisdom. But I think my guru’s sales strategy might have actually gotten in the way of me walking away with as much as I could. And here’s the thing: I actually feel BAD for not telling him this in his feedback form. REALLY bad. Like the kind of person who doesn’t point out that a virus is posting porn on your Facebook page. So in an attempt to make myself feel better, here’s the learning for anyone out there marketing mindfulness to the masses.

His intention: sell them (hard) on the benefits of meditation, teach material that creates opportunities to sell lots of beads, hint that there’s more to be learned but then withold it to encourage us to all sign up for an advanced course priced 7 times the fee we’d just paid.

The outcome: too much time spent selling meditation to people who were already bought into it, far too much time selling us expensive beads as necessary meditation tools, and in light of the time wasted, not enough content to make me actually want pay 7 times the price for another course lasting 3 times as long.

The recommendation: 1. Shorten the course so the same amount of material feels generous and packed, 2. Give people more in the first course so they finish just inches from enlightenment’s door, and then position the advanced class as their ticket to Zen. Much better to disappoint people after they’ve shelled out $2400 than $300. 3. Easy on the beads. Let someone else flog the crystals while you stay credible and cash in on hugs.

And here’s my excuse for not being honest on the feedback form: the questions went something like “1. Tell us one way that meditation has improved your life, 2. Tell us your favorite thing about the course, 3. etc.” It was less of a feedback form and more of a request for compliments.

Again, I’m not saying NOTHING of value exchanged hands here. I’m just saying that there’s probably a bigger prize out there and a smarter way of getting to it.

Right. How does one move to Sydney with a wife enrolled in a Ph.D program in Singapore and a business that’s just starting to roll forward? I think the answer there is that one doesn’t move to Sydney, but the past four days made me scratch my head, check property prices, and scheme a bit. In any case, we’re back in Singapore after some time driving around New Zealand and four days reconnecting with our inner urban beach bum in Sydney. 10 rolls of film sitting on my kitchen table. 10 little capsules of suspense.

I just witnessed a series of events this morning that made me wonder if the death of any profession comes when it gets its own conference. I spent the morning facilitating a workshop for a major design organization and was given the topic of “Said organization as an advocate for design”. In other words, we were meant to find ways to make the organization more useful to the design world.  To my surprise, the hardest part of my morning was getting anyone to talk about anything related to design. Instead, there was endless blabber about creating internal committees, debate around who would be on which board, lots of “motions” around new structures and rules to “govern” the organization, but not a single voluntary conversation about design overall. Which was the point. At the end of my workshop, someone approached me and nearly burst into tears over (no, not her passion for design), but organizational politics (?). Somewhere along the way to setting up an organization and a conference to serve their passion, these people have ended up serving an organization they don’t even like. Which is a sad thing, but not entirely unexpected.

“When an American starts a job, they work as hard as they can to try and prove themselves.  When a Brit starts a new job, he goes around trying to make as many friends as possible.”

“In New York, you’re judged based on how hard you work.  In London, if you’re at the office every night until midnight, we assume you aren’t clever enough to manage your time well.”

“The English seem really low, but they’re actually a pretty content bunch.  Whereas Americans seem super happy on the outside, then you get to know them and they aren’t.”

“In the US, everyone loves a rags to riches story that goes something like ‘grew up poor, triumphed over the odds and ended up rich’.  In the UK, you can never escape your class and rags to riches is seen as someone in denial of who they are.  Take the Beckhams for instance.”

Photos courtesy of Froshie and Swanee.

My wife just out-kiasu-ed an old man at the airport and deserves a high five. In an act that spells victory in the minds of many Singaporean men over the age of 60, ‘uncle’ cut a long line of people waiting at immigration with the smoothness of someone trying to shoplift an elephant from a store that only has one in stock. I’m sure he expected this victory to cost him a few rolled eyes. I assure you he did not expect what was coming. C walked to the front of the line and gave him a very public, raised voice, finger pointing, un-ignorable (he tried), un-placate-able, piece of her mind which showed the level of cultural panache that consciously steps on every cultural button necessary in order to get the job done. He offered to let her go first. She sent him to the back of the line. To use her triumphant words, “I made him lose FACE!” And that concluded our trip to Brunei. Which was lovely.

First off, let me admit a huge bias of mine against Greenpeace since meeting one of these clowns in a bar.  Every member I’ve met has been more concerned with being counter culture than solving problems and as a result, I’ve always seen them as the worst kind of NGO: the kind that would be deeply upset if the problems they claim to be in the business of resolving ever went away.  That said, this is a pretty good stunt.  And most importantly, it worked.  They even went for a classy finish on the website with the following:

“Please join us in thanking Kimberly-Clark for supporting conservation of the Boreal Forest by sending its CEO a congratulations email.“

I went ahead and did just that.  Nice one punks.