Sure, I support this program. Indeed. People everywhere are convinced that "just doing" is enough. Too many business owners make their next move without having thought about it; too many people intend to write about things on a deeper level, but nothing ever comes. Too many people want to write about what's meaningful yet can't tap into the real deal. And the page sits blank. I'm not going to soap box about writer's block its correlation to the cell block, but I'm sure you agree, it's about time for the mind.

And...you're in luck. An inside source furnished me with a run down of the program's details before it goes law on us...

...A highlighted section of the 6000 page report supporting the new program which will be signed into law early next year, states:

"Thinking is being done all the time to a limited degree, but usually just to enough to solve left-brained problems."

Well, duh.

"Yet, organizing the mind by tapping into biases, prejudices, buried feelings, deeper emotions, is what unearths the deeper ideas. And what Americans are missing most is a process to do just this."

Funny (I mean peculiar, not ha ha) that on every corner in every city is some strain of a franchise business, with the success of these franchises initiated and maintained by a PROVEN, step by step operational process. A hardcore blueprint for success.

So.

Why is there not a process available for accessing the deeper meaning in the mind?

Well, ok. Having said that, now get this:

The No Mind Left Behind Program suggests a new, MANDATORY regimen. And you can't vote, own lipstick or a gun, or eat fast food until your sponsor can prove you are adhering to THIS protocol:

PROTOCOL: "You tap into those emotions by talking about what matters most to you with others. You record it. Your fill your notebook (yes, writing as you speak), so you NEVER lose site of the emotional pitch."

This is good, because people can go on passionately about the most meaningful things in all existence while they sit down with a friend to enjoy some Kung Pao and a glass of Pinot Noir, unaware of the power of the emotionally fueled unconscious mind, but then draw a complete blank later when it's time to sit down and write.

No more, says the No Mind Left Behind report:

"Your conversations are part of a deeper dialogue that invite debate. Yes, you are encouraged to actually argue. And get pissed. (sic) But because you've been taking the time to write, go deeper, write some more, you can see the humor in it all BECAUSE YOU ARE SAFE AND SECURE IN YOUR THINKING, and have access to opposing thoughts and have explored possibilities well enough to even enjoy some rather ironic detachment and scenario envisioning."

Ok. I don't know what you got out of that last paragraph, but I'm quite certain that the program's authors know that accessing the deeper parts of the mind is a process that needs repeat exposure to the inner mind, and the ability to share with others to identify and solidify good ideas. Only through repetition can you tease out the one ultra-gem of an idea at a time waiting its turn to safely appear.

PROTOCOL, PAGE 3492, PARAGRAPH 6, LINE 29:

"That's the byproduct of an organized mind; pages and pages filled up in notebooks about the big RAMBLE, the big EFFING (sic) ramble, the one you tap into through repeated visits. Then highlight each idea. Thread them together over time. Know your assemblage of ideas so well you can take the OTHER side of your own arguments to visit the underbelly of your own beliefs."

It would be interesting to see the notebooks of the authors of the No Mind Left Behind program. I'm sure they didn't just sit down and try to hack this program all together at once.

Joseph Coplans

http://www.facebook.com/inkstain#!/pages/Ink-Stain-Inc/216368420069

Epiphany FREE with overnight stay

The best use of story on the side of a building, Denver, CO

The poem that got through the machine

650 15th Street,
Denver , Colorado - Hyatt Regency Hotel

Hyatt Regency:

Furniture, like corporate toys, 5 dollar cups of coffee, lot's of light pours in from huge windows, steel, glass, corporate reimbursement on the charge card, hope to get in some skiing, after the convention...that's the everyday Hello Hyatt mantra. 

But few new buildings murmur the past as a massively inscribed tombstone, few buildings are a page ripped out of the journal of an 1870s poet, social critic, art critic and philosopher and outspoken Victorian voice; few buildings let you walk the perimeter as you reconstruct a vast and incredible poem, as each sentence is cut off and reassembled magically to accommodate driveways and doorways that separate its unapologetic and fiercely confident cadence.

 John Ruskin, the outspoken Victorian voice wrote this poem, "O Truth of Earth", in 1879. Then, a shiningly modern hotel appears that subtly broadcasts this poem on the outside of its walls, a poem about being OK about feeling terrified and overwhelmed and awestruck, when the mountains had the upper hand, when they were a mysterious and searing vortex, dangerous, and the true definition of awesome; when they mercilessly claimed lives, when they seemed too grand and terrifying to be friends with anyone, when they provided a sacred and visceral wonderment.

 To me, the poem is proof that the mountains are still a sacred place of inspiration, just dotted with resorts and roadways now, is all. But I know I'm certainly not alone in thinking that.

If you walk around the block and read the poem embedded in the walls, you'll go back to 1879, and come back to the world of now, depending on how slow or fast you read and walk. And think. And feel.

I'd like to shake the hand of person who approved that poem. It must not have been easy. Committees seem to support the most prosaic, most literal and family based, easily understood, mediocrity.

But this complex, stampeding and soaring poem (like the mountains themselves) got through the machine. It got approved.

Amazing, like the mountains themselves.

Mountains are the bones of the earth, their highest peaks are invariably those parts of its anatomy which in the plains lie buried under five and twenty thousand feet of solid thickness of superincumbent soil, and which spring up in the mountain ranges in vast pyramids or wedges, flinging their garment of earth away from them on each side. The masses of the lower hills are laid over and against their sides, like the masses of lateral masonry against the skeleton arch of an unfinished bridge, except that they slope up to and lean against the central ridge: and, finally upon the slopes of these lower hills are strewed the level beds of sprinkled gravel, sand and clay; which form the extent of the champaign. Here then is another grand principle of the truth of earth, that the mountains must come from under all, and be the support of all; and that everything else must be laid in their arms, heap above heap, the plains being the uppermost.

The Brand Wagon - the Justice League of Street Food: Restaurants park their theme trucks and band together to form a really cool chuck wagon scene...

"This is a case study for social media success," said organizer Emily Biederman when I spoke to her at Friday's Justice League of Street Food event. According to Emily, each restaurant truck had its own Facebook following, and when all of the restaurant trucks banded together this summer to form the Justice League of Street Food event, the Justice League of Street Food Facebook page had amassed over 3500 people in just a couple of short months. As of October, 2010, the page's number is 4088.

In their own words: "The Justice League of Street Food is a group of food trucks and carts (AKA superheros) who have banded together to save Denver, one mobile meal at a time. While they're fabulous on their own, they're even better when they come together."

The Facebook success? That's obvious. But this event is also an unusual example of brand types branding together and banding together, all food, and all party, with a deep spirit of brand cooperation. It's having all the restaurants you'd visit within a few weeks or months together in one place -- because why you like one is the reason why you dine at the others: These are restaurants started by entrepreneurs who have a vision for a theme, who have created dishes that scream divine hipster comfort food.

Emily made a point of mentioning to me how important having long tables with long benches to sit on was to the overall concept of the event.

"Long benches inspire people to sit together," she said. "We would like to have people get to know somebody they don't know."

And I know this kind of event energy, this kind of carnivalesque, fun for all, urban hipster at its roots kind of scene, is the very kind of un-corporatizing that has become so welcome -- unquestionably embraced -- by the new urbanite. It's fun. It's family. It's what people here in Denver love: To be outside.

And it reminds me so much of the pop-up store, trunk show events that have helped grow the burgeoning hand made clothing scene in Denver too. Same desire for creating community: Unable to pay urban retail space rents, the hand made clothing movement rents out places for the weekend. Artist vendors contribute their email lists or use social media to draw people in, and an instant ancient carnival appears in an old church or industrial space, jammed with people interested in hand made items as the pricey anti-boutique and mall alternative.

Our urban world wants a little unpretentious fun that doesn't cost a bundle. My brat was $5 bucks, and it was out of this world, and it was like being at a friend's barbeque -- except, there were a lot of friends there that I had yet to meet. That's what makes a scene. Add beer and a DJ.

There's a friendly irony here too. Facebook, social media, has done the best possible thing it can do: it created a social event.

The Justice League of Street Food says it best on their Facebook page:

Thank you to all the awesome street food fans for coming out to hang out (and dance!) at our party last night. We felt the love of more than 2,000 people--that's pretty damn cool. THANK YOU DENVER!

http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#!/justiceleaguestreetfood?v=info&ref=ts

It's the surreptitious if not secret culture clash between sales and marketing that's costing most companies a good profit.

Sales and marketing are two different cultures. Marketing is about opening minds. And sales? All about closing deals. And the truth is, the two cultures really don't like each other. Most companies have this dysfunction. The financial ramifications of such a dysfunction are rarely tracked on an Excel spreadsheet.

If they were, the business world would be rocked by revolution.

Sales departments and marketing departments would actually work in the same room together: demographics would be chosen by consensus, campaigns would be timed for the before, during, and after sales processes; sales people wouldn't go after people who weren't qualified buyers; expensive marketing collateral would stop dying slow deaths in supply closets, and the world would finally put an end to the senseless buying of one-shot glossy ads in magazines.

You see, secretly, many marketers view salespeople as boorish, pushy and gross, and most marketers know very little and want to know very little about the sales process. It just turns them off. Salespeople on the other hand, often dismiss most marketing as a slight of hand, as a world of picturesque, ivory tower generated flufferfy that is out of touch and doesn't do much.

Dumping all PC notions, gender plays a big role.

Most marketing departments are staffed by women, (no, no, no, of course not ALL) who quite frankly, have a strong distaste for perceived sales behaviors, and most sales departments run pretty male, (no, no, no, of course not ALL) with salespeople who feel as if they take enough heat from customers (who don't want to talk to them on the outside), while they endure an even hotter fire under their *ss set from managers on the inside, who just the want numbers. So salespeople are NOT interested in what anybody from marketing has to say about the real work of getting customers to sign on the freakin' dotted line.  

Can the art and science of marketing, of attracting new life, work in harmony with the process of hunting down the deal, of moving in for the kill and closing the sale? Do you see it too? Do you see something rather ancient in the dysfunction between marketing departments and sales departments? Do you see cavemen and cavewomen finally sitting down for a fireside chatski?

Yeah, the dysfunction is pretty much cured with one thing: Communication. And the desire to communicate. (Matter of fact, there's even this thing in companies called Communication Departments)

Here's a 4 step primer, a cheat sheet, that's probably going to shake it up and maybe shore it up if used as directed. 

Marketing and sales need to work together to form a sales strategy. Marketing and sales need each other to close business. The following suggestions are surprisingly simple. But few companies align, integrate or plan their sales and marketing efforts as a unified team and whole. Please resist the desire to substitute the nomenclature: 'cavewomen' for marketing, and 'cavemen' for sales.

1.    Marketing must help the sales departments focus their prospecting. Marketing needs to know who is buying now and sales needs to tell marketing all it knows about potentially new markets. Concurrently, marketing must take the first plunge and test out new demographics to help salespeople target the right buyers. Sales people spend far too much time chasing unqualified prospects.

2.    If a sales team is having success in one area, marketing needs to target similar types of clients before sales plans a visit. (Example: if your firm has had success targeting new hotels, what other new hotels can receive case studies and essential benefits?) The goal is to help sales people make less cold calls and close more deals.

3.    Salespeople need to feel that marketing tools will help them close deals. That means sales people need to tell marketing people how they prospect, how they present, how they prequalify and how they close. And marketing people need to create messaging that showcases sales benefits -- the same dang, essential benefits sales people are presenting to further the sale out in the field.  

4.    Marketing materials (collateral or Powerpoint or Iphone brochure) should reflect an educated understanding of the customer's pain and how to solve that pain. That's sales and marketing getting together to talk about the right product, the right buyer and the right sales and marketing behaviors to close deals or convert on the web.

While these suggestions are only a slice of the pizza in the big pie concerning how to integrate sales and marketing efforts, these suggestions nonetheless can determine if there is consistency and communication between sales and marketing. Maybe pizza and is beer is the first step to get your team talking.

Demand Point Inc. -- BEFORE and AFTER messaging and site design for a global, B2B company, because Demand Point helps manufacturers discover of pockets of cash flow that can save the day and save jobs...

Home Page Design and Copy before Redesign

http://www.demandpointinc.com (New site up in September)

It's easiest to chart the progress of a web site if you can simply see the old site and stack it up side by side, page by page, next to the new one.

Demand Point Redesign and New Copy for 2010

No, it's not a web site that you'd go to for casual reading if you knew little about manufacturing...

But for the people who run the companies who produce the goods we all enjoy and consume, Demand Point is a key player in Global manufacturing support who has developed solutions for very tough and complex manufacturing problems -- solutions that make a big difference to the bottom line.  

Demand Point rescues manufacturers from overages of inventory, they help manufacturers find an alternative to the cultural stresses that result from the pressure to expedite orders, and Demand Point helps manufacturers discover of pockets of cash flow that can save the day and save jobs.

You can see it best in the old site versus the new site -- obviously somebody (Tony Gorski, President of Demand Point to be specific) saw the new web site as a chance to reach the Demand Point audience in a new and more meaningful,

benefits-oriented way.

Ink Stain's role? A) Rid the company offering of the technical corporateSPEAK embedded on the old site, B), tell the STORY that describes what manufacturers face and C), showcase Demand Point's education, software, and consulting in an everyday business language that will grab the attention of overworked and stressed out manufacturing company leaders -- and motivate them to pick up the phone to get the ball rolling.  

Says Tony Gorski, President of Demand Point Inc., "Messaging is so much harder to accomplish -- and accomplish well -- than it looks. Joseph from Ink Stain cracked open our story by asking us the right questions, by helping us prioritize our offering, and by helping us demystify and clarify our offering."

Imagine someone famous and someone you admire, reading aloud your messaging on your new web site...Who would that famous person be? Just for a second...try it...identify a voice you admire and respect...do you hear the voice James Earl Jones? Patrick Stewart, Obama? Would it be the voice of Maya Angelou, or the intonation of Courtney Love's speech when she spoke about piracy? Well, you have your own heroes. 

Here's what I've learned: when you're most exhilarated by what you do, the voice of someone you admire comes alive in your unconscious mind. We can hear famous people who've impressed us wildly; because they have an organized mind, they demonstrate forceful clarity. The power of the script, or the speech they gave that one day, is one you find difficult to forget. That voice affects us, and when recalled, still inspires us. It's the voice living in our unconscious that we identify with emotionally.

Maybe that voice is the voice of an actor in a PBS commercial, or from a feminist outpour on a blog, or was an Academy Award night story about an actor's journey through hell to a world of smiles. Or, a golden piece of Richard Pryor's 1979 Long Beach, CA, show, or Mister Roger's impassioned plea for writers to think of the consequences of what they write when they create violent scenarios for ephemeral, commercial entertainment...it doesn't matter where the voice comes from, it's there if you take a second to recall the last time your socks got knocked off when you heard it.

And that voice will put you in a high mindset, a frame of mind to say things that are important about what you do and how your business benefits the lives of others.

And then, most interestingly, you'll begin to formulate, to summons -- to actually say -- the things that matter that you want other people to know about what you do too -- jump started by that voice. That's the telling of your own story inspired by a meaningful moment and recollection. And in the process, you'll find a bigger part of your own voice too. And ideas will pour out. That is, if you believe it's not just copy. Not just a web site...