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Learning to Paint – Twee Tree

I was staring out of the window at Friend’s House earleir this week looking at this tree. It stood out because it had much less greenery on it that the other trees and plants round about, so I sketched it. I think this is an awful picture. The col…

I was staring out of the window at Friend’s House earlier this week looking at this tree. It stood out because it had much less greenery on it that the other trees and plants round about, so I sketched it.

I think this is an awful picture. The colours, proportions, everything feels wrong. In an attempt to capture realism I’ve done this poor tree no justice whatsoever. With hindsight I wonder if I might have tried to frame the tree in the window I was looking from. I’ll have another go next time I’m in the area but for now, this will serve as a useful ‘how not to’ reminder.

Twee_tree

Friday Fury – Rip Their Heads Off!

If you’ve got kids then there’s a good chance you’ve heard of and experienced Horrible Histories. Wanna know why kids like Horrible Histories? Two words, blood ‘n’ guts. In truth there’s a whole lot more besides, but a key reason why Horrible Histories is such a success is they bring the yucky, gooey, bloody, deadly bits that kids love, into learning. Take a quick look:

A coat parachute – what a dumb idea! Now, where was I…? Oh yeah, blood ‘n’ guts.

Keira and I were watching TV a few days ago when a Frubes advert came on. ‘I like these ads’, I said, ‘they’re the ones with rip their heads off and suck their guts out aren’t they Keira?’ Keira looked at me somewhat crestfallen. ‘Not any more Dad, they’ve made them rubbish – take a look’. And Keira was right. Where previously Frubes glorified in the deathly delights of ripping off a frubes head before sucking its guts out, we now have to tolerate ‘Rip their tops off and eat them all up’. According to Keira that is ‘totes lame’.

I looked into this and though the manufacturers of Frubes have remained silent on the matter, the Advertising Standards Authority confirmed they had not approached anyone at Frube Towers regarding complaints or a change. I did see a few folk on Mumsnet were having a whinge about it, hmmm?

This blandifying of what was once a fab slogan strikes me as a pretty dumb thing to do to your customers, what do your kids think about it? And in the meantime, here’s a little trip down memory lane for old time’s sake:

I Have A Dream

Towards the end of last year my Dad asked me what he thought I might try and do with the business in 2012. I told him ‘I want to work in America’. ‘How you gonna make that happen son?’ he asked. ‘I dunno yet’ I replied, ‘I just will’.

I turned on my radar and courtesy of Mike VanderVort I spotted an opportunity to submit a pitch to speak at the Florida State HR Conference. I also recalled a brief Facebook exchange with William Tincup about guitars and America, and I had a quick exchange with Steve Browne about maybe doing something down Ohio way. Then Dad died and things went a bit off track for a while. In due course I made my pitch to Florida, thought a little more about what William had said and kept in touch with Steve.

Florida didn’t happen this time. I’ve no idea why – I asked for feedback and got a rather bland ‘Dear John’ type reply. I’ll maybe have another try next year. Ohio is gonna happen and as you all know I’m really excited about that. And other US plans are forming as I write (watch this space).

So what?

Well I could have burned a pile of money and time coming up with a strategic plan on how to do cool stuff in America, and I’m glad I didn’t. I can’t predict the future so at the time of planning I couldn’t have known Dad was going to die, I couldn’t have known that a timely exchange between Steve and I would have developed further. I couldn’t have known a whole bunch of stuff. But if I had invested in a plan, I’d have felt the need to stick with it and justify the time and money invested. Strategic planning drives convergent, fixed thinking. Jamie Notter and Maddie Grant write beautifully about this in their book Humanize which I recommend if you want to go deeper into the pointlessness of strategic planning (and many other interesting things too).

Me? I just had a goal, an ambition. My response to Dad was honest, I had no idea how I would achieve the goal, I just knew it was achievable and if I wanted it bad enough it would happen.

Set Goals. Have Ambitions. Do Stuff. Be Agile.

Follow your dreams. Life is too short for strategic planning.

With thanks to Sukh Pabial, David Goddin and Jonathan Wilson for a provocative conversation on Twitter that got me to writing this.