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quirky

ideas and experiences with a selling angle that come from left-field

Wolfish Wisdom

I caught a glimpse of an entertaining niche in management and team training on a BBC World rolling news segment the other day. A group of German forest rangers teach leadership lessons based on how wolves behave. In lovely footage from the wolves natural habitat, one of the experts divulged

Personal Paradigm Shift

Losing deals? Not sure why? In denial perhaps? I came across a summary of 1962’s “landmark” The Structure Of Scientific Revolutions written by Thomas Kuhn, the lessons of which could help any sales person in a dip get back on track quicker. (Here’s a different overviewfrom wikipedia. [http:

Challenging Tekkies

In downtime lately I’ve been reading a couple of books that have an entertaining subtext; scientists can be wrong, you sometimes need to stand up to them. Sample quote: “…the arrogant side of science; a belief that it should have monopoly over the debate.”1 The precise context of

Occam's Razor

I can thank Michael Brooks [http://www.michaelbrooks.org/]‘ 13 Things That Don’t Make Sense for reacquainting me with Occam’s Razor. This is a principle that whenever you need to find or choose a solution, the simplest one tends to be the winner. It is reminiscent of the

Deal Clinching Drake Formula

Falling across one of the world’s longest running tv shows was a humblingly mind-boggling experience. Issues that The Sky At Night raises can make your head explode. Yet on the rare occasions I’ve tuned in you can’t help but admire how it tries to talk cosmology in

What A Client Values

One FT columnist I like reading when waiting in corporate receptions is Lucy Kellaway [http://www.ft.com/comment/columnists/lucykellaway]. She recently riffed typically irreverent thoughts on messages to give long standing clients. I was intrigued to see her document what she considered the four things that clients valued

Relentless Infomercial Zeal

Louis Theroux and his Weird Weekends [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis_Theroux%27s_Weird_Weekends]. Over a decade ago he poked his nose in the world of tv shopping channels, centring on an American station in Tampa. Our first exposure was to a room full of presenters, fully pumped

Stop Writing That Email

With a spate of Facebook related horrors involving crimes against children hitting the London press these past few days, one news show talking head stated a remarkable stat. Dr Aric Sigman [http://www.aricsigman.com/] mentioned a formula suggesting that for every one hour of time a child spends on

Emotional Contagion

I was searching for insight into social networking behaviour and came across this TED video from Nicolas Christakis [http://www.ted.com/talks/nicholas_christakis_the_hidden_influence_of_social_networks.html] . his initial interest into widowhood lead to studying clusters of obesity and their social network effects. I was

Newtonian Logic

I landed at an airport just now and after taxi-ing to the terminal, there was a delay as the plane had parked beyond where the mechanical walkway could reach. I then experienced much jolting around as a tug tried to shimmy the plane in position. It reminded me of an