Archive for the ‘Positivity’ Category

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Jane Maas, Mass and the miracle of twitter!

March 10, 2013

Mad Women - Jane MaasThis woman was determined …is that any surprise to any of us?

Jane Maas, advertising legend from New York, author of Mad Women and the creator of the famous “I Love New York” campaign announced over dinner on Friday evening that on Sunday she wanted to go to mass and preferably one with a good choir!

We had spent a few days with this very special lady, who at the age of 82 would teach us all so much with her energy and determination.

She stole the show at the Network event in Cork for International Women’s Day enchanting the audience with her tales from an incredible career and how she sparkled in an industry, which was dominated by men.

It’s easy to see how she has had such a terrific career – every time myself and Deirdre had a work conversation while we were in her company she sprang into life with interest, words of wisdom and encouragement.

So …our dilemma – a church with a choir on Sunday in Cork?

I called my mother first and she wasn’t sure – the choir in her church weren’t up to much she reckoned!

I wasn’t feeling very optimistic but I decided to put the question out on twitter ..

To my huge surprise within minutes I found myself back and forth on twitter with Saint Fin Barres Cathedral – not only was there mass at 11:15 on Sunday but they sent me a link to their website with information about the choir!

There we were, on a wet and miserable Sunday morning with our special American friend being greeted warmly by the priest and we were treated with a really lovely service and a fabulous choir at Saint Fin Barres Cathedral ..how did I end up here – its a miracle !

Jane ..you are some woman

Twitter ..you are some resource

Saint Fin barres ..you are on the ball!!

Greg Canty is a partner of Fuzion PR

Fuzion offer social media consultancy and training from our offices in Cork and Dublin

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Posted in Marketing, Personal development, Positivity, Social Media, Twitter | 1 Comment »

Are you ready to Leapfrog?

January 28, 2013

Can you Leapfrog - Fuzion PRAccording to Wikipedia “Leapfrog” is a children’s game in which players vault over each others stooped backs.

I’m not sure about you but I certainly played it loads of times as a kid!

In Fuzion, Leapfrog is a real business game where you try to identify something you can do or some move you can make that will help your business jump to another level or even better to a new place.

Apple is a great example of this with iTunes or the iPhone.

At times progress can be small and steady and sometimes hardly noticeable – maybe at your next management meeting think hard and spend time with your team looking for that thing that will help you Leapfrog your competition or take you somewhere totally new.

Is it time to start leapfrogging?

Greg Canty is a partner in Fuzion

Fuzion are a Marketing and PR firm with offices in Cork and Dublin

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Posted in Business Planning, Marketing, Motivation, Positivity | Leave a Comment »

Those Days are well and truly gone

January 11, 2013
Apple Umbrellas

Handy brand ?

“Those days are well and truly gone” she said with a nod that demonstrated clarity and conviction around the topic. Around the table everyone nodded their heads agreeing with the wise statement and more importantly the sentiment.

We were working on an event with some very high profile, weighty organisations. This was a planning meeting and the marketing representatives from each organisation were in attendance. The event was very progressive and was targeting attendees that were perfect for each of the participating organisations.

It sounded like a blast from the past when someone around the table suggested a “goodie bag” for the attendees. I hate that description – I immediately think of a branded plastic bag with some literature and a few bits. However I always saw the absolute sense in the “right” branded item that helps make your brand connect with the attendees.

If it is the right item and is useful and durable your brand could appear in all sorts of places being used over and over by your target audience – how bad?

The big danger is that we sit and discuss and because of the “economic climate” we too easily reject things that could make total sense without thinking properly about our objectives.

Why did we do this “stuff” before – was it because we had loads of money and we wanted to chuck it away or was it because it was simply a great idea ?

It”s pouring outside and I grab my really decent umbrella with that “logo” on it ….that brand has done a lot of travelling since the event I got it at!

A lot of what we did before made sense – those days may not be gone after all!

Greg Canty is a partner of Fuzion

Fuzion are a Marketing & PR firm with offices in Dublin and Cork

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Posted in Direct Marketing, Marketing, Positivity | 9 Comments »

Bill and the New Year’s Resolution

December 31, 2012

sunriseBill is married to my cousin Theresa and they live in New Jersey with their three children.

In truth I don’t really know them that well as they live in the United States, but my cousin is a really good and kind person – she has always been that way, ever since we were young, when we did actually see more of each other. At most I’ve met Bill about three or four times.

I’ve spent a lot of time over the last few weeks thinking about my plans for the new year and some of the targets or goals that I will set for myself. I believe it’s really important to have a clear focus.

I use a little visualisation trick, which helps me along the process and crystallises some of my ideas that in some ways become my New Year’s Resolutions.

My visualisation trick is to write a diary post for the end of the next year “I had a Great year because …..” .

I simply list out all of the things that will make the next year a great one and during the year I will keep checking back on my list to see how I am progressing.

I don’t have this task completed yet but as I mentioned already, I’ve been thinking about it for a few weeks – as usual its going to be a list full of ambitious work “stuff”, which seems to be my total preoccupation these days.

Let’s face it –  you dare not take your eye off your work priorities for one single minute.

Bill passed away this morning after a long battle with cancer. Theresa and their three children were by his side.

I need to rethink some of the things on my list ….

Bill – Rest in Peace

Greg 

Posted in Family, Motivation, Personal development, Positivity | 15 Comments »

Last work day before Christmas..

November 30, 2012

turning off lightsYou know that feeling on the last work day of the year  – you’ve worked hard and you are finishing off those last few bits before you shut off your computer, tun off the lights and head home for a well earned break after a tough slog of a year.

With a few weeks left in the year it’s natural to start easing off, it’s job nearly done and after all everyone is thinking about Christmas – we find ourselves switching down the gears and cruising till the end of year ….

STOP!! ….there’s good business still to be done, get onto people’s radar now, for next year so you can hit the ground running when it comes to January – picture how good you will feel turning off those lights after a productive few weeks –  now you can really go and enjoy your Christmas Break ..

Make the list of what you want to achieve before the break kicks in and get cracking!

Lights out ..

Greg Canty is a partner of Fuzion

Fuzion are a Marketing and PR firm with offices in Cork and Dublin

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Posted in Marketing, Motivation, Positivity | 13 Comments »

Oh Life!!

September 30, 2012

I have a heavy cold and I’m feeling a little bit miserable, I’m sipping on a Lemsip before I pop down the road with Dee to mum and dad’s for dinner. We walked the dog earlier in between a few showers!

For the most part I’m in good form , Liverpool FC seem to be back to winning ways, we’re busy in work, there are a few interesting projects I’m working on, we have a few proposals we’re waiting to hear back on but there is also a court case coming up in a few weeks that I have to deal with.

Eventually the court case is being heard in October.

I can’t believe how much time has passed – that was over three years ago, just when the recession was really biting. I remember the sleepless nights. I remember doing everything we could trying to collect the money that was due to us and being totally ignored. Eventually I managed to track our client down and he laughed in my face!

He thought it was funny ..

I didn’t think it was very funny – it was a tough time for us, we desperately needed that money to keep the show on the road.. as I said I didn’t quite see the funny side of it.

Ah well..that case is up this month and like everything else, it will pass. It would probably have been easier and less hassle to walk away but sometimes you just have to stand up to people like this.

Today is Sunday 30th September..

Doesn’t that just about sum up where things are for all of us? We have good things going on but there is always some worry, some hurdle, some niggle that needs to be dealt with. Sometimes these are huge things and often they are just small things. Sometimes they are personal and sometimes they are in relation to our work life.

Oh Life!!

A few years ago a good buddy of mine, Peter Coppinger from Digital Crew mentioned this clever little online service called Oh Life that he was using.

He explained enthusiastically that you sign up for Oh Life (it’s a free service) and every day it sends you an email with a simple question:

How was your day?

I had never managed to keep a diary so I was quite sceptical as to whether I would do this and I wasn’t really sure how it would be of benefit.

Peter is a pretty switched on guy so I followed his advice and signed up.

With the service you simply reply to the daily email from Oh Life with your thoughts for the day and it stores your answer. Once you have been using Oh Life for a short while, the service includes one of your old diary entries in the emails it sends you.

Sometimes on your daily email it will copy you on your entry a week ago and sometimes it will copy you on an entry a month ago and so on.

This simple service provides me with a fascinating insight into my “life” and my big learning from using it is that the “worries” never seem to turn out as bad as I feared and I’m always astonished at how quickly things move on. Something that is a big deal to you can easily become irrelevant in just one week.

I wonder what my diary will be like a month from now!

Go on, why not try it by clicking here .. Oh Life

Greg Canty is a partner of Fuzion

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Posted in Personal development, Positivity | 15 Comments »

Making your street my route

September 9, 2012
shop front

Love your shop !

I love my coffee!

On a typical work day at some point I will pop out of the office for my daily fix – there are one or two coffee shops that I normally go to, each a few streets or blocks (for the American readers!) away.

To get there I can take a number of different routes with a choice of side streets to pop down along the way. I normally work out of our Cork office which is located on the main business street, which backs onto a city centre retail area.

When I think about the route I normally take, the choice of streets that I walk down is totally dictated by those that are the nicest, the most colourful, the most interesting and the most inviting.

On my route I pass shops with colourful windows, pubs with attractive frontage, flower shops with colourful displays, book stores with interesting books in the window, clothes shops with fashionable displays, sweet shops with enticing treats, buildings that are bright, and streets that are clean and welcoming.

There are always alternative routes – make sure you and your street work together to merchandise those windows, paint up those buildings and make customers choose your street as their route to wherever they are going.

Eventually they’ll pop in and buy something!

Greg Canty is a partner in Fuzion

Fuzion are a Marketing and PR firm with offices in Dublin and Cork

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Posted in Customer Care, Marketing, Positivity, Retailing, Staff training | 4 Comments »

The Sacred Cow – Raise Corporation Tax?

September 9, 2012
Sacred Cow - Irish Corporation Tax

Dare we ask the question?

I know this is a really unpopular thing to say – is it time to challenge the Sacred Cow and talk about raising the Corporation Tax rate in Ireland?

I think it is possible to do this and structure it in such a way that will still encourage companies to drive on in Ireland.

Before you think poor old Greg has totally lost his marbles hear me out ..

Why we need to look at this?

Let’s face it, people are bleeding and except for this government being prepared to grasp the nettle and take on some of those areas of excess (“real” sacred cows) that they have still left alone, they just can’t hit the regular Irish taxpayer any more – there is nothing left, nothing.

We need people to have some money in their pockets to keep the indigenous Irish economy going – inflicting more pain and extracting more cash from consumers will just do more damage than good. Aren’t we seeing this already?

Increasing the tax rate on companies who are making profits (let’s face it if you are losing money higher taxes won’t effect you) isn’t the worst thing in the world to do. At least they will be able to cope with it.

The Numbers

3.5 billion was collected last year from Corporation Tax at a rate of 12.5%. This was 10.2% of the overall tax take of 34.2 billion.

This 3.5 billion was the lowest collection of Corporation Tax since 1999 when about the same was collected when the CT rate was 28%.

The Challenge

This government must balance the books, they must collect more taxes, reduce expenditure, start generating jobs and begin to spark economic revival.

How can we do this if we scare the pants off prospective foreign investors by increasing the corporation tax rate?

We are led to believe with absolute certainty by those in “the know” that raising the CT rate is a no go area because it will start a mass exodus of these foreign investors.

Are we sure of that? Is this the main reason that is keeping them in Ireland? I’m not sure, but what do I know.

Taxes in Ireland

Big huh?

My Proposal

1. Raise Corporation Tax by 2.5% (hopefully for just a few years)

2. Introduce 100% immediate allowances for capital spend (this was done successfully in Australia)

3. Introduce tax incentives for companies who increase employee numbers.

4. Use 50% of the increase in CT tax as an investment fund for IT education (we are too far behind international standards and will have a serious problem in attracting these companies if we don’t sort out this supply pool of educated staff ) and an investment fund for indigenous Irish companies who need support at this stage to stay alive (only the ones that have a future)

While the CT tax rate would increase, for those companies that invest in capital and increase job numbers they could actually pay even less tax than now.

In a sweep we would collect more tax from those that can afford it, incentivise jobs and investment, invest in IT education and support indigenous Irish businesses. We might also have a bargaining chip in EU negotiations.

And..we would also be able to lay off the general public who are already bleeding way too much.

What do you think?

Ok, what the hell do I know? Maybe my assumptions are wrong, maybe they are too simplistic and maybe my figures are all wrong – maybe all of this is happening already and these incentives are in place?

At least lets have a discussion and flesh out this Sacred Cow before we cripple Joe Public even more without looking at the alternatives.

Is it time?

Greg Canty is a partner of Fuzion (he was an accountant at one point in time!)

Fuzion are a Marketing and PR firm with offices in Dublin and Cork

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Posted in Accounting, Ireland, Irish Economy, Irish Politics, Positivity, Uncategorized | 11 Comments »

Taking Sweets from Strangers!

September 9, 2012

Sweets from strangers - Fresh Milk Clothing Company5pm and I knew I had some more work to do but my brain was totally fried and I was exhausted so there was no point continuing unless I took a small break.

I decided I’d pop out quickly for a coffee and 2 minutes of fresh air so I ran around the corner to O’Connaill’s Coffee and Chocolate Cafe for a breather and a jolt of caffeine to keep me going for another while.

I ordered an Americano and while I was waiting a retired gentleman came behind me in the queue, with three large bars of chocolate in his hand.

“It’s a big weakness of mine” he piped up as we both waited in the queue. He said the chocolate in there was gorgeous and told me that last week he actually broke a tooth while satisfying his craving!

“Fair play, we all deserve a treat every now and then” I said to him. “Have you tried the dark chocolate from here yet?” he asked.

Before I knew it he had his giant bar of dark chocolate opened and two big pieces were broken off and put in my hand. What a gentleman!

It warmed me up to think that in a queue in a shop in Cork two strangers can have a polite conversation and end up sharing some chocolate.

Maybe sometimes it’s a good thing to take chocolate from strangers!

Greg Canty is a partner of Fuzion

The really cool image is courtesy of the Fresh Milk Clothing Company – you can buy t-shirts with this visual on them and many more of course!

Fuzion are a Marketing and PR firm with Offices in Dublin and Cork

 

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Posted in Ireland, Personal development, Positivity | 7 Comments »

Ray of Sunshine

September 7, 2012
Vision Express - Search for a Star Pupil

It’s all go !!

Our Dublin troop weren’t available so I found myself and Dee on a Saturday morning at 6 am with the car pointed in the direction of Belfast!

Our job was to oversee a clever Vision Express initiative at their store in Belfast – basically Vision Express were searching for a “Star Pupil“, a kid with a sense of style, bags of attitude and someone that was a star pupil in school.

We knew it was going to be a long, long day – after our “spin” to Belfast from Cork we had the initiative to oversee from 10am till 5pm.  The brief was to find 60 willing kids (with their parents permission of course) who would pose for pictures with a professional photographer and then answer a few questions. The kids had to be between the ages of 3 and 15.

With the help of a great promotional girl we had to grab up to 60 kids at the shopping centre, get their parents consent and then pass them to the photographer who had to do his best to encourage them to pose for photos wearing either their own glasses or some really cool ones that we had on display. Glasses have changed!

Once they were finished with the photos they had to choose their favourite (tough job!), which was then printed for them to take away. While helping them to choose their photos I had to ask them a few questions to discover their attitude about glasses and to find out some stand out moment from school.

Kids are great …. we had shy ones, bubbly ones and very honest ones!  “What was your proudest moment in school?” I would ask. Let’s put the question a different way “What day in school did you really feel good about yourself?” Some would look at you as they contemplated this question as if I had two heads !!

“The day we get our holidays” …. I must admit, good answer!

We did also hear about how proud they were on their first day at school, when they were made class prefect, when they helped a friend who fell in the school yard, when they were awarded the most improved child, when they did well at the sports day ….some great kids, all kids are great – it was fun, but it was tiring.

I was astounded at their attitudes about people who wear glasses – for many they are  now a “cool” fashion accessory and even those who don’t need glasses wanted to wear them.

Things have definitely moved on so far from when I was at school!

India - Ray of Sunshine After a few hours of standing in the shopping centre on a warm day my batteries were starting to flag and then I met the most special girl.

A concerned mother gently grabbed me by the arm and quietly whispered that her kid had a deformed (if I am using the wrong term I apologise) arm and hand that she was very self conscious of. She suggested that I might have a quiet word with the photographer.

I looked over at the girl being photographed and was surprised to see the most animated, confident and bubbly girl effortlessly moving from one great pose to another like an experienced model – surely this wasn’t the self conscious girl?

When I looked again I did notice one arm slightly shorter than the other and a hand that effectively had no fingers – no bother to this girl as she threw her arms in the air for some of her poses.

She bounced over to me, I’m guessing she was about 12.

“My name is …” – by a country mile she was the brightest and warmest kid I dealt with throughout the whole day. After she had chosen her pictures and answered the questions she helped her younger sisters through the same process. This kid was incredible, she had the most generous, fun spirit and there was the biggest ray of sunshine just beaming from her with every word and every smile.

Before I knew it I was home ..

Special girl.. thank you for the sunshine and making a long day so much shorter

Greg Canty is a partner of Fuzion

Fuzion are a PR firm with offices in Dublin and Cork

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Posted in Motivation, Photography, Positivity, PR | Leave a Comment »

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