The newspaper came through the letter box as it does every Saturday morning compliments of a terrific service by Kelvin, the Burnely FC loving milkman (he must be thrilled with their promotion to the Premiership!).
This time I was determined to actually read it as so many Saturdays drift by and despite my best intentions I never actually take the time to sit down and enjoy it.
Why is it so difficult to read the paper these days? – my truth is that I am so busy (or so I tell myself) with all of my different bits and as a result I never actually get around to it.
The really sensible thing might be to save a few bob and cancel my weekly delivery service but I know how much pleasure I get from just the possibility of being able to enjoy the paper.
So..kettle on, rustle up some pancakes drizzled with maple syrup (One of the few things I am good at in the kitchen!), make a good cup of coffee (Lavazza seems to work best for me) and we are ready!!
Today I robbed a precious hour for myself, enjoying the newspaper cover to cover, full with all sorts, from heavy news about murderers and whistle blowers to gorgeous inspirational personal stories with some sport (Brendan Rodgers to Celtic..really?) and history thrown into the mix.
I’ve learnt a few new things, I’ve jumped into a few issues (tweet tweet!), I’ve been inspired, I’ve decided on a restaurant to try out and a festival I must make sure I get to but most of all I’ve thoroughly enjoyed some precious time on my Saturday morning after another really busy week.
It’s not quite yoga but it could be just as good for you …buy a paper and enjoy!
What is the right thing to do when someone mentions you or your business/organisation in a complimentary, “nice” manner on Twitter?
Let’s take a simple example:
“Well done to @FuzionPRIreland for helping us above and beyond with our product launch” … a nice tweet by a client (it does happen!) that makes us look good in front of their followers and anyone who might spot the tweet.
Take a second before answering and forget about Twitter and think about what you would do in the real world if this happened?
Would you ignore the person who complimented you? Nope!
Would you thank the person who gave you the compliment? Probably
Would you like as many people as possible to know that a client was happy to go “public” with their satisfaction about your service? Probably
Now let’s look at Twitter and the do’s and don’ts in this scenario and consider how the ‘tweeter’ feels in each case.
Don’t ..
Ignore the positive tweet – “I said something nice and Fuzion didn’t even acknowledge me. I’m sorry I tweeted them!”
Or
Retweet the positive tweet adding no comment – “Fuzion never acknowledged me but just retweeted the nice thing I said to make themselves look good”
(From my experience this is what most people do)
Do …
Thank the person/organisation who tweeted Fuzion by replying to their tweet “thank you so much for the kind words, it’s great to work with great people” – this way you have acknowledged them publicly and now all your followers will see a tweet that had some positive element at its source
And
Retweet their tweet but this time add a comment that both acknowledges the tweeter but also shows you are not being self serving: “It’s great to work with special people” – this way everyone sees that you are nice but also they get to see the original ‘complimentary‘ tweet
There you go … That’s my “nice” twitter tip!
You can tweet me at @GregCantyFuzion and thank me and see what happens!!
Boarding our Ryanair flight from Liverpool to Cork I uttered the words I have uttered many times before to Brendan, my son “I hate Ryanair”
He took me up on it straight away “give it a rest,they are really good now, way different to before”
Sure enough the process felt different, the APP made it easy to manage our booking and the stampede for seats that used happen before when the boarding gate opened just wasn’t there now.
“Why do you still hate them” he asked?
I explained that I hated that Michael O’Leary had such a disdain for customers and customer service and this was the cornerstone of the brand. I hated how it made me feel when I used the airline and swore that I would even avoid destinations if they were the airline to take you there.
This time the Liverpool v Borussia Dortmund match dictated the destination and Ryanair was the best way to get back to Cork.
We are handed a magazine as we board… It’s not a magazine but a catalogue of things to buy – there is nowhere to put it except by my feet as there is no pocket on the back of the seat. The back of the seat instead carries safety information and an advert for cosmetics that can be purchased on board.
I look down the gaudy big yellow bus, the heat is on full blast and everyone is fidgeting with their air vents. The people around me grumble about the stifling heat while the pleasant hostess passes by quickly wanting to know who wants to buy scratch cards (I presume some people like to buy them but for the life of me I can’t imagine why – I feel for her, it must be a part of the job she hates!).
I’m looking forward to getting off in Cork and for this flight being over but first I’ll finish this blog post about brands and how they make you feel.
I guess Ryanair have improved a lot but yeah …I still hate them but not as much as before.
Sunday of the bank holiday weekend and I knuckled down.
I had to clear down emails, work on copy for the new Fuzion brochure and work on new training materials for an updated social media course.
A dark cloud appeared over my head as I was in no mood for this work and everything was a grind for me.
The cloud got darker and darker and eventually I had to call a day on my work as we had planned to pop over to friends for the evening.
I was in poor form as we walked over to our buddies as I felt my “day off” had been ruined.
And then it came to me – I love what I do but I had been treating the work I had to do as a series of ‘chores‘ and not ‘challenges‘ because of my poor frame of mind and as a result my day and mood were ruined.
Every email was full of potential opportunity, the work on our brochure was a chance to really capture who we are and showcase why we are a special agency and the work on my new social media course notes was a way to explore new features and how to apply them.
I had wasted my day ..
If your work is a series of chores try changing your mindset and turn them into challenges.
If they are still chores despite the change of mindset then it’s time to change what you do!
I’m busy clearing down a mountain of emails after a long weekend.
Each of these emails was sent with some purpose .. a work request, keeping me in the loop of something, providing me with valuable information or hoping that I will be prompted to do something.
Each of these emails was sent with a plan..someone decided on the content and the format and hit that ‘send’ button.
In the middle of all of this I get a “to whom it may concern” email from someone who is looking for Fuzion or one of our clients to sponsor their event in some way.
Technically they have done their job.. they compiled a list of people/companies to target, they gathered their email list, they worked on the ‘copy’ for their email and pressed ‘send‘.
When I get a ‘to whom it may concern‘ it makes it really easy to hit the ‘delete’ button.
‘Hi Greg‘ will work much better..go on… I’ve said it before, personalise – it” easy!
I am working on a really interesting project at the moment and because it is quite complex there is a diverse team made up of very talented individuals from different organisations working on it.
We had a full day session, which included a meeting with the client group and instead of being the enjoyable experience I was expecting it was a horrible, draining one.
There is one characters (who happens to be really talented and super valuable) on the team who is just plain rude, arrogant, dismissive and being honest a little nasty. This has led to a testy atmosphere with team members trying to give their opinion but being dismissed in a rude manner.
Everyone witnesses the ‘put down’ and are waiting to see how the person who has just been insulted reacts …. he feels bad, he feels small and he feels weak if he keeps his mouth shut or does he decide to react and let the whole thing bubble over? To be fair to him he decided to bite his lip and eventually other people jumped in and supported him. I’m not sure if my lip would be that resilient.
At the end of the day I was totally wiped out and demotivated and a potentially great project had now disintegrated into something that was hardship. I can’t wait for it to be over is now my main thought but there is still a lot of work to be done with this crew.
I have made an effort at addressing this with this group of people who I don’t know that well .. I did it by email the following day (lets’ see if it makes any difference?)
Team spirit – At times yesterday a horrible, testy atmosphere crept into our team meeting – this makes the work very draining and we have to mind ourselves. The team leader has assembled a talented bunch together for this task – lets get the best from this collective talent and synergise. This is a team folks …lets support each other and make this job a enjoyable one.
Our state broadcaster, RTE has just banned the Budweiser commercial featuring UFC fighter and Irish hero Conor McGregor.
The banning has already led to newspaper articles, much discussion and a huge curiosity and will inevitably have everyone googling just to see what this “offensive” advert was all about. I suspect they will be left scratching their heads wondering what the fuss was all about.
In many ways this could be deemed as a huge success for the brand because it will now achieve a level of visibility and notoriety that it previously didn’t have, without having to pay the advertising costs.
While it sends out a big message from RTE you would like to think that this is a good, sensible one because we do want there to be watchdogs to protect us from danger. It is important that ‘banning’ makes sense, that it is rational and that it is fair.
The advertising guidelines around alcohol are very strict in Ireland and all of these were followed carefully.
In the advert there isn’t a picture of a bottle of beer, there isn’t a pub in sight. There is just Conor tastefully captured in a scene walking around his home town, Crumlin in Dublin, which then transforms into a street in LA.
This 27 year old apprentice plumber has achieved huge success by dedication to his sport and the advert demonstrates this with the help of these scenes and the voice over by Conor:
Never give up on your dream
Be your own inspiration, a beacon of self belief
Keep proving others wrong
If your dream doesn’t scare you, then its not big enough
So dream, as big as you dare
Only at the very end of the advert do we see the Budweiser logo and the usual drink responsibly message at the bottom of the screen.
For me the message from the advert is a very inspirational one, delivering a powerful positive message. Yes, it does come from a beer brand, which I think is more than ok. It shows you how the guidelines are keeping alcohol brands in a very responsible place and forcing a communication about positive values.
The message coming from RTE in banning this advert?
According to the newspapers they issued a statement to the Sunday Business Post that the advert breached advertising guidelines because Conor McGregor is considered a “hero to the young“, which will in turn encourage them to drink alcohol.
I don’t get it..
In my view banning the advert will achieve the wrong thing (besides totally confusing an industry that is trying to be very responsible) – viewers will definitely seek out the inspirational advert and could instead conclude that we are living in a censorship state that in some way has an issue with people from working class backgrounds having and achieving their dreams.
Banning the advert is also bad for the RTE brand as in my view it shows them as being ultra conservative and this is not good when they are up against such stiff competition. Leaving the censorship to the advertising authorities might be a much better policy.
It’s a great thing that we are seeing extra vigilance about alcohol advertising but we need to make sure that the brands that are working really hard to get it right aren’t punished.
“If your dream doesn’t scare you then it isn’t big enough. Dream as big as you dare”
These are the words that were challenging me and the strange thing is that I heard them uttered by Conor McGregor in an advert that my son, Brendan Canty directed for Budweiser.
I then hear both Conor (the apprentice plumber from Crumlin) and Brendan (the boy from Ballincollig!), two 27 year old’s from different parts of our fine country and from different backgrounds talking about “following your dream” in a behind the scenes video about the advert.
Brendan talks about throwing everything at your dream and Conor talks about following your passion.
From the outside it probably looks easy and then I think about Malcolm Gladwell and his theory about 10,000 hours in his book Outliers and I think about what I know about these two young men.
Brendan didn’t get the grade he hoped for in CIT because his lecturer had some issue with his short film “The Kid“. Take one look at thetrailer or even the full feature and make up your own mind (Brendan will kill me for drawing attention to this – this work by a student is incredible!).
He regularly pitches for videos and adverts that he doesn’t win – some of these treatments have some of his best work in them but they will never grace our screens.
He takes the kicks in the backside and drives on. Following your dream means driving on even when things happen that might leave you feeling on the floor.
Conor with all of his talent and brashness has followed his dream. I haven’t followed his story well enough to talk about his knocks but I am sure there have been many and I have no doubt that 10,000 hours of sweat, toil and disappointments are all in his ‘experience bank‘ that has him where he is today.
Okay, he took a kick in the backside in his last fight against Nate Diaz but he spoke about “celebrating defeat” ..we have to if we want to succeed!
With all this talk of dreaming I was inclined to look at my own life and what I was doing at 27 years of age and what I have done since.
The dream of a thirteen year old was to work in the music business. I flirted with managing bands for about two years, which was fun for a while and then the bands I was working with broke up!
I always wanted to start my own business and I got that chance when I started a fast food restaurant with another guy. It wasn’t my industry of choice but this ‘golden opportunity‘ to start something and make some money seemed like a good idea.
It wasn’t my dream so I talked him into opening music stores. We didn’t know the first thing about this industry but it didn’t stop us opening one in Cork, one in Limerick and one in Galway in the space of 12 months. During that time we also opened a second fast food restaurant in Cork.
We were business trailblazers but we were crazy – this rate of growth was reckless and if anything went wrong we were in huge financial trouble. Some of these ventures worked out and some of them were miserable failures.
All of this was when I was incredibly still holding down a full time job – I was working around clocks that I didn’t even have!
I was then asked if I would become the General Manager of Deasy’s, the Guinness owned subsidiary that I was the Financial Controller of. I was staggered to be asked to take on such a role and this was another dream fulfilled! After doing this for two years I was asked to join Guinness in Dublin ..wow..working in a relatively senior role for a huge international company – another dream. I was 29!
I took a job as General Manager of a subsidiary of Heineken a few years later – I quickly realised that repeating myself wasn’t part of the dream and I needed to change.
In 2001 I had a dream about creating a high end fashion and beauty event and taking it on tour around Ireland with the top Irish models. Myself and Dee created ‘Catwalks’ which was the talk of the female luxury sector in Ireland for a number of years.
Dee emigrated from Kerry to Cork and we opened a Fuzion office on the South Mall in Cork (before thatwe worked from home for a few years – thank you to Alison, Doreen and Barry who were happy to have enough faith in us to do that).
Soon after that we became the only agency in Ireland to have an office in both Cork and Dublin as we opened one in our capital city.
This year I was elected to the Dublin Chamber of Commerce council by the members – this sounds like a very trivial thing but it is a big deal as members from smaller firms find it impossible to get elected. This makes me very proud as it is a small tangible sign that we are succeeding in Dublin and achieving some recognition for the work we are doing there.
When I heard the words “If your dream doesn’t scare you then it’s not big enough” I had to admit to myself that I feared I had stopped dreaming big and maybe that I had stopped dreaming at all. After writing this piece I know this isn’t quite true.
This 51 year old hasn’t stopped dreaming but yes …I admit, my dreams don’t scare me.
Maybe it’s time to be scared again and not leave that to the 27 year olds!
I was having a chat with a buddy of mine who we do some work with from time to time.
A project with an immovable deadline had hit an impasse because someone on the client side had let one of his guys down – the task they were to do was a relatively straightforward one but they didn’t get to it due to their own work pressure.
The person on his team informed him that she could do no more because of this ‘thing‘ that wasn’t done so the project deadline would be missed.
It would probably have been a legitimate reason for missing the deadline and he could quite happily declare that “there is nothing we could do“.
He had a choice to make ..
Being in business is like being on a dance floor except you have no idea what music they are about to play or who you will have to dance with!
You turn up expecting an eighties disco and suddenly they play a waltz. You are waltzing and an Irish gig comes on. Sometimes the dance floor is packed and you are struggling to manoeuvre around the floor and suddenly you find yourself dancing by yourself and feeling very awkward as everyone is watching.
There are times when no one is dancing and its up to you to get things moving by dragging an unsuspecting dance partner out on the floor in the hope that others join in.
Sometimes you can dance all night and have the best of fun but there are times when you are just not in the mood – your feet are sore but you still have to dance.
Sometimes it’s dancing with the most perfect, incredible, stunningly beautiful woman and sometimes … Well. you can only dance with the women who are in the room!
My buddy instructed his team member to just do the task that the client was supposed to do as it wasn’t a big deal and he wanted to deliver the project on time. Nice move..
Greg Canty Fuzion Blog 