Strands of Genius is curated lovingly by Rosie & Faris, usually on Mondays & Thursdays, but occasionally you'll find it in your inbox other days too. They're unpredictable like that. They hope you read it, enjoy it, tweet it, share it -- and tell your mom ;)
Oct 13-27: London, UK
Oct 27-29: Atlanta, GA
Oct 29-Nov 11: Isla Mujeres, MX
Nov 11-18: TBD
Nov 18-24: Amsterdam, Netherlands
Nov 24-30: Tentatively NYC
THE WORD
(BRIEF BITS OF INBOX INSPIRATION BROUGHT TO YOU BY)
Strands is brought to you by the Worldwide Partners Summit, and some very lovely people from this network of independent agencies (#TheFutureIsIndie), the South Bank, Mondrian Hotel, some very London weather, cocktails on the Tower Bridge (so cool!!), Stoke Newington, not enough coffee, and, hopefully, some time to catch up email and art!
Do you have something interesting you want to share?! We're looking for a few more guest curators, for this year and next. Let us know if you're interested by just replying to this email, and we'll get you more information.
Quote of the Week "Amazon’s mission is to make customer identity more primary than citizenship.” — Drew Austin, on Amazon's customer obsession
Amazon's Mission To Make You A Constant Consumer
#MoreThanCustomers
Have you heard about Amazon's "customer obsession"? "“Customer obsession” is a happier narrative for this dominance than one of aggressive market capture, anti-competitive tactics, and ruthless labor exploitation. Like “support the troops,” or “what about the children,” caring about the customer seems like an impregnable position to take. It’s a more specific iteration of Google’s “Don’t Be Evil”: How could a consumer-focused company be evil, when we are all consumers? What could be wrong with the company being focused on our needs?
But that is the fundamental problem: Amazon’s constant praise of the customer implies we are all already customers and nothing more — that we should understand “consumer” as our core identity. The company’s endless praise for the consumer role is part of its intent to disarm us, to invite us to enter its universe of deals and recommendations and to internalize the status of permanent customer — and specifically, Amazon’s customer." This read from Drew Austin is exceptional. ::REAL LIFE MAG::
100+ Tech Tools - curated by Serial Marketer
#ListOfAllLists #TechTools #FriendOfGeniusSteals
Our friend, and Rosie's former colleague, David Berkowitz, has put together an incredible list of 100+ tech tools. In his words, "It's skewed toward tools for marketers, but hardly exclusively. It has productivity tools - such as scheduling apps, and a site that makes it easy to compare international time zones. It has research tools. It has some job-seeking sites. It has my favorite password manager, which is the kind of thing every single internet user should use." Check it out, and make sure to make a copy for your own reference. ::GOOGLE DOCS::
How To Get To Great Ideas -- And What That Has To Do With Lasagne.
#Inspiration #Tech #News
Our friend Dave Birss has a new book coming out, How To Get To Great Ideas, and we're super excited to get our hands on it.
In his words: "It’s a practical guide on how people and organizations can have better ideas. It draws on scientific study, academic theory, and decades of personal experience. And much of it runs counter to most people’s understanding of creativity."
In an effort to kick-start the book and make a dent on the Amazon charts, he's asking you to preorder the book at a specific time: Between 1pm 18th October and 1pm 19th October. If you do that and send a copy of your Amazon order receipt to preorder@davebirss.com you’ll be entered into a draw for Dave to either make jam or lasagne for you. ::AMAZON PREORDER::
If we can ever be of help to you, even outside of a formal engagement, please don’t hesitate to let us know. We always love getting to meet like-minded folks, so please let us know if you see we’ll be in a city near you :)
In March of 2013, Rosie & Faris left NYC. They've been #OutOfOffice for 5 years & counting. Want more on the nomad lifestyle? Check out Technomadix.co
Want to collaborate with Rosie and Faris? They are a husband and wife team that consult, speak, write, teach, strategize, facilitate & generally play well with others. You should definitely get in touch.
