PUSHING THE ENVLOPE
Perspectives on Playtime
IF YOU’RE IN BUSINESS, you probably play to win. After all, unless you’re an eccentric millionaire, you’re in business to turn a profit — or at the very least, do the best you can.
They — whoever “they” are — say all work and no play makes Jack (and who the heck is this “Jack,” anyway?) a dull boy. So to keep Jack sparkling, here are two takes on lessons learned from play. One is the story of what you can learn if you take time to see things from a child’s perspective, and the other is what you can learn if you take time to watch between the play(s).
Lines in the Sand
Any book that falls under the hybrid category “business/inspiration” almost immediately engenders skepticism on my part. And one that claims to be a parable…well, I’m doubly dubious.
But even with those marks against it, “Sandbox Wisdom” by Tom Asacker (Eastside Publishing, Manchester, NH; www.sandboxwisdom.com) proved to be an enjoyable read. With a child’s playground as a backdrop, Asacker — a speaker, columnist and former CEO — sets out to deliver commonsense business wisdom about how to gain customers’ trust and loyalty.
The narrative is indeed designed as a modern-day parable, telling the tale of a disillusioned executive who finds the path to better management after spending time with a laid-back retired millionaire and the millionaire’s precocious granddaughter. Through the early chapters, I kept waiting for Asacker to slip out of storytelling mode and into a more traditional business book façade. It never happened, which made for an unconventional take on a concept that never popped up: customer relationship management.
I kept waiting for the term CRM, or at least Asacker’s version of the acronym, to appear. While this may irk those who subscribe to Meaningless Buzzword Quarterly, to me it was refreshing. It made the book seem more Mr. Garrison Keillor than Mr. (or Ms.) Overblown Consultant. Readers follow the protagonist of the book, Bill West, as he spends a day playing with Mr. Falcon and Annie, learning invaluable lessons through playground experiences.
The lessons, of course, were things Bill knew deep inside all along, and are handily recapped in “Bill’s Notepad” at the end of each chapter in the book. Smile. Be attentive to others’ needs. Maintain contact to keep familiar. Perception is truth. My favorite? “Business is messy, and always a little out of control.”
While the book’s tone seems a little “Mr. Rogers” at times, that’s not necessarily a bad thing. After all, Fred Rogers is a great communicator, and we could all use a little of that in our neighborhood.
Grading the Gridiron
1/26/01, 6:57 p.m. As I type this, it’s two days until the national holiday known as Super Bowl Sunday, when disciples make their communion with chips and salsa and whatever brand of beer is on sale. Can you tell that I’m not really a football fan?
I’m debating whether or not I should watch the game. The commercials are a lure, as is the debut of the new season of “Survivor.” And as a student of both marketing and popular culture, it behooves me to watch both, right?
Plus, it’s an excuse to eat a lot of junk food.
1/29/01, 9:22 a.m. This is the problem with putting off writing copy until deadline. Sometimes, there just isn’t any “there” there to write about.
Rather than sit at home with my notebook, I decided to watch the game with friends and gauge their reactions to the commercials. After all, the ads are always so memorable that I wouldn’t have any trouble dashing several hundred words off the top of my head the morning after, right?
We all knew going in that this wasn’t going to be a repeat of last year’s dot-com bonanza, which added up to no commercials with strong DM components. Building on already-successful branding campaigns seemed to be the theme for the evening. Dumb as they are, the Budweiser “Whassup” commercials drew laughs from all corners of the room. The E*Trade monkey riding through a wasteland of burned-out dot-coms won high marks for its timeliness. The Volkswagen “Drivers Wanted” spot (two men trying to get their car down out of a tree), however, just drew a resounding round of blank stares.
Two ads in particular — Cingular’s showcasing the talents of a disabled painter and another from the American Legacy Foundation on the evils of smoking — probably weren’t what the experts would have pegged as standouts. The spots were somber comedowns after bits like a model getting knocked over by a speeding Dorito or a dog eating the entire contents of a refrigerator so there’d be room to chill the beer. But during both of these ads, the entire room fell silent. Everyone watched the screen and then talked about what they’d seen. It wasn’t quite a call to action, but it generated more buzz than Bud.
BETH NEGUS VIVEIROS ([email protected]) is executive editor of DIRECT. She plays in the sandbox every day…well, if you can call scooping and adding fresh litter playing.
