My son Ryan and I just completed the three-day Magical Worlds workshop at Wizard Academy in Buda, TX this past week.  Here's a pic of Ryan, Roy Williams (the Wizard of Ads), and me.

It was a great experience to have with my son who's about to start the last two years of work toward his BS in Marketing.  We learned about Thought Particles, Third Gravitating Bodies, Broca's Area, the Visuospatial Sketchpad, and more.  It was a great time and something I would highly recommend to any of you "marketing" types, especially you misfits (you know who you are).

Roy Williams, the Wizard of Ads, has a couple of free radio scripts (written by Anthony Garcia & Dave Nevland) hanging on his website for any churches with the guts to run them.

Follow this link.  Then scroll down the page until you reach, "Ads for Your Church."  There are two links for the two scripts.

Or, you can access directly from here  -

Click here to download Ad #1
Click here to download Ad #2

Please let me know what you think by leaving a comment on this post.  Thanks.

Interesting article by Bruce Nussbaum over at Business Week about using "design thinking" to create rewarding experiences for consumers.

Here's an excerpt -

Quality-management programs can't give you the kind of empathetic connection to consumers that increasingly is the key to opening up new business opportunities. All the B-school-educated managers you hire won't automatically get you the outside-the-box thinking you need to build new brands -- or create new experiences for old brands. The truth is we're moving from a knowledge economy that was dominated by technology into an experience economy controlled by consumers and the corporations who empathize with them.

To read the article => click here.

The story from Walla-Walla Union Bulletin that won't go away.  The pic here is a sculpture of a girl frog reading Lord of the Flies.

Milton-Freewater, WA - Click here for article

Here's an excerpt - City Manager Delphine Palmer and the Urban Renewal Agency directors, who are also City Council members, recently leapt toward that vision. They approved spending up to $10,000 a year of URA funds to brand the city with its frog theme.

National branding consultant Greg Stine suggested the frog theme, which comes from the city's longstanding summer celebration, the Muddy Frogwater Country Classic Festival.

Palmer and the Council say branding is the city's best bet to attract visitors and hopefully boost the town's economy. `Businesses are leaving. We don't have the same amount of agricultural business,' Palmer said, `We need something that's different to bring visitors and people to our community.'

Send in the frogs.

Does anyone want to rush out and hire a national branding consultant after reading this?  Really, are frog sculptures the key for economic renewal?

As mentioned below, Seth Godin has a new blog to launch his new book, All Marketers Are Liars.  It's about how stories become realities (at least perceived realities) and how those stories influence our decisions.  I submitted a story, and Seth posted it.

Here's the post - Billion Dollar Water Story.  Thanks, Seth.

Seth Godin has started a new blog following the theme of his new book - All Marketers Are Liars, to be published May, 2005.  This should prove to be a site that not only contains some interesting and useful information, but this blog should give us some further insights into the mind of Seth when it comes to launching and marketing a new book.

To go to All Marketers Are Liars Blog => click here.

To pre-order Seth's new book => click here.

It's all about the story, which is similar to what I said recently in this post.

Meanwhile, Seth's new blog looks like a lot of interesting fun. 

He's creating his own story (as are we all).

Wonder why he abandoned TypePad in favor of Silkblogs for this new blog??

This has been one of my favorite new shows this season, but I’m a bit concerned about a some things and wonder if the show is getting off track –

This from the Walla Walla Union-Bulletin -

MILTON-FREEWATER - The city's Urban Renewal Agency voted Monday to allocate up to $10,000 a year toward promoting the city's frog brand, but only after fielding a few audience questions about frogs.

Read the article - click here.

Now, my first reaction is that if governmental bodies are jumping on the branding bandwagon, it is probably time for smart money to be jumping off.  Given that prejudice, the citizens asked the council some insightful questions. Like, "Why are we spending all that money on frogs instead of using it to fix up the city?"  Brilliant question!  If the money is used to make the city a more remarkable place to live or visit, the frogs will be expendable.

Cute logos and clever campaigns are not branding.  Creating a remarkable experience is at the heart of real branding.  Give me a good experience and bad art over a cute logo and a poor experience.  Of course, a great experience with good art is optimal, but spend your money first on the experience.  Then get a good logo.

If you must.

This week at the NRB Convention in Anaheim I had two people mention to me that they read my blog.  One person I had never met.  The other one I had met over a year ago before I ever started to blog.  The recognition felt good so here's what the rest of you can do.  If you ever see me in a public place feel free to come up to me and tell me what a great blog I have.  For now, I like the attention.

But be forewarned, when I become famous I'm going to ignore you.  I may occasionally sign an autograph or two but don't count on it. 

And don't take it personally.

(I'm kinda workin' on a prima donna attitude in case I ever need it.)

Some must reading over at Seth Godin's Blog -

Why this "Internet thing" is just starting

So, what will it take to succeed?