Consider your point of view as temporary

Not the advice Barack and Mitt are getting from their advisors as they prepare for tonight’s debate.  But great advice Jeff Bezos gave to the folks at 37signals yesterday in a 90 minute visit.

Jeff said that people who are right a lot of the time are people who change their minds.  They revise and reconsider points of view and are open to new ideas and information.

Certainly true of Zappos, and of 37signals, two companies that uniquely combine innovation and adaptation.

I’ve been in plenty of companies where this wonderful flip-floppiness was called “Lack of conviction.” When due dates are approaching at the speed of sound, margins are increasingly thinner, and clients are exponentially more fearful, who wants someone who can’t stick to his decisions?

Apparently, the most innovative and smartest companies in America.

Of puppets and love songs.

How do you tell a story that’s already powerful?
How do you dramatize exceptional customer service?
How do you bring to life an already acknowledged product benefit in a way that makes people smile and notice?
Like this:



How do you feature a product that everyone knows in a new and unusual way?
How do you use a nice piece of music (yes, that’s Colin hay from Men at Work) to help tell a story?
How do you almost (but not quite) pull off a touching story for a car rental company?
Like this:



Like or hate, Zappos and Hertz approach their message delivery in different ways than the norm. You could argue that Nike beat Zappos to the puppets, and that plenty of brands have told sappy stories of love with their product woven in, but I haven’t seen ads like this in these types of categories. Twist applied, Twist approves.