Fifty Mission Cap, War on Clutter, Social Media, Growth Marketing

Fifty Mission Cap, War on Clutter, Social Media, Growth Marketing

The Weekly | Brigadoon
March 31, 2018
Curation and commentary from Marc A. Ross

Reporting from Alexandria, Virginia

The Weekly  = Enterprise + Culture + Sport + Policy

Subscribe here: http://thebrigadoon.com/subscribe/

ROSS RANT

Take the time to get your 50 mission cap

A fifty mission cap was a stiff cloth cap with a visor issued to Allied bomber pilots in World War II when they had completed fifty missions. 

After fifty missions, the pilots were known to weather and beat their cap into a more rugged and worn look. Cheating death and pushing the envelope makes one want to display a roughness and not wear a stiffer and newly issued flight cap.  

These worn and personalized hats obviously made these pilots more identifiable and therefore more respected by the rookies. 

The cap was thus a status symbol.

A symbol that you had the knowledge.

A symbol that you had the experience.

A symbol that you had the professionalism.

Junior pilots were known to work in their caps to look like a fifty mission cap. They too wanted to appear that they had more than they did.

Sure you may have the cap, you can work it in to look like that, but that doesn't mean you have the knowledge, experience, and professionalism.

Not all us can have a fifty mission cap for the simple reason such a cap requires, time, experience, and commitment.

Most of us want the cap as soon as possible.

But why?

The journey is needed. 

Most overnight successes take decades. Most artistry is gained by failure. Most skills are gathered by doing the reps.

Sure the journey has stress. Sure the journey has unknowns. Sure the journey has complications.

But at the end, you're a different person. You get the fifty mission cap. You earned it.

The journey takes you beyond, propels you to achieve more, and contribute to others along the way. 

The journey is needed.

The challenge as entrepreneurs and thought leaders is to find a journey worthy of your heart and your soul.

That's when you want to put the cap on.

FIVE ARTICLES TO READ

40 years into the war on clutter, and we’re still overwhelmed by stuff. What’s going on? It’s hard to put a start date on America’s War on Clutter, but you could trace it to 1978, when the first Container Store opened in a 1,600-square-foot space in Dallas, or to 1985, when a few professional organizers from California saw gold in people’s junk and started a trade association that today counts about 3,400 members. But despite an industry that’s grown so massive it’s become its own form of clutter — with books, and experts, and storage containers, and apps, and YouTube videos — we’ve made so little progress that even the professional organizers aren’t pretending the problem has been solved — or even that it’s solvable. https://goo.gl/32jgJE

Can social media be saved? Kevin Rose opines in the NYT, they exploit our data and make us unhappy. They spread misinformation and undermine democracy. Our columnist asks if salvation is possible for social networks. https://goo.gl/xHttAC

Fast Company: The future of parking garages doesn’t involve cars at all: In London, a disused garage is being partially converted into studios, restaurants, and more. https://goo.gl/1rL3kz

This is old news - This was discussed at Brigadoon Sundance 2018!

HBR: How being a workaholic differs from working long hours — and why that matters for your health https://goo.gl/e5FJDX

WP: Mindfulness meditation is huge, but science isn’t sure how, or whether, it works https://wapo.st/2pyFvOm

GUEST POST

You know you got something to say: Looking for a place to share ideas, comment on business, tell a funny story, or provide expertise?

This is the place.

Send The Weekly 500 - 750 words on any topic that would benefit the Brigadoon community.

Please note, I do my best copy editing after I hit send. So, whatever you send me, I suggest you do a bang-up job on the spelling, grammar, and editing before you send it over. 

GEAR

Business name generator: Namelix will generate a short, brandable business name using artificial intelligence. https://namelix.com/

PODCAST

This Week in Startups - Rachel Hepworth: Rachel is the head of growth marketing at Slack. In this podcast, she breaks down how startups should “go to market and grow”  and speaks with participants at Founder University.

SONG

The Tragically Hip - Fifty-Mission Cap https://goo.gl/Fofd4R

DRINK

The Franklin Mortgage & Investment Company (Philadelphia) https://goo.gl/12kJof

SPORT

The origins of all 30 MLB team names https://goo.gl/jrJaAm

How Loyola used information and skill — not luck — to reach the Final Four https://goo.gl/f5RBgH

Take the time to get your 50 mission cap

A fifty mission cap was a stiff cloth cap with a visor issued to Allied bomber pilots in World War II when they had completed fifty missions. 

After fifty missions, the pilots were known to weather and beat their cap into a more rugged and worn look. Cheating death and pushing the envelope makes one want to display a roughness and not wear a stiffer and newly issued flight cap.  

These worn and personalized hats obviously made these pilots more identifiable and therefore more respected by the rookies. 

The cap was thus a status symbol.

A symbol that you had the knowledge.

A symbol that you had the experience.

A symbol that you had the professionalism.

Junior pilots were known to work in their caps to look like a fifty mission cap. They too wanted to appear that they had more than they did.

Sure you may have the cap, you can work it in to look like that, but that doesn't mean you have the knowledge, experience, and professionalism.

Not all us can have a fifty mission cap for the simple reason such a cap requires, time, experience, and commitment.

Most of us want the cap as soon as possible.

But why?

The journey is needed. 

Most overnight successes take decades. Most artistry is gained by failure. Most skills are gathered by doing the reps.

Sure the journey has stress. Sure the journey has unknowns. Sure the journey has complications.

But at the end, you're a different person. You get the fifty mission cap. You earned it.

The journey takes you beyond, propels you to achieve more, and contribute to others along the way. 

The journey is needed.

The challenge as entrepreneurs and thought leaders is to find a journey worthy of your heart and your soul.

That's when you want to put the cap on.

-Marc A. Ross

Marc A. Ross is the founder of Brigadoon and specializes in developing winning communications, content, connections, and commerce for entrepreneurs and thought leaders.

Enter techman

As Beijing emphasizes the need to wean China off foreign technology, and as China moves up the technology ladder to become a “cyber power” in its own right - expect more friction.

Some experts even go so far to describe the current state of US-China commercial relations as a Cold War.

Recent tit-for-tat trade actions will deepen what has become a global contest for technological dominance between the United States and China.

Plus, the Trump administration is expecting lots more investment by Beijing in semiconductors and acquisitions of international technology companies by Chinese companies.

State capitalism vs. market capitialism.

How do you power a nation's economy? Do you build it? Do you borrow it? Do you buy it?

Sleep with one eye open. We're off to a new never-never-land.

There is a silver lining to all this. 

We are witnessing national economic development in real-time and will have the answer within a generation.

-Marc A. Ross

Marc A. Ross is the founder of Brigadoon and specializes in developing winning communications, content, connections, and commerce for entrepreneurs and thought leaders.

POTD: A16z Podcast: Creating A Category, From Pricing To Positioning

What do Klennex, FedEx, and Coke all have in common?

All three products are now universally used to describe a whole suite of competing and secondary products or services.

Kleenex is the word for numerous paper-tissue products.

FedEx is the word to for all overnight delivery.

Coke is the word for hundreds of soft drinks available.

Simply put, don't copy, create. 

It is better to create a new category where you can set price than try and improve a category where the price has already been established.

Creation means there is less competition and more riches to be had.

In this episode of the a16z podcast, general partner Martin Casado, who helped create the category of “software-defined networking” and Michel Feaster, CEO and co-founder of Usermind, who previously defined the category and discipline of “technology business management,” share their insights, in conversation with Sonal Chokshi. 

Category creation is all about creating a net new problem and a net new solution to that problem. This matters because if you create a category, you can set the price, the market size, and set the buying environment.

Of course, this isn't easy. You are asking customers to say yes to something that is new, possibly unproven, not trusted, or well known in the marketplace.

Speakers in this podcast suggest, "it isn’t just about making a dent in the way companies work and changing what people do every day… it’s about setting the price. And with that, comes creating the concept in people’s heads, defining the value, and setting the rules of the game."

As Henry Ford said, "If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses."

Sometimes you need to create and lead.

For me, I find pricing to be the biggest challenge of running my business. And frankly, I have done a horrible job. From underpricing service offerings and products due to lack of confidence, knowledge, and experience. Coupled with working in categories with well-established rules and competitors selling "Kleenex, FedEd, and Coke."

When it comes to pricing so far, I have made every mistake.

From these failures, thankfully I have acquired new knowledge. I am firmly committed to the idea that setting the price point is vital because I want to guide the customer to what is good and what is bad. I want to control the customer from having the ability to make a comparison. I create the category. 

Simply put, being an entrepreneur and thought leader.

To do this, you need to execute these two things: First, you have to create the concept in the customer's brain - you need to get the customer to think about the problem and realize you have the solution. Second, you need to set the value by setting the price.

Creating an environment where the customer sees the world differently, recognizing there is a problem, and leading them to your tool to solve this irritation. That's the winning sales cycle.

Think like a storyteller and use narrative: Frame the problem, then make it top of mind, and finally set the value (price) to fix the problem.

Reinforcing with the marketplace that your differentiator is the right way to go - how you solve this problem is unique, better, and different and your unique, better, and different is defensible against the competition. 

Ultimately you want to create a buying environment where the customer sees you as the only solution to the problem, and there are compelling reasons why it is you.

When you realize business is a long game, and you can build a model that lets you survive long enough, coupled with teasing apart the signals from your first customers, and finally nailing some key moves early by setting the buying requirements… you can win.