I was spotifying through the gloomy moody of The Wire Subscribers' Releases of the Year 2013 when an East Midlands accent grabbed me. Still rare enough in the media to stick out. And it was attached to the only bit of properly energetic bit of noise in there Sleaford Mods, like if the Young Marble Giants had been two angry yoths from Grantham.
planninging
I get the occasional email asking for guidance on various planning issues (how to get a job, what to read, where to study etc). I'm no longer really qualified to offer such advice, but it seems churlish to say nothing, so I've made a quick page that gives links to people who might really know such stuff. It's here if you're interested.
deadline
If you're thinking of having a go at the APSotW thing, over at Paul's blog. The deadline is approaching.
paul takes school
Mr Paul Colman is taking on the next Account Planning School Of The Web assignment. Details are here. if you want to know what Paul looks like see picture above.
gareth school
Following Andrew's tremendous effort Gareth has signed up to do the next Account Planning School of the Web task. I love this, I do nothing at all yet still feel like I'm getting some points for this somehow.
in other news
Rob's just posted his feedback on the marathon Account Planning School Of The Web assignment he hosted. Top marks to him. Andrew Northern Planner's up next. Any volunteers for after that?
school of the web news
The School Of The Web is too good an idea to die just because I don't want to do it anymore. So I'm passing it on to some good people to actually do it properly. Opinionated Rob's going to do May's assignment. Then Northern Planner's going to have a go (I just can't bring myself to call him Andrew) they, along with Carol (who's offered to turn her planningblog url over to a group blog with this as an element) are the new faculty.
I will get back to all the people who sent Starbuck's stuff asap. Apologies to them.
I feel like I'm shedding skins, it's rather pleasant.
assignment 14 - taking on starbucks
John and Paul are hosting/conducting a fantastic conversation over at Brand Autopsy about what Starbucks should do following Howard Schultz's recent memo. You should have a look.
But given the red-in-tooth-and-claw nature of our world I thought an interesting assignment would be to think about what all the Starbucks competitors could do to take advantage of their apparent woes. So the task is this:
Pick a Starbucks competitor in your market. (If they're not in your market yet, imagine they're coming, because they probably are). Could be a big chain, could not be. Then write a 10-point action plan for how to respond to Starbucks as a competitor. I'm looking for 10 specific and doable things (and each point must be less than 30 words). You can talk about the store experience, the products, communications, anything. And don't just rip-off the stuff that John and Paul suggest Starbucks should do, I'll be looking for that. I'm going to be marking based on the quality of the idea and how persuasively it's expressed. (But no pictures please, just words.) And I'm going to try and find a suitable guest judge and an appropriate prize.
Get your entries in by March 20th. 10pm GMT. russell at russelldavies.com. thanks
huntington and earls on assignment 13
Given the level of difficulty on the last assignment, and the difficulties of the submit and comment process, I thought it might be useful to get a couple of planners in a room and ask them what they would do when confronted with the same problem. So that's what I did. Said planners are Messers Richard Huntington and Mark Earls. Big thanks to them. Discussion inevitably ranged fairly wide and we probably spent more time talking about how to approach the imagined meeting rather than how to generate the content. But I still think there might be some useful stuff in here. Apologies for the rather loud air-conditioning noises, we recorded this in a nuclear submarine under the polar ice-cap and the scrubbers had to run at full power.
assignment 13 - soap feedback
Here's the feedback on Assignment 13. Thanks to everyone who entered.
Good Stuff
This was a much harder task than just throwing out some maple syrup thoughts. This required thought, investigation, some digging, some actual thinking. As such everyone who entered can be proud that they've got the kind of application and effort they'll need to be a good planner. Because I'm convinced that most of what makes people any good is there ability to work hard. So you've all done that. Brilliant.
There were some really interesting entries in here. Some people who'd managed to combine a decent amount of digging for useful data with some imagination and originality in your arguments. That's fantastic. Most of you didn't do both, you either presented me with lots of useful information and no interesting thinking. Or the other way round. That's not great but it's a decent start.
I really liked how global and diverse these entries are. I learned a lot about some different countries and none of you settled for some bland global solution. You all did something that was locally relevant and locally insightful. So, hurrah.
Bad Stuff
There was a load of typos and things in these documents. If English isn't your first language I'm going to forgive you for that and applaud you for communicating in another language. I can't do it. But if English is your first language then you should be ashamed of some of the typos in there. That's bad. And if your English isn't that strong just write less, use bullet points or diagrams, find a simpler way to communicate. It couldn't hurt anyway. But like I say anyone who's doing this in a second language - you have my admiration.
There was a lot of assertion without evidence in here. That's not necessarily a bad thing but if you're going to do that you have to explain what you're doing. If you're offering a personal point of view make that clear, and then make it very personal. Otherwise you should all spend some more time looking for actual facts and information on which to base your argument. This doesn't have to mean some quantitative research (thought that would be good) it just has to mean something out there in the real world; it could be the thoughts of journalists, it could be data from industry websites, it could be quotes from people on the internet, it could be a survey of people in your company. Otherwise you're just making stuff up and you're likely to get shot down in the client meeting. You've got to base your assertions and thinking on something.
On a similar note, though you all seemed to have done quite a lot of work on this it didn't seem that any of you actually went to a store, bought any similar product or tried it out. I didn't get any sense of visceral experience with the category. There's no substitute for trying it yourself. Do that. Take a few pictures, think about your personal experience and you've got a valid basis for a conversation. You should always start there. Not with google.
Caveats etc
Every time I do this I realise what a tricky task it is. I really want to be able to talk to you about what you've done, ask about the thinking behind it, discuss it, because I often get the sense that there's some great thinking hidden behind some awkward presentation. But I can only react to what you send me. And I can only do it with those snippy and perfunctory little comments. And it always seems easier to criticise than praise, and they inevitably get snippier as I get to the final entrants. So once again I apologise if I've been too harsh. But as I've said before, I don't think it's my comments that are the real value, I think you'll learn most by looking at everyone else's entry and seeing what they did that was different, better or worse than you.
Once again, huge thanks to everyone who joined in, you can be proud of yourselves. I've also recorded a discussion about this assignment with two titans of the plannersphere which I will post tomorrow and there'll be another task along shortly. cheers.
Download 13A.ppt Download 13B.ppt Download 13C.ppt Download 13D.ppt Download 13E.ppt Download 13F.ppt Download 13G.ppt Download 13H.ppt Download 13I.ppt Download 13J.ppt Download 13K.ppt Download 13L.ppt Download 13M.ppt