Month: February 2014

  • What the Muppets Have to Say About Your Business and Your Audience

    I have been reading the new biography of Muppets creator Jim Henson by Brian Jay Jones. Part of Henson’s genius was that he recognized things about the medium of television that seem obvious in retrospect. In particular, he understood the importance of literally seeing things from the audience perspective. Most early television shows that included […]

  • Five Steps to Create Customer Support to Match Your Hyper-Convenient Service

    We have all come to rely on many new services which we find hyper-convenient. For example, we rely on: Video and audio recording and streaming services like TiVo, Roku, Amazon, Netflix, Hulu, Pandora, and Spotify. We find them hyper-convenient to watch and listen to what we want, when and where we want. Paying for parking with a […]

  • Five Lessons You Can Learn From CVS’s Recent Announcement

    CVS announced last week that it will stop selling cigarettes and other tobacco products in its stores as of October. It will be a while before all the implications play out, but on the face of it, this looks like a great case study for some of the principles we have been talking about in […]

  • Who Are Your Customers?

    Last week we looked at the two questions that successful businesses ask and answer relentlessly.  What business are you in? Who are your customers?  In last week’s post, we focused primarily on the first question. Here are some tips on how to get useful answers to the second question. 1. Talk to your best customers […]