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This book focuses on the following two questions: What do the most talented employees need from their workplace? and How do the world’s greatest managers find, focus and keep talented employees?

The authors answer these questions with the following framework: 1. Select for Talent, 2. Define the Right Outcomes, 3. Focus on Strengths, and 4. Find the Right Fit.

One story I really like from the book that demonstrates these concepts is about Dennis Rodman. He was an excellent basketball player, especially in rebounding, but he also had a reputation for being wild, unpredictable and difficult to work with. When he first started playing for the Chicago Bulls, he ended up missing or getting kicked out of many games for various infractions. When it came time to write a new contract, he was offered “one of the most incentive-laden contacts in the history of the NBA. Rodman was guaranteed $4.5 million. He would receive another $5 million if he stayed out of trouble for the duration of the season; another $500,000 for winning the rebounding title for the seventh time; and another $100,000 for having a positive assist-to-turnover ration…. It worked for Rodman and the Chicago Bulls. By the end of the season Rodman had missed only one game for disciplinary reasons. He had won the rebounding title for the seventh time. He had 230 assists versus 147 turnovers. And the Bulls won the championship.”

The lesson from this story is to identify a person’s strengths, define the outcomes that play to those strengths, find a count or rank those outcomes, and let the person run.

For more details entire book, check out this video:

Mashable and Adobe came up with this fun video, which gives some quick perspective into how advertising and marketing and evolved over the years.

View the original article over at Mashable.

I recently attended a Utah AMA meeting where the guest speaker was the Chief Marketing Officer of Domo, Heather Zynczak.

To give a little context, Domo is a Utah-based analytics company founded by the former head of Omniture, Josh James. They specialize in creating dashboards for executives to get a quick glimpses of how their company is doing in many different areas.

Here are my key takeaways from what Heather had to say:

• Data allows you to take risks. These days, you occasionally hear that sentiment that data is killing creativity in advertising because of a focus on the metrics. In reality, the metrics help you to try out many ideas on small scale, see what is resonating first, and then iterate. One one occasion, the CEO of Domo came to Heather and said “I don’t like that ad. We should take it down.” Heather than showed him metrics on how it was their highest converting ad and was able to quote the exact dollars of revenue the ad had brought in so far, to which he replied “Okay, Okay. I get it. It can stay.” In the not so distant past, advertising, no matter how clever and award-winning the idea, wasn’t able to provide that kind of instant feedback and direction relation to ROI (and the nuances associated with it).
• Your competition isn’t who you think it is. Your competition is anyone who is competing for audience’s attention. This can be Oprah, Twitter, Angry Birds, Televison, etc . – not just companies who offer the same services you do. Learn to “know the watering holes” and how your target audience spends their time.
• Target on social and put mobile first. The majority of Domo’s revenue comes from leads generated online from social media channels (surprising for a B2B company). 30% of those leads are through mobile so they’ve  created mobile landing pages that have an “app-like experience” to help conversion.
• Revenue is the engine; Marketing is the fuel. Great marketing is the thing that gets the engine humming and momentum built so that nothing can kill it.

I recently heard a piece on NPR about Bolthouse Farms, a producer of fruits and vegetables, who rolled out a campaign which mimics (or mocks, depending on your take) the type of ads junk food companies have been making for years. Check out this video:

Baby Carrots ‘Extreme’ from NO6 on Vimeo.

Their campaign also extends into the product (including Dorito-like seasonings), the packaging (use of mascots) and displays you might find in the grocery stores – all in an attempt to make vegetables cool to kids. I think it’s an awesome approach and they are definitely injecting a lot of fun into something most people find boring.

Visit NPR to read and listen to the whole article.

Recently, the “Fun Committee” of our company (of which I am a member of) wanted to put on a talent show during our lunch break. After a lot of discussion back and forth, we decided to the alter the traditional talent show format and morph the concept into something else. Everyone in the company was invite to submit a picture of something they were passionate about and we created this fun slideshow from it. We felt like it was a great way to broadly highlight each employee’s specific interests and passions rather than only focusing on a performance. Enjoy.

Check out this awesome electric go cart put out by Razor. I want one.

Lately, my mind has been on this idea that the brand should have a story that can be summed up in a short phrase. Here are a few examples:

• Bon Iver – dudes isolates himself to a cabin to write breakup songs.
• Airborne – Invented by a School Teacher
• Postal Service: two guys exchanged recordings over mail (hence the name).
• Oyster: Netflix for Books
• Countless companies “started in a garage.”

The folks at Smart Car wanted to help promote public safety in urban areas. On these type of busy streets, pedestrians can easily cross at the wrong times and get hit by cars. They came up with a booth where people can do a dance and have their moves mimicked in real time on the “Don’t Walk” sign.

Not only is it a fun, clever idea, it also was effective in actually changing behavior: 81% more pedestrians stopped for the “Don’t Walk” signs. Often in advertising, the creative, award-winning idea is praised but if it doesn’t change behaviors, the message has failed.

Check out this amazingly clever video from the Ukrainian band, Brunettes Shoot Blondes.