photo by teamstickergiant

If you are a fan of the NBA and of Jeremy Lin, no doubt you would have followed the numerous amount of articles and videos created about Lin.  Two of the more humorous ones are the Fung Brother's The Jeremy Lin Effect and The Jeremy Lin Effect 2 (Linsanity).

However, as I follow this great story, I can't help but speculate of the other Jeremy Lin effect - the effect it can have on world missions.  Lin is a follower of Jesus Christ and is not afraid to say it in front of cameras.  Combine that and basketball's worldwide popularity and Lin's Asian (non-Caucasian) heritage and we have a great opportunity to start gospel themed conversations.

Having gone to two Asian countries for missions, my experience is that sports is a great common topic to start conversations around.  Most countries are sports crazy and basketball is usually near the top of the list.  With Lin's rise to fame, it can be very easy to talk him and bring up his faith in God and Jesus.

Here are some intros to get the d...

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When working in Operations, it can be easy to be holed up in a room and do everything virtually, especially when the people you support, collaborate with, and enable are all over the country. However, I have found that interacting with the people I support and help out in the organization on an operational level on a physical, face to face, personal level does a lot to bring trust and goodwill into the working relationship.

This can be achieved in many different ways including giving seminars at a conference, eating meals together with the staff, playing teams sports and having an impromptu question and answer time with the people you help out with. However, I found that playing a game of RISK 2210 A.D. the most effective and enjoyable time to build trust and goodwill.

What are some ways which you find helpful in building trust and goodwill with clients and staff who you support and help?


Photo credit: Matt Sklar

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This is a series of posts on the Art of Marketing conference. This one is based on Max Lenderman's session.

"Authenticity is the key paradigm of how we do marketing in the future, on how the brand talks to the consumers..." (Lenderman)

Anything can be knocked off - just look at China. I recently read that for every Blackberry sold in Indonesia, many more Chinaberries are sold. But yet the originals seem to survive the onslaught of knockoffs and cheap fakes. Why? Because what can not be replicated is a user's experience with the brand - and this is the heart of authenticity (an iPhone can be copied, but Apple's Genius Bar can not replicated).

So the question is how can we improve authenticity in relation to our product or message? Some have proposed that Social Media can increase authenticity. Threadless is a good example of how this is done. Not only do they use Twitter and Facebook to interact with their customer base, they have created a community on their site to host pictures of their customers wear...

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This is a series of posts based on the Art of Marketing conference. This one is based on Max Lenderman's session.

Experiential marketing and advertising usually gives a 15% bump in sales and is second only to online marketing. We yearn to be with people.

Experiential marketing is where potential consumers are immersed in an experience related to the product or message. In India, telecom companies hire Bollywood-type actors to act out a 30 minute drama to educate the growing middle class on how to use mobile phones and sees 43% of people who watch the show buy a mobile phone.

The North American equivalent is event based marketing.

The US Army travels to festivals, air shows, and car drag races and sets up a tent to allow people to virtually experience what it is like to be in the army. They have a virtual reality game where anyone can get in a Hummer or a Jeep with a mounted machine gun and shoot down the bad guys. If they have a good score, they ask them if they want to shoot bad guys for the army.

As a re...

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