Under The Box Thinking

For the past several weeks, I’ve been learning how to use the various features of Photoshop, in order to increase my skills so that I might be a better creative communicator. One of the ways I do that is to visit a website called psd.tutsplus.com. They provide both free and premium tutorials on various ways to create graphics using the features built into Photoshop.

To determine what I’m going to create graphically, I get material from books or articles that I have been reading. Generally I will come across some phrase that sticks out. I’ll chew on that phrase and create a mental image of how that phrase would translate into a graphic.

For example, I recently read the passage in the New Testament where St. Peter walked on water and thought about what a graphic of that would look like. What I didn’t want was the same image that hundreds of others had made.  So I decided to create a graphic of what Peter walking on water would appear like if one were underwater looking up. To insure that this was a unique view, I googled the phrase “Peter walking on Water” and changed it to include words that would have an underwater view. I scanned hundreds of images and did not come across one with an underwater looking up view (Not to say there isn’t one, it’s just I didn’t come across it). Then I went about creating the graphic utilizing some recent tutorials that I had come across on how to recreate water in Photoshop. Here is the image I created, it is posted at another blog I have where I post all the graphics that I create. 

ralphsportfolio.blogspot.com 

I enjoy this graphic more than any other one that I have created. And the reason I believe I do, is because it was birthed out of a desire to do something different than I’d ever seen done before. I wanted to be creative and I succeeded. But it never would have come about had I not sought to do what is commonly referred to as “Out of the Box Thinking.”

When it comes to communicating creatively, it doesn’t take long to discover what causes a graphic or video to go viral. Whether it is in a magazine, or a commercial on TV or a Youtube video. That image or video encapsulates the essence of what you are trying to communicate in a way that your audience has never seen before. It is unique. It is out of the box.

So how does one do that creatively and still communicate your message or product? It occurs by looking at the message or product in a manner that you have never done so before. Whether it is a widget, or a message, you have to remove yourself from the ordinary way of how that idea has been communicated in the past.

In the case of Peter walking on water I had distilled the essence of what the story was dealing with, the issue of doubting verses faith, to the subject at hand, which was 'sinking in' verses 'walking on' water. Now countless others had portrayed Peter sinking from our regular point of reference, (I.E. of the other disciples viewing the event from the boat that Peter had just stepped out of). I wanted to put myself in the position of where Peter would end up if his faith didn’t hold.

Why create out of the box? In this day and age of a slow economy when you have to convince someone that they should purchase your product verses a competitors, what is going to make it stand out? By portraying it in a way that it has never been seen or used before. Take the product WD-40. When it was created it was intended for a certain use. But after it came on the market, the customers who bought WD-40, began writing back to the company all the different ways they used it. The company capitalized on these ways and integrated the customer feedback in their marketing. They could have argued and told their customers, “No, you can only use it this one way.” But they thought outside the box and let their customers drive their marketing campaign.

So how can you do that? By looking at your product, or the message you are preaching and ask yourself, how can you portray that item differently than you have in the past, or that your competitor has portrayed it in the past.

Look at the trends that are going through our culture and see how that item can find a niche that will match that trend and connect with your customer.

Be true to your companies/churches core values. Nothing is worse than a bait and switch. It may provide an initial sale, but generally will not produce repeat customers.  Also if you appear to be changing your core values, you risk losing too much of your present customer base.

Also take note of what others have tried that has failed. No sense in re-inventing the wheel. Besides you don’t want to duplicate what someone else has done, unless you want to employ parody, in which case it can work well, if done right (EG.  Weird Al Yankovic ).

By being willing to take risks and creatively communicate in a way that you haven’t done so before, you will broaden your market.  So take time to climb out of your box and if necessary look at it from underneath.

Shoppers and Hoppers

A staff member and friend at a church I formally worked at recently posted a comment on Facebook decrying the fact that the greatest failure of his generation of Christ followers was church hopping. He referenced  a blog by Steven Furtick about "Stop the Hop." 

So I responded to my friends Facebook comment by stating: "Ok. It sounds great…in theory. However Steven's article complains about people who church hop and shop, saying they need to get beyond the consumerist mindset of shopping for churches, yet the church itself is using a consumerist marketing approach in reaching out to them. How can we complain about the one when they are just responding to how the church is marketing to them? Why would we be surprised when such a person having been attracted to one church, since they have been marketed to as a consumer, now gets attracted to another church, which is seeking to market to them in a similar manner. Obviously there have always been church hoppers and shoppers, the question is, has the churches method of outreach increased this mentality among people?”

It got me to thinking that this issue applies not only to church but to businesses as well, so that’s why I decided to address the issue on my blog this week. Now I’ll be the first to admit that it would take someone with more time and money to pencil this out and do adequate studies to determine if I’m right or wrong, and yes, I’m probably being overly simplistic, but to me it all boils down to developing brand loyalty. Whether the brand is your specific church, your company or the product you sell.

Companies and churches are forever trying to keep people/customers loyal to their brand, so that they will stay lifelong consumers or participants. It made me think about what causes people to shift loyalties from one church to another, from one company to another. Indeed it begs the question concerning the depth of the loyalty that people have to the church they currently attend.

I think to address this we need to go back to what churches or companies do when they are marketing their product to their consumers/members, whether that brand is Calvinism, Wesleyan-Armenians’, Allstate Insurance, HP, Dell or Apple.

Churches/companies try to market to people by branding their products. When I first learned of brands, I originally thought of a brand as a permanent mark. Cattleman branded their cattle to show ownership over that individual steer, in order to prevent someone from stealing it. A side effect, of this was that people discovered that certain cattle from certain ranches tasted better. So people started seeking out cattle to purchase that had the brand of that ranch. They became loyal to certain brands.

The same with manufacturing companies who would build a product that people liked. People purchased a certain product because the product had value. It had something tangible that people could understand, and see and utilize. Whether it was consistency, functioning as it was supposed to, or value for the dollar. The product did what it was intended to do. And so people would continue to purchase that product, that brand. Take the Sears brand. They came to be known for the value of their house hold products. They had brands like Kenmore. If you purchased a Kenmore it would last. You could expect to have a Kenmore washing machine and it wasn’t unusual for the product to last 10, 15 years. And then it only required minor repairs to keep it going another 5 or 10 years.

Companies however found that they were tapping out their markets. People purchased a product that worked well and didn’t need to purchase another one for a couple of decades, so companies sought to improve their products by adding new features to them; such as special spin cycles in washers and dryers, power this and power that in new vehicles. However it was determined that these enhancements weren’t working like they should. So they had to begin marketing their products in such a manner as to make people want to purchase the newest and best products. They built in the idea of planned obsolescence, that no one wanted a product that was “old”. You needed this new, shiny, white product that had an apple with a bite out of it. To sell it to us, they used various marketing, some would say propaganda techniques, like “bandwagon”, “glittering generalities”, “snob appeal” and “testimonials” to convince people why they should purchase their products. The end result is, when you came to the end of the lifecycle of that product the customer had to decide whether to purchase the newest model you sold, or to try out company X’s brand.

The same thing happened to sports teams. People used to be loyal to teams for decades, no matter if they lost year after year. Why, because a person could know the players on “their” team. The players would stay on the same team for a couple of decades. You could learn the stats for that player. A player’s entire career would be spent with one team. But then along came free agency. A player could be an independent contractor. He didn’t belong to any one team, he could move to the team that was willing to pay for his talent. Oh to a certain extent, people still followed and rooted for their “team”, just because they were in their geographic area, but it wasn’t the same. But now with players coming and going so often, Teams would seek to purchase that one star player and hang onto him. They would pay him so much and offer him so much, he had no need to move to another team. And so people would follow individual players. So the teams brand was not only their logo, but even the superstar that was on the team.  If the superstar moved to another team, some people’s allegiances would move to another team.

So too the church in the past several decades has adapted marketing outreach models to reach out to potential members. It used to be that you followed the faith of your fathers. If you were born Roman Catholic, or Lutheran, or Mormon that’s where you remained. But churches like companies and sports teams became complacent and took their membership for granted. They forgot the purpose of their product. They thought people would always use it. But as demographic shifts occurred in our country, people took on the mindset of thinking like independent agents as well.  A free market attitude prevailed. People started dropping out of church, or looking at different churches. So the church entered the marketing business of trying to attract people to their church by appealing to various facets of their demographic…we are family friendly…we appeal to youth…we are deep…we only use the “King James Bible”, we have this or that program…we are a multigenerational church…etc., etc.

We have arrived now to the point that we have an ongoing battle of the brands between churches. And we seem surprised when people church hop with a consumer mentality. Why should we be surprised, when we in large part created the mentality? Why should we complain when the people we attract move on to another church that has a cooler brand appeal than the one we developed.

Instead we need to relearn the value of the product we are selling. Whether you are a company or a church, you obviously believe that you have a great product or you wouldn’t be selling it, or giving your life to it. So what are you doing to convince the people that that product is worth them sticking with it? You must be a creative communicator, because you got people to purchase your product at least once. You got them to enter your church doors to check you out. So what are you going to do, to get them to decide to stay? What value do you provide that will convince people that they should stay with you? What do you have that the other guy doesn’t, or what can you provide that the other guy doesn’t? When you figure that out, then you have to communicate that. Oh it doesn’t mean that a customer or consumer won’t try another product now and then. But if you are consistent, if you stay competitively priced, if you continue to provide value, they will return. However if an organization is so busy working at bringing new members in that it doesn’t spend the time needed to keep the people who are now part of their organization then they can expect people to continue hopping away. 

I realize that some organizations total focus is on making that one sale and they could care less if you made another purchase. They believe that the market is all about getting that new person to buy their product, they don' t need repeat customers. I’m also aware that some churches are totally focused on getting someone to "accept Christ" and they don’t apply the resources necessary to get people discipled and plugged in. Either way, if that’s the business model you have chosen, then don’t complain when people get tired after a while and move on to see what another organization can offer them. Just pass on the names of those previous customers/members to organizations whose business model it is to develop and keep someone’s business.

Instant Demographic Information Access

I came across this interesting link that utilizes data collected by the Census Bureau. Demographic information is always useful when you are creatively planning a new outreach or marketing campaign. In this case this link provides users with instant access to local data from the Census Bureau's American Community Survey, based on samples from 2005 to 2009. It helped me to see the Racial/Ethnic/Income/Education/Housing & Family breakdown in my local community. I imagine that it will not be long before they include the new data from the latest census report.
I don't know how long this link will be active so for now, I'm just posting it in this section of my blog. Once I find a more permanent link I'll save it on my favorite links column. Here it is: American Community Survey

Buying The Tools of the Trade

Traditionally during the winter time, farmers and ranchers will repair their equipment during what is otherwise a nonproductive time of the year.  Equipment is inventoried, inspected and repaired, so too are the fences.  The majority of us not being farmers don’t have the luxury of such seasons, since we live in a 24-7-365 work cycle. But it doesn’t mean that we don’t have to inventory our equipment, repair what needs to be repaired and replace what needs to be replaced. This can happen at any time of the year.

The question is, when it comes time to purchase new or used equipment where is the best place to go? And how do I know if I’m getting a good deal for what I’m purchasing? Although I can’t speak for all businesses and churches, being in the communication business, I can speak about the best websites that I’ve come across that consistently have the best prices on video equipment, computer components and a variety of cabling. Especially since this past year I was involved in a project during which I purchased $115,000+tax worth of equipment and software to outfit a new church production facility with video/projection and presentation equipment.

For some of the purchases we did use facilitators who would shop out what we needed for vendors. The one thing I learned from this is to challenge the mark up’s the facilitators charge. They do earn their money for the grief they have to receive from the customer and the vendors, but they don’t have to markup an item 50%. Also I learned that some vendor’s will outright lie to you and misrepresent when they can get equipment to you. A lot of the equipment I purchased direct from online companies and I received excellent deals. I want to share them with you. But first, let me tell you the steps I take to determine what equipment to purchase and whom to purchase it from. 

Step 1: Determine your needs and wants. What equipment do you need that is going to help you communicate creatively? What is going to help you sell your product or get your message across in a cost effective manner. In order to determine this I looked at what we were doing with what we had. I made a list of what I thought would help us do it better. I then looked at other similar or larger organizations that were successful at what they were doing and what they were using. If that was the direction I wanted to go, I would even call them and ask them for advice, or what companies they used. I also looked at trade shows and trends to see if there was a new piece of equipment that would be ready when it came time for me to make my purchases.

Step 2: Set a budget (Realistically). I learned a lot from the first big project I was responsible for. If I knew then, what I know now, I would have set my budget differently. That’s the downside of working for a large organization that someone who owns their business doesn’t have to face. I would have asked for a bigger slice of the pie for my first big project. My lead supervisor came up to me one day and asked if I could do what needed to be done for $50K. Not being sure I doubled that number and said, I’ll need $100k. So that became my budget. I should have said $150k, because never having made such large purchases; I underestimated what it would take to meet the vision the organization had. Eventually my budget was increased to $115k plus tax and my team was able to complete our project, but it made for a very stressful process and we had to cut some corners which I know will come back to bite the organization in the future. Such are the realities of expansion and building programs.

Step 3: Match your needs/wants with your budget and go price shopping. I priced shopped whatever I could. Even when my facilitator brought me his recommendations, I would do my own searches and see if I could beat what he found. One thing to remember is that the cheapest price isn’t always the best price. One has to consider quality of the equipment and if a company will stand behind and support their equipment.

For the items I purchased directly myself, I would do a search on Google. Input the item and compare prices/customer support and warranties. I would generally compare 3-4 online vendors. If the prices were the same I considered availability of items.

Here are a list of websites and companies that I found provided the equipment I needed with the best price and were able to consistently ship my items on time, when I needed them. (Another note, give yourself more lead time and you will save on shipping costs.)

Video related equipment: bhphotovideo.com Not only do they sell new and beat anybody’s prices, but they also have a used store and will even warranty some of the things there.  

Video Tools of the Trade: Filmtools.com  

Flat Screen Televisions: Costco.com or the local Costco. As a business or non-profit, it just makes good business sense. If you don't have a Costco by you then go to a Sams Club

Cabling – monoprice.com Cat5, power strips, rgb, hdmi, you name it and what length cable you need. I never knew you could buy cabling so cheap. Their prices beat Costco and Best Buy by a mile, 2 miles. And after you purchase a certain amount, they give you bulk discounts.

Computers – videoguys.com To spec out a video production work station and for sound advice on how to tweak your video/OS software settings.

newegg.com When you are building your own computer and need to purchases the individual components.  

Local computer company. If you don’t have the time or knowledge to build your own specialized computer, then have one built for you, find a local computer company in your town, that will provide support and have them build it for you.

costco.com or local Costco. For a computer to handle basic business needs (IE. Word processing, spreadsheets, etc.)

Software - Again go to your search engine and do comparison shopping. Many software companies will even let you try out their products for 30 days to see if it meets your needs. Adobe is one of them. If you are a non profit then request a list of nonprofit vendors from  Adobe for your area or follow the student/educator's link on their website, you will be able to purchase software that is greatly discounted.

Of course nothing beats free and if your business is just starting out, or if you have a nonprofit on a tight budget don’t overlook taking advantage of the free software that’s out there on the internet (See filehippo.com), or ask if someone would be willing to donate an item you need. You’ll be surprised what you can obtain.

And don’t forget government auction sites. http://www.govliquidation.com/  If the government uses it, they auction it. You can even sign up for specific categories of items you need and they will send you an email alert. Of course don’t over look big industry auctions in your area. Where I live, Boeing operates an auction website for equipment that they no longer need, or meets their requirements.

Remember never remain static about the sites you purchase from. While I have my favorites, I always do a Google, Bing or whatever your favorite search engine is, to start with, as there are always hungry new start ups willing to offer price breaks to start business going their way. 

I hope this has been helpful to you. If you have some favorite websites send them my way and I’ll post them as well.

Happy New Year 2011

Here's wishing you a Happy and Prosperous 

New Year in 2011