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Do you ever start an email and just sit there waiting for the words to magically appear? Sometimes they present themselves to you in the strangest of places… while cooking dinner, while working out, or while standing in the shower thinking (which happens to be a great song by Jane’s Addiction BTW). Or sometimes you just need to kick yourself and ask, ‘What am I trying to say?’
Give this song by Lenny Kravitz a listen with me as we see what the %$# the experts are saying this week.
The Proliferation of Profanity
This article really intrigued me. Lottie, a firm that helps people find personal care homes, commissioned a study of 35,000 songs from the 1950s through 2010s to determine how lyrics have changed. There are some cool charts and some very interesting stats. What caught my eye was how explicit and sex lyrics have changed through the decades.
Take a look at the charts in the article – it’s fascinating stuff. As you can imagine, certain words are much more standard in lyrics today vs. a decade ago (or four, or seven). And we see that in all aspects of culture – TV, print, digital.
Have you noticed the proliferation of profanity in business communications? Is it now common to swear in a business meeting? In a LinkedIn post? As marketers, we’re always taught that your brand ‘voice’ is important. But if your brand is about a certain lifestyle, or caters to a certain audience, perhaps the profanity is appreciated. Has this crossed into the mainstream?
What the %$# are YOU saying to your customers? How are you saying it? And would you say it to them in person?
Making Connections IRL
How many business or personal connections have you made at an event? In spite of the forced move to virtual events over the past 2 years, we seem to be transitioning back to in-person events as soon as we can. We’re social beings overall – and nothing beats making those connections in person, right?
Our friend Gary Amaral from Breadcrumbs.io has a great take on this – our primary social instincts are just too powerful! Will we ever understand? Who knows… but Gary believes that making connections in real life leads to exponentially more value in every way. Live events provide us with opportunities for learning, relationship building, and deep business development.
Think back to the number of ‘random’ connections you’ve made at conferences. I can name many chance conversations and connections from past Dreamforce conferences that have added extreme value – either in the form of new client or vendor relationships or other important business connections. Have you been able to build those same connections virtually?
I am so excited to be hosting an event later this month with a local Senior Sales and Marketing networking group that I’ve developed over the past 2 years. It will be amazing to get a chance to hang out and network and just have some great conversations IN PERSON.
What do you think? How will we ever know if we never try?
As always, don’t hesitate to call me to brainstorm or just say hello.
Looking forward,
Rick
Rick Endrulat, President | ricke@v-causeway.com | www.linkedin.com/in/rickendrulat