Finishing up Seth Godin’s “Tribes”.
He tells the story of the unicorn in the balloon factory… racing through and disrupting the status quo. It disrupts the stability. Not for the sake of it, but because the status quo is so vanilla.
We work in an industry of vanilla – in my humble opinion. Let’s get our 8%, lets not spend more than 90 cents per piece, our board thinks this approach is too creative, let’s include and send this to everyone and exclude no one, I could go on.
Vanilla.
But I’m not going to sit here today and point my finger at anyone except me.
I’ve finished up an 8 week “Creating Fame using social media” course created by Laura Roeder. It was interesting to learn about using the tools of social media to raise the profile of yourself and your business – it wasn’t really about becoming famous. But it struck me part way through – as good as the course has been – I am using a lot of these tools properly and doing everything the way, in theory, I should be. Making connections, building relationships, tribe building… but I don’t feel I am any further ahead than I was a year ago. And I think I’ve figured it out.
I’m vanilla. Damn. I’m a worked at the balloon factory.
Idea Design? That doesn’t say anything about what my colleagues and I are doing for charities.
I look at our home page – and it’s all quite safe, standard… vanilla.
So I want to be chocolate. Actually, I want to be cotton candy!
As I communicated to Mark Haak the other day I want three things for me and my business.
1) I want to work with clients who love us and the work we do for them.
2) I want to work with other creative people who love what they do and love to have fun changing the world.
3) I don’t want to worry about money.
For me, this isn’t about being the next direct response agency, or taking over the country. It’s about doing work we love to do and feeling appreciated for what we are doing for our clients.
We do awesome work, we speak plainly and honestly, we try to educate and learn alongside our clients, we are shamefully inexpensive and we throw in a lot of extras far too often for free…
But we are also passionate. We are world changers. We are brilliant. We make mistakes. We like new stuff and approaches.
We are not vanilla. That’s for sure. So the time is coming to stop looking like we are.
If you are a chocolate or – can I get a ‘hell yah’ – a cotton candy charity and you want to have fun and make a difference, and learn new things – call us, email us, join us.
Vanilla has it’s place, but not in my life.
Stay tuned.
Oh my gosh – you could not have said this any better. I never started out being vanilla. As a kid, I was a medly of flavors – usually daiquiri ice and bubble gum (My fav flavors at Baskins). Then I strayed. I got complacent. Bored. Worried. Scared. Vanilla.
Sure, vanilla is sweet and comforting. It’s also predictable, unchanging and risk-free. Think about it. When you are ordering your ice cream, vanilla is always tucked in the corner of the freezer. It’s the ice creams like Rocky Road, Wedding Cake, Banana Triple Fudge that stand out. They are the flavors that are front and center. That’s where I want to be. Wait, let me rephrase that. That’s where I am. Front and center with a big ol’ sign that says “PEANUT BUTTER & PICKLE.” (It’s worth the risk!)
John, you and Idea Design are so un-vanilla, it’s wildly refreshing!
I like vanilla as a base for chocolate, bananas, pineapple, & strawberry – its called a banana split.
So maybe, just maybe your vanilla is ur base core strength that you need to spice up, flavour up, color up, flare up, peanut crunchy up with whatever toppings u’d like to throw on.
Whadda ya thunk?
jim
Hey Julie – Thanks for your additional ice cream thoughts…
Kim – you rock! I really appreciate it…
Cheers Dr. Jim. I’m sure I could spice things up but to keep with the food analogy, why add some pepper to boring chicken when I can have chicken chasseur?
Thanks for commenting!
John I agree you are not vanilla – when I used to work for a hospital we had to these vanilla strawberry chocolate personality tests. Thank goodness I was strawberry (and not just cause my hair is red!).
One thing I would say about the site, is I think you should incorporate some of the killer logos you designed on the home page. When you so generously offered to help me I had to dig a bit to see the logos & when I saw them I totally wanted to work with you. Just an insight. Talk soon, Candy
In Life we’ve all gone through situations where the world has judged us on appearance,color,speaking skills etc.
As much as One tried to get the ‘real me’ across we failed because we were ‘beige’ and so rightly put by you plain Vanilla. Stand out in this blaring Media Noise..or be forever… not heard. Good Writing!!
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Thanks Candy. I am currently re-evaluating my whole site, whole image, whole everything so thanks for the suggestion!
Cheers Bobby – and you don’t need to make even more noise to stand out – just by being different will do it! Thanks for your comment!
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Like the banana spit idea. Create your on banana split. Through all kinds of fruit and color on it then call it your own split.
It is like being a pms color vs. a cymk color. Cymk can change, but a pms is always the pms.
This will get me through that past several days of vanilla design by committee and am sharing this will a creative networking group.
thanks for the thoughts Jeff- all this food talk is making me hungry