January 1, 2005
“the big idea is to have one”
I am currently planning on going to Malaysia for a spell to launch The Hughtrain in the Far East. Hopefully I leave in a couple of weeks.
Mack Zulkifli writes more about it here, “The Big Idea Is To Have One”:
Hughtrain is not advertising or any particular facet of branding per se. It is about connecting to your clients and allowing your staff to connect to your goals. It is a lot more than fancy stuff that humour your ego. It humours your pockets, which is an entirely fun experience, take my word for it.
Yet conversations are different globally and I am keen to take Hugh’s model to apply with growing businesses in emerging technologies, where markets are fast and messages are direct. It works.
Is this a major new shift in geography for me or just a few weeks of consulting in an exotic location? I have no idea.
But The Hughtrain is global. Sure, it may be a tiny wee microbrand…
But. It’s. Global.
Seth Godin recently wrote a wonderful thing:
It occured to me today that there has never been a better time in history to be in the business of spreading ideas.
…If your ideas are the right ones, they will spread far and wide and fast.
I totally agree. I’m just a guy with a laptop and a penchant for drawing doodles in bars. And here I am, already thinking about literally taking on the world. Malaysia? Sure! Hong Kong? You bet! Argentina? Drop me an e-mail, Pablo!
And I know for a fact that a good many of y’all reading this also have your own equally financially-stretched, completely insane ideas that you’re equally determined to see through, in spite of the snickers and mutterings of some of your more locally-minded neighbors.
Let the bastards rot, I say.
“And I know for a fact that a good many of y’all reading this also have your own equally financially-stretched, completely insane ideas that you’re equally determined to see through, in spite of the snickers and mutterings of some of your more locally-minded neighbors.
Let them rot, I say…”
Indeed! Happy New Year. Here’s to a 2005 to remember.…
I can’t remember where I read this (it might have been Seth’s blog) but somebody recently wrote about the importance of taking small businesses global as soon as possible.
In my own business we tried to think globally from the word ‘go’. It wasn’t always easy (and still isn’t, currency fluctuations are a real bummer — we’re currently setting up a US$ account to protect us to a degree), but we persevered and now have customers in Austria, Canada, Malaysia, France, the US, the UK and New Zealand.
Best of luck to you and welcome to entrepreneur-dom. Going global fast is the way forward for small businesses.
Right now I’m blogging on the toilet… Thanks for sharing
Shall quips and sentences and these paper bullets of the brain awe a man from the career of his humor?
Dan Gillmor has launched a blog chronicling his grassroots media venture. He doesn’t need me to tell him this, but blogging through the pre-launch is the most rewarding thing I’ve done in the course of the Pegasus labors. Ed Cone
The Big Idea is To Have One? Not really.
The Big Idea is to have one that you act on. And talking doesn’t constitute acting. Ideas themselves are a dime a dozen.
Memo from the Principals
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