LibraryTrax

A Fair(y) Use Tale

This is a great little film on YouTube that uses clips from Disney films to explain the issues surrounding copyright. Fun to watch, but also instructive!

There is a video circulating in the marketing (and now library) blogs that is a great illustration of how advertising/marketing firms are not listening to their customers. They assume they know what their customers wants and needs are. I can’t help thinking that many of us are making assumptions today that might not be true about our customers. In today’s technological and changing environment, we need to talk to our customers regularly to see what the library community can do to serve our public. Take a look at the video called The Break Up.

If you’ve never heard of Scott Ginsberg, let me introduce you.

Seven years ago, while in college, Scott made a decision that changed his life. He decided to wear the name tag he’d received at an event, for the rest of the day, just to see what happened. He says he met about 20 new people that day, and so, he decided to wear a name tag the next day as well. 2385 days later, he still wears a name tag every and now makes his living doing speaking engagements and writing books on marketing, sales, creativity, etc.  Approachability is at the heart of Scott’s message.  Be open.  Be available.  Be friendly.  Smile.

I spent a lot of time today, reading Scott’s Hello, my name is Blog, and I found myself marking quite a lot of the posts to keep for future reference.  It was hard for me to pick the one I wanted to share, but I finally settled on one from March 2007, titled Everyone is….  Here are just a few of the gems:

Everyone is in marketing. Your words, actions, emails and conversations are either supporting or refuting your brand. Everyone in your company is responsible for marketing your company.

Everyone is in sales. Because people buy people first. Because people aren’t loyal to companies, they’re loyal to people. Because it doesn’t matter what product or service you sell, customers buy YOU before anything.

Everyone has customers. Sure, you can call ‘em whatever you want. Clients. Members. Congregants. Children. Students. Employees. Audience members. Readers. Subscribers. Either way, everyone has customers. And customers are two things: 1) People that BUY (your products, your ideas, you as a person) and 2) People that YOU SERVE.

This 27-year old has a great deal of wisdom, and I’m looking forward to reading all of his books.  I hope you’ll spend a little time getting to know him.  If you go over to his website, http://www.hellomynameisscott.com, you can find out how to access his Nametag Network, which includes his blog, his MySpace site, his YouTube site, his podcast, and more!