Posts by Christopher Lochhead
005 Mystery Shopping
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Retailers or B2C market often uses the term mystery shopping. It is a concept to understand the customer’s journey in your services. For the fifth episode, Lochhead tackles the importance of mystery shopping for your company.
Embracing Mystery Shopping
Retailers employ the concept of mystery shopping—where they pay someone to visit their store and document their experience. This is also applicable to online retailers as they commission mystery shoppers to test their website. It is important for marketers to look into the “funnel” and the “journey” because the key trick is simplifying the process.
“I think it’s really critical whether you are in B2B or B2C, that we embrace the idea of Mystery Shopping.” – Christopher Lochhead
Third-party participation is not always required for mystery shopping. Any individual can check their own websites and see how easy it is to navigate on it. Marketers should consider this in improving the overall buying experience.
How hard is it to buy from myself?
Lochhead discusses the importance of mystery shopping—whether its for B2B, B2C, digital or physical. These companies should be able to identify how easy or hard it is to do business with their company.
Further, Lochhead advises even the CEO or business owners themselves, to regularly mystery-shop. In doing so, they will be able able to experience first hand what their customers. This is a good ground to see what needs improvements as well.
“Mystery Shopping always uncovers one or two, often small changes we could make to incrementally increase our sales.” – Christopher Lochhead
To hear more about Mystery Shopping and more relevant information from Christopher Lochhead, download and listen to the episode.
Bio:
Christopher Lochhead is a Top 25 podcaster and #1 Amazon bestselling co-author of books: Niche Down and Play Bigger.
He has been an advisor to over 50 venture-backed startups; a former three-time Silicon Valley public company CMO and an entrepreneur.
Furthermore, he has been called “one of the best minds in marketing” by The Marketing Journal, a “Human Exclamation Point” by Fast Company, a “quasar” by NBA legend Bill Walton and “off-putting to some” by The Economist.
In addition, he served as a chief marketing officer of software juggernaut Mercury Interactive — which was acquired by Hewlett-Packard in 2006 for $4.5 billion.
He also co-founded the marketing consulting firm LOCHHEAD; was the founding CMO of Internet consulting firm Scient, and served as head of marketing at the CRM software firm Vantive.
Link:
We hope you enjoyed this episode of Lochhead on Marketing™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and subscribe on iTunes!
004 5 Traits of Legendary Brands
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In this episode, Christopher Lochhead discusses the 5 traits of legendary brands—different, stands for something, point of view, consistent and prioritizes category creation. We’re positive marketers will learn a lot from this mindset-oriented podcast!
1. Be Different
Legendary brands are unique, interesting and groundbreaking. Marketers must continuously ask themselves how to become different from their existing competitors.
“When you hear most CEOs, CMOs, entrepreneurs, business people, talk about their differentiators—most of what comes out of their mouths is a comparison from their competition—as opposed to a distinction from their competition.” – Christopher Lochhead
2. Stand-up For Something
Moreover, legendary brands have a mission, they stand up for something. Interestingly, more legendary companies of today are committed to creating more impact in society. It is often called a “double bottom line”, where they also build projects with a social or human impact.
“You got to stand for something or you’ll fall for anything.” – Christopher Lochhead quoting singer/songwriter John Melencamp
3. Point of View
Legendary brands have a point of view. A company should have a true north that they believe in. A lot of brands have provocative POV and it has proven to skyrocket their revenues, especially when they associate with personalities who have strong positions and opinions.
4. Consistency
Because POVs don’t change, this brings us to the fourth trait, which is consistency. Legendary brands do not deviate from their core, but they can evolve and embrace new things.
“Legendary brands are consistent, their colors, their point of view, and if you will, the place from which they come stays the same.” – Christopher Lochhead
5. Category First
Arguably, for Lochhead, the most important trait of a legendary brand is category-first. These brands do not attack the category, in fact, they promote it. They help improve the category by expanding and leading the category in different ways.
“Most legendary marketers know that categories make the brand, not the other way around.” – Christopher Lochhead
To hear more about the 5 traits of legendary brands and more relevant information from Christopher Lochhead, download and listen to the episode.
Bio:
Christopher Lochhead is a Top 25 podcaster and #1 Amazon bestselling co-author of books: Niche Down and Play Bigger.
He has been an advisor to over 50 venture-backed startups; a former three-time Silicon Valley public company CMO and an entrepreneur.
Furthermore, he has been called “one of the best minds in marketing” by The Marketing Journal, a “Human Exclamation Point” by Fast Company, a “quasar” by NBA legend Bill Walton and “off-putting to some” by The Economist.
In addition, he served as a chief marketing officer of software juggernaut Mercury Interactive — which was acquired by Hewlett-Packard in 2006 for $4.5 billion.
He also co-founded the marketing consulting firm LOCHHEAD; was the founding CMO of Internet consulting firm Scient, and served as head of marketing at the CRM software firm Vantive.
Link:
We hope you enjoyed this episode of Lochhead on Marketing™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and subscribe on iTunes!
003 What is category creation?
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On today’s episode of Lochhead on Marketing, Christopher Lochhead delves into the concept of category creation. He discusses why legendary entrepreneurs, CEOs, and marketers see category creation or category design as the new approach to winning.
What is it?
Category design is a new management discipline that is focused on creating and monetizing new markets. Moreover, Lochhead sees category creation or category design as a radical differentiation of oneself.
“Winning today is not about beating the competition. The most legendary entrepreneurs, CEOs and marketers are the people who invent a whole new game by defining a new market category, developing that market category and ultimately executing, so that they dominate it over time.” – Christopher Lochhead
Distinguishing Oneself
Legendary marketers and innovators refuse to be in comparison to what came before them. Due to this, customers look at legends as unique, or someone who broke or took a new ground.
Most importantly, legendary marketers want others to be compared to them. They are the agenda setters. They’re the ones defining the game and the rules.
Moving the World
Legendary marketers educate the world about an idea or a problem. Therefore, they provide a solution in a completely different way. They also have the ability to create value and urgency around the idea or problem.
“When the world accepts your point of view about a problem and solution, you change everything. That is what category design is about.” – Christopher Lochhead
Lochhead also discusses the fact that categories are everywhere. Further, he states that category comes first and the brand comes second. According to him, “category is the human filing system that we have, so we can relate to things and most importantly, value things.”
In the end, Lochhead poses the question any marketer should ask oneself, “are you playing someone else’s game or do you have the courage in creating and designing your own category?”
To hear more about category creation and more relevant information from Christopher Lochhead, download and listen to the episode.
Bio:
Christopher Lochhead is a Top 25 podcaster and #1 Amazon bestselling co-author of books: Niche Down and Play Bigger.
He has been an advisor to over 50 venture-backed startups; a former three-time Silicon Valley public company CMO and an entrepreneur.
Furthermore, he has been called “one of the best minds in marketing” by The Marketing Journal, a “Human Exclamation Point” by Fast Company, a “quasar” by NBA legend Bill Walton and “off-putting to some” by The Economist.
In addition, he served as a chief marketing officer of software juggernaut Mercury Interactive — which was acquired by Hewlett-Packard in 2006 for $4.5 billion.
He also co-founded the marketing consulting firm LOCHHEAD; was the founding CMO of Internet consulting firm Scient, and served as head of marketing at the CRM software firm Vantive.
Link:
We hope you enjoyed this episode of Lochhead on Marketing™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and subscribe on iTunes!
002 10 Attributes of Legendary Marketing
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For the second episode of Lochhead on Marketing, Christopher Lochhead dives into what makes Legendary Marketing, legendary. He discusses the 10 attributes of legendary marketing — which range from creating demand, dominating a niche market to leveraging technologies and changing the world.
1. Creates Demand Rather Than Capturing Demand
In all imaginable areas—books, conversations, podcasts or discussions—marketing is described as “having a market and capturing the demand to increase revenue and growth for your company.”
Legendary marketing, though, is more interested in creating new demand. They are focused on setting that agenda.
2. Designs and Dominates a Giant Category That Matters
Legendary marketing design and dominate their own categories. On creating this demand, they position themselves as unique and distinct. They may also opt to create a new category or sub-category of an existing market category.
“When you’re the first in a new category, people are drawn towards you.” – Christopher Lochhead
3. Creates a “Before” and “After”
Legendary marketing creates a distinct before and after. When a customer experiences legendary marketing for the first time, the expected initial reaction is “Wow, I just saw something! That’s incredible!” That is Legendary Marketing.
“Remember the first time you heard Netflix, it presented a provocative idea which is: why do you have to go to a video store if you could go to a website?” – Christopher Lochhead
4. Mobilizes People to Think and Act in New and Different Ways
Legendary marketing is not just about evangelizing a product. It is about mobilizing people into action and getting them to change their actions. This would mean hundreds of people for small enterprises or even millions of people, for big multinational corporations.
5. Causes Competition to Have Emergency Board Meetings
Rick Bennett, the marketing assassin of Silicon Valley says that his advertising campaigns aim to freak out the competition and manage the psychology of the bad guys. This is one of the attributes of a legendary marketing campaign.
“When the competition sees this, how are they going to react and will they have an emergency board meeting?” – Christopher Lochhead
6. Makes You Think “I Wish I Had Done That!”
Millions of businesses fail because they are undifferentiated. Christopher says legendary marketing focuses on finding their own niche and dominating it, regardless of how simple or basic their product or service is.
“There is a bakery that scaled to 250 locations and sells franchises because they niched down. Its called Nothing but Bundt Cake. You’d say, that is such a simple idea, they niched down. Instead of being a generic bakery that fails, they dominated its niche market that they created.” – Christopher Lochhead
7. Creates New, Enduring Value Over-Time
It is a must for any CMO, C-level executive or anybody in Marketing—as well as entrepreneurs—to create enduring value, which is measured by employees, customers, and investors, partners and even the ecosystem.
8. Leverages New Technologies
Technology today allows marketers to know, in real-time, what’s resonating to the customers and what’s not. A lot of data is now readily available for companies to ensure we attract the right customers and build relationships with them, in a measurable way.
“If you’re a marketer, you would want to be a technology genius — understanding these technologies and specifically how they can impact, attract and retain and build long term relationships with customers.” – Christopher Lochhead
9. Makes a Giant Impact Outside and Inside
Legendary marketing creates an impact both internally and externally. Legendary marketers believe to inspire both customers and employees.
“The most important thing marketing does is inspire your own employees to do legendary work, to build legendary products and services and take care of customers.” – Christopher Lochhead
10. Changes The World
The greatest marketing inspires. It does change the world and it moves things forward.
To hear more about legendary marketing and more relevant information from Christopher Lochhead, download and listen to the episode.
Bio:
Christopher Lochhead is a Top 25 podcaster and #1 Amazon bestselling co-author of books: Niche Down and Play Bigger.
He has been an advisor to over 50 venture-backed startups; a former three-time Silicon Valley public company CMO and an entrepreneur.
Furthermore, he has been called “one of the best minds in marketing” by The Marketing Journal, a “Human Exclamation Point” by Fast Company, a “quasar” by NBA legend Bill Walton and “off-putting to some” by The Economist.
In addition, he served as a chief marketing officer of software juggernaut Mercury Interactive — which was acquired by Hewlett-Packard in 2006 for $4.5 billion.
He also co-founded the marketing consulting firm LOCHHEAD; was the founding CMO of Internet consulting firm Scient, and served as head of marketing at the CRM software firm Vantive.
Link:
We hope you enjoyed this episode of Lochhead on Marketing™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and subscribe on iTunes!
001 Who is this podcast for?
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It’s an awesome day to be legendary! This is the first episode of our new podcast, Lochhead on Marketing, hosted by our very own, Christopher Lochhead. In this episode, he talks about who is this podcast for and what sets it apart from other marketing podcasts.
Join us as we define what makes this podcast, different—ultimately, what makes it legendary!
Who’s Who in Marketing
Entrepreneur and VC partner Christopher Lochhead is an advisor to over 50 venture-backed startups. He is a former three-time Silicon Valley public company CMO and co-author of two bestsellers: Niche Down and Play Bigger.
To add, he a dyslexic high school drop-out who started his own company at the age of 18. Christopher sees his setbacks as his springs to success—the farther he’s pulled down, the higher he is launched to the top.
“I have a unique perspective in working with early-stage companies, being an entrepreneur myself. Since then I have done a lot of advising and investing and I focused a lot on podcasting.” – Christopher Lochhead
Who is this podcast for?
This is the podcast for the pirates, dreamers, and innovators—those who want to introduce the world to new ways of doing things. These people want the world to be different. They want to explore what it takes to produce legendary results. Basically, this podcast is for anybody who wants the world to be different.
Entrepreneurial marketers, Founders, CEOs—of course, CMOs and business leaders who want to design and dominate their own market categories—would benefit highly from this podcast.
“This is for people who give a sh*t about winning! People who want to create the game, not play someone else’s. People who want to move the world from the way it is, to the way they want it to be” – Christopher Lochhhead
What more should you expect?
The show Lochhead on Marketing will examine the strategies behind what makes legendary marketing, legendary. Moreover, this podcast will share not only the strategies but the mind-set required for winning. Most of the episodes will be short and practical and will have simple take-aways.
“Having some marketing savvy, particularly around designing and dominating categories is an incredibly important skillset, regardless where you are in the C-suite” – Christopher Lochhead
Who is this podcast for? It will be for both B2B and B2C markets, especially now that these two concepts are merging in terms of marketing ideas. We will feature technology as well, as it is one of the key drivers of the industry. Technology enables marketers to be precise in measuring reach and accessing new mediums, just like podcasting.
To hear more about who this podcast is for and more relevant information from Christopher Lochhead, download and listen to the episode.
Bio:
Christopher Lochhead is a Top 25 podcaster and #1 Amazon bestselling co-author of books: Niche Down and Play Bigger.
He has been an advisor to over 50 venture-backed startups; a former three-time Silicon Valley public company CMO and an entrepreneur.
Furthermore, he has been called “one of the best minds in marketing” by The Marketing Journal, a “Human Exclamation Point” by Fast Company, a “quasar” by NBA legend Bill Walton and “off-putting to some” by The Economist.
In addition, he served as a chief marketing officer of software juggernaut Mercury Interactive — which was acquired by Hewlett-Packard in 2006 for $4.5 billion.
He also co-founded the marketing consulting firm LOCHHEAD; was the founding CMO of Internet consulting firm Scient, and served as head of marketing at the CRM software firm Vantive.
Links:
We hope you enjoyed this episode of Lochhead on Marketing™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and subscribe on iTunes!
083 A Legendary Executive, Sue Barsamian
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Today, we hang out with an amazing and effective executive, Sue Barsamian. Sue recounts the early beginnings of her career, her challenging job at Mercury Interactive with Christopher and her not-really-a-retirement retirement. In this episode, find out why people dream about having her career.
Challenges After Challenges
Sue has an engineering background that might have contributed to her natural passion for creating, building and solving things. She worked with Christopher at Mercury, which was sold at $5B to HP. She stayed with HP and was assigned to run a billion-dollar cybersecurity business.
“HP gave me a chance to test myself at a scale that I have never tested myself, ‘can you lead 4000 people, can you do 10,000 at P&L?’ Its a different ball game and you’ll never know until you tried it, so that was fun, I had a blast.” – Sue Barsamian
She went ahead to become the head of Sales and Marketing for Software at HP—a role that is unusually given to a single executive. At present, she’s on the board of Symantec ($15B), Box ($2.5) and privately held Gainsight, Xactly. She retired from the operations side of the business but still held a seat at the board.
Keep on Evolving
Sue admits she had a good run in her 36 years in the business. She worked with 8 companies have had around 25 roles overall.
“Nothing in my resume that would say ‘she could do that.’ One of the things about staying in a company is, companies take a risk on people they could stretch and that benefitted me tremendously through my career.” – Sue Barsamian
Other than staying with a company, she stressed the importance of working well with people. She admits that she loves working with different people of different cultures, surviving different situations. She has learned how to understand people and help them become successful
Career Tips to Ponder
Sue Barsamian shares a lot of career tips in this episode. She gives special importance to understanding people and how they have a part to play on the path to success. Giving due credit and acknowledging employees as heroes also do wonders.
“In order to get things done in a company, you need to move mountains that don’t report you. At the end of the day, if you are not about other people’s success, if its all about you and you taking credit to all of your work personally, you’ll crash and burn.” – Sue Barsamian
To hear more about the legendary executive Sue Barsamian and more relevant information from Sue, download and listen to the episode.
Bio:
Sue Barsamian is a seasoned technology veteran with experience in both startups and major public enterprises.
Her background spans in general management, marketing, sales and engineering.
She serves on the boards of Symantec, Box, Gainsight, and Xactly.
Previously she served as the Executive Vice President, Chief Sales and Marketing Officer of Hewlett Packard Enterprise Software, successfully spinning the division out from HPE and merging with Micro Focus International, plc to form the 7th largest software company in the world.
From 2006 to 2016, Ms. Barsamian served in various executive roles at Hewlett Packard including SVP and GM of Enterprise Security Products, the company’s cybersecurity portfolio and SVP of Worldwide Indirect Sales.
Prior to joining Hewlett Packard, Ms. Barsamian was Vice President, Global Go-to-Market at Mercury Interactive Corporation and held various leadership positions at Critical Path, Inc. and Verity, Inc.
She received a Bachelor of Science degree in Electrical Engineering from Kansas State University and completed her post-graduate studies at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology.
Links:
We hope you enjoyed this episode of Follow Your Different™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and subscribe on iTunes!
067 CEO Whisperer Jerry Colonna Reboot
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WIRED calls Jerry Colonna the CEO Whisperer. He believes better human beings make better leaders. Today, he joins Lochhead in a fun and deep adult conversation about his new book, Reboot, and about growing up, what it takes to become a warrior leader and a lot more.
Writing a Book He Would Read
Jerry shares that Reboot is the only book he could write. Anything else would have been complete and utter bullshit. After all, he has had too many scars to bullshit his way through life.
He didn’t even know what he wanted to write when he received his agent’s offer. But soon he realized that they wanted him to be himself and show up. And the experience, coupled with his readers’ reactions, could easily reduce him to tears.
“I wrote the book that I needed to read 20 years ago.” – Jerry Colonna
Words Coming from Life
Towards the beginning of his book, Jerry ran by some of the many hardships people could go through. A co-founder quitting, investors pulling funding, spouses giving up, and many more. Every one of these instances is not some theoretical experience and can happen to anyone.
Such are the moments to stare deeply into our own experience and ask ourselves some important questions. What are we made out of, what have we chosen? But more broadly, in what ways have we been complicit in creating conditions we don’t want?
“It’s much easier to look at the world and say, ‘Why are you doing this to me? Why is this happening to me?’ But that’s uninteresting.” – Jerry Colonna
Complicit Versus Responsible
In writing his book, Jerry used the word “complicit” purposefully. He says that it differs from “responsible”, in that being complicit is like “going along with” and also unconscious. And like Joseph Campbell and Carl Jung said, until we make the unconscious conscious, it will direct our lives and we will call it fate.
We can realize how we become complicit in creating such conditions by answering the question of how they have served us. After all, that which persists does so because it delivers something.
“We might maintain structures not in our best interest because they serve this sort of larger wish for love, safety and belonging.” – Jerry Colonna
To hear more about Reboot, warrior leaders with open hearts and more life-altering nuggets from Jerry, download and listen to the episode.
Bio:
The founder and CEO of Reboot.IO, Inc. Colonna is a certified professional coach.
Colonna draws on his wide variety of experiences to help clients design a more conscious life and make needed changes to their career to improve their performance and satisfaction.
He established his coaching practice in 2007. Prior to this work, Colonna was a venture capitalist focused on investing in early-stage technology-related startups.
In 2002, Colonna became a partner with J.P. Morgan Partners (JPMP), the private-equity arm of J.P. Morgan Chase where he led the firm’s investments in companies such as ProfitLogic, Inc.
Colonna served as a director at ProfitLogic until its purchase by Oracle, Inc.
During his time at JPMP, his commitment to the non-profit sector increased significantly. In the fall of 2001, he worked with The Partnership for the City of New York to help launch the Financial Recovery Fund, a $10 million-plus program that made recoverable grants to small businesses impacted by the attacks on the World Trade Center.
He was named co-Executive Director of NYC2012 in January 2002, the organization designed to secure the City’s designation as the representation in the competition to host the 2012 Olympic Games.
In that year, he helped raise more than $6 million to further those efforts.
He joined JPMP from Flatiron Partners.
With his partner, Fred Wilson, Colonna launched Flatiron in August 1996. Flatiron became one of the most successful, early-stage investment programs.
During his tenure with Flatiron, Colonna was responsible for the firm’s investments in companies such as Geocities Inc. and Gamesville Inc. Colonna joined his first venture firm, CMG@Ventures L.P. in February 1995 as a founding partner.
CMG@Ventures was the first “Internet-specific” venture firm.
Prior to joining @Ventures, Colonna worked for ten years for CMP Media, Inc.
From 1985 to 1993, he served in a variety of roles at InformationWeek, including a three-year stint as its Editor.
Colonna also serves as Chair of the Board of Trustees at Naropa University. Naropa University comprises a four-year undergraduate college and graduate programs in the arts, education, environmental leadership, psychology and religious studies.
It is the only accredited Buddhist-inspired university in North America.
He also serves as Chair of the Board of Trustees at the Tibetan Village Project, a not-for-profit, non-political organization dedicated to creating sustainable livelihoods for Tibetans through social entrepreneurship and educational opportunities.
He is also a director at the Good Work Institute, whose mission is to educate and connect a network of local community members and actively support their collaborative efforts to regenerate their places.
The recipient of numerous awards and a compelling speaker on topics ranging from leadership to starting businesses, Colonna has been named to Forbes ASAP’s list of the best VCs and Worth’s list of the 25 most generous young Americans.
A graduate of Queens College, Colonna lives in Boulder, Colo.
Links:
WIRED – This Man Makes Founders Cry
We hope you enjoyed Jerry Colonna on this episode of Follow Your Different™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and subscribe on iTunes!
061 Happy Money w/ Ken Honda 8 Million Bestselling Author
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Ken Honda has authored over 50 books and sold over 8 million of them. Today, he joins Lochhead in a riveting conversation about his latest book, Happy Money and how you can have a powerful relationship with it.
“Next time you have a hard time feeling happy about writing checks, just say, ‘Thank you, thank you, thank you for giving me the opportunity to bless people with my money.’” – Ken Honda
Happy Money Defined
Ken exemplifies happy money through the news he watched prior to coming on the call with Lochhead. Someone delivered a speech about taking care of all the student loans of hundreds of college graduates. Without getting anything out of it, the person was lifting this particular burden, which kills lots of people, off of these graduates’ shoulders.
“Happy money is money that makes you smile when you receive it. And also, it gives you joy when you spend it.” – Ken Honda
This is a fascinating way of thinking about money. After all, most people and authors espouse how-tos of making, saving, budgeting and other money mechanics.
Money Healer Ken Honda
Often called the money healer, Ken not only teaches financial independence. His focus also lies on how to heal one’s relationship with money. People tend to worry about it too much that they cannot have a healthy life.
We have become so restricted because of money issues. Ken took up the mission to help people be free of these constraints.
Everyone Has Money Wounds
In Happy Money, Ken writes about money wounds. This less than positive relationship with money stems from the simple truth that we all are frustrated with money in one way or another. And by all, he means not just the financially challenged people who have a hard time making ends meet.
Middle class people manage to make ends meet, but barely. Meanwhile, those in upper middle class feel disadvantaged and feel the need to work hard to graduate, land a job and pay back their loans. And the wealthy people feel some kind of guilt about sitting at the top.
“If you can somehow heal your money wounds and transform your relationship with money, you can then be happy forever. It takes a little practice, but not too much.” – Ken Honda
To hear more about bettering your relationship with money from Ken, download and listen to the episode.
Bio:
Ken Honda is a bestselling author of self-development books in Japan, where he has sold more than eight million books since 2001.
While his financial expertise comes from owning and managing several businesses, his writings bridge the topics of finance and self-help, focusing on creating and generating personal wealth and happiness through deeper self-honesty.
He is the first person from Japan to be voted into the Transformational Leadership Council.
Fluent in Japanese and English, he has lived in Boston and currently resides in Tokyo.
Links:
Simon and Shuster – Happy Money
We hope you enjoyed Ken Honda on this episode of Follow Your Different™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and subscribe on iTunes!
060 Cards Against Humanity Co-Creator Max Temkin
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Living legendary designer Max Temkin, co-creator of Cards Against Humanity (“a party game for horrible people”) talks about his ideas on design, company building, his work ethic—or lack thereof—and so much more.
Max’s Non-Existent Work Ethic
Max proclaims himself as a horrible procrastinator with no work ethic. He can never decide to do something and sit down to actually do it. Because of this, he has developed coping mechanisms to get him through last-minute clutch work.
This ties up with the philosophy of necessary and sufficient conditions that he personally believes in.
Working hard is necessary to keep a business running but it is never sufficient. Hard work needs to be coupled with critical thinking, team play and good energy to make legendary things possible.
“No one is successful just because they killed themselves with work.“ – Max Temkin
The Wild Medium: Design
Max says that it is incredibly difficult to break down what it means to be a designer.
After all, so many skills go into design.
There is design thinking, organization and empathy for the user, and then there are the technical skills like typography and color theory.
Because of the many skills that a designer can sink their teeth into, no designer is excellent at everything. It would take more than one lifetime to master them.
For example, Max has never understood color theory, so he stuck to black and white, which eventually became his brand.
“I’ve definitely come to suspect that for many people, what you might call their style is like the coping mechanisms they’ve developed to cover those holes in their skill set.” – Max Temkin
Building Small Things
Max says that people usually build things from the desire to make them just because it would be neat to do so. Some people would put up their creations for the people to decide their fate.
Some would build a company with the mindset of growing its worth into a billion dollars. Max believes that these ideas, however, are rarely delightful and rarely work. In contrast, allowing yourself to think small and unconstrained would help your ideas grow into huge phenomena.
“Very rarely does someone go, ‘I’m gonna change the world with this huge idea’ and then it works exactly as intended.” – Max Temkin
To hear more about design, gaming and the Do By Friday podcast from Max, download and listen to the episode.
Bio:
Max Temkin is a designer.
He is best known for co-creating of the #1 selling, category creating “adult party game” Cards Against Humanity.
He also co-created, Secret Hitler, and Humans vs. Zombies.
Max is also co-host of the popular podcast, “Do By Friday”.
Links:
Cards Against Humanity – Wikipedia
The Sun UK – Cards Against Humanity set to be a shocking quiz show on Comedy Central
PR Week – Cards Against Humanity Gorilla Black Friday Marketing!
The New York Times – Letter of Complaint: Cards Against Humanity
Do By Friday Podcast – Overcast
We hope you enjoyed Max Temkin on this episode of Follow Your Different™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and subscribe on iTunes!
