Apollo 11 was, as Neil Armstrong said, one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind - and also a giant leap for technology that, years later, created the industry, wide-format printing, in which Mole Graphics operates. When I watched the documentary at the local picture palace, it struck me, for the first time, how audacious, complicated and preposterous the entire mission was.
Industry Mole
Worth the tweet?
I rarely look at social media. And when I say rarely I mean it - not like my neighbour who says he rarely watches television - “just the news and wildlife documentaries” - but is strangely familiar with every twist in Game Of Thrones. (Full disclosure: I am one of the social pariahs who have never watched a single episode.) But the other day my sales director sent me a copy of a tweet from @AdWeak that made me laugh: “BREAKING: Client Informs Agency She Really Appreciates All The Hard Work That Went Into The Ideas She Is About To Kill.”
Focus on the stuff you can control
The best advice I ever received? “Never forget that it can be hard to distinguish between a rising market and a genius.” You’ve probably never heard of the man who told me that: a New Zealander called Sir John Buchanan (though he never insisted on the title) who was finance director of BP in its heyday.
Brace, brace, brace
I once vowed that the word ‘Brexit’ would never darken this column, but with a sort of final decision - or final indecision - looming, I’m going to do what politicians do all the time and break a promise.
Millennial Mole
Someone told me recently that Millennials approach finding a job in the same way they search for a date on Tinder. As my social media expertise only extends as far as Instagram, I asked him to explain.
Man on a mission
“Respect, integrity, communication, excellence.” These were the official core values of Enron, one of the most fraudulent businesses ever formed. I thought of that the other day when the sales director came in saying that it was about time we had a new mission statement.
How to be a persuader
What is the optimum number of slides you can put in a presentation? The question occurred to me the other day when our sales director Brian gave a pitch to a potentially massive new client. He used 85 slides and ignored all my not so subtle hints that he delete a few.
Ditch the dross
When Mark Parker became CEO of Nike in 2006, he asked Steve Jobs for advice. Apple’s founding genius didn’t mince his words, telling Parker: “Nike makes some of the best products in the world. Products you lust after. But you also make a lot of crap. Just get rid of the crappy stuff and focus on the good stuff.”
Know what you don’t know
“I do not think that I know what I do not know.” Socrates said that. The great Greek philosopher does not normally feature in any of those greatest management gurus of alltime lists, but maybe he should.
More than a mere marketing tool
“A good website is not just a marketing tool to drive people to your products.” This was the first thing the speaker, at a seminar on digital business in a hotel in the Midlands, had said that caught my attention. The woman in front of me must have been impressed too - for the first time that morning, she made a note on her yellow pad and underlined it.
Are we faking it?
If I have one wish for 2018, it is that, after a year in which the entire world seems to have dumbed down, it gets a bit smarter again. I’m not holding out a lot of hope but as the owner of a decent-sized company such as Mole Graphics, you must always - as that giant of 20th century philosophy Eric Idle put it - look on the bright side.
How to make million
“How much time do you spend networking?” It’s a question an old university friend, now working as a HR consultant, asked me the other day. I immediately got defensive because a non-executive director had told me, at our last board meeting, that we didn’t do enough off it.
Do we have to socialise?
Do print buyers care about social media? If I was to answer that question honestly, I’d have to say “I hope not”. I’d like to say we are conspicuous by our absence but that’s wrong – we’re not there and very few people, let alone clients, have noticed.
Why bother?
Every so often I’m reminded why I loathe marketing departments. This is an unhealthy state of mind, I know, as they are Mole Graphics’ principal customers, but they always seem to have a high horse in the vicinity to climb onto whenever you’ve made a mistake or, worse, they’ve made a mistake and want to blame someone.