Maurilio Amorim

Month: May 2012

  • Before Creating an App, You Need a Mobile Strategy

    Many of my current conversations start with “we need our own app.” I usually answer this question with one of my own, “why do you think you need an app?” The usual answer is something similar to what junior high boys give their parents when they want a new game console: “All the cool kids have one.” But before you try to keep up with the cool, rich kids of technology, I would suggest you take a step back and think about creating a mobile strategy first.

    mobile devices and strategy

    Much like creating marketing pieces without an integrated marketing campaign is not a smart idea, creating apps without first designing a mobile strategy is not a good move. Sometimes your best app is not an app at all, but a killer mobile version of your site.

    Recently, Google put out some good thinking on mobile strategies. Following are 4 questions you should consider when crafting your mobile strategy:

    How does mobile change our value proposition? Define your value proposition by determining what your consumer wants to do with your business in mobile then benchmark against others in your industry for ideas.

    Is our organization adapting to mobile? Assign a mobile champion in your company and empower them with a cross- functional task force.

    How should our marketing adapt to mobile? What is the experience like for a consumer trying to find you and connect with you? Take 5 minutes today and search for your brand in mobile as a consumer would. Discuss the result with your team.

    How can we connect with our tablet audience? Check out your web experience on a tablet. Take 5 minutes today and search for your brand on a tablet as a consumer would. Maximize the tablet format with rich media creative.

    How much thinking has your organization done on your mobile strategy?


  • This is Not the Way to Thank Someone

    A handwritten thank you note is one of most personable and kind things one can do whether in a business transaction or on a personal level. I don’t care how bad your handwriting is, it’s always a pleasant surprise to receive a note from someone who went to the trouble to write it out and mail it to you. I love it, and I don’t know anyone who doesn’t. But sometimes even something simple as a thank you note can backfire if it’s not executed properly.

    thank you note

     

    So you can imagine how glad I was to get a thank you note from someone on his personal stationary. However, the label with my name on the envelope should have given it away, but I still opened it hoping for the best. It was not to be.

    Obviously this was a generic “thank you” printed on personal note stationary. And to make it even more disappointing it wasn’t even signed. The whole thing was ruined for me. I now wished the person hadn’t even bothered to tell his secretary to send it out. Maybe I’m too sensitive, but I’ve tried to think of the gesture, but the botched execution is the only thing I can focus on.

    Moral of the story:

    No matter what your intentions are, you’re going to be judged on the execution.

    I heard it just today “he’s a visionary, but he can’t execute anything.” I call that happy talk: it means nothing, just hot air. Too many people have a vision but only those who find a way to make it happen will be rewarded.

    Am I too sensitive on this issue? Should I have been happy with the generic thank you, since at least I got one?

  • The Case for My Smallest Office Yet

    The A Group has just moved into its new offices. This is the third, and the largest, office space I have helped design for my company; however, this is the smallest corner office I’ve had since the beginning of our company 10 years ago. The shrinking of my personal space and the growth of my company is both symbolic and practical. It’s been a slow learning curve for me to lead a growing group of highly talented professionals. Here are some thoughts about my shrinking office:

    Executive corner office

    The A Group is much more than the sum total of my skills. At one point I ran a business that was mostly, if not solely, dependent on my abilities. When you hire smart people, they will not stay around unless you allow them to grow, find their place, and make their unique contribution. You cannot do that if you believe that every great idea must come from one source, and that being you. I’ve watched my team flourish over the past years and continue to do so.

    It is important to put our resources where it will best serve the organization. No one in our executive team, including me, got new furniture for their new offices. But we bought state-of-the-art Herman Miller workstations for our entire tech team. After years of working shoulder to shoulder, these guys deserved the upgrade. The executive team unanimously decided that it was the best way to invest our resources.

    I am more secure than ever before in my team’s abilities to do amazing work instead of my personal brand. The entire organization has become the source of my professional pride and not my over-sized office or ego. I’m not saying that if you have a big office, you have a big ego. But it was true for me. And while my ego is still rather large, I have realized that the quality of what we do is more important than the wow of a large corner office.

     

     

  • The Fun Theory

    Intuitively we know that the more fun we inject in activities, the more likely people are to respond positively to them. When my boys were small I used to play let’s-see-how-fast-we-can-put-up-the toys game. They would clean the room in a matter of minutes as opposed to the whining and gnashing of their teeth that would be manifest during other chores.

    This video is another reminder that people will choose even a more difficult path if we make it fun.

    Where have you experienced the fun theory at work in your life?

  • Christianity, Hospitality and Immigrants

    “The great majority of Christians in America will never host a meal for someone from another culture making his home in the US,” said my friend across the table.  I immediately thought of my fortune not only in having been invited for dinner, but to have been “adopted” into an American family my sophomore year in college. In retrospect, it made all the difference in the world.

    Milton and Elizabeth Hollifield

    I though it was a silly, frivolous prayer at the time. But in the depths of my lonely days as an international college student, I prayed to God for a family–more precisely, an American family. I had grown weary of not having a place to go during breaks, specially the long summer breaks. My parents in Brazil were financially struggling to keep me in school, my student visa limited the amount of hours I could legally work, and flying home during school breaks was just not a possibility. I never thought I would see that prayer answered, that is until Milton Hollifield Sr, a country preacher from the North Carolina mountains came looking for me. I had met “preacher Hollifield” and his entire family a couple of months earlier during a speaking trip to several congregations in the foothills of Black Mountain, NC.

    Milton Hollifield

    They were a gregarious, loud, and even obnoxious bunch. I thought of my own crazy, loud, and obnoxious family as I experienced dinner with them. But now, out of the blue, Milton insisted I visited them during the Christmas break. “We’ll figure out how to get you there and back. You just need to plan to be with us.” There was no arguing with the man. So I did.

    I was never the same.

    I spent every holiday and school break with the Hollifield clan for the next several years until I got married and had a family of my own. Milton and Elizabeth made me one of their kids, even though I was closer to the age of their grand kids. I embraced corn bread and greens, livers and onions, and the Sunday morning staple of burned cinnamon rolls. I stuck out like a sore thumb in a rural community and loved every moment of it. I learned so much about love, family, grace, and acceptance from my new family.

    I watched Milton get up every morning, read his Bible and pray for the growing-list of people in his life. Once you got added to the list, only death removed you. At 81, Milton still prays for me everyday. He reminded me of that not long ago.

    I cannot imagined what my life would have been had a man whom I met only once, and briefly, not insisted I joined his family for Christmas. There are more people like me everyday in communities all across the country–college students, families, and professionals who are making America their new home. For their sake, as well as ours, I hope we can open our homes and invite them in.

    Have you ever opened your home to someone new to country? What happened?