Remarkabalize

Welcome To the Remarkabalize Blog!

Welcome to our blog focused on producing events in support of launching The Big Moo.  This will be the home base for remarkable stories about the yearlong line of book launch events that are planned.  Also, as our team comes across stories and people that demonstrate a true 'purple cow' as conceived by author Seth Godin - we will share.  Get Involved, Get on Board - be a sponsor - read the book and help us reach the goal of $1M for the key charity groups.

Remarkabalize Your Strategy with COLOR!

The Big Moo author Julie Anixter’s firm, Laga, in partnership with Sun Chemical, is putting on a free webinar series that invites you to dialogue with industry leaders and explore strategic color decisions and how they impact your brand.  The webinar takes place tomorrow, November 8th at 3pm EST.

Tomorrow's webinar includes an unveiling of the Brand Packaging editor's Top 10 Most Strategic Packages.  Register today!

If you can't make the session or want to see some previous presentations from the same series, check out the following YouTube videos:

Color Innovation - Part 1/5
Color Innovation - Part 2/5
Color Innovation - Part 3/5
Color Innovation - Part 4/5
Color Innovation - Part 5/5

What I Love About Randy Rothenberg

What I love about Randy Rothenberg's mash up of COLUMN and BLOG is that it is the essence of remarkable...so simple, so memorable.   His poke at and through the Blogosphere is a wonderful reminder that it - the remarkable - can always be done. It has what Tom Peters, also a Group of 33, would call, immediate WOW-ness. *photo courtesy of www.clogsbytessa.com

That's what I admire most about my colleagues, the co-Authors of the The Big Moo. They overcome resistance on a daily basis to CREATE.  I have been re-reading one of my favorite LITTLE BOOKS, The Art of War by Steven Pressfield (www.stevenpressfield.com) -- if you're at all like me in that you too have to overcome resistance to write or whatever...this is worth a read...and this excerpt will make it obvious why...

"As artists and professionals it is our obligation enact our own internal revolution, a private resurrection inside our own skulls.  In this uprising we free ourselves from the tyranny of consumer culture.  We overthrow the programming of advertising, movies, video games, magazines, TV and MTV by which we have been hypnotized from the cradle.  We unplug ourselves from the grid by recognizing we will never cure our restlessness by contributing our disposable income to the bottom line of Bullshit, Inc. but only by doing our work."

Thanks Randy for doing your work...

Julie Anixter, September 24, 2007

Randall Rothenberg Announces His First "Clog"

Randall Rothenberg, CEO of Interactive Advertising Bureau and Big Moo author, announced the launch of his "clog" (column + blog = clog!) today.  The site is called "I, A Bee: Buzz and Pollination From the Interactive Advertising Bureau."  In his e-mail announcement, Rothenberg announced his plan "to keep it infused with profiles, prognostications, proclamations, and provocations about interactive marketing and media."

The debut clog offers a profile of The Martin Agency’s Mike Hughes and his work in building the interactive program at VCU Adcenter.

Visit the new clog at www.randallrothenberg.com

Books as Tools!

As we reach The Big Moo's Anniversary, we, the Remarkabalize Team*, are re-dedicating ourselves and our site to our singular vision: using Books as (powerful) Tools.  We know beyond any doubt,  from our experience helping to launch The Big Moo, as well as our projects with authors like Seth, Tom Peters, Fernando Flores, Martin Lindstrom, Roger Schank, John Wood, and organizations like the Navy, Allstream, Anixter Inc., Disney, Fed Ex, Group Systems, GSK, Target, Davis United World Scholars, Visant, Xerox and others, that books can, and do change the world. 

We want to keep that dialog going, and continue to share our ongoing efforts and learning with you, and hear from you as well!  So bring it on!  Question us, provoke us, challenge us, and we'll respond.

We're proud of The Big Moo!  To use a Seth phrase, it's our Purple Cow.  We, the Group of 33, have helped build a Big Moo School in Nepal, and a Big Moo Library in India, through the donation of 100% of the Royalties to Room to Read (who built these wonderful places), Acumen Fund, and Juvenile Diabetes Research. Our goal is to keep selling the Big Moo and work with Room to Read build more schools/libraries and labs throughout the world as well as to contribute much needed funds to our other charities.

In the coming months you'll hear from each of us on specific projects past, present and future, that celebrate and share our thinking about Books as Tools.

Julie Anixter

*The Remarkabalize team is Julie Anixter, Dean DeBiase, Sarah Cheffy, Renata Lana, and Scott Williams.

And we all thank the readers of The Big Moo!

If you're a regular reader of Seth's blog, you've probably already heard the news. In case you missed it, Seth shared with everyone some spectacular news about The Big Moo:

Because we've sold so many copies, the publisher has sent us an additional $50,000. This money, on behalf of the thirty three authors, is going directly to three charities that are changing the world: Room to Read, JDRF and the Acumen Fund. This will fund another scientist's research, build most of a new school and library in Cambodia and help fund a new factory for malaria bednets in Tanzania. I want to thank each of the authors and especially you, for supporting the book.

You can read the original post here. The Remarkabalize team would like to echo that gratitude. Our sincere thanks to everyone who has purchased the book or been a Big Moo evangelist. 

A Remarkable Year

It's been a year since The Big Moo was published. Here at Remarkabalize.com we've shared with you how the book has impacted the charities it supports as well as how those charities are changing the world. Now it's time to shift the spotlight to the Group of 33—the authors of The Big Moo. What have they been up to in the last year? Here's a small sampling of highlights:

Kevin Carroll, along with the Global Youth Partnership for Africa, co-sponsored Team Gomo Tong from Uganda in the 4th annual Homeless World Cup. The event, held in September of this year, is no simple soccer tournament: "the player selection will be based on several factors that include athletic skill, leadership, and overall commitment to continued educational and social change upon returning to Uganda." The players actually become peace ambassadors. Read more about it here and on Kevin's blog.

The Big Moo editor and co-author, Seth Godin, has somehow found the time to publish another book and start an innovative web company. The book, Small is the New Big, is a compilation of his blog entries, columns from Fast Company and e-books. Squidoo, Seth's latest web project, is a bit like mashing up Wikipedia and Google. As they define it, "Squidoo's goal as a platform is to bring the power of recommendation to search." Everyone can create their own lens (website) about as many subjects as they'd like. Know something about scrimshaw? Create a lens about it! Whether your interests lie in growing businesses or the original Mardi Gras, you can become a resource for others and support your favorite charity while you're at it. Other Big Moo authors have been helping Seth out with Squidoo, including Heath Row (Senior director of community development), Red Maxwell (Designer and Advisor), and Lisa Gansky (Board Member).

Amit Gupta is a bibliophile. Always on the search for new books to devour, he created a way to find books he might like to read, in the Amazon style ("Customers who bought this item also bought..."), and then connected it to library resources. The result is E41ST. Check it out. Update [11/17]: Turns out, that was the wrong Amit Gupta. Our Amit Gupta hasn't been working on a book search project, he's been working on a newsletter project called Photojojo. His team gives you the inside scoop on how to do the absolute coolest things with the digital photos you've been taking. Turn your photos into comic book art or make a mosaic, the pieces of which are postcards. Subscribe and get your creative juices flowing!

Citizen Marketers is the name of Jackie Huba's new book, due out in December. She and co-author Ben McConnell explain the phenomenon of customer evangelists who take their passion for a brand to the masses using social media. Get a preview of the book's tenets at their Citizen Marketers page.

No stranger to cutting-edge innovation as general manager of the design firm IDEO, Tom Kelley has had a unique view of how people operate when they generate ideas and successfully implement innovative design. Tom gives us an in depth look at the roles people play when nurturing innovation in an organization with his latest book, The Ten Faces of Innovation.

Polly LaBarre has also joined the publishing frenzy with her new book, Mavericks at Work. She and co-author Bill Taylor researched corporate upstarts—companies with unorthodox methods that were and are making waves in their industries. Polly and Bill make it clear that it's time to get creative with your approach to business in the book as well as on their blog and in this manifesto.       

In August, BusinessWeek posted a podcast interview with Chris Meyer. In it, Chris explains how to stimulate innovation through the effective use of social networking. Listen in and find out how he makes cool things happen by connecting the right people.

She hasn't ended the debate, but Robin Williams has certainly added an intriguing twist to the quest for the true author of Shakespeare's body of work. Her book, Sweet Swan of Avon: Did a Woman Write Shakespeare?, was published in March and explores the possibility that it was Mary Sidney, countess of Pembroke.

Our resident Trendmaster, Robyn Waters, once again offers to help us maneuver through confusing marketplace messages with her recently published book, The Hummer and the Mini: Navigating the Contradictions of the New Trend Landscape. She shows how disparate the tastes of consumer culture can be and how to mine that knowledge for fresh ideas for your business.

This brief cross-section of recent projects illustrates the high level of thought leadership that Seth had in mind when he chose the members of the Group of 33. Be sure to check out the Authors' Links on the right side of this page to find out more about what each of the Group of 33 has been up to lately.

The Big Moo: Marketing Tool

Iconoculture, one of our partners, helps companies better understand consumers by analyzing, translating, and applying consumer trends. They constantly have their ears to the ground, searching out all corners of consumer culture to understand how and why consumers do what they do.  We thought you'd like to hear about how Iconoculture has used The Big Moo as tool in their own marketing efforts.

Laurie Healy, Director of Corporate Marketing at Iconoculture, said that they were attracted to the book's theme of being remarkable, and the importance this holds in business today.  She said the book and supporting programming was an "innovative effort" that they wanted to support and share with their clients. Healy said that they wanted their existing and potential clients to associate Iconoculture with helping companies understand how to get closer to their consumers - in a remarkable way. With this in mind, Iconoculture sent out customized copies of The Big Moo to their clients as well as using the book in focused lead-generation mailings.

We think this is a perfect paradigm of how to use the book. According to Healy, the motivation for Iconoculture was rooted in the fact that they "believed in the mission" of The Big Moo. We're happy to say that this was exactly the intention behind the book - to find ways to spread inspiration to be remarkable. Let us know if we can help you become part of the Remarkable movement!

Moral Imagination a Job Requirement for Acumen Fellows

It's not often that you see "moral imagination" listed as a job requirement. But that's precisely what the staff at Acumen Fund seek out in candidates for their Fellows Program.

"Acumen Fund’s goal in creating the Fellows Program was to build an 'entrepreneurial bench' of talented individuals for the social enterprise sector. We believe this cohort comprises some of the world’s next generation of leaders, who have the skills and imagination to effect real change..." [from www.acumenfund.org]

Acumen Fund is one of the three Big Moo supported charities. In the past 12 months, Acumen Fund has received 50,000 dollars directly from the author-donated royalties of The Big Moo. This funding has supported their Fellows Program, in addition to other projects. We thought you'd enjoy taking an inside look at how your purchase of The Big Moo is making a lasting difference in the world by highlighting the truly remarkable Acumen Fund Fellows Program.

Acumen Fund Fellows work at a local level in Africa, India, and Pakistan. Because becoming a Fellow is a highly selective process, they have resumes rich with experience as well as intercultural sensitivity - they listen first instead of imposing their own agenda on the people they're there to help. Here are the projects that the Fellows are working on this year:

David's project:

David will be consulting on marketing, pricing and service design for information kiosks in rural areas of India for an organization called Drishtee.com. These kiosks allow people in rural areas to access public information - such as financial and governmental documents as well as healthcare services - that they would otherwise need to travel long distances to obtain.

Nadaa’s project:

Nadaa will be in India helping a company called Medicine Shoppe. Medicine Shoppe is establishing health centers in rural India aimed at providing high quality yet affordable health services for poor and marginalized rural consumers. Nadaa's challenge is to create two successful stand alone businesses which piggy-back on Medicine Shoppe's franchising network.

Jocelyn's project:

Jocelyn will be working with Sustainable Healthcare Enterprise Foundation (SHEF) in Nairobi - a franchise of medical clinics. Jocelyn will be helping to develop a model for scaling the business. She will oversee the rolling out of new franchises.

Adrien's project:

Adrien will be in India working with International Development Enterprises India (IDEI). He'll be helping them, as well as other organizations, develop a model for expanding access to low cost drip irrigation for rural farmers.

Ayleen's project:

Ayleen will be leading a branding initiative focused on customer care for a mortgage lender, Kashf Foundation, that extends microloans to women entrepreneurs in Pakistan.

Eric's project:

Eric will be working in South Africa for BroadReach Healthcare. He'll be helping to scale their existing disease management business as well as consulting on business development and new market analysis.

As you can see, Acumen Fund is trying to position highly skilled individuals in places where they can fight poverty. By creating what will become a large network of social entrepreneurs, Acumen Fund is attempting to engender a legacy of change. This is exactly the kind of impact that the authors of The Big Moo were hoping for when they decided to donate their royalties to charity. For more information about the Fellows Program (you really must check out their stellar backgrounds) or any of the other programs at Acumen Fund, please visit their website. Thanks again for your help in making this possible through your support and purchase of The Big Moo.

 

John Wood Talks About Leaving Microsoft to Change the World

Ask him a question and he'll give you (or Deborah Solomon) an answer about why he traded his limo's for a Yak...and the behind the scenes of one of our BIG MOO Charities, Room to Read... in the July 23 Sunday New York Times.

Questions for John Wood
Read All About It

Interview by DEBORAH SOLOMON
Published: July 23, 2006

Q: You’re one of several Microsoft entrepreneurs who seem eager to live out some fantasy of saving the world. As the founder of Room to Read, do you really believe you can personally “educate the world’s children,” as the subtitle of your forthcoming book, “Leaving Microsoft to Change the World,” proclaims?

We’re trying to open libraries and schools, mostly for kids K to 5, in the developing world at a pace that emulates Starbucks’. With 850 million illiterate people in the world, we need the nonprofit sector to scale rapidly.

But can libraries open as quickly as coffee bars?

In the past six years, we have established 2,500 libraries and 210 schools in Nepal, Cambodia, Sri Lanka and elsewhere. Our model allows us to build a school with running water and toilets and a library for $12,000 in Nepal. We can do a school in Vietnam for about $15,000.

How can you, as a businessman and Microsoft’s former head of development in China, know what books to put in a grade-school library?

We work with U.S. publishers to gain donations of English-language children’s books.

Oh, I see. You’re building libraries in developing countries with overstock from U.S. publishers?

Yes, and we also publish local-language children’s books using indigenous authors and artists. We are finding the Dr. Seuss of Nepal.

Who will write “Green Eggs and Tofu”?

Yes, or “Green Yaks and Mountains.”

Once you open a library, do you pay to hire a librarian and run it?

No, the local village pays for that. We monitor the library for the first three years. You want to go back and make sure they’re not using it to house their chickens and their goats.

Does Room to Read have an endowment?

No. We have to earn our keep every day. We are not trying to create a foundation or endowment; we are trying to deploy as quickly as possible. This year our budget is $7 million, and my paid staff is a little over 80 people.

Does the U.S. government kick in anything?

We don’t seek government funding here in the U.S. We don’t want to get into a fight with the U.S. government over whether we are allowed to teach kids about condoms or AIDS.

With all this travel, what is your personal life like?

I never thought I would still be renting at age 42. I am a not-married, no-kids, globe-trotting workaholic.

In your book, you fault a former girlfriend for wanting to stay at a Four Seasons Hotel. Are you allergic to pleasure?

There is no Gandhi-esque desire to starve myself. All other things being equal, I would much rather sit in the front of the plane than a middle seat in the back of the airplane.

I always think the only real advantage of being rich is not having to fly coach.

I have donors who say, “Why don’t you upgrade on my miles so you can be more productive on your 15-hour flight to Katmandu?” And I take them up on it.

How nice. But do you really need donations?

What about the fabled Microsoft stock? I cashed most of it and have used it to live on. I sold it at the wrong time. I sold most of it after it had declined by 50 percent. My timing was off because you can’t day-trade from the Himalayas.

Do you think you are following in Bill Gates’s philanthropic footsteps?

In a way, I’ve got a nine-year head start on him at leaving Microsoft to devote myself to this full time. Gates is not going full time until 2008.

It’s been said that all true philanthropy is done anonymously. Are you concerned that you are using charity as a vehicle for self-promotion?

I hope the book is promoting of the cause, rather than me.

It does heroicize your role in all this, complete with a picture of you on the cover, grinning as you deliver books by yak in rural Nepal.

The media loves to glom onto one person. If I wrote a book called “I’m Surrounded by the World’s Most Amazing Team of Individuals,” nobody would publish it.