Category

Tactics

Tactics

Message extenders: Music

Don’t act like you don’t know what I’m talking about. Bryan Adams Heaven comes on the radio and in an instant you’re back in junior high, dancing with your crush. You can smell the unmistakable aroma of the school gym. You can feel the way the button-down shirt clings so…
Chris Chambers
February 12, 2018
Tactics

If you build it…

…they’ll still come, but they might not own it. I’m wondering if you’ve heard of Jones Soda. Here’s a micro-brewing soda company that was competing against Coke and Pepsi because it had to, because they’re there, huge and not likely to go away any time soon. So, Jones Soda had to…
Chris Chambers
March 12, 2018
Tactics

When it doesn’t matter where it goes

Imagine you’re a newspaper reporter…and you’re on assignment to write the article of the century—front page, above the fold, breaking news. It’s going to take at least a year to research and write the story. But the newspaper world is a bit, shall we say, shaky…and your editor honestly can’t…
Chris Chambers
May 7, 2018
StrategyTactics

Choices: the guts of ‘invention’

A songwriter can write an original song, but she doesn’t invent new notes. A painter can paint an original painting, but he doesn’t invent the colors. A writer can write an original story, but she doesn’t invent new letters. A chef can cook an original dish, but he doesn’t invent…
Chris Chambers
December 11, 2017
StrategyTactics

There’s more than one way to skin a…

Note: I am fascinated by LEGO® products . Always have been. And I recently learned some things that took the WOW factor up several notches. * There is a proprietary software used by LEGO Group that takes any image and transforms it into a 3-D image…a blueprint of LEGO bricks, layer by…
Chris Chambers
July 6, 2018
Onsite ActionTactics

Beyond the stretch interlude

After a long hiatus (and by ‘long’ I mean: since high school) from moving legs quickly for any reason other than work or catching trains, I have recently taken up running.  And besides the obvious benefits here: health and fitness; I’ve noticed a reward that I didn’t see coming when…
Chris Chambers
May 11, 2017
Onsite ActionTactics

The tip of technology

I had horrible service the other night at a restaurant. My gut reaction was to not leave a tip, but in the end I couldn’t do it. Why? Because tipping—waiters, cab drivers, hair dressers—has become part of our culture. It’s what we do. Which is funny and so wrong. T.I.P.…
Chris Chambers
December 11, 2016
Onsite ActionTactics

For THAT? Give ’em THIS.

Frans Johansson wrote an incredible book called, The Medici Effect: Breakthrough Insights at the Intersection of Ideas, Concepts and Cultures. The point that he makes excruciatingly clear is that, quite often, inspired ideas come from the unlikeliest of places. Here’s an example from Johansson: “Volvo has delved into a new, fascinating, and intersectional,…
Chris Chambers
October 11, 2016
Tactics

Find a window…and another window

Of the many critical things I was taught as a fireman that I have since applied to just about every other aspect of my life, this one ranks pretty high. Here it is: always have a second way out of the room. In the case of fighting a fire, there…
Chris Chambers
May 11, 2016