February 3, 2006

Tim’s Snugglin’ Up

Client Spotlight: Noven Pharmaceuticals

George's Going to Market: Keeping Your Intellectual Property “Yours”

Rich’s Ramblings: Why are the Standard U.S. Paper Sizes 8.5" x 11" and 8.5" x 14"?

Greetings!

Ah, February, the sedentary month for us midwesterners. Bitter cold will do that to you. So what is it good for? Well, snuggling up with a significant other, a good movie...or a good book.

So why not play another round of Bookshelf Roulette? For you new readers of The Pepper Mill, this is where I go over to my bookshelf, grab a few books and give myself no more than one minute (you'll have to trust me) to pull something out that I think might interest you from each one.

So, here goes!

Watch for chances to “build” and “jump.” High-energy brainstormers tend to follow a series of steep “power” curves, in which momentum builds slowly, then intensely, then starts to plateau. The best facilitators can nurture an emerging conversation with a light touch in the first phase and know enough to let ideas flow during the steep part of the ideation curve. It's when energy fades on a line of discussion that the facilitator really earns his or her keep.            –The Art of Innovation            Tom Kelley, with Jonathan Littman
Believe it or not, no matter how typical your life may seem to be up until now, your identity is complex. It's made up of the sum total of all your experiences; your understanding of those experiences; your beliefs about how the world operates; your attitudes about the past, present and future; your skills and talents; and your ideas about how others see you. In any selling situation, you come armed with a complex interaction of those factors that influence how you behave with that client. To the extent that you can increase your own knowledge and understanding of yourself, you can increase your comfort with who you are–and this translates into an ease of manner to which your customers will immediately respond and trust.           –Power Selling            George Ludwig
"On busy days in our telemarketing centers, I bring in buffet lunches, so people don't have to get up from their stations to go to lunch. But I haven't yet gotten them to accept the catheter idea I proposed." (Jim McCann, CEO of 1-800-FLOWERS)            –301 Do-It-Yourself Marketing Ideas            Compiled by Inc. Magazine
Calories are measured by an apparatus called a calorimeter. The piece of food to be measured is placed inside a chamber, sealed, and then ignited and burned. The energy released from the food heats water surrounding the chamber. By weighing the amount of water heated, noting the increase in the water's temperature and multiplying the two, the energy capacity of the food can be measured.            –When Do Fish Sleep?            David Feldman
Do you know what happens to kids who take two hours to eat lunch? They grow up to be advertising executives.            –Winning with One-Liners            Compiled by Pat Williams

So, there are a few things off the shelf. Ponder them. Use them. Share them. Hope you have a great February!

Tim Padgett
tim@peppergroup.com

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“Everyone leads. Leadership is action, not position.”
     —Donald H. McGannon

“May you live as long as you want to. May you want to as long as you live.”
     —Old English Toast

Client Spotlight: Noven Pharmaceuticals

A long-time favorite client of ours from DuPont called us last fall to let us know that she now works for Noven Pharmaceuticals in Miami. She's the Executive Director of National Sales for Noven and enlisted our help in creating a theme and some revolutionary 3D videos for their sales reps to enjoy at their 2006 National Sales Meeting last week.
 
Starting back in October, we created a fun superhero/supervillain theme for the three-day meeting and called it the “SuperNovens.” We tied the whole event together by developing a theme logo, imprinted giveaways, a 3D electronic invitation, an 8-minute 3D video opening for the meeting, and a 16-minute 3D video wrap-up of the reps enjoying themselves during the meeting. We also hired Greg Whalen, a very talented Chicago-based actor/comedian to play the role of supervillain both on-screen and on-stage in Tampa.
 
The meeting was a spectacular success thanks to the willingness of the client to embrace the theme and stay open to some pretty whacky ideas. If you’re interested in learning more about this event, or our 3D technologies, please contact Todd Underwood

George’s Going to Market: Keeping Your Intellectual Property “Yours”

Differentiation. It separates your organization from the pack, elevates your offering, and makes it the clear choice for prospects in your target market. It’s one of the core tenets of Pepper Group’s strategic marketing approach. We call it being spicy.

So whether it is your product, your technology, your expertise, your brand, or something else, good differentiation can deliver competitive advantage. But of course if your competitors copy it, then your organization is no longer different. So how can you protect it?

One sure-fire way is to build and leverage solid resources that can’t be copied. To read more, you can reference our PepperCorn Learning document on the subject.

Beyond that, the US legal system offers a number of protections: copyright, patents and trademarks. The right solution depends on the intellectual property that you want to protect.

• Copyright protects original works of authorship which exist in a tangible form (i.e. not that song you dreamt about singing in front of thousands of adoring fans at the United Center). Copyright covers writing, music, art, architecture and computer software. Even your photo of your amazing Elvis sighting can be protected. No kidding! See http://www.copyright.gov/help/faq/faq-protect.html#elvis
  
  In fact, what you’re reading now is copyrighted material. But if I grant my permission or I tell you to feel free to reproduce this as long as you give me proper credit, you are free to use it. In fact, I encourage it!
  
  But how did I copyright it? Easy. I wrote it. Copyright is the simplest of all because it is automatic. In fact, it protects both published and unpublished works. Official registration is voluntary but rarely necessary.
  
  
• Patents are quite different. Patents protect inventions and discoveries. In some cases, it can protect a process as well. It can also protect improvements to something that already exists. Overall, the patent process is more involved and expensive and usually requires the services of a patent attorney. The benefits, however, of nailing a patent on something useful and marketable can be huge. The best source of information about patents if you want to read more is http://www.uspto.gov/main/patents.htm.
  
  
• Trademarks protect brand names, logos, taglines, distinguishing designs and special symbols. Registering a trademark notifies the public of your claim and gives you legal rights to it within your product or service area. Before registration or while a registration is pending, you’ll want to use the TM or SM designation to “stake your claim” so to speak. Of course, you’ll want to perform a trademark search first to be sure you’re not the one infringing! Then, after the registration is official, you’re able to use the “Registered Trademark, or ® symbol to protect it. More information can be found at http://www.uspto.gov/web/offices/tac/doc/basic/. And because we have created thousands of names, symbols, logos and taglines, registering trademarks is one of the services Pepper Group can help you with.
  

So go forth and differentiate. Create a better solution, cultivate a unique brand identity and develop valuable intellectual property. Be smart, be creative, stake your claim, and give your customers even more to love.

George Couris
george@peppergroup.com

Rich’s Ramblings: Why are the Standard U.S. Paper Sizes 8.5" x 11" and 8.5" x 14"? 

Let’s start with 8.5" x 14", or “legal size” paper. Some say it was invented because lawyers need 14 inches of space to say what the rest of us could fit in 11 inches. I’ll buy that.

But what about 8.5" x 11"? Well, it seems that back in the late 1600’s, the Dutch invented something called the two-sheet paper mold. That was back in the good old days when they still made paper by hand. Now, according to expert arm-measuring historians, the average stretch of a papermaker’s arms in that era was 44", and paper molds were sized to fit their maximum reach. So, according to expert paper-mold-measuring historians, the average mold was sized at 17" x 44". Sheets were made to this size and then cut to form eight 8.5" x 11" pieces.

There are other anecdotes about Henry VIII declaring 8.5" x 11" the “official paper size of the British Empire” because it matched his average portion size of pudding, or the size of the axe blade used to decapitate his wives, or something like that.

While you may have trouble buying into the historical origins of our standard paper sizes, you will have no trouble believing how they came to be declared “standard” in this country—government committees. But of course it wasn’t easy. According to my trusty Internet source, here’s how the tale unfolds:

Shortly after World War I, a standard paper size was agreed to, sort of. Actually, two different paper sizes were set as the standard; one for the government and one for the rest of us—big surprise!

In 1921, the first director of the Bureau of the Budget established an interagency advisory group with the President’s approval called The Permanent Conference on Printing, which established 8" x 10.5" as the U.S. government letterhead standard.

Then, during the same year, The Committee on the Simplification of Paper Sizes, consisting of printing industry representatives, was appointed to work with the Bureau of Standards as part of Hoover’s program for the Elimination of Waste in Industry. This group came up with basic sizes for all types of printing and writing papers. The size for “letter” was a 17" x 22" sheet while the “legal” size was a 17" x 28" sheet. The later known U.S. letter format was these sizes halved to 8.5" x 11" and 8.5" x 14".

Even in the selection of 8.5" x 11", no special analysis was done to determine this was the optimum size for commercial letterhead. The Committee that developed the sizes did so using one objective —“to reduce inventory requirements for paper into sizes which would cut from a minimum trimming waste.”

I can’t say the lack of interagency communication surprises me, but I’m astounded that a bureaucratic committee actually arrived at a solution to minimize waste. I wonder if any of those guys are still alive to advise our current crop of legislators?

Rich Adkins
rich@peppergroup.com

P.S. On January 11, 2006, Illinois State Representative Careen Gorden introduced a bill called The Restricted Mailing Registry Act (HB4539). This is essentially a “Do Not Mail” registry much like the “Do Not Call” legislation that was passed federally. This bill requires Illinois businesses to stop direct mail marketing to all names listed on the registry. It also requires businesses to purchase a “Do Not Mail” list on a quarterly basis. To learn more about this bill and how it will affect your business CLICK HERE to download a PDf of details.

	Spicy Marketing by Seasoned Professionals