ThinkNick

In the final rehearsal for a concert last Saturday, the choir sang the most challenging and beautiful piece.  We all knew that we did not give a good account: voices were nowhere near together; crucial entries were missed.  At the end, the conductor talked about a couple of specific points of tempo and dynamics.  He said nothing about the ensemble or the errors.

The performance later that evening was superb.  The conductor had understood that he did not need to say anything: his choir would recognise the major shortcomings, and sort it out for themselves.  A lesson in conducting, and in situational leadership.

Email this morning from Sofitel.  Looks like they are trying to clean their database and to start a loyalty programme.  I couldn’t help noticing a particularly masculine bias to the image (the men standing in suits, the women looking up in glamorous adoration).  Then I look at the data capture form, and it’s formatted for French addresses, without any validation on the input.  It’s been pre-filled, just to emphasise how ill-suited it is for the UK. And just in case I’m left in any doubt, the title used to address me is ‘M’ for Monsieur.

I get a very clear message from this: we’re French, we might be sexist, we don’t understand how name and address data work outside our country, and we don’t really mind what you put in our data capture form.

Just because you’ve translated the copy, doesn’t mean you’ve got a cross-border campaign.

Thanks to my friend Peter Frings for pointing out this one …

I’m going to an exhibition in London tomorrow called mediapro, whose website headline is ‘the future of integrated communications’.  Not sure it believes its own copy though.  First it says that “integrated marketing communications is finally at the tipping point of becoming a realistic ambition” – so, erm, not quite with us yet then?  And then it admits that the exhibition is “divided into four sub-events”.

You’ve not really grasped this one chaps, have you?  Do let me know if I can help …