Extending the life cycle of a product and the importance of personality,ideas, emotions, strategy, excellent design, and CONNECTIVITY
-Martin Cavanaugh Porter
Evolution of products used to be long-tail: Six years from design, manufacturing, and sales. That’s changed: radically. Product development can be done anywhere: R+D can be done anywhere. So-so design can be done in many places and that means products evolve and get better faster ergo-shorter, tighter life cycles.
The market place demands more-expects more-and gets more. Prices fall and rise based on commodities and the changing policies of governments, the willingness of private money and institutions to invest, and policy: All those factors are variable.
This means almost anything-anything, can be commoditized: Businesses are no longer applauded just for having a well-made product and sales teams don’t just win on ‘product knowledge’ alone.
What’s left? What can’t be dragged down into the morass of commodification and what questions should you ask about yourself and your company?
Personality: Do you have an attractive personality- are you a magnet? Is this reflected, infused, in your brand and company? Are you able to connect people with other people? Do people call you. Do people ask youto assist them, solve problems, and get things done? Is all this integrated into your companies’ brand and image. Personality decreases the disaster of commodification. Can your personality, difuse through your organization, renown, encourage consumers to purchase your products just past the conventional widom of when the product’s life-cycle is supposed to be over? Do you believe you can remake your personality? You can: Mirror and study attractive personalities.
Ideas: Do you have great out-of-the-box ideas: Are they so compelling and powerful that they drive alliances and bring people together to assist you with your dream-make that dream their own, and, in partnership make real, what is your vision? Do you have many good ideas? Do you write them down? Do you share them with others-bringing them closer to you? Can your ideas singularly improve enough peoples’ lives and businesses that what you sell, and the company you own turn the commodification tide and extend your product’s life-cycle?
Emotions: Do you care? Stop for a moment: Ponder this- Do you care? Do you empathize? Are you able to emote powerfully positive energy that compells others to join with you in bold visions-are you emotionally in tune with others? Do they feel better when you are around: Energized, cheered-up, grateful for the time they spend with you? Bottom-line: Do they feel inspired. No force, no cheaper, faster, better manufacturer or company can compete with a leader who can inspire his/her team under any conditions, threats, foes, or situations. The power to inspire= the power to strike down the tidal-force of copy-catism. Inspiration is the ultimate brand and as rare as the rarest diamond.
Strategy: Do you drive your choices in business strategically? Do you map your business out? Goal post, do you put yourself in another man’s shoes and try to bring enough good to the table that conventional deals, contracts, and ways of doing things-which led to this recession-which led to this recession-can be undone through force of out-of-the-box ‘win-win’ strategic planning?
Excellent Design: And here is the shield and sword of a companies’ ability to go to war with mass-volume-hydra headed, far flung purveyors of rapidlly produced product: Exquisite design. Do you have on your team or in your universe players able to up-brand and extend the life cycle of your companies’ products with innovative, trans formative designs-over and over again?
CONNECTIVITY: Can you bring people together when you have very few resources and execute the goal? No man is an island-none of us are perfect. CONNECTIVITY is not “making connections”-that was pre-recession babble- CONNECTIVITY is the combination of 1-3 above: Personality, ideas, and emotions. CONNECTIVITY IS YOUR (AND YOUR COMPANIES’) WARRIOR-It can’t be beat. And maybe only one in 100,000 people have the power of CONNECTIVITY. Seek them out-and stay stuck to them like epoxy.
Prime Movers in South Park L.A & Forbes Legacy Ventures LLC, South Park Development Group: M Motors
What defines a prime mover? Creators, producers, manufacturers, originators-they singly and in alliances, are the world’s engine.
And the world does not welcome prime movers-it is not in collective man’s nature to admire prime movers: It is prime movers who admire man- individual men who, through their will and determination, through unyielding drive, move the world.
In South Park L.A, my freinds are Prime Movers: Rasmus Lee (SRH Holdings, PRE Brokerage, Hygge), Joe Montalbano (Nylon www.nylon.la), Fred Hakim (www.bottlerock.net), Terrel Owens- South Park L.A’s own resident artist. The list is longer.
I can’t claim to be a prime mover- I aspire to be a prime mover.
To want to create, to produce to pick up a legacy laid down by my father and build it into a legacy my children can be proud of requires tremendous optimism and faith in my fellow man.
Faith in follow-up, in other’s vigor, and vitality: Faith, actually, that those who do not aspire to be prime movers, at least give a degree of courtesy and consideration to those who hold those aspirations.
My father is a prime-mover: He built when other’s said it was impossible. He drove deeply into new markets as South East Asia’s distributor for Caterpillar. He supported many, many young men who had aspirations financially and with his joie de vivre, his advice, his care, and his example. He lost all his wealth on a bad bet (pound sterling 1992).
I have found almost no other men with these same qualities-until recently-and this man, who has himself lived many lives and worn many hats, reminds me most of my father: He is brilliant in business and brilliant at giving advice, lifting, buoyantly, one’s dreams whilst keeping them alive by keeping me grounded: I hope, one day to announce him as CEO of this little company-of Forbes, of M Motors, of the legacy.
He has manufactured, he has been in finance, he has activated, accomplished, and achieved: With him I believe that all that is possible for Forbes can be made facts-on-the-ground-real as rock.
My father is the man to whom I dedicate my aspirations because he never said “impossible, untenable, or unreachable” to me- knowing those words are like daggers, dream-killers. Instead he advised on how to make possible, tenable, reachable, my goals.
My father is no pie-in-the-sky idealist: He was a pragmatic, realistic businessman: He is now a veteran of the business world, giving advice-which I take. But so much more- a lifter of other men, who believes that will- sheer bloody will, can bend events in a direction otherwise anticipated.
I pick up with my unyielding, loyal team, where he left off: Opening a dealership of zero-emission, all electric vehicles in South Park L.A (Downtown L.A) called M Motors (MM).
The drive and the dream is to one day manufacture in DT L.A-to roll off a manufacturing plant cars, trucks: All electric, zero-emission vehicles, and, in doing so, reignite DT L.A’s manufacturing base through green technology.
I have been told by many men in middle-management that this dream is untenable: One actually scoffed at me-“manufacturing in L.A…vehicles!?”Grinning at his own brilliance-at his sheer cynicism and ambivalence to the hope of developing a broad, new base of jobs for the jobless (why, one wonders, would a man stick so deeply into another man the dagger of pessimism?
But this is what I have been told by giants, men whose names you would swiftly recognize as best-of-breed in the L.A business and spiritual world ( a preist whose name is on many tounges for his proven accomplishements:“Tough, but possible, a long road-but a journey worth taking. You’ve come so far, so fast, don’t let anyone stop you.”
I won’t. I need help and I’m getting it and by hook or by crook the legacy will live on. I have a son-and like my father his name is Martin. There are three Martins’ and one legacy to lift up, burnish and pass on: The Forbes legacy.
I know my weaknesses-they are my burdens and my demons-there are so many of them: And I wish I was less rash, less brash, and better at so many things.
I know that there is a man whose strength, experience, and love of life-whose business acumen: (all attributes of my father), may mentor me, help me, and work with me to bind that legacy which is just now a whisper carried by a fragile wind, into a rock upon which thousands can depend on for gainful employment, that my father one day from heaven can look down and see the brand he built, build men, and that my son may carry forward into the bright upland hills of greater achievements built on green, sustainable distributorships and manufacturing of all electric, non polluting vehicles.
“The longer I live, the more I am certain that the great difference between the great and the insignificant, its energy- invincible determination- a purpose once fixed, and then death or victory.” – Sir Thomas Foxwell Buxton
The South Park Development Group-FLV LLC will be touring the co-founder and chairman of a front-line electric-vehicle, zero-emission company this Saturday through South Park L.A
www.flvllc.com
The South Park Development Group-FLV LLC is pleased to annouce that the team will be taking the founder and c0-chairman of an imminent zero-emission electric vehicle company based in California on a tour of South Park Los Angeles, moving closer toward their goal of opening the South Park Sustainability Shop, featuring cycles (www.wabicycles.com), zero-emissions scooters, zero-emission/hybrid motorcycles, and other zero-carbon footprint modes of transport for the residents of Down Town Los Angeles.
This shop will be as virtual (ecommerce driven) as it is a bricks and mortar store and it’s core mission is to get residents of South Park Los Angeles and Down Town Los Angeles out of their cars and into other, better, cleaner modes of transport that let them see the city in a different way-in all it’s vibrancy, hum and glow.
On Monday, The South Park Development Group-FLV LLC will let you know the outcome of the tour and it’s (very positive) implications for South Park L.A and for all Los Angeles. The South Park Development Group-FLV LLC will be asking key stake holders for their support as we move this project forward and we will keep you posted on their reactions and action to help all the residents of our neighborhood and our city enjoy a better quality of life.
Keep posted and for more info feel free to email southparkla.com at info@southparkrevive.com
follow-up to earlier post: e-road electric vehicles road test (zero carbon emissions)
phenomenal, fast, and fun-whilst achieving true sustainability.
the e-road’s a winner and a vital component toward moving los angeles toward a better, cleaner, sustainable future.
Brett, Steff, and I were impressed and noted the multitude of customization possibilities.
We’re excited-for consumers, for Los Angeles, and for the future of sustainability.
full disclosure: the writers of this post, the team of Forbes Legacy Ventures LLC-South Park Development Group, are developing a relationship with E Road to explore future business endeavors- for info: mcporter@flvllc.com or btomich@flvllc.com
does virtual marketing work? seo-blogging-twitter-email mkt campaigns? -southparkla.com
The short answer is: Yes.
Bunch of ifs: If you do it consistently, if you do it well, if you enjoy it, and if you invest in it: time, creative energy, and to a degree, a financial investment (time is money).
Long answer: if you don’t do email marketing campaigns, if you don’t use blogs to support your product and services and website(s), and feeder websites, in this market, and going forward, you are out of the game, or at best, at the back of the pack.
It’s not that everyone is doing it: allot of organizations are-it’s that all the best-of-breed organizations are doing it, and doing it well, and doing it every day-and that takes discipline.
Let me give you some examples close to home: when we (southparkla.com) write relevant postings, well thought-out, with the right ratio of tagging, meta-tagging, and back end SEO tools, our readership holds or grows. When we blog too much about our own activities: South Park Development Group and Forbes Legacy Ventures LLC, we get static-our viral audience gets disgruntled, and the confidence level in the efficacy of our blog falls by degrees.
However, when we maintain our relevancy, southparkla.com readership grows-sometimes exponentially. When we write turgidly, and keep our topics on point, when are blog is in flow with our audience, readership grows.
When southparkla.com uses twitter and engages in micro-email mkt campaigns to support our blog, or our primary site: www.flvllc.com, and we do it with a degree of verve, readership has doubled, tripled, quadripled.
What does this all mean? If you have a product or service to offer, the most effective way to make sure you are noticed consistently and positively, is to develop a powerful, year in, year out, virtual marketing campaign.
This all presupposes that you have been strongly branded and that your product or service is very good and these suppositions are the back bone to insuring that your virtual campaign has legs.
Put another way: you can’t build a powerful,structural branding and marketing campaign on a sub-par product and expect it to do well.
It will be noticed because of the campaign but counter-marketing forces (word-of-mouth etc…) will create a tipping-point at which point it becomes better to freeze on marketing and go back to the drawing board.
the south park development group: projects in the pipeline-bringing value, upping the ante
- health and wellness centre (beyond health and wellness…revival)
- farmers’ mkt
- private, high value, value priced business incubator
- artisan-handcrafted manufacturing: the south park workshop
- fully certified organic furnishings boutique
- high-end clothing boutique
- elixir bar
- internally developed projects
- bike shop
no one is putting forth the notion that all of the above is coming to fruition: what the south park development group is bringing to the table is vigor and vitality-every effort is being made to add to the equation.
my son will be born in october and raised in south park.
and, all the latest demographics point to the fact that over the next seven years, south park will become a mix of families, ethnicity’s, and will not look or feel like the original vision had intended it to look like. yes: wealthy, upscale, educated….now, more and more, family oriented, ethnic-based,, culturally sophisticated, liberal, and worldly. in our opinion: all to the good.
let’s all look at this reality and, realistically make decisions regrading mix based on facts, trends, and demographics.
it will be fun: this neighborhood will come alive, and our children, together, will benefit with this differently visioned southpark.
beyond our glittering towers….
posted by: martin cavanaugh porter III
we must decide to open our eyes and see that all about is suffering and that what is needed is love and compassion. south park’s towers of glass and steel glitter and gleam against the sun and glisten and glimmer against the moon.
our streets-i live in southpark l.a with my wife and unborn child, are clean and policed. we are shielded to the west by LA Live but to the east of us, to the south of us, and to the north of us, hovers pockets of poverty and harm where illness and degradation are more the norm than the exception.
one does not know the answer to these great forever unresolved issues. certainly, i don’t.
but i do know small gestures of kindness, smiles and efforts at good will go toward all those about us are a start.
next, south park residents must use our vast pool of collective knowledge and technological know-how to advance the hopes of those neighborhoods that surround us.
to ignore the obvious, to huddle in our ‘live-work’ spaces, to bind ourselves to our t.v’s and computers will not do: it is not a life lived.
it is time for us to set a new path in south park: to beome l.a’s leader in two forms of high level entrepreneurship: business and social justice.
they are intertwined.
it is the south park development group’s controlling mission to make downtown south park l.a the hub of L.A innovation in business through the south park business incubator and through our community efforts to work together in a great effort on behalf of those who suffer around us to lessen suffering: at least to do no harm.
we are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars- Oscar Wilderfk: binding the wounds, dedicating ourselves to justice: please see nxt post
one step closer to south park artisanship, bringing back handcrafted, custom accessories-candles
EYD Candles
posted by: martin cavanaugh porter III, brett h tomich with the south park development group
an internationally renowned designer of handcrafted, fine, highly artisan candles is relocating to South Park L.A. her field of endeavor has been international: dubai, singapore, korea, india, china, and all throughout europe.
though EYD Candles is a very successful B2B business, the designer, will be developing a local artisan workshop. we can announce with pleasure that she has comitted to developing a local artisan workshop in down town south park l.a- employing the mentor-apprentice model: upholstery, furnishings, fabrics, repairs, and one-of-a-kind designs.
this is a vitalizing commitment, not made lightly, and is one peice of the puzzle, bringing life and neighborhood to South Park.
for B2B info on this phenomenal line of candles, pls call 213 550 4460.
incremental steps toward better stewardship of our enviornment
going green
its not much: but it’s a start.
the south park development group and forbes legacy ventures llc, two local south park l.a biz-dev, vc, branding groups have made a decision to reuse all their first-use paper, collate it and rebind it into note-pads.
it’s a step better than the recycle bin: the used paper takes on a second life, a second purpose, and then off to the blue bin.
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