A Short Posting Aiming to Share Good Feeling…

Posted on April 15, 2013 by Phil

BRING KINDNESS INTO YOUR BUSINESS AND INTO YOUR LIFE

Thx for sharing soulaction.org

I’ve been thinking about how we behave toward each other a lot over the past few months. And I realised that we are ‘different’ when in the ‘formal confines’ of our business & workplace to how we are outside that arena – or dare I say ‘in general life’. Why? There is no reason to be. Work isn’t some alien planet, there’s no law against being ‘you’ in work, it won’t make you a bad person. The stark reality is that in our ‘Business Body’ we are less kind to others than we have a natural tendancy to be. We show less emotion in this place.

Ricky Gervais recently had aired his new TV show Derek, a show that drew mixed reaction; but in an interview Ricky explained that Derek was what you had when everything is stripped away from a person except Kindness. I was taken by the character from the first word and it was then I realised I had to begin my campaign/crusade/mission to encourage everyone who worked to be considerate and to BE KIND AT WORK. Kind to colleagues, customers, suppliers who are after all, just people. Derek said “Kindness is Magic” and you know what; he’s right. It has a magical effect on the people receiving a kindness and a magical effect on the person performing the kindness. Go On, give it a go.

There is no distinction between ‘in business’ and ‘in life’, if you are kind to others then eventually someone is kind to you.

Being kind however, means that you have no expectation of a return. Being kind to customers, colleagues, associates, and other business contacts is no different to being kind to your mother. If it is, you have misunderstood what being kind is.

Image found on dandelionmuse.wordpress.com

We are talking about a ‘feeling’. I am kind to others (I hope) not because I want something in return, but because it makes me feel good afterwards and it is enough just for me to know that. I don’t need, or want to tell the world about it.

The level of cynicism in some business is disheartening and indicates that genuine kindness and sharing is n’t really happening in lots of people’s lives.

The young people of today (Millenials as they are known) share as a natural act. They don’t have the same need to ‘own’ things as previous generations. It is they who have begun the ‘sharing for free’ rave, only they did n’t feel a need to label it (perhaps they knew that we old gits in business would eventually do that for them).

I urge everyone to be kind to every person they meet for a day.

Image found on demoinwords.blogspot.com

If at the end of it you don’t feel good, indeed better than you ever did, then clearly there will never be a need to read anything I write ever again so you benefit anyway!

But I fully expect lots of you lovely readers to email me (phil@scarletopus.com) with great stories of how you felt, what happened, and that you have indeed been more successful in business as a direct result of actively seeking opportunities for you to be kind to suppliers, colleagues, employees, collaboratives, customers, and anyone coming into contact with you and your work.

To reassure the cynics, I am not a person of any religion, cult, or ‘do-gooding’ group. My work at Scarlet Opus gives me an awareness of many global issues, innovations, creativity, and learning to a level and degree that I’ve never enjoyed before. In this business I ‘found’ sharing content in my work. I liked what I read, so I tried sharing what I knew. I liked it even more, and the accompanying feeling, and so endeavoured to keep it going.

And you know what? I’ve given a lot of time to networking over the past 2 years – a lot. I’ve helped lots of people find and gain new business by giving advice that aided them, or making an introduction. BUT, I have NEVER in those 2 years of networking efficiently and according to all of the teachings, ever gained one order or new client as a result of it. But I would n’t change a thing.

So share for free and without expectation, it is the way forward in life.

Image found on freedigitalphotos.net

Be kind in business especially and see what that does to your own popularity, career progression, and standing in the company community. You won’t intend for anything to happen because you’ll simply be enjoying sharing and getting ‘that feeling’ (you’ll know what it is when you get it) after you’ve been kind to someone and the impact on that person is visible to you. That statement above said ‘life’, which includes business and is not separate from it.

If you’d like some help exploring how Kindness can be introduced into your workplace (no matter how large or small it is) please call or text me (+44 7896 088 996), email me (phil@scarletopus.com), tweet me whichever you like… Speak to you soon, don’t leave it too long I’m looking forward to it!

Phil

The Truth About Internships

Posted on March 14, 2013 by Studio

During my 2^nd year at Uni some students that were on placements gave a talk on how they felt their placement was going. They all experienced different areas of expertise - some were doing fashion, interiors, marketing and buying etc… But they all had one thing in common - they all commented on the fact their placement year gave them a better understanding and focus on what to create in their final year.

Being a student myself who is currently on placement with Scarlet Opus, it made me think about and evaluate my time working for a company compared to Uni life. So I decided to interview other design students who are also on placements and ask them to reflect on their time as Interns:

The 1st student I interviewed was Gemma Tovey who is currently a student on the ‘Surface Design for Fashion & Interiors’ course at the University of Huddersfield. She is over half way through her placement year. She has done lots of different placements so far covering both the Interiors and Fashion sectors, and ranging from a weeks placement to 3 months. This has included placements with Muraspec, Scarlet Opus, Ege Carpets, Me & Thee, Topshop, and her current placement at Marks & Spencer:

ZI: How are you finding your placement year?

GT: Overall I am finding my placement year very interesting and inspiring. So far I have gained a really positive experience seeing the range of career paths/opportunities, which are available within the industry. I also feel it has been a good experience working in a different environment from University, meeting and working with other like-minded designers.

ZI: Is it what you expected?

GT: Having never previously worked in the Fashion or Interiors industry before my placement year I was quite unsure about what to expect. However having now being on a few different work placements I have found various aspects to be as expected but there were also areas within the companies I did not expect. For example I have worked with both large and small-scale design teams, working to different time scales and seasons using different design methods to suit their target customer:

ZI: Would you recommend other students to pursue a placement or go straight to final year?

GT: I would definitely recommend a placement year to other students although it can be quite difficult at times, a work placement really gives you a higher, more realistic understanding of the industry and what is expected of you once you graduate. Whilst more personally, I feel it has also helped make me more prepared for my final year developing both my design and personal confidence. It is also a great opportunity to gain some feedback and advice from the people in the industry and develop some contacts.

ZI: What advice would you give to companies who offer Internships?

GT: I would say it is really important to make real use of placement students so they can have the opportunity to learn and develop new skills. From my own experience I have found that practically taking part in set briefs has helped make me more focused, interested and eager to get involved. I would also encourage companies to be open, welcoming and willing to answer questions.

The 2^nd student is Kimberley Harrington, who is a 23 year old 3rd year student on the ‘BSc (Hons) Textile Design for Fashion & Interiors’ degree course. In September 2012 she started to work with an automotive interior design company called Sage Automotive based in Bury, north Manchester:

ZI: What skills have you learnt and how will they help in your final year?

KH: So far, half way through, I feel like my eyes have really opened to how this area of the textile world works. I have an ever improving understanding of the automotive fabric production process and general critical timing … due to our fabrics and finishing being carried out in different areas of Europe, this can really play havoc with getting samples to design meetings on time, and makes having our own Uni assignments in on time look like a piece of cake.

ZI: What were the incentives for going for a placement year?

KH: I had reservations when starting my placement about what I would be spending my 11 months doing exactly. In the interview I was asked did I understand that the role involved a lot of chopping and filing of fabrics for the many different customers. However at the back of my mind was, was I really choosing the right words as there were many other placements available that seemed at the time to be more exciting; but a bonus was that this was a paid placement in Manchester - an area I was familiar with. What I did understand was automotive design involved travel and this was a huge appeal. I also come from a sales background and enjoy working with people. So ‘automotive’ seemed a good choice for a placement experience as it involves many global customers and companies.

ZI: Has the placement met your expectations?

KH: When I accepted the offer I was still a little anxious but can safely say I have never looked back! In my first week I was introduced to a new embellishment development project which, little did I know at the time, was to become my own main project! This alone, in my 2^nd week, took me to Brussels to attend a meeting at Toyota Engineering headquarters. Since then I have also worked on the recoloring of current production fabrics, designing new embossing plates, attending design brief meetings with customers, trend research (including trips to MooD & Heimtextil trend shows), and benchmarking, alongside the usual studio work of designing, re-creating and archive work.

The final student I’ve interviewed is Faye Ruth Seale who is studying ’Surface Design for Fashion and Interiors’ at the University of Huddersfield, and she went straight into her final year studies without doing a placement in industry:

ZI: As a future designer what do you feel is going to be the next big thing in terms of themes, patterns and colours for the Interiors market?

FS: I think integrating patterns and repeats are the future, referring to the economy to try and make the designs more interesting and have more depth to them, and using pastel colours to lighten up the mood but still using neutral colours.

Have a look at our Getting Nude blog for inspiration on using pastel and neutral colours.

ZI: Do you feel by going straight into your final year studies it has given you a disadvantage compared to the students who went on placements?

FS: Yes it has. The main reason I came to this University was because of the placement year, and I turned down another University and course because of it. If I was given a placement I feel I would have learnt a lot more and gained so much more experience rather than jumping straight into my final year.

ZI: What was the reason for going straight into final year and were you ready?

FS: The reason I went straight into my final year was because I could only get a 2 week placement and even then I couldn’t do it as I could not afford the rent as it was in London. I do not feel like I was ready to go straight into my final year as I feel I still have so much to learn before I go into industry.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank all the students who have taken the time to contribute to today’s blog post. I hope this has helped many of you who are either thinking of looking for internships with companies or for businesses who are considering hiring student interns - just think how you would be responsible for helping future designers develop their understanding within business!

It really has been a brilliant experience for me. I came in with no experience and skills of working in industry but over the 5 months so far I have gained confidence in my approach to work. I have always been a grafter but the company have now made me feel confident as they set the task and they leave me to create and offer advice when I most need it. They have boosted my self-esteem and belief in my designs. They see me as part of the team and value my opinions.

Some students may experience positive outcomes whereas others may not but all experience it valuable, not every business has the same method of teaching and their approach will be different. I can thankfully say my experience has been very promising and I don’t have any regrets doing my placement!

Business Review

Posted on January 28, 2013 by Phil

It’s a Tempting Time of Year to Review…

Your business, maybe even your life; and if you are going to review your business you might also be tempted to ‘survey’ your customers. After all they are the key to your success, why did they deal with you, did they enjoy it, would they again???

It’s what your customers think that really matters as they will influence many more future customers than you could ever hope to.

There are so many free-to-use tools on the internet enabling each of us to quickly and easily set-up a customer (or supplier) survey and I am sure that, like me, you’ve received more than your fair share of surveys to complete. Herein lies a problem:

Although all of us can now devise a survey, very few of us know how to be so disciplined that we can avoid subconsciously phrasing questions in such a way as to get the answer ‘WE KNOW’ is correct.

Now, I can hear lots of you saying, “Rubbish! You’re wrong, I would never do that! It’s crucial to get an honest view from my customers”. Well I urge you to look again. Questioning and the phrasing of questions is a specific skill and not one easily acquired; even TV/Radio presenters often ask multiple questions, leading questions, and questions in which they suggest the answer. And they’re supposed to be the professionals!

In trying to craft some good advice about how to put together a customer survey I came across the advice below, I liked it and thought that I couldn’t do better – so I haven’t tried to! For the sake of honesty I‘ve added a couple of views, but essentially left Mr Abbott’s work as I found it.

♦

Do Your Customers Live in Zoos or the Wild?

Every business recognises the importance of understanding their customers. Many make a concerted effort to gather data through customer research, asking questions about what their customers’ preferences are so that they can improve their products or services. But, how can you be sure that it is safe to act on the results of that research?

A famous example of research going wrong was Coke’s change to its formula. In blind tasting, customers preferred the new formulation, so new Coke was launched with a huge fanfare and tremendous confidence… it crashed and burned! Six weeks later traditional Coke was back on the shelves.

More recently Walmart surveyed its customers and asked them if they would like less cluttered aisles, customers said yes. Millions of dollars were spent on altering existing store layouts, clearer aisles and shortened shelves were introduced. The result was completely unexpected: sales went down. Walmart estimated that they lost more than a billion dollars.

How could such ‘blue-chip’ companies, with as much money to spend on customer research as Coke and Walmart, get it so wrong? The answer lay in another example:

Researchers (Nolan, Schultz, Cialdini, Goldstein and Griskevicius) surveyed householders in California asking them what would make them change their environmental behaviour. Would it be because they believed that they were:

Helping the environment?
Benefitting society?
Saving money?
Because their neighbours were doing it?

Without exception all of the surveyed householders said that the last thing that would make them change their behaviour was what their neighbors do. But guess what, when their actual behaviour was measured ‘what their neighbors did’ was the very thing that influenced them the most.

It seems that when you ask a customer a survey question, they do two things:

They use their rational mind and intellect to assess what they would do, but don’t engage their emotions.

They rationalise their assumed actions to conform to their views of themselves.

What do we mean?

Let’s go back to our Coke example. You’ll remember that when ‘tested’, customers preferred the new flavour. But, when they actually stood in front of the shelves at retail outlets, all of their emotions around the brand came into play – memories of childhood, Coke being a piece of American culture, whether they identify themselves as ‘Coke drinkers’ etc. – and this prevented them from buying the ‘new formula’ that tests actually proved they preferred.

Intellectually (what they thought), Walmart customers want less cluttered aisles. But in practice, they shop for a bargain and associate a certain ambiance with low cost shopping. The new de-cluttered stores destroyed that ‘feeling’ and so emotionally, the shoppers wanted the clutter back.

We all think as the Californian householders thought: it would be shallow to be swayed by what our neighbours do or don’t do. But conforming to social norms is an overpowering instinct that we simply can’t resist.

Asking customers survey questions is treating them like animals in a zoo: your survey is an artificial environment. Sure you can learn a lot, but unless you are careful with the data and analyse carefully what it says, you can wildly misjudge what you are being told. This type of research is best for gathering Hard Data (Did you go on holiday last year?) rather than Opinion Data (Why did you go on holiday last year?).

The key, whenever possible, is to measure customers’ actual behaviour – watch them in the wild.

If you are testing something new and it’s impossible to watch real behaviour, at least set up scenarios where something approaching real behaviour can be assessed. Think of this as a safari park!

♦

I hope this helps but feel free to get in touch with any questions or comments you have, or if you’d like us to assist you set up a survey for your business:

phil@scarletopus.com

+44 1482 870360

Text or call +44 7896 088996