Is it REALLY a Small World? Canada, Canadians and a Spot of Humor in Good Fun

With Vancouver hosting the 2010 Winter Olympics, apparently these are some questions people are asking. These have been excerpted from a greater article about questions posted at various tourism websites.

(I’m choosing not to ask who was paid to compile or answer them.)

Note: I’ve removed the countries of origin from the questions. It’s all in good fun, and well, maybe just a little bit of a public service announcement.

Q: I have never seen it warm on Canadian TV, so how do the plants grow?

A. We import all plants fully grown and then just sit around and watch them die.

Q: Will I be able to see Polar Bears in the street?

A: Depends on how much you’ve been drinking.

Q: I want to walk from Vancouver to Toronto – can I follow the Railroad tracks?

A: Sure, it’s only four thousand miles, take lots of water.

Q: I have a question about a famous animal in Canada, but I forget its name. It’s a kind of big horse with horns.

A: It’s called a Moose. They are tall and very violent, eating the brains of anyone walking close to them.. You can scare them off by spraying yourself with human urine before you go out walking.

Q: Are there supermarkets in Toronto and is milk available all year round?

A: No, we are a peaceful civilization of Vegan hunter/gathers. Milk is illegal.

Q: Can I bring cutlery into Canada?

A: Why? Just use your fingers like we do!

“Old-School Marketing No Longer Working? Blame Canada!” By James Chartrand c/o Copyblogger.com

Note from Andrea about this reprint: As one of dem Canadians, eh, I rather adored this article. It’s unique AND has something tongue in cheek to say about marketing. I bet you’ll enjoy it, too. In fact, I bet you a Loonie.]

Canadians are a funny lot.

They use strange words and spell with a U. They kiss cod. They enjoy being frozen solid nearly 8 months a year, and they call their money Loonies and Toonies.

Don’t get me wrong; they’re nice people just the same. They’re nature lovers and humanitarian and they like things simple and friendly.

And contrary to popular belief, they’re actually pretty smart.

But there’s just one problem. Your marketing strategies? You notice how they’ve been changing? That the old-school methods aren’t working anymore . . . at all?

Well, I’ve figured out whose fault it is.

Blame Canada.

You see, Canucks have a strange mindset. They’re gentle people, and mostly kind of quiet. If you drove up to the frozen tundra and started screaming, “Buy my stuff!” at the top of your lungs, you’d probably startle the wildlife and be ushered off (politely) by Mounties in red coats and really great hats.

It’s happening all over. Those wily Canadians are causing a marketing revolution, and it’s spreading too fast to contain. Think about it for a minute. All of a sudden, your potential customers hate screaming and being pushed around, don’t they? It’s almost like they’ve been influenced by an evil foreign power.

The 10-Second Flush | Making the Right Things Difficult

There is a lot that could be said about toilets in Taiwan, or Asia as a whole for that matter.

One thing was for sure, coming off an exercise high, I was rather rudely reminded that leg workouts and squat toilets don’t mix.

In memory of my grandma, toilet-wise, I should also mention the time I accidentally walked in while she was squatting on the seat of a western toilet. Those odd  dust marks on the seat all those times? All of a sudden made sense.

Hey, old habits die hard. I get it, and it makes me smile to remember. But sorry, no I don’t have a photo.

This was the sign above our very fancy toilet in the Rich Garden Hotel in Ximen, Taipei. Happily, it validated my trifecta of language skills – wow, a sign I could read all of in all 3 languages! A minor miracle, except it was inconsiderately posted behind the toilet, rather than in front, where I might cherish my talent and reread a few times.

Is there a serious point here? Well, I’ll give it a go. Don’t you think they’re onto something? It really did take standing there for a good 10-15 seconds to flush that toilet.  Making it difficult to flush saves water. You know, mellow yellow and all that. Making it challenging to throw away garbage – wouldn’t that correct human behavior accordingly as well? And making it so easy, SO easy, to reuse or otherwise do the right thing…you get the point.

Incentivizing the right behavior can apply in all circumstances, not just a hotel bathroom in Taipei!

What else could be made difficult, to a good purpose?

License To Tweet Website Launches To A Flock Of Enthusiastic Tweeples At, You Guessed It, Twitter.com | Thomas Leonard Success Strategy #8: Shamelessly Leverage Others

 The lighthearted website we launched this week is a great example of something else Thomas was known for, sometimes controversially, and that was the use of volunteers.

Leveraging others can become a negative thing, but when done right, it is a thing of business elegance, and everyone feels like they got a great deal.  This has come to be known as developing your business evangelists, and by other names, but I call it simply “shamelessly leveraging others” or Thomas Leonard Success Strategy #8.

Shamelessly because when it’s a win on both sides, there need be no shame involved, only joy.

So in addition to visiting www.LicensetoTweet.com to pick up some terrific Thomas Leonard-isms for your tweets, or just plain old  inspiration for yourself, check it out from the point of view of this direct question:

How can you equip other people to enthusiastically align with your cause and help drive it forward?

Visit www.LicensetoTWeet.com now won’t you, and see what else you can decipher between the lines? I look forward to hearing how you apply this for yourself.

3 Funny Things Chris Anderson Said at #TED 2009

If you’ve ever sat through the speech-giving part of a wedding reception, you have first-hand knowledge of the difference an MC makes.  A great one, and even the poorest of chicken dinners and dullest of distant friends can be put up with.  A terrible one and I don’t care how much love is in the air, something else is too, and it’s the pheromones from hundreds of people cringing.

I was more than a little curious about what Chris Anderson, Curator of TED would be like. I was sure he wouldn’t be cringe-worthy, but his online presence gave me surprisingly little sense of who he was, which, it turns out, is a shame, and even his photo (at link above) isn’t representative.

Here are 3 things Chris said, and what he said them to:

(1) Nobel laureate Kary Mullis was at first admonished by Chris, not something that happens at many conferences, but is done without flinching at TED, especially if the speaker has gone over time. “That’s a terrible slide.” And it was actually completely incomprehensible to this social science major.  Still he said it not in an aside but out loud during the speaker’s time.

To his credit, Kary agreed, still minding the TEDclock and realizing the sand had run out. Shrugging, “It’s not a very good slide.”  And then, triumphantly, “BUT if you were a mouse with anthrax you would be interested in this slide!!” Wild applause from the audience on behalf of the mouse and speaker.

Still, being the Curator has its benefits and one of them is having the last word: “I’ve just realized my role to set up our speakers for great comebacks.”

(2) Nalini Nadkarni was definitely one of my favorite speakers of the conference.  Known as the ‘queen of canopy research’ this was one of those talks that might easily have been well-meaning and earnest. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.

But instead, we saw slides of recycled Barbie dolls dressed up in jungle gear, shipped to schools as ambassadors.  We heard of projects enlisting prison inmates to grow specialized mosses because they have the time, and no sharp objects are needed to grow moss. We heard that she has an ant named after her and we saw a dance at TED by Capacitor that was inspired by some of her work with plants.

After the talk of her life (so far) in TED’s 18 minutes, she had charmed all of us, but Chris fell a little deeper:

“In the most appropriate of ways, Nalini, I think I’m a little bit in love with you.”

Nicely put, Chris, since Nalini’s husband, the ant professor, was in one of her slides, and Chris’ wife was in the front row, I think.

But really, the art of facilitating so many speakers can boil down to the pressing need to express a genuine thank you originally and meaningfully, even if it’s the 20th of the day.  Super nice to see it being done so well; SO well in fact that it’s become a signature memory of my TED experience.

(3) Last but not least, a third funny thing Chris said was in response to Cindy Gallop’s 3-minute rampage about her new website ‘Make Love Not P0rn’ [NSFW].  Based on her first-hand experience dating younger men, NYC advertising exec Cindy declared she had come (her word, not mine!) to realize hard c0re p0rn had taken on the role of sex education for today’s younger men. As a result, they were milling around thinking p0rn was real-life.  You know, “Hey, what’s wrong with you, all women love that! They always love it in the movies…”

I don’t want to have this website banned for repeating what Cindy said, exactly how she said it, examples and all, but it was a talk I was glad not to have to translate to my English-as-a-Second language parents, even Dad, who tends to be pretty jolly about that kind of thing.

At the end of the whoops and hollers as Cindy finished, Chris stepped to the stage saying proudly:

“There just aren’t many places where you can hear a talk like that.”

Post-TED, I realize I just didn’t know where to look in order to get to know Chris and other members of the TED team. It’s one of my criteria when deciding what events might be a fit for me and perhaps you’ll be interested too.

The thing is, they’re on Twitter, followable like anyone else! And not only tweeting about TED either.  Then, there are snippets of them on the TEDtalk videos, though it’s tough to find them on purpose – maybe that will change when they begin keyword indexing for their videos.  And then of course, there’s Chris’ own TEDtalk, given in 2002, in just under 13 minutes. Where, in a sense, it all began. Enjoy! I did.

Wisdom of Youth

We start them early here on the Multiple Streams Team…have a look at the cute Sammie G Forsyth (my business partner‘s daughter) reading the Multiple Streams Book!

Tina tells me this was not posed, but the cherry red cover attracted Sam all by itself.  What a sweet thing.

To download a copy of the very same book in PDF/eco format, no-fee right now for just a few more days, click here. (Expires Monday December 8, 2008.)

Hey if Sammie can do it, so can you.

A lighthearted nod to a talented lad

Josh Groban at the Emmy Awards

Whether we’re avid television watchers or not, there is no getting around the cultural context and (sometimes) social agenda TV programming gives us. 

At the Emmys a few weeks ago Josh Groban condensed 60 years of television history into four minutes, performing a medley of beloved TV show themes – and even changing his voice with each tune. Regardless of your age or what TV you watch, or not, I think you’ll find it a fun and at times moving four minute video clip.

Get your message across with a light-hearted touch

Cool F’ree Tool from Slide.com: FunPix makes it easy to tell a story in comic-format

At first glance this tool may seem childish. A parlor-trick in the home we call the internet. But there are several business applications that you can claim as an excuse to try it. Good thing too, because it turns out FunPix is one of those guilty pleasures. Very fun and easy to use.

Here’s a ‘funpixed’ photo of my family and I this summer, celebrating my Dad’s 70th. The captions will mean nothing to you unless you read Taiwanese, a feat unto itself especially when I tell you Taiwanese is an oral language and on the endangered languages list. Suffice to say though, the photo is a source of great hilarity to my Taiwanese family and the students of conversational Taiwanese that we’re gathering together, and will likely become the backbone for a printed text.

You can also use Funpix for:

• presentation slides
• direct mail advertisements – excellent for attention-getting postcards, especially
• seasonal greeting cards that highlight your own coaching wisdom
• tailored inter-session messages for printing by clients who respond well to printed reminders
• power of intention or dream boards
• spicing up your blog photos, newsletter articles, and more…

If nothing else, send the link right now to your favorite graphic designer. You can bet they’ll be happy to keep it in mind for your next website design. Say, what else will you use this tool for? Comment below to share yours…

Winner of “Priceless Comment from a Coaching Client” Prize

“Andrea, I always know we’re onto something big when you say something and I hate your guts.”

LOL, love that honesty, C! Your courage and growth are inspiring and it is a true a privilege to be your coach.

Side note to anyone considering hiring a coach, maybe even for the first time: Laughing happens often in great coaching sessions because the truth (especially our own) is usually pretty funny.

[More coaching quotes like at right, here.]

April Fool’s Day Fun | Thank You Scott Adams

Talk about your visionaries! Scott Adams is using his Dilbert blog as a place to collect prank ideas for April Fool’s Day.

I think this is destined to become an entry at Wikipedia.

An excerpt:

“One of the best practical jokes ever played on me took me years to figure out. I still don’t know who did it, but it was a beauty. It won’t work if your victim has caller ID, unless maybe you block your number.

It works like this: Find someone who has two phones – say a work phone and a home phone. Pick a time when you know the target is near one of the phones and no one will answer the other.

Call the phone that won’t be answered, then use three-way calling to call the phone that will be answered. When the target answers, say nothing but connect the three-way call. He’ll hear his own answering machine at home telling him to leave a message.

Trust me when I say this will freak a person out. It took me about five years to figure out how my home answering machine called me at the office.”

Which of course could be taken a step further with coaching calls…

Find the dial-in numbers for a conference call being held at the same time as the one you’re leading. Best if the other call is on a topic that contradicts, such as one of Andy’s Secret Skeptic calls patched into a serious ‘Law of Attraction’ call, etc.

Instead of announcing the beginning of the call as you normally would, three-way call in the other call. (Note: If they’re using this prank too, who knows whose material will end up being taught on what calls…)

Back to Scott’s post – from a Microwave Use Tracking Form, text-messaging LOW BATT to pagers – to dozens upon dozens of laughing-so-hard-I’m-crying prank ideas, this post and its attendant comments are the must-read item of April 1, 2007. Or at least 10 minutes of it is.

Yes the links are real. But here are two warnings anyway:

#1: Some of the prank ideas submitted by commenters are pranks in and of themselves, but of course.

#2: Definitely a ginormous time waster. Sorry.

P.S. I wonder what Google.com will look like April 1?

Update 4/2/2007:

Alas, neither the Hollywood sign nor the Google Logo changed, but here is a little something fool-ish from Google on another channel.