Just before his last song of the evening, Jason hummed and hawed through a few parting words. Lost among the Toronto shout outs was a simple phrase that struck a chord.

It’s a pretty cool thing to acknowledge that someone is alive. Something as simple as saying, “Hey man… peace!”

I think there was once upon a time when marketers tried to give you that. Ads bereft of “Life can be better for you too!” At first, it was something to hold on to. You could buy your way into a better place.

I wonder at what point this style of speaking became the equivalent of saying, “My mom thinks I’m cool.”

Hold that thought.

When I dine out, I generally tip 15%. I don’t reward servers for being above average. I don’t punish them for being a little off. About 1 in 10 times I’ll tip more than 15% - when I’m rewarding excellence.

Now… if you were always at the top of your game. If you were always excellent. It would be reasonable to expect that people (in addition to a better tip or paying a higher price) would talk about you. And if people are talking about you as “excellent” - wouldn’t it be reasonable to assume that every day the number of people who turn into business would go up from 1?

Closing 1 out of 10 assumes you don’t know any of the 10. If people are coming to you with the impression that they know and trust you to do great things, 1 out of 10 is a bit feeble. When you consider that some businesses run entirely on strong word of mouth, using a 1 out of 10 approach is a commitment to being anything but excellent.

Instead of saving your best for the occasion that just happens to happen to you, why not save your best for the occasion that’s begging for something to happen………………. TO ANYONE!?

I too, am getting all those emails about gas prices. “Don’t buy gas,” they say. “Buy from some companies, but not from others,” is the economically feasible take. I’m not going to argue the strategy - I’m going to suggest you become the Pope (blasphemies aside). Your best can make believers too.

I’m asking you… Who’s going to give me the power to believe that people can outsmart companies? Who’s going to put up the web page that lists all the big sellers and let’s me add my gas total of the day next to the seller I bought from? Who’s going to make disciples of the people that video tape cars going into the stations of boycotted sellers? Who’s going to measure the simplest of numbers - things like “The gas price in my neighbourhood is lower than the gas price of the same seller in your neighbourhood.”?

It’s not hard. People are ready to believe. They want to rally around someone who will give them the tools to participate.

Everyday there is a “gas price” equivalent. Don’t save your best for a day that might never come.

If a customer rips into you (the rude way) - then they don’t have management training. This doesn’t mean they don’t have a valuable insight for you. It’s your job to extract it from the rubble.

If you’re owed money - don’t ask for it until you’ve perfected your deliverable. Unless your customer has proven themselves to be a pain when it comes to collecting, assume that if you deliver - so will they.

If you’re leading a company - don’t spend your time searching for places you’ve misplaced trust. If someone is adding a few extra dollars to their expense report, you don’t need to concern yourself. That behaviour will reveal itself one day without you wasting time hunting for it.

It’s not that different from a crowdsourcing model. People will police themselves more often than not. It’s worth seeing how that can apply to everything you do internally. The real profit is in the freeing of your mind for other things.

I should have said “marginally better” is worse. It’s true. We all agree - especially now that Seth has said it out loud. The only problem with saying that marginally better is worse, is that it’s a touch relative. Are you 10% better or 90% better? Where is the cut off between what’s worth pursuing and what’s not? And so I’m taking a slighly modified approach…

In a day and age when we have no problem with information availability (everything is out there somewhere), we are certainly more interested in the best compilations. We like mashups that bring us information just as we had hoped to digest it. We don’t aspire to pay less than 99 cents for a song (although we do not mind) - we instead aspire to pay an amount indicative of our abilities as an amateur talent scout.

So why then, would anyone want to spend the blood, sweat and tears to start something that will just be a better version of the same? Why fight through the dip if you’re not going to dig it deeper and more erratically? Is better still better if you slug it out with public enemy #1 only to win by 5%? I think the more important question is how much you protect whatever piece of the pie you’ve managed to secure can grow that market so that, while 5% more of the original pie is nice, 100% of this new apple crisp we cooked up is even better!

NEWCORP Rule #1 is here.

Andrew (Peek) - Can take powerful ideas to market.

The Online division of the Amateur Writer’s Association says, “ideas for conversations is smashing in it’s own sentimental way.”

J.D. Power & Associates says…

I’m still waiting for the day when we reference what real people say. Those people who we’re writing for (or doing whatever it is we’re doing). At this point, I don’t care what Ebert says about 10,000 B.C. I care about what my neighbour thought.

If I’m going on vacation, I’m looking to communities of real people to tell me where to stay. Would you visit the Messe Hotel if you saw this? What about now? Maybe it’s me, but I sure wish I had this option with everything I buy.

And while we’re on the topic - don’t forget to mention the good, the bad and the ugly. At the risk of too many links, I also talk about the value of polarizing markets here.

Sure I know this is a big can of worms. I realize that I’m staking the wisdom of crowds against the accredited expert. I’m not saying they can’t co-exist. I’m just asking if you’re leading with the right one.