BACK IN THE SADDLE AGAIN

So that was Texas!

Interesting place!

It sure is big, with vast expanses of nothing - unlike Long Island which will probably be putting up the FULL signs during my lifetime. Texans seem a lot less motivated than most of us and what's with the "Sir" and "Ma'am"? They are unbelievably and almost annoyingly polite - apart from the AA check-in clerk who told me she didn't care for New Yorkers. I let the comment pass because she gave me a good seat, but the woman really does need a customer relations seminar.

On the plane I finally finished John Grisham's novel, The Broker. I love his writing - it's about the only fiction I read - and probably the only stuff that isn't church-related too.

So once that was finished, I picked up my next book - The Big Moo by Seth Godin. Godin is a Manhattan-based marketing guru and he talks a lot of sense. The first of his books I read was Purple Cow which talked about how you need to be different to stand out. Now he goes a stage further and declares in The Big Moo that remarkableness is the essential target for growth.

How about these quotes? -

You will grow as soon as you decide to become remarkable and do something about it.

The only tool left is to stop hyping the product and to start making things worth talking about.

You can shake up your industry by breaking all the rules.

Those who fit in now won't stand out later. Those who follow the rules are never noticed.

The fast-rising stars are those who question authority and refuse to do what's been done before.

I wonder what they'd make of that in the Lone Star State!