I butted into a conversation in the office last week that went something like this:

Guy 1: “Insurance is such a waste. And expensive.”

Guy 2: “I know. And the value of my bike keeps going down, but I keep paying more insurance. So kak.”

Me: “You know King Price offers paying less every month, right? That’s basically their biggest selling point.”

Guy 1 + 2: <crickets>

Now, maybe it’s because we deal with insurance firms a lot, or I have a strong affinity to people/organisations changing things up, but I honestly thought that something as ground-breaking as ‘you pay less insurance every month as your vehicle depreciates’ would be known and understood by every person who complains about insurance premiums. Seems, to me, to be a no-brainer. The story is sound.

Which made me think about other organisations and how they’re telling their stories. “Brand refreshes” – for the most part – are only real big winners for consultants and the advertising/marketing industry. Customers don’t want a big fat new promise every second year, what they want is for you to be awesome. Let me pay you money to do a great job, and we’ll be friends. Simple. One of the big lessons from Tom Peters’ “In Search of Excellence” (originally published in 1982, FYI) is simply “Stick to your knitting”. Do what you do well, and keep doing it. Companies who stick to this principle in not only the work they do, but the message they deliver, are the ones who succeed.

Am I saying ‘never change’? Of course not. Better yourself, better your product, but always stick to what you believe in. Things change and need to be addressed as and when necessary (read Legacide to help you out with that) but that doesn’t mean you should lose the fundamental essence of what you’re in business to do. The way that message sticks with your customers and staff is through a solid story.

Because a great story lasts a lifetime. Ever met Aesop? Nope, me neither. Know any of his stories? Of course we do. Why? Because they’re easy to remember, and easy to share with others.

So, is your story being told enough? Are you hitting the right market? More importantly, is your story being told the right way, and are people sharing it?

(Originally posted on LinkedIn)

…said everyone. Since the beginning of time.

A few years ago my wife sent me an article by Mark Manson, entitled The Most Important Question of Your Life, which essentially spoke to one core message: What are you willing to struggle through in order to get what you want? In order to be happy?

This week in Jo’burg has been particularly wet, a result of the Dineo Storm affecting Mozambique at the moment. As people close to me know, I’ve been riding a Vespa as my sole means of transport for coming on 7 years now.

It’s always in the rain that I, bizarrely, am reminded how that decision to remove the weekday-four-wheeled-cage from my life has changed me for the better. Does it have its drawbacks? Sure. But I wouldn’t change it for anything.

As I was waiting at the traffic light in the pouring rain today, a guy – smoking – shouted through his half-open window, “Why don’t you just buy a car!?”, obviously commenting on my non-roofed mode of transport as the rain pelted down on me.

The answer is quite simple: I’ve chosen what I want to struggle through, in order to be happy. You see, for a small minority of days in the year, it rains. For those particular days, I – like today – wear a rain suit. It protects every bit of me and keeps me dry. I ride to meetings, events, anywhere, and I arrive as dry as a bone. Sometimes my shoes may be a little wet, but, if you didn’t notice it (no one ever does) you’d never know that I was out in the elements in the pouring rain only minutes before I walked into the room.

For the majority of days in the year, though, I am blessed with the freedom of riding my little green beast through lanes of traffic, between cars who spend hours commuting to and from work. Their choice. The path they took to struggle through.

What I find fascinating though is that, to them, I’m always the idiot.

1. In the rain, I’m an idiot because I’m getting wet.
2. In the sun, I’m an idiot because who am I to think that I can just ride past you while you have to sit in traffic, huh?

To people who commute: You’ve chosen your poison. Suffer through your traffic 95% of your working days, and I’ll suffer through rain the other 5%. And while you’re sitting in that mind-numbing rat’s arse that is bumper-to-bumper ludicrousness, consider this: What choices are you making in your life that are working towards your happiness? And what other choices, that you’re afraid to take on because there may be a little downside, should you be pursuing?

As Mark Manson says: “Our struggles determine our successes, so choose your struggles wisely, my friend.”

* This is a re-post from LinkedIn.

I wrote an article on LinkedIn earlier and thought I’d share it here too.

The basic premise is this: Last weekend I had extremely high expectations of a certain coffee shop in Cape Town, because of the phenomenal reviews I’d read about it online, and was subsequently disappointed. However, visiting other restaurants on the same weekend, which both had little to no expectation whatsoever, left me overwhelmed.

The trick, though, is how much do you hype yourself or your business up, without potentially disappointing people? How much is just enough?

You can read the article here, or read below the line. Would love to hear your thoughts.

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Hype: The sneaky killer

My wife and I spent last weekend in Cape Town CBD. We often travel to the CT area but mostly spend time in the northern suburbs or the winelands, so we decided to try something different by staying in the middle of town through Airbnb.

As we’re big fans of good coffee, we did a little research beforehand. Of the multitudes of great Tripadvisor suggestions and other site reviews, the top result was Truth Coffee on Buitenkant. Also rated by The Telegraph as the world’s best coffee shop, how could we not visit!? So we saved this little gem for the Sunday morning, to finish the weekend on a high. I mean, we’d be having breakfast at the best coffee shop in the world, it had to be off the charts, right?

Unfortunately, it wasn’t.

Everything was… good. Not great, not spectacular, but just… good.

The coffee was as expected. They frown upon adding sugar or sweetener – saying it’s not necessary – so it was more bitter than we prefer. Drinkable? Of course. Enjoyable? For sure. Phenomenal? No.

Now, I’m not saying Truth needs to change their ways to suit me. On the contrary, I think sticking your guns is paramount to ensuring you keep the lovers coming back for more. However, after hyping up our potential Sunday morning extravaganza, we left feeling a little disappointed, like we didn’t get to experience the best coffee shop in the world. Truth is a quirky, steampunk-themed restaurant with good (I repeat, good) drinks and food. Just good.

So why write this?

On the Saturday morning I sleepily scuttled over to a small coffee shop across the road from where we were staying for a first-thing kick-in-the-pants coffee, and were phenomenally impressed. So much so that I couldn’t wait for my next cup the following morning! Great service, fantastic cuppa Joe, and a free little meringue. Gold! Then, later that day we were chatting to a mate of ours and he suggested a little Indian place for dinner that night. “Nothing big and crazy. Just quaint but with a cool vibe and decent chow.” As he’s vegan, we didn’t expect a lot, but took his suggestion anyway. You need to give vegans small wins every now and again, right? After smashing through dinner, we were really glad we took the suggestion. Delicious, authentic cuisine with an awesome vibe to match. Way better than we’d expected.

So the trick is this: We visited both the above with zero expectations, and loved them. We walked into Truth expecting to be blown away, and were disappointed.

So, bringing it to a personal and business perspective, how do you continue to keep clients – and potential clients – keeping you top of mind because you’re ‘the best’, ‘the fastest’, ‘the sexiest’, etc. without setting yourself up to fail? How much hype and advertising is just enough?

Seriously, it’s a question. Would love to hear your thoughts.

On New Year’s eve, I did a little experiment by sending a select group of friends and family a Whatsapp message simply saying:

Happy New Year!

In this crazily connected world, and in an attempt to get as many towns/cities/countries/continents connected for New Year as possible, please send me a pin/location of where you’re celebrating New Year’s tonight? Ours below.

Here’s to a crazy awesome 2017!

I also included a location pin to where we were. I was overwhelmed by the responses, and below is a big world view of where I received messages from. Pretty cool, I thought.

A few stats from the 92 respondents:

• 44,5% of people were at home (or nearby)
• 45,6% of people traveled locally
• 69% of the South Africans who traveled locally went to the east coast
• 9,9% of people traveled internationally
• 86,9% of people enjoyed a summer New Year’s (everyone in South Africa, and John in Equador)
• People go to some weird-ass places
• People share their exact locations far too freely… 🙂

If you were thrust into a Christian school like I was (or aren’t living under a rock) you may have once or twice heard the story about Mary and Joseph who couldn’t rub two pennies together (but needed a place to sprout their special sprog) so some dude let them hang out in his barn. Back then, barns didn’t have cribs like they do today, so after Jesus was born and the midwife, the doula, the doctor and his team of nurses delivered the baby, smacked his bum, cut his umbilical cord, cleaned him up and gave the new parents a copy of The Healthy Baby Meal Planner, they placed him into a manger – like in the pictures below. Pretty awesome for an introduction to a life of farming (one wonders why carpentry was the chosen profession for the wee baby, perhaps the barn wasn’t built well and he thought he’d have none of that should he need a baby-birthing-barn at some point, but that’s neither here nor there).

A little research (thanks to Wikipedia) shows a manger, or trough, is a structure used to hold food to feed animals. The word manger originally referred to a feed-trough, but it may also be used to refer to a water-trough when this is not being used possibly because it is similar to an abreuvoir.

In other words, mangers look more like these things:

So it seems that people are confused as to what mangers actually look like. That’s okay. We’re a far way away from Jerusalem and wise men, so I’ll forgive us for this one. What’s really exciting, though, is that no matter what we’ve perceived mangers to be in the past, their future is bright, and they’ve come a long way since the days of only feeding cows or housing babies.

No more are they pure vessels to hold feed or water for livestock. No, my friends, they’ve progressed to ends you wouldn’t believe. How? Well, they now have jobs. Real jobs! And thanks to the wonderful world of LinkedIn, these previously disengaged, unconnected mangers now have a voice. A real voice. And they’re sharing their experiences and work titles  proudly online, because goddammit, that’s their right after all, isn’t it!? There are Account Mangers, Product Mangers, Change & Configuration Mangers, heck, even just a simple but proud, solitary Manger. It’s just… so… inspiring!

In a show of solidarity with my friends the mangers (who I someday want to be), here are just a few of thousands that I’ve found on LinkedIn, trying to make a difference for mangers across the world. This is only a handful, a drop in the bucket of the brave manger-folk who decided to step out of the barn, away from the stables, and make something of themselves. My eyes are welling up as I type this, it’s just too beautiful. Out of respect, and for fear of all you readers bombarding them with emails of affection and courageous “You can do it!” motivationals, I’ve decided to keep their identities hidden, but their Manger titles left intact in all their rewarding and heart-warming glory, as they should be.

God bless the Manger…

From Ned Stark to Joffrey Lannister, the one thing we all have in common is the understanding that toilet time, for anyone, is a sacred time. It’s where you relieve yourself of previous meals, take time to reflect on years gone by, but most importantly it’s where you can just be yourself. No one can take that away from you (provided you keep the door locked, or have The Hound standing guard).

However, of all the activities one fulfils over a single day, toilet-time is probably when you’re the most vulnerable. Sitting there all alone. So I thought I’d give the power back to you, to take charge of your own ‘me-time’, and enjoy every second of your deuce-dropping, putty-pushing, daily deffy. How? By maximising that time playing some amazing games on your phone. In this case, your iPhone. Sorry Android users, I’m just not there yet.

So why Games on the Throne (and not Facebook)? Well, because games get your mind going. They get you thinking. But mostly, if I have to see another silly meme of Donald Trump I’m going to lose my shit. Again.

The below list (mentioned in no particular order) was curated by myself and a number of other like-minded mud-pumpers, especially for you. It includes iOS games that have short, fast-to-finish levels (unlike the ridiculously drawn-out seasons of GoT), as well as games that can be paused and resumed during your next evac.

Puzzle games:

• Zengrams
• Bejeweled
• Pathogen
• Words Crush
• Zen Bound
• Two Dots
• Teggle
• Blek
• Sand Slides

Runners:

• Canabalt
• Dead Runner
• Alto’s Adventure
• Jetpack Joyride
• Jimmy Pataya
• Giant Boulder of Death

It’s a short list of the fav’s, to start. If you have any of your own to share, pop them in the comments.

Magic.

People often ask me if I enjoy the Apple Watch and what benefits I’ve gained from it, as opposed to a normal watch. If you’re still um’ing and ah’ing about whether to get one for yourself, I’ve done the heavy-lifting for you and narrowed down the 10 biggest key features to hopefully help you with your decision.

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

7.

8.

9.

10. It tells you when to stand up.

Children are arseholes. It’s no secret. If a kid is fat, he gets poked with a stick. If a kid is pale or ugly, he gets called Casper or a troll. Too short, too tall, too anything-other-than-normal and your classmates will rip you a new one for not fitting in.

This was me in Standard 2 (that’s Grade 4, for the young’ns reading this):

Apart from being ridiculously cute, I looked like your average run-of-the-mill kid. To anyone who didn’t know me, there wasn’t anything in particular to poke fun at (I had biggish ears, but which kid didn’t, right!?). However, it’s pretty tricky to stay under the radar and not the pillar of scrutiny when your last name is ‘Packett‘. From nursery school to primary school and high school, through new teachers and classmates, the jokes were repeated constantly. Any bad joke or pun you can think of including the word packet would fling my way whenever the opportunity presented itself. They weren’t good, or funny, ever, but flung they were. I developed a pretty thick skin early on in life to avoid these comments hurting my feelings, never showing the ass-hats that they’ve actually made an impact on me, but deep down I always detested the fact that something so silly and beyond my control could make it so easy for strangers to try their best at making fun of me. Making fun of my last name.

For years I felt sheepish every time I told a new person my name, always expecting a comment, and thought that when I was older I’d change my last name, to finally rid the masses of their stupid jokes and easy one-liners. Until one day at the V&A Waterfront in Cape Town, around 2003, when I realised I was being an absolute, utter idiot.

While walking through the mall that day, I heard a call far in the distance… “Packett! Packett!” A guy who was in the same high school in the Free State with me (and a few years my senior) recognised me and got my attention. We chatted, caught up a bit and we went our separate ways. Unknowingly though, on that day, David Westgate changed the way I viewed myself, my personality and ultimately my view on my last name, which I’d so passionately wanted to be rid of for so long.

Why? Well, I’m 100% certain that David couldn’t remember my first name. Why should he? Don is a stock-standard, nothing-fancy-here name. Besides participating together in what can only be described as the world’s worst water polo team (we only ever played one match against another team, losing by a landslide), we were in different standards and didn’t run in the same circles, so there was no solid connection between us. But, what he could remember was the name ‘Packett’. It’s tough to forget. So from that day I decided to no longer whisper my last name when checking into hotels or meeting new people, but to state it proudly and with extra gusto. I owned it. I’m not sure if my newfound energy stopped the ridicule, or if it stopped long before that but I hadn’t noticed. From that point, though, the jokes and silly comments stopped, replaced only by interest in the peculiar last name most people hadn’t heard before.

Magic.

So am I telling you to name your child Apple or Cheesespread so that people will remember them? No. Please, no. What I am saying though, is that sometimes the things you think are holding you back, are actually the things that should be driving you forward.

The sooner you realise that, the happier you’ll be.

:: Why putting your brand in the hands of others is a dangerous game ::

The below image has been beaten to death in almost every corporate presentation in the recent past, with the obligatory “Look at what these guys are doing, changing the face of how we are and should be doing business! It’s extraordinary! We need to Uberise our business!”

And it is extraordinary. Getting this right is no easy feat! And the term “Uberise” is now, apparently, a thing.

However, these guys need to learn from the wise words shared with Spiderman concerning power and responsibility. Because it is a concern, as they’re not always in charge of the power and portrayal of their brand, but they are – in the end – responsible.

Power and responsibility need to sit hand-in-hand.

This pic is the perfect vision of what Uber wants to represent. A fancy-shmancy driving service with a fancy-schmancy car and fancy-schmancy grin to greet you for the best ride of your life, all facilitated through a simple, easy-to-use app on your phone. Just… beautiful.

Keeping up with this appearance is extremely difficult though. Some (a tiny percentage of businesses) can keep this up because they put service first, above all else. The trouble is that, traditionally, when the business starts growing and investors need to see results, service falls behind. Finding this balance will tell the average and great businesses apart. Scarily, when that level and expectation of great service is out of your hands – like the companies mentioned above, you need to be way more vigilant with who you give that power to.

My view: The one thing that companies like Uber need to remember, constantly, is that when others are responsible for your brand, you need to ensure those “others” are going to make it, and not break it. It’s extremely difficult to control what you’re not in control of.

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That’s the gist of my personal view. You can stop reading now if you get it (and you’re probably smart enough to get it, so well done), but if you want to read the personal story behind why I started writing this, read on.

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For me, the Uber story started out beautifully, but the times they are a-changin’.

My first few rides with Uber were great. The service (and I know that I’m not alone here) intrigued me. A well-kept car pulls up at my pre-defined location (thanks to the app), the driver gets out and greets me by name (thanks to the app) and I in turn greet him/her back by their name (yes, app). And I was interested in the drivers, always asking questions about their time using the service, how many vehicles were in their fleet, their experience with the app and Uber as a business, and all things checked out okay. They were energetic, excited and were in it to win it.

Every driver I had was polite and very professional. Every car was clean, pristine and had the soft scent of the latest rearview mirror air freshener.

But, and there’s always a but, things have changed.

The promise that Uber made at the beginning – only a few years ago, that no matter whether I was headed to work, a meeting or dinner, I was a special traveler and being treated accordingly, has begun to dramatically decline. Recently I’ve had drivers pull up to my location like they’re in the market for a hooker (I was not hooking on those particular occasions), drivers are civil but not overly polite and warm, vehicles have not been in the best condition, I’ve experienced poor driving and, most bizarrely, drivers not being able to follow simple directions on the app (which is crazy, because I was watching the exact same thing, and how difficult is it to find an international airport anyway, Mr Driverguy!?).

I believe the barrier to entry for drivers to access Uber has lowered substantially, and that’s where the problem lies.

You see, to me, all drivers who use the Uber app are considered Uber drivers. They may not be legally bound as Uber employees, and Uber the company can always say that these are independent drivers who just happen to use the app, but to the customer they’re all drivers under one big brand.

So this morning at around 04:30 an Uber driver picked me up to take me to Cape Town International airport, and the trip went as follows:

Don: Morning <name>. How are you doing?

Driver: I’m well thank you. Are you <looks at phone> Mr Don?

Don: Yup. (Note: I was the only soul on the side of the road at 04:30 in the morning at the exact point where he needed to pick Mr Don up, but I appreciate his thoroughness.)

Driver: And we’re going to <rattles off address we’re currently at>?

Don: Nope, we’re at that address now. I’m going to Cape Town airport please.

Driver: Okay great, thank you.

Don: So how was your evening? Did you work through the night or did you kick off early this morning?

Driver: Today is only my second day driving with Uber, so I started at 4am yesterday morning to do as much as possible and I’ve been driving since then.

Just let that sink in… He’s been working for 24,5 hours straight – on his first day on the job.

Don: Wow, you should really get some sleep.

Driver: Yes, <laughs>, but I’m quite excited for this new job.

Indeed…

I assume my attire reminded him of Jessica Tandy in Driving Miss Daisy, because he drove appropriately. He missed turns, had to double-back, drove 70km/h on the freeway, I had to explain that he shouldn’t be on the right-hand side of the freeway – with the turn to the airport coming up in 500m, and he also had no idea where that drop off was where he should head to, um, drop me off.

I’m not the grinch. Really. Far from it. I encourage people to learn and grow and try new things, it’s a must! However, in the interest of safety (he almost veered into a car alongside us as he darted for the “Drop and Go” lane), and the fact that I’m paying premium (Uber ain’t cheap, folks) for a service, I’d expect to at least be able to get to an airport in a timely fashion without having to monitor the person who’s providing and being paid for the service. And this now becomes Uber’s problem, because he is representing their brand, whether they like it or not.

The guy, unfortunately, just has no clue what it’s like to be a driver. He’s clearly had no experience or training, but is still 100% linked to the “largest taxi company in the world” – even though it owns no vehicles. Oops…

Giving a 4- or 5-star rating on Uber requires no follow-up. A 3-star rating though has this pop-up to fill out. I’m not sure if it’s because Uber considers 3-stars a poor rating, or the fact that perhaps the vast majority of ratings are 4- or 5-stars (I know mine were at the beginning) and 3 seems to be a problem, but it’s there. To be honest, my soft side gave this a 3. On paper it was a 2 experience, but I felt bad for the guy. I’m still human.

However, giving this guy a 4-star rating because “it was his first day and he’s trying his best” would have been an absolute disservice to future passengers. Uber needs to know who’s representing their brands. If you were Uber, wouldn’t you? I’m hoping my feedback (I left a detailed, constructive comment) is taken seriously and they change things up. Not by punishing poorly-rated drivers, but by making access to the app more rigorous for drivers.

So my personal challenge is to be more vigilant when it comes to rating services, because not only do the people in charge need to know, but the people who will use this service going forward deserve to know.

“Taxi!”

Whatsapp groups have changed my life. Creating and maintaining contextual groups on the service allows me to send family messages to the family group, discuss and confirm dinner plans with others, and send porn and silly memes to a whole bunch more. It’s all about everyone sharing, together.

However, often some groups are created to act as a broadcast service to a large group of people for a particular event (babies being born, birthday parties, engagement parties, wedding info, family members sick in hospital, etc.) with the sole purpose of keeping their group in the loop of what’s going on. More often than not, these groups are created with a wide range of group members that may not all know each other.

Problem? Absolutely. I can’t begin to count how many groups I’ve been added to where people will reply to the group (much like email’s ‘reply-to-all’ debacle) with responses ONLY intended for the original creator and broadcaster, yet everyone who is a part of the group gets to receive your “We’re unable to make it as we’ll be at the Vaal that weekend” or the obligatory thumbsup emoticon.

My personal stance on this is to reply to the broadcaster of the message directly, as to not interrupt everyone else’s day with information that they:

• don’t need to know.
• have zero interest in.

Pretty admirable if I do say so myself. However, most people don’t do this, so I’m inundated with my phone buzzing during meetings with comments and replies that I don’t care for.

Enter Whatsapp Broadcast lists.

A broadcast list is simple. It allows you to send your broadcast messages to a large group and, more importantly, any replies will come directly to you and not be shared with 50 strangers who couldn’t give a rat’s arse about why you can’t make it to the event, how many tequilas you intend to smash in your face at said event, or how many prayers you’re sending for <insert newborn or dying person’s name here>.

So, if you have something to share that requires a conversation to happen, use a group.

BUT, if you have something to broadcast, with an understanding that the rest of the group doesn’t need to know what the others have to say, please, for the love of peanut butter, use a Broadcast List.

Thank you. Really really. Thank you.