Margot first made waves back in the late 60′s inventing Warm Fuzzies, the very first sheepskin bedroom slipper with the wool inside.  Yes, all the fuzzy  footwear since then, including fuzzy versions of Crocs, owe their heritage to Margot’s original idea.

She and her sister Leslie then opened the Chapman Sisters Calorie Counter on Michigan avenue in the Wrigley building, the first restaurant to ever price their food by calorie and let you know what you were really eating.  It was 1977.  It was a Monday-Friday lunch-only concept that did over $1 million a year in revenue.  Today, restaurants like Seasons owe their heritage to Margot.

In between Margot helped hundreds of CPG companies come up with innovative new products.

Most recently, Margot and her partner Pam Rose created Swirls near the zoo in Chicago, and literally started the trend toward cup-cake bakeries.

Goodbye Margot.  No matter how desperate things must have seemed to you, the business will remember you through your many innovations.

Well consider what Muzak did years ago when they created the idea of using music in the background in the workplace.  Muzak is known as elevator music.  It even created the term “elevator music.”  Now it’s in office buildings, lobbies, restaurants, schools, etc.   And the category that resulted, Business Music, has competitors.

I assumed this category began in the 1960′s, but research showed me that it is much older than that.  The company Muzak Inc was incorporated in 1934.  This brand gained credence after a British study in 1937 showed that music increased work efficiency.  Then another study in New Jersey showed that music added in a manufacturing plant reduced absenteeism by 88%.   The brand Muzak introduced a form of franchising in 1938.  William Benton of Benton & Bowles advertising was an owner of the brand at one time.

Technology has changed but the fundamental idea is the same.  Even the Ipod owes its success to the same basic idea.  Background music increases work efficiency, whether in the hallway, at the desk, or in the gym.  What an idea to brand!

I was reminded of Dean John Drewry in the University of Georgia’s Journalism School who taught us in the 60′s that “Nothing is work unless you would rather be doing something else.  Find something that you love to do and it will never be work.”  No wonder I have no desire to retire.  It is fun.

Ask yourself.  Do you go to work every morning, or do you go to fun?

Ms. Fitzgibbons, a Minnesota farm girl who became one of Madison Avenue’s greatest writers asked the young interviewee to take his time but to create for her an interesting way of describing a horse.

The young man waited not too long and said, “From above, a horse looks like a fine violin.”

She hired him on the spot because of his ability to look at things from unusual angles.  He became a real star for her, and had a fantastic career in advertising.

“The starting point of great success and achievement has always been the same. It is for you to dream big dreams. There is nothing more important, and nothing that works faster than for you to cast off your own limitations than for you to begin dreaming and fantasizing about the wonderful things that you can become, have, and do.”

I have given this same speech in different words so many times “after” an accomplishment.

Bill Egan, a client when he was International President of Johnson & Johnson once complained to me, “People think vision is ‘let’s go into the hair care business.’  Where is the real vision.”

We think that real vision is the ability to imagine and see in detail a scenario that has not happened yet, but theoretically could.  I believe a part missing in Bill’s comment is “bigness.”  I think in part vision is in the BIGNESS.  If one said, let’s own the hair care business, a minimum of 70%, it would be different.  In other words, is it possible that the size of a goal can actually lead one to Visionary Thinking?

For instance, the goal, “let’s invade and take over Cleveland,” would lead to visionary thinking, wouldn’t it.

I have a heath nuisance that might force me use a cane, and I don’t just want any old cane so I have been on the Internet.  I found the one I want for starters, but I don’t want to buy a personal thing like a cane online, so I finally decided to call the parent company out in Estes Park to see where I might find one of his Sumac Root Walking canes.  Well, it’s a small company, so George answered the phone.  He’s been in business for 25 years having sold his first company to AT&T.  He explained that he had about 2500 retailers across the country.

Georgia went through retailers in GA.  He knew exactly who had what, and finally gave me four numbers within three hours of my house that he knew for certain should have the exact cane I was looking for, the Atlanta Zoo, a hiking shop in Helen, Ga, another in Newnan, Ga, and one over in Rome, Georgia.

If I go to giant retailer, I can rarely find an employee who knows what they have, much less the specific name to ask for in the next aisle.

George, on the other hand told me about each of the four stores, something about the owners, their phone numbers, and what they ordered last time.  What an absolute pleasure.  Finally he offered to send me three or four canes, and let me send back the ones I did not want.  How nice it was to be treated like an adult.

This is a great example of focus.  The Montgomery Inn is a full-service full-menu restaurant.  Very upscale, in a very nice part of town.  But they know that one thing on their menu is special, the ribs, and that is all they ever advertise.  The Rib Place.

Focus on a compelling differentiation and deliver.  For longer than I can remember that is exactly what the Montgomery Inn has done.   I went there deliberately because when I think of that part of the country, I think of the Montgomery Inn.

Let’s compare this to Wall Street managers who pocketed millions in bonuses, hundred of millions in bonuses, while letting their companies die and rank and file people who worked for them lose their jobs.  Now when the going remains tough, they jump ship and go to foreign companies like rats leaving a sinking boat.  I believe that this makes them technically rats.

In business real leaders rarely if ever must risk their lives for the people under them, but they should risk their wealth and their reputations for them.  A REAL LEADER TAKES ALL THE HEAT AND RESPONSIBILITY WHEN THINGS GO WRONG, AND GIVES ALL OF THE CREDIT TO OTHERS WHEN THINGS GO RIGHT.

That is what we are seeing of Captain Richard Philips.  He offered himself as a hostage for his crew’s release when things went wrong.  Today, he is calling himself no hero, but giving all credit to the Navy seals who saved him.  THIS IS A LESSON FOR ALL OF US.

Meet Vic Firth.  Every heard of him or his company?  If you play the drums you probably have. Vic Firth drumsticks are the undisputed Killer Brand in the drumstick category.

Vic himself, now in his 70′s, was for years the chief timpani player for the Boston Symphony.  Never satisfied completely with his drumsticks, he began to experiment and make his own.   Soon, he was making sticks for snares, quads, bass drums, etc.  Then one day the real magic happened.

Vic dropped a lapful of snare sticks on a cement floor one day by mistake, and realised as they rattled on the concrete that they made different sounds.  Therein was born the idea of tuned drum sticks, a pair of sticks with exactly the same percussive characteristics and tuning, the Perfect Pair, his invention and his trademark.

Sounds suspiciously like “compelling differentiation” to me.  Since the introduction of the Perfect Pair for snares, quads, every kind of drum you can imagine, Vic Firth has contantly grown until now it is both a Killer Brand and a dominant brand among high school, college, drum corps, rock, symphony and all serious drummers.

It would be hard to find a better example of a true Killer Brand than Vic Firth’s Perfect Pair drumsticks.   How would you like to have a 62% share of your category?

Publick Occurrences consisted of 3 pages of print articles with a blank back page for readers to write additional news and comments, then pass the paper along to another reader.  Publick Occurrences was essentially a print variation of a blog.

It so frightened the English administrators of the Massachusetts Colony, that they moved immediately and seized the office and shut the newspaper down after the very first issue.

Lessons:  THERE ARE INNOVATIVE IDEAS TO BE FOUND IN HISTORY, THERE ARE FEW NEW IDEAS UNDER THE SUN, AND HISTORY DOES REPEAT ITSELF, e.g., rumors that the current government wants to shut down certain radio shows.  As well as other forms of censorship we are witnessing today of Facebook, Youtube, et.