I just read about a company called KidsRx that is taking Mary Poppin's admonition to add magic to medicine a step further. It is a pharmacy that allows kids, primarily, to customize their medicine. They can tailor the color, flavor (think cherry, vanilla, bubble gum, etc) and form (liquid, gummy bears, lollipops, etc) of their prescriptions. "Candy drugs" some call it. People are predicting that it might start a larger trend and that folks like Walgreen's or Target may start allowing this personalization. In the meantime, KidsRx is accepting insurance and shipping worldwide.

I love how personalization and "mass customization" can be used in an existing infrastructure (the corner pharmacy is centuries old) to solve a real problem: getting kids to like to take their medicine.

Just when I was convinced that my growing addiction to Twitter (www.twitter.com/jenniferdavis) was going to kill my desire to blog forever, I think of some things I want to talk about in more than 140 characters. So, I am once again returning to familiar territory here on the blog.

I have been doing some consulting work for a non-profit group called Westside Praise, in which I am a part. We just released a CD of original a ccapella praise and worship music, including a song I wrote, and I have been working on some guerilla marketing techniques. It has proven to be a great project in which I can experiment some some new marketing tools that I haven't yet had a chance to use professionally.

First off, I created a website using Google Apps. Although not being as flexible or powerful, as a ground-up development, it was easy and fast and accomplished our goals. I then expanded this with our own mini-site widget, created at Sprout. I can definitely see me using this tool again. These little widgets are super flexible, easy to create, and really encourage viral marketing among fans. With a click of a "share" button, viewers can add it to their profiles at Facebook, MySpace, Blogger, and a host of other sites. Very slick!

For the CD duplication and distribution I am using CreateSpace, an Amazon company. Their website and customer support was a little clunky, but the end result has been good and the whole process certainly went smoother than if I had done it all myself. In addition, because of their relationship with Amazon.com, the CD (and eventually the corresponding songbook of sheet music) will be available for sale on their main site, as well as the AmazonMP3.com site without additional submissions. Have I mentioned that I love print on demand!

There are more things in the works, but I can tell you that starting to market this CD has reminded me how much I enjoy marketing and how exciting it is to see measurable results come from the use of new technologies. The CD has been for sale for less than 24 hours and although I won't disclose how many have been sold so far, let's just say the word of mouth that we are enabling with these tools is working!

I plan to feature more case study information about this project on this site in the future, which I hope to be a help to others wishing to kick-start a marketing program on a budget.

The economy is hitting some industries and some families hard right now. If you find yourself worried about such things, here is a bit of encouragement: people are getting new jobs. Cool jobs. Fun, important, and meaningful jobs. Dozens everyday.

The good folks at ReadWriteWeb just started a service they are calling jobwire (although there are rumors in Twitterland that they may be changing it). It is a place where they post people who have taken new jobs. It is fun to read about people and their new positions. The companies featured tend towards technology, which is one of the segments that is getting pounded right now.

Just a bit of good news and positive headlines in a world full of fear, uncertainty, and doubt. If you are looking for your next high-impact gig, I hope to see your name on jobwire soon!

Last night, a speaker confronted us with the importance of truth telling and its relationship to trust building. I was reminded that it takes courage and a genuine interest in others to tell them the truth, especially if that truth isn't what they want to hear.

You can tell someone that they have a peppercorn between their front teeth, but do you have the courage to tell them how they could be more effective at work?

I have been truly blessed by colleagues that have challenged me, when when the message they had to deliver was a tough one. They made me think. Really, think. And for that I am thankful.

You have to really care about the person to risk the relationship to tell them the truth and to make them think. As the quote below illustrates, they might hate you in the end.

"If you make people think they're thinking, they'll love you: But if you
really make them think; they'll hate you." - Don Marquis

But without truth telling, there isn't much ofa relationship anyway.

"I base my fashion taste on what doesn't itch."
- Gilda Radner

When my sister was little, she was (and still is) a beautiful girl. Long, curly hair. Cute-as-a-button face. But would the girl wear frilly dresses? No way. They itched.

When I read this quote from Ms. Radner (a hilarious comic by any measure) I thought about those days. Her wanting to wear denim overalls while my mom was trying to get her into a pretty dress.

This was before the days of the tagless tag (an invention that my toddler sister would have cheered for). Before they made fabrics softer and clothing more seamless. Those inventions were there, right in front of us, the whole time. But we didn't see them. We didn't recognize the pain for what it was...a design problem to be solved. Once we identified it and named it, I am sure we could have solved it. My Mom is a great seamstress and our family is full of artists and problem-solvers, so I am sure we would have invented the tagless shirt, lined children's clothes, or the adaptation of swimsuit fabric to children's dresses. The problem had not been named, so it couldn't be solved.

What problems are you facing today that are like that? Moderate annoyances or hinderances that keep things from being truly useful, truly beautiful, or truly comfortable. Observe it. Name it. Then go about solving it. This is how we save the world, one itch at a time.

Tonight, Tony and I attended IgnitePortland 4, an event sponsored by the Legion of Tech. In this event, 13 presenters each had 20 slides and 5 minutes to teach the audience about a topic or entertain them in some way. Some of the presentations were really outstanding.

The first was from a guy from Kentucky, who now lives in Portland (although his accent might still live in Kentucky). He had several pieces of advice on what Kentucky can teach Oregon. My favorite had to do with place names. He said that Kentucky has a lot of brands and companies that are named after the state. Bourbon is from Bourbon county. Louisville Sluggers are from Louisville. "We didn't invent fried chicken, but because of KFC, everyone thinks we did," he proposed. He said that more companies need to name themselves something local and then go national to bring attention to the region. This was very interesting to me. Most companies choose a company name that could be "from anywhere," despite the fact that all companies are from "somewhere." Let that be a lesson to all those would-be entrepreneurs out there.

Did I mention that the presentations were on auto-forward? This means that after 15 seconds each slide moved along. This added a degree of sport to the presentations. They couldn't fall behind in their presentations (without it being painful for the audience to watch) and the whole thing kept on time, more or less. I think this is brilliant and something that should be required for all PowerPoint presentations. Keep them moving. Keeps the text to graphic ratio in line. Keeps the pace of storytelling at an appropriate level. I could see this being used in corporate environments and in church. 20 sermon slides in 5 minutes. Go!

If you are in the area, plan to come to the next IgnitePortland 5. It will be in February and the tickets are free!

I read Seth Godin's new book Tribes. In it, he makes some very provocative points about the fallacy of quality.

"Quality is not only not necessary, for amny items it's undesirable. If we
define quality as regularly meeting the measured specifications for an item,
then quality matters a lot for something like a pacemaker. It doesn't
matter at all for a $3,000 haute couture dress.

More fashion = less need for quality."

I found this statement very interesting. If something is more fashionable, it doesn't have to be "six sigma." More art. Less science.

I wonder if there isn't a graph that would show that people's expectation of quality rises as commoditization takes over a product. It becomes less unique. Less differentiated. And as a result, the marketplace raises the standards of "sameness." Predictability is favored over excellence. The restaurant franchise wins out over the brilliant chef. The factory pumping out millions of widgets wins out over the inventor.

Seth's point, and one that he doesn't advocate alone, is that quality is something the "factories" used to value, but that in many ways we have evolved beyond it. With the use of technology. With a growing discontent for sameness. We are demanding leadership and sometimes (or ALL the time) leadership is messy.

Makes me wonder how much we as leaders of companies, organizations, families, and product lines should emphasize quality, in its traditional definition. Maybe more effort needs to be put into true differentiation and a value that extends beyond predictable mediocrity.