Consumer Centric

I love coming across someone writing about core issues in our field of marketing that you totally agree with, but seldom here discussed in the trenches with actual clients and campaigns.

For me, Alan Mitchell’s March 10th post for Marketing magazine on reinventing marketing is just that and much more.  You can learn a lot from considering the way Mitchell explains these six issues.

#1 – Personal information management.  People manage their own info today, so organizations need to understand how and why people want and use their info.  Different circumstances, jobs, and situations require different flow of info between people and companies.

#2 – Consumer-decision making.  It’s more critical than ever to understand how people make decisions.  When you do that, you put why we make the decisions we do in the proper context.

#3 – Brands as information services. One way Mitchell offers to reinvent branding.

#4 – Touchpoints. People choose the touchpoints that help them achieve their goals the most efficiently and effectively.  As Mitchell says so well, touchpoints are no longer a means to an end, they need to be selected based on the value they provide to the consumer.  He also notes that products, services, marketing… all touchpoints.

#5 – Marketing and market metrics. I’ve been saying this forever, but 99% of the industry still tracks things in this very one-sided way.  Advertisers measure how much they spend to reach a specific number of a group of people, and what business they pick up. The metrics capturing what happens in between, the consumer’s personal outcomes, are not included.  They have to be if you’re going to be able to address points 1 through 4 above.

#6 – Value propositions.  Mitchell’s summary is these 5 issues mean value needs to be defined from a people-centric perspective, not a company- or organization-centric point of view.

I not only whole-heartedly agree with Mitchell’s articulation of these issues, I think his explanations and examples make it easy to understand and, hopefully for brands, to apply.

In recent years working with brands who get this control shift, it has been my experience the best way to be prepared to address these “killer issues” (borrowing from Mitchell’s naming) is to more fully understand the way people make decisions.  When we’ve studied the stages of a decision-making process, the triggers that activate behavior or response, the outcomes sought, and the influences (or influencers or both) along the way, we’ve been able to help organizations understand where they can add the most value along that journey.

It boils down to being relevant and adding utility so people choose to interact with you.  Relevance.  Utility (or usefulness).  Interaction.

When you think that way, you add metrics to those you track for your marketing efforts.  What do you add?  The degree to which people, with whom you are trying to connect, reach the outcomes important to them along this journey.  When you understand the journey, you can see what people want to think, feel, or do in order to accomplish their goals.  More importantly, you know which outcomes make your products, services, or information relevant and useful.  Bingo.  Track these metrics in addition to how much you spend and how much you gain in business, then you’re tracking what matters in the system.  Then you can have authentic interaction with people — real relationships.

Alan – thanks for shedding more light and teaching me a thing or two with your packaging of these very real issues.  I’m sure Mitchell has a lot more worth reading at his website.

A recent discussion in a LinkedIn group led me to consider an interesting question, even if academic:  What’s more important, the answer to the question WHY or the question HOW?

I’m sure you’re thinking, like I was, it totally depends the intended application of the answer to those two questions.  Are we talking about doing something ourselves (why should I? vs. how do I?)?  Are we interested in understanding someone else’s behavior (why did you? vs. how did you?)?  Or, are we trying to teach someone else something (why do you want to? vs. how do you?)?

Just thinking about it top-of-mind it’s easy to see that both questions (why and how) can yield meaningful answers.

In my professional life we are always trying to understand human behavior in order to innovate marketing and/or product solutions with and for our clients.  To me, I’ve come to find that the answer to WHY has significantly more meaning when understood within the context of the HOW.  I’m specifically referring to the answers to these questions in this way:  WHY do you do something, want something, or believe something; and, HOW do you do, seek, or believe something.  Looked at in this manner, the answer to HOW you experience that journey (think of a purchase cycle, a career decision, choosing a doctor, etc.) is most important because it shows you at what points and in what ways you have a chance to play a meaningful role.

As a company or a brand, you are in a much stronger position to create relevance, interaction, and utility in the lives of your audience (consumers, customers, prospects, etc.) if you understand HOW their journey is experienced; then the answer to the WHY has some meaningful context. It is in the context where powerful innovations come in terms of how to connect with people through your marketing, products, and/or services.

Consider this example.  Smoking cessation has been studied for decades. Clinically, doctors know why people continue to smoke because of the addictive power of nicotine, etc. Socially and functionally and emotionally, however, there are many more reasons why in terms of the benefits a smoker derives from the behavior. At the same time, many organizations have studies why people quit smoking — health concerns, family pressure, etc.

As a result, smoking cessation marketing for years focused on scaring people about the health concerns. Everyone today knows that, so the most recent trend for several years has been to promote the use of tips and tricks (mostly pharmaceutical) such as the patch or nicotine gum, etc. It works for many, but far more try to quit and then end up returning to smoking.

We focused our study for the American Legacy Foundation on HOW people successfully quit so we could understand WHY they do what they do in context. The result was a clear pathway toward resolve that must be followed for a successful quit attempt: desire to quit smoking, eager for life without cigarettes, acceptance for changes I must make, ready to make those changes, and confidence you will succeed. If a smoker skips this path to resolve, it’s highly likely they will not succeed in a quit attempt.

So, what did it mean to marketing and product innovation? The American Legacy Foundation developed the Re-Learn campaign as part of their EX initiative. Instead of telling people to quit, they created TV ads, OOH executions, an online community, and other experiences that help smokers first identify why you smoke and then determine how to re-learn life without cigarettes. If you go to BecomeAnEx.org you’ll find a community of people sharing triggers for smoking and methods for replacing those triggers with healthier solutions. Once you’ve built resolve in this manner you’re asked to set a quit date.

When you understand HOW a decision is made, the WHY has the needed context to help you know how to connect. When you do this, you have a real chance to create relevance, interact, and add utility in people’s lives that results in a meaningful relationship with you (brand, product, company, cause, etc.).

I recently listened to a webcast by Tony Ulwick, CEO, Strategyn about his company’s approach to Outcome-Driven Innovation (ODI). The focus was innovation strategies to reach growth objectives by developing product solutions based on a clear understanding of the “jobs” people are looking to solve in their life.

Couldn’t agree more with the basic premise that Ulwick is promoting:  people are buying products to get jobs done; therefore, companies need to understand these “jobs” better in order to create successful solutions.  He defined a job as a task, goal, or objective a person is trying to accomplish or a problem they are trying to resolve.

“Customers migrate to products that get the job done best,” Ulwick explained.

This is music to my ears.  And Strategyn appears to have perfected the process of identifying and prioritizing consumer jobs and the desired outcomes that real people are seeking.  They use these insights to identify areas of opportunity and, ultimately, help their clients implement a growth strategy based on product innovation in those areas.

This simple insight (focusing on the jobs that real people are looking to solve) has as much application to marketing innovation as it does to products and services.  In the end, it is all about a company being relevant by providing genuine utility for someone.

The path I’ve been on for a few years now has followed a similar logic train as Ulwick…

People are not only buying products to get jobs done, they are consuming media and interacting with various influencers (people, places, and things) to get jobs done in their lives.  Within the context of marketing communications, let’s refer to these media and influencers more broadly as “channels”.  Like products they sell, these channels represent various opportunities, levers, or tactics that marketers can tap into in order to be relevant to real people.

In this way, the line between a product or service and a channel is becomingly increasingly hard to draw.  Consider the obvious examples of Nike Plus and apples iPhone.  Is access to tools and a community to help you track your running a product, service, or marketing channel?  Is an iPhone app a marketing channel or a product?  Both.

It follows, then, that understanding the jobs people are looking to solve in their lives can equally influence new products or new marketing channels you create.  And we can best understand these jobs by mapping the dynamics of the “system” in which these jobs operate–in this context a system is the interaction between people, influencers, products/services, and companies.

For example, think about the last time you went out to eat and you chose an Applebee’s or Olive Garden or Chili’s, some casual dining restaurant.  The system in this case includes you, the people you went out to eat with (we rarely go alone), the things that influenced your decision where to go, the food you ate, and the experience you had.  The jobs you were looking to solve range from the functional (hunger) to the emotional (social interaction), and could include any number of different things.

Ulwick’s approach, if you were one of those restaurants looking to improve your product, would be to understand what jobs you were looking to resolve through that visit.  And he’d likely probe multiple scenarios to get the full range of eating out jobs.  From that, you can see how it would be easy to define specific outcomes you (the one eating at the restaurant) are looking for when you go to a restaurant.  We could then measure how important each outcome is to you and find out how satisfied you are with the various options available to you to deliver that outcome.  This is awesome and makes total sense.

I would go a step further.  What if we were to study the jobs that you were looking to resolve at different steps of the process you went through in deciding where to go eat?  We’d likely learn that you had a set of restaurants you like, you quickly determined which met your key needs (the jobs referenced in the earlier graph), then you took your choice to the group of friends you were going out to eat with, and then you ended up going to the place that some other guy preferred.  Your experience at the restaurant would then help you decide where you’d go next time.

Mapping the entire decision cycle in this way gives us more jobs to define, and specific jobs we can assign not to the product but to the channels that help you arrive at your decision.  The simple act of thinking what restaurants you might be interested in at a particular time and place is the first job you’re looking to resolve.  In selecting the restaurant for the group you’re dealing with a slightly different job:  successful negotiation, and success can be defined in many ways.

Knowing this, we can determine which channels are most effective at shaping your short list versus facilitating negotiation. Perhaps the actual experience and/or word-of-mouth recommendations are the best at the short list, while coupons, limited-time offers, or promotional events are the most effective at helping you win in negotiation (get to go to the restaurant you like by giving people a reason to like it, too).

Armed with this information, a marketer can see where certain decision-making process gaps are and find new and better ways to solve real jobs that real people face.  These solutions, then, are as likely to be marketing channel innovation as they are new product innovation.

Kudos to Strategyn for the work they’re doing in this area.  I think the big opportunity that is even more real in the digital world today is to apply this thinking to both marketing and product innovation.

Ulwick referenced a quote by Christensen in his book Innovative Solution:  ”The job, not the customer, is the fundamental unit of analysis for a marketer who hopes to develop products that customers will buy.”

I would make a slight modification… the job is the fundamental unit of analysis for a marketer who hopes to be relevant and add utility in people’s lives through the products and experiences they create.

A little long… but, hopefully, you get the point.

I used to think it was crazy every time I heard AT&T claims of the best 3G coverage and speed across the country.  Why?  Because it’s just not true for me and the places I live, work, and travel to in my life.

Now I can’t wait for the chance to switch to another provider once the iPhone exclusivity is up. AT&T’s use of Luke Wilson in the current round of their coverage fight TV ads have solidified that for me.

This public battle between AT&T and Verizon over coverage maps is hilarious.  It’s like two guys flexing their muscles and arguing back and forth looking only at each other, all the time the girl they were after has left.  Guys, the girls have left the room.

AT&T will likely claim it doesn’t matter because we have the iPhone so the people want us.  True.  But, it’s not you we want, it’s the iPhone.  And you can bet the second I can get it service somewhere else I’ll check it out.

AT&T… instead of spending millions to make a crazy argument that you can’t even defend (and one that anyone who uses an iPhone would know you’re feeding us BS), how about finding ways to be more relevant and ways to add more utility to the lives of your customers?  This could mean spending that money on new products and services, innovations to wow and impress people because of how they improve daily living in an authentic way.

Or, hey, what about spending those millions to build out the network so the user experience is actually improved?

In that way, people like me would feel like maybe you don’t totally ignore us as your customers.  For right now… well, I’m pretty certain you ignore me and others like me.  You’re too busy arguing network maps with Verizon.

And I can’t help but wonder… do you really think I care about that map coverage argument?  If so, let me suggest that what I care about is what the actual experience is, how relevant your services are to me, and what you do to help me live me life the way I want to.

Focus on helping in these areas.  Then I’ll want you and not just the iPhone.

Daily course of a rather busy day led me to some nuggets of examples:  one not-so-good actual customer service interaction and one really great idea.  The primary criteria I use for evaluating these types of things:  does it help someone and make them like you even more?

Bad example first.

Story.  Well, we’re opening a new account with Salesforce.com to track some opportunities and stay organized, etc.  I’ve used it at a large company before, but was trying it on for size (free trial period) for small biz use.  I’m ready to buy, but the options online were different from what I recall, and the features and fees were not clear — I needed to chat with someone to decipher the fine print.

When I first clicked that I was ready to buy (end the free trial and pay them money!) I got the automated email from my personal sales rep almost immediately.  How cool, right?  Well, his email informed me he was out of the office until the 16th, but “so-and-so” was covering him the 8th – 11th.  So, no worries, I can contact that gal in his absence.  Which I promptly did, forwarding the mail I’d sent to my personal rep.

I asked:  ”I only need contacts, accounts, leads, opportunities.  That’s it.  What is the best solution for us?  We’ve been using it now for a few weeks.”  I provided a little more context and background info.

Her response:  ”I am actually at an off site meeting right now.”  She continued:  ”You can actually purchase directly from your trial if you are ready to move forward. You can review the feature comparison on our main page to see what edition may be best.”

Basically, she let me know that, although she’s the one my personal rep has covering for him from the 8th – 11th, that she, too, is not able to break out of a company meeting to help me.  What’s more, she thought she’d tell me to read it myself and figure it out, as if I’d not already spent time doing just that, only to arrive at some questions that silly me thought a sales person could answer!  When I shared my surprise at her response, she let me know she’d be happy to talk with me on Friday when she gets back.

Wow! And the funny thing… Salesforce.com sells a tool to help you stay in contact with your customers and your prospects to help sell your product.  Oops!  Maybe they should work on the human side of interacting with their customers… not just relying on technology.

On the positive side… I can’t take any credit for this. But it’s such a great idea of demonstrating value to people in a customer service perspective that I had to share it.

David Armano posted this tweet mid-day:

It speaks for itself.  It’s an example of thinking from the consumer experience to create a relationship that keeps people coming back.

This type of thinking, however, only comes when a company truly puts themselves in the position of why their customer behaves a certain way.  When you think about it from that perspective, an airline can realize that people on the plane love getting a surprise visit to the first class seats… those seats are their greatest relationship-building asset.

Wen you think about it from that perspective, a software company can realize that people wanting to buy their service sometimes need a short conversation to understand how to buy the product they’re most likely to use, not the one most likely to make the company the most money.

You see… when a company thinks about people in that way, consumers become people who purposefully choose to enter into a relationship with a company.

Relevance. Utility. Authenticity.

It’s about connections. It’s about being real.

Once or twice a week I get this email from American Airlines.  It’s their weekly AA Net SAAvers Fares. I live in Austin, TX.  Naturally, my home airport selected is Austin’s airport. And, each week, the email starts out like this:

So, my weekly “custom” promotional email from American Airlines starts by telling me they’ve got some great weekend deals from Austin, TX only to say immediately after that there aren’t any Net SAAver fares from Austin next weekend. Gee… thanks! I feel special!

But, that’s only the beginning.

My “custom” promotional email then tells me about the special weekend getaway fares they have from Dallas, TX.  I should point out that the DFW airport is about a 4 hour drive (give or take) from where I live. So to enjoy these weekend getaways I’d need to drive up to Dallas, then hop on a plane.

Here are the wondrous trips American Airlines picked out for me this weekend:

(1) DFW to Killeen, TX for $58 each way.

(2) DFW to McAllen, TX for $81 each way.

(3) DFW to Amarillo, TX for $47 each way.

(4) DFW to Corpus Christi, TX for $74 each way.

Interesting offers since I’d pass Killeen in my drive up to Dallas. Not to mention the other locations are within drives for me, too, and the price offered isn’t anything to write home about for these short flights.

Finally, the one time I did see something interesting on this email (flight to Germany out of Dallas), I clicked on the email and was taken to the AA site through typical online booking and it was the exact same price I could have gotten if I just went to their site to begin with and searched for flight to Germany, but left from Austin.

Sure, I get that they’re just trying to alert you to the low fares. But, it is presented as something special and just for me. It’s like me sending an email to a prospect or client of my company, PURSUIT, and offering the following:

(1) Here is your PURSUIT special marketing innovation solution just for you this next quarter.

(2) Since we don’t do anything that you need, we don’t have anything to offer. But I’ve included what we did for another company who had a totally different need than you. But we’ll do what we did for them just for you at the same price we did it for them. Lucky you.

(3) Oh, and if you’d just call me and check what we offer, I would have just told you the same thing. In reality, I don’t have anything special to offer you. But I’d really like your business.

How’s that for Custom Promotions?

Please, American Airlines… don’t send me a custom offer unless it’s (a) real, (b) custom to something about me that you already know, (c) actually a better deal than it would be had I found it myself, and (d) something that makes me feel a bit better about you and your company.

That, my friends at American Airlines, is the difference between generic spam offers versus custom promotions… utility and relevance in my life.  As it stands, I ignore your emails except for the rare moments I look for entertainment to see where you want to send me from Dallas this week! Come to think of it, why don’t I just unsubscribe from that service… hmmm.

Certainly you’ve had a similar experience. Please share.

Sometimes we don’t have to look any farther than right above us to get a glimpse of nature’s playful moments.  If we allow them, these very human experiences can fill the heart and enlighten the mind.  A few current examples from my life…

First, tonight I’m going to wake my kids to get a glimpse of the Perseid meteor showers. We’ll try to get ‘em up at 3AM and watch. I’ll add in a photo or two here if we get any. How often can you watch the heavens light up outside of the 4th of July?

Second, on the way home tonight, we noticed these clouds as we waited for the light to turn. The kids commented on the cloud with a hole in it and the sounds of angels with the rays of sunshine spreading out.

It was one a moment that would pass so quickly I had to get one more photo after we made it through the stop light and could get a clear view of the amazing cloud and light show. The sun spotlight almost looked too staged to be real!

Third, I took the following pictures with my iPhone of a storm that rolled in during our soccer practice (I coach a few of my kids’ teams). The Texas skies offer a number of different dramatic performances. The emotions and nature’s expressions are very different in this series.

The storm came in so quickly we had to gather the team and wrap up practice. But the clouds were amazing and mesmerizing to stare at. Their intensity and depth were almost palpable. They seemed to be dropping down right on top of us. The emotions expressed by kids and parents alike ranged from fear (those who know how fast Texas storms turn bad) to pure joy (never seen anything quite like us).

For me, I didn’t want to leave. It was too much fun watching the rapidly moving clouds.

Tonight, I guess these expressions of nature reminded me of how real the human experience is when you add in the rich context in which life is lived.

Nature is authenticity. It is what it is. Yet it is always changing. Nature is sometimes predictable and many times not. It is always an expression of individual elements interacting to yield a beautiful tapestry. Humanity plays out its part within the tapestry and inseparable, really, from the reality of nature.

To be authentic in life, we have to appreciate the context in which people live their lives. We have to be real. We have to a part of the tapestry of their lives.

Ok… back to living my own adventure!

A long day in the LA area yielded two bizarre encounters with strange marketing practices. One seems innovative and cool but with a few weird elements, the other was ridiculously frustrating.

First, between meetings this morning, Andy Hunter and I were looking for some food and a solid WiFi connection.  I suppose where we ended up was the last place we’d expected to look:  the ING Direct Cafe at the corner of Santa Monica Boulevard and I-405.

That’s right, a cafe branded entirely by banking services ING Direct!  You can get food, drinks, and WiFi for incredibly cheap prices for surprisingly good food.

Why would ING Direct do this?  They explain on their site as follows:

We believe saving money should be as simple as having a cup of coffee. So we invite you to come in and experience just how refreshing it is to sip a latte, surf the Internet for free and talk to us about how we can help you Save Your Money.

Given the prices for some really good food, I’d say their claim to save your money is accurate.  And during the time we ate neither of us was pursued by financial services sales people.  

Turns out ING Direct has eight cafes across the country (NYC, Philly, Chicago, Honolulu, Wilmington, St. Cloud).  While it first seemed strange, it’s an innovative concept that delivers on the promise and stretches to a connection to the brand.

The strange part?  Aside from trying to figure out why ING Direct had a Cafe, the glass-enclosed bathrooms took the prize.  Sure, you couldn’t exactly see through the glass, but the idea of catching the shadows of the person in the bathroom was odd.

Then, in the men’s room at least, the ING Direct Cafe designers had some fun with marketing and branding by placing ING spelled out in braille above the urinal.  

I had to snap a picture as I sat there wondering what in the world it said.  I couldn’t figure out what you possibly would want to communicate via braille in that specific location.  Thanks to some Twitter friends I learned it spells out their brand name:  ING.

The net takeaway:  find a relevant value (save money on good food and get free WiFi while you wait) and offer it in a disruptive way that results in a memorable experience (put a cafe into a bank, etc.).  Way to go ING!

You made an impression upon me… and I now think of ING Direct being a partner to help me build strategies to not just make money, but to save money.

Wacky encounter number two…  Headed back to the airport hotel we were on our way to drop of the Hertz Rental Car but realized we needed to get gas.  As I quickly put in my card to prepay (or authorize) for use of the pump, I saw a question pop up on the screen that I’d once again next never thought I’d see.

Apparently, I was being asked by the machine if I wanted a $0.45 fee to use the card, or not.  Naturally, I selected no (why would I want to pay a fee?).  Then, I received a second message explaining that the card I was trying to use was rejected.

After trying to get the card to work I finally had to go into the am/pm convenience store and pay at the cashier.  I was then told in no uncertain terms that the gas station does not accept credit cards, only debit cards.  The clerk tried to convince me that my check card was not a debit card… but I finally gave up and just paid with cash.

Wow, was that frustrating.  It turns out this trend of not allowing credit cards is growing and started the summer of 2008 as gas prices rose as did the fee the station is charged for each time the card is used.  

While I’ve found mixed opinions online about whether we should care about not being able to pay with a credit card, the inconvenience and frustration of not being able to complete a task that I’ve grown accustomed to being quite simple and easy was palpable.  That was a major step back to the 70s or 80s when the only option was cash.  In fact, the only reason I stayed at the station and paid with cash was because I had no choice given time and the need to fill the rental up before dropping it off.

In the real world of normal life, removing basic steps that make the purchase experience easy for the customer is not innovative marketing.  It’s ignoring the user experience to save a buck–in the end, the am/pm convenience store will lose one or two more than they save.

Thank you LA area for two wacky finds in a single day!

At the wrap of a busy week of travel, I worked my way onto the tiny plane to catch the final leg in my flight home to Austin.  I was surprised to find out I had been upgraded to first class–surprised not because of the upgrade as much as the idea that this sardine-can of a plane actually had a first class section!  

Anyhow, as I came to my seat I saw a woman in military fatigues in the seat next to me… I had no idea the impression the story I was about to hear would have on me.  I typically plug in my headphones and get work done on planes, but as Dawn told me her story I was taught a lesson in honor, commitment, and service in the face of adversity.  And I was taught it by a simple, honest, and humble woman from southwest Minnesota.

Turns out Dawn was on her way to Iraq via Fort Hood.  She is accompanied by her 21-year-old daughter and her 19-year-old son, each of them in the Army National Guard and headed to a 1-year deployment to Iraq (including 3 months of training they just wrapped up in Texas).

“I’m the luckiest person in the world,” Dawn told me. “I have three in my family serving our country.  I consider it an honor for me and for my family.”

Dawn’s unit will be stationed at the Iraqi border with Kuwait.  She and her daughter are in logistics and communications, mostly driving trucks she explained.  Her son is a gunner.

There’s a lot more to Dawn’s story.  She leaves at home her 15-year-old daughter and her husband.  The family is expected to be reunited in April on 2010.  Very fitting for Dawn, they leave for Iraq from Fort Hood around the 4th of July.

“The 4th of July is my favorite holiday,” Dawn explained. “I love the military and doing something for my country.”

It is not all rosy for Dawn, however.  In fact, she was obviously torn up inside with the pain of leaving her daughter and husband at home.  When she joined the National Guard in 2006, a unit from their area had recently been deployed, so she never expected to be deployed, at least not before her youngest was out of high school and on her own.

Dawn was fulfilling the commitment she’d made, honoring the choice she’d made three years ago to serve her country, and doing it in the face of leaving her family behind.  I couldn’t help thinking if more people put commitment before self in many aspects of life our society, our country, our families would be all the better.

To soothe her distraught 15-year-old (I overheard her talk to her on the phone right before takeoff and immediately after landing in Austin), Dawn explained they made a commitment to each other that helped give perspective.

“We told each other that every night when we look up into the sky, even though we’re so far apart, when we look up we will be looking at the same stars,” Dawn said.  The idea comforted both her and her daughter.  That, plus reflecting on the fact that our experiences in life make us stronger are what help Dawn have perspective.

“I think all things happen for a reason,” Dawn said. “If I can look at it that way it’s easier. But it’s still hard. But we’ll have email, letters, and Skype. I just don’t know how reliable it will be over there.”

Dawn’s humble, candid, and straightforward manner of facing life head on touched me.  And, apparently, not just me.  The Delta flight attendant, seeing her coming down the jetway in her fatigues pulled her aside and brought her to the first class seat where I had found her on the flight–a respectable move by Delta.

To Dawn, the act was kind, but not necessary.

“I don’t need to be honored,” Dawn said. “I feel honored to serve my country.”

You know what-she meant it.  I’ve heard, and worked with, many politicians who say the same thing.  But, Dawn… well, I believe she meant something altogether different, something very much from the heart.

Thank you, Dawn, and thousands more like you who serve daily with honor and commitment.  We can all learn a bit of how to face adversity and fulfill our commitments even when it’s not easy.

Dawn’s journey is one of genuine, simple endurance and service. Thank you for sharing!

UPDATE:  Had some questions, so I’ll add more of the story about Dawn.  

Dawn was in the Navy for 8 years earlier in her life.  After she started having children, she got out of the military.  In 2006, she was with her son meeting with the recruiter for the National Guard.  She decided to ask him, “you wouldn’t take an old lady like me would you?”  The recruiter knew she had been in the service and confirmed that, yes, in fact, they would be happy to take her as well.

So she joined at the same time as her son.  I’m not certain when her daughter joined–we didn’t cover that part.

I love finding examples of authentic communication.  When people are clear, when people are real, when people say what they mean it doesn’t take much to get the point across.  My brother recently forwarded me this photo.  Religion.  Property rights.  Nature.  Beauty.  Warning.  Creative expression that leaves no doub as to its intent.  But it also says a lot about the one who posted it. 

Besides generating a good laugh, this pointed to an area rich with creative license to get a message across quickly:  Trespassing signs.  Talk about cutting to the chase. 

They show in Malaysia that you don’t always need to know the language.

Seriously, just say what you mean:  Go home!

Gun lovers likely prefer this option.

This one doesn’t necessarily win the clarity award, but it’s up there in my book for creativity and sparking thought in the reader.

At the end of the day, each of our individual centric views of the world would yield a different trespassing sign.  Authenticity is different.  Cutting to the chase is refreshing and, at times, entertaining.