I just celebrated my first anniversary at my third agency in NYC, Converseon. They have given me the entrepreneurial freedom to build a profitable division with a growing client SEO roster including 3 in the Fortune 100 in only one year. That has led me to wonder how one exactly goes about recognizing a good fit. One unlikely question I would ask in the future is which corporate team sports, if any, the agency plays.

I didn’t know people had fantasy football trophies. Cropped from a photo by Beth and Christian Bell.

Most coworkers who were into sports at my first company in NYC were primarily football fans. The most organized league we had was fantasy football where we competed online against each other. Occasionally we would assemble an informal outing to the park and throw the pigskin around. But again, we only played against our colleagues. So too was the mood around the office. Football is an amazing game of strategy but very insular. Similarly, we built some amazing technology ahead of its time but did not connect much with the greater community at large.

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The fact that a citizen can take another person or organization to court has been one of the bedrocks of American tradition. Unfortunately, as with any system, there will be some people who take advantage of it and risk ruining things for everyone else.

Someone’s coffee was hot. They sued. Now people joke that they could also sue if the coffee was not hot enough, but I bet someone has actually tried that. Cropped from a photo by David Thompson.

The first time I remember hearing about a court case that I found to be ridiculous was the infamous woman who sued McDonald’s due to scalding hot coffee. I have a little more sympathy for her after finding out some of the myths, but she still did spill it herself. In the 20 years since then, we have been increasingly met with legalese wherever we turn from lawyers who attempt to protect their clients from liability. Most disclaimers are common sense labels, e.g. keep plastic bags away from babies, and probably do some good.

Disclaimers really begin to change perceptions when they are spoken, however. Turbulence is a good example of this. Airplanes have had fasten seat belt indicators for decades so they don’t get sued if someone bumps their head.

You are typically forced to sit down and fasten your seat belt, regardless of other possible consequences. Cropped from a photo by Daniel Williams.

A similar sign like this elsewhere would merely provide advice, but announcements remind passengers that they must obey posted placards on-board (the only time I ever still hear the word, placard). However, flight attendants are stuck with a kind of semi-authority so they vary in their enforcement. I have seen some stand near passengers and shame them into sitting back down. Some delight in their new-found power and threaten people in coach until they submit. Yet as one flight attendant said on my recent United flight to Denver, “We are not police.” Then the other crew members proceeded to remind every other passenger who stood up that they were required to say people should remain seated, though they did not intend to actually stop any passengers from getting up. Flight attendants did the right thing and covered their ass while letting common sense prevail in the air for once.

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Prospective clients often ask me how you can prove there is a potential for improvement when there are countless competitors or seemingly no room for growth. This is particularly important to the field of search engine optimization (SEO), which some feel is harder to forecast than advertising. My mentor, Mike Levin, often talks about how there is a finite number of searches happening everyday. You might be able to slightly influence that level through publicity, but generally marketers all fight over the same piece of the pie in their industry.

(Shigeru Miyamoto holding a Nintendo Wiimote, photo from Sklathill)

But what if you could grow the pie instead? The Nintendo Wii is one of the most famous case studies for this very idea. Miyamoto-san looked outside of the current market and connected with a non-traditional audience. Now more people are playing games than ever before.

How can you visualize that latent potential?

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Two weeks ago, I went looking for a veritable needle in a haystack. I managed to find the pin by some miracle somewhere within my many boxes. I also pulled out a few other items of interest, including two books I had previously started but never finished. One was the Brothers Karamazov. The other was the biography of IKEA founder Ingvar Kamprad.

I just started another massive novel recently, so I chose to alternate between that and Swedish business acumen before digging into Russian literature.

(I laugh every time I see this so I had to borrow it; please visit Erik Johansson for more great work!)

I think my favorite part in the entire IKEA book is quite early on, regarding the transition from mail order to showroom. This unlikely reversal of trends was critical for a few reasons. Of course people still yearn for the tactile sensation prior to buying some specific goods such as furniture and clothing. Yet it is the opportunity to compare two levels of product that was the key takeaway. Anyone can race to the bottom in terms of price. Ordering by mail or now online without being able to compare specifications or see the product in person will inevitably lead one to choose the cheapest model. And then you will probably regret it when you receive something that falls apart or stops working.

Kamprad’s insight was to simply let people judge products for themselves. Contrary to what some economists would have you believe, consumers chose to pay slightly more for significantly higher quality.

This reminds me of a famous pricing study of the Economist. The publisher sold more subscriptions when they offered a more expensive plan. I forget the exact details, but it was something like print only: $99, print and online access: $149.

Offering both increased sales more than when there was only one price, because buyers were more satisfied in believing that they got a deal. Plus, the publisher had the opportunity to make even more money than intended. This way, producers sell more and may even be able to raise prices in the face of conventional wisdom.

It amazes me that this seemingly obvious rule of economics has not yet been applied across the board, particularly at the supermarket. Slowly grocers have begun to realize that selling organic and/or locally grown produce can be quite profitable. Yet what about other food and drink?

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