Hot & Cool Blog

My membership of the Restaurant Association has lapsed...

It was another invoice in the pile, asking for $700...and I ignored it. I've been a member for more than 20 years, as a restaurateur and then an Associate Member. Associate membership is meant to give access to restaurant, cafe and catering owners, but one by one the ways to connect with them have disappeared (email contacts), are ineffective (online directories) or come at an additional cost (magazine advertising).

The reason a business joins as Associate Member of a trade organisation is to sell stuff to the regular members: services, membership or products. The high-minded ideals of these associations are important for regular members, but don't hold much interest for Associates if sales leads don't follow. The local organisation is in flux, and while the 'renovations' are underway, the customers have been neglected and are quietly slipping away. Not good.

How to Identify 'Open Leader' Types

Charlene Li shares her thoughts on the essential features and value of 'Open Leaders'. To explain the concept, she puts people in the (familiar) 2x2 matrix, with Collaborative or Independent on one axis, and Pessimist or Optimist on the other. Simple matrixes like this are effective because they engage both visual and traditional readers, even if there's a risk of over-simplification.

These give 4 different types of leaders:

• Cautious Tester (a Collaborative Pessimist)
• Worried Sceptic (an Independent Pessimist)
• Transparent Evangelist (an Independent Optimist)
• Realist Optimist (a Collaborative Optimist)

Here's a short video in which she explains the model:

Make a 'Life in a Day' Video for your business

YouTube has an ambitious project underway for 24 July: film what's happening in your life, and contribute it to a movie (like a time capsule) being produced by Ridley Scott. Sounds great, and most cameras and phones can record video. Kevin McDonald, the director, asks us to focus on several topics: What do you fear; What do you love; What makes you laugh; and finally, film what's in your pocket.

But there's something simpler that could be done - using those themes, take lots of photos of the 'Life in Your Day' at your restaurant, cafe, bar, school or wherever, then choose the best 50 or so and put them together into a slide-show movie with a sound track.

Apple's iMovie, Windows Moviemaker or the free online service Animoto can do this in a snap, and there are keen staff who would love to assist. Start with waking up, opening up, staff arriving, first customers, cooks at work, grumpy delivery drivers, mistakes and laughter, lots of emotions...right through to closing and putting the bins out. Encourage people to use their phones for spontaneous pictures, and share some cameras around. Have everyone lined up showing what's in their pockets! Offer your own prize for best or funniest picture. And remember one of the rules for successful digital photography: take 20 pictures and throw away 15, keeping just the best. Contribute to the competition, and add it to your own YouTube channel - if you don't have one, here's a great way to start!

Here's Kevin McDonald talking about his vision for the movie:

The 100 Greatest Movie Insults of All Time

It's been too long between blog posts, so this will keep us all going...NSFW and NSF_Staff