I started a business. It made me want to drink copious quantities, smoke myself into oblivion and hit my head against a brick wall. Instead I wrote a blog.
My tumble into what they call Swinglish has started.
No, am not about to jump into bed with a neighbor for casual sex - Swinglish refers to the pidgin mix of English and Swedish that I find myself using when talking to my daughter (who can't tell the difference between the languages and consequently uses both) and writing the shopping list for my boyfriend (because I can't be bothered to write out the actual words mixed-pork-and-beef-mince in English). Remembering the words on the packets is a far easier option. This is how I know that I work very much with via a visual medium. If I can't visualize something then it remains foreign to me.
Mental processing so they say, happens through four (five) senses -
- Visual
- Auditory (or linguistic)
- Kinesthetic (feelings/pressure/emotion)
- Gustatory
- Olfactory (smell - usually grouped with taste)
I can say with some certainty that until recently Freya's primary medium to process information was gustatory. Even now, our remote controls don't work properly from the constant chewing and residual spittle. But as we grow older our ability to process information usually changes in balance.
This is of course a key concept in marketing anything; the packaging for the cheese is important, but perhaps not more so than the taste (which is why supermarkets give out little lumps of the stuff on cocktail sticks) but even less so than the occasion of eating cheese with wine and friends after a splendid meal. (On that note there's a terrific 4th course never-ending cheese plate in a restaurant called Astier in the 11th arrondissement in Paris - but was it the two bottles of wine, the laughing group of friends or actually the experience of eating something that smelt like my friend Johnny's feet which started my love affair with cheese itself after dining there?)
When it comes to my business, there's very little I can do about 4 and 5 although I was reading about a USB plugin for smells for websites the other day; but everything I can do about the other three.
I can make the sight visually appealing, I can make sure the language, material and services give rise to thinking and personal application and I can make sure that customer experience is a good one. Most websites stop there. Not ours.
Our clients should feel:
- Free (to accessing knowledge when and how they like it)
- Valued and worthy (by having available an excellent and timely resource)
- Reassured (of the quality of the site with honest peer reviews both good and bad)
- Included/listened to (in the decision making for the site)
Our consultants should feel:
- Challenged but treated fairly (by the level up ranking system)
- Rewarded/appreciated (by the level up system and their peers)
- In control (of their own careers)
- Excited (by the prospect of being involved in something so innovative)
And if you don't feel like that, make some comments in the forums. Because we're listening to you.