I know this is absolutely and necessarily true, and, yes, we need to execute. But while working on the little things, it’s better for our psyches and more productive for our work if you keep the big idea in sight. That’s what we do, after all: help businesses and brands grow by making big ideas happen.

On one of our company message boards today, I asked:

“What big idea are you working on? Can you define it? Can you explain it?”

The suggestion, of course, is that if you can’t define and explain the big idea you’re working on, then it’s at best a fledgling; at worst it’s near forgotten.

Today I would have answered my own question in this way:

I’m working on helping golf course operators manage their revenue opportunities. In fact, revenue management is an area I want two of our clients to own jointly, to work together to make golf course operators more successful and in the process capture those operators’ hearts, minds and wallets.

Jack and I have been discussing how much of our work we should show a prospect who is considering hiring us for a project. They say they want to see some of our previous work, but inevitably their eyes glaze after five minutes of being shown this brochure and that ad campaign. Show and tell and the portfolio review just aren’t working.

What we’re doing now is telling stories. The actual work is incidental to what brought it about.

A golf industry research company wanted a new look for their website. We told them about how we renovated our own website, using feeds from WordPress, a Tumblr blog and Twitter.

A financial advisor wanted a simple web presence that a prospective client could find and see that he’s “real.” I showed him a number of sites we didn’t build and told him why I like them. We ended up building a one page website that included a few links and an enclosed feedback form.

Another company wanted to stimulate demand. We suggested a series of old school post cards asking open-ended questions in a direct mail campaign that would drive the audience to seek the answers on a simple website.

All of these solutions came out a brief story we told about a specific project … followed by a deep probe into what the customer wanted to achieve in his own marketing communications effort.

So now we break the ice by telling story, then we ask a lot of questions. Try it; it works.

When was the last time you thought about your go-to-market approach? For two of our day-to-day clients we’ve been reconsidering sales strategy, inspired by some of the changes we’re seeing in – of all places – education.

Are you familiar with The Khan Academy? In a number of school systems, students are taking their lectures at home via video, then using classroom time for more one-on-one instruction, assistance and problem solving. An upside down process, right? Yes, and apparently effective.

[Excellent article from Wired about Khan Academy.]

To introduce Club Car’s Visage Mobile Golf Information platform, we’re moving more of the education and rationale necessary for customers to grasp what the system can do for them to the web. There we can control the message, and the prospect can go at his own speed, critical for technical and technology system. That way the sales organization can spend time bridging the gap from the general features and benefits to the specific ROI an individual course operator can expect.

At Stanley Furniture Company’s Young America, we’re working with director of marketing Neil MacKenzie to build an entire digital eco-system designed to give consumers access to web data at the point-of-purchase. Instead of relying on the perceived untrustworthy motivations of a retail salesperson, the customer can scan a QR code on the hang tag, see all that’s available about a specific piece or collection – even buy online. Or she can download the new Young America app (for iPhone, iPad and Android) and review every item at home before even going to the store.

The web enables so many new opportunities for all users. Have you considered how the internet can alter and make more effective your sales strategy?

There have been a number of times when a particular item – a photo, painting, song, film, etc. – when a particular creative piece has influenced an idea of mine.

We’re currently shooting a series of photos for Club Car, the idea for which came from a painting I’ve carried around in a virtual satchel for decades, ever since my college years, actually.

We believe Club Car delivers more than transportation for the golf course. We like to think of the company as the most valuable resource with which a golf operation can do business. By helping a course owner increase revenues, reduce expenses, manage assets and deliver great golf experiences, Club Car can have a positive impact on a course’s bottom line.

For years our creative imagery for the Club Car brand has focused on one thing, “comfort,” for instance, and we may use take a photo that shows how easily golfers enter and exit the car. Then we would rely on additional images or on copy or a full campaign of executions to expand the story. But this year this one image kept coming into mind, an image I think about often, one I open either literally or in my mind’s eye whenever I try to think about something with a larger perspective.

We were looking for an idea communicating a broader view, a panoramic look at a golf landscape that might show Club Car at work virtually everywhere on the course.

The image above, of course, is “The Fall of Icarus” by Pieter Brueghel the Elder, a 16th Century Flemish artist. I was introduced to the painting in an undergraduate course on modern poetry, specifically  W.H. Auden’s “Musee des Beaux Arts,” where Brueghel’s canvas serves the almost arcane purpose of demonstrating that life does indeed go on, “everything turn[ing] away quite leisurely” from what may be what history or legend deems the most important thing. In Brueghel’s great landscape, there in the lower right hand corner is the end of the legendary fall of Icarus, the prisoner who escaped with wings made with wax … that melted when he flew too close to the sun. The legend falls, yet the farmer plows, the shepherd peers at the sky the sailors sail – life goes on apace.

That’s not what the Club Car story is about, obviously, but Auden’s poem and its reference to Brueghel’s painting have stuck with me for more than 35 years, and I’ve often used them as references to help explain this thought or that idea.

Such is the case this week as our team is in south Florida shooting a broad, panoramic landscape that will demonstrate that Club Car is at work here, here and there, throughout a golf operation, providing business solutions that go far beyond what many think of as merely “two golfers, two seats and two bags.”

These are the creative references we carry with us. Who would have dreamed that Brueghel and Auden might inspire a golf operation to be more profitable?

I just returned from a short trip to Glasgow, Scotland. For months I’ve been planning this trip, not the least of which was working with US Airways to find a suitable fare, schedule and seat. For any longer trip, I work to sit up front (Who doesn’t want that?), and I strike a sensible balance between what I pay and any mileage I’ve accumulated in my rewards account.

I won’t recount here the travails in obtaining my seat upgrades; nor will I go through the difficulties – including cancellations – I experienced in the actual travel. Rather, I’d like to use this space to share some of my thoughts for developing an alternative airline, one built on a different model, less travel commodity, more targeted to a specific traveling group; one that can be meaningfully branded as a breed apart from all those we fly now.

First, however, consider the current crop of domestic airlines. From Delta to Southwest, from US Airways to American and United, none of the brands stands for anything distinctive or valued by even their regular customers. Sure, Southwest suggests lower prices, better on-time performance and an attempt to simply be different. But beyond Southwest, other than the cities they fly to and from, what really separates one from the other? (I’m not sure even Southwest lives up to the image it projects.) There has to be something more than frequent flyer miles to create preference.

First, how about a name for this venture: How about PanAm? Or Piedmont Airlines?

Now that that’s settled, what features do we give when we build an airline that starts modestly, but distinctively?

Here’s what people tell me they want:

• Fly into and out of a limited number of airports. I’d willingly 3 hours of driving to the airport for an efficient and effective customer service model.
• Similarly, my favorite airline wouldn’t need departures every hour. Maybe two flights in and out of every served market. If I know my favorite airline’s schedules, I’ll work my schedules around them.
• Don’t overbook. I’m willing to pay in advance (as I do for my hotel room) if you assure me there’s no way I can get bumped.
• If you are impacted by weather, give me the facts, the truth and give us passengers a place to hang out while we wait.
• Wi-Fi on every flight … for free.
• I need a bit of space so I won’t feel cramped or claustrophobic.
• It’s okay to charge me extra for refreshments; I’m accustomed to paying for them everywhere else …
• But don’t even think about charging for me standard luggage requirements.

Marketers would make better consumers out of us if they would enable the tools we already have in our hands. Marketers can help close the gap between their brands and shopping and buying.

We’re working with a client now on a project that began as merely a plan to develop an iPad app. At least that’s where we started: “Let’s create an app that floor salespeople can use to show customers what they may not be able to see on the floor.”

Sounds reasonable enough, and hundreds, thousands of companies are undoubtedly talking about doing something similar. The CEO gets a new tech device and says, “Hey, why don’t we create an app too?” Implied, of course, is the thought bubble hovering above his head: “How hard can it be?”

“Let’s create an app” is not a strategy; it’s a reaction, a wish, a me-too-able, a box to check off. Worse, it misses the point of the opportunity inherent on the ubiquitous web, or in what I’m calling the “web-verse.”

Take the idea of the shoppable web-verse for a test drive:

• You’re watching The U.S. Open Championship, and during a commercial break Bridgestone suggests you get fitted for a new golf ball.
• You pull out the trusty iPad or laptop, and you visit bridgestone.com to learn more, just like they told you to, including where you can actually go for the fitting.
• Map the location, set it on your Google calendar.
• Post the Bridgestone web page to your Facebook page and ask your friends if any of them has been fitted, what was the experience like …
• Now sit back, the commercial break is over.

Okay, nothing really that remarkable so far. But when you go to the store, it all breaks down.

• No salesperson is there to offer assistance.
• You’re standing before a wall of golf balls, and to be honest, you don’t remember which ball got you started on this quest.
• Where’s the fitting machine? How can you compare the various balls and find the right one for you … the basic promise of the ad you saw on Sunday.
• Now, how can we put your smartphone to work to solve this disconnect? What other tools can we use? How can we effectively extend the promise the advertising created?

That’s what we’re working on.

Here’s an excellent long read from strategy+business magazine about the changing attitudes and habits of the the post-recession consumer. The Power of the Post-Recession Consumer.

Companies evolve. Not just their brands, but also their cultures, their processes, their attitudes. It’s how those things fit the reality of the times that matters. The Times has a good story today about IBM on its 100th birthday, reminding us just how much that company has changed since the 1980′s.

Just as a brand must remain relevant to reach and satisfy its customers, so must a company fit the ideas and needs of its employees. It’s a two-way street, and sometimes it’s a struggle to match what might be competing motivations. Over 26 years I believe our little company not only has matured, but also reflects the sensibilities and needs of those with whom we work.

For instance, we don’t have a vacation or sick policy. If you need or want to be off, don’t work. No set minimum or maximum number of days, less than a hand-full of holidays (New Year’s, July 4, Thanksgiving, Christmas). What makes this work is that we trust each other and the knowledge that our clients and we depend on each other to get the work done.

Most of us work from wherever we are. I work from my home near Charleston, SC. Eric lives and works from home in Richmond, VA. Anne and Lyn now clearly spend more time at their respective homes than they do at Revolution Mill (“Corporate HQ,” we call it). Even Dean is finding that it’s not necessary to come into the office to get work done. Technology and individual work ethic make this possible, and we’re all reaping the rewards.

We expand with the help of our “contributing ideators,” four talented, dedicated and valuable colleagues we consider part of the family, if not card-carrying employees.

All in all, our company has evolved as a comfortable place where I (where “we”) can do the work we enjoy with people we enjoy working with. My first day at what is now called Burris was June 17, 1985. Another company birthday has come and gone. I think we’re still relevant to ourselves and for whom we work our craft.

“In my dream I could hardly contain it. All my life I will wait to attain it.”

From the USA “Character Project,” this short film about a Los Angeles restaurateur.

You can review all of the project videos on the USA site.

Also, “Fish” reminded me one of my all-time favorite restaurants, Esca, in NYC, which I wrote about in this earlier Idea Blog post.

In business or sports, sometimes your competition will let down its guard. If you’re ready, you can take advantage.

“The big Internet companies owe their dominance to something singular that shut out potential competitors. Google had secret algorithms that gave superior search results. Facebook provided a way to broadcast regular updates to friends and acquaintances that grew ever more compelling as more people signed up, which naturally caused more people to sign up. Twitter introduced a new tool to let people promote themselves.

“Groupon has nothing so special. It offers discounts on products and services, something that Internet start-up companies have tried to develop as a business model many times before, with minimal success. Groupon’s breakthrough sprang not just from the deals but from an ingredient that was both unlikely and ephemeral: words.”

In a long and at times loving piece in today’s New York Times (Funny or Die: Groupon fate hinges on words), David Streitfeld writes about the company as it queues for its IPO, celebrating the value and the process Groupon places on its writers.

Introducing, Golf Stuff We Like, an almost e-commerce site full of wit, fun and more than a dash of serendipity.

My friend Rick Hall is the brain – and the wit – behind Golf Stuff, and I think he may be on to something. As with so many web forays, he’s not totally certain about scaling and monetizing and all those other 21st Century b-school buzzwords, but he’s getting there. Burris’s own Eric Gordon is lending a hand by putting the current site through a modest design update, but the big idea is Rick’s and Rick’s alone. He’s rolling his Google AdSense account to the site in a few days, and he’ll continue to connect wannabe buyers with surprised sellers … for a while. But soon, very soon, I expect there to be talks of revenue sharing and customers delivered and even more of those b-school buzzwords at work and play.

Give Golf Stuff a visit, fan it on Facebook, follow on Twitter and – when I give the word – start buying. In my experience, there’s an idea – sometimes a big one – for everyone. Maybe it’s finding a parking place (see ParkCirca) or making credit card payments available to more merchants (try Square). Best case is when it can also be something you love.

Let the lecture be the homework, and do the homework in the classroom, all taking place in a “global, one-world classroom.”

So says Sal Khan of his Khan Academy in his TED talk.

Allow yourself to get to the 13-minute mark and beyond to see the added value of granular data inspection. And here’s a brief report from the PBS NewsHour:

As today’s service to both of my readers, I now introduce you to Springpad.

And for those who prefer video over reading, here’s a brief “how to” about Springpad.