Good Chicken

Bruce Nussbaum recently went to South Africa, yay for him, where he discovered Nando an 800 restaurant global chain that started in South Africa. This is something that started out as a local business and quickly grew to becoming world wide! But, Rob Brozen, the owner of Nando, told Nussbaum how he wanted to keep his chain as localized as possible; he does not want to become Starbucks.

Nando uses a special sauce called Peri Peri made from local chilis, and they also like to keep their restaurants having a homey feeling; the art that decorates the walls is all made by local painters. Nando is very much about creativity and it would like to keep that, even as it grows.

They even have fun commercials!

Funny Nando's Commercial - The most popular videos are a click away

Chocolate

Chocolate is something that is very near and dear to my heart. Chocolate has always been there for me, in good times and in bad times. So today I choose to write about chocolate.

I've seen the brand Madecasse around my local wholefoods store but I myself have never bought the brand. I ran into it again today on Seth Godin's blog, apparently he really enjoys the stuff. But as it is a design blog he does speak mostly of the packaging. The package must say something about the brand and it must also be eye catching!

As it is now the packaging for Madecasse is blah. It's nice, but it doesn't really have me rushing to go out and buy it especially if I'm paying six dollars... It does convey that it comes from a small country, but that's really all I get from my quick look at it. What makes this chocolate unique is that it's made and packaged in Madagascar, the only chocolate that is made by local beans then imported from Africa. What this does though is that it helps the African people; it creates four times more income than shipping off the beans to be made by another company. So as a company they should focus on that.

Macy's recently begun selling a series of hand crafted baskets from Africa. Those baskets are freaking expensive! But, I'm sure they sell. Their way of advertising was a commercial which showcased the ladies in Africa making the baskets. Ingenious!

Picking Your Target

Is it alright to dismiss people you just don't like working with? Seth Godin said in his blog that some consumers are selfish, which is true, but would you really pass up a client if you didn't like the way he operated.

To get work you have to do good work and have a real human connection with your client. Well that might be hard since now a days everyone seems to want to take advantage. Well it's time to put on the gloves and fight back. You can either: put up with bad clients, just avoid the human connection factor, or just not work with ungrateful people. Which is the best advice. hopefully your other clients will be loyal enough to repay you in some way.

A client employ relationship should really be mutual for it to work best. Mutual respect in my opinion is necessary to achieving a good product. I was reading a book by Sidney Lumet a director and he was talking about have writers during the rehearsal process. (It parallels this scenario) One writer in particular would rush to change the script whenever someone was slightly apposed to it, he didn't have enough confidence in his work, another refused to look at the work from someone else perspective and refused to change anything. He got fired!

The point, there must be a balance! Both the client and employ must know what they want the product to portray.

Some Advice

From our friend Seth Godin. It's interesting cause you always hear people say stuff like "practice makes perfect," or "keep at it, you'll get it eventually!" Well what if you really won't be able to get it eventually, maybe all you really need is a new perspective. If something isn't working maybe 'try hard' isn't the answer, maybe it's 'try different'.

I think it's funny because now that I think about it in Math you are always taught multiply ways of solving a problem. In case the square root formula doesn't work you can do it manually. If it doesn't multiply one way do it in parts... etc... Why did I never think to do this in my everyday life?

It's weird how frustrated I'll get over something and then realize it was such a simple thing to do! When I stopped took a moment and thought I would often realize there was a much better way to get things done. After all, isn't that why we now have Macs? Cause someone looked at an idea in a different way!

Never Heard of Him

Andrew Carnegie, I personally had never heard of the man before Seth Godin. Of course I know the University, but I never stopped to think where the name came from. Andrew Carnegie was believed to be the second richest man in history. His story is a true rags to riches tale. As a young boy he came to America and began working as a messenger boy. Later in his life he build the most successful Steel company ever. In short he was a powerful man.

But what made this man so powerful? Well he believed it was the people who worked for him. "Take away my people, but leave my factories and soon grass will grow on the factory floors... Take away my factories, but leave my people and soon we will have a new and better factory." intelligent words from a powerful man; but this words are too soon forgotten in this day and age.

I recently watched a documentary on the fabric district of New York City. It said how while in the 60s, if I remember correctly, all the cloths on sale in America, were made in America. I love that. In a small way it's one American helping another American. Now though nearly all the garment district imports their cloths from abroad where they can buy cheaper labor.

Man just isn't worth what he use to be anymore...

I think me and this Andrew Carnegie think alike. Later in his life Carnegie used most all his fortune to fund philanthropic pursuits. I can except some people having big houses, those with big families, but if you have no need for such extravagance why not just give your money to something that can use it.

Work

I read Seth Godin's blog recently, he talked about how every one's model of work, is a job. That we have been "brainwashed" to believe that the only way you are working is if you have a job. I think the steady paycheck helps, the nine to five schedule, having some one above you giving you orders, it's comforting.

What if one was to work for one's self though... You would constantly be on the search for your next work. Well this reminds me of having to pick a major. My parents at least tell me to pick soomething I would be happy doing, but in the back of my mind, I know that I am already use to a certain lifestyle... Well some words of wisedom from Seth:

The less a project or task or opportunity at work feels like the sort of thing you would do if this is just a job, the more you should do it.

Smart, I think someone should have told me that while I was in highschool; it would have made it a lot easier to pick my major.

Something Fun

Sometime design goes to extremes. It's fun to see the outcomes of a crazed designer like Mark Reigelman who takes normal everyday occurrences and transforms them into something... else... too far...

It's suppose to be a bus stop. Why do I want a bus stop to have only two chairs? and a desk lamp... really though... talk about useless designs. Thank you ApartmentTherapy