The Pete Kloppenburg Showcase

Spring issue of Lifestyle: Eggs and Retirement

2009-04-06T11:12:08Z

The latest issue of Lifestyle Magazine has just been published, and I have two articles in it.

Diner Dash is my ode to breakfast. More precisely, it is my encomium to eating breakfast at a diner, something my wife and I do probably once a week on average. Life is good, and comes with slices of melon on the side.

Retirement Living, Canadian Style is a quick survey of various cities in Canada thought to be good places to retire.

New issue of Lifestyle, with four (4!) articles by Pete

2008-12-23T18:50:03Z

Lifestyle Magazine, in its various regional permutations, has published its winter issue, and I am pleased to have four articles. Two of the articles were cover stories: a profile of Sarah McLachlan and a profile and interview with Measha Brueggergosman.

I will include links to the BC edition, because that is the only one that has all four articles, but the other three editions - Alberta, Ontario, and the Maritimes - also have at least two of my articles included.

Reflections. This is the second Reflections column that Lifestyle has published. This one is about a photograph that hangs in a back bedroom of the cottage that my friends Paul and Meredith own, on the same lake as my own cottage. I've just submitted my next column, which is all about the joys of eating breakfast at a diner. Hey, the column is not called "Profoundly Important Insights".

Measha Brueggergosman. On the morning of Thanksgiving Monday, I had the opportunity to interview Measha over the phone. She's a very nice person, quite patient with me fumbling with the recording equipment and my amateurish interview techniques. What was a very nice surprise for me when I transcribed the interview was finding that Measha speaks in full sentences and even well developed paragraphs. She's also just a hoot to talk to - funny and relaxed, a diva in talent only.

Sarah McLachlan. Unfortunately, I did not get to interview Sarah, which is a shame. I can recall seeing her back in my university days - I have her early albums on vinyl, stuck somewhere down in the basement. What's a little spooky is that she looks pretty much exactly the same as she did back then, over 15 years ago.

BC Mansion. This was an interesting piece to do. Like the article on the Whistler chalet, this is essentially a profile of a house for sale. Unlike the Whistler piece, this article actually has a human story behind it. The builder died early this year, after a struggle with Parkinson's disease. I spoke with his daughter and found that he hadn't built this enormous place just out of vanity - he wanted to be able to use it to entertain and in particular wanted to host fund-raisers for the Vancouver Opera Company. Which is pretty cool. I think the editor of Lifestyle gave me this one and the Measha article just because he knows my wife and I are opera fans, and how many of those can you actually find these days?

Election Results: Communists trounce Marxist-Leninists!

2008-10-15T13:57:00Z

As the Globe and Mail reported this morning, the Communist Party of Canada won in convincing style over the Marxist-Leninists, strongly cementing the radical/protest/smartass/inattentive vote into a convincing 160 vote bloc. Still, danger lurks for the Commies, as a stronger than expected showing by the Animal Alliance Environment Voters Party suggests that they can no longer bank on the critical critter vote.

To noone's surprise, the Liberals kept the riding, with the still young-looking Mario Silva retaining his seat over the NDP. The Green Party did well, with 10.5% - less than 200 votes behind the perennially moribund Conservative candidate.

Now we'll see what happens nationally. The knives will be out for Dion, but he has proven to be very resilient. He may well decide to stay on, in which case it would come down to a leadership review, in May I understand. And if he limps out of there, he won't be much of a candidate in the next election. And if he gets voted out, there will be the usual dusting for fingerprints to see whose supporters were behind he ouster.

I would personally prefer if he resigned and the party regroups around Michael Ignatieff. Iggy has proven to be a strong politician, he's still a striking figure on the national stage, and the negatives he had going into the last leadership race - his American residency, his support for the Iraq war - have pretty much gone away. He would be a formidable opponent to Harper the next go round. In fact, with Ignatieff leading the Liberals, the pressure would be on Harper to take it to the next level - if he can't win a majority against Mr Bean, he's unlikely to do well against the urbane Ignatieff.

Book Review: Anathem

2008-09-20T02:52:46Z

If you have never read a Neal Stephenson novel and you find that one has somehow thumped its way to your bedside table, you may be forgiven for being intimidated. In fact, intimidation is a natural and healthy response at every stage of confronting a Stephenson novel.

At first blush, you can only widen your eyes to accommodate its naked bulk: since the publication of his 1999 doorstopper Cryptonomicon, his books have tended to weigh in at roughly a thousand pages per. As you sink into the first few hundred pages, you can be intimidated by its scope: his Baroque Cycle, comprising three individual doorstoppers of a thousand pages each, managed to span the entire world and was populated by a cast of real life figures that would make the British Museum wheeze. But your jaw may not truly drop until you get a sense of his novels’ raw ambition. Stephenson likes to grapple with ideas, the bigger the better, and generally from as many parts of the bookshelf as he can manage. And finally, it is what he can manage that is so profoundly intimidating.

Book Review: Sway

2008-09-05T20:01:43Z

For good or ill, Malcolm Gladwell has created his own publishing category with his books The Tipping Point and Blink. These books have achieved the gold standard of publishing success: not only massive sales, but wide pop culture cachet. Both book titles have become short hand epithets for bloggers, newspaper columnists, and dinner party bores the world over. Gladwell himself has achieved a level of celebrity - he's a highly coveted and presumably highly paid speaker - that mere mortal writers can only dream of.

Of course many of these other writers have been hard at work on their own entries to the Gladwell category. (Will Gladwell's bookshelf niche become eponymous? Will we someday soon say things like "Have you read Seth Godin's new gladwell?") One recent gladwell of some note is Sway: The Irresistible Pull of Irrational Behavior, by Ori and Rom Brafman.

Tribal White Papers

2008-08-12T14:18:37Z

Not every white paper we wrote at Tribal actually earned us money. Some of the papers I wrote were for Tribal's own use. We wrote white papers to help position our services, to try to establish us as thought leaders within the marketing consulting industry, and also with the hope that our clients might actually learn from them. These two white papers certainly attempted to do all of that: The Sales Readiness Index and Selling in Uncharted Waters.

These papers are a fine example of how sometime the act of writing can serve to crystallize ideas that have been rattling around in one's head for a long time. The impetus for these particular papers was much grubbier and modest than the ground-breaking landmarks they were to become. (This is somewhat tongue-in-cheek; I think they are excellent papers with much important thought in them, but we never had the chance to develop them further.)

Selling in Uncharted Waters: The case for Sales Readiness

2008-08-12T12:56:34Z

Sales readiness can be defined as “the ability to match messages and resources to a buyer’s developing understanding and requirements throughout the entire sales cycle”. This is a fairly straightforward definition, but it masks the enormous difficulties that sales and marketing organizations have in actually preparing sales representatives to sell product.

These difficulties can be seen in the familiar complaints that sales teams and marketing teams often have about each other. Marketing says that Sales isn’t doing enough with the leads they generate, and Sales says the leads are no good. Sales says the message didn’t work, and Marketing says that Sales didn’t deliver the message properly. And of course there is the eternal question of whether Sales belongs to Marketing, or Marketing to Sales.

The fact that these conflicts arise over and over, and endure despite the best efforts of sellers and marketers to sort them out, suggests that something fundamental is at work. This many smart people can’t all be wrong.

The Sales Readiness Index

2008-08-12T12:52:12Z

What’s your Sales Readiness Index?

It is the nature of sophisticated business to business products that they are difficult to sell. Companies that sell well-established products and services face stiff competition. Companies that sell innovative new products often struggle to position their products in ways that help customers understand their value and create a sense of urgency. These are familiar challenges in the modern marketplace, where innovation is rapid, product categories shift constantly, and competition for the customer’s attention and wallet is fierce.

A restless night

2008-08-10T12:50:25Z

Early this morning, Camille and I were awakened by a loud noise. No big deal, think we, it must be thunder. We had had a thunderstorm early in the evening, and this summer it certainly hasn't been unusual to be awakened by the weather.

When the next explosion hit, we were fully awake, and we knew it wasn't thunder.

Portfolio Update

2008-07-29T22:36:04Z

The Portfolio section of the web site has been updated. There are three kinds of things you will find there.

Tribal Hallowe'en promotions. Every Hallowe'en at Tribal we would craft a card to attach to a jolly big bowl of candy that we would send to our clients. We had a lot of fun creating these cards, and here they are in all their glory, plus little explanations by me.

DOXIM ads and brochure. We did a few fun things at DOXIM plus on traditional corporate brochure. Here you'll see what all the fuss was about.

Magazine articles. I've been having fun writing articles for Lifestyle Magazine. They won't be published until the fall, but registered users can get a sneak peak at my rambling thoughts on Bryan Adams, Whistler mansions, and the imponderables of lifestyle choices.

I put some of this content behind the wall for registered users only, so here's the excuse you've been looking for to sign up and be part of the experience that's sweeping the block!