Mary Schmidt Marketing Troubleshooter

Idea Pool

The Flamingo Factor

Mary Schmidt

May 21, 2013

flamingos I’m fortunate that I live a “20-minute life” (As Sunset magazine dubbed it - pretty much anything and everything I need or want is within 20 minutes of walking or biking.) I “run” errands on foot, and take (almost) daily power walks. And on those walks, I see many things I’d totally miss if I were driving.

Things that make me smile. Get my creative synapses going. Give me ideas for clients. Just the other day, it was a flock of flamingos in someone’s front yard.

Pink. Plastic. 2 feet tall. Carefully placed. At least 40 of ‘em.

I smiled all the way home. And I thought, “Now, that’s someone I’d love to hire if I needed someone to think way outside the box.” Seriously. I wouldn’t put a flock of plastic flamingos in my yard…and that’s the whole point. You need way different points of view. Weird stuff. Wacky ideas.

So, next time you interview a potential employee…maybe talk about landscaping…. Yours. Theirs. What’s interesting? What’s fun? (I’ll start. I have a metal art deco Indian chief with a deer silhouette by my front door…)

Oh…and maybe ask about the history behind their (visible, cool) tattoos. (I’m not kidding. And I think I just heard an HR expert hit the floor in a dead faint…:)

In Brain Food, Start-Up Sanity Checks

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