Crossroads Dispatches

Slow Food, Slow Sex, Slow Travel...Slow Marketing

In a recent conversation with a friend and business associate, I bring up the "slow food, slow sex, slow travel" movements. He perks up, "Slow sex?"

I purposedly chose the provocative title of "Barbershops, Trading Posts, Coffeehouses, Parisian Salons: How Intimacy Seals Deals" for a session I led at MarCamp held Tuesday at France Telecom/Orange because marketers' intentions are nearly always suspect.

Seals deals? Sounds slimey, eh?

And people sometimes think that's who I am: I'm a role. I am a marketer (pssst, I'm just me). So if I'm a marketer, I must confess that I'm into slow marketing lately. Not that it's necessarily opposed to buzz marketing, but slow marketing is a focus on human, one-on-one connections sans stress ("yikes, will it scale?!?') rather than a focus on the mass, aggregate, broadcast-blast level.

Slow marketing is intricately tied to slow conversation, naked conversations. It's  very very old-world. I learned it by osmosis in the piazzas of Italy, the cafes of Vienna, the chicken-buses of Guatemala, and I let it seep inside while chatting on donated furniture in a makeshift wooden shelter where a family that lost everything, including a son, shared tea and cookies and their tears with me.

Slow marketing's a bit harder to map out a concrete campaign for. I had no intention of spending the entire afternoon at Vino Locale in Palo Alto (I was checking them out for an upcoming interview series, and a potential hosted salon). I hadn't anticipated that Mary Beth's favorite book was East of Eden, or that she was a English Lit major/Art History minor who worked in high-tech marketing for 25 years and is working on a novel herself or that Mike Mann of Mann Cellars (yes, they grow wine not just garlic in Gilroy) would walk in and open his silky Syrah 2004 for a tasting or Lynn Fielder, a talented jeweler and art curator for Vino Locale to sit down beside me, or Kirpal, a rosé lover and software entrepreneur, to waltz in after his lunch at Zibbabu because he heard the laughter.

"Everyone must take time to sit and watch the leaves turn." - Elizabeth Lawrence (from one of my favorite slow magazines, La Vie Claire)

"No sane adult moves to the Bay Area for the lifestyle," says Paul Kedrosky. He, he, well, my sanity is questionable, but I am living here precisely for the lifestyle. I live a Mediterranean-inspired slow-food life right in the heart of Silicon Valley (yup, I reside near HP and Apple).

And I'm not alone. "There was an increased hunger for connection, and people were eager to find out about these things - the farmer, the fisherman, the cheesemaker," says Jim Denevan of Santa Cruz. Jim's company, Outstanding In the Field, brings one-evening impromptu restaurant right to small farms. In 2004, he took his farmer dinners national rippling out from his Northern California roots.

Denevan says it was modeling in Europe in his twenties that planted the seed: "Seeing the richness there inspired me. When you ate at little cafes and agriturismos, it was all very intimate, very direct. I remember a beautiful old farmhouse with a kitchen garden and vineyards right out the door. It really left an impression."  (All Denevan quotes from article "Feasts of the Field", La Vie Claire, Fall 2006)

Slow marketing? Denevan: "It's amazing hearing from the people who make the products, who create the culture of the table.  You get to hear the farmers telling their story, how and where they spend their days."

Slow travel? When life is a possible poem, then it becomes one grand adventure. Even marketing. A pilgrimage of discovery, mystery, serendipity, synchronicity, spontaneity. Joy:

For one friend who had difficulty remembering details from his travels,  I suggested he take on the task of writing a poem every day during his journey abroad. The daily task proved impossible for him, so he decided to focus his attention on a one-week stretch through Paris, Prague and Florence. To this day, his memories of that time are the fondest of all his travels because, as he has told me, "when everything is a possible poem, the world is suddenly far more interesting." - from The Art of Pilgrimage, by Phil Cousineau

And slow sex? What's the hurry, we'll get around to that eventually too.

p.s. I'd love to go to the next Outstanding in the Field dinner (that is one that's not already sold out). Email if you want to come along too: Details: October 15: Soquel, California at Everett Family Farm (photos from I Love Farms). Guest chef: Justin Severino, who is busy opening his butcher shop, "Pigs in Zen," makes a return appearance to Outstanding in the Field. $150/pp.

images 1) Photo by Wyatt Dexter from Outstanding In the Field's site 2) Gary Ibsen, host of the Carmel Tomato Festival. Mike Mann - "Are you the winemaker?" "I'm the wine grower, salesperson, delivery person too" - reminded me I justed missed the Tomato Festival (slow travelinig in Manhattan). Yet another reason to live in the Bay Area: heirloom tomatoes. Photo by © Tana Butler from I Heart Farms: Stories and Pictures of Real People and Real Food blog (a heavenly slow blog).

Letting Yourself Be Changed

I read a blurb about a travel memoir in the Bangkok Post, I believe the book is titled Disappear, but I can't recall.

What I do remember is that it reviewer said that the difference between a tourist and a traveller was the luxury of time. And that's why the book stood apart for the details grasped only by a writer that stayed a while.

That's the reason why I'd decided (after talking to a few folks from India) to cut out India from the tsunami anniversary itinerary and delve deeper and longer into the places that I am at.

When I was at the press center on Phi Phi island on December 26th, I was paying attention to the "press circus" (as one islander called it). Many of the journalists spent more time filing their reports than they actually had at the morning ceremony itself. The reporter next to me asks me as a native English speaker for my opinion on his lead.

"Would you say 'Tears overflowed the island...' or is it 'Tears have overflowed the island'?"

Well, to be honest, I'd say neither because it was sensationalistic rather than an accurate portrayal. (Thank god his editor reeled it in - I saw the final published story.)

But he was merely asking me a grammatical question. He was certainly not inviting me to collaborate on his lead. In contrast, the few journalists I met that stayed a few days before and after got a better sense of the mood. And it was likely to be their fourth or fifth visit to the island in the past year. One Japanese freelancer told me it was his tenth visit in total.

Blogging over a few years also gives one the luxury of time. Time to unravel what you care about, what others care about and fuse and evolve. I like what Johnnie says...

There's a great principle in improv, that of letting yourself be changed. This encourages the actors to invest less energy in formulating a witity riposte, and more on joining their fellow actors and allowing their "feed line" to impact on them.

There's a parallel at work for bloggers - the value may not be the immediate impact of their words on the market, but how the conversation changes the blogger. As Hugh says, it may be a mistake to focus on using blogs to sell things; it's more about creating real engagement - where you are changed too.

I've met dozens, maybe a hundred, people in the last month - many of them worldly, bright, witty - and only a handful have heard of blogs and blogging. Of those, quite a few remark: "I don't get blogging" or "Blogs are a waste of time." Rather than be defensive, I'm keenly curious.

Yet they are all being changed regardless with or without blogging. One living in Hong Kong confides that everytime he travels (he tends to do expeditions in remote areas to build schools and the like) and comes back home he grows further apart from his longtime pub buddies. We're not like a stretched rubberband that reverts back to its former shape. Expanding your horizons in a village in Kenya or Bolivia or Thailand is mysteriously irreversible. It's not always easy, but personal change may mean that new friends appear in our lives and old friends drift away.

I love blogging....but I'm beginning to think that absolutely nothing beats travel if your aim truly is letting yourself be changed.

Tan: "Paradise is Inside"

Nearly half the staff of Maprao Resort - where I am staying now and was last year - fled from the island after the tsunami. The ones who stayed do not look out to sea just ten meters ahead and revisit the horrors of the past.

Alex and Gem from the U.K. were also guests at Maprao last year and they came back both as a profound 'thank you' to the staff that selflessly saved, kept watch for follow-on waves and looters, and fed them for days as well as "to banish any demons."

With resort owners Guy and Marie-Pia on a 9 a.m. ferry to Phuket, Tan was in charge December 26, 2004.

He noted that what had started as a postcard-perfect day was shifting. The sea in front of the restaurant was churning and getting darker in hue. He saw the water recede - he indicates a rock in the bay as we talk - and quickly surmised that what goes out must come back.

Tan yelled for the guests to get off the beach. A staff member's child, Nai, was mesmerized by the hopping fish exposed in the wide expanse of white sand and was about to rush out to grab one when Tan herded everyone to high ground.

Not a single person staying at Maprao that day had a scratch. (Although there was a close call: Australian Lach had arose when he heard the commotion below; he and his girlfriend, the bar manager, lived in a hut above the bar which is set apart, but that's a story for another day.)

The pattern I see emerging between the people that are thriving today and those that got caught up in depression, suicide, attempted murder, domestic violence and other conflict isn't random.

When the rubber met the road, they applied their philosophy of life to the situation without a second thought. In the context of Tan's life (I got the abbreviated version of his life story) what he did before, during, and after the tsunami was natural.

As a boy he climbed coconuts, worked on fishing boats from 5 p.m. to 7 a.m., and toiled in rubber plantations to help his family with income. The tsunami wasn't his first challenge.

"What will be, will be," says Tan when we first begin chatting. "You must keep your mind strong. If you cannot control yourself, you cannot help others."

Walking into town the day after tsunami for food for his guests, he was forced to walk over bodies. Living on the compact island for twenty-one years, he had many friends that lost their lives among the 2005 casualties (2005, or 2007, is the number I hear many locals quote).

In the aftermath, he became a monk for two months. It was something he'd always wanted to do and now, "it was the right time". He joined the temple monks in touring and praying in devastated areas such as Phi Phi and Khao Lak following the disaster.

As we sit at the bamboo table, Tan says, "If you do good, you have good." He takes the back of his palm - the one that was injured in a near-fatal truck accident ten years ago - and strikes it against the edge of the table so it rebounds. "If you do bad, you get bad." With that karmic gesture I can see how he conceived that a bay that quickly recedes must come back with a vengeance.

When he first saw the planes slamming into the twin towers on television he believed he was watching an action movie. Later, "I learn it was true." He doesn't understand how anyone can believe that killing others will lead them to paradise. "Paradise is inside," he pats his chest, "in the heart." And patting his crown, "And hell is in the mind."

An ebony-winged butterfly flutters past. He says that if he is tired or upset he cannot see its beauty, and another time the same butterfly brings him joy. So what is the difference? His mind.

He acknowleges that this is all: "Easy to speak, hard to make." But he's pretty clever. For instance, since one can't think clearly while embroiled in anger, he's asked his seven-year-old daughter to call him on it when she spots that he's strayed from calm-headedness.

His employer Guy says Tan is like a son to him. "In eighteen years, you see someone under a lot of situations where they are tested. Tan has never had a cross word with me. When we disagree we discuss it. When we need to leave Maprao, I never worry."

p.s. This post doesn't even begin to do justice to our conversation... When I get back home I'll write a longer piece that weaves in Tan's life. The photo is of Tan with his daughter.

Travelpod Folks Helped Me Distill Essence

Travelpod is an online community for independent travellers and they offer free travel blogs as well as other features like obtaining travel insurance. (Here's my companion Travelpod blog for TsunamiAnniversary.com - with more of a traveling pilgrim's theme.)

As my sole sponsor to date, Travelpod, asked me great questions in preparation of their press release. I also loved the way they didn't want me to emblazon myself with Travelpod logos or change anything at all at their behest. They simply believed in the vision and wanted to support it. Period. That simple. And for their support, I'm deeply grateful.

I wanted to share this fantastic example of honing questions to boil down your project, product or whatever you are telling the world to its essence. Then you have something to work with to chisel it down into a one-pager. Lifted from Brett at Travelpod's email message:

Set the stage

• I am... (describe yourself with emphasis on the travel component and the writing component of "you"... but no "why" material)
• I was... (specific words that place you in the tsunami region, touch on the physical impact on you, and return you to your home-base)
• I changed/learned... (words that describe how the experience affected you spiritually)
• I resolved... (words that describe your larger vision of a better world)
• I plan to... (words about the anniversary tour as an example of what you are doing to implement your larger vision)
• I hope... (words that describe the concrete results you are hoping to produce)

My answers are distilled here.

p.s. Thanks to Stowe Boyd of Corante for making the introduction. Corante has been generous contributor to TsunamiAnniversary.com as well. (Disclosure: I write for the Corante Marketing Hub...but the donations and introductions ultimately stem from our friendship.)