The Crow’s Nest
It’s not about giving the smartest answer… it’s about asking the sharpest questions.
More seafood into more kitchens.
Join me on the journey through the blue economy as I explore thoughts, probe questions, and share personal reflections.
Lets take a deeper dive to look at our relationship with seafood and the blue economy
Catch of the Day
Today’s Freshest News
The Fall of Icarus and The Chasm
Standing at the edge, looking across the gap, leaders in the seafood industry are asking variations of the same question “How do we make it across successfully?”
In an attempt to position our brand in the marketplace, we run the risk of, as Icarus himself, flying too high; concentrating on our product merely as a functional element.
The Demise of an Empire, A New Sun Rises
Today, breaking out of the traditional mold and restructuring business models doesn’t carry the same risks that it did a couple of decades ago; we have much more freedom to test markets and products with minimal capital and scale accordingly when we strike a winning market-product match.
Albeit, this type of freedom and prosperity has its price; the price of talking with our consumers. The price of building and marketing our brand.
The Rhythm of Lovemarks
Stepping on toes, elbows to the head, awkward looks, and just an overwhelming feeling of being lost. An unearthly flow, a synchronized momentary chaos, an unexpected sway of the hips that leads to an embrace, and a blissful feeling of connection. You experience one or the other but you cannot experience both; either you look out at the dance floor and feel terror or you see an opportunity to improvise and connect.
Wandering the Stale Plains of Consumer Markets
Let us imagine living in a world devoid of meaning, one in which our only purpose is to produce an output that functions as an input for a system; the byproduct being our very existence. I am not the first to envision this dystopian scenario; many authors, scientists and philosophers have questioned life and its purpose. Theories varying from insignificance to the functional even up to the divine and transcendental; the purpose of life apparently continues to evade consensus.
Lust in a World Thirsty for Love
Stealing a million dollar painting is useless unless you have someone who can find the right buyer, a fence. They themselves do not commit the crimes, but have access to a network of potential consumers. Utilizing their insight into a network, they are able to choose what items are best suited for their network and which ones don’t make the cut: quality, perceived value, functionality, features.
Why can’t thieves just directly access their market? Consumers of reallocated goods have specific needs: anonymity, privacy, time restraints; they prefer to bypass the promise of a lower price offered by a “direct seller” and pay a premium for their products by paying the middle man who offers them the complete value that they are looking for.
The Bleeding Edge of Utilitarian Marketing.
Beauty has no place in a world that only values the utilitarian and rejects all which it does not understand or which requires patience. Pages in magazines, hours of videos on Youtube, photos on social media, and entire websites demonstrate how their products work for us in our daily lives. In his 2009 documentary film, Roger Scruton, a philosopher, questions what the use is for a friendship? What is the use of an engaging conversation? You’re not going to use it for an end, but a certain warmth that radiates from the love, the beauty of empathy and compassion envelops you. What is the use of music? Why do we feel overwhelmed with emotions whenever we hear a piano sonata or a violin suite?
We have lived a life deprived from the freedom to search out beauty, markets are inundated with utilitarian products and services. We find ourselves in a world that lacks compassion, where our channels of communication are saturated with solutions to evermore complex problems that originate from deeper needs. A world without beauty is a world that is ill.
An Oasis of Empathy and Compassion in a Desert of Indifference.
Finding the proper formula in order to attract customers to our businesses’ front door has proven itself a unique challenge. How do we motivate and invite them to leave the relative safety and comfort of their homes without looking tone deaf to the realities that we are all living?
It is true, our clients, and society at large, expect all businesses to participate in caring for people’s health; so, if this is the case then I just want to ask: “Why do you invest your capital resource, which is already stressed, into repeating to your customers that you are taking care of them?” No one is going to give you a standing ovation for it, it’s the least that they expect from you.
