John Drake

The Importance of Mastering the Fundamentals

"At the very center--the heart of the structure--is skill. Skill, as it pertains to basketball, is the knowledge and the ability quickly and properly to execute the fundamentals. Being able to do them is not enough. They must be done quickly. And being able to do them quickly isn't enough either. They must be done quickly and precisely at the right time. You must learn to react properly, almost instinctively."

From They Call Me Coach.

One of the best books on life, leadership and teamwork I believe there is.

Ideas of the Week

As always, I'm sure I missed some great stuff. But of the ideas I did happen to catch, here are some worth spending extra time with...

Fitzroy High School, Melbourne / McBride Charles Ryan / Redesign. Terrific.

BMW / Publicis, Singapore / Joy Interactive Building. Reportedly, this is the first interactive 3-D building projection in Asia.

SONY / Anomaly, London / 3-D TV. An interesting manner to show what most are missing. 

TCH / ACCESS / Indoor Drive-In Cinema. The Cool Hunter has created an agency, Access, who will be producing innovative brand experiences for the likes of MINI, Puma, Virgin and more in various cities across the globe in 2010.

KIWI / Blast Radius / Kiwi Collection. Beauty and intuitiveness working together wonderfully on this booking site for some of the world's finest hotels. (Be sure to check out the photo gallery.)

Sixty Five Words of Enthusiasm

The year is 1923.

Briton Hadden and Henry Luce are describing their new magazine, TIME, to a bunch of potential investors.

This is how they describe it:

It will contain all the news on every sphere of human interest, and the news organized. There will be articles on politics, books, sport, scandal, science, society, and no article will be longer than 200 words. [It would] serve the illiterate upper classes, the busy business man, the tired debutante, to the prepare them at least once a week for table conversation.  (via)

That's pretty specific. And it can't help but be presented with enthusiasm.

What if all new products were required to have a 65-word description of enthusiasm in order to launch?

Some do. Many do not.

Even if the dollars and cents of a new product opportunity penciled out, if 65 words of unique enthusiasm couldn't be mustered, is the idea differentiated enough for long-term success??