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If you’re a fan of The Fray, then you’ll like this band. I love it!

The movie was over 45 minutes ago, and I am still on edge. It was that good.

Seriously, if you want to feel that true survival instinct (and possibly have cardiac arrest), go see this movie. If I don’t have nightmares tonight, there is something wrong with me. But trust me, that’s a good thing. :)

I borrowed Waiting for Your Cat to Bark?: Persuading Customers When They Ignore Marketing from my boss. Now I want to buy a copy for myself so I can digest it more fully.

This is a great introduction to basing your customer experience on personas. If you can analyze your customers to the level where you can write specific stories about them, you can base a better experience on basing it on their needs. You end up creating 3-7 “personas,” stories about specific people that frequent your customer experiences.

The authors have created a system called “Persuasion Architecture.” It’s a Six Sigma process where you uncover your customers’ personas, design an entire experience that caters to these personas’ needs, and then optimize the experience.

The book does a great job of teaching high level concepts and the “why’s” of adopting such an involved process. But they never really get to the “how” of the process. I’m kind of glad that they didn’t cover this because the book would have been much longer. I’d like to innovate on my own instead of adopting their exact process anyway.

All of the newest topics about marketing are about being remarkable, innovative, accountable, and transparent. This book fits right in. Highly recommended.

My boss and I became interested in this book after seeing a teaser presentation on the Web.

This book is a quick read that leaves you with a lot. Once you’ve flipped through, you’ve learned what a brand really is and how to create an effective one.

I think the book falls in line with Seth Godin’s tenet that “everyone in the company is a marketer.” Everyone in your company contributes to its brand. If accounting is late on paying a bill, that department has left an impression about its culture on whomever was effected. Your company’s brand is not just its logo. It’s how people experience interactions with your company.

I love this kind of stuff because it discourages companies from cutting corners. A company best be concerned with its value and customer experience, or else it will be yet another story to tell about failed companies.

Everyone’s becoming a commodity, but some are not perceived as so. As a person and a company, how are you being perceived?

I agree with my friend Eric Myers’s sentiments that this book is basically a 70-page blog post by Seth Godin.

That aside, I see this book as being useful for someone who wants or needs a career change. The book forces you to question which pursuits you should continue. It also forces you to think about the ugly inverse of continuing—quitting. If you’re not on your way to being #1 for your pursuit, is it even worth continuing?

I’m actually glad that I’ve been forced to ask those questions of myself. It helps bring things into perspective.

I ultimately recommend this book. Bonus that it’s a short one!

I agree that this movie is fluff, and it is entertaining enough to sit down for a couple hours and watch it.

I wish I could leave it there, but I just can’t. At least a few people were involved with creating this story and then deciding if the movie should have been made. They decided what the movie should be about. Seriously, what were they thinking?

Actually, the movie starts out wonderfully. There are men that don’t quite get how to act around the women that they are attracted to. Our boy Hitch does a great job of coaching them to have confidence and to get noticed by the ladies.

SPOILER WARNING:

But the movie ends by completely dismissing that these men needed help. “Just be yourself, and that’s OK. No need for improvement. The improvement has actually gotten in the way. Be a groveling, whiny bitch, and it’ll work out!”

Bah-low-nee! There is some truth to the “be yourself” part, but you are not helping yourself if you don’t have the confidence to stand out and get your potential mate’s attention.

So watch it for entertainment and amusement. And take advice from the story when it’s not advocating that you rid yourself of your masculinity. But mostly watch it for entertainment and amusement.

This is one of the funniest movies I’ve seen in a while. It had some very Little Miss Sunshine-esque moments, but mainly because the humor was dark at times.

The characters were very lovable and character development was amazing.

Go see this if you’re in the mood for a good laugh and something different.

Dave Attell and Greg Giraldo are spot on during this show. Sean Rouse and Dane Cook are pretty funny, but this isn’t their best work.

If I were to choose who to label “funniest,” it would definitely be Greg. My girlfriend and I were laughing our asses off during his entire set. He lays into a topic and keeps going and going. His energy is fantastic!

I hate giving up on things, but I just couldn’t read this. I wasn’t enjoying it at all.