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Lipstick Queen on products and a point of view

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A couple of weeks ago I heard Poppy King participate in a panel discussion on doing business in the US.  She is Australian. 

When Poppy was barely out of high school, she invented her own line of lipsticks, marketed it, got it into the best stores and sold it to Estee Lauder.  She is finishing a book about the whole experience, scheduled for publication next year.  And she has a new company called Lipstick Queen.

Poppy remains very close to her original inspiration:  her love of lipstick and desire for a unique color range and consistency.  She has come up with a straightforward way to keep focused on the essence of her business [in the cadence of the wedding day ritual, "something borrowed, something blue…"].

Something simple
Something true
Something consistent and
Something with a point of view

Of course, the trick is, you have to understand and deliver "simple" and "true."  Without these realities, there’s no need for consistency or message.

I like how Poppy has taken an inanimate object and stressed the importance of having a point of view about it.  No matter how many times we have an example like this — whether it’s Lipstick Queen, Apple or a Web service — I like being reminded that putting a product out there deserves your attentiveness to what you want buyers to experience.

If you have a point of view — whatever your role in an enterprise — it will come across in every task you perform.  Your point of view is where differentiation begins.

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She’s geeky — are you?

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I’m excited about a brand-new gathering scheduled for late October:  She’s Geeky.  The plan is for women who are geeky, think they might be geeky or want to be geeky to get together outside the traditional conference box.

There are lots of interesting events planned for geeks these day — so many that we lose count.  The ones that are focused on attracting more women into the industry are certainly worthy of notice — but this one is going to be different.

First, it’s an un-conference. 

If this is the first time you’ve seen this term, it simply means that the detailed agenda will form at the event with the attendees contributing topics, participating actively in discussion and leading sessions.  This makes it possible to be flexible around emerging developments as well as help the cream of thought and experience rise to the top.

Second, for the first year at least, it’s going to be only women in attendance.

Normally, a lot of people, yours truly included, shy away from this protocol.  If the guys did a conference and said men only, we’d be up in arms, right?  But the fact is, without anyone even wanting it that way, it’s pretty much what is happening these days in technology.  And even though it’s not a conspiracy, until this day and age, a lot of girls never even thought to study engineering or computer science — or to consider going into a business that’s technology centric.  It’s been a man’s world because that’s who is mostly there.

This has an impact on how ideas are floated as well.  Which is why I’m looking forward to She’s Geeky. 

Today, many conferences follow established forms of communication — speaker to audience — and content determined by a few people.  It’s the command-and-control model.  Many of us are used to it and accept it as the best way to go. 

The women-only thing of She’s Geeky will expose and leverage another way of brainstorming and learning — something at which women excel:  conversation.  Insights and strategies will emerge organically, out of conversations that to the naked ear may seem random.  In the ensuing moments, however, attendees capture specific results and practices — and tailor them to their goals and vision.

So:  if you’re in or interested in technology and you’re female, come to She’s Geeky.  Join the conversation that is technology.

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Why Anita Roddick was a leader

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Carleen Hawn, on FoundRead, provides an excellent analysis of why Anita Roddick achieved success on both humanitarian and market levels.

Sylvia Paull shares a personal essay.

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In memory

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The sacrifice.

The significance.

The call to action.

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Nessun dorma

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Just last week I was telling some colleagues from Italy how I first knew who Luciano Pavarotti was.

It was in Rome, my sophomore year of college, during a class on the fundamentals of opera.  Most of the curriculum was devoted to groundbreakers like Bellini’s Norma.  Wow, was that painful.

The reward, however, came with studying Puccini’s Turandot.  It’s the story of a Chinese princess who presents each suitor with a riddle.  If he answers it correctly, he wins her hand.  If he screws up, she has his head chopped off.  [I wonder if they have that option on match.com or eScarmony.]

Anyway, besides being the perfect story for a bunch of students from a midwestern women’s college located near a macho football powerhouse — we were ready for Turandot’s methodology — the music was divine.  And of course, the best aria is for the prince who comes along and shows Turandot she has met her match.  Nessun dorma.

The recording we studied was Pavarotti’s.  We didn’t know what he looked like or what else he had done.  We loved the aria so much we would throw open the windows of our dorm rooms in the Hotel Tiziano, play it on full volume and sing along with Luch. 

The rest of the non-operatic world discovered the aria during the 1990 World Cup.  It was a little sad when the song that so enchanted our tight crew of young women became everyone’s favorite song that year.

Mr Pavarotti inhabited the aria.  I remember talking about it with Grandma Lucy, whose most prized possession was her collection of Caruso recordings.  She believed that no one had a voice like Caruso. 

We agreed that Pavarotti must be my generation’s Caruso.  A talent not just for the technical but for conveying the lyric as if he had written the words himself.

Riposa in pace.