Aug 2009
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Posted August 31, 2009
As a parent it is a relief to have kids back at school and back on schedule, with someone else providing expectations and structure, other than just me. My kids sure get tired of hearing Dad and Mom telling them what to do, when to do it, and why. I have a question for you: Why is it there is so little innovation and so few interesting new products for this buying season - just more spiral bounds and #2s? Gee whiz, whose watch is it, who is driving the ship? What kind of industry has no innovation? Surely this is an opportunity for a Wham-O-type company, a wildly innovative maker of school supplies, to appear and make fabulous new products that sell as, with, and alongside school supplies. As I recently surveyed the stripped-bare school supply shelves the most interesting thing I saw was glitter decorated pencils. As an inventor I wonder where are the motors, the gears, mechanisms, things that spin, shake, lights, actions, sounds, something, anything? Parents magazine has a lot to say about back-to-school preparations that is far more useful to parents than my lament. And, I wish I could find ratings and recommendations to guide my back to school shopping. Does someone make a better pen or pencil, or a better notebook? Or are they all the same? To all you school supply companies, I invite you to talk with us about innovation, magic, and novelty that might be added to your products to give them a little stand-out on the shelf, something to talk about. How bout a tinkertoys-like construction system that uses #2 pencils, or decorate-my-own pencils that you color yourself, or games played bouncing pink pearl erasers into a bucket like ski ball? (Note: if you use any of these ideas, we would certainly appreciate a royalty on them!) |
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Posted August 27, 2009
So I learned of this too-good-to-be-true client request via Blackberry and head back to the office to see what could be done. I call and email the designer on vacation, no response. By the time I get back to the office, which is all quiet because almost everyone else is gone for the week, I find our young designer already working on the prototype that is desperately needed ASAP, and it is looking GOOD! I mean it looks fun, cute, funny, spunky, verrry niiiice, man. Fine as wine in the summertime.
See? “Performance Rises to Meet Demand.”
And it goes out on time, the client loves it, they are impressed that we were able to turn it around so quickly and they hope to get back regarding a license agreement within the week. As I said before, Un Phreeaking Believable. Yo, Adrian! You da Man, C! Oughtta make a movie out of this.
And, get this: when I went in, our office manager, the lovely miss J, is in the shop, feet up on a workbench, far from her day-to-day front office perch, and she is making a brand new sample of the other requested prototype. She has taken a skin, and is hand sewing to make a brand new prototype. I didn’t know she could do that! Whatever am I to do about this? What great intiative. Not in her job description. Holy mackerel, you coulda knocked me over with the proverbial balogna sandwich. Oh, and the prototype she made - it looked great and it shipped out on time. It will be a great line of plush products one day. J, you da bomb! Performance rose to meet demand! At such times you may see those around you rise to demand, to become workplace, hometown, or battlefield heroes. You guys are Wonderful! Thus we live to fight another day. It doesn’t matter how hard you can hit, but how many times you can get knocked down and get back up again. |
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Posted August 26, 2009
Superheroes in the workplace - Keep your eyes open, and you will find them.
Last Friday I was out, as was most of the rest of the office. Only one designer and our office manager were manning the ramparts, as the battle to survive and thrive raged on all around. By the rockets read glare, the bombs bursting in air, and all that . . . business is war - don’t forget that. An urgent client request comes in that morning, following a great meeting earlier in the week. The client loved two of our toys, wanted samples of both shipped to them, and needed one of them ASAP for a late 2010 opportunity. YESSSSS! Good things happen to those who do something. Wish I knew what it was. A quick assessment was done, and one prototype was pronounced non-functional, and the other was out with a client and unavailable. Egads! What to do? Miss a great, miraculous, save-the-company opportunity because the designer of the products was out on vacation? Miss the opportunity to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat? As my mother would say, "For want of a nail, the horse was lost, for want of a horse the battle was lost." It is just such a situation as this that can be traced backwards as the cause of the failure of many an enterprise, I promise you. One small opportunity missed, one error left uncorrected, one O-ring problem on a booster engine resulting in catastrophic failure. Luckily, “Performance rises to meet demand.” (one of my favorite quotes from German professor Herr Novak). Heroes are made and not born. They are all around us, performing small acts of every day heroism. Maybe you are cut from the same inestimable cloth? |
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Posted August 25, 2009
Everyday heroes are everywhere.
We are toy designers and inventors, and here at Lund and Company Invention, L.L.C. we have a first rate, top drawer, A-1 team of designers, inventors, electronic geniuses, and office staff. I am here to tell you, they are the best. And then there is me, the Chief Dork, Dweeb, Nerd, and Bottlewasher. My team deserves the credit for all that we accomplish. The blame, when we fall short of a client’s expectations or otherwise fail in our pursuit of excellence, is all mine. Even with such a great team, on occasion I am astonished and astounded by the work, effort, and results that members of our team create. Case in point: Last Friday I took the day off (I really need to do that more often), though I popped in and out throughout the day . . . |
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Posted August 20, 2009
Merry Christmas! Twenty and some years ago, in early Fall, I got a call at the office on behalf of the Big Brothers - Big Sisters of Chicago, to order some magazines to support them. I had been Santa in my 5th grade play, and being in the toy business, I ‘toyed’ with the hope and dream of one day (ie: visualized this outcome), being Santa again, providing and handing out gifts to deserving girls and boys.
So I told the BBBS ‘no thanks’ on the magazines, but asked if they needed someone to provide toys, and maybe even be Santa for them at the holidays. Turns out they did. Their current Santa was not available, and the sponsor that was providing toys and gifts was no longer providing for them. Bingo. We got the job. Funny how visualizing these things works.
No wonder they lost Santa and donor. They didn’t deserve the appellation ‘organization’ they were so disorganized. I had to explain on more than one occasion to my team of Elves, (the best Elves south of the North Pole by the way), when they came away annoyed, frustrated and swearing never to do the Big Brothers thing again, that it was not about the organization, it was all about the kids. Somehow we kept coming back year after year. Thank you, thank you, and thank you again to all of you who over the last two decades and counting have so generously donated the toys and games that have gone to less fortunate children throughout the Chicago area. Friends and colleagues from Hasbro, Mattel, Pressman, Jakks, Spinmaster and many others come to mind as regular and generous partners in this endeavor. Thank you. And once again, the wheel turns, the cycle begins. Ready or not, you will be hearing from us soon, as the 2009 Big Brothers - Big Sisters holiday party is already scheduled for December 5th. They are a real organization these days, run by professionals, and, well, organized. However much we like the new and improved Big Brothers - Big Sisters, it has always been about the kids. The Big Brothers and Big Sisters serve the kids in a way that no other organization does. We are proud to be a part of what they do. Come join us - be a guest Elf. Auditions will be held soon. Stay posted. |
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Posted August 19, 2009
How many of us have the moral fortitude to do what this man did, over so great a time, in the face of so many likely temptations, and the wrath of one’s own kin? What is the ‘take away’ from this tale? What is the message for you?
Perhaps as corporate citizens responsible to our constituency, which is the consumer, we can be as honorable and dependable, dedicated to serve those who will buy and use our products, no matter how difficult it may be at times or how insistent the reasons to compromise or give in. Perhaps we too can never waver in our intent, never be distracted from what is important.
We can serve man, not Mammon. We can serve the consumer first, not the stockholder, because serving the consumer is the best and only long term business strategy. We can put great product first and profit after that. To put profit before great product is a recipe for disaster. Perhaps as an industry we are still suffering the consequence of that strategy of profit first, a strategy that led to massive product recalls and damage to our industry that will take years to recover from, maybe decades. We can serve the consumer by creating great products because the consumers, all of them, deserve our best and they deserve to have the best that we can create. No excuses accepted. And doing so we can rebuild the consumer trust and the trust of our retailers, as well. We can be that honorable man, never losing sight of our obligation, our mission, and our goal, which is to create great product that people want to have because great toys excite, delight, inspire, educate and ultimately changes hearts, minds and the world we all live in. Great toys help shape the world that our children’s children’s children will inherit from us. That is how we need to run our businesses and our industry now and in the future. |
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Posted August 18, 2009
For more than 60 years the national treasures of China sat in storage deep below New York City in a subterranean bank vault. The man made a life for himself here in the US, and waited, and waited. He raised a family during that time. A few years ago the call finally came, and the Chinese government asked him to return its national treasures, treasures that would fetch billions upon billions if sold on the market. To protect the treasures all this time they had been held in this man's name, and his name alone, so that no illegitimate Chinese government could reclaim them. He made plans to carefully pack and ship this incredible treasure trove, a royal collection of over 5000 years of Chinese arts, back to China. But when his family learned of these treasures - that they were stored in his name and were essentially his to do with as he wished, and that he planned to return every one to his homeland - they became angry. They wanted to keep the treasures for themselves. This honorable man, in whose hands were entrusted the accumulated treasures of many centuries, returned his country's national treasure to Beijing as instructed. His family here in the US disowned him. He lives today in China, an esteemed citizen of China on a government pension. |
Posted August 17, 2009
Ever hear a story that so amazed you, you thought they should make a movie out of it? I'm not sure about the moral of this story, but I am quite sure there is one. I may not have all the details exact, but the story is true, as told to me by a good friend. My friend met a man who told him the tale of his life. As a young man, during the Boxer Rebellion (I believe) the government was teetering and afraid that the priceless national treasures of China, representing more than five thousand years of accumulated wealth and antiquities would be lost forever - plundered, destroyed, looted, irretrievably lost for all time. This honorable man was asked by government officials to take the treasure out of China and hold it somewhere safe and secure for a few years until the chaos subsided and the treasures, whose value cannot be told, might be returned once more to their rightful home in China. Years passed. Decades passed, and still the call did not come for him to return the treasure to the motherland . . . |
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Posted August 14, 2009
Summer is almost over - so short, so sweet. While not yet over, summer already appears in the rearview mirror. I have a motorcycle trip around Lake Ontario coming up soon, and I can’t wait to hit the road and end summer with the roar of the engine and the sound of wind in my ears. The October Toy Fair looms close. The cycle begins anew. Clients begin to talk about product for 2012. I should live so long. Actually, my plan is to live to be 100 and something, and I think 125 has a nice sound to it. The news out there is cautiously positive. Economic meltdown appears to have bottomed out, sentiment is improving, toy companies are licensing product again. Whew! This has been a nerve-wracking few months. |
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Posted August 13, 2009
A few weeks back I wrote about the power of Walmart over the toy industry, and as an industry we need to get out from under that thumb. If Walmart ever decides to get out of toys altogether, we will all get a nice long holiday on the same beach, all of us out of work. So while all are scrambling to find new avenues of distribution, new shelves to occupy and new check out lines to go through, somewhere, someone is working on a new toy retail concept ‘killer app.’ I hope. In 1979 Sears was the top retailer in the world, and all toy companies came to Chicago to see them and show their wares. Very convenient for Marvin Glass and Associates, as they all stopped in each time they were in town to see the madman and his marvelous toys. Fast forward 30 years, and Sears is the walking dead of retailers. And what was once a little known store from the deep south has eaten everyone's lunch and dinner at retail. But things change, and one day another will challenge and overtake Walmart's dominance. I hope. Did you know that Schwan's sells frozen foods door to door out of their distinctive trucks? Billions of dollars worth each year, in fact. Good Humor and others have shown that truck based sales, and going to the consumer where they live, into the neighborhoods works. I think it is time for the Door to Door Toy Store, an iconic Willy-Wonka-on-Wheels Truck with built in video monitors on the sides, that is one part entertainment, one part store, one part delivery truck and 100% marketing. Online, by phone, and everything delivered right to your door, and many smaller, lower price items available on the truck. Seasonal, sports, and other specialty trucks might round out the fleet, but I see hundreds, even thousands of trucks plying highways, byways, avenues, and cul-de-sacs, in cities and small towns across the country, bringing toys and more, saving you a trip to the big box store. We need some fresh thinking. We need some new ways to reach the consumer. It is time for a change. The Door to Door Toy Store is one way. I hope. |
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Posted August 12, 2009
State Fair time! You've got two choices in life. Love it or hate it. Be happy or be miserable. You decide, no one else gives a rat’s ass (with the possible exception of your mother, and those around you who you will make miserable too, if that is your choice. Oh, and please pardon the vernacular.). When I moved to Chicago over 30 years ago I knew I would hate living in a big city, and so I did. I was miserable until I got over my self-generated conviction that I hated living in a big city. Letting that thought go, I was able to embrace Chicago, explore life in the city, and come to love this, the greatest city on Earth. When I lived in Texas I knew many transplanted Easterners that hated Texas. But I embraced the food, the culture, and loved it. Those that could not embrace it were miserable. Their choice. Bad choice. As an apprentice leatherworker I was forced to listen to country music all day, every day as we worked and sweated in the summer heat of Durham, NC. Slowly I began to know the songs, the singers, to appreciate the stories being told in song, and the rich history of the individual artists, the music and the traditions. I came to love country music, once I was able to listen and give up hating it and rejecting it. It is truly wonderful, like Russian literature, and an acquired taste that will reward the aquiring. Give it a chance, you may come to love it, too. As a Dad, driving with my kids, I have been forced to listen to Hip Hop and Rap, an anathema to middle age white males like moi, and to my astonishment, I have come to love it. It contains wonderful stories, humor, rhythm, innovative sound - simply amazing. Like anything and everything else, much is mediocre, a bit is pure drek, and some of the music is truly inspired. It is probably the most innovative and interesting music genre today. We just have to get out of our own way - to sit back and judge is to distance and estrange ourselves from a musical genre, or a religion, or a race of people, or family, friends, coworkers and acquaintances. To estrange ourselves leads to unhappiness. An unhappy sense of ‘better than thou,’ but lonely. So it is State Fair time in Wisconsin. "Ohhhh, how boring," I often hear people say. Get over it. Get up, get out, and go to the fair. I guarantee you will love it, or your money back. (Please note small print: the foregoing is an expression, and not a real guarantee to return any portion of your expenses related to travel or attendance at the WI or any other State Fair. Void in some states, please check local regulations, and batteries not included. Some assembly may be required.) |
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Posted August 11, 2009
On Wisdom, and "Blink" thinking: We invite you to use us to help you be more successful. I have been 25 years in the business of making business, personnel, and product decisions, using long-term and in-depth analysis, as well as instantaneous judgments. These many years of experience enable me to make rapid decisions and insightful evaluations. I do not intend to brag, but I believe that I am simply stating fact. Intentional thinking, experience, and thoughtful observation and analysis, lead to wisdom. If you are a start-up toy company, a small company, or part of one of the majors, I believe that you will benefit profoundly from our sharing our wisdom with you. I recall walking into a splashy new toy company several years ago and seeing no long-term future for them. They were all sizzle and no steak, and now they are no more. I see many toy companies that are doomed to struggle in the underbrush, barely surviving year to year, and I could help them if they would but ask. I believe that we could bring critical evaluation of what they are doing that works, and what they are doing that doesn’t - fresh thinking and ideas that could lead to a greater magnitude of success. I believe that the wisdom we have acquired over 25 years and more can be of enormous value to toy companies large and small. As a team we bring more than 100 years of toy industry experience. We can provide insight, fresh eyes, honest opinions and the unvarnished truths that cannot be had from in-house associates. We know mechanisms, we know electronics, we know how to develop scripting, imbue product with personality and play patterns, we know play value. We know technologies, and we know what has worked or not in the last 30 years. We can contribute, not just as a purveyor of new product concepts, but as fresh eyes to help one survive, transform and grow, assuming a company is willing and able, and interested in change - and most are not, just as most people are not willing to change. You want to be successful. We can help. WE UNDER PROMISE AND OVER DELIVER. SATISFACTION GUARANTEED. |
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Posted August 10, 2009
Malcolm Gladwell has written a terrific and thought-provoking book on human decision making and the power of the instantaneous impression and decisions, as well as the scientific basis for how it is actually done. It is not magic, but the astonishingly rapid processing of information that the educated human brain is capable of. Corporations labor over decisions. It is their duty to their shareholders to be able to document their decision making processes. Entrepreneurs make gut decisions. This is the subject of the thesis of the book Blink. These instant and intuitive decisions can be shown to be no less informed by fact, experience, and observation than those that are labored over for hours, days, weeks, or longer. And they are no less accurate, in fact, more so in many of his anecdotal recountings. A funny bit of toy history has to do with a long defunct Cincinnati toy company executive in charge of product testing. He was very successful at delivering key insights on which a certain company made decisions on products being brought to market. He was let go for reasons long since lost in the dust of time, but afterwards they found many uncashed checks in his drawer, made out to what was found to be a fictional product testing company. Aside from the fact that the toy testing facilitiy didn’t exist, they provided a great deal of good research results that enable this major toy company to reign for a number of years as one of the most successful in the biz. |
Posted August 7, 2009
Take two of these, and call me next year. Rx for the toy industry from the Doctor of Fun. 1. Toy industry - Formulate a message to the public on the profound importance and impact of toys on children, and as children become adults, the profound impact of toys and play on adults. As adults run the world, make discoveries, change society, influence politics and thinking, toys impact our world more than any other product category. Frank Lloyd Wright, and the Wright Brothers concur on the power of toys on their lives. Toys matter! 2. Retailers - Wake up and smell the Peppermind Candi caaines! (note: clever intentional misspelling to get your attention) Do not market toys in the boring manner in which you currently are doing. Make the toy department special, magical. If you can’t do it, I will take a year off and do it for you - one by one, in Walmarts, Targets, and even Sears/Kmarts across the country. Market to that part of the consumer's psyche for which toys still are magical and laden with powerful emotional content. |
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Posted August 6, 2009
Toys are not like dishware or hand soap. Who has fond memories of pots and pans from their youth? Who has dreams of shampoos and fingernail brushes dancing around in their heads? No one does. But who has fond memories of toys from their childhood, and who has not had dreams of Christmas magic, Santa and other holiday fantasies like sugarplums dancing in their minds? Toys are different. Toys are laden with powerful emotional content and context. Ergo, toys should not be merchandised like pots and pans and hand soap. To do so takes away from the magic and wonderment of the toys themselves, and prevents the consumer from referencing their own fond memories of toys, play, holidays, Christmas and all the powerful emotions associated with these things. Retailers need to wake up to the opportunity to speak and market more directly to that part of the consumer psyche. Walmart and others are missing the essence of what toys are to all of us, and missing sales and revenues as a result. Walmart doesn’t get it. Target doesn’t get it. Toys are not being marketed properly. Toys are being under-marketed. Retailers do not acknowlege and take advantage of the power toys have over each of us to rekindle positive memories and emotions, particularly during holiday seasons. What would it take to transform the toy department to a special place year round, perhaps even a place of wonder and magic at the holidays? And what would be the payoff in that investment? |
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Posted August 5, 2009
Do you remember department store toy departments and sitting on Santa’s lap as a child? I certainly do. I recall being heartbroken when Marshall Fields discontinued their magical toy department - a place of wonder that seemed like it was transported directly from Santa’s North Pole complex complete with Santa Claus himself (also my boss, and idol). The demise of the department store may well have been accelerated by the elimination of their toy department and consumers no longer having the toy departments as destinations. Frankly, I think it was the key to their downfall. No toy store today captures the magic of a department store toy department. Instead of eliminating their toy department, Walmart needs to make it a magical place, different than the laundry and bleach section, more wonderful than plumbing. They could create several aisles of whimsy, magic and wonder that the consumer would want to enter and dawdle in, remembering their childhoods and dreams of toys. And at the Holidays, crank it up a notch on the wonder and whimsy scale. If Walmart wishes, we will gladly consult on this transformation. Cutting SKUs and cutting the toy department is not the way to serve their customers, who all have children and grandchildren, nieces and nephews that love to play with toys! Who doesn’t love to peruse the toy aisle in Walgreens and other drug stores? My heart leaps when I see an aisle of toys in a home supply store like Menards. Toys are fun, and it always gladdens my heart to see them on the store shelf, especially when by surprise, other than in a toy store or toy department. There has never been more opportunity in retailing toys than today. Buy toys, they are an investment in joy and happiness. Every toy creates at least a mile of smile, one face at a time. |
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Posted August 4, 2009
We all put our pants on one leg at a time, but when we put our heads together we become, collectively, the brainpower of a genius. We have seen this time and again when we work in close collaboration as a team internally, as well as when we work hand in hand with our client companies. The best product comes out of that teamwork. When we have done this, better product resulted. Better product than would have resulted without that close collaboration and teamwork. TMX Elmo, TumbleTime Tigger, All Ears Eeyore, and the Hydrogen Fuel Rocket are all products that came to market as the result of close and often intense collaboration. The Toy Industry can collaborate its way to greatness. Collaborate, Innovate, If you make it Great, they will come. And retailers will have to have these products on their shelves because consumers will be looking for them.
Now I am a product guy, and great product is part of the solution, a big part. But genius-level marketing will be equally important. As an industry we are undershooting our potential and letting our business be taken away from us. That would be a disservice to children and to the world at large. Toys are bigger and more important than mere playthings for children. Toys inspire, educate and fascinate our young, and as a result they are engines of cultural innovation, progress, discovery, and change. Toys Matter. Play is important business! |
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Posted August 3, 2009
Whenever the toy industry has a hit product, Rubic’s Cube, Tickle Me Elmo, Cabbage Patch, TMX Elmo and others come to mind, all benefit. All retailers, all manufacturers, everyone benefits as the spotlight is shone on toys and all eyes are drawn to the must-have product, and the consumer buys other toys and non toy products along with. We need to create great products that no retailer can be without. The competition for dollars is too great. And we can’t do it alone. Alone we are not good enough. Neither the toy companies nor ourselves are able to do it often enough. We need to raise the bar on the wonderfulness quotient, the “WQ” of all new toys. Now more than ever collaboration between toy companies and inventors like ourselves is needed to deliver the best product to market that our collective genius can produce. If you have a better approach, please let me know. I have seen this work. Together we can create the rising tide that floats all boats. |
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