Communicating innovation | Suzanne Zurn

Recorded in September 2022, a Brigadoon Monthly Call with Suzanne Zurn.

Suzanne builds and strengthens teams to tell stories.

A highly qualified professional in building, organizing, and directing teams gained from leading integrated marketing communications at seven companies experiencing growth or a business transformation.

Talented in consultative advising across the organization to develop strategic communications recommendations and action plans that achieve corporate goals, realize cost savings, drive increased sales and client retention and improve team performance and job satisfaction.

Currently, Suzanne is leading communications and marketing at the National Security Innovation Network.

The National Security Innovation Network is an unrivaled problem-solving network that adapts to the emerging needs of those who serve in the defense of America's national security.

The National Security Innovation Network is dedicated to the work of bringing together defense, academic, and entrepreneurial innovators to solve national security problems in new ways.

Notes:

National Security Innovation Network Web

NSIN Releases Year in Review - FY21 Web

Innovation + Storytelling

Innovation:

Implementation

New idea

Adds value

Storytelling:

Narrative

Sequence of events

True or fictional

The Hero's Journey TV Tropes

"Understanding your customer's philosophical problem"

Nespresso: Redefining the experience of coffee lovers!! The Strategy Story

Tesla Marketing Strategy: A brief overview BRM

My StoryBrand Worksheets Web

Building a StoryBrand - Donald Miller Amazon

Weekend Language - Andy Craig Amazon

Smart Brevity - Jim VandeHei, Mike Allen + Roy Schwartz Amazon

No negativity allowed | Ann + Sid Mashburn

Recorded in August 2022, a Brigadoon Monthly Call with Ann + Sid Mashburn.

Ann Mashburn started her career on the editorial side of fashion at Conde Nast. She served as an assistant to famed Vogue fashion editor and stylist Polly Mellen, which meant lots of running around and schlepping samples, but also working on photo shoots with some of the greats: Richard Avedon and Irving Penn on one side of the camera, Christy Turlington and Cindy Crawford on the other (to name a few).

She left Vogue to serve as Glamour's fashion editor, and then as a stylist at J.Crew a few years later. Ann took a break from the world of tearsheets and photo shoots to raise her daughters, but jumped back in when she and Sid moved to Atlanta to open the shop in 2007.

Sid was also in the fashion industry, working as a designer (J.Crew, Ralph Lauren, Tommy Hilfiger, Lands’ End.) Since meeting in their early 20s, they’d known that whether it was making mix tapes or throwing parties, what they really loved wasn’t just creating things, but sharing them with others. They may not have known it at the time, but they spent the first 20-something years together laying the creative groundwork for a brand of their own.

Sid Mashburn is an American fashion designer and head of his eponymous brand based in Atlanta.

Sid had always wanted to build a menswear brand. But from the records playing to the rugs underfoot to the ephemera pinned to the moodboard, his dream was as much about the physical space to share it in as the clothing itself.

Hospitality, not just design.

The brand has brick-and-mortar stores in Houston, Dallas, Washington DC (Georgetown), and Los Angeles (Brentwood) with the main store in Atlanta's Westside Provisions District.

Sid Mashburn grew up in small-town Mississippi but began his design career in New York in the mid-1980s, as J.Crew’s first men’s designer.

His interest in tailoring and vintage clothing (and love of the hunt) made up for his lack of formal design training, and he designed the brand’s first heritage piece—the Barn Jacket.

He was later recruited by Ralph Lauren to join the design team at Polo, and after subsequent stints leading design at Tommy Hilfiger and Lands’ End, it was time to do his own thing.

His wife Ann had been on the editorial side of fashion, working in magazines at Condé Nast (Vogue, Glamour) and then as a stylist at J.Crew.

Since meeting in their early 20s, they’d known that whether it was making mix tapes or throwing parties, what they really loved wasn’t just creating things, but sharing them with others.

They may not have known it at the time, but they spent the first 20-something years together laying the creative groundwork for a brand of their own.

You can follow Ann Mashburn on Instagram here and follow Sid Mashburn on Instagram here.

Notes:

"Clothes stores and restaurants are both hospitality businesses and customer-centric."

"Being surrounded by excellence."

Familiarity + Surprise

"How do we make the store a wonderland?"

The Soap Opera: Serving you natural and luxury bath and grooming products since 1972 - Madison, WI Web

"Making the tailor shop the central focus of the store... part theatre and celebrating the acumen of the tailors."

The original inspiration board in Sid Mashburn's Atlanta men's shop. Featuring: A note from Chef Alton Brown, a giraffe, and an OG Apple sticker. Pinterest

Why barn coats—a J. Crew classic—are coming back: Humble and versatile, the men’s barn jacket—a utilitarian American staple for hunters, farmers, and politicians—has found new favor in the pandemic era among urbanites and suburbanites. WSJ

#YouNeedThisIPromise

Good.

Better.

Best.

Core.

Core-Plus.

Fashion.

"How do you open up the aperture of customer opportunity?"

"Every outfit can only take one lead singer."

Kiton

Diadora

Lands' End

WSID radio + liner notes

Curiosity drives creativity | Carlo Navato

Recorded in April 2022, a Brigadoon Monthly Call with Carlo Navato.

Carlo is the visionary founder of Haxted Estates, a multi-award-winning property developer who believes his success has come from being passionately curious.

He believes he has no special talents, with the exception of his ever-curious mindset. For him, curiosity leads to inspiration which leads to creativity which leads to you doing cool stuff.

Carlo has a passion for design, architecture, and craftsmanship. Determined to make inclusive, inspiring places for people to live, work and play, he loves to challenge convention and believes that inspiration can be found everywhere.

A Chartered Surveyor by training, he is happiest with mavericks in wild places and is a passionate photographer, and lover of books, vinyl, his VW camper van, sport, and wine. He is a founding partner of the Do Lectures.

You can follow Carlo on Instagram here.

Notes:

+ "I have no special talent. I am only passionately curious." -- Albert Einstein

+ "In the beginner's mind there are many possibilities, but in the expert's there are few." -- Shunryo Suzuki

+ "Of all human activities, creativity comes closest to providing the fulfillment we all hope to get in our lives. Call it full-blast living." -- Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

8 ways to create flow according to Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi PositivePsychology.com

Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience - Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi Amazon

The creative personality by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi: Creative individuals are remarkable for their ability to adapt to almost any situation and to make do with whatever is at hand to reach their goals. The Creativity Post

Creativity: Flow and the Psychology of Discovery and Invention - Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi Amazon

+ “All my big mistakes are when I try to second-guess or please an audience. My work is always stronger when I get very selfish about it.” -- David Bowie

Outside the box: The neuroscience of creativity - Susan Greenfield @ Mind & Its Potential 2011 YouTube

+ "I roamed the countryside searching for answers to things I did not understand. Why shells existed on the tops of mountains along with the imprints of coral and plants and seaweed usually found in the sea." -- Leonardo da Vinci

Biomimetics: The emulation of the models, systems, and elements of nature for the purpose of solving complex human problems. The terms "biomimetics" and "biomimicry" are derived from Ancient Greek: βίος, life, and μίμησις, imitation, from μιμεῖσθαι, to imitate, from μῖμος, actor.

The Biomimicry Institute

+ "Imagine designing spring" -- Janine Benyus

Antifragile: Things That Gain from Disorder - Nassim Nicholas Taleb Amazon

+ "Some things benefit from shocks; they thrive and grow when exposed to volatility, randomness, disorder, and stressors and love adventure, risk, and uncertainty." -- Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Brian Eno’s oblique strategies cards break down creative blocks LifeHacker

Sir Ken Robinson: Do schools kill creativity? TED Talk

A Pattern Language: Towns, Buildings, Construction - Christopher Alexander Amazon

The complicated legacy of Stewart Brand’s “Whole Earth Catalog" The New Yorker

Less logic. More magic. | Rory Sutherland

A Brigadoon Monthly Call with Rory Sutherland - Vice Chairman @ Ogilvy UK and author of Alchemy: The Surprising Power Of Ideas That Don't Make Sense.

Recorded in April 2021, Rory is the Vice Chairman of Ogilvy, an attractively vague job title that has allowed him to co-found a behavioral science practice within the agency.

He works with a consulting practice of psychology graduates who look for 'unseen opportunities' in consumer behavior - these are the minimal contextual changes that can have enormous effects on the decisions people make - for instance, tripling the sales rate of a call center by adding just a few sentences to the script.