But, Darwin’s notebooks show the great influence his predecessors and contemporaries had on his idea; Mozart claimed he studied the masters more than anyone; and Newton, a notorious recluse, admitted his achievements were only made possible by “standing on the shoulders of giants.”

This year Fields Medal winner Timothy Gowers used his blog to facilitate mass collaboration and solve a notoriously difficult problem in mathematics.

Great discovers are the result of collaboration, both with the past and the present.

The faulty assumption of popular wisdom prevents the full potential for innovation a hyper-connected society can achieve.

Perhaps it is finally time for every organization to expand its walls beyond the physical structure of the building to include anyone who is willing to help.

This shift requires a fundamental rethinking of the concept of employee.

It seems practical. It seems necessary. But, ultimately, it seems inevitable.

The companies that will really shine and last will be those that don’t just say it, but also mean it. Dove’s “Campaign for real beauty” could have easily been just another marketing campaign aimed at selling soap. But, Dove chose to back up its claim by supporting self-esteem programs for girls and launch a Web site dedicated to helping parents instill self-worth in their daughters.

Emotional appeal isn’t something inherent in a product; every product can be clothed in a wide range of emotional fabrics—figuring out an emotional match to your brand is only the first step. But, rather than making your brand the emperor without clothes shouting false claims to the public, mean what you say and show it with your actions.

Never in my retail experience have I seen a “consumer” enter a store. I’ve seen lots of “customers,” for that’s what they call themselves…The development of the whole consumer movement came as a result of the failure of retailers and manufacturers to give adequate attention to the physical and psychological needs of the customer.

Rather than focus on what a customer really wants, marketers have focused on what the average, hypothetical, composite customer–”the consumer”–should want. But the consumer isn’t a person, it’s a statistic on  piece of paper; it’s a poor simulacrum of a real person.

Treating customers as the statistical consumer results in initiatives that some people may like, but nobody ever loves.

Instead of focusing on averages, look to what your real customers, preferbly the best ones, love about you and forget how they fit into boxes on a piece of paper.

The subtleties of fine food preparation and service suffer from bigness and the all-seeing eye of the proprietor.

Dining at Trader Vic’s, Stanley Marcus was presented with wet towels by a waiter exclaiming, “Hot towels!” But, they weren’t hot, they were cold.

Trader Vic’s was a pioneer in the American restaurant industry and one of the first to offer the Japanese oshibori (the hot towels) at the end of the meal.

But, expansion without attention to detail reduced the quality of the service and food. It became more important to go through the motions than make sure the original purpose was behind them. As long as the waiter exlcaimed, “Hot towels,” his manager was happy.

Settling for going through the motions will dilute the brand and can even kill it.

Is there something your company is doing that lost touch with its original purpose?

The buyers would remark how uncanny it was that I discovered the defective piece of merchandise. It wasn’t uncanny at all; I was just more observant than they were and had less tolerance for mediocrity.

In Selling the Dream, Guy Kawasaki tells a story of diamond-seller Harry Winston: Winston saw one of his salesmen lose the sale of a large diamond. Just as the customer was about to leave the story, Winston quickly stopped him, described the beauty of the stone, and sold the diamond. The customer asked Winston how he convinced him to buy the diamond when the salesman couldn’t. Harry Winston told him, “That salesman is one of the best men in the business. He knows diamonds–but I love them.”

Just like Harry Winston loved diamonds, Stanley Marcus loved the buying and selling of quality items more than anyone who worked for him. His love made him the most critical purveyor of his merchandise, and unwilling to accept even the tiniest flaw.

Without loving what you do, you’ll never be the best you can be in your business. And, there will always be someone who can outperform you, because they love it more.

If we could satisfy the most critical of our customers it would be easy to please the balance

I’m dedicating this week’s posts to bits of wisdom from one of my favorite books on retail: Quest for the Best by Stanley Marcus.

Marcus recalls an incident with chocolate during his career at Neiman-Marcus: Seeing his store carrying more milk chocolate than dark bittersweet, he approached the buyer and told her they shouldn’t stock that much milk chocolate. The buyer’s manager defended her, telling Marcus that the milk chocolate sells more. Stanley Marcus responded that Neiman-Marcus was supposed to serve discriminating tastes. Milk chocolate only satisfied people without a developed palate. If the customers were to give the milk chocolate as a gift it would not only make the customer look foolish but also Neiman-Marcus for selling it. Marcus told the buyer to switch the proportions of chocolate being sold, because a store should not only sell but also educate.

Later, customers came to favor the dark bittersweet as their palates became more discriminating.

Had Marcus permitted the store to continue selling the milk chocolate, he would have sold more over the short term, but diuted the brand and its profitability over the long term. Short terms gains often are the result of business decisions that lead to long term deficits.

Is there something your business is doing that works now but you know will hurt you in the future?

A recent trip to Vegas reminded me why I like Penn and Teller so much. You may hate their act, it is political, but at least you feel enough to hate it. Penn and Teller clearly want their audience to come away realizing that they don’t know everything about things they think they know everything about, and that they would be better off by more critically examining the world around them.

They are not doing tricks, their doing something. The tricks are merely tactics in service of that something.

When looking to do brand extensions, many brands enter the same predicament that most magicians do: they start doing things that may not be tied to the core of the brand’s purpose. They end up becoming just more places to stick a logo and end up diluting the brand.

Next time you want to extend outward, first look inward and see if those outward extensions realistically extend from within.

In Predicting Marketing Success, Robert Passikoff makes the important insight that across all individuals the same drivers of choice will be present in a category, but different groups will have different order preference.

In other words, suppose you wanted to poll what movie buffs to discover what they think makes a great movie. After the analysis you would probably have four or five reasons stand out. If you looked among different groups of people in the study, you would see a different preference ordering of the attributes. Looking at people with an acting background, you might find that they rating acting as the most important; looking at people with a writing background, you might find that the qualityof the script is the most important.

An individual’s history affects order preference.

Demographics in their ultimate form can give insights into people’s life experiences: the time and the place they grew up and what experiences that would cause them to have.

Using this knowledge you can fine tune your messaging to different groups to reflect order preference for the drivers of choice and drivers of differentiation of your business.

In perhaps the ultimate case of Apple envy, HTC created a phone that not only tries to compete with the iPhone on features but also on the name.

The campaign focuses on the phone being the most customizable phone on the market.

OMG!!! I can put skins on my phone? NFW!!! I can put icons on multiple screens? I’m happier than a Trekker meeting Patrick Stewart!!! I can keep track of the places I like to go and even get a notepad? This is soooooo me!

Even if the myTouch is the most customizable phone on the market, the features that are being sold aren’t significant improvements over what is already on the market. The brand promise is weak.

And, there’s nothing that will really exceed the expectations of purchasers to a significant degree–a key element in generating word of mouth.

When will  a phone maker stop trying to design the 4G iPhone before Apple and create a unique space in the market?

I looked over and saw the ingenious name of this amazing find: Cheeburger Cheeburger….Express.

I peered into the kitchen to get a glimpse of Thomas Keller or Ferran Adria or Heston Blumenthal, but I didn’t even see Rachel Ray.

Don’t expect to see Cheeburger Cheeburger winning any awards from Gourmet or being knighted by the Michelin guide with three stars.

The problem with Cheeburger Cheeburger isn’t the place or food, it’s the disparity between the brand promise and the reality.

If Cheeburger Cheeburger isn’t the most creative (I doubt they’re employing the techniques of postmodern molecular gastronomy) and fun dining experience you have when you go, it’s failed to live up to its promise.

If you promise something to your customers, and you should, make sure it’s something you can deliver and want to execute.