“To me marketing is about values. This is a very complicated world, it’s a noisy world. And we’re not going to get a chance to get people to remember much about us…and so we have to be very clear about what we want them to know about us.” – Steve Jobs

“We don’t make movies to make money, we make money to make more movies.” – Walt Disney

This Disney quote was John Gruber’s muse for his self-described dueling rant with Merlin Mann at SXSW earlier this month.

Another more powerful image you’ll not quickly forget from musician  Jonathan Coulton.

But somewhere along the way the bottom line started improving, and I became less obsessed with tracking every little thing. Now I sort of think of the whole engine as a special genetically engineered cow who eats music and poops money — I have no idea what’s going on in its gut, and I have the luxury of not really caring that much about the particulars. […]

The state of the industry makes a lot more sense when you think of it this way, all these new business models rising and falling, internet radio choking on insanely high performance royalties, Radiohead and NIN giving stuff away and making a killing. This is the thing about the new landscape that drives everyone crazy: you can’t see inside the cow; you can only build one, feed it music, and wait for it to poop.

You can listen to John and Merlin’s dueling rant here. I haven’t had a chance to listen to it yet, but these two never disappoint. John’s summary is here.

Apple embodies this notion. Their product line,  design, and  communication are all simple and powerful.

Try it at your company. Take the time to say less. Simplify your product. The cost to say more is nearly zero, and the expense to say less is high, but highly rewarding.

“I have only made this letter longer because I have not had the time to make it shorter.”

Blaise Pascal, (1623-1662) Lettres provinciales.

“If you want me to give you a two-hour presentation, I am ready today.  If you want only a five-minute speech, it will take me two weeks to prepare.”

Mark Twain

If you aren’t a convinced yet, Eric Vieth has more quotes on brevity that might help you.

Note: I discovered Erich Vieth‘s post via John Gruber‘s Daring Fireball.

via Creative Acronyn

When I saw this in the AMA e-newsletter today, it reminded me of one of my favorite quotes regarding experience.

“Good judgment comes from experience. Experience comes from bad judgment.” -  Mulla Nasrudin

Let’s just say we’ve got a lot of experience.

When contemplating the future of American English, there is some comforting news too. Although media voices are homogenizing, local dialects are going strong.

“Exposure to mass media is not homogenizing American language or making us all talk the same. . .
. . . Media exposure can spread new vocabulary and give people in different regions an understanding of the ‘standard American’ that broadcasters use, but it does not make listeners speak that way themselves.”

If you don’t think this is a great time to start or grow your business, you haven’t been paying attention. Seth Godin and Paul Graham, have written some good pieces on the growth opportunity hard times bring here and here. Some of today’s greatest companies were started during tough times. You don’t have to be a start-up to use this opportunity to get started.

Get close to your customers. Listen to them. Find out what they REALLY love and hate about your products and working with you. Get out and find new customers. Develop new partnerships, expand the old ones. Try something new. Do that old thing that worked so well before you had stopped doing it.

Plant the seeds of 2029′s forest today!

Though your organization has far greater control of the supply and internal processes of creation, your customer is the ultimate judge of quality. As Zig Ziglar would say, your stack of money has to be bigger than the prospects stack of money. You can improve the quality by increasing the benefits of your offering or reducing the price. Either way works. The bigger payoff, though, may be in the answer to this question. Which change seperates us from our competitors?

-Muhammad Ali

Consider the possibilities.

Although I’ve heard many Churchill quotes, somehow, I’d never heard this one. It’s advice too good to not pass along.