Turner is arguably the most famous artist Britain has produced. But how much of his reputation is based on branding and marketing?

Professor David Solkin, dean and deputy director of The Courtauld Institute of Art explains, Turner started by studying the competition; not just his contemporaries, but also the historical greats such as Rubens, Rembrandt, Canaletto and Poussin.

First he emulated them, adding his own differentiation, and rebranding himself as JMW Turner.  Having established credibility within the Royal Academy he positioned himself as a ‘historical landscape painter‘, and found a unique voice. He succeeded in securing a legacy in his own lifetime, which has lasted for over 150 years.

The hangings of the paintings also use a technique familiar to advertisers, but unusual in the art world – side by side comparisons.

Well worth a visit during Frieze week!  www.frieze.com

Wrong!

Because having an agenda means just that, you ‘have an agenda’. It’s your agenda. You own the meeting therefore it’s not owned by the participants. There’s no group buy-in. Or perhaps each participant owns a different part of a siloed meeting which lacks unity of purpose.

Here’s a better kind of meeting. Define the issue that you need to resolve. Then invite the people who can help you solve it and who have a stake in the outcome.

What about the agenda? Decide that with the participants at the start of the meeting, so everyone owns it.

I know.

My wife and I were moving house that day. Not only was the buyer unable to get funds to us, we physically couldn’t move out because of all the fallen trees.

A downturn is the best time to roll up your sleeves and fell some trees - to plant and nurture new shoots.

Energy is stimulated by urgency – Capture the energy before it entropies!

You may not get a better wind for another 20 years.

Step away from leading your team, from serving your customers and stakeholders for 24 hours and listen instead.

Facilitators (www.iaf-world.org) are temporary leaders. We provide space for you to observe, think and listen.

You may know where you want to go and what you want to do; your challenge is how to take your people and customers with you. Right now they may be uncertain, uncomfortable and unaligned.

Or perhaps you’re looking for new directions, energies and ways to provide greater customer value at lower cost.

But at the end of the day you’ll get back the keys to your company - ignited and ready to fire on all cylinders, you and them.

Think about it.

So companies are at last ‘taking Web 2.0 tools seriously’ to tap into collective intelligence, www.ft.com/digitalbusiness.

But it begs the question: Why don’t we just talk? Have a Live 2.0 conversation with our customers, our people, our suppliers?

They all know that business as usual is not an option. They all know that none of us has all the answers - let alone the questions. They want to be part of a shared future.

Web 2.0 tools can indeed deliver real business benefits.

But nothing beats getting key stakeholders together in real time, on neutral territory away from the office, building trust, co-creating new ways forward, and making shared commitments, and acting on them fast. Live 2.0.

You can facilitate the conversation yourself. Or you can use a professional facilitator (www.iaf-world.org).

But you have to talk. And listen.

I thought so.

Second question: Which resource do you focus on spending more effectively: your budget? or your time?

I thought so . Different answer to the first question, right?

One more question! Who do you spend more time with: your colleagues? or your customers? Yep. Most of us do!

So here’s the offer. Let’s spend 48 hours with your customers. Sure, bring all your senior management colleagues and any other key stakeholders. .yes that can include non-execs and even your Chairman.

You’ll achieve more in a two day co-creative forum, than a month of Sundays writing and delivering and listening to power point presentations at meetings with your management colleagues ( That’s what’s taking your time, right?)

Believe me it works. (Or if you don’t believe me ask my clients or their customers.) You’ll save time. Your customers will be happy you listened to them -and you’ll reach a new level of trust and understanding.

My guess is you’ll be pleased you spent time on what was important, rather than what was urgent. You may even find you didn’t need to write or listen to that power point presentation after all.

About polishing the stone rather than sharpening it. Or about questioning if it should be a stone.

Take Heathrow 5 - where the focus on the new ( cancelled) campaign proved to be an inadequate deliverable for marketing management.

You know the joke of the ad man who sitting on the edge of the bed telling how great it’s going to be.

We need to focus on actions not words. Or rather interactions. That’s where value is created. Marketers tend to call them ‘touch points’ . This is a feeble term. They should be considered ‘value points’

We need to create the experience, not talk about how great it’s going to be. Or as my colleague Francis Gouillart would say: Co-create the experience.

‘360′ is ‘180′ the wrong answer. It’s implies a technique-driven perspective: integrating from us to the customer.

We need to come at it other way round! Put the customer inside - then take a 360 with the organisation. Rather like my friend Miha Pogacnik who puts the audience inside his Slovenian Symphony Orchestra !

The future is about aligning resources and skills around companies’ interactions.

A marketer’s job is to create an experience - part tangible part intangible. To ‘Co-create’. With ‘prosumers’ rather than consumers.

The traditional client agency structure is wrong in so many ways. What is needed is for marketers to initiate a conversation between their colleagues, their agencies and their customers in real time and in real space.

Yes, on the web is a good start, but there’s nothing like a physical real time conversation where you can see the whites of your customers eyes, hear what they don’t say as well as what they do, and take live decisions with all key stakeholders present.

Don’t start with techniques; as innovative marketers are doing , start with experiences.

And the final thought: marketing is too important to be left to marketers. Because a good marketer needs all parts of the organisation aligned behind delivering their story. Unless of course you just want to be a storyteller.

The part on swearing - the five ways to cuss - is worth the price of entry alone as he describes language as a window in human nature’ If you want to know the five ways or tell your euphemisms from dysphemisms, look it up!

But how much of challenges in collaboration come down to language and culture. One of my French clients was cursing - well at least bemoaning - why the Brits don’t say what they mean . And frequently say what they don’t mean.

‘Gerard’ described how we use ‘maybe’ when we don’t mean maybe at all. (As when I was cussing once to my boss he said ‘maybe you should get another job’.)

He asked if in our next European workshop I could get the Brits to say what they mean. Easier said than done’ Gerard.. Even if the word facilitate is based on the French Facile’; making things simpler. I’m not sure that it will be that simple. Many of us use words to avoid saying what we think.

As de Gaulle noted the French may have 250 kinds of cheese. But we Brits even though not renowned as great lovers, or perhaps because of it, have 800 expressions for copulation.

But I’ll give it a go, mon brave. Next week I’ll pick on and ‘out’ any hapless Brit who obfuscates in one of my sessions.