Ikemba Speaks

The football world was shocked when last week, Claudio Ranieri, the man who wrote the most romantic football story of the century, when he led English Football Lilliputians, Leicester City, to win perhaps the most glamorous cup in Europe, (second of course to the UEFA Champions League Cup), the English Premier League Cup, was fired as coach of Leicester City FC. An unassuming, always smiling, very friendly and team motivator extraordinaire, humble coach who had never won any major or significant European Club honours in his 27 years of club coaching, he was nicknamed “The Tinkerman” by the English press because he loved to shuffle and “tinker” with his team’s squad, tactics, and formations, over-rotating them throughout the season. Except for Fiorentina, which he led to win the Coppa Italia and the Supercoppa Italiano in 1996 and Valencia with whom he won a Copa Del Rey and UEFA Intertoto Cup as well as qualifying them for the UEFA Champions League, his forte seemed t...

Click:  https://www.instagram.com/p/BQ3YEc_DInO/?taken-by=firebrandmarket I saw this one-minute video yesterday, and it got me thinking seriously about how social media has so pervaded our lives and society, so much that, unconsciously, our happiness and sense of achievement can be so dependent on the validation we get from followers, likers, tweeps and ‘mentioners’. I vividly remember one Saturday morning, 5 years ago. I was at my friends’ place where I had passed the night. We both worked at the same advertising agency, and since we were both unmarried at the time, I tended to, more often than not, pass the night at his house, mostly on Fridays. So, that Saturday morning, we both woke up at about past 7am, and were lying on the same bed, Blackberry phones in hand, backing each other and tweeting. Without as much as ‘Guy how far’ or ‘Dude, what are we having for breakfast?’ we both were immersed in twitter till about past 12 noon. 5 solid hours of tweeting. I wou...

My prettier half tagged me on a video making the rounds on social media. After viewing the video, the curious cat in me began sniffing and looking up this Barry White Jr. fellow. I realized that he is a 5th grade English teacher at Ashley Park PreK-8 School in Charlotte, North Carolina, USA. In an interview with ABC News, Barry said that he was inspired to do his personalized handshakes when he saw his basketball idol, LeBron James of the Cleveland Cavaliers also doing the same thing with his teammates before every basketball match. Mr White also revealed that this ritual began with having a personalized handshake with a 4th grader some months ago. Now, according to him, all 3rd graders want personalized handshakes with him too! Below are lessons I believe brands (personal or corporate) can learn from Barry White Jr. and his nationally acclaimed personalized handshakes: 1. START SMALL: Barry began this ritual with...