Are You a Kool-Aid Drinker?

I am. Let me explain.

We tend to talk about “true believers” as those who have drunk the Kool-Aid, with the obvious tie-in to Jim Jones and his followers. It’s an apt analogy, however unfortunate the original incident – one who has drunk the Kool-Aid actually, in this sense, is so convinced of something, that they move forward with conviction where others would hold back.

Now there are people who abandon all common sense and do ridiculous and harmful things because of “true belief.” No matter how much Kool-Aid you drink and how sincere your belief that gravity is suspended in your particular case, you’ll still be picked up with a spatula if you jump off a skyscraper. That’s the dumb Kool-Aider.

But, there are also those who feign enthusiasm and commitment, for as long as it seems to be prudent and fashionable to do so. Think of the car salesman who vigorously sells the marvelous virtues of Subaru, then loses his job, is picked up by the Toyota dealer down the street, and appears to have Camry-Aid in his veins the next week. That’s not a true believer – that’s the faux Kool-Aider.

An intelligent Kool-Aid drinker takes a reasonable look at what seems right and true and good, and out of a deep sense of conviction, puts all the chips in. It’s not Kool-Aid in this case – it’s vintage Bordeaux, and the commitment is not one born out of convenience or happenstance, but genuine belief.

My enthusiasm for Social Networking is Bordeaux-ish, and I am quite convinced that in many of my valued friends found through blogging and tweeting and meetups, I see the same thing. With realistic understanding, we embrace the new world of networked communications, not because it’s a panacea and the provider of whiter teeth and longer life, but because it’s powerful and transformative. We believe in (as Chris Brogan might put it) “human business” and are seeking to practice it.

And that’s why we tend to have such a visceral reaction against the Dumb or the Faux. There’s no need to be unrealistic, and we certainly abominate the attempts to corrupt these approaches with cheap sales pitches and scams. We’re not into cheap perfume or streetwalker dress. We just want to know each other, learn together, and change the world. That’s not so bad.

So, for all that, let’s enjoy the Kool-Aid together. Better still, let’s hoist a glass of Bordeaux today. It’s a great time to be alive!

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Shaking Things Up

<rant>

Over the years, I’ve attended many, many conferences – some awful, some forgettable, and a few outstanding.

I’m getting impatient.

I’m impatient with thinly-veiled sales pitches from sponsoring companies during sessions. If you’re going to have sponsoring companies, set aside a specific time in the event when they can present their solutions openly to the audience.

I’m impatient with speakers who think their role is to walk through a series of slides and do a verbal data dump. If you cannot spark interest, tell engaging stories, use helpful analogies, facilitate discussion, and (yes, this matters) speak with a reasonably pleasing voice, then don’t be a presenter.

I’m impatient with attendees who are satisfied with passive information reception. We deserve and should demand better.

I’m impatient with hotel setups where you cannot get some light on the speaker. Really – you CAN do this.

I’m impatient with hearing the same old same old tired generalities, especially when it is dressed up in meaningless biz-jargon. If it’s not practical, real-life, and fresh, put it on a blog somewhere where it can be ignored. Because that’s what your audience is doing.

I’m impatient with a lack of daring. Try new things. Shake things up. Get some creative thinkers in your advisory board and plan, from 9-12 months out, how you’re going to make things better.

As for me, like my friend Olivier Blanchard, I’m going to be a lot more selective about my conference attendance next year. I don’t want to spend time being bored and impatient in any aspect of my professional life. There are at least 237 ways to make conferences better. Let’s start doing them.

</rant>

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When Statistics Have Faces

I’ve had my heart stirred in very unexpected ways this week. I’m used to having my mind moved – I often gravitate toward ideas, facts, and numbers.

But sometimes you’re confronted with human faces, and the statistics fade into obscurity, where they often belong.

As with many others in the social media community, I was profoundly moved this week by the tragic death of a young mother (Jamie Loveless) who died of multiple organ failure after pneumonia triggered, most likely, by the H1N1 virus. Please read the story here. I’m a husband and a parent, and I cannot even imagine the agony of this family. Over the months, as the H1N1 clamor increased, I’ve had my share of commentary on the over-hype of the thing…but now it doesn’t seem so harmless or abstract any more. And certainly not funny. This virus has a face now – Jamie’s face. And it’s heartbreaking.

Also, this week, I attended an ePatient Connection conference. One of the reasons I really enjoyed this event was that I had real-life contact with very real, very human patient bloggers – human beings with names and faces who were not mere statistics or users of products, but people just like you and me. And I learned from them something very stirring and unexpected – disease guilt. How those with even manageable diseases are often haunted by an ongoing sense of guilt for not being “normal.” I awakened to the fact that these very real people with faces and names were undergoing very real emotional turmoil because of conditions that, in many cases, they never had a choice to contract. How easy it has been to simply view patients as…numbers. No more, I hope.

I think this is one of the reasons I’ve always hated the term “consumer” – it feels so depersonalized, so statistical. We’re not mere consumers. We’re us. People.

Marketing, and life, and networks, are all about humanity. With faces, names, and souls. And sometimes, very deep sorrows.

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Hitting the Pinnacle of Buzzwords

I freely confess to hating business buzzwords and jargon. Like David Meerman Scott and many others, I find the practice of repeating technical-sounding phrases in an effort to appear knowledgeable to be pompous and counter-productive.

It’s an over-leveraging of verbal resources. Yes, I went there.

Now, at the same time, I love a broad and deep vocabulary. Words like “obfuscation” (which means, if you’re not familiar with it, the use of words to obscure rather than clarify meaning). Obfuscation is a great word that actually nicely describes what buzz-jargon does.

I have found one company (which will remain anonymous) which has managed, over time, to establish a new benchmark in meaningless blather. Every trip to the well of this company’s jargon pool brings forth a new wealth of meaningless bloviation (look it up – another favorite vocabulary word). I thought I’d share just a bit from the latest press release, for your edification and amusement:

____________ today published a strategy pharmaceutical companies can apply to reinvent growth for established drug brands. Addressing the total context of change reshaping the operating environment, the approach shifts the center of gravity in pharmaceutical brand management, focusing on market collaboration and novel linkages to create new health and business value. Available for download through the _________ website, the strategic brief builds on the concept of ‘health ecosystem design’ introduced by _____________ as a new model for competitive strategy, regionalization and employer initiatives, and account-based sales to integrated delivery networks.
_____________ has pioneered a methodology for market strategy defined in 21st-century terms, an approach that enables an evolutionary leap in solutions for growth and competitive advantage. The firm was the first to introduce ‘marketing ecosystems’ as a framework to synthesize strategy, media, content and distribution platforms for in-line products.

Now, I ask you – do you have any CLUE what is being talked about here? Oh, and this company’s tagline now is: A New Grammar for Strategy. Enough said.

Lesson: talk about your business in plain English. Leave obfuscation to the pros….

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Small Talk

Many people who don’t actually “get” Twitter find it easy to dismiss it as a bunch of not-very-social people exchanging useless trivia with fellow avatars.

We know better, of course. But the fact is, that we DO often share a lot of stuff that is, in itself, seemingly trivial. And here’s why I LIKE that:

We’re simply doing what friends, neighbors, and co-workers have done forever. It’s small talk. And it helps build relationships.

You see, I’m involved in these networks, not just to mine professional information (in which case the discussion I just had this morning about eggs for breakfast would be noise rather than signal), but to build relationships. To pre-meet people. To do what normal people do every day and everywhere – talk about their day, share a picture, rate the wine they just tried, share an amusing story about their dog or kids…whatever. This small talk is the glue that binds us together in humanizing relationships.

It’s great to share links and other resources, and I do it all the time. Twitter is wonderful for that. But I’m building a network of colleagues and friends. And that doesn’t happen without small talk.

Anyone connected to me knows that I upload photos, make bad puns, share personal anecdotes, and seek to be pretty transparent on-line. The reason is simple – I’m not an information machine. I’m a person. And so are you. I like the glimpses into your life, because when I finally meet you, I feel like I already (partly) know you.

For those of us who are solo entrepreneurs, Twitter IS our water cooler. My network of people is my surrogate pool of office-mates. Most people have no clue how valuable it is for me not to be “alone” on a daily basis as I build a business, learn, grow, and explore the world. Yes, I have my “real-life” family and friends right here in NJ, but (because I really hate that distinction) I have my “real-life” network all over the world, and it’s been an absolute pleasure pre-meeting and then meeting many of you.

So, next time someone disses Twitter, simply let them know that they tweet all the time. Just in a smaller pool than you do.

I do wish I was having eggs this morning…

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Hiring for Virtue

This morning, I had the privilege of attending the “Trust Summit” breakfast meeting, featuring Chris Brogan (@chrisbrogan), Julien Smith (@julien), David Maister (davidmaister.com), and Charlie Green (@charleshgreen). The panel was very engaging, and it was refreshing to hear people of substance and experience reinforcing the idea that the core of business is doing things right, and caring about people.

At one point during the session, as the discussion turned to the type of people who are trustworthy, I put out the following series of tweets:

I don’t think you can teach virtue. You model it, and you hire virtuous people. Then you train specific behaviors. My 2 cents

I’d hold that if someone doesn’t have a virtuous approach by the time you’re looking to hire them for biz, it’s too late.

We should hire FOR basic virtue, not with the hope of imparting what isn’t there. Otherwise, trust will never occur.

Since two of my favorite on-line people,  Jane Chin and Jon Swanson, were interacting with me on these thoughts, I thought it might be best to elaborate in something other than 140 characters.

Let’s take a step back – we live in an age of subjectivity where words are often drained of meaning, so by virtuous character, I mean a person with a clear, well-founded, internally-embraced and externally practiced code of conduct that conforms to norms of ethical uprightness. Unfortunately, many will dispute what ethical uprightness actually IS, but an honest person who practices the Golden Rule smells an awful lot like what I’m talking about.

I don’t believe it is the role of a business to teach virtuous character to its employees. I believe that leaders should model it, encourage it, and train for specific behaviors that align with a virtuous and ethical approach to business. But we’re in business to do business, to serve and to perform – we should HIRE people with virtuous character and then give them the specific pathways to walk in.

I guess I should also say that we’re all “in progress”, and very few people have their virtue muscles fully exercised. But even though our character is still under development, there’s a core of “rightness” in the soul that cannot be imparted by teaching and management. External forces can shape and sharpen, can water and cultivate – but until someone is ready to be BE virtuous, they’ll never become trust-worthy.

Can and should virtue and character be taught? Yes. But that should be done in the formative years, but parents and other members of the surrounding community. It is not the role of a business to put in virtuous character, but to hire the best people who actually possess it.

I believe that, by practicing the principles found in books like Trust Agents and The Trusted Advisor (books authored by the panelists mentioned above) we can encourage the people who have virtuous character (in bud or in full flower) to create or find the types of businesses that will have an ethical core – businesses that will do good and succeed over the long haul because the people leading them are GOOD PEOPLE.

What we don’t need is “check off the box” training programs on ethics. We need virtuous people – in business, in government, in churches, and everywhere else. That is our greatest challenge. Talent and brains are cheap. People with a heart and a conscience and a spine – that’s pure gold.

Am I some off-base idealist? Or is this the way it oughta be?

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Pfizer unveils new logo!

I haven’t seen any formal announcement, but if you go to the Pfizer home page or look at this news release, you can see that (apparently) Pfizer has updated their company logo.

The weighting on the letters is more even, the color is lighter – many of the old logo elements are the same, but there appear to be subtle changes.

Thus far, a Google search hasn’t revealed any mention of this…so, I guess you heard it here first (I’ve always wanted to break a news item)!

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Time. Talent. And Magic.

After 10 years in one job (sales and marketing in medical devices), and 10 years in another (sales/marketing/biz dev/consulting with a software provider for pharma), I ventured out on my own. That was over three years ago; Chris Brogan hadn’t yet co-written Trust Agents, but in fact, the business model was a “make your own game” approach as a client/vendor matchmaker, built on networking.

So what was I doing for the 20 years before that? Setting the table.

I wasn’t ready to be an entrepreneur out of the gate. There was raw talent there, but it needed a long period of refining through experience. Most everybody has an area or two of serious talent – but for many of us, it takes years of exercising and honing those abilities before you are ready for new levels of influence and opportunities, including going out on your own as an entrepreneur.

In the meantime, you have to look at your current jobs as setting the table for better things ahead.

Now I absolutely rejoice when young people work their talents and their opportunities quickly and skillfully, moving through a much shorter preparation curve and rapidly launching entrepreneurial endeavors. People like Scott Bradley, Sarah Evans, Kirsten Wright. I love seeing that because these folks will shape the future. But for many, the trajectory upward is going to be slower, and sometimes less direct.

Just be sure you’re setting your table. Specifically:

1. Only move into and stay in positions that will challenge and grow your skills. Stagnation for a paycheck is not a luxury you can afford.

2. Do such a good job that your employer and co-workers hate to see you go, and can only say good things about you. Leave a very sweet reputation aroma in your wake.

3. Network. Constantly. On-line and off-line. It is very likely that your next opportunity will come from that extended “family” of supporters.

At the right time, the “magic” will occur (by magic, I actually mean providence, but some prefer to believe in luck or chance, so we’ll Harry Potter it for now and just say “magic” as a catch-all!). You’ll be restless in your current position, ready for something new, and a confluence of events and people will occur such that a new challenge is opened up. Sometimes you’ve strategically pulled levers to help make it happen, but often it’s the wonderful serendipity of being a networked person who is well-regarded and worthy of the next step.

It’s very common, in your late 20’s, 30’s, and 40’s to feel restless in your professional development. Keep honing your talent. Keep putting in productive time. Keep setting the table. And keep your eyes open for the magic!

Update: And, as Brogan would say here and here, there’s no overnight success!

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Are you “In”?

A few random thoughts that came to mind this morning, while meandering about the yard looking for pictures to take…

If you’re building a network via social media, here are some “in” questions to ask yourself:

Am I being informative?

Am I being insightful?

Am I instigating new ideas?

Am I inspiring others directly to be their best (and being an example)?

Am I being interesting?

Am I encouraging? (OK, that’s an almost in-)

Am I inundating with trivia? (Don’t!)

People have a pretty well-developed instinct for figuring out if we’re just there to sell, or whine, or collect connections to feed our egos. We’ll build a substantial and loyal network when we enter into other people’s worlds and provide them with genuine value. Especially the part about encouraging.

Hmm…on second thought, maybe this just has to do with life, social networking or not!

OK, now back to work…

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Backing up to the Cloud

Like most people who do a lot of work on computer, I’m not ENTIRELY smart or consistent about doing backups. Fortunately, I haven’t had any hard-core disk crashes of late, but the idea of cloud-based backup (with something like Mozy or Carbonite) appeals to me because the process is automated, and the data is somewhere else in case the house burns down. I’ll probably pull the trigger on one of those services this month.

But what about all the on-line stuff – blogs, pictures, twitter, etc.? I was excited to see that a group including Jason Falls is launching a service called Backupify (formerly Lifestream Backup – yes, the name change was a positive step!), which will provide continuous backup of your on-line assets via an Amazon cloud-based service. They support a whole bunch of on-line content repositories (see the home page) – wouldn’t mind if they added Yahoo Mail, actually (any way to grab LinkedIn data also?)

In fact, they have a nice offer going, which I’m taking advantage of right here and now – a free year of premium service for blogging about Backupify (more here). Yeah, I like freebies like everyone else. But this is no tchotchke – I have countless hours invested in my on-line content. I’d like to make sure it doesn’t evaporate at some point.

As more and more of our “stuff” migrates to on-line platforms, this type of service will be invaluable. And it will be nice to mute that faint but distinct voice in the back of my head that I’m playing Russian Roulette with my data…

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David Armano Wins Nobel Prize for “Really Cool Drawings”

(why not celebrate our third birthday with a fresh social media spoof?)

Today, it was announced that globally-recognized artist and hat-wearing aficionado David Armano has been awarded a Nobel Prize for his work in creating “some of the coolest graphics on the planet.”

According to Hans Blimsted, Swedish Nobel judge of Peace and Social Media Stuff, Armano’s work, while somewhat confusing to the average mind, is full of soft, pastel-y colors and will certainly, over time, contribute to world peace and to the entire re-architecting of business processes across the world.

“Take his use of circles within circles,” said Blimsted, in announcing the award to a hushed audience of twelve Swedish professional curlers, joined in a live stream by countless bloggers and Twitterati around the globe. “Just gazing at those round shapes reminds us that the world is one, we all are one, and by moving toward a social business design in new collaboratories, we can calibrate a new ecosystem of holistic frameworks. Umm…folks, I just read the notes – you make sense of it.

“Plus, he does dots and gently curved arrows. That means peace in any language. Well, most. Actually – what do all those little arrows mean anyway?”

Shocked bloggers reacted with a mix of exuberant exultation and petty jealousy. “I couldn’t be happier for David!” declared Cathleen Rittereiser, just before unlocking the “local” badge on Foursquare. “Of all the circular-thinkers I follow, David has always been the most well-rounded! And if the President can get one for sounding cool, David should get one for looking cool.” On the other hand, Dear Leader of PlaidNation Darry Ohrt sniffed, “The guy doesn’t know colors at all. Pastels-pshaw! When has he ever done anything in plaid? Amateur!”

Rumors that Barack Obama had actually declined his Nobel Prize in favor of Armano were quashed when the President strode out of the White House wearing a cowboy hat and proclaiming that he was at least as cool as Chicago’s Austin’s favorite designer. “Armano didn’t deliver the Olympics for us, but with his circles and my teleprompter, we’re going to run rings around those pesky petty tyrants around the world. Now that’s some hope and change, baby!”

Mr Armano could not be reached for 140 characters of comment, as he was encased in his studio creating the next-generation 550-circle graphic of intergalactic business interoperability.

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Prior StickyFigure spoofs

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StickyFigure wins Nobel Blog Prize for 3 Years of Brilliance!

Today marks the third birthday of the StickyFigure blog. Hard to believe that first post (on UPS trucks – How to Waste 100,000 Billboards) was 1,095 days and 598 posts ago.

Two weeks after the blog began, it was nominated for a Nobel Blog Prize, and now, 3 years later, the ultimate honor has come to fruition!

Actually, no big international prizes were harmed in the writing of these posts. My biggest reward is interacting with you, my community of fellow thinkers/marketers/people. It’s been a great ride.

A greater proportion of my attention in the past year has been given over to trying to advance social media usage in the pharmaceutical sector (Impactiviti blog, which is a few months older than this one), and I’ve also been regularly updating my personal blog (Steve’s Leaves). But I’ll never stop enjoying the evolution of branding and marketing and social media, so, for better or for worse, you’re stuck with StickyFigure. Thanks for sticking with me all this time!

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(Image credit)

Telling the Company Story

I’m going to tell you a story about a company telling its story. It’s…well, quite a story about networking, serendipity, and marketing!

This spring, while attending the MarketingProfs B2B Forum, I had the good fortune of sitting next to a pleasant young lady with whom I quickly found two things in common: 1) she was working at a company in central CT, only a few miles from where I grew up; 2) this company provided supplies to the radiation oncology community, a field in which I had a 10-year history in a prior professional role.

Mary told me about this box of historical “stuff” that she had inherited, which contained a lot of archival material from the company’s multi-decade past. We talked about ways to tell the company story, and how those materials could be used. And life went on…

Fast forward to last week, just before I was scheduled to leave for Connecticut, for a quick visit with Mom before gathering together with my brothers for a New Hampshire adventure. Out of the blue, I get an e-mail from Mary Lang of Beekley Corporation, Bristol, CT – she had seen my recent post about how Ben & Jerry’s told their story on the HQ walls. Well, now the story-telling panels were done in Beekley’s new offices, and would I like to come by “some day” and see the end result?

I love the serendipity of social networking. I had a couple hours open after a lunch in western CT – how about TODAY, Mary – like, say, 2:00pm??

So I included Bristol on my drive up. And I was not disappointed.

Not only was the series of panels (mounted on walls throughout the office) extremely attractive and well-designed, but they had a great story to tell. The story of a company that had a distinctive culture right from the get-go, with a strong focus on employee development and excellence in execution. This culture could be seen through the statements, news clippings, and historical documents that now “told the story” to every employee in the office. And the culture could be palpably felt in interactions with Beekley employees.

A consistent graphical design was woven throughout all the various pieces and panels, and the business philosophy of the founding family was also a common thread. Maybe a lot of people throughout the business world have never heard of Beekley (the company or its founders/leaders). But now visitors and employees certainly get an eyeful!

This was a company that had evolved over time, starting with a printing business and moving, as customer needs manifested themselves, into medical supplies and other areas. However, with each change in direction, the company distinctives remained.

Beekley believes in exceeding expectations, in having the right people on the bus and developing them (10-15% of employee time is spend on professional development), and in creating an environment that is pleasant, professional, and supportive. Right down to the design of maximum window space to contribute to a cheerful feel in the office.

I walked out of there impressed by the internal marketing storytelling, but even more by the story itself. A little company, doing its thing in its niche, practicing excellence and growing steadily, hiring smart and telling its story.

May such companies increase in numbers and influence!

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Up and Down

What happens when a former hiker takes on some peaks in the White Mountains. The Old Man and the Mountain, on Steve’s Leaves.

Twitter is a Big, Fat Waste of Time…

…if you don’t have a purpose for using it.

That was how I summarized it for some folks last week who were repeating the usual drivel (endlessly parroted by non-users) about the uselessness of Twitter.

I think it kinda helped to agree with them. Yes, if all you’re doing is posting mindless updates and reading other people’s mindless updates, then sure, it’s a big waste of time.

What most non-users DON’T understand, and which you now have the opening to explain, is:

1. Twitter is the best Help Desk invented by mankind (give an example)

2. Twitter is a rich platform for “pre-meeting” people that can become friends in real-life (give an example)

3. Twitter is a great place to find professional “office-mates” who are valuable sounding boards and sources of information (give an example)

4. Twitter cannot be matched for the ability to connect people with others (give an example)

5. Twitter is a wonderful tool to learn how to distill thoughts into very compact sentences (these 5 points are an example)

Don’t be intimidated by the ignorant dismissiveness of those who don’t yet “get it.” Take the opportunity to open their minds just a bit, with a quick story about what CAN be accomplished via platforms like Twitter, for those who have a purpose to help, learn, grow, and connect. But if all you’re doing is talking about your dog’s vomit, then maybe it is a waste of time…

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Google’s Sidewiki and Pharma – Uh Oh.

Take a look at the screen shot below, from Pfizer’s homepage. Believe it or not, I, or anyone else, can now leave comments “on” any website (such as Pfizer.com) using a new tool (currently in beta) from Google, called Sidewiki.

Game-changer? You bet.

While the use of Google’s Sidewiki has ramifications across the entire web, for every type of site or industry, I’m going to focus here on the pharma industry. Because in pharma, it’s all about controlled messaging via corporate sites, and by and large, the idea of people being able to freely comment on (just about) anything is anathema.

The locus of control has just shifted. You can turn off comments on websites and blogs, but now, people can have their say, and the comments are accessible right there via Sidewiki when people come to your site.

How does this work? Google is not the first to try to allow user-generated commentary on any site, but they are certainly the biggest and most sophisticated. All you have to do is have a Google account, download the Google toolbar for your browser (currently IE and Firefox), and activate the Sidewiki capability. That’s it. More detailed explanations of how it works and how to get started are here and here.

I decided to go to fellow pharma blogger John Mack’s site and leave a Sidewiki comment there (above). Now John allows (and welcomes) comments, of course, but with Sidewiki, that is irrelevant. And even for those sites where comments are reviewed before approval, Sidewiki allows commentary completely apart from the intervention or approval of the site owner.

How will this change the game with regulatory issues? Well, it’s a big monkey wrench. A pharmaceutical company already cannot control what people say about it, or its products, on various sites. But now people can express themselves with annotations that are, in essence, sidebarred on company sites! Can a company be held liable for, say, off-label discussions that happen on Sidewiki in association with a product site?

It’s a good thing that the FDA will hold hearings in November about the use of social media/Web 2.0 in pharma communications, because we now have a new issue to put on the table. How does industry and its regulatory bodies view user-generated content that cannot be controlled, yet exists in conjunction with company-sponsored sites?

Some question whether the adoption rate of Sidewiki will be significant enough to make a huge difference. It’s a fair question, but I don’t believe that’s the point. The really important thing is: the wall has been breached. I’m not sure there’s going to be any going back as this kind of (pretty much inevitable) approach evolves.

The rules of the game just changed again.

UPDATE: Fellow industry blogger Phil Baumann was thinking about the same theme today! Read his valuable thoughts.

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“So, Can Your iPhone…?”

Yes, I guess it can.

I was at a conference last week, and someone who is trying to justify, in his own mind, the purchase of an iPhone (go for it, John!) asked me if my iPhone was capable of storing video of an entire presentation.

I didn’t know the answer. So, it was time for an experiment. Could my iPhone capture my entire 50-minute presentation? And, from a distance of ~15-20 feet, would the audio even be discernible?

The results surprised me a bit. While the end product won’t make anyone’s Top 10 List of anything, the iPhone did capture the entire presentation with no problem, and (if your speaker is up loud enough), you can actually hear what I’m saying in this brief clip:

[From a presentation on Pharma Social Media - Where's the Low-hanging Fruit?]

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Crop Circles

Everyone wants impressive, attention-getting ads – something to rivet eyeballs and cut through the clutter of sensory overload.

Just be careful there’s more to it than just making a striking impression of some sort.

Crop circles get people’s attention. But when they come across them, here’s what they’re left with:

- What IS this?

- Why is it here?

- Who is responsible?

- Crops? What crops?

If people are asking those questions at the end of even a “great” ad, then you’ve just plowed under a lot of money. Creativity isn’t necessarily the same as effectiveness. Because you’re there to provide crops, not run rings around your audience…

(Image credit)

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Weather Channel Classic Launched!

The Weather Channel, after listening to years of strident input from viewers everywhere, has launched a new channel – WCC (Weather Channel Classic) where every description of the weather is 100% accurate.

WCC provides day-old forecasts – called backcasts – to show you, with unerring precision, what the weather was like for the past 24 hours. Or, if you subscribe to WCC Premium Gold Plus, you can go back and find out exactly what the weather was for any date in the past 30 years!

“We’ve had complaints for, oh, just about forever that forecasts simply aren’t accurate enough,” said Joseph Cumulata, Director of Statistical Analysis at The Weather Channel. “‘Chance of rain: 60%. 80% this. 50% that. Blah, blah, blah – just give us the facts!’ they keep telling us. So, with WCC and WCC Premium Gold Plus, we’re going to give you the facts. 100% everything. Because we want to bat a thousand too, sometimes!”

A new crew of weather backcasters has been hired, who will do the usual magic wand waving over colorful maps, but who only require a maximum IQ (and body temperature) of 98.6 to read a teleprompter and get the weather description right. “We’re going to save a ton of money,” declared Charlie Nimbus, director of Programming at The Weather Channel. “We can put up doe-eyed models and half-brained pretty boys who will dazzle with their perfect smiles while giving perfect forecasts…er, backcasts. Everybody wins.”

WCC was soft-launched in beta markets full of older people (Orlando and Phoenix) who tend to be more sensitive to the nuances of weather, and more demanding that weather descriptions be perfect so that they can figure out if they should have ventured outside. “I love WCC!” exalted Bertha Perambulus, who has been watching the channel several hours a day for 3 months now. “The backcasts correspond perfectly with the achiness I felt in my joints during last week’s low pressure, and in my sneak peek of WCC Premium Gold Plus, I was able to see that big rainstorm roll right in that ruined my 40th high school reunion in 1998. I don’t know how I lived without it!

“Plus that cute backcaster, Alto B. Stratus – I can’t take my eyes off of him!”

Assuming a successful uptake of the new Classic Channel, the company is already in discussions with Glenn Beck and Keith Olbermann to come on board for a new venture, the Weather Channel Smackdown, where opinions about upcoming weather will be debated in live, free-for-all screaming matches.

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Prior StickyFigure spoofs

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Plodding

One of the appeals of social networking is the “instantness” (is that a word? should it be??) of it all. You can create a blog in minutes, open a Twitter account painlessly, set up a profile on Facebook or Linked in and start connecting – all free, and all (pretty much) immediate.

So why do so many people start with a burst of energy, and fall by the wayside?

Because like so many other ventures in life, real success comes through plodding.

Those who truly succeed in building strong networks and positive reputations do so, not by quick-fix schemes, but by the steady, day-to-day drip of plodding forward. Adding value with regular posts. Exchanging messages over time with quality people. Encouraging and helping people getting started, with no expectation of return. Being there and showing up.

Yes, these platforms are tools, and yes, there can be business strategy behind it all. But what else is behind it? Dare I say love for others?

The love of couples with strong marriages, and the love of parents for kids, also contains a major element of plodding. Day-to-day displays of warmth, kindness, and selflessness. Noticing the little things. Making the small and important gestures. Showing up.

Social networking is really not all that different from so many other ways that we create and maintain relationships. Yes, it’s easier to get started. But at the end of the day, it’s plodding that makes things happen. Just like in business. Just like our physical neighborhoods. Just like everything.

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Vermont: The Pleasant Throwback

I’m a New Englander at heart. Grew up in Connecticut; still root for the Red Sox; like 4 seasons; enjoy moving from state to state within an hour or two.

But for all that, I never really spent much time in Vermont. So, on a recent R&R family swing through 7 states (hey, you can do that in a day in New England!), we spent a good chunk of time in Vermont.

And I learned something about how Vermont promotes Vermont.

A while back, there was a big brouhaha about Vermont trying to keep Wal-Mart out if its borders, for fear that the big-box chain would ruin the small business economic setup in the state. I didn’t quite “get it” (overly used to NJ, I guess, where big boxes are ubiquitous), but hey, it’s kind of nice to see a group of people giving a kick in the teeth to mega-business conformity.

But, after spending several days in the state, visiting various towns and businesses, it began to dawn on me. Vermonters like to rely on Vermonters. Small business inter-dependence is a way of life in the small and scattered state, not an option.

I first grasped it when we went on the Ben & Jerry’s tour, and they talked about only using milk (non-bovine growth hormone produced milk) from local Vermont farms. Local community support was (is) a big deal for that company. And, as we visited various shops, we noted that so many of the products being offered were made locally. Cheeses, salsas, wines, beers, meats, maple-stuff, crafts – Vermont sells Vermont.

Now when I go to my local Wal-Mart here in NJ, I just see a bunch of products that, to me and to everyone else, are “root-less.” These are commodities sourced in bulk to obtain and offer low prices. And, as a customer, I appreciate that – up to a point. But as I far more eagerly opened my wallet in Vermont, I realized that the business climate had this “local support” backdrop and feel to it. That ice cream, that syrup, that cider, that chocolate, was made a by a local citizen-craftsman-company. That little store was run by a townsperson. It began to dawn on me why they didn’t want a Wal-Mart invasion. I find that I didn’t want that for Vermont either all of a sudden. It’s a way-of-life/quality-of-life issue.

Oh, and they don’t have billboards either. Do you realize how nice that is?

So, Vermont, my hat’s off to you. Keep up the resistance. Keep being a pleasant and distinctive destination. Maybe I’ll pay more for your stuff, but you know what? You’re worth it.

[Vermonters - do I have this right?]

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Ask the Ten Questions

It really all boils down to about 10 questions. Sit down with a client, go through these questions, and you’ll pretty much have the raw material to brainstorm and blueprint a project.

Just about any kind of project. After many years of consulting with clients about projects large and small, in areas ranging from training to technology to marketing to social media, I’ve found that the key questions are pretty much the same. Here are my Top 10 Questions for Defining a Project:

1. What’s the point? (at the highest level, what exactly are you trying to achieve?)

2. Why? (what are the strategic and business goals that provide the context?)

3. What is the current state? (where are you now?)

4. What is the desired state (where should this initiative take you?)

5. How would success be measured? (what metrics and results will be used to gauge effectiveness?)

6. Who is/are the key stakeholder(s), and the target audience(s)?

7. What are the available resources? (budget, time, internal personnel, etc.?)

8. What are the potential phases? (short-term, long-term, ongoing development?)

9. What are the anticipated deliverables?

10. What are the potential variables that may impact the project?

With some variations on each theme, some sub-questions, and maybe some additional major questions depending on the nature of the initiative, those questions should give a pretty thorough overview for both client and service provider.

If you are on the vendor side, you know that most clients haven’t thought their projects through this thoroughly. That’s where you can take the Ten Questions and do everyone a favor by framing out the project well ahead of time.

That’s my take – what would you add? What questions do you use to tease out the details of a project?

(Image credit)

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The Blog Slave

When you started blogging, it was pretty liberating, wasn’t it? Finally, a format for expressing your ideas! No barriers of time or distance to an audience. And once you started mixing words with other bloggers (and eventually meeting those people at conferences and tweetups), the energy continued to flow.

Until you became a blog slave.

Blogging can be a delightful tyranny. As you build an audience, as you see more incoming links, as you check Technorati rankings or see your name for the first time on the Ad Age Power 7,545 list of marketing blogs (OK, they say 150, but it doesn’t seem to stop there…), you begin to feel the pressure. You don’t want to lose your standing. Your momentum. Your ranking. As they say in academia, publish or perish.

Dump that emotional ballast overboard as fast as you can, OK? Because you are not the sum total of your ability to produce. Your value is you, not your writing output.

I read today how blogging friend Beth Harte feels a need to suspend writing on her excellent blog, The Harte of Marketing, for a season. As part of her post, she says this:

As well, I know social media is quid pro quo and while I try my best to keep up with other blogs (reading and commenting), comments on my blog, etc. I am falling WAY short and for that I am terribly sorry. I would completely understand if people stopped commenting/tweeting my stuff.

Well, the fact is, other things really are more important than obeying Master Blog (as Beth discusses in her post), and Beth’s value to me is not tied to her “production.” She is a friend. She has nothing to prove. Her blogging production couldn’t possibly be top-notch anyway if she’s doing it out of a wearied sense of duty. Treadmills aren’t usually where we get into a creative zone.

Beth doesn’t strike me as the type who wants to live like that. She’s a community-builder. And I would like to hope that putting my keyboard aside for a time would not cause the wonderful people in my network to drift away or be less than the great people I know they are. Otherwise, I’ve failed to build and be part of a community. Or I’ve associated with a bunch of artful fakes! (which I don’t believe for a nanosecond).

If you’re strictly building an “audience” for your “production,” then it will be hard to avoid the slavery. Blogging will be a chore. At times, yes, all the creative and interaction work can be a bit of a slog now and again. But let’s never become slaves, trying to produce bricks without straw, and expect that of others. That’s when I quit for good!

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The Few. The Proud.

In less than 2 weeks, one of my sons begins boot camp with the Marines. Let me say right off that I’m as proud as I can be of him. He’s joining for the right reasons; it’s been his decision all along and it was not made lightly.

Gladly, and with a full heart, we let him go, into the service of his and our country. Did I mention that my wife and I are immensely proud of him? Oh, yeah, I did.

Eighteen years ago he was learning to walk. Now he’s going to take on one of the toughest challenges anyone willingly shoulders. Becoming a U.S. Marine.

Now, how did the Marines “sell” him on entering their branch of the service?

I got to watch the process up close and personal. And let there be no doubt – presenting an elite challenge is a strong message, especially to a young man.

For a certain slice of the population, striving to be the “cream of the crop” is an almost irresistible goal. The top. The elite. The first. The few. The proud.

We all know how companies (like Apple) succeed by getting people to possess and use a “cream of the crop” product. It’s borrowed status, and it’s an incredibly effective marketing strategy. But the Marines present people with the opportunity to become the elite (see this ad for their brand position – thanks for pointing it out, @TomMartin)

And for parents who want to see their children excel, yes, the idea of them taking on an elite challenge is also compelling. I’m sold. What parent doesn’t say to his/her child, in one form or another, “Be all that you can be!” (I know, that’s Army, but still…)

Of course, there are risks and dangers in the military, just as there are in any drive here in the battlefields highways of New Jersey. But there are no ads during football games in the fall extolling the elite status of urban commuters. I don’t see young men hungering to prove themselves as just one of many in a faceless crowd. Some people are driven to reach the top, and…putting on my marketing hat now…those may be the customers you should be pursuing most vigorously. If you have something elite to offer.

The Marines look for the ones with that glint in their eye, the ones who want to be the cream of the crop. Do you? Do your customers see themselves as the few, the proud? Or, perhaps even more importantly, do your employees?

Some people just want everything easy. Others want to excel. They’ll tend to be the faithful ones.

Semper Fi.

The Marine recruit, lined up with brother and Dad sporting “solidarity” military haircuts!

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Tivo Records – and Listens

As part of a major household digital upgrade late last year, we finally entered the 21st century and acquired a TiVo box. I love it – the user experience crosses the threshold of Easy, and we record a whole variety of programs that we can pull up when it’s convenient for us.

One thing bothered me, however, on the TiVo.com site – there was no immediate option on the home page for TiVo users to login (you can select programs you want to record right from the website, which is a great feature). An immediately visible home page login link, to me, was a no-brainer  – users of the service should not need to go one level deep before being presented with that option. Netflix, Amazon – all the cool kids do it that way. Yes, it’s a “mixed” destination (for users and for potential customers who are investigating the service), but it seemed like a design flaw to me, because users who are scheduling recordings should be the biggest source of traffic.

So I did what many of us increasingly do – just threw it out there on Twitter.

And I was surprised to get a rapid response from a TiVo customer service person (that would be you, Shanan) on Twitter who agreed with the input, and passed it along to the development team.

And there it sat, for months. Now I know a bit about web development, and while it may seem like a simple thing to move a link, when you’re dealing with a highly visible and functional site, you don’t make interface changes quickly. A month or two back, I was assured that the input wasn’t forgotten.

It wasn’t. Today, I saw this:

It’s a subtle change, and many might not even notice it. But I, for one, appreciate it. And more than that, I appreciate the fact that TiVo was monitoring Twitter, responded promptly and enthusiastically, and eventually came through with a small but important fix.

Customer service lesson: Listen, respond, act. Bread-and-butter basics, I know. But even though it took a while to see this change, I have nothing but praise for the TiVo team for making it happen. Which I don’t mind sharing publicly here!

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