Challenging the status quo is what I do for a living. Either that or encourage other people to do it.
But there are two ways to do it, and one of them is ineffective, short-sighted and threatens the fabric of the tribe. The other seems to work.
I heard someone screaming about death panels and how the government was not only going to kill his grandmother, but would take out Stephen Hawking himself if it had the chance.
The screaming is a key part, because screaming is often a tool used to balance out the lazy ignorance of someone parroting opposition to an idea that they don't understand. (If you want to write to me about this post, please write to me about the screaming part, not about whether or not you agree with the facts or the science. That's what the post is about, the screaming.)
If you want to challenge the conventional wisdom of health care reform, please do! It'll make the final outcome better. But if you choose to do that, it's essential that you know more about it than everyone else, not less. Certainly not zero. Be skeptical, but be informed (about everything important, not just this issue, of course). Screaming ignorance gets attention, but it distracts us from the work at hand.
It's easy to fit in by yelling out, and far more difficult to actually read and consider the facts. Anytime you hear, "I don't have the time to understand this issue, I'm too busy being upset," you know that something is wrong.
Brands face this as much or more than politicians do. I witnessed a knock-down fight between two teenagers over which operating system was best. There are generations of arguments between Ford and Chevy owners. Motorcycle gangs are often parochial in their choice of bike. And in each case, the less people know, the more they yell.
If you want to change what your boss believes, or the strategy your company is following, the first step is to figure out how to be the best informed person in the room.
August 15, 2009
I think internships are overrated. Most of the time, the employer thinks he's doing the intern a favor, but he doesn't trust the interns to do any actual thoughtful, intelligent work worth talking about. And to be fair, most of the time the interns are busy hiding, not grabbing responsibility but instead acting like they're in school, avoiding hard work and trying to get an A.
Charlie Hoehn has written a beautifully designed ebook that may change the way you think about this. His argument is that 'free work' is something else entirely. It's done as a freelancer, remotely, without direct supervision and it creates a measurable output.
Free work isn't easy to get. Big companies, for example, have bureaucrats that don't often know what to do with a great offer like this. And some people (I'll put myself in this category) are too hands-on to take advantage of it. But you'd be amazed at how many fast-moving companies or influential individuals are all too happy to share credit if it helps the work get done.
And the benefit to the underemployed? You guessed it: great experience and a resume builder that actually means something. Isn't it odd that we're willing to spend $300,000 to buy an accredited but ultimately useless academic line on our resume, but we hesitate to do a month of hard work to create a chunk of experience that's priceless?
August 14, 2009
For a new project, I'm collecting photos of people who make a big difference in your working life.
If you have a photo you can share (see fine print below) of someone you work with, buy from, sell to or interact with professionally–someone who matters, who contributes, who makes a difference–I'd love to include it. It might be your boss, a copyeditor, a waiter, a craftsperson or even (!) a consultant.
All you have to do is attach the photo to an email sent to this address. I won't be able to respond or to read any notes attached, sorry. (Here it is if you have gmail: time10they@photos.flickr.com.)
Fine print: please don't send pictures of dogs, cats or iguanas. No family members, either, we know you can't live without them. No guarantee of inclusion. Close cover before striking. By sending the photo, you acknowledge that you have the right to share it and you're giving me permission to use it. Thanks.
Deadline: Midnight, September 1, 2009. Don't be late.
August 13, 2009
If you invent or launch or market (and you're human) it's likely that you have the voice of the critic in the back of your head. It's natural to fear what they'll say, and if you're not careful, you'll end up redesigning your product to please them before you even launch it.
Imagine the restaurant chef who changes the interior of the restaurant to please the Michelin critic (they insist on a certain quality of cutlery in order to award a three star review). It might be your boss who is the critic. Or consider the B2B manufacturer who alters the product specs in order to meet the standards of the GAO so he can sell to the US Government…
Some critics matter. (Your biggest customer, for example). Some are merely loud. Others are just difficult.
Janet Maslin at the New York Times is a cranky hack. She reviews popular fiction and non-fiction, and as best I can tell, she likes neither very much. She's taken authors to task for questionable copy editing and devoted entire reviews to pointless rants about trivia. Here's the thing: she doesn't matter. Janet's reviews appear to have no impact at all on whether or not a book sells. Her voice is not in my head.
Robert Morris, on the other hand, is a useful guide for people in search of good books. He's reviewed nearly 2,000 books and received almost 25,000 helpful votes for his reviews on Amazon. If he likes your book, you're going to sell more copies–not because he liked it, but because his thorough review lets other people decide if they want to buy it or not.
The challenge is in figuring out which kind of critic is worth paying attention to as you create your product or service. In a business to business setting, pleasing the gatekeeper and the bill payer is essential. On the other hand, pleasing an angry blogger might not matter at all.
In our desire to please everyone, it's very easy to end up being invisible or mediocre. Far better to please the right people.
1. Go where your customers are.
Jacquelyne runs a tiny juice company called Chakwave. I met her in Los Angeles, standing next to an organic lunch truck. Like the little birds that clean the teeth of the hippo, there's synergy here. The kind of person that visits the truck for lunch is the sort of person that would happily pay for something as wonderfully weird as her juice. And the truck owners benefit from the rolling festival farmer's market feel that comes from having a synergistic partner set up on a bridge table right next door.
2. Be micro-focused and the search engines will find you.
My friend Patti Jo is an extraordinary teacher and tutor. Her new business, The Scarsdale Tutor doesn't need many clients in order to be successful. This permits her to focus obsessively and that gets rewarded with front page results on Google. Not because she's tried to manipulate the seo (she hasn't) but because this is exactly the page you'd hope to find if you typed "scarsdale tutor" into a search engine. Could she do this nationwide? Of course not. But she doesn't want to or need to. Living on the long tail can be profitable.
3. Outlast the competition.
I was amazed at all the empty storefronts I saw in LA on my last visit. On one particular block, three or four of the ten lunch places were shut down. And the others? Doing great. That's because the remaining office workers who used to eat lunch at the shuttered places had to eat somewhere, and so the survivors watched their business grow. A war of attrition is never pretty, but if you're smart about overhead and scale, you'll win it.
4. Leverage.
Rick Toone runs a tiny guitar-making operation. His lack of scale makes it easy for him to share. When others start using his designs, he doesn't suffer (he can't make any more guitars than he already is) he benefits, because as the originator of the design, his originals become more coveted, not less valuable. He leverages his insight and shares it as a free marketing device.
5. Respond.
This is the single biggest advantage you have over the big guys. Not only are you in charge, you also answer the phone and read your email and man the desk and set the prices.
So, don't pretend you have a policy. Just be human.
August 12, 2009
In most interactions, we take a defensive posture. We try to defend the
brand, or our turf or our job. The problem with defense is that it's
static. The best way to get smarter, to embrace and to cause change and to triumph in times of market turmoil is to adopt the scientific method.
Ask yourself, "what do I believe that's wrong? How can I change the way I do things? What works? What doesn't?"
If you enter a conversation looking for something to test, measure and ultimately change, it's likely you'll find it. That change makes you more competitive, and you continue to cycle past your competitors. On the other hand, if you enter a conversation concerned about maintaining the status quo, it's likely that this is exactly what you're going to do.
Some people read business books looking for confirmation. I read them in search of disquiet. Confirmation is cheap, easy and ineffective. Restlessness and the scientific method, on the other hand, create a culture of testing and inquiry that can't help but push you forward.
August 11, 2009
In order for an idea to spread, someone has to do the spreading.
In the dark ages (ten years ago), the only way to spread your idea on a large scale was to do it yourself. Lots and lots of ads.
Today, marketers get all sweaty thinking about how this happens magically, virally, for free. If it were only that easy.
What's interesting to me is that different products and ideas are spread by different groups of people. There isn't just one professional association of idea spreaders, with everyone else being passive.
If your authentic little Welsh restaurant gets hot, it's going to be because the chowhounds, the folks who love to talk about the next great place, are buzzing about it. On the other hand, if your blog gets a lot of traffic, it might just be because a few of the digerati are going on about it, spreading the idea.
This is obvious, of course.
But what you are you doing about it? Have you figured out which portion of your user base are the talkers? Is it possible to focus your development efforts on actually making something that they like? Or, are you confusing the people who talk about your competition or about other industries with the people you need to reach? Might not be the same tribe…
The #1 cause of an idea that's not spreading or a business that's not growing is that they don't have a committed group of people spreading the word about them. If you treat everyone the same, you're not increasing the odds that some people will step up on your behalf.
This is the first question to ask someone who is frustrated at the rate their idea is spreading. "Who are you hoping will talk about you?" If you don't know, it's unlikely to happen all by itself. On the other hand, if a marketer is smart about finding, courting and delighting the group most likely to spread the idea, it's time well spent.
August 10, 2009
The sign the broker posted in front of the house listed her name and then said, "#1 in Westchester, Top 10 Nationwide."
What does that mean, exactly? That this real estate broker is the most successful broker in the whole county and one of the top ten in the country? I don't think so. Not if she's selling this house. She'd have to sell a thousand houses like this to catch up with someone in a fancier neighborhood who only sells ten.
I think it means that the firm she works for is really big. So what? Is that a qualification for anything? Is the 11th biggest real estate firm way less good than the ninth?
Here's the danger: when the very first interaction we have is one where you are sort of not telling the relevant truth, where do we go from here?
August 9, 2009
Not photoshopped, I took it myself. The site is real.
I'm trying to imagine someone driving along Highway 11 and making a note of this. For what? The next time someone gets bludgeoned in their living room? (And no, I don't think it was movie inspired).
On the other hand, maybe this is brilliant, because it's police cars that see this sign the most. Go to where your customers are…
August 8, 2009
New media creates a blizzard of tactical opportunities for marketers, and many of them cost nothing but time, which means you don't need as much approval and support to launch them.
As a result, marketers are like kids at Rita's candy shoppe, gazing at all the pretty opportunities.
Most of us are afraid of strategy, because we don't feel confident outlining one unless we're sure it's going to work. And the 'work' part is all tactical, so we focus on that. (Tactics are easy to outline, because we say, "I'm going to post this." If we post it, we succeed. Strategy is scary to outline, because we describe results, not actions, and that means opportunity for failure.)
"Building a permission asset so we can grow our influence with our best customers over time" is a strategy. Using email, twitter or RSS along with newsletters, contests and a human voice are all tactics. In my experience, people get obsessed about tactical detail before they embrace a strategy… and as a result, when a tactic fails, they begin to question the strategy that they never really embraced in the first place.
The next time you find yourself spending 8 hours on tactics and five minutes refining your strategy, you'll understand what's going on.
August 7, 2009
