One company’s vision of the automobiles of the future. Volkswagen recently launched Volkswagen 2028, a website that explores VW’s perspective on a number of issues and how those issues might manifest themselves through design twenty years from now, a perspective rooted deeply in Volkswagen’s longer term brand strategy (read that as marketing). This is not so much about showing us futuristic concepts as much as demonstrating the response to different needs, constraints, and technologies. Responses that are increasingly important to people. Specifically, Volkswagen provides us with some detail in how, in the near future, they might respond to issues of sustainability, networked mobility, customization and personalization, and accident prevention. All of the concepts offer hypothetical technologies that either replace the traditional human-car interaction, or enhance it by steamlining and focusing the action of driving. It’s a good exercise, and I have no doubt that the issues and ideas addressed by VW here are the beginnings of some pretty sophisticated changes that we will see in automobiles. While I imagine that all automobile manufacturers are digging into these concepts, at least to some degree, it is interesting to see Volkswagen put it out there in such a cohesive and comprehensive way, though this is clearly as much about marketing as it is about showcasing advanced engineering thinking.
Matt Dickman recently conducted a really interesting reader poll over at his blog Techno//Marketer to get a sense of what people felt the most influential medium might be. The results are presented in the graph above. I believe it is a safe bet that his readers skew massively to the internet, but I believe they are still representative of the paradigmatic changes that have occurred in the greater media landscape. The broader theme here, that the ways in which people interact with information is changing, is something I am actively exploring myself. What is absolutely not surprising from Matt’s survey is the incredibly low performance of newspapers and radio. The EBITDA of newspapers has been trending down for years, and many historically prominent rags are facing irrelevancy to their audiences. Audience preferences and expectations with regards to how they engage information is changing, this interaction is very fluid, and while some struggle to adapt to this reality others have been slow to respond and are suffering the consequences of a dwindling subscription base and shrinking advertising revenues. That spells doom for those newspapers. The same is happening in radio, and the EBITDA of radio is tracking similarly to that of newspapers. At the heart of this is the reality that we are increasingly moving away from having things pushed at us, and increasing moving toward technologies and mediums that allow us to engage media and information in ways that are dynamic and customizable to our preferences. Also, there is an informational frequency issue and newspapers, especailly, have struggled to compete with the 24/7 nature of the informational engagement model of the web. Those that have moved to a comprehensive web strategy have struggled to find an appropriate revenue model, especially one that can scale. We are watching media evolution and the survival of the fittest, of the most innovative.
Going back perhaps a decade, many newspaper publishers failed to appropriately survey the landscape for strategic risk to their organizations. As a result, they missed important opportunities to substantively investigate and innovate their business models. The web has moved incredibly quickly and efficiently in becoming pervasive in our society, in our culture, and many publishers now face the incredible challenge of trying to change a business model when it is absolutely too late.
Takashi Murakami is a master of the mashup, smashup, and mixing of ideas. A genius in the finding of inspiration. Murakami’s superflat is the liberation of the intrinsic value from his efforts. It is turning art into commerce in a way that Warhol probably envisioned, but did not have the chance to manifest.
Recently I had the opportunity to enjoy another MX Conference put on by the team at Adaptive Path in San Francisco. It rocked and was absolutely full of great information, stories, and people all focused on the developing practice of effectively managing experience design teams. I’d say the rapidly developing practice. We are under a lot of pressure to perform and to deliver value, and often success is largely determined by the effectiveness of how creative teams are led. MX is a window into the practices that have led to success.
At the conference I was asked to extend a pretty generous offer to the readers of schneiderism for the upcoming UX Intensive that Adaptive Path is hosting in Minneapolis, Minnesota from June 16-19. If you work in interaction/experience design in any capacity, really, I highly encourage you to check this workshop out. You can choose specific sessions or pony up for the full week. Adaptive Path knows what they are doing, and they are intensely focused on providing value to the people that attend their events. I speak from experience on that one.
Here’s the offer. If you register by May 31st and use the promotional code UXIM, you will receive a 15% discount on top of the early bird registration 10% discount. That is compelling. Here is a choice quote from the UX registration page:
“Three things I loved about UX Intensive: 1. presenters who totally know their craft and aren’t shy about saying it’s at least as much art as science, but that you can develop the art by first learning the science; 2. a room filled with smart, motivated participants who are expert in many things, some included in the conference topics and some not, working very hard with great joy, to everyone’s benefit; 3. the whole is totally greater than the sum of the parts.”
The phrase “The Agency of the Future” gets thrown around with some abandon (yes, I use it too…). This is partly because it is catchy, but also because it succinctly indicates we are in the midst of change with regards to how people engage media, brands, information and advertising… change mostly driven by the digital channel. This phrase seems to point to a mythical agency that has navigated this change successfully, but that I am not so sure yet exists. Things are very fluid.
I was thinking about this phrase recently and remembered reading the Avenue A|Razorfish 2008 Digital Outlook Report. In that report, on page 26, AARF CEO Clark Kokich writes a smart piece on “The Client of The Future,” noting that agencies are not the only ones who need to change. This is a fresh and smart perspective.
Basically, many client organizations have not evolved from an optimization model that found its inception in the 1950’s, and has been refined over time but largely left in place for the last fifty years or so. This is a model that subscribes to a linear “consumer purchase funnel” that begins at the top with brand building via traditional media, and ends with purchase usually driven by direct marketing or some such. Pretty ubiquitous, and increasingly irrelevant.
Kokich points out that this model is becoming more and more unstable, and this is both because of how consumers have changed as well as the level of specialization within client organizations, and the inevitable creation of silos based on that specialization each tasked with successfully managing a specific consumer touch point. Thing is, consumers don’t move neatly from touch point to touch point anymore. They surf, and search, and refer, and work information to streamline their own process of seeking. They seek truth and authenticity, and as marketers that is a really tough thing to put a finger on, to generate or control. We see a development that has rendered much of marketing, in the traditional message-based-push-sense, specious, annoying and/or dishonest in the minds of the consumer. This realization is not new, and thousands talk about this on their blogs every day. There are a number of agencies and marketers that are well aware of this change, and have changed the ways in which they work and how they engage audiences. To Kokich’s point, maybe now is a good time for the marketing orgs inside of companies to embrace this same change, and to begin thinking differently about how they set about communicating the value of what it is their company does or provides, to have new and clear expectations for what that communication entails and what the new relationship with the consumer really means.
I just came across this excellent video, via [paul isakson] that nicely ties together what I and about a million other people have been writing about with regards to social media and the ways in which we engage and share information. Not so much how things have changed, but how they are changing. It is definitely worth watching.
There is a struggle underway inside the marketing teams of many high profile and recognizable brands. It is essentially a two-sided struggle. On the one hand are the traditionalists, usually those that cut their teeth on marketing methodologies in the 1970’s, 80’s, and in some cases the 1990’s. On the other are the change agents, those that are not married to methodology and understand the power and impermanent nature of the new channels available for interaction. In the center, between these two sides, is the idea of innovation.
I just read an excellent post by Idris Mootee at FutureLab that very clearly puts all of this together, and strongly counters the assertions of the traditionalists. At the core of his post, Idris reacts to a line in a recent article in AdAge (sorry, subscriber only…) from the esteemed Al Ries who states:
“Innovation should be seen as a tactic, not a business strategy.”
Al Ries
Al makes some interesting points in his article. He points out that a strategic focus on innovation will potentially undermine the brand position of a company, and confuse customers. Al, representative of the traditionalists in this schism, argues for brand focus in place of innovation, and on the traditional efforts around brand strategy believing that success comes from a narrow focus on an attribute or market segment. The traditionalists will point to endless case studies of this being so. They want to protect what is working. They want to protect their well worn methodologies.
But it is not working. Markets are changing. Customers are changing. The way we make decisions is changing. Consumers move quickly, and the value propositions that drive this movement can change overnight. This is not because we are fickle, it is in fact because we have become smarter. We are armed with information that has raised our expectations and are increasingly dissatisfied with product or service status-quo that does not perform. We also talk to each other, and network around interests and affiliations sharing our perspectives on all manner of things. This is a really big deal. If a product or service does not speak to us, if it is not meaningful, and if it does not do what we expect it to do… we move on. And these days there are a myriad of choices in each category that are differentiated by innovation, by thinking differently about how we use a product or what we need it to do, that brand loyalty is increasingly directly linked to the effectiveness with which something meets or exceeds expectations. Increasingly, though, we also talk about the fact we are moving on, why we are moving on, and what we are moving on to. This is good, but it is putting incredible pressure on companies that have historically dominated their categories or markets. Think about the changes in the automotive business over the last twenty years. Where has the center of innovation been? Not in Detroit. Think about the cleaning products category. Companies like Method have shaken the stalwart brands to their core, and Method came out of nowhere. Think about airlines and the last flight you took. I am guessing you hated the whole experience. How long will we take that until we demand access to the airlines that get us, those that are innovating in that category? We already are.
The net result here is that we have a growing passion for innovation. We, the consumers, seek out innovative products and services that meet our needs and provide us value. This is not about attributes, it is about effectiveness and the value created by this effectiveness. This is as true for B2B companies as it is for B2C, and we should all pause a moment and think hard about the marketing stratagems that we have in place. Are they relevant? Do our customers really care?
In February of last year I and a co-worker had an excellent time at Adaptive Path’s MX Conference held in San Francisco. The speakers were solid. The cool, smart and interesting people-to-meet quotient was quite high (including Adam Richardson of frog and Brooks Protzmann of Dell). I immediately became an advocate, have blogged about some of the speakers here, and continue to relate back to the experience and what I learned. The theme of the conference, “Managing Experience through Creative Leadership,” is one that is clearly industry agnostic, focused on creating successful and engaging audience experiences, and stands to benefit a multitude of businesses and teams regardless of their proximity to or intersection with a stereotypically “creative” business. This stuff should matter to all of us.
I’m going back again this year, and those that know me have already heard this about a thousand times. I have sent out invitations to join me at the conference. I am attending with a co-worker and friend, who also is a participant in our yearly “Innovation Tours.” This year’s tour begins with the MX Conference, and then we are scheduling tours and information sessions with a number of companies and organizations in and around the Bay Area. This should be an inspiring and invaluable trip, and an opportunity to make some great connections.
I received a confirmation email from Adaptive Path, and in that was something that I thought to be incredibly cool. They are paying a lot of attention to the time we are not at the sessions, and creating opportunities for all of the attendees to cross paths. There are the obligatory end of day cocktail receptions, and daily lunches scheduled as part of the conference, but it is the reservations for tables of eight made at restaurants around San Francisco that struck me as especially cool. As an attendee, just decide where you want to eat and show up. The reservation is already made and you have no idea who you will be dining with, which presents all kinds of happy accidents. It’s a dining/conference mashup, and a service for those not familiar with the city to get them out and meeting others.
So, yeah, I’m looking forward to this conference. I’m planning on live tweeting (inspired by David Armano’s tweets from the AdAge event a few weeks ago) the interesting things that I learn, and will try to recap at the end of each day here on schneiderism. You can follow the conference on twitter by following me.
This interview with Hugh MacLeod by Shel Israel, which I came across because I follow Hugh on Twitter, is reinforcing of a conversation I had last evening about how companies might begin thinking about social media, and how social media might be helpful in building strong connections with their audiences. Specifically, we were discussing a company that produces outstanding content that people pay for, that when they find they generally love. Content that stands qualitatively above comparable content from most all of their competitors, but content that is ultimately difficult to find unless you are specifically looking for it. This company has no active digital strategy, that I can tell, and has not begun considering the benefits of meeting their audiences on their own turf. Imagine if they did? The really cool thing here, for this company in particular, is that there is virtually no risk and minimal cost for beginning to experiment with this. But there is a tremendous amount to gain, and to be gained in a way that is authentic and meaningful for those who seek such a connection and value the content that they create. That’s cool. And exciting. And potentially a wasted opportunity.
That’s a line from a really excellent slide presentation by David Armano and via FutureLab that succinctly summarizes some of the best opportunities for companies today as they contemplate their interactive marketing strategy, and how best to connect with their audience(s).
Three of his points here that are especially meaningful to me:
Leverage the WordPress Content Management System - Huge value here, especially when combined with a thoughtful content strategy, analytics, and the focus to continuously improve and help audiences get the information that they seek. You’re only as good as your content is fresh. I am an enormous proponent of Wordpress as not only is schneiderism built with it, but two sites I am currently involved with are also taking advantage of what Wordpress offers. It has become a powerful technology for efficiently building effective websites and is very customizable from an interface design standpoint.
Combine technologies for a stronger strategy - Like using Twitter to promote new content or priority links to people that choose to follow you. Effectively combining micro-marketing technologies can create an incredibly macro effect by making it incredibly easy for people to find you, your company, or your perspective and to help you communicate to a much broader audience very quickly, efficiently and cost effectively.
Orchestrate infinite touchpoints - This is perhaps the most powerful slide in Armano’s presentation, and it relates very directly to the effective combination of technologies. Your messages can and should manifest themselves in a number of ways, and in a number of places. Starting with an effective website, also think about a mobile strategy, how you should use online social networks, and sites like Slideshare, YouTube, and Twitter. Effectively combining these into a range of audience touchpoints is powerful, and ultimately worth spreading your investment. In terms of platforms, it would seem shortsighted to invest in only one (like a website) when a little additional effort can position you with a range of effective communications technologies, and the technologies that your audiences are using to get information. This would be the embodiment of the whole “meet them on their turf” strategy.
Another great line from the presentation is “make the participant the star.” Armano presents a total of ten points related to investigating your interactive marketing strategy, and they are all pretty tight so I suggest taking a moment to view the entire presentation.
This is going to be a bit stream-of-consciousness, but I want to share these thoughts. I feel like I am experiencing a slow motion revolution of sorts, one that has been underway for a while, as I’ve suddenly experienced a lot of discussion around broken models, agencies of the future, emerging media, and the new marketing… primarily from the kickass blogs (all now featured in my blogroll on the right, so visit them often) of Tim Brunelle, Todd Defren, Garrick Van Buren, and Matt Dickman. Garrick and I have actually had some killer conversations IN PERSON, as well. Anyway, this discussion has really been happening for years (in slow motion…), but lately it seems more intense, more focused. I think some people are scared, and others are excited. Why? These two camps, scared and excited, pretty much align perfectly to those that don’t get what is happening in the world of media, advertising, communications, and people’s expectations for same, and those that do get what is happening. I am beginning to hear with more frequency references to “New Marketing,” “New Advertising,” and “New PR” from those that appear to get this reality. What makes them new?
Well, pretty simply, three things… and how they are successfully dealing with them:
The increasing prevalence of the internet in a pervasive, accessible way, and…
The reality that the internet is rapidly becoming everyone’s medium of choice.
The fact that traditional advertising, PR & marketing is largely irrelevant given 1 & 2.
I’m certainly not the first to point this out, but it would seem prescient to remind ourselves (especially those of you that are scared) that things are now very, very different than they were even five years ago. People ignore advertising and messages. They find them irritating, and are annoyed when these things are pushed at them. But even in the context of social media, old models persist. At lunch today Aaron Keller of Capsule pointed out that the ads on his MySpace page really bothered him because he didn’t care. They were for companies that he’s not at all interested in. They took up space and were irrelevant and distracting in a bad way. That is the old model in action. Let’s look more closely at how that happened:
Company with an internal marketing team wants to get a message out.
That message is that they are “current, with it, and meaningful to the kids.”
They engage an agency of sorts.
Agency brainstorms and comes up with banner ads. Ugh.
Agency says “You should be advertising on MySpace, where the kids are.”
A big media buy and campaign investment later, it’s lunch conversation for us.
And so it goes. The advent of the internet changed a lot of things, but one thing it really did well was create a communications platform that empowered a lot of people to start talking about their likes and dislikes and about their experiences. It began to connect people in new and meaningful ways based on this talking. Suddenly, what was being said mattered. It came from real people, and felt much more authentic. In most cases it WAS/IS authentic. Suddenly, you could niche down as far as your interests demand and suddenly, advertising, marketing and PR in the traditional sense seemed somewhat less relevant, and sometimes totally irrelevant. Not good for traditionalists in these industries. The internet has allowed us to refine the skill of ignoring everything except that which we are interested in. Going back to those that get it, it would seem the smartest thing to do in these industries is work really hard on connecting people with the information, products, services and companies they are interested in. To help them connect, to support them, to make it easy. For the agency to be the advocate for the audience, which probably sounds totally heretical to some. This is a partnership with audience that is pretty cool, and yet to be really figured out. It won’t be advertising, marketing, or PR when it is figured out… it’ll be something “New.”
Social media is the panacea du jour. It still feels new, and for many it still remains unknown territory. It seems like something business should be doing, and businesses are trying to understand how social media may or may not support their objectives. For this, they look to the agency specialists, those whose job it is to embrace the cutting edge and live innovation in communications, those that are supposed to have the backs of business when it comes to strategic marketing planning. Brian Morrisey’s Social Media: ‘Agencies Don’t Get It’, Survey Says last week in Adweek reveals that agencies may be the wrong ones to turn to for social media insights.
This is because nobody has really been able to “figure out” social media yet, least of all the agencies, and that may be the point. Perhaps the organic, authentic nature of social media makes it not-figure-outtable. Various agencies continue to try, and experiment with approaches that range from the bizarre to the probably effective, but in reality the environment is still very, very fluid. This reality presents the paradox of agencies knowing that social media is a big thing, and professing to be ahead of the curve on this big thing, but not really knowing how to work with this big thing to create value for their client businesses. Participation is an art form, but they are all still experimenting. That is dangerous for businesses. And expensive.
Last week a co-worker said to me that blogging is so “last year.” I laughed, and pointed out that the ROI of blogging for businesses has not even begun to reach a level of note. If he was referring to people blogging about their cat, I am inclined to agree, but the power of social media for business is very, very much in its infancy. He did not know what he was talking about. I suspect that with regards to social media, most don’t.
A choice quote from Morrisey’s article:
“You get the sense that agencies talk a good game. They put up a good presentation about what social media is, but when you get to implementing campaigns, the day-to-day management skills are not meeting the marketers’ expectations.”
Jim Nail, CMO and CSO - TNS Media Intelligence/Cymfony
Great interview with Steve Jobs by Fortune editor Betsy Morris excerpted at cnnmoney.com. Read it.
He knows what he is doing:
“Our DNA is as a consumer company — for that individual customer who’s voting thumbs up or thumbs down. That’s who we think about. And we think that our job is to take responsibility for the complete user experience. And if it’s not up to par, it’s our fault, plain and simply.”
On his reputation as a total hardass:
“My job is to not be easy on people. My job is to make them better. My job is to pull things together from different parts of the company and clear the ways and get the resources for the key projects. And to take these great people we have and to push them and make them even better, coming up with more aggressive visions of how it could be.”
It’s all about focus:
“Apple is a $30 billion company, yet we’ve got less than 30 major products. I don’t know if that’s ever been done before. Certainly the great consumer electronics companies of the past had thousands of products. We tend to focus much more. People think focus means saying yes to the thing you’ve got to focus on. But that’s not what it means at all. It means saying no to the hundred other good ideas that there are. You have to pick carefully.”
This book is not fetishistic, as many logo and identity books tend to be. Design Matters // Logos, by the team at Capsule, is an excellent and methodical review of the thinking, process and decision making behind a series of very successful identities created by a diverse group of designers (from Futurebrand to Sagmeister). The subtitle “An Essential Primer For Today’s Competitive Market” gives this away. I appreciate and find it fascinating to see what designers and design teams worked through to get to the end result, to be privy to the strategy behind something as mistakenly subjective as a logo. Each identity reviewed is broken down into these sections:
Introduction - a brief overview of the situation and the objectives
Planning - the foundational work leading up to design
Creating - details related to the development of the identity
Implementing - how the identity was introduced and executed
It is an incredibly informative book, as well as being very well designed. Beautiful, really. The organization and information contained within lend themselves to repeat reading, and it is the kind of book that becomes a frequent resource for a review on identity strategy and inspiration. I found the extensive section on planning to be of particular value, given my penchant for strategy and well-developed rationale, and is something that any team setting out to create identity would benefit from reading… especially pages 36-37 which offers some great insights into navigating the complexities of the research process.
Full disclosure, I received this book from Rockport Publishers. I love free books, when they are good, and I recommend this one without hesitation and will be keeping it in my “active” stack of books. It rocks.
The British Design Council has emerged from a period of serious introspection and reinvention. The results? New leadership and direction in the form of Chairman Sir Michael Bichard (pictured above with sleeves rolled up and ready to dig in and get to work), and sharper focus replete with a new tagline:
“Helping businesses become more successful, public services more efficient and designers more effective.”
Not so much catchy as vitally important in describing its direction, I suppose. The Design Council has long been a resource for the design industry, but has suffered mounting criticism in the last few years due to a predominance of product, industrial and graphic design focus in its efforts and events. This despite the reality that the Design Council has done much to show businesses all over the world the real value of design when applied to a diversity of industries.
Sir Michael Bichard’s recent appointment as chairman is in support of the refined Council mission of being the strategic body for design in the UK. The operative word now being “strategic.” Bichard has a long record as a successful public servant, leader in arts and education, and vocal supporter of the value of design. He received attention recently for his Five Rules of Design:
1. Great design can change the world and move people
2. If you think good design is expensive you should look at the real cost of bad design
3. Design, creativity and innovation are essential if we are to meet the global challenges of sustainable development
4. Design is not just about products and communications, it’s also increasingly in the services we receive or buy
5. To consume design is a creative act - and everyone can be creative!
I chuckle each time I read rule number two, as it is so, so true. These rules are important as the Council still finds itself embroiled in debate about exactly how design fits into the British, or global, economy. Despite their best efforts, the design community in the UK still finds itself somewhat adrift from the core of British industry and business. This is partly due to overconfidence, and partly due to the increasing irrelevancy of design education in the face of the realities of real world practice. These challenges are no different than those faced here in the United States, and amount to a massing of missed opportunities for design. Changing this begins, perhaps, with the importance of combining a deep understanding of business and business processes, of business thinking, with the methodologies and practices of design thinking, a concept getting much airplay in a diversity of business magazines as of late. It would seem that the British Design Council is going down this road, and most probably in a smart way, and as they are known for their quality publications and case studies I look forward to learning more about their new focus in the coming months.
The speculation around next week’s MacWorld 2008 was kicked into overdrive over the last 24 hours. Funny, the feelings I get before MacWorld are like the feelings I USED to get before xmas when I was a child. Giddy with anticipation. I guess that makes me a fanboy.
Anyway, the Apple store went down yesterday morning which is what happens when Cupertino adds new and enhanced products. When it came back online, Apple announces new Xserve and Mac Pro 8-core computers capable of supporting eight 30 inch flat panel monitors. That’s cool. But why do that now? See the image above, or at least that is the speculation of the respected gadget and tech blogs around the internet. This could be a great start to 2008, if that’s how you roll.
And to add incredible fuel to the speculative fire, suddenly this was being passed around. Watch it, just for fun.
I feel eight years old again.
Update2 - Now the video is back. Enjoy. What do you think?
Update1 - Adding to the excitement, the video has been taken down. Trust me, it was very, very cool.
That’s a quote from Evel Knievel last year. He died today at the age of 69. Definitely the end of an era, and the loss of a personal childhood icon (a pre-Hunter S. Thompson childhood icon… and just as weird and cool). The man jumped his motorcycle over big and scary things. Buses, sharks, and canyons… all were but opportunities for Evel Knievel. And he fractured over 40 bones in the process. Crazy? Yes. Cool? Yes. An American hero? Most definitely, in the most American way, which is to say honest and imperfect. A memorable quote from the man:
“You come to a point in your life when you really don’t care what people think about you, you just care what you think about yourself.”
Evel Knievel (1938-2007)
Update: And not moments after posting I find this kick ass tribute via Coop at Positive Ape Index:
“He was the last relic of the way America used to be, before the lawyers and pussies took over. A holy fool, watched over by angels who drank Old Style and smoked Lucky Strikes. A crazy, fearless, larger-than-life crackpot, last in a long line of same, heir to Davy Crockett, Wild Bill Hickok, P.T. Barnum, Horatio Nelson Jackson, “Cannonball” Baker, and every other kook who refused to listen to reason. The world is a smaller place without him.”
I just read that a new study from Informa has revealed there are now 3.3 billion mobile phone subscriptions world-wide. Yes, this number is misleading as more than a couple countries showed subscription rates in excess of 100%. But still, just last month it was reported that mobile phone subscriptions had reached nearly the level of 2.7 billion people world-wide. Either way, we are talking about roughly half the world population having mobile phones. That should give all of us pause, at least for a moment. If you have avoided thinking about a mobile marketing strategy, and you know who you are (!), maybe now is a time to broach the topic. Nothing says I love you like half the world’s population.
Blogging is not going away. It may be changing, but it is not going away. I came across the statistics below via Converstations, whose RSS Feed I subscribe to, awhile ago and am only now getting around to sharing it with you.
The reality is that business is only just beginning to understand the value and power of the conversation created with their customers through blogging. This is an honest dialog, and one that customers are increasingly demanding in order to determine the authenticity of the products and services they consider. I don’t know about you, but I subscribe to dozens of blogs that cover a range of topics… from art to marketing, from cooking to parenting. I also read tons of magazines, but that is more of a luxury. I engage with blogs daily, and try to work on my own blog daily. For me, this is of tremendous value, and after reviewing the stats below I think it is safe to say that I am very much not alone in this thinking:
Over 12 million American adults currently maintain a blog.
More than 147 million Americans use the Internet.
Over 57 million Americans read blogs.
1.7 million American adults list making money as one of the reasons they blog.
89% of companies surveyed think blogs will be more important in the next five years.
I came across this cartoon today at Hugh MacLeod’s blog, gapingvoid. It gave me pause. Partly because I think that Hugh makes a joke about something that is probably partly true, and partly because, in so many ways, the CEO of an innovative consumer electronics and technology company has become something of a rockstar. Full disclosure… I have Apple technology all over the place. At home. At work. In my car. I am writing this blog post on my MacBook Pro which is connected wirelessly to the internet via the Apple Airport, and I am streaming music from Apple iTunes on my computer wirelessly to speakers with Apple’s Airport Express. So, just so I’m very clear, I’m an adherent. Steve’s technology works really, really well for me.
That’s all fine and good, but the CEO of Sony is not a rockstar. The CEO of Intel is not a rockstar. We don’t even really know for sure who the CEO of Dell is anymore, and while you could argue that Bill Gates is a rockstar… I would have to respectfully disagree. Bill Gates is just rich.
I think that Steve’s rockstar quality is in part due to how well he has connected with the audiences for Apple’s products. Like a great band, he gives the people what they want and leaves us anxiously awaiting the next tour. The man is not glamorous, he’s not flashy and really, he’s not that memorable… other than when he presents. And that’s the other part. Steve Jobs has become a master at the unveiling and the presenting of the new offerings from Apple. So much so that these presentations are standing room only. What other CEO can pull that off?
People are constantly writing about how Steve Jobs (and his probably enormous support team) approaches these presentations. The use of multi-media, guest appearances, and the stringing of the audience along are masterful. His slides are elegant and very well done and have inspired people all over the world to improve their boardroom presentations. His slides are also incredibly simple, beautifully graphic and visual, and he navigates them with ease and confidence. The man is a smooth presenter. On stage, as a presenter and as the CEO of Apple, this non-flashy, non-glamorous, almost forgetful individual exudes style… and he does so in a completely conversational and genuine way. The multi-media is merely a backdrop and supportive of his message, and his visuals are in perfect alignment with what he is saying. Now, if you have seen more than a couple Apple Keynotes by Steve, you quickly understand that his presentations are built on solid and consistent organization. This is what creates the flow, what makes his presentations more about hearing a really great story. The fact that, up on stage, he also seems calm, at ease, and immensely approachable allows everybody to focus on exactly what he is saying, on the story he is telling. I think that Steve Jobs is perhaps the most at ease, human presenter I have ever seen. He makes it look so easy. He is a rockstar.
These keynotes always look so effortless and so easy. A lot of people just think that is who Steve Jobs is, and that doing these incredible presentations in front of millions of rapt fans is a totally natural thing for him. It’s not. The man is charismatic, but like a great band, he and his team practice and drill, they refine and hone, then practice more until everything is incredibly well tested, rehearsed, and choreographed. How could we not think he is a rockstar? With all of the effort put into these presentations he is, by default, a rockstar. Back in the 1970’s when Peter Frampton brought arena rock to the world, he made it look easy and effortless too. Steve Jobs is bigger than Frampton.
I read an excellent, concise and thought provoking post by Seth Godin over the weekend and thought it important to share. It’s about the reality of work that aspires to be “good enough.” We’ve all been here either as participants or observers. Either way, we are complicit in managing downward performance expectations for projects. Definitely something to think about. Here is Seth’s post:
“Most marketing efforts are projects in response to problems. ‘We need a box for the product launch.’ ‘We need a press release for the tour the boss is doing.’ ‘We need an ad campaign for the Super Bowl.’
In response to projects, many organizations figure out the resources they’ve got and then work hard to do something good enough. On time, within budget. Meeting spec, after all, is your job.
You end up, if you’re talented, with something good enough.
Is that enough? Is good enough enough to win? To change the game? To reinvent your organization and your career? In a crowded market, when all the competition is good enough, not much happens.
Good enough is beyond reproach. It’s safe at the same time it represents quality. Good enough demonstrates effort and insight and ability. People rarely get fired for good enough, which is a shame.
If you redefined the objective to be, “makes some people uncomfortable, changes the entire competitive landscape and is truly remarkable in that many of the key people we reach feel compelled to talk about it,” what would happen?
First, it would require significant risk-taking. Which would include the risk of failure and the risk of getting fired (omg!). Can you and your team handle that? If not, might as well admit it and settle for good enough. But if you’re settling, don’t sit around wishing for results beyond what you’ve been getting.
Second, it would mean that every single time you set out to be remarkable, you’d have to raise the bar and start over. It’s exhausting.
Third, it means that the boss and the boss’s boss are unlikely to give you much cover. Are you okay with that?
I hope so. It’s worth it.”
For some reason this post reminds me of the 1992 David Mamet movie “Glengarry Glen Ross” and the line delivered by Alec Baldwin’s character (this is my best attempt to recall the lines)… something like “First place, you win a Cadillac. Second place you win a set of steak knives. Third place, you lose your job.”
A former colleague, now working in publishing, and I have been trading emails on the future of print publishing and the implication of hesitating to actively engage an online publishing strategy.
That’s just how we roll.
Anyway, this dialog is motivated by conversations I have had recently with a couple people intimately ensconced in the traditional print world and who are struggling with how they might begin changing their model. They know that there are quality opportunities for them by engaging an online strategy, they are just profoundly unsure on where to start and what to do. Generally, I think it is safe to say that most people in print publishing accept that online communications are increasingly dominant over printed communications. This may scare them, but it is being increasingly accepted as the way things are going. There is an exponential effect at play here. For traditionally print based organizations, the transition from a print model to an online model is incredibly difficult, despite the potentially massive opportunity. The difficulty is largely from the perceived threat of online publishing within these organizations as those whose entire career has been based on print, despite most probably having a place in a company that also pursues an online strategy, will resist change, progress and the future. This can be said for so, so many industries. My colleague pointed out what we have all seen before, that when people feel threatened they do funny and irrational things… And this is the situation the two people I mentioned before are faced with. They know they need to change. They know that the future of their organization lies with a smart online strategy. They are prevented from the first steps of even investigating their options by the legacy notions of what print publishing is all about. They are being held back by the inability of their own people to grasp the importance, and the inevitability, of this future. Perhaps the internet is just a fad.
My friend also correctly states that if print publications are not smart enough to adapt on their own they will eventually be forced to adapt through the demands of their advertisers. We’re already seeing this as requests for online advertising opportunities begin to out pace an organization’s ability to deliver them. The big question is… Will these companies be irrelevant by the time they catch up with demand? Will they be beaten to their audiences by somebody faster and more nimble? It can be very difficult to teach an old dog new tricks, but audiences increasingly want to control when and how they access content. And all of this, sadly, doesn’t even touch on the opportunities related to social networks, user generated content, etc… This is especially threatening to an organization that has always maintained total control of its communications. The thought of giving power back to the people is enough to cause seizures among many a management group.
It is easy to see how legacy issues anchor publishing based organizations in a 1980’s mindset, it’s happening everywhere and old habits die very, very hard. The future is inevitable, though, and I surmise those publications that are at the vanguard of merging their online and offline editorial (think about BusinessWeek, Fast Company, Forbes etc.) in a COMPLIMENTARY way are the ones that are still going to be around in 15-20 years. Outside of the infrastructure limitations of print, there is the whole access to customer/audience quotient that newstands and subscriptions just cannot touch. Also, proportionally leveraging the web and interactive marketing opportunities potentially far surpasses the traditional arcane reliance on direct marketing for subscriptions.
In orgs that predate the advent of the internet I suppose one way of bending the corporate agenda is to be non-threatening. Approaching the re-purposing of content, the marketing via the web, and the creation of interactive channels that give customers the information they want, when and how they want it, is something that can be proffered as an “enhancement” of traditional business practices. Over time, though, the results will be a vastly changed situation.
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