Item #25: How To Be Great

In my industry, there are many people in pursuit of being ‘great’, being ‘rich’, and/ or being ‘famous’. I’m pretty sure it’s not just a factor of my industry; I think it’s a factor of the generation. The ‘15 minutes of fame’; ‘everyone can be a celebrity’ culture and grand wealth of the last decade or so has permeated thinking. I won’t get into my essential conflict around that fact here; if you want my perspective on that, see an earlier post: Item #16: The Tortoise or The Hare.

What I will comment on here is the folly in the thinking that surrounds the desire to be ‘great’, ‘rich’ and/ or ‘famous’ and the consequent errors of the approaches many of the searchers take.

Stated simply, the fundamental problem is that ‘being great’, ‘being rich’, and/ or ‘being famous’ are NOT states that can be pursued. These are NOT goals. We pretend that they are - telling ourselves to visualize our fame or our riches or our greatness – and lulling ourselves into some false belief that the ‘great’, ‘rich’ and ‘famous’ fairies will then come rest on our shoulders, alongside a beautiful dragonfly, flap their magical wings and voila bring everything we ever wanted into our lives.

‘Being great’, ‘being rich’, and/ or ‘being famous’ are not states that can be pursued. They are not goals. They are outcomes. They come as the result of something else.

It is only when something else happens that ‘great’, ‘rich’, and/or ‘famous’ becomes the outcome. Zuckerberg invents the brilliant Facebook and hence he is rich. Meryl Streep wins acting award after acting award and hence is famous. Nelson Mandela stands up for something that matters critically to him and hence he is great.

Zuckerberg wasn’t in search of ‘rich’, he was in search of an innovative technology that would be useful to many of his friends. Streep wasn’t in search of ‘famous’, she was pouring her skill and her heart into something she loved to do. Mandela wasn’t in search of ‘great’; he was in search of taking a personal stand and making an issue known.

Conditions For Being Great

There are however, some conditions that I believe form the basis for the opportunity of being ‘great’, ‘rich’, and/or ‘famous’, not in some orderly way, but I believe in some way, and here they are:

Exceptional Talent: People who achieve ‘great’, ‘rich’ and/ or ‘famous’ have some exceptional talent, however small, however specific – in fact, often small and often very specific. They find that little piece of specificity about their own unique talent and they mine that to it’s fullest, like a dog with a bone.

Exceptional Enjoyment: People who achieve ‘great’, ‘rich’ and/ or ‘famous’ experience exceptional enjoyment through every step of the process. They don’t worry about the outcomes of ‘great’, ‘rich’ and/ or ‘famous’ because they love what they are doing on a day-to-day basis. And frankly, because they love it so much, they end up being even more damn good at it, and amplifying the ‘exceptionally talented’ bucket above.

Hard Work: People who achieve ‘great’, ‘rich’ and/ or ‘famous’ don’t wait for the fairies or the dragonfly to come rest on their shoulder. They work, work, work, hard, not necessarily at the exclusion of a balanced life, but they give 200% to everything they do. The talent is not enough on its own; these people know it’s up to them to make that talent live.

Consistent Commitment: People who achieve ‘great’, ‘rich’ and/ or ‘famous’ commit, stay focused, and keep their head down. They know what they are doing, why they are doing it, they know how it feels inside their own bones and that’s all that matters. Commitment means knowing your own personal path and vision and believing in it. Alone. Yes, I said ‘Alone’.

Altruistic Position: This one might seem surprising where the others may not have. I actually believe that the people who will achieve ‘great’, ‘rich’ and/ or ‘famous’ are more often than not the ones who never had it in mind. In many ways, I believe that ‘great’, ‘rich’ and/ or ‘famous’ is much like happiness – the more you pursue it, the more it eludes you. I believe the best chance to be ‘great’, ‘rich’ and/ or ‘famous’ is to build the conditions above and to do it for yourself and the people you love. Then, with that altruistic intention, ‘great’, ‘rich’ and/ or ‘famous’ might just come land on your shoulder.

Luck: There’s an element of luck in everything. I’m a believer. But I believe luck often comes along just when we need it. We don’t have to pursue the ‘right person at the right time’, or that 'coincidental' opportunity. When your life needs a little luck, it will find you.

Good Karma: Had to say it. Be nice to people. Have a positive, honest, respectful intention behind the things you do. Want to make a meaningful difference in the world, not just your world, but in the world. When I think about it, the people who achieve ‘great’, ‘rich’ and/ or ‘famous’ live this way, don’t they? Maybe a clue.

Item #24: To Connect or Disconnect. That is the Question.

The New York Times published two articles this past week, both related to the issue of technological connectivity. Gary Shteyngart wrote ‘Only Disconnect’ and Laurie Winer wrote ‘Born to Check’, both published on July 9, 2010.

In Gary’s article, he speaks of existential distress at acquiring his ‘iTelephone’, noting how he used to absorb the environment like an artist, and how the device had molded him into a robotic state manipulated by the strings of the wireless world. He celebrates when the network makes connection impossible so that he and his friends can make meaningful contact over the primal event of a meal and some fine scotch in the setting of stars, and trees and chirping birds. I can identify with Gary’s experience.

Laurie discusses the current times of connectivity, from an evolutionary, intellectual perspective, concluding (with the supportive influence of a media and technology writer) that technology brings change, and we accommodate; actually, that in fact, we benefit.

I’m seeing this ‘Connectivity’ issue pop-up more frequently. Is ‘Constant Connectivity’ going to invade our lives and turn us into an army of reactive robots? Or will we reach a boiling point, revolt and shun connectivity?

I suspect neither. I suspect ‘Connectivity’ will challenge us and we will respond. Just like so many other shifts in our human history.

Remember ‘Work-from-Home’?

For just a moment, let’s remember back to the mid-1990s. The ‘work-from-home’ phenomenon was emerging. Workers would negotiate approval to ‘work-from-home’, in some capacity, be it one day a week or full-time. Connectivity via networking and mobile technology devices made this possible: laptops, intranets, cell phones, email, conference calling.

I recall the co-occurring ‘work-from-home’ angst too: fear that it would bring with it a state of ‘always on’. It came true. With this technology came greater demands on time; we had 6:00 am conference calls because suddenly we could link nationally or internationally, so we did. But what also came with this technology was greater flexibility.

Now, I’ll generalize and say that the ‘work-from-home’ phenomenon is all but dead – at least in the formal sense. Now, we all* ‘work-from-home’: sometimes more, sometimes less, sometimes early in the morning, sometimes late at night, sometimes midday too. But we also attend our kid’s ‘step-up to grade 1’ graduation, we also enjoy working sessions in a park or on a restaurant patio, and we review materials late at night from the comfort of our homes rather than the walls of our work. We figured it out, and now mobile working is a part of every day, for most people*. We are always on, yes, but we can also control when we are off to a degree we couldn’t pre-1995-ish.

The Future -- with Connectivity.

As technology continues to infiltrate our lives, we will become increasingly accessible; the demands of connection, people and work, will become more prolific. But we’ll adapt, just like we’ve always done.

- ‘Work time’ and ‘personal time’ will evolve so we will each personally and hence collectively redefine those concepts.

- We’ll work differently. Perhaps the walls of ‘the office’ will fall. I suspect this is likely. Workspaces will become more ad-hoc, more spontaneous, more pop-up. The pub, the coffee shop, the park. Already I see restaurants building conference style rooms for private groups – to facilitate working lunches/ dinners/ etc… Perhaps ‘the home’ will step in to fill some of this need. The back deck, the rec room, the front porch. I suspect this is also likely.

- We’ll communicate differently. Perhaps we’ll come to have more value for text, email and other non-voice forms of communication because they provide some personal distance and facilitate some moderated level of connection. Personal face-time kinds of communication will be for the more intimate, more connected, more relationship-driven tasks like creative ideation, client presentations, group team building. We’ll be more intentional about our use of face-time.

- ‘Connected’ spaces and ‘Dis-Connected’ spaces will cease to exist in any physical form, so we’ll create them ourselves.

- We’ll carve out personal ‘spaces’. My child’s spring concert = turn of the mobile device. My husband is talking to me about something very important to him = turn off the mobile device. The sky is just the right shade of red = capture that with a camera, or just with the camera of the eye. And those personal spaces will take different forms for each of us.

- We’ll carve out work ‘spaces’ too. We’ll wake up an extra hour early to use our most productive time to set goals for the day or make progress on a creative project. Lunch may become a working time; where many will continue to head out for the midday snack, others may hunker down for an hour or so of uninterrupted work.

The future will look different with the impacts and influences of technology and its facilitated connectivity. But it will force us not to divide work and personal so much, which is a good thing, because our work is a huge part of our person.

* Note: I do realize I am commenting more accurately about the experience of the white collar North American professional worker.

Item #23: Ries and Trout Just Played Out

Those of you in marketing are likely familiar with the many writings of Ries and Trout: Marketing Warfare, The 21 Immutable Laws of Marketing, Positioning, Focus. If you aren’t, go read them. They’re brilliant.

40 years after they wrote them, we just witnessed their principles play out perfectly in the automotive space. Trout and Ries believe that:

- Marketing is war, with the battle being waged in the minds of consumers;
- That good positioning requires focus (ideally to stand for one thing);
- Consumers map brands perceptually on spaces in their minds;
- Once that focused space in the territory of the consumer’s mind is owned, is it very difficult to shake it i.e.: perceptions persist.

Let’s look at what has happened in the world of automotive over the last few months:

- The Quality space in the minds of consumers belonged to Toyota. First and foremost, this was the most tightly connected brand to the perceptual space in the minds of consumers with regards to automotive quality in North America. But, there’s been a shake-up. Toyota with its recall has been tossed off the perceptual Quality podium.
- That space on the Quality podium, hence, became vacant in the minds of consumers, leaving an opportunity for someone to claim (or re-claim) it. The one who was most poised to take that position (after Toyota) was the one with the latent, pre-existing potential associations to Quality. And that was Ford. We still remember, “At Ford, Quality is Job 1.” The perceptual credentials were there. No other competitive car company had that latent clear association ready to be mined. General Motors, no. Subaru, no (Adventure). Mazda, no (fun). Honda, no (performance). Only Ford had strong quality associations in the perceptual set of the minds of consumers.

Cut to this headline and short excerpt:

Ford climbs to top in quality while Toyota plunges in annual study
TONY VAN ALPHEN 
BUSINESS REPORTER
Jun 18, 2010

Surging Ford has moved into top spot in quality among non-luxury automakers while Toyota plunged after years of stellar performances, according to a key industry study.

The annual J.D. Power and Associates study of initial quality showed Thursday that Ford’s emphasis in recent years on building better autos is paying off again after it posted the least amount of defects per model for the first time in 24 years.
Ford, whose fortunes have jumped in the last year, improved to fifth from eighth spot overall behind four luxury auto makers but Toyota tumbled from seventh to 21th place,

“The blue oval is becoming synonymous with high quality,” said Bennie Fowler, Ford’s vice-president responsible for quality and new model launches.

The study, which automakers and consumers watch closely, measures the responses of 82,000 U.S. motorists in a 128-question survey on the quality of their new vehicles after 90 days of ownership between February and May.

So, as far as I conclude, the greatly admired Ries and Trout just played out. This is consumer perception at work. This is the battle in the mind of the consumer. And in this case, Ford won it; Ford conquered the territory.

Just in case: I hope there aren’t any lingering skeptics out there who might really believe that rational, factual, or functional quality changed for Ford that fast (from Toyota recall to now) in the minds of that many consumers to have rational experience effect this outcome. No way.

Item #22: The Ant

He was big and black and climbing in a directly upward path on a brightly painted white fence. Behind him was the stone floor and ahead of him were the knots in the wood, the top of the painted fence, and the foliage of the overhanging trees.

The ant is a worker, known for his persistent ethic, and his strength.

He could have stayed below, travelled the flat path of the stone floor, muddled about looking for scraps of something. But down there he would risk being trampled and likely only ever find the same as any other insect might find. The dangers on the ground are much greater and the potential fruits of the search more ordinary. Instead he chooses the upward climb, because up high above it all is where he might find the extraordinary, a little something out of reach to the other insects who choose the flat easy travels on the ground.

Who knows what is so interesting about the climb, or what he might find at the top of the fence, or inside the leaves and branches of the trees above. No idea. But I like his style. That little big ant.

Item #21: On Mistakes

I’ve had the recent pleasure of having to deal with the fact that I made a mistake. I know it sounds crazy to say it like that, but I have a morbid fear of making mistakes. And when I make one, I panic. Here’s why my mindset about making mistakes needs perspective (in case there is anyone out there who struggles with the same):

Truth 1: We Make Mistakes.

Obviously, the most important thing to say is that given that we are human beings and not machines, we make mistakes. We mis-compute, we ignore important information because of emotion, and we sometimes lose focus; we make mistakes. We all, often, make little mistakes, and sometimes we make big mistakes. And if that isn’t happening, then we probably are living in a cautious, restrained place, dotting our every ‘i’ and crossing our every ‘t’ to avoid mistakes. While this living may perhaps be a place of making fewer mistakes, I can’t imagine it is a place of liberated thinking or behaviour. So, if you’re going to be a free, fully functioning human, taking risks, then you are going to make mistakes.

Truth 2: Some Mistakes ARE a Big Deal.

Not all mistakes matter that much. If you forget to order coffee for the meeting, well, we’ll get by just fine. If you miss a zero (on the end) of a work estimate, and then do the work, well that might be a big deal. So be it. It’s true. Some mistakes are a big deal, and some cause big problems. When mistakes happen, the ideal situation is to have an accepting, collaborative team, client, boss, family, friend, who will jump in and help right the situation. The best of those (bosses, friends, clients) understand that humans make mistakes, sometimes big ones, and work with you empathetically to right it.

Truth 3: Even Big Mistakes don’t make you a Big Mistake.

Even if you make a big mistake, it doesn’t mean you are a big mistake. The greatest challenge when mistakes happen is not to generalize the mistake you made to suggest that you are incompetent, incapable, a “mistake-maker”. ‘Making’ a mistake is different from ‘being’ a mistake. And sometimes that is very hard to hang onto when you are in the midst of having made a mistake. Sometimes a mistake is an opportunity to teach you something and make you better at what you are doing, and other times a mistake is to teach you that you are doing the wrong thing and it is time for change. Either way, mistakes are a lesson, in being human.

What to do when you’ve made a mistake?

Accept it. Don’t try to talk around the mistake, internally to yourself, or externally with excuses to others.

Address it. Be straight-forward, clear and upfront. This is what has happened and this is why it happened.

Evaluate it. Stop to understand for yourself what led to the error, and determine what could be done to avoid it in the future.

Integrate it. Bring your new learning into everything you do from that point forward.

What not to do when you've made a mistake?

Berate yourself.

Generalize the mistake to yourself personally.

Lose your self-confidence.

Item #20: The Rule is Still 100% Percent

Below is the very first Guest Post on Curated, and the 'guest' of honour is no less than my very own Dad, Stuart McCulloch. Hope you enjoy.

The Rule is Still 100% Percent










It has been predicted that approximately 90 percent of all corporate dollars in the future will be spent on people.

It is predictions like this that add to the already present concerns for improved employee productivity. These concerns have elicited responses from the pundits of motivational theory from the experts on time management and a large number of other individuals and organizations who have all directed their attentions to improving employee attitudes, work patterns, and inevitably performance and productivity.

The effort suggests that employee productivity can, in fact, be increased. If this is so, then the present day worker cannot be applying himself fully to a one hundred percent effort.

What standards of employee performance should we expect? It appears that there are an increasing number of elements in the work force who are bent on maximizing their rewards and benefits for a minimal amount of a day’s work. Hopefully our standards of performance have not eroded to the point that mediocrity can be considered acceptable.

Perhaps we have failed to educate today’s graduates to realize that the school grading scheme changes within the work environment. Whereas a “C” grade was considered passable in the educational environment, nothing less than an “A” or 100 percent can be acceptable in the workplace. For example, it would be inappropriate for a truck driver to tell his boss that he successfully avoided 80% of other trucks on the road. How confident would we be in the care of a doctor who only aimed for an 80% survival rate for patients he had operated on?

The grading scheme is the same today as it was years ago and if anything, the performance level we should now demand of ourselves is probably higher. The truck driver has to contend with more crowded road conditions and faster speeds and is faced with an ever-reducing tolerance for errors on the road. The power of our computer systems that support physicians in the operating room can produce far-reaching and sometimes catastrophic results from a small programming error.

In today’s business we have to demand 100%. The goal is not impossible. In school, with the proper application of self to the work required, an “A” or 100% was possible. How many times, however, did we apply ourselves and how hard did we try?

It is easily recognizable that if the astronauts are not 100% accurate, they would miss the earth on their return from space. How hard are we all trying to achieve 100%?

Item #19: The Language of Fear

It’s yet another beautiful day in Toronto...but the power of the iPad means I can suntan and write at the same time. The only opportunity for improvement would be if I could have my painted toes buried in sand with water lapping at my feet...but hey I'll take what I can get!

Either way I am prompted today to talk about ‘The Language of Fear’. The lurking menace of fear disguises itself in many ways. I'm going to share four common disguises I hear along with their translated meaning. This should help you to be on the lookout for fears masquerading ways.

Fear in disguise #1: "Okay, let's be realistic here.”

What these words really mean: "I'm afraid to shoot for the moon in this given situation. I might not be able to reach the heights everyone is hoping for so let me just bring down the expectation level in general and ask everyone to be realistic.” To realistic, I say screw that. Shoot for the moon, be idealist and see what happens. In the words of Leo Burnett: If you reach for the stars, you may not quite get one but you won't end up with a handful of mud either.

Fear in disguise #2: "We don't have enough information.”

What these words really mean: "I don't have enough confidence yet to move ahead; what I really want is to delay, to give myself more time for that confidence to spontaneously appear." I’m not suggesting information doesn’t matter, and that at times it’s not true that we don’t have enough information, but often these words are fear masquerading and we need to be on the lookout for that. All the information in the world will not matter when confidence is the issue. Confidence comes from biting the bullet and giving it a go. Confidence comes from starting and then determining what additionally is needed, or desired. Confidence comes from action, not information.

Fear in disguise #3: "We just need to be careful that we don't end up looking stupid."

These just might be my most disliked fear words. Because basically, being careful to not look stupid is just about the surest way to be stupid. If you put the restraining brakes on right at the outset, you can be pretty damn sure you will be firing on half your potential cylinders, that you won’t really every take a shot at anything big. Here’s how I think the whole stupid thing plays out: about 15% of the time, you’ll deliver something that didn’t meet expectations and that’s going to happen whether you are worried about looking stupid or not; 80% of the time, you’ll deliver up to expectations and you’ll feel as though you did a good job and that’s going to happen whether you are worried about looking stupid or not. But here’s where stupid matters; about 5% of the time, some idea you had because you took a risk and weren’t worried about looking stupid will land, and the outcome will be great. It’s in that 5% that the magic happens. But see 5% isn’t a big percentage, and that 5% is only ever possible if you forget about looking stupid. 5% is a small percentage to screw around with. I say forget about stupid.

Fear in disguise #4: "This is going to be just like every other time."

These words may be the worst fear words of all. What they really mean is: “I've been here before. I've tried this before and it didn't work. Since it didn’t go anywhere then, I've already thrown in the towel and resigned myself to believing that I will not be able to create a different outcome this time.” It says that everything that is to come will mimic that which has already been. And this is the worst form of fear. Because this kind of fear is personal, rooted in the individual and can have pervasive long lasting results. This isn’t fear about a situation; this is a fear belief system. Which is more powerful. To these fear words, I say ‘this time might very well be different’. Anything can change; in fact it almost always does.

Fear is real. And it’s not all bad. In fact, fear serves an important purpose. Mostly, that purpose is to alert us to things that are really important to us. Frankly, if we really didn't care, we wouldn't need to have fear disguises. But fear that doesn't know its place is damaging. Damaging to the work we produce, to morale, to confidence, to futures and when fear becomes an epidemic malaise, to the culture of our societies. Learn to recognize the language of fear and banish it in favour of action, confidence, and optimism. Because action, confidence and optimism can beat fear any day. I’ve seen it.

Item #18: The Magic of Vision

I can’t write much today because it’s soooooo beautiful outside; I need to be out there for every minute I can get!

But a Quick Stop on Vision.

I consider myself to be a person with Vision. Vision powers my life and my work. Vision for me isn’t weird and spiritual and other-worldly. Vision for me is very real. I recognize the makings of Vision because three things cue me to it a) a thought, idea or pressing belief inside me appears and makes itself known, b) this thought, idea or belief doesn’t go away, doesn’t lessen in intensity and c) often this thought, idea or belief grows stronger, more entrenched, more textured with time.

For example, the first time I really remember being in touch with this sense of vision was when I was 30 years old. A small ten-room hotel had come up for sale in my hometown, on the main street of the downtown heritage district. I went to go look at it on a whim. The minute I walked in and saw the dilapidated ‘business’, I had a vision. I could see it plain and clear: a bright, airy, modern, boutique-style full service Inn located in the sophisticated shopping and dining centre of my home town. I was so certain immediately that I could turn around that neglected space and make it something magical. I bought it and poured everything I could into it; my vision never weakened or faltered during the entire time of its operation. It was nominated for Best Hotel in that town three years after I bought it.

I’ve been in touch with this sense of vision many other times since then, mostly in my work, through projects where I could see opportunity and just knew where it could go. I’ve found if I believe in a vision and then believe equally in my ability to achieve it, magic happens, and the vision gets realized.

My latest vision is loftier and more long-term but it is equally powerful and equally enduring, and I am quite certain that it will come true. And I am clearer about where I most want to be doing it, and who I want around me while I do it. The pieces aren’t in place and may not be in place for awhile, and frankly the vision may shift along the way. But I have the vision; the thought, idea, belief has been planted.

The magic of vision.

Having this vision, as with any vision, is a source of inspiration and purpose. This vision is satisfying and energizing. Placing my focus on it, believing in it, and visualizing my path towards it is happy-making, every day.

A vision doesn’t have to be big. You can have a vision for how you want your home to feel. For the kind of co-worker you want to be. For the kind of creations you’d most like to put out into the world. For the kind of family you want to build. For yourself as a social being. For the kind of partner you want to be. For the kind of fashion that is your style. For the type of music that is your own.

A vision can be small. In fact, some of the strongest are. But the important thing is to find these uniquely personal visions, to trust them, to believe in them and to follow them, every day.

Item #17: "Bloom Where You’re Planted."

This was the title of my dear friend Jen Thompson's latest blog post*. She was referring to her latest spring outdoor planter creation but I saw metaphor. And she thus inspired this post.

See… in this headline I heard a huge message. One that transfers to work and life. It spoke an unassailable truth in an incredibly succinct way.

We bloom wherever we are rooted and where we achieve ‘plantedness’. (Planted-ness is of course an invented word for lack of a better alternative: note to add to dictionary).

If there is a lesson in here, a lesson for work and life, then let's break it down. First we must decide where we are or will be planted. Then we must get planted. And then with attention, we will bloom.

So where are you currently, or where can you be ‘Planted’?

In order to achieve ‘Bloom’, it is first required to determine where you currently are ‘Planted’, or where you could be ‘Planted’. Where is your certainty? Where does your purest most natural source of happiness lie? This is where you can build your stability. This is where you can lay your roots. The place your potential for personal greatness lies. This is the fundamental starting position for ‘Bloom’.

My sister, for example, does many things well and derives enjoyment from many sources. But there is one place she doesn’t question herself, one thing that is sure to make her happy, where she is never bored, AND, importantly (likely not coincidentally), a place where she excels. My sister is an incredible cook. Her original and surprising creations always look fantastic on the plate, and taste even better. She has not yet entirely planted herself in her cooking, but she will. And when she does, there is where she will bloom.

Once you have determined the where, what does it take to get ‘Planted’?

Having uncovered ‘the where’ of getting planted, the next step is to get ‘Planted’. In other words, to take all the energy, ambition and passion that lives within and to direct it towards ‘Planted-ness’. To focus. To commit. To invest. To bury those roots as securely as possible and to protect their placement. This means trusting ‘the where’ you have chosen and nurturing it’s growth no matter what. This is to figuratively feed and water the soil. Interestingly, the word ‘soil’ is only one letter away from the word ‘soul’.

And finally, what happens then when you ultimately ‘Bloom Where You’re Planted’?

For that I turn to the far more eloquent words of Longfellow:

These in flowers and men are more than seeming;
Workings are they of the self-same powers,
Which the Poet, in no idle dreaming,
Seeth in himself and in the flowers.

In all places, then, and in all seasons,
Flowers expand their light and soul-like wings,
Teaching us, by most persuasive reasons,
How akin they are to human things.

And with childlike, credulous affection
We behold their tender buds expand;
Emblems of our own great resurrection,
Emblems of the bright and better land.



(* http://themimicoproject.wordpress.com/ plus a Photo Credit to Jennifer Thompson)

Item #16: The Tortoise or The Hare

Aesop’s The Tortoise and the Hare:

Once upon a time there was a hare who, boasting how he could run faster than anyone else, was forever teasing tortoise for his slowness. Then one day, the irate tortoise answered back: "Who do you think you are? There's no denying you're swift, but even you can be beaten!" The hare squealed with laughter.*

The hare challenged the tortoise to a race. Along the way, the hare decided to stop, have a quick nap, stop and have some breakfast, and then have yet another snooze. And as we know, the hare ended up losing the race to the tortoise.

This moral of this fable - ‘slow and steady wins the race’ - has been interpreted too literally. Aesop was actually sharing a more deeply faceted message - about character:

Matter-of-fact, if it were truly only a question of speed to create success, there is absolutely no way the tortoise would have beat the hare. The moral of the story actually concerns the character of the hare: ‘arrogance often leads to failure**’. The hare’s character was actually the most dangerous combination of all: boastful and careless.

The Tortoise and the Hare in our Modern Society:

I look around at times and I find that a ’15 seconds of fame’ mentality has seeped into every corner of our space. We obsess over ‘the next big thing’, the ‘latest trends’, the 'newest technology'. And as people, we strive to ‘grow our list of social connections’, we work desperately to associate ourselves with ‘the influentials’ and to be seen in ‘the right places’, with ‘the right people’. This sounds an awful lot like the Hare to me.

The Hare in our Modern Society:

Let’s have a look at the Hare mentality in the social media space, for one example. Social media has become the buzzword of the decade, and phrases like “everything is social” are tossed around freely. Suddenly we have ‘social media experts’. With regards to technology, isn’t it more likely that ‘everything is in beta’; and if that’s true, can there really be any ‘experts’ in social media? (I hope we don’t have any mobile or cloud computing ‘experts’ yet.)

This is not said to denigrate anyone; there is no question that there are some individuals with substantially more knowledge, experience and expertise with regard to social media, mobile media and cloud computing that others, but there’s no need for the label or the attitude we culturally load into the word ‘expert’ (i.e.: Hare).

On Being a Hare or a Tortoise:

Culturally and individually, we should be wary of looking so lovingly to the character of the ‘Hare’ as we lose sight of and devalue the admirable (and productive) character of the Tortoise. Unnecessarily, we hear the word ‘expert’, and well we just want to associate with it because (return to above), "this is a ‘right person’, an ‘influential’, who might be the key to ‘the next big thing’ and might get me closer to those ’15 seconds of fame’'. It’s a dangerous circle of cultural character decline. And its important because it shapes the world we are creating; here’s why:

World-View of the Hare:

- The earth is spinning uncontrollably on an axis, innovation is rampant, change is constant, and the days are racing by. We need to rush, panic and worry, stay on top of things, know as many (preferably ‘the right’) people as possible, sell ourselves aggressively and hope beyond hope that we can ‘make something of ourselves’ to ‘make our mark’ and ‘get noticed’.

- This is the world of ‘social connections’, of ‘influential’, of ‘fame’, of ‘experts’, of running around like a chicken with your head cut off, probably not really accomplishing very much of any lasting value, and building no soul-nurturing foundations along the journey.

World-View of the Tortoise:

- The earth is one great big ecosystem that started millions of years ago and will be here millions of years from now. By definition, this is a world that requires long-term thinking, and even more importantly long-term commitment; a world that requires respect for all the somebodies that inhabit it, a focus on the big picture. We are each of us only one little tiny piece of a much bigger thing. Let me re-state that: We are each one little tiny but super important piece of that. As a collective of individuals, we are creating something, a universe of values.

- This is not a world of ‘what can I do for me today, how can I meet the next right person and champion the next big thing to get me my 15 seconds of fame.’ This is a world of ‘knowledge’, ‘progress’, ‘energy’, ‘vision’, ‘‘relationships’, ‘commitment’, and inclusiveness’. This is a world that says how can I harness the things that are the best in me, how can I attach myself to them passionately, how can I exercise those things in a public space to make a meaningful mark on this world and contribute to history in my own little tiny but super-important way.

Which do you choose? Who are you? A Tortoise or a Hare?

(Sources: *http://childhoodreading.com/Arthur_Rackham/Tortoise_and_the_Hare.html; **http://haqqmisra.wordpress.com/ - Reflections, Ideas and Dreams)

Item #15: Seven Women I Want on Twitter

Recently I clicked on a Twitter link to a blog post, by I don’t remember who, titled: 13 People We Want on Twitter Right Away. I can’t recall who the 13 were although I do know that Tiger Woods was on there along with some other sports guys. I don’t recall a single woman being on the list, which is fine, BUT… it did prompt me to think also about who I really want on Twitter, and they happen to all be women (might be a little bit of a bias I know). I hope you’ll find though that I’ve identified seven super interesting, diverse, successful women with unique and valuable perspectives.

1. Linda Hirshman is a retired distinguished professor of Philosophy and Women's Studies at Brandeis University. She holds a law degree from the University of Chicago and a Ph.D. in philosophy. In 2006, Hirshman released Get to Work: A Manifesto for Women of the World. In Get to Work, Hirshman lays responsibility on the women of the world to work, to contribute to the public world, to be a force in the economy and to preserve the right for future generations of women to participate in society. She is controversial, smart and fascinating.

2. Camille Paglia is widely known as a challenging feminist, but Paglia has been a Professor at The University of the Arts in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania since 1984 and is a highly regarded philosophical art authority. She is vocal in her preference for “a curriculum grounded in comparative religion, art history and the literary canon, with a greater emphasis on facts in the teaching of history”. She has expressed concern for the impact of technology and new media on art education. She is a challenging intellect whose passionate commitment to art is unwavering.

3. Laurene Powell is a name that may be unfamiliar, but will instead bring recognition as Mrs. Steve Jobs. She’s on my list because I want to hear from one of those “great women behind every great man”. Powell-Jobs holds a B.A. from the University of Pennsylvania, a B.S. in economics from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and an MBA from Stanford. Powell-Jobs worked for Merrill Lynch Asset Management and spent three years at Goldman Sachs as a fixed-income-trading strategist. Currently, her board affiliations include: Board of Directors: Teach for America; Global Fund for Women; KQED (PBS); EdVoice; New America Foundation; Stanford Schools Corporation; New Schools Venture Fund; and Advisory Board, Stanford Graduate School of Business.

4. Pema Chödrön is a fully ordained Buddhist nun and resident teacher of Gampo Abbey, a monastery in rural Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, Canada. Committed to bringing Buddhist teachings to everyday lives since 1974, Chödrön is the author of many best-selling books including: Uncomfortable with Uncertainty, Start Where You Are, and The Places that Scare You. Her philosophy is enlightening, liberating, strengthening and for many simply life-saving.

5. Meryl Streep. Has there ever been as important a time as now to hear from Meryl? In her prime at the age of 61, she is a model to women the world over, actor or not. She’s earned 16 Academy Award Nominations, 25 Globe Globe Award Nominations, plus Emmy Awards, SAG Awards and even Grammy Awards. She holds a B.A. from Vassar, a Masters of Fine Arts from Yale and an Honourary Doctorate of Fine Arts from Princeton. Practically widowed at 29 years old (she lost her fiancé to cancer), Streep went on to marry sculptor Don Gummer and have four children; they have been married now for 32 years.

6. Anna Wintour. It’s timely with the recent personality-revealing release of the documentary, The September Issue, and the hyping profile of fashion in general that we should hear more from the Queen of American Vogue. Having dropped out of school at 16, but with the helping hands that come with a privileged upbringing, Wintour rose through the ranks of fashion journalism and has been editor-in-chief of American Vogue since 1988. While an unquestionably powerful woman, she is widely regarded as terse, unrelenting and emotionally distant.

7. Cynthia Carroll is a relatively unknown name that shouldn’t be. Carroll served as President and Chief Executive Officer of the Primary Metal Group at Alcan, out of Montreal, Canada, and is currently the chief executive officer of Anglo American PLC, a London, UK mining company, which, among other things, is the world's largest platinum producer. She is one of only three female Chief Executives of FTSE 100 companies. In 2008, she was ranked by Forbes magazine as the fifth most powerful woman in the world. Talk about operating successfully in a ‘man’s world’; this is a mind I’d love a window into.

Source: wikipedia.org

Item #14: The Aeron Chair

Herman Miller, Inc is the company responsible for the release of the Aeron Chair, their best selling chair ever, and a great success by many measures. The Aeron chair is featured in the permanent collection of design museums across the globe, including the Museum of Modern Art in New York. It has been reviewed and discussed for its design merit the world over including being written about in detail by Malcolm Gladwell in his book Blink.

I reference the story of the development of the Aeron Chair because is a wonderful example of research done well and research used well.

Let’s start with the words of Max Depree, chairman and CEO of Herman Miller, Inc:

We are a research-driven product company. We are not a market-driven company. It means that we intend, through the honest examination of our environment and our work and our problems, to meet the unmet needs of our users with problem-solving design and development. From Leadership is an Art by Max Depree.

Aeron chair co-designers Bill Stumpf and Don Chadwick believed that millions of office workers were sitting in chairs built based on fundamentally flawed design principles, and so they set out to redesign the everyday office chair.

The research process to evaluate the viability of this new chair design for the consumer marketplace was a challenge. Test groups said they despised the Aeron Chair. They thought it was ugly, and uncomfortable.

Comfort scores from testers came in way below acceptable levels. The engineers and designers at Herman Miller knew that the chair they'd made was the most ergonomic office chair ever built in America. “It had been researched, re-researched, designed and designed again, re-drawn, fussed over, and tested to the nth degree time and again; every piece of factual and evidence-based information they had pointed to the chair as one of the most comfortable ever made. One of the most supportive ever made. Assuredly the most ergonomic ever made.”

Turns out, the testers were only getting a limited amount of time with the chair, about half a day. Soon the team at Herman Miller began to understand that this wasn't enough. The test groups were given longer periods of time with the chair and sure enough, comfort test scores came up.

And the design was considered ugly. “The Aeron chair was constructed from pellicle, a high tech mesh, as well as rigid plastics. You could see through it. Most armrests are attached to the seat of the chair, but with the Aeron they're attached to the back. Most chairs form a joint hinge between seat and back, but the Aeron has a highly engineered system that allows each plane to move independently of the other.”

No matter what they did, the Aeron Chair was only scoring an average of about 6 when it came to looks. If the company was going to release this chair, they would have to do it with the full knowledge that people thought it was ugly.

In the end, Herman Miller stood by the chair, released it and the rest is history.

So how is this evidence of research done well?

It was rigorous research that fed the design innovation that got Stumpf, Chadwick and Herman Miller the most comfortable, supportive and ergonomic office chair ever made. It was adjustment of the time period testers spent with the chair, to be more in line with actual usage realities, which got them to the comfort evaluations that they needed in order to have assurance of a functionally capable product.

And it was this research also that got them an accurate evaluation for the aesthetics of the chair. In fact, modern day reviewers have referred to the Aeron Chair as: “an ugly miracle grounded in empiricism.” “The Aeron’s true value wasn’t its texture, shape or sizing. It was a triumph for empiricism over aestheticism, proof that beauty is illusory in the case of tools. Because that’s what a work chair is: a tool to keep you comfortable, safe and supported – not seduced.” “The Aeron doesn’t have a pretty face, but like an intelligent mind it projects beauty,” says Don Chadwick, co-designer of the Aeron chair.

And how is this evidence of research used well?

Herman Miller knew when to let vision guide a decision. It didn’t allow the tester ratings with regard to the subjective concept of aesthetic appeal guide its decision to release the chair. It trusted the vision of proven designers and was rewarded by making history.

So, what happened here?

Well, consumer behaviour is not predictable. Consumers buy ugly stuff all the time; think PT Cruiser, or The Ugly Doll. What research can never dictate, what vision must decide, is how people might behave. This chair was a success because a specific group of people was drawn to it and by lending their discerning approval influenced many more in order to make it a blockbuster.

Sources: Creative Review magazine, April 2008, The Aeron Chair by Daniel West; Leadership is an Art by Max Depree; Blink by Malcolm Gladwell.

Item #13: On Research

Advertising people who ignore research are as dangerous as generals who ignore decodes of enemy signals.
David Ogilvy

Much of the messy advertising you see on television today is the product of committees. Committees can criticize advertisements, but they should never be allowed to create them.
David Ogilvy

I support research. I am also passionate about creative. And I don’t think these two statements are in opposition to each other.

We are living in an Age of Analytics. But we are also living in an Era of Creativity. And I believe that Creativity and Analytics must learn to work together – even better, they must learn how to help each other.

Here’s why research is important:

- We create for consumers – products, services, ideas, and communications. Therefore we must realize that as the masters we answer to, their input is important, and we can gather that input through research. There is no suitable proxy for the voice of the consumer (not yet at least).
- Research can help us understand what we need to create for our audience of consumers in order to deliver products, services, ideas and communications that bring value to their lives, versus piss them off or just accomplish nothing.
- Research can help us create better products, services, ideas and communications – that meet the needs or wants of our audience AND that we can feel proud of as the creators.

Here are the imperatives for research:

- Research must be done well. Research must be customized, to achieve a specific goal for a specific task with a specific audience. With research, more than ever before: ‘garbage in is garbage out’; ‘ask a bad question in a bad way and you’ll get a bad answer’;
- Research must be used well…and this does NOT mean to direct decisions. It is not smart to use research as a proxy for decision-making: strategic or creative. Research is only one of many inputs into the process of strategic and creative development. Research is a source of information and, if done well, insight which aids decision-making.

And here’s the research concern:

- The concern is that the advertising industry has traditionally held research, particularly creative research, in great doubt. While not necessarily without good reason, this has created a divide between agencies and clients around the issue of research. And because of this, over time, clients have turned to building strong direct relationships with research companies, which runs the risk of hindering the collaborative pursuit – by client, agency and research company together - of ultimately ‘creating’ products, services, ideas and communications that bring real value to consumers.

Way Forward:

- Embrace the role for research, when executed and used well, to support the development of strategies and creative solutions that will bring value to consumers. Work collectively and collaboratively as a team – client, agency and research company – to be innovative and progressive with research methods. In the interest of continuous improvement.

Item #12: On Being Responsible and Collaborative.

Only five years ago, I recall sitting in boardrooms talking about how ‘cause-related marketing’ and ‘being environmentally aware’ were factoring so heavily into our communications discussions. Words like transparency, authenticity, socially responsible and ‘green’ featured frequently in conversations.

The outcomes of these conversations included large-scale corporately sponsored and successful projects like Fashion Targets Breast Canada, the (Red) Project, and all the printing now done on recycled materials. All good.

But now I am excited to see business begin operating in a way that is consistent with the practices defining CSR: Corporate Social Responsibility. CSR advocates the adoption of business operations that “embrace responsibility for the impact of its activities on the environment, consumers, employees, communities, stakeholders and all other members of the public sphere.” (Wikipedia) I am eagerly watching the emergence of the SuperCorp (Rosabeth Kanter), and the company that works to a triple bottom line: People, Planet and Profits.

To this end, I’ve noticed a recent increase in exchange around a couple of thoughts:

Collaborative Product Use: Movie, DVD and Video Game rental companies have been doing it for decades. Now Zipcars is making a mint off the same concept. Rent or borrow whatever you need, wherever and whenever you need it. Paris has the world’s largest collaborative bicycle use system in place – just ‘borrow’ a bike, get to where you need to go, and hand it back in.

Responsible Communications: Recently an advertising agency in Maryland launched a protest movement - ‘Stop the Adness’. The originators believe that the social contract between advertisers and consumers has been violated. We are all aware of the extent of consumer ‘tune-out’ to advertising – well, more specifically, to bad advertising. Responsible communications gets back to being successful in the essential task of communication: “a two-way process in which there is an exchange and progression of thoughts, feelings or ideas towards a mutually accepted goal or direction.” (Wikipedia)

Collaborative product uses and responsible communications – two things among many I’ll be thinking more about while I confront marketing challenges in this blossoming era of corporate social responsibility.

Item #11: Strategic Planner as Chief Synthesizer

Exploring the notion of Strategic Planner, or Strategist of any title, as Chief Synthesizer.

Process: To Synthesize

- To combine the parts into a coherent whole;

- The pulling together of ideas or information to develop a common framework for understanding or to create a new idea; 


- A thinking skill in Bloom's Taxonomy including generalizing from given facts, relating knowledge from several areas, and using old ideas to create new ones.

Outcome: A Synthesis

- A deduction requiring reasoning from the general to the particular, or from cause to effect; 


- The formation of something complex or coherent by combining simpler things; the examining and combining of processed information with other information and intelligence for final interpretation;

- Involving or of the nature of synthesis as opposed to analysis.

Person: The Synthesizer

- An intellectual who synthesizes or uses synthetic methods;

- The synthesizer extracts the equivalent logic circuit functions from a library and connects them together to form a complete circuit.




(www.glencoe.com/sec/teachingtoday/subject/analyze_this.phtml; www.peninsula.wednet.edu/learningteaching/curriculum/CurricDocsWrtg/Preschool/6.Glossary.doc; www.sd54.org/eo/literacy/continuum/essentials_glossary.htm)(wordnetweb.princeton.edu/perl/webwn;
en.wiktionary.org/wiki/synthesis
; P.S.Welch)(www.ami.ac.uk/courses/topics/0100_gls/glossary/glosss.htm)

Item #10: Insight Into An Experience

I recently set up an old turntable in my house. I also acquired a small number of vinyl records to launch my collection. The experience felt remarkably structured and also extremely satisfying, so I mapped it. And I find that this provides a path from the discovery of a need, to having that need satisfied, as well as some clues to the kind of content that might follow that journey and the emotional experience surrounding it.

Point A: NEED. My digital music collection was leaving me intensely unsatisfied. I was consuming new music voraciously and finding decreasing levels of satisfaction with each new discovery. I was very bored. But loving music so much, also increasingly frustrated.

Point B: SHARE. I found I was sharing my frustration freely with anyone who would listen. It started with me asking my reliable go-to music-lovers for recommendations on new music, which I continued to purchase, and which continued to leave me unsatisfied.

Point C: DISCOVER. One music-lover who I was talking to launched into discussion about records, and a passionate conveyance of his love for the hobby. I felt it, and decided I would get a turntable and some records. That would be the cure for my state of music boredom.

Point D: PLAN. Excitement Ensued. The process of discovery became my focus: where would I get this turntable, should I get an old one or a new one; maybe my Dad has one in the basement. And think of all the old music I’ll be able to listen to.

Point E: ACQUIRE. Acquired Turntable and Records. Admittedly, there was a mini-crash of excitement around here. Once I had the pieces that would relieve my music boredom state, I had nothing to be immediately excited about. I had a wait until it was actually hooked up and a record was playing. This was kind of a flat stage in the process.

Point F: EXPERIENCE. Turntable Installed and Record Playing. Joy Ensued. My experience came to full bloom. And what made it so full? Just like any good positioning strategy: part need satisfaction i.e.: cure for my state of music boredom, but mostly an emotional experience.

Next post: The Anatomy of an Experience.

Item #9: The History of Love by Nicole Krauss

Once every few years, I find a book that takes my breath away. And one of those came along for me, by fluke more than anything, recently. The History of Love by Nicole Krauss was sitting there amongst many others on its display table in a downtown bookstore. Something drew me to it: something made me buy it, and then reading it gave me moments of absolute elevation. I saw words brought together on a page in such a way that I’ve never seen before. I experienced a story that was so finely woven that I can only wonder at the finesse of the magical mind behind it. The clear recommendation is to go read it, revel in it, lap up every poetic line… but in the meantime, captured here is some of its splendor, out of context and thus not nearly full in its experience, but a taste nonetheless. (Slight spoiler alert)

“Once upon a time there was a boy who loved a girl, and her laughter was a question he wanted to spend the rest of his life answering.”

“She said: Maybe I shouldn’t make up everything because that made it hard to believe anything.”

“Out of habit, I turned and checked for my footsteps. When I arrived at my building I looked for my name on the buzzers. And because I know that sometimes I see things that aren’t there, after dinner I called Information to ask if I was listed.”

“She’s kept her love for him as alive as the summer they first met. In order to do this, she’s turned life away.”

“To paint a leaf, you have to sacrifice the whole landscape. It might seem like you’re limiting yourself at first, but after a while you realize that having a quarter-of-an-inch of something you have a better chance of holding on to a certain feeling of the universe than if you pretended to be doing the whole sky.”

“The idea of evolution is so beautiful and sad. Since the earliest life on earth, there have been somewhere between five and fifty billion species, only five to fifty million of which are alive today. So, ninety-nine percent of all the species that have ever lived on earth are extinct.”

“Part of you thought: Please don’t look at me. If you don’t, I can still turn away. And part of you thought: Look at me.”

“Only now that my son was gone did I realize how much I’d been living for him. When I woke up in the morning it was because he existed, and when I ordered food it was because he existed, and when I wrote my book it was because he existed to read it.”

“The fact that you got a little happier today doesn’t change the fact that you also became a little sadder. Every day you become a little more of both, which means that right now, at this exact moment, you’re the happiest and the saddest you’ve ever been in your whole life.”

“What about you? Are you the happiest and saddest right now that you’ve ever been?” “Of course I am. Because nothing makes me happier and nothing makes me sadder than you.”

“As the rifles were pointed at his chest he wondered if what he had taken for the richness of silence was really the poverty of never being heard.”

“He was an average man. A man willing to accept things as they were, and, because of this, he lacked the potential to be in any way original.”

“At the end, all that’s left of you is your possessions. Perhaps that’s why I’ve never been able to throw anything away. Perhaps that’s why I hoarded the world: with the hope that when I died, the sum total of my things would suggest a life larger than the one I lived.”

“(If you don’t know what it feels like to have someone you love put a hand below your bottom rib for the first time, what chance is there for love?)”

Item #8: The Future of Advertising IV

Recently, I spoke as a panel member to the MBA class at the York University Schulich School of Business on the topic of The Future of Advertising and Marketing. I shared my thoughts with the audience as a series of headlines, which I’ve shared as a little series. Here’s my last in that series:

Headline 4 and Final: Culture Will Matter More








In Headlines 1 through 3 thus far, I’ve talked about the notion that Content that Engages is bound to live on. I’ve talked about the need for Agencies to begin to behave again like partners of clients, but within the parameters of an Evolved Definition of Partnership. I’ve also noted that our measurement of success requires Metrics of Impact, not Eyeballs or even Engagement.

If I wrap it all up, I believe that The Future of Advertising belongs to those agencies that place their organizational focus in three (slash four) areas: Analytics is one; Creativity is another and Style is the third. And consequently, that Culture Will Matter More.

Analytics is the large bucket I use referring to the information we need to derive insight, make smart decisions, plan well and measure our success, in the interest of continuous improvement.

Creativity is the process by which the synthesis of vision, information, idea and craft are brought together to produce original, interesting, game-changing content that people want to engage with. We know that creativity is one of our most important resources today. You only need to spend some time with Daniel Pink’s A Whole New Mind to know that it is creativity that will take society, especially North American society, to it’s next level.

And Style… Style is the word I’m choosing to use to describe a new manner of interaction between people who work together, whether colleague or client or supplier. Rosabeth Kanter has outlined the 5F’s for the Corporation of the Future: Fast, Focused, Flexible, Fun and Friendly. These are factors of human interactional style identified here… as much as, if not more than, they are operational factors.

Which brings me to Culture. And why Culture Will Matter More. More than any time in history perhaps, agency success depends more on soft human intangible skills than machines, formulas or even processes. Which is why Culture Matters More. Culture is the element that establishes the behavioural patterns, attitudes, and values that spread and become shared and hence characterize an organization. And “Culture is not only a way to foster identity, it is a source of creativity, an essential element of innovation.”*

Culture will be more of a proactive consideration for the leaders and managers of agencies, and it will be more of a point of evaluation for employees, clients and suppliers.

* (The Impact of Culture on Creativity, A Study prepared for the European Commission (Directorate-General for Education and Culture).

And thus marks my last headline in the series from The Future of Advertising talk at York University. What now?

Item #7: The Future of Advertising III

Recently, I spoke as a panel member to the MBA class at the York University Schulich School of Business on the topic of The Future of Advertising and Marketing. I shared my thoughts with the audience as a series of headlines, which I’ll share as a little series. Here’s my third in that series:

Headline 3: We Need New Focus on Metrics of ‘Impact’

















For as long as I can remember, we’ve had a hard time measuring communication effectiveness. We know that when we advertise, sales increase, and when we don’t, they drop off.

With broadcast mediums like TV, magazine, newspaper and radio, we are able to measure how many people see or hear an advertisement (reach) and how many times (frequency). In the online space, we’ve gotten fancier and we’re able to track impressions and click-through rates and time spent. Measurement in the online space is considered advanced because suddenly we are able to get past measures of ‘eyeballs’ to measures of ‘engagement’.

So we have communication metrics: how many eyeballs did we presumably reach with this advertisement and how long did we keep those eyeballs engaged. And we have business metrics: how did sales react.

But as the marketplace grows increasingly tentacled and complex, the words of Trout and Ries resonate louder and louder in my head: ‘Marketing is war. It is a battle waged in the mind of the consumer’ (recalled, not exact).

But we don’t measure what’s going on in the mind of the consumer. At least, not enough. We don’t focus enough on measuring ‘impact’ on this battleground. But we need to. We need more focus on ‘impact’ metrics.

If the battle is in the minds of consumers, then we need to be measuring how well a brand is owning and protecting its distinct territory in the minds of consumers. Communications are designed to do that – carve out a distinct and compelling territory for a brand in the minds of consumers. So we need better ‘impact’ metrics to help us determine how effective we are being in doing just that. And then, we need to be mapping those ‘impact’ metrics against communications activities to really begin to understand what’s doing what.

Because it doesn’t necessarily matter if we reached 5 million eyeballs and kept them for 12 minutes. And arguably it might not be that much of a point of success to have driven high levels of sales if it’s only a short term return. What is important is that the communications brands deploy have ‘impact’. And that ‘impact’ must be in owning and protecting a distinct and compelling territory for your brand inside the minds of consumers. Because that will lead to long-term business success.

Item #6: The Future of Advertising II

Recently, I spoke as a panel member to the MBA class at the York University Schulich School of Business on the topic of The Future of Advertising and Marketing. I shared my thoughts with the audience as a series of headlines, which I’ll share as a little series. Here’s my second in that series:

Headline 2: We Need New Language










I propose that a big part of The Future of Advertising is that we need new language.

I say this in reaction to having recently overheard someone say that “Advertising is dead”. Maybe this is true. If we are talking about the old kind of intrusive, boring, ‘let me tell you, viewer, what I want to tell you and hope you will do precisely what I expect you to do’ kind of ‘advertising’, then, indeed, that kind of ‘advertising’ may very well be dead.

But I contend that engaging content with a commercial message is alive and well.

This year, the Superbowl, the Grammy Awards, the Olympics, and the Oscars all drew record audiences. And, definitively in at least two of those cases, the ‘ads’ were a crucial part of the tune-in interest. This year, viewers could log into a Youtube channel to view all Superbowl ads and rank those they liked most. And a flurry of comments in the online space blossomed on Day 1 of the recent 2010 Vancouver Winter Games with viewers commenting specifically on the Olympic ads.

http://www.youtube.com/user/adblitz

http://www.edmontonjournal.com/sports/2010wintergames/Brilliant+immigrant+another+golden+Olympic+moment/2629960/story.html

Just look to the incredible success of pass-on viral phenomenons like Dove Evolution (at more than 10 million youtube views, yes, it’s still worth referencing) and more recently the Old Spice ‘ads’ (with more than 5 million youtube views in just over a month), or even the instant success of brand-loaded video-film Telephone featuring Lady Gaga and Beyonce (already almost 4 million youtube views in less than two weeks).

Here, we see that the audience is hungry for engaging content even with a commercial message.

I also heard someone say that advertisers need to focus on placing their advertisements where people are watching; the recommendation was to find those properties where people are attentive, and unable or unlikely to skip the commercials and to place your advertisements there.

BUT… if we change our language, and we place our focus on creating engaging content even with a commercial message, then we won’t have to find places to stick ‘advertisements’, they will take flight all on their own.