My father was fond of telling a particular shaggy dog joke on the theme of how to cook a carp. A carp, as you might know, is a bottom-feeding, oily, freshwater fish. Not exactly considered something you’d normally eat.  So, the story goes something to the effect that you place the carp on a freshly cut piece of cherry wood, and commence to pound a series of oils and spices, and garlic, and wine, etc into the fish. Since it’s a shaggy dog joke, you continue on and on with all sorts of wonderful things. Then, you throw away the fish, and eat the board.

That, for me, exemplifies business and marketing plans. It isn’t about the fish (or the meat of the plan), but the process that matters. And in going through that process, you think through things that you might not have thought about.

I recently received a review copy of Allan Dib’s new book, The 1-Page Marketing Plan (and I think the journey the book took from Sweden to Colombia, and took almost two months! It’s a bit of a miracle it arrived at all!) First off, I’ll tell you, I like the book. Dib’s writing goes down smooth, and is not stuffed with too much extra verbiage. He covers a lot of topics important to the nascent entrepreneur: customer “phases;” lead capturing and nurturing; and messaging. Ultimately, his template for the eponymous one-page-plan is elegant and simple.

Dib also covers the messaging itself. He counsel’s his readers to get into the mind of the customer. Yes, yes, yes! He introduces 80/20, and lifetime value. These are important concepts that are not often introduced soon enough to entrepreneurs. Indeed, I’d recommend this book to the newcomer to marketing plans.

For me, the largest gap is in the absence of addressing goals and objectives. But that’s my personal bias; I was introduced to strategic planning from that vantage point. For me, there is a natural logic in thinking about where you are, and where you want to be. From there, it’s a matter of figuring out how to make it happen.  But perhaps, there really are other ways of attaining success. After all, it’s not about the carp.

This first appeared in the DragonSearch Blog in January 2014

Friend and marketer Ty Sullivan questioned the relevancy of this Capital One ad. He suggested there was marketing disconnect. I, on the other hand, think the ad is, if not the work of an advertising genius, pretty clever.

There’s quite a bit to address here in terms of semiotics. This isn’t just an ordinary slice of pie – it’s an ordinary slice of pie. Actually, two of them, stacked. With whipped cream on top.

Did you play that game as a child: “pretty please,” and then “pretty please with whipped cream on top?” And everyone “deserves a slice of the pie,” which speaks to a sense of entitlement and enfranchisement. Free. Like “America the land of the free,” because you shouldn’t have to pay for ATMs, and aren’t you feeling indignant?

Here, mama has a slice of pie for you: the bank as mother. And get MORE! Life is a bowl of cherries.

American Pie – the archetypal adolescent movie, where the hero was caught masturbating with a pie, because he was told that getting to third base felt like that. Cherries, as the symbol of virginity, while three of the fruits lined up signify great winnings at the casino. It’s not a coincidence that the myth goes that George Washington chopped down a cherry tree.

In the flash of a second that a passerby takes in the image, does the ad enhance their life, or does it require too much of an emotional investment? Does it add aesthetic value to the landscape, or is it an unwelcome intrusion that disrupts the thinking of the day. Clearly, for the marketer, if the audience associates all of the warm, wonderful emotions with the brand, it could be a win. On the other hand, more and more people have learned to avert their glances from pastries and candy; they are simply trying to be healthier.

photo courtesy of Ty Sullivan

Originally published in Trends Journal, October 2013

We’ve always had social media. Sitting around a campfire telling stories is fundamentally social, with the air around our heads being the medium, populated by human voices. Sixteenth Century denizens of Florence and Rome were known to tie notes to sculptures expressing their approval or criticism in what were, perhaps, some of the earliest bulletin boards. Even the paintings found in the bowels of Lascaux appear to have been the products of gatherings, not the efforts of lone individuals.

The British psychologist Robin Dunbar suggested that chatter, gossip, and even conversation are human extensions of social grooming. All mammals engage is social grooming of some form – licking, picking nits, smoothing the furrowed brows on one another’s forehead. It’s interesting to note that social grooming has been associated with an increase of the neurotransmitter dopamine – the chemical associated with a feeling of well-being, and one known to be increased not only in social grooming, but in gambling, sex, and even in the use of social media. It’s often associated with addictive behaviors.

The addictiveness of social media is a noted facet of the technologies that have emerged in the past decade. There are behaviors that, if not born in social media, certainly have become more ubiquitous. Social platforms encourage curation, sharing, micro-gifting, and even game behaviors. The very fact that people can connect more often with a broader network of others allows these new behaviors to happen in a way that could not in the absence of such networks.

If you simply look at all of the social media platforms, you can easily be overwhelmed by all of the features that are being introduced. The rate of innovation is incredibly fast. Instead, you can look at the platforms in terms of their design patterns. The idea of design patterns originated in architecture and urban planning, and was then used extensively in software design. For instance, the typical ecommerce checkout page follows a pattern that most of us find completely familiar. One of the success factors of Facebook was the ease in which it allow its users to create photo albums, a design pattern that Facebook helped create. Pinterest has extended that pattern, and allows for an even richer experience in saving and sharing images. Other social interactions are more commonplace, and almost universal across social platforms, like the act of signifying approval of something. These “likes,” “plusses,” and “favorites” can be seen as micro-gifts; after all, the recipient frequently says, “thank you.”

It’s not surprising that Google in creating Google Plus has made the move to have a social platform that competes with Facebook. With each keystroke, users of social media are freely adding data to some of the largest databases ever created. The owner of that data will have the capacity to predict consumer behavior in ways that have, in the absence of that data, been unimaginable. Furthermore, both Facebook and Google have designed systems in which data from applications outside of their platforms are also adding data. For instance, when a Facebook user plays a song on Spotify or watches a movie on Netflix, that information flows into the Facebook data collection.

While the US has been behind in the adoption of mobile and smartphone technology, it’s quickly catching up. Wearable devices, such as Google Glass and smart watches, are only beginning to become commonplace, and are predicted to proliferate as the cost of MEMS sensors continues to decrease. Google’s emphasis on the development of wearable devices and social media is prescient: they’re creating an always-connected device recording every motion feeding a database of human interactions.

While the battle between social data ubiquity between Google and Facebook may seem like the giant final battle scene in the Lord of the Rings, they are not the only players. LinkedIn, the oldest of the major social platforms, has been undergoing dramatic overhauls of their system, creating a social eco-system that ties in with the way people conduct business. In younger aged populations, platforms like Tumblr, a platform recently acquired by Yahoo! and Instagram are becoming more popular than Facebook.

The adoption rate of Internet and social media usage has recently slowed, with overall US use of social media by internet users around 70%. The so-called Millennials and the following generation, however, were born into these technologies, and their usage rate is closer to 90% [http://pewinternet.org/Commentary/2012/March/Pew-Internet-Social-Networking-full-detail.aspx]. The increase of smart phones and wearable devices will bring those numbers up even higher. We are approaching a time when less than 10% of the population is not using social media in some form or another.

In marketing, smart companies are eschewing traditional norms of advertising, and embracing passion or purpose-centered communication plans. New approaches are based on storytelling, participatory media, and transmedia, and less about self-promotion. In the era of social media, audiences or customers aren’t interested in anything that can be perceived as salesmanship, thus companies are having to scramble to become creators of original and valuable content: brands are becoming publishers.

Social media and the Internet technologies that have enabled them constitute the largest disruptions to business communications since the invention of the Gutenberg press. These new technologies are bringing with them whole new approaches to the creation of value, and completely transforming the relationship of the creators of goods and services with those who consume them.

First published on DragonSearch 26 Sep 2013

As a young couple in the 70’s, my parent’s library consisted of a closet bookshelf. I developed my love of reading by carefully studying the pages of the Manual of the Medical Department of the U.S. Navy, Jansen’s History of Art, Kahil Gibran’s The Prophet, and I’m OK, You’re OK, by Thomas A Harris MD. Although the Navy manual and the art history book may have been more rarefied, the latter two were ubiquitous in homes across the country at the time.

I’m OK, You’re OK was really the first major so-called self-help book. I’m not sure why, but to this day, self-help books make me squirm a little. There can be a feeling in them of their being “truth revealed.” On the other hand, such books can often provide great thoughts in an easily digestible format. There’s nothing wrong with that – it’s just that I’m a little mistrustful of the genre.

Harris’s book was based on the thinking of a popular psychology book, Games People Play by Eric Berne. Berne had proposed an approach he called Transactional Analysis (often shortened to TA). A central premise of TA is that we all play three major roles: that of the parent; that of the adult; and that of the child. During the course of a day or even an hour, we may slip between these different roles in our interactions with others. Of course, others are also slipping between their roles. By understanding which roles are being used in interactions, we can begin to understand the dynamics at play, and hopefully, endeavor to escape their gravitational pull.

Making Organizational Change

Almost all of us grew up with at least one parent if not two. The patterns of behavior that were modeled to us in our formative years remain a major influence for life. One of the elemental aspects of being a child is that we’re cared-for (hopefully) by the parent. We’re given food, clothing, transportation, and if we’re lucky, a little pocket money. After all, a child seldom has the means to procure those essentials for themselves.

When a young person fresh out of high school or college obtains their first job, they often can’t help but to bring some of those patterns of dependency with them. Where do I sit? What work am I supposed to perform? Can I have a raise? There’s a lot of dependency on another person, often older, who calls the shots. This naturally invites the dynamic wherein employees become passive, and desire others to fix things for them.

All of us, at some point or another, see opportunities to make things better. We often see things and think, “Sheesh, how is it I’m the only one seeing this? This is stupid! Someone ought to change this.” If, though, you are operating in an environment where you have succumbed to the dynamic of child/parent, you’re not apt to try to make that change in any way other than complaining.

Inherent in even the word complain is a sense of helplessness. It comes from the idea of being in grief and lamenting. I’m in grief that someone has died – there is nothing to be done about it. Or I complain of an ailment, which is inside my body, and beyond my control.

Recognizing the Roles

If we recognize that this dynamic naturally exists, we can start to operate differently – we can begin the real work of helping to effect change. Making real change can be difficult, can be politically challenging. and usually consists of many steps like those outlined in Kotter’s Eight Step Change Model.

I have heard about circumstances where well-meaning and smart individuals set out to make change in an organization and failed: perhaps leadership was weak and constantly changing, or perhaps the decision-makers’ interests were elsewhere – whatever the underlying reason, the change just wasn’t going to happen. But more often, what I see, is that individuals just don’t set out to make change, but accept what’s placed before them. At some point, they may get frustrated and move on, where things might be different, or not.

Making substantive change can be the most thrilling and gratifying work you do in your life. Anyone can make change in an organization, even an intern. The answer lies less in complaining than in what Kotter, in his first step of change, called “establishing a sense of urgency.”

I’d say there is a step before that: whether you’re that intern or the CEO, it’s to realize that the power to make change happen is not in someone else’s hands, but yours.

Note; this post was originally published on BeALeader.

The word “boss” causes me to flinch.  Perhaps it’s in memory of the movie Cool Hand Luke where the cruel prison guards were all called “Boss.”  When one of my teammates introduces me thus, I inevitably try to readjust with “co-worker.”  After all, in the words of Bob Dylan, “We’ve all gotta serve somebody.”

I’m a leader by virtue of the fact that I’m an entrepreneur, grew my company, and hired quite a few people over the years.  Very early on I met a savvy organization development coach who turned me onto the literature of business: the world of visions; missions; values; and Balanced Scorecards. I learned about getting the right people on the bus while I was taking Kotter’s Eight Steps of Change, and using SMART objectives.

I’m a believer.  In the church of business philosophies, I’ve been sitting in the front pew shouting, “Amen!”  I have made mistakes over the years: I’ve gotten angry and yelled; and I’ve committed my share of demotivating moments. I’ve supplied rapid answers when I should have offered deeper questions.

Deep down, I’ve known that the way to lead is to establish core values and vision – vision that others that share my values will want to attain.  Knowing, however, and really acting from a place of owned knowledge, can be very different.

In the world of knowledge work, great leaders don’t provide all the answers. If they do, they fail to encourage, coach, or enable their team members to think.  Our noble task in the leadership role is to create an environment in which people learn how to learn.

It isn’t difficult for any of us to sit around and devise a mission and core values.  We might stumble over the question, “why are you in business” – over the notion that we’re in business to make money. Right?  Then we come to realize that no one cares if we make money.  Our customers care if we create value for them.

We consider our core values.  If fortunate, someone might pose the question, “what are the values that if we took away, you wouldn’t be you anymore?” We might create a short list in a couple of hours – and over a year, might refine it into something more meaningful.

It wasn’t until I removed myself – or that I was removed by circumstances – that I came to understand those core tenets of those business philosophies in a deeper way. When you’re out of the office for such extended periods of time, you must depend on your purpose, values, and vision.  Often, when a difficult question needs to be answered, people can ask if it fits the organization’s DNA.

I don’t know if assuming ownership of these basics makes a person a great leader. I have seen, and I do believe, however, that organizations that have come to take ownership of the essentials are places where leaders emerge throughout the organization.  And I’d rather see that than be called Boss any day.

While Network Theory has been all the rage in discussions of social media, it provides an imperfect model to describe the reality of social networks.  The main shortcoming is that the connections between entities are more complex than simple “ties” – and they include a notion of time.  I propose that the mathematical concept of Sets is another model that alongside Network Theory provides a more comprehensive view of networks.

Consider this: each of us belongs to countless sets.  I, for one, belong to the set of middle-aged men, set of bald men, persons that live in the Hudson Valley, bald persons that live in the Hudson Valley, etc.  You can see how this can just keep going, right?

There are some patterns here, however.  We could see that we belong to sets according to these criteria:

• Attributes
• Shared experience or history
• Preferences

It doesn’t mean that we can’t have a relationship with someone outside of a set. If for some reason, someone meets another person that they believe may provide them with a good laugh, they might buy them a beer.  People often meet on terms that are outside these sets, but then often, and quickly play the game of ‘what do we have in common’.  Those conversations almost always yield something.

Attributes

People tend to like other people that are similar to their selves.  Heck, people even choose dogs that look like themselves. This doesn’t mean that there aren’t exceptions – I’m talking about the tendency here. School children experience an incredible pressure to conform to norms, and those that don’t usually congregate into sub groups of likeness.

Shared Experience

Soldiers returning from war are forever brothers. They have a common experience that often cannot even be shared with others.  But even sharing a meal, four years at a college, or a memory, such as that as Pearl Harbor provides a common ground of understanding.  Do you remember what you were doing when 9/11 occurred?  We may have absolutely nothing else in common, but that shared memory can be a springboard for a new friendship.

Preferences

I’m short, you’re tall, I’m red, you’re blue, I’m male, you’re female – but we both like candied walnuts. This can extend to ideologies – we might share the notion that all monarchs should be tarred and feathered on the village green, or that the poems of Rilke are sublime.

Perhaps our propensity to create connections with people who share attributes, experience, or preferences is a narcissistic way of confirming self-worth. Well, I can’t be all that bad if there is someone who also has long ear lobes and likes Charles Mingus!  Perhaps it is the Darwinian or Mendelian mechanism – that we create networks with likeness, only for those likenesses to be thrown into a competitive pool where the strongest or most adaptable will prevail. And perhaps after we have mated and produced our progeny, we continue in this habit that is vestigial, like the tail that is buried at the bottom of our spine.

But what we do know is that our network forming and set creation follows these patterns.  Understanding these patterns may help us be better social media marketers. Would love to hear your own thoughts on this, even if they aren’t like mine.

(This post originally appeared on the Dragon360 blog in December 2010)

History seems to be scattered with a certain type of remarkable individual who defies typecasting.  They exemplified eccentricity, and reveled in inventing new objects as well as new ways of looking at the world.  Buckminster Fuller comes to mind, as well as Benjamin Franklin and Jeremy Bentham.  It was Bentham that even in the late 18^th was arguing for the decriminalization of homosexuality, for animal rights, and against the death penalty.  He also advocated for a very humane type of prison that he referred to as a “Panopticon”. (A calling card of those remarkable individuals of whom I write is an inclination for coining new words).

The concept of Panopticon came to mind this morning when I received my latest Linked-In update.  Not that it matches any concept of prison that I have (although this is a line of thought worth pursuing), but that it brings a new type of exposure to individuals.  And for the marketer working in social media, its an incredible opportunity.

For instance, in my LinkedIn update, I could see that Philip Liebman is planning a trip to West Palm Beach, Leslie Coons is reading First Things First and that Steve Goldneranswered 1 question about Mobile Marketing.

There are three major players right now vying for a majority of the social-media panopticon: Google, Yahoo, and LinkedIn.  It is too late for anyone to pursue a “Blue Ocean Strategy” – the waters are already reddened with the blood of competition.

I get the feeling that Google hasn’t quite gotten all the pieces put together yet, but oh, what pieces!  The Google Apps suite is quickly replacing the Microsoft business toolset in many small businesses (including DragonSearch).  Connect the dots with Google Reader, Buzz, and the other Google tools, and you can easily imagine an even more comprehensive connectivity than LinkedIn’s.

After failing to acquire Facebook, Yahoo has executed more instances of integration – both with Facebook and Twitter.  But Yahoo was a pioneer with Yahoo Groups and has a large user base.  Yahoo could still have a place at the table, a piece of the pie, and add their blood to the red waters.

Marketers must, of course, pay attention to any significant bid.  Mitch Joel talks about how the first page of Google results is your brand – well, I would add to that, that those social media updates are your brand, as well.  And there are many ways to plug-in to them.

Footnote: In Jeremy Bentham’s last will and testament, he gave his body over to medical students for dissection, with the added instructions that his reassembled, straw-stuff skeleton was to be placed on display in a well-crafted display case (that he called an “Auto-Icon”) where it can be seen to this day at the University College London.  Had he been alive today, I would have most certainly followed him on Twitter, friended him on Facebook, and linked with him on LinkedIn.

(this post first appeared on the Dragon360 blog, March 10, 2010)