A Word On Presenting Your Ideas

November 30, 2011 Leave a comment

During a pitch yesterday to a prospective client, it dawned on me how crucial it is to present ideas or opinions in a) compelling, b) organized and c) digestible ways.  All too often we come up with great solutions, that fall flat when our enthusiasm prevents us from sharing them in a logical and emotionally-compelling fashion.

While, an entire book could be written on this topic (and many have, including the hugely popular Made To Stick, by the Heath Brothers, which I haven’t read) this is a blog and so I’ll share a quick series of questions that will help to organize how you present ideas in the future.  But, in reality, it’s not any more complicated than this.

  1. What’s the insight, reality, or problem that your solution or idea is addressing? This will prepare the listener for what they’re about to hear, while providing the reasoning and background behind your thinking.
  2. What’s the idea? This should be a short, emotionally-charged summary that takes no more than a few sentences.  People’s attention spans are short, so this explanation should follow suit.
  3. How will it work? This is where you can dive a little deeper into not just the ‘how’ behind implementing or bringing the idea to life, but also expand on some of the details regarding what the idea or solution actually is.  It’s never a good idea to go into too much depth during your initial explanation, where the purpose is to generate excitement and create a sense of possibility.  Instead, if possible, address the nuances and finer details here.
  4. What will the result be? After expounding on the details, it’s always a good idea to bring your listener back to the end result or that sense of possibility.  In my case, at a marketing agency, it’s often about the potential that an idea holds for the brand on a larger scale.

The best pitches, regardless of how planned or even informal they may be, will simultaneously strive to appeal to the listener’s emotional and rational minds.  And, don’t be mistaken, this format doesn’t just apply to presenting ideas in the traditional corporate sense.  They can be used when asking for a raise at work, making a statement at a PTA meeting, or just trying to convince someone of your point of view.

Filed under Business, Ideas, Marketing, Strategy

LivePhish.com: A Case Study in Building Community

November 6, 2011 Leave a comment

Most don’t know this, but Phish has one of the most active and passionate communities of fans, not just among bands, but also brands in the world.  How did it all begin? Jam bands, dating back to the Grateful Dead have always been defined by the constantly changing and unpredictable nature of their live performances.  Simply put, it wasn’t the records they periodically produced, it was going to see them live that made these bands and the genre what it is today.  A mainstay of this culture involved fans recording live shows and sharing them with friends, a practice that has been going on for decades.

In the 80s, these individuals became known as “Tapers.”  An entire subculture emerged of people who traveled to concerts to record them, share them and trade them with friends.  Naturally, this made a deeper analysis of each performance possible, while generating social groups that revolved around this discovery and learning process.  Eventually, this ability to more attentively listen to and discuss the music of these bands coupled with the always evolving nature of their performances, grew into a more rabid and loyal fan base.

So, after looking at this history, one that many brands would salivate at the prospect of having as their roots, musicians and bands in more mainstream genres still don’t seem to understand the power that experience holds in developing active online communities of fans. So, I chose the band Phish to show how these powerful sub-cultures harnessed by a sound digital strategy has been turned into not just a revenue source, but a means of constantly fueling support and loyalty for the music itself.

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Filed under Brands, Business, Marketing, Media, Strategy, Uncategorized

Occupationalist.org

October 30, 2011 Leave a comment

With well over a month of protesting under it’s belt, the Occupy Movement doesn’t seem to be losing steam.  Protestors, originally labeled by the media as disorganized, extremists without a clear objective are starting to show some wherewithal.  Make no mistake, the Occupy Movement is far from making any tangible strides towards narrowing the growing inequality gap between citizens and the omnipotent banks that control our country.  The U.S. now ranks 4th in the world in income inequality as measured by the Gini coefficient.

The movement’s objective?

#OWS is fighting back against the corrosive power of major banks and multinational corporations over the democratic process, and the role of Wall Street in creating an economic collapse that has caused the greatest recession in generations. The movement is inspired by popular uprisings in Egypt, Tunisia, Spain, Greece, Italy and the UK, and aims to expose how the richest 1% of people who are writing the rules of the global economy are imposing an agenda of neoliberalism and economic inequality that is foreclosing our future. (via OccupyWallStreet.org)

As great as this sounds, if the Occupy Movement is going to create any tangible benefits for America’s working class, it has to start getting clear on it’s list of demands.  Mike Taibbi, contributing editor for Rolling Stone, has been doing a tremendous job of covering the events and takes a solid crack at a top 5 list of demands.

Anyway, there’s a lot happening out there everyday and even more misinformation making it’s way through both traditional and nontraditional news sources.  However, this week a collaboration between The FearLess Revolution and Boulder Digital Works resulted in the creation of Occupationalist.org, an impartial, real-time view of the Occupy Wall Street movement as told through a multitude of sources.  The site features tons of constantly updating content including posts from the deeply moving Tumblr, “We Are The 99%” as well as Twitter conversations broken down by city, news, photo and video feeds, enough information to ensure that any reader is able to form an independent and unbiased opinion about the events as they unfold.

Filed under Business, Culture, Ideas, Media

What Steve Jobs Knew About Philosophy, Business and Life

October 10, 2011 Leave a comment

I wasn’t going to write a Steve Jobs post, but here we are.

Between Friday and today, adWeek has published two really insightful posts about Apple’s philosophy, approach to business and the marketing of that business. I’d just like to pull a key pieces for all the agency folks and entrepreneurs out there to keep in mind.

First, Jobs knew that the best way to move culture forward was to create superior products. Not just products that seemed superior, or undercut the competitor on price, but products that allowed (and continue to allow) us to be the people we aspire to be.  That was the truth that Apple sold and it’s the reason you continue to purchase from them.

In short, their unmatched beauty and performance gives you the freedom to become that next greatest version of yourself.  Make no mistake, you aren’t really buying a tablet, you’re buying an unwavering philosophy built on the premise that you have the ability to forge your own path, creating new wonders for the world at large.  You aren’t buying technology, you’re buying a way of living.  Few publicly traded companies could say this about their products.

So, that’s today’s post in a nutshell, with a bit of my personal take, but what about the agency relationship between Jobs and Lee Clow (Creative Director of TBWA)?

The post on Friday, which maybe should have come second, includes a paraphrase from Jobs about Lee Clow’s strength as a Creative Driector:

Clow’s fundamental strength was that he “looks at Apple from his heart,” Jobs said, “and this gives him the ability to see us as we should be, to see us as we have trouble seeing ourselves sometimes. And to remind us who we are when we are tempted by compromise or shortcuts.

I love this as I think it encapsulates the best of what our industry can deliver it’s clients. In this rapidly evolving world, rife with more technology and communication points than we can possibly ever use, it’s never been more important to serve clients as a guiding light that keeps them laser focused on who they are and what they stand for.  Designing campaigns around the best of what our clients can be (or have been) will yield far greater results than planting ourselves firmly in reality.

Here’s to you, Steve (cheesy, dated photo omitted)!

 

Filed under Business, Culture, Marketing, Strategy

Drifters, Drivers and Developers: What Kind Of Worker Are You?

September 22, 2011 1 Comment

So, I’m reading Todd Henry’s, The Accidental Creative, which is a book for anyone who must come up with creative and novel solutions to problems in their field on a never-ending basis.  The challenge we face in this position is the need to constantly be inventive and brilliant, amidst an increasingly distracting and chaotic world.  Henry, in his book identifies many of the problems holding us back from reaching our maximum potential and then proposes a series of principles to live by that will allow us to create effectively amidst the turmoil.

The piece I stumbled upon yesterday, pertains to identifying how you tend to operate or work at you job.  Henry breaks these tendencies into 3 main types, which I’ll describe:

Drifter: this individual goes with the wind, working on whatever they feel like in a given moment.  Easily distracted and operating often in very shallow levels of thought, due to their distraction.  Finishing projects is challenging and are often put off until the last possible moment.  The scattered nature of this type’s work can lack purpose because they are missing a systematic and organized approach.  This isn’t to say these people aren’t productive, it just means there missing some critical components to be maximally effective.

Driver: this person is almost the opposite of the Drifter, as they are overly focused on outcomes.  They naturally break projects down into their smallest component parts, in order to complete the work as effectively as possible.  These individuals are propelled by checking off their to-do lists.  While they are incredibly skilled at reaching their objectives efficiently, their rigid systems for accomplishing work, narrow their focus to a point that causes them to miss key opportunities.  Henry says it best that Drivers “are too microscopically focused on the objective and are often reluctant to redirect their energy when new opportunities emerge in the course of their work.”

Developer: this type contains the best of both the driver and the drifter and represents what we strive for in our creative processes.  The developer is extremely clear on the objectives before undertaking a project, but is capable of pulling back and refining their course as new information and insights become available.  They are able to become hyper-focused at the ground level when it’s time to complete the real ‘work’, but periodically zoom out to higher altitudes to look for new opportunities, insights and areas of synthesis.  Because of their flexibility, Developers, are most likely to experience moments of creative insight.

I found this to be extremely helpful as I often find myself bordering on the Drifter type, checking my Twitter feed, reading blogs, jumping back into actual work, checking my phone.  I very frequently move from one task to the next without any rhyme or reason to the progression.  That being said, it would be reductionistic to say that we are only one type.  Obviously different tasks, challenges and environments will elicit different behaviors, but being aware of these types can help you to become more aware of how your behaviors may be helping or hurting you.

Image via Simple Square blog

Filed under Behavior, Business, Ideas, Strategy

Designing a Better Business with Cooperative Systems

September 12, 2011 Leave a comment

The case for creating more cooperative and altruistic business environments is an easy one to make.  In the modern organization where projects are constantly beginning and ending, and individuals’ workloads are difficult to define and constantly fluctuating, being able to develop an environment that promotes cooperative behavior can quickly return on the investment.

Until recently, we, with the help of evolutionary biologists have been under the impression that humans are inherently selfish.  Flashback to Thomas Hobbes’s Leviathan or Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations and even though they differ slightly, they reach the same conclusion, that humans are inherently selfish. Certainly in 2008 with the collapse of the financial markets, prompted by the behavior of investment bankers, continuing today with the American political system led by politicians who leave no question that re-election is the only real concern, it’s a tough pill to swallow that humans could possibly contain even an iota of altriusm or conscientiousness for their common man.

However, if we step back we realize that corporate and political systems are based on the assumption that human beings are selfish and need to be controlled with punishments or similarly motivated with promise of financial gain. When we being to see this, it becomes easier to see that these systems create conditions that force or provoke humans to act in selfish ways. Which comes first, the chicken or the egg?

In the last decade, however, multi-discplinary studies spanning, evolutionary biology, genetics, psychology, economics and political science are beginning to prove, through an enormous body of evidence that the issue is obviously not black or white. Humans are not either altruistic or selfish, they are both, depending on a wide variety of conditions. And, furthermore, if systems are put in place that presume or promote unselfish behavior and create conditions that allow it to flourish, there’s no guessing what our societies could be capable of.

So, cutting to the chase, how do we design coorporative systems (in this case within businesses) that are easy to maintain but that create conditions that will allow businesses to increase profits and employee satisfaction (a logical byproduct or altruism) to soar?  Good question. Here’s an initial framework, borrowed from the work of Yochai Benkler, a Harvard Law Professor and author of The Unselfish Gene, a post which inspired this piece:

Communication: a cooperative environment hinges on open communication, as it predicates trust and empathy. Businesses should strive to develop as much transparency within their organization as possible. The days of closed door meetings and murky corporate strategies are over. As millennials take their places in the work force transparency will be a requirement.

Morality: Clearly defined corporate values set a precedence amongst employees for what constitutes acceptable behavior. Cooperative systems are based on the notion that people would rather follow social norms than obey rules. Simply put, people want to do what’s normal.  So, set the “norm” on an aspirational, but attainable plane.

Rewards: Material payoffs are the gold-standard for incentivizing higher performance, however research is beginning to show that this can significantly hinder altruistic or pro-social behavior. Focusing on appealing to people’s intrinsic motivations, by making the business social, autonomous, rewarding and fun will yield far greater results. Think about it: hand someone a gift card for a job well-done or present them with the opportunity to lead a team that investigates and evolves your process.

Reputation / Reciprocity: constructing systems that have participants dependent on one-another for success will have a much greater likelihood of yielding better results, as shown by project-to-project team-based models.

Research by Peter Senge on Learning Organizations has much to lend this as well, but that’s another post.  In summary, industrial area organizational models are ineffectual at fostering environments capable of competing with today’s challenges and needs for innovation. People who are focused on individual payouts aren’t intrinsically motivated to create, learn, experiment and cooperate with their peers in pursuit of a clearly defined goal for which they feel an emotional connection.

 

Filed under Business, Culture, Strategy

The Dissemination of Pop Culture

July 9, 2011 Leave a comment

I’m a big fan of Seth Godin (who isn’t) and a subscriber to the email updates coming from his Domino Project, which, in a word, is trying to change how books are published, distributed and consumed by the public.  His weekly newsletter posed this question: Does pop culture change top down or do people always get what they deserve?

I love this question because I think it’s central to so many industries, and I don’t see as much discussion directly about this topic as I would like.  The answer, before I go any further is both.  In a capitalist society, needs will eventually be met by someone, because where there are unmet needs there is an opportunity to profit.  However, you’re insane if you don’t think that everyday new “needs” are invented by brands and their marketing machines that you didn’t even know you had.  GPS is a good example.  iPads are an even better one (they sold 10 million in 2010).

The process typically goes like this: a company puts big bucks into hyping and developing a story around a new product, thus creating a perceived need.  Media jumps in and starts propagating this story.  A small (but vital) percentage of the population hears about this because they’re listening carefully.  Some call these people early adopters.  They buy-in and eventually the rest of the population, who consumes what they see everyone else consuming follows and voila, you have the SUV craze.

This model was pretty cut and dry, but more and more lately we’re seeing it operate in different ways, meaning that how you get to widespread adoption is less clearly defined. In other words, there’s no set path.  Instead, and unless you’re Apple, innovators should focus on what they’re bringing into the marketplace.  Is there a real need or just the opportunity to develop a perceived one?  Is this relevant to a large number of people?  Can the purpose of this product, service or idea be easily understood?

Once these questions are answered, get your product on the radars of that small portion of attentive humans, because you can always count on them to tell you (and maybe others) exactly what they think.

Filed under Brands, Business, Culture, Marketing

Percolate: Making Content Creation Even Easier

July 7, 2011 2 Comments

Upon arriving at my desk today, I found my Twitter feed ablaze with talk about Noah Brier’s latest startup, Percolate.  The startup, is essentially a microblogging platform that feeds you select content from Twitter and your Google Reader, and allows you to easily share your thoughts on that content with friends.

In a Fast Company interview about the project, Noah talks about the difficulty of facing the blank box every time you sit down to blog.  It’s daunting, I agree, and the relative isolation of our individual blogs can make figuring out what to write about somewhat difficult.  According to Noah, Twitter revolutionized the game, by shrinking the box.  Now, Percolate aims to get rid of it altogether, by providing you with pieces of content to write about.  Equal parts Tumblr, Twitter and News Reader, Percolate is divided up into a content feed, dubbed the “Filter” and your follower feeds (what people are saying) called the “Brew”.

At first glance this seems to be a worthwhile step forward in helping to make content creation a more accessible and social process, something that Tumblr made strides in but ultimately fell short of.  And isn’t that what all this is about?  Tearing down all the walls preventing us from becoming more informed and inspired human beings?  Kudos to Noah!

By the way, Percolate is still in its double secret alpha phase, so head to Noah’s blog and grab up one of the 30 invites he’s offering up.

Filed under Business, Ideas, Marketing, Media

The Atlantic’s 14 Biggest Ideas of The Year

June 23, 2011 2 Comments

I’m big Atlantic fan.  I think their content is balanced and well-researched, plus I’m always surprised by the topics and stories they choose to cover.  So, when I realized we were due up for their Ideas Issue, I got pretty excited.  While the issue is comprised of a lot of good articles, the bulk of it is taken up by a section called The 14 Biggest Ideas of the Year.  Lists naturally appeal to me, but tend to over-simplify, so I prefer to see this as simply 14 big ideas for 2011 which span finance, economics, politics, foreign affairs, social and environmental policy, sports, entertainment and more.

While I won’t break out everyone of them, I’ll pull out five that I found to be particularly thought-provoking and intelligent.

1. The Rise of the Middle Class (Just Not Ours) – If you read anything, you know the middle class in the US and Europe is shrinking rapidly, a bad thing by anyone’s standard.  However, there is a silver lining, and that is the fact that it’s growing exponentially in developing markets like Brazil, India, China and more.  This means there’s a huge opportunity to sell goods and services to these developing markets.  The question then becomes, are we up for it?  And, will we recognize the opportunity in time?

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Filed under Business, Culture, Ideas

RISD Artreprenuer Toolkits

June 22, 2011 Leave a comment

Even the Rhode Island School of Design knows how tough it can be to find meaningful employment after graduating in a recession.  To combat this, they’ve partnered with a number of companies to provide their graduates with entrepreneur (or artrepreneur) toolkits.

The kits “help these highly creative thinkers to maximize their potential for innovation and explore entrepreneurial possibilities”.  Included in them is a Square device allowing grads to process credit card payment via their mobile device, a six-month account from Prosite, the new portfolio platform from Behance, a 2GB Yousendit account good for six months, plus the possibility for an Etsy Fellowship for the graduate whose store shows the most potential.  Also worth noting is the Kickstarter section solely for RSID grads, enabling them to gain funding for their projects.

At first glance this may seem like nothing next to the price students pay to attend this prestigious design school, but in reality, these highly-creative graduates often need help with the left brain components of establishing themselves as entrepreneurs.  Plus, tools like this help to instill confidence that their degree and the knowledge that comes with it, can take them anywhere they want to go.  All universities could learn from this kind of tangible support.

[via Springwise]

 

Filed under Art, Business, Design, Ideas

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