Author Archives: ghotchkiss

Welders: Creating Sparks in the Social Space

First published March 22, 2012 in Mediapost’s Search Insider

A few weeks ago, I was asked to keynote at an annual gathering of welding equipment manufacturers. The topic? Social media, which had emerged as the number one thing these industrial marketers wanted to learn more about during their previous conference.

Now, if that image introduces some cognitive dissonance, you’re not alone. Anyone I mentioned this to tended to raise an eyebrow and look at me with skepticism.  I quickly learned to counter with, “Did I mention that the conference was in Indian Wells, Calif., at a beautiful resort at the end of February?”

“Ohh,” they would respond, nodding knowingly, “Well, that makes sense, then.”

I wouldn’t press the issue, but I also knew something they didn’t know.  Don’t be too quick to judge welders, because they’re a different breed. I know this because life has surrounded me with welders. I have two brothers-in-law that are welders. I worked my way through college working summers on pipeline crews, doing the jobs welders didn’t want to do. I’ve had several years of observation of the welding community under my belt, and it didn’t surprise me in the least that social media would be something they would be interested in.

You see, welders are craftspeople. They have a pride in their work, their tools and their community that may seem strange to those from outside their inner circle. I have sat and listened to welders talk for hours about the challenges they encounter on a job site. They care about what they do.  In fact, in the hands of some, an arc welder and acetylene torch become tools of artistic expression. If you don’t believe me, check out the work of Craig Palm.

How did I find Craig? I found him on the official Facebook page of Lincoln Welders. And frankly, the authenticity and passion of the Lincoln community blows away 99% of what I’ve seen pass as social media marketing out there, from brands that one would assume are far more sophisticated when it comes to digital marketing. But Lincoln has something essential for creating online communities. At the heart of it, there’s something there: something welders care about. It’s not manufactured, spun or contrived. It’s real. It’s common. It’s engaging. It’s the stuff communities are made of.

And that was my message to the group. Social does not equal market, just as marriage does not equal stalking. Marketing is defined by terms like targeting, reach and effectiveness — all implying one party doing something to the other. Communities are defined by terms like belonging, engaged and members — all speaking of a two-way relationship, where both sides are partners. It’s a much different dynamic, one that eludes those who view social as just another channel to be employed to drive the bottom line.

Companies like Lincoln and Miller understood there was already a strong community of welders with common interests and passions. If welding were just a job, welding helmets wouldn’t come in dozens of different custom designs. But they do, because your helmet signals both that you belong to a community, while making a personal statement about you. You wouldn’t do that if you didn’t care.

Social isn’t for everyone. In fact, before you start pinning your hopes on social, ask yourself a tough question. Is there something there? Is there a reason to engage? Does your business elicit conversations that could happen over a beer and span an hour or two? If there’s nothing there, then your online community will be a ghost town.

I have to be honest. I went to the conference expecting to teach the welders something about social media, but I actually left getting just as much as I gave.

Has Technology Spoiled Us?

First published March 15, 2012 in Mediapost’s Search Insider

“We live in an amazing, amazing world, and it’s wasted on the crappiest generation of spoiled idiots.” — Louis C.K.

If you want to see “amazing” as it emerges onto our collective radar, your best seat is in front of the TED stage. It’s like a candy store of jaw-dropping technology. This year’s edition was no exception. We saw flying robots, virtual cadavers (to train new surgeons) and enough other techno-goodies to keep the TED audience in a digitally enhanced state of rapture.

One that stood out for me doesn’t exist yet, but Peter Diamandis and his “X Prize” have placed their bets on something called the Qualcomm Tricorder Challenger. Remember the Tricorder from the original “Star Trek “ — a nifty little piece of hardware that could instantly diagnose Star Fleet crew members and other assorted alien life forms? Well, the X Prize foundation thinks we’re at a point where we could turn that particular piece of science fiction into science fact. They’ve put $10 million up for grabs for whoever can create a handheld device that will be “a tool capable of capturing key health metrics and diagnosing a set of 15 diseases. Metrics for health could include such elements as blood pressure, respiratory rate, and temperature. Ultimately, this tool will collect large volumes of data from ongoing measurement of health states through a combination of wireless sensors, imaging technologies, and portable, non-invasive laboratory replacements.”  The TED community collectively started salivating at the possibilities.

But as most of us had our attention focused on the amazing glimpses of our own cleverness on stage, I couldn’t help scanning the audience around me at TEDActive. Here we were, a group of privileged (and mainly well-to-do) Westerners, and most of us had technology in our hands that would have blown away the TED audience of 2002, just 10 short years ago. Imagine demoing the iPhone or iPad then. A standing “O” would have been guaranteed (not that that’s too stringent a bar to get over at TED).

It made me realizing how fickle we are when it comes to technology. What amazes us today is expected tomorrow and becomes boring the day after. We chew up innovation at an ever-increasing pace and seem to grow annoyed if we’re not constantly fed a diet of “wow.”

I started with a quote from comedian Louis C.K.  In his routine, he talks about a flight he was recently on where the airline announced that you could access WiFi while in the air.  Partway through the flight, the system went down and the flight attendants came on the system and apologized.

The person in the next seat responded with an exasperated, “This is complete B.S.!”

How, wondered C.K., could you possible feel entitled to something you didn’t even know existed five minutes ago?

Look, I love my gadgets as much as the next guy. More, in fact. But at that moment, sitting in that darkened auditorium, I couldn’t help but wonder if our own insatiability for innovation is setting off a technological arms race with social implications we can’t possibly foresee. Are we becoming spoiled idiots? Are we so blinded by our own sense of entitlement that we fail to appreciate just how amazing the world is today? And, more disturbingly, as we underutilizing the tools that technology is giving us, going for the easy distraction rather than the earth-shaking potential of innovation?Do we push technology down the path of least resistance, rather than directing it where it can do the most good for the world, collectively?

Of course, applying technology for the betterment of mankind is right in TED’s wheelhouse, so my fears are not so much aimed at what I saw during TED, but rather to the deluge of technical innovation whose only purpose seems to be to make us fatter, stupider and lazier.

Among the nobler pursuits of innovation is Segway inventor Dean Kamen’s Stirling Water still, a box about the size of a large camping cooler that allows you to “stick a hose into anything that looks wet…and it comes out…as perfect distilled water.” The box can supply a village with 1,000 liters of clean water a day.  Peter Diamandis gave us an update on the still, saying that hopes are high that it will soon go into widespread production, making a massive difference in the health and well-being of many third-world countries. It all sounds great until we remember that Kamen first introduced it on the TED stage in (you guessed it) 2002.

I wonder. If Steve Jobs had teased us with the capabilities of the iPhone in 2002, would we have waited patiently for a decade to get our hands on it? Or would we have whined like a bunch of “spoiled idiots” until it shipped? We’ve now had four version of the iPhone ship since it was introduced give years ago, so I suspect the latter is more likely.

Considering that the majority of the world still can’t get a glass of clean drinking water, it does give one pause for thought, doesn’t it?

Who is Joseph Kony – and Why Does it Matter?

First published March 8, 2012 in Mediapost’s Search Insider

“Do you know who Joseph Kony is?”

The question was posed to me this week by my 16-year-old daughter, Lauren. Immediately I knew something was up. Lauren delivers everything with a half smirk, which is generally followed by some sarcastic comment. But this time, she was disarmingly serious in her question.

I curbed my knee-jerk reaction, which was to respond with an equally sarcastic comeback (genetic testing not required to prove paternity in this particular case) and simply said, “No.”

“I want you to go check out this site — kony2012.com,” she said.

I did, and ran into one of the most compelling uses of digital communication I’ve ever seen. So I wanted to use this column to do two things. First, to urge you to take the time to visit the site. It’s a crash course in effective online communication that any digital marketer could learn from. But secondly — and more importantly — I want to tell you who Joseph Kony is. Learning this might be the most important thing you do today.

Let me give you a brief introduction to Mr. Kony. The International  Criminal Court in the Hague, Netherlands, compiled a list of the most wanted criminals in the world. Among better-known names like Muammar Khadafy, Joseph Kony had the unfortunate distinction of topping the list.

How do you get to the top of such a list? You form a guerilla army (The Lord’s Resistance Army) in Uganda and kidnap children to act as your foot soldiers. Not just a few children. Tens of thousands of children. You rip boys as young as eight and nine away from their homes and parents and force them to kill, torture, maim, rape and pillage, literally at gunpoint. Often, their first order is to kill their family and friends. You turn their lives into an unimaginable hell where the only avenue of escape seems to be their own death.

And it’s not just boys. Girls are kidnapped as well, forced to become sex slaves. Kony’s army has no cause, no goal, no reason for being. Despite its name, it’s unclear what Kony is actually resisting. The mission of the LRA has apparently gone directly from the mouth of God to the ear of Joseph Kony, but he has neglected to pass it along. The army exists, and the practice of kidnapping children continues solely because the world has allowed it to. In most cases, it’s because the world, like me, has never heard this story. It doesn’t know who Joseph Kony is.

This is where http://www.kony2012.com comes in. Started by filmmaker Jason Russell, who has been working to expose Kony for the last nine years, Kony2012 has a very clear goal: to make Kony famous by the end of this year, shining a blindingly bright light on his activities.  Russell believes that evil can’t be sustained when the world is watching you.  The Arab Spring indicates that Jason Russell is probably right.

The site has a heart-breaking 29-minute video, but that alone doesn’t really differentiate it. What is amazing is the way it uses digital communication and social media to help light the fires of fame around Joseph Kony. On the site, there are direct links to the Twitter accounts of 20 celebrities, including Oprah, Mark Zuckerberg and George Clooney, as well as social media links to 12 policy makers and political influencers including Bill Clinton, Condoleezza Rice and John Kerry. Kony 2012 knows that the world of social influence is spanned by only a few degrees of separation and that these influencers, if activated, can bring unwelcome awareness to Kony with brutal efficiency. The degree of digital savviness shown by this site and the movement in general is humbling and inspiring. Of course, it helps to have a compelling story to tell, and the story of Joseph Kony certainly qualifies.

I made my daughter a promise. I would learn who Joseph Kony was. And I would do what I could so others would know him as well. I would try to make Joseph Kony famous.

There are many less important ways to spend 29 minutes of your life.
Read more: http://www.mediapost.com/publications/article/169701/who-is-joseph-kony-and-why-does-it-matter.html#ixzz2imaY0Mn2

An Introvert’s Confession

First published March 1, 2012 in Mediapost’s Search Insider

I am an introvert.

Which, I guess, qualifies as an introvert’s confession — a metaphorical “coming out of the closet.” But if you were an introvert, you would know that’s the last thing you really want to do. The closet is such a non-threatening place to be.

A few columns ago I wrote about personality tests and said that, according to the Myers Briggs Personality Test, I’m usually tagged as an “INFJ” – which, according to the labels applied, means I’m an Introverted, iNtuitive, Feeling and Judging person.  Apparently that’s one of the rarest of the 16 personality types. Only 1% to 3% of the population are “INFJ”s. Depending on when I’ve taken the test, the last two letters have wavered a bit, but never that first “I.” I am, was and always will be an introvert.

I write this from TEDActive – which may just be the definition of introvert’s hell. It’s a gathering of some 600 well-meaning, gregarious TEDsters in the desert east of LAS (Palm Springs) who are prodded at every juncture to “interact” and “connect.” A good question would be, “Why the hell would you subject yourself to that?” A better question might be, “Tell me why this is this your third TEDActive.”

This year, much to my delight, one of the speakers of the first day of TED was a fellow introvert, Susan Cain, who spoke (much to her discomfort) on the TED stage about the importance of introversion. Internally I cheered, because that’s what we introverts do. Externally I stayed calm and expressionless, because that, too, is what we introverts do.

Let me tell you how an introvert negotiates the social minefield that is TEDActive. Tonight (being the night I’m writing this column) is “Free Night,” which means you’re supposed to somehow connect with a group of five to eight total strangers and invite yourself out to dinner with them at a local restaurant.

Yeah, right.

I, to the contrary, bailed out of the last session early (which was not that big a sacrifice, frankly) and snuck away to a local diner to grab a quick bite, by myself. By the time the rest of the TEDActive crowd was heading out to dinner with their new friends, to be followed, I assume, by poolside partying and midnight karaoke, I was already back, safely ensconced in my hotel room, writing this column.

If you were judging me through an extrovert’s eye, you would probably be using words like “antisocial” (you do know what “introvert” means, don’t you?) and “pathetic.” What you don’t know is the profound pleasure an introvert can get from observing life and thinking about how it all fits into the bigger picture. As I sat in that diner, I watched a four-generation family reunion unfold before my eyes. I watched a mom take her 3-year-old daughter for a walk around the restaurant so she could be the center of attention as her new shoes sparkled and lit up with each step. And I asked myself why most of us adults don’t feel the need to wear shoes that light up when we walk through a restaurant. What happens along the way that steals that wonder from us?  If I were there with a group of others that I felt compelled to socialize with, I would have never seen that sight. That’s an introvert’s modus operandi: we observe, we think and we wonder. There are worse ways to spend your life.

Now, to be clear, I don’t skulk my way through the entire TED program avoiding eye contact and sneaking back into my hotel room. I had a very enjoyable conversation at lunch about space travel, the global rebalancing of wealth, the ethical dilemma of artificial intelligence and how our sense of entitlement may kill North America. That’s why I have come back to TEDActive for three straight years. But by 6 p.m., the tank was full. I needed some solitary time to digest.

My career has forced me to take on some extroverted characteristics. I’ve had to learn to speak in public. And owning your own business dictates that you become a salesperson. But I can’t live on a steady diet of that. At the many search conferences I attend, I usually stay at a different hotel than the “official venue.” It just makes life easier. And my longtime industry friends can tell you that I’m much more comfortable with a quiet dinner and engaging conversation than the more gregarious gatherings around the hotel bar.  That’s just how I roll.

As an introvert, you get used to living in a world that’s largely defined and judged by extroverts. As Susan Cain pointed out today in her talk, somewhere in the 20th century, the value of character somehow slipped and gave way to the cult of personality. We introverts are constantly made to feel that we should be more “outgoing.” Perhaps, though, the rest of the world should become more “thoughtful.” Would that be such a bad thing?

All of this has little to do with search engines or digital marketing. But I do think that our newfound digital connections may actually turn the tables on the imbalance between the introverts and extroverts of the world.  It seems to be less of a social stigma to spend time by yourself. And thanks to online connections, we can now connect on an “as required” basis.  Perhaps, as a society, we’re beginning to put more importance on the value of individual contribution.

Maybe, just maybe, the introvert’s time has come.

Behind Every Search There’s a Story

First published February 23, 2012 in Mediapost’s Search Insider

This week, I was reminded why I got into this business. The timing was good, because to be honest, after being involved in too many discussions revolving around search budgets and cross-channel attribution models, I had lost touch with what I’d found so magical about online marketing in the first place. But Tim and Daniel reminded me. It’s a story worth repeating.

About a week ago, I was sitting in a boardroom trying to find an “apples-to-apples” comparison for a CMO of a huge company to help validate moving money from traditional brand-building channels into search. We had run dozens of models, compiled multiple spreadsheets, and put together at least six different slide decks. In the process we did our level best to suck all the life out of the exercise, reducing it to a colorless discussion based solely on numbers. We were trying to find that elusive formula that would allow us to compare the impact of a dollar spent on search vs. a dollar spent on TV.

This was a variation of a conversation that I’m sure we’ve all had multiple times in the last year. I guess it was a sign that digital has come of age. We were trying to subject it to the same BS that had propped up TV and print for decades.

However, in the process, we were missing something critical. And I found that something critical on the streets of San Francisco.

When I started in search, I used to get a kick from the fact that thanks to what we did, a small Mustang after-market parts retailer could outrank Ford for keywords like “Mustang parts” and increase its online business by 10 times in under a year, eventually outstripping its traditional brick- and-mortar business, which had been around for decades. Or that a small boat manufacturer in Kelowna, B.C. could rank No. 1 for “boats” and suddenly start getting inquiries from around the world. Online made things possible that had never been possible before. And that was pretty cool.

Those stories are still happening and being talked about. It’s just that they’re not happening at the boardroom tables where I’ve been hanging out lately. But then I ran into Tim and Daniel, and their story restored my faith in online marketing.

Tim and Daniel are just a couple of guys who happen to love their city (San Francisco) and wanted to find a way to afford their sky-rocketing rent so they could continue to live there.  A little over a year ago, they started a bike tour company that takes tourists through the streets of San Francisco, pointing out the little nooks and crannies that give the city its color. They’re both pretty personable guys and the tours benefit from their obvious passion for their subject. They can bring Haight-Ashbury or the Castro to life in a way that no tour book or bus tour ever could. They reduce San Francisco to a street-level, intimate love affair, exactly the way the city should be seen.

Now, as cool as that is, the story wouldn’t be worth telling unless people actually discovered the tour, allowing Tim and Daniel to keep their jobs as guides.

And that’s where the Internet comes in. Right now, their tour is the No. 1 ranked tour on Trip Advisor, with 145 reviews, all of them “excellent.” And so, because of this feedback, they top a very long list of things to do in San Francisco. They probably won’t get rich, but they will keep the business rolling and keep paying the rent. And that’s not a bad outcome for being able to do the thing you love.

I asked Daniel what the impact of the positive ranking on Trip Advisor had been, and he was positive but realistic, “It’s been pretty awesome, but as I keep telling my mom, it’s an algorithm and it might be gone tomorrow. But we’re enjoying it while we can.”

Excellent advice. Enjoy it while you can. And when the big business of search seems to suck all the fun out of life, remember that guys like Tim and Daniel are still stoked about what it can do for them.

That’s why I got into the biz.

Ramblings of a Feverish Mind

First published February 16, 2012 in Mediapost’s Search Insider

I’ve had the flu for going on a week now. My head hurts and my tongue feels like a terrycloth towel. My voice sounds like a cross between Satan and a barking seal. Any lucid thoughts I may have had have long been beaten into submission by repeated doses of NyQuil. And now I have a column to write.

What strikes me the most about my current state of mind is how little tolerance I have for the stuff that normally makes up my life.  The saying “Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff” must have an illness-triggered corollary: “Fever-induced sweat seems to wash away all the little crap.” Before I got sick, I had a mountain of stuff that was all vitally important. Then I lost two-and-a-half days because I simply couldn’t raise my head from my pillow. Something had to give. Actually, several things had to give. And you know what? The world didn’t end. Life went on.

It’s a revelation of much less significance than Steve Job’s more eloquent version in his 2005 Stanford commencement speech: “Remembering that I’ll be dead soon is the most important tool I’ve ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life.” But you get the gist. We fill up our lives with little crap, and it drowns out the significant stuff we should be focused on. Steven Covey calls them our “rocks.” But why do we need something like a death sentence or being waylaid by a particularly virulent flu virus to remember it? Why can’t we keep focused on the big stuff every day of our lives?

The ironic thing is that most of the stuff we do in a day, we do for others, not ourselves. We don’t want to drop the ball, leave someone hanging or let something fall between the cracks. Delivering on these multiple imperatives is the price we pay for being social animals. We want to keep the acceptance of the herd, so we’re hardwired to make other’s priorities our priorities. And, in the process, we keep shuffling the stuff that’s truly important to us to the back shelf. The only way to avoid molding your life around someone else’s priorities is to be a narcissistic jerk — like Mr. Jobs, or yours truly when spiking a fever.

This got me to wondering. Don’t these selfsame jerks have a natural advantage over the rest of us “nice guys”? The fact that they don’t care about other’s priorities and naturally advance their own agendas, expecting others to adopt them as their own, seems to indicate that they’ll actually get the stuff done they care about.

After three decades in the business world, I’ve come to the sad and wearied conclusion that to be wildly successful in business, you have to be an asshole. Nice guys may not always finish last, but they seldom take home the gold.  The most successful CEOs typically have a Machiavellian side, ideally buffered by some social skills.

By next week the flu will be gone, I hope. But part of me is also hoping that the forced perspective it gave me lingers a bit longer.  Maybe a little flu-induced “dickishness” wouldn’t be a bad thing the carry through 2012 and beyond.

Marketing Physics 101

First published February 9, 2012 in Mediapost’s Search Insider

Physics has never been my strong suit, but I think I have a good basic grasp of the concepts of velocity and direction. In my experience, the two concepts have special significance in the world of direct marketing. All too often I see marketers that are too focused on one or the other. These imbalances lead to the following scenarios:

All Direction, No Velocity

As a Canadian, I am painfully familiar with this particular tendency. Up here, we call it a Royal Commission. For those of you unfamiliar with the vagaries of the Canadian political landscape, here’s how a Royal Commission works. It doesn’t. That’s the whole point. Royal Commissions are formed when you have an issue that you wished would simply go away, but the public won’t let it. So a Royal Commission deliberates over it for several months, issues a zillion-page report that nobody ever reads, and by the time the report comes out, everybody has forgotten why they were so riled up in the first place.

This is similar to a company’s strategists noodling for months, or even years, about their digital strategy without really doing anything about it. They have brainstorming sessions, run models, define objectives and finally, decide on a direction. Wonderful! But in the process, they’ve lost any velocity they may have had in the first place. Everyone has become so exhausted talking about digital marketing that they have no energy left to actually do anything about it. Worse, they think that because it lives on a shelf somewhere, the digital strategy actually exists.

All Velocity, No Direction

With some companies, the opposite is true. They try going in a hundred directions at once, constantly chasing the latest bright shiny object. Execution isn’t the problem. Stuff gets done. It’s just that no one seems to know which direction the ship is heading. Another problem is that even though velocity exists, progress is impossible to measure because no one has thought to decide what the right yardstick is. You can only measure how close you are to “there” when you know where “there” is.

Failing any unifying metrics grounded in the real world, people tend to make up their own metrics to justify the furious pace of execution. Some of my favorites: Twitter Retweets, Number One SEO rankings and Facebook Likes.  As in “our latest campaign generated 70,000 Facebook likes” — a metric heard in more and more boardrooms across America. Huh? So? How does this relate in any way to the real world where people dig out their wallets and actually buy stuff? Exactly what dollar value do you put on a Like? Believe me, people are trying to answer that question, but I’ve yet to see an answer that doesn’t contain the faint whiff of smoke being blown up my butt. I suspect those pondering the question are themselves victims of the “all velocity, no direction” syndrome.

Balanced Physics

The goal is to fall somewhere in between the two extremes. You need to know the general direction you’re heading and what the destination may look like. You will almost certainly have to make course adjustments on the way, but you should always know which way North is.

And if you have velocity, it’s much easier to make those course adjustments. Try turning a ship that’s standing still.

The Facebook Personality Test

First published February 2, 2012 in Mediapost’s Search Insider

I’ve always believed that you could learn everything you needed to know about a person by asking them who their favorite Beatle was. To back up the efficacy of this bulletproof psychological profiling tool, there are several online Beatle personality tests.  I mean really, if you can’t build an online quiz from it, how valid can a psychological tool be? I, personally, am primarily a John Lennon, with George Harrison undertones. But for the test to work, you actually have to know the Beatles on a fairly intimate level, and their status as a cultural baseline is regrettably eroding.

Now, you could use a more standard but much less interesting approach; say a Myers-Briggs personality sorter, or the “colors” test. I seem to bounce back and forth between “INFJ” and an “INTJ.”

But a recent paper by Ashwini Nadkarni and Stefan Hofman (both from Boston University) in the Journal of Personality and Individual Differences offered a more timely way to sort out the extroverts from the introverts (and the neurotics from the narcissists). It seems our usage of Facebook may provide a remarkably accurate glimpse into who we are.

For example, in their review of previous studies, Nadkarni and Hoffman found that people with neurotic tendencies like Facebook’s Wall, while those less neurotic prefer photos.

Several columns back I bemoaned the fact that the more we use social networking, the less social we seem to become. It appears that wasn’t just my perception. A 2009 study by E.S. Orr et al discovered that shy people love Facebook and spend way more time on it than non-shy people.  Ironically, for all the time they spend Facebooking, their friend networks are much smaller than their more gregarious but less-Facebook-engaged counterparts.

Narcissists also spend a higher-than-average amount of time on Facebook — over an hour a day.  They use the social site to promote themselves through profiles and photos. Conversely, multiple studies have shown than many Facebook fans use it to pump up low self-esteem. Through self-promotion and validation through virtual connections, they’ve found a kinder, gentle and more accepting world than the one that lies outside their bedroom door.

Studies have found that more socially awkward Facebook users have found that the less intense and demanding connections formed online can actually help them expose more of their personalities than they can in a more typical social environment. Some are more themselves on Facebook than they are in the real world. It’s not really creating a new persona, but rather exposing the one you’ve always possessed but felt too fragile to put out there in your day-to-day interactions.

Finally, what does it say about you if you use Facebook only sparingly or not at all? Are you hopelessly disconnected? Not at all. The more individualistic you are, the more goal-oriented you are and the more disciplined you are, the less you tend to use Facebook. Ironically, if this matches your personality type and you do use Facebook at all, you probably have a very healthy network of friends. I don’t know where I fall on the scale, but I probably spend less than an hour a month on Facebook — and for some reason, I seem to have a network of close to 400 friends.

Maybe it’s my irresistible INFJ/John Lennon-like qualities. I hope that doesn’t sound too narcissistic.

 

 

What is an Agency’s Role?

First published January 26, 2012 in Mediapost’s Search Insider

Last week, I was talking to someone about what  role a digital agency would play in the future. We went down all the usual paths and came up with the usual answers, but afterward the question still lingered. What is our role in the future? I’m reasonably certain it won’t be the same as our role in the past.

In cases like this, I sometimes find it helpful to do a little linguistic excavation. I’m constantly surprised by how concise and accurate the labels we choose are, if we spend the time to explore their roots and unearth their true meaning.

What then is an “agency”? Well, agency is simply the capacity of an agent to act. It’s the sphere of “action” that surrounds an agent. So, we have to dig a little deeper. What is an “agent”? An agent is one who acts for another, by authority from them.  It seems simple, but is there a fundamental concept here that has gotten fuzzy with time?

In the early history of advertising, agencies were very much aligned with this definition, I think. They carried out the acts of advertising — including creation of the messages, production and placement — at their clients’ behest. The best agencies also contributed by helping clients uncover and communicate core brand values that resonated with an audience.

It was here that the role of the agency started to shift. It had to do with the concept of brand ownership. Somewhere along the line, agents began to believe they owned the brand. And clients seemed willing to abdicate this power to their agents. One agency talks about “360 degree brand stewardship.” It sounds nice, warm and fuzzy, but let’s cut the fat away and get to the bone of this phrase. What does that mean, really?

To “steward” a brand means to care for it and improve it over time. Again, that sounds like a good thing. But I fear that it shifts a fundamental duty into the wrong hands. I believe that “caring” implies ownership, and it can leave a brand in a precarious purgatory, caught between the company itself and its agency. In the days when brands were built largely around media exposure, perhaps it made sense for the fate of that brand to live with the agency. But that’s no longer the case. As Jakob Nielsen has said on at least one occasion, now “brands are built by experience, not exposure.” And the brand experience has to live with the company whose DNA defines the brand. By necessity, they have to be the stewards of their own brand, because so much of what makes that brand lives beyond the reach of an agency.

So if the original definition of an agency is passé, and the role of stewardship has to live with the company, what then do we become? I can hear echoes of “strategic partners” out there as I write. But to me that term has had its essential meaning squeezed out by overuse. I don’t think it captures the essence of what a digital agency should be. “Strategic partners” as a label is like a blanket, covering everything but defining nothing.

When I look at our best relationships with clients, there are three other terms I would use: “catalyst,”  “accelerator” and “guide.”

As a catalyst, we’re there to trigger change, to set off a chain reaction that has the potential to transform an organization.  We can do this by giving clients a vision of what’s possible. As an accelerator, we’re there to remove the roadblocks preventing the transformation. Finally, as a guide, we’re there to provide direction, helping clients a navigate the troubled waters of digital transformation and giving them some idea of what to expect.

Embrace Your Inner “Screw Up”

First published January 19, 2012 in Mediapost’s Search Insider

Humans hate making mistakes. But the fact is, making mistakes is an essential part of being human. Somehow, we have to learn to live on the edge of this paradox. For digital marketers, our entire industry is balanced on this particular precarious precipice.

There are a few rules of thumb to “screwing up” successfully:

You Can Only Learn from Others if You’re in the Middle of the Pack

If you’re a digital marketer, you’ve decided to travel at the head of the herd. Congratulations. But here’s the thing. You’ve volunteered to make mistakes. The mark is on your forehead and it’s your job to poke the bushes and test the waters, flushing out danger for others to take heed of.

Humans have a long history of leveraging the principle of safety in numbers. But in that dynamic, some have to live on the edge and let others learn from their mistakes. The advantage of that position is that you’re also the first to take advantage of the unchartered wins that come from conquering new challenges. The risks are greater, but so are the rewards. If this balance doesn’t appeal to you, move back to center and follow the leaders. Just realize it’s a lot more crowded there, and there might not be enough perks to go around.

The More Unstable the Environment, The More Important it is to Make Mistakes

You don’t need the safety of a herd in safe and stable environments. We call it civilization. It’s on the frontier, where things get precarious, that you need safety in numbers. Ironically, it’s on the frontier where the herd thins out and you often have to go it alone. That really leaves you no choice. There is no beaten path to follow. You’re going to have to be the one that forges it. And that means you’re going to make mistakes. Get used to it. Embrace it. Take solace in the fact that while taking action may cause mistakes, not taking action pretty much guarantees you’ll end up as somebody’s lunch.

If You Can’t Get Comfortable, Get Courageous

I often tell aspiring digital marketers that this is not a comfortable career. If you want security, become an accountant. But if you want a challenge, you’ve found the right niche. Digital marketing takes courage. It means trusting your gut and betting on long shots. It means embracing opportunities without a mound of evidence to rely on. To succeed in this business, first you need passion — but courage runs a close second.

Mistakes = Learning

I don’t know where making mistakes got such a bad rap from, but I shudder to think where humanity would be without them (read Ralph Heath’s excellent book, “Celebrating Failure”). You can’t learn without making mistakes. You can’t gain ground without occasionally falling down. I’ve spent the majority of my life as an entrepreneur, which pretty much means the regular making of mistakes, so perhaps I’ve become used to it.  But I honestly don’t know why screwing up has been stigmatized to the extent it has.

Learn to “Do It Wrong Quickly”

My friend Mike Moran wrote a book a few years ago calling “Do it Wrong Quickly,” which uncovers one of the essential elements of successfully screwing up: to build learning into the process. Understand that failure is an essential part of the equation (especially in digital marketing), and go in using it as an opportunity to learn quickly, adjust and iterate your way to success. By going in anticipating failure, you won’t be surprised when it happens and can quickly move beyond failure to learning and adapting.

Realize You Don’t Have to Be Perfect — You Just Have to be Better than the Other Guy

Finally, this is a game of percentages. If you bump up the level of activity, you’ll make more mistakes, but you’ll also win more battles. You’ll “fail forward” — and soon you’ll be looking at the competition in your rearview mirror.