Category Archives: Personal

A collection of personal thoughts and stories

Dr. Jansen’s Coming to Town

My friend Dr. Jim Jansen from Penn State is flying in to meet with the gang at Enquiro today. I’m thrilled! Jim has been spending his time of late slicing and dicing a huge data set of a major search marketer. He’s found a number of interesting things, including behaviors that tend to call the concept of a search funnel into question, and also that “gender neutral” queries convert better than “male” or “female” ones. I did an extensive interview with Jim a few weeks ago, which resulted in three articles for Search Engine Land, some background on Jim, one on the Search Buying Funnel and one on this idea of Search “Sex” and Personalization. You can also read the complete transcript here on Out of My Gord.

For my money, Jim is one of the few academics doing really interesting and relevant research into search. I’m usually aghast at how far behind the profs teaching internet marketing are compared to their students. Jim has proven the exception by rolling both sleeves up and diving deep into mounds of campaign and click stream data.

It will also be good to share with Jim the results of some of the research we’ve been doing here at Enquiro. A number of our studies have highlighted some very interesting behaviors. Because I tend to view research with a decidedly qualitative bias, it would be good to get Jim’s quantitative slant on things.

It’s going to be a great day!

The Top 10 Reasons We Love Top Ten Lists

Somedays it seems to me that the whole world has become a search results page. I fear we have become obsessed with ranked and ordered lists. I’m not sure what it is in the human psyche that loves lists conveniently numbered for our perusal, but heaven knows we’re suckers for the Top Ten.

The Internet has fed this addiction to the point that I feel like the whole world can be sorted like an Excel spread sheet. Sort my best friends by geographic proximity and likelihood to lend me a wheelbarrow. Rank all the parties my teenage daughter will be invited to this year by availability of alcohol, physical presence of dictatorial parents and incidence rate of teenage boys who think they “have a shot”. Give me a list of the 10 things my wife hates so I can create a Pivot Table of my odds of doing one of them in the foreseeable future.

As any direct marketer, blogger, magazine publisher or show organizer will tell you, slapping the “Top Ten” on the front of anything virtually guarantees you an audience: The Top Ten Hot Dog Stands in Manhattan, The Top Ten Ways to Get Rich if You Love Wearing Pajamas All Day, The Top Ten Christmas Crafts that Can Be Made From Recyclable Yard Waste..It’s like we’re being spoon fed our lives by some idiot with a ranking algorithm for everything.

Why are we like this? Well, I think it’s because thinking is hard. It’s much easier to take someone else’s opinion about something, especially when it’s offered in the irresistible format of a ranked list. We can choose to agree or disagree, but we don’t actually have to think about it too much. Someone else has done it for us. Also, we travel in social herds, so it’s really important to know what everyone else feels about anything. And finally, the world just has too much complexity now. There are too many choices to think about in every aspect of our lives, even the stupid ones. I don’t really want to spend a lot of time wondering who the Ten Sexiest Olympians are this coming February. I know somewhere some obliging magazine publisher or blogger will do that Herculean intellectual task for me.

I guess ordered lists offer us the illusion of control. If we can slow the frenetic pace of the world down by looking at a list that someone has conveniently put numbers beside, our lives seem a tiny bit more orderly and organized. Yes, I know the economy and the environment is going to hell in a handbasket, yes, I know the global forces of power and control are undergoing a fundamental shift, but right now I’m focused on the 7 Greatest Reality TV Show Moments of 2009. I’ll worry about global warming some other day.

Of course, the urge to put a numbered list in as part of this post is overwhelming (get it..irony), so, I’ll give you the “Top 8 Reasons Why I Gave In and Did It”:

  1. I have the bladder control of an 80 year old man and have already had 2 cups of coffee, so I had to finish this post somehow
  2. I really want to see just how many of you will Tweet this list because you’ve been helplessly programmed to do so
  3. I’m obsessed with PostRank and I spend way too much of each day worried about my Engagement Score
  4. Given the choice between thought provoking content and a cheap laugh, guess which way I’ll always lean
  5. I’m still figuring out how numbered lists work in my blogging platform and needed the practice
  6. I felt guilty teasing you with a title about Top Lists and felt obliged to deliver. See, I really care about you, my readers and didn’t want to disappoint you
  7. I wanted to prove to my daughters that my brain is still capable of counting up to 8. There has been some question lately
  8. I believe that children are our future (Okay, I ran out of reasons, but I felt that Whitney deserved a plug because she’s trying really, really hard)

A Great Question: Why Don’t Big Companies “Get It?”

At our event in the Bay area last week, Marketo Marketing Director Jon Miller gave a very compelling presentation about how they’ve put a comprehensive sales and marketing strategy together that not only blows away performance benchmarks in his category, but outstrips what would be considered “Best of Breed” campaigns. At the same event, someone from a huge company asked who were the companies that were “doing it right” in B2B. A panel of very smart B2B marketers looked at each other, struggling to come up with a single name. Finally, Jon said “Well, I think we’re doing it pretty well.” It might have sounded boastful, but Jon had the numbers to back up his claim.

I’ve thought about that a lot in the few days since. Why can a small company like Marketo put together a digital campaign that integrates all the right pieces and gets them to click while a Fortune 500, with all their resources available, can’t?  Why are smaller companies much more likely to “Get It”, with a big G?

“Getting it with a Big G”

First, I should explain what I mean by Big G “Getting It.” When I look at the most successful marketers in the digital ecosystem, they have a unique ability to position themselves at exactly the right place on the digital adoption curve. They can read where their markets are going and seem to be there at the right time with the right offering. They offer something so compelling that adoption is a no brainer. These companies have a magical ability to combine the promise and advantages of game changing technology with a intuitive sense of what the market wants. Think Amazon, eBags, NetFlix & Zappos.

Hmmm..you say. No B2B companies in that mix? I would put Salesforce there, but after that, it gets difficult to think of B2B marketers who have found the sweet spot of the adoption curve. That’s why our panel was stumped when asked for examples of B2B companies that “Get It.”

I think the answer lies in the inherent nature of the companies that “Get It”. I suspect there are things that are natural here that it’s almost impossible for bigger companies to emulate. This follows up an earlier post about companies that seem to naturally benefit from SEO. As I thought more about it, I realized it comes down to a few common things:

Top Down, Bottom Up Buy In – Getting a company aligned and on the same page is just a whole lot easier when an executive meeting consists of leaning back in your chair and yelling across the hallway. There’s immediacy of communication and, through this, agreement, that’s intoxicating in a smaller company. If you get executive commitment to an initiative, the entire company can know about it and start executing in minutes if required.

Nimbleness –  With quicker communication comes nimbleness. Smaller companies move faster than big companies, and in the digital marketplace, that’s a vital advantage. If you get that rarest of animals, a small company with seasoned executives who have “been there, done that”, you get a tremendously effective execution machine: a company who knows what to do and can actually do it without dealing with energy sucking inertia.

Growing Up Digital – The handful of companies that I see have almost all grew up in a natively digital market. The online marketplace is baked right into their DNA. Another important point: they get technology, but they’re not star struck by it. If they’re chasing a social media strategy, it’s because they understand that it’s because conversations are happening and they need to be part of them, not because they’ve been caught up in the buzz and hyperbole of it.

It’s Not Marketing, It’s How We Roll – The idea of marketing as a separate department or discipline seems to belong to a past generation. In the successful new breed of companies that “Get It”, marketing best practices are so deeply woven into the fabric of the company that it’s impossible to separate them from all the other stuff the company does. They just do the things that are right for the customer, and everything good seems to naturally flow from that. If you want to call it marketing, fine, but it’s not the first label they’d put on it. They tend to use words like “culture” and “core values.”

Living Closer to the Customer – This ingrained ability to anticipate customer needs comes from living closer to the customer.  There is very little distance between everyone in the company and all their customers in smaller businesses. The CEO knows and understands at a gut level what the customer wants from them. And, if you have an executive that knows how to execute (rarer than you might think) you’ve got consistently happier customers.

Those are my observations after a few days thought, but this question of why smaller, newer companies seem better positioned to evolve in the new marketplace is one that needs more thought. If you could take a few minutes to share any examples of companies that you think embody these characteristics, I’d be grateful. Just add a comment to the blog and I’ll start compiling a list of examples to both share and to take a closer look at.

B2B Experts: Face to Face

Later today, I’ll be heading down to the Bay area for our B2B Expert series, Face to Face. We’ll be talking about The BuyerSphere Project (more on that next week in this blog as I start the countdown to the book release) and how B2B buying as changed in the digital market place. Bill Barnes (Executive VP, Business Development at Enquiro), Andrew Spoeth (Enquiro’s Marketing Director), Greg Jordan (from our Northern California office) and I will be joined by an illustrious group of experts:

  • Graham Mudd, Vice President, comScore Marketing Solutions
  • Patricia Neuray, Vice President National Sales, Business.com
  • Jon Miller, Vice President Marketing, Marketo
  • Matthias Blume, Chief Analytics Officer, Covario

Graham will be kicking us off with “The State of Search” and then I’ll do a brief overview of the major findings of The BuyerSphere. We have a panel presentation on putting the findings to work in practical ways and then Jon Miller wraps us up with a case study of Marketo’s own highly successful marketing campaign.

The event is tomorrow morning at the Sofitel Hotel in Redwood City. If you’ve registered, we’ll see you there. And if you haven’t, I think we might have a couple of seats still open.

The Library of Human Behavior: 11 More Titles for Your Reading List

First published October 22, 2009 in Mediapost’s Search Insider

Last week, I shared 11 titles that explore the intersection between marketing, psychology and neurology. In retrospect, though, I think I approached this backwards. While the titles I discussed are all interesting (and fairly easy reads), they are somewhat dependent on a fundamental understanding of why humans do what we do. So this week, I’ll share a good starting library of human behavior, which can then be applied more generally.

“The Moral Animal: Why We Are the Way We Are”  — Robert Wright.  If you’re on the fence about or simply do not believe in evolution (along with 50% of Americans) you probably want to stop right here. The first three titles in this list are by authors who together create a pantheon for evolutionary psychology and Darwinism. In the first,  “The Moral Animal,” Wright employs an interesting literary device: exploring human behavior by referencing biographical details in Charles Darwin’s own life. He discusses monogamy, child rearing, differing attitudes towards sex and self-deception, among many other mysteries of the human condition. A compelling and highly intelligent read.

“The Selfish Gene” — Richard Dawkins. This book was first published over 30 years ago, and somehow still manages to remain controversial. Perhaps it’s because Dawkins’ assigning the human characteristic of selfishness to our genes has confused many, many readers. If you take the time to read the book, Dawkins explains at length that humans are not necessarily selfish. In fact, one chapter is titled: “Nice Guys Finish First.” Dawkins’ premise is that our genes only care about propagation. That’s it. End of story. Morality and all the ethical trappings that go with it only survive if they help the gene meet this one objective.  A couple of other noteworthy nuggets in this book include the first introduction of memes — ideas that share the propagation directives of genes — and an exploration of how the impact of genes can extend into all aspects of our lives and society.

“The Third Chimpanzee” — Jared Diamond. Diamond starts off the book by stating that we share 98% of our genes with chimpanzees, then spends the rest of the book describing how that remaining 2% can make all the difference. In that thin wedge of genetic difference lie all our culture, achievement and history. Some human achievements are admirable, even remarkable. Some are regrettably base and cruel. Diamond chronicles both the good and the bad, along with a warning: our dominance of our world may end up spelling our doom. A professor of geography who combines the eye of a naturalist, the curiosity of a sociologist, and the ponderings of a philosopher, Diamond makes “The Third Chimpanzee” a masterful book.

“The Stuff of Thought” — Steven Pinker. Following in the steps of Noam Chomsky (up to a point), psychologist Steven Pinker uses language as a door to explore the shadowy recesses of how our minds work. This book is a seminal piece of work in this area. Pinker is masterful at exploring complicated concepts without “dumbing down” his commentary.  He has written an entire library of books worth reading, but this is as good a place to start as any.

“Descartes’ Error” — Antonio Damasio. Damasio was introduced to the common masses in Malcolm Gladwell’s book “Blink,” but Damasio’s work on somatic markers and the role of the prefrontal cortex in how we make decisions goes much further than Gladwell was able to cover. “Descartes’ Error” delves deep into our gut instincts, explaining why pure rationality is an unworkable model for humans. To paraphrase Descartes’ famous quote: We feel, therefore we are.

To round out my 11 suggestions, here are six other titles worth exploring:

“The Mind and the Brain” – Jeffrey Schwartz

“Synaptic Self” – Joseph LeDoux

“A Whole New Mind” – Daniel Pink

“Mapping the Mind” – Rita Carter

“The Emotional Brain” – Joseph LeDoux

“The Female Brain” – Louanne Brizendine

The Male vs Female Definition of Fall Cleaning

Our family computer sits in a corner just off our kitchen. It is used by all of us. It’s used by my wife for organizing photos, emailing and doing the odd job for work. It’s used by both my teenage daughters for downloading music (legally, as far as I’m aware), homework, playing the odd game and keeping up with Facebook. I don’t use it that much, as I have my own laptop, but occasionally I’ll use it to search for something. It’s a Window’s Vista box (save your comments for later) and we also used the Windows Media Center functionality as our own personal PVR. Gradually, over time, the computer became a sluggish monster. My wife’s email preferences kept disappearing. Loading a website became an exercise in patience. Media Center packed it in and shut down. Just sitting down at the keyboard was enough to launch a never ending series of cryptic error messages and alerts. This weekend, with our immediate future plans all moving indoors, I decided it was time to wrestle the beast to the ground.

Cleaning up a computer is an incremental exercise in frustration. You start by doing a few scans: spyware, viruses, clean up the registry. Nothing obvious came up and the computer was as dysfunctional as when I started. Perhaps Windows 7 would magically clean up the mess, but the official release date was still a few days away, not to mention the fact that I was somewhat reluctant to give Microsoft more money to free myself from the misery of their last operating system. I also believed, deep in my heart, that it was naive to expect all my problems to magically disappear. I decided to systematically clean up the box.

After doing the routine maintenance, I dug out my original OS disc and did a clean install, figuring I’d rebuild the box from the ground up. That way, if I decide to upgrade to Windows 7 (I’ve heard good things, by the way) I’d be starting from a reasonably healthy foundation. Of course, a clean install removes all drivers and programs. I started on Saturday. Last night (Tuesday) I finally reinstalled the basics we need and transferred all the back up files back to their rightful places. Our PC was running like a dream..streamlined, crisp and quieter (I also popped the cover and blew out 3 years of accumulated dust). Last night, I rose from the seat I had been glued to for the better part of 20  hours over the past 4 days and admired my handiwork. My wife walked by and paused to see what I was looking at. From this point, I’ll just let the conversation play out:

What are you looking at?

The computer. Look at how it’s running…

What do you mean?

Look..it’s a lot faster…

Ummm..sure..I guess…

I reinstalled the system.

Is that what you were doing for the last 4 days?

Yes..well..that and reloading all the drivers and software.

Are my photos still there?

Yup, I backed them all up and restored them. They’re all sorted out.

Great. Thanks.

That’s what she said, but I know what she was actually thinking.

20 hours and 4 days…I wonder what difference that would have made in the garage that is so packed with junk that there’s no room left for our cars? 

Homo digitus

Over the past week or two, I’ve been putting the agenda together for the Search Insider Summit in Park City, Utah, this December. Traditionally, we try to look for a common thread or theme to tie the show together. As I was looking at the sessions, the common denominator in them all was not surprising. It’s the same common denominator that underlies all marketing: what do people do and why do they do it?

At this Search Insider Summit, Avinash Kaushik is going to be talking about a number of things, including maximizing the long tail, the challenges of attribution and how to effectively use competitive intelligence. All of these things depend on a fundamental understanding of behavioral patterns. I’ll be joining Lance Loveday from Closed Loop Marketing and Scott Brinker from Ion Interactive talking about improving the site side experience. Again, this depends on understanding what it is your prospects want to do on your site. The entire Day 3 of the Summit is devoted to Social Media and Search, which is as embedded in the behaviors of people as you can get.

This is a topic that has dominated the better part of the last half decade of my life. Understanding how people within organizations made buying decisions in a newly evolved digital marketplace is the foundation of the BuyerSphere Project. And taking that to an individual level will be my winter project (likely with another book as part of that). Enquiro has amassed a substantial amount of research about how humans are still humans online, despite all the whiz bang technology that tends to steal the spotlight.

Let me give you one example. A few weeks ago I was in New York for SMX. There, Jeremy Crane from Compete gave a fascinating presentation on the social and search patterns that played out online after the death of Michael Jackson. The presentation was full of charts and graphs showing where people turned to find out the news. But beneath these charts and graphs was a human story that was as old as our species. And it was that story that fascinated me.

Jeremy’s graphs showed that the first place people turned when they first heard the news was a traditional search engine, primarily Google. And from there, they tended to go to an authoritative news portal. Shari Thurow, a SEO and usability consultant (and yes Shari, you’ll notice I put SEO consultant first) who was also on the panel reported that her client, ABC News, found that their traffic spiked dramatically that day, due to some very healthy organic rankings for “Michael Jackson” terms.

But over the coming days, people started interacting with other types of sites. They started conversations on Twitter and Facebook, looked for old videos on YouTube, and as the rumors started to swirl, they used real time search engines to catch the latest gossip. In an interesting anomaly, the only major engine that ran counter to this trend was Bing. Rather than spike in the first day, people used Bing more over the coming days, possibly looking for audio and video of the King of Pop.

Search marketers being what search marketers are, the presenters and attendees all quickly turned to what people where doing: going to Google, then Twitter, then YouTube, etc. But for me, there was a why buried in here that was far more interesting. People were going through the classic stages of mourning, but they were doing it online:

  • First, we need to accept the news, so we need to find a source we can trust. Online, that meant Googling and looking for an authoritative news source like ABC news
  • After we accept that the news is true, we need to participate in the grieving process. We need to remember the person. In the real world, we’d look for a photo or listen to their voice on an voicemail message. Online, we look for a video on YouTube
  • Next, we need to join others in grieving. Humans heal themselves through communication and bonding. Funerals are never for the departed, they are for the ones left behind. And in this case, we did that through Twitter and Facebook.
  • There now comes the darker side of social bonding: gossip. We need to use the event as an opportunity to jockey for position our social circle by circulating privileged information. With Michael, we did this too, again through Twitter and real time search engines.

When you layer on an understanding of how humans behave (something that hasn’t changed for thousands of years), the patterns that emerged from Compete’s data aren’t all that surprising. Humans are still humans, but now those behaviors also play out on an online canvas.

The Psychology of Summer and Fall

I’m always amazed how the turn of the seasons also seems to flip our frame of mind. As summer turns to fall, we shift mental gears. It’s a time for hunkering down, organizing our to do lists and picking up tasks set aside sometime back in April or May. I know that’s certainly true for me.

This summer was a great summer. I did a ton of biking (which seems to be the new mid-life pursuit in the online ad biz – everyone I talk to now is a road biker) including a memorable trip down the Oregon Coast and 2 Metric Century Rides. I also discovered, much to my shock, that I actually love landscaping. That has to be some manifestation of a mid life crisis, because I sure the hell didn’t feel that way in my 20’s.

This summer also saw me working on my first book – The BuyerSphere Project, which is due out on Amazon in a few weeks. I’ve been threatening to write a book now for a few years and now, I’ll actually have something in the book shelf to point to, proving it just wasn’t an idle boast. The book that came out isn’t the one that I set out to write, but I discovered that the author has remarkably little control over what comes out on paper. We go in with the best of intentions, but somewhere in the process, the book seems to take on a mind of it’s own. In this case, I started planning for a book about the psychology of consumerism and ended up writing a book on organizational buying behaviors. Related, yes. But it’s not the book I anticipated. However, I must say, I enjoyed almost all of the process. I’m also taking a crack at self publishing. I’ll let you know how that goes.

So the summer was productive, but it almost seemed that all the things I did belong in a special “summer” category. They seem separate from the day-to-day detail of my life. And now, as the weather cools, I’m settling back into the regular groove. I do so reluctantly, because everything seems more alive somehow in the summer. It’s like the transition from black and white to color in the Wizard of Oz. For those 5 glorious months from May to the end of September, I visit the technicolor of Oz, but now, I’m back in the black and white of Kansas.

So, on this gloomy Monday in rainy BC, Canada, I’ll trudge my way through my list of tasks, more productive perhaps, but secretly dreaming of next year, when I can build another retaining wall!

Give Us Something to Talk About in Park City

First published September 24, 2009 in Mediapost’s Search Insider

From Dec. 2-5, in the ski hills of Park City, Utah, a bunch of really smart search marketers will get together to share what’s on our minds at the Search Insider Summit. The almost seven months that have passed since the spring show in Florida have been interesting ones. I’ve taken a quick look back at the Search Insider columns in that time to see what things we were writing about:

Real Time Search

Twitter? Facebook? The Nexus between Social and Search? This was probably the most consistent topic for Search Insiders over the past few months. I think we all know something important is happening right under our noses. We’re just not sure what.

What Would Google Do?

Everyone in this industry is endlessly fascinated with the Big G. What can we learn from them? How will they reshape the marketplace? How has the culture changed through the recession?

The Interplay of Search and Everything

The Search Insiders have long known that search lies at the center of everything, but there’s little hard data out there about how search interacts with other online (and offline) ad channels. What is the lift from search and display? How about search and video? We know that prospects bounce back and forth across the Web through search, but we’re still figuring out how to use that to get the right message in front of the right person at the right time.

Fundamental Shifts in the World of Search

A number of us have written about the shifting sands of our industry, feeling that something big is happening. Is search as the industry we know dying? Are SEMs changing with the times and providing value? What has the impact of the recession been, good and bad?

Bing, Yahoo and Google

In terms of sheer volume, this was the hands-down winner as the most popular topic for we Insiders. Can Bing break the Google Habit? What is Yahoo’s role? And who are the dark horses who might break the whole race wide open?

Search and Human Behavior

Of course this is one of my favorite topics, but lately Insider Kaila Colbin has actually been beating me at my own game. How and why do we use search? What are the pros and cons of targeting? What is the role of habits in search. And why don’t we spend more time trying to understand why our customers do what they do?

The Future of the SEO Business

SEO still seems to be alive and well — or is it? A few columns have looked not only at the long-term sustainability of SEO, but also the fundamental nature of companies that tend to do SEO well. Is SEO success something you have to earn?

Personalization and Privacy

Personalization is one of the hot topics that seemed to go under the covers for a while, but I suspect it’s due to raise its head, along with a lot of questions about privacy. The big one is: How much are we prepared to trade for a better experience?

How Does This Industry Make the Leap from the Front Line to the C Suite?

 Search has always lived on the tactical side of the corporate org chart, but there are signs that this might be changing. We’re getting more attention from the C-level folks, but often at the expense of understanding what this is all about. How can we help companies “get it” before the coming wave of change wipes them out?

Mobile

Finally… maybe? It’s almost to the point that we’re afraid to talk about mobile for fear of being branded as a false prophet. But with the explosion of functionality, surely we must be getting closer to the tipping point.

What Do We Talk About?

So, that’s a quick summary of what’s been on the collective minds of the Search Insider over the past seven months. How about you? What would you like to see covered in Park City? We want to make sure this is as relevant and timely as possible. Please post your comments, or, better yet, visit MediaPost’s quick survey (all we ask is five minutes of your time) and indicate which of the above topics are most interesting — or add the ones I’ve totally missed.

Do We Need a Different Kind of Search Conference?

First published September 17, 2009 in Mediapost’s Search Insider

Something’s been bothering me for the last few years. In that time, I’ve probably spoken at two to three dozen industry events: trade shows, summits, conferences and workshops. In fact, this week, I’m at one such event – a user summit. Throughout that entire time, I’ve felt that there’s a fundamental disconnect at these events. And this week, I think I’ve finally put my finger on it: the wrong people are attending.

Let me give you one example. Earlier this year, I was at a client’s internal summit, talking about the importance of “Getting It.” I looked at the 100-some assembled people, responsible for driving forward the digital strategy of this company, and asked the fateful question, “How many people here are senior C-level executives in the company?” Not one hand went up. Oops! Houston, we have a problem.

Where are the Actionable Takeaways?

Most of the events I speak at focus on giving attendees actionable “to-dos” to take home. In fact, I’ve been told time and again: give people a list of things they can do Monday when they get back in the office. That makes sense. Conference organizers have learned that attendees find the most value in these things. Yet I tend to ignore the advice of these conference organizers and talk about things like research, understanding buyer behavior and how this integrates into marketing strategy.

Increasingly, I’m seeing more confused looks in the audience:
“Where is my top ten things-to-do checklist? This guy is just giving me more questions, not answers.” This disappointment bothers me, because at my heart, I desperately seek approval.

But, in those sessions, after the rest of the crowd has dispersed to look for a speaker with a list of things they can do Monday, there are also a handful of people that come up to me and thank me profusely.  They seem to operate at a different level: a strategic level. I’ve seen this pattern over and over again, and as I said, it’s been bothering me.

Are the Takeaways Really Actionable?

Here’s the biggest thing that bothers me. My suspicion, borne out by several conversations with people that attend these shows, is that very few of these “to-do” tips that make the list ever get implemented. Months later, they still sit somewhere in a conference handbook, quickly jotted in a margin. Stuff just doesn’t get done. Why?

The people that attend these conferences don’t control their to-do lists. On Monday, their list gets put aside to respond to the all the other things they have to do — because they’re not calling the shots. The to-do list is being determined by priorities that have been put in place somewhere else by someone else. People come back from conferences with a list of “what” to do, but unfortunately no one told their bosses “why” they should do it. The bosses don’t often go to search conferences.

Less “What” and More “Why”

“Why” doesn’t come from to-do lists. “Why” comes from seeing things in the big picture. “Why” comes from “getting it.” The people who go to search shows already get it. That’s why they have the job they do.  You don’t have to explain to them why this “what” stuff is important. They understand at a fundamental level. But eventually they leave the conference hall, full of other people who get it and with whom you’ve swapped stories about how your boss desperately doesn’t “get it.” Monday, you’re plunged back into a culture where “what” is not aligned with “why.”

There are no easy answers here. Even if you have that rare CEO or boss who gets it, you need a fully integrated culture that is committed to executing at the highest level of “getting It” from top to bottom. Everyone in the company has to agree on the “why” and the “what.” And I’ve yet to see a conference or summit that manages to pull that trick off.