marginally subversive

Innovation

A thesis: Technologies designed to meet said and unsaid needs of consumers is what's going to drive innovations. 

Innovation is a careful balance between what consumers think they want now and in the near future - and what they have not yet thought about.

The real challenge is not really "meeting consumers' needs" - as made evident by surveys or any other "emotional, ethnographic research".  But creating technologies that enhance the experiences and lives of consumers.

Google did just that.  So did Apple's iTunes + iPod combo.  So did Amazon.Com.  They looked at how they could create better experiences for their consumers (and well, increase their bottom-line).  And they did succeed.

Simple.  Classic.  Elegant UIs.  That actually work.  And eventually get trusted.

Technology is important - but it is an enabler.  An important enabler.  But it's not the end-all/be-all.

"Why aren't you buying?"

I had a bit of a weird conversation this afternoon (my life, as you may have gleaned by now, is full of conversations...)  I was accused - or the company I am with was accused - of being too late to the digital party because we don't buy "display ads in the number 1 portal sites with a very wide reach of eyeballs - and sticky, too, thereby delivering significant frequency and high probability OTS!  Your competitors have savvy in this area - they always buy every week for their campaigns and they have committed to spend some money with us."

I just smiled.

"Hmm.  Because we believe that display ads don't cut it anymore and that we believe that there is more to the web - and the digital medium - than just display ads in major portals, impressions, click-through rates, time-spent, and other off-the-server metrics."

Of Post-Buys, Rigor in Planning, Coke Zeroes and Vodka Martinis (that were probably shaken... or stirred)

I was just speaking with someone who's been part of my 'batch' of media planners and strategists in the Philippines.  She was lamenting that "the young ones are too impatient to climb up the ladder - looking at promotions as rewards; if only they knew what a promotion entails and how much it takes away versus how much it gives".  To that, I said "Well, I am sure our bosses also felt the same of us when we came out of uni and were driven to prove our worth - and well, pay off those student loans".

She also lamented that media planners don't do proper post-buys anymore.  And she went on reminiscing:  "You know, those times of actually staying up late at night to 'marry' data from one data-source that tracks the exact time of airing of a 15s ad to another data-source that contains the exact ratings at that point in time?"

For those who don't understand the preceding:  In the mid-1990s in the Philippines, we had two monitoring systems - the Philippine Monitoring System - or PMS (and yes, even if I never had the 'luxury' of experiencing one, I am sure it was not purely coincidental that it had the same monicker) - which monitored the exact airing of a TV commercial.  Then there was the Nielsen Telescope, which monitored exact ratings to the minute. 
A fresh-grad and new planner would be tasked to do this - marry the two data-sets.  The process sounds simple - you run PMS, you print it out, then you reinput the data into the other software, then press "run".  But recall that this was the mid-1990s in the Philippines: colored monitors were a luxury - I had a green one in Basic Advertising.  Processing power was very limited - so one 4-week campaign will be run overnight on PMS so as early as 8am, you can start entering the data into the other system, which would take another 2-3 hours of runs.  Oh, and the dot-matrix printers - which always found a way to screw up.
For me, it was a test of patience - it was baptism by fire (apart from having been assigned to the McDonald's account during my first year of professional existence as a media planner!).

And to that question which she posed, I said, "Yes.  The new ones have got it all easy."

And to which she responded, "But do you also notice that the rigor has been gone?"

She went one:  "Back then, we had to conduct not just analyses of the programs - but we made projections on how programs and breaks are going to be like.  We had to create reach-curves across different scenarios and mixes of buys - and predict how certain mixes can result to some probable reach.  It wasn't just the last 13 weeks or last 20 weeks.  It was the last 26 weeks - and past-year's similar period!  And we would determine if they were statistically different - or not.  And if they were, why!  These days, we just see media plans with ratings in them."

I just laughed:  I knew where she was coming from.

"And don't get me started on post-buys!  These days, they celebrate when they get 33% or 50% more GRPs than they planned to achieve.  They celebrate if they achieved 10% reach points more than what they planned to achieve - highlighting it to clients as if they were great things to be proud of.  Hello!  Wastage!

"If you delivered 50% more GRPs than what you planned, then that means you wasted money - since you didn't need that extra 50%.  You could've used that elsewhere... perhaps in another medium, another week, another... I don't know... events?"

"These days, post-buys are simply a reportage of what happened.  There's nothing in there that makes it relevant to the business and the future campaigns.  It just - a piece of paper!  A report!  What a pity!"

I tried to calm her down:  "But you see, things are changing, too.  Post-buy tempates of TV are probably not applicable to post-buys on digital."

She stared at me: "Oh no, no, no, no, no.  These digital post-buys that are seemingly so enamored with the idea of clickstream here and clickstream there... hello!  So what does that mean to me?  That they clicked on this ad and landed on this site... Then what?  They said the web is the most measurable of the different media - and it could be true.  But informative?

"All I have seen so far are fancy charts with lines and curves and percentages and ratios...  I don't see the "so-what?"  and I don't see the "what's next?" I'd like to know more:  so if this is what's happening, so if these keywords aren't performing, so if these banners are not delivering as much as the others, so if these are the likely exit-pages, so if these are the likely entry-sourves... so what?  And what's next?

And with that, we chugged down our drinks - me with my no-sugar Coke Zero and her with her Vodka Martini - shaken or stirred, she doesn't really care.  ("I am not James Bond.  More like Miranda Priestley and Wilhelmina Slater combined.")

"Problem at the Office?"

Every now and then, I'd get this question:  "Problem at the office?"  Largely, it is 'evoked' by the dark circles under my eyes.  (For the record: It is genetic.  Nothing I do can remove the bags nor the dark circle.  Believe me, I have tried.)

Image from BusinessWeek; illustration by Ray Vella.

BusinessWeek came up with this interesting article in their latest issue about problems at the office - and in addition, they looked at 'generational tensions'.  However, what really interested me was the similarities of themes underneath the different problems that we all encounter.

We strive for work-life balance.  And we try our best to maintain it by getting in touch with the Tech God or Tech Goddess in us (otherwise known as the nerd).  In doing so, we get dependent on technologies - and then suddenly, the very gadget that was supposed to empower us to achieve work-life balance is now a source of stress.  So we go to "new age seminars" and "zen seminars" - and tune out.  At first, there is the usual "I cannot live without emails and laptops and the internet and my BlackBerry..."  We get through that rather easily (at least in my case and a few friends') - what really is 'stressful' is the night before the return to work - and the first few weeks after work.  It's as if the world stopped - or accelerated? - when we were away.  One thousand emails unread - most of the were needed yesterday - or worse, the week before.

You get the picture.

Anyway, I think this piece was a good read.  It made me smile - and think.

As far as I am concerned, all these shall pass.  These are all ephemeral - and transient.  What is essential, as the Little Prince said, is invisible to the eye.

Or not.

Of presentations and PowerPoint(r)

One of the things that friends - and colleagues - do not know is my fear of speaking in a public space.  When I announced this as part of a 'getting-to-know-you' session with one of our clients (you know, the bit where you say "what's your deepest, darkest secret?" during a team-building seminar?), they seemed quite surprise.  The feedback I got was that "But you think authoritatively whenever you present something..." and "It seems effortless".

The truth is, it takes a lot of effort.

And the truth is, I am violating certain "rules" of presentations that I think everyone should take note of.  (Just ask my current boss!)

Below are two presentations from SlideShare that I thought was worth sharing.  Honestly, I am doing this for the readers of this blog - you know who you are! - and for my own self.  This interest in PowerPoint(r) presentations and crafting stories have long been in me - it's just that now, I am on the road back to re-mastering the basics.

If you have anything to share - a lousy presentation, a great presentation, a presentation you're truly proud of, or even tips - just go to the comments section and well, comment.

Meanwhile, enjoy the following slides:

Death by PowerPoint

View SlideShare presentation (tags: powerpoint ppt presentations presentation)

And still another one for your maximum enjoyment.  (I won't spill the beans on the presentations... Go through them!)

Brain Rules for Presenters

View SlideShare presentation (tags: reynolds garr zen presentation)

Wanted: Digital Planners who can think brand- and media-planning - and vice versa...

Having been re-immersed back into the world of communications planning and advisory, a realization - or a "re-realization" struck me.

Whilst we are in a world that is increasingly becoming more "digitized" and where certain media vehicles are becoming more and more a "concierge service" - i.e., a centralized service to stay in touch with all things - we are still lacking in real integrators.

Digital planners - who can think of the brand beyond the digital medium and its intricacies - I think, are still lacking.  Don't get me wrong: digital planners are a great bunch of people.  And by the innate nature of the web as being very measurable and accountable, digital planners hold a very critical role in any communications plan.

However, I have the belief that digital planners - who are specialists in their own right and could command great respect from the rest of the marketing planning community - needs to take into consideration that brands are not created overnight.

Just because click-through rates or CPCs or CPAs or keywords or widgets or RFIs are high relative to eyeballs doesn't necessarily mean a successful campaign.  These - IMHO - are measures of "efficiencies" rather than effectiveness:  How much dollars is a campaign generating versus the investments that are being poured into it.

There is still a need to look at brands - and these metrics that measure how consumers interact, experience, relate, and animate a brand cannot be captured by merely looking at CPCs and CPAs and other conversion measures.

True:  all businesses ought to be measured in terms of their revenue-generation capabilities.  And therefore all campaigns that support this businesses need to generate sales.  HOWEVER, a brand isn't built overnight - and the impact of so-called "branding campaigns" are not necessarily immediately felt or measurable.  Heck, if we can measure overnight the impact of a "branding campaign", I think that would be the ideal scenario.  However, sticking to our CPCs and CPAs and SEMs and SEOs and other measures an tactics as "mere campaign measures that matter because they are closer to the company's bottomline" could well be a myopic viewpoint.

Media planning as an industry has evolved - strategic planners from mainstream creative and agency-companies are now welcome in the world of "noughts and crosses" and are changing the way media planning is bein done.  These strategic planners do not necessarily use numbers - but they "adapt" their knowledge of how brands are created and how consumers encounter/experience brands not just through messaging strategies but also through the message's interaction/synergy with the medium that carries that message - regardless of what that medium is.

The same is true for digital specialists - they have to "adapt" their technical knowledge and expertise to include a deep understanding of how brands are created - online and offline.

This is not to say that the digital medium ought to be an after-thought, after all the traditional, offline media have been fulfilled and their budgets optimized.  What I am trying to say is digital specialists should also be able to talk about brands and brand-building - in the immediate and in the long-term - within their specialised field - and at the same time, outside the digital realm.

At the end of the day, we are aiming to provide better brand-consumer experiences that would transform target audiences into brand users (and revenue-sources) and into brand ambassadors.  Clicking an ad - in Google, in MSN Search, in Yahoo.Com, or in some other vertical - is one aspect of that experience.

But it is not the only aspect of brand-building.

Brands are created over time, across multiple experience-opportunities, with the end-user reinforcing her relationship with the brand at her own time, at her own choosing.  Revenues in the short-term are good and they are good for the bottomline of the company for this quarter or this month.  But businesses - the last time I checked - are in it for the long-haul.

Conversation Snippets: On Leadership and Management

In my conversations with some friends today, I gathered the following:

The best kinds of leaders are those who see a future that goes beyond what is and what will be in the immediate term, capture that future in a vision of what could be, enroll and enlist others to that vision, and empower them to reach that vision on their own .  That's what leadership is all about.

Thoughts?

agency executives are not doormats; we're people, too...

There is a fine, fine line between questioning a person's professional capabilities and attacking her/him personally.  There's also a fine, fine line between "client service" and being a "client's doormat".  Between service and slavery.  Between being demanding and being unreasonable.

For awhile now, I have been holding this thought in my mind.  A lot of marketeers think of agency executives (like myself) as "mere agency people" - "people who take my orders (or my boss') and get them done because we want to get things done".

For a long time, I have thought that this was the responsibility (the fault?) of agency people - both current and past players in the world of advertising, media and communications planning, and even research and other allied services.

Then it dawned on me that no, it's a shared responsibility.

We all have a shared responsibility to treat each other respect.

Agency executives ought to demand respect from their clients - and clients ought to respect their agency teams, regardless of whether they are from the media company, the research,or the creative teams.  No amount of "incompetency" is sufficient to warrant a 'personal attack'.  Specially if such attack is based on preconceived notions on races, genders, age, skin color, and types of passports.

Not because they deliver the goods and they get things done "the way we want to get things done".

But because it's the right thing to do.

Simply.

 

(Picked this up from Flickr)

We all come into this world naked.  And we all die, too.  We breathe the same air - and we look up to the same moon at night.  What makes you different is just in your head.  And life is too short to be concerned about your next bonus, the boss' accolades, or winning the next 'political bout' in the office.

 

(Photo from Flickr.)

Making Sense of Location-/People-Tracking Data

This is a piece of interesting news that I picked from the NYTimes:  a company in the US, called Sense Networks (in NY), has launch an analytics program that will help analyze data on people's movements, routines, and trips - and potentially encounters with other people (or crowds), ads, and the retail shop.  This comes after NATURE published a study on how people of an unnamed city roam around their city/locale using cell-phone signals.

From a research perspective, this is a lot of data - a treasure trove of data.

From a marketeer's POV, this is a something like a dream come true: knowing where your consumers are, what kinds of media/communications they encounter with on the street, how they behave alone versus in groups versus in crowds of people, and how they behave inside the store en route to buying your product.  A savvy marketeer can immediately see the value (I hope) of such information - and how it can be deployed to improve one's investments across different kinds of media and non-media channels.

I can imagine, for example, a marketeer or a media planning company in NY tagging all their outdoor sites, bus-/train-ads with GPS data - alongside shopping centers that carry their brands or their competitors. 

I can also imagine marketeers and data-miners having a grand time consolidating information in-store with those gathered from these troves of consumer- and ad-/media-locator data - and creating predictive models and algorithms that would make brand campaigns more effective. 

I can also imagine how these sort of data will move adspends away from TV and potentially other in-home media, including the internet because "the last golden mile" in retail marketing is still the most important part of the buying process...!

But I am also pretty sure that this will attract a lot of controversy: privacy and individual anonymity.

It's going to be - hmm - intrusive.  It could very well be the start of conspiracy theorists' and privacy advocates' nightmare:  Big Brother On The Loose.  I can't imagine what would stop governments using this kind of technology (if they don't already have it - now that sounds a little like a conspiracy theory...) to track down individuals of interest to the state/nation in order to "protect" and ensure the safety of the public.

So - given these imagined possibilities, what should we think of these developments?

Well, I think we need to carefully think through this one very carefully.  Whilst it is great technology - and it could benefit marketeers (and, marketeers would argue, it could also benefit consumers), I think that it furthers the questions on privacy, ethics in marketing research, and corporate social responsibility:

• While individual-level data is good for business (think CRM, think CLV analysis, think RFM, think HB Regression and Clustering), how "individual" should individual-level data be?  How much is enough?  And how much is too much?

• How do we ensure that the guidelines set by and through marketing research societies all over the world about consumer privacy and about ensuring respondent-anonymity are followed to the letter?  The commercial reasons sometimes may well override these guidelines - and who doesn't want to earn some money?

• What kinds of information are off-limits and what are not?  People going to and from a grocery store after having gone through the train, for example, would be pretty good data for media planners and outdoor specialists.  Marrying those tidbits of information with purchase data would provide very good information of how people buy things.  But where would data-gathering stop?

I think that there must be an answer somewhere - or at least, a set of guidelines - of how these kinds of information are used.  They are great sources of information - and with proper manipulation would be great sources of insight and knowledge that could prove to be valuable to businesses.

However, there are also repercussions that come with the availability of these kinds of data.

Blogged with the Flock Browser

Tags: Data, Analytics, Research, Marketing Research, Media Planning

Value Proposition versus Price Proposition

I have been trying to put a "dollar value" to my day.  This is part of my personal goal of setting up my own shop - an advisory shop for small to mid-sized entrepreneurs in Singapore and in other countries in Southeast Asia on how to break-through their respective markets and create compelling stories for investors. 

For the past several days, I have been looking at different ways of doing this.  I first looked at the idea of "direct salary costs" + "overhead/capitalization" + "preset profit margins".  But quickly, I saw the weakness in such an attempt.  My salary - or at least, my former company's salary - could not be a benchmark, because that is not necessarily the value that I can bring to the table.

I tried a different approach - benchmarking.  I started calling friends who have been in the business of consultancies (the closest I could get to "advisory") - and started to rack my brains in search of memories that could lead me to a number.  I then compared my credentials with their own credentials, their clients with my target clients... But then again, I realized,well, mine is an entirely niche target altogether.  My credentials - or anybody else's credentials - are not a sure-fire way to measure value.  And besides, how does one quantify the value of one's credentials - and those non-dollarizable values?

Then I recalled I had this book called "The Business of Consulting".  I started to look at the advice the author gave - and devised my own way of looking at how I should be charging - or perhaps, 'dollarize' my time. 

1. Start treating yourself as a company.  So list down all your possible expenses - knowing full well that you now are a company, not just an employee.

2. Determine how many days in a year will you be working to create noticeable value.  This may or may not be 8hour days.  There is no "number of hours" involved - the ultimate goal is "noticeable value-creation" for clients.

3. I had to be realistic - this would be a stressful endeavor.  So I figured there should be days wherein I will do nothing BUT nothing.  There will also be days when I will need to catch up on readings and learn new things.  And there will be days when I will have to market the company - well, that's also creating value, but not to the clients that I will be serving.

4. Only then did I arrive at a number.  It seemed high - at first.

5. I immediately tried it out with a trusted business partner - and told him what my rates are going to look like for the projects that I will be doing for his team.  Of course, I had to show him the value of the projects that I will be working with him on - and how these could potentially lead to better processes, better returns, better people.  He said yes.

So - value proposition versus pricing proposition?  I think looking at 'dollarization' from both angles is perhaps necessary.  "Pricing" however, tends to undervalue the "real value" - because "we have to be competitive, we have to get more sales volume, we have to get more pick-ups and empty the shelves, we have to have more sales units sold!"

So I am going to say, it's all about dolarization should never be driven by what's cheap, what's in the market, what the rest are doing, and what we think would make people buy ("People love cheap prices!" - to which I say, "Not really...")

And funnily enough, Seth Godin in his latest blog talks of this thing.  He says -

Your sales force and your customers may scream that you need to lower your price.
It's not true.
You need to increase your value. If people don't want to pay, it's because you're not delivering enough value for the money you're charging.
You're not selling a commodity unless you want to.

Coincidences.  How I love them.

(I would like to say "great minds think alike..." but then again, I don't think I can compare with THE Seth Godin...!  Haha!)

Your sales force and your customers may scream that you need to lower your price.
It's not true.
You need to increase your value. If people don't want to pay, it's because you're not delivering enough value for the money you're charging.
You're not selling a commodity unless you want to.

LinkedIn and other social networks...: Beyond Advertising

The news on LinkedIn.Com being valued at about 1Bln USD after having been infused with 53Mln USD of investments has made a lot of people asking:  "So how will LinkedIn.Com's business model be?"

A lot are speculating that their current revenue streams won't be enough.

Right now, LinkedIn.Com is all about delivering ads - with premium CPMs/CPCs considering the quality of the audiences that LinkedIn reaches - and premium subscriptions.  A lot of industry watchers are asking "will this be enough?", adding that "Nobody would pay for a subscription if social networks such as Facebook, Ning, MySpace, and Friendster would do" and "Nobody clicks on text ads anyway... so if they are to rely on advertising, it wouldn't be sustainable".

I beg to differ, though.

I think that so long as LinkedIn.Com sticks to its principles - to what got them here (i.e., their audiences and the trust that they have built amongst their members - paying or non-paying) - they should be OK on the batteground for subscriptions.  For one, I can stand and raise my hand that my LinkedIn subscription has paid for itself many times over.  And I am sure those folks who are also subscribers to LinkedIn are getting the same value out of it - more than the "free" spaces that they get on Facebook et al.

On the advertising front, I think LinkedIn has got something valuable - their audiences.  My impression is that the people who are in LinkedIn are the ones who are deciding the fates of major companies in major industries.  OK - perhaps, not the C-level people - but people who have the C-level executives' ears.

I also would like to argue that advertising is NOT the only way that LinkedIn can capitalize on their services.  Advertising - i.e., "forcing people to look at messages and forcing people to respond to them" (which is essentially what advertising traditionally is all about) - is not the only way for LinkedIn - or any social media - to realize their potentials.

I believe that the phenomenon of social media - the social web - needs to be approached differently from merely forcing people to consume ads.  It needs to be more intimate, more relevant, more personal - and more social.

I know that's a paradox - to be "personal" and yet "social".

How then?

That is the big question that I think LinkedIn - and anybody in the social media world - should try to answer:  How do we monetize the social networks that audiences voluntarily create without alienating and annoying the very audiences that created these social networks in the first place?

For now, I don't have an answer - and I also have the impression that anybody has the answer.

So... I guess the race is on...  Again.

LinkedIn versus Facebook: Shall they ever meet - and compete?

Will we ever see LinkedIn and Facebook meeting - and competing?

There is a view that most would have a Facebook account for 'fun' and LinkedIn for a more serious, professional image.  That's what I do, too.  I think - though - that there is more to LinkedIn that just that.

I have used LinkedIn to be heard - one of the major sources of traffic to my blog Marginally Subversive is my LinkedIn profile.  I have had projects - and job inquiries - on LinkedIn, and I have also established 'connections' (for lack of a better term) with other professionals in my field and with people who I would not have had a chance to connect with in the real, flesh-and-blood world.  I have, for example, academicians in my extended network - people who have accepted my request to connect for the purpose of perhaps, helping me out in the future when I hit a snag in my academic quests or projects.

LinkedIn's two-pronged strategy of generating revenues through subscriptions and through ads is interesting.  But I think there is more to that:  sure, LinkedIn's probably limited in terms of its inventory and its ability to deploy ads (i.e., it doesn't have Google's Ad-serving strength), but the quality of the people who are in LinkedIn is significantly higher than any other social network that I know of.

That's the beauty of social networks - the value of social networks do not rely on mere "quantity" and "breadth" or number of users.  The value of social networks is also based on the quality of its users.

Look at Facebook:  Its exclusivity to university students was what made it interesting and unique.  Now that anybody can have a Facebook account, its sexiness has gone - and it has gone the way of "portals" and "search ads".

LinkedIn's business model is by no means perfect.  But it is teeming with opportunities.  However, it should be careful with how it evolves.  Its users are what make LinkedIn precious - and I hope (as a user) they don't evolve into another "too-ad-driven" site.

Blogged with the Flock Browser

Tags: LinkedIn, Social Networking, Social Web, Digital Web, Digital Advertising, Digital Models, Business Models, Strategic Planning

Does God play dice?

Einstein said that "God does not play dice".  But perhaps, Fate does?

I have been trying to understand the concept and the philosophy of probability - and whilst I am getting glimmers and glances into the it (and sometimes, I am getting some probable - hmmm - nuggets of wisdom from my readings), I still don't think I get it fully.

Some would probably say, isn't that a bit too odd to study?  Or perhaps, argue that "it's too academic - of what use will it be in your work?"

The truth is, I happen to believe that probability - and its related themes: randomization, the search for truth, measurements, errors, risks - are all interesting - and important - stuff that have wide applications.

When one goes to a doctor and presents his symptoms, the doctor actually makes educated guesses based on her experience - which we hope would be deep - and her knowledge - which we hope would be sufficient and inclusive of the latest technologies and advancements.  Her prescriptions are based on educated guesses - and that's why there's almost always that advice to "see me 7 days from now if it doesn't improve".

It gives the doctor - and the patient - the chance to "course-correct".

I think at any given time, we are presented with information.  Whether those information are perfect or imperfect, complete or incomplete, is immaterial: what we do with those data points and how we scrutinize them in search for nugget of deeper information, insight, knowledge, wisdom - or mere alternate views is what's more critical.

In due time, more information will come in.  And that is the time we take corrective action.

This is from _mpd_, from this site.  _mpd_ called this "Einstein was wrong".

** And now here comes my diatribe or my discourse on media planning...

One of the missing tools that we have on media planning is risk management - and the basic understanding of measurements.  We take Nielsen's or TNS' ratings figures at face value.  We assume that the last 13 weeks - and the average of those last 13 weeks - would be a good indicator of the future performance of any certain program.  Why 13?  Well, because it's always been the case.

We do not take into consideration the variation of the numbers.  And the probability of these averages and estimates happening again in the next week, in the week after next, 3 weeks from now, 4 weeks from now.  We don't create enough scenarios.  We don't apply strict- and rigorous-enough portfolio management principles to media plans.

And let's not get into the "validity" issues:  are we measuring program ratings or title ratings, or specific ad/timing- and pagination-rating?

All these need to be taken into account in media planning - and in the calculations of other metrics.

We also do not take enough corrective action.  In Singapore (as far as I know and I could be wrong), overnight ratings are not available - data are delivered 48hours/2days (I think - I have been too removed from the buying field).  I think overnights would have been ideal - but 2days are still enough to take corrective action against the benchmarks and goals that we have.

Once the plan has been signed and booked and logged into the system, it seems, there is little that one does on the media plan - to take corrective action.

(OK.  It just doesn't happen in media planning.  It also happens in promotions planning.  I have encountered clients who wanted to increase their media investments - "go for more GRPs!" - if the promo doesn't take off.  Sure - there is corrective action, but rather, it is a questionable corrective action.)

There just isn't enough thought put into media plans - and promo plans - and marketing plans.  There just isn't enough risk management, scenario planning, decision-making disciplines that get into marketing planning.

As the market for consumer goods and services soften in the US - and potentially in other regions - we need to be more aware of the investments - and the associated risks (and probabilities).  We owe it to those paying the bills - nope, not the brand managers - the shareholders.

"it's nothing personal..."

One of the things that keep on popping in my head when I am thinking about management is an ex-boss' advice: "In business, don't take things personally; separate the personal from the professional".

In the years that I have managed and interacted with people in the corporate world, though, I have come to realize that it is inevitable that the "personal" will be separate from the "professional".  I also think that such categorizations are misplaced and misinformed.

Companies hire people - and people being people, they are imbued with their rationalities and their irrationalities.  The "personal" is not distinct from the "professional".  And vice versa.  Dealing with people means dealing with the whole and the totality of each individual.

Such rationalities|irrationalities come with the entire "talent resource" package.  Defining one from the other is rather impossible - because people are people.  And people are complex.

I don't know where I read this - but it's probably in one of the microeconomics or behavioral economics books or perhaps, in one of the management magazines that I have been reading:  (I am paraphrasing)

"It is the irrationality of people that makes it difficult to predict human behavior.  Rationality of individuals is an assumption - not a given - in any situation, such that when the assumption of rationality is removed, all bets are off."

Should we give up then?

I think not.

The essence of leadership, I believe, is at the core of this realization: that people are people.  And whatever leadership or management style or theory we adopt, it is never - and will never be - perfect.  It is only when we truly understand people as people can we lead, inspire, impassion, involve, engage, enroll people.

 

From kellypuffs, aptly called Rational-Colored M&M's from Flickr

And supposedly, the war for talent continues

In an earlier post, I wrote about talents, potentials, and Ferraris that are encumbered by speed limits that are imposed on them.  I have not really gotten to the point of accepting that an HR Manager - somebody high up the HR chain - would say something like "You may be a Ferrari outside - but here, inside this company, we have speed limits".

Oh well.  That is done.  The deed has been done - and I have stopped the hypocrisy.  Talent management is very prone to lip-service.  I wouldn't go as far as saying it is in the same league as "shareholders are our first priority".  But I guess, they're pretty near in the cliches that I have heard in the past.

Lest I be seen as a anit-corporate man, let it be known that I do like the corporate world.  We just need to be honest - and stop the pretensions that "people come first, then profits".  Companies train people so people can become more effective and efficient - and ultimately benefit the company.  Let's stop the charade about "we believe that our greatest assets are our people" - nope, it's the things that these people produce that companies tie in as "corporate properties unless these can be proven to have been done beyond and outside company hours and without any use of company resources".

OK.

Enough of that.

As I have said, I have ended the charades and the hypocrisy.

I am no longer that naive - though my naivete have indeed hurt me.  I guess, I was idealistic - and I had to learn the lesson.

- - - - - -

In Jack and Suzy Welch's latest BusinessWeek column, they were asked this question:

When you have a capable person to promote in your company but that person does not have appropriate tenure, is it better to hire from outside? — Natalia Salistean, Bucharest, Romania

The answer of the Welches: No.  And they continued to explain why tenure need not be a major, critical consideration.

To quote:

... why would any company put a high-performer through unnecessary paces just to satisfy a bureaucratic requirement? That uncompetitive practice is a throwback to the days when an employee's time served could, and often did, trump his value added.

- - - - - -

Well said.

Oh well.

marginally subversive thought of the day

People don't care about the technologies that they are using - they care about the brands that these technologies are powering. 

The brand promises - and engenders hope; the technology delivers.  If the technology does not deliver, the brand gets spanked.  If the brand does not deliver, the technology - no matter how good it is or how superior it is against its competition - won't survive.

Think MSN's Live Search - or better yet, Yahoo Search versus Google Search.  We can safely assume that all three are 'good' search engines - with the backing of great software engineers, academicians, algorithm designers, and specialists.  But why does Google dominate?  How did "Google it" become an intelligible sentence?  How did "Google" become a verb?

Or Creative Technology's ZEN products versus Apple's iPod.
Or Dell versus Sony Vaio versus HP versus Gateway versus Asus?

The brand creates the promise - that the technology behidn the brand does and will deliver.  The brand opens the door for technology to do its work.  If the technology behind the brand sucks, the brand suffers.

But it is the brand that starts it all.  And to paraphrase my former professor in Cognitive Psych would have said: No brand, never mind.

magazines and websites: round 1

I just got off the phone with the customer service of the only one magazine that I subscribe to - BusinessWeek.  The purpose?  To cancel my subscription to the magazine.

Don't get me wrong - I love the magazine.  I love reading it week after week after week.  I thought it had pretty good thoughts and viewpoints about current socio-political and economic issues in the US and around the world.  I was not perfect - I still read a few more other magazines that I could get my hands on.  But I thought it was a good starting point.

But then, I realized after having gone through several issues - "paper" and online - there was no significant difference.  In fact, when I tried to check out the latest paper-issue against their online-issue, I didn't see a big difference between what I wanted to read on-paper versus those that were online.

In fact, the one online was a lot more updated.  Perhaps, not as deep as I wanted the discussions to be - but still, good enough.

So I cancelled by BusinessWeek subscription.

Did BusinessWeek lose me as an audience?  Of their magazine, yeah.  But of their brand?  Nope.  I still will read their articles.  I am just going to do it online - and well, free.

I know some would think that this is no longer an issue - this thing about 'paper versus digital' media.  But I think one has yet to win over the other.  And in fact, it is possible for a brand to never lose in this battle.

If only media-publishers would treat their businesses as brands - real brands - in the same way that Coke, Pepsi, IBM, Dove, and Pantene are brands.

 

"I told you so!"

I am going to cut and paste this blog in its entirety - because I couldn't have written it any better.  All I can say is "This explains a lot!".

A New Power Principle?

Posted by: Jena McGregor on May 20

You may think it’s your boss who’s always the one messing things up. But according to new research in the journal Pyschological Science, people with lower-ranking titles are more likely to make errors than those with higher-ranking roles. That’s because, says Adam Galinsky, a study co-author and professor at Northwestern’s Kellogg School of Management, the “executive functions” of the brain, or the gray-matter processes that override automatic responses, can be impaired when people are put in jobs with little power. In Galinsky’s study, which was co-authored by Pamela K. Smith, Nils B. Jostmann, and Wilco W. van Dijk, subjects who were randomly assigned to be subordinates had a harder time staying focused on goals than those who, by chance, were named to be managers.

The research isn’t the first Galinsky has done on the effects of power on performance. In another study, he had students sit down very close to electric fans blowing in their faces. Sixty-nine percent of those randomly assigned to be managers moved the fans, while just 42% of those named subordinates did. Galinsky believes such research helps confirm why employee “empowerment”—especially in health care, or high-risk factory jobs—should be much more than just lip service. Says Galinksy: “Lacking power impairs those parts of the brain that allow people to stay focused.”

I wouldn't really call it "power" though - it's "control" or the perception of the ability to make a difference and to control one's environment.  Once that is lost - all is gone.

Underutilizing the Young...

In a blog by Bronwyn Fryer, a question was posed: 

Do you overlook young people, or do you go out of your way to listen to them? If the latter, what are you learning from them, and how are you helping them?

A very interesting question - but frankly, I am more interested in how the "elders" respond. 

A few years ago - when I was 25 - I became one of the youngest country managers for a large network of communications planning companies in the world.  True - the operations that I handled were not as massive as my "peers" (I dared to call them peers back then) - I had a team of 10 with a business that is perhaps 15% the size of the biggest average-sized operations in the Asia Pacific network.

Whenever I took the stage to report on the status of the business of the office I was managing, everybody looked encouraging.  They had questions - and I had answers.  There was - I felt - mutual respect, in spite of my age.

But when I moved offices and countries, age became an issue.  In spite of the fact that I had 8 years of working experience in a field that I was truly passionate about, age always became an issue.  The first question that clients - and potential employers - would ask me was "How old are you?"  And I would answer, 27 - because that was the truth.

The second question - which I supposed was to placate them that I was not some inexperienced guy trying to tell them what to do - was one that somehow also irked me: "So how long have you been doing this job?"  And I would tell them "8 years". 

And the seemingly surprised response would be "You started working when you were 19?", as if that were an impossibility.

And I would go on and explain that "Yes, I did - I was accelerated twice, I was a merit scholar in my university - with advanced credits in most of my sciences and math courses, and in English and communications - and filled my university summer breaks with full-loads of electives so I can graduate early and well, learn more than I can and be prepared to face you and answer mundane questions that you are asking now."

(OK, I didn't verbalize the last couple of statements.)

But seriously, why can't older people trust younger people?  We may not have the experience - and we know that experience is a good teacher.  But history - as we all know - is not the best of teachers.  Sometimes, history repeats itself - but only because we let it repeat itself.

Young people - young managers like myself - can offer something - an untainted view of the world which to the untrained elder would mean "inexperience, unrealistic, too idealistic".

I am now 33 - and still, I am nowhere near the age of my direct sups.  I have been blessed to have worked with the best of bosses who listened to my advice and my counsel - and have formed partnerships that resulted to new business ventures that resulted to better margins, better profits, better processes, better workplaces.

I am still young - and I still have a lot to offer.

Just ask me.

Because if you don't ask me, I won't offer it. 

There's only so much resistance - a resistance that is borne out of the perception that I am "too young to understand" - that I can take.

Ask me for advice - for my thoughts - for what I think the world will be ten, twenty, thirty years from now.

I just might give you something to inspire you - if you'd only ask.

Why Gen-X'ers are not feeling the love...

I am a 30something gen-x'er.  I entered the workplace when the world was so excited about the internet - and computers and Windows.  Then the tech-boom  - and the subsequent bubble - came.  Suddenly, things were not so good as they were supposed to be.

Gen-X'ers I believe are far more controlling - far more independent and far more of a gamesman and a gameswoman than the "corporate, yes men and women" that the boomers were.  We challenged the status quo - asked questions - and never really got answers.

Some of us had given up - and were assimilated by the big companies and borgs.  Some of us are still struggling with the challenges of being independent.  Some of us are still straddling between being our own person - and a corporate executive Monday to Friday - that sometimes we are scared of change - and yet clamor for change.

And the balance - that darn balance between work and personal life - is still out there somewhere.

Argh.

In this article from Tammy Erickson, there are ten reasons why Gen-X'ers are not entirely feeling the love - in spite of companies needing our expertise.

One thing that Erickson does not mention - that I think should be there in the list of reasons why Gen-X'ers are not feeling the love - is because we're too fed up with hypocrisy.  It's no fault of the companies - it is perhaps the result of the system that we are in.

We hear of companies that are saying "our number one resource is our people - and our employees are our talent" - to the point that they set up talent management divisions, team-building and skill-enhancing projects, and on-job/classroom style training.

Only to be discarded and disregarded at the lower levels of the management rung.

Let's be honest: Gen-X'ers wanted to change the world.  We wanted the world to be a different place from our parents.  When Gen-X'ers came to be, we were on the verge of a technological and sociological mindshift - that suddenly stopped and we all stumbled.

We still want to change the world - but we've been stymied and and we've seen through the facade and the hyprocrisy of companies that say "we value you" - words that do not get translated to real actions and policies that affect us personally.

We've dreamt so much of a better world - and we've been disillusioned once.  We've tried to straddle several aspects of our lives - hoping that one of these - or ALL of these - will coalesce into one big whole that will be different from the lives that our parents and older siblings have led.

But still, we're not being heard.

Come on.  Give us some credit.

And to my fellow Gen-X'ers... it still is not over.  There is still an opportunity to change the world - and make it all different for us and our families.  We may not be the most tech-savvy and most digitally-savvy generation there is (hey, boomers don't even know how to program their VCRs and have given up; at least we tried - and we kept on trying until we got it right).  But we surely have the guts to get through this again.

We've gone through a lot.  And we can go through more.  A lot more.