P Morgan Brown

Embrace your inner rebel

March 6th, 2010 Comments

Alex Bogusky, of famed CP+B, tweeted that “Life conspires to beat, or buy the rebel out of you.” And then wrote a follow up post championing the old rebels. The ones that have kept their fighting spirit through the years of ups and downs. He was reminded of this conspiracy at a recent board meeting:

This idea that “Life conspires to beat or buy the rebel out of us.” actually came as a realization as I sat around a very high-level meeting in a very prestigious boardroom of a very successful global corporation. Many of the gentlemen had actually built the company up from scratch. All were rich. But I sat there and listened, not so much to the conversation but to the subtext of the conversation, and contrasted that to the conversations that startups have. The difference was stark. The fire to change the world was gone and it was replaced by a vague unease with change and a desire to protect the money or“defend the wealth.“ Life had done it’s little trick to once-great rebels.

And while I’m not in any board room, I can tell you that in more instances than I care to admit, I have found myself surrendering my inner rebel in exchange for acceptance, security or going with the crowd. And every time I do it, a little bit of me dies. Surrendered forever.

It’s like Seth Godin’s lizard brain. That piece that yearns for survival, always calling, always wanting us to do the safe thing – “defend the wealth.” And we have to ignore it. We have to avoid succumbing to its siren song.

For it’s the old rebels who win. It’s the old rebels who in the end, have the richest experiences. The ultimate highs, the lows, the resurgence. All of that is guaranteed when you let you refuse to betray your inner rebel.

While I can’t always guarantee that I’ll embrace my inner rebel, Alex’s post was a great wake up call that the rebel is what makes life interesting and makes great things happen.

Authenticity in Marketing

March 1st, 2010 Comments

In my post on artisanal marketing I talked about how the Fearless Flyer resonates with people the way no other grocery store circular does. It even sounds ridiculous to put resonate and grocery store circular in the same sentence; but that is what Trader Joe’s manages to do with its flyer. The reason it resonates is that it is authentic and real. Regardless of how it is crafted (I don’t know how or who or how many people write on it, etc.) but it feels like a regular human being has written it for you – to talk to you directly. It’s this authentic, imperfect voice that makes the flyer so appealing and enjoyable. And read – instead of recycled immediately. But what is authenticity exactly?

I think authenticity is the sum of many choices the people who assemble the Fearless Flyer make. First of all it’s not just something you can add, like an ingredient, or pinch of salt in a recipe. There is no one thing that makes something authentic. You can’t just point to something and say “that makes it real” like an art dealer trying to tell an original from a fake. It’s the entire gestalt of the piece that makes you think it’s authentic. There isn’t just one way to be authentic either. For example the Trader Joe’s Fearless Flyer has very little in common with a Breitling watch; but they’re both authentic. Just in their own way.

It starts with their customer. They know who we are. They know we are yearning for something more real, something less processed, something more natural. Something that gives us a break from the rat race, mass processed, over produced reality that we deal with every day. So they strip that away from the flyer itself. Newsprint, line illustrations, historic images and font styles all relay simplicity in the look and feel and form of the flyer. Then they perfect the voice. Whimsical, friendly, honest and forthright, the voice is enjoyable, reasonable and helpful. It doesn’t push us to buy, doesn’t scream at us with exaggerated claims of happiness and effectiveness. It simply tells us about the products and how they can fit into and make our lives a bit better in a friendly manner. There are other attributes as well: the length of the product descriptions demands attention from us if we’re to get anything out of it.

It’s this honestly – an intentional design and voice – that creates that authentic feeling. A feeling that compells us to read and to share and to spend. In a world of “pay attention to me” interruption-based marketing, fed by high-gloss, big promises and a dumbed down message the authentic, the real is what we yearn for, recognize and show our appreciation for with our dollars.

Artisanal Marketing

February 27th, 2010 Comments

My favorite type of marketing, by far, is artisanal marketing. Hand crafted, thoughtful, intelligent marketing. Not slick. Not aimed at the masses. Not average marketing for average consumers. But just the opposite. Thoughtful, insightful, honest, embracing complexity and celebrating the craft of the product or products themselves. This type of marketing eschews hype in favor of information yet still has a very strong opinion and point of view that it shares with those that choose to listen. It’s not easy. It takes thought to get and isn’t for everyone. And it is all of these attributes that makes artisanal marketing special, unique and, wildly successful.

In a world full of over-promise, under deliver, sell to the lowest common denominator marketing, the artisanal approach celebrates the simplicity (and complexity) of delivering a message about the value and use of a product or service. And in its own anti-establishment way remarkable and worth talking about. Artisanal marketing used to be the realm of small companies. Companies that didn’t have the Madison Avenue Madmen telling them how to package and process their message to hit the widest, most generic target possible. It was the realm of the companies who clearly “didn’t get it.” But their charm and earnest nature earned them raving fans who loved the product and felt a connection as part of a tribe that “got” what the company and the product was all about. The company didn’t settle and neither did their fans, who became passionate consumers and advocates for the brand.

That is the power of artisanal marketing.

But it’s no longer just the purview of those small companies. Big corporations are embracing artisanal marketing and cultivating that same down-home, honest image and approach that makes artisanal marketing so refreshing, appealing and successful. Not conicidentally the ones that do it the best are the ones that have done it all along – from the time they were tiny to now. The ones that haven’t succeed are the ones where the only thing artisanal about the product is the marketing. Without real, honest product the way you package it up becomes irrelevant.

One artisanal marketer that immediately comes to mind is Trader Joe’s with their sales flyer that is unlike no other. The Fearless Flyer reads like a local newspaper, full of kitch and detail and opinion and bad puns and play-on-words and everything that you’d expect from a local publisher. Except its the sales circular for a large grocery chain. And it works, brilliantly. While most sales circulars, loaded down with high-gloss photos of studio shot food and triple coupon specials, end up in the recycling bin without a second thought, Trader Joe’s Fearless Flyer gets read, like a magazine and enjoyed.

And it’s completely counter-intuitive to what you’d expect from a grocery flyer. Printed on newsprint without any photos of the products it is often 4 or 5 times as long as a traditional circular. Product descriptions aren’t two sentences, they’re two paragraphs. The copy is breezy, funny, and engaging. It takes time and energy to get the most out of the Fearless Flyer. It’s the time and energy the other chains are betting its shoppers don’t have. But Trader Joe’s makes the Fearless Flyer an experience. A hand crafted experience that insists that you slow down and enjoy it. It doesn’t hope to reach the thoughtless masses with cheap promotional calls. The Fearless Flyer says, I’m not mass produced. I’m not aiming for the lowest common denominator. I will not make it easy to consume and discard me.

The Fearless Flyer is artisanal. It embraces an honest, authentic point of view that celebrates the complexity and diversity and joys of food. It doesn’t try to win in the rat race – it connects with its shoppers who appreciate a more honest and artisanal approach to food.

It’s the perfect expression of artisanal marketing and the power the authentic, less-polished approach to marketing can have. It’s refreshing and wonderfully done. I’ll look at more artisanal examples going forward; but my question to you in the meantime is what can you do to bring a more honest and artisanal approach to your marketing?

Image credit

Leaning into Change

February 26th, 2010 Comments

In Seth Godin’s latest book, Linchpin, he talks about the concept of leaning into your work in order to be successful. He argues that a change in posture, leaning in vs. standing by, is one way to tell the linchpins (irreplaceable people in an organization) from the employees. I love this concept because it is a powerful metaphor for thinking about how you show up each and every day. Are you leaning forward, into problems, roadblocks and opportunities? Or are you idly standing by waiting for something to happen, to react to?

Those that lean win. Those that stand by whine. It’s as simple as that.

I haven’t finished the book, so I’m not sure if Seth tackles this, but in thinking about leaning in, I’ve found in my own past experience that leaning in during times of change is absolutely critical. Because change is opportunity, even if oddly dressed. Too many people see change and stand by – waiting to see where the chips will fall. Waiting to see how the power structure will change or where and what the fall out will be. The people standing by at best miss an opportunity, at worst they find themselves in the fall out.

When change comes it’s time to lean – harder than you ever have.

Leaning into change is scary, and it doesn’t feel natural. I think it’s because you have to make a bet, and you’re often doing it with limited, incomplete or imperfect information. You may have a new boss whose agenda you can’t quite read. You may have a corporate shift is strategy, or a reorganization, or a brand new competitor named Google, or a million other things that create uncertainty. And our instinct is to stand by – let’s see what happens before I make a move. And I argue that that reaction is the exact wrong one to have. When the ground is shifting under your feet it’s time to asses the best you can and lean in hard. Sure, sometimes you’ll bet wrong, and that’s ok, because you can course correct along the way. Working with good intentions and a strong desire to improve your organization’s situation during a time of change is rarely why people get fired these days. It’s the people standing by that tend to get left in the dust.

Leaning in is easier to do when there isn’t any perceived risk. It gets harder as the stakes go up in times of change. It’s precisely why leaning in is that much more valuable at those moments.

Image via Wikipedia

5 tools to eliminate meaningless meetings

February 23rd, 2010 Comments

Being busy is not being productive. This much is clear. But let’s go one step further. Meetings are not communicating. They’re certainly not an effective form of communicating. Meetings are time intensive, disruptive and often counter-productive. They tend to be stilted, keep people from expressing their true feelings and kill morale. Plus they’re incredibly expensive. In short, they should be eliminated from your daily work routine as much as possible.

So why do we have so many meetings? Because we’re lazy. It’s far easier to call a meeting and make sure you’ve checked all the boxes on your CYA form than it is to communicate to the various project “stake holders” on an as-needed basis. This is a bad habit that gets perpetuated in environments where making any decision, big or small, is difficult, risky or requires each decision to go through the group-think meat grinder.

It’s time to declare war on meetings.

Here are a few ways that you can reduce the amount of meetings you’re roped into on an ongoing basis:

Email distribution lists

Most meetings are held because people need to be informed about a project status. Look at that sentence again. It’s ludicrous. There are far better ways to update people, solicit feedback and get approval than putting everyone around the table. An easy way to do this is to set up email distribution lists for different teams, layers of management and projects. You can quickly set one up for a project and disband it once the project is complete. You can also set them up for people that need to be informed about ongoing projects.

Basecamp

Basecamp is one of my favorite productivity tools – as long as you can get the other people in your company on board and using it. It’s great for discussions, project files, milestones and group management of document editing. It’s far better than email, easier to keep track of and puts everything in one place. We use Basecamp religiously and it helps keep everything nice and organized. Plus they have some great iPhone apps that interface with it. The one challenge I’ve found is getting executive team members to engage and make it a part of their work flow. They often want email updates, file copies and that sort of thing. Pushing everyone, from top to bottom to get on board with a Basecamp-like product is the way to go.

Skype

Skype and other instant messengers, particularly ones that have both voice and video chat capabilities are a great way to get quick answers to questions that are blocking your progress on a project. IM is far superior to phone calls. It’s shorter, clearer, and there’s no chance of voice mail. I use Skype every day for voice, video and individual IM conversations. I don’t know how people work without it.

Campfire

Another 37 Signals product. Campfire is a Web-based, group-chat software that lets you host chat rooms for your company in the Web browser. This means that entire teams can chat in real-time without the need for any special software on their desktops. We use it as a marketing team to let everyone ask and answer questions, kick around ideas, update each other on projects and deadlines, etc. It’s a perfect way to keep the team informed and hold discussions about various topics. Campfire lets you create multiple rooms, so you can have one for each department or project or team – it’s all up to you.

Yammer

Yammer and other private Twitter-like clients let people in your organization update what they’re doing and broadcast it across the company. While your first reaction might be “I don’t need to know everything,” think about how many times you just wish someone told you about a project or launch that was seemingly small to them, but had a big impact on you. For example, say someone in marketing posted a message saying “Prepping email blast to Facebook customers,” and you were responsible for staffing phone support or testing out product conversions, you can reach out to the marketing person and say “hey, send me a copy of that email for the team” or “hey, can I see the copy before it goes out.” Seeing this ambient stream of information can help you catch things that you might otherwise miss.

There are others, but these are 5 that can get you headed in the right direction right away, and help you declare war on meetings in your organization. What are your favorite tools for keeping meetings to an absolute minimum?

Image credit

Embracing complexity

February 21st, 2010 Comments

As marketers we’re repeatedly exhorted to make our messages simpler. To cut words, cut nuance, cut anything that may clutter or occlude the core message. Cut the rest and let the simplicity of the message shine through. This, our business leaders tell us, is the only way to reach customers in a cacophonous marketplace. Simplicity. Design your message so that a busy potential customer doesn’t have to think about you or what you offer. And it works. Often. It works for the middle of the market. If you’re selling cheese or milk for example you can get your key message down to a few words, Low Fat or Extra Calcium or Organic, for example. And it works when your product is inherently easy to understand, like the Energizer Bunny and it’s message, “Our batteries last a really, really long time.” But it doesn’t always work. And sometimes in our attempts to cut as much fat from the message end up taking some bone with it as well.

Some products are not easy to explain. Others shouldn’t be explained easily, lest they lose their mystique and unique value. The first case is pretty straight forward. Some products have multiple value propositions and messages that need to be told. Trying to cull it down into a single, simple message hides inherent meaning and value from potential customers. It makes the product or service look dumb. Something is missing in the customer’s eye. The simplicity has made the value harder to see. This may have made the message simpler but did it do the product any good? Take the iPhone for example. Did Apple try to promote it just as the best smart phone out there? No. That would be an over-simplification that hides the inherent value in it’s complexity. In fact, watching the Apple ads they showcase the variety of applications and features of the phone. They don’t simply say “It can do whatever you want,” rather they show the value of the phone through it’s rich and unique feature set. The marketers simplify and clarify, but not at the expense of showcasing the value.

The second case, with a technically simple product is even more interesting. Consider Burt Bee’s or Kiehl’s body products. They are tied to a strong creation story that resonates throughout their messaging. Trying to read a bottle of Kiehl’s is like trying to read a VCR instruction manual. But it is this complexity that communicates an attention to detail, an artisanal approach to the product that can’t be met by a mass market brand. This folksy complexity is part of the value. It’s how Kiehl’s differentiates itself from the mass market brands that are all busy cutting their word counts and culling their message for the sake of simplicity.

A Kiehl’s label:

The moral of the story here is that simplicity is often the right approach; but complexity shouldn’t be ignored simply because of its nature. Complexity can be a good thing. It can stop and make people think. It can convey a sense of artisanal craftsmanship that adds authenticity in a world of soulless mass-produced products. It can be a big differentiator. Not every story was meant to be told in a sound bite – double check to make sure you’re not hiding your value by being overly simplistic in your message.

My Top 3 Google Buzz Tips

February 13th, 2010 Comments

After using Google Buzz for a few days now I’m excited about the potential of this service to really bring together two important parts of my daily workflow, social media conversations and email. Ever since Gmail, Google Reader, Twitter and Facebook have become important parts of my daily life I’ve struggled with how to unify them. Friendfeed was the best bet, but a quick sale to Facebook killed that option, and didn’t address email. Now Google Buzz has taken the first big step to an overall unifying communication platform. And I’m excited.

There is a lot of, um, buzz, about buzz and it’s noted security flaws and it’s ability to drive you to ADD-delerium due to the way it integrates with Gmail. And the criticism is fair. And while these are early days for the product you can’t let some beta product ruin an important part of your private life and work – your email. So here are a few Google Buzz Tips that I’ve found work really well for me after a few days use.

To get the most of Google Buzz, try these tips:

1) Don’t follow weblebrities. Following someone like Jason Calacanis, Robert Scoble or Pete Cashmore of Mashable is just asking to be innundated with Buzz updates from their fans that comment on everything they post. Each of their posts receives hundreds of comments and likes which does two things: 1) bumps their threads to the top of Buzz, so that every time you login you’re dealing with scrolling down through the same posts over and over; and 2) clogs your inbox if you’ve previously responded to the post (liking or commenting) which pops the threads into your Gmail inbox.

See an example below. 89 comments and 60 likes is a lot of activity to deal with in your email box. And you can get all of Mashable’s content on Twitter, where you don’t have to get the feedback of the masses.

2) Mute posts early and often. You can mute noisy posts, like the above, simply by clicking the drop down arrow next to comment. This allows you to mute the post and you will no longer hear updates from that particular post. This is particularly handy for when the argument devolves to back-and-forth banter between a few people on a post like the above. You’ve extracted the value you wanted, now mute it and move on.

Here’s how to mute on Google Buzz:

3) Move Buzz updates into a new label and auto archive them out of your inbox. If you don’t want to see when new comments get added to your Buzz items simply create a new filter in Gmail that takes your Buzz update items and moves them to a label/folder out of your inbox that you can read at your convenience. This article about moving Buzz updates out of your inbox from Lifehacker has all the details if you don’t know how to create filters in Gmail.

Those are my top 3 tips for making Google Buzz work for me – what are yours? Share any hacks and tricks in the comments! Thanks!

5 TED Talks Every Marketer Must Watch

February 8th, 2010 Comments

If you’re a marketer and serious about improving not only your craft but how your profession impacts the world around you then you must watch these 5 TED talks and share them with fellow marketers and human beings around you. They will get you thinking, they will get you working harder and most importantly, they will get you caring more. If there’s a talk you love that I’ve missed please leave it in the comments!

Malcolm Gladwell on Spaghetti Sauce

Gladwell, best selling author of The Tipping Point and Blink talks about the pursuit for the perfect spaghetti sauce and how looking outside your preconceived limitations can pay huge dividends. Gladwell makes you think and his stories take a small application and suggest big ramifications. I love reading his work and listening to him speak; because every time you do you have a little moment of eureka that makes you better.

David Pogue Says “Simplicity Sells”‘

If you’re responsible for product design and development, particularly in technology, Web services or consumer electronics you need to watch this video. Simplicity is elegant and sophisticated. Simplicity is what has made the iPod, Twitter and countless other devices best sellers. Removing features, making things easier, more intuitive and consumer friendly. As Twitter founder Evan Williams said “What can we take away to create something new?”

Tim Brown encourages designers to think bigger

Tim Brown, CEO of IDEO, has presided over some of the most incredible “design” work in the world. IDEO is the leader when it comes to design thinking, especially their work put into the idea of Human Centered Design. In this talk Tim Brown encourages designers to think bigger – like not how to build a better ship, but how to move people from one city on one continent to one city on another. It’s amazing what you can achieve when you remember it’s ok, in fact critical, to think big.

Dan Pink on the Surprising Science of Motivation

Best selling author Dan Pink dives into what makes us tick. He uses a great psychology experiment called the candle problem to show how many of our corporate rewards diminish creative thought. If you’re in leadership in marketing, or you’re wondering how to get the best out of people around you watch this talk and read his new book “Drive.” Also, make sure to read “A Whole New Mind” his earlier work on the rise of the creative class – a must read.

Elizabeth Gilbert on Nuturing Creativity

The best selling author of Eat, Pray, Love talks about coping with the pressure of creativity and success and the idea that maybe we’re not entirely responsible for our creative successes and failures. What I like about this talk is that it takes a very humble person to disown success or lay success at another place than our own feet. I also like how she talks about dealing with the pressure of being creative for a living and how it’s ok when we’re not creative.

Seth Godin on Tribes We Lead

And what would a marketing talk at TED be without a bonus one from Seth Godin? So here’s a bonus sixth one.

The Process Matters

January 25th, 2010 Comments

I was reminded of one of my favorite fables involving Pablo Picasso and the 5 minute portrait tonight after a visit to the doctor’s with my son.

Fable copy via 37signals:

Legend has it that Pablo Picasso was sketching in the park when a bold woman approached him.

“It’s you — Picasso, the great artist! Oh, you must sketch my portrait! I insist.”

So Picasso agreed to sketch her. After studying her for a moment, he used a single pencil stroke to create her portrait. He handed the women his work of art.

“It’s perfect!” she gushed. “You managed to capture my essence with one stroke, in one moment. Thank you! How much do I owe you?”

“Five thousand dollars,” the artist replied.

“B-b-but, what?” the woman sputtered. “How could you want so much money for this picture? It only took you a second to draw it!”

To which Picasso responded, “Madame, it took me my entire life.”

We (my ex-wife and I) took our son to see an ENT (ear, nose, throat) specialist because of some fluid behind his ear drums which makes it hard for him to hear soft noises. The doctor was very efficient. Asked a few questions, looked quickly in my son’s ears and in this throat (I think for a total of 2 minutes, max) and then said “we should take his tonsils out.” You could see my ex reeling a bit as she tried to slow down the doctor to get a better understanding of what that meant and why after such a quick examination she could make such a “drastic” recommendation.

It was the Pablo Picasso fable all over again. And at the end of it (10 minutes later) my ex said “I’m glad she won’t be doing the surgery, she’s cold,” and it struck me how little the doctor’s expertise mattered at that point to my ex. The efficiency, the expertise actually hurt my ex’s impression of the doctor. And why was that? Because the doctor didn’t make us a part of the process. The process, the thinking, the decision making, was all hidden out of view. We weren’t part of the process, just like the lady in the sketch and it negatively impacted the experience, even when the result is “correct” or appropriate.

It hit me. Process is everything.

Your satisfaction with the end result is directly tied to the process you went through to get there. When we short circuit the process or hide it from our customer’s view we don’t let them participate. We don’t let them collaborate, we don’t let them experience the value that we bring through what we do. And when we fail to do that the end is always less satisfying.

You can see it with Picasso and the doctor. If both of them had taken more time, had invested more interest, had made the customer part of the process and made that process visible and understandable the customer, with the same exact end result, would’ve been much happier. Now art is tough, creativity is rarely process driven; but the doctor has no excuse. Neither do the rest of us.

What can you do to highlight the process and the value it brings so that your customers feel more ownership of the end result? The more you make them a part of it the more satisfaction they’ll get at the end.

Hang in the Question

January 24th, 2010 Comments

It’s amazing the number of “brainstorming” meetings I’m in that fail to inspire any truly creative solutions at their conclusion. And it’s a big problem. Brainstorming meetings are expensive. Take the hourly rate of the people packed into the meeting space multiplied by the amount of time spent, and you have yourself an expensive session with a negative return on investment. If you’re like me you’ve probably felt that same underwhelming feeling when you walk out of another one of these lackluster meetings. And if you’re like me, you’re probably trying to figure out how to fix them.

I think you fix brainstorming sessions by hanging in the question.

We’re often in too much of a hurry to reach a decision. To solve the problem. To find an answer which everyone agrees on. To get on with our busy work lives and out of another meeting. And this, in the instance of brainstorming, actually hurts our results. Because our desire to solve the problem hones our focus to the most visible solution. The low-hanging fruit, if you will. And because it’s readily visible other people reach the same point quickly too, creating consensus and forming a decision.

But is that the right thing to do? What if we hung in the question longer? What if instead of accepting the most visible solution as the consensus pick, we put it aside and kept pushing? What if we truly brainstormed in an environment where all ideas were welcomed and more solutions were proposed? What if there was more discourse, different ways of looking at things, and more spontaneity? I believe we’d get higher-quality thinking, and more often than not, we’d end up with higher-quality solutions to our problems.

So the next time your’e in a brainstorming session challenge yourself and your colleagues to hang in the question a little while longer. Even if you all agree to the obvious solution, put it aside and explore other possibilities. Even if you come back to the first choice it will be good practice.

The idea of “hanging with the question” comes from Think Better: An Innovator’s Guide to Productive Thinking (affiliate link).