Monthly Archives: January 2014

January 20, 2014 · 11:09 am

The Content That Matters

Martin Luther King leaning on a lectern. Deuts...

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

There has been a lot written about content marketing.

Some seers have even proclaimed 2014 as the year of content marketing, and as Google adjusts their search algorithms to make content more important in determining search rank, one can understand why “content” is on everyone’s lips here in digital business land.  Since I’m never one to miss a large bandwagon, let me jump right on to talk about the only content that matters.  I have a particular reason for doing so today.

We celebrate Dr. Martin Luther King’s birthday today.  As I’ve written in past years on this occasion, I remember him and his struggles well from my childhood.  The quote that stuck is from the “I Have A Dream” speech about the importance of judging people by the content of their character instead of the color of their skin.  That is the content that matters – the ONLY content that really matters – as we do business.

What, for example, does it say about the character of those retailers who run sales tied to “the MLK event.”  What it says to me is that they are tone-deaf, as was the cognac brand that sent out an email with drink recipes “MLK Jr. would be proud of.”  Really?  This is not about Dr. King or his principles or his legacy.  It’s about a brand trying to sell something and is, in the word Dr. King’s daughter used to describe similar activities, “appalling.”  That describes the character of their content just as it does the content of their character.

I don’t know about you, but I try to do business with people, not brands.  There are restaurants and other businesses I frequent almost solely because I like and trust the people with whom I deal.  I hope that many of my clients have hired me not just for what and who I know but also because they have a sense of the business person I try to be.  You can be sure that many of the people with whom you do business are looking at you and your company in the same way.

A business’ success or customer service isn’t about the store; it’s about the person on the other side of the counter or the desk or who answers the phone.  The content of their character will determine the brand’s success or failure.  You can choose those people wisely and support them as they let the content of that character show.  You can choose to market as did the brands above which also reveals a lot about the content of brand’s character.  It’s the only content that matters.  What’s your choice?

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January 17, 2014 · 11:06 am

The Stuff On The Bottom

Let’s end the week with some Foodie Friday Fond Fun.

English: Fond left in a white enamel pot after...

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

What is fond, you ask? A food scientist would tell you it’s the residue on the bottom of the pan left over when you sauté meats or vegetables. It’s the browned stuff that forms from either caramelization of sugars or from something called the Maillard Reaction. I’d tell you it’s yummy goodness.

Every good cook knows that you never toss this stuff.  It’s the base for most good pan sauces and at a minimum you want to use it in whatever else you’re going to be doing with what you cooked to create the reside in the first place.  The addition of a little wine or stock or even water will release the fond and that process is called deglazing.  You can then use the resulting liquid either to make a sauce (add butter and seasonings) or as the base for anything from gravy to soup.  Whatever you do, you never want to discard it

That principle applies to business as well.  There are a number of very successful companies that are built on the residue of other business activities.  Think about how many times you read about “unsuccessful” brands being sold off or failing businesses being bought to be turned around, reinvigorated, or repositioned to yield better results.  Those things are the fond of business and private equity firms have learned to deglaze those opportunities into excellent profits.

We do that to people too sometimes.  An employee is not producing as they once did or maybe a smart person with excellent skills is burned out.  Rather than discarding them we should be thinking about what we can add – the deglazing liquid – to bring them back to life and transform them into a more productive, happier person.  Maybe it’s a role change or maybe it’s a different sort of challenge.  Like fond, discarding them is a waste of something that can be quite good.

The next time you cook something in a pan, think about how the stuff on the bottom of the pan will be used.  When you get the chance, you might give some thought to recognizing and using it in the office as well.  Yum!

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January 16, 2014 · 11:10 am

The Life In Your Time

I know it’s not TunesDay but today’s screen has a bit of a musical bent.  As Robert Hunter wrote: “Once in a while you get shown the light/In the strangest of places if you look at it right.”  That’s what happened to me the other night and I thought it would provide some food for thought today.

English: King of the Castle Living life on the...

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

My enduring affection for The Boss is no secret to any of you who read this mess regularly.  He was on the Jimmy Fallon show and at the very end of his interview he said something that resonated:

It’s not the time in your life, it’s the life in your time.

Coming from a musician, that can mean a lot.  After all, Janis, Jimi, Kurt, and too many others put a LOT of life into their brief time and one wonders how much more great music they would have created had they not done so.  As it turns out, Bruce‘s quote wasn’t quite original.  In fact, a similar saying has been attributed to everyone from Abraham Lincoln to Adlai Stevenson:

“However else you live your life, live it freely. It is not the years in your life that count, it is the life in your years.”

That was to a group of students in 1952 and he used it repeatedly thereafter.  With whom the saying originated is unimportant.  What is says is.  Stop and think about the last time you put down the smartphone, turned off the computer and had a meaningful conversation about something other than work.  Maybe you love and feel passionately about your work and that’s great but perhaps that passion should be spread out a little to give you a break?

We’ve all had friends and others we’ve known die young (and as I get older “young” is an evolving concept).  I doubt any of them wanted another day at work or to play a video game or to post silly photos to the web.  I suspect they’d all want the time back they wasted worrying about things that didn’t matter or holding grudges or being afraid.  We all know people who live their business lives that way and it may extend beyond business.  Too bad.

None of this is news, I know.  We’ve all been told to come up for air, to live in the moment, and to participate in our lives instead of being a spectator.  As with most things in life and in business, the challenge isn’t to identify the things we ought to do; it’s to do them.  Do you agree?

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