Category Archives: Thinking Aloud

This Is My 1,000th Post!

I posted my first bit of drivel on May 22, 2008.  It was all of 218 words and by way of introduction I said:

My name is Keith, and I’m a guy who works with companies on using media to grow their businesses. It could be that nasty old traditional stuff like radio and TV or it could be that newfangled stuff like social media. Either way, bubba. Since it’s not about the channel.

Hopefully the writing has improved a little but what I like is that the basic mission hasn’t:

You would be surprised how many folks I’ve met over the years do something because it’s cool…rather than because it ties in nicely to their business goals, strategies, and tactics.  So that’s what we’ll look at in this blog, with a particular emphasis on the emerging media business as well as sports. I’ll probably throw in a few food tips as well since we can’t be all work and no play.

Which is pretty much where we still are although I guess there’s the odd tip I’ve learned over the last 35 years about managing thrown in as well.  The technology has changed a lot in four years but business hasn’t.  We’ve committed to Friday as our food day and I probably don’t write as much about sports now as I used to.  We still generally avoid politics other than to use them to illustrate a broader point (although I’m thinking about using one day a week to focus on facts without advocacy as we hit election time – thoughts?).

Here’s the most important thing I can say to you after 999 other attempts:  thank you.  Thank you for reading, for sharing posts with others, and for taking the time to comment, both here on the screed and back to me via email (I realize some of you don’t want your thoughts quite so public – fine with me!).  Hopefully you’ll do more of each of them in the future.  I’m always surprised and grateful when someone I’m just meeting or with whom I’m reconnecting says “I like your blog.”  I can see readership numbers but it’s always better for me to meet just one actual reader.

If you had asked me a few years back if I’d still be posting every work day four years down the road, I’d have said that I don’t have that many words or cogent thoughts in me.  Turns out I was wrong.  Thank you all very much!

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Surprise!

“Surprise” is a loaded word.

Mega Surprise

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

We delight in surprise parties (well, maybe as long as we’re not the one being surprised) and we dislike surprise hairs in our soup (particularly if they’re not our color).  It’s a powerful concept, although I guess the scientists would tell you that it’s not the surprise itself that’s the issue – it’s the emotions that follow the surprise event.

Surprise is a concept of which we need to take full advantage in business while simultaneously avoiding it like the plague.  When a customer can’t find something in the store, we can take joy in their surprise when a store employee digs around in the back until they find an item thought to be out of stock.  This happened to the Mrs. just this past weekend. She’s now a customer for life and has been telling the story to everyone.  Earned media indeed!

On the other hand, when you advertise a product on sale and are out of stock an hour after the store opens, customers feel as if they’ve been lied to – it’s hard for them to believe you haven’t pulled a classic bait and switch to get them to the store.

Managing people often involves surprises of both sorts.  There are little ones like a key person calling in sick and big ones like them resigning.  On the other hand, sometimes we’re surprised by pieces of business those employees find out of the blue or by their achieving a higher standard in their work.  Yay!

I guess what it all means is that we need to manage expectations constantly both to avoid the bad kinds of surprise and to increase the impact of the good kind.  No, we shouldn’t have people thinking that a hair in their soup is permissible – that shows a need to manage something other than expectations – but we can make sure that when we set standards we adhere to them.  Customers and employees notice.  Our job is to surprise them in the good way.  Given how few organizations are able to get to their own professed standards, it shouldn’t be that difficult a task.  You agree?

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Stock Photography

A picture is worth a whole bunch of words.  We all know the expression and it’s true: it’s often easier to show than to tell.

Flower Stock Photography

Flower Stock Photography (Photo credit: Carlos Lorenzo)

Visuals make presentations (and blog posts) more interesting.  Way back in the days before we all had access to everything (that’s before the Internet for you youngsters), stock photo houses made a pretty good living as photo resources.  When you only needed a generic image to reinforce a point, the photo house was your first stop.

The photo I’ve used could be used to illustrate flowers or spring or gardening.  The point about stock photos is that they are generic products.  They are used multiple times by different people for varying purposes.  They don’t really have any distinctive personality.  Why start the week with this?

More of us seem to be in the business of stock photography than we believe.  What I mean is that we are making products that are stereotypical.  Web sites look the same in terms of layout and functionality.  There’s way too much “me too” and not enough of a focus on what makes us unique or better.

The companies that get it right take what could be something stock and make it their own.  Apple did it with the iPod, which wasn’t the first MP3 player.  Amazon did it with online commerce – they were far from being the first store but they have taken the notion of a store and made it very much their own.

I could go on about this but you get the point.  Sure, generic products made and sold less expensively have their place.  They’re low margin and don’t inspire much loyalty (a low price point is a hard-to-defend place since anyone can lower their price if they want to sell at a loss).  We need to take our own photos and not buy from the endless supply of generic stock.  We need to constantly ask what makes our product or service unique and better.  All of us in business are better off when that happens.

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