Category Archives: Thinking Aloud

May 18, 2015 · 10:05 am

Predicting The Unpredictable

You might be starting your work week pondering what new opportunities will present themselves. Then again, you might just as likely be sitting at your desk dreading those very same opportunities. For many folks, seeing and being ready for what’s just over the horizon is absolutely the hardest, most gut-wrenching part of their jobs. It certainly was for me and remains so as I work with clients on their behalf.

Part of what we probably ought to be doing is not thinking so much about what the next hot new platform is going to be and spending a lot more time on controlling the things we can.  Your immediate response might be “sure, all two of them” but there actually is quite a lot which can help mitigate the unpredictability of business these days. All we’re really trying to do is to change “predict” to “anticipate.”

We can anticipate a good customer’s birthday (assuming we’ve taken the time to gather that data) just as easily as we can anticipate them appearing in our place of business based on past behavior.  We can use that knowledge to send them a coupon or tweet birthday wishes to them.  I’m still surprised how few businesses listen to all of the social streams and attempt to cull knowledge from what they’re hearing.  The old-school megaphone mentality is still pervasive.  Most of us in marketing need to listen more, speak less, and react more quickly to what we’re hearing.  This isn’t so much predicting as it is reacting but unless you’ve taken the time to set up the processes and people required to be proactive (thereby predicting the need!), you’ll fail.

Here is my prediction.  The pace of change is going to continue to accelerate.  We see disruption in once unthinkable ways (the impending changes in the TV landscape, for one and the huge shift to mobile from the desktop for another).  Many of us will have meetings about the future and write “long-range” plans as we do our budgets.  Much of that is unnecessary.  Business has become more like driving a foggy road – you can only see so far out.    Pay attention to what’s visible with your past experience telling you what’s still hidden in the fog.  it will become clear eventually as long as you stay on the road.

 

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May 14, 2015 · 10:06 am

Data Collection Matters

There was a piece on MediaPost about how the broadband providers and their trade associations have gone to court to prevent the FCC from imposing some of the new rules on how those providers may behave. The specific ones upon which I’m focused today are the ones concerning privacy and data collection. The article explains the issue nicely:

They specifically complain that the FCC’s decision to treat broadband as a utility also empowers the agency to impose privacy rules that could curb its behavioral advertising efforts, which involve targeting ads to users based on the Web sites they visit.

“Today, broadband providers can lawfully use information about customers’ Internet access services and usage to develop customized marketing programs that benefit both the provider and its customers,” AT&T and the others say in their court papers.

On the surface, maybe they have a point.  After all, many of us prefer to see targeted ads and as someone who has made a living off of marketing programs I’m all for them.  There is, however, a broader issue and it’s one of which any business who collects data (that would probably be YOU, dear reader) needs to remain cognizant.

The amount of data your wireless and/or broadband provider has about you is staggering.  They know where you’ve been and when.  They know what you research and with whom you communicate.  This fabulous piece demonstrates what all of this data retention means.  Ad targeting is one very simple use, but what happens when some insurance company decides to work with a broadband provider to find speeders and raise their rates?

Honestly, I’d still be OK with all of it with a very big IF.  Ask yourself this: do you know what’s being collected and do you know how it’s being used?  I can can “yes” to the first question and a very big “no” to the second.  I’m not a tin-foil hat guy – I don’t think there are seriously nefarious things going on at the ISP’s involving data misuse (the government is another matter).  I do think, however, that data collection needs to be explained to consumers in simple language and with sample data.  I think we all need transparency and the ability to opt in, not the demand that we opt out.  Having some protections in place isn’t a bad thing.  After all, the brief history of the commercial internet is rife with bad actors (see ad injectors, malware distributors, browser hijackers, etc.) who will do just about anything to line their pockets.

How do you see it?

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April 29, 2015 · 11:58 am

Rivers

I have rivers on my mind today.  Maybe it’s because I spent a lot of time over the last couple of days talking about streams of information and of video.  The nature of media these days is that we’re on a mostly self-directed rafting trip immersed in these streams.  Except that they’re really rivers since “streams” speaks to something much smaller than the torrents of content with which we deal every day.

Coincidentally, I came across something in the Phi Beta Kappa blog that resonated on both the nature of our content world and our business world:

It was the ancient Greek philosopher Heraclitus who said that you can’t step into the same river twice, giving us a memorable illustration of the principle that things change. The very nature of things is change.

Amen.  I’m not the only one to have written about FOMO – the fear of missing out on something changing in your social or other streams because it happened while you weren’t paying attention.  There are lots of tools available to assure that doesn’t happen by sending you alerts when a significant person posts or an important bit of data comes to pass.  Nevertheless, I’m sure many of us feel a need to dip our toe in the river constantly, both to stay in touch as well as to take the temperature.

It’s more the change that occurs in business which is my focus.  I laugh when people talk about five-year plans.  Where were your video marketing plans back in 2010?  How about mobile?  Is what you’re doing today what you contemplated then?  I doubt it.  That’s not a complaint; it’s a recognition that the river keeps flowing and the water you photographed when you did your strategic plan is long gone by the time you’re ready to implement it.

Keep the notion of a river in mind as you approach business.  While it runs within the same banks it’s never exactly the same.  You need to embrace that flow and learn how to swim with a changing current.  There is a reason that so many songs and literary works deal with rivers as central to a community and to life.  How you deal with it is the difference between a wonderfully exciting ride or drowning.  Your call!

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