Tag Archives: Business and Economy

April 22, 2015 · 11:25 am

More Attention, Fewer Things

I’ve been away – did you miss me? My absence was, as I posted the other day, the annual golf trip during which I assess my tolerance for pain and suffering both on the golf course and off. I try very hard not to check email nor to dip my toe into the river of digital content from which I drink daily. Fortunately, I have a bunch of distractions provided by my buddies.  

Today I fully plugged in, having returned to work. Zipping through email was relatively easy – I had already answered the critical ones during the trip and now it was just a matter of newsletters and such. My RSS stream is another matter entirely. There are thousands of articles here and there is no way I can skim them all much less read them. In the process of doing so, however, I thought of something that might be useful to you all as well.

Not everything is critical.  Not everything is important.  Most of it can be ignored safely.  I’ve found that the really important information out there shows up in multiple places and it’s pretty easy to tell that you might want to  check something out when you see it on a second or third stream.    The word itself – “stream” is important.  We’re land animals – we don’t live in a stream.  Lots of experts are beginning to tell us only to check email a few times a day – times when we can afford to task switch and be fully present.

I like this from Oliver Burkeman:

The bigger point here isn’t really about email in particular; it’s about the ever greater “boundarylessness” of work. When anyone can be contacted at any time of day, in any location; when the costs in time and effort of sending a message to a colleague, client or underling dwindle to nothing; when we’re confronted by an effectively infinite amount of information we could consume, or tasks we could perform, if only time were infinite too …

I just deleted a thousand articles in a couple of my stream topics without even looking.  It was the equivalent of recycling unread, old magazines I know I’ll never read nor care if I miss.  All of us need to give more attention to fewer things and stop making ourselves crazy with nits.  Who’s with me?

 

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April 10, 2015 · 10:01 am

Menu Boards

This Foodie Friday I’d like for you to think about menu boards.  We’ve all seen them as we dine out.  In some places they’re chalk boards, whiteboards in others.  Usually they contain a listing of the day’s specials but in some places the entirety of the menu is out there.   What always impresses me and makes me hopeful that I’m about to enjoy a really good meal are those places where the board doesn’t contain a lot of items and where there aren’t printed menus.  This tells me the chef is concerned with what ingredients were available that day and looked the best.  Sure, there are generally a few dishes that are the restaurant’s staples – dishes for which they’re known and/or their clientele has indicated they love by ordering them often.  But when you go back to a place and there are a half-dozen dishes that weren’t there the last time, it shows an attentive kitchen that cares about the food and the customers.

I’m bringing this up because the same thought holds for strategy.  We need to write our strategic thinking on menu boards and not on stone tablets.  Like the ingredients in a market, conditions change. The way consumers use media changes.  How they communicate with one another changes.  Our goals – and theirs – evolve.  Pouring through data may show us a new, underdeveloped audience.  Our budgets may grow or shrink.

Every one of those factors will require an adjustment to our planning.  Not making those adjustments is the equivalent of living with an outdated, printed menu. I always shake my head when I see a Caprese Salad on a menu in the dead of winter.  That dish is the essence of Summer and it demonstrates laziness and a disdain for quality.

Strategic plans are living documents and need constant tweaking.  Erasing and rewriting the board is a good thing, not a demonstration of vacillation about goals or tactics.  While it’s absolutely critical to establish a strategy — to know why you are doing what you’re doing and how you’re getting to those goals, it’s also critical to keep checking and adjusting.

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April 2, 2015 · 11:30 am

The Coming Cable Shift

I got into a discussion with someone about the major shift that’s taking place in the cable industry. Specifically, we were discussing all of the ala carte services that are becoming available. Netflix, Hulu and Amazon Video are just the start. You’ve heard that major networks – CBS, NBC, ESPN, and others – are going to provide a streaming service via broadband. I wrote about that a couple of weeks ago so I won’t repeat myself . However, in a time when 13.5% of broadband households with an adult under 35 have no pay-TV subscriptions and 8.6 million US households have broadband Internet but no pay-TV subscription with millions more likely to cut the cable cord in the next year, the times are a changin’.

The person with whom I was discussing this didn’t think it was a big deal. First, the cable guys are also ISPs so they make their money (at higher margins) there. Second, people will find that paying a lot more for fewer networks isn’t so great after all. I told him he was missing a point.

When you pay the cable bill each month, much of that payment gets divided up among dozens of program providers. ESPN takes the biggest chunk, around $6 or $7 according to reports as does sports programming in general. Other networks get fees ranging from $1.50 down to a dime. That’s per household per month. You do the math.

The point he was missing is demonstrated by HBO. HBO is never a basic network, meaning it’s never just included. You pay $10 a month or so for it. HBO uses that money to fund a lot of spectacular programming. Now, so does Netflix.

When the model changes the cable guys are no longer distributing the pot to programmers as they see fit. Consumers are paying for what they watch.

Even if the out-of-pocket doesn’t change, the money goes to a much more limited set of content providers. They, in turn, will have the ability to invest in better content. Yes, I realize that 10 cents a month from 50 million homes is better than $2 from 2 million homes. The difference is that payment from the larger audience will never get bigger unless your network is moved to a bigger, more basic tier or you can negotiate your way to a bigger fee. Providing the network directly doesn’t cap your growth and developing a hit can provide a big growth in revenues. Think of your friends who will subscribe to HBO or Showtime just to watch a favorite series.

I would not want to be a minor network in all of this. I suspect we will see some bundling of like networks that don’t share ownership. I also think we’ll see many networks go dark or end up as free, ad-supported channels on some service – Apple TV, YouTube, whatever. One thing for sure – five years from now the business I grew up in won’t resemble the one we’ll be living with.

Thoughts?

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