Tag Archives: business thinking

August 3, 2015 · 11:22 am

Editors

As I was reading the sports section with my breakfast this morning, a couple of articles caught my attention. How they were written and how the topics were covered popped a business thought into my head and I’d like to share it.

If you’ve ever read the screed before, it’s no secret to you that I am sort of obsessed with golf. Naturally, I read the reports of the weekend’s events. The men’s tour was near Washington, DC., and the man winning the tournament was a bit of a surprise. He was a first-time winner, has an interesting back story, and fought off some of the best players on the Tour for the win. 80% of the article, however, had nothing to do with him. It was all about Tiger Woods, currently ranked #266 in the world, and a blow-by-blow of his rounds. We got none of that about the winner. I get it: Tiger’s performance, or lack thereof of late, is always THE story in golf. More about this in a second.

On the women’s side, the Women’s British Open was won by Inbee Park, who completed the career grand slam (winning every major at least once) at the ripe old age of 27. It has only been done a handful of times previously. The story received all of maybe a hundred words.

The article about the men’s tour was half a page, and the focus was not on the real news. After all, many other players finished ahead of Tiger or scored as well. The biggest golf news of the weekend was that one woman, who has captured six of the last fourteen majors the women have played, won again. My point isn’t that the women aren’t getting any respect either.

The business point is that we must always remember that when we get news and information from any source, it is generally filtered to reflect someone’s point of view. The editors decided Tiger’s ok weekend is more interesting than a first-time win or a huge achievement by a woman. You may be getting weekly reports of sales, opportunities, personnel, etc. that bury the real story.  It’s incumbent on us as businesspeople to ask questions about everything we read.  Is this research biased?  What’s the self-interest of someone who shares some news?  What isn’t in a report I’m reading?

The information we get is only as good as the editor chooses to make it.  Giving a ton of golf coverage to a guy who finished in a tie for 18th may distract you from the real story.  In business, our job is to find those stories and edit them into the narrative.  Agreed?

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July 22, 2015 · 11:41 am

Plans Etched In Sand

So, marketing compatriots. Let me ask you: what are you plans for MySpace this year? Or Orkut? What role does Friendster play in your brand strategy? While you may be giggling about the ridiculousness of those questions, you might have taken them quite seriously a few years ago. As an aside, I remember that when I met with the MySpace folks at the height of their popularity I was surprised both by the outrageous demands they were making and by their refusal to acknowledge that nothing seems to last forever in the digital world.  Oops.

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(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The business planning cycle tends to begin at budget time and if you’re a media or marketing person you’re often asked for a fairly detailed plan of attack.  I always prefaced my presentation with a broad disclaimer.  “What I am presenting is accurate and true for right now but I can’t promise you that it will be the best plan of attack in a month and certainly not in six months.  I can live with the budget requests I am making but please allow me flexibility with respect to the channels and media we use.”  Most of my bosses were great about that.

There is no way a social media plan you’ve developed a year prior is accurate. As with the examples above, circumstances change.  While I don’t believe most companies can support a major presence on EVERY platform which emerges, I do believe that it’s important to be aware of all of them and to test.  It’s really OK to cross-post great content every so often! Those tests need to be done with your key performance indicators in mind, and if an emerging platform doesn’t give you the ability to measure them, it’s probably not worth your time.  What’s very important is not to dismiss anything as “a fad” or “for kids.”  Remember that Facebook began as something for college kids and once it opened up the brands that were early adopters had an advantage (well, at least they did until Facebook destroyed a brand’s ability to engage their fans easily without paying).

The message today: don’t follow the plan; let the plan follow your customers.  Those plans should be etched in sand and not in stone.  Are yours?

 

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July 9, 2015 · 12:06 pm

Two Feet In Front

I had a bunch of meetings in New York yesterday. NYC in summer is filled with tourists (as it is most of the rest of the year) and they’re pretty easy to spot. They are usually found standing still in the middle of the sidewalk, rocks in the midst of the rushing human stream. They’re something you learn to dodge as a native by, as we used to say in hockey, not skating with your head down.

Unfortunately, fewer people seem to do that these days. I witnessed a collision when a native, immersed in their smartphone, ran smack into a tourist taking a picture of the Chrysler Building. That’s become the norm too – people walking the streets in full stride while staring into a 4-inch screen. It made me think of how we tend to do the same thing in business.

Too many business people run their businesses staring at what’s two feet in front of them while ignoring the impediment that’s a hundred feet ahead. They don’t take evasive action because they’re unaware that there is a problem approaching. Instead, they’re way too involved in the present and not in looking ahead.

Don’t get me wrong.  I’m as guilty as the next person with respect to checking my mobile device every time it beeps.  I try, however, to step to the side while I read and respond.  When I’m walking, I’m doing so with my head up and my focus is well in front of me.  I do the same in business, both my own and my clients’.  What is happening NOW is important but it’s critical not to get too focused on what’s going on right in front of you while missing out on what’s coming up.

Your business needs to skate with its head up.  You never know when the path that was clear the last time you looked has become obstructed.  Bumping into something you didn’t see can be expensive – the person’s phone crashed to the ground yesterday.  Deal with the immediate situation – read your mail, answer your texts –  but recognize that there is a rapidly changing world outside of your two-foot gaze.  Make sense?

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