Ok, first off, I can hear you laughing at the title
of this post. Not very nice! Don Draper aside, we marketing types do at times
look into our souls and make an effort at doing the right thing. So this post
is about what I’ve been hearing this week, and the upshot for ethics in
marketing.
Three separate streams of information and
conversation caught my attention: The first was about the term “e-mail blast,”
the second regarding plagerism and CV puffing among “social media experts,” and
the third a report about advertisers monitoring people's online activity, and the potential for regulation of
the practice.
Dag Blast
It!
My week in marketing ethics began with a
super-brief Marketing Profs post on the term “e-mail blast.” It’s a term that is in common use – a
potential client just asked me recently if I had email blast experience – yet
has many detractors. Nobody wants to be on the receiving end of a blast. The Marketing
Profs post ends with a quote from Justin Premick, who wrote this at the AWeber blog:
Terms like
"blast" are dangerous, not only because they make you sound like a
spammer, but also because their repeated
use can influence how you view your subscribers and campaigns. Words like
"email blast" to describe campaigns suggest the sender doesn't see
subscribers as people, but rather as targets to shoot offers at until they
score a hit. [emphasis mine]
Covered Wagon Medicine Show
Stealing intellectual property is nothing new on the internet.
Conversation this week was not so much about stealing content as it was about
plagiarism, just plugging in someone else’s information and claiming it as your
own. The next step is selling your services ala Snake Oil Sales based on other people's work and some smoke and mirrors. Peter Kim and
David Armano, both of Dachis Group wrote separately about their concerns. And
there was an excellent post by Leigh Duncan-Durst titled "On Plagiarism, Snake Oil, and Prayer."
There is more to these and other posts than tantrums about lost income. It becomes a
credibility issue when someone passes themselves off as a “Social Media Expert”
while stealing content and screwing up with clients because they don’t know
what they’re doing. (Note: I don’t tout myself as an “expert” in social media. Via
Twitter and the blogosphere I am, like you, merely social media expert-adjacent.
And as with all intellectual property, it is that adjacency, that easy access
that is the conundrum-causer.) Kim and Duncan-Durst have a few good starting points to call out the "worst practitioners" and protecting your ideas without being a prima dona.
Like Peter Tosh said, “Regulate
it!”
Actually Peter Tosh said “legalize it” and was of course referring to
something else entirely. Audio business magazine Marketplace (from American Public Media) ran a brief story on research out of University of Pennsylvania and UC Berkley suggesting
that few people want their web browsing habits monitored, except (for some) if
it leads to offers of discounts on products and services they have a
demonstrated interest in using. The question becomes should there be greater attempts
to regulate (not just self-govern) those who would track our buying habits and
interests?
These streams lead toward what I think is the heart of the matter: Are you, as a marketing professional--or really in any aspect of business or life--really interested in adding something of worth to the lives of people your work is serving? Does every decision we make in each moment of the day serve that purpose? Probably not, but heading toward that goal, that's the point. Doing something more nuanced than "blasting" the people receiving your next e-mail missive is a start. Kicking butt and taking names when you find a faux social media expert dispensing half-digested advice. Go to it! And regulation of what happens online is a HUGE question. Self-governance is a laudable goal, but worst practitioners will always be out there. Somebody needs to monitor those who are monitoring our online activity.
See, and that's just one week's worth of marketing ethics! Shine up the Pope-mobile because us marketing types are soon gonna need it!
In one way or another, I often write about those
qualities and touch points of business that make for positive customer
experience.
But
the opposite has been on my mind lately. Annoying people mercilessly pestering
you online, on the phone, or in your face. Not taking no (or "NO!!") for an
answer. The hard sell. Spamming. Auto DMs on Twitter that are all about @them
and their latest fantastic e-book or whatever--not at all about @you. Tweeting
with Bots! The slick, ingratiating, grating: "What's it going to take for me to
get you [to toss your money away on my product/service you don't need or want
right now]?"
Why do these worst practices persist!?
Does this behavior pay in the long or short run? In order to find answers, I've
been exploring what I call the "Metrics of Annoyance."
The
metrics of annoyance is about seeking real measurement of the effectiveness of
a given annoying marketing practice. Spamming is the most prime of examples. The
practice of spamming has of course been maligned, derided, and otherwise
tisk-tisked since the very first male enhancement notice was sent to your AOL
account back in the deep mists of time. Yet spam is around, and here to stay.
It clogs your inbox and gives gainful employment to anti-spam code developers
at McAfee. Josh Catone has done a great job describing why spammers keep doing
their thing. (read Josh's post here) With an abysmal .000008 response rate--one in 12.5 million--it still is
evidently enough of a payoff from a relatively inexpensive marketing method. So
for spam, the metric is one in 12.5 million. Note to the one: click "delete" please, and let
the rest of us get on with our lives!
Izea is among the latest to dip its toes into the metrics of annoyance (has been
treading water in it for years according to many). Izea has begun a
pay-per-tweet program on Twitter, with regular folks posting 140 character "sponsored
tweets." When I heard about it last week, I thought, I understand that. No big
deal. Then I saw one of my friends'
sponsored posts. Annoying. Channel surf to avoid the stupid commercial
annoying. As Spike Jones of Brains on Fire puts it in a recent blog post, "You're paying people to talk about you.
Paying them. In the vast majority of cases, there's no quality of content
there. It does not matter to me that they can say what they want about their
"sponsor's" product. If you have to get paid to talk about something, I'm
immediately going to question your motivation, which I'll assume is cash." That's
exactly my reaction when I see a sponsored tweet. What are the metrics on
pay-per tweet? Izea has been paying people to blog for some years now, (and
receiving plaudits from the likes of Forrester Research) so evidently the metrics are working for them, enough to dive into the pay per
tweet action. But for many of us, this is another sad day in the marketing
world.
These
practices will persist, no doubt. The Metrics of Annoyance, no matter how
miniscule the ROI turns out to be, will be with us always. Is it a personality
thing? I don't know. I'm not posturing this as a "good" versus "evil" battle
for the soul of people who buy things. This is a discussion of what are Best Practices
and what are Worst Practices. Being kind, being genuine, being human, these
traits are the win-win bedrock on which best practices are grounded. That's the ground I want to be standing on in my own work. How about you?
I’m ready for a change. For the past several years, I’ve been heading in too many directions at once. It was a fun ride for awhile, but it’s time to hone in on a few core objectives, a path through the wilderness. I know many others are facing similar challenges. Whether by economic necessity or design, this kind of transition requires nothing short of a reinvention. Having started down this road, here are four ways I’ve been learning to listen along the way:
1. Listen to the “Wackos”
The so-called "wackos" of this world my just have some things to teach us. Has somebody handed you a copy of a DVD called The Secret over the past couple of years? It happened to me. The Secret – an explanation of something called the “law of attraction” seems like a pretty funky mix of pseudo science, pseudo psychology, and pseudo world religion. But skepticism aside, there are some lessons from The Secret that I have really taken to heart. Ask the universe (or the ginormous force of your choosing) for what you dream of. What can it hurt? And more than that, believing in the possibility of something more than what your life is, really believing that something more is possible – that’s the key insight of The Secret. That kind of inner perspective will give you the fire in the belly to believe in yourself, in what you have to offer, in what the impact of your life can really be on the world. If you don’t believe in yourself, you’re never going to reinvent yourself. If your dreams are getting stiffled, sometimes it pays to look to the “wackos” beyond the mainstream to discover new insights that will help you gain the chutzpah to reinvent.
2. Listen to the Straight-Shooters
So the “wackos” have something to teach you, but so do the “grounded” people. The bean counters. The practical ones. I have read books by and talked to many, many people who are straight shooters. These are the people who are not bothering you with get rich quick schemes. They have proven systems and processes they want you to know about. People like David Allen are awesome in this regard. Allen’s Getting Things Done process helps me organize thoughts, ideas, and make things happen. Dreaming with the wackos is a big part of reinvention, but making a reinvention happen, changing course in life in a sensible way, this is where the straight shooters are gonna be of great service to you.
3. Listen to Walt Disney
That’s right, Disney, and I'm not talking about Jiminy Cricket sitting on your knee saying, "let your conscience be your guide." The movie Enchanted is, for me, a lesson in not taking yourself too seriously, but sticking to your values. In the beginning of Enchanted, Amy Adams’ princess character and her sunny side up worldview are mocked and seemingly disproved without mercy by all other characters involved. But by the end, the Disney credo - sweetness is larger than malice; there is loads of room for happiness and hope in this life-- is re-affirmed by all but the too jaded evil villainess. So reinvention tip #3 is: Be willing to laugh at yourself, but at the end of the day play to your values. Being able to laugh at your foibles, yet embrace the core of who you are is a strength you will need in the reinvention process. Which leads us to …
4. Listen to Yourself
Of course the hard work of reinvention is listening to yourself. Reinvention means listening to the gut answers to the tough questions: “Am I satisfied?” “Am I living the life I’d hoped for?” A year ago, I really wasn’t. But the process of discovery has been amazing and wonderful. I’ve been discovering talents that I knew I had but didn’t take seriously enough. I’ve been cutting through other people’s expectations to find my own sense of calling in life. Listening to yourself is not about being self-centered and self-absorbed. It’s the opposite. It’s about paying attention to what you know about yourself in order to contribute your very best to the world. Listen to that part of yourself that knows you can do it!
That’s it, four simple steps to success! No, obviously it’s going to be a slog through some of this listening work. But the work is well worth it. That’s advice from someone partway through the journey. So screw up some courage, people, and get reinventing!
When Rem Koolhaas disses you, should you pack up your geospacial software, go home, and sob quietly into your pillow in the bedroom of the apartment in your zoned mixed use neighborhood? Not according to John Norquist, CEO of the Congress on New Urbanism (CNU), and former mayor of Milwaukee. Norquist and a large cohort from the CNU gathered in Denver last month for their 17th annual Congress.
Koolhaas, who has called New Urbanist design in effect “not real enough,” is just one of the more famous of New Urbanisms detractors. As a fan of the movement, I wondered why there is such vitriol in some circles for a movement that seeks to make both public and private space more pleasant, sustainable, and livable. New Urbanism seeks to wrestle away community planning from an “automobile monoculture” and bring human beings and human interaction more fully into the equation. While a meeting like CNU 17 might conjure images of people standing in trees shouting “TRUTH!” and “BEAUTY!” the CNU represents a planning and development model gaining momentum as good business. Reporter Katherine Gregor noted that one of the overarching themes of CNU 17 was exactly this: smart planning supported by federal transportation policy and funding provide an engine for growth, wealth, and jobs. It seems New Urbanism might just be a pretty healthy mix of dreaming and getting things done.
New Urbanism takes its place among a larger movement often referred to as “Smart Growth.”As large tracts of McMansion style homes stand half-finished or still on the drawing board across the country, as studies show a reverse migration from suburb to town and city neighborhood, architects and developers are taking notice and changing their strategies.According to Norquist, even traditional tract home builders like Toll Brothers are beginning to focus on the space outside the homes and ¼ acre lots that up until very recently seemed to form the sum total of concern for both builder and buyer.
Winners of design prizes at CNU 17 demonstrate this shifting strategy both in the US and in the global economy. They include a regional plan for Buffalo, NY. In Buffalo, participants developed, in the words of the plan rationalle:“an interlocking array of plans for downtown, waterfront, and parks rationalized under the umbrella of a city-wide master plan with the former elements adoptedby reference as part of the latter. These elements nest within broader regional efforts at "smart growth," cultural tourism, and regional economic development planning.” An international winner, in the student submission category, was a redevelopment of a theater complex, revitalizing a neighborhood in downtown Beijing, China.
CNU 17 highlighted the promise and obstacles faced as an economy recovers and as people look for habitation that fits their lifestyle and their aspirations. Maybe when truth and beauty meet up with economic opportunity, a (walking) path forward begins to emerge.
Learn. Look. Ask. Try. These are the cards we're dealt in the people-centric design approach used by the global design innovation provocateurs at IDEO. Back in 2003, IDEO began dealing these four "suits" in a pack of 51 Method Cards.
What the Cluetrain Manifesto did for marketing strategy, IDEO and specifically the Method Cards did for design strategy. In the same way Cluetrain saw and named what was happening in a "small pieces, loosely joined" world, in the Method Cards, IDEO saw and named a design strategy that was for and about interconnected everyday people. If all markets are conversations (Cluetrain), then all useful design is indeed conversation as well.
So, for instance, in designing an airplane interior, the IDEO design team used "Bodystorming." In bodystorming, people act out scenarios and roles, paying close attention to the intuitive responses prompted by the physical enactment. Method Cards let us all in on this and 50 other IDEO trade secrets. At the core of the Method Card method is the notion that it doesn't matter how cool, or wonky, or geeked-out something is; If it's not intuitively useable, beautiful, or (best of all) both, you're automatically diminishing your return on R & D investment.
I use the Method Cards mainly as tools for process design. They are great for groups who are working on solving a particular "how do we get from here to there" kind of problem. In this, I'm part of an unexpected cohort. In receiving feedback IDEO found: "In its first year, the Method Cards appeared to have unexpected relevance to groups that are not necessarily engaged in design initiatives. Clients report using the tool to explore new approaches to problem-solving, gain perspective, inspire a team, turn a corner, try new approaches, and to adapt and develop their own methods." Exactly so in my experience.
Oh, and I like that this is such a tactile tool. I can pull the deck of the shelf, rummage through and look for an idea that fits my need at the moment. I can put them in the middle of a table and let a group of people paw around in them like a discount bin at *insert favorite clothier here*.
So happy 7th birthday, Method Cards! Thanks for the help and inspiration!
Brains on Fire is an identity development/word of mouth marketing shop in the micro city of Greenville, South Carolina. I learned of them just a few months ago, and this little shop away from the traditional meccas of marketing deserves the growing reach it is extending as ambassadors of cool but conscientious marketing strategies. Here's a few reasons I love ‘em:
1. The People.
I don’t know the whole gang, but the folks I’ve been in touch with over the past few months, Spike Jones (Chief Fire Starter) and Geno Church (Word of Mouth Inspiration Officer) have extended kind words and precious time to me again and again. Geno and Spike respond to my tweets and crazy e-mail questions. We're not in each other's back yard throwing another shrimp on the bar-bee, but they know how to keep it real with cyber relationships. They're good folks.
2. The Haka.
Haka is a traditional dance of the Maori people of New Zealand. As a demonstration of team and community building, BOF choreographs and performs haka dances. Here’s their explanation and a haka performed at this years’ Fire Sessions.
3. Fire Sessions
An annual gathering, the FIRE (Fascinate, Inspire, Reward and Engage) Sessions bring together best practitioners in branding and word of mouth marketing. They invite speakers like John Moore (Brand Autopsy and now WOMMA), Jackie Hubba (Church of the Customer) and Dan Heath (Made to Stick), providing a great learning environment with thought and practice leaders from far-flung places.
4. Memorable Origins Story
In 1998, two local Greenville shops came together to form Phillips, Goot, Greg & Greg. Most agreed this was a bad name with which to launch into a positive future. One day, during a particularly memorable rant about a particularly potent idea, the ranter (Greg Cordell) mussed up his hair and said, “That really sets my [blinkering] brain on fire!” History was thusly made.
5. Passion
These people are passionate about the work, and about things that touch them. I probably would not know about Love 146, an anti-child sex slavery organization which BOF tirelessly promotes. When BOF get a new account, they throw a giant “Jolly Roger” pirate flag (with skull aflame) over the side of their building. Arrrr! And you should learn more about their tequila shots.
6. Thanks to BOF, pinking shears are back, baby!
One of the most storied case studies in the BOF portfolio is Fiskars, a Finnish maker of crafting and gardening tools, in business since 1649. BOF found the fans of their products, and the “Fiskateers” were born. BOF teaches us how to stoke the flames of fan-dom.
Are there other good regional ad shops around who are doing similar things to BOF? Probably. But they’re in my orbit because they preach AND demonstrate the power of relationship. They remind their clients that it’s the customer who really owns the brand. They set my [blinkering] brain on fire.
“Anyone who tries to improve a situation is a designer.”
The idea that design is everywhere is both a cliché and a truism. Also on its way to the cliché compost bin is the idea that organizations need to focus on design and innovation or die.Of course design and innovation are neither cliché nor notions to be thought of only when you are positive the market can bear it. On the contrary, there’s no better time than right now to focus on, in Neumeier’s words “improving a situation.” Design matters for a host of reasons, not least of which concerns the bottom line. Mostly design matters because it is at the heart of what it means to improve, to make things better than before.
So I’m inviting you to embrace your inner designer, that part of your work and yourself which adds personal value, value to those you work with, and the whole dang world! Design is way more, not less important in the current business climate. So for me, and I hope for you, that quote from Neumeier above is a breath of fresh air, an oxygen tank and a set of flippers for everybody feeling like it’s time to do more than just tread water.
This ethos is not new. My favorite exemplar of design shaping meaning is furniture designer and architect Gustav Stickley. Stickley was an early practitioner and evangelist for what became known as the Arts and Crafts movement at the dawn of the 20th century. I first became consciously aware of the raw power of design when my wife and I were given a 1904 Stickley rocker as a wedding present. Sweet, fancy Moses this guy designed some amazing furniture that has stood the test of time. On each piece of furniture, Stickley would put his seal, the Flemmish phrase "Als Ik Kan," which translates, "to the best of my ability." Stickley was all about putting everything he had into improving a situation.
As a writer, a collector and distiller of thoughts and ideas, it is just recently that I have begun to think of myself as a designer. Even when design in obvious form was part of my work (graphic design is in my bag of tricks for instance,) an identity as “designer” hasn’t loomed large in my consciousness. But I am becoming aware of the fact that design transcends the cubbies in which we try to place our work, our lives. None of us are just one thing. Just a writer. Just a manager. Just a parent.Just anything. We are a multiplicity of relationships, obligations, odd jobs, and vocations. Impatience and dissatisfaction with whatever might currently be broken, underutilized, or just plain boring – if you’re eager to fix these things, you’re a designer. Thinking like a designer can help solve some of these nagging issues.So grab your gear and let’s dive deep into just a few reasons why—if you don’t already—you should start thinking of yourself as a designer.
One thing to remind ourselves is that design isn't neccessarily or exclusively about the "look" of a thing. Gustav Stickley’s style wasn’t primarily about looking fabulous. Fabulous was a byproduct of meaning shaped out of design. Stickley is remembered mostly for furniture design, but those furniture designs were meant to be set in a larger framework, something more than an aesthetic, more like a way of life. Stickley wanted to create houses that builders would be proud to build, to which individual craftspersons would be proud contributers, and in which homeowners would be inspired in the very act of dwelling. In an age of dehumanizing, churn-em-out manufacturing industrialization, Stickley was developing environments which took seriously the heart and soul of everyone involved in the process. Mass production was not the enemy, but care could be taken as to how a mass of things might be produced in order to positively impact the lives of workers, sellers, and purchasers.
But back to Neumeier's point, we are not all Gustav Stickleys. Yet ordinary examples of design shaping meaning are all around us: Refocusing a presentation that might otherwise have come off as crushingly boring; Taking time with the wording of an important e-mail message; Finding a meeting space with some actual natural light; Anything AT ALL to dress up (yet keep factually accurate) that quarterly P & L statement. These design choices happen every day. And more to the point, they add up. People like Stickley are now considered extraordinary, but he started the way each of us can start: with the little, everyday ordinary design decisions and a commitment to paying attention. These mundane decisions can grow exponentially to extraordinary contributions that add depth of meaning and purpose to our lives and the lives of those around us. Design matters that much.
So pay attention today. What design choices are you making? These choices are not superfluous. They literally will shape the way you feel about your work. Design is nothing less than the power to improve a situation.
In one way or another, I often write about those
qualities and touch points of business that make for positive customer
experience. 
