Disruption is for Idiots

Technology journalist Michelle Bruno's most recent article, "What Disruption Really Looks Like," prompted me to phone her. 

In the course of our conversation, she asked me why tech company executives—disruption's tireless cheerleaders—so often rest on their laurels.

In my answer, I fell back on one of my favorite words, hidebound.

Tech company execs who succeed, with few exceptions, turn hidebound; and their standpatism leaves their companies exposed.

Hidebound is often applied to larger-than-life figures of military history.

Major General Ambrose Burnside, a West Point-trained insider, was one.

In December 1862, he caused 13,000 casualties in one day, when he threw his troops against Robert E. Lee's entrenched Confederates in two assaults at Fredericksburg.

Burnside wasn't an idiot. He simply assumed he could use tactics that had worked for his century's greatest soldier, Napoleon. But Napoleon's soldiers faced smoothbore muskets, not rifles.

Too bad he wasn't an idiot.

Like all West Point insiders of his day, Burnside was blind to the effect of a disruptive change in technology.

Idiot comes from the Latin word idiota, an "outsider."

Disruption takes an idiot: an outsider unschooled in the assumptions, unversed in the tactics, and unacquainted with the rules, the business models, and even the names of the players.

The insiders are all hidebound.

Disclosure: The hero of Michelle Bruno's extraordinary story is my employer.

Effecting Change on a National Level: 3 Lessons I've Learned

Youth leader and activist Susan Rosenstock contributed today's post. She is a cofounder of umttr, a nonprofit that champions the caring support and mental well-being of teens.

My 16-year old son Evan, a high school sophomore, took his life on May 20, 2013, leaving a community shocked and saddened. 

Evan had never suffered from any mental illness prior to a basketball injury. That injury led to a back surgery, which then led him to feeling as though he'd lost his identity as a varsity athlete.

Four of Evan's friends came to me and said, “We have to do something to raise awareness about depression and teen suicide because, if this could happen to a kid like Evan, it could happen to anyone.” Their concern became the foundation of our non-profit umttr (you matter).

umttr has grown more than I would have believed possible only two years ago. With that growth, I have learned what it takes to create positive change in a community and on a national scale.

How do you do it? Here are the three most important lessons I can pass on to anyone hoping to effect change:

1. One size does not fit all.

To reach a large audience effectively, you need to understand what motivates that audience. What may work for adults may not work for teenage students. Be sure to tailor your promotional activities to the audience you want to reach by asking that audience what would work. Don’t guess! 

We work with teens and often find ourselves in situations where the adults and teens disagree about how to market to the “teen” audience. We always go with the teens.

2. Ask, ask ask.

Ask a sample of your audience about your promotional plans. Ask sponsors about the best way you can work with them for mutual benefit. Ask other activists if you can help to advance their goals. When in doubt, ask. 

Here's an example. When the Campaign to Change Direction, a White House Initiative launched by Michelle Obama in March 2015, asked umttr to become a founding member, we made a pledge to educate 70,000 students about the five signs of emotional distress over five years. In just six months we have already reached 50,000. All the campaign had to do was ask.

3. You're only as good as your words.

Language matters. Check with other activists, educators, nonprofits and companies in your field, to make sure the language you’re using promotes effective change.

We try, for example, never to say an individual “committed suicide.” That language still carries the stigma of suicide as a crime. Saying someone “died by suicide” or “ended his life” is preferred. This may seem like a small difference, but changing word-choice alone represents a big step toward recognizing that every suicide can be prevented.

Your Speech Insurance Policy

Media and presentation skills coach Edward Segal contributed today's post. Edward has helped hundreds of executives deliver memorable presentations. His advice is based on his experience as a journalist, public speaker, PR consultant, press secretary, and association CEO.

Opportunities to speak in public can be golden opportunities to discuss or demonstrate your expertise, accomplishments, activities or opinions. 

Here’s my checklist of items to keep in mind before you accept any speaking invitation, and suggestions on how to prepare for and get the most out of your presentation. 

Consider it, if you will, your speech insurance policy.

Invitations

• Don’t accept speaking invitations for which you are unqualified or unprepared (don’t let your ego get in the way).

• Ask the organization if there is anything special you should know about the audience or the group (forewarned is forearmed).

• Know the basics of the speaking situation (format, length, time, location, etc.). 

Appearance

• Dress appropriately (usually one level above the audience). 

• Remove any distracting jewelry, name tags or badges before you start (it’s all about you). 

• Stand out from your backdrop (dress in contrasting colors so you don’t disappear).

• Check yourself in a mirror before you go on (lipstick, food in teeth, straighten tie, check zippers and buttons, etc.). 

Equipment

• Test out the mike beforehand to know how far to hold it from your mouth. 

• Adjust the mike so it does not hide your face.

• Do not assume that just because you may a have a loud voice people will be able to hear you without a mike. 

• Assume nothing will work the way it should and plan accordingly (Murphy’s Law). 

Content

• Prioritize and limit your messages (limit them to 3 or 4).

• Customize your presentation to meet the needs of the audience or organization. 

• Answer the two key questions every audience has for every speaker and topic: Who cares? and Why should I care? 

• Make sure they understand you (refrain from using jargon, buzzwords, and technical terms and phrases your audience may not understand).

Rehearse

• Practice your presentation, but not to the point where it sounds memorized.

Don’t Talk to Strangers

• Greet people as they arrive (this will guarantee that you will not be speaking to strangers, but to people you’ve just met). 

Waiting to Go on

• Take one last bathroom break (better safe than sorry).

• While waiting to be introduced or, if on a panel, do not look bored or distracted while others are speaking (pay attention!). 

Delivery

• Know your stuff (your material, arguments, facts and figures).

• Know what you will say to open and conclude your remarks, and eliminate any unnecessary information in between. 

• Be sure to thank them for inviting you. 

• Tell them why you are there (don’t assume they know).

• Show your story, don’t just tell it (find and use charts, slides, props, etc.).

• Keep the audience awake (don’t bore them).

• Don’t get rattled if you forget some of your points; the audience will not know what you forgot to say. 

• Arrange for someone to give you a two-minute warning (don’t speak longer than scheduled). 

• Do not thank them for listening (it’s demeaning to you and to them).

• Give the audience the gift of time (end early).

Greening Your Event: The Attendee Experience

Part 3 of of 3-part series

Today's guest post was contributed by Cara Unterkofler. She is Director of Sustainable Event Programs at Greenview.

While it’s true the majority of your event’s carbon footprint is generated by things your attendees will never see, there are many additional practices that will affect your attendees' experience—and how they evaluate your brand.

According to GreenBiz, more than 80 percent of a typical company’s market valuation today is intangible, up from only 18 percent in 1975. 

That means the cheesy give-aways, the absence of recycling bins, and the over-abundance of unnecessary printing are sending your attendees a message about your brand, and affecting your organization's worth.

Likewise, seeing that you printed all your materials on FSC-certified paper; that you planted a tree for every attendee (to offset emissions and rebuild ecosystems); and that you provided a menu of seasonal, healthy foods also sends attendees a message: your organization is progressive and mindful, and is leading the way toward a community worth being part of.

Greening Your Event: The Venue

Part 2 of of 3-part series

Today's guest post was contributed by Cara Unterkofler. She is Director of Sustainable Event Programs at Greenview.

If selecting your destination is the most important sustainability decision you'll make, the second most important sustainability decision concerns your hotel and venue partners, which in many cases are the same building. They comprise 70-90% of your event’s non-travel footprint.

To select an efficient and sustainable hotel or venue, you don’t need to brush up on energy efficiency and water conservation, or create a mile-long RFP no one has time to read. 

In the case of hotels, you can start by seeking out properties with reputable third-party ratings such as LEED or Green Key. Ask the hotel for a fact sheet on the its sustainability initiatives, so you can stay up-to-date on best practices. And ask what the property can offer your attendees. For example, Starwood Hotels can pre-enroll your room block in its “Make a Green Choice” program.

Greening Your Event: The Impact of Destination

Part 1 of a 3-part series

Today's guest post was contributed by Cara Unterkofler. She is Director of Sustainable Event Programs at Greenview.

The environmental impact of an event can be measured using various metrics. 

One popular metric is the event’s "carbon footprint."

The graph (representing a large citywide event with a substantial expo) shows that the largest contributor to an event’s carbon footprint is the fuel used by attendees to travel to the destination (fuel represents around 80%). And don’t forget there's freight being shipped along with them, representing another 5-15% of an event’s total carbon emissions.

This means you don’t have to understand carbon footprinting and the science of greenhouse gases and climate change to make a huge difference, when it comes to sustainability; nor go digital; nor figure out if your printer uses vegetable-based inks.

It simply means you need to select an event location that is close to attendees and, ideally, accessible by car or train. 

You’re likely already doing that, so keep it up and feel good that you’re not only increasing your odds of greater attendance, but having a positive effect on climate change from the comfort of your office.

What Do Gen Xers Want from Tradeshows?

Part 1 of a 2-part series

New psychographic research from Amsterdam RAI says organizers need to show Gen Xers a special brand of love to attract them to tradeshows.

“Generation Xers are very pragmatic when it comes to making decisions, mainly because they suffer the most from the current economic crisis,” the RAI says.

“They are not loyal if they can get a better deal somewhere else. They often have a cynical world view and are very conscious of media and marketing. Many of them are project parents, which describes the over-involvement when it comes to their children.”

As a result, the RAI recommends organizers:

• Rationalize Gen Xers' costs to participate and offer guaranties.
• Be transparent and play to Gen Xers' cynicism.
• Cater to Gen Xers' helicopter-parent lifestyles.

10 Steps to Better Media Coverage for Your Association

Association executive Edward Segal, CAE, wrote today's guest post. He is CEO of the Marin Association of Realtors and the author of several exceptional books on public relations.

Associations face two important challenges in generating the publicity they want. First, it's impossible to know what stories every reporter, editor, or blogger is working on or may be planning. Second, if journalists don't know your organization exists, they'll never think to contact you for quotes or information for their stories.

Your association can quickly overcome these hurdles by becoming a resource to as many news outlets as possible. Here are 10 steps to help make that happen:

1.   Take stock and cast a wide net. Make a list of all the topics and issues in which your organization has knowledge, expertise, or information. With this list in hand, identify the news organizations, as well as Websites and blogs, that follow or might have an interest in these matters. To ensure you haven't missed anyone, conduct a search of relevant keywords and phrases in Google's Web, blog, and news categories.

2.    Initiate contact. Send emails to appropriate contacts at these outlets to tell them about the topics and issues in which your organization has expertise. Explain that your association wants to be a resource for their stories in these areas, and ask how you can be of help in upcoming articles.

3.    Stay in touch. Reach out to these reporters on a regular basis. By staying on their radar, journalists are more likely to think of you when they need you. But don't become a pest.

4.    Alert yourself. Set up Google Alert for the topics and issues for which you'd like to generate additional publicity for your organization. Evaluate the results and, as appropriate, contact the editors, reporters, and bloggers to offer your organization as a resource on future stories. If you contact them quickly enough and have something to contribute, they might include you in updates to those stories.

5.    Cast an even wider net. Join one or more online services that provide subscribers with inquiries from journalists, or help link experts with reporters. These sites include Help a Reporter Out, Muck Rack, PR Newswire's ProfNet, The Yearbook of Experts, and Radio-TV Interview Report.

6.    Don't wait. Respond immediately to all media inquiries. Whether reporters are on deadline or not, the sooner you get back to them, the more likely it is that you will have an opportunity to be a resource. Given the competition organizations face for publicity and the deadlines under which reporters work, the expiration dates of these opportunities may be very short.  

7.    Give good quotes. Journalists can be inclined to interview people who have demonstrated that they can give good quotes. When reporters see you've been interviewed by other news organizations, they may seek to contact you for interviews for their own stories. Consider your sound bites to be auditions that can lead to additional publicity opportunities.  

8.   Get a room. Establish a "press room" page on your Website. Make it as easy as possible for visiting journalists and bloggers to immediately see your association's areas of knowledge and expertise and how to contact designated spokespeople. Keep press materials current and ensure that links to news stories where your organization is mentioned are working.

9.    Plan ahead. News organizations may post editorial calendars on their Websites, or will be glad to send them to you on request. The calendars can be an early warning system about future stories: armed with this advance notice, you might be able to position your organization as a resource to the reporter or editor and wind up with more coverage for your association.

10.  Be patient. Providing journalists with whom you've had no prior dealings with tips and information for their stories can be an investment in time and resources. Sometimes the payoff will be immediate, such as a quote, attribution, or profile. At other times, your efforts may take some time to bear fruit. But if you don't try, the payoff will be zero.

How to Succeed in Business without Really Spying

Ninjas were 16th century James Bonds who were tapped by their samurai masters for the dirty work of spying, sabotage and assassination.

Gary Shapiro, head of the Consumer Electronics Association, thinks ninjas created the die from which today's business winners are cast.

He draws out that comparison entertainingly in his new 250-page book Ninja Innovation: The Ten Killer Strategies of the World's Most Successful Businesses.

"Ninja innovation is my catch-all phrase for what it takes to succeed," Shapiro writes in the introduction. 

"You have to display the qualities of the ancient Japanese ninja, whose only purpose was to complete the job. He wasn't bound by precedent; he had to invent new ways."

In defining ninja innovation, Shapiro offers a quasi-memoir that might have been titled My Life in Consumer Electronics. 

The stories are fun and the major characters—including Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos, Mark Cuban and Mark Zuckerberg—mostly notable.

From the book we learn that business innovators, though not literally given to spying, like James Bond are particularly single-minded. They don't think twice about breaking the "rules of the game" to win.

Shapiro scatters among the lessons lengthy gripes about US immigration policy, government regulation and unions, leftovers from his first book, The Comeback.

But the fresh material—especially his inside look at lobbying and the history of the Consumer Electronics Show—makes Shapiro's new book worth reading.

In an interview, I asked him whether business success demands that you play the tough guy.

"Absolutely not," Shapiro replied. "In fact, that's a recipe for not being successful. Instead, you have to think like a ninja. You have to be clever, creative, and think outside the box. You have to set a goal and relentlessly pursue it. You have to have a plan and a strategy and you have to be focused."

You're Producing Your Own Video. What's the Point?

Washington, DC-based writer/producer Dan Bailes contributed today's post. He has created shows for American Diabetes Association, National Association of Realtors, National Geographic and Urban Land Institute.

First, to power up your video, ask yourself, what’s the point?

 

What are you trying to accomplish and why?

Second, ask yourself how your product or service benefits your target audience.

And show it!

Best yet, show real people who have benefited from what you have to offer.

Third, have them tell their stories in their own words. 

Authenticity is key and that’s a great way to convince your audience of the benefit of what you have to offer.

Fourth, shorter is better. 

Fifth, if you spent all those years gaining vital experience to excel at what you do, why do you think you can just do the video yourself? 

Sorry about that, but hire a pro. 

It will make all the difference. 

And that’s the whole point, right?

Guns Don't Kill People. Associations Do.

The lonesome death of Trayvon Martin has prompted me to wonder why.


Why did George Zimmerman shoot a 17 year-old kid strolling down the road, minding his own business?


I've followed the chain of causation from that gated community in Florida back to its original link.


The chain leads to the doorsteps of a handful of pro-gun associations.


It's no secret: associations, when sufficiently funded and mobilized, are powerful packagers and pushers of legislation.


In this case, the legislation sold by those associations promotes and protects vigilantism.


I'm no "criminal coddler," but vigilantism isn't ground I can stand on, or for, or behind.


We all should tremble when the National Rifle Association, the Gun Owners of America and the National Association for Gun Rights want to talk bullet points.