Every Service Failure Levels the Playing Field

A mammoth corporation like this―it embodies too much experience. 

It possesses in fact a sort of group mind.

― Philip K. Dick

Organizational theorists believe every big business is a collective mind, and that performance "depends on coordinating the distributed knowledge and activities of the collective’s members."

When a big business screws up a simple transaction―more and more the norm―it obliterates the value of that vast, collective mind―opening the way for a small business to steal the disaffected customer.

Execs should think about that when tempted to cut more corners on talent, technology and time-frames.

All the money, bravado and best-practice babble in the world won't make you stronger than your weakest link.

Covfefe

Blogger Josh Bernoff has discovered the meaning of the word "covfefe" in the president's famous and now-deleted Tweet.

"Here’s what the word 'covfefe' means: It means 'I am a crazy person,'" Bernoff says.

"This president is not a master manipulator of media. He is a wacko with little grasp of reality that says the first thing that comes into his mind. That is the meaning of 'covfefe.' It’s a variant of 'crazy.'"

Many critics of the president have reached a similar conclusion.

But do typos imply the writer is dotty? Or are they, as sociologists argue, joyful centerpieces of digital writing?

"Digital writing is inherently playful, first of all, because the medium, the computer, invites participants to 'fiddle,' and to invoke the frame of 'make-believe,'” says Brenda Danet. 

"When this frame is operating, participants understand and accept the meta-message 'this is play.'”

Digital writing's hallmarks, Danet says, are four: haste, ephemerality, interactivity, and freedom from the "tyranny" of paper. In essence, digital writing is just like kibitzing, a stream-of-conscious game people play. There, like lots of nonsense, typos are the rule.

So do typos ever matter?

They do, in my book, when they riddle public-facing communications, because they open you to ridicule.

Ridiculous people (and brands) aren't merely hacks: they're clowns. 

And clowns aren't trustworthy. 

Clowns can even be scary. 

Or covfefe, if you prefer.

Delivering Bad News

Leaders can learn a lot from FDR.

A champ in many ways, he was at his most masterful where bad news was concerned—and there was a storm of it while he was president.

In April 1942, he told a radio audience that, due to war, "everyone will have the privilege of making whatever self-denial is necessary."

FDR provided no sugarcoating.

“The blunt fact is that every single person in the United States is going to be affected."

But he went on to say, "'Sacrifice" is not exactly the proper word with which to describe this program of self-denial. When, at the end of this great struggle we shall have saved our free way of life, we shall have made no 'sacrifice.'"


Americans responded patriotically.

Leaders are like that. From fails to fiascos, downturns to downsizings, they have the steady job of delivering bad news.

Georgetown University management professor Robert Bies recommends these 10 rules for mastering your delivery of bad news:

• Never surprise anyone. You’re shirking your duty by keeping bad news to yourself.


• Never stall. “Bad news delayed is bad news compounded,” Bies says.


• Never cover up. Withholding information will only lead others to draw false conclusions.


• Always put it in writing. A paper trail will one day be important.


• Always justify. Provide “specific and concrete reasons for the bad news.”


• Always give hope. Emphasizing the positive and temporary aspects of bad news can boost morale, as FDR knew.


• Always offer solutions. Solutions put the focus on future improvement. “Bad news without solutions is truly bad news.”


• Always consider every audience. “Remember when delivering bad news that the news never reaches just one; it reaches many.”


• Always follow through. “Bad news involves cleaning up a mess. After cleaning, let everyone know. Now the news is no longer bad; it is good.”


• Always show respect. You’re not just communicating bad news; you’re communicating it to human beings.

The last rule is the cardinal one, Bies says; and the one most often broken, as I can attest.

I was laid off, fortunately, only once in my career.

While, as an executive at the company, I was privy to the financial setbacks that preceded the event, when the bad news arrived, via telephone on the Monday before Thanksgiving, the very first thing I was told was that “the decision was easy.”

I grasped at the moment the words that were said (“Marketing is a luxury”).

I’ll never grasp why they they were said.

If You Have to Ask, You Can't Afford It

A new study from Cornell's Center for Hospitality Research shows restaurants will soon start charging diners for reservations.

"This is a logical extension of the revenue management principle of pricing a service to match demand," says Sheryl Kimes, co-author of the study.

Some app providers already charge a premium for hard-to-get reservations at trendy spots; and some auction off those reservations.

Demand, surge and dynamic pricing in fact surrounds us (think of your electricity company, local toll roads and summer rental properties), even though—as Uber recently learned—it's considered inhospitable.

Only restaurateurs and economists—who insist it boosts supply—would say demand pricing isn't just plain, old-fashioned price gouging.

What would you say?

Nichecraft

"Find a niche, not a nation," Seth Godin says in The Bootstrapper's Bible.

Niche is a time-honored business term and an ancient idea. It literally means a "pigeonhole," and derives from the Latin for nest.

Finding yours means your craft never has to compete on price, because your flock needs you/relies on you/likes you/talks about you/cares about you.

Take, for example, Joe Smith, an ornithologist, independent researcher and top blogger for The Nature Conservancy.

Because he practices his craft with skill and diligence, Joe Smith's flock needs him/relies on him/likes him/talks about him/cares about him.

"There's no such thing as a niche that's too small if the people care enough," Seth Godin also says.

Have you found your niche?

DISCLOSURE: Joe Smith is my son-in-law. Check out Cool Green Science.

The Blog as a PR Tool

Master marketer Edward Segal contributed today's post. Edward helps organizations generate publicity about their activities and shows leaders, staff and members how to deliver effective presentations.

A blog is a fast and easy PR tool you can use to promote your knowledge and expertise to a wide audience.

But like other PR tools, blogs should be used for specific reasons and with the hope of achieving particular results. Writing a blog for the sake of seeing your name on the screen is not publicity. It's vanity. Just like issuing a news release when you have nothing to say, a “content-free” blog does little to establish or enhance a positive reputation for you or your company.

Here are some tips for blogging the right way and for the right reasons:

• Create a comprehensive list of your knowledge, expertise, or services. Then prioritize the topics that are most important to you and write what you know about.

• Follow the blog posts of others to see what they have to say on the topics you want to write about. Instead of simply repeating that they’ve already said, find something new or interesting to write about the matter. Posting new and original material will help you stand out from the crowd. Unless, of course, you are more interested in being an echo chamber instead of a fresh voice.

• Depending on the blogging platform you choose to you, you can have a big say in deciding how large or small you’d like your potential audience to be. If you think bigger will be better, and then include a link to your blog on your Web site, social media platforms, e-mail signature, etc.

• Decide how much feedback, if any, you want from your audience. While encouraging dialog among followers of your blog can lead to a larger audience, you also run the risk of losing control of the nature and focus of the content. This is not a bad thing if you want to build an online community, but it could also be frustrating if you think “your” blog has been hijacked by others.

• Plan your blogging activities as if they were like any other important part of your marketing activity. Because they are!

• Experiment with different blogging formats (e.g., word-based versus video-based) before making a final decision about the kind of blog you want to do. If you are more comfortable in front of a keyboard instead of a camera, then launching a YouTube-based blog will not be best for you. How you blog will dictate the platform you should employ.

• If you already have an established reputation, reinforce that image with appropriate blog posts. If you are just starting out in business and have no brand, think long and hard about what you want people to know and think about you. Then take steps to ensure that the content you post does not stray from that desired reputation.

• Keep current on trends and developments in your industry, profession, or areas of expertise. To receive the latest news, set up Google Alerts for key words, phrases and topics you want to follow.

• After you’ve had an opportunity to try your hand with blogging, have an honest conversation with yourself about the experience. Does blogging make sense for you? Is it something that you really want to continue doing, or has it becomes a drag? Every PR activity should be done for the right reasons. Don’t let your blog become a slog.

The Experience Stack

A race is on to deliver "the experience stack," says Mike Wadhera in TechCrunch.

Mobility has fundamentally changed computing, he says.

While desktop computing was all about your timeline-based profile (think Facebook), mobile computing is about in-the-moment self-expression (think Snapchat).

With the onrush of mobility, "You are not a profile. You are simply you."

We've all become, in effect, amateur auteurs. 

"The stories we tell each other now begin and end visually, making the narrative more literal than ever," Wadhera says.

Providers are racing to monopolize mobility by building a pile of immersive toys he calls the experience stack (pictured here).

"The full stack is in service of capturing and communicating real-world moments," Wadhera says. "Reality is its foundation. As you move up, the layers transition from physical to logical. At the top is the application layer made up of products like Snapchat Live and Periscope."

Tomorrow’s toys will boggle our storyteller's brains, Wadhera says.

"Our online and offline identities are converging, the stories we tell each other now start and end visually and investments at every layer of a new stack are accelerating the development of experience-driven products. Taken together, these trends have cracked open the door for a new golden age of technology."

Bad-fit Buyers

Caveat venditor: Bad-fit buyers are everywhere.

"Every new customer you bring on who isn’t the right fit presents a churn risk," says Dan Tyre on Hubspot.

Churn is a risk, because it opens new doors to bad reviews.

What are the signs to watch for? The bad-fit buyer:

• Is considerably larger or smaller than your typical customer

• Operates in an industry outside your target market or time zone

• Is discourteous and responds to questions with emotions, rather than facts

• Doesn’t want to answer questions or makes contradictory statements

• Is unwilling to take direction and seems competitive

• Doesn’t have resources (money, time, staff)

• Seeks a "silver bullet"

• Goes from excited to apathetic and back again

• Is disorganized and can’t spend time with you

• Cancels meetings with short or no notice

• Doesn’t follow simple directions (like please read the one-page outline)

• Seems to be going through the motions

• Has to hear you say the same thing at least four times before he gets it

"Almost all prospects will show some of these indicators," Tyre says. "The key is to be 100% transparent, have open conversations with your prospects, and set expectations at every step of the process."

Should Your Brand Use Profanity?

Friday evening I had the long-delayed pleasure of seeing comedian Lewis Black perform live.

Black raises profanity to an art, using obscenities not to shock, but to amplify, and lessen the pain of living in an absurd world.

In their drive to express authentic passion, more and more brands are resorting to the use of profanity in their marketing communications.

Should you?

The answer's fairly straightforward: the reward—authenticity—may not be worth the risks. By using profanities:

• You risk going off-brand. A frighteningly profane Lewis Black would be on brand; a frighteningly profane Martha Stewart wouldn't. You can, of course, test the waters, and apologize afterwards. As Mel Brooks once said, "I've been accused of vulgarity. I say that´s bullshit."

• You risk offending good customers. The Bowdlers are still with us. Thomas and Henrietta Bowdler were English siblings who published a family-friendly edition of Shakespeare in 1807. We get the word bowdlerize from them (they replaced, for example, Lady Macbeth's cry "Out, damned spot!" with "Out, crimson spot!"). The Bowdlers of this world are easily offended. Just observe any young parent or elementary schoolteacher.

• You risk losing shares. Even people who don’t mind profanity might not share your blue content with family, friends and colleagues. The research is clear on this.

Should You Blog When You're Tiny?

You're never too tiny to blog, says blogger Lindsay Kolowich.

"Some of the most dramatic successes we've seen with blogging come from businesses in niche industries," she says.

Kolowich points to the success of tiny Conversant Bio.

The firm boosted leads seven times in 10 months by publishing six posts a month.

When it comes to blogging, the burning question isn't should, but how.

Conversant Bio found the secret to blogging success when it quit being a supplier and became a thought leader.

Instead of publishing hackneyed posts like "10 Benefits of a Tissue Sample for Research," the firm published posts about trends in cancer research.

The posts pulled prospects because they included keywords pharma researchers use when they Google—and not by accident.

Before writing any post, the firm learned the keywords prospects Google by asking cancer researchers. Its writers then created posts that included one or more keywords in the title, subheads, body and meta-tags.

Within 10 months of starting its blog, Conversant Bio saw visits swell to 34,000 a month (70% as a result of Google searches).

The firm turned readers into leads by offering them e-books based on the blog posts.

Conversant Bio's chief commercial officer anticipates a 14,500% ROI in the effort in three years.

5 Sure-Fire Steps to Thought Leadership

Master marketer Edward Segal contributed today's post. Edward helps corporations and organizations generate publicity about their activities and shows leaders, staff and members how to deliver effective presentations.

What would you rather be: a chief or just another member of the tribe? A trail blazer or trail follower? Someone who helps determine and influence the conversation or a worker bee that waits for others to establish the agenda? 

If you’d prefer to help set the pace instead of simply run the race, then the chances are you would like to be a thought leader. Here’s how to do it: 

Be an expert

• Select topics or issues about which you have knowledge.

• Have or develop a track record of writing or speaking about your topics or issues to groups and organizations in the industries or professions in which you want to be considered a thought leader.

• Stay ahead of the curve by thinking about your field beyond today and sharing predictions or forecasts that illustrate your authority in the field.

Be a joiner

• Join or lead groups and organizations that are more likely to help establish your role as a thought leader.

• Volunteer to serve on committees or task forces that can bolster your expertise and add to your credentials as an authority.

Be visible

• Identify, create and take advantage of appropriate opportunities for you to be seen as an expert or authority, including speeches, presentations, and media, blog, and podcast interviews.

• Post on your website or social media platforms links to articles, interviews, speeches, etc. that you have done about your areas of specialty.

• Practice your ability to prepare and deliver short, pithy and memorable quotes that will be used by journalists and bloggers in their stories about or interviews with you.

Be a student

• Keep current on the trends and developments in the areas in which you are or want to be considered an authority.

• Study other thought leaders inside and outside your industry or profession. What can you learn from their successes that you can apply to your own efforts to become or stay a thought leader? 

Be persistent

• Identify or create new opportunities to position yourself as an authority and expert.

• Maintain a blog to which you post on a regular basis, and install a widget so that people can be notified about each new post.

• Reinforce your role as a thought leader in ways that you have not done before, such as writing a book, starting a blog, becoming a public speaker, or proactively seeking media interviews and speaking opportunities.

• Set monthly, quarterly or annual goals and milestones of important activities and accomplishments that can help you become and remain a thought leader.

Becoming a thought leader can be a self-fulfilling prophecy. The more you act like you are a thought leader, the more likely it is you will become one.

Purple Prose

It's been raining solemn tributes since Thursday.

We've also had to weather a torrent of opportunistic self-promotion.

While there's still a few days to enter, right now it looks like the grand prize in Prove You're Totally Tactless goes to Cheerios for its Tweet.

A spokesman defended the effort by saying both Cheerios and Prince are Minnesotan.

Exploiting headlines works, as David Meerman Scott says.

Boorishness doesn't.

Welcome to Indenture

Employers who recruit a lot of recent grads are luring them with a new perk: student loan repayment.

Bloomberg reports that investment and consulting firms like Nataxis and   PricewaterhouseCoopers will pony up as much as $250 a month toward a candidate's college debt.

McKinsey, Bain Capital and Accenture will also pay down employees' student debt, according to The Wall Street Journal.

If you're willing to provide seed money, we can jump on the bandwagon and start up our own firm to compete with Accenture.

Indenture.

A pillar of colonial America, indenture (a version of "enforced servitude") underwrote the tobacco economy in the Chesapeake region.

Under the system, an Englishman who sought a clean start in America signed a contract that promised he'd repay his master for ship fare, clothing, and room and board by laboring for seven years. 

Women also signed the contracts.

The word indenture refers to an indentation made on each contract. When it was drawn, two copies were made. One copy was then placed over the other and an edge indented.

As a result, master and servant could always spot whether a copy might be forged (often the end-date would be changed by one or the other party.)

On a serious note: Burdensome debt is no laughing matter. It drives in part the popularity of Bernie Sanders among Millennials. As one Boomer told a group of college students, “Your generation’s debt is our generation’s draft."

Does the Events Industry Have Any Political Influence?

Michael Hart contributed today's post. He's a business consultant and writer who focuses on the event industry.

Everybody’s heard at least a little bit of the political chatter over restrictions on LGBT people in Georgia and North Carolina lately.

A week or so ago, Georgia’s governor rejected a bill the legislature passed that would have allowed businesses not to serve gay people if it conflicted with their religious beliefs. About the same time, the North Carolina state governor said of a similar bill—this one creating a law about which public restroom people are supposed to use—“Bring it on!”

According to Atlanta Convention & Visitors Bureau CEO William Pate, the billion-dollar business the events industry brings to Atlanta every year had something to do with the Georgia governor’s decision. In North Carolina, a statement from the High Point Market Executive Committee made it clear customers are already starting to pull out of its event later this month—and North Carolina Gov. Pat McCrory isn’t budging.

So, did lobbying on behalf of the events industry make a difference in Georgia, but not North Carolina?

The truth is that it’s hard to know. While those of us who run tradeshows, conventions and conferences feel like we’re pretty important people—especially when we bring a citywide to town—the reality is that, compared to other industries, we’re small change.

But our customers are the real thing. And the fact that companies like Disney and Coca-Cola feel a need to take a political position in order to retain their customers tells you something about how much the way they approach their businesses has changed over the years. They aren’t just merely responding to markets anymore; they’re responding to the sentiments of their customers in ways that go beyond whether they’ll pay a certain price for a certain product.

Nothing in business is as simple as it once was—and that applies to the events industry as well. Yes, there are show organizers who still get away with selling their quota of 10 x 10s every year and creating a lineup of PowerPoint presentations by sponsors that they then call a conference program. But their days are numbered.

As customers in every part of the business world change how they do business, so must event organizers.

Thinkers Thrive

Sales gurus call the ultimate customer relationship that of "trusted advisor."

But what is a trusted advisor?

"A trusted advisor is an expert, someone who brings you a new idea or teaches you something she has learned about your industry," Jim Clifton, CEO of Gallup, told members of the Direct Marketing Association of Washington at last night's annual meeting.

If you're not your customers' trusted advisor, you'll inevitably have to compete on price alone, Clifton said. 

And inevitably go broke in the process.

Of course, you can stay off the radar and earn the trusted advisor label by dint of hard work.

Or you can use a little marketing to help you by cementing your stance as a "thought leader."

Becoming a thought leader is a six-step process, says blogger Maddy Osman.

1. Follow and comment on news in your niche

Make connections that will alert you to breaking news, then toss in your two cents. "Finding ways to make industry connections will help your company move from news consumer to news creator," Osman says.

2. Be disagreeable

Thought leaders find ""the sweet spot between saying something that not everyone will agree with, and completely stirring the pot with a controversial opinion."

3. Be nice

Be generous with praise and thanks for those who engage with and support you.

4. Hunt for exposure

Seek and jump on every opportunity to collaborate on a content marketing project.

5. Be charitable

Except for perhaps an email address, don't ask people for anything in return for your thoughts.

6. Get out and speak

Speak at and sponsor key industry conferences, and never refuse speaking opportunities at smaller events.

2 Huge Mistakes that Will Sink Even Your Strongest Event

Warwick Davies contributed today's post. With 25 year's experience running conferences and trade shows, he owns and operates The Event Mechanic!

Having been around in the business a while, I have had the luxury of watching great shows come and go, like watching cruise ships in the harbor. 

What are the critical factors that will hasten the decline of an event? I’d boil them down to two:

1. Losing positive engagement with your key stakeholders, who are: 

• Top 10 sponsors
• Top 10 content drivers or thought leaders
• Top 10 attendee groups
• Top 10 suppliers (hotels and general service contractors)

Someone has spent years building the relationships that grew the event to be a market leader. As the event grew, you may have started to take things for granted or gotten greedy, with large profits rolling in, and forgot the nuts and bolts of keeping relationships healthy and mutually profitable. As the market grew, your competitors became hungrier than you, and started treating your stakeholders better than you, and they started to drift.

2. Not knowing what’s going on in your market from a DNA level 

Is your knowledge of your marketplace ‘imported?” Are you part of the market or just serving it?  If the latter, how do you know which innovations to feature without being too forward or not forward enough? 

That’s the bad news. How do you reverse the trends? Just do the opposite of the above: make a commitment to keep all your relationships healthy and your knowledge current and relevant. Resting on your laurels in this business is going to eventually end in disaster…

What's in a Name?

Your name speaks volumes about your brand's personality.

Brand names can be descriptive ("Toys 'R' Us"), abstract ("Aloxi") or evocative ("Uber").

Rational brand names ("IBM") appeal to our inner accountant. 

But brand names can also pack emotional punch—positive or negative—as wordsmith Nancy Friedman says.

Friedman lumps emotionally charged names into six categories:

Old words. The right Anglo-Saxon, Anglo-Norman or Norse word "makes us feel warm and welcomed," Friedman says. "Kindle" is an example. "Many successful brand names draw on this old-word resonance to soften a new idea."

Sense words. "Sight, sound, smell, touch and taste are direct routes to an emotional response," Friedman says. "Bevel," for example, names a brand of men's shaving supplies.

Nature words. A name plucked from nature "inspires and soothes, challenges and restores." "Sequoia" names a venture capital firm.

Art words. The language of the arts "can remind us of pleasurable, even transcendent experiences." "Allegra" is a prime example.

Adventure words. Pirate a word from an adventure tale and you'll stir feelings of excitement and exoticism. "Mandalay Bay" is an example.

Personal names. Real and fictional people's names can evoke "friendliness and reassurance." "Lynda" names an e-learning company.

Consider your band name carefully, but don't tear out your hair over the choice.

Remember the words of W.C. Fields: “It ain't what they call you, it's what you answer to.”

Fish Story

Here's a story with a hook.

Skift reports SeaWorld's CEO, after denying his employees posed as animal rights activists to infiltrate PETA, has admitted to conducting a covert operation.

In a report to stockholders, Joel Manby acknowledged corporate spies were sent by SeaWorld "to maintain the safety and security of employees, customers and animals in the face of credible threats.”

But a PETA spokesperson says SeaWorld sent agents provocateurs to bait PETA's people.

“SeaWorld’s corporate espionage campaign tried to coerce kind people into setting SeaWorld on fire or draining its tanks, which would have hurt the animals, in an attempt to distract from its cruelty and keep PETA from exposing the miserable lives of the animals it imprisons,” Tracy Reiman said.

SeaWorld's spokespeople have clammed up, claiming further comment would disclose "confidential business information related to the company’s security practices."

SeaWorld has been angling to fix its damaged brand for three years, after the movie Blackfish sent park attendance reeling and put profits in the tank.

As a case study in floundering PR, this one's a keeper.

Poser = Loser

Authenticity isn't a strategy, says "hippie marketer" Tad Hargrave, so "stop trying to be so authentic."

Authenticity isn't a target or a tagline or a tone; and you can't get it by posing.

"There’s the old story of the archer who misses his shot because his eye is on the trophy he wants to win and not the bullseye," Hargrave says.

Forget authenticity. Aim, instead, for transparency.

If your organization is sales driven, be salesy. If it's tech focused, be geeky. If it's bureaucratic, be stately.

To win customers' trust, first trust yourself.

By playing a game of bait and switch, posers wind up losers.

Customers aren't gullible.

As Mad Man David Ogilvy said, "The consumer isn’t a moron; she is your wife.”

Chipotle Serves Up Nonsense

"I have a bluntness problem," says a character in Mozart in the Jungle.

I wish Chipotle had.

Fresh from rehab, the chain tells us it's cured, in a January 19 news release:

Chipotle’s enhanced food safety program is the product of a comprehensive reassessment of its food safety practices conducted with industry leading experts that included a farm-to-fork assessment of each ingredient Chipotle uses with an eye toward establishing the highest standards for safety.

Chipotle may now wash dirt off its tomatoes.

But it obviously won't scrub its announcements of corporatese.

Jargon destroys credibility, as journalist Phil Simon says.

Philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein called quaggy statements like Chipotle's nonsense.

And as he insisted, there is no such thing as deep and important nonsense.

There is only one kind of nonsense, and it's fundamentally suspect.

PS: To be blunt, I would've advised Chipotle to say, We asked food-safety experts to help us improve both our own and our suppliers' procedures.