A Little Mystery Goes a Long Way

The statue on the altar is never reverenced by him
who knew it as a trunk in the garden.

― Balthasar Gracian

Transparency's in vogue, but a little mystery goes a long way.

Sometimes you have to leave home for your talents to be appreciated; sometimes you have to appear foreign.

You're respected in a new place when you come from afar, because you're seen as ready-made and perfect; and respected by the folks back home, because you're seen only from a distance.

Cashing in on Events

Bloomberg is doubling down on events, according to Politico.

The business media giant has hired veteran exec Stephen Colvin to expand its two-year-old global events division.

"As with many media companies striving to develop new revenue streams, events are becoming a more prominent component of Bloomberg's journalism lineup," says Politico's Joe Pompeo.

A spokesman for Bloomberg says the company is "well positioned to be the leading convener of business and financial events around the world."

Sponsorship revenue from Bloomberg's five events is up 30% from 2015.

When will associations cash in on events?

Failure to Communicate

The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion
that it has taken place.

― George Bernard Shaw

Clarity is king is my tagline, because communication and comprehension are different things.

In Harvard Business Review, business professor Donald Sull tells the story of a CEO who held monthly meetings to communicate strategy.

The CEO was pleased with herself after an employee survey showed 84% of her managers agreed with the statement, “I am clear on our organization’s top priorities.”

But when a follow-up survey asked the managers to list the top five strategies, fewer than 33% could name even two.

When the same survey is conducted at other companies, results show, on average, only 55% of middle managers can name even one company strategy.

That figure plummets to 16%, when frontline managers take the survey.

Why does communication so often fail?

Sull gives three reasons. CEOs:

• Dilute the message. One company he studied has not only a long list of corporate strategies and objectives, but a list of corporate priorities, a list of corporate values, a list of core competencies, and a dictionary of strategic terms.
  
  
• Change the message constantly.
  
  
• Measure communication of the message by inputs—documents, e-mails and meetings—instead of understanding, "the only metric that actually counts."

Events are for the Rest of Us

Most companies aren't great; indeed, they struggle to stay "good."

And that average ordinariness is what events are for.

Gartner Group upset the apple cart in 2011 when it predicted that by 2020, thanks to martech, B2B customers would manage 85% of their relationships with suppliers without ever interacting with a human being.

But in the years since, the event spend has grown by double digits. Last year alone, it grew by 6% (today, events are used by 73% of B2B marketers.)

So did Gartner get it terribly wrong?

Advocates of events say, yes: Gartner's prediction will never come true because we crave contact.

Advocates of martech say, no: martech adoption is merely lagging Gartner's prediction.

I think there's another reason for B2B events' enduring popularity.

The reason's economic, and lies in average ordinariness.

While the owners of the overwhelming majority of companies would love to lay off everyone, they can't afford best-in-class martech. They're good, but not great.

But the overwhelming majority can afford events... and that's okay.

The Long Halloween

The threat to man does not come at first from the potentially lethal machines and apparatus of technology. The actual threat has already affected man in his essence.

—Martin Heidegger

Heidegger said technology would either crush or uplift mankind, depending on our response to it. 2017 may be the year we learn which.

A minority of spiteful and uninformed voters has elected a Commander in Tweet. Every day, he dispenses candy-coated lies, for which we're to be grateful. Every day is Halloween.

And what costume are you wearing? Stormtrooper or Rebel?

Assist or resist; there's no middle ground.

NOTE: Opinions expressed on this blog are my own.