Badvertising: FedEx

FedEx has, for years, done great advertising. A new ad I saw this week doesn't measure up, however.

A confident looking, bearded Phil Knight-esqe CEO is sitting with a bunch of people, outside in a beautiful mountain environment. He says, "Thank you for coming to this offsite. I'm looking for ideas to make our company better."

A young girl, about junior high school age, is sitting in the circle of adult workers. She says, "We can start sending all of our packages with FedEx. Overnight, ground ... everything." The CEO says, "Great. Thanks for coming. You can all go home now."

Oh. So business is that simple? Just change the way you ship stuff? And, the idea of young kids being smarter about business than adults is so 1998.

Winning

Well, Jack Welch has a new book out, called Winning and you'd have to be living in a hole to have missed the massive press on the new leadership bible.

Since it's not REALLY available until April 5th, we wanted to note its eminent and imminent arrival, but save our critique until we've actually read it next week.

What Exactly Is A Brand?

On BusinessWeek Online, Christopher Kenton wrote this piece a few weeks back which seems to have had quite the blog half-life, getting picked up, picked apart, picked over and rehashed umpteen times.

Here's where it started:

"Your brand is your name, your logo, your trade dress. You own it. There are clearly written laws to protect it. It is tangible enough to put a price on it. And yet, an entire generation of marketers has found a way to obscure the obvious, to make the brand more fantastic, to make it hard enough to understand that you need consultants to help you figure it out."

Here's where it's going:

Let's step back and consider the concept of brand again. What is one the most fundamental attributes of a strong brand? Consistency. A consistent presentation across time and medium. So why are we so incapable of applying the same concept to our own profession?

Kenton's blog is Marketonomy: Unforgetting The Laws of Marketing.

New HP CEO II

How will business leaders measure Mark Hurd's success as CEO of HP?

What's your opinion? Analysts say Mark Hurd, the new CEO of HP, is known as an operational cost cutter ... but not [for] growing market share ... a mystery pick out of left field ... a strong contrast to Fiorina ... did a good job as CEO of NCR, a company that is not on the radar screen ... etc. Can he do it? Only time will tell.

Nobody is fully qualified for the HP job; there is none like it. What Hurd demonstrated at NCR is a canny mix of strategic vision and team management, coupled with hard-headed cost control. HP needs the first two like Apollo 13 needed Houston. How he will be measured will be based on the definition of "it."

According to Tom, a great leader will have passion, a great imagination, understand the role of culture in a company's success, act with entrepreneurship in making and executing decisions, engage the customers, hire and develop great people to be greater, have personal integrity and an ability to embrace the ongoing business disruptions. The nominating committee had these criteria in their position specification, and for Mark, put check marks next to them. (Add "risk taker" and "money maker.")

Will Mark Hurd be measured on these criteria or on the stock price and profits? What's your vote on this week's CEO poll?

Extreme Open Houses

Okay, maybe extreme is the most overused word around these days, but the point of this article from the Boston Globe is that when it comes to selling a house these days, the experience is where it's at. But then, we all knew that anyway, right?

New HP CEO

Do you find the style of reporting in this Reuters wire story different from the style in this AP wire story?

Event Slides: NZ

Tom is speaking again on March 30th at the Better by Design 2005 Conference in Auckland, and since it is already tomorrow there, the slides are up at our site now for the convenience of our friends halfway around the world. Tom's really getting into the topic of design, so he's produced three presentations for one appearance: Keynote Two, The Design49 (a subset of Keynote Two), and The Power Is the Story (a variation on a special presentation posted on tp.com 15 October 2004).

Hello, New Zealand! You rock! (As all film fans found out by seeing Lord of the Rings.)

Orange is the New Pink

Finally! Dan Pink's new web site has gone live. He's got a blog there and info about the new book, A Whole New Mind. And it's got a bright orange cover. Orange is hot! I just spoke with Dan yesterday, so we'll be posting a Cool Friend interview soon.

Tom's jacket blurb reads, "This book is a miracle. On the one hand, it provides a completely original and profound analysis of the most pressing personal and economic issue of the days ahead—how the gargantuan changes wrought by technology and globalization are going to impact the way we live and work and imagine our world. Then Dan Pink provides an equally original and profound and practical guidebook for survival—and joy—in this topsy-turvy environment. I was moved and disturbed and exhilarated all at once. A few years ago, Peter Drucker wondered whether the modern economy would ever find its Copernicus. With this remarkable book, we just may have discovered our Copernicus for the brave new age that's accelerating into being."

Design is Hot in New Zealand

Tom's in New Zealand, kicking off a three-day national design boot camp.

Event Slides: New Zealand

Tom is giving a keynote for the Better by Design 2005 Conference in Auckland, New Zealand. Get the slides here.

Cool Friend: Bill Birchard

Bill Birchard's most recent book is Nature's Keepers: The Remarkable Story of How the Nature Conservancy Became the Largest Environmental Organization in the World. He describes the book this way:

[Richard Goodwin] was not the founder of the organization, but he was the first one to exercise a kind of leadership that really moved it up a level in its growth. In telling his story, I really tell the story of the founding of the Conservancy. I then go through people from subsequent decades in sort of fast-forward way up to 2003, when I tell the story of the crisis that the Conservancy faced when the Washington Post did a three-day, front-page series on some of the conflicts of interest and mistakes the Conservancy had made. So by going through these peoples' stories, I bring in a lot of history. And by the time you're done, you know pretty much how the Conservancy has come to be what it is today.

To read more, see his Cool Friends interview here.

Forrester Magazine

One more reason we love blogs. Forrester Research has launched a new print magazine with no advertising. Fine. We were sure to find out about it soon enough, but from blogs, you can get a very unique perspective on an event. Renée Blodgett, a very well-known and mega-connected PR maven out of San Francisco, describes a dinner she attended thrown by Forrester to announce the magazine to PR folks in the Bay Area on her excellent blog, Down The Avenue.

Also, don't miss her thumbs up/thumbs down wrap-up on "digital world winners and losers" which Forrester CEO George Colony asked the assembled crowd to discuss and vote on.

From quirky to blah

"I'm happy to share some exciting news: Ofoto is now the Kodak EasyShare Gallery!" That's what the email from Dan Carp, CEO of Eastman Kodak, told us Ofoto members. "The Kodak EasyShare Gallery will continue to offer easy access to your photos ...," yada yada.

Fine, but I'm stuck on the name. "Ofoto" was a cool name. "Kodak EasyShare Gallery" is so bland and corporate that it makes you wonder why a business can't appreciate quirkiness. Plus, Kodak has just made it well nigh impossible for us to talk about their service. "Just stick the snap on Ofoto" works a whole lot better than "Tell you what, chums, I'll upload that new digital image onto the Kodak EasyShare Gallery. Then we can EasyShare it the Kodak Gallery way!"

Name five honest pleasures in life that aren't quirky. The only one I can think of is a cold drink on a hot day. The rest: Quirky.

Special customers

First, it's a honor and a treat to get to do some guest-blogging at Sir Tom's site!

I came across a paper today from May 2003—ages ago!—called An Analysis of Netflix's DVD Allocation System that explains the way Netflix figures out who gets a DVD when there are more requests than copies. Summary: "... new and low cost customers can 'cut in line' ahead of other customers."

Not shocking. When people pay $18/month to rent as many DVDs as they want for as long as they want—although you can't have more than 3 out at a time—you have to have some way of deciding who gets the first copies. But line cutting is so unfair! Worse, manuelsweb puts it in terms of Netflix punishing those who get more than 9 DVDs in a month.

It is a fact that some customers are more valuable than others. It just irks us—well, me anyway—to see that fact acknowledged. "Lucky bastards in first class! What did they do to deserve it?" And, yes, when I get to upgrade and the Coach Folks file by to cubic footage so meagre that veal cows have more leg room, I do feel awkward. Don't you?

(Thanks to Ramit Sethi at Captology for the link.)

A Referral

We recently got an email from Cool Friend David Wolfe, coauthor of Ageless Marketing, referring us to his blog to read some entries we might appreciate. The passage that grabbed me when I took his suggestion was this:

Last week U.S. News and World Report cover story was "Mysteries of the Mind" by Marianne Szegedy-Maszak. The article told about researchers' findings that 95% of mental activity involved in a decision occurs outside of consciousness. Considering that most marketing concentrates on the conscious mind, that's a notable finding to say the least.

Wow! That strikes me as a statement that would make anybody who does any marketing at all want to learn more. (And aren't we all marketing ourselves, at least?) Read the USN&WR article here, or David's blog entry here.

Sorry About The Sari

Harvard Business School's Working Knowledge has published a number of interesting reports from their Conference on India and Its Neighbors.

I really liked the piece called The No Sari Zone: Asian Women At Work where Shahla Aly, a general manager at Microsoft in India tells her "dress for success" story.

Don't Throw A Wild Pitch

Follow-up to our baseball blog the other day ...

A radio interviewer asked me yesterday what I thought major league baseball would do to address its image problem. I told him what I think they would do and what I think they should do.

Baseball has a big marketing/branding problem, and I won't be surprised if they address this marketing problem with traditional marketing solutions, i.e., try to advertise their way out of this mess.

[read more]

Cadillac Cool

The Escalade is putting the "cool" back into Cadillac, according to USAToday.

Decades before Lexus or Acura, Cadillac was the gold standard for American presidents, movie stars and titans of industry. But the 102-year-old brand fell on hard times in the 1980s and 1990s. The rollout of the Escalade three years ago enabled it to make a stylish splash in the world of $50,000-plus luxury SUVs.

Work-a-day World

How many hours a week do you work? The French have just abolished their 35-hour work week.

Here's the average number of hours per year that certain countries work. Can you guess which numbers go with the following countries: US, France, Korea, UK, Germany?

1,431
1,446
1,673
1,792
2,390

(And don't cheat and just Google it—actually guess.) I'll be back to give you the answer.

Better By Design!

Off to North Island New Zealand with Susan for some "mud season" R & R ... and a really cool conference. The latter is "Better By Design 2005." The Kiwis seem to know better than we do that the old jig is up! This is a partially gov't-supported Konference on Kool, as I call it. They are determined to push the already exciting nation farther & farther up the value-added chain ... with my ... Beloved DESIGN ... as Lead Dog. Can't wait to participate—slides will be posted on 29 & 30 March.

Passin' the Time ...

Leg #1, BOS to SFO. (7 hours!) Great reads:

"Can Spies Be Made Better?" in the 19 March Economist (cover) and "Fixing the FBI" in the 28 March US News & World Report (cover). Intel is Priority One in the War on Terror, and the Cold War intel culture is almost impossible to remold. The stories per se are of the utmost importance; moreover these are the Mothers of All Org-Culture Change efforts!

"The New Pitch: Do Ads Still Work" in the 28 March New Yorker. The superb media guru Ken Auletta has written a terrific piece. Perhaps because it reflects my biases. Somewhat unlike my super-pal Steve Yastrow, I believe that bad ads are a large part of advertising's problem. Good Auletta quote: "[Agency CEO & Creative Director] Linda Kaplan Thayer ... worries most about self-indulgent and risk averse advertising." Me too! (NB: In launching the iPod, Steve Jobs spent 90% of his $70M marketing budget on TV ads. Very Cool TV ads, I might add.)

"The Digital Hospital" in the 28 March BusinessWeek (cover). Another of my hobby horses. Healthcare quality would rise dramatically if acute care centers edged out of the dark ages on IT!

"The Immelt Revolution: He's Turning GE's Culture Upside Down, Demanding Far More Risk and Innovation," in BusinessWeek/03.28.05. From Jack Welch's efficiency drives and financial engineering (which worked in another era) to a hard-nosed, investment, incentive- and penalty-laden (typical GE!) emphasis on risky "Imagination Breakthrough" projects. Acquisitions are (mostly) out. Innovation-led organic growth is definitely in! Cool! (And I bet he pulls it off.) Kudos to Welch on talent development: All three of the finalists for his job—Jeff Immelt, Bob Nardelli at Home Depot & Jim McNerney at 3M are going gangbusters!

Just started: China, Inc: How the Rise of the Next Superpower Challenges America and the World, by Ted Fishman. All China stats are bizarre. Like this: People are moving from rural areas to cities so fast that China must create urban infrastructure equivalent to Houston ... every month for the next 15 years!

15 to Go!

Today's SFO Auckland flight is 15 hours. What are your best long-flight survival tricks? I'm always up for advice!

Disappearing Service Basics

We've chided Walgreens on this site before for printing on receipts "Hi, I'm (cashier name). I'm here to serve you with the 'Seven Service Basics.'" I asked many Walgreens cashiers—whose names were printed on the receipts—what the Seven Service Basics were, and none ever knew.

Well, Walgreens has finally dropped the promise of Seven Service Basics from their receipts. It now says "I'm here to serve you." I guess they finally decided it was easier to drop the program than to tell their employees about it.

Search Me!

Did you know there was a war of search engines going on out there? Check this out from BusinessWeek.

Meanwhile, tell us your favorite and why.

Happy Spring!

So what if we still have a foot of snow on the ground in Vermont. It's Spring! The Season of Hope & Renewal!

100 Ways to Succeed #70:

Spring Renewal & Cleaning!

Use the First Week of Spring as a ... Formal Springboard for Renewal.

This week: Revisit each project you are working on. Does it Clearly & Unequivocally aim to be ... "Gasp-worthy"? (My fav new term.) Are you searching Far & Wide for "crazy" advisors-input to notch the project up on the WOW Scale? Have you got "crazy customers" (users) lined up who will help you-force you to take the project to another level? Use the Spring Cleaning metaphor: Perform a K.I.S.S. (Keep It Simple, Stupid) Audit on your project. Are the Goals & "Deliverables" & Processes ... Crystal Clear & Beautiful & Uncluttered?

Nuts!

That's what Americans are! And "nuts" is the source of our economic might according to a new book by a Johns Hopkins professor of psychiatry. I'm quite taken by John Gartner's new The Hypomanic Edge: The Link Between (a Little) Craziness and (a Lot of) Success in America. Hypomania is the mild (and often constructive) cousin of true mania, a nasty genetically determined disease. We, of course, have been and continue to be a nation of immigrants, and one of Gartner's contributions is to ice the connection between the gutsy decision to toss all aside and emigrate and the sort of mania (hypomania) that leads to a sustained national entrepreneurial instinct—Alexis de Tocqueville recognized this as long ago as 1830!

"Energy, drive, cockeyed optimism, entrepreneurial and religious zeal, Yankee ingenuity, messianism, and arrogance," writes Dr Gartner, "these traits have long been attributed to 'American character.' But given how closely they overlap with the hypomanic profile, they might be better understood as expressions of American temperament—shaped in large part by our rich concentration of hypomanic genes. ... A 'nation of immigrants' represents a highly skewed and 'self-selected' population. Do men and women who risk everything to leap into a new world differ temperamentally from those who stay home? ... Empirical literature suggests that there are elevated rates of manic-depressive disorder among immigrants."

The heart of The Hypomanic Edge is case studies of a few of our most potent nutters. Appropriately it begins with a true crazy ... Christopher Columbus. And concludes with the hyper-confident Craig Venter, against-all-odds codifier of the human genome. The likes of Alexander Hamilton and Andrew Carnegie fit in between. Here's how Dr Gartner concludes:

"America has been good to hypomanics—a land of opportunity that has liberated their energies and lifted their spirits. In return, hypomanic Americans have been good to America, powering a wilderness economy above every other nation on the planet in just a few hundred years. They may be our greatest natural resource. ...

"Each chapter in this book is a small biography. Written by a psychologist, they are also clinical case histories that illustrate hypomania in action. These men were outrageous—arrogant, provocative, unconventional, and unpredictable. They were not 'well adjusted' by normal standards but instead forced the world to adjust to them. ... The hubris that fuelled their improbable rise often led to their fall as well. Yet without their irrational confidence, ambitious vision, and unstoppable zeal, these outrageous captains would never have sailed into unknown waters, never discovered new worlds, never changed the course of our history."

NB: one more reason why I'm so at odds with Jim Collins' belief in the transformational power of "quiet, humble, stoic" leaders.

NB: and one more reason that I believe that survival-via-"gaspworthy"-innovation calls for a full house of "out there" professionals.

100 Ways to Succeed #71:

Begin the Hunt for Hypomanics!

Reread: "These men were outrageous—arrogant, provocative, unconventional, and unpredictable. They were not 'well adjusted' by normal standards but instead forced the world to adjust to them. ... Without their irrational confidence, ambitious vision, and unstoppable zeal, these outrageous captains would never have sailed into unknown waters, never discovered new worlds, never changed the course of our history."

To survive competitively in the turbulent decades ahead we need to find & cherish such people. What—exactly—is your "Hypomanic Recruitment Plan?" (No kidding. It may be the most serious question you ever try to answer.)

Brands Lost In Translation

In the past two weeks, I heard about two unusual branding efforts in China. On CNN, I saw a piece about Buick being embraced by the Chinese as a very cool, sexy car—not exactly the way Americans think of the sedate sedan. I also heard about the Playboy brand and logo being adopted by Chinese women as a quasi-feminist brand. Wondering if this going on in any other brand categories and especially wondering why these brands are not translating in conventional ways.

The American Brand of Baseball

We blogged here a few months ago about the way Chicagoans' impressions of Sammy Sosa's brand went from iconic to sardonic in only a few short years. Where he had once been a hero beyond reproach, poor performance and a bat corking led us to a point where his sneeze-induced back injury became a joke, and his trade into an orange Orioles uniform seemed about as tragic as Moe poking Curly in the eye.

And now ... let's expand the conversation to the entire brand of baseball. How has the steroid saga sapped strength from the national pastime's status as a national pastime? Will gate receipts fall, will players have to hock their Ferraris? (Before you jump to conclusions, try purchasing single game Chicago Cubs tickets for this season. Hard to find!) Will the game bounce back? Will anyone care about this stuff a couple of years from now?

Other questions: Will Sammy's, Mark's and Barry's 61+ home run seasons have asterisks bigger than Roger Maris's 162 game asterisk? Who looks worse, Jose Canseco for writing a book admitting to steroids, Sammy for denying it, or Mark McGwire for dodging the question? Will any of the sanctimonious Congressmen who took time off from fighting terrorism and fixing social security for the steroid hearings win even one more vote for having done it?

Re-imagine!

Having read the China-US article in the FT, I'd say the position of choosing between "the disastrous and the unpalatable" is weak. Predicting the future, from any historic viewpoint is myopic. Consider this, when 77-year-old Mr. Lantos comments on China not being a threat to the US or to world peace, he opens a door of possibilities, and another level of responsibility for world leaders. Reflect again, "It's very important to separate the very positive secular trend from the ups and downs of day-to-day diplomacy ... we are at a moment in history when all the great entities—Europe, the US, India, China, Japan—are basically on the same side, and on the other side are the 'rogue states' and the global terrorist movement." Who would have imagined in 1947 that Mr. Lantos, then 19, would, in the next century, make such a statement? There is unlimited potential, now, to re-imagine politics as an art of the possible. Now may be the time to throw down a gauntlet to world leaders, in Washington, Beijing, Moscow, Seoul, demanding them to design a new world view where nations struggle together to live up to extraordinary expectations, such as "being human" to one another, physically and economically. Perhaps someone, like Condoleezza Rice will imagine "beyond the obvious" and take on this potential to create a world view that challenges her political (global) comrades with a vision greater than these covert snake nests of "palatable" solutions.

Right On!

I am in awe on those rare occasions that I come across a short, pithy written analysis that captures perfectly a thorny issue. I urge you to read today's Financial Times (I'm just back from London.) On page 19 of the first section there is a superb analytic piece on China, "The Rivals: Washington's Sway in Asia Is Challenged by China."

St Patty's Day Reprise

I shared the stage at the Annual London Business Forum yesterday with European biz strategy professor, guru & futurist Richard Scase. One topic was market demographics. Here are some observations by Richard, about markets and indeed life.

Fastest growing (and underserved) demographic ... single-person households. In cities like Stockholm and London, the soloists now comprise over 60% of all households!

Factoid, in re New World Order: In England more people are employed by Indian restaurants than in steelmaking, coal mining, and ship building combined!
Males: If we retire at 60, we live to 80. (Invest in those IRAs!) If we retire at 65, we live to 70 ... forget about "financial planning." (This isn't the first time I've seen this troublesome stat.)

Divorces are coming late, about age 45 to 50, when she realizes she's saddled with the old sod for another 2 decades. M-F differences: When a woman gets married, she puts on weight, picks up her drinking, and is depressed; that's all reversed upon divorce. When a man gets married, his weight stabilizes, his boozing lets up, and he's happy—upon divorce, all that's reversed. (Yeow.)

(The Pubs were bursting at the seams in London yesterday evening!)

I'm a Loser, Baby

My previous post to this blog I thought would be my last, but, at Tom's urging, I am posting a bit on my thoughts on coming home after my 7 week trip through Cambodia and Vietnam (last posts here, here and here).Tom has been encouraging me to comment on my ... intestinal challenges ... since arriving in Vermont from Hanoi on Monday. Tom, let me just say the Tet Offensive was less offensive, and leave it at that.

Last night I went out to see The Samples, a local band that made good in the nineties and still sounds great. All my old friends from my small Vermont town were there. It gave me pause to think that among all of them, the guy on stage and I were the only ones who never graduated from high school yet we were living our dreams.

In the local school system I was branded a loser, a lost cause, and encouraged to drop out. But my bumpy road less traveled became literally my clear path ... my failures became the roots of my successes, at least for now ... and ultimately I have come to recognize that I have realized my dreams.

When I was a kid, Tom told me he preferred a bold failure to a mediocre success ...

Thanks, Tom ... I now know what you meant ... and I do, too.

Event Slides: London

Traveling again, Tom is in London for the 2005 Business Forum. Get the slides here.

More than Consistency

A client and I were discussing brand harmony a few days ago, and he held up Apple as a great example. He said that he loves how "consistent" all touchpoints with Apple are, from the products to the stores to the advertising, etc.

He's right that Apple is an example of great brand harmony. But I told him that I think he's selling them short when he focuses on "consistency." What makes the Apple brand powerful is not how consistent the different touchpoints are, but how well they complement each other.

Think of some of the great examples of harmony in art. Consistency would be if King Lear's three daughters acted the same. Boring! What's interesting is the juxtaposition of Cordelia against Regan and Goneril. Are the songs on Miles Davis' Kind of Blue consistent with each other? Who cares! Do they complement each other? Yes, in a really interesting way.

When I walked into the Soho Apple Store in NY the other day—with my iPod Mini in my pocket—and saw a class being taught in a big open theater—and thought about the cool iPod Shuffle ads I'd seen all day—my Apple brand impression wasn't strengthened by the consistency of these experiences, because they weren't consistent. They all said different things. What strengthened my feeling for the Apple brand was the way all of these experiences blended together in my mind, complementing each other and telling me a powerful, compelling story.

"Consistent" is for assembly lines. "Complement" is for great brands.

SxSW's Fastest Typist

Nancy White, an online interaction addict, (according to her panelist profile) has blogged a lot of the SxSW panels. Vegetarians watch out! Explicit photos of Texas barbecue greet you.

Overwhelmed by SxSW

I'm trying to gather my thoughts about my South by Southwest Festival experience. First thing: overwhelmed. Lots—maybe too much—going on there. During each time slot, there are up to 6 different presentations to choose from. Which one to go to? I sat in on some good panels, some not-so-good panels, missed some good things, and met some good people, the real reason to be there, right. So, some links and maybe some brief notes about them or the people responsible for them.

Jonas Luster designs digital communications platforms. His personal site is jluster.org. He's involved with Bloggers Without Borders, which works to make blogging accessible to people in places where free expression is frowned upon.

Sean Bonner started Metroblogging, city-centric blogging sites for local information. He's also involved with Bloggers Without Borders.

Hossein "Hoder" Derakhshan was born in Iran, now lives in Canada and is a journalist and Internet activist. His website, hoder.com, has links to English and Persian versions of his weblog and has numerous links to Iranian bloggers.

Ze (pronounced Zay) Frank got famous for his online videos called "Dance Properly." What started out as some short video loops of ludicrous dancing maneuvers to amuse his friends, were soon being watched by over 60,000,000 people. (Or, as someone says, maybe 20,000,000 people each saw them 3 times. Whatever.)

[read more]

Check It Out ...

Our pal Steve Yastrow's "What Is Brand Equity" wins "Post of the Month" ... hands down. I've joined in. (With vigor.) Check this Thread out!

Comments Needed!

We're changing the quiz today. But before we retire the last one, I must say that I'm trying to figure out the response. "Face it, women are lousy at science" was the runaway winner at 47%. Are "you guys" just screwin' with my mind? Or do "we" (TPBlogsphereLand) really believe that? I'm dumbfounded!

I Hear the Crash of Ten Pins Falling ...

viagra australia paypal

HP. Boeing. AIG. Bye, bye hyper-powerful CEOs. (In the space of just a few weeks.)

Fiorina.
Stonecipher.
Greenberg.

And Bernie Ebbers will probably die of old age in jail. wholesale viagra

Three of the four failed the "character test" (Stonecipher, Greenberg, Ebbers).* (*Way to go Wall Street Journal, ever on top of trends ... a headline yesterday suggested that in future CEO selection process there was now a need to look for "character." Wow! Great insight; remind me to renew my subscription.) Three of the four (Fiorina, Greenberg, Ebbers) were close-to-the-vest Centralizers.

If nothing else, this does remind us how ludicrously tough it is to lead giant institutions these days: One must indeed have "character" of the first order. Plus a Gerstner-like knack for wrenching entrenched "cultures" in Bold New Directions. A Larry Bossidy-like maniacal Bias for Execution. A Peter Lewis (Progressive)-like knack for Speed. A Welch-like ability to pick Great Talent ... and then to give that Talent its Head! A Jobsean instinct for Disruptive Innovation. A Gatesean and Scottean (Lee, Wal*Mart) love of the Fray of Business. Nardelli (Bob, Home Depot)-like Energy. And a decent grasp of Strategy.

Can anybody truly do all this? Home Depot's Nardelli comes the closest, in my book (blog). He actually scores an "A" or "B+" on each of these dimensions. No mean feat.

Ebbers Guilty

Bernard Ebbers, former CEO of WorldCom, has been found guilty of fraud on all counts and faces 85 years in prison.

This in the same week that Kurt Eichenwald's new book on Enron, Conspiracy of Fools: A True Story was published by Random House. He's a reporter for the New York Times where they are running excerpts from the book in the Sunday Business section (one this past Sunday, another next Sunday).

Airline Kudos

Of course I understand that "airline kudos" is the ultimate oxymoron these days; hey, I log 250,000 real miles or more a year. Still ...

I fell in love last night, traveling from Reagan National to Albany. Fell in love with the Embraer 170, USAir's newest "regional jet." It's an 80 or so passenger model with ... ROOMY SEATS (better than the average carrier's Biz Class seats) and ... FULL-SIZE OVERHEAD STORAGE (no "gate check" required for rolly bags). I plan to go out of my way to fly this craft! Kudos to Embraer & USAir. (And, to top it off, the crew was truly first rate!)

Dollar Woes

Admission. Despite a PhD in Biz from Stanford, I still get confused about monetary economics. Robert Samuelson is a brilliantly lucid economics writer (another non-oxymoron). His "The Incredible Shrinking Dollar" cover story in the current (03.21) Newsweek is masterful. I commend it to your attention.

Don't Walk ... RUN!

RUN ... to your closest bookstore, or Amazon.com. Purchase a copy of Never Eat Alone: And Other Secrets of Success, One Relationship at a Time, by Keith Ferrazzi (with Tahl Raz). It is the most extraordinary & valuable book I've come across in a long, long time! (Ah, the joys of arriving early at the Albany airport.) Endorsed by such people as my great pal Tim Sanders (Yahoo guru), the book on network building by a legendary network builder includes chapters such as: "Don't Keep Score," "Build It Before You Need It," "Do Your Homework," "Managing the Gatekeeper—Artfully," "Never Eat Alone," "Follow Up or Fail," "Pinging—All the Time," "Build Your Brand," and "Balance Is B.S." I'm only halfway through, but I've already found gems such as these:

"People tell us, 'If you just get more organized, if you just strike a balance between work and home, and limit yourself to the important people in your life, you'll feel better.' That's just totally misguided. What they should be saying is, 'I gotta get a life filled with people I love.' The problem, as I see it, isn't what you're working on, it's who you're working with. ... I think the problem in today's world isn't that we have too many people in our lives, it's that we don't have enough. ... How many people in our lives can walk into our homes and just open up the fridge and help themselves? Not many. People need 'refrigerator relationships' ..." (from the chapter "Balance Is B.S.")

"Over the years, I learned that the outrageous number of misperceptions clouding those who are relationship-builders is equaled only by the misperceptions of how relationship-building is done properly. ... Rarely was there [among the relationship-builders] any running tally of who did what for whom, or strategies concocted in which you give just so you could get. Over time, I came to see reaching out to people as a way to make a difference in people's lives as well as a way to explore and learn and enrich my own; it became the conscious construction of my life's path. Once I saw networking in this light, I gave myself permission to practice it with abandon in every part of my personal and professional life." (from "Becoming a Member of the Club")

"I learned that networking was about finding ways to make other people more successful. It was about working hard to give more than you get." (from "Self-help: A Misnomer")

"Where employees once found generosity and loyalty in the companies we worked for, today we must find them in a web of our own relationships. ... Today, we need each other more than ever." (from "Don't Keep Score")

"The currency of real networking is not greed but generosity." (from "Don't Keep Score")

"Nothing in my life has created opportunity like a willingness to ask, whatever the situation. ... Sometimes I fail. Audacity in networking has the same pitfalls and fears associated with dating. ... Sticking to the people we know is a tempting behavior; but unlike some forms of dating, the networker isn't looking to achieve only a single successful union." (from "The Genius of Audacity," which title stems from a quote from Goethe: "Boldness has genius, power and magic in it.")

"Set a goal for yourself of initiating a meeting with one new person a week. It doesn't matter where or with whom. Introduce yourself to someone on the bus. Slide up next to someone at the bar and say hello. Hang out at the company water cooler and force yourself to talk to a fellow employee you've never spoken with. You'll find it gets easier and easier with practice." (from "The Genius of Audacity")

As I said, run, don't walk ...

100 Ways to Succeed #69:

Do Unto Others ...

The goal of every action, every meeting, every project:

MAKE OTHERS SUCCESSFUL!

Can you honestly say that the questions you asked at the very last meeting you attended were ... directly & unequivocally ... about making others successful? (As opposed, say, to protecting your department's turf ... or your own turf.) Considering your next meeting, work assiduously on others' successes. Evaluate each comment-suggestion you make in that direct light.

Consider this advice in the exact terms it is stated (and see above, Never Eat Alone): I EXIST TO MAKE OTHERS SUCCESSFUL ... AND THIS IDEA ANIMATES MY EVERY WEE & GRAND ACTIVITY.

Gadget Freaks Take Note

I don't buy all that much from Herrington's or Sharper Image, but I spend endless time with their catalogs. I just got my first firstSTREET catalog. Cool stuff! I went berserk. For instance, legal police radar jamming devices are so good now that Rocky Mountain Radar offers to pay for any ticket you get while using their device (for the first year of operation). Somehow, that appeals to me ...

What is Brand Equity?

I was speaking recently with a marketing professor from a top business school. He is a person I respect very much.

During the course of our conversation he said, "Wal-Mart has no brand equity." I almost choked on my wine. I asked him what he meant. He said that brand equity should create a price premium, and Wal-Mart's strategy has been to focus on low prices. In his mind brand equity always creates a price premium.

Yes, strong brands can get people to pay more. But, isn't paying a premium just one example of the kinds of behavior a strong brand can encourage? What if a brand gets no price premium, but encourages more frequent purchases, a greater share of spending dollars, or referrals? Isn't that a strong brand? Wal-Mart gets a disproportionate share of both wallets and shopping visits, and has millions of loyal customers. It has changed consumer shopping behavior, in a significant way.

So, can you have brand equity with no price premium? Or do you agree with the professor? (Any conversation about Wal-Mart can be incendiary, so please try to separate your answer to the brand equity question from any Wal-Mart rants, which you are also welcome to include in your comments.)

Cool Friend: Lipman-Blumen

Jean Lipman-Blumen is a co-founding director of the Institute for Advanced Studies in Leadership. She has a different approach to the leadership question than any we've seen here to date: WHAT TO AVOID.

Her recent book, discussed in our interview, is The Allure of Toxic Leaders: Why We Follow Destructive Bosses and Corrupt Politicians—and How We Can Survive Them. Another of her six books, The Connective Edge: Leading in an Interdependent World, was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize.

Read the interview here.

Book Endorsement

What Tom says:

The Baron Son is remarkable—a challenging and satisfying guide to success through inspired strategic leadership.

The authors, Vicky Davis, William Patterson, and D. Marques Patton, describe the book as "a revealing allegorical tale designed as a road map to business and personal achievement. ... It's the tale of a young boy who loses everything and through struggle finds the secret to becoming the richest, most powerful man the world has ever known." And the strange subtitle? "Vade mecum," the authors say, is "something useful that one constantly carries about; a book, such as a guidebook, for ready reference. Literally translated from Latin, it means, 'go with me.'"

viagra online ordering Read the reviews on amazon.com to get a better idea of what the book has to offer. I counted six five-star recommendations there. Remarkable, indeed.

SXSW, We Are Here

Flew into Austin, TX, Saturday to check out the South by Southwest (SXSW) Interactive Festival. Staying across the street from the convention center at the—"that's hot!"—Hilton. (Like Paris says...a lot.) Our friend Halley Suitt was supposed to be presenting here, but her son got ill, so she's home taking care of him.

Had dinner last night with Jim Coudal of Coudal Partners, his wife Heidi, and Jason Fried of 37 Signals. Jim's the guy who helped us turn tompeters.com into a Movable Type blog and responsible for the current look. Jason's on the basecamp project-management software team. We're using basecamp for some projects at tompeters.com. One complaint is that basecamp doesn't have a calendar function. Jason assures me that that deficiency is being worked on. That's going to make someone on our team very happy.

Can You Outsource Innovation?

BusinessWeek is asking interesting questions about outsourcing innovation in this week's issue.

"R&D used to be treated as one big black box," says Vivek Paul, CEO of Indian info-tech services giant Wipro Technologies (WIT ), whose contract R&D service employs 8,000 engineers. "Now, companies are deconstructing the whole R&D chain, sorting out what's strategic and what's not."

To help provide answers, Parametric Technology (PTC), a Needham, (Mass.) producer of collaborative design software for 31,000 clients worldwide, commissioned a study of a typical R&D workforce of a typical electronics company. It concluded that about 30% of the jobs were "portable," meaning companies could shift them offshore. (From: R&D Jobs: Who Stays, Who Goes?)

Is there a point of no-return with offshoring and outsourcing?

Event Slides: NAVFAC

Tom's in Charleston, South Carolina, speaking to the Navy, specifically Southern Division/Naval Facilities Engineering Command. Get the slides. Having been in the Navy himself, he's likely enjoying the occasion.

Why I Am Here

As I mentioned in my last post, I am in Quang Tri Province in Central Vietnam. This region received the heaviest sustained bombing campaign in the history of the world ... more bombs were dropped here than in WWI and WWII combined. Not all of the bombs detonated on impact, and many still lie in the ground here. These bombs are not duds, they just have not exploded ... yet. They lie in wait to be removed safely, or, much too often, detonate when someone disturbs them accidentally (sometimes intentionally) and the person is killed or maimed for life.

In the last two days I have visited with 3 young bomb survivors who are receiving help through our organization. Thanks to our terrific staff, two of them are now walking again. One though, a 13-year-old boy, is lying in a hospital bed after an artillery shell he was playing with blew off his lower legs and one of his arms last week.

[read more]

Television Freedom Day

Each year in May we read stories about the approach of "Tax Freedom Day," the day when the average American has earned enough to pay their income taxes and can start working for himself.

This year, the average American will watch 1760+ hours of TV, which is about 5 hours per day, or about 74 24-hour periods. That makes March 15 "TV Freedom Day." Yes, 2 1/2 months in front of the tube! Another 4 months spent sleeping, and people can wake up from the TV and the bed in the second half of the year and start doing other stuff—like interacting with other humans!

Dow 11,000?

The Dow may hit 11,000 today. Does it make you feel bullish?

Sony Names Stringer New Chairman and CEO

Sony has picked Sir Howard Stringer as their new chairman and CEO. He speaks no Japanese, and he will replace the former chairman and CEO, the Tokyo-based Nobuyuki Idei, but Stringer will reside in New York.

Can a Japanese company be led by a non-Japanese speaking, non-Japan based leader?

What Really Counts?

In a post a few days ago, I chided Rance Crain of AdAge for claiming that the problems with mass marketing can all be attributed to bad ad creative. I posited that this is, at most, a peripheral issue.

So what does count? Great marketing requires brand harmony, where all experiences a customer has blend to tell an understandable, compelling, differentiating story. So, what is the key to telling this brand story?

It can only happen if all employees in the organization are prepared and eager to "be the brand" as they do their jobs. More and more, I have come to believe that the keystone of the whole process is the set of beliefs within the employee population. Are there competing beliefs or one shared belief? Are the beliefs about the past ("what we've been") or about the future("what we intend to be")?

Summed up— do the employees have "a shared belief of what we intend to be." ??

On this rests the success of your marketing.

A Study in Brand Dissonance

Have any of you had to suffer dealing with the United Airlines/US Airways of code share deal?

I've had a couple of run-ins with this—you show up for a US Airways flight and find out you're on United in another terminal, or vice versa. Or, you have one leg of a connecting itinerary on US Airways, and another on United, but neither airline can print a boarding pass for the other.

I've dealt with the service problems brought on by this partnership a few times now, and in each case the employees of both airlines have said to me, verbatim, "it doesn't work." One US Airways employee put it this way: "Some guys upstairs might be making money on this. But the passengers and we who work here have to deal with all the problems." Employees of both airlines have related customer service horror stories to me.

The problem is execution. I'm sure the idea sounded great on paper and in meetings. But, apparently, work was never done to properly implement the program. Customers and front line employees of both airlines are suffering. Do you think the top brass at United and US Airways are focused on fixing these problems, or are they only looking as far superficial performance stats in evaluating this program?

Blogging While Black

I spent the past few days at a conference at the Harvard Neiman Foundation, sponsored by The Media Center called "Whose News? Media, Technology and the Common Good." It was an interesting mix of mainstream journalists and bloggers. Needless to say there were many melees and everyone had something to say. The subject of blog diversity came up on the last day.

[read more]

The Larry Fray

I can't recall ever seeing so many people wagging a figurative finger at Tom as they have in response to his call for the resignation of Harvard president Larry Summers. A few samples:

Why, exactly, should Larry Summers resign? For postulating a politically-incorrect theory? I think your comments on this topic were over-the-top.—Chuck

Somewhere along the way, resignation (instead of hari kari or paying a fine or begging) became the appropriate blue state response to scandal. I think Larry is doing women plenty of good staying right where he is.—Seth Godin

If we ask people to resign, let's do it because they did an old-fashioned Bad Job ... rather than because they say something shocking (to some) that is nevertheless still the subject of serious academic debate.—Jennifer Warwick

Or if he'd said that men are not as good at something would you expect him to resign?—Duke

Political Correctness rears its silly head again. ... Should he be the scapegoat because he dared to discuss this issue?—Al Nye

... perhaps all of the hullabaloo over this speech is the public/faculty's way of getting Summers fired. They are, in effect, pulling the guy over for having bad license plates in an attempt to catch him on a much larger charge.—Jory Des Jardins

It's funny watching the leftist, P.C. gestapo fry one of their own.—Roy Batty (Ouch.)

"... not sure I agree with me either," said Tom. He's thrilled by the responses and eager for more comments on the obviously controversial hypotheses Summers discussed. The original post urged a careful reading of the Time cover story. You do have to buy at least a $4.95 subscription to read the whole thing, but, thanks to Brad, here's a transcript of Summers' original remarks. Now that I've spent the better part of the morning reading the article, the transcript and all 47 comments (so far), I encourage you to do the same and join the fray.

A Renaissance from the Ruins

Hello to Tom and to all from Quang Tri Province, Vietnam. I recently said goodbye to the student/teacher/parent group I was leading across Cambodia. I will now spend the next two weeks here in Vietnam working on updating a beneficiary database of those recently injured by bombs and landmines left over from a war that ended here thirty years ago.

While still in Cambodia, we visited with an old friend of mine that I met while attending a boarding school in Maine in the mid 1980s. When we met he had just recently escaped from the Khmer Rouge and had been rescued from a Thai refugee camp by a man who would later adopt him. I was fifteen years old and had no way of knowing that this boy, whose flute playing of Khmer Rouge propaganda songs saved him from a certain death, would impact my life in such a drastic way ... and 20 years later would be one of my closest friends.

[read more]

Weak Creative? Weak Interest.

Rance Crain, editor in chief of AdAge, is usually a pretty savvy guy. But in an editorial this week he really missed the mark. The editorial was titled "The Mass Market is Not Dead. Weak Creative is the Problem."

The reason advertising is less effective these days is because of weak creative? That's like claiming that the reason the stalker can't get dates is because he wears an unfashionable trench coat.

Sure, good ad creative is always better than bad ad creative. But in reality, this only matters on the margins. The reason advertising is a less effective way to win the hearts (and pocketbooks) of customers than it once was is due more to the way customers think than it does with the way ad agencies create.

Customers don't react kindly to interruption-based marketing as they once did. They look beyond promises and scrutinize all interactions with a company and its products. If the entire set of experiences blends to tell a great story, customers will be more interested. And, at that point, great ad creative can make an (incremental) difference.

Advertising is not the center of the marketing universe, Rance. Customers are.

Go, Larry!

Read closely the Time cover story this week: "The Math Myth: The Real Truth About Women's Brains and the Gender Gap in Science."

Larry Summers has a mouth. (I understand the problem.) And Harvard needs shaking up. (Agreed!) But he screwed this one up Big Time.

Do the Honorable Thing, Larry. No, not the Hunter Thompson thing. Just resign.

But Still ...

If I were on trial, I'd defend myself to the hilt. I understand that. But still, former CEO Bernie Ebbers' defense at his WorldCom $10 Billion+ fraud trial is, well, trying:

I got lousy grades in school.
I don't understand technology.
I don't understand finance.
I don't understand accounting.

Ye gads.

Predictable, I suppose.
Pathetic ... undoubtedly.
Credible?
You be the judge, or jury.

Oh, Canada!

Are the three Best Service Companies in the World from Canada?
Quite possibly.
(Maybe it's something in the water?)

Best, hospitality: Four Seasons Hotels & Resorts.
Best, entertainment (best, overall; best, innovation): Cirque du Soleil.
Best, retail: London Drugs.

More "Bests"

Maybe it's the Oscars, but I'm thinking about "bests," and realizing not all bests lists must necessarily be published in December. See above (Oh, Canada!), and then a few more from me:

Best manufacturer (also tied for first, innovation): Apple.
Best financial services: Progressive. Friedman Billings Ramsey. Commerce Bank (also tied for first, retail).
Best business services: Infosys. RE/MAX.
Best (tied for first) retail: Whole Foods Markets.
Best entrepreneurial giant business: Tie, GE and Johnson & Johnson.
Best education: Big Picture.
Best CEO: Bob Nardelli, Home Depot.
Best re-imagineer: Steve Jobs (Apple); Kevin Roberts (Saatchi & Saatchi); Richard Branson (Virgin)
Best, bullshit detector: Eliot Spitzer.
Best, Shock & Awe (Company): Wal*Mart.
Best, Shock & Awe (Nation): China.
Best, Built to Last: None. (Honorable Mention, GE.)
Best, Big Co Mergers: None.
Best, marketing to women: None.
Best, marketing to boomers-geezers: None.

Best & Worst: Donald Trump. (Best, audacity & personal branding. Worst, jerk/sensitivity-to-one's-fellow-human-beings.)

Worst, whatever: Martha Stewart, federal felon. (She cheated every single one of us who buy stock without insider information.)

Your additions are more than welcome!