Corporate Blogging Redux

I wrote about the next big thing in corporate blogging today. It's not about bloggers inside your corporation, but rather about bloggers outside your company, who create corporate fan blogs since they are passionate about your product and want to tell the world about it.

The tricky part is that these great word-of-mouth fan blogs are often created without the blessing of the corporation. There's a lack of control of brand and "message" many marketing and PR people are very unhappy about. Just ask Apple. Managing your fans can be a delicate business. Take a peek at my blog post at worthwhilemag.com for more details.

We'll Say It Again

This is from Marti Barletta, marketing-to-women guru, and one of our Cool Friends:

My thanks to Steve Yastrow for his mention last week of the Marketing to Women—M2W—Conference in Chicago, hosted by PME Events and chaired by yours truly. As we all know, marketing to women is one of Tom's hot topics, so although he wasn't able to join us this time, he was gracious enough to send along some remarks to open and close the conference for us. To keep the ball rolling, I thought I'd share five key themes that resonated for everyone who attended the conference.

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Event Slides: IASB

In San Antonio, Texas, Tom is speaking to IASB. Download the slides here.

The Future of Unions?

John O'Leary, long-time facilitator for Tom Peters Company, has provided the offering below. It looks likely to stir up some discussion. Thank you, John, for this post:

The Future of Unions?

If you haven't heard much about Andy Stern, the upstart president of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), that will soon change. The introduction to him this month at the Human Resoures Outsourcing (HRO) World Conference in New York was reminiscent of Jon Landau's I-have-seen-the-future-of-rock-and-roll introduction of Bruce Springsteen in the 1970s: "I have seen the future of unions—and its name is Andy Stern."

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New Cool Friend: Lisa Johnson

Lisa Johnson is coauthor of Don't Think Pink: What Really Makes Women Buy—And How to Increase Your Share of This Crucial Market. She's also co-founder and CEO of ReachWomen, a marketing consultancy focused on women 18-44 years old. A quote from the interview:

We looked at a lot of different ways to capture women's attention and make a brand more compelling by considering how she's seeing the world.

Lisa, welcome to the ranks of the Cool Friends!

Event Slides: MASCPA

Tom speaks to MASCPA in York, Pennsylvania. Get the slides here.

The Met School

One of Tom's coolest friends, Dennis Littky, is an education innovator. NPR's All Things Considered broadcast a story about one of his schools yesterday(4/25). If you're interested in finding out more about what Dennis and his cohorts are up to, visit the Big Picture website.

Selling (Out) Broadway

Today's (4/23) New York Times carried an editorial describing the latest venue in which advertising product placements have shown up—the Broadway musical. The musical Sweet Charity carries plugs for a brand of tequila, Grand Centanario.

There is a sign showing the product in one scene, and the product name has been inserted into dialogue. The original script from the 1966 musical has a waiter ask a customer, "a double Scotch again, sir?" The line has been changed to "Grand Centario, the tequila?" The Times bemoans this development, acknowledging the commercial nature of Broadway theater, but wishing the stage itself could remain ad free.

What do you all think? Is this bad?

One thing that's on my mind—Most discussions of product placement focus on the advertiser's strategy and on the transaction between the advertiser and the provider of media placement. What about the viewer/customer? Is it just assumed that if they see it they will buy? Will they? These discussions are just variations on old-time advertising discussions, which assume that customers will but your product if you interrupt them enough times. Relating back to the Times story, will any more Grand Centario be sold due to selling-out of Sweet Charity?

Internal Marketing

Recent recommendation to a client: "We need to start marketing to ourselves with as much care as we market to our outside customers."

Does your organization focus any of its marketing efforts within the company, helping people who work for the company to understand how to "Be the Brand?" What is the relative balance of resources devoted to internal vs. external marketing? If you do any internal marketing, how is it received by the employee population?

Freakonomics

Did you follow Tom's advice and take a freak to lunch today? No? Fear not. If you're looking for a fresh perspective, a way of shifting your perceptions, check out Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden State of Everything by Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner (also, check out their blog). There has been some heavy buzz on this book over the past few weeks. Read it, then tell us if you think schoolteachers really are like sumo wrestlers.

Long Overdue

Who hasn't struggled to open a bottle of prescription pills? At long last, someone (Deborah Adler) has made a thoughtful version of an everyday item. Is it any surprise that she works for Target?

Badvertising: Wachovia

Wachovia Securities has a series of ads that I find to be trite, and a waste of money for them. The copy in these ads follows a pattern of "What does X have in common with Y," where Y is some sort of financial service.

I just saw one that has a shot of a ship plowing through arctic ice. The voiceover says, "What does an ice breaker have in common with an investment bank? You need someone in the lead to crush all obstacles."

Problems with this ad: First, it's trite and simplistic. Second, even if I believe that message, all it's done is tell me why investment banks are valuable, not why Wachovia is special. Third, anyone who makes decisions to select investment banks wouldn't learn anything from, or be impressed by, an ad like this.

Another case where the only winners are the ad agency and the media.

Marti Making Sense

I heard Marti Barletta speak twice today at the Marketing to Women conference in Chicago. Her first talk focused on her overall philosophy of marketing to women, and the second talk focused on "Prime Time Women." (The mature market)

Marti was, as expected, awesome. As can be read in her book, Marketing to Women or in her tompeters.com Cool Friend Interview, Marti has a keen grasp of both the market opportunity and the reasons most companies miss this opportunity. If you ever have a chance to hear her speak, don't miss it!

New Cool Friend: Dan Pink

Dan Pink, whom we all know as the author of Free Agent Nation has written a new book called A Whole New Mind: Moving from the Information Age to the Conceptual Age, about the six essential abilities that white-collar workers must master to survive in an outsourced, automated world. He talks to tp.com about the new book in his second Cool Friend interview. Dan's a contributing editor at Wired, and he has written articles on business and technology for the New York Times, Harvard Business Review, Fast Company and other publications. He has a new website, too, www.danpink.com.

Velcro or Cement?

In this disruptive age, the organizational structures we know and love are just a tick tock away from blowing up! In February 2005, there was an article in the Harvard Business Review suggesting that global organizations need to become "Velcro organizations." That is, organizations that can quickly and easily rearrange their roles to meet the challenges of specific tasks.

Some organizations have such rigid structures that real work can't get accomplished. These organizations don't have the flexibility to pull the right team together to tackle the job and then return to their previous jobs upon its completion. I consider these organizations to be "Cement Organizations"; they've poured a hard foundation that is full of cracks, but they aren't budging.

Are you part of a Velcro organization or are you part of a Cement organization?

Many Unhappy Returns

Now that we've all made it through Tax Day, thought you might enjoy this new book about the rehaul of the IRS, Many Unhappy Returns: One Man's Quest To Turn Around The Most Unpopular Organization In America (Leadership for the Common Good). Check it out.

PSF

I think Tom was first to write about the Professional Service Firm (PSF) in Liberation Management back in 1992. The preface describes Tom Strange and Joe Tilli of Titeflex, profiled in chapter 5 of the book, as the living breathing examples of internal professionals working in their own PSF with a clear "worth our wages" mindset.

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Managers and Engagement

Val Willis, a long-time denizen of Tom Peters Company, sent me an email describing a recent experience with a client:

I was with a great group this week, and the subject was engagement. That seems to be a topic that is top of mind for many organizations who have taken the Gallup study on engagement to heart. I have had a fully engaged week, I have been doing work that matters, and I hope I made a difference. Where are you on the engagement meter this week? Are you engaged, not engaged, or actively disengaged? What can we do as leaders to have a highly engaged organization?

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Above Board

The BusinessWeek 50 is out, and one very interesting segment is this listing of who is on whose board of directors.

Event Slides: AXA

New Orleans! One of my favorite places, and Tom is there speaking to AXA Advisors, financial consultants. Slides are here.

A Voice on the Radio

As I was out driving today and tuned into a radio interview with a man talking about his experience in World War II, getting seriously wounded as a young man by a German shell while pulling a buddy to safety. He went on to describe a painful and difficult three-year hospitalization, in a full body cast, his shoulder maimed and spinal cord damage so serious, there was a good possibility he would never walk again. He eventually did walk. He said it taught him a lot about patience.

The interviewer asked him if lessons learned during this time helped him in his political career. I still wasn't sure who it was. Then, of course, it occurred to me that it was Bob Dole, who has a new book, One Soldier's Story. Sounds like a good one.

Shifting Hemispheres

I remember seeing a cartoon some years ago—probably in the New Yorker—in which a worried geezer points to his head and laments to his spouse, "Helen—just as I've always feared—my hemispheres are drifting apart."

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Landmine Ad Controversy

There are plenty of advertising experts on this board, so I am really not the authority here on what qualifies as a good TV ad or a bad one. One commercial which I feel I can weigh in on is the recent UN landmines awareness spot that asks "If there were land mines here, would you stand for them anywhere?"

(...as an aside, we stand for A LOT of things elsewhere that we would not tolerate here: malaria, starvation, extreme poverty, genocide... the list goes on and on...)

This ad is controversial because it is so graphic. I believe the ad should be shown.... but I also feel the ad may be too polished... too Hollywood... you do not need actors to show the real horror of all of this.

Would love to hear from the real experts.

Tools for Women

We had a great conversation with Kirsten Osolind of the company/website re:invention, inc., recently. Her blog is in our blogroll, but we didn't know her beyond that 'til now. In her own words:

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Brand: the Word

William Safire did a brilliant piece about the word brand over the weekend in the New York Times magazine. (We link instead to the same article in the Houston Chronicle), putting Tom right into the middle of the discussion. He quotes the contribution Tom made to the word in "The Brand Called You," in Fast Company in 1997. That article continues to speak to many people, and it has recently been translated into Indonesian and posted on permagnus.com.

Safire suggests the word has been overused. He wants to unbrand it. His discussion goes beyond the word itself to the concept and its relevance. Thoughts?

Cool Friend: Steve!

Steve Yastrow, frequent contributor to tp.com, has become our latest Cool Friend! He talks with us about his book, Brand Harmony: Achieving Dynamic Results by Orchestrating Your Customers' Total Experience. Read his interview, and, of course, if you comment about the interview or the book, he'll join in.

If you're inclined to learn even more about Steve's work, you can visit his website, yastrow.com, too.

Saturday Night Stay-Over

So many of you are frequent travelers, does anyone know the history in the airline industry's "Saturday Night Stay-Over" rule, that gave you a better rate if you were willing to waste your weekend in a far-away place?

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On Winning

I'm enjoying Jack Welch's new book Winning, but why it kicks off with a discussion of mission statements ... which I find the most boring subject in the universe ... I'll never know. The chapter after this about candor is a lot more inspiring.

And I don't mean there shouldn't be a chapter on "mission and values" in the book. Obviously this is an important subject and should be included. I just mean why was it put up front, when it guarantees such a deadly start to an upbeat book?

Getting on the Same Page

Yesterday I participated in a meeting at a client's office where six people sat in a small conference room reviewing the contents of a PowerPoint presentation they are to deliver in a few days, and it struck me how exactly alike are PowerPoint and Wikipedia, the grassroots encyclopedia that anyone can contribute to. Well, they're alike at least in this one regard: Having to work together on a single page forces people to override their personal interests in favor of their shared values. At Wikipedia, that value is achieving a neutral point of view. At the business meeting, it was clarity and persuasiveness.

Of course, at the in-person meeting, the social structure inevitably gets in the way: The junior person doesn't push too hard and the senior person doesn't have to. I wonder how different the PowerPoints would have turned out if they'd been created in an environment where anyone in the group could comment on them or edit them anonymously.

The Strange Economics of Travel

Notice lately that you can get dirt cheap US airfares coast-to-coast, like $200, but once you get to the other end, the local cab ride between airport and hotel can run you $100!?!

What's the math about when the 10 mile cab fare is half the cost of a 3,000 mile plane ride?

Southwest

I just received a birthday card from Southwest Airlines, complete with cute 3-D glasses to look at the card. Can you imagine any other airline sending a birthday card to a customer?

Event Slides: Jabil

Tom is back in the States, but he's still on the road. He's speaking to Jabil Circuit, an Electronics Manufacturing Services company in Orlando, FL. Get the slides here.

Opportunity

I have an opportunity to link to Rolling Stone magazine online, and I may never have another. Our friend James Hathaway let us know that his org, Clear Path International, was mentioned in Rolling Stone. He's not on the cover, but that's still pretty cool.

Clear Path International aids landmine victims in Vietnam, Cambodia, and Thailand, and there's a benefit CD, due out in May, written up in Rolling Stone. If you'd like to contribute to the cause, or pre-order the CD, there are links on the CPI website. So, there's opportunity for you, too.

BTW: James was posting reports on a recent trip to Southeast Asia on tp.com. His last post (my favorite!), links to the rest.

Is It A Flat World?

In yesterday's Sunday New York Times Magazine Thomas L. Friedman wrote an interesting piece on globalization called, "It's A Flat World, After All" raising many concerns about outsourcing. It's based on his new book, being published this week by Farrar, Strauss & Giroux.

He suggests technology has leveled the playing field for bright and innovative people worldwide (especially in India and China) and America runs the risk of being left behind. Is he onto something?

9:00-5:00 Mon-Fri

So many of us don't work a regular Monday through Friday job these days. So what about Saturday and Sunday? Are they still a time to change gears and slow down?

How do you distinguish your weekend days from your weekdays? Or do family members and friends around you define the "weekend" for you?

Eyewitness Account

We couldn't all be at Tom's talk at the Better by Design 2005 Conference in Auckland, NZ, earlier this week. Fortunately, David MacGregor has given us his impression here.

Thanks, David!

Beautiful Mistakes

I've been reading a lovely book, On Beauty and Being Just by Elaine Scarry, a combination of scholarship and poetry. It's not an easy book, but, heck, there are plenty of easy books around.

The first chapter is titled "On Beauty and Being Wrong" in which Scarry says we all have moments in which we've discovered we were wrong about beauty. Her example is her realizing that palm trees are magnificent, not ugly. (She then follows the "beautiful palms" theme from Homer to Matisse ... wow.)

I thought she was wrong about us all having those moments until I remembered one of my own. For no particular reason, I stopped listening to music in the mid-70s. I was in my 20's and music just became uninteresting to me. Then, in the late '80s, I was commuting 5 hours every weekend to see my ailing mother—truth to tell, she was dying, not ailing—and on one trip, on I-95 going past Groton, CT, I put Glenn Gould's early version of Bach's "Goldberg Variations" into the CD player.

I had always considered Bach to be overly formal ... pretty but without heart. But whether it was Gould's interpretation, my mother's dire illness, or just my age, I heard Bach as if for the first time. His endless inventiveness within the rules now seemed to me to express exactly our human and plight and glory, the musical equivalent of "Here's your time, here are the possibilities, go have a life." Something like that. I had heard the rules in Bach's music, but not the playfulness, hope or joy. Somehow I'd missed it all.

It was just as Scarry says. I had been wrong about beauty. And the discovery of that wrongness showed me something important—and hard to express—about the world.