MOAP #20

Part 20 of Tom's MOAP, or "Mother of All Presentations," is available now at ExcellenceNow.com. You can download the PowerPoint version or a PDF. We've been releasing a new section every other week throughout 2012.

In Part 20, Tom covers one of his favorite topics: women as the majority market for just about everything.

MOAP #6

The next installment of Tom's "Mother of All Presentations," or MOAP, is now available at ExcellenceNow.com. You can download the PowerPoint version or a PDF. We'll be releasing a section every other week throughout 2012.

Part 6 revisits Tom's clamorous call for attention to people with LOTS of money to spend: Boomers and Geezers. Tom has read a new book or two, adding fuel to his passion on this topic, and providing some fresh insights for you to consider in Part 6 of his Mother of All Presentations.

Zounds!
Startling Boomer+ Stats!

I call them (us!) "boomers & geezers." Boomers alone number about 75 million. The goal of this short post is not heavy analysis. It is simply a vivid and brief set of seven startling numeric facts—that, current economic turmoil notwithstanding, aim to make the case for oldies as by far the most significant marketing opportunity in history.

Consider:

**1/8/20
**22/1/10
**50@50
**7/13
**55+ > 55-
**8.4
**47X

Translation:

**1/8/20 (One USA boomer is turning 65 every 8 seconds—that rate will continue for the next 20 years.)
**22/1/10 (USA adult population will have grown by 23 million in the 10 years between 2006 and 2016. Ages 18–49 will have grown by 1 million—age 50+ will have grown by 22 million.)
**50@50 (At age 50, we effectively have ... a full 50% of our healthy adult life ahead of us.)
**7/13 (An American will buy 13 cars in the course of a lifetime—7 after age 50.)
**55+ > 55- (Age 55-plusers are ... more active in online finance, shopping, and
entertainment than those under 55.)
**8.4 (Boomers inherit $8.4 trillion in the next few years; 70% of boomers will inherit on average $300K.)
**47X (Net wealth of households headed by 65+ is 47 times greater than the net wealth of households headed by someone <35; 20 years ago the ratio was 10:1.)

The way I summarize "all this" in my presentations is as follows:

We are the Aussies & Kiwis & Americans & Canadians. We are the Western Europeans & Japanese. We are the fastest growing, the biggest, the wealthiest, the boldest the most (yes) ambitious, the most experimental & exploratory, the most different, the most indulgent, the most difficult & demanding, the most service & experience obsessed, the most vigorous, (the least vigorous), the most health conscious, the most female, the most profoundly important commercial market in the history of the world ... and we will be the Center of Your Universe for the next twenty-five years. We have arrived!

(Above ... Winter Sky in Vermont the day after Thanksgiving 2011.)

Little BIG Video #63
Strategy:
Pay Attention to Boomers

The latest video at YouTube is #63 in The Little BIG Things Video Series. Though young people are important to marketers in these times, Tom argues, marketers had better keep an eye on boomers, also.

You can find the video in the right column of the front page of tompeters.com or you can watch the video on YouTube. [Time: 2 minutes 52 seconds] You can also download a PDF transcript of the video's content: Strategy: Pay Attention to Boomers.

Little BIG Video #58
Strategy:
On People Turning 50

Here's video number 58 from The Little BIG Things Video Series. Tom provides a compelling argument for marketing to the over-50 population, including this quote from Bill Novelli of AARP: "People turning fifty today have more than half of their adult life ahead of them."

You can find the video in the right column of the front page of tompeters.com or you can watch the video on YouTube. [Time: 3 minutes, 6 seconds] You can also download a PDF transcript of the video's content: Strategy: On People Turning 50.

Little BIG Video #54
Strategy:
Women & Relationships

Here's video number 54 from The Little BIG Things Video Series. According to Tom: "Women look at relationships with more depth and complexity than men do." It's essential to understand this if you're working with women in leadership positions or if you're developing products for women.

You can find the video in the right column of the front page of tompeters.com or you can watch the video on YouTube. [Time: 2 minutes, 21 seconds] You can also download a PDF transcript of the video's content: Strategy: Women & Relationships.

More.

From The Atlantic/"The End of Men":
"Men seem 'fixed in cultural aspic.' With each passing day, they lag further behind." Numerous college women assume they'll be primary bread winner; guys "are the new ball and chain."

Read it!
Absorb it!
Ponder it!
Take Advantage of It!

Most important article I've read in a long time/The Atlantic July-August 2010:

"The End of Men: How Women Are Taking Control—Of Everything"

Opening lines/précis:

"Earlier this year, women became the majority of the workforce for the first time in U.S. history. Most managers are now women too. And for every two men who get a college degree this year, three women will do the same. For years, women's progress has been cast as a struggle for equality. But what if equality isn't the end point? What if modern, post-industrial society is simply better suited to women? A report on the unprecedented role reversal now underway—and its vast cultural consequences."

Other:

"Man has been the dominant sex since, well, the dawn of mankind. But for the first time in human history, that is changing—and with shocking speed."

[There are examples from around the world not just U.S. In the likes of Korea, desire for a child to be a girl is soaring.] [In the USA, efforts to improve the odds of conceiving a girl rather than a boy are now commonplace.]

"As thinking and communicating have come to eclipse physical strength and stamina as the keys to economic success, those societies that take advantage of the talents of all their adults, not just half of them, have pulled away from the rest."

"The evidence is all around you [e.g.] in the wreckage of the Great Recession, in which three-quarters of the eight million jobs lost were lost by men. The worst-hit industries were overwhelmingly male and deeply identified with macho: construction, manufacturing, high finance."

"Of the 15 job categories projected to grow the most in the next decade in the U.S., all but two are occupied primarily by women."

"Women hold 51.4% of managerial and professional jobs—up from 26.1% in 1980. ... In 1970, women contributed 2 to 6 percent of the family income. Now the typical working wife brings home 42.2%—and four in 10 mothers are the primary breadwinners in their family."

"What's clear is that schools, like the economy, now value the self-control, focus and verbal aptitude that seem to come more easily to young girls."

"Increasing numbers of women—unable to find men with similar income and education—are forgoing marriage altogether. In 1970, 84% of women ages 30 to 44 were married; now 60% are."

Cable POWER!

From my de facto Bible, Nick Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn's Half the Sky:

"[A study] focused on television's impact on rural India. Robert Jensen of Brown University and Emily Oster of the University of Chicago found that after cable television arrived in a village, women gained more autonomy—such as the ability to leave the house without permission and the right to participate in household decisions. There was a drop in the number of births ... wife-beating became less acceptable, and families were more likely to send daughters to school." (A similar study in Brazil produced similar results. A new TV network featured soap operas, which became wildly popular, starring empowered women with few children. Again, birth rates sagged, especially among women "of lower socioeconomic status.")

Interesting, eh?

DOSOMETHING!
NOW!

OKAYI'MOBSESSEDBUTWHYAREWESITTINGONOURASSESWHENE
VERYDAYTHOUSANDSOFGIRLSARETHESUBJECTOFGENDERCIDE
ANDTHOUSANDSMOREARESOLDINTOSEXSLAVERY?LIVESLOSTF
ARFARFAREXCEEDWARSANDTERRORISMANDSTARVATION.(REA
DINGESTACTONNICHOLASKRISTOF&SHERYLWUDUNN'SHALF
THESKY:TURNINGOPPRESSIONINTOOPPORTUNITYFORWOMEN
WORLDWIDE.LASTCHAPTERISLONGLISTOFTHINGSWECANDO.)

Quote of the Week/
The Emotional Gender

"The banking crisis was caused by doing what no society ever allows: Permitting young males to behave in an unregulated way. Anyone who studied neurobiology would have predicted disaster."—Sheelan Kolhatkar, "What If Women Ran Wall Street?" (New York magazine/03.29.10)

(Another wonderful part of this "turn-the-tables" story is that the men's principal failing is that they are ... too emotional. The women are calm and measured. This is not anecdotal; the evidence is overwhelming. So much for the flighty girls and just-the-facts boys mythology.)

The Grameen Lesson?

When Nobel Peace Prize winner Muhammad Yunus began his micro-lending efforts at Grameen Bank in Bangladesh, he had no preference as to whether loans went to men or women. To make a long story very short, male recipients often frittered the money away (alas, drank it away in many instances), while women overwhelmingly devoted their loan proceeds to their business, their family, and their community. As a result, through trial and error, Grameen has ended up with over 90% female recipients. (This is all the more startling given that Bangladesh is a Muslim country.) (And the story has been repeated, pretty much chapter and verse, elsewhere by Grameen and others.) (In the NGO aid-dispensing business, it's a given that getting the local women's network on your side is a 100.00% necessity.)

All this got me thinking about the controversial new healthcare bill. Women pretty much everywhere are the principal decision makers in family affairs. And, among other things, they make upwards of 80% of family healthcare decisions. (Actually about 90%, but I'm being conservative.) Moreover, the old saying goes, as you get older you had better hope that you had a daughter; when it comes to old-parent affairs, "boys" are notoriously, uh, not "girls." (I've observed this numerous times; and I am stepfather to two boys; and I am non-young.)

Oddly, most of the polls on the healthcare legislation were not divided by gender. But the two readings I did get, courtesy Newsweek and Princeton Research Associates, did not surprise me. In short, women were 12% more favorable in one case and 20% more favorable in the other (in the latter, women were +14%, men –6%). Also, alas, it doesn't take a genius to recognize that most of the intemperate public remarks came forth from the mouths of males. (The most memorable women's quote on the House floor, to my mind, went more or less, "With this bill, being a woman will no longer be a 'pre-existing condition.'" Insurers in several states, nine as I recall, tag spousal abuse as a pre-existing condition.)

There is honestly no "bottom line" to this post; but as I have been vociferously championing women's issues (women as underserved market opportunity #1, women in leadership positions in greater numbers to match market power) for about 15 years (pretty much the only "guru" to do so), I simply wanted to see how it played out in healthcare legislation.

(NB: God knows, I'm not claiming that men don't care about their families. I am suggesting that men are less likely, far less likely, to be decision-makers concerning family issues.) (In the Grameen case, it's, of course, a little more extreme than that.)

Scary!

Scariest start of an article award 2010, from yesterday's New York Times:

"China vaulted past competitors in Denmark, Germany, Spain and the United States last year to become the world's largest maker of wind turbines, and is poised to expand even further this year. China has also leapfrogged the West in the last two years to emerge as the world's largest manufacturer of solar panels. And the country is pushing equally hard to build nuclear reactors and the most efficient types of coal power plants. These efforts to dominate renewable energy technologies raise the prospect that the West may someday trade its dependence on oil from the Mideast for a reliance on solar panels, wind turbines and other gear manufactured in China."

We Did It!

"We Did It!" is the title of this week's cover story in the Economist. The occasion is women surpassing the 50% mark in the U.S. workforce. The Economist's "Leader" calls it "the rich world's quiet revolution": "Women's economic empowerment is arguably the biggest social change of our times. Just a generation ago, women were largely confined to repetitive, menial jobs. ... Now, millions of brains have been put to more productive use. Societies that try to resist this trend—most notably the Arab countries, but also Japan and some southern European countries—will pay a heavy price in the form of wasted talent and frustrated citizens." Moreover, the Economist notes, as have others, that with girls and women dominating in terms of educational performance and sheer volume of university degrees, especially advanced professional degrees, this "trend" is quickly becoming a tsunami.

This has been a—or even the—issue nearest and dearest to my heart since 1996, and I am thrilled by the stats and the recognition alike. Maybe, corporations will begin to take product-service development and marketing to women more seriously. This is still, in 9.63 out of 10 cases, a great void–monster opportunity (e.g. when even a single movie comes along, like It's Complicated, aimed at women, particularly boomer women, it's treated as Big News).

N'yet

"The global statistics on the abuse of girls are numbing. It appears that more girls have been killed in the last fifty years, precisely because they were girls, then men were killed in all the battles of the twentieth century. More girls are killed in this routine 'gendercide' in any one decade than people were slaughtered in all the genocides of the twentieth century."

"All told, girls in India from one to five years of age are 50 percent more likely to die than boys the same age. The best estimate is that a little Indian girl dies from discrimination every four minutes."

Larry Summers (during his World Bank days): "Investment in girls' education may well be the highest-return investment available in the developing world."

Bernard Kouchner, founder of Doctors Without Borders: "Progress is achieved through women."

N'yet. Despite the Economist's cheery cover story, we've got a long way to go on women's issues worldwide. To get the story you can do no better than to read Pulitzer Prize winners Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn's Half the Sky: Turning Oppression Into Opportunity for Women Worldwide. (All of the quotes above come from Half the Sky.) If this book doesn't "get to you," I can't imagine what would. The stats and stories are nothing short of astounding. As the title suggests, there is good news to accompany the bad—that is, examples of stuff that works. The journalists acknowledge that they are on a mission. The last chapter is titled "What You Can Do: Four Steps You Can Take in the Next Ten Minutes."

I cannot recommend this book highly enough—and, likewise, I recommend that you do consider becoming part of the solution. Despite the staggering size of the problem, you and I can help. Or, rather, how could we choose not to help?

[Below, fall apples, past prime.]

On Whose Authority?

We'd like to point you to this piece that Cool Friend Andrea Learned posted over at LearnedOnWomen.com. She reports that separately two male researchers, Michael Silverstein (with coauthors) and Paco Underhill (both Cool Friends, by the way), are about to publish books on seizing the opportunity of the women's market. She says that maybe people will pay attention, as they seem not to have listened to Marti Barletta and other females (such as Faith Popcorn). Inadvertently, Andrea is echoing what Tom posted last week, on finding the article "The Female Economy" by Michael Silverstein and Kate Sayre in Harvard Business Review. Its subtitle puts the message across: "As a market, women represent a bigger opportunity than China and India combined; so why are companies doing such a poor job of serving them?"

Reading Assignment!
Action Assignment!

Memorize this equation:

W > 2(C + I)

Put the damned equation on posters all over the damned walls and halls of every damned office.
Put the equation on everybody's Desktop.
Etc.
Etc.

Translation, my passion of the last 15 years: The "women's market" is over twice as big as the Chinese and Indian markets combined. And, on average, you aren't doing a damn thing about it—and that even holds if you think you do in fact "get it" and are "on it."

My 1.5 decade passion has been most recently re-enforced by a feature in the September Harvard Business Review, by Michael Silverstein and Kate Sayre:

"The Female Economy: As a market, women represent a bigger opportunity than China and India combined; so why are companies doing such a poor job of serving them?"

It begins:

"Women now drive the world economy. Globally, they control about $20 trillion in annual consumer spending, and that figure could climb as high as $28 trillion in the next five years. ... In aggregate, women represent a growth market bigger than China and India combined—more than twice as big, in fact. Given those numbers, it would be foolish to ignore or underestimate the female consumer. And yet many companies do just that, even ones that are confident they have a winning strategy when it comes to women."

Soooooooooo?????????
When???????
Please!!!!!!!
Damn it!!!!!!!!
(I beg you!!!!!!)
(Again!!!!!!)

Can Only Women Excel In Marketing to Women?

There's a false assumption that floats freely around that marketing to women "space"—that marketing to women must be handled by women. That may well keep a lot of more traditionally male-oriented industries or brands (or men in those companies) from taking the leap, and learning more about the ways women buy. Why should they bother if marketing to women is a woman's thing? But, like I said, that is a false assumption. And recent media discussions of leadership and gender made me see some marketing team implications as well.

As Getting to 50/50 co-author Sharon Meers put it in a "Room for Debate" post on the New York Times blog:

So here's the real question: How to make the positive qualities we see in female managers more common in men—and more useful to all? A new report from Catalyst shows how companies win when we escape the idea that men and women are so different and work harder to get on the same page—so that men and women bring out the best in each other sharing the same C-suite.

The same goes for building teams or finding leaders with regard to marketing to women. What you are looking for are those qualities women tend to have that make them "transformational leaders." According to Gary N. Powell who also contributed his thoughts to that NYT blog post:

Transformational leadership includes charisma (communicating the purpose and importance of a mission and serving as a role model), inspirational motivation (exuding optimism and excitement about the mission's attainability), intellectual stimulation (encouraging others to think out of the box), and individualized consideration (focusing on the development and mentoring of subordinates as individuals).

Are any of those things gender-specific? No. Men, indeed, have the potential to have charisma, exude optimism, be able to encourage others and be interested in mentorship programs. It just may mean training the right side of their brains into action a bit more (as per Daniel Pink in A Whole New Mind). Of course—there is the "vice versa" too—that women who lack some of the more typically male qualities of leadership can get the training or learn from colleagues, as well.

In marketing, smart people with years of experience in the field (and there are many) can see what works and why. If we leave gender out of the label for what the positive qualities are, we may more likely get men and women on the same page, and on the way to the same productivity levels with regard to their understanding of the women's market.

So, no. It is not only women who can excel in marketing to women. Instead, those women may be where you go first to guide/educate others in the qualities that lead toward a better understanding of how women buy. Just like marketers should be guided and inspired by the women they serve (as in transparent marketing), so too should people in marketing be guided and inspired by the women who more naturally understand today's marketplace. That's how women and men working together will bring out the very best in their team's marketing abilities.

Watson's Reminder to Baby Boomers

As a general rule, I try to stay away from using sports stories in my speeches and classroom work. And you won't see a lot of sports talk on this blog. However, I found Tom Watson's performance at the British Open an inspiring example of excellence and ... a reminder to us baby boomers that we can still compete at the highest levels.

Tom isn't as long off the tee as his young opponents. The fescue roughs were probably a bit more troublesome for his 59-year-old body than for the 20-somethings he played along with. His experience, will, and unflappable persistence kept him in front until the very last putt of the scheduled seventy-two holes. Although he lost the playoff to Stewart Cink, Tom's performance was indeed inspiring.

As a member of that demographic, I think about baby boomers in business quite a bit these days. While many of us may have thought about retiring in the near future, it seems to me there is a bit of work to do before we pass the baton. Just like Tom Watson and golf, the game of business has changed for us baby boomers. We came to leadership positions when making things and selling things was the name of the game. Increasingly, we don't make things here in the USA anymore. Knowledge work and exotic financial instruments seem to be the product these days. Our parents left us a fairly robust economy with employment opportunities for everyone who applied themselves. As I write this, my state, Michigan, has a 15.2%(!) unemployment rate. The taxpayers own our largest manufacturer, GM. Self-interest, some would call it greed, still seems to get in the way of the collective effort we need to get out of this mess.

I really hope Tom Watson inspired other baby boomers as well. This is the time we must use our experience, our will, and some unflappable persistence to turn this thing around and get one more win before the end of our careers. Our experience should help us remember it was hard work, real labor, that sustained the economy. Our will should be strengthened by a determination to leave a better economy for our children. And our persistence should help us remember we win this thing shot by shot, never wavering, playing the conditions dealt us, and knowing that we can still win this thing. Tom Watson didn't show up in Scotland to be a ceremonial icon ... he went to win! Thanks Tom! And damn it, I really wished that putt had fallen!

Bias Redux

Tom's mention of bias on Friday sparked a heated debate. As he and I discussed it, we remembered that he'd posted on this topic previously. We decided to re-post his blog from nine months ago where he reviewed a book about research findings on gender differences. See below.

M-F Leadership Styles, Effectiveness of

[This post originally appeared on 30 Sept 2008. If you'd like to see the comments it engendered on its first appearance, you can do so here.]

In my last post, Success Tip #140, I caught myself in an un-rare but un-intentional sexist moment. While discussing crisis leadership, I used typically male language and imagery—including the all-male football analogy!

By coincidence, the day after the post, my mail included Leadership and the Sexes: Using Gender Science to Create Success in Business, a book by Michael Gurian and Barbara Annis. The book is a marvel. The authors begin, "This book is about the practical application of information on male/female brain differences in every aspect of your corporate life, from workplace comfort to competitive edge to the corporate bottom line."

The most important phrase being, per me, "brain differences"—that is, the book is derivative of the new brain sciences, not anecdotal evidence. (The book is strongly endorsed by the author of another book I found of inestimable value, The Female Brain, by Louann Brizendine, M.D.)

The evidence is brain-science based, but a social-psychological experiment provides a nice snapshot of the findings. What follows is from a sidebar titled, "Gender Experiments Surprise Even the Experts":

"In the 1990s, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation/CBC created a short film that recorded an experiment in leadership styles between women and men. CBC didn't tell the participants the objective of the work they would do that day; the director simply divided the male and female leaders into two teams, and gave those team leaders the same instructions: build an adventure camp. The teams were set up in a somewhat militaristic style at first, including team members wearing uniforms, but also with the caveat in place that the teams could alter their style and method as they wished as long as they met the outcome in time.

"Leader one immediately created a rank-and-file hierarchy and gave orders, even going so far as to assert authority by challenging members on whether they had polished their shoes.

"Leader two did not have the 'troops' line up and be inspected, but instead met with the other team members in a circle, asking 'How are we doing? Are we ready?' 'Anything else we should do?' 'Do you think they'll test us on whether we've polished our shoes?' Instead of giving orders, leader two was touching team members on the arm to reassure them.

"As part of the program, CBC arranged for corporate commentators to watch the teams prepare. Initially the commentators (mostly men) were not impressed by the leadership style of leader two; the second team wasn't 'under control,' members weren't lined up, and they 'lacked order' (or so it seemed). The commentators predicted that team two would not successfully complete the task. Yet when the project was completed, team two had built an impressive adventure camp as good as team one's, with some aspects that were judged as better.

"When debriefing their observations, the commentators noticed that when team one was building the structures for the camp, there had been discord regarding who was in charge and who had completed which job and who hadn't. Team one exhibited a lack of communication during the process of completion that created problems (for example, 'Wasn't someone else supposed to do this?').

"Team two, on the other hand, took longer to do certain things, but because of its emphasis on communication and collaboration during the enactment of the task (such as 'Let's try this' and 'What do you think about that?'), the team met the goal of building the adventure camp in its own positive way, and on time."

There is for me a profoundly important "bottom line" here. Not that one style is better than another, but that virtually every proclamation we make ought to be informed by gender differences. In my speeches, for example, I often find myself rambling on ad nauseam about the importance of relentless relationship building—a stunning insight for a male to make or take on board (I overstate ever so slightly), and boringly obvious beyond words to most of the female participants. I am not suggesting that every phrase be presented in two languages, but I am suggesting that the topic ought not be far beneath the surface. Based on my own experience, I will say that we (i.e., me) will not necessarily improve (as in, exhibit increased sensitivity) over time; hey, with the chips down last week, Joe Montana and the SF 49ers were my immediate benchmarks.

I urge you to read the book—there is a lot at stake, and an opportunity to achieve lasting competitive advantage. From an increasingly robust body of research, we know for sure (as sure as sure can ever be) that diverse teams—diversity on any and all dimensions—outperform homogenous teams. We equally have to know how to maximize the diversity advantage—the reward can be performance leaps, not just modest improvements.

Della

One of the points Tom's been making for over a decade is that women have an enormous impact on purchasing decisions, and companies ignore this at their peril. Dell is proving that it's not as easy as it looks. Our Cool Friend Andrea Learned, coauthor of Don't Think Pink and a recent guest blogger here, was featured in a piece in the New York Times about Dell's struggles. While, as Tom quoted earlier this week, according to Kelley Murray Skoloda, 66% of personal computers are purchased by women, they're not all using them to count calories or find recipes. Marketing to women requires more than a change in color scheme.

There is a happy ending here. Dell is handling the hullabaloo quite well. They have responded quickly to the controversy and have been making changes to their Della site (less pink!) as a result of the feedback. Let's hope the lessons they're learning will be shared across industries.

Design for Environment Speaks A Woman's Language

Joseph Fiksel, the author of the soon-to-publish updated edition of Design for Environment, speaks a woman's language, though he may not realize it. In a recent podcast interview for GreenBiz.com, he points out a few things that companies must do to approach the greening of their design processes. What interests me is that so much of what he identifies and recommends reflects the ways women think (and are ideas all brands should consider).

1) A non-linear and more systematic approach.

2) Collaboration, not competition, focused.

3) The path is as important as the end goal.

I expand each point below:

1) A non-linear, and more systematic approach. While "system" is sometimes misunderstood to be a sort of "techy" or linear process, the term actually refers to an interdependent group of items forming a unified whole. Thus, a more "holistic" approach. One of my favorite cross-industry examples, Michael Pollan's The Omnivore's Dilemma, illustrates this very well. His writes that corn subsidies do help farmers, but that there are interrelated negative effects to consider, as well. Corn subsidies ensure that other crops are not grown as much, and that corn syrup or some other corn product is thrown into just about any packaged food on the grocery shelves. This, in turn, means that a lot of people are losing control of their weight/health in eating those products—so our health insurance costs go up, etc.

No one thing, really, functions in isolation. And, this "it's all connected" perspective speaks a woman's language. Women tend to approach a purchase by looking at a wide range of influences: price, quality, corporate reputation, green practices, and treatment of employees, to name just a few.

Fiksel's Design for Environment point:

One of the important things about Design for Environment is that it has to become a systematic business process. It has to become part of the innovation process. Otherwise you have these one-off and two-off interesting anecdotal stories but you don't have consistent success over time.

Companies like 3M, P&G, and others have incorporated Design for Environment metrics and guidelines into their cross-functional development process so that every product team actually has people on it who are concerned with environmental performance and are coming up with ideas and critiquing the ideas as they go along. Thus, right from the concept stage this awareness is built in.

2) Collaboration, not competition, focused. Competition is the traditional, patriarchal style for conducting business (in general), but—as seems to be a bit more innate with women—there may be even more potential when competitors band together to make change or solve a problem. Such a win-win collaboration speaks a woman's language. Evolutionarily—it took a village to raise a child, after all ...

Fiksel's Design for Environment point:

Companies are somewhat hampered by the need to be competitive. I believe that what's needed is more collaboration within supply chains and across industries, including public/private collaboration to create business conditions where companies can really make more radical moves towards improving environmental performance.

3) The path is as important as the end goal. Rather than rushing to market to say your company got green "first," start way sooner on the path, and earlier along the supply and development chain, to take the steps in that direction. Highlighting the means to the end, while you are in the process, gives women more indication of your commitment level—and, again, speaks their language.

Fiksel's Design for Environment point:

So my advice would be for companies to try to be more forward-thinking and more proactive in how they deploy their environmental resources. Don't check things after the fact but think about it early in the game when there's still a lot of degrees of freedom.

When I spoke at the Vermont Businesses for Social Responsibility conference last week, one of my points was that there was already so much about socially responsible ways of doing business that spoke to women—but were such businesses telling that particular story as well as they could? I don't think so. As always, I also made the point there and, will again here—that speaking a woman's language need not alienate men. Instead, in so many cases, approaching business via systematic, collaborative, and a means-rather-than-end focus actually speaks the language of exactly the 21st Century human consumer you are seeking. When you start with women, the end result is that gender can become irrelevant—and great marketing results.

[Cool Friend Andrea Learned blogs at learnedonwomen.com and you can find her on Twitter as andrealearned.—CM]

TomChirp #5

"China Far Outpaces U.S. in Building Cleaner Coal-Fired Plants" (page 1, New York Times, 05.11).

Why? Damn it!

TomChirp #6

"The Female Advantage. A New Reason for Businesses to Hire Women: It's Profitable" (Boston Globe, "Ideas" section, 05.03). In a nutshell: "Several studies have linked greater gender diversity in senior posts with financial success." Some studies, from Europe, show that the difference is enormous.

TP: Duh!

TomChirp #7

Stats from Kelley Murray Skoloda's Too Busy to Shop.

Women purchase:

85% all consumer purchases, cars to computers
91% new homes
66% personal computers
92% vacations
80% health care decisions
89% bank accounts
Etc.

Marketing "success"—women's perceptions:

59% of women "feel misunderstood by food marketers"
66% healthcare
74% automotive
84% investment advisors
Etc.

So??????????

Me! Me! Me! Me!

Did you know, my dear young, under-55 readers, that me and mine, those of us over 55, "are more active in online finance, shopping, and entertainment than those under 55?" That's the word from respected Forrester Research. The quote is from a story in USA Today, 8 January, titled, "Older Folks Like Tech Toys, Too." Tomorrow, the humongous Las Vegas Consumer Electronics Show will have its first "Silvers Summit" in recognition of the above.

My reaction?
Duh!

I repeat in this Blog for the Umpteenth Time: The Mother of All Markets for Approximately Everything for the next quarter-century is the deeply underappreciated, insanely underserved Boomer-Geezer clan of 100 million or so in the U.S. alone. (Then add the Super-silver EU and Super-silver Japan, and the story grows even more important.)

"Silver Summit"?
This market is not about "silver initiatives."
This market is the market—the rest is details.

Must Market!

The economy is in the tank, etc., etc. But there will be an end to the gloomy tunnel, and the barrel of gold at the end of that tunnel—bruises and "new world" iterations notwithstanding—will be, for the Americans, our 80-million, mostly healthy, even if not quite as wealthy, Boomers. Some get it—and maybe it's not as hard as others think. For example, my bet is for great success for Jay Leno in his soon-to-be 10 p.m. slot. If "60 is the new 30," "10 p.m. is the new 11:30 p.m." Boomers may be healthier than their predecessors of the same age band, but they mostly go to bed by, say, 11 p.m.

(Startling success in general will go to those in the "rapidly aging universe"—e.g., U.S., EU, Japan—who vigorously pursue the BGB/Boomer-Geezer Bonanza.) (Reminder: "It" is not mostly about marketing; "it" is overwhelmingly about new products and services.)

Beats Biofuels?!

Okay, I've stooped to reading ads. A United Technologies (Otis, Carrier, etc.) ad illustrates in detail the contours of a "zero net energy" building. There's nothing far out about it—and buildings today consume perhaps 40% of our energy.

I'm not conned by the ad—it just succinctly captured a ton of stuff I've been reading, and a ton of stuff underway in the green building "movement." Working on energy reduction in built environments is certainly on the prospective Obama stimulus list. But is it high enough on that list? Massive improvements can be made with proven technologies, far closer at hand than hydrogen cars or a national network of car battery recharging facilities. (And maybe the price of corn would fall in the process—thus saving starving people from bonehead Washington policies.)

FYI

The same BusinessWeek used above as a source has an article titled "What Top CEOs Are Thinking."

8 CEOs.
8 males.

(Sorry to waste your time, I realize this is not news.)

Rightside Up?

I have nothing against men—and feel profoundly for the million refugees cited below. On the other hand, I have been trying to make the case for an enhanced women's role in business for a dozen years now—and I've also been a particularly noisy foreteller of the exponential shift of the U.S. to a service economy.

These amazing stats appeared in the 5 December Boston Globe. In the last year:

Men are down 1,069,000 jobs.

Women are up 12,000 jobs.

Holy moly.

The principal reason is the continuing demise of male-dominated manufacturing jobs, and the continuing rise of service jobs. In particular, healthcare, where women constitute 80% of employees, has added 400,000 jobs during the period in question.

Interesting, eh?

(Net: It is increasingly a women's world, called the global rise of "Womenomics" by one European observer. Another accelerator is the stunning rate at which women are eclipsing men on the education front, again pretty much worldwide—from primary school to Ph.D. programs.)

Penance?

What shall we do with the architects (and operators) and facility managers?

As most know, two of my great passions are gorgeous and startling and utilitarian DESIGN. And MARKETING to WOMEN. (Add great experiences—but I was a follower on that one.)

Susan and I went to the fabulous-restored Colonial Theater in Boston to see Spamalot. At the break, I at one point counted (I counted twice—zero hyperbole here) a line of 27 (TWENTY-SEVEN) (TWENTY-SEVEN) at the entrance to the LADIES ROOM.

Of course I know that such a problem is tough to deal with after the fact in an old facility—but there was the renovation point, and I'd guess "the boys" (I'd wager a pretty penny that it was boys), the architects, TOTALLY BLEW IT.

SO OUR QUESTIONS OF THE DAY ARE (1) HOW DO WE FIX IT NOW? (2) WHAT SHOULD THE ARCHITECTS' PENANCE BE?

(My starter suggestion, since re-renovation is tough, especially in a tough philanthropic environment, is to punish all us boys by severely and sternly (rent-a-cops with batons) limiting access to the Men's Room and carefully managing the line so ours is always one-third longer than theirs. (The penalty extra third acknowledges that it takes us less time to get the job done.) Hmm, maybe ours should be twice as long, adding in some small measure of punitive damages.

I anxiously await your replies which I shall forward with dispatch to the AIA/American Institute of Architects.

M-F Leadership Styles, Effectiveness of

In my last post, Success Tip #140, I caught myself in an un-rare but un-intentional sexist moment. While discussing crisis leadership, I used typically male language and imagery—including the all-male football analogy!

By coincidence, the day after the post, my mail included Leadership and the Sexes: Using Gender Science to Create Success in Business, a book by Michael Gurian and Barbara Annis. The book is a marvel. The authors begin, "This book is about the practical application of information on male/female brain differences in every aspect of your corporate life, from workplace comfort to competitive edge to the corporate bottom line."

The most important phrase being, per me, "brain differences"—that is, the book is derivative of the new brain sciences, not anecdotal evidence. (The book is strongly endorsed by the author of another book I found of inestimable value, The Female Brain, by Louann Brizendine, M.D.)

The evidence is brain-science based, but a social-psychological experiment provides a nice snapshot of the findings. What follows is from a sidebar titled, "Gender Experiments Surprise Even the Experts":

"In the 1990s, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation/CBC created a short film that recorded an experiment in leadership styles between women and men. CBC didn't tell the participants the objective of the work they would do that day; the director simply divided the male and female leaders into two teams, and gave those team leaders the same instructions: build an adventure camp. The teams were set up in a somewhat militaristic style at first, including team members wearing uniforms, but also with the caveat in place that the teams could alter their style and method as they wished as long as they met the outcome in time.

"Leader one immediately created a rank-and-file hierarchy and gave orders, even going so far as to assert authority by challenging members on whether they had polished their shoes. viagra for sales in india

"Leader two did not have the 'troops' line up and be inspected, but instead met with the other team members in a circle, asking 'How are we doing? Are we ready?' 'Anything else we should do?' 'Do you think they'll test us on whether we've polished our shoes?' Instead of giving orders, leader two was touching team members on the arm to reassure them.

"As part of the program, CBC arranged for corporate commentators to watch the teams prepare. Initially the commentators (mostly men) were not impressed by the leadership style of leader two; the second team wasn't 'under control,' members weren't lined up, and they 'lacked order' (or so it seemed). The commentators predicted that team two would not successfully complete the task. Yet when the project was completed, team two had built an impressive adventure camp as good as team one's, with some aspects that were judged as better.

"When debriefing their observations, the commentators noticed that when team one was building the structures for the camp, there had been discord regarding who was in charge and who had completed which job and who hadn't. Team one exhibited a lack of communication during the process of completion that created problems (for example, 'Wasn't someone else supposed to do this?').

"Team two, on the other hand, took longer to do certain things, but because of its emphasis on communication and collaboration during the enactment of the task (such as 'Let's try this' and 'What do you think about that?'), the team met the goal of building the adventure camp in its own positive way, and on time."

There is for me a profoundly important "bottom line" here. Not that one style is better than another, but that virtually every proclamation we make ought to be informed by gender differences. In my speeches, for example, I often find myself rambling on ad nauseam about the importance of relentless relationship building—a stunning insight for a male to make or take on board (I overstate ever so slightly), and boringly obvious beyond words to most of the female participants. I am not suggesting that every phrase be presented in two languages, but I am suggesting that the topic ought not be far beneath the surface. Based on my own experience, I will say that we (i.e., me) will not necessarily improve (as in, exhibit increased sensitivity) over time; hey, with the chips down last week, Joe Montana and the SF 49ers were my immediate benchmarks.

I urge you to read the book—there is a lot at stake, and an opportunity to achieve lasting competitive advantage. From an increasingly robust body of research, we know for sure (as sure as sure can ever be) that diverse teams—diversity on any and all dimensions—outperform homogenous teams. We equally have to know how to maximize the diversity advantage—the reward can be performance leaps, not just modest improvements.

My Kind of Promotion

While in China-Macau SAR, I was delighted with a headline in the Global Edition of the New York Times on 1 July: "A Big Step for Women in the U.S. Military." President Bush has just nominated Lieutenant General Ann Dunwoody to take command of the Army's Material Command. If Congress approves, she will add a fourth star to her collar—and thence become the military's first female 4-star flag officer.

Bravo!

Mea Culpa!

There's a book I love—which Susan wishes had never been written, Roger Rosenblatt's delightful (I think) Rules for Aging. S's irritation stems from my penchant for referring to it again and again and then again—she's got a point, actually.

A couple of weeks ago, she and a few friends were uncharacteristically heading to a garden party—spring hats were more or less required. As she worried and worried about how her hat would be received, I "helped" by re-re-re-reading to her Rosenblatt's Rule #2, perhaps my favorite:

"Yes, I know that you are certain that your friends are becoming your enemies; that your grocer, garbageman, clergyman, sister-in-law, and your dog are all of the opinion that you have put on weight, that you have lost your touch, that you have lost your mind; furthermore you are convinced that everyone spends two-thirds of every day commenting on your disintegration, denigrating your work, plotting your assignation. I promise you: Nobody is thinking about you. They are thinking about themselves—just like you."

But, indeed, when the women gathered after the party they were abuzz about who had worn what—caustic opinions flew hot and heavy. Pointedly reminding me that Roger & I are men.

That is, the worried woman is right—others are indeed thinking about her and passing judgment thereupon.

Not so for us boys, mostly at least. (As Roger said. And I quote ...)

The above reminded me of something of paramount practical importance that's been on my mind for a while. I will make some profound pronouncement or other, during a speech, on, say, the all-important topic of "relationship management." It is, if I must say so myself, a real eye-opener.

To me and the boys in the room.

The women yawn, or buzz "At 65 he's discovered the power of relationships—bloody men."

My message here, boys, is one I'm working on assiduously, though the anecdote above would suggest, without much success. Namely, it is important that I pass many a remark through a "gender filter." Not for reasons of political correctness, God help me, but because my "brilliant (breakthrough?) generalization" may well be old-old-old-obvious-obvious-obvious news to the other gender—and implementation, the end point, will be profoundly affected by my faulty assertion—"they are thinking about themselves."

I'm not asking, guys, for revised behavior necessarily (ever so difficult to pull off), but I am urging vigilant thoughtfulness-awareness. The business-process project you are working on will be implemented in your 63-person unit by the staff of 30 boys and 33 girls (about right, statistically). It's possible that any number of your key assumptions will not hold water for the 33 women. viagra discount

The obvious answer, for starters, is thoroughly mixed-gender teams with mixed-gender leadership—and explicit awareness of and discussion about the degree to which the disposition of the internal "customers" will be significantly affected by gender. (And design reflecting the above!)

Is "all this" totally obvious to everyone but me—and Roger Rosenblatt? Perhaps, but based on my dozen years of wrestling with the implication of gender differences, I doubt it.

Meanwhile, my "gender filter" remains firmly in place—and Roger Rosenblatt's book is well out of sight.

I Do Love You, Lee, But ...

How simply can I put it: There is no one in ad world that I respect more than Lee Clow, the chief creative at TBWA Worldwide—he's been my hero since the 1985 Apple ad showing IBMers as lemmings walking off a cliff. (I was in the Stanford stadium when it played for the one and only time during the Super Bowl.)

The New York Times recently reported on Lee's remarks at a big ad world confab. He seems to have said that the key to getting with it in the New World Order of advertising-marketing is hiring lots of youngsters and giving them more or less free rein to invent the future.

Seems as though I've heard that line before—from me.

Well, to a large extent, Lee and I are simply full of it.

How about hiring ... old people [and giving them more or less free rein to invent the future]?

That is: I have met the future, and it is me!

As most of you know, Susan and I have just returned from a seven-day walking tour along the Dalmatian Coast of Croatia. There were about 15 of us. As I recall, the age range was about fifty to a little over seventy-five. (!!) While the daily hikes were not reminiscent of the Boston Marathon that occurred the day after we left, they were up-and-down, rocky, and averaged perhaps eight miles a day.

You didn't have to be a Rockefeller to be a part of the group, but a reasonable amount of money changed hands, especially when airfare is included.

We—collectively—are the poster "children" for the most enormous-wealthy-healthy market opportunity, well, ever. As in: ever.

Boomers.
Geezers.

Bill Novelli, AARP head, lets us in on the world's most commercially profound "secret":

"People turning 50 today have more than half of their adult life ahead of them."

When I first read that, I believe it's no exaggeration to say that I literally "gasped." I guess I more or less knew it, but I'd never seen it in such plain-succinct text.

50.
Over.
Half.
To go.

Of equal impact, on a micro level, was the fact that:

The average American buys 13 cars in the course of a lifetime.
She-he buys seven of the thirteen after the age of 50.

Cars.
More than half.
After 50.

The leading edge of boomer-dom is now over 60. I tried to describe, on a single PPT slide, what I think is coming-here, from the Boomers, and their older peers, the [amazingly healthy] Geezers:

"We are the Aussies & Kiwis & Americans & Canadians. We are the Western Europeans & Japanese. We are the fastest growing, the biggest, the wealthiest, the boldest, the most (yes) ambitious, the most experimental & exploratory, the most different, the most indulgent, the most difficult & demanding, the most service & experience obsessed, the most vigorous, (the least vigorous,) the most health conscious, the most female, the most profoundly important commercial market in the history of the world—and we will be the Center of your universe for the next twenty-five years. We have arrived!"

We.
Have.
Arrived.

Back to my gripe with my friend Lee Clow.

Here is my current report card on the market's (manufacturers, retailers, designers, marketers, product and service developers) effort to understand and encompass and exploit this Incredible-Humongous Expanding Market Opportunity:

Awful.
Dumb.
Disgraceful.
Insane.
Stupid.
Pitiful.
Embarrassing.

As I put it, ever so gently, and with great cultural sensitivity, post-Croatia, in my London seminar on 28 April:

"You are all idiots."

Hint: I considered it understatement.

NB: I am not suggesting that things aren't changing. But I am suggesting-insisting that I and my friends on the trip to Croatia and several hundred million others with literally trillions of bucks-Euros burning holes in our collective pockets, will be the centerpiece of economic opportunity for the next Two Decades or so. It ain't forever, but 20 or 25 years is a good, solid hunk of time.

Think: Next quarter century!
(After that you're on your own—and I ain't gonna be bugging you.)

Attached is a short PowerPoint "Special Presentation" on this topic.

Above and below are a couple of pics from our trip.

Three Cheers For Us!
Whoops, Hold The Applause!

"We" (Americans) are near the top of the "get it" list when it comes to providing women equal opportunities to men. Hey, it's what I thought—and I study this stuff. The World Economic Forum begs to differ. Their annual "Global Gender Gap" assessment is based on: (1) educational attainment; (2) economic participation and opportunity; (3) political empowerment; and (4) health and survival. The U.S.A. ranks ... 31st! (Um, down from a lofty 22nd in 2006.) We are indeed well ahead of Chad and Yemen, the two worst at #127 and #128. But, we are behind Sweden (#1), Germany (#7), Cuba (this year's #22), Bulgaria (#25), and Estonia, immediately above us at #30.

Source: Time, 11.26.07

DAMN IT!

WHAT PURE CRAP!

WALL STREET JOURNAL. NOVEMBER 9-11: "WHY WOMEN REFRAIN FROM PURSUING MBAs." ONE EXCEPTION TO "NORMAL" [#s HEAVY] APPROACH TO MBA IS UK's LANCASTER UNIVERSITY MANAGEMENT SCHOOL. LANCASTER FOCUSES ON "SOFT SKILLS" THAT "PLAY TO WOMEN'S STRENGTHS."

TOTAL, PURE, UNMITIGATED CRAP!

WHY DO WE CALL "LEADERSHIP" ET AL. "SOFT," "WOMEN'S STUFF"? ENRAGES ME. (This is the first post ever in all capital letters. Capital letters = Enraged.)

LET'S TALK ABOUT "HARD STUFF," THE "REAL GUY STUFF" THAT MAKES THE WORLD GO ROUND—AND MARKETS AND ECONOMIES CRASH!

THE ULTIMATE "HARD STUFF" IS QUANT FINANCE—THE PRODUCT OF PURE MATH—"GUY STUFF," THE STUFF THAT MEN ARE MADE FOR! TAKE "MARK-To-MARKET" AND "SUPER-SENIOR CDOs" [CONSOLIDATED DEBT OBLIGATIONS]. THEY ARE KILLING US!! "MARK-TO-MARKET"? FINE! BUT WHAT, MY DEARS, IS THE "MARKET"? NOBODY HAS A SWEET CLUE—ESPECIALLY THE "QUANTS." THE "MARKET"/A MARKET/ANY MARKET IS A FUNCTION OF THE LONG-FORGOTTEN [BY THE "QUANTS"—"HARD GUYS," "REAL MEN"] UNDER-LY-ING VAL-UE OF THE REAL [NOT "MODELED"] ASSET. [E.G. THE ORIGINAL MORTGAGE BY REAL PEOPLE ON A REAL HOUSE]. THE "QUANT"-"HARD GUYS"-"REAL MEN" MEGA-MODELS KNOW "EVERYTHING ABOUT EVERYTHING"—AND NOTHING ABOUT NOTHING ABOUT WHAT MATTERS, THE ACTUAL VALUE OF THE ACTUAL LOAN. CITIGROUP HAS NO LESS THAN $60 BILLION+ TIED UP IN "SUPER-SENIOR" CDOs [THOUGHT "SUPER-SAFE" ONLY WEEKS AGO—BY THE "QUANTS"]—AND THEY HAVE NO F-ING CLUE AS TO THE REAL VALUE OF ANY OF IT!

SOFT?
HARD?

BOB WATERMAN AND I, IN 1980, DEVELOPED A MANTRA IN THOSE DAYS OF YORE WHEN "STRATEGY [STRATEGIC PLANS] WAS EVERYTHING." WE SAID:

HARD IS SOFT.
SOFT IS HARD.

THE READILY-MANIPULABLE NUMBERS ARE THE TRUE "SOFT STUFF."

THE RELATIONSHIPS-LEADERSHIP-"CULTURE"-"ACTION BIAS" [OR NOT] ARE THE TRUE "HARD STUFF."

PERIOD.
END OF STORY.
[I WISH.]

WOMEN BEING CATERED TO BY TEACHING "SOFT STUFF"? IT WELL AND TRULY PISSES ME OFF TO READ SUCH UNMITIGATED BULLSHIT! [MY ONLY CRITICISM OF SAID WOMEN IS THAT THEY'D BE SILLY ENOUGH TO CONSIDER AN MBA IN THE FIRST PLACE!]

WOMEN GOING TO B-SCHOOL IN LESSER NUMBERS THAN HOPED FOR? PERHAPS THEY'RE ON TO SOMETHING!

Women to Save Pier 1?

I was perusing my online newsletter from Workforce.com when I came across a couple of interesting articles. One about a 4-year study of Fortune 500 companies providing evidence that "Firms with More Women on Boards Perform Better Than Those That Don't." "We have established a correlation between diverse boards and strong corporate performance," says Kara Helander, vice president, Western Region at New York-based Catalyst.

I, then, read an article about Pier 1 Imports' financial woes and their plan to correct their downturn by cutting healthcare costs. The plan includes cutting employees' hours to disqualify them for health benefits (very Wal*Mart-like). Pier 1 CEO Alex Smith is calling it a "cost-efficiency mission." Sounds to me like a nice way to say, "Hey employees, we're screwing you, but keep up the good work because you're improving our bottom line." According to the article, "Pier 1 Imports soon will learn whether cutting health care benefits for the very employees who deliver what the company calls its signature in-store shopping experience will help resurrect the failing retailer or exacerbate its multimillion-dollar losses."

I could go on and on discussing why I think this is a tragic solution to their problem, but given that I just read the Catalyst study, my first thought was, "Huh? I wonder if there is a correlation between their performance and the number of women they have on their Board?" So, I googled Pier 1. Imagine that ... the Board of Directors is made up entirely of men! I'm completely flabbergasted! Pier 1?! All Men?! What are they thinking??? They might do well to heed this statement from the study: "It makes sense that companies with more women on their boards would perform better than those that don't because these companies probably have a better handle on their customer base," says Dale Winston, CEO of Battalia Winston, a New York-based executive search firm.

Recall this passage from Tom's Re-imagine! "All you have to do is look! LOOK AT A DAMN PICTURE OF THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS IN THE ANNUAL REPORT ... hopelessly unrepresentative of the market being served ... I am not championing "quotas" ... I am championing a board whose composition mirrors the market (diversity) and technologies (youth) that represent our biggest challenges." Do you think Pier 1's customer base is made up entirely of men? Given that I shop there, I can say with 100% confidence the answer is NO!!! Perhaps I'll send some enlightened inspiration to Mr. Alex Smith (a copy of Tom's book perhaps?) so instead of disenfranchising his staff, he can re-imagine a strategy to revitalize Pier 1. I'd love a happy ending ...

Deloitte!
Again!

Deloitte & Touche just took honors as the #1 place for college grads to go to work. And D&T has long won my honors for its successful, Herculean efforts to retain top women performers who had been leaving in droves—see Deloitte's WIAR/Women's Initiative Annual Report (PDF).

Now, courtesy yesterday's Wall Street Journal, we learn that Deloitte is pioneering again—this time in altering work practices in recognition of the role that women leaders and professionals play at Deloitte's client organizations: " [Deloitte partner in charge of the project Cathy Benko] started exploring the issue while researching ways to retain and attract female employees. She teamed up with TrendSight Group, a Winnetka IL consulting firm, and after interviewing senior women executives and Deloitte employees, they concluded that the same discovery process women use when doing personal shopping applies to purchasing business services."

From this sprung a half-day workshop that, after initial skepticism, is being well received by men and women at Deloitte—and clients. Benko agrees that there is a fine line between improving communication approaches to women and appearing condescending, but the overall merit of the idea is sound and worthwhile, as women become almost dominant in the middle ranks of corporations where so many commercial purchasing decisions, adding up to trillions of dollars, are made.

(Full disclosure: Marti Barletta is founder and chief of TrendSight Group—I have relied on her research for years; she was in fact coauthor of Trends, part of a set of four small books, called "Tom Peters Essentials," that I released in 2006. Marti is also a Cool Friend.)

Who Has the Problem,
Me or "Them"?

Case I:

So I read a good column (as far as it goes) by a good friend. Joe Nocera's "Talking Business" column in the September 29 New York Times was headlined: "The Worst Investors? Humans."

He writes about a bushel of demonstrated human irrationalities that lead to counterproductive investment behavior. But never once—so damn typical!!!—does he touch on the issue of gender differences in investment strategies. Yet, significant research shows that there are gender differences, that they revolve around irrationality, and that women, the rational ones, the less emotional ones, out-invest men.

Consider a Merrill study reported in the Atlantic ("When It Comes to Investing, Gender A Strong Influence On Behavior"): "Women come out better on almost every count as investors ... They are less likely to hold a losing investment too long, and less likely to wait too long to sell a winner; they're also less likely to put too much money into a single investment or to buy a reputedly hot stock without doing sufficient research."

Or consider a Jane Bryant Quinn column in Newsweek ("Stop Treating Women Investors Like Idiots!"): "Why all this focus on women and our lack of investment guts? A far greater problem, it seems to me, is trigger-happy speculation, mostly by men. The kind of guys whose family savings went south with the dot-coms. Imagine a list of their money mistakes: Shoot from the hip. Overtrade their accounts. Believe they're smarter than the market. Think with their mouse rather than their brain. Praise their own genius when stocks go up. Hide their mistakes from their wives."

I'm not arguing that the case is open and shut, though I think it is, I'm simply wondering why it never occurs to men to examine gender differences???

Case II:

As I write, I'm in High Point NC at the semi-annual monster furniture (home furnishings) show—85,000 in attendance.

Re gender, the statistics are solid as a rock: Women buy upwards of 90% of home furnishings.

So I picked up a freebie in the Sheraton lobby, October's issue of Home Furnishings Business: Strategy for the Furniture Retailer.

Page 12, "Home Furnishings Business Retail Advisory Board Members."

Total advisors: 6.
Total male members: 6.
Total female members: (Do the math yourself.)

But ...
Halleluiah!!
Improvement is on the way!!

Page 14, Contributors (to the October issue).

Total contributors: 9.
Total male contributors: 8.
Total female contributors: (Do the math yourself, but, statistically speaking, an infinite difference.)

Redux: Who's got the problem, me or "them"?
(Could well be me, often is.)

Boomer Social Sites

In July 2006 when we spoke with Cool Friend Robin Wolaner, she told us she was working on a new venture but all she would tell us was that it was an Internet product. Well, seems she's started a boomer social site called tbd.com. As in To Be Determined. According to a New York Times article about her site and other social sites for the older crowd, she came up with the idea "when I was sitting around with friends and we said, 'We're not going to hang out at the AARP site. What is there for us?'"

The To Be Determined name makes sense for the boomer cohort as well. According to research in Marti Barletta's latest book, PrimeTime Women™ (see most recent interview with Marti here), 59 percent of women 50 to 70 years old feel that their greatest achievements are still ahead of them. So, yes, their lives are still to be determined.

We send our best wishes for success to Robin and the rest of her team at TeeBeeDee.

Marketing to Women,
10-Year Review

Dori Molitor, in a pdf titled "Ten Years After" (published at the Hub), writes, "It's been nearly ten years since Tom Peters declared women to be the 'most powerful economic force on the planet' and Faith Popcorn's EVEolution defined the marketing-to-women movement as an all-out business revolution. ... Were Tom and Faith wrong? Or did marketers fail to take the kind of bold actions needed to realize the full potential of women's economic clout?"

You can download the complete article here.

PrimeTime Women

Our Cool Friend Marti Barletta spoke with Hoag Levins over at Ad Age the other day about PrimeTime Women, the 50- to 70-year-old women who have ALL the money and are ignored by most marketers. Marti gives a shout out to Tom about 6 minutes into this 8 and a half minute video by noting that Tom has been talking about the women's market "for 15 years." (So, it's really been 11 years, but that's close enough.)

You can watch the video here.

A Company Gets It

We know that the women's market is booming and that many haven't taken full advantage of this market. Not so Harley-Davidson. They've noticed that there is a huge market of women who are buying motorcycles—about 100,00 a year. As stated in the New York Times today, "'Fifty percent of the population is female and there is pent-up demand,' said James L. Ziemer, Harley-Davidson's chief executive. 'We need to remove barriers.'"

Companies that remove the barriers and recognize the power of women buyers can cash in on a great market, but I think Tom's been saying that for awhile now.

How does your company take advantage of today's key markets, boomers/geezers and women??

FYI/Women-in-Management/
Who Woulda Thunk II

herbal viagra Saudi Prince al-Waleed, called "the Middle East's most powerful investor" (The Business, 0516.07), has a 30-person holding company team that boasts over 50% women.

Get the Young Whippersnappers Off Their Fannies ASAP!

In Christopher Buckley's wonderful Boomsday (mentioned here before), Gen X revolts successfully against a future of, in effect, watching their earnings disappear into the aging pockets of the emergent Boomer Nation.

The issue Buckley so effectively satirizes is indeed very real—earthshaking, actually, unprecedented in human history, in fact. But there's reason to believe the results may be quite the opposite of Buckley's plotline. Or at least that's the story from Sunday, May 6, 2007.

All the coverage here in Europe (I'm in Munich, on the 8th, heading for Dubai as I write) tells us that Mr Sarkozy trounced Ms Royal to make it into Élysée Palace. Indeed, in electoral politics a 53%-47% beating is at least a semi-trounce.

But one small story in Britain's Independent, digging an inch or two below the surface, caught my eye, then fully grabbed my attention. Call it Boomsday Reverse.

Mr Sarkozy, a tough cookie, ran on an uncompromising platform that aims to deal with France's dire slippage in global competitiveness. Some are predicting he'll be France's Margaret Thatcher. He aims to lengthen the work week, cut taxes, hammer the unions, and such to get the French economy in tune with 21st century economics. Ms Royal, on the other hand and in stark contrast, effectively ran on a "What's all the fuss?" platform, claiming that the hyper-liberal French employment practices can be retained without further damage to France's ranking in the global competitiveness polls. So, the rather straightforward story goes, "the voters" went to the polls in record numbers, bit their collective tongues, prepared to accept the bitter medicine—and awarded the powerful presidency to Atilla the Economic Reformer.

Not so fast ...

The real story is far different. As to "the trounce," Trounc-ee Royal was in fact the trounc-er with a "very interesting" "little" slice of the population. She in fact handily topped Sarkozy among those who are in the 18-59 demographic. That ain't Gen X, my friends, that's more or less everybody on active duty in the workforce!

So how, in the end, did Sarkozy become the Ultimate Grand Trounc-er? Simple. He beat the bloody hell out of Royal among the 60-and-up crew. "Beat the bloody hell out of" equates to unheard of margins that were above 2-1.

That is, Team Elder exerted incredible, decisive de facto unity and power in France's demographically old-and-getting-older-and-we're-healthy-and-will-
be-around-for-a-long-long-time population. It's not that Sarkozy beat Royal. The actual story is that the 60+ geezers have ordered the wee 60 minus crew to get the hell to work and stay the hell at work ... so the Six Zero Plussers can get their hands on the loot they need to spend their remaining winters in Nice, or some such.

Boomsday was a fable about a very real issue, and a hilarious one at that. Boomsday Reverse, Variety Française, is episode one of Ultimate Reality TV—and it's going to be a long-running show, from France to Japan, with impact that buggers the imagination.

Stay tuned ...

Notes from the Amalfi Coast: Girls Rule! Stop unnecessary hospital deaths! Read this book!

[Links to the articles Tom mentions are below.—CM]

Nearly half of all millionaires are now women (24 April 2007)
Why today's women want a girl (25 April 2007)
Lifeline for 1m hospital patients (25 April 2007)
The Black Swan, Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Gender! Gender! Why Do We Always Overlook Gender?

Time has an essay this week [04.16.07] titled "The Age of U-Turns: Flip-flops get a bad name, but often the best course is to reverse course," by Bruce Grierson, where he writes about his book U-Turn. The author contrasts Western and Eastern thinking. Westerners ignore ambiguity: "To Western thinking, the world is linear; you can chop it up and analyze it." Eastern thinking is illustrated by a comment made by a Chinese student: "The difference between you and me is that I think the world is a circle, and you think it's a line."

The author praises the Eastern approach—which is at least worthy of examination and consideration. I applaud that, remembering my days at McKinsey when I sometimes was tarred with the ultimate brush of opprobrium: "You think in circles, Tom." Though it didn't help my standing with my betters, it was exactly what I thought of myself. Partly because my PhD mentors at Stanford were the likes of Gene Webb, Karl Weick, and Jim March, who tried to take the idea of organization beyond bloodless org charts and sterile strategy documents.

But that's not really my point here. Instead I am bridling at the fact that Grierson's flavor of linear "Western thinking" is really about ... MALE Western thinking." (Try to find a female philosopher in the Age of Greece! Fat chance!) FEMALE thinking, based on relationships rather than competitive spearthrowing in the bush, has always tended to the "circular." Research, among other things, shows that women see ten sides to an issue—where men see but one.

There's lots to say here, but my point is a simple one: Why must the "sample," in a book like Grierson's, always be male-centric?

Crossdress Nation (And Harry Burn's Mother)!

In the end it was, to be precise, Harry Burn's mother who made all the difference. A suffragette, she wrote to her son, age 24 and Tennessee's youngest legislator, saying, "Don't forget to be a good boy and help Mrs Catt ..." He did, tipped the scales on a 49-47 vote, and brought, effectively, to an end a struggle that in its most open form had lasted 72 years, 1 month, and 5 days. With Mrs Burn's urging and Harry's courageous vote on 18 August 1920, some 26 million American women were franchised in one fell swoop.

But that gets ahead of the game. Above you will find a picture of a 64-year-old male wearing a white wig and a black dress. In fact, a shamefaced 64-year-old. Said 64-year-old, M, purports to represent the spirit of Elizabeth Cady Stanton, rightfully called the Mother of the American women's rights/women's suffrage movement.

But that gets ahead of the game ...

It was a simple costume party in Dorset, Vermont, at the home of our friends Jill and Dave Sands, on March 31, this past Saturday. The idea was to dress as someone you admire—and be prepared to respond to questions as the admired personage would have responded. I thought it would be great fun, and therefore took it seriously. Franklin? Churchill? Nelson? John Paul Jones? Monty Python? No problem, I had them all pegged. And a satisfactory costume would hardly be a challenge (e.g., Churchill, cigar & brandy; Nelson or Jones, folding telescope or bits of my mildewed, 40-year-old Navy uniform).

That was 5 weeks before the party. And now was now—31 March 2007. And now, following Susan's "sartorial" guidance and that of a close friend who is an eminent women's historian, I was encased in a white wig and long black dress, courtesy a Boston costume shop, and, though tripping over my hems again and again ["Welcome to our world"—Susan], ready to go—and, courtesy a dozen books hastily ingested on a dozen plane trips, ready to respond to questions and declaim, among other things, on Mrs Burn, her young son Harry, Carrie Chapman Catt, and, of course, the angry, tenacious firebrand, Elizabeth Cady Stanton.

I was indeed shamefaced—shamed, after a dozen years loudly and doggedly championing change to women's still diminished role in business and government, that I was almost totally ignorant of the astounding history of the American women's rights movement. And worse yet, of the gruesome details of women's status in our society only 100 years ago—that makes the use of the loaded word "slave" entirely appropriate, beyond question, as I see it. It was no coincidence that the American's women's movement, effectively launched in Seneca Falls, New York, on July 13, 1848, grew in tandem with the abolitionist movement in America.

On the other hand, the last 5 weeks have been an absolute ball! There is simply nothing but nothing that I enjoy more than sinking my teeth and heart and soul into a new historical topic. I did indeed devour a dozen books from the original, and always controversial, works of Mrs Stanton to middle school books on the life of Susan B. Anthony. In particular I learned from:

In Her Own Right: The Life of Elizabeth Cady Stanton, by Elisabeth Griffith; Ladies of Seneca Falls, by Miriam Gurko; and Century of Struggle: The Woman's Rights Movement in the United States, by Eleanor Flexner and Ellen Fitzpatrick.

*I learned of the fateful luncheon meeting in Seneca Falls in July 1848 that was hosted by Mrs Stanton and attended by 5 "ladies" including Lucretia Mott, one of the subsequent superstars of the movement, the convention that followed 6 days later, the first of its kind—and the brutally negative and demeaning reaction thereto.

*As I said, I read with my mouth often seemingly open, about the total (as in Cap T Total!) absence of rights of American women and, almost as important, the contempt with which their so-called frail and vacuous and largely useless selves were held by males one and virtually all, from the ignorant to the most learned. And I learned—concluded—that, as I said before, women were de facto, and de jure, the equivalent of slaves, denied fundamental and trivial rights alike, and even a modicum of respect.

*As an orator myself, I learned of the critical role of powerful women orators in the women's rights movement, especially the Grimke sisters, the first women to speak in public to an audience with men—and the brutal and demeaning response thereto.

*I learned of the stream of small steps forward (some minor property rights established by New York state—subsequently reversed); and the first granting of the vote, in the Territory of Wyoming in 1870 by a "legislative" vote of 6 in favor, 2 against, and 1 abstaining (on 07.23.1890, Wyoming became the first state to grant the franchise to women—bravo).

*I learned of the unabated viciousness and bitterness and "dirty trick" tactics unleashed by male legislators and media barons and "men on the street" of all classes that attended the 72-year struggle, from the 5-person luncheon/cabal at Seneca Falls on 13 July 1848 to Nashville and the enactment of the 19th amendment to the Constitution of the United States of America on 26 August 1920.

*I learned of the role of "demented" [my word] optimism and matchless relentlessness that marked the movement—909 political campaigns, mostly failures, between 1868 and 1920, according to Carrie Chapman Catt (campaigns at state party conventions to include woman suffrage planks—277; campaigns in state legislatures to get suffrage amendments before voters—480; campaigns before 19 successive Congresses of the United States; etc.).

*And I learned that I was hardly alone in my own ignorance of the history of the American women's movement, and hence my de facto diminishment (ignorance is never an excuse) of the role and lot of women in our so-called egalitarian democracy. Typical of our "modern" approach to women-in-American history was the "towering" Oxford History of the American People, by the "towering" historian Samuel Eliot Morison; he honors the 19th amendment with two (count 'em) sentences in a section of his book with the exalted title, "Bootlegging and Other Sports." There is a monument to Morison on Commonwealth Avenue in Boston that I routinely pass as I powerwalk; in the future I shall snort derisively and turn my head from his bronzed gaze upon passing this contemptible male chauvinist pig (ironically there is a monument to women's rights pioneers about two blocks further along the Commonwealth Avenue mall—I shall accordingly genuflect).

*"The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of sex." (Incidentally, it was not until 1956, a scant half century ago, that the number of women voting equaled the number of men.)

I dwell on this story because it describes a personal journey away from ignorance that was, well, a blast—and, I believe, important. (I shall campaign, starting in 2007, for far greater attention to the history of the women's movement—still woefully skimpy; and not corrected by the recent "feminist" movement.) I also dwell on this story because innovation, including social innovation, is the "business" theme nearest and dearest to my professional heart—and the most important business issue of this, and, frankly, every era. It is my longstanding argument that all innovation is irrational, non-linear, and anything but the product of plans and focus groups; it is instead about anger to the point of rage that eventually boils over (from suffrage to the PC); "a little band of brothers" (whoops, the 5 great sisters of Seneca Falls and a slew of successors); willingness to suffer vicious smear attacks and unspeakable opprobrium of both a professional and personal nature, passion (!!!!!!!!); relentlessness (!!!!!!!!!—72 years, 1 month and 5 days from lunch at Seneca falls to ratification of the 19th amendment by Tennessee, the 36th state to do so; and those 909 political campaigns); tolerance for setback upon setback upon setback (Churchill: "Success is the ability to go from failure to failure without losing your enthusiasm"); and the strokes of luck such as the willfulness of Harry Burn's blessed mother.

All the above made the sacrifice of wearing a wig and a long dress for 5 hours seem like small beer!* (*Hmmm, should I have gone as Harry Burn's mother?)

My hero, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, per Elisabeth Griffin, In Her Own Right: The Life of Elizabeth Cady Stanton:

"She was defeated again and again and again, but she continued the struggle with passionate impatience."

"She had survived her husband, outlived most of her enemies, and exhausted her allies. Her mind remained alert, her mood optimistic, and her manner combative." [ECS 80th birthday celebration, attended by 6,000 people]