Never get too comfortable

What do marketing and road cycling have in common? You'll achieve more by choosing uncomfortable over comfortable.

It was 38 degrees this morning. Raw. Windy. Cloudy. The kind of weather that demands a wool base layer, leggings, and foot warmers if you plan to venture out for a few hours of road cycling. Over your shoulder you can hear the indoor trainer, accessorized with a built-in tray to hold your iPad, offering you a far more comfortable alternative to the chilled toes and numb fingers you know are waiting for you outside the back door.

Of course there’s only one problem with that. If you don’t venture out when it’s 38, chances are it will be even harder to go when it’s 32. Harder still when the mercury hits 25. And near impossible when the teens suddenly appear. Then before you know it spring arrives. You’re 10 pounds overweight. And you’re the slowest rider in the group. Try catching up then.

When you consider the long-term ramifications you know you have to go. Even if it means enduring a little discomfort.

So what does any of this have to do with marketing and advertising? Just this. As I was forcing myself to get in 40 miles it dawned on me that choosing discomfort over comfort on a road bike is no different than choosing discomfort over comfort in your career. Especially if you work in an industry where things change as quickly as New England’s weather.

It’s easy to get really comfortable in what we do every day. Easy to think up ads if that’s what we’re good at. Less comfortable to go and learn to be digital. Easy to work with the same partners we’ve always worked with. Less comfortable to join forces with people from disciplines with which we’re a lot less familiar. Easy to talk one’s self into believing that the less intimidating option will do. Less comfortable to enter into situations where we might have limited control or command less authority.

I say screw being comfortable. It’s one thing to get to spring and be the slowest rider in the group. It’s another thing all together to be left behind in the business in which you make your living.  Feeling at all comfortable in what you’re doing and how you do it? It’s time to look for something that scares you a little bit.

Photo by: Ben Birchall/PA, Guradian

Things I’ve learned about Gen Y from working with Gen Y

Tech Crunch vs TNGG in a battle of the blogs, condemning and defending Gen Y

Well, just as I was about to write a post about working with Gen Y – yes I know there have been a lot of those – Paul Carr’s Tech Crunch rant and thenextgreatgeneration.com rebuttal from Colby Gergen offer a more interesting distraction.

Tech Crunch’s Carr, a somewhat accomplished online journalist, takes the generation to task for its entitlement (old argument), its insistence on celebrating itself (sort of true, but they were trained to think that way both by parents and the very same sort of media channels that pay Paul’s salary), and their tendency toward whining (not that there isn’t a lot to whine about given the mess that previous generations have bestowed upon this one). But his column sounds downright angry and overly critical.

In the spirit of social media – debate, disagreement, conversation and the absence of gatekeepers to filter either quality or style – Colby responds with a headline that declares, “Dear Paul, You Suck.”  (Note it appears on thenextgreatgeneration.com, a crowdsourced blog that I admittedly incubated but leave to its own devices.)  Colby gives Paul a bit of a devil costume and returns the attack with equal venom, though to his credit he at least includes some backup.

He challenges Carr’s sources, offers alternative perspectives, and attempts to defend his generation.  Though in all honesty, he doesn’t really offer all that much evidence other than a few quotes from an unnamed ad exec and the magazine Fast Company.

So why am I bothering to blather here?  Two reasons.  I think it’s pretty easy for anyone – Carr, the NY Times (where this all started), UNH’s Paul Harvey – to criticize Millennials using all the tired clichés.  And it’s sometimes hard for Gen Y to be taken seriously when they’re still in the process of establishing themselves as a generation. (Hence the idea behind TNGG to begin with.) Or when they simply rant back.

In this case, both sides of the argument offer noise over substance.  Carr offers no real support for his case, just his own whiny criticism.  Colby sounds overly defensive without enough real examples to confront Carr’s shallow claims.

So here’s my take on Gen Y. Shit, if everyone else can jump to conclusions, so can I.

They’re not entitled so much as ambitious and impatient

They’ve been trained to be nothing less. By their parents and by the technology they depend on. The latter has conditioned them to an on demand expectation for everything, from content to self-gratification.  I say don’t blame them; instead take advantage of that ambition and put them to work.

They have an strong work ethic

From what I’ve experienced not only are they willing to work hard, they welcome more responsibility at a young age than previous generations. Combine that with a little too much confidence and a fearlessness of failure and while you may have to point them in the right direction, you won’t have to get them motivated.

They don’t fit into narrow job definitions

Having grown up multi-tasking, creating content and participating with media rather than consuming it, many have a diverse set of skills. And given the convergence of technology, product development, marketing, social media and the need for agility, this is a good problem to have.  So rather than force fit them into narrow job descriptions, create job definitions around their broader interests and capabilities.

They have a hard time focusing

This is the other side of impatience and multi-tasking. This means they may be great at gathering lots of content and staying aware of everything going on around them but they’re too easily distracted.  That makes it your job (like it or not) to focus them and make sure they know the end game.

Don’t expect much in the way of loyalty

I don’t think that they’re ungrateful so much as less likely to follow the paths taken by previous generations. The Times says they’re slow to embrace adulthood, but perhaps they just have a different, more modern definition of that life phase.  Plus, given that they’ve seen what’s happened to their parents – losing jobs, retirement funds, etc. – why should they give more than they take?

In short, if you’re threatened by GenY, don’t be.  Welcome them, learn from them and teach them what you know.  If you employ them, point them in the right direction, have their back, but get out of the way.  And if you’re their mentor, teach them goal setting and judgment.  They already know the tactics and technology.

(None of my observations are based on research.  But having both run and participated in lots of internship programs, having hired and mentored many Millennials, having met dozens of TNGG writers and community members, I can honestly and confidently say I feel pretty good about this generation.  Hey, they put Obama in the White House.)

Marriott and the impact of social media: the conclusion

Marriott gave me a great opening to a speech on social media and a lesson in how anyone can create content, distribute that content and influence a brand conversation. Above the first four slides of a talk I gave at Sears.

If you’ve been here this week you know the story of my dripping hotel room ceiling and my frustration with Marriott’s initial response.  But I’m pleased to report the story has a happy ending for all involved.

For starters, the ordeal gave me a brilliant opening to a speech I was making to Sears HC the next day. Perfect timing for a talk titled “The End of Us and Them,” and the thesis that media is now in the hands of two billion amateurs rather than a select group of privileged professionals.

I opened with a photo of the ceiling, thanked Sears for putting me up there, and then proceeded to reveal the early morning Tweet stream along with a video I’d shot and edited on my iPhone that morning calling out Marriott.  (Truth be told I didn’t actually post the video on Youtube, but faked it in my presentation to make the point.)

Needless to say it got a great reaction and emphasized that in an age of social media, when consumers control both content and distribution, all brands need to learn a different set of rules and behaviors.

Anyway, the rest of the story worked out well on a number of accounts, too. When offered free nights and points by the Marriott (nice of them) I told them, “no thanks,”  and instead requested a public apology on Twitter and a comment on this blog. The point wasn’t to embarrass anyone but simply to get the hotel to admit its mistake, acknowledge my frustration, and turn the entire mishap into a conversation from which people could learn.

It appears to have worked. The comment stream on the last post is a rich one. It questions whether one’s social footprint influences the response that they get from a brand.  It reveals disappointments with service in general. It earns Marriott credit for engaging. And, perhaps most importantly, it shows that a blog post that exercises a little restraint, replacing the venom-filled rant with some productive advice, gets a slightly better reaction that one that simply vents.

Furthermore, the hotel actually suggests that there’s room for improvement in both customer service and employee responsiveness. We may even see a guest bill of rights.

Lance Misner, the manager of the Marriott Hoffman Estates, has become a reader of this blog, a Twitter user, and maybe even a convert to social media’s potential for learning, engaging and marketing.

Here, in fact, is what he’s had to say in response to my last post and his own exposure to the story playing out in the social space.

“Let me say first of all that I do not know anything about Twitter so if I sound ignorant I am. I signed up myself in order to publicly apologize.  I hope that worked.”

“There are some incredible things going on in the business world as it relates to social media.  This has been a real wake up call, I need to embrace these concepts and find opportunities to further market our property. In fact I am looking forward to showing your blog at my staff meeting on Tuesday.”

“I would love to pick your brain as this old dog needs to learn a few new tricks.  I hope your presentation went well at Sears and if you are home, or wherever you are tonight, I hope you are able to get some rest.”

I supposed I should add that Lance also threw in a bunch of points and an upgrade to the big suite next time I’m in town.

Lessons?

We should make our issues public.

It’s smarter to offer suggestions than criticism.

We should welcome any brand or individual who tries to learn and engage.

If we want brands to deliver better service, it’s partly our responsibility to guide them there and hold them to it.

This just in:  Just as I was about to post this, I got an email and phone call from Marriott headquarters letting me know they plan to use this as a learning and training experience.  Not sure if it would have generated that kind of response if it weren’t posted, blogged and tweeted about, but that turns out to be just one more reason that consumers should wield their new power and brands should heed it.

Finally I made it clear to Marriott that I hoped no one employee would be called out, but that it the entire incident be turned into something positive.

Your thoughts?

Radical Collaboration

Gareth Kay at Boulder Digital Works

I just came back from Boulder Digital Works and two intense days of teaching, learning, exploring and sharing with peers (some of whom are often rivals) as part of a workshop titled “Making Digital Work.” Or what Executive Director David Slayden calls an experiment in Radical Collaboration.

BDW seems to have struck a nerve and identified a true need: digital talent. We need more young people trained in the skills that our industry now depends on. Technologists, designers, UX professionals, information architects and digital producers remain in short supply and high demand. Just as importantly, those of us well into our careers need to learn new skills and ways of thinking. BDW’s mission is to help on both fronts.

This week’s session, like all the sessions BDW runs, was inspiring, invigorating and exhausting all at once. In fact between the flight out and back, the time change, long days of presentations, discussion and debate (not to mention a few too many glasses of wine at raucous late night dinners) I’m only now recovering.

Still, I wanted to share some of the content.  You can check out many of the presentations in slide form and in video form via UStream. Though the quality and camera positions aren’t ideal you can get the gist of the presentations. Personally I think you’d be better off just attending one of the sessions but if that’s not a possibility, perhaps the videos will be of some use.

This time out I also took the opportunity to get up close and personal with a number of instructors and attendees, among them Gareth Kay of Goodby Silverstein; Matt Howell of Modernista; Brian Morrissey of AdWeek (he was actually covering the event); David Slayden; Kat Egan, founder of Exopolis; Michael Tabtabai of Saatchi and Saatchi; Alistair Green of Team One; and finally Kim Laama of AKQA.

Matt Howell at Boulder Digital Works

David Slayden at Boulder Digital Works

I wish I’d had a chance to interview Dave Schiff and Alex Burnard of Crispin who masterfully presented their very cool Brammo case study, but I somehow missed them.

Anyway,  ambitions for a full blown documentary gave way to the new mindset that 80 percent and now is better than 100 percent and three weeks from now.  So instead here are a few less ambitious video interviews on Vimeo.

The three seen here — Gareth Kay, Matt Howell and David Slayden — are the first of six or so. Eventually I’ll get the others posted and will share links when I do. In the meantime they give you a sense of the excitement and conviction of the people involved. Let me know what you think.

Do we still need titles?

“What do you do?”

“What’s your title?”

“What department are you in?”

Unfortunately, that’s how we are defined. We are a “copywriter” or a “designer” or a “traditional” advertising type versus a “digital” advertising person. We might be a “car” guy; or worse, not a “car” guy.  We could be a “client,” maybe even the “client.”

In my career I’ve been a reporter, a PR counsel, a client, an account exec, a copywriter, and a creative director.  At least that’s what it said on my business card and how others categorized me.

We seem to need titles for easy categorization. Our title not only declares what we do, it frees us from responsibility for other areas of expertise. It connects us to others with the same title, making us members of a tribe. In some cases, it provides us with a sense of self-importance. It certainly determines what we get paid, though not necessarily our actual value.

For the person on the receiving end of our business cards, our title telegraphs our skill set or talent.  It suggests what they can expect from us.  And it allows them to place us in the proverbial hierarchy left over from the heyday of the railroad industry.

I’m not a big fan of titles, even though I have a couple of them. To me they seem less and less relevant in an age when we need multiple skills.  Don’t we have to be strategists and content creators?  Practice traditional and digital?  Learn to be creative across all kinds of platforms?

True it’s easier to hold onto legacy systems and practices and, in this case, labels.  We’ve grown dependent on them. They’re familiar and comfortable. But eventually we have to break ourselves of the crutches we continue to lean on: how we incent people, the departmentalization of our companies, the processes  and systems that in some cases haven’t changed in years. Maybe even get rid of titles.

What if we just had a bunch of check boxes on our business cards:  __ ideas, __ copy, __ strategy, __ collaboration, __content, __code, __SEO, __social, __optimism, __funny, __committed.  Come up with your own.  Whenever we gave our card out, we simply checked the appropriate boxes based on whom we were giving it to and what we might do with and for them?

What do you think? Are titles still necessary? Do they define us too narrowly? What would you put on your card?