Sunday, November 26, 2006

Why marketers are idiots

Just back from a trip to the USA (see my post about the Waldorf Astoria on www.oldbastards.jp) where the only high point was a discussion with some colleagues about business intelligence - now there's a double negative if ever I heard one! Everyone was talking about needing to get data out to executives and having people pay attention to fact-based decision-making.
Time for a rant:

  • executives aren't interested in data! Showing me a pile of numbers and reams of paper is not going to get my attention. Tell me a story and you might see me listen.
  • decision-making is rarely fact-based. People, especially busy people, are much more likely to use their emotions to make a judgment. Stories generate emotion, facts generate boredom.
  • attention is rarely commanded, and more often it is paid to the coffee and cookies rather than the matter at hand. Telling stories will get attention.

So what am I trying to say here? I can not understand why people don't get the fact that it's stories that get us to learn and laugh, wonder and weep, look and listen. From the moment we're able to listen, life's lessons are best delivered via stories that communicate the central facts inside a context that has relevance and immediate meaning. Stories fire up the imagination, allow people to test their (emotional) hypotheses against a non-threatening construct, and allow everyone to take part in a sharing experience without consequences - real or otherwise.

Hint: Last time I looked, data does none of these things (unless you're a real data freak like me). A picture is worth a thousand words, and a story is worth a googol (correct spelling) of data points.

So here's why marketers are idiots: if their talents and passions are all about getting emotional brand responses from their audiences (and you need to fire them if this isn't the case!), then why would they want to fall into the trap of providing executives with data? That's falling into the trap of plucking out your eyes when everyone else is blind. It means you're having a discussion with finance wankers and nit-picking logistics experts on their terms. Get out of here!

Word to the wise marketer: when you collect data into bunches of like items, you get information. And information similarly processed leads to intelligence (business or otherwise). Once you have intelligence, you can weave these together to create compelling stories. And stories are what you're paid for. Any stop short of the destination on this continuum is selling yourself and your ideas short.

Now I'm a huge fan of dashboards and data suites - it's just that these things are indicators that point towards a holistic outcome, not the be all and end all. I've created some best of class data constructs, but I've always been successful when I've turned these into diagnostics that give busy people visual insight into what's going wrong and how to fix it. The data is irrelevant if it doesn't roll up into an actionable insight that creates future value - if the C-Suite wanted historians and librarians, they would fire you and hire some. Communicate the insight via a story.

If you're starting down a track towards providing the C-Suite with data, remember the wisdom of the robot in Lost in Space - "Danger, Will Robinson!". Your goal should be to create a story (in words, sounds, images and all the sensual tools you have at your disposal). Sure, have the data available but ask the "so what" question up front before you bore me to death (come to think of it, that might be a viable success strategy for my C-Suite...). Tell me a story...

Or am I an idiot?

Sunday, November 12, 2006

How come people are dumb?

You look around the world, and see all sorts of stuff happening. And then the headlines report that somebody paid way too much money for YouTube. First problem: there are many things in this world way more important than this. Second problem: how come people are dumb? Time for a rant:

I don't get it that someone would pay billions of dollars for an emerging technology platform that is really only part-way to the solution. Who's money are they using? How did they get so much money?

YouTube is cool - if only for the fact that I've now got better stuff to watch than the crap that cable serves up. The programs are shorter, cheaper, and more entertaining. But that's where it stops.

The phenomena that really deserves attention is the boom in user-generated content. If we agree with the 1% rule (1% of a community make content, 10% interact with the creator, and the other 89% only consume content), we can anticipate a whole lot more people wanting to get out there with stuff they think is interesting. [Side rant: who defines "interesting"?] While many of the "creators" who have posted content to YouTube need 40,000 volts and counseling about their fetishes, the fact remains that there is some amazing stuff going on there.

But how could Google be dumb enough to pay squillions of other-peoples'-money for the junky platform and ill-considered business model that YouTube represents? Is first-to-market really worth that sort of premium? Riddle me this: as bandwidth and compression technologies advance, what would prevent a smart operator going to market with edited streams, random jumbles, better quality reproduction, in other words - a viable media platform that replaces terrestial television?

The fact is that some-one is going to do this, and soon. Look for developments in this space that take the media model, wrap it with a better way of controlling what you see (think of a remote control for a digital platform), figure out an association algorithm better than user-generated meta-data so you can turn it into a "channel", and then monetize that concept. Frankly, what YouTube represents is a search engine tied to a continent of servers with little ability for users to exercise sensible (time-lean and specific) discretion. And someone's going to lose about $1.85 billion on a dumb investment...

Or am I an idiot?

Saturday, November 11, 2006

An early morning observation

So get this...I'm up early, racing out on a date with the homeless here in Shibuya. We have a bunch of people, who distribute rice cakes made by a different bunch of people, to a third bunch of people who are a tiny fraction of the homeless community in Tokyo. I guess we feed about 200 people, 365 days a year. Adds up to enough rice cakes to stretch from the Diet building in Tokyo all the way to Hiroshima. And then I see a 24/7 McDonalds! Time for a rant:

How come people go hungry?
What's the story? Why couldn't an organization like McDonalds help out with an issue like this? I don't mean giving away burgers - but even if they gave away a cent per burger (add in all the other stuff like fries, soda, fish, salads etc), you'd end up with a whole lot of money.

Instead of me rattling a tin can at church once a month (I'm serious) and relying on donations from excellent supporters such as the American Chamber of Commerce Japan, picture us getting a check once a year from Maccie D. Let's do the math - say there are 100 million items sold at McDonalds stores in Tokyo every year. Nobody would miss (or likely begrudge) one yen in the price. Nobody would probably even know.

That's like a million dollars (in Japan 1 oku yen) - pretty powerful number when compared to the Y300,000 a month or so it costs to feed 200 people! I bet that's a small proportion of the food they throw away. At a guess, figure a wastage rate of 2.5% on an average sale of Y400 and we're talking about maybe a tenth of their wastage. Shoot, add in the other fast food-ers and you're talking a truckload!

What a powerful way to make a really positive gesture...and if it embarrasses them to feed homeless people, all the better. Make the donation very quietly, in secret even (how biblical!). I don't get why you would want to make extravagant gestures with plastic Ronalds (don't get me wrong, I think Ronald McDonald Houses are a wonderful thing to support) when there are much more practical ways of helping the people who are probably out there right now scrounging through your trash cans.

I don't get it. It makes me angry to think that they're using cheap labor to feed people what at best could be described as not-good-for-you food, and there are people right in their face who may not get a meal today. Go figure.

But maybe I'm an idiot...

Friday, November 10, 2006

Starting the Conversation

This is my new blog, designed to capture random thoughts on a variety of topics that strike in no particular order. My hope is that I can get some interaction with people with similar "idiot" powers - and generate some sense in this crazy, mixed-up world. Think of a group of super-idiots, who share super-powers with different insights into stuff that should be common-sense...

I reserve no special power to myself, except that maybe every now and again I go selectively blind. Onto the first chance to rescue the world from the powers of evil...

If customers are engaged, then when do they get married?
Having just spent more than 4 hours in the company of a bunch of people who all felt they were engaged, I was glad to see that there's a lot of potential for polygamy left in this world. Some were engaged with each other, some were engaged with customers, and some were engaged with employees (I thought that was against company rules...). A rant:

Just because Gallup calls a set of people engaged doesn't mean they are. I didn't see any banns nailed to a church door. The math is a stretch (and secret stuff...I love secrets! No, not those secrets Betsy!). The paradigm doesn't explain the satisfaction-to-loyalty-to-advocacy journey except that some PhD says it does. Danger, Will Robinson! Anyone who can't come up with more compelling copy than CE11 needs a reality transplant. Or a small room with an ocean view and a tight-fitting jacket...

Here's what I think HumanSigma (spell-check that Ben Jonson!) means - if you can get your own people (you know, the ones you pay to turn up in the morning and drink your coffee) interested in your brand and telling your customers good things about it, then your customers will know more about the brand and some of them will get emotional about it. Which means they will go and talk to other people.

And we won't tell you what we think until you sign a check. And just to prove we're smarter than you, we won't give you the data or show you the algorithm. But we're engaged with you - and everyone else on our client list (hmm, sounds like a gigolo story to me...).

Lord save us! You're telling me that I can come up with this sort of stuff and people will pay me a lot of money? How come I didn't think of this? I get emotional about football, Lance, and small children. Last time I got emotional about toothpaste, the guys came in the little white van and I got a lovely little free holiday at Gentle Rest Home for the Engaged.

You guessed it - I must be an idiot, right? Looking forward to your confirmation...