Years ago I stopped reading Fast Company magazine. Reading it left me feeling defeated rather than inspired. Were we ever going to be as hip or as profitable as the companies chronicled there? I quit reading Cosmo for similar reasons many years earlier: I was never going to be as thin or as rich as those people either. With all the profound shifts happening in marketing today it’s easy to become anxious worrying about whether you have your arms around the latest technology or rapidly evolving best practice. It’s moving so fast and the investment required to stay current seems to be getting bigger every day. And then I calmed down. Doing technology marketing for so many years affords one a comforting perspective. Yes, there’s always a lot of new thinking to stay on top of. But a great deal of it—maybe even most of it—won’t matter as much when the initial flame cools. It’s just as important to be measured and wise about incorporating new things as it is to discover those new things in the first place. The early bird may get the worm, but there are plenty of worms to go around if you know where to dig.
Is it just me or are we moving into a more hopeful, more aspirational time? How else to explain the megatrend that is Barack Obama and the heart-stealing being done by young David Archuletta on American Idol? Politics and cultural tastes aside, both men represent a hopefulness we haven’t seen quite so regularly in a very long time. Similarly, it seems like the creative executions our clients are choosing most often are those that are “go-to-the-goal” rather than “avoid pain” in nature. And they are looking for a voice that is more human and more honest. Maybe it is a universal settling into what is good after a long time of feeling bad. IBM taught us how to create fear, uncertainty and doubt. Thankfully, those days appear to be dimming.
I’m struck by how rarely you run into a great leader these days. I mean someone with both the vision, the will and the courage to chart and claim the future. It’s dangerous stuff because it’s important work and the risk of getting it wrong is very real and usually very public. It’s of course easier to hover on the periphery and add a bit here and there, covering your side of the field, but rarely doing anything courageous at the pitch and intensity that is likely to deliver in an extraordinary way. But every now and then you run into someone who is playing just that kind of game. They are bold and they are true and they make things happen. It takes the breath away.
We are working with some wonderful marketers who are being held accountable for driving revenues while building best-in-class processes and patterning positive organizational behavior. It’s hard work. Organizations can only absorb change at the speed to which they have been prepared for it. So our client is trying to move from acting as a loose federation of acquired companies, now reborn as silos that go to market with a product focus, to an increasingly integrated solution marketing machine. They have done the foundational work of grouping their products into customer-oriented solution sets and are beginning to market and sell said solutions. Naturally, they want to sharpen their customer focus and are now starting the discovery process of understanding industry and buyer care-abouts. Their desired end state is contextual messaging they can apply and deploy across a wide range of marketing vehicles. This is a complicated and challenging effort. How do you prioritize all the micro-segments? It must be done with strategic intent and a clear view of upcoming tactical executions. It takes discipline and dedication and a whole lot of holding your mouth right. Relationships are like that.
I suspect it’s more productive to focus on constructive ideation but sometimes it’s helpful to throw down a rant to clear the mind. Maybe it’s listening to Barack and his hopeful vision, but I’m wondering why so many companies waste their precious energy fighting against themselves in silly silo turf wars. Rather, they should be joining together to fight their common enemy—whether the enemy be a flesh and blood competitor or an internal process block that has stopped progress in its tracks. All too often personal agendas dominate the scene and any chance of significant shared outcomes is lost. Those who should recognize this all-too-frequent drama of flawed human beings acting out their insecurities, don’t. Instead they build systems and organizations that maintain the insanity. At some level, the players sense something is wrong but often lack the insight or ability to fix it. So many spend their time feigning progress in corporate tea parties and leave a piece of their hopes about noble purpose behind. More’s the pity. Let’s take a page out of Barack’s playbook in our companies and resolve to end the madness.
