Jul 24, 2013 | Change, Governance, Management, Marketing
In this time of marketing abundance, huge opportunity to connect with consumers, understand their behavior and its drivers, both physical and psychological, not just the demographics of big groups who fall within arbitrarily nominated boundaries, why is the general standard of marketing so crap????
It seems to me that the defining skills of great marketing, the insights, creativity, compelling articulation of a proposition, empathy with a problem and its solution, and indeed asking question not asked before, have all been drowned in a deluge of marketing mediocrity coming from the abundance.
The Australian Marketing Institute recently published a paper wondering why the marketing profession is underrepresented in Australia’s boardrooms, and came up with a bunch or pretty treasonable reasons. However, to my mind, they missed the seminal one: most marketers, and hence their output are crap.
Many of the youngsters I see coming through who have a marketing degree chose marketing because it was the lowest UAI entry requirement. Whilst this may not be a good indicator in every individual case, on average, is it any wonder the level of real marketing skill is disturbingly low.
It seems also that anyone over 40, who has accumulated some life and management experience, and has the experience to have developed some instincts and insight, is seen as too old, too set in their ways, and unable to accommodate the fragmentation caused by digitisation, not “hip” enough.
What a waste this is!
People who run large businesses are smart, smart enough to see through the clichés and jargon of superficial so-called marketers, and the nonsense they hear erodes their confidence in the contribution real professionals can bring to bear.
I was just listening to a commentary on the productivity challenges facing Australian manufacturing on the radio, and the focus was on the old battleground of wages and benefits. If that is to be the central arena of the productivity improvement debate, we cannot expect any improvement at all, indeed, we will continue to slip down the greasy international productivity pole.
An improvement in our marketing and strategic productivity, although hard to measure in the quarterly reports required by our institutional masters , would make a huge difference.
Jul 17, 2013 | Governance, Management, Marketing, Small business
Small business owners work harder, and often take home less than their employed peers. I see this all the time, again and again, in all sorts of contexts.
Ever wondered why?
In my experience, most go into business because they have great skill, contacts, and experience in the domain of their choice, which makes them great engineers, plumbers, food scientists, but does not necessarily suit them to be CEO.
The flip side is, do you need specific domain knowledge to be the CEO of an enterprise in that domain?, the answer clearly is no.
Most get confused about the purpose of their activity. Competent chefs try to run restaurants, simply because as a chef they can pay themselves only chef rates and remain solvent, but being a restaurant owner, perhaps a string of them, is where the money is.
Get your priorities right.
Want to be a rich chef, but love to be “cheffing” ? Probably can’t do both.
So many exchange the cooking for shuffling paper, suppliers, lease contracts, worrying about staffing, and doing the marketing, then wonder why the restaurant fails.
Fire yourself as the CEO, and hire a professional manager, while you do the cooking. After all, you would not even consider hiring an apprentice to replace you in the kitchen as you try to run the business, would you?
You can still own the business, and eap the benefits, you just do not have to run it day to day.
Jul 16, 2013 | Governance, Leadership, Strategy
For a long time now I have advocated the notion that to get something back, you first need to put something in. Time, effort, knowledge, care, whatever. What you put in is less important that that simple act of being generous, and contributing.
It has always seemed to work for me, although the effort to get momentum going has often led to a few moments when I wonder if there is really a return on the effort.
What I have realised is that the crucial element of success is how, and to whom you make the offer.
Assisting those who want your assistance is not as effective as offering it to those who deserve it.
Wanting has become an expectation that something will just arrive, no cost, no obligation, whereas “deserve” inherently acknowledges a moral debt, and that your generosity will at some point be repaid.
Jun 25, 2013 | Change, Governance, Management, Marketing, Small business, Social Media
Governments and their regulation centric thought processes always lag the digital developments that are accelerating in our world. Typically, they are regulating to close the barn door well after the horse is across the paddock, and failing to consult those who understand the processes, so do a lousy job. Just look at the failed supermarket and petrol price “initiatives”, web site filtering, and utter failure to communicate the case supporting the NBN in anything other than clichés, amongst other failures.
Well, there is another revolution on our doorsteps, one that governments must be salivating about, if they recognise the opportunity to rope us in, as the Prism revelations in the US have demonstrated.
It is pretty obvious that recognition software is about to be a general reality, as it gets rolled out in various forms on mobile platforms. Voice, face, and biometric recognition are all technologies that are in existence, and when Apple, or Samsung stick it on a mobile platform, whooppee, off it will go, and with it, the opportunity to collect huge amounts of personal data beyond that which is collectable now. Facial recognition and digital trickery combined will enable every face (just double click anywhere in the linked photo) in a photo to be identified, by simply tying to a social media database.
Bingo!
What will be done with this capability?
The old “I have nothing to hide” argument is looking limp in the face of such absolute ability to identify the where, who, who with and when capabilities being delivered to just about anyone with a camera and computer. Where are the new barriers of “personal information”?
Clearly commercial uses abound, as do those for the administrative and legal tracking of individuals, but it is the nefarious uses this degree of identification can be put to that are scary.
Jun 18, 2013 | Change, Governance, Leadership, Personal Rant
As this excruciating election campaign continues, the trivial, irrelevent, personal, short term crap we have come to expect is getting laid on with a spade. Nothing substantive is being considered by the pollies, and whilst it is easy to say the media is blowing it all up, from personal experience, the Canberra “officials” who implement, are also sitting on their hands, waiting, and wondering.
If you add up the cost of our political system, and all its accoutrements, Local , state and federal, it is billions, and billions. We pay so much, 32% of GDP, surely this should qualify us to get a bit of value for our money, but we accept what is being doled out like cattle to the slaughter, with nary a whimper.
When will the real debate, on real issues, real ideas, and questions of the future of the country, and that of our children, be taken seriously?
Perhaps it is time for us to dismiss the nonsense we are being fed, and demand what we are paying for.
Lawrence Lessig’s TED presentation is one we should all a watch as the current federal parliament goes through its death throes. It should also be compolsary viewing in Canberra, all union HQ’s and offices of every walley empowered to make up regulations.
Our system worked well for many years, and is still better than alternatives, but it is grossly unsuited for continuing prosperity and social harmony the 21st century. We need to be forcing an evolution to accommodate our new circumstances, not be wedded to a model of the 19th century.
Jun 13, 2013 | Collaboration, Governance, Innovation, Leadership, Strategy
One of the most famous photos ever taken, above, is of the 29 Participants in the 1927 Solvay Physics conference. The astonishing thing is that of the 29, 17 were Nobel prize winners, lauded busy people, so how did they get them all together at the same time?
Relatively easy, as at the time the photo was taken, only 3 had already won the Nobel prize, the other 14 won in the years after the conference, so were mostly unknown outside their research domain. (One of those who had already won was Marie Curie, who is also the only person in the photo to have won the prize twice, in different disciplines)
The point is that assembling this group, the organisers were not looking backwards, they were looking forward, to those who would make, rather than had already made a huge contribution to the topic.
Next time you are considering the personnel to go onto a project team, seeking to define your role into the future, or just operating a day to day activity, exercise the same forethought, and open the opportunity for great things.
