To get what you want from your design team, you must be open with then and let them know everything about you. This way, the finished product will reflect you and the personality of your company first, and the message, the market or the latest trends. Most importantly, it will be something you love for what it is.
]]>A lot of this correspondence could be avoided, particularly the endless e-mailing and re-e-mailing of attachments. But that's not all. E-mail is an outdated tool built on the old idea of sending mail to an individual. Our inboxes are overloaded with conversations and information that doesn't belong there. The result: We miss important messages, lose information and feel guilty about not being able to keep on top of our overloaded inboxes.
Reclaiming the inbox has become a popular topic in recent months. Although Google Wave was ultimately a laughing stock, had it been pitched as a solution for small, collaborative projects (rather than a new, all-encompassing communications tool), it would have worked as a drop-in replacement for e-mail. Then there are products like Xobni or Gmail's Priority Inbox (see clip above), which organise your e-mail more effectively, enabling improved search and provide conversation information by individual contact.
Yet some people say we should go much further than that and jettison e-mail altogether. One of these revolutionaries is Luis Suarez (not the Uruguayan footballer), author of "A world without e-mail" - a post on trailblazing social media news site Mashable. As Knowledge Manager, Community Builder & Social Computing Evangelist in the IBM Software Group division, he has successfully reduced the number of e-mails he receives from 40 a day to 17 a week over two-and-a-half years.
As Suarez says, e-mail is really only suitable for one-to-one, private communications, yet we use it for all of the following:
All of the above are not only incredibly inefficient and confusing, they also offer no visibility to anyone but the person the mail is sent to - provided they read it in the first place. What's more, e-mail generates a pressure to reply promptly and politely (imagine how much time we waste writing "Dear..." and "Best regards..." in replies). And for some people, reaching "inbox zero" is an impossible dream - until the temptation to hit "Select all" then "Del" becomes too great.
Yet, all of the applications we use e-mail for can be replaced by simpler, better and more effective tools. The most obvious thing to do is to start sharing information and files more openly with colleagues and clients. The following tools allow us to do just that:
This and many more easy-to-implement solutions not only allow e-mail to get on with what it is best at (longer, private conversations), they also save time by freeing you up to share your knowledge and delegate tasks in more effective, valuable and visible ways. And you'll never receive a 12MB attachment again.
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And who in their right mind would type this code into their blog platform to embed a YouTube clip?
<object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/_V8TDCiPBUU&hl=en&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/_V8TDCiPBUU&hl=en&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object>
The same applies to sharing a link on e-mail, Facebook or Twitter, quoting from Wikipedia, editing a document, moving files around - you name it, copy and paste is crucial to virtually everything we do virtually today. And copying and pasting is not restricted to text, this simple process is also indispensable when it comes to editing images, music and film. How did we ever live wothout it?
The ability to copy and paste underpins our civilization and all forms of knowledge. On the most basic level, our brains are our clipboards, storing skills and information in a form that can be drawn on and put to use in a variety of ways at any time. Scientific advancement is the process of taking existing knowledge, data and assumptions and adding something new. It's not as simple as dragging and dropping, but that's the principle of copy and paste.
The most powerful innovation in this respect was of course the printing press, a tool that facilitated the spread of information by automating the process of copying text and images. Write something down once and it can be replicated millions of times at minimal cost.
More than half a millennium later, the key combinations of "Ctrl + C" and then "Ctrl + V" are just a natural progression, but the uses for copy and paste extend much further than simply sharing information.As we advance into the digital age, everything we do can be recorded, copied and pasted. You can select this text and copy it into a word processor or your website and pretend it is yours. You can rewrite the bits of it you don't like and create something better, or spice it up with some images. Feel free, but I will be angry if you don't give me credit for my work by copying and pasting a link to this address (this website is published under the
Building a website is no different. Visit most websites and click View>Page Source (in Firefox, it's somewhere else in Internet Explorer) and a window will pop up showing the code that makes the images, tables and text appear as they do. Copy that into a text editor and you have the code for that website right there on your computer to manipulate and play with. You can take any piece of code and incorporate it in your own website as you wish. Whether you credit the original creator of the website is a question of your own honesty and integrity.
This is an amazing thing, but what does it mean?
In geek circles, the process of copying something and making it into something new is called a "mashup". You might think of it as a "remix" or, in business speak, "adding value".
Being able to create a website or "mashup" that is better than the source material does not require vast technical skill. Anyone can copy something they like, paste it into some form of editing software and manipulate it. Software tools to modify files are becoming easier to use all the time and there are video tutorials online for almost any task (from making a bomb to delivering a baby).
As the man and woman in the street starts to learn about and become comfortable with these processes of taking, changing and sharing (how often do you use copy and paste in a day?) so their attitudes to data, knowledge and creativity will inevitably change. And, of course, their attitudes to copyright. After all, copyright is a restriction placed on knowledge as an incentive to those creating it. It follows that as the processes of creation and distribution become easier and cheaper, culture becomes more free.
We have already seen the disruption this can cause with music. Because technology exists that allows music to be shared freely, knowledge about music and the shared experience of enjoying it are becoming as valuable as making the music itself. This is the force behind the rise of the DJ and the summer festival - and why the only real losers are not the artist, but the record companies who "own" and "distribute" the music.
The ease of taking someone else's work and using it as your own (once known as "sampling") is a boon for the bedroom creative. At the same time, the accessibility of digital media increases interest and appreciation. Now that everyone is a photographer, people's respect for good photography - and good photo manipulation - has increased. The nuances of art and music are much better understood by the masses. In time, so will their willingness to pay for quality work. At the same time, finding and knowing when and where to use a particular image or sound is as great a skill as making it. In the age of Twitter, the person retweeting the link also earns a tiny bit of kudos.
While the freedom to copy and paste other people's work poses a new connundrum for those looking to make money from their creative skills (or, in the case of record companies, the skills of others), it is also a vast opportunity to make the world a better - and more efficient - place.
This is where free and open-source software is blazing a trail. By giving people access to the code that makes software run (actually, today's "software" is as much about icons, design elements and usability as it is about creating powerful new features), the end "product" can improve incrementally as people all over the world contribute to create functionally improved, more stable and better-looking software. Thanks to modern communications, such as instant messaging, forums and wikis, it is easy to manage a team of developers working all over the world, fix bugs and exchange snippets of code. In other words, copy and paste makes it possible to make the world a better place one tiny byte at a time.
As each of these people have their own specialist area, from the guy who designs the logo, to the people who keep track of user comments and improve usability, to the developers adding new features (often based on code and interfaces with other shared software) and even the user who reports a bug, they each earn credit among their peers and among other users. Through the development process, they build an online reputation for themselves as individuals while learning skills that can be turned into financial gain elsewhere. The virtual university if you will - and more people are signing up by the day, because they want to be part of a global movement. And this movement will award those companies that are open to the openness and helpfulness of their customers. It will not be long, before this applies to every possible industry - the principles of open source are already being used to design bespoke prosthetic limbs and sequence the human genome, for example.
This is a remarkable cultural change that will effect every aspect of our lives. As each day passes, the benefits of sharing are outweighing the benefits of keeping knowledge to yourself. First, the ease of sharing anonymously (on a site like Wikileaks, for instance) will ensure everything comes out in the wash sooner or later. More importantly, consumers are coming to expect openness and transparency as standard - they want to know exactly what they are buying and to be able to switch to a rival product if the relationship doesn't work out.
While it is the natural instinct of businesses to protect their ideas, any company that attempts to restrict copying can expect to run into increasing pressure from consumers, and be left behind by their competitors. A new breed of consumer will chose products that don't lock them in, that embrace standards and that are open to tinkering and tweaking. They will feel indebted to those companies that give them a service for nothing by taking the time to spread the word and buy related products when the opportunity arises. Because if they see or experience something they like, they want to share it and add their own input and comments. They want to contribute by sharing. Because by spreading the word and getting involved, they know they are doing you a favour.
At last, "the customer is king" is much more than a empty marketing slogan.
]]>It is only marketing, after all. Roll the scroll wheel to discover more!
We all have convictions. We find it easy to voice them in interviews, breaks, corridor conversations or over a beer. The problem with convictions is that they are difficult to stand by in meetings and presentations – it's possible to come close, but we have a tendency to dress them up in jargon to disguise them for what they are.
But what exactly are convictions? A statement of what I believe in, the baring of my soul.
At first glance, corporations do not tolerate convictions. But, deep down, they love them – they are the root of differentiation and the fuel of an engaging work environment; convictions are the driver of innovation and a way of generating huge savings on market research (you can never dispense with market research if you work for a large organisation, but show me a successful entrepreneur who has invested heavily in it.)
As convictions become more important, the role of the leader is changing too. Leadership is no longer about grand visions and decisive action – a leader must manage a broader community in which convictions are allowed to flourish with magical results. The role of team members is to follow (the leader) and support the team with conviction of her own. This takes guts.
But the alternative is apathy and dysfunctional teams.
Innovative products are created at the meeting point between a leader's conviction and the emerging social context. This may or may not be when you're sitting on a beanbag with our finger in the air surrounded by creative agency types, but it certainly is not innovation just for the sake of it.
We call this innovation with purpose. It may be a “left field” eureka moment or simply a commitment to be everything a good
should be.
To put it simply, great innovation that works is often extremely basic, and clever, imaginative people have difficulty being basic.
At the heart of the 21st century marketing challenge is the need to let go, to relinquish control. We live in the era of truth marketing. Secrets are harder to keep – questionable corporate behaviour, dodgy sales practices, brand hypocrisy and poor customer service can blow up as a Facebook “cause” or amusing YouTube video at any moment.
This is a conundrum for people my age – now in positions of marketing leadership in large organisations – brought up (professionally) on the idea that you can control brand image. The best you can do today is develop your brand with the conviction in your heart and let it run free in the world. At which point, yours is a watching brief. You must watch for the moments to intervene to maximum effect in the knowledge that you can't predict when those moments will come.
This takes a seat-of-the-pants approach – it's not the kind of behaviour large corporations, or people in successful large corporations, instinctively understand. But it is the only thing the next generation of consumers knows. This makes it a much more fundamental challenge to marketing departments than learning how to use new forms of social media to promote the same old brand positioning. The use of these tools without conviction amounts to little more than transparent attempts to make your brand seem cooler than it actually is.
Good service is being useful, which is different from just being nice. Being useful generates goodwill and goodwill always results in good business – in both the short and long runs. And the minute you start to see good customer service as the way to create a space to sell more, you create the most virtuous of business circles.
Q: Does that make customer service the new advertising?
A: Duh.
Not all products need, on the face of it, an overt level of customer service. Nonetheless, in this era of Truth Marketing, it is the single most widely available business opportunity. And it is an enormous opportunity even for those brands/products that don't, on the face of it, need an overt level of customer service to sell their products.
The other key aspect of the 21st century marketing challenge is the same old internal one of getting the most out of the collection of bright young things who constitute your marketing department. All too often, I have sat inside or at the head of a group of marketeers and thought to myself – what a waste of talent. Here is intelligence used divisively - to flog stuff people don't need, or to ensure personal survival in the corporate system. Sigh. The challenge here is also one of letting go.
Learning to let go in service of the right vision demands a good, conviction-based vision in the first place - and that all work on top of this is organised and collaborative. The models are out there in the world of open-source software, brilliant “products” developed and maintained by a united team of – generally unpaid – collaborators. Their conviction is one of joyful teamwork, freedom of choice and a desire to make the world a better place in tiny, incremental steps.
I am not asking any of my clients to do anything I haven't done already. Glorious Day exists because work has dried up for strategic marketing advisers like me, and I needed to find a new approach. What I found was a set of convictions I'd always known I had, but that I understood as if for the first time.
This is why I now offer an exciting range of consultancy products at fixed prices (rather than the hourly rate I used to charge) and why every day spent working with my clients on their products is a packed and full day – yes, a Glorious Day! And if you use the product and want to work more with me and the rest of the team at the Glorious Day Brand Building Agency, then we'll sell you our services, but only one glorious day at a time...
Loz x
]]>There is a battle raging in cyberspace. It is a power struggle between the geeks and the sharers on one hand, and the cynics, journalists and marketeers on the other. It's easy to see there can be only one winner. What started out as self-publishing and blogging is now an avalanche of Facebookers, mySpacers and Twitterers creating content and exchanging opinions. We will sign up for all those revolutionary technologies soon so you can stalk us, but first, here's our new blog. So, what's so great about a blog and why would consummate professionals want to share our secrets with you? Here's a list:
So, what are the disadvantages? There aren't any - because the whole thing is inclusive and optional. So are you in, or out? Either way, the geeks and sharers will win. As Woody Woodpecker said, if you can't beat 'em, join 'em.
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