Yearly Archives: 2015

A few shekels for Ed Tech.

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A couple of years ago I was bitten by the education bug. After spending time learning about ed tech and the ways it was being used to help students learn, I came to the conclusion that proper pedagogy is a fundamental to educational improvement; also, that no two students are alike in terms of their learning ability, attention levels and motivation. (Something I’ve applied to marketing and branding, but that’s a story for another time.)

Technology is a huge enabler of learning, once we get the pedagogy right. And so, I was quite please to read in yesterday’s NYT that venture capitalists are investing heavily in education. And where there’s money, there is innovation. I have a deck from a couple of years ago, the first bullet is which reads something to the effect that “there has been very little in the way of innovation in K12 education over the past 50 years. Chalkboard –> film projector–> overhead slides–>interactive whiteboard.

Now we have a new class of education-minded developers creating software tools, real time testing and assessment devices, and course-specific learning modalities the likes of which we’ve never seen. Too cool for school!

And I love that there is a goal for all of this innovation. Not the goal of ad revenue and eyeballs. Not the goal of creating friends or sharing pictures. The goal is to improve learning — the most human of traits. ‘bout time. Peace.  

Let’s Rid Twitter of the Effluvia.

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One of the criteria I use for deciding whether to follow someone on Twitter is the degree to which they post original content. If they tend to repost or point to others’ content I tend to stay away. In other words, I favor Posters over Pasters. For me, Twitter reflects a person, place or thing’s personality. Capturing passions, sentiments, humorous moments, or likes and dislikes in 140 characters, is a wonderful way to experience people.

Done poorly, Twitter is a bunch of people pointing to other people’s stuff. It may be well-meaning but it’s still curation. Any time I look at someone’s feed and see numbers, as in “7 rules for…” or “the 4 best places…,” I know I am in Paster land. Pasters think they are making us smarter. Pasters think they are helping us with our careers. Pasters think we’ll buy their pasta because we’re “friends.” Nuh uh.

Twitter is the fastest way to get to know someone. Bar none. (Great HR people know this.) But not if that someone is pasting other’s content. That’s effluvia. Peace.

Coke and the Tech Sector.

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Sales of Coca-Cola’s flagship product, the carbonated sugary drink we know a Coke, dropped 3.5% last quarter; proof you can’t go against a cultural tide of healthier living and expect sales to hold forever. Coke’s parent has been doing a great job of diversifying its portfolio the last 10 years by adding juices, milk-based protein drinks, waters and energy drinks. Even with the tide receding for flagship Coke, earnings have been surprisingly okay. Looks like that is not the case anymore.

If you follow the tech sector as I do, you will know that product innovation can completely change markets is 3-5 years. The beverage sector has lots of innovations, according to Beverage Digest, but they are really incremental. Coconut water, craft beer, energy concoctions, and cold pressed juices are nice ways of redistributing marketing wealth, but haven’t fueled the big ass innovations we’ve seen in tech.

Coke needs to think differently. I’ve posted before about how they need to send R&D people into the jungles in search of the next cola nut…something with healthy properties. But Coke also needs to think about pricing and delivery. Why 12 oz. cans? Why cans and bottles? Why not explode the price point for a six pack? How about an annual subscription fee? Coke’s head is so tied up in its bottler arrangements, distribution networks, store detailers, fountain business it can’t think like an agile start-up. Sure they can buy 49% of the next Honest Tea, but can they be the next SnapChat.

My bet is they can. But not if they follow the innovation courses of GM or the financial industry. Follow the tech paradigm. Peace.  

Solution Selling with a Positive Spin.

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A lot of my hours at What’s The Idea? involve networking and business development. When not being paid for brand and marketing consultation, I’m on the lookout for brand and marketing opportunities to share with prospects. Business development can be a dirty word from the prospect’s viewpoint, however. It has to be meaningful, not salesy. 

Ten plus years ago someone published a sales book about “solution selling,” a technique whereby a salesperson meets a prospect and asks about their “pain points.” This is supposed to fast track the sellers approach. Done well it has worked. Done poorly, it’s like asking a patient “How’s your cancer?”

Consultants in the brand business use a promotion called the “communications audit,” where they go into a company and look at the totality of communications. When arrayed, they then point out all the contradictions, mistakes, inconsistencies and meaningless flah-flah-flah – hoping to embarrass the business into an engagement. I’m thinking of a promotion which is the obverse of the communications audit. Perhaps I’ll call it a “marketing high points audit.” Rather than all negative, I’ll only identify the things done well. Proponents of political advertising may disagree with the approach but then I’m not looking to get elected. I’m looking to create meaningful dialogue.

Tink about it (as my Norwegian aunt might say).

 

 

 

Category Experience Can Be Bull Shite.

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I can count on 10,000 fingers the number of times I’ve come across hiring scenarios where people are looking for category experience. Steeped, repetitive, ingrained category experience is drawing the life out of innovation. That’s why the web and app-based tech sector is so vibrant. It’s only a few years old.

I have a really smart friend with lots of marketing muscle who owns a consulting business. She is employing a team of business development “hunters” to grow business by targeting certain categories: healthcare, tech, automotive, etc.

But what if she took a different tack? What if she looked at the business problem from the perspective of prospects? What if the hunters were organized not by business category, but by growth category? For instance, companies growing by 100% a year, companies growing by double digits, companies growing by single digits. Or how about companies holding at zero growth, or losing revenue by double digits?

Then allow the hunters to devise strategies tailored to these segments. The marketing tactics for the high growth companies are immensely different than those of no growth companies. The strategies for single-digit growers differ broadly for single digit losers.

The fact that a company is in a category presents neither a problem or an opportunity, so why do marketing consultants roll that way? Revenue growth and the speed of revenue growth are what companies need to learn about and affect. Freshies.

 

7 Anxieties.

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banquet I did some freelance for Possible Worldwide (nee Bridge Worldwide) a couple of years ago on ConAgra’s Banquet Frozen Foods. As part of the exercise, all team members were asked to go the grocery store and plan a meal at a given weekly budget. My assignment was “retired man with a weekly food budget of $50.” I was to record what I bought and report in. Neat exercise. Great start to the project. Great formula for priming the pump and creating context.

Then we had the team meeting. I’m not exactly sure what came out of the meeting but it wasn’t brilliance. I do not really recall any visceral insights or discussions. And recall in planning is where it’s at.

The exercise could have gotten exciting at this meeting had it been more fluid. The thinking of collectives is best when accompanied by serendipity. Had the in-store exercise been used as a spark and team members set loose to report findings and start discussions in their own ways, we may have had some magic.  I, for instance, may have presented “7 anxieties.”  What goes through a man’s head at shopping time, when budgeted only $50 per week.

In planning, sometimes the tools we use limit us. It’s natural. The rules we use in planning are also natural. But the excitement comes from agility, inspiration, experimentation. So use your tools then break some rules. Peace.