MEK MARKETWATCH

Do you feel a draft? Mitch Daniels for Prez?

2012-01-25T17:37:00.000-08:00

The Christian Science Monitor (see link below) openly opined today that Mitch Daniels' superb State of the Union rebuttal (gotta love the bit about the light bulb) was possibly nothing but a litmus test for a real run (aka read "draft").

In reality, is history repeating itself or a forgotten page right out of L. Keith Bulen's election playbook? This seems very close to the 2003 quasi-strategy in the first part of the Bush the Second's administration, when Daniels publicly refused to return to Indiana (then holding the OMB director post) to run for Governor.

After a seemingly independent groundswell of prominent calls, letters and pledges, Daniels "reluctantly" returned to Hoosierland and captured the gubernatorial brass ring. Will we see a repeat on the federal level in 2012? It IS a great speech! http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Politics/2012/0125/Mitch-Daniels-State-of-the-Union-rebuttal-makes-GOP-wonder-What-if/(page)/2

Is Mitch Running for Veep or What?

2012-01-19T07:44:00.000-08:00

The response to the opposition President's State of the Union Address is typically reserved for an up and comer in the opposition party. The Republican Congressional leadership announced Jan. 19 that Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels -- who earlier withdrew from any possible presidential candidacy -- will deliver the Republican's response to President Obama.

The questions are: 1) Is Mitch now running for the Republican Vice Presidential Slot; or 2) Is Mitch running for either Secretary of the Treasury or Secretary of Commerce (in a newly revamped Commerce Department)?

Read the press release below from the Congressional Republications and decide for yourself:

Washington -- House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) and Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) announced today that Governor Mitch Daniels (R-IN) will deliver the Republican Address to the Nation following the President’s State of the Union address on January 24, 2012.

Governor Daniels, now in his eighth and final year as Indiana’s chief executive, has compiled a solid record of effective government and fiscal responsibility, making him well-suited to outline Republicans’ better solutions to the challenges Americans are facing in this struggling economy.

In his 2012 State of the State Address, Gov. Daniels touted a number of his administration’s accomplishments:

Indiana has a balanced budget and now enjoys the first AAA credit rating in its history.
According to CEO Magazine’s rankings of the best states to do business, “Indiana jumped to sixth place from 16th in 2010, giving Hoosiers the third-biggest advance in the rankings in a single year.”
The magazine notes that “while at least 35 states raised taxes during the recession, Indiana cut them.”Indiana has the fewest state employees per capita in the country.
In a national survey, 77 percent of Hoosiers described their state government as “efficient,” the second-highest rating in the nation.

“Mitch Daniels is a fierce advocate for smaller, less costly, and more accountable government, and has the record to prove it,” Speaker Boehner said. “As governor, he has turned deficits into surplus, reformed government from top to bottom, and created a better environment for private-sector job creation.

"For making tough choices and keeping his promises, Mitch Daniels is the right choice at the right time to deliver the Republican response to President Obama’s address.”

“As Indiana’s governor, Mitch Daniels helped improve his state’s economy by fostering an environment to create jobs. An eloquent spokesman for limited government, Gov. Daniels knows that President Obama’s three-year experiment in big government has made our economy worse and our future more uncertain, and he knows that Americans want a government that’s simpler, streamlined and secure,” said Leader McConnell. “He is a forceful advocate of pro-growth policies like fundamental tax reform, regulatory reform and energy security.

And he is the right choice to explain the challenges we face and to outline a hopeful, common-sense vision for moving America forward by growing the economy, not the national debt.”

“It’s an honor to be asked. I hope to do the assignment justice,” said Governor Daniels. Mitchell E. Daniels Jr. was elected as the 49th Governor of the State of Indiana in 2004, in his first bid for any elected office. He was re-elected in 2008 to a second and final term, receiving more votes than any candidate for any public office in the state’s history.

Daniels earned a bachelor's degree from the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University in 1971 and his law degree from Georgetown University in 1979. More information on Governor Daniels can be found at the following link: http://www.in.gov/gov/2635.htm.

FINALLY - Authoritative -- and Believable Economic Good News

2012-01-17T17:47:00.000-08:00

A few years ago, economist Alan Beaulieu stood in front of a packed Indianapolis crowd at Butler University and blithely predicted that the whole economic world was going to go to hell in a hand basket. A lot of very intelligent people were in that crowd. Most, like me, didn't do what he said. Way in advance he predicted what we now call the "Great Recession" would be The Perfect Storm. It was going to be exceptionally ugly.

Of course, it was.

At the time, I wrote a Chicago-based business column called the Hoosier Coefficient. So I interviewed Beaulieu and wrote a column about his predictions.

They. All. Came. True.

Every last ugly one of them.

Since I didn't do what he said, the economic maelstrom blew out the windows of my little business. We hung on by our fingernails. When he made his prediction, banks were throwing money at me. When he said that in a few months nobody would be loaning anybody anything, some thought him mad. He said cash would be king, and now I know what that means. I REALLY know what that means. In fact, my business became a little bank, as some client invoices started going 30, 60 and in some cases 180 days, before they were paid.

Just like Beaulieu said they would.

Now, in the past year or so, I -- like you -- have heard it all about our economic "recovery." Off and on, double dip or no double dip. It wakes me up at night and sends me to my knees.
Until now.

Wait for it.

Beaulieu's company, The Institute for Trend Research, has made it OFFICIAL. ITR has a 96% accuracy rate. Here it is:

The year 2012 will be the first real year of expansion and recovery.
The recovery and expansion will continue right through the first half of 2013, and then perhaps get a little bumpy.
ITR says we may have a little bump of a recession beginning in the latter half of 2013, but the economy will pick back up and then expand again from 2015 to 2017.
Now, according to ITR, is the time to market, position and SELL. Time to build up cash reserves, leverage favorable interest rates and GROW.

Did I say that I believe this forecast?

How can I not, especially when he was right down the line, point by excruciatingly painful point, when everyone else was saying "Oh, the housing marketing will rebound, we'll be okay" just a few years ago.

I'm ready to believe. And act!

Poignant irony headed for Indy Super Bowl?

2012-01-16T08:58:00.000-08:00

With the San Francisco 49ers and New York Giants set to square off for the NFC champsionship on January 22, at least one item of irony is guaranteed for the Indy Super Bowl spotlight. If the 49ers win this coming weekend, the Colts former QB "Captain Comeback" in the form of now-49ers head coach Jim Harbaugh with return to Naptown, together with former Colts defensive coordinator Vic Fangio. Fangio, of course, was trashed by former Colts GM Bill Polian in 2001, and went on to build a number of top defensive units, including the current 49ers, whose defense is No. 1 in the NFL. Also of course, Polian's Colts defense struggled basically every year after Fangio. A bittersweet homecoming?

And if the NY Giants win, brother Eli gets to play in brother Peyton's house for the NFL uber-brass ring, while the older brother sits this one out in his NFL home town.

Stop Commoditizing Communication – Capture the Strategic Creative Advantage

2011-08-18T06:36:00.000-07:00

This column by creative director Tim Meyers has developed a virtual life of its own, so if you have not already seen it, enjoy!

Stop Commoditizing Communication – Capture the Strategic Creative Advantage

By Tim Meyers, Creative Director, The MEK Group

Is automation driving your marketing? Is your advertising and creative work dependent on templates and populated by clip art? Does your social media messaging automatically appear on Facebook, then on Twitter, then on your Web site – popping up over and over again until it’s digital tapioca?

What ever happened to the all-compelling “big idea” that drove brand messaging home, regardless of the channel or the platform?

This type of high-octane creative – which still exists today – represents a Big Idea that re-positions an entire company for success. It represents what companies used to go to advertising agencies for: a hot, creative idea that drove the business. An idea that transformed. These transformational ideas create strong, believable brands that literally became part of our culture.

Today, with all of the advances in communication, one might think that this principal is even more true. Ironically, the opposite has manifested itself in many instances, blurred strong communication elements down to meaningless blobs of redundant obviousness. Differentiation in an automated world is the next best thing to an oxymoron.

Advances in communication technology, in desktop publishing, in video production and in portable mobile devices should have created communication excellence. Instead, it’s created a new level of communication clutter that is nearly incomprehensible. Much of what passes for communication today is simply awful.

Because production capacity has become cheap, communication has lurched toward commoditization. A great idea, a great brand, a great campaign – these all take time to nurture, develop, produce and execute. Instead, it is far easier to cut budgets, slam together template ads, spots or PowerPoint presentations and then call it “communication,” even though few are certain to what it’s communicating or even whether it’s communicating. It’s incredibly – and unfortunately – easy to think that one is communication, when in reality all that is happening is the creation of more and more confusing and brand-busting clutter.

With clutter comes anxiety, so bad communication bruises brands – some fatally – even though people may not be aware of it.

At MEK we’ve found three things that will help change the world and get us back to real communication.

1) Automation is not a bad thing, as long as it adds real value to all points of a transaction. Quantity is not necessarily quality, and in an era where plenty of alternatives exist, you want to ensure that you are tantalizing and delighting your customers with real authentic messages.

2) A strong creative idea, fueled by relevant and strong content, can change the world. Or it can at least change the world that you and your customers are used to. Communication platforms like Facebook and Twitter didn’t exist a few years ago. Their replacements – or the platforms that will enhance them – are probably already in development.

3) Accordingly, it’s not about the platform or the technology. It’s about the idea, the content and the message.

Industry labels like advertising, PR and media buying are changing right in front us. What many PR people do today – compared to a decade ago – is in most cases dramatically different. And there’s a reason for that change.

Want to be successful in the second decade of the 21st century? Resist the ease and the siren call of commoditization. There used to be a popular saying in advertising that went something like this: cheap, fast, effective – pick two. In today’s incredibly cluttered communication environment, the saying should perhaps go like this: savvy, simple, relevant – pick three.

Strategic marketing is not a commodity. It doesn’t come in a ready-to-use box. So, fight back and champion the big idea, the big brand, and cheerfully reject those efforts to commoditize real excellence in communication.

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2011-06-14T12:07:00.000-07:00

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Has Your Marketing Become Digital Tapioca? Try the Big Idea!

2011-06-14T10:08:00.001-07:00

The following great column by MEK's creative director appeared recently in Inside Indiana Business. If you work in any aspect of communications today, it's definitely worth a read!

Stop Commoditizing Communication – Capture the Strategic Creative Advantage

By Tim Meyers, Creative Director, The MEK Group

Is automation driving your marketing? Is your advertising and creative work dependent on templates and populated by clip art? Does your social media messaging automatically appear on Facebook, then on Twitter, then on your Web site – popping up over and over again until it’s digital tapioca?

What ever happened to the all-compelling “big idea” that drove brand messaging home, regardless of the channel or the platform?

This type of high-octane creative – which still exists today – represents a Big Idea that re-positions an entire company for success. It represents what companies used to go to advertising agencies for: a hot, creative idea that drove the business, an idea that transformed. These transformational ideas create strong, believable brands that literally became part of our culture.

Today, with all of the advances in communication, one might think that this principle is even more true. Ironically, the opposite has manifested itself in many instances, blurring strong communication elements down to meaningless blobs of redundant obviousness. Differentiation in an automated world is the next best thing to an oxymoron.

Advances in communication technology, in desktop publishing, in video production and in portable mobile devices should have created communication excellence. Instead, it’s created a new level of communication clutter that is nearly incomprehensible. Much of what passes for communication today is simply awful.

Because production capacity has become cheap, communication has lurched toward commoditization. A great idea, a great brand, a great campaign – these all take time to nurture, develop, produce and execute. Instead, it is far easier to cut budgets, slam together template ads, spots or PowerPoint presentations and then call it “communication,” even though few are certain to what it’s communicating or even whether it’s communicating. It’s incredibly – and unfortunately – easy to think that one is communicating, when in reality all that is happening is the creation of more and more confusing and brand-busting clutter.

With clutter comes anxiety, so bad communication bruises brands – some fatally – even though people may not be aware of it.

At MEK we’ve found three things that will help change the world and get us back to real communication.

1) Automation is not a bad thing, as long as it adds real value to all points of a transaction. Quantity is not necessarily quality, and in an era where plenty of alternatives exist, you want to ensure that you are tantalizing and delighting your customers with real authentic messages.

2) A strong creative idea, fueled by relevant and strong content, can change the world. Or it can at least change the world that you and your customers are used to.

3) Communication platforms like Facebook and Twitter didn’t exist a few years ago. Their replacements – or the platforms that will enhance them – are probably already in development. Accordingly, it’s not about the platform or the technology. It’s about the idea, the content, and the message.

Industry labels like advertising, PR and media buying are changing right in front us. What many PR, marketing and creative people do today – compared to a decade ago – is in most cases dramatically different. And there’s a reason for that change, due to the changing playing field. However, the Big Idea and how to make it strategically happen has always been a major key.

Want to be successful in the second decade of the 21st century? Resist the ease and the siren call of commoditization. There used to be a popular saying in advertising that went something like this: cheap, fast, effective – pick two. In today’s incredibly cluttered communication environment, the saying should perhaps go like this: savvy, simple, relevant – pick three.

Strategic marketing is not a commodity. It doesn’t come in a ready-to-use box. So, fight back and champion the big idea, the big brand, and cheerfully reject those efforts to commoditize real excellence in communication.

Stagflation - a look back or forward?

2011-06-14T09:59:00.000-07:00

Back before the Great Recession, I put together the following blog about fears of stagflation and thoughts about when it first appeared. This was written pre-Stimulus and pre-quasi-recovery (the latter of course is expected to kick inflation into high gear). Now, with stagflation fears freshly appearing, I thought it appropriate to revisit this.

With economists presently nearly evenly divided [in 2008] on whether the U.S. economy is headed toward/already in a recession, the Associated Press weighed in Feb. 27 [2008] with an opine that the dreaded "stagflation" appears to be re-emerging. It didn't take a Nobel Prize-winning economist to predict that inflation would jump up, what with double- and triple-digit increases in gas, rising food prices because corn and other commodity food stuffs are being used for gas, and higher medical costs because (in part) Boomers are getting older and not dying off. So what does this mean?

Stagflation, of course, represents an unsavory economic condition where prices skyrocket while the national (these days, global) economy sputters. Kind of hard to manage if you happen to be President, given that economic incentives can ignite even further inflationary responses.

With the "me first" recession and stagflation predictions swirling around, this takes one back to the Nixon era, where the Administration was then battling the chaos fomented by the 1960s "guns and butter" economic policies of then-abhorred deficit federal spending (sound familiar in 2008 with Katrina and Iraq?). In the unstable summer of 1971, the British Ambassador to the U.S. showed up at the U.S. Treasury with an uncomfortable question: "I have $3 billion in American dollars here," he purred. "Would it be too much trouble to convert that into gold?"

With more than three decades between us and the summer of 1971, not too many probably remember top-of-mind that the United States used to be on the Gold Standard, with U.S. gold trading at the now-incomprehensible price of $45 or so an ounce. Lots of Treasury folks at that time probably grabbed their bottles of Rolaids in response to the English request. The United Kingdom at the time had yet to be bailed out from the discovery and subsequent pumping of lucrative North Sea oil, and her Majesty's former empire was then well on its way to collapsing into Second World economic and political status.

As Nixon wrote later in his Autobiography, "Whether we honored or denied this [British] request, the consequences of our action would be fraught with danger: if we gave the British the gold they wanted, then other countries might rush to get theirs. If we refused, then that would be an admission of our concern that we could not meet every potential demand for conversion into gold."

So Nixon not only left the Gold standard and floated the dollar in August of 1971, he - in his words - "proposed a series of economic controls and reforms that left even long-time wage and price control advocates breathless."

The long-time Adam Smith-thumping Conservative President apparently had an near-instantaneous conversion into a disciple of John Maynard Keynes. Nixon lamented that Eisenhower handed the country over to Kennedy in 1960 with an annual rate of inflation around an unbelievable 1.5%, but that it had ballooned up to 4.7% - a then-unthinkable level.

The floating and subsequent devaluing of the dollar was met with considerable scorn: the venerable economist Arthur Burns, then the chairman of the Federal Reserve Board, argued that "Pravda [the then-influential Soviet newspaper] would write that this was a sign of the collapse of capitalism."

It all seems silly today, but back then it was real stuff. I was an 18-year-old traveling in Japan at the time Nixon devalued the dollar, and I remember wondering how my hard-earned U.S. greenbacks could drop 20% in value overnight!

But it got worse. When I returned from Japan, I found that Nixon - against all odds -had triggered the legislation the Democratic Congress had handed him, and instituted real-time wage and price controls. It took two whole years for the U.S. economy to completely return to private control and market trends.

Today, it's not just about the U.S., as The Economist magazine points out this week. Japan's "Lost Decade" of financial travesty in the late 1980s and early 1990s transformed that nation into something-less-than-happy. Virtually every sector - minus the oil-rich nations armed with Sovereign Wealth - has its own set of challenges. Given the productivity numbers and even with the greed-fueled losses in the U.S. housing market, it seems odd that the American economy would at this point choose to collectively jump off a cliff. If you can completely explain the complexity of today's global economy, I'd like to hear it. Meanwhile, we don't have wage and price controls yet, and we do have an unemployment rate in Indiana (slightly over 4%) that many Hoosier politicians would have killed for a few years ago [Within a few months of this first publishing of this blog, Indiana's unemployment rate jumped to more than 10%, as of this writing it's still around 9%]. The point? Let's go compete.

Reversing the Destruction of Trust

2011-05-12T10:38:00.000-07:00

Our society lives on trust. We do business by trust.
When we read that multi-million-dollar PR firms like Burson-Marstellar took their 30 pieces of silver from current Internet giant Facebook to wrongly bad-mouth rival giant Google, it rends the very fabric by which our society holds together.
Without trust, one ultimately has anarchy. A growing lack of trust means things cost more. Low trust leads to greed.
What is even more sad and disheartening is the fact that Burson is widely credited with the classic and highly praised trust-building strategy that saved Tylenol (and Johnson & Johnson) way back in 1982.
Apparently both Johnson & Johnson and Burson have both misplaced their moral compass.
The PR giant, one of the largest in the industry, makes matters worse by serving up weak blame, pointing the finger towards its client, Facebook: "
"[T]his was not at all standard operating procedure [for Burson] and is against our policies, and the assignment on those terms should have been declined."
What "nice" words, the phrase: "Should have been declined." Unfortunately, such a mea culpa doesn't work.
This is a classic "dirty tricks" campaign, and one in an unbroken line as long as recorded human history. However, that does not make it right. In fact, in this post Great Recession time of shaky trust, it comes at a very bad time. It's bad for the PR profession, it's bad for Burson (and Facebook) and it's bad for society.
When people start tossing around words like "integrity," they better be prepared to show that their motives are a little more pure than power-grabbing and profit-taking.
Fast Company magazine asserts that the Burson/Facebook dirty tricks tactic is simply the first round in "an epic, escalating war" between Facebook and Google. I sincerely and feverently hope that FC is totally wrong on that one.
The antidote to this collapse of trust is actually fairly simple. Paraphrasing the famous line from Robin Williams in the Disney movie Aladdin, all one really has to do to be successful here is "tell the truth." Further, when companies like Facebook and Burson are openly caught in such matters, justice is required. If no legal recourse is available, then people should make their displeasure known in the marketplace. If not, bad things happen. As one ancient source says: "Because the sentence against an evil deed is not executed speedily, the heart of the children of man is fully set to do evil" (Ecclesiastes 8:11).

Let us reverse this. Among other bits, the Public Relations Society of America (PRSA) needs to do its bit and condemn Burson for its breach of ethics. Facebook should be sanctioned by the marketplace. And we all need to agreed that going forward, the restoration of trust is critical. No lying. No cheating. No accepting 30 pieces of silver to wrongly bad-mouth anyone.

We need to change, and we don't need a presidential administration to do it for us. We need fundamental change inside of us -- accompanying by an open change in behavior -- to truly reverse the destruction of trust.

Will My Religion Hurt My Career?

2011-04-14T10:13:00.000-07:00

An e-mail posting from BNET recently asked this question: "Will my religion hurt my career?" If one were to follow stereotypes, could this be a HR outcome to evangelistic quasi-preaching in one's workplace?

While clicking through to the BNET story reveals something quite different (a little "bait and switch" about derogatory career perceptions of online atheism), the question remains a fair one. I for one have been asked in a respective work environment whether or not I had "been saved," which--despite the good intentions of person leading with the question--didn't really advance the theological cause they were espousing.

After all, in my world, brand equals performance. How one acts, how one performs, has much to do with the perceived promise and credibility of their personal brand. I would daresay that this is especially true concerning the validity -- and/or career-enhancing elements -- of any proffered spiritual belief system. That being said, do you want to be known as a religious person? Or, perhaps better said, do you want to have the reputation that your spiritual values are openly reflected in how you conduct yourself at work or in life? From a career perspective, what elements of personal brand equity should be considered here?

One could surmise that from personal career or brand considerations, the real question distills down to this: could one responsibly and appropriately advance their career through a real application of their religion? The ancient New Testament writer James (who possessed a very strong positive reputation in both ancient Christian and Jewish communities) declares: "Faith without deeds [applied behavioral application] is dead" or, as he says earlier a bit more forcefully, "faith without deeds is useless." (James 2:26, 20, New International Version). An element of real performance is more than suggested here.

From traditional Christian and Jewish perspectives, I would then humbly suggest that at least one aspect of applied religion would be most beneficial to one's career. Both practicing Jews and Christians share a critical teaching from the Hebrew Tanakh that would certainly advance one's career from performance and productivity perspectives: "Whatsoever thy hand attaineth to do by thy strength, that do" (Ecclesiastes 9:10, Jewish Publication Society). This piece of wise advice is translated in a more contemporary fashion as "Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might" (New International Version of the Bible). Without indulging further in stereotyping, would this be a productive consideration for those of the Gen X entitlement mindset? (Not, mind you, that all members of the Gen X era eschew productivity)

The direction and expectation for high and ethical performance at work is ramped up even higher for practicing Christians, as Jesus Christ Himself is quoted as commanding His followers to "let your light [behavior] shine before men, that they may see your good deeds" (Matthew 5:16, NIV). The Apostle Paul, an individual credited with spreading Christianity across an entire Empire, echos the ancient Hebrew writings when he commanded a Greek congregation: "Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for men" (Colossians 3:23, NIV).

Of the five "P's" commonly cited for success (passion, patience, persistence, perception and purpose), passion remains the top or close to the top as a key driver for achievement. In this age, "working with all your might" would certainly be a key brand differentiator. So, whether you're a Boomer, Gen X or era-independent, if you want to advance your spiritual beliefs, perhaps you should consider the paraphrased performance-focused advice of Francis of Assisi: "Preach often. When necessary, use words."

With that as a workplace backdrop (with appropriate career advancement in mind), are you a high performer? The Apostle Peter noted that a high-performing Christian will attract attention (I Peter 3:15). If there exists perceived connectivity between your outstanding work performance and your spiritual belief system, then the chances are then that your religion will be viewed both as the driver, and as high performing and attractive. If that is the case, what then will happen to your career?

After all, from a practical persuasive point of view, demonstration and performance trumps rhetoric and theology any day.

Irrational "cool" -- How are we wired to make decisions?

2011-04-04T12:14:00.000-07:00

As social media continues to ramp up--whether we want it or not--efforts to determine just how consumers (or the general public for that matter) make decisions also continues apace. Are we more emotional? Or do we deploy rational logic?Related to this is the consideration that the elusive title of "Cool" is irrational from a number of dataviews -- how "cool" is defined, who possesses the authority to bestow the title of "cool" and the like. The mysteries of the Human Dynamic--what motivates and drives us--continue with little real illumination.

PR News offered up a recent piece on human emotions and drivers which was quite interesting and worth a read, especially as some marketers and PR pros will serve up high emotion (which may promote irrationality) to motivate decision-makers. Among other bits, the PR News account included the above motivational/emotive map of blackberry users vs. iPhone owners. Clearly the Blackberry types are a bit more achievement-oriented and practical than the iPhone people, who clearly view the objective of "having fun" as more of a driver.

As one lets this all roll around in one's head, then the progenitors and outcomes concerning any given "brand" begin to insert themselves. As humans indiscriminately assign value to an object or concept--thus producing the "brand"--how is this process truly influenced?

Perhaps some food for thought in this cluttered market- and mind-place.

Indiana Democrats - Bad Form, REALLY Bad Form

2011-02-23T09:43:00.000-08:00

Democrats in the Indiana General Assembly drove across to a hotel in Urbana, Illinois to be absent without leave on Feb. 21, deadlocking debate and discussion on a education bill before the Indiana House. Human dynamics are one thing, but petty adolescent tactics to grandstand...good grief.

The seriousness of these issues regarding the future of public education are worthy of merit and intelligent discussion, not petty politics.

Disappointing, very disappointing. Perhaps the Hoosier Demos are tapped into Netflicks for a re-run of Animal House...

2011 Super Bowl ads - what worked, what bombed

2011-02-08T13:16:00.000-08:00

As attested to by my 14-year-old and about 90 million other people, people today tune into the Super Bowl as much for the commercials as they do for the game. The subsequent broadcast real estate then experiences hyper-analyzation about whether the individual $1 million media buys (and the $2 million ad production cost) were worth it or not.

While you and I might have our personal favorites, what lives or dies at the boardroom table is: a) how well the ad performed in terms of recall and memorability; and b) which one was "liked" the most. The former supports sales and lead generation. The latter supports brand development, reputation and goodwill.

In terms of goodwill and ROI per second, the Groupon ads (viz the Chicago Tibet takeout) seriously bombed. Sarcasm sells, but evidently not during the Super Bowl. Quoting the official Nielsen ratings, Ad Age reports that Doritos nailed it again overall in both categories: No. 1 in recall (pug door buster) and Nos. 4 & 5 in "best liked" (finger-licking good and bringing grandpa back to life).

The "Darth Vader" Volkswagen ad ("The Force") was the best liked, but Ad Age doubts whether it will help sell cars.

Rapper Eminem scored high with quasi-political "rah-rah," particularly with the "Imported from Detroit" spot. Boomers registered approval (and high recall - No. 2) for the Bud beer "Tiny Dancers" sing-along, which suggests frightening things about Boomers and Elton John.

Of course, neither of my favorites again made the top 10 (the Coke and KIA "epic" ads). As usual, humor and warm-fuzzies sells to the Super Bowl "family" audience.

Also, as lame as it was, at least there was not any "wardrobe malfunction" during the Black-Eyed Peas half-time show. Given the overall lameness of half-time entertainment during America's "greatest game," perhaps the NFL should consider bringing back "Up With People."

Tired of Super Bowl ads? Here's an interesting worldview of America

2011-02-07T12:59:00.001-08:00

Tired of endless (and meaningless) speculation about Super Bowl ads and how they reflect America culture? Economist Barry Eichengreen lays out a few thoughts and a different worldview in his new tome Exorbitant Privilege. The dollar's role in the international scheme of all things money is changing, but is not doomed. Just different.

Economist Menize Chinn weighs in on Eichengreen's worldview on The Business Insider. According to Eichengreen: "... increases in efficiency can't be willed into existence; they have to be achieved. And in order to deliver an improvement in the U.S. trade balance, they have to be achieved faster than in countries with which we compete."

"Here the United states has some obvious strengths. It has large numbers of university- and industry-based scientists, many attracted from other countries. ... entrepreneurs and an agile venture capital industry ... flexible labor markets . . . abundance of fertile land . ...

"But much of the country's physical infrastructure is antiquated and difficult to modernize, partly by virtue of the fact that it is under the jurisdiction of a multitude of state and local governments or in private hands. Freight railways own much of the track used by Amtrak, for example.

"Contrast the difficulty of building a high-speed link between Beijing and Shanghai -- or for that matter with France's, Germany's, and Spain's high-speed trains. China plans to build as much as 8,000 miles of high-speed rail by 2020. In the United States, meanwhile, intercity rail service is now actually slower than in the 1940's. ... Were Dwight Eisenhower to come along today and propose building the interstate highway system, no doubt he would be accused of socialism."

Professor Eichengreen worries:
"... the United States is no longer the beneficiary of an increasingly well-educated labor force."
I think evidence supporting this last point is evident everywhere, including in political discourse.

Reagan - the Man Who Truly Reinvented Himself

2011-02-04T11:50:00.000-08:00

Reagan the inevitable? Hardly. Today, as we approach the century mark for Ronald Reagan, many often forget that this man ran for U.S. President four times and lost twice. "He had to fight for every inch, he had to make it happen," writes Peggy Noonan in the Feb. 4 Wall Street Journal. Noonan, the author of many of Reagan's most memorable speeches, saw firsthand the fruits of how Reagan literally reinvented himself. A Democrat turned Republican, Reagan was the live coast-to-coast television host of the 1955 opening of Disneyland. Clad in a white tux and black bow-tie, Reagan then would have hardly been considered a possible future two-term governor of California (which he was in the mid-1960s), much less presidential timber. But Reagan, "a ceaseless little engine of ambition" (according to Noonan), had different ideas of who he was and who he would become.

Often called "The Great Communicator," Reagan demurred: "I never thought it was my style or the words I used that made a difference: it was the content. I wasn't a great communicator, but I communicated great things."

Knowing that, and never giving up on re-inventing himself, Reagan made good on his brand promise--he became a great president. As Noonan points out, the world found out in the 1980s that "this guy means business." All this after a high-profile "flop" at running for the presidential nomination in 1968 against Richard Nixon, then losing again in 1976.

In or out of influence, Reagan simply never gave up.

And then, when he did win, America "voters weren't charmed, they were convinced." Reagan won his global battles time and time again simply by "just trying to do what was right," according to Noonan.

Ever good-naturedly ambitious, Reagan is today defined as "a good man who became a great president," capturing the hearts and respect of millions.

An entire generation in the 21st century has no personal recollection of the dark days of the Soviet Union, which represents an eloquent testimony--like him or hate him--to the vision of the man from Illinois by way of California--Ronald Reagan.

The Real Dangers of Obesity

2011-01-20T09:27:00.000-08:00

It started out by researching some information about the $187 billion obesity epidemic in America for our hospital client. As I read of what early diabetes--which is a documented frequent outcome of childhood obesity--does to the human body and particularly to young children, I became afraid for an entire generation. As one lawyer commented several years ago, "Americans have the Constitutional right to be stupid." Unfortunately to not recognize what we are doing to ourselves with non-stop advertising of harmful fast foods--particularly to our children--is shameful--and stupid. We know better.

This is not to demean or chasten those who are currently overweight (myself included) or obese, but to begin to issue a call to action.

Accordingly, the forthcoming Major Health Partners childhood obesity prevention effort will get attention that may be above and beyond--but it's needed and worth it!

For more information about just the economic costs to America for obesity, see the attached chart from McKinsey. Whew-let's get going!

MEK client Iotron Canada expands into US with new sterilization facility

2010-12-03T07:13:00.000-08:00

MEK client news: Iotron Industries (Canada) will expand into the US orthopedic and medical device sterilization and cross-linking market in 2011. Iotron will locate in the Midwest near the multi-billion-dollar orthopedic manufacturing cluster in Indiana. Following is the MEK-produced press release from the Indiana Economic Development Corporation.

Iotron Industries Canada, Inc., a provider of contract sterilization services to the medical industry, materials modification in the production of orthopedic products, and pest and microbial reduction for agribusiness, announced today that it will establish a new operation here, creating up to 20 jobs by 2012. Iotron will invest more than $15.3 million to construct a 54,000 square-foot electron beam treatment facility in the Park 30 Business Center, a shovel-ready park near Fort Wayne in NE Indiana.

The Canada-based company's electron-beam treatment process serves medical products and products used in the agribusiness industry. In addition, the company's technology is used for advanced applications such composite curing in the defense and manufacturing industries.
"It's welcomed news to see a high-tech, international company like Iotron recognize the good things Indiana has to offer - low-taxes, welcoming to business and the most concentrated, experienced orthopedic industry workers in the world," said Governor Mitch Daniels.

"The selection of Indiana for our expansion facility represented the culmination of more than two years of intensely exploring and considering sites across the United States for a possible location," said Lloyd Scott, president of Iotron. "We believe we have now secured a highly competitive position that will benefit both Iotron and the Indiana region in the short- and long-term."

"When Iotron commenced the process of expanding the company's operations, Indiana held a good deal of interest in this expansion due to the state's leading position in the orthopedic industry and its business-friendly environment," said Joseph Rangel, chief executive officer of Iotron. "Indiana enthusiastically supported our expansion into the Hoosier state, and Iotron looks forward to helping the state expand its competitive position and assist in attracting companies requiring electron beam processing of their products."

Iotron expects to break ground on the new Iotron Industries USA facility in early 2011, with major construction to be completed by late 2011. The company's hiring will begin in January 2011 to begin training selected Indiana-based employees in specialized electron-beam processing methods at Iotron's Canadian facilities before the Columbia City facility is operational.

"While the Warsaw region is already recognized as the orthopedic capital of the world, the addition of a sterilization facility in the region adds a key component to the existing value chain of our orthopedics industry," said Brad Bishop, executive director of OrthoWorx. "Iotron's location of a sterilization facility in northern Indiana adds an important capability to the cluster, as well adding new high-tech jobs for residents in our region."

The Indiana Economic Development Corporation (IEDC) offered Iotron up to $200,000 in performance-based tax credits based on the company's job-creation plans. Whitley County worked with three other counties to aggregate $7 million in Recovery Zone Facility Bonds, as well as other local incentives at the request of the Whitley County Economic Development Corporation

"Numerous Midwest companies can take immediate advantage of Iotron's new location in Indiana when the facility is completed later in 2011," said Alan Tio, president of the Whitley County Economic Development Corporation. "Their new central location gives them immediate access to major orthopedic companies in Warsaw, Indiana, and the $2 billion commercial defense industry in northeast Indiana."

"This project demonstrates Whitley County's continuing commitment to supporting medical device manufacturing, product development, and support companies," said County Commissioner Mike Schrader, "We are pleased to welcome Iotron to Whitley County and will work to encourage the company's success in our community."

About Iotron Industries Canada, Inc. Iotron Industries Canada Inc. is a Canadian company operating an Electron Beam service center in the Greater Vancouver area of British Columbia, Canada. Iotron's Electron Beam technology can modify the physical, chemical, molecular and biological properties of materials and products, improving their usefulness and enhancing their value. An environmentally friendly process, Iotron's IMPELA® Electron Beam Accelerators need only electricity to operate and produce no waste materials. For more information, please visit http://www.iotron.com. For media inquiries, please contact Michael Snyder (MEK Group for Iotron) at 317-805-4870 or msnyder@themekgroup.com (http://www.themekgroup.com).

Driving Growth in the "New Normal" Economy

2010-11-23T10:21:00.000-08:00

A sold-out 2010 presentation with MEK, the NCAA, Cook Medical, the Indiana Chamber and others has captured a prestigious Diamond regional award from PRSA. To view content from this award-winning presentation, click here.

Skeptical about Brands in the Post Recession?

2010-10-21T18:08:00.000-07:00

The big brand onslaught, where traditional marketing pulls out all the stops, has run into a bit of a quandry in post recession times. Brand managers have long -- and rightly -- touted that brands differ from reputation in that brands include a promise. Promises broken are not lightly forgotten.

Now that appears more true than ever. Brand managers have also long touted that consumers form relationships with brands, which apart from getting a bit too Freudish, remains true to the extent that a brand becomes an extension of one's persona.

Nowadays savvy brand managers take a longer look at that latter bit. Since consumers have maxed out their credit cards and are, of all things, getting somewhat more frugal across the board, a flashly brand campaign doesn't have the sticky power it once did. Consumers want facts. They want transparency. They want trust.

Even hint at breaking this trust, and watch a brand falls under the pummelling of highly motivated cynical consumers, paticularly in social media.

Today, more and more people don't want filters. They don't want even the slightest suggestion that someone else is doing their thinking for them. Skepticism is on the rise.

If you're making a brand claim, base it on facts and demonstrated ones at that.

Crisis Communications and Employees

2010-06-24T08:04:00.000-07:00

Of the making of information about managing and enduring crises there is apparently no end, particularly over the last 20-some months. Michael McKinney recently posted 12 tips -- interestedly focused on employees -- that pack a considerable amount of wisdom. They appear below and a worth the 45 seconds required to review. If you want to see the blog column in its entirety, click here.

Understand that we will never get back to normal: While it is comfortable to want to seek the status quo, “normal” in times of a crisis is constantly changing. Leaders need to move on to seek better ways of doing things, letting these new ways become the new normal.
Take care of one another: Listening reduces anxiety. Provide regular updates on what is happening across the organization and expand inclusivity.
React…pause…respond: The right response will be made once information gathering, integrity, an open heart, and seeking to understand have been considered.
Talk—even when you don’t believe there is much to say: Overcommunication is essential during turbulent times. Consistent and continuous messaging prevents rumors from spreading and demonstrates the leaders’ approachability and transparency.
Be visible—now is not the time to play hide-and-seek: People become fearful when the leader goes into hiding. As a leader, be present, inform comfort, and provide strength for others.
Maintain integrity and high value morals: Current circumstances should not influence or distort your definition of integrity and other core values.
Optimize costs, with retention in mind: Make cost optimization decisions keeping employee retention in mind. This allows leaders to assess risk and make more informed decisions.
Be a brand ambassador: The organization needs people who are brand ambassadors. As brand ambassadors, you are responsible for representing the organization both internally and externally in a positive manner. This means you must refrain from making statements that might cause further turbulence.
Assess and rebuild trust: Rebuilding an injured organization requires making difficult decisions that not everyone will understand. For this reason, you and other leaders must continuously asses and rebuild trust.
Remember, leaders are human, too: Though there will be difficult times during a crisis, as leader, it is important to remain composed.
Think like a child: Try to live “in the moment,” not allowing business to consume every moment. Work/life balance can exist, even in a crisis.
Take care of your emotional, physical, and spiritual well-being: Don’t put any aspect of your well-being on hold. While change and uncertainty at work are draining, you cannot allow them to take over your life.

Seven Deadly Sins of PR - reposted

2010-06-14T10:46:00.000-07:00

A column I wrote called the Seven Deadly Sins of Public Relations was picked up by the national Ragan Report professional communicators publication, and it proved to be so popular (multiple Tweets and excerpts across the nation) that Ragan moved it into their paid premium section. If you don't feel like ponying $279 for full Ragan access, you can view the Seven Deadly Sins of PR by clicking here.
Thanks for everyone's interest!

Hell hath no fury like a European Communist denied a Christian holy day

2010-05-24T07:19:00.001-07:00

While many of us tense up watching the unrest unfold in Greece, as the workers of this debt-laden nation protest that female pastry chefs and hairdressers can no longer retire at age 50 (given the "arduous and unhealthy" nature of their "jobs"), we can all take comfort in the fact that the French unions restored the nationwide vacation day of "Whitmonday," an ancient tradition left over from the Middle Ages observance of Pentecost on Sunday.

You see, in 2003, thousands of elderly French residents suffered or died as a result of a heat wave, so the French government tried to do away with the national Monday "post-Pentecost party" in 2005 and effectively donate the wage proceeds on that new "Day of Solidarity" to help these poor people. But the Confederation Generale du Travail (CGT), a major trade union, would righteously have none of that.

In a 2005 OP-ED titled "Marxist Piety," the Wall Street Journal opined "Hell hath no fury like a French Communist denied a Christian day of leisure." It continued, "a self-avowedly secular Republic with diminishing church attendance fights Marxist -- aka the religion-as-opiate creed -- trade unions to drop a Christian holiday from the calender." CGT successfully objected to this state-sanctioned loss of leisure, and the French government restored the day after party in 2008, enabling the French to sustain their five-day weekend (the traditional Christian "Day of Ascension" precedes the Pentecost weekend on Thursday, which remains an official state holiday). As the WSJ concluded five years ago on this day, "In France, the real state religion is vacation." As you read this, millions of Europeans (including the now again liberated French) are happily lazing about today on May 24, continental crisis or no continental crisis.
Given this myopic, lack-of-work-ethic rubbish, is it any wonder that the New York Times today quotes a 50-year-old Italian worker lamenting the possible loss of his pension as stating "This country has no future"?

Postscript: lest you think I'm singling out the French for their national "post-Pentecost party," the day of state-sanctioned leisure is today also righteously observed by the following European countries: Austria, Belgium, Cyprus, Denmark, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Romania, and Switzerland. A personal note to those governments: as you continue to spiral into unimaginable debt, enjoy your day off.

Oh, and by the way, during your time off today you might want to read a little passage addressed to Greeks from the book that authorized Pentecost observance in the first place - writing some 1,900 years ago to church members in northern modern-day Greece, the apostle Paul noted: "when we were with you, we gave you this rule: 'If a man will not work, he shall not eat.'" (I Thess. 3:10, NIV). Food for European Whitmonday thought, perchance?

Socialism and the Future of Europe

2010-05-05T09:38:00.000-07:00

As the American economic recovery kind of chugs along, I haven't been paying a lot of attention to the Greece debt crisis. However, today's riots got my attention. Greece has had its own form of "big government" for several decades that America has been recently toying with. As other members of the European Union are requiring major austerity measures in exchange for multi-billion-euro bailout loans, we see ominous comments like this from German Chancellor Angela Merkel:

"Nothing less than the future of Europe, and with that the future of Germany in Europe, is at stake," Merkel told [German] lawmakers. "We are at a fork in the road."

Rampant Socialism in Greece, where one commentator said that nobody was even sure how many people actually worked for the government there, obviously has demonstrated a severe lack of capacity to meet 21st century demands.

Also ominously, states in America like California actually have worse budget and debt issues, and all of those are on a much larger scale (if California was a separate country outside of the U.S., its GDP alone would rank in the top 10 of all nations).

As our fragile global economy inches forward, methinks Greece bears careful watching.

Sometimes a photo says it all

2010-04-18T14:23:00.001-07:00

Courtesy of the "Correct Spelling, Punctuation and Apostrophe Use" Fan page on Facebook.

Bush on Obama: "Not going to be a critic"

2010-04-15T21:33:00.000-07:00

Former President George W. Bush delivered what many would sum up as a remarkable speech tonight (Apri 15) at the Conseco Fieldhouse in downtown Indianapolis. Clearly relaxed before about 4,000 thousand supporters at the 27th annual "Celebration of Life" fund-raiser in Indy, the former President emphatically stated: "I am not going to be a critic of our [current] President. There are a lot of critics out there - I am not one."

An amazing statement, considering that he had the perfect opportunity to indulge in at least a little Obama-bashing, given the partisan nature of the crowd. He emphasized that the honor and position of the office of U.S. President was more important than the current occupant, as occupants will change numerous times over the years, "but the ship of state will sail on." Harsh criticism from a former administration, he noted, was not helpful. Perhaps a thought that many of us should consider?

While refraining from direct criticism from a self-professed cynic, he did reward the clearly conservative crowd by stating that the "people know how to spend their money better than the government does."

Attending with my 13-year-old son Winston, I was impressed that Bush worked from notes and no teleprompter, and the fact that former President took the opportunity to poke fun at himself numerous times, something experienced politicians are typically loathe to do.

The former President also made a number of memorable and serious points. While he touted President Abraham Lincoln for his "moral clarity," tell-tale signs of a traditional Bush political stump speech were clearly absent, as the former President reeled off stories about his administration and his life.

Citing his spiritual faith and paraphrasing the Bible, Bush declared that "to whom much is given, much is required," referencing his belief that the United States as a nation was singularly "blessed" and thus had a responsibility to care for others less-fortunate in the world.

He condemned what he called "the bigotry of low expectations," particularly when it is used to essentially deprive people of the possibility of advancement.

He spoke about his personal recollections of the 9-11 attack, and the lessons he learned in managing crises: "You must create a sense of calm and not over-react," he stated.

He announced to the audience that he was presently finishing up a book of quasi-memoirs, which framework is based on advice from a number of historians. Bush said that he doesn't believe that short-term history can provide a platform for adequate analysis, and that he was leaving the judgment of his Presidency to future generations of historians. He said that he asked a number of published historians for their opinions about which President wrote the best memoirs. To a person, he said, they named the memoirs of Ulysses S. Grant as the best example. Since Grant used a series of many anecdotes to deliver his viewpoints, Bush said that he was doing the same.

Bush openly talked about and acknowledged that he had a serious drinking problem earlier in his life, particularly during his 30s. He noted that his new book will begin with a quote from his wife Laura: "Can you tell me one day when you haven't had a drink?" she asked him some 30 years ago.

Bush said that a new faith in God ended that drinking issue, as he began a life of abstaining from alcohol and openly began seeking a new spiritual relationship with Jesus Christ. He said it was "not easy" to set aside his Ivy League intellectual experience to embrace a belief in Christ.

Clearly now comfortable with openly talking about his faith and making fun of himself (he said that some in Washington would be shocked that he was writing a book, as many there "didn't believe that I could read"), Bush added a serious point that it was unfortunate that many will not seek God until they experience a problem as serious as his was.

Again paraphrasing the teachings of Jesus, Bush advised his critics that if they "want to take out the speck in my eye, they should first take out the log in theirs."

An Alternative View of Change - 30 Years Later

2010-02-22T09:22:00.000-08:00

As a 55-year-old watching nearly everything change before my eyes - dramatic changes in public/private partnerships across the board, techniques of capital formation, restructuring of healthcare and banking, how people make and buy music, new global views and expectations, online connectivity, and on and on -- I've been casting around a bit to see whether anyone truly has a reliable forecasting model.

To that end, I recently plowed through the highly-worthwhile Clayton Christensen tome Seeing What's Next, which is a fascinating read on how innovation models can predict industry change (which, if you haven't read, proceed immediately to your nearest bookstore - unless you're a MEK competitor, upon which forget all of this). I further took a fresh look at the Garner Technology Hype Cycle, which mercilessly lampoons the claims of new "world-changing" tech like the iPad.

What I was struck by is how reactive these models are. They really don't predict or pontificate on potential change until after the change agent is visible and has entered the marketplace or social sphere. So the questions become: how does one truly anticipate change, the appearance of the actual change agent, and the outcome (preferred or otherwise).

Now to be fair (and before your eyes glaze over), considerable attention to finding a truly predictive model has been the obsession of humans for Millennia - from Nostradamus to ancient biblical prophecies to "infallible" prognostications of every economist or social scientist known to humanity -- all with varying degrees of failure, misinterpretation or outright fallacious conclusions.

Do I have the answer? No. Obviously.

What did strike me recently is this: in the Feb. 22 issue of Newsweek, editor Jon Meacham pens a remarkable column about change: "The System's Not to Blame. We Are." In it he speaks of gradualism, the capacity to "leap backwards," and the fact that it is "dangerously self-important" to believe that our current problems are unique. Read the whole thing by following the link.

Meanwhile, what's the point of this blog's title and how does this all fit together?

If we are in a era of "dangerously self-important thinking" (my take on Meacham's column), are we failing to see what is presently hiding out in plain view? If we over-analyze variables upon variables, are we missing the point of possibly forecasting human, business and institutional behavior?

Let me leave you with this to think about. Some 30 years ago, as a twenty-something, I remember being fascinated by a British television series titled Connections. James Burke, a science historian, produced 10 episodes, traveling all over the world for location shots to demonstrate -- with highly effective dry humor -- just how seemingly unrelated events lead up to major moments in human scientific and social history. Based on my current quest to better understand where we are as a community, a nation, and a cosmos, I found Connections was available on NetFlix. So I thought, "I wondered how all that turned out," since three decades had lapsed since I last viewed it. So I ordered it online.

After it came in the mail, I slipped it into my DVD player (which technology didn't exist in 1978), and proceeded to be stunned.

The first episode, titled "The Trigger Effect," Burke begins his series trek atop the Tower One of the World Trade Center in New York City, now of course destroyed in the infamous 9/11 terrorist attack. After warning of humanity's looming capacity to fall into a "technology trap," he chronicles the dangerously high degree of vulnerability of the fragile electrical grid (sound familiar these days?), using real events in New York City as the example. The first episode ends up in Kuwait, where Burke asks how the Kuwaiti people will respond to their new-found oil wealth and the possibility of integrating into Western society of sorts.

Of course, a little over a decade later, Kuwait was invaded by Iraq, setting off a whole new global reaction. What would Burke -- or his audience for that matter -- said if someone had walked up to him in 1977 and said "Oh, the building for your first setting will be annihilated by global terrorist forces from halfway around the world in a decade or two, and second, the electric grid problems will be far more serious in 30 years with new solutions only now coming into view, and by the way, the country where you filmed your last bit will be the site of a near-total global military reaction to the vulnerability of energy supplies."

Order the episode for yourself and see if you don't experience a eerie feeling or two. Then ask yourself: what are we missing today that is right in front of us? Are we in fact in an era of "dangerously self-important thinking" when it comes to achieving real and strategic change?

If you have any thoughts on this (and don't want to log into Google to comment), e-mail me at msnyder@themekgroup.com and we'll continue the conversation about "an alternative view of change."

Fortuna favet fortibus.

Strategic Content + Earned Media = Success

2010-02-12T06:29:00.000-08:00

The phrase "earned media" has taken on a largely different meaning in the second decade of the 21st century. "Earned media" (sometimes previously referred to as "free media" or "unpaid media" in the advertising world) used to nearly exclusively refer to media placements by PR professionals in newspapers, magazines and broadcast TV/radio.

Today, the phrase includes a dramatic shift toward content generated by consumers and users. With hundreds of thousands of opportunities available for customers and activists to blog, post and share, the Voice of the Consumer has become nearly all powerful.

How is this important? A company can make a claim in paid traditional or online advertising, but if the brand promise doesn't hold up, the same company can subjected to a bloody digital onslaught fomented by disgruntled consumers or stakeholders. Want proof? Browse through brand names (particularly one pizza company) on YouTube and see what you come up with. As the last 20+ months have taught us, consumer and shakeholder trust is all important for real and lasting success.

The positive side is -- as Seth Godin advocates -- is that if you have a product or service that meets, or better, exceeds, the perceived brand promise, then give your consumers and stakeholders a digital megaphone. They will reward you with highly credible, believable and widespread commentary that can increase sales, buy-in and lead generation.

As eMarketer recently pointed out in its brief "What You Need to Know about Earned Media," good brand content will be at the heart of any successful strategy. The above chart provides details.

So the question becomes: how do you generate strategic content?

B2B magazine recently pointed out that content/PR/content pros are hiring researchers who can write compelling and huighly relevant material drawing on a variety of primary and secondary sources. Not flamboyant copywriters and creatives who produce "art."

That's not meant to be a slam against traditional ad copywriters or creative professionals, but the point is that truth, honesty and highly relevant content again rule. People want actionable information that is relevant to their lives.

David Ogilvy, the king of content, wherever he is, must be smiling.

Goodbye to the Web's Golden Age - Hello SplinterNet

2010-02-01T15:05:00.000-08:00

With the myriad announcements of tablet PCs galore - iPad, HP, and the like at CES and later - a great deal of buzz has hit the blogsphere about the demise of the Golden Age of the "free" Internet. Most interesting, this trend, as it represents vertical divergence while Web based technologies are defying typical trends by converging (Web and TV, mobile telephony and PCs, etc.).
Forrester, notably one Josh Bernoff, has served up real proof of this new phenomenon, dubbed "The SplinterNet." He recently published this table, which saliently makes his point.
This, of course, comes on the heels of the much-ballyhooed iPad, which now seems to be following the archetypal Apple product introduction:
1) Ship a beta version minus functionality to come (E.g., Flash capability, still camera, video camera, phone capability); 2) Follow the Microsoft model of letting the consumers find and report the bugs; 3) Deploy an overpriced initial model(s) in the penetration pricing policy/penalty for early adopters; 4) Drop the price after a few months and roll out new versions with the previously withheld functionality.

But I digress. Bernoff counsels us thusly: "As we all gird for the launch of the Apple Tablet, take a moment to step back and realize what all these new devices are doing." Ala Web 3.0 thinking, everything is supposed to be transparent and compatible. As these new devices emerge, compatibility and open source is thrown under the bus. Anyone with a market that researches Web sites using mobile devices knows exactly what this means. To one extent or another, companies practically have to have an entirely different Web version to be mobile compatible for various phones.

Bernoff continues: "Meanwhile, more and more of the interesting stuff on the Web is hidden behind a login and password. Take Facebook for example. Not only do its applications not work anywhere else, Google can't see most of it."
For more than a decade, lots have people have asked "how do we monetize content?" With the iPhone (and now the iPad/iPod), that discussion has expanded to include formerly free apps.
What astonishes me is the current near-complete lack of outrage that many news and content groups (read: The New York Times) are openly erecting paywalls and cutting off free content.
Platforms and hardware are quietly taking over (again) as the Golden Age of the Internet starts its long tail into legend.
And by the way, the FCC is worried that insufficient bandwidth exists to accommodate true tablet growth and usage.
Thoughts? E-mail me here.

The Horsepower of an NFL Brand - Indy Cashes In

2010-01-22T10:02:00.000-08:00

With the AFC championship (Colts vs. Jets) this Sunday set as a rematch of Super Bowl III, the city of Indianapolis (and Indiana in general) will again experience the priceless brand development and exposure that comes from 40 million television viewers (not to mention all the NYC fans and corporate reps watching from one of the world's largest television markets).

Just how powerful is this exposure? Following is an OP-ED that I published in the Indianapolis Star a few years ago about the brand development horsepower from Indy's first AFC championship match-up, which even more valid today:

The Colts and Indy: An emerging mutual brand of excellence

By Michael Snyder

Taunting and loud, the voice pierced the din of the production bay at the radio station I was working at in Pasadena in 1984. “Hey Snyder,” the news director’s voice mocked, “Can you say ‘Indianapolis’ Colts?”
Long the brunt of many a “cornfield with lights” joke, ironically in a Southern California iconic city whose original name was “The Indiana Colony,” I was an overt lifelong Baltimore Colts fan. Even though the Colts at the time were the doormat of the NFL, I was still incredulous. From a west coast view, the mold seemed shattered. Against all odds, Indy was now part of the National Football League.
What was even more astonishing was the fact that there was even a place for the Colts to play. When I rolled out of Indy in 1976 – universally known in those days as “Naptown” – there wasn’t much of a noteworthy physical brand to leave behind: no Chase Tower, no One America building, and certainly no domed stadium. The downtown Circle was defined by decaying retail storefronts, presenting a strong impression that this was a city enthusiastically racing toward the 18th century.
Even a few years later, the city and state still weren’t projecting a brand that would quite attract the best and brightest. While in New York City on business later in the 1980s, I politely declined a dinner invitation, citing the fact that the Colts were making a rare Monday Night Football appearance and I wanted to catch the game. In the pre-Internet and zillion-channel satellite days, Colts games were seldom broadcast live in Southern California.
In between plays, the sports commentators seemed singularly unimpressed by the Hoosier Capital City. Based on repeated messaging, the national TV audience was left with a shallow brand perception. According to the commentators, Indy’s solitary redeeming factor was that it had a pretty good steakhouse.
Today, as the Colts and Indianapolis prepare for the first-ever AFC Championship here, a completely different city is deservedly on deck for a national re-branding. The sweeping vista shots panning the city during television timeouts reveal a progressive metropolis that has redefined itself as a 21st century global player. The Indy “brand” – that all-important Holy Grail of marketing – is in positive transformation, taking the Hoosier state with it. Representing a marketer’s dream of a worldwide showcase, the reach and frequency of Indy’s new brand message remains firmly at the high end of gold-plated media. Every time a commentator couples words like “powerhouse” with Indianapolis, it rubs off. In a classic marketing matchup, people are presented with a believable reason to reconsider Indiana and Indianapolis as something quite different from years past. All week long, the city’s positive brand equity will grow.
An old saw in brand development goes as follows: “There’s nothing like great marketing to kill a bad product.” Heightened brand awareness of flawed merchandise will drive away consumers.
Fortunately for Indianapolis and Indiana, the product is solid. “Naptown” of old is no more. Want proof of Indiana’s new emerging brand? Consider the headline from the Detroit News last year [in 2006]: “Michigan should fear Indiana, not India” for competitive economic development.
Regardless of how the game turns out today, Indianapolis and Indiana win dual victories. Many corporate site selectors are rabid football fans at this time of year, and the multi-faceted live commentary out of the RCA Dome [the Colts now play in the all-new Lucas Oil Stadium] only reinforces one brand fact: Indianapolis today represents a force to be ignored only at the peril of the unenlightened.

Managing principal of The MEK Group, a marketing consulting firm in Carmel, Snyder returned to Indianapolis from Los Angeles in 1993.

Wrapped a Little Too Tight about Social Media?

2010-01-19T06:40:00.000-08:00

When law firms start touting social media, you know for sure that you're at the end of a trend. Whether that's totally true or not, the current social media hysteria reminds me of the late 1990s, when companies by the thousands suffered widespread panic attacks over the fact that they did or did not have a Web site.

Never mind that these same companies didn't have a online strategy or much in the way of real digital objectives, they just had to be on the Web and be on the Web NOW. Is this phenomena repeating itself in the second decade of the not-so-new century?

So as you're contemplating either getting into social media (and joining the "conversation" -- whatever that happens to be) or improving your overall digital strategy by truly targeting your customers' needs, here's 25 thoughts on social media from Ragan Communications to help you get a little unwound (warning, you might find more than a little truth in these hysterically funny points):

25 random reasons we’re sick of social media

By Lindsey Miller and Jessica Levco

These may make you laugh out loud—or perhaps just LOL

1. We can now only communicate face-to-face with people in 140 character blasts.
2. It’s only a matter of time before those drunken office holiday photos surface online.
3. Keeping up with the Joneses is harder now because we have to keep up with the Joneses’ blogs.
4. Too many passwords to remember for each account.
5. We’ve got only six people following us on Twitter. Our self-esteem is at an all-time low.
6. Everybody seems to be talking about how great LinkedIn is for networking. The only people we know on LinkedIn are our co-workers.
7. When we go to a networking event with human beings, we wear our nametag on our left-hand side and give a limp fish handshake. We’ve forgotten how to interact with real people.
8. We can't remember the last time we wrote a letter. It’s hard to remember how to hold a pen correctly.
9. Our grammatical muscles spasm when we use the words “Tweeted” and “Facebooked” in casual conversation.
10. Even though our co-worker is less than three feet away, we haven’t spoken to each other in seven months. Thanks, G-chat.
11. Since we’ve been doing so much typing, our fingers have mutated to the size of a Kielbasa.
12. We can’t tell north from south after we downloaded the Google Maps application on our iPhone.
13. We have nightmares about losing our BlackBerry.
14. People always want to know where we are, but last week we Tweeted during a colonoscopy.
15. We invited 651 people to a party. We got 21 replies. Only four showed up.
16. Like our relationship status on Facebook, we find ourselves saying “It’s Complicated” to every business situation that presents itself.
15. Life would be better if we could add five hours to our day. Not for time with our family or friends, but for spending more time on all the social media sites we’re addicted to.
16. We call all the time we spend on social media sites “networking” or “business.” Well, at least that’s how we justify it when we check and see who our high school sweetheart is dating.
17. We change our profile pictures, interests, and activities on Facebook at least twice per week. Perhaps we should change our religion status to solipsism.
18. We need to be instantly validated—we ate a tuna salad sandwich for lunch! Now, it’s time to blog about it.
19. We don’t bother asking our co-workers what they did this weekend. There’s no point—we read about it on Twitter.
20. Our social workload is rapidly becoming another 40-hour-per-week occupation. But this one isn’t paid.
21. Forget sipping coffee and reading the newspaper. Now it’s all about Twittering like crazy, downing nine Red Bulls and stuffing our face with Power Bars.
22. We’re more excited that we learned how to re-Tweet and reply on Twitter than we were at the compliment we got this morning from our boss.
23. Work now reminds us of the movie Wall-E: people moving around on hover chairs and communicating through computer screens in front of their face.
24. The only way we can start a conversation is by asking, “What Are You Doing?”
25. One of our Facebook “friends” asks us to write 25 Random Things About Yourself. We’re tired of typing after two.

Where Does the U.S. Buy Its Oil? - Major Security Issue

2010-01-15T08:16:00.000-08:00

As consumer gas prices nudge up towards $3 a gallon again, The Center for American Progress (courtesy of The Business Insider Green Sheet) published the featured map detailing where America currently buys its oil (outside North America).
On a sober note, America buys more than $360 billion of non-U.S. oil annually, much of which comes from the U.S. State Department formally designates as "dangerous or unstable" countries.
Two years ago America imported about $150 billion of oil from these same countries.
The Rocky Mountain Institute (RMI) estimates that America today imports between 9-10 million barrels a day. During the first global Energy Crisis (when OPEC nations openly used what was labeled "the oil weapon"), America imported about 3-4 million barrels a day, less than half of today's totals. Issues related to that 1973-1974 global crisis nearly spawned a direct Soviet-America confrontation.
According to RMI, "In 1999, oil was $16/barrel. In 2008, it crossed the $140/barrel mark. No consensus yet exists on exactly why the price has jumped so much. Options range from growing demand in India and China, to political instability to shady oil financial trading."
Regardless of why, (and as U.S. Senator Richard Lugar has been proclaiming for two decades) continued U.S. oil dependency remains a major Homeland Security issue.

At the first Lugar/Purdue Energy Summit in 2006 (four years ago), scientists and researchers called for a U.S. energy technology emphasis on the scale of the 1940s Manhattan Project. That was four years ago. Where are we today?

Sharpen up E-mail subject lines in 8 words or less

2010-01-14T12:07:00.000-08:00

Want to break through the clutter of an overstuffed InBox? Check out Ragan's advice through the following link.

E-mail subject lines in 8 words or less Article Homepage articles

TED: The Most Powerful Word in English

2010-01-13T13:07:00.001-08:00

A couple of months ago, a TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design - the world's ultimate social media-fueled idea-sharing Web site) researcher posed an inquiry on TED's LinkedIn page. They wanted to know people's thoughts on the single most powerful word in the English language.

Some 144 comments later, the word "yes" is thus far the runaway favorite. "Love" and "hope" are trailing in second and third place, respectively.

Other entries include (in no particular order): think, now, happy, welcome, next, no, happy, please, peace, God, passion, why, thanks, forgiveness, humility,believe, smile, faith, imagine.

The dialogue is still going on, for those who would care to weigh in the LinkedIn page.

Given the perceived audience of TED, I would have thought that either "why" or "love" would have topped out higher. So much for politically correct thinking!

For what it's worth, I submitted "go."

US State Governments Choking on Budget Dust

2010-01-11T06:59:00.000-08:00

As we move into the current economic "recovery," states across the U.S. try to figure out what to do with empty tax coffers. The dilemma remains that most states need to raise taxes in order to service leftover debt from the "aught" decade and pay for current services to their citizens. Problem is, with tax revenues in the negative and tax-paying businesses still trying to crawl out from under a fiscally devastating 18 months, it's ugly, ugly, ugly.

The latest e-mail update from Stateline.org (see photo) is soaked in red ink, as states try to scrape more shards out of empty revenue buckets. Meanwhile, where's the Stimulus dough that was supposed to right this fiscal ship? State officials complain that its taking way too long to get needed cash into the right hands.

The irony of all this? Indiana, traditionally a state that lives hand-to-mouth, entered the Great Recession with more than $1 billion in reserves and a balanced budget. The Hoosier state has subsequently taken its own share of blows to the head, but is still standing on its own while its neighbors are wielding panic-guided axes. No wonder Republicans are talking about Mitch Daniels, the fiscal architect of this current Hoosier stability, as a possible candidate for Prez.

It will all work out, but golly is it painful at the moment...

Slate PC Tablets - Sweeping World-changers?

2010-01-10T18:14:00.000-08:00

A resurgence in newspapers? A whole new era of journalism and information exchange? Formerly finicky subscribers gladly buying online content? Technology information convergence like we've never seen?

The rumble of record holiday sales of the iPod Touch -- once considered a pricey niche knockoff of the iPhone -- may represent the tip of a new disruptive technology that could profoundly change media, consumer behavior and how we all work.

Hubris? Hyperbole? Maybe.

Or maybe not.

Consumer interest in the iPod Touch - which provides access to thousands of iPhone applications without the AT&T contract -- attracted a seabox of interest from analysts for very good reasons besides increased revenue. For a knockoff product, iPod Touch sales did some real interesting things in 2009 -- like manifesting a sales growth rate of 100% over 2008. Consumer pulled 11.3 million off the shelves in Q4 alone.

Why the surge in iPod Touch interest and what does this have to do with slate tablet PCs?

As millions of buyers of the iPod Touch eloquently demonstrate, consumers WANT the connectivity, 100,000+ applications and portability of a mobile device as defined by what the iPhone offers. They want this functionality so bad, they'll carry a separate phone, even though the total package is available.

Perhaps that's why Microsoft rushed out Steve Ballmer at CES with an HP slate tablet, and multiple slate PCs and new tablets were all out with concepts, including Dell. Could they be anticipating what Apple may be trotting out in the tablet world at the end of January?

So why such interest in tablets - slate-like, thin and powerful? Try out the following:

Ultra-easy-to-use, HD screen, light-weight computing horsepower that you can carry around like a magazine?

The ability to instantly access both business and entertainment options without the hassle of booting-up a three pound laptop?

New convergence opportunities galore - tablets may well become fixtures around consumer HD TVs, dropping TV spot AD ratings even further on both cable and commercial stations (unless they're timed to push out messages to tablets) as consumer check e-mail and surf during long commercial breaks muted out.

Enhanced and customized consumer content that transcends "breaking news" which consumers will happily pay for, reversing trends of consumer reluctance to buy online content. Newspapers (particularly those who have cross-trained their journalists in video) could see a remarkable resurgence in an online realm.

Real videophones for mass use, as tablets incorporate video cameras and link up to other tablets in hot-spots and wireless-enhanced homes/offices across the world (Skype, look out), much like fax machines suddenly hit their tipping point.

If all of the above occurs, why text? Why even go to work? If you can carry a lightweight video connection around, that's realtime facetime.

Now if Steve Jobs has a tablet that can achieve all of this...

David Ogilvy used to assert in a 1960s creative world that content was king. If touchscreen tablets really deliver this capacity, we could be looking at a disruptive technology of extreme magnitude, touching virtually part of our 21st century lives. Content will not only be king, it will dominate.

I'm buying one.

Brand Development of Epic Proportions

2010-01-08T07:26:00.000-08:00

Big bucks, mind-blowing brand development? When you're a multi-national company with a major global stake in PCs, video, movies, music and all media in general, how do you capture and communicate a multi-level, hideously complicated, all-encompassing brand element in 90 seconds? Perhaps mirroring the epic scope of the infamous one-time Apple Macintosh "1984" Super Bowl spot, Sony has released a senses-numbing 90-second spot called "Make Believe" that, well, totally immerses the viewer into all things Sony. Cataclysmic car chase, collapsing buildings, tumbling airborne sand buggies, pulsating rock concert - all at the touch of a digitized button. The underlying message delivered by the bewildered and awe-struck urban youth stumbling through the fantasy vision served up by technological special-effects wizardry is simply this: Sony owns the digital universe.

What's real and what's fantasy? In the Sony tag: "Believe that anything you can imagine, you can make real."

Whew.

2010 - Focus on Achievement, Not Labels

2009-12-29T07:18:00.000-08:00

What will define success in the new decade?

What will your customers, your supporters, your brand evangelists be thinking about you and your company in the next few months and years?

Before the Great Recession of 2009, brand development evolved into a near-theology, with the high priests of brand management touting what branding meant to customers, how they did or didn't develop an intimate relationship with your "brand," how PMS colors influenced consumer choice, where logic and reason were replaced by intangible emotions, and on and on. We heard endless cute little ad agency creations about "brand villages," "brand teams, "customer creation," "brand essence," and other well-meaning labels that at the end of the day are just that: labels.

Brand does have a definite place in marketing, but we often tend to forget one critical fact: the brand of whatever you're selling exists ONLY in the mind of the consumer or target audience. Not in the ad. Not in the e-mail. Not in the TV spot. Not on the magazine cover.

Sure, these things all appeal to targets, and great care needs to be given as to how they attract and entice and deliver a consistent message.

But as a new decade dawns, how can we avoid bogus brand thinking?

Here are a few thoughts for your consideration:

Everyone (personal or corporate) has a brand, whether you want one or not.

Brands as they exist in your target audience's mental space are experiential. Brands must be transparent and honest.

If a customer has a bad experience with you or your product/service, that's a major part of your brand -- that includes how your receptionist answers the phone.

If a customer has a great experience with you or your product/service, they may well transform into a brand evangelist for you. In that case, as Seth Godin wisely advises, figure out how to give that customer a megaphone.

In the "new normal" of 2010, every customer interaction is a new business opportunity. Customers need to be reminded that you're supplying great work, great products or great service.

If price is the key consumption decision criteria, brand is irrelevant. If you're in a commodity vertical, get over it. Putting money into brand development isn't going to help you. Trying to differentiate a true commodity is nothing short of welfare for ad agencies.

If price isn't the key decision point, then brand becomes very important. At this point, it's not about great creative (although that definitely helps). It's about content.

David Oglivy used to emphasize in the 1960s and 1970s that content was king. Today that's more true than ever before.

Your customers aren't idiots. If you treat them like idiots, they'll find an alternative. And they'll likely turn into a negative brand evangelist so far as you're concerned.

If you let your customers define what they regard as an exceptional experience and then focus on delivering that, your brand will rise head and shoulders above your competition.

Truth and honesty beats a handful of ad awards and a full reel every time.

As you look at your 2010 strategic plan, look for where you actually reward your customers for doing business with you. Can't find a "reward point?" Put several in.

How do you achieve success in the "new normal?" Reward your customers. Toss out the labels. Deliver on your promises.

2010: Sticky Ideas, Innovation and Cash

2009-11-19T11:50:00.000-08:00

As we approach 2010, what’s in place in your space that’s going to create a remarkably welcome and fresh 12 months? We’re not talking about “rah-rah, feel good” stuff. We’re talking about the work environment that erupts when sustained positive cash flow returns, where people like coming to work, where new ideas inject bright vibrancy, where your clients and customers like doing business with you.

How can you achieve a culture over the next few months that delivers on business goals? People and companies with well-thought-through “sticky ideas” are going to win in 2010. “Sticky ideas’ are the type that people naturally embrace, find their own role in developing and executing, and go about getting it done. Those ideas are simple, clear and surprising. They can be understood by everyone from the shop floor to the executive suite.

“Sticky ideas” motivate. They foster buy-in. They’re not abstract. The key is to make them constructive.

Take for example, the statement “We’re going to maximize profit in 2010.” What’s that mean? Could that imply the cold, de-motivating thought that more layoffs await? Investors might like it, but what about the talent pool that’s going to make that happen? Instead, what about, “We’re going to re-focus our company on doing what’s truly best for our customers, whether in sales, production or delivery.”

If you’re like just about everyone else I know, you and your company executives have spent a considerable – even inordinate – amount of time working on next year’s budget and quasi-strategic plan. Many executives have told me that they’re not presently planning in terms of years – they’re planning in terms of real-time weeks and months. That’s not a bad thing, as the legacy they’re carrying with them from the last 18 months is this: focus on performance. Of course, they have a standard annual budget and goals and objectives, but they’re focused on anticipating and getting ahead of market changes. And as any light reading of the business news will tell you, our markets –whether global or local – are not done changing.

A few days ago I saw a friend on dress-down Friday whose company went through more than a few hard knocks over the last six months. He was wearing a T-shirt that said “The beatings will continue until morale improves.” It drew a chuckle, but it wasn’t entirely untrue. His company consistently waited until the last minute to announce bad news. The executives didn’t lie, but they weren’t transparent either. Now, as things were starting to improve, the corporate trust bank was overdrawn. The unfortunate “sticky idea” here was that any working day might be that person’s last.

Another management friend relayed to me how his company executives had developed a culture of partnership. “We can win through innovation – innovation in customer service, innovation in delivery of services, innovation in doing the right thing” was the dominating thought. The corporate ship might take an economic torpedo in the forward hull, but the damage control party would do everything in their power so the ship wouldn’t sink on their watch. That particular sticky idea went viral in a big way.

Ironically, the executives at both companies held the interests of their employees high on the food chain. The difference? One group clamped vital information close to their vest, thinking that if they didn’t say anything, employees would have little to worry about. The other openly communicated the challenges they faced and invited comment and input. The result? Zero trust at one company, maximum trust and highly motivated employees at the other.

I recently attended a sales management seminar by Bill Caskey where I found a most surprising element. About a third of the group was made up of CEOs of medium-sized businesses. Impressed, the facilitator asked one what was the most important aspect of his business right now. I thought they would say something like “the quality and commitment of our employees” or the like.

The answer in chorus? Cash.

Intrigued, I soon heard surprising comments about how cash comes from outstanding service, with sales professionals and product managers focusing on what the best solution and outcome is for their customers. That was a “sticky idea” for me. Why? Because of the concept of doing the right thing for your customer appears in some companies to have been replaced by “Are you making your sales goals? Are you closing any deals?”

Whether or not the jobless recovery comes to pass, the “sticky idea” that will generate innovation, trust, stability and yes, even cash, is doing the right thing consistently. Doing the right thing means high performance in providing the best for your customer, your employees, your community. What’s your “sticky idea” for 2010?

Goldman Sach's Mea Culpa on Global Fiscal Horror: "We apologize"

2009-11-19T08:31:00.000-08:00

Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein ponied up a formal apology today for the cheap credit role that Goldman Sachs played in the global fiscal carnage we've all grown to love over the past 18 months, according to the Wall Street Journal MarketWatch: "We participated in things that were clearly wrong and have reason to regret," Blankfein reportedly said, adding "we apologize."
Goldman received, and paid back, more than $10 billion in taxpayer funding as part of the federal Troubled Assets Recovery Program (TARP).
Goldman also announced that it is creating a $500+ million support program for small businesses, including tapping an advisory panel that features economic all-stars like Warren Buffet.
Critics charge that the support program is nothing more than flimsy smoke to blunt an expected announcement that Goldman Sachs will shortly be paying out up to $23 billion in executive bonuses before the end of the year.
Strategic reputation management and trust building? Or more of the same that brought us all here in the first place?

530% Increase in WiFi, U.S. Leads, China a Surprising Second

2009-11-17T08:54:00.000-08:00

As the FCC contemplates new rules on Internet contact and network management, WiFi accessibility is soaring, according to The Economist. Perhaps not surprisingly, the U.S. leads the deployment, with about 222 WiFi hotspots per million population. However, China has secured a strong second showing, says JiWire, a mobile audience media company. As China also officially practices Internet censorship (ala the Google arrangement) that may be a bit surprising.

Economic Development's Surprising Secret Weapon - Applied Religion?

2009-11-15T19:35:00.000-08:00

As the "jobless recovery" continues and businesses struggle to regain pre-2008 profitability levels, could economic development professionals and government workforce development agencies be overlooking a critical advantage?
Two Harvard researchers think so.
After reviewing and analyzing 40 years of data from 59 countries, Harvard economist Robert Barro and his wife and research partner Rachel McCleary (a researcher at Harvard's Taubman Center) found a strong correlation between economic growth and certain shifts in religious beliefs.
As Michael Fitzgerald points out in the Nov. 15 Boston Globe, "In recent years, Italian economists have presented findings that religion can boost GDP by increasing trust within a society; researchers in the United States showed that religion reduces corruption and increases respect for law in ways that boost overall economic growth. A number of researchers have documented how merchants used religious backgrounds to establish one another’s reliability."
Fitzgerald cites the early 20th century work of Max Weber, a German sociologist who coined the phrase "the Protestant work ethic" after uncovering direct ties between a culture or country's level of prosperity and economic growth.
As economic and workforce development professionals, social engineers and management consultants toil to find ways to motivate people to higher levels of productivity and performance, perhaps they're missing the most effective means of all: applied religion, where people actually do what they believe.
Fitzgerald notes that many governments have spent considerable intellectual and financial capital trying to re-create areas like the successful Silicon Valley, but fail, basically because the necessary culture never gets developed. Why? "While education and rule of law might seem straightforward secular policies, the cultural forces that carry them into a society, including religion, have a lot to do with whether people respect them," he says.
Interestingly, far from a passive approach toward the workplace, both the Hebrew scriptures and the Christian New Testament are quite firm about performance expectations of their followers. "Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might," directs the author of Ecclesiastes a number of centuries before Christ. Writing to 1st century Christians in what is today western Turkey, the Apostle Paul reaffirms the ancient Hebrew maxim: "Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for men." Further in another place, this same Paul sternly warned the Greek followers of Jesus in Thessalonica: "When we were with you, we gave you this rule: If a man will not work, he shall not eat." Paul might not have approved of certain unemployment and welfare programs nearly 2,000 years later.
Accordingly, if a region wants to boost productivity, perhaps the economic professionals could suggest a bit of applied religion, where people actually back up their beliefs with action. Americans looking for performance enhancement may thus quote James, the brother of Jesus and head of the first Jerusalem church, where he wrote: "What good is it, my brothers, if a man claims to have faith, but has no deeds? ...faith without deeds is dead."
In a recession-torn world, perhaps some food for thought.

Silobreaker: New Tool Could Help Land More Defense Contracts

2009-10-24T09:58:00.001-07:00

Silobreaker: New Tool Could Help Land More Defense Contracts

Posted using ShareThis

eMarketer - Online Ads Dip in 2009, Growth to Follow

2009-10-19T08:17:00.000-07:00

eMarketer revised its US online ad spending forecast today, reflecting the carnage from the now-hopefully-ebbing global recession. Drawing on reports from the Interactive Advertising Bureau and PricewaterhouseCoopers, eMarketer now notes that online ad spending dipped by 5.3%.
The online ad industry now exceeds $20 billion annually in the United States, and eMarketer is now forecasting that the digital industry will only slide about 2.9% overall by the end of 2009. The company also forecasts moderate growth in 2010-2011, with the industry returning to double digit growth in 2012, partially due to an expected onslaught of ads from presidential candidates.

Indiana innovative company dives deep into medical informatics

2009-08-27T20:25:00.000-07:00

Despite the political ramifications, few would question that health care reform advocates and an aging Baby Boomer market will evoke dramatic change in American health care delivery over the coming months. However the reforms or market changes turn out, one element is for certain: the health care market is hot for actionable medical data.

When change does come, PearlDiver Technologies in northeast Indiana is set to cash in with deep-diving data-mining algorithms and multiple millions of HIPAA-compliant data sets.

The 3-year-old Fort Wayne, Ind.-based company (which recently opened an office in Washington, D.C.) has already achieved recognition as the nation’s largest publicly available and searchable database of patient, charge, product and outcome records, according to PearlDiver CEO Robin Young.

Read more on Midwest Business in Chicago.

Reality Strikes - 2010 Strategic Planning in Uncertain Times

2009-08-25T18:18:00.000-07:00

INDIANAPOLIS – Incomprehensible Excel spreadsheets. New government regulations (real or potential). Sleepless nights.

For thousands of companies, August and September traditionally represent a critical time when conflict resolution skills come to fore. Business planning departments send out performance files with 2009 budgetary data and ask executives, directors and managers to come up with some kind of meaningful 2010 forecast and operational goals.

Given limited financial resources and a conservative outlook at best for 2010, interdepartmental quarrels can break into open corporate warfare.

For many – and particularly in a time where the Fed is making vague comments about how they think the economy is “stabilizing” – strategic planning and budgeting can be a nightmare. As one executive told me recently in an expression of dark humor: “Which would I prefer: planning for post-recession growth with no money or getting a root canal? That’s a tough choice.”

With a trimmed-down work force, weak customer demand and anxiety about new government regulation resulting in additional costs, strategists can’t just trot out their 2009 spreadsheets, overlay a 5 percent multiplier and send them back to the accounting department. What’s the new reality? Documented performance.

"Nobody cares about your new Web design" - Ragan

2009-08-14T12:28:00.000-07:00

Your customers couldn’t care less about your new design or whether your dog just had kittens.

So leads off the reality check from Ragan Communications, a long-time corporate communications consultancy. Columnist Gerry McGovern takes issue with an automated personalized e-mail that he received from Air New Zealand, touting in part the newly re-designed format of the newsletter. Here's an excerpt:

"Back to the Air New Zealand marketing e-mail that I don't remember signing up for. (I've had pretty good experiences flying with Air New Zealand by the way.)
"'Welcome to the second edition of our new look monthly e-mail.'" There are two fatal mistakes in the first sentence. Welcome? Hello? What's with the welcome? I don't want your welcome. If I want anything from you it's your deals, and hot deals at that. When you think of your customer, imagine Tony Soprano. Nothing personal, just business. Cut the crap. Get straight to the point."

What exactly was McGovern's point? In sum, this is a content age. If you're going to take the time (and the risk) to intrude into someone's personal space -- whether in person or in digital format -- make sure what you're intruding has potential value and relevancy.

Top U.S. "Clunkers"

2009-08-11T14:43:00.000-07:00

In the recent federal "cash for clunkers" Stimulus program, multiple thousands of low-MPG vehicles were traded in, ostensibly both improving our air quality potential as well as stuffing some much-needed cash into America's automotive industry.
However, seven out of the top 10 "clunkers" traded in where FORDs, the rest being Chrysler products and no GM clunkers.
If GM products were so bad, why were consumers apparently hanging on to their GM potential low-MPG "clunkers"? Or, given that the vehicles traded in were all basically 10 years old or older, does that mean equivalent GM vehicles had rusted out and are no longer even road-worthy enough to be traded in?
This is especially interesting, given that Ford is the only major U.S. auto maker that didn't declare bankruptcy.
If I were in Ford's PR department (or more to the point, Ford's engineering design department), I'd be wondering about this one.

AT&T Gets Hit with iPhone Video Ad Parody

2009-07-27T12:40:00.000-07:00

AT&T's exclusive carrier agreement for Apple's popular iPhone is coming under fire from consumers, as Adrants reports "AT&T is dreading the day [that] its iron-clad exclusive contract with Apple expires, allowing Verizon to carry the phone [and] thereby causing millions upon millions of iPhone owners (yes, they'll likely need a new phone) to switch from AT&T to Verizon all on the same day."
Video pro Pat Lee created a spoof spot touting AT&T's alleged less-than-perfect service for iPhone users, which can be viewed via YouTube here.
A PR nightmare for AT&T staffers and agencies alike, methinks.
This, coupled with the United "broken guitar" national PR crisis (spawned by distribution of an on-target video posted also on YouTube), will keep PR crisis communication professionals busy for some time to come.

Last Words of Priceless Wisdom from David Ogilvy

2009-07-22T09:05:00.001-07:00

As this week's Fortune magazine points out, yesterday (July 21) was the 10th anniversary of the death of arguably one of the greatest communicators of the 20th century: David Ogilvy. If that's an unfamiliar name to you, then if you have any interest in top flight, high quality communication practices, you owe it to yourself to check out Confessions of an Advertising Man or Oglivy on Advertising from your nearest library or bookstore.
And if you're a business owner, you will find the following short summary to potentially be some of the greatest advice you could solicit during this time of economic turmoil - all free of charge. Hats off to Fortune's Patricia Sellers for sharing this priceless document (which Ogilvy hand wrote out for her in November of 1991):

1) Remember that Abraham Lincoln spoke of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. He left out the pursuit of profit.
2) Remember the old Scottish motto: "Be happy while you're living, for you are a long time dead."
3) If you have to reduce your company's payroll, don't fire your people until you have cut your compensation and the compensation of your big-shots.
4) Define your corporate culture and your principles of management in writing. Don't delegate this to a committee. Search all the parks in all your cities. You'll find no statues of committees.
5) Stop cutting the quality of your products in search of bigger margins. The consumer always notices -- and punishes you.
6) Never spend money on advertising which does not sell.
7) Bear in mind that the consumer is not a moron. She is your wife. Do not insult her intelligence.

David Ogilvy
Charleston
November 15, 1991

Cronkite - Reasoned Information vs. Fulsome Rhetoric

2009-07-22T08:52:00.000-07:00

Growing up in the 1960s and watching the news meant one thing: if you watched Walter Cronkite, the perception was that you were going to get it straight. Whether or not that was totally true, Cronkite was trusted. As evidenced by his obvious emotion in announcing both the assassination of President Kennedy and the first step on the moon, Cronkite came across as totally and irrevocably human. He was larger than life, but he was also one of us. Vietnam was the first televised war, and Cronkite played a huge role in its presentation to the American public (and to the world). What a legacy.
The oft-forgettable rubbish that passes for television journalism today is obessively ad- and ratings-driven, which may well account for why consumers increasingly seek customized content online. Whether broadcast or online, where is the next trusted voice and image?

CEO must be accessible to media - Financial Times

2009-07-08T09:28:00.001-07:00

In the midst of this reputation-busting recession, many CEOs may be tempted to duck under cover. Few things could cause more reputation damage, particularly given the fact that whether executives want to realize it or not, the CEO is the living personification of most organizations, public or not-for-profit. The absence of a CEO's comment, even in the middle of bad news, sends the wrong kind of message to customers, vendors, clients, stakeholders, shareholders, and perhaps most importantly, key influencers.
As the Financial Times recently reported about a London business conference: "Ian Davis, the former head of consultants McKinsey , argued that many do not speak up because of the media’s unrelenting cynicism towards business. But Jeff Immelt, chief executive of General Electric, said that in spite of this, leaders needed to communicate with the outside world as part of being good corporate citizens."
A robust discussion follows in the Financial Times coverage, including this statement: "The reputation of corporations and their leaders is at an all-time low. How much more evidence do business leaders need to recognise that communicating with the general public, as well as customers, employees and shareholders is mandatory?"
As one expert put it, strong leadership and a CEO presence in publicly responding to negative trends is "mission critical."

How the Dark Side Transformed the Internet

2009-07-08T06:44:00.000-07:00

In these days of social media, new consumer digital voices and other consumer advancements, it's very easy to think that all of this online technology prowess erupted from scores of benevolent IT experts and informatics innovators. Certainly the latter group is responsible of much of that, but the dark side of the Internet had much more to do with it, particularly in the early 1990s.
According to CIO magazine, the next time you use streaming video, online payments, post your family pictures online or take part in a peer-to-peer network, you do that courtesy of initial major innovations spawned by the pornography industry, who largely pioneered all of those technological advancements.
Hard to believe? Check out CIO's chronicle of the dark side here.

A New Style of PR dominates in Silicon Valley

2009-07-06T17:02:00.000-07:00

Whoa, did I make that up? Here's the confirmation from the New York Times:
"This is the new world of promoting start-ups in Silicon Valley, where the lines between journalists and everyone else are blurring and the number of followers a pundit has on Twitter is sometimes viewed as more important than old metrics like the circulation of a newspaper.
"Gone are the days when snaring attention for start-ups in the Valley meant mentions in print and on television, or even spotlights on technology Web sites and blogs. Now P.R. gurus court influential voices on the social Web to endorse new companies, Web sites or gadgets — a transformation that analysts and practitioners say is likely to permanently change the role of P.R. in the business world, and particularly in Silicon Valley."

Lead Generation from B2B Experts

2009-06-26T08:58:00.000-07:00

Generating new business leads used to almost exclusively involve laborious and stressful cold calling, trying to convince a prospect to consider buying something they had no idea that they needed. Today, digital marketing technology has dramatically changed all of that. CRM systems and Web analytics serve up vital clues to what prospects might be interested in, making that initial and follow-up contact much easier and less stressful for all. Earlier this week B2B magazine hosted a unique online digital conference, packed with all kinds of useful info (and not a little pitching by the sponsor companies) for lead generation. Here's a summary and a little analysis/commentary, adapted from Marketo's viewpoint:
1) Website visitors need clear direction on what to do when they arrive on your website. When the campaign finally pays off and a prospect actually arrives on your landing page, is it crystal clear what they need to do? If they came looking for information, do they get a sales pitch right between the eyes? What's the authentic clear call to action?
2) You can do a lot even on a small budget. The key? (according to LinkedIn) Focus on specific targets, implement strategic programs to reach those targets, measure the results and refine the outreach to entice the prospects showing interest. Sounds easy and simplistic, but too few actually do it.
3) Social media is not going away and needs to be embraced by ALL marketers (emphasis the author's). The days of solely relying on Web design, content and SEO to drive prospects are gone. LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter (or future variations) are here to stay. They all have different audiences and focus, so don't apply the same strategy to each one. Not yet in social media? That means you're officially in catch-up status, so get busy. Consumers and stakeholders now have a digital voice, and they will exercise that voice whether you're participating or not.
4) Direct mail may not be dead. Email is king, but direct mail still works. In fact, receiving a thoughtful letter with accompanying relevant content may well make you stand out. But get the names and title right, please.
5) Offers need to be relevant AND appropriate for the prospect's place in the buying cycle. We often focus on developing great content, but don't pay enough attention to when that content is delivered. Remember, prospects need different types of information, depending on where they are in the sales cycle (E.g., don't "accidentally" re-send introductory information to a prospect who is firmly in your pipeline). Pay attention to your Web analytics - what pages are be viewed by your prospects? Match content to needs.
6) Testing can allow you to enter a new market with little risk. Intuition about markets is great, but committing budgets and resources to non-tested markets can be expensive.
7) Incentives can work really well. Some people really like incentives. Others don't. Take the time to differentiate among your existing prospects and format your pitch to match. That takes time, but what quality work doesn't?
8) It's okay if people who will never buy your product consume your content. Some people want your white papers, but they will never buy your product. That's okay. You can get some priceless word of mouth if they ship it around. Meanwhile, once you follow up and it's a dead end, delete the contact from your active prospects and don't waste any more time on them from a sales and pipeline perspective.
9) An event doesn't have to be on Twitter to be great. Tweets are great. Word of mouth is better.
10) Demand generation is just a piece of the entire Marketing puzzle. What's important? According to Cisco, you should analyze your database, create appropriate and targeted demand generation programs, pay attention to the full execution of those programs, do proper reporting, and test, test, test. The collective of data is important, but the targeted and valid analysis of that data is critical.

Lessons from the Brand Called Obama

2009-06-26T08:40:00.000-07:00

Two years in the U.S. Senate and then a seemingly effortless vault into the position of the most powerful person in the world? If nothing else, President Barrack Obama and his team have clearly demonstrated the power of brand development and execution at numerous levels: personal and macro.
How does Obama do it? David Plouffe, Obama's campaign manager, outlined key steps at the recent Cannes Advertising festival (as reported by ADWEEK's Brian Morrissey). Here's a summary and a few analytical thoughts:
1) Small is the new big. As the McKinsey Quarterly recently pointed out, technology has given the little person a digital voice. Obama validated that voice and paid attention to it, which rewarded him both with 4 million new donors and grassroots support on a magnitude not seen for decades.
2) Word of mouth rules. Obama's campaign energized and used local volunteers to reach out to their communities instead of hired guns and telemarketers. The result? A perception of real authenticity. At a time when trust was crumbling in traditional institutions, neighbors and friends brought a real believability to the campaign at a critical level. How's that working for your company?
3) Conventional paths are dangerous. Obama eschewed the baby-kissing and did different things: acceptance speech in a sports stadium. Took down the issue of Rev. Jeremiah Wright in a high-profile speech (instead of deferring to aides to plant answers and undermine). Travelled abroad to sell top leaders on his leadership promises.
4) Integration and ubiquity. As they say, "coordinate, coordinate, coordinate." Obama's staff synchronized the heavy artillery to drop in firepower to deeply reinforce the message of the day. That meant coordination with volunteers as much as it did ad production and media buys.
5) Traditional Media is still king. With all of the buzz about Obama's social media savvy, traditional TV still played a huge role. With his lack of experience in the U.S. Senate, Obama needed the familiar media to position and introduce his ideas. The 90-minute infomercial two weeks before the election was a masterstroke.

Go Daddy pops up another brain dead ad

2009-06-18T12:04:00.000-07:00

Nearly every time I hear of someone blasting the advertising industry for lowering the net IQ level of Americans, for some reason I think of the Go Daddy URL service. ADWEEK today agrees with that assessment, lampooning the current tasteless and moronic Go Daddy "Genie" ad. As ADWEEK columnist David Gianatasio opines, "They [Go Daddy] should've kept this one bottled up. And that lame joke is arguably more amusing than the commercial. I'd always hoped to see more mindless ads with hot babes. Well, this one proves you really should be careful what you wish for."
Whew. The unmitigated onslaught against intellectual American values sloshes forward.

Are blogs influential? Ask the New York Times

2009-06-07T18:10:00.000-07:00

Writing in his blog "Buzz Machine" today, Jeff Jarvis responds to New York Times' harsh criticism of how major blogs appear to break unfinished stories and thus foster damaging rumors.
Dubbing current newspaper practices "Product vs. Process" journalism, Jarvis squarely confronts an issue about blogs reporting news that is in transition -- or as they used to say in J-school, "developing." His new process matrix of how news is currently reported appears above.
Here's his take: "The problem: journalism’s myth of perfection. And it’s not just journalism that holds this myth. It is the byproduct of the means and requirements of mass production: If you have just one chance to put out a product and it has to serve everyone the same, you come to believe it’s perfect because it has to be, whether that product is a car (we are the experts, we took six years to tool up, it damned well better be perfect) or government (where, I’m learning, employees have a phobic fear of mistakes - because citizens and journalists will jump on them) or newspapers (we package the world each day in a box with a bow on it - you’re welcome).
"The posse of pros who jumped on me in Twitter this morning will say that they do make mistakes and corrections but first they always try to get it right - perfect - while bloggers instead spread rumors. But that’s where the fundamental misunderstanding comes. It’s a matter of timing, of the order of things, of the process of journalism. Newspaper people see their articles as finished products of their work. Bloggers see their posts as part of the process of learning."
This issue won't go away, especially as newspapers migrate more and more toward online reporting.
One commenter to Jarvis's blog summed it up:
"An excellent hit back to the old-school heavies who think that blogging is destroying journalism, when it’s actually reinventing the way we get our news.
"Sure, stories might come out a bit half baked, but in the end, we will have more truth, more perspective and a greater-encompassing version of the facts.
"For years, we never questioned what papers wrote. Their word was taken at gospel. Even when errors were made, it never mattered, as the retraction was never as prominent as the original story.
"Now we get to question the writer, the sources and the facts. That’s a good thing."

Tapping Influence: PR powers dynamic brands

2009-06-02T18:13:00.000-07:00

"Winning companies are increasingly eschewing advertising and instead deploying social and conventional media in ways designed to enhance the perceived value they deliver to customers."
So reads the new white paper on brand building from the Council of PR Firms.
Self-serving tripe?
Hardly.
The Council of PR Firms is by no means alone among industry experts who recognize how truely PR works as the powerhouse brand builder. Consider this example: As he did with a ground-breaking work on the crucial power of positioning a while back, advertising legend Al Ries broke ranks with the advertising elite when he penned The Fall of Advertising and the Rise of PR a few years ago. Ironically, Ries published this latter work prior to the dramatic onslaught of social media, where consumers now possess a near-equal voice with the so-called experts.
Public relations as a profession has long been about extending an "invitation" to consider a point of view or sample an attribute. PR focuses on authenticity and credibility, which in the past has often been the function of media relations, where a PR professional must first convince a reporter of the truth and relevance of a client's position. In theory, the reporter would then reward the client or company by writing or airing a story that independently verified the claims first initiated by the PR professional.
Today, with the explosion of tweets, blogs and e-mail, that has largely changed. A credible voice can instantly appear and influence millions on Youtube, a market-changing message can appear in a matter of minutes on an unstoppable viral platform and be passed first by hundreds, then by thousands, then by millions.
All of that is nowhere as important as its influence on brand execution and sustainment, as a brand in its most powerful form represents a believable "promise." If that "promise" holds true, then today's consumer (whether of ideas, products or information) will not only reward the originating company by buying its product (or more importantly - buying into the idea behind the brand), that same consumer can cast a highly influential vote of sorts in the digital Word of Mouth marketplace. Want more? Go here.

When Twitter goes bad - 10 Tweets that might get you fired

2009-05-13T10:36:00.000-07:00

As Twittering has now permanently moved out the Gen Y realm and into mainstream business, punching up a personal Tweet can now be collected and reviewed by just about everyone. That may not be a good thing for your personally, depending on what (and how often at work) you tweet personal information and thoughts. Want evidence? Check out the exchange where a job seeker "anonymously" tweeted his/her disgust about the quality of a job offer at Oracle. An Oracle executive picked it up, and tweeted back this message: "Who is the hiring manager? I’m sure they would love to know that you will hate the work. We here at Cisco are versed in the web."
The lesson? Like e-mails, once you put something out on the Internet, BE SURE that you wouldn't mind re-reading it in your company e-newsletter or in another printed context. Meanwhile, here's Twitter Pro Paul Wilson's 10 deadliest Tweets that you never want to send (in any variety) in today's economic environment:

10. “hate my job!! i want to tell my bosses how dumb they are and how meaningless this job is, then quit, and be happy!”

9. “So my job was to test all the food at the new resturant, can I just say, ughew. I’m going to taco bell then twistee treat.”

8. “Workin… This job sucks worse then the economy!”

7. “I’m going to work! Walmart! Must find better job! I hate it when chicks there have a deeper voice than me and refer to me as foo!”

6. “Also I’m really bummed that I’m working today, i asked off so i could study but my boss is a ******* **** ***** ***** who can’t read.”

5. “Coworker smuggled out a chair for me. Currently being paid to SIT around and listen to John Barrowman on my iPod. I don’t hate my job today!”

4. “having sex dreams of people you work with makes for an awkward day.”

3. “smoking weed at work is so [EDITED] great :)”

2. “It’s bad when you overhear the n00b programmer say “I used to work at McDonalds with him” and you wonder if he is talking about the CEO…”

1. “Huh, with my boss on twitter, maaaybe I should take down that sexy picture of her… but her reaction will be priceless!”

When PowerPoints Go Bad - Lincoln at Gettysburg

2009-04-21T07:32:00.000-07:00

Having sat through horrific PowerPoint presentations that totally obscure the message (Don't you love it when nervous or inexperienced presenters laboriously read every single word to you?), I can't help but share this parody PowerPoint presentation of what it might have been like if Abraham Lincoln had delivered his legendary Gettysburg address using the Microsoft Marvel instead of what we have today.

Hats off to Peter Novig (http://www.norvig.com/Gettysburg/sld001.htm) for making this happen.

Here's their introduction:

And now please welcome President Abraham Lincoln.

Good morning. Just a second while I get this connection to work. Do I press this button here? Function-F7? No, that's not right. Hmmm. Maybe I'll have to reboot. Hold on a minute. Um, my name is Abe Lincoln and I'm your president. While we're waiting, I want to thank Judge David Wills, chairman of the committee supervising the dedication of the Gettysburg cemetery. It's great to be here, Dave, and you and the committee are doing a great job. Gee, sometimes this new technology does have glitches, but we couldn't live without it, could we? Oh - is it ready? OK, here we go:

Purdue fires up new early-stage fund, expands talent database

2009-04-12T11:47:00.000-07:00

Purdue, always the innovator in higher education and disruptive technology, earlier this year launched a faculty/student early-stage fund that has superb connectivity with both angels and VCs. Check out the new Emerging Innovations Fund at http://www.emerginginnovationsfund.org/ for more info. Also of major merit, the Indiana Economic Development Corporation has expanded the university talent database to include top faculty (and moreimportantly, what they're working and their levels of field expertise) on an new INDURE Web portal. Interested in nanotechnology, biotech, engineering and the like? Check out Purdue, IU, Notre Dame and Ball State faculty talent and subject matter expertise at https://www.indure.org/
A quick read of my Midwest Business column also provides more details: http://www.midwestbusiness.com/news/viewnews.asp?newsletterID=19634

When Outdoor Ads Reflect Reality

2009-03-30T10:45:00.000-07:00

Steve Hall of Adrants offers this interesting commentary:

Worthless Zimbabwean Currency Used in Outdoor Campaign

To call attention to thew deplorable situation in Zimbabwe, TBWA\HUNT\LASCARIS collected trillions of dollars worth of worthless Zimbabwe currency to create billboards, flyers and wallpaper. The purpose of the campaign is to support the Zimbabwean Newspaper which has been slapped by the Mugabe regime with a 55% luxury duty tax making the paper unaffordable to most citizens.

The campaign is running in England and South Africa where it is hoped people will buy the newspaper to support its ongoing coverage of the country's plight.

Create Value: Protect your talent, reputation in tough times

2009-03-19T18:13:00.000-07:00

The good news? More and more economists note a definite rise in key economic indicators, possibly signaling that the official end to this brutal recession may shape up later this year. The not-so-good news? The net effects of these cruel financial times may linger for months, even years.

Small and large businesses alike have already faced furloughs, payroll delays, benefit cuts and layoffs. More are promised in the coming months. With anxious employees and top talent possibly looking for a way out, will they still be around when times turn upward? Will your investors and stakeholders stay the course with you, or look for an exit strategy?

These are important questions. Here are seven considerations to ponder as you navigate the turbulent months ahead:

Do your customers, prospects and suppliers still know that you’re a going concern? If you’re like most commercial companies, you probably cut your advertising and marketing budget in 2008 to conserve cash. Now is the time to think about positioning, but not necessarily to move product or sell services. According to national economist and forecaster Alan Beaulieu, companies today should now begin raising fresh and positive awareness of their operations. Otherwise, given the instantaneous viral nature of online communication, unanticipated rumors about your company’s possible demise can shatter reputation and smack your otherwise solid bottom line in a hurry.

To read more of the seven considerations, go here: http://www.mekgrp.com/whitepapers/creating-value.html

National Economist: How Are You Positioned for the Recovery?

2009-03-12T15:43:00.000-07:00

What happens when a dominant and sagacious figure like Warren Buffet intones on national business television that “the economy has fallen off a cliff” and states to his Berkshire Hathaway shareholders that the U.S. economy “will be in shambles throughout 2009”?
Struck through with fear, some might start chanting the following in a tiny voice: “Go to a happy place. Go to a happy place.” Others – while acknowledging the unsavory 2008 historic data released by the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis – might put their heads down and go to work to carve out their part of the $14 trillion brute that represents the U.S. GDP.
According to economists and business consultants interviewed by MidwestBusiness.com, that latter bit is exactly what people should be doing right now. Despite the doom and gloom of job losses and stock deflation, critical national economic trends are starting to show real signs of an impending turnaround.
National economist Alan Beaulieu of the New Hampshire-based Institute for Trend Research accurately predicted in this column seven months ago that the U.S. economy would soon enter a “perfect storm”. With the Massachusetts-based institute claiming a 96 percent accuracy rate, what’s Beaulieu saying now?
“Companies need to now begin positioning themselves. Conserve cash and get ready for the recovery,” he said. “The recession will get worse over the next six months,” the economist continued, but noted that companies need to “start looking now at marketing to position themselves”.
Beaulieu and other business experts are not talking about traditional marketing here. They’re talking about ensuring that corporate prospects, customers and stakeholders know both that your company is still “a going concern” and is prepared for growth.
In 2008, the Massachusetts economist strongly advised companies to cut their marketing and advertising budgets in order to conserve cash. In doing so, these companies disappear from the radar screen of their prospects and customers unless they continued a strong public and media relations program to keep their names out in front.
In the absence of continued marketing to retain mindshare, news of the company’s performance can leak out through negative word-of-mouth and e-mail messages from employees. This negative brand bruising can be especially harmful if employees see widespread layoffs or have been subject to payroll delays or furloughs over the past few months.

For more, go here: http://www.midwestbusiness.com/news/viewnews.asp?newsletterID=19608

Evidence Mounts that Recession May Be Easing

2009-02-24T14:43:00.000-08:00

Writing for the Dow Jones MarketWatch (slightly more authoritative than the MEK MarketWatch), analyst Irwin Keller writes: "Prosperity may not be just around the corner, but statistical evidence is mounting to suggest that the worst of this recession may soon be past."
If you're like me, you'll want to read every word of this piece, so go to:
http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/evidence-mounts-recessions-worst-past/story.aspx?guid={71467556-3683-4018-906C-7FFC8A3F9E8C}

RYANAIR - A Social Media Disaster

2009-02-24T14:18:00.000-08:00

Don't think that your online comments won't come back to haunt you? Review the following interchange documented by ADRANTS about RYANAIR: (http://www.adrants.com/2009/02/helpful-blogger-brand-idiocy-social.php)

Helpful Blogger + Brand Idiocy = Social Media Disaster

Oh wait. Didn't we just write that headline? Here we go again. Or is it "there you go again?" I can never remember what that Reagan dude used to say all the time. Anyway, here's the deal.
In a blog post, Jason Roe pointed out a fluke on the Ryanair website that made it possible for someone to book a flight and not be charged for it. He didn't actually book a free flight but he wanted the error to be made know.
How did Ryanair react? As if a Mastercard ad, pricelessly:

10. Ryanair Staff #1 Says:
February 19th, 2009 at 5:25 pm

jason!
you're an idiot and a liar!! fact is!
you've opened one session then another and requested a page meant for a different session, you are so stupid you dont even know how you did it! you dont get a free flight, there is no dynamic data to render which is prob why you got 0.00. what self respecting developer uses a crappy CMS such as word press anyway AND puts they're mobile ph number online, i suppose even a prank call is better than nothing on a lonely sat evening!!

Sweet, huh? But it gets worse. Upon confirmation the above comment did, in fact, come from a Ryanair employee, Ryanair spokesman Stephen McNamara said:
Ryanair doesn't want anything to do with 'lunatic' bloggers!
February 24, 2009

Absolutely hilarious, fantastic - and typical - response from Ryanair to recent shenanigans:

Stephen McNamara from Ryanair said:

"Ryanair can confirm that a Ryanair staff member did engage in a blog discussion.

"It is Ryanair policy not to waste time and energy corresponding with idiot bloggers and Ryanair can confirm that it won't be happening again.

"Lunatic bloggers can have the blog sphere all to themselves as our people are far too busy driving down the cost of air travel".

Go ahead, make their day..

Does This Sum It Up or What?

2009-02-13T14:07:00.000-08:00

Sometimes a picture is worth more than a thousand words...

(From the February 9 issue of The Economist)

Indiana and the Proposed $789 Billion Stimulus

2009-02-11T13:03:00.000-08:00

How will Indiana fare under the current proposed $789 billion stimulus package? Read the analysis provided by MEK Public Affairs below and then add your comments.

This week, as Congress reached an agreement on a $789 billion federal stimulus bill, the Indiana House passed a $1 billion state stimulus package designed to put Hoosiers to work on local infrastructure projects. On February 10, Indiana House members voted 88-11 in favor of House Bill 1656, or the “stimulus bill,” generating bipartisan support at least temporarily as the bill moves to the Senate for consideration.

Currently (as of February 11), the $1 billion state stimulus bill would rely on $500 million from the trust fund created by the $3.8 billion lease of the Indiana Toll Road, plus $250 million from the federal highway funds that the state has and $250 million from money the state expects to receive from the federal stimulus package. The money would be direct $500 million to counties and $500 million to cities and towns for local road projects, potentially creating thousands of jobs.

While both state Democrats and Republicans alike agree that the bill is a work-in-progress, many Republicans believe that chances for passage in the Senate diminish as long as Major Moves trust fund money remains part of the package.

U.S. Senate, House Reach Agreement on Federal Stimulus

The U.S. Senate and House negotiators reached an agreement February 11 on a $789 billion stimulus plan after scaling down the versions passed previously by both houses, including an $838 billion Senate plan passed February 10. This occurs just days after President Barack Obama stumped for the stimulus package in Elkhart, Ind., one of the hardest hit economies in the U.S. with a 15.3 percent unemployment rate. The area has seen a drastic rise in unemployment due to the flailing RV industry.

During the town hall style event in the packed local Concord High School gymnasium, President Obama told the audience that failure to enact the stimulus package in Congress could mean "millions more jobs will be lost, and national unemployment rates will approach double digits."

While most Hoosiers, and most of the nation, support some sort of federal stimulus package to help the struggling economy, many don’t quite understand the specific implications the funding package will have on our state. How lawmakers have decided to resolve differences between the House and Senate versions of the bill will make a big difference in that regard.

For example, while the $819 billion House stimulus bill provided about $810 million in education funds to Indiana and about $518 million in general-purpose state budget aid, the $838 billion Senate version previously provided only about $652 million in education funding and no general aid. Other major differences in the House and Senate bills that affect Indiana include funds to renovate and repair Indiana schools, a homebuyer tax credit, and a “patch” for the alternative minimum tax.

Business Keys to Surviving the Current Recession

2009-02-06T09:24:00.000-08:00

Working to survive the current recession? The monthly (first Friday) TechPoint New Economy-New Rules statewide gathering traditionally ponies up great info, but this morning (2/6) was exceptional. On deck where Daniel DeHayes of the IU Kelley School of Business and Andrew Cardimen, SVP of Harris Bank.
Videoconferenced throughout Indiana out of the revered Barnes & Thornburg law offices in Indianapolis, the pair covered sobering but practical advice that businesses - particularly those with revenue $50 million and under -- could and should be doing to stand the test of the current hideous economic environment. Here's a sampling:

Is your company still operating on a value proposition developed prior to October 2008? If so, understand that your market is now different -- whatever your industry might be -- and you need to reflect those market changes. Regardless of how you do it, your company WILL be different after 2010 in terms of how it operates and sustains profitability (presuming you survive).
In the current environment, the "cheap labor market" model doesn't work. You or your senior staff don't have time to train these people. As a result, you will either have work kicked up to you for redo, or you'll be putting out low quality work, which can kill your business.
The downturn may well last through 2010. What are you doing now to prepare for 20 months of flat or no growth?
You're probably managing to a budget instead of to a forecast. If you haven't forecasted your cash flow and are tracking it intensely, you're managing to fail.
You're probably experiencing an increasing gap between promise and delivery. You must fix this immediately.
You need to take a hard look at variable and (especially) fixed costs. Rising fixed costs will kill your cash flow.
Your business process probably has added non-value steps. Trim these out now!
Establish your brand as the company that ALWAYS delivers on promises.

There's much more. If you're interested (and I certainly was) in obtaining the rest of the story, shoot me an e-mail (msnyder@themekgroup.com).

Fortuna favet fortibus.

Ready for the Super Bowl ad blitz?

2009-01-29T08:39:00.000-08:00

At $1 million-plus a pop for media time and production, Super Bowl TV spots own a piece of the American psyche. The jury has been out for a long time whether the ads actually can translate into real long-term ROI (particularly for certain market segments), but they sure as everything build awareness.
Some ads, like the all-time favorite 1979 Coke ad with Mean Joe Greene (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xffOCZYX6F8), resonate for decades. With a transparent swipe at then-dominant PC-maker IBM, Apple choose the Super Bowl to introduce its Macintosh computer (complete with clunky black and white screen, Xerox Star-like operating icons, and no useful add-ons or viable software) with the legendary Orwellian "1984" ad (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OYecfV3ubP8) that only aired on commercial TV once - ever. A few months later Apple co-founder Steve Jobs resigned, rejoining the then-floundering company as CEO 12 years later.
Many Super Bowl ads - like the original soft-porn-ish Go Daddy Internet domain ads - have generated widespread controversy for tastefulness (or lack thereof) and whether or not they ever accomplished anything from a marketing perspective (E.g., the multi-million-dollar e-commerce ads aired during the dot-com pre-bust - remember any of them other than the "herding cats" spot from EDS?).
MSNBC has assembled its take on the most "infamous Super Bowl ads of all time," so if you haven't had enough already, go here: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/28900883/

Don't Think Social Media Works? Who's in the White House?

2009-01-22T09:54:00.000-08:00

Much has been made of our new President Obama as the first post-boomer President, first non-Vietnam-era President and a host of other tag-ons. Given the evidence of the past year, one issue is for certain: Barack Obama is definitely the first Internet President.
As ADWEEK pointed out earlier this week, Obama "rocked the Web" with online and streaming video of his inauguration freezing up hundreds of thousands of servers across the planet. If you didn't know how to text message while in the Capitol earlier this week, you likely experienced a hiccup or two trying to upload video or iPhone photos to your e-mail, much less connect on an actual cell phone call.
What has already been documented and will continue to produce numerous books and "how-tos" is the Obama campaign's extensive use of Social Media. Obama's campaigner staffers adriotly took complex issues and beat them small into bite-sized pieces for months, securing deep buy-in and commitment for a candidate who proved that he knew how to "listen" - albeit digitally.
Today, with a finely-honed multiple-million email contact base, Obama can instantly flash right over the heads of traditional TV, radio and print media, speaking with a credible and authoritative voice directly to his constituents. With the ultimate digital "fireside chat," Obama knows that Social Media works and works well.
The point? If you or your company is not right in the middle of figuring out how online communication can benefit your operations, the time is now to get busy. Just ask John McCain how important it is.

CIO Top Ten Business and Tech Books

2009-01-22T09:40:00.000-08:00

Walk into a Borders bookstore and wonder what -- if any --new business books you should buy? CIO magazine has issued its take on the top 10 "must-read" business and technology books published in the past year.
Of particular note for yours truly was John Kotter's new book A Sense of Urgency. Kotter outlines specific tactics in how businesses can overcome complacency. Complacency in the middle of a recession is (of course) a potential business-killer, and given Kotter's outstanding work on change management, this would be a definite "must-have."
CIO also picks a range of tech-associated tomes, many focusing on what Social Media really means and how your company can integrate this established trend without losing your corporate shirt. One I plan to pick up is Billion Dollar Lessons -What You can Learn from the Most Inexcusable Business Failures of the Last 25 Years. We've all seen the fall of MCI/Worldcom, Enron and now Lehman Brothers, so this should be a good, albeit not very happy, read.
For more information, go to: http://www.cioinsight.com/c/a/Books/Top-10-BusinessTech-Books-of-2008/?kc=CIOMINUTE01212009CIO1

Apple without Jobs? All Will Be Well, Says Apple Insider

2009-01-16T09:44:00.000-08:00

Robert X. Cringely, the legendary former InfoWorld columnist, weighs in about the recent health issues swirling around Apple founder Steve Jobs. Cringley's conclusion? Apple will be fine, regardless of the outcome.

Read excerpts below from Cringely's blog or go to http://ow.ly/3VZ for the whole story:

"I knew things were bad when Steve Jobs didn’t make even a token video appearance at Macworld...So now Steve is off on his six month (or longer) medical leave, readjusting those hormones, and the press is abuzz with what the heck Apple will do without Steve."

"Apple will be fine.

"Steve Jobs is an amazing chief executive, clearly the best of his era, but that doesn’t make him irreplaceable. True, he saved Apple, but now Apple is saved. The company is rich, has growing market share and a mindshare dominance envied throughout the computer AND music AND video AND mobile phone industries. Steve could die tomorrow and Apple would be fine for years to come. Apple might even be better."

"Steve, for all his design insight and high standards is also a pain in the ass, but it is his narcissism – keeping the whole company on edge and terrified, will he or won’t he? – that has to have taken a toll and may well land the company in court. Twenty thousand people are sitting around wondering whether their jobs are endangered because he is ill and that’s just crazy."

"In the long run the goal won’t be to replace Steve, anyway, but to transcend him, because Steve was far from the perfect leader."

"The last time Steve Jobs left Apple, back in 1985, the entire company breathed a sigh of relief. Steve back then was an undisciplined brat...It took learning to run NeXT on a budget and almost losing the company to teach Steve how to be a leader. It took learning to leave Pixar alone to teach Steve that there were some things – many things – best left to others more talented than he. Those two experiences, added to his fall from grace in 1985, made Steve Jobs the leader he is today. Still all elbows and shoulder blades, he somehow makes it work."

"I feel for the guy. It’s not his health scare, but his lack of true friends that worries me. When your best friend is Larry Ellison you know you are in trouble. But that may be the best that either man can do. "

"So here’s to Steve Jobs, may he return in six months or go off and do anything else he likes. But don’t worry about Apple.

"Apple’s on a roll."

The 20/20 View from the Fiscal Giants

2009-01-10T19:35:00.000-08:00

As I wrote recently in my Chicago column in Midwest Business, I now occasionally wish that I had added a PhD in economics after I finished my MBA at Cal State Los Angeles in the late 1980s. The reason? In short order we can all expect the coming onslaught of books and talk show appearances (producers booking talent at CNN Lou Dobbs please take note) about 1) What REALLY happened in the fiscal world in 2008; and 2) how certain economists predicted the financial crisis long in advance (hence, their consulting fees are well worth the six figures they wish to command).
In the meantime - and absence the much-needed PhD in economics - I've begun an informal collection of the growing mea culpas from those who surely should have known better in the subprime fantasy days.
Currently up to bat is the quote from the formal press release/resignation letter announcing Robert Rubin's departure from the board of beleaguered Citibank. Rubin, who served as Clinton's Treasury Secretary during both of WJC's terms, simultaneously collected a cool $115 million while (as the Financial Times reported) he endured widespread criticism for "lack of oversight as Citi bet heavily on assets backed by subprime mortgages, and of failing to take responsibility for the company's troubles" (after the Citi board ousted its CEO in late 2007 - when Citi could have done something significant about its loan asset portfolio).
Rubin's mea culpa? "My great regret is that I and so many of us who have been involved in this industry for so long did not recognize the serious possibility of the extreme circumstances that the financial system faces today."
Cough. Cough.
And what about former Fed chair Alan Greenspan, who presided over the fiscal architecture together with his colleague Rubin (pictured together above) in the 1990s that made all of this current maelstrom possible? Here's his comment: "I made a mistake in presuming that the self-interest of organizations, specifically banks and others, was such that they were best capable of protecting their own shareholders and the equity."
Well, hats off for post-mortem candor. Doubtless this list will be growing over the coming months.

Fortuna favet fortibus.

Indianapolis Star sneaks in 30% delivery increase

2008-12-30T07:22:00.000-08:00

The day after the Santa holiday, I received an odd phone call at home. The caller identified himself as being with the Indianapolis Star and wanted to know whether we had paid our bi-monthly subscription bill. Caught a little off guard - this was a first - I said I'd check, but we'd only recently received the bill. He was very courteous and said not to worry, he was just checking.
Thinking this all a bit strange, I went to our bill stack and opened the Star invoice. Inside, I was more than a little surprised to read this computer-generated note: "Due to rising costs associated with delivering the newspaper, The Star implemented a rate increase."
A rate increase? Try a 31% percent rate increase! This little unannounced rate increase amounts to more than $100 in annual delivery costs for a newspaper that has precipitously declined in size and coverage over the past few years. Plus, I - like a few others - have noticed that the price of gas has declined considerably over the past month or so, which one might think would lower the cost of delivery.
Also featured was a strange little extra charge of $1.42, noted as a "Thanksgiving charge." Huh?
Included in the bill were three different promotions offering me the opportunity to convert payment from a traditional check method to my credit card. Perhaps if the amount just showed up on my monthly credit card statement, I wouldn't notice the increase so much. Plus, conversion to online billing would likely mean that I would stay a Star subscriber to matter what.
To be sure, I like the Star and based on the profitability reports profiled in Indiana Legislative Review, the Star appears to be doing okay in an era where daily newspaper reporting staff is disappearing left and right. To its credit, the Star has taken its fair share of this and openly acknowledged its challenges as the Millennial generation abandons printed newsprint for free digital content.
I am paying the bill this morning ($77.08, up from $53.47) and will continue to support the Star through daily delivery. However, I would humbly suggest that Gannet take a fresh look at customer satisfaction principles (particularly during a major recession). Of course, one chief principle is not to surprise your customers in an unsavory way, lest they react adversely, including public blog entries like this one.

JC Penney and Saatchi & Saatchi Team Up to Produce Annoying Stereotype Advertising

2008-12-08T10:57:00.000-08:00

Allison Linn of MSNBC sums up this advertising disaster in their "Ads of the Weird" coverage (http://adblog.msnbc.msn.com/):

"Here’s a recipe for an annoying commercial: take all unpleasant stereotypes known to man (and woman) and mix in a predictable plot.
For extra credit, make the commercial really, really, really long.
That just about sums up the strategy that is apparently at work in JCPenney’s new holiday campaign, "Beware of the Doghouse."
The name of the Web-based campaign pretty much says it all. The video starts with a man giving a woman a vacuum cleaner for an anniversary gift, after which he is marched unceremoniously to a doghouse/dungeon.
There, he joins other men who have made the kind of stereotypical "bad husband" mistakes you mostly see on really cheesy 10-year-old sitcoms, such as giving one’s wife exercise equipment and hinting that she could lose a few pounds.
As punishment for their misdeeds, the men have all been consigned to the dungeon, where they must do things like fold laundry and eat quiche out of dog bowls. Keeping with the torture theme, a tape playing in an endless loop also encourages them to "speak less, listen better," "offer to change diapers" and "stop checking out other women in restaurants."
The only way to get out? Buy your wife jewelry, of course.
Adding an element of real-life public humiliation to the mix, JCPenney is even offering real women the option of putting their significant others in the doghouse, via a Web site that will send your partner an e-mail -- and then post his name and, if you choose, picture, on the company’s public Web site.
We’re not sure who should be more offended by this campaign: Men, who are painted as sexist, clueless dolts, or women, who are shown as mean-spirited and materialistic, willing to mete out menial punishment but swayed by glittery things.
We’re not saying men and women don’t have their share of differences, particularly when it comes to their idea of the perfect holiday gift. There are, however, funnier, more subtle and more modern ways of playing those differences for a laugh, and a potential sale.
Particularly in these tough economic times, we wonder how well a throwback to the "diamonds are a girl’s best friend" way of thinking will play."
Click here to watch video and see the Web campaign.

Superb Summary of Current Credit Crisis

2008-12-03T16:01:00.000-08:00

Jack Schultz, founder of the Boomtown Institute (which helps rural towns revitalize and grow), has a remarkable financial background and penned the following summary of the causes and contributors to today's credit crisis. Read on:

Credit Crisis 2008

"Even though virtually everyone in Washington, D. C. and on Wall Street talks about the massive $800 billion bailout bill as help for Main Street, I'm still not buying it. I can't find any evidence that Main Street was a major player in the paralysis of credit markets. Here is the chronology of events that I've found that led to the bailout of Wall Street.
December 5, 1996-Alan Greenspan utters words "Irrational Exuberance" for the first time. Congress comes down hard on him, not wanting an end to the .com elevation in stock prices and jobs created from those high flying stocks. Greenspan doesn't increase margin requirements for stock trading....bubble grows in .com stocks....bubble bursts in early 2000.
1998-Credit Default Obligations (CDO) begin to be used to offer insurance against credit losses. AIG makes the biggest bets, most on the premise that housing values can only move upward, reaping huge premiums and inflating its earnings. Massively wrong bet. CDO market explodes to $60,000,000,000,000 ($60 trillion) by 2008. Buffet calls derivatives like CDOs "Weapons of Mass Destruction."
1999-Congress repeals Glass-Steagall Act from Great Depression which separated commercial banks from investment banks. Big commercial banks enter investment banking with a vengeance.
2000-When .com bubble bursts, Fed floods markets with cash. Fed Funds rate drops from 6.25% in 2000 to 1.00% in 2003. Cash begins flowing into real estate, especially in CA, NV, AZ and FL. "Flipping" no longer refers to hamburgers but to houses.
2002-Mortgage lending standards are reduced by Freddie and Fannie. The key requirement is no longer whether a borrower can repay their loan but can the loan be sold by Wall Street to unsuspecting buyers worldwide. Reverse amortization, ARMs and other derivations from traditional mortgage lending become widespread. By 2006, 17% of home loans are made with nothing down.
2004-Leverage requirements are loosened. Large commercial banks go from 10:1 debt-to-equity ratio to 20:1. Investment banks and hedge funds go from 20:1 to 40:1 and higher. At 40:1 ratio, you can only make a 2.5% mistake or your capital is wiped out. That means that a hedge fund that buys a $100 stock can only afford to have it fall to $97.50. Hubris rules the hedge fund and investment world. The "rocket scientists" with their black boxes supposed to dominate risk management learn of "black swan" events when $100 stock falls in half.
2006-Housing values hit their peak and start to fall. Even though housing only accounts for 3% of USA GDP, the house of cards built around ever increasing housing values begins to topple.
2008-Credit markets seize up. Banks don't trust each other. LIBOR interest rates soar. Treasury puts together $700 billion bailout plan. Congress loads up with another $100+ billion of earmarks for wooden arrow manufacturing, Hollywood film producer tax breaks, new NASCAR race tracks, etc. etc. etc.
2008-Treasury panics and increases money supply from normal growth/contraction of +/-10%, to over 250% growth in November, 2008. Bubble in housing that started in 2000 will reemerge in another sector because of the huge amounts of cash sloshing around. Inflation begins to skyrocket in 2010 as a result of the unprecedented growth in M1 money supply, after deleveraging which begins in 2008 comes to an end.

That's our take on it. Problems lie on Wall Street and Capital Hill. I hope that the hard work of Main Street can help to eventually fix these problems that they've brought us."

For more information about Boomtown, go to: http://rs6.net/tn.jsp?e=0015vA8X1IfeC_ZjapNfLTy-RIbDmjzwnbOV4i6cVAi0DVofbH9ElDBRaIMZjP-WnVf8S_2u_aht1QNe6YnE-IJT9zXbJGJQzvkBIt0meDuELP6dD293n5FglOAUyxTnCGU

Time: Your Best Utility Asset in a Recession

2008-11-24T14:28:00.000-08:00

While we all might be wishing that we had a little better cash flow these days, we CAN do something about maximizing the asset that produces that cash: time. Take a look at the legendary Covey diagram and divide your activities up. Be honest.

All done? Now allocate your time in specific blocks to address the issues in the two top boxes. Your productivity will soar.

Want more help? Mike Myatt, chief strategy officer of N2growth, offers up some interesting ways to evaluate whether you or a subordinate should be handling a specific task. He argues pretty effectively that this simple skill is a chief differentiator for those desiring to be CEOs. For more, click: http://www.commercialpropertynews.com/cpn/content_display/business-management/management-strategies/e3i4818debd94b6160da61e0d665dd94c97

New York Times Takes a Hit

2008-11-19T19:43:00.000-08:00

Call it a cost of being a top global newspaper. Attribute it to a high-profile reputation. Whatever the reason, the venerated New York Times was the subject of a elaborate hoax/spoof earlier, as a well-funded politically liberal group distributed more than a million copies of the spoof, touting social changes evident in an apparent nirvana.

How did the Times react? Go here: http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/11/12/pranksters-spoof-the-times/?ref=arts

No Rust Here - Indiana is the new "business belt"

2008-11-13T13:40:00.000-08:00

When Site Selection magazine speaks, economic developers perk up. In January 2009, ED professionals in Indiana will much to rejoice about. Earlier today I received the monthly rep notice from Conway Data, publishers of Site Selection, which proclaimed: "No Rust Here - Indiana is the new business belt."

Site Selection recently named Indiana as the fifth best state for business, and now this!

Want more about this epoch-changing review? Click here: http://www.midwestbusiness.com/news/viewnews.asp?newsletterID=19488

Problem with Vista crashing? It'll be fixed by 2010

2008-11-07T09:45:00.000-08:00

Saw this coverage from the recent Microsoft WinHEC conference, and was particuarly intrigued by Microsoft calling attention to the fact that frequent crashes in the Vista operating system will be fixed by the installation of Windows 7. As is apparent in the attached photo, they even included a projection of crash reduction.

Uh, it's my understanding that Windows 7 won't be out until at least 2010, and probably later, if previous ship dates are any indication.

If that's case, why tout Windows 7 now? Seems a little deliberately-induced brand bruising to an already black-and-blue Vista brand...

However, there is some cool stuff coming for the new operating system and you can check out the WinHEC conference highlights on ChannelWeb: http://www.crn.com/hardware/212001046;jsessionid=ESHZJLTX2RLZWQSNDLPSKHSCJUNN2JVN?pgno=1

New Tech High Schools transforming Indiana

2008-11-06T20:24:00.001-08:00

The New Tech High School model, originally developed in California, has made its way to Indiana in a rather successful fashion. Reading about and seeing team-building, objective-focused learning makes me almost wish I could go back to those long-ago days, except this time in a completely different and energic environment.
For more information, go here: http://www.midwestbusiness.com/news/viewnews.asp?newsletterID=19478

Picking Up the Ten Top Leadership Books by CIO

2008-10-27T12:24:00.000-07:00

Just when you think you're caught up with required reading, somebody like CIO magazine comes in out of left field with a bunch of books on leadership that demolishes your dwindling discretionary time . While I'm dialing up Amazon on FireFox to order a few, here's the new required reading list:

--It's not enough to make a bucket of money, but now in quasi-retirement, former Medtronic chief Bill George ponies up five must-have themes in Authentic Leadership-Rediscovering Secrets to Creating Lasting Value

--Fire up your public library online reservations: marathon inspirational writers Warren Bennis and Noel M. Ticity have another one out -- Judgment: How Winning Leaders Make Great Calls

--I have a seriously dog-eared copy of this one in my business library, and try not to recommend it because clients would read it and put me out of business. One flaw, it hasn't been updated since 1996, so there's nothing of value in here about the incredible impact the Internet, blogs (like this one) and other online media have dramatically made on public perceptions and how people get information. Run, do not walk, to buy this one by Harvard guru John P. Kotter: Leading Change

--Michael Ussem shows us just how serious publishing requirements are for university tenure at the Wharton School of Business by serving up this long-winded title (take a deep breath): The Leadership Moment-Nine True Stories of Triumph and Disaster and Their Lessons for All of Us

--Speaking of tenure, our next tome takes us out West, where Stanford professor of everything Jeffrey Pfeffer gives us What Were They Thinking? Unconventional Wisdom about Management

--Authors David Dotlich, James Noel and Norman Walker know full well that there's nothing we humans like better than voyeuristic conflict, especially among the rich and powerful, so they penned: Leadership Passages - The Personal and Professional Transitions that Make or Break a Leader

--Evidently the future didn't quite work out the way they originally envisioned, so authors Michael Hammer and James Champy have re-engineered their earlier work Re-Engineering the Corporation: A Manifesto for Business Revolution

--If someone had asked Peter Drucker if he planned on speaking from the grave, the response might have been an incredulous "Was?" Nonetheless, the good folks at Collins Business have apparently pulled it off by issuing a revised 2006 version of Drucker's renowned The Practice of Management

--What do you do if you have a best-selling business book? As a quick follow up you write a "field guide" of course, and Patrick Lencioi has done just that with Overcoming the Five Dysfunctions of a Team: A Field Guide for Leaders, Managers and Facilitators

--To wrap up the CIO guide, another follow-up tome to a best seller (The Leadership Challenge) appears in the form of A Leader's Legacy

If you want more information about the guide, go here (and happy reading): http://www.cioinsight.com/c/a/Books/10-Insightful-Leadership-Books/?kc=CIOMINUTE10272008CIOA

Community Hospital - Bruising a Healthcare Brand

2008-10-06T06:34:00.000-07:00

"Uh, what's your son's birthdate?"

This was how my wife and I learned that Community Hospital North's emergency room registration had lost my 12-year-old's online records in less than 30 minutes after we had arrived.

After a tumultuous Saturday night where my son was complaining of symptoms possibly indicative of appendicitis, I called the emergency weekend number for our primary care physician on Sunday to check in. The physician on call telephoned back a few minutes later and while I was explaining the symptoms, the doc broke in: "Look, I'm going to be rude and interrupt you. You need to take your son to the ER right now. Not a 'doc in the box,' but the ER." He then proceeded to tell me about the dangers of a perforated appendix and hung up.

I guess he must have been trying to catch the Colts game.

As it turns out, my son is fine. He didn't have appendicitis. However, it took nearly EIGHT HOURS in the Community North ER, with repeated requests from yours truly to on-duty nurses, to find out.

Back to the post-after hours callback, my wife and I were obviously alarmed. So we woke our sleeping son up (whose symptoms had subsided hours before, but I never got a chance to tell the physician on call that fact), and started out for the ER.

Of course, we had a choice: Community Hospital North in Indianapolis (where our primary care physician practices) or St. Vincent, which is home to the Peyton Manning Children's Center and the traditional hospital where the Snyder family has gone for decades.

In the heat of the moment, I selected Community over my wife's objections. I admit here now, I was a bonehead and offer apologies to my wife and son.

The decision did make initial logical sense since if he was operated on he would be near the office of our primary care physician (for follow-up rounds), but I didn't know that after the initial examination and drawing of blood for a white-blood-cell count that we would be left alone for over two hours, after the hospital lost his records. And this happened after the ER doc came in and said that my son did in fact have an elevated white blood cell count. Alarming my wife, the doc noted that surgery was probably on deck for late in the evening. So we waited. And waited.

"Uh, somehow his records got lost between here and radiology," the nurse belatedly explained some three hours after we arrived. "That happens sometimes."

So much for the urgency that our son might be on the verge of a perforated appendix.

After they "found" his records, a nurse came in with a half-gallon of fluid and proclaimed "he has to drink all of this" in order for the ultrasound to be effective.

Ever try and get a sick kid, who has already thrown up, to drink a half gallon of red-colored content all by yourself?

At 8 p.m., the designated time for the ultrasound (remember, we arrived for this urgent diagnosis before 3 p.m.), no nurse or doc was to be found, so as my son's advocate, I made inquiry. "Somebody will be around," I was told.

About 8:30 p.m., my son went off to radiology, and minus his parents, did quite well.

"You should know within the hour of the doctor's decision," the nurse told us at 8:45 when my son returned.

"Doctor's decision?" I thought we were supposed to be kept informed, shown some x-rays, and the like for a collaborative discussion. Apparently not at Community North.

An hour later, my son has fallen asleep, fitfully stirring. Nothing from the "doctor's decision."

Meanwhile, my wife keeps asking: "Can we just pull him out? Can we just go to St. Vincent's? What if there is a possibility of a perforated appendix?"

Shortly before 10 p.m., now some seven-plus hours later, the doc comes in. "He's fine. There's nothing wrong with his appendix. You can take him home. Just make sure he sees his primary care physician in the next day or so."

No apology for losing critical patient records. No explanation why it took so long when we were led to believe that this was a crisis situation. No nothing. Just: "You can take him home."

Of course we were grateful and relieved to know that our son was okay and didn't need an operation. The Community doc and nurses were never brusque or rude. Evasive perhaps, but not rude. They just left us sit for hours in what we were led to believe was an emergency.

As a long-time marketer with more than a fair amount of hospital and vertical practice work, it seems incongruous that Community Health Networks can focus on "Creating exceptional patient and family experiences" as touted on their Web site (see above) when events like Sunday occur.

It was indeed an "exceptional experience."

It was so "exceptional" that St. Vincent's is guaranteed to get all my healthcare business in the future.

The lesson? In healthcare, possibly more so than any other profession, the brand must deliver. Remembering the all-important maxim that "a brand is a promise," I think it would be safe to say that Community North's brand got a little brusied Sunday night.

I just wonder how much this "exceptional experience" is going to cost me, even though we have Anthem insurance...

Online Social Media - a "Meatball Sundae"?

2008-09-03T08:28:00.000-07:00

Panicked because your company doesn't have a blog (like this one) or ongoing social conversations that attract online commentary from near or afar? According to marketing titan Seth Godin, adding "new marketing strategies" (read: online or Internet-focused tactics) to existing marketing programs without strategic direction may well result in a "meatball sundae." The result?

"Messy, disgusting, ineffective. The result of combining two perfectly good items that don't go well together," writes Godin in the 2007 tome Meatball Sundae -- Is Your Marketing Out of Sync?

Godin's primary advice is to make sure that your service or product doesn't represent a 1964 commodity that doesn't fit well with the delivery attributes associated with new marketing.

Further, given today's eMarketer research disclosure that more than half of Americans (see above chart) presently don't even GET social media thinking, we'd better all take a deep breath (and some in-depth planning) before committing sizable budgets to venturing into a social media strategy.

Bloomberg gaffe - Apple's Steve Jobs is not dead

2008-08-29T10:00:00.000-07:00

In late August the venerated Bloomberg News discovered that it was definitely not immune to electronic transmission errors. On August 27, the international news service mistakenly shot up to its wire service a draft (and incomplete) obituary for Apple CEO and galactic PC icon Steve Jobs. The gaffe was quickly discovered and instantly retracted, but not before recipients had captured the text and posted it on the Gawker blog.

The pre-development of obits for major business, political and social figures is a common long-time practice of major news agencies, and the Bloomberg publishing mistake was not the first time this has happened. It does, however, eloquently underscore the downside dangers of instantaneous communication capacities and the urgent need for internal safeguards.

While such lapses can be passed off as innocent mistakes, the Jobs posting had a little bit of a darker side, as major business media reported earlier this year that Jobs did not disclose a potentially mortal battle with pancreatic cancer for some nine months earlier in this decade. The same accounts openly asked whether this nondisclosure might represent a possible violation of SEC rules (or least the intent of same), since Apple is a publicly traded company.

The lesson? Think twice before clicking "send."

The Big Idea Strikes Back

2008-08-07T19:17:00.000-07:00

For a summary of what can transform companies, I humbly suggest that you check out my Chicago column (published today at http://www.midwestbusiness.com/news/viewnews.asp?newsletterID=19365)

Nanotechnology, Indiana and Illinois - A Region to Watch

2008-08-07T18:56:00.000-07:00

A new center for the awaited sub-atomic revolution may well be spiralling into existence in possibly the most unlikely of places. If Sean Murdock, the former McKinsey wunderkind (now heading up the Nanobusiness Alliance - see photo), and Todd Vare, a Barnes & Thornburg attorney (fresh off of a major U.S. Supreme Court win), have anything to say about it, that new international development hotbed will bubble up in America's Heartland.

As Vare told the crowd at the monthly meeting of the Venture Club of Indiana on August 7, "Indiana is well-positioned to develop, explore and lead nanotechnology." Murdock opined that nanotechnology represents "the frontier of innovation," adding that with assets in the form of Northwestern University, the Argonne National Laboratory, and the James Franck Institute at the University of Chicago, the Windy City "is already a world leader."

Combine the All-Galactic nano resources at Purdue and Notre Dame with the neighboring Illini sub-atomic muscle, and there might well be something very much worth watching.

What is Google thinking?

2008-08-05T15:44:00.000-07:00

As a $20 billion industry, digital marketing definitely represents a maturing focus, and AD-TECH Chicago this year directly reflects that. The Chicago version of AD-TECH (a traveling interactive Web-related best practices conference that spans Asia to Europe over a six month period) serves up top agency and search-related talent. This year the absence of the former "rah-rah" nature of interactive marketing is most apparent. As I write this in the AD-TECH press room (fittingly enough), the conference is ending its first day after featuring leading figures from digital marketing agencies and companies (E.g., Leo Burnett, Avenue A/Razorfish, Google, Yahoo, et al), and we're waiting to hear from Clay Shirky ("Here Comes Every Customer - The Former Audience Is Talking About You") about how a company's "former audience" (E.g., former consumers, customers, partners, etc) directly influence how new customers or stakeholders may choose to engage with you online or elsewhere. I plan to publish a few short white papers on the MEK Web site to chronicle ostensibly the best and the brightest from the interactive world, so won't go further here today into the details of social media, performance marketing and Web 2.0/3.0. With one exception.

In the seminar titled "The End of the Banner Ad," one PowerPoint slide -- and one PowerPoint slide only -- detailed the takeaway messaging about how the consumer -- whether retail or B2B -- controls how he or she consumes any given message. The slide illustrated a marketing mindset more than anything, so here's the text:

-With, Not At

-Earned, Not Bought

-Democratic, Not Dictatorial

-Involvement, Not Exposure

-Services, Not Communications

-Collaboration, Not Linear

Worth thinking about, especially as in a dramatically sagging economy, one size definitely does not fit all, and consumers increasingly possess near-total control to the "brand experience" that you or company wishes to expose them to.

This Just In: Fist Bumps Catching on in Business World

2008-07-22T07:40:00.000-07:00

Breaking News: Fist Bumps, once the purview of the sports world, apparently are gaining ground as a means of celebration in the business realm. According to a highlighted story in today's USA Today print and on-line coverage, the traditional handshake still rules, but somehow this momentous cultural shift warrants academic discussion in an upcoming issue of the Journal of Applied Psychology.

As USA Today reports regarding fist-bumping: "So far, executives say, it is exchanged almost exclusively among male business associates who are otherwise friends, or in informal settings such as the end of a golf round. Fist bumping, or two people tapping fists lightly, has a long way to go to unseat the handshake, a gesture that goes back to medieval times when opponents used it to indicate that they were friendly and unarmed."

The phenomena now exists even in the Hoosier state, as USA Today finds: "Scott Jones, CEO of ChaCha, a search engine company in Carmel, Ind., says he now has a business fist-bump encounter about monthly."

A sagging economy, high anxiety about mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and the failure of California-based IndyMac notwithstanding, fist-bumping remains a epochal trend to watch in national business coverage...apparently.

Healing from Cancer with a little help from a special Garden

2008-07-21T15:13:00.000-07:00

Courage. More courage. Faith. Hope and trust. Large quantities of these core elements are required of people being treated for and recovering from cancer.

Such was what I learned in a profound and humbling way a few years ago when I was on the board and later chair of The Wellness Community of Central Indiana (a organization devoted to helping cancer patients and their families - see http://www.twc-indy.org/). The Indiana participants receive free professional psychological services from qualified therapists, directly supported by an advisory board of top oncolgists and radiologists from the greater Indianapolis medical community.

It was also my first learning experience about applied spirituality, a realm where doctrine is not nearly as important as faith and love in large measure. I saw patients and their families - many facing a terminal diagnosis - embrace and deploy these critical elements in a way that was both inspiring and humbling.

I first became involved in the Wellness Community while living in California, and was most intrigued by the claims and comments of national writer Norman Cousins (now deceased) who wrote the book "Anatomy of An Illness," describing how he believed that personal attitude directly impacted a person's immune system.

Of course, now some two decades later, much formal research has found direct connections in a variety of proven ways.

Thus I was very humbled and happy to learn that the Benesse Center of Oncology (http://www.benesseoncology.com) was adding a remarkable "healing garden" to its state-of-the-art facility southeast of Indianapolis. Patients undergoing chemotherapy already are provided with a beautiful quiet area where they can privately be joined by family or supporters while being treated. Now they will soon have an extraordinary garden to view through large floor to ceiling windows during treatment. Angela Gill, executive director of the Major Hospital Foundation, is coordinating this important effort.

Cancer can be devastating, and facilities like Benesse -- together with its extraordinary medical staff and supporters - make conquering this dreaded illness perhaps a little easier. As they say at Benesse, "hope has a new home."

Transformational Work at Raytheon in Indiana

2008-06-27T11:09:00.000-07:00

800+ words just doesn't do justice. As I've previously grumbled in this Blog, trying to fit an entire experience and/or interviews into my Chicago-based Midwest Business column ("The Hoosier Coefficient") is tough to do in 800-900 words.

Just was the case during my recent trip inside the Raytheon defense citadel in Fort Wayne. As readers of the MB Chicago column already know (if you haven't read it, here's a link: http://indiana.midwestbusiness.com/news/viewnews.asp?newsletterID=19283), trying to explain the Raytheon-developed "Networked Urban Operations Test Bed" (NUOTB) and its profound implications for saving lives and improving national security in 800+ words represents a singularly tough assignment.

The cutting-edge technology that I was able to view was indeed impressive. Surrounded by plasma screens and projected data, it was easy to see how combat commanders and civil authorities could much more quickly grasp, understand and act on key data as it emerged from turbulent environments (such as a riot, battlefield, raging fire, etc.). As the defense folks put it, NUOTB "collapses the communication dimension."

Whether or not the profundity of that came across in the column is up to the reader's judgment.

My takeaway? If Indiana-based engineers and professional staff can come up with superb innovation such as this, then the $6 billion in defense and related contracts that presently land in the state are no way representative of the true capacity that Indiana could be making to national technology advancements.

If you could sit in one of the chairs above (as I did in early June), you might be surprised as to the depth of innovation that is already well established, both in Fort Wayne and elsewhere in the Hoosier state.

Return to Forever Engages Indy

2008-06-23T17:42:00.002-07:00

The presence of Chris Katterjohn, publisher of the Indianapolis Business Journal, summed it up. This was no ordinary "boomer" concert. This was engagement at its height. (more about the digital marketing aspect in a moment)

For jazz fusion fans, the unexpected reunion of four extraordinary musicians - read Legends with a capital "L" - was akind to a 21st century reuniting of the Beatles. Chick Corea (keyboards), Stanley Clark (bass), Al Di Meola (guitar) and Lenny White (percussion) haven't played or recorded together for a quarter of a century. The ensemble was widely viewed in the 1970s as the greatest collection of talent then manifested in a four piece jazz group.

Back then, as now, their compositions (while obviously not for everyone) required a consummate, don't-try-this-at-home level of talent, energy and gift-laden ability. The 2,000+ people who showed up June 22 were equally unusual. I turned 54 today (June 23) and if anything, I was on the young side of the crowd. I was surrounded by doctors, lawyers, academicians, mothers, grandfathers and people who obviously looked to be pushing 60, if not higher (sorry, Mr. Katterjohn). These were serious jazz fans, who like me, had been smitten with the raw virtuosity of the group some quarter of a century ago and never forgot it.

By the way, if you don't think that boomers are going to outlive the millennial generation (or at least die trying), then you should have been at this concert. Perfectly respectful people instantly gave the group the first of many deserved standing ovations when they walked onstage, even before they had played a note.

The concert, of course, was unforgettable. But that was just the beginning.

Today, after dragging my now half-century+ old bones off to work and back, I Googled "Return to Forever" at home to see whether there was some vestige of the happy memory of just 20 or so hours ago. Lo and behold, at http://www.return2forever.com/index.cfm there was an outstanding social media site that already was replete was numerous concert and related photos (see above), including music and commentary from the June 22 performance!

For a band that shattered the jazz music mold back in the 1970s, I guess one should expect no less in the online realm from Return to Forever. There, as digitally vibrant as it gets, was Al Di Meola in the Indy Murat Theatre with his $100,000 1959 Les Paul (thanks to Brian Alexander, a long-time friend from Los Angeles and chief tech for Corea, for the pre-concert stage run-through -- whew!), Corea with the rebuilt and updated 70s-era Moog synthesizer, and great, great memories, all newly renewed thanks to some superb social media architecture.

I had planned to spend a couple of minutes rummaging through the site (that is, if I could find one, which I did instantly on Google), and now, nearly two hours later, the site is still live behind the post editor for this entry. If that's not digital engagement, then I give up.

The lessons for social media marketing that I took away? 1) Start with a great product 2) Personalize content to reach out to consumers 3) Provide a digital feedback loop for visitors to engage and offer up contact info 4) Mix in great images that relate directly to your audience 5) Punch it all up online in less than 24 hours

Obviously a great deal of pre-tour planning work went into this site before Corea and company ever got on the tour bus, so add a couple of more take-aways: 6) Design and build your architecture for from-the-road-less-than-great-conditions posting 7) Build content from everywhere and execute!

Thanks, Chick, Stanley, Al and Lenny. In his onstage remarks, Lenny was right about two things for sure: 1) Indianapolis is definitely a jazz town, and 2) Don't wait another quarter of a century before you get back together. Meanwhile, check out RTF's Web presence some great examples of 21st century state-of-the-art social media.

A Competitive DIESEL at the Indy 500?

2008-06-20T14:33:00.000-07:00

While Americans bitterly complain about the rising costs of gas for traditional (or even hybrid) piston -driven cars, a diesel revolution is well under way in Europe. Without much fanfare in the U.S., two years ago, a diesel-powered entry by Audi took first place at the storied 24 Hours of LeMans. This year, as AutoWeek put it, "The Audi pilots drove the wheels off their LMP1-class R10 TDI turbodiesel" to capture the 2008 LeMans race again.

Diesel? DIESEL?

Writing about the 2006 race, one blogger put it this way: "[The 2006 Audi diesel win produced] an important turning point in the perception (held by many Americans) that diesels are noisy, stinky, and slow: the Audis were the quietest, cleanest, and fastest cars in the race. Significantly, they were also the most fuel efficient."

The last time a diesel engine powered a competitive car at the Indianapolis 500 was in 1952, when a turbocharged diesel engine surprised all hands and captured the Pole Position. Track debris clogged up the air intake during the race and ultimately forced the Cummins diesel out, never to be seen again in real competition.

Major props to Speedway guru Tony George for requiring all current Indy cars to run on ethanol, setting an example that vehicles run on alternative biofuels can indeed go very fast. However, once upon a time the 500 was thought to be the top point of automotive innovation, pioneering new technology for commercial vehicles.

With a mind toward further restoring that legendary brand, mayhap 500 officials ought to take a squint at the Indy league rulebook and see if they can open up the door for a diesel engine or two.

If in fact Audi diesels are "the quietest, cleanest and fastest cars," maybe we could do with a few million of those on American roads today. If in Indy cars, perhaps soon on an Interstate near you?

Taiwan and Indiana

2008-06-19T19:00:00.000-07:00

About a month ago, our firm, The MEK Group, was privileged to co-host a private reception for ranking Taiwan diplomatic officials from Chicago with Barnes & Thornburg. Indianapolis is a sister city of Taiwan's capital, and Mayor Greg Ballard was kind enough to drop by.

What struck me again was the true international elements inherent in the city, which I once cheerfully abandoned in 1976 for a 20-year stint in agency and academic life in southern California.

Senior representatives from Lilly, the Indiana Economic Development Corporation (IEDC), CB Richard Ellis and other Indy based companies all easily conversed at length about major global trends and their impact on the Hoosier state. John Aplin, a notable senior venture capitalist, recounted his role in starting up the first MBA program in the 1980s in China when he was part of the Indiana University business faculty.

If you want to know how important Taiwan really is both to the United States and Indiana, run a Google search on the M1 and M2 U.S. money supply, and see how many good old American greenbacks reside in that little Asian nation.

A Conversation with Scott Jones, Indiana's Serial Tech Entrepreneur

2008-06-19T18:25:00.000-07:00

It's been a busy Spring, and so no entries for a while. To catch up, I wanted in late April to write about a late night conversation/interview I had then with Scott Jones, Indiana's premier serial tech entrepreneur. At the time, Jones had just consummated a $260 million deal to sell Gracenote, one of his many successful companies.

I covered the news of the sale in my Chicago Midwest Business column, which can be accessed directly from this link: http://www.midwestbusiness.com/news/viewnews.asp?newsletterID=19122.

One of the many things that didn't make it into the column was the tenor of Scott's seemingly never-ending enthusiasm for the role that technology can play in improving the quality of human life.

When my cell phone rang, it was about 10 p.m. and I didn't recognize the number. It was Scott, driving from the Indy airport, where he had just arrived back from the deal signing in California. I was driving as well, so I thought I'd better pull over, because one thing is for certain: you can't talk to Scott Jones on a cell phone, drive a car on I-465 and take notes all at the same time. So there, sitting on the north side of I-465, Scott animatedly told me about Gracenote and its impact on Apple and the rest of the music world.

Scott seemed in a hurry to wrap up his comments about Gracenote, which I mistakenly presumed meant he was tired from the trip from California. Having written a number of speeches (2000-2001) for Scott, I should have known better. Scott simply wanted to talk about the next big thing. Gracenote was sold and that was cool, but ChaCha -- the mobile search wunderkind -- was clearly on his mind. The next day, Scott hinted, the Wall Street Journal was going to drop the all-time validation of ChaCha technology in the form of a column from tech icon Walter Mossberg.

Scott, of course, was right. And like days of old, he emailed a WSJ link to the story to me at about 2 a.m.

Now I had two stories to cover in one column, which does not for a short period of time make.

The other bit that didn't make it into the column was the comments that Sequoia Capital -- the mega-tech venture capital firm that posted up some serious dough in Gracenote -- had to make about Jones and his work. I called out to Sequoia in the Silicon Valley for some background info about Scott, and unfortunately didn't secure that (there are, by the way, three hours time difference between Indiana and California) until after the Hoosier Coefficient column was shipped up to Chicago barely on deadline.

As VCs go, an investment by Sequoia in your tech company basically means that you're in the top 1% of all desirable and viable investments on the continent. There certainly wasn't any surprise on behalf of Sequoia that Scott had nailed a cool quarter of a billion as an asking price. What they wanted to know was what Scott was interested in doing next, suggesting that the Gracenote investment wasn't the last one they'll be making in a Scott Jones company.

Indiana is lucky to have him.

eMarketer: YouTube will decide presidential election

2008-04-22T12:12:00.001-07:00

Now that we're nearing the 4th month of the not-so-new year, take a look back at eMarketer's predictions for 2008 and decide for yourself.
Anticipating the recession that we appear to be in, eMarketer made 10 predictions, casting forth possibly the most interesting oracle: YouTube will decide the presidential election.
Here's how they put it: "YouTube attracts the most online traffic and is consistently rated the favorite social media site by US Internet users.
"YouTube will play a decisive role in the 2008 U.S. Presidential election by either airing a user-submitted clip that embarrasses a leading candidate or setting the tone of the campaign through its series of sponsored debates."
YouTube certainly has brought down numerous other public figures (including one notable shock jock) with user-edited and submitted videos. When the election is over some seven months hence, wonder if we'll see new tomes toting how public figures need to have a specific YouTube strategy in achieving their objectives.
In case you're interested, here is a list of eMarketer's complete predictions for online behavior (commentary in parentheses):

1) Online ads remain resilient (and nearly recession proof)
2) Video surge slows. (bandwidth issues - or will people continue to accept garage-level rough-cut production?)
3) Social network advertising hits $1.6 billion (Facebook is now running political ads!)
4) Networking goes beyond MySpace and Facebook (links to mulitple sites and more of the proposed Web 3.0 will start appearing)
5) YouTube decides the election (still waiting on this one)
6) Beijing Olympics pumps up ad spending (the Olympic Torch/Tibey gaffee is playing in here)
7) Buy online, pick-up in-store becomes expected feature (this could be the resurrection of the original virtual shopping pieces that everyone expected back during the dotcom fizzled revolution)
8) Movie downloading hits the mainstream (One of our clients, Smithville, is rolling out Fiber-to-the-Home with fiber speeds up to an astonishing 100 mbps - that's industrial strength broadband - with movie downloads that take like 40 seconds for a two-hour movie; with that kind of connectivity, why would you ever want to burn up $4 gallon gas to drive to Blockbuster?)
9) Music marketers roll out new business models (as the CD continues to die, watch for more advertising-supported Web sites that offer free or subsidized/subscription downloads)
10) Dynamic ads heighten gaming revenue potential (gazillion-dollar product placement and related games for the upcoming Iron Man movie kind of sums this one up)

More and more, it's an online world!

What Value Fame?

2008-04-19T20:53:00.000-07:00

Occasionally we may get caught up with this disturbing thought: what will people think about us when we're gone? Will our name, achievements, accomplishments endure?

In the late 1880s, one American author addressed this distressing concept through the viewpoint of an extended European trip. Here's his view, which is most salient for those of us today chasing fleeting fame:

"After browsing among the stately ruins of Rome, of Baiae, of Pompeii, and after glancing down the long marble ranks of battered and nameless imperial heads that stretch down the corridors of the Vatican, one thing strikes me with a force never had before: the unsubstantial, unlasting character of fame.

"Men lived long lives, in the olden time, and struggled feverishly through them, toiling like slaves, in oratory, in generalship, or in literature, and then laid them down and died, happy in the possession of an enduring history and a deathless name.

"Well, twenty little centuries flutter away, and what is left of these things?

"A crazy inscription on a block of stone, which snuffy antiquaries bother over and tangle up and make nothing out of but a bare name (which they spell wrong) -- no history, no tradition, no poetry--nothing that can give it even a passing interest.

[With this as a backdrop] "What may be left of General [Ulysses] Grant's [then a very popular figure in the national news after the U.S. Civil War] great name forty centuries hence? This -- in the Encyclopedia for A.D. 5868, possibly:

"URIAH S. (or Z.) GRAUNT -- popular poet of ancient times in the Aztec provinces of the United States of British America. Some authors say flourished about A.D. 742; but the learned Ah-ah Foo-foo states that he was a contemporary of Scharkspyre, the English poet, and flourished about A.D. 1328, some three centuries after the Trojan War instead of before it. He wrote 'Rock me to Sleep, Mother.'"

"These thoughts sadden me. I will go to bed."

The author? Mark Twain (Samuel Clements), writing in The Innocents Abroad (1869). Perhaps some considerable food for thought in both everyday life and in the midst of a presidential campaign.

Fortuna favet fortibus.

The "Raw Bra" and Inside Indiana Business

2008-04-04T17:54:00.000-07:00

It's rare when one is present for epoch-making journalism. Such was today on the set of Inside Indiana Business, when those of us in the WFYI Green Room were treated to host Gerry Dick struggling to keep a straight face as he made on-air inquiry about the distribution strategy of the "Rah Bra."
I am not making this up.
Business coverage has a new meaning, one might think.
For you non-believers, go to http://www.companywear.com/rahbra/.
Good grief.

Digital ad buying - precursor to an all-new communication platform?

2008-03-27T15:00:00.000-07:00

Back in the pre-dotcom bust days, when I was VP of marketing for a dotcom, nearly everyone in the ad world was waiting to cash in on banner ads and skyscraper click-throughs. This was, of course, in the days of pre-Google ad words.

Online advertising boasted about every superior metric there was -- you could track just about damned near everything. I remember ad execs waking up with cold sweats as predictions of Internet dominance mounted up in the pre-Bush, pre-9-11 days. Unfortunately, the big digital breakthrough never happened. What ad agencies were generally good at in the late 1990s and early 2000s were designing high-res over-done memory hogs -- both in online ads and Web sites -- that would choke the electrons right out of the then-ever present 24.4K dial-up modem. Today, of course, major advances in Flash production, online video and other animated products have changed all that, just in time for real fiber broadband (not the DSL twisted-pair rubbish that masquerades as broadband and will soon be extinct) to penetrate major markets nearly everywhere.

The Internet today is an ever-evolving hybrid beast that probably doesn't resemble what we'll be looking at some five years from now. Part-TV, part-print, part 3D experience. What we have produced is a new generation that won't tolerate anything less than RIGHT NOW in the digital world.

To that end, I read (online of course) with more than a little interest the new report from the Kelsey Group on the future of interactive advertising. Like every forecast, Kelsey makes certain assumptions, some of them -- particularly after having been bloodied in the dotcom debacle -- I like. One of them is that ad budgets are finite, even though there are lots more vehicles to spend ad dollars on.

Given that, Kelsey's analysis reslices the media pie. That reworked pie is good news for kids graduating today from design school who've never heard of waxers or proof sheets, but it's bad news, real bad news, for traditional media like yellow page advertising and newspaper ads. Newspapers in particular are forecast to be the biggest losers, with -- what a surprise -- Internet-based advertising being the big winner. No wonder newspapers are migrating to the Internet with consumer-driven content. Why bust your head up against what obviously is a declining market? A quick view of the Kelsey graphs above tells the tale, at least from their analysis.

My bet is that we don't even know what media in 2012 will look like yet. The Boomers -- like me -- may increasingly be heavy Internet users, but we still like print and we still have money. (Well, at least some Boomers do, present company excepted.) As big pipe fiber broadband levels out the high speed connectivity playing field, I'd wager that media will change right along with it. I'm not used to watching TV on my laptop yet, but my 11-year-old son has no problem with that at all.

Ironically, the now-universally popular Green movement may well be the push that converts everyone to digital and evolves the online platform far more rapidly than anyone ever envisioned. After all, if we can't use reams of paper to print every e-mail of importance, we'll have to get adept at managing files in Outlook so we can actually find the damned things when we need them. If that happens, and the hackers don't take over, then the 2001 expectations for online activity may well get fulfilled and more.