GrokMart

Centenarian-and-a-quarter

2006-02-01T07:49:00.000-07:00

Happy Birthday, Grandpa Seamons! If you were alive today, you'd be 125 years old. (Seriously, he was old when my Dad--his last child--was born, and my Dad's old now.)

If It Makes You Happy

2006-02-01T07:28:00.000-07:00

I just found, thanks to del.icio.us, someone else who blogs about human behavior. Antonella Pavese's a psychologist by training who consults in web usability. Since I swore off Web design three years ago, web usability isn't high on my priority list, but I read a great post of hers this morning that dealt with persuasion .

Antonella used a Sheryl Crow lyric to deconstruct the reasons why we complain--women, in general, complain not because they want advice, but because they want to vent; men, on the other hand, generally don't complain because they don't want anyone to tell them what they should do about their problms. Same desires, different modus operandus. She also played off her affinity for yogurt and other "growing" foods to explain how we humans dismiss that which does not fit our worldview. Smart, engaging, thought provoking. Subscribed!

Many Voices?

2006-01-20T17:54:00.000-07:00

This blog's very name comes from the notion that the blogosphere could become the online marketplace of ideas. But after reading Clay Shirky's deftly written primer on power laws, I'm not so sure.

What's a power law? If I understand it correctly, it's a law that explains why, when we have a greater number of choices, power gets more and more concentrated in the top few choices. The most fascinating thing about it to me is that there is no man behind the curtain pulling levers or pushing buttons to make this happen. It just happens because this is how the human race acts.

So is there really a marketplace of ideas? I think so, but it's not as egalitarian as I had thought or hoped.

How They Overcame

2006-01-16T09:42:00.000-07:00

Thurl Bailey, former Utah Jazz player and one of the more recognizable African Americans in my fair (double-entendre intended) state, shared the story of how an old slave spiritual became the anthem and a rallying cry for the Civil Rights movement. This is a perfect example of the power of song to convey shared meaning and to motivate groups.

Thanks to the Rev. Martin Luther King, not only for what you did for your cause, but for how your cause changed our nation.

And, on a day like today, it's appropriate that I link to Melissa's post--she's my family's liberal conscience--reminding us to love people for who they are.

An Open Era for Public Relations

2006-01-13T21:46:00.000-07:00

The guide I'm reading for my APR exam (published by my local PRSA chapter) has begun with PR's history and theory. That's cool with me; I'm fascinated by that kind of stuff--strange, I know. Two things I have read make me ponderous.

First, public relations as a practice essentially began in 1900, and there have been seven "eras" of PR, most of them marked by World Wars or economic upheaval. The latest era, called "the Information Society" (cue synth pop beat), has been the status quo for the past 40 years.

Second, one of the more widely accepted theories in communications is "systems theory." At the risk of being a bore, let me briefly explain.

In its essence, an organization is a system made up of interacting units within an environment, and it survives or dies based on how openly it interacts with its environment.

Organizational systems can be relatively open or relatively closed, says the theory. Open systems keep tabs on their environment and adapt and change based on feedback. Closed systems don't adapt and change, and that makes them vulnerable.

Practically, that's a nice theory, but I don't know that most organizations in the past 40 years have been open in terms of the way they've interacted with their publics. Sure, organizations adapt and change based on sales numbers or on legal issues, but, in all but the most forward-thinking companies, or those with a high public profile, I don't think public opinion has made much of a difference to corporate bigs.

But the world is changing.

The Internet has democratized information. It's giving everyone with a computer (or a mobile phone) a voice. It's empowering consumers to get news, entertainment, goods and services when they want it. It facilitates the sharing of personal experiences with a company, good or bad. It's making gatekeepers obsolete. It's causing people to expect and demand transparency. It's Cluetrain, baby.

Which brings me back to the point of eras. Could it be that we're entering the "Open Era" in public relations? I hope that we are, but I can't be so bold as to say with certainty that we are. I think big organizations and the PR professionals are who advise them still going to jealously guard their message and their information. But as more consumers find their voice and as more companies see the benefits of transparency, listening and adaptation, I'm hopeful that the practice of PR, not just the theory, will truly embody an open system.

PR Cred

2006-01-10T17:41:00.000-07:00

I've been told that I'm more likely to achieve a goal if I tell someone about it. That's why I'm telling you about a goal I'd like to accomplish this year: getting accredited in public relations.

I mentioned my APR ambition to a friend today. He replied, "Why on Earth... ?" A few reasons: when I got my first PR job out of college, I asked my boss if any further education would help my career. His response was that he really saw no reason to get a graduate degree in communications.

"You don't get better at this stuff by studying it, you get better by doing it," he said. (Still, there's that little voice that's saying the longer I wait to get a Master's degree, the harder it will be.) But he also said that, in his experience, a professional designation that carried some weight was an APR.

That was almost nine years ago, which brings me to the second reason: I've been doing this for a while; it's time to see how I stack up with the rest of the PR world.

So, I'm going to blog about my APR effort periodically--hopefully my experience can help anyone who else who wants to give it a shot. And, if anyone who is accredited reads this, I'd appreciate any advice you can offer.

Make It Memorable

2006-01-10T13:15:00.000-07:00

I don't know if the PhD's who study persuasion agree, but I believe the quest for persuasion starts with memorability. We can't convince someone to change their mind or their heart if something about our message doesn't stick in their brain.

I finally had the time to read Kathy Sierra's latest classic, A Crash Course in Learning Theory, that's causing a quite a stir--as of this afternoon 592 del.icio.us users had tagged the post. Lots of her advice applies to persuasion, because it applies to enhancing memorability.

Here's some of her tips for making a message memorable:

"Provide a meaningful benefit for each topic, in the form of 'why you should care about this' scenario." This is especially important in these days of decreasing attention.

"Use visuals." No big revelation here, but how many powerpoints do you see with gigantic blocks of text?

"Use redundancy to increase understanding and retention." Lather, rinse, repeat.

"Use conversational language." Kathy says that research suggests this to be a more effective writing style for memorability. Very cool.

"Use mistakes, failures, and counter-intuitive WTF?" aka, cognitive dissonance.

"Use the filmaker (and novelist) principle of SHOW-don't-TELL."

"Use 'chunking' to reduce cognitive overhead." Package information in easily remembered forms, then, like processed foods that are quickly broken down and absorbed, your brain can store the info in long-term memory.

"Use seduction, charm, mystery to build curiosity."

"Use a spiral model to keep users engaged." Think levels in a video game.

"Don't rob the learner of the opportunity to think!" Now, there's a novel concept in marketing.

"Use the 80/20 principle to reduce cognitive overload." Don't tell your audience everything, just the absolute essentials.

"Context matters."

"Emotion matters."

"Never underestimate the power of FUN to keep people engaged."

"Use stories." It's the oldest form of engagement.

"Use pacing and vary the parts of the brain you're exercising." Writers know that long sentences punctuated with short sentences keep interest much better than a paragraph full of long sentences or short sentences.

All these tips are backed up by Kathy's clear explanations, and she claims (though she doesn't elaborate), research. If you're into marketing or any other field that uses persuasion as a foundation, this one's a must read.

My Modest Change

2006-01-06T17:28:00.000-07:00

I'm taking a clue from GTD hacker Merlin Mann and cancelling some of my RSS feeds. Well, to be honest, I'm not exactly cancelling them, just relegating them to a skim mode.

I asked myself why I read blogs. And my answer wasn't to learn more, but to be a better blogger. I want to know this medium really well, and to do so, I need to participate.

The only Stephen King book I've ever read is "Stephen King On Writing," and one piece of advice he gave to aspiring writers was to read good writing. Read them for enjoyment, AND to figure out what makes them good. (He also advised writers to write a lot, but I'm not going to give up my night job--Dad--so I can write more often.)

So I'm limiting everyday reading to the bloggers that I really like: Jarvis and McLeod for their wit and personality, Rubel for his incessant search for the new, the aforementioned Mann for his turn of phrase and Godin for his insight.

I've also subscribed to Johnnie Moore's blog, because I've always liked the quotes that others post from him, and Manolo's Shoe Blog, not because I love shoes but because his writing style is so unique.

I've relegated a few bloggers I've tried to keep up with to my secondary list because they're just too long form. Sorry, I'll skim you and save what looks interesting for later.

Overheard

2006-01-06T12:41:00.000-07:00

"I hate that he's so negative."

Slightly ironic statement, don't you think?

Learning, Branding and Truth

2006-01-06T07:51:00.000-07:00

Read this bit of wisdom this morning from Johnnie Moore, where he quotes Kathy Sierra, then says,

Most of the principles she applies to learning could be taken and applied to how companies think about branding: in short it should not be about telling people the truth, but engaging them in creating something new with you...

Now, I'm going to assume that Johnnie isn't stating that the truth doesn't matter. Obviously, it does. It's just that all the truth in the world is ineffectual unless it's memorable.

Another cool thing: Johnnie's RSS feed includes a trackback address--makes it much easier to blog. Thanks, Johnnie!

UPDATE: See comments for Johnnie's quick clarification.

The Benefits of Bleeding

2006-01-05T21:40:00.000-07:00

I gave blood tonight. I usually do when there's a blood drive at church or work. If someone with a camera and a microphone were to have come up to me tonight and ask why I'm donating, I may have said it's because I know I'm contributing to my community, but the blood I donated doesn't go to the closest hospital. I may have said I do it because I may need it myself someday, but I don't plan on ever bleeding that much. If I were feeling particularly sarcastic, I may have said I donate blood so that I can answer questions that make most people blush...

19-year-old phlebotomist: Have you ever had sexual relations with a prostitute?

Me: No.

19-year-old phlebotomist: Have you ever, since 1977, had anal sex?

Me: Eew.

19-year-old phlebotomist: Have you ever, since 1977, accepted drugs or money for sex?

Me: Hahaha. No.

19-year-old phlebotomist: Have you ever had Babesiosis?

Me: If you mean have I ever had the hots for a babe, then yes.

Honestly, I give blood partly for all of the above reasons--even the questionnaire makes me laugh. But the real reason I give blood is so I can say that I give blood. Not everyone gives blood. It may make them queasy. It may be against their doctor's orders. It may be that they did something circa 1977 that they'd like to keep private. In any case, there's a small group of people who give blood, and I like being one of them.

Something to remember when I'm thinking about what motivates people...

Easy Money

2006-01-03T18:02:00.000-07:00

Michael was wondering why he hadn't made a bunch of money off his ideas. Well, here's an idea tailor-made for your programming skills, buddy. Think isbn.nu for college students and researchers..

Don't Think of Richard Nixon

2005-12-01T18:21:00.000-07:00

Admit it. You just did. Amazing, the power of suggestion, even a back-handed one.

Now, what are the words that come to mind about the late President? Tricky Dick? Watergate? Crook?

Richard Nixon's association with "crook" is a case study in framing, a persuasive method that was all the rage in liberal political circles in 2004. George Lakoff--cognitive linguist, professor at Cal-Berkeley, and activist--was upset with the way the Democrats handled the election cycles of 2002 and 2004. Although they used populist messages that should have appealed to the working class and middle class, they weren't reaching middle America. In Lakoff's mind, the Democrats' problems were all about metaphors.

According to Lakoff and other cognitive scientists, humans base their worldview on metaphor. If we come across some fact that agrees with our metaphoric view, we embrace it. Conversely, if a fact does not jibe with our metaphor, we ignore it or feel some hostility toward it.

In Lakoff's view, Republicans were speaking from a metaphor with which middle America could identify--he called it the "Strict Father" metaphor. The problem was, Democrats were using Republican language, so their messages were ineffective. Lakoff wrote his thin tome, "Don't Think of an Elephant," to help Democrats rethink their metaphors and their messaging.

Oftentimes, we're our own worst enemy in the arena of perception. Who was the originator of the word association between Nixon and crook? Nixon himself. His famous utterance, "I am not a crook," reinforced in most Americans' minds that he actually was a dirty, rotten politician. By using those words, Nixon was speaking the language of his detractors.

Hey, regardless of the words he chose, he would have likely been thrown out of office. But by using the word "crook" in relation to himself, he fell in to the metaphor of "corrupt leader" his opponents were using, and he cemented that as part of his legacy. Nixon, crook.

So the next time you want to change a mind or a heart, think not just about the words you're using but also the foundation of meaning that underlie those words.

Use Stories to Persuade

2005-11-22T07:44:00.000-07:00

As my company prepares to roll out a new initiative, my colleagues came together last week to be briefed on the communications plans for the initiative. The meeting included reviewing the usual communication suspects: scripts, talking points, letters, Q&A, news releases and a few videos. I have been privy to a lot of the planning, so I knew about the basics. But I was surprised by my reaction to the video clips; the videos brought to the surface some poignant emotions.

Despite the fact that I already knew the message, despite the fact that I was on board with the rationale behind the initiative, the stories told in the videos buttressed what I believed, and catalyzed my commitment. Since then, it has occurred to me that I expererienced, once again, the persuasive power of storytelling.

I don't know what it is about us that loves a good story, but we do. As I mentioned a few months ago, storytelling is marketing's killer app, a skill every marketer will need to have developed as customers gravitate to products and services with which they feel a connection. Here are a few of my recent thoughts on stories:

All stories aren't created equal. The stories that have pathos, authenticity and a good plot will win out.

The individual components of the story aren't enough to make it compelling; it matters how its told. The stories I heard last week were told via video, some were narrated, others were composed of images, words and music, but they all had a "voice" with which the audience could connect.

The telling of the story isn't nearly as important as telling a story that fits the worldview of your audience. I learned this from George Lakoff's "Don't Think of an Elephant": we're more likely to accept a message if it fits the way we think of the world. Going back to my experience of last week, I was ready to be inspired by the videos because they fit the values I have about work and life.

Memo from a First Amendment-loving Prude

2005-11-12T08:59:00.000-07:00

It's not very often that I disagree with Jeff Jarvis. Today, I do. He dismissed an expert's testimony on pornography because she was "prude" from Utah. I'm offended, and not just because I could be classified in the same category.

Jill Manning, a sociology professor at BYU, testified before Congress this week that pornography is addictive. That makes her a prude. Forget that she's a tenured professor citing scientific research--BYU's not a party school.

Look, pornography's addictive. And just like addiction to alcohol or drugs or gambling or sex, addiction to porn makes people selfish, deluded and myopic. So what? Pornography may not present the same public health risk as drugs and alcohol, but it can have a devastating effect on relationships. I know of marriages that were ruined and families that were torn apart because of it.

I respect and admire Jeff's passion for freedom and the First Amendment. I'm going to go out on a pretty strong limb and guess that he's afraid that Congress is going to try use these hearings to limit speech. Here we agree; that would be a bad idea.

But the current situation is untenable. I don't want to see pornography. I want to protect my children from it. I want to vote with my feet. I can easily avoid movies and television shows and magazines that show nudity and portray sex. But it's not as easy with the Internet. How can I make an informed choice if I don't know what I'm getting before I click through?

The Web needs a rating system. Spare me the arguments about feasibility and censorship. We have the technology. Search engines have indexed just about all the content out there. Google already has an algorithm for safe search. I don't think Google or anyone else should decide for me or anyone else what's indecent. But I want to have the tools to decide for myself. There's a way to make a fair, open source, libertarian rating system. But is there a will?

Translating the Boomer Psyche

2005-11-04T17:50:00.000-07:00

David Wolfe, author of the forthcoming book Firms of Endearment and the blogger behind "Ageless Marketing," published today the ninth segment of his "DNA of Behavior" series. I mention this for two reasons: first, I'm keeping my "brand promise" (see GrokMart subtitle); second, it's to inform one of my loyal readers (my sister, bless her heart) that she should study David's wisdom. In my opinion, he's an authority on marketing to baby boomers, and if I'm not mistaken, sis, that's your market.

Whither the News Chopper?

2005-11-03T18:05:00.000-07:00

While waiting for the bus, I noticed a local news helicopter has made about three passes overhead. Knowing a little about the cost of fuel, manpower and maintenance for helicopters, I feel safe in saying it ain't cheap to do that fancy bit of flying.

The future of news media is a huge topic in the blogosphere. It's something Jeff Jarvis blogs about nearly every day, and plenty of others join in the conversation. What do they see in their crystal balls? In the words of the new INXS, "it ain't pretty." Declining reach, trust and revenues are making it more difficult to do journalism. Jarvis says the "media" (a term swiftly becoming a misnomer thanks to the Internet) needs to concentrate more on the basics of journalism:

Start with the real goals, which are informing society, keeping power in check, improving peoples lives, making connections (right?), then ask what the best ways are to do that today.

Doesn't really take a helicopter to do any of that.

(My apologies to my English teaching father for using the forbidden contraction in this post not once, but twice.)

Blogger, Heal Thyself

2005-11-02T18:24:00.000-07:00

According to this MSNBC story, some physicians are encouraging their patients to blog using a certain hospital website. The premise is that patients can heal more quickly if they have an outlet to express their emotions while undergoing treatment. Cool.

I ran across a hospital system doing this exact same thing as I was building a case for blogs as communications/PR tools for my company. If I remember correctly, a North Carolina system implemented this program based on research that showed that when patients write about their treatment, they experience better outcomes.

Too bad I can't find out easily if this story comes out of the aforementioned hospital system--the article doesn't say. Heck, the article doesn't even include a link referencing the featured patient's blog. Great story, bad journalism.

Welcome to the Club

2005-11-02T18:01:00.000-07:00

Jeri Cartwright is blogging. Don't know her? Neither do I, but I know of her. She's well known in Utah PR circles. The mere fact that she's putting effort into a blog will help a lot of PR folks in these parts see blogs as a legitimate PR tool. Giddyup.

Hi Jeri, I'm Don. Keep up the great work.

Good Publicity

2005-11-02T17:53:00.000-07:00

The Utah Transit Authority decided to honor Rosa Parks today by having all their buses turn on their headlamps from 9 to 11 am. Now, I'm not so naive that I don't see this as a publicity stunt. Nor am I so cynical that I think UTA is being disingenuous. In my eyes, UTA's practicing good, simple, honest PR.

Blahgging

2005-11-01T17:40:00.000-07:00

In honor of my reenergized desire to blog, I've thrown out the blue and green Blogger template. I know. This new template's quite blah. But it is easier to customize--not as much clutter through which to sift. I'm not a designer, so don't expect anything fancy.

BTW, thanks to the elegant Vagablog software and due to the fact that Blogger is free, I'm sticking with the pretentiously named GrokMart for now.

Vagablog Rules!

2005-11-01T12:53:00.000-07:00

Just downloaded Vagablog, an open source moblogging tool for Palm. My mobile problem--the inability to efficiently submit HTML-coded posts--is solved. Vagablog is missing some features I'd like (hey, if I knew how to program I'd try to improve it), but it's much better than working through any of Blogger's three methods for mobile posting. My thanks to Mike Rowehl for making his software freely available.

Last Chance Post

2005-10-31T16:09:00.000-07:00

Since it's the last day of the month, I figure I should write a blog entry, if only to have at least one post in my October archive. But frankly, I'm not sure how much more effort I'll put into Grokmart; Blogger is a pain to work with if you're mobile blogging, and that's mostly what I do. If anyone knows of any blogging services that have better moblogging tools, I'd appreciate an email.

I may not have been prolific lately, but a confluence of what I've read and what I've experienced over the last six weeks has further convinced me that I've got to keep blogging. Two two reasons: to maintain my voice--my day job entails writing in someone else's voice--and to be a (however small) part of the new media conversation.

And thanks to Matt and Melissa, my newly blogging brother and sister, for reminding me how fun a blog can be.

Decency 101

2005-09-26T17:35:00.000-06:00

When my sister sent me an indignant email about an article in Seventeen magazine about female genitalia, I was hoping she had succombed to an Internet rumor.

Too bad she hadn't.

It's true. Albertson's just pulled Seventeen from stores in 12 Western states because the October issue contains an article describing, in detail and with pictures, a vagina. Title: Vagina 101.

Truth be told, I haven't read the article. I subscribe to the Garbage In, Garbage Out view of the mind. But this crosses the always moving and admittedly fuzzy line of decency.

I'd like to know the point of a glossy magazine "educating" 12 and 13-year-old girls about their most private parts. Aren't there better places for that to happen? Like in a conversation with a trusted adult? And even if that isn't happening, what gives Seventeen the right/responsibility to be the source of that kind of content?

Political Hay

2005-09-14T07:33:00.000-06:00

Politics to me are fascinating and maddening all at once: fascinating, because I get to see persuasion at work and maddening because words and persuasive techniques are used to distort and convolute.

I am tired of politicians using the New Orleans tragedy to make political hay. Those who place the problems with emergency response squarely on the shoulders of Pres. Bush are either being intellectually dishonest or have partisan tunnel vision.

The Bush administration has made mistakes. They should have known much earlier that state and local authorities couldn't handle the aftermath of Katrina. Their problem was decisiveness. He said as much yesterday.

But government responsibility rests solidly with the State of Louisiana and the City of New Orleans. They had disaster plans, but they didn't have the resources or the foresight or the leadership to implement them.

Ultimately, however, the responsibility lies with the citizens themselves. They, just as their governments, had plenty of warning--years of it. Since 9/11, the govt has been encouraging all of us to have family preparedness kits. If more citizens would have taken more responsibility for themselves and their families, the New Orleans tragedy would have been less about the loss of human life.

But the "If only..." game is just as fruitless as the blame game. In the aftermath of Katrina, we should be completely focused on doing our level best to help those in need and doing our level best, as citizens and as governments, to be better prepared for when the next natural or man-made disaster strikes.

This Is Your Brain...

2005-09-09T17:50:00.000-06:00

I mentioned months ago that I had read John J. Ratey's "A User's Guide to the Brain." I read it thinking that I might be able to pick up some hints for persuasion: you know, an insight that would help me gain others' attention, something that would help me persuade. Turns out, the book only solidified widely-held marketing and learning theory conventions--stuff like the brain learns better through repetition, or that emotions stimulate motivation, or that movement is a key driver for memory or that brains are wired to be attracted to novelty and anticipate reward.

Despite that, or perhaps because of that, it's a book I'd recommend to anyone. I have a new appreciation for the wonder of humanity.

"There are more possible ways to connect the brain's neurons than there are atoms in the universe... The connections guide our bodies and behaviors, even as every thought and action we take physically modifies their patterns" (A User's Guide to the Brain, page 20)

Even more amazing to me than our infinite biological possibilities is that the brain is an ecosystem, one that can grow and change and adapt over time. It is constantly changing, adjusting, reconfiguring based on new experiences. But just like other ecosystems, if one component goes awry, the rest of the system is thrown off kilter. Witness the connection of low neurotransmitter levels to ADHD, or to less easily explained brain disorders with far worse implications, such as autism or Alzheimer's.

But the brain, as Ratey puts it, is plastic. It can re-form. A telling example is of an autistic young woman who practiced approaching and entering a Safeway store's automatic doors. For most of us, walking through these doors is a no-brainer; to this girl, it paralyzed her with fear. But concentration and repetition helped her overcome that fear. Later on in her life she would hearken back to how she learned to approach automatic doors to help her work through paralyzing social anxiety.

I am in awe.

Semantic Nitwits, er... Nitpicks

2005-09-07T17:53:00.000-06:00

Amid all the criticism being lobbed at various parties in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, Jesse Jackson and members of the Congressional Black Caucus are saying that the use of the term "refugee" is racist. Why? Because most of the--dare I say--refugees are black.

Ridiculous.

"Refugee" is a color-blind word. These people, many of whom are white, are seeking refuge from a one of the worst storms in history, for crying out loud.

From the Associated Press (via Yahoo! News)

"The AP is using the term 'refugee' where appropriate to capture the sweep and scope of the effects of this historic natural disaster on a vast number of our citizens," said Executive Editor Kathleen Carroll. "Several hundred thousand people have been uprooted from their homes and communities and forced to seek refuge in more than 30 different states across America. Until such time as they are able to take up new lives in their new communities or return to their former homes, they will be refugees."

Hear, hear.

Refugee certainly hasn't been used as a perjorative. And it certainly hasn't kept other Americans from opening their wallets and giving of their time and energy to benefit the victims of this catastrophe.

The problem, in my opinion, is that the word "refugee" connotes the Third World. That's embarrassing to the Rev. Jackson and to President Bush, who, from the same Yahoo article, said:

"The people we're talking about are not refugees," he said. "They are Americans and they need the help and love and compassion of our fellow citizens."

Of course they do. And our fellow citizens are showing them love and compassion and offering them help because they are American refugees. It's obvious to anyone who's seen pictures of the devastation and the squalor of those left behind.

On Models and Jerry Garcia

2005-09-02T17:28:00.000-06:00

More fun posts that I missed while I was employer-focused: One from Chris Carfi and the other from Seth Godin.

Chris is doing something that a now-defunct former employer of mine did: developed a model for a way to engage customers. The big difference between his model and the one developed by the agency I worked for is that it actually might change the way companies view customers. My agency's model, though developed in 2002, is pre-Cluetrain. You know, your market is consumers who eat content and crap cash. (Maybe that's why they're now out of business.)

Chris is definitely looking at things from a post-Cluetrain viewpoint. Now, if he can just get some clients to listen.

Seth Godin essentially called Jerry Garcia and the Grateful Dead the earliest practitioners of permission marketing:

More than Campbell's Soup or American Airlines or CAA or Cisco or McKinsey, the Grateful Dead is the template for how organizations are going to grow and succeed moving forward.

No, not every element of who they were and what they did, but the idea of conversations and open source, the idea of souvenirs and emotion and live events and of remarkability. The Dead sells through permission marketing, spread their music through an ideavirus and yes, as long as we're slinging buzzwords, profits from the long tail.

Since getting high and following a band as if they're Jesus has never been my thing, I don't know much about the Grateful Dead. But I'm thinking they're worth looking into. Any books you'd recommend?

Marketers Everywhere

2005-08-29T17:38:00.000-06:00

Wearing work blinders almost made me miss this one--Kathy says we're all marketers.

The word "marketing" (and by extension, "marketers") has a bad rep for sure, as does "advertising" and "PR". But they all share a common goal--connecting buyers and sellers. Isn't that what we're doing?

Sounds a bit like my conversation with Michael defending marketers. And before anyone gets in a hissy, I am in no way inferring that I started this meme. I doubt Kathy has walked the lonely halls of GrokMart.

Slim Postin's

2005-08-23T17:31:00.000-06:00

In case you've been wondering why my blog volume has been low the past few weeks, I have a few reasons. One: work has been busy, so I've been using my blogging time--riding the bus on the way home--to keep up with work. Another: my &@#*! wireless keyboard isn't working. If my post ends up being more than a few paragraphs,using my Treo's thumbboard is a painstaking experience.

Posting will continue to be slim for the next few weeks. In the meantime, I'm still here.

Getting GTD

2005-08-15T17:25:00.000-06:00

Today was my first try at David Allen's Getting Things Done--GTD in blog speak. I read about this method of staying on top of projects through Lifehacker and Steve Rubel. With work piling up after a week off and the new job getting more demanding, I thought it was time to see if GTD could help me.

I haven't read (or even purchased) the book, but took the recommendation of GTD evangelist Merlin Mann (43 Folders blog) to check out this PDF and this wiki. They were enough to inspire me to get started with GTD right away.

Even after one day, it's helped a lot. GTD's first step--getting stuff outside of your head and off your mind--was liberating. No, invigorating. Could it be that I won't have to deal again with that helpless, overwhelmed feeling when deadlines are crashing all around me? Maybe not, but today I felt more in control than I have in months.

I took an hour to just clear out everything I had been thinking about--commitments at home, work, church--and I wrote them all down in an MS Outlook note (which I sync with my Treo; no, I will not use Merlin's hipster PDA).

The stuff that I could do quickly--GTD's guideline says 2 minutes--I did right away. Again, that feeling of control was fantastic. Then I created tasks for everything in Outlook, which, again, I sync religiously.

GTD says to differentiate between projects and one-off tasks. Here's how I did that in Outlook: I created a task for each project, using ALL CAPS to show that it wasn't just a one-off task. Then, I created tasks for all the project steps, beginning each task entry with a one- to two-word label like "Newsletter:" or "White Paper:"

Empowerment feels good.

The Differentiator

2005-08-09T19:17:00.000-06:00

Just got back from a vacation where I enjoyed live conversation so much that I forgot about online conversation. Didn't even read blogs much less write one. But I had some experiences on the drive home that struck me as mktg blog-worthy.

Being in a terrific hurry (I didn't want to be in a van with three kids and a week's worth of laundry for any longer than necessary), we stopped for a quick bite at an Arby's just outside Butte, Montana. We ordered their 5 for $5.95 deal and waited. And waited. And waited. The restaurant wasn't real busy--there was no one in the drive-through behind me--but the employees, who looked to me to be in their late 20s/early 30s, wore don't-bug-me expressions. Ten minutes and several glares from me later, we got our sandwiches.

Contrast that with a stop we made three-and-a-half hours later in Pocatello, Idaho. Pocatello, BTW, is not the place to find fast food off the freeway. Everything is on theIr main drag, which isn't readily accessible from the north/south interstate. So I'm driving down residential streets and navigating one-way thoroughfares and cursing the city planners under my breath all in the hopes of finding a place where my kids can stretch their cramped muscles and give their vocal cords and my eardrums a rest. We finally find a McDonald's with a Playland, order the obligatory Happy Meals for the kids and some chicken strips for the adults. Small snag: the chicken, said the teenaged girl behind the counter, would be a few minutes, but she would bring them out to us. No problem. Two minutes later, as promised, the girl had the meals in hand, with some extra strips to compensate us for the wait.

Now, I'm not a fast food fiend, or one who likes to eat out a lot. But I'm much less inclined to visit an Arby's than I am a McDonald's now. Didn't used to be that way. But to my non-discerning palette, the food is all the same, and, all else being equal, I'll go where I'm treated better.

My experience was not unique, but it underscores a trend I've noticed in marketing: it's getting harder to distinguish companies by quality or price. But customers notice the difference in the way they're treated, in the way they feel when they're interacting with our companies. Service is the big differentiator.

Darkness Hates Light

2005-07-26T18:12:00.000-06:00

New York Times columnist Tom Friedman says part of the War on Terror should be exposing the anti-western propaganda:

We need to shine a spotlight on hate speech wherever it appears. The State Department produces an annual human rights report. Henceforth, it should also produce a quarterly War of Ideas Report, which would focus on those religious leaders and writers who are inciting violence against others. ...

Sunlight is more important than you think. Those who spread hate do not like to be exposed, noted Yigal Carmon, the founder of Memri, which monitors the Arab-Muslim media. The hate spreaders assume that they are talking only to their own, in their own language, and can get away with murder. When their words are spotlighted, they often feel pressure to retract, defend or explain them. ...

"Whenever they are exposed, they react the next day," Mr. Carmon said. "No one wants to be exposed in the West as a preacher of hate." ...

Every quarter, the State Department should identify the Top 10 hatemongers, excuse makers and truth tellers in the world. It wouldn't be a cure-all. But it would be a message to the extremists: you are free to say what you want, but we are free to listen, to let the whole world know what you are saying and to protect every free society from hate spreaders like you. Words matter.

Jarvis agrees, but says bloggers can shine a brighter spotlight than the State Dept can:

The point is not to stop the speech. The point is to expose the speakers. And why rely on a government body, especially the U.S. State Department, to do this. Rely instead on the civilized citizens of the world.

Backing Out

2005-07-21T07:13:00.000-06:00

A few months ago, I wrote that I wanted to use this blog to document a case study in persuasion. That was when the Utah Legislature's Privately Owned Health Care Organization Task Force was beginning, and I thought it would be interesting to analyze the type of persuasive tactics that were used in testimony before the legislators.

Honestly, the testimony hasn't been too interesting, but there have been a few instances where I thought it would warrant a post. At those times, though, something's made me hesitate, and then abandon the idea.

I'm glad I did.

This morning's Salt Lake Tribune contains a story where one of IHC's competitors is leveling accusations related to Task Force testimony. I'm not going to go into the details, but I will say the story doesn't tell the half of it. If this is the kind of distortionist tactics IHC's competitors are going to use against the company, then I don't want to give them any fodder.

So I'm taking a page out of the book of Jarvis: I'm not going to blog about IHC or anything related to the work I'm doing for them. Oh, and any opinions in this post, real or inferred, are mine and not my employer's nor any of its officers.

The New (Old) Killer Marketing App

2005-07-20T19:23:00.000-06:00

Something older than language is becoming the newest killer marketing app: the story.

Since I've been in this business (full disclosure... a little less than a decade), I've heard my managers and compatriots say, "We've got to tell our story." We weren't referring to gathering our customers around the proverbial fireside and regaling them with a tale of intrigue or humor. Telling our story meant buying advertising, developing messaging, focusing on reach and frequency, assuring that everyone possible knew that Company A stood for Message X.

That all still applies. But the talk in marketing circles today is more about weaving a compelling tale than about the media buy.

Cluetrain predicted this would happen when they saw the Internet turning us back to the oldest marketing model, where villagers would go to markets not only to buy things but to share stories. Seth Godin's All Marketers Are Liars, FWIH, isn't about encouraging us to lie, but about encouraging us to weave the most compelling story.

And now this from the blogosphere:

Narrative imagining story is the fundamental instrument of thought. Rational capacities depend on it. It is our chief means of looking into the future, of predicting, of planning, and of explaining. Most of our experience, our knowledge and our thinking is organized as stories.

That was cognitive scientist Mark Turner, by way of David Wolfe's Ageless Marketing. And this from Evelyn Rodriguez:

Call me crazy, but after being blown away by searing fresh writing from amateurs and professionals alike last week at a writer's conference, I'm left to wonder why we settle for just-the-facts-mam bland journalistic writing. Why can't narrative story-telling be used to illustrate and embed the statistics and five W's and have us feel the impact of the dissected facts?

Kathy's Passionate Readers

2005-07-17T19:42:00.000-06:00

Kathy Sierra's weblog--Creating Passionate Users--is one of my favorites. I'm not alone among marketers. I've seen links to "CPU" on many a marketing blogroll. But Kathy's main audience isn't marketers, it's software trainers and designers. The fact that so many of my mktg compatriots follow Kathy's blog backs up, I believe, my statement that "the problem [with marketing] is relevance, and marketers know it. That's why we listen when someone like Seth Godin coaches us on how to develop relationships with our audience." That's also why we listen when Kathy coaches us on creating passion among our "users," which I translate to "customers." Passionate customers are not only returning customers, they are also evangelists who can do a much more convincing job "spreading the word" about your product or service.

A few recent gems from Kathy: You're emotional. Deal with it:

People don't choose rationally to listen to your message and then have a feeling about it. They choose to listen to your message because they have a feeling about it.

If you're basing your communications solely on logical, rational, reasoned facts... the brain is not your friend. Emotions are the gatekeeper... if you want in, you gotta talk to the amygdala.

Ten Tips for New Teachers/Trainers:

Emotions provide the metadata for a memory. They're the tags that determine how important this memory is, whether it's worth saving, and the bit depth (metaphorically) of the memory. People remember what they feel far more than what they hear or see that's emotionally empty...
Humans spent thousands upon thousands of years developing/evolving the ability to learn through stories. Our brains are tuned for it. Our brains are not tuned for sitting in a classroom [or anywhere else, for that matter] listening passively to a lecture of facts, or reading pages of text facts. Somehow we manage to learn in spite of the poor learning delivery most of us get in traditional schools and training programs (and books)...
People often learn more from seeing the wrong thing than they do from seeing the right thing. Know why the brain spends far less time processing things that meet expectations, than it does on things that don't...
It's not about what YOU do... it's about how your learners [for marketers, read: customers] feel about what THEY can do as a result of the... experience you created and helped to deliver.

Advocating for the Customer

2005-07-15T17:46:00.000-06:00

Started a book--If Disney Ran Your Hospital, by Fred Lee. I'm not a hospital administrater, but as a communicator for a health care organization, I'm hoping to gain some insight into customer-directed marketing. I've only perused the first 15 pages, but I've already found something worth writing down. It's a quote from Terrance Rynn, a health care marketing consultant:

There is a profound difference between selling and marketing. Selling is trying to get people to want what you have. Marketing is trying to have what people want. When you have what people want, it makes selling unnecessary.

Yeah, it sounds like the type of quote that could get us marketers drunk on our own self-importance. But it's also a reminder that we aren't doing our jobs unless we're customer advocates.

Memo to the Terrorists

2005-07-07T17:45:00.001-06:00

An excerpt of British Prime Minister Tony Blair's reaction to this morning's terrorist attacks
(by way of Jeff Jarvis):

It is through terrorism that the people that have committed this terrible act express their values, and it is right at this moment that we demonstrate ours. I think we all know what they are trying to do - they are trying to use the slaughter of innocent people to cower us, to frighten us out of doing the things that we want to do, of trying to stop us going about our business as normal, as we are entitled to do, and they should not, and they must not, succeed.

When they try to intimidate us, we will not be intimidated. When they seek to change our country or our way of life by these methods, we will not be changed. When they try to divide our people or weaken our resolve, we will not be divided and our resolve will hold firm. We will show, by our spirit and dignity, and by our quiet but true strength that there is in the British people, that our values will long outlast theirs. The purpose of terrorism is just that, it is to terrorise people, and we will not be terrorised.

Memo to the terrorists: You will never prevail. You sow seeds of fear and threaten weeds of destruction, but the ground upon which you are sowing is as barren to your seeds as the Iraqi desert. The free world loves life and liberty, and we will never accept anything less.

Live 8 Worked

2005-07-07T08:14:00.000-06:00

Live 8 was a success. That's my perspective anyway. I admit I didn't watch, but 2 billion people did. True, it had its share of critics--some saying that no one pays attention to celebrity anymore, others questioning Bob Geldof's (the event's organizer) motives. Many from the continent of Africa (like this one) said Live 8 would do more harm than good. (Nelson Mandela wasn't one of them.)

But 2 billion people tuned in.

That's almost a third of the world's population.

I've thought a bit about last week's question: why do events like this make a lasting impression? I think Live 8 worked because of two factors: attention and truth. Celebrity got our attention; the music kept our attention. And Brad Pitt and Claudia Schiffer and Bono and Paul McCartney and others spoke the truth--that the place of our birth should not be allowed to determine the course of our lives, that everyone has within them a seed of potential, which given the right environment, can blossom and grow and become beautiful, that we can help Africa nurture its people.

The G8 leaders probably won't make sweeping changes in their policies toward Africa. Most of the 2 billion viewers won't change their everyday lives because of what they saw. Change of mind and heart rarely happens overnight. But seeds of change have been sown. Collective awareness has been raised. People are thinking about Africa. They're questioning their assumptions. That's where change begins.

UPDATE: Looks like Live 8 was more successful than I thought it would be. After G8 leaders doubled African aid to $50 billion and agreed in principle to forgive the debt of 18 of the world's poorest countries, Bono declared victory:

Irish rock star Bono, who helped organize last weekend's global Live 8 concerts to pressure G-8 leaders to spend more money on Africa, said "a mountain has been climbed."

"We've pulled this off," he said. "The world spoke and the politicians listened."

And from Tony Blair:

"All of this does not change the world tomorrow. It is a beginning, not an end."

Persuade the World

2005-07-01T20:41:00.000-06:00

Unless you've put your brain on a mass-media free diet for the past month, you know that Live 8 is tomorrow. The worldwide concert is using the power of music and celebrity to raise awareness of and change minds about poverty in Africa and the debt burdens of its nations.

(I won't be watching. My son is getting baptized tomorrow, and we'll be having lots of people over.)

My memories of the original Live Aid are still vivid. I rememer that The Hooters (who can forget a name like that) broke in to the music scene at Live Aid; so did Tracey Chapman. Mick Jagger and David Bowie debuted their made-for-Top-40 single: a remake of "Dancing in the Streets." George Michael, whom I idolized at the time (I almost hate to admit it), sang a rendition of Marvin Gaye's "Sexual Healing." Unfortunately I was too into the pop scene to appreciate the truly great performances: U2's set at Live Aid legendary, but I didn't see it.

Tomorrow's event has a slightly different purpose than the original's, which was to raise money for hunger in Africa. There will be more venues besides the original Philadelphia and London stages. And there will be more media. Live 8 will be broadcast on multiple channels and blog tracker Technorati is pushing for big blog coverage--50 bloggers won the privilege of live blogging the event backstage. But the purpose and the outcome will likely be the same: people will start to care about suffering in Africa.

My question is, why will we care more tomorrow than we do today? Is it that we crave to connect celebrity, and this event is a ready-made connection? Is it that when we finally start paying attention to something outside our own spheres of concern that we finally start seeing the truth about the world around us? Is it something else entirely?

Jarvis' Very Public Hell

2005-07-01T17:27:00.000-06:00

Kryptonite locks are the poster child for being oblivious to or ignoring what your customers are saying about you online. Could Dell be next?

Ueber-blogger Jeff Jarvis bought a lemon of a laptop from Dell--almost everything in the computer's guts failed. And although he bought their most expensive, in-home warranty package, he found himself on the phone for hours with "customer service"--Jarvis referred to it as Dell Hell. After much back and forth, which he chronicled on his blog (it has a readership of more than 100,000), he finally decided to convert to an Apple Powerbook.

Here's the amazing thing: while Jarvis has been railing against Dell to thousands of readers for the past week, Dell as a company appeared to be oblivious to all this until Jarvis sent an email to some Dell executives. C'mon, Dell, it's the new millenium. People are having very public conversations about you online. That means they want to be heard. That means you should listen. And it's not that hard. Set up an RSS aggregator, create and subscribe to a PubSub query and you're good to go. This whole thing would be comical if I didn't find it so depressing.

UPDATE: Jarvis' blog is powerful, and he knows it. He continues today:

: You know what: If Dell were really smart, they'd hire me (yes, me) to come to them and teach them about blogs, about how their customers now have a voice; about how their customers are a community -- a community often in revolt; about how they could find out what their customers really think; about how they could fix their customers' problems before they become revolts; about how they could become a better company with the help of their customers.

It's All Spam

2005-06-28T07:54:00.000-06:00

Michael Cleverly replies:

Is there any way to distinguish the business model of Meier & Frank (casting as wide a net as possible to sell their wares, driving Don's wife to hate marketers in the process) and the sundry firms who daily seem to try to get me to enlarge various organs of my body, or buy all kinds of perscription drugs online? Aren't they too merely casting the net that their business model requires?

Can't argue with that logic (honestly, Michael, since most of your logic is right on, I'll never argue with you much). That's another reason I think the current model can't last forever.

So I guess we are in violent agreement.

Another reason the current model can't last: TV advertising isn't working as well as it used to (from Bloomberg News by way of Jeff Jarvis):

Ad spending worldwide should increase 5 percent or 6 percent this year, Roberts, 55, said in an interview at the International Advertising Festival in Cannes, France. Annual growth will slow to an average of about 4 percent after 2005 as TV prices "come down,'' he said late yesterday. "They will have to. Otherwise advertisers are going to leave the medium.'' ...

In the U.S., television networks "seem to be gouging advertisers,'' Roberts said. "Their rates are going up and the return on investment is coming down.''

Thanks for the conversation.

Score One for the First Amendment

2005-06-27T18:15:00.001-06:00

Being employed in the marketing/communications field, as well as considering myself devout, the First Amendment has everyday importance to me. I believe in the entire First Amendment. I also believe today's Supreme Court rulings are a victory for Americans.

Since I've paid attention to the church/state debate, I've thought that proponents of 10 Commandments displays were barking up the wrong tree. It's not about religion; it's about history. The Ten Commandments is one of the pillars (not the only pillar, as fellow buzzmachine commenters reminded me) of Western civilization. So what if prohibitions against killing, lying and stealing are the only overt references to the Ten Commandments we now find in our law? The point is, they established a widely held "rule of law," and they are part of our government's ancestry. They deserve a space on government property. But only because of their historical significance.

Say someone who shares my LDS beliefs wanted to erect a memorial listing the LDS Church's "Articles of Faith." Even though I believe the tenets the articles espouse, I would find such a monument morally reprehensible. (UPDATE: Should have noted that I would find such a monument morally reprehensible if it were erected on government property. It doesn't belong there.)

I don't consider myself a strict separationist by any means. I think it's wrong that the prevailing demands for "freedom from religion" are squelching religion from public life. But I agree with Justice Souter that the government should be neutral on the subject of religion.

Promotion's Hard Realities

2005-06-24T17:35:00.000-06:00

I wanted to say more in my response to Michael Cleverly's post on marketing. But I'm hamstrung by my Treo. I know, I'm lame. I have this nice all-in-one communication tool with which I can blog from anywhere, and I'm complaining. But Treo's default browser doesn't allow more than 2000 characters in a textarea field. Any suggestions for a work-around?

At any rate, Michael's objection wasn't with marketing, it was with promotion. Promotion--advertising, direct, publicity, media relations and the like--is probably the most villified of the 5 P's (the other four, for you non-marketers, are product, placement, pricing and position). I believe some of that disdain is deserved. But in most cases, the problem isn't that marketers want to manufacture a need. They just want to be the one out of many choices that people make. They want to connect buyer and seller.

Of the millions of people that see a TV spot for Meier & Frank, the vast majority of them will ignore it. The rest of audience will either go to the store or wish they could. But for a retailer like M&F, whose business model depends on getting as many people into the store that they possibly can, that's the best they can do. They've got to cast as wide a net as they can. Competition and the constant need for growth compel almost all businesses to do the same.

Most of the promotion we experience has nothing to do with us, and we hate the interruption.

The problem is relevance, and marketers know it. That's why we listen when someone like Seth Godin coaches us on how to develop relationships with our audience. That's why we're so interested in conversational technology like blogs and wikis, because it will allow us to better reach and relate to the people who will buy our products and use our services.

But, sadly, no technology or tactic will make much difference until the economic reality for most businesses changes. And I don't see that happening soon.

Justifiable Fear?

2005-06-24T07:43:00.000-06:00

Something I read in the local paper got me thinking about when it may be justifiable to use the FUD tactic.

The Salt Lake Tribune reported that Salt Lake County was hearing public comment about their plan to spend $10.8 million to improve their water system. Their appeal? Public safety. Firefighters can't effectively respond to fires in the area because the system doesn't have enough water pressure. Lives and homes could be lost without this upgrade. Why now? A new fire district was taking over, and with jurisdiction changing hands, there is a small window of opportunity for the county to spread the cost with other governmental entities. If they didn't do it now, it would cost them more later.

While most of the citizens at the meeting opposed the plan, the county's message got through to some:

"I came against the resolution, but they have convinced me that there's a problem with the fire hydrants," said [resident] Linda Zenger.

So that leads me to ask the question, when is using fear, uncertainty and doubt justified?

In this case, I think county leaders were right because a) there is a legitimate public safety risk, and b) there wasn't much time to convince people by using other methods. As long as the county is telling the whole story so that their constituents can make an informed decision, this was a good call.

Are there any situations where marketers should use FUD?

Marketing's PR Problem

2005-06-22T07:40:00.000-06:00

My friend Michael has been reading GrokMart -- thanks, pal -- and agrees with my wife's assessment of marketing (who's asked to remain nameless by the way... She's still smarting from a college essay I posted to a long-gone personal website that offered a humorous--or so I thought--take of the stress of trying to have a baby. I WON'T be posting that here.).

Michael's take on marketing:

Of course I've always been somewhat skeptical of marketing. My parents taught me as a child to realize that advertising was meant to play on my emotions. That I wouldn't necessarily be as happy with <fill in the blank toy> as the children depicted on TV. That the happy smiling beautiful people in cigarette ads in magazines weren't made happy by the cigarettes they were smoking...

You may be surprised, Michael, but I agree with you (except for the part where you named Satan as the first great marketer. Ouch.) My better half, for her part, tells me she's just tired of being made to feel lame because she doesn't have an endless supply of cash to go to every "Saturday Only!" sale that Meier & Frank and JCPenney and Mervyn's are trumpeting. Personally, I would like to get my hands around the neck of the person who first promoted shopping as a leisure activity.

I DESPISE advertising that manufactures need. I think much of the advertising aimed at kids borders on the unethical.

But that's not marketing.

Not the essence of it anyway. Marketing is much more than promotion. It's also about developing products and services that meet a need, pricing them at a level the market can bear, placing them where they can be found, and staking a brand position in the market that differentiates them from the competition. The essence of all these things is facilitating the connection between buyer and seller.

Use It or Lose It

2005-06-21T07:53:00.000-06:00

In my view, the more I know about how the brain functions, the more I can understand human behavior. That's why I read Dr. John Ratey's A User's Guide to the Brain, (which I promised to blog about -- I haven't forgotten). While reading User's Guide, I was struck by how much researchers learn about the brain by studying brain disorders such as ADHD, autism and Alzheimer's.

Alzheimer's research is bearing fruit. This article summarizes ways that people can prevent Alzheimer's by exercising their brain.

Your brain is like a muscle use it or lose it. Brain scans show that when people use their brains in unusual ways, more blood flows into different neural regions and new connections form. Do a new type of puzzle, learn to play chess, take a foreign language class or solve a vexing problem at work. Try to challenge your brain daily, Edgerly advises.

Elizabeth Edgerly, mentioned above, heads a free program in California to teach people how to exercise their brain in hopes of avoiding Alzheimer's. Her other tips include involving one's self in social groups and getting as much education as possible, having an interesting job, and avoiding stress and worry.

On the drug front, researchers at Myriad Genetics, a Salt Lake City biotech company, have developed a compound that is showing promising results in stopping the spread of plaque in the brain that is thought to be the main cause of Alzheimer's.

Selling the Sneezers

2005-06-20T17:41:00.000-06:00

One of the reasons I read blogs is to read the kind of thinking that Hugh MacLeod dispenses. The guy's brilliant. I don't know of anyone else who can deconstruct corporate marketing as swiftly or as creatively. Plus, his cartoons are a crack up.

Today's post is vintage Hugh.

Ordinary people actually aren't that different than ad agencies i.e. they're only going to tell your story if there's something in it for them. With ad agencies, it's easy- they just want the large wads of cash. Odinary people want something else. Status. Cool factor. Peace, Love and Happiness. Whatever.

Forget your "product benefit" for a second. Instead, just ask yourself, when somebody's telling your story to other people, what's in it for them? What's their angle?

Thanks, Seth

2005-06-20T07:42:00.000-06:00

Last night, my wife told my sister, who's also in marketing, "No offense, but I'm beginning to hate marketers. All marketing tries to do is sell you stuff you don't need."

(What does she think of me, you ask? As long as I pay the bills, I guess I'm safe from her ire :-)

Well, darling, here's an answer to you from Seth Godin, the world's best-known marketer:

Marketing is not about trickery or even insincerity. It's about spreading ideas that you believe in, sharing ideas you're passionate about... and doing it with authenticity. Marketing is about treating prospects and customers with respect, and realizing that it's easier to grow the amount of business you do with happy people than it is to find new strangers to accost.

True

2005-06-15T07:41:00.000-06:00

Evelyn Rodriguez's latest post hits on themes I love to talk about: human behavior, motivating through love, authenticity. Her thesis: It ain't hard.

What do I already know?
Marketing is about people, period.
People respond to love, period. What of fear, you ask? Fear being of the Ego is totally unpredictable. You are on your own terra incognita there...
Authenticity is about being yourself - who you are, period.

Organizations spend a significant amount of money trying to find out what they are, not only in the minds of their customers, but in the minds of their executives. That research, if done right, will bear fruit.

But, as Seth would say, it's all a lie because, as Locke would say, corporations are fictions. No matter how much good the organization does, no matter how benevolent or virtuous, no matter how honest and trustworthy, a corporation can't be personal or authentic, because it's not a person.

So where does that leave me when I'm marketing a corporation? For better or worse, I'm left with me. And the best I can be is authentic. The best I can do is love my work, the people I work with and the people I'm trying to reach.

FUD

2005-06-14T07:52:00.000-06:00

Utah legislator John Dougall's post on the opponents of Utah's porn legislation used a term I hadn't heard of before--FUD, or fear uncertainty and doubt. There's even a wikipedia article on it (but, with more than half a million articles, wikipedia covers just about everything, doesn't it?). No doubt about it: fear motivates, especially, for Americans, fear of government interference.

UPDATE: Broken link fixed. Thanks, Michael, for the heads up.

10 Commandments of Blogging

2005-06-13T18:17:00.000-06:00

My PR hero and father of my Gmail account Steve Rubel blogs the 10 Commandments of Blogging. To my PR buddies at IHC and elsewhere, thou shalt read and ponder.

Free speech or mob violence?

2005-06-03T17:56:00.000-06:00

Here's a textbook example of persuasion by "playing to the crowd." Animal rights activists are saying that their free speech rights are being violated when their civil disobedience tactics are being prosecuted as terrorism.

The activists, members of a group that call themselves "SHAC," have been charged with intimidating employees of New Jersey-based Huntingdon Life Sciences, which tests pharmaceutical products on animals.

The group, via its website, rails against the charges, stating, "This is a frightening step in the Bush administration's path to war on domestic dissidence,"

Their they are, trying to convince us that their plucky little organization is just doing its moral duty, appealing to the Bush haters and those of us with libertarian streaks.

Funny, but isn't it New Jersey, not the Justice Dept, which filed the charges? And can you really call (allegedly) "invading offices, damaging property, stealing documents, ... spraying cleaning fluid into the eyes of [Huntingdon] employees, smashing the windows of their homes and threatening to kill or injure members of their families" domestic dissidence?

Call me close-minded, but I think the right term is "mob intimidation."

First persuasion report

2005-06-02T17:59:00.000-06:00

It's been a week since the Privately Owned Health Care Organization Task Force's initial meeting, and it's about time I put my thoughts on the persuasive tactics used there into words.

But I'm hesitant.

The problem I see is people outside and inside IHC could construe my take to be the company's take. So, for what it's worth, here's my disclaimer:

The following is my opinion and mine only. In no way does it reflect the views of my employer, Intermountain Health Care, or any of its officers.

There. I hope that's enough. Here goes:

Persuasive tactic number one: Me too. IHC claims to have become an integrated health system because it's better for their patients. They can influence outcomes in every aspect of care, from detection and prevention to the actual delivery of care as well as any after-care follow-up.

Two of IHC's competitors--MountainStar, a six-hospital system owned by HCA, and Regence Blue Cross Blue Shield, a multi-state health insurer--both stated that while quality of care at IHC's facilities is excellent, organizations that are not integrated can also promote excellent quality.

Jack Towsley, a VP at MountainStar, said there are no widely-accepted quality standards in health care. Some of the quality recognition lists his hospitals are in (his HCA DBA has six in Utah) don't include IHC hospitals at all. Towsley said he would pit the quality of his hospitals against IHC's hospitals any day.

Regence's Jennifer Cannaday also stated that cost and quality are not only the hallmarks of an integrated system.

My take? Not every organization could use this "me-too" strategy. Regence has operations in the northwest and are essentially tied with IHC as the largest health insurer in Utah. MountainStar is an HCA company, the largest hospital chain in America. If the claims they made were made by some county-owned, rural hospital, or by one of the smaller insurance plans, it wouldn't hold much weight. But "me-too" can work for these in these cases, because, as Mr. Towsley intimated, data can't tell the whole story. There are, so the cliche goes, lies, damn lies and statistics. Without some sort of standard set up by the Task Force, all the stakeholders in its deliberations may just be entitled to their own set of facts.

I'm no pundit

2005-05-27T17:18:00.000-06:00

I'm eight years out of college and have done just about covered the communications field. I've worked in PR, marketing, web development and management. I've had experience in media relations, issues management, as well as video, publication and online production. I'm also a pretty good writer. If I really wanted to, I could try to position myself as an expert, write columns, do presentations, get famous.

But I'm no pundit. I have too much to learn. I'm just beginning to scratch the surface in terms of knowing why people behave the way they do, where their motivations come from, what makes things meaningful in their lives. In 15 or 20 years, maybe I would feel like I have enough knowledge to impart, to become a guru like Doc or Seth or the hundreds of highly-regarded marketers out there. Honestly, I doubt that will happen.

In the meantime, I'm more interested in the conversations I can have with others like me; people who are fascinated by who we are, how we relate, what drives us, what makes us so individual yet so similar. This invitation is open to all.

Finally... a link

2005-05-26T20:40:00.000-06:00

Got to give a grateful shout out to Michael Cleverly, a former co-worker and current friend, who mentioned me on his blog, Cleverly Blogged, a few days ago. He was the first blogger, besides myself, of course, to link to Grokmart.

Michael's a talented programmer. I worked with him publisher/retailer Deseret Book. Michael almost single-handedly built a custom back end that powered an online store, auctions site, ticket retailer and community site. The stuff he built could beat, hands down, any of the packaged stuff that was on the market. He blogs about open source (most of it's over my head), his family, and various other stuff.

Thanks again, Michael.

A Case Study in Persuasion

2005-05-26T09:25:00.000-06:00

The first meeting of the Privately Owned Health Care Organization Task Force begins today. The task force was created by the 2005 Utah legislature to study the health care landscape in this state. Some legislators felt that my employer, Intermountain Health Care, weilded too much power and wrote bills that were aimed at directly at the company. One bill would have levied a three percent gross receipts tax on the not-for-profit company. Another would have forced IHC to sell its health plan operation.

The task force was a compromise that called for studying issues such as IHC's non-profit status of and the effects of integrating hospitals, clinics, physicians and insurance under a single umbrella, among many other issues. See their mandate here and here.

I'd like to use this space to report on the persuasive tactics used by the various parties involved. No, this won't become a house organ for IHC. Obviously, my bias will be toward my employer, and I probably won't be able to blog everything I know. But the point here is to examine how the various parties will try to influence the process.

On the Cluetrain

2005-05-25T18:19:00.000-06:00

Before last month, I was probably the only person in the blogosphere who hadn't read The Cluetrain Manifesto, but during my break from blogging, I finally took the opportunity. After reading it (Cluetrain), I get it (blogging).

Some thoughts:

Weinberger said that, at least in 2000, we hadn't figure out what the Web is for. But we will as soon as we find our voice and have at it. Then we will truly redefine ourselves and our society. Me: Has blogging, not much of a phenomenon in 2000, helped us find our voice? Yes, moreso at least than chat, bbs, email groups, etc. The difference between blogging and the other technologies is this: with blogs, anyone can have a soapbox, and they can also converse from soapbox to soapbox. Personal homepages were soapboxes, but didn't allow for conversation. IRC and bulletin boards were great for conversation, not so great for getting noticed by the public at large. Blogging gives us both. Has it redefined ourselves and our society. No. But I am confident that some form of conversational media, be it blogs, folksonomies, wikis, or some emerging technology, is the way that society is moving. If I may indulge in a blogging cliche, "the Cluetrain has left the station."
A quote that corporate execs should frame on their wall:
"With more people, more stories in the mix, it's harder for one negative story to sway me. This speaks to the need to have many people in an organization talking to customers. A single corporate story is a fiction in a world of free converation. Corporate stories, like corporate culturees, are informed by individuals over time through many contacts, conversations and opportunities to tell stories."

-- Cluetrain, page 67

As countless PR bloggers have already said, public relations people needs to take a good hard look at the way we practice. Blogs subvert command and control. If an employee blogs something about my company and a reporter finds it newsworthy, it will probably end up in the newspaper or on the nightly news. What can I do about that? More importantly, SHOULD I do anything about it. We should encourage our employees that blog to blog the truth as they see it. They should be smart about it -- you know, avoid giving out salaries and trade secrets and such. They should also be respectful to their co-workers and customers. But their jobs make up at least a third of their waking lives, and they should be able to say something about them. They should feel free to blog about the good work they do, about how they're making a difference in their company. They should fear no recrimination if they blog their frustrations or how they would make the company better. Passionate employees are the best employees, and they should be encouraged to blog about their passions.

Hypocrite Alert

2005-05-25T08:09:00.000-06:00

I have three kids. Like most parents, I wouldn't trade my kids for all the oil in the Middle East. They're intelligent, funny, multi-talented, and extraordinarily difficult to put to bed.

Sunday night, as I was screaming to them that they'd lose all things dear to them if they didn't get to bed and stay there, the little voice inside my psyche whispered, "You're motivating out of fear."

More often than I'm willing to publish, I threaten, cajole and raise my voice to decibels unhealthy for my kids ears and my vocal chords. Does that make me a bad parent? Maybe, but it makes my parents and millions of others bad parents, too. Honestly, I believe my kids will grow up to be well-adjusted, responsible adults despite the fact that I have used "do-it-or-else" tactics.

Does it make me a hypocrite? Absolutely.

This is one area where I can test my motivation hypothesis and see immediate results. I'm a father. Despite their actions to the contrary, my kids love me. I have the perfect opportunity to use love as a motivator -- my love for them and their love for me.

Well, I tried Monday night -- and generally succeeded -- to be measured, calm and persuasive. And, just as I suspected, the tactic failed miserably. One reason: appealing to higher motivations takes time to produce results, because a change of heart, attitude or habit takes time. An object at rest, especially an object whose visual perceptors are glued to a television set, tends to stay at rest.

But I'm optimistic that a change will occur. And I'll continue to report on this experiment every so often.

Is My Nose Growing?

2005-05-24T07:15:00.000-06:00

The more I read from Seth Godin about his new book -- All Marketers Are Liars -- the more I think I ned to shell out the cash for the book. It's germane to the discussion I want to have here.

A few of his recent posts speak to my "marketing with the truth" schtick.

All (successful) politicians are liars (from Seth's Liar's Blog):

John Kerry lost to an unpopular incumbent seeking reelection for just one reason: he insisted on focusing on facts, on issues, on position papers and on nuance. He acted like an intellectual bully, refusing to worry about the story he told. George W. Bush, on the other hand, was absolutely masterful in the way he told a story that a portion of the electorate wanted to hear. It may be, that like me, you wish that all issues were decided on facts and reliable data. They never are. We're people, not machines, and we believe stories, not facts.

The Placebo Affect from (Seth's Blog:)

We [marketers] don't like to admit that we tell stories, that we're in the placebo business. Instead, we tell ourselves about features and benefits as a way to rationalize our desire to to help our customers by allowing them to lie to themselves. The design of your blog or your package or your outfit is nothing but an affect designed to create the placebo effect. The sound Dasani water makes when you open the bottle is more of the same. It's all storytelling. It's all lies. Not that there's anything wrong with that. In fact, your marketplace insists on it.

Seth has admitted in past postings (sorry, no link, only memory) that he chose the "All Marketers Are Liars" title because of its shock value. One could replace the word "liar" with the word "storyteller."

Seth is the god of marketing, and I've got the brain of a flea when compared to him. But I'll be interested to see if his book meshes with or contradicts my ideas about truth and motivation.

Be Afraid

2005-05-20T17:15:00.000-06:00

I've wanted to blog Kathy Sierra's post -- Think, or Be Afraid -- ever since I read it about a week ago. Kathy is the brilliant creator of the Head First programming books and primary writer of the Creating Passionate Users blog. She contends, correctly, in my opinion, that you can't think and be afraid at the same time. It's an "either, or" proposition.

Of course, marketers know that and capitalize on it. Kathy says:

Imagine that you did want someone to be afraid, because you specifically do not want them thinking rationally and logically. What if your goal is to convince them to do something that's not in their best interest? One approach is to make sure that they stay as fearful and anxious as possible, to make it more difficult for them to focus and think rationally. What if your goal is to convince them to do something that's not in their best interest? One approach is to make sure that they stay as fearful and anxious as possible, to make it more difficult for them to focus and think rationally. It's a trick that's been used by governments, managers, manipulate family members, and advertisers for ages.

Case in point, Kathy, is the advertising that OnStar is doing to promote their product. They're using kids speaking directly into the camera and urging us parents to use OnStar because it's the next big thing in safety. The commercial intimames that parents aren't doing everything can to keep their kids safe unless they have OnStar. That's a lie, a bold-faced one at that, and I hope the campaign falls on its face. Remember, if we're marketing to our audience's fears, we're talking down to them. Not a good long-term business strategy.

I'm Blogging This

2005-05-20T12:37:00.000-06:00

I'm here at the semi-annual communications meeting, presenting on blogs. Are blogs in IHC's future? Who knows?

LATER: My blogging presentation went well, but I'm not expecting us to start blogging in the near future. The comfort level just isn't there within the communications team. If it were, there would be other hurdles, like the resources needed to blog effectively,

But, in the interest of keeping the conversation going, I've set up a wiki using Backpack (sorry, not publicly accessible), where we can talk pros, cons and issues of blogging and other social media.

Obligatory "you'll-never-guess-where-I'm-blogging-from" post

2005-05-19T17:29:00.001-06:00

I'm sitting on a UTA bus heading home, and I'm blogging. I know, that's so 2003, but I'm darn excited about it. I just upgraded smartphones, making a quantum leap from a Treo 180 -- yup, the first Treo ever made -- to the Treo 650, a shiny new bundle of features.

I won't bore you with the specs, but this new model is quite a bit narrower than my old version, so the buttons are smaller. I'm sure I'll get used to it. The only bugaboo for me is that I've had to restart this post twice after fat-fingering the buttons and deleting all the text. Aargh!

The upside? I have an hour a day where I can read my Bloglines feeds and blog. I'll just need to put my thumbs on a diet. Either that or figure out how to get my fold-up keyboard to work.

UPDATE: I got my fold up keyboard to work -- I just needed to install the driver on the device. Hoping it will cut down on the snafus...

Catching Up

2005-05-19T08:08:00.000-06:00

Hey, it's been a month-and-a-half since I blogged, so I'd better catch all you loyal readers up on what I've been doing.

First, the job: Working at Intermountain Health Care has been wonderful and challenging. I work with incredible people who have been doing advertising, marketing and PR for 20-30 years, and who are highly regarded in Utah marketing circles. The projects they've given me are exactly the type I was hoping for. The legislative task force I mentioned previously is ramping up, and I'm doing some background research to help us prepare. I've also spent a considerable amount of time producing a video about a cost-savings program IHC is instituting that will help us save $8-10 million without cutting labor costs. (Aside: The plan is to use the savings we realize to add caregivers to the bedside. Pretty cool, in my eyes.) I've also written communications plans, newsletter articles, annual report copy. Busy, but lots of fun.

Second, the reading: I'm taking the bus into work now, which has given me ample time to read. I've finished two books in the last month: The Cluetrain Manifesto by Searls, Weinberger, Locke and Levine (I know, I know, I'm five years late), and A User's Guide to the Brain, by Dr. John Ratey (I wish this guy had a blog I could link to). I read Cluetrain, because, well, it's Cluetrain, and I'm living in a post-Cluetrain world. Thought I needed to catch up. I read Users's Guide because, as a (self-educated) student of human behavior, I thought it could open a window to why we act the way we do and how marketers can better persuade our audiences to take action. I'll blog my thoughts on these books later.

Third, the plan: I'm getting a Treo 650 (today I hope), and I've already bought a portable keyboard for it. Why? I plan to blog on the bus. With work, family and other obligations, it's probably the only time I'll have to keep up on this blogging thing. I really want to use this site to have a conversation with other blogging students (or experts) of human behavior. So, more to come.

ROTFL Story of the Day

2005-04-06T08:10:00.000-06:00

Viagra Linked to Blindness Risk.

I guess there was some truth to all those jokes about "going blind." Too funny.

Schiavo and the Pope

2005-04-05T21:16:00.000-06:00

Was it serendipity or irony when Terri Schiavo and Pope John Paul II died within days of each other? I found it interesting that the leader of an organization which came out strongly against the Schiavo court judgments died in a similar manner. One big difference between them, other than the cause of death, is that we know the Pope died the way he wanted to die. We're not exactly certain with Schiavo.

I also found interesting how the public reacted to both events. The Catholic Church came out strongly in favor of reinserting Schiavo's feeding tube. But their position didn't change many minds. Neither did the pleadings of her parents and siblings. The stark contrast of Schiavo prior to her fall and in the 12 years hence was enough to convince people that the state she was in was no way to live.

After the Pope's death, there was a huge outpouring of sympathy from all quarters, regardless of religion, from everyone from Muslims to evangelical Christians. What caught me most off guard were the comments by some Catholic mourners interviewed by NBC on April 2, the day of the Pope's death. "Although we didn't always agree with him," some said (not verbatim), "we consider him to be a great man."

Lesson to learn here: you don't change people's minds by, excuse the pun, pontificating. Most American Catholics disagreed with their church's stance on birth control, the war in Iraq, the death penalty, etc. I would be surprised if the Catholic majority agreed with the Vatican's opposition to Terri Schiavo's court-mandated right to die. In these cases, the Pope was preaching to the choir, but the choir disagreed.

It's not just important that you speak the truth. It's equally important -- maybe more important -- how you speak truth.

How to Get Rich Slow

2005-03-31T21:08:00.000-07:00

As I've stated earlier, I believe great persuasive power comes from appealing to an audience's higher motivations with unchangeable truth. What I haven't written about is how to do this effectively.

The fact is, finding the nuggets of truth that appeal to people's most important values is extremely difficult. Putting those truths to use is even harder. It's much easier to market to our lower motivations -- greed, power, lust, etc.

A few years ago I worked for a Salt Lake City publisher/retailer called Deseret Book. They produce books, music and other products primarily for members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Back in 2000 or 2001, they retained the services of a national research firm to help them understand what their audience valued most. The idea was that if they could know what was most important to their audience, they could use that information in their operations, their publishing, their retailing and, most importantly, their marketing.

They got some great data from that research (however, I'm honor-bound not to share it). But, in my opinion, they have yet to put the research into effective practice. They've come close. In 2002, after I had left the company, they introduced a new slogan -- What Matters to You Matters to Us. I believe they were trying to communicate that their audience could find books, music, video, software and other products that matched with their core values. Brilliant, I thought. But it wasn't more than a few months later that I saw them using a different slogan -- We price match for you.

Talk about an about face. Why move from a classy, meaningful slogan to one that is so... bleah?

Since I wasn't with the company at the time, I'm not certain why they made such an abrupt switch. I have a few theories, though. The execs at the time I worked there were infamously impatient. Maybe they didn't see immediate impact in cash flow. What's more likely is they were looking over their shoulder at the competitor, Seagull Book (yes, as wacked as it sounds, there's competition in the LDS book market). Seagull had been making steady inroads into Deseret Book's customer base, staking the claim as the place where you'd never pay full price. When I worked at Deseret Book, Seagull was hated, jeered ... and feared.

DB executives would do well to take the advice of Howard Mann of DIG Tank -- Lose Your Nemesis.

If I knew how to mass produce value appeals, I'd be a millionaire. Honestly, I don't know that there are seven habits or 12 steps that any company can use to even slowly produce value appeals. I believe the journey will be different for every company. But like any branding effort, value appeals are definitely NOT a get-rich-quick solution.

New Gig

2005-03-28T21:07:00.000-07:00

Just started a new job today with Intermountain Health care, an integrated, non-profit health system in Salt Lake City that includes hospitals, clinics, physician groups and health plans. I'll be in the corporate communications department working as a writer.

I have a history with IHC -- I worked my way through college as a clerk at one of their hospitals, then, during my senior year, I interned in the hospital's PR department. This is a company I believe in. I believed in them even as I was delivering carts filled with rubber gloves and sharps containers to the medical floors.

Remember the story of the reporter who asked a janitor at the Kennedy Space Center what his job was? The janitor answered, "I'm helping to put a man on the moon." I was that guy at Logan Regional Hospital. My first job there was to make certain the medical staff had all the supplies they needed. In my eyes, I was helping the hospital staff provide high-quality, efficient, affordable care. I organized the supply rooms to be orderly and easy to access, and I made sure they were fully stocked and that the supplies were rotated. Maybe I wasn't the key cog, but I made the jobs of the key cogs easier.

Working in the hospital PR department was tremendous. I interviewed and wrote stories about people who benefited from the charity care the hospital provided. I publicized a community health fair. I even wrote a series of articles on interpersonal communications for the hospital newsletter. I've always hoped I could return to work for IHC. It's been eight years, but I got my wish.

IHC has PR issues. A handful of Utah legislators during the February legislative session were pushing first to tax the system, and then introduced a bill to break it up. By the end of the session, the legislature voted to form a task force (link may break... sorry) to study whether IHC's tax exempt status gives it monopolistic power.

I don't know if I'll be spending my time on these issues, but I hope so. This is the type of environment that PR practitioners crave. No, it's not about spin. It's about persuasion. It's about fact and solid arguments winning over hype and fear. Looking forward to it. I'll share as much as I can here...

Facing the Truth

2005-03-16T21:08:00.000-07:00

I closed Power of Truth post stating my desire to explore the practical ways the truth can be applied to marketing. There's a lot to learn in the blogosphere about this subject.

One of the blogs I enjoy reading is DIG Tank, written by marketing consultant Howard Mann. Mann's mantra is "Truth, Creativity & Power," and he regularly blogs on how businesses can benefit just by facing and acting upon the truth about themselves, their competitors and their customers.

His March 13 post titled "Losing Your Story" makes a great point. The "story" Mann refers to consists of "the lies and rationalizations we tell ourselves that prove ourselves right or wrong about things that happen to us." In other words, business people frequently delude themselves into thinking their failures are someone else's fault. Says Mann...

The interesting fact about one's story, is that it typically is the result of years of old (and often incorrect) thinking and, therefore, makes the story false (or misleading at best). All too often, they simply serve to protect ourselves from some painful truth...

What if you told yourself that you lost a piece of business because the competition is really better than you? That you really didn't pay proper attention to the personalized service you touted in your brochure? You simply got beat from someone who had something better to offer.

Facing the truth can help us see where our strategy or our execution is lacking. It won't make it all better, but it's a start on the road to recovery.

The Persuasive Power of Truth

2005-03-14T22:04:00.000-07:00

Wow, it's been almost a month since I've blogged. Yet no one's complaining...

Back to marketing to higher motivations...

Let's face it. We work because we have to. Not that marketing and communications isn't rewarding, but I know I'd be writing books (or blogging more) if I had all the money I needed. We all need to provide for ourselves and those who depend on us. True, many of us have gone beyond need to greed, but it all stems from the same root.

How can we market to the highest of motivations if we don't have high motivations ourselves?

I don't classify providing for one's self as a "high" motivation. Why? A high motivation is, by my definition, one that prompts us to live outside ourselves -- to accept a world view that doesn't have "me" at the center. Think Maslow's hierarchy of needs. Anytime that we are self-focused we are meeting the lower needs on the hierarchy. Only when we are self-actualized do we start focusing on others.

Thinking past ourselves means more than just putting ourselves in our audience's shoes. So many times when I do that, I'm really saying, "What would I do or think or say if I were them?" All I'm doing is projecting myself on my audience.

The key to marketing to higher motivations? Truth. I'm not referring to the fuzzy, relativistic "truth." That type of truth subscribes to the mantra, "What's true for you may not be true for me." That isn't really truth at all. That's a self-focused world view.

Philosopher Terry Warner wrote a book called "Bonds That Make Us Free," a book that was the result of his years of studying human relationships. The book completely changed my outlook on life. His idea of truth is one where truths are independent, meaning truths don't change based on our experience. Our experiences may bring us closer to or move us away from independent truths, but our experiences will not -- can not -- change truth.

The problem with humans and truth is the walls that we build up around ourselves, according to Warner. These walls act as filters and keep us from truly seeing, feeling, experiencing the truth. We may come close to understanding. But true understanding only comes when we get outside those walls and see things, people, events as they truly are.

That is the type of truth that makes a difference. That is the type of truth that alters an opinion, that moves one to action, that brings about a change of heart. That is the type of truth that makes true persuasion possible.

What is the practical application for this? That is something I'd like to explore here...

Grokmart Reset

2005-02-17T21:13:00.000-07:00

In the month that I've blogged, I think I've come a little closer to where I'm trying to take this thing. I started out with the purpose of adding something to the blogosphere, this online marketplace of ideas where anyone, regardless of social status or resources, could rise in prominence based on the power of their ideas.

But I didn't want to write a blog about blogs. Recursion is for programmers. As Hugh Macleod says, blogging has moved beyond the tipping point. It has moved mainstream -- I don't think writing about blogging really adds anything to the conversation.

For about a half day, I envisioned GrokMart as a place where the blogosphere's most fascinating ideas could be discussed. That would be great -- even noble -- if I didn't have a job and an ever-increasing to-do list outside of work. Plus, I'm really not that interested in debating the value of someone else's ideas.

A few weeks ago, I changed Grokmart's description from "Don Seamons' contribution to the online marketplace of ideas" to "An examination of the power of ideas." Persuasion is really what gets me excited. How do we reach people, deeply? How do we go from getting their attention to changing their mind? In my opinion, that's the core of advertising/marketing/public relations. And that's what this site is about.

For now.

PR vs. Marcomm?

2005-02-11T14:01:00.000-07:00

I'm having an email conversation (I love gmail) with an owner of a PR agency. In her latest message, she said "you may be more of a marcomm professional than an overall PR pro."

Huh?

Yeah, marcomm is different from PR in its execution and in its strategy. But the core of marcomm, PR and even advertising is the same. It's understanding and listening to our audience. It's building relationships. It's speaking the truth.

I have a suspicion that this type of a statement is a relic of the old competition between PR, marketing and advertising. That's irrelevant today. "Markets are conversations" is the new mantra. The method of the conversation -- be it direct mail, channel marketing, the news media, or a full page ad -- is much less important than the conversation itself.

Marketing to Higher Motivations

2005-02-10T21:26:00.000-07:00

Quick. Name an advertiser or a marketer who motivates us to act out of pure love. Or virtue. Or kindness. Or compassion. Can you think of any? I can't. Sure, I can think of advertisers who tug at our heartstrings. AT&T encouraged us in the 70s to "reach out an touch someone." My mom could never watch one of those ads without crying. Hallmark still sponsors emotion-laden made-for-TV movies, and entertains us during the commercial breaks with 2-minute spots that show us why we're better off when we "care enough to send the very best." Budweiser (!) just about brought tears to my eyes during the most recent Super Bowl when it showed American GIs coming home from the Middle East to the applause of perfect strangers.

Is that marketing to our highest motivations?

I think those advertisers are encouraging us to associate our noblest feelings with their products. They're showing their understanding of what makes humans tick. They're using inspiration to break through the clutter.

Honestly, they may be pandering to our highest motivations.

Does marketing/advertising equal pandering?

In some cases, yeah. Did the AT&T bigs care how many friends and family they were bringing together? Does the Hallmark ad agency give a flying fig how many hearts they warmed? Do the Budweiser product managers really appreciate the sacrifice made by the men and women in uniform.

Maybe, maybe not. But they know their audience cares.

In most cases, I think a better word than "pandering" is "appealing." We marketers have our hats in hand, and we're making our best pitch, and, some of the time, we are promoting exactly what the customer/client/public needs. Oftentimes, we're trying to make numbers and are just putting lipstick on a pig. Can we market to our audience without manipulating our audience?

I'm an optimist. I think we can. Sure, we need to use our talents of influence and persuasion. But we can do it with the customer's/client's/public's best interest at heart. We can do it by appealing to the highest in all of us. It's not easy. But it's worthwhile. I don't know that it's more effective. Appealing to our fears, our lusts, and our self-indulgence works. But my gut tells me it has to be more effective over the long-term. Stands to reason it will be better for the brand, better for creating loyalty. And better for keeping the demons at bay.

Politics

2005-02-09T15:30:00.000-07:00

Reading through my last few posts (I'm my most avid reader), I'm seeing more of a political slant than I thought this blog would have. I'm not sure if that means I'm trying too hard to get noticed (political blogs are heavily read) or that politics means more to me than I thought.

I don't mean for this blog to be a political rant, but in the interest of full disclosure, here's my politics in a nutshell:

I'm not registered as a Republican or a Democrat, which I guess means I'm an independent.
I'm socially and fiscally conservative.
I'm an environmental moderate (smart growth, not sprawl)
I'm liberal when it comes to interpreting the free speech clause of the first amendment
I'm conservative when it comes to interpreting the establishment clause of the first amendment.
I voted for Bush, but thought Kerry would have made a fine president.
I love America.

There you have it.

Marketing to Base Motivations

2005-02-08T07:54:00.000-07:00

One of the wonderful things about working in marketing communications is that I get to dabble in the noble art of persuasion. I'm fascinated by why people do the things they do. And I'm equally fascinated with how communication in any form can motivate people to act.

Following up on last week's post, I think the reason there is so much fear-mongering is that it's so easy. It's much easier for Sen. Kerry to say that Bush would be to blame for thousands of possible flu deaths than it is to convince Americans that his own health care policy should get him elected. It's much easier for Pres. Bush to get us to fear Saddam Hussein's ability to share weapons of mass destruction with terrorists than to convince us that deposing a despot and building a democracy in the Middle East is better not only for America but for the entire world.

We marketers use fear and other base motivations all the time. Writing promotional copy for a conference, I've used the phrase "this is a conference you can't afford to miss" many times. The implication is if you don't attend, you won't get essential information, or worse, your competitor will.

The marketing profession more often than not motivates using these lower motivators including:

Greed (see financial services ads)
Lust (see beer commercials)
Self-indulgence (see travel industry commercials)

The problem is these type of motivators make empty promises. In the end, Merrill Lynch won't make you rich, Bud Light won't get you the girl, Carnival Cruise Lines won't make you happy and attending my company's conference won't make the difference between success and failure.

Is it any wonder that marketing, advertising and PR is becoming less and less effective?

Three Degrees of Motivation

2005-02-01T16:11:00.000-07:00

So the Centers for Disease Control is saying that despite the flu shot scare of last fall, we now have a flu shot surplus. Remember back in October when Sen. Kerry was saying Pres. Bush was to blame for our flu shot supply being cut in half? Doesn't that seem silly now?

Of course, scare tactics are standard fare in the world of politics. Pres. Bush made the case for invading Iraq based on "intelligence" that proved Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction and ties to Al Qaeda. (What gives me the greatest pause about having our troops there now is that the case for war was made -- intentionally or not -- under false pretenses.)

When we humans are motivated to act, we can file our motivations under one of three headers: fear, duty and love.

Fear is the basest of our motivations. Hate belongs in this category, too, but the root of hate is fear.
Duty is sort of a middle ground when it comes to motivation. We aren't acting for a negative reason, but since we're doing something because we have to, we aren't doing that thing for positive reasons, either.
Love is the highest form of motivation, and I'm not talking about the lustful, selfish love. I'm talking about the love that causes us to put aside our own agenda and genuinely want to do something for someone else.

Would we be at war if Pres. Bush had tried use duty to make the case for war? How about some higher motivation like love or compassion? Either way, the war would have been a tough sell.

Democrats for Sale

2005-02-01T14:07:00.000-07:00

Just reading a NYTimes article on the rift between Democrats and Republicans re: the Alberto Gonzales nomination. So I get to the bottom of the article (which consisted mostly of quotes from posturing Senators) and see this under "Advertiser Links":

Democrats
Great deals on new and used items. Search for democrats now! -aff
www.eBay.com

Are Democrats so rare that they're now being sold on eBay? lol.

Staying power? Maybe not...

2005-01-26T16:15:00.000-07:00

So much of politics is just empty rhetoric. Say something one day, backpedal the next, and hope the electorate doesn't notice. I congratulated Pres. Bush on his inaugural speech a few days ago because I thought his ideas had staying power. But the White House is pulling the policy reins. The Washington Post's Howard Kurtz, in an article I found by way of Jeff Jarvis, summarized it this way:

You might think that calling on the United States to spread freedom around the globe and stand against tyranny might have consequences.

It was a statement of ideals.

But what does the president plan to do to carry out those ideals?

There will be no change in administration policy.

But how can Bush call for action against regimes that oppress their people and still do business with the dictators of China, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan?

The goals the president set forth can only be met over a generation, not in a year or two.

Then was the speech just meaningless rhetoric?

It was an attempt to lay out his strategic vision about moral choices.

So we shouldn't take his words seriously?

The president believes in bold action to advance the cause of freedom.

But if he doesn't take any practical steps, won't he have failed to clear the bar he set for himself?

It was a statement of ideals.

FDR backed up his 1933 inauguration statement "We have nothing to fear but fear itself" with the New Deal. John F. Kennedy backed up his 1961 inaugural statement "Ask not what America can do for you, but what together we can do for the freedom of man" with the creation of the Peace Corps. Will Bush back up his statements? Doesn't look like it. Too bad.

Ideas are without action are just daydreams. Political ideas are useless without policy.

Where Do I Go from Here?

2005-01-25T16:47:00.000-07:00

Now that I've set the scene for what this blog is about, I'm struggling with how to continue. I'd like to use it to promote great ideas (through the lens of my own experience, of course), but I don't want it to turn into a quotation diary.

Any ideas? Comments are turned on -- you just need to register. (I require registration only to keep comment spam to a minimum. Feel free to use fake information.)

With the above in mind, I present my first link to another blogger's post. Jeff Jarvis, through his Buzz Machine blog, has a wonderful wit and a refreshing knack for getting to the point quickly.

My stand here is quite simple: I am intolerant of intolerance; I particularly don't like intolerance allegedly in the name of Jesus. That's my view. So we disagree. Glad we can.

This statement struck a chord with me. Maybe because I agree that many of us use Jesus to advance our own prejudices. Maybe because he's disagreeing without being disagreeable. Maybe because I love the whole First Amendment -- freedom of the press and freedom of religion.

There it is.

Online Marketplace of Ideas, Part 3

2005-01-24T13:02:00.000-07:00

For his 1985 novel Ender's Game, Orson Scott Card conjured up a network system -- called "the nets" -- where citizens debate the issues of the day. It was a tiered system, one where getting access to highest eschelons meant being noticed in the lower eschelons. To get noticed, you needed to have great ideas and great arguments. Ender's older siblings, Peter and Val, gamed this system as children and got access to the network's highest level. Peter eventually was elected the planet's multi-national leader -- essentially, he ruled the world.

The blogosphere is shaping up like Card's "nets". It's much more democratic than the nets -- anyone can post their own blog or place comments on millions of others. But stand out bloggers get noticed because of the currency of linking. Bloggers acknowledge each other by referencing a blogger's idea, scoop or report, and that is done with a link. Most sites include a "blogroll" -- a list of links to other blogs that the author regularly reads (grokmart will have a blogroll soon).

Tools are emerging that measure the impact of blogs:

There's the traditional hit counters: Sitemeter, for one

Bloglines and Feedster offer a quick search of the pages that are linking to a blog.

Technorati offers a more involved service. It determines a blog's rank based on the number of links from an external source.

For those of you keeping track, GrokMart has a grand total of zero external links and a Technorati rank of 871,307. No chance of me ruling the world any time soon...

Online Marketplace of Ideas, Part 2

2005-01-20T16:25:00.000-07:00

Lots of cog floating about my cranium about the online marketplace of ideas, so this may take a few posts...

The blogosphere is obviously thriving -- you wouldn't be reading this obscure blog if it weren't. Bloglines says it indexes more than 257 million articles. Technorati watches more than 6.2 million blogs.

I was a college student when the Internet started to take off. There was buzz around the English department (I double majored in English and Journalism -- how's that for overkill?) about this new form of writing -- hypertext -- where the rules of communicating were supposed to be different. The hype coming from Silicon Valley was that everyone could be a publisher. I believed the hype and learned HTML and how to use WS_FTP. It helped me get a few jobs, but I never published my own website. Not that I couldn't have done it. It's just that no one would have cared.

Now thanks to blogging, my knowledge of HTML is useful but not necessarily essential. And FTP? What a pain. Blogs certainly make it easier to publish online. Does that make them revolutionary? No. But here's what does: The blogosphere is becoming the online marketplace of ideas because of the currency it gives to bloggers... (drum roll, please) Links.

(Can I hear a "yougottabekiddinme"?)

Linking is what gives bloggers their power. More to come.

Powerful Ideas in Inauguration Speech

2005-01-20T13:38:00.000-07:00

I didn't see the inauguration -- I was in the middle of editing a press release for bill review software, of all things. Thankfully, the full text of Bush's speech is available online. (Here's another link for those who don't want to register with nytimes.com.)

The speech has staying power. A few of the phrases that may be repeated in textbooks someday:

There is only one force of history that can break the reign of hatred and resentment, and expose the pretensions of tyrants and reward the hopes of the decent and tolerant, and that is the force of human freedom.

The survival of liberty in our land increasingly depends on the success of liberty in other lands. The best hope for peace in our world is the expansion of freedom in all the world.

Americans, of all people, should never be surprised by the power of our ideals. Eventually, the call of freedom comes to every mind and every soul. We do not accept the existence of permanent tyranny because we do not accept the possibility of permanent slavery. Liberty will come to those who love it.

[T]here is no justice without freedom, and there can be no human rights without human liberty.

We go forward with complete confidence in the eventual triumph of freedom. Not because history runs on the wheels of inevitability; it is human choices that move events. Not because we consider ourselves a chosen nation; God moves and chooses as He wills. We have confidence because freedom is the permanent hope of mankind, the hunger in dark places, the longing of the soul.

The man's got some good speech writers.

Why "GrokMart?"

2005-01-19T16:38:00.000-07:00

Writers know that when you write a first draft and let it sit for a day, the next time you look at it you almost always think it's garbage. That's happening to me a day after I created this blog. I'm having second thoughts about the title. It seems a bit presumptuous. I'm not one to pound my chest, so I feel like I ought to explain why I came up with the name.

GrokMart wasn't my first choice. I actually wanted to call it "IdeaMart" as a play on the "online marketplace of ideas" theme. But another Blogger blogger had already chosen that name, so I thought of different synonyms for "idea." I registered CogMart (think "cognition"). Then I thought of GrokMart. Honestly, I didn't know what Grok meant, exactly, but in the usage that I remembered, it seemed to link loosely to ideas. And it sounded cool.

Dictionary.com -- a resource I can't live without -- lists the definition of "grok" as "To understand profoundly through intuition or empathy." Despite the fact that grok is a word coined in a book I had never read, that definition struck a chord. One of the reasons I love writing is it allows me to string together bits of cog that are floating in my brain, just below conscious thought. In other words, to really know what I think, I need to write it down. Whether these thoughts amount to anything profound is up to you to decide.

The Online Marketplace of Ideas

2005-01-18T16:30:00.000-07:00

The ultimate good desired is better reached by free trade in ideas... the best test of truth is the power of the thought to get itself accepted in the competition of the market.
-- Oliver Wendell Holmes
Abrams, v. U.S., Nov. 10, 1919

When I was first introduced to the "marketplace of ideas" concept as a journalism student, I thought of an intellectual sphere where the best ideas, backed by persuasion and open discourse, led to wide-spread acceptance. In this idyllic space, the source of the idea wouldn't matter.

Of course, such a space was non-existent. In the mid-90's, big media had the the idea market cornered. Not because they had the best ideas or employed the best thinkers. They had the money, which meant they had the power. But today, blogging is changing the power structure.

The blogosphere is emerging as a true marketplace of ideas.

More to come.