A Consultant's Chronicles

Lessons From Steve Jobs

That Steve Jobs was a visionary & creative genius among many other attributes has long been established but what about the rest of us "mere mortals?" Is there anything we can learn from him & his pioneering ways? The answer to this question seems to be a gigantic YES!!!!.

Some Not So Secret Principles For Success From Steve Jobs

According to former Apple CEO & the man who once defeated Jobs in the boardroom, John Sculley said that according to Jobs:
1-Great ideas already exist; they are just waiting to be discovered
2-A world-changing product deserves a world-class brand campaign
3-Jobs [& about every writer] agree, its toughest to decide what to cut, not what to add
4-Simplify,simplify simplify; "user experience" counts for a LOT
5-Great leaders must transform their vision into something tangible & inspirational
6-Hire [or surround yourself with] the best & only the best
7-Failure can also be your instrument for success
8-Follow your passion

While there are many other lessons in business to be gleaned from him, no one can promise you that following any of these principles will guarantee success. I will say that at its core, this "blueprint of ideas" speaks to a lot of what Jobs meant when he said those crtical 2 words: "think different."  "

The New Netflix Policy: Have They Got It Right?

As a business owner I am all for any business' attempt to build new revenue streams. However, this time, in their attempt to do just that, I think Netflix has erred. Today in my email box I received notice that on the heels of a recent price increase, as of Sept 1st, they will be separating their DVD & streaming plans into two different plans & each will be charged the same price-$7.99. If a consumer wants both, the charge will then be 15.98 [representing a 2 cent savings]. These plans are being charged as equal plans when they are not & it's not even close. Why? The product that each offers is by no means equal. In the CD plan, you get most first run movies & everything else in the Netflix library; of course the catch is that you have to wait for the CD to arrive. That is the essential beauty of streaming movies; not only is there no wait but you can view your movie on a number of different modalities: computer, TV, Sling box, tablet & smartphone I will concede that one might argue that they are equal delivery plans. If that's true, "where's the rub?"

Separate BUT Not Equal

The problem however lies in the product that they are delivering. As things currently stand Netflix is not capable of delivering the same movies [to be fair this is not the fault of Netflix but has to do with copyright laws]. The net result is that while on CD you get near first run movies & everything else in the Netflix library, as a streaming only customer, you will get an occasional recent movie but mostly a lot of older, & less popular movies [& TV] desperate for new revenue streams themselves. While both systems can deliver popular TV shows [particularly popular cable TV shows], once again in order to be guaranteed access to all of them in a timely manner, CD delivery is the only realistic option. Another problem is that once there, movies don't always stay in the streaming library; sometimes they revert back to the CD only library.

If It's Not Broke Don't Fix It

If the reality is that Netflix feels the need to charge more for their current service that is one thing. However, they are mistakenly trying to create an illusion of greater options when their new policy is neither neutral or minor but one of subtraction. Unless Netflix is now truly capable of leveling the product playing field when it comes to both delivery systems, separating the two is at least premature & at worst a mistake. The old adage used and applied just about everywhere works well here: "if it's not broke, don't fix it!"

 

NBC: A Refresher In Succession Planning The Hard Way

Like so many others, I am a bona fide news junkie, & all of us addicts have our favorite shows to watch [some people stick with a favorite channel but I like diverging points of view]. However, like many people I also have a favorite morning show for news which is Morning Joe featuring former Congressman Joe Scarborough [R-Fl] & Mika Brezinski. They regularly feature a different mix of journalists but one of their mainstay guests has been NBC's Norah O'Donnell who used to have a show of her own & is a guest on a lot of news panel shows. O'Donnell came up from the ranks of Washington-based journalists from the D.C.-centric online vehicle Roll Call, which covers Capital Hill & was mentored by some of the best veterans like the late Tim Russert & Chris Mathews. She earned her stripes building relationships & sources in all the branches of government; for ournalists, a wide swath of relevant sources are their "bread & butter."  Given the fact that journalism when practiced at the highest level is still very much a man's game, O'Donnell was presumed to be "waiting in the wings" so to speak to fill the void left by Andrea Mitchell when she retires. However, while NBC hit the "snooze button," & let O'Donnell kind of hang on the vine, CBS swooped in, made her a great offer & capitalized on all of the great training she got at NBC's expense. Now it is being said that her defection is one of the biggest in the last 20 years! That's not only bad business and bad management but bad PR!

Succession Planning Is Essential

Do not let this happen in your company! Succession planning at all levels is an essential duty of any HR department when they are doing their staff & performance evaluations. Like any professional sports organization, not only do you need a strong "A team" but you need a strong bench. Life happens; people get sick, leave, retire, or unforeseen circumstances occur which require personnel changes & you have to be ready. NBC did the right thing in mentoring & grooming O'Donnell. Their big mistake was letting a now skilled & respected journalist with their company imprimatur slip through their fingers. The task seems simple enough:

• Assess your staff
• Identify the needs
• Promote or hire staff
• Mentor & groom them
• Keep them happy & challenged so you don't lose them

Remember, it costs far more to go out & get new talent or to begin the process anew than it does to keep the bench you have happy.

 

 

 

Business Winners & Losers: 'Pioneers vs. Settlers'

Recently I was catching up on a missed television episode of a favorite business related show I've written about before called "Shark Tank." The premise of the show features some successful, wealthy angel investors who are willing to invest their own money in promising new business ventures in need of a capital investment for a piece of the action. Sometimes the "sharks" invest alone, sometimes they join forces, and sometimes they compete with each other for deals. Each of them has a different area of expertise. In the segment I was recently watching, self-made fashion billionaire, Daymond John made a very keen observation when it comes to business. He said:

"...pioneers get slaughtered while settlers prosper..."

When A Good Idea Is Not Enough

This scenario plays out time & time again in business. Someone creates a good idea but puts it in the marketplace prematurely while still unrefined either because they can't quite see that the product is "not ready for prime time" or because they want to be the first to capture a niche.  However, because the product is not quite ready, it doesn't succeed & the product/creator frequently gets skewered or fizzles rapidly.  On the other hand, similar products, which are just different enough to be considered new, correct the mistakes & succeed. Cases in point, Google replacing Yahoo, MSN & others as the favored search engine; Microsoft Word replacing both the previously dominant IBM & Word Perfect systems as the main PC document processing system or a more storied example these days is the case of the powerhouse Facebook replacing the previous darling of social networking: MySpace. Entrepreneurs frequently talk about how the streets are littered with "pioneers with arrows in their backs." The pioneers may get "historical" credit but the spoils of success almost always go to the "settlers"...the ones who came just afterwards. The trick is not to be the first & not to be too late out the gate.

 

Does Your Business Need A Social Media Policy

Back during the 90's when Bill Clinton was president, in one of the commencement speeches he gave, he told the graduating class the following: "some of you will have jobs we haven't imagined yet." Truer words have never been spoken because at this point IF Google was around, it was in its nascent stages & Mark Zuckerberg was just another kid who hoped to go to Harvard some day. The internet was still young & new so no one was talking about web 2.0 yet. It wasn't until 2004 that a new layer of the web known as the blogosphere started to flex its muscle trying to get Howard Dean nominated  [instead of John Kerry] to run against George W. Bush. While Dean's troops were not successful, a whole new medium was born in earnest with sites like Facebook &Twitter on its heels with much more to follow. Now even if you are not digitally fluent, you know there is important information to be acquired through this new medium. It's an easy way to keep up with family & friends or to interact with business in a whole new way.

Social Media: Now An International Force To Be Reckoned With

Even stodgy politicians across the globe have come to recognize that sites like Facebook & Twitter are forces to be reckoned with; the uprising in Cairo is just the latest example. Now that everyone is literally "twiddling their thumbs" on their mobile phones, it's increasingly more important to have a social media policy in your employee handbook. In fact sometimes fiction & reality go hand in hand so just to prove a point, one of the central themes in a recent episode of Grey's Anatomy was whether or not "tweeting" about the surgery underway should be permitted in the operating room. The chief of staff's concern of course was liability n the event that surgery was not a success.

What Topics Might Be Covered In This Policy

I have been thinking about this topic for a while now but I have to give credit where credit is due to author Karen Klein for "inking it" first. So what might be covered in this particular policy? The list could be long & would undoubtedly vary from company to company but here are just a few topics to contemplate:

•  Privacy issues-theirs & the company's
•  Posting on the job [about non-business related issues] or checking personal social media sites
•  Creating posts that have some direct effect on individuals in the company or that may have an effect on the company's brand, products, or other in-house issues
• Revealing proprietary practices of your employer either directly or indirectly
• Misrepresenting the views of a company
• Writing anything that reflects poorly on company or brand that may lead to a loss in revenue 

No Cost-benefit Analysis Required

I could continue but it should be apparent that there is no need to do a cost-benefit analysis to see that for most any company, NOT having a social media policy which would serve as protection for both the employer & the employee alike is a potentially expensive risk that is simply not worth taking.

 

The Business Of Conflict

A couple of years ago, I wrote a post about conflict & how it has entertainment value in our culture explaining one of the reasons why it's so prevalent. Pulitzer-prize winning author & pundit, John Meacham has raised an interesting new view about why we see so much conflict vs. why we see so few people notable for providing solutions, especially, but not only in politics. As he rightly points out, there is now an entire industry based solely on perpetuating conflict. Whether or not it serves our national interests, now there is a large swath of people whose total livelihood depends on conflict. Think about it. Politicians of all stripes can keep their jobs by "just saying no" or generating conflict in other ways such as with extreme statements or proposals. There is no one political party that has cornered the market on such activity. There are several TV & radio networks where the mission is to create & perpetrate nothing but conflict; in fact for some its been their ticket to fame & fortune! Such conflict has generated books, articles & blogs; speaking fees are collected, the list goes on. According to Meacham there are even metrics on this to prove the point.

The Power Of Institutions

It's especially striking to me that this phenomenon partially explains the reason Barack Obama was able to come from nowhere & almost as if straight out of a movie, ride some "magic carpet" into the White House. Precisely because he was attuned to this sense in the nation, he promised that he was the man who could bring hope & change. How? Just like today's Tea Party he promised an outsider's fresh perspective & willingness to change the way our system works. This leads to the age-old question about what happens when anyone new joins any institution- will they change the institution or will the institution change them? While it seems that at least in this case, we have the answer, it should also be noted that it is extremely difficult for any individual to change an institution. Come November 2nd, it may also prove to be a critical reminder to those in or supporting this year's Tea Party. Why? There is yet another adage when it comes to institutions ,which explains why it's so hard to change them: it's known as "join up or die*."

* Phrase coined by Truscott,L.C. in his book Dress Grey whe nreferencing institutional  mentality.

Line of the Week 8-29-2010

This week's line of the week belongs to widely respected Lauren Zalaznick who is the head of NBC Universal Women & Lifestyle Entertainment. Talking about the tough demands when you are at the top she said:

"...Every day is a thousand decisions, and you've got to own each one...that's what makes you an operator instead of a consultant..."

She's got that right! It's also a part of what leadership is all about.

 

 

 

 

The Nexus One: Another Phone Bites The Dust

Some people study box scores for baseball as a hobby & others like myself keep tabs on the telecom industry [being a die-hard Met fan may have something to do with it but that's another post]. At any rate, because I'm long overdue for a new phone, a few days ago I went hunting online to find out if a rumor I'd heard a couple of months ago was indeed going to become fact & was surprised by what I found instead. I had heard that Google had decided to let T-Mobile, it's provider for the Nexus One sell the phone as well. You may recall that the Nexus One arrived with banner reviews as the sure “iPhone killer”. I discovered that once again, gossip is well, gossip & definitely not reality because to my surprise & dismay, I learned that Google was killing the phone all together. I knew the Nexus One had customer relations issues but I didn't expect it to be like the Microsoft Kin: here today, gone tomorrow.

Anemic Sales Will Kill Any Product  

Google clearly mishandled the sales & customer service part of things perhaps partially in an over-zealous desire to beat Apple at it's own game. However, the phone itself received pretty solid reviews; in fact in some quarters it received rave reviews so what happened? It would seem that the bottom line is sales: the phone looked awfully good but it sold a fraction of what the new iPhone 4 has sold already & the Nexus One has been out much longer.

Raw Numbers Don't Tell The Whole Story

Numbers may have driven Google's decision but I don't think it tells the whole story. Here's what I think. Google's first mistake was deciding to sell the phone online itself, while diverting hardware issues to HTC, the company that actually made the phone, & sending provider issues to T-Mobile. They should have handed the whole thing to T-Mobile, a company who is in the business of selling phones & supporting them. No one wants to wait 24 hours to have a question about their phone answered in an email & you can only do so much with YouTube instructional videos. What Google got instead was a case study in diffusion of responsibility because their 3-prong strategy turned out to be a be a customer service disaster with the consumer left “holding the bag.” 

The Droid Factor

Another issue, which I call the "Droid-factor," is a happier "problem" to have because it has been a boon for Google's Android operating system. Basically, the Nexus One was designed to be the premier Android phone but was beat to the punch by the equally elegant Droid, which came out first. The Droid has taken off becoming a wildly successful phone for Motorola & Verizon. It may have rendered the Nexus One un-necessary out of the starting gate because it has become such a solid head-to head competitor with the iPhone. I also think it's a matter of time before other Android based phones are knocking at the iPhone's door. In short, Google should remain focused on Android because there is no need for it to step into foreign territory to make a phone when its more experienced telecom partners are already on it. They may have decided to cut their their losses with the Nexus One but Android is doing just fine.

Are Your 'Tails' Short Or Long?

I am preparing to give my website a facelift & overhaul so as a result, I have been checking into ways to improve it. Like most businesses I want my potential customers to have an easy way to find me & I want to convert those leads into sales. There are lots of useful strategies that I have discovered & today I thought I'd share one of them. This one involves keywords which as we know are those critical identifiers in the text of your website or blog that help categorize you & help search engines rank your site on their pages. It should be noted that the use of keywords today for this is thought to be not nearly as strong as it used to be but every little bit helps right?

Short Tails Vs Long Ones

Recently I discovered that there are two kind of keywords & which type you choose can makes a big difference. The two categories are short-tailed key words & long-tailed keywords. The short-tailed ones are brief & very general while long-tailed keywords are longer & much more specific. It has been discovered that while you may get more hits with short-tailed keywords, the hits you get with long-tailed keywords are more likely to be converted into actual sales.

Going From General To Specific

Let me give you an example. Let's say that you are staying with a friend who lives in downtown Chicago but the first night you have to fend for yourself for dinner. You decide to go out for dinner but you have no clue about what's around so you Google restaurants in Chicago. Very brief & very general so tons of options are generated because Chicago is a great place to eat interesting food among other things. Now let's say you want to narrow things down a bit so you check Italian food restaurants in Chicago. You will get fewer hits but still lots of options. If however you use a longer-tailed keyword like Italian restaurants serving Northern Italian cuisine then you really start narrowing the field. Then if you use an even more finely tuned keyword like restaurants serving Northern Italian cuisine near “the loop,” a hub in Chicago, from the searchers perspective you will more likely than not find exactly what you are looking for. However, from the business’s perspective, while they may have attracted fewer viewers to their site, those who come are more likely to become actual customers. The idea is to find the right balance so that your keywords not only attract likely customers but may also broaden the horizons of those potential viewers who may not otherwise have been interested in your services. This requires some focus because while it's doable, it can be tricky.

Social Media Marketing: It's Always The Little Things

In the last several months I have written a lot about marketing & social media. One of my absolute favorite examples of an effective marketing campaign [and therefore one I have written about before] through social media is the "Pink Glove Dance," a video starring the doctors, nurses, researchers, & allied personnel in a hospital in Portland, Oregon. Great stuff or so I thought. Until today I thought it was a marketing campaign for the hospital. In reality, it was a marketing campaign for Medline Gloves & their launch of a new product line: pink gloves. Now all of this makes perfect sense with one critical exception, there's no clear mention of the Medline name anywhere. As a result, this has become a successful campaign for the hospital but I'm not so sure about Medline.

Medline: Marketing Success Or Failure

To be fair, their stated goal was to launch breast cancer awareness which this video does in a light-hearted & successful way. Furthermore, it is the kind of marketing where a soft touch is required. As a result, the hospital name is mentioned only twice and silently- at the very beginning & end, which of course would have been the perfect place for it to read something like "Medline Gloves with the assistance of Providence St Vincent Medical Center." Instead the viewer is left with the impression that this is a charitable & promotional video for the hospital alone because Medline is not mentioned in the title. To be completely accurate, they do focus on the Medline glove box in an early frame but the logo is too small to be noticed so the intended point of the shot is completely missed. In other words, while it may be a great breast cancer awareness video, as a tool to launch a product, in my view, it has failed miserably. The gloves look cute but do not necessarily look like a new product since I have seen colored gloves before. It was my assumption when I first saw the video that it was all a part of the "pinking of America" [in order to heighten breast cancer awareness]. Medline's role in this is lost completely, which is tragic because in every other way, it was brilliantly conceived & executed. Success or failure? See for yourself & tell me what you think?