Linda's Marketing Leverage Blog

The LinSanity of Tebowing: Why It Matters to Business

From the Winter Issue of the Marketing Leverage Times newsletter...

Nothing captivates your full attention like coming down a Colorado ski slope at lunchtime and seeing a flash mob of close to 400 adults in front of the ski lodge, simultaneously moving into a position that looks like a cross between genuflection and Rodin's The Thinker – on skis.

That was my first up-close interaction with the Tebowing phenomenon (with a bastardized version of the music from "St. Elmo's Fire" playing in the background, no less). No sooner did the Broncos lose that January playoff game and Tebowing quickly faded away , when up popped LinSanity--based on the sudden rise of Jeremy Lin of the New York Knicks.

In the Bay Area, LinSanity has been particularly intense, both because Jeremy Lin is a local boy who grew up in Mountain View and went to Palo Alto High School (though he was forced to attend Harvard when nearby Stanford didn't accept him), and because our area's large Asian-American population is thrilled to finally see one of their own stand out in the NBA.

Tebowing and LinSanity are interesting for sports buffs, but the lesson behind this phenomenon is important for business as well.

Why? Because who we pick as cultural icons reflects what's important to our society at the time and, more importantly, what's not. Lin may never have the long outstanding career of a Kobe Bryant and Tebow may not outpace a quarterback like Tom Brady, but they have a certain humility and down-to-earth quality that isn't found in many of today's star athletes. It's the same kind of pureness one felt watching Octavia Spencer's heartfelt acceptance speech at the recent Academy Awards ceremony.

In a time when we're recovering from the greatest recession in nearly a lifetime, in the midst of a presidential election that seems to be about who is the least offensive choice, it's interesting to see who are America's new folk heroes. They're not the typical athletes, or the usual Hollywood celebrities, and they're certainly not our government leaders, current or aspiring. In an age of social media engagement and citizen journalism, the people who capture our fancy are unknown, down-to-earth Everymen who rise above the norm to greatness.

We no longer believe the paid celebrity spokesperson: we look to our friends and colleagues to convince us to try a new product, or not. We're not wowed by the same big budget marketing promotions and deals of a previous generation: we're looking for authenticity and relevance to our own lives. We're not necessarily looking to outpace the neighbors with more and more new "stuff;" instead we're trying to adjust our spending and consumption to reflect what's important in our own lives.

Stop and think about how this impacts your business. Are you still trying to convince people to buy your products and services because they have more bells and whistles, features and functionality than the competitors? Are you trying to out-wow the competition by being the loudest and most flamboyant alternative? Or are you building a community of customers and prospects that trusts you have their best interests at heart, believes you mean what you say, and looks to you to play from the heart?

All the trappings aside, today's customers want you to deliver value in a way that makes it easy to root for you and share their excitement with your success with friends and colleagues – a phenomenon we see most clearly with the incredible financial success, market power and near cult-like following of Apple.

Don't be left out in the cold.

Learn what's important to your customers and find an effective way to deliver it – before someone else captures the hearts and minds of your target audience.

Subscribe to our newsletter.

JoePa: The legacy beyond the legend of Joe Paterno

Former Penn State Football Coach Joe Paterno

They buried former Penn State Head Football Coach Joe Paterno in Pennsylvania this past week. JoePa the Coach was forced from his position last fall due to allegations around improper sexual activities between a football assistant and underage boys. JoePa the Phenomenon never quite moved off the front page or out of vision of his loyal followers, even as he battled lung cancer the last several months.

Growing up in Northeastern Pennsylvania, it wasn’t just death and taxes that were an absolute certainty, but also Penn State football with Joe Paterno. For nearly half a century, Paterno drove the Penn State football machine, with a big impact on the Keystone state. Major events and lives were scheduled around the Penn State schedule. More than even professional sports, Nittany Lions football defined Pennsylvania.

The old joke was the difference between Joe Paterno and God is that God doesn’t necessarily think he’s Joe Paterno. If Paterno was the deity, then Penn State football was the cathedral at which his loyal army of followers worshiped each fall weekend. They gave JoePa adoration and adulation and he in turn delivered outstanding results on the football field.

The details of exactly who knew what and told whom when are still to be worked out. It appears Paterno notified the university administration of the issue, but then allowed his assistant, Sandusky, to remain in a position where the behavior could continue. Was that enough? Not if the abuse continued. Not if you are committed to running one of the premier football programs in the country.

Much has been made of Paterno’s winning record and his stewardship of a program that was never hit by allegations of impropriety or wrongdoing, even as other top programs suffered NCAA sanctions.

Yet it appears that the young men who were abused were sacrificed to avoid any blemish on the Penn State football program. The end and the means were reversed and now, years later, the result is not just the arrest of Sandusky, but the disgrace of Paterno at the end of a long, successful career.

Over the last several months we’ve learned of former Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain’s issues with sexual harassment charges and allegations of long-term extra-marital affairs, and of allegations of abuse by a Syracuse assistant basketball coach. These incidents come after the painful revelations of decades of molestation by young boys at the hands of the priests who were supposed to protect them in the Catholic Church.

What’s common is the pattern: Men in power taking advantage of people who trusted them, and the system protecting the status quo.

Whether the individuals charged were coaches, business executives, or priests, the trappings of power and prestige let these events go on much too long. On a systemic basis, we need a better way to deal with these issues: when they occur, as well as when they’re uncovered, and to prevent them from occurring in the first place.

I don’t believe Joe Paterno ever condoned the sexual behavior of his assistant, but his failure to take action legitimized the activities and allowed them to continue for much too long. Edmund Burke said, “All that’s necessary for evil to thrive is for good men to do nothing.”

Joe Paterno was a good man who unfortunately chose to do if nothing, not enough. His legacy includes this sad footnote to an outstanding career…let’s hope it will serve as a great lesson moving forward.

Things to Be Thankful For...

Although it's Friday afternoon in New Zealand as I write this, it's still Thanksgiving Day in the US. A few thoughts on what I'm thankful for this year:

• Family, friends, colleagues and clients--all of whom add to my life in very many ways.
• Health, fitness and wellbeing.
• Great food--which isn't necessarily turkey (this year it was chocolate).
• Freedom--to say, do and act as I believe without fear of reprisal.
• Technology--which allows me to stay in touch and involved from halfway around the world. Or not, as the case may be.
• Music--which keeps me sane.
• My ability to build a business doing something I love: Helping others use marketing in creative, innovative and effective ways.

Happy Thanksgiving to one and all.

Loss of a Legend...The World Mourns Steve Jobs

Steve Jobs

1955-2011

 

Billy Joel said it famously, "Only the good die young."

Or maybe that should be only the extremely talented. Today, we mourn the loss of Apple founder and visionary Steve Jobs at the young age of 56.

There will be much remembering of all of the innovations and creative products and technologies Jobs brought to market, as well as much speculation about the future of Apple as a company without its iconic leader.

What's interesting to me is how much Jobs brought to the world after his cancer diagnosis. Where others may have taken this health crisis as a sign to slow down or step back, he instead continued to drive forward personally--with unorthodox medical treatments and a risky liver transplant--and professionally, with such products as the iPhone, iPad, MacBook, and iPod Touch all created since his original illness.

In the musical world, we lost the geniuses Mozart and Chopin and Schubert and Gershwin much too young. A century or two later we still consider their works to be great masterpieces. Would the nth set of works from an elderly Chopin or Shubert still have been as powerful as their earlier work? Unforutnately we'll never know--just like we'll never have the opportunity to know what incredibly innovative ideas an elderly Jobs would have shared with the world. But it's not unreasonable to expect Steve Jobs to be remembered a century for now for the changes he brought to our world.

Jobs will be eulogized the world over, but he was certainly no angel: The few times I met him I found him to be very abrupt and condescending. He could be difficult to work for or with. Not everything he touched turned to gold--some things didn't pan out, like the Lisa or NeXT. Yet, like other geniuses who were lost too young, he had an incredible capacity to envision the way things could be and to drive forward to change the world.

We are all the better for the fact that even till the end, Jobs lived by the motto of one of his Pixar characters, Woody from Toy Story, whose pull-the-string motto was simple, "Reach for the sky!"

Rest in peace, Steve Jobs. The sky is yours.

Why the Debt Drama Doesn’t Captivate Us (and why you need to keep checking your watch)

If something doesn’t give soon, the United States will be out of cash. We’ve maxed out our national credit cards and run out of equity line to tap. Recipients of government payments like Medicare and Social Security could be out of luck and whole parts of the government might possibly shut down. It’s a pretty serious situation. If our debt is downgraded, our cost of borrowing goes way up, Wall Street and other markets go way down, and all kind of nasty things can happen.

The deadline hasn’t come as a surprise: Congress, led by John Boehner, and President Obama have been discussing how to handle this for months. Well, actually they’ve been disagreeing on what steps to take, pointing out each other’s flaws, and doing quite a bit of posturing about this.

Yet a quick look around America doesn’t see many people panicked or in total alarm. Yes, some senior citizens are concerned about whether they’ll receive their regular monthly stipends, but overall Americans are going about their daily lives and business without much thought about this whole situation.

Why? Partially because this is such a complicated issue that many people don’t understand it. The numbers are so big that most of us can’t get our hands around them. And we aren’t sure how exactly this will impact us on a day to day basis.

But there’s another reason: We’ve been conditioned by our society and the media to have these big crises that are resolved at the eleventh hour. We expect that this will go on until the deadline is nigh and then somewhere, somehow the warring parties will get together and come up with a compromise that manages to save the day just in the nick of time.

We know by now that Gregory House won’t uncover the mystery ailment killing his patient till 10 minutes before the hour—every other diagnosis as much as it seems to fit the symptoms at the moment, just isn't really right, and in fact, the patient will continue to deteriorate throughout the hour until their condition worsens at about a quarter of.

We know that the FBI agents on Criminal Minds won’t catch this week’s serial killer till about the same time in the program—nor will NCIS solve the murder of the hapless Marine who is this episode’s focus until that same time period.

Even a wizard as powerful as Harry Potter won’t kill Voldemort until there’s just a few minutes left in the movie. (Sorry for the spoiler, but the movie’s been out for awhile now.) Bruce Willis prevented Armageddon and Arnold Schwartzenegger saved the world from evil Terminators—all at the same point in the script.

So we expect our government leaders to pull the same stunt here. At which point, one side or the other (or, more likely, both) will act as if they have come in on a shining white steed to save the day and rescue the damsel in distress. Cue the orchestra for the big final theme and the credits.

It’s a great way to end an evening’s entertainment, but not an effective way to run a government. Especially when you consider that the heroes who come riding in at the end to put out the fires are most likely the arsonists that set this whole blaze in motion to start with.

Pass the popcorn. It’s time to settle in for the final act.

 

The Anthony Weiner Mistake Many of Us Make...and How We Can Learn From It

Now that Congressman Anthony Weiner has resigned following the revelations of his lewd sexting photos  let's look at what actually happened here and what he REALLY did wrong.

First he took sexually suggestive photographs of himself--perhaps not in the best taste, but not illegal.

Then he sent them out to single women over the Internet, as attachments to Twitter--again not illegal (presuming these women were adults), but in very poor judgment.

Then he lied to the press to cover up his action. Whether or not this was illegal, it certainly was unethical--especially given the accusations he made about his Twitter account being hacked.

Weiner was forced to resign because all of this added up to behavior that was considered inappropriate for a US congressman to be engaging in.

However, Weiner did something else ALL of us do more times than we want to admit: He posted personal information casually on the Internet, thinking he was communicating securely with a chosen individual.

Here's the lessons all of us can learn from Weiner's mistake:

• Public is the key word in public figure. There was a time when public figures had private lives and could keep these separate from what was discussed in the media about them. Some of our greatest leaders, from Thomas Jefferson to FDR to JFK, all had relationships that might have been considered shocking or inappropriate if revealed to the public at the time. Back then, the media knew these things and let them be. That's not the case in 2011. Enough scandals have surfaced over the last few years that there is no excuse for public figures not knowing this and adjusting their behavior accordingly.

• We are all public figures on the Web. For better or for worse, Web technology today allows us to become public persona--through Facebook, LinkedIn, blogs and Twitter. We may not be elected officials, but we need to be aware of how what we say and do impacts that public image available about us online with a quick Google search.

• There is no such thing as privacy when posting on the Web. No matter how many privacy controls are setup by Facebook or other social networks, no matter how many ways there are to control access to information or limit who sees a post, you need to presume that any and everything you post can be seen by others. Forget to check a privacy box, send a Tweet to all your followers instead of as a DM like Weiner did, and what you've had to say is seen by the world. Oops.

• The Web is enduring not endearing. It doesn't matter how much you wish you hadn't said or posted something, it's virtually impossible to remove material from the incredible indelible archive we call the Web. Google is still indexing a talk I gave at a conference more than 10 years ago. Tools are available that allow searches on web content that is no longer posted or active. The Library of Congress is archiving the entire database of Tweets on Twitter for posterity (now that's scary!). Presume that whatever you say or do on the web will be up there for a long, long time--like uranium, it will take eons to decay into the background.

• When in doubt, leave it out. Whether it's a slightly off-color joke, a photo taken after a bit too much partying, a tirade against a bad boss or overdemanding customer, or a picture of your "package,"  stop and consider whether you really want this out there for the world to see forever--with your name attached to it.

How do you stay safe? Consider Linda's version of the well-known Miranda Warning (cue music from Law & Order...):

You have the right to remain silent. You do NOT need to respond to every web post or topic that catches your eye.

If you give up that right, anything you say can and will be held against you in the court of public opinion.

You ARE what you post. The Web is Enduring, not Endearing. What’s posted on line is practically impossible to remove.

Exercise your rights carefully.

 

How Rumors Start: What's that you say about an Obama scare?

My flight from Seattle to San Francisco yesterday was about to leave the gate when an obviously irritated pilot came on the loudspeaker to tell us, "Because of the Obama situation, the airspace around SFO is temporarily closed and we will be delayed from 30-45 minutes."

The woman in front of me immediately took advantage of this situation to get on her cell phone and start contacting her friends and family to tell them about the excitement: "You won't believe what's going on in San Francisco! The airport is closed down because of a bomb scare!"

By the time she was on her second or third call, those of us around her felt it was time to tell her that what was actually happening was Obama, the President, was flying into the area--not a bomb scare.

"Are you absolutely sure?" she asked.

Well, yes. Besides the fact that a presidential arrival/departure always results in a tempoarary closure of the surrounding air space for security reasons, I can't remember ever hearing about a bomb scare on the ground closing the airspace above an airport.

"Oh," she said, obviously disappointed.

"Well, if it's any consolation," my seatmate said to her "to many Republicans, a visit from Obama can be pretty scary in itself."

Lesson learned: Be careful that what you broadcast to the world reflects what's really going on, vs. what you *thought* you heard.

What Business Can Learn from the World Champion San Francisco Giants

  

San Francisco Giants Win the 2010 World Series

As a lifelong baseball fan, I’ve followed the Giants since I moved to California in 1989. Some years were better than others—we had the Barry Bonds home run chase combined with the steroids fiasco, and we made it to the 2002 World Series where the Giants almost beat Anaheim, but couldn’t quite do it. Over the last half century some of the best players in the game wore a San Francisco uniform, including Willie Mays, Willie McCovey, Juan Marichal, Orlando Cepeda, Vida Blue, Will Clark, Bobby and  Barry Bonds, and Randy Johnson, among others, but still the top prize eluded the Giants, year after year.

But this year has been different. There was a different feel to this team—no top sluggers or big celebrities, just a cast of characters and misfits that was like the Little Engine That Could. Yes, they tortured us with closes losses and even closer wins, and kept me on the edge of my seat as I watched, listened to, or followed online nearly all of the 177 games they played this season. But this team of San Francisco Giants just kept going and refused to believe it wasn’t possible to win it all—until last night when they actually did.

Here are a few key lessons businesses can take away from this year’s championship San Francisco team:

1.       Don’t believe the other team’s PR.

How many times this year did we hear how good the opposition was—whether it was the Rockies and the Padres, or the best-record-in-baseball Phillies, or the AL Champion Rangers? Rather than be derailed by the reputation of the competition, the Giants focused on doing what they had to do to get the job done. As a result, they beat some of the best pitchers in the game: Cliff Lee (twice), Roy Halliday, Roy Oswalt, Tim Hudson, and, during the regular season red-hot pitcher Ubaldo Jimenez.

2.       Play to your strengths.

If you’ve got outstanding pitching, then outpitch the top hitters. Don’t worry about the fact that you don’t have the top sluggers in the game or the fastest base runners or the strongest arms in the outfield. Focus on what you do best and use that to outplay your competition. If you’ve got one of the best left-handed relievers in Javier Lopez, bring him in to shut down left-handed power hitters. When you play in a ballpark that’s unfriendly to homerun hitters, let Matt Cain pitch and get flyball outs. Use your strengths and don’t worry about pumping up your weaknesses.

3.       It’s ok to be the underdog.

It’s great to be the top rated player in the field, whether in sports or in the market, but sometimes there are advantages to being the team that’s underrated and underappreciated. You’re often able to sneak up on the other guys and surprise them with what you’ve got. Plus having something to prove can make a team work harder and more cohesively towards a common goal.

4.       Learn from your mistakes.

If something doesn’t work, change it. Mix up the rotation. Bring in new players.  Bench the highly paid players if you have to. But keep what works and change what doesn’t.

5.       Ignore sunk costs when making key go-no-go decisions.

How many times do we see businesses throwing good money after bad trying to salvage some return from a bad investment? The Giants invested $126 million in star pitcher Barry Zito with very little return the last several years and a dismal performance the second half of this season. When it came time to choose a postseason team, Zito wasn’t on the roster—because he was not the right man for the team, regardless of how much he’d been paid.

6.       Change the rules.

Don’t follow what everyone else is doing. Compete on your own terms. Bring up rookie Buster Posey and make him your everyday catcher. Team him with rookie pitcher Madison Bumgarner to put the first rookie battery in the World Series since the 1940s. Bring your closer in for more than one inning. Trade much of your opening day lineup if they’re not the right players for the team. Shake up the roster and move players around to see what works. Be creative and work with what you’ve got till you’ve figured out what brings results.

7.       Believe in yourselves.

To quote Million Dollar Consultant Alan Weiss, the first sale is always to yourself. If you don’t believe you can do it, how will you convince everyone else? An interesting phenomenon in baseball is how the demeanor of the pitcher and catcher impact the way an umpire calls balls and strikes. When a pitcher is in his groove and the catcher is getting pitches right where he calls for them, the umpire will give them the benefit of the doubt and call a strike on a close pitch. When the pitcher and catcher don’t seem to believe in themselves, as happened with the Rangers in Game 2 of the World Series, the umpire doesn’t believe in them either and gives close calls to the batter instead.

8.       Solid teamwork beats outstanding individual performance.

In a sport that requires the efforts of the whole team for sustained success, the 2010 Giants had a significant advantage over most other teams: They brought together a group of misfits, castoffs, and second-string players who were willing to work harder than the other teams and do what it took to win. Most importantly, these players put the team’s success ahead of their individual glory, as witnessed by Aubrey Huff’s bunt in the final game of the World Series—the first time he’d bunted in his entire 10 year major league career. These players supported each other and stepped up to carry the load when other team members were slumping or injured. As a result, they were able to do what some of the game’s most outstanding performers couldn’t for 50 years—win the World Series.

9.       Don’t give up when you’re down.

The Giants followed a strong July with a horrid August—at one point winding up 7 games behind the San Diego Padres. Yet, they never gave up, even when they were down to their last strike in the bottom of the ninth inning. Instead, they focused on winning the game at hand, then the next and the next. If they couldn’t win the Division title, they could get the Wild Card and compete that way. A funny thing happened with all that determination and focus—the Giants went right past the Wild Card to win the National League West title and the rest, as they say, is history.

10.   Never lose sight of what’s possible.

Don’t grumble about where you’ve been or what you can’t do. Focus on what you *can* do and what you can achieve. Turn your bugs into features or your quirks into a marketing advantage. Whether it’s Tim Lincecum hair or Fear the Beard signs, use your unique characteristics to separate yourself from the pack. When the Kung Fu Panda hits a bad slump, put in the injured, beat up  and badgered veteran Edgar Renteria. Let him have a chance to hit over .400 in the World Series, in spite of a torn left bicep, and become the Series MVP.

 

And, above all: Have fun.

No matter whether you rooted for or against the Giants this year, one thing was clear: This was a team of guys who was out there having a great time, each and every day. From Tim Lincecum, the Cy Young award-winning pitcher they call The Freak to Aubrey Huff with his red rally thong to closer Brian Wilson with his extra-black beard, this team savored every moment together—on the field and off. They loved playing the game and they appreciated each other, their die-hard fans and the city by the Bay that waited 52 years for its World Series crown. After all, to quote the banners hanging on AT&T Park, “It’s magic inside!”

Can California Be Bought? The Auction Closes in 2 Weeks

Two weeks from today, voters in California will elect a new governor.

This comes not a moment too soon for most of us—as we struggle with yet another extended budget impasses in the state legislature, as well as the high unemployment and other issues faced by most of the nation.

While the three key parties (Democrats, Republicans and Schwartzenegger) continue to thrash through yet another episode of this long-running drama, the one thing that’s clear is that there’ll be a change in players come November.

Meanwhile, it appears that the leadership of the state is up for auction, with eBay’s former CEO Republican Meg Whitman spending as much as she can to bag the big prize and Democrat Jerry Brown fighting back from his much more meager war chest.

An interesting thing is happening, the more Whitman spends, the less she gains. Not only are most California residents sick and tired of the ongoing barrage of advertising we’ve been subjected to for nearly a year now, but many people are frustrated to see over $150 million spent by a billionaire to try and buy the affections of voters. (Latest gambit: Bringing in billionaire Michael Bloomberg to stump for Whitman—what’s next, Warren Buffett and Bill Gates? Wait, they’re busy using their billions for charitable causes.)

To be clear,  I think eBay is a great company and a real Silicon Valley success story. However, I don’t  believe that running a successful technology company necessarily prepares you to run the bizarre governmental mechanism California has evolved for itself. For better or worse, there’s a complicated machine running in Sacramento, and all the rhetoric and good intentions in the world won’t change the fact that it takes someone who understands such machinery to make it run more efficiently.

But I’m also questioning how much Whitman really absorbed about eBay’s business while she was running the company.

There’s no question she built the company from a small startup to a large, successful Silicon Valley powerhouse. But it appears she may be unclear as to how all those eBay customers wind up as winning bidders.

Anyone who’s participated in an eBay auction knows that bidding early and often does nothing but raise the auction price—sometimes to an amount that’s way beyond the value of the item, upsetting others who are watching the auction closely. While this is happening, savvy  bidders wait their turn in the wings. Then, when the auction is about ready to close, they jump in at the very last moment and make their bid.

What Whitman has done is spend somewhere north of $150 million (perhaps closer to $200 million by the time this is said and done) to bid up the price of the CA governership. Meanwhile, Brown, knowing he couldn’t compete with that kind of cash, waited till the end date was in sight before entering his “bid.” 

Maybe Whitman will be successful and California can in fact be bought by a billionaire. But maybe, just maybe, California voters, sick and tired of being fed a barrage of negative ads (some of which have been proven to be false and inaccurate), will look to the candidate who held his bid to the end.

Raising the Whole World: The Chilean Miner Rescue

With all the doom and gloom in the media, the ongoing midslinging of candidates before a general election, and the general day-to-day activities of an economy struggling to come out of a recession, what a breath of fresh air the Chilean miner rescue has been.

Here's a case where what would have been certain death for these men just a few years ago has been transformed into a successful rescue and celebration that is being watched my hundreds of millions of people around the world.

Furthermore, the complex, difficult rescue mission has been put together by an international team that only considered how best to save the lives of the men underground. Modern technology not only allowed these men to come out alive, in good spirits, and seemingly quite healthy--it allowed us to be a part of their rescue and their lives, even as the Phoenix capsule was lifted and lowered into the mine.

In spite of all the politicians, the many crises and issues faced on local, national and international levels, and after the long frustrating cleanup of the BP Gulf oil spill, this is a clear case of goodwill, ingenuity and hard work coming together in triumph.

The good guys won one today and we are all the better for it.

 

The Big Learning from the BP Oil Spill May Be About Learning

Now that the BP Deepwater Horizon oil well has been signed, sealed and officially declared dead, we have the chance to look at what we've learned from all of this.

We've already seen hundreds of articles and writeups about what we can take away from this incident in terms of how oil companies are managed, how risks are mitigated (or not), how government responds to this type of crisis, etc.

But there's another lesson that hasn't been much discussed, and that relates to how the public became well-educated about the happenings in the Gulf--about how we as a society became conversant on a subject and terminology that most of us had little or no knowledge of before the accident, and one we most certainly would never have chosen to study on our own.

Personally, I had minimal knowledge of how oil is produced and refined, but virtually no understanding of how oil rigs work, or what happens when they explode and spew millions of gallons of crude through the environment. Through the power of the Internet,  real-time video feeds and tools like Twitter, we learned not just about deepsea offshore drilling in detail, but about blowout preventers, top kills, bottom kills, and junk shots. We became aware of how currents carry foreign matter like crude oil to distant locations, how dispersants work, and how to protect fragile marshland. We got a lesson in economics, in terms of how shutting down oil rigs and fishing waters has a cascading effect on the economy of an entire region. And we got all of this without ever opening a text book or listening to a lecture.

Since this event, we've also had the opportunity to learn about the operations of mines in Chile, and how miners can be kept alive for months with proper safe rooms while waiting complicated rescue operations. Just recently, in the Bay Area, we've learned the amazing power of high pressure gas transmission lines--something most of us take for granted as they supply our homes and offices with fuel, until 10 days ago when an entire neighborhood went up in flames as a result of a natural gas explosion in San Bruno, CA.

We hear a constant refrain about the poor quality of our educational systems--how teachers can't teach and kids can't learn. We put together initiatives and tests to try to squeeze more performance from a system that is barely making the grade.

Education is extremely critical to our society: Our position in the world is at risk moving forward if we don't do something to create a better way to educate our population.The question is are we trying to educate a 21st century population with a 17th century methodology? We've all learned more science from these recent tragedies than most people ever get through a full twelve years of formal education.

How can we use the technologies and the world around us to educate ourselves more effectively--not just school age children but society overall?

Learning how to leverage this phenomenon may be an educational path worth drilling into.

A Perfect Response: Tigers' Gallaraga's Got Game the Day After

Jim Joyce and Armando Gallaraga

Armando Gallaraga of the Detroit Tigers was on the verge of pitching a perfect baseball game this week when in the ninth inning with two men out, umpire Jim Joyce called a runner safe. Both Gallaraga and his manager argued vehemently but Joyce would not be swayed. Gallaraga went back to the mound, got out the next batter and finished the game.

It became clear from looking at the videotape that Joyce was absolutely wrong in calling the runner safe. This was so clear that he himself went to Gallaraga afterwards in tears and apologized for making a mistake and taking this milestone away from him.

Baseball has always been a game of human judgment: one umpire's strike zone is very different from the next, safe/out calls look different on video than they were called in the game. Yet MLB only allows instant replay in very specific situations and this was not one of them.

As a result of Wednesday's events, two things happened yesterday: One perfect, one not.

First, Gallaraga presented the Tigers lineup card to Joyce prior to yesterday's game. In an incredible show of sportsmanship, humility and grace, the two men shook hands and acted like perfect gentlemen. Then the Tigers presented Gallaraga with a brand new Corvette in appreciation of his imperfect perfect game a day earlier.

Second, baseball commissioner Bud Selig, given a chance to demonstrate the same kind of grace, showmanship and civility totally sidestepped the issue--putting out a statement that said MLB would review the use of replays in the future, but not revisiting the blown call.

I understand the desire to keep the human element in baseball. However, there isn't a person alive who believes the box score fairly captures what happened in Detroit on Wed--including the man who made the call. The Tigers won the game, Gallaraga got the win--none of that would change. But Selig missed the perfect opportunity to take a leadership position for his sport.

Luckily, a young pitcher named Armando Gallaraga didn't flinch from taking the high road in what was obviously an emotional situation. He was a perfect gentleman and a great role model. In fact, I'd say he had two perfect days in a row.

No "Give-Backs": Some things you just can't return to sender

Just when I think I've heard and seen everything,  along comes a story in this weekend's news that a woman in Tennessee was unhappy with the child she adopted from Russia so she sent him back unaccompanied on a plane to Moscow with nothing but a note saying the child was dangerous and psychologically impaired and she couldn't deal with him.

Now there isn't a parent alive who hasn't at some point in their children's lives asked themselves what on earth they've gotten into, and isn't there some kind of escape clause. Some are downright serious about it, which is why many states allow parents to safely abandon newborns and Nebraska allows parents to legally abandon children well into their teen years. Unfortunately, there are even those who abuse or kill their children, though luckily that's a small minority.

However, most of us within the realm of normal behavior know darn well that we made a lifelong commitment and that you take the bad with the good. In most cases, aberrant behavior will pass, but it's not always that easy. Some children are born with significant physical or mental disabilities that preclude them from ever living a full, normal life. Other children develop serious problems or illnesses as they grow up, and adolescence can be particularly stressful or difficult for kids with some conditions. In rare cases, normal lives aren't possible and other drastic measures have to be taken. But it's all part of the package. There's no money-back guarantee, and no, you can't return the kid.This isn't a puppy you can take back to the pound and exchange.

The actions of this mother have caused an international incident, with the Russian government threatening to cut off adoptions by American families. That seems a bit extreme, but in this case, I can certainly understand why they're upset.

Supposedly, the child threatened to burn down the adoptive family's house with the family in it. Not a great situation, but this child is only 8 years old. The adoptive parent went through a long process which should have exposed the fact that this particular boy had issues and would need professional help. If the mom wasn't able to handle the child on her own, there had to have been places to go for help or alternative ways to care for this child. 

I've met incredible people who act as both foster parents and adoptive parents to all kinds of kids. Some of them have just been removed from inappropriate home situation,  but others also have serious problems that impact their ability to lead normal lives. Some even are diagnosed with terminal diseases, like HIV or cancer. But still these folks are willing to take them in. Hopefully, on one side of the world or another, someone like that will be found for this child. 

And the rest of us have to play the hand we're dealt as best as we can. Even if the cards aren't what we would have asked for, that's what happens when you join the game.

The REAL Message Behind the Passage of Health Care Reform

One of the wonders of living in the modern Web-based world is that we have access to so much information in near real-time. Nowhere was this more clear to me than during the recent Washington drama around health care reform. To quote the old bromide, we actually got to watch the process of sausage being made in excruciating detail.

I say that because I don't believe that what went on in Washington over the last several months on this issue was much different than the type of horse trading that's traditionally been part of the process required to pass this kind of large, game-changing legislation. The difference is we got to watch it not just on TV, as we've done for a generation, or on the Internet, as we've done for the last 15 years, but in real-time with social media added in.

Add in the fact that because the protagonists in this battle have become so media savvy themselves,  and the fact that this was played on center stage across a variety of old and new media was in itself a gamechanger. So many of the comments and positions taken were no more than grandstanding for not only the cameras but the Twitterstreams as well. So much of the drama and passion was introduced for the benefit of the players themselves and their reelection hopes, rather than to add value to the conversation. 

Furthermore, the conversation was not between the players with opposing points of view, but directed outwards through the media to the public. So much hysteria was introduced--from death squads to the death of the American way of life--yet very few of the people arguing either position understood what exactly was being proposed or how this might impact them and others in the future. Lots of heat--not much light.

Interestingly, what the Republicans condemned as potentially devastating socialism was more narrow in scope than a health reform package proposed in the 1960s by a Republican president named Richard Nixon. What the Democrats insisted had to be done to save our health care system is not nearly enough to solve the issues in front of us.

Without having seen all the details, the one thing I can be sure of is that the bill is not perfect. That would be impossible. It will of course cause some problems that don't exist today, break some things while fixing others, cause issues or financial harm to some people. However, to not move ahead at all and wait for perfection makes no sense whatsoever. The bill *does* fix many of the issues faced by ordinary Americans today and it is an important step forward. It will necessarily be argued, debated, amended and updated over time as have all omnibus pieces of legislation, including Social Security, Medicare and our tax laws.  In fact, one of the provisions of the bill is to fix the "doughnut hole" in Medicare coverage inadvertently created by previous legislation. It breaks down the ghetto of preexisting conditions and eliminates the arbitrary dollar caps for insurance coverage.

The bill itself is a move in the right direction. However, the process of getting there was a major step backward. One of the casualties of this new culture of observation is that it's too easy to focus on public statements and rhetoric and less on the back and forth negotiation based on ongoing relationships that makes any complex organization work effectively. Instead, we saw people on all sides dig in and defend their positions at all costs--refusing to publicly acknowledge others' perspectives and creating a mass hysteria that was totally unwarranted.

In simple terms, we saw a continuation of a phenomenon that is becoming a major problem for this country: extreme polarization and very little outreach and effort to work together for the common good. We saw, yet again,  much too much blue and much too much red and virtually no purple. That's the real message I fear behind this effort. To quote the first senator from Illinois elected to the presidency, "A country divided against itself cannot stand."

Let's hope for more purple going forward.

Gloom, Gloom, Go Away--Media Naysayers: DON'T Come Back Another Day

I opened my  browser to CNN.com today to be faced with: "America the Miserable? Have Americans had their optimism "beaten out" of them by the lagging economy, terrorism fears and two wars?"

Ladies and gentlemen, I know bad news gets attention (we used to say it sells newspapers, but today it gathers eyeballs and clicks). However, this fixation of the media with doom and gloom, Armageddon, the end of American civilization as we know it, etc. is just too much.

Let's review where we stand today:

• The stock market has rebounded, and is close to 10,300 at the end of today's session.
• The financial industry has stabilized, we're no longer in danger of massive collapse, and many banks have already paid back their TARP loans
• Unemployment is still high, but this is a lagging indicator and already starting to inch downward
• Cash for clunkers got people buying cars again, removed older inefficient cars from the street and the used car pipeline, and helped dealers clear out inventory
• There has NOT been a terrorist act on American soil since 9/11, in spite of less than exemplary performance by our intelligence agencies. Several potential terrorist acts have been stopped before they could be executed, and we learn after each of these.
• We did NOT have an H1N1 flu epidemic, because proper precautions were taken. As a result of the high sensitivity to the potential for pandemic flu, we vaccinated a lot of people and raised the general consciousness about proper hygiene and illness prevention techniques--something that's good for all of us long-term.
• The war in Iraq is going about as well as can be expected. The war in Afghanistan is also going about as well as can be expected, unfortunately. The problem there is we went into a quagmire where we had no chance of winning. Tribal conflict has been ongoing in this area of the world for a thousand years. Why did we think we could win when no one else could make headway in this mess?
• American scientists, entrepreneurs and athletes continue to excel in their respective fields. We continue to see innovation and creativity in all walks of life.

So please CNN and the rest of the media world, call off the funeral. To quote Mark Twain, the rumors of our death are greatly exaggerated.This is still a great place to live and work and we are still the envy of most of the rest of the world.

Let's change our perspective and look at the glass half full as our economy rebounds and we move forward to ongoing American success.

Today's Lesson from The Tonight Show: It's About the Viewers, Stupid

The best drama on TV right now is the unfolding saga of NBC's prime time/late night hosts.

Instead of moving veteran Jay Leno aside, NBC chose to carve out 1/3 of their week night prime time real estate to give him a new program. A risky move that has appeared to back fire, as NBC acknowledged this week.

The problem is it's not that easy to stuff the cat back into the bag, so to speak. Finding new programming for 10-11 five days a week is fairly straightforward. Shuffling hosts is not that easy (anyone for musical chairs?) Moving Leno back to 11:30 means moving Conan O'Brian from Tonight to Tomorrow (whatever happened to that show anyway?). Conan's already said no to that.

The bigger question though is how did NBC get into this mess to start with. Because they made decisions based on cost (much less expensive to program comedy than 5 nights of drama) and product availability (we've got Leno, where can we use him?), rather than on market need or customer input.

What they didn't do is consider the audience, their target market, and determine what it is they wanted to see. Their competition, OTOH, loved it--moving quickly to fill the vacuum and take advantage of the misstep.

Clearly, NBC made decisions a little bit bass-ackwards. As a result, the audience voted with their feet, or, more accurately, with their remotes.

It will all work itself out one way or the other and before long it will be mostly forgotten, except for in case studies of how not to consider the customer. But shame on you, NBC, for getting into this position to start with. This should be yesterday's news.

Missing the Vote is Missing the Boat

There's been a reasonable amount of attention lately put on the voting records of two potential candidates for statement office in California--Meg Whitman, former eBay CEO who is running for governor, and Carly Fiorina, former head of HP who is mulling a run for the US Senate seat currently held by Barbara  Boxer.

The issue is not how these women voted or whom they supported, but rather the fact that over the last decade or so it appears they didn't even bother to vote much at all. According to a story in the SJ Mercury, both women missed casting their vote more often than not.

In this Age of Apology, both Whitman and Fiorina appeared quite contrite, telling us they're sorry for not voting and that they're sorry for not trying harder to make it to the polls, but as Whitman put it, "I was focused on raising a family, on my husband's career, and we moved many, many times."

Hmm. In another state, maybe that excuse would fly, because it really can be difficult to get to the polls on any given election day, expecially with an executive schedule that involves heavy travel.

But this is California, the land of innovation and invention, and we've already fixed that problem. There's no longer a need to find time to go to the polls: the polls here come to you.

This is the land of the permanent absentee ballot, meaning all one has to do to vote is register once. Ballots are sent to your address of record way in advance of the election, with a pamphlet that explains more than everything you need to know about the candidates and ballot propositions. And all this information is available in at least 6-8 different languages, so fluency in English is not an issue.

As a wife, mother, community volunteer, and someone who has held a full-time job for my entire adult life with a fair amount of business travel, I've been pretty darn busy myself over the last decade. But I've never missed voting in a single election because I took this responsibility seriously.

The bottom line is this situation has nothing to do with being busy. We're never too busy for the things that are our top priorities. Obviously, voting was not that important for Whitman or Fiorina until they decided politics was their next career move.

Voting is as privilege in this country, not a requirement. These two women have the right to choose not to participate in the electoral process. But it's also my right to consider this fact when I cast my vote. I'm betting there are plenty of other folks like me who feel the same way. And, unfortunately for Whitman and Fiorina, we actually will take the time to vote for governor and senator next year.

On the Eve of a New Year

Tonight marks the start of the Jewish new year, 5770. I look back at my thoughts from last year with another year's worth of perspective.

We've survived economic meltdowns,  a momentous presidential election, and other global upheaval. We've seen unemployment rise dramatically, established American corporations fall drastically, and civility in public discourse all but disappear.

In spite of that, the sun kept shining, the country kept rolling, and the Federal Reserve tells us the recession is over. 

My message from last year still applies:

To everyone, including all my friends, relatives and colleagues who are celebrating the holiday, I wish you a sweet and joyful new year, filled with health and happiness, peace and prosperity.

Whether or not you are Jewish, this is a great time to turn over a new leaf, start anew, reengage, reinvigorate, reinvent. Tomorrow is the first day of a new year--a time to take charge of your life and move forward in a positive manner.

So here is to a happy, healthy, peaceful and prosperous new year for everyone everywhere. L'shanah tovah.

Linda

Tonight marks the start of the Jewish new year, 5770. I look back at my thoughts from last year with another year's worth of perspective.

We've survived economic meltdowns,  a momentous presidential election, and other global upheaval. We've seen unemployment rise dramatically, established American corporations fall drastically, and civility in public discourse all but disappear.

In spite of that, the sun kept shining, the country kept rolling, and the Federal Reserve tells us the recession is over. 

My message from last year still applies:

To everyone, including all my friends, relatives and colleagues who are celebrating the holiday, I wish you a sweet and joyful new year, filled with health and happiness, peace and prosperity.

Whether or not you are Jewish, this is a great time to turn over a new leaf, start anew, reengage, reinvigorate, reinvent. Tomorrow is the first day of a new year--a time to take charge of your life and move forward in a positive manner.

So here is to a happy, healthy, peaceful and prosperous new year for everyone everywhere. L'shanah tovah.

Linda

The Sound of Silence: Knowing When to Stop Talking

It's now been a full week since Michael Jackson's demise and more than that since Mark Sanford's exploits were first revealed.

In the time since then, parties associated with both camps have filled much more than their reasonable share of airwaves (and bandwidth as well), giving us much more information about the details of these situations than we ever needed to know.

I don't need to know how many times Sanford met w/his mistress or how many other women he flirted with before, during and after. I also don't need to know every detail of Michael Jackson's will (somehow I doubt he left me anything), or whether or not his children were biologically his or someone else's (they're legally his and that's all that matters right now).

Just once it would be nice for someone involved in one of these situations to make a simple concise statement, say that's it, I'm done, and walk away. Too much detail doesn't do anyone any good. Hitchcock was the master of suspense, but how much gore and blood did he show on camera? What was captivating about his movies was that the important details were left to the imagination, rather than spelled out in high definition in excruciating detail.

This is true for all of us in business settings as well: Say what you have to say, then stop and wait. Listen to the silence. Give the other person a chance to absorb what you've said. Don't try to overcompensate by telling all the gory details. Let the other person use their imagination. Let them think for themselves. Appreciate the sound, and the power,  of silence.

Our Obsessions with Train Wrecks...Figurative as Much as Literal

It's been a busy week for news, between the exposure of a leading Republican's romantic escapades and the deaths of two pop icons.

It's interesting how the public grabs onto these events with a voyeuristic fervor that is hard to contain. All of today's technology is put to use to get to the bottom of these stories--whether it's publishing the back-and-forth passionate emails of Mark Sanford and his Argentinian mistress or broadcasting photographs of a comatose Michael Jackson intubated on his final trip to the hospital.

[Poor Farrah Fawcett had the bad luck to die in between these two stories, limiting the amount of attention on her passing.This is unfortunate, because during her valiant struggle with cancer she worked hard to educate people about a type of the disease with very low awareness. Of all these stories, this is the one that had the potential to help save others' lives.]

All of this far outpaced the REAL train wreck, which caused at least 9 deaths in a Maryland suburb when one commuter train plowed into another. And it's bumped the Iranian election protests, the event likely to impact the most people worldwide in profound ways, way off the front page.

What is it about our society that we are so taken with others' sexual acts and deviant behavior that we become obsessed with news like this, beyond any rational measure? We can blame the media, but in reality they are just delivering what they believe their audience wants to see and hear. The  audience of course validates this behavior by tuning in in droves. (Was the slowdown on the web yesterday afternoon right after Michael Jackson's demise a mere coincidence? Hmm.)

The accidents have happened, the crisis has passed. It's all up to the cleanup crews now. Let's leave the carnage behind and go on.

Things are Getting Better Day by Day

We've all had more than our fair share of doom and gloom, end of the world scenarios, fire and brimstone, the fall of American civilization as we know it, etc., etc., etc.

Here's a different take on things: It's not that bad AND it's going to get better sooner than the pundits predicted.

Right here in Silicon Valley I've seen some very positive signs just recently:

• Cisco Systems released better than expected quarterly earnings last week
• Intel's CEO Paul Otellini was quoted in today's Mercury News saying that the chip business has improved since April: "What we've seen so far is a little better than we had expected...so far, so good."
• Online restaurant site OpenTable announced today that it will price its IPO next Wed the 20th and is expecting to start trading the next day
• My 401K statement arrived with the news that it was in the black for 2009.

All these are signs that contrary to what you hear in the media, Silicon Valley is not dead, and in fact, there are companies who expect to do well and to thrive as the economy continues to improve.

Mark Twain said "the rumors of my death are greatly exaggerated." We need to focus on the fact that we've had a correction, we've likely hit bottom, and we're headed for a recovery.

The question is what organizations are doing to prepare for better days ahead. Are you ready for rebound? If not, you should be.

Today's Stem Cell Decision: A Victory for those who Value Saving Lives

As the parent of a child with type 1 diabetes, the daughter of a man who died of complications of type 2 diabetes, and the granddaughter of a woman who died of Alzheimer's disease, I was thrilled to see President Obama follow through on his promise to lift restrictions on embryonic stem cell research.

The restrictions on this research placed by the previous administration were meant to pacify religious special interests. Today's action was meant to help save lives.

Here's what happened over the last 8 years of the ban:

• Other countries continued to progress their own stem cell research, making this yet another area where US efforts were left behind.
• California voters passed their own initiative to fund stem cell research, creating the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine (CIRM).
• Millions of people continued to suffer and die from diseases like diabetes, Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, spinal cord injuries, etc.--diseases that might be helped by the outcome of stem cell research. There are over 24 million people in the US suffering from diabetes alone and tens of millions more at risk for the disease.

Will this technology cure these horrible diseases? No one knows for sure. But we do know that there is incredible potential that cannot be found elsewhere. As a society, we have a responsibility to use the tools and technologies we have available to help improve living conditions for those amongst us who suffer from these diseases or injuries. We have a responsibility to allow scientific research to move forward unfettered. We have a responsibility to save lives.

The Talmud says, "He who saves one life is as if he has saved an entire world."  As of today, we're back on track to save millions of worlds.

New Podcast: How the Art of Corporate Resilience Impacts Marketing

Our newest interview in the Marketing Thought Leadership podcast series is now live.

Pamela S. Harper of Business Advancement  talks about why corporate resilience is so important in today's economy, and how marketing can play such a pivotal role in driving resilience.

Listen now.

Check out our other recent interviews:

• Ruth Ann Barrett of Earthsayer.tv on The Intersection of Sustainability and Web 2.0
• Lisa Orrell of The Orrell Group on Understanding the GenY Mindset for Increased Productivity and Retention
• Denise Shiffman of Venture Essentials on How to Create Engaging Customer Experience through Social Media

What We Want and What We Need

"You can't always get what you want. But if you try, you just might get what you need."

Rolling Stones

I can't help but think of this song today, Martin Luther King Day 2009. Here we are in the midst of the worst economic crises in almost a hundred years. The banking industry is in turmoil, jobless rates are rising, foreclosures are at an all-time high, the retail industry is at an all-time low.

Every time you turn around, you hear of another financial industry takeover/bailout or more retailers going out of business: Mervyns, Linens and Things, Circuit City, to name just a few. Detroit is in shambles; even Silicon Valley standbys like Google are cutting back.

For a long time we lived in a world where whatever we wanted or even thought we might possibly want, we could get. And we could get it in multiple shapes, colors and sizes from a variety of sources. Once we had that, there was something new we could buy to add on or complement or upgrade what we already had. On the housing front, we were encouraged to buy bigger and better houses, to improve the ones we had, or to enter the home ownership world even if we didn't really have the credit worthiness to do so.

Fast forward to today. When push comes to shove, we've learned that people don't need $4 cups of coffee from Starbucks several times a day--or even once a day. They don't need more home entertainment or computer equipment, or new clothes, or furniture, or a lot of other things.

Instead, we've started to focus on what we really need: A financial system that's trustworthy. An economy that creates jobs. Basic ways to handle transportation, housing, food, etc. Friends, family and connections. A government that works with us not against us.

How fitting that our new president-elect called for a national day of service today. How fitting that tomorrow we inaugurate a man as president who brings a new approach and a new outlook and a new focus on what's needed to move forward in this new world.

For a long time, we've had what we wanted. Now it's time to get what we really need.

Brand Obama: How Barack Obama Really Won the Presidency

There's been much discussion over the last two weeks of what exactly Barack Obama's campaign team did right to help him win the presidency of the United States.

In their November 17th Business Week column "Three Reasons Obama Won,"  Jack and Suzy Welch focus on lessons business leaders can take from McCain's loss and Obama's win. They make three points which they say business leaders can learn from:

• Start with a clear, consistent vision.
• Execute well.
• Have friends in high places.

While I agree that all three of these are true, they've missed something critical: in a very short time, Obama built a strong, powerful personal brand--basically from scratch.

I teach Branding Strategies at San Francisco State. I ask my students to tell us their favorite brands. We get the usual favorites: Apple, Nike, Target, Trader Joes, Coke, etc. In October, however, several students said their favorite brand was Barack Obama.

How interesting. For the last 18 months, I've had my students evaluate each of the candidates brands, tell me what they stand for and how well they are doing in delivering on their brand promise. This was a fascinating exercise in the early primary season when we had a varied cast of characters from Hillary Clinton to Rudi Guiliani, Mike Hucklebee to Mitt Romney, not to mention McCain and Obama.

In the early days, the candidates were often defined by their demographics (female, African-American, Mormon, ex-POW, divorced Catholic, etc.). But as time went on, it became clear that Barack Obama had done a tremendous job building a strong brand, based on change, hope, inclusion and making a difference for America. He did this using a combination of grass roots efforts, traditional media, and an outstanding use of new media, from websites and blogs to Facebook, MySpace and Twitter, from personalized donation emails to brightly colored logowear that was hot and hard to find.

As opposed to McCain, Obama did this by focusing on the future, on the potential for good, and on the positive--not by knocking the competition, shouting and screaming, or defending the current situation.  In doing so, he created a brand that people were proud to be involved with--a brand that transcended race, ethnicity, gender or age. He created the kind of brand all companies wish they had.

And that, as much as the three reasons the Welchs articulated, is the reason Obama won.

A New Beginning

Tonight marks the start of the Jewish new year, 5769. To everyone, including all my friends, relatives and colleagues who are celebrating the holiday, I wish you a sweet and joyful new year, filled with health and happiness, peace and prosperity.

What's nice about the High Holiday Season is that Jews treat this not just as a new year, but as a new beginning. Given what's going on in the world lately, it can't come a minute too soon.

I'd like to suggest that it really can be quite therapeutic for everyone to say enough is enough and start again anew. However, anew start is much more effective if you take the time to consider where we've come from and what we're leaving behind at the end of the year. Whether we're talking about business, personal life or the financial mess on Wall Street, if we don't understand what's worked and what hasn't, we are destined to repeat many of the same mistakes over and over again.

The good news is there's no reason you ever have to wait a full year for a new start.  You're all welcome to join us in starting over with the new year 5769 tonight. You still have the opportunity to start 2009  with the traditional New Years celebration on Dec 31st, or again later in January when we'll have a new presidential administration, and  the Lunar New Year at the end of the month.

So here is to a happy, healthy, peaceful and prosperous new year for everyone everywhere--starting about tomorrow sounds good to me.

Linda

The Branding of Our Candidates

As I watched the highlights of the Democratic National Convention, I can't help but focus on the brand called Barack Obama. This morning, after hearing about McCain's choice for vice president, I'm wondering about the brand called McCain as well.

Yes, Obama has a brand, McCain has a brand, and so do all of the other assorted candidates along the way. You and I have personal brands, too, though we likely put much less emphasis on understanding and promoting them.

In my Branding Strategies class at San Francisco State, we do an exercise where students are randomly divided up into groups and asked to evaluate the candidates brands: what are their brand promises, what do they stand for, and on a scale of 1 to 10, how well are they doing on delivering on those promises.

This was a much more interesting exercise when we had a full slate of potential candidates, including Hillary Clinton, Rudy Guiliani, Mike Huckabee, Mitt Romney, and others. This year, for the first time, we had a full range of choices when it came to gender, ethnicity, race, religion and marital status.

What's interesting is that over the last year or so, the class has consistently said that Obama stands for change and hope and doing things differently, and they've rated him fairly high on fulfilling his brand promise. They had a hard time, OTOH, getting their hands around what McCain's brand promise was, besides more of the same.

Brands are always evolving and adding features and benefits to supplement their current offerings. This week, Obama chose Joe Biden, who brings experience and foreign policy expertise to the Obama brand. McCain chose Sarah Palin, who brings youth, inexperience and a non-Washington perspective.

What do these choices mean for the 2 candidates' brands? It will be interesting to watch how the American public answers this question, but at this point, it looks like Obama has tried to supplement a known weakness in his brand (relative inexperience) by adding Biden. McCain has  addressed the weakness of age, by choosing someone very young and with virtually no experience. He's addressed diversity by including a woman, but I'm not quite sure yet what the McCain/Palin brand stands for?

By choosing Palin, it appears that McCain has done two things he may regret: He may have actually strengthened Obama's brand by making Barack look much more experienced than Palin, and he may have alienated many of Hillary's supporters who were on the fence, by choosing a running mate for her youth and gender and asking voters to accept her as an equal substitute for Hillary, who like her or not, brings a wealth of experience, maturity and seasoning to the table compared to Palin.

The jury's still out on this folks, but stay tuned. Things are just starting to get VERY interesting.

Driven to Distraction

In preparation for California's new hands-free cell phone law on July 1st, I finally broke down and bought a bluetooth wireless device.

Well, I actually bought my second bluetooth wireless device. I had bought one a couple of years ago, found it to be terribly annoying and not very useful and quite promptly lost it. This time I bought one of the more advanced models, the Jawbone, and I find it to be terribly annoying and not very useful. The good news is I haven't lost it yet.

For the last week or so, I've been walking around with this thing in my ear trying to get used to it. What I find is that I am significantly more distracted using this thing than I ever was either holding the phone in my hand or using the speakerphone. First I had to try two different earpieces and three different earbuds till I got a set that seems to sort of fit my ear somewhat. Then I have managed to either disconnect people who call, call people I don't mean to,  or try to talk out of the phone when the call goes to the headset or vice versa. I can't figure out how to make the volume go up and down in real time, and any advanced features are way beyond me.

This has got to be the law of unintended consequences to the max. Here's the story. I do believe there are some people who are very distracted when they talk on the cell phone, and many of these people talk and drive at the same time. I've seen them and so have you. However, I don't for a second believe that these folks will be any less distracted because they have this thing in their ear.

I also believe that these are the same people who long before cell phones were distracted by everything from the car radio to their kids in the back seat, reading the paper, looking at a map or GPS, etc. In other words, some people are just plain distracted. These are also the folks who probably can't multitask on even simple tasks. That's ok. They can work serially one task at a time.

The rest of us who can multitask fairly well and are even wired to perform better when we're multitasking are now stuck with a regulation that makes our lives more complicated and IMO less safe.

The CHP is supposedly sitting with baited breath just waiting to start citing people who are not hands-free next Tuesday. I just hope they will also take the time to stop all those people who are distracted by other things beyond cell phones, as well as those who are incapacitated and really shouldn't be driving in the first place.  But it might be too distracting to ask them to focus on more than one thing at a time.

We're Quoted in Business Week

Our post on the Invincibelle blog about Business Week's recent story comparing how men and women are weathering the current business economy was in turn picked up and published in Business Week's June 2nd Feedback column (online and in print).

The Case of the Bay Area's Missing Matzoh

Why was celebrating Passover in northern CA different this year from all other years?

Well, for one thing, because there was an acute shortage of several kosher for Passover staples, including a critical one--matzoh.

Passover matzoh is made from flour and water but must be produced under specific types of conditions to ensure it does not  become leavened, or unacceptable for use during the holiday. Most Jews, even those who are not normally religiously observant, buy and eat matzoh for Passover, so the demand should be fairly constant from year to year.

This year it was the supply that was way off. It appears there was some sort of technical glitch w/a Manishewitz factory on the east coast that severely limited the amount of some types of specialty matzah produced. But that didn't explain why even plain old ordinary matzah,  not just the fancy kinds Manishewitz normally churns out, were MIA.

An article in this week's J, the Jewish News Weekly of No CA, claims this was really a case of confused signals in the distribution channel. For the last several years, chains like Costco and Trader Joes have sold large quantities of matzoh at a significantly discounted price. (The price of matzoh had gone through the roof over the last decade or so. Costco took advantage of this to sell matzoh at a price so so cheap that  one had to wonder if everyone else was gouging consumers or Costco was losing money on every box sold.)

Even though some people eat matzoh all year round, probably greater than 80% of purchases are made for the one-week Passover holiday. So if you don't sell your matzoh supply for Passover, you are pretty much stuck with it afterwards. And there are fewer things harder to get rid of than old, stale matzoh.

This year two things happened here that caused a big disconnect: 

• Most of the retail stores in the area cut way back on their matzoh purchases rather than be forced to "eat"  excess inventory after the holiday
• Costco and Trader Joes decided not to carry matzoh this year at all--eliminating a big source of the product

As a result, it was virtually impossible to find a box of matzoh anywhere in the Bay Area as Passover approached.

Even if you've never been lucky enough to indulge in the ritual consumption of matzoh each spring, what happened here is fascinating. Retail supermarket chains made a rational decision to carry only limited supplies of a product that is both under severe price pressure and has a very short promotional life. The chains causing the pricing pressure, for whatever reason (maybe selling at or below cost finally caught up with them?), decided not to carry the product at all. This resulted in the acute and unexpected shortage.

Who dropped the ball? The manufacturers and distributors take a good share of the blame. One would expect they could make a reasonably accurate forecast of expected annual demand (this is the season when they make most of their profits).  Why didn't someone put 2 +2 together and ask why wholesale purchases of matzoh were so much lower in the Bay Area than usual.

This is also a great example of how markets run based on expectations. We as consumers have been trained to expect a choice of product at both retailers and warehouse clubs/discount chains. The supermarkets had expected to be undercut by the big chains. The manufacturers expected that the market ran efficiently enough that advance orders reflected expected demand. When expectations didn't reflect reality, everyone along the chain, from the producer to the consumer, was caught by surprise, hence the unexpected.

How to prevent this in the future? For one thing, it has been reported that Costco has signaled they will carry matzoh again next Passover in at least some of their larger warehouses. Manishewitz should be expected to have resolved their terribly timed production glitches. And should there be even a hint of a supply/demand inbalance in the future,  some enterpreneur will likely develop a way to exploit and profit from this (maybe a Web2.0 application that lets users track the availability of matzoh on their mobile devices?).

In the meantime, the issue of market expectations has moved to a new front: rice. It appears that Costco and others are limiting the amount of rice sacks that can be purchased by each buyer--because of the expectation that there may be hoarding which would in turn cause a shortage. Except that now consumers are expecting a rice shortage and buying more...

Gee, in any other year, I would have been able to give them my excess matzoh...