Unexpected start-up pleasure #1: Acting Normal

We all know that style matters in business. And though it's hard to describe or define, there are unwritten boundaries about what falls within the realms of acceptable style. What makes this interesting and relevant here is that style changes over time, changes which become particularly striking when you look across generational barriers.

Just as parents have battled with their children over haircuts and clothing styles forever, so do bosses and their usually younger stuff get into conflicts over what counts as “professional” style or clothing or behavior. ( The word “professional” has become such a bizarrely broad catch-all for policing just about any kind of behavior that it’s worthy of a post of it’s own).

In one of my previous jobs, flip-flops became an odd sticking point. For some, they signified a careless disrespect of the workplace. For other (usually, but not always, younger) colleagues, they were a mark of emulation of well-known creative thinkers. An issue that was reflected on the national scene when college athletes wore flip flops to the White House.

But in many ways, the changes in clothing and appearance are dramatic and obvious. The more subtle and harder to document but much more interesting changes occur around the etiquette of professional relationships.

In my experience, the business “style” of the former generation was and is rooted in sincerity. Important conversations, business-forging conversations are generally held in a tone of sentimental seriousness (care, respect, trust) with a touch of tough-love (bottom-line, end-of-the-day). Don't get me wrong, these are all good things, but they can sound a little tinny to the X’ers of my generation who have a hard time saying how much they “care” about anything. We care too, we just prefer to express it differently, usually with a little more humor.

This is tricky territory to speak about on the fly. It requires a broader sample to see if it holds up. In fact, I hope someone somewhere is doing a full-blown sociology of business-etiquette to document how these behaviors and attitudes really shift over time

Which brings me to my original point: one of the surprisingly fun parts about working for a small company, run by your peers, rather than the parent's of your peers, is that your style of respect and authority and “professionalism” is, more or less, the style of your company. Which means fewer debates about flip flops and the proper and professional way to behave.

It also means you can, more or less, use your own instincts and judgment rather than impersonating a style that belongs to someone else. It means you can build relationships on your own terms, in your own voice: one that makes so much sense to you that it's simply yours. You can just act normal rather than "professional."

It's maybe obvious but worth noting again: there is value and surprising pay-offs to surrounding yourself with people who share your professional style.

The latest end of (traditional) authority

Just walked out of a couple dozen hours of focus groups with college students in the deep middle of middle America, and I am here to remind us all once again that this coming generation does not care--I mean, really, does not give one little crap who provides their information, so long as it's relatively useful.

After a dozen agonizing questions in which I tried to generate some interest around now obviously inconsequential attributes like "credibility" and "trust," questions which were met with silent shrugging and clandestine text-message checking, I had to conclude that I was, well, old and my own interest in "valid" or "authoritative sources of information" about as old-fashioned and quaint as my habit of unfolding a paper NYT every morning.

Like everyone else, I'd already noticed how the Internet had displaced certain kinds of authority figures (accountants, travel agents, real estate agents, car salesman) but most of these people were basically in our way in the first place--jealousy guarding info, telling us we couldn't do it ourselves, keeping us from buying stuff when and how we wanted.

But I realize now that the impact is far more than practical. It's really and truly epistemological. The explosion of sources of info have, it seems, pretty much erased the importance of the source of that info as a key element of it's value. At least in the deep middle of middle America.

They just don't care. They assume it's accurate. And if it's not, they'll find out soon enough. Or not. It doesn't really matter. They can always check at another site.

Except for sports. In which case, ESPN still matters. Some things are still sacred.

YouTube on TV

Not sure if it transformed the debate, but you could see the early signs of a significant change in the format, maybe less for the candidates, who slipped back into their characteristic postures (thanking the citadel, reaching across the aisle, asserting their patriotism, etc…) than for the rest of us. To my eye, YouTube’s biggest impact was on the voters' role in the exchange and of course, the impact of the questions. The voters asked for specifics, (which Republican would you take as a running mate? would you work for minimum wage?), they mocked the traditional evasive rhetoric, they put the candidates on the defensive. My favorite moment: when Joe Biden felt compelled to declare his personal worth which spurred a comical posturing of many of the candidates, describing how little money they had.

Of course, the format raised questions about which of the candidates could speak to this newly empowered voter, but didn't provide any answers yet. None of them, really, rose to the challenge, though Obama probably came closest, with his confident ability to shift between more official levels of discourse and an easy vernacular style. He shut down the silly debate on the poorest candidate by stating the obvious fact that they all had plenty of money compared to the worker on minimum wage. But you could see them having to abandon their traditional evasions in order to directly answer the question.

I don’t want to overstate the case. The traditional setting and rules still dominated the experience: the careful parsing of words, the sentimental anecdotes, etc.,. but when each new video came on screen, representing gay couples, parents of veterans, underpaid workers, you could feel something new, even on through the double screens. The citizen-reporters had a confidence, a personality, even, at times, a sharpness that they’d never have on the floor of arena, under the scrutiny of the lights.

All of us could suddenly see ourselves asking direct, clear, hard questions to candidates. Suddenly, or possibly we became a nation of voters aspiring to get their questions on a national debate. Talk about empowerment. And what a worthy ambition! A new kind of politically engaged American Idol. Many of us would never be comfortable on television, but it’s many of us would be thrilled to be on YouTube on Television, after we had rehearsed and reshot our question until we got it just right.

My colleague, Jim Dowd, who insists he’ll add his comments to this post, has further suggested that the whole You Tube structure started to reposition the journalists. Cooper wasn't asking questions as a comfortable insider, so he had to add a new kind of value, probing for specifics, asking for follow-ups. Just as the Internet has marginalized (or at least redefined the role of) travel agents and accountants by giving consumer-citizens access to information and choice, now it’s forcing reporters to rethink their role.

I know it's getting mixed reviews but I like it so far.

Good Viral?

One of the frustrating things about being an analyst in the hyped-fueled (hype is our business after all) world of advertising and marketing is that it's very hard to sort out what's working from what's not. I remember a day not too long ago when I found two articles on a previous Quiznos' campaign with completely opposite POV's, one celebrating it as a great success, the other damning it as a complete failure. Like most disagreements, this one existed at the level of assumptions.

You could say--and we usually do--that the market is the ultimate judge, but we all know it isn't that simple. Even when campaigns that don't "build business" right away, we often make other claims for them: e.g. they raised the brand profile, or attracted a younger audience, or will lead to long-term impact. And almost anyone who knows their way around a spread-sheet can find some sketchy data to support their claims.

This is especially true in emerging media, where the data is even thinner, and less available. Most of us have been making claims about the power of viral videos to generate buzz and engagement and drive business, but most of the analysis out there is just as impressionistic, based on taste. Here's a know | future, weighing in on one set of choices.

Social Media Experts like Joseph Carribis go further, listing a set of qualities possessed by good viral. A posting on his blog lists Entertainment, Utility, Reward and Uniqueness. . That sounds good too but it also sounds a lot like qualities of any good form of marketing. Equally useful and universal principles are posted designer Ben Terett on his Noisy Decent Graphics Blog. He lists Funny, Rude, Useful and Simple. Again, I like it. But for those of us who started working in the dark ages before web 2.0, getting the consumer/viewer/user's attention was pretty important too.

My favorite post--in terms of matching the medium to the message has be this post on Twitter--has to be here.

I certainly don't have the answer either, though I'm starting to think that the previous posts are exactly right: the best of viral is much (though not entirely) a lot like the best of everything else.

One of my favorites recently is the now semi-famous Will it Blend site for industrial blender Blendtec. There are any number of great creative and interactive touches to this execution, from the user-selected choice of an iphone to the ability to bid online for the destroyed device to the fact that it doesn't overplay it's hand with broad comedy. Most of all, though, I loved how it well it communicated the product benefit in such an unforgettable way. After watching this video, you have no doubt that this mother could chop through just about anything. And who doesn't want one of those?

CEO's read litearture!

Breaking story in today's New York Times, as reported by Harriet Rubin. Stephen Jobs collected Blake! Michael Milkin is a fan of Galileo. Phil Knight has a library of rare works of Asian Poetry and Art History. Darwin is apparently hot among business leaders, as are books on climate change! In comparison, Shelly Lazarus' choices (Meg Wolitzer) sound positively middle-brow. But let's not split hairs. After all, any sign that America's CEO's are reading about something other than lost cheese is good news to me. It's true that Rubin includes a relatively short-list of examples, raising the question that these CEO's might be the exception rather than the rule. (They certainly are in my limited experience.)

But more interesting still, Rubin reports that these CEO's tend to keep their passion for serious literature a secret She doesn't really explain why, though she suggests that the CEO's don't want to reveal the value of their libraries or raise the price of desired tomes. But this explanation doesn't really ring true. Can't these guys and gals buy almost anything they want? And on the scale of their possessions, these books are relatively inexpensive.

Perhaps they are embarrassed? Or just don't want to reveal the source of their strategic ideas? If only we could get a peek at their Amazon wish lists!

It makes me wonder if all my bosses were hiding copies of Ruskin and Tolstoy within dust-jackets of The One Minute Manager and Seven Habits of Highly Successful People. It's hard to believe, but I hope so.

Another weird thing about business culture that I still haven’t completely adjusted to

is how business people always seem to be defending—nervously or aggressively--the boundaries of their responsibilities. People who are particularly aggressive with this behavior are usually called “territorial,” in the full imperialistic sense of the term.

At first I thought this was just a pathology of the place I was working, but when I started perusing the business literature it started to look pretty pervasive, almost the dominant problem of business culture. Take a look at at almost any business mag and you’ll see all kinds of advice on how to help employees understand the value of shared responsibility.

It’s weird, to me, because in my old life, the goal was to give away as much work as possible so you could do what you really wanted: which was to hang out and drink espressos in cafés with cute waitresses or research obscure topics in musty libraries. Avoid committee work like the plague, get student help grading papers, go on sabbatical and hope it’s all taken care of when you get back.

Of course, turf battles aren't limited to business. They seem pretty endemic to any organization. If you google “turf battles," you’ll see that “turf battles” are identified as the source of any number of failures to get something done in law enforcement, the scientific community, government.

It’s of special concern to me now since I just signed up with a company which has built an entire business model around successful collaboration across strategic and creative services. Like anything worth doing, it's not easy: generating enough conference-call posturing to fill the script of a David Mamet play.

“Is that really a best practice?”
“Depends on what you consider a best practice.”
“Are you suggesting I’m not familiar with best practices?”

But the truth is, it’s an issue for anyone involved in brand or account planning or any kind of strategic function since, by definition, you are in a collaborative role. You are put in the position to give direction to people who generally aren't super-eager to take it, for instance—just for instance—creative directors.

I looked over a couple sets of rules on-line but they weren't very useful or convincing. (“Show how sharing information can lead to job security.” Not sure about that one.) I only have one rule, at least for managers: don’t take credit for anything. Really, anything. Chances are you only half-deserve it. And better still: you tend to get credit anyway. Double the credit. Credit for getting it done and credit for having the good judgment to hire the person who got it done. And your staff tends to appreciate it, which pays all kinds of dividends in loyalty and good work. It’s kind of an artificially simple principle—call it strategic humility—but it's remarkably rare.

Unsurprising Start-Up Fact #1: Back to the basics

But six, seven rounds of revisions on a screener, really? Really? Is that what it was like? I have renewed compassion for my former staff.