Line or staff?
The most urgent jobs tend to be line jobs. Profit and loss. Schedules to be drawn and honored. Projects to deliver.
The line manager initiates. The line manager delivers.
Staff jobs are important, no doubt about it. The staff keeps the lights on, provides resources on demand and is standing by ready to help the line manager. But the staff person doesn't get to say yes and doesn't get to say go.
In fact, the best staff people get that way by acting like they're on the line.
Digital is slippery
When you build a building, it stays around for a long time.
When you invest and staff a factory, it's something significant, and it lasts.
When Heinz gets shelf space at the supermarket, the status quo is powerful and that shelf space might last a generation or two.
Today, the smart money is investing in digital assets, and legions of entrepreneurs are trying to build long-term value online, where it just seems so easy. 100,000 downloads of your new app, or a quick rise to #1 for your new ebook or a million 'hits' to a new website.
No one to say no
In a world that lacks so many traditional gatekeepers, there are fewer people than ever to say no to your project, your idea, your song. If you want to put it out there, go ahead.
On the other hand, that also means that there are fewer people who can say yes. That's now your job too.
If you work in an organization, the underlying rule is simple: People are not afraid of failure, they’re afraid of blame.
Avoid looking in the mirror and saying no. More challenging: practice looking in the mirror and saying yes.
Would you please share my new book?
What To Do When It's Your Turn, my new book, is now shipping.
"It seems that Seth's books always find me at the exact moment when I need them the most. Many people label Seth as a great marketer (and he's the best) but after reading his books and working with him, I can tell you it goes much deeper. He's not asking us to be better marketers. His is a call to become more of what makes you, *you*. This book is a call-to-arms and a manifesto of personal art. It will be what everyone on my list gets this year. There are some books you read, and then there are some books you live by. This is the one to live by..."
Josh Long, Writer and Designer
I don't write this blog to help me sell books. I write books to help the blog make change happen.
Babies and bathwater
I got a call yesterday from a charity.
Actually, I got an unsolicited spam pitch from one of the worst charities in America. They give less than 1% of what they raise to the cause in question.
Therefore, some might say, it makes no sense to give to anyone, ever.
Which would be a shame, because it's a mistake to fail to do the hard work of discerning the good from the deceptive.
Clawing your way to the bottom
We don't usually use that cliche, but it's true.
Trading in your standards in order to gain short-term attention or profit isn't as easy as it looks. Once-great media brands that now traffic in cheesecake and quick clicks didn't get there by mistake. Respected brands that rushed to deliver low price at all costs had to figure out which corners to cut, and fooled themselves into thinking they could get away with it forever.
As the bottom gets more and more crowded, it's harder than ever to be more short-sighted than everyone else. If you're going to need to work that hard at it, might as well put the effort into racing to the top instead...
"Desire is full of endless distances"
Just one more level on this game, she says. Once I get to level 68, I'll be done.
Just one more tweak to the car, they beg. Once we bump up the mileage, we'll be done.
Just one more lotion, she asks. Once I put that on, my skin will be perfect and I'll be done.
Of course, the result isn't the point. The mileage or the ranking or slightly more alabaster or ebony isn't the point. The point is the longing.
I am not a cobbler
... but that doesn't mean I'm unable to choose well made and comfortable shoes.
You might not be a writer, but that doesn't mean you can't read.
You might not be a chef, but that doesn't mean you can't enjoy your dinner.
You might not be a scientist, but that doesn't mean you're unable to understand the scientific method and accept a well-discussed thesis.
Doing more, giving more, who's in charge?
Have you ever worked as hard as you did during that Organic Chemistry class? Or pulled more all nighters than you did when you were part of that project team?
And have you ever given more to charity than you did when someone pushed you to do so? Why do we need ice buckets and galas to incite us to donate to causes?
Along the way, we’ve come to believe that external motivation is the key to our success. That we need to be part of a degree program or a sales contest or have a boss looking over our shoulder to do our best work, to push us.
Of course, we were taught this by the marketers, industrialists and institutions that make a living by providing us external motivation...
Despite, in spite of, because... three ways to manage creativity
The people you hire will do creative work despite your management style, sometimes.
Or they might do it in spite of your approach, rarely.
But the most likely way to get the work you seek is to earn it, to have people bring their best ideas forward because of the leadership and guts you bring to the table.
You can't demand creativity, not for long. You can earn it though.
The full stack keeps getting taller
The bottom of the stack is essential, but it always gets easier to take for granted.
Of course electricity comes out of the little hole in the wall when you plug something in.
Of course the email engine works every day.
Of course the chipset returns the right calculations.
Four steps on the road to organizational growth, dominance or irrelevance
We see the same four steps, over and over:
Struggle: At the beginning, no one knows what you make or why they need it. They are unaware and distrustful too. Sometimes the struggle never ends, other times the story is so compelling and the value created so in demand that it appears to go by quickly. But the struggle is always there. Most marketing (as opposed to advertising) lives in this stage, because you're starting from zero.
Servant: As a soon-to-be-successful organization gains traction, it has a choice. It can move to servant mode, delighting and connecting customers, exceeding expectations and performing what seems like miracles. Or it can take profits as soon as it can. The former leads to scale, the short-term approach usually results in more struggle.
Bully: As the organization gains power (and constituents) it is under pressure to increase profits and market share and lock in. The market power leads to more market power and the ability to cause customers or partners to shift their strategy in deference. (To be clear, I define a bully as an individual or organization that uses physical or other power to cause someone less powerful to act against their enlightened long-term self interest to satisfy their demands.) "We make the rules now."
The problem with problems
We have limits. There are challenges, limited resources, people or organizations working against you. Your knee hurts, the boss is a jerk, the systems are down.
We have opportunities. There are opportunities, new sources of leverage and ideas just waiting to be embraced. You can share something, give something, make something better.
There are always limits, and there are always opportunities. The ones we rehearse and focus on are the ones that shape our attitude and our actions. How many times a day do you think about or announce the limits you face, the people who cannot be trusted, the problems that are weighing you down?
The problem with problems is that they always keep us from focusing on opportunities, on a chance to contribute and to make something better. Focus on our opportunities doesn't mean the problems don't exist, it merely means that we are far more likely to do something that matters.
Good at math
It's tempting to fall into the trap of believing that being good at math is a genetic predisposition, as it lets us off the hook. The truth is, with few rare exceptions, all of us are capable of being good at math.
I'll grant you that it might take a gift to be great at math, but if you're not good at math, it's not because of your genes. It's because you haven't had a math teacher who cared enough to teach you math. They've probably been teaching you to memorize formulas and to be good at math tests instead.
Being good at standardized math tests is useless. These tests measure nothing of real value, and they amplify a broken system.
No, we need to get focused and demanding and relentless in getting good at math, at getting our kids good at math and not standing by when someone lets themselves (and thus us) off the hook. If you can read, you can do math. Math, like reading, isn't optional, it's our future and it helps free us from our fear of creation.
Sign your work
We expect authors, painters and singers to identify themselves, to sign the work they do.
And surgeons and lawyers as well.
What about managers, committee members, engineers and everyone else who makes something? Who made this policy? Who designed this menu? Who approved this project?
If you're not proud of it, don't ship it. If you are, sign your work and own the results. We'll know who to thank. If you work for a place where work goes unsigned (internally, in particular) it's worth asking why.
This is not a promotion
The internet and big media are wrestling with chokepoints.
Cable TV companies, for example, are a natural monopoly in the home. Everyone only has one provider. If the provider has an argument with a TV network, they kick them off, the signal doesn't get through, the viewer gets nothing.
One of the arguments behind the common sense of net neutrality is that chokepoints and tollbooths aren't in the interest of the users.
Now, of course, online stores, if they get big enough, can act as chokepoints. And so can Google.
Make two lists
One list highlights the lucky breaks, the advantages, the good feedback, your trusted network. It talks about the accident of being born in the right time and the right place, your health, your freedom. It features your education, your connection to the marketplace and just about every nice thing someone has said about you in the last week or month.
The other list is the flipside. It contains the obstacles you've got to deal with regularly, the defects in your family situation, the criticisms your work has received lately. It is a list of people who have better luck than you and moments you've been shafted and misunderstood.
The thing is, at every juncture, during every crisis, in every moment of doubt, you have a choice. You will pull out one (virtual) list or the other. You'll read and reread it, and rely on it to decide how to proceed.
Up to you.
Do the word
It's possible to bend language to your will, to invest extraordinary amounts of effort and care to make words do what you want them to do.
Our culture celebrates athletes that shape their bodies, and chieftains who build organizations. Lesser known, but more available, is the ability to work on our words until they succeed in transmitting our ideas and causing action.
Here's the thing: you may not have the resources or the physique or the connections that people who do other sorts of work have. But you do have precisely the same keyboard as everyone else. It's the most level playing field we've got.
The first step is to say it poorly. And then say it again and again and again until you're able to edit your words into something that works.
A three-step marketing ladder
Probably worth reviewing at your next marketing meeting (or every marketing meeting)... There's a three-step ladder:
Awareness
Education
Action
We have Ebola
It's tragic but not surprising to watch the marketing of another epidemic unfold.
It starts with, "We" don't have Ebola, "they" do. They live somewhere else, or look different or speak another language. Our kneejerk reaction is that "they" need to be isolated from us (more than 55% of Americans favor a travel ban for everyone, not just the sick). Even fifty years ago, a travel ban was difficult, now it's impossible. The world is porous, there are more connections than ever, and we've seen this before.
Tuberculosis. Polio. AIDS. Fear runs rampant, amplified by the media, a rising cycle of misinformation, demonization and panic. Fear of the other. Pushing us apart and paralyzing us.
The thing is:
