EMBA的小眼睛

The danger of starting at the top
When making a b2b sale, the instinct is always to get into the CEO's office. If you can just get her to hear your pitch, to understand the value, to see why she should buy from or lease from or partner with or even buy you... that's the holy grail.

What do you think happens after that mythical meeting?

She asks her team.

And when the team is in the dark, you've not only blown your best shot, but you never get another chance at it.

Help wanted: Designing for growth

Just as the tech community has realized that coding and marketing can be turned into growth hacking, it may be time to redefine what we seek from graphic designers.

Prettiness isn't the point, and neither is sheer utility. The best designers working online are now using UI, UX and game theory to create services that spread. They're engaging in relentless cycles of test and measure and improve in order to determine what works (and what doesn't), replacing "because I said so," with "because it works."

Most important, though, they're learning how to use their significant visual and aesthetic chops to create series of interactions that actually generate better outcomes than the workaday stuff they're replacing.

I think there are two kinds of jobs now available to designers working online:

Is it interesting because it happened...

or because it happened to you?

If George Clooney sits next to you at a restaurant, that's interesting to you, no doubt, but only interesting to your friends because you're so excited. I mean, he had to sit next to someone!

Should we read your press release or come to your gallery opening or take a sales meeting because it's important, or because it's important to you?

Marketing is the art of seeing (and then creating) what might be interesting to more than our friends.

For truly important problems

You know something is important when you're willing to let someone else take the credit if that's what it takes to get it done.

Understanding idea adoption (you're not a slot, you choose a slot)

In the last year, millions of people have bought a copy of 50 Shades. Here's the thing: they didn't all do it at the same time.

Some people bought it when it was a self-published ebook. Others jumped in when word of mouth started to spread, enough that it became a bestseller. Most people, though, waited until it was on the bestseller list, in piles at the bookstore and the subject of positive and negative discussion and even parodies. And a few people are going to buy it two years from now, after everyone else who was willing to read it already has.

Another example: Just about all of the people who read this blog have read one of my books, and yet, just about no one who reads this blog has read my newest book yet (less than 2%, surely).

This is what almost always happens. Individuals choose a slot based on what sort of leadership or risk or followership behavior makes them happy right now. Early adopters and nerds like to go first. But some people are early when it comes to shoes, or to mystery novels, or records, while others adopt early when it comes to political ideas or restaurants.

But which is the sideshow?
What's the most urgent, important, celebrated element of your organization's work?

If it involves the status quo, the thing that got you here, it means the new stuff is going to be treated as a little bit of a sideshow or a distraction. (Another example: The team that typesets traditional books at most publishers is talented and driven. They do it with care and very high standards, and have for nearly a hundred years. The team that typesets ebooks at most publishers, though, is more junior, understaffed and has a very low bar for what is considered good enough.)

One reason that incumbents are so often defeated by newcomers is that the incumbents put their best people and their urgent focus on the stuff they used to do (like winning Pulitzer prizes, selling ads to cosmetic companies and counting dead trees) while the new guys have nothing but the new thing to focus on.

The same effect occurs when we approach our art/sideline/new venture. Some people spend their best energy on the new project, squeezing in the day job when they must. Others (the ones who rarely ship) insist on every element of the day job being finished before they practice their music, write their book or otherwise make a ruckus.

What's it for?

If, seventy years ago, you asked Henry Luce, "What is Time magazine for?" he'd probably talk about setting society's agenda, capturing the attention of the educated and powerful and most of all, delivering the best weekly news package he could.

Today, the answer is clear. The purpose of the magazine is to make as much money as possible. Everything else is in service of that goal.

It used to be that the profit enabled the magazine to reach its goals. Today, the goal is to reach the profit.

If you ask a typical food service manager at a typical high school what school lunch is for, the answer is probably not, "to educate kids about healthy food and help them to make nutritious choices for a lifetime." No, the answer is probably, "to feed as many kids as fast and as cheaply as we can, given the limited resources we have."

What you waiting for?
I'm not asking in the usual hectoring, pushing sense of asking you to hurry up and get started.

I'm genuinely, rhetorically curious. What, exactly, are you insisting will happen before you start shipping your art?

Write it down. Write down what has to happen before you can make and ship your ruckus.

Being clear about what you're waiting for makes it far more likely that your art will happen and far less likely that you're merely stalling.

Possession aggression

It's actually not that easy to give something substantial away. That's because accepting it means a change (in lifestyle, responsibility or worldview) of the person receiving it. It's stressful.

Far more stressful, though, is taking something away. Once a person or an organization comes to believe that, "this is mine," they erect a worldview around their possession of it. Taking it away instantly becomes personal, an act far greater than living without a privilege or object in the first place would be.

We care more about the change than the object or privilege itself.

When a conference works (and doesn't)

When we get together with others, even at a weekly meeting, it either works, or it doesn't. For me, it works:

...If everything is on the line, if in any given moment, someone is going to say or do something that might just change everything. Something that happens in the moment and can't possibly be the same if you hear about it later. It might even be you who speaks up, stands up and makes a difference. (At most events, you can predict precisely what's going to be said, and by whom). In the digital age, if I can get the notes or the video later, I will.

...If there's vulnerability and openness and connection. If it's likely you'll meet someone (or many someones) that will stick with you for years to come, who will share their dreams and their fears while they listen to and understand yours. (At most events, people are on high alert, clenched and protective. Like a cocktail party where no one is drinking.)

...If there's support. If the people you meet have high expectations for you and your work and your mission, but even better, if they give you a foundation and support to go even further. (At most events, competitiveness born from insecurity trumps mutual support.)

With great power comes great irresponsibility

It's possible that Peter Parker was uninformed.

Organizations tend to view "responsiblity" as doing the safe, proven and traditional tasks, because to do anything else is too risky. The more successful they become, the less inclined they are to explore the edges.

In fact, organizations with reach and leverage ought to be taking more risks, doing more generous work and creating bolder art. That's the most responsible thing they can do.

Four reasons your version of better might not be enough

I might not know about your better, because the world is so noisy I can't hear you.

I might not believe it's better, because, hey, people spin and exaggerate and lie. Proof is only useful if it leads to belief.

The perceived cost of switching (fear, hassle, internal selling and coordination, money) is far higher than your better appears to be worth.

Your better might not be my better. In fact, it's almost certainly not.

Two people you might need in your professional life

An agonist. While an antagonist blocks an action, the agonist causes it to happen. Even more than a muse, a professional agonist might be exactly what you need to provoke your best work.

And of course, a procrastinatrix. Someone who's only job is to hold you accountable for getting it done, now, not later.

In a world with fewer bosses than ever, when we are our own boss, these two functions are more important than ever. If you can't find a way to do it for yourself, spend the time and the money to find someone to do it for you. Neither job is particularly difficult to do, but it's hard to do to yourself. Two more job titles for the future...

[Thanks to Sunny for the nomenclature.]

Decisions.

You don't run a punch press or haul iron ore. Your job is to make decisions.

The thing is, the farmer who grows corn has no illusions about what his job is. He doesn't avoid planting corn or dissemble or procrastinate about harvesting corn. And he certainly doesn't try to get his neighbor to grow his corn for him.

Make more decisions. That's the only way to get better at it.

Design like Apple, but name like P&G

If you come to my brainstorming meeting and say nothing, it would have been better if you hadn't come at all.

If you go to work and do what you're told, you're not being negative, certainly, but the lack of initiative you demonstrate (which, alas, you were trained not to demonstrate) costs us all, because you're using a slot that could have been filled by someone who would have added more value.

It's tempting to sit quietly, take notes and comply, rationalizing that at least you're not doing anything negative. But the opportunity cost your newly lean, highly leveraged organization faces is significant.

Not adding value is the same as taking it away.

The Icarus Session in your town, plus live with me in New York

I'm trying something new and I hope you'll check it out.

At 7 pm (local time, wherever you are) on January 2nd, I'm inviting you and your peers, colleagues and friends to organize and attend an Icarus Session. You can find out the details at this link: Icarus Sessions. Read all the details to find the big picture and the link to sign up. Every city needs a volunteer organizer as well, and you can take the lead on the meetup site when you get there.

The short version: people volunteer to give a 140 second talk about what they're working on, creating or building, to do it with vulnerability, passion and generosity. And then to sit down and cheer on the next person.

Hundreds of cities, thousands of people, all connecting at the same time, around the world.

Cold reading

Psychics, advertisers and coaches work hard to create interactions that feel direct. They'd like you to think that their work is about you, (lots of people thought that the song was actually about them) that they know what you're thinking and what you want.

The tsunami of data available online makes this easier than ever. It's not hard to buy data, not only about your demographics, but about how you spend your time on the web.

Which means that it seems as though that site or this ad is just for you. What could be better?

The important distinction is this: the content might be for you, but it's not necessarily about you. Take what you need, but ignore the rest.

Out on a limb

This might not work.

I didn't realize how tired I was until I started driving away from the Icarus launch event on Wednesday.

Since June, I've been working flat out on creating the four books that were part of the Kickstarter and the big launch that climaxed with an event here in New York. Along the way, I experienced what many people feel as they work on something new--I was spending part of my time (against my better judgment) exhausting myself trying to predict and then control what people would think about my work.

Will they get it? Will this chapter hit home? Am I too far out on a limb?

What people buy when they buy something on sale

Assuming it's not something they were shopping for in the first place...

The impulse big-sale buy is not a matter of acquiring a high value item they'll need later at a bargain price today.

No, the consumer is spending money in exchange for the feeling, right now, of saving big. The joy of a bargain. The item is secondary, the feeling is what we just paid for.

You wouldn't know that from the way people selling things act, but that's what we buy.