Brains on Fire

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  Simpler than You Think, Part 1

  Posted on August 17th, 2011 by Eric Dodds and currently 15 commenting.

  The only way I know how to write an opening line of this post using the word “success” – without seeming cheesy – is to tell you that I don’t know how to do it.

  There, now that I’ve gotten that out of the way, I can tell you that when it comes to the ingredients of success, I’m a devout skeptic. I think my cynicism comes from two observations: First, we seem to have an insatiable desire for silver bullets that will magically bag whatever type of success we’re looking for. “10 tips for this” and “secrets” for that. We want easy paths to victory.

  Second, where there’s a search for silver bullets, there’s always an ‘expert’ vendor who gladly sells people maps that mark whatever path they want to walk.

  Now, I think there are plenty of people out there seeking honest solutions, and plenty of companies selling them. But as I read books, articles, blogs and tweets about success – in whatever context the authors discuss it – I find that all too often the commentary bends towards silver bullets and under-emphasizes the good old-fashioned ingredients that have served people since the beginning of time: hard work and skill developed over time.

  Here’s the first of two examples. I’ll post the second one soon.

  The music thinkers over at hypebot recently published an article called “5 Top Characteristics of Full Time Musicians.” (1) (It’s worth noting that the author points out that for most artists, success means making a living at music, not becoming the next worldwide super star.) I can tell you right now that the list isn’t sensational, and it isn’t going to show up on Mashable.com. Check it out:

  1. They work (very) hard.
  2. They love what they’re doing.
  3. It’s not about the money.
  4. They have support.
  5. They don’t give up.

  Remember that these aren’t tips for success, but characteristics that successful people have cultivated in themselves. And it took a long time. The author goes on to say:

  One final thing I’ll say on this subject is that it often took these artists years to get to the point of making a full-time living from music, usually 7-10 years. Most “overnight successes” are years in the making, and nowhere is this truer than in the music industry.

  Where are the social media tips? Where is the “our agency has a secret that no one else does” statement? Where are the silver bullets?

  I’ll have more conclusive thoughts in the next post, but for the time being, I’d love to hear what you think. What do you think are the main ingredients to success? Do you think there are there silver bullets?

  • You can read the hypebot article here.
  Tags: easy solutions, hard work, silver bullet, silver bullets, skeptic, Social media, success
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  Common Sense and Old News

  Posted on July 27th, 2011 by Eric Dodds and currently 0 commenting.

  We’re a group of happy people here. (Maybe too happy sometimes.) Our good spirits tend to keep our blog posts pretty positive, but sometimes we run across a few things that make us sigh, shake our heads, and riff them pretty hard via a mass-email to all the pirates in the office. Today I thought I’d share one or two of those things with you.

  The first was the headline of an article that someone randomly received in their inbox:

  “Use of Human Voice in Social Media Can Help Organizations Build Relationships” (1)

  That was the conclusion of a study performed at a well known academic institution. Now, we’re not snarky pundits who like to throw strong opinions around to feel better about ourselves. In fact, we’re big supporters research, and if you can put numbers (instead of just talk) behind what you’re doing with social media, we’re impressed. Heck, we’re in the business of helping organizations become more human (and we often use social media as one of our tools).

  What got us about this headline, though, is that it makes the conclusion seem really new and revolutionary when we’ve known the same is true in other channels for a long, long time. Ask anyone in customer service: people don’t like talking to machines. And social media isn’t any different.

  Maybe we’re picky, but it’s hard for us to get excited about common sense and long-time best-practices re-packaged as new-news.

  The second is an excerpt from an article about T.G.I. Friday’s Father’s Day Facebook promotion (2):

  So much for ties or sweaters for Dad. And so much for traditional marketing vehicles.

  In a new world of marketing, where social media is the lone currency that virtually guarantees a return, the beer app is being viewed as forward-thinking by some but tacky by others.

  We believe social media is a great tool too, but I think this author might have neglected to do their homework on how much people still use traditional media. For examples, Neilsen’s State of the Media: Cross Platform Report in Q1 of 2011 found that ”Americans are spending more time watching video content on traditional TVs, mobile devices and the Internet than ever before.” (3). Also, companies still invest a whole lot of money in it: another Neilsen report shows that TV spending grew 8% over last year (4).

  Again, we’re not naysayers. But sensational statements about new technology as a magic bullet have always been a red flag for us.

  OK. That feels a lot better. We’re done shaking our heads.

  • (1) – You can find the study about human voice in social media here.
  • (2) – You can read the article about T.G.I. Friday’s Father’s Day promotion here.
  • (3) – You can read Neilsen’s “State of the Media: Cross Platform Report in Q1 of 2011″ here.
  • (4) – You can read Neilsen’s “State of the MediaTrends in TV Viewing—2011 TV Upfronts” here (PDF).
  Tags: Common Sense, Facebook, Magic Bullet, News, old news, Social media, T.G.I. Fridays
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  If You Say You’re Going To Listen, Then Listen

  Posted on April 28th, 2011 by Eric Dodds and currently 1 commenting.

  “Listening” to your customers has become quite the trend in marketing practice, especially when social media channels are utilized. It’s incredible when you think about it – there are people talking about your brand, and you can see those statements and conversations happening – in real time. Now, the influence of offline conversations is still more influential than social media online, but these new technologies have given marketers insights that simply weren’t available before. Very cool stuff.

  But what happens when a brand wants to use ‘listening platforms’ to broadcast marketing messages to their customers they same way they have in the past? Many companies who employ the broadcast mentality find themselves repeating a familiar cycle in a new venue: coming up with catchy hooks over and over to keep people excited. (The traditional model isn’t wrong, it just leaves a whole lotta potential on the table.)

  Other companies take a more precarious route, making the claim that they want to listen, but not acting on the exchange they have with their customers. Many brands actually make this work, but it can turn and bite you if you don’t keep a very careful hand on the leash.

  Motorola provided a shining example of this recently. They asked their 300,000+ fans, “What cool Android apps would you like to see next from developers?” (1)

  Many people expected requests for music players or a Netflix streaming app, but unfortunately, this opened up a deeper issue for Motorola. Their users want more control of their Android devices. (Bear with me through the nerdy paragraph below.)

  

  Specifically, they want an ‘unlocked bootloader.’ (Don’t raise your hand if you know what that is.) I’ll spare you the nerd details, but essentially, Motorola and other phone manufacturers leverage Android’s open-source operating system to install their own user interfaces on devices. Motorola’s version is called ‘Motoblur,’ HTC’s version is called ‘HTC Sense,’ and so on. Some versions include some pretty slick interface features.

  For many users (yes, lots of geeks), the downside to a slick interface is that the phone manufacturer locks you in, limiting your control of the device. pocketnow.com, one of the sites that broke this story (2), says that an unlocked bootloader gives you ” the ability to do what you want with your phone.”

  Here’s the fascinating part: as far as I can tell, Motorola didn’t respond.

  I lack the technological knowledge to if Motorola has a legitimate reason to manage software the way that they do, but not responding to an overwhelming response (around 10,000 people requested an unlocked bootloader (3)) raises a lot of questions in customers minds about whether Motorola really wants to listen, and whether they will do anything with the feedback that they do get.

  Maybe opening the poll to user suggestions wasn’t such a good idea.

  

  We’ve been known to recommend that clients not engage in social media because they weren’t ready to put the work in that is required to have a real conversation.

  If you say you’re going to listen, listen.

  • (1) You can find Motorola’s Facebook Question about Android apps here.
  • (2) You can see the original pocketnow.com article here.
  • (3) The article citing 10,000 responses is here.
  Tags: android, customers, Facebook, listening, Marketing, motorola, opinion, poll, question, Social media
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  Less Diagnosis, More Scalpel

  Posted on March 22nd, 2011 by Eric Dodds and currently 13 commenting.

  Wondering why no one listens to your good ideas? Start making them happen and you’ll have people’s undivided attention. –Jesse Gardner (1)

  Have you noticed a proliferation of diagnosticians in the last few years? Think about it – if the fans at the sports bar were coach, they wouldn’t have made that horrible substitution. If politicians could just understand the oh-so-simple solutions touted by blog commenters, our country’s problems would be righted in short order. And if that self-made social-media-blogger were in charge of social media for that Fortune 100 brand, they wouldn’t have made that big mistake, and fans would flock to the brand’s conversation by the thousands. Right?

  This is an age old problem – people have always had opinions and shared them in some form or another. As communication has become faster, shortened to soundbites, and shrouded by anonymity, though, it seems that people have taken to their soapboxes en masse to make their stance known and vie for their share of audience. They are creating a vast sea of digital diagnosis.

  How many diagnosticians does it take to fix a problem, though?

  In my experience, diagnosticians aren’t the ones who fix things. Surgeons fix the actual problems, diagnosticians define them. (Many surgeons do both.) The role of defining shouldn’t be downplayed – accurately understanding the problem is crucial to a safe and successful procedure. But if it stops at diagnosis and a skilled professional doesn’t wield a scalpel at some point, the problem isn’t really addressed.

  Many of the most talented and successful people I know don’t pay much attention to their soapboxes because they are simply too busy using good diagnosis to fix problems or implement solutions to be overly concerned with what people think of their perspective. At the end of the day, their beliefs will be clearly evident in the trail of solutions they create as they move forward.

  In 2011, my goal is less diagnosis and more scalpel. A lot more.

  —————-

  (1) See the original quotation from Joshua Blankenship’s blog here.

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  Remember: It’s the User

  Posted on January 5th, 2011 by Eric Dodds and currently 1 commenting.

  When is the last time someone told you something similar to this:

  I wanted to apologize for dropping the ball and not reading your 3 urgent emails that were really critical to meeting the deadline. I’m busy and sometimes I get flooded with messages, but the real problem is that I let those excuses persuade me to ignore email or procrastinate as opposed to really putting forth the effort to efficiently manage my time and communication.

  Once? Never? The confession is admittedly over-stated, and I’m still earning my spurs, but I can count the number of times I’ve seen someone so deliberately shift responsibility from external factors to their own responsibility (or lack thereof) on one hand.

  A friend told me a story recently about communication that was ignored and a narrow escape from the tragedy of letting a client down. (Unfortunately not so rare in agency life.) In the aftermath, the response he received went something like this: “Sorry I didn’t catch that message yesterday. That’s why I hate email sometimes.”

  What?

  The phrase sounds familiar, but look at it a little more closely. What’s the source of the problem? Exactly. Not the medium.

  My friend described the problem brilliantly: “I can’t tell my mortgage company, ‘Oh, I didn’t see that bill. That’s why I hate letters so much.’ Do yourself a favor and don’t ever blame email when your repeated decision not to manage it well is actually at fault.” Ouch. (It reminds me of hearing a great musician make my cheap guitar sound phenomenal while I complain about how thick the strings are.)

  But the problem goes deeper than email, doesn’t it? Why do I think that a project I’m working on could be really successful if the issues with other team members would get out of my way? Why have I tried two handfuls of different to-do list methods in the last year and thought each time that I would be magically propelled closer to deadlines ? I think it’s because my gut reaction is to reach for things that won’t make me ask hard questions about my own leadership or procrastination.

  The hard truth is that it’s simply easier to blame things around us rather than take full responsibility for doing the things we need to do and changing the things we need to change. Remember, it’s the user.

  Tags: blame, captain, communication, email, responsibility, sailors, ship, tools