Jon Sculley: Being Steve Jobs Boss

Interesting article in Bloomberg Business week about John Sculley's new book in which he discusses his tenure after leaving Pepsi and becoming CEO of Apple.

This bit confirms what I have long said about Steve Jobs: that he's really good at saying NO, but that is OK because he is a genius.  If he were also wrong, it would be disaster. As culley putrs it:

Q:That drives some people a little bit crazy. Did it drive you crazy?

A: It's O.K. to be driven a little crazy by someone who is so consistently right. 

A man's reach should exceed his grasp: why Netflix killed Blockbuster

Blockbuster chief of digital strategy is quoted in Fast Company:

You can always say I wish I did X and not Y. But if you asked me in 2009 whether we'd be the only one in the mobile space selling movies other than Apple and whether we'd have Blockbuster On Demand--never in my wildest dreams would I have aimed this high. [emphasis is mine].

What's the point of a strategy if you can execute on it and pass your own dreams? No wonder my money is on Netflix FTW.

Who cares if the cool kids leave Facebook?

The cool kids are leaving Facebook, says Pace Lattin based on data from InsideFacebook: the 18-35 demographic is now having negative growth in this "early adopter" demographic.   I can't yet find the raw data, but let's assume the trend is true.  Let's assume that the explosive growth of Facebook for mobile doesn't have anything to do with it. 

Any platform that requires the "cool kids" to be there for it to be successful will ultimately suffer the same fate.  We can't all be East Village hipsters enjoying our own exclusive online party, with VCs chomping at the bit to try to invest in the things we think are cool.  Even if all the cool kids leave, Facebook will still have a huge business with the uncool kids.

However.  Viewing Facebook itself as the cornerstone of social is just false. They beat out all the other social networks, more or less.  Round 1: Facebook.  Bigger, longer term, the interoperability of social graphs will make the choice of any one web site unimportant.  

Any platform that requires the "cool kids" to be there for it to be successful will ultimately suffer the same fate.  We can't all be East Village hipsters enjoying our own exclusive online party, and there will continue to be plenty of business opportunities for Facebook even if those users leave.

However.  Viewing Facebook itself as the cornerstone of social is just false. They beat out all the other social networks, more or less.  Round 1: Facebook.  Bigger, longer term, the interoperability of social graphs will make the choice of any one web site unimportant.  

The fact is, hipsters still have parents, and teachers, and friends they want to connect to, and some they want to be able to ignore.  Technologies built on opening the social graph and intelligent selectively sharing the content we ourselves consume is the direction we're heading.  

Round 2: unknown.

we haven't really seen the companies that are thinking about this.  Check out where Diaspora is going these days, and see the interoperable social  future.  

Closing the sale by being human

Looking for data on the auto shopping behaviors in social media, this video from Automotive Digest featuing Hans Van Order, CEO of UDC, realy stands out.

The theme of this video, "Time to be human again" is spot on- maintaining your existing relationships by being human is something you can do every day.  Don't rely on a computer, a twitter bot, or Google Adwords to do these for you.  The technology is a means to reach out, but the tech is meaningless without the human touch.  

CRM is certainly easier with certain kinds of technology, but being human is what really closes sales.

Cause Marketing: We see you!

A facebook friend liked a Facebook ad by a Philly-based Bongo Agency, so I went to see what this agency was doing with Facebook.  I discovered an interesting question about Cause Advertising.

KFC's pink buckets are a great example.  My response in the FB thread:

What continues to baffle me about KFC is the unhealthy element of their food. Even if they are supporting breast cancer research, I feel like the brand is mobilizing moms to make their families fat.  Breast cancer is a worthy opponent (my mom is a survivor), but what about obesity and heart disease?  What about teaching kids healthy eating habits?!! 

I think a more thoughtful tie-in between the brand/product and the cause is key to making cause marketing successful.

I read the other day that the American public is essentially addicted to low prices and discounting in retail; until we agree that we will pay more for higher quality, healthy, safer products, that are better for the environment, I think marketers will rely on Cause marketing to use philanthropic sentiment to justify a premium price.

What do you think?

PS: don't miss, from the new Saatchi blog: 10 Ways to Communicate with Moms.

Steve Jobs, The KIN, and the power of No

“If you boat a lot, you're known as a boating enthusiast. I like to boat, but I just don't want to ever be referred to as a 'boating enthusiast'. I hope they call me 'a guy who likes to boat'.”- Mitch Hedberg

I read that Microsoft's new KIN Windows 7 phones, are "aimed at 15- to 30-year-olds who are social-networking enthusiasts."  Ew.  Never mind targeting teen interests in Glee, Justin Beiber, WWE, college, funny videos, or body spray - who describes a product this way even in a press junket?  Presumably they left the research out, or they'd have realized that 31% of their target demographic already plans to buy an iPhone.

It's shocking, really.  After so many years of getting it wrong you'd think someone could just do the opposite of all that and make a serious score!  Microsoft has been making mobile products longer than Apple has been making the iMac- it just so happens that few of Microsoft's products were very good.  When aQuantive was bought by Microsoft in 2007, my Razorfish colleagues and I collectively worried that we'd lose our Blackberry devices in favor of Windows Mobile "smartphones."  The worry was well-deserved; those who received them were usually miserable.

Microsoft proved unable to create the kind of extensible platform on its mobile devices that has made Windows dominant in the corporation and in the home.  While Windows may be too entrenched to be dislodged from either, it's stunning what Steve Jobs has been able to do in his return to Apple. 

And now, with the prominence of the iPod/iPhone/iPad as a platform, Apple's role as a "gatekeeper" to the platform is drawing a wave of anti-Jobs sentiment, centered around the perception that Apple is a draconian gatekeeper of its own platform.

Maybe so.  Is that so bad? Isn't it better than the sludge that Windows Mobile is? (I have not tried out Windows 7 Mobile so I reserve judgement for now). I believe that the power Steve Jobs wields most effectively is the power of No.  And what Microsoft, by trying to pack everything into every product it ships, has always been shackled to Yes, And... (well, their version of Yes, anyway).

No, that is too hard to use

No, that looks like crap

No, that feature sucks

No, that app doesn't belong in the app store

No, we don't talk to the press

No, I don't answer emails (actually I think Steve Jobs responding to email of late is like the ultimate blog/twitter account)

After all that NO, it's clear that the most important thing to Apple is to make awesome products that people love.  It's not ego, or even greed (except by association- great products cost $$$).  But Apple has transformed itself from a manufacturer of niche PCs that a few people love, to a mass-market CE company that makes products for millions more.  The masses expect Apple to stand behind every product decision and to contuniue to uphold exacting quality and usability standards.

Is that democratic?  Surely not- Steve Jobs is an admired autocrat. He's a sort of a benign autocrat, which  isn't all that bad  (see also the original Thirteen Colonies and "Salutary Neglect")  Strong, determined leaders in the autocratic model don't much care for input from you, or me, or anyone else.  If they stopped to ask what we wanted, we might choose the wrong thing.

As in the 1700s, this was all more or less OK until the colonists got wind of the the autocrat's real priorities- the intolerable acts were ones that benefited the sovereign else at the expense of the colonists.  Enter the rebellion.

Are we net beneficiaries of Steve Jobs' power of No or are we on the brink of Apple's decisions benefitting the company more than the base of users, developers, and accessory manufacturers?

Apple's power comes from protecting the user experience.  Whether you see that experience as stifled by an evil dictator or shaped by divine will is really about YOU not about Apple.  With the user at the center, the design decisions of an otherwise evil monarch are altruistic.  Right vs. left, republican vs. democrat- this is an interpretive exercise rather than a factual one.

Apple is facing an onslaught of ad-driven solutions, particularly if it releases always-on wifi and allows multiple apps to run simultaneously.  A successful ad model could be important to keeping developers afloat.  But the key to that monetization of the audience is the data about the audience, and strategically Apple needs this piece- to be the sole provider of such data and kill AdMob.

So Apple 's development process might be reduced to:

1. Protect the experience of the user
2. Protect the interests of the developer ecosystem except to the extent that it woulf harm 1
3. Serve the interests of shareholders/The Street except to the extent that there would be conflict with 1 or 2

No matter how many applications Steve Jobs or his employees arbitrarily deny from the app store, if people just love the damn thing, they'll think he's Jesus.

Spontaneous Joy in Social Advertising

I spent the day with out of town visitors - my girlfriend's friends from college- and had two experiences in large groups that tell us much about the power of video experiences.

At the Manhattan JCC's Multisport Expo, Rachel and I attended a seminar on stretching- the new thesis in sports medicine seems to be that stretching before activity is not recommened, and that pre-activity warm-ups - a set of exercises was demonstrated- was preferable. 

The practitioners demonstrated two sets of warm-up exercises- meant to combat the idea that it's hard to fit the warmup into every workout.  At the end of the session, there was a phone number, a web site, an address, but no URL for the video.  Several people asked - we were all thinking it.  "Not Yet" the doctor's reply.  A completely disappointing missed opportunity to get all of us attendees- 100 people or so - to forward the experience of a great presentation and a real-take away, to our networks.  While it may be that the sports medicine practice didn't need the extra business- it was almost MEAN that we couldn't take the workout with us.  We'd have remembered that moment far better, to everyone's benefit.

I had lower expectations of the American Museum of Natural History, but this is a place that in many ways "gets it."  While parts of the museum are dark, scary places that likely haven't changed decor or content since the 1970s (I'm guessing about the latter but not the former), the dinosaur exhibits on the fourth floor were great.  I was definitely a dinosoaur-loving kid.  My favorite book at my granparents' house was Dinotopia, in which mankind discovers, and lives in harmony with, a lost world of dinosaurs.

I am prone to wandering a bit in museums (especially with dinosaurs involved) and I showed up  a few seconds too late to find Rachel and friends running in place and driving an imaginary car in front of a freestanding kiosk.  In fact, this was a camera-equipped video-production experience, which inserted video of the museum guest into a NYC Taxi being chased by T-Rex.  As though I was not already humming the Jurassic Park theme song!

The kiosk shoots video for 30 seconds or so, and prompts the user to send it, by email, to anyone you want!  Smart.  Part postcard, part email signup form, all fun, and sent at the perfect moment- this was exactly the kind of advertising the museum ought to be doing.  Don't sell me on the museum, sell mee on MY museum experience.  We came home and watched the video, and of course it offered some nice Museum of Natural History branding along with frantic T-Rex evasion.  I smiled, and my marketing self is still coming up with ways to enhance that experience. 

Capturing someone's spontaneuous joy is a powerful thing.

Learning from Ninjavideo.net- Give Me What I Want

The last decade has seen information technology  increase productivity and the measurement of marketing, and this has primarily been a gain in efficiency.  I think social technologies trend in the opposite direction by making marketing more powerful, insightful, and satisfying to the target audience.  Having the people's affirmation as a lynchpin of success has done wonders for the quality of many marketing program's.

At a recent NY Tech Meetup, I was introduced to Ninjavideo.net and finally had a chance to try it out.  While the site seems to be hitting its stride in terms of ad monetization, it's possible all this ad-revenue will be clawed back by a copyright infringement lawsuit.  From a usability perspective, the site is great, and THAT is what people want. [side note: consumers (ok, I) will click on nearly anything to get the content we  (ok, I) want].  There is literally no telling what the "Ninjavideo.net Helper Applet" is doing after you're done with it.

Conclusion: The site is one a huge missed opportunity for the major media companies and studios- this is where the people are, and they'll watch ninjavideo.net or its successors until they figure out how to serve the audience rather than enslave them. 

Top Five things from SXSW 2010

1. Great impromptu meeting with the guys from @Foursquare
2. Dachis Group Social Business Summit and the copy of @rushkoff's book in the goodie bag
3. Valerie Casey Keynote @designersaccord
4. @Jmspool's Design Treasures of the Amazon
5. @Boxee party

I will post more about each as they marinate, but really really a great event.

Operational Transparency

In his Buzzmachine blog, Jeff Jarvis writes about a Continental Airlines choice of transparency over secrecy after flights were cancelled:

Continental is practicing operational transparency. It opened up information is already has to us, the customers, so we can be informed and empowered. This way, I’m not cursing the airline and its employees. I’m well aware that our flight might be canceled and that’s entirely out of Continental’s control, so I wouldn’t blame them. But every time this has happened in the past, I hated being in the dark; I hated being lied to by airlines; I simply want more information. And now an airline is giving it to me. Bravo for Continental.

Operational transparency is only possible when someone has sat down and calculated the benefit of the true information vs. the costs of its absence. Good on Continental in this case, and we should all look to say more when there is no serious competitive disadvantage to secrecy- hiding behind “approved messaging” will just keep your customers from taking your side.

Heartfelt Marketing scores - Griffin and Dave Delaney

This is the kind of multi-media experience I believe any brand can undertake with the right people approaching a high-profile event.  While you would do lots of things differently to reflect your brand, the skeleton is here.  Chris Brogan's post on Griffin is excellent, here are excerpts:

Summary:
Dave Delaney and his company, Griffin, put on quite a great little project with CESBound. They took an old VW bus, after hours, and restored it, and then drove it from Nashville all the way to Las Vegas for CES. Along the way, they made media, met friends, told stories, shot photos, froze a bit, played music, and had a blast.

Key takeways (from the bottom of the post):

• Tell a story and tell it well.
• Capture the story in multiple types of media.
• Involve people by communicating and relationship-building.
• Tie it to your core theme and beliefs (Griffin is a lot about art, design, expression).
• Build a meaningful online presence around the experience. Don’t call CESBound a microsite.
• Do it inhouse. Near as I can tell, they had no external agency help with the project.
• Share the spotlight. Griffin also partnered with Threadless to create a special CES iPhone case, with BrightKite for location services, and more.
• Bring it all home. The team did a great job of telling a story that also strengthened the brand.

Kudos to Dave Delaney and thanks as always to Chris Brogan for calling out a rockstar story.

Relationships: your ticket out of Social Media Slave Labor

Are social media sites the agents driving us all into slave labor creating the means for marketers to oppress us?  Or can marketers be smarter than that?

Instead, I would argue that only marketers who fail to create relationships need slaves.

The Internet as Playground and Factory conference explored these issues recently, and at first blush, an excerpt like this gives us all the willies, doesn't it?

Only a small fraction of the more than one billion Internet users create and add videos, photos, and mini-blog posts. The rest pay attention. They leave behind innumerable traces that speak to their interests, affiliations, likes and dislikes, and desires. Large corporations then profit from this interaction by collecting and selling this data.  Social participation is the oil of the digital economy. Today, communication is a mode of social production facilitated by new capitalist imperatives and it has become increasingly difficult to distinguish between play, consumption and production, life and work, labor and non-labor. 

Am I a slave right now, blogging and tweeting and mentioning brand names and leaving a trail of data crumbs all over the interwebs?  True, all the data the "slaves" create is fodder for data-driven marketing. Tracking people across social media, .com properties, searches and video views, it all becomes the cloud that companies are seeking to profit from.

Many of these approaches create highly interesting optimization problems.  However, I would claim that we cannot reduce all marketing to an optimization problem.

1. You can't optimize awareness- if you want people everywhere to know what you are doing, this will cost you in terms of money, people, or time, or frequently all three.

2.Once a user finds you, marketing strategies must combine the use of personalized offers with actual relationships and content.  So no matter how many times you test your banner creative to see whether people who saw the "pizza hut and taco bell" video like your banner ad better than people who saw the "Peanut butter jelly time" clip from Family Guy, these correlations do not get people to like you.  They're just data. 

3. Data in marketing organization often reduces perceived uncertainty about a tactic without really proving it's the right strategy.  It's just a better use of money, but spending money without creating relationships is a first class ticket to lowermybills.com.

4. Optimization-driven marketing creates perceived value for middlemen and service providers, and moves dollars around between ad nbetworks, exchanges, publishers, advertsiwers, agencies and niche service providers:  it does create valuable relationships with customers.

The Human Relationships  forged when your product or sales force take care of the customer, however challenging, last longer than an ad campaign or an agency retainer agreement, and are forgiving of mistakes but not impervious.  It's a long-term value play.  Some companies play this game well, and many, many, do not.  Patience is a virtue.

Hat tip to @kcheyfitz for giving me something to think about this Sunday morning.