me write. you read.

Facebook and The Transparency Bandwagon

While the tinfoil hatters amongst us who fear the divestiture of liberty keep pointing to the likes of the Patriot Act, the US Census or Google’s caching of every search known to man, the real worry for all of us should be Facebook. Well, all of us that aren’t in marketing, at least. The truth is that the “new openness” that Facebook is propagating has two wildly untapped (and yet genius) ideas at its core.

First of all, it’s tapping into a generational zeitgeist. There’s just something about Millennials that make them not only prone to share intricate details about their lives (and subsequently making them wide open for identity theft) but also willing to let that information be used to help them connect to better products. They don’t feel sold, the feel catered to. And for the generation that lives at home until almost 30, takes their parents to interviews and has never used a card catalog system in a library, why would they expect anything else? This notion of “openness” is also a major tenet of successful social campaigns over the past several years. A certain current president of ours ran on such a platform (never mind that it’s not practiced) to wild acclaim and popularity among Millennials. The concept of opennness is really driven by the use of the web in general, and since Facebook is the standard bearer for all things social, web-oriented and open, why shouldn’t they be the first to sally forth into such unknown territory?

The second thing it taps into is the kind of low-cost targeting that marketers are salivating for. Never mind that Millennials (and that oh-so-coveted 18-35 year old audience) are incredibly difficult to nail down and push your message at, this additional, product and brand-centric style of targeting gives Facebook the ultimate power in the universe to wield over desperate media wonks and marketing directors alike. They will be able to give you more targeted information about their users and segment users better than even Google. It’s staggeringly simple and genius at the same time. About 18 months ago when Facebook made a huge push to be the “login credentials of choice” for hundreds of sites across the internet, it seemed odd. But this, now, makes perfect sense. If Google is out to “organize the world’s information,” then Facebook is out to “segment the world’s people into highly targeted and affordable lists for companies to purchase and profit from.”

But the reality is that Google is loosing its sheen as a kind of do-gooder company. After their initial IPO, people loved everything they did. Now, after a few fumbles with their Android software updates, a couple censorship issues in China and some sneaky backroom stuff with the White House later, Google is mirroring a corporate image as opposed to a warm, smart startup. Whereas Facebook, well, they still have Mark Zuckerburg’s warm, childish face to be the, um, face of their company. They are the living expression of relationships in the 21st century. Therefore, how could we so demonize them? This, mind you, is after the Beacon fiasco of a few years back. They learned and got more sneaky about it. But they’re still tallying buckets of information about you that you are willingly giving them. We, as consumers, are blind to it because it is leading to us getting better access to deals and brands we want. In fact, the level of data that Facebook is able to gather on its 411 million users makes Google’s data from search look more like geo-targeting by zip code. It’s good, but beaten by emerging standards.

And you were afraid of the government.

Giving in to Facebook

The Book of Chuck

Awesome. If God were American, he’d totally sanction this Bible.

Finally: My letter to the editor in Harvard Business Review

I submitted this content back in March, and it’s just now making it to the presses. The good people at HBR were extremely good to work with, even when they cut out 1/2 the content of my letter. What can I say? They said keep it under 400 words, and I kept it at 397.
Here’s the text:
Gen Y in the Workforce

Dear Editor:

If you take a step back and analyze the situation objectively, there seems to be something broken in the way companies approach Millennials (see Tamara J. Erickson’s article “Gen Y in the Workforce,” February 2009). What typically starts out as nothing more than a lack of understanding often grows into an opinion that Gen Y is simply a lazy, disrespectful lot.

Gen Xers and Baby Boomers view their jobs the same way: You are what you do. Today’s younger workforce, however, has the exact opposite perspective: Millennials see their jobs as an extension of their lives, not the other way around. And since their lives are fast-paced, communication-saturated, friend-rich, and change-filled, they have high hopes that their jobs will mirror that lifestyle. So why wouldn’t they be disenchanted when they haven’t gotten a promotion after six months on the job and when they get in trouble for Facebooking at work? They expect more from their jobs than a paycheck, but few managers are willing to give it to them. Millennials want to believe in what they are doing and want to know they are being heard.

While coddling is certainly not the answer, flexibility and accountability are. Remember, this is the generation that was force-fed group projects at every level of education, from elementary school through graduate programs, so how could we expect them not to be convinced that vertical collaboration is the best way to solve a problem?

Mark Ervin

Director of Creative
o2ideas
Birmingham, Alabama

Creative quote of the day

Productiveness is your acceptance of morality, your recogniztion of the fact
that you choose to live–
that productive work is the process by which man’s consciousness controls his existence, a constant process of acquiring knowledge and shaping matter to fit one’s purpose, of translating an idea into physical form, or remaking the earth in the image of one’s values–
that all work is creative work if done by a thinking mind, and no work is creative if done by a blank who repeats in uncritical stupor a routine he has learned from others–
that your work is yours to choose, and the choice is as wide as your mind, that nothing more is possible to you and nothing less is human…

-John Galt (Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged)

1 word. 2 users. Nobody knows what it means.

So, one of my favorite political debates to engage in is when somebody calls somebody else a fascist. It’s just one of those really great words that sounds like it means something really awful. And in reality, it’s just another extreme form of government that nobody really subscribes to anymore. Yesterday during one of the Tea Party rallies in Chicago, an ignorant demonstrator starts calling Obama a fascist. Hilarity ensures:

The CNN reporter says that it’s offensive to call Obama a fascist, and the dude making the accusation has no idea what a fascist is. What he does know, however, is that Obama is one. Nicely informed, buddy. Thanks for checkering the views of Americans as to who exactly attended yesterday’s rallies.
Then, over on the other side, you’ve got blowhard numero uno, Keith Olberrman.

In this non-journalistic, rhetorical nightmare, he calls Bush a Fascist (3:46) and says that it is straight from the dictionary. Here, however, it’s clearly not offensive, but patriotic for the former SportsCenter anchor to call the president something so learned and so demonstrative and so insulting.
I contest, Olberrman has no idea what fascism means. Wikipedia would also suggest this:
Fascism opposes class conflict and blames capitalist liberal democracies for creating class conflict and in turn blames communists for exploiting class conflict. Wait a minute. I thought Bush was the capitalist pig in bed with the Saudis and out steal the world’s oil wealth with the Rothchilds. And I thought Obama was a socialist. So, actually fascists hate both socialists and capitalists. Which means, nobody knows what they’re talking about.

Never abandon your post

Somebody recently tweeted a great list of Twitter applications that everybody should check out. There are a few of the obvious ones (Twistori, Twitterverse, etc) that are completely designed to destroy productivity in the work place, and then there are others that you can search people by their interest or description. So, after playing with Twellow for a while, I realized just how dangerous social media can be if you don’t stay engaged in the conversation.

There are lots of C-Level executives on Twitter from companies of all sizes, and there are a lot of them who have done nothing but show there ignorance toward social media. Type in CEO, and you get over 5300 people who list that in part of their description. Type in Chief Executive Officer, and the list is quite small. So what’s embarrassing for their companies is when they have no followers and no updates in 6 months. And it gets worse when that update is a mundane fact about their life at home or how then need to better engage with people online. That kind of malfeasance is dangerous on the web. It lets everybody know that you’re not serious about it.

Which really brings me to my point: the only thing that’s as important as transparency in social media is diligence. For people who get into Twitter and proudly display their title and company name in their profile, there is a real need for them to consistently get online and contribute to the conversation. Not talk about their dog’s shedding problem. Not talk about waiting at the doctor’s office. But adding value to the online conversation. A lot of people have been preaching that CEOs must be on Twitter. Your CMO must be on Twitter. Nonsense. That’s like saying every kid needs to play football at 6. No no. They need to engage when they are ready and can dedicate the necessary time to actively contribute and have a smart point of view on things that affect their industry. It’s way better for executives to wait until they understand what to say and how to say it, that it is for them to get on and not say anything of value for months.

Take my hero, Alex Bogusky, for example. He was on Twitter for only a few months, and while he was active, the dude dropped bombs. He had a great mix of Retweets, insight and personal stuff. He did a bang up job. Then, his final statement was a sign off. He said it wasn’t for him. Awesome. Let everybody know you’re not a Tweeter. And, it’s not like he doesn’t contribute content all over the web all the time, too. He engages everywhere, so for him, Twitter was just something else he didn’t have to take up.

For executives, you can’t take the plunge without dedicating serious time to keeping your profile intact. It hurts your credibility and your company’s when you simply abandon your post.

What the heck is this spot about?

This just might be the best example ever of an ad that says nothing, tries to confuse the audience and is a complete and total misrepresentation of facts. Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you the reason our industry is so negatively stereotyped.

Dig for just about 5 minutes and you’ll realize how much you’re not a fan of the Employee Free Choice Act. That is unless you’re a Democrat from an industrial state where the unions have a stranglehold on politics; you are a union organizer in a non-union shop; or your last name is Hoffa. For everybody else in these United States, this thing is just a bad idea. In essence, it removed the ability for a company to vote on unionization matters by secret ballot. The idea of a secret ballot is fundamental to elections being uninfluenced by outside forces. It’s like having somebody over your shoulder screaming at you because you voted different from how they voted. Imagine if white supremacists were at your polling place threatening you because you were voting for Obama. That would’ve been discouraging, no matter how much hope you had. The same can be said for workers who don’t want to unionize because they know the damage it could have to their job and their company in the long run. They don’t want to be coerced or even cajoled into it by somebody who knows how they voted.

But issues aside, this ad is a joke. “All we ask for is a level playing field.” Yes, that’s right. All of us who are non-union workers and don’t want to be unionized want a level playing field instead of playing a game that’s stacked in the favor of unions. Workers can already choose to form a union. That’s never been an issue. This ad makes it seem like the entire US workforce is teeming with helpless average joe’s dying to get unionized. And to make matters worse, unionization drives UP the price of goods and services, meaning those items that were within a consumer’s reach during a tight economy are now outside their budget. And that probably means layoffs. Yeah, layoffs!

I think my bigger problem with this idea is that it truly defines why people hate our industry. We waste money (on tv especially), lie to people and hope nobody catches us. This is a terrible representation of our industry and a further example of why nobody trusts us.
(stepping off the soapbox now.)

What’s up with all the pig heads

After hearing Anthony Bourdain speak last year about how much he hoped tripe and tongue and every other scrap of meat would become center of plate items in America, I’ve noticed that people are getting really into cooking nasty looking stuff and telling us we should relish it. A friend of mine, James Briscione, recently won an episode of Chopped, on Food Network. On his blog, he posted in graphic detail how he made a beautifully particulated head cheese. And what shot adorns the first photo of the entry: a massive, severed pig head in a stock pot. Nice. Appetizing, too.

Then, on another one of my favorite food blogs, Eat Me Daily, I find this tasty dish: tongue and cheek. The author waxes eloquently about the process of nastily boiling the head of a pig and how he continually gets scalded from the boiling pig head brine that’s festering in his cauldron. I am sure that pig tongue and cheek are about as fine as a rare Porterhouse, but watching this sucker being cooked is less than appetizing. And who hasn’t commented that stewing pork absolutely reeks. In fact, I’ve been known to think pork (really good pork) has a hint of dirt in its flavor. Scotch can be Peety, what’s wrong with swine doing the same?
I am sure that both of these dishes are the peak of culinary achievement, but I feel that I will be a bit delayed in their consumption. I’m still working my way up to thymus.

Not even a good footstool

So, despite spending scads of money on postage and printing, does Workbook ever see any ROI on sending a copy to every art director in every agency on the planet? I can absolutely say that I have never used anything in any workbook publication ever, but I still receive this destined-for-a-landfill monstrosity every year. So, here this year’s copies lie, next to my Heely’s and last year’s books. I think, just maybe, they ought to think about another tactic. Just a thought.

The simplicity of Walter Williams

If ever asked the question in a political debate (which I really hope happens), “Who is your favorite economist?”, I can easily answer, “I can’t decide.” Both Thomas Sowell and Walter Williams daily vie for that title in my book, but this exerpt from Williams column this week puts him just a nose ahead:

The stimulus package being discussed is politically smart but economically stupid. It’s that bedeviling, omnipresent Santa Claus and Tooth Fairy problem again. Let’s say that Congress taxes you $500 to put toward creating construction jobs building our infrastructure. The beneficiaries will be quite visible, namely men employed building a road. The victims of Congress are invisible and are only revealed by asking what you would have done with the $500 if it were not taxed away from you. Whatever you would have spent it on would have contributed to someone’s employment. That person is invisible. Politicians love it when the victims of their policies are invisible and the beneficiaries visible. Why? Because the beneficiaries know for whom to vote and the victims do not know who is to blame for their plight.

In stimulus package language, if Congress taxes to hand out money, one person is stimulated at the expense of another, who pays the tax, who is unstimulated. A visual representation of the stimulus package is: Imagine you see a person at work taking buckets of water from the deep end of a swimming pool and dumping them into the shallow end in an attempt to make it deeper. You would deem him stupid. That scenario is equivalent to what Congress and the new president proposes for the economy. A far more important measure that Congress can take toward a healthy economy is to ensure that the 2003 tax cuts don’t expire in 2010 as scheduled. If not, there are 15 separate taxes scheduled to rise in 2010, costing Americans $200 billion a year in increased taxes. In the face of a recession, we don’t need that.

I only wish I could drip such genius.