Target didn't really diss bloggers...

I've had this bookmarked for over a month - planning to blog about it. But I haven't been blogging. I've been working full time, consulting, and doing that pesky MBA. It's a lot. And it's pretty stressy. But it's almost over (not the job part, but the school parts).

So this isn't very timely, but I'm going to blog about it anyway. The link references a post on Consumerist--evidently a nice feminist blogger wrote Target to complain about an anti-woman/offensive billboard. In response, Target told her:

"Good Morning Amy,

Thank you for contacting Target; unfortunately we are unable to respond to your inquiry because Target does not participate with non-traditional media outlets. This practice is in place to allow us to focus on publications that reach our core guest.

Once again thank you for your interest, and have a nice day."

This response garnered a lot of bad press for Target - evidently people saw this as Target dismissing the power of bloggers.

I think everyone might have missed the point. At first read, I was going to say Target should know better than to say it doesn't care about nontraditional media outlets... but then when I read it again, I realized that the Target person was was saying they didn't think Amy's concerns or her organization were a very big deal.

So, the lesson here is probably not that Target has an issue with bloggers, but that Target doesn't care what Amy thinks about their ad. The "new internet" is all about honestly. I wonder what Amy would have thought if Target had been bluntly honest. Hmmm.

Twenty Years Ago was a Long Time Ago

In 1990, Michael Porter, who is evidently a guru for marketing folks (though I'd never heard of him until I started my MBA) - wrote an article in the Harvard Business Review entitled, "The Competitiveness Advantage of Nations." You guessed it, I have to read it for class.

It's amazing how much things have changed in the two decades since it was published, but it gives an interesting window into "the way it was" and the way it is "transitioning to be." In the article, he talks about what makes certain nations global players in an industry, while other nations, try as they might, just can't get in the game. In true Porter style, he has some interesting things to say (if not a very engaging way to say them). His points center around this: competition encourages excellence, and communication between companies, competitors, and the marketplace is paramount to innovation.

Makes sense. Yet, in his day, this relied on geographical proximity.

Here's an example of his thoughts:

"Suppliers and end-users located near each other can take advantage of short lines of communication, quick and constant flow of information, and an ongoing exchange of ideas and innovations."

Clearly, you don't have to be located near each other to experience that benefit anymore. The world is our marketplace. Global feedback can be immediate. Online communities offer a marketers pre-established focus groups - ready and willing to give feedback on ideas.

It's really very exciting.

Off Topic: My MBA Course Has No Ethics

It's back to school time for me. And that means, posts about school for you!

This semester (which is our final one) we have a course entitled "Business Law and Ethics." However, yesterday our prof told us that we would have only one class in which we talked about ethics, but he didn't think that "ethics is a thing that can be taught" so we wouldn't go into it in depth.

I'm still really troubled that this program thinks like that. If you can't teach ethics, then how will people learn? If you can't teach ethics, why do so many top-tier business schools make it a core course? And finally, if you don't even make an effort, are you contributing to the problem?

I think so, yes. I think that just by *saying* that you can't teach ethics, and glossing over it like my prof did yesterday, it trivializes the topic. Ethics are an ENORMOUS issue in today's business environment... I don't even need to cite examples, we all know of dozens.

People just don't spend time thinking about where they stand and what they will do when presented with a sticky problem. Nor do they have a safe place (like an academic setting) to discuss scenarios and implications.

I keep thinking about that guy in my class and his famous line, "If it's legal, it must be ethical."
Leaving ethics out of our course is a real disservice to us, and our business world. And that's what I think about that.

User Generated Content - Unintentional Selling Tools Can be Very Powerful

My MBA class made this video to introduce the incoming class to the EMBA experience. Note - I am *not* in it, I got an evil stomach thing on the day of my scene.



In just a short time, it clearly relates our core values and some key points about the program:

• we work very hard
• we have no life while school is in session
• we're very team-oriented
• we're supportive
• we also have a really good time

The video is also a fantastic marketing tool - (which was not lost on the administration). While it's not formal enough to post it on the school website, you can easily imagine them making a reference to it when talking to prospective students. And the fact that it is *not* formal and that it is consumer generated makes the testament so much more powerful.

How could other companies leverage this concept? It's not hard to imagine:

• Show us a new way to use our product
• Show us a day in the life of you and our product
• User-generated "how to" videos
• And so much more...

Giving to the community....

In the tag cloud of my thoughts, online community and giving to the community have recently had very bold, very large fonts. (Ok that reference just goes to show you... I am SOOO geeky).

As a result, I found this article very engaging: Consider the Small Things. The author, writing for the online marketing trade site ClickZ, has some really great ideas.

Basically, he goes one step further than the ideas I put forth in this work of my MBA academic prowess, completed in December of 06: The Case for Social Media. In my paper, I suggest that marketers get involved in the online experience, make wiki entries, play Second Life (don't just slap advertisements there), post to blogs, things like that. They should do all this with their brand in mind - not overtly selling, but just keeping in mind that they are representing the brand. They can do this in tandem with overtly sponsoring some online activities/sites/etc.

Chad thinks that we can one up that - by really giving to the communities - not just our two cents - but GIFTS.

Some of the most active blogs and forums relevant to your brand and products may be run as a hobby by a single or group of passionate consumers....

While these sites may accommodate advertising, consider something different, such as sponsoring a user prize-giveaway contest. How about asking site operators what features they would like added, then provide those services to keep the site humming along. A rounding issue for your marketing budget could go a long way for an online community.

Go read the article, it's short, you can do it. This is good stuff - and you can really take his ideas and run with them. Run! Go! and let me know how it goes!

PS: Lots of corporations make a big deal out of sponsoring community (real space community) causes and events. If you can sponsor a community event around your brand... well... isn't that just all the more effective?

Ethics, Connections, and Power to the People

I just spent 3 days in an MBA seminar designed to teach us things we should know in our future careers but weren't important to appear in the regular class curriculum. Guess what one of those classes was? No come on, don't read ahead. Guess. You got it, right up there with "Executive Wellness" - we had a fluffy seminar on business ethics.

You get a B!

It quickly became clear that many of my classmates don't spend a lot of time either thinking about or pondering ethics. This may be because they don't encounter ethically challenging issues very often. Or, it may be that their religion gives them a code to live by. Whatever it is, the time we had clearly wasn't enough - as one classmate shouted out the spine chilling proclamation, "well if it's legal, then it must be ethical." That's pretty par for the course in business today. Well actually - it's more like "it's ethical if you don't get caught and you can rationalize it to the people that need to know what you're up to." "Legal" is just a technicality.

Ok, watch this. Now I'm going to connect this to Web 2.0. No really, I can do it. Hang tight!

In a world where horrific ethical breaches barely make your stock price waver (HP) and you can clearly get away with a lot for a long time and get very rich doing so (WorldComm, Enron), and just about everyCorp is under investigation for accounting creativity of some sort or another... it PAYS not to get too connected to people. It pays to only see the numbers. Creativity in the books means someone is getting more while someone is getting less. As long as you can keep it "us" and "them" and you don't see the people you're screwing around as people with lives and their own financial pressures (I'm seeing those Enron people walking to their cars holding their boxes of possessions), then well, you can do whatever you want to to "maximize shareholder value." But it's the connections that really are the rub.

And the Web 2.0 world allows us to bring those connections to bear in some important ways.

1. It's no longer just the companies that have a voice on the internet. We all do. The presses are in the hands of the people! If you screw me over, or I think you're doing something you shouldn't, I might blog about it. I might comment on someone else's blog about it. And then people will know. And we'll all talk about it. And the media will know... and then you'll be asked some hard questions... and then....

2. Because everyone has a voice, and they talk about what happened inside their companies, we can identify cues that something bad might be happening to us.

3. Because we all have a voice, companies hear us. The marketplace hears us.

Whether companies choose to connect with "us" or not, Web 2.0 has allowed "us" to connect with each other. And that's made us stronger. A blogger onslaught can have the strength of a financially mild yet immediate and VERY public class action suit. And that hurts companies where they feel it most.

Connections = power. Connections in business = good. Connections make it easier to get things done.

Tune in tomorrow, when I talk about Burning Man again.

Why Web 2.0 is Like Burning Man

School is almost out. I can post again!

Last weekend, which was my last official "class" weekend of MBA Year 1 - I presented a controversial paper on Burning Man's gift economy. My Fellow Future Leaders of America (aka the FFLA) were entranced with the concept of *giving* gifts of service and things to others and the community all while expecting absolutely nothing in return.

In a well-timed sequel, we had the founder of glimmerofhope.org speak to my elective class today. He spoke a lot about how he made his zillions, and how he was now able to spend time and money helping the world. I have a problem with that. I don't think you need to have made your zillions to make a difference.

And here's my point. Like Web 2.0 so clearly demonstrates, we are all connected and not only that... we *want* to be connected. Sure, you can hole up in your room with your tv on and live your little pretend life, but your little pretend life tends to disintegrate into community (Second Life anyone?). Man, this is a really big topic to cover in one post. So I'm not going to try. Let me just stop here, for today and say: Web 2.0 shows that the world is more like Burning Man than an office building full of cubicles.

Tune in later this week... and I promise this will make more sense.

Where have all the mavens gone? And what is one of them learning in b-school?

Well, I'll tell you. One of us is off on a fabulous vacation... while the others are slacking and/or going through midterms/finals. Ok, I'm sure the others aren't actually slacking, but my excuse is midterms and Ryin is off on a fabulous international laptopless vacation. I can't imagine going laptopless. In this day. But he did it. He's so crazy!

So on to my second off-topic topic.....

I jotted this down in class yesterday, and I think it's important to know if you want to go to biz school.

1. they call it b-school because in every class, you're going to get a B. It doesn't really matter if you work your tushy off or you really have only a very vague notion what's going on - you're getting a B.

2. when you write papers, always quote the professor's own research. Think about the real biz world - kissing up is vital. Biz school is an incubator for the real thing. Pucker up!

3. it is absolutely vital that you speak up in class and use current buzz words in what you say. if you can pick a fight with something a classmate said, and make one them look mistaken or misinformed (or worse - like they haven't done the assigned readings) you get extra points. Making up your own buzzwords is also highly encouraged - just add an "ized" to any noun to get a verb - and use at will. The WSJ recently did an article (yes, a whole article) on the popularity of the term "bucketize." What is the world coming to?

4. group projects are just like the ones you did in college and high school. you're going to do all the work, and everyone else in your group will try to take credit for it. again, this is valuable practice and very applicable to the real world.

5. midterms are not in the middle. they are a month before finals. this means that this point of the semester is very very exciting. this is also a real-world lesson that you might want to apply when you are managing a project and setting milestones.

6. towards the end of the semester, all the professors start talking about how lucky they are to teach such bright students and how much they enjoy their lives. they do this because:

• a. they are putting us through the wringer with tests and papers and perhaps they feel a little bad for us
  
  
• b. because we're about to do professor evaluations
  
  
• c. I think they also want to convince themselves they are in fact, teaching fine people to go lead fine companies, and not teaching overly ambitious people how to backdate options and create the next wave of accounting scandals. but i tell you, you can look in the eyes of some of my classmates... and you just know.
  
  
• e. all of the above
  

That's right! E is your answer. You get a B!

It's happened at the end of every semester. the profs suddenly give you the work/life balance talk frequently, and tell you how money doesn't matter as much as quality of life. but come on... we're in business school. i mean, if we really thought that, would we be here?

And that's my post for the day.

Web 2.0, not just for techies anymore

I'm currently working on a marketing plan for a construction industry professional organization. The group is well known and respected, but they want to expand a bit, and freshen up their value proposition. All pretty standard stuff.

Going into this, I have to say, I had some preconceived notions. I thought these construction company owners were going to be "good 'ol boys" who barely used computers and made comments like "Oh the Internet, yah, my son showed it to me one time on his computer."

Boy was I wrong. The construction industry is very online, and very technically sophisticated. It's international 24x7 business with a Blackberry and a laptop on all the time.

The managers I'm working with live their lives online, as much as any technology workers I know. In fact, one of the members just said to me, "We need to do a survey of the blogs and forums on this topic... really get some insight on current perceptions and what’s valued. You know, that's the best way to find out what people really think, just see what they are blogging about...the language in these is more first hand and unfiltered compared with other published information."

I'm delighted to say, I stand corrected. This should be a very interesting project.

What makes a good manager?

In class last weekend, we had a session about matching employee compensation to company goals. This, in turn, got me thinking about how to motivate employees.

My study group talked about it over drinks that evening (because earning an MBA means minoring in beer drinking), and we digressed into "What makes a good manager?" and "Are you a good manager?" Think about it - the best manager you've ever had - probably wasn't the one who gave you the most money. I'd suggest that just throwing money at employees (pay for individual performance) isn't best for the employee or company. It's an uncreative solution to a complex situation.

At my company - I've had both one of the best managers and the worst managers ever. The good manager focused on my skill set and looked for opportunities for me to grow in the organization. He recommended pursuing the MBA, and looked for ways to get the company to sponsor it. He gave me raises and promotions, sure, but more than that, he gave me opportunity and responsibility... and for me... that goes a long way. I felt like he always had my back, and that he took his management role seriously, not just as a path to more power and money. He was managing people bc he did it well, and could bring out the best in them. He's a true asset to the company.

The worst manager treated all his direct reports like peons. In his view, we were unable to make our own decisions, as we needed his "executive insight" on everything. Nevermind that I work on the website and he had no idea about how websites work. This arbitrary authority left us feeling insignificant and frustrated, as his "authority" really became an enormous bottleneck that encouraged us NOT to try anything new or "out of the box." Not only was he unlikely to get behind and champion an idea, but also we knew that if anything went wrong - well, let's just say you couldn't count on him to have your back.

The WSJ had an article yesterday, Two Football Coaches Have a Lot to Teach Screaming Managers that took another slant on this same issue. The writer, Hymowitz, suggests that the motivational technique of belittling employees isn't very effective. While increasingly uncommon in the corporate world, it's still a thriving aspect of the sports world. However, the two coaches for this Sunday's Superbowl - Lovie and Dungy - have turned their backs on this traditional management technique. Instead, they treat their players with respect and patience. Now, they certainly are tough coaches who expect the best all the time (and have structured a reward system to match their expectations), but they realize the best way to performance lies in building people up.

It's all very interesting to consider. I haven't crystallized my thoughts on this, but I thought I'd blog on it to open the floor.