One in a Million.

The Greatest Generation is a term coined by journalist Tom Brokaw to describe the generation who grew up in the United States during the deprivation of the Great Depression, and then went on to fight. The men and women who lived at the time of World War II, in retrospect, seemed to have lived through a time of incredible upheaval with courage and style. 16,112,566 individuals were members of the United States armed forces during World War II. In November 2012, the Department of Veterans Affairs estimated that approximately 1,462,809 American veterans from this war were still living. On Memorial Day 2013, my Dad is among the living veterans. I always known him to be at least one in a million!

As a kid growing up in Lakewood, Ohio, (a West Side suburb of Cleveland), it was a special occasions when Dad took us to the movies. I remember one such occasion at the Detroit Theater on a Saturday afternoon in 1962 to see The Longest Day. The movie tells the story of the D-Day invasion of Normandy in WWII. It was a retelling of June 6, 1944 (based on a book published in 1959) from the perspectives of dozens of characters and was almost three hours long. I was seven.

In hindsight, my father who was just about 42 years old at the time and sitting in that movie theater with us. He had served in the U.S. Army for four years with distinction but was lucky enough to stay out of harms’s way. I suppose he was probably still trying to make sense of the period of time in his own life. Meanwhile, I was having trouble staying awake through the multiple parallel story lines staring actors like John Wayne, Henry Fonda and Robert Mitchum.

My Dad will be 95 in July and he still remembers his army years. He attended Officer Candidate School (OCS), worked with camouflage units and generally was a good soldier. The experiences helped define him as a person. After the war he joined an art studio and eventually started his own business. Mom and Dad has six children (I was number 3). A Great man by any measure.

The Boomer and the College Professor

His reading glasses, the remote control, some unpaid bills, a stack of business cards collected from a recent networking event, and a large Kleenex tissue box dispenser teetered on the side table next to the  Queen Anne chair he bought in Joplin before the EF-5 tornado in 2011. Happy to be back in St. Louis, Will was, maybe for the first time in his life, starting to doubt himself. His 58th birthday was only two weeks away and, as always, he was not especially excited about marking the passage of time. Sue was working harder than ever running a coffee shop in Clayton and baking some too. “Sunday is Mother’s Day,” he remembered. He must think of something thoughtful to thank her. The kids were gone, grown up and making their respective ways in the world. The house seemed so empty during the day.

Will knew he should be looking for a job but was coming to grips with the very real and very scary notion that he really didn’t know just how to work the system of online job boards. He was fearful that his skill set was becoming outdated. He believed in his heart that there was still room for an organized manager with a creative vision and an ability to get things. But he was painfully aware of the pervasive chatter of social media and the digital age. As if everything that came before in marketing was now “old school” and irrelevant.

Berry seemed to be a dramatic illustration of where the world was headed. A professor recruited to UMSL to implement coursework in digital marketing was making tremendous strides. Will met him at the Remarkable Leadership Conference put on by the American Marketing Association – St. Louis Chapter at the Missouri History Museum in February. They became quick friends because, in part, Will was connected and Berry was seeking connections to build his local network quickly. Connections in the "big small town" of St. Louis, a parochial place where face to face meetings are still critical. Ironically, the rest of the world seemed to be buying what the new "social" more than the basic “blocking and tackling” of message strategy and attention to the touch-points that telegraph the quality/design/promise of a brand. Suddenly, the soft science where “Art meets Commerce” that Will loved was rapidly becoming the technology, crowd-sourcing an engaging the multitudes in conversation of Berry's expertise.

Last month Berry and Will sat for a while in the Starbuck’s in Clayton. Berry’s Digital Marketing Conference was compelling proof that marketing is changing with big data, social strategies and new rules of engagement. Will could see it but, like many of his boomer generation, he was slow to embrace it. As a chapter leader for the American Marketing Association in St. Louis for more than 15 years he is the first to admit the changes brought on first by the internet and personal computing and now the plethora of electronic devices is puzzling to him. What does it mean? What happened to thoughtful planning? How are you supposed to manage marketing in this environment? Where is it all heading? Students, agency leaders, businesses - large and small represented in the audience of 300+ that filled the JC Penney Conference Center on the campus of the University of Missouri, St. Louis (UMSL) that afternoon in early April and were hanging on every word for clues.

Will remembered a time when such a meeting over coffee with a professor was on a different footing. It was the professor who was living in the ivory tower and out of touch with reality. Now the tables have turned. The platform of rapid change in the marketplace offers a natural confluence of events for the campus setting. It’s a place for learning and discourse. Berry is a runner and he is pacing himself well in front of the pack. He’s old enough to be a part of a time when direct marketing offered the best chance for studies of responses. (But only after test cells were carefully constructed with a “control” module as a basis for comparison. One wonders if there will ever be time for such experiments again.)

“Colleges are for rhetoric and the hypothetical and still somewhat less than authentic life experiences. Nevertheless, we are living in a time that is unreal and fantastic. The world is connected in ways which only a decade ago seemed impossible.” Will reminds himself. “A marathon runner like Berry can only hope to record what is happening anecdotally,” Will says out loud.

Will makes his way to the municipal golf course while across town Berry is looking at a personal best pace at a 10K Fun Run.

Actually, I just want to add … She said that? OMG

The other day I watched as a woman in her 20s describing some aspect of her career in marketing. Each sentence in her commentary, while full of declarative statements, ended on the up-swing. The inflection she used with every statement sounded like a question. With each inflection, the changes in pitch in her speaking, was undermining her expertise. She understood her subject matter but her speech pattern was hurting her credibility. Instead of sounding like an authority, she sounded a little like a Valley Girl. She seemed to doubt herself with her tone throughout her short presentation.  

This way of speaking drives me crazy.  All that "up-talk," everything uttered—even simple declarative sentences—sound like a string of questions from a sulky teenager. Too often this approach to the spoken word sounds more tentative than it should. This inflection/question phenomenon seems an outgrowth of the 80s Valley Girl stereotype caricature:  an unapologetically spoiled airhead interested more in vapid materialism, shopping and social status than intellectual development.
   

Say the words, She said no as if you were disappointed. (You should notice that the pitch of your voice dropped on the last word.) Now say those words again as if you were surprised – as if you were asking a question. (This time you should notice that the word no was higher in pitch than the first two words.) Listen to a recording of this exercise as you say those words with both types of expressions and you can begin to recognize the difference in inflection between the statement and the question.

Consultant Tara Sophia Mohr suggests working on cutting the questioning tone too. She also offers a few other things to consider (from an article in the Huffington Post):

Lose the just.  (As in: "I just think ..." or  "I just want to add ...") The word demeans what you have to say.

Drop actually too (As in: "I actually have a question" or " I actually want to add something") It makes it sound like you're surprised by your own ideas.  

Don't say that you are probably wrong. (It shows a lack of confidence.)

Don't preface your statement by saying, I'll take just a minute. (It sounds apologetic and implies that you don't think what you are about to say is worthy of time and attention).  

I’m probably wrong …This will just take a minute but I just, actually, think, well…This inflection stuff and these insidious linguistic traps are worth working on?   

Anecdote of the Jar

 

I placed a jar in Tennessee,
And round it was, upon a hill.
It made the slovenly wilderness
Surround that hill.

The wilderness rose up to it,
And sprawled around, no longer wild.
The jar was round upon the ground
And tall and of a port in air.

It took dominion everywhere.
The jar was gray and bare.
It did not give of bird or bush,
Like nothing else in Tennessee. 

- Wallace Stevens

Of Mere Being

Wallace Stevens was a businessman who worked most of his career in the insurance industry in Connecticut. He wrote poetry as a way to calm himself, often while commuting to and from work. If you read poetry, no doubt you have favorite poem you revisit from time to time. Such a poem becomes an old friend. That being said, I would like to introduce you to this one.

Of Mere Being                                                            

The palm at the end of the mind,
Beyond the last thought, rises
In the bronze decor,

A gold-feathered bird
Sings in the palm, without human meaning,
Without human feeling, a foreign song.

You know then that it is not the reason
That makes us happy or unhappy.
The bird sings. Its feathers shine.

The palm stands on the edge of space.
The wind moves slowly in the branches.
The bird's fire-fangled feathers dangle down.                              

The palm at the end of the mind with a bird singing a song without feeling reminds us that merely being is not enough. The poem seems to challenge us to see the beauty, hear the bird’s song and give it meaning and reason. Observe. Find the Joy. Thank you Wallace Stevens!

ST LOUIS - Artist Robert Lobe (b. 1945) was inspired by Wallace Stevens poem Of Mere Being when he used a dying walnut tree as a starting point/substrate for his sculpture The Palm at the End of the Parking Lot. This photo by Wes Morgan captures the sculpture under threatening skies last fall at Laumeier Sculpture Park (2012).   

 

Big Data

A lot of attention is being paid to big data, which is the phenomenon we now see as a direct result of so much social media activity and software able to monitor traffic and metrics for the purpose of making smart marketing decisions.   

Marshall Sponder is an author, analyst and speaker. He writes and speaks about social media measurement. His book Social Media Analytics: Effective Tools for Building, Intrepreting, and Using Metricsis published by McGraw-Hill. I was in the audience when Marshall was a guest speaker at the University of Missouri, St. Louis (UMSL) on April 2, 2013. Professor Perry Drake had orchestrated a full line up of speakers, some live, some via Google Hangout to address 300+ in attendance that day. The theme for this conference - Digital Marketing. 

Among other things, Sponder observed a change in skill sets which will be required as the digital age continues. “If you consider the skills required for digital marketing you can see that students willing to cross-train in areas like graphic design and writing, for example, could be in high demand.” Says Sponder adding, “This could be easier said than done.” 

Marshall isn’t the only speaker who alluded to the market disruption and impact of social media at this conference. Big Data came up a lot. It is the result of collecting so much raw information that even the smartest statistician doesn’t know where to begin. Software tracking web traffic, information that can be mined that will project all kinds of consumer behavior, basic demographics and probability analysis - Big Brother might still be watching you. And yet marketers are choking on all the input already. “Like drinking from a fire hose.” Tweets a participant.

Preparing for a sea-change is an important message for students and marketers everywhere. It is also no surprise that the emerging field of mining all this information will be in demand for marketers as business leaders look to reduce the risks. It is exponentially more complex now. Roles will change. Business will change. That has always been true but now it happens faster and faster. Pay attention and stay tuned.  

What Would Winona Want, Walt?

What Would Winona Want?

By Walt Jaschek 

Pssst! Someone is missing from our marketing meetings.

Not Marissa. She’s hit or miss; start without her.

Not Mike. He’s under his headphones; let him be.

The missing person is our prospect.

Prospect, singular, not prospects, plural, or (ugh) target audience. F. Scott Fitzgerald said, “Begin with an individual and you find that you have created a type; begin with a type and you find that you have created – nothing.”

So! An individual! A person, with pain, aspirations, suspicions and hope, someone who could be any age, race or gender, but let’s call “her” “Winona,” because using a real name begins a real conversation, and that name invokes Winona Ryder, who, let’s face it, still has it. [Underlined phrase hyperlinks to: http://winona-ryder.org ]

While we’re at it, let’s punch the pretense out of “ideation sessions” and call them “brainstorms.”

Winona should attend these brainstorms – not physically, fun as that would be – but virtually. One proven tool is research, quantitative and qualitative. (A creative guy who loves research? Call Ripley!) If there’s no time or budget – too often the case – then Winona’s voice can be represented via a scientific innovation I call “best guess.”

For example:

• When leading brainstorms, I push a process that allows the group to “channel” Winona, to “hear” what she has to say before and after being exposed to proposed messaging. It’s like a conference-room-sized Ouija board, and, weirdly, it works.

• When participating in brainstorms, I turn over hard copies of creative briefs (old joke: they’re neither), sketch a cartoon face, and ask, “What would she say?” I’m thinking Winona. But it could be Woodrow. Or Wanda. Or Wang.

By running our ideas by them, even hypothetically, we make our messages more relevent, more authentic, and, praise Odin, less complex.

Not quite buying that? Then listen to other Real Authors, and something you can buy -- a great book, Simple: Conquering the Crisis of Complexity, by Alan Siegel and Irene Etzkorn. It’s gold throughout, but here’s the money quote:

“Complexity is a coward’s way out. There is nothing simple about simplicity, and achieving it requires empathizing (by perceiving others’ needs and expectations), distilling (by reducing to its essence the substance of one’s offer) and clarifying (by making the offer easier to understand and use).”

Hmmm. That’s a lot of parentheses for a paragraph about simplicity. But by emphasizing empathy, the authors empower.

Our job as marketers, I believe, is not to make our product or service understandable. It’s to make our prospect feel understood.

Or, to reduce fractions further, it’s not about what we want to say. It’s about what Winona needs to hear.

I have more to say (irony intended) about this subject, some of which would make me look OH, so insightful, but I sense you might have something better to do right now than spend more time on this page.

So instead:

I’ll shut up.

See? That’s empathy! [Word “empathy” links to: http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/empathy]

To engage Walt Jaschek for a prospect-focused ideation session (AKA “brainstorm”), call or text 314-479-1966, email walt@waltnow.com, follow @WaltNow, or ask Winona to ask him to call you.