David Koren

Hail to the Chief

It's finally happened. I'm president of something for the first time in my life. Now what do I do?

My old friend Natalie (the former president) convinced me to run for Vice President/President Elect of the New York Chapter of the Society for Marketing Professional Services (SMPS) in June. I won. Then, in mid-September, she stepped down as president to pursue a career outside the design/construction industry as a personal trainer. So I'm left holding the bag. In fact, when I last saw Natalie, she gave me two large bags filled with stuff that I'm responsible for as president--boards and and easel and a big binder of rules and regulations.

Now I keep asking myself, "What am I supposed to be doing?" I promised at the last board meeting (when Natalie officially resigned) that I would do some kind of mission statement or something, giving some indication what my presidency is going to be about, what this year is going to mean for the SMPS. I've got some ideas... but I haven't done it yet. This is something that seemed like it was going to be a fun thing to do when I first had the idea to do it, but I've been procrastinating. This has become that one thing on the list that I don't want to do. I'll do everything else on the list, dancing a merry dance around this one, putting it off, putting it off...

I was supposed to have a year of being vice president before being president, a year to figure out what the heck the organization is about and where I want to take it. Now I've got to dive right in, set some priorities, and start being presidential, dammit. At my first event as president, a networking event, I nearly wore myself out shaking hands, talking up the organization, advertising future events, and selling raffle tickets.

It's not that I don't believe in the organization. I do, very much. It's just that I feel blindsided by this new responsibility, and I'm not quite sure what I want to do now. I'm sure I'll work it out. I'm sure I'll come up with some kind of compelling vision to lead the organization forward.

The SMPS is a professional organization for people who do marketing for the built environment--in other words, architects, engineers, construction folks, and other consultants. Marketing in this industry is still a relatively new thing (architects, for example, didn't compete with each other on fee until 1970) and marketers in the industry have a lot of special challenges. Very often, they're working in isolation inside a firm of people with a totally different career track, working for somebody who generally has no idea what they do or how they do it. Marketers in this industry are also an eclectic bunch, generally having degrees in areas related to English and communications, the arts, politics, or art/architectural history. What makes a marketer good at what he or she does (it's generally a she, by the way) is our ability to communicate and collaborate with the other individuals in our firms.

I think my year as president needs to be about igniting the passions of SMPS members... about inspiring the members of the organization to take charge of their careers, step up within their firms, get active in the SMPS, and do what they want to with their lives. That sounds like a good thing, right?

More on this as it develops...

Language Is Power

I've been thinking a lot about language lately. I've been teaching a writing workshop class at Gensler (3 hours of teaching, 3 sequential Friday lunches), something I haven't done before. When I was first approached by my friend Jim to do the class, my immediate thought was, "Why would I want to do that? I don't have time for that! And what's anybody going to get out of that? I can't teach anyone to write!" But he kept after me, asking for some kind of commitment as to when I would get this class rolling. Sometime in the spring, I proposed that I'd do it over the summer. So, reluctantly, I put together a class in August, and now I'm repeating the class in November.

It wasn't very hard to put it together. Matt in Chicago had done a class like this before, and he diligently documented what he did and what he said. So at first I just took his outline, notes, and materials, and taught that. Now, in November, I've modified some of the curriculum to fit the flow of the class and my own style.

But in spending time preparing and teaching, I've been doing a little thinking about language. "Why is this important? What can I actually 'teach' about writing in three hours?" It's obvious that communicating verbally is one of the most (if not the most) important skills in business. You have to be able to tell your client what they're going to get, how long it's going to take, and what it's going to cost. When something changes, you have to be able to tell them why, and what you're going to do about it. If a professional does not speak and write with confidence, that individual's professional trajectory will be somewhat limited.

A clue came to me at lunch with an entrepreneur a week or two ago. After the normal professional niceties and after I learned about what his engineering firm does, we started revealing our own personal histories--how we got where we are. He told me that he's read someplace that most business leaders are actually "C" students, which I believe is something he tells people to explain himself. When I was telling my story, about being good in English and Science in high school, but choosing to study playwriting at NYU (to the dismay of my physics teacher), he said appreciatively, "You must have a great vocabulary." When I looked at him quizzically (ha! there's that vocabulary!), he offered, "I've read that strong vocabulary is the one trait that leaders around the world share. Leaders of all kinds--business leaders, political leaders, whatever." He meant it. Your vocabulary is a factor that gives you personal power. Which is why, I thought to my self, I'm always hearing radio ads for "Million Dollar Vocabulary" and other programs to teach adults new words.

At around the same time, I got a resume from my boss, Joe. Strangely, it was from a business development person from an engineering firm who had been hounding me lately, trying to get me to set up a meeting at Gensler for her firm's principals to rub elbows with some of our firm's key people. Joe had read through her cover letter and underlined five or six words: winsome, ubiquitous, obsequious, laconic. The last line of the letter is actually, "I hope to anticipate an interview and propinquitous employment." Handing me the letter, Joe said something like, "Look at this vocabulary! What's she trying to prove?" We had a little laugh over it. I think I said, "I think I know her. English isn't her first language. She must've sat with a Thesaurus." I promised to follow up with her, but I don't know what to say when I call her, "Wow! Nice vocabulary! Laconic! I can't believe you actually used 'laconic' in a sentence! Well done!"

Last night, on the walk home, I thought about the Tower of Babel. Everybody was working together, heaving and ho-ing, toting barges and lifting bales, building the biggest monument to man that the world had ever seen. And then something funny happened. They couldn't communicate anymore. Every person spoke in a different language. And the whole thing just fell apart. "Where do I put this corn meal?" And nobody knows what the heck you're talking about. You try to pantomime "corn meal" but there isn't time and it's not a priority to the guy you're talking to and you just can't get your message across. So you go home and stop building the stupid tower and teach your kids to speak the language in your head.

Without language, we'd be fucked. Language is the food of consciousness (or something like that). Language isn't just how we tell each other what to do and what we want; it's how we record what happened and how we feel. It's how we learn and teach. It's how we talk to ourselves and figure things out. Language (and the consciousness that comes with it) is what separates us from the rest of the beasts on this planet. If we can't make and understand words, there's no society, no socialization, no organization, and very little knowledge that is able to be passed down from generation to generation.

So language isn't just important, it's vital. It is, in a way, the substance of power itself. Language is the only way there is to truly influence another human being--whether you're teaching or coercing or threatening or convincing or persuading or seducing or preaching or inspiring. It's all impossible without language.

So work on your vocabulary, try to use laconic in a sentence, and figure out when to use "its" and when to use "it's." Mafia bosses and George W. aside, it's really tough to get to the top if no one can understand what you're talking about. Language makes you powerful, and successful, and influential, and sexy, too.

Marketing: The World of Lies!

The graphic designer who works on my team in marketing at Gensler spent the day yesterday at an Edward Tufte workshop. I went to see him last year, and thought he was just brilliant. He's got a really interesting perspective on information, and I find his ideas about information density specifically to be quite controversial. In today's world, people seem to have a tacit belief that information needs to be presented in an increasing simplified way. We need to show less data, not more. PowerPoint rules the day. Tufte would argue that the answer isn't less data--it's more data. The challenge is to present as much data as possible, as clearly as possible. Tufte goes as far as to say that PowerPoint is, essentially, evil. His essay "The Cognitive Style of PowerPoint" makes the case that PowerPoint was responsible for the destruction of NASA Space Shuttle Challenger, by totally obfuscating the risks of bringing the shuttle down. It's riveting reading, and is sure to get a lively conversation going around the conference table when you're rehearsing for that important presentation.

But Tufte goes one step further... He seems to believe that marketing is, in fact, one of the greatest evils in the world today. At the start of his seminars, there's an opportunity to meet him briefly and have him autograph the books that are included in the cost of the seminar. When I was there last year, I waited in line to meet him and get my copies signed. When it was my turn, he asked me what I did for a living. "I'm the Marketing Director for a large architecture firm." He looked away, signed my books, and was done with me. Not that I expected a whole conversation, but it was clear to me that the man didn't have much respect for what I did for a living.

So what? I thought to myself. Who cares what he thinks? But I've actually been chewing on this ever since, turning it over and over again in my head. Is the substance of marketing really lies?

I believe that my purpose at Gensler is actually to serve the truth, to help our staff and our clients get access to information about our experience and our capabilities, and to collaborate with staff members on communications to clients that clearly present what we're proposing to do, how long it's going to take, how we're going to do it, and how much it's going to cost. I'm not interested in deceiving anyone. It's not worth it. It's not necessary. It's not professional.

But when Tufte thinks of marketing, he isn't thinking of me. He's thinking of commercials. He's thinking of packaging design. He's thinking of politicians. He's thinking of communications that attempt to persuade you to do something (usually to buy something), and that are inherently subjective, including all the information that serves the argument, and ignoring all the other data.

Are all commercials lies? Perhaps.

Full Engagement

I've been interviewing candidates for a marketing job here at Gensler. It's been interesting, and I've been meeting lots of really interesting people. I realized today that when I interview somebody I'm really looking to understand them, I'm really looking to get a sense of the whole person. It's not just about filling a spot ("You! Get in that box!"). It's about finding somebody that I can add to the team here and who we/I can grow with. It's like dating.

I think we're moving more and more to a world in which people can bring, and are expected to bring, their entire selves to what they do. It's not enough to punch a clock, and then to spend your evenings writing poetry or whatever. People want to be who they are, all the time, and to have their work lives support that. I find it really exciting, because it's great for everybody: the individual, the team, and the company. The individual feels more connected with themselves, and more comfortable in their own skin; the team builds a deeper, more human connection with each other; and the company gets more productive work out of a workforce that feels like they can truly be and express themselves.

Thinking about this reminds of something the Dalai Lama said in his speech at Rutger's on Sunday, something like, "The purpose of education is to help us reconcile the perceived world from the actual world." As a society, I think we're actually getting better at this, we're actually moving closer to being what we seem to be. In a world of constant surveillance, it's harder and harder to hide parts of yourself (or crimes you've committed) from others.

You just are who you are. It just is what it is. Even at work.

Moment!

Ok. Now I'm just trying "Moment" for the title. Let's test that. Let that sit. I always obsess over names too much. For plays especially. It seems like by the time I've got the name for the play picked out it's halfway written already. So let's try "Moment," see what Smash thinks, and see if it sticks.

The Moment?

Ok. I've changed the name of the blog to be "The Moment" and added "by David Koren" underneath it. That makes it sound like it's a book or something. Fair enough. But "The Moment" as a title? How about "At this moment"? or something like that? Smash originally had the idea to call this blog "Marketecture" because I do marketing for architects, and I've written articles and a book on the topic... but I'd like to write about other things, too. So that title won't work. And I'm just toying with other titles. I fully intend to keep rattling on here until I figure out what the hell I'm doing. Until this somehow connects with who I am as a person and what I believe the direction of my life is. At that point, I'll be a blogger. Now, I'm just prattling on... looking for direction... trying to figure out what is what...

The Moment

Starting is hard. I think I need a name for this weblog. I think part of what is hard is that it is my name up there. I don't want it to be about me. Nobody cares what I had for breakfast. I don't even care what I had for breakfast. So the blog shouldn't be about me. It should be about things. So it needs some kind of title... "The Moment" is the best title I've thought of yet. I like it's enigmatic quality. It has an immediacy: What moment but now? I'll sit with it.

Testing!!!

This is a test of my ability to send an email from my phone and have it
appear as a post in the blog... Did it work?

Blog This!

To tell a story, start at the beginning. If you can't start at the beginning, just start!

I don't know where to start this story. I'm not a narcissist. I can't stand narcissists. I don't like blogs. I don't read blogs. I don't particularly believe anybody cares what I think. Who am I? I have credentials (we ALL have credentials) but so what? Why are you reading this? Why do you care?

I'm starting a blog. I started it about two weeks ago. But I had no idea how to start. What am I going to write about? Who am I writing for? Why bother? Who cares? I became paralyzed with the whys and hows, mired in the quicksand of STRATEGY. There is no strategy. It just is. Deal with it. It's been a struggle. I want to have a purpose. I want to be writing for a reason, not just blathering. But it's not so simple. This is a thing that must evolve. So I just need to start.