David Koren

Treasure Island

Interesting article about really interesting proposed development on Treasure Island in San Francisco Bay...

It's got high-rises, it's got organic gardens and it just might be a model for cities everywhere

"Free Market Would Never Pick Sprawl

I just came across this really interesting article... which posits that sprawl is actually the result of government intervention in the free market, to artificially insulate the "haves" from the "have nots":

"Free Market Would Never Pick Sprawl"

Marketing Malpractice: The Cause and the Cure

This is the smartest article on marketing and branding I've read in quite a while... The link goes to the HBR site where you can buy the article...

Marketing Malpractice: The Cause and the Cure

The Biggest Mistake Marketers Make

(Hint: It’s  not misspelling the client’s name!)
by David Koren, Gensler Architecture Design & Planning Worldwide
SMPS-NY Chapter President, 2005-06

(Note: This article was written for the Winter 2005/2006 issue of the newsletter of the SMPS-NY Chapter)

--------------------------------------------------

“I don’t want to work on proposals anymore.”

You’ve heard it said. You may have even said it yourself. Many marketers view proposals as the bane of their existence, a rote task, the thing that keeps them from becoming more “strategic.”

Personally, I think this attitude is damaging to your effectiveness as a marketer, your success in your current position, and the development of your career.

It’s easy to understand where the attitude comes from. There are a number of factors that make proposals, for many of us, a real drag. First of all, most firms are not adequately staffed in marketing—either the marketing staff numbers are two low, the skill sets aren’t right, or the marketers simply haven’t been around long enough to know how to do their jobs effectively. Then, to add to this, most firms aren’t particularly strategic about the work they go after—too many proposals, with too few wins, makes the job of preparing proposals feel like working on the assembly line in a sausage factory. Third, of course, is the priority that some principals place on proposals—evidenced by behaviors such as sitting on an RFP for days, waiting until 5pm to sit down to talk to the marketer about the proposal, and acting as if the proposal is much less important than everything else going on.

So, in response to all of this, many marketers decide that the development of their career must be in some other direction—either into a different industry, into public relations or graphic design, or into the vague cerebral regions of “strategy.”

There’s a classic Harvard Business Review article from 1960 called “Marketing Myopia” by Theodore Levitt (reprinted in his book The Marketing Imagination). In the article, Levitt makes the case that the railroads went bankrupt because they didn’t understand what business they were really in. They thought they were in the business of moving people and goods around by rail. If they had just understood that they were really in the business of moving people and goods from place to place (regardless of mode of transport), those same companies would probably own the airlines today. A simple redefinition of purpose could possibly have saved an entire industry.

I think you can apply this same rationle to thinking about your career as a marketer. What business are you really in? What is your role in your organization? What value do you bring? If you feel like your value is in cranking out proposals, maybe you just need to re-imagine your role and purpose.

The way I see it, marketers and the marketing function are vital parts of our organizations. Our mission is to partner with the principals of our firms to bring in work. Sometimes that involves proposals and presentations, and other forms of direct business development support. Other times, we need to work on more indirect marketing efforts—like direct mail, media relations, events, holiday cards, even rebranding efforts.

Strategy is everywhere. It’s in everything we do. Strategy is the essence of the value that we bring to our organizations as marketers. But, in my view, strategy disconnected from implementation is just talk. It’s easy to “wax strategic” and leave implementing the strategy to somebody else, and then blame that somebody else when something goes wrong. (Just look at our nation’s response to Hurricane Katrina for evidence of what can happen when a strategy is developed, but it’s not clear who’s job it is to implement it, or even how it should be implemented.) As a marketer, your job is to partner with your firm’s principals to develop a strategy, and then to see that strategy through. That may mean proposals, and that may mean a postcard. It could be anything. Whatever it is, it’s in support of your firm’s overall strategy.

When we are truly strategic, and thinking and working in alignment with our firm’s strategy for growth, we become indispensable. But strategy, and the implementation of strategy, cannot be outsourced or delegated. It’s our job. And it’s a great job to have.