David Koren

The Marketing Inferiority Complex

NOTE: This is the draft of an article that I've just written for the next issue of the online newsletter of the SMPS New York Chapter.

Let me begin with a story... A few years ago, Gensler hired Bob Quintana, a local affiliate of Tony Robbins, to run a one-day motivational/sales training workshop for about 40 staff members. We met on a Saturday in a large multi-purpose room that we had designed for one of our clients. Personally, I was a little bit apprehensive about the Tony Robbins style, but I went into it with an open mind, and found a lot of the training to be quite useful—the goal-setting exercises, the personal warm-ups, and, especially, the culminating activity of the day, breaking boards.

After a day that alternated between introspection and rah-rah exercises, we were each given a 8”x10”, 1/2”-thick piece of plywood. We were asked to write on one side an obstacle that we were facing in our careers, and to write on the other side what would happen to our careers if we could break through that obstacle. I wrote on one side, “marketing as secondary to design,” which popped into my head as an obstacle I was facing—that I saw marketing as a support function, rather than as a collaborator with design and technical professionals. On the other side, I wrote “increased influence,” which would surely be the result if I could just learn to see marketing and design as equally important partners in building the business of my firm.

They gave us a demonstration of how to break the boards, Bob cued the high energy music, and each of us, in turn, broke our board. I've never looked at the relationship between design and marketing the same way again.

As President of the SMPS New York Chapter, I talk to a lot of marketers about their jobs and their career development within their firms. “They just don't appreciate me.” “I feel taken advantage of.” “My principals don't see the value that I bring.” “You're not going to believe what they did this time...” I think we've all been there, at one time or another.

But we all have it within our power to change the roles in which we are cast by our principals. But first, we have to change our own beliefs about our jobs and the value that we bring to our firms.

Many marketers feel beset by “tasks” (production, administration) when they really want to be doing “strategy.” “If I could only get past these tasks, I could be a strategic partner to my firm's principals,” I've heard many marketers say.

Your firm's principals have expectations of what you do, and how you do it. The challenge for each of us is not only to fulfill their expectations, but to exceed them. You have to get the production tasks done, and then look for ways to add value to your firm that your principals can see and appreciate. One easy way to add value is through online research, Googling the client that your firm is pursuing (without being asked!) and providing your principals with intelligence that they can use to understand the prospective client and their needs. When you take the initiative and do this, you demonstrate that (1) you care about the same things your principals care about, (2) you have the intelligence to find information that is valuable, (3) you are driven, and (4) you can provide more value than just typing, collating, and stapling. You're saying a lot, without saying a word.

That's only one example. My point is that, in order to change the perception that your firm's principals have of you and your role, you have to find a way to deliver what is expected, provide something more, and have it recognized as adding value. In order to figure out what the “something more” is that you can provide, it helps to see yourself as a strategic partner to your firm's principals.

You aren't overhead. You are a strategist. Change your own perception (while still getting the job done) and you can change the perception of everyone around you. As Gandhi said, “Be the change that you want to see in the world.” If you want to change your situation, start by changing yourself.

Free Internet for Everyone

'I am worried that it could just be half the world that is flat and that it stays that way.'
-- Bill Gates

I just had an idea... Somebody needs to run for Congress on a 'free internet for everyone' platform... Everyone, not just Americans. We need to raise the political dialogue above debates over-who-did-what-to-whom and whether we should rename French Fries to Freedom Fries and really talk about the contribution that America has made to the welfare and prosperity of the entire world, and needs to continue to make. We have to get everyone on the internet, as quickly as possible, or the gulf between the information have and have-nots will widen to become an almost irreconcilable gap. It should be a mission of the United States government, in the interests of creating a more connected, prosperous, and harmonious world, to make this happen.

The Revolution Will Not Be Billable

Part of the massive change that's happening in the way we work and live has to do with when you're on and when you're off. More of us are on more of the time. We check email on the weekends. We're reachable via our mobile phones. We all talk about the intrusion of work into our personal lives, but the corrollary is also true: our personal lives are intruding more and more into work. And the technology which enables our employers to find us anywhere also enable us to get out of the office and still be reachable. The tools of subjugation are also the tools of empowerment.

It's clear that the 8-hour workday and 40-hour workweek are history. We are also not just employees any more--we are free agents who are employed based on a mutually agreed-upon contract. We are owners in our companies (through ESOP programs or just by having shares in our publicly traded companies) and we need to start acting like it.

If you've got a great idea, act on it! Worry about who gets paid what and who gets credit for it later. Document what you do, and be careful, but don't be afraid to jump in and make change where you are. Corporations are no longer ruled by people who have all the ideas; our jobs are no longer to simply fulfill what our leaders tell us to do. We are here to help our companies move faster, be smarter, and be more efficient. And that requires our brains.

So, the revolution will not be billable. Focus on the idea, the innovation. Not the money. Believe in the idea, and the money will take care of itself.

The Walls Come Down

"'Something there is that doesn't love a wall,
That wants it down.' I could say 'Elves' to him,
But it's not elves exactly..."
--- Robert Frost, "The Mending Wall," 1914

"In Internet time, there are no secrets, there's no time for delay. There are plenty of competitors who are going to eat you alive. You need to not take a breath, and start over, and do it again, as soon as you get done with one. And you need to juggle three or four of these, all the time. That's how you compete and survive if you're in the software business on the Internet."
--- Jim Bizdow, President, RSA Security, from "Nerds 2.0.1: A Brief History of the Internet" (PBS)

"The entire idea of this book makes me think my head is going to explode."
--- Sasha Koren, February 2, 2006

Welcome to the 21st Century. I think it's taken us a few years to figure out what this new era is about, but now that it's becoming clear, we all have to adjust and consider how we find balance. The walls are coming down, and the boundaries and definitions that we have applied to our lives are changing.

I think that speed is the defining factor of this new era. In The World Is Flat, Tom Friedman makes the case that the start of the current current trend of globalization began with the Berlin Wall crumbling in 1989, and then was enhanced by FedEx, Netscape, UPS, Napster, and other revolutionary links between locations and people around the world. Now, we live in an era in which it may soon be possible to actually work anywhere and so, as Richard Florida says, cities and countries are competing for top talent. Places around the world, such as China, India, and Southeast Asia, have entered the global economy, and now capital and people can move around the world as freely as ever.

What's the necessary result of this tremendous mobility? Both equality, and division. But the boundaries are shifting so fast that it's tough to see it. The twentieth century boundaries of race and class and geography and time and control of information and hierarchy and identity are all becoming obsolete. Success, in this new era, is about finding balance and integrating your identity in a world that is always on, in a landscape of information and connection that is as close as your cell phone, or the nearest wi-fi hotspot, in a world where everything is recorded, you're always on camera, and everything you type (basically) is in the public domain.

This is the new book I'm writing:

SPEED
Coping with the pace of life and work in the 21st Century

I'm going to write it quickly, and I'm going to write it on this blog. I'm researching the topic now, and I'm moving as fast as I can.

Why is speed the result of the boundaries going down? Well, the more that we are always on, and the more that technology and connection is ubiquitous, the faster that our clients, our friends, our customers expect us to respond. A week for a response? Where were you yesterday? Where are you right now? I need it now! This is an emergency! And, as the artificial excuses for delay become more and more impossible to maintain, we are all accountable for being plugged in, and responding immediately, bringing our full selves into the Internet, onto the web, into the public domain.

I believe we've only been into the new economic boom for about six months, since the last half of 2005. But everyone who seems to feel this new era that we are in complains about the pace. The statements "I'm swamped" or "I'm working too much" have become almost passe. It seems like everybody in the creative class who is plugged into the global economy is working too much, as we all struggle to keep up with the rising expectations. So the big question is, how do we cope? How do we find balance in this new era? How do we find a way to turn off?

I think we actually need to find ways to bring more of ourselves to what we do, and to be really firm with what our needs are. Being overly accommodating to our clients and our friends may no longer be possible in a 24/7, always on world.

Stop and Go

I went to a Buddhist lecture last night, not because I'm a Buddhist, but just because I'm interested in many of the ideas of Buddhism, and because I like listening to people who are good speakers talk. I've never been to a Buddhist lecture before, but I know that, generally, people who are priests or ministers or rabbis are pretty good speakers, mostly because they have to do it so much.

Anyway, I arrived late, and left early. What struck me, upon entering, was the immense sense of stillness and peace that had been created in the room. The room, in itself, was nothing special. It was a congregation room in the Community Church of New York, where I had never been before. The room had been decorated with some Buddhist tapestries and posters. But basically it was the inside of a basic, mid-20th century, boxy, brick church. But the room was totally serene. There was so little movement. I sat in the very back, right by the door, and dropped both the bags I was carrying. The usher, a pleasant and earthy woman, said to me, "You can move up." I replied, "I'll move in a moment." And she was fine with that. But I didn't move. I got kind of stuck in the back, watching people come in late, and sit down around me, and then move up into the congregation.

A young couple came, with a baby, and sat down next to me. I thought, "A baby! That's totally going to ruin the serenity in here." It didn't. The baby slept, silently, almost motionlessly, and the couple held hands. I watched another man come in, sort of agitated. He sat next to me, moving his hands together compulsively. Gradually, over the course of two or three minutes, the movement stopped, and he shared in the stillness of the room.

When the speaker, Gen-la Kelsang Dekyong, began to talk, she spoke in a highly modulated pattern, with what I thought was a slight Irish accent. She stressed every word she said, and only tossed out two or three at a time, like this: "following... in the footsteps... of Buddha..." I enjoyed listening to her, but the substance of the talk didn't hold new information for me, particularly. I mean, it's not really about new information, is it? It's about learning to silence your own internal chatter so you can just be. Gen-la Kelsang Dekyong's talk was about providing points of reference that people could latch on to in order to find out how to silence their own internal chatter. And it was delivered in a manner that was also devoid of any distractions. It was, in a sense, perfect.

I dozed off twice. Or, at least, I achieved a highly restful state there in that serene room. It didn't matter. It was not a "sleepy room" like you find in a boring lecture. It wasn't boring. It was highly concentrated and minimal in the extreme.

After about an hour and a half or so, I broke my own serenity and left. It wasn't that I was bored, or that I needed to go. I just felt that I had seen what I had come to see, and heard what I had come to hear. The talk, in particular, as I've said, didn't hold any new information that I hadn't read or heard before. But the room was fascinating, and the people who came were really interesting, how they plugged into the serenity. I think I could have been the first person to leave. People just kept coming, and nobody seemed to leave.

What strikes me, upon reflecting on the experience of the lecture, is that it was such a different kind of space than most of us typically find ourselves in. It was a unique, highly attenuated moment of intense serenity and peace. So thick you could cut it with a knife. It was an addictive stillness.

I think most of us find our lives as a frantic concatenation of somewhat random activity. We move faster and faster, doing more and more, and never quite achieve peace. But I think that, in order to be happy, we have to achieve some harmony with the frenzy. We have to find a balance between stillness and motion. Maybe it's a stillness within to mirror the velocity of our bodies. Or something like that. Is it possible to be at peace and in constant motion?

I left the lecture feeling like I got something out of it, but I didn't need more. I saw, in that room, one way to achieve peace and, if Gen-la Kelsang Dekyong is to be believed, joy. But, personally, I don't believe that I can find joy in stillness. I need to be moving, as quickly as possible, with some kind of balance inside. That's what I'm striving for: peace inside while moving at infinite speed.

In and Out

Globalization is very good for some (maybe even most) people. It's going to be very difficult  for others. As barriers to trade and the free movement of capital come down, the accelerated movement of goods, money, and ideas will make some people very rich indeed. It will be a huge challenge for the rest of us.

Throughout the last hundred years or so in America, historical trends, economics, social policy, communications technology, and culture have served to, if anything, reduce the class differences that exist in our country. The CEO may have made 20 times what you made, but everybody watched the same TV shows, the same sporting events. Everybody got to go on vacation. Most people could afford cars. The 'American Dream' was being realized by more and more Americans.

Over the last few years, we've seen a regression in that trend. CEO salaries are through the roof, in some cases totally to thousands of times the salaries of their junior employees. I recently saw an article that pointed out that, over the last 20 years, the average salaries of the best-paid 20 percent of Americas had gone up by approximately 30 percent, while the salaries of the poorest 20 percent had only gone up by 16 percent. The rich are, in fact, getting richer, while the poor are getting poorer.

Globalization will only serve to accelerate this trend, at least in America (in India and China, the poor are getting richer, too). Just as globalization means that, essentially, the world's best talent is competing with the best talent around the world, it also means that the workers of the world are in competition, too. So Ford has to lay off 30,000 workers and close 14 plants because, in global competition, they can't compete if they're paying US union wages.

In his books Rise of the Creative Class and Flight of the Creative Class, Richard Florida makes the case that the existing paradigm for class in the U.S. is obsolete: that people are defined more by what they do than by how much capital they control, and that capital follows creativity to such an extent that our most creative workers are also generally our best paid. I would like to take this one step further... We are rapidly becoming a society of two classes: those who are 'in' and who are participating in the global economy, and those who are 'out' and are not.

A few ago, in the dot.com years, these would have been described as the information 'haves' and 'have nots.' I think, for the first time, we are seeing the economic affects of being a 'have' or a 'have not' with regard to information technology.

Those who are 'in' are participating in the evolution of our society, whether through their brainpower, their leadership, or by investing their capital.

Those who are 'out' are living, functioning, trying to get by. Their biggest goal has to be to try to get 'in' and participate in the global economy, tap into the dizzying acceleration of change that shows no signs of slowing.

Our biggest goal as a society should be to help those who are 'out' to get 'in.' A world in which half of the population earns $500,000 a year or more, and the other half earns $8 an hour, will be a scary place indeed. (I'm reminded of the future earth in H.G. Wells' The Time Machine.)

We have to reverse the widening divide between rich and poor in America. We have to create educational and social structures to help more people get into the global economy. if they can't, we'll all suffer the consequences.

Speed and Globalization

What's happening now? What is this 'new boom' roller coaster ride we're on? I'll tell you... I think we're finally reaping the tremendous gains in productivity and efficiency that communications technology and globalization have been threatening to bring for years.

It really is on the verge of being a 24/7, always on world. (I'm thinking of writing a paper or giving a talk called 'Everywhere and always on/right here, right now' because they really are the same thing--more on this later.) I'm writing this post as an email on my TREO while I'm waiting for and riding on a subway car--I'll send it when I get outside.

Let me tell you one story from today that illustrates where we are and where we are going... And architect in Melbourne, Australia is working on a big headquarters building for a bank and wants to team with Gensler to design the work environment. So he picks up the phone and dials the LA office of Gensler (Why LA? I don't know.). The person who answers the phone in LA writes an email to some people in our DC office, because she thinks they may have banking experience there, and copies a bunch of people in the LA office, too. The DC office, fortunately, knows that our financial experience lies in the New York office, which is coincidentally located in New York, the financial capital of the world. (To their credit, LA knows a lot about the entertainment industry and DC knows a lot about working for the Feds... Imagine that!) Anyway, DC bounces the email to me, and copies everybody in LA who had been copied before, and a few in DC and in NY, too. I go online, and find that we may have actually have worked with this architect before, on a big development in Dalian, China. I also know a certain studio director in NY who has lots of financial experience AND is an Australian. So I wrap all this info up in an email, attach a secure PDF file with our big bank qualifications, and bounce it back to LA to send to Melbourne. One additional point of note: the email from LA said that the architect in Melbourne wanted our info for a meeting with the bank client today. Which today? I'm doing this at 7pm in New York... It's the middle of the next day in Australia! Hoping that the call had just come in that morning (rather than the previous day), and that we could still get our info to the architect in Melbourne, I pressed send.

Things like this are beginning to be normal, everyday occurances. Just watch what happens next.

Now I press send on this so I can look at the menu in this Mexican restaurant...