David Koren

The Future of Marketing: Audience Engagement (Sorry, the logo can't get any bigger)

Welcome to the post-social media era! Now that Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram have implemented algorithms to drive what you see, and have become essentially advertising platforms, allowing brands to buy access to your eyeballs, the utility of these platforms for their users starts to go down, driving users gradually off these platforms (or at least to value them less, use them less frequently). Facebook isn't going away, at least not soon (enough), but its actual utility to its users is in decline.

So that's it. We broke social media. On to the next thing!

But what's the next thing? How do I get my logo and my irresistable offering in front of more eyeballs, if social media isn't the promised land? I need a replacement for the 30-second TV spot, which has been in decline since, well, since cable TV started 30 years ago.

There is no next thing, at least, not one thing. It's all fragmentation from here: continued fragmentation of media, and fragmentation of the audience.

"Conventional" marketing, at this point in history, is essentially over. The way you've learned about it, the way you think about it, the way you do it. It's basically obsolete. Not that it's pointless. Not that you can stop. You still have to do it. But it isn't going to drive growth. It's just going to keep you in the game.

In "conventional" marketing, we think about sales and marketing as driving customers (or clients or audience, depending on your industry) to a product, letting them know about it, understand it, and convincing them they want it and need it. The product is fixed. The marketing is what makes them want it (and believe they need it).

The first problem with this approach in today's marketplace is that the perceptual landscape of your target customers or clients or audience is packed to the gills. Open any popular website and look at what percentage of the screen is now filled with ads. Do people still watch TV, or just streaming media? How many billboards litter the nation's highways? How much junk mail do you get? How many times a week does a telemarketer call you?

As an audience, we are in a defensive attitude from the get-go. We hang up on telemarketers, we skip the ads whenever we can, we install adblockers, we learn to look at the sliver of Facebook that has the smallest percentage of ads in it (and ignore the rest), we show up late to the movie so we don't have to see the ads.

As a marketer or advertiser, the only way around this is to try to catch us when our defenses are down... like outdoor advertising! Or with annoying pop-ups that we have to wait 10 seconds to close. Or by putting ads in surprising places... like on Instagram!

But our perceptual filters will adapt faster than new advertising vehicles can be conceived and implemented. In the race to get noticed before the human brain figures out how to ignore you, the human brain will always win. Humans are very good at ignoring things they don't want to see. Denial is programmed into us.

Social media, when it came on the scene about a decade ago, held a great new promise for increased social engagement on the Internet. And, for a while, it delivered on that. You could see what your friends were eating for lunch. You could fight over politics all the time. You always knew who had a new baby, or a new cat.

It presented an obvious and delicious challenge for advertisers... How can we engage with our customers, clients, or audience in this new realm? How can we stay relevant, and in front of them? The savviest brands dived in, and went deep, and created robust content streams, birthing a whole new field: "Content Marketing," creating a stream of exciting stuff and getting it out there all the time and thereby engaging their customers, clients, and audience. For a minute, it was beautiful, and a new marketing order took hold.

Now that's in decline. Why? Well, now brands can buy eyeballs on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, so the drive to actually be engaging, to actually create conversations, to actually care about their customers and not just flash a logo in their faces, goes way down. Make the logo bigger!

Of course, if you work in "Content Marketing" or some similar field, you will disagree with me here. "We believe in creating authentic engagements with our customers through content that is of value to them." Of course you do. That's your job. And you believe in it. But when you can pay a little money and get that content to more eyeballs automatically, guess what happens? The quality of the content, its individual stickiness and interest, will go down. The content itself can relax if you can pay to have more people see it. This is why articles are interesting in a newspaper or magazine or blog, and why ads are so dumb. The articles have to pay their way with interest. The ads are there because they are paying their way with cash.

But social media is not going away. It's now just one more tool in the advertiser's tool box... TV, web, outdoor, social, etc. It has become, for the most part, just like every other channel for advertisers. And there are a lot of channels. So how do advertisers figure out how to reach their audience, how to push their message out and in your face so that you notice it?

Well, first, you categorize your target audiences and profile them. You figure out what shows they watch, what stars they like, what news sources and websites they read, what movies they're going to see, what neighborhoods they live in, etc. Then you try to get to them by advertising there, someplace they'll see it.

But the fragmentation is real. Not just in terms of media, and all of the channels that people are watching and paying attention to, but in terms of the audience categorization as well. It is getting harder and harder to predict who is going to be interested in your offering. It turns out that people are not as easily able to be categorized as "conventional" marketing would have you believe. Everybody in their 20's isn't interested in the same things. We are, actually, all special snowflakes. And just because I'm a 40-something with a kid doesn't mean I want to go to Orlando on vacation.

So what's the answer here? Well, the answer is the same as it has been for 20 years, since the Internet achieved popularity and fragmented our attention into a billion channels. What's different is that we've just reached and passed the height of social media's utility (and therefore its interest) for its users. The answer is authentic engagement... actually connecting with your customers, clients, and audience... through the ether, across the miles, across time and space... finding a real connection. Not just selling them widgets, getting your logo in front of them, but realizing that you and your audience care about the same things.

And then guess what happens next... If you and your audience are engaged in an ongoing conversation about things that interest you both, guess what happens to the product or service that you offer? The product or service become influenced, determined, shaped, conceived, modified, refined, developed by that conversation itself. Marketing becomes not a process of taking some existing product that was developed in a lab and getting it in front of passive eyeballs. Marketing becomes a process of facilitating a conversation between people who are interested in similar things and who want to create something together.

 

Business Development in a Nutshell

I was talking to some of the marketing staff and business developers in one of our offices recently, and I thought of a gross simplification for the whole business development process, in terms of what the steps are, that I thought might be helpful, especially in this economy. Here it goes…

FIRST, YOU HAVE TO FIND OPPORTUNITIES. So, where do opportunities come from? Well, they can come from anywhere, but the best opportunities come from existing relationships that you have, because those are the ones you are most likely to close. Aside from that, they can come from referrals, or from public listings, or in the mail. Or you can even find opportunities by making a list of the 50 organizations you’d like to work for, and calling them all on the phone. But that not only is much less fun than emptying the cat’s litterbox, it’s also highly unlikely to be productive, in terms of finding opportunities. Calling on the phone is great for finding out information, and really bad for generating business. To generate business effectively, you really need a relationship.

SECOND, YOU HAVE TO DECIDE WHICH OPPORTUNITIES TO PURSUE. One of my favorite business articles ever is David Maister’s “Strategy Means Saying No.” The idea being, if you don’t say “no” to something, you don’t have a strategy, you’re totally adrift in a turbulent sea. Which invokes the famous Yogi Berra quote, “If you don’t know where you’re trying to go, you’ll probably end up someplace else.” Too many firms believe that all business is good business, and it simply isn’t true. You need to focus your efforts predominantly on work that you can win and that you want to do, and that you can do (and make money doing) if you win. It’s ok to throw a Hail Mary pass every so often, and to pursue something you have no business pursuing because you REALLY want it, but you can’t base a career, or run a firm, on this strategy.

THIRD, WHEN YOU’VE DECIDED TO GO, YOU HAVE TO NAIL IT TO THE WALL. Ok, so you want the project, you think you can win the project, and if you get it, you can do it (and make money doing it). So, why are you pursuing the project in a half-assed way? Give it everything you have! Pull out all the stops! Have early meetings! Stay up late! Convince the client how much you want to work with him or her, and how important the challenge they’re facing is to you. Show your passion. Be bold. And check your work.

Yes, it’s grossly simplistic, but having a list of three things you have to do to succeed is even better than having a list of ten things you have to do to succeed!

Webinar on "Strategies and Tactics for Architects in an Economic Downturn"

I was part of a webinar last week hosted by the AIA on "Strategies and Tactics for Architects in an Economic Downturn." I was one panelist of 4 who spoke on the program; I covered "10 Steps to Marketing in a Slowdown," and spoke for 15-20 minutes towards the end of the formal part of the program, right before Q&A. The webinar was free to AIA members to tune in, and we very quickly received registrations for the 1,200 sites that we were able to accommodate. So, it was the most people I've ever spoken to at one time (except for that one time I was on the radio in high school, but that was pre-recorded!). To see and hear the webinar, click here:

"Strategies and Tactics for Architects in an Economic Downturn"

Is Differentiation a Myth?

I just came across an article on RainToday called "The Myth of Differentiation" by Mike Schultz. The article basically posits that we shouldn't talk about our firms as "unique" or "different" because most people use these words incorrectly. Fair enough, but that doesn't mean that the process of identifying how your firm is different from the client is useless. (In fact, it's vitally important!)

So, I got up on my soap box, pressed the "respond to this article" button, and dashed off this response:

In the first part of his two-part “Myth of Differentiation” series, Mr. Schultz muddles the meanings of the words “unique” and “different” and narrowly defines differentiation as a communications process (“differentiating to the client”), ignoring the value of differentiation as a process of introspection—figuring out what makes you different from the competition so that you can better position yourself to your market or client.

First of all, the words “unique” and “different,” while synonyms, do not have identical meanings. In order to be “unique,” something must be different from every other thing in existence. Answering the question, “why are you unique?” is nearly impossible, because the comparison set is so huge—the entire universe. So I think that the word is usually used poorly in marketing, to describe a firm that isn’t really unique (or, at least, probably couldn’t tell you how it’s unique).

But the word “different” sets the bar lower, on a scale we can deal with. Something is different only in terms of how it compares with other things in the same limited category. In thinking of what makes a firm different, we consider the direct competition, and think about what makes us special. This is an absolutely necessary part of positioning your firm for a market or a specific client. Otherwise, you’re just talking about yourself, without a competitive context, and you have no way of anticipating how effective your words will be in reaching your client. Once you know how you’re different, you don’t necessarily need to say to the client “We’re different because…” but your understanding of how you’re different can inform ALL of your communications.

I agree with Mr. Schultz that calling yourself "different" or "unique" does not make you either one, but I do believe that an introspective process (informed by research, of course) about how you compare to your competition is invaluable in developing client-focused messages that differentiate your firm from the competition.

The real problem isn’t with the words, it’s with using them incorrectly to describe things that aren’t actually different or unique.

A More Democratic View of Marketing?

I'm a huge fan of Blink. I think it's the best quasi-business book I've ever read. I'd love to write a book like that someday. But I've never been able to get through The Tipping Point, and I've never quite been sure why. People LOVE that book. When it came out, it felt like everybody was recommending it to me. I bought it. I tried to read it. I got 80 or 10 pages in, and I put it down, never to pick it up again, without really a clear idea why.

I just came across an article in the February 2008 Fast Company called Is the Tipping Point Toast? by Clive Thompson, and I suddenly have some idea why I never connected with The Tipping Point. The Tipping Point posits that there are certain people that are really important, who make things happen, the influentials. This idea underlies the way a lot of marketing is done these days: get to the influentials, and you'll get to everybody. The article in Fast Company covers the research of Duncan Watts, who contends that reaching the tipping point doesn't have much of anything to do with reaching the so-called "influentials," that it's just about a good idea connecting with people, and that anyone can be a connector, anyone can be an influencer, anyone can make an idea tip over the edge.

This idea, as opposed to the common marketing idea that there are a limited number of "cool kids" who make trends happen, really resonates with me. One of the things I learned from working on FIGMENT last summer is that if you have a good idea, and that people believe in it, it will happen. Sure, the "cool kids" who have lots of friends and who won't stop talking about something help, but that's not the important thing... the important thing is having the right idea in the first place, so that EVERYBODY wants to spread the word, whether they're a cool kid or not. We are all participants here, no matter how "cool" we are.

Climbing the ladder in your firm: Changing your role by changing the way you think about it

This is a proposal for a workshop to take place at THE Marketing Event, put on by the SMPS New York Chapter in November, 2007...

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Many marketers struggle with their careers, asking questions such as: How can I get to the next level? How can I gain more influence and respect from my principals? How can I stay connected to my job, when all I feel like I’m doing is getting proposal after proposal out the door?

Marketing in our industry is a relatively new career, and as a result many of us do not have a sense of exactly what our career path is. But marketing is vitally important to our firms, and there must be a way for us to feel valued for what we do and to grow our careers continually. 

The key is to consider carefully the way we think about our jobs—what we do on a day to day basis—and how it fits into where our firms are going. Being in alignment with the vision and mission of your firm is the way to make sure you’re adding value to your firm, feeling satisfied with what you’re doing, and gaining influence and respect from your principals.

In this workshop, we’ll discuss perceptions of the marketing function in our firms, and create strategies for what we can do to reinforce positive perceptions and counter negative ones. Only by taking on the perception issue head-on can we change the way that marketing is perceived and take our careers to the highest levels.

Be the change you want to see in your firm

I just submitted this story for the "Did You Know?" column of the SMPS-NY chapter newsletter... 

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There’s an old story about three stonemasons, each of whom is working on a block of stone. A traveler comes along, and asks the first stonemason what he’s doing. The stonemason replies, “I am cutting stone.” The traveler asks the second, who replies, “I am shaping a cornerstone.” When the traveler asks the third stonemason what he’s doing, the stonemason answers, “I am building a cathedral, which will be an important place for the people of this community.” 

If you’ve ever felt like you’re on a treadmill at work, that all you do is the same thing over and over again (say, proposals or presentations or cold calls or whatever it is that you do), maybe you need to stop thinking about it as if you’re cutting stone, and start thinking about it as if you’re building a cathedral. What are you really trying to accomplish by what you’re doing? How does it really help your firm? Why are you essential to your firm’s business? You aren’t just writing proposals, for example, you’re building a practice. You aren’t just cranking out PowerPoints, you’re helping to communicate your firm’s message to your clients.

I once had the privilege to participate in a workshop put on by one of Tony Robbins’ affiliates. I have to admit that I was a little skeptical about the “motivational” techniques that the speaker was using: getting us pumped up through music, physical activity, and rah-rah affirmation. But, towards the end of the day, the speaker told us that we going to close the workshop by breaking boards. That’s right, he had brought pieces of plywood, roughly 8” by 10” and 1/2” thick, for each of us, and he was going to teach us to break them with our bare hands. 

The speaker asked us to think of something to write on the board: a challenge that we were facing that, if we could break through, it would bring us to new levels of success. I thought about it for a moment, and one thing popped into my head, the idea that marketing was overhead, a support function. I knew that if I could break through that, if I could see that marketing is as important as design and technical expertise, I could take my career further. I wrote “marketing as secondary to design” on my board.

Then the speaker asked us to write on the back of the board what would happen if we could break through this challenge, what the reward would be to us. I wrote “increased influence,” meaning that if I could see marketing as equal in importance to design and technical functions, that I would have increased influence in my firm, in the industry, and in the world. The speaker demonstrated how to break the board, and all around me, other professionals with other challenges and goals used their hands to break their boards. Then I broke mine, and I’ve never looked back.

I believe that marketing is as critically important to as firm’s success as design ability, or technical expertise, or project delivery. And if we view what we do as critical, how can it possibly be just overhead or support? I believe that each of us has the opportunity to be a strategic leader in our firm. But first, we have to believe that we are vitally important, we have to believe that we are leaders, we have to believe that we are strategic. If we don’t believe it, how can we expect anyone else to? 

There’s a quote from Gandhi that I really like: “Be the change you want to see in the world.” What he means, of course, is that change starts with you. There’s no point complaining, there’s no point waiting for others to change. If you want to change the world, start by changing yourself. And that’s as true of your firm and your career as it is of the world around you. Be the change you want to see in your firm, and watch where it takes you!

 

 

Marketing Trends for 2007 and beyond

(just submitted to the IIDA-NY newsletter for their next issue)

It’s no secret that marketing architectural and interior design services has grown more sophisticated in recent years. The business climate and our own ambitions for our firms drive us to compete harder for work. Technology enables us (or should enable us) to do more with less, to stretch our time and resources and utilize them more efficiently. At the same time, the profession of design marketing continues to emerge, and specialists like me work with firms of all sizes (either as full-time employees or as consultants) to help them be more strategic in allocating their marketing resources and implementing their business strategies. Looking back at what it was like to market design services a few years ago or even last year, a few broad trends become apparent:

1. Graphic Sophistication

If a technology exists, it will be used. Desktop printing technology has evolved considerably over the last few years, both in terms of quality and speed. As we all struggle to present our firms and our work as clearly as possible, our documents will become more colorful and more graphically intensive. The downside here is that while it is cheaper and faster than ever to print a color brochure, it still takes as much time to plan and design it. The more work we do in color with complex layouts, the more resources will be spent on graphic design.

2. Faster and Faster

Time is money, and clients of every type recognize that the sooner they can complete their project, the sooner they can stop paying double rent, or begin to utilize their new space to make revenue. The pressure on design and construction professionals to move faster bleeds over into the marketing process. While technology enables us to create documents more quickly, it doesn’t enable us to think any more quickly. With some client types, a two-week turnaround for an RFP response used to be typical; two days is more the norm these days. This focus on speed, combined with the capability to produce documents easily in full color, creates a real quandary for our industry: given a limited amount of time to respond, what should you focus on, your graphics or your message?

3. Differentiation and Specialization

What are you known for? Though you might like your reputation to be about quality design and a high level of service, you’re probably known for the project types you specialize in. Like it or not, it’s easier for your clients to think of you as “the restaurant designer” than to think of you for your contemporary style or the other intangibles or barely tangibles that define your approach and your work. Not that this is entirely irrational: if I’m a client, and I’m designing a lab or a school or a fashion retail space, I want to work with somebody who knows what they’re doing. The benefit to specialization in your practice is that it is much easier to build a reputation by doing one thing very well than it is by doing many things well. The downside, of course, is that if you do something very well, you may be condemned to repeat it.

4. Got strategy?

With very little time to respond to opportunities, it is more important than ever to have an underlying strategy that guides you in making decisions about what opportunities to pursue and what level of resources to invest. In an article published online last year, business consultant David Maister makes the case that if you aren’t saying no to some opportunities, you don’t have a strategy. It’s vital that you make decisions about where you’re trying to take your business so that you can be prepared when opportunity knocks. Consider working with a marketing consultant (or in-house marketing staff) to develop a strategic marketing plan to guide you. As the saying goes, if you fail to plan, you plan to fail.

5. Integration of communications and project delivery

Marketing is obviously the front end of the design process—it’s where the work comes from. But there is a role for marketing and communications not just at the beginning of the project, but at every stage of the design process. As the design team works with a client to develop a project, there are opportunities to create communications tools to enhance your marketing efforts. How can you capitalize on the design you are doing today to win additional business tomorrow? How can you capture and document the design process to tell a story to a future client, or to the press? I think that this is really the next evolution of marketing and communications in design—how can we come to think of marketing not as something that happens first, but as an ongoing process that is integrated with our projects?

"The Biggest Mistake Marketers Make" - Published!

Happy new year! I've been busier than ever, it seems, over the past few months. It's been really tough to keep up with work, the SMPS, and having some kind of social life. I had almost forgotten how busy things were in 1999-2000, but it feels like the economy and the speed of transactions have returned to that pace... I'll try to keep up, and I'll try to keep posting!

The article I wrote a month or so ago, "The Biggest Mistake Marketers Make," has just been published in the SMPS-NY Chapter Newsletter:

The Biggest Mistake Marketers Make

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)

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“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.

Three Great Quotes

Today, I happen to have come across a few great quotes that relate to marketing:

"You do not merely want to be considered just the best of the best. You want to be considered the only one who does what you do." - Jerry Garcia

I was interviewed this morning by a reporter for Oculus, the magazine and e-newsletter of the AIA NY Chapter. I used this quote as a way to demonstrate that architects need not to compete with one another, but to truly stand out.

"The best swordsman in the world doesn't need to fear the second best swordsman in the world; no, the person for him to be afraid of is some ignorant antagonist who has never had a sword in his hand before; he doesn't do the thing he ought to do, and so the expert isn't prepared for him; he does the thing he ought not to do; and often it catches the expert out and ends him on the spot." - Mark Twain, from "A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court"

I found this one in a Tom Peters presentation while I was searching for the correct phrasing of the Jerry Garcia quote. I think it speaks adequately of the challenge of being a brand leader (like Gensler). The threat isn't the direct competition. It's the competitor who you don't see coming, the renegade.

"The short road to ruin is to emulate your adversary." - Winston Churchill

I'm a big fan of Winston Churchill, and I plan to use this one, too. Don't be a copycat! Do something different!

Paco Underhill and Presentation Style

I'm at Parsons School of Design watching retail guru Paco Underhill (author of Why We Buy, which I honestly haven't read yet). I'm writing from the lecture not to report on his content, which is somewhat what I expected--a talk about why people buy stuff, a topic I don't honestly care that much about.

I'm writing this from my phone in the lecture because Paco Underhill is one of the strangest presenters I've EVER seen (and I've seen A LOT of people present). I can't figure out what's wrong with him exactly... The room is divided into two halves with a central aisle. Paco keeps strutting up and down the central aisle, twisting awkwardly to the left and right to address the people over there, then the people over here. My first impression is that this is a bad presentation trick that some presentation coach told him to do, because he's a generally uncomfortable presenter, and people who are comfortable presenters strut around a lot.

But there was a problem with my thesis... He's not actually a bad presenter. His speech is somewhat lively and actually delivered fairly well. In fact, if anything, it feels a little pat, a little over-rehearsed. What's weirdest is the combination. This awkward, uncomfortable, forced strut combined with a speech that feels like he's given it 100 times. You'd think that, if this were old material, that he would have figured out how to present it by now. Could the strut just be some new trick that he's added recently to liven it up, at the suggestion of some presentation coach?

That's what I thought, until I heard something else... At first, I heard a pause, like he was struggling to remember the next word... like his word-for-word memorization of the script was beginning to fail him: 'plan my... menu for the week.' So, is this script memorized word-for-word? Is this just a performance? Is he perhaps animatronic?

Then I heard something else... 'We have new ne-necessities.' That's it! He's a stutterer! And this speech has been rehearsed significantly, first with a voice coach, and then, it seems to me, with a presentation coach.

Well, good for him. I admire his 'polish,' or, at least, his sense that in order to make a polished presentation, he needed to rehearse it to death with (probably) two different coaches.

I look at him. I look up at Paco, into his eyes. I put my glasses on in order to see more clearly. I look in his eyes, and he looks terrified. Despite the fact that he's strutting around the place, making large gestures, speaking with gusto. He's simply been rehearsed by experts, over and over and over. Like an animatronic actor.

But most people probably haven't noticed any of this. They probably just think he's a little weird.

That said, once I've figured out that he's a stutterer, and sensed that he's afraid to be making a big presentation like this, I find him empathetic and charming. He seems real and human in a way that he didn't before. Once I know the story, I like him more.

What do I take away from this? Well, I think it's important for each presenter to find their own natural style (and Paco Underhill, despite his growing prominence, despite his attempts to overcome his stuttering, hasn't found it). For my brief keynote at THE Marketing Event on Friday (see text below or elsewhere on this blog), I wrote it Thursday morning, and I rehearsed it once... at about 11pm, Thursday night, in a bar, for four friends. I wanted to do it again at home, but I ran out of steam, and felt good with my one rehearsal, so I let it go. And I think I did well... My words, written word-for-word as I talk, written 24 hours before the speech was delivered (so it was as fresh and topical as possible), then rehearsed once, in a bar. And it felt fine. It was fun. I didn't stress out. I was a little nervous, but channeled it quickly and attacked my material.

Another lesson here is that the more we know about people, the more we learn facts about them that make them real and human to us, the more we are able to empathize with them. The lesson is that we all need to try to bring our entire selves to everything we do, so that we are real and empathetic to those around us.

Now back to Paco's talk...

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.