Good Leadership Requires a Healthy Ego

I came across a great article this morning from HBR entitled: “Ego Is the Enemy of Good Leadership“. It’s a quick read and definitely worth your time. Kudos to the authors, Rasmus Hougaard and Jacqueline Carter for their insightful take.

If you’ve spent enough time on the planet, chances are you’ve encountered someone in a leadership role that’s fallen victim to the ego. And it can be an ugly encounter.

“An unchecked ego can warp our perspective or twist our values. In the words of Jennifer Woo, CEO and chair of The Lane Crawford Joyce Group, Asia’s largest luxury retailer, “Managing our ego’s craving for fortune, fame, and influence is the prime responsibility of any leader.” When we’re caught in the grip of the ego’s craving for more power, we lose control. Ego makes us susceptible to manipulation; it narrows our field of vision; and it corrupts our behavior, often causing us to act against our values.”

Of course, that assumes those values even existed in the first place.

Note: image courtesy of HBR.

Head. In. The. Sand. Part Deux

I am certainly not going to jump on the “bash everything that happened – or didn’t happen – at Cannes this year” bandwagon. That would be way too easy, especially if you simply plagiarize someone else’s words (think you know what I’m sayin’ @sureshdinakaran.)

That said, Pam Erlichman, CMO at Jebbit, wrote a great piece in MediaPost recently entitled: “What I DIDN’T Hear At Cannes: No Talk Of Correcting Data Missteps“.

Her overall position: “It’s time to shift focus off big data that goes nowhere to small, actionable data that drives lifetime value and deeper relationships with consumers. It’s time to put data collection and usage practices in place that are transparent and build brand trust with consumers. And finally, it’s time to provide real value to consumers in exchange for that data.” [My emphasis, not hers].

I hope the industry takes some tangible action before the many prognostications of the imminent death of everything we know come true.

Note: image courtesy of SmartCitiesWorld.

Head. In. The. Sand

Carole Cadwalladr: the ad industry is ignoring Cambridge Analytica fallout.

“In terms of responsibility, there’s something really key about Cannes Lions and the ad industry’s involvement in this,” she explained. “This is where the money is coming from. It is kind of depressing that there’s not a single talk happening in this entire week [about data misuse] with money swishing down through the streets.”

Hope you had fun in Cannes people.

To Burn Your Ace or Not to Burn Your Ace, That is the Question

For those that know me well, you already know that a good chunk of my free time is spent on a ballfield with my sons. While it’s been said plenty of times already, the parallels between life (and work) and baseball are all over the place. One such parallel is how you manage your bullpen.

First, let me give you a little context. This was my boys’ last year of Little League. I have either been a hyper-involved dad or a uniformed coach for them since they started playing t-ball. This last season I managed their Majors team. The team started off a little slowly, winning only two of our first eight games. But then things took a turn for the better: we won our next five games putting us into the playoffs as the #3 seed (out of 5 teams). We won our first two playoff games which got us into the division championship. We also won that game. Winning the division championship game got us into the Mayor’s Cup, a long-standing rivalry between South Durham Little League and our bitter rival to the North: Bull City Little League. And guess what? We won that game as well. Nine straight wins for those of you still reading this piece. All in all, 11 wins, 6 losses. Not a bad season.

So what’s my point? There are plenty of reasons why our season turned around. Our hitting improved. Our defense improved. The contributions made by the bottom of our batting order ramped up significantly. And one can never underestimate the power that positive momentum has on a team (or an individual for that matter).

But I think the most important reason for our success was the way that we managed our pitching staff towards the end of the regular season and into the playoffs. We tried to keep all of our regular pitchers available for the next game (1) by limiting the number of pitches they threw (which also helped keep our pitcher’s arm’s healthy). Some teams opted to be more aggressive and burn their best pitchers to secure the immediate win. So we went into the next game with all of our pitchers, the other guys went in without their best pitcher(s) and had to rely on #2, #3, etc. We took the conservative approach and it did us well in the long-term.

So I guess the real question that I’m asking is whether you put everything on the table today and worry about the repercussions tomorrow? A true win or go home mentality. Or do you plan a bit more thoughtfully, a little more conservatively so you have more choices in terms of how you manage the next “game”?

I’d love to hear your thoughts.

(1) The eligibility of a player to pitch in a Little League® Baseball game is governed by a tiered pitch count that is tied to the number of pitches thrown in a game. The pitch count determines how many days of rest are required before said player may pitch again in a Little League game. For example, if a player pitches 36-50 pitches in a day, two (2) calendar days of rest must be observed. If a player pitches 21-35 pitches in a day, one (1) calendar days of rest must be observed. If a player pitches 1-20 pitches in a day, no (0) calendar day of rest is required. There are also a maximum number of pitches a player may throw based on their league age.

Nope, This Isn’t Weird

“So yes, our phones are listening to us and anything we say around our phones could potentially be used against us.”

Your Phone Is Listening and it’s Not Paranoia.

 

Why Consumer’s Increasing Demand for Online Privacy is Good for Our Business

I have always argued that our industry didn’t do enough, early enough to get ahead of consumer privacy. I wrote a post in February 2014 (seems like forever ago) where I stated in no uncertain terms: “If we continue to keep our collective heads buried in the sand on this issue, we can say goodbye to one of the only remaining benefits of online ads: highly precise targeting.”

Fast forward to today. We’ve lost control of the narrative and let others like the European Union lawmakers and their well-intentioned General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) take control. We should have been clear that: 1) creating high-quality content is not cheap, and 2) as a result, consumers should be willing to pay for this content either in the form of paid subscriptions and/or personal (but not personally identifiable) data. But we didn’t.

We continued to create digital campaigns that were increasingly reliant on consumer data. If you weren’t harnessing the so-called power of big data you were considered a digital neophyte. Now we see that “power” rapidly diminishing as increasing privacy regulations become the norm enabling consumers to take more and more control of their online information. According to some in the AdTech/MarTech space (i.e., the ones whose business models are predicated on the use of data), this signals the death of (digital) marketing as we know it. Bullshit.

Data doesn’t drive successful campaigns. Ideas drive successful campaigns.

There was a piece in AdWeek recently written by Fernando Machado, CMO of Burger King entitled “The Inside Story of the Burger King Campaign that Changed the Brand’s Entire Outlook on Marketing.” If you haven’t read it, I’d strongly encourage you to do so. In the article, Mr. Machado posits that: “To make people care, you need a big idea. An idea that plays with people’s imagination, an idea that is fun and connects people to the brand. He goes on to talk about a “future where creativity is only used for (and celebrated for) responding to real, tangible business and brand goals.” In his almost 2,000 word article, he didn’t use the word data once.

To be clear, I am not saying that data cannot be used to make great ideas come to life – it should, while we still have the capability to do so – but we as a creative industry cannot continue to rely on data to compensate for mediocre ideas.

I’d love to hear what you think.

We Better Pay Attention Peeps

According to December 2013 research conducted by Harris Interactive cited today by eMarketer, “more than nine in 10 internet users worry about online privacy. Further, 74% of respondents said they were more concerned about their privacy than they had been a year earlier—a number that was also up since 2013.”

And there’s more: “These concerns made 83% of internet users less likely to click on online ads, 80% to avoid using apps they didn’t trust with their personal information and 74% to keep location tracking turned off on their smartphones.”

If we continue to keep our collective heads buried in the sand on this issue we can say goodbye to one of the only remaining benefits of online ads: highly precise targeting.

These concerns made 83% of internet users less likely to click on online ads, 80% to avoid using apps they didn’t trust with their personal information and 74% to keep location tracking turned off on their smartphones.
Read more at http://www.emarketer.com/Article/More-Than-Nine-10-Internet-Users-Worry-About-Online-Privacy/1010587#SWYB8BXz8eDlsGhz.99
These concerns made 83% of internet users less likely to click on online ads, 80% to avoid using apps they didn’t trust with their personal information and 74% to keep location tracking turned off on their smartphones.
Read more at http://www.emarketer.com/Article/More-Than-Nine-10-Internet-Users-Worry-About-Online-Privacy/1010587#SWYB8BXz8eDlsGhz.99

What Happens If You Share Questionable Moves by Facebook on Facebook?

I sent a tweet last week re: a Fast Company article which brought to light some peculiar permission requests when Facebook users tried to update their app. My Twitter account is linked to my Facebook account.

Tom Hickey - Missed this..seems sketchy. Why Is Facebook's App... 2014-02-03 21-31-43

Follow the link on Facebook and…

Leaving Facebook... 2014-02-03 21-32-18

You may not like Fast Company but “malicious?” Not so much.

Is this a case of Facebook limiting what users are “allowed” to share or something a little more innocuous? Love to hear your thoughts…assuming you’re able to read this post.

When Art & Automobile Meet: Porsche by Design: Seducing Speed

I have had the opportunity to work on some of the biggest, most respected brands in the world. Procter & Gamble, the Quaker Oats Company and NASDAQ to name but a few. And the experience has been great. Really great. But I have to admit that at times I had to dig pretty deeply to get jazzed by the prospect of a paper towel, heretofore only available in white, soon to be available in colorful, country-themed patterns.DSCN2191-framed

I’ve been doing some work recently with the North Carolina Museum of Art. Art in general is something that is much easier to get into than a bowl of Apples & Cinnamon oatmeal. But when that art comes in the form of 22 exquisitely crafted Porsche’s from around the world, that’s an entirely different ball of wax.

I had the DSCN2197-framedopportunity to attend the media preview of Porsche by Design, Seducing Speed at the NCMA last Thursday (it opened on Saturday). The exhibit blew my mind, even for someone who likes cars but is in no way, shape or form a “car guy.”

“Porsche by Design brings together one of the most significant collections of Porsche automobiles ever assembled,” said Ken Gross. [Ken is the curator of the exhibit and aDSCN2229-framedfascinating guy…I had the chance to talk to him before most of the other attendees showed up and it was a very insightful, and entertaining, ten minutes.] “More than ‘just a show about cars,’ the exhibition emphasizes the innate beauty of aerodynamic design, inseparably linked with engineering genius. These cars are superlative examples of uncompromised, artfully restrained design, lending visual form and grace to the notion of speed.”

Or said another way: the cars kick some serious ass! If you’re in the Raleigh area and you don’t see the show, it’s your loss. If you do go, I’d love to hear your thoughts.

Pop This Pringles

As a marketer I’ve always been taught that if you ask consumers to do too much, they won’t do it. This is true even if, from the marketer’s perspective, the payoff justifies the effort (oftentimes because the payoff doesn’t come close to justifying the effort from the consumer’s point-of-view.) I think this is clearly the case with a promotion that Pringles is currently running: the Pringles Million Song Summer Sweepstakes.

Maybe I’m more a part of the entitled (Internet) establishment than I’d like to admit. You know, not willing to pay for anything, no matter how valuable. Not willing to do anything more than (maybe) give you my e-mail address (likely the one I set up for just this purpose that I haven’t checked since I registered it). Expecting everything immediately. Maybe.

But Pringles is making what could be a good promotion very difficult to navigate.

First, I have to buy a can of Pringles. Okay, not the end of the world. Every now and then I do get a craving for the hyperbolic paraboloid-shaped potato crisp.

Second, I have to remember to hold onto my receipt, as I have to send “The original store receipt with a big circle around the Pringles purchase.” Do note that in much smaller type it states that there is “no purchase necessary.” The non-abbreviated official rules go onto say that “A purchase will not increase your chances of winning.” Well that’s cool.

But be aware that a “Mail-In Entry without Purchase submissions will not receive a free music download.” What? I thought that was the whole point of the Million Song Summer promotion. Well, as it turns out, I’m actually entering the Sweepstakes for a chance to win “A Concert Trip for two (2) to attend any concert of winner’s choice in the contiguous forty-eight (48) Unites States (subject to Sponsor’s approval).” Really? First, unless I somehow missed it on the site, the only way that I would know that I’m entering a sweepstakes to win a Concert Trip is by reading through the official rules. Second, it’s a bit misleading to say “any concert…” when it’s subject to the Sponsor’s approval. Third, I just want some “free” music. Is that too much to ask of the Million Song Summer Sweepstakes? Apparently so.

Assuming that I did buy some Pringles and I did remember to hold onto my receipt, I now have to go online to http://www.pringles.com and download and print the official submission/entry form. But before I get to the official submission/entry form, I have to tell Pringles what country I live in (assuming I’m not distracted by the “Amp up Your Summer Nights, Buy 2 Cans & Get Your Disco Speaker” sweepstakes being promoted on the page which, coincidentally, is not running in the United States), then click on the Million Song Summer link and then on the download official order form link. [In fairness, this part of the experience may be slightly different from one person to another depending on your browser/settings, whether you’ve been to http://www.pringles.com before, etc.] But it was my experience.

Now I have to complete the official submission/entry form and then “mail it in an outer stamped envelope along with the original receipt showing the proof-of-purchase of the Participating Product with the Pringles Potato Crisps purchase cited to Pringles.” Okay, almost done.

“Upon successful submission of the submission/entry form (which I have interpreted to mean that the submission/entry form was not “lost, late, misdirected, illegible, incomplete, damaged, postage due or mutilated mail”), the entrant will receive two (2) free music downloads at a sponsor-selected digital music website.” Yea, baby.

Assuming that I do all of this before the one million (1,000,000) downloads are given away, now I just have to sit back and wait 4-6 weeks for delivery of my music download code(s) via e-mail. 4-6 weeks. Seriously.

It may just be me but this seems like a lot more effort than it’s worth.

What do you think?