POPULAR PHASES WE'D LIKE TO CHANGE #2

Technology is our life.

It invades – er, pervades – so much of our selves that being stranded on the proverbial desert isle sans our Blackberries and iPhones would force us to rethink who we are.  IT allows us to check trends, respond instantly via texting or IM’ing, rsvp to clients and customers, strategize through communities of interest, and just plain do our work.

Yet when we hear or read news about the next “killer app,” we cringe. 

Originally, the phrase referred to any computer program that instantly proved its value (in terms of sales, usually).  PageMaker and Adobe, for two, earned that moniker.  So did Pokemon and the Halo video game franchise.

Other personal “apps” emerge.  In many colleagues’ lives, the iPhone’s touch screen rules.  For me?  thesaurus.com and AdAge’s online edition.

When we really think about it, all these examples are, pure and simple, tools that help us succeed.  Maybe at one time, before copycat-ism shortened the life of innovations to one nano-second, killer apps existed.  Now, Groupon has been circumvented by LivingSocial, opentable.com, and any number of local e-businesses.  The iPad is spawning imitators (and good ones, at that) by the day. One site, one product, one service might have served us well in the past.  No way today.

We’re also objecting to the phrase for deeper reasons. 

One, killer apps over-emphasize the influence of technology.  After all, we find killer apps in other industries, like pop-up shops for retailers.  Or the growing call for good greens, from farmers’ markets to companies’ products. 

Two, the use of killer apps obscures the cry for just plain communications.   Too much attention is being paid to screens and animation.  Too little, to the needs of the folks around us.  When a face-to-face request is usurped in favor of email exchanges and PowerPoints, when we “3-3-7” an important voicemail because there’s another urgent priority, when our eyes peek at business smartphones during a video/audio team meeting, it’s time to give killer apps a rest for a while.

Hmmm.  How about talk-wares?

READING, WRITING … AND ANALYTICS

Consider this the ultimate oxymoron.

 More and more MBA students are going back to school – in writing.  According to news reports, corporate employers complain that recent grads can’t present ideas, engage audiences, or summarize research implications succinctly. 

The culprit?  Many people and trends could be blamed, from today’s heavy reliance on e-communications to light (or no) high school writing instruction.  Test administrators even point to the increasing number of international exam applicants, for whom English might not be a first language.

One instant remedy, it seems, is being shouldered by the b-schools.  Some offer writing coaches, who help individual students and/or partner with professors to double-grade papers.  Others have launched mandatory writing courses. 

Other cures come from business.  Consulting firms carefully supervise proposals penned by new hires.  Quite a few financial institutions rigorously monitor client emails, ensuring that no comma is out of place. 

 Unfortunately, these are short-term solutions.  Just because PowerPoint data have been reduced to essentials in one presentation doesn’t mean the next set of slides will be pithy and informative.  Toggling between friendly texting and straightforward emailing might trip up a junior employee.  And proposal writing, with its tendency to lean to the obfuscatory (!), definitely requires some serious educational time.

 Where else to turn?  Clearly, the U.S. educational system is under construction.  So don’t expect immediate help there.  Many undergrad and graduate deans are re-working the curricula, with help of faculty, to help students succeed.  That, too, won’t happen yesterday. 

 Here are our two cents, especially relevant for we who transform the stunningly complex into the compellingly simple: 

 Many of us are regular volunteers, often as tutors or as mentors for different non-profits.  All good.  All worthwhile.  So why not offer to train and coach business communications … at work?  Sure, it adds to our responsibilities.  It’s not necessarily part of our job description.  Yet teaching colleagues how to use language and design to reach business goals can fulfill our desires to pay back while enhancing our employers’ bottom lines.

 It’s the ultimate, no-arguments-accepted, reading and writing analytic.

‘TIS A GIFT

Lately, our eyes are glazing over more often.

 It’s not because of aggravated presbyopia.  Nor hours of Web surfing.  Or even our occasional trips in visual stimulation (read:  shopping of all sorts).

 Instead, we’re attributing that “duh” look to the ever-increasing complexity of, well, stuff.  Charlie Sheen’s tour name, My Violent Torpedo of Truth, mesmerizes without saying much.  Twitter handles and comments are all-too-often incomprehensible.  Parsing the latest U.S. diplomat’s Middle Eastern speech to uncover possible solutions is just too taxing.

 That’s true for design too.   Photos and illustrations appear sans captions, and often are only somewhat relevant to the subject.  New brands take into account all colors of the rainbow, yet miss the product or company’s critical essence.  Web sites – ah, don’t get us started.

 All we’re saying is give simplicity a chance.  There’s incredible under-acknowledged power in being brief and to the point.  There’s drama, too, in the understated look and feel, one that matches the brand, its attributes, and its personality.   Even in the ethereal, consensus-driven business of crafting vision and mission statements, straightforward is beginning to rule.

 One example, touted by trend-watcher Fortune magazine:  Oracle.  In an industry that’s polka-dotted with jargon and acronyms that change daily, this California company is (and we quote) “masterful at using basic messages to communicate the complicated nature of its products.”  What does Oracle say about itself?  “Hardware and software, engineered to work together.” 

Expect, soon, an avalanche of simplification gurus, folks who’ll, for a fee, help whittle down words and pictures.    If that process trues up with what you and your company stand for, great.  

 If not?   We admit, it isn’t easy to clean up long-used language and visuals.  Owners and originators can bristle, understandably so.  Sometimes it involves almost literal wrestling matches with the message holders.   And sometimes, it makes sense to stand aside, fold our arms, and mutter one Yiddish word.  Ferblungit.*  

 Welcome to our world.

*[It’s simple:  Get the meaning from its sound.]

IS LESS REALLY MORE?

Living in a city of architectural wonders does lead to complacency.  How often can you appreciate the works of Frank Lloyd Wright and Mies van der Rohe (and Louis Sullivan and … ) – when you ride past them every day?

 That feeling changed with our weekend drive on Lake Shore Drive.  It synched up the relationship – more than just design/style - between what we do and the skyscrapers and Prairie homes we love.  The connection is deep, and more than visceral. 

 The elegance of, say, a Robie House or the 860-880 North LSD condos resides in its position within the environment.  Wright was a firm proponent of the organic, one of the first sustainability advocates.   And van der Rohe, a fan of architectural clarity within a free-flowing environment.     Both, as pioneers, were extremely particular about their style, their designs, and their final “outcomes.”   Both edited their work, and those of their disciples, ruthlessly. 

 Lately, that editing process, in our minds, is what the creative community frequently misses.  We expect back and forths within our teams and between us and our corporate clients.  We anticipate that these conversations will change copy, creative, and meaning, all to better represent the culture and the brand and meet agreed-on goals.  We also know that changes reflect a very human desire to leave a personal mark.  So when it’s complete, the medium – a video, Web 2.0 tool, brand identity, collateral – becomes part of a larger whole, ready to change behavior, ramp up revenue, or attract new clients.

 But will it?  Has it been refined enough so the non-designer, the “end user,” our friends and family will get it?  Can we somehow recruit a Strunk & White to every team, client and consultant, to say it simply and compellingly? Let’s take our egos out of the equation, and delete extra colors and additional images.  Not to mention extra sentences.

Less is more.

ONE BRAND, NO BLAME

Pity today’s customer service agent.

 We do.  Regardless of the industry or the nature of the complaint, whether we’re in an IVR system or face to face, many of us now routinely game the system by “zeroing out,” asking to “escalate, please,” and following up with nasty-grams to media ombudspersons and even the CEO.  [Yes, we’ll admit to grumbling rather loudly about product and service and billing issues.]

 In other words, those on the corporate frontlines must have the patience of a Job, as well as continual training and reinforcement. 

 It’s the reinforcement that intrigues us.  Delta Air Lines, for instance, is sending its 11,000 agents back to school to counter a very bad year in ratings, arrivals, and baggage handling.  Their five ways to wow customers range from being present to listening and empathy exercises.  “It’s all in how you say it,” explains one of the company’s training facilitators.

 That’s a great start.  How much more powerful would the learning (and reinforcement) be if those lessons were linked to the brand?  At its ultimate, customer service expresses the brand, resulting in well-defined behaviors, engaged customers, and emotionally-connected employees.    [Not to mention increased brand equity and higher profits.] 

 No doubt, branding frontline service requires time, both in its creation and execution.  To work well, it must also be integrated holistically into everything every employee says and does, not just those handling customers. 

In addition to educating all on branding abcs, there are champions to identify, teams to assemble, and, most critical, foundations to put into place:  goals, strategies, tasks, behaviors, measurement, and compliance.   That process needn’t be filled with jargon or too many steps.  Nor overly complicated in words and design.   Or burdened with a ton of rules and regulations.  After all, the best customer service is about doing the right things in the right ways for the right reasons.

 Hmmm:  Common sense and customer service share more than a number of letters.  Adding the brand to that mix equals success for businesses today – and tomorrow.