GET LOST! IT'S OUR PLEA

It had to happen:  Some tech entrepreneur developed a smartphone app that not only shows individual store floor plans, but also, when interacting with other apps, will re-create your shopping list in the form of a store map, routing you to the best and fastest way to hunt and gather.

And it’s all in the guise of great – and differentiated – customer service.

Hmmm:  We beg to differ.                   

For those in a hurry to amass food and other products, this kind of mapping makes sense.  After all, who’s got time (chefs excluded) to slowly examine a head of Boston lettuce or closely scrutinize the freshness of leeks?  Even consumer goods, like Nike shoes or a Tahari sheath, can easily be plucked from their shelves or hangers when armed with a retail planner.

It’s also a boon for in-store pick-up, when you don’t have the bandwidth to putter or truly shop for the item you want.

Wait.  Isn’t retail all about visual cues, enticing us to stop, look, and handle – and dream?  What ever happened to the thrill of discovering, say, a new kind of organic snack or an out-of-the-world designer label while meandering through a confusing store layout?  Even brick-and-mortar bookstores, of which there are all too few, beg us to wander and browse, read a few pages, and fall in “like” with an author.  We can always order e-books.  But not discover a different writer or illustrator or magazine editor.

Sure, we’re all about navigational signals when we need to get somewhere – a corporate strategy, business goals, even directions to off- and in-sites.  Yet even when we’re so inclined to go straight and not deviate, isn’t there something infinitely human about getting lost?

OF MARS AND FELINES

End-of-year musings are not natural to us.  We typically prefer to ponder events when they’ve occurred, as our “get it off your plate” psyches demand.  [No psychologists, please!]

But annual round-ups are part and parcel of the news media’s job, along with listing the 10 best and 100 worst of anything.  In particular, Bloomberg’s Businessweek catches up in December, tapping corporate celebrities and trends to forecast and prognosticate the next year and beyond.  In late 2013, Barry Diller was among those offering insights; two of his (edited) sentences grabbed us:  “We’re in a world now where it’s not enough to be smart.  You have to be curious.”

That statement was enough for a pause.  Is curiosity a trait we demand in ourselves, and within our business?  What will it gain us?  How often are we driven to explore the unknown … or do we just subside in a state of ennui?  And how will we be rewarded for incorporating this quality into our personalities?

Look no further for a tangible example than NASA’s Mars Rover, named Curiosity (of course).  It’s now exploring the ups and downs of the Red Planet, to better identify if that far-away sphere has any habitable -for-humans spaces.  Of course, it’s a robot, powered by science people who truly live to investigate.

On the other hand:  Other historical “let’s explore” precedents with not-so-successful outcomes are Eve and Pandora, much like the old saw that curiosity killed the cat.  What we’re supposed to learn from this is that all sorts of unexpected disasters will fall to curiosity-seekers. 

We disagree.

Risks begone!  We personally seek out those who have a passion for learning, and exhibit a sort of metaphysical wonder about the world.   Poking around in new tech stuff (like Twitter’s Medium).  Researching, say, average readership for annual reports.  Even working within a new industry.  All that piques our interests, holds – and then asks for more. 

Curiosity is a powerful way to experience, one that, to be honest, will help continue to shape our marketing and design, communications and change perspectives.

CASCADE: More than a dish detergent

Ten-plus million strong in 2012, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

It’s a number relatively unaffected by the economy, but one that’s been impacted emotionally.

America’s middle managers, many argue, are the essential layer between leaders and front liners.  They create and innovate, develop talent, make decisions, ensure that tasks are complete, and, in general, do more today than ever before.

Others eschew the very name, claiming their organizations must avoid the morass of bureaucracy and embrace boss-less freedom.  Executives of that persuasion (usually leading tech start-ups) insist that the middle represents dead weight, micro-management, and other negatives.

We over-stand.  But, then, how do businesses accomplish the “what” they need to do?  And more important (to us, at least), how do they get the word to the troops about the “what” – and make sure that staff continually follows the corporate North Star?

The first answer that crops up:  Cascading, or the process of sending messages from the top to the bottom, from executives to, say, customer service executives.  Sure, it’s a tried solution.  But it doesn’t work in most cases.  Managers forget.  It’s not in their performance goals, so there’s no urgency.  The communications get re-interpreted.  Employees don’t understand – and the wherewithal to explain and elaborate isn’t readily available.  Ad nauseum.

In our opinion, it’s a lazy person’s solution.  It’s all too easy to scribble notes on a PowerPoint document and then distribute it to supervisors to reinforce the strategy, the initiatives, the goals.  Yeah, solutions aren’t plentiful; see if you agree with our takes on …

• Town Halls:  Must be reinforced.  
• Videos, audios, animation, print:  Good for a one-shot intro only (if you get that chance to make a first impression)

Which leaves us with face to face.  Yet it too needs to be repeated – and demands time and attention.  One substitute might be collaborative communities, enabling them to spread the words.  Another:  Trying to get viral with internal social media, if it’s up and running well. 

There’s no conclusion … yet.  What’s worked for you in reaching the Sandwich Population?

MAKING STORIES MATTER

Every person has a story.

So, too, every corporation.

What will make the difference, as marketers and communicators insist, is how we articulate and tell the story.

Of late, we’ve been mesmerized by Marshall Ganz, a lecturer at Harvard’s Kennedy School and a not-necessarily-well-known labor organizer, who worked for the likes of Cesar Chavez, SNCC (a Boomer alert!), behind the scenes at President Obama’s first election campaign, and other transformational initiatives.  His story point of view relies on three - and only three - elements:  the story of self (why we’re called on to do what we do), the story of us (what the organization has been called to do, a/k/a vision, mission and values), and the story of now – our challenges, our choices, and our hopes.

It’s a powerful angle, these three elements, one that many message platforms and business narratives don’t capture simply enough.  Which begs the question, or many of them:

              How often do we edit our stories – explaining how we are finding a better path?

              Are our message platforms as powerful as the real story we can tell?

Do we, can we thoroughly explain what it means to be our organization, looking to the future through our past and present lenses?

If a story is intended to help people cope with change, eliminate the FUDs (fear, uncertainties, and doubts), uncomplicate the complex, and persuade, then there’s a real mandate to objectively review our stories often.  After all, change happens both inside and outside our worlds; we need to make sense of those events and teach each other what they mean through our stories.

No question, it takes real courage to edit a decades-old narrative, refreshing it to reflect the here and now, with authenticity and candor.  The questions then lie with you, our readers:  Are you ready for that challenge?  And how difficult has that path been?