PSST, PASS IT ON: Whaddayou watching?

By the Keurig machines.  Over cubicles.  Via Facebook or texting.

Today, everyone wants to be first ‘in’ on the latest and hottest television show – whether viewercast on cable, Web, networks, YouTube or other talking animated media.  Now, PBS’ Downton Abbey is almost passé, with Monday Mornings and Girls vying for the lead [depending on what kind of viewer you are].  Or it could be seasonal sports events or reality show suspense, usually communicating the most recent iterations in the challenge or drama.

That yen to be vision-trendy started, critics and pundits insist, with HBO’s The Sopranos (though we contend it really caught on with Mad Men).  Or fueled by the amazing trajectory of YouTube, now calculating four billion hours of eyeballs a month. 

Whatever.  More important is the convenience of choosing to listen to talented artists and intriguing series at our convenience, wherever, whenever.  There, the thanks is due to all of the above:  Folks like Dustin Hoffman and Kevin Spacey and Maggie Smith vying for small screen opportunities.  The at-your-fingertips access of old-fashioned audiovisual media, on new-fashioned instruments, from smartphones and iPads/Nooks to, maybe, Google glasses in the near future.  And the prolixity of channels, with Netflix now challenging traditional broadcast and cable TV in the production of original content.

But the whispering about watching is what’s got us thinking.  It’s more than just a conversation insert, like “what did you do Saturday night?”  It’s grown to infuse and infect our activities – perhaps in generating content à la reality shows or creating a pastiche of the 1970s’ ad era in presentations.  It has, in short, got us talking and thinking, across generations, spanning cultures and attitudes.  It represents, in short, exactly the kind of ideas we might want to adopt for internal corporate dialogues, a way to help ensure our business messages go viral in the right ways.

“If you don’t stop watching the idiot box,” as teacher Mom and retailer Dad used to warn us, “your mind won’t develop.”

Not.

WORD FATIGUE

Never have so few been confused by so many.

In thinking about the word “innovation” while working on a project, we ran across at least three different definitions.  Are we developing something that never existed?  Finding another use for a product-at-parity or commodity?  Or looking to expand the use and care of a service/item?

Then, we turned to our handy databases.  One limited search on the word – the last 30 days and full-text only – yielded nearly 12,000 hits.  Each hit includes different explanations, different parameters, and different processes to innovate.  [That doesn’t even include internal “googling” inside annual reports, on corporate Web sites for “innovative” job titles, and the most recently released business books.]   Everyone, in short, claims innovation, even The New York Times which solicited ideas from its readers mid-last year.

What’s more, there are ongoing, sometimes volatile arguments among those who innovate for a living.  The talk rages between ideating for efficiency sakes, sustaining an already viable item, and/or for disrupting the heck out of an industry [e.g., moving from mainstream computers to PCs]. 

Why the much ado?  Because it seems like, in the word melee, we’re intent upon the process and thing, not the benefits.  It bestows some sort of accolade to say Chief Innovation Officer.  Or kudos that we’ve cornered the market on ideas.

As with all these intellectual wrangles, we giggle.  There is truly no “I” in innovation.

SHADES OF 007

Who among us doesn’t like to entertain a nice juicy secret, flavored with the admonition that “hey, it’s between you and me.  No one else must know”?  [Which is, of course, the fastest way to spread the word.]

It’s intriguing to remember that a different form of keeping secrets – which we dub commercial spy craft –started in the 1940s, with the introduction of mystery shoppers who were, at first, intended to investigate employee honesty and/or behaviors.

Today, the business iterations of “hush” take the form of hidden menus, in the case of In-N-Out Burger and Panera Bread, as well as the more blatant CBS series, “Undercover Boss.”  When asked about their non-publicized items, chain-restaurant concept gurus claimed the secrecy was driven by risk and expense … risk, in terms of avoiding possible menu “flops” and expense in promoting and advertising.  Seventy-some years later, mystery shoppers are still employable.  Today, more and more disguised detectives evaluate the quality of hospital and medical care, thanks to Medicare waving a hefty bonus payable upon the receipt of great patient satisfaction scores.

It’s the secrecy that bothers us.  Why is it necessary to disguise ourselves to determine how a service or product or store rates in delivering great customer service?  Are incentives truly a better employee motivator than, say, a pat on our back from a client or manager?  Is it truly the feeling of “being in the know” that propels us to ask for the hidden menu?  Who can’t go to his/her boss to factually outline corrections that need to be made, attitudes that could be reshaped, and behaviors that must be restrained? 

On the other hand, there is a certain allure to Bond’s quip during License to Kill: 

“'I help people with problems.'   

Sanchez:  'Problems solver?’

Bond:  ‘More of a problem eliminator.'”

IS IT REAL OR ...

Way too many years ago – in our memories at least – the late great Ella Fitzgerald starred in advertising for a product from a long-gone company (now part of Imation).

The tag:  Is it live or is it Memorex? 

The pitch:  No one could differentiate the quality of the music – live versus tape – in listening sessions.  It was so real, the copy exclaimed, that Count Basie himself couldn’t tell the difference.

Our minds made this decades-old connection during the always-continuing discussion about “authenticity.”  Someone at a recent meeting asked:  “Well, how can you know who’s or what’s authentic?”  Answerers talked about true selves, no hype or hyperbole, candor, and a feeling of knowing.

We don’t think that’s good enough. 

After all, what many communicators and advertisers and others in our profession are now even more aware of is the cry for the genuine-ness of brands and conversations, thanks to the social media avalanche.  Consumers are ever quick to criticize in public those people and things that don’t mean what they say – or what is said for them.  Just calling a product or service or person authentic is missing some opportunities for definition and measurement.  And in the kind of ironic twist everyone loves to point out, MBA admissions directors are launching applicant team discussions to probe group dynamics and individual genuineness.

It ain’t easy.  In True North, Bill George, ex-CEO of Medtronic, realized there was no one profile of authentic leadership.  Authenticity depends, he says, on executives who know who they are, show passion for their purpose, demonstrate their values consistently, and lead with hearts and minds.  Not on imitating a Jack Welch or Sam Palmisano or Herb Kelleher.

How do you tell the fake from the real (and we’re not talking pleather or snakeskin, margarine or butter)?  Can a true-to-you self also be impulsive?  How do we, our clients, our employers and our colleagues best reflect the sincerity the world craves – and balance other real corporate demands?

We’re listening … at cbyd.co.

AND IN THIS CORNER ...

We’re no Luddites, really.

Between us, we count three tablets, four laptops, two PCs, and multiple smartphones.  We’re trained to use every Microsoft program available for download or cloud tapping.  We’re conversant with all things ITrendy, even, to some point, debating the worth of Outlook against Entourage, cloud versus portable HD storage, and the like.

Yet. 

We’ve noticed that lately, the media’s been packed with rants about technology’s mesmerizing effects.  About un-story-like (but unfortunately true) tales of PowerPoint that perplex and bore.  About how much time is wasted by Reply to All, High Priority e-designations, and smaller-than-small mouse type. 

In this corner, the avengers:  More than one firm has hired a start-up to measure exactly how its employees are using technology at work.  [Shades of Big Brother, eh?]  Others restrict the use of certain features or applications.  And still other businesses IT avoidance on certain days, during specific hours, even at special occasions.

What all these solutions to our tech OCDs miss are the threat to our thinking.  Sure, many of us compose on the screen, with blinking cursor always at the ready.  There are some projects, though, that just demand some peace and no visual effects:  When pondering the creation of a marketing campaign (in the midst of analytics) or simply free-associating to capture ideas and, eventually, viable recommendations and solutions.  In those cases, that mouse becomes our enemy and the PC shut down, the immediate cure-all.

We like the elegant twist of Intel.  Its 14,000 employees have been blessed with four hours a week to think through “stuff,” excused from emails and meetings for all but the most urgent of reasons. 

To that we say, Amen … and why not longer?