Remain Relevant in Changing Times

What's more relevant than a Boomer?

You'll notice it has been a while since I posted to this blog. It's certainly not for lack of interest; on the contrary, I'm more interested in relevance than ever. That's why I've put my energies into writing Baby Boomer Insghts, a blog that helps marketers understand better how to effectively reach out to Boomers.

I share my personal experiences and opinions, but also some research, including the results of the July 2007 Boomer Insights and Implications Study conducted by Edelman and its research company, Strategy One. I enjoy writing it and have come to believe that there simply is nothing more relevant than boomers today.

My limited time prevents me from adequately keeping up both blogs, so I'm going to suspend this one until such time as I can give it the attention it deserves.

Please so visit me at Baby Boomer Insights - and tell your friends and colleagues!

Networking online: enough already!

Happy New Year! Is one of your resolutions to get - and stay - better connected professionally and personally? If my in-box is any indication, a ton of people have made the same resolution. I've been flooded over the past couple of weeks with invitations to connect on www.LinkedIn.com, www.pulse.plaxo.com, www.twitter.com, and the usual Facebook and MySpace.com.

Here's my prediction for 2008: people who weren't early adopters of networking online will gravitate to some of the newer online tools like www.pulse.plaxo.com in an effort to be among the first to climb aboard the NBT (next big thing). These people will send countless invitations and start building big databases, but many will soon lose interest or move on to something else. Online networkers can be rather fickle...and irritating when they go about trying to link to as many people as they can, whether they know them or not.

Don't get me wrong: I love networking and am a huge fan of LinkedIn, as I've noted here before. But I'll be darned if I'm going to get connected with people through multiple systems, especially since (so far) everyone who has contacted me through Pulse and Twitter in particular are already connected to me elsewhere. I don't see the point. I have no desire to combine my personal and professional connections (supposedly the selling point of Plaxo). I can't imagine a time when I'll want to "Twitter" with people... I view it as being for people with too much time on their hands or an inflated view of how interesting daily life is (theirs or mine).

I think it makes a lot more sense to pick a professional networking system and a personal one and learn to use them really well so you can be efficient and effective. This business of being connected just to be connected misses the whole point of networking, which is PURPOSEFUL connection.

So, while I want to encourage anyone reading this to always keep in mind the importance of networking, I hope you'll give some thought to  putting a strategy behind it. Thoughts?

Is the Rolodex still relevant? Spinning for contacts can still trump the click of a mouse

Saturday's Wall Street Journal carried a fascinating story that addressed the question, "Whatever happened to the Rolodex?" (Subscription required). In a nutshell, the story featured several business professionals who still cling to their Rolodexes, despite living in a Blackberry world where it seems you aren't real if you aren't connected online or found in an Outlook Contacts listing.

The article made me smile because I, too, am one of those people who never throws away a business card. I put them in large ziplock bags and store them in a file cabinet drawer. I've been too embarrassed to keep them on a Rolodex, believing it would mark me as a dinosaur. Still, as much as I love technology and am good about keeping my key contacts filed electronically, there's a part of me that just knows one day there's going to be a huge technical glitch that causes me to have to rebuild from scratch.

Yes, I know half the cards will be out of date, but the point is I'll at least have names I can look up using other means. Besides, I like to look at business cards. I think they tell a lot about the person who gave it to me (unless they're from a large company that requires a standard card that emphasizes the brand over the person).

According to Newell Rubbermaid, makers of the Rolodex, the 6,000-card flip files of the past have given way to much smaller flip files; in fact, the largest one the company makes holds "only" 500 cards, a nod to the decreasing desktop space resulting from the surge in cubicles. But hey, despite the fact that these card wheels aren't exactly a growth industry, they also don't require frequent updating; hence, they're cash cows. The standard business card just hasn't changed much over the years in terms of size and shape.

Generally speaking, sales of card wheels have fallen steadily since the 80's when personal digital assistants (PDAs) first came on the scene. Now, companies that traditionally relied on card files and even card scanners are looking for ways to expand their brand and tools to the digital world, lest they go under altogether.

Meanwhile, Facebook, MySpace and LinkedIn provide ample opportunities for us to keep up with one another electronically. I love and hate these tools equally: I love 'em because, used properly, they're powerful and undeniably easy to use; I hate them because they're so easy to use people tend to "collect people" with the click of the mouse without giving much thought to why the person is worth collecting. At least with a Rolodex, you have to make an effort to attach the card to the wheel, file it and even occasionally remove some if the file gets too unmanageable.

In our efforts to become as paperless as possible, I think we sometimes fail to recognize that "the old-fashioned way" can still be relevant. After all, the relevance isn't in the  way the information is filed: it's in how the information that's filed is used.

How do you keep up with your contacts?

Whole Foods board tells officials: stay off the Internet forums!

Remember last summer's big story about John Mackey, CEO of Whole Foods? Seems he got carried away posting on various Internet forums more than 1,000 messages offering his opinion on his company's stock, the competition and even vendors. He didn't think to mention to anyone who he was. (He participated in these forums from 1999 to 2006.)

Along came the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) with an informal inquiry into whether Mackey's posts influenced Whole Foods shares. Meanwhile, the Whole Foods board did its own internal investigation, though the results haven't been released publicly. One insider said the board knew about Mackey's activities, but did nothing to stop him.

Now the board has issued an amendment to the company's code of business conduct. In a nutshell, the board is formally discouraging and even forbidding the grocer's officials from getting involved in online discussions.

According to a story in the Wall Street Journal (online subscription required), the board is taking a stand that Whole Foods' "company leadership" is to refrain from commenting about the company, its competitors or vendors on blogs, chat rooms or other Internet forums that aren't specifically sponsored by the chain. No more anonymous postings anywhere. No more pseudonyms or ghost writing.

I can just imagine how many internal memos are flying around today about this situation as executives ask HR and Communications if their company business conduct guidelines are adequate. Good idea. It should just be expected that employees, perhaps even key officials, will participate in online discussions. Unless told otherwise, they may feel anything is fair game, short of obvious proprietary information. NOT addressing online conduct isn't just a mistake, it's tantamount to inviting problems.

I just hope this debacle doesn't scare away thought leaders who should be sharing their opinions and ideas online. We don't have enough company leadership involved in intelligent online conversations as it is. Ignoring the online community isn't the answer. The answer is to monitor it closely to find out where the conversations are taking place, then engage when and where it makes sense and do so in a transparent manner. That's one way a company can remain relevant.

This board is keeping the whole class after school because of one naughty boy. If they think Whole Foods has been talked about before, wait'll the blogosphere lets 'er rip now!

Books on a cell phone: giving novels the finger - and thumbs!

I can't even imagine reading an entire novel on a cell phone screen, let alone write one. And yet, that's exactly what's happening in Japan, according to today's Wall Street Journal story, "In Japan, Novelists Find a New Medium." (subscription required)

It seems that the fiction market is enjoying a comeback of sorts, thanks to the ease with which novels can now be delivered right to the palm of your hand. Novelists are banging out their stories one key at a time, mostly using their thumbs. One featured novelist has already written eight books and has a loyal following that apparently appreciates her willingness to suffer through sore pinkies and broken blood vessels on their behalf.

Not surprisingly, readers are primarily teenage girls whose love for this entertainment-on-the-go is also influencing what books go to print ("Love Sky" sold more than 1.3 million hard copies!) and even to movie format.  In fact, one of the reasons the books are so popular is because they tap into the way young people often think - in movie scenes. That makes both writing them and reading them even easier for all involved.

And talk about getting instant feedback! Since the stories are usually written in chunks and delivered in almost-real-time, writers can get feedback that offers encouragement, or even suggest changes to the storyline. In other words, the novels themselves become more relevant even as they are being written. Novelists can choose to weave in a national event happening on the very day they're writing, for example. I love the idea of the interactivity, but can't say I much cotton to the notion of reading more than 100 characters or so on a tiny cell screen.

It'll be interesting to see if this genre takes off in America. As one who still likes to pick up a paper off the driveway and actually turn the pages while I read, I can't imagine ever reading anything longer than a quick text message from one of my daughers on my cell phone. Besides, these Boomer eyes would need a screen the size of checkbook to be able to hang in there long enough to finish a novel.

I feel sorry for people who read this way. They're not getting to enjoy the smell of the paper, the great sound a cracked spine makes or the joy of finding a long-lost, much-needed receipt stuck between the pages as a bookmark.

Business cards are more relevant than ever!

Sorry it has been a while since I've posted to this blog. I didn't take the summer off; rather, I started a new blog to coincide with new responsibilities I have at Edelman. I am spending a good bit of my time helping organizations understand how best to market to Boomers. That's how it came to be that I'm now writing www.BabyBoomerInsights.com, a blog that offers insight about how Boomers think, act, and make purchase decisions - all based on research. Stay tuned to find out about some original research findings Edelman will soon be releasing. You just may be surprised by some of the nuggets in there! In short - in my world, few things are as relevant as Boomers.

Meanwhile, I just had to bring to your attention an Associated Press article I read last week in the Atlanta Journal Constitution about business cards. The timing was almost eerie because just 48 hours before this article appeared,  someone asked me if I thought business cards were  on their way out, given people's love affair with  Blackberrys, the iPhone and other PDAs. I hadn't seen any research on the subject but my response was, "I sure hope not."

Despite being addicted to my Blackberry (but I confess, I'm seriously lusting after the iPhone), I still like collecting business cards. I rarely throw them away and to I've collected about 1,000 over the past five years or so. I keep them in zip lock bags in the bottom drawer of my desk. I love technology, but a little piece of me never trusts it entirely, so I see my card bags as extra insurance. Besides, I love to look at the weight, size, design and colors of business cards. You can tell something about a person by what they choose to put on a small rectangle. Vcards just aren't the same.

Apparently, a lot of people agree with me. According to the AP article, business cards are becoming even more popular, despite the ease with which we can all exchange information electronically now. In fact, even kids are getting in on the act, designing "calling cards" that have only their MySpace or Facebook information on them. In other words, they're using offline techniques to drive people online to check them out. Very clever. And very real world. I almost always look up a web site I see on a business card I've acquired at a networking meeting.

These days, I often get a LinkedIn invitation following a networking meeting I've attended or spoken to. Apparently, some people use LinkedIn as an electronic rolodex, rather than as the networking tool it is intended to be. See my post just before this one if you want to know what I think about the "Link hos."

Anyway, I think it's fascinating how people are using their business cards to remain relevant, from offering multimedia mini-disk cards to stock ones with embedded computer chips that let you download information into your computer. But nothing replaces a beautifully-designed, high-quality card that makes you want to know more about a person.

So, spend the money and take the time to really think through your business card. Unless you have an unusually gifted knack for design, don't do it yourself. Hire a professional. After all, your card may just be the ticket to getting your intended audience to check you out.

Networking on steroids: LinkedIn growing in popularity

Have you noticed the explosion in the number of people who want to get LinkedIn with you lately? Although I've used the service since shortly after it made its debut a few years ago, I can't help but notice that lately everybody wants in on the act. Perhaps they have seen some of the great media coverage the site has gotten recently.

I get several LinkedIn requests a week. I don't always accept them. It strikes me as irrelevant to connect to someone I've never heard of who happened to find me using a keyword search. The way I see it, my connections aren't relevant to me - or others - if I can't personally speak to why I'm connected to them.

I suppose it's possible that some people actually know - and can credibly introduce - hundreds or even thousands of people, but frankly, when I see people with so many connections, I automatically raise an eyebrow. "Link Hos" I call them. Seems they may be more interested in collecting links than in making true connections.

Perhaps it's fallout from the MySpace and Facebook generation. I've heard several college students comment that they have "983 friends on Facebook." Never mind that they haven't even met 971 of them.

LinkedIn can be a very powerful networking tool if used properly. I've been able to use my  genuine connections to meet people I want to know, either for personal or professional reasons. I've also reconnected to people I worked with in past jobs, as well as rekindled college friendships. And I take some pride in the fact that I can provide relevant information about every one of my connections, even without looking at their online profile. That's the very essence of networking, in my humble opinion.

What's your take? Am I being too dismissive?

Business Week floats idea of YouTube for wanna-be moguls

Business Week says it wants to start its own version of YouTube. Essentially, people who are looking for money for their business venture would get an opportunity to develop a video pitch with the intent of receiving funds to back their idea or new company.

The magazine's Executive Editor John Byrne, even envisions a contest in which wanna-be moguls can participate in an online contest to for the chance to win a cool half-million bucks. Visitors to the portal would vote on the pitch they think is worthy of funding.

When I first read the story, I thought, "What a cool idea!" It's a sure-fire way to keep people coming to the Business Week web site. All print publications are seeking to drive more online traffic as interest in print continues to slide. But then my second thought was, "Wait a minute! Voting for the best video is hardly a way to demonstrate good journalism, which is one reason Business Week is one of my favorite magazines."

As I've mulled the idea, though, I'm liking it better and better. After all, daily newspapers have been involving their audiences through blogs. In fact, USA Today's subscription rate has skyrocked since revamping its online presence and asking people to exchange views on stories. Even CNN encourages its viewers to send in their own potential news clip to iReport for the chance to have it selected for an actual broadcast.

I think Business Week is on to something. Before joining Edelman, I ran my own consulting practice for nine years. During that time, I helped numerous small companies put together their presentations for pitches to venture capitalists. Many entrepreneurs really struggled with the idea of telling their story in five minutes, which was the typical timeframe they were given at VC pitch-a-thons. The most common complaint I heard was, "I can't possibly relay how passionate I am about this through slides!" This BW video idea helps to solve that problem because now pitches can be anything from a talking head to an office tour to a person writing on a white board to a fancy PPT presentation with a voiceover narrative, along with dozens of other ideas.

If Business Week does move to this new format and you decide to "go for it," take my advice and work with a professional to ensure you have the best video possible. Remember, this isn't YouTube, where most of the videos are slapped together with little thought or creativity.

There are no "do-overs" or "let's put it out there and see what happens" when the world is watching - and voting - for you to get money.

Are you a relevant networker?

Are you a relevant networker? How do you know? I've always thought I was pretty good at purposeful networking, but it never hurts to occasionally review what I'm doing to make sure I'm being as effective as possible.

That's why I was delighted to have the opportunity to hear Andrew Dietz of Creative Growth Group in
Atlanta last week. He offered some terrific reminders of what we need to do to remain relevant as networkers so that we can build our businesses in an effective way. Here's the bottom line: it all comes down to  who you know and who knows and likes you.

He said there were three keys to client development survival:

1. Mine relationship assets. Take a total inventory of who you know. There are four essential affinity groups to consider: Community, Work/Career, Family and Friends, and Educational Institutions. We all know people from each of these life categories but often forget to harness the power they represent. When we reach out to others in a way that proves we want to help them as much they help us, we increase the likelihood of a positive experience.

2. Connect with content. Make sure you've earned the right to connect. There are many ways we can make meaningful connections, from providing information to introducing people to one another who can help each other. Andrew offered a matrix of Ideas, Information, Introductions and Income, and how we can make connections with others we identified in the four mining categories.

3. Navigating likeability. It may seem like a big "duh," but aren't all the basics that really work? Here's a quote Andrew offered from the June 2005 Harvard Business Review: "When people need help getting a job done, they'll choose a congenial colleague over a more capable one... if someone is liked, his colleagues will seek out every bit of competence he has to offer." Andrew echoed this, noting that people want to help people they like, so make sure you really think through what you can do to show how likeable you are by seeking common ground, fostering familiarity, and showing genuine appreciation for others' efforts.

Andrew's primary focus in the meeting I attended was face-to-face networking, but the principles he described can certainly be applied to the online world. I'm a big fan of www.LinkedIn.com because of the incredible opportunity it offers to apply networking skills on a larger scale. Of course, good networkers don't depend on a single vehicle for networking. The most powerful networking occurs though a combination of good, old-fashioned palm pumping, combined with the efficiency online tools offer.

The main takeaway was simple, but powerful: if you aren't maintaining your network on a regular basis, you're risking becoming irrelevant. It will take a lot more effort to become relevant with your network again than it takes to just maintain it.

The day my land line phone became irrelevant

Until recently, it hadn't really occurred to me that my phone would become irrelevant. Yet, that's exactly what has happened. April 30 will be the last day my land line interrupts the middle of one of my favorite shows, which, ironically enough, are House and Flip That House (no connection between the two).

After almost 20 years of having the same land line phone number, we have decided to go completely wireless. I honestly have no anxiety about this at all. I can't remember the last time someone called me on my land line who wasn't soliciting for something. My daughters have never had a land line, so calls coming in aren't for them either. It's time to  "let it go." I've come a long way from my childhood days when our family shared a party line with a neighbor.

When I called Bellsouth to let them know of my decision, the first thing  I was told was that I would now be  dealing with "The new AT&T" (as if that made a difference). When I told Chris that I had decided I no longer needed a land line, he suggested I keep the line at a new reduced rate of  about $25 a month, less than half what I had been paying. I explained that the same $25 bucks could buy me an enormous amount of additional, flexible cell service. He didn't even try to argue with me. Maybe he realized the service he was selling was quickly becoming irrelevant to a lot of homeowners like me. Still, wouldn't you think he'd fight harder to keep a 20-year customer?

The day I called to cancel my land line, I also called T-Mobile to switch my daughter's cell service to Verizon because T-Mobile's service is spotty in the college town where Sydney will soon move. The rep did everything he could to prevent the switch. He offered to find out when better coverage would be available and said I could suspend the service until then, thereby keeping the number and not leaving a "service you have enjoyed since January 2004, according to our records." He then suggested switching to a newer phone that had better signal strength and, oh by the way, would be available to me at a discount rate as a reward for being such a good customer. I really liked this guy and actually felt guilty about canceling the service; however, I had already checked into T-Mobile's future coverage plans and knew they didn't include the GCSU area. I was very impressed with the rep's efforts to make T-Mobile continue to be relevant to me. And if T-Mobile had plans to increase coverage in the area soon, I would have stayed with the service.

How about your company? What do you do to ensure you remain relevant to your clients? Don't wait until they've decided they no longer need you before you figure out you still need them.