I believe the concept of core competence is relevant.  For a couple of reasons. 

First.  No matter where a career might take you, it’s important to have a few skills that will serve you whatever the market conditions or personal situation — something you can always do to support yourself.  Second, in marketing, we have more than our share of charlatans and posers just in it for the regular paycheck — not for the passion of a product or service.  A core competence set can really separate the wheat from the chaff.

But this post is not about core competence, really.  It’s about a concern I’ve had for years now:  that one core competence — writing — is perceived only as a tactical device.  It goes something like this.  The real thinkers really can’t write, but they don’t have to do the writing, anyway.  It’s something to be delegated to someone who still knows how to diagram a sentence and proofread.  "Give it to the wordsmith."

I just had a thought.  Maybe by confining writing to the wordsmith
category, the puffed-up exec types are really telling us that their
work is so perfect, they just need a human spell-checker. 

Well, we may
be blowing another big bubble out here in Silicon Valley, but more and more VCs and analysts are going to
shine a blue light into the vapor beginning to mist over our landscape.  Best to put a marketing pro on
your executive team who, while giving you the right words, challenges
your every assertion.  You know them:  one of a kind, revolutionary, the next YouTube.

Better get someone who can find the differentiation in your hot new
product.  Someone who can respond point by point during The Scrutiny.  Moreover,
accept that your core competence set needs the added firepower of a marketing leader who can think on his feet and put real dramatic emphasis around the
advantages of your product — just as well, if not better, than you can.

And remember:  most of us have forgotten how to diagram a sentence.

Here is the text of an email letter I just received.  This is the way to do it — no passive/aggressive dancing, just real.  And real enough to believe that this airline is going to change things, not just in its own company but in the industry.  Plus, I appreciate the way in which jetBlue is using contemporary technology to deliver a classically styled message.  Finally, this is in Mr Neeleman’s voice, showing that whether or not he had help, he governed the process.

Dear JetBlue Customers,

We are sorry and embarrassed.
But most of all, we are deeply sorry.

Last week was the worst operational
week in JetBlue’s seven year history. Following the severe winter ice storm in
the Northeast, we subjected our customers to unacceptable delays, flight
cancellations, lost baggage, and other major inconveniences. The storm disrupted
the movement of aircraft, and, more importantly, disrupted the movement of
JetBlue’s pilot and inflight crewmembers who were depending on those planes to
get them to the airports where they were scheduled to serve you. With the busy
President’s Day weekend upon us, rebooking opportunities were scarce and hold
times at 1-800-JETBLUE were unacceptably long or not even available, further
hindering our recovery efforts.

Words cannot express how truly sorry we
are for the anxiety, frustration and inconvenience that we caused. This is
especially saddening because JetBlue was founded on the promise of bringing
humanity back to air travel and making the experience of flying happier and
easier for everyone who chooses to fly with us. We know we failed to deliver on
this promise last week.

We are committed to you, our valued customers,
and are taking immediate corrective steps to regain your confidence in us. We
have begun putting a comprehensive plan in place to provide better and more
timely information to you, more tools and resources for our crewmembers and
improved procedures for handling operational difficulties in the future. We are
confident, as a result of these actions, that JetBlue will emerge as a more
reliable and even more customer responsive airline than ever before.

Most
importantly, we have published the JetBlue
Airways Customer Bill of Rights—our official commitment to you of how we
will handle operational interruptions going forward—including details of
compensation. I have a video message to share with you about this industry
leading action.

You deserved better—a lot better—from us last week.
Nothing is more important than regaining your trust and all of us here hope you
will give us the opportunity to welcome you onboard again soon and provide you
the positive JetBlue Experience you have come to expect from us.

Check out these commentaries on the jetBlue scenario.

• Seth Godin
• Debbie Weil

Applause to the people who are taking on the airline industry — especially those caught in the non-thinking nets of American Airlines and jetBlue in the last two months.  [One example:  Randall Moss]  It’s about time the powers that be started paying attention to the institutional arrogance of the airlines, across their entire ranks, the so-called service roles as well as the executive.  I still haven’t heard an answer as to why not one mind in the whole bunch, from any airline,  didn’t just walk the line and make a decision to free those passengers from their prisons on the tarmac.

But I have heard a welcome apology, accompanied by a sincere expression of horror, from jetBlue.  I love the fact that the company has adopted the language of the proposed legislation for its own company policy.  If the other airlines have spoken, I haven’t read or seen it.  While I was plenty shocked by the fact that my beloved jetBlue didn’t have any thinkers on duty during the ice storms, it seems that things are going to change there.  The quality of communication has been action oriented as well as human.  This is excellent. 

The true test, however, is whether the sincerity and on-point communicating tracks with actual changes in jetBlue’s business processes.  I expect it will, because you can’t fake what I have seen on my flights and at their service desks.  There is a real difference between jetBlue people and their Stepford/sign-me-up-for-the-next-sequel-to-THE EXORCIST counterparts at the other airlines.  I would hate to see the jetBlue people either put out of work or forced to take on the evil demeanor.  I would love to see them rewarded, however, for taking on the system and risking their own hides to protect passengers — because leaders know that by protecting and serving passengers, such employees protect and serve the brand, too.

So apart from those caught on the Flight from Hell, whose trauma certainly justifies a lifetime of disgruntlement with the airline, let’s give jetBlue our continued support — and let’s see if jetBlue can keep its messages consistent with its business model.

A couple of weeks ago, I had the opportunity to participate in a panel-led discussion about where blogs fit in the marketing function.  Many bloggers are violently opposed to the adoption of blogging by corporate marketers — and their concerns are more than valid.  The technology was developed by folks like Dave Winer as a way for all people to communicate — especially those who might have no institutional resource at their disposal.  Yet, I believe it’s a tribute to the genius of the blogging technology that it has been embraced by everyone, corporations included.

Our discussion was led by Ad Maiora’s Mauro Lupi, a search expert and one of the most-followed bloggers in Italy.  Peter Thoeny, who helps companies establish wikis inside their organizations, and Marissa Levenson, of Six Apart, my blogging platform and the event sponsor, brought terrific perspective to both the technology and cultural aspects of blogging.  The discussion was organized by Franco Folini on behalf of Business Association Italy America — BAIA — which is dedicated to building and strengthening technology ties between the two countries.  However, reflecting the Italian spirit, our conversation was all over the global map, with everyone in the room exploring how blogs add to traditional forms of communication.

We covered a lot of territory.  I was pleased to see that the question of "using" blogs to further commercial agenda was not at the core of any discussion.  It was really about how to foster more conversations with more people, whether it was about ideas or products or services.  Consistently, from we four panelists and the participants, there was a clear message that a blog deserves an authentic voice, whatever the purpose of the communication.

This is a good time for me to thank Sylvia Paull for putting me in the right place at the right time, in 2004, when she introduced me to Mena Trott, the creator, with Ben Trott, of Typepad, Six Apart’s blogging platform.  Mena got me started.  Blogging has given me an important channel for sharing ideas and hearing from others — for learning.