Tag Archives: Trigiani

Books, Current Affairs, Leaders

Linwood Holton: How to make politics personal

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I grew up in a very small town in a remote corner of Virginia.  Big Stone Gap.

How we got there from an Italian-American enclave in northeast Pennsylvania is a long story.  When we got there, Virginia was dragging itself kicking and screaming into an age of enlightenment.  What I like to think of as an entire society understanding that being reasonable is a continuous learning process.

One of the lights of the age, and there were many, was a native of Big Stone Gap who became the state’s first Republican governor since Reconstruction.  As this article tells us, he now has an autobiography.

Its timing is excellent, as the brief interview in the article demonstrates.  For example.  Governor Holton’s son-in-law, Tim Kaine, is Virginia’s current governor.  And he’s a Democrat.  Both former and current governor have come out for Barack Obama.

Linwood Holton flies out of the pigeonholes that our society so often wants to use for labeling and digestion purposes.  He did it in 1970, and he’s doing it now.  His story reminds us that the most important things are ideas and actions, and in American politics, that the focus should be keeping our nation’s founding principles not just alive but relevant to our daily lives.  Whatever your political philosophy.

In this article, the writer recounts the story of how Governor and Mrs Holton made the decision to send their children to Richmond’s public schools during the big integration ruckus in the state at that time.

Those who knew the Holtons understood this to be neither a political olive branch nor a grandstand.  Like many Virginians, some of whom had to learn it the hard way, the Holtons understood that fairness is the hallmark of a healthy society.

Thumb_holtonAnd something else you should know:  in this famous photograph, Tayloe Holton is wearing a dress made by the people of Miss Virginia, Inc, a garment manufacturer in Big Stone Gap.  Where I worked a couple of summers in the finishing department.  A business my dad started and lost, but one that still managed to produce some winning moments.

Including having the governor of Virginia remember the folks back home as he made a point to a larger world.

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Data portability, anyone?

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As part of my work with foldier, we are volunteering with dataportability.org — a global group of technology industry people and companies dedicated to researching current standards for giving individuals control of their digital content/property.

When you visit the site, you'll see all the different aspects of portability that the industry must consider.  Our participation has been a real learning experience for me.

And since foldier is all about helping people manage their digital content, our participation is helping us to clarify the features we want to provide and emphasize on foldier.

Click here to read the February activity report — things should really start rolling, now that the collaboration platform is set.

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Dis-intermediated, dis-rupted, de-served

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We've all heard about how Internet applications and networks are disruptive.  They're rewiring the longstanding patterns of business and commerce, often removing whole channels of players content in established value and supply chains.

This is naturally making a lot of people nervous, especially those with equally-longstanding power bases to protect.

But the rest of us are seeing the possibilities and embracing change — even when it's unclear what that change will actually mean. 

We've got one political candidate who is disrupting the political process of his party, and on Tuesday evening, we witnessed the resistance to his call to action.  There are voters with dependencies they don't want to break.  They went with the old-power candidate.

Candidates can run on platforms promising jobs in outmoded industries and more-than-temporary government aid.  But they can't hide.  We've already seen that.  And any victory, even a big one in November, would just be the last
grunt of a dying beast — not a wholesale resuscitation of Business As
Usual.

The same is true in industries slow to recognize what digital access means to their performance.  Here are just three examples of many that point to the end of a tired era.

  1. Book publishing.  Last week we had yet another story of a newly-published memoir, heralded by reviewers, rewarded with a large printing run, that was exposed by the author's sister as a complete fraud.
  2. The mortgage crisis.  We are not only seeing the housing market rocked by really stupid loan decisions, those accountable for such decisions are probably going to get away scot-free.  With platinum parachutes.  Who picks up the tab?  Look in the mirror, you folks who live within your means.
  3. The irrelevance of marketing.  Most people in marketing still don't see it, much less get it:  online interaction is changing every possible act of branding, positioning, competition and selling.  And who's paying for the ignorance?  The companies that think marketing is a done-deal, necessary-evil overhead function with no capacity to change.

The obstinate will tell you that these are random events which have nothing to do with digital democracy.  They think of the Internet as a toy best left to young people with time on their hands.  It's good for email and research and stalking old beaus and buying books or old china, but real commerce and communication?  No way.

I submit that the citizenry, in this country and around the world, is waking up to the fact that the old order is just not working very well. 

We're in a moment:  the integration of human need and human capability — an integration that happens at random moments in history around new inventions and innovations.  Using my three examples:

  • Publishing toolmakers such as blurb.com will enable anyone with a few dollars and a manuscript to publish — hard or soft cover.  Instead of a market flooded with dreck, which is what the publishers and agents and writing "consultants" want you to believe will happen, we'll have cream rising to the top, via market demand fueled by word of mouth voiced on the Internet.  Impact:  Who gets published will no longer be in the hands of a tight circle whose center rests in New York and whose pockets get lined just for making an introduction or starting a manuscript bidding war.  Further, we won't have to deal with the outcome of editors who refuse to spend any time checking their authors.  [I mean, come on.  Didn't we learn something from the James Frey episode?  What more do you editors need to see before you'll start doing some elementary fact checking?]
  • Micro loans and person-to-person investment will enable people to invest in other people.  Bankers who reap ridiculous "returns" based on manipulating the deposits of investors, making lousy loans that make them rich but rob the rest of us over the long term, will lose a large part of their franchise.  The new Internet banks that directly connect people who need money with those who have it will change the way decisions are made.  We'll see caution and appropriate risk because people will be using their own money — not playing with someone else's — and earn a reasonable rate of return, not one on par with loan sharks.
  • Marketing will become a function that requires an investment in energetic, strong, quick thinkers — not infrastructures of useless overhead, print waste and advertising campaigns.  Instead of people who spend most of their time networking for the next CMO position, we'll have professionals who actually know how to perform marketing tasks and use real skill to engage markets not preach to them, connecting their brands and brand promises to buyers.  CEOs, CFOs and COOs will be able to measure marketing performance.  Finally.

I've chosen three examples that are personal hot-button issues.  Just as we are seeing landmark change in the American political process, there are many more changes in other realms now and down the road.  Honest, creative, productive — and democratic.

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Whispering your brand

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Just yesterday I was discussing the various ways to build a brand.  With an attorney. 

He has a client who, as a plaintiff, is not being taken seriously by the arrogant, macho defendants.

The story has an all-too-common turn.  My friend’s client did a
large part of the thinking about how to revitalize the out-of-date
product of a proposed startup, built the business model with the CEO and crafted a business
plan that attracted the attention of some whopper VCs.  Now, of course,
the defendants are offering the client only half of the fee owed and deny that they are using intellectual property for which they haven’t paid.

Besides the common issues of not understanding how to value positioning expertise and refusing to believe that anyone other than themselves could rescue their five-year-old business idea and monetize it, I detected another problem in this story.

I asked the attorney if the defendants knew anything about the client’s reputation or the impact of the client’s work.  Apparently, the client has an underground reputation for skillful competitive analysis and positioning, distinguished by a facility with messages — but prefers a quiet sort of self-marketing.

I suggested to the attorney that his client’s case illustrates the downside of leading a productive professional life in the age of Egos that Suck the Oxygen Out of the Room.  Looks to me as if these defendants would have valued my friend’s client far more if a hyped-up image were part of the picture.  They probably buy the marketing style of the past ten years, as exemplified by the obsession with Hollywood celebrities, celebrity CEOs and in this case, the self-proclaimed uber-marketers of our little silicon centered valley. 

People like that can only act respectful when they’re intimidated, and my friend’s client prefers avoiding bullies and bullying.  Doesn’t waste of lot of time greasing big shots at big ticket schmooze
conferences.  Not a member of the incestuous little circles that
populate the industry.  Not on the radar screen of the World’s Most
Powerful Tech Law Firm.  [Will probably change after this case.]

In spite of the fact that this is one ugly story, the many high-integrity, down-to-earth players in high tech outnumber the creeps. 

And there’s more good news.

It appears that the valuation of branding talent and skill — and challenging adversaries — based on loud, in-your-face promotion of self or enterprise is going to be a whole lot less effective in the coming era.  According to Faith Popcorn, the fact that the world is going to feel unsettled in 2008 will shift several trends — one of them being the "shouting" around brands and marketing.

Popcorn forecasts a new trend, "branding in whispers." 

  • Instead of logos on every conceivable piece of anything, consumers will expect luxury brands to return to their roots of letting quality of design and construction speak for brands.  [I think this will manifest itself in other ways — companies will feel less of a need to pay exorbitant exec salaries or name-drop chic-chic suppliers.  Reputations will be built on performance again.]
  • Instead of out-promoting their competitors to get buyers’ attention, savvy players will see that their buyers want to be in on the discovery of their brands.  Products that introduce new functionality will attract the attention of these buyers.
  • Instead of soothing their world weariness by trying to keep up with the Joneses, people will start to recognize the medicinal powers of simplicity.  And they’ll look to other people to benchmark new sources of personal contentment.

In other words, as it has so many times over the centuries, human nature will rebel against its tendency to overdo by turning to quality, not quantity; to listening and watching, not competing for attention; to community, not competitiveness.

Boy, I hope Ms Popcorn is right.  [She usually is, because she studies what people actually do.]  Maybe we’ll enjoy a decade or so of having people in brand and marketing positions who understand the nature of authentic connecting in the marketplace.

In the meantime, I hope my friend teaches those carpetbaggers a thing or two.

 

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Johnny Depp: Three for three

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  • Johnny Depp, the brand:  Puts his talent to serving the character he portrays — authentically.
  • Johnny Depp, the player:  Builds upon his track record — skillfully.
  • Johnny Depp, the startup:  Tries something new with every role [this time, it’s singing] — fearlessly. 

And this morning, he’s nominated for an Academy Award.

Is this just an excuse to make my first post of the new year about Hollywood doings and the very fine movie, Sweeney Todd:  The Demon Barber of Fleet Street?  No.

But I realized as I sat through the movie [eyes shut during the authentic blood spurts] that efforts like Mr Depp’s — as well as the vision of Timothy Burton and the prowess of his entire cast — inject our lives with the artistic version of what every one of us should do and find in our own work.  Not how to get rid of annoying colleagues under the guise of a haircut and a shave or deal with competitors by turning them into pot pies.  I mean how Burton & Co look at their work and how they deliver.

The whole brand thing has been overdone when it comes to personal branding, but there is something to knowing who you are and immersing it in the task at hand.  The personality part — for people and companies — comes to how you choose to build a relationship with your stakeholders. 

In Mr Depp’s case, his stakeholders are diverse.  The camera, the scriptwriter, the composer, the director, the cast, the audience.  When you go for the truth, it’s much easier to perform — and the more you find new ways to convey the truth, the more powerful the message for all the stakeholders.

Many experts would say that players and startups have a long way to go, as groups, with striking upon a true brand for themselves.  Let’s say those experts are correct.  Seems to me the one thing that bears trying is learning from each other.

For players, it would be shedding the years of tired, cliche marketing to get back to the original idea behind the company.  For startups, it’s realizing that the patina of experience and being part of the system doesn’t have to mean old or old school.

For both, it is recognizing that brands begin with the desire to create something that works for the organization and for the community — and they end when things start getting phony, lazy, complacent or too expensive.

The next time you go to the movies and feel that the exorbitant ticket price was completely justified, think about the factors that made it so.  Those very same elements have parallels in every other kind of business, not just "the pictures."  A desire to dedicate oneself to the story and its characters.  An interest in community, not just quarterly stats and whipping the competition.  The capacity to innovate and act like a startup every day.

A leader that has the talent and focus of Johnny Depp?  Couldn’t hurt.