Totally Doodgical

One of the most important things you can do is decide what your value statement is to your market.  Once you have a value statement, you have an idea of what you want to communicate to your customer.  Each message should support that statement.

Apparently, these people didn’t get it:

1.   ”They’re more than lawyers. They’re people!”

You’ve got to be kidding me!  You just told everyone that your industry is a bunch lower life forms that will slime you if they get the chance.  Now, why would I believe one of these slimy lower life forms that says its not really a slimy lower life form!  These people did such a good job that they took their industry down a few notches with them.

What they wanted to say is that these attorneys looked beyond the legal resolution to a personal tailored solution for the client.

2.  Diorshow Iconic Mascara - The patented angled brush is replicating emblematic couture techniques: oblique lines and the bias cut, an art of fabric cutting that magnifies curves and amplifies spread.  In one quick stroke, with no special application method necessary, the brush acts like a brushing on lashes.  Enriched with a unique lifting formula, Diorshow Iconic sculpts, stretched and curves the lashes with extreme hold and high definition.

What in the world is “emblematic couture techniques: oblique lines and the bias cut, an art of fabric cutting?”  Oh, this is mascara, not a pair of scissors with a side of BS?  If the consumer cannot understand it, the consumer is going to have the red flag of BS rise up the mental flagpole.

Seriously, they just wanted to say that it gives a beautiful curve to your otherwise pitiful lashes, just like every other mascara.  However, they just said so much junk that the BS association has stuck.

 Seriously people.  Consider your message.  Ask yourself if your message talks about your basic value to your customer.  Ask yourself if it is consistent with your prior messages.  Branding is about building an all-around image.  Anything that cuts against that by denigrating yourself, your industry or is inconsistent with your prior message is likely a problem.  The rare exception is humor - and that can even backfire.  I’ll follow-up with that in a future post.

If one of four people didn’t show up, projects would stall at my previous employer.  One guy ran the back-end/operations, another constructed the prototypes, I did programming and IT support, and my boss did programming and sales.  All the passwords and network configurations were located in the operation’s guy’s palm (I didn’t set-up the network, I just inherited it and would write down stuff as I worked with it).

I soon discovered that we could live without a programmer for weeks, without an IT person as long as the infrastructure didn’t break down, without a prototype person for days, without a sales person for a few days, but never without operations.  The operations guy had probably only taken a handful of sick days and even fewer vacation days in the 10+ years he worked at the company.  Every time he was gone, due dates got moved back, customer orders were late and we lacked the passwords and information to fix IT issues.  It was insane, and very stressful for the operations guy when he returned.  It’s almost as if he had to make up on nights and weekends, the hours he took off.

As I look back on the situation, I note there was a lack of Organizational Knowledge.  Every person had their fiefdom and when someone was gone, the people who covered had to make it up as they went.  Organizational Knowledge is the howto of the business world.  It is the time saver and organizer of the company.  It’s the encyclopedia of how things get done around here.

My friend, who was the operations person had to order supplies and parts, gather production kits from inventory, ship orders and debug prototypes.  Not only did this require knowledge of the production planning software and store, it required knowledge of SED’s (export declarations) lead times, parts distributors, channels of contact for the distributors and a process to complete each task.  It was overwhelming to jump into his shoes for a day (and I was next in line!).

The problem was that we never took the time to write down the process.  There were so many other things to do.  Yet, we would have been far better off, had we known how to cover for him.  The hour of process mapping would have saved at least a half day of thinking through it (and still getting it wrong).  We need organizational knowledge.

Some companies take it to the other extreme.  A handbook/manual is only as good as it ability to communicate.  I’m not going to read 200 pages of how exactly something was done unless its a project that requires significant investment.  Give me the guiding principles and bullet point summary.

When I google on how to fix something, if it is a multi-page article or string of text, I skip it.  The knowledge of how to fix the problem has to be clear, concise and organized.  The company Organizational Knowledge should be the same way.  The better the access, the more people in the organization will use it. 

Think of Organizational Knowledge as the path of the least resistance.  If it is accessible, understandable and digestible, people will use it.  Most people do not like to reinvent the wheel unless they think there is a better way.

We make Organizational Knowledge by giving the people in the know the tools, the motivation and the time to create it.  The tools can be anything from a blog to a content management system.  The motivation can be monetary, recognition or both.  The time taken must be encouraged and rarely, if ever, punished as a bad decision.  What’s more is that a content review before publishing can be given as a positive because the company cares about what is being written and cares enough to read the organizational knowlege before publishing.

Organizational Knowlege gives employees the tools to succeed, be recognized and feel good about their legacy.  Organizational Knowlege gives employers an increased productivity and employee satisfaction, when implemented correctly.  Sounds like a win-win to me.

One of the most interesting and scary courses I took during my JD/MBA career is consumer psychology.  I learned a great framework for describing how I interact and reinforce my purchasing habits.

One of the points that really hit home to me is about differentiation.  It seems like a lot of my entrepreneurial friends work hard to make new points of differentiation that the consumer can see between themselves and others.  My education hammered home the importance of differentiation avoiding commoditization.  My friend Stormy started Maoomba.com with such differentiation in mind.

The strange piece is that the consumer only need perceive a difference between you and the competition (think store-brand vs. brand name medications).  That difference need not be tangible or apparent.  It can simply evoke a feeling.  And the crazy part is that consumers want you to reinforce that difference.

What this means is that a company can take an internal look at itself, an external look at its competition and then look for differences.  These differences can be thrown at a panel of people and see which ones don’t stink (ie which ones people see as smoke and mirrors).  These differences can be highlighted in marketing campaigns to consumers.  The more (frequency and length) this message reaches consumers, the more accepted it becomes (familiarity breeds acceptance).

I see this play a lot in ads that play on the past.  Ads in this category often use trust, parent’s habits and experience.  Consumers value these ideals, but the organizations didn’t change to get them.  They’ve just communicated them to the consumer as part of their offering.

Following this recipe, the company has now taken an intrinsic part of its product or organization — without change — and turned it into a competitive advantage because the consumer sees it as such.  I was shocked not because I knew a good marketer could do this, but because the recipe was so easy.

How many of you have visited shoreline ridge’s website within the past weeks?  Despite our difference in space and time, I can tell that the answer is 0.  The reason is that someone had a few “good ideas” and put up a website without a plan.  Unless you’re lucky and stumble upon the right idea, you need a reason, a mission to get the job done.

 That means that you need to start with purpose and an idea of the “squishy” words of how you want your users to feel.  For shoreline, the answers are “community,” “fun,” and “friendship.”  Everything that we put on that page should be relevant to those words.  So if I have a widget, let’s say a calendar, I need to make sure that my calendar has the capability of forming community, fun and/or friendship.  If my calendar events relvove around when rent is due and fees go up, I’ve probably missed the boat.

 So where do the ideas of what we need come from?  The target market!  If you are connected, you can run ideas past them, and get an initial impression.  For instance, the Shoreline community wants a classified section.  People are not only motivated to get rid of stuff they don’t have room for or don’t want to move (especially the international students), but also residents that are looking for cheap stuff.

 Keep an eye on shoreline.utah.edu.  You’ll be able to judge how well I follow my own advice and target my market.

Its fun to have a boss that is willing to brainstorm and expand outside the zone of comfort.  Bateman IP is doing just that with its marketing presence.

For those of you who saw the title and said, “duh, fundamental principle.”  You’re right.  And yet, new businesses don’t seem to get it.  Even old ones put on the stupid - see Johnson & Johnson suing the Red Cross (if you don’t see how selling products that heal people and suing healers conflicts in terms of marketing, ponder awhile).

Business fulfills unmet needs.  Those needs are latent or active, which means that either people seek you out or you have to convince them to seek you out.

If consumers seek out your product category, then you have to convince them that your best attributes are the most important attributes.  Remember that Charmin toiletpaper is cuddly soft.

If your consumers don’t know that they need you, you have to convince them that life is better as your partner.  Pessimists call this creating a need.  Optimists call this discovering a need.  Its probably somewhere in between.  Think about anything that gets “buzz.”  Remember the need to watch American Idol, Survivor or Harry Potter?  Its sure not a need we just have at the forefront of our brain.

Pretty fundamental, eh?  Well what happens if you mix it up?  You fall flat on your face.  Sending consumers info about how your washer/dryer/toaster combo has all the great features and long-lasting does nothing to create the need (I’m not sure I want my carbs tasting like laundered underwear).  On the other hand, if you convince more people to buy toiletpaper instead of using bidets, then you’ve just worked hard to increase the market without helping your bottom line.

Take some time to notice the ads around you.  Ask yourself if they are activating a need or steering me to their attributes.  Then ask yourself if that is the correct strategy for you.  The more you think about it, the more you’ll be able to leverage it in your own life.

There are times when I really like my job and others, when I just love working at my job.  Bateman IP Law Group (a group of Utah Patent Lawyers and where I work) is on to be a sponsor of Seth Godin’s speech.  If you haven’t registered, go immediately to registration and pay $50 to get a ticket and 5 books.  If you feel like you need more information, go to wordmob and pick out the press release.

Seth Godin is speaking at the Salt Palace on May 24th from 1 to 4 pm.  He’ll be speaking about his new book “The Dip“.

I’m always interested in discovering new blogs that other people consider crucial.  Here’s my short list with descriptions:

• ConnectBlogs.com - They aggregate the content from leading Utah minds, mostly from blogs.
• Marketing VOX  - Describes cutting edge developments in marketing
• Patently-O - Latest Developments and some humor in patent law.
• IP Thoughts - Thoughts from an attorney on business, entrepreneurialism and life (note: he’s also my boss, but I don’t hold that against him).
• Consumerist - Very biased, but it gives real consumer experiences which let me know which pitfalls to avoid (take it with some salt)
• Paul Allen - Utah internet marketing guru - I’m actually taking a class from him
• SEOmoz - Gives a pulse and techniques in the Search Engine Optimization industry
• Chris Holt’s Blog - My Brother the serial entrepreneur’s new blog … normally I’m nervous about promoting someone so close, but his advice has helped me a lot. If he posts anything similar to what he’s said to me, I’d listen.

Let me know what you’re reading. I’m always interested in a fresh perspective and new ideas.

Perhaps one of the big stressors of school is how to seek and find employment.  I was asked to be part of a five student panel on strategies on finding a job.  The following are what I thought were good take-aways from the panel.

Network - Unless you’re the best of your class, most people don’t get picked up without being recommended or known to the hiring person.  You can do this through pro bono (volunteer) work, trade events, temporary jobs, friends and classmates.  Go, attend, and mix!  Check out linkedin, where you can use your friends and colleages to get you places you didn’t know you could get.

Do something different - It’s all about making yourself stand out, whether its through a recommendation or activites.  If  you want to do business law, take a finance class.  If you want to do entertainment law, take a flim class.  If you want to work in high tech, take an IT or Engineering class.  John (a member of the panel) said that he went to Guatamala for the summer to improve his Spanish.  The point is that you need to be more than school.  Also, be aware that your answer about why you chose to do your something different can imply that your interviewer isn’t as competent as they should be (ie — answering that an MBA really understands business implies that your interviewer might not understand business — a better answer is to say that you can acquire that knowledge through experience or class, and you chose the class route).

Do the important standard stuff - If you’re in law school, that means to try and get on a journal.  It means that you should attempt to have decent grades.  Excelling in the common gives your interviewer ways to compare you to the pack.  Often times the standard stuff is just a cutoff and not a deal-maker (ie you might need only good grades, and stellar grades doesn’t buy much).

Get experience - This can be through a job or volunteer work or unpaid internships.  Your interviewer would generally rather hire someone that has an idea of what’s going on rather than someone at ground zero.  It also says that someone else trusted you enough to accept your work, even if unpaid.

Be professional - Dress for the part.  It is almost always easier to dress down than up.  Do your research on the company.  Ask questions about their goals and where they want to be in five years.  You want to look available but not desperate for the job.  Don’t brown-nose.  Be confident in your answers (when asked what you want to do, don’t say that you might want to do something or something else … your mind can change).

Work differently - If your school has on campus interviews, do them.  But, also discover who is not on that list and go see if you can interview with them.  Your chances are better with those you discover because you’re not competing with everyone in your class.  Go to out of state job fairs.  See if your career services can connect you with out of state career fairs.  You will be inherently different than the other applicants because you will be from somewhere else.  Let diversity work in your favor.

I heard a funny saying about law school:  Law school is like a pie eating contest with the winner getting more pie.  Big Firms and Corporations are not for everyone.  Sometimes the intangible benefits of working at a small firm are better suited to you.