Group Cohesion = Presentation Success.

To All Communi-Creators:

Whenever a project is initiated, or a product created, a Roadmap is developed to assure all involved know where things are going, and how the team is going to get there. The Roadmap outlines key deliverables, tasks or events over a period of time and serves as an effective means to assure the ultimate objectives are met.

This concept is applicable to performances, especially performances by groups. A group performance is all too often a collection of individual presentations mashed into a single session. Group presentations are more effective when they are one homogenous performance being delivered by multiple persons.

Consider . . .

I recently sat through a group presentation at a community function and it was pretty apparent, pretty quickly, that each speaker had developed their section of the presentation in the privacy of their own office, without discussion or consultation with other team members. I would go so far as to presume this was the very first time each of them was even seeing what the others had developed.

As one would expect the presentation was a bit disjointed, often redundant, totally unpolished and ultimately failed to deliver the intended message successfully. At times speakers actually seemed surprized by what their co-presenters had included, and at one particularly stressful point there was conflicting data presented.

Not an impressive showing.

Now suppose, instead of everyone working in a vacuum on their own super-secret projects some time had been spent developing a "Presentation Roadmap," or a clear outline of what needed to be covered, and in what order, so that the core message could be delivered effectively. From this document individual sections could have been assigned and all would know what was being said before them, after them and by them. When developing this document collective decisions about aesthetcs and style could have been made. Ultimately, a cohesive presentation would have emerged as everyone involved was working from the same page - literally.

A little planning can go a long way in assuring group presentations are effective, while individuals working in isolation rarely create a cohesive product.

THE POINT: When working in a group - know where you're going and get there together, your audience will appreciate it.

No Crutches.

To All Communi-Creators:

I've said it before and I'll say it again . . . rehearse, rehearse, rehearse.

There is a veritable cornucopia of fine reasons why you should rehearse your performance, but today I focus on just one.

Rehearse - so you can be comfortable with your content and not be dependent on notes. There are few things more painful then sitting through a presentation where the presenter is:

A) Reading their slides with their back to the audience;

B) Reading from the handout they already gave me, which I could have read myself;

C) Reading from cue cards or other notes so they never make eye contact with the crowd.

Besides resulting in a boring presentation where no connection whatsoever is made with the audience - A,B and C all have one other thing in common - they are credibility killers. If you don't know your material well enough to be conversant on the topic for the next 30 minutes or so - I have to wonder why I'm listening to you at all.

Contemporary audiences lend more credence to speakers who can deliver a performance from memory. You need look no farther than the flack President Obama caught some time ago when it was revealed that he almost always uses the teleprompter - more often in fact then any other modern U.S. President. Long speech, short speech - doesn't matter, the teleprompter is always there. His dependence on it is so extreme that when it fails, so does he.

This reliance on a crutch hurts Obama in two ways. First, fair or not, it weakens his credibility and the confidence his audience has in his authenticity. And second, using notes puts distance between him and his  audience. It mitigates the connection he wants to achieve.

One television crewman who also covered Clinton and Bush stated, regarding Obama’s use of the teleprompter, “He uses them to death. The problem is, he never looks at you. He’s looking left, right, left, right — not at the camera. It’s almost like he’s not making eye contact with the American people.”

THE POINT: Take time to know your material - not only will you perform better, but your audience will have greater faith in the validity of what you say if you look like you know what you're talking about.

Unrelated To the Topic at Hand.

To All Communi-Creators:

A popular question . . . what to do with the audience member who wants to talk about something other than the actual topic of your performance?

We've all had this happen. You're delivering a performance about the merits of SuperWidget 2.0 and suddenly a hand pops up, so you stop to take the question and the audience member poses an unrelated query about an unrelated product which has no bearing on the subject at hand whatsoever.

Being a professional, you answer the question.

And the audience member has a follow up. Again, unrelated. This time, it comes with a twist. This time they want to share some feedback or some other point along their recently presented, albeit entirely unrelated line of discussion.

So again, you respond.

And so do they. Now you're officially having a one-on-one conversation in front of an audience with on a topic unrelated to what everyone else in the room is there to discuss.

What can you do? There are a a few possible scenarios:

Scenario 1: You state you recognize the value of the discussion and demonstrate a willingness to discuss further offline. You promise to make yourself available after the performance to address whatever questions or concerns the individual has. At this point you are able to move on with your performance, job well done.

Scenario 2: You do everything outlined in Scenario 1, except this time the audience member doesn't concede the floor. They want to have this discussion . . . now. You empathize again with the individual's situation and reiterate your willingness to meet and apologize, but state there is limited time for the performance and you do need to keep the event on track. Frustrated, the alternate speaker concedes.

Scenario 3: Everything just like Scenario 2, except the alternate speaker doesn't concede - now what?

Now you leverage your greatest asset - the audience. You turn to them and say, as professionally as possible, that perhaps this alternative topic is worth discussing, but you know all in the room came to the performance with the expectation of discussing the merits of SuperWidget 2.0. You don't want to waste anyone's time so you're going to put it to a vote - how many want to talk about SuperWidget 2.0, and how many wish to discuss the newly defined "alternative topic?"

In all likelihood the vote will be heavily in favor of discussing SuperWidget 2.0. At this point you reiterate your empathy with the single audience member, reiterate your willingness to meet with them after the session - but state firmly that the rest of the audience would like to return to the original topic and so that is what you're going to need to do. Then do it.

THE POINT: Hopefully it never comes to this, but if it does - "majority rules" is a pretty simple concept to understand.

It Happens to Everbody.

To All Communi-Creators:

There is a moment in the course of all performance preparations when the speaker realizes they are about to appear before an audience. It is at this point, in many cases, when the fear sets in.

The brutal realization one is about to measured and judged by a room full of strangers, the desire to present the perfect performance, to make no mistakes, to avoid public humiliation - can be overwhelming.

Don't do that to yourself.

Don't require perfection, it's an impossible standard and your audience won't require you to meet it. Better to assume you will make a mistake, assume the projector will break, assume some interruption will occur - and that's OK. You're prepared and the audience will be empathetic to your plight - after all, they've been there at some point themselves.

Barbara Streisand tells the story of performing in New York City's Central Park before thousands of fans, and completely forgetting the words to one of her most popular songs, right in the middle of singing it.

She just went blank. She had sung the song hundreds of times before and she was drawing a complete blank.

Things happen. It's OK.

Second - no one is judging you. So, don't let yourself get caught up in the pre-public-speaking-death-spiral where you let wave upon wave of crippling anxiety build up. In fact, don't think of it as public speaking at all. Instead, imagine walking into a room and meeting a few friends. Embrace the idea that the audience is on your side and they want you to succeed. Empower yourself with the knowledge that all in the room are with you, and you will do well.

Because they are, and you will.

THE POINT: Stage fright is a mind game it's best to not play.

A Green Holiday - Communi-Creator Style

To All Communi-Creators:

I hope you are having a Happy Holiday Season in whatever way you choose.

To honor the holiday in the local tradition I am recycling two posts from last year, for which some readers developed a particular fondness. Both are about memes - the holy grail of product development, PR and advertising. For a concept to become a meme it must be an idea, symbol or practice which can be transmitted from one mind to another through writing, speech, gestures, rituals or other imitable phenomena (thank you Wikipedia).

Consider the popular website LOLCats. Didn't even exist a few years ago and now the "language" created by these friendly felines has permeated water-cooler culture across North America, parts of Europe and elsewhere. In addition, the Cheeseburger Network, who owns the site, has since launched a dozen other equally time-killing websites and is now a multi-million dollar enterprise thanks to their creative (and somewhat silly) CEO.

It takes a certain savvy and no small amount of good luck to generate these cultural phenomena. Some are clearly unintentional - like the popularity of Oolong the bunny, seen here on the left. You may recall this popular photo of Oolong with a pancake (or other items, mostly food based) on his head. I have received this image in way more emails than should be considered socially acceptable. Oolong had his own website and was even written up in the New York Times.

Other memes are the result of an intentional effort, like the aforementioned LOL Cats.

To wit . . .

The first blast-from-the-past-post confirms one of the most recognizable "cultural" icons in the world is actually a meme generated by a multi-national corporation and their desire to sell sugary drinks year-round.

The other shares the origins of a holiday meme which is occasionally dangerous, enjoyed by multitudes, supported by many - though no one really knows why. Here's why.

THE POINT: When creative icons or ideas are communicated well they can evolve into memes - thus generating "earned media" for companies and "15 minutes of fame" for individuals. Neither of which is a bad result.

An Example of What To Do.

To All Communi-Creators:

This is a great presentation.

No bullet points. Dynamic. Entertaining.

This is an example of what you should do when presenting so that your audience stays engaged, and your message is delivered clearly. Note the use of repetition to encourage recollection of major themes.

THE POINT: A good example is an awesome thing.

Tell Stories. Deliver Content.

To All Communi-Creators:

When you deliver a presentation, create an ad or convey a message - I want you to tell me a story.

Virtually every religious text on the planet uses allegory as a teaching tool. Nearly every teacher in every classroom will use an anecdote to educate at some point. Since the days of Aesop and his timeless fables fiction has been a conduit for teaching fact.

Consider - which would be more compelling, a reporting of basic product features, combined with statements of fact supported by screenshots of the system? Or, a story about a fictitious user of that system, where the audience shares the product experience and  sees "first hand" how it solved a problem for the user? At the end of each the details, the specifications, the benefits are all delivered - but the second method was more interesting, more compelling and more likely to be recalled by the audience.

In a recent review of Nancy Duarte's new book "Resonate," Forbes editor Bruce Upbin provides this summary of her key points regarding presentations, "Don’t be too cerebral. Tell stories. Figure out what the audience cares about. Create common ground with them. Move back and forth between opposing ideas to create energy. Deliver facts but put them in context and make them shocking if possible."

Good advice.

However, simply telling a story is not enough. You need to tell an interesting story. Scott Simon, the Peabody Award Winning host of National Public Radio's Weekend Edition goes one step farther and says, "you can tell a story with vivid analysis and breathtaking detail, but if not one is listening, why are you talking?"

Good point. So, to assist in your efforts you can learn a few storytelling tips from Scott here.

When it comes to business communication use the same fundamentals found in storytelling to deliver your message to your audience. Set the scene, create interesting characters, give the audience someone or something to care about - and use the traditional story arc to deliver your content in an engaging way. In the end any experience you create for the audience will be far more effective than any dry report you could ever deliver.

I am your audience - tell me an entertaining story and not only will I listen to you, I'll remember what you said.

THE POINT: As stated by Alan Kay, vice president at Walt Disney, "in a typical boardroom . . . we're all just cavemen with briefcases, hungry for a wise person to tell us stories."

Bad Spelers Untie!

To All Communi-Creators:

What's worse than a missed spelling mistake or word-o which gets published?

A missed spelling mistake or word-o that gets published in five foot high letters.

While such errors in a presentation are temporary (thankfully the next slide is just seconds away) the shame seems to endure forever.

How often do we switch "to" for "too" or forget which witch is which?

And is that witch over "their"? Or is she over "there"?

Did we mean to say we should unite, or untie?



Simple mistakes, which once made, suck the professionalism right out of your presentation. It doesn't matter how well you present or how brilliant your conclusions are - you are henceforth from the moment the error appears on the screen branded as "the one who did not spell check".

So damaging. So embarrassing. So why does it happen?

It happens because we rush. We rush to make a last minute edit and spell something wrong. We rush when reading through our slides and so our mind seemingly inserts the word which should be there - and so we don't see the incorrect word which actually is. We rush. So we make mistakes.

While rushing is sometimes unavoidable - last minute changes do happen, we can avoid most mistakes by simply giving ourselves time to do the job right. Just as we must allow time to rehearse, we must allow time to review and edit our slides.

To maximize the value of the time you have - here's a tip. Instead of reading your slides properly, read them in reverse. From bottom to top and right to left. This will force you to see each word as a word and not as part of a sentence. This will help prevent word-o's (which, by the way, are properly spelled words used in a grammatically incorrect way given their context) as well as other all-to-common careless errors caused by rushing.

THE POINT: Everybody makes "misteaks", but public humiliation can be avoided if we allow enough time to catch them.

Product Demonstration as a Wasted Opportunity.

To All Communi-Creators:

In the last week I have both presented and been presented to in the genre known as "the product demonstration". The presentation I delivered ended with a woman shouting a marriage proposal from the back of the room.

I couldn't believe it either. But it actually happened.

The presentation delivered to me was a bit different. It lasted just over an hour, only about 15 minutes of which was relevant in any way to anyone in the room. The balance was wasted time consumed by the presenter rambling on and on about their corporate history, their team's skill set and a range of product features which have no relevance to our company's business whatsoever.

So, what was the underlying, fundamental difference between these two events? Why did one end in a proposal for marriage and the other result in the audience begging for the pain to stop? Simply this, one speaker (me) understood their audience and what the audience wanted out of the presentation, and one speaker (the other guy) did not.

By tailoring my presentation to my audience I made maximum use of the opportunity and met their expectations. Because I told them what they needed to know, because I made my message relevant to their needs - I was rewarded. The person who presented to me did not align their message with the audience's needs and therefore wasted everyone's time, including his own.

What did I do to assure my presentation would align with the audience's needs? Simple. I asked what those needs were. I called in advance of the presentation, thanked them again for the opportunity to present and asked them what in particular would they like to know? They told me, and appreciated the fact I inquired.

Had the other speaker inquired as to our needs we could have told him we'd already researched his company, we were confident in the skills of his team and were most interested in viewing a particular set of features. Had he done this, his message would have been more on target and the results of his presentation would have been very different.

THE POINT: Don't waste a valuable opportunity by delivering the wrong message. Ask your audience what they want out of your presentation - and then deliver just that.

OK in the UK.

To All Communi-Creators:

I spent the last couple weeks across the pond in England, mostly in London and the surrounding areas, but also spent a few days in the lands of Shakespeare - which was inspiring. All in all it was a wonderful time during which I learned three things:

1. If you're not careful it's very easy to start faking an English accent.

2. That may not be a bad thing as proper articulation and pronunciation is the key to effective communication, especially with those who do not speak their words the same way you do.

3. Colloquialisms are local.

Regarding points one and two . . . This was the interesting thing about my time in England, I met travelers from many shores and though all of us were able to speak the same language - the many subtle variations in the way we spoke the language occasionally made communication cumbersome. While good listening skills certainly helped, being cognizant of this fact and subsequently speaking slowly and pronouncing words properly made it easier to get my message across.

Regarding point three . . . What I call "leftovers" others call "take-a-way". What I call a "pet peeve" others call a "pet ache". The use of these colloquialisms were fun to sort out, but when presented in reasonable concentration mitigated effective communication.

THE POINT: When communicating across cultural boundaries, even in the same language, pronounce properly and be aware the message you send may be received differently.

The Spaghetti Slide.

To All Communi-Creators:

This is, no joke, an actual PowerPoint slide depicting the complexity of U.S. military strategy.

It first appeared in Kabul during a presentation to General Stanley A. McChrystal - who was at the time leading American and NATO forces in Afghanistan, and who upon seeing it commented, "when we understand that slide, we'll have won the war."

The New York Times just ran a great article about the use of PowerPoint in the military, and the program's overall shortcomings when dealing with complex ideas.

THE POINT: Some concepts just can't be "PowerPointed".

This Niche is My Niche.

To All Communi-Creators:

Niche communication is a powerful thing. By identifying a narrow, but viable, target audience and orienting all communications toward that audience Communi-Creators best position their business as an expert on that niche's needs. If the goal is to sell Widget 2.0 to Lawyers - the company website should be "LawyerWidgetsOnly.com", the license plate on the company car should be "WIDG4LAW". By consistently positioning the business in all ways,as an expert in a thing, and only that thing, one finds the message soon dominates the niche.

To achieve niche marketing success the niche must be well-defined - for example, take a company who says they work with small business people. Well, the woman who owns the 50-employee factory making B2B equipment and the guy who is my dentist are both small business people - but no one can be a true expert on the unique needs of each. If the messaging is even this well-rounded it won't cut through anything. Instead the messaging needs to be sharp, honed to a point and ready to penetrate the chosen market. The company in the example above is better served avoiding the broad "small business owners" category and instead have their communications state repeatedly they are, "an expert on the needs of business owners operating manufacturing companies with 50-150 employees". That's a narrow, but viable, niche we can work with and become an expert in.

Now, being a niche communicator does not mean one sacrifices opportunities which may come along but are outside the niche - and this risk is feared by many. Which is too bad. So many businesses sacrifice the tangible, measurable benefits of niche marketing because they are afraid they will miss out on some grand opportunity which is outside the scope of their communication plan.

First - if the niche is truly viable and the communication program is both well-conceived and well-executed the business should have no problem generating traffic. Second, a business can orient their communications around a narrow niche, and still capitalize on unique opportunities when they develop.

To this point consider. . . "The Duck Hunting Story" (borrowed, by the way, from the mind of Phil Buchanan, CEO at the Cannon Financial Institute).

Four hunters are duck hunting. They are sitting in their duck hunting blind, with their duck calls, wearing their duck hunting hats and their duck hunting clothes, their duck decoys are in the water and their shotguns are loaded with duck hunting ammunition. They are fully prepared for a day of duck hunting, and are thus far having a great deal of success. One hunter needs a break and leaves the blind to take a short walk down a near-by trail. A few minutes later shots ring out and the rest of the hunters coming running to see what happened. When they find their wandering friend he is standing over a huge deer which he just shot. Amazed, because duck hunting ammunition has all the killing power of harsh language and would not bring down such a large animal, the hunters asked how he did it.



"I had a few slugs with me".

"Slugs?" the friends asked. "Why would you bring slugs when we're duck hunting?"

"'Cause you never know when you might need to stop hunting ducks," the wanderer responded.

"Stop hunting ducks? When did you need to stop hunting ducks?"

"The minute I saw that big deer walking down the trail."

THE POINT: The benefits of niche marketing don't require surrendering opportunity. A business can be 100% successful duck hunting, and still be able to bag the big deer when it comes along.

Evolution.

To All Communi-Creators:

After a recent email discussion with some readers of this blog, I am evolving the content presented here. This blog is relatively new and still finding its voice. As there is a growing readership, I find it valuable to incorporate your feedback as the site grows.

To wit . . .

The term "Presenter" has been used to define the audience, and the audience finds the term limiting. After much discussion and vigorous debate, I hereby christen thee "Communi-Creators". This is a term born from the merger of "communication" and "creativity," and one which better defines both you and your goals for coming here.

You have told me . . .

. . . stories about how Santa Claus became a global cultural icon as a byproduct of an advertising campaign, or how the availability of multiple font-types on PCs are the direct result of Steve Jobs’ lackluster college experience - are of interest to you, as they demonstrate what happens when creative communication impacts culture;

. . . tips on public speaking or interpersonal communication - are of interest to you, as these tips help improve your "Performance Skills";

. . . and stories about design and visual communication (this one seems to have been a favorite as well) - are of interest to you, as they get your imagination engines pumping.

I will endeavor to provide more of this content in the future.

You also told me you enjoy "THE POINT" - included at the end of each post, so this feature shall endure.

You also told me going to LinkedIn to contact me was a bit of a pain, so I’ve created a “Contact Page” with my email address, this way we can more easily have discussions in the future. Also, please feel free to use the comment section at the end of the posts – this way we can share the power of our growing creative community, and welcome others to the discussion.

Folks - I'm glad we're working together to make this resource valuable for all.

Thanks for reading.

THE POINT: I hear you, and I appreciate your feedback.

Step Up to the Mic.

To All Presenters:

It has been some time since I posted on presentation skills. Oddly, many of the presentations I have been privy to in recent time have not been terrible. Not all rose to performance level, which should be the goal, but all-in-all they have not left me praying for a flock of rabid magpies to descend upon the presenter either.

I do, however, have a lesson to share.

Presenters, please know - simply holding a microphone in your hand does not actually make it work - in fact, the act of turning it on does not make it actually work. To achieve microphone success you must accomplish the aforemention steps and then hold it near, and point it at, your mouth.

Amazing amount of failures occuring around those last points.

For hand-held mics - waving it around a la Harry Potter, using it as a pointer or holding it waaay down by your side renders it all but useless.

For microphones attached to lecturns (which as a performer you shouldn't be using, but I digress) - pointing the microphone mid-chest is not accoustically helpful.

For the clip-on/wireless mics - please, actually clip it on. Otherwise, I promise you are either going to hold it so close to your mouth that you sound like Zeus commanding from on high, or you will be so far from your mouth as to render the tool useless. Worse yet, you will likely vacilate between these two points thus irritating the audience to a degree so extreme as to not be measuerable with modern technology.
Not awesome.

Here's how to fix it.

For handhelds - put your fist against your mouth like your blowing into it. The space your fist takes up is equal to the distance the microphone should be from your mouth at all times. Microphones have varying levels of sensitivity, so consider this more a guideline than a rule.

For lecturns - look down at the microphone and adjust so that you're staring into it like it were a tube. Then look up at your audience, the microphone is now pointed at your mouth.

For clip-on / wireless - stack one fist on top of the other and attach to the bottom of your chin while looking forward. The bottom of your bottom fist is where the mic should get pinned. And be sure this site is free of obstructions which will brush against the mic and disturb your audience.

Simple guides, yours to use.

THE POINT: Your message is meaningless if no one can hear it.

New thinking for the established stuff

To All Presenters:

Engage in creativity with a purpose.

3M used to allow employees to dedicate 15% of their time to near-unbridled creative exploration. Sadly, unguided creative thinking led to a lot of bloated ineffciency within that organization. In recent years, 3M has required a more process-oriented approach to the application of creativity within the workplace.

Creativity for creativity's sake has its place, but its value is difficult to quantify.

So often in the agile modern business world we are so focused on creating BestIdea 2.0 that we often overlook opportunities to achieve tangible results by reviewing current operations. If we took a little time to examine each highly ingrained procedure within our sphere of influence, took time to explore all the things that are "the way they've always been", what might we learn? If we couldn't do things this way, how would we do them? What would we do differently if money didn't matter? What opportunities for improvement does such a simple line of thinking present? Can the value of these opportunities be measured in a tangible way?

This last point being the most important because quantifiable value has a strange tendency to strengthen business cases, and to many managers - money does matter.

Rather than "free thinking" focus creative energy on an area which aligns with organizational objectives, ideally one over which you have some control and responsibility. In such a case you are best able to alleviate fear, remove constraints and try to move the organization from "yes but" to "yes and. . .".

Dedicating a fixed percentage of time to creative thought is a noble pursuit, but not necessary for achieve measurable advancement. More often a procedural trigger can be cause for creative review. Consider, you need to make a routine hire to add support to an established but growing product line. If you could manufacture an ideal universe for the management of this product in your organization - what would it be? Would this person report to you? Would this product even remain with you, or could there be new opportunities for growth if it, and the new hire, were integrated elsewhere? As you make one transition, are there others which could be beneficial, but had not previously been considered?

Sometimes there is value to looking in directions other than forward.

THE POINT: Evolution comes from revolution.

Top 100 Creative People

To All Presenters:

Fast Company has published their 2010 list of the top 100 Most Creative People in Business.

I read the magazine on a flight back from Chicago, and am still unsure about their choice for the number one spot. I'm not sure if I'm questioning the decision based on the individual's merits, or exposing my own creative prejudices.

Click here and decide for yourself.

THE POINT: Behold . . . inspiration.

Project Planning - A Creative Adventure

To All Presenters:

An associate of mine has a poster on his wall that reads something to the effect of, "Don't do project planning - this way failure can just sneak up on you and you avoid many months of worry."

I find project management to be a pretty interesting creative exercise - especially when it comes to risk management. The need to think about what could go wrong, and what could be done to mitigate risk in each case is to me, the modern day business version of a "Choose Your Own Adventure" book.

What happens if the vendor suddenly goes out of business?

What happens if we get hit by a seasonal natural disaster and have to close for a week mid-project?

What happens if the project is delayed past the target date?

What if the current system fails before the replacement is in place?

At a minimum - do we have a plan "B", "C' and "D" for all possible contingencies?

To go into the cave turn to page 16. To walk past the cave turn to page 22.

Discussions around risk and "what ifs" are opportunities to examine the creative thinking / level of paranoia that exists within stakeholders or members of the project team as well. I find sales people are the greatest source of obscure apocalyptic scenarios. If there is an opportunity for me to have to develop a "what if" strategy around alien invasion - it likely originates in a meeting with sales.

So while creativity in this instance generates unnecessary work - it also gives the project manager a chance to flex their creative muscles in turn.

So . . . project planning, who knows where that road may take you.

THE POINT: Creative adventure awaits, all it takes is a little planning.

SEO - Don't Try So Hard

To All Presenters:

Search Engine Optimization is big and getting bigger. Everyone wants to optimize opportunities for search engines to find them and so they embrace the fundamentals of SEO - whatever one perceives them to be.

A musician friend of mine recently launched a site designed to promote his musical endeavors and retail his latest CD. In an effort to attract as much traffic as his servers would allow he applied every conceivable keyword/metatag thing-a-ma-bob from "Britney Spears" and "classical music" to "I Heart Kittens" and "free sex".

Creative? Perhaps.

Effective? Not in the least bit.

What he got for his effort was a good amount of emotional abuse and whoppingly mediocre sales. His ambition failed when he thought he could attract teeny-bobber boy-band fans and/or animal loving / pervert types to his brooding neo-gothic retail engine, and wow them into spending their hard-earned allowances on music they don't generally like.

He soon surrendered his creative thinking and gave in to a bland solution - he referenced relevant concepts such as other dark brooding coffee house musicians too obscure to reference here, and similar things that go bump in the night.

It took some time, but his sales took off once that small population who would enter such terms voluntarily found him popping up repeatedly as one of the two results in their obscure keyword searches.

He found his niche-target audience and they loved him. The masses? Not so much.

THE POINT: Sometimes we really do out think ourselves.

Simple is as Simple Does

To All Presenters:

“The art of war does not require complicated maneuvers; the simplest are the best, and common sense is fundamental. One might wonder how generals blunder; it is because they try to be clever.”

- Napoleon Bonaparte

Agenda Magazine has a great article about Napoleon's campaign into Russia in the year 1812 which comments on, amongst other topics, Napoleon's ultimate downfall being a likely byproduct of deviation from his own best practices and generally making things too complex to succeed. Often times creativity in business manifests itself in the delivery of the simplest possible solution. We are too often awed by the size of the problem, so we assume the solution must be equally large.

The old joke that NASA spent billions on a pen that could write in zero-gravity while the Russians used a pencil, though not entirely true, comes to mind.

On a similar front, one might wonder if too many minds are wrapped up in the tech-boom-big-sexiness of trying to become the next great GOOGLE-optimized social media tool. Perhaps we've forgotten the elegance of simple business.

Consider, most business in the world is done by small businesses doing simple things - how could your product or idea help these operators do what they do better, faster or even more simply? As an alternative, how can you take a lofty concept or difficult process and make it simple enough for mass access? Apple does this well - the IPOD made music more simple, the IPAD makes content management more simple.
The strongest organisms tend to be the most simple, the most durable ideas tend to be the most simple and he who has the best sound bite often wins.

THE POINT: Simple may not always be easy, but it usually works.

Do This! Get That.

To All Presenters:

Allegedly, business runs on incentives. Incentives to consumers to induce purchase behavior. Incentives to employees to increase productivity. Incentives to managers to boost the bottom line.

The idea that incentives are effective is reinforced by the popularity of the concept. Nearly every form of media streams attractive offers to we, the target audience, on a 24-hour cycle. If you're awake chances are someone is trying to sell you something. Retailers keep offering coupons, businesses keep handing out bonuses and everyone presumes the incentives are successful since, in the short term - and in the most obvious ways - they are.

Do incentives really work? If you want to build a business, will coupons drive sales? Yes. They will. But there is no buy-one-get-one-free offer in the world that will build brand loyalty. Great Clips is a national hair salon franchise who supports deep discounting as part of their grand opening strategy for new locations - often prices are as low as $2.99 a haircut.

During the grand opening these salons do a lot of haircuts. The problem is they have to hire a lot of staff to service customers who only value the product at the discounted price. Shortly after the grand opening these salons see same store sales drop precipitously, as customers move on to the next cheapest shop in town -with layoffs at the salon soon to follow.

Similarly, businesses who offer performance incentives will find they are successful in driving a specific behavior. The problem is employees stop taking risks. They stop thinking creatively and start doing exactly, and only, what is required in order to earn the incentive. Nothing more. The incentive may achieve a short-term objective, but in the long-term it caps personal initiative and business development.

Alfie Kohn writes a great article articulating the findings of several dozen studies which support the idea that incentives do more harm than good.

THE POINT: Monitor the horizon, will your strategy get you where you really want to be?