Thumbs Up for Critics...Sort Of

"No one has ever built a statue to a critic, it's true. On the other hand, it's only the people with statues that get pooped on by birds flying by."           Seth Godin

Few of us set out to be critics.   Rarely does a critic make it on anyone's list of most admired people or historical figures we'd like to have dinner with.  Critics are seen as living off of the efforts of others.

Yet we pay attention to them.  We talk about how many stars a movie got or whether new software was highly rated or panned.  We read the books they recommend and buy tickets to the plays they admire.

I think that there is an important role in society for quality critiquing of our arts and entertainment.  First, it helps us sort through the endless stream of options to identify the handful of things we can reasonably expect to enjoy.  Second, quality criticism can help us develop our critical viewing and reading skills.  Reading solid, thoughtful critiques helps us to learn to look for the subtext and symbolism, the context and the character arcs of more subtly crafted films or books.  Third, critiques provide us with the context and language to talk about the arts and entertainment we enjoy. I seriously doubt that many of us would be talking about sweep shots and casting coups if they weren't first discussed by a critic.

The challenge for critics is that the rug has been pulled out from under them.

Siskel and Ebert probably would have had a harder time getting started professionally today, because the role of critic has been democratized.  It is easy these days for any user or viewer to weigh in on what they think of a movie, or an app, or a product.  There are whole businesses that are built around consumer reviews; businesses such as Angie's List, which shares customer reviews of service companies.

As critiquing has gained prominence in our society, the role of critic seems to have diminished.  Does the professional critic serve a purpose in a world when you can get the average rating of thousands of Amazon participants.  Does a critic, despite facing competition from her very audience, contribute anything to the general conversation?

I feel that professional critics do serve an important purpose.  That purpose is not in the ratings they give, but in the explanations that support those ratings.  Critics give a context to their ratings which makes them far more valuable.  To learn that a movie only got two stars is one thing.  To learn that it got two stars because it has a clown in it and the reviewer hates clowns gives you a whole other perspective; especially if you also have strong feelings about clowns!

However, critical context can be found many places as well.  Searching "movie blogs" on Bing generates almost 3 billion results.  I am pretty sure a few of them are done by amateurs.

In the end, I think the role of the professional critic is going through the same transition as the role of the professional journalist.  The rules are changing and the successful critics will change with them.  Just this week, the Chicago Sun Times fired all of their staff photographers.  They cited the need to increase the use of video as the reason.  I suspect the need to control fixed costs also played a role in the decision.  If major market newspapers are counting on freelance photographers to meet their needs, how far behind will wire service or crowd sourced critics be?

Perhaps the best roadmap was laid out by the recently deceased Roget Ebert. Not satisfied with being just a print journalist, he joined forces with the film critic from a rival newspaper and became a broadcast star.  When cancer took his voice, he made sure he still had one by moving into social media.  As you can see from the article below, even death hasn't stopped Mr. Ebert.  His site lives on, providing film criticism and reviews.

Today's critic needs to leverage what ever credibility and audience she has into whatever media and format is looking for content.  As so often happens, quality work will rise to the top and find its audience.



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Father Figure

My father celebrates the 41st Anniversary of his 39th Birthday today.  Happy Anniversary Dad!

It is natural on anniversaries to become a bit reflective.  I thought in honor of this day, I would share some of the things I learned from my father about leadership.

The lessons Dad taught me were taught by example.  I learned them by watching him.  I am not sure he knows that he was teaching all of this time...although I am pretty sure he will SAY he's known!

Leadership as experienced with my Dad:

1. My Dad is very free with advice.  He gives it all of the time. Yet he never demands or expects that I take 100% of his advice. All he asks is that I listen and then decide, not the other way around.  A leader tries to help when he can, yet allows people to find their own way.
2.  My Dad loves nothing more than a good debate.  Throughout my teenage years, we stayed close by arguing.  Both of us are usually willing to take any side of an argument, as long as it was opposite the position taken by the other.  I lost a lot of sleep during those late night debates, but gained valuable hours with my father.  I learned to love the art of a good argument, how to be a gracious winner and, occasionally, a good loser.  A leader doesn't shy away from a conversation, a discussion or an argument.
3. One of my Dad's debate techniques, when he doesn't have or can't find facts, is to make his statements with a great conviction.  His conviction and certainty in what he is saying is enough to give an expert pause.  His enthusiasm for winning has showed me that leaders pull out all the stops to achieve their goals.
4. Actually the one thing that Dad loves more than debating is his family.  And his friends.  And making new friends.  And meeting new people.  Dad is a people person.  Leaders get energy from the people around them.  They thrive on the power of interactions.
5. Dad is thrilled when he can connect people with each other, especially if it helps them solve a problem. I am guessing that he has made a good share of his friends by sticking his nose into their problems and helping them out.  Leaders appreciate the people around them and figure out what they can do for others, not the other way around.
6. My Dad has always been a salesman.  He has had many jobs, some which don't involve sales, but he has always been a salesman.  Leaders don't have jobs or careers, they have callings.
7. My Dad is the only person I have ever heard of who takes coffee or lemonade out to the garbage men.  My dad never thought twice about it.  My Dad taught me that a leader is kind to people.  All of them.  But especially to the custodians, secretaries and garbage men in your life.  They literally and figuratively hold the keys to your life.  If you are getting along with them, things go smoother.  If you don't get along with them, your life can get stinky and disorganized quickly!
8. If Dad chooses to work with someone, he is trusting to a fault.  I sometimes get frustrated by his blind trust in the goodness of people that he barely knows.  In the end, though, the few times he has been burned have been dwarfed by the friends he has made, the trust he has earned back and the stress and worry he has avoided.  True leadership is positive in focus and nature.  
9. Even though he has had more than his share of ups and downs, my Dad almost always has a positive, can-do, make that will-do, attitude.  A recent accident had him in inpatient rehab, reportedly for up to four weeks.  He was out in less than two. A leader lets his attitude be an asset, not a roadblock.
10. My Dad has the corniest sense of humor I have seen in anyone, except for maybe me.  A leader creates a legacy and passes it on to the next generation.

Happy Birthday Dad!  Thanks for the lessons!  I am looking forward to learning many more!  I love you!

Emotional Decision-Making

If you question whether our relationship to our things is emotional, consider for a moment how we talk about the things we own and use.

When was the last time you heard someone say, "I appreciate the utility of this cellular phone" or "The features of this automobile are not the ones I need."

We say "I love my phone!" or "I hate this car!"  And we mean it when we say it.

There is a reason Facebook has you "Like" something versus "Approve" or "Appreciate" something.

There is a reason that so many ads skip facts and details about the product or service.  Instead, they focus on the feeling you will get, or the status you will achieve, if you purchase Product A or use Service B.

We humans are emotionally driven animals.

Even in the costliest decision most of us will make, we base our decisions, when we are honest with ourselves, on our emotional responses.  When my parents made the decision to buy the last house of my childhood, they could tell us about the trees in the backyard and the color of the curtains in the family room - things that excited them emotionally - but they couldn't agree on how many bathrooms there were.

Although we like to pretend differently, emotions also drive decisions in business.  Most often, the reams of analysis and brainstorming ultimately end up supporting an emotionally driven decision.  Despite the window dressing of Gant Charts and regression analysis, decisions are made because "she had a good handshake" or "something in my gut tells me this is going to work" or "this is going to be good for my career" or "if I did that my boss will be angry."

I am not sure that this is a bad thing.  I don't think I want business decisions to be made in a dispassionate, totally data-driven environment.  Too many aspects of important decisions are difficult or impossible to quantify.  Too often, the implications of a decision are complex, multi-level, and involve countless variables.  I believe that our minds use our emotions as a way to summarize the complex morass of decision implications.

After all, think about the array of implications involved with something as simple as buying a pair of shoes.  Will I wear them?  Are they in fashion?  Will they stay in fashion?  Should I be spending this money on something else?  On someone else?  Will these shoes be comfortable?  Will they go with any of my clothes?  Will they last long?  Will they still look good in 6 months?  Do I need to get rid of a pair of shoes if I get these?  Is this store the best place to get these shoes?  Etc.

Imagine the variables and decision impacts around something like opening a new store, or adding a new feature to your widget!  The implications are astounding.

The challenge is to find a balance.  If the emotions that are controlling your business decisions and are mostly driven by self-preservation, it might call to question whether your decisions are as good as they could be for the company.  If your decisions are devoid of emotion (as if that were possible), one would wonder if consideration was given to impacts of the decision on "squishy" things such as employee morale, organizational image and customers' loyalty.

Using data to make decisions, especially big business decisions, is essential and logical.  I guess I would just encourage decision-makers to acknowledge, and incorporate their emotions, or gut, into their analysis.  You are doing it anyway.  You might as well acknowledge it!

**********
In the United States, today is Memorial Day.  I want to thank all the men and women who have served this country in the military for their service!

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Pop-up Fatigue

As I browse websites, I wonder if the companies sponsoring the intrusive, annoying pop-up ads think they are really helping their marketing efforts.

I suppose on one level, their market research shows that pop-up ads have a much higher recall with readers.  We recall the ads better because we spent so much time cursing them.

Research might also show a higher click through rate, which I suspect mostly consists of people mistakingly clicking into the ad while trying to find the increasingly tiny X that close the ads.

Technology provides us with an ever growing number of ways to get in front of customers.  I think it is incumbent on marketers that aggressive marketing doesn't cross the line into intrusive marketing.  It's a very thin line.

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Face to face

We have a plethora of ways to communicate with each other in this wired and digital age.  We can connect instantly and just about anywhere.  We can send innumerable words, voice and images, often for free.

There are ways to reconnect with high school classmates or finally connect with your soul mate.  We can easily and cheaply reach out to thousands of people, prospective customers or the three couples you are inviting over for Saturday's cookout.  We have huge communications technology advantages over communicators of just a few years ago.

Nevertheless, sometimes an email or a text leaves a lot to be desired.  Or a lot to be interpreted...or misinterpreted.

I was reminded of this over the last couple of weeks as I started a string of email conversations with a friend.  She had written a comment on one of my blog entries that I wanted to use in a subsequent blog.  As a courtesy, I shared my first draft of the blog post to let her know I was going to use her comment.

It seems I had significantly misread the intent of her comment.

No problem.  That was why I had sent her a draft.  I scrapped that post and rewrote it taking a somewhat different direction with it.  Again the draft was sent.  Again comments returned.  Again I missed the intent.  Worse than before.

If, instead of trading emails, we had discussed this face-to-face, I am confident I would have better judged her intent.  If we had talked face-to-face, I am sure that the back and forth exchange would have resulted not only in a better understanding but a more creative and entertaining blog topic.  Instead, you just get this.

Nothing replaces the amount of communication that happens when you are with someone and talking.  You share the words you say, but also the delivery of those words.  As poets are fond of saying, there is quite a lot that can be said in the spaces between the words.  The speaker's intonation, facial expressions, body language and  volume send messages, often clearer and more truthfully than the words chosen.

There is also no such thing as one-way communications when you are talking with someone in person.  The listener often communicates just as much as the speaker.  Her body language, level of attention, reactions and responses often let the speaker know whether the message is being received or whether there is miscommunication or confusion.

Also, the role of speaker and listener is not so clearly delineated in face-to-face conversation as it is in email.  In a healthy conversation, the roles of speaker and listener shift rapidly.  Often, especially when the parties are truly engaged in the conversation, it would be impossible to label either person as the speaker or the listener.  In fact, one of the challenges of effective face-to-face communications is to allow the other person the space to respond and discuss with you.

There are many instances when emailing or texting is the best way to reach someone, the best was to address and resolve an issue and the best way to chat with someone.  But many times, nothing beats some java (the brewed kind) and the other person sitting across the table from you!

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Frequency

There is a rule of thumb I use when talking with someone about how long they should run a particular ad or promotion.  About the time you absolutely cannot stand looking at your promotion anymore; when it is driving you nuts to look at or listen to the ad/promotion/billboard/poster/website/etc. one more time; when it seems as if every time you turn the page or log onto a site you see the ad...THAT is about the time your target audience is just starting to notice it.

This is, of course, a broad rule of thumb.  There are always those customers who are hyper-attuned to your brand who notice ads and posts well before the general public.  Because they care.

There are also those who don't give a hoot about your brand or your industry.  They could read or view everything you put and not remember it a moment later.  Because they don't care.

I think that this same rule of thumb is even more applicable these days.  It also now applies to information of all sorts, not just promotional information.  Since there are so many sources of information, people who care about a particular subject often know about news related to that subject long before that news makes it in the local paper or on the Yahoo news feed (if it ever does.)

While this makes it easier for someone to solidify their expert status, it also raises a red flag.  If you are a interested in local food, for instance, you most likely keep up with what is written about it, current best practices, new or pending legislation, etc.  For the local food advocate, monitoring this information across multiple streams of information has never been easier.

The challenge, as an advocate, is to recognize and remember that the general public isn't doing the same.  They don't have the same awareness of the topic that you do as someone who cares about the topic and is following it.

The challenge, as a marketer, is to figure out that sweet spot where you are sharing your message frequently enough to reach your target market, but not so frequently that you end up annoying those early adapters of your message.

Years ago, when I was working for a local hospital, I used my wife and daughter as models for an ad I needed to run.  It was a print campaign that ran mostly in the local newspaper.  Naturally, my whole family was VERY attuned to the ads I ran in the local paper.  My wife commented that it seemed like she came across the ad every time she turned the page in the newspaper.  I remember at the time the ad was running mentioning her comment to a colleague.  Oh, he said, are you running an ad?

If you are an advertiser, or an advocate, don't make the mistake that the general public is as aware of your topic as you are.  It is important to remember that in today's "seek it out" environment, those who are passionate about a subject, a product, a company or a cause WILL inform themselves.

Most likely your target audience is more than these passionate few.  Most likely most of your audience will need you to repeat yourself a few times.

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Content vs. Influence

People don't listen to the radio anymore, my daughter forthrightly exclaimed the other day.  As someone who is working to start a radio station this bothered me a bit.

"How do people find out about new music?" my daughter was asked.  "We used to hear new music on the radio."

My daughter sighed and then patiently (sort of) explained that there are tons of way to find out about music, movies, books, TV shows, fashions, etc.

"Pinterest!" I said excitedly, trying to sound like I knew what was going on.  After another sigh, she explained that some of that happens on websites, but a lot of it happens from people sharing recommendations with each other.  She explained how easy it is to share a rave about a movie or a song with all of your friends, contacts and more.

I think this raises an interesting issue.

I wrote a cranky blog a couple of weeks ago, taking issue with the popular phrase that content is king.  A link to that blog is at the bottom of this page.  I posited in that blog that content has ALWAYS been the most important thing.

I recently saw a video (it is embedded at the end of this blog) that had a different take on the whole issue of the importance of content.  The CEO and co-founder of the website Klout, Joe Fernandez, feels that influence is king of the internet, not content.  If you are not familiar with the website Klout, it is a website that attempts to measure your internet influence by measuring the contacts and connections you make online.  It is interesting and can be strangely addicting.

Influence is the currency of the social web, Fernandez posits.  Word of mouth has always been the most effective way to grow a business.  But now, for the first time, it's scalable, he says.

One need only look to the recent events in Boston to see the value and importance of quality content and the connection between content and influencers.  Watching the commentators on CNN rush to get out "facts" and then spend hours discussing why those facts were inaccurate would have seemed like visiting journalism on its death bed if it wasn't such a common experience for so long.

Contrast that with the excellent, reasoned and careful reporting by many reporters.  Pete Wilson from NBC is mentioned most often as providing credible, valuable insights into the horrific events.  I think many of the local print journalists were equally worthy of praise.

Pete Wilson and Brian Williams on NBC increased their influence with excellent, carefully prepared and presented content.  Some on CNN didn't.

I think that the content vs. influence debate is somewhat of a chicken and egg debate.  If there isn't word of mouth about a website, blog or whatever, then the content isn't seen.  If no one sees it, how valuable is excellent content?  If influencers don't have worthwhile content to direct people to, they have no way to exercise their influence.

We have always had influencers directing us toward certian content.  While it used to be Wolfman Jack and Larry Lujack playing us the latest hits or Siskel and Ebert's thumbs pointing us toward (and away from) movies, now we have friends on Facebook and playlist on 8Track.

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