Think you’re smarter than your clients? When should and shouldn’t you get on that high horse.

November 29, 2009 in Uncategorized | Tags: , , | Leave a comment

In the volumes that have been written about outrageous, idiotic and simply clueless behavior in job interviews, the fault invariably is assigned to job candidates. Well, I’ve been on and heard about enough job interviews to know that hiring companies can take the cake when it comes to inappropriate form and function:

  • Like the time I was a finalist for a high-level agency position and was interviewing with the very top leaders of the organization. There I was all spiffed up in my interview duds when one of the most senior interviewers entered the room in gray sweats and no compelling rationale for it.
  • Another interview incorporated a simulation in which I was asked to role-play as if I was in a prospect pitch meeting. But the interviewers who set up the scenario completely lost their places in it. They just plain forgot what parts of the conversation were real and which were simulated. I introduced the idea of a “talking stick” using a dry erase marker. When the marker was standing on end we were to be in role-playing mode; on its side and we were in the real world. It was in vain and chaos ensued.

Those are colorful examples of interviews gone awry. Yet most interviews are dull, as gray as the sweat pants and hoodie worn by my memorable interviewer. The saving grace of that interview was a particularly thoughtful team member  – appropriately attired – who posed one of the most interesting questions I’ve ever heard in an interview.

He asked, “Do you think you’re smarter than your prospects and clients?”

Years after first hearing that question I don’t have a yes/no answer because, I’ve found, it’s relative and depends on your definition of smart. Rather than having a definitive answer, I believe that the question can be a guide post to exemplary behavior in prospect and client relationships. So I offer these thoughts as you ponder the question yourself:

  • Your company has well-developed expertise and information that the client does not possess. Your smarts in that circumstance are due to experience you’ve cultivated over time. It’s valuable to be sure, yet it doesn’t make you smarter, just more expert and perhaps with greater capacity than your client.
  • A smart client knows when they need added capability and capacity. They might not have divined exactly what and how much, but they were smart enough to invite you to enlighten them.
  • No matter what your abilities, there are any number of things your client might know better. Their own industry, for example, or proprietary processes and technology. They have native smarts in these areas and want to combine them with your smarts in other areas.
  • Don’t overlook your client’s keen eye and ear for culture and politics within his or her own organization, smarts than can benefit you in unexpected ways.

“Do you think you’re smarter than your prospects and clients” is a question I’ve pondered again and again over the years. In the exasperation that can accompany the pursuit and servicing of clients I’ve found that it can serve as a check and balance for my own ego and expectations. And by doing that I’ve learned to acknowledge and embrace the expertise and authority the client brings to table. You might find it ironic that it makes them more trusting of my own contribution, which allows us to be smarter together.

Those who invested in sturdy footwear will “hit the ground running” with greater effect when the time comes

November 24, 2009 in Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , , | Leave a comment

Through-the-window spy photo of bar area in Black Design offices in Minneapolis.

Although it’s a fragile economic recovery in these late days of 2009, there are numerous indicators that the business cycle could be on something of an upswing – maybe an up-saunter.

For example, marketing and advertising spending is in a guarded comeback – or so say the brands that pay the bills. Super Bowl advertising is completely sold out, even at pulse-quickening premiums, and agencies are hiring again.

I don’t know about you, but I’m eager for good news however nuanced the optimism.

So, are you ready to hit the ground running? Not willing, mind you, but truly p-r-e-p-a-r-e-d. Then ready, set…wait.

If you cut too deeply in the downturn, particularly if you suspended new business efforts as many small and mid-sized agencies did, then your willingness to forge ahead might be hobbled by your actual ability. There is no judgment implied here. Lots of businesses did what they deemed prudent to get through an extended period of depressed billings. It’s been painful, but remember that picking yourself up and brushing the dirt off is a little harder than it sounds.

Tina Wilcox, founder of Black Design in Minneapolis, is making it look easy with her eye-popping new offices taking shape at 12th Street and Harmon Place. As a marketer exclusively serving retail clients she was in what would have seemed to be a double bind. Her two key industry, marketing and retail, were brutalized in the past year. But Wilcox has a reputation for being gutsy. The large new digs are stylishly furnished and flaunt impeccable finishes. (Yes, I have chair envy.) The joint even has a sinuous bar (pictured above), a curving banquet and an enormous aquarium left over from previous restaurant tenants that she’ll no doubt turn into a statement. There is a shark in her company’s logo if that offers a hint.

While not every agency has the wherewithal to do what Wilcox is doing, there are ways each agency can make a smart return to form. I’ve banged the drum here before: strategy, purpose, focus, selectivity, unity and a dollop of patience.

How is your agency preparing to hit the ground running? Feel free to share your thoughts.

Evidence mounting for positive but slow-motion uptick in marketing hiring

November 18, 2009 in Uncategorized | Tags: , , , | 2 comments

Call me an optimist. Or consider that marketing and advertising have been down so long that just about anything looks like up. However you rationalize it, there is growing evidence that employment in marketing and advertising disciplines is on a slow yet inexorable upswing.

What follows is a random sampling of articles analyzing hiring trends, advice on where to look and listings of actual jobs – all of these aggregated for your use but by no means exhaustive. In fact, I urge readers to use the comments section to add their own insights and links to resources you think can add to the utility of this post.

  • Insight. From Ad Age Talent Works, “Recruiters Say Hiring Is Coming Back to Life, Slowly.” An especially interesting facet of this article is a debate over whether recruitment is stronger for those hardy souls who braved cutbacks and still have jobs or among those not as lucky. My opinion: just because someone survived job cuts doesn’t mean that they are “best of breed” and therefor more worthy of recruitment attention. All you need to do to validate that assessment is look around at your current colleagues, many of whom are no doubt exemplary, and then also look at your extremely capable brethren who didn’t fare as well.
  • Job listings – Minnesota-specific. Minnesota PR Jobs Blog (or @mnpr on Twitter), which posts jobs in multiple disciplines and not just public relations.@jaredroy on Twitter, who is an indefatigable bird dog of job openings both locally and nationally. That’s in addition to his day job. @minnesotajobs on Twitter is a blend of specific jobs and valuable resources, although the job postings are across the board and not marketing-specific.
  • Job listings – national. From Mashable, “Career Toolbox: 100+ Places to Find Jobs.”

I promise to add to this post as I uncover more insights and resources  and as readers (nudge nudge) particiapte in the help-fest.

Business development efforts can go bust when ‘what is’ too often trumps ‘what if’

November 16, 2009 in Uncategorized | Tags: , , | Leave a comment

It’s long been my professional mantra that business development efforts worth pursuing and supporting are those that are conducted both strategically and systematically. A mantra is supposed to be short, but just this once I have to defy convention and lengthen mine by adding: If you want consistent results, business development must be given proper resources all the time – not just sometimes.

The challenge can be summarized like this: In the day-to-day operation of many agencies, what is almost always trumps what if.

What is, of course, is the work at hand. Projects already committed to and client relationships already in the fold that require the best thinking and most creative explorations. Not only have you made promises to these clients that you must keep, the hard and fast of it is that these clients pay the bills. Integrity plus reality equals obligation.

Business development, on the other hand, represents what if. Throughout much of the process of pursuing new clients, agencies often feel little sense of commitment, almost no obligation, and sometimes a certain lack of integrity experienced as a kind of passive-aggressive pattern of disregard for new opportunities and frustration when said opportunities amount to nothing.

Just about any small and mid-sized agency struggles with the “what is” versus “what if” situation. There are only so many resources to spread around. If you find yourself in that situation more often than not, here are some suggestions for being true to the present and laying groundwork for the future:

  1. Be realistic about the volume of new business efforts you can pursue. Not everything is worth your time. Be exacting in your criteria about what is worth pursuing. Heck, for too many having any criteria at all is a big step forward. The more focus you have and the more that focus is based on a compelling strategy, the better your payoff will be when you devote resources.
  2. Be flexible. If you can’t support a full-time business development program, hire someone with flexible skills who can fulfill other functions when the hopper is too full. Agency marketing and public relations is one area of additional activity, as is maintaining the agency’s presence in social media venues. It goes hand-in-hand with new business. Another option is to consider outsourcing business development to a skilled consultant who works only on select assignments.
  3. Be seen. When it comes to scouting opportunities, being out in the marketplace is better than being behind a desk. Cold calling doesn’t cut it in agency business development. Trust me, it just doesn’t. Rather, send your new business pro to conferences and events when she/he will meet prospects, potential partners and, yes, even competitors. Your prospects are out there, not under the desk. The bonus of this is that your new business agent will be exposed to new ideas, including what the competition is doing.
  4. Be committed. When the need arises to pursue a prospect or pitch to them, make formal assignments of team members to help with research, strategy, creative concepting and pitch development. Perhaps one creative in particular can have this recurring assignment to ensure continuity. Make sure that those assigned treat this work on par with client work. Appoint a project manager to keep folks on task and on balance.
  5. Be clear. Don’t make the mistake of confusing responsibility with accountability for business development. Yes, everyone in the agency – leadership at the very least – has a responsibility to business development. But only one person should be accountable for it, whether it’s a team member assigned to the function or one of the senior leaders. And be sure to give the person with accountability enough authority to get the job done.
  6. Be generous. Finally, celebrate successes with everyone. When there’s a win, or even when you’ve moved ahead another round in a competitive pitch, make sure everyone feels the excitement and that thanks are liberally dispensed. That sense of collective accomplishment goes a long way toward getting your whole team to make the extra effort each time it’s required.

Is your agency getting all it can out of business development efforts? It depends.

November 11, 2009 in Uncategorized | Tags: , | 1 comment

An agency friend contacted me earlier this year (note that it is 2009) seeking advice on the performance of a recently hired new business lead. This particular new team member had been selected after an extensive search process, was given a revenue target that far out-matched anything the agency had achieved before, and had the distinct challenge of beginning the job just as the economy took its swan dive.

About six months into the position, there was significant concern that the new business person simply wasn’t cutting it. There had indeed been action, and that action yielded new client business in the very low six figures against a target that was in the low seven figures. But that action didn’t seem like traction so I was asked, “Is this acceptable performance?”

My short answer was “It depends.” In my longer answer, I tried to encourage self-reflection and analysis that would take into consideration whether the performance concerns were the sole responsibility of the new business person or whether there were some structural obstacles and misunderstandings about the way business development functions that complicated matters.

Here are highlights of that longer answer:

        1. Sign of the times: Have you taken the current economy into consideration? It’s tough, which could mean that you pitch broadly to generate revenue from whatever you can get (within reason) or narrowly because you only want the right business. Is anyone in agency leadership giving a clear signal on that, or have you empowered your new business talent to make that determination?
        2. Process makes perfect: Admittedly there is no perfection in business development, only the pursuit of it. Otherwise it wouldn’t be any fun. Likewise, an absence of process within the agency takes all of the fun and much of the likelihood of success out of the picture. Plenty of business development pros fancy themselves as swashbucklers of sorts, the heroic lone wolf who does the big deal on grit and determination alone. Piffle, I say. Even the best business development talent needs to get and participate in strategic and tactical direction. Moreover, there should be appropriate resources to pursue her/his efforts, like a consistent team of thinkers and creatives to bring that critical presentation to life. Business development needs to be part of the agency’s overall work flow process, with accommodations for the unique nature of the work. And above all, that work needs to be given a fair level of priority vis a vis  other work going through the system.
        3. The nature of new business part 1, quantity: Quantity and quality are often posed as mutually exclusive options. The truth of business development often is that both are desirable in proportionate measure. And that measure depends on the kind of business development activity that best drives your agency’s business model. Considering quantity first, how many new business activities conducted by this person in the past six months were (1) conversations (2) presentations and (3) actual business pitches/proposals? For a person new to a mid-level business development role, the number of activities in the first two categories should be reasonably high, while the third depends on how focused they are and what’s going on in the marketplace (i.e., you can’t get into a pitch if no clients are seeking agencies). If the activity level is respectable and assuming your person is articulate, then you next have to look at quality.
        4. The nature of new business part 2, quality: Whatever the volume, how on-target have business development activities been? Were they largely random or do they align strongly with the objectives of the agency? Has anybody yet said what those e are, aside from the revenue objectives? If you’re going to the right meetings and doing a good job of articulating your value proposition, then your average for new business — now and in the future — should be a bit higher. If you’re pitching into new categories — capabilities or industries — it might take time to get some traction. So long as the efforts are solid and tracking against priority objectives, this success rate could be appropriate.
        5. The future’s so bright, or not: Although the revenue number to date is low, are there signs that performance in the next six months will take off? A lot of business development is heavy on the “development” axis, especially when no one has done that in the past. That includes positioning the agency for future pitches, getting into relationships for when businesses need an agency and fine-tuning the agency’s value proposition. If that groundwork is being laid and it is being done well, then by all means give your colleague credit for that. The danger, however, is that some business development folks are more comfortable doing that type of work at the expense of pushing, pitching and producing. Earlier in my career when I was all about marketing and hadn’t organized a cohesive approach to revenue development, an experienced advisor declared to me that “you can’t market your way to sales success.” I didn’t understand his point at the time, but once I did it has been a lesson I have valued and referred to time and again.

        My final bit of advice is this: It would be money and time well spent by an agency to hire a consultant to help them wrap their heads around business development. Strategy, process, measurement and knowing what kind of talent you’re seeking to hire often don’t come naturally to small and even mid-sized agencies. Too much is at stake to make a bad hiring decision or to hire a high-quality person and then totally misunderstand how to take advantage of their contribution to the agency.

        Economic rebound is prime time for agencies to pursue business development do-over

        November 3, 2009 in Uncategorized | Tags: , , , | Leave a comment

        The economy is rebounding in many ways, so say the media and government economists. Wall Street is sure rolling in it again, so it can’t be long before all that upside starts to trickle down to the rest of us.

        And what industry needs it more than advertising and marketing? OK, automotive, travel, retail and many other sectors can lay claim to neediness. But my professional interests and bias make this all about the advertising-marketing sector, with agencies and in-house staff  notably hard hit in the downturn. Delayed product launches, suspended campaigns and deferred marketing programs have all taken their tolls.

        But this industry is about onward and upward, so it’s time to start firing the new business guns again. But wait. Before you take too many pot shots it’s also a time to consider a business development do-over, because there is no better opportunity to rethink how you pursue new clients than when the slate has been wiped more or less clean.

        What constitutes a new business do-over varies as much as individual agencies and their past practices. Yet there are some fundamentals that can apply to everyone. So take this business development do-over pledge with me and promise — hand over heart or wherever it matters most — to adhere to the following better-if-not-best practices.

        Each pledge point begins with We will:

        1. Treat new business as a core, strategic facet of our agency. Too often, new business efforts are the tail that wags the dog. And if not that, then the dog that goes hungry because the resource cupboard is bare. In the former case, new business efforts practiced without a strategy can yield a client portfolio that steers your agency in a direction it shouldn’t go. For example, winning projects because they’re easier to close when your agency is structured for long-term client relationships. In the latter case, many agencies expect great things from under-resourced and possibly under-qualified business development staff — and then feel frustrated when performance isn’t there. (Remind me to tell you a story about that later.)
        2. Systematically and honestly appraise our assets and expertise. Knowing who you are as an agency, what you do best, as well as who you want to be next (because the need to grow and adapt never ends) are critical variables to understanding how to plot and pursue new business. Above all — and I emphasize above all — make sure you take the time to know who is on your team: their talents and expertise, where they’ve been and who they know, and what kind of work energizes them. I emphasize this because your agency’s value proposition is, after all, nothing less than an expression of the collective abilities of your team.
        3. Thoughtfully choose a set of specific prospects based on the assessments and doggedly pursue them. Every organization needs collective goals to drive unity and motivate teams. What better driver than the shared pursuit of exciting and plausible new clients. I espouse the view that you should dedicate at least 75 percent of your outbound business development efforts to specific target prospects. Moreover, that target list should be universal internal knowledge and universally supported. If everyone knows and signs up for these shared-vision clients it makes it a lot easier to get them to do an all-nighter for the big pitch — and to do their very best to win it and serve once the client is in the door.
        4. Honestly evaluate, and be willing to take a pass on, any prospective business that falls outside our core strategy. Someone once told me that not every prospect that finds its way to your door is worth pursuing. Indeed, you not only have the right but the responsibility to qualify your prospects and retain control over who you will serve. Saying no to an opportunity isn’t foolish; it’s wise when done for the right reasons.
        5. Not allow prospects to dictate our best interests. Even when you get in the door at a desired prospect, it might not be the right time or project or circumstances to go for the win. Because if you think that clients are sometimes inscrutable, prospective clients can be ten times more difficult to read and manage. So, if you’re invited to an RFP first round with…let’s say nine other competitors, that should give you pause. Or if there is an incumbent and the review process feels a little odd, you might be being used as a straw man to get concessions from the current agency. Beware and act in your own best interests first.

        Of course, I didn’t come to understand these points from sitting in a classroom or by reading Advertising Age. The former would leave you utterly unprepared and the latter is of use only to the extent that it rounds out real-world experience. For each and every point above I could tell you some stories. And I promise to do that in the near future — while protecting the names of the innocent and guilty alike.

        Key questions for prospective clients (and yourself) when pitching new business

        October 25, 2009 in Uncategorized | Tags: , , | Leave a comment

        Like the previous post, “The wild and wacky world of RFPs,” this post has its origins in a set of tweets I released while pondering several new business pitches.

        I’ve been engaged in agency and marketing business development for a number of years and I can honestly say that the experience has not made me cynical. Yet it has made me highly discerning, far more straightforward (was that possible?) and grounded in the belief that agencies — and other businesses — must be exacting in the ways they pursue new clients. Especially when the work at hand is intellectual property and creative execution.

        Without further adieu, here are key questions I posted on Twitter — questions that should be high on your list as you consider pursuing a business opportunity and in the course of the chase:

        1. A great opening or early question either while assessing the opportunity or in the pitch (ask it twice to see what different people say): What’s changed in your business that has prompted this meeting (or process)?
        2. Ask this one early, before you commit to pursuing the business; the response will tell you a lot: Have you invested in research to guide strategy, creative decisions? Are you willing to? [Another Twitter crowd-pleaser.]
        3. Show your prospects some respect — and make sure they have skin in the game: What expertise, resources do you (the client) have that we will complement?
        4. A great closing question in a pitch meeting: When you’ve chosen the right agency, what does success look like? [This one was the crowd-pleaser of the batch on Twitter.]

        By no means do I represent this list of questions as exhaustive. Many other questions are more obvious and routine, and even others are dependent upon the set of circumstances surrounding the opportunity. I offered these four because they are points of prospect engagement that are often left unspoken, they need to be part of your opportunity assessment criteria, asking them can help differentiate you in a pitch, and most of all because they were top of mind for me as I considered several possible engagements.

        I will continue to focus on issues and information related to creative agency business development, agency innovation and organization culture both here an on Twitter (@AgencyBabylon).

        The wild and wacky world of RFPs

        October 22, 2009 in Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , | Leave a comment

        1deepthoughtsI’m rounding up a few sets of recent tweets about business development that might be the most insightful things going or could sound like that “deep thoughts” guy, Jack Handey. You decide, but I can assure you that there are indeed deeper thoughts to the tweets.

        The first round of tweets represents principles and process considerations when presented with — or confronted by — a request for proposal (RFP) from a prospective client. These are written in Twitter shorthand to retain their authentic patina:

        • By the time RFP is issued the dialogue has begun. ALWAYS submit RFP questions to prospects when they offer the option.
        • RFP asks for innovation but budget says bare bones. Redefine innovation and show how it can mean efficiency, integration.
        • When RFP asks for armchair strategy w/ no context, define context & answer in those parameters. Then recommend research as phase 1. [This tweet got the most response from followers and is a bedrock principle of mine.]
        • When responding to new biz RFP, is there value in knowing the competitive set? How often do your prospects share?

        These tweets prompted a welcome communique via Twitter from David Kutcher (@confluentforms), who is founder of the company Confluent Forms and the highly touted RFP Database. He referred me to a post on his blog, “We seek RFPs for Innovation, not Inspiration.”

        That post was perfectly aligned with my Twitter-based musings, and is a must-read for anyone responsible for parsing the intent of an RFP and guiding his or her company through the process. And that includes the process of deciding whether responding is in your best interests.

        Would I lie to you? Week of 10/12/2009

        October 12, 2009 in Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 comment

        Would I lie to you is a rolling roundup of news, rumors and resources for, by and about the Minneapolis-St. Paul advertising and marketing community. Updates are posted daily as information becomes available and passes the Agency Babylon is-it-good-enough-to-post test.

        Posted October 15:

        • The Creative Group, an employment placement company serving the marketing and advertising sectors nationwide, is touting a jobs recovery in the creative sector. An October 1 news release asserts that slightly more than one-third of hiring execs  plan to add staff in the coming 12 months. Another 55 percent say they’ll hold staffing at current levels. The two numbers combined suggest an end to the jobs freefall in the sector. The strongest job categories that can expect a resurgence are interactive and design. Research and writing positions are lower on the must-hire list.
        • Redcats USA, a home shopping retailer with 11 brands including Sportsman’s Guide, is searching for an SVP of e-commerce.

        Posted October 14:

        • At a time when media planning and buying is more powerful than ever in advertising, Campbell Mithun has decided to get both feet back in the game. Or maybe it’s that they’ve decided to put both feet on the same body. On October 12, the Twin Cities’ (still) largest traditional ad agency announced that it had merged its media department with its Compass Point Media Group. Key players in that unit: Dick Hurrelbrink as president, Earl Herzog as executive vice president director of media operations, and John Rash remaining as senior vice president and director of media analysis.
        • More Twitter resources for job search, advertising and marketing specific: @MNHeadHunter, @thejobsguy and @TalentZooJobs.
        • Deluxe Corporation is offering numerous discounts to individuals and businesses via Twitter only, from business cards and holiday cards to checks. If you’re not on Twitter, here is your cheater link: @deluxecorp. (Hope they don’t unfollow me for this.)
        • Agency and marketing recruiter Donna Menzies is heading a search for an art director with strong conceptual skills and supervisory experience.

        Posted October 12:

        • OLSON promoted Jeff Berg to creative director from associate CD, according to a report from Minnesota Public Relations blog.
        • Joe Duffy, legendary Twin Cities brand and design guru and founder of Duffy & Partners is guest blogger today on the Fast Company blog. Read his post, “Demystifying Design: An Argument for Simplicity”.
        • The UnSummit in Minneapolis on Saturday is said to have been an unqualified hit. Like its for-fee MIMA Summit counterpart early the same week, this for-free all-day session was sold out. A dusting of snow and coating of ice kept at least a few attendees away, and even resulted in broken bones for blogger and Twitter presence @KayLoire. Well wishes to her as she recovers in a cast.
        • Twitter continues to be a valuable, if unconventional, source of job postings. There remains a spirit of community sharing (and maybe just a little one-upmanship) among individual members showing the love to their tweeps for rumored and real openings. Yet there are also fast-growing Twitter resources solely devoted to available jobs. Among them are @HRjobsMPLS, @hashjobs and @ZuluJobsMN. Keep in mind that these some of them post jobs from all over the country while others regionalize their listings.

        Have news, rumors or resources to share? Submit them via the comments section, by e-mail or on Twitter to @AgencyBabylon.

        In a highly connected world, six degrees of separation just isn’t as far as it used to be

        October 8, 2009 in Uncategorized | Tags: , , , | Leave a comment

        Kevin_BaconYou all know the expression “six degrees of separation” and probably have a working understanding of its meaning. It’s something like this: the distance between any two people in the world is six human relationships.

        Used to be that level of connectivity was a source of wonder, as in, “Wow, are we connected or what?!”

        With the proliferation of social media, the wonders of web search and always-on communications, embracing six degrees as an awe-inspiring measure of human interrelatedness is simply quaint.

        Feedback to a recent blog post brought that home and has me pondering how many degrees apart we really are, and how to manage the reality that six degrees just isn’t what it used to be.

        First, a summary of events that prompted this topic. Agency Babylon carried a post a few months back about changes in a local agency. The changes were notable, not yet widely known but definitely alive on the street. Now, Agency Babylon just happens to know some folks at that agency. Yet contrary to what you might think, these people were not sources for the blog post. Unfortunately, some of them came under suspicion by their bosses who, to be fair, were just trying to manage their internal matters a bit less publicly. So a bit of awkwardness ensued, which in due course I learned about from sources (once again) connected to but not in said agency.

        That minor episode has led me to a major rethinking of communications conduct in a heavily connected world. Let’s examine it from two perspectives: the communicator of information (that would be me in the example I shared) and stakeholders in the dissemination of that information (that would be the agency owners and managers, the departing staff and my internal friends).

        For information communicators:

        1. We’re more findable and knowable than ever. I have this blog, for example. I’m also active on LinkedIn and Facebook, use Twitter frequently, have Ning and Twitpic accounts, recently posted a Google profile, often serve as a professional/media contact for my company, and generate an interesting mix of Google search results from activities in years gone by. Not only can you find me, you can begin to assemble a narrative about who I am, mistakenly or not, based on what you find.
        2. What we say and write and do is more public than ever. That means that what I write, say and do is easily searched and shared, even when I’m not doing the sharing. In social media marketing, that is a desired outcome, as it is in professional networking. Ergo all the tips about optimizing online profiles, taking a public stance via Twitter and blogs, and aggressively networking far and wide.
        3. The portability and sometimes ubiquity of words and deeds might have unintended outcomes, good and bad. In my case, the bad was that friends without blame fell under suspicion even though I tried to mitigate that possibility by holding my powder on the information for more than a month. Conversely, in the best of social networking we promote and support our friends, like driving traffic to their blogs or job-search profiles.
        4. Communicate socially as if you’re a marketer. Be intentional about your online and social media participation. You might be a professional marketer of some stripe and know to do this in the context of your job. But carry it through when you’re communicating your personal brand as well. There are endless examples of people who failed to do this on YouTube and Facebook and elsewhere, only to find themselves suspended from school, scorned at work or ostracized in social circles. Be aware of the potential impact of your post, tweet or status update in the context of your entire wired presence. That single post or tweet might seem harmless, and you might know that it is a real departure for you. Yet it could color someone’s perception of who you are. And as in my case it could roil waters, no matter how well-intentioned the communique.

        For information stakeholders:

        1. You no longer own and control all the conversations about your stuff. With all the sources and portability of information do you really think you still rule the roost — even when it’s your own information? You absolutely have the right to control dialogue around proprietary, personnel and otherwise highly privileged information. And I hope you do it well. But rumors have been around since the dawn of communication, it’s just that it’s now possible for someone to propagate those rumors on YouTube in a video parody. Embrace the reality of that.
        2. You can and should significantly drive the conversation, but only when doing so really matters. Don’t fuss. Don’t fume. Monitor. Learn. Participate. Shape. Not every conversation about your company or brands, whether internal scuttlebutt or external messaging, has the same priority. Monitor and participate in all that you can, but leave others to run their own course. There’s an old saying about taking a chill pill. Get a prescription with lots of refills.
        3. “I don’t care what they say about me so long as they spell my name right.” That’s another old saying, and while we no longer feel we have the luxury of its literal meaning there’s much to learn from its figurative intent.
        4. Those you consider to be the usual suspects…usually aren’t anymore. Again referring to my situation, the agency in question jumped to a conclusion that was wrong. Not only were they surprised by the information being public (how very naive of them) they assumed that my first-tier friendships were the sources. In fact, the information came from third-tier connections. Reliable and highly accurate ones but none with direct personal or professional ties to me. So in the zeal to manage information, take a deep breath before accusing anyone of indiscretion. Consider first whether it matters that the information has become public. Then decide if it matters in a good, neutral or negative way. If the information is not truly top secret, forget about recriminations and go back to point number 2 and act accordingly.

        As a reward for getting this far in the post and pondering these pointers, here is a link to the Wikipedia entry about the trivia game Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon.

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