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Planet of Sound

I’m no musician, but I’m a voracious consumer of music. I love (mostly) all kinds; if you were to scroll through my iTunes library, you’d see just about everything. Music is so powerful because of the emotion it can elicit – joy, despair, fear, comfort. I will spend hours crafting the perfect playlist for every aspect of my life, every variable and situation – songs to play when I’m sad and want to feel happy; songs to play when I’m sad and want to wallow in my sadness. (Don’t worry, I make happy playlists, too.) I can associate most of the major moments in my life with music – either because I was listening to something meaningful right around the time the event happened, or because in hindsight I created an association between the song and the event in my mind.

I don’t think I’m the only one who does this; Apple revolutionized an entire industry based on the idea that people want music in every aspect of their lives – who wouldn’t want to carry “1000 songs in your pocket?”

One of the best illustrations I’ve ever seen about how music is so powerful that it can change the feeling of a visual came from an odd little site I found years ago, and recently re-discovered during the hard drive clean-up of an old computer. (Aren’t old bookmark lists great?) I present to you: dooku.net.

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Tribes and Languages

One of my team members (a marketing communications specialist, and a very good one) had a frustrating experience this morning in dealing with one of our Information Technology department colleagues.

It’s that time of year when public companies report on their earnings; our earnings call for the past quarter will feature a new webcast component, which my team is supporting. My teammate (let’s call her Mary) was trying to troubleshoot the webcast setup with our colleague in IT (whom we’ll call John for giggles). She’s a very smart person, and she’s pretty tech savvy – but she’s not immersed in IT, not at the depth John is. Mary had real difficulty communicating with John because he would answer her questions, asked in pragmatic, layperson terms, with long, jargon-laden explanations that didn’t help her understand what was going on or how to fix it.

I got the impression from her, as she debriefed and vented to me after it had all been worked out, that if John had used language at the ‘level’ of IT language that Mary understood, and perhaps had been a little more interested in solving the problem than demonstrating his competence, it would have been a far smoother, faster, and less frustrating experience for her. Empathetic to her experience – I’ve been there before myself, and haven’t we all? – I nodded my head knowingly, and commiserated with her about those know-it-all, superior IT people.

And then I read this article in my news feed this afternoon – 31 Fluffy Buzzwords Marketers Overuse – and I wondered, how often am I guilty of this myself?

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Will this Twttr thing ever catch on?

During one of those web searches where you get lost in a series of interesting links several dozen clicks deep, I came across this article from July 2006 detailing the introduction of a new service called “Twttr.”

I wonder what author Michael Arrington thinks today, five and a half years later, about this piece. While the headline of the article is the simple, factual “Odeo Releases Twttr,” the URL file name of the article is “Is Twttr Interesting?” (question mark implied). With 300M users, 200M tweets per day, and 1.6B search queries per day, I think the answer to Arrington’s implied question is an unequivocal and enthusiastic “yes!” Twitter founder Jack Dorsey recalled that the name Twitter (shortened to Twttr, due to the 5-character limit of SMS “short codes”) referred to “a short burst of inconsequential information,” but with this kind of adoption and use, Twitter is anything but inconsequential. With it’s real-time, user-generated content, it has become my – along with many others – first place to check in order to get the pulse of what’s interesting and recent, if not always factual or relevant.

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Streaming the Big Game

Interesting – for the first time ever, the NFL is allowing the Super Bowl to be streamed online. According to NBC, the live stream will provide enhanced features, such as additional camera angles, in-game highlights, updated statistics, and other interactive elements.

It might actually be more fun and interesting to watch the live streamed version instead of the cable / satellite broadcast. I’m going to see if we can watch both at the party I’m going to, to compare and contrast the coverage.

If the online viewing experience continues to improve, and even surpasses the broadcast experience, I wonder how that’ll change how consumers prefer to watch the game?

Of course, since it’s web-based – I would imagine that they will be gathering data about how many people watch online, where they are, and how they watch. Given that the average at-home Super Bowl viewer will spend $64 per person on snacks and gear (about $11B in total), this consumer demographic data is very valuable indeed.

PS – go Pats!

Why I Love Boston, #1

We have some of the best medical care in not on the United States, but the world as well.

Not only is this a good place to make a living if you’re into healthcare, medical education, or biotechnology (and since that’s my career niche, it’s one of the many reasons I stay in this area), it’s a great place to receive medical care. We have a tremendous culture of healthcare quality and innovation – from the excellent medical schools and teaching hospitals, to the technology companies that develop advances in delivering that care. I have various members of my family that need to see specialists, and it’s tremendously comforting to know that within half an hour, we have access to some of the best thought leaders in medicine.

Stories like this one not only make me proud to be in this state and in this field; they’re also a great pick-me-up. Working in the medical industry in any capacity is challenging; but it’s nice to see what makes it all worth while in the end.

Waning hope, a 6-organ transplant, life anew.

“A 9-year-old Maine girl will leave Children’s Hospital Boston today, three months after transplant surgeons replaced five of her abdominal organs and her esophagus to save her from a rare and aggressive cancer.”

Location and Availability

A friend of mine described his experience in trying to get a cup of coffee early in the morning at an airport. There’s an interesting observation he made that I think is worth sharing and reflecting on a bit.

If you’re an early-morning traveler, getting a cup of coffee is a common enough desire – right? It’s the crack of dawn, you have a long day of road-warrior battling ahead of you, and a tasty beverage might just be the thing to kickstart  your day. If you’re a purveyor of coffee, wouldn’t the airport be a great place to set up shop? A reasonably consistent daily demand; a captive audience with limited options; motivated buyers. Selling coffee to early-morning airline travelers should be an easy thing.

My friend, Gil Rogers (@gilrogers of @NMFathersLost) was just such a traveler. 5:15 AM, a day of travel ahead of him, he’s ready for a cup. Passing through security, there are three coffee places in sight:

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Social Media, Gone Wrong (?)

It’s stories like these that scare many companies – mine included – about getting too heavily involved with social media.

About a week ago, McDonalds – certainly a well-recognized brand – launched a Twitter campaign that was meant to draw positive attention to the brand by inviting followers to:

Meet some of the hard-working people dedicated to providing McDs with quality food every day #McDStories. mcd.to/zEckNn

On Twitter, a hashtag is the combination of the hash sign, #, and a keyword or keywords, incorporated into a tweet. The hashtag automatically creates a link, so that when you click on a hashtag, Twitter shows you a list of all tweets incorporating that hashtag. This helps keep readers up-to-date with topics that are trending on Twitter. What I’m seeing more and more of are organizations and events promoting specific hashtags to create a ‘community within a community’ for Twitter users interested in specific topics.

McDonald’s was promoting the use of two hashtags – one called #meetthefarmers and one called #mcdstories. The tweets including these hashtags linked to a page on McDonald’s site that offers feel-good profiles and stories about their various suppliers. Apparently, the tweet was meant to invite followers to contribute their own McDonald’s stories.

And boy, did they ever.

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And Now, A Moment of Zen

As much as I love all things techy – both the useful implementation of technology, as well as gadgets for gadgets’ sake – I’m also a big fan of the outdoors. Growing up in New England, within a relatively short drive I had access to oceans, mountains, forests, rivers, and fields, each one a different experience as the seasons changed – pretty much an outdoorsman’s paradise. First with the Scouts, and then later with friends and family, I’ve always enjoyed getting outside. It’s beautiful in a way that man-made things, which can also be beautiful, can never be. It can bring peace and adventure, in the same day if I so choose. And while I love sharing outdoor experiences with others, for me it’s also a great place to find personal solitude and gives me an incredible opportunity for reflection.

Ranger’s cabin, Indian Henry meadows, in Mt. Rainier National Park, Washington, USA. Courtesy Eric Nagle, www.cabinporn.com.

So don’t mind the name – it’s not really “porn” – but be sure to check out Cabin Porn. If it’s a stressful day, and  you see me sort of zoning out and staring off into space, there’s a good chance I’m thinking about heading out to one of these places.

The Fundamentals and the Ham

This is an old photo that takes an annual spin around the Internet every December, it seems. According to Snopes, the photo was taken in December 2007 at a Greenwich Village, NY grocery store – by a perhaps well-intentioned but somewhat ignorant employee.

Ham - Delicious for Chanukah!

Ham - Delicious for Chanukah!

There’s a great lesson for marketers here – even experienced ones. Know your audience, know what drives them, and don’t make assumptions about them.

You can never, ever go wrong by reminding yourself of the basics, of the foundations. Perhaps many marketers don’t think explicitly of the 4 P’s and 4 C’s of marketing – and maybe we haven’t for years. Sure, we may have developed habits or plans or other proxies that make sure we use those processes, but when’s the last time you viewed your marketing plans through the lens of the 4 P’s?

In my current team, we have over 75 years of marketing experience – a great team of seasoned marketers who know their stuff inside and out. Yet, we routinely stop and reflect, and constantly evaluate our plans against the basics. It’s too easy to get caught up in the novelty of Twitter, or the design of a new print piece, and perhaps lose sight a little bit of the “meat” of the initiative. Who’s the customer? What do they want? What do we want them to do?

If the store clerk in Greenwich Village truly knew his or her customers, this particular gaffe wouldn’t have gotten made. I don’t want to be the guy who offered ham to the wrong audience at the wrong time. A regular return to the fundamentals just might be the thing that saves my bacon.

Talking ‘Bout My Generation

Although the exact start and end dates seem to be a little subjective, I’m certainly right in the middle of “Generation X.” Thought to be the 13th generation to live in America since the Revolutionary War, my generation was shaped by our reaction to our Boomer parents; by the energy crisis of the late 70s; by the end of the Cold War and the rise of regular space exploration; by the introduction of the home computer and AIDS and alternative rock. Our parents were divorced nearly as often as they were together; we let ourselves into our homes after school with keys; and now we’re making less than our parents did at an equivalent age. We were there for the birth of MTV, and we remember when it used to show music videos.

But we’ve moved on from our flannels and Doc Martens and Cure albums, and now we’re parents and middle managers, and we find it hard to believe that it’s been 20 years since we waited in a line at midnight to purchase the latest Pearl Jam album (which you could get on cassette or this new CD format).

And because we lived through Reagan to Bush to Clinton to Bush II, and survived the wars on drugs and Iraq (twice), not to mention the dot-com bubble bursting – we don’t want to hear how bad other generations have it.

So I submit for your reading pleasure a (mostly) tongue-in-cheek response to a recent New York Magazine piece describing the travails of the millennial generation…

Generation X Doesn’t Want to Hear It.

Overheard on the MBTA

I had a couple of events to attend to in Boston today, and for various reasons it was going to be easier to park at one of the subway stations on the edge of town and use the T to get around. Since the MBTA is doing work on the Red Line on weekends this spring, they’ve replaced part of the subway line with a surface bus service.

Sitting across from me was a young family – mom, dad, and two boys probably around 5 or 6. As we passed through Somerville, mom and dad were pointing out places they’d lived and worked when they were younger. As we passed the Rosebud Diner, a traditional dining-car style diner, I overheard this exchange:

Little Kid 1: (in wonderment) “Is that a food bus?”

Little Kid 2: (excited) “A food bus would be awesome!”

Little Kid 1: (forlornly) “I wish we were riding a food bus…”

 

(Having missed lunch, I couldn’t agree with him more. I’ve never eaten in that kind of diner, and would love to – and Yelp! gives the Rosebud a decent review…)

I Got To Say It Was A Good Day

You probably wouldn’t realize it upon first meeting me, but I’m a big aficionado of more ‘classic’ rap and hip-hop, from the 80s and 90s. I can’t remember how or where I heard it, but the first rap I heard was Public Enemy’s “Rebel Without A Pause.” I had an average, middle-class, suburban-bordering-on-rural, very much Caucasian childhood in our sleepy Massachusetts hometown, so this isn’t something that I was normally exposed to – but in spite of (or perhaps because of) my upbringing, I recognized that not only was rap musically interesting, with layered beats and samples, but also lyrically powerful. While I couldn’t quite directly relate to PE and NWA, it was clear that there were messages and stories here, powerful ones – expressions of emotion that were pure and, despite Tipper’s PMRC, works of art.

Now that I’m older, I still enjoy this sort of music (and many other kinds, too – I’m as much into 80s New Wave and 90s Grunge as I am rap), and get a kick out of inserting a subtle but relevant rap lyric into daily conversation, and seeing who picks up on it. :-)

So I was delighted when my friend Andy sent me this link from Murk Avenue – where Donovan Strain used lyrical clues in Ice Cube’s “It Was A Good Day” to find out just what day it was that Mr. Cube enjoyed so thoroughly.

You can read all the research here, but to summarize: based upon the weather in LA, the L.A. Laker’s wins, the proliferation of beepers, and MTV’s programming schedule, it would seem that January 20, 1992 was a good day, according to Ice Cube.

I’m just mad that I missed the 10th anniversary observance of National Good Day Day by a week. I’ve already got it marked off on the calendar for 2013. Now – what’s a good way to celebrate National Good Day Day…?

 

National Politics and #85: A Lesson in Citizenship

New England Patriots (Go Pats!) wide receiver Chad Ochocinco is a colorful character – née Chad Johnson, he hasn’t had a great season with the Pats, but he’s made a name for himself in other ways. He competed on, and was then eliminated from, Dancing with the Stars; he has tried out for soccer, ridden bulls, and hosted wrestling matches; and he tried to find love on VH1. When he first came to Boston, he wanted to crash with a fan for a few weeks. (This is in addition to the formal, legal name change from Johnson to his jersey number.)

He’s also an enthusiastic Tweep, and he’s generally a good read. Especially when he decides to live-tweet the State of the Union Address.

I’m conflicted. Part of me feels discouraged and saddened that a 35-year-old man doesn’t know the basics of American government that the average Cub Scout knows. On the other hand, there’s an almost charming naivety about his stream-of-consciousness observations. It’s sort of cute to watch him learn, to piece it all together. And in a bit of a surreal conclusion to the whole affair, #85 ends up conversing directly with Speaker Boehner (whom, Chad notices, seems sad and angry throughout the event).

Chad doesn't immediately recognize Speaker Boehner..

...but he proves to accurately gauge the Speaker's mood that evening.

Ochocinco successfully puts partisian differences aside.

Even celebrities get butterflies when other celebrities notice them.

In the end, I guess I’m a little more charmed than disgusted. Chad seemed to learn something throughout the process, and no doubt there were some among his 3+ million followers who needed a little civics refresh, too.

Only Handle It Once…

I’ve tried several times over the years to develop better work habits, in terms of how I organize things, prioritize tasks, etc. The “OHIO” (Only Handle It Once) method is an intriguing system for streamlining a work day while making sure that nothing falls through the cracks. I’ve used it more or less successfully over time; perhaps not always religiously or rigidly, but with increasing consistency. Again, going back to the idea of developing systems for continuous improvement, I think it’s a decent one to try to adopt.

Life as a Healthcare CIO: Only Handle It Once (OHIO)

The FDA and Social Media Guidelines for Industry

Pharma and medical device marketers have been waiting for social media guidelines from the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for years. An initial set of hearings were held in November 2009, but formal guidance has been slow in coming. (The first of what will most likely be several position papers has been released, “Responding to Unsolicited Requests for Off-Label Information About Prescription Drugs and Medical Devices.“)

In the meantime, marketing departments have had to rely on common sense (don’t laugh!) and strong partnerships with their legal and regulatory counterparts to bridge the gap between responsible medical marketing and effective, engaging marketing.

I don’t think that the gap needs to be all that wide; effective and compliant aren’t mutually-exclusive options. In my own state, our industry council has offered several presentations on this topic over the past few years, and early in February is facilitating a working group to help develop and promote some best practices while we await the more formal guidance from Washington. I’m excited to have been asked to be a part of that panel, and I’m looking forward to sharing some more thoughts on the topic after our meeting.

In the meantime:

WSJ: FDA Has (Some) Social Media Advice For Pharma

A response from Digitas Health: Responding to Unsolicited Requests Via Social Media

A Thought for January 16

“Change does not roll in on the wheels of inevitability, but comes through continuous struggle. And so we must straighten our backs and work for our freedom. A man can’t ride you unless your back is bent.”
-Martin Luther King, Jr.

Your Voice Will Give You Away

“It’s extremely difficult to read a speech and sound as if you mean it.”

As usual, Seth nails it.

I think we’ve all experienced the difference between a presentation delivered with energy and credibility, and a dispassionate reading of someone’s work. What a difference it makes!

Seth’s Blog: Your voice will give you away.

10 Great Books to Help You Think, Create, and Communicate Better in 2012

Garr Reynolds was kind enough to start my 2012 reading list. I have been a big fan of his Presentation Zen, Presentation Zen Design, and The Naked Presenter books. In both my line of work, and my personal interests, I oftentimes have to either give – or sit through – all manner of presentations. I’ve seen great ones, and I’ve seen horrible ones. As this became a regular part of my day-to-day experience, I resolved to adopt systems in my life that would help ensure that more often than not, the presentations I was responsible for develop or giving would be effective, engaging, enlightening, and even entertaining.

If being on either side of the stage – presenter or audience – is a regular part of your life, I’d suggest checking Garr’s ideas out. In addition to his own work, this reading list has filled up my Kindle and should carry me well into 2012. I’m looking forward to all of these.

Garr Reynolds: 10 great books to help you think, create, & communicate better in 2012.

Tweenbots?

This little public art / social experiment really made me smile. I love the intersection between art and science.

“Tweenbots are human-dependent cardboard robots that navigate the city with the help of pedestrians they encounter. Rolling at a constant speed, in a straight line, Tweenbots have a destination displayed on a flag, they rely on people they meet to read this flag and to aim them in the right direction…”

To Do My Duty To God and the Queen…

I’m glad that the Duchess has followed my example and that of many of my friends. ;-)

Kate Middleton joins the Scouts: Ex-Brownie to help with cooking and campfires

“The Duchess of Cambridge is to become a volunteer helper at her local scout group as part of a new package of royal patronages. Kate will wear the Scout Association’s distinctive blue shirt, scarf and famous woggle as she lends a hand at meetings close to the rented farmhouse she shares with Prince William on Anglesey.”

The UK Scout Association had earlier appointed adventurer-celebrity Bear Grylls to the traditional position of “Chief Scout.” Hopefully between the Man vs. Wild star and the future Queen of England, their influence will help raise support for what I consider to be one of the best programs available for young people. What I found really sad is that due to the shortage of leaders in England, over 33,000 young people can’t be Scouts yet. I’m confident that the Duchess of Cambridge’s influence will help those young people find leaders very soon.