mktg@msft

Dave Devries's Monster Engine

Because I'm a dad with three kids in elementary school, I have the pleasure of seeing my kids develop their artistic skills. 

Dave Devries takes this a step further, taking kids pictures of monsters and adding his own touches.  Brilliant!  Check out Dave Devries's Monster Engine, or buy the book!

Blink author Malcom Gladwell Visits Microsoft

Malcom Gladwell, author of "The Tipping Point" came to Microsoft to speak about his new book, "Blink : The Power of Thinking Without Thinking." 

The room was packed, and everyone there was fascinated with his examples of the follies of trusting "traditional" decision making.  The examples he gave were aimed at questioning traditional market research methods.  He wonders how marketers can trust customers to make judgments based on an artificial environment (sitting around a table responding to "what if" scenarios), and offer insight into thinking processes that are complex and emotional, not logical and linear. 

It's why getting out into the environment of the customer is so critical.  No survey or focus group or interview will give you answers to the critical "why" questions.  Living in the environment, watching how customers use your product when they think nobody is watching, that's the way to learn how your product is being used. 

I wondered: Will digital technology ever allow us to really learn how and why and when our products are being used?  And can we balance privacy with transparent observation?  Should we try? 

Another quick topic came up in the Q&A portion of the speech.  Someone asked about interviews, and how a hiring manager can make good "snap judgments" about a candidate.  Malcom stated that interviews were one of the worst ways to find out about an employee, unless 1) they were being hired to answer questions in interviews, or 2) you were interested in hiring someone you might later try to pick up on, since you can tell whether or not you're attracted to someone in a very short time. 

One point of the book is that often we rely on too much information, our own prejudices, past incidences in our own lives, reliance on others' opinions, or facts and figures that shouldn't play into our decisions. 

At the opposite end, we don't trust our guts enough when we should.  I often conduct my employee interviews in a free-flow manner, seeking mostly to get a sense of a person's character--to see if I think they'd be a good fit with the team.  While I may not accurately judge if someone has actually done what they claim on a resume, I can get a sense of "team fit" after a short time. 

I saw Robert Scoble there, and he offers his comments (and the attached photo). 

Fascinating topic. I look forward to reading the entire book. 

(Photo: Gladwell signing books, taken by Robert Scoble)

Al Ries Comments

Al Ries stopped by to comment on the last post:

"Microsoft should get a lot of credit for using Xbox, a new brand name, for its videogame player. We have said so in a number of articles. And certainly using Zbox for a product with little change would be a mistake.

On the other hand, we would recommend that Microsoft introduce a next generation game player which is truly revolutionary. That's the only way to overtake PlayStation."

Therein lies the challenge! Do you strengthen the Xbox "branch" while further diverging from the "video game console" trunk, or diverge from the Xbox branch by coming out with something entirely new? How much emphasis goes to "better" versus "different"?

The Origin of Brands Book Tour

I had the chance to ask Laura Ries a few questions about her latest book, "The Origin of Brands." I really enjoyed reading the book, but I especially enjoyed hearing Laura's thoughts about our business. Here are my questions, and her answers.

I’m part of the Xbox PR team, and our group is involved in communicating the positioning of the Xbox brand. Even though this book doesn’t go into detail about the role PR plays in evolving a brand, I’d love to hear a summary of “The Fall of Advertising & The Rise of PR” as it relates to “The Origin of Brands.”

1. What should PR do before a brand launches (a divergent brand), and after a brand launches (evolution).

The Xbox generated an enormous amount of publicity, thanks in part to your advance introduction of the brand, some 18 months before it was available for sale. This is the point we made repeatedly in our book, “The Fall of Advertising & the Rise of PR.”

The Xbox, however, wasn’t the first in the next generation of videogame players. PlayStation and PlayStation 2 were first. To build a strong No. 2 brand, you need to be the opposite of the leader which is one of the key ideas in “The Origin of Brands.” Coca-Cola is for older people, so Pepsi-Cola became the cola for younger people. This is the position the Xbox needs to occupy.

The book points out that Microsoft was first in consumer operating systems, but many of our successful product lines are actually second-place products. I might argue that Office (at the time Word or Excel) WERE divergent because they were based on a GUI (graphical user interface) rather than text (like Lotus 1-2-3 and WordPerfect/WordStar). But other products (Money, Encarta, Picture It!) were #2 in their space, and weren’t necessarily divergent, though they had some innovative features, different design, and perhaps more marketing muscle.

2. How can 2nd place brands become first place products (effectively strengthen the “branch” of a brand) when evolving?

Microsoft perhaps is a special case. Very seldom do No. 2 brands overtake the leader. Burger King did not overtake McDonald’s. Avis did not overtake Hertz.

Microsoft was helped by its enormous market share in operating systems. In addition, many of its competitors made poor marketing decisions. Lotus, for example, wasted years building an OS/2 version of their 1-2-3 spreadsheet when they should have been building a Windows version.

3. Xbox is a strong brand, but it closely competes with another incredibly strong brand, PS2. Apart from a feature or marketing war, how would you recommend designing or marketing the next version of Xbox to most effectively ensure its success? Is this a good case of Microsoft playing in a standards war? Much of the success of Xbox could be explained with our divergence in online game play. For example, our tagline is “it’s good to play together” while PS2’s is “live in your world, play in ours”.

Both taglines are meaningless and could be interchanged. But that’s not untypical. Most taglines are that way.

As far as the next version of Xbox is concerned, Microsoft should think “new generation.” Make the product as different as possible from the current product. You might even give it a new name.

Our suggestion: Zbox.

We hear about “Convergence” all the time (you quote Bill Gates on p. 49). SmartPhones combine mobile phones with PDAs with music players with cameras. Media Center PCs are full PCs that also play and record TV, store music, etc. Even the Xbox has a DVD player and an Ethernet connection for voice and video chat over a broadband connection.

4. How do you explain the strong emphasis on convergence, and the success of some items like camera phones (for example)? Maybe it’s seen as a new kind of phone (diverging from phones), but not really a new or better “camera”, rather than real convergence. Oh, and what about Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups (“hey, you got your chocolate in my peanut butter!”)?

In some cases, convergence is useful because of “convenience.” Almost all gas stations have a mini-mart connected to them. Does that mean all groceries will be sold in convenience stores? No, it’s only a small part of the market.

Invariably convergence products represent only a small part of the market. The camera phone is only about 15 percent of the cellphone market, for example.

5. How can an individual employee make a difference in positioning a company’s brand, especially if they’re not the one responsible for the brand strategy?

That’s your most difficult issue. Give it your best shot. Try as hard as you can to get the brand going in the right direction. If not, you may have to change jobs.

I did. I worked for the advertising agency TBWA and after awhile, I found that the agency and I were going in totally different directions, so I quit. Now I have a great job and a super partner. And as a consultant we get to give companies tough advice about how to best position their brands.

Stay tuned for more of the book tour!

October 11th - 800-CEO-READ

October 12th - John Porcaro

October 13th - David Paull - Dial.Log

October 14th - BusinessPundit

October 15th - CrossRoads Dispatches

October 18th - Learned on Women

October 19th - What's Your Brand Mantra

October 20th - WonderBranding

The Origin of Brands Book Tour

A few weeks ago, Laura Ries sent me a copy of a book she co-authored with her business partner and father, Al Ries, called "The Origin of Brands." I've really enjoyed reading it, and have learned a lot about building and selling innovative products. I'm also a big fan of natural history (particularly Steven Jay Gould), so this book's spin on Darwin's theories was fascinating.

One of the first business books I read was Marketing Warfare, back in 1988, while I worked at Sun Microsystems. I was a marketing geek even then.

On Tuesday, Laura and Al will be guests on this site, answering a few questions I have after reading the book. I've asked them questions about how they would position the Xbox brand, the role PR plays in the evolution of a brand, the role individual marketers can play. I'm really looking forward to hearing their answers.

The 5th Business Blog Book Book Tour starts Monday at 800-CEOREAD, with stops along the way at Jennifer Rice's Brand Mantra, Michelle Miller's Wonderbranding, and other popular blogs. Come along!

Sethanized

Jackie Huba is right. Johnnie Moore hits the nail on the head: Sethaholism is an addiction. Consider me Sethanized.

Bull Market

Newsletter guru and blogger Debbie Wiel sends a weekly email called WordBiz that always has something interesting to say (it's one of the very few newsletters I read). She reminds me this week that Seth Godin has a new ebook out in advance of next's week's release of Free Prize Inside. Bull Market will give you a synopsis of Purple Cow and Free Prize Inside, and adds a list of companies that can "help you make something happen."

Bull Market includes a great list of blogs, including a few that I visit regularly, like Doc Searles, Church of the Customer, Adverblog, Sales Process Diva, Johnnie Moore, Occupational Adventure, Debbie's Blog, Marketing Driven, Brand Mantra, WonderBranding, Adrants, Decent Marketing, Ensight, and Marketing Driven. I didn't make the blog list (ahem, Seth...), but did make it in the book, in the list of Buzz Agents on page 29.

Free Prize Inside!

I just got my copy of Seth Godin's new book, Free Prize Inside. I was eagerly anticipating getting the new, innovative, highly-collectable package, a custom cereal box containing the book. Seth is becoming known for creating interesting, buzz-worthy ways of distributing his first editions. Purple Cow came in a custom milk carton.

The day the book arrived, my four-year-old son handed it to me. Looking at the colorful cartoon hero on the cover, he asked "Daddy, what's this?" As I looked up at him, I noticed the trail of torn packaging between the mailbox and the front door of the house.

The book came in a padded envelope, an open invitation for unknown treasures to a four-year-old. In this case, he wasn't disappointed. After tearing open the plain envelope, he found a colorful, exciting, intriguing cereal box. And what four-year-old doesn't know that a box with a cartoon character has a "free prize inside"? Who cares what else is in the box! What's the prize?!

Eventually, Alex was disappointed that the free prize inside was only a book. And I was a bit disappointed that the collectable box was in tatters on the front lawn. But the true free prize, I think, will be found in the pages of the book.

Seth fundamentally changed the way I think about marketing with Permission Marketing. He challenged my creativity and made being remarkable a daily goal with Purple Cow. And after reading the first chapter or two, I know that Free Prize Inside is going to make me even more an advocate of exceeding customer expectations with the products and services I produce, and making the experience of "consuming" the product so enjoyable people want to come back.

Already, I'm wondering what my team and I can do to make our customer experience remarkable and joyful. What can I do to make people want to use our products or our websites or our communications tools, not because they do the job, but because there's a free prize inside?

Getting Things Done!

Thanks largely in part to fellow blogger Robert Scoble, David Allen (along with his associates Eric Mack and Jason Womak) has a blog! I'm looking forward to supplanting one of the only newsletters I actually read with a daily RSS dose of GTD goodness.

I'll start this post by crying HELP! I've managed to (once again) dig myself into a 544-email deep Inbox hole, but I'm determined to process everything by the end of the day!

In the David Allen Productivity Principles newsletter I just got, I read with fascination an article written by Julie Daniel, called "Keeping Your Inbox Real". She outlines six common types of email she sees in her client's Inboxes:

"First of all there is the e-mail that they’ve read and there’s no action associated with it and they don’t need to keep it for reference. It shouldn’t really be in there any more because it’s finished with and it should have been deleted. But… they haven’t got round to deleting it yet. So, for now, it’s just sitting there…

Second is the e-mail that they’ve read and there’s no action associated with it but they think they may need to refer back to it at some later date. That one really shouldn’t be in there any more either because it should be filed away somewhere. But…they haven’t got around to filing it away yet. So, for now, just sitting there…

Third is the e-mail that they’ve read and they’ve decided there is an action on it but they haven’t quite decided what that action is yet. The e-mail is parked there as a reminder that they need to do something about it… once they figure out just exactly what it is that they want to do. So, for now, it’s just sitting there…

Fourth is the e-mail that they’ve read and they’ve decided that there is an action on it and they have actually decided what it is that they want to do but they just haven’t quite got round to doing that action yet. The e-mail is parked there as a reminder that, when they get some time in between all those meetings that they have to go to, they really need to do that action that they’ve decided to do. So, for now, it’s just sitting there…

Fifth is the e-mail that they’ve read and they’ve figured out what it was that they needed to do about it AND they’ve actually done that action. But now someone owes them a reply and so the e-mail is parked there as a reminder that they have done something but the game isn’t over yet because somebody owes them something back and they might need to chase it. And if they lose sight of the e-mail they might forget that the thing isn’t finished yet. So, for now, it’s just sitting there…

Sixth – and this is the only type of e-mail that really belongs in an in-box – is the one they haven’t read yet.

WOW! No wonder most people’s brains hurt when they look at their in-box."

Death By Meeting

I just finished Patrick Lencioni's new book, Death By Meeting. I'm a big fan of his books, because they're easy to read (about two hours), interesting (written as a story/fable), and educational. I still count Five Dysfunctions of a Team in my all-time top ten (probably makes the top five). Lencioni's company, The Table Group, has more information, including a quiz you can take, and other downloads you'll find useful after you read the book.

This book centers around one of the key points he made in Five Dysfunctions, that of having positive conflict in personal interactions. He makes the point that having a meeting to simply gain consensus or worst--give status--can be deadly. But just like a good movie, having conflict and tension and resolution can make everyone more engaged and interested.

Of course it would be just another novel if there weren't strong business lessons. Though they're presented in a simple way, the points he makes about the way to run regularly-occurring meetings are interesting. I'm toying with the idea of adopting his style in my own team's weekly meetings.

He outlines four types of meetings:

The Daily Check-In – Requires that team members get together, standing-up, for about five minutes every morning to report on their activities for that day. Five minutes. Standing up. That’s it.

The Weekly Tactical – This should last between 45 and 90 minutes with the following critical elements:

• The Lightning Round: A quick, around-the-table reporting session in which everyone indicates their two or three priorities for the week. This should take no more than 60 seconds per team member.
• The Progress Review: Routine reporting on critical information or metrics: revenue, expenses, customer satisfaction, inventory, etc. This should take only five minutes.
• Real-Time Agenda: The agenda should only be set after the lightning round and progress review are complete. This way the agenda will be based on what people are actually working on and how the company is performing against its goals, not based on the leader’s best guess beforehand.

The Monthly Strategic – This is the most interesting and, in many ways, the most important type of meeting any team has. It is also the most fun. Here, executives wrestle with, analyze, debate and decide upon critical issues (but only a few) that will affect the business in fundamental ways. Monthly strategic meetings allow executives to dive into a given topic or two without the distraction of deadlines and tactical concerns.

The Quarterly Off-site Review – These provide executives an opportunity to regularly step away from the daily, weekly, even monthly issues that occupy their attention, and review the business in a more holistic, long-term manner. Topics for reflection and discussion at a productive Quarterly Off-site Review might include the following:

• Comprehensive Strategy Review: Executives should reassess the strategic direction of the organization, three or four times a year.
• Team Review: Executives should regularly assess themselves and their behaviors as a team, identifying trends or tendencies that may not be serving the organization.
• Personnel Review: Three or four times a year, executives should talk, across departments, about the key employees within the organization. Every member of an executive team should know whom their peers view as their stars, as well as their poor performers.
• Competitive/Industry Review: Information about competitors and industry trends bleeds into an organization little by little over time. It is useful for executives to step back and look at what is happening around them in a more comprehensive way so they can spot trends.