Scott East

Another Steve Jobs-ism

Over the past week I have read some great stories about Steve Jobs, a sort of software/business phoenix who rose through the ashes of being fired from the company he co-founded to coming back to bring it to a level that only he could.

Candidly, I am not a big user of Apple products, except for my iPad and iPod. While I am not a rabid fan of their products as a consumer, I am a huge fan of their product design. Running a software company, I am constantly pressured to include "features" in our roadmap because "all" users are clamoring for them. Time and time again we build these "have to have" features and they are rarely used. I then came across a great article from FastCompany (http://www.fastcompany.com/design/2011/what-can-steve-jobs-still-teach-us) that had this quote:

"You can't just ask customers what they want and then try to give that to them. By the time you get it built, they'll want something new."

-- Steve Jobs

Anticipating needs before people know they are needs is incredibly hard. Creating needs before people know they have them is near impossible, but somehow Jobs and his design team have been able to do this over and over again. I hope Cook and team are able to keep this type of anticipatory product design going, although without Jobs, I don't think it's going to happen.

"Dashboreds" And How to Avoid Them

I see a lot of reports in my job -- some that I create or help design, along with samples from clients and prospective clients. By far, dashboards are the number one requested report type I hear from clients. While dashboards have a role in the display of marketing data, beware of overusing them or worse, using them the wrong way.

There are some great books written on effective dashboard design -- I highly recommend Information Dashboard Design, by Stephen Few. For this posting, I want to share three things to avoid so that you don't create a "dashbored" report that no one will use.

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• Problem #1 -- Displaying so many aspects of your business that you feel like your head is spinning after looking at the report.

Focused dashboards, when correctly designed, should provide diagnostics on only two to three aspects of your business. I just recently had my annual physical. My doctor went through a few diagnostic tests just to make sure everything was OK from a macro perspective. Dashboards should do the same – they should provide a basic litmus test on a few areas of your business to determine whether or not an area needs a closer look and more in-depth analysis. Narrowing down to just two or three areas of your business also helps ensure that you maximize the real estate of the report and stay focused on the key information needed for decision making. It's great to use a couple of dashboards that complement each other and each focus on two to three areas of your marketing efforts.

• Problem #2 -- Thinking that a dashboard is going to give you the answer.

Dashboards are a great visualization tool, but they are not the tool to use when you need to do in-depth analysis. I look to dashboards to help me quickly find smoke or the ray of light. They can be used to properly shortcut analysis (in a good way). Shortcutting analysis means that you already have a specific area to analyze. So if you start at step 1, and the dashboard helps you find a problem or opportunity that takes you to step 3, you are already ahead of the game and maximizing your analysis time. Use detailed summary drill down reports or trending reports to then get to the root of any issue or opportunity.

• Problem #3 -- Not re-visiting your reports every three months.

I have to admit that I don't always subscribe to this advice. We invest time and energy developing what we and are clients feel are the "perfect" reports. Thinking about having to go back and update them once a quarter does not sound appealing – but frankly, it should be done. Priorities change. Your business environment changes. Your marketing team changes. And also, you get better at designing dashboards and reports every time you go to the drawing board. At minimum, review your report designs to make sure they are still aligned with your marketing priorities. But if you want to really improve your results measurement, take the time to modify and  create some new reports to keep them fresh and relevant.

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I can write pages about how to avoid creating a "dashbored" that makes people yawn and worse, not use them because they are not useful for their decision making. Honestly, I have even created some myself. Let me know your thoughts about what you think makes a great dashboard. More to follow on this topic in a future posting.

Managing To Averages Leads To Average Managing

One of my favorite professors at Georgetown's McDonough School of Business had a great quote about averages -- he said that when your feet are in the oven, and your head is in the freezer, the middle of your body is at average room temperature. In other words, "average" is not necessarily a good representation as to what's really going on.

Averages are a great starting point when performing marketing analysis; however, don't rely on averages as your end point. Instead, I recommend focusing on two specific areas -- influences and impacts.

    * Influences -- What media and/or creative elements have the greatest influence on your results? Look for areas where you are spending the most money, have the largest media weights, etc. These areas have a tendency to have major influence on your results (thus the subtitle).
    * Impacts -- What media and/or creative elements have the greatest impact on your results? Impact can be different aspects of your funnel -- upfront response, lead conversion, or ultimately order/sales conversion. Focus on determining performance trends for the areas that drive the most impact on your marketing efforts and what drives your bottom line.

Using averages as the main part of your analysis means you are only scratching the surface. Make sure to dig deeper to determine what really has the most influence and impact on your results. Many times, we are limited by time and money, so make sure both are being spent the most effective and efficient way possible to drive your marketing results.

The Internet: For Buyers or Sellers?

I recently was catching-up on some long overdue reading and came across the 3/17/08 edition of AdAge. I particularly enjoyed Matthew Creamer's article "Think different: The web's not a place to stick your ads." Creamer puts forth his position on why he thinks there is reason to be skeptical about the web's effectiveness as an advertising medium. While I don't agree with his argument, I was interested in one of his foundational points that was, well, not his point. He borrows a quote from Jakob Nielsen:

"The basic point about the web is that it is not an advertising medium. The web is not a selling medium; it is a buying medium. It is user controlled, so the user controls, the user experiences."

A Buying Medium. That's a great way to look at the Internet. Although I do feel the two -- advertising and buying -- can co-exist, they should not be co-dependent. Nor should they be equal in their relationship. By far, the "buying" mindset should drive a site's user experience and organization. But when done correctly, advertising can be a part of the landscape without ruining the view (so to speak).

Why Marketers Don't Manage Knowledge Well

OK, I have to admit, writing this first blog posting has been intimidating. I guess I want to start off on the right foot. To make a statement. Maybe stir-up a little debate among my marketing friends. But alas, I am going with the obvious. I start with why I plan to focus on marketing knowledge management.

The reason is simple -- as marketers, we don't do a good job of managing our knowledge.

When done right, marketing knowledge management can be one of the most powerful weapons in a company's marketing arsenal. And because of the amount of money we invest (i.e. spend) in marketing , even slight improvements in our marketing decision making can translate to millions to the bottom line, not to mention the impact of making every marketing dollar work harder and smarter.

Because I work for a marketing technology company (www.msightsinc.com), most people assume I am going to say that this problem can be solved with technology. This is not the case. Technology can help and be an important tool, but it's not going to solve where we have cracks in the foundation. In other words, it's a deeper issue.

Senior marketing executives should focus on three specific areas if they want to dramatically improve how well they leverage their marketing knowledge. They should focus on their people, their marketing processes, and finally, how they work with their marketing partners.

Over the next couple of weeks, I plan to unpack each area -- people, process, and partners -- in a specific posting. I hope this sparks some dialog and I welcome comments along the way. Thanks for reading and more to follow.