Just a brief follow up thought related to the idea of the growth hacker concept referenced in the link in my previous post. The core premise behind the growth hacker is that startups in earlier stages need to be focused on growth -- dynamic, agile, and even experimental. Often, when people think of qualifications for a VP of Marketing, they think grand plan, strategy, and years of experience in a specific industry. What this may also translate to is limited adaptability outside of a focus industry and correspondingly, a less agile, less dynamic engine for growth -- someone who just wants to replay the classic hits.
I suspect that the right fit actually falls somewhere in the middle. A good marketing pro doesn't just repeat the same formula. Every business, every situation, every moment is different. While the idea of a growth hacker relentlessly experimenting, trying to crack the growth nut is a compelling image that captures a sense of necessary urgency, for me it underplays the importance of fluency in a broader vocabulary of the practice. First and foremost, before you can ever begin to conceptualize and hack growth programs, you need to have a strong understanding of those same programs and the language that their constructed from. You can't play guitar simply by watching music videos and you can't hack a .php form by simply browsing the web a lot or even reading stories about code injection.
Beyond vision and program execution, there is an equally important aspect to having a grander vision -- an understanding that some growth vehicles have a dark side and not all hacking is white hat. Look at Zynga and some of the other social game companies profiled in the Techcrunch Scamville series. While Zynga was able to ride these questionable practices to an IPO and, theoretically, some operational reforms, several of the companies that used this approach got burned. The recent stories about JCPenney and some of the more noteworthy SEO manipulation highlight kind of issue. Understanding the risks and being able to weigh those against the potential benefits requires some conceptual understanding beyond simply figuring out an execution path.
Ultimately, whether you're a VP of Marketing or a Growth Hacker, the bigger problem is that often people simply want to repeat a lightning strike. Sometimes, beyond time and space, there is some luck involved. Just because Twitter took off at South by Southwest, doesn't mean that going there is a strategy. And yet, simply understanding how something like South by Southwest has impacted a number of social networking software startups should be part of your marketing vocabulary. In that way, I would thing that the job description should probably read something like, "creative, experimental problem solver with a broad marketing background and a solid vision of the big picture needed..." But somebody like that can probably also solve the problem of what title that they should have.
Saturday, February 19, 2011
Sunday, February 13, 2011
Are you a Growth Hacker?
I was doing some typical morning, poking around the web browsing and I came across an interesting topic that I thought I would share with you. I've been thinking about what to write on the topic, but I've got errands to run and a day to work through, so I thought I would start with sharing a quick link with you.
This is Find A Growth Hacker for Your Startup by Sean Ellis. Read and enjoy.
This is Find A Growth Hacker for Your Startup by Sean Ellis. Read and enjoy.
Saturday, February 12, 2011
An Animated Look at Where Good Ideas Come From
Here's another RSA whiteboard animation worth watching.
Motivations In The Workplace Animation
A friend sent over a link to this earlier this week, tucking into an NPR planet money post. In discussing, the presentation has been around for a while, but the animation is really what helps make this interesting.
There are more video presentations that have been animated using this whiteboard style of animation posted on YouTube, so check them out if you get a chance.
There are more video presentations that have been animated using this whiteboard style of animation posted on YouTube, so check them out if you get a chance.
Follow-up On Google Hiring: A Kinder, Gentler Google
Following up on my post, If Google Posts A Job Opening, Does It Really Count As A Job Opportunity, I came across this article that was pushed out on Twitter by Google Recruiting (@googlejobs). Google tries new angle on hiring by Richard Waters of the Financial Times is an interesting read into how Google is trying to change their hiring practices and culture. I felt so moved by the piece that I thought, maybe I should go ahead and send them my resume and apply for a couple of openings. I am one of those "people with entrepreneurial, rather than purely intellectual, talent." Then I got to the last sentence of the piece, "It is currently receiving 75,000 applications a week," and, remembering my original post, I decided to write this blog post instead.
Thursday, February 10, 2011
Yet Another Reason to Read Job Postings
If you have a steady job, your current employers and the people that you work with may look twice if they find you looking at competitive job listings. Even in those toxic work environments where everyone is disgruntled, most of the time businesses culture makes it taboo to look at competitive job listings. And while we could probably do a deep dive on why that taboo exists, let's look at why you should be looking at competitive job postings instead.
Forget about being disgruntled, frustrated with your job and wanting to leave -- job listings are an excellent research platform. Tucked away in those listings are a host of requirements for software that you should be familiar with, technologies that you should understand, and programs that you should have run. These aren't just job listings, they are your own personal MBA case study series detailing a similar business problem and how other companies have solved them.
It's probably also worth noting that if you come across a job listing that references tools or practices that you don't use, it's unlikely that you would be able to ramp a program up quickly simply to make yourself a good candidate. However, if you're one of those disgruntled people who are actually seeking a new job, being familiar with the terms and practices will also help you explain why you aren't using those tools so that when the interview comes, you are ready.
Don't Get Busted
While there are a lot of great marketing research justifications for looking at competitive job listings, they probably aren't strong enough to keep you out of hot water if you get caught breaking the taboo. While all environments are different, most employers not only want to think of you as content, they also like to think of you as too busy to be looking at competitive job listings during your work day. So while looking at job listings is probably more productive than managing your online farm, both will probably leave you equally cooked.
Forget about being disgruntled, frustrated with your job and wanting to leave -- job listings are an excellent research platform. Tucked away in those listings are a host of requirements for software that you should be familiar with, technologies that you should understand, and programs that you should have run. These aren't just job listings, they are your own personal MBA case study series detailing a similar business problem and how other companies have solved them.
It's probably also worth noting that if you come across a job listing that references tools or practices that you don't use, it's unlikely that you would be able to ramp a program up quickly simply to make yourself a good candidate. However, if you're one of those disgruntled people who are actually seeking a new job, being familiar with the terms and practices will also help you explain why you aren't using those tools so that when the interview comes, you are ready.
Don't Get Busted
While there are a lot of great marketing research justifications for looking at competitive job listings, they probably aren't strong enough to keep you out of hot water if you get caught breaking the taboo. While all environments are different, most employers not only want to think of you as content, they also like to think of you as too busy to be looking at competitive job listings during your work day. So while looking at job listings is probably more productive than managing your online farm, both will probably leave you equally cooked.
Wednesday, February 9, 2011
Why the Keith Olbermann Leaving MSNBC Story Gets a MarketingToMe Blog Post
When I got home on Friday evening, I found out that the day's Countdown program was the last and that Keith Olbermann was leaving MSNBC. I was so surprised, so incredulous, that I did a quick scan through the various news sites to confirm the story. Over the course of the surrounding weekend, there wasn't much in terms of details or explanations. And while this may not be a big story for some, I personally feel a sense of loss and can't shake the sense that it stands as a significant milestone in cultural history -- maybe not "the day the music died", but certainly the symbolic end to something much larger than the show itself.
Organizations in Transition
When it comes to the what and why of the end of Olbermann's relationship with NBC, most of what's being published right now tends to focus on a history of trouble between Olbermann and NBC management. The spin coming through many of these stories suggest that the events weren't connected to the Comcast merger and that Comcast had no role in the events. One piece that I read even suggested that Friday's events had been months in the making. However, even a casual business observer will note the lack of an elegant transition, a winding down like someone giving two weeks notice or a retiring. This didn't happen with message planning and a gradual release. And while I wasn't watching MSNBC on Friday night, my understanding is that the channel was still broadcasting Olbermann promo commercials after the announcement of the last show.
Clearly, whatever took place in New York on Friday, it was more explosion than scripted event and the surrounding events have been efforts at messaging damage control. If you play out the various possible scenarios, it's hard to imagine a viable one where NBC wanted to keep Olbermann on the air -- unlike most employer/employee relationships, broadcasters have much broader flexibility in how they define their relationships. If this had simply been Keith upset, they could have continued to run Countdown with a guest host while trying to work through a cool down period. If there was any bridge left, they could have brought him in occasionally for special events or commentary.
A Deeper Cultural Loss
We lost more than a political voice with the end of this show. To get to the heart of this, you have to peel back a few layers, dig down beneath partisan political rhetoric, the left and the right, and the theater of the term "wing". At the heart of the Countdown concept was a news show that riffed on the the traditional structure and tone with a unique, playful intelligence. Take the concept of counting down the top five news stories, something more akin to an MTV or VH1 video program. Traditional news programs always lead with the top story and work their way down a closing light moment like waterskiing squirrels.
Olbermann also brought a unique cultural intelligence to the television news role. Equally at home quoting from classical literature or sports history, Olbermann used using a wide range of cultural references to bring verbal flourish to the world of Yet Another news story. Instead of reducing things to the lowest common denominator, he elevated the common denominator, bridging low and high brow. In the same way that a typical Sports Center viewer had a deep awareness of the history of sport and a high sports IQ, Olbermann's Countdown assumed its audience was intelligent and that the show wasn't their only source of content. Instead of Yet Another politics or news show, Olbermann made the show feel more like getting an update on the news from one of your friends -- one who was just as likely to be irreverent as serious.
And while I would love to use specific examples of broadcast moments where Keith was so much better than so many broadcasters, it's hard to present good examples without starting a partisan back-and-forth. While I might find places where Olbermann dug deeper, understood the bigger story and continued to question a story, someone with a right-wing, anti-Olbermann bias might call him badgering or worse.
Much has been made of the politics surrounding Keith Olbermann. There has also been a lot of speculation surrounding Comcast management's political interests and how that may affect content. In some of the left-right comparisons, MSNBC is often painted as the counter to Fox News, representing a left-leaning political spin. I think that Jon Stewart's assessment of MSNBC as hopelessly muddled is probably a more accurate analysis.
But regardless, one of the messaging points that keeps surfacing is this idea that MSNBC is maintaining their commitment to liberal voices through Rachel Maddow, Lawrence O'Donnell, and Ed Schultz. This is one of those great examples of trying to promote messaging that supports an image that simply doesn't match your actions. Going down a list, from the cancellation of Phil Donahue's show through the network's back and forth with David Schuster and it's well-publicized ongoing conflicts with Olbermann, NBC has repeatedly acted in ways that suggest no commitment to any sort of left-wing or liberal messaging. At best, their support seems to be a limited tolerance, driven by a general recognition that "liberal" content provides them some measurable level of audience and some base level of product differentiation. I suspect that within the internal ranks of the NBC organization, those that still speak with any sort of liberal know that there is a limit on NBC's tolerance of their voice.
Comcast? NBC? Does it Really Matter?
We may never know whether this was personal politics, corporate politics, or just business. The events don't smell like the moves of the Food Network, putting all of their old chef-stars out to pasture so that they can replace them with branded celebrities that Food Network owns the marketing rights for. Instead, this feels more like that first power-play in the content carrier revolution, when the newly crowned Comcast-NBC merger states emphatically, "whatever, I do what I want!"
As long as the government continues to approve of mergers like the Comcast-NBC deal, as more and more of our emerging communications platforms get wrapped up in consolidated ownership of content, distribution, and infrastructure, and as long as we continue to tolerate politically active corporate entities like Clear Channel, News Corp., and Comcast controlling huge chunks of our communications infrastructure, we'll see the lines between politics and business messaging erode any existing framework of open communication.
Olbermann's New Show
But if you have any doubts about what was behind all of this, the news came through that Olbermann will be getting a new show on Al Gore's Current TV. Like me, you'll probably have to jump through a few hoops to find the channel listing and see if your local version of Comcast even carries the channel.
Organizations in Transition
When it comes to the what and why of the end of Olbermann's relationship with NBC, most of what's being published right now tends to focus on a history of trouble between Olbermann and NBC management. The spin coming through many of these stories suggest that the events weren't connected to the Comcast merger and that Comcast had no role in the events. One piece that I read even suggested that Friday's events had been months in the making. However, even a casual business observer will note the lack of an elegant transition, a winding down like someone giving two weeks notice or a retiring. This didn't happen with message planning and a gradual release. And while I wasn't watching MSNBC on Friday night, my understanding is that the channel was still broadcasting Olbermann promo commercials after the announcement of the last show.
Clearly, whatever took place in New York on Friday, it was more explosion than scripted event and the surrounding events have been efforts at messaging damage control. If you play out the various possible scenarios, it's hard to imagine a viable one where NBC wanted to keep Olbermann on the air -- unlike most employer/employee relationships, broadcasters have much broader flexibility in how they define their relationships. If this had simply been Keith upset, they could have continued to run Countdown with a guest host while trying to work through a cool down period. If there was any bridge left, they could have brought him in occasionally for special events or commentary.
A Deeper Cultural Loss
We lost more than a political voice with the end of this show. To get to the heart of this, you have to peel back a few layers, dig down beneath partisan political rhetoric, the left and the right, and the theater of the term "wing". At the heart of the Countdown concept was a news show that riffed on the the traditional structure and tone with a unique, playful intelligence. Take the concept of counting down the top five news stories, something more akin to an MTV or VH1 video program. Traditional news programs always lead with the top story and work their way down a closing light moment like waterskiing squirrels.
Olbermann also brought a unique cultural intelligence to the television news role. Equally at home quoting from classical literature or sports history, Olbermann used using a wide range of cultural references to bring verbal flourish to the world of Yet Another news story. Instead of reducing things to the lowest common denominator, he elevated the common denominator, bridging low and high brow. In the same way that a typical Sports Center viewer had a deep awareness of the history of sport and a high sports IQ, Olbermann's Countdown assumed its audience was intelligent and that the show wasn't their only source of content. Instead of Yet Another politics or news show, Olbermann made the show feel more like getting an update on the news from one of your friends -- one who was just as likely to be irreverent as serious.
And while I would love to use specific examples of broadcast moments where Keith was so much better than so many broadcasters, it's hard to present good examples without starting a partisan back-and-forth. While I might find places where Olbermann dug deeper, understood the bigger story and continued to question a story, someone with a right-wing, anti-Olbermann bias might call him badgering or worse.
Much has been made of the politics surrounding Keith Olbermann. There has also been a lot of speculation surrounding Comcast management's political interests and how that may affect content. In some of the left-right comparisons, MSNBC is often painted as the counter to Fox News, representing a left-leaning political spin. I think that Jon Stewart's assessment of MSNBC as hopelessly muddled is probably a more accurate analysis.
But regardless, one of the messaging points that keeps surfacing is this idea that MSNBC is maintaining their commitment to liberal voices through Rachel Maddow, Lawrence O'Donnell, and Ed Schultz. This is one of those great examples of trying to promote messaging that supports an image that simply doesn't match your actions. Going down a list, from the cancellation of Phil Donahue's show through the network's back and forth with David Schuster and it's well-publicized ongoing conflicts with Olbermann, NBC has repeatedly acted in ways that suggest no commitment to any sort of left-wing or liberal messaging. At best, their support seems to be a limited tolerance, driven by a general recognition that "liberal" content provides them some measurable level of audience and some base level of product differentiation. I suspect that within the internal ranks of the NBC organization, those that still speak with any sort of liberal know that there is a limit on NBC's tolerance of their voice.
Comcast? NBC? Does it Really Matter?
We may never know whether this was personal politics, corporate politics, or just business. The events don't smell like the moves of the Food Network, putting all of their old chef-stars out to pasture so that they can replace them with branded celebrities that Food Network owns the marketing rights for. Instead, this feels more like that first power-play in the content carrier revolution, when the newly crowned Comcast-NBC merger states emphatically, "whatever, I do what I want!"
As long as the government continues to approve of mergers like the Comcast-NBC deal, as more and more of our emerging communications platforms get wrapped up in consolidated ownership of content, distribution, and infrastructure, and as long as we continue to tolerate politically active corporate entities like Clear Channel, News Corp., and Comcast controlling huge chunks of our communications infrastructure, we'll see the lines between politics and business messaging erode any existing framework of open communication.
Olbermann's New Show
But if you have any doubts about what was behind all of this, the news came through that Olbermann will be getting a new show on Al Gore's Current TV. Like me, you'll probably have to jump through a few hoops to find the channel listing and see if your local version of Comcast even carries the channel.
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