Two million mistakes

So, a marketing agency has been fired because of innacuracy in the statistics it used in its mailings. According to the report, 2m out of 184m of the letters mailed in the last few years, have been 'wrong'.

You could argue that this is a special case, because it involves the BBC, which has become supremely sensitive to any allegations of impropriety after various episodes of phone-vote rigging and lapses in editorial standards.

Or you could look at the absolute numbers, and say two million letters with avoidable errors constitutes a great deal of damage to public trust.

Or look again, and see that the whole story is based on one complaint to a national newspaper, a newspaper which had already embarked on a campaign against the BBC. And the complaint was triggered by the receipt by one person of duplicate mailings which carried different statistics.

So actually the _real_ mistake was to mail the duplicate, with different data.

How much do you trust the process you use to ensure you only mail people once? Do you think you need to understand it a little better?


photo: www.ClownInsurance.co.uk (yes, really)

Basics

A couple of weeks ago, those nice people at British Gas decided to send its customers a heartwarming message about its commitment to the environment. I received a small box containing four low-energy lightbulbs, and a nice leaflet explaining how much money they might help me save.

Except - and stop me if you've heard this before ...

1. I got two boxes, a couple of days apart
2. The name on one of the letters was wrong
3. The salutation on both letters was gibberish
4. The postman had to knock on the door each time, because the box would not fit through the letterbox (or indeed _any_ letterbox, so his round that week was taking a very long time indeed, about which of course he was rather upset)

Arrange the following words into a well-known phrase or saying: foot, shoot, the, in, yourself

I think I understand how this has happened. At the same time I am speechless at the waste, ignorance and arrogance the whole thing betrays.

The letter was signed by the Managing Director. I may not be the first to be writing him a slightly more carefully crafted response.

Crunch?

1. The local coffee shop says it has never been busier, and they are surprised, as they expected to be an early casualty of people cutting back on discretionary spending.

2. A household name in doors and windows quoted us a laugh-out-loud high price for a replacement door, admitted that 'they don't sell many of these', and ended the call.

3. One of our many local charity shops is dutifully offering '3 for 2' packs of its (charity!) Christmas cards.

It's a confusing picture of the economy at the moment, almost as if we don't quite know how we're supposed to behave.

Picture: 30cakesin30days

Utopia

Attended a briefing session yesterday from the Gloucestershire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust. Not only was the content fascinating, it was also interesting to listen to the language being used.

One initiative in development, Utopia, is actually an exercise in the management of the complete customer lifecycle (the Chief Exec calls it the 'patient experience', and acknowledge that they are at the 'foothills' of this approach).

They are developing a programme of 'Evidence Based Design' which will involve patients in the re-design of the way care is provided.

There is acute awareness of the challenges of the marketplace which has been created by the changes in funding and oversight of the health service.

It's a hugely complex organisation, with 700,000 patients / customers a year. And it's starting to talk about the patients' perspective, and how to incorporate that into service delivery. For an organisation whose processes were mostly built in the 1940s, it's impressive stuff. What are you doing at your company?

photo: Frank C Muller

Trousers

So after all the prohecies of doom, the UK figures on retail spending last month showed a very small drop. All that noise and frenzy, and maybe things aren't really that bad. Except we've had our attention distracted by the noise and frenzy.

Walking the dog yesterday afternoon, I passed a mother and child. The child was probably three years old, dressed warmly against the chill of the early twilight. The mother was on her mobile phone, and had been since they came into my view. As our paths crossed, I could hear the child saying "Mummy my trousers are falling down", as she continued to chat. He was right, they were.

Beware the distant voices, they might be distracting us from the real business at hand.

Posturing in the wilderness

In the last few days, three friends have expressed their amazement and frustration at the way in which some marketing agency people work (time management and ego seemed to be a common theme).

That's not entirely a revelation, since it's been that way for a long time. It is amazing though that someone hasn't changed the prevailing model to fit better what clients want, and how the world is starting to work (collaborative, peer-to-peer networking, rather than sequential hierarchies). What a huge opportunity for an agency prepared to make the change. Or to build something new.

The idea for a specialist service around data-driven, media-neutral creativity and execution, is starting to look more like an idea for a new kind of marketing agency.

Photo: Yogaslackers.com

Falling

Word is, direct marketing response rates are falling in many sectors. Some companies are starting to talk about reducing or even cancelling their dm spend.

Or ... what you could do ...

... is be smarter with the spend. Use your data and your insights to create marketing that is better targeted, more relevant, data-driven, to strengthen customer relationships, and improve lifetime value.

We should be doing this anyway. With tighter controls being put into place, and sharper eyes on the budgets, all the more reason to do it now.

Photo: George Johnson

Fear

Attended a presentation last Thursday evening by key players in the campaign for Thomson Holidays that won the Business Performance Awards from the Institute of Direct Marketing.

Brilliant work. A great example of the kind of creativity, precision and skill that I want to deliver too. Hats off to the client and to their agencies WDMP and Creatormail.

Also learned something acutely depressing. It appears that the same agency is behind the excellent work for Carphone Warehouse that created highly personalised - and effective - welcome books and upgrade packs.

So three examples in the UK where data, creativity and technology have brought fantastic direct marketing results (the third is the TUI travel ticket book, now copied by Thomas Cook too) - are all from the same agency. I asked the guys what they thought was stopping anyone else doing this kind of work.

Their answer was that clients were afraid.

If that's true, then we're all falling down on the job. Or, maybe, from the 'glass-half-full' view of the world, there's a huge opportunity out there.

Photo by Terry Goss

Losing

John McCain has impressed even more in defeat than in the contest. I thought the manner of his choice of a vice-president was a sign of good leadership (and even though he turns out to have been wrong, that was not the reason he lost). Now his heartfelt endorsement of his former adversary, and his honest wish that everyone works together with the new president, show true leadership.

Good decision

There's been plenty of study of the way the mind works after it's made a purchase decision (see wikipedia here on 'post-purchase rationalisation', and here for a really interesting finding on the positive difference that branding can make). We tend to filter out any evidence that we made a bad choice, and to seek those things that tell us we chose well.

The people in Procurement are just as prone to this, but probably more aware of it than most. They are going to want something a little more objective to measure the impact of their decisions.

There's an interesting opportunity here to provide external measurement and validation of the effects of long-term decisions such as placing or renewing outsourcing contracts. Such a validation would also benefit the service provider, since it would be independent verification that they had delivered on the promise.

So I'm setting up something to do just that in the marketing services space. It's called an Independent Assurance Review. It's a really simple idea - and it's not even a new one, it's already quite common in the public sector. There's a bit more about it on my website - or you can call me to talk it over.

Mission: clean data

Time to go public on a private passion.

Good work is being done to improve direct mail's image in the UK. Royal Mail have launched a 'green' version of postage for their wholesale clients. The Direct Marketing Assocation (DMA) has set up a Direct Marketing Commission to give the public better access to information and services. As part of both of these there is discussion about the correct use of suppression files, and even talk of how to ensure that data is processed correctly before it is used to create mailing campaigns.

However, there is one important part of this that is not yet being addressed. There is huge variation in the quality of data processing itself. It's just not enough to say 'the data has been deduplicated and suppressed'. I've seen the difference between some of the low-cost online deduplications, and the 'proper' kind, and it's huge - it's entirely possible to say you've processed your data, yet still mail thousands of duplicates, people who have opted out, or people who you know to have died.

There's a job to be done to raise the awareness of this, and to get some form of recognition of the importance of the quality of data processing for direct mail. I'm not the only one who believes this, and we're working on how to get it done. I'll write more as this (long-term!) project develops.

Burned bridges

A friend of mine used to be on the board of a medium-size company that was very successful and grew organically and by acquisition. Some years ago he parted acrimoniously, and was not entirely private with his opinion of his former colleagues.

He moved on, and made good things happen at other companies. I spoke to him yesterday. His business unit has just been sold. To a large competitor. Which is run by the CEO he used to work for.

He does see the funny side of this; at the same time he does not expect to last long.

Despite what we would sometimes like to think, it's a small world. Even if it's hugely satisfying at the time to burn the bridge, it's very unlikely to be a good strategy.

Teams

I'm setting up a company that will provide specialist creative and execution of highly targeted, highly personalised marketing communications, integrated across multiple media. People have been working in this area for a while, and there are some fabulous case studies. But there aren't many of them.

Turns out, that they are quite difficult to do.

Well, actually, they are difficult if you are trying to do them the way you do your other campaigns.

If you reorganise your resources and your structure properly, they become a lot more straightforward, and as a result a lot more fun to work on too. I'm aware that this is a challenge for many companies, but I don't really understand why. All you need is good people, a clear mission, and an open, enabling culture. Which is not difficult at all, is it ...

Periodic updates will follow.

It could be coincidence

Article in the 'Guardian' the other day (here) about the difference between the way that Senators Obama and McCain organise their volunteer networks. The Obama network gives the power to the local volunteers themselves on how to organise and what to do, whilst the McCain camp operates much more as 'command and control'.

It takes some bravery to commit to the devolved model as Obama has done. It's a lot easier though, when there is a clear vision behind which the volunteers can rally. The local teams can then interpret the vision to make it work on their ground. There's also a great deal of hard work required to set up those local networks. However, it does seem to be working well at the moment ...

The Blair Ditch Project

Great fun watching the story of the sacking of London's Police Commissioner Sir Ian Blair. A lot of outrage coming from national politicans. Interestingly, the outrage seems to be less about the decision - by London's new mayor Boris Johnson - than the manner of it ('did not consult appropriately', 'did not follow process'). Yet for me the most significant aspect of the story so far, is that the mayor was prepared to take a decision - on his very first day as chair of the body to which the Commissioner reports - on a matter which has been festering for at least three years, which is hugely complex and highly politicial. Perhaps, after all, Boris has some of the important characteristics of a good leader.

Of course, it's much too early to tell whether the decision was the right one. But that's part of the challenge when you have that level of responsibility. You won't necessarily know for a while whether you made the right choice; you just know you have to choose.

Democracy

I recently started singing with a local choir. A vote was taken at the last rehearsal about dress code for performances. Talking to other members, it was clear that a debate about this had rumbled on for many months. In the end, the vote was to choose between 'no change' (all black), or going to a mandatory white blouse for the women.

It would be easy to satirise this. But it's not easy to handle in real life. Everyone has an opinion, it's all subjective, so how do you reach a decision? Consensus is difficult, a 'leadership' decision may not be acceptable (perversely because it's not a very important issue), so what is the best course of action? Perhaps uncomfortable compromise is the occasional price of democracy.

McCain Decisions

There's been a lot of talk in the UK about the Republican choice for Vice President in this year's US elections (see here for one of the more interesting commentaries, especially about Ms Palin's media training). Whilst there has been much debate about the maverick McCain (and 'maverick' is one of those words that's supposed to be neutral but is almost always taken to be a negative), there's one thing I've not seen mentioned.

McCain appears to have made a choice based on limited information, instinct, and the need to move things forward. And guess what, for much of the time in office, a leader operates in a complex and changing environment, with incomplete information. Instinct, experience, luck, call it what you will, but they cannot just sit there waiting for perfect data in a perfect world.

Mr McCain, I admire you for taking a lead, and a risk. I think that shows you qualify for the big job.

Circus

You might remember some of the old films about circuses, the crises, the leadership struggles, how it all comes together on the big night. I saw a circus show yesterday (wonderful, magical, just go and see it), and was struck by the sheer scale of the challenge of putting together and running the show. It's not a permanent job (they only perform in what passes here for summer); many of the acts are small family teams from other countries, who decide to work with you for a season or two; the skill-sets are very different; language may be a barrier too. So the leadership challenge is formidable. These disparate teams are held together by the script, the design, and the vision. In fact they are held together by the energy and the vision of the leader. You can see it at work in this circus - the omnipresence, and force of personality, of the woman whose name is on the door.

Keeping onside

Much talk at the moment about Gordon Brown's leadership, and about the members of his cabinet who are openly supporting him, and those who are unavailable for comment. In commentary, Alan Sugar has said that everyone has to be onside for you to run a company (see here for the BBC story).

I don't think you necessarily need everyone onside. You stand a better chance of long-term success if you have a way of tolerating, moderating and incorporating alternative views. What makes it difficult is when people are broadcasting their views to the outside world, and not discussing them internally. It's more important to have everyone inside than onside.

Winning

1. Last weekend Valentino Rossi came second in the Moto GP at the Sachsenring, and as a result took the lead in the championship. Rossi is an experienced rider and a superb tactician, and there seems little doubt that he settled for second place on the day. One insight from his pit crew, was that their choice of tyres was made by copying the majority of their competitors.

Maybe it's simply a low-risk strategy. Or maybe it's a recognition that the only thing the team has to do is match - not necessarily beat - everyone else's engineering. Because what Valentino does, is ride the bike better than everyone else. It's an interesting lesson in how to win by focussing on the unique difference that you alone can make.

2. At a nursery somewhere in Gloucestershire earlier today, half a dozen three-year-olds lined up for an egg-and-spoon race on their sports day. As the whistle blew, five careered happily across the grass towards the finish line. The last carefully put one arm behind his back, and then purposefully walked forward. He took quite a long time to reach the tape because he was being very careful not to drop the egg, and not to cheat. He may not have won the race that everyone else was in, but he did win his own.

Status

In a serviced office, the support staff are briefed on the imminent arrival of the executive board of a government department, including the Permanent Secretary. There is tension and nervousness.

The board arrives, and its members deport themselves with dismissive disdain for the minions deployed about them.

The minister arrives, and is courteous, friendly, and talks to all as an equal.

As the team heads off to their meeting room, the receptionist says 'well at least one of them treated me as a human being'.

This board is responsible for one of the government's highest profile departments, and spends huge amounts of taxpayers' money to deal with some of our most intractable problems. What sort of culture might we expect in their team, do you think, given their exemplary behaviour?

At the same time, look how easy it is to make a good impression. And see how long the memories linger for those who witness it.

Good technology (the perfect digital camera)

Bought a perfect digital camera the other day. There is a button to turn it on, a button to take pictures, a button to turn on the flash, a little screen, and an up/down arrow to view what you've already taken. To make it even easier to point it in the right direction, there is a viewer for each eye.

You might quibble with the design, because it's aimed at small children. Yet it's does absolutely everything most of us need from a camera.

You might quibble that nobody would buy such a cut-down version of technology. Then look at the success of the Flip, which takes a similar approach to digital video.

This camera is a piece of technology that's been designed very carefully for its customers, and it works. It would be interesting to see an adult version. It would be even more interesting to see a few more people take this approach to the application and sale of technology.

Smaller than you think

On a train the other day, a man is talking on his mobile phone about a business partner. It's hard not to overhear the conversation, because the man is talking in that strange way that people have on a mobile phone, as if there is nobody else in the same county. He's discussing a business opportunity, and in particular one of the key individuals involved, by name.

My partner Lesley is one of the others on the train. She is sitting with a friend, and both are working on their laptops. As the overheard conversation continues, and starts to reveal some things that perhaps ought to be confidential, the friend twists his laptop screen around so that Lesley can see it. On screen is her friend's Outlook contact information for the person being discussed. Lesley has her 3G card, so is able to look up the person on LinkedIn at the same time.

The world isn't just small any more, you can actually fit quite a lot of it into a railway carriage.

Horizons

The annual Bollywood film awards in Thailand recently were visited by many more stars than previous ceremonies. It seems that they were keen to attract as much attention to Bollywood as possible, because audience numbers are down. Numbers are down, because of a new form of cricket that launched in India a month or so ago. The games are not just popular, they are actually affecting the size of film audiences.

Somewhere in the Bollywood marketing departments, people are asking 'how did that happen'? How did a new form of entertainment, apparently with no link at all to films and film audiences, come to affect them?

It's not enough to scan your horizons, you have to keep checking whether they are still the right ones to scan.

Personal development is not an option

Why is training and personal development so often neglected at work? Everyone agrees it's a 'good thing', yet it's very often the last thing that gets done.

Computer programmers expect training and education to be part of their employment package. In all probability, you will not be able to hire a good programmer unless they can see that you have sound plans for their continued professional development.

I have often been asked to justify this 'extra' expenditure on training. It's not hard:

- they won't join without it
- they will stay longer and be more useful with it
- their world keeps changing, and they need to keep up to date
- they will tell a good story about you to their peers
- they are going to leave you anyway at some point, and there's a very good chance you will come across them again, maybe even as a client or prospect.

So which bit of this doesn't apply to your entire organisation?

Well, maybe the first bit's different. Good people may readily join you without a commitment to their continuing personal or professional development.

All the rest is the same though. And one day soon, you're going to find that the very best candidates will have learned from the programmers, that personal development is not an option, it's a requirement.

Good news about (real) estate agents

Heard a heartening story today about (real) estate agents. Not the usual joke about them all losing their jobs, ha ha. This time about how one firm has handled the uncomfortable reality of a downturn.

A friend of ours has worked for an agency for four years, and has been made redundant in the latest response to the changes in the UK housing market. She was unhappy, and requested a meeting with the Managing Director.

Not only did the MD meet her, he showed her financial reports and statistics - in confidence - to explain the background for the decisions; then he showed her the numbers and selection criteria used for those who would lose their job. Last, he gave her a personal reference, and his cell/mobile phone number.

Good to hear that somebody is doing the right thing in a difficult situation. Hats off to the man.

"Oh no, you need Sales for that, we're Customer Services"

You probably guessed most of this from the title. Except it's about a UK insurance company with a fantastic reputation in a competitive and profitable niche ...

I call to change the starting date on an insurance policy. I talk to the Customer Services team (I'm skipping the part about how it took seven minutes for my call to be answered). I am told I will need to cancel the policy and start a new one - OK, not ideal, but no problem, until I learn that Customer Services can only do the cancellation part; "No, we can't set up a new policy for you, you have to talk to Sales for that".

Where to begin with this ... well:

1. You could at least have offered to put me through to the other department
2. You could have recognised that this was possibly a bit of a pain for me, and therefore it was a distinct possibility that I just might not do it
3. This is a competitive marketplace - why don't you behave as if you know that?
4. How come we are still dealing with companies organised around the needs of the operation, rather than the needs of the customer?

It's amazing, and pretty sad to witness a corporate mentality that seems not to recognise the link between service and sales

Open mail

A large mailing pack arrived this morning from the RSPCA, and it’s asking for money. I'm not a member, I've never given them anything, and it’s not even addressed to me. So it has all the hallmarks of ‘junk mail’. Except …

On the back, in reassuringly large type, it has the following message:

"This letter has cost just 11p to print and send to you: not everyone
will respond to it, but it is one of the best ways we have of finding new animal-lovers to help us. Don’t throw this away – please support the RSPCA."

Please would every copywriter in the English language note the brilliant simplicity and importance of this message. Please would every client contemplating the use of unaddressed mail, take note, and incorporate similar concept in their own marketing.

Maybe there is hope after all for the idea of environmentally sustainable direct mail.

Terminal thinking

How could a massive project go wrong so unexpectedly? One day, perhaps, we will understand why British Airways (BA) managed to make such a mess of the launch of Terminal 5 (T5). Until then, I have a theory …

Thousands of people worked on this project for years. The whole thing was tested, using members of the public, in advance of the launch. What did they miss?

And then I read a profile of the Chief Executive, Willie Walsh, in ‘The Economist’. It talked about how important T5 was to him, how often he referred to it, and how he knew, to the hour, how much time remained before launch.

Now I had my theory. Something in the culture of BA translated the CEO’s message about the critical importance of a project, into a corporate refusal to accept any bad news about it. I am certain that within BA, a lot of knowledgeable people knew very well that the launch was likely to fail; believing that failure was not an option, they had decided to keep quiet.

It’s a tough challenge for a leader. How do you show strong leadership across a massive organisation, whilst allowing time and space to hear clear messages coming back the other way?

Flying by the seat of your pants

When you pilot an aircraft, you have lots of important information on your dashboard. Beautiful and intuitive displays show precise data on key performance criteria (are you going up or down, how fast are you travelling, which way are you heading, are the engines OK?).

When you fly complex manoeuvers, there’s a lot going on. Every control input has a primary and a secondary effect (if you roll the wings to the left, you may well find the nose starts to point off to the right); there are several other factors such as engine speed, even which way the propellor turns, which all make a difference to what actually happens to the aeroplane as you go through your sequence.

To make that complex manoeuver look graceful and accomplished, you need to understand the aircraft and practise a lot; and whilst you’re actually flying it, you need to spend almost all of your time looking outside to see where the horizon is and which way your nose and wingtips are pointing. You get a lot of information literally from the seat of your pants as you feel yourself being pushed to one side or the other. Your elegant dashboard is almost useless until you are back into normal flight: it doesn’t tell you what you need to know, and even glancing at it makes you miss the really crucial information.

You definitely want to have your state-of-the-art dashboard. At the same time, in a complex world when you need to make difficult moves, you need to spend a lot of time looking out of the window.

And just to stretch the metaphor even further … when you’re in cloud, or when there’s no clear horizon or reference point, no sensible pilot attempts a complex move - you just concentrate on your dashboard.

Another way through the line

It looks as if someone has managed to create a single platform for analysing both on- and off-line customer activity, and then turning that data into effective media-neutral marketing activity. Huge step forward. It's no accident, they've been working on it for two years. Will be fascinating to see how it develops.

One of the early challenges is going to be how to describe it to a client or prospect. You can't call it CRM because that's become meaningless now; it's a lot more than 'web analytics' or 'modelling'; 'campaign management' also sells it short. Here's a suggestion - Integrated Customer View Marketing (or ICVM).

For a bit more detail, take a look at http://www.talkingnumbersmagellan.com/index.html

Inertia, and word of mouth

Interesting insights yesterday from a conversation with a lady who has just moved her home insurance policy after more than 25 years. Why now, I wondered?

Well, she has been thinking about it for a few years, because the price keeps going up, but each time she got round to looking at the policy, it had already passed its renewal date. This time, some friends told her how much money they had saved by changing.

She read the policy, decided that there were a lot of things that she didn’t need (for example £5,000 cover for home entertainment equipment), made some comparisons, and switched to another insurer for half the price. When she called to cancel her original policy, the company told her that they had a range of offers which could save her a lot of money. This simply confirmed her decision to move, since, as she pointed out, they had never bothered to tell her about these money-saving offers before.

What can I learn from this:

1. Inertia, and the comparative difficulty of making a change, continue to be strong influences on decision-making (has any insurance company tried a two-year policy, or 18 months, to take advantage of this?).
2. The influence of friends is so powerful, especially when it is spontaneous and where the friend is just being friendly, with no axe to grind or product to sell (and of course it’s pure coincidence that the company this lady now insures with, is the same one that her friends first mentioned)
3. Beware the product features that you turn into benefits – the cover for ‘home entertainment’ might be a benefit for some customers, but others can see it as something they are paying for that they don’t need
4. Amazingly, companies are still putting existing customers at a disadvantage compared to new ones. In a world where so much information is available so quickly (in the UK financial world, look at information exchanges like http://www.moneysavingexpert.com, or to the consumer champion Which? http://www.which.co.uk), it’s just bizarre that we still think this is sustainable.
5. Isn’t it interesting how much you can learn by listening to people?

Oh, and the company that used to insure this lady’s house? Northern Rock.

Silos

A very large and successful global organisation is wasting untold amounts of money, creating ill-will amongst its customers and prospects, and helping to perpetuate the bad news stories about poorly-targeted marketing. And it would be so easy to fix.

It’s good practice and common sense, when preparing a direct mail campaign, to check the mailing data against reliable suppression files to remove known goneaways and deceased records. There is a cost for running the suppressions, but it’s substantially less than the cost of producing the pack and then posting it unnecessarily.

In this case though, the marketing department does not hold the budget for postage. They are responsible for the creative and production costs, but not the cost of getting it to the consumer. If they run a suppression, then the cost comes off their marketing budget. So guess what, they don’t run suppressions, because it means they can ‘do more marketing’.

I hardly know where to begin.

They are deliberately sending out marketing communcations to some people who definitely don’t live there any more. They are perpetuating all the bad news stories about mailing dead people. They are wasting the company’s money and its reputation.

The company is getting exactly what it measures – more cost-effective campaigns … as long as you measure ‘cost-effectiveness’ as the cost of production, not cost of response, cost of reputation, or cost to the customer service centre of dealing with the fall-out from the distressed bereaved.

What sort of culture must there be in an organisation that prevents the marketing, data or customer service team from doing the right thing? What sort of message does this behaviour give to the rest of the business?

I wish I knew how to find the person in this organisation who has the authority to put it right.

The first 100 days

Why 100? Why not 76? Or 83? 100 is a nice round number, that’s why. If history had decided on a different global numbering system, then maybe it would be the first 100001 days (which in fairness, is quite round too, although – I think – it’s 65 in binary).

Anyway, the first hundred days. It’s often mentioned in the context of new presidents or prime ministers, or to focus attention on the crucial early stages of an acquisition, a relaunch, a merger, or a turnaround. The implication is that whatever this new thing is, it’s going to make a big impact quickly, and generate sufficient inertia to drive through the rest of its implementation.

Impact and inertia, says Newton, are functions of mass and energy. Those first hundred days often fizzle with the enthusiasm and drive of the new team, the new idea. Then reality and detail bite (look at Gordon Brown’s regime, hit by flood, bombing and disease in very short order), and the energy dissipates.

Just think what you could achieve if you could retain the passion of the first however-many days.

Well of course you can. Those first days were just a convenient construct. You’ve chosen to believe that those three months are the key ones and that everything gets harder thereafter. So, as NLP will tell you, you will prove yourself right.

So here’s a thought. Pick a different number. After your first new number of days, decide that you will now have a second set, where you will have just as much energy and enthusiasm. Then a third. Change the number and have a fourth. Of course you need to look after the reality and the detail, that’s not going to change. The bit you probably can change, is to keep making an impact, and maintain the energy that led you to start the thing in the first place.

Note added 14th February: see the inestimable Seth Godin's thoughts on what happens to new organisations and new projects: http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2008/02/soggy.html

Call signs

On a train this morning, a mobile phone rings. There is a collective intake of breath. The ring tone is the unmistakeable sound of a hunting horn.

The sound has lasted no longer than it takes to remove a handset from a handbag. In that time, forty people have formed their opinion about the owner of the phone. It’s a polarising sound – some thinking “one of us”, others thinking “one of them”, and not everyone thinking nice thoughts about hunting and hunters. Guessing from the age and dress of the owner, I’d say they just thought it was a helpfully distinctive ringtone.

How good would it be if you could position yourself or your brand with such speed and economy of effort? That’s why so many television adverts use well-known music as a backing, as a carrier for the idea. It’s why television stations spend so much money on station idents. Yet the ident doesn’t mean anything until it has had time to build its own story.

What sound could you use to support and explain your brand? What’s your ringtone?

A multi-channel world

Led a thoroughly enjoyable brainstorm session today. The starting point was to find ways of using data, personalisation, and variable digital printing, to maximise the value of customers of a new service www.which.co.uk/digitalstore, and as a result generate additional digital print output.

Lots of good ideas resulted. It took a while to realise that they were all data-based marketing ideas, entirely independent of the medium. It’s up to the customer to decide how they want the messages delivered. It’s up to us to give them the choice.

It’s a tough environment for a service provider that’s wedded to single channels.

Multi-site businesses

Running a business on multiple sites creates extra work for the senior management team, and for the boss. Everyone knows this.

What most people forget, is just how much extra work it creates. When different sites have their own history, it’s harder still.

The extra work isn’t so much difficult, as time-consuming. It involves travelling, and talking to people, and sometimes just being there, and being seen. In fact it’s so straightforward that it can be tempting to think it’s not really necessary.

Well, from what I’ve seen, if you want a single company with a single company culture, and a common sense of purpose, there is no short-cut. Plan your travel now. And find someone to manage your desk and your diary.

A good business face

Fascinating research summarised in last week’s 'Economist’ http://www.economist.com/science/displaystory.cfm?story_id=10559771 suggests you can judge the success of a company from the look of the CEO. If a CEO just looks competent, dominant, likeable, trustworthy, and adult, then their company is likely to be more successful. Go on, make those judgements yourself today. Look at your own organisation’s leader. Does he/she look as if they would be any good at running the company? Avoid all the agendas you have (the same research showed that it doesn't work if you assess their personality), and just look.

A couple of questions follow:

1. Does a CEO’s face change to match the fortune’s of the company?
2. If you plan to be a CEO, do you have the face for it?

Where's the value in recruitment?

Most recruitment companies talk about their knowledge of a market, of who the good people are. And of course, they always promise to interview candidates first.

It's no surprise that the reality is different. So many people, so many cvs, so easy for a desparate candidate to send inappropriate and irrelevant applications. No wonder if recruiters find short-cuts, look for the obvious candidates, and move on to the next assignment.

So where's the value?

Is it too obvious to suggest that the value is disappearing, and that the majority of recruitment is becoming transactional, a simple commodity? If so, then the online recruitment sites are the way to go. Look at ozzle for example http://www.ozzle.co.uk/ - it specialises in a specific area (print and packaging), it provides a link between candidates and prospective employers, and the fees are fixed based on the use of the site rather than on the candidate's salary. It just works.

There are, of course, some wonderful recruitment companies, companies who really do interpret cvs, and listen to candidates, working out the best fit and best potential for their clients (try David Abbott and Partners http://www.david-abbott.com/, Direct Experience http://www.direxp.co.uk/ or The Talent Business http://www.thetalentbusiness.com/, as three good examples).

Thing is, how do you tell? As a client, how do you know which company is going to add the value to justify their fee? As a candidate, how do you know which company is going to do the best for you?

If you're cv is classically impeccable, and you want to carry on doing exactly what you've been doing, then I suppose it's all very simple. But I thought we were in the era of portfolio careers, sabbaticals and life-changes? So how's a recruitment company going to help unless they are one of the excellent few?

It would make things an awful lot simpler if there was some way that you could tell whether the recruitment company you were about to deal with - either as client or candidate - was an added-value consultant, or a cv-pusher.

Meanwhile, if you are a cv-pusher, or the client is insisting on exact matches, then maybe there's a way of being more explicit in the job description? "You must have ... " We will not talk to you about this one unless ... "Do not bother to apply without ... " might all be helpful. It would save us all a lot of time.