• If you ignore it, you’ll pay dearly.
• No matter how much you plan, something will go wrong.
• Many people you hire, no matter how much background checking you do, will produce shitwork.

So what’s “shitwork”? Many contemporary definitions (yes, I’m not kidding) define it as something that’s given: trivial, unrewarding, tedious, dirty, and disagreeable chores. I’m going to modify the definition to something that’s received: subpar, shoddy, goods or services that have long-term, negative economic impact.

So what does this have to do with a house? Ask most homeowners about the quality of their houses – especially the things they had to fix – and they’ll tell you about shitwork, without my fancy definition. Let’s look at this more closely.

When I moved to Atlanta several years ago to start a company, I bought a beautiful, well-known-architect-designed home. It was stunning. Within 18 months, all the rooms had to be redone because every square foot of drywall had bulges and cracks from nail pops. The builders didn’t use drywall screws; they used nails, which can’t stay in place as a house naturally contracts and expands. That’s shitwork. I had to redo every wall and ceiling.

Back up North and now living in a 100-year-old Massachusetts home, I had a water pipe let go. Upon inspection, it became clear that a plumber, ten years ago during a renovation, failed to put the new copper piping fully in a coupling before soldering the joint. That’s shitwork. I spent a weekend cleaning it up and fixing it right.

What about business? No different. As part of a marketing campaign, I hired a firm to do a promotion from one of their “highly-targeted” lists. Though we received a respectable number of leads, our conversion rates were zero. Yes, nada. Nil. I never had this happen before and upon investigation discovered that the vendor didn’t even bother to filter their list based on our criteria. They figured we wouldn’t notice. That’s shitwork. Fortunately, we caught this in time and didn’t pay them.

We can only wonder about the economic (and even environmental) impact of shitwork. Too bad the financial benefit is on the bad vendor or the unethical contractor, but only if they can get away with it. Social media and services such as Angie’s List help, but we still have a long way to go. We’re all busy people, but we can only mitigate the risk if we inspect the work, document it well, and keep a zero-tolerance policy. Whether it’s our home or our business, shitwork is shitwork.

Rob Ciampa

The root causes of town distress can fill many, many books, but I’ll generalize: empty storefronts signal something is wrong. In some cases, the causes are macro and out of the control of the town or business owners. Examples include cyclical economic downturns, commerce redirection because of new highways and shopping centers, or broad changes to the industrial or manufacturing base. In the sixties, we tried to counter these macro issues with urban renewal, which yielded questionable results.

In other cases, empty storefronts are a result of micro conditions because business owners fail to adapt. Why?

• They lose the concept of customer service
• They underestimate the need to market themselves
• They shun advances in technology
• They don’t collaborate with each other

These are self-inflicted wounds that happen more frequently than they should. It’s a shame. The core issue is that we shouldn’t be seeing so many empty storefronts, at least not the ones that can be controlled. It’s bad for the towns, the business owners, and the customers. People want to get out of their cars when they drive into a town; they want to stroll the streets; and they want to spend their money. Over the coming months, I’ll examine each of these issues, with the goal of providing some guidance on what small businesses can do in our evolving world. Perhaps the towns or chambers of commerce can take a cue as well.

Rob Ciampa

Photo Credit: George Cannon

A Great Pizza from Brick Pizzeria Napoletana in New Bedford, MA

And there is great marketing and mediocre marketing. It’s that red and white too. We like great marketing as much as we like great pizza. It’s a shame that there’s not more of the great stuff, but you’ll easily find an endless buffet of the mediocrity that looks the same, smells the same, and tastes the same. I’m talking about both pizza and marketing.

What’s the problem? It’s simple. In pizza making, anyone can make dough, add tomato sauce, throw on some cheese, and bake a 16 inch pie. In marketing, anyone can create collateral, add it to a website, throw on some email, and bake a campaign.

If we all have access to the same resources for marketing or pizza, then why do we have this dichotomy of great and mediocre? There are two things that make the difference: the ingredients and the baker. Let’s look at each from a marketing perspective.

Marketing ingredients. Great, compelling, differentiated content is mandatory. Why? Because bad cheese tastes like plastic. And bad content smells like bad cheese. So, why do so many marketing organizations produce such bad content? I’ll argue that many marketers really don’t know their products, their customers, or their markets. I’ve made this case before. This is our farm, our dairy, our mill; this is where we get our ingredients.

Marketing Baker. The true pizza artisan is known as a pizzaiolo. Great ingredients don’t guarantee great results. That’s where the pizzaiolo comes in. He or she picks the ingredients, blends them in creative ways, and delivers an extraordinary customer experience.

So, does your marketing organization seem like a second-rate pizza joint? Is the “marketing pizza” undifferentiated and uninspired? Want to be great? You better take a hard look at the ingredients and the people in the kitchen. Before you pull out the pizza cutter, remember that producing unforgettable results starts at the top. Yes, dear CEO, that means you. If you can’t differentiate between great and mediocre, don’t be surprised when your prospects and customers can. Go get some great ingredients and find a sensational pizzaiolo.

Rob Ciampa

P.S. Check out The Two Palaverer post on a great pizza establishment in New Bedford, MA.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” I exclaimed while leading a marketing team on a walk through of an existing marketing automation system. “The lead nurturing content is wrong and the landing pages don’t align with the message.”

“Where’s the documentation and the process for this?” I asked.

“We don’t have any.  A consultant did it.”

“What about the messaging? Let’s look at the assumptions.”

“We hired another firm to do that.”

Sigh. “OK, then let’s fix the landing pages. We’ll modify the message and the call-to-action. And the graphics, we’ll need to make some modifications.”

“We can’t. We don’t have any of the Adobe tools to do it. Besides, if we did, we wouldn’t know how to use them. We only have the JPG, GIF, and PNG graphics files.”

“You didn’t get the source files as part of the contract?”

“Nope.”

“Where’s the designer?”

“Don’t know. He was a freelancer and his Comcast email and cell number don’t work.”

I’d like to think this saga is unique, but I hear it regularly from my marketing and executive colleagues. Over the past decade, many of us have had to either make deep cuts in our organizations or significantly increase our productivity without a comparable change in staffing or resources. It’s the nature of our business and the more astute managers will adapt, often through outsourcing and contract help.

But outsourcing doesn’t mean you abdicate competence. A marketing manager or executive must have a grasp of what’s being outsourced and retain ownership and understanding. One of the finest courses I took in graduate school was “Business Law.” On the first day of class, Professor Susan Samuelson addressed the class:

You are not here to be lawyers: you are here to be good clients, which requires an understanding of the basics of law so you can make intelligent decisions.

True for business law, true for marketing, and true for other professions. If you don’t understand what you’re outsourcing, then how can you gauge the results? Marketing outsourcing will remain a critical part of our operations, but be sure to keep competency in house.

Rob Ciampa

Photo Credit: Eric Ward

There seems to be a recurring theme that children will learn better when they’re sitting in a contemporary school with all the modern amenities. I’m sure there is some truth to that, but I decided to reflect upon my own education. What stood out? Not the buildings. What stood out were the great teachers. Though I can still somewhat envision my school buildings, I very clearly hear the voices and lessons of many of my teachers.

When communities raze older schools with the aim of improving education, they’re frequently missing the mark. Of course everyone acts surprised when the subsequent standardized test scores don’t go up. (“But we have such a beautiful new campus.”) Communities and school systems should focus on developing excellent teachers if they want to improve learning. That’s the essence of education.

Those of us in business witness similar effects. We do our own razing, which we call “reorganization.” Too often we reorganize with the hope of bringing about transformations in the business. Like the standardized test scores, the business results are often unchanged. And everyone acts surprised. Organizations should focus on developing excellent leaders if they want to improve performance. That’s the essence of business.

For both business and education, it’s about leadership first, jackhammers second.

Rob Ciampa

Photo Credit: Jef Nickerson

Any launch is an exercise in planning, timing, creativity, and improvisation. Legacy marketers may shudder at the last element, but the need to improvise is often the key to a successful launch.  Recently, while wrapping up an international product launch, I stopped by a bookstore at the airport in Frankfurt, Germany. By habit, I went over to the business section and began thumbing through a marketing book, one that was published by a well-known business magazine. It positioned marketing as some orderly, recipe-structured process: just follow these steps and you’ll be successful with your products. Trying to be open minded and warding off a visceral, negative reaction, I thumbed through a few more chapters. No change on my end; the author clearly spent his time on the bench and hadn’t experienced action on the field when the best laid plans don’t work and require organizations to think on their feet and improvise.

Good marketing does require good planning, but great marketing adds real-time, event-driven tactical response, which may well decide the championship. Sure, you can have a detailed and exhaustive playbook, but what if your competition (or your customers) don’t fit into a play? You can’t run back to the locker room. Be good with your playbook, but be great with your improvisation on the field.

Rob Ciampa

Photo Credit: The Pennsylvania State University

My parents, like most, always had a repertoire of sayings that they used to keep their wayward children moving in the right direction. My father used to frequently say: “Tell me who your friends are and I’ll tell you who you are.” My mother had a similar one: “You are who you hang out with.” Like many kids, I had my good friends and I had my share of not-so-good friends. Sometimes the latter were a bit more stimulating, which likely led to my parents’ concern.

Fast forward many years and the concept still holds, this time in business. No company is an island: many organizations rely on business partners for sales, distribution, marketing, integration, etc. These are our business “friends” and they are a reflection on/of our company. It doesn’t matter if we’re a large multinational or a regional non-profit.

When they add value, it’s brand harmony; when they don’t it’s brand dissonance, which can cause customers to walk. Unfortunately, there is reluctance to mute this dissonance until it’s too late. Why? Trepidation, perceived risk, ignorance. Remember: your bad corporate friends make you look bad. Period.

Many years ago I started what eventually became a large, cutting-edge, worldwide IT services firm. Some early, successful projects with E*TRADE put us on the map and helped us establish a solid and strong brand. We subsequently added some great partners such as Cisco and did great things with them around the world. Our brand became even stronger.

Then came a new “friend,” Enron. We partnered with them to use their infrastructure as a foundation for what was to become one the world’s most powerful and advanced video-on-demand networks. Today, we take video-on-demand for granted, but since we were doing one of the first large-scale networks, it was a challenge. Blockbuster, the video rental rock star, was also in the the mix as the content provider. This had all the characteristics to be one of the greatest IT projects of all time. Unfortunately, Enron was not a good business friend and they were making us look bad – to Blockbuster, to Cisco, and to the many other organizations associated with the project.

We tried to turn them into a good partner, but remember, before their fall, Enron was occupying Mount Olympus. They were business gods and had the hubris to go with it, not to mention they were jeopardizing the project. Blockbuster was screaming. Cisco was screaming. Our employees were screaming from abuse. We had to make a decision and we did: we walked. We walked away from an incredible opportunity. We had to.  We did it for our employees, our other partners, and our brand. The dissonance was deafening, but it was the right thing to do.

All organizations should take regular inventory of their partnerships and listen for brand dissonance. If something doesn’t seem right, don’t tune it out. Take action or the market certainly will. You are who you hang with. My parents were right.

Rob

Leeville, Louisiana

In 1998, while living north of Boston, I co-founded an internet services company in Atlanta. The following year, when the venture got traction, my family and I left New England, moved to the South, and began a new chapter in our lives. For the next eight years, when not consumed with work, I explored much of the region with my family.

Moving from the Northeast was quite a change, but not for the typical reasons. For us, we gave up regional character, culture and cuisine. For those of you who read the blog I write with my wife, The Two Palaverers, you know why I borrowed that alliteration.  Immediately, we began our quest to discover what we left a thousand miles behind. Happily over time, we found it in places like Charleston, South Carolina, Savannah, Georgia, and Natchez, Mississippi, but we knew we hit the jackpot with Louisiana.

For years, we made many visits to Louisiana, exploring much of the state. Each trip offered a different, more stimulating experience, whether it was eating alligator in Lafayette, watching a Sunday service procession along the Mississippi River south of Baton Rouge, or listening to an emerging jazz trio near Tulane University. Louisiana has soul.

In 2004, at a local bookstore in Atlanta, I came across a book called Bayou Farewell by Mike Tidwell. Because my reading queue was continuing to expand, I resisted the purchase, but returned the following day and bought it, putting it at the front of my reading list. A few days later it was read. From the start, Tidwell hypnotized me with his chronicle of the people south of New Orleans in Cajun country and on the Gulf. He methodically navigated such diverse subjects as culture, shrimpers, boat maintenance – and oil. He successfully captured the essence of this part of Louisiana.

Not long after reading the book, I retraced many of Tidwell’s paths through Cajun country and such small towns as Leeville, Galliano, and Golden Meadow. The more I saw, the more I was convinced – and concerned – by how ecologically fragile this region was. Decades of silt loss from the Mississippi and pipeline runs through the swampland were having a range of effects from land erosion to wetland depletion.

Today, we’re all shocked by the endless flow of oil and images from the massive leak in the Gulf. Oil from this region is important to both the people of Lousisiana and the rest of us around the country. I’m sure we’ll have more insight to the cause as the seepage stops. Like every catastrophe, I expect there to be no shortage of warning signs ignored. We won’t know the ultimate impact on the inhabitants or environment for some time. Hurricane Katrina knocked Louisiana down, but it survived. This oil spill, though, is different. I hope it’s not Bayou Farewell.

Rob Ciampa

Over the years, I’ve run into many marketers at all skill levels who had either no or limited knowledge of their products. Granted, product marketing managers do, but what about marketing communication managers? Lead generation specialists? And even marketing executives? Is this surprising? Well, yes and no. Yes, because product knowledge is one of the key tenets of effective marketing. No, because many products are becoming more sophisticated and require a significant investment of time to develop base expertise.

Good engineers know their products and so should good marketers. That’s the lesson from engineering: know your product in excruciating detail. It’s the the foundation of positioning. It’s the foundation of competitive analysis. It’s the foundation of selling. There’s absolutely no excuse for not having product depth, especially in today’s highly-competitive environment. Still, many rely on the crutch of dragging along a product-aware person to trade shows, industry events, analyst briefings, press calls, prospect visits, etc.

What’s the solution? RTFM. “Read the ‘fine’ manual.” If you’ve worked with engineers, you know the more acerbic ones have a better word substitution for “fine.” I’ll argue, however, that RTFM is only one step in a broader process of product understanding.  Here are some key steps.

• RTFM
• Install the products
• RTFM again
• Review support calls
• RTFM again
• Go spend time with partners and customers

Lather, rinse, repeat. Yes, this is an ongoing process. And it takes time – time that many think they don’t have. But what could be more important than this? Marketers and their companies will be better for it. Moreover, that acerbic engineer will have more respect for marketing and won’t call you out publicly with, “Hey Marketer, RTFM.” He or she may even reciprocate by reading the product brochure.

Rob Ciampa

There are more than 100,000,000 lines of code running over dozens of processors in a contemporary automobile. That programming controls everything from the transmission gear selection to the tail light malfunction indicator. If you’ve ever had an automotive computer problem, you know that it’s an expensive, trial-and-error nightmare. Often, the dealer or repair shop simply replaces the whole part and tells you to “give it a shot.”

Last summer, I retired the family’s Dodge minivan after many years of service. (And I have no regrets about owning one!)  I was amazed and frequently annoyed at the number of issues I had with the on-board computers: the body control module, transmission computer, etc. There were code compatibility issues, wiring issues and other assorted problems that would cause the dashboard to shut down while traveling 65 mph on a crowded highway. The repair shop was happy to do a “reprogram” for about $1000. My contract programmers used to get $100/hour, yet this task took the dealer 15 minutes to complete – and there were still bugs.

The recent problems with Toyota, though initially deemed mechanical, are now being considered “electronic,” and are not unique to this manufacturer; Ford has also issued recalls. Every manufacturer has a problem with programming whether they like to admit it or not. You can survive a computer crash because of bad code; you may not survive a car crash because of bad code. Losing the scan of Aunt Bertha’s crumb cake recipe is far different from running through a red light head-on into a dump truck.

As a former engineer, I’m surprised this crisis didn’t occur sooner. It’s just incredibly hard to design and debug distributed computing and control systems, much like those we find in today’s cars. However, we continue to make these systems even more complex and co-dependent.  We are at the mercy of both an incompetent programmer who writes bad car code and the wayward squirrel that chews through the wire that connects the body module computer to the transmission.

Manufacturers who ride the complexity curve must be prepared for fall-out when the bad glitch occurs. The alleged “cover ups” that we’ve heard about are more likely an indication that the manufacturer has a complexity crisis and really doesn’t know what’s going on.  And that’s bad for all of us.

Rob Ciampa