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

So if brand is so important, why are we seeing some of the strongest ones tumble? Because brands are incredibly fragile. Just look at Tiger Woods and Toyota as recent examples. The fallout is not just to the brand-owners but to those who derive ancillary benefit. Tiger Woods’ sponsors are leaving because the brand actually has negative value and it impacts them. Personally, I love watching Tiger play and I enjoy hopping into my Toyota SUV and driving through the New England snow. I’m disheartened by both recent events.

The brand equity ascent is slow and arduous; the descent is fast and dangerous. Paraphrasing a former business partner of mine:

If you’re not careful, you can go from a hero to a has-been in heartbeat.

How true. Is it more challenging these days to protect a brand? Absolutely. The velocity of communications and the acceleration effects of social media leave little time to react.  And remember: bad news is like gasoline and good news is like water – all it takes is one strike of a match.

Is there a cure? Not entirely, but integrity sure goes a long way. Not just integrity from the start (Tiger Woods) but also integrity when dealing with and addressing problems as they arise (Toyota). We’ll see how they (and many others) try to regain their brand equity. Much, however, depends on whether those of us who benefit will remain loyal.

Rob Ciampa

The Twitter Scream

“I feel as if the train left the station and I’m standing on the platform watching it fade into the distance,” exclaimed a friend of mine whom I regard as one of the finest marketing people I know. He was referring to his disconnection to the major shift occurring in how we use social media to communicate with our customers and prospects.  My friend is not alone; I recently spent time with a group of senior marketers discussing Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff’s book Groundswell: Winning in a World Transformed by Social Technologies. I was surprised to find that only about one in five of my peers had a blog (corporate or personal) and most hadn’t read the book. This is not a disparagement, but rather a warning sign that many of our best marketing people aren’t adapting.

Why? Although there are many reasons, I’ll answer it in marketing terms: positioning. The new world order has been positioned in such a way that everything in the classic marketer’s toolbox is irrelevant, thereby making them irrelevant. Naturally, if not subconsciously, this generates fear and a negative reaction to the cause. Too Freudian? Perhaps, but I’ve witnessed this far too frequently to dismiss it as an anomaly.

Call it the social media revolution, but it’s really a marketing communications evolution. Don’t view it as a new toolbox; consider it new tools in the toolbox. And by the way, a tool is much more effective when it’s being used and not locked up. Now go out and grab that twitter wrench and work with (not fire) your PR team to get your message out.

Rob Ciampa

Facebook

Over the past several months, I spent time reviewing the proposed healthcare legislation, read editorial pieces on both sides of the issue, spoke with doctors and providers, and exchanged ideas with colleagues having diverse opinions. Have I formulated an opinion on healthcare reform? No – and that’s really starting to bother me. Why? Because I’ve invested so much time trying to figure out this societal predicament. Do I think healthcare is broken? Absolutely. The issue, though, is not whether we have to fix it, but rather the approach we take to doing so.

This is where I have an issue with both sides (are there really just two?) in the debate. Why? Because we have no way to measure spending or gauge the current performance of our healthcare system. We have neither quantified healthcare nor have we put together actionable data. Some people will jump up and down over this assertion, but there is no common baseline or framework sufficient for quantitative analysis. Some will argue that looking at things this way – objectively – will risk lives and depersonalize care.  Time for a strong opinion:

Being able to sufficiently quantify healthcare will allow us to make informed decisions, to allocate resources much more efficiently and, ultimately, to provide better care and save lives.

One of my friends challenged my views on this concept, claiming “Healthcare is too complicated to fix and it won’t fit into one of your mathematical equations, Rob.” That’s the problem. How can we possibly fix a system we can’t measure? We won’t know if it’s fixed or where it’s broken!

Our efforts in healthcare should be directed at getting the numbers in place and baselines established – and doing this fast. In the meantime, the debate train moves on. From yesterday’s Wall Street Journal on Olympia Snowe, the senior United States Senator from Maine:

Mrs. Snowe began by noting that this year’s health debate is “one of the most complex and intricate undertakings the Congress has ever confronted,” and that she, too, has devoted much of her three-decade political career to promoting cheaper, better quality insurance. “But it must be done in an effective, common-sense and bipartisan way,” she cautioned.

Real numbers will help simplify the decision, promote bipartisanship, and get public support.  Make all the numbers public. There’s a valuable lesson from the open source world in technology: when all the information is publicly accessible, more people will look at it, analyze it and make it actionable.  Let’s give the numbers to a couple hundred million people and we’ll get some great results. Remember Color by Numbers? It was – for me at least – a lot easier to work from than a blank canvas.

Rob Ciampa

Guy Fawkes and the Gunpowder Conspirators

Nearly all the dialog I had with the financiers turned to the concept of “dry powder,” an interesting and well-known metaphor for uninvested capital. The irony is that there are many emerging firms searching for money – looking for powder – and unable to get it. Is there a disconnect? Yes and no. Yes, because investment criteria are different and, in most cases, more exacting and stringent. No, because the model – as always – must address two markets: the one in which you’re trying to build a business and the other in which you’re seeking to raise money. Interestingly, elements of Sequoia Capital’s “Presentation of Doom” still ring true, but viewed in a different light it’s just common sense.

Entrepreneurship 101 right? Yes, but…we remain in a bit of a broader technology market malaise. Fortunately, because I lean toward optimism, there are encouraging signs, as indicated by a recent piece in the Merc. When conditions improve – and they will – the success of the outcome will be directly correlated to the dryness of the powder. Right now, that powder may be just a bit damp.

Rob Ciampa

As a marketing guy and a card-carrying member of the mid-market, I was at an interesting vantage point because I’ve used all of the social media vehicles. I had to explain the role of Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, blogs, Digg, etc. What intrigued me, though, were the divergent and interesting views on social media. Here are some take-aways:

• The kids thought the other generations at the table were Luddites and couldn’t understand why we weren’t texting between bites of cranberry sauce and stuffing.
• The mid-market and elders believe Facebook should be about connecting friends and not about communicating to your-sister’s-classmate’s-cousin-from-Fresno-CA’s-favorite-Starbucks-barista.
• The kids had an average 582 friends vs. about 87 for the mid-market. From our sample, none of the elders had Facebook, but were very interested.
• Only the mid-market, marketing guy and his wife (Mrs. Market Research) had a Twitter account. None of the kids “got” Twitter and thought it was weird. Go figure.
• LinkedIn was deemed very intriguing by the mid-market and the elders, though the brand recognition was weak. The kids challenged the concept of LinkedIn when one already had a Facebook account. (Why do the non-kids segments feel this way? Because business colleagues generally don’t want to see one another in skimpy bathing suits and compromising situations.)
• Social bookmarking was not well known across all three segments. When I explained the concept, everyone thought the idea was great, but didn’t like that fact that there were so many choices. The one-stop shopping rule returns.
• Most at the table don’t understand long URLs and want to shorten them. I explained bit.ly to a few, but they didn’t necessarily like the new, cryptic URLs either.

After the social media discussions ended, Sarah Palin showed up again this year as a hot topic. As always, she remains a divisive subject, especially now that her new book is out. I tried to remain objective between the Maureen Dowd-esque and Sean-Hannity-esque banter (and flying drumsticks) at the table. In an effort to mediate the debate, I raised the subject of her use of Facebook and Twitter, which only empowered both sides at the table. I’ll try to remain neutral again next year, though I suspect my analysis of her use of social media may not fly again. I will be especially interested at the Thanksgiving 2010 to see how the market segmentation changes and which social media vehicles are in vogue.

Rob Ciampa

Jackson Cannon - Eastern Standard

Many years ago, like many young boys from my neighborhood, I went to work at a famed Italian restaurant in Boston’s ethnic North End called “The European.” Even as a street savvy fifteen-year-old kid from nearby Medford, MA, I was somewhat unprepared for the world of the restaurant business, both on the floor and in the kitchen. Anthony Bourdain dutifully captures some of this restaurant lifestyle in his bestseller Kitchen Confidential. Little did I realize, though, what a positive, lifelong effect my time there would have on me, especially when it came to understanding and embracing the concept of great service.

Over time, I worked my way up from bussing tables, to managing the wine cellar, to working the kitchen and ultimately to waiting on tables. In the last position, I was fortunate to have had some great mentors who introduced me to the concept of great service. Chuck, our eccentric, tuxedoed maître d’ made it simple. “Bobby,” he said, “always think like a customer, intimately know what’s on the menu, and be passionate about what you do.” Simple advice, profound results. Chuck had me study the menu, the wine list, and trained me on the finer elements of French and Russian service. I loved it. The European wasn’t high-brow, but for some parties we could really pour it on and deliver an incredible experience. In time, great service came naturally, as did the rewards, both psychologically and financially. My job was enjoyable and rewarding, complemented by a stream of “regulars,” customers I knew by name and who knew me, always requesting a seat at one of my tables.

I continually find myself in search of great service and looking for those with an evangelical zeal about it. Recently, I decided to take a course in early American mixology at Boston University’s Culinary Arts School. (I’m enamored by culinary history.) The course was taught by Jackson Cannon and Bobby McCoy, famed bartenders at Boston’s Eastern Standard restaurant. For those of you who don’t know Eastern Standard, it has one of best bars in Boston, if not the U.S. Why the fame? It’s simple. The bar team at Eastern Standard gives great service: they are customer-focused; know their product; and are passionate about what they do. It doesn’t matter whether you’re serving food, mixing drinks or – in my case -delivering technology products around the world, the recipe for great service remains the same.

Rob Ciampa