Teamwork or Work Groups

There have been many observations that there's no "I" in team, and with mere syntax, this is correct. However, there are plenty of differences between Teams and Work Groups. Just because your department has a small group focused on a set of tasks or a product launch does not make you a team. I wouldn't assume that a dept manager is the same as a team leader. (Source)

Here's a simple breakdown between the two:

Work Groups	Teams
Individual accountability	Individual and mutual accountability
Come together to share information and perspectives	Frequently come together for discussion, decision making, problem solving, and planning.
Focus on individual goals	Focus on team goals
Produce individual work products	Produce collective work products
Define individual roles, responsibilities, and tasks	Define individual roles, responsibilities, and tasks to help team do its work; often share and rotate them
Concern with one's own outcome and challenges	Concern with outcomes of everyone and challenges the team faces
Purpose, goals, approach to work shaped by manager	Purpose, goals, approach to work shaped by team leader with team members

Google: Instant = On = Fail

Google's search engine assumes that if lots of people are searching on a particular phrase, you must be too. Frankly, I dislike Instant results, and there's no way to rate or send feedback to Google about it.. ok, no easy built-into-the-site way. I dislike how the page is pre-configured for Instant to be On, and if you toggle it off, the page instantly purges your current search results causing you to retype your search query. I dislike how it tells me that I really should be looking for something else other than what I typed. And, it should already know (since it knows I'm doing a web search from the Portland metro area) that the closest match to the name should have brought up search hits for the dairy in Battle Ground, WA not, as it wanted me to look at as the first result, a dairy with an entirely DIFFERENT name in Las Vegas, NV. Arrrrgh.

To be fair, this is what Bing brought up as search results (yes, cookies were purged prior to this):



Retail Value of Chocolate

I debated about which blog to post this to, but since it deals more with pricing than with food, I'll post it here.

You need a sunny, cloudless day to make toffee (or caramel) because any inclusion of moisture in the pan will cause the sugar to recrystalize and the toffee won't set. Because it is so humid here, even on our driest days, it's really hard to make your own chocolate-covered toffee from the basic ingredients. You're much better off making butterscotch since it's a far more forgiving recipe. Although, that flavor seems to be pretty unpopular out here too. As far as retail prices go, Heath and Trader Joe's are priced about the same, although Heath is mass produced and Trader Joe's is probably made the same, but the pieces are served up in a plastic tub and not individually wrapped. I like the latter because the bars keep fresher longer in the fridge. Mini Heaths are about 1/3 the size of a regular Heath bar, what consumer know as "fun size" or "snack size".


At retail, pricing kinda looks like this:


a regular sized Heath bar, 1.4 oz, $0.50/bar ($0.36/oz)
a bag of mini Heath bars, 11 oz, roughly $2.50-$3.00/bag, ~ $0.23/oz
a bag of milk chocolate Dove, 9.5 oz, $4/bag (rarely on sale), $0.42/oz
a "tub" of Trader Joes English toffee bars, 8 oz, $4, ~$0.50/oz
a regular Toblerone bar, 3.5 oz, about $2.50-$3.00/bar, ~$0.71/oz

By inexpensive, I meant to say that it's a good quality chocolate for eating and that procuring it for purely creature comforts is easy to do. Cheap, on the other hand, would be an adjective I'd apply to just about everything made by Nestle, World's Finest Chocolate, or to some extent Hersheys. And, in that regard, I'm not talking about price, but the quality of the ingredients that went into their chocolate candies. There's a definite lack of taste when cocoa butter and chocolate liquor isn't used in a chocolate confection. Nestle, for example, compensates by increasing the amount of sugar in the recipe, so much that it tastes more like sugar than chocolate.
Let's put pricing into more context for the "higher end" stuff...

Scharffen Berger, milk or dark chocolate bar, 3oz, $4/bar ($1.33/oz)
Godiva milk chocolate bar, 1.5 oz, $3.50-$5.00/bar ($2.33/oz)
Lindt, milk or dark chocolate bar, 3.5 oz, $1.50-$2.00/bar ($0.43.oz)
Green & Black organic dark chocolate bar, 3 oz, $4/bar ($1.33/oz)
Whole Foods "Everyday Value brand" organic milk chocolate bar, 3 oz, $2-$3 ($0.67/oz)
Trader Joe's milk or dark chocolate bar, 1.75 oz, $0.50/bar ($0.29/oz)

How about a custom confection shop like the Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory (a west coast chain store), chocolate confections are about $25/lb (or $1.56/oz)

This is almost like the argument for how much a cup of tea costs. One of my projects at the undergrad level was to create a business plan for a cybercafe. But, the value and taste that I get from eating certain types of chocolate.. am I more or less willing to fork out money for it? Depends on the quality of the chocolate recipe than the brand that promotes it. It's why I have never bought Godiva, whose core business strategy is to sell high-end imported chocolate at a very high retail price. It's a perceived worth, an intangible, just like how goodwill is listed as an asset on a company's financial statements.

NonProfit Marketing

Having attended my first marketing committee meeting with the local chapter of Habitat for Humanity, I have come to realize that the outreach efforts employed by nonprofits is largely the same as a B2C business, with major exceptions: tiny budget, utilizes mostly volunteer time, and very little of the actual marketing (collateral creaton, web content, print production, etc.) is done by its volunteers. Committee meetings are held at the SW Washington chapter office, 2nd Wednesdays 5pm. Every year the marketing coordinator for the nonprofit changes since it is a stipend-paid position that is sponsored by the AmeriCorps VISTA program.

Our barnstorming meeting about December outreach methods came up with the following avenues for getting the word out:

• Advertisement in the EH4H e-newsletter
• Email to newsletter distribution group about upcoming events
• Posts to the shared chapter FB page
• Twitter
• Handing out flyer and brochures to the neighborhood
• Personal invitation calls to the Home Dedication Ceremony made by committee members to executives that participated in the CEO and Elected Officials build day
• Contacting local news outlets for Public Service Announcements

Price of a loaf

Any home baker with a bread machine will tell you that it takes roughly 3 hours to make your own loaf of bread, and while you can control the quality of the ingredients that goes into that loaf, it still takes 3 hours. And, depending on your machine, you can at most only make one or two loaves at any time. For a consumer buying ingredients at retail, the cost to make your own loaf is about 30% of the price it costs to buy the finished good from a grocery store. You can imagine what the profit margin is like for restaurants that buy their raw materials at wholesale prices. 


People shop and eat at restaurants like Panera Bread because these places have an economy of scale working in their favor, larger ovens, the competitive advantage offering a multitude of culinary dishes not just breads, but also desserts, soups, salads, pizzas, and other common lunch fare. They even brew their own iced tea. Plus, it helps tremendously that the food that they make tastes really good. And, they offer free wifi and a casual, comfortable environment for people to meet and gather. You'll also note that aside from customers buying gift certificates for other future customers, Panera does not offer coupons or discounts on any of their bakery cafe items to attract new customers. Panera customers aren't all that frugal, nor are they value shoppers in that the discount a coupon would offer is the key decision point of that purchase decision. Because, as Michael Silverstein and Neil Fiske (CEO, Eddie Bauer) would tell you in Trading Up, "people are willing to pay more for quality products that matter to them."


In May, Panera Bread Company opened up a nonprofit restaurant location, branded under the Panera Cares name, where customers could pay what they felt their meal was worth and limited the program to one meal per person.  Barely six months later, the bakery-cafe which offers the same menu items as its for-profit counterparts reports that 4,000 people a day visit the restaurant and about 65% pay the recommended amount with the remainder divided among over-payers and those who pay less or nothing. The store almost breaks even and the company has plans to open more "shared responsibility" restaurants. (The Economist, 10/09/2010, p.94)


Is this a competitive strategy and could other restaurants compete with such a model? Well, let's backtrack a little bit to just before this restaurant opened.


Panera Bread rakes in $1.35 Billion in revenues (FY 2009) with over 1,300 for-profit locations and 85% of those revenues comes from bakery-cafe sales (the other 15% from franchise royalties/fees and fresh dough sold to franchises). The premise of the restaurant, how it is run and what it stands for is all neatly laid out in its annual report:


"Our bakery-cafes are principally located in suburban, strip mall and regional mall locations. We feature high quality, reasonably priced food in a warm, inviting, and comfortable environment. With our identity rooted in handcrafted, fresh-baked, artisan bread, we are committed to providing great tasting, quality food that people can trust. Nearly all of our bakery-cafes have a menu highlighted by antibiotic-free chicken, whole grain bread and select organic and all-natural ingredients, with zero grams of artificial trans fat per serving, which provide flavorful, wholesome offerings. Our menu includes a wide variety of year-round favorites complemented by new items introduced seasonally with the goal of creating new standards in everyday food choices. In neighborhoods across this country and in Ontario, Canada, our customers enjoy our warm and welcoming environment featuring comfortable gathering areas, relaxing decor, and free internet access. Our bakery-cafes routinely donate bread and baked goods to community organizations in need.


Bread is our platform and the entry point to the Panera experience at our bakery-cafes. It is the symbol of Panera quality and a reminder of Panera Warmth, the totality of the experience the customer receives and can take home to share with friends and family. We strive to offer a memorable experience with superior customer service. Our associates are passionate about sharing their expertise and commitment with our customers. We strive to achieve what we call Concept Essence, our blueprint for attracting and retaining our targeted customers that we believe differentiates us from our competitors. Concept Essence begins with artisan bread, quality products and a warm, friendly and comfortable environment. It calls for each of our bakery-cafes to be a place customers can trust to serve high quality food. Bread is our passion, soul, and expertise, and the platform that makes all of our other food special."


The short answer is no, other restaurants cannot compete against Panera's philosophy. But, before Panera became mainstream, there was the privately-held Corner Bakery and Cafe which operates the same type of upscale, fast-casual eatery and is thriving more with franchise operations than the restaurant being the core of its operation. But, that is a business strategy for restaurants for another blog post.

There are plenty of examples of for-profit restaurants that tried to offer the same "free meal" concept as Panera Cares and failed and/or went bankrupt as a result. But what boggles the mind is why would a for-profit business try to or want to compete with one operating as a nonprofit? The goals are different and revenue isn't the keystone of the Panera Cares operation.

The "in" crowd

Probably the most annoying phrase heard this year is "joining the conversation," as in, businesses actually responding to customer comments, needs, and complaints via social media networks such as LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter status updates, or by email/web campaigns.

That is so 1990.

Isn't listening to your customers one of the servicing fundamentals of doing for-profit business in the first place?

Secret Sauce

The flavor of the year is web intelligence.

While web analytics companies had fallen out of favor with their burdensome plethora of datasets and a marketer's inability to spare the time to digest it all, the latest trend is to provide integrated dashboards that marries most of the online and offline transactions together so that marketers can make meaningful purchase decisions with respect to advertising and campaign spends. This is a snake eating its tail. But, what purveyors of web analytics do not tell you is that there isn't a single solution available that is an actual standalone single solution.

By standalone, I mean to say that there isn't a single dashboard entity that has all the necessary tools under its own dashboard. It may show up in the UI as a single utility, but it is the merger of several tools from different providers each of whom you have to purchase to use.

The secret sauce that has everyone whispering about at conferences and marketing webinars this year is how to combine online data transactions with offline data transactions so that marketers can better understand online marketing, retention efforts, create more targeted advertising, and ultimately generate higher conversions.

Customers interact with your company and its brands everywhere:

• Twitter, Facebook
• Via mobile phone, Skype, or call centers
• In-store kiosks (Starbucks, bank branches, photo duplication, etc.)
• Brick and mortar stores
• Print publications (magazines, newspapers, flyers, postcards, POS)
• On the web

Future of Screen Technology

Probably the greatest benefit that marketing and advertising gives to the world is the ability to invoke desires from potential consumers. While this is just a concept video from TATmobile, if touch screens could do this today and have a low cost of ownership, I would be one of those pushing demand for these products.

Watch the video.

[Edit: 3/5/2011, we may never get the chance to see this as TATmobileUI has been acquired by Research In Motion, Ltd., and is now tasked with developing UI for the Blackberry ecosystem.]

Customer Relationship Marketing (CRM for Marketers)

At the first marketing consulting firm I worked for the agency's lead consultant believed that the database was the lifeblood of the company. This still rings true today. The cleaner data that has gone into it over its lifetime, the better able you will be to evaluate a customer's lifetime value (CLTV) and identify potential customers that meet the same specifications.  Likewise if your data migrated from one CRM system to another but only retained the past year of customer data, there will most certainly be knowledge gaps about those customers.

CRM (Customer Relationship Management) databases have long been used by salesforce-driven companies to store datasets such as customer/vendor/partner contact info, purchase history, product interest, product registration, and occassionally market research data on individual customers. It has only been last five years that all this data has been coming together for small-to-medium sized businesses with emerging web platforms that enable sales professionals and marketers to better target their optimal 20% (The Pareto Principle suggests 20% of customers produce 80% of revenues).

Relationship marketing is primarily focused on customer retention and satisfaction rather than the achievement of sales quotas using sales-related promotional methods.

A themed viral marketing campaign, for example, would target existing customers and also:

• be supported by a microsite, YouTube, Facebook, and/or Twitter
• encourage customers to "Like" the page, ad, or video or Tweet it to their friends
• aimed at a specific demographic segment appropriate for the offering
• could include a loyalty program to help customers save time and/or money on future purchases, e.g., season pass holders for the local symphony could be automatically subscribed to receive alerts

A campaign's success depends on how customers perceive these types of interactions with a company, its products, or its brands.

Groupon: Local Area Advertising

If you were already willing to discount your products and/or services by half, and of the remaining half of the expected revenues, only take in 25%, then maybe Groupon might be a decent advertising channel for local area advertising. But, if you think that 75% of an expected sale is way too high of an acquisition cost of new customers, you may just be among those who believe that Groupon is bad for business.

Like any advertising strategy, you should weigh the pros and cons of using the service, as well as the ROI and costs involved. For example:

Pros:

• Can bring in robust traffic to a storefront in a short period of time
• Consumers love Groupon and can't wait to tell their friends about it
• Customer pays for the opportunity of using a voucher instead of receiving a comparable offer in the mail for free

Cons:

• Groupon voucher offer language must be carefully constructed
• Groupon vouchers apply to one person only and cannot be redeemed for the benefit of the group; Customers have to read the fine print to see what they are really getting
• No lasting relationship with Groupon (no business directory listing, no customer reviews)
• Customers become Pavlovian in response to deep discounts for your products/services, meaning, they will only shop with you if a coupon or reward is involved
• Very high cost of acquisition of new customers who must have an extraordinary experience in order to become a repeat customer or spend more (without coupons) with your store
• Overuse of coupons can cause brand erosion, loss of operating margin, and decreased long-term profits
• Your business, existing employees, and in-store technology may not be able to handle the immediate influx of new customers (e.g., your hidden costs will rise because of this; adding new employees, training them on how to redeem Groupon coupons, increased staffing management issues) and quality of customer service or first-time customer experiences could suffer as a result
• You may, as a business owner, feel fleeced from the whole Groupon experience
• And, there's no unique technology nor business model that separates Groupon from its competitors

Alternatives:

• Entertainment Book, RelyLocal, PayBack Book, Goldstar Events, the "blue envelope" local coupon mailer
• Start your own customer email list and offer a monthly newsletter; Constant Contact starts at about $15/month; Vertical Response offers pretty decent rates and does postcards too
• If you're a professional services business owner, after hours business mixers, Chamber of Commerce events, and local/regional networking events through Meetup.com are excellent places to meet new customers

The Microsoft Advantage

One of the reasons for not adopting a game console through the various generations of consoles is because the decision standard I used was to find at least five games I would be willing to play more than once or would be engaging enough to offer more than 24 hours of play. Single user PC games have this flaw. Most are solvable within 24 hours, except those that are coded to deliberately become progressively harder by throwing more minions at you so you cannot. The result: none matched this criteria. All console systems are priced about the same. The console games are priced per brand and market opportunity rather than if they're any good or not. And for users, the measure for buying a game is based on the Borg-collective of gamers on sites like Gamestop, IGN, or CNET, where game ratings from hundreds of players factor largely for new players to consider the game title. Games aren't cheap anymore. The average new release costs a player $50-70 per user license, depending on what kind of bundle it is. And, you can't return a game after the box has been opened or you purchased it online and downloaded it. 


But, I digress, this post is not about console games, its title publishers, or consoles, but rather Microsoft's near-term strategy for its media portfolio.


Today's top console manufacturers are Microsoft, Nintendo, and Sony.


When a marketer thinks about media outlets, what generally comes to mind? Print. Broadcast radio/tv. Internet web/email. In-game advertising has been around for at least a decade, maybe longer. Barack Obama used in-game advertising during his 2008 campaign. It's nothing new. What is revolutionary and adds a whole new dimension to advertising is the ability to stream in real-time, ads and programs, from partner firms, like Netflix, Hulu, YouTube, or Pandora radio, through a new media platform, the game console.


This includes, but is not limited to video-on-demand (VOD), web conferencing, simucasts (from existing radio and web tv stations), HD radio, or user-generated content.


Here is a rough timeline of partnerships:


Microsoft
...and the WWW - no official add-on, but this capability has been around since 2005
...and YouTube - no official add-on, but this capability has been around since 2007
...and Netflix - May 2008 (Netflix gained a new distribution network; Microsoft gained access to partner media content)
...and HD radio - May 2009


Nintendo
...and Virgin Radio - Apr 2007
...and YouTube - Jan 2009
...and Netflix - Apr 2010


Sony
...and IPTV - Jan 2007 (IPTV has roughly 28 MM subscribers, though when introduced to the PS system, this was free content)
...and Virgin Radio - Apr 2007
...and Netflix - Nov 2009


After subscribers reach into the double or triple digits worldwide, what's left to conquer in the media universe? Someone else's subscriber universe for their revenue annuity, of course.


Ahh yes, but what is the advantage if everyone jumps onto the same bandwagon? KPI metrics and the ability to target content based on user behavior. You wouldn't know it from observing console users or buyers. When you register a product, all that demographic info you fill out in a questionnaire isn't just for marketing. It's for customer profiling. Even if a manufacturer is only able to get 25% of its users to register and opt into receiving more info, if XBOX Live really has over 17 million subscribers, that still represents a lot of data points. Microsoft has been at the partner integration strategy for a lot longer than anyone else and executes it pretty well.


Toshiba debuted a motion-sensing tv experience at CES 2009. It won't be long when more users of Internet-ready TVs will be able to change channels, switch between 'screens', or open up a video conferencing window just by using simple hand gestures, regardless of tv brand or media platform. Now how cool is that?


And a side note: Apple didn't show up to E3 because of a business decision not to. If you look at what companies comprise ESA, they are all top devs, publishers, and manufacturers of pc, console, and Internet gaming. Apple does not make a gaming device. Users may use the iPad/Phone/Touch, or desktop/laptop Mac as a gaming device, but that's not its core purpose nor revenue model. You'll find Microsoft and Sony at the E3 Expo because they are multi-verse companies.


Disclosure: I'm a PC.


Related:

This Is Microsoft's Opportunity
Microsoft and Netflix Unveil Partnership to Instantly Stream Movies and TV Episodes to the TV via Xbox LIVE
Obama's in-game ad bill: $44.5K
Apple and Windows Computers Living Together Under One Roof, Oct 2009 stats

Apple's iAd

Since when does ownership of a mobile device entitle the manufacturer to broadcast third party ads to your service plan? Has something changed radically in the way technology handles multimedia that users can block out advertisements if they don't want to see it? And, if that isn't the case and this is rolled out to everyone who owns an iPhone or i-device, who pays for the additional bandwidth these ads are going to suck up? Obviously, the end-user if they don't have an unlimited bandwidth plan for their mobile device. 

The revenue model sounds great for Apple with its very high barrier to entry for those who want to advertise on the exclusive and closed system iAd network. 6.4 million iPhone subscribers in the US isn't paltry. It may not make the most sense or make the best use of online advertising budgets right now; but in time it could grow from being a mere goldfish to an invasive carp species in a few more years. This is just one channel in Apple's distribution network for content that leapfrogs beyond how traditional media is served up.

End-users already pay subscription fees for bandwidth for their mobile device, they are now (or soon will be) at the mercy of ad serving on a device that used to offer a more private space.
Where should marketers draw the line when it comes to exclusive ad networks?


Read more?

Related articles:
Number of iPhone subscribers, 07/2009

Social Media for B2B

Disclosure: I am not a social media expert nor social media strategist. And, using social media for business promotion is debatable. But, like Twitter, it looks like the idea is here to stay until it evolves into something else. Frankly, I hate the rebranding of rebranding because it doesn't add new thoughts to the mix, rather it boils the thoughts into short 140-character statements that add little meaning beyond the initial insert. It's up to you to decide if these are indeed strategies and if they'll coexist with your marketing mix. Sooner or later, your business unit or department will be tasked with the question of whether or not to add social media to how you do business with customers.

On the B2B side, we used to call this word-of-mouth, relationship, grassroots, or brand ambassador marketing. Sounds pretty boring and low budget. These all have the same expected outcome. Get the customer to proactively self-identify, raise their hand, or ask for help directly from the business. "Social" has an incredibly positive connotation to it. Communication by words, visual imagery, video, sounds, or touch is all very human. Social media is the sharing of marketing and advertising content by a means of one-to-many relationships while at the same time disguises itself as a one-to-one relationship with a customer that the business wants to learn more about or nurture over time for future sales.

The synopsis is that social media implementation deals with a) knowing your customers and how they want to communicate with you about your products/services, b) the apps/hacks/and plug-ins that are used by the social media community, and c) building the right strategy for your business or business model.

Actions to consider:

1. Know who your customer is: go where your customers go, read what they read, see the experience through their eyes
2. Identify the path of least resistance for a customer to get a question resolved: postal mail, fax, telephone, web form, email, survey, social media status update
3. Legal implications and privacy concerns over what is "said" by the business and what is "heard" by the customer
4. Understand that the web is global and that inbound customer complaints might not even pertain to your trade region
5. Establish ground rules for participants using the same social media outlets
6. Build consensus across the organization of what should be achieved by adding social media to the existing marketing mix.
7. Be able to quantify the benefits beyond mere number of followers, page views, or retweets
8. Define your social media strategy plan

How customers actively engage with each other:

• By participating on a social network community (see Wikipedia for a comprehensive list)
• Video sharing
• Reading/writing/commenting with blogs
• Photo sharing
• Real-time (or fake time) status updates of what people are doing now

Here are some social media tools to help you manage your time:

• CoTweet - integrated with bit.ly, allows multiple users to post to one or more linked Twitter accounts, allows real-time or delayed Twitter updates, watch multiple conversations based on keywords
• Tweetdeck - allows simultaneous status updates on Twitter/Facebook/and LinkedIn
• Swix - easily create a unified scoreboard of all your key social media metrics (blog traffic, subscribers, FB fans, Twitter followers, YouTube subscribers, etc.)
• SlideShare - upload presentations and share online, tracks views http://www.slideshare.net/
• Icerocket - keyword search across blogs, web, Twitter, MySpace, News, images, etc.

In the end, businesses just want to create more meaningful conversations with their customers.

It begs the question, what does a conversation look like between say, Microsoft and a new Windows7 customer?

related articles:

Shankman: what social media is not

Nielsen: global time spent on social media sites