Category Archives: rants

Help! I’m Out of Content! What Do I Do Now? (Part II)

Last week, not being able to imagine what it would be like to be out of content, I culled a top 15 list of ideas of what to do from my fellow bloggers. Some were good. Some were not. But the one commonality they all had was that, for the most part, they just weren’t that entertaining. If you’re going to take the info out of infotainment, you should at least leave the entertainment. So today, I’m going to outline ten great ideas that you can use to entertain your readership if you’re truly out of content.

10. Why Mac is Better than Windows
Why should you be left out of the technology holy war when you can choose to be a crusader for the side of light, peering through an image of a shiny apple. And now that a Mac is about to displace PC from the oval office, what better time is there?

9. Do a Long Rant on Why Beautiful People are Far More Successful
Don’t forget to point out that all of the movie stars, tv stars, pop stars, media moguls, etc. are all smashingly good looking and seemingly devoid of talent and that it’s totally unfair because a smart, intelligent, hard working average-looking lout like yourself can never catch a break. After all, everyone loves a self-loathing blogger who can’t stop feeling sorry for himself.

8. Explain Why Dumb Ideas are Great For Business
You can take the classic tack that “without dumb ideas, we’d never know what was a good idea because we have nothing to explain it to“, point out that Donald Trump believes that you should always bring ten new ideas to a meeting without worrying about if they’re good or not because the resulting discussion leads to brainstorming as a team that will communally select, and refine, the best idea into a winner, and that sometimes the ideas that sound the dumbest at first are actually the brightest because they are the ideas that reshape business as we know it. But that would be boring. So instead, take a more controversial approach that argues that consumers are dumb as a doorstop and that it’s not worth wasting valuable smart ideas on them … and watch your comment count soar!

7. Run a Variation of Clifford Pickover’s Classic ESP Experiment
The classic experiment can be found on the University of Wisconsin-Madison Physics Web-Site which is described in Dreaming the Future. Run it and tell your readers you’ve built a psychic AI. See how many fall for the gag.

6. The Ten Most Entertaining Ways to Mess Up a Colleague’s Computer
Don’t just go for the old standbys of taking a screenshot of the desktop to use as the default wallpaper after all the icons have been deleted, of randomly renaming all the files using a combination of the words in the set {sexy, naked, nubile, cute, girl, boy, etc.} and a standard image file extension from the set {jpg, gif, tiff, etc.}, or of changing all the default sounds to those of barnyard animals so it moos, quacks, and barks every time the user performs an action … get creative. Talk about how to set up scheduled tasks that randomly play hidden sound files that ask the user to “press my keys”, “boot my hard drive”, and “plug into my port” in a very sexy voice at random intervals or how to set-up a remote access program that will allow you to login from your office, freeze local access, and bring up a command window that will display whatever you want so you can tell the user “this computer has gained sentience and is now scanning for a suitable android body to download into so it can enslave humanity … please stand by”. Remember, it’s all about the shock factor.

5. Pick a Top 10 YouTube Video and Explain Why It’s A Brilliant Piece of Art
Take Lezberado: Revenge Fantasies, one of the all-time top-viewed videos on YouTube. After all, any video that uses the “O” word while talking about the “L” word must be on the down-LO and ultra-cool. Who cares if you can’t even focus on what the narrator is saying after 30 seconds because it’s so damn boring and stupid … it’s a top ten all time YouTube video … it must be awesome. After all, it has a cat in it for a few seconds. And we all love LoLCats. After all, I Can Has Cheezburger?

4. Pick a new Web 2.0 Startup and Explain How It’s Going to be the Next Google
Hundreds of “Web 2.0” startups hit the web every month, most of which only have one little offering that, like Twitter, only do one thing that is of *very* limited use. Go to Go2Web20.Net, pick a random company, like GazoPa (the more non-sensical the name, the better) that finds similar images, and explain why this is absolutely vital and that the world will end if this technology doesn’t become mainstream! (After all, we couldn’t go on if we couldn’t find similar images automatically.)

3. Find Historical Parallels that Don’t Really Make Any Sense
Take the current economic situation. You could argue that excessive tax rates are only exacerbating the current economic crisis, and that since the average total tax and debt burden of the average American citizen is far greater than the tax burden of the average citizen when Ancient Greece fell, the US is doomed. But that’s been done to death. What you need to do is find a parallel between the conflicts between the Persians and their Medes neighbors in the ancient Assyrian empire and draw parallels between the modern conflict between Israel and Palestine and then argue how it’s going to bring down the entire Middle East, just as the Assyrian empire faded into the books of history.

2. Find Some Way To Discover a New Message in Some Old Poem
Take a classic like “Mending Wall” by Robert Frost and how it was really a subtle attempt to convince his neighbor to build a bigger fence because his neighbor’s dog kept escaping into his yard. The less sense the interpretation makes, the better.

1. Crab People Are Going to Take Over the World
South Park tried to subtly warn us, but we didn’t listen. Now crab people, who are an evolved form of the giant coconut crab that can communicate telepathically across great distances, are seeing a great resurgence in numbers thanks to global warming which is creating the tropical weather in the South Seas that they need to rapidly reproduce, and they are preparing to take over the world. You have been warned!

Dead Company V: More Ways to Avoid the GraveYard

In our last post, we talked about twelve smart things a smart company could do to avoid the graveyard that many of its dumb company peers are heading too in this down economy. Today, we’re going to talk about ten more smart things a smart company can do, courtesy of Christopher Lockhead who guest-posted ten “essential strategies for weathering the economic storm” on Dan Farber’s Outside the Lines CNet blog (and one really dumb strategy, that I exposed in Dead Company II, so we’ll skip it).

  • When you really screw up, fixing it will take longer than you think it will.
    Much longer. So heed good advice and don’t screw up!
  • Get the Facts Yourself
    If you’ve got a problem, you need to get to the heart of it fast, and fix it. Real leaders get real facts and take real actions.
  • Get 2 Top 10 Lists
    Gather the smartest, most courageous people in the company to brainstorm the top 10 ways to drive revenue and the top 10 ways to cut costs. For example, to drive revenue you could assign every promising deal in the pipeline to an executive, focus on core markets first, and design a competitive replacement program. To cut-cost you could pull out of under-performing verticals, sell under-performing assets, and stop all stupid travel, off-sites, and trade-shows. (After all, your money is much better spent on Sourcing Innovation.)
  • Tear off the Band-Aid
    Assume the worst and take the necessary action to turn the situation around.
  • Fire Executives
    If you need to reduce head-count, don’t cut the people who actually do the work. As I’ve reminded you again and again, marketing and new product development are your salvation, so don’t cut them — reduce the top-heavy C-suite instead.
  • Chop the Dead Wood
    Every company has underperforming ‘C’ players, especially on the sales team. Take the opportunity to eliminate the worst performers and make the ‘A’ and ‘B’ players happy in the process — no one wants the ‘C’ players around anyway. After all, the money is better spent on additional training for the ‘A’ and ‘B’ players to help them identify ways to find even more cost savings for you.
  • Tell the Truth
    Some executives think that lying, misleading, and otherwise obfuscating will “soften” the blow in bad times. Wrong! If you have to chop the deadwood, kill the entertainment budget, and reign in the travel and training budgets for a few quarters, be honest — brutally honest. Otherwise, you’ll lose all respect, the ‘A’ and ‘B’ players you kept will start looking for a new job, and you might just end-up in jail if you mislead the stakeholders.
  • Communicate Clearly and Powerfully
    The truth is never as bad as rumors that start with a “No Comment”. Deliver the truth, and also the actions you’re taking to improve the situation.
  • Sign a Pact in Blood
    Stick to your guns and don’t waiver, no matter what.
  • Drive It Like You Stole It
    Legendary teams execute their turnaround plans like it is the last thing they will ever do. Take action. Bust your butt. Get on planes and meet with all of you key customers. Rally your teams in town hall meetings in all of your key offices. Refine your strategy. Focus your efforts. Get your people focused on results. Meet with your top investors to tell them how and why your turn around will work. Get help from some wicked advisers. Recruit new talent to the company. Sell, sell, sell, and lead, lead, lead.

Dead Company IV: Avoiding the GraveYard

In Parts I, II, and III, we talked about all the dumb things that many a dumb company failing the CIRCUIT are doing on the path to ultimate failure. So today we’re going to do something different and talk about the smart things a company can do if it wants to get off of the path to failure before it’s too late.

In addition to fattening up the marketing budget, keeping new development on the front burner, and bringing in expert consultants to insure the company stays on the straight and narrow, in his post Fear Kills Businesses, Dead, Brian Solis of TechCrunch offers twelve (12) targeted and affordable suggestions that a company can use to not only sustain, but grow in this economy.

  • SEO Optimization
    Keyword and organic search optimization is an inexpensive and effective means for gaining strategic presence and if you want the most bang for your buck, optimize your entire web campaign.
  • Blog Relations
    Creating a consistent and visible brand requires the inclusion of the authoritative, peer-to-peer blogs that your customers and influences read for information, help, and perspectives. And in this space, Spend Matters and Sourcing Innovation get more daily traffic than most, if not all, of the web sites that correspond to the traditional print publications.
  • Media/Analysts
    Analysts can position you as an option among your customers. Even though more and more professionals are turning to the blogs for their insights, the old school still listens to the analysts that they fork their money over too.
  • Direct Sales
    Some of the most successful companies concentrate on direct outreach to decision makers … and it doesn’t hurt to have some good positioning materials to support your sales people either!
  • CRM
    Building a customer-focussed business saves money and increases revenue.
  • Participate
    Participating across the social communities where your customers and prospects are active and vocal provides a looking glass into their thoughts, requests, opinions, dislikes, and recommendations. The companies that interact with their customers are the companies most likely to keep them.
  • Thought Leadership
    Share your thoughts openly and freely.
  • Blog and Blog Comments
    Find the time to contribute to a blog and demonstrate the expertise of you and your team. The opportunity it provides you is priceless.
  • Network in the Real World
    Industry events, local association meetings, and other gatherings are a great opportunity to get in touch with potential customers.
  • Involve Your Community
    Include your customers in the development process and get it right the first time.
  • Websites are Not Just Web Pages
    They’re a statement about you … and it better be one that your customers can connect with.
  • Innovate
    If it ain’t broken, don’t fix it, is the surest path to obsolescence. ‘Nuff said.

Tips on Bashing Your Favorite Blogger

For those who have been paying attention, I was going to post a good-hearted humor rant today on “what to do if you’re a blogger who’s out of content”, but after Somebody’s mean spirited verbal bashing of a fellow blogger in “How the heck do you get this information” on Spend Matters, I felt I had to hold off out of respect, especially since I used that blog as part (but nowhere near all) of my inspiration for the post. So instead, for those of you who feel that they must spend their time bashing bloggers instead of contributing useful information to the discussion, I give you a rather dry post on how to do it right. (And for those of you who feel I have attacked you personally, feel free to use them if it will make you feel better, as this will help you think straight and realize that, chances are, it wasn’t about you.)

Let’s face it, every now and again your favorite blogger, who is only human, will say or do something that you think is completely idiotic. And sometimes it will rattle your cage to the point where you’ll forget about your shy lurker ways and feel the need to post something scathing in reply to knock that smarty-pants off the high horse (s)he’s riding. And it’s okay to feel that way, especially if the blogger posted something that is quite silly when the blogger should have known better, but it’s not okay to go psycho and anonymously deliver a raging verbal smack-down dripping with acid. Not only is it likely to have the opposite effect of what you intended (as the blogger might simply get angry and bust you down so hard that your sagging ego will still be reeling this time next week), but you’ll like a complete idiot to the majority of his (or her) readers who will be saddened or angered at what will have been a completely unprovoked, and if you misinterpreted the blogger’s message, an unwarranted attack on your part. Unless, of course, you do it right. So here are three tips to help you get it right if you truly have nothing better to do than bash (your fellow) bloggers.

1. Keep it light-hearted and keep the humor genuine.*

Every blogger needs a good bashing once in a while, especially if the blogger is perceived to be a thought leader by those in the mainstream media that are supposed to be in-the-know and the blogger is overly prolific. It’s no secret that I like to bash a few of my fellow bloggers from time to time (and take a few lumps myself, though not always where I expect them), and will not hesitate to jump into the fray when a blogger posts something that I believe the blogger clearly should have put more thought or effort into; but each and every time I do my utmost to keep my public comments from getting too personal and too nasty, unless I believe it to be reasonably clear that the comments are in pure jest (as nothing livens up the blogsphere like a good natured smack-down). Let’s face it, without your bloggers, all you’d have is the traditional trade publications and the analyst firms, and that would be a very sorry state of affairs when you consider how stale some of the publications have become and how a number of reputable analysts have made it public knowledge that they are forced to be quite reserved about what they do and don’t say about their firm’s customers in their public writings. Remember, without us to keep the pressure on, they could feed you the same-old, same-old year after year and keep calling it “new-and-improved” when it’s “yesteryear’s news”.

* The only exception is when you decide to engage in a debate against yourself. Then sometimes it’s funny to take it over the top.

2. Make a valid argument.

Comments along the lines of wake up and smell the coffee you arrogant sloth, EIPP has been old news since 2003, while potentially true, are not very helpful and only serve to demonstrate your ignorance as you have not offered a single fact to back it up. If you had instead said “I’m sorry, but I don’t see the relevance or importance of yet another new EIPP solution from vendor X because vendor Y has been offering exactly the same solution for three years, details at this web address“, you would have made a valid discussion point and engendered a lot less animosity along the way.

3. But most of all, keep it civil.

Sometimes a blogger will get it dead wrong, sometimes a blogger will climb too high a horse, and sometimes the blogger will do both in the same post. Although the latter is quite rare for a professional blogger, bloggers are only human and it can happen, especially if the blogger believes he is right. But if he’s not, chances are he wants to know it because professional bloggers care more about getting the message right than looking stupid on occasion, as long as you’re civil in pointing out his mistake. Remember, bloggers are only human and a personal attack is likely not going to accomplish anything besides enraging the blogger who will have difficulty seeing past your incompetence in communication and his gut-instinct to take you down a peg or two. But if you’re calm, clear, rational, and polite … chances are he’ll not only concede every point, but thank you for it.

As long as your blogger makes an honest effort on a regular basis, he or she deserves a little slack from time to time. And if he starts abusing that privilege, and you feel that you must call him out, then feel free to do so, but be civil and constructive — because if you’re not, you’re not helping anyone. Finally, all the good bloggers publish their e-mail addresses on their blog and we’re all open to constructive criticism. So if you can’t be subtle, you can always consider going direct to the source with your comments.

Dead Company III: Fear is the Enemy

After I penned CIRCUIT, Dumb Company, and Dead Company, but before I penned Dead Company II, Brian Soils authored a great post over on TechCrunch on how Fear Kills Busineses, Dead. Noting that recessions naturally inject fear and panic, Brian also noted that fear is not a catalyst for productivity. Fear, and the dissemination of distress, slowly erodes hope, vision, and ambition, ultimately killing businesses instead of guiding them.

For example, just look at the deeply misguided advice that Sequoia Capital has issued in fear: don’t worry about getting ahead, instead, just survive … cutting deeper and quicker is the formula to survive. As I explained in Part II, it’s actually the formula for a slow and painful death! You’d be better off doing a Boo.com and wasting it all on lavish parties … at least you’d have some fun before you joined your brethren in the unemployment line.

As per Brian’s post, you need to instead take the advice of CEO Steve Larsen of Krugle who advises don’t be stupid. Have enough cash to run your business, but … look for opportunities. Difficult times are when they’ll most likely occur. When we’re at a ‘steady state’ and things are normal, good opportunities are much harder to find with GREAT opportunities nearly impossible. It is during periods of tumult and transition when you can spot things that lead to the greatest returns — if you are alert.

More importantly, as I pointed out yesterday in Part II, if you choose to stop vying for customer attention, the world will move without you. In other words, you’d be better off putting up a “going out of business sale” sign than cutting your marketing budget … at least the former will garner you some attention. As Brian notes, the recession is temporary, but business is constant, and, more importantly, if you’re in spend management, this is the time when your business can pick up sharply. In other words, if you haven’t increased your marketing budget lately, this is the year to do it. As long as you develop an innovative and cost-effective marketing strategy, you’re sure to get a return on your investment … and if you play your cards right, you might see a return beyond your wildest imagination. After all, as Brian notes, customers are and will continue to research, invest, and procure the solutions, services, and products that will help them succeed, offer entertainment, or streamline aspects of their day-to-day workflow.

Focusing energies on generating revenue, increasing visibility, and enhancing customer loyalty are the most effective strategies for underwriting longevity, and [hopefully] growth, especially during an economic downturn. Remember, customers do not typically go out of their way to “discover” your products. If they don’t see you in the places, like Sourcing Innovation, that they typically go for information, they’re not likely to see you at all. Smart marketing is your conduit to connecting prospects to your business.

Tomorrow’s Leaders Are Born Today.

So what are some things you can do to keep you off of the dead company path? Stay tuned for part IV!