With the “new look” Boston Red Sox off to a fast start to the 2013 baseball season, and in anticipation of Opening Day at Fenway Park, I was reminded of a Kalido blog article with a great baseball analogy that has stuck with me, which nicely compliments some good Marketing advice from a colleague of mine.
Steve Dalkowski. Source: SportsHollywood.com
Writing for the Kalido blog, Mike Wheeler introduced Steve Dalkowski, probably the fastest pitcher in baseball history, whose fastball was routinely well over 100MPH, with top speed estimates as high as 125MPH. Dalkowski struck out 1,396 batters in just 995 minor league games during the late 50′s and early 60′s.
Unfortunately, Dalkowski’s incredible fastball was also incredibly unpredictable: He also walked 1,354 batters and won only 46 of the 236 games he started.
Mike Wheeler’s well-taken point was that focusing on raw speed at the expense of reliability is unwise and self-defeating, whether you’re talking about a super-fast pitcher with no control, or super-fast data delivery without the controls of (Kalido) data governance.
But there’s much more to Steve Dalkowski’s story – with a related Marketing lesson as well.
I recently read a great Ad Age article by Chris Kuenne, Four [Marketing] Talent Categories You Need to Win in a Connected World. Recognizing that many marketing organizations still cling to discredited, “old school” marketing and PR, Chris Kuenne provided a timely description of the new talents, skills and attitudes found in today’s “new rules” marketing organizations that are actively contributing to company growth and success.
Chris Kuenne listed four skill categories vital for today’s successful marketing organization – Strategic, Analytic, Program Design and Technological – which, combined with talent-building marketing leadership, will yield well-orchestrated “personally relevant experiences” that “translate the brand promise into relevant and entertaining interactions that always seem fresh and new.”
To support his spot-on core point that “the old set of skills and conventional deployment will not work,” Chris Kuenne offered a sports analogy:
In [American] football, everyone is a specialist with a distinct position and responsibility. Each player goes one-on-one against his opponent, helping the team advance the ball in a linear fashion down the field. Marketing over the past 50 years reflected this linear approach, in which a brand’s marketing plan specified a highly planned, seldom altered, set of initiatives…Today marketing is closer to rugby. All players handle multiple roles, using many different skills…
I agree with Chris Kuenne’s historical and current assessment of the marketing function. However, Chris’ description of football is outdated: today’s game of football is actually brimming with innovative tactics. Perhaps I underappreciate the tactics in rugby, but I see a lot of parallels between the practices of winning “new rules” marketing organizations and winning football teams:
Transformation through Innovation. Both football and today’s marketing function have benefited dramatically from innovation. The one-on-one, seldom-altered, linear genre of football described by Chris Kuenne is an accurate description of the “smashmouth” version of the sport as it was played over a century ago, as exemplified by the feared Army football team and its predictable but brutal, physically punishing running game.
And so it went, until Notre Dame, in 1913, under new coach Jess Harper, unveiled an innovation that would thankfully transform the game: Notre Dame took unprecedented full advantage of the forward pass (!), recently legalized but widely ignored. Practiced that summer by quarterback Gus Dorais and offensive end and legend-to-be Knute Rockne, Notre Dame’s passing plays bewildered the Army defense for a lopsided 35-13 upset victory. (Of course, clever, daring plays unimaginable even a decade ago continue an ever-accelerating trend of innovation on the football field.)
It is amazing in hindsight that marketing has not experienced such dramatic transformation until recently. At roughly the same time as Notre Dame’s game-transforming forward pass innovation, John Wanamaker, the pioneer of the department store, made his famous remark, “Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is I don’t know which half.” Similar frustrations by marketers have continued on right up to present day! Thankfully, marketing innovations today are replacing decades of plodding, seldom-altered, and maddeningly difficult to measure interruption marketing with a still-evolving paradigm of content marketing, permission marketing and marketing automation technologies. The marketing function is finally undergoing its own game-changing, “forward pass” of innovation and transformation. More >>
A technology evangelist “promotes the use of a particular product or technology through talks, articles, blogging, demonstrations, [etc.]…The word ‘evangelism’ is taken from the context of religious evangelism because of the similar recruitment of converts and the spreading of the product information…” (Source: Wikipedia)
I recently came across a blog post by technical writing and communications professional Dr. Ugur Akinci, who wondered aloud whether there was a better term to describe the title of Technology Evangelist. Ugur Akinci noted the dictionary definitions of evangelism in its original religious context; those definitions suggest communication that is, among other things, decidedly one-way. Point well taken, but none of the other alternative titles suggested – technology communicator, ambassador, champion, advocate, enthusiator(the latter one intended to provide a chuckle!) – comes close to conveying the role as vividly as Guy Kawasaki’s original term of technology evangelist: the active persuasion of people to buy into the superiority of his/her particular technology product and help spread the word about it.
Actually, the term technology evangelist becomes even more appropriate if we use more secularized religious terminology to describe the product offering itself. I have in mind an article product management professional Jacques Murphy wrote a few years ago, asking a still-timely question: Is Your Product a Missionary or a Savior?
(W)hile every (software) company wants their product to be brand spanking new, there are two very distinct strains of newness: the Missionary and the Savior. And one of those two types is a much harder sell…The Missionary product…represents a new idea or a whole new take on an old idea. Nobody has heard of it and your company is in the position of telling others about it and convincing them of how important it is…
With a Savior product, the market comes running out into the streets to greet it, cheering it along all the way. The Missionary product has to go exploring into lands unknown to make converts through its boundless zeal.
Of course, Jacques Murphy’s “market running and cheering to greet a Savior product” hyperbole has since become literally true many times over by Apple’s amazing run of true Savior products. As for software, particularly in the B2B space, every product will have some missionary, or educational, aspect to it. You will always need to effectively convey your understanding of your customers’ problems and how and why your product solves these problems in ways far superior to your competitors. Every software solution requires effective product marketing, and benefits greatly from technology evangelism.
But a ”true” Missionary product will also offer a very different solution to fulfilling a need; a solution that might even be openly contrarian to current conventional wisdom; a solution that is proven to yield unique and compelling benefits for your customers, but in very new ways. Having a technology evangelist, a name and face for the product, actively advocating your unique, even contrarian solution to the market, becomes absolutely crucial, absolutely vital.
I was already impressed with the work of Stu – I mean Dr. Stuart Payne – and his staff, and yet was even more so after reading his Principal’s Message in the latest issue of Northwood Elementary’s impressive parents newsletter, which summarized the goals he and his teaching staff set for 2011:
At the beginning of this year, our dedicated staff set…three goals for ourselves: (1) Rigor, (2) Differentiation, and (3) Progress Monitoring.
These succinct goals no doubt rang true for Northwood Elementary parents. In fact, they rang quite true for me in my world of product marketing. Let’s look at each one more closely:
Photo by courosa (Flickr CC)
Rigor. Stuart Payne writes: “Through rigor, we endeavor to make sure that every child is challenged in a developmentally appropriate manner.” This vital educational goal can be easily adapted to product marketing/product management terms: We must challenge ourselves to really understand our products and our markets, and convey our value in a compelling manner that our target markets will understand and be motivated to learn more. I am reminded of a blog post by Dave Kellogg (MarkLogic CEO for six years) on applying (rigorous) critical thinking for effective product positioning (I elaborate on Dave Kellogg’s fine post here, BTW).
One sidenote: Stuart Payne also wrote: “(R)esearch indicates…that when the work is too difficult, (students) become frustrated.” This reminded me of a classic blog post by Kathy Sierra: Do your customers feel a similar sense of frustration trying to understand and/or use our products? Why? How can this be corrected (and fast)?
Quick follow up: The photo taken by David Meerman Scott during his great Jan. 6 BPMA presentation (see next post) reminded me of a “Where’s Waldo?” picture, so congratulations to Dan McCarthy and Howie Lyhte who took me up on my challenge to find me in that photo. Since they both dropped me an email quite quickly (with my correct location), I declared them both winners.
For those of you playing at home, I am a couple of rows in front of the post holding my book with a thumbs-up.
Dan and Howie will receive David Meerman Scott’s new book we’re all holding up in the photo, Real-Time Marketing & PR, plus a great bonus book I will be reviewing here soon: How to be a Fierce Competitor by Jeffrey Fox. Enjoy, guys!
David Meerman Scott built his presentation off his new book, Real-Time Marketing & PR. Key highlights of David’s presentation follow!
BPMA attendees holding their happy fun complimentary copy of David Meerman Scott’s “Real-Time Marketing & PR”! And now a challenge: “Where’s Mike?” The first non-attendee to contact me and point out where I am in this photo (click on photo to access full size version), I will get you a copy of David’s book plus a super-awesome bonus book! UPDATE 1/12: Was lost but now I am found – See above post for my two winners/finders! (Photo taken in real-time by David Meerman Scott.)
I hope you have a very happy, healthy and successful 2011! Thank you very much for reading this blog, whether this is your first visit or one of many.
Here are the three most popular blog entries of 2010, with a new year’s resolution to write many more in the new year! Please enjoy.
UPDATE: Moments after tweeting my resolution to blog more often in 2011, I see I am being held accountable (!) by WordPress’ PostADay / PostAWeek Challenge. OK, WordPress, count me in … for the PostAWeek, that is!
The most popular post overall during 2010 was actually a 2009 post:
I like your advice column in the paper. I feel I could use some of your advice myself. I don’t know, however, exactly what it is what I want to ask you.
Just send me some advice.
- Charlie Brown, asking an advice columnist for “advice”
Somehow this classic Peanuts comic strip I read as a kid came to mind when I came across this question from the Inbound Marketing group on LinkedIn:
What is your one “Inbound Marketing” tip for 2010. And it can’t be “hire me.” If you bumped into someone in a lift and they asked for one inbound marketing tip what would it be?
Perhaps I read into this type of question too much, but I found the question to have an unappealingly vague ”just give me some (marketing) advice” ring to it, a la Charlie Brown.
I was also reminded me of the old trick interview question, “Can you tell me a story?” The “correct answer” the interviewer is looking for is for the interviewee to qualify the question: “What kind of story are you interested in?” as opposed to launching into a “It was a dark and stormy night” tale!
Just as Charlie Brown would have benefited from qualifying his own need for “advice,” if a marketer was asked for “one inbound marketing tip, the “correct answer” would be more questions… Read the rest of this entry »
While recently browsing some business books at the local Barnes & Noble, I noticed something stuck in the middle of the book I had just pulled off the shelf. Was it an insert placed there by the publisher? No, it was a business card placed there by a hapless wannabe entrprenuer with the answers to my financial dreams:
iStockphoto.com images
“Earn more money than you ever thought possible…this is not MLM…take charge of your future…Act on the wisdom of the immortal Napoleon Hill…Call me to find out what this amazing business is and…”
My immediate reaction was one of personal offense for intruding on my simple act of browsing a book, coupled with disbelief over some fool actually expecting to realize some business from a small but nonetheless particularly annoying act of interruption marketing, one-way marketing that depends on getting people to stop and pay attention to the message.
With the widespread acceptance (deservingly so) of Permission Marketing, the innovative marketing approach devised by Seth Godin, it is tempting to dismiss all interruption marketing as not worthwhile at best and downright bad at worst. So can interruption marketing still be effective in a Google search, Permission Marketing, New Rules of Marketing & PR world?
Fellow marketing blogger Daphne Rose recently posted a smart, quick read on the seven characteristics of a great marketer. Of the seven characteristics Daphne Rose noted, I really liked the analogy she drew between product marketers and plate spinners from the legendary Ed Sullivan Show. I am old enough (barely old enough – honest!) to vaguely recall watching plate spinner Erich Brenn in 1969, available in this YouTube video:
Daphne Rose commented, “Like the plate spinners on the old Ed Sullivan show, GMs are gifted time managers. It’s second nature for them to keep everything in motion – successfully.” I agree for the most part, except that time management is not inate, it is/can be learned. Reflecting further on the idea of the product marketer as a plate spinner I came up with some more observations beyond time management I hope you enjoy and ring true to you…
RT @tom_peters: Drucker said only trait effective leaders shared was absence of charisma. (S.Sain/Quiet) Posted 2 days ago
LOL: Daughter+I pull into driveway, turn off @985TheSportsHub, get out of car…JUST IN TIME to hear neighbor cheer #Bruins' game winner! :-} Posted 3 days ago
So the Saudi Arabia religious police say Twitter is the path to hell? Further proof that even a broken clock is still right twice a day. Posted 3 days ago
Posted by Mike Urbonas 
