Traditional data warehousing and data analytics vendors often present their solutions as a way to make decisions ‘based on objective facts’ rather than relying on ‘emotional gut feel’. The problem, however, is the known ‘objective facts’ may not provide a complete and accurate picture of what’s really going on.

Even worse, some organizations over-emphasize hard data to the point of employees feeling compelled to ignore their ‘gut’, their intuition, that something is not right.

That’s a big mistake, says best-selling business author and professor Michael Roberto, in his book Know What You Don’t Know: How Great Leaders Prevent Problems Before They Happen – a book I first mentioned here on this blog not long after it was published in 2009.

Please read the entire article here.

Fellow Bentley University alum and sales operations blogger Marci Reynolds re-tweeted the quote in question:

I like quotes but I just didn’t get this one: Why would the “door(way) to success” swing only outward and not inward? Does it matter? As long as it opens, right?

Is the point of the quote that being extroverted - that is, outwardly focused – is essential to succeed? I hope not, because, as author and TED 2012 speaker Susan Cain compellingly argues, that’s simply not true.

I urge you to listen to Susan Cain’s entire TED talk, but the gist of her presentation is that too often our schools and workplaces are seemingly structured based on the assumption that the best students and workers are extroverts – outgoing types who are in their element working in teams and being “productive.” Unfortunately, few breakthroughs in technology, research or other areas of endeavor have been created by committee.

Our most important institutions, our schools and our workplaces, are designed mostly for extroverts and for extroverts’ need for lots of stimulation…Even in subjects like math and creative writing, which you think would depend on solo flights of thought, kids are now expected to act as committee members…

And when it comes to leadership, introverts are routinely passed over for leadership positions, even though introverts tend to be very careful, much less likely to take outsized risks — which is something we might all favor nowadays…(I)nteresting research by Adam Grant at the Wharton School has found that introverted leaders often deliver better outcomes than extroverts do, because when they are managing proactive employees, they’re much more likely to let those employees run with their ideas…

And groups famously follow the opinions of the most dominant or charismatic person in the room, even though there’s zero correlation between being the best talker and having the best ideas.

Susan Cain’s points are well supported by scads of research; Jim Collins’ Good to Great insights into the personality traits of the top “level 5″ leaders immediately come to mind: level 5 leaders are often unassuming, self-effacing and display introverted tendencies – the opposite of what Collins calls the “corrosive celebrity CEO.”

Susan Cain does not disparage extroverted people in her talk (she mentions that she’s married to an extrovert); doing so would be plain dumb. Her key point, rather, is that it’s critical for institutions to set up both extraverts and introverts for success by equipping them with the differing environments they need for success.

By helping to ensure the organization’s “door of success” does indeed open both outward and inward, the organization’s will significantly expand its potential for extraordinary “Good to Great” levels of success. Organizations that don’t get this will find its collective door of success frustratingly difficult to open indeed.

If you liked this post, you may also like:

Introverts: Not Networking is Not an Option! (A Brief Interview with Holland-Mark CEO Chris Colbert)

Point/Counterpoint: Two Polar Opposite Managerial Styles & Personal Brands

Buy this Book and Read it Now: The Leader as a Mensch (Book Review)

I got a chuckle from this recent tweet that called out a malapropism in another tweet clearly intended to comment on employee sentiment analysis. It’s an important type of text analytics (and a focus of my employer, Attivio) to analyze and discover “business signals” buried within online reviews, surveys, and other text-based opinion.

But, just as ‘many a truth is said in jest,’ many a truth can also be said by mistake as well: companies should monitor – and avoid – employee “sediment.” Doing so will help ensure an environment of innovation and free-flow of new ideas.

Somehow that ‘sediment’ gaffe triggered a memory (from ‘sediment’ to ‘dirt’ … ‘soil’ … plants) of an article I read some time ago about “potted plant syndrome” in the workplace. I couldn’t find the article I had in mind, but this article hits on the same idea:

There was a boss who complained that everyone around him was a “potted plant.” He couldn’t understand why his managers wouldn’t take charge of an idea or come up with solutions. In his management meetings, if a manager suggested how to handle a problem or come up with solution, he would tell them how they could do it better or differently. Or, he would argue that they were wrong. He didn’t realize he was killing commitment and innovation.

The boss was a one-person idea prevention department. People were tired of standing out with an idea only to get it shot down, so they stopped offering them, becoming “potted plants” – hence my employee ‘sediment’ line of thought.

And now a quick story…

A business professional (we’ll call him “Rick”) met with a company leader to understand how he wanted a certain technology solution to work. Rick listened and asked questions, teasing out from the leader the specific desired outcomes and results he was looking for. In the course of the conversation, the leader drew his thoughts and answers to the questions on a whiteboard.

The next day, Rick presented a plan describing how the ‘actual’ solution would work, delivering the end results the leader had articulated. The plan included a time-saving idea involving a simple update to existing data that would provide many of the desired end results quickly.

Far from being pleased, the “leader” was incredulous.  “I told you exactly what I wanted,” he said testily to Rick. “What is this?!”

And then Rick understood the unfortunate reality that the “leader” never wanted Rick to propose an innovative solution; no, the “leader” wanted a replication of his desires and wishes exactly as described (instructed) on his whiteboard. Rick’s job was to be a gofer; an order taker. Did the “leader” want fries with that?

Withholding his own incredulity (and the snarky fries rejoinder), Rick obliged and completed the project to the “leader’s” specifications – which were needlessly complicated and rarely followed by the system’s end users. Not long after, Rick, not terribly interested in becoming a “potted plant,” chose to move on…to much greener pastures.

If a company doesn’t want “potted plants” for employees, they shouldn’t grow them by burying their ideas.

Monitor “employee sediment,” indeed.

Here is an excerpt:

The Gift of Endless Memory, a 60 Minutes story originally broadcast on December, 19, 2010, introduced viewers to emerging research on superior autobiographical memory – the extraordinary capacity to recall specific events from one’s personal past. The story featured five of the six people recognized by researchers as having this superlative level of memory, including actress and author Marilu Henner…

I would have liked to have learned much more about how each group member actively uses their memory to their benefit. How does each person effectively manage what amounts to a vast personal “database” of highly detailed memories, each one as vivid as any other, regardless of the passage of time?

Please read the entire article here:

The Gift of Memory – and the Gift of Perspective by Mike Urbonas

Source: The Fighter official movie website

Or: When Leadership Squanders its Innovative Workers

My wife and I watched The Fighter (2010) right after it came out on DVD. It’s an exceptional movie based on the true story of Micky Ward, a professional boxer from Lowell, Mass.

Set in the early 1990′s, the film introduces Micky Ward (portrayed by Mark Wahlberg) as an aging boxer whose champion potential is slipping away as trusted family members fail to look out for his best interests.  Between his drug-addicted brother Dicky (Christian Bale) missing training sessions and his mother Alice (Melissa Leo) mismanaging his matches, Micky Ward suffers a series of stinging defeats and considers ending his boxing career.

The Fighter led me to wonder how many people are out there today with similarly high potential being similarly squandered. Does this suggestion ring true to you?

I am certain the vast majority of people (certainly not just product marketers and product managers) have felt the same gnawing cognitive dissonance during their careers that Micky Ward felt: an awareness that one’s work and skills were somehow being stifled, but knowing neither why nor what to do about it.

I believe the root cause behind the vast majority of struggling products (and, therefore, struggling businesses) is people not living up to their potential due to a non-supportive organizational environment. Like Micky Ward’s frustrations early on in The Fighter, the core issue is a pervasive inability of people, starting with the management team, to work with one another effectively and treat each other properly.

There are many types of managerial dysfunctions that contribute to a non-supportive environment that adversely impacts people, which cannot help but adversely impact products. Here are a few that might ring true to you (though I hope not!) …

Leadership that is disengaged from the company’s original innovation and brand equity. Beware of management who was not around and/or not emotionally invested in the company’s original innovations that earned its success and brand equity in the first place. There are many particularly bad examples out there, such as “professional” management teams as described in this past blog post.

Starbucks is a recent high-profile example of “post-founder” management that missed the mark badly.  After original visionary CEO and chairman Howard Schultz’ retirement from Starbucks, the company pursued an unfortunate strategy of over-expansion while becoming less like the original Starbucks and more like Dunkin’ Donuts.  Thankfully, Starbucks is also a success story in recapturing that innovation and rescuing its brand following the return of Howard Schultz to the company. His book Onward: How Starbucks Fought for Its Life without Losing Its Soul, is definitely on my “to read” list.

In an organization with a management team that just doesn’t “get” it, innovators are much more likely to be “reined in” than celebrated.

Leadership that punishes unsuccessful innovation.

If you say, ‘I want people to take risks,’ and then fire the guy if the outcome fails, it becomes clear how your organization really feels about risk.

- Anthony F. Smith, Consultant and author of the book ESPN the Company: The Story and Lessons Behind the Most Fanatical Brand in Sports.

There’s a great old movie sight gag featuring an overworked bus boy at an understaffed diner. Hurrying with two full armloads of stacked dishes, he slips and drops one armload of dishes that fall shattering to the floor. The slave-driver boss roars, “You idiot! You’re fired!”

The bus boy looks his boss in the eye, shrugs his shoulders, lets the other armload of dishes fall crashing to the floor as well, and walks out.

The lesson is clear: a company culture that punishes workers for honest mistakes, and even worse, for taking a risk and trying out a new idea that doesn’t work out, deserves the plentiful fallout it creates. Nothing stifles innovation (or, for that matter, careers, information sharing, customer service, etc.) like a ham-handed “slap on the wrist” from an authoritarian boss.

Leadership that fails to reward or even recognize successful innovation. Failing to appreciate or acknowledge innovation success might even be worse than scolding unsuccessful efforts. I recall some years ago reading some of the 1985 book Intrapreneuring: Why You Don’t Have to Leave the Corporation to Become an Entrepreneur by Gifford Pinchot. The book described an ingenious manager who single-handedly created a new multimillion dollar stream of revenue for his employer. The manager discovered an innovative breakthrough that transformed tons of scrap material previously hauled away as waste into a vital component of a new product.

Great job, right? Tell that to the manager’s employer, whose collective response was little more than an indifferent shrug. Incredibly, the manager was not rewarded in any way for his multimillion dollar innovation (!!) – an injustice that Gifford Pinchot seemed to gloss over and almost excuse:

[The manager] doesn’t seem bitter that he barely received a thank you for creating a new business…He is from that loyal generation who is thankful for a job, and my questions about recognition and rewards made him uncomfortable.

This feeble conclusion to a dismal story debunks the book’s premise; after all, an entrepreneur in charge of his or her own company actually reaps the rewards of his or her innovation, rather than having them gobbled up without even a “thank you” by an indifferent executive team!

In addition to conveying the cynical notion that the manager “should just be thankful he has a job,” the company made a very loud and clear statement about how little it valued innovation and those who engage in it.  I’m sure  that message was received loud and clear, and remembered, by others across that organization.

Leadership that is preoccupied with “problem solving,” not innovating. Referring to the previous sad example, problem solving would have amounted to simply finding a new vendor willing to dispose of ‘all this worthless material waste’ for a few bucks less than the current cost. Innovating is what that manager actually did, turning that scrap material into revenue-generating gold.

An organization unduly focused on linear “problem solving” will readily recognize the former and often underappreciate the latter (even if the innovative efforts prove successful!), perhaps even going so far as to label those innovative efforts as indicative of “not taking direction.”

I discussed this malady in a recent article exploring the Hierarchy of Imagination, in which I suggested that many boss-subordinate conflicts stem from incompatible levels of imagination, such as a highly “creative” person reporting to a “left brain”-focused, “problem solver” boss.

Some years ago I recall reading about the CEO of a consumer product manufacturer [UPDATE 1/21/2012: I since recalled the article appeared in the Boston Globe, by writer Dale Dauten who spoke with former Gillette CEO James Kilts]. who proudly described how he successfully… [drum roll?] mandated a dramatic reduction in the company’s product SKU count. Hmm.

Apparently Mr. Kilts regarded the number of SKUs as being excessive and too complicated. I remember being underwhelmed by what struck me as administrative work of nominal relevance. Apparently summary roll-ups of SKU data would not placate Kilts either. I also wondered whether some poor soul had to regularly burn the midnight oil to break all the product SKU data back to its previous level of detail necessary for operations.

My frame of reference is the article by Dauten, but I now see that Kilts later touted this same achievement in a book entitled Doing the Right Thing. Anyway, Kilts soon sold Gillette out to P&G.

Instead of tinkering over such “problem solving,” I hope your company’s leaders are doing the right thing and attacking the work they were mandated to do: increase the top line by setting the vision, agenda and right environment for creating innovative new products.

I would also very much like to hear your insights into this topic.

Here is a link to the Pragmatic Marketing article, and a link to the original blog post.  Enjoy!

Photo by Clare & Dave (Flickr CC)

I’ve been meaning for a while to write about the simple and clever Cake Model for Product Planning, a smart product management methodology by Brandon Schauer of Adaptive Path, a user experience (UX) design firm.  The cake model helps launch desirable products as quickly as possible, and in so doing, help customers achieve positive, successful product experiences as quickly as possible as well.

The Adaptive Path Cake Model urges product managers not to try making a big huge honking cake of a product.  That requires baking a very a big cake (on its own, rather plain and dry), then adding some filling, and then some frosting.  Hopefully your target markets are willing and able to wait for all that, and the finally-completed cake is the flavor, texture, etc. they were expecting.

Instead, product managers should first spec out a cupcake of a product that be made relatively quickly, with a small amount of cake complimented with enough filling and frosting to make people want it  – and get value from using it – right away, as is.  Users achieve success and a sense of competency with the product now, and eagerly look forward to enhancements.  For more on the importance of getting your users past the newbie threshhold with your product to passionate user, check out this classic post – one of my favorites from Karhy Sierra’s Creating Passionate Users blog (archive).

One cupcake product model example that comes to mind is the online to-do app TeuxDeux.  Instead of trying to bake the entire cake of “everything” that belongs in a to-do app, TeuxDeux offered up a quick cupcake: a dead-simple online to-do application for people who might find the very wide and deep features of more comprehensive to-do apps like Remember the Milk a bit intimidating.  Users raved about TeuxDeux’s highly intuitive “cupcake,” and have since provided over 10,000 enhancement suggestions, culminating in new online features as well as an iPhone version.

Meanwhile, product marketing managers contribute to the success of the cake model through two primary roles:

• Convince your target market segments that your cupcake not only tastes good, but also tastes far better than competitors’ big, plain, dry cake (or their attempts at cupcakes).
• Have, or quickly gain, vertical (industry/field) and/or functional subject matter expertise (SME) to help render your cupcakes particularly flavorful to those market segments.

I think the Cake Model for product management, combined with the above-noted product marketing role, also aligns well with the market segment-driven product strategy of Proficientz, formerly ZigZag Marketing, as recently presented by John Mansour, Managing Partner at Proficientz, to members of the Boston Product Management Association. 

Under such a market-driven strategy, product managers are across-the-board experts on the product, setting product priorities based on key market segment growth potential, and product marketers are influential in identifying those key market segments, leveraging SME, and developing effective messaging and marketing strategy for each segment.  (A market-driven strategy becomes even more vital when you have a number of products, now managed as a portfolio, in which each product plays a defined role as part of a complete solution for the key market segments).

In turn, such a market-driven (not product-driven) strategy lends itself to the quicker creation of cupcake products, as well as subsequent iterations, building off the initial cupcake to create a small layer cake, then a bigger sheet cake, and perhaps someday a wedding cake. 

Of course, your “cake” need not be gigantic to be amazing and extraordinarily successful!

Brennan’s Hierarchy of Imagination was designed by John Maeda, President of the Rhode Island School of Design, based on his conversation with Patti Brennan of the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Similar in design to Maslow’s classic Hierarchy of Needs, the Hierarchy of Imagination is represented as a pyramid progressing from the base of reactionary behavior with little or no imagination (Reflex), proceeding upward to Problem Solving, then Creativity, and finally the pinnacle of “completely unrestrained” Imagination.  It is a very thought-provoking model.

I had a few thoughts related to this Hierarchy of Imagination and the workplace, and product management and marketing in particular. I’d like to know your thoughts as well.

• The hierarchy should not be interpreted as disparaging jobs in which little creativity or problem solving is expected. What sets a worker in such a job apart from others is the level of wisdom they bring to their job (Read more here). That said, a person in the Reflex category had better not find himself in a Peter Principle job situation and be expected to proactively solve problems or provide creative leadership.
• Many boss-subordinate conflicts stem from incompatible levels of imagination. A Product Manager who spends his time gathering customer enhancement requests and prioritizing bug fixes (Problem Solving) will likely find himself in trouble with his VP who expects him to creatively identify new, ground-breaking features for the next version of the product. Conversely, a “left brain” business owner who prides herself as a Problem Solver may underappreciate the creative work of her marketing manager. She might be reluctant to attribute new business leads to creative marketing, but be unusually perceptive of flaws in “how” marketing tasks were completed (was paperwork completed properly, did a project merely beat a deadline or was it finished with days to spare, etc.).
• With the above thought in mind, I read an article linked on John Maeda’s blog on the challenges creative people might face when pursuing leadership roles. I’m willing to wager that many of those surveyed demonstrating ambivalence towards creative people tend to fit into the imagination hierarchy as Problem Solvers themselves, perhaps focused on successful project administration but with less awareness of the creative value and impact of the final project. To paraphrase a passage I recall from a Tom Peters book, “the project was done under budget and ahead of schedule, but no one cared about it.”
• In fairness to Problem Solvers, creativity needs to be directed carefully. Product manager turned CEO Barbara Tallent warns Product Managers to avoid working on “cool stuff” instead of what customers have already said they need and will pay for. (Read more here).
• The further you go up the imagination hierarchy, the more vital your skills of persuasion are. In order for a creative person or someone with “completely unconstrained” Imagination to achieve his vision, he will need to effectively brief others in the organization on the merits of that vision and gain their buy-in, enthusiasm and support (Read more here).
• I liked Patti Brennan’s comment: “teaching creativity doesn’t work but expanding their imaginations might work better.” In her work in patient healthcare, Patti Brennan believes “that in order to get patients to take control of their health, they need to imagine what it looks like to be more healthy.” Indeed, the ability to visualize something better than what you are already doing is vital for creativity. Similarly, creativity requires a capacity to empathize with others, whether we are talking about the health problems of patients or the challenges and frustrations of our customers. Good product managers and product marketing managers can translate their empathy towards what customers are going through into well-defined products and clear, relevant, engaging messaging and content.

I found Brennan’s Hierarchy of Imagination very insightful and I look forward to reading more from John Maeda’s Creative Leadership blog.

If you liked this post, you may also like:

Product Managers and Product Marketers: Ever Feel Like You’re Being Treated Like “The Fighter”? [Or: When Leadership Squanders its Innovative Workers]

Today’s “New Rules” Marketing Organizations Run Like Winning Football Teams

Innovative Companies Don’t Have Employee “Sediment”

Getty Images

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…

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 >>

Improvisation. In the football game of an earlier era, the coach’s called play was the play, no matter how obviously ready the defense was ready for it. Today’s football calls for champion quarterbacks to decipher disguised defenses in real-time and “call an audible” – a quickly-improvised new play (Peyton Manning has turned this into part science, part theater). Teammates must also recognize the need to improvise a play as well: wide receivers must know when to “cut their route” and expect a very quick pass in response to an anticipated  rush on the quarterback. The defense must be ready to change its coverages at a moment’s notice as well. The old school coach’s “command and control” of a football game has given way to much more flexible play-by-play in response to real-time game situations. In similar fashion, members of winning marketing organizations are afforded the autonomy, and have the skills, to make real-time corrections during a marketing campaign or other activities, and do so collaboratively with others on the team.

An obsession for analytics. Today’s most effective professional teams – not just pro football, but baseball, basketball and hockey as well – are utilizing data analytics in ways and depths unimaginable even a decade ago, to predict future success on game day and optimize success off the field (demand-driven ticket prices, non game day function space usage, etc.).  Boston Globe Magazine provided an insightful report on the new, fast-growing career path of sports analytics, with grads with degrees in statistics, computer science, mathematics, etc.increasingly landing jobs in the front office of professional sport teams. Fascinating stuff, of direct relevance to all marketers:

It used to be that player evaluation and play calling relied heavily on subjective analysis…Instinct, experience, and very basic statistics like the box scores tracking a baseball player’s hits, strikeouts, and runs batted in per game drove decision making.

Now scores of new data points are available, letting team officials know the odds that one strategy will be more successful than another. Is it better to walk a particular player or pitch to him? To sign an aging all-star point guard to a single- or a multi-year contract? To punt, attempt a field goal, or try a running or passing play on a fourth down from the 50-yard line in a certain game situation? …Perhaps not coincidentally, Robert Kraft, whose family owns the Patriots, Red Sox owner John Henry, and the Celtics group all come from wildly successful business backgrounds, where number crunching is a way of life.

Celtics co-owner and venture capitalist Steve Pagliuca calls Boston “a new Florence” for sports analytics. A similar analytic renaissance now exists within marketing as well, led by sites such as Chief Marketing Technologist by Scott Brinker, whose excitement and enthusiasm for marketing analytics jumps off the page. I encourage you to visit Chief Marketing Technologist and start with one of Scott Brinker’s personal favorite posts, Rise of the Marketing Technologist and actively utilize marketing analytics in tandem with marketing automation and other key technologies. The active use of analytics is a force multiplier for effective marketing as it is for successful sport teams.

Leaders with proven acumen and leadership skills. Chris Kuenne provided advice to CMOs equally applicable to football coaches when he wrote that leaders “must encourage collaboration across radically different temperaments, skills and backgrounds.”  That’s an accurate description of football and marketing teams alike.  Equally important are the coach’s/CMO’s own qualifications: how many, how much of “hard skills” – the vital talents, skills and attitudes identified by Chris Kuenne – does the leader in question really possess? Has the coach/CMO demonstrated his or her “soft skills” – a proven ability to “attract, inspire and retain the best talent”? Coaches and marketing leaders alike can neither succeed nor even “get by” without these essential talents.

Put simply, authentic leaders, like champion coaches, attract and inspire highly talented professionals.  Poor coaches and poor business leaders repel talented people.

NFL fans will readily recall the Peter Principle-style failure of Minnesota Vikings coach Brad Childress, resulting in his high-profile firing during the 2010 season. Brad Childress’ implosion, summarized by Kevin Seifert of ESPN.com, should serve as a cautionary tale for those in any executive position who lack “new rules” acumen and leadership skills:

Childress had never been a head coach at any level. He had been the offensive coordinator of the highly successful Philadelphia Eagles, but coach Andy Reid called almost all of the plays over that period… [As Minnesota Vikings head coach] Brad Childress had a distant relationship at best with players, feuding with most key veterans at one point or another. And his schemes were uninspiring and rigid, routinely minimizing the skills of talented players…

Some successful coaches channel [New England Patriots coach] Bill Belichick, attempting to out-think and out-scheme opponents. Others emulate Bill Cowher [coach of the Pittsburgh Steelers for 15 seasons], whose motivational skills kept his teams playing hard… Childress didn’t fall in either category, and ultimately that’s why his players turned on him… They felt neither inspired nor challenged.

It’s as easy to recognize a winning, innovative marketing organization as it is to recognize a winning football team. Marketing organizations led by savvy, authentic leaders proactively gain business insight from customers, understand their challenges and needs, and translate that understanding into engaging, relevant solution content across new online communication avenues. They are the ones setting new rules for success.

On the other hand, marketing organizations with leadership that is inattentive to existing customers, blithely clinging to “old rules” marketing tactics, are the equivalent of NFL teams with one-dimensional play calling (otherwise known as “run, run, pass, punt”!) that lose games with embarrassing regularity.

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.

A very good recent description I’ve read describing what a technology evangelist is, does, and should do is a blog post by Simone Brunozzi, Technology Evangelist for Amazon Web Services. In the form of an entertaining “Master to Grasshopper”-style conversation, Simone Brunozzi imparts advice to the aspiring technology evangelist, with links to further resources:

• Know the technology you’re promoting inside and out, know what customers need, know your competition, be ready and eager to learn new things
• Practice your presentation skills, learn to effectively communicate in public, using powerful visuals, voice, body language
• Give your audience a memorable experience, and show them respect (Simone Brunozzi includes a great story on how he immediately won over a restless audience that had just sat through a turgid, I’m-reading-my-index-cards speech by a pompous CEO).

But as good as Simone Brunozzi’s advice to the aspiring technology evangelist is, a very important piece must be added: the technology evangelist must be a content-creating machine (!), as emphasized in the new book Content Rules by Ann Handley and CC Chapman. The ability to devise and create online content – success stories, webinars, videos, articles, ebooks, blog posts and more – that your prospective customers will find informative and helpful is the single most important tool in the technology evangelist’s arsenal (more here!).

As Ann Handley and CC Chapman write in Content Rules, the active, prolific creation of online content helps the technology evangelist and his/her company become a trusted resource that prospective customers will look to, foster a desire to work with your product, and finally ignite customer passion for your product based on their success with it, to the point where they help you create content in the form of testimonials and other online content – all stated goals of the technology evangelist, and absolutely critical goals for any company with a “true” Missionary product.

One last thought: On the other end of the content creation spectrum, if a company has no constant influx of new online content – no new case studies, no new customer testimonials, no new webinars featuring customers, no podcasts, blog posts, nothing! - then you can rest assured that no technology evangelism is taking place, no new understanding of evolving market needs is in progress, and the company is implicitly relying on the market to become “seekers of truth” (another borrowed term of religious origin!) and somehow find the product on their own – the online equivalent of a frustrating archaeological dig.