Morningstar Communications Luminary Blog

I am a numbers person, but I am surrounded by linguaphiles, people who are lovers of languages and words, and today I found a blog that I think you will appreciate. It is called Schott's Vocab and it's written by Ben Schott for the New York Times. In this blog Schott "explores news sites around the world to find words and phrases that encapsulate the times in which we live or shed light on a story of note." I hope you find Schott's Vocab as illuminating as I do.

America needs a free press.  And we were promised one when our founders created the Constitution 233 years ago.  But will our “free press,” the traditional media, survive even the next 10 years?

Our founders understood the importance of having a viable, credible, and objective news system to provide balanced reporting and serve as a watchdog to help ensure our major institutions are honest, genuine and transparent.  Imagine how much worse we’d be, as a society, if we didn’t have the media keeping an eye on our politicians, civic institutions and businesses.  Okay, so mistakes are made and they don’t always get it right, but we’re much better off with them, than without them.

Sadly, those news institutions are crumbling right before our eyes.

The Detroit Free Press now only delivers a “printed dead tree” version three days a week.  And just last week, The Seattle Post-Intelligencer announced it was stopping daily print production.  Almost every media outlet – print and broadcast, consumer and B-to-B, all of them – are hurting in a huge way.  

We’re in a downward spiral that goes like this: advertisers are spending less (do you know anyone who is spending more in traditional media in 2009 compared to last year?).  This leads to less revenue for the content creators (publishers, media) so they shrink their news output…which then leads to fewer subscribers / readers / viewers…which makes that medium less appealing to advertisers, and the cycle accelerates until they go out of business.

This issue transcends marketing and communications.  It’s an American societal issue.  And it has me greatly concerned.

On one hand, Social Media is quickly filling the news gap, but unfortunately, it is also corrupting our perception of what is “valid news.”

Social media is subjective and biased, and is essentially an opinion driven form of communications.  But it’s everywhere and growing, and it does serve a wonderful role.

Stepping on my marketing soapbox, I tell everyone that it’s essential to get involved with social media – LinkedIn, blogs, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, etc…   This is where today’s conversations take place, and as such, virtually every organization and individual should have some sort of a digital presence.  If you don’t, in just a few years, you’ll be completely left out.  (Remember what it was like back in the late 90’s when you’d search for a company website only to find it doesn’t exist?  We’re almost to the tipping point about having Facebook fan pages, Twitter followers and YouTube channels.)

But this change comes with a huge cost.

We’re losing our journalistic integrity and objectivity. Responsibility for libel and slander is disappearing. It’s becoming more and more difficult to find publications that just report the facts.  Imagine looking at the paper, but only seeing the opinion page.  That’s where we’re headed, until our society is retrained to pay for news online.

Unbiased news really isn’t free online, though millions think it is.

This week’s Time Magazine has an insightful piece, “The Moment” that discusses this troubling evolution.  I encourage you to read it, but I’ll go ahead and close this post by quoting the last paragraph:

“The newspaper business was a gas while it lasted, but that's a topic for the press-club bar. Instead, consider this: every time a news source dies and an online opinion site rises up, we move a little closer to the fact-starved day when the loudmouths have only themselves to talk about.”

I hope we find a way to always keep the facts available.

This weekend I had the privilege of traveling to Louisville, KY with Arrow Truck Sales to announce the winner of Arrow’s Back On The Road™ 2009 Campaign at The Mid America Trucking Show (MATS).

Arrow’s promotions of Back On The Road at this trade show, one of the largest in the trucking industry, are a great example of how integrated marketing can really make an impact.

We started by announcing the winner of Back On The Road during a ceremony hosted by a popular XM radio DJ and attended by country music star Aaron Tippin. The event drew a large crowd of MATS attendees and showcased our winner, veteran Dennis Lott, and the fabulous Volvo VNL 670 Dennis won as part of his prize package.

We then took Dennis on a flurry of media interviews. Trade shows are a wonderful place to hold interviews because both you and your trade media are present. There really isn’t a substitute for in-person meetings and trade shows are a great place to connect.

The next day, Arrow hosted an autograph signing session with Aaron Tippin at its booth.  Aaron, a former trucker, joined Back On The Road this year and has been an integral part of the campaign. He introduced Dennis to all his fans and brought many great people to Arrow’s booth, exposing them to the Arrow brand and allowing the sales team to talk with them about their needs.

The whole of all these activities left MATS attendees with a great impression of Back On The Road, Arrow and all the campaign’s industry sponsors. Kudos to Arrow for a wonderful show and thanks for letting me be a part of it.

And for a little fun… check out this photo of the team hanging out on Aaron Tippin’s tour bus after his concert Friday night!



Thanks for the photo Marsha!

The Kansas City AMA’s 2009 Annual Seminar is just a little over a month away.  This year, Facebook’s Brad Keown will speak.  According to the AMA, the seminar will “address the methods by which social marketing platforms help brand managers, advertisers and direct Marketers develop social media strategies to connect with millions of active users via a combination of targeted ad placement, branded application integration, and custom application development.”

Register now at http://www.ama-kc.org/Events/Events_Details.aspx?EventID=60.

See you there!

Event Details
AMA 2009 Annual Seminar
April 28, 2009
Avila University's Goppert Theatre
11901 Wornall Road, Kansas City, MO 64145 (free parking)

8 - 9 a.m.: Networking Breakfast/Registration
9 a.m. - 12 p.m.: Program

Forgive me if I start with a Dilbert clip, but apparently I’m more of a visual learner than I thought:


I'm all for sitting at my desk and working on projects all day, but sometimes a girl’s just got to have some whiteboard time!

I thought about titling this post “How to Know When Your Account Team is Stuck,” because whiteboard use around here seems to be an indicator of a complex challenge, a project that simply cannot be contained on a computer screen.

Whether I’m suffering from writer’s block or just can’t envision what a chart or timeline should look like, I’ve found a change of venue can really work wonders. Somehow, being away from my cube and all the sameness that lives there helps my brain work better. I’ve heard it’s good for the brain to do things with your non-dominant hand -- like brushing your teeth or holding your cell phone. For me, a big, blank whiteboard and the full spectrum of markers seems to fire up my synapses more than anything else.

A whiteboard is a great place, for example, to manage a project the whole team is working on (complete with slideshow storyboards)…

…or to map out a timeline with teams’ responsibilities (color is important)…

…or even to chart the complexities of a survey.

And then, with a few photos and a printer, you can take the whiteboard back to cubeville and finish your work. See? "whiteboard" tacked to cube walls, survey now easy to handle on-screen.

    Closeup:

I always have a better day when I’ve spent some time at the whiteboard. What about you? What do you do when a computer screen just won’t work?
 

In today’s world, every marketing initiative must have metrics attached.  “How will we measure the success of this initiative” is the rallying cry of all clients everyone.  We are all being held accountable for the success of our programs.

But let's forget about marketing and business-building for a moment.  Lets talk about how you measure your personal success?

Here’s a little insight into my worldview…

When I was growing up, we didn’t have an automatic icemaker.  I knew, as a teenage boy, that I will have “arrived” when I owned a refrigerator that made my ice cubes for me, so I could send those plastic trays to charity.  Shanny and I got married, bought our first fridge with this fancy feature, and life was good.

I finally had all the ice I wanted.  But then I wanted more.

When I was working at Hallmark Cards in my early 20’s, I had to wear a suit everyday.  And after a raise one year, I finally decided, “From now on, I will pay to have my shirts pressed, instead of ironing every morning.”  I looked – and felt – great.  I thought I was done.  But no, there’s more to this story.

Then way back in October, 1997, during the first week of the founding of Morningstar Communications, we were walking through an office supply store getting our very first stockpile of pens, envelopes and post-its… and then I saw the stapler aisle.   My heart went pitter-patter.  I had always wanted an electric stapler, but our purchasing people in my old agency wouldn’t authorize it.  So here I was splurging for an electric stapler, because it had become a measure of success for me.  That stapler is still on my desk.

Jump 12 years into the future.  I have all the ice I want, pressed shirts, and a great stapler.  What’s next?

Well, for me, success now means significance.  I am committed to making a positive difference – for my team, for our clients, and for our community. Success is when an employee can put her spouse through medical school. Success is when I hear that a client we helped won a huge new piece of business.  Success is when The Chamber helps its members survive these perilous times.  More than material items, that’s how I measure success today.

So, how do you define success?  What have been your definitions, and how have they changed from when you were younger?  What really constitutes success for you?

Yes, all of our programs have key metrics.  But when the results are served with an ice-cold libation, from a “well-pressed” executive, in a nicely stapled report, know that I’m really smiling on the inside.

 

When I set out last fall to prepare a presentation for the Greater Kansas City Chamber of Commerce's Business Brainfood series, I knew I wanted to do something about Gen Y.

The descriptions and stereotypes I was reading about this group weren't all aligning with my personal observations. This led me to develop several hypotheses we're now researching (you can take the survey here if you're 18-30 years old) about Millennials who live in the Midwest.

One of these hypotheses is that not all Milliennials are the tech savvy people they're made out to be.

Anecdotally, I had many recent experiences that made me wonder about whether this group is as plugged in as the stereotype purports. Two stand out:

• A client of ours whose workforce is largely made up of Millennials indicated that a significant number of their employees do not have Internet access at home.
• When hanging out one night with a handful of new acquaintances in this age group, several had not even heard of LinkedIn and weren't active on Facebook.
  

What are your experiences? Do you think all Millennials are into the latest and greatest in social media and technology? Is there an age that seems to delineate the tech savvy from the less tech savvy?