Tell Us a Story

Stories give our lives perspective. They offer context to concepts we share. If we present a new idea that resonates with the audience, it holds more credibility. If I share an idea with you, you don’t just digest what I'm saying; your beliefs, perceptions, and point of view come into play. Your experience and bias is always part of the equation.

The same happens with team culture. If you work in an environment that encourages sales at all costs but you prefer building relationships first, your time will be challenged. Those who measure success solely by financial gain may tell you to just make more calls because their perspective is relationships are a numbers game. 

That's not how we do it here 

If your leadership style is to give a good portion of your time to help the development of your people to in turn grow the bottom line; someone who tells you the best way to motivate people is through fear, will be a recipe for conflict. 

The stories we tell ourselves are powerful. They feed our narrative, perspective, and beliefs. They can become our truth regardless of reality or facts. It gets trickier when you have culture comprised of different demographics, psychographics, or points of view. 

What's your opinion?   

This is not to suggest teams succeed when everyone thinks the same way - just the opposite - but if we become rigid, we can close ourselves off from even better ideas. 

If you have a belief embedded deep inside you, it will require enormous energy for me to first convince you another stance and then share my view. Multiple that dynamic by hundreds or even thousands in an organization and you can quickly see how the power of story can morph into complication. The dangerous part is this bias can hide inside what some may mistake as company culture. 

Someone else's view might give us needed perspective. 

 ________________________________________________________________

Look Closer See Me

We live in a time when there could be 3-4 generations working together in the same department. My perspective may not be yours but we can certainly learn from each other to make it better if we open our hearts and minds.

This is a poem attributed to a man named Dave Griffith. Some have claimed a dying man in a nursing home wrote it. What's important is what we learn from it.

What do you see nurses? What do you see?
What are you thinking, when you're looking at me?
A cranky old man, not very wise
Uncertain of habit with faraway eyes
Who dribbles his food and makes no reply
When you say in a loud voice, I do wish you'd try

Who seems not to notice the things that you do
And forever is losing sock or shoe
Who, resisting or not, lets you do as you will
With bathing and feeding the long day to fill
Is that what you're thinking? Is that what you see?
Then open your eyes, nurse you're not looking at me

I'll tell you who I am as I sit here so still
As I do at your bidding as I eat at your will
I'm a small child of ten with a father and mother
Brothers and sisters who love one another
A young boy of sixteen with wings on his feet
Dreaming that soon now a lover he'll meet

A groom soon at twenty my heart gives a leap
Remembering the vows that I promised to keep
At twenty-five now I have young of my own
Who need me to guide and a secure happy home
A man of thirty my young now grown fast
Bound to each other with ties that should last

At forty, my young sons have grown and are gone
But my woman is beside me to see I don't mourn
At fifty, once more, babies play 'round my knee
Again, we know children my loved one and me
Dark days are upon me, my wife is now dead
I look at the future, I shudder with dread

For my young are all rearing young of their own
And I think of the years and the love that I've known
I'm now an old man and nature is cruel
It's jest to make old age look like a fool
The body, it crumbles, grace and vigour depart
There is now a stone where I once had a heart

But inside this old carcass a young man still dwells
And now and again my battered heart swells
I remember the joys I remember the pain
And I'm loving and living life over again
I think of the years, all too few gone too fast
And accept the stark fact that nothing can last

So open your eyes people, open and see
Not a cranky old man,

Look closer, see me
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Learn from Them

We live in an interesting time. We may work in environments which feature people from several generations. This poses challenges and opportunities. Millennials can learn from older stakeholders. Leadership can gain fresh perspective from younger colleagues who appear fearless in an era when adaptability seems effortless to them.

I have the unique privilege of working with leaders of all ages from around the world. They often need to collaborate virtually across sectors and experience demographic, geographic and language differences yet share one trait which is a desire to learn.

Too Soon Old

This is a poem attributed to a man named Dave Griffith. Some have claimed a dying man in a nursing home wrote it. What's important is what we learn from it.

What do you see nurses? What do you see?
What are you thinking, when you're looking at me?
A cranky old man, not very wise
Uncertain of habit with faraway eyes
Who dribbles his food and makes no reply
When you say in a loud voice, I do wish you'd try

Who seems not to notice the things that you do
And forever is losing sock or shoe
Who, resisting or not, lets you do as you will
With bathing and feeding the long day to fill
Is that what you're thinking? Is that what you see?
Then open your eyes, nurse you're not looking at me

I'll tell you who I am as I sit here so still
As I do at your bidding as I eat at your will
I'm a small child of ten with a father and mother
Brothers and sisters who love one another
A young boy of sixteen with wings on his feet
Dreaming that soon now a lover he'll meet

A groom soon at twenty my heart gives a leap
Remembering the vows that I promised to keep
At twenty-five now I have young of my own
Who need me to guide and a secure happy home
A man of thirty my young now grown fast
Bound to each other with ties that should last

At forty, my young sons have grown and are gone
But my woman is beside me to see I don't mourn
At fifty, once more, babies play 'round my knee
Again, we know children my loved one and me
Dark days are upon me, my wife is now dead
I look at the future, I shudder with dread

For my young are all rearing young of their own
And I think of the years and the love that I've known
I'm now an old man and nature is cruel
It's jest to make old age look like a fool
The body, it crumbles, grace and vigour depart
There is now a stone where I once had a heart

But inside this old carcass a young man still dwells
And now and again my battered heart swells
I remember the joys I remember the pain
And I'm loving and living life over again
I think of the years, all too few gone too fast
And accept the stark fact that nothing can last

So open your eyes people, open and see
Not a cranky old man, look closer, see me

Perhaps this may lend more insight and compassion for ourselves and those around us in business and in life.

Kneale Mann

flickriver

Psychographics and the Social Web

.

You are an 18-34 year old white female with short or long brown or black hair who enjoys cooking and/or painting and/or gardening and/or attending plays. Tennis and golf consume 3-5 hours of your time each week and you have a bachelor's degree in Mathematics and/or Social Studies and/or English.

You enjoy 4-6 servings of alcohol weekly and spend $2,650 each year on entertainment. And according to this survey, you fit the average profile hence we are going to now send customized advertising messages to you which match your aggregated character traits.

Check Your Math

Radio talks about cumulative audience, average quarter hour and cost per point derived from less than 5% of the population while television has proprietary metrics to measure a show’s ratings compared to others in it its time slot across demographics derived from a selected sample of the population.

Print, outdoor, product placement, direct mail, e-marketing, infomercials and all other media have an equation they have devised to measure audience and impact.

Social Media have Changed the Game

Johanna Blakeley is Deputy Director of The Norman Lear Center in California and studies entertainment and how it interacts and impacts political, commercial and social habits. This is her presentation at TEDWomen last December. [video]


knealemann

video credit: TED | image credit: thinkgeek
This was also featured on socialmediatoday

Strategy Is Boring

The eye glaze often happens soon after the question "what is your business plan?"

Instead of a strategic plan many want to hope last year's plan which was a variation of the previous year's plan will work out.

That is unsound thinking.

Building a strategy requires thought and work.

You need to map out objectives, write down realistic tactics, decipher roles and responsibilities, define target demographics, identify opportunities, exploit competitors' weaknesses, develop ideal customer profiles and execute a business plan.

Bored yet?

All too often you can hear the moans from miles around when the topic of strategic planning is brought up. There is fear that it will mean endless days locked in a boardroom hashing out the future of the company. After all, the world is changing so fast how can you keep up?

I actually had a business owner raise his hands to his ears and utter the "la la la I can't hear you" phrase which was my cue to escort myself out of the building. He was clearly not ready for a plan.

Strategy is Your Foundation.

Many find strategy unnecessary because it takes patience and time. What is more dangerous, some think they have a plan when it is clear they do not.

A common mistake is failing to grasp that it is an evolution, a process and something you refine constantly. But too many simply want to do the tactics without the strategy which might be the beginning of the end.

But who really needs a plan or a strategy?

@knealemann
strategy. marketing. social media.

photo credit: gawker

What Is Local To You?

Location Location Location?

In my twenty-five years of marketing and media, I have heard one phrase uttered more often than any other: Be Local.

It was how you differentiated yourself from national outlets.

Market and demographic were used to describe the audience, listener or reader. It wasn't about home or humans.

Local referred to the geographic location of a business and its customers.

I have realized that my view of "local" has changed. It is has become less about geography. It is more about what is local and important to me.

Buddies For Life

You may have attended university in another city. The relationships you formed during that time remain local to you. You may have moved hundreds of miles away and never visited the campus after graduation day, but all your touch points to that experience are still local to you.

Perhaps you love your car so much you have joined an online community devoted to lovers of that model and you have formed relationships with other owners and perhaps even planned outings and events. That is a community that is local to you.

Know Your Locals

It is crucial you realize this fact if you are running a business. It’s not enough to be in a market without activating the power of the local community. There is a chain of coffee shops here that is competing quite nicely with two major international chains, because they are local to us.

If you own a destination business - such as a hotel or resort, then it’s important to realize that your local community is anyone who wants to visit your destination. So you need to be local to them.

Emotion vs. Location

We need to keep finding ways to allow our growing online relationships a place to flourish that make it feel local to us.

The size of your community is boundless and what is local to you may have become more of an emotional and mental attachment rather than a spot on some map.

What is local to you?

knealemann.at.gmail.com

image credit: skagitriverjournal.com

Human Behavior And Other Assumptions

There is much chatter these days about action. Amid tough times we must find better ways to move forward. One of the best ways is through integration.

This is not about product placement or infomercials or sales calls or hidden agendas. This is about entering every relationship at as close to the beginning of a project as possible and being aware of the needs of everyone involved.

Something To Remember
Recently a colleague was frustrated with a customer because she kept changing her mind then asking for more time to make a decision. Too often people would rather avoid the short no by giving you a long maybe. Too often we want to lay hope in the maybe that it will become a yes.

In this case, it was too early in the process but my colleague did fail to remember one crucial word that best described this person – customer.

They Owe You Nothing
Most of the time a viewer, customer, listener, visitor, colleague or friend will make the decision that best suits their needs when it is convenient for them. We shouldn't be surprised, we operate the same way!

All the data in the world is useless without action. All the suspicion one can muster won’t change the responses of real people. Most scratch their heads when sales are down because the silent majority will not write a complaint email or call you; they will simply go somewhere else.

I Know What I’m Talking About
We are often too close to our own situation. My experience hosting focus groups and research projects taught me that people like what they like and don’t respond a certain way simply because that is our desire. A new logo, a better marketing campaign, a better looking spokesperson, or a nice PowerPoint presentation won’t change the situation if your customer is closed to new ideas.

If they are open to new ideas, it’s imperative to find out the parameters.

How many times have you heard this one – I like all types of music. My response usually is: Do you like Baroque or Bluegrass? We humans exaggerate and embellish - duh. This is never more evident than when you are asking questions for research.

Consensus and Average
It would be silly to suggest we can ask every single customer and potential customer for their input but in a user-made have-it-now time, we can’t expect everyone to fall in line.

Demographics, income levels, educational background or geographical origin can give you insight, but these factors are simply a guide. My dad is on Facebook and my niece likes jazz.

Be Ready For Their Answer
If you are going to ask for opinions, be prepared to hear the answers. If your goal is to simply confirm your theories, save your time and money. Entering in to any relationship with preconceived notions is dangerous.

Agree? Disagree? Feel free to share your thoughts.

km