unReview: Q4/2010 recommendations and Best of 2010

by Peter Korchnak on January 14, 2011

Better late than never. From my fourth quarter book stack, I recommend the following works (I’d recommend a few others, but those focused on books, publishing, and writing, as I did background research for my new venture GoodBookery). Once again, few are strictly about marketing or sustainability, but all will provide context for your business (all links are affiliate).

  • Nick Bilton, “I Live in the Future & Here’s How It Works: Why Your World, Work, and Brain Are Being Creatively Disrupted”, 2010 - A more immediate, if subjective and evangelistic, look at the digital present and future. An entertaining, light read.
  • Kevin Kelly, “What Technology Wants”, 2010 - It’s like you and me. Technology is an extension of evolution and as such it wants what humans want.
  • Marshall McLuhan, “Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man, Critical Edition”, 2003 - If “the medium is the message” this hefty volume is certainly worth sustained attention and reckoning with. Back to basics, my friends!
  • Matt Ridley, “The Rational Optimist: How Prosperity Evolves”, 2010 - Want a reason to cheer up and a proof market exchange is good for humanity? Bonus: A few well-argued (evangelistic but non-ideological) jabs at sustainability. Wishing for more level-headed books like this one in 2011.
  • David Meerman Scott & Brian Halligan, “Marketing Lessons from the Grateful Dead: What Every Business Can Learn from the Most Iconic Band in History”, 2010 - Who knew the Grateful Dead could clean your marketing department’s clock out. Read and weep sing along.
  • Don Tapscott and Anthony D. Williams, “Macrowikinomics: Rebooting Business and the World”, 2010 - A follow up to their successful (and even more highly recommended) “Wikinomics: How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything”, taking the business of mass collaboration to the higher level.

Best of 2010

These were the most influential or helpful books for me last year. Arranged by author alpha and published beyond 2010. Read them!

  • Nicholas Carr, “The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains”, 2010
  • Nicholas Christakis and James Fowler, “Connected: The Surprising Power of Our Social Networks and How They Shape Our Lives”, 2009
  • Kevin Kelly, “What Technology Wants”, 2010
  • Daniel Pink, “Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us”, 2009
  • Andrew Potter, “The Authenticity Hoax: How We Get Lost Finding Ourselves”, 2010
  • David Shields, “Reality Hunger: A Manifesto”, 2010
  • Clay Shirky, “Cognitive Surplus: Creativity and Generosity in a Connected Age”, 2010
  • James Surowiecki, “The Wisdom of Crowds”, 2005
  • Nassim Nicholas Taleb, “The Black Swan: Second Edition: The Impact of the Highly Improbable”, 2007
  • David Weinberger, “Everything Is Miscellaneous: The Power of the New Digital Disorder”, 2007

unReviewer’s Choice: Pierre Bayard, “How to Talk About Books You Haven’t Read”, 2009

Loudly Tooting Own Horn Selection: Peter Korchnak and Megan Strand, eds., “The Portland Bottom Line”, 2010 - You know all about this one. Get it, benefit Mercy Corps Northwest, and plant a tree!

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Image credit: Horia Varlan

Is social media right for your marketing?

by Peter Korchnak on January 10, 2011

Tools

A client project forced me to visit Facebook the other day. My objective was to evaluate the client’s page and look for potential areas of improvement. I logged in, started heading to the Search bar…look, on the top of my Wall, my wife was asking her friends an interesting question, and look, apparently there’s a flea market in an unexpected suburb. Then I remembered, my father just joined Facebook and Likes a whole bunch of updates and comments he, as a non-speaker of English, can’t really understand-what’s that all about? Oh, and an old high school classmate just posted… Back to work!

This is why I took a hiatus from Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn: distraction. Social media networking is all very interesting in the moment, but ultimately it distracts me from my work. Social networking for me follows the cynics’ code name for live business networking: “not-working”.

In evaluating the utility of my social media networking engagement, such as it was, I had asked myself: Where has my business ultimately come from since I started my business three years ago? The answer gave me pause:

  • Referrals
  • Speaking engagements
  • Deep, in-person networking / Relationship cultivation

None of my paid work-yes, zero dollars-has come from online social networking, directly or indirectly. Sure, I could have been “doing it wrong” or not long enough or just simply remembered that social media isn’t supposed to generate sales. Well, that’s just it: It hasn’t.

I’m not saying online social networking isn’t useful for business. It may well work for you as it does for many other companies, because every business is different. You may have had tremendous success generating revenue from your social media activity (this blog brought in business last year for the first time). If so, all the power to you, and please email me to share your success story. I tried it for a decent period of time and upon a cost/benefit analysis* and re-prioritization of my marketing efforts, I concluded that as a solopreneur I must allocate my time more productively (Jay Conrad Levinson, he of the Guerrilla Marketing fame, says 60% of your new business should come from existing business). Which is why you may have not seen me out there on Twitter, Facebook, or LinkedIn lately.

Different strategies and tactics work for different people and businesses. Just because everybody’s doing something doesn’t mean you should too, if it has no demonstrated positive impact on your business. Beware of any consultant, social media or otherwise, who tells you you have to be on Twitter and you have to have a Facebook page. Ask yourself, Does this make sense for my business? Blogging makes sense for mine, everything else turned out to be a distraction.

Here’s my sustainable marketing lesson from social media: If it works, go for it. If it doesn’t-in fact, even if it does-focus on exploiting and reinforcing your strengths. Does most of your business come from client referrals? Work your butt off to enhance that source of business. Does most of your business come from your publications or speaking engagements? Write like a graphomaniac and speak like there are no full stops.

During breaks, dance like no one’s watching.

What are the tangible results of your social media engagement? What are the reasons you quit social media?

***

* An additional by-product of my social media engagement were queries for social media consulting: Noticing my social media activity, many concluded I must be an expert, even though social media consulting wasn’t the position I intended for my business. Finally, since quitting social networks, I have been a much more focused and calmer individual; the disappearance of the distraction factor that accompanied my divorce from social media has made me a happier man!

Image credit: David DeHoey

Happy 2011, the Year of the Right to Be Selective

by Peter Korchnak on January 5, 2011

When I first came to America, I found it shocking to see this sign posted in various businesses: “We reserve the right to refuse service to anyone”. How could this be?, I wondered. How could this epicenter of customer service and customer-is-king attitude spawn such rhetoric, and so publicly? Isn’t it in businesses’ interest to serve people who want to be served and isn’t refusing service bad marketing? Eventually, as I understood more about American culture, business and sustainability, I realized why reserving the right to refuse service makes good business sense. In fact, my experience with Semiosis Communications, particularly last year, has led me to make the Right my motto for 2011 (though perhaps I’d reword it to a more positive “the right to select whom I serve”).

To a marketer, the most obvious assumption underlying the Right is that serving customers or clients who aren’t your target audience or who distract you from serving your target audience deters you from pursuing your mission. Any company that wants to be or ends up serving everyone serves no one well.

In business-to-business services like mine (“sustainable marketing department for organizations without one”), a wrong client or project can wreak havoc on your psyche, service to the good clients, and the business overall. Clients From Hell is a favorite conversation topic among fellow marketing professionals, be they designers, copywriters, or consultants. In such cases, applying the Right would save everyone a whole lot of hassle.

Being selective about what clients and projects to take, based on background research, alignment with mission, expertise, and interest, a personality match (as in, Can we get along?), and even a hunch sometimes, should be a rule for B2B professionals. We all know that, but all too often the prospect of additional revenue from a project, or of expanding a client portfolio, blinds us to this imperative.

As an emergency brake, termination clauses in contracts help in situations once something goes awry during the project itself. For example, I or the client can terminate our relationships in writing, including simply via email, for any reason at any time, no questions asked (asking for feedback is a good idea, however). I’d rather lose money than suffer making it.

Digging deeper, the Right points to a certain healthy, if slightly defiant, attitude. Customer Is King has resulted in many customers or clients acting just like kings: demanding, rude, entitled, and unreasonable toward businesses they’ve come to regard as their serfs. I’ve said this before and I’ll say it here again: That consumers can get what they want doesn’t mean they should.

If you go into business to serve your clients and make a difference doesn’t mean you should take abuse, whatever form it takes. Just as your customers will take their business elsewhere on a whim, you as a business don’t owe anyone anything aside from common courtesy. I’m not advocating for treating customers badly; I just recommend ignoring or ditching customers that treat you badly. A business-client relationship should be at-will.* Though it may seem cold and counter-intuitive on the surface, in the long-run it’s good for both sides: being selective requires taking a stand, which requires courage. And isn’t courageousness a good reputation to have?

What do you think? Do you apply the Right in your business, and if so, why and how? What are your resolutions for this year?

Have a prosperous and beneficial 2011!

***

* This post was partly inspired by an observation a friend made recently when contemplating applying for a job she only wanted to have for less than a year: If an organization has the right to let you go at any time for any reason based on at-will employment, why should you as a prospective employee feel obligated to dedicate a certain length of time to that organization?

Image credit: sea turtle

Happy Holidays!

12.23.2010
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The year 2010 is nearing its boisterous conclusion. I hope it’s been a good one for you and your business.
A lot happened in 2010 in my business. One thing I can state by way of summary: Books anchored my 2010.
First, I contributed to “Age of Conversation 3″, which came out in May and which partly engendered [...]

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Improving environmental sustainability of marketing communications

12.21.2010

With one eye on the end of the year and the other on the custom of paying all the year’s debts by New Year’s Eve, I looked back on my blog posts over the course of the year. It turned out I still needed to post a recap of my mid-year series on improving the [...]

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What does sustainable design mean to you?

11.19.2010
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Last night I attended another quarterly SHIFT: A Green Salon event by AIGA Portland (I’ve reported here on SHIFT 2, SHIFT 3, and SHIFT 4, where I also presented), which asks the question from this post’s title. SHIFT 5 celebrated the event series’ 1st anniversary by bringing another great lineup of 10 speakers (the list includes [...]

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“The Portland Bottom Line” releases Wednesday, November 10th at Mercy Corps

11.08.2010

The long title is totally justified. After 6 months of work, my passion project “The Portland Bottom Line: Practices for Your Small Business from America’s Hotbed of Sustainability” will be officially published this Wednesday, November 10th! Join me and the book’s contributors in celebrating Portland’s sustainable business at the launch party!
When? Wednesday, November 10th, 2010, [...]

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