Do you feel lucky? Clint Eastwood immortalized the phrase back in 1971 as Dirty Harry (see video clip at the end). Despite the ridiculous ‘70’s fashion, the scene is still the epitome of cool.
It resonates not just because of Dirty Harry’s verve under pressure, but because we recognize that luck plays a large role in the fate of our hopes and dreams. Sometimes it seems like we can do no wrong, other times we just can’t get a break.
And that’s what makes luck so hard to deal with. We can’t count on it, but we can’t ignore it either. No matter how long or hard we struggle and strive, our destiny will often be decided by a chance encounter, a missed call or a fruitful trend. There are, however, some sensible ways of thinking about and dealing with luck.
While most of the world is stumbling along, digital is moving so fast that it’s hard to keep track. Start-ups, incumbents and established firms from the analog age are all vying to develop something new and different that will resonate in the marketplace.
At my agency, Moxie, we publish a report each year that analyzes existing trends in order to gain insight into what will break over the next year. It’s an important and interesting exercise, which helps us focus our energies and filter out the noise.
It is also a working document. We apply ascendant trends to our clients digital marketing efforts and all year long we meet with innovative technology companies in order to get a jump the next big thing. This year, we identified ten trends that will drive digital over the next twelve months and I want to highlight three of the most salient here.
Peter Drucker, the legendary management theorist, told us that we have to “accept the fact that we have to treat almost anybody as a volunteer.”
In other words, we can’t just order people around and expect them to do what we want, we have to get them to want what we want. An entire industry of compensation consultants has emerged to answer that question, but nevertheless most employees feel unmotivated. Why is that?
We need to drastically change how we think about incentives. For years, compensation specialists have focused on rational benefits to employment, with poor results. We’ve known for a long time that people don’t behave rationally. Motivation is primarily an emotional business and at its root is not economic exchange, but human dignity.
Okay, I’m gonna just come right out and say it. 2011 was a very strange year. We seemed to be caught in a limbo, teetering in between crises and recovery and wondering what the hell is going on!
For me personally, it was the year I returned home to the US after 15 years abroad in Eastern Europe. As I watched Ukraine fall back under an authoritarian regime as if the Orange Revolution never happened, I felt a strong sense of deja vu watching the Arab Spring unfold. I hope events unfold more benevolently there.
While the rest of the world seemed embroiled in chaos, the digital world marched on and so did Digital Tonto. Once again, I’d like to thank everyone for their continued support. I’ve learned from your comments, enjoyed conversations on Twitter and elsewhere and have been immeasurably enriched by all of you. Here are my top posts from 2011.
One of the nice things about getting older is that each year brings a chance to learn new things. While your body withers, your mind matures.
Writing this blog is part of that process and central to writing it is reading great books (and yes, I still read them in paper – I’m a compulsive highlighter). Many of my posts are, to a great extent, ongoing discussions with authors that I read.
2011 was a particularly good year for books, with some outstanding titles arriving on shelves. So, just as in past years, I’m making a list of books that I have read and referred to. I hope they enrich you as much as they did me.
I’m an App Store junkie. Every day I check out the latest apps to hit different App Stores to see what apps give me new ways to use my smartphone.
Recently Apple’s App Store curators have put a large focus on “microreview” apps that use photo sharing, character limits, and location-based services to help people discover new products, services, and venues nearby. A wide range of entrants into this field: Oink, TinyReview, andStamped are all apps that make it easy for users to review companies quickly and easily through images and extremely short writeups.
From a digital marketing perspective, these apps are a great indicator of how smartphones are changing the way that people discover, discuss and connect with different brands. They truly embody the convergence of multiple trends we’ve seen unfolding online for the past few years.
Mitt Romney has a problem. In his quest for the Presidency, no one is quite sure what he believes. In politics, that’s a no-no. A leader without strong beliefs doesn’t inspire much confidence.
However, his opponents seem to run into a bigger problem. They are sure in their beliefs, but often don’t think them through, leading to embarrassing gaffs. One by one, they have fallen by the wayside.
I, for one, appreciate the political theater. There’s nothing more entertaining than watching a stuffed shirt deflated on national television. However, the 2012 Presidential race is about more than shits and giggles and the rhetoric to this point opens up a very important question: Where do we draw the line between belief and thought?
Besides his impressive array of trysts, Captain Kirk had very little on today’s average Joe. Personal communicators are now old hat, tricorders are right around the corner and even teleportation no longer seems completely out of reach.
In fact, in many ways, the technology we carry around today is more impressive than what he had in Star Trek. After all, he and his crew always seemed to be tapping away at keyboards. And that, mark my words, will be the big thing for the next year. We are about to enter a technological lull, with very little happening of note in the way of new standards or breakaway functionality for a while. In truth, we haven’t really begun to utilize what we already have. The next wave of innovation will change that.
Are innovators born or made? Surely, those who spawn ideas that change the world are special – different then the rest of us.
Take one look at an Einstein, a Henry Ford or a Steve Jobs and it seems that they were bequeathed with something unique. They have a flair and a surety about themselves that borders on the sublime.
Yet many others also have flair and surety and never accomplish anything of note. Moreover, as I’ve written before, stories of great innovators often contain struggle and privation. Given a deeper look, innovation seems more learned than innate and there is surprising consistency about what drives it. Here are 5 principles to guide you.
Clearly, psychology and marketing are deeply related. What we buy is a function of how we think and what we think is a product of the way our minds work.
Yet, what doesn’t seem to be clear is that our scientific understanding of how people think and how they make decisions has changed drastically over the last decade or so. Unfortunately, marketing practice has not kept pace.
While it was once believed that people could be expected to behave rationally, the truth has been found to be far different. In both neurological studies and behavior experiments people have been shown to act, to borrow a phrase, in ways that are predictably irrational. It’s time we start applying what science already knows.
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