Some things we learn in school. Others, our parents tell us when we’re young. Still others (often, the most interesting) kids told us in the playground at school.
However, when we go out into the world, we find that we’re poorly equipped to deal with much that life throws at us. We fumble around, often fail and have to pick ourselves up and dust ourselves off. That’s when we learn life’s most important lessons.
Here are ten things I’ve learned in my travels.
Should you believe the hype?
Hype, much like the proverbial soldier’s girlfriend, doesn’t exactly lie, but doesn’t tell the whole truth either. We’re told our whole world will change, lots of journalists and investment bankers drive expectations further and then we are inevitably disappointed. Only later, we find that, after all, there really was something to it all along.
Recently, someone introduced me to the Gartner Hype Cycle, which does a good job of not only describing the how hype plays out, but also tracks it and gives important insights on how to manage and profit from hyped technology.
Facebook valued at $50 billion? Twitter and LinkedIn to follow with their own multibillion dollar transactions? Huffington Post sold to AOL at $315 million? Does all this make any sense? Nobody can know for sure.
Lately, though, it seems that as soon as a deal is announced pundits rush to pan it. “The ‘dot bomb’ era all over again!,“ they cry. What’s startling is just how little substance is behind such claims. Most of them are, in fact, little more than ad hominem attacks and histrionics, with little or no analysis of financial logic.
The best thing you can say about any strategic move is that it was done for good reasons and that the numbers make sense. As I will explain below, that seems to be true of the deals happening now.
The events in Egypt have renewed the debate about social media and revolutions. As someone who has actually experienced a revolution myself, I have found much of it to be silly and more than a little annoying. There’s just something creepy about people sipping lattes and tweeting about how much good they’re doing.
Nevertheless, social media’s mere prominence in the story of the Egyptian protesters does suggest that there is something afoot. While revolutions existed long before Twitter, political movements are clearly social phenomena and therefore governed by the laws of social networks and accelerated by social media.
In light of what’s happened over the past few weeks, it seems like a good moment to reflect on the similarities of how technology and social networks played a part in the protests of both 2004 Kiev and 2011 Cairo.
What do you do with top performers who are nasty? Fire them, of course.
This was a conclusion I arrived at years ago and, after having put it into practice, I can attest that it works. It not only creates a better workplace, but it improves performance.
When I mentioned this principle in a previous post about the importance of employee development, I got a lot of feedback. Much was positive, but some was skeptical. So, I’m laying out my reasoning here for my “fire nasty people rule.” You can judge for yourself.
Soft power, noted Joseph Nye, is the power to get what you want without coercion. That’s a good kind of power to have, but hard to define. Nye argues that it is a combination of lots of things, like economic success, technological prowess, good governance, lack of corruption, etc.
In a similar fashion,”influence” has become a central topic of discussion in marketing circles. The opportunity to get messages across with less expenditure of resource and effort is enticing indeed. However, defining people’s influence (excluding, of course, celebrities) is problematic.
Nevertheless, measuring influence is certainly not impossible and there are several valid approaches. Here’s an overview:
Creativity is changing. Not so long ago, it seemed like a “man on the mountain” approach could suffice. All you needed was a great idea and then get people to rally around it to make it happen (or so many thought).
To whatever extent that was ever true, it certainly seems to be getting less so. Due partly to a change in zeitgeist and partly to greater integration and complexity in business life, we’re working more in teams. So the question is: What makes some teams better than others?
Research into social networks has begun to shed some light on that question and is coming up with some sensible answers that have important practical implications.
We’ve all been conned.
Metrics. ROI. Optimization. These all have some intrinsic value. However, they’ve also led to a misguided Wall Streetification of marketing that has confused means with ends and correlation with causality. As we transition to a digital world, the tendency for destructive reductionism becomes even more pervasive.
The result has been a rejection of the intangible in favor of what we can model in Excel. An abdication of the spirit in the pursuit of rationality. To a great extent, in our quest for accountability, we’ve lost what’s important.
Okay, here’s an exercise. Go to your bathroom mirror and practice a serious face. Furrow your brow, tighten your lips and lower your gaze.
Got it? Good. You are now ready to cop-out. Often much maligned, copping out is a time honored tradition in corporate life. It will save you time, keep underlings at a safe distance and help you avoid pesky questions.
It’s not all about appearances though. You have to master the lingo. Here are some choice phrases that will help you along.
Professional content, we were told, was dead.
Why pay journalists, producers and directors, if you can crowdsource? Who needs TV networks when people can create their own on YouTube? Why pay editors to choose stories when you have RSS and Digg? A new dawn had arrived or so it seemed.
Now traditional media is soaring back and social media, many still struggling to find elusive profits, are inking content deals. Meanwhile, Yahoo is cutting social services even as they hire journalists. What’s going on?
