An Amusing Tale of Observation Gone Awry

With my first marketing research class, I fell in love with the discipline. Naturally curious about people, I could study their behavior, and be paid for it. A definite win-win.

Research techniques can be quantitative or qualitative and there are devotees of both. Those who prefer quantitative want to be able to say, “x% feel this way” or “y% are likely to purchase that new product.”

For practitioners waving the qualitative banner, observation is better. Mystery shopping, ethnography or simply watching consumers as they interact with their surroundings tends to reduce “self reported” data errors of focus groups and interviews, including the unconscious motivation of respondents to tell the interviewer what they think he or she wants to hear.

What I think about the relative merits of each is best related through a “story” I heard. I don’t know who told it first so can’t give credit where it is due. It goes something like this..

  “It was October and the Indians on a remote reservation asked their new chief if the coming winter was going to be cold or mild. Since the chief had always lived in modern society before returning to the reservation, he hadn’t been taught the old secrets. When he looked at the sky, he couldn’t tell what the winter was going to be like…

He got an idea. He called the National Weather Service and asked, ‘Is the coming winter going to be cold?’ ‘It looks like this winter is going to be quite cold,’ the meteorologist responded. So the chief told his people to collect a lot of firewood.

A week later, the chief called the NWS again. ‘Does it still look like it is going to be a very cold winter?’ ‘Yes,’ the man replied, “it’s going to be a very cold winter.’ The chief again went back to his people and ordered them to collect every scrap of firewood they could find.

Two weeks later, the chief called the NWS again. ‘Are you absolutely sure that the winter is going to be very cold?’ ‘Absolutely,’ the main replied. ‘It’s looking more and more like it is going to be one of the coldest winters ever.’

‘How can you be so sure?’ the chief asked.

The weatherman replied, ‘The Indians are collecting firewood like crazy.’

Bottom line. Don’t assume you know “why” just by observing. Unless you want a big pile of firewood, you need to ask some questions.

Investing in Respect

For more than two decades, a number of companies have downsized, rightsized, reengineered, and outsourced. Yet, these techniques didn’t necessarily lead to long-term value. They may have increased the bottom-line in the short-run, but did little to generate distinctive competitive advantage. What’s been missing? R E S P E C T. It’s a key driver of success.

Studies have repeatedly demonstrated that employees at high performing companies score their employers ten or more points higher than counterparts at other companies on such things as working conditions, communications credibility and performance feedback.

Openly communicating with and actively valuing the work of employees produces results, notes motivational speaker, best-selling author and worker engagement expert Bob Nelson as described in Crain’s Detroit Business (http://tinyurl.com/ygfup8u)

Nelson reports that 95 percent of non-management employees in his research rate communication with their superior as their top priority at work. Additionally, 92 percent of employees want to be asked their opinions and 89 percent want to be involved in decision making.

How can you increase the respect quotient at your company? Two components are essential – actionable research and employee involvement in strategic planning. Here’s how.

Actionable research

Regular employee surveys are a must. With online tools readily available, it’s easier than ever to probe:

• Overall image of the company
• Perceived company strengths and weaknesses
• Ratings of morale, teamwork, performance systems and respect
• Internal communications, both actual and preferred
• A host of other specific inquiries to fine-tune the organization

As important as the survey is, it only represents the first step. Equally important, and the aspect most often forgotten (and the reason why employee surveys sometimes get a bad rap) is the action phase. Common action steps should include:

• Publishing the results
• Pinpointing ways to improve morale, respect and teamwork by assembling teams of employees to recommend solutions
• Setting and communicating goals for improvement
• Following up to measure progress

 Strategic planning

No one understands customers better than your employees. Involve them in your strategic planning and decision making. Think of the diverse points of view you will gain (and the respect you will demonstrate) by adding line and staff managers, new hires with fresh ideas and seasoned “old-timers” to the mix. Gaining the input of these valuable resources does not have to be difficult or time consuming. Tools, such as World Cafes (http://thecapstonegrp.com/Resources.aspx) offer simple and effective ways to solicit employee involvement.

For more about actionable research and employee-involved strategic planning, www.thecapstonegrp.com

Play ‘Em Like You Got ‘Em

I think it’s time for all of us to begin treating our collective economic challenges like my mother did when she played cards. A little explanation is in order.

When I was a teenager and young adult, my parents, grandmother and I frequently spent evenings playing “500,” a trick-taking card game, something like bridge or euchre.

As Wikipedia describes, (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/500_(card_game)) the standard “500” deck contains 43 playing cards: a Joker is included, and the 2s, 3s, and two 4s (typically the black ones) are removed. Cards are dealt to each of the four players and three are dealt face down on the table to form the kitty (also known as the widow or blind.) Players play in pairs.

After the deal, players call in turn, electing either to bid or to pass. A bid indicates the combined number of tricks the bidder believes he and his partner will take and the suit that will be trump for that hand, or that there will be no trump suit. For instance, a bid of “seven spades” indicates that the player intends to win seven or more tricks with spades being the trump suit, whereas a bid of “seven no-trumps” indicates that the player intends to win seven or more tricks with no trump suit (in which case the only trump card is the joker).

The goal is for the team who wins the bid to take at least as many tricks as they bid. Points are awarded according to the number of tricks taken and the suit. For example, 6 spade tricks earn 40 points, while 6 hearts is scored as 100. Both diamonds and hearts are more valuable than spades or clubs. The first team to reach 500 is declared the winner.

Now, my mother was a fierce competitor. She and I typically teamed up and she wanted to win! About the second or third hand of the game, she would look over at my dad (who always served as scorekeeper) and say “Honey, how many tricks do I need to win?” Dad would check his sheet and announce something like “8 hearts.” Mom would quickly quip, “I’m bidding 8 hearts.” About this time, my heart would nearly stop because, invariably, all I had in my hand were spades and clubs.

But no matter. She’d say, “Ok… we’re going to play ‘em like we got ‘em.” It didn’t matter what we had in our hands, we were going to win. And by being creative, taking risks and generally just acting like we were on top of our game, we usually were.

While the recession is supposed to be over, I think our collective psyche is still paralyzed by the fear that we’re only holding spades and clubs, when what we need are diamonds and hearts. It’s time to take some risks – time for banks to fund business loans, for companies to make acquisitions or invest in capital projects (and thus create jobs and hire additional employees), for our elected officials to stop bickering and for individuals who have money in their wallets to open them and start spending those green backs.

So, how about it? Let’s play ‘em like we got ‘em. Let’s act like winners!

www.thecapstonegrp.com

It’s Too Expensive Not to Understand Your Customers

If you’re in business, every time customers or potential customers interact with you, they make an assessment of the quality of the service or product you provide. This is true regardless of whether you compete with others or are in an industry with seemingly no competition.

During an economic slump or crisis, customer research is often one of the first items on the chopping block. This, though, is short-sighted. One small element of actionable information can have significant financial implications and can critically impact the success or failure of a business. It’s just too expensive not to know what your customers think.

Customers have an internal set of criteria for judging an enterprise. This criteria may include how quickly a service is rendered, how much a product or service costs, what happens when something unexpected happens (the car accelerates dangerously all by itself, the flight is canceled, the merchandise is “out of stock.”) Research sets a solid foundation for performance benchmarking, allowing companies, like yours, to track trends in customer satisfaction.

One of the best ways to avoid costly mistakes is to develop a philosophy of “asking your customers.” What do they need? How satisfied are they with the services you provide? What can you do to improve? How quickly do you provide service? Is this fast enough? How do your customers evaluate your company in terms of safety and reliability? How much do they trust your explanation and solution when a problem occurs? How does what you offer measure up to competitive offerings?

Obtaining benchmark customer information is an essential first step. Knowing what customers think and want provides the foundation for developing and prioritizing operational improvement plans. Which items need major retooling? Which just require minor adjustments? What strengths do we have that we can leverage to achieve other desired outcomes?

This data should also become the foundation of your strategic communication plan targeted to reach your key constituencies: customers, community leaders, employees, regulators and the media. What did you learn about the needs and wants of your customers that can be translated into enhanced satisfaction levels. Collecting information is only the first stop on the road to success; putting the information to use and developing loyal customers is the destination.

www.thecapstonegrp.com

Which are You?

My parents and grandparents lived through the Great Depression and their experiences during those turbulent and troubling years greatly influenced how they managed the rest of their lives. Hearing stories about how they coped – moving in with family, living off savings that had been put aside for a rainy day, stretching every food dollar, taking whatever work was available no matter how dangerous or difficult – also profoundly affected me. I am who I am partly because of what I heard.

Today, we are in the midst of what might be termed the Great Recession. I got to thinking about how these times will influence all of us in the years ahead. Apparently many others – particularly marketers – are also wondering what the long-lasting effects might be. Will frivolity and the good-times return or will many remain cautious and frugal?

A segmentation study recently completed by Decitica Marketing Strategy & Research, a New Jersey research company (http://decitica.com/) concludes that:

1. The effects of the this recession on consumer behavior are so profound that many of the assumptions underpinning consumer segmentation are no longer valid; and

2. Marketing strategies that do not fully recognize the diversity of consumers’ recession experiences won’t have the desired potency in the post-recession world.

The study identified four consumer types that they believe will emerge from the recession, each posing its own challenges for marketers.

Steadfast Frugalists – comprising 20% of the population, this group (of whom I am a member) are committed to self-restraint, engaging in prudence with unequivocal enthusiasm (Wow! Look how much I saved in coupons today!) Six in ten (60%) are women, and while the group is comprised of individuals from all age groups, fewer are from Gen X and Gen Y.

Involuntary Penny-Pinchers – for the 29% in this group, the recession has been especially challenging. Over-represented by people in their 30s and 40s, frugality for the most part has been forced upon them. Half have not saved any money for emergencies and 87% are more worried about the future than other groups.

Pragmatic Spenders – also 29% of the population, these consumers have blunted the effects of the recession. Over-represented by people in their 60s, and from the Northeast and West, more than a third of the people with greater than $75,000 household income are in this group.

Apathetic Materialists – this group (22% of respondents) seem least changed by the recession. Over-represented by Gen Yers, they are the least changed in terms of their spending habits and future intentions. Only about 6% of this group find price comparison satisfying, compared to 85% of the steadfast frugalists.

Do you see yourself in any of these types? What about your customers? Are you prepared to confront the new reality of the marketplace?

www.thecapstonegrp.com

How Big?

When I was a child, my mother used to laugh because I used the word ‘million” to express everything from how much homework I had (a “million pages”) to how many birds were sitting on a wire. It was a number that meant, “too big to count.”

Recently I’ve been reading I’m a Stranger Here Myself: Notes on Returning to America after Twenty Years Away (http://tinyurl.com/yaqnuae) by Bill Bryson (author of A Walk in the Woods). Published in 1999, it’s a compilation of a series of articles he wrote for Night & Day magazine, the Sunday supplement to London’s Mail on Sunday.

In his chapter called “The Numbers Game” he talks about how big numbers are simply beyond what we are capable of grasping. He uses the federal deficit as a way of explaining how large a trillion is. In 1999, the deficit was $4.5 trillion (today it’s roughly $12 trillion).

Bryson says “Imagine you were in a vault filled with dollar bills and that you were told you could keep each one you initialed. Say, too, for the sake of argument that you could initial one dollar bill per second and that you worked straight through without ever stopping. How long do you think it would take to count a trillion dollars?…You would make $1,000 every 17 minutes. After 12 days of nonstop effort you would acquire your first $1 million. Thus it would take you 120 days to accumulate $10 million and 1,200 days – something over three years – to reach $100 million. After 31.7 years you would be a billionaire…But not until after 31,709.8 years would you count your trillionth dollar (and even then you’d be less than one-fourth of the way through the pile of money representing America’s debt.”)

Now, my commentary is not meant to be a political statement. It’s only meant to demonstrate how much a trillion is. Initialing dollar bills as Bryson suggests would take a person more than 120,000 years to get through our national debt. Or, by my calculations 2,000 people could each spend 60 years nonstop.

In fact, a trillion pieces of paper laid end-to-end would stretch from the earth to the sun … and back … with a lot of paper to spare. One trillion seconds is much, much longer than recorded history. A million minutes ago was just under two years. A billion minutes ago was just after the time of Christ.

One trillion is literally a 1 with 12 zeros. Scientists estimate that the Milky Way has somewhere between 100 and 400 billion. Imagine that you could see all of them and then realize how many more a trillion would be!  

Talk about being too big to count or wrap your head around!

www.thecapstonegrp.com

A Good Idea or Just Free Advice?

Finding a job has never been more difficult. Simply applying seems equally challenging.

I’ve been on both sides of the hiring desk – sometimes the applicant and sometimes the employer. And, yes, for some jobs, I gave a test. When I was hiring a research analyst, I would narrow my field of candidates down to the top five or so and then give the finalists a set of data to see what they would do with it. In an hour, could they separate the wheat from the chafe? Could they make sense of the numbers, draw conclusions and express them in well-crafted and thoughtful language?

While I gave this test to only the best of the bunch, not as part of my initial screening criteria, I am hearing from colleagues today that they’re being asked to submit marketing or business plans, develop strategy or design a website from the ground-up – all before even getting the first interview!

Fellow blogger, Matthew E. Berger at Sphere, writes about Hannah Reed, 22, who applied for a part-time administrative position with The New Teacher Project in Oakland, CA. She was asked to answer mock e-mails from potential clients, which required research into the organization, and to create a plan for an educational event. Was she hired? No.

As Berger notes, “Reed’s experience highlights a new fact of life for those on the losing end of a labor market where every ‘help wanted’ ad can draw a flood of interest, and fewer people wait on the other end to read all the resumes. More and more, recruiters and hiring managers are asking prospective employees to complete lengthy assignments before they will even be considered for an interview.”

It’s true such screening techniques illuminate those with poor writing or critical thinking skills and perhaps reduce the number of resumes to a more manageable number. It’s also true that applicants are given the opportunity to showcase their talents and business or scientific acumen.

However, for someone looking for a job and who knows that it will take hundreds of applications to even snag an interview, these prerequisites are undoubtedly daunting. Spend 20 or 30 hours on an assignment and then still not get an interview?

Are these exercises really meant to screen candidates or are they just a repository of free advice? How many of the submitted ideas will become part of the hiring organization’s marketing plan or training curriculum or web content? Makes one wonder.

www.thecapstonegrp.com

Learning from the Planet’s Teachers

Consider Velcro, passive cooling and Speedo’s Fastskin FSII swimsuits. What do these items have in common? Give up? All were inspired by the natural world. In fact, so many recent inventions have occurred from observing how nature operates that a new term has been coined. Biomimicry is literally the science and art of emulating nature’s best biological aspects to solve human problems.

For example, George de Mestral noted how burrs stuck tenaciously to his dog’s fur. Using a microscope, he observed that the tiny hooks on the end of the burr’s spines caught anything with a loop – such as clothing, hair or animal fur. The result was his two-part Velcro fastener system.

And, African tower-building termites helped teach us about passive cooling. These insects construct their mounds to maintain a constant temperature by continuously opening and closing vents, allowing cooler air to be drawn in from open lower sections while hot air escapes through chimneys. An example of this stack ventilation system is employed by a wastewater treatment facility in Carlsbad, CA.

How to reduce our dependence on fossil fuels is another lesson we can learn from nature. As the Biomimicry Institute notes (http://www.biomimicryinstitute.org/), “One of the best ways to reduce reliance on fossil fuels is to achieve more efficient use of the energy we do consume. Inspired by the evolved ability of shark’s skin to reduce drag by manipulating the boundary layer flow as the fish swims, researchers are developing coatings for ship’s hulls, submarines, aircraft fuselage, and even swimwear for humans. Based on the varying shape and texture of shark’s skin over its body, Speedo’s Fastskin FSII swimsuits made their appearance at the Beijing Olympics and may have helped US swimmer Michael Phelps to his record eight gold medals in that competition, and the rest of the team as well.”

And, perhaps, green plants can ultimately teach us about how to make clean fuel using sunlight to split water into hydrogen and oxygen, much like they use chlorophyll to convert sunlight, water and carbon dioxide into carbohydrates and oxygen. If we could master this process, we could make hydrogen fuel cells an efficient way to create and store energy applicable in home and industrial systems.

Everyday, scientists and inventors are exploring new ways to improve our world through biomimicry. Non-toxic adhesives inspired by geckos, resistance-free antibiotics inspired by red seaweed and improved wind turbine blades mimicking the flippers of humpback whales are just a few examples. If you pay attention, you can see biomimetically inspired products in nearly every corner of the marketplace, from medicine to transportation.

According to the advocates and practitioners studied by the Biomimicry Institute, the greatest potential impacts for this emerging field, however, is in changing the way we think about our man-made environment—not only in designing individual building products, but in conceiving of entire communities as biomimetic systems, not to mention businesses, government bodies and other “systems.” Now that’s something to anticipate!

photo courtesy of jonrawlinson, used under this Creative Commons license

www.thecapstonegrp.com

Into a Quiet Place

My regular readers may have noticed that I did not post last week. That’s because I was camping on the desert in Anza Borrego. For those who do not know this place, Anza-Borrego Desert State Park is the largest state park in California. Named for the Spanish explorer Juan Bautista de Anza and the Spanish name borrego, or bighorn sheep, this area with five-hundred miles of dirt roads, 12 wilderness areas and miles of hiking trails provides visitors with a chance to see wildflowers (after spring rains), palm groves, sweeping vistas, and all manner of wildlife.

For me, the desert, with its spectacular sunrises and sunsets, is a very quiet place. This particular visit, my husband and I were the sole campers in the area of Palm Canyon where we chose to set up. The stillness was broken only by the sound of a covey of quail warning of the approach of a pair of coyotes and the scurrying footfalls of two kangaroo mice and their brood of quadruplets.

I tend not to write about religious themes, but in the quiet, God, Yahweh, the Creator is very close. I understand why the Israelites needed to wander in the desert for 40 years, why Jesus sought solace there and why Native Americans consider it a sacred place.  

Some people are frightened by the idea of absolute quiet. We live in a world of noise – of cell phones ringing, TVs and radios blaring, cars honking, heavy machinery toiling to build roads and highways, dogs barking, children crying, people arguing.

Mo Rocca recently did a piece about noise (http://tinyurl.com/njsueh). He noted how the world keeps getting noisier; how we’re simply drowning in the din and ruckus of everyday life; and how the noise drowns out our power to listen to ourselves, simply making it impossible for us to hear ourselves think above the din.

Are you looking for a bit of quiet and solitude? Perhaps you can’t go to the desert today. But you can find everyday moments of peace and stillness. Take a walk in a nearby park or beach without your iPod; silence all your tech gadgets for an hour or two, watch the sun come up…or go down, work in the garden, sit in a comfortable chair and read a book.

How do you feel about being quiet? Where do you go?

www.thecapstonegrp.com

A Potpourri of Links to Educate, Amuse or Fatten Your Wallet

I’m of a certain age and, perhaps, like you, remember days before the Internet – when, if I wanted to know something, I’d look it up in some type of bound volume, make a call or perhaps ask a friend.

Art by Sarah Sammis

No more. Now, I “google” everything.  And, I mean everything! I haven’t phoned anyone to request information or opened a dictionary in years.

My behavior got me to wondering how many websites there are and naturally, I googled to find out. According to www.answer.com, there are more than 109.5 million sites, consisting of at least 25 billion pages. Wow!

I thought it might be fun to highlight a few of the sites I use regularly, as well as some that have been recommended to me. (Particular thanks to John Cox of SourceSolution for his suggestions.) I’m not going to mention common online retailer or auction houses like Amazon and eBay or obvious choices like Craigslist, Wikipedia, Expedia or WebMD. Here’s my list, in alphabetical order, for lack of some more clever way of organizing this material:

http://cdfdata.fire.ca.gov/incidents/incidents_current – Those of us living in California understand the danger we face from wildfires. This site is updated frequently and links to more detailed information about any current fire. It’s one of those sites we hope we never have to refer to, but know we will

www.etsy.com – Etsy is a community of buyers and sellers of handmade items from more than 150 countries. If you’re looking for a unique gift or an outlet for your handcrafts, this site is for you.

www.familysearch.org – Are you working on your family tree or trying to find out more about a particular ancestor? FamilySearch is a service provided by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and is the largest genealogy organization in the world.

http://flightaware.com – Wondering whether it’s time to leave for the airport to pick up someone? This is my favorite site for tracking where any plane is at any point in time. FlightAware provides live flight data, airport information, weather maps, flight planning, and navigation charts for U.S. flights. In the 24 hours prior to this post, FlightAware tracked 43,521 arrivals.

www.hubspot.com – Go here for cool SEO. HubSpot® is an inbound marketing system to help your small or medium sized business get found on the Internet by the right prospects and convert more of them into leads and customers for maximum marketing ROI.

www.infoworld.com – If you write about or are interested in IT topics, this blog and news site is very useful. Recent articles that caught my eye included a review of Windows 7, the future of mainframes in data centers, and how private clouds are gaining traction.

http://www.kayak.com – For travel and monitoring trends in pricing, nothing beats this site. KAYAK lets you compare options, and when you find something that fits your budget and tastes, you book it where you want: at the airline site, from the hotel, or from a travel agent. It’s completely free and different from most travel sites because they don’t actually sell plane tickets, hotel rooms, or anything else.

www.marketingsherpa.com – This organization researches what works in marketing via exclusive case studies, surveys, results data analysis and lab tests. Then they publish what they learn so their community of marketers and weekly readers can improve their results and train their teams. One recent “how to” covered reformatting, reusing and recycling strategies to stretch marketing content.

http://www.sandiegozoo.org/pandacam – Ok, I admit it. From the birth of Hua Mei, the first baby panda born in the U.S., I have been addicted to pandacam. With a new baby in the den, and about to get a name, I’m as hooked as ever.

http://tinyurl.com – I began to see tiny URLs and wondered how they were created. Googling, of course, led me to this site. By entering in a URL in the text field provided, a tiny (short) version is created that will not break in email postings and never expires.

www.travelzoo.com – Another travel site that publishes offers from more than 600 advertisers and highlights the best deals anywhere!

http://www.youngestround.blogspot.com – Want to follow a real-life adventure story? Jessica Watson left her home in Australia last week and is attempting to become the youngest person to sail solo, nonstop and unassisted around the world.

www.zazzle.com – Like Etsy, Zazzle makes quality custom products, designed by “you.” Through its innovative on-demand retail and technology platform, users can instantly create, customize to fit their personal style, purchase and sell a near infinite array of products online. As an example, check out more of Sarah’s art: http://www.zazzle.com/pussreboots.

Do you have a favorite site that educates, amuses, or fattens your wallet? Post a comment and tell us about it.

www.thecapstonegrp.com