SEPTEMBER 17, 2009

These days, it can be hard to tell how old people are, just by looking at them. With grandmothers on Facebook, the current cupcake craze and my whole office reading young adult fiction, the cues - visual or cultural - that we used to use to tell people’s ages seem to be disappearing. Personally, I don’t think of myself as old… despite an upcoming milestone birthday (ugh), I think I’m young at heart. I tweet, I download music, I blog, I watch reality TV - I can’t be that old, right?

Nope. I’m old.

And this is how I know.

Yesterday, I sat in a staff meeting and looked around the room at my colleagues, who were sitting with their chairs in a large circle, facing in. And it hit me - there is finally a failsafe way to tell who’s old and who’s young. Without exception, everyone in the room over 30 was wearing a watch, and everyone under 30 was not. It was striking.

The wearing of a watch seems to be the one thing that separates the men from the boys, as it were. Clearly, those under 30 have learned to find other, less constraining ways to tell time. Perhaps they have had cell phones or PDAs by their side from such an early age that they just never got used to looking at their wrists to find out how long they had before class started, or before their curfews came and went - a concept that is totally foreign to me.

I was intrigued, so I thought I’d ask these Gen Yers to explain why they weren’t wearing a watch yesterday:

• “My cell phone is so much a part of me that my watch is optional. A watch is only an accessory.” (Kristen)
• “I don’t like having anything on my wrist. I use my cell phone to tell what me time it is.” (Gloria)
• “The only time I wear it is when I am working out, because it can tell me my heart rate, etc. There are so many other ways to look at the time that I don’t need to wear a watch.” (Michele)
• “I never have. My cell phone is always with me, and besides, I don’t like knowing that I am always late.” (Lisa)

I admit it - I haven’t gone a day without a watch (intentionally) since I was about 8 years old. I feel unmoored and lost without my watch. Yes, I may look at the clock at the corner of my laptop screen more often that I look at my watch, and I do glance at my blackberry throughout the day to find out what time it is. But for me, going without a watch is just simply not done. It’d be like leaving the house without my keys.

So there you have it - the dividing line between young and old. Which side of it are you on?

[Comments(6) »] [TrackBack »]

JUNE 2, 2009

After my last post went up, I got a few e-mails from friends and family (yeah, I send people my blog posts) wondering how the government could possibly “do something” about the nation’s food problems without raising costs for American families. And, unfortunately, the short answer is that they can’t - any successful government effort to reform America’s diet will mean higher costs for consumers. The reason? Modern management and scientific techniques have made our food industry insanely productive, yet those same techniques have led to the ethical, environmental and health problems I mentioned in my last post. Fixing the problems mean losing some (but not all) of the benefits of a productive food industry, which means higher costs for food. You can see this divide in the higher prices you pay for vegetables at a farmer’s market vs. those at a supermarket.

But, I’d respond with the fact that a reformed food industry ultimately means lower environmental, ethical and health costs. Incidences of diabetes and obesity, for instance, would likely decline if high-fructose corn syrup were not used to the extent it is today. And those two diseases account for a variety of other complications that cause health costs to rise, a serious threat to family budgets as well as the continued solvency of Medicare. It’s the same with the scarcity of fresh foods in poor urban areas. So ultimately, we’re paying for our Pop-Tarts and Coco-Puffs, but in a much less transparent and predictable way.

Economists call this an “externality” - a cost of a product not reflected in its price. Consider, for example, a hypothetical widget plant in Widgetville, VA. The total market value of the widgets produced there is $10,000,000, but, in the manufacturing process, the widget plant causes $1,000,000 worth of damage to Widgetville in the form of pollution. Those costs, under a strictly free market, are borne by the residents of Widgetville; they are not reflected in the price of the widgets everyone else buys. Not fair, right?

There are four ways to fix externalities: 1) make the external cost illegal - in this case, simply outlaw pollution in Widgetville; 2) pass tort legislation to allow lawsuits against the producers of external costs - in other words, allow Widgetvillians to sue the factory; 3) government provision - in other words, having the government take over the widget industry and set prices itself, to compensate for the external cost; and 4) taxes - in this case, creating a widget tax whose proceeds go to compensate for the external cost.

You can probably imagine that there are downsides to all of these. Making widget pollution illegal means no more widget business. Encouraging lawsuits means huge and unpredictable costs on widget producers, which would discourage the production of widgets, not to mention that damages paid would be ex post facto, requiring Widgetvillians to live in a polluted town. Government control of the industry means a lack of competition, which means poorer-quality widgets. Of these, only taxation manages to capture the true cost of widget production while spreading that impact out among the entire widget market. Widget buyers have to cope with a little additional cost, sure - but Widgetvillians are happy and compensated for their loss and the widget producers are still in business and profitable.

To cope with the external costs of the modern food industry, we’ve tried banning pollution and we’ve tried tort law. There are always loopholes in any pollution law, and the tort system would require someone to actually be poisoned by food before external costs can be imposed. Our political culture precludes attempting long-term nationalization of almost all industries, and it’s not a great idea in any case. What we haven’t tried, however, is a small tax that incentivizes local, healthy ingredients over mass-produced “food“. And with modern technology, we can easily create much more precise taxes that get closer to the true cost of a good - for instance, charging a 1-cent tax for every 25 miles an ingredient travels from its source to its retail outlet, which would help account for greenhouse gases released in the transportation process, or a small tax indexed to grams of saturated fat or high-fructose corn syrup - funds that could be diverted to Medicare or tax rebates to save people money on medical care. That way, people still have the choice to eat unhealthy foods, but at least those who do eat healthy wouldn’t have to pay for it down the line.

So, the long answer to the question is that yes, food prices would increase. But there are two important advantages in changing tax law to incentivize healthier foods - first, we’d have a dedicated revenue source to deal with unpredictable external costs, and second, families could opt out of paying those costs by making smarter choices at the supermarket.

[No Comments »] [TrackBack »]

MARCH 25, 2009

Today, women far outnumber men in terms of college enrollment. It is estimated that by 2010 there will be 10.2 million women enrolled in college, compared to 6.9 million men. There is also a gender skew when it comes to job layoffs in these crazy economic times, which means that quite possibly women will soon outnumber men in the employed workforce. So surely we feel that women are catching up to men, right?

Well, not really. Regardless of these stats, there is still a perception that things tend to lean in men’s favor. A recent CBS News/New York Times poll published in MediaWeek last month reveals what we think. The poll asked: “In our society today, are there more advantages in being a man or in being a woman, or are there no more advantages in being one than the other?”

52% said that there were no more advantages in one than the other
40% said there is an advantage to being a man
6% said there is an advantage to being a woman
1% gave no answer

These numbers differ very little from the results of a similar CBS poll conducted twenty years ago. Back then, 45% of respondents said there is an advantage in being a man and 6% said there is an advantage in being a woman.

I think that much of these opinions stem from the salary differences that still exist today. Also, because we have all grown up in a society that embraces many of the wonderful things that the New Persuasion 5 Forces represent (Globalization, Innovation, Immigration, Saturation, and Personalization), and are used to seeing an older white male figurehead associated with success in these areas, we are stuck in an antiquated mind frame. Yet, we are seeing now, more than ever, that young people can be CEOs (think Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook), African-Americans can be leaders, and women can be powerful and self-made. So why haven’t these new realities affected our perceptions of who has it better? 

Thinking that women are at a disadvantage only creates a disadvantage for women. Believing that the person with the most talent — not the most natural advantages– will come out on top in the end is the key to achieving a true meritocracy.

[No Comments »] [TrackBack »]

FEBRUARY 17, 2009

Can too much transparency be a bad thing?

Political debate this week here in Washington centered on an unprecedented effort to stimulate the flailing economy by passing approximately $800 billion worth of tax cuts and new government spending. Any government attempt to spend that much money is rightfully - and necessarily - going to be a long, complicated, drawn-out affair, and the stimulus debate proved no exception.

But the availability of new tools to track the provisions of the bill made this time different. Sites like Stimulus Watch allow those interested to investigate exactly how stimulus money will be spent on projects like new police cruisers for Youngstown, OH and downtown quiet zones in San Diego.

I’m usually reflexively in support of anything that remotely resembles a transparent database of government actions, and I was certainly in support not only of sites like Stimulus Watch, but also the White House’s own transparency efforts on the bill. But after watching how the opposition used that transparency to muddy the political waters to its own advantage, I’m a little more indecisive.

Consider GOP Chairman Michael Steele. Steele made a point of ridiculing some of the more esoteric-sounding provisions in the bill, like the one that calls for the removal of “fish passage barriers” from the nation’s streams and rivers. The only problem? Academic studies seem to indicate that the passage barriers are both an environmental problem and an economic problem for fishermen, and that the removal of the barriers would create jobs, the expressed purpose of the stimulus in the first place.

Without the necessary context to understand the provisions of the bill, many Americans likely heard Steele’s objections and agreed with him. After all, what are “fish passage barriers” anyway, and how does their removal help American families?  Not realizing that the provision could indeed be useful, not only intrinsically but also for the purpose of creating jobs, political opponents of the president used his own administration’s transparency efforts against him. Steele proved how easy it is to sort through a database like Stimulus Watch, cherry pick a few projects that sound easy to make fun of, and start stereotyping the largest government undertaking in the past five years as full of nonsensical projects and “pork”.

What’s the lesson for businesses and organizations undertaking their own transparency projects? Transparency alone is not enough to adequately represent your intentions to the public. Instead, it can be just an opening for your critics to take you out of context unless context is provided. Listening to questions and objections and responding to them in the spirit of good faith is a necessary part of any transparency initiative, and without those, transparency might be more of a liability than an asset.

[Comments(2) »] [TrackBack »]

FEBRUARY 11, 2009

After writing a lot about the Inauguration over the past few months I’d be happy to move on, some unhappy ticket holders for this historic event are not quite ready…

While my adventure to the Inauguration  went off without a hitch, the thousands of others with the purple tickets weren’t so lucky. After the delay at a purple section gate led to a mysterious closure, this particular group of people was forced to wait in line in the closed-off, 3rd street tunnel that leads to the U.S. Capitol, and, unfortunately, were not allowed to attend the ceremony. 

In the not so distant past, these thousands of ticketholders would have had nowhere to vent their frustrations apart from friends and families, their congressperson, a letter to the editor in their local paper, or local radio host. However, all that has changed – these victims of the “Purple Tunnel of Doom” took their frustrations to the Internet.

A Facebook group called “Survivors of the Purple Tunnel of Doom“ was created to allow members to share their Inauguration horror stories, organize protests, and demand apologies.  This is yet another clear example of the consumerism movement that we at TMG find so fascinating.  

What’s also striking about this story is the way in which the government chose to handle it. Senator Dianne Feinstein has issued an apology and promises an investigation, while Senate Sergeant-at-Arms Terry Gainer has reached out to the Facebook group by creating his own account for the sole purpose of addressing individual concerns. Gainer has also agreed to meet with Marisa McNee and David Meyer, two of the three creators of the group.

I, for one, am very impressed by Gainer’s initiative to reach out to those victims of the debacle and practice his Deep Listening skills and validate their concerns. Whether Gainer truly cares about the group or is just being a good politician, one thing is for sure: he gets it.  Clearly, he realizes that there has been a tremendous power shift; that consumers are more in control than they have ever been before, and that social media has changed the game and forced leaders to pay more attention. 

We think companies can learn a lesson from Sergeant-at-Arms Gainer: listen to your consumers, validate their suggestions, and communicate with them as often as possible.  If you do, you’ll be well on your way to gaining their loyalty and stepping into the role of leadership.  

[Comments(2) »] [TrackBack »]

JANUARY 6, 2009

Crowdsourcing has been widely accepted as a method of using the web to organize everyday people to help complete a large task, or to generate ideas and solutions to a problem. This has been effective in many ways; the iconic example is Wikipedia, which is now the most prominent educational reference site. Crowdsourcing has also been used to conduct research and development for Innocentive, and even to rally campaign supporters to call voters.

crowdSPRING is a site with a simple premise: anyone looking to have design work done for his or her business can post a creative project on the site and watch the submissions roll in. Once the posting expires, the person can then choose which design he or she likes best. Payment comes in the form of a lump sum that is specified at the beginning, winner takes all.  At first glance, it looks like a great opportunity for young designers or businesses that don’t have a lot of money to spare on design, but many designers have decried the site because the practice of “speculative work”, which asks designers to design for a client before actually signing a contract, arguably cheapens the deal in many ways.

The criticism is that designers are basically being asked to do most of their creative and intellectual work at the beginning with no guarantee of being paid, which results in lower quality work and no real client-contractor relationship. Andrew Hyde writes on his blog that this is a serious ethical problem and undermines the best practices of the industry.

Jeremiah Owyang responds to the criticism, pointing out that like it or not, crowdsourcing and spec work is here to stay. He suggests that sites like crowdSPRING actually serve the needs of the “long tail”, bringing together a community of amateur designers and freelancers who may not otherwise get these project opportunities as easily. Additionally, the site could foster dialogue and collaboration in the community, staying true to the spirit of social media.

While I’m sure this debate will rage on in the near future, I do agree with Owyang’s assessment that regardless of how the industry feels about crowdsourcing, it’s here to stay. This example from the design industry is particularly revealing because it shows that while we may have gotten used to social media concepts, they may not always fit seamlessly into existing practices in certain industries. Clearly, the objections voiced by Andrew Hyde show that there are professional ethics issues that have to be worked out before crowdsourcing design can be more readily accepted among designers. In the next few years, I expect to see a lot of these fascinating conflicts play out as online communities grow and try to find their place in the established business environment.

[Comments(9) »] [TrackBack »]

DECEMBER 12, 2008

I think it’s safe to say that innovation doesn’t come from doing more of the same. Google and Procter & Gamble must have had a similar thought in mind this past year as the two companies paired up to exchange employees. For weeks at a time, employees from each company had the chance to get an insider’s view of how the other operates. The purpose of the swap: to learn more about each other and about targeting consumers.

Since the story surfaced last month, I’ve been thinking about this question: If I could spend a few weeks inside any company, which company would I choose? Tough decision - there are lots of great ones out there. And, while Trader Joe’s, JetBlue, Patagonia, and Threadless all made my honorable mention list, my top pick would be Toms Shoes.

• I’m fascinated by Toms Shoes because the company is centered around a simple product — and a much bigger purpose. Founder Blake Mycoskie’s one-for-one business model is very different than any approach I’ve ever seen - he built a business by selling shoes and, at the same time, giving them away. The company seeks to fulfill its philanthropic mission, while at the same time improving its products, mobilizing supporters, and building its brand into a cultural phenomenon. Oh, and did I mention it has all happened in a matter of two years? Impressive from a business and communications standpoint - but also inspiring to employees and customers alike. I think it would be amazing to stand square in the middle of what is, as Ben Mcconnell points out, a case study in consumer evangelism.

I asked a few of my colleagues for their thoughts as well - as you’ll see below, we all approached the opportunity from different angles.

• Corey: I’d pick government consulting firm Booz Allen Hamilton. Here at TMG Strategies we know that communications challenges are also substantive challenges – that it’s hard to execute successful public relations strategies without fundamentally altering the way that organizations operate. No amount of eloquent language or slick marketing tricks will get people to buy products or services that they do not fundamentally agree with.  As PR folks like us take increasingly-large roles in management, the kind of empirical, statistics-driven analysis done at firms like Booz Allen could teach us a lot about communications versus reality and how to marry the two. Plus, its Arlington office is less than 5 minutes from my house.

• Kristen: I’d like to swap with San Francisco based Sugar Inc. The Sugar Network is comprised of 16 distinct lifestyle and entertainment sites covering topics that include celebrity, fashion, food, politics and health (my favorite: Yum Sugar). I keep coming back to these blogs for the diverse content, conversational editorial style, and user-friendly design. Others must agree because the network gets over 8 million unique visitors a month. My current work involves looking at the changes going on all around us and determining how they might affect all aspects of communications, business strategy, and innovation. The editors at Sugar also have their fingers on the pulse of emerging trends and they serve up fresh content the way their readers like to get it. It would be a great swap because it is apparent that both of our companies have a healthy obsession with culture!

Every experience would, no doubt, be full of unique takeaways. What company would be at the top of your swap list? I encourage you to add your choice and continue our list via the comment field.

[Comment(1) »] [TrackBack »]

NOVEMBER 4, 2008

I hate waiting.

I joined National Car Rental’s Emerald Club so I can bypass the counter. I will happily ring up my own groceries at the self check-out lane. I often carry on my luggage- waiting at the baggage claim is excruciating.

There are some things I will wait for: a palace special #1 at Kabob Palace; a video to fully load on YouTube (and I know you’ve done it too); and if I’m Elliot Yamin, I’d probably wait for You.

Voting is something I don’t want to wait to do (now I’m more like Paula Cole). I am excited about this election and I am not alone. Many predict record voter turnout. This will be a race that will make history no matter who wins- and everyone wants to have their say.

Rise in registered voters + historic election = long lines.

This is a line I will stand in (because it’s certainly worth it), but it is not a line I’m looking forward to.

Of course, I could have bypassed the lines all together if I had decided to vote early. In at least 34 states voters cast their ballot in person before November 4th. Pretty convenient for those that wants to avoid the possible long lines. Virginia doesn’t have “Early Voting” like in other states, but those that qualify can vote early (in person or by mail) via absentee ballot. According to the AP, over 300,000 absentee ballots were cast in Virginia exceeding 2004’s number of 220,000.

We have been voting in this country since 1776, but we’re always looking for ways to make voting as convenient as many of our other daily errands. Let’s expand early voting to more states so that those that want to express their voice can do so when they want to. Wouldn’t you be more excited about voting if you weren’t dreading today’s long lines?

[Comments(3) »] [TrackBack »]

OCTOBER 14, 2008

“Change” is the word on everyone’s mind these days. What started as a political slogan quickly became the mantra of the American people: only 17% of us agree with the current direction of the country. Both candidates now eagerly seek the mantle of change: new John McCain attack ads flash the words “Change is Coming” at the viewer, while Obama’s original “Change You Can Believe In” continues to resonate with voters.

So in a time when the desire for change is palpable, why should sports be any different? Indeed, we’re seeing innovation in American football at a rapid clip. Strategies and tactics adapted at the high school level years ago have gradually filtered up to the college and pro ranks, resulting in a variety of new ways to play an old game.

One such example is the Miami Dolphins’ “Wildcat” formation, adapted from years of use in high schools around the country. In this formation, Dolphins running back Ronnie Brown receives what’s called a “direct snap”. This means that instead of the ball being hiked to the quarterback, it’s snapped directly to Brown, who can then hand the ball off to another running back, pass the ball, or run it himself. This flummoxes defenses and changes the traditional way that football offenses work, which places great responsibility on the quarterback to either hand the ball off or pass it down the field. It also changes the balance of the offense, which usually pits 10 players against 11 defensive players. The Dolphins add another wrinkle by placing two running backs in the Wildcat, meaning that the snap could possibly go to either one - making it much harder for defenses to predict where the ball will go.

Another novel scheme is the A-11, a high-flying, pass-oriented offense that features two quarterbacks, six wide receivers and two tight ends (most NFL formations have three receivers and one tight end). In this offense, the goal is to spread the field and create mismatches in coverage - for instance, forcing a lumbering linebacker to cover one of the six receivers, who are normally much faster players. And even if all of the receivers are covered, the quarterback usually has ample room to run the ball for a short gain. The scheme, invented only a year ago, has been embraced by many big high school programs, but rule differences make it impossible to use in the NCAA and NFL. Look for those rules to change if the formation becomes more popular in high school.

This kind of innovation stands in very sharp contrast to sports like baseball, which has not seen much tactical innovation since the modern rules of the game were codified early last century. I guess it’s not surprising that in our rapidly-changing society, the most successful sports are the ones that change along with it.

[Comment(1) »] [TrackBack »]

OCTOBER 3, 2008

In case it hasn’t been obvious in my previous posts, I like to write about innovations in public policy. The idea that small changes in rules and practices can produce big benefits for society is fascinating to me.

For awhile now, I’ve been meaning to pick up Cass Sunstein and Richard Thaler’s Nudge, a book about simple policy changes that can be made by governments and employers to encourage people to make better choices. The book is based on two papers authored by the pair in 2003 (sorry, you’ve got to pay for the second one!).

Backtracking a little bit: traditional economics - you know, the Adam Smith stuff - infers that people in general are “rational actors” - that we collectively make decisions based on our own personal interest. That makes sense in a lot of ways, and many think it’s the basis of how human beings act. For instance, I made a rational decision to come to work this morning because I know that: a) I won’t get paid otherwise; and b) I like what I do.

But in the past few decades, a new field has emerged called behavioral economics that investigates people’s irrational desires and actions, and how they affect the larger economy. Some examples of this can be seen in the poor understanding we human beings have of risk - a concept Kelly Stepno works on here at TMG - as well as the current economic crisis, which some believe was caused by an asset bubble driven by media hype rather than actual value.

The goal of Sunstein and Thaler’s work is to change people’s “choice architecture” by introducing policies that gently correct our tendencies toward irrational behavior. For instance, the authors identify savings rates as one area in which humans do not act rationally, and did a study of ways employers could help their employees save more money. They found that businesses who automatically enrolled their employees in 401(k) plans and offered an opt-out provision had dramatically higher savings rates than employers who had opt-in 401(k) plans. Thaler also experimented with a plan called “Save More Tomorrow” that allows employees to set aside parts of their pay raises toward their savings. The principle here is that people are irrationally loathe to give up any of their current income, but don’t have as much of a problem forgoing future gains. In this program, too, he saw the savings rates of participating employees more than triple.

The authors also discuss smaller policy changes, like removing key lime pie from a buffet line, that could help all sorts of pressing issues like obesity, indebtedness, and global warming. The basic theme is that changing people’s “choice architecture” is a way to deal with the irrational aspects of our behavior.

Like I said, I haven’t read the book yet, but I find a lot of the themes very intriguing. Of course, there are objections to this philosophy - who are you to tell me I shouldn’t have key lime pie? - but it’s refreshing to see people thinking outside left-right paradigms when it comes to public policy.

[No Comments »] [TrackBack »]