Mitch Joel's Blog: Six Pixels of Separation, page 137
July 19, 2018
The New Retail Economy
Retail is in more trouble than they care to admit.
This will come as no surprise to you, but it's way easier to buy stuff online than go to a physical store. Nothing revolutionary there... or is there some innovation that retailers are missing? Just this week, I was reminded of how far the arena of shopping has changed.
Instance #1: I've rekindled (pardon the pun) my passion for my Kindle device. I used to read books exclusively on my iPhone using the Kindle app. I've shifted back to using the physical Kindle Paperwhite. And, because it's summer and all, I'm reading like a fiend. My Kindle needed a case. I happened to be strolling through the local mall one day, and none of the stores had anything. I found myself in the downtown area later that same week. Same challenge. Nada. On Amazon? A million different choices. One, which was not a Amazon "official" had the magnetic latch (so it opens and closes without needing to hit the power button) and was able to turn into a stand (which makes for great reading while chomping on my morning oats). Fifteen bucks and it showed up in less than 24 hours (thanks, Amazon Prime).
Instance #2: I fly. A lot. I found myself needing a strange contraption/adapter for my my iPhone X. Because there is no headphone jack (it's lightning bolt only) and because on certain airlines you're not allowed to use Bluetooth headphones (what's up with that?!?!), I wanted an adapter that would enable me to listen to my music with a wired lighting bolt jack and - at the same time - allow me to charge the iPhone. These adapters are plentiful for those with the traditional wired headphones, but for those with lightning bolt only? Not so much. If you're confused, here's what I am talking about. Same scenario as above. Same mall. Same downtown core. No retailers carried anything remotely close to it. Under fifteen bucks and it also showed up in less than 24 hours.
Retailers can't beat Amazon.
That would be the obvious message. It's not. Retailers may not be able to beat Amazon, but to be clueless about these products or pretend like they don't even exist, is what creates the most friction. It's hard (very, very hard) to have a fully-engaged and knowledgable staff. We all need more empathy for these retailers. Still, instead of "that doesn't exist"... "I've never heard of it"... and on and on... why don't retailers train their staff to say these seven simple words: "let me look that up for you!"
Engagement is better than disappointment.
This is a moment of power at the retail level. Imagine if the retailer said, "I can get it for you. It will be $15 and I'll have it here tomorrow." Even if all the retailer is doing is buying it on Amazon and reselling it to the customer (and, even if the customer knows that the retailer is doing that), what's wrong with that experience? Sure, it's easier for the consumer to do it on their own, at that point. But the effort is what counts. The effort creates an engagement. That engagement furthers the brand experience. The brand experience goes from "this retailer doesn't get it" to "at least they did everything in their power to make me a customer." There's a brand chasm that exists between those two retail experiences (whether it ends in a sale or not). So, Amazon can be the enemy of retail or it can be used as a tool to keep the retailer's staff more informed... more engaged... and out in front.
Amazon solves all retail problems.
This is a major problem for retailers. Still, retailers can make this work. A few months back, I was in the market for a backgammon set. It became a mini-adventure of checking out game, hobby, toy and gift shops in the area. Nobody had what we were looking for. Amazon had multiple choices. I would prefer to support to local merchants, but they were unwilling to help me solve the problem. This pushed me to Amazon. Of course, every shopping scenario is different and some people prefer the personal touch to one-click shopping, while others prefer the speed and comfort of online over the parking lots and lines at the cash register. This isn't a one size fits all solution. It's more about the mindset of retailers. You can be mad at what Amazon has done to fundamentally change consumer's buying behaviours or you can empower your staff to embrace it, use it for knowledge, offer it as a service and augment your retail experience.
Sometimes using the competition is the best way to discover better innovations for yourself and keep the customers flowing in.
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The Most Important Questions About Your Brand
"The Scientific Revolution has not been a revolution of knowledge. It has been above all a revolution of ignorance. The great discovery that launched the Scientific Revolution was the discovery that humans do not know the answers to their most important questions." - Sapiens - A Brief History of Humankind by Yuval Noah Harari.
It's true, isn't it? It's like science suddenly screeched up on to the sidewalk and dumped knowledge all over our front lawn like some scene out of Goodfellas with a rat squealer rolled up into a old carpet. But that's not the case, is it? And, in this case, science is much like business... but nobody wants to act this way. We should. People in business (especially executives) want us to believe that they have all the answers and have BTDT (been there/done that).
If it's good enough for science, it should be good enough for brands?
Let's come at business problems with more ignorance, shall we? We don't have all of the answers. Technology does not answer all (or any) of the real questions. If both of those statements were not true, every act of marketing that brands put into the marketplace would perform beyond our wildest expectations. So, let's paraphrase that excellent line above from the book Sapiens, and turn it into our brand mantra:
"To revolutionize our brands, we must accept that we are ignorant. Our greatest discovery is that we don't know the answers to the most important questions." Great... now what?
Now comes the hard work. Like science, it becomes a process of questions... testing them vigorously and realizing that what seems like a solid hypothesis might be easily debunked next week, next month, next quarter, next year, next decade... or maybe hundreds of years later. In the early days of advertising, it became clear that if you make something sound much better than it is (... lie about it...), the sale is done, and who cares what comes post sale? That worked (but not for long). The era of television advertising brought with it the science of mass reach and repetition. It became clear that the louder your brand is, and the more times you can get that message in front of a potential consumer, the better your sales would be. That worked (and it worked for a long time). Today, that model may still work for some, but it won't for many.
What does this means for your brand today?
Two choices:
Do what everyone else is doing.
Ask the important questions. Admit that you don't know the answers. Experiment until you hit on something that works.
The second choice is the hard one.
If your brand is feeling stuck, it's easy to just advertise your way out of the problem, without realizing that you're probably just creating more problems. We do this because we fallback on our knowledge and experience. We do this because we're afraid to admit our own ignorance (especially if there's a team that we're leading). We do this because we don't want to admit that we don't have the answers to our most important questions. Success comes from finding the answers to these questions. Success comes from trying to figure out what - exactly - the most important questions are. Here's a promise: when you uncover these most important questions, I'll bet that your current slew of tactics don't really answer the call. At all.
You know what you have to do. Forget your knowledge. Embrace your ignorance. Dig for those most important questions. We've all got your back.
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July 15, 2018
The Domain Name Game With Bill Sweetman - This Week's Six Pixels of Separation Podcast
Episode is now live and ready for you to listen to.
A strong brand and corporate name is critical to demonstrating your uniqueness in the marketplace. The competitive forces are at play. Many people believe that all of the good names are already taken. The problem, of course, is that even if you can secure a strong and original brand identity, getting the right domain name can be costly, time consuming and extremely frustrating. Thankfully, there are smart people like who love the domain game. I've been fortunate to know Bill for over a decade. He's a former digital agency professional (who was in the space almost twenty years ago), before switching to his true passion: domain names. His company is called, . He is focused solely on helping individuals and brands get the domain names that are best for them. He is a very successful and respected domain name industry business leader with extensive experience in the domain aftermarket (or secondary market) of premium domain names, including domain pricing, distribution, and sales. A self-confessed domain name fanatic, Bill registered his very first domain in 1994 (which he later sold) and has been perfecting his "Domain Karate" moves ever since. If you've ever wondered how the domain business has become so wild and hard to navigate, you do not want to miss this. Enjoy the conversation...
You can grab the latest episode of Six Pixels of Separation here (or feel free to subscribe via iTunes): .
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July 13, 2018
Six Links Worthy Of Your Attention #420
Is there one link, story, picture or thought that you saw online this week that you think somebody you know must see?
My friends: Alistair Croll (Solve for Interesting, Tilt the Windmill, HBS, chair of Strata, Startupfest, Pandemonio, and ResolveTO, Author of Lean Analytics and some other books), Hugh McGuire (PressBooks, LibriVox, iambik and co-author of Book: A Futurist's Manifesto) and I decided that every week the three of us are going to share one link for one another (for a total of six links) that each individual feels the other person "must see".
Check out these six links that we're recommending to one another:
Radio host quits job over chronic dread, then decides to face her fears head-on - Out In The Open - CBC . "I wish I had the time to spend a year doing the things that frighten me. But first I'd have to figure out what those were, which sounds pretty terrifying in itself." (Alistair for Hugh).
Ethical Algorithms - Bias and Explainability in Machine Learning Systems - New York Artificial Intelligence - YouTube . "Kathryn Hume is a national treasure. One of the most eloquent, poetic thinkers I've ever met on the subjects of technology and society. Here's a video of her talking about explainability and bias in artificial intelligence. It's dense, but fascinating." (Alistair for Mitch).
David Harvey on Capital. Interview with The Dig Podcast - Reading Marx's Capital With David Harvey . "Did you know I'm a bit of an idealist/socialist/marxist-ish kind of guy? I'm not sure what the solutions are, and I don't much trust Marxists to find them, but I've always liked the Marxist analysis of the problems of capitalism. David Harvey is one of the great scholars of Marx, and everything I've heard and read from him is insightful. In this podcast, he muses on some of the current problems we find ourselves in, the difference between insane people and an insane system, the reason the left should embrace AI and not fight it, and he makes the case that the 'market' is anything but 'rational' ... if it were rational, why is it that we see, side buy side, a surplus of capital accumulation, needing ever more complex mechanisms to deploy it (eg building empty cities in China), and a surplus of labour, with little ability to put these two together for productive uses?" (Hugh for Alistair).
The horror and the wonder of jellyfish - New Statesman . "Jellyfish are strange things!" (Hugh for Mitch).
Billionaire Ray Dalio: A.I. is widening the wealth gap, 'national emergency should be declared' - CNBC . "Artificial intelligence is going to cause a much deeper wealth gap. That's not just the words of a famed billionaire talking. I believe it too. I'm sure that do as well? If we think about the impact of AI today, instead of worrying about when it really happens tomorrow, perhaps this headline is then not as outlandish as it may seem at first blush. Are we in the need to treat massive technological disruptions (like AI) as 'national emergencies'? You be the judge." (Mitch for Alistair).
The comic book artists that fuelled a century of science innovation - Quartz . "Last weekend, I spent a lot of time (and money) at Montreal ComicCon (along with 60,000 other people!). I've been a comic book nerd since I was a very little kid. OG. I can't remember not having comic books in my life. I liked the stories. I liked the characters. What really captured my imagination was the art. To this day, it's still the artwork that gets me every time. Here's the story of how comic books impact culture and innovation and science. Hint: it's not just big budget action adventure movies!" (Mitch for Hugh).
Feel free to share these links and add your picks on Twitter, Facebook, in the comments below or wherever you play.
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July 12, 2018
Business Growth And A Better Mindset For Success
How do you define "success" in the work that you do?
Better still, how does your business truly define success? Of course, money, profit and margins are huge barometers, but what about success from an attitudinal standpoint? I recently finished reading the book, Mindset by Carol S. Dweck. It had been on my Wishlist for far too long. It seems like her concept of fixed mindset vs. growth mindset have become a part of the business zeitgeist over the years (I had heard those terms, but was unaware that they were developed from her book). It was hard to not recognize when I'm playing in the fixed mindset, and when I'm able to push through with a growth mindset. Even more powerfully, it got me thinking about certain professionals that I know and... more importantly... many brands that I have worked with.
What's a growth mindset and a fixed mindset?
Here's the definition from Dweck's website:
"In a fixed mindset, people believe their basic qualities, like their intelligence or talent, are simply fixed traits. They spend their time documenting their intelligence or talent instead of developing them. They also believe that talent alone creates success--without effort. They're wrong.
In a growth mindset, people believe that their most basic abilities can be developed through dedication and hard work--brains and talent are just the starting point. This view creates a love of learning and a resilience that is essential for great accomplishment. Virtually all great people have had these qualities."
In the business world, many brands are scrambling. Many brands live in a fixed mindset.
Look no further than the industry publications. From massive agency reviews to issues of transparency to data breaches to trying to figure out how a brand can best find an audience. There's an air of uncertainty (make that fear) out there. What brands used to do isn't as effective. What everyone is telling us to do is deeply challenging. Where everybody wants us to go forces us to amp up our skills, technology and more. It is confusing. Blockchain, artificial intelligence, virtual reality, smart audio skills, direct to consumer brands and so much more.
Then comes the posturing.
Perhaps I get more exposure than the average business professional, but every presentation, briefing and pitch that I have sat through has had an unyielding sense of posturing (very fixed mindsets). From individuals who think they have all the brand's answers to organizations posturing that they've already mastered and are engaged in everything that is new with technology. This is not a criticism of those brands (and people) who seem to be inflating their own tires. It's just hard not to see this happening so much out in the wild and, at the same time, understanding how a growth mindset is probably the one component that - when instilled in the company values and into its people - can truly set them free.
Think deeply about what kind of business professional you can be... and want to be.
I'm not innocent here. I've sat in a many a room and acted in a fixed mindset. I figured this was the expectation. It's not. Poking, prodding, being motivated to learn and grow is what those who become great have done. Even when things go sideways. Applying a growth mindset when the job is tough, when you feel like your personal growth may be inhibited, etc... is paramount to uncovering your own path to success. Not being judgy here... or pointing any fingers. It just became abundantly clear to me, while reading Mindset, that so many brands today live in a fixed mindset... and not one of growth. They're scared, but they're acting like they've "got it." It's top down and it's for every individual in the organization to think about.
Want your business, your team (and yourself) to truly thrive in this market? Lose the fixed mindset, read Dweck's book and drive towards true growth.
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July 11, 2018
The Future Never Comes When You Can't Nail The Present
It's all about the basics.
You know this. Your business knows this. To build a brand... you must know this. But the present is often harder to nail down than the future.
Case in two points...
Case One: One of the world's largest retailers. They are in direct competition with almost every other retailer (including Amazon). The other day, I found myself curious about the price of smart water. After checking out Amazon, I headed to this other large retailer. The term "smart water" generated zero search results (even though I have purchased this product in their store on countless occasions). I decided to use their intuitive navigation to see if this was a simple tagging problem. From the Groceries tab it was a quick jump into Drinks and Every Drinks (there was nothing in the Water tab). The "above the fold" section for energy drinks had four product listings. The first result was... wait for it... Feta Cheese. The Second search result was Red Bull and the third result was for Bocconcini cheese (the fourth was Starbucks Frappuccino Mocha). Feta cheese. Feta cheese was the number one result that their own navigation (not a type-in search query) generated. Sure, it's a #fail. What's make it a bigger #fail? This brand is constantly in the media talking about e-commerce, innovation, analytics and more. They have thousands of employees in Silicon Valley as a monument to their dedication in innovation and technology (even though HQ is miles away and in another state). I've seen their executives live on stage at major events touting their digital prowess and transformation. And on and on.
Case Two: I'm a 100k traveller on a major airline (this is not to brag, but rather to create context that this brand knows everything about me... and I am considered in their top-tier of clients). Last week, I booked a return flight to Philadelphia (I live in Montreal). Several hours after the booking. I got an email from the airline. The subject line: Book your Montreal hotel today. The email reads: "Have you thought about where you'll stay while you're there?" With a listing of airline-supported hotels and prices. I figured I'd just stay at home. This brand knows more about me than almost any other brand in the world. And, the reason this happened is actually quite simple: their databases must be a mess. Without having full exposure, I'm willing to bet that that the ecommerce database, email marketing database and loyalty database are, simply put, not one database. Again, this is a brand where the executives and their PR machines are quick to talk about industry leading innovation and digital marketing capabilities.
Don't talk about the future when the present is such a mess.
I know executives at both of these companies. I know the agencies that work for these brands. The brands are good. The agencies are good. The people are good people who want to do great things. Still, this is the customer experience equivalent of "death by a thousand paper cuts." It's also frustrating. The result really is 101 marketing and technology that has been around for decades, at this point. Instead of fixing the problems of the present, the brands put their marketing and platform business up for review and lay blame to their partners for a lack of innovation on the technology and marketing side. It's hard for an agency to help a brand (or make them look good), when the true fundamentals are so lacking.
The data is also lying.
The real tragedy here is how the data will now lie. Why are water sales down? Why didn't anyone open up that perfectly targeted and personalized email? And on and on. The data will be lying because the platform and infrastructure is flawed. This happens more than anyone will readily admit. Go ahead, do some random searches on your own, or look at how ineffective and un-targeted so many branded emails are. The brands simply don't know that they're sending the wrong message to the wrong person. The core is rotten. Still, brands will please the media and Wall Street with press releases, acquisitions and strategic partnerships in order to not look stagnant in the marketplace. Time and energy might be better placed in servicing customers and inquiries today with true excellence (hat-tip to Tom Peters).
Brands: don't look to the future if you're struggling in the present to get, keep and grow your customers today.
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July 9, 2018
The One Thing About Content That Nobody Really Talks About
Does your content move?
I could not be more excited that Jerry Seinfeld is back with a new season of Comedians In Cars Getting Coffee. Some people like sausage. Some people like knowing how the sausage gets made. If "sausage" can be replaced with "comedy," I like to know exactly how it gets made. This puts me straight down the rabbit hole of shows like Comedians In Cars Getting Coffee, YouTube clips of comedians discussing their craft, and the myriad of podcasts out there where comedians sit down with other comedians to discuss their trade. It's both fascinating and a nice peek behind the curtain on how creativity comes to life. For my dollar, comedy is is one of the roughest and toughest forms of creativity. An audience either laughs or they don't. An audience either likes a comedian's presence or they don't. Plus, getting people to laugh is tough business. Plus, plus... that individual is up there, naked, on a stage with nothing more than a microphone. Not easy.
What does comedy have to do with content?
At an elementary level, it's obvious. A great joke tells a story that moves an individual to an extreme emotion (in this case, laughing). This is usually done in short order. If brands could simply master that formula, it's clear that advertising, content and brand storytelling would be in a much better place. Dissect the comedian's job and think about it in terms of a brand's true north: tell a quick story that moves a customer closer to your story by hitting an extreme emotion (laughter, sadness, a memorable thought, etc...). Sounds simple. It's hard to execute.
There's something more pronounced here.
This will get meta. Along with watching videos and listening to podcasts about comedians spilling on their craft, I've watched countless hours of Jerry Seinfeld being interviewed about Comedians In Cars Getting Coffee and its mass success. In one of those interviews, Seinfeld was asked why the component of the car was important (beyond the fact that Seinfeld is an avid collector and lover or automobiles). His answer was shockingly simple, and a true indictment on most of the content that brands put out. Allow me to paraphrase here on how he responded to this question: the show would be boring if it were just two people talking. That's always boring. The car brings in movement. All great content and stories need movement and motion. The simple act of two people speaking in a moving car or talking while they are walking gives the show movement. Movement is a very human thing. Movement makes everything more exciting.
Mind. Blown.
It's true, isn't it? Even audio podcasts (or audio books) are much more engaging (to me, personally) when listened to while I am either walking or driving in a car. I'm sure that I am not alone here. There's two big ideas here for brands:
Idea one: does your content have movement and motion in it?
Idea two: when your content is being taken in, is the audience physically moving?
We wants our brands to have emotion. Emotions are critical. We need our brands to also have motion. Motion is critical.
Does your brand have movement in it?
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July 8, 2018
Daniel Pink Puts The Science Into Timing - This Week's Six Pixels Of Separation Podcast
Episode #626 of Six Pixels of Separation is now live and ready for you to listen to.
It's hard not to be a fan of the work that Daniel Pink does. He is the author of six provocative books (Free Agent Nation, The Adventures of Johnny Bunko, A Whole New Mind, Drive, To Sell Is Human and his newest, When - The Scientific Secrets of Perfect Timing). His books have won multiple awards and have been translated into 37 languages. That's just the beginning of how his thinking has permeated into the work culture. He's usually spotting trends and ways to think differently about how we live and work, long before it becomes a household name or a growing trend. From television shows to magazine articles, Dan works tirelessly to figure out how to make his own life more efficient, and - in doing so - he shares his findings with all of us. When is a brilliant, compelling and fun book to read. Think about when you do your work. How do you choose when to do it? Gut? Instinct? When someone books you in a meeting? These are terrible ways to make your days as efficient as possible, according to Dan. It turns out that when you do stuff is as powerful as what you do. Don't believe me? Listen in. Enjoy the conversation...
You can grab the latest episode of Six Pixels of Separation here (or feel free to subscribe via iTunes): Six Pixels of Separation #626.
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July 6, 2018
Marco Mendoza On This Month's Groove - The No Treble Podcast
Marco Mendoza is this month's conversation on Groove - The No Treble Podcast.
You can listen the new episode right here: Groove - The No Treble Podcast - Episode #43 - Marco Mendoza.
<a href="http://notreble.bandcamp.com/track/gr..." data-mce-href="http://notreble.bandcamp.com/track/gr... - Episode #43: Marco Mendoza by No Treble</a>
Who is Marco Mendoza?
The first time I saw Marco Mendoza play bass live was with Whitesnake. Whatever you think about Whitesnake's music (personally, I am a child of the 80s and a lover of that genre), they are a force of hard, heavy and blues power that is not to be reckoned with (if you can get past those wild hair metal videos from the MTV era). At that point, I felt like Mendoza had finally arrived. He had worked with John Sykes, Blue Murder, Lynch Mob, Ted Nugent, Neal Schon (Journey) and countless others. Still, he moved on, adding bands and artists like the recently deceased Dolores O'Riordan (The Cranberries), Thin Lizzy, Black Star Riders and most recently the super-group, The Dead Daisies. But he's not just a rocker. Not by a long shot. Just head over to YouTube and check out his solo bass work. Playing fretless, grooving with Latin, jazz, and fusion flair flawlessly - singing and dancing too! His solo discs, Live For Tomorrow, Casa Mendoza and his recently released, Viva La Rock, all demonstrate his musical aptitude. Which brings us to today. As Viva La Rock is beginning to gather steam, The Dead Daisies are also back with a killer rocking record, Burn It Down. Some people think that rock is dead. Others say that fusion is dead. Well, death never looked and sounded so good and alive, if you measure it against the career of Marco Mendoza.
Enjoy the conversation...
Listen in: Groove - The No Treble Podcast - Episode #43 - Marco Mendoza.
What is Groove - The No Treble Podcast?
This is an ambitious effort. This will be a fascinating conversation. Our goal at Groove is to build the largest oral history of bass players. Why Groove? Most of the content about the bass revolves around gear, playing techniques, and more technical chatter. For us, bassists are creative artists with stories to tell. They are a force to be reckon with. These are the stories and conversation that we will capture. To create this oral history of why these artists chose the bass, what their creative lives are like, and where inspiration can be found.
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Six Links Worthy Of Your Attention #419
Is there one link, story, picture or thought that you saw online this week that you think somebody you know must see?
My friends: Alistair Croll (Solve for Interesting, Tilt the Windmill, HBS, chair of Strata, Startupfest, Pandemonio, and ResolveTO, Author of Lean Analytics and some other books), Hugh McGuire (PressBooks, LibriVox, iambik and co-author of Book: A Futurist's Manifesto) and I decided that every week the three of us are going to share one link for one another (for a total of six links) that each individual feels the other person "must see".
Check out these six links that we're recommending to one another:
How To Read - Robert Heaton . "I read more and more with less and less attention every day. An abundance of information has robbed me of the pleasure of losing myself in a book; I have to keep reminding myself that thinking counts as work and that I'm not being unproductive. But this Robert Heaton piece takes attentive reading to a new level." (Alistair for Hugh).
Don't Be A Sucker - US National Archives - YouTube . "Hoo, boy. I watched this piece of American-made, anti-fascist propaganda from the 1940s all the way through. It's timely to say the least. That the government was funding this kind of content and paying to distribute it 80 years ago is incredibly telling." (Alistair for Mitch).
World's Biggest Carnivorous Plant Catches Whole Sheep! - Way Out West Blow - YouTube . "Don't ask me how I found this, but it's hot out, and right now, in this world, it's nice to spend some time thinking about... the danger to sheep from carnivorous plants." (Hugh for Alistair).
Academics Gathered to Share Emoji Research, and It Was
Six Pixels of Separation
- Mitch Joel's profile
- 80 followers
