Archive for the 'Mentions' Category

Lay Down the Blame Arrow and Look in the Mirror

Published
by
Ehren
on June 19, 2008
in Aspirations, Mentions, Ponderings, Unthinkables, books, economics, marketing and work
. 0 Comments

I’ve been itching to talk about the recently revamped copyright law in Canada but I’ve held back for the most part.  I decided otherwise after I was reading Matthew Ingram’s article in the Globe and Mail about music sales being the lowest in 20 years and that — yet again — the blame is placed on the customers, not buying enough and downloading illegal copies of music.  This by the way is untrue as new reports have surfaced.  This is beside the actual point of this post.

What I find amusing about every media industry (and I work in one) is that we continue to direct the blame away from ourselves.  The Music industry blames the internet and file-sharing sites; the video game industry blames the internet for game piracy; the movie industry of course blames the internet and file-sharing sites as well as video games; and the book industry blames all other industries for its troubles and for overshadowing the importance of books (plus one another internally).  What’s next?  Are we going to blame lower sales on the lack of fuel cell-powered vehicles in North America?

We all know the internet and customers are not really to blame.  We can try to delegate the blame but it really does not make a whole lot of sense in the end.  Many businesses are built upon taking advantage of current events, emotions and impulses that every consumer may have — if that’s the case, why wouldn’t a consumer do exactly the same to a business if provided with the opportunity?  Especially when there is usually little or no reason for a consumer to display any sign of loyalty.  Oh right, the law.

This law protects the rights of the creator or developer of a product and ensures that the creator or developer receives due credit ($$$) for their work.  I quite respect that.  This is vital to ensuring that people who are creative and innovative and who take risks will ultimately survive.  But where does it say that this risk is guaranteed to provide a complete return?

I think it is important for artists, authors, creators, and developers to receive credit for their work but I also feel that entire industries should not be complaining about customers and blaming them for their losses (or so-called losses in some cases) if they don’t receive the credit or attention that they expect for their work.

Why should we as customers care? Because customers don’t deserve the blame.  Customers deserve more — we all deserve something greater than what currently exists.

Businesses and creators currently dictate what should and shouldn’t be produced, what can and can’t be improved, what is and isn’t possible.  I respect business owners, shareholders, and in particular entrepreneurs because of the risk they take but I disagree with approaches that are focused on putting business before the customer.  Any company’s success is linked directly to their customers, not to the company internally.  It is we the customer who:

1. Decides what to pay for and what not to pay for.

2. Decide a product’s level of usefulness.

3. Ultimately find out the hard way what’s easy to use and not so easy to use

4. Discover which book was worth the read, what song was great to listen to, and what art we actually enjoy.

5. Are hurt or injured by the errors and mistakes in judgment that businesses make in the process of developing their product.

It is we the customer who deserve the right to want and demand more from businesses and creators.  Creators deserve the respect for their achievement but they ultimately serve those who are willing to embrace what they have produced and/or selling.

Customers are ultimately part of the product creation and development process — not simply the recipients.  I think social media websites are on the cutting edge in this field because they are forced to identify what they are doing wrong for the customer on an extremely frequent and consistent basis — and then make the appropriate changes.

I’m not saying that we have to take this route for all media, but I believe that it is important for all businesses to step in this direction.

Books and the Cycle of Blame

I can elaborate on books as a medium since I work in the book industry. It’s somewhat sad.  People blame video games taking attention away from reading.  People blame movies for that too … and television … and the internet … and anything else we can pretty much put our finger on.

That’s just reason number one for why books don’t sell as well as they used to.  Let’s take a look at other reasons that frequently pop up in the discussion, shall we?

Publishers blame booksellers for not pushing their books enough.

Publishers blame booksellers for not carrying greater numbers of books on their limited shelf space.

Publishers blame authors for not being more active and promoting the book.

Publishers blame government grants for not providing more support.

Booksellers blame publishers for not helping them out and doing more.

Booksellers blame publishers for selling direct over the internet.

Booksellers blame publishers for focusing on selling bulk quantities of books to larger chains such as Chapters, Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Costco, etc.

… and most recently, booksellers blame publishers for focusing on wholesalers and distributors.

Authors blame publishers for not pushing their books enough to booksellers.

Authors blame publishers for not helping them get more publicity.

This is all … wrong.

We complain about how people aren’t reading enough yet the opposite is true — there is more reading taking place than ever before.  Just not the way we think it SHOULD be.  Then again, when did we as the book industry earn the right to decide what SHOULD be?  The customer dictated what they wanted eons ago and now they are evolving.  The fact that we have tied ourselves so closely to what “should be” has ultimately hurt ourselves, damaged our credibility, while simultaneously forced us to ignore the customer.

Businesses and customers both have rights.  But the right to dictate what becomes successful and what doesn’t belongs to the customer.

Photograph by Jasoon

We have only ourselves to blame.  Just like the music industry, movie industry, and all other media industries.  We have not been listening to all of our customers.  We merely listened to the core group of people who refer to themselves as book readers/lovers.  Even when industry-wide sales started declining, we decided to point fingers at each other rather than look at ourselves or the way we actually do things — and instead of finding a way to adapt to the evolving customer, we continue to force the customer to adapt to us.  We argue amongst ourselves and tell each other this is simply how it is and that we need to keep publishing massive number of books in order to stay in business because the government grants favour specific types of books over others.  Is this the way we want to continue to operate into the future?

Now here is the true dilemma we face.  We keep thinking that ebooks are the future and are the solution to our problems — but they aren’t.  They are merely another medium that will converge with other media in time.  The key to solving our problems isn’t by looking for another way to push more books, it’s how we look at ourselves and what we sell.

Time to step in front of the mirror.

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Whilst at Book Expo…

Published
by
Ehren
on June 16, 2008
in Interests, Mentions, books, fun, marketing, web 2.0 and work
. 0 Comments

So I’ve spent the past weekend at Book Expo Canada.  A few of my colleagues are generally much more enthusiastic (and in some cases optimistic) than I am but I nonetheless tag along because it’s both amusing and fun to see my co-workers have so much fun (… right, and because it’s all part of the job of course).  Lots of meetings, lots of free books (more given out than received… or in my case — none).

The funniest thing that seemed to pop up in various conversations was the fact that whether it may be publicity, traditional or online marketing — the question from management always seems to be:  “Can we do it for less?” or “Can we do this for this small amount of $$?”

photograph by http2007

No this isn’t Book Expo Canada but if they offered free food, it might as well be!
Photograph by http2007

The answer is usually very simple.  You’re either going to provide me with the monetary resources or you are going to provide me with the time work on some form of initiative — either way, it’s not “free”.

What I found most amusing was that as soon as I got home was that my mind got hit with three ebooks.  Mind you, they are all books that are marketing and business driven so they don’t necessarily serve as the literary world’s finest examples but they do indicate how books can be more than just another book.

I ran across Dave Balter’s The Word of Mouth Mouth Manual Volume II which I should add is available in PDF format to download for free.  Haven’t fully read it yet but the few pages I have scanned have impressed me thus far.

I then ran across Dave Balter’s book again on Seth Godin’s own blog which reminded myself and all his other readers about Seth Godin’s Ideavirus — also free for download in PDF format.

And then … I was reminded of Darren Barefoot and Julie Szabo’s recent book on social media Getting to First Base which isn’t free but I did purchase it out of support for a great introduction to social media.  Despite the fact that I did get the ebook a while ago, I haven’t finished reading it yet — about half way through and it’s good for anyone who needs to hit management on the head with some sort of wake-up call, or even those in management themselves!

Seriously, I need an ebook reader … Amazon Kindle where are you in Canada?!  While we were all busy marketing books at a trade show and conference — the word continues to spread about books available online, one way or another.

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Brand This!

Published
by
Ehren
on June 12, 2008
in Aspirations, Mentions and marketing
. 1 Comment

Branding. Branding. Branding. Everyone is worried about their brand and their reputation. Does it make a difference? If I made cardboard boxes and they were boring looking — where as my competitor had dynamic-looking boxes, my brand would gradually be identified as the boring one. Can I improve my brand by aggressively pushing it?

Likely not. Let’s look at it another way — if I were lazy (Not that I actually am … but yes I was told many times as I grew up that I was lazy and that I should work harder — it’s one of those things that you get accustomed to growing up in a Chinese Canadian family) and delivered rather work that was merely good enough — i.e. it served its weak purpose. Then that is what people would identify me with regardless of how often I can try and tell them that I am an innovative individual that excels in integrating new technology with evolving business objectives.

Let’s look at it this way, you can’t change your brand unless you change the approach to your product first. I was talking with a co-worker today about how annoying it was to have Rogers Communications suffocating us with their so-called “branding” attempts.

I get to see them on the subway, bus, station ads, tv ads, radio ads, and all the cell phones that are prominently displayed at various store locations. Not only do I have to deal with their constant presence wherever I go, but Torontonians have to deal with the fact that the SkyDome was officially renamed as Rogers Centre after Rogers Communications purchased the building. Can a business get anymore overbearing? Probably … but no matter how often Rogers keeps throwing their name at us, I’m still going to think and feel the same way.

The SkyDome is an integral part of Toronto’s identity so it represents a HUGE opportunity for Rogers to shove its brand in our faces. I think this is a flaw in handling branding. Branding shouldn’t be regarded as a way to inundate your potential customers with the name of your company. Rogers is generally identified by friends and acquaintances as a monopolistic, large communications corporation with plenty of policies but lacking in solid products that deliver true value to customers. Most of their customers are using their services because they have to, not because they want to. See the flaw in thinking? The goal should be to focus on delivering such great a product that customers WANT to use it and would not hesitate to encourage their friends and family to do the same.

SkyDome and CN Tower

The SkyDome (oops I meant Rogers Centre) and CN Tower in Toronto, Canada

Rogers is primarily an example despite I realize that their heavy branding push is meant for consumer attention. Nevertheless for businesses out there that have lengthy discussions on brands and whether it makes an impact on sales — the simple response is: your product defines who you are. If your product is lousy, then your company name is associated with lousy products. If the design on your packaging is lame — then your company is identified as the one with lame packaging. Don’t forget about what your own employees think about your product — they are a real testing ground. All too often employees and their opinions are overlooked. Why? Because we trust focus groups more? Fine — go spend ten thousand dollars for an opinion that you could possibly get by simply asking your employees for feedback.

The case for individuals and each employee works in an almost identical fashion. There are a lot of articles on managing online reputation or personal branding but most of them come to the same conclusion. By no means am I suggesting faking anything — the key is to simply be the best of who you really are.

As Stephen Covey and many others after him (including my old project management instructor) put it … “Begin with the end in mind.”

Who are you? How do you see yourself within the bigger picture?

What and how will you deliver?

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Instruments of Mass Distribution

Published
by
Ehren
on June 9, 2008
in Mentions, Ponderings and Unthinkables
. 0 Comments

Okay so I’ve decided to run through instruments of mass distribution that I utilize on a daily basis both on a macro and micro level. You’re probably wondering why I am doing this — it’s rather simple — to analyze how I do things and find out how different facets of my life are influenced by these instruments of mass distribution. That is, tools that disseminate or facilitate the massive growth or movement of an idea, product, cause, belief, etc. in contrast to the number or size of the tool itself — not including ourselves or other human beings. Yes, we are neither tools nor instruments. This is out of the blue so forgive me if it doesn’t make much sense — because it just barely does to me.

First Comment - We the Robots by Chris Harding

Here’re mine on a pretty general basis on an average day:

The desk (yes…believe it or not)

Computer (go figure…)

Internet

Globe and Mail Newspaper

The Toronto Star Newspaper

The sidewalk (yep…don’t laugh it’s true!)

A Bridge

Toronto Transit Bus

Toronto Transit Subway

Escalator

Stairs

Laptop computer

Network

Blogs (so many many blogs)

Through RSS of course

del.icio.us bookmarks

twitter

Amazon

Email

Google Search

iPod/mp3 player

Grocery Store/Dominion

What about yourself? How many instruments of mass distribution have an impact on you? What happens when one fails to function? What happens when one instrument supersedes another? For the most part — we adapt as the instruments change and evolve but how often do we ask ourselves how dependent we are on this mesh of mass distributors whether it is an inanimate object or a system in place?

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The Life of a Career Employee … or not?

Published
by
Ehren
on June 5, 2008
in Aspirations, Mentions, marketing and work
. 2 Comments

How do you approach your work at the workplace? Many people point out that it is wrong to give too much of yourself to the employer, but I disagree — it’s not that simple. True you don’t want to have your employer take advantage of you but at the same time, it is important to invest yourself in whatever you want to do and to do what you feel may be right for yourself and/or the people you work with.

Milo Sindell and Thuy Sindell, authors of The Career Bill of Rights, suggests that this is a definition of a career employee, particularly because the employee’s relationship with their job has become blurred:

A career employee is an individual who spends their career working as part of a company, as opposed to working for their own company.

Classic examples from Dilbert:

Obviously Dilbert is a little too involved with his work but I’m pretty sure that a lot of people are, myself included. The thing I recognize the most about engaged employees are that they are objective oriented and that they look for meaning in the work that they do. That said, is it worth it to do whatever it takes? That’s up to you. I can honestly say that the many different stints in various industries has taught me that there are three ground rules to work with:

1. Never forget where you worked and never forget how you felt, and what you did when you started working.

2. If you’re going to do something … don’t do it the way you think should be right — do it right for yourself, your colleagues, and for the people you serve (i.e. customers or citizens). (…or at least the best you can)

3. Make sure you fail over and over again until you manage to not fail. If you don’t fail, what’s the point?

That is how I generally operate. But what the Sindells are suggesting is quite interesting. They are proposing that career employees (aka. engaged employees) should formulate and embrace their own bill of rights. Here’s the gist of it:

Enter the Career Bill of Rights
1. You have the right to take advantage of your employer.

2. You have the right to only give as much as you can.

3. You have the right to roam.

4. You have the right to the truth.

5. You have the right to enjoy your work.

6. You have the right to more. [Look out for more of this!]

7. You have the right to leave an inspiring legacy.

8. You have the right to fire your employer.

As the Sindells’ state, “they are the rights you have as a person who chooses to work for another individual.” Whether you decide to exercise those rights is up to you. I don’t necessarily know if a bill of rights will make life easier for the engaged employee but it is something that I have pointed out to people before.

We have the freedom to decide where/when we want to go and where/when we want to stop. Just like we market our products, the act of hiring a particular employee is a form of marketing as well — except the fact that employees are the customer. We either buy into the work we do — or we lose interest and become disengaged. The funny thing about this is that it demonstrates the simple importance of a company’s ability to market their own product and policies to their own employees — if it doesn’t work for your own employees, why would it work for your customers?

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Going Beyond The Product

Published
by
Ehren
on June 2, 2008
in Aspirations, Mentions, Ponderings, marketing, technology and work
. 0 Comments

Funky Monday.

Today I ran across and shared two recent articles from the Globe and Mail at work. One being that the Globe and Mail was opening up its business model, and the other being that the Metallica was endorsing a new way of doing business on the web (but really it’s not that new).

I was asked … what does this mean?

It’s just what I’ve been stating over and over again. Book publishers are no longer able to be purely book publishers. Technology has provided a way for different forms of media to converge — take a look at the iPod (and other new mp3 players) or even newer ultra portable laptops like the Asus EEE. This means that your product must be flexible and adaptable (mostly figuratively speaking, although literally would be nice too). This doesn’t mean you can’t have a printed book, but rather that any static product is pretty much obsolete.

Sadly enough, publishers actually have a choice to focus on their core business or diversify. Their core business is typically the reader that literally consumes books at an incredible rate. The funny thing about this market is that despite that consumption level, book publishers still pump out way too many books and overwhelm that market. We expect slower readers or occasional readers to pick up the slack but it just doesn’t happen. Why? I don’t think we really put enough thought into the value of the product — what the customer wants or desires. A customer doesn’t necessarily know what they want but customers are smart. They have and will find more ways to ensure they are getting the best value and experience for their money. If a book uses cheap paper, they know. If we don’t invest time into a book cover, they know.

Production values are interesting because they appear to me as very similar to school work (remember that?). When we don’t put in the time and thoughtfulness into a project, it really shows.

Movies and music are two types of products that have been forced to continually re-examine the way they sell their product. In the late 90s, movie cinemas began raising prices after creating bigger screens and sound systems in order to improve the customer experience. Did that bigger screen and bolder sound help the movie industry? Yes but not necessarily as good as it could have if it were introduced earlier because it coincided with the increase of movie rentals. But the cash kept flowing because people were still interested in seeing a movie on the bigger screen.

Fast forward to 2001 and the mass adoption of DVDs. The bigger screen is in decline. Why? Because the customer experience has changed. DVDs now provides greater value directly into the hands of the customer than a night at the cinema. That and the seven reasons that The Big Picture lists out in an old blog posting. Will the DVD sales decline? Potentially as legal and DRM-free digital downloads become prominent, while pirated DVDs continue to propagate. Toss into the mix far-reaching/long range cellular frequencies and an uncapped/unlimited wireless connection — the movie purchasing equation will be altered forever.

Despite the long and controversial existence of the mp3 file, the music industry has been very lucky in the sense that the mp3 itself and Apple’s iPod infused the customer with a sense of power and freedom that they had not felt before. Sure it caused chaos on the sales of CDs but what really has happened is the resurgence of interest in a wide-range of music regardless of time. Cut the waste (i.e. CDs and albums), focus on the music itself, give the customer the freedom to do what they please with the product sans the packaging, a lower price point for the work they do (i.e. pick and choose individual songs) and they will come back for more to do more. People want to be able to customize their own little jukebox full of music and they want to do it in their own way.

Now with books, add on the fact that Acrobat 9 is about to be released and as Mark puts it, it’s a game changer. The ability for rich media to be embedded within PDF files has arrived. Can’t figure out what that means?

What if you could be read a book and watch movie clips as part of the story? What if you could interact with the characters? What if we could draw our own animation — upload it to the book and share it with other readers? Or on a particular connection point over the internet where all other readers of a book could meet up? What if we could discuss an idea directly within a book with all other readers? Can you imagine what it will be like in the future? Take a look at the introduction of Disney’s Treasure Planet. These ideas aren’t taking away the essence of a book; they are enriching what’s within every book — far beyond the means of text on a page.

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Every Author’s Challenge

Published
by
Ehren
on May 24, 2008
in Mentions, books, marketing and work
. 2 Comments

I’m really supposed to be focusing on programming a website but I felt it was necessary to share this after @nejsnave posted this link to this video(below) over twitter.  This’ll be a quick post.  The video is by a HarperCollins author, Dennis Cass.

 

This is the problem that every marketing department is facing in the book publishing industry.  It is wrong for a marketing or publicity department to throw everything at the author.  Promotion on the web does not require an author to throw themselves into every social medium — rather the idea is to ensure that there is a way for people to connect with an author and vice versa.  Marketing departments should be working with the author to develop what I refer to as a connection point. I’ll get into that another day but I think it’s pretty self-explanatory.

That said, authors still need a blog and they still need to blog on a not necessarily frequent but consistent basis.  I’d rather authors have a blog than a purely promotional website.  It is pretty much the same except the fact that a blog is the old classic homepage on Geocities that has evolved into a social and communication medium that is way more versatile.

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On the Open Road Trip

Published
by
Ehren
on May 17, 2008
in Aspirations, Mentions, Ponderings, marketing and travel
. 0 Comments

Thanks to Ellen Ewart who pointed out today’s article in the Toronto Star on road trips — I just wanted to make an official statement that was most likely very obvious:

I love road trips.

That was it. Of course … I have more to say.

Photography by Ehren Cheung

Almost everyone I know enjoys a road trip — but there are differences between those who merely enjoy the experience and those like myself who thrive. What type of road tripper are you? I’m the type who starts the engine, crank up the music (not to a deafening level), and I am one very content human being — then take my car on a road trip and I am bursting with energy, ready to seek out new and unexplored places — stuff unknown to me. Example: bouldering in New Hampshire (see short video from my trip last year)

I don’t necessarily care where I’m going — as long as I’m going in the right direction. What’s the right direction? Well I guess it can be anything! This can be a city that we really want to visit or a lemonade stand that we happen to stop off at along the way to the state of Oregon. Anything we consider as a positive influence or experience on ourselves.

Photograph by Ehren Cheung

Do you plan ahead or do you just like to hit the road with a goal in mind? The amusing thing is that I have a feeling that most people would love to just hit the road with a goal in mind and take in whatever hits them (figuratively speaking…) — only to be hindered by our own fears and limitations imposed by our own mind and lifestyle. When we travel with others, we add to that struggle with the fears and limitations imposed by those we decide to travel with. What do we do then? We impose a schedule, create an extraordinary itinerary, and make reservations at hotels and motels with the hope that this route or path will lead us to a higher level of satisfaction — or in other words, happiness!

But how do we become more satisfied? When we plan and plan and plan for all of our destinations and stop offs, do we really get the best experience? Is this making the best use of the tiny bit of time we can get from our vacation time? From my own journeys, I’ve enjoyed a tremendous amount of satisfaction by noting the goals (i.e. must-see points) but mainly enjoying the road as it is — stopping whenever I or someone I travel with wants to stop to check something out. It can be anything from a long-deserted drive-in theatre, dilapidated barn or rustic-looking shed to the flowers growing along the road, and in some cases some random billboard that has a brilliant message.

Photograph by Ehren Cheung

Sometimes you find yourself in the middle of nowhere. And sometimes, in the middle of nowhere, you find yourself.

So what am I really trying to say? The point is NOT that we need to go out there and find ourselves. I think the way we travel is a reflection on how we treat ourselves or take in new experiences. We can choose to place the utmost importance on the destination or we can choose to balance the importance of the destination or goal with what’s between point A and B. We could also even forget the destination and just merely keep a goal in mind and just go from there. Let’s flip this over to businesses, particularly those that are trying to increase their presence on the internet — the travel industry is a good one to keep an eye on as there are so many puzzle pieces to the big picture, small and large.

Similar to the travel, people are on the road and on the web, taking their own paths and weaving their own experiences in a manner of speaking. Along the way, people stop and take photos of anything they find really interesting which they then share — similarly people on the web share links to content and video that they find interesting. So let me pose a question — what are you doing for your business or website that makes it worth sharing? I’m not talking just about your product that needs to be what I refer to as share worthy — I am pointing to everything about you and your website/business.

So when I’m travelling down the road enjoying my experience towards my destination; between point A and B; or just wandering — what’s going to make me stop? Will it be you? Will it be someone you’re travelling with? Or will it be this magnificent tree?

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