Georgia Tech MBA

Ducks Quack - Eagles Soar

I'm passing along a wise word from Dan Miller's (highly recommended) e-newsletter. It's inspiring and encouraging! Thanks Dan!

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This is a popular story that you may have seen before. Even if you have, it’s a great reminder that just doing little common sense things can make us stand out in a crowd. When times are tough we need to take advantage of the many ways we can prosper and thrive – and bring more joy to ourselves and the people we meet.

Ducks Quack - Eagles Soar
No one can make you serve customers well....that's because great service is a choice. Harvey Mackay, tells a wonderful story about a cab driver that proved this point.

He was waiting in line for a ride at the airport. When a cab pulled up, the first thing Harvey noticed was that the taxi was polished to a bright shine. Smartly dressed in a white shirt, black tie, and freshly pressed black slacks, the cab driver jumped out and rounded the car to open the back passenger door for Harvey.

He handed Harvey a laminated card and said: 'I'm Wally, your driver. While I'm loading your bags in the trunk I'd like you to read my mission statement.'

Taken aback, Harvey read the card. It said: Wally's Mission Statement: To get my customers to their destination in the quickest, safest and cheapest way possible in a friendly environment....

This blew Harvey away. Especially when he noticed that the inside of the cab matched the outside. Spotlessly clean! As he slid behind the wheel, Wally said, 'Would you like a cup of coffee? I have a thermos of regular and one of decaf.' Harvey said jokingly, 'No, I'd prefer a soft drink.' Wally smiled and said, 'No problem. I have a cooler up front with regular and Diet Coke, water and orange juice.' Almost stuttering, Harvey said, 'I'll take a Diet Coke.'

Handing him his drink, Wally said, 'If you'd like something to read, I have The Wall Street Journal, Time, Sports Illustrated and USA Today..'

As they were pulling away, Wally handed Harvey another laminated card, 'These are the stations I get and the music they play, if you'd like to listen to the radio.'

And as if that weren't enough, Wally told Harvey that he had the air conditioning on and asked if the temperature was comfortable for him. Then he advised Harvey of the best route to his destination for that time of day. He also let him know that he'd be happy to chat and tell him about some of the sights or, if Harvey preferred, to leave him with his own thoughts... '

Tell me, Wally,' Mr McKay asked the driver, 'have you always served customers like this?' Wally smiled into the rear view mirror. 'No, not always. In fact, it's only been in the last two years. My first five years driving, I spent most of my time complaining like all the rest of the cabbies do. Then I heard the personal growth guru, Wayne Dyer, on the radio one day.

He had just written a book called You'll See It When You Believe It. Dyer said that if you get up in the morning expecting to have a bad day, you'll rarely disappoint yourself. He said, 'Stop complaining! Differentiate yourself from your competition. Don't be a duck. Be an eagle. Ducks quack and complain. Eagles soar above the crowd.'

'That hit me right between the eyes,' said Wally. 'Dyer was really talking about me. I was always quacking and complaining, so I decided to change my attitude and become an eagle. I looked around at the other cabs and their drivers.. The cabs were dirty, the drivers were unfriendly, and the customers were unhappy. So I decided to make some changes. I put in a few at a time. When my customers responded well, I did more.'

'I take it that has paid off for you,' Harvey said.

'It sure has,' Wally replied. 'My first year as an eagle, I doubled my income from the previous year. This year I'll probably quadruple it. You were lucky to get me today. I don't sit at cabstands anymore. My customers call me for appointments on my cell phone or leave a message on my answering machine. If I can't pick them up myself, I get a reliable cabbie friend to do it and I take a piece of the action.'

Wally was phenomenal. He was running a limo service out of a Yellow Cab. Harvey says he's probably told that story to more than fifty cab drivers over the years, and only two took the idea and ran with it. Whenever he goes to their cities, he gives them a call. The rest of the drivers quacked like ducks and told him all the reasons they couldn't do any of what he was suggesting.

Wally the Cab Driver made a different choice. He decided to stop quacking like ducks and start soaring like eagles. Ducks Quack, Eagles Soar

Have a nice day, unless you already have other plans.

More Metrics: Build a Business Case for Social Media

I should be studying for the Brand Management midterm I have tomorrow morning, but what I just read in one of the chapters got me thinking. Yesterday I read a great blog post on the relevance of social media in business and - finally - there is someone calling for metrics! Today I read about Brand Value Creation and how marketers can evaluate and measure the value created by brands. Combine the two: what role does social media play in brand value creation - so that social media efforts can be measured?

Here's the Brand Value Chain (from Kevin Lane Keller's Strategic Brand Management book):

The value chain starts with the assumption that the brand ultimately resides with the consumer and and the value creation process begins when the firm invests in a marketing program targeting actual or potential customers.

Price premium, price elasticities, market share, cost structure, and profitability are all objective measurements. So are stock prices, P/E ratio and market cap! Compare these metrics before the marketing program and then again after implementation. It may not be 100% correlated, but taking market place conditions and investor sentiment into consideration should allow marketers to attribute come of the favorable growth to the brand contribution.

Relating this to social media and the blog post I read yesterday, Tom Webber believes that in order for social media to be really effective, it needs to have a strategy that goes beyond the marketing department and allow "rank-and-file employee to be a real human, to stop the assembly line (like a Toyota factory employee can) and communicate transparently with customers and prospects". This feels like that Employee line under Marketing Program Investment.One of the big reasons why the Starbucks brand is so strong - with little to no national advertising btw - is because of the people and the service you receive at Starbucks. Social media is kind of a way that other non-retail companies can make employees be a part of the brand. That seems like a very strong association to me. (I think I have drifted from my initial thoughts on metrics.)

Back to the point, social media, when used not just as a marketing tool, but also as a way to establish a real connection with followers, can greatly affect the consumer mindset. Social media probably doesn't do a whole lot around Awareness and could play a little in Associations and Attitudes. But I bet that social media can go gang-buster for growing brand Attachment and brand Activity. Attachment: the consumer's resistance to change and the ability of a brand to withstand bad news (a.k.a. - price elasticities). Activity: extent to which customers use the brand, talk to others about the brand, seek out brand information. Yeah, sounds like social media to me: re-tweet, blog about, comment, fan on Facebook... Could be market share, price elasticities, and extension success. 

Another block to the case. Thoughts?

Cool To Be A Scientist

"The United States does need to increase—significantly—its investment in research. The nation needs Sputnik-like programs to solve a variety of critical problems: developing alternative fuels, reducing global warming, eliminating hunger, and treating and preventing disease. Engineers, scientists, mathematicians, and their associated colleagues have vital roles to play in such efforts. The nation- government, business, education, and society—needs to develop the road maps, create the excitement, and make it really cool and rewarding to become a scientist or engineer."
(Vivek Wadhwa, Issues in Science & Technology, Where the Engineers Are, Spring 2007)

Do people really know what the opportunities are in the science and technology fields? I spoke with a mother of two girls on a plane recently and her elder daughter is very interested in math and science and also has a flair for art. I mentioned the Industrial Design program at Georgia Tech and the mother had not heard about this type of program and asked what else there is to do besides engineering? This was a very smart and capable woman who, I believe, is asking a very normal question. A quick search on the Internet can start to help answer the question of what to do in math and science, but none of it is really “kid-friendly”. It certainly doesn’t help in the quest to “make it really cool to become a scientist or engineer”.

How can an organization “make it really cool and rewarding to become a scientist or engineer”? My initial thought centers around a conference with entertaining keynote speakers, fun breakout sessions, and an expo hall full of research projects and experiments. After much thought and discussions and feedback, I view this like a branding project. How can we brand STEM careers as the “cool” thing to do? I am looking forward to meeting with the founder of Tech High, a high school here in Atlanta that focuses on math, science and technology education for high schoolers. Perhaps he can help me structure the tools needed for this branding project.

It All Starts With Imagination

"Success is never an accident.  It typically starts as imagination, becomes a dream, stimulates a goal, grows into a plan of action - which then inevitably meets with opportunity.  Don't get stuck along the way."
- Dan Miller, author of 48 Days to the Work You Love

When I remember being a kid, my strongest memories are of the imaginary worlds I created.  I had a house underneath the park that you entered through a tree and a grocery store that was really the street sign pole but you punched into a keypad what food you wanted. One of my favorites was a game I made up to play in the pool.  You had to make big waves with a boogie board and then get sucked into the new world.  There were stations all around the pool where you got to do different fun things like hand stands and somersaults and I can't remember what else. I played with Little People and blocks and She-Ra and My Little Ponies.  Everything had a story.  It's truly amazing to think of what we were able to think up when our brain wasn't so cluttered with the daily grind. 

I wonder what happened to that little girl.  Where did her imagination go?  Is it still in me to think of such wild tales?  I think buried beneath the homework, deadlines, job search and office politics there is a little girl's imagination just waiting to make the world a better place.  What can I do to recapture some of that dreaming and some of that creativity to solve problems around me today?  It seems that by focusing on opening up the thought channels and discovering what gets you excited can lead to the type of imagination that leads to dreams, goals and actions.  For instance, I was on the elliptical machine at the gym the other day and I was thinking about a quote I heard someone say that their best ideas come when they are sweating.  So I thought I would focus on imagining and dreaming.  And guess what?  I was thrilled with the result! That incident happened about 3 weeks ago but I can't stop thinking about my idea and I want to see if I can put together a plan that would make my idea a reality.  That's something to get out of bed excited about everyday!

I believe one of the reasons I was able to come up with this idea (and several other ideas I have had in recent time) is because of the journey I've been on since starting grad school.  Suddenly released from a situation I felt stuck in, I started exploring the different options that were in front of me.  Everytime we would talk about something that would excite me in class I would think that maybe THIS is what I want to do with my life.  I would look around, see what the people doing that particular job were like and match my skills and interests with what the job requires. Eventually the list started to narrow down and the same type of things keep coming to the top of the list.  A conversation with a favorite professor helped nail it down even more.  I know I want to be a part of something big and good.  I want to make a difference.  I want to create an environment where people do their best work.  I want to help our country be great and encourage kids to pursue math and science and to really know what their options are.  I want to bring something new to market or bring something old to a new market.  There have been other discoveries along the way and I look forward to seeing how they turn out.  In the meantime, I'm working in time to imagine and see what I can come with.

Be A Valuable Resource

Last Saturday, I attended SoCon09 - an unconference about the social media community.  Check out Twitter (#SoCon09) for notes on the event.  One of the breakout sessions I attended was a discussion on how people are using social media in the B2B environment.  Jon Gatrell from Spatially Relevant mediated the session.  While I had some difficulty imagining the scenario that the small business owners and consultants were discussing in the relams of a behemoth corporation, I was reminded of a very important lesson:  Be a valuable resource to your customers and prospects.  This good word comes from Jeffrey Gittomer, author of the Little Red Book of Selling.  And true to form, Gittomer sent the following reminder out in his e-Newsletter this morning.  (Notice: personal branding is in his list too!)

MAJOR QUESTION: Why aren’t you focusing on bigger issues so that sales come to you from prospects and customers that want to buy? The bigger issues are:
• Value messages – that can impact your worth to the customer. Worth is more powerful than price.
• Impact speeches – at trade associations that establish your reputation as a knowledgeable leader and thinker.
• Top-tier networking – to get to know the people that count in your customer base, your industry, and your career.
• Industry positioning – to become better known. Get involved in the associations and impact organizations of your marketplace.
• Consistent writing and publishing – a monthly article in your trade publication will raise everyone’s awareness of your ideas and capabilities.
• Personal branding – combining your words and deeds with your reputation to create the law of attraction.

Any thoughts on these bigger issues?  I feel like social media can really help with many of these issues. 

Who Am I Really?

This Saturday I will be immersing myself in the social media/connection culture at SoCon 2009. I think I'm going to have trouble narrowing down my selection of break-out topics, but this is what I'm initially interested in:

• Using social networking for social change
• Social media for B2B
• Return on Investment for social media
• Build your own personal brand

It's the last one that I'm thinking about tonight. A personal brand. With regards to job searching, I have heard this multiple times and, as a marketer, you'd think that I would have a brand already established. And, wow. A Google search on social media personal brand return a lot of hits.

This one is interesting: Success here is simple. I followed the Disney model. I built a content franchise and leveraged it across every community and channel I participate in, including traditional ones like PR and speaking. Anyone can emulate this approach - including brands that want to maximize their use of social media. (from a blog by Steve Rubel) I like this because it is what I would do with my marketing campaigns in the business. I would decide on a theme and a target message and then everything from graphics to emails, invites, signage, and promotional items would match the theme and messaging. It looked awesome and was very effective. Jonathan Gessinger at Twin Engine Creative helped me with a bunch of themes. The guys at TEC do terrific graphic work if you need some help. Maybe I should hit them up for a personal brand.

So in between class, work, group projects, the VCIC competition and trying to find an internship for the summer, I'll be working on my personal brand. Think I'll start with that list I made a while ago of all the things I like and things I like doing. Any ideas or suggestions? Any really good personal brands out there you can recommend?