Today’s Freakonomics column picks up on UCLA research reported earlier this week by Matt McDermot at Treehugger.com.

The researchers, Magali Delmas and Laura E. Grant, demonstrated that organic wine cannot command as high a price as conventional (non-organic) wine. This despite the fact that these organic wines get higher ratings than conventional wines from Wine Spectator magazine.

The researchers suggest, and Freakomics reports, that this lower price is due to lingering memories of “hippie wine”, first generation organic wine made by… hippies.

But it’s not old memories of ‘hippie wine’ that cast doubt on the quality of organic wine. Instead, it is the extra ‘purpose’ of these organic vineyards that leads customers to stereotype the vineyards as well-meaning but less competent, and their organic wine as not quite up to sniff.

The real reason organic wine can’t get a higher price

Here’s my hypothesis:

Customers don’t think that vineyards that produce organic wine are as competent as typical vineyards, because organic vineyards are more like for-purpose businesses than for-profit businesses.

Consider that customers stereotype organizations based on their categorical identities. We expect commercial banks to act one way, investment banks to act another way, and hedge funds to act yet other ways. The type of organization leads us to expect types of behaviors and types of competencies.

That we expect different skill sets from different organizations due to their different types has been demonstrated time and again in corporate reputation research. Recently, marketing scholars have examined what customers expect from for-profit organizations and not-for-profit (aka for-purpose) organizations.

Non-Profits Are Seen as Warm and For-Profits as Competent: Firm Stereotypes Matter

Customers stereotype for-profit organizations as competent, and not-for-profit/ for-purpose organizations as warm. Competent organizations and warm organizations, while not exactly opposites, create two different kinds of products. Competent organizations create products that work, and warm organizations create products that are well-meaning.

Now, consider how organic wine producers and conventional wine producers might differ. Organic wineries have a social & ecological purpose in addition to their wine making & profit making goals. In contrast, for profit vineyards care only to make good wine and good profits.

Organize vineyards are more like for-purpose organizations, and for-profit vineyards are more like, well, for-profit organizations.

Perhaps customers stereotype the organic vineyards as being caring but not quite as competent as for-profit vineyards?

Consumers take product cues from the organization’s type

Since buying an unfamiliar bottle of wine is a crapshoot, unless you are an oneophile or a fan of @GaryVee — you use your cues about the vineyard (and okay, whether there are animals on the label) to make your choice.

If you are concerned about the quality of the wine relative to the price, you choose on perceived vineyard competency. Thus, you are willing to less for the organic wine, since it is probably more well-meaning than well-made.

What if it’s being ‘for purpose’ that gets in the way of selling at full prices?

See these related posts:
Can a for-profit business organization that also pursues a social purpose be authentic?
Honey is really bee vomit: Why we should label “NonProfit” Organizations “For-Purpose” Organizations
B Corporation Identity: An Opportunity for Organizational Authenticity

Certain members of my friends and family circle make fun of me tease me because I often rearrange the chairs at social, public and business gatherings.

My beloved sister got a bit irked by my penchant for chair moving last month when, 20 minutes before her party started, she came into her living room to see me adjusting her furniture arrangement. “That looks terrible! It’s off balance!” she protested.

But I invoked my older sister status my PhD and told her that I knew what I was doing. I would have explained myself, but it can be difficult to articulate just why a big square of 14 seats is not as good as 3 rounded clusters of 4 or 5 seats.

How we sit is how we interact.

Most people walk into an empty room and look for symmetry or pattern in the seating arrangement, but not me.

I look for the dynamics those empty seats might create. If I don’t like what the chairs predict, I move them. I don’t want the room to look good; I want the room to work for the people who will fill it.

Many people don’t realize how much the physical structure of a room influences interaction. They don’t understand how to arrange chairs so that conversation is easier. And, they rarely think about how people might be clustered in small groups so that they can hear each other and make real, authentic connections.

I’ve realized that I often do my rearranging covertly, without asking for anyone’s permission, simply because explaining my reasons takes too long. But now I’ve discovered a lovely list of five reasons why circles (and curves, and clusters) can be so effective at fostering honest and authentic communication.

5 ways that moving chairs helps us lead

Christina Baldwin and Ann Linnea, authors of The Circle Way: A leader in every chair, have summarized 5 of their important insights from “The Circle Way” their framework for facilitating shared leadership and shared engagement,  at the BK Communiqué Author Lists Blog.

I won’t snitch BK’s content by reposting the full list hear. But let me tempt you to go to their post by sharing my favorite reason:

3. Meeting in circle is a sort of a contained treasure hunt. The wisdom we need is in the room, and the only way to truly gather it, think about it, and make decisions based on it, is to hear every voice. Who has the question? Who has the answer? Who knows the next piece? What creative idea will be heard from an unexpected source?

Baldwin and Linnea also have a website, PeerSpirit, where they offer us a downloadable set of guidelines for using circles to facilitate authentic communication.

Like Dotmocracy, Linnea and Baldwin’s Circle process is a straightforward tool that can transform colleagues’ interactions in ways that elicit new ideas, increase enthusiasm, build relationships, and nurture commitment to an important goal.

Be a leader. Move some chairs.

Drag one of them over here, and smush those two together, and viola, people can hear each other. People can make eye contact. People can lean back and laugh without falling away from the energy. People can challenge each other and nudge each other forward.

Pull up a chair, and we can really work together.

See also:

Tools for Authentic Organizations: Dotmocracy

First it was the Siren.
Then it was the Christmas cards.
For a while, it’s been the original artwork by their very own baristas displayed on the walls..

And now, my favorite Starbucks is getting bouquets of flowers.

On a recent visit, there were two big vases of flowers on the counter by the espresso machine. (You can see in this photo what remains of the bouquets.)

Who would be bringing their Starbucks flowers? I asked the barista.

The first bouquet was from the UPS man. (He comes in five days a week and knows everyone’s name.) He had two bouquets left over on Valentine’s Day, so the UPS driver brought one bouquet to his mom and the other to his favorite Starbucks.

The second vase of roses was from a customer “who just likes us”, explained the barista.

What is it about this Starbucks that inspires customers to bring them flowers?

In a previous post, you suggested that I simply ask the folks who work at this Starbucks what makes it special. However, I was concerned about triggering “the Hawthorne effect”, where folks do a better job simply because they know they’re being observed. But I broke down and told the barista that I’d written a few posts about this Starbucks and was intrigued by the flowers.

The barista brought me over to the espresso bar to meet the District Manager, and I shared with him my thoughts about what was distinctive about this store. (He especially appreciated my pointing out how there was no dust on the espresso machines here, unlike at most Starbucks.)

After sticking my nose in their business for a little bit, I took my latte to a table in the back, near an outlet, and contemplated what might make this Starbucks special.

Data Gathering: Employee Interaction

The District Manager rejoined the Store Manager at the espresso bar and they resumed their conversation. Their conversation was joined off and on by the baristas, who chatted as they pulled shots and zapped pannini.

Watching this relaxed interaction, it occurred to me — maybe it’s the espresso bar itself that helps to create what’s special about this Starbucks?

Look at this photo here. Note that the DM and SM are sitting together, at the bar, facing the baristas’ work area. Notice how the espresso bar is located not in the front of the counter, but around the back and behind the espresso pickup area, across from the sinks, blenders and microwaves.

Even though the managers were having their own conversation, it was easy and natural for baristas to pop in and out of casual conversation with them. At one point, laughter over the baristas reading their horoscopes from a customer’s newspaper caused both me and the writer next to me to look up and smile.

More Data: Customer – Employee Interaction

An hour later the DM was gone and the bar was empty. A customer came in with his computer bag, looking to do some work. Since there were no free tables, he sat down at the espresso bar and pulled out his computer. When a new barista came out from the storeroom and walked behind the bar, the customer looked up from his writing and said hello. They started to chat about his scone and then the customer complimented the barista on her recent weight loss. (What?) Then, an off duty barista sat down with a beverage and chats with another customer. I was starting to see a pattern.

Front stage, Backstage, and in between

Up front at the cash register, the baristas are friendly but their priority is to get your order called and your change correct. At the espresso machine the barista looks you in the eye and hands you your drink, but s/he wants to get it to you promptly. Friendly interaction, to be sure, but not much relationship building.

But back here, at the espresso bar, there is no sense of a ‘transaction’ occurring. Instead, customers and baristas are mingling. People are connecting with each other and relating to each other.

The espresso bar area is neither backstage not frontstage in the store. It is a ‘liminal’ area, where boundaries are blurred.

The espresso bar is not “public space” like the cash register area, and it is not “private space” like the tables and chairs. It’s not a commercial or transactional place. Instead, at the bar the employee-customer interaction is informal, spontaneous, and interpersonal.

I haven’t seen anything like that at the other 3 Starbucks (whch have the same DM, by the way). There, they are friendly, but lacking in that extra je ne sais quoi.

I’ve noted before that it’s the people who make the place authentic. But, in places were all of the people are alike, maybe it is the place itself that triggers another level of authenticity? All of these Starbucks have friendly baristas. But perhaps there is something unique to this place that helps bring out the authentic in the people?

Could it be something as simple as the espresso bar? Do you think that this little, physical tweak that lets customers and employees interact in non-commercial ways is what makes it possible for the employees — and customers– to be more authentic, and to create something ’special’?

What’s your sense of this?

See also:
What’s going on at my favorite Starbucks?
Can a Starbucks touch your soul?
The People Make the Place Authentic

The challenge of being authentic on social media can be scary.

Many organizations are afraid of being ‘on’ social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter, where they (or their representatives) are accessible and active in real time. They worry that participating in real time on social media platforms will expose them as unthinking, out of touch or inauthentic.

Organizations worry how to find and translate their ‘corporate voice’ into an interactive human presence.

When organizations take their first steps onto these social media platforms, they consider their various strategies, and how they could be represented by Brandividuals, celebrity CEOs, tweeting teams, or even their corporate brand mascots.

Brand Mascots on Twitter

Compared to the human alternatives, corporate mascots can look quite appealing. Many organizations already have brand mascots that represent their important products and/or their organization. These characters already have name recognition, brand equity, and the ability to trigger an emotional connection with their customer community.

Moreover, these corporate mascots can ’speak’ in a way that reflects the desired image of the brand, since there is no actual person or thing that it (also) needs to represent. As fake as we know they are, corporate mascots can create a very authentic organizational voice.

And, an added benefit is that these corporate characters and brand mascots never do anything embarrassing (like insider trading, or infidelity, or sock puppetry) that might besmirch the corporate brand. Thus, we have the Andrex Puppy, Travelocity’s RoamingGnome, and comparethemarket.com’s meerkat Alexsandr Orlove (pictured at left).

And then we have @Shamu.

You know @Shamu. He’s “the killer whale” who represents SeaWorld on Twitter.

Up until the tragic death of trainer Dawn Brancheau at SeaWorld, @Shamu was the beguiling voice of SeaWorld on Twitter. Charming, funny, and popular, @Shamu voiced the fun side of SeaWorld, the promise of entertainment, wonder, and awe.

Who anticipated that any of SeaWorld’s orcas (all called Shamu) might actually kill a human being? And who had a plan for how to respond? Nobody.

So, it’s instructive to watch how SeaWorld is using social media to respond to a tragedy that they did not predict.

1. First (as you might expect) SeaWorld suspended @Shamu’s twitter account.

2. SeaWorld explained why they suspended the account.

SeaWorld didn’t just quiet @Shamu; they shared their reasoning and offered alternative information options. From Sea World’s blog:

About a year ago SeaWorld launched a Twitter account giving voice to Shamu. In part because of his worldwide celebrity and in part because of his ability to find humor in the world around him, @Shamu has gained a significant following on Twitter. Many of his most loyal followers have noted his absence from Twitter since the tragic events of Wednesday, February 24 at SeaWorld Orlando.

At this difficult time, @Shamu will not be active on Twitter, as users who follow@Shamu have come to expect posts that are light-hearted and perhaps a bit quirky. SeaWorld’s other accounts, including @SeaWorld_Parks, will remain active and regular updates will be communicated through Twitter and other social networking platforms.

We will continue to provide information in this space on our review of this incident and the changes to our procedures that may progress from it. We thank you for the thousands of messages of support during this extraordinarily difficult time.

In their explanation, SeaWorld acknowledged (however subtly) the disparity between @Shamu ‘the character’ and the reality of how a live orca at Sea World actually behaved.

In this blog post (above) as well as on Facebook, you can hear an authentic human voice from Sea World.

3. While they temporarily closed the @Shamu account, SeaWorld is keeping their Facebook page open. Stakeholders still have active access to the organization.

As Beth Kassab, Business Columnist at the Orlando Sentinal writes in her comprehensive account of the situation:

Promising to answer critics so directly may seem like a nightmare to many companies, but SeaWorld is seizing on the opportunity to try to shape the conversation about its business.

4. SeaWorld is using social media to respond to negative as well as supportive comments about the tragedy. And, they are continuing to discuss issues related to the orcas and the employees of SeaWorld.

To SeaWorld’s advantage, they have already been engaged with customers and critics in ongoing conversations about issues where SeaWorld and other stakeholders are at odds. You can see from their conversations on Facebook as well as from their digital profile, SeaWorld has been participating actively in conversations about whether whales should be kept in captivity and used for entertainment.

Agree or disagree with SeaWorld’s perspective or on their next steps, you can engage them about it.

What can we learn from @Shamu?

What we know about effective crisis management is that organizations that keep responding instead of going silent sustain– and can even increase– their stakeholders’ trust in them. Even though the @Shamu account went silent, SeaWorld has stayed in the conversation.

We also know that effective crisis management is not defensive, but instead takes a learning posture. As long as SeaWorld stays in an authentic conversation with stakeholders, they make it possible to sustain or rebuild the good relationships they already with their stakeholders.

What can we learn about authenticity and social media in a crisis?

It will be interesting to see what SeaWorld learns. Certainly, SeaWorld (and everyone else watching them) will learn something about how to use social media to address a crisis. Since the organization has already been actively engaged in conversations about conservation, animal rights, and so on, it’s unclear what new perspective they’ll get on these issues as they are triggered anew by this tragedy.

But while SeaWorld as an organization may not learn, say or do anything more on these issues than it already has, all of those engaging online with SeaWorld will themselves be learning… about SeaWorld’s position on these issues and on SeaWorld’s commitment to its community.

In general, corporations take a hyper-rational, calculative approach to managing risk. It’s all about prediction and prevention, which is fine. But, prediction and prevention are never 100% foolproof– after all, orcas might be called “killer whales” but that doesn’t mean you expect an orca in captivity to kill his human trainer. Yet, accidents happen, disasters occur, tragedy strikes.

Organizations need not only to prevent risk on social media, but also they need to use social media effectively to respond to risks they can not predict. Let’s keep listening for SeaWorld’s  authentic voice, as they continue to respond.

Oh how I love empirical research– the chance to answer burning questions, with real data, so that you can act more effectively.

Consider this new tidbit of info that I picked up over the weekend:

Full beer bottles break with less force than empty ones, so if you are going to hit someone in the head, an empty bottle is a better weapon.

For details, check this article:

Journal of Forensic and Legal Medicine
Volume 16, Issue 3, April 2009, Pages 138-142

Are full or empty beer bottles sturdier and does their fracture-threshold suffice to break the human skull?

Stephan A. Bolliger MD, Senior Forensic Pathologist, Steffen Ross MD, Radiologist, Lars Oesterhelweg MD, Forensic Pathologist, Michael J. Thali MD, Professor, Director, Forensic Pathologist and Beat P. Kneubuehl PhD, Physicist

Abstract

Beer bottles are often used in physical disputes. If the bottles break, they may give rise to sharp trauma. However, if the bottles remain intact, they may cause blunt injuries. In order to investigate whether full or empty standard half-litre beer bottles are sturdier and if the necessary breaking energy surpasses the minimum fracture-threshold of the human skull, we tested the fracture properties of such beer bottles in a drop-tower.

Full bottles broke at 30 J impact energy, empty bottles at 40 J. These breaking energies surpass the minimum fracture-threshold of the human neurocranium. Beer bottles may therefore fracture the human skull and therefore serve as dangerous instruments in a physical dispute.

I guess it is useful to have this documented so that, in a court of law, a beer bottle can be acknowledged as some kind of weapon?

It could also lead to strange, data-based suggestions for beverage regulation– e.g., only cans, no bottles, in schools in dangerous neighborhoods? Assuming that an empty soda bottle is as sturdy/dangerous as an empty beer bottle?

While I jest at the obvious conclusions one could draw from this research, if you take out the part about the skull-breaking, it’s also an interesting kind of question to pose to a budding scientist — why is a full bottle weaker? (Possible answ: pressure from fluid mechanics and additional mass due to beer itself add extra reactive force when dropped?)

beer bottles from Jackal1 on Flickr

This just in from Forbes Magazine — yet another article about why “women” don’t get promoted. (hat tip to my friend @ShaunRSmith)

Orit Gadiesh and Julie Coffman, in Why Women Don’t Make It Up The Ladder summarize several of the arguments that are advanced to explain why so few women, relative to men, get promoted up the management hierarchy. They conclude:

The mechanism for getting women into leadership positions is flawed.

The mechanism is flawed. So are the explanations that people give for why the percentage of women in managerial jobs goes from 50% to 3% from entry level manager to CEO.

Explanations or Excuses?

People have great difficulty separating explanations from excuses. Explanations tell us what is happening. Excuses tell us what people want us to believe is happening.

Here’s one “explanation”

“The reality is that in any group of equally competent and talented men and women of the same tenure, women who have taken time off or worked part-time for family reasons lack equal experience, by definition. That matters a lot when they are considered for promotion. Result: Men usually get the job.”

This is ‘explanation’ for women’s absence in top management is, quite frankly, crap.

It’s crap for two reasons–

1. This explanation suggests that employers are basically unable to determine who is better for a promotion based on job-specific criteria. Supposedly, they can’t tell the difference between “equally competent and talented men and women.”

Really? Are they just not paying attention? Or just not looking?

Perhaps organizations are unable to tell the difference simply because they are too lazy, too unskilled, or simply unwilling to make the effort to distinguish carefully between candidates.

If you think I’m crazy to suggest that employers are too lazy to make the effort to distinguish between candidates, consider this:

Study after study shows that interviews are basically useless when it comes to determining whether a person is well-qualified for a particular job. However, employers keep relying on interviews for their primary data about candidates’ ability. Why? Because it takes too much effort to identify exactly what skills are really needed for a job, and too much effort to figure out how to evaluate a person’s grasp of these skills.

This is especially true for middle and upper management jobs, which tend to be idiosyncratic enough that clear “HR” criteria are rarely already available to guide evaluations.

2. This explanation suggests that “dwell time” in a job, or a career, is an appropriate tie breaker between two otherwise “equally competent and talented candidates“. Supposedly, the amount of time you’ve spent in a job or at a company is a direct measure of ‘experience’.

Really? Does more ‘time in rank’ really mean more learning?

Perhaps organizations are just unwilling to examine if time really matters, and if it does, just what amount of time matters.

How does time matter, really?   Does ‘time in full-time job” really equal ‘experience’, and does ‘experience’ really equal ‘learning’?

No.

Especially, all other criteria being equal, a difference in the amount of full time work experience would show us the opposite of how that time difference is currently being used. If two people are equally qualified, and one took 10 years to qualify while the other took 7 years, who then is the ‘better’ candidate?

Does “time” really matter?

If time were an important criterion for promoting one of two otherwise equal candidates, why don’t we use age to decide who should get promoted?

An older candidate would have more experience, right? But would we ever promote one candidate over another similarly qualified candidate because he or she has more time on this earth and thus more ‘experience’?

I don’t think so.

So then, let’s ask: How many years’ difference really makes a difference?

Just how much of a difference in years of experience really makes a difference when it comes to someone’s ability to do the next level of a job?

Is a 2 year difference between two 35 yrs olds enough? Or a 4 year difference between two 40 year olds? Or a 6 year difference between two 50 year olds?

Because, when you think about it, the amount of time the average managerial mom is out of the workforce is not huge.

Just how many years does your average managerial mom ‘take off’ entirely if she has kids? Maybe an average of 6 years? How about those moms who go part-time for a while? What’s the average mommy-track stint? (Maybe, let’s be generous here, it’s all of 8 years? That translates into 4 years less ‘experience’.)

Is that enough to disqualify this mom from being promoted? Or from being considered for higher level work?

We should also ask, how long should this time difference matter? How many times does this time difference get used as decision criteria? Isn’t it possible that, at some point, a candidate demonstrates that regardless of the number of years she’s been a VP, that she has now demonstrated the ability to be promoted to EVP?

I’m thinking that this whole ‘explanation’ of time and ‘experience’ as the tie-breaker is not an ‘explanation’ but rather an excuse.

– Maybe, instead, organizations are unwilling to do the work it takes to distinguish among candidates.

– Maybe organizations are unwilling to put the effort into exploring just what difference 2, 4 or 6 years actually makes in a person’s ability to be promoted, and for how long that difference should matter.

– Maybe organizations should make more of an effort to understand what really matters to doing the next job well.

Perhaps we should stop talking about why ‘women’ don’t move up the ladder, and start focusing on why organizations won’t promote women.

What do you think?

For another view, see:
Pushing Ourselves to the Top of the Corporate Ladder at TheMamaBee.
Photo credits:
Old Ladder by Bahhumbug on Flicker
SwimmingPoolClock by TimmSuess on Flickr

Ever since I poked the beehive back in August with my post about Walmart and Girl Scout cookies, my blog and I have been receiving angry comments from people who just hate the Girl Scouts. It’s one thing to be angry at Walmart, but the Girl Scouts? I don’t understand…

Why is there so much anger directed at the Girl Scouts?

All this anger directed at the Girl Scouts (and given an outlet by my series of posts on Thin Minty-gate) really upsets me. It upsets me so much that I can’t  bear to read the 250+ comments on the original post. It upsets me enough that when a new cookie comment comes in, I ignore it.

Maybe these comments upset me because I was once a Girl Scout, and I’ve also been an adult Girl Scout volunteer? But I know that this anger isn’t directed at me– it’s directed at the Girl Scouts as an organization. That’s the problem.

In which I try, valiantly, to understand why someone would be angry at the Girl Scouts

Some of this anger is very person-specific. Individuals have written about bad experiences they had as Scouts, or bad experiences they had with Scout leaders, or even anger about ordering cookies that were never delivered. Many (but not all) of this Girl Scout hating can be traced back to some unique experience of that particular person. Maybe it triggered that person’s childhood wounds. Maybe their anger reflects some kind of problem that isn’t really ‘about’ the Girl Scouts but instead is more about them as individuals.

What concerns me more is the anger that is directed at the Girl Scouts of the USA as an organization.

People seem to be angry at the Girl Scouts for having computer systems, clean well-lighted offices, campgrounds with plumbing that needs repair, or anything else that seems to cost money. I guess these people don’t understand that in order to do background checks on potential troop leaders, or to insure campers on overnight trips, there’s got to be some infrastructure back there somewhere.

People also seem to be angry that the Girl Scouts have real managers who earn actual salaries. They are angry that these managers are paid with money that the Girl Scouts raise through cookie sales at the local level and and other fund raising initiatives nationally. I guess these Girl Scout haters are angry that the Girl Scouts think that they deserve professional, full time administrators?

I just don’t understand what could possibly evoke all this anger towards the organization. Certainly, the Girl Scouts aren’t quite up to speed in terms of cutting edge management techniques or fund raising. Certainly, the Girls Scouts as an organization is not quite as good as Procter & Gamble, or Keebler, in branding and marketing its products. Certainly, the Girl Scouts have struggled, along with so many youth organizations, to stay relevant in today’s entertainment-oriented digitally focused kid culture. But none of these challenges that the Girl Scouts face should generate anger at them.

Maybe some of this animus will dissipate with the Girl Scouts’ Every Cookie Has A Mission campaign. Maybe some of this anger will dissipate as the Girl Scout organization unrolls its rebranding campaign. Then again, maybe some people would be less angry at the Girl Scouts if they were less distrustful of the claim that young girls need to learn leadership skills, and business skills, and contribute to their community.

Whatever the cause, this anger is hurting the Girl Scouts as an organization. This anger gets in the way of the Girls Scouts’ ability to pursue their mission. This anger hampers the Girl Scouts’ ability to connect with their larger community though fund-raising. And, it hampers the Girl Scouts’ ability to recruit volunteer leaders and to support the girls themselves.

I suspect that most of this anger is misinformed, misguided and misplaced. But, I don’t really know what to do about it.

Does anyone have any insight about why some people are angry at the Girls Scouts? Or ideas on what the Girl Scouts as an organization can do to address it?

I’d love to hear your thoughts on this.

See also:

Thin Mint-y Gate: Wal-mart’s Socia Media Opportunity
Can Walmart Earn the Girl Scouts’ Good Citizenship Award?
Girl Scouts Rebrand Their Cookies: “Every Cookie Has A Mission”
Wal-Mart and Girl Scout Cookies: Thin-Minty Gate (by Bob Sutton at WorkMatters)

The ‘Brand of Men’s Figure Skating’ is broken.

The brand lacks coherence, it isn’t compelling, and sometimes it isn’t even attractive. And it’s all because of what those guys wear.

In an ideal world, the Brand of Men’s Figure Skating reflects a hearty frisson between between the brand’s two defining attributes: Athleticism & Artistry.

Althleticism & Artistry = Masculinity

To reflect the ideal Brand of Men’s Figure Skating, skaters need to blend Athleticism and Artistry into a desirable “masculinity”.

Supposedly, the ‘problem’ with the Brand of Men’s Figure Skating is that is isn’t consistently masculine enough. Masculinity is either one thing or another. The contest of masculinities plays out between the two competing icons of American Men’s Figures skating, Evan and Johnny.  It’s either the the rugged and spray-tanned Lysacek or the feathered and flighty Johnny Weir.

But the problem the Brand is not a question of leather or lace, people!

It’s a problem of the narrative themes and the kinds of characters that the skaters choose to express in their skating.

Every skating program tells a story, and every story has a main character.

Male figure skaters create their program’s character in their costumes. The costumes — the clothing– go a long way in creating the Brand of Men’s Figure Skating.

To a mind that’s not stuck in a closet, there are many powerful expressions of masculinity out there on Olympic ice.

We’re got the ‘muscular powerhouse’, the ‘rugged athlete’, the ‘expressive primo uomo‘, and the ’steroidal rush of the exuberant youth’. All are masculine archetypes. All are combos of Athleticism & Artistry.

All of these archetypes or characters allow male skaters to reflect, in in his own expressive way, the core attributes of the Brand of Men’s Figure Skating.

But what about the other characters? What about:

The Marionette?
The Clown?
The Scarecrow?
The Mime?

Does anyone really think that there is masculine way to be Athletic & Artistic as a puppet?

What about those other silly costumes? What about:

The Pirate? Fine.

Prince Valiant? Sure.

The Matador? Hot, hot, hot.

Michael Jackson? Okay, we can work with that.

Odette/Odile/Ondine/Bjiork? Get me my bedazzler, and bring me a box of tissues.

But these characters? –

Pagliacci?   No.
Pinocchio?    No.
Howdy Doody? A thousand times NO.

There is nothing appealingly masculine, or athletic & artistic, about a buffoon. Or a toy that jumps only when someone pulls his strings.

If the International Skating Union wants to improve the Brand of Men’s Figure Skating they don’t need to rag on Johnny Weir and his pink corset lacing. They need to get rid of the archetypes that can’t ever be masculine, no matter what Athletic or Artistic tropes they invoke.

Quad, schmod.

Don’t dither over whether a few feathers will draw our attention away from your competence, or better, your brilliance. And don’t start with a character that’s spineless, clueless or forever silly — you’ll never get to a masculinity that’s inspiring or compelling that way. Instead,

Give us decent characters, and decent costumes.  Show us skating that represents the range of masculinity of the Brand of Men’s Figure Skating.

Send OUT the clowns, I say.

See also: Johnny Weir Skates Routine of His Life, Gets Screwed by Judges [Gawker TV]

The Girl Scouts have been busy with their organizational re-branding efforts. With the start of the 2010 Cookie Season, they have a new branding campaign specifically designed to make Girl Scout cookies meaningful.

Back when I wrote the post Wal-Mart Knocks Off the Girl Scouts, about Walmart entering into competition with the Girls Scouts on their iconic Thin Mint cookies, I received scads of angry comments about the prices of Girl Scout cookies. I also got many snarky thank yous for letting people know that reasonably good facsimiles of Girl Scouts’ Thin Mints were available as part of Walmart’s ‘Great Value’ private label offerings.

Beyond the unnecessary anger these comments reflected, they did point out a big problem for the Girls Scouts and their cookies– people had started to treat the Girl Scouts’ Thin Mints like regular, ordinary cookies.

Girl Scout cookies, to these readers, were not something special that commanded a high price point or that made a contribution to anything but your waist measurements.

Now, the Girl Scouts themselves are taking the lead in getting their message out. The Girl Scouts have launched a cookie based branding campaign:

“Every Cookie Has a Mission:
To Help Girls Do Great Things”

The campaign includes a few terrific videos, some collateral material (for putting stories into local newspapers) and a significant effort to promote a consistent message. I have no inside information about the campaign per se, but my online searching has shown me that the message is widespread and consistent across regional and local Girl Scouts’ web & print presentations.

We can’t tell yet whether the cookie videos will really “go viral” in the true sense of the term. But, the “Every Cookie Has a Mission” videos are certainly charming, inspiring and to the point.

Take a look at this Cookie video yourself (it’s only 30 seconds long).

The Girls Scouts do need to raise their profile, (re)educate the community about the work the Girl Scouts themselves do, and enducate the community about what Girl Scouting offers to girls and to the larger community.

All of these messages should help the public understand why they should support the Girl Scouts.

Cookies + Mission = Great Branding

Attaching the “Mission” to the cookies themselves is terrific strategy. Girl Scout Cookies, and Thin Mints in particular, have their own cultural capital and celebrity. With the additional branding efforts, the Cookies that Have a Mission communication the meaning of  not only the iconic symbol of the Girl Scouts, or the chief fundraiser for the Girl Scouts, but also the meaning of the Girl Scouts themselves.

Instead of just having a Thin Mint cookie, you can have a part in the Girl Scouts’ mission to teach leadership skills, teach business skills, and help girls contribute to their communities.

An added benefit? Customers can focus on the mission of the cookies, and not their cost or their calorie counts.

Now, when customers see that the ‘real’ Thin Mints cost 25% more than the national brand ones (e.g., Keebler’s) and 35% more than the Walmart private label ones, they might understand that the price is related not just to the cookie, but to the meaning behind the cookie, to the values the cookie represents, to the activities the cookies support.

After watching this video, do you think you’ll be more inclined to buy Girl Scout cookies?

Because, you know, you wouldn’t be buying a chocolate wafer with a melty mint coating. You’d be buying a Cookie That Has a Mission.  So be prepared, and plan to buy lots of cookies.

Here’s the extended, more poignant version, “What Can A Cookie Do?” (1.25 secs)

What do fledgling entrepreneurs need to know about creating authenticity? And what, if anything, does this have to do with cupcakes?

I had a chance to try to boil it all down to a few key ideas when I taught two classes of an undergraduate Entrepreneurship course at NYU’s Stern School of Business. My colleague, networks and entrepreneurship scholar David Obstfeld, teaches a ‘hands-on plus case study’ course in Entrepreneurship where students create business teams, launch online Amazon stores, and donate their profits to a charity. Starting and running their own real businesses, even if only briefly over a term or two, gives these students a chance to put into practice some of the concepts they are learning in their BBA program in general and as fledgling entrepreneurs in particular.

Professor Obstfeld has me come and lecture (lead a conversation, really) about “Creating Authentic Presence“. The conversation is one part marketing, one part authenticity, and one part social media. What students expect we’ll be talking about is how to market their stores using social media. What they get is (I hope) an awareness of how they can create really compelling businesses by finding the connections between their stores, their teams and themselves.

There is so much that comes out in this conversation that it’s hard to limit it to just one ‘takeaway’. But, it seems that the general ‘aha’ for students is the idea that they can — and should– link

(1) what they sell with
(2) how they organize themselves as a team, and with
(3) who they are as individuals.

What should link these three elements is some kind of shared, consonant meaning. If the meaning of one piece is embedded in the meaning of the other two, and if all three are reasonably well aligned, the entrepreneurs’ business activities will be more fun, more meaningful, and more competitive.

Embedded meaning in a trio of Brands

We talk about the concepts of personal, product and organizational meaning using the language of brands and branding. Despite my bias against focusing on brand before identity, branding language helps build on what students already know from their marketing classes and from being educated consumers more generally. So, we tak about a store/product ‘brand’, an organizational/team ‘brand’ and a personal ‘brand’.

The students all start with a solid understanding of how to develop a business idea, by identifying and selling products to fulfill a customer need. That’s marketing 101, and entrepreneurship 101. They think that entrepreneurship is largely about crafting a compelling business idea and getting that up and running.

It’s the other two pieces that seem to catch the students’ attention as something ‘new’.

First, students seem caught by the idea that who they are as a business team — as these particular 4 or 5 students, as entrepreneurs, as experts on the market niche, as fundraisers for a charity — would have anything to do with defining, significant qualities of the business that they create. Student entrepreneurs tend to underestimate how much the ways that they work together will show up (intentionally or unintentionally) in the way their storefront looks, in the products within their storefront, and in what’s communicated by their storefront to online potential customers.

And, students are often surprised when I argue that who they are as individuals — the characteristics that are distinctive, and significant, and meaningful about each one of *them* – has so much to do not only with the stuff they sell but also with the qualities of their student team as an organization.

What I try to help the student entrepreneurs wrap their minds around is the idea that product (store), organization (their team), and person (themselves as entrepreneurs) work best together when they are intentionally connected by some thread of shared meaning.

Finding meaning in cupcakes

For example, one team has created a cupcake baking supply store — everything a person needs to enjoy his or her cupcake fetish (except for the cupcake itself).

There should be reasons why their particular team chose to create a cupcake baking supply store as opposed to any other kind of potentially profitable storefront. These reasons should be linked with the reasons why each of them as an individual chose to be part of this team. These two sets of reasons should resonate with  what their store is actually selling. In this case, their store is not selling cupcake tins, or colored sugars; It is selling the d.i.y. pride, the sense of indulgence, and the sheer beauty that their cupcake baking customers are searching for.

It’s easy to see this connection graphically, using embedded circles, but harder to see this connection across the levels of their entrepreneurial activity.

Using Social Media to Create Presence

As it happens, the process for establishing their business’s presence online, using social media, actually invites students to start to look for the connections between themselves, their team as an organization, and their stores. Knowing your own distinctive qualities, your own core values, the meaning that you look for, all help you establish your business’s presence online.

Because they are time constrained, the entrepreneurs have to begin their online marketing efforts by piggy-backing on their personal social networks and their own online voices. These entrepreneurs become brandividuals. They discover that a little self-reflection and a little self-awareness help them communicate not what their business ‘is’, but rather what their business is really all ‘about’.

The student entrepreneurs should discover that creating a presence for their stores using social media is not about promoting their stores or finding customers. Instead, creating a presence for their stores is about clarifying and expressing what makes their stores distinctive, significant and meaningful.

Which, in my view, makes business easier, more fun, and more authentic.

Blue cupcakes by QuintanaRoo on Flickr