Michael Hiles

Political Altruism vs. Ulterior Motives

Michael Hiles — Tue, 17 Apr 2012 00:46:00 GMT

It's pretty amusing to observe the scurrilous behavior of certain kinds of people who cannot make sense of being confronted by someone working to undermine the stranglehold their own ulterior motives in a given situation when their opponant has no ulterior motive of their own. The scoundrels look for some hidden agenda and try to make connections or draw conclusions - because they, themselves live... their lives with the hidden motives. They're incapable of comprehending that someone would cross swords with them over nothing more than an altruistic intention for the greater good of the whole vs. personal gain. When they cannot rationalize some sort of motivation similar to their own worldview, they invent and promote one.

But when their adversary is unafraid of their attack, like any other bully, they become confused and lose their ability to engage in combat. They're so used to people tucking and running, they've forgotten what it's like to be challenged by someone who stands their ground.

I hate to pick on any specific demographic or generalize, but it seems more commonplace among baby boomer generation political types in particular. For some reason, I think that generation is generally so self-absorbed with the whole "me" thing and their entitlement mindset - as evidenced from the radical decline of our nation as a whole under their leadership (if that's what you can call it).

They're so blinded by their own desire for the spotlight and their self-aggrandizing nature lulls them into some irrational... nay... almost DELUSIONAL sense of superiority. When their self-inflated sense of authority is challenged and exposed, the bully tactics kick in - up to and including outright defamation of character and passive aggressive accusations. They know no boundaries, yet the world around them laughs at their struggle against an adversary who understand the bigger picture, and has already placed landmines in their entire battlefield ahead of time in anticipation of their reaction.

Because of their bullying tactics, nobody is really going to work hard to come to their defense.

Shamat. The king is dead.

:-)

Haters Gonna' Hate

Michael Hiles — Sat, 31 Mar 2012 12:04:00 GMT

Take a position on something... anything.

Now you realize that you just alienated half of the population with your choice. The subject doesn't matter... which candidate you want to win in an election... which sports team will win the championship... heck, even this blog post.

You say black... someone will say white. You say up... someone will say down. You say yes, someone will say no. You say Apple, someone will say PC.

That's just humanity.

When a person attempts to appeal to everyone, they lose the depth necessary for their ideas or their message to have any real substance or meaning.

In fact, as a genuine leader, the more polarizing and direct that you can be, the smaller your initial audience is going to be. Fewer people will accept a more radical message.

But those who do sign on at this stage are your true fans. They're your true customers. These are the people who will rally around you and build your movement. They're the ones who will carry your message to everyone else. These are the passionate individuals who will support your cause and spend money with your business.

You're not trying to appeal to the whole world, you want the smaller group who loves you and believes in you for who you really are.

In fact, as a true leader, spending time attempting to convince someone who doesn't align with your beliefs is generally a wasted effort. Not because you can't change their mind at some level - but you've lost the opportunity spent finding the true believer vs. converting someone who may or may not genuinely stick.

Yes, I did just tell you to stop wasting time trying to convince a person that your idea is a good one. A true leader spends their time looking for more fans.

Why?

Let the fans do the convincing later on down the road. They're the ones who are committed, and will work tirelessly to defend the movement. These disciples will create the us vs. them culture on your behalf.

As a leader, your job is to build the movement, which starts with the core base. Build the community.Create a message that will resonate with your true customer.

In the end, people who hate your ideas will always exist. Let your army of fans engage in the battle. Spend your time embracing that army, empowering them, nurturing them.

Give them the ammunition they need to fight for the ideas that were once yours, but are now their own.

They'll charge up the hill towards the enemy.

Marketing Imagination by Theodore Levitt

Michael Hiles — Thu, 29 Mar 2012 07:57:00 GMT

This book was one of... no... probably THE first book I ever really read about marketing. I think I was maybe 18 or 19. Little did I realize back then what an impact this book would have on me and my entire career. I re-read this book almost yearly, and it reminds me again and again what an advanced thinker Ted Levitt was and how his ideas continue to shape business today.

Some people think that Levitt's ideas are outdated now, but I contend that the folks who believe this aren't as strategic in their thinking, and are looking for a more tactical-level, silver bullet "how to" guide vs. a high level approach to business enterprise development and growth.

This book taught me the fundamentals of why marketing is the essence of entrepreneurship itself. Marketing is the reason a business even exists.

I find that other marketing/business scholars and writers like Al Ries, Jack Trout and Tom Peters, are citing ideas first touted by Ted Levitt.

Levitt's landmark paper, Marketing Myopia, was published in 1960 in the Harvard Business Review. To my knowledge, that was the first time a business maven openly suggested the idea of focusing on the customer and not the product. Even before the heyday of the Mad Men era, we have Ted Levitt already questioning the fundamentals of the Golden Age of Advertising and its Don Draper titans of contortionist psychology.

In 1960, the concept of focusing on a customer's needs vs. having a product-centric focus was a very revolutionary idea. Of course, today it's quite commonplace in marketing discussions - but not as much as one would think. Particularly in the technology sector, it's easy for a startup or emerging company to become so narrowly focused on what it is they're creating, they forget about who they're creating it for and what it's supposed to solve.

It is a normal phenomenon for companies to believe they're in the business of the specific products and services they offer. However, Ted's genius was to demonstrate just how this approach was a recipe for a business's inevitable doom. By defining the value proposition of a business around the specific needs the products and services actually fulfill for its customers, the company is more likely to survive generational and technological shifts.

ISBN-10: 0029190908
ISBN-13: 978-0029190906
LAST READ: January, 2012
RATING: 10/10

GET IT ON AMAZON: Marketing Imagination, by Theodore Levitt

What the hell is wrong with Don Draper?

Michael Hiles — Wed, 28 Mar 2012 10:56:00 GMT

I used to like Mad Men. Don't get me wrong, Mad Men is a decent show - one of my favorites. But I also used to like it because Don Draper was written as the consummate pitch man. I really loved the hardcore marketing psychology.

But I recently had an epiphany. Don really wasn't that great of a marketing professional after all. All of his time was spent trying to polish the proverbial turd.

In that era, advertising was the afterthought. It's what people did long after the product had been conceived and produced. It was already pumped through the distribution channels and into reach of the consumer. All that was left for the company to do was to hire a mind mechanic like Don Draper to spin the product up into mainstream consciousness.

Do you see what's wrong with this process?

You don't tack marketing onto the product as an afterthought. It's not like some ornament you hang on a Christmas tree to pretty things up a bit.

Marketing IS the product. Marketing is the reason the product exists in the first place. Marketing is the genesis of the product... it's the solution to the customer's problem. Marketing should be guiding every step the company makes along the way. Marketing should be driving everything from day one.

If Don Draper was really that smart of a guy, he would have told his clients to call him the next time they've identified a need or a problem with a very specific targeted customer so he could be involved in the entire process as it progressed forward. That's a much better position than having the entire thing dumped in your lap in the eleventh hour with the directive to go make it huge.

No wonder Don drank like a fish. Here you thought it was to ease his guilty conscience and quiet his inner demons.

Yes, I deleted my old blog

Michael Hiles — Thu, 01 Mar 2012 05:22:00 GMT

I deleted my old blog.

I deleted the entire site.

I hated it.

It didn't represent who I really was, or what I wanted to say.

Yes, I did have some interesting thoughts published on that blog. In fact, there were a lot of articles and comments from people who really liked what I had to say.

But it wasn't what I really wanted to say.

I was trying to be something that I don't really want to be anymore.

You see, I came up in an era where old school business still ruled. To me, everything was about the old school way of doing business.

But that has all changed. Business has changed. Marketing has changed. Technology has changed everything.

So now I am launching my new site.

I want it to be a better representation of who I am as a person, a businessman, an individual.

It really doesn't make sense to talk about authenticity if you're not actually being authentic.

BOOM!

MYSP.TV... Community And Content For A Vertical Niche

Michael Hiles — Thu, 12 Jan 2012 12:42:00 GMT

Since November of 2011, I've been working on a new project called MYSP.TV.

It’s an amalgamation of different ideas that came to me sitting at the Bearcat Lounge on the University of Cincinnati campus following the recent Cincinnati SharePoint Saturday.

After a great day of presentations and conversations, there I was around the lounge table with Mike Smith from MaxTrain (also one of the great folks behind the Cincinnati SharePoint User’s Group), Nick Ingles from the Association for Information and Image Management, Stephanie Donahue of ICI, and Stacy Deere of Focal Point Solutions, CA Callahan, and some other folks.

A common theme after a SharePoint Saturday event… (SHAREPINT ANYONE?!?!? Bueller??? Bueller???)

It occurred to me that the conversation taking place was filled with awesomesauce, and I wished I had my video camera going. Some bonafide SharePoint gurus talking shop WITHOUT all the pomp and circumstance of the standup presentation “game face”.

Raw, uncut, live.

Then it hit me... being a content marketing, social media strategy kind of thinker, I am keenly aware of the blogsphere and new media that’s been growing for years. Things like Leo LaPorte's TwitTV… And of course… Revision3 TV, which started with Jason Rose’s "Diggnation" (which has now sadly now come to an end).

THAT’S IT!!

A more “in your face” non-corporatey web show about SharePoint that wasn’t the snoozefest that you find when Googling "sharepoint video”.

The community already exists, I’m not inventing anything here. It’s a HUGE community. And like all great web communities, it’s local, regional, national, and global as well! Stuff is going on all the time, all over the place.

So there it is! A “Diggnation” sort of show focused on the people, places, events, news, happenings, and other fun stuff surrounding the SharePoint community at large.

Theres a little more background here. I've been helping DSC Consulting figure out a new business development strategy that leverages the strengths of the company into something different… bigger… better… we have the technology. We can rebuild him.

Having done a whole bunch of SharePoint branding projects for companies like P&G, we were “sort of in the SharePoint business”. But not as “bonafide SharePoint consultants” per se. We got into SharePoint because we responded to a request from P&G to provide them with a user experience solution for the SharePoint environment… a hundred projects later we sort of have a feel for what’s going on.

DSC’s creative background is stuff like graphic design, web user interfaces, and… get this… a full video production group. BOOYAHH!! Take the strengths of their involvement with SharePoint… but get out of the actual SharePoint business (That’s a completely different story… one that will take several tall rounds of a nice pilsner for me to tell). Combine our exposure to the SharePoint world with our incredibly talented video production group… and VOILA! We’ve got a show!

Of course this thing has to be self-sustaining, so that means we need a revenue model. I’m not the long lost nephew of Sir Richard Branson, so we’ve actually got to generate some operating capital to pay for this video production stuff. Jetsetting around to cities all over the place to capture the who, what, when, where, and how of the latest and greatest SharePoint stuff is not going to be cheap. This means… sponsors. (HINT HINT ALL YOU SHAREPOINT ISVs!!!)

So there it is… the birth of an idea. We have the means, the intent, the wherewithal.