Marketing and Technology Blog

Is Technology Changing Our Mental Processes?

paulbarsch@yahoo.com (Paul Barsch) — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 14:44:00 +0000

Technology allows us to find, access and absorb more information than ever before. But Multi-tasking and constant use of internet, video games and “always-on” technologies may be rewiring our brains in unintended ways. By clicking and skimming our way through the internet we could be losing our ability to concentrate and contemplate—in a sense, training our minds to be more like a computer.

Is the use of technology changing the way you think? read more

The Sharpest Blade in the Block?

paulbarsch@yahoo.com (Paul Barsch) — Fri, 03 Oct 2008 21:28:00 +0000

How do you keep a blade sharp that’s constantly used? You have to keep sharpening it. So it goes then, the mantra for keeping your public speaking skills sharp is-- lots of practice.

Public speaking skills should be kept sharp at all times. I have found many times when I've been required to give ad-hoc presentations, or presentations with 24 hours notice. While I may have time to dust off a set of slides and memorize key points, I don't always have time to prepare my public speaking skills--especially in front of an audience.

I find that the more I speak in public, the more comfortable I am in front of audiences. I feel that no matter the audience size (100+, 50, or 20), if I am well practiced, then at least that’s one checkbox I don’t have to worry about when called to “present”.

I look for weekly opportunities to present. I put myself out there. Civic groups, chambers, clubs, classrooms...

In public speaking, practice doesn’t make perfect, since I’m not sure there’s a “perfect speech”. But practice does allow for confidence, poise and presence. Practice much, present well.

Is the Speed of Decision Making Accelerating?

paulbarsch@yahoo.com (Paul Barsch) — Fri, 26 Sep 2008 15:19:00 +0000

As the forces of globalization continue to connect and intertwine commercial and financial markets, and new technologies come online in the marketplace, the time between “event” and “action” is rapidly closing.

In the past, managers could take weeks or days to make important decisions, however to effectively compete globally, some companies are making critical decisions in hours, minutes or even seconds. With windows for decision making closing faster than ever—are your decision making processes setting you up for success—or failure? read more

Are Web 2.0 Tools Are Rotting Our Brains?

paulbarsch@yahoo.com (Paul Barsch) — Fri, 19 Sep 2008 21:36:00 +0000

In a world of “always-on” instant messaging, email, social networks and other tools, are we potentially rewiring our brains in a negative manner?

I have the privilege in two weeks time to interview Dr. Gary Small, a brain and memory researcher at UCLA on the topic of whether our active use of internet technologies is rewiring our brains in a negative manner.

I’ve contended in the past that too much social networking isn’t a good thing.

Stay tuned to see what Dr. Small has to say about these technology trends and what could be occurring in our brains as a result.

Marketers—What’s in Your Supply Chain?

paulbarsch@yahoo.com (Paul Barsch) — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 14:24:00 +0000

Marketers need line of sight into their supply chains to protect their brands and improve marketing ROI

With global sourcing strategies in place, companies often assemble finished goods from raw materials from hundreds of suppliers. However, not all suppliers act ethically, and some take short-cuts in quality control. In order to properly manage our brands and take ownership of the “customer experience”—marketers need visibility into the supply chain. Do you know what’s in your supply chain? read more

Data Visualization Techniques - For the Masses

paulbarsch@yahoo.com (Paul Barsch) — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 16:59:00 +0000

A new website offers the ability for researchers, scientists, teachers or just about anyone to input data and use an online visualization application to watch data come to life!

Data by itself is often uninteresting - especially massive amounts of it. Sophisticated applications alongside powerful databases are often necessary to analyze the data and display it in comprehendible formats.

The New York Times reports in "Lines and Bubbles and Bars, Oh My! New Ways to Sift Data" of a website that is now available to help create and share visuals of data.

The article notes, "At an experimental Web site, Many Eyes, (http://www.many-eyes.com/), users can upload the data they want to visualize, then try sophisticated tools to generate interactive displays. These might range from maps of relationships in the New Testament to a display of the comparative frequency of words used in speeches by Senators Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama."

Why data visualization? The article sums it up, "Presenting results in a static spreadsheet or table may do the job. But sometimes it’s like driving with your eyes closed. With visualization, it might be possible to open your eyes and see something that will help you— for instance, patterns, clusters, gaps or outliers in the data."

Try wheeling your latest data set over to this website --you might uncover something significant!

Marketers- Why Do We Trust Photographs?

paulbarsch@yahoo.com (Paul Barsch) — Sun, 31 Aug 2008 17:56:00 +0000

With "photoshopped" digital pictures the norm, why do we trust photographs in the first place?

The expression, “a picture is worth 1,000 words,” is often attributed to either Napoleon Bonaparte, or Russian writer Ivan Turgenev. This saying is meant to convey the power and impact of a single image in replacing pages of text.

However recent fake photographs from the 2008 Olympics, or the Iranian government show how easy it is to manipulate reality—thereby altering impressions and changing the conversation towards a particular point of view. It’s quite easy to manipulate photographs, so why do we trust them in the first place? read more

The Power of Easy: Lessons from Kindle

paulbarsch@yahoo.com (Paul Barsch) — Fri, 22 Aug 2008 17:50:00 +0000

Amazon’s Kindle device roll-out and subsequent sales successes highlight to all marketers the need to keep it simple and keep it easy.

Saul Hansell from the New York Times recently posted regarding some apparent successes Amazon is having with the release of their Kindle product. For those unfamiliar with Kindle, it’s a wireless reader device that’s able to download e-books in a flash.

While Amazon has been coy with sales results thus far, the article notes that Citibank’s Mark Mahaney has just doubled his forecast of Kindle sales for the year to 380,000.

Whether the real amount is half that much, it’s hard to argue that this particular roll-out has been a failure.

So what makes Kindle attractive?

-- It’s easy to download books – just a few clicks on a free wireless network
-- It’s easy to read books on the back-lit screen
-- It’s easy to store many books in memory; a library at your fingertips
-- It’s easy to carry –one device instead of hundreds of books

The real power of Kindle is—to steal a tag line from Staples—is that “it’s easy”. It’s easy to access books, it’s convenient, it’s not heavy, and books ultimately cost less than hardcopies.

Will Kindle take off and become a billion dollar business? Hard to say, but we marketers could take some lessons from Kindle regarding keeping our products out of the complexity trap.

What are you doing to harness the “Power of Easy”?

Behavioral Targeting - Where is the Fine Line?

paulbarsch@yahoo.com (Paul Barsch) — Fri, 15 Aug 2008 17:30:00 +0000

When it comes to behavioral targeting (using clickstream data), where is the fine line of benefit vs. “big brother”?

Behavioral targeting has caught the attention of the US congressional leaders, as privacy advocates grow concerned with the tremendous amount of web data collected by internet businesses such as ISPs and search engines. Consumers, lawyers, congressional leaders, and businesses are now opining regarding necessary disclosures and the appropriateness of targeting offers/advertising based on web visits and/or queries. read more

Will Laptop-less Meetings Provide More Productivity?

paulbarsch@yahoo.com (Paul Barsch) — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 15:44:00 +0000

In Silicon Valley and all over the United States, laptops and other tools like Smartphones are banned from meetings. Will it make a difference in meeting/worker productivity?

A LA Times article, “Meetings going ‘topless’”, describes a recent trend of meeting organizers banning laptops, cell phones, pagers and other devices in the name of getting people to pay attention. In some meetings, colleagues are encouraged to leave their devices at the door, while in others internet hubs are removed.

The article quotes, Sue Fox, author of Business Etiquette for Dummies. “Face-to-face meetings have become a low priority because they’re constantly being interrupted by technology, and many people can’t figure out what to do. What’s more important – the gadget or the person, or people, you’re with?”

In my estimation, a laptop-less meeting environment could serve a few purposes:
- Shorter meetings – one hour meetings could be condensed to thirty minutes
-- More productivity- full attention could be served on the issue at hand
-- Better intrapersonal communication- looking people in the eye when you talk to them instead of staring at a computer screen might actually help foster stronger relationships

While laptop-less meetings are making headway in Silicon Valley, transformation like this for the rest of corporate America won’t be easy.

What do you think? Laptop-less meetings – worth the trouble?

Advanced Speech Technologies - Peril or Promise?

paulbarsch@yahoo.com (Paul Barsch) — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 15:40:00 +0000

Are you lying to me? Advanced speech technologies will soon be able to predict if you're telling the truth...

Enterprises are starting to deploy advanced speech technologies that can identify when a customer is angry, confused or even lying. By listening to call center feeds, these applications are often able to troubleshoot a given situation or route the call to a live agent with a specialization in solving critical problems. But this nascent technology doesn’t always predict correctly—potentially causing even greater customer frustration. Are advanced speech technologies more peril than promise? read more

How Much KNOL Do We Need?

paulbarsch@yahoo.com (Paul Barsch) — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 17:47:00 +0000

Will the launch of Google's KNOL turn everyone into a subject matter expert?

The New York Times recently did a write up on Google's launch of KNOL, a semi-competitor to Wikipedia. The difference with the KNOL knowledge management site is that entries are written by subject matter experts and the authors can choose to have their articles open for comment or edit--or not.

There is so much untapped subject matter expertise within the human mind, and the launch of wikipedia and now KNOL will help unleash some of the knowledge kept locked away in minds across the planet.

However, a fundamental question emerges. Will "wisdom of the crowds" really increase our global knowledge base or fill the internet with more clutter?

Not all knowledge is created equal, and opinions are like noses. When twenty people think they're a subject matter expert on a particular topic--say "short sales in real estate"--who should we believe?

In a Petabyte Age, Is Understanding Passé?

paulbarsch@yahoo.com (Paul Barsch) — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 18:26:00 +0000

In an era of big data, is correlation enough for decision making?

Analysts have estimated that the volume of data in enterprises of all sizes is doubling every two to three years.

With the deluge of data, some companies are finding it makes more sense to discover and act upon patterns (i.e. customers who buy item X also buy item Y), rather than dig deeper and search for causation. In an age of cloud computing and “big data”—where correlation is often sufficient to gain business results—are we losing our thirst for knowledge and understanding? read more

Ramifications of $200 Oil on Marketing

paulbarsch@yahoo.com (Paul Barsch) — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 17:32:00 +0000

What does $200 oil mean for marketers across the globe?

With the WSJ predicting the very real possibility of oil at $200 per barrel by end of the year, we know it’s going to be a bumpy ride for companies of all sizes. Companies across the board from consumer driven to industrial will feel the effects of gasoline prices nearing $6-7 a gallon.

With a list too big to enumerate, here are some of the macro effects of $150 oil…

-- Driving and commuting patterns have changed drastically
-- Employers are offering more choices in working virtually
-- Corporate travel budgets are getting whacked
-- Consumers are flocking to retail chains that are now forced to heavily discount

As companies pass along the increased costs from inflationary energy spikes, marketers will have to discern/learn how to best market in these challenging situations. What can we do?

* Take a look at our pricing models. Are we pricing cost plus, or are we pricing value? Variable pricing (based on consumption) might make huge inroads in such an economy
* Supply chain technology will be used to optimize distribution routes/costs to ensure efficient use of vehicles, fuel costs. Getting products to market—more efficiently and cost effectively will take on added importance.
* As fuel costs rise, communities will become more densely packed together, and real estate costs in those areas will increase. Suburbia no longer? Marketers will need to project and forecast the best locations for our products/services based on these new trends.
* Marketers will have to find ways to wring costs from our product manufacturing so as to improve or keep margins consistent while raising prices as little as possible
* Customer intimacy will take on added importance as marketing budgets will probably get whacked as companies look to reduce costs. Spray and pray marketing is effectively over.

These are some of my suggestions; I’d love to hear yours!

Desperately Seeking Distinction: What’s Your Advice?

paulbarsch@yahoo.com (Paul Barsch) — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 20:48:00 +0000

In a “race for distinction”—how should a marketing student stand out?

To compete for lucrative Wall Street or consulting jobs, students across the United States are joining on-campus investment clubs to help prepare them for real-world situations. And while marketing students don’t—yet—have similar clubs, students in all disciplines are racing harder and faster than ever to differentiate themselves before they graduate. read more

What Can You Learn from "Brown"?

paulbarsch@yahoo.com (Paul Barsch) — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 17:00:00 +0000

UPS is leveraging all kinds of data to improve their operations and keep their costs low. Why aren't more businesses following their lead?

As one of the premier logistics companies in the world, you would expect UPS to track their packages, and be able to, at a moment’s notice tell you where your package is—or even redirect it. But what you might not know is that UPS is not only tracking packages, they are leveraging all types of data for better decision making—and that includes data from their trucks!

Telematics is a broad field consisting of wireless communication systems for vehicles including technologies such as GPS, wireless networks, and vehicle based applications (like OnStar). All these systems work together to provide companies actionable data that can help them improve decision making.

A recent CIO magazine article titled, “UPS's New Telematics System Cuts Fuel Costs and Makes Drivers More Efficient”, shows that UPS is using telematics to not only track packages, but to use data sources from the truck itself to improve the efficiencies of its operations.

The article notes, “Those brown UPS vehicles actually contain a wealth of data drawn from more than 200 sources housed inside the trucks: sensors in the engines gathering data on vehicle speeds, RPMs, oil pressure and engine temperature. In addition, other sensors track the number of times a truck goes in reverse, what doors are open and when, the time the truck spends idling, and how and when the seatbelt is being used.”

What do they do with all this information?

“At the end of each driver's shift, all the information is uploaded to a data center in Mahwah, N.J. Then, proprietary applications using in-house developed algorithms allow UPS automotive and operations personnel to query and analyze the data and, ultimately, draw some conclusions about UPS's vehicle-maintenance and logistics processes.”

Translation: fuel savings, maintenance cost savings, and more cost savings from better logistical processes.

Many enterprises kick off as much data as UPS, but choose not to leverage the data for better operational and strategic decision making.

--Are they too lazy?
--Is it too hard to build an analytical infrastructure to capture, analyze, and store the data?
--Do they not care?

I’d love to hear your take…

When in Rome - Visualize as the Romans Do!

paulbarsch@yahoo.com (Paul Barsch) — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 18:13:00 +0000

Location based services have met data visualization tools head on to help governments and businesses offer a better citizen/customer experience.

Ever wondered what the “rhythm” of your city looks like? In cities like Rome and New York, aggregated real-time data from mobile providers is helping government officials monitor traffic flows, efficiently utilize transportation networks, and even plan for large-scale events helping to improve overall “citizen satisfaction.” Is real-time data visualization coming to a city near you? read more

Personal Health Records (PHR) Online—Are You Ready?

paulbarsch@yahoo.com (Paul Barsch) — Fri, 13 Jun 2008 15:34:00 +0000

The digitization of healthcare records—and the sharing of those records among patients, hospitals and insurers—has been a slow and painful process. Could Google jumping into the market help accelerate change?

According to an article in MIT’s Tech Review, Google has just rolled out “Google Health”, an online personal health record that is secure and assessable only by you, and providers that you authorize.

Offering users the ability to enter their medical histories, drugs taken in the past and currently administered, and other pertinent health details, Google is offering this service free of charge as a way to elbow in on the personal health record (PHR) market.

"I have a strong belief that patients should be the stewards of their own medical data," says John Halamka, chief information officer at Beth Israel Deaconess, a provider participating in the Google Health program.

This market launch has momentum for the following reasons:

Google’s doing it – they have the market heft to be a strong player in this space

Patients are starting to realize that they are mostly responsible for their health—and what better way to keep track of everything than thru a secure PHR?

Google is interfacing with PBMs, pharmacies, and adding more providers to their network so as to make it easier to upload previous and current patient medical information

Google is using an AI expert system powered by a local San Diego company to check for potential harmful drug interactions—a huge benefit to patients

Some questions remain, however:

Do you “trust” Google with your medical history?

Google says medical histories entered will not be used to target advertisements. How will Google then, monetize Google Health?

Google has to make a strong effort to continue to add providers and PBMs to Google Health –will they lose interest in aggressively expanding their network?

Google Health is launched. Now what?

I’d love to hear your thoughts!

Will the Quants Take Over Marketing?

paulbarsch@yahoo.com (Paul Barsch) — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 14:22:00 +0000

First it was Wall Street, is Marketing Next?

Think marketing doesn’t have much to do with mathematics? An unseen mathematical world is giving some companies a competitive edge in better understanding customers. Indeed, companies across all industries are now capturing data and creating rich profiles of customers to “predict” their wants, needs and future desires. Mathematics has left the ivory tower of academia for a marketing department near you. Are you ready for this massive paradigm shift? read more

Really Bad Advice from Jeff Skilling

paulbarsch@yahoo.com (Paul Barsch) — Fri, 30 May 2008 16:00:00 +0000

Think strategic planning is for dummies? Think again.

A year ago, I read the book, “The Smartest Guys in the Room”, a story about the rise and fall of Enron. A terrific read, that I highly recommend, the book detailed what happens when you take really smart (read: genius) individuals, and put them together in a no-holds barred, survival of the fittest type company with loose rules and even looser ethics.

One of the more interesting quotes that I pulled from the book was the following from ethics poster-boy, Jeff Skilling the former CEO of Enron.

"I think strategic planning is the antithesis of building a corporation."

Jeff really was one of the smartest guys in the room and he said many brilliant things during his tenure at Enron. However, this phrase wasn’t one of them.

Jeff believed in a laissez faire type of management; or let the cream of the crop rise to the top by letting players duke it out in a Darwinian manner. If an initiative made sense, had the political backing of players in the firm, and promised to make oodles of money, it was usually funded. No identification of options, prioritization etc. Resource allocation was based on potential and politics—hence the quote from Jeff.

Marketing is sometimes guilty of the same thing—a lack of strategic planning. In fact, I find time and again, marketers get caught up in marketing tactics more so than objectives and strategies. Like a reckless shopper with a nearly maxxed out credit card, we like to spend money.

Take Jeff’s quote to heart and do the opposite of what he says. Really.

As 2009 is just around the corner and plans begin to look at next year’s marketing budget, think long and hard about your objectives, then strategies. Don’t look at tactics until Q4 if you can.

Should Marketers Ignore IT?

paulbarsch@yahoo.com (Paul Barsch) — Fri, 23 May 2008 21:32:00 +0000

Marketers, is it better to work with, or ignore IT?

As marketers become more tech-savvy, the demands they place on corporate information technology (IT) departments often increase. Unable and reluctant to meet the demands of marketing, IT sometimes turns a deaf ear to change and budget requests causing marketers to go it alone. However, going it alone—without IT—can create headaches, internal conflict, and strip marketing of budget that should be used for marketing programs. Should “marketing” be working closer with IT, or taking control of its own destiny? read more

Programming Messaging Along the Forgetting Curve

paulbarsch@yahoo.com (Paul Barsch) — Fri, 16 May 2008 14:38:00 +0000

Your marketing ROI probably stinks. Can it be drastically improved?

As marketers we often struggle with getting customers to pay attention to our marketing messages, much less remember them. A specialized learning technique—the “spacing effect”—is helping people all across the world assimilate more languages, facts, and retain gobs of information. Is this learning technique applicable to improving the efficacy of our marketing campaigns? read more

Take Your Bell Curve --and Shove It!

paulbarsch@yahoo.com (Paul Barsch) — Fri, 09 May 2008 16:55:00 +0000

Should the Gaussian Bell Curve be used for data-driven decision making in marketing?

"Take your bell curve and shove it!"

Although I’m paraphrasing, this is basically what George Soros said to LTCM founder John Meriwether when approached for a bailout in 1998.

Meriwether, of LTCM infamy, was dialing for dollars in the summer of 1998 when the market abruptly went against him. His swaps, his spreads, nothing seemed to be going right, and LTCM needed a capital infusion.

Pitching Soros on the merits of his fund, Meriwether explained that his models said this is the time to buy. Soros wasn’t so sure.

As detailed in “When Genius Failed” by Roger Lowenstein, LTCM envisioned a market that always came back to the mean or some semblance of normality.

Soros, as recounted in Lowenstein’s book, didn’t think so.

“The speculator saw markets as organic and unpredictable. He felt they interacted with, and were reflective of ongoing events. They were hardly sterile and abstract systems.”

Added Soros himself, “The idea that you have a bell-shaped curve is false. You have outlying phenomena that you can’t anticipate based on previous experience.”

At this point, you are probably asking—what does this have to do with marketing?

This topic is more germane to decision making—and specifically data driven decision making which is becoming much more prevalent as businesses capture and analyze more and more data.
Here are the key takeaways:

--Trust data, but only to a degree
--Data should be used for decisioning, but sometimes does not offer the complete picture
--Your decisions are sometimes only as good as your data
--Beware decisioning based on a bell curve: Data is often normally distributed in “nature” and games of chance—beware of decisioning based on irrational human actions—it may or may not follow a normal distribution
--Beware the “outlier”—or as Nassim Taleb would caution—the “Black Swan”

Less is More in Consumer Choice

paulbarsch@yahoo.com (Paul Barsch) — Fri, 02 May 2008 14:14:00 +0000

Many marketers believe that innovation and competitive differentiation arise from giving customers more choices and options. But through the strategy of “offering more choice”, marketers may actually end up increasing complexity, costs and causing customers “mental fatigue.” Is there a better way to win over customers? read more

Marketing ROI – PUH-LEEZE Do it Right!

paulbarsch@yahoo.com (Paul Barsch) — Fri, 25 Apr 2008 15:31:00 +0000

What are you measuring for marketing ROI?

Marketing ROI isn’t the number of click-through’s, email opens, brand impressions, page views or other second-rate metrics.

What matters most to CFOs are things that affect cash-flow; mainly new business closed, increased wallet-share, and customers retained. And CEOs care about what the CFO cares about, and often tack on “brand management” as a subset of risk management to a marketer’s responsibility.

So how can you measure the KPIs and the metrics that the CEO/CFO care about? First discover the KPIs your CEO/CFO is tracking. Then, working with the CIO, champion and adopt a technology infrastructure to capture, track and monitor how your marketing activities are helping move those KPIs in the direction your leadership cares about.

For more information on “how” to go about doing this, see my latest MarketingProfs article.

To effectively measure marketing ROI (or how marketing is helping move the business forward and protect/manage the brand), marketers need what Forrester is calling an “engagement measurement platform”.

As stated in “Five Tools and Technologies to Measure Engagement”, April 22, 2008, Forrester has outlined the five process and technology challenges that keep most marketers up at night. I’ll take the liberty of paraphrasing…

- Marketers need a common data repository, preferably a data warehouse - Marketers need analytics to analyze captured data
- Marketers need tools to monitor online conversations
- Marketers need to observe/research customer behaviors
- Marketers need to communicate marketing efficacy to leadership and stakeholders

Some marketers believe they can get by without these tools, or perhaps cobble together similar concepts with crude technologies such as spreadsheets or shareware. If you have zero marketing budget, of course you’ll have to make do, otherwise spend some marketing budget to do it right.

Is it all about the tools? No—technology isn’t the sole panacea to measuring marketing effectiveness, but coupled with the right skills and optimized processes, there’s really no better way to do it.