Pet Peeve of the Week: Office Politics

Playing into the game of office politics will eventually kill your company. Period.

Image by Francesco Marino

It is sometimes said, "It's not what you know, but who you know that matters."  Unfortunately, it's true.

In offices around the country, people are getting promoted based on politics and not potential.  It's an epidemic of epic proportions.  It devalues hard work and outstanding results while adding value to individual personality and likability factor.

Here is the problem in SAT form:

Say you own A company that makes B widget.  You hire C worker for $50,000 a year in R&D to improve said widget.  You hire D worker to do the same thing.  A promotion becomes available to both C and D.  Whom do you pick?

-C Worker-
Independent
New Hire
Extroverted
High to Top Performance
Leader

-D Worker-
Social
Tenure
Extroverted
Moderate to High Performance
Leader

If you hired D worker over C worker, consider the fact that; while office ambiance may be slightly improved by a more charismatic leader, productivity will not be improved due to the inherent poor time-management habits of a very social person.  Giving increased responsibility to someone you like; over someone who is qualified, simply means that they will do more things half-assed.

Add in the additional effect of employee burnout due to lack of advancement, and you have now crippled your work output.  You have also devalued the salary by example and will have to pay more people a higher wage for the same amount of performance.

The candidate you like may not always be the most financially sound choice for promotion.  Think about that before making your next hiring decision.

Things I Adore: Part 4

Color!

Why You Need It In Advertising and Marketing.

Made you look.

Color has a way of catching the eye.  It's undeniable.  I could link hundreds of resources that point to that fact, but you know it's true.  That's why color costs extra. It's special.  It makes your message special.  It shows that you love your product enough to be bold.

Recently I created a quick flyer for one of my clients.  I asked if there was a specific color palate that suited the current scheme and I was told to use whatever colors I felt suited the project.  So I did.  Three hours later, the client was graced with a beautiful deep purple and silver flyer that spoke to his target audience.  The next morning I had a message saying that it wasn't printing right, so I called my client... They're printing it in the office in black and white!  I told them I'd grayscale it and slammed the phone down in a huff.

It isn't smart business.  My clients' target audience consists of image-conscious middle to upper-class African-American men between the ages of 25 and 40.,  Which flyer says I'm your target and "I care about how I'm seen by others" so "I can afford to treat myself," the black or color? (Name of business, logo and address cropped out to protect my client.)

It's worth the extra money to send the right message.  Saving on the color now, won't save you money in the long run. Prove my point or argue against my intuition: Which ad has the most impact?

As a side note, I have really enjoyed having an excuse to toss cutesy color into my blog posts.

The Group Administrators' Lament

Forlorn! the very act is living hell

To toll for hours for thee by my sole self!

New! the fancy cannot post so well

As we are told to do, digital shelf.

New! new! thy informative anthem fades

Past the near forums, over the data stream,

Up the server-side; and now ’tis archived deep

In the fray, a search-bot wades:

Was it a calling, or a pipe-smokers dream?

Gone is that drive:—Do I drift to sleep?

 -Original satiric poem, adapted from "Ode to a Nightingale" by John Keats

 

I feel it. The desperation. The loathing. The brewing hatred for all you consumers. You consume my sweat. My searching. My intellect.

Shame on you.

Every forum admin, group founder and blogger has his or her own version of this lament.  You feel what I feel. That dirty, sweaty sock under-the-bed feeling.  The feeling of being used.  You created a blog, a forum or a group to share. All you have to show for it is Take. 

Nine members, 50 members, 100 members strong; few give.  Few share. Most take.

They take your insights with every, "Great post. Informative."  They take your side with every, "I agree. Good post."  They take offense with every, "How dare you!? Moron."  But it's worse when they take your time.

"Nice topic you posted, admin. We'd have more to say about it if you take some more time to post more of your opinions."

Okay.

Two hours later, their request has been assuaged.  You wait. Two more hours, two more days and maybe even two more weeks.  Nothing. They took your time.  You sucker.  You fell for it, again.

Take heed, users. Takers. We're growing wise.  We're seeing through the mock concern, the faux interest and the self-righteous criticism.  We're not service providers. We're not here to make a digital storehouse of information for you to pillage.  You must share. You will share.  You will stop asking questions when you don't care about the answer.  You will stop reading and start discussing. You will back up your criticisms with facts from more than just Wikipedia.

Why?

'Cause the jig is up! We're on to you. We're watching you.  We have our clicker finger hovering over the ban-stick and we're not afraid to use it.

You've been warned.

Faux Online Experts

Blogging Should Require a License
The information age is thriving, but are we really learning anything of value?

I am not an expert. To be an expert, I figure one has to be immersed in a field for many years. While I may not have decades of work experience, I am schooled enough to easily determine whether a resource is credible.

The blog post titled "17 Strategies to Killer Ads" has been RT'd as an authority enough to grab my attention, and when I read it I threw up a little. Poor grammar and spelling aside, what are these gentlemen talking about?

Here's an excerpt:
"In the Advertising world, the creative process look like this: Strategy > Concept/Idea > Campaign & Tagline > Executions. You can see, the Strategy is in the most beginning of an entire idea and it is an approach, based on market research and insights, as to how a product or service will be positioned/repositioned. After reading The Advertising Concept Book by Pete Barry, we have an overall look at 17 different strategy for killer ads."

First off, the creative process as proposed by Roger von Oech (which is used by many Fortune 100 companies) looks nothing like what Harman and Penter (the minds behind 17 Strategies) outlined. Creative process; within the advertising industry, is the procedure used to find unique ideas or re-imagine old concepts. According to Oech, it consists of Research (Explorers)> Visualization (Artists)> Evaluation (Judges)> Presentation (Warriors).

Secondly, strategy is a plan-of-attack. This list doesn't show strategy, it shows the attention getting device/style. It shows HOW the message can be presented to pique interest and capture attention. Simply choosing one of these examples is not strategy and if the wrong device is selected the ad will fall flat with the target audience.

Finally, I feel obligated to caution fellow advertising professionals from distributing poor information. I saw this article (and others that are just as questionable) pop up on the feeds of some very sharp minds and that tells me that either:
A. People are not really reading these articles before forwarding them.
-or-
B. People are not fact-checking these articles for credibility.

In summation, as a basis for this post I used one hard-cover book and two online dictionaries to verify my conclusions before rebuking the authors of "17 Strategies to Killer Ads." Merriam-Webster, MAANZ Glossary and the textbook "Contemporary Advertising" by Willaim F. Arens are legitimate and credible sources. While I am only joking about blog licenses, I do feel that writers need to have more than one source when 'blogging to instruct' and making information up is not a good way to establish your expertise.

Things I Loathe: Part 2

Prep yourself for the next installment of "Things I Loathe." If you like what I have to say stay tuned for parts 3-5 and its natural counterpart: "Things I Adore."

Keep in mind that I will be limiting these posts to communication-related topics.

I was reading this blog about some of the worst websites the writer has seen. Now, individuals might have an excuse... they might not be technologically savvy, just made a site to try it out, or they got ripped off when they hired a buddy to do it. However, companies have no excuse. Guru.com, craigslist.org, and elance.com have people waiting for gigs who can get the job done. Why would you allow your brand to be represented with crap online work? Are your products that horrible?

Beyond bad websites, there are companies that don't understand how to PROPERLY integrate social media. They either use it to blast out their messages or flood the web with their presence on every site they can create a user name on. Don't these social media managers even make an ATTEMPT to understand the community they are pouncing on? Do you walk into a party, kick open the door and start talking about how awesome you are? No. Well, at least I hope not. You wouldn't be invited to any parties after that.

Hey companies, do it right or don't do it at all. Cheap websites and a 'fake friend' social media presence doesn't make you cool. Really. It doesn't.