Measuring Up

RIP, "Big Man"

Saturday night was a very sad one for every Bruce Springsteen fan. That's because E Street Band iconic
saxophonist Clarence Clemons passed away. He was just 69 years old.

Perhaps more than anyone except the Boss himself, fans absolutely adored Clarence. And, they had good reason. He played an essential role in so many of Springsteen's biggest songs. In the early years, his sax helped the band create a potent mix of rock, soul, jazz and folk that was nearly impossible to replicate.

I feel like I have a semi-personal bond with Clarence. No, I never met him.  Instead, my connection goes back to my early childhood. As an nine year old kid, I remember, listening to my brother's "Born to Run" album for the first time. The memory is still vivid because it was actually one of the first rock bands that I had ever heard. What sounded like a fairly typical song early on changed immediately when Clarence's raw sax came from nowhere to kick the title song into overdrive. It's funny because I've heard so much music (like most) over the years. But, that particular moment will always stay in my mind.

And, how about his solo during the key moment of "Jungle Land?" That majestic saxophone helped to construct a song that will be remembered as one of Bruce's greatest. This Big Man could also sing. No one will ever forget his deep baritone "ho, ho, ho's" in Bruce's version of Santa Clause is Coming to Town.

Anyone who's ever been to a Bruce Springsteen concert also understands just how important Clarence Clemons was to the on stage presence of the band.  Springsteen turned him into a larger than life entertainer with his climatic individual band member introductions during each concert. Each and every time, the crowd was whipped into a frenzy waiting for The Boss to enthusiastically call out Clarence by any of his familiar nicknames including, "Master of the Universe," "King of the World," or simply "The Big Man...who needs no introduction."

Although The Big Man took on a less central role during the band's pop period (Born in the USA, etc.) during the late 80s and 90s, The Boss brought him back into the limelight last year with his release of "The Promise." And, that was great to see.

Probably what I love the most about Clarence Clemons though was the on stage contrast to Bruce he delivered on every occasion.  From the onset, the two men were a marked physical difference: a wild hair (often bearded), slightly scrawny white guitar player and a 6 foot-5 inch, 275 pound African American man with a sax, who would be very intimidating if he didn't so often carry a smile. I remember how the two of them would almost stalk each other on stage, staring with ferocious eyes, playing their instruments as they stood back to back leaning on each other for support.

Their relationship sent a true message of brotherhood, family, tolerance and respect for all, regardless of race. Clarence Clemons was truly a giant among men. His passing will leave a void for Bruce and the rest of the band. More importantly, E Street will never be the same.

 

A fruit that has clearly soured

Yesterday’s financial reports from RIMS, manufacturer of Blackberry devices wasn’t pretty. The Canadian technology company missed its earnings projections by a lot. Probably more importantly, its immediate future is unclear and the company plans to lay off thousands of employees as it ponders its next move to compete in the ever competitive mobile device marketplace. Based on my recent experience, I can’t say that I’m surprised.

I am far from an expert on this type of technology, or the latest products that have emerged.  Like many business professionals, I listen to the advice of my company’s IT professionals and often try the latest product based on what they recommend and some of the hype that other technology leaders create.  As a matter of fact, I’d probably consider myself to be the opposite of an early adopter of new technologies. Instead, I just want a product that will serve its basic functions for me well. And, if I can have the added benefits of some new, cool bells and whistles, then I’m one happy customer.

Peppercom has always been a Blackberry loyal company. Because on our client serving needs, we thrive on immediate email on a 24/7 basis and from a business standpoint and the easy to type keyboards work well with our style. Each and every new model has been accepted enthusiastically by our professionals. Then in trying to break into Apple’s ownership of the lucrative consumer iPhone market, RIMS finally released the Torch late last year. From what I’ve read (and understand), this product was released very quickly so that RIMS could showcase its newest foray into the consumer marketplace. Our IT professionals were a little weary of recommending it. But, because Blackberry has such a proven track record with creating high quality products for professional audiences, they suggested I try it to find out if it could work for me.

At first, I really enjoyed the product and experience I was having.  That’s because the Torch tries to integrate the best of both worlds–  the touch screen and ability to maneuver very quickly through many apps and files (like the iPhone), with a real key board that is pretty easy to type on (a critical part of the Blackberry experience). Unfortunately, that experience only lasted two days though, because all of a sudden, half my emails only came through in bits and pieces. They were unintelligible and that created immediate problems for obvious reasons. As this continued, I found that the system actually became sluggish and it took quite a bit of time for some applications to open after I clicked on the icon.

To make a long story short, our IT whizzes spend hours on the phone with Blackberry trying to fix the email problem. It seems that countless other customers were also experiencing this frustrating problem. What really surprised me (though) is that the RIMS gurus had no idea how to fix it. That just doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. After reading through numerous tech blogs on the topic and interviewing Peppercom’s IT professionals, it seems that one truism exists. RIMS was in such a hurry to enter the consumer market that the company didn’t create products that actually worked (or that they knew could work). The consumer experience failed and now we are seeing just how bad the fall out is (and will continue to be) for this once proud technology leader.

For me, well…I returned my Torch and actually decided to try an iPhone instead. So far, so good. I like it mainly due to most of those features that the Torch promised (but didn’t deliver on) are being realized with this product. The bad news for RIMS is that Blackberry loyalists (like me) will now think twice before using one of their new products in the future. Maybe more importantly, those in the know (like our IT professionals) feel much of the same. Deivis Baez, our Director of IT actually told me, “I feel let down because RIMS had plenty of time to come out with the right operating system for this product. Its failure to do quality control prior to launching is a real failure.”

Companies that are extending their brands into new areas need to understand that getting their first product launch right is so critical to ensuring that trust and confidence in their brand continue. The Blackberry failed to do this and its reputation has soured because of it.

Bring back the Pony Express…

The U.S Postal Service (USPS) is going broke. That’s not entirely new. Throughout the last few decades, our  official government mail carrier has faced a myriad of financial woes which almost put it under.

What I find interesting this time is that a complete lack of foresight and innovation is leading to this once proud institution’s downfall. And, because Americans still depend on their daily mail, we’re also going to see the Federal Government provide yet another bail out very soon. Truthfully, it’s too bad that we can’t take a laissez faire approach, and just let the USPS die a normal institutional death like other organizations which simply aren’t able to keep up with what the market needs, or their competitive set.

The main storyline behind this is that those eggheads who lead the USPS never had the ability to foresee a couple of key factors that impact business:
    1) The economy eventually goes down – When that happened, Americans stopped spending so much on first class mail. That’s one of the key ways the postal service makes money. Sending out tons of junk mail is the other money maker for the postal service. Our recent recession turned the junk mail spigot off. Everything else that the USPS sends out from daily letters to big packages, are money losers. In fact, because it charges only 44 cents per letter, regardless of how far that letter has to go, when volume increases, this organization loses money.
    2) We are moving towards an email, paperless society – Yet, our postal service is in the stone age when it comes to digital products (meaning: they have none) Ever hear of e-letters? Many national postal services throughout Europe (like Sweden, France and Norway) have.  Each has modernized its product offerings, making lots of money and profit because they innovated years ago when everyone saw the writing on the wall.

What’s amazing is that if the USPS was a real company, it would be the 29th largest on the Fortune 500 list. It employs 571,566 workers as well. It also is $15 billion in debt, owing $12 billion to the Federal government. And what’s really ironic is that it spends over $25 million on advertising to promote how mail should be used as a marketing tool (i.e. bring back demand for junk mail). Unfortunately, none of that seems to have helped because all the marketing in the world won’t make a dent in the bottom line when the business model has failed.

I guess we shouldn’t be surprised. Many of the USPS’ senior management (including its current Post Master General) came up through the ranks of this governmental bureaucracy. Without any outside business training or real experience in running other behemoth organizations, it’s very difficult to bring in new ideas or perspectives that have worked elsewhere.

My take has always been to let the strong survive and the weak… well let them figure it out for themselves. Of course we know that FedEx, UPS and the others couldn’t readily step in and just take over the enormous daily mail needs that the post office provides (rumor has it that the USPS delivers 40 percent of the world’s mail). But, there certainly has to be a better solution than forcing the tax payer to pick up yet another bill to save an institution that hasn’t been right since the days of the Pony Express.

Are you receiving senior-level attention?

There’s an interesting debate in PR Week’s “Gloves Off” column this week. Two agency CEOs dispute whether senior executives should spend most of their time serving clients or focusing their efforts on other agency responsibilities.

Monty Hagler, CEO of RLF Communications, feels that agencies need to depend more on their dedicated account teams to handle the bulk of the work. He feels that these teams are seasoned and should be responsible for providing strategy, creativity, execution of programs… and results. Monty feels that senior folks should focus on bigger picture stuff like quality control processes and enhancing agency resources, because by raising the bar in those areas, clients across the board will receive more value and better results.

Amy Binder, CEO of RF Binder, argues the opposite. Her reasoning suggests that with the advance of all new factors (like social media and everything digital), we need to give our clients senior level thinking all the time to navigate through the challenges and take advantage of opportunities. That means senior level professionals need to be a dedicated part of each account team.

While this issue isn’t black and white and both of these smart leaders make good points, I tend to agree with Amy. In fact conceptually, her thinking is pretty much the way Peppercom was built 16 years ago (before this digital landscape even mattered).   In any consultative, professional services industry, clients want and need senior level thinking. And, it shouldn’t only be given at a monthly or quarterly update or planning meeting.
The world of communications has indeed changed greatly. Every single day, most companies can leverage or should be concerned about news that swells up in the media/blogosphere about it and/or its competitors.  Businesses are adapting new models, changing product lines and just assessing new strategies within their marketplaces quicker than ever before because they now have valuable information at their disposal through a push of the button.

Only very seasoned, senior communications practitioners have the experience to turn data into insightful strategies/approaches that are recommended to clients. That critical thinking is what clients typically want and pay us for. As good as most account teams are in executing programs, they don’t have the wherewithal to offer this value. And, they aren’t at a level where recommendations can be communicated with the conviction that is needed to provide clients with peace of mind.

Monty makes some valid points. The most senior agency people need to also step up to ensure that their firm is always improving resources, ensuring quality control and watching over a host of other critical factors to maintain agency sustainability. But in my eyes, that should never come at the expense of working with clients and our account teams week in and week out, to provide critical direction to their communications efforts. Our industry has a bad reputation for constant client turnover. There’s no doubt in my mind that the major reason why this occurs is because clients aren’t feeling enough love from our industry’s senior level folks. This reality will never change until this key aspect of client service does.