Why It Pays To Give Back

Does your company have a corporate social responsibility (CSR) programme in place? This presentation shows why all the fuzzy-warm stuff pays off.

CSR Branding Survey 2010

View more presentations from Burson-Marsteller.

The Unexpected Beauty of Math: Nature By Numbers

I've always had math anxiety bordering on paranoia. But not anymore after viewing this video. Just goes to show that the most intimidating, boring and complex ideas can be brought to life via good stories.


Nature by Numbers from Cristóbal Vila on Vimeo.

Thanks to Matt Muir for the heads-up on Twitter.

Facts And Figures Don't Have To Be Fusty

Information does not always have to be presented in bar charts and line graphs. Engage your audience with infographics that play with analogies and metaphors. One of the best examples I've seen yet, below:


Japan-The Strange Country (English ver.) from Kenichi on Vimeo.

Thanks to Kirstin Butler for passing on this fabulous example of bringing facts and figures to life.

Are You Running In Place Or Running To Get Somewhere?

I watched Tim Burton's 3D confection Alice In Wonderland last week in London, and much as I admire his movies, I was ticked off that he had mashed up author Lewis Carroll's two novellas. (Not as ticked off as the two patrons who walked out rather huffily in the middle of the movie.)


The chess scene for instance does not appear in the original Alice In Wonderland -- it is the theme of Carroll's second work, Through The Looking-Glass. It is in the latter that the White Queen goes up against the Red Queen (pictured with Alice in the original illustration by John Tenniel above), not the Queen of Hearts. 


If you haven't read Through The Looking-Glass, get your hands on a copy (you can often find a combination of both novellas in one). It's darker and more surreal than Alice in Wonderland. Especially if you, like me, have the strange habit of looking into a mirror and thinking there must be an upside down world in there. 


The Red Queen holds a special place in my heart because of one scene that stuck in my head. In explaining how everything is the other way around in Looking Glass land -- you walk away from someone or something to find what you are seeking; hills are valleys and valleys are hills -- she takes Alice firmly by the hand and starts running at top speed. Alice is breathless and surprised to find out that they had not moved from where they were. The Red Queen explains:


"Now, here, you see, it takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place." 


This scene has inspired the Red Queen Hypothesis to explain coevolution. I'm not a biologist but the line resonated with me when it comes to work. 


Day after day, do you plug away at work like a gerbil on a wheel? 


Do you assign the same value to all tasks?


Do you work late hours, weekends and every spare moment because there's just too much to do?


With all that you do, are you actually getting somewhere?


I've met and managed lots of Red Queens who vow to give 100% to every activity in their lives, whether it's straightening the margins on their documents, going to the gym at 6 a.m. or slaving over a colleague's presentation. That's admirable but not practical. The truth is not everything deserves 100%. Some activities yield more impact and value to the company and your career, and these should be tops on your priority list. 


Leaders know when to delegate, when to fly in a holding pattern and when to take action. It's a hard skill to learn because it means a) honing your judgement and b) taking responsibility for consequences if something messes up somehow. From experience people are more scared of b than a. 


If I knew then what I know now, this is how my priority list would have looked like in my 20s and 30s:

1. Find out what among my activities makes my boss look good, and do it. 
2. Work on cultivating great relationships with my team and colleagues.
3. Network as though my life -- and my next job -- depended on it. 
4. Market myself by sharing my achievements.
5. Spell check.

There's running in place like the Red Queen, and running to actually get somewhere. In Through The Looking-Glass, the Red Queen tells Alice they have to go twice as fast to actually get to another place. What a relief that on our side of the mirror, you can actually slow down and get to where you want -- as long as you make the right choices. 


Never mistake action for progress. 


Are you an introvert who dreads networking? Social media can help you break the ice and establish the business relationships you need. As a marketer - and an introvert! -- I'll share useful pointers and advice at an event on April 8th sponsored by the Japan America Society of Chicago. To register, just visit this link. To see more of what I've written on networking for introverts, read my previous blog post Networking for Introverts: Five Secrets to Working a Room.


Picture of the Red Queen running with Alice courtesy of The Victorian Web.

Why Transmedia Is The Next Social Media

Room 5ABC, Austin Convention Center, Texas. A speaker passes a plastic box to a lady in the front row. 


She pries open the box. Inside is a rag that looks blood-stained, spelling out a website address. 


Audience members with laptops type the URL into their browsers. On the site are clues that hint at a kidnapping and a phone number. 


There is no shortage of phones in the audience, and the number is called. A French-sounding operator babbles, then is cut off by a desperate voice -- the hostage? -- saying "Find my site. A mime is a terrible thing to waste. A terrible thing to waste."


The web address www.aterriblethingtowaste.com is typed into browsers. 


A blog subtitled 'Oswald's Journey to Mime Enlightenment' pops up. It has only two entries by a Radio Hack employee, Oswald, who aspires to be a clown and is looking for schools to develop his skills in this performance art. 


Curiously, some letters in the last entry have been highlighted in red. They spell out 'youtubeoswaldthemime'.


People access YouTube and enter 'Oswald The Mime' into the search field. Oswald, in tear-streaked clown makeup, shows up in a grainy video taken in what seems to be a prison cell. 


Rushing because the guards could come at any moment, Oswald says he had been kidnapped after applying at a mime school fronting for a criminal organisation. The kidnapped mimes are forced to perform on the streets for a quota set by the villainous Master Mime. 


As sounds of approaching guards become louder, Oswald makes one last desperate plea. The lock on his cell, he says, is a Kryptonite Evolution Lock 2000. If anyone knew how to break it, could they email the answer to oswald at his website name? The video is then abruptly cut off.


Audience members call up Google and type in Kryptonite Evolution Lock 2000. The first link that shows up is an engadget article saying the lock can be hacked with a Bic pen.


Emails with 'Bic' are sent to oswald@aterriblethingtowaste.com. Alas, the audience members who had called the mysterious number earlier and sent the rescue email would receive a phone call not from Oswald, but from Master Mime. He had engineered this hoax and the hapless Oswald was still in his clutches.


I was in the audience at this South By Southwest (SXSW) session called The 10-Minute Transmedia Experience, and it absolutely blew my mind. 


No PowerPoint, no coma-inducing panels, just an interactive demonstration of what transmedia is and how it differs from multi-platform, with which it is often confused. 


What is transmedia? Experts like Convergence Culture author and academic Henry Jenkins can write reams and reams about transmedia. No Mimes Media partners Steve Peters and Maureen McHugh, who ran the session (and did the transmedia campaign for The Dark Knight), can articulate it way better than I ever could. 


My own takeaway from this remarkable session: Transmedia is narrative told through multiple platforms in a distinct sequence, at each point pulling in and heavily relying on audience engagement to develop the story, brand or message.

"It starts with a rabbit hole," said Peters. In our 10-minute transmedia experience at SXSW for instance, the blood-stained rag was the rabbit hole through which the audience fell, leading to a sequence of website, phone call, video, Google search, email and concluding with a phone call.  

As Peters and McHugh pointed out, transmedia is often confused with multi-platform. The first requires flow and a weaving of a trail through different channels: Content is contextual to the platform used. The second is usage of various channels, e.g. PR, web, advertising, social media, etc. for messaging. 


Multi-platform movie promotion, for example, would use a mix of theatre trailers, media interviews, product collaborations, etc. 


A transmedia campaign would be the year-long lead-up to the 1999 movie The Blair Witch Project. The blurring of fact and fiction on the website was unprecedented -- Out takes from 'discovered' film reels? Police reports? -- but the response was extraordinary. Fan pages, sequels, contrasting narratives cropped up and Blair Witch took on a life of its own. It's an early example of a transmedia experience where the film was a tiny part of what was going on.


Who owns a story anyway? The one who created the story, or the one with whom the story resonates? Shouldn't it belong to both?


Storytelling is as natural and instinctive to us as breathing. A story, powerfully told, moves the heart in a way no marketing campaign ever could. The most successful marketing in fact, centres on a story that the audience recognises and claims as its own.


The potential transmedia has for extending a brand's shelf life and relevance is staggering, particularly in light of the platform proliferation we have today. Just think of the success of the Mad Men characters on Twitter. The flipside is the risk: Think of Next Media's news 'recreation' of Tiger Woods' altercation with wife Elin.


The question is how transmedia can be applied to other categories that are not as story-rich as entertainment, automotive and video gaming. What kind of experience can you conjure up with, say, a microwave? And what about B2B? 


Some good pointers shared by Peters and McHugh from the flurry of questions that followed:

• Transmedia has to start at inception of the product, not after the fact.

• The actual plot should be very simple as transmedia is still in a 'naive' form. 

• No single aspect should take more than two to five minutes.

• How many platforms? A good rule of thumb: Five.

• Text is cheap but isn't the most effective.

• Transmedia doesn't require millions of dollars to design and implement. The speakers cited a successful example that cost $3,000 to $4,000. Unfortunately I was scribbling so many notes I didn't catch the case study.

• Effectiveness decreases the longer the game goes on. Most transmedia experiences are not replayable.

• Good narrative uses a 'show it, don't tell it' approach. Good transmedia goes further with 'Show the evidence of it, don't tell it'.

I would add that social media was the thin edge of the wedge in brands reluctantly ceding control to its stakeholders. Transmedia will require a whole deeper level of trust in and collaboration with the audience, not to mention a renewed appreciation for a timeless, yet underrated skill: Masterful storytelling. 


How interesting that we've come full circle.

Steal this idea from SXSW: Circus Mashimus vintage tee

Circus Mashimus, the circus-themed lounge at SXSW, is outfitted with silk yellow and red drapes, a human-cranked old-fashioned popcorn machine, a fridge full of cold drinks and bar tables to talk business.


But the best part is they hand you a form when you come in; you staple your business card and they ask you to pick a t-shirt from three outstanding circus-inspired designs. (I was hemming and hawing between the mermaid and the mullet, but the mermaid won.)


The traditional school of thought is that giveaways should be as cheap and cheerful as possible, e.g. the logo'd ballpen that lights up; the pocket fan; baseball caps. I prefer ordinary objects taken to a level that makes people stop in their tracks, desire them and, once acquired, keep them.


The Circus Mashimus tee is retail-worthy. Vintage wash; tissue-thin fabric; perfect length, silhouette and neckline. The logos for Cafe Press, giiv.com, Mashery, Best Buy and programmable web have been integrated well into the illustration. Nothing jumps out at you but the vintage circus poster design. Hell, I'd wear it. And I've sworn off company swag for years.


Forget the fishbowl begging for cards for some vague raffle. Just give away something -- immediately -- that is functional and beautifully designed, on the same level as a collector's item. You make your prospect feel like a thousand bucks. And he or she will think of your brand as the kind of hip, with-it company they'd want to work with.

How To Tell That You're About To Be Let Go

I've been let go twice in my career. The first time I didn't see it coming. The second time I probably saw it coming but ignored the signs. 


Being laid off or having your job eliminated rarely comes out of the blue. I say that as someone who's done the eliminating as much as being eliminated herself. The following are red flags, any one of which or a combination of several can lead to your being let go.


The business is not doing well. It's tempting to hunker down in your cocoon of a cubicle while the recession rages outside, but savvy workers will be taking a temperature check outside. 


How are your competitors doing? Have they laid off workers recently or downsized? Are they merging, eliminating or outsourcing departments such as yours?


How's your industry as a whole doing? Is it growing, stagnant or receding? Absorb the business news and see how your company figures in the bigger picture.


How's your company doing? Are sales down, senior managers looking more worried than usual, once important strategic projects being sidelined for tactical, get-the-money-in-quickly moves?


I always hear people huffing and saying they're not involved in the sales process or are not looped in about sales, therefore they were caught flatfooted. Make it your business to know, no matter how removed you are, because without sales, nobody gets paid. Including you.


Cozy up to someone in the sales department to get a sense of what's going on. Network with those who are privy to the situation. It may spell the difference between getting out when you can and getting out too late.


Have there been recent calls to cut overheads and other operational costs? Are they becoming more frequent and -- to your mind -- getting more ridiculous or insulting? 


For example, if you had an overflowing stationery cabinet that's now empty and an email circulated to staff telling everyone to buy their own staplers, something's amiss. If the toilet paper disappears from the stalls and you're told to bring your own bog roll, I'd start updating my resume sharp-ish.


You're in a support function. The sad truth is that profit centres, revenue generators or, to put it simply, those who bring in the money will be the last to be let go. That's why marketing and IT are often the first positions to be eliminated. When push comes to shove, these are the first areas to be trimmed.


HR is a different case altogether -- they often have to manage the eliminations and make sure the company complies with legal and other requirements. As one wag told me, "HR will always be around to turn the lights off."


Before you start raging against the unfairness of the corporate world and how filthy lucre is always the barometer of value, remember that you're in a business and businesses are there to make a profit. If you're in a support function and have no opportunity to make money, then make sure -- way before, not now when it seems your position is in jeopardy -- that you save the company money. It goes a long way when jobs are being considered for elimination.


Your job is woolly, duplicates someone else's elsewhere in the company or can be outsourced. You've also got obvious patches of idleness. By woolly I mean people ask what it is you actually do. That's a honking big red flag, because when elimination time comes around, the first targets are the positions nobody knows about. If they're not critical to what anyone does, then it's safe to remove them, right?

At one company I worked for, there was one guy whose only job apparently was to create email addresses for staff. I'm sure he did other things as we all do, but this was what he was known for, ergo he was a marked man. When it was time to lean out the organisation, he was among the first to go. 

Lesson? Always ask people what they think you do, and correct misconceptions. Publicise your achievements and contribution to the company. Don't wait for other people to do it for you.

If your company has been in recent mergers and acquisitions activity -- you bought a company, were bought or merged -- look out for new colleagues and counterparts whose jobs mimic yours. A good CEO will be looking at cost efficiencies and one salary to pay is better than two.


Finally, are you spending inordinate amounts of time mooching about, playing on the Internet and complaining about how bored you are? Managerial logic would then conclude that if there's not enough for you to do, then your responsibilities can be farmed out to other individuals. 


Large chunks of your tasks or chores are being transferred to someone else. Clarify with your manager whether this is meant to free you up for more duties. If it is, great -- have a discussion about what needs to be done. If there's no forthcoming answer or your question is ignored altogether, something's afoot. 


It defies all logic not to add responsibilities, especially in this economy. Managers want to maximise their resources as much as possible. So despite your moaning, being overworked and underpaid is not a bad thing.


You're left out of important meetings or correspondence when you used to be included. People look away when they talk to you, if they do. This is a classic that's mentioned in all articles about being let go. 


One thing they don't mention is that by the time you're given the cold shoulder, one or more of the preceding red flags have occurred and moves are in place to eliminate your position.


I've been asked before: Does the exclusion happen gradually? In my experience on both sides -- being canned and doing the canning -- no. Once a job is in the process of being snuffed out, you can find yourself 'outside the mosquito net', as they say in my country, in a matter of hours.


One reason is morale: Most decisions about job eliminations are done swiftly and executed just as quickly. That way the unpleasantness entailed in a departure does not linger and negatively affect those who are left behind.


Another reason is security: Livid employees can destroy company files, transfer sensitive information to a competitor or sabotage projects. 


The third reason is human nature. If you know a colleague's about to lose his or her job, it's hard to act normally, especially if you're the one who has to break the news. Avoidance is the most common reaction. 


I've found though that on the day a person is let go, behaviour eerily returns to normal. Once the news is broken, people start being kind and solicitous again.


Trust your gut. If you were in the loop yesterday and your inbox and calendar are starkly empty today, something is definitely up. If everyone is suddenly making a wide berth around you, your deodorant is not to blame.


Have a chat with your manager. Don't be accusatory or hysterical. Ask if there is any reason why you're being excluded and if there is anything you should know. If you are indeed meant to exit, it can be a precursor to a productive conversation on how to depart gracefully with no burned bridges. I'd say your manager may be relieved that you even brought it up. You may as well have a grown-up, civil conversation about leaving.


Although you can't control what's being done to your job, you can control what you get out of this situation, no matter how difficult it is. Discussions about severance payments, references and even introductions to potential opportunities in other companies can only be done productively if you keep a cool head.


Being let go is as much a beginning as an ending. Use your departure to make sure your next chapter is as good, if not better, than the one you're about to leave behind.