Middleberg's Musings

State of the Union- Advice for the Rebuttal Guy

Every year it is always the same with me – I’m not going to watch the President, whoever it is – give this speech. And what do I do? I watch, of course. I’m just a news/political junkie who needs his fix. But I have a lot of problems with the State of the Union. For me, it’s nothing but theatre. The President says a lot of things (did Obama miss a subject aside from the deficit?) in grandiose, uplifting tones. The audience, or at least the part that belongs to the same party as the President, applauds, sometimes yells and stands/sits about a thousand times. It is pure political theatre.

About halfway through I start wondering what the rebuttal guy is going to say. And they never fail to disappoint. They always disappoint. In this case it was Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels. His comments were pretty obvious and when combined with a dull and lackluster presentation, was instantly forgettable. Granted, Daniels had some serious disadvantages. To begin with there aren't throngs of people in the audience, in fact, there is no audience. The speech is given in a TV studio. Boring. So it got me thinking…

If I was advising the next rebuttal guy, whether Democrat or Republican, my first suggestion would be to find a suitable venue and fill it with people who support your party. Can you imagine if the next rebuttal is given in the LA Coliseum or Yankee Stadium? Have some mainstream rock entertainment to start things off, someone safe like Kelly Clarkson or Michael Buble (OK, he is Canadian but show your international side). Have loudspeakers all over the place and cue the audience to cheer, scream, stand/sit at the appropriate times. Then close with more music guaranteed to put the audience to a good night’s sleep—Kenny G, perhaps?

Now that’s a rebuttal evening that will definitely outdraw the actual State of the Union. Like I said, it’s all theatre, anyway.

 

Agency Review 2011

"The trouble I have is not finding new ideas but getting rid of the old ones"

                           Thomas Edison

 

Ain't that the truth. I read somewhere that there are thousands of new regulations introduced every year. That in itself is crazy, but the really troubling part is that these regs stay on the books seemingly forever. No one has the responsibility for removing them. So how do we get rid of old ideas while introducing new ones? In public relations, as in any industry, the answer lies with leadership. A CEO must consistently look at his firm with a fresh set of eyes and ears, and to always change the mix to be positioned for growth and development. That doesn't mean always making revolutionary changes. In my opinion, evolutionary development is better. "Steady as she goes" is just not about ships anymore. Keeping to the mission, remaining client-focused, and most importantly of all, retaining valued employees can be worth more than any directive.

 

So here is what we did and didn't do at Middleberg Communications during 2011:

 

What we did - Place ever greater emphasis on social media and digital communications. In particular, we developed a proprietary program called "Influence the Influencers". We all know that 10% of people in any profession lead the remaining 90%. Their reach and influence are enormous. Well, we have spent a lot of time thinking about how we identify the top 25-50 influencers in any given area and then how to impact those leaders for the benefit of our clients. 

 

What we didn't do - Of our 16 employees we lost only two; one decided to become a journalist and another moved into the corporate world. One of the things clients everywhere abhor is rapid turnover of their agency's account team. It is enormously wasteful, time-consuming and expensive to constantly retrain. I'm proud of our employee loyalty and I know our clients are, as well.

 

The good news for us is that we start 2012 in a better position than the same time last year, and certainly better than any time in the last three years. With a strong base of clients in technology, healthcare, marketing and media and corporate/financial/and professional services, we have our most solid base yet upon which to build our agency. Most importantly, we have the best team in our history, with just the right combination of experienced senior executives matched with younger, enthusiastic account managers-all of whom are committed to providing the finest client experience in our industry.

 

So here's wishing a great 2012 for everyone.

Sincerely,

 

 

Time To Get Over It

 

On December 7^th, JPMorgan Chase Chairman and CEO Jamie Dimon, while attending a Goldman Sachs conference, ranted on CNBC… “because you’re rich you are presumed to be bad.” This follows a similar rant that morning by Barry Sternlicht, Chairman and CEO of Starwood Capital Group, on CNBC’s SquawkBox. A week earlier my esteemed fraternity brother Leon Cooperman, head of Omega Partners, published an “Open Letter to President Obama”, also complaining about the tone of the President’s remarks about the rich.

 

To all of these guys and others I have one thing to say: enough already. While I’m in the 1% and proud of it (like Cooperman and Sternlicht, I came from nothing, and while not in their league by a long shot, managed to do pretty well), I have a different point of view.

 

Now Leon is absolutely a first rate guy – honorable, charitable and thoughtful. I suspect Sternlicht and Dimon are the same. But they miss the point. The rich have always been targets, especially of politicians around election time. So what else is new? Do these guys think that the middle class cares that their feelings are hurt? The middle class is hurting big time because the game is no longer fair. It favors the rich and it makes the economic gap between us too divisive. Obama is right. We need to fix our broken system. We may not like how he says it, but we can’t take issue with the message.

 

So guys, my advice is to stop complaining. Snap out of it. The divide between rich and poor is inexcusable. The tax system favoring the rich is inexcusable. We all know this. This country must have a strong middle class so future kids like Cooperman, Sternlicht, Dimon and Middleberg have a chance, through hard work and opportunity, to join the 1%, which should be the 5%.

 

Sorry if anyone’s feelings are hurt, but we’d all be better off if the complaining stopped and the doing started. We need more guys like Howard Schultz, founder and CEO of Starbucks Coffee and Fortune’s “Business Person of the Year.” He’s working at making a real difference.

 

Penn State and the Crises Experts

 

The lead, top-of-fold story running on Page 1 of today’s New York Times Sports Section (“Sports Monday”), discusses “Lessons in Damage Control”. The gist of the story and of the “experts” quoted is essentially that yes, Penn State, like other universities that have had significant crises to deal with, will  get through this crisis quicker and with less damage than people now think.

 

WHAT! Sorry for shouting but what planet are these “experts” living on? Penn State’s troubles are nowhere close to other school crises cited – Virginia Tech’s mad gunman or the Duke men’s lacrosse team. This is nothing less than the worst disaster ever to hit any university in the modern age. Worse than what happened at VT, Duke, Indiana, Notre Dame and Kent State. Terry Hartle, senior vice president at the American Council on Education, said he thought it was “a matter of time before Penn State again deserved its nickname, Happy Valley”. To which I say again….WHAT!

 

This is the worst crisis to ever befall a U.S. academic institution. And it won’t end anytime soon. This will live in the courts, to say nothing of the press, for years. This is about criminal misconduct of the worst kind. This is about being “too big to fail,” where a football coach had more power than anyone in the state and no one dared call him on it. It was institutionalized mayhem. Penn State will be paying for this for years.

 

What to do about it? If I were to advise Penn State I would say this….

 

1. Be as honest and transparent as possible.
2. Admit the failings and make real tangible changes that will make sure this cannot happen again.
3. Be sensitive. Give all 8 kids (or whatever the number turns out to be) full scholarships.
4. Voluntarily take a 4-year death penalty for the football team—don’t play another game for four years. All players currently committed to the school should be released immediately and allowed to go elsewhere.
5. Make sure the dirt bags are behind bars.
6. Dedicate the school to being #1 in advocating justice for child sex offenders and pedophiles, prevention and in helping to reduce its impact as much as possible. Sponsor academic “Chairs.” Conduct breakthrough research. Hold conferences. Testify before Congress.

 

In short, do something real. Be genuine. Only then, and with time, may Penn State overcome this blow to its reputation and credibility. To think less, is to be a communications incompetent.

It’s Not About Small Business, It’s About Start-ups:

The common perception is that small businesses are vital to job creation and hence the well-being of America. Heck, even President Obama in a speech to Congress a few weeks back said, “Everyone here knows that small businesses are where most new jobs begin.”

 

Eh, not quite. According to the National Bureau of Economic Research, nearly all job creation in America comes from start-up businesses.

 

So now we are on to one of my pet peeves—business schools teach little about how businesses really work, they teach about how big businesses work. Their case studies are about big businesses. Best practices are about big businesses. Yet, all businesses were start-ups at one point. Why do the Steve Jobs’, Michael Dells’, and Bill Gates’ of the world quit college? Because the curriculum is not relevant to them. Does any school teach about the value of networking? Where to find start-up capital and how to obtain it? How about the freedom to fail? Almost every great entrepreneur has failed at one point or another. Why not let people know about those case studies, how these  entrepreneurs benefited from their experience and what students can learn from these giants. How about encouraging, even teaching, good old-fashioned street smarts, in my opinion the most important attribute any person in business can posses.

 

The big question of the day is why anyone should spend $35,000 and more a year to go to a mid-level school for four years plus graduate school? What is the value proposition colleges are offering? Don’t take risks? America needs more risk takers, more dreamers, more people with guts who are unafraid to try something that ordinary people might think is crazy. Why aren’t we dedicating curriculum to the crazies of the world? The future of America depends on developing these folks to their full potential.

The 9/11 Memorial- It took while but wow, did they ever get it right.

 

It has been a long time since I’ve truly been impressed, but the 9/11 Memorial, which I visited last weekend, blew me away. Steve Jobs would be proud of the job they did. It is absolutely perfect in its design and tone.

 

In fact, the whole experience is one of the best in New York. First off, it is easy to visit. Free tickets are available just by going to their website (http://www.911memorial.org/visitor-passes). While signage in the Wall Street area is not great, it is not hard to eventually find where to go. Once there, the people working for the Memorial, including security, couldn’t be nicer. Very laid back, very happy in their job.

 

The site itself is a stunner. By now you probably know that there are two enormous pools, each in the exact footprint of the towers. The depth is seemingly identical to the width and the result is something spectacularly beautiful and serene. And then there are the names. Painstakingly etched in the area surrounding each pool. There are even maps to help you identify where a particular person’s name could be found. The reflecting pools are within a beautifully designed Park that provides the ideal sense of tranquility the Memorial needs.

 

My congratulations to all who helped design, finance and build the Memorial. It is worthy of the people they memorialize.

When Malcolm Gladwell Speaks, People Listen

 

 

Malcolm Gladwell, author of The Tipping Point, among other best-sellers, is one of the most engaging speakers I have ever heard. Yesterday, my client SapientNitro held a client event called Idea Engineer Exchange (iEX), which Gladwell headlined. Other invited guests included The Art of Immersion author Frank Rose and chief marketing officers from Fortune 2000 companies. 

 

Gladwell’s keynote speech blew everyone away.

 

The late Steve Jobs would have loved Gladwell’s talk, as he clearly thinks differently than the rest of us. Actually, he thinks about things the rest of us usually don’t. He then becomes a story teller covering how he sees the world. Yesterday’s talk focused on a variety of subjects ranging from innovation, to cancer research, to China’s role on the world stage.

 

Gladwell spent most of his talk discussing how it is not always best to be first. That, in fact, being third is best. He cited several compelling examples, ranging from the Israeli army’s victory over Syria in the 1982 Bekaa Valley air battle to Apple. In Apple’s case, he noted that the mouse was first created by California-based research group SRI, and then taken up by the brilliant scientists at Xerox’s Research Park. But the mouse was just an idea that didn’t have practical application until Jobs, while taking a tour of the Xerox facility, recognized its enormous potential.  He tweaked the product and instantly changed the course of Apple and computer history.

 

What Gladwell is suggesting is that there are usually three phases in product development:

1. Innovation: Some brilliant person dreams up a product or idea that no one envisioned.
2. Implementation: The product is then introduced to the marketplace, but not necessarily in a way that will penetrate and get the public excited.
3. Tweaking: It takes a third party, like Jobs, Gates or Ellison, to see the value of what has been developed and then tweak the product for success.

 

As for China, Gladwell feels that while they are enjoying success for now, long-term they are not equipped to dominate as everyone fears. He believes they have too many structural issues to overcome, including overdone centralization and a lack of cultural creativity.

 

Finally, Gladwell railed against our health care system. Among his main complaints is that we tend to throw money at health care problems but we are not getting the solutions we need. He believes that great results are often produced out of desperation. This concept is going to be the subject of his next book. I can’t wait.

“God Have Mercy On The Man Who Doubts What He Is Sure Of” - Bruce Springsteen, Brilliant Disguise

  

Is the sky falling? If you listen to all those who are talking doom and gloom, you would think so. I’m not in their camp and neither should you.

While I like to believe I have a strong dose of reality in me, at heart I’m a born optimist. I think that is an absolute quality one has to have if we are in marketing communications. And if there is one thing I am sure of it is in the future of this country to continue to lead the world. How can I be so certain? Every time I use my iPad, or Android phone, or listen to music, or see a movie—you get the idea—I’m sure. We remain the most creative nation on earth and in the end it is that quality which will get our economy (and the world’s) moving again. I know it.

So while the doomsayers are all around us. Be confident, be strong, be resolute, and above all be creative. Dismiss those who talk of doom and gloom and focus on those who see the future in a bright and positive way. There is so much to give thanks for, chief among those is that we live in a country that values creativity and content.

 

Vintage Carol Bartz

  

Fired Yahoo! CEO fired back with an awesome interview with Fortune's Patricia Sellers. 

Here are some of the key quotes:

• "The Yahoo! board] fucked me over."
• "I said, 'Roy, I think that's a script. Why don't you have the balls to tell me yourself?'"
• "The board was so spooked by being cast as the worst board in the country. Now they're trying to show that they're not the doofuses that they are."
• "I want to make sure that the employees don't believe that I've abandoned them. I would never abandon them."
• "I wish the Yahoo! people the best because it's a fantastic franchise."

Hey, you have got to admire someone with the gonads to call things straight. By her unique and personal style Carol Bartz is now the personification of guts, toughness, and transparency. By contrast she is making the Yahoo! Board look like spineless male suits who can’t get out of their own way. How refreshing to see a woman give it to the big boys. She was fired by Roy Bostock, the Yahoo! Chairman of the Board who gave her the news not face-to-face but rather over the phone reading a statement written by legal counsel. So what does Bartz do? She fires back in her, shall we say, salty style. She completely gained public attention and sympathy by being so candid and emotional.

 

Yahoo! is a prime example of an Internet firm that has lost its mojo. While they have every right to fire someone who underperforms, and she did, but to do so without class is unforgiveable. Where is the spirit that founded this company and made it such a standout? Is it any wonder that the company is floundering?

 

Now I’m not going to defend Bartz’s performance because it is indefensible. She had 30 months and during that time things went in the wrong direction. She missed out on Social Media and Apps among other things and let competitors (i.e. Google) just steal market share. But c’mon fellas, do things the right way. If I was a Yahoo! employee right now, I’d be completely embarrassed if not ashamed. Employees are a firm’s brand ambassadors and if you can’t communicate right with them, you’ve lost.

The Worst Football Uniforms, Ever.

 
 First off, let me start by saying how much I like the University of Maryland. Great location, great communications school, great kids (I’ve hired a few with wonderful success)….you get the drift. But on Monday night on ESPN I could not believe my eyes when I saw their football team’s new uniforms. I always thought Oregon University’s uniforms were a bit weird but I appreciated the attempt to be different. Last week I saw the new uniforms displayed by the University of Georgia and thought they were horrid. Miami University, Maryland’s opponent Sunday night, had some awful uniforms in their own right. But, hands down, the worst uniforms in the history of football are Maryland’s.

 Is this a trend? Is there a need to go to outlandish uniforms to gain attention of recruits, alumni, the student body? As a communicator, design is intrinsic to a brand. What is Maryland saying about its brand with those ridiculous uniforms? I can’t imagine this is helpful.

 Now I consider myself a reasonably creative, forward thinking guy. I am all for differentiation and expressing one’s self. But the best football uniforms are the classic’s—Michigan, Penn State, UCLA, and Notre Dame come immediately to mind. They stand the test of time. I’m not saying uniforms can’t or shouldn’t change—Wisconsin has done a great job modernizing their uniforms. But for goodness sake, when you split the uniform helmet down the center and put two completely unrelated designs together (oh, I’m sorry, the design rationale was that they took elements from the state flag) the result is an unmitigated mess.

 My bet, you’ll see new Maryland uniforms next year. What were those guys thinking anyway?