Lingolook

Anyone following my transformation will know that I work for what Scott Karp describes as a linear company, with linear communication processes and linear results. The scope for change if we/they are to effectively embrace “the dynamic nature of online content” is truly biblical and the urgency to do so is, at best, frightening.

Is change possible? My largest client recently engaged McKinsey to carry out an in-depth analysis on the brand’s core and perceived values. The results, which I’m afraid I cannot publish here, were hardly surprising and oh-so-very predictable. At a consumer level, the company (and its product range) lacks character and personality. It doesn’t “own” any particular value proposition except for cheap and reliable which in my book is hardly a plus.

The most bizarre result of this analysis was that, according to McKinsey, no two IT vendors actually occupy the same value space in the minds of the public. Therefore none of us are actually competing… WTF?? Remind me of that each time someone buys from HP.

There is of course a positive side to this. It forces management to face reality and take action. In my client’s case they have decided to turn up the heat a little and move a little deeper into the premium brand segment but rather than approaching this shift with a differentiated and highly-tailored media mix with on- and off-line initiatives, the powers that be are afraid of challenging the status quo of their time-honoured processes and opinions and hence my ideological loss the other day.

When human resources puts pen to paper you get bureaucracy, no matter how you look at it. So why should HR be allowed to churn out brand values? It’s like legal department writing marketing material or product managers given free reign over trade unions. They can guide the thought processes, but surely it’s unwise to permit them to dictate terms.

If anyone trying to make a difference in marketing has seen the Layer Cake, I’m sure the final scene where Eddie Temple (Michael Gambon) explains to XXXX (Daniel Craig) the ways of the world is all too familiar. If anyone’s sat through a 10-hour analysis session and at the end asked themselves what the hell the point was, that cake seems to have no end.

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“Change. It’s just a word.

Wait. No it’s not.”

Brilliant.

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Many times in the past few weeks I have had an itch in that area of the brain where “you know it’s right” feelings come from.

I have been lacking both on my blog rhythm as well as on my commitment to the cause, whatever that may have been… and just like Neo awakening for the first time on the Nebuchadnezzar, it’s been a painful rehabilitation. But now the new world has begun to take shape and that itch is there for a reason - it feels just right.

We have started the ball rolling and only time will tell if it was in the right direction. So from now on, this blog will also tell of our ups (and downs) as we re-shape our world with two new online activities.

The copywriter has changed forever and everyone I have come into contact with through this medium and beyond has played an important part in reshaping my beliefs and redirecting the course of events. This is no small private illumination, this is a full-on re-activation of everything I had promised myself I would accomplish.

So for now, it’s back to the drawing board.

I am starting to map the lesson program of my online language course -  I need to produce one thousand grammar modules before I go any further. So far I’ve got 380 down so there’s still a long way to go, also because once I’ve logged all 1000, I then have to reorder them, modify them into a coherent whole and produce video material for each and every one. And that’s before I get to writing the support material.

It’s a major challenge, particularly as I’ve been sitting on this idea for 10 years now. In fact for that very reason I’d go so far as to say that it’s the single most complex project I’ve ever been involved in in my entire life. But the web is the right medium (as Ken Robinson would say) and now is the right moment.  Seeing it come to life is simply magical.

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I’m not one to hide my feelings. When I’m angry you can see it a mile off (my wife 2) and when I’m happy I breathe an infectious enthusiasm for the most trivial of things that’s almost annoying. You’ll be relieved to know that by nature, I’m more happy than I am angry

Yeah, I’m a touchy-feely sort of guy at heart, which is why I’m a copywriter and not a sheet metal worker, although I suspect even they have their moments.

I’m also not one to rant over other people’s shortcomings as if planting a flag for consumer rights every time something goes wrong with something I’ve bought, seen or had to do with professionally or personally. To quote Massive Attack: the big wheel keeps on turning, and I’m more than happy to look after my own, slightly smaller one thank-you very much.

However, there are moments when all this talk of principles and morals falls flat on its face and you let loose with something wholly unexpected. I’ve had notable negative explosions, I think the most memorable public one was my criticism of ShinyShiny’s treatment of Acer.

I’ve also stated publicly (although I don’t remember where) that I’m thoroughly impressed with Dell’s telephone support service. Yes, I have a Dell and when it went wrong they were simply amazing on the phone.

Now it’s time for me to compliment someone I never really thought I would. Apple.

Back on the 6th September, I ordered the 16GB iPod Touch complete with personalized inscription as a present to myself for my new son. The day before he was born, it arrived. Perfect timing. I immediately loaded it up, registered it, transfered a bunch of stuff over and took it out to show it off (well wouldn’t you?). Took it home and spent the evening with it hooked up to the hi-fi and had guests over for dinner. All very impressive.

The next day I slipped out to charge it up again. Connected it to my PC and BOOM! It all went dark. I have no idea what shorted, but not only did the iPod die, it also became incandescent for the next 4-5 hours - in fact I had it in my pocket when we went to hospital as I wasn’t sure if the thing was going to explode and burn the house/car down!

On Monday I contacted Apple support. They pointed my to the nearest Apple Authorised Service Provider who congratulated me as I was quite possibly the first person in Italy (Europe?) to have returned his iPod Touch. Anyway, they took it in and said they’d be in touch. Fast forward one week and a brand new iPod Touch just arrived in the post, complete with original inscription. No questions asked.

I understand all your arguments in defence of the poor old consumer, and that, yes, it was the least old Steve could do, but I think they went the extra mile to keep me a happy customer, and deserve the genuine thanks I’m giving them. Oh, and yes, it’s one hell of a product.

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In this life of volatile emotions, when something breaks it’s usually because something else is trying to get out.

You can fight change, you can deny it too, but you can’t outrun it when it’s you that’s evolving.

The agents of change are powerful motivators as we are all fine-tuned into seeking out the next big thing. Yet despite being as big and as cumbersome as a London bus, the ones that really make a difference are difficult to spot for the simple fact is that we are not looking for them.

When one of these bright red agents comes down our street we see it a mile off, let it drive past, quickly read the destination and if we decide it’s going in the general direction we’re interested in, we hop on.

Once aboard, we pay the modest fare (money, toil, late nights, some other personal sacrifice) and only get off when we see another, bigger, brighter agent heading to the next Promised Land.

This is all very well, but whatever change made us jump on in the first place was outside of us (it was on the bus), not inside.

Every now and again life catapults you headfirst into the path of one of these agents and the blow leaves a mark a mile wide on your soul, and changes you forever.

As so it is with this copywriter.

The last time I looked at how this blog started, I didn’t recognize myself. Nothing deliberate but back then I was so busy trying to see whose paths my thoughts and experiences would cross that I didn’t notice the profound shifts taking place closer to home.

I have never been an academic. It’s one of my personal skeletons I defend by saying that for me structured academic intelligence simply gets in the way of my own understanding of a subject, slowing down my responsiveness and interrupting any emotional enjoyment I’m expecting to feel.

Take music for example. I couldn’t tell you the difference between Mozart and Mahler, or name more than a few of the myriad of music styles that have emerged since their time, but I have an innate sense of rhythm that is almost physical. I can actually “see” the most complicated percussion breaks and follow complex, computer-programmed drum sequences like they were softly flowing trickles of water. It just clicks.

These past months have stunned me into the silence you can see between this and my last post. Something new and unexpected just clicked, bringing a new order to my world that conflicts so much with so many of the things I have done to date that I am radically re-ordering my priorities.

In two short months I have read: The Cluetrain Manifesto, The Dip, The Tipping Point, Blink, The Assault on Reason, The Wisdom of Crowds and Out of Our Minds by the brilliant Ken Robinson. Then I wrote the corporate brochure of my biggest client (you try believing what you’re writing after a preparation of this calibre…).

If that wasn’t hard enough I then sought comfort in trying to take the corporate voice of this same client outside the accepted boundaries of damage limitation and it came straight back at me. Not from outside, but from within.

And then something broke…

You can’t outrun it when it’s you that’s evolving and what I’m becoming as a result of everything and everyone I’ve discovered online is starting to distance me from what I’m doing.

These discoveries refuse to be categorized as mere acquired knowledge that makes me function better as a copywriter, rather as agents of change that have brought an innate knowledge to the surface that makes me function better as a human being.

After years of perfecting my art, I now see the value (and lack of it) in many of the things I do and there’s the rub. How do you reconcile your personal thoughts and professional actions when they are in blatant disaccord?

On paper the answer’s easy, yet I’m willing to bet that no-one reading this is foolish enough to believe that anything truly worthwhile ever is.

I have a plan, and I’m really looking forward to sharing it.

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SNAP!

I heard it as I turned over the last page of The Cluetrain Manifesto.

I need time  to take it all in. But when it comes back out, there’s gonna be hell to pay.

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OK I was looking at my recent posts and I think I’ve managed to paint a picture of gloom and dismay so I’m going to up the tempo a little to try and get back some of that fizz bang that started me along this journey in the first place.

Besides, it also gives me the chance to send a little link love to Richard who’s just started out on his own.

So let’s get this road on the show with one of the funniest videos I’ve seen in a long while.

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It seems like I’m facing one of life’s moments.

I have to decide whether the money’s worth it.

I have to choose between yes and no.

I have to see beyond the safety of a contract.

I have to listen to my heart.

I have to deal with back-stabbers.

I have to read the signs.

I have to know when the time’s right and when it’s wrong.

I have to understand I might just have grown too fast.

I have to admit that maybe I just run out of room.

I have to open my eyes.

I have to fight my fears.

I have to believe in myself.

I have to defend the truth.

I have to go beyond where I’m heading.

I have to continue to love.

I have to face the facts: now or never?

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• If your personality isn’t in what you do, its value dies.
• If your personality is somehow repressed, contained or - worse - controlled, your value dies.
• If you’re not given the possibility to express your personality where you work, your job’s value dies.
• If you prize your value, be who you are.

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It all started with a video from the late, great Ken Giddens. It was amazing how this man played the system. And buy system I mean the way people searched for information.

He showed in the clearest way possible, that the way to make money through pay-per-click systems like Adsense was to collect traffic looking for something particular, give them a little more information than they already knew and then point them in the direction you want them to go.

The (obvious) secret to making money with AdSense is getting visitors to click on the ads you want them to. Put differently, what you’ve got to avoid is giving them a reason not to.

This sounds dumb but I’ve recently learned some interesting lessons about this on one of my blogs.

To start with I believe in putting up AdSense ads only where they serve a purpose. Take a look round this site and you’ll see no ads. Lots of widgets and things but no ads. For the simple reason that in my view, anyone “lonely” enough to visit this blog isn’t looking to buy anything so what purpose do they serve here? They don’t actually add to the experience so, for now at least, they’re not welcome.

No, the idea is to put ads where they add value to the page. An example is the AdSense block on the right margin over at www.genitoriinfuga.com. Yes there’s an English version but we’re working on this one at the moment.

What this site does is tells of our travels “without the kids”. If anyone else feels the urge to follow in our footsteps, Google is kind enough to provide some pretty good ideas. It’s complimentary and makes the site look a whole lot more professional in the process. Now all we’ve got to do is work on our traffic…

A blog that isn’t lacking traffic is www.theacerguy.com and this one in particular has taught me more lessons than I’ve had hot dinners (and I’m a big guy). There’s steady growth, interest and participation from all involved.

This site has AdSense blocks both on it and off (Swicki). I’ve noticed that if people get onto the Swicki, they’re ten times more likely to try and get away from it by clicking on the AdSense ads. Ken was right.

So what was the lesson?

Recently The Acer Guy had a lot of traffic from people with a support issue. At first I wasn’t able to resolve the issue completely so visitors passed through, often clicking on the Ads when they didn’t find what they were looking for.

Then last week-end I posted a solution to the problem. Almost overnight my AdSense revenue went through the floor and is struggling to show a heart beat.

So at what cost authority? I guess there’s a fine line between giving people what they want in return for building long-term reputation and giving them what you need in return for a quick buck.

I’ll take the former any day.

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