iPlot

The Business Leader 2009: Chief Meaning Officer

2009 will be a year of major uncertainty. The doom and gloom of the economic downturn, the deterioration of mass markets, the pervasiveness of the digital lifestyle, a host of explosive political conflicts, and the fragmentation of traditional societal institutions are causing anxiety and propel a new search for simplicity and non-economic value systems.

Consumption-driven wealth and status are being replaced by identity, belonging, and a strong desire to contribute and do something "meaningful" rather than just acquire things. Trust and reputation are no longer enablers for the exchange of goods, services, and information, they are replacing them. Values are the new value. Meaning is succeeding experience and customer satisfaction. "The job of leadership today is not just to make money. It's to make meaning," writes management consultant John Hagel. Out: Bottom-line-pragmatists and financial wizards. In: philosophers and ethicists.

This new cultural climate presents a historic opportunity for brands to transform themselves into arbiters of meaning. Becoming Chief Meaning Officers, business leaders must move beyond simply connecting products and customers with the goal to facilitate transactions – they must now create "meaning" through actions and interactions. When your brand is a vector, your base becomes a movement – that's what we learned from Barack Obama's campaign.

In 2009, we will see more examples of "meaningful marketing" and businesses generating value that goes beyond just meeting consumers' needs. This will imply several profound paradigm shifts: essence instead of luxury, free sharing instead of monetized scarcity, radical transparency instead of brand control, authenticity instead of image, empathy instead of focus groups, conversations instead of messaging, collaboration instead of dissemination. A "meaning surplus" will become imperative: Only brands that give more than they take will be able to create sustained brand loyalty.

A Good Winter

The album title was just too good to ignore, and I'm glad I followed my instinct for I made a real discovery: "For Emma, Forever Ago" by Bon Iver (from the French "Bon Hiver" = good winter!), which has become a self-released Internet sensation, is one of these KCRW-recommended albums that provide the soundtrack for a soul-searching journey through Americana.

It's ambient folk that creates spaces where you wouldn't have expected them. Justin Vernon, the singer-songwriter behind Bon Iver, locked himself into a reclusive cabin in Northwestern Wisconsin for three snowy months, filling his days with wood splitting and other chores around the land. In the sparseness of this self-selected solitude, he found an expansive, rich landscape of chillingly haunting tunes. They are reminiscent of M Ward's campfire ballads, Elliot Smith's mini dramas, and Bruce Springsteen's "Nebraska," yet more nuanced, elegant, and multi-layered. They all sound strangely familiar and made me think of what a colleague of mine, an industrial designer, said the other day: "Meaning can only be construed through memory." Hence the many pop cultural references that "For Emma, Forever Ago" evokes: The songs describe a "heart in winter" that is trying to move "away from her" until it, after "long, cold nights and heavy snow," as one of the songs' lyrics goes, zooms in on a truth that is best told by a lonely voice embedded in a blend of diffident guitar chords, sporadic strings, and the sound of cold steel: Beauty is what you find when you remove everything else.

The Five Balls Called Life

"...think of life as a game in which we juggle five balls labeled Work, Family, Health, Friends, and Integrity. One day you understand that Work is a rubber ball. You drop it and it bounces back. The other four balls are made of glass. Drop one of those, and it will be irrevocably marked, scuffed, nicked and maybe even shattered."

[from "Two Paths for the Aspiring Alpha Female," New York Times, February 17]

The New Digerati: Connected for a Reason

Steve Rubel wonders if "the Interruption Economy sacks prosperity:" "Conventional wisdom says that technology -- and nowadays the Internet -- will always continue to advance and bring with it productivity gains and prosperity. That's certainly been the case for years. However, historically there are pauses. After the benefits of the Industrial Revolution were fully realized it took awhile for the next big era to begin. I wonder if we're about to enter a similar lull now that the Information Age is arguably almost 30 years old." Rubel demands "we need new tools for managing interruptions -- and they may not be technological, but social. Our prosperity may depend on it."

Rubel is not the only one who expresses concern about the World Wide Web hampering productivity. He refers to Mark Cuban, who has made a similar case, and Idris Moote, who points at research showing that interruptions from e-mail, cell phones, instant messaging, and blogs take up nearly 30% of each day, which -- on an annualized basis -- represents a loss of 28 billion hours for the entire US workforce. Are we on the way to becoming the United States of ADD? Are we a nation of knowledge workers with very little but heavily dispersed knowledge and only a bit of attention capital left? Will there be an information backlash, as a result of a new digital divide "between geeks and those who are blissfully and decidedly low tech" (Rubel)?

There are some serious signs indicating that the new generation of digital citizens, the twenty-somethings who have grown up with the Internet and are accustomed to ubiquitous information, may already be one step ahead. Gone are the days of 'net pour le net.' Although the number of new blogs (more than 120,000 new weblogs are created each day) is staggering (as is the number of deserted blogs), blogging has not become a social norm -- it remains the passion (or addiction) of a few. Furthermore, the average time users spend on social networking sites is on the decline, and the once explosive growth of social networks has stagnated. In fact, a certain Facebook fatigue has set in, and users (including, reportedly, Bill Gates) are leaving the site, deactivating their accounts (if they can). In its heyday, social networking was an activity, now it may finally be turning into what at least Facebook, according to its mission statement, has always claimed to be: a utility. (Of course, the ironic truth is that Facebook would never have experienced such explosive growth if its claim had been true).

The new digerati have brokered a new online/offline balance as they find their "first life" in the real world unexpectedly attractive: face time trumps Facebook. They do not respond to emails on the weekend, as they are hiking, traveling, or engaging in some world changing social endeavor -- from running an AIDS marathon to volunteering for the Obama campaign to founding their own non-profit. They share the sensation that one's fortune is not made in front of a screen and that "quality of life" is the prerequisite of a good life. The new digerati want to be connected but only for a reason. They build their own social networks and take advantage of the communication tools at hand -- but they have matured their use of them. They scoff at those who spend their time chained to the PC, while they themselves enjoy utmost mobility. Applications that aim to succeed with the new digerati need to provide utilitarian value for social users on the go: Take, for example GyPSii, a new social networking platform designed specifically for the mobile phone. It connects people, places, content, and events, but it is no longer a destination.

Proxy Marketing or My QDOS Score is Higher Than Paul O'Brian's!

In this new age of "radical transparency," British firm Garlik has unveiled a new way to gauge popularity on the internet. The "QDOS" digital status rating system factors in how many times a person's name appears in a search, as well as an individual's popularity, impact, and activity, among other criteria. Garlik's system plays on the phenomenon of "vanity searches:" googling" and comparing oneself to others. I couldn't resist the temptation: My QDOS score is Q3176 -- that's less than Nelson Mandela (Q6624) and Woody Allen (Q7764) but more than "Home and Away" star Paul O'Brian (Q2929). Yay! Other interesting comparisons: Pope Benedikt (Q6889) scores higher than the Dalai Lama (Q5749). And Barack Obama (Q9983) trails Ron Paul (Q10233)...

Garlik plans using its system to eventually guide people into investing in identity protection services. This is an interesting strategy that we will see more often: creating a service as a value-added teaser to in fact market another, commercially more viable service. Let's dub this "proxy marketing." Want to promote a product? Launch another (free) product! That way, you build awareness, goodwill, and a community of users that you can then implicitly educate on the value proposition of your actual offering. Sooner or later, they'll be ready to open their wallet.

Another recent example of this strategy is Ideablob, the much hyped crowdsourced idea-sharing site, which essentially is a proxy service run by Advanta, one of the largest credit card companies in the US. DEMO judged: "By providing the more than 25 million small business owners in the U.S. with an interactive environment for advice, counsel, and idea exchange, Advanta is defining the power of community in its truest sense." Ideablob touts itself as "a place to grow your ideas" but it may in fact be a means to grow Advanta's client base.

Of course "marketing by proxy" isn't really a new thing as marketers have always partnered with other "proxy" third-party services to move into markets where they had only limited expertise and brand elasticity. And yet, what's new is that marketers seem to become more aggressive in marketing the proxy product. Proxy and actual product are often under one and the same corporate roof, and the boundaries between them are blurring. Smart marketers think of proxy strategies as win-win's, designing the proxy product to ideally become its own profit center.

Are You a Passionate Worker...?

...or just a workaholic?

In a poignant post, Seth Godin explains the difference:

"A workaholic lives on fear. It's fear that drives him to show up all the time. The best defense, apparently, is a good attendance record.

A new class of jobs (and workers) is creating a different sort of worker, though. This is the person who works out of passion and curiosity, not fear.

The passionate worker doesn't show up because she's afraid of getting in trouble, she shows up because it's a hobby that pays. The passionate worker is busy blogging on vacation... because posting that thought and seeing the feedback it generates is actually more fun than sitting on the beach for another hour. The passionate worker tweaks a site design after dinner because, hey, it's a lot more fun than watching TV.

It was hard to imagine someone being passionate about mining coal or scrubbing dishes. But the new face of work, at least for some people, opens up the possibility that work is the thing (much of the time) that you'd most like to do. Designing jobs like that is obviously smart. Finding one is brilliant."

That sounds good and reminds me of the "four-hour work week," as laid out in Tim Ferris' best-selling book: "How to trade a long-haul career for short work bursts and frequent "mini-retirements?" Ferris book is a manifesto for the mobile lifestyle, and a detailed manual for outsourcing your work and disassembling a cohesive, consistent work life into ultra-flexible and ever-changing roles and tasks. This allows him to live a nomadic and excessive private life in many microverses: "I race motorcycles in Europe," "I ski in the Andes," "I scuba dive in Panama," and "I dance tango in Buenos Aires."

A similar concept is the "slash lifestyle," a term to describe the identity concepts of people who are no longer satisfied with just one professional identity and instead mash up professions and hobbies into a hybrid work/life fulfillment that unleashes their true ever-changing self: "Doctor/author," "Mom/consultant," and "Bellydancer/Scientist" are just some of the possible combinations.

Yet slash-lifestyle and passionate worker attitude have some ramifications. There is a dark side to all the Kumbaya freedom of the new passionate entrepreneurial self. More and more A-list bloggers (i.e. Steve Rubel and David Armano) are admitting a certain blogging fatigue. "Blogging is an addiction," a friend (and avid blogger) told me the other day, "it is a passion that can kill you." So does passion not equal happiness? And how do you draw the line? In a Fast Company cover story, Mike Rowe of "Dirty Jobs" offers some good advice: "Never follow your passion but by all means bring it with you."

Paris, je t'aime

Alexander Payne's five minute episode from the omnibus movie "Paris, je t'aime" is a genuine homage to a city that is hard to love because everyone does. When I lived in Germany, I drove to Paris at least four times a year. Paris was the first city in my life, and like the heavily accented American narrator in Payne's story, I always wanted to live there and be more than just a tourist. It never quite worked out. In 2004, I came back and was supposed to give a press conference at city hall as a spokesperson of the Athens Olympic Torch Relay. I had spoken French at a similar event in Montreal the week before, but in front of the Paris press I felt too insecure to even try. I can't remember having ever been more nervous. I guess Paris does that to you. It's like a permanent blind date. Speaking of which, my other favorite from "Paris, je t'aime" is Tom Tykwer's rushed love story. Like all good movies, it is about seeing:

The One Thing (Question) For A Better World

In fin d'année mood, saving the world is en vogue -- and asking the "one thing" question obviously, too.

Inspired by Leonardo DiCaprio's gloom and doom documentary "The 11th Hour," OnEarth magazine asked a panel of leading scientists and activists to move beyond bleak diagnoses and offer concrete proposals for a sustainable future:

"Which one thing would you do to save the world?"

You can read a transcript of the entire conversation here.

Slightly modifying OnEarth's impetus (and oddly phrasing it), The World Economic Forum (WEF) asks the "Davos Question:"

"What one thing do you think that countries, companies or individuals must do to make the world a better place in 2008?"

Unlike OnEarth, however, the WEF does not seek the advice of experts and instead relies on the crowd. Everyone can upload suggestions on YouTube and make his/her "voice heard in Davos." The highest rated videos will be screened on January 23-27 during the Forum. The world leaders will then be asked to video-respond on YouTube.

Not Afraid of the Other: A Short Trip to Israel

One week in Israel: A wonderful wedding, three earthquakes, and the run-up to the Annapolis peace conference. Every day, every encounter was an adventure and a lesson.

Let's start with the end: On the way back to the Ben Gurion airport, our taxi driver talked politics; he seemed level-headed and moderate, and what he said made sense. The only country he'd ever been to was Lebanon -- as a soldier during the war. Then he took us on an unexpected detour, away from the more common freeway #1 and straight through Palestinian territory, along the concrete security fence and numerous watch towers. "I take you here so you can see the other Israel," he told us, and he pointed at houses in the not too far distance: "This is Ramallah, where you can meet Abbas." He explained that you can identify Jewish settlements by their red roofs. We passed a house, a few hundred meters from the road, up on a hill, with a green flag on top. "Do you know this green flag?" he asked us, "Hamas." "This guy is basically saying: I’m a terrorist. We should send a fighter plane and bomb the hell out of him. If I were to settle in Ramallah and would put an Israeli flag on my roof, you know what would happen? They would lynch me." I asked him whether he felt safe in Jerusalem, where he lived, and he said: "I feel safe everywhere. You can put me in the middle of Ramallah and I would feel safe." Even now, as a taxi driver, he claimed, he was one of the few who would give ultra-orthodox Jews a ride to holy yet dangerous sites in Hebron: "The Arabs know me. They know that I would pull my gun right away, without asking any questions. I would kill them without thinking. I learned that in the military. They know that so they leave me alone." "I am a psychopath," he laughed, "I'm a little bit meshugge." And he revealed that he had been a parachuter with the Sayeret Matkal counter-terrorism unit of IDF (Israeli Defense Forces) that make incursions on Palestinian territory. When we arrived at Ben Gurion, he proudly showed us the parachute in his trunk, which he was now using for hobby glides ("An expensive one. It can carry two people. It costs about $8,000.")

On the day before, our Masada tour guide Ron, who counts Madonna (a.k.a. Esther) and some other Hollywood celebrities as his clients, vividly described the violence of King Herod and the legendary collective suicide of the Zealots. An elderly Israeli man now living in California remarked: "It's the story of our lives. A few against many. Hopefully, our story will not end like Masada."

Walled Gardens

In Old Jerusalem, Palestinians and Israelis seem to have arranged some hidden pact to co-exist. There is a distinct awareness of tension, yet the walls that separate the Muslim and the Jewish quarters in the old city are invisible and not as impenetrable as elsewhere. The people who live here resemble a heterogeneous mix, and while revealing one's nationality may still be a risky thing, as one Israeli cautioned, one does not need to be afraid of being lynched on the streets. Nonetheless, surveillance cameras are subtle but ubiquitous, as are the machine guns of IDF soldiers. Lulled by the good life in street cafes, the pleasant climate, and the thriving economy, you can easily forget that Israel is a country at war.

On Shabbat, we followed a Palestinian cab driver's invitation to have coffee with his family in his house on the Mount of Olives. Muhammad drove us along the security fence that divides the West Bank from Jerusalem. The local security checkpoint is the biggest one the Israelis built, he explained. It was practically in his backyard. We met a dozen kids, the matriarch of the family, and several siblings in his apartment. We ate their rice and bread and humus, and drank their coffee. "You have a beautiful family," said my friend, an American Jew. "It's all in your eyes," replied the grandmother. From the patio, we enjoyed the view over what Israelis calls Judea and Samaria (and the rest of the world refers to as the West Bank), the land that lies behind the wall. The wall is everywhere. It is in the heads, it is in the hearts, and it cuts the holy land in two.

Muhammad and his family showed us is that it is worth not to be afraid of going to the other side. It turned out his father is a renowned "peacemaker" who regularly invites tourists and Israelis to his home, in an effort to overcome stereotypes and foster mutual understanding. Even Richard Gere once sat on his couch. "No one saw what happened the day after Israeli forces bulldozed 100 houses in Jenin, when a lot of Jews and Christians came to a special hospital on the Mount of Olives to give blood for the Palestinians in Jenin and in the camps,” he writes on his web site. "Does anybody hear about this goodness in Europe and USA? People who have never been here think there is a wall between the Arabs and the Jews and that we are both dangerous people. We are both really good people." The Holy Land is a parable about the need "to care for each other simple because that 'other' exists," in the words of Rabbi Menachem Mendle. "Never ever again will I judge anyone based on ethnic or religious traits," whispers one of the Holocaust witnesses at Yad Vashem.

The Discovery of Heaven

I've never been so close to heaven before in my life. That's what I felt when I stood on the compound of the Temple Mount. I thought of Harry Mulisch's book "The Discovery of Heaven," and I was astonished to be let so close to the third-holiest site for Muslims (after Mecca and Medina), and the holiest of the holiest for Jews. I was riveted by the beauty of the Dome of the Rock. The Muslim tour guide we had hired explained the world to us for 60 NIS, in a tour de force through the powers of the universe, represented by the many mathematical formulas that hold it together and appear as a common theme of the Dome's architecture. He recounted the story of Mohammed's ascension to heaven, and he emphasized the universality of Islam, delivering his points with dry wit and a nonchalant tolerance for the naive questions of his listeners. All in all, a perfect piece of public diplomacy. "Allah doesn’t want us to carry more than we can carry," he said. And as he delved into details of the Koran, I thought of the wisdom for the crowds that had been accumulated over thousands of years and captured in the "book of books," and how mighty it was compared to the "wisdom of the crowds" that we cherish today.

Jerusalem is the most closed and the most open place in the world. The Temple Mount, the Via Dolorosa that meanders through the Muslim quarter, and all the other meaning-laden sites: The three big monotheistic religions cross so many paths and narratives in this city, that you have to conclude God is not only great but has also a profound sense of irony. You can imagine him somewhere high up in the cloudless sky ("If God lived on earth, people would break his windows," a Jewish proverb goes), quietly amused: "Go figure it out!" "Man means nothing / he means less to me than the lowliest cactus flower or the humblest yucca tree / he chases round this desert cause he thinks that's where I'll be / that's why I love mankind / I recoil in horror from the foulness of thee / from the squalor and the filth and the misery / How we laugh up here in heaven at the prayers you offer me / That's why I love mankind." Randy Newman's 'God Song' is not as cynical as it may sound. Rather, it suggests that you have to believe in order to believe -- there is no rational argument for His existence.

And believing is living in Israel. Maybe one day, its people, from all religions, will be able to demonstrate that you can lead a modern life in a modern society and at the same time embrace and practice your faith. That religion as a way of life may be the only way to have a complete life. And that Christopher Hitchens, Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins, and all the other atheists simply don't know what they don't know. If "religion is not faith, but the story of faith," as Reza Aslan puts it, then maybe atheists are nothing but illiterate.

Israel is rich with the stories of faith. It is the mother of all conflicts and the mother of all hope. It is a holy, a beautiful, an endangered land, and it is this very fragility that makes it worth fighting for.

The CEO as Cognitive Coach

There's a great article on Cognitive Fitness in this month's Harvard Business Review. The authors, Roderick Gilkey and Clint Kilts, call for a "brain-positive" corporate culture and contend that "the future belongs to companies with leaders who develop cognitive fitness for themselves and their organizations. CEOs need to be cognitive coaches to those whose work and decisions collectively create and propel the company’s strategy."

While you should definitely read the full article, here are the four steps to cognitive fitness that the article proposes:

1. Understand how experience makes the brain grow
2. Work hard at play
3. Search for patterns
4. Seek novelty and innovation

The last step may be the most challenging one, and it entails a valuable lesson for innovators: "To exist is to change, to change is to mature, to mature is to go on creating oneself endlessly," wrote the philosopher Henri Bergson. Accordingly, Gilkey and Kilts argue that "The people who remain engaged in life consistently display an attitude of openness to new and unexpected experiences." This "open attitude" requires a "beginner’s mind:" "In the beginner’s mind there are many possibilities, but in the expert's there are a few."