Friday 27 April 2012

Why You Need to Make Your Life More Automatic

Why is it that three prominent books published just during the past several months focused on the subject of willpower?

The first answer is that neuroscience has finally begun to open a window into the complex way our brains respond to temptation and what it takes to successfully exercise choice.

Second, a raft of recent studies have shown that the capacity for self-control — even more than genetic endowment or material advantage — fuels a range of positive outcomes in life, including more stable relationships, higher paying and more satisfying work, more resilience in the face of setbacks, better health, and greater happiness.

Finally, these books — Willpower, The Willpower Instinct, and The Power of Habit — are a response to an increasingly evident need. Demand in our lives is truly outpacing our capacity.

The sheer number of choices we must make each day — what foods to eat, what products to buy, what information merits our attention, what tasks to prioritize — can be overwhelming. As Roy Baumeister puts it in Willpower, "Self-regulation failure is the major social pathology of our time."

Each of these books provides compelling studies and fascinating stories that illustrate the challenges we face in exercising more self-control. All of them also come to the same paradoxical conclusion.

Put simply, the more conscious willpower we have to exert each day, the less energy we have left over to resist our brain's primitive and powerful pull to instant gratification. According to one study, we spend at least one-quarter of each waking day just trying to resist our desires — often unsuccessfully.

Conversely, the more of our key behaviours we can put under the automatic and more efficient control of habit — by building something I call "Energy Rituals" — the more likely we are to accomplish the things that truly matter to us.

How different would your life be, after all, if you could get yourself to sleep 8 hours at night, exercise every day, eat healthy foods in the right portions, take time for reflection and renewal, remain calm and positive under stress, focus without interruption for sustained periods of time, and prioritize the work that matters most?

Right now, the vast majority of what we do each day occurs automatically. We're often triggered, as these authors make vividly clear, by subtle cues we're not even aware of — a smell, a visual image, a familiar sight. These cues prompt us to move away from any potential pain and discomfort, no matter how minimal, and toward immediate reward and gratification, no matter how fleeting.

The primary role of our prefrontal cortex is to bias the brain towards doing the "harder" thing. Unfortunately, our rational capacity is often overwhelmed by the power of our own most visceral and primitive desires.

We're often captive to our biochemistry. When the neurotransmitter dopamine is triggered, for example, what we feel is craving, not pleasure. This explains not just why we fall into a range of self-destructive addictions, but also why we don't take better care of ourselves and make wiser choices day in and day out.

The solution is to learn how to co-opt the more primitive habit-forming regions of our brains, so that rather than reinforcing our negative impulses, they become the soil in which we build positive rituals that serve our long term interests.

So how do you get started? The first step is simply to understand better what you are up against. That requires slowing down. Speed is the enemy of reflection, understanding and intentionality. When we slow down, we can begin to notice both what's driving us, and how to take back the wheel.

Eat slower, for example, and you not only begin to notice how rarely you savor the food you eat, but also how often you eat for reasons other than hunger and how rarely you notice when you've had enough.

To begin strengthening your capacity for self-observation, take two or three minutes at several designated times a day to breathe in to a count of three and out a count of six with your eyes closed. Notice the thoughts, feelings or sensations that arise, name them, and then let them pass. Return to the breath. You're training mindfulness.

We each have an infinite capacity for self-deception — endless ways that the awesome power of our desires cause our prefrontal cortex to defend the indefensible and rationalize behaviours that aren't serving us well. The first step to building willpower and self-control is recognizing how little we currently have.

You can't change what you don't notice.

Nine lessons in leadership from Xenophon’s Cyrus the Great:

Am writing a series of ideas for people at NACUE about marketing and how marketing is important inside societies as well as externally.

And so it got me thinking to something from many years ago - ancient leaders and team builders (who didnt have the internet) and what did they do.

Well it seems they did rather a lot. And they didn't have to be Machiavellian to do it.

Behold: Cyrus the Great, the man that historians call “the most amiable of conquerors,” and the first king to found “his empire on generosity” instead of violence and tyranny. Consider Cyrus the antithesis to Machiavelli’s ideal Prince. The author, himself the opposite of Machiavelli, was Xenophon, a student of Socrates.

Nine lessons in leadership from Xenophon’s Cyrus the Great:



Be Self-Reliant


“Never be slow in replenishing your supplies. You’ll always bee on better terms with your allies if you can secure your own provisions…Give them all they need and your troops will follow you to the end of the earth.”

Be Generous


“Success always calls for greater generosity–though most people, lost in the darkness of their own egos, treat it as an occasion for greater greed. Collecting boot [is] not an end itself, but only a means for building [an] empire. Riches would be of little use to us now–except as a means of winning new friends.”

Be Brief


“Brevity is the soul of command. Too much talking suggests desperation on the part of the leader. Speak shortly, decisively and to the point–and couch your desires in such natural logic that no one can raise objections. Then move on.”

Be a Force for Good


“Whenever you can, act as a liberator. Freedom, dignity, wealth–these three together constitute the greatest happiness of humanity. If you bequeath all three to your people, their love for you will never die.”

Be in Control


[After punishing some renegade commanders] “Here again, I would demonstrate the truth that, in my army, discipline always brings rewards.”

Be Fun


“When I became rich, I realized that no kindness between man and man comes more naturally than sharing food and drink, especially food and drink of the ambrosial excellence that I could now provide. Accordingly, I arranged that my table be spread everyday for many invitees, all of whom would dine on the same excellent food as myself. After my guests and I were finished, I would send out any extra food to my absent friends, in token of my esteem.”


Be Loyal



[When asked how he planned to dress for a celebration] “If I can only do well by my friends, I’ll look glorious enough in whatever clothes I wear.”


Be an Example


“In my experience, men who respond to good fortune with modesty and kindness are harder to find than those who face adversity with courage.”


Be Courteous and Kind


“There is a deep–and usually frustrated–desire in the heart of everyone to act with benevolence rather than selfishness, and one fine instance of generosity can inspire dozens more. Thus I established a stately court where all my friends showed respect to each other and cultivated courtesy until it bloomed into perfect harmony.”

Well worth thinking about as greatmarketing can only take you so far - sometimes you need to have solid foundations too.

Thursday 12 April 2012

Tips for 'us' strategic thinkers...

If you find yourself resisting "being strategic," because it sounds like a fast track to irrelevance, or vaguely like an excuse to slack off, you're not alone.

I think the very same - almost every day.

Every leader's temptation is to deal with what's directly in front, because it always seems more urgent and concrete. Which is why it can feel like you are fighting fires everyday. Problems with people paying, dealing with developers, sorting out situations with someone, talking to the taxman etc etc.

No time for the over view - we got so much to do. Sod the strategics.

Unfortunately, if you do that, you put your company at risk. While you concentrate on steering around potholes, you'll miss windfall opportunities, not to mention any signals that the road you're on is leading off a cliff.

This is a tough job, make no mistake. "We need strategic leaders!” is a pretty constant refrain at every company, large and small. One reason the job is so tough: no one really understands what it entails. It's hard to be a strategic leader if you don't know what strategic leaders are supposed to do.

After two decades of advising organizations large and small, Paul J. H. Schoemaker and his colleagues have formed a clear idea of what's required of you in this role. And they should know they have been studying it for years with their company - www.decisionstrat.com.

They have found that - Adaptive strategic leaders — the kind who thrive in today’s uncertain environment – do six things well:

Anticipate

Most of the focus at most companies is on what’s directly ahead. The leaders lack “peripheral vision.” This can leave your company vulnerable to rivals who detect and act on ambiguous signals. To anticipate well, you must:

Look for game-changing information at the periphery of your industry
Search beyond the current boundaries of your business
Build wide external networks to help you scan the horizon better

Think Critically

“Conventional wisdom” opens you to fewer raised eyebrows and second guessing. But if you swallow every management fad, herdlike belief, and safe opinion at face value, your company loses all competitive advantage. Critical thinkers question everything. To master this skill you must force yourself to:

Reframe problems to get to the bottom of things, in terms of root causes
Challenge current beliefs and mindsets, including your own
Uncover hypocrisy, manipulation, and bias in organizational decisions

Interpret

Ambiguity is unsettling. Faced with it, the temptation is to reach for a fast (and potentially wrongheaded) solution. A good strategic leader holds steady, synthesizing information from many sources before developing a viewpoint. To get good at this, you have to:

Seek patterns in multiple sources of data
Encourage others to do the same
Question prevailing assumptions and test multiple hypotheses simultaneously

Decide

Many leaders fall prey to “analysis paralysis.” You have to develop processes and enforce them, so that you arrive at a “good enough” position. To do that well, you have to:

Carefully frame the decision to get to the crux of the matter
Balance speed, rigor, quality and agility. Leave perfection to higher powers
Take a stand even with incomplete information and amid diverse views

Align

Total consensus is rare. A strategic leader must foster open dialogue, build trust and engage key stakeholders, especially when views diverge. To pull that off, you need to:

Understand what drives other people's agendas, including what remains hidden
Bring tough issues to the surface, even when it's uncomfortable
Assess risk tolerance and follow through to build the necessary support

Learn

As your company grows, honest feedback is harder and harder to come by. You have to do what you can to keep it coming. This is crucial because success and failure--especially failure--are valuable sources of organizational learning. Here's what you need to do:

Encourage and exemplify honest, rigorous debriefs to extract lessons
Shift course quickly if you realize you're off track
Celebrate both success and (well-intentioned) failures that provide insight

Do you have what it takes?

Obviously, this is a daunting list of tasks, and frankly, no one is born a black belt in all these different skills. But they can be taught and whatever gaps exist in your skill set can be filled in. I'll cover each of the aspects of strategic leadership in more detail in future columns. But for now, test your own strategic aptitude (or your company's) with the survey at www.decisionstrat.com.

I am going to take the test - just not now - as got clients phoning me to do something else.... which kinda sums it up (doesn't it...)

Wednesday 11 April 2012

Probably the most important thing you will read if you are starting a new tech business in 2012....

Less of a blog more of a dissertation on the ecosystems for startups - such an important piece of work that I had to blog about it.

The “Startup Genome,” created by three young entrepreneurs, Bjoern Herrmann, Max Marmer, and Ertan Dogrultan was a truly huge task. It was no less but to take a comprehensive, data-driven dive into what makes tech startups successful — and not so successful. Absolute gold dust. Here are the top twenty findings to think about and how the rest of the world goes up against Silicon Valley.

Startup Throughput: Perhaps unsurprisingly, the Silicon Valley startup ecosystem continues to lead the way, but the gap is growing smaller every year. Silicon Valley’s ecosystem is currently 3-times bigger than New York City, 4.5-times bigger than London, 12.5-times bigger than Berlin, and 38-times larger than Boulder.

Startup Success Rate: Proportionally, the Silicon Valley ecosystem has 22% more companies in the “scale stage” than in NYC and 54% more than in London.

Availability of Capital: On average, Silicon Valley startups raise two to three-times more money in the first three stages of development: Discovery, Validation, and Efficiency. But in the scale stage, compared to Silicon Valley, New York City startups raise 27% more money and London startups raise 30% more money.

Job Creation: In the Efficiency and Scale stages, Silicon Valley startups create 11 percent more jobs than NYC startups and 38 percent more jobs than London startups.

Risk Profile: The number of high risk companies decreases steadily through the startup lifecycle, except in New York City where the number of high risk companies spikes from 45% to 67%, and has 4x more high risk companies in the scale stage than Silicon Valley.

Product Types: Compared to New York entrepreneurs, Silicon Valley entrepreneurs are 2-times more likely to build games, 50 percent less likely to build marketplaces, 23 percent more likely to be build social networks, 3.5-times more likely to be build infrastructure and 2.5-times less likely to be build financial tools. Compared to entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley, London entrepreneurs are 50 percent more likely to be build eCommerce products, 35 percent less likely to be build social products, 3.5-times less likely to be build products based on user-generated content and 2-times more likely to be build project management software.

Market Type: Silicon Valley entrepreneurs are 13 percent more likely to tackle new markets than London entrepreneurs whereas London entrepreneurs are 21 percent more likely than entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley to tackle existing markets with better products. New York entrepreneurs have the highest proportion of companies trying to resegment existing markets with niche products. They are 30 percent more likely to build something niche than entrepreneurs in London.

Market Size: Entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley are much more “ambitious” than entrepreneurs in New York City and London. Silicon Valley entrepreneurs are 22% more likely to estimate their market size as greater than 10 billion compared to New York City entrepreneurs and 120% more likely than entrepreneurs in London. They are also almost 2x less likely to estimate their market size to be less than 100 million.

Revenue Streams: Subscription is the most popular revenue stream everywhere. Compared to London, Silicon Valley entrepreneurs are 4.4-times more likely for their primary revenue stream to be Lead Generation, 3.6-times more likely for it to be virtual goods and 2.6-times less likely for it to be the rapidly fading model of license fees.

Perceived Competitive Advantage: Compared to Silicon Valley entrepreneurs, New York City entrepreneurs are 4.3-times more likely to consider content their primary competitive advantage, 40 percent more likely for it to be niche focus, and 90 percent less likely for it to be centered around the team. Compared to Silicon Valley entrepreneurs, London entrepreneurs are 58 percent more likely to consider technology their primary competitive advantage and 5.3 less likely to consider user experience to be.

Product Development: London and NYC companies outsource 34 percent more of their product development than Silicon Valley companies.

Adaptability: Pivoting happens much more frequently in Silicon Valley. Pivots happen 45 percent more on average in Silicon Valley than New York City and 33 percent more than London.

Mentorship: The Silicon Valley and New York City ecosystems have more helpful mentors than the London ecosystem. Silicon Valley companies have 46 percent more helpful mentors than companies in London.

Thought Leaders: In Silicon Valley, Steve Blank and Paul Graham are the most popular startup experts. In London, Paul Graham is by far most popular expert and NYC shows their local pride, voting Fred Wilson as their favorite startup expert.

Work Ethic: Companies in Silicon Valley work 35% more than companies in New York City. In Silicon Valley teams work 9.5 hours a day on average vs. 8 hours in London and 7 in New York City.

Founding Team Composition: Silicon Valley founding teams are 34% more likely to be technical heavy than founding teams from NYC. Whereas NYC founding teams are almost 2x as likely to be business heavy than Silicon Valley founding teams.

Founder Education Background: In London most founders have a masters degree, whereas in Silicon Valley and NYC most founders have just an undergraduate degree. But NYC has 2.2x more founders with PhDs than Silicon Valley.

Founder Gender: New York City has almost double the female founders of Silicon Valley and London (80-20 vs 90/10 ratios, respectively).

Founder Age: The average age of founders in all three ecosystems is about the same, with an aggregate average of 33.5.

Founder Experience:
Silicon Valley founders have on average started almost twice as many startups as founders from NYC and London.

Founder Motivation: Silicon Valley has 30 percent more founders that want to change the world than London or New York. New York has 50 percent more founders that want to make a good living than Silicon Valley or London. London has twice as many founders that want to make a quick flip than Silicon Valley or New York.

Founder Challenges: New York City startups are 3.7-times less likely for team building to be their biggest challenge, at the same time they are almost twice as likely to consider “having too much do and being over capacity” their biggest challenge.

So what does this same about London.... hmmmm need to think and blog about this :)

Tuesday 3 April 2012

This is the year of mobile advertising

Justin Barr maybe a little bais as he is chief operations officer of TapIt! but I think he has some good points.

Whether a small business, nonprofit organization or big brand, mobile advertising has proved to be a rapidly growing and effective medium for any business.

This personal medium has taken flight already and is only expected to grow even more in the coming years as mobile proves to be a medium capable of driving brand awareness and affinity, as well as purchases.

In fact, according to eMarketer’s updated analysis, United States mobile ad spend is expected to reach $2.61 billion in 2012 – adjusted from a previous estimate of $1.8 billion. The newly adjusted projection for ad-spend in 2012 in the U.S. is an 80 percent increase over last year’s actual ad spend.

As consumers continue to adopt everything mobile, mobile devices are quickly becoming the preferred way to surf the Web, read books, stream music, watch videos and shop online. Brands are finally beginning to recognize the opportunity that mobile advertising presents to them for targeting their demographics.

This is the year of mobile advertising. Below are some of the reasons why the time for mobile is now.

Although traditional mediums might be struggling to keep advertisers’ budgets in their pockets, mobile advertising has already taken off stealing big spends from other forms of advertising.

Mobile has proven to be an efficient and effective way for brands to reach their target demographics. There are a few main factors driving this change.

First, there are more mobile media buyers entering the market to compete with their competitors and purchase volumes are increasing.

In addition, there are many companies who have tested mobile advertising in its early stage and are now focusing on executing mobile focused campaigns that equate to higher ROI as well as more user engagement.

With the recent explosion of mobile, the demand for mobile application development is significantly growing as the volume of smartphone and tablet devices sold increases. Which is why Great Marketing Works is moving with our clients into apps.

Developers are jumping into creating mobile applications to feed the demand of the market, while also monetizing their applications by serving ads or charging per download.

With developers acting quickly to fill this demand by developing apps for iOS, Android, Windows and Blackberry platforms, mobile inventory is becoming more available and affordable.

In 2010 there was a shortage of mobile inventory due to the lack of smartphone users and no demand. In 2010 the app market only pulled in $1.7 billion.

However, a new report by Forrester Research suggests that the app market will explode to a $38 billion industry by 2015.

Mobile-focused location-based services are bigger and more popular than ever. Which is great news for augmented reality applications on mobile phones too.

Advertisers are beginning to discover the effectiveness and practicality of local and hyperlocal mobile campaigns.

This breakthrough technology using GPS signals can push ads to mobile users to promote events, drive in-store traffic, as well as offer special deals and coupons to users based on their location. This not only provides a solution to businesses looking to reach local consumers, but it also makes advertisements more relevant and useful.

Real-time bidding (RTB)
Real-time bidding, also referred to as RTB, is a real-time auction of mobile inventory.

RTB allows for buyers to compete for and purchase individual impressions that best serve their campaign’s needs.

Both buyers and sellers share the value that RTB presents. Buyers purchase inventory that they want, while publishers and developers benefit by receiving the maximum value for their ad space.

The concept of mobile advertising has been around for over half a decade. However, the ads themselves have held back the full potential of mobile advertising.

Granted banner ads might have been a little uninspiring and dull due to technological limitations. At the end of the day, they were not converting the way advertisers had hoped.

Now, with faster smartphones, improved wireless Internet speeds, and the implementation of HTML5 in most mobile Web browsers, rich media ads are growing in popularity.

Rich media ads include video ad units as well as interstitials, which are more animated and more esthetically pleasing to the eye.

In today’s world, rich media ads make more sense than static ads because consumers demand engaging, entertaining, and enhanced picture quality as technology advances.

Although rich media ads can be a bit more expensive, they have proved to be significantly more effective in the past years, achieving an average of 1.01 percent higher of a click-through-rate when compared to banner ads.

ADVERTISERS, DEVELOPERS AND publishers are spending more time and money on mobile advertising than ever before.

With the explosion of apps and rapid increase of mobile device penetration, the potential of this market is like no other medium we’ve seen before.

Mobile advertising allows advertisers to optimize while also offering its scalability, making it even more effective and unique.

With technology allowing for a successful mobile ecosystem in 2012, the building blocks are now set in place to assist in bridging the gap between opportunity and capability. The time for mobile advertising is now.

Monday 2 April 2012

The One Skill All Leaders Should Work On

Written by a chap called Scott Edinger - and the reason he makes the grade today - is that finally I think there might be one skill (apart from great marketing skills) which I actually process (almost naturally...)

As if he had to pick one skill for the majority of leaders Scoff works with to improve, it would be assertiveness. Not because being assertive is such a wonderful trait in and of itself. Rather, because of its power to magnify so many other leadership strengths. Finally, something I am.... :)

"Assertiveness gets a bad rap when people equate it with being pushy and annoying. But that shouldn't stop you from learning to apply it productively (that is — in service to your strengths). More harm is done when people aren't assertive enough than by being too assertive. At least you know what pushy people think, but those who don't assert themselves can be keeping vital ideas hidden and useless when they don't speak up or speak too softly. So I'd assert that when you are able to balance this critical skill with your other leadership abilities, you greatly amplify your power and impact.

Here are some specific ways in which assertiveness complements a wide range of the critical leadership skills you may already have:

Creating a culture of innovation:

A couple of years ago I conducted a study to determine the characteristics of the most innovative leaders in one of the largest companies in the world. One of their most powerful traits, their peers and direct reports told me, was their ability to push back on the hierarchy. These leaders were by no means rebels; rather, they were perceived to be fearless. Coupling assertiveness with their ability to foster innovation enabled them to take on difficult issues — to fight for resources for new projects or openly disagree with more senior managers about policy changes that could have severe unintended consequences. Being challenged required people to think more deeply to justify a course of action, which frequently produced much better ideas.

Being customer focused:

We typically think of service or business development professionals as being good at, and focused on, building relationships. But the most successful sales professionals, as Matthew Dixon and Brent Adamson point out in their blog and their book, The Challenger Sale, are not the ones who build relationships. They're the ones who push back, challenging their clients to see problems they hadn't anticipated. Essentially, Dixon and Adamson's research finds, assertiveness creates more value for clients than conciliatory relationship building does. Which is great news as I am obbessed with my clients customers and their User experiences.

Fostering teamwork and collaboration:

It might seem like assertiveness has little to do with the skills you need to be a team player. But teams thrive when their members are able to express their not-always-popular points of view. Excellent team players (who generally are already inclusive and able to defer to others) would improve considerably by learning when to assert such views. And team leaders who are assertive in creating a safe environment for less-popular opinions will make their teams all the stronger by increasing all team members' ability to participate fully.

Leading change:

Constructive change rarely happens passively. Change requires the leaders to challenge the status quo and find new ways of doing things to further organizational goals. It's nearly impossible to lead change without some measure of assertiveness because in most cases, even when change is generally viewed as positive, some kind of resistance still needs to be addressed.

Acting with integrity:

There are plenty of highly principled people who are too timid to speak up in meetings — to question a decision that appears to violate a corporate value or is otherwise not in the best interests of the organization. Assertiveness doesn't cause honesty or vice-versa, but when the two operate together they give people the courage not only to know what is right but to stand up for it as well. Which is something many people say about me - sometimes in a negative way - i.e. I stand up for what I believe in, even if sometimes that is not always seen as right.

Creating a safe environment:

This might seem self-evident — there are times when it's vital to speak up in the face of danger. And yet there are so many times when people don't, even in cases of life and death. The National Transportation Safety Board, for instance, has traced the cause of some plane crashes to co-pilots who were so deferential to their pilot in an emergency that they made suggestions too subtly. While most of us are not faced with life or death decisions each day, plenty of leaders are responsible for the safety of those they lead. I don't know many of the decisions I make, day in day out, feel like life and death ones for a couple of my pet projects :)

Communicating effectively:

Assertiveness adds power and conviction to a message and enables a leader's voice to be heard. You can clearly tell the difference between a message communicated with passion and vigor as a leader asserts his or her point of view and one that lacks the energy of conviction. Assertive leaders also tend to communicate more often, as their passion leads them to capitalize on every opportunity they can find to deliver a message.

Many leaders (though certainly not all) struggle with being assertive enough, whether through self-doubt, a lack of confidence, a fear of not being liked, or a host of other reasons. Perhaps it is time for us all to stand and be counted. Well, those of us like me :)