Strategy | wordpost

Keyword ‘strategy’

Business Practice

I hate “quality” “products” (and so should you)

"Quality" is so abstract, ill-defined, and over-used, it doesn't mean anything. "Product" is about as descriptive as "widget." So I'm banning both from my office.

by Andrew Swenson

image credit: debaird™ on Flickr (see below for link)

There are plenty of cliché business words and phrases I hate (“optimize,” “low-hanging fruit,” “web 2.0,” “leverage,” and so on), but none as much as two words I’ve recently decided to ban from my vocabulary and my office: 1) “Quality” and 2) “Product”.

Why I hate “quality”

I owe my contempt for “quality” to Dr. Brian Till (author of The Truth About Creating Brands People Love). During a marketing and branding seminar I took with him, Till refused to accept “quality” as a satisfactory position description or brand equity.

His point: you can always be more specific.

Read the rest...

keywords: products, quality, semantics, Straight-up Snark, strategy
1 Comment »

Marketing

An extension of social media? The word on Ads

by Andrew Swenson

Photo Credit: Stephen Gibson

Depending on who you talk to, it was either Lord Leverhulme (founder of Unilever) or John Wanamaker who first muttered the well worn phrase, “Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is I don’t know which half.” Either way, this quote is one of the most worthless pieces of word vomit spewed from the mouths of marketers today.

Are we really wasting parts of our budgets?

I have nothing against Tevor Young (@trevoryoung), but he like so many before him assumes an automatic and upfront wastage in the practice of advertising in his post (which was also featured on MarCom Pro).

Read the rest...

keywords: advertising, engagement, Marketing, strategy, trust
3 Comments »

Business Practice

We’re transparent, authentic, and on Twitter…now what?

by Andrew Swenson

photo credit: Troy Newell

I think we’ve reached the point at which if you aren’t transparent, authentic, and/or human you’ll be treated like a dirt sucking, crap-eating spammer. I think we have to start talking more about what’s next.

I realize that I’ve regurgitated some of the hackneyed language of social media in Tweets and posts. But now is the time to move beyond those second order concepts like “relationships.” We don’t need any more lists of tips to help us get more followers. We need a strategic understanding of what the real-time web will look like so that we can write our business plans and outline our strategies for community engagement.

Read the rest...

keywords: Business, critical thinking, Marketing, progress, social media, Straight-up Snark, strategy, Twitter
20 Comments »

Business Practice

3 Business Lessons From a Haircut

by Andrew Swenson

Hair Saloon for Men, an Honorable Rebellion

In desperate need of a trim, I typed my zip code and “haircut” into my iPhone. The first hit pointed me “Hair Saloon for Men”—a saloon-themed “salon” for guys. I was curious (and desperate) enough to book the appointment.

Although their corporate website leaves something to be desired (hairsaloon.com), the whole experience reminded me of three critical business lessons…

1. Know who you are.

I say this with the utmost respect, but Hair Saloon is not a upscale establishment. Sure, there’s no burnt hair perm smell from the chair next to you, but there’s also not a particular emphasis on style. Think of it as Barber Shop 2.0.

Read the rest...

keywords: Business, critical thinking, Innovation, strategy
16 Comments »

Guest Post

META Tagony (Guest Post)

by Andrew Swenson

Background: I’ve been secretly hoping that Neal Rohrbach (@nrohrbach) would do a snarky post for quite a while. Neal is the co-founder of ideaAnglers.com, a collaboration start-up that was recently featured on Business Week as a online business tool with the likes of Twitter, Skype, and Google Apps. Neal is a multi-talented professional whose portfolio is outshined only by his ability to generate new and fresh ideas. So needless to say, I’m excited…

Read the rest...

keywords: idea Anglers, SEO, Straight-up Snark, strategy
6 Comments »

Career

Don’t be “Detail Oriented.” Be “Decision Oriented.”

by Andrew Swenson

Countless job ads ask for applicants who are detail oriented. Because it’s used so much, in my opinion, “detail oriented” has become just another piece of resume word vomit.

Moreover, I don’t think it’s enough to be detail oriented. Sure it’s important to take the time to learn which details to look for, thus “orienting” yourself toward “detail” in the abstract, but I think the higher skill is the ability to make solid decisions from the details you see.

We often spend a lot of energy on the big picture decisions—which products to develop, which campaigns to create, but I think the sum of our little decisions can be just as important.

Read the rest...

keywords: Buisness, decisions, strategy
20 Comments »

Keyword ‘strategy’

Why I hate “quality”

Are we really wasting parts of our budgets?

The short-sighted claims

1. Know who you are.