Business Insight Zone

Here comes a rant, motivated by this TechCrunch article:

A Recipe Site Goes IPO, In Japan (Cookpad)

It seems that even in this downturn, there is still room for tech IPOs, at least in Japan. Cookpad [JP], the nation’s biggest site for sharing recipes . . .

SolarWinds was a true-blue “tech IPO” — they make software for enterprise network management.

But Cookpad, which is about to IPO in Japan, and OpenTable, which IPO’d on the NASDAQ last month, are actually consumer IPOs that do business via the Web.

This isn’t a nitpicky distinction. It’s a call for an end to sloppy thinking and reportage about non-technology-oriented companies that happen to do business online.

An easy example: Hoover’s has been doing business online for 15 years, and today we do the vast bulk of our business that way. That doesn’t make us a “tech company” like Cisco or HP or Symantec. We (and our parent company, Dun & Bradstreet) are a business information provider, and our peer group includes companies like Thomson Reuters and Dow Jones. The companies in our sector are increasingly technologically savvy, but that doesn’t make them “tech companies,” any more than Dell is a “financial company” because it’s long been savvy about investing its free cash flow.

Some companies — Amazon.com springs to mind — bridge consumer orientation and serious technology orientation, so it makes sense to talk about them in both contexts. But companies like Cookpad aren’t “tech companies” in any meaningful sense, and the fact that Cookpad — a profitable little outfit, from the looks of it — had a successful IPO doesn’t particularly speak to the prospects of the next SolarWinds or Rackspace to come down the pike.

Mind you: this isn’t to single out or pick on Serkan Toto, who wrote the TechCrunch piece that kicked off this rant. But Toto’s use of “tech IPO” reflects a broader anachronism that’s all too common in press coverage of the IPO market. This isn’t 1998, when the mere fact that a company did its business online was remarkable — and we need to get past that way of thinking if we want to take a clear-eyed look at the IPO market.

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Related:

• Hoover’s IPO Central
• A (relative) flurry of activity in the IPO market.
• Silicon Valley, the IPO drought, and the culture of innovation.

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Photo by Jacob Bøtter, used under a Creative Commons license.

I’m thinking about this question because I’ve just been reading back through the comments on yesterday’s post about the failings of e-mail in the workplace.

Setting aside my own replies, it’s 900+ words of insight (plus one short zombie joke) from veteran businesspeople coming at the problem of e-mail inefficiency from several different angles. Worth a read.

But hey, I’m a blogger, so I’m spoiled — the comment box is always right there, and anyway that’s what blog readers are supposed to do when they have thoughts on a post.

But you’re in business, right? So you also have an audience, even if it’s not as obvious. It could be your customers, your partners, your bosses, your peers, your suppliers, your end-users. But it’s somebody, because no business deals exclusively with computers or robots on the other end of the line.

I got a mini-tutorial in e-mail handling, office communication, and Lean management techniques from yesterday’s comment thread. What kind of education could you be getting?

Do this:

• For starters, go to Chris Brogan’s blog and read “Grow Bigger Ears in 10 Minutes.” Implement what Chris suggests — you really will be done in ten minutes, start to finish.
• Tomorrow when you get to the office, make a list of five people inside your company and five people outside it who might be able to teach you something about how your company works and how you fit into that. Call or e-mail or tweet or IM or smoke-signal these people.
• When the results of Chris’s bigger-ears method start flowing in, seek out the people who are talking about you or your company or your product or your competitor’s products. Find out everything you can from what they say online. Write it down. Connect it to action items that you will do within a week. If it’s appropriate, reach out to the people doing the talking. See if they’re willing to talk even more — especially if they’re reporting bad news to you.
• If your company doesn’t have a blog or a Twitter account or a Facebook page or a suggestions-and-complaints inbox, consider implementing all of them within the month. At this point, the burden of proof is on whoever inside your organization thinks you don’t need them.
• Don’t interrupt and don’t “correct” what anyone says — absorb it and learn from it, even if it’s invalid. People think what they think for some reason.
• Follow up, follow up, follow up.

The audience is ready to start talking to you. Don’t merely let them — empower them.

What are you waiting for?

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Photo by Adam Fletcher, used under a CC-No Derivative Works license.

“There’s no such thing as a dumb question.” You’ve surely heard this a thousand times. But it’s not true — or, at least, it’s not always true.

In the classroom

If the professor is explaining a new concept in class and you don’t get it, you raise you hand and ask, “But how does that work?” or “How does that relate to what we studied before about XYZ?” The professor explains — possibly grateful for a question that revealed a lack of clarity in the original explanation — and everyone benefits.

But I’ve also sat through plenty of dumb questions on other material that did nothing but reveal a lack of preparation on the student’s part. The tipoff: the professor’s answer starts with “Well, that was covered in the chapter you were assigned to read . . . ”

In business

If I’m a salesman on the phone with a prospect, there are a lot of open-ended questions I can ask that will be welcome. Possible examples:

• “So what are some of the specific problems you’re running into there?”
• “How has that been working for you?”
• “What if we could set up something to cover those bases, but tailor it more to your needs?”
• “What do you need that you aren’t getting?”

(Please add your own questions — or critique these — in the comments.)

But there are quite a few questions that won’t be welcome in that same sales call:

• “What line of work are you in?” (Because I should know that before I pick up the phone.)
• “What are the key regulations that affect your industry?” (Ditto.)
• “What are some of your biggest cost centers?” (Ditto.)

The moral of the story

The professor has a right to be peeved when a student wastes the class’s time by asking questions about straightforward material that’s covered in the textbook. In other words, the professor has a right to expect the students to do their homework.

The prospect on the phone has a right to be peeved when a salesperson wastes time by asking questions that could be answered before the call by a little bit of homework.

Is all of this an endorsement for the kind of business information Hoover’s provides? Sure — but it’s also common sense.

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(Hat tip to Seth Godin for inspiring a rant on a long-time peeve of mine.)

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Photo by Cesar Bojorquez, used under a Creative Commons license.

This is not the paneling you want.

I made a tactical mistake. On the first day of SXSW Interactive, I had the chance to see Prof. Lawrence Lessig give a presentation tied to his work in fighting government corruption. Lessig is a legendary PowerPoint presenter, but I couldn’t figure out a good business connection to his topic, which is inherently political.

A-a-anyway, I attended another panel — which shall remain nameless — and was reminded of some things not to do with a presentation.

The Prime Directive: DON’T BE BORING.

That’s easier said than done, maybe, but there are many tools in the box that can keep a presentation rolling. Among other things:

• Say it SHORT. (This applies especially to introducing panelists — we can easily find their biographies, blogs, books, etc.)
• Have a thesis. “Monkeys are awesome.” “Twitter is evil.” “You’re doing it wrong.” Whatever — but have a thesis.
• Vibrant tone of voice.
• Expressive visuals.
• Remember that the sweetest words to any audience are “For instance.” Give examples.
• Interaction — even conflict — between panelists.
• Humor.
• Outrageousness.
• Unexpectedly awesome Powerpoint slides.
• Sexiness. (Define that any way you want.)
• If you’re the leader or moderator of the panel, you MUST set the tone — in terms of energy, focus, interaction, everything.
• . . .

The point is, you’ve got all the tools of oratory, debate, drama, technology, and so on to HOOK YOUR AUDIENCE.

In short, go for some theatricality — like this . . .

If you’re gonna do a panel, go ahead and put on a show.

This all becomes even more important in the age of Twitter, when back-channel conversations during presentations run rampant. I was trading notes with friends during the dull panel, and we weren’t surprised when people started leaving long before it was over.

Takeaway lessons

–It’s not enough to be smart. Every member of that panel was plenty smart, and I went in predisposed to like and respect them.

–It’s not enough to have an interesting topic. This panel had plenty of fodder to work with — they just didn’t use it well.

And, not least . . .

–Don’t let the audience take over the panel from you. In this case, the Q&A was meandering (too many essay-length self-promos and non-questions), and the panel never seemed to grasp that things had got away from them. Too bad, because it all amounted to a big missed opportunity.

The Short Version

As my friend John Johansen said when we were discussing this topic, “Make them want to buy the T-shirt afterwards.”

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Paneling photo by shaners becker; U2 photo by Chris Sansenbach; both used under Creative Commons license.

Consider three scenarios:

1. A colleague with a naturally loud, penetrating voice has an extended hallway conversation with someone that touches upon matters that might be better discussed in a conference room with the door closed.
2. Two friends sharing lunch at a restaurant get down into the details of their business at a high enough volume that everyone at neighboring tables can hear them.
3. Mr. Clueless blares away on his cell-phone headset on the train, in the airport terminal, waiting in line at the theater, or what have you. He does not filter his conversation to make it crowd-appropriate.

Now, given your own inclinations and the nature of what’s being discussed, your reaction might be “Shhh!” or it might be to perk up your ears. Just be sure YOU’re not the one broadcasting sensitive work information out to the world at large.

You never know who might be listening (competitors? suppliers? spouses? your boss’s boss’s boss?). You might give yourself or your company a bad name regardless of who’s listening.

Now you might be thinking, “Oh, I bet that’s happened to him recently.”

And you’d be right.

Feel free to share your own horror stories of overheard business conversations — anonymized, if need be — in the comments.

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Footnote: If you’re like me, the phrase “voices carry” evokes the 1985 ‘Til Tuesday song of the same name . . . so here’s the YouTube link for that song. I watched that video when it debuted on Night Tracks. I am now awash in nostalgia for the 1980s and my carefree youth.

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Photo by Mike Schmid, used under a CC-Share Alike license.

. . . “due to the fact that” is needlessly wordy, you should use “because” instead.

These and several other valuable anti-jargon phrasings can be yours by the simple expedient of clicking the following link to Dan Santow’s Word Wise blog:

One (Isn’t) the Loneliest Number

You have my permission to get onto me when I use any of Dan’s wordy phrases. And feel free to tell me in the comments which of his phrases are your “favorite” (i.e. most loathsome), or which other phrases you would add to his list.

(Hat tip to my new friend-via-Twitter Jess Flynn — go Longhorns! — for this.)

Image by Tim Morgan, used under a Creative Commons license.

Since last week’s post, “Dale Carnegie and the Social Media,” it’s like I’m seeing Dale Carnegie everwhere I look. (But not literally — that would be ghoulish.)

First, in the comment thread of the post, Daniel Riveong pointed me to his own 2006 article about Social Media Optimization:

If the Social Media is about “Engaging People” and “Conversation” why are we reading still reading just the Cluetrain Manifesto? We should be reading “How to Win Friends and Influence People” as well. Read up on it. Can you see how it applies online?

(Mark Drapeau of Mashable also pointed to his article “HOW TO: Win Friends and Twinfluence People,” though it might be disqualified on a technicality since, beyond the wordplay in the title, it doesn’t reference Carnegie directly. It does talk good sense in the Carnegie style, though.)

Then, I came across “Why Dale Carnegie Would Be an Awesome Blogger” at the Schipul.com Blog:

What I am saying is if Carnegie was still around, I would invite him to come have a beer, watch a Dallas Cowboys football game, and discuss his latest blog on why “a man without a smiling face must not open a shop.”

The Schipul blogger goes on to give five excellent reasons why Carnegie would have made a good blogger.

Finally, law blogger Kevin O’Keefe riffed on my own post and applied Carnegie’s “Six Ways to Make People Like You” to attracting Twitter followers and blog readers:

Blogging and Twittering is all about the other guy, not you. Talk about others’ problems, not yourself. Provide helpful answers, insight, and resources to help others solve their problems.

Kevin knows what he’s talking about — he has 2,500 Twitter followers.

Carnegie’s book is timeless because it talks about the timeless interests and motivations of human beings, whether they’re meeting face-to-face, over the phone, via the Internet, or any other way. You can make yourself more likeable, doing so is good for business, and the social media give you more ways to do this than ever before.

Long live Dale Carnegie!

Clear language and clear thought go together.

This argument has been made many times (most notably by a certain Mr. Orwell), so I won’t belabor the principle. But I will offer this one practical tip on making your language clearer:

When you’re writing, the “Find” function is your friend.

This morning I was working on a long document and I found myself reaching for the word “circuitously.” Not a bad word, not overly fancy, and the right word for the sentence it was in . . . but a bad word to overuse, because it’s the kind of 30-cent word that will clang in the reader’s ear on the second go-round. I thought I might have used it somewhere else in the document, but the thing is over a hundred pages long, and I’ve been making lots of changes throughout those pages.

Fortunately, in this age of word-processing, the solution is trivial: a few seconds with the Ctrl-F function saved me from using a plethora of “circuitously”s. (The search feature on this blog reveals zero uses of “plethora,” so maybe I’m safe with that one.)

Attention, Marketers!

Now, take this a step further and check out the list of business jargon (and the related links) on this page, and especially the chart of marketing jargon on this page.

My challenge to you is to use the “Find” function to root out all of these words across all of your marketing materials. Just get rid of them. Although many of these words once carried a noble amount of freight in a good sentence, they’ve been so overused in marketing-speak that they’ve all broken down. Your readers can’t even hear these words anymore — or, if they hear them, they can’t help but roll their eyes at them.

So, please, constrain yourselves from using these words. Find fresh avenues of expression. It all starts with [Ctrl]-F.

What’s YOUR most annoying marketing buzzword?

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(A personal coda: when I came to Hoover’s eight years ago, the house style — which adamantly opposes jargon — made sense to me right away. Though I’m a wordy cuss when I’m talking out loud, and though I’ve been known to reach for 10-dollar words sometimes, I benefited from a string of good writing teachers in high school and college who drilled the tendency for jargon out of me. When I got here, I felt right at home.)

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Further reading:

• Raven’s Brain: Decipher and/or Generate Business Jargon
• David Meerman Scott at MarketingProfs: Cutting-Edge, Mission-Critical Analysis: Steps to Avoiding Overused Gobbledygook
• Yours truly: Memo to American Airlines: Watch your language!
• From Karl Geiger of USC: a business buzzword bingo card generator
  

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Tell someone they’re “wrong” and they’ll spend lots of energy defending themselves, or else they’ll get discouraged. Tell them they’re “right” and they may get smug or complacent.

My word of choice, then — especially in the areas of business and interpersonal relations — is “fruitful.”

Things are good not because they’re logically correct or ideologically pure, but because they bear the right kind of fruit. Things are bad because they bear bitter fruit, or shriveled fruit, or no fruit, or unsustainable fruit.

It’s not about “smart” or “dumb,” and it’s not about characterizing individuals as good or evil, because intelligent people of good will can easily do things that are unfruitful. (Believe me, I speak from protracted experience.)

When you’re doing it right, it’s because you’re doing it fruitfully.

Take a look at yourself, your team, your family, your company, your community of interest:

What are the fruits of your labors?

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More food for thought:

• Gretchen Rubin: Watch the Characterization
• Chris Brogan: You’re Doing It Wrong
• Yours truly: Really?

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Photo by David Penny, used under a CC-Share Alike license.

One slide that almost made the cut for my talk on Twitter would have held nothing but this image:

After I made this comment online, someone asked me if How to Win Friends and Influence People isn’t too old-school for 21st century business.

My reply: People haven’t changed that much since HTWFAIP came out in 1936. The technology is much different, but people are much the same.

• We still like to hear the sound of our own names (and our own voices).
• We still like the other person to say they’re sorry if they’ve stepped on our toes — even accidentally.
• We still don’t like to have our motives questioned.
• Et cetera.

Some people want to say that the technology is SO different that it makes sense to distinguish between Twitter (or other social media) and real life. This is why the acronym IRL — “in real life” — is used online. But in fact Twitter is mostly just people talking to people. That makes it a part of real life.

And for real-life situations, Carnegie’s guidance remains invaluable. This is one reason why Carnegie’s company [ their site / Hoover's record ] lives on. Take, for instance, Carnegie “Six Ways to Make People Like You” from the book:

1. Become genuinely interested in other people.
2. Smile.
3. Remember that a [person]’s Name is to [them] the sweetest and most important sound in any language.
4. Be a good listener. Encourage others to talk about themselves.
5. Talk in the terms of the other [person]’s interest.
6. Make the other person feel important and do it sincerely.

All 100% accurate and useful today. All 100% accurate and useful on Twitter. And all of Carnegie’s guidelines (he loves making lists of them) apply whether you’re using Twitter for your own amusement, for career-building, on your company’s behalf, or all three.

In other words, if Carnegie were still around today, he’d be quoting Shannon Paul: “Don’t be THAT guy.”

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Related posts:

• Using Twitter for Business: my presentation to HIMA.
• Social media communities: Keep bringing it back to USERS.
• Social media makes merchants of us all.
• Social media breaches barriers.

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Image source.