Category: Business

Building a Better Post Office

From Mailman to Post Office Builder

I recently participated in a LinkedIn discussion, and I wanted to open it up to the world (or anyone who wanted to read or contribute to it). It is partially edited so it reads better in a blog format. I thought what John Clarkson commented back was brilliant. What do you think? Any brave souls out there?

Kent's profile picture

What’s the “State of the Industry” for corporate video and creative services?

As the recession lingers on, I believe that most companies are continuing the trend of downsizing their corporate video and creative services departments. Those areas are always considered dispensable by corporations when the economy goes sour and the last to recover. What do you think? Are companies hiring? If so, what types of positions?

Jeremy Person's profile picture

Jeremy Person’s Response

Social media’s value is that it is created and communicated by the people for the people. If you look at newspapers, broadcast television, and FM/AM radio, it is now well understood they worked well if you wanted to hear one point of view. It was also great if you didn’t want to provide your viewpoint or ask your questions back to the communicator. Let’s face it; it was great because it was all we had.

Now, communicators all over the world have extremely powerful communication tools to have a conversation with practically anyone of their choosing for next to no cost. Companies are likely downsizing the creative services departments because they aren’t seeing a direct ROI. Why aren’t they seeing an ROI?

I’m not sure this works in all cases, of course, but maybe where we get ourselves in trouble is I don’t personally think a creative services department should always be a 100% dedicated “support organization” to others.

The reason I say that is people will come to you with what they want to throw your way, but if what they throw your way isn’t valued by those consuming the content, you won’t have long term value. Or a long term career. Instead, I’d be interested in hearing if anyone has focused a portion of their team on finding a problem and using their creative organization to pitch solving a real world business problem. So you not only solve problems given to you, but you also help identify and offer a solution to those problems you have helped identify or address from people “in the field.””.

High profile projects are nice because they get you exposure to those who may promote you or sign your paycheck. However, if those giving you projects provide you a subject matter that content consumers don’t want or need, your services are wasted, and you are looked at as a department that can be eliminated when things get tight. By the way, shouldn’t businesses always make smart decisions regardless of whether times or tight or not?

Social media can also provide its own problems when communicators create or produce content that doesn’t solve or help a real world need. Social media is full of babies and animals doing cute or funny things, people tweeting about what they are having for dinner, and professionally produced content is full of dry and boring content (let’s face it these tend to be the stereotypes).

Whether it is professionally created or not, I think if your creative department solves a real business problem, makes it engaging, makes it usable, measurable, and informative, you have a winning combination of long term employment and success.

Has anyone stopped being a service organization that provides what the customer wants 100% of the time, and started being a partner with the business to solve real world business problems? If so, I’d love to hear more and any lessons learned.

John Clarkson's profile picture

John Clarkson’s Brilliant Response

Amen to that! Could we say:

What’s Expired

Being a “mailman” (the commodity provider, delivering other people’s messages for them without regard to value to the enterprise)

What’s Tired

Being a “letter-writer” (the artisan, trying to pretty-up up other people’s messages, then delivering them, in hopes they will have some value for the enterprise)

What’s Wired

“Building the new post office” (the entrepreneur, innovating apps, databases and information fields to solve problems, and demonstrating value to the enterprise)

Key Insights for Creative Departments

Solve Real Problems

Focus on delivering content that addresses actual business needs

Be a Partner

Move beyond merely executing others’ ideas to becoming a strategic advisor

Demonstrate Value

Make your work engaging, usable, measurable, and informative

Join the Conversation

Has your creative department evolved beyond the “mailman” role? What strategies have you used to become a true business partner?

Low Esteem and The Factory

“If you want to hire people to do a job, to be cogs in the system and to do what they’re told, you might want to focus on people who don’t think very highly of themselves.  People with low self-esteem might be more happy to be bossed around, timed, abused, misused and micromanaged, no?  And the converse is true as well. If you want to raise your game and build an organization filled with people who will change everything, the first thing to look for is someone who hasn’t been brainwashed into believing that they’re not capable of great work.  A harried teacher might find it easier to teach a class to obey first and think second, but is that sort of behavior valuable or scarce now?

Industries that need to subjugate women or demonstrate power over one class of person or another are always on the lookout for people they can diminish. Our task, then, is to find people we can encourage and nurture until they’re as impatient with average as we are.  The paradox is that the very people that are the easiest to categorize, to command and to dominate are the last people we want to work with.”

Source: http://sethgodin.typepad.com/

Running A Project & Managing A Project

“If you choose to manage a project, it’s pretty safe. As the manager, you report. You report on what’s happening, you chronicle the results, you are the middleman.  If you choose to run a project, on the other hand, you’re on the hook. It’s an active engagement, bending the status quo to your will, ensuring that you ship.  Running a project requires a level of commitment that’s absent from someone who is managing one. Who would you rather hire, a manager or a runner?”

— Seth Godin