Labor is Obsolete

“He who works with his hands is a laborer.
He who works with his hands and his head is a craftsman.
He who works with his hands and his head and his heart is an artist.”

St. Francis of Assisi

Labor as we knew it is obsolete. It has been for a while. Sure, vestiges of its greatness still exist in certain sectors, especially in civil service. We all still enjoy many of the workforce customs and regulations that organized labor helped put into place – people-friendly perks governing how employers treat workers. But the sway Labor enjoyed from the 1950’s until the 1980’s has lapsed.

Female workers in an H. J. Heinz can factory stamping out end discs (the discs that fit on either end of each can).
[SOURCE] Public domain.

Why Promotion is Frequently Ignored in Marketing

There’s a song that I remember from my old Boy Scout Camp Songbook that we’d sing to the tune of Auld Lang Syne:

The fish, it never cackles ’bout

it’s million eggs or so,

The hen is quite a different bird,

one egg-and hear her crow.

The fish we spurn, but crown the hen,

which leads me to surmise:

Don’t hide your light, but blow your horn.

it pays to advertise.

Yet, for some reason, the promotional side of marketing tends to get ignored and maligned even by those in charge of marketing strategy. Maybe it’s because many of us were indoctrinated that humility is a virtue while pride was a vice. I think in many cases, people view promotion as an “expense” rather than an “investment” – throwing a party rather than building lasting business capability.

St. Humility transporting bricks to the monastery.
[SOURCE] Painting by Pietro Lorenzetti, work is public domain.

Marketers will be familiar with a common, “Build it and they will come” mentality that some product creators and business owners have. They think all it takes is yet another feature, or capability, and then we will get more customers.

Expecting More From Business — Common Wealth Contributions By Business (Part 2)

Part II of my guest blog at the SAP Business Innovations for Sustainability blog…

This blog is a follow up to my prior blog Expecting More From Business — Common Wealth Contributions By Business (Part 1) where I discuss the book Betterness: Economics for Humans, by Umair Haque as a new standard for how we measure the contributions of business to society.

In this second part, my I want to investigate how well this framework can inspire thinking for “betterness” by evaluating common wealth contributions of a company I know well since I work for them, SAP. Let me be clear that these are my own opinions, and I do not speak for SAP nor any of the programs described, other than the one I directly support for marketing, SAP HANA One.

First we look at indicators whether a company’s management realizes it needs to do more – are they leveraging cause marketing, and are they reporting in sustainability and social responsibility. The second part of the framework examines direct contributions to the common wealth by operations and products.

Many companies are engaging in cause marketing because they know their customers want to feel like they are participating in something bigger than just being part of a market for a company trying to make a profit off of them. Sometimes this is just shallow “cause-washing” such as 10% of proceeds go to fund some charity, and sometimes it’s much more profound.

SAP has the challenge of many business-to-business companies. How do you explain the impact to the average person in the world of a company that sells enterprise business management software to over 250,000 other companies and institutions around the world? SAP does this by telling stories about the impact its customers are making through the use of this software. Often these are familiar consumer brand names that the public will know.  This helps position SAP’s impact as being much bigger than merely selling software.

Two examples of SAP’s brand marketing around “Helping the world run better”. Click images to see original sources. © SAP

Expecting More From Business — Common Wealth Contributions By Business (Part 1)

My guest blog originally posted to the SAP Business Innovations for Sustainability Blog…

Common Wealth Contributions By Business

Much to the annoyance of some past bosses, I have a habit of asking in meetings, “Why are we doing this, and what are we hoping to achieve?”

The economic turbulence of the last dozen years has led to me wondering the same thing about how we humans conduct our economic exchange. Asking the question, “what should we want to achieve in our economies, and how do we measure it?” eventually led me to the short book Betterness: Economics for Humans,  by Umair Haque.

The Amazing Cottage Economy of Indonesia

During my recent visit to Medan Indonesia, one impression that struck me was the amazingly rich number of cottage businesses, especially along the main roads. Within a couple of blocks, you can literally find nearly any kind of consumer retail business, grocery or food stand, and even some manufacturing.

Common residential / retail home in suburban Medan. Newer buildings have newer construction techniques, but basic architecture remains the same.
[SOURCE: © 2013 Greg Chase – According to Creative Commons License, use with attribution.]

Who Are You Calling an Industrialist, Mr. Seth Godin?

The other day, renowned author and blogger Seth Godin posted his blog “Industrialists are not Capitalists.” He made a point that “capitalists”, as he calls them, are the innovators, and industrialists are the optimizers, realizing efficiency and more profit out of industries created by the capitalists.

Is building a better mousetrap an innovation or an optimization?

[SOURCE: © June Campbell, used according to Creative Commons License]

What Makes a Neighborhood?

What do you consider to be your neighborhood? Is it the proximity around where you live? Is it a sub region of your town or city with identifiable boundaries? Is it a sense of identity centered around landmarks or local institutions such as a school? How much of that is from historical roots of families? Or, is it simply just the relationships between people residing in your area?

Typical neighborhood in Cyprus
[SOURCE: Wikimedia Commons, used under Creative Commons License]

How “Financial Innovation” In US Financial Markets Stymied Real Innovation

After all the financial shenanigans by Wall Street that have been uncovered over the past decade, it’s a wonder we aren’t all back to stuffing our mattresses with bills.

[SOURCE: (c) IMTFI, used under Creative Commons license]

The World Has Ended, And So Begins A New World

 

 

You might not have noticed but the world has officially ended. According to Mayan calendars, and doomsday politics, it’s all over.

[SOURCE: © Tim Green, used under creative commons license]

Before the Social Media Marketing Settlers Arrived…

I am a marketer that engages in social media and blogging professionally. I figure the occasion of Social Media Week in San Francisco is as good a time as any to launch my own personal blog.

Let me start off with a rant that you might hear from your grandfather who had to walk to school in the snow, uphill both ways:

Back in the old days, before blogs were called blogs, before the term Web 2.0 had been coined, and back when social networking seemed useful only for illegally downloading copyrighted music, we called the precursor to social media “community building” or “community marketing”.