Peaks of cluelessness
David Weinberger had an entertaining post a couple of days ago with a few examples of clueless corporate behaviour in the general area of measurement.
Pure Dilbert-quality examples:
"A CEO insisted that we send out weekly press releases because our competitor did. We achieved that goal, but now the press thought both companies were both bozos...A marketing VP was satisfied with our PR efforts because we were getting the designated number of column inches per quarter. That the coverage was exceptionally dull didn't matter to him."
Talking to Jeneane earlier today, and comparing notes, we realised we have just so many examples of this kind of stuff we could probably fill a book.
Of course, there's some recent injuries that are still a little too raw to scratch, but here's one of my favourite all-time classic tales of corporate cluelessness, worthy of a little cathartic blogging.
Once upon a time, a young guy (not entirely unlike me) was working as El Grande Marketing Poobah at a big software company. For many years, this company had been running a wildly successful annual user conference that was little short of a week-long love-in for their staff, clients and partners.
This thing was big. It had been running for nearly ten years, going from strength to strength - to the point that when this chap came in to run marketing it was drawing around 2,500 attendees - most of whom paid up to $1,000 (plus hotel and airfare) to attend.
They'd book out the Orlando World Center Marriott hotel for the whole week - bracketing either side of the 4-day event. Every room, every meeting room, every ballroom. And that's a bigass hotel.
They'd shovel food, booze, and freebies into the attendees. In addition to a packed conference program and exhibition floor, every night there was some kind of organized main event, with numerous spin off parties for particular interest groups (the European user group, the premier partners, &c.). One big bottomless trough.
On the middle night of the gig, they'd bus all the attendees off to Universal Studios or something similar for the night - there'd be drinks carts, hot/cold buffets, and barbecues everywhere you looked.
This was the 90s, of course - such excesses were almost de rigeur for a big tech firm. But here's the kicker: they managed to run this darn thing so that it was practically break even.
No kidding - they sold sponsorships for everything. Plus partners paid to exhibit, or advertise in areas of the hotel. And the vast majority of attendees paid, as I said.
In the last year our hero ran the event, he had a total budget of around $1.6 million. They made $1.5 million. (If you want to know how, btw, I can give you the name of the event management company they used - the best in the business).
Net $100,000 to bring 2,500 people to a hotel in Florida for a week - feed, juice, and entertain them until they were fit to pop.
But that's not the best bit.
The immediate and lasting impact on customer, employee, and investor satisfaction and goodwill was tangible. Sales went up. Complaints and issues were addressed. Feedback in to product management was direct, positive, and actionable.
It helped them build a better company.
The employees benefited; and the partners, customers, and investors too. Thirty-eight percent of their annual revenue came from long term contracts with the top ten percent of the client base - the people who would come back to this event year after year to find more reasons to hand over their money.
All was well in their world - as evidenced by the 47 percent market share they enjoyed in their core market.
Then the company got acquired.
A couple of months after the acquisition closed, they were deep into the final stages of planning for that year's event. It was slated to be the biggest and most important ever - now with the combined client bases and product portfolios of the merged companies.
Everything was locked and loaded, pretty much ready to go. Most of the sponsorships and exhibition spaces were already sold; registrations were climbing steadily. The content was still in flux, as they tried to cram as much of the good stuff from the combined companies into one event, but everything else was in great shape.
And then - six weeks before opening night - the CEO of the acquiring company decided they should cancel.
[pause to let that one sink in]
Six weeks - and they should cancel.
They were getting ready to squooge the main products of the two companies into a brand new offering as part of an overall "strategic realignment" (*ack*), and the CEO felt that the event was going to be "targeted at the wrong audience".
The hotel was already booked - had been for a year. And the party catering, the promotional materials, the keynote speaker, the schwag...
And they cancelled.
Patty Seybold was booked to be the opening keynote speaker. At the time, Patty was one of the most influential voices in this company's market - she was riding high on the recent release of her book customers.com.
And they burned her. Oh, excuse me: they strategically realigned.
At this point, the young marketing VP had not had too many real screaming face-to-face rows with a boss in his career. He's a non-confrontational type by nature. But as you can imagine, he had one back then. He lost.
So he spent two straight days on the phone - call after call after back-to-back call. He tried to make sure he reached every single one of the partners and main customers who had already booked and, in some cases, paid big money for flights or accomodation.
They had partners who came every year - people who'd built their entire companies on the back of the main product set of this software firm - adding specialist skills and functionality to create their own successful after market businesses. Some of these guys took the smart route and booked holiday homes in Florida months in advance - to house their entire sales staff at less than the Marriott rates. Holiday homes they couldn't cancel - and non-refundable special rate air tickets, booked the year before.
Two days of phone calls, burning relationships and personal reputation all along the way - selling the company line as best he could, trying to keep people on side one way or another. Trying not to blow the quarter (or the year) for his friends in the sales team.
One firm he dealt with had spent almost a year in R&D, building a really cool add-on for the software company's flagship product. They were set to launch this add-on at the conference. Their advertising, the brochures - everything was already done. Even their "show special" flyers, designed to echo the theme of the conference program. All toast.
The marketing guy finished his two days of phone calls, and several more weeks of damage control, then he left the company (and that entire industry) two months later.
He tried, but sometimes cluelessness just metastasizes and there's nothing anyone can do to stop it.
And the CEO? Well I guess he lived happily ever after. This is real life, after all...
Pure Dilbert-quality examples:
"A CEO insisted that we send out weekly press releases because our competitor did. We achieved that goal, but now the press thought both companies were both bozos...A marketing VP was satisfied with our PR efforts because we were getting the designated number of column inches per quarter. That the coverage was exceptionally dull didn't matter to him."
Talking to Jeneane earlier today, and comparing notes, we realised we have just so many examples of this kind of stuff we could probably fill a book.
Of course, there's some recent injuries that are still a little too raw to scratch, but here's one of my favourite all-time classic tales of corporate cluelessness, worthy of a little cathartic blogging.
Once upon a time, a young guy (not entirely unlike me) was working as El Grande Marketing Poobah at a big software company. For many years, this company had been running a wildly successful annual user conference that was little short of a week-long love-in for their staff, clients and partners.
This thing was big. It had been running for nearly ten years, going from strength to strength - to the point that when this chap came in to run marketing it was drawing around 2,500 attendees - most of whom paid up to $1,000 (plus hotel and airfare) to attend.
They'd book out the Orlando World Center Marriott hotel for the whole week - bracketing either side of the 4-day event. Every room, every meeting room, every ballroom. And that's a bigass hotel.
They'd shovel food, booze, and freebies into the attendees. In addition to a packed conference program and exhibition floor, every night there was some kind of organized main event, with numerous spin off parties for particular interest groups (the European user group, the premier partners, &c.). One big bottomless trough.
On the middle night of the gig, they'd bus all the attendees off to Universal Studios or something similar for the night - there'd be drinks carts, hot/cold buffets, and barbecues everywhere you looked.
This was the 90s, of course - such excesses were almost de rigeur for a big tech firm. But here's the kicker: they managed to run this darn thing so that it was practically break even.
No kidding - they sold sponsorships for everything. Plus partners paid to exhibit, or advertise in areas of the hotel. And the vast majority of attendees paid, as I said.
In the last year our hero ran the event, he had a total budget of around $1.6 million. They made $1.5 million. (If you want to know how, btw, I can give you the name of the event management company they used - the best in the business).
Net $100,000 to bring 2,500 people to a hotel in Florida for a week - feed, juice, and entertain them until they were fit to pop.
But that's not the best bit.
The immediate and lasting impact on customer, employee, and investor satisfaction and goodwill was tangible. Sales went up. Complaints and issues were addressed. Feedback in to product management was direct, positive, and actionable.
It helped them build a better company.
The employees benefited; and the partners, customers, and investors too. Thirty-eight percent of their annual revenue came from long term contracts with the top ten percent of the client base - the people who would come back to this event year after year to find more reasons to hand over their money.
All was well in their world - as evidenced by the 47 percent market share they enjoyed in their core market.
Then the company got acquired.
A couple of months after the acquisition closed, they were deep into the final stages of planning for that year's event. It was slated to be the biggest and most important ever - now with the combined client bases and product portfolios of the merged companies.
Everything was locked and loaded, pretty much ready to go. Most of the sponsorships and exhibition spaces were already sold; registrations were climbing steadily. The content was still in flux, as they tried to cram as much of the good stuff from the combined companies into one event, but everything else was in great shape.
And then - six weeks before opening night - the CEO of the acquiring company decided they should cancel.
[pause to let that one sink in]
Six weeks - and they should cancel.
They were getting ready to squooge the main products of the two companies into a brand new offering as part of an overall "strategic realignment" (*ack*), and the CEO felt that the event was going to be "targeted at the wrong audience".
The hotel was already booked - had been for a year. And the party catering, the promotional materials, the keynote speaker, the schwag...
And they cancelled.
Patty Seybold was booked to be the opening keynote speaker. At the time, Patty was one of the most influential voices in this company's market - she was riding high on the recent release of her book customers.com.
And they burned her. Oh, excuse me: they strategically realigned.
At this point, the young marketing VP had not had too many real screaming face-to-face rows with a boss in his career. He's a non-confrontational type by nature. But as you can imagine, he had one back then. He lost.
So he spent two straight days on the phone - call after call after back-to-back call. He tried to make sure he reached every single one of the partners and main customers who had already booked and, in some cases, paid big money for flights or accomodation.
They had partners who came every year - people who'd built their entire companies on the back of the main product set of this software firm - adding specialist skills and functionality to create their own successful after market businesses. Some of these guys took the smart route and booked holiday homes in Florida months in advance - to house their entire sales staff at less than the Marriott rates. Holiday homes they couldn't cancel - and non-refundable special rate air tickets, booked the year before.
Two days of phone calls, burning relationships and personal reputation all along the way - selling the company line as best he could, trying to keep people on side one way or another. Trying not to blow the quarter (or the year) for his friends in the sales team.
One firm he dealt with had spent almost a year in R&D, building a really cool add-on for the software company's flagship product. They were set to launch this add-on at the conference. Their advertising, the brochures - everything was already done. Even their "show special" flyers, designed to echo the theme of the conference program. All toast.
The marketing guy finished his two days of phone calls, and several more weeks of damage control, then he left the company (and that entire industry) two months later.
He tried, but sometimes cluelessness just metastasizes and there's nothing anyone can do to stop it.
And the CEO? Well I guess he lived happily ever after. This is real life, after all...
