Marketing behind their backs.

Seth Godin is a genius. 

I was in a restaurant recently. It's a national chain and you'd recognize the name if I mentioned it.

My wife and I were dressed up, celebrating a successful meeting, ready to enjoy a nice evening together.

We waited for almost half an hour to be seated, on an evening that was not very busy for this establishment. We waited ten minutes for our drinks - water with lime. We ordered and our appetizer came out fairly timely. MY wife waited for her salad for 35 minutes. Our entree's took almost an hour, and mine, a seafood pasta dish, was inedible. The manager was sincerely sorry, after I complained, and comped our meal, but the damage had been done.

I hear and see advertising for this restaurant every day on the television and on radio. They market themselves well, even have a really neat Facebook App. They're well connected and they have, I'm sure, a strong customer base. However, the marketing performed by that crew on that evening completely undermined every single marketing dollar that had been poured into getting me through those doors. And it ended up costing them another $40 for my dinner.

How are your people marketing behind your back? 

The dying paper...

It's been a busy New Year. Sorry about the delay.

I'm a practical kind of person. I'm fortunate enough to get this technological "revolution" that people are so crazy over. In all honesty, I'm pretty crazy over it, too. I just don't see it the way a lot of people do. I've never seen the whole "The future is here and it is now-or-whatever-else-will-scare-people" perspective behind this new medium of communication. I really thought most of us would have seen a lot of this coming. But no matter, it's here. Now, people, organizations, businesses - they have to decide what to do with it.

Rupert Murdoch is loony. Seriously, if you haven't figured it out for yourself yet, people will get the content they want online, and they won't pay for it. The media model, specifically the newspaper, is dying and dead. There are even proponents of magazine success that seem blindly sure that a money-for-content model will continue to be viable into the future of digital media.

There are two major flaws in this mindset: 1.) Information is widely available via free Internet sources, whether it be via user-generated or freemium-based platforms. There is so much information available, and so much of it comes to the user as a value-added benefit of association with a given source. Often, user-generated content is more relevant, more accurate, and more timely than that sourced from the traditional information mediums. And if people can get better information for free, why would they pay for it? 2.) Users who generate their own content recognize the benefit in providing value to their readers/subscribers and will continue to provide better information at no cost in order to improve their own recognition. And why shouldn't they? The sphere is full of bloggers and writers and tweeters who are trying to grow their audience, and they will do so by increasing the value of what they are disseminating. The traditional print media model cannot compete with that kind of a value proposition.

Solution? Empowerment. The media model needs to empower these independent information-generation sources with what they need to stay relevant to their sphere of influence. By doing so, and harnessing the creative power of these people, the media powers-that-be can stay relevant to their audiences.

"Please, let's be formal..."

How did you find your barber? Or your stylist? Or the girl who does your nails? Or how about the fellows who mow your grass?

These are services that require an immense amount of trust to be placed in the service provider. When shears or clippers get near your head, you'd better have a fair amount of confidence in the guy or gal holding them.

With few exceptions, you probably found these services through a conversation with a friend, relative or co-worker. I'd wager a guess that you weren't huddled around a conference table in a stuffy office with a legal pad in front of you, diligently taking notes on the pros and cons of the decision you're about to make.

If you did, you need help.

Chances are good, and this is just speculation, that you were swapping stories over a cup of coffee or maybe an after-work drink. A comment was made in passing about a new hair-cut or nail job, and a recommendation was passed along. On that recommendation, without fact-checking and asking for references, you made a purchasing decision. And you continue to make that same, informal decision every two weeks to keep your curly (or straight) locks in perfect order.

There is nothing wrong with this. It's the way most consumers do business.

It also happens to be the way that social media works. People talk about a lot of things on the web. They talk about books they're reading, coffee they're sipping, politicians they're hating, and people they're missing. They talk, and other people listen. They discuss these things. They form opinions and eventually make decisions. It's the same dynamic that has been happing in conversation for eons, only now it's happening on the Internet.

Making your brand a part of this terribly informal conversation is...duh.