paul isakson // everything can always be made better

The Human Factor

Flickr // Jeremy Farmer Photog

I've been listening to a fair amount of Andrew Bird lately and in doing so, the song "Tables and Chairs" has particularly stood out for a number of reasons. The largest of them being a string of lyrics very early on in the song, "don't let the human factor fail to be a factor at all."

From where I stand, this is one of the biggest reasons behind the mess we're in. We've failed to let the human factor be a factor at all.

In the never-ceasing push to decrease costs and increase profits, we have often forgotten what it means to be humans making products, services, experiences and messages for other humans with other humans. 

Somehow, when we step through the doors of our workplaces, we habitually plug into our routines to getting our work done in the most efficient way possible. 

We erase the memory of how frustrated we get with another company when their __________ doesn't work / say / do something the way we expected and wanted it to. 

We forget how much we like the people we work with and for outside of work.

We've slowly been programmed to focus on creating new ways to squeeze more out of people at the cash register instead of on helping each other get more out of life.

We have unconsciously stripped the human factor out of the way to make getting our jobs done easier, faster and ultimately, more profitable for our employers and investors.

Clearly, this has to stop if we want to make the changes this industry needs—the changes we all like to talk about so much.

We need to change our approach. 

We need to remember the human side of who we're creating things for and who is creating them with us.

We need to stop giving only lip service to the idea of getting out of the office more to spend time with our customers and consumers. 

We need to observe and engage with people in their everyday lives not only using the things we create, but also in and around those things, so that we can learn how to actually improve people's quality of life in some way.

We need to step back, take a new look at the world, and put people at the center.

In other words, we need to make the human factor the most important factor of all.

Opening New Doors

Flickr // elmada

I've been talking about a lot of things here over the past three years that I have a great deal of passion for.

Things like looking optimistically at what's happening today so that we can create a better future for marketing and advertising; using social media to do things instead of just say them; creating better products and services because they really are the marketing; seeing the world as interconnected communities instead of audiences; doing things worth talking about and being about something bigger than yourself as a brand.

All of this has come to fall under the banner of continually innovating our approaches to marketing and the idea that, "Everything can always be made better." That is something I truly believe and will always be the case.

I have decided it's time to activate my passion for marketing innovation on a very personal level and listen to the voice inside, calling me to open the double-wide doors to new possibilities and opportunities. I have to walk my own talk.

That being the case, I resigned from my role as Head of Strategy at space150 and completed my last day there on October 9th so that I could be free to collaborate and connect with any of you interested in doing so.

If you have ever had the thought cross your mind that you'd like to connect with, collaborate with, or work with me, the door is open and I would love to hear from you.

From having conversations about design, business, marketing and technology to sharing ideas to possible collaborations and projects to just being people with like-minded interests getting to know each other. I'm open to it. My contact information is below. Reach out at any time.

I want to say thank you to Billy, Marcus and the rest of the incredibly wonderful and talented people at space150. It was an amazing two-plus years of learning, growing, collaborating, working hard, having fun and so much more. Thank you also for your encouragement and support in what I'm now doing.

All in all, I'm excited. And to be completely honest, a little bit nervous.

But mostly excited. Really excited.

I'm excited to continue helping good organizations and great people do amazing things.

I'm excited about the possibilities the future holds to create positive change in this thing we call marketing and through that, create positive change in the world and in people's lives.

I'm excited to put my passion for creating that future to work in new ways.

I'm excited to collaborate and connect with others who share that passion.

I'm excited to continue to share my thinking and passion for all of this with you here, and connecting with you personally as well.

I look forward to hearing from you.

Paul

Contact info:

How to Create Advocacy and Conversation (via @FrankInLalaland)

Frank is presenting a great take on creating advocacy and conversation at Planningness - well worth the view and discussing with colleagues and clients.

Especially useful (in my opinion) is the advocacy model/tool beginning on slide 30. In an age of conversation and transparency, brand behavior is far more important than brand language. Having tools to help us figure out how brands should behave instead of how they should talk will help us all move the industry forward faster.

As always, would love to know your take on this. Rather than sharing your thoughts here though, put them in the comments on the SlideShare page so the discussion can be held in a broader forum for all who view it...

Thank You, UBA

This is long overdue, but here is the extended "What's Next for 2009" presentation I delivered at UBA's 60th Anniversary Congress a few weeks back.

As you'll see, a lot of bits are the same, some bits are new. Thank you to everyone who contributed thinking to this updated version. I'll definitely be doing more reaching out in the future.

As for the event, it was one of the best run days I've been a part of in a long time. I learned a lot from the other speakers and from conversations held during the coffee breaks, lunch, happy hour and dinner. (You can download copies of all of the presentations from the UBA's page recapping the day. Look just below the recap video. I think you'll find interesting points in each of them, so I highly recommend it.)

Thank you to all of the wonderful people I met in Brussels for your conversations, kindness and feedback. And a big thank you to Chris, Jan, Frédéric, and Alice for your generosity and graciousness.

The Next 60 Years In Advertising

Do you have some ideas for what it will be? I hope so.

Why? Because I'd like to have you help me out with something...

I've been honored with an invitation to present in Brussels at the Union of Belgian Advertisers 60th Anniversary Congress. The topic they've asked me to cover is where this crazy world of advertising is going. Per the request, I'll be presenting an updated and slightly extended version of the "What's Next" presentation I gave in Boston a month ago.

How can you help? I have two requests.

First, I'd love to hear your thoughts for how to improve the presentation.

What's missing? What's off? What could be improved? What should be left out? Etc. Be as brutally honest as you like. It will only help make it better.

Secondly, I want to include a section that highlights what some of you think the next 60 years will hold for advertising and marketing. I'll treat what you say in one of two ways, depending on how you submit it.

If you chose to do a written submission, or would like what you submit to be written as a quote, I'll do it just as the other quote slides are in the deck - with an image and your quote, attributed to you.

The other way will be to show short videos or a video mix of people's thoughts for those of you who want to submit your ideas through a short video.

Send me any thoughts you have for either of these requests however you like - written, recorded audio/video, Twitter... However works for you.

To make sure I see/get them, leave any thoughts/links/etc. in the comments here, @ or DM me on Twitter (@paulisakson) or send me an email - paul [dot] isakson [at] gmail [dot] com.

I look forward to hearing from you, and thanks in advance for your help!

It's Not What You Say That Matters

Being that one of the main tenets of social media is sharing, I thought it was only appropriate that I share part of how we've been talking about social media with various people.*

As I'm sure you have been reading and hearing, there is more and more chatter about looking at people's behaviors within social media, not just the tools and technology. That's the main point of this presentation—focusing on behaviors and what people are doing.

Anyway, for many of you, being as active in this area as you are, I'm sure most of this is just a review. Either way, I'd love to know what you think...

*This is generally the first 1/2 to 1/3 of what we present. The rest is custom/specific to the audience/client.

Do You PowerPoint Karaoke?

I try not to talk too much about the work we're doing at space150, but this is one I wanted to share for a few reasons. (I hope you don't mind. I promise to not make it a recurring thing.) First, it's been fun to see come to life over the past few months. Secondly, we need your help in making it a success. Third, if you participate, you could win up to $5,000.

So, what is it?

A PowerPoint Karaoke (or, Battle Decks if you prefer) competition to help create awareness for (our client) Imation's Wireless Projection Link. You can get all the details here. What we really need right now are people willing to host an event, which we'll provide a kit for – just see the main page of the site and check out the info on the right if you're interested. If not, but you know someone who might be, please pass it along.

Thanks for letting me interrupt with a little work stuff. Now, I promise to get back to sharing the things you're used to seeing here...

A Final Post On @don_draper

As some of you may have noticed, @don_draper started Tweeting again. For the sake of being honest and bringing closure to the whole thing, here's what has happened.

Due to the low number of people showing they were interested in taking over the account, I chose to skip the process of a competition and voting and just hand over the account in full to the person who demonstrated that they understood Don's character and wanted to do it the most.

I look forward to seeing how they handle it. I hope you do too.

Who Wants To Be @don_draper?

Image via AMC

It has been 366 days since I kicked off what became Mad Men on Twitter and I'm excited to announce that what started with a fan of Mad Men wanting to see what would happen if a character from that show started Tweeting shall continue being done by a fan. It just won't be me who is doing the Tweeting. While fun to do, I simply don't have time this year.

So who will get to do it?

That's up to me. And you.

If you want to be @don_draper, convince me that you deserve it. However you think is the best way to do that. The only rule is that it has to be done using the power of the interwebs. Other than that, I'm not going to tell you what to do. That's up to you. Don is the creative director of Sterling Cooper so showing me your creativity is key.

How will this work?

If you're interested, do whatever it is you think is the best way to show me why you should be @don_draper and leave a link/note/whatever in the comments of this post. You have until next Saturday (8/22) to get your submission in. (As long as your comment reads 8/22 as the date, you're up for consideration.)

On Sunday (8/23), five finalists will be chosen. Who they are will not be announced publicly to help protect the ultimate winner's anonymity. Each of the five finalists will be assigned a day to Tweet anonymously as @don_draper (Monday 8/24, Tuesday 8/25, Wednesday 8/26, Thursday 8/27, Friday 8/28) using CoTweet.

On Friday (8/28) night, a poll will be put up for fans to vote for who they think should be the winner.

I'll take fan votes into consideration along with my own opinion to decide who the victory goes to. The winner will be announced on Sunday, August 30th at the conclusion of episode two. (The winner's name will not be announced. They will be announced by the day they were @don_draper, i.e. "Friday @don_draper")

What does the winner get?

They get to be @don_draper for all of season three, getting full control of the account at the end of the season, with two stipulations.

What are the stipulations?

The first stipulation is that they have to do a great job of being @don_draper as decided by the fans. So, before you volunteer to do this, make sure you have the time and energy to put to it. It will require a good effort from you – more than I could put into it last year.

How will the fans decide if the new @don_draper is living up to expectations?

By raising their voice if they feel otherwise just like some of them did last year. If that happens this time, we'll put out a larger vote to see if more people feel that way. If so, the winning @don_draper will be fired and replaced by the runner-up. That's right. The new @don_draper can be fired.

The second stipulation is that they have to remain anonymous until season three is complete.

From what I learned last year, a lot of the fun of the account from the side of the fans is that they don't know who is behind it. At the end of the season, they can announce their identity if they so choose in whatever form they choose. And, if they've done a brilliant job the entire season, the account is theirs to decide what to do with for season four, should there be one. They will have earned it at that point.

To be clear, this means that until the winner proves they deserve full control of the account, they will be @don_draper through CoTweet only while I retain the password and email address tied to it. My only role in this will be following in the fun and (hopefully not) firing the winner should they fail to fulfill the job's requirements.

I know some of you won't like that the account doesn't get handed over right away, but I put too much time into this last year to just give it over without knowing that the person who takes it cares about it as much as I do. If that turns some of you off from applying, well, I understand. For those of you that aren't discouraged by it, I look forward to seeing what happens.

Good luck to those of you who wish to compete.

To the rest of you, please help spread the word.

Oh, and be sure to tune into AMC this Sunday night at 10PM/9C for the premiere of Mad Men Season 3.

Fish Where The Fish Are... Or Not

Flickr // CaptPiper

Saturday, Matt Dickman wrote a post which triggered a comment from me, due to another person's comment in reaction to Matt's post. I thought that given the length of my comment, it was worth cleaning up a bit and posting here.

The comment that triggered this brought up the idea of "fishing where the fish are" as an appropriate excuse to jump into tactics before knowing your strategy. This saying has become fairly popular among social media fans thanks to Jeremiah Owyang and his brief presentation on "fishing where the fish are" as an analogy for approaching social media. (Of course the planners reading this will likely recall Jeff Goodby's ideas about planners being the equivalent of fishing guides in Jon Steel's Truth, Lies & Advertising.)

Now, to be fair, I think the point Jeremiah was trying to make was to get out and understand people's behaviors in social media before doing anything in the space, which I agree with. But, the so-called social media gurus have taken this in another direction. They love to make people think that EVERYONE is in social media these days. They work hard to convince clients that they just HAVE to be there. Thanks to Jeremiah's line, they now throw out the "you've got to fish where the fish are" idea in an attempt to convince them.

Well, maybe this is where the fish are, maybe it isn't. It really depends on what kind of fish you're looking for.

One of the biggest mistakes several of these social media experts make is assuming "everyone" is like them and spends all day and night in all the same places they do. You can see it in their blog posts and presentations. They draw up diagrams showing how people are using all of these various tools, making it look like everyone writes a blog, updates their Facebook status constantly, Tweets their life away, posts photos on Flickr, Facebook and Posterous simultaneously through their iPhone, keeps a Tumblr just for fun, makes a little YouTube video every now and then and bookmarks everything they like and then some on Delicious.

Hmmm. Something smells kind of fishy here, don't you think? Now let's look at Facebook as just an example...

Yes, there are over 250 million people on Facebook and some of them are doing a lot of posting and sharing. But what not many people talk about is that this also means there are about 6.5 billion people on this planet who are not on Facebook.

Further, let's say you're dealing with a client who is only looking to do something with their marketing in the United States. By Facebook's statistics, only about 30% of their users are from the U.S. That means there are roughly 230,000,000 people in the U.S. who again, are not on Facebook. To put it another way, there are just about as many people in the United States who are not on Facebook as there are people who are on Facebook throughout the entire world.

Given all of that, it's very likely that a majority of a lot of companies' fish aren't on Facebook, or any other social media platform for that matter. This is why, to the point of Matt's post, if you start planning your marketing around tactics based on where the fish aren't, it simply doesn't matter.

What Matt is trying to emphasize in his post is that we need to always remember to stay focused on the bigger picture before we start diving into tactics. Once we have the bigger picture figured out and the right strategies in place to connect what people are doing to our client's business objectives, then we can start figuring out the exact details—be they social media driven or not.

It's like a post by Seth Godin that another person pointed out in the comments to Matt's post - we have to stop building weak strategies around shiny tactics and then saying the strategy failed when really we didn't think too much about the strategy at all because we were too blinded by the bright shiny tactic.

To wrap this all up, I don't want people to think I am putting down doing things in social media. I think clients need to be paying attention to it and trying (appropriate) things for sure. I just also think we all need to use a bit of common sense when approaching the social media space and make sure that what we're doing is the right thing based on the behaviors of the people we're trying to connect with.

Anyway, I think that's probably enough now and it certainly covers what I was mostly saying over on Techno//Marketer...