Rally Time!

Last night, my wife and I went to a rally for Al Franken’s senate campaign…the draw: Bill Clinton was coming to town.  It was my second rally of the year; the first was last week I took my son to see Hillary Rodham Clinton when she came to town to goose the Franken campaign.  

I come to these things as a sort of tourist. I just can’t bring myself to get truly revved-up-fist-pumping-slogan-shouting over — as  President Clinton artfully called it — “some whoop-de-do political speech.”  Anyway, I know who I’m going to vote for, but heck — last week it was Hillary and this week it was Bill and my wife wanted to see what the fuss was about.  

So we got there at a decent time and carved out a spot in the crowd with a pretty good sightline.  And after two rallies this year, some observations: 

 

1. If you go to one of these things, expect to stand.  A lot. Since it was the former president and we were lined up in front of the auditorium at the Minneapolis Convention Center, a few of us had the thought that we might get to sit in the auditorium. But you don’t want 5000 volunteers, partisans, celebrity hounds and curious folks who just want their kid to get a glimpse of the former president to be photographed lolling about in auditorium seats.  You want them standing, shouting, cheering and waving signs proclaiming that Obama+Franken=Change to stamp out that ticket-splitting idea promulgated by that silly old StarTribune! 

   So we stood. 
    

2. These events aren’t exactly run like well-oiled machines.  They start early and end late — timed to finish in time for the 10 pm news (they failed on this one by the way.  WCCO had its reporter talking over Clinton live).  You get your warm-up acts — mayors, representatives, state officers.  Then you get a break. Then you get Walter Mondale, a nice surprise.  Then you get Sen. Klobuchar, and then a recorded Al Gore speech.  Eventually, Franken and Clinton arrive.  We’d been standing for 3 hours at this point.
    
3. You can really tell who in the party’s ‘big leagues’ at these rallies. They speak in ways that are not just smooth and practiced, but passionate and controlled.  They’re confident, comfortable in their own skin. They tell stories that flow effortlessly from funny to personal to issues to the big picture.

   My take from afar? Though she’s not running this year, Minnesotans will have the chance to vote for Sen. Amy Klobuchar for a long time.  And Minneapolis’ R.T. Rybak seems to have matured over his years in the mayor’s office … strong speaker, and comfortable working the lines outside, too.

4. There are a few Democrats who haven’t gotten the message about rising above identity politics.  Rep. Keith Ellison, for example, felt the need to give a shout out to the usual laundry list of Democratic ‘communities.’ Sounds 1980s to me. The Democratic message resonates strongest when it speaks to us as individuals with common issues and aspirations, rather than communities with interests.
    
5. Al Franken comes across far better in speeches than he does in debates or ads.  Granted, it’s a good crowd  for him.  But the guy is engaging. He’s clearly smart. And he’s funny, but in ways that get you thinking.  Moreover, he never talks about himself – never says his own name. Never even says “vote for me.”  He talks about his audience, and he talks about issues. 

6. Watching Clinton, I can’t help but compare him to the Republican vice presidential nominee. Clinton isn’t shy with the y’all’s.  He apologizes for not giving a “whoop-de-do political speech”.  He’s not being folksy.  He is folksy – and frighteningly conversant on issues from the financial crisis to national security. 

At times, Clinton dances on the edge of being condescending or didactic, but largely, it works … you’ve got to respect what he he has to say (and besides, as my mother-in-law says, “he’s a very handsome man). 

At 700 words, I’ll stop here… a few more thoughts tomorrow on politicians as public speakers. Thanks for reading! 

‘Good a time as any’ for startups

James Fallows is offering ongoing takes on how venture capital firms are reacting to the financial crisis — a writer always worth following.  He’s previously posted a much-talked-about slide show by Sequoia Capital, essentially advising a batten down the hatches approach to running a startup.  This generated a response from by one of his readers, Alan Patricof, the managing director of the New York VC firm Greycroft Partners, quoted in full at Fallows’ blog, and excerpted below:

This is surely a time for companies to pay meticulous attention to detail, particularly their cost structure. It is a time to be realistic in their near term assumptions for revenue growth and take nothing for granted.

Raising additional capital to support operations is of course critical, as it is at any time, but this is particularly a time for young companies to be extra cautious in developing pragmatic assumptions of their needs and in focusing on the amount and not necessarily the cost of that capital.

This is not a time to panic, cut off all investment in the future, and burrow into a dark hole. Take a page from the packaged goods industry that the time to gain market share is during tough times when your competitors are weaker in responding. And while this may feel more directly related to portfolio companies, we as a venture industry should not retreat either. It is our strong belief that we can and will continue to make sound investments in excellent opportunities. It is as good a time as ever to start a company with sound fundamentals.

An approach that makes sense. As a communications and marketing consultant, I’ve long enjoyed working with enthusiastic, optimistic entrepreneurs with loads of big-picture ideas who nonetheless took a measured approach.  They invest in defining and positioning their brand, have clear objectives, and focus their communications on advancing strategies toward those objectives.

More, I think there’s something to this idea of money moving from exotic financial instruments toward ideas that make things — good ol’ fashioned ‘progress’.

As a leader, where are you going? Who are you taking there?

Update:  I thought I’d dust off, update and share a previously unpublished article I wrote on Leadership Positioning … you can download it as a convenient PDF file here. Let me know what you think. Thanks!

Ken

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Invest In the Upswing #4

People buy from leaders. It’s natural. Whether you’re buying for yourself, or for your business, you want to some kind of validation that you’re choice is one that others will approve of, or the trendsetter that puts you out in front.

It’s pretty common for executives to look around at aggressive goals or sluggish sales (or >gulp< both) and determine that the company needs to be seen as a leader. And then they look at marketing.

Now, it’s easy to challenge the desire to be seen as a leader with a challenge: What are you doing to act like a leader? It’s often a legitimate challenge: For many companies, having a better product may just be enough; others want to be seen as leaders, but do little actual leading.

But a more important, and useful, question is this:

Who do you want to lead? And where do you want to lead them?

The answer take can take you directly to strategies that position you as the leader you want to be.
For example, if you’re in technology, do you want to lead your industry toward open standards, or toward greater interoperability?

Or do you want to lead your customers toward greater success, serving as a ‘community organizer’ among like-minded users, and an advocate for their cause?

Or do you want to lead your target customer toward more fun, more hipness, more coolness … toward a greater sense of individuality, or belonging?

And consider … if your customer finds an advocate, innovator and a leader during a down market, where will they turn when they’re ready to invest in the upswing?

“Recession Proof” SEO Tips

Invest in the Upswing #3

A post at the Top Rank Marketing blog that’s worth a read.  The emphasis here is on tactics for promoting the content you publish online.  Use blogs, media relations, social media participation with search engine optimization to bring your content to people, and people to your content.

Visit: http://www.toprankblog.com/2008/01/recession-proof-search-engine-optimization-tips/

Marketing as Journalism

Invest in the Upswing #2

When I talk to clients about managing communications and marketing planning, I like to have them imagine those old movies about TV networks, where executives sit in their fancy offices adding and erasing programs from the big schedule board. The point:  every day, every week, every month, you need to decide how marketing will facilitate interaction with the market — online, offline, in social media, with bloggers, with professional reporters, at trade shows, on the website. As many have remarked, the newsroom model is a good place to start.  Every day, the news organization must determine its top stories, and how it’s going to tell those stories.

Albert Maruggi does a nice nine-minute podcast this morning with new media PR guru David Meerman Scott about viewing your marketing department as a newsroom.  It’s worth a listen.  Maruggi says that (transcribed as accurately as I could), “marketing as a mouthpiece for all that is good within a company is being viewed cynically.” Instead, he says, “look at trends in an industry and where your company fits in that trend line …news within a company and how it impacts trends and social communities.”

Meerman Scott cites the idea some have called “brand journalism,” noting that where the traditional advertising and direct marketing model interrupts its audience, the future is in publishing “information, multimedia…that your audience wants to consume.”

Organizations looking to invest in the upswing can look to this model as a place to start.  Rather than creating new advertising to build mass awareness, consider find out where the conversations are happening today – Facebook, MySpace, online forums, media websites, blogs – see if there’s a contribution you can make.  Invest in content — video, audio, photos, articles, speeches, news — that engages your market online.