On the death of Flash (and the importance of advocates)

There have been rumblings for a while that Flash is dying, a perspective that is starting to get louder and louder with the announcement of the iPad. Nobody’s quite sure what the alternative will be or how long it will take to figure it out, but people seem to be losing faith in Adobe’s ability to keep Flash from an untimely demise.

This chunk of Jeff LaMarche’s rant from a while back gives his take on why:

What will happen with Flash? Hell if I know. My current level of confidence in Adobe is not very high. The management team there has somehow managed to take a customer base who were rabidly loyal and turn them into customers who feel trapped and desperately want an alternative. This has happened in less than a decade. Talk about spending political capital! Somewhere along the line, Adobe stopped being a company that did, first and foremost, what their customers needed, and instead became a company that looked to make the most money they could with the least expenditure. It’s a short-term strategy taught in many business schools (including Harvard) using impressive-sounding phrases like “maximizing shareholder value”. Yet, it’s a strategy that anyone with any common sense (aka not an MBA) knows is completely and utterly moronic. In the long-term, rabidly loyal fans are far better than great salespeople. They’re better than good advertising campaigns, slogans, or even Superbowl ads. They’re better than product placement in a summer blockbuster.

And you can’t buy them for any price.

There is a price to be paid for neglecting your advocates.

:: Posted by Ben Kaplan ::

There are numbers in the record books, and then there are stories

Speaking Tuesday on ESPN about Mark McGwire’s completely unshocking revelation that he did, in fact, take steroids, Tim Kurkjian was asked about whether Roger Maris’ single-season home run record, which McGwire shattered in 1998, should be restored.

Kurkjian suggested the record should stand, citing some of the other questionable numbers and statistics that still stand in baseball’s offical record book, including the championship won by the 1919 Cincinnati Reds, “who won the World Series even though the other team, the White Sox, intentionally threw the World Series” in the infamous Black Sox gambling scandal.

He continued:

“What we do is we connect a story to these records, and explain to people what happened here. Then we leave it up to our best fans to decide what they think here. The thought that Roger Maris’ legacy is gone forever is absolutely ridiculous. Roger Maris’ legacy has been enhanced by all of this.”

Baseball cherishes its numbers more than any other sport. But the numbers do not act alone. The Maris stories that came back into the public consciousness as McGwire and Sammy Sosa chased his record in that memorable summer of 1998 became as much a part of the mythology and the experience as the number itself, just as the stories (and controversy) about McGwire are now as much a part of his mythology and the experience of those who remember that summer as his magic number.

:: Posted by Eric Ratinoff ::

Tiger Woods, failed storyteller

Over the weekend, Accenture dropped Tiger Woods as its spokesman, stating that he is “no longer the right representative.” Gillette will scale back Tiger’s face time in their campaigns, saying “As Tiger takes a break from the public eye, we will support his desire for privacy by limiting his role in our marketing programs,”  and watchmaker Tag Heuer says it is “examining its long-term relationship with him.”

Nike chairman Phil Knight has taken a different approach. He told SportsBusiness Journal that, “When his career is over, you’ll look back on these indiscretions as a minor blip, but the media is making a big deal out of it right now.”

While companies scramble to deal with the Tiger fallout, and no doubt struggle to decide how to handle their relationships with one of the greatest (and certainly richest) endorsers in history, it’s fair to ask the question that these companies should be asking themselves: is Tiger still credible as a pitchman?

I think the answer to that question depends on how Tiger is used as a storyteller.

For a company like Gillette, for whom Tiger is hawking razor blades and body wash, Knight’s take is probably on target. There’s no real story there; his visibility and name recognition is probably as important as anything, and his indiscretions don’t say anything about his choice of razor blade. (Although I’ve never entirely understood why companies like Gillette pay what they do for celebrity endorsements. Do I know that Tiger endorses Gillette? Of course. Do I care? Not at all. Either I like their blades or I don’t. I’m a sports fan, but after all these years of Tiger and other high-priced athletes promoting the battery-powered Gillette Fusion Power six-blade shaving system with on-board microchip (no joke), I’m still using the two-blade Gillette Sensor Excel. Which is endorsed by nobody. Well, now me.)

Nike is a little different. They trade on the Tiger mythology, which is not only about winning, but also about practice, focus, practice, determination, practice, performance under pressure, and practice. That Tiger turns out to be a kinky lothario won’t be forgotten, but if you’re looking for golf gear, it’s understandable that you could separate the personal from the professional, and that you’d still want to wear and use what Tiger wears and uses.

Accenture, however, built their association with Tiger on a different kind of mythology — the kind that told a story about character, judgment, integrity, foresight, and sound strategic decision-making.

Now that the cheating Tiger revelations have come to light, Tiger can no longer be used to tell that story. Any trace of authenticity in that story is gone.

In the aftermath of this mess, much has been made of how little we actually knew about Tiger. That lack of real knowledge made it that much easier to believe the mythology — to believe that the Tiger legend was true.

What’s ironic is that while so much of the Tiger legend still is true — his prodigious talent at a young age, his multicultural background, his relentless work ethic, and of course, all of those wins — the Tiger story now rings false.

Over the last couple years, I’ve taken pictures of the Accenture airport posters featuring Tiger — I hadn’t even realized how many until I started going through my photo archive — because I thought I might write about them someday, though I wasn’t quite sure what the story was.

I never imagined it would be this.

:: Posted by Eric Ratinoff ::

Do you appreciate Google (as much as you should)?

Is there anyone who doesn’t appreciate having Google in their lives?

Maybe it’s because I remember writing documents on a green-screen word processor, but I often pause to wonder how we ever did anything before Google. I’m equally amazed that the gifts Google gives — search, Gmail, Google Maps, YouTube, and beyond — all come to me free.

So I figured I fully appreciated Google. Until I came across Google Search Stories on YouTube.

The Search Stories are short vignettes that, using only screen grabs from within the Googleverse and a clever soundtrack, follow one person through a series of Google searches and the results on which they click.

Which sounds dry, until you start watching. My favorite is “Parisian Love,” which begins with a search for “study abroad paris france” and ends with a search for “how to assemble a crib.” For a 53-second web video whose most animated character is a mouse cursor, it’s surprisingly touching:


This one, entitled, “Batman,” is also definitely worth the 31 seconds:


The stories reminded me that while my Google searches are sometimes (okay, often) random and inane (like my search yesterday for “chicago bears depth chart,” which I used to ensure that my mockery of my friend Mark, a Bears fan, was accurate), sometimes I too am on a larger quest.

Because Google has become such an integral part of daily life online, it’s easy to take its role in those searches for granted. In making you take a step back and see the broader picture, these videos remind you not to.

That Google — ubiquitous, world-owning, possibly-omniscient Google — invested the resources and the creative thought necessary to produce these videos says to me that they’re not taking their position at the top of the search perch for granted.

That they’ve chosen to tell stories to remind people of the value and impact of Google says something about the value and impact of stories.

:: Posted by Eric Ratinoff ::

The truth, the whole truth, and the stories we tell ourselves

My friend Kyle called me up the other day. He was feeling adrift, and was hoping I could provide some “life coaching” advice.

After graduating from college in May of 2008, Kyle took a job working for the Obama campaign. For three straight months, he knocked on doors, made phone calls, planned and organized events and rallies, and generally ran himself into the ground to get Obama elected.

Like just about anybody who works on a campaign, he was toast by Election Day, and he took the rest of November and December to recover.

By January, he was ready to find his next adventure, but he ran into two hurdles: one, he wanted something that would challenge him and give him the same energy and sense of purpose that he found working on the campaign; and two, he was a recent college graduate with limited experience looking for a job in the worst economic climate since the Great Depression.

The good news is, he found work: over the spring and summer, he worked for the minor league baseball team in town, and in the fall, he got a job waiting tables at a local restaurant. The bad news is, neither job fit the first qualification he was looking for, and he was even starting to wonder about that, too — he’d had an interview with an upcoming U.S. Senate campaign, and was beginning to question how he felt about diving back into that environment, this time for 10 months instead of three.

Worse, he was beating himself up about all of this. Waiting tables wasn’t challenging him, and most days it sucked the life out of him.

He wanted to go back to campus to visit, because like most recent grads, he missed just about everything about college, but his last visit had been filled with an endless stream of “So what are you up to now?” conversations. Kyle had been a highly-involved student leader — the kind who knew everybody, who knew the ins and outs of the institution, and who got invited into the university President’s box at Homecoming — so everyone back on campus expected he would find similar success after graduation. The idea of telling those people he was waiting tables filled him with dread.

“So don’t tell them you’re waiting tables,” I said. “And don’t tell yourself that, either.”

Kyle was a bit confused, so I explained.

As I saw it, he was telling himself a failure story: here he was, this promising college graduate, but a year and a half after graduating, he was waiting tables, living in his sister and brother-in-law’s basement, and worse, he had no exciting prospects, and no direction.

Is that story the truth? Certainly. The whole truth? Not necessarily. Is it a good conversation starter? Definitely not.

Who wouldn’t feel some angst about telling other people that story? You start telling someone that story, and they start looking for the next person they can talk to.

I proposed he frame his story a little differently. The next time he got the question, “So what are you up to now?”, I suggested he reply:

“I’m working on getting over my hangover from getting Obama elected.”

Is that story the truth? Certainly. The whole truth? Not necessarily. Is it a good conversation starter? Definitely.

With that opening, he’ll probably get at least a laugh. He’ll then likely get asked what he did for the campaign, at which point he can regale the listener with good stories about some of his adventures on the campaign trail in support of a historic candidate. He may never even have to mention the restaurant.

If he gets asked what he means by “hangover,” or gets a laugh and then a, “But really, what are you doing now?” he can explain that working on the campaign was such a powerful experience that he wants to take his time and find something that will be equally challenging and inspiring, and in which he can make a difference. In the meantime, he’s waiting tables to pay the bills while he explores his options.

That story opens up possibilities. Maybe it leads to a conversation about the kind of things that interest him, and the person he’s talking to has some ideas he should consider, or some people he should network with. Maybe that person makes an introduction on Kyle’s behalf, or thinks of him the next time an interesting position opens up, or offers to write a recommendation for his LinkedIn profile, or even has an opportunity that might be a good fit for him.

Worst-case scenario, Kyle walks away from the conversation feeling good about himself, and the person he’s talking to walks away thinking that Kyle is a thoughtful, mature, motivated kid who’s going places — as opposed to the worst-case scenario with Kyle’s original story, where Kyle walks away feeling sorry for himself, and the person he’s talking to wonders what ever happened to that kid who showed so much promise as an undergrad.

The stories we tell ourselves matter — often, much more than the truth.

:: Posted by Eric Ratinoff ::

Stories: Unfortunately, guilty as charged

In “Be a Better Investor,” from the latest issue of Kiplinger’s Personal Finance, Senior Editor Bob Frick takes a look at the emotional reasons that fueled the irrational behavior that led, in part, to the economic morass from which we’re still attempting to extract ourselves.

Describing the past few years as an emotional roller coaster rather than a financial one, Frick fingers stories as a key culprit behind some of that irrational behavior:

Humans are wired to organize facts around stories. The Internet bubble was fueled by a fable that the Web would lead to an unending explosion of commerce. The explosion in real estate speculation that began in the early 2000s was firmly built on the same kind of fiction. Stories of people getting rich as property prices rose year after year “replicated and spread like thought viruses,” says Robert Shiller, the Yale economist who warned of the Internet and real estate bubbles in different editions of his book Irrational Exuberance. Such tales instill confidence in people and inspire them to move fast to get rich themselves.

These stories proliferate even when they fly in the face of facts. That’s because we tend to look only for facts that support our story, something called confirmation bias. So, for instance, real estate prices in Las Vegas and Phoenix rose at double-digit rates, as if land in those Sun Belt cities was a scarce commodity. The desire to cash in on the property boom ignored “obvious facts,” says [Nudge author Richard] Thaler, such as a virtually “infinite supply of land” that facilitated an abundant supply of homes.

For all of the malfeasance we might attribute to banks, investment firms, and the government institutions that should’ve been regulating them, it’s important to remember that we, as individual investors, borrowers, and home buyers, are complicit in this mess as well. As Frick suggests, so many of us bought a story we wanted to believe (“Housing prices just keep going up!”) and then looked for facts to confirm that story.

Don’t get me wrong — I’m not letting those greedy pigs on Wall Street off the hook here.

I’m just saying that if you don’t want to get burned when the next bubble bursts, you’d be wise not to underestimate the power of stories.

:: Posted by Eric Ratinoff ::

Goodbye, Saturn

General Motors announced last week that talks with the Penske Automotive Group to purchase Saturn had broken down, and that as a result, the brand will be closed down next year.

This is not surprising news, considering the state of the auto industry and the economy.

Still, it’s sad news, at least to me. I drove a Saturn SL2 from 1994 to 2006, but more than that, for those 12 years, I was a Saturn advocate.

My advocacy began when it became clear that the 1984 Chevy Celebrity station wagon handed down to me by my parents was on its last legs, and that it was time for a new car.

I was 22 at the time, I looked maybe 17, and as a result, the Dodge and Honda dealers I visited barely acknowledged me when I walked through their doors. When I asked a few questions, they treated me as a mild annoyance. Their cars may have been perfect for me, but the people selling them were not, so I left.

At Saturn, it was different. No sooner had I stepped through the front door than I was asked if I wanted to take a test drive. They had a plate of warm cookies in the waiting area. They had their mission statement posted behind the front desk.

It was clear that “A different kind of company, a different kind of car” wasn’t just a hollow advertising slogan. It was the synopsis of their story.

Story was tightly woven throughout everything Saturn did. The cars didn’t just have plastic, dent-resistant doors; there was a story to tell about how they came up with the idea for those doors, about how the collaborative Saturn production process behind those doors was different, and about the people behind that production process who built Saturns in Spring Hill, Tennessee.

Saturn’s no-haggle, no-hassle policy wasn’t just a pricing philosophy, it was a storytelling tool — one that immediately spoke to people like me who were worried about getting suckered by a slimy car salesman, that communicated transparency and trust more than any words about transparency or trust ever could, and one that, you guessed it, was easy to talk about.

In fact, where the Dodge and Honda dealers had very little to say about their cars other than what deals were available (and in subsequent car-purchasing adventures, I’ve found other dealers to be similarly deal-focused), everybody at Saturn knew about the cars, the company, and the mythology of Saturn, and loved to talk about it. They were enthusiastic storytellers, which communicated clearly to me that they believed in what they were selling. That authentic storytelling not only helped me trust in Saturn, it made me a Saturn storyteller, too.

Even before I had finalized the purchase, I was a Saturn advocate, happy to tell my Saturn story at the slightest provocation (and, some of my friends would say, even with no provocation). I even told my Saturn story as part of a student leadership program that I facilitated. The topic was mission-driven organizations: I told them my buying story, and how, impressed that Saturn had their mission statement posted behind the front desk, I asked if I could get a copy of it. The woman at the front desk not only made me a photocopy of the mission statement; she also made me a copy of their company values statement, company philosophy, steps to customer enthusiasm, and about half a dozen other documents that explained why my Saturn experience was so overwhelmingly positive. And talk about transparency — she copied all of these from the Saturn employee handbook, all simply because I asked.

That’s why I’m sad that soon Saturn will be gone. I don’t know what happened to Saturn behind the scenes that led to this — I’ve read here and there about internal GM politics (shocking!) that led to the brand’s demise, and maybe that’s another story for another blog post — but today, I’m sad for the great people at Saturn who made my car buying and car owning experience so delightful, who will now have to go work somewhere else.

And I’m sad that soon, all of my Saturn stories will have to begin, “There once was a car company called Saturn …”

:: Posted by Eric Ratinoff ::

The Ken Burns effect

This week marks the debut of the Ken Burns’ The National Parks: America’s Best Idea, airing on PBS. While the series features stunning footage of the titular parks, there’s much more to it than just “nature porn” — in his signature style, Burns tells the unlikely stories behind how the parks came to be.

In “10 Questions for Ken Burns,” the filmmaker answers questions from Time magazine readers. Most of the questions are about the National Parks and his other documentaries, but two questions that relate to Burns as a storyteller stand out:

What first led you to film?

Lindsey Smith Hull, ROANOKE, VA.

My mother died when I was 11. Several years afterward, my father let me stay up late at night to watch movies on TV, and I watched him cry for the first time. He hadn’t cried at her funeral, and I suddenly at age 13 or 14 realized the huge power of film, that here was the place that he felt he could express emotions. I vowed right then and there that I wanted to be a filmmaker.

And …

What is your opinion of Michael Moore’s style of filmmaking?

Tamara Newman, BAYVILLE, N.J.

God bless Michael Moore and anyone else who wants to pick up a camera and try to tell a story. It is a lot harder than you think.

:: Posted by Eric Ratinoff ::

A story to calm their fears

Last night was Parents Night in my mom’s second-grade classroom, and as usual, the parents who have never had a second-grader before were nervous about homework.

What if my child doesn’t know how to do it? What if my child won’t do it? How do I deal with this traumatic new development in my child’s life?

You think I’m being sarcastic, particularly with that last question, but based on the fear and angst my mom has described in the faces and voices of these parents around the homework issue, I’m not. In fact, I may be understating the hysteria.

Of course, every child takes to homework differently: some will embrace it and handle it well, while others will hate it, resist it, refuse to do it, and melt down at the mere mention of it. But to patiently explain this is unlikely to calm parental fears.

So instead, my mom does what she does every year: she tells these parents a story. About me.

She tells them that I hated homework. That I would avoid it like I avoided eggplant. That I would fall out of my chair while attempting to do homework. That I would get up half a dozen times to sharpen my pencil. That I would get up another half a dozen times to go to the bathroom. That on top of all of that procrastination, I would pout, and scream, and cry, and insist that homework was dumb, but that eventually, I would give in and do the homework, and it wouldn’t be that bad.

Until the next night, when the masochistic ritual would begin again.

Somehow, this story, along with the assurance that despite its frightening truth I not only graduated from elementary school, but also from high school and college, and am today a productive, contributing member of society, makes the parents feel that they, too, can handle their child’s attempt to handle homework.

They understand that it may not be pretty, and that it many not be fun, but hearing that story lets them know that at least they and their child will survive.

Probably.

:: Posted by Eric Ratinoff ::

Overcoming too big and too vague

A couple recent Seth Godin posts have story implications worth exploring.

In Enormity, Seth writes:

The problem with enormity in marketing is that it doesn’t work. Enormity should pull at our heartstrings, but it usually shuts us down.

Show us too many sick kids, unfair imprisonments or burned bodies and you won’t get a bigger donation, you’ll just get averted eyes.

If you’ve got a small, fixable problem, people will rush to help, because people like to be on the winning side, take credit and do something that worked. If you’ve got a generational problem, something that is going to take herculean effort and even then probably won’t pan out, we’re going to move on in search of something smaller.