Ms. Adverthinker

Thank you to Roby Brock for inviting me on to his Talk Business program to talk about the increase in women in the workplace.  See the interview here:

And read the article on Talk Business here.

As Ms. Adverthinker, I feel compelled to direct you to this article in The Atlantic, titled “The End of Men.” A few highlights from the article:

“Earlier this year, for the first time in American history, the balance of the workforce tipped toward women, who now hold a majority of the nation’s jobs. The working class, which has long defined our notions of masculinity, is slowly turning into a matriarchy, with men increasingly absent from the home and women making all the decisions. Women dominate today’s colleges and professional schools—for every two men who will receive a B.A. this year, three women will do the same. Of the 15 job categories projected to grow the most in the next decade in the U.S., all but two are occupied primarily by women.”

And:

“Men dominate just two of the 15 job categories projected to grow the most over the next decade: janitor and computer engineer. Women have everything else—nursing, home health assistance, child care, food preparation.”

And:

“But women are also starting to dominate middle management, and a surprising number of professional careers as well. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, women now hold 51.4 percent of managerial and professional jobs—up from 26.1 percent in 1980. They make up 54 percent of all accountants and hold about half of all banking and insurance jobs. About a third of America’s physicians are now women, as are 45 percent of associates in law firms—and both those percentages are rising fast. A white-collar economy values raw intellectual horsepower, which men and women have in equal amounts. It also requires communication skills and social intelligence, areas in which women, according to many studies, have a slight edge. Perhaps most important—for better or worse—it increasingly requires formal education credentials, which women are more prone to acquire, particularly early in adulthood.”

And:

“Only 3 percent of Fortune 500 CEOs are women, and the number has never risen much above that.  But even the way this issue is now framed reveals that men’s hold on power in elite circles may be loosening. In business circles, the lack of women at the top is described as a “brain drain” and a crisis of “talent retention.” And while female CEOs may be rare in America’s largest companies, they are highly prized: last year, they outearned their male counterparts by 43 percent, on average, and received bigger raises.”

I have heard the argument made–as a rationale for highlighting men as future leaders of our state–that we have very few women in business in Arkansas.  I can only shake my head at this obvious oversight and antiquated way of thinking.  Even developing countries recognize the power of women:

“In 2006, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development devised the Gender, Institutions and Development Database, which measures the economic and political power of women in 162 countries. With few exceptions, the greater the power of women, the greater the country’s economic success.  Aid agencies have started to recognize this relationship and have pushed to institute political quotas in about 100 countries, essentially forcing women into power in an effort to improve those countries’ fortunes….Postgenocide Rwanda elected to heal itself by becoming the first country with a majority of women in parliament.”

Let’s have more discussion about the power and leadership of women in Arkansas.

This infographic shared on Mashable a couple of days ago has me thinking about innovation in business today.  It wasn’t just the device that drove the iPod into the only MP3 player of note, it was the iTunes store and the simplicity and functionality of the iTunes application for managing music.  All so clean and bundled together.   So smart.  We know this, but it is good to remind ourselves of it every once in a while.

[Source: Online MBA for MashableMashable.com]

Thank you to Roby Brock of Talk Business for the invitation to talk about building trust in this information age on his program. Check out the Talk Business site and watch the interview here:

Here are my full thoughts on the topic:

In the online space, we can find almost everything about almost anyone or anything. We are truly living in an information age. We are sharing information about ourselves, we are seeking information about others and from others. Everyone is doing it: consumers, businesses, and organizations. And they are doing it using social tools that allow for instant updates, instant sharing and easy searching. With all this information available, how do consumers know whom to trust? Do they trust the consumer reviews, or the expert analysis? Do they trust their individual friends or large organizations for information?

Whom to trust, as it turns out, is a bit of a moving target. Every year, Edelman conducts a trust survey.  In recent years, with the rise of social media and online reviewing systems, this trust survey has indicated that the public is more inclined to trust “people like me” over corporate entities. However, the economic recession has led consumers to become cynical (more so than they were already), leading to a swing in who and how they trust: (1) the public now wants to hear from credentialed experts and (2) corporate trust and transparency are now just as important as the quality of products and services from that company. Today’s consumers are more skeptical, savvy and sophisticated when it comes to online information.

Facing this modern consumer is daunting to businesses vying for the trust of their audiences: “Though it’s easier than ever to reach your customers, it’s less likely that they’ll listen. Today, the most valuable online currency isn’t the dollar, but trust itself.” (Trust Agents, 2009) So, how does a business work to build that trust and become a favored brand? Here are some starting steps for establishing trustworthiness:

• Be transparent. The online world is defined by the availability of information. To make that information available is to be transparent. Consumers rile at even thought that information they seek is unavailable to them for any reason. And, if a company or organization isn’t providing the information about themselves, someone else (a less trustworthy source) will do it for them and may communicate inaccurate information. Put it all out there.
• Be responsive. When consumers pose a question or express a concern, do not sit on the response in an effort at contemplation or corporate review “up-the-ladder.” Delayed responses only create more frustration among consumers and speculation as to the extent of a problem with the organization. Respond quickly, even if only to acknowledge receipt of the question or concern and promise a timely answer upon further research, if necessary.
• Ask for feedback. And share that feedback. And share the organization’s responses to that feedback. This will give consumers the views of other consumers “like them” and further demonstrate the transparency and responsiveness of the organization.
• Call on experts. Balance the information and perspectives provided directly from the organization and from consumer feedback with expert opinions and advice. These third-party insights will round out the perspectives consumers seek when information-gathering.
• Give them some face time. Use video to communicate the message. “People communicate as much, if not more, with how an idea is conveyed, than with what it said. Shifty eyes and raised shoulders can reveal anxiety; intonation can convey passion. The more non-substantive information the medium can convey, the more data a listener has to decide how trustworthy the speaker is.”

Executing all of these steps at once may not be feasible for a business just starting to engage with their online audience. It is okay to start out with one or two of these methods, then open up into full-on transparency as trust is established. As an example, one of our clients at Stone Ward recently decided to take the plunge into social media using a promotion as its diving board, but they weren’t quite ready for a full-time presence in the space. To introduce this new face to its audience, we created a microsite with a distinct URL separate from the home/traditional site. The idea was that this site would eventually become the community hub and live on past the promotion, but the promotion (sweepstakes) would help draw the initial audience to engage with the brand. Being new to the social media space, the client didn’t have the resources to manage a completely open site and respond as quickly or as completely as necessary to build trust. Given that issue, the site launched with a combination of pre-set content and consumer-contributed content, and allowed for question submissions to an expert. The pre-set content was a bank of “tips” that could be commented on by users, and encouraged user-submitted tips. New tips automatically generated a Twitter post and a Facebook post. The consumer-contributed content was a community forum where users could submit questions and get responses from other users. The “ask the expert” questions were posted with the expert responses for others to view. Additional engagement elements included a daily poll and music playlists that tied into the brand and promotion concept. Starting out with elements that didn’t require daily maintenance and monitoring allowed this brand to introduce themselves to the space, start building relationships and start establishing a basis for trust without risking alienation with an unavoidable misstep due to resource limitation. As a result, the site has lived on past the promotion end and the brand now has a manageable engagement tool that can be built upon when they are ready.

The bottom line: Provide honest and complete information to consumers and their trust will follow. Understand that making information available is necessary for social bonding and while it may feel like putting that information online makes an organization vulnerable to attack, there is a need to reveal that vulnerability to ultimately build trust and relationships. And, if you are not ready for the all the steps to building trust, start out small and build from there.

Check out Innovate Arkansas for the second part of my two-part introduction to location-based services based on sessions attended at South by Southwest.

Entrepreneurs must be a little more creative if they want to start a new business in a tough economy.  As a result, we see more businesses fill niche needs.  Enter Rent the Runway, a “Netflix model for haute couture” according to the New York Times:

“The mail-order service, which finishes the testing phase on Monday, allows women to rent dresses from notable fashion designers like Diane Von Furstenberg, Hervé Léger and Proenza Schouler for roughly one-tenth of what they would cost to buy in a retail store.

“The rentals run $50 to $200 for a four-night loan and are shipped directly to the customer’s doorstep. After wearing the dress, she puts it into a prepaid envelope and drops it in the mail. Dry cleaning is included in the price, but damage insurance costs $5, and in the case of outright destruction of the dress, the renter is responsible for the full retail price.”

This is pretty exciting.  Granted, rental of dresses has been available for sometime.  But local rental selections aren’t always the best and there is that whole physical shopping thing to deal with (I am almost exclusively an online shopper).  An online rental that allows for easy returns is definitely a turn on.

The ladies who started this business are smart: they are only allowing for limited “membership” at this point.  When you make something exclusive, not only do even more people want to participate, but it also assures that you can walk into a party and know that not everyone there will have seen and shopped the same dresses you did.  As the business starts to take off and membership grows, I would like to see an ability to “register” your dress for the event to which you are wearing it, effectively blocking anyone else from renting that same style for the same event.  I also hope that they will incorporate customer reviews of the dresses to help those on the fence as to a particular style decide (I love this feature on Zappos.com).

I signed up to be put on the waiting list for membership at Rent the Runway.  Sigh.

This week, Twitter released a new feature that allows for the creation of “lists.”  This makes perfect sense: with the rapid growth of Twitter, it is becoming harder to figure out which people to follow. The amount of data out there is getting overwhelming; according to a CNN article:

“Approximately 25 million Tweets are posted every day; more than 5 billion have been created since Twitter’s launch.

“Facebook users are even more prolific in aggregate: Forty-five million updates are posted there daily. In May, the last date for which we have data, YouTube announced that 20 hours of video is uploaded to its servers every minute. That’s more than three years of content being uploaded to YouTube daily.

“As the barriers to media production fall — cameras in virtually every cell phone, video cameras in iPods, text messaging as a publishing platform — this content tsunami is growing ever taller”

Lists allow for those you trust to create a filter of all this data, by category, for you.

And, for those that follow Twitter through desktop apps like Seesmic and Tweetdeck, they are working to integrate list following into their applications (Seesmic actually already has; Tweetdeck is still working on it).

Check out the Stone Ward Staff Twitter list.

Anyone who knows me, knows that I shun suits.  Even on occasions that “require” suits, I find a way to wear something else, usually a dress.  My preferred clothing, however, is jeans.  I can wear them anywhere, anytime and feel more confident and comfortable in the situation than I ever will wearing a suit.  The wearing of jeans by the account management (aka “client-facing) team has been a discussion at our office for several years.  And I think we have finally agreed that we hire smart people and smart people will use their good judgment to determine how to dress for the situations in which they are put.  And, when you know what you are talking about, what you say will be far more important than what you are wearing.  So, nine times out of 10, you will see me in jeans around our office.

As it turns out, this is a national trend.  So much so that the Wall Street Journal is even writing about it:

“Power jeans are increasingly common in high-ranking business and political circles. Indeed, jeans are now a legitimate part of the global power-dress lexicon, worn to influential confabs where the wearers want to signal they’re serious—but not fussy—and innovative.”

…

“Chosen well, jeans can suggest the wearer is confident and modern. Traditionally cut blue jeans carry a whiff of the laborer about them, so denim on a leader suggests a willingness to roll up the sleeves and dig in. There’s also something of the rebel in a pair of jeans. In the boardroom, that can read as creative.”

But there are still “rights” and “wrongs” to wearing jeans.  Just any pair won’t do.

“Few items of clothing speak as loudly, to the positive or negative, as a pair of jeans. As with tuxedos and Hawaiian shirts, wear them right (on the latter, only to a luau if you’re a mainlander), or not at all.

“To wit, fit is as essential for jeans as for tailored slacks. Eric Jennings, Saks Fifth Avenue men’s fashion director, suggests that men keep their executive jeans ‘dark and straight.’ And never dress as if the jeans had been switched out from formal suit pants at the last minute: No fancy French-cuffed shirts with jeans, he advises.

“In fact, getting power jeans right involves lots of no’s. No distressed jeans at work. No metal studs. No acid washes. No lavish embroidery. No boot cut. No skinny. No pedal pushers, shorts or cutoffs. No baggy high-rise. No super-low-rise. No holes. And no fussy ironing.”

Long live jeans!

As declared by Fast Company:

1. Google
2. Apple
3. Facebook
4. GE
5. Ideo
6. Nike
7. Nokia
8. Alibaba
9. Amazon
10. Nintendo
11. Procter & Gamble
12. News Copr.
13. Affymetrix
14. Disney
15. Samsung
16. Method
17. Target
18. HP
19. Tesco
20. Ausra
21. Timberland
22. IBM
23. Arup
24. Anomaly (an ad agency, oops, branding/innovation/design/VC firm)
25. Autodesk
26. Herman Miller
27. RealNetworks
28. Boeing
29. LG Electronics
30. Omniture
31. iRobot
32. Wal-Mart
33. Live Nation
34. Intel
35. Burton
36. Whole Foods
37. Cisco Systems
38. Corning
39. Toyota
40. Real D
41. Microsoft
42. Payless
43. AirAsia
44. Current TV
45. Sun Microsystems
46. BMW
47. Tata Group
48. AKQA
49. Prosper
50. Baidu

The theory behind the popular book Microtrends is being challenged. The book’s theory is that demographic segments as small as 1% of the population can “tip an election” or “spark a movement.” The problems, according to a Brandweek article, include:

• The results are only as good as the data: many samples are not large or representative enough to accurately reflect the population, subjects self-report behavior and tend to lie (or to say it more kindly, report their aspirational behavior rather than actual behavior).
• A psychographic splinter group that has one defining trait in common may have just that–one thing in common and nothing else.
• Within each niche, each person has multiple selves. For example: “Let’s say the research identifies a segment of ‘Thrillseekers,’ and contrasts that against groups who prefer more safety. Who’s to say that the person who jumps out of a plane for kicks will exhibit this same commando attitude toward the prospect of risky sexual behavior?”
• Marketers can become so obsessed with quirks and fads that they fail to consider their underlying drivers–which are often clues to broader cultural trends far more valuable to the marketer in the long run.

How are these problems overcome?  Think of microtargeting as an “inaugural research step toward a broader targeting strategy–one still aimed, but not exclusionary.”  Brands that have done a good job with this approach:

• Vans–viewed as cool shoes for everybody that work especially well for skateboarders.  Vans sold the skater “lifestyle.”
• Apple–manages to be both inclusive and exclusive.  In iPhone spots the viewer never sees a discernible age, race or gender.  “Even the dancing silhouettes in ads for iPods instill a sense of relatability that fully rendered models arguably wouldn’t.”

Conclusion: make sure your brand is speaking to the relevant audience, but don’t ignore or exclude everyone else.

Reported in Brandweek:

What should a company do when negative news is being reported about the company? “One school of thought is that maintaining or increasing advertising during such a time will drown out the bad news. The alternative–pulling advertising–seems pretty risky. Nevertheless, a new study that ran in December’s Journal of Advertising Research suggests that’s exactly what you should do while the bad news runs its course…It found that advertising has an amplifying effect: When the news is good, advertising helps. When it’s bad, advertising makes things worse.”

With the rising costs of healthcare and fewer companies covering insurance costs, consumers are increasingly interested in wellness information. Staying well, means staying away from doctors, which means saving money. Healthcare-associated brands are recognizing this need for health and wellness information and they are finding ways to become the consumer resource for this information. The newest “brand” to jump on this bandwagon is the Lance Armstrong Foundation. The Wall Street Journal today reported that “the Lance Armstrong Foundation, which spends about $40 million a year on health programs and cancer research, is teaming up with Web-site operator Demand Media Inc. to launch a health-and-wellness We site funded by advertising. The site, called ‘livestrong.com,’ is expected to go live this year.”

The Armstrong Foundation “felt that launching a for-profit site would increase awareness about the foundation and promote its core mission of helping people with cancer…Like Mr. Armstrong’s foundation, more philanthropies are linking up with for-profit companies to raise cash and elevate their profiles.”

“The Armstrong Foundation says it will work with Demand Media to build a Web destination for people who want to count calories, track workouts or connect with other people trying to keep fit. Mr. Armstrong, now retired from competitive cycling but still an avid athlete, will contribute content to the site.”

Reported in BusinessWeek:

“There’s big money at stake if the Feb. 24 awards ceremony gets scotched.

• $4 million worth of post-Oscar parties.
• $5.5 million in media coverage.
• $26.5 million in limos, security, personnel, and gifts for the nominees.
• $51 million for the main broadcast in the Kodak Theater, along with side events.
• $54 million in spending on radio, TV, print, and outdoor campaigns by studios competing for awards.
• $100 million in publicity generated for companies who clothe and bejewel the stars.

We have had a lot of discussion lately in our agency about the differences in the work styles of the Gen Yers (born since 1980), also referred to as Millennials, verses the rest of the staff. This is especially important to us, as advertising tends to be a young person’s business. Evident of this growing concern among businesses, this month’s Harvard Business Review included a brief article on the subject as one of its “Breakthrough Ideas for 2008.” According to this article, “Generation Y workers clearly prefer jobs defined by task, not time. They want to be compensated for what they produce.”

“Many younger employees find they can complete tasks faster than older workers, perhaps partly because of technological proficiency but even more…because they work differently. They spend less time scheduling and are comfortable coordinating electronically. They resent being asked to log hours and stay in the office after their tasks are done, and the idea of face time really annoys them. Ys love to work asynchronously–anytime, anywhere.”

“Going forward, we can devise a better model of how to define work. Think task, not time:

• Articulate the results you expect–and tie accountability to getting the job done.
• Make physical attendance in the office, including at meetings, optional.
• Gauge performance on the quality of the work performed.
• Help managers and employees learn to measure dedication in ways other than face time.
• Use today’s networking capabilities to allow employees to work from anywhere.
• Support the changes by creating drop-in centers, team spaces, and open work areas.”

I am right on the edge between Gen X and Gen Y, so I can see the benefits of both traditional work styles and Gen Y work styles.  Regardless of personal preference, companies need to be equipped to accommodate both if they want to recruit and retain talented employees.

When making a job switch, women are more likely to bring their success with them to the new company. Unlike men. At least according to an article in this month’s Harvard Business Review:

“Unlike their male counterparts, female stars (189 women, 18% of the star analysts in the original study) who switched firms performed just as well, in the aggregate, as those that stayed put.”

“Though female stars adopt these career strategies as a way to overcome institutionalized norms that put them at a disadvantage, their strategies are not a second-best alternative. Rather, they constitute a powerful skill set from which any manager would do well to learn. The star performer study focused on one labor market–Wall Street analysts–but the challenges these women face are similar to those in other knowledge-based industries, such as management consulting, health care, public relations, advertising and the law. Some of the female stars’ actions were designed to help them advance within their firms, and only incidentally increased their portability; others were deliberately adopted to ensure that they would be able to succeed elsewhere. Either way, the strategies of star women can help both men and women enhance their ability to shine in any setting.”

What makes the difference? Why are women more capable of building skills that can travel from one employer to the next?

(1) They focus on building relationships outside their current firm, rather that relying on internal relationships. “By contrast, male analysts built up greater firm- and team-specific human capital, investing more in the internal networks and unique capabilities and resources of the firms where they worked.”

(2) They take greater care when assessing a prospective employer. “They evaluated their options more cautiously and analyzed a wider range of factors than men did before deciding to uproot themselves from a company where they were already successful.  Female star analysts, it would seem, take their work environment more seriously yet rely on it less than male stars do.  They look for a firm that will allow them to keep building their successful franchises their own way.”

Although it unacknowledged, the bottom line is that there is still sexism in the workplace.  To overcome this persistent inequality, women must employ “creative strategies” to succeed.  One of these creative strategies is finding a wardrobe balance.  As ridiculous as this is, “women in positions of authority, from Washington to Wall Street, face fashion scrutiny that’s so intense it can border on comical,” according to an article in the Wall Street Journal last week.

“The attention brought to clothing is a two-edged sword for authoritative women everywhere.  A style misstep can be career-limiting.  Yet paying too much attention to one’s appearance risks accusations of frivolity–which is equally career-limiting.”

With the challenges that face women in the workplace, it is a wonder we have ever succeeded.  But women are intuitive, smart, and adaptive; if we figure out what we want, we will figure out how to get it.  I have seen the evidence.  Our agency, Stone Ward, is woman-owned and Millie Ward has overcome these challenges to build a successful advertising agency.  And, I am proud that we have a viable female candidate for president this year.  Maybe one day we won’t have to have discussions about the different challenges that men verses women face in the workplace; instead we will just have discussions about workplace challenges.