Jennifer Jones at Podtech took community questions and posted them. Jeremiah put it up today. Nice!
Building Chinese Walls for Search Engines and Advertising Agencies
Danny Sullivan has been steadily beating a drum about the potential conflicts of interest in regards to Google, and now Microsoft, owning the search engine while owning a firm that provides SEO and SEM services.
In yet another area where my expertise from BlackRock would prove to be extremely valuable for immediate consulting or leadership roles at search engines, it is in the building of policies and management controls to build effective Chinese Walls. STOP – read that previous Chinese Walls link completely so that you don’t confuse it with the China Search Marketing Tour)!
If Google and Microsoft are to retain these services fully, they will immediately need to bring in people experienced in working in these Chinese Wall environments and who also understand the Internet space. This is a rare and highly valuable combination! Only this select group is capable of to be able to develop policy and have a Board of Director’s mandate and resources to make it a reality.
I look forward to continuing this conversation, there is much work to be done here to ensure the integrity of the marketplace and it needs to happen quickly!
Cicada Emergence Map for Brood XIII Chicago and Lake County 2007
The Cicadas are coming! This neat, interactive map put together by the Lake County Forest Preserve District allows you to report the amount of cicadas in your area!
This is a great example of a government agency collecting data through user generated content. The site is also nice link bait and will draw traffic and awareness of the Lake County Forest Preserve. This is also a good usage of an unique event to draw attention and awareness to the entity as a whole.
Texting Teen Gets $1,100 Bill For One Month
This Washington Post Article does a good job of laying out the increasing problem. With increasing stories like this, it will be interesting to watch what if any backlash occurs.
Marshall Field’s
You will recall that last year, Federated Department Stores, now Macy’s, changed the name of Marshall Field’s to Macy’s. Now that flagship State Street store is well on it’s way to failing. It wouldn’t surprise me if someone was trying to buy it from them right now to start it anew. When history examines this, it will see lessons of branding and hospitality.
According to the Chicago Tribune, a press conference after its (Macy’s) annual meeting here Friday, Federated’s chief financial officer, Karen Hoguet, said former Field’s stores are performing no worse or better than the roughly 400 regional department stores Federated acquired from St. Louis-based May Department Stores Co. in 2005 and converted to Macy’s. But there is an exception: the Chicago store on State Street. The landmark store, long a tourist destination, is “doing badly,” Hoguet said, without providing specific performance data.
After listening to Danny Meyer yesterday (see post below) I can’t help but noticing this wasn’t about a store, it was about hospitality, word of mouth and networking and the way people felt during that customer experience. A recent post on Marshall Field’s – fieldsfanschicago.org message board (which is amazingly still getting strong traffic – you may recall I stated I thought this issue had blogsphere legs back in September) says it best:
“I miss shopping in Marshall Field’s because Field’s IS Chicago. For me shopping at Field’s was an adventure because Field’s was more than a store…it was an institution which made people feel special just being there amongst the special merchandise that only Field’s could offer and the sales people made even the transactions memorable because of the way they wrapped items, hard and soft, in white tissue paper sealed with a green MF sticker before generously pulling out a large MF forest green shopping bag in which to place my purchases. That was ‘the frosting on the cake’.”
“But you know what I r-e-a-l-l-y notice at commuter train stations, on North Michigan Avenue, on State Street and in the Chicagoland shopping centers, at O’Hare and Midway and at other airports around the country???? I miss seeing people, by the dozens and dozens carrying the distinctive green Marshall Field’s sturdy shopping bags with the handles! The absence is so barrenly striking. You readily KNEW they were either FROM Chicago or had a fun shopping trip as a tourist and were going back home. You just do not find people carrying macy’s plastic sacks anywhere it seems, she added. Why should they?! Macy’s is everywhere, and therefore not special at all. It is all so sad.”
Do you hear this Mr. Lundgren?
Another reader posted in reply to the many clearance items at the store now…
“Customers want the stores converted back to Marshall Field’s not Marshalls.”
In a related matter, Macy’s has new problems due to accusations of a former LA Times reporter.
NRA Show Danny Meyer of Union Square Cafe NYC on Enlightened Hospitality
During my time in the New York City area, few things outside the financial services industry affected me more than the restaurants. Of those, few bring back fonder memories than my time in NYC than the Union Square Cafe and the restaurants that followed. These include the Grammercy Tavern, Eleven Madison Park, Blue Smoke & Jazz Standard, Shake Shack, The Modern and Hudson Yards Catering. The newsletter they send, a blog in paper form before there were blogs play a special role in building that bond.
What follows are the raw notes of Danny Meyer’s speech at the National Restaurant Association in Chicago on May 19, 2007. There are amazing insights in his speech and new book, Setting the Table, in regards to separating the concepts of service and hospitality, recruiting and how to life to it’s fullest. All lessons that can be applied to web 2.0 or any business in need of refined and high performance culture. Please note that the notes are raw and from his voice:
He let everyone know that it was his first time speaking at an NRA show. However, he attended the 1985 NRA convention. I wanted to learn about a POS system. We got a big presentation on it. I gathered the courage to ask a question. Is it really feasible to give a rolled thermal check instead of a proper check? If you give them good food at a fair price you can give them a check on toilet paper and they will come back someone chimed in.
Something dawned on me about five years ago. We focus on mistakes more than what is going right. My grandmother was proud of her garden. She taught me to garden at the age of 6. Ignore the weeds water the flowers. It dawned on me many years later that is what we should do in real life. A lot of things were going right.
Opening my restaurant was a passion. The strongest business decision I ever made was to fire myself as chef. In a city that has 22,000 restaurants, we have 6 in the top 42 Zagat Favorite Restaurants. People who are highly institutive make poor analysts. I do things that are intuitive. I employ over 1,500 now.
What does it mean to be my favorite (restaurant)? When you put those words in front of anything it is the highest compliment that can be paid. If I could figure out the secret sauce, Id have something. Location has ceased to be a critical fashion. The other 95% of the people say its’ service and not location, location, location. We needed a service economy. The car rental company didn’t have the convertible you wanted, the bank didn’t do what you wanted, etc. The Internet changed the rules. If you wanted to rise to the level of my favorite, you did if via performance. Performance used to be the thing that did it for you. I’ve always made a practice of asking why. You guys make the best roast chicken, you seat us on time, etc. We stopped hearing that when people started using the Internet. If you wanted to set yourself apart you could do things to differentiate, but replication happens much sooner now. Performance is a lot like air conditioning. Nobody has ever walked into the Grammercy Tavern and said this is great air conditioning, but if it doesn’t work, they don’t come back. Performance is now a lose proposition, it is not a win proposition. Nobody defined how hospitality is different than service. Did the waiter clear the table timely? Hospitality defines how you make someone feel. You have made them feel like you are on your side. Hospitality only occurs as we see it. Service is the technical delivery of product. You can write a manual to define the service and we have a different manual for hospitality. If you do something, do it consistently. Hospitality is not a monologue it’s a dialogue. The preposition for is involved in hospitality and the preposition to is there when you do something to somebody. It takes certain technical skills to open up a bottle of wine. We had been focusing 49% of skills training for technical skills. We spent the other 51% hiring for hospitality.
Hospitality IQ is the companies which are successful are the most successful in hiring the right hospitality. We need to hire people who derive pleasure from giving pleasure. What occurred to me is that you can’t teach it.
Kind, Intelligent and Curious, a high work ethic and integrity. These people were people with a high degree of empathy. Integrity is more than honesty. It is the judgment to do the right thing. More often than not they are life choices. Talked about leadership and the relationship to being a captain on a team. You get to be in a business of setting rules. Every single organization in the world have the exact same five stakeholders – customers, investors, community, employees and suppliers. We created a virtuous cycle of events. But if you believe in virtuous cycles, you can make more money by putting ourselves first, employees trust and put investors last. If I could raise my Hospitality IQ when hiring we’d be better. We put our community and suppliers ahead of investors to. Why would we have a community investment department? Why not help fix the park across the street. A rising tide lifts all boats. You might succeed at that. You can invest in the tide. Do your competitors go up with you? The niche of BBQ goes with the tide. Table is another example. We needed to create a new tide. We have been working to build community. In the same way that a championship horse is born with the DNA, it still needs to be trained. Make sure your staff needs to have the heart muscle worked hard. Birds of a feather flock together. The staff wants other people to work with that have a high hospitality quotient. People who have the same emotional need to learn pleasure. If you teach me more than the next guy, I’ll stay here. The biggest thing, please listen to my aspirations. We always want people to be part of a new opening of a new restaurant.
49% of a swans body mass is below water, 51% of the swan is above water doing the graceful stuff. My favorite chapter is the road to success is paved with mistakes well traveled. Waves are like mistakes, there is another one just behind it. My biggest mistake was back in 2002 and I found it hard to find the type of people. It took 35 minutes to get a drink on opening night at Blue Smoke. When I learned the swan theory, I never knew. Eye contact, a mile a hug and some pretty darn good food.
Question: Questions about putting staff ahead of customer.
What I’m saying is exactly that. If you have the best recipe, it’s not good if you don’t have good ingredients. Our hospitality will never rise to a higher level. The two things I look for in any business are focused on their work and enjoying each others company, I know it will work.
Question: When you were hiring for HQ, how do you train your managers.
Since you derive pleasure for making people for feeling comfortable, you can be blind to it. Have others help you. The prospect drops out that can be frustrating. I’ll ask someone, “Tell me how you used heart in your last job.” We tell people there are the skills that matter for you.
Question: Can you talk about the importance of the quarterly newsletter?
Listening is as important as expression. The fact that you think it’s quarterly when it’s twice a year is a testament to its’ effectiveness.
End.
It was a pleasure to listen to Danny speak. I’m glad I took the time to listen and learn from his wisdom about life and hospitality.
UPDATE: He had a book signing to go to at 2PM. At 4:45PM, I still saw him standing there with a line of people with books. Nothing short of amazing!
Initial Thoughts on Microsoft Aquiring Aquantive
Techcrunch had an earlier article. At $6 Billion or $66.50, an ~85% premium over the previous days selling price that creates a price to earning rating of around 52, many people would consider this to be overpayment. With approximately $26 Billion in the bank that shareholders consistently complain is underutilized, it is more likely insurance to prevent a bidding war and a break up of the deal as apparently happened behind the scenes when Microsoft originally tried to acquire Doubleclick.
With headquarters both in Seattle, these partners likely know each other well from the tightly woven Seattle networking community so there is likely a known cultural fit. It is likely clearly friendly due to this and how quickly it came together so quickly after losing the bidding for 24/7 real media. The major question is can Microsoft quickly integrate and leverage these systems with its’ own, some of which have overlap and the graphical side. The other risk is can Microsoft tie up the critical thought leadership staff in an appealing way that maintains the creative culture? Time will tell.
Much like Google’s acquisition of Doubleclick there are conflicts of interest to be resolved. In Doubleclick’s case they own Performics, a search marketing and optimization firm. The Avenue A | Razorfish division performs a significant search marketing and search optimization function just like Performics. Google has yet to state how they will resolve this. Microsoft could score points by stating a plan to deal with this before Google does.
Aquantive has spent $200 Million in the 2004-2006 acquiring Accipiter, iFRONTIER, Franchise Gator, DNA, Amneisa, e-Crusade, GOTOAST, Neue Digitale, NetConversions, Technology Brokers/Media and SBI.Razorfish. While the impacts of these businesses are not yet fully known, Aquantitive prides itself on buying and integrating emerging businesses. Some of these are creating a media exchange like Right Media recently acquired by Yahoo!. Some of the value of this transaction likely lies hidden in these small business lines.
While the integration risk is not insignificant, Aquantive was one of the last premium players available and Microsoft can certainly afford the premium.