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10,000 hours

May 21, 2012 in Best Practices, Clients, Culture, Industry by Barbara Bates
Malcolm Gladwell's pivotal essays

Outliers, by Malcolm Gladwell

I’ve had a blog post in the works, halfway done, for the last week. It’s about “a day in the life” here at Eastwick, and what my schedule looked like on one particularly interesting day. I want to share it, not in any competitive “my day was fuller than your day” sense – but because we, Eastwick, by nature of the type of work we do and where we do it, happen to be a pretty good barometer of the market: its level of activity, the heat map of various technologies, the pace at which people are looking to shape their markets.

And right now, the needle is tipping high on all three counts, and my schedule – as you’ll see when I post – shows it.

At a pace like this, we need to move and think more effectively than we do during quieter times. Demand on my hours means I need to hold myself to be more efficient and decisive than I normally would be. I say no to meetings I’d actually like to take. I don’t hesitate when I trust or know the truth of something – I don’t pad it with the layers that I might in a quieter time. Some people might not like this about me. I’ve been called out for it, and sometimes I’ve hated that, but these days – I like it. This time is too good, too strong to be taken lightly. We’re building a new level of strength here in the Valley and if I mess around I’m not going to give it the level of value it deserves.

We have a lot to contribute and I’m committed to contributing it wisely, effectively, with the right people, and in a way that fulfills my vision for Eastwick.

And on that, I thought of the 10,000 Hour Rule: Malcolm Gladwell’s assertion about true insight and expertise being traceable to practicing a specific task for 10,000 hours.

Over the last 20 years, how many hours have I sat with tech visionaries, everything from bright-eyed founders to weary late-career executives, and listened to them describe their dreams, their obstacles, their roadblocks, and above all, their stakes.  Maybe they’re prospects, maybe they’re clients, maybe they’re investors or good industry friends – whatever the case, I’m at the table with them and they’re sharing something they want to change and asking me what they should do to change it.

If I assume 10 such meetings each week for one hour each – and that’s a safe lowball number for me (I can think of times when it’s been much more) – that’s 520 meetings a year. I’ll take two weeks off for vacation and to make the math easy. We’ve been in business for 20 years now (actually, almost 21), so if I multiply those numbers, I’m at it. I’ve done my 10,000 hours.

And, if you think of all of the hours I’ve spent brewing in this stuff, not in meetings but in team conversations, talks with reporters and journalists, check-in with industry friends, and the countless initial screening calls that I filtered out before level two – yeah, I’ve done the hours alright.

This realization hit me today with a sense of surprise at first, but then clarity and calm. When I sit across the table later today with a new prospect – one whose story slowed me down and made me say, “Woah…” – I’m going to go full throttle. They don’t have time to mess around and neither do we. This is the time we’ve all worked for, that somehow all of the learning and struggle and vision in the Valley have conspired to create. We’re in it, better than we’ve ever been, and pardon me for saying we’ve earned it.

We’ve done the work. Practiced our 10,000 hours. Learned how to tell a good company from a great one and to help whichever one it is become better – sometimes a little, sometimes a lot. And though I wouldn’t mind dialing back the pace of my days, I wouldn’t change a thing about the things we hear, see, enact and deliver. In a sense, the fun is just beginning. From the platform we’ve built, and the opportunity we see at this time, this is an important moment in the story of the Valley.

Leveraging what we’ve all learned is what it’s all about. The hours may be full, but – especially at a time like this – I’m making the most of every one of them.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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How NOT to be a Dodo

April 18, 2012 in Best Practices, Culture, Industry by Barbara Bates

We count on our friend Francine Hardaway for unfailing reality checks on what works and what doesn’t in business (and much more). Often her thoughts resonate with issues we’re discussing at Eastwick, or concerns we have about (and sometimes for) Valley companies or business models.

Her latest post for Fast Company – “Why Agencies are Going the Way of the Dodo” – shares her signature tough love. In essence, Francine calls out agencies for ruining (my word, not hers) social media by replacing branding and conversation with performance-based social strategies. (To translate: many agencies are shilling “pay for results” social strategies, meaning they only get paid for their work when a brand’s friend, fan, or follower jumps through some brand-ordained hoop. A “Goal!” bell rings and the agency gets a coin. Essentially a CPM approach to social media.)

For anyone considering this approach, I offer a short word: DON’T. I agree with Francine that this model is inherently flawed and will go the way of traditional online ad models (and other dodos). What to do? Allow me to offer some perspectives.

1. Learn from experience.

Observe the evolution of online advertising and read the writing on the wall. The category is growing but engagement is waning. As Francine says, nobody pays attention. I see dozens of thoughtful articles each day on how online ad models are failing and how companies are scrambling for the next thing that replaces them. We talk to countless companies looking to ship the next “aha!” that will save the model: incent response, increase efficiency, generate broader terms, etc. For a while, maybe. But most won’t sustain; on that I agree with Francine.

Looking for “solutions” to the waning ad model “problem” suggests that the goal really to help the digital (or social) marketer to rush breathless into their CMOs office proving that they’ve scored the numbers that signal “success”? Maybe they can’t get that 0.0X clickthrough rate on banners anymore, but dang it, they’re going to get in on social, and, good news: they only have to pay their agency if they get that result.

Beware, marketers, the danger of this thinking. As the saying goes, each time I hear about it, a kitten dies. To think of relegating social media, an unparalleled platform for true conversation, interactivity, and trust-building – all of which build momentum and action – into…what?  Compare your favorite farmers’ market to QVC and I think you’ll see what I mean.

Eastwick doesn’t do that, and we won’t. We believe that social platforms give brands an unparalleled way to communicate openly and honestly, to ask for input, and to track the way conversations evolve over time.

Based on these conversations, we learn about sentiment (how people feel about our clients or their products). We learn about concerns. Competitive issues. Opportunities – heads’ ups on things they should know about or even places they should go. We track how this shapes things like Share of Voice, topicality, and preference over time (that’s the NEXT thing I’m going to write: my manifesto on measuring success), and we watch, sometimes literally smiling, as these conversations get generous. People openly sharing with each other. Responding and helping. Providing information that otherwise would be hard to find or expensive to source.

And we track how this leads to actual engagement and conversion: to filling sales pipelines, driving online sales, and otherwise building business results. Sustainably.

Think flock, not dodo.

I’m not saying it happens overnight, but with vision and commitment: it happens. Our clients see it and acknowledge the momentum, the results. And I’m ready to assert that – unlike the waning efficacy that Francine forewarns in her post – this type of social interaction will grow in value and impact over time.

2. Share the LOVE.

Francine calls agencies to help their client/partners “design love into the product or service.” Thank you again, Francine. At Eastwick, we use the word “generosity,” but heck: “love” works too. Differentiate with openness and proactivity. Invite. Collaborate. Encourage.

Don’t those words hit you differently than things like Drive, Incent, and Close? I’m not saying that we don’t use those words: we do. But we put them into context of a generous, proactive strategy that begins with serving an audience’s best interests (AKA “Love”) and not simply seeing them as “consumers” of what we want to push or serve.

How does this work? By understanding the people who are part of the audiences our clients serve: what interests them, what matters to them, what’s essential to their satisfaction or success. Then: story development – how we talk about this in terms that reflect our grok of and respect for these audiences. Sure, Francine: journalists CAN go straight to the source…but if the source hasn’t evolved the story to the point where it connects with the audiences, that access doesn’t matter.

This, by the way, is very different for a communications agency than it is for an advertising or even digital firm…but that sounds to me like another future blog post….

3. What killed the Dodo?

I’ve waited a long time for this. Now I get to share some tough love right back at Francine.

Francine, it’s easy to blame agencies for what you describe in your post, but we all know better. Agencies are like any other business: they need to be a business. That means selling something (typically services, aka “people’s time”) at a price that the market will bear.

For most agencies, that means pushing work down to the junior ranks, minimizing strategy, and willingly saying “Yes!” to business relationships that don’t position them as intellectual and implementation partners to their clients.

We all know what I’m talking about. Eastwick team members have written about the phenomenon in recent posts asking if “tech PR is broken” and challenging marketers to demand more out of social (and themselves). It’s also why I declared my independence as one of the few hold-out agencies in Silicon Valley who continues to do things a different way (I loved the positive feedback on this, by the way).

If agencies are going the way of the dodo, Francine, then we need to remember what caused their demise. Dodos didn’t stand up for themselves. They stood there looking dodo-like as they were hunted to extinction.

 

In a way, what Francine describes in her post reveals a much larger problem in business today. The online world’s inherent connection to data, and the ease with which we can access, analyze, and understand it, has created a “hyper-quantitative” approach to marketing that I believe undervalues qualitative insights in determining success. As a good friend says, “Analytics are the pepperoni slices on the pizza of business results.” I’m no vegetarian, but I wouldn’t want an only-pepperoni diet, or even an only-pepperoni pizza. It’s the balance of the ingredients (quantitative meets qualitative, if you will) that makes the pizza taste great and worth ordering again.

As you read about the Dodo, think about the big picture that’s causing agencies to choose a role that they probably know is a fail-in-the-making. They’re scared as they watch their traditional models being disrupted and by direct connections between businesses and the audiences they serve. They’ve lost sight of their true value as data and analytics (awesome as they are) have shifted the shape of their craft. And they’ve let that happen by reacting to demands rather than committing to the value of their work and upping their game to make it even better.

So they’ve let themselves get cornered into accepting roles that ultimately shrivel up and die, like that dodo, almost like some twisted self-fulfilling prophecy proving that their models don’t work.

Here, Francine and I agree. THAT, actually, is the brokenness of most agency models: the “servitude” that prevents them from being of true service. How did that happen, and why did some of us allow it? When agencies can sit across the table from clients and share perspectives like I’ve shared above that say, “Actually, I don’t recommend that. And here’s why,” in a way that helps these clients make better decisions?

That’s when the model will get unbroken. That’s when it works.

Thanks to Francine for a thought-provoking post, and for helping me articulate another reason that I’m committed to sustaining the way we do things at Eastwick.

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No, thank you (once again)

April 12, 2012 in Culture, Industry by Barbara Bates

 

I’m going to take a risk. It’s not the first time. I took a big one 20 years ago, when I started Eastwick, knowing that big-name PR firms held a stronghold in the Valley and that going up against them would be tough. A small team of upstarts who believed tech communications should be different than “PR as usual?” Trust me, plenty of people told me we were going out on a limb: that we wouldn’t make it, or couldn’t make it last.

But I guess the vision of disrupting the status quo was enough to make me step out onto that limb. After all, isn’t that how good things in this place almost always get started?

But back to that risk. I’m confessing that I recently turned down an acquisition offer. In other words, I said no – again – to a firm who approached me with an offer to acquire Eastwick.

It’s risky for a communications pro and CEO to share a story like this. Maybe some of you will question my business sense. Maybe you’ll think I should play it safe and accept the tradeoffs that come with increased security. But read on and you’ll see why I said no and why I believe staying independent is of value to my company, our clients, and even the Valley.

An “exit” is the named goal of many companies in Silicon Valley (and beyond). Rewarding an entrepreneur or a founding team for vision, effort, risk, and hard work, a successful exit puts money into wallets and security into futures.

I get that, and over the years I’ve sometimes been tempted by the chance to say “yes” to acquisition. Especially during lean times – when the bubble popped, or as the social-mobile-app revolution redefined the ways many of our legacy clients did business – I’ve thought about myself, my family, and above all my team and wondered if I was doing the right thing to keep Eastwick independent

I asked myself again as I pondered that recent offer. It was from an attractive big-name partner – one I’ve spoken with before – and in our conversations they emphasized how Eastwick was one of the last holdouts, a midsize, independent firm. It’s harder to go up against larger firms, they said. Most clients want the security of a known name, they asserted.

I bit my tongue (rare for me). Everything they said was true – but I didn’t bring up why more and more clients these days see our independence as an advantage.

This post is about that independence and the reasons I’ve stayed this way. I’m not naïve about the benefits of joining a larger entity, but I’m not going to do it. Following please find my reasons why.

  • I don’t want tech PR to be homogenous or undifferentiated from other PR. Tech is a unique business, faster-changing and more complex than, say, packaged goods or financial services. It can be a “star” business where proven players, big-name investors, or late-breaking visionaries shape the story alongside the innovators. I want to be close enough to this market to know who these people – and their products – are.
  • I don’t want our clients to be part of a portfolio spanning diverse industries. I want the synergies and “pattern recognition” that happens when you’re deeply woven into an ecosystem rather than more thinly spread across the surface.
  • I don’t want to follow the guidelines of a conglomerate that isn’t immersed in the culture and pulse of this valley. I want to be able to choose the companies I think will rise to the top, even if they’re not the biggest names out there. And I want to be able to work with the big names so that they move like nimble startups when they need to, especially if that means challenging “PR as usual.”
  • I want to be able to check in with trusted friends here, get the inside scoop, and know what’s around the corner when I meet with our clients. And I want this to shape my business decision more than someone else’s business plan.
  • I want to preserve our culture. I like how collaborative we are, and I like that we set our guidelines to allow time for learning, cross-training, and “free thinking” time. I’m committed to the Eastwick quality of life and I know my team values it.
  • I want to be able to challenge assumptions rather than just say “yes.” I want my place at the table as a trusted advisor, if and when my clients need it, rather than just the “PR arm.”
  • I want to hire geeks and journalists and people from non-PR backgrounds if I think they have something unique to bring to our clients. Some of the people at Eastwick wouldn’t fit the mold at traditional PR firms. Yet I see what they do to our impact and I’m proud that we’re able to bring them in.
  • I realize I’m being stubborn about this, but I want to do tech PR a different way.

Don’t get me wrong: I often see great work coming out of tech PR firms that have been acquired, and even from some of the area’s big-name agencies. And there are times when we recommend that prospective clients work with the conglomerate firms. I’m not saying that the Eastwick way is right for every business. I’m just saying that I want to offer a different path for tech companies who do want to do things a different way. Over the years I’ve seen clear value in that path – in the way we work, in the teams we hire, and even in the results we get – and the good news is some darn good businesses have seen the value, too.

But that’s why I decided, once again, to stay independent, and why I’m taking the risk to talk about it here.

What do you think? Does thinking this way change the way you think about Eastwick in any way? I’d love your thoughts and comments.

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The Next 20 Years

November 22, 2011 in Culture by Barbara Bates

 

Eastwick’s 20th anniversary this month really got me thinking about what’s next for our firm. Nothing like a significant milestone to make you reflect on years past…and look ahead to what’s next. We’ve seen many shifts in the PR industry over the past two decades, not to mention changes in Silicon Valley.

First, referring to it as the PR industry is sort of strange since what we do is so much more than what people think of when they talk about PR. At Eastwick, we’ve been struggling for years about what to call ourselves since we don’t fit into the standard issue PR firm box.

We’re a strategic communications consultancy that works very hard to develop breakthrough strategies tied to results generating programs and campaigns. Sometimes that means media relations…sometimes it’s grassroots social media campaigns. Almost always it includes helping our clients crystallize a compelling and differentiated position in their market, generating storylines that will resonate with target audiences, and concepting creative visual campaigns that break through the noise.

Recently, I attended PR Week’s Next conference. One of the things that became clear at Next is that what’s next for most markets is already here and happening right now. Silicon Valley seems to have grasped the changing dynamics in media and influence sooner than other markets. PR has moved beyond media relations to include, digital, social, mobile, and unmediated content development and distribution. Influencers now come in many different forms…not just media and analysts…and companies who get on board with that will see their communications programs net a huge impact on their businesses.

For example, two well-funded startups we’ve had the pleasure of working with, Violin Memory and NetBase, experienced great success this past year. Some of the campaign successes are evident in the amazing coverage and feature placements in top tier publications like Wall Street Journal, Forbes, BusinessWeek — plus SearchStorage, InformationWeek, and MediaPost, etc.

What you may not see are the dozens of influential people we worked with behind the scenes that provided perspective, connections and collaboration within these companies’ decision-making ecosystem. They were bloggers, consultants, customers, executives at partner companies that we engaged with through social channels and in person…yes, meeting people in the flesh still matters!

Our influencer strategies helped us achieve the broad visibility and credibility these companies needed to break through and rise to the top within their respective markets. So what do these companies have to do with Eastwick’s future plans? Looking at what they need in a strategic communications partner makes us rethink how we staff teams, the services we offer, the new skill sets we develop or hire, and how we partner with other communications disciplines.

Here are three key areas you can count on Eastwick to drive as the foundation for our next 20 years:

  1. 1. In the past, we’ve shied away from having “practice areas” because we tend to work collaboratively across the entire agency, not just within teams. However, we believe in building a critical mass of experts and expertise in specific market areas. You’ll see us organizing ourselves to foster that kind of collaboration. Working with clients in related industry spaces will help us maximize value in how we bring content and programs to market. It makes sense for us to create “practices” within the key areas we’ve focused on for years: enterprise and data center software and infrastructure, consumer entertainment and home office technology, digital media and social technologies and, most recently, clean tech. If your company falls within these categories, you’ve already experienced this expertise.
  2. 2. I’ve been wrestling for years with the issue of timesheets. All agencies use them…good or bad…and I think mostly bad…timesheets are used to keep track of how much work an agency does on behalf of a client and dictates how much the client should be charged. I hate timesheets. And I’m on a mission to abolish them in my agency…or at last limit the focus and use of them as a way to measure the value we’re providing clients. Yes, it takes time to maintain your expertise in a client’s market, and develop their messaging and talk to media and other influencers on their behalf, to monitor conversations in social channels and respond or alert your clients to respond and engage…but tracking the time it takes to do those things puts limitations on creativity…and I want us to deliver value rather than “time spent.” Do I have the magic answer? Not yet. But I’m working on it and clients who work with Eastwick now and next year will start to hear more about how we’re going to shift our thinking.
  3. 3. The third major shift Eastwick clients will notice is the incorporation of different skill sets into the agency beyond traditional PR. We’ll be adding more creative talent to our already brilliant creative services team. More digital expertise. More content development experts. 2011 marked the first year that Eastwick actually made media buys on behalf of our clients and you’ll start to see us build more expertise to span all three major areas of influence: earned media, owned media and paid media. Who better to help develop and define strategies here than the folks that are working deeply within your organization to craft the right message for the right audience?

The first 20 years of Eastwick has been amazing…here’s to 20 more!

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