The 12 Books of 2011

I am truly rubbish at New Year's resolutions, and for many years have simply not bothered. But last year was different for some reason - I made 2 resolutions and felt determined to follow them.

The first resolution was to read at least one work of literary fiction each month. 12 books in a year doesn't seem too much but my reading had slipped so much over the years, what with a) work and family commitments and b) not spending time on aircraft, as my job has been predominantly UK-based the last 7 years or so.

So here are the books as they sit on the bookshelf:

Highlghts are definitely The Book Thief, Markus Zusak - my kind of book and The Hare with Amber Eyes, Edmund de Waal. The former appealed to my love of  the magical and mysterious with a modern history background set as it is in Germany during WW11. The latter also appeals to my love of history as it charts the history of a Jewish family from around 1870 to the present day. The obvious interregnum of WW11 is of course important, but I found myself liking the earlier parts of the book as they were more educational. Paris in the time of impressionists and Proust, the building of imperial Vienna, were subjects I knew little of. While reading this book you need access to the Web as you are always wanting to find out more about the detail. In particular you will want to look at the paintings that play such an important part in Charles's story.

What of the other 10? Well the first admission is that there are only 9  - the year isn't out yet and Doris Lessing's the Fifth Child is working out very nicely.

The second admission is that Bill Bryson appears with a work of non-fiction. It is very long however (and took much longer than the allotted month to read) and is sumptuously frabjous - so no apologies. At Home is a brilliant return to form.

Most disturbing has to be a two horse race between the Mc's: John McGregor's Even The Dogs and Ian McEwan's Cement Garden. I'm afraid to say that McEwan won by a country (or distopian urban) mile. A great shame as I had enjoyed McGregor's previous with constant wonder at how he had pulled it off (do seek out If Nobody Speaks of Remarkable Things). The Dogs though taught me nothing and McEwan reminds us that it is far more disturbng what is left to the imagination. Has nobody tried to film Cement Garden?

On the 'curate's egg' list go When God Was a Rabbit and A Week in December. Sarah Winman's first novel is brilliant for 2/3 of the way, and then gets horribly lost in a 911 plot that is neither relevant nor credible. Truly loved the first part though (there are some mgical elements that are really subtly played: the way I like them). Seb Faulks left me a bit cold with A Week. This is clearly a very clever book with masses of detail, but I'm just not clever enough to understand the whole message. Also, I was left wondering whether everyone he writes about has to be such a psycho.

The big disappointment was Jonathan Coe's The Terrible Privacy of Maxwell Sim. Nearly good, but not quite and, again, a dumb ending. I was quite hoping that Maxwell would die and we could hear more about his father's story: now there is a sub plot crying out for elaboration. And the whole yacht race piece - a true story and a huge tradegdy on at least 3 facets - Coe could just retell this and end up with a better book. All that said I will probably buy the next Jonathan Coe just as I have bought all the others - and hope that the next is another Carve Up or Rotters Club.

That leaves just Mark Haddon's masterpiece and The Finkler Question. To be perfectly honest I read the Curious Incident to make up time after Mr Bryson sidelined me for 7 weeks or so. The reason it leapt off the shelf was that it was short. Short, and brilliant too - there is nothing I can say that hasn't already. And so on to Finkler.

This was the book that started off the whole resolution 12 months ago, and is the one that has stayed in my brain the most. I find myself thinking about the characters in the wee small hours, or while reading something else. I know that a lot has been said about it being Jacobson's turn to win the Booker, and that other works of his are superior, but for me this is a book where you start to care: about the chracters, yes, but more about the issues that are raised and the consequences these have for all of us living in the UK. There is s strong political and social message here, but it isn't blasted from the brass section, but is a counterpoint offered by bassoons and oboes and cellos. It gives the whole piece extraordinary depth and I wonder whether others may have read Finkler too fast and only heard the high notes. My plodding style was maybe more suited.

So, if that resolution was 11/12ths complete, what of the other. Well, it is 12/12ths, but I'm not going to tell you what it was.

2012? More Howard Jacobson certainly. 12 books? Definitely, you need the rigour! However, if Hilary Mantel finally gets round to finishing off Wolf Hall it will be a vast undertaking, so I claim now that it counts as 2 of my 12.

Happy Resolutions.

Fried Pickles

An odd choice of title I'm sure you'll agree. Fried Pickles appear on the menu at the Texas Roadhouse restaurant in Fargo, ND and eating there last week our server Jamie urged the party that they really had to be tried. Mmm, we wondered.... fried pickles?

Jamie explained how they were made - dill pickles were sliced into rounds, dipped in a spicy tempura batter and then deep fried.

We still weren't convinced.

And then Jamie clinched the deal by explaining that they were "like nothing you've tried before". Temptation got the better of us, and who could resist such a sales pitch for the risking of no more that $3.99.

The Fried Pickles duly arrived, we sampled them, and they were pretty horrid. But never mind, we had tried, Jamie was happy and no falsehoods had been exchanged in marketing a truly disgusting product. They were indeed like nothing I had tried before, and, to go further, they were exactly like a whole range of things I will never want to try in the future!

The power of marketing will never cease to amaze me. Especially when it is done with such elan as that showed by our server at the Texas Roadhouse. It does though beg the question as to what idiot decided to make Fried Pickles an integral part of that establishment's menu?

I hope, I pray, that is goes somethng like this. Owing to an admin error in procurement (Dave swears he will now finally get his galsses changed) the Texas Roadhouse get a truckload of pickles delivered last month instead of the usual two cases. What to do? Implore the vendor to take them back, or try to make the most out of an unusal windfall. A hasty staff meeting is called and it is there that out plucky hero Jamie suggests deep frying the little critters. "How d'ya suppose selling those?" comes that obvious question from owner "Houston" Hal Stetson III.

"Well, with a degree in marketing from University ND, I see this challenge as a mere bagatele", says Jamie "leave everything to me. I may be just a server to you, but in real life I'm a product strategist without parallel". Over the next 36 hours Jamie racks his brains for the killer strap line, the one that will make him rich perhaps....

...and perhaps not, because I will certainly not be going back to a restaurant that serves me such food and I imagine that others in Fargo will make a similar choice. Fried Pickles were a blip and Jamie was a shrewd tactician, not a cunning strategist. In the long term the truth will out and good products will beat bad ones.

Now I must go as my daughter is imploring me to come and watch X-Factor with her. "It's fun" she tells me, and I guess I can risk an hour of my life for a little fun.

Old friends and old ideas

Met an old colleague today to talk about VAR's in the IT industry. All vendors want to tie VAR's to their products - an understandable instinct. If they can get loyalty then the sales will follow. But often the sales don't follow. Why?

I think this is because VAR's and vendors mistake software for solutions. Bits of software, from individual apps to whole technology stacks get called "solutions" too easily and too readily. They simply are not.

And so the role of the VAR get's confused. The "V" in VAR just means the implementation and support of the software they are selling - but that is very limited and not at all what customers want. They want solutions to their problems - not "software solutions" but real solutions.

So I ended up thinking about something I had been talking to TES about. Ie the immortal words of David James at Henley MC. Try turning the phrase:

"Finding customers for products"

into

"Finding products for customers"

Just turning that phrase around gives you a totally different perspective on what the V could be in VAR. Get it right and you will avoid the competition over day rates and make yourself your customer's trusted advisor.

Now, and only now can you start thinking about CLV with any hope of exploiting the opportunity to the full.

Steve

The Meeting as Marketing

Have been mulling too long on this idea. Time to put some thoughts to paper (or pixels, at least).

The 2 most importamt phases, IMHO, of the sales cycle are the handling of an incoming lead and the first meeting with the prospect. The difference between the former and the latter,  indeed between the latter and virtually all other parts of the cycle, is that that it is not controlled by Marketing Communications = marcomms.

What if it were? Go with me here.

If marcomms controlled the meeting with the prospect, they would apply the same rigour as they do to the advert, the logo, the telemarketing script... etc etc... The brand would be spot on. The words that came out of our mouths would be checked and double-checked for legality, honesty, correctness and, and this is most important, for conveying the MESSAGE properly.

There is a side-thought here, a tributary that tells us something about UK politics and its obsession with being on-message. Are they the first to get the reality of this? Today, we all need to be on-message all the time: the message is controlled by marketing.

So, do we throw the message away when the meeting room door is closed? Do we wing it? See how it goes? Or do we take a more professional approach?

If Marketing controlled the Meeting what would we wear, what questions would we ask and what message would we give?

Marketing Books - where to start?

As with all professions staying up to date with the latest theories and trends is an important part of a marketer’s life. While “airport” books can provide a quick introduction topics and examples of where companies have succeeded and failed with various marketing strategies, the following is designed to provide a more grounded basis for further study. Also, many of the books will provide templates for you to work through practical issues in your marketing, such as how to plan your marketing and even how to arrive at winning strategies to position your company against the competition.

Before diving off into the book list, however, a quick note for those who would prefer to learn in bite-sized chunks. Most magazine literature that is at the newsagents is really little to do with marketing  (whatever the title) and is instead focussed on industry gossip and that small part of marketing that is advertising. Two much better publications are the Harvard Business Review  http://www.harvardbusinessonline.hbsp.harvard.edu and and MIT Sloan Management Review http://sloanreview.mit.edu/smr/. These provide in-depth but very-readable articles about the full range of marketing subjects.  They also, of course, have the advantage of being extremely current to the latest business issues.

For those of you with a long ‘plane flight coming up however, here are a couple of longer pieces to dive into on the subject of marketing strategy:

1.       Blue Ocean Strategy, Kim, Chan & Maubogne, Renee: (Harvard Business Scholl Press, 2005) is a very readable tome that uses practical examples to look at how business can develop winning strategies in today’s customer-centric and internet-savvy world.

2.       Total Integrated Marketing: Breaking the Bounds of the Function, Hulbert, JM, Capon, N & Piercy, NF (2005) is a slightly heavier book that you will want to read in chunks rather than cover-to-cover. It does, however, look at the fascinating subject of how you can make all of your company part of the marketing effort – from sales to the accountant to the cleaner.

3.       While we are on the subject of strategy, this list would not be complete without talking about Peter Drucker and Michael Porter. Drucker’s Management: Tasks, Responsibilities, Practices (1973) is old, yes, but seminal. Porter’s Competitive Strategy, Techniques for Analyzing Industries and Competitors (The Free Press, 1980) is weighty but the most readable of this marketing giant’s many contributions.

So, what about the all-up text book? The one you want on the shelf by your desk because it has all the great models and techniques in one place. Here, I would recommend that last of the marketing giants, Philip Kotler

1.       Philip Kotler – Marketing Management, Prentice Hall, (2003) will serve the purpose just fine. It is easy to search through has loads of examples, models, definitions and techniques and can also be used to press wild flowers. Seriously, could be the best £40 you spend.

So that’s light reading, strategy and reference books sorted, what about the in-depth look at CRM, product development, web marketing, segmentation, marketing metrics etc etc. Well, I will leave those for the next time... after all you have to leave your audience wanting more. Also, I don’t want to second guess exactly what you are interested in. So drop me a comment and I’ll follow up on the parts of marketing you would like to know more about.

Steve

Welcome

Hello

For those of you that have followed the NAV Blog - http://blogs.msdn.com/b/uknav/ you will probably know what to expect in terms of tone, at least.

Content here is rather different though, taking in the wider aspects of marketing: planning, social media etc.

Hope you enjoy and please comment.

Steve Farr