The overlooked and often most effective PR tool!

Most PR organizations will ever be mistaken for nimble industries who are ahead of market developments. Quite the opposite of their own spin, the PR industry is often very reactive and tends to grab a certain topic they believe is hot and bite onto it like it is the second coming. As a result, legitimate ways of helping to build a client brand can be overlooked.

One clear cut example of this is my opinion is the use of speaking opportunities. I never cease to be amazed at how PR people will nearly froth at the mouth when one mentions social media, yet if the topic is speaking opportunities you get the confused puppy dog look. Yet in this age where the big books are dying and where personal, face to face, time is considered an essential for an organization to succeed in this marketplace a well placed speaking opportunity can have amazing implications for your brand.

First of all you need to understand the hierarchy of the speaking opportunity. Regardless of how great your brand concept is or how super a speaker you are, unless you are a well known organization already you need to set your sights low to begin with. You will NOT be the closing key not speaker your first time out. Sorry but that is just how things are! But there is a way that can work if you have true vision and long term goals for your organization.

First of all, when you are getting started, offer to take spots on the panel discussions. These positions are the hardest for event organizers to fill as there are much more panel discussions. Sometimes, if you make a good case that your speaker is talented and thoughtful you can get in as a panel moderator. Once you do this, and assuming you do well, you are then well positioned to move up the food chain the next time there is an opportunity with this organization. You are also well placed to offer to help out at other events and now you have the beginning of a CV that will demonstrate your thought leadership on your area of expertise.

One other area I would recommend is the use of bylined articles to demonstrate thought leadership. This should be done in coordination with the formula I listed above. Byline's are great because you can expound on a topic that rests within your area of expertise and demonstrate the innovative and creative ideas you can offer. Ideally the byline should be published first but even if you wish to present it as a "pending printing" or something like that you should be good. What you want to do is to show you have creative ideas and can present new ideas to the discussion pool.

So remember that one of the most effective PR tools, more so than releases and pounding after the media, is being a member of a speaker's panel at an event. Your organization should make a speaker's panel a key part of its organization and as a result you will see a very quick rise in the name recognition of your organization within your industry.

Marketing goes on outside of the marketing department

Marketing is a role that the marketing department in many organizations guards ferociously. There is good reason for it, not the least of which is the fact that many others try and do marketing's job or act as a type of grandstand manager to tell marketing and communications how to get the job done. But there is some education that companies need to make regarding the fact that all external facing groups are in fact marketing ambassadors if not part of the marketing department.

No one needs to be told that times are tough now and that there are greater pressures on employees now than anytime in quite a long while. However many employees who face the public usually act in a fashion that is counterproductive to a companies long term success. This runs the gamut from sales representatives who only return phone calls when it is time to renew a license on a product, to technical support who insist on only electronic communication to an HR representative who makes a candidate feel like a leper.

In difficult times like this it is doubly important for a company to take advantage of market circumstances and avoid the bunker mentality. Rather, they should be using the downturn to reach out to clients and customers and reinforce not only how important they are to the organization, but how well the two of you work together. By teaching employees the value of marketing as a positive growth tool for the entire organization, you can ensure that you are uniquely positioned for growth once the recession finally ends. Also, you can ensure the long term and steady viability for organization with consistent talent development.

In the long term, marketing strategy and execution is the role of the marketing and communications department. However any public facing facet of the organization is part of the marketing organization de facto. Each group that deals with the public should be reminded of their role as brand ambassadors and what that means to the long term health, success and viability of the company.

Why not to hire a vendor!

Most start up organizations are often in a race to hire someone to do this job or that job because they believe it is a necessary part of the start up process. This often takes the form of hiring either a public relations agency or some type of marketing consultant. What is ironic is that the process behind tends to be mostly knee jerk. If you ask you will most likely hear some MBA textbook, product marketing answer but if you dig you will find they did it out of the belief that they HAD too!

No for most start up organizations that first marketing discussion needs to come within the organization. Every start up will have, or should have, someone whose role is to develop brand or even in a broader sense to be the person responsible for building the sales and marketing role. During this initial phase it is critical that the first focus be on does the organization have a product or service that can be sold. Initially this can be handled by someone whose focus is on selling a product but at some point there needs to be a transition to a professional marketing person.

Still to a small start up organization where money is scarce there will be a need to spread roles just outside of the marketing organization. While marketing people are rightfully opposed to abdicated the marketing decision making process there may be a need in small start ups to cede some territory normally assigned to marketing and to other professionals with specific tasks during the initial launch phase. As the old cliche goes you need to roll up your sleeves and get your hands dirty.

A first hire within any start up organization should be someone who is focused fully on the product. While that doesn't mean a full fledged employee at first, it should be done with the idea of hiring a freelancer that will be brought on board as a full time employee at some time. The need is for someone who will wrap their brains around the product and become fully invested in its development.

Also, the single greatest reason to avoid hiring a vendor during the start up process is that you run the risk of working with someone who enjoys the cash flow you provide and will in turn provide you with the most junior staff to do the grunt work and will provide you with results in tune with their philosophy and their desire to improve their own standing among future clients they are trying to recruit.

So to anyone building a start up or thinking of starting on. You should not consider hiring an agency until you are well into your start up process, if you hire one at all.

Do you need a PR freelancer or an agency to get going?

As most marketing people know, the first step in selling the product begins with the PR program. It helps you refine your brand and introduce yourself to key influences out there who you are and why your product/service is relevant. Of course, public relations help does not come cheap and, if not properly managed, can be a huge loss leader for your young organization. So then the question becomes who do I hire to help me manage a PR launch for my product? A full fledged agency or a sole practitioner?

One thing to keep in mind is your relative size and how that matters to anyone you are going to hire. If you are dealing with a large PR agency or even a mid to small size one, the smaller you are, the less care you will receive regarding your account. As normally happens with agencies, you are sold a wonderful bill of goods when you are applying for the agency and you see a really strong team of A plus managers who many will insist will be your account team. Once you sign that contract however you will notice that in world record time your account is being by managed by people that you never met and before you know it you are being spoon fed the normal palladium of press releases followed by the by the rote school of one size fits all, non-creative PR.

Generally when you hire smaller freelancers, you are getting motivated and, if you have done your homework intelligent and experienced, professionals who rely on your support to fund their continued success. In addition, you are most likely dealing with one or two people who represent the organization. Your work is not going to be passed onto the new hire since, most likely, there will not be a new hire to pass the work onto. You will also find someone more open to making your vision work and seeing your ideas get a shot at some sunlight.

A freelancer succeeds by taking risks where an agency fails if they do so. The agencies main goal is to have you renew the contract so they will ensure you do that. A freelancer's goal is to ensure that you succeed since that demonstrates that they can help an organization succeed. A freelancer usually does not have to pay for an office and the non-essential staff that is common among PR agencies so with that lower overhead, they can bring you a greater focus on your core PR needs.

It is pretty obvious in my opinion that a PR freelancer is the way to go when you are starting up your organization. From both a fiscal sense as well as a more product driven one a freelancer is a more common sense approach for an organization that is just building its PR program. The level of customer care and ROI is almost certainly going to be higher. The influence you have with a smaller organization can not be over estimated and can/should be leveraged for your organization's benefit.

Why social media isn't always a great idea

Well companies are jumping on board the social media bandwagon with the same ferocity that they decided that the web was the way to go about ten years ago. It is funny but many companies believe they have to use social media. The reason I am hearing most is that if they do not, well then their competition might and gain on them.

Sadly, this is a fear based logic to planning and as a result you are reacting to market potential and less likely to gain by the situation. Smart companies figure out that they can gain from a certain action and act accordingly. Not so smart companies see where the heard is going and follow according because that is what seems the right thing to do.

Having said that, there are boundaries to social media and they should be explored by any company that wishes to profit from what is certainly an area with tremendous potential. One issue about social media I have addressed in the past but it bears repeating because it is so critical. In fact it is so critical I think it should be put up on the wall like school rooms show the U.S. Constitution or the map of the world. Workings within the organization should under no circumstances be allowed to speak about the organization on a social media outlet without the full and complete authorization of the Corporate Communications office. Furthermore, all of what they intend to post should be approved in advance and should then only be posted verbatim, without so much as a comma changed.

Social media should not be seen as a lazy way to do corporate communications. There is still going to be a need for news releases and media tours; analyst briefings and webinars. Marketing will not grind to a halt nor even be pulled back due to social media. If anything marketing efforts should have social media built into them so that social media is an element in the market effort. As with most corporate communications roles, a properly managed social media program can be of tremendous help to an organization in delivering its message to a mass audience.

One way that social media should never be used is for crisis management. Nothing seems more pathetic than when you see some misbehaving celebrity decide to apologize for their latest misdeed by apologizing on their Facebook page or via Twitter. The same holds true for an organization. One that apologizes via a press release alone is an organization that not only didn't care for the customer but doesn't really care for any misdeed which may have gotten them in trouble. The hackneyed news releases we have all become accustomed to seeing become even worse in the clipped off world of Facebook and Twitter and their cohorts.

Social media is a great invention for the reason that it lets the organization talk directly to its audience and stakeholders. However it should not be seen as a way of bypassing traditional outlets or even worse, bypassing outlets that may not be as receptive to the message as we might like. It is more important to allow for an open and honest exchange of ideas and feedback than it is to have a simple and fun discussion. Discussion and honest feedback are far more valuable than light, breezy conversation.

So in conclusion, social media is a great tool and makes a wonderful addition to a well armed media and customer relations platform. It is not however designed to be the sole means of communications or for that matter, even the main focus of your communication program. It is a tightly controlled aspect of your program and one that focuses on bringing in different and direct communications from stakeholders that you may not be able to engage otherwise.

Is your brand dying because you are trying to save it?

There is an old back yard gardeners adage that the one that kills a garden above all else is over attentiveness. Some people obsess over the slightest details regarding their gardens and as a result the garden suffers. The same can be said about brands, in some environments the corporate senior executive be it a division head or a CEO can be so focused on saving the brand that they may end up being blind to the fact they are in turn killing that which they are trying to save.

I have seen with my own eyes many otherwise strong, or relatively strong brands, which are hacked to pieces because someone higher up believes the brand is in some type of danger. Either from competition or complacency but in danger non-the-less. What is both sad and ironic is that when these people take drastic and, often unnecessary steps, to fix the problem the result is greater loss and more disruption. This reinforces the first impression that they were right about the need for drastic change and results in more change.

This second wave of change is often unneeded and even more destructive than the first wave was. More importantly it results in both customers and employees questioning the future of the brand and if management really has solved a problem or is fighting some type of hydra where two problems will emerge for each one fixed.

Obviously a brand needs to be nurtured like any plant in a garden. It needs the right materials to grow on and most importantly needs patience to reach full maturity. A farmer does not go into his or her field and pull tiny corn stalks out of the ground. Rather, they wait until the product is primed for market and that is the philosophy that today's senior executives would be smart to take as their example.

A brand will succeed if given the right amount of care and devotion. You need to take the appropriate steps and consult with the right experts to ensure both brand survival and long-term health. But you also need to let the brand grow on its own accord and be careful not to smother the brand with over attentiveness. Make sure that your cure is not worse than the illness in question.

How to test your start up brand?

Building a brand is something that takes time, patience and, of course, money. To use the old adage, "Rome was not built in a day." That is certainly relevant when it comes to building ones brand. Start up companies today are faced with the dilemma that they need to build to build a recognizable brand as soon as possible and get it to market even quicker so they can establish themselves and begin to generate revenue.

So with any product the question becomes how do you test a brand especially if it is one that hasn't seen the light of day yet? Certainly if you are Microsoft or Coca-Cola you can conduct focus groups and have test audiences to try out your product and see how it works. A new start up has maybe a half dozen individuals to share the information with and, assuming they have a new concept, need to be discrete in who they inform regarding the product.

To that end it is very difficult for a start up company to test its product and get a sense of its brand. Still, it can be done if appropriate measures are taken to protect the brand. First of all, you do have the option of selecting a small group to serve as your control and use them to test the product or concept. By doing this, you are bringing in people you believe you can trust. They need not be people you know personally but they should be screened for reliability and you should be comfortable with who you are working with.

You can also work with organizations and do a blind test. These organizations bring in people and serve as your focus group and tell you what they like about your concept and what they do not like. They are blind in every sense of the word and have no idea what your product is and in many cases may have no idea about your market. While you benefit from feedback, you are getting this feedback from an ill-informed group who may not fully understand the nuances of your brand concept.

Lastly, you can try and run your own research so that you need not work with a pay-to-play organization. This is very dangerous as you do run the risk of exposing your brand to a public audience before it is ready. There have been many incidents where companies tested products before they were ready and the bad press leaked out as most bad press does and ended up causing the type of attention that most companies would prefer to avoid!

Testing your brand before launching it is a sensible and intelligent means of not only determining the brand concepts and strengths but also in easing the product into a position before its target audiences. Sensible precautions and reasonable planning will allow you to test your brand and either adjust the concept before releasing it to the public or, in a worst case scenario, go back to the drawing board. Either way using a control group as a sounding board allows you to build a stronger brand and one more in tune with what your target audience is looking for.

The importance of thought leadership

A theme in this blog is the idea of standing out from the crowd. Yes we all know the market is crowded with this person and that person who all think they have something of value to add to the discussion so it goes without saying that getting yourself heard requires extraordinary efforts. While there are many short term solutions such as news releases, media events and bylined articles there is one way you can ensure consistent coverage and that is by building yourself as a thought leader.

Roughly defined a thought leader is more than simply an expert on a topic. He or she is someone who is not only an expert on a topic but rises above that and becomes an expert's expert. Someone who clearly and sufficiently defines the issue and then offers a range of possible solution to any problems being addressed. In addition to offering a solution, a thought leader is someone who can argue for a swath of solutions but then offer a single best possible outcome for people to follow.

There is more than simple knowledge to being a thought leader. One needs to be bold and decisive and offer ideas and solutions that people may find controversial and will certainly find worthy of debate and discussion. Furthermore, they need to be people who for lack of a better term, make good copy. A thought leader needs to impress an audience with not only their intellect, but their ability to in a non-abrasive fashion engage their audiences in lively debate.

Thought leadership is also not about lining up a large trophy case of publications and awards. In the case of a thought leader, speaking at an industry group or appearing in an industry publication is often far more important than being on the cover of the Wall Street Journal. The other key difference for a thought leader is that they need to always be out and proving they are relevant in today's market and with today's media. Thought leaders grow old and atrophy unless they continue to offer insight into the changes in the world. Tiring yes, but essential if they are to succeed.

But if they do succeed, the thought leaders offer an organization a tremendous resource. A successful thought leader is someone who the news media will turn to time and time again once they are comfortable with the bona-fides of your thought leader they will come to the well again and again as long as it is reasonable to do so. This is like having a virtual press conference and you will see your organization appearing in a wide range of media outlets and the perception among your customers will be that you are an organization who is a leader within your field.

The one down side to thought leadership is that it can not be done with only one person in the role of thought leader. A first class organization with hopes of achieving long term success needs to have a team of thought leaders ready to address the diverse challenges a world class organization needs. A deep and well trained bench of media ready thought leaders will solidify your organization as a thought leader.

How do I make my copy stand out in a flooded copy world?

One thing is for sure, there are a lot of companies issuing a lot of press releases which seem entirely to say nothing at all. Sadly the issue at hand has a lot to do with a term I used in the previous sentence; press release. A press release is a misnomer, it is something of a fake to use a boxing term.

One thing I recommend to all of my clients is to get in the habit of saying news release. While this may seem a matter of terminology I see it as much more. By using the term news release we are forcing the client to ask themselves, what is the news here? Why does this matter? Who does it matter too?

I also recommend setting a hard cap on how many news releases the organization will issue during a set period of time. This solves a number of strategic issues. For one thing, this serves as an exercise it what I would call message discipline. What do we need to say? How do we need to say it? Who do we need to say it too? This practice in self discipline is a great tool in how to manage your brand and how to speak to your audiences in a professional and refined fashion.

Another way to make your copy stand out in the market place is to know your audience. I have seen too many pieces of copy that are watered down because they are supposed to serve the needs of an overly diverse group of market segments. A news release is targeted towards the news media and as such can not be watered down to be some type of sales tool. It may have uses when dealing with customers or potential customers but that is not whom it is designed primarily for. Good copy is designed for a target audience. It's not some catch all and lazy way of approaching the market at large.

Lastly, good copy stands out because it tells a story that someone wants to read. I remember reading an interview with Russ Meyer, the director who did a lot of B-Movies who said "the critics hate me, the public loves me. Who are you going to believe?" The point here is that if you are going to write great copy, use it to tell a story that your target audiences are going to want to hear. Yes you will be informing them during the process, but you will also need to tell them a story they will want to hear so that you don't lose their attention and have them quickly forget about you in all that white noise that is out there.

Too Busy to Succeed!

There are a lot of feel good stories about the number of startups that began life during a recession or downturn. Home Depot and Microsoft are two examples that come to mind. So it is not surprising that a lot of the organizations that I deal with now are in fact start ups. It goes without saying that a lot of these organizations need a lot of help with developing and executing a strong branding and marketing program.

But there is one thing that amazes me about a lot of the start up executives. They all complain about not having enough time. I had one executive lament to me that he had too many things on his plate and would not be able to succeed. I have to be honest and say that I find this entire thought process laughable. If you are too busy to succeed I can assure you that you need not worry about success.

The first issue I believe is that we are dealing with people who have an overdeveloped sense of mission. They believe that the product they are selling is so important that its success is a linchpin of the future success of society. What is really required of these people is to step back and achieve proper prospective. They may have a great product, but they are also in a crowded market so it is important that they work smart more so than work hard to succeed.

I have also found that based on my own anecdotal observations it seems people who want to become successful with startups also seem to have a form of attention deficit disorder. Their minds fire off at 100 miles per hour in 100 different directions and as such they lack the focus and discipline to concentrate on any one area for too long. All to often the result of this is mixed messages, missed appointments and a failure to clearly define what they want to accomplish. I have also noticed they have achieved boredom with a project in a relatively short amount of time and are always looking for the next great thing.

Now normally, I would like to tie this up with a nice neat ribbon and say to do this in order to succeed. What I think needs to happen is that the start up staff needs to have people who think and act in the long term. Not only does the marketing person need to be able to provide the necessary brand and messaging guidance required of all reorganizations to succeed, but you need finance to have its eye on the ball regarding long term fiscal planning and designers or engineers committed to the concept of the product and service being offered. A concentrated and long-term plan is the most likely way that an organization will succeed. An organization where the founders and executives are too busy to look beyond their computer screens is unlikely to ever succeed.

Is change good for your product?

There was a book a few years back titled, "If it ain't broke, break it,". I never read the book because I thought the title was very silly. I have never been a fan of change for the sake of change. Yet a lot of companies charge down that road, without a good vision about why they are making change and what they hope to accomplish in the end. In today's world we seem to have moved away from the mind set of our ancient ancestors where old age was revered and with age came the perception of wisdom and knowledge.

We now live in a culture where youth is almost a pathological obsession. From the hair coloring products to diets and onward, we see nothing but a desire to change our culture so we drop out objects simply because they are old and for no other reason. The corporate world is no different than any other person when it comes to this mindset. The older a product is, no matter how well it is performing, is seen as dull and in need of rehabilitation.

What makes me chuckle to myself as I write this is that if one looks back on some of the greatest marketing failures in history, the Edsel, Crystal Pepsi, New Coke, McLean Deluxe, they were all designed with the idea of reviving a supposedly stale brand. In each case, as we all know, they bombed, but they also demonstrated quite clearly that not only were the brands they were to replace quite strong, but that the leaders of the companies in question were very out of touch with their customers.

Now I am not advocating here for standing pat. Far from it! I do believe that a brand needs to be watched over vigorously and guarded like the crown jewels. Make changes when necessary. But change should not be implemented for the sake of change itself. Change should be done to improve the product and, to a larger degree the brand. .But making change out of fear that the product is some how faltering is counterproductive and a recipe for disaster.

Remember that as the Marketing and communications person we are responsible for protecting the product and brand from any threats and that may include putting a hand up and saying no when some internal party comes hard charging, determined to change the product out of fear of being passed by. That alone is no reason to react and remember that fear is the worst instigator of change!

Protecting the brand from internal interlopers

The organization's brand is one thing that people cant help but offer input on how to improve. In some regards, managing a brand is similar to managing a sports team. You have every person around you offering you what they consider to be essential input regarding how to run the brand. When something goes wrong, as it is bound to do, these people will see you as the person responsible since you did not follow their advice. Even if there advice was completely ridiculous and silly the arm chair brand managers out there believe that their advice was difference between success and failure.

Another key aspect for brand managers in protecting their brand is to resist the urge to react to events which have already occurred. There is an old expression that goes "you can't drive a car by looking in the rear view mirror." That is ever so true in marketing and communications. But still many non-marketing people will come up and argue that such and such an event has occurred and we need to make adjustments based on it. Now I can not argue in all cases not to make the changes, but there are times when you need to review if the change is being made based on fear or some other type of knee-jerk reaction.

If there is the need to make a change, first off, make sure that the need is solid and dead on. Don't be afraid to say no and to push back on those pushing for change. Remember, you are the guardian of the brand so it is ultimately your responsibility. Review suggestions for change with an open and careful mind. Also, remember that protecting the brand does not mean keeping it away from any changes. If someone were to argue for a particular course of action look at what they are saying and feel free to cherry pick the parts you think might work from those parts you think are not useful.

Lastly, set the ground rules for any changes to the brand. Don't forget that as a marketing and communications person it falls to you to protect the brand. Put the onus onto the person suggestion the change to educate you as to why the change is necessary. Also, keep the participants in any brand change to a bare minimum . There is no need to have a grand meeting involving everyone from the CEO on down to the person who empties the waste baskets. You and the person suggesting change are the parties to the exchange. I would recommend limiting the meeting to just that. From there you can form a solid relationship which allows for two way conversation that will build a strong brand rather than a massive hodgepodge which tries to make everyone happy and leaves no one happy.

Using communcations to plan for growth.

Many organizations are driven by the idea that they are bringing a revolutionary new product to market and that once the world sees how great their product is, they will stop what ever they are doing and rush to buy it. Sadly, this model hardly ever is the case and in many cases, the world is growing more cynical and sees a new product with wary and cynical eyes.

I also hear a lot of people admiring what Apple does with the IPhone and saying what great buzz they have created. I have to be honest and say that I cringe when ever I hear the word buzz. For one thing, "buzz" has never sold a single product. The pet rock had buzz, so did New Coke and Crystal Pepsi and neither is remember today. What sets the IPhone apart from its market is the fact that it offers a unique and interesting product that differs from the rest of the market. It is quite evident that Apple did their homework here and included key target customers in the development of the product from the beginning and then designed a marketing and communications program around it.

The lesson we can draw from Apple is that when we are designing a product, we should build the marketing and communications plan along with the product. We should also design the communications plan to anticipate the changes in the market so that we can quickly react and adjust our programs in anticipation of the minor alterations that will be required during the life cycle of the product to ensure that we do not fall behind our target audience. Remember, the market will continue to shape itself and unless you move along with it you will be left high and dry.

A good communications plan is one that not only designs what we say to our target audiences, but it helps us to grow within the marketplace and helps shape future growth. Communications can serve the organization much in the same way the coal tender does on a steam locomotive. We provide the fuel that drives the engine. In addition, communications has the role of keeping abreast of market conditions and is superbly positioned to anticipate and react to any potential problems that may arise.

Communications professionals should be positioning themselves within the organization as the primary agents to drive an agenda of growth. By doing so, they can not only increase their influence with the organization, they can ensure that the process is done correctly and that the brand , marketing's ultimate tool, is both protected and enhanced. Communications is uniquely positioned by virtue of their expertise and unique understanding of the branding process to contribute to substantial and sustained growth within the organization.

How to stay focused in a rapidly changing world!

Today's world is certainly changing at a faster and faster pace. Of course, a study of American history shows you that one of our common themes is the idea that we are, for the most part, living in times of break neck change and need to slow down. The more things change, the more they stay the same.

Still, we are living in times of rapid change. Thanks to market conditions and technologies, it seems products are out of date almost as soon as they hit the market. Shelf lives of more than a year for a technology product seems absurd. So how does marketing help build a brand, while facing a market that is constantly moving?

This type of dilemma reminds me of one of my favorite comic book when I was a kid, Spiderman. Of course Spiderman had a lot of enemies but the one that always fascinated me was the Sand Man. He could change his shape almost at will and at times could be either strong as a block of cement or as fine as sand on a beach. The properties one finds in real sand. Naturally Spiderman has his share of battles with the Sandman and defeats him by realizing that any strength can become a weakness and any threat an opportunity.

More importantly, from a tactical perspective he learned to anticipate what his opponent might do next and react appropriately. I think that is a key lesson for all marketing people to do. We are the people whose job is to be on top of things and try and see what might happen in the next week, month, year and so on. A great deal of ink was spilled regarding the supposed technical leadership and management skills of the Japanese in the late 1980's and early 90's. What happened was that the media saw only the positives and did not see the negatives of the Japanese model.

I remember an article from Business Week written just after Bill Clinton became president. It basically said that Japan was not as good as what everyone thought because its culture smothered innovation and new ideas. There were howls of protest about the article but time as shown it to be correct.

So back to the question at hand, how does one stay focused in this rapidly changing world. I believe the first way to do so is to know your market and most important, know your customer. Second, be a step ahead of the competition. That may sound like a cliche but not only is it true, it is also pretty easy to do. It goes back to the first rule of know your customer. The third rule that I will use for now is to have one person responsible for marketing and put all aspects of marketing growth into their hands. This will allow for controlled responsible growth and allow you to keep others, who don't have the same level of knowledge from fouling things up terribly.

Keep in mind that staying focused in a rapidly changing world is both your greatest threat and greatest opportunity. It should be taken with great concern and handled by the person you most trust with the success of your organization.