disruptiveworks

Is it the "AM/PM" Marathon? Too much good stuff

Last week I shared some thoughts on "garbage mile" training, i.e. how running without a heart rate monitor can over-rev your motor so to speak. This week, while on my long run in prep for an upcoming half marathon, I encountered a new phenomenon-- the running convenience store, or what I like to think of as "too much good stuff."

Here's the skinny, or should I say, the fat. Several groups are doing a great job bringing runners together to train for the upcoming Rock and Roll marathon in Seattle. Since the path along Lake Washington is such a scenic route, we all seem to converge there on weekend mornings. All kinds of folks show up-- from experienced fast runners to slower emerging competitors and just for fun types like myself.

This week, I found myself following a pretty large group (antecedent pun....wait for it) along my route. This gang of 10-12 runners was moving along at about a 10-12 minute pace. I have no idea how long they were going, but it looked like they were planning to run for at least a full day, based on their provisions-- most were wearing some form of utility belt stocked with 3-4 bottles of sports drinks and pouches full of powerbars, gu, and other training treats. These are high calorie items-- a sports drink has as many calories as a can of soda, and the typical sports bar can substitute for a meal. The members of this gang easily had more than a day's worth of calories on their belts. And, based on my unscientific poll, not only was this group significantly overweight, but the ones who were most overweight seemed to be the most fully stocked. It literally looked like they had knocked over, er, come from a convenience store right to the morning run.

As I was turning this over in my mind, a smaller group of 4-5 runners came over a rise headed toward us. This group was fleet footed, running in the 6-7 minute range, and they quickly parted and knifed through the sea of Gatoraders. As they passed, I noticed the absence of belts, bars, bottles, and so on. This group was serious-- watches, shoes and shades-- that's it. And, they were lean; no excess body fat to be found among this group.

Seeing the stark contrast between these two groups lead me to the realization that Team AM/PM must be endure many frustrating trips to the scale when not out training. In spite of burning lots of calories, they were putting those calories right back, thanks to their utility belts. And, Team Fleet Foot, with no utlity belts, probably threw their scales out long ago.

It really isn't so hard after all, is it? Eat less, train more, lose weight. That's the secret. Huh.

Technology and "Garbage Miles."

Last week I posted about the value of exercise in the imperfect outdoors versus the controlled conditions of indoors with all the aids of technology. Thanks to some of you for your comments and feedback. To be clear, I get a lot of value from being outdoors in the physical world so to speak, but I still love the role that technology plays in athletics.

Yesterday, I was talking to an experienced iron-man triathlete friend of mine about my training regimen, and specifically how I was keeping track of my running times on my distance runs. You know, the stuff you hear all the time from weekend jocks-- "I did 8 miles today, broke 8 minutes per mile...."-- He made kind of a face-- I would describe as cross between bemused, knowing, and disgusted-- and offered  "So you aren't traing for your race with the aid of a heart rate monitor?" I told him that it was in the car, and I was using my watch, and I know my pace and so on. Plus, I want to stick to my minutes per mile target. Yadda yadda. Right? He just smiled and said "Oh, you're logging garbage miles. Might as well chuck those sessions in the can!"

After a little bit of embarrassed to and fro, it came down to this: Training without a heart rate monitor is like driving your stick-shift car, without knowing what gear you're in. Though you ultimately get to where you are going, your car has been subjected to huge stresses from running high RPMs (aka driving at highway speeds in 1st gear) to choking from insufficient power (aka climbing hills in 5th gear). As a result, the car is really inefficient at using fuel, avoiding the repair shop, and generally ends up with a shorter lifespan. I've known this for awhile-- even read a few books on it years ago-- but let's face it, you can't really get a lot of oomph at the bar telling your buddies "I ran 8 miles at 85% of my max heart rate today. Man, I was flying." And you'll likely discover that you end up running slower than you want to when focused on keeping your heart rate in the aerorbic (beneficial) zones.

The bigger story is that we now know the science for effective training, and the average athlete has access to unbelieveable technology, particularly GPS enabled heart rate monitors that can tell you everything from how far you ran and where, to how your tachometer (heart rate) varied throughout the run. And, with easy integration to online databases and services, you can easily record, share and collaborate on your performance data with others. So, instead of logging "garbage miles," you have the data to understand your true fitness, and can get better results to boot.

My next door neighbor is training for a half-ironman in July, and his coach is located in North Carolina. The coach-athlete relationship exists purely online and via daily email dispatches-- exchanges of uploaded data from his heart rate monitor, and so on.  This is an amazing opportunity for all athletes to have access to top of the line instruction and improve their performances as a result.

So for me, it's been a good reminder that technology plays a hugely helpful role in making us better performers and helping us to achieve our goals. In the meantime, if you happen to be out on one of your training runs, look for me. I'll be the one staring at my tachometer!

Real World Work: a tale

I'm training for a half marathon this summer, and it's during my workouts that I do some of my more energized thinking- anything to forget about the side cramps! This morning, it was time for sprints at the local track, and I had a breakthru of sorts about the rewards that come from the physical, versus man-made worlds around us. Perhaps you'll find it interesting as you dive into that pile of unfinished DMs on Twitter.

To get to the track, I passed my well equipped, always open gym, chock full of treadmills all ready and at my service. Something about running indoors on an early Spring morning didn't feel quite right, so I drove to the track-- deserted in the early am,  save for a flock of geese making a buffet out of the dewy grass in the middle.

I hadn't been there in awhile, and I discovered it was not in the shape I imagined-- it was cinder rather than paved, and there were no  markings for lanes, finish lines, and the like.  Also, the track sits on a field below a low rise, so in spite of the rising sun, the air was crisp and full of hoary frost as I chugged down from the car. Hmm. Chilly, unmarked, desolate. Maybe the gym was a better idea after all.

 On my warmup jog, I fussed with my stopwatch-the usual-- can't remember how to set it to time splits and resets thanks to that user manual long since thrown away. Plodding along, mashing buttons to no avail, I noticed that the track surface was really uneven-- ruts from rain, weeds growing through the cinders. My feet skidded around, ankles rolling, and I started to feel like this was a bad idea. As I came around to the backstretch, I discovered what I hadn't seen before-- the crown jewel of this circus minimus --this section of the track was ... uphill! Not a huge hill, but a hill nonetheless. I felt it in my legs as I pushed along, as if a stiff breeze had hit me bow-on from out of nowhere.

Great. Sprint work? Without a timer, on a track without markings? Rutted, weedy and now, uphill! Just great. My frustration brought my pace to a crawl and then finally to a stop. "I need get out of here and head back to the gym!" The geese paused their fescue-fest, raisng heads in unison, beady eyes trained on me. "How much time will it take to get back to my gym,  nicely lit, warm, with shiny machines rubbery black belts, all able to time themselves? Hell, I even get fresh towels and water service to boot!" The geese just stared, unblinking, wary.

And then, it hit me-- clarity about why I was there in the first place. In little over 10 weeks time, I'm running a race..outdoors...with lots of other people... on streets with curbs, bumps, cracks and yes, hills! As I saw through my frustration, I realized that in spite of all it's real world discomforts, this ruddy ring was in fact THE BEST place for me to do my work because it simulates nothing. Authentic. Messy. Undefined. It's the real world. The world that I have to succeed in come the end of June.

So, with renewed determeination, some pacing and improvisation with a stick, I found the way to set my marks. And, though I couldn't crack the code, I managed to get my watch in countdown mode. Soon, I was off, getting my sprints done-- hills, ruts and weeds bedamned. It wasn't easy, especially on the uphills. But by the end, I felt exhilerated and a little self proud, standing there on a deserted track, with own flock of geeese, before most had ventured out of bed. I overcame what were minor challenges to achieve my goal for the morning.

I'll be going back again for my next sprint workout, and I will leave the machines at the gym to someone else. How about you?

Riding the Shoulders of Creatives

I just finished reading Vanity Fair piece, "Beware Falling Stars" in the March 2009 issue (thanks to @frenchfifty for the referral. If you haven't read it, it's quick read and worth the time.

Peter Bart, who runs Variety, penned the article as a concise overview of the problems facing Hollywood today, including declining studio audiences, budgets and (Oscar) accolades and the resultant impact on the stars, their agents and publicists. Overall, it's a thoughtful piece and a great perspective from someone who has seen it all.

As I look at his analysis of Hollywood's troubles, I see several parallels to the world of technology and software and the potential of some lessons to be learned as a result.

Essentially, the world of film is dominated by 5-6 corporations-- the household names if you will. Due to the high cost structure (historically) of producing and distributing film, independent studios have been acquired or subsumed by the major studios; essentially a scale economy argument for consolidation-- he who controls the customer, controls the industry. This is similar to the world of enterprise IT where 5-6 names dominate as well, and smaller companies and products have had a hard time making it into the hands of customers directly. Look no further than EMC-- they have become a giant distributor of products, driven by incremental innovation and aggressive M&A activity to build their product lines. In short, they don't make new products any more.

Among the studios, the high cost of production has driven two axes of decisions around cost and investment. The first is to supplant artists and mavericks (high cost, high risk) with businesspeople (lower cost, dependable) who come armed with analytics and data. This leads to the second cost decision-- the data tells the studio which projects will, and will not work. And while this all looks good on paper, the results are not encouraging-- by the metrics of ticket revenue, awards, critical acclaim and profitability-- the studios are suffering through their worst performance in 40+ years. Clearly the scale economy argument is failing, and here's why.

Just as in all other facets of business today, consolidation for scale comes with a hidden cost-- one that ironically has the power to kill businesses altogether-- it kills innovation and creativity. As studios have sought to maximize financial performance, they have inadvertently killed the creative engine (storytelling) to the degree that cable TV, not film, is where the best content and shows are to be found. In other words, high costs mean high stakes, and high stakes breed risk aversion. Risk aversion foments a dumbing down, or creative conservatism about which pictures get the green light. The result-- lots of lesser (not low) cost movies that no one goes to see. In short, studios have lost the passion for their art, and in doing so, have lost their connection to their customers.

To be fair, cost controls have been long overdue. Though star-power has a direct impact on gate ( we love to watch our favorite stars ), the cost and terms of the contracts themselves are not bearable given the low yield. Flat out-- stars are paid too much money for the most part, and their high cost has driven the studios toward conservatism and risk management, rather than continuing to tell great stories (and sell tickets).

So, is this the deathknell for Hollywood? No. It's still the bastion of talent and creativity in the western world. Will the studios rise again once business economics and creative forces re-establish level ground and prosper again? Some will, some will not. The ones that will will bring the realities of cost into alignment with the need to tell great stories. Thankfully, armies of creatives continue to arrive, ready to work at lower cost to showcase their talents. For a proxy, look at the stuff being created and published online right now-- some good web serials with $1,500 budgets per episode! There is great talent and passion among many writers, directors and performers who want to tell a great story and work hard. The studios that will continue to languish will be the ones caught up in their unit cost analyses who fail to regard the passion that fuels the success of filmmaking.

So, let's net it out: success will return to Hollywood once again when the gutted creative process and talent is re-established at a bearable cost. And it will be on the shoulders of the creatives, not the accountants, that a return to greatness is achieved.

Observations from the Twittersphere

Here are a few of my observations after a couple of months of using Twitter , the popular microblogging platform. Overall, I enjoy using the service and see lots of value, but it's not without a caveat or two. 

Likes:

1) Twitter is a great way to discover. It's a continuous feed of thoughts, observations, information, conjecture, humor, debate, and yes a whole lot of "I'm tired/I'm eating/had a bad day" content, fed from people of all types across the globe. It's like Stumbleupon and del.i.cio.us. shared services in that you can see what everyone is thinking, talking and interacting about. I find it is especially helpful for discovering new ideas in media, marketing, and technology. Tweeters like @GuyKawasaki, @LoicLemur, @Scoble, @KaraSwisher, and Hugh Macleod (@gapingvoid)deliver lots of compelling ideas and information.

Recently, I joined Blip, the social DJ and music service that feeds the tweet stream with artists and songs. As a result, I have discovered and rediscovered great music (like Ulrich Schauss that I can't quit playing), and it's a great way to get a pulse on where other Twits mindsets are at the moment.

2) Twitter forces communication efficiency. Some see this as a further decline of the principles of Strunk and White, but I find it helps immensely in getting to the point. In fact, a twitter post plus an abbreviated link (www.tinyurl.com) can communicate a lot of information in two sentences.

3) Twitter keeps me up to date on world events. Because Twittter is a continuous feed of information from across the globe, it instanly reflects up to date information on world events. Great recent examples include the US Air jet landing in the Hudson, and passage of the Stimulus package, where Twitterers delivered the story before mainstream media even knew what happened.

4) Twitterers are a community. By choosing to follow other Twitterers, you are joining the feed of their information and attaching yourself to thoughts and POVs coming thru the Tweetstream. This information flow offers a means for all to be seen and heard by their followers and through re-tweeting (repeating posts), this flow can be shared with other Twitter follower bases at the click of a mouse. Just yesterday, a story broke that Virginia political coup was quashed by the discovery and rapid Tweet outpouring among legislators involved. To wit, Twitterers acted as a community to change an important outcome.

5) Twitter gives everyone a voice. This opens the door to all sorts of self expression and information sharing. And, as a democracy, the Twitterati have the power in their hands to decide who they listen to: don't like the topic, flow, debate or diatribe? Simply hit "remove" and the offending tweet stream is gone.

Like all great tools, there are flaws and challenges too. Here are a couple of dislikes of mine:

1) Obsession with followers. Many Twitterers focus too much energy on racking up followers. No doubt, a large follower base has lots of benefits, particularly where connection and influence relate to business opportunities. However, obsessing over followers rears its head hourly, with Twitterers counting and publishing numbers like a Jerry Lewis Telethon. The irony of course is that self-obsession is supposedly a no-no with the Service. In other words, influence and followers come from catering to the needs of your following, and most don't care about your scorecard. I have unfollowed several thoughtful folk who's obsession with follower numbers made their tweetstream of little value.

2) Follower beware. Unlike other social networks like Facebook and Linkedin, Twitter provides only a tiny sliver of profile info-- a photo, self description, and user-defined URL to a website outside the service. This means that you have to do some work if you want to discover who you are following (or who is following you). And if you don't do the work, you expose yourself to interaction and dialogue with people that you can not vet. For example, a dustup occured over a Twitterer with 32K followers, who was convicted in the State of Texas for internet fraud (fines exceeding $1mm). Because he was an aggressive find and follower, he attracted many follow backs, thanks to everyone's vanity gene. Had they taken a moment to discover-- "who is this?" -- many would have made a better decision.

3) Twitter addiction. Twitter is a fascinating service in that you are tapping into the flow of thoughts and ideas, and you have the means to interact with just a few keystrokes. Because this flow is non-stop, and because you can be seen and heard, it's easy to fall prey to obsessive Tweeting. In fact, many tweets reflect status updates of the like: "time for bed, going for a walk, need to hit the gym, etc" followed closely by "still tweeting, took my iPhone on my walk, and missed the gym today." I've struggled with this myself from time to time.

4) Spurious Tweets. As I noted earlier, Twitter is an open community and anyone can join. Just as with other areas of the net, all the vices of man (particularly porn) have found their way to Twitter. When setting up a followers list for my wife's swimwear business, I discovered a whole "call girl" community on Twitter--- accounts with provacative pictures, profiles and a permission-only tweet stream. Again, due to the democracy of Twitter, no one is forced to follow or accept followers that they do not want. However, if you don't do the work, you don't really know who you are talking with.

So there you have it. I'm going to continue my discovery and use of the service and will share more thoughts in a subsequent post.

Drake

The Void in VOD

Working with a client who's producing great content ideally matched for video on demand (VOD) on cable. It's sort of a mash up of long and short form content built for music lovers and consumers.

Surveys, great recoveries, and customer loyalty

On the heels of my LA trip this week, I promptly received a "can you take a moment" email from the hotel where I stayed, asking if i would fill out a satisfaction survey. Like most, my initial reaction was to blow it off-- I don't have the time, etc. But since I like the hotel, and had some feedback (dead batteries in remotes for AC, TV, DVD, etc), I decided to fill it out. Took only a few minutes online.

About an hour after submitting my response, I received an email apology acknowledging my concerns and a complimentary upgrade certificate for next stay. Now, the proof in the pudding will be if on my next trip, the room, remotes, etc are up to snuff. Yet, I feel like a new sense of loyalty toward the hotel at this moment because they listened, and yes because I got a freebie. It's mostly due to the appearance that they listen, and correct (Recover) from unsatisfactory service. Always a great lesson-- it is at the moment that you take negative feedback and react to correct that you turn grazers into loyal customers.

I started to think about how many times people blow off surveys -- don't have the time-- and how they deny themselves the chance to be seen and heard, and the opportunity for a benefit. In fact, I'm starting to believe that it happens so often that folks who take the time to be seen and heard in a survey will get a benefit 100% of the time.

It happened that last year, I popped into a Tully's in my office building for my customary cup of coffee. The baristas handed me a card and asked me to go online and give them a good review. They are a good crew, so why not. Took two minutes. About a month later, i get a call "It's Homer from corporate at Tullys......" (Me: "Make it quick." I figured-- sales pitch). "Uh, well, since you filled out our survey, you were chosen at random and have won $1,000 worth of Tully's lattes." Holy sh-t, that's a nice surprise, all for a two minute online survey! They earned my loyalty for the rest of the year (have since moved my office) and I have enjoyed those free lattes!

So, to the marketers-- keep em coming. I am not one to be short on opinions! To everyone else-- take time to respond if you care. You will be surprised.

The numbers are in-- G1 is a success

Silicon Alley Insider reports that G1 sales are strong. As I noted in earlier missives to Steve and regarding the power of Android, a services-optimized phone will make the price approach zero.

And for you Apple fanboys, cooing that iPhone hit a million sold in 74 days, note that G1 is succeeding and will hit 1mm phones in less than 120 days, in the midst of crapiest economy in a hundred years! Go you little 'droid, you!

Cooking Mama: A Brand Getting it Right

Great story on the net this am about Cooking Mama, a video game with a virtual chef, and the attack parody game launched by PETA in protest of meat recipes in the game. In the end, the game's publisher demonstrates exemplary brand authenticiy in their even handed, measured response.

Cooking Mama has already sold more than a million units, pretty substantial for a small publisher. This week, PETA launched an attack on the latest release of the game by creating their own microsite and casual game: Cooking Mama: Cooking Mama Kills Animals. Their hope was and is to sway gamers away from eating meat by using a game parody to lampoon Cooking Mama. In effect, they attacked the game publisher to get their point across.

While more elaborate that throwing blood on fur coats, PETA consistently bares their claws when taking on issues and targets. What's disappointing but not unexpected is that PETA did not contact Majestic with their gripes ahead of launching the microsite and the knife-wielding Mama.

Here's what's interesting: In a great display of brand authenticity, Majestic took the high road in their response to this unprovoked aattack by PETA. Instead of calling their lawyers, seeking injunctive relief, etc, Majestic issued a statement thanking PETA for the publicity, and took the opportunity to highlight Cooking Mama's vegetarian and meat alternative recipes included in the game. Sure, it's reasonable since Mama is a loveable and presumably not-litigious chef in the kitchen. But how many companies can you recall that have shown similar grace under pressure, and behaved so consistently with their customer's perception of them? Given the dollars involved, and the brand character that companies wish they had, most courts are full of lawsuits, countersuits etc over brand squabbles. Obama showed us recently that brand authenticity is living authentically, and it pays huges dividends when you do so.

In an upcoming post, I'll revisit the world of Roomba, the hackable robot vacuum that was one of the earliest and coolest examples of brands behaving consistently with their image.

In the meantime, you'd be happy to know that Cooking Mama has come through this storm looking like a gem. PETA has now issued a statement saying that Cooking Mama has engaged in a fair dialogue with them and will release a vegan title. Can I get a group hug, anyone?

The brighter side of an economy gone to the dogs...

PetsMart (PETM) has seen their stock take a huge beating-- down over 50%-- in the last two months. Looks like lots of debate over the menace of Walmart, the recession-proof consumer in pet supplies, and whether anything is a screaming buy in the market right now.

But, stock picks aside, UStream is serving up a great expansion idea (and simple application of digital media) that would be dynamite for the folks over at PetsMart. With their 24 X 7 live streaming puppy cam, UStream is garnering upwards of 30K simultaneous viewers eager to watch the minute to minute lives of 6 awfully cute Shiba Inu puppies. I would love to see the data uniques, time spent on the site and the numbers of return visitors. I bet they are awesome.

The streamcast is available on UStream and via embedded players all around the net, and folks appear to really like watching the pups. If I were on the marketing team over at PetsMart, I would move ASAP to get kittycams, puppycams, boacams, hamstercams, etc set up in my stores! Talk about great branded content! Imagine how many consumers would love to watch the animals, possibly find one to bring home, see the toys they play with and so on. At a minimum, viewers can satisfy their interest in  cute furry animals at minimal (no) cost, and PetsMart builds their brand relationship to boot. In effect, PetsMart would become the host of the conversation that their consumers demand-- where can I see puppies and kittens in action, doing what they do? This is a simple yet powerful example of how PetsMart could capture sincere interest and convert it into an effective sponsorship opportunity.

Now if you will excuse me, I have to get back to the pups; they are stacked like cordwood in their bed for an afternoon nap.