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February 26, 2005
What is happening to job titles?
Flying home from a glorious but entirely blogless vacation in Hawaii, I found cause to reflect on job titles and how they have increasingly become messages themselves and seem to be going through some very strange and interesting contortions in the process. Specifically I found it really interesting, that during the lovely, somewhat cheezy, Aloha- and Mahalo-filled flight preparation video that they referred the in flight staff as "customer experience agents."
Wow. That is a long way from "stewardess" which I understand had to change because of its sexest undertones. But why they move away from "Flight Attendant." Maybe that just wasn't cool or modern or elevated enough for an industry plagued with bankruptcies or near bankruptcy, longer and longer lines, more security issues, strikes, and low wages for attandants/agents or whatever you want to call them. Maybe they read something about CRM and thought they ought to get with it. (By the way, no complaining. I like Hawaiian Air. It's quaint. I like the in-flight entertainment with really cheezy Don Ho style music videos, the friendly "experiments" with inter-Island assigned seating and they generally casual attitude - which makes this title even more incongruous.)
Who was this title change aimed at? Employees? I have long heard of title inflation. In fact an acquaintance once bemoaned the "debasement of the currency" at his former employer with everyone getting promoted to VP and SVP etc. as an employee retention strategy.
Supposedly fun or cute titles are interesting. They seem to arise from an effort to maintain consistency with the brand character. Take a look at the titles of the folks at Cranium. They are a whimsical company so they ought to have whimsical titles, like Richard Tait (co founder and grand poobah) and Whit Alexander (co founder and chief noodler). Seems better than a lot of the other Chief business school buzzword Officer title that were especially en vogue in the late 1990s.
At the same time as all this inflation has gone on, I have noticed another interesting trend. Embracing insults and elevating them into praise. Clearly it used to be an aspersion to be called a geek. But now it is more than cool, it is an important job qualification, a badge of honor and even a branding device.
Geeksquad is the 24 hour computer support "task force" (from Best Buy) that makes being a geek seem as cool as being an FBI agent. For more geek love check out Think Geek, where, to borrow from Crosby Stills Nash and Young, you can "Let Your Geek Flag Fly" (originally "Freak Flag" another instance of embracing an insult - then it was long hair not pocket protectors).
Finally, I leave you with a wonderful site where you can come up with your own "bulls__t" job titles, inflated, distorted or otherwise. Here are some of the ones I generated:
- Senior Paradigm Planner
- Senior Implementation Orchestrator
- Dynamic Communications Coordinator
- Customer Creative Architect
- Future Usability Specialist
- Legacy Directives Technician
Where do I send my resume?
Posted by rich at 03:34 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
February 14, 2005
Vonage running bus and billboard ads
Vonage is running a huge set of bus and billboard signs here right now. It is interesting to watch as they drop their prices from $40 to $25 with a low of $15. We also have seen interest from comcast to enter the same market.
As a play, it will be interesting to see who wins, the access provider or the value-added service. Yahoo is rumored to be doing the same thing.
Posted by rich at 03:20 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
February 11, 2005
If it's in the Economist it must be true
For some time now, I've been telling everyone I know that Robert Scoble has single handedly done more for Microsoft's public image than the all the zillions of dollars I spent on advertising while I was there.
Well now the Economist writes of him as the harbinger of the end of marketing communications as we know it. Actually, it's a very good article. Not only does it highlight the value of "such disarming honesty" but also the rise of the corporate blog. Interesting that "Microsoft's official PR boss will not even comment at all on the subject" while Sun's Jonathan Schwartz says “It's not the end of PR but the end of the old PR department. The clarifying force will be credibility and reputation.”
Finally, they highlight that, in the world of Sarbanes-Oxley, it's probably “only a matter of time” before a serious blogging embarrassment leads to litigation," prompting internal compliance lawyers to cast an eye on their firm's bloggers. I recently gave a talk to the Washington State Bar walking through the ups and downs of our own blogging experience with the playbook and much of the talk turned to this kind of exposure.
Nonetheless, I really hope that Scoble keeps on Scobleizing. It's good for everyone. And I hope that more companies realize that smart people saying the truth is good for them. And besides, he even liked our book ;-)
Posted by johnza at 08:30 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
February 03, 2005
Marketing Fish Tales
Recently heard a great marketing "fish tale". Supposedly at the turn of the century a cannery got stuck with a large amount of white salmon. At the time, canned Salmon was the rage rather than tuna, and pink was it. (Although being in Seattle, I get and love white salmon). It seems that this white salmon was unsellable because it wasn't pink.
So some great marketing person (some say it was PT Barnum) made lemonade out of lemons with the new slogan "guaranteed not go turn pink in the can."
Wow. What a great inversion. Any attribute can become a feature can become a benefit if you go at it from the right angle.
Note: The story has many versions - tuna versus tuna, tuna versus salmon, and salmon versus salmon. (There's even a lobster version out there.)
Posted by johnza at 11:04 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack