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Top of Mind Thursday Memo Archive
Top of Mind Thursday : June 10, 2021 – Meeting Expectations
As we emerge from pandemic limitations, people are beginning to gravitate to seeing each other in person.
Breakfasts, lunches, dinners, coffee–we now have the chance to see family, friends, and colleagues in the flesh for the first time in over a year. If we’re vaccinated, we can gather in groups–almost like the old days.
But what’s interesting is that in some cases, people don’t want to go back to the old way of doing things–and it’s not from fear of catching the virus. In-person meetings involve planning, dressing up (including pants and shoes!), and travel time–not to mention more calories from all those meals.
After more than a year of avoiding all of this, some of us actually like no commute, no dress-up, no drama events, and that’s not likely to change any time soon.
We’ve watched how people and organizations adapted to being totally virtual, because they had no choice. The next step is to adapt to hybrid situations where some people choose to show up in person, and others use technology to attend from a distance.
Navigating the new landscape will be more complicated and more challenging than operating entirely in the virtual world. The question is how well will we do to manage meeting expectations.
Contact me to find out how you can get heard above the noise–even in a crisis situation.
Check out our marketing thought leadership podcasts and the video trailer for my book, Marketing Above the Noise: Achieve Strategic Advantage with Marketing that Matters.
.
Let us help your business rise to the top.
linda@popky.com
(650) 281-4854
www.leverage2market.com
Top of Mind Thursday : June 3, 2021 – Beating the Odds
In a desperate attempt to get reluctant Americans vaccinated against COVID-19, many locales are creating cash and merchandise prizes to incentivize the holdouts.
This runs the gamut from free food and beer to vacations, cars, and even guns. In California, the newly vaccinated will receive $50 incentive cards and all those in the state who are vaccinated will be entered into a drawing for a $50,000 weekly prize or the grand prize of $1.5 million.
Is this a good use of funds? It looks like the incentives are motivating some people to get vaccinated. Whether it will be enough people to get us over the top on herd immunity is still to be determined.
The decision making process is fascinating. In California, the chance of an individual winning a prize is 2.2 million (much better than winning the lottery!).That’s the upside.
The downside: Without vaccination, the chance of getting severe, even life-threatening, symptoms from a COVID infection is 1 in 6. The chance of getting COVID at all depends on the amount of virus circulating at any given time, and that in turn is dependent on the precautions being taken (like wearing masks) and the preventative measures taken (getting vaccinated).
Yet the slight promise of a big payout is enough to move more people than the fear of severe illness or death. Such is human nature.
It would be great to know that the chance of being more prepared against an event in the future will be increased because of what we’re learning now. But I wouldn’t bet on it.
Contact me to find out how you can get heard above the noise–even in a crisis situation.
Check out our marketing thought leadership podcasts and the video trailer for my book, Marketing Above the Noise: Achieve Strategic Advantage with Marketing that Matters.
.
Let us help your business rise to the top.
linda@popky.com
(650) 281-4854
www.leverage2market.com
Top of Mind Thursday, May 27, 2021: Shuffling the Deck
Last week, AT&T announced it was spinning off its Warner Media division into a company that will merge with Discovery. At about the same time, Amazon spent more than $8 billion to acquire MGM. Disney acquired Lucasfilms and Marvel for $4 billion a piece over 10 years ago and has reaped tremendous benefits from those deals.
AT&T fought a long antitrust battle to buy Time Warner–now, only 2 years later, they’re dumping Warner Media at a discount. Why do some mega deals work and some fizzle out?
Management consultant Peter Drucker said culture eats strategy for lunch. The best laid plans are sidetracked by cultures that are incompatible or create conflict in the workplace. The cultures of HBO, Time Warner, and AT&T were all very different. Putting them under one corporate banner didn’t build the expected synergy.
But you don’t need a big merger to create culture issues. Different functional groups have different cultures and often they don’t mesh well together. There are cultural differences among geographies as well.
Now, there’s another element to consider: how cultures have changed as a result of the pandemic. Some groups have been able to work from home and love it–some don’t. Some have not been able to work remotely and resent those who do. Some businesses, like Delta Airlines, are requiring employees to be vaccinated–some refuse to even ask the question.
Culture exists, whether we acknowledge it or not. The question is are you working to understand yours and to develop a culture that works effectively–or are you ignoring culture at your peril?
It may be the difference between playing a winning hand–or folding early.
Contact me to find out how you can get heard above the noise–even in a crisis situation.
Check out our marketing thought leadership podcasts and the video trailer for my book, Marketing Above the Noise: Achieve Strategic Advantage with Marketing that Matters.
.
Let us help your business rise to the top.
linda@popky.com
(650) 281-4854
www.leverage2market.com
Top of Mind Thursday, May 20, 2021: Clear as Mud
This week, the CDC issued new guidelines for mask wearing, given that more people are vaccinated against COVID-19 and infection/hospitalization rates are down significantly.
This sounds like a good thing. Clarifying when masks are and are not needed should be helpful to all of us. Except in this case, many people are more confused than ever.
The CDC says masks are no longer required indoors and outdoors if you’re vaccinated. Except in some situations where an individual is high risk. And people who aren’t vaccinated must still wear masks.
How will businesses know whether or not someone is vaccinated? There is no “vaccine passport” available. In some places, public health officials are requiring businesses to check vaccinations. In other locations, government is forbidding anyone to ask about an individual’s personal vaccination status.
Some businesses are removing mask requirements totally. Others are relying on the public to be honest about their status and wear masks if they’re not vaccinated. Some organizations, like colleges are also requiring everyone on their campus to be vaccinated, while some stores are requiring everyone present to wear masks.
So are we all clear on what we should do? What if you have children too young to be vaccinated, but about to go back to in-person school? What if you interact with someone who is immunocompromised? What if….
I have no doubt the CDC intended this directive to be helpful. But, as often happens with government mandates, sometimes trying too hard to get to a solution just makes things more complicated.
How often does this happen in your business? The law of unintended consequences says solving one problem without considering the consequences can create or exacerbate another. What are you doing to think through potential solutions to ensure you’ve considered what unexpected results they might trigger?
Clearly, this is something we need to do more often.
Contact me to find out how you can get heard above the noise–even in a crisis situation.
Check out our marketing thought leadership podcasts and the video trailer for my book, Marketing Above the Noise: Achieve Strategic Advantage with Marketing that Matters.
.
Let us help your business rise to the top.
linda@popky.com
(650) 281-4854
www.leverage2market.com