Target Marketing -- Full Sterne Ahead- November 1998

Sterne Measures
Keep tabs on events & the mind of Jim Sterne by subscribing:

unsubscribe instructions

Full Sterne Ahead

by Jim Sterne

November, 1998

Full Sterne Ahead contains the mostly monthly musings of Jim Sterne, author, speaker, and Web marketing consultant to business and industry.

------- ------- ------- ------- ------- ------- -------

Welcome to the Full Sterne Ahead newsletter for November, 1998.

This edition opens with When Will They Ever Learn? Which points the fickle finger of fate at those who should have spent more time in class at the Don't Try This At Work School of Marketing. This time -- a reminder that e-mail newsletters are not for the technically challenged. Today's Resource of Note is a site that keeps up with the number of people online and from where they log in. This time around My In Box holds another one of those things that makes you wonder. In the While I Was Out section, I report from the front lines of another Tom Peters presentation. What's The Big Idea? Every now and then the door to this dark and chilly refrigerator of a brain of mine has its door opened and a light bulb goes on. This month's idea is the need for a new executive level position at your company.
------- ------- ------- ------- ------- ------- -------

WHEN WILL THEY EVER LEARN?

As Omar Ahmad at Netscape likes to say at the
beginning of his presentations: YMMVPDOCCAWYH.
(Your mileage may vary, professional driver on a
closed course, always wear your helmet.)

Yours truly forgot my helmet *and* my seatbelt
when I unleashed Full Sterne Ahead last month
with it's inaugural issue.

To those who received three copies and wrote to
tell me about it, I have already said:

   Yes -- I am a complete idiot.
   Yes -- I have broccoli for brains.
   Yes -- I'm so sorry my teeth are wearing down from the
            gnashing.
   No -- it won't happen again.

To that, I now add -- I owe you lunch.  Anybody that's willing
to take the time to privately point out my failings deserves
a serious 'thank you'.

For instance, Ann Handley from The ClickZ Network said
she liked my inaugural Full Sterne Ahead. But, "under
Resource of Note, you said: I come across a lot of just plane
good stuff online.... Should be PLAIN."

She didn't buy my retort about making a high-altitude
airline jape. Where would you like to have lunch, Ann?

To those who quietly smiled, shook your heads and
thought, "Sterne... what a loser," but refrained from
telling me I'm a doofus... thank you for sparing me.

To those who wrote to unsubscribe, I don't blame you
but you'll never know it. When I promise to never darken
your e-mail box again -- I mean it. None of this "I'm so
sorry you felt compelled to unsubscribe -- Would you please
answer a few questions" stuff from me. You want out?
You got it. No questions asked.
------- ------- ------- ------- ------- ------- -------

RESOURCE OF NOTE
----------------
I come across a lot of just plain good stuff online.
Here's another one you should know about: Nua

You can call them Nua.com, you can call them Nua.net,
you can even call them Nua.ie. But once you've seen what
they've got, you'll be calling them often.

Nua is an Irish Web company that came up with a way to
get people to their Web site over and over: they publish
Web growth statistics. Wait! Don't hit the delete key
just yet. This site publishes *lots* of Web statistics.

They keep their eyes on the numbers other folks produce and
put them all in one place. My favorite is the 'How Many
Online?' page that shows a global total, then lets you
drill down by region and, where available, by country.

Somebody asks you how many are online in Estonia? Now you
know where to look.

They also offer up blurbs about and links to current Web
population pronouncements. You know -- those headlines that
state, "Flight Attendants Buy More Shoes Than Routers Online."
Fun stuff. And well worth a bookmark.

Oh -- and let's not forget their newsletter. They describe
it thusly:

   Whether you are striving for competitive advantage or
   struggling just to stay in the game, The Clickonomist
   is in tune with your needs and challenges. Learn how
   to understand the Internet and transform your business
   out of the industrial past and into the digital future.

Maybe a bit heavy-handed, but you just have to read any
article entitled "The Art Of The Relationship" that starts out:

   The Times newspaper in London wrote some years back;
   'The incessant witless repetition of advertisers' moron-
   fodder has become so much a part of life that, if we are
   not careful, we forget to be insulted by it.'
------- ------- ------- ------- ------- ------- -------

MY IN-BOX

People have this habit of sending me stuff because they
think I'll be interested. The vast majority is stuff
they assume will be of interest to millions of others
on the e-mail list they bought. But sometimes what I
get is beyond belief.

I received a newsletter I vaguely remembered signing
up for. It was huge -- at first I thought it was an
attachment of something like the computer-smashing
video or the 'two years of data lost' tech support phone
call. Nope... just text.

It might have been of value to lots of other people, but
I decided it wasn't for me. The first issue said there
would be three more coming. I didn't want them, so I
thought I'd simply unsubscribe.

After reading the entire document *and* the associated
Web site, I wrote the following:

   Greetings boys and girls!
   Today's lesson is brought to you by the letter "U".

   That's "U" as in "Unsubscribe".
   ...
   Yes, I'd like to unsubscribe from your newsletter.
   But gosh, boys and girls, there don't seem to be
   any instructions on how to do that anywhere in your
   entire **93k** message.

   A quick review of netiquette tells us that all good
   netizens who send out subscription messages, should
   include ways for people to get off the list. That way
   they won't be forced to receive large, fluffy files
   when, say, dialing in at hotel rates while traveling
   in New Delhi.

   OK, now -boys and girls. Everybody who understands this
   little bit of Internet culture, raise your hands!

   Oh that's *very* good! All the other children will be
   so happy.

   Thank you for your attention and for not sending
   anything else to my e-mail box ever again.
   ...
   The above message was brought to you by letter "U".

Snide? You bet -- sometimes I just feel that way.
Imagine my surprise when I actually got a reply:

     You have been taken off our list.

     One of our sales reps called and you OK'd our
     sending these newsletters on a trial basis.
     He then called you 4 times to see if you were
     interested in subscribing.

This was true. He left four voice-mails asking me
for money. So much for a "free trial".

     Over 40,000 executives in the computer industry
     pay to get our newsletters. Obviously you do not
     want to be included. A return phone call or e-mail
     reply would have ended this trial which you had
     agreed to and saved you a lot of energy.

     We hope that you may change your opinion in the future.

After staring open-mouthed at my screen for a few
minutes, I could only respond:

   And which part of...

    "Thank you for your attention and for not sending
    anything else to my e-mail box ever again."

   ...did you not understand?

Two weeks later, I got the second issue.
------- ------- ------- ------- ------- ------- -------

WHILE I WAS OUT

I'm the kind of guy the airlines love because I'm on
a plane a couple of times a week. Since the last Full
Sterne Ahead, I've been to Denver, Miami, Phoenix,
San Juan, Orlando, Rochester and Kenosha. While San Juan
is a beautiful spot and bouncing back after Hurricane
Georges, Orlando and Rochester were the most interesting.

In Orlando, I saw Tom Peters in action again, and in
Rochester I saw one of the world's best organized
corporate Web teams at Kodak.

Tom Peters started the business guru industry with "In Search of Excellence". He continues to earn his standing as the guy at the top of the seminar ladder. If you get the chance to see him -- do so. Tom's themes are the same (destroy your organization and rebuild it before your competitors do, best practices are only good for mummifying processes, women are the fastest growing and most powerful force in industry, old folks are the fastest growing market segment ever). But this year Tom discovered the Internet.

The Internet will change the world? Given. The Internet
will cause the mighty to fall? Old news. The Internet
is a bubbling cauldron of the best and the brightest?
That's the important bit.

Tom is still happy to talk about the chutzpah of Federal
Express, the customer service dedication of SAS, and
the companies who put the customer first in general.
But when it comes to innovation and the ability to
move fast, he is focused on the Web.

He says if you want bright thinking and cutting edge
service models, look to Yahoo, Cisco, Amazon, and every
the other Web company. Why? Because they have to reinvent
themselves every day.

You know that. I know that. But the news here is that
Tom Peters was in Orlando, Florida pounding this idea
into the heads of more than a thousand customer service
middle managers from boring old companies from all over
the world.

The Web is the standard that today's premier business
guru turn to as an example of focus on the customer and
the ability to stay out of a rut. It's your job to make
sure it stays that way.
-------

I happily flew from the warmth of Orlando to the blowing
cold of Rochester, New York to swap smarts with the
people who are taking pictures... further. That's Kodak's
tag line, and it's in keeping with their whole Web philosophy.
(Compare that to another Rochester company which still
refers to itself as The Document Company. Can you spell
railroad vs. transportation?)

Kodak has a central Web organization that provides
technical support, server management, content management,
and e-commerce functionality, along with look-and-feel
and navigational guidelines and supervision. They understand
that responsibility for content falls on individual business
units and product managers. They understand that budgets
for the Web must be dispersed throughout the corporation.
They understand that each product appeals to a different
audience which will respond to different types of content.

But they also understand that their Web site is about the
people who visit it. It must provide value to different
constituents, and it must present a united front, a common
interface and a single brand at the same time.

Oh -- and it's a lot of fun to go play with your pictures
at www.kodak.com too.
------- ------- ------- ------- ------- ------- -------

THE BIG IDEA

Sometimes the clouds part and I can see a little further
than usual. Sometimes the fog is so thick I can barely
see my hand in front of my face. The tricky part is telling
the difference. The Big Idea this time has to do with the
need for whole new executive-level position in today's
forward-thinking company.

In the beginning, the technical team in the Information Systems (IS) department discovered the Internet. Six months later, the marketing department discovered the Internet and realized to its horror that the IS department had been representing the company online for the past six months. Engineers as corporate image
makers? Yikes!

There has been a tenuous relationship between the two
ever since. Who is in charge? Who controls the destiny
of the Web site?

What happens when your industry's biggest trade journal
'forgets' the embargo date and publishes your new
product announcement a week early? Marketing goes
to IS and says, "This *has* to go up tonight! We're
getting pounded on the phones by people looking for
content on our site!"

"But," sputters the IS representative, "you told us we
had another week to spell-check the content, verify all
the links, test the CGI scripts and stress test the
database. We haven't done any of that yet."

"So how long will it take?" asks marketing.

"It'll only take two days, but we have this payroll
problem that has all our attention right now and
our biggest customer is coming in tomorrow to inspect
our Y2K compliance," counters IS.

"So today's Wednesday. That means we could have it
up over the weekend, right?"

"Only if it's OK with you that nobody gets a paycheck
on Friday."

The problem escalates when both sides realize the other
will not budge, and neither has the power to call the shot.
Soon, the head of IS and the head of marketing are avoiding
each others' voice mails. Yes... there are unsupervised minors
at all levels of corporate America.

In today's world the only one who can solve a dispute between
IS and marketing is the CEO and that's the problem. No offence
to the business leaders of the world, but the Web is just too
complex an animal for CEO's to fathom.

IS handles the care, feeding, currying, and veterinary concerns of the beast, while marketing focuses on its training, socialization and psychological well-. That represents a huge amount of knowledge and the CEO needs to stay on top of running the whole damn zoo.

So what's the solution?

I call for a new position at the highest levels of
corporate America. The Chief Web Officer. Base the pay
on the money saved and the money earned via the Web.
This is the person who can hold the visionary torch, set
the standards, and make the decisions that effect multiple
departments.

There are signs that mine may not be a lone voice in the
wilderness.

At the end of a worrisome meeting of senior executives
at a multi-billion dollar client of mine, the CIO pleaded
for the immediate establishment of a committee to take
control of what had been dispersed, disorganized, and
indiscriminate Web development efforts. At the end of
the table, the CEO snorted and said, "How about we just
pick two people and empower them to take control of this
mess and make some decisions!"

I stood up from my chair and applauded.
------- ------- ------- ------- ------- ------- -------

How about you?
I'm interested in what is on *your* mind. What issues are
you facing these days? Drop me a line.
------- ------- ------- ------- ------- ------- -------

This newsletter is going to be better if it reaches more
people. You can help. The Net is a powerful word-of-mouth
mechanism, so if you know somebody who might like to be on
the receiving end, please point them to www.targeting.com.
------- ------- ------- ------- ------- ------- -------

Full Sterne Ahead contains the mostly monthly musings of
Jim Sterne, author, speaker, and Web marketing consultant
to business and industry.

Target Marketing
211 E. Victoria St., Suite E
Santa Barbara, CA 93101
+1 (805) 965-3184 phone
+1 (805) 965-8687 fax

www.targeting.com