Manhattan Marketing Maven

Read With Your Ears

I’ve been wondering why computers aren’t more helpful. Sure, they connect us and perform a bunch of basic tasks, but I expect our programming ability and artificial intelligence skills should be able to help us understand, grasp and connect the dots much better than they do.

Then I came across ReadtheWords.com, an online subscription text-to-speech service has completed a year-long BETA test and emerged with 30,000 registered users. ReadtheWords.commakes it possible for the computer to read the words on the screen – any written material, any words that appear on a computer screen.

The site is aimed at one-third of the o learners,” the people who comprehend better by hearing rather than seeing.

ReadtheWords.comcan upload text documents of up to 80,000 characters, from Word documents, web pages, RSS feeds, PDFs and many other sources. Users have 15 different avatar and speaker choices which include options to vary the reading speed and instantly save, store or e-mail recordings. Optimized for easy use, home page visitors are greeted by a female avatar offering a free test use and a video tutorial.

 

According to founder Michael Ziman. “Text-to-speech is a utility that helps people grasp concepts, improve reading, pronunciation and language skills, follow audio directions, and remember or review critical information gleaned from notes or documents. A third of Americans understand best when they hear something. We have built the site by relying on input from subscribers who want a simple tool for integrating text-to-speech into their lives. We aim to make text-to-speech easy and fun for everyone.” 

 

Using a 3-step model (select a document-select a reader-listen), ReadtheWords.com can turn 1 hour of reading material into verbalized speech in 1 minute. The 15 avatars vocalize texts in US English, UK English, Indian-inflected English, French and Spanish. 

 

Subscribers can save recordings and switch between avatars and languages with a click. They can create MP3 files, save recordings, e-mail recordings, embed recordings on web pages or turn them into instant podcasts. A free downloadable toolbar to enable routine use of ReadtheWords.com is also available.

 

If you are playing around with this over the long Independence Day weekend, paste in the Declaration of Independenceand then punctuate it to alter the pacing of the reading or switch between avatars to get different readings.      

 

ReadtheWords.comis a subscription service But anyone can try the service for free. Its a step toward the higher order value from computers I've been searching for.

 

Using the Right Technology To Land a New Job

The unbridled use of technology can boomerang and reflect badly on a job candidate.

The studied use of technology communicates your skills, your judgment and your suitability for the job. The abuse of technology marks you as arrogant, insensitive or immature. 

How you use technology speaks volumes about your skills, your style and your ability to connect with future employers. The devices you use, when and how you use them and the content of your messages send subtle messages to a prospective employer which can improve … or derail your chances for getting the job.

Here are some tips for using the appropriate technology to get the job.

Mirror the Employer’s Technology Use

If you are interviewing with a “Crackberry” addict, it’s probably okay to send him or her a thank you note or a follow up message using your Blackberry. If the prospective boss is sitting behind an ancient desktop PC and doesn’t seem to get your references to MySpace or IM , it’s not a good bet to flaunt your gadgetry or your online prowess.

Look around the desk and the office for evidence of devices or to discern signals about the employer’s technology sensibility. Almost everyone uses an array of devices to conduct business, but not everybody is happy about it and some managers, usually based on age, resent it. So be careful to identify a manager’s technology use and attitude and mirror their level and intensity in how you use technology to engage them.   

Use Snail Mail for the First Contact

Every HR person and hiring manager already gets too much e-mail and too much SPAM. They are prone to deleting anything they don’t immediately recognize, even if your unsolicited e-mail actually gets through. Administrative assistants are much more discriminating and much more sympathetic than SPAM filters.

Snail mail allows you to leverage the quality of paper, resume design and typefaces—like a printed marketing piece. It empowers you to control the initial impression and differentiate yourself from other candidates. E-mail is filtered. The appearance of your cover letter and resume are subject to settings on the web, the corporate network and on the recipient’s computer. This triple-filtering means there is no guarantee that the HR person or the hiring manager will see what you sent the way you intended to send it.

Postal mail gives you the best chance to shape the initial impression and the best odds of getting your message delivered. And for many recipients, yours will be the only personal mail they actually get that day.

Use E-Mail for Thank You Notes, Follow-Up and Networking

E-mail is acceptable for follow-up communication, especially when you want to send a link to showcase your work or to a relevant article reflecting the tone or the content of your conversation. E-mail is also acceptable for thank you notes.

In some cases, you will be asked to communicate by e-mail. Be careful in constructing the message because e-mails are often scanned or read quickly and they are easily misinterpreted. Many readers pay less than 100% attention and are seeking out the key words or phrases so they miss a nuance or a key point or they might read into something you say and react negatively. There is a growing body of thought that e-mail’s speed affects the way people read and react to messages. This can hurt a job-seeker who doesn’t carefully consider how to frame the message or chooses words haphazardly.

E-mail also is ideal for contacting someone recommended by a member of your network. Put the person’s name in the Subject line (e.g. “Bob Smith Asked Me to Contact You”) to be sure you are not automatically deleted. This is also the preferred format for using business-oriented social networks like LinkedIn to broaden your contacts or to solicit referrals.

Only Use

Mobile

Devices in a Pinch

Most people type fast and badly with their thumbs on Blackberries, Treos and similar devices. The typical mobile message has at least 2 typos in it because most messages are composed in a hurry, on the run or in reaction to an inbound e-mail. And the tone tends to be terse or glib and subject to misinterpretation. If you are negotiating fast and furiously about a potential offer, it’s probably okay to rely on these devices. But if you need to appear thoughtful, insightful or expert, the mobile device undercuts your credibility.

Try Not to Use a Cellular Phone

Everyone has one. Everyone uses them. Sound quality and consistent transmission are iffy. Background noise is ubiquitous. Never do an initial screening interview by cell phone. Don’t do even a cursory interview by cell phone. The interviewer could easily miss words, lose the tone of your voice or not get your emphasis on a critical question. You can not communicate energy or enthusiasm without shouting.

Never make an initial or introductory call on a cell phone. In contrast to home phones and landlines, everyone still perceives their mobile phones as private. It is the ultimate intrusion, the ultimate audio SPAM to make an unsolicited call to a prospective employer on their cell phone. The same holds true for Instant Messaging. It virtually guarantees a negative result.

Remember the Seinfeld notion that only second class communications take place on cell phones. The person you are calling will think, “Does he/she think I’m not worth a real phone call?” Spare yourself and your future employer the trouble. Rely on landlines for formal interviews and formal conversations.

Use your cell phone to set up or change an appointment, to call ahead if you are running late or to get in touch quickly with a recruiter.

Avoid Instant Messaging, Internet Directories and Social Networks

IM is a permission-based concept. People invite others to interrupt them with instant messages on a one-by-one basis, often with great selectivity. Rarely are job candidates invited to use this technology by prospective employers. Seeking out and finding a hiring manager via IM is considered extremely rude and intrusive and should be off limits to job seekers.

And even though the Internet enables you to search out an individual using directory tools or through social networks, it is not acceptable to approach future employers using these tools. This defines the work-life dividing line. Unless someone explicitly invites you to check out their MySpace or Friendster page or contact them through a social network --- don’t.  

For Technology-Enabled On-Demand Marketing -- Outsource

The CMO Council met recently in Monterey, California and focused on technology-enabled on-demand marketing. But for most attendees this notion is either an aspiration or an apparition.

That’s because relatively few marketing organizations have embraced a data-driven sensibility, implemented a functional CRM system or allocated resources to automate and measure marketing activities. In fact, in a survey conducted for the Council, CMOs confess that the lack of customer insight, business knowledge and marketing analytics and measurement are their three greatest weaknesses contributing to the devaluation of the marketing function and the marketing organization within Fortune 1000 companies.

The sands are shifting under their feet but CMOs can’t seem to react fast enough to these seismic events to keep their jobs longer than an average of 23 months.

Why?

Too many CMOs only know what they’ve experienced themselves. Most came up through the risk adverse ranks of corporations or were imported from the big agency world where branding was the only thing that mattered, where print and broadcast were the given pillars in any effort ad where customers were an abstraction and sales were an annoyance. Most have only a superficial understanding of the nuts and bolts of the businesses they are in, don’t get metrics or measurement and bristle at the idea that numbers rather than big ideas or dramatic images can change the game.

Too many CMOs don’t have enough people or the right people to embrace technology and on-demand marketing. Marketers have been systematically eliminated by cost cutting measures and many of the survivors don’t have enough grounding in technology and metrics to make a difference. And even when they adopt technology they rudely discover it takes or diverts people to learn and use the technology before you can realize the benefits In many cases, useful technology and CRM systems don’t get used because there is no time for training, experimentation or gathering content and data necessary to feed the beast..

Too many CMOs still are limited by corporate silos. They don’t control the full range of marketing assets and capabilities, have limited access to financial data and find themselves fighting other units to align with IT, web sites, sales, operations, telemarketing, PR and other functional units that should be deployed as a holistic marketing ecosystem.

So what should CMOs do?

Assuming the objective is to get more for each marketing dollar spent and find ways to sell more things faster, the short answer is …Outsource.

The effective CMO recognizes the limitations on resources and the lingering doubts about marketing in the C suite and will embrace a strategy to assemble the necessary components rather than build them from scratch or aggregate them through empire building. He or she understands that performance – measured by some kind of ROI calculation – becomes the barometer of job security rather than how much everyone loves the new campaign.

The trick then becomes finding the right external partners with the right attitude, the right cost structure and the right tool set. And then, CMOs must find the right lieutenant to efficiently assemble, direct and align the outside players with marketing and sales plans, timetables and existing internal organizations to deliver measurable results.

We are seeing the emergence of these trusted lieutenants, senior Marketing Operations executives, tasked with this job. And they are talking the talk of marketing resource management (MRM) and scouring the landscape for partners, usually not ad agencies that can jump into the fray, deploy expertise and technology quickly without prompting battles with IT or requiring too many additional people to provide liaison.

These emerging marketing companies are the ones to watch for clever innovations, breakthrough technologies and traction in utilizing CRM and other data sources to move forward in automating repetitive marketing functions.

Why We Still Hate Phone Companies

Everyone still hates the phone company. My recent interaction with T-Mobile, validates a common shared ambivalence. Why are telcos so easy to hate? Their arrogance and complete disregard for customers is expressed by their customer service actions.

I signed up for T-Mobile “pay as you go” service after overcoming the shock that Wi-Fi wasn’t free at Starbucks. Beginning the moment after my credit card was processed, the T-Mobile Hotspot network at the Starbucks on East 77th and Lexington got funky. Every 90 seconds it dropped my connection and forced me to log-in again. This went on for the better part of a vente café au lait or until my murmured curses prompted the woman at the next table to acknowledge how spotty the network connection was and how frustrated it made her too.

I e-mailed T-Mobile customer care to complain and demanded a refund for the session. I immediately got an acknowledgement e-mail assigning me a case number (773354) promising real communication within 48 hours.

Two days later I got an e-mail from “Vasha” thanking me for contacting them and apologizing for the inconvenience. So far so good, though what kind of name is Vasha?

By the second sentence, they are laying out reasons why the cnnection might have been so unreliable. But each reason offered implies that the problem was my fault because I might be running a firewall or anti-virus program or because my wireless card driver might not be installed correctly. Rather than just admit that everything isn’t perfect on their network all the time, T-Mobile puts the perfoirmance burden on me.

The implication is that users screw up network performance which probably reflects the
company notion that customers are a necessary evil. What about all the possible reasons a network might not work properly that are network-oriented faults? Would Catherine Zeta-Jones be so quick to blame me for spotty performance? And how come there wasn’t a peep about my refund request?

In a 1-to-1 world, why did I get a one-size-fits-all response designed to get rid of me with faux politeness?

T Mobile, like other telcos, pretends to be infallible, mildly insults the customer who takes the time to interact with them and then wonders why we churn so quickly and why its so hard to create brand advocates.

Whatever happened to the idea that the customer is always right?

Deconstructing Everything

We live in a world of tracks. Any one of us can deconstruct the packaging surrounding our favorite things.

Technology now enables us to buy one track (one song) without suffering through a whole album. We can select the sounds that make us happy and discard the artist’s attempt to try something new, old, borrowed or blue.

And we can build our own packages rather than rely upon marketers and promoters to package content for us. Very soon all our choices will be available for individual selection and combination. The pre-processed, fed-from-above world we once knew will become a giant salad bar free-for-all.

We’ll pick just the stories or just the writers we care about in print, watch only the great episodes of favorite shows, ditch the dreck baked into the compilations that programmers and packagers have foisted upon us in favor of our own podcasts.

Before long anyone will be able to mix their own newspaper, magazine, email newsletter, music, video or audio for use in fixed locations or to take with them. Imagine a world of specially mixed scenes on disk to amuse the kids during your drive to the beach. Or a different mix to get them ready for bed. The only gating factor will be having the time and interest to produce content for yourself.

People 30+ are not used to this process, even though as teenagers we made our own mix tapes using reel-to-reel recorders. But kids (20 and younger) hardly have the tolerance for traditional mixes, like TV networks, newspapers, albums or even DVDs and video games.

They think in segments. They expect tracks. They demand choices. They are incredibly media-savvy and judgmental. They are killers with a remote. They will invest in their own gratification because it’s intuitive, easy and accessible.

This completely changes the media game. We have to think like Billy Joel’s “Piano Man” in units of 3 minutes and 5 seconds max instead of 30 minute sitcoms, 1hour dramas or 2 hour movies. We have to understand that there is no more tolerance for the “boring stuff in the middle” because we have raised a generation that multi-tasks with multimedia and has lighting instincts and highly tuned filters.

As content producers we have to think and act like telemarketers. Sometime in each thirty seconds of conversation we have to “close” for the right to have the next thirty seconds of conversation. If we don’t, we’re tail lights. Similarly we have to conceptualize messages not as a cohesive thirty second spot, but as a string of bytes that can exist independently and hang together for thirty consecutive seconds of meaning.

Tracks make you re-think the whole game.