No One Makes it Alone – NO ONE.

Ninja Squirrles Cooperating

Reading Gladwell‘s book Outliers, and this quote grabbed my attention.

He’d had to make his way alone, and no one — not rock stars, not professional athletes, not software billionaires, and not even geniuses — ever makes it alone.

I have always disliked the phrase “self made man” because in my experience I have never met one. Ever. We have this vision of a Galt-esque intellectual warrior who single handedly drives to success. And while this archetype may exist, they don’t achieve this success without innumerable amounts of assistance from people.

So the next time you hear someone say they are “self made”. Or a friend describe someone as a “self made man”. Please call BS. And buy them a copy of Outliers.

The photo? Two squirrels cooperating by the vision of the artist Elaine Bradford.

New Orleans River Boat in the Morning

New Orleans River Boat in the Fog

Merry Christmas Eve y’all.

In Defense of a Personal Brand – I Rename this Blog

futbol in a vineyard

Technically I specialize in online marketing. Hence the name of our firm is Schipul – The Web Marketing Company. So it is funny that I am just now (finally?) updating my blog away from www.brandtobedetermined.com to eschipul.com to be consistent with my current personal brand. It is funny, but it is not without precedent. I have made more than my fair share of branding mistakes.

In fact “Schipul” as the name of the company was an accident. It was simply that I couldn’t come up with a brand name that day, used my last name for the DBA paperwork, and figured I would change it later. Well, that never happened.

Being a fan of Ries and Trout’s Positioning, there are some good and bad things about the “Schipul” brand name. But it works. And if it takes 10 years to build a brand, we are 11 years in with a great reputation. Thanks to our clients. To a community of people that help us! And thanks to a consistent brand promise.

What is different about a personal brand in my observation is that it is a bit unfair. For example, companies were forced with the advent of the Internet to come up with a globally unique brand for the first time ever. For the first time ever. And it turned out there were a number of companies working in different geographical areas, or specialties, with the same name. ACME Brick versus ACME Medical. And there was only one “ACME.com”. You had to reserve it first.

What is different about personal brands is that you CAN NOT RESERVE IT. You must defend it. A new social software site arrives and there can be only one Cosmopolitician. Someone else forced Monica to use a different personal brand of Metropolitician on flickr. This makes me crazy, but there is no global trademark method for personal branding. And if there were, WTO or whoever would screw it up.

For the rest of us, consumers of personal brands to simplify our lives, we need personal brands consistent. We don’t want to have to figure out that Joe is really John is really Bill on different sites. We extend privilege to personal brands that we recognize. If confused, we walk away, or at least hesitate.

This is an unfair standard for individuals with no marketing training. Forced to globally defend unique personal brands without even the ability to reserve them. That is harsh. But there it is. That is personal branding in a global economy.

That weight led me to finally give up on BTBD and go with “eschipul” even for my blog name. Knowing full well that it will be confused with “corporate me” which is “schipul”. But I can defend “eschipul” given the only other “Ed Schipul” has long since passed away.

That image? It’s the very first photo on my flickr stream from 2006. My very first blog post from 2005 is somehow just gone. It was a rant on the government response to Katrina. Its just gone. So I have to celebrate the very first flickr upload. The beginning of the development of my photography personal brand. Funny how it all works out.

Now if you’ll excuse me I have to go spend countless hours claiming my blog on Technorati, adding SEO plug ins to wordpress, configuring Google analytics, getting my twitter and flickr badges working. And then I’ll tell all the newbies that “blogging is easy and fun!”

PS. No, I’m not a cynical generation X’er. Why do you ask?

How does a young person get a job in advertising or PR in a recession?

I was one of three panelists for a talk with AAF-HIMA Houston a few weeks ago. My PPT slides are posted. Each presenter only had 10 minutes, which is a rough format, but it did force me to distill the content down. Two slides with recommendations for individuals and agencies to get through the recession are:

1. What can I, the employee or job seeker, do?
   1. Build your personal brand
   2. Participate in social networks
   3. Stay close to billable work
   4. Be humble (arrogant people suck)
2. What can my agency do?
   1. Relationships – build and maintain (hint – see social networks above)
   2. Recurring revenue – focus on recurring
   3. Retrain, retool and recruit (biggest weakness of the old slow agencies)
   4. Get rid of dead weight NOW
   5. Charge for creative (most hopefully already do this)

After that talk I received numerous emails from young people in the audience looking for employment. This is ok initiative, although it is noted that they all said “what do I do?” instead of “here is my plan, do you think this will work?”. The difference again being one of initiative, but I’ll leave that for another blog post. So some advice with candor.

How does a young person get a job in advertising or PR in a recession?

1. Network – yes Dorothy when times are tough it really does matter who you know. But right now with social media and being active in arts and non-profits you have NO EXCUSE not to know the right people. So drop that excuse.
2. Avoid obvious errors. One email I received had a typo in the subject line. See this previous post on an email I received from a brilliant job seeker once.
3. Experience – get some. In a recession the negotiating power is to the employer and people ALWAYS learn through experience. So you almost always favor the experienced. How do you get experience?
   1. Internships – the most obvious
   2. Internships – design your own. Contact your church, present an outline of your “custom designed three week internship”. Odds are they will say no, but at least try. Get off your duff and try it.
   3. Arts and Non Profits – they always need free labor. Again, make it easy for them to say yes by doing the legwork.
   4. Charities – donate your time over the holidays, anything, just somehow focus on skills where you want employment.
4. Seek referrals - many of our best employees come from referrals. So it doesn’t hurt to meet people who work where you want to work. Plus you might find out they are jerks and you don’t want to work there. Or it may reinforce a positive impression. But again, show some initiative.
5. Do your homework – the fastest way out of an interview if you get one is to not have done your homework on the company you are applying with.
6. Send your resume anyway – even with no job listings, you can submit. Ideally through a friend who works there and can vouch for you. There probably aren’t any openings, but why not try?
7. Submit your resume to the right person – For example, at our firm I am usually NOT the right person. Find the RIGHT person and submit to them. If you know a principal at the agency do a “cc” if you want, but sending it to the right person is critical. Do your homework.
8. Resubmit your resume – companies have to have an applicant
   tracking system or they won’t keep the resumes. (hint – few have ATS
   systems) HR lawyers tell companies not to retain unless they are
   retaining all resumes and are indeed looking at them. So most people
   will just delete the resumes after filling a position. Yes really. So
   don’t think once you are in “the database” at an agency you will be
   considered in the future. It just isn’t so.
9. Lose the attitude – it worked in HS, maybe in your Greek, but a bit of deference is always required when working with clients. You can be humble and be a bad-ass. In fact most REAL bad-ass creatives I know are actually quite humble in person. They are SO good, they let their work speak for them. Find these people and learn from them.
10. Don’t be too polished – it makes you look untrustworthy. If your facebook profile (you do have one right?) looks like Mr. Clean worked it over, well its pretty obvious you’re a poser, right? Just sayin’. I can watch paint dry if I am looking for excitement, so why work with you?
11. Do NOT say “I’m not good at math” – duh, advertising definitely requires basic math. I’m not talking about diffy-q, but come on. If you can’t reconcile media buying you make yourself sound like a fool. This burns a lot of applicants IMHO.
12. Build your personal brand – facebook? yes. Twitter? yes. Blogging, Flickr, myspace, delicious, etc definitely consider. For example at our company these are huge advantages, but maybe not at other companies. Again – do your research.
13. You’ve got 7 Seconds to make a first impression – read it.
14. Learn about blogging – Katie has a great “blogging for business” presentation on slideshare.
15. Realize details, large and small, are the same – if you can’t remember to clean the coffee pot it is the same as saying “hey, I’ll fly to Tokyo and then oversleep past the big meeting”. Yes really, basic human psychology. So watch out for those simple questions because it is an experienced interviewer’s way of asking if you are careless.
16. Know where you are going – If you don’t know where you want to be in two years, and you are a millenial, you are saying you are floating with the wind. Why on earth would you hire someone drifting, train them, only to hvae them then leave to fish off the coast of Alaska? I mean that person makes an awesome and interesting friend, but perhaps a less than ideal person to invest 20k training in. Right? Candor is good. Find out where you are going.
17. Read books – life is too short to not learn from others who have gone before you. Be smart – read. Nuf said.
18. Don’t look like a job hopper – I hear what Penelope says about job hopping. I also know squirrels can run on power lines. But like the Electric Company says YOU ARE NOT A SQUIRREL! On the flip side, she has some good news for young job searchers here.
19. Buy people lunch or a beer - one of the joys of being a manager, or a ceo, is that you always get the tab. Offer to buy someone lunch and you invoke the law of reciprocation. Yes, spend the money.  (pet peeve – people you KNOW have savings who say “I don’t have any money” because we call this a “lie”. Sheesh. Say “not in my budget” instead.)

Well I rambled a bit. Many of those are clearly not recession or advertising agency specific. But that is what came to mind this afternoon on November 28th 2008. Good luck with your job search!

American Auto Industry MUST Restructure

A local auto dealer has an opinion piece in the Chronicle titled "Extend bridge loan to GM or the country will suffer" in support of an auto bailout. General Motors is using Paulson scare tactics with their "GM Facts and Fiction – GM Tells It Like It Is" site. From a PR perspective they lose ALL authenticity when they state things like:

Really? Toyotoa and Honda who make cars profitably in the US will shut down as well? You lose ALL credibility taking such extreme positions. The Chron also has a great counterpoint on letting the automakers fail.

One article I read recently stated "US Auto Makers don't have a problem, US Owned Auto Makers have a problem." This is true.

The elephants in the room? Leadership and Labor. Labor says they have ruled out helping with the current crisis. If they won't even help themselves, why should we?

Here is the thing. High wages, 100% paid health benefits and a pension are things that the rest of America does NOT get. To ask American's to pay for your health care and pension is effectively using our tax dollars for your socialized benefits. Great for them, but not for my kids. The stats are painful:

The counter point from a left leaning blog states on unions and auto manufacturer woes:

Did you see it? The part where they say "new auto employees". Employees who have been there a long time, the majority of them, still receive the $72 an hour in wages and benefits. UAW remains in denial – your success is tied directly to the success of the company.

How do we SOLVE the problem of the US Auto Manufacturers. A common sense blueprint:

1. Bankruptcy Reorganization – this is a necessary legal first step.
2. Eliminate the current executive team for the companies with pragmatists.
   1. Clawback provisions for all bonuses given in any year they did not make a profit. The goal of business is to make a profit. If you don't do that you failed. So be accountable.
   2. Renegotiate all management contracts for those you want to keep.
   3. Eliminate golden parachutes – no pay for failure.
3. Replace the UAW leadership which has is not doing the membership any favors.
4. Restructure employee contracts to:
   1. Pay for work only. No more job banks period. You work, you get paid. That's it.
   2. Pensions – reduce valuation on current obligations. New employees on self funded pensions or 401ks with minimum matching. We all know the auto worker pensions is going to roll over to the taxpayers anyway so do it now with as much transparency as possible, but also a lower payout.
   3. Eliminate job security – you have a right to work. And you have a right to lose your job if the company fails (see 2.1 above). This will make employees hold management accountable to innovate. And coincidentally its the deal almost every other worker in America has. We work, we get paid, nothing is guaranteed. Sorry. Life's not fair.
   4. Reduce average pay for ALL employees from $72 to $40 per hour. This brings compensation into line with American workers working for Toyota or Honda in the US.
   5. Employees pay 50% of all healthcare. If an employee does not participate in the expense they have no incentive to minimize costs.
   6. Stop lobbying AGAINST energy independence and higher fuel efficiency vehicles. This position is literally Anti-American. Our bailout dollars to lobbyists arguing against the long term health of our country is completely unacceptable.

Do I want the United States to retain its strong manufacturing base? Absolutely!

I am not against financial assistance of auto manufacturers, but first they must make the hard decisions that every other business makes. The days of CEOs coming in, giving the union everything they want, dancing off with their golden parachutes leaving the next one to "solve the problem" are over. Step up, be accountable, get it done.

Do I understand that unemployed workers are bad? That real families are hurt, that the struggle to find a new job is very difficult and that bankruptcy would irrevocably change the entire landscape of Detroit? Yes. Just as 9-11 changed the world, so too does this change everything. I wish it wasn't the case. But it is. May you live in interesting times.

Solution 1: New Management. New Lower Cost Contracts. No Guarantees. Build Good Cars.

Do that.

The photo? Bob Lutz speaking to the PRSA International Conference. To one question he stated "Bankruptcy is not an option for GM" – sorry Bob, but it is. The GM leadership team has led the company down the path of the unthinkable. And this is what it looks like.