Seven Steps To Make Golf Better

17th at Mercer West (8 here today)

Today at my local county public golf course, I had one of the best rounds of my life. (Note: I'm really not very good, but 100 was Heady Progress on the course in question.) Drives were straight and true, irons were frequently well-struck, and some of the wedges led to tap-ins. I holed out a bunch of long putts, got lucky a few times, and recovered relatively quickly from the inevitable shaky strokes.

It as all remarkably pleasant, despite a very slow pace of play. If you were judging by the state of the course today, you'd have no idea that golf was in serious decline.

Why? Well, it takes time, especially if the course is crowded. We played as a twosome between foursomes on a crowded course, on a Sunday afternoon, which meant that a round that could have been done in three hours took four and a half. It's pricey, but that's never stopped the game from doing well in the past. It skews badly on the demographics, as the game has always seemed exclusionary, old and classist, what with the enforced fashions and strong male bent. There has been, to date, no New Tiger Woods, so the game has just not sustained the popularity boom seen in the 1990s. Too many courses were made as part of the land / housing boom, for too few lifelong new players, and it's an open question as to whether we're going through a correction or a death spiral.

I think there's a lot that can be done to make the game better, not just for players, but for the areas where the courses are -- and without making the game unrecognizable with oversized holes and other fundamentally rule-busting moves. Here they are in list form.

1) Use the Internet of Things to enforce pace.

It's not hard to track carts with transponders (either driving or push) and get a sense of who is holding up play, and have them get a visit from a ranger. Especially for players who play from tees that aren't at their true levels.

2) Help hackers with beacons. The single most irritating aspect of play as a weak player is trying to find the ball on errant shots, and this should be the kind of thing that technology should be able to fix with a quickness. Wire that up to the cart, and I won't even mind paying more for it, since I'll be saving money on the lost balls that are the current bane of my existence.

3) Dial in for food and beverage. Nothing's more annoying than waiting on a group that is ahead of you as they do business with the beverage service; as always, of course, having other people wait when you do the same thing is fine. If these orders can be sent in and billed to a standing account (say, the same card you used to pay for the round), then the service is no slower than a drive and drop. Plus, no one's fumbling over change.

4) Develop a Web-wide player profile. I play a handful of courses within an hour of my home, and I doubt that I'm a strong outlier in my golfing habits. If my rounds tend to go faster or slower than the 10 to 17 minute per hole speed quoted on most cards, that should show up in my record, so that when you set me up to play at your course, you don't just slot me at the same time as everyone else. Eventually, we might get to the point where everyone's playing without spending so much time waiting.

5) Expand the available time to play. I haven't tried it yet, but a local course to me has offered night golf, with special equipment and holes; it sounds like a blast. I've played on indoor simulators that have gotten better and better, though the putting is still a mess. I'm pretty sure that we'll eventually get to at-home set-ups that allow for realistic play, which might even get to letting you play the course of your choice, with your remote friends, at the hour of your choosing. Virtual also helps fix the next problem, which is...

6) Make this a much more green enterprise. Chopping the use of strong pesticides, using alternate materials in areas where elements aren't local, and using the lay of the land instead of wild modifications, should all be standard operating procedure. It's also a point that should be used when marketing and advertising the course.

7) Use technology to improve the overall golfing experience. Use the tech to give me distance to the green from driving the cart to aid in club selection. (Some clubs do this already; make it the standard.) Give me the option to tune in the game on that cart screen, which would be wildly popular during football season. Have scoring incorporated into the cart tech, so that we're not spending time doing math at the turn, and can have the card e-mailed later. Maybe do shot analysis from beacons, and even selected moments of video capture, with the ability to post to social media, so my friends and family can see the 30-footer I holed out from the fringe today.

It's not as if there isn't the money to do this, an audience that says no to technology, or any reason to just keep doing things the way we've been doing them. The future of the game is at stake. Use the tech to secure it.

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If you like or share this column, it's as good as a gimme putt. Feel free to also connect with me on LinkedIn, email me at davidlmountain at gmail dot com, or visit our agency. We offer copywriting, direction and strategy, along with design, illustration, photography, coding and hosting. The RFPs are always free. Hope to hear from you soon.

Business lessons from fantasy football

This Year's Board

T'is the season when America's football fans get their statistical nerd on, and I am no different. I've also been playing in leagues since before the Internet, because the nerd runs all the way back to childhood... but in thinking about the exercise and the agency, it struck me that some of the rules that you play by have been of high value over the years in business.

1) Get Your VORP (Value Over Replacement Player) On.

Especially in an auction situation, good strategy is to go the extra mile to get players that have something special. In football, that usually means the player has talent to help you in more than one way (running backs who also catch passes, wide receivers that are good at multiple kinds of patterns, quarterbacks who can run for extra yardage, etc.). In marketing, it's creative people that make pieces that stand out, or can work in tight spaces. Difference makers, in other words.

2) Play your position. 

Most leagues have some form of draft order, which means that you will be making your picks with action likely from a few specific competitors. If you know what they need, and what they value (especially if someone acts on a real team allegiance), that is information you need to use to your advantage... because, rest assured, the other savvy players are doing it to you. In business, this is known as knowing the competition, and it's table stakes for doing work, but you'd be amazed how many people just come and play their own hand, without a care in the world as to how others are working them like a speed bag.

3) You can't win on Opening Day.

There's never been a league where I've drafted so well that I haven't had to work the bottom fifth of my roster like a day trader. Most seasons are too long, and injuries are too prevalent, to just set and forget, especially if you are any kind of league with quality competitors.

From a business standpoint, the corollary is that no matter what your starting advantage might be in a market, the grind is all -- and that winning a client is only the start of a long road. Motors are required.

4) Run through the tape.

Only one person can win a league, and at least a third of the players will know they have no chance halfway through the year. Far too many people will then use this info to throw in the towel and stop playing. Not only does this run the risk of ruining the game for others who are still in contention by making things easier on some members of the league, but it just shows poor character.

In business, the equivalent act is mailing it in as soon as you get a new job, or pulling the chute on a client that shows signs of leaving. Sure, it's defensible in the short term as a matter of prioritizing, but this is the kind of thing that people remember, and not well. It can easily become the defining aspect of your personal brand, and, well, deservedly so. Run through the tape.

5) Do it with your whole heart.

In my league, the winner gets an authentic old-school leather helmet, with the winner's name on a plate on the front of it. It's very stupid, but the extra mile matters, and ties the name of the league together, in a way that's distinctive and special. I also run the league as a real-world experience, with big labels and a room that's prepared just so. The people in my league have the choice to play or not, and any number of other leagues to join. They stay with mine, for the most part. I appreciate it.

In business, the same kind of commitment applies. Go all-in and sweat the details, because those details are how you separate yourselves from other professionals. The people at your company have the choice to work with you or not, and any number of other things they could be doing with their time. Make them want to stay with you, and appreciate you.

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Something else you should do with your whole heart: like or share this column. Feel free to also connect with me on LinkedIn, email me at davidlmountain at gmail dot com, or hit the RFP boxes on the top right. We offer copywriting, direction and strategy, along with design, illustration, photography, coding and hosting. The RFPs are always free. Hope to hear from you soon.

The Always-On Problem

24 7 365

A brief (?) aside, but wait for it, Marketing and Advertising will happen.

I remember when I first realized I had a problem, when it came to being online. I'd spend hours on my favorite site, agonizing over getting the wording just right. I cared way too much about what a specific girl would say about what I wrote. I disrupted my sleep schedule, engaged in the usual hyperdriven levels of teenage drama, and frequently valued the relationships made online more than my immediate friends and family.

The year was 1985, and the medium was bulletin boards, the CB radio level precursor to the Internet as most people knew it. My addiction was to a monochrome screen, download times that were barely faster than a very fast typist. But still, strangers on a screen, potentially from all over the world, reacting to what you write. Magic.

The point? Addiction to screens is not exactly a new phenomenon. At least when I was a teen, I had to be in front of my monitor, in my room, with no one else on the house telephone. (Woe to the kids who used pay sites, or dialed in to boards that were long distance calls. That led to spectacular levels of Parental Trouble.)

Today? It's in your pocket, fast, with mutli-media and so much more. You can check it hundreds of times a day, and many do, without ever thinking about it.

How does anyone say no to it, really?

The answer is that, honestly, they don't. Which also means you have untold opportunities to make a buck off them.

The best time to send your commercial email... is probably when no one else is, particularly if you've got a solid offer and an algorithm that's pushing out relevant goods. I've seen big bursts of clicks on 11pm local sends, because we can't say no to the phone or tablet, and looking at the email is nearly as easy as ignoring it.

How about your content piece? Many of the best that I read are sent in the very middle of the overnight, so they aren't above the radar. Others sprinkle them out during the work day, and avoid falling under the waves in the in box by avoiding the channel entirely.

Your marketing and advertising messages exist in a sea of other moments of interruption. Tests are being co-opted by competitors, search, social, direct mail and more, and nothing ever, ever stops. Particularly if you have consumers spread over many time zones, all of them with the ability to always be on. Especially now, when you not only have the ability to receive the message at any time, but the data shows that many, well, are.

I don't know if it's doing anything good for us as a species. I worry about attention spans, sleep schedules, the damage done to personal relationships, the ability to be truly present and focused. I've seen adults pay very good money to play beautiful golf courses, but still online. I've seen others gambling big sums of money, making decisions at a poker table, still online.

We have the ability to market and advertise to these people all the time.

And if we don't, someone else will.

That's a problem, right?

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Another problem: I need you to like or share this column. Feel free to also connect with me on LinkedIn, email me at davidlmountain at gmail dot com, or hit the RFP boxes on the top right. We offer copywriting, direction and strategy, along with design, illustration, photography, coding and hosting. The RFPs are always free. Hope to hear from you soon.

Being Uncomfortable

Professional Advice

I notice that my opponent is always on the go
-And-
Won't go slow, so's not to focus, and I notice
He'll hitch a ride with any guide, as long as
They go fast from whence he came
- But he's no good at being uncomfortable, so
He can't stop staying exactly the same 

- Fiona Apple, "Extraordinary Machine"

This weekend, I hosted my annual fantasy football league. (Don't worry - the marketing and advertising is coming. Patience.) The league has been running for the better part of a decade. We do a modified auction, which is a single round in position, which means there's a fascinating amount of positional raises and gamesmanship. Combine this with some league quirks (bonuses for a defense that wins the game, year-long scoring instead of head to head), and you've got something with a fair amount of Nerd Appeal.

Which gets me back to the M&A portion of the program. Why haven't we made the jump to salary cap stuff, like true hardcore nerds? Why haven't we tried Individual Defensive Players? Why haven't I gone the extra mile and played in the hottest portion of the market now, which is daily fantasy leagues?

Well, I've got other commitments (lots of 'em!). I don't have time for it. I'm a grown up and all, husband, father, businessman. I just play my one league, and don't want to increase my time commitment.

But if I really want to dig into it, I don't have time for this league, either. There's multiple blogs to populate, projects to deliver, a child that's starting to look at colleges, another that deserves more attention than she gets, because, well, the first one is looking at colleges. Even my dog deserves more time (collie, needs a lot of exercise), and I've fallen behind on my fitness goals. If I want to think more about side entertainment and cash, my poker game could use more reps, and has a lot more chance of thrills and payoffs than my single entry fantasy league. And so on, and so on.

I have time for my fantasy league, because I make time for it. What I'm not making time for is Something New.

And that's a very important and difficult distinction to make for a marketing and advertising pro. We all get to the point where we need to work harder to stay in touch with our target demos, when we have to force ourselves to listen to new music, view new art, watch new cinema and shows, rather than do what's comfortable... because what's comfortable rarely gets you into a good state to sell something new, to someone new.

It's not what audiences do at certain stages of their lives, for the most part, which is the real reason why brands don't target older consumers. It's not that they don't have money, or won't try new things. It's that trying new things is hard, and doing hard things isn't a choice we want to make when we get older. For younger consumers, FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out) is much more than the fear of making a mistake.

How do you overcome this? Well, it's a personal question and answer, but for me, it's a discipline issue. I'm not likely to become a world-class athlete, but I still go to the gym. I'm not likely to make it to the final day of a huge multi-day poker tournament, but I enjoy the game, so I'm still going to work on my reads, and try to make things difficult on my opponents. I'm not likely to become a scratch golfer, but I want to be better, so I'll keep playing. Making time for family works better when you have other things beyond them, and can truly value the time, rather than make it feel like an obligation.

As for making sure you stay attuned to new trends and developments in the field... well, that's just being a professional. And being a professional is all about going beyond the comfortable, and always learning something new.

Which means that the real reason why I like my fantasy league just the way it is, and don't want any changes? Because it's actually a leisure activity. No matter how much it might seem otherwise.

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Thank you for making the time for this column; if you like or share it, I'd appreciate it. Feel free to also connect with me on LinkedIn, email me at davidlmountain at gmail dot com, or hit the RFP boxes on the top right. We offer copywriting, direction and strategy, along with design, illustration, photography, coding and hosting. The RFPs are always free. Hope to hear from you soon.

Where The Ads Will Be

Box And One

Much to do this week in AdWorld around the rise of online ad blockers. Bob Garfield at Media Post points out, correctly, that the current hue and cry is dumb, that the industry hasn't fixed the problem for the decade or more that it was on the horizon, and advertising execs need to finally cotton to the fact that, well, No One Likes Them, or their ads. They just tolerated them while they had to, and now, they don't have to.

Which pivots to Roi Carthy for AdAge, who turns a column into an advertisement (ironic!) for his company's ad blocking software. Consumers have a right to this stuff, you see, the same way that they had a right to download music for free, walk into stadiums without paying for a ticket, and just go to the supermarket and eat your way through the produce section. Wait, no one has the right to do that, even if no one's watching and you won't be caught? Then why does the software exist?

Don't have enough dumb in your life? Then step on down to hear the next approach, where consumers wouldn't block ads if the ads were just better. Also, if ads never, ever had malware. Because blaming all advertisers for a few bad actors is totally fair. People blocking ads are heroes!

Completing the collection of Oh, What A Piece Of Work Is Man? Ben Barokas at Sourcepoint, who equates his company's software as so meaningful, he's Superman (in a cape, no less) to online publishers. Why? Because his software blocks the ad blockers, allowing for the publishers to put the ads that the scofflaws didn't want to see... back in front of them. (Feel free to add a Nelson Muntzian Ha Ha! here.)

Heck of a way to run a railroad, folks.

Anyway, the plain and simple of online ads is this. The nits have won the day, up to now, because they've managed to only pay for clicks. The criminals have won the day, up to now, because Web publishers went to the lowest common denominator with Flash for a solid decade longer then they should have. The idiots who contributed to a world in which digital content couldn't be monetized have won the day, up to now, because it was easier to cry Hell In A Handbasket and Privacy Violation, rather than commit to software that might have monetized traffic enough to carry the day.

But, well, nits, criminals and idiots have never, in the course of human history, kept winning the day in perpetuity in areas of Real Business. And online ads are a real business, if only because other formats have, believe it or not, even worse problems.

Television is suffering viewership losses that are not going to reverse themselves, as younger generations have increasingly chosen their own screens. Print ads wish they had the problems that online did, because it would mean people were still trying to fix the issue, rather than just write it off as a lost cause. Outdoor is in a better boat than print, and has the wild card hope that the Internet of Things might one day save the business, but they'll take the hit if everyone keeps staring into their screens, particularly on mass transit. Telemarketing, radio, direct mail, the Yellow Pages -- all occupying different points on the continuum of obsolescence, all tremendously impacted by the continuing earthquake of worldwide connectivity and communication.

Online ads have, no question, Serious Issues... but these are UI and UX issues, rather than fundamental and critical failings. Will there be more fits and starts? Of course. But there are Serious People (hello, Alphabet!) at work on these issues, and way too much Serious Money at stake to leave things to the nits, criminals and idiots.

The eyes are on screens. The ads will be where the eyes are. The details of how will be worked out.

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Your eyes were on this column; if you like or share it, more eyes happen, and I am happy. Feel free to also connect with me on LinkedIn, email me at davidlmountain at gmail dot com, or hit the RFP boxes on the top right. We offer copywriting, direction and strategy, along with design, illustration, photography, coding and hosting. The RFPs are always free. Hope to hear from you soon.

My Five Worst Clients

Population: You

Because, well, nothing has the comic punch of another person's misfortune, and each was special in its very own way. Names not used because of a well-earned fear of Rhymes With Beagle, and because naming them might cause them to reappear in my life, and life is too short for that. (Currently serving none of these fine folks. Life is Good.) On to the pain!

5) Our new functionality is amazing, and nobody's happy

Yes, this was inspired by the great Louis CK. But it happened before this routine.

Big presentation, major client. Client is unhappy for all kinds of reasons, not many of them related to things I'm personally responsible for, but hey, that's the gig. If we don't make them happy, they might walk away to another company, and that would be really bad, as they are one of our whales.

I get to my show-stopping part of the presentation, the new functionality that makes sense on every tactical sales level, the new wrinkle that hasn't failed in any test cell. It's going to be great for them. I'm very enthused to bring it to them. It's not going to alter their branding, lessen their profit margins, or cost them anything more. I am delivering them the closest thing to a panacea that I've ever had the good fortune to present, in a 20-year career of searching for moments just like this one.

Silence... and then the best/worst client line ever. "Why weren't we told about this before?"

Um, maybe because we wanted to try it with a client or three that wasn't the hardest people in the world to deal with? Maybe because you had created a climate of fear and intimidation with your constant negativity, so much so that creatives only ever just executed what you ordered them to do? Maybe because you never let us test anything before, so we didn't think to come running to you, with arms open, so we could get punched in the face?

I'm still aghast about this, on some level. Justifiably so, I think.

4) Font Phun

Tiny little eyestrain font. No consumer has ever, to this day, read anything in this area, because it's a Web banner and honest and for true, those don't get looked at as if they were Picassos on the walls of the Louvre, under magnifying glasses. Same template every time, the only thing that ever changes is the headline offer, never the same offer twice, because testing 5% increments of your discount off percentage is True Testing Genius. And every time, every revision, the same question: Are you sure that's Our Font? Did you double check it? Did you triple check it? It's very, very important that it's in Our Font!

Um, no, it's not. The first 20+ times we got that instruction didn't take. We didn't just leave that font in as a locked down design element; once out of every six times, we changed one character in that area to a nearly identical font, and laughed like naughty, naughty school children, because we had so gotten over on you, Agency From Hell. It was the only reason we had a business in the first place, was so that we could nefariously change your fonts. Muhahaha! Such delicious evil we perpetrated, all at the expense of your brand police's sanity.

Um, well, no, we just left the font the same it always was. Like Sane People. And unlike the Font Phun Agency...

3) Click Here to Click Here

I have an issue with Click Here. To me, Click Here is shorthand for This Copy Writer Has No Ideas And Should Sell Shoes Instead. It's not as short as Go or a simple radio (>) button. It turns your design-forward ghost button into retro-dumb. It doesn't denote a benefit, like Learn More, or a command, like Save, Shop, or even Browse. It's longer than the nearly as odious Submit, and there's a half dozen other things wrong with it, really. I'm not a fan. No one should be.

So when you find yourself on the phone with a client having to not just defend the idea that other language should be used? Then hear those options described in terms that just make you go "Whuuuttttt"?

Well, that's a special client moment. One that makes my special client list! Next...

2) Give Me Your Opinion, So Long As It Mirrors Mine

This one was very, very special indeed. I'm working for one company in an ancilliary consumer category, having recently worked for another that served the same audience. I find myself, some time later, in the presence of high management for the new company... who want my opinion on the terms of a deal that they are going to offer to the management of my old employer. They want a scouting report. Of people that I worked with, every day, for years. Good idea!

The deal was, to be kind, laughable, even as a first round, low-ball offer. To make this offer, especially to the right/wrong person at my old company, would have been the end of all negotiations, probably for years; they took things like this personally, especially on points that seemed to lack a certain level of respect.

Tip-toeing around the landmine as best as I can, I offer up my best assessment of the situation -- that this was not a deal that would be received well. Perhaps a restructuring, or smaller v1, would be in order.

I'm told that I'm wrong, and that they will take the deal as is. Well, OK then. I think, but do not say, why did you want my opinion in the first place? I try to resolve the conversation by speaking to the management's persuasion skills, give the name and contact info of the person that would be best, and know that I'll be moving on soon. And was! Happily!

1) We Hate Your Winning Ad So Very, Very Much

Unknown client then, famous client now. Back in the bad old days, their ad was tanking for my company's distribution, and they gave my team and I a shot at making a new ad. We did. Happy day -- it won! By a lot, and kept on winning for about 18 months after that, or an absolute eternity in online. And survived a half dozen client provided tests, none of which used any of the possible learnings from our winning ad, all while telling us how much they hate, hate, hated our art. (Well, sure. After all, who doesn't hate money?)

Have any client burn stories to share? Please do!

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One of my best moments comes when you like or share this column, connect with me on LinkedIn, email me at davidlmountain at gmail dot com, or visit my agency's site. We offer copywriting, direction and strategy, along with design, illustration, photography, coding and hosting. The RFPs are always free. Hope to hear from you soon.

Tales of Marketing Horror: Silo Town

Got Your Number

You're nobody in this town
You're nobody in this crowd
You're nobody till everybody in this town
thinks you're poison,
Got your number, knows it must be avoided
You're nobody till everybody in this town
thinks you're a bastard

- Elvis Costello, "This Town"

Part of a continuing series of moments from my career, in which great breakthroughs came from great setbacks. The point, as always, is to work away from fear, and learn from every mistake. Besides, they make for better stories.

Stay in the game long enough, especially in shaky start-ups, and not every move will be on the rise. Sometimes, you have to go lateral to go up later, and that was the circumstance some number of gigs ago, when I found myself at a new position, with new responsibilities, in an area of marketing and advertising that I had not worked in before. Luckily, my predecessor had not impressed with work ethic (11 to 4 was the scuttlebutt) or politics (screaming fits are not exactly unique in creative, but your work had better be absolutely aces to make up for it, and, well, it wasn't). So I felt fairly confident that I would make up for a shortfall of experience with my motor, because, well, I have a motor.

On my first day at the new gig, I was introduced to someone who was, I was told, very enthused to have me on board, even though we did not work in the same department, and had not been on the list to interview me in the hiring process. (Feel free to set the Alert status to Yellow right about now.) After a half hour of very excited conversation in a hallway while I was between meetings, my new manager quickly called me in to their office, motioned to shut the door, and told me, point blank in under a minute with no preamble or pleasantries, that the co-worker in question was a snake and a menace and would waste my time every single day, if I gave them the opportunity. Also, that part of my performance evaluation would involve the efficient use of my time.

Welcome, in other words, to Silo Town, with a population of one more than yesterday.

Stepping away from the land mine to the best of my ability, I assured my manager that I got the message, and that I appreciated the candor. I let them vent for a bit more about the co-worker, and closed with an assurance that all of my time was going to be taken up with overhauling the position in the fashion we had discussed in the interview process.

In the subsequent weeks, I was polite but crisp with the co-worker, who eventually got the gist that I was aligned strongly to my manager, and hence, something of a lost cause to what they were trying to accomplish. Over the next few months, I learned enough about the company to understand the rift, and to learn that the chasm was not going to be something I could overcome. I kept to my department, and eventually, both my manager and the co-worker left the company, and I picked up a dramatically better manager.

Lessons learned?

1) No matter what your powers are as a change agent, there are limits. The position in question was one of the greatest successes in my career. I built a team that I still work with to this day, learned an incredible amount of tactics and tricks in an entirely new realm of marketing and advertising, and achieved terrific performance metrics. But silos are silos for reasons, and unless you have hire and fire power, you might have to work around the problem, rather than correct it.

2) Silos are absolute red flags for leadership. In the case of this start-up, what needed to happen was a clearing of the air by the CEO, and if that didn't create change, a personnel decision. Instead, the situation was allowed to fester and resolve on its own, which created a significant amount of distraction, especially for junior personnel that was inexperienced with this kind of issue. It wasn't just both principals who were lost in the cross-fire. The old-school belief that competing interests will drive each area to greater productivity is bunk, especially in start ups. What kills a start up is distraction, much more than a lack of initiative.

3) Silos are best learned about in the interview process. Candidly, I would have taken the gig anyway; I needed the paycheck. But if the situation had been different, and this was a lateral rather than a rising role, it would have given me pause. It's on you as a candidate to learn about these as best as you can, especially since it's not generally information that will be readily volunteered.

4) If you can avoid being too far in one camp or another, it's your best move. While I didn't associate too much with my manager's red-button co-worker, I did establish working relationships throughout the company, and avoided distraction with, well, tasks. This helped to broaden my network, leading to contracting roles later, and a much greater sense of job satisfaction and security.

5) Time wounds all heels. Silos tend to fall in time because new management understands just how destructive they can be, and will not tolerate their existence. My start-up moved on to better personnel in time, but not before other issues fundamentally altered the business. I'm glad that I stayed, though -- again, more contacts and contracting opportunities for later.

6) Every dispute isn't 50/50. My manager put me in a difficult position, but in the long run, the judgment was correct. As a company, we were better off when the co-worker moved on, and while I don't know of any particular ill will from the targeted co-worker, they also haven't exactly offered up assistance or an offer at other points between gigs. I don't know if I would go far as to use the word snake, but I also would not ask for a reference.

Oh, and just on the off chance that you find this story too crazy to draw major lessons from? It happened again at the start-up after this one, where my manager tell me not to talk to an entire department, because they were such a problem. In the long run, this was the correct assessment, and in the longer run, it should have been my cue to seek new employment immediately. My manager did, and has been happier ever since.

Because that's the biggest problem with Silo Town. No one's really happy to live there... and life's too short to work where no one's really happy.

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To make me really happy, please like or share this column, connect with me on LinkedIn, email me at davidlmountain at gmail dot com, or hit the RFP boxes at top right. We offer copywriting, direction and strategy, along with design, illustration, photography, coding and hosting. The RFPs are always free. Hope to hear from you soon.

4 New Developments That Could Change The Way We Live & Work

Go Hugo

Some developments hit my feed this week that struck me as having the potential to, not to put too fine a point on it, utterly change the way we live. Not bad for mid-August. Let's get into it.

1) Researchers from both the US and UK have created a new way to depict human skin that makes facial expressions more lifelike. In the short run, this means more realistic computer generated animation... and in the long run, we've just seen a strong step toward escaping the Uncanny Valley, the psychological phenomenon that has kept humans from feeling comfortable around increasingly realistic human simulation.

From a graphic and design standpoint, this is a very big deal indeed, and accelerates all kinds of fields beyond animation. It also creates the possibility of all kinds of unintended consequences, such as, well, an alternative to model photography in any number of usages, enhanced avatar service in smartphones and video games, and a more high-touch level to automated service at ticket kiosks and in stores. Scaling the Uncanny Valley is no small feat, and has been the dream of design pros for decades. Someday soon, you will not be able to tell the difference between a real person and a representation. Clunky polygon images will be one more way for future generations to look back in nostalgia at a bygone era.

2) A Canadian company called Nymi announced a successful credit card payment through biometric authentication... which, in this case, meant the use of wearable technology (a wristband) to use a person's heartbeat to replace the signature, or PIN number. (It turns out to be, like a fingerprint, unique to the individual.)

On the face of it, this seems like an approach fraught with issues. Some will flinch at an apparent lapse in privacy. Others will have health concerns based around the use of near field electronics. But unlike other authenticators that seem dependent on technology that's relatively niche, with little in the way of benefit (I'm looking at you, Apple Pay), this seems like it has more bang for the buck. Faster and more secure transactions, and getting us further away from what comedian Patton Oswalt has rightly dubbed "the magic of squiggly letters"... well, this seems fairly inevitable, assuming you believe in a cashless economy.

3) Microsoft announced a facial recognition breakthrough for Windows 10 that, combined with the Internet of Things and smarthome technology, will allow for doors to unlock though a simple scan.

Again, the initial application seems underwhelming, but with some thought, it grows in importance. Getting groceries in the house just got a lot easier, and since it's presumed that multiple faces can be given clearance, so did the whole insecure business of hide-a-keys and clearance codes to disable alarms. V2 of this technology could easily move into diagnostics for independent senior living, and maybe lead to advanced warning of stroke or a slip and fall. Finally, we also make the whole business of changing the locks in the event of a housing change a lot easier, and the technology would also make its way into businesses, where personnel would be able to open a store without requiring another set of keys or passcodes. Once the technology is in place, it will move from novel to accepted with the same hyperspeed that we now use on things like mapping technology, electronic transfers and automotive diagnostics, and so on.

4) Finally, a good friend of mine, Joe Recchia, has taken up with a great new start-up idea, CImagine. This company enables augmented commerce, in that you can easily see what a purchase might look like in your own home, rather than just rely on web site photography. Check it out.

The first and easiest application here is for furniture and household purchases that always seemed to have a dicey approach in e-commerce -- how were you supposed to choose colors to match your home before this? -- but I think it can easily go into a host of other plays. Apparel is a pretty simple plug and play, along with jewelry, fine art, and maybe even more esoteric plays like personals, electronics and collectibles. CImagine's partner companies could easily see lower return issues to go with higher sales. Like everything else in this week's list, the potential for ubiquitous use is high.

The challenge for marketing and advertising personnel isn't just to think about how to use these advancements with your own brand, but how they may impact how consumers interact with your product. Virtual assistance that's out of the uncanny valley might make you re-think your Web site customer service. Biometric authentication might point to new ways to speed customers through checkout in brick and mortar, especially if your brand is leading edge. Facial recognition and augmented e-commerce could spread like wildfire.

Oh, and there's also this. If your customers want to use these tools, and you aren't able to match a competitor's speed in implementation? Not exactly a great moment -- either for your brand, or your career. Speed isn't just for tech.

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Please like or share this column, connect with me on LinkedIn, email me at davidlmountain at gmail dot com, or hit the RFP boxes at the top right. We offer copywriting, direction and strategy, along with design, illustration, photography, coding and hosting. The RFPs are always free. Hope to hear from you soon.

Search and Find Bias

Target Acquired

On the radar today: how search engines may be the next frontier of political chicanery, because it turns out that (a) search engines are a strong source in helping undecided and young voters make a decision, and (b) if you read search results, your first reaction isn't "Gee, I bet these have been skewed to show the candidate in a favorable light." The results are seen as impartial.

This is not, of course, very surprising news; all you need to do is check on how enterprising pranksters have hijacked Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum's last name. (Do not do this at work, assuming you work in a routine office.) But it does give one pause, if only because of the following points:

1) Someone still has faith in a source of information in 2015, especially when that source of information is a for-profit business? I'm all verklempt here. It's like hearing how your nephew still believes in the Tooth Fairy. Seriously, magical creatures sneak into your room and take something that used to be in your head. Sweet dreams, kids! But I digress.

It's easy to be jaded, to feel like we live in a cynical age, where everyone always thinks the worst of everyone. But then you hear how search engine results are swaying the opinions of undecided voters, because some just trust these entities so implicitly. We will look back on these days fondly, we will.

2) Just how soon will it be until some enterprising candidate, with a need to fill the news hole with something they don't have to pay for, comes out as Anti Google? (I know, I know, Google's popular and Doesn't Do Evil. Doesn't matter; they still have scads of money, are from easy to bash California, and have some nefarious agenda to deny votes to Candidate X. It'll play.)

Finally, this. Just in time for this to finally reach a level of visibility, it's time for the world to change, with lightning speed, really, from a display method (desktop and laptop) that worked for deep search results and high keystrokes, for one that, well, doesn't. So keep in mind when you see this story hit the mainstream, how it has already jumped the shark. Especially among the young'uns who 

But on the plus side, Google will have plenty of practice in working out the bugs in that Right To Be Forgotten rigamarole...

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Please like or share this column, connect with me on LinkedIn, email me at davidlmountain at gmail dot com, or hit the RFP boxes at the top right. We offer copywriting, direction and strategy, along with design, illustration, photography, coding and hosting. The RFPs are always free. Hope to hear from you soon.

The Art Of The Sandbag

Scottish Sandbag

From an episode of “Star Trek: The Next Generation” (S6, E4, "Relics")…

Scotty: Do you mind a little advice? Starfleet captains are like children. They want everything right now and they want it their way. But the secret is to give them only what they need, not what they want.

Lt. Commander Geordi La Forge: Yeah, well, I told the Captain I'd have this analysis done in an hour.

Scotty: How long will it really take?

Lt. Commander Geordi La Forge: An hour!

Scotty: Oh, you didn't tell him how long it would *really* take, did ya?

Lt. Commander Geordi La Forge: Well, of course I did.

Scotty: Oh, laddie. You've got a lot to learn if you want people to think of you as a miracle worker.

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I own a 2011 hybrid as my routine ride, which, like most modern cars, gives you all kinds of alerts and reminders when you run into maintenance milestones. I’m OCDish about dashboard reminders, so when the oil change at 15% warning came up, I took the car into the dealership the next morning. It helped that summer Fridays at my gig are work from home, and the wi-fi at the dealership is good. Besides, oil changes are free, since I bought the car there.

When I checked in, there was a strong line for service – obviously, summer Fridays are a busy time – and my schedule was also up for a transmission fluid change. I gave the green light for the service, got a 60-minute or less time quote for the work, and set myself up in a quiet corner of the waiting room to work.

Now, I did not need to get out of there after 60 minutes. Realistically, I could have been there most of the day without any real issue, since I had everything I needed to work. But I had been quoted 60 minutes, and when that time came and gone, my antennae went up.

Had something gone wrong? Was the repair not properly booked, and was something more dire and expensive being done? Was the cellular service not working, and my phone not firing, which would keep the call that the car was ready from getting through? If that was the case, was I also missing other calls, maybe from co-workers?

All of those points seemed unlikely, but still, it has been more than the time quoted. Just sitting still and continuing to work was not working; a distraction was brewing. After 15 minutes of sub-optimal performance on the task I was trying to complete, I shut down my screens, packed up my gear, and walked back over to the repair bay.

Once I got there, I saw my car being worked on as the technician was just finishing up. Nothing more untoward than that. I waited at the counter for another 10 to 15 minutes, handed over my credit card for payment as soon as the keys were back with the desk, and was back at the home office with no incident.

A day later, the usual customer survey came in my email.

Now, I had received fine service. The facility was flawless on the wifi, and downright comfortable. I was fine with the price paid for the service. I will be back the next time, and I am likely to make my next purchase from this dealership as well. We’ve been going there routinely for over five years now.

But they didn’t get the full high marks, simply because they quoted me 60 minutes, when it took 90. If they had quoted 120 – totally understandable, given the amount of traffic they were dealing with, and the mild trickiness involved in getting into the transmission on a hybrid – and cleared it in 90, I’d have given them the 10 without a second thought.

Bringing this back to marketing and advertising, which is the point of the column.

It’s a fine art, managing client expectations. If you always beat your metrics and deadlines, you run the risk of having these estimates disregarded, and being trampled as having too much air in every estimate. But if you are always behind, that’s even worse from a job satisfaction standpoint.

My personal way around this is, whenever possible, to give two estimates – the best-case and the median, or maybe even the worst, if the task is particularly tricky. Especially when it comes to fast-turn needs for live campaigns, you might need to drop everything and deal with a fire drill, at which point any sand in the bags is just going to cost the company money.

Not everything can be a fire drill, but not every job can turn on the slowest move. And the best customer service is not a best-case scenario quote, especially if it's not likely to come true.

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Please like or share this column, connect with me on LinkedIn, email me at davidlmountain at gmail dot com, or hit the RFP boxes at the top right, We offer copywriting, direction and strategy, along with design, illustration, photography, coding and hosting. The RFPs are always free. Hope to hear from you soon.

The Right Not To Forget, And JonVoyage

Exit, Stage Tears

Two very disparate things in my brain tonight, somehow connecting. Indulge, if you will.

In Europe right now, there's a growing movement behind establishing a new human right. The idea is that if you have made a mistake in your life, and you have taken steps to correct it, you should have the ability to have it eventually purged from the system, particularly if the system, in this case, is Google.

Sounds like a nice thing. It's not as if we all don't have something we'd like to go down the memory hole (and no, I'm not going to make the tactical mistake of admitting mine). But there's what is nice to have and the foundations that our nation was built on, and here's a case where, well, the rights of the individual do not now, and never will, trump the needs of the many. And the needs of the many are for a free press, and a free press requires the ability to tell the truth, even (especially?) when it does harm to an individual, over the course of years. The marketplace of ideas wins out. Life is not now, and never has been, fair.

And with that basic and inalienable point made, I'm going to pivot, without much in the way of grace or transition, to Jon Stewart's exit from The Daily Show, which was broadcast as I was finishing this post.

There are many ways to discuss this. True fans might note the many heartfelt feelings expressed, the wealth of alumni who came back to say their goodbyes, or maybe even Bruce Springsteen providing the soundtrack to play the show out. People who don't share Stewart's politics will say good riddance, maybe while noting the show's comparatively low gross ratings. Business types will wonder what happens to the show now, and what happens next to the diaspora of late night television options.

For me, I wanted to note two points.

1) When I was growing up, there was a wealth of great newspaper comic strips. Calvin and Hobbes, Doonesbury, The Far Side, Bloom County, Peanuts, Dilbert -- there was strong anticipation before the Sunday newspaper in my house, and it was something that we never missed. It seemed like there would always be newspapers, and there would always be great comic strips in those newspapers.

Well, no offense to the people who still make comic strips, or newspapers, but that era has passed, and will not return. Larry Wilmore does a fine job with the Nightly Show, but I don't know anyone who thinks it's a better product than the Colbert Report. Trevor Noah will have a great staff that will, in all likelihood, have a massive amount of fodder in the upcoming Presidential election, and incredible motivation to prove that the Daily Show can thrive in transition. There's no reason to think that, in the long term, he'll be better at the gig than Stewart, who was, in the words of Stephen Colbert, infuriatingly good at his job. Change is inevitable, but it's not always positive.

2) I know I'm not wired like most people, and especially not like show people, but seriously. If you are great at a job, and you are making serious bank at this job, and so many people appreciate what you do, how do you ever get to the point when you willingly leave it?

I get athletes wanting to go out on top. I get wanting to do other things in your life, or be more present for your family. I get not feeling as if you are still capable of excellence, and needing time away, or maybe managing your time commitment.

But to totally shut it down and give it up, with the very open question, seemingly, of what you are going to do next? Would never, ever, happen. They'd have to pry the job away from my cold, dead hands.

And this, in a nutshell, is the difference between Art and Craft, and why Marketing and Advertising is so much more of the latter. Our work in this realm has metrics that tell us when something is working, and the constant question of whether or not you can beat a control. Chasing the number doesn't make for questions about when you should hang it up. And there's never been a marketer who didn't think that their best campaign was yet to come.

So while I'll miss Stewart, I'm also more than a little annoyed with him for going. More was needed, more would have been delivered, and on some level, I would have liked Bill Watrerson more if he kept drawing Calvin and Hobbes.

While, well, never having anyone else telling us what we have to forget.

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Please like or share this column, connect with me on LinkedIn, email me at davidlmountain at gmail dot com, or hit the RFP boxes at top right. We offer copywriting, direction and strategy, along with design, illustration, photography, coding and hosting. The RFPs are always free. Hope to hear from you soon.

A Brief And Pointless Rant About The Use Of GIFs and Emojis

I Haz No Idea

Today in the New York Times, there was a trend piece about how The Kids Today are using GIFs (shocking!) in their smartphones, and how some companies are making fine bank from this.

Now, I personally don't have any great problem with this, or even the chuckle-worthy news aspect of a less than fresh trend; the Times is here to set history, more than be the first to act. Most digital conversation is, by its very nature, ephemeral and transitory, and the use of some looping image to describe your reaction is fine, honestly. If it starts creeping into communications that seem to be out of touch with its standing, well, that is what happens with new forms of technology. It takes a while for these things to shake out.

I'm also fine with, in all likelihood, being beyond the event horizon for the trend. I'm not a huge fan of everything that smartphones have done to the world in the first place, but railing against the tides is pointless, and the pros outweigh the cons. I've also made my peace, or at least I thought I had, with the ongoing devaluation of the writing skill and the reading muscle. The future is visual, and the age when the Internet was a word-driven medium is leaving, and fast.

But what goes beyond the pale? These pull quotes.

“I’m able to express these really complex emotions in the span of two seconds."

This, from the act of pulling a mass-produced GIF, one that in all likelihood, has been seen and used by the recipient.

Really complex emotions? No, no, a million times, no. Really complex emotions require the use of words that express these thoughts. Really complex emotions require really complex thoughts in the first place. You don't get to claim emotional depth from picking a freaking emoji or GIF. You just don't.

Annoyed enough yet? I wasn't. Adding fuel to the fire...

“I’m not that great with words. But if I find the perfect GIF, it nails it.”

Nails it. A five second loop of the Seinfeld cast dancing spastically was cited in the NYT story as being one of those GIFs that nails it.

Now, perhaps I'm being less than kind. Perhaps the unexamined life is best left, well, unexamined. Perhaps people who have made the choice not to spend their days and nights trying to bend words into phrases should not be mocked for finding some other way to get through the day.

And then again, well, no.

Use your spine-friendly imagery all you want. Take over the world with them. There's no point in pushing back against the ocean.

But please, for the love of your own humanity, and the sanity of my fellow word monkeys?

Do not claim the freaking high ground over your lack.

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Please like or share this column, connect with me on LinkedIn, email me at davidlmountain at gmail dot com, or hit the RFP boxes at top right. We offer copywriting, direction and strategy, along with design, illustration, photography, coding and hosting. The RFPs are always free. Hope to hear from you soon.

Can Anything Stop Fantasy Football?

Mainstream / Manning Endorsed

Consider, for a moment, the overwhelming marketing success that is the long-term performance of fantasy football. The entire notion of fantasy sports is a matter of debate in terms of who does it first, but it only becomes prominent in the public eye in the 1980s in baseball. For a long time after that, baseball is much higher in performance, because the day-in, day-out nature of the game leads itself to people who are very comfortable with numbers and statistics, unlike football. But eventually, football works out due to the head to head nature of most casual games, with an ever-growing number of players.

There really has not been a seminal moment in development. No single event occurs to legitimize the practice, assuming, of course, that you consider the practice legitimate. On some level, it's a lot like poker, in that we have made gambling (most fantasy games involve some amount of money, even if it's not very much) palatable by changing the event from a direct win and lose experience, and into more of a long-form tournament. I'm sure there is a corollary where, over a period of decades, an activity becomes just a little more popular every year, to the point now where it's almost harder to find an NFL fan who doesn't have a fantasy team, as opposed to one who does.

As you might guess from any long-term activity, more potent strains are now catching on. Big money leagues draft in casinos, who provide a setting that's more akin to the real-world NFL draft. Daily fantasy leagues, where players are not locked into the players they draft and more or less go off matchups regardless of exclusivity, are so popular that they run mainstream marketing and advertising placements, and have developed high level sponsorships. Wildly complicated variations that take into account real-world salaries, esoteric calculations on statistical performance, and so on, are increasingly common.

Which makes me wonder, given how I run my own league (don't worry, I won't bore you with the details)... how high can this tide rise?

The short answer is, well, despite the sense of fatigue that might be present for people who have done this for years and maybe haven't won very much... we are not anywhere close to done yet. The growing acceptance of the NFL in foreign markets, where casual gaming and gambling is far more established and accepted, will bring new players to market for years. The use of mobile phones to manage teams helps to ensure that younger demographics aren't getting left out at a hardware level. The continuing growth of mainstream reporting and acceptance, with the NFL Network devoting entire programming chunks to fantasy specific copy, will continue to make the hobby more and more mainstream. There's no reason for this to believe that we're done yet, really.

Any risk factors? Well, gambling is still gambling, even if you do it at a low level with remarkably low numbers of public complaints. A class action approach, or a stigma against players for being degenerates or nerds, just does not seem to have legs. The money involved is too varied and split to imagine collusion or conspiracy among players. Maybe a desperate coach or two makes a poor choice to goose someone's numbers, but given the career trajectory and long-term arc in play for those personnel, it seems very far-fetched to get to conspiracy. The same goes for referees.

So the only real gating effect on fantasy football is the same elements at work to potentially gate actual football. Injuries to players getting to the point of public condemnation or distaste. A public backlash on the de facto subsidization of the NFL by non-fans, in the area of public funding of stadiums, and the price fixe nature of cable programming that causes non-sports viewers to pay ESPN over $60 a year. Other sports or interests coming to the fore, or the audience getting aged or priced out, maybe from something as short-sighted as the league trying to copyright statistics, or to try to litigate every player into using their site, instead of the high number of players currently in the field (Yahoo, ESPN, CBS and others).

A mature market with growing acceptance and interest. An audience that seems more and more willing to pay for programming, who also skew to the same attractive demographics that sports benefits from. And the next 2 to 5 weeks of coverage that more or less translates into an advertisement to join or start your own league.

Amazing marketing and advertising success, right?

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Please like or share this column, connect with me on LinkedIn, email me at davidlmountain at gmail dot com, or hit the RFP boxes at top right. We offer copywriting, direction and strategy, along with design, illustration, photography, coding and hosting. The RFPs are always free. Hope to hear from you soon.