The Nerds Have Won, And Will Continue Winning

Cut It Fine

This month in my free time -- well, the time stolen from sleeping -- I'll prepare for my fantasy baseball draft. It's something that I've done for much of my adult life, and the way it has changed over the years has been fairly interesting. The game itself has changed dramatically over time, from the steroid and easy hitter parks of previous decades to today's pitcher-centric era. There used to be 40-home run per year hitters; now, you're lucky to get to 30. Starting pitchers used to get to complete games more than rarely; now, almost never. The best relief pitchers used to be the guys that closed the games, and now, not always. And so on, and so on. But that's not the point I'm looking to make here, nor the reason why this has anything to do with marketing and advertising.

What you are trying to do in a fantasy sports league isn't to get the most hitters that break a certain home run threshold, or starting pitchers with the most complete games, or even the "best" team. Rather, you are trying to achieve results above the median, and to have those results culminate in a best in class performance. (Sounds like fun, doesn't it?)

That's never really changed for fantasy players, but what's new is how that mindset has worked its way into the game itself. "Moneyball" wasn't just an influential book and rather well-regarded movie; it really was a clarion call to how a market that was less than perfect in its efficiency was, well, going to become a lot more competitive.

Now, the growth metric and talent evaluation in baseball isn't on base level counting statistics. Instead, it's in percentages above the median, increasingly esoteric evaluations of fielding and defense (especially in how catchers "frame" pitches), base running benefits that go beyond just stealing bases, and so on, and so on. 

Back to our world.

It's rare, in today's digital marketing environment, that you'll just run a single channel or medium, and absolutely know the impact of the campaign. Emails inspire search results, which feed banner response, which rolls into your social media campaigns, and so on, and so on. So simple metrics like open and click rates, or even more powerful ones like revenue tracked by channel, may not give you the full story of what's working, and what isn't... or, more importantly, what's working, but only 20 to 30% as well as it should be, and might be easily actionable.

Which means that, just like in baseball, the role of the people who can recognize talent, or do game-changing things, is not all that different from what it was before. It's just being supplemented by increasingly complex analytical exercises, for the plain and simple reason that this is where the wins will come from. 

That, and a fairly strong amount of luck, in regards to who gets hurt and when. (OK, maybe baseball and marketing aren't quite the same after all.)

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Feel free to comment, as well as like or share this column, connect with me on LinkedIn, or email me at davidlmountain at gmail dot com, or hit the RFP boxes at top right. RFPs are always free, and we hope to hear from you soon.

U.B.I.llin'

Staff Us Up

Here's a pretty fascinating story from the NY Times, and it plays off a longstanding concern of mine, as well as lots of people who work in marketing and advertising.

To wit... to date, technology hasn't *really* destroyed (many) of our jobs. Sure, designers and copywriters now get to "compete" with people from all over the world, which means that it's becoming more and more difficult to make a living, or justify doing this rather than flipping burgers... but the job still actually exists.

Unlike, say, the people who used to make or develop film for cameras, flashlights instead of cell phone apps, cassette tapes or CDs or DVDs, and so on. You might have a career that has felt increasingly more insecure, or one that has been less and less lucrative, or involve more and more free-lancing and hustling, but it's still a gig.

But just because the job exists now, doesn't mean it will continue. And when the gigs go away, what happens next?

Well, this is where we need to think beyond how the world is now, and try to get past our natural human reaction to always assume the worst of progress or people... and to think about, say, what the world might look like when it is very, very different.

Say, with ubiquitous renewable energy, and maybe it's so efficient and paid for, over such a long period of time, that no one *has* to pay for it any more. Kind of like how long distance telephone bills used to be a big deal, and now, well, aren't.

Where genetic research, and maybe even therapy, allows us to simply correct chronic conditions, rather than continually pay to manage them.

Where every child is planned, and populations managed, with humanity maybe not even confined to the surface of the Earth. Which means all kinds of disruption to real estate and housing.

Where technology eliminates the need for massive military expenditures, or stops putting humanity at direct risk.

Where travel becomes easier, either through self-driving (and maybe also flying?) technology, once again powered by the limitless energy. Or, more fancifully, with teleportation.

Which means that it's not just your job that's at risk.

It's everyone's.

That's a world where it's possible that the pursuit of money just might not be, well, how the world works. Remember, we're talking about limitless energy assets, massive developments in computing power, spectacular advancements in communications and so on. But the transition from the current world of 1% / 99% to a money-free "Star Trek"-esque utopia won't be easy or smooth, so what's being increasingly considered is a kind of dividend payment. Some economists call this Universal Basic Income, or UBI.

Rather than as a welfare payment, it's better to think of such things as if you were, say, a resident of Saudi Arabia or Alaska, where oil companies pay the residents a portion of their revenue as part of a prior arrangement. Or members of a Native American tribe with casinos. It's basically similar. (Also, perhaps not great for overall happiness. Hard to say, really.)

If all of this seems very naive or promoting a particular agenda, keep in mind that the concept isn't beholden to a political party or philosophic leaning. Rather, it simply reflects the reality that any job that can be taken away by technology probably, well, will.

And, finally, this...

If you didn't have to work for a living, because technology gave you everything you ever wanted and needed, and money didn't exist as a scoreboard or necessity to provide for yourself and your family...

What would you do with your time instead?

(Me? Probably the same job as now, because the writing is who I am. But don't tell my clients or employers, because it really doesn't do much for my leverage in contract negotiations...)

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Feel free to comment, as well as like or share this column, connect with me on LinkedIn, or email me at davidlmountain at gmail dot com, or hit the RFP boxes at top right. RFPs are always free, and we hope to hear from you soon.

Today In I Don't Get It: Awards

Stop Stalking Us

After reading about the Oscars this week, I'm left with my usual reaction... and that is that, just, well, I just don't get why people care about such things. And before you get the wrong impression, this isn't about who got nominated, or the recurring demographic breakdown of that group. Rather, it's why the awards exist in the first place, and why anyone cares about them.

I suppose it's fun to complain about things that don't ever change... wait, that's actually not fun at all. Plus, there's all of these columns about what needs to be done to make the show better -- as if the show ever really changes. Or who got snubbed, as if the snubbing weren't probably better for your economic prospects than to be nominated, but not win it. But beyond all of that, I just don't remember ever making a decision about watching a movie based on whether it won a statue or six. I watch movies based on reviews that probably never mention the awards, or because of the personnel involved.

At this point, you might start to wonder how we'll tie this into marketing and advertising... and, well, it's simple. Have you ever made the decision to hire a marketing and advertising professional based on the awards they have?

That's not a rhetorical, by the way. Feel free to testify to it in the comments. But when you get into my world of analytics fueling creative, lather rinse repeat, awards just aren't part of the flywheel. I'm not saying that we'd turn them down.

Just that we've honestly never even remembered to apply for them, mostly because we've been too busy doing the, you know, work...

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Feel free to comment, as well as like or share this column, connect with me on LinkedIn, or email me at davidlmountain at gmail dot com, or hit the RFP boxes at top right. RFPs are always free, and we hope to hear from you soon.