| thepowerofpain.com :: the pain papers :: newsletter #13 |
THE PAIN PAPERS:
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——————————————————————————————————- Learn to Use Pain to Generate, Evaluate, and Communicate Ideas ——————————————————————————————————- The Pain Papers ——————————————————————————————————- SHARE THE WEALTH. FORWARD THIS NEWSLETTER. Any other unauthorized publication, excerpting, or duplication of the contents without the permission of Christopher K. O'Leary is a violation of copyright law. For past issues of The Pain Papers, see... To subscribe to The Pain Papers, please send a message
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——————————————————————————————————- Y'all, Here is link to my interpretation of the results of the survey that I asked everyone to complete... https://www.thepowerofpain.com/thebook/reader_survey_results.html It says some interesting things about why people read The Pain Papers, what people want to learn, and how they feel about the current crop of innovation, creativity, and entrepreneurship books. Thanks to everyone who participated. The first 5 people have been contacted. Everyone else will be thrown into a second-chance pool for 5 copies of the book. The results of the survey have also convinced me that I am at the point where I am ready to start contacting publishers and literary agents. If anyone has any contacts, I would appreciate a referral. ——————————————————————————————————- CREDENTIALISM REDUX I have updated and improved the "Credentialism" article that I wrote for the last issue in order to make it suitable for publishing. Here is a link to the latest version... https://www.thepowerofpain.com/thoughts/credentialism.html All of you salespeople and marketers should check it out. ——————————————————————————————————- THE MYTH OF THE MUSE John Rodrigues (JohnR999@aol.com) and I were having a conversation the other day and Thomas Edison's famous "Innovation is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration" quote came up. I do have one problem with this statement. I believe that Edison underestimated the importance of inspiration. While inspiration may have been easy for him, he failed to understand how much of an issue it is for most people. Instead of inspiration being 1% of the effort, for most people it is more like 10% or 20%. Maybe it was easy for him, but we are not Edison. We have to work at things. However, I do agree with the general premise of this statement. In fact the same general argument is made in a fascinating, and unconventional, book that I have been reading called "Creativity: Beyond the Myth of Genius". If you had to ask me what the two main points of the book were, I would say that they are...
The premise of the book is that, in most cases, there is much less mystery to the creative process than people can or want to admit. In many cases, great products are the result of the morphing and refinement of an existing idea. Many stories of ideas springing to life fully formed are just that - stories. The reality is that long trails of work can be found behind even the most "inspired" works. Works that are said to have sprung to life from nothing often have hidden histories of conscious or unconscious effort. That raises the question of why these stories exist and persist. I think it has to do with the fact that most people want to be perceived as special and blessed. You are special if you can come up with an idea out of the blue. You are ordinary (but still a hard worker) if you produce a work after tremendous effort. The problem is that stories like these keep people from being as innovative as they can be. People assume that either the muse will bless them or not. They assume that they have no control over their creativity. Is this by design? Do people with an insight hide it and attribute their position to their muse in order to retain their power or position in life? My goal with The Pain Papers, The Power of Pain, and my other work is to remove some of the mystery from the process. I want to let everyone in on the secrets that I have learned. ——————————————————————————————————- MEME CRAFTING I was watching TV the other day when a commercial for Kay Jewelers got my attention. I noticed it for two reasons. First, the company was obviously spending a huge amount of money to run it continuously. Second, I the company's tagline, "Every kiss begins with Kay", means and says ABSOLUTELY NOTHING. While it may be literally true, it says nothing about the company or its products. It adds nothing to the commercial. Why does this matter? It matters because too many companies make the same mistake. They assume that a tagline is something that they need to have but that isn't that big of a deal. I disagree. I believe that smart companies should pay an inordinate amount of attention to their slogans, tag lines, and positioning statements because of an idea called the "meme". Let me explain the concept of the meme to those of you who may not have heard the term. The term "meme" was coined by Richard Dawkins in his book "The Selfish Gene." Basically, a meme is an idea that moves throughout a population of people, much as a cold moves throughout a population of people (another term for a meme is an idea virus or a virus of the mind). Examples of memes are the ideas that the earth is flat, the theory of evolution, or racist thoughts. The key they about memes is that they are concepts that are transmitted from person to person, much as a virus is transmitted. Someone becomes infected with the meme and then infects someone else. Memes, like viruses, have a lifespan. They spend an amount of time within a population and then either die or are replaced by another meme. I like to think of marketing as meme crafting. I think this way because everything that I have read tells me that the most persuasive salespeople are ordinary people. Evangelism works. I am the most likely to buy a product if someone that I know or respect raves about it to me. I firmly believe that it should be the PRIMARY GOAL of every company to turn their customers into their sales force. Of course, the process of someone's raving about a product is one of infecting me with a meme. They hold an idea, transmit it to me, and persuade me to hold that idea as well. If they have been successful, then I have been infected with the meme as well. Of course, this brings up the issue of transmissibility. Some memes (like some viruses) are more transmissible than others. Some memes act like the common cold and are transmitted easily. Some memes act like Malaria, and rely on some external agent for their transmission. This is relevant to marketing because marketers have the ability to influence the transmissibility of their memes. Let's go back to the Kay Jewelers example and look at it from the perspective of meme crafting. Let's assume that Kay has two goals. First, to infect me with the meme that Kay is a good place to shop. Second, to turn me into someone who will infect other people. Near as I can tell, their failure at the first makes the second a moot point. I haven't been infected with their meme because there is nothing to latch onto. There is no promise. They don't say anything. They just say something irrelevant. I'm unlikely to tell someone "Did you know that every kiss begins with Kay?" So what does good meme crafting look like? A great example is the Veggie Tales videos. Those of you who don't live in the States or have small kids have probably missed this. However, some of you American parents may know what I am talking about. Veggie Tales are children's videos that use cartoon characters to teach biblical lessons and principles. Things like loving your neighbor, not spreading rumors, and that kind of thing. They do it in a fairly subtle way. I love the Veggie Tales videos because they solve a problem for me. They give me an alternative to Pokeman and other videos that are either neutral or actually of concern. The folks who run Veggie Tales know something about meme crafting. Their meme goes like this... "Veggie Tales. Sunday morning values. Saturday morning fun." This is so brilliant. It gets to both the problem that is solved and the benefit that is delivered. This is also such a simple but powerful idea that it rates very high in terms of transmissibility. That explains the rapid spread of the Veggie Tales meme. Another example is Armatale. Anyone who has ever entertained knows about the problems with silver. It's beautiful, but very hard to care for. It's a high-maintenance metal. What the folks at Wilton have done is come up with a material that looks great but that stays clean and can be used in both the oven and refrigerator. Armatale is incredibly convenient and versatile and solves so many of the problems of people who entertain. Their meme goes like this... "Wilton Armetale(r) metal serveware combines the elegance of silver and the warmth of pewter. But, it's so much easier to care for." Beautiful. One pattern to note is that many good memes are based on what people already know. They combine two or more familiar concepts. Sunday morning values, Saturday morning fun. The elegance of silver and the warmth of pewter in an easy to care for package. This tactic works because you don't have to teach anyone anything. You just have to show them how C combines the best of A and B. I have found that this "best of both worlds" tactic works beautifully. For example, when we were figuring out how to sell SalesLogix, we ended up using a similar strategy. The SalesLogix meme was... "SalesLogix makes the first true sales automation solution that's as easy to use as Act." What we did in this case was make the argument that SalesLogix combined the best of both worlds of sales automation - the power of high-end systems and the usability of contact managers. The result was that SalesLogix went from $0 to $100 million in sales in just 5 years. I have used this tactic in other places with much success. When I worked for a company called Heuris, I changed their positioning to one that was based on the best of both worlds idea. In this case, the argument was that we provided the power of a high-end hardware-based MPEG encoder combined with the flexibility and affordability of a software-based MPEG encoder. The result was a doubling in sales and a tripling in the size of the dealer channel in just 6 months. In the case of Veggie Tales, Armatale, SalesLogix, and Heuris, I am convinced that their success was due to the crafting of the memes. These memes were well-crafted and easy to transmit. As a result, the size of the sales force increased with each sale of the product. Each customer became a salesperson. The result is that, in the case of Veggie Tales and Heuris, the memes were able to spread with minimal expenditures. I believe that any company that wants to succeed will look at the lesson of these and other companies and pay much more attention to what they say and how they say it. They need to pay much closer attention to how they craft their memes. ——————————————————————————————————- SEGWAY HT AKA "GINGER" AKA "IT" Anyone who is even minimally interested in technology has probably heard about Dean Kamen's new Segway (formerly known as "Ginger" or "IT"). Here are some links about the product... https://www.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,186660,00.html https://www.cnn.com/2001/TECH/ptech/12/03/scooter.unveiling/index.html https://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99991636 Basically, Segway is a much-improved scooter. There is no question that it is REALLY COOL. Just listen to Dean Kamen describe it...
Now that's cool. REALLY cool. The question that I have is whether cool is going to be enough to make Segway the world-changing invention that it's hyped up to be. To that end, and as a test of the predictive powers of my pain theories, let's look at Segway. For one thing, I don't like Kamen's view of the importance of communication in the process of innovation. In a recent interview, he said...
I have so many problems with this statement and the way of thinking behind it. For one, Kamen is making the classic engineer's mistake. He is confusing the problem solved with the solution to the problem. I will acknowledge that the solution to a problem must be complex if it is to be appreciated as value. Too many people solve real problems in ways that others can easily duplicate. This keeps them from making any money off of the problem. Barriers to entry are CRITICAL. As a result, THE IMPLEMENTATION of a good idea may well (and probably should) be very complex. For example, let me explain the SalesLogix database synchronization system or the MPEG algorithms to you some day. It could take hours to explain either. However, for people, especially ordinary people, to adopt an innovation, they must be able to quickly understand WHY they need it. Think of The Three Questions...
You should, and must, be able to answer all of those questions during a 30-second elevator ride. When it comes to HOW the problem is solved, most people (e.g. non-geeks) will either not care or will generally only care as a secondary consideration. They only care that you can sync a database quickly and easily and compress a video by a factor of 20. However, too many engineers focus on the HOW and ignore the WHY - and sometimes they are so focused on the HOW that there ends up being no WHY when you look closely. This brings us to the question of WHY and Segway. Why does the world need the Segway? Again, let's look at it in light of The Three questions...
As far as I can tell, Kamen has done a poor job of explaining why the world needs the Segway. He can point to what I call the Conceptual Problems that the Segway solves, but he doesn't have any Real Problems that are solved. The problem with Conceptual Problems is that they sound and are logical, but they often turn out to not be Real Problems. When Kamen talks about congestion and pollution, he is talking about Conceptual Problems - these are problems that people care about conceptually or in the abstract but don't seem to care about much on a day-to-day basis. As a result, people's actions often to not match up with their words. Examples of Conceptual Problems include pollution, recycling, and general healthfulness. People do care about them, but it's hard for them to see what they can do to fix them on a daily basis. Also, fixing Conceptual Problems also causes immediate pain for a presumed but uncertain benefit. Segway has "Conceptual Problem Solver" written all over it. Segway also suffers from what I call "The Clapper Problem." For those of you who are not familiar with The Clapper, it is a device that you plug into a wall outlet and allows you to turn a device on or off by just clapping. The problem with the clapper - and other inventions like clip-on ties - is that they are so practical that they make the user seem lazy. How hard is it to get up and turn off a light? How hard is it to tie a tie? I can just hear my Dad "Give me a break. Get off your butt and turn off the light." Problems that suffer from The Clapper Problem tend to go too far and end up being surrounded with an air of social unacceptability. The French have a great term - declassee. I wonder if Segway will fall victim to The Clapper problem. Come on, how hard is it for people to just walk from point A to point B. If it's too far to walk, then why not ride your bike? I see Segway running against the current health-consciousness of our society. It's like those motorized carts that people with walking problems use. They are great for your grandmother, but you wouldn't want to ride one. You don't want people to think that you are lazy. The Segway may be able to get around this in some areas. For one thing, I could see it taking off for people or purposes where the distances are too far to walk but for which a car does not work. Universities might be an interesting area. Lots of people live off campus but don't need or want a car. A Segway might solve that problem. However, it doesn't work in the rain or snow and I don't think I'd want to take one out on a road. So what is the bottom line? I do not think that Segway will be the success that it is hyped to be. It or a product like it may succeed, but not without significant changes in both the design and the marketing of the product. Segway is much more likely to play Apple Newton to someone else's Palm Pilot. ——————————————————————————————————- DON THE IDEA GUY I have to give it up for Don Snyder for all of the help that he (and others) has given me with the book. If you get a chance, you should go check out his site... https://www.dontheideaguy.com/ Don really is an idea guy. ——————————————————————————————————- NOW ALL WE NEED IS THE IDEA During a conversation that I had the other day, a friend made a statement that I think sums up the problems of many people when it comes to innovation and entrepreneurship... "I have lined up an excellent software programmer and I am a good sales/marketing guy. Now we just need a good product idea." I can't tell you how many times I have this conversation with good, capable people who are just looking for the right thing to do. ——————————————————————————————————- THE BODY SHOP Pat Malacek (pmalecek@AGEDWARDS.com) writes... "You may want to rethink (or qualify) your inclusion Body Shop:" https://www.nytimes.com/2001/12/03/business/worldbusiness/03BODY.html Basically, the link points out that The Body Shop is in real trouble. This gives me something to think about. Just because you built a company with pain, it doesn't mean that you can run it. You can lose touch with the market. You can forget why you are in the position that you are in. Anita Roddick moved far off of the pure pain thing that got her started and got more into the environmental/globalization stuff. While this was great for her, as she got more fringy and strident, opportunities opened up for other companies. In my mind, what happened is that she started solving problems for environmentalists and effectively shrank her market with her views. She started solving the problems of people other than the customers of The Body Shop - and she had no Sam Walton focused on The Body Shop. As a result, Bath and Body works and others were able to come in and solve the same problems for real people. ——————————————————————————————————- Please send all comments or feedback to chris@thepowerofpain.com SHARE THE WEALTH. FORWARD THIS NEWSLETTER. Any other unauthorized publication, excerpting, or duplication of the contents without the permission of Christopher K. O'Leary is a violation of copyright law. To subscribe to The Pain Papers, please send a message
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