For whom the bell tolls

Bonjour.

Very little feedback on last week’s words of wit and wisdom so obviously not thought provoking or unreasonable enough for you, the only true test for this column. Dearie me.

But we did get a comment from a doctor, no less. We are moving up in the world. And the really scary thing about his comment is that he agrees with our diagnosis on the NHS. Even he, with initials before and after his name, can’t get an appointment either. This is more serious than we thought. We shall return to this topic.
Anyone else from the NHS care to comment?

And someone did ask why someone like Cicero is using the NHS with all its flaws, defects and problems. It is assumed that Cicero would pay for medical treatment to avoid having to queue with the great unwashed. You forget whence Cicero comes...why pay again for something which has already been paid for and when it can be obtained for ‘free’?

Today we are going to set a wee test and I would like as many of you possible to write in with your thoughts. There will be a prize. And even though this competition will test your creative juices it will have great relevance to all of us in business. Even Apparatchiks can play this game though its real world relevance might be limited though there is no need why it should be.

One day the great Ernest Hemingway was challenged, no doubt in a bar over a couple of Ryes and soda, his tipple of choice, to write a story in six words or less.

Ern thought about it for a moment, grabbed pen and paper and wrote this emotional, intriguing and cliff hanging yarn

‘For sale. Baby’s shoes. Never worn.’

Now this tale might lack the polish and finish of say ‘The Da Vinci Code’. It might not be enough to amuse you on a long journey. And it is unlikely to be made into a movie. But it is one helluva of a story and the sequel is sure to be umissable.

And so your test this week is to come up with a similar work in fiction in six words or less and as promised there will be a prize for the winner.

But let’s not stop there for we can apply the Hemingway test to many situations.

For example last week Cicero was challenged to apply the Hemingway Test to come up with a reason why anyone should want to buy the Luvvie Brand where he is currently plying his trade.

Could you come up with a compelling, engaging, relevant and distinctive story to explain your brand in six words or less? Go on, try it. Yes, that’s you, do it now. Even if you are working in Third Sector as we now call charities, this applies to you. Remember you too are in competition for donations and handouts so you too must be able to do the Hemingway Test.

And just think too of all the money that could be saved on mission and vision statements if Head Honchos could develop in less than 6 words a compelling story why their people should get out of bed and come into work inspired and motivated to build the brand across every touch point.

You may have heard this before but it is always apposite to quote the cleaner at NASA asked by JFK what her job was replied

‘My job, sir, is to help put a man on the moon’.

Nothing long winded about that. And exciting, inspiring and motivating. Hemingway would be proud. Now let’s see if you can do any better.

Is it only me..........but here’s a funny thing

Within hours of the recent tragedy in Japan my phone was awash with text jokes finding humour in this situation. And in parallel my inbox was soon filled with humour in the same vein. Now this is not the place to disseminate further this kind of humour so if you came here looking for sick jokes, then you have come to the wrong place, pal.

Now the same thing happened after the Christchurch earthquake, the death of Michael Jackson, indeed after any sad event sick, deranged and depraved humour swiftly criss-crosses the globe. Indeed there were even jokes from those with racist tendencies following the recent victory of the Welsh tribes over the Pictish tribes. How sick can you get?

Indeed I have heard from one devotee reader of these pages whose works takes him away from civilisation for long periods of time, that when he eventually reaches shores and approaches a mobile phone signal sick texts are what alerts him and his mates to news of tragic import that they will have missed while they were ruling the waves on our behalf. Surely a better source of reliable news than the usual news outlets. Sir John Reith, eat your heart out!

Now we may think that jokes in such taste are inherently bad and sick but I am sure that many psychologists will agree that black humour can be a very effective antidote to tragedy and provide an escape value for society allowing it to grieve and share emotions safely. Well at least that’s my defence and for those of you in receipt of my texts and mails in this vein, please remember that I am in fact performing a useful social service.

Now it might only be me but I am always curious as to where these jokes that travel and cross borders with such ease, actually start. Who is sitting there with pen and finger poised over PC or phone or iThingymybob keyboard scanning the news from around the world looking for the any item announcing the arrival of any one of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse?

I would love to trace these so called jokes back to their source. Is there a factory or somewhere in the Developing World or a sweat shop in the back streets of some northern town where labourers toil for long hours earning a pittance working without the protection of Employment, Health and Safety and Minimum Wage Laws turning out these gags? If so we should inform the Guardianistas. They hate this kind of thing.

If anyone knows how and where these jokes start can they please let us know.

Have a great week.

Sis felix. Et sis fortunatus.

Dear John

In the words of Neil Diamond, hello again, my friend.

Did you read last week’s comments? If so you will know that we have knowingly converted to our rational point of view our first Apparatchik Guardianista. Welcome to our world, hopefully you will stay a convert. It is never too late to learn and as Professor Brian Cox once said ‘things can only get better’. Bet you never thought that Cicero knew so many contemporary cultural references.

Last week Cicero received a ‘Dear John’ letter.

Now before you all get your hankies out and weep for Cicero at this emotional tragedy, there is something you need to know.

Now contrary to popular belief Cicero is very au fait with the digital world and to ensure his knowledge and understanding is up to date has subscribed to many newsletters and e-mails from companies around the world offering to keep him up to speed with all the latest developments.

Those of you who also follow this practice will be aware that in-boxes rapidly become filled and so last week Cicero took the unprecedented decision to unsubscribe. Shock, horror!

And do you know what this company said in return, and here we are quoting verbatim
‘Remove me! You have now been removed from our database. Good luck’
It felt as if unsubscribers had moved beyond the pale and been surgically taken out. And why was good luck required. Surely it is possible to subsist without the help and influence of this company.

Now this is a big trick that marketers are missing and like all other touch points surely it should be possible for breaking up to be not quite as painful. After all you may well have invested a lot of money and energy getting a subscriber so why just say ‘see you around sometime’ when the divorce happens. Why not make a wee bit more effort to keep the door open?

Many brands are failing to embrace the marketing opportunity created by consumers unsubscribing from their marketing emails. They are dismissing consumers who fall out of love with their emails as lost causes rather than enabling them to enhance their relationship with the brand in a different way.

It would have been nice when waving goodbye if Cicero’s ex dot com buddy had at least said thank you for your custom and for your interest.

Perhaps too it could have asked for feedback. How about giving customers the opportunity to tell you exactly where you went wrong, and to let you know just how much all of your email communication flaws and bad habits deterred them.

Another option might be to offer customer the option of less frequent emails. This is exactly what M&S does. Or even more relevant e-mails.

These are just a few suggestions. There will be many more approaches out there to help ease the pain of digital break ups. And if you have any great examples, please do share.

Get it right and your Dear Johns need not be adieu but merely au revoir and a bientot too.

Is it only me.................but how do you get to see a doctor?

Now fortunately I am blessed with good health apart from of course from failing eyesight as tempus fugit, the odd dodgy knee and a few patches of rough skin. Other than that I am hale and hearty and rarely need to trouble the medical profession. And despite the massive transfer of my wealth into the NHS on a monthly basis I do not begrudge paying it though I do wish that the Apparatchiks who run this esteemed institution did learn to spend my money a wee bit more wisely than hitherto and did spend as if it was their own money and with less profligacy.

However the other week I ailed and required the services of the medical profession and I learnt just how difficult it is to see a doctor, despite you would have thought the quacks considering me essential to treat given that I, and quite a few others like me, are the people who bankroll the NHS.

Now in theory it should be possible to get a same day appointment. The key word here is theory. The phone lines open at 8am and by 8.05 same day appointments had disappeared faster than Take That tickets disappear though it is mystery to me why these would disappear with great alacrity. Still no accounting for taste. Anyway the Moll who runs the reception services could offer me no adequate explanation why appointments should disappear so quickly. It is not like we have a shortage of quacks, we must have at least 10. So I can only surmise that a) there is an epidemic where I lay my hat b) I reside in a particularly ill area c) appointment slots are being bought up by touts and sold on to the highest bidder.

Now the natural thing when you are unable to book for later in the day is to request an appointment for the following day. But no that is not possible. Despite this being the logical and rational approach, well at least to those of us with imagination and common sense, I was informed by the Doctor’s Moll that this was impossible as I would have to ring back the next day.

Next day same result.

Day after same result.

Day after that I was cured.

Now I know this might be a way to save the NHS money but it might only be me but how exactly do you get an appointment these days to see a doctor. Some people manage it and they can’t all be buying appointment slots from the touts. It seems that if you are chronically sick and/or feckless and unemployed you know how the system works, you have been inducted into the mysteries of the appointment booking system and taught the password. But quite frankly these sorts of people are not the ones paying for the service.

On the other hand, the occasionally sick and full time funders of the service are out in the cold, fighting for the appointment booking scraps, never mind whether it fits with a window in their busy Blackberries. May I suggest that this is the wrong way round and the occasional sick should be prioritised and restored to health with great speed to earn the wealth we need to keep the service going for others?

A few years back I suggested an innovation-appointments for commuters. And behold this innovation was taken up though too few to make a difference and to get one of these you have to schedule your sickness a few weeks in advance.

We need more innovation. Any ideas?

Have a great week. And stay healthy.

Sis felix. Et sis fortunatus.

The compleat angler

Greetings

It seems that we are now able to annoy Guardianistas and Apparatchiks without even meaning to (see last week’s comments from Anonymous to understand). A rare skill indeed.

Is this the time to point out to the Apparatchiks and Guardianistas that they enjoy the kind of pension heavily subsidised in large part by the value creating taxpayer and squeezed middle who themselves do not get such generous settlements in old age? Can someone please explain why this is fair and equitable? God bless Lord Hutton for pointing out the inequity of this absurdity. And yet the Apparatchiks have the cheek to want to revolt. They should be want what they get, not get what they want.

But let us put this behind us and move on to discussing more worthwhile and interesting matters.

Cicero loves coaching. And he enjoys reading about coaches and how they help prepare their coachees to deliver great performances. This can only help Cicero continue in his role as sage, mentor and guru to Marketing Grands and Petits Fromages and to his many devotees who imbibe his every word.

And last week he spent a brief time in the company of one of rugby’s great coaches who passed on these wise words.

One day a hunter and a fisherman went away camping, resolving to experience nature and to live off the land. On day one there’s plenty of fish for the men to catch and both men were happy and fully fed. On the second day there were far fewer fishes in the river and the hunter is beginning to get agitated, no doubt beginning to feel the hunger pangs in his tummy and the slow steady onset of anorexia.

‘Be patient’, the fisherman tells him, ‘you must wait and see if any fish will come this way.’

Prepared to wait and confident in his skill as a fisherman, the fisherman catches one fish late in the day to keep starvation at bay through the night.

Day three and nothing is biting at all and the fisherman knows it is going to be one of those days and a long slog. ‘No fish today’, he says to the hunter, ‘that’s just the way it is.’

But the hunter doesn’t accept this. He fashions a spear from the boughs of some nearby tees, wades into the water and starts to walk upstream. Brushing the cold and wet to one side he eventually finds and spears a fish.

And the moral of the story-you have got to make things happen, you’ve got to get on the front foot and never accept that ‘this is just the way it is’. If it’s not a good day, you turn it round. You never ever shrug your shoulder and accept the status quo. As Ghandi might have said ‘you must be the change you want to see in the world’. Clearly he was a hunter and not a fisherman.

Now this moral works on a couple of levels.

First as a coach. We can help our people to get on the front foot, to explore and try new ways of doing things and thinking. And not just to accept that they can’t improve, get better or move from their comfort zone just because ‘that’s the way it is’. As coaches we can encourage our people and our business not to play the fisherman role but to wade into the water and go out and make things happen. That is why great businesses and good people succeed.

But we can also use such a philosophy to improve, challenge and question things that are wrong within our business and cause the interferences that make life difficult for our customers. We can refuse to accept the wrong and we can wade upstream within our business to right wrongs that we know or can see are agitating our customers. How many times as consumers do we encounter shop staff, call centre people, waiters and waitresses, and everyone else in the customer service business who excuse bad service on the grounds that ‘that’s just the way it is’. Nonsense, it can be changed if we can be bothered to change it. And nothing riles Cicero more than we comes across people, usually in Hi Viz vests, who just shrug at some absurdity or other and excuse it on the basis that ‘is just the way it is'. Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.

From now on, let’s resolve to be hunters. It will be better for our people, our customers and ultimately for our businesses. And that way none of us will starve to death.

Is it only me.........but this is dangerous.

I don’t know if it has ever struck you how inherently dangerous ‘average speed restrictions’ are on our motorways. Well it has struck me and hopefully the Two Caesars and their Apparatchik Little Helpers who work in the Highways Agency will take heed. Don’t hold your breath.

Now no doubt someone will point out based on spurious statistics that average speed restrictions through road works saves 1.72 lives a year. And no doubt too the eco-mentalists will point out that by reducing speed through the road works and for every county on either side of where the men in the Hi Viz vets are supposed to be digging, reduces our carbon emissions by 0.29g per annum. And so in the basis the Men from the Highway Agency will crack open the champers, say ‘job done’ and pay themselves a whopping Apparatchik bonus, or as I like to call it, transfer money from my pocket into their wallet.

But hold on a minute. Before we get carried away on a binge of righteous self congratulation, let us examine a few more facts.

Now we may not here have all the facts at our disposal but since when has that ever stopped anyone from making a point. However it has not escaped my attention that on a daily basis the Traffic Gals who populate our radio stations will report that the ‘M(insert number) has been closed for the past few days due to an incident(note-we no longer have accidents) in the roadworks’. And of course the road either side of said accident, sorry incident, will have been closed for at least 50 miles. No doubt to give the Wombles something to do in their 4x4s.

Now I have a theory why this might be the case.

These accidents are caused by drivers staring incessantly at the speedometer and feverishly calculating their average speed between the yellow sticks, instead of watching the road and concentrating on what is happening in front of them. And then bang, crash, wallop, another incident and another stretch of motorway turned into a car park for the next few days.

Now it might only be me but this is why average speed checks are so dangerous and should be banned. This might upset the eco-mentalists and Health and Safety Gauleiters (Motorways Branch) but quite frankly surely we can live with a few more grams of CO2. And does it not take a lot of energy and extra CO2 to repair all the cars damaged and written just because we have lost the art of mental arithmetic these days? I bet no one has included that in their calculations.

Have a great week. And drive safely.

Sis felix. Et sis fortunatus.

A very good question......

Greetings, amici.

Last week we managed to keep the Guardianistas quiet. Not sure if that is good news. No doubt they were pre-occupied with helping immigrants to this country obtain benefits or fighting to maximise the amount we taxpayers re-distribute to others through so called ‘progressive taxation’. Why is regressive taxation such a bad thing?

Last week Cicero was asked a very good question. It was so good that Cicero was stopped in his tracks and took a few more days to ponder and develop a meaningful response. Hence the reason we are a day or two late. Hopefully the delay will be worth it as you will be the first to hear Cicero’s latest theorem.
And the question............

First a bit of background.

Cicero has recently collaborated with and indeed presented on a new report dedicated to building brands from the inside out. In essence it is Cicero’s belief that Marketing Grands and Petits Fromages over emphasise brand building with consumers and pay little attention to ensuring that the people who deliver the brand and customer experience day in and day out understand and are fully aligned with the brand and its promise. This is wrong. If we do not pay sufficient heed to this important aspect of the brand we are just applying lipstick to the pig.

And in response to this Cicero was asked ‘how do you measure internal brand awareness?’ ’ Great question. Let me get back to you on that one.’

And so after a wee ponder, we now have an answer. And you are going to hear it first. And as with much else the solution is probably quite simple and straightforward. But it is an important issue if we remember that what gets measured gets done.

Clearly the most logical way to measure internal brand awareness is through some kind of survey and the most obvious way to do this would be to tag some interesting questions onto a Staff Attitude Survey, or SAS, which is quite appropriate really given that in this area those who dare will well and truly win.

But it is not enough just to measure Awareness. We must also measure Belief and Credibility. And there we have it-the ABC model of internal branding. , a new model at the heart of internal branding. As already said you have heard it here first. It is worth coming back to see what we are saying and discussing here.

Our people must not just be Aware of what the brand stands for and what it means for how they might do business but they also must Believe in the brand, its values and its promise. And critically too the brand must be seen as being at the very heart of the way the business operates. This is what makes the brand truly Credible in the eyes of our people.

So what questions should we ask our people to understand our ABC score? Here are five for starters:
• How well do you understand the brand idea?
• Do you know what this means for how you do your job?
• Do you believe in the values of this business?
• Do you share these values?
• Do you think we put these values at the heart of the way we do business?

What do you think?

And as was said a few paragraphs back the answer is quite straightforward and simple. It is almost as easy as ABC. Now all that needs to happen is for businesses and more specifically Marketing Grand Fromages to take the issue of internal branding a tad more seriously. But that is a whole different ball game. At least we now know how to track progress.

Is it only me............but who cares?

Well the Royal Wedding preparations are starting to run through the gears and our glamour-loving-forelock-tugging-royalty-fawning-glitz-sycophantic media too are cranking up the gears to full speed. The Arab world is in full scale revolt, petrol prices inexorably rising and Brits trapped in the sand pit of North Africa screaming at the Two Caesars to get them out of here, even though they went of their own free will into one of the most unstable regions on the planet to earn well above the going rate.

But while all this going on our Golden Royal Couple stepped into the limelight. Firstly in North Wales and then in St Andrews where love’s young dream first met. Bless.

In North Wales, as reported on the BBC, and let no one here say that the BBC is dumbing down and going down the star struck route, a young woman, 28, ‘sang the Welsh national anthem, as well as a hymn in Welsh’.

Shock. Horror. Someone has sung the Welsh National Anthem in Welsh. Is there any other way to sing the Welsh National Anthem? Tens of thousands sung it in Welsh at recent rugby matches. Did we hold the front page for that?

And we are also told that the same young lady ‘wore a cream tailored coat, with brown collar and had her hair swept up into a pony tail and fastened with a black feathered fascinator’ while the young man accompanying her ‘wore a dark suit and winter coat, buttoned up against the wind.’ Go down the Tube every day and you will see loads and loads of men wearing dark suits and winter coats though admittedly fascinators, which look like road kill, are a wee bit rarer on the Tube these days.

Now it might only be me but who cares what someone is singing and in what language or what he or she is wearing? That is not news. The BBC is supposed to be the international standard for journalism. If this is the case worldwide journalism is sinking fast. It is time to remember the Lord Harmsworth dictum that "when a dog bites a man, that is not news, because it happens so often. But if a man bites a dog, that is news."

Woman singing the Welsh National Anthem is not news but trivia. As is man wears darks suit. It is time for journalists to be journalists and not trivialists.

Have a great week.

Sis felix. Et sis fortunatus.

Let your fingers do the walking

Well it turned out last week’s thoughts on the middle class subsidy we call our libraries, stirred up a wee bit of a hornet’s nest. The Guardianistas ended up in a right lather over my heretical thinking. The good news is that no library is needed to read these thoughts.

But it should be pointed out that to prove said point last weekend Cicero hung around his local library to see if being used and by whom. And Cicero’s point is proven-the library was not being used by working class types keen to improve their literacy and education levels. They were no doubt too busy playing with on their Playstations and X-Boxes.

And in defence of the marketing profession who were also slated by last week’s Guardianista, we should point out that marketers do not manipulate anyone to buy anything. We present you with and edit for you, choice. It is still your right to choose to buy or not. We make it easy for you to do so. And in doing so we create value for our brands and our businesses which means our people, our companies and ultimately the nation all benefits through the taxes we collect and pay.

So you see marketing is of immense social benefit to the country helping our businesses generate the wealth to pay for the libraries that fewer and fewer people are using.

And back to this week’s lesson........

Cicero does not just do marketing and as you might expect Cicero can be a bit of a Renaissance Man in a metro sexual kind of way. He also does films. And according to Cicero no sequel ever in the whole history of cinema has worked as well as the original with two notable exceptions. Godfather 2 was every bit as good as the original Godfather, although even Martin Scorsese was unable to stretch the quality across three films.

And the other film? Toy Story which did manage to make three films of increasing quality though since this is a cartoon it is a moot point whether this is a film in the conventional sense of the word.

This principle that no film is a good as its original except in the aforementioned examples Cicero calls the Godfather Theorem.

Now if anyone can name another film which has managed to maintain its artistic integrity and celluloid quality across more than outing, we would be interested to know.

Now this detour into the realms of Claudia Winkelman has been occasioned by the arrival of the latest ad from Yell. Yell used to be known as Yellow Pages in the days when people used to look up phone numbers in big thick books. Remember those days?

Now for those of you who have no idea what we are talking about, here is a brief précis of the marketing plot.

Many years ago there used to be a Yellow Pages ad featuring a kindly old man trailing from book shop to book shop (and do we remember those?) looking for a book called ‘Fly Fishing’ by J R Hartley. He searches in vain before returning home tired and empty handed to be greeted either by his sympathetic daughter or his gold digging young wife who mops his weary brow and hands him a copy of Yellow Pages. Eventually after letting his fingers do the walking and umpteen phone calls he finds a bookshop with a copy in stock. ‘That’s great’, he exclaims in excitement, ‘My name? Yes of course. J R Hartley’.

Cue logo and end frame. And the ad enters advertising folk lore to be parodied and imitated through the succeeding years.

Well now Yell has re-made the ad. Only this time J R Hartley is a DJ called Dave Lately looking for a dance track helped by Yell.com and his teenage daughter.
Does it work? Frankly no and so Cicero’s Godfather Theorem still holds true.
Now it is interesting to Marketing Grand Fromages like Cicero to see ads going down the same route as films with sequels and re-makes but you should never go back. This is true for advertising as in life. It will only disappoint.

J R Hartley was a lovely old man and you really felt great warmth for him as he experienced the joy of finding his magnum opus before he joined the Great Fisherman in the Sky. He had a Werthers-esque warmth and humanity about him. You wanted him to be your granddad.

Our DJ hero in the re-make, Dave Lately, lacks the humanity and authenticity of Mr Hartley. We do not have the same level of wanting him to succeed in his quest. It is interesting but not engaging. And great ads are always engaging and totally authentic.

And there is another flaw. Today we are swamped with search engines. Surely it would have been just as easy to Google the track or pay a visit to Amazon to find it. These days why would you bother trekking the High St to find something? This is a great big gaping hole in the plot. Surely in this post J R Hartley day and age one would use Google to find not Yell. We use Yell to choose when we don’t exactly what we want like when we want to choose an electrician or a hotel or a plumber.

So if you are like Dave Lately and let your fingers do the walking, be careful. You might just find yourself up a dead end.

Now it might only be me.......but what is happening to us and our society, big or otherwise?

The other day I was told a story of a Friend who asked a Railway Porter to help a blind man. ‘What do you want me to do?’, asked the Railway Porter. ‘Your f$*&£ing job’, replied my Friend, before being reported for abuse.

I also read recently the report from the Care Commission on how nurses in hospital are abandoning and ignoring vulnerable old people by doing unthinking things like that putting food and drink and call buttons out of reach. One patient even asked the nurse to call her daughter to be told “this is not my job".

No wonder such reports caused one of the Two Ceasars' little helpers to say that ‘care standards still needed to improve.’ You reckon. With insight like that it is no wonder that you get elected to parliament.

Of course such attitudes as this and like the behaviour witnessed by my Friend at the railway station will be blamed on the Two Caesar’s refusal to spend more money. Naturally it will all be the fault of the Government. Heaven forbid that people should take some responsibility for themselves.

Now this is the bit that I don’t get. This is not about money. Or lack of staff. Or government cutbacks. No matter what some people might think. This is about caring for our fellow man. I am not the most caring or empathetic of people, yes I do have weaknesses, but even I know to go to offer help someone who is less capable and able than me, though in my case this means that I have to help just about everyone.

Seriously what has happened to common sense? What has happened to common decency? What has happened to giving a bit of ourselves to help others? To treating others as we would like to be treated?

It might only be me but nursing is supposed to be a caring profession. It is supposed to be about helping and supporting and caring. Or have I got that wrong? No nurse should ever say ‘that is not my job’, unless of course she is being asked to perform open heart surgery. No nurse should ever be looking at her watch and say I don’t have time for you. And no nurse should ever be as thoughtless and so lacking in care to leave vulnerable people thirsty, hungry and abandoned just because they never gave them a moment’s thought. Nurses like this should be run out of the profession before it sinks to the level of railway staff.

And as for the Railway Porter, we expect nothing less from these people. Help a passenger, me, don’t be silly.

Have a great week.

Sis felix. Et sis fortunatus.

Getting to know you, getting to know all about you

Apologies yet again.

Last week Cicero went AWOL. He disappeared over the wall constructed by Hadrian before he could collect and publish his thoughts. He now wishes that he had stayed behind and continued his communion and conversation with his devotees instead of watching the tribe from beyond the Dyke of Offa beat the living daylights out of the Pictish Tribe. It was a weekend to forget.

And to respond the devotee who asked what brands were giving their people a great reason to come to work-John Lewis and Apple spring immediately to mind. Any others you want to add?

Last week Cicero bought a book online.

This is not an uncommon or unusual activity for Cicero but while doing so Cicero was struck by the comprehensiveness and accuracy of the recommendations offered to Cicero. It was as if Cicero and the book seller had lived together all their lives. And yet said book seller knew very little about Cicero. Amazing.

Now since Cicero stopped being an Apparatchik with responsibility for protecting our security and freedoms, he has joined a Luvvie Agency helping clients become great at marketing, with his help of course. Now you would not believe how much data brands collect about their customers. And yet despite this many brands fail to make use of this data and continue to send out generic marketing. And this is where Cicero comes in.

And it is worth point out at this point that the advice you are about to be given you get for free, others pay a small fortune. Aren’t you lucky?

Now if you have been charged by your business to come up with a customer data and customer marketing strategy, please think about what’s important and what will really make a difference, and to collect only the data you really need to make your marketing truly great. It sounds obvious but you would be amazed how many times the obvious is overlooked.

Now some people may tell you that information is power. They are wrong. Information is not power but powerful but do we really need all the information we seek to store?
Brands certainly have a habit of collecting lots of information about us that never seems to be used. For example, how many times have you completed an extensive registration form stating your preferences, gender, date of birth and much else beside yet received nothing but generic marketing in return?

So what’s the answer? Don’t collect information and save the storage space? It’s an option but probably not the most intelligent one.

Instead think about what will make a difference, and focus on customer behaviour.
This information will expand your understanding of your customers and allow you to influence their behaviour and buying patterns. It’s called marketing, darling.

Graze, the company that delivers healthy snacks for anorexics to their desk, seems to get this. After each delivery they will ask customers to rate the foods, if you can call nuts and raisins food, and to edit preferences for the next time.
These simple bits of data are key to targeting customer behaviour and purchases with the brand. Arguably everything else is superfluous.

Relevance and attractiveness is key. If you can glean information about your customer’s preferences, your marketing can be very specific to their needs. This is exactly how Cicero’s amazing bookseller chappie. They know nothing about Cicero expect how he behaves when buying a book and that is the information they use to nudge his behaviour. Genius.

And as they might have said in the ‘King and I’ great marketing is really all about ‘getting to know you, getting to know all about you’.

Now it might only be me but.............................libraries should RIP.

Have you been to a library recently? Nope thought not. Neither have it. But that does not mean we don’t read books. In my case my appetite for books is only bested by my appetite for the kind of foods that the Nanny State wants to ban. In other words food that is not good for me. But I do like books but a library is the last place I would go for a book.

And yet society is up in arms because the councils supposedly acting on behalf of the Two Caesars, which is a debatable point in itself if they stood up and accepted responsibility, are reducing funding to libraries, an act of ‘cultural vandalism’ according to some. Get over it.

It has been estimated that in some councils only 2.5p out of every pound spent on the library service is being spent on books. No doubt much of the rest is being siphoned off to pay for Local Council Apparatchiks to have fancy chairs and gold plated pensions.

And have you seen who are using the libraries these days? There might be a better argument for retaining them if they were an invaluable weapon to combat illiteracy and poor people were using them to source learning. Now I’m sure this might be the case in some instances but in most cases, and I have studied the sort of people using this service, the type of people going in and out of libraries are the retired middle class. Is this just not another hidden subsidy for the middle class?

And then I heard an interview the other day with some woman who used her local library to source Mills and Boon novels. And I will repeat this....she was borrowing Mills and Boon novels. Come on. It is hardly cultural vandalism if this is what we are subsidising. Indeed I would argue it is cultural vandalism to disseminate this time of material.

Let’s face facts. We are going to hell in a hand cart. The number of people visiting libraries is in long term decline. The amount of books being borrowed is in long term decline. And yet we are being asked to continue to pay for this so that some people can access Mills and Boon and so that Local Council Apparatchiks can have fancy chairs and retire on the kind of pension that of us can dream of.

Now it might only be me but the day of the library is over. It has done its job. We can all now read and write and if we can’t then it is not like you will be the sort of person who will be hanging around a library. They tend not to like ASBO-ites down there. If we were starting out today would we invent the library? I don’t think so.

Have a great week.

Sis felix. Et sis fortunatus.

Do you know why you come to work?

After last week’s brief interlude to pay our respects to the death of free speech and free thought, and which led to Cicero being considered ‘ a sexist pig’ by some, no doubt Guardianista types, who know little of Cicero, we are back this week with more considered thoughts on the business of business. No doubt this will be a relief to you.

A few days back Cicero was re-acquainting himself with the works of Kipling (the author not the cake maker on this occasion even though Cicero is also well acquainted with the works of the cake maker as well, hence the girth).
We digress.

In particular Cicero met once again Mr Kipling’s ‘six famous serving men whose names were who and what and where, and how and why and when’. For those of a questioning and challenging disposition these serving men have proven invaluable, especially ‘why'. But do these serving men not also apply to the structure of a modern business?

Consider this. The training and development department, and sometimes even a corporate university, take care of the H – how employees do things. The HR people, along with the headhunters, handles the “who”. Meanwhile, the Head Honcho of the business aka the CEO, often flanked by a few high-priced consultants and his Grand Fromages, devises the strategy – the “what”. The “where” and “when” of products is the domain of the logistics and supply chain team, while the “where” and “when” of people is the responsibility of the facilities manager and administrative staff and even line management.

But who is responsible for the why? Now don’t all cry out at once.

The 'who', 'what', 'where', 'when' and 'how' in any company will be on the organisation chart but 'why’, ‘the why we come to work question’, and surely this is the most important question, is conspicuously absent. Sure businesses will often go about being number one in chosen markets or maximising shareholder value as the ‘why’. But will this get our people out of their beds in the morning? Doubt it. Does that why excite you? Probably not.

And that can be a costly mistake as recent studies have found.

Introducing “why” – even in surprisingly modest ways – can have a big impact as we will now demonstrate.

In one study, employees at a call centre made phone calls to alumni to raise funds. These were randomly divided into three teams. For a few days, before they made calls, people in the first group read brief stories from previous employees about the personal benefits of working in the job – how they developed communication skills and sales know-how that later helped them in their careers. The second group also read stories before hitting the phones, but their stories were from people who had received scholarships from the funds raised and who described how the money had improved their lives. The aim of these stories was to remind workers of the purpose of their efforts. The third group was the control group; they read nothing before hitting the phones.

The results from the three groups were startling and enlightening.

The people in the first group, who’d been reminded of the personal benefit of working in a call centre, did no better than those in the control group. Both groups earned about the same number of weekly pledges and raised the same amount of money as they had in the weeks before the experiment.

However, the people in the second group – who took a moment to consider the significance of their work and its effect on others’ lives – raised more than twice as much money, in twice as many pledges, as they had in previous weeks and significantly more than their counterparts in the other two groups.

In other words, reminding employees about that missing W – the “why” – doubled their performance.

Similar results in another call centre study back this up. There, when employees spent just five minutes talking to the recipients of the funds they were raising, those employees spent twice as much time on the phone with prospective donors and raised nearly three times as much money as they had in the past. Surely big lessons here for people working in the charity sector-sorry the Third Sector. But also is such thinking also not applicable in all businesses? Surely it makes sense for us all of to know why were are doing something. And buy into it. And it must be about more than just making money for the shareholders. Cicero as you know found it especially to be inspiring to have some small role in safeguarding the safety and security of us all. That was his 'why'.

It’s often difficult to do something well if we don’t know the reasons we’re doing it to begin with. People at work are thirsting for context, yearning to know that their efforts contribute to a larger whole. And a powerful way to provide that context is to spend a little less time monitoring who, what, where, when and how – and little more time considering why.

Do your people even have a “why”? Ask them this question: “What’s the purpose of this business?” What do you hear? People needn’t recite the same lyrics, but they should be playing the same basic tune. If they’re not – if answers range all over the place or people don’t have answers at all – you might have a problem no matter how good you are at the where, when and what.

So what is your why? Why are you really in business? Will it inspire your people to something more than a yawn and a glazed look in their eyes? Do they really know why they come to work? And do they believe it?

Is it only me..........but please try this at home.

Now for my sins I have to sit through a lot of meetings and a lot of Death by PowerPoint presentations. And of course from time to time I have in my time had to present myself. Sometimes these are good presentations, sometimes bad but there are some words that are said that always strike terror in my heart.

Now no matter how good or presentation might be invariably the speaker inflicting Death by PowerPoint on his or her audience will be running late, or will feel as if running over, if especially bad. And at this point you will hear words ‘I will just whiz through the next few slides’ or ‘I will speed up’ or ‘I will skip through the next few slides quite quickly’. Whenever you hear words like ‘speed’, whizz’ or ‘skip’ in the context of PowerPoint, you are in trouble. It never happens.

I don’t why it is but Death by PowerPoint presenters even when they know they are running over or late, find it impossible to change gear. It is as if time no longer seems to exist when you are absorbed with PowerPoint or the presenter’s script is so hardwired that it is impossible to deviate no matter how pressing the audience is willing the presentation to end. Or maybe said presenter is thinking ‘I have spent bloody ages pulling this presentation together that not even the arrival of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse is going to stop me saying what I wanted to say’.

You think I’m joking? You think it’s only me? Well this is a game we can all play. Next time you are enduring Death by PowerPoint listen for any words to do with speed being introduced into the presentation and let us know if you discern any increase in the speed. I would be really interested.

Have a great week.

Sis felix. Et sis fortunatus.