The Right and Left Brain Blog

Discussions of the stimulus package are extremely frustrating regardless of political perspective… Everyone agrees we have a problem and need to do something significant. However among 535 independent Congressional members who are dedicated to doing the best thing for America, only three initially determined that they could cross party lines.

The reasons and issues are less relevant than the fact we are stuck in black and white perspectives. If you watch Rachel Maddow and Hannity & Colmes any night discussing the exact same issues, it is like they live on different planets. It is not just Congress and newscasters. Even before all the arguments and research are completed, one can usually predict individual votes of the Supreme Court. There was even an article in the New York Times Style Section about hostesses being afraid to invite Republicans and Democrats to the same party.

Similarly, any discussion of social media like Facebook and Twitter usually produces the same example of this enthusiasm versus resistance. While many adults don’t know about them, over one hundred millions people visit these sites every day. That and the fact that a majority of young people under 25 spend a significant amount of time on them make social media a factor in our society. Many of those young people find them a valuable places to interact, learn, meet people, express their true feelings, etc. In contrast many adults unsuccessfully try to block it and unknowingly think that everyone on the sites are deviants. In the middle are the marketers who are faced with declining media audiences in vehicles like T.V. and newspapers. These people, who could care less about the social values, are primarily concerned with the opportunity to sell something.

The result of this Black and White orientation dramatically affects our day to day lives. Instead of lively discussions of alternatives, we settle for developing solutions that we know the key decision makers will buy into. I am currently involved in negotiations on a project where the subordinates of each group spend most of their time developing solutions their superiors will accept rather than trying to develop innovative solutions that will fly with all parties. Similarly, even the bank executives acknowledge that they didn’t get it and have been working in an old reality. However the openness, looking at alternatives, and understanding others perspectives seem missing from most decisions.

There are some simple recommendations to reduce the black and white perspective:
1. First, get alternative approaches on the table then try to evaluate them objectively.
2. Take the time to understand the reasons and goals for different perspectives. Specifically, put yourself in the other person’s shoes instead of just rejecting the approach.
3. Be willing to consider new ideas and realities particularly when some of the old ones aren’t working.

Do you have other suggestions?

I have been a member of Facebook for a few months and have acquired over 100 friends through a variety of means. This blog is meant to provide the initial perceptions of a 64 year old novice learning about Facebook.

My first comment and recommendation is to learn with a mentor, which I did with Susan Payton at Egg Marketing & Public Relations. I joined Facebook to facilitate my business networking and to find additional outlets for my blog.

My first observation is that Facebook is very easy to use, invite friends, communicate, and meet lots of new people. Most of my friends are new relations that I invited through various searches. One of the interesting aspects is the variety of people you meet and learn a little about. While I find older, business orientated people more interesting to me, the exposure to younger people has been fantastic. Most profiles clearly differentiate people looking for partners, social advocacy, business and/or more intellectual interests.

Facebook is definitely easy and fun. I like the short messages and the ability to find pictures of friends and relatives and find out what people are doing. It also is a great source for what people think about what’s going on in the news, travel and in recreation. You can get instant reviews from people you respect about just about anything. It is simple to both add links and post longer messages.

There are some unexpected side benefits. The quotes are generally great and more members should include them. One example, which is extremely appropriate for the times is: “Never get used to anything.”

All kinds of interesting groups are available with lots of innovative content. There are some nice quick conversations that are both fascinating and fun. The speed and ease of Facebook cannot be underestimated in making the information easy to sort and read when appropriate.

The only real issue with Facebook is the potential conflict between fun and meeting specific goals. There is a lot of talk abut how great it and social networking are for making both personal and business relationships .However I have seen little in the way of goals, measurement and results to validate the rhetoric. In addition everyone portrays themselves as an expert but you read little documentation of results from all the potential consultants.

In summary, Facebook is a new tool capturing millions of new members and participants. The challenge is to continue to learn how to use it and not let it become another here and gone media device. In addition we need to understand the potential of the vehicle and utilize it effectively.

My colleague, Susan Payton of Egg Marketing & Public Relations, blogs about internet marketing. While it certainly has its relevance and place for businesses, I believe there are other elements of a business that can do as much, if not more than internet marketing to grow a business.

Internet marketing experts provide seminars, webinars, online conferences, etc., which are designed to improve response rates, inquires, and conversions at lower costs. If we believe much of what they argue, our profitability would virtually increase in leaps and bounds every month. We sometimes get so excited about web marketing tools that we forget some of the basic marketing tools, particularly for smaller businesses. My experience is that there are some general realities about our marketing efforts that need to be integrated with our internet ideas to achieve better results:

1. The characteristics of your brand, product, price, and marketing are the most important aspect of a great website. Great marketing or web design is hard to overcome a lousy product.
2. Price, value and competitiveness are underestimated in their importance. Consumers frequently use the internet to compare and look at multiple sites. Lowering price and offering free shipping are the easiest and most effective way to increase sales.
3. Better, not fancier, customer service can dramatically affect sales. Responding quickly, empowering customer service, liberal return policies, and operators who are knowledgeable and speak English are more important than gimmicks like 24-7 responses from representatives in foreign countries that have no clue.
4. Being in stock and shipping quickly is a requirement and not an advantage.
5. Clear, concise explanations can have a dramatic impact. Customers want clear information on the characteristics of the products. Understandable text, sizes, specs, dimensions are all critical elements of a product description.
6. Excellent photography is more important than multiple views that are unattractive or redundant.
7. Improving web design with exotic characteristics like flash, videos, long openings etc. can be counter productive in terms of conveying a simple message. For example, if you have a “skip intro” option on the website, it probably shouldn’t be there.
8. Google and its reporting tools are incredible products and do not need supplements if you are a small to moderate user.
9. Great products and excellent brands are more important than SEO in generating clicks.
10. In general, expensive custom products or totally generic efforts are equally disappointing. There are great models and templates out there to purchase inexpensively. However, they need to be tempered with individual analysis and decision making.

In short, basic management and marketing is a fundamental that must be developed before one tacks on exotic internet marketing tools. In addition they may show much better results than all the dog and pony shows of your competitors.

Internet marketing experts provide seminars, webinars, conferences, etc., which are designed to improve response rates, inquires, conversions, etc. at lower costs. If we believe much of what they argue, our profitability would virtually increase in leaps and bounds every month. We sometimes get so excited about web marketing tools that we forget some of the basic marketing tools we know particularly for smaller businesses. Unfortunately, most of us experience smaller efforts worlds. We spend less than $10,000- $20,000 per month in marketing and achieve less than $5-$10 million in sales per year. For example, one of the top 500 guide lists only about 400 sites with sales above $10 million out of the tens of thousands of sites on the internet.

My experience is that there are some general realities about our marketing efforts that need to be integrated with our internet ideas to achieve better results.

1. The characteristics of your brand, product, price, and marketing are the most important aspect of a great website. Great marketing or web design is hard to overcome a lousy product.
2. Price, value and competitiveness are underestimated in their importance. Consumers frequently use the internet to compare and look at multiple sites. Lowering price and offering free shipping are the easiest and most effective way to increase sales.
3. Better, not fancier, customer service can dramatically affect sales. Responding quickly, empowering customer service, liberal return policies, and operators who are knowledgeable and speak English are more important than gimmicks like 24-7 responses from representatives in foreign countries that have no clue.
4. Being in stock and shipping quickly is a requirement and not an advantage.
5. Clear, concise explanations can have a dramatic impact. Customers want clear information on the characteristics of the products. Understandable text, sizes, specs, dimensions are all critical elements of a product description.
6. Excellent photography is more important than multiple views that are unattractive or redundant.
7. Improving web design with exotic characteristics like Flash, videos, long openingsm etc. can be counter productive in terms of conveying a simple message. For example, if you have a “skip intro” option on the web site, it probably shouldn’t be there.
8. Google and its reporting tools are incredible products and do not need supplements if you are a small to moderate user.
9. Great products and excellent brands are more important than SEO in generating clicks,
10. In general, custom expensive products or totally generic efforts are unproductive. There are great models and templates out there but they need to be tempered with individual analysis and decision making.

In short, basic management and marketing is a basic fundamental that must be developed before one tacks on exotic marketing tools.