Businessworld, Magazine Fail

Sometime last week, Somebody from Business World Philippines emailed me requesting me to answer some interview questions. Due to someone’s catastrophic lapse in judgment, the writer asked me to share my thoughts on drumming up sales in a period of economic slowdown stating that my “stature and authority” qualifies me to answer questions such as these (Obviously, not enough people who write for mainstream publications do their research).

Naturally, I asked her if she was serious and after learning that she was, I committed myself to doing it, even though I might as well write something about “breeding racist birds” given the degree of knowledge I have in the field of Marketing.

I agreed to do it mainly because:

  1. It would give me more exposure, some professional credibility and at the very least, add to the paltry list of press pieces that feature me.
  2. It’s short, meaning I am only required to dish out around 500 words.
  3. I get a kick out of churning out advice on topics I do not know squat about. There’s no better feeling in the world than knowing that I’ve have influenced a significant number of people in a field where I’ve had marginal to no success at all and something where I lack any sort of acceptable acumen in. All of these give me a MAJOR boner.

So, two days after getting the email, I sat down with my Macbook and brewed this little tour de force:
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Human Resources - A Category mistake

I want to add something to this post, which, in typical Seth Godin fashion, hits the nail squarely on the head.

I have worked with a lot of companies in the past and if there is one thing that’s common between all of those companies’ Human Resources departments, it has got to be the fact that, traditionally, the department has assumed the role of a pen-pushing, forms-collating, support unit.

Sure, I’ve worked with some HR departments that have people in them who do stellar jobs in sourcing talent, but never have I seen such a department that gives equal weight to taking care of talent.

An excerpt from Seth’s post:

What if you started acting like the VP of Talent? Understanding that talent is hard to find and not obvious to manage. The VP of Talent would have to reorganize the department and do things differently all day long (small example: talent shouldn’t have to fill out reams of forms and argue with the insurance company… talent is too busy for that… talent has people to help with that.)

I couldn’t agree with this more. If you’re a company looking for top talent to join your ranks, do you think that putting your hat in your hand, extending an attractive compensation package and pretty much just chucking the candidate into the routinary fray of things to rot forever would suffice?

Even sadder is how most Human Resources departments seem to try to mitigate their workload by dumping clerical tasks (i.e. Attendance monitoring, forms-filing, etc.) to the people they hire to become middle management superstars.

I guess what I’m driving at is that if you want to keep top talent, you have to treat them like Superstars–and I’ll tell you what superstars don’t do: They do not fill up leave applications in triplicate for their staff, nor do they argue with accounting on behalf of their staff members because of salary disputes. Superstars are too busy excelling at what you hired them to do for any of this.

And what the fuck’s up with the term “Human Resources” anyway? “Resource” is not something you ascribe to the word “Human.”

Following Seth’s lead: How about “Corporate Talent Management?”

The Philippine Internet Marketing Boot Camp

Last Saturday, I talked about Affiliate Marketing (Surprise! I can talk about stuff besides penis and fat jokes) on the first day of the Philippine Internet Marketing Bootcamp. Surprisingly enough, my presentation went well and was pretty uneventful save for a couple of slurred words and my general incoherence which are pretty normal for me when I talk about shit I don’t really understand or when I’m outright shooting crap (my girlfriend and ex-girlfriends could attest to this).

I could even go ahead and say that if that event had an ass, I probably went crazy on it and kicked the shit out of it.

Anyway, it was nice to see Noemi, Lauren, Dine, Jedi, Sasha, Eugene and Abe among other people during the Boot Camp. There will be another session on Saturday, January 26th at 8am so drop whatever it is that you’re doing and request for an invite NOW.

(If you go, I’ll sign an autograph for you and, if my schedule permits it, I’ll even host your monggoloid son’s birthday party. Whatever. Just go. Please.)

Sorry 37 Signals, but you should really give your marketing strategy more credit

I’ve always admired 37 Signals as a company ever since I read Getting Real over a year ago. But when Matt Linderman wrote about formulating what, in my opinion, are marketing strategies based on self promotion and “riding the wave” I lose a modicum of respect for them.

From Signal Vs. Noise, 37Signals’ blog:

8. Ride the wave. Seek momentum and ride it. Is everyone buzzing about the iPhone? Then make an iPhone app. Are people interested in rapid development processes? Then blog about building your app in, say, under a month. Find out what people are talking about already and then figure out a way to get in the picture.

First of all, we all know that the market doesn’t need another mediocre product and how, pray tell, is the “ride the wave” mentality going to allow R&D teams to come up with a proverbial Purple Cow?

Starbucks became a Purple Cow not by “Riding the wave” and releasing a complementary creamer for Maxwell House coffee but by boldly introducing the phenomenal coffee bar concept to a market that, at that time, seemed to be unreceptive to the idea.

And even 37Signals as a company did not “Ride the wave” to get in the frame. The fact that their first product, Basecamp showcased the organic unity of milestone management, messaging, files sharing, and to-do list never before seen made it a remarkable product that took little time to spread virally–a Purple Cow.

Surely, Matt Linderman et al. know that they should give themselves more credit.

And about the “Self Promotion” bit, I think Seth Godin says it best:

37 Signals, as usual, has a thoughtful post about self promotion.

Except they missed the biggest part, by a mile.

They don’t do self-promotion. Self-promotion, as the term is used by many people, is a mildly pejorative way to describe someone who promotes himself at the expense of others.

Nobody says, “That Yo Yo Ma, he’s so self-promotional,” or, “can you believe what a self-promoter the Dalai Lama is?” That’s because they’re not promoting themselves. They’re promoting useful ideas. They’re promoting tactics or products that actually benefit the person they’re reaching out to.

Paris Hilton is a self-promoter. You don’t get any benefit out of her appearances other than temporary entertainment value and some schadenfreude. The guys at 37 Signals have never done a bit of self-promotion in their entire careers. That’s because they’re doing you-promotion, not me-promotion.

Yes, yes and yes.

Data, Voice and Video: Happy Telecom’s Triple Play Service is Every Web Worker’s Wet Dream

“Anytime, Anywhere” is Happy Communications‘ Chief Marketing Officer Marvin Cruz’s proposed tag line for his company’s soon to be launched consumer WiMAX service.

Anytime, anywhere what? Well, anytime, anywhere 2MBPS Data, VOIP and Video that’s what.

I met with Marvin over dinner and I must say that from what he describes the service to be, I’m already creaming my pants in anticipation and I foresee other web workers like myself blowing their loads too once the service rolls out sometime in 2008.

If you’re anything of a web worker as I am, you’ve probably experienced using other mobile data platforms to use VOIP to communicate with clients or send important documents to them while you’re on the road. Everything’s going great until Globe Visibility arbitrarily decides to shift down from giving you HSDPA connectivity to GPRS causing your VOIP connection to get choppy and your file transfers to dramatically slow down. In a moment of utter frustration, you mumble something about wanting to throw newborn babies up in the air and catch them with bayonets–something which your Japanese client overhears. Next thing you know, you’re haunting gasoline stations along South Luzon Expressway, and giving weary travelers hand jobs in exchange for food.

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