HAPPY BIRTHDAY ... TO ME?

Every year, without fail, we’re asked to blow out the candles on at least one corporation’s cake.

It could be 25, 50, even 100 (in the case of IBM last year).  That’s a lot of lung power to use.  It’s also a lot of self-congratulations to absorb.

No question, IBM produced a thoughtful purview of its history, its innovations, its contributions to the world, and its future, covering both successes and failures.  In 2,592 words, no less.  Via four pages in The Wall Street Journal.

Noticeable?  For sure.  [Not to mention some pretty fabulous media attention.]  Yet we can’t help wondering how much more impactful the anniversary would have been if the actual ad had been designed for longevity.  Which was the point of all those words:  That IBM has been managed – and managed well – for the long term.

This is a great example of our contemporary quandary:  The demands of social media in 140 characters or less contrasted with our need to understand, pay homage, absorb, and remember critical events and activities.  No, we’re not advocating that the tech giant resort to tweeting about its centennial.  Especially when much of the Journal’s readership hails from investment banks, financial institutions, pension funds, and other shareholders.

On the other hand, a visual timeline of hits and misses, along with the salient quotes from founder Thomas J. Watson Jr., et al., just might have become a terrific springboard for ruminations, past, present, and forward.  Even more if breakthrough technology (a talking newspaper, for instance) kicked off the celebration. 

We don’t know how this message was communicated inside.  Nor about all the various internal forms it took, including great citizen contributions like the company’s Corporate Service Corps or a reprise of the 2003 “values jam.”

One hundred is a very big number, one that deserves major applause.  To us, it also signifies a time to ponder – and do things just a bit differently. 

GOT ID?

Losing or having your wallet (or purse) stolen is one scary life moment.

Suddenly, an unknown someone else knows who you are, where to find you, and how to wreak havoc on your credit.  Unless you’re super-organized with lists of whom to call and what to do, helplessness and fear set in.  [Admission:  It’s happened to us, more than once.]

Estimates by security gurus claim that one U.S. ID is stolen every three seconds.  Put another way:   11.6 million American adults were victimized in 2011*, a number rising by double digits every year.

Compare those emotions with the FUDs (fear, uncertainties, and doubts) occurring when a work change is announced.  Especially if that change involves a corporate transaction, say, a merger, acquisition, divestiture, spin-off, and the like. 

Then:  Who you are is up for grabs.  You might not be able to say for much longer that “I’m an XYZ manager with ABC Corporation.”  Instead, you and your colleagues scramble, drafting resumes, placing networking phone calls, and surfing career sites. Productivity can drift downwards, with reverberations felt in every part of the organization.

Ah.  Those memories resonate with everyone we know.  At the same time, identity crises of all types can present major opportunities to, yes, get involved.  After Day One in a merger-type transaction, there’s often room to refresh the corporate brand, along with its values.  It’s a chance to review what’s working, what’s not in the communications arena – and if your team can provide comfort to colleagues and staff who are experiencing loss.  Professionals working in industries under fire, whether in the energy or financial services or other sectors, can attest to the sense of accomplishment that participation in “identity” work brings. 

Think, too, about the lists, other than the traditional resume and references, that will help you recharge work identity … for you, your team, department, and firm.  In the broadest sense, getting prepared is a move towards independence and developing flexible identities that work. 

Elementary?  Perhaps.  Yet determining how to reinvent your working self – and that of your employer – is a valuable (and continual) pursuit. 

*Latest statistics from Javelin Strategy & Research.

BESPOKE-ING

Hullabaloo aside, the very British Royal Wedding in April 2011 appealed to us mightily.

In thinking about its one-year anniversary:  Enjoying some of the U.K.’s most marvelous customs, like tea and scones, was one benefit.  As was the visual spectacle, and our tacit participation in an unusually happy occasion.  [Okay, we could skip the 4 a.m. wake-up … but that’s beside the point.]

An underlying theme, best expressed in the parade of idiosyncratic hats and fascinators,  was the notion of “bespoke,” that nation’s elegant tradition of customizing apparel and accessories to customers’ needs.  Today, it’s become an expensive tradition, one that few can afford. 

On the other hand, bespoke speaks to us.  Especially in this world of templates and patterns and other forms of easy “let’s just use this example” replication. 

We find that companies and clients often ask for models to follow during change events.  In launching a branding (or re-branding) initiative.  At the kick-off of an enterprise-wide IT implementation.  For a review of HR programs.  During times of corporate combinations, like mergers and divestitures.  And so on. 

Those same-old, same-old models somehow are incorporated into every activity, all change events.  Consultants and employees alike tend to use them as more than patterns, sticking almost slavishly to these guides without much adaptation.  All far from the original intent.

 Let’s go back to the first definition of “template.”  In the 1600s, the French templet referred to a “weaver’s stretcher” or “building for worship” (i.e., temple).  Only 200 years later did its meaning shift into the more modern pattern for shaping a piece of work.  Even Cambridge scientists Francis Crick and James Watson identified template as a strand of uniquely individual DNA that serves as a pattern for the synthesis of a protein or nucleic acid.

Unfortunately, far from providing a base or foundation for change work, the template becomes our go-to for communications and design (among other purposes).  It rules our world, usually with little room for tailoring it to project needs and audience segments.   Instead of guiding us, it begins to define what we do and how we do it.

Why not return to the art of bespoke, using templates as building blocks only?  It’s certainly not the secret of life, as the two Nobel Prize winners claimed about their DNA discovery.  But bespoke can change our work – and our results, for the better.

IT'S BOOM CITY, HERE

We’re fascinated by tech statistics – combined with, of course, very human stories.

The latest?  For the past year or so, a number of reputable firms, through various research studies, announced that the boomer generation is a rather significant middle-of-the-road adopter of technology.  From Blackberries to Internet surfing, we boomers account for 40 percent of the spend (though we’re 25 percent of the population).

What’s more, we text, use search engines, check online ratings, answer email, and, in general, practice all of the e-activities commonly associated with younger generations, whether you call them Xs or millennials or Ys.  And speaking for ourselves, we’ve developed quite a CrackBerry (substitute:  iPhone) habit, almost obsessively looking at our smartphones to determine the latest news  – and who needs us.

There it is:  The humanity of technology.  There’s an overwhelming desire to not only be informed but also to be included in work and life goings-on, regardless of age or career situation.  Even our moms, well into their 70s, 80s, and 90s, educated themselves – or via the local public library – on what this computer stuff was all about.  [They then bragged to their friends that they’d met the Internet – and it was theirs. It was a completely different story when they physically encountered screen and mouse.  That’s another story for another day.] 

That need for inclusion, a Maslov-ian desire, underlies our technology use.  There’s no way, for a group so dedicated to changing America, that boomers would not master YouTube, social networking, and the latest gadgets.  At the same time, that discipline is softened by a commitment to ourselves and the world.  It’s our DNA.  And it’s a dominant gene, one for marketers, sales people, communicators to remember.  Everywhere.  Every time.