Cubicle Culture By Jared Sandberg

Some brainstorming sessions get off to a shaky start because the participants subscribe to a tenet that is provably false: "There's no such thing as a bad idea."

But there are plenty of other reasons why such sessions, intended to harvest good ideas, are often the source of bad ones. For starters, there's self-consciousness. "We sit there looking embarrassed like we're all new to a nudist colony," says Joe Polidoro, who has worked for a variety of banks. There's also the problem that creativity and its mulish muse can't be scheduled between, say, 9:15 and 9:45. Says Kate Lee, who used to work for General Electric: "I'm more mercurial than that."

John Clark, a former university dean of engineering, says brainstorming sessions come in handy to distribute blame in the event of failure. But in his experience, most often someone hijacks the topic at hand, tries to prove everyone else wrong, works to impress the superiors who are present, or just plain blathers for his own enjoyment. "I can't remember a single instance where a group produced a really creative idea," he says.

In fact, great brainstorming sessions are possible, but they require the planning of a state dinner, plenty of rules, and the suspension of ego, ingratiation and political railroading. Hosts have to hope that people won't expend creative energy trying to tell others their ideas are bad without actually telling them that -- admittedly a real business skill. And they have to cross their fingers that the session won't deteriorate into what some people call "blamestorming" or "coblabberation," where you get nowhere or settle on something mediocre to be done with it.

The popularity of brainstorming results in part from corporate America's knee-jerk faith in teams. In fact, the father of brainstorming, advertising executive Alex Osborn, advocated using people to storm a corporate problem "in commando fashion." And let yourself be labeled a "nonteam player," and you might as well start your own one-person consultancy.

But teams aren't necessarily so great. "There are so many things people do in management because they think it's good, but there's no evidence for it," says Paul B. Paulus, a professor of psychology at the University of Texas at Arlington. "Teamwork is one example. Brainstorming is another." Prof. Paulus conducted research on the number and quality of ideas of four people brainstorming together versus four people brainstorming by themselves. Typically, group brainstormers perform at about half the level they would if they brainstormed alone.

That's why if you don't carefully follow procedures, you risk wasting a lot of energy. "If you leave groups to their own devices, they're going to do a very miserable job," says Prof. Paulus. But if people brainstorm alone after the group brainstorming session, it can be productive, he says, adding, "It's ironic: You tap the benefits of groups alone. Everyone still presumes the best brainstorming is group brainstorming."

David Perkins, a professor at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, warns that sometimes group sessions can result in one person's bad idea tainting and limiting the range of others' ideas. "The best way to get good ideas is to get people to write them down privately and then bring them in," he says. You want group diversity but no more than five to seven people or you risk ending up with "coblabberation."

"If you stand back and think about [brainstorming], it's plainly inefficient," says Prof. Perkins. But, he says, "sometimes you take the brainstorming approach because you want everyone to feel they have a voice."

That shouldn't be confused, though, with actually having a voice, says Christopher Holland, a policy analyst for the Australian government. "These things are usually designed to give people the idea that they have input into decisions when the decisions have already been decided."

When the goal really is ideas, some companies resort to hiring facilitators. Outsiders don't have political dogs in the fight and can, as Bill Hall learned, make people "get back in line." The last time Mr. Hall tried to conduct a session himself on how to save his organization money, "it quickly degenerated into a worthless day," he says.

Paul Baard, a professor of organizational psychology at Fordham University's School of Business, suggests starting off like this: "No one, present or not here, is going to be hurt during this process. We will not be using ridicule ... ."

For Martha McGuire, a senior vice president at a bank, the majority of brainstorming sessions arrive at obvious conclusions, or worse. "You end up with the more pedestrian solution that you would have had had you not held the session," she says.

Most of the details of the brainstorming sessions Ms. McGuire has participated in are a blur. The exception: a session in which her colleagues found a way to syndicate a huge credit facility despite prickly risks. And that one was memorable because it actually succeeded. So how many didn't? "It just feels like there were a lot," she says.

• Email me at jared.sandberg@wsj.com1.— Jared Sandberg
Wall Street Journal 2006-06-13

The What Have I Been Reading Reading List:

• The 10 Truths of 'Real' Guerrilla Marketers - "People will get excited about your initiatives only if you clearly articulate how your proposition will liberate your customers in a way none of your competitors can. That is the true cause and banner of your guerrilla campaign. And if you can't come up with it, don't bother with the rest of this list." Though I now, ah hem, completely disagree with the section under the title "Deploy Mercenaries Wisely".
• How to Use Social Media in B2B Marketing - "The ITtoolbox CEO describes the differences between consumer communities of interest and professional communities of practice.... A community of interest is an online community where the primary value is based on the personal or social interests of its members. Examples include MySpace, YouTube and Flickr. A community of practice is an online community where the primary value is based on professional interests and is created in the course of members performing their jobs. Examples include ITtoolbox and LinkedIn."

The I Also Glanced Over Reading list:

• Execs Unhappy with Marketing, Moving Spend Online - "Online spending of all types grew to more than a quarter of marketing budgets. We could see even more growth online if executives start spending the larger budgets they have planned for the second quarter."
• Marketing to Women, Marketing to Men - based on information about how they read fiction. (via Marktd)
• Is Your Copy Trusted by Google?
• Reverse Engineering Your Competitions’ Keyword Strategy
• MSN Asks Webmasters What Are Quality & Authoritative Sites
  

The Too Cool: Led-Digest.com email list for always having great search engine optimization discussions. Like this one from today - "Just be aware that those who have the high profile names in SEO may not be grounded in reality at all. Maybe they spend too much time talking, and not enough time working and analyzing." - As I say all the time.

"You're like a dull knife / Jack, you just ain't cutting" Talking Loud And Saying Nothing - James Brown

Posted by: Natasha “That Girl From Marketing” Robinson

The What Have I Been Reading Reading list:

• How Search Branding Is Better - "The fact that search unifies the buy-flow means a lot for search branding. Traditional branding is great at making people like you, but it's less capable at conveying the idea of relevance. Search, on the other hand, is built entirely on relevance--and so being present in the engines carries the associations of the engines' relevance with it." See also: Driving Search Presence through Industry Participation - I love that this article ties the "conversations" created back to Search Marketing.
• The Harvard Business Review's Excellent Avatar-Based Marketing - "When marketing online you want sustained engagement with the brand rather than just a click-through.... Avatars create an opportunity for just this type of engagement." See also: Advertising and Branding Models in Social Virtual Worlds (PPT)- an oldie but a goodie & Counting Virtual World Clickthroughs
• Your Video vs. Big Media Video - "By comparison, YouTube, the fast-growing video phenomenon, claims that 50 million videos are viewed each day on its site. Put another way, more than 2 million videos are viewed per hour on YouTube vs. 5,000 videos purchased per hour on iTunes, arguably the most successful distribution platform for digital content." See also: Camera. Action. Edit. Now, Await Reviews - Online Video Editing Software. & Marketing Movies, the Web 2.0 Way
• Marketing Through Common Short Codes - "Due to their ease of use for consumers, CSCs help increase consumer response to advertising and marketing promotions. They allow brands to offer easy-to-use, relevant, entertaining information that ultimately drives consumer action." See also: The Mobile Marketing Association's Short Code Primer (PDF) & P&G Moves Into Mobile-Marketing
• Kid Marketing Or, Why Your Kids Want The Toyota Scion "After playing around a bit on Postopia.com, my daughter’s favorite site as of late, I was reminded again of the power of kid marketing. She’s already made us go to Wal Mart twice to buy ‘post’ cereals. She’s only interested in Post cereals. She doesn’t care what kind, she just needs the code on the box to create a ‘Big Mouth’."

The I Also Glanced Over Reading list:

• How the Social Web Should Impact Strategy. Jim Nail is everywhere these days, no?
• Carat, Carat, Carat! (Gotta love'em): MySpace + World Cup & Motorola Mobilizes MySpace
• General Mills to Let Agencies Call the Shots
• What every CEO needs to know about Web>1.0 / Web<3.0 (I am officially a tech nerd for writing that - LOL!)
• Marketers Step Up Their (Video) Game
• A Meeting of Minds in the Video Space
• What's You're Rebranding Experience

The What Have I Been Reading Reading list:

• Business Development: MySpace - "Were I to suggest a new MySpace feature, it’d be to really develop a place for their business members.... A landing page full of helpful business content...  There should be a link from the landing page to the forums." The first business end-user suggestions I read for MySpace.  Great stuff there... wish I'd thought of them - lol.  See also: Misguided Views towards MySpace: My Proposal. BTW: Robyn, wonder if ya checked out the figures on fair pay for moms? Blog Overlord, RSS Diva, Super Mom, I don't know how you do it all!
• Who Owns Your Blog - You or Your Employer? - "Get a written agreement with your employer that your blog is your intellectual property in perpetuity and throughout the universe.  Don't blog about your company.  Be able to prove conclusively that you wrote your blog off hours."

The I Also Glanced Over Reading list:

• I'll take the fringe over being #1 anyday - The Fringe Theory Diagram is hilaroius.
• An Agency's Worst Nightmare: Ads Created by Users
• Think about SEM Ad Creative Analytically
• eBay Wins Bid To Test Online Media Buying System for Television Ads

Posted by: Natasha "That Girl From Marketing" Robinson

The What Have I Been Reading Reading list:

• Yahoo! Study Reveals Online Research Plays Critical Role in Consumers' Offline Purchases; Online Price Comparisons and ''Communal Shopping'' Create Trust and Drive Decision Making - "The Long and Winding Road: The Route to the Cash Register is the first research study to examine how cultural shifts brought about by the proliferation of technology have radically altered the way consumers make purchasing decisions. The Internet's greatest impact on shopping is assisting consumers in the decision-making process, regardless of whether purchases are made online or at retail stores....  In particular, the Internet offers a collaborative environment where consumers turn for advice and the experience of others in weighing brands, discovering alternatives and distilling prices, as they weigh their purchase decisions." Good stuff from the press release... I wish they had a way to view the actual study.
• Text around your links…Keeping it Natural Looking  - "Isn’t it kinda funny how SEO has evolved…in the past we’d find one 'trick' and do it over and over again…the SEO of 2006-2007 has shifted to 'how can I make this all look "natural" and not "tricky"?'" See also: On Being Link Different
• Adobe aims to free Flash from browser - "The company is working on a project code-named Apollo, which will let applications written for Adobe's Flash presentation software run without a Web browser."  How cool is that? See also: AJAX: Are You Experienced?

The I Also Glanced Over Reading list:

• Don't give in to feature demands!
• Wal-Mart Backs Online Auction for TV Ad Dollars
  

The Too Cool: Goes to What was No.1 on the day you were born? Figures that The Steve Miller Band's The Joker (which is also on my top ten all time favorite songs) was #1 when I was born - lol.   (via Marian Pop's Y!360 blast)

"Nothin' comes from talkers but sound  / Ooh, we can talk all we want 2 but the world still goes around and round.."  Round and Round - Prince

Posted by: Natasha "That Girl From Marketing" Robinson

The What Have I Been Reading Reading list

• Who's Marketing Your Brand? - "If you want to take advantage of this eager-to-be-tapped new source of advertising energy as part of your marketing strategy, you'll need to provide opportunities for consumer participation, and that means designing plans to drive consumers to a user-generated media campaign". See Also: How-To: Tracking Online WOM, Word of Mouth is Consumer-to-Consumer Marketing, Media Execs Address Changes Brought On by Social Media (via: Pr Machine - Hey, can ya stop the pop-ups!) & Are Consumer-Generated Ads Here to Stay?
• The Rise of the Modern Agency. "Insight gathering, strategy, and media/platform planning will make a big comeback, but in a different form. Agencies will be tasked with creating content that lives after it airs. Success will be measured by the content's level of engagement as well as its longevity." - Great article. I'll have to re-read and think about this one. See also: Best Practice for Online Advertising? Get Your Agency Involved Early & Ad Industry Blasted for 'Sanctioned Segregation'
• ShoeMoney Vs. Plenty'o Fish - What would a month in search marketing be without a good cat fight? Now we have what's looking to be a good one. Funny, it's only the boys who get in these Mine's Bigger / Mine's Better fights.... Now ladies, let's fight fair, no biting.

The I Also Glanced Over Reading list:

• Timing Is Marketing's Stepchild - "Effective segmentation can reveal the right customer, and good analytics (in the form of purchase probabilities) can match the customers to the right products; but the third one, the right time, is the often-neglected stepchild of effective marketing campaigns. What many marketers fail to appreciate is that probabilities are perishable. They have an expiration date, just like a carton of milk." See also: Web Analytics: The Delayed Conversion Concept, Part 1
• Gender, Generation and Jobs Influence WOM Marketing Strategies. See also: Study Shows Which Media Drive Spending
• Site Wide Links Help or Hurt Linking Campaign?
• What's the next thing after Craigslist: Classified advertising is being transformed. (via: I Want Media )
  

"I have seen the writing on the wall / Don't think I need anything at all" - Another Brick in the Wall - Pink Floyd

Posted by: Natasha "That Girl From Marketing" Robinson

Product-Launch-o-Palooza:

• Yahoo! Unveils Public Details Of "Panama" Ad System Upgrade - See also: Interview With Edwin Wong, Yahoo! Inc. (Via The MarketingVox SoFlow Group)

• eBay To Offer Pay-Per-Lead Ads - See also : EBay CEO Wary of Google (via I WantMedia)

• TiVo Launches Product-Search Ad Service, Signs up 100 Brands

The What Have I Been Reading Reading list

• Innovation Fuels Integration - "Take Diet Coke's recent 'On a Lighter Note,' campaign, for example. Reuters worked with the advertiser and its agency, Starcom MediaVest, to come up with an RSS feed of news stories focused on fun slices of life which was piped to the various platforms, including online, mobile and The Reuters Sign at 3 Times Square. 'We were able to create a consistent, yet multi-platform program for the client,' says Smyth" - Now that's cool. (via: The PR Machine Project)  See also: Chasing Marketing's Holy Grail Into Cyberspace And Pondering The Ad Industry's Difficulties With Integrated Campaigns - " Why listen to Web wizards on integration? Because the medium has a naturally integrative function.... The biggest obstacle to it is the differing planning horizons for different media....Media companies tend to succeed in creating results-oriented (rather than force-fit) integrated packages when they build them around a big event."
  

• Marketers Tap Into User-Generated Ads, Plan To Take Them Offline - "At the core of that (ViTrue's) system are 'review and approve' modules that allow marketers to post specifications for ad campaigns and to enable the marketer, or its agency to quickly review ads and post them on-the-fly." See also: The economics of buzz - word of mouth drives business growth finds London School of Economics study  (via: WOMMA)

The I Also Glanced Over Reading list:

• Interview With Eli Friedman, Xbox (Via The MarketingVox SoFlow Group) See also: 7 Tips on Sponsoring Interactive Games - Demographics, Effectiveness & Cost

• Does Google use whois information?

• Adwords Account Structure for Large Accounts

• Custom 404’s - Don’t Make Your Users Feel Stupid

• JupiterResearch: Few Organizations Have Dedicated Search Staff

• Firefox 2.0 adds new RSS feed handling

The Too Cool: Goes to the Discovery Channel's Cash Cab Game Show. "Unassuming people enter the 'Cash Cab' as simple passengers taking a normal taxi ride, only to be shocked when they discover that they’re instant contestants on Discovery Channel's innovative new game show!"

Posted by: Natasha "That Girl From Marketing" Robinson

The What Have I Been Reading Reading list

• Relevancy Rules in Top Sponsored Ads - "On Google, although over 80% of searchers started in the top sponsored, only 26% found something relevant and compelling enough to click on, and remember, these were commercial, product oriented searches. On Yahoo, 84% started in top sponsored, but in Yahoo’s case, about 30% stuck around and clicked an ad. And with MSN, something entirely different was going on. It seems that MSN users have a bad case of banner blindness when it comes to top sponsored ads." (via: Search Engine Guide) See also: Sponsored Clicks Increasingly Important
• Really Simple Success! An Insider’s View of the Rising RSS Tide - "For many interactive marketers, RSS provides a number of possibilities and potential, but it also lacks a clear role. Clients like to be able to easily categorize and budget for efforts. Because RSS is very flexible and dynamic, it still has a fluid and undefined role for many marketers." See also: Ballmer Emphasizes RSS Importance
  

The If I Didn't Need Sleep These Would Be On The Above List Reading list

• Two of the Best Ever Posts on Link Building - See also: Linking Campaigns Lead to Increased Online Visibility
• Dynamic Keyword Insertion Tips with Microsoft adCenter - See also: Diversification of Search Ad Pricing: Pay However You'd Like
• The Day Next - The Most Important SEO Case Study In 2006?

The I Also Glanced Over Reading list:

• Do Optimized Press Releases Work?
• Competitive Research, Intelligence, and Search Marketing, Part 2
• Life Lessons From Ex–Times Editor Howell Raines
• Unconditional Surrender by Warren Kremer Paino Advertising In Maine Blogger Case

"When you first come in the game, they try to play you / Then you drop a couple of hits, look how they wave to you" - Encore - Jay Z

Posted by: Natasha "That Girl From Marketing" Robinson

I put my head on the counter and let out a noticeable groan.  Then I remembered the last ditch option, picked my head up and asked, "Is there a way that you can put me on another airline?"  I knew it was a reach; but if you never ask, you'll never know the answer.  I gather from the 45 minutes of calling airlines, asking management permission and more calling, that this was not an easy task.  However Carolanne Abanathe of American West Airlines/ US Airways (though I believe she actually works for Mesa Airlines), was able to get me a connecting flight on Delta from Phoenix to Atlanta arriving at 9:30PM.  I'd like to thank Carolanne for going above the call of duty, making me laugh and assuring me that I would be taken care of.  Now that's customer service.  Thanks Carolanne.

The What Have I Been Reading Reading list

• HP's Wow Factor - Hewlett-Packard is unveiling a bold, provocative marketing campaign - "The goal: to do away with HP's fragmented marketing strategy of the past and build a cohesive campaign that will work across many product lines, in all regions of the world, using print, online, and broadcast media. Possibly the most notable distinction of the campaign is its attempt to put the PC into a bigger cultural context. With a tagline of, "The computer is personal again," the idea is to position HP as the company that truly understands how central the PC has become to most people's lives." - Cohesive campaign, you say... So does this mean we'll see some Seach Engine Marketing implemented as well? - See also: HP Blog Programs
  

• Nintendo Wii: The Brand Of Buzz - Buzz Marketing At Its Best/Worst -"Its almost like they are purposefully making decisions that people will want to talk about....They will be making business decisions where the primary goal is not to find the best options but to find the most remarkable.... At what point does it get contrived and lose its novelty."  See also: The Fate of Word of Mouth Marketing

The I Also Glanced Over Reading list:

• Yahoo Link Spam Patent Application. See also: Microsoft Patents Dynamic Ranking Changes

• PPC Strategies - Avoiding Bidding Wars.  See Also: 10 Worst AdWords Campaign Management Mistakes

• Friendster Finds No Love
  

"You don't have to be for me/ No superstar/ I love you just the way you are" - Make Yours a Happy Home - Gladys Knight & The Pips

Posted by: Natasha "That Girl From Marketing" Robinson