Stop me if you’ve heard this.

A man was walking through the woods when he happened upon a woodcutter working feverishly to fell a large tree.  The woodcutter was spending an amazing amount of energy, sweating profusely and breathing quite heavily...but making very little progress.

“Perhaps it would be wise to take a break to sharpen that saw,” the man suggested.  “It looks very dull, and you would certainly finish more quickly with a sharper saw.”

“I don’t have time for a break,” the woodcutter snorted.  “I’m too busy cutting this tree.”

Does that sound like you?  Too busy “being busy” to spend time improving the process?

One of the things I love most about the team we’ve assembled here at CurrentMarketing is that we spend time “sharpening the saw.”  Imagine that!  An advertising agency that actually encourages folks to spend time working on themselves!

Lest you think I’m just patting our management staff (which I lead) on the back, let me assure you our approach is not rooted in some touchy-feely altruism.

It’s sound business.  Because when every member of an organization is focused on life-long learning and recharging when necessary, productivity is maximized.  The goal is to work smarter...not harder.

In some way, the biggest threat to our group right now is the very workload our success has created.  We risk getting so swallowed-up in “producing,” that we could miss opportunities to expand our skills and stay ahead of the changing message delivery landscape.

Funny.  Success threatens future success.  Kind of like being too busy cutting a tree sharpen the saw.

The best defense against that threat is a culture that stresses balance, and that’s a focus we take very seriously.  Work hard.  Play hard.  Spend time with your family.  Keep learning.  Keep growing.

There’s endless forest of trees ahead (aka “opportunity”), and we’re going to need some really sharp saws.

The narcissistic cockroach that is Julian Assange (c’mon, you know he looks the part, too) came out of his hole long enough to publish a quarter-million stolen US State Department documents on the web this past week.

Embarrassingly, though, the Department of Homeland Security a few days earlier had made time to seize domains of more than 80 websites for copyright infringement, they stood idly by and did nothing at all about WikiLeaks...even though they had been forewarned weeks in advance.

It was an obvious example of “First Amendment Courage,” right?  The US should be “big enough” to weather such revelations...so it’s really no big deal.

Oh, I get it:  Music must be protected but state secrets are fair game.  After all, Lady Gaga must be paid...and we have a right to know everything about the inner workings of international diplomacy so we can pass judgement.

Heaven help us...

Not to be outdone, The New York Times, bastion of “All the News that’s Fit to Print,” made a similar, morally bankrupt decision.  They were quite willing to publish excerpts (apparently the whole quarter-million wouldn’t “Fit”) of the stolen WikiLeaks documents.  This outrageous treason from the very same rag that refused to publish the documents detailing deception in scientific research related to “climate change” because they were, well, “um, they were stolen.”  With due respect to Al Gore, apparently some thefts--like Truths--are more Inconvenient than others.

How do these people sleep at night?  Go out of business soon, pleeeeeze.

I’m sure those behind this outrageousness think they’re doing the right thing for the right reason.  So do jihadists.

Fact is, these actions are nothing more than political correctness run amuck, because PC destroys the ability for its disciples to tell the difference between right and wrong.   After all, “who are we to say?”

It fills them to the brim with Artificial Courage.

And it’s dangerous for us all.

In my pre-DVD, pre-VCR, pre-Cable, 3-station childhood, watching TWoO was an annual event.  Like Christmas (without the presents) or Easter (without the chocolate bunny).  Kids (and parents) actually “planned” around its annual airing, so as to not miss a minute.

So when the time came (about 18 minutes in) for what USED to be a network commercial break...I felt a real void.  No kidding.  It actually felt weird not the have that breather at precisely the same spot as it had ALWAYS been during my childhood viewing days.  As if something was missing...seriously, meaningfully lacking.

It’s a remnant of a bygone day.  I understand that.  Today we avoid interruptions artfully.  We pay for DVD’s, premium channels and DVR’s that zap right past any messages that find their way into programming.  We don’t want to be bothered with messages unless we ask for them.  That’s the beauty of the web and information-marketing.

But still there’s something quaint, and maybe a little bittersweet, about the indelible mark left vacant where commercials used to be.

He and his family (wife and 5 kids) are leaving headed for vacation, and Mark has decided to immerse in a total media blackout.  For some, that would be no big deal.  But this fellow Facebooks (wow, is that a word now?) and Tweets and Podcasts and Vidcasts and DVD’s relentlessly.  To spend four weeks with no iPhone, no laptop, no television, no MEDIA?  I wonder what THAT’S like.

Could be a real blessing, I suppose, but it’s difficult departure in today’s age of 24/7 immediacy.  Granted, I was sneaking away with my bride for a four day “recharge” getaway, but I used my iPhone GPS on the golf course, UrbanSpoon for help with restaurants, and checked in on FourSquare three times.  Although I spend less than one week per month in my Florida getaway, it’s wired for wireless and digital cable.  I checked my email, favorite news sites and exchanged Facebook messages with my son traveling in Europe.

Maybe someday I’ll go “media free” for an extended period and get back in touch the deeper things in life.  Right now, I gotta post this blog.

Because, to re-quote a laughable line from the early ‘90s, “This Internet-thing might just catch on.”

We met with a new business prospect today and the question was “How much of our budget should we devote to digital and social media.”

Not “if.”  Not “when.”  But “how much?”  Believe me, that was not a question ANY of our clients were asking three to five years ago.  And 10 years ago, less that 1% of our work involved digital delivery.

Today, our digital and social efforts--concept through deployment--make up nearly 50% of our total revenue.  With such a shift in such little time, it’s prudent to ponder “what’s next?”

So even while we’re perfecting our presence in the current Web 2.0 & Social Media environment, we must begin preparing for the next wave.

Here are three keys:

Mobile/Apps:  If you’re not already working on this functionality and considering how it can be relevant to your market, it may already be too late to become a player.  Within three years, clients will expect this capability to help connect them with their market.

Geo-Location:  Smartphones will outnumber laptops this year.  The ascension of the Droid platform, across multiple carriers, is not a threat to the iPhone...it’s a complement.   App development for those and other handhelds is already mushrooming.  And as devices and apps become increasingly robust, the ability to master pushing marketing messages to those ready to receive such messages (timing and location) will become a requirement.  That’s where geo-location technology, married with marketing-rich data, comes in.

Data mining: We’ve already begun to collect and compile huge databases on behalf of our clients.  In the very near future (like yet this year), we must learn to do more with that data...to marry it with message deployment technology across all channels.

It will be fascinating to watch how those three keys are discussed  at D8.

At least that’s what iThink!

“Where’s my ‘C’ drive?” is funny to me.

With that clearly stated, I’ll praise the Apple community one more time for the help I got last Saturday with a nagging Derby time problem...betting.

I’ve tried a lot of betting “methods,” but somehow always got caught up in minutia of the process and apparently never followed any one of them correctly.  I came to consider it a moral victory if I lost only the money I anticipated “spending” for the good time I’d have.

C’mon, you’ve settled for that, too.

Saturday morning, on the way to Derby with a client, I decided to search the iPhone for help.  I found it in the form of an App called “One Click Pony.”

With just a few clicks, you can get picks from nationally syndicated handicapper Liam Durbin (Chicago Tribune and LA Times) for any race at virtually any racetrack in the nation.

It was the fifth race by the time we made our way to the third floor (a spectacular premium box in the Colonel Matt Winn room), and I was anxious to try it out.

I’m a $2 Place bettor ordinarily (sometimes $5 or even $20) who bets too many horses and inevitably ends up betting against myself.  I checked my One Click Pony and it rated four horses as viable (in a number of different ways) and gave me the option to price an Trifecta bet (boxing the four horses recommended).

So I bet it.  And I won.

See, I’ve never placed an Trifecta or Exacta bet before, so the win (and the winnings) were very exciting, to say the least.

Needless to say, I tried it again and again throughout the day, and always got at least two of the top three finishers.  By day’s end, I had hit (out of 6 races) two Trifectas and one Exacta.

For the Derby itself, Liam missed the call completely.  But, all-in-all, I took away a few hundred dollars...courtesy of a $9.99 App.

“It Really is THAT easy!”

It was decided yesterday in our internal PR meeting.  Seems our agency tome, “Undercurrent” has been starved of content lately.  We’re screaming busy here, growing like crazy, and running hard to guide our clients through the media landslide spawned by all things digital.

So it’s easy to see why the lowly “blog” gets put off.

Yet, a major reason we’ve been so blessed with this rainstorm of new business is precisely because we ventured into blogs and other forms of “social dialogue” in the past few years.  It’s how we’ve learned...by “operating on ourselves” as I like to say.

It has set us apart from our “legacy media” peers and given us a unique advantage in attracting new business.  To neglect this “golden goose” now--because it has been so successful we no longer have time to maintain it--would be the equivalent of surrendering while winning.

So today we embark on a new initiative.  Over the next weeks and months, you will hear  the voice of every member of CurrentMarketing, offering observations of our times and our industry from each unique perspective.

One thing my dad taught me about leadership was to “never give an order you wouldn’t follow”...so here I am.

It’s 7:35.  And I’ve done my part.

Blog On!

In the Web 2.0 landscape, editorial marketing dovetails perfectly into the world of social media. Earned media can come from a variety of sources: professional news sources, specialty blogs, user-generated social media sites. The new goal is to use this influencer media to promote a product or service. The key is to push customers to social media to engage in a dialogue about the product/service benefits. The combination of product promotion by a credible source, followed by peer engagement, produces increased likelihood for acceptance.

We know an editorial marketing strategy is more than the “regularly scheduled press release” method. It requires ongoing partnerships with a variety of media to introduce the product/service and educate them. We must fashion a compelling story about the product/service and engage consumers to build loyalty.

The successful strategy must include:

* Identification of the business opportunity or challenge the campaign addresses. The more specific, the better.
* A campaign goal. The more measurable, the more successful it will be (product awareness, event attendance, friend building, relationship management, sales conversion).
* Alignment of goals with the marketing strategy, creative campaign and messaging to reach the audience.
* Implementation of proper editorial engagement and consumer response tactics
* Analysis and appropriate adjustment

Success from editorial marketing can be determined in myriad fashions. The goal may be a huge profile in a major association publication. It might be a simple as 20 event mentions in various area blogs. Or a coordinated deployment of message across traditional and social media channels, as in the case of a major client of ours.

Last year, we launched a new creative platform for the $100 million company using a unique tagline.

We recruited the company’s fans to be a part of the message development through a series of open “casting calls.”  Through carefully timed release and follow-up with local broadcast and newspaper writers, the story found its way to the front page of the Features section of the Courier-Journal and on 5:30p, 6p and 11p network-affiliate newscasts.  On-premise marketing materials at area locations directed potential participants to a micro-site for details, times and location.  The result was more than 200 people waited in line to tell their story on the two designated shoot days.

The segments gathered were immediately uploaded to a YouTube channel developed specifically for the campaign, allowing participants to share their segments with friends and family.  The YouTube site received move than 3,000 views in the week following.

Satellite and cable television are a good example of why this bugs me.

See, I'm a simple guy.  I want a few news and sports channels, some neat HD adventure and travel channels, local affiliates, and not a lot more.  Instead, to get what I want, providers force a lot of what I DON'T want in the “package” and try to represent it as a good deal.

It's not.  Not for me.  Not for them.  I don't need feeds across 4 HBO time zones.

And I'll walk away first.

Yet it seems more and more that such “deals” are multiplying in the marketplace.  Retailers, restaurants, cellphone providers, car dealers, media reps...it's ubiquitous!

What if Agencies did this?  Need a logo?  Okay, I've got a logo/brochure/website package right here!  No?  How 'bout this logo/billboard/radio/texting package?  You get the point.

And it's silly, right?

So here's a solution:  next time a salesperson or a company starts to bundle what you want with what you don't, just wait patiently until they finish their pitch.

Smile.

Then offer them 'half'.

It may not work but it will certainly change the conversation.  And it's a lot more fun than just standing there fuming over the situation.

I have developed a standard position about adopting and applying emerging developments in the marketing arena.  It’s a position borne through observation of incredibly smart “failures” and illogically lucky “successes” and it’s rooted in the maxim that “Timing is Everything.” 

I want to be third.

I could cite example after example of how my “Rule of the Third” has proven itself historically, from wars to commercial real estate development to technology to product introduction.

Here’s why it works: 

The Starter, an eager innovator, has no road map to follow.  The poor soul, with the great or not-so-great idea, is by definition ahead of demand...so unless he or she can sustain the thrust of the enterprise--independent of profit or gain--for a rather long period of time, it withers, dies and appears to fail.

Meanwhile, Second Sting, a keen observer, has recognized the potential of the innovative enterprise and rightly recognizes that its ultimate success hinges on drumming up sufficient demand and acceptance.  So, while slightly smoothing the rough edges from the initial efforts, Second String usually exhausts itself in the heavy lifting of “preparing the market.”

That’s when everything is ripe for Rule of the Third.  The innovation is refined.  Mistakes are recognized.  A little tweak here and there to make it better than ever.  And the market has just begun to clamor.  And you’re rested, ready and waiting. 

How sweet is that?

Maybe that’s why your Grandma always said...“third time’s charmed!”