Seth Godin calls this the most important “marketing pothole”:
Great marketing pleases everyone on the team, sooner or later. But at the beginning, great marketing pleases almost no one. At the beginning, great marketing is counter-intuitive, non-obvious, challenging and apparently risky. Of course your friends, shareholders, stakeholders and bosses won’t like it. But they’re not doing the marketing, you are.
Missouri’s hospitals are moving quickly to ban tobacco, not just in the building, but anywhere on hospital property. Some patients are so addicted, they drag their I-V bottles, tubes, and cart out to the parking lot of their hospital so they can get a nicotine fix. Those days are numbered. Hospitals and state health officials have worked to change regulations so hospitals can ban tobacco use anywhere on the hospital campus, not just in the building. [Missourinet.com]
The local Business Journal did a nice piece on Learfield, including a glam shot of Clyde on the cover. The reporter, David Reed, picked up on Clyde’s love of technology:
Lear’s desk gadgets, including a Blackberry, a laptop (from which he posts to his blog on Learfield’s Web site) and an iPod, show how comfortable he is with the latest technologies.
The 62-year-old techie picked up his cell phone and made a pronouncement: “I’ll guarantee you that in 18 months to two years, you’ll be able to watch every Missouri football game right here, watch it live,” he said. “We’re the company that’s going to make that happen. The university is entrusting us to make this happen for them. They don’t want to deal with a company that is going to lag behind. Our job is to be out front of the technology game.”
I might have to upgrade from my Wal-Mart Tracfone. I’d link to the story but, alas, the JCBT does not have a web site.
They’ve been remodeling our (Jefferson City) offices and studios for well over a year and the latest (and last) area to get a make-over is the newsroom.
It’s almost that time again. On June 4th I will have been chained to a Learfield galley oar for 22 years. I am proud to say that Learfield founder and CEO Clyde Lear recruited and hired me and changed my life forever. I’ll resist the usual cult-rant and point you to Clyde’s blog. Everybody whose CEO is blogging with this kind of candor an openess…raise your hand.
Some can remember six years ago when things around here weren’t so rosy. We lost money. All of you took a pay cut for several months; I went six months with no salary at all. Remember what I told you then?
This either makes you real uncomfortable or it gives you goose bumps. I love it, of course. Clyde is a natural blogger. He got it immediately. Many (most) do not.
We met with a prospective client today and in a two-hour meeting, radio came up twice…in passing. When I asked the client to rank their website (with all forms of communication) on a scale of 1 to 10…she gave it a nine and couldn’t think of anything that was more important in getting their message out. She also confided that her website wasn’t very good. When I suggested she consider adding a blog…it was as though I had suggested adding child porn.
It’s really quite amazing. Reactions to blogging are highly polarized. A (very) few know about blogging and are eager to put it to use for their company or organization. Many (most) have no idea what blogging is and –simultaneously– are petrified by the very idea.
We have established this formalized communication made up of press releases, brochures, slick media kits and, yes, Main Stream Media… that is as stiff and structured as a Greek drama. But we all have our parts and know our lines. We have a script. And out of nowhere, come these bloggers and podcasters writing and saying any damn thing and it’s scary as hell. Line, please!
What was I talking about? I remember… 22 years at Camp Learfield. Halfway there.