According to Fred

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The Power of Grit and Determination

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Now that sports is coming back I’m watching my beloved Chicago Blackhawks fight their way through the shortened season and into the playoffs. I don’t know how far they will go, but they are far from the favorite to win. Just to get into the actual playoffs they had to beat a no. 5 seed. And they did. It was a classic 12/5 upset.

What I love about sports in the playoffs is that teams who are not supposed to be there, the underdogs, get scrappy. They get creative. They get gritty and have determination to prove that they belong in the fight. And with the right motivation from their coaches and each other they can do amazing things. They can pull off upsets. They can prove the naysayers wrong. They do belong. They do deserve to hoist the cup.

Everyone has Grit and Determination

Grit and determination is not just for athletes. For just as many cinderella sports teams that you read a headline about, I’ve seen way more stories on LinkedIn about individuals finding new jobs. They are sharing their metrics too. 150 days out of a job. 130 jobs applied for. 29 interviews. 3 ghosting by recruiters. 3 job offers. 1 new wonderful employer.

courage and resolve; strength of character.

definition of grit

I’ve personally never been in that position except maybe when I graduated college and was looking for my first job. I have certainly been fortunate. But these individuals are grinding it out. They are not only finding grit and determination to find a new job, in many cases they are finding better jobs. They are pivoting into something they really love or want to do.

firmness of purpose; resoluteness.

definition of determination

Everyone has or can have a situation that requires focus, embracing new behaviors, fixing bad habits, or changing your destiny. What I’ve determined is that it is a state of mind. To be courageous is a state of mind. To have resolve is a state of mind. And to get in that state of mind sometimes means you have to accept things you normally wouldn’t.

Embrace the Suck

I think one of the hardest parts of any situation that you come across that is unpleasant or unexpected is to take a minute to assess your situation, then just “embrace the suck.” What do I mean by that?

On one hand you can fight the situation ahead of you. You can pretend it isn’t as bad as it is. You can lie to yourself that it is “temporary” or “will just last <insert X period of time here>. Or you can grab the preverbal bull by the horns and embrace the fact that you are in a situation that you’d prefer not to be in.

That could be a project you’ve been given. It could be a job loss. It could be a personal situation. When you embrace the suck it is amazing how your attitude can change to focus on getting the task/project done and change your situation. To dig in and believe that you accomplish the goal or fix the problem. That takes grit. That takes determination. You embrace the suck and make plans and execute to make it better.

Back to my beloved Chicago Blackhawks. As of writing this we are down 0-2 in the first round of the playoffs with the Las Vegas Knights. We went to overtime in Game 2 and lost by one point. Every point is a battle. The players on both teams are grinding it out every line change (hockey term for a group of players who go on and off the ice together in rotations). It will take teamwork, grit and determination to advance to the next round. What’s the next round of your playoffs? Are you willing to go the extra effort to grind it out?

As a Holiday Shopper, I Miss Toys ‘R’ Us

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I didn’t want to grow up. I wanted to be a Toys ‘R’ Us kid for life.  Even as I got older, I still enjoyed going into “the” toy store.  I took my kids.  They’d ask me every time we passed by one, “Dad, can we go to Toys ‘R’ Us?”  And many times, we did.  We didn’t always buy something, but we went in.  Why?  Not to tease my kids, but to spark their imagination.  No other store had the sheer volume of toys, and that was special.  

Toy Shopping is Tough This Year

Maybe it is just me, or maybe it is just the sign of the times, but toy shopping in 2018 is tough.   Asking our children for ideas for Christmas, and not just for ourselves to give them as gifts, but for family members as well is like asking them if they want to go to the dentist or clean their room.  It is like pulling teeth or a chore.  They don’t want to do it.  Please, flip through this Target catalog and circle what you want.  Let’s get on Amazon and search for toys.  “There isn’t anything I want.”  “I can’t find anything.”  “Why don’t they have more video games?”  We’ve heard every excuse.  My wife has even resorted to dragging them TO Target and browse the toy aisles to no avail.  It’s just not the same. 

No other store, short of an actual Lego store, could you find so many sets from different series, than a Toys ‘R’ Us.  No other store could you just wander and find a new style of toy that might catch an interest.  That’s not to say Target isn’t picking up the slack for a lack of a local Toys ‘R’ Us, but it’s not the same.  And Target isn’t the only one trying to cash in.    

Everyone is Trying to Capitalize on the Toys ‘R’ Us Void

This weekend I was in Home Depot getting some items for a project I was going to make for a holiday gift.  As I walked in the main entrance I was not only greeted with the normal light bulbs or grills or even holiday ornaments.  I was presented with a kids bicycle!  Wait, what?!  Then I saw a bunch of temporary displays in the aisle with coloring books, drones, kids floor mats for cars to drive on, and more.  Moving through the aisles I saw more of these next to end-caps.  Every open space in my normal spacious home improvement big box was now filled with non-home improvement items.  Here is just a fraction of what I saw.  

Not your normal home improvement items.  

Now, Home Depot isn’t the first store to try to edge into the toy space, even when Toys ‘R’ Us was around.   Kohl’s has been doing it for years, with a small space, and then getting larger around the holiday.  For them, it is also bleeding into electronics and now the strategic partnership with Amazon to have their in-store experience certainly has helped them move beyond the department store retailer they were known for.  

Amazon Can’t Fill the Void

No matter how you slice it, Amazon isn’t the answer to everything.  The convenience of the e-commerce giant can’t fill the experience of flipping through a catalog and imagining playing with a toy.  It can’t let you hold the box, shake it, flip it over to read the back, and imagine it in your toy room.  It can’t show you, up close and personal, the entire collection in a setting, right next to each other ready for you to dream about having them all.  Nope, you can just swipe through a few photos, play a video (maybe) and see if it has good reviews or not.  And to boot, not every cool toy is sold on Amazon.   

As a parent, yes, Amazon is great.  I buy a product or ten and it shows up on my doorstep two days later.  Or I need a last minute gift and I can’t get out to shop.  Yep, it fills that void perfectly.  Gift wrapped?  Yes, please.  Click, click, boom.   Call me old fashion, but there is just something about walking through a store and browsing.  That “discovery” process is not the same when you are clicking/swiping/tapping through screen after screen.   

Don’t Call it a Comeback…Yet

So while we have entered the first real holiday season without a physical Toys ‘R’ Us store, it doesn’t mean Geoffrey the Giraffe and the brand is absent.  After hedge fund investors decided to retain the name for a future endeavor, Kroger and the Geoffrey company (the subsidiary who owns the IP) brought Toys ‘R’ Us pop-ups to 600 Kroger grocery stores.   I haven’t personally experienced one of these, but at least for some kids, the Giraffe is back!  

It is just a start and nobody knows what it will really take to get back in the game.  With all their physical stores sold and leases taken over during the liquidation, there is still a long road ahead for Geoffrey the Giraffe and the iconic Toys ‘R’ Us brand as a retailer.  Compound that with the fact that staple toy makers like Mattel and Hasbro have been forced to cut new distribution deals with other outlets, it won’t be easy to bring everyone back together.  So what opportunity lies ahead? 

Even if Toys ‘R’ Us Makes a Come Back It Shouldn’t be the Same

There will be case study after case study written on where Toys ‘R’ Us went wrong.  How it didn’t innovate enough for the in-store experience.  How they could have dominated the toy industry and shopping experience.  Now’s the opportunity.  What makes a kid today different than a kid of my generation?  In some ways, a lot!  In other ways, not much is different.  Sure we have more advanced technology to make gaming systems amazing.  We have robotic dogs that you can interact with your voice.  But, we still have kids that want a stuffed animal.  We still have our imagination.  We still have senses that need stimulation and engagement.  And that’s where Toys ‘R’ Us can shine.  Bring a new experience to the store.  Host gaming competitions.  Host build-offs.  Bring S.T.E.M. classes in-store to teach kids how to build the next inventions.  Robotics coding classes.  Turn your store into a playground for the mind and soul!  The opportunities are endless than to just be a “toy store.” 

Just don’t forget to be a “toy store” that allow kids to pick up boxes, flip them over, see a set all put together.  Let them discover and be a kid.  

My Love-Hate Relationship with Facebook

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Unless you’ve been under a rock the last few days, you probably know about the recent Facebook news about the data breach/violation via Cambridge Analytica.  I had a brief discussion with my friend Ross Quintana on Facebook Live the other night too, but I, unfortunately, didn’t have time to really dig into the topics that have been on my mind around this whole incident.  I’m not going to lie, I struggle with Facebook.  We have a love/hate relationship and this incident with Cambridge Analytica is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to things like data privacy, internet companies revenue models, the ignorance of “free” services, and possible regulation of the Internet.  Just to name a few.

I have drafted a post that I never published citing that I uninstalled the Facebook app from my phone about a month ago.  And I did.  But, I reinstalled it during a recent business trip where I wanted to share more content with my friends and family while gone and Facebook was the medium to do it.  And frankly, that pissed me off.

via GIPHY

Facebook Stopped Being Relevant

You see, Facebook has become a place where I don’t like to spend time, but I need to spend time for some valid reasons.  Let’s start with why I deleted the app a month ago.

I used to really enjoy catching up on activities my friends, co-workers, and family were doing.  We used Facebook as a platform to connect.  Wow, I feel like I could be an employee right now.  “We are here to connect the world.”

What it has turned into today, with algorithm changes, ads, friends and family publishing the most inane, irrelevant crap (I don’t care which answer you picked on this “thing from my childhood that isn’t around anymore” posts) it drives me insane.  It is an endless scroll of just junk.  I’ve clearly clicked “Like” on too many pages of interest (Runners World, please….you don’t need to post 18 times a day, I promise) where if it isn’t crap from my friends and family, it is just published content from these pages.  My thumb is getting cramps just flipping through irrelevant stuff to find the one or two pieces of gold that I care about.

via GIPHY

I’m pretty sure my friends and family are indeed publishing stuff I care about.  Facebook just doesn’t seem to want to show it to me anymore.

Why I Can’t Just “Quit”

I really wish I could.  Just export all my data and “let go” of Facebook.  However, I can’t.  I can’t because there are valuable reasons and tools that Facebook offers to connect communities together.  Specifically, I run a private running group and I’m a leader/contributor to my son’s Cub Scout Pack and we use Facebook Groups and Pages to communicate and recruit.  In addition to all of that, my company has several pages where I need to be an admin.  If I were to quit I’d be taking myself out of some key responsibilities that I’m currently assigned to.

To be fair, these tools work.  We have the engagement we want and it continues to grow, so we are getting value.  It is a positive thing.

We’ve Created Our Own Mess

If we want to put a blame on why Facebook has become so important to many of us (and as a Nation) we have no further to look than in the mirror.  As a culture and society, we are creatures of habit, greed, narcissism, empathy, and followers (and leaders).  Facebook started as something exclusive.  Then it grew to be where all the “cool kids” hung out.  They opened up the walled garden because they know they could profit with more users, more data, more opportunity for advertising.  Then the people came and we ate it up like a hot fudge sundae.  We got the dopamine hits when we got a “like”.  Then we got “love, laugh, ha ha, WOW!” and more.  We just can’t stop.  It’s “free”, so, share with the world and maybe we will go “viral” and get more attention.

Look, folks, Facebook is a melting pot of all that is good and bad with the world.  It connects communities, it profits from our “licensing” of our data and information so they can create hyper-targeted ads for companies.  We are feeding the beast because we can’t quit.  Sigh.

I’m Going to Stop Here

So this is where I’m going to stop.  I have several other thoughts on all of this, with the topics mentioned above.  However, I’m going to try to record some of these thoughts with video and then publish those as my medium of discussion.  What are your thoughts?  Let’s discuss below.

 

 

Mining for Personalization: How Far is Too Far?

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How far are companies willing to go with technology to mine data and gain insights to deliver personalization to us?

I was in a conversation last week at work and somehow we got on the topic of voice and other “creepy” examples we see or interpret that leads to ads appearing on our devices. One example given was a co-worker was in her office with our summer intern at the time and was discussing a purchase she made on her computer on Amazon. The next day our intern stated that she started seeing ads for that same item on her Facebook feed. Two different users, different devices, not even an item the intern would have purchased, but ads are showing up now on her computer.  This wasn’t the first time I had a conversation like this where ads would start to appear based on verbal conversations.

The conversation went further with someone else stating that they read Facebook was experimenting with analyzing the dust patterns on your photos from your cell phone lens to match people who are or are not connected and other data mining like Geo, proximity to each other, behavior patterns, etc. Now, Facebook isn’t actually doing this, but the idea that using location data or even dust to identify people who may show up in the “you may know” area, it does get creepy when you think about it.  (NOTE: Facebook does neither, but not without admitted experimentation. See link above.)

We’ve heard the stories of apps using the microphone to listen in on conversations and TV shows for ad targeting. How far are tech companies willing to go to mine your data, behavior, and other attributes to deliver personalized, content, experiences, or in many cases just ad targeting?  Farther than many of us realize.

Let’s be clear, if the dust analyzing freaks you out, you are uploading photos to a “free” service in which I’m confident somewhere in their Terms of Use states they can do this. You agree to those terms every time you use the app or website. A nice reminder of what “free” means in the age of the Internet. So when we are willingly providing data to a third party, how can we not expect them to mine this data to experiment and possibly deliver more value to you?  It’s a fine line of value vs. trust.

Even as a marketer, I myself feel there is a limit we need to adhere to. I’m right there with the next marketer who wants as targeted of an audience as possible. We all want the Segment of One. To get there, it will take a lot of technology and analyzing data points. But dust specs on a smartphone lens from a photo that was uploaded? Seems a little too far to me.

So how far are we willing to go?  How desperately do we need data, attributes, behaviors to map to get that customer?  Are we willing to play the “everyone just clicks accept” to get the app or use the site?  How much are we willing to build then break trust with our customers to get to the segment of one?

Pick Your Words Wisely in a World of 140 Characters and 5 Minute Talks

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Two things happened this week that reminded me of the need for concise, clear, communication.  First, I gave an Ignite presentation and the second was that Twitter announced it was going to up the character limit from 140 to 280.  In both instances, brevity is the key.  Be clear, concise, to the point, and get on with your day.  There is something to be said for being concise, and the act of Tweeting keeps me on my toes every day.  Planning and prepping for an Ignite talk…even more so.

Ignite: 5 Minutes, 20 Slides that Auto-Advance – What Could Go Wrong?

About three weeks ago I submitted a talk to Ignite Chicago with the hopes of doing what many think is insane.  Besides it being public speaking, it follows a very specific format.  You get 5 minutes, 20 slides, and they auto-advance.   I’m used to giving 20, 30, 45-minute talks.  In those cases it is often a challenge to keep a flow going, thinking about how to keep the audience engaged, and delivering key points.  With an Ignite talk, if you blink an eye it will be over before you know it.  It often takes 5 minutes just to tee up the topic, let alone get through it!

The good news is that I was selected which meant ‘Game On’ to find a way to talk about a somewhat complicated topic — digital assistants and voice tech — and make it worthwhile to the audience.  The challenge was mapping out a series of slides that told the right story with the right words.  You had to be quick and concise because that slide was changing whether you liked it or not!

Two things played into my advantage.  First, I think having done public speaking before helped me know only you really know your mistakes (for the most part).  Second, I talk fast!  The only time when talking fast might be beneficial.  Though, I’m not really sure it is.  You sound rushed and appear to be trying to do too much in the time allotted.  I will say that night there were better presenters than me, but the crowd was complimentary none the less.

140 Characters Gets Tough at Times.  280 May Be Too Much

We all know Twitter is used in many cases as a sounding board, a content curation machine, a two-way, or one-to-many conversation, and sometimes just a bullhorn.  The premise of Twitter was always to be concise and to the point.  Then this happened.

The Twitterverse collectively lost its mind over it.  Which is to be expected when you start to monkey with something that has been established and comfortable.  140 characters made us all editors, get creative with our writing, and introduced a ton of acronyms to help shorten the messages.  Twitter has its reasons for expanding the length of a Tweet.  However, many are criticizing that 140 is enough.  I even took a poll of what feature should Twitter actually implement.

The expanding the character limit wasn’t even selected. More people wanted an Edit functionality than anything else! That even caused a spirited debate with my circle of friends on what should be done, how an Edit feature should work, and even went to the extent that Twitter’s bigger problem is about community engagement, not the length of a Tweet.

When Being Concise is an Art and a Science

This leads me to the general point.  We spend a lot of time writing things, talking, engaging with others and at some point wasting everyone’s time because we aren’t concise and to the point.  There is a fine art and science behind having brevity and clarity in your communications.  Twitter was one of those few platforms (certainly not a blog like this one) where you had to be concise or it didn’t work.  With Ignite talks, you only get five minutes to talk.  It was a challenge, to say the least, and one that I want to do again, so I can be better at it.  So I challenge you.  Regardless if Twitter goes to 280 characters, or if you have a 60-minute presentation coming up.  Try to be as concise as possible.  Get to the point in the least amount of words possible, but with clarity and consistency.  You can apply this to all parts of your work and personal lives.  So give it a try and see what happens.  You might find yourself with more time to get things done.  Not a bad trade-off.

Read some of my other thoughts and perspectives. A Little Less Recent