Open Source Marketing – A guy can dream
Johnnie Moore posts about his upcoming Reboot presentation on Open Source Marketing. His session description is here:
Open Sauce Marketing: Giving up control doesn’t mean the end of life as we know it.
Marketing is being shaken up, much as predicted in The Cluetrain Manifesto. Organisations are having to plan less, and improvise more, to succeed. Some fear chaos, but others are embracing it. This interactive session explores the spirit needed to get by in a market that is more connected and less predictable. Presented (sort of) by Johnnie Moore and James Cherkoff.
“Some fear chaos, but others are embracing it.” Interesting – I actually agree that this is where the profession is moving, kicking and screaming. Acceptable response times are decreasing, transparency is increasing, volume and visibility of customer feedback is exploding, and tolerance for crap marketing is wearing thin.
The problem is, while the speed and openness (“chaos”) of the marketing cycle is increasing, I don’t see the business systems keeping pace. As marketers, how do we embrace improvisation when we take a hit for missing monthly marketing spend forecast by 5%? When our programs are locked in to driving 2–3 key global metrics, goals around which we commit to 12 months in advance?
Very little room is left for opportunistic marketing – diving into and taking advantage of the chaos Johnnie is talking about. The marketing smarts to do this are there, enough marketers are listening and learning. We just need to reinvent the business systems to enable rather than restrain us.
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Hi Kevin: Thanks for linking. I agree, business systems that may once have made sense may now risk sclerosis when what’s needed is flexibility.
There’s another point about Improv that’s worth making: improv does actually work within constraints. Any improv exercise poses a set of rules and the “game” is to find the room for manoeuvre within those rules.
Sometimes that small move within the rules is to meet the burdensome target but really challenge it out loud. I’m generalising here but what sometimes happens is this: the rule is “meet such-and-such a target”. But a second rule is made up in our heads “And don’t ever challenge this rule”. That second made-up rule gets followed but isn’t actually tested by protesting. It becomes much more powerful and dangerous than the first one. Sometimes someone has to care enough to take the risk of broaching it…
Sorry, that’s a rambling generalisation and more of a note to myself for Reboot, but now I’ve gone to the bother of typing it, I may as well hit Post.
Thanks for the space to sound off…
That’s a great way to look at it. That 2nd rule can be crippling if not addressed honestly and rapidly.