Elastic Thought

Time to call a spade a spade (Part 1)

St. Louis is in bad shape.  And it's getting worse.  I don't think that is news to anyone.  At least here in St. Louis.  We're notorious for complaining about the city to each other.  There is a defeatist type mentality at networking events and elsewhere that permeates just below the surface.  That's not to say everyone does.  I've had plenty of conversations with people who want to change that.  But they all run out of steam at some point.

But when we talk to other people from other cities, we put on a stiff upper lip and talk about how great our city is.  The zoo, the great place to raise a family, the "low" cost of living (in some places), etc.  In short… we're doing fine, thank you for asking, now move along.  I guess call it a pride thing.

So what happens?  People do move right along.  They see us as an insulated little city that seems to do fine amongst ourselves.  And I see this in so many other areas of business as well.  We take bad news and craft it into good news somehow so as not to worry anyone.  We put up a facade that masks the problem.  Only to let the problem grow.  Remember the Mac vs. PC ad with the PR lady?  "By downgrading, he means upgrading to a more familiar stable platform."

We've seen articles in the Post Dispatch for a long time about how our region's economy has barely grown in over ten years including one just this morning.  But a recent conversation I had with a college senior really hit home to me how deep this problem really goes.  It was a simple statement at the time:

"None of my graduating class from high school have any plans for coming back to St. Louis after college."

What made it so profound for me, why i milled on it a lot overnight and wanted to write this blog post the next morning was that the school was MICDS.  For those that don't know MICDS (you're probably outside of St. Louis reading this if you don't), but it is one of the premier college prep schools in the city.  Highly renowned, and the majority of the more prominent and influential families send their kids there.

Why is this important?  Well, let's break down one of St. Louis' biggest problems: creating, attracting, and retaining skilled workers.  We know that manufacturing has taken a hit in St. Louis, but so has the professional and business services category (law firms, architects, ad agencies, and more) falling 14% just last year.  Your first line of defense on retaining workers is keeping the ones you educate here to stay here.  And considering a lot of MICDS families are partners in those professional and business services firms, owners of businesses in St. Louis, and generally working in areas that help St. Louis as an economic base, you'd think their kids would come back after college, use those connections here in St. Louis and build from that.

And in the past, they have.  A lot of our business leaders today went to that school.  But when the majority of the most recent graduating classes vows to not come back, something is wrong. Now, think about the other smart, talented, skilled kids graduating from other schools that don't have as many connections as the MICDS graduates.  Think they have a chance in hell?  Those graduates make a decision around a year before graduating college: a) family is important to me, so I will severely limit my career potential to go home and live a comfortable life in St. Louis, or b) pursue their career to the fullest in another city with the thought they may one day come back to family in St. Louis after they have "made it."

BUT….

Here is what made the conversation with that senior so enlightening and led me to think of a new strategy.  This statement he made was in the middle of explaining why HE was coming back to St. Louis (the only in his circle of friends).  In short, he felt he owed it to the city he grew up in.  He felt a duty, a calling (not to get too cheesy here), but at his young age, he understood the seriousness of the situation and wanted to do something about it.  His plan is simple right now: to stop being a statistic and to lead by example.  But I know in further talks with him, he'll do more.  And I'm glad he is (and will).  I'm going to do everything I can do to help him.

AND…

He gave me an idea I want to throw out here to see if it might help turn the tide here in St. Louis.  Well, an idea I'll do in another blog post.  This one is getting a bit long.

 

I Miss You Already Steve Jobs

It's been less than two hours since i first heard that Steve Jobs had passed away and already I feel lonely.  Already, I feel that the earth has gotten a little smaller today.  I'm sure over the next few hours and days, the Internet will be deluged with tributes, poems, status updates, quotes, videos and the like…all much more eloquently spoken and put together than me or this posting.  I'm sure this will get lost in the ether somewhere, but I'm truly and deeply saddened and want to put up my own awkwardly written rambling somewhere to add to the noise.  There are few times in your life that you are moved by the death of someone you've never even met…John Lennon and Steve Jobs are my two (to date).

And it's not because I'm an Apple fan.  Sure, I have a lot of iPods, iPhones, an iPad, some old desktops and quite a few laptops laying around.  Hell, if i dig deep enough in the office I'm sure I'll find a Newton in there somewhere.  No… this isn't about products.  I did my senior thesis in business school on Apple.  It was around the time Steve was first booted out and John Sculley had just come over from Pepsi.  I remember railing on the decision to fire Steve as a shortsighted move.  I remember defending my points to the college board and dean and explaining why "bad behavior" was visionary and how operators and entrepreneurs are two different creatures.

And that is why I'm truly sad tonight.  Why i feel the world has gotten a little smaller.  There are only a handful of people in this world that are unafraid of the status quo.  There are but a scant few people that have the strength to stand up to a culture that increasingly continues to see only short-term.  That fights and pushes those that continually fear change and the all the good that comes of moving the human race forward.  I applaud and look up to people like that.  I emulate them and have tasted a bit of the backlash that comes from it.  It's a hard road, but it's the right road.  Without it, we cease to evolve.  It takes big people like Steve Jobs to keep things moving.  It takes people of that conviction to stand up to the short-sighted boards that defend the status quo with all the strength their fear can muster.

Steve was famous for saying "Stay hungry, stay foolish."  But I think that the Wayne Gretzky quote is more apropos: "I skate to where the puck will be.  Not to where it was."  Steve Jobs was one of the few brave enough to skate away from the pack and move to where the "puck" was going to be. 

And even though these words were penned by the Los Angeles office of TBWA/Chiat/Day, I feel there is no better send off for Steve Jobs: 

Here’s to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The troublemakers. The round pegs in the square holes. The ones who see things differently. They’re not fond of rules. And they have no respect for the status quo. You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them. About the only thing you can’t do is ignore them. Because they change things. They push the human race forward. And while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius. Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do.  

Thank you for being crazy.  Thank you for changing the world.  Thank you for changing my world.  There is one less round peg in the world today, and no matter what anybody says, I feel that that hole will never be filled.

Rest in peace, Steve Jobs.  I already miss you.

 

The Story Behind Starting Fund St. Louis

We needed to create Fund St. Louis.

One of the fun things about startup companies is that there is always a story behind what motivated someone to get up and put their plan into action. It's one of the inherently human things about business that really gets to the core of why we spend so much time at work, and really shows you the heart and character of that particular business. We wanted to share the story of why we put Fund St. Louis out to the world and why we so passionately work for its success.

Our story begins with family. My wife Angela and I have spent the first part of our careers in a constant struggle with the St. Louis job market and have always had one foot out the door. It's been a struggle because it has always been our intention to stay "home" with family. But the bigger jobs and some of the things that can really advance a career are outside of St. Louis for a lot of industries (though not all). We've been stuck with the age-old issue of "settle for mediocrity but be close to family" or "leave and chase the big career." After years of working in St. Louis (and even as far away as San Francisco), we opted for option "C" which was try to create the best career you could with your own business so that you could stay in St. Louis with family and be satisfied with your work and be challenged by your career.

And from what we've heard, we're not the only ones that have struggled with that decision. Time and time again, we run into very talented people who feel "stuck" in their current situation. Usually we hear something like "I'd love to switch jobs, but where do I go? There's not much else in St. Louis and if I move my kids away from their friends to another city, they'll kill me." (insert countless variations here)

We were eating pancakes with the kids one morning when it hit us. We don't want our children to have to feel like they need to "settle" if they want to stay in St. Louis to be with us and our extended family. (Nor do we want them to move away, either!) They should not have to go through their careers with one foot out the door in constant mental struggle. There should be a vibrant business environment in St. Louis where they can have their pick of great jobs. St. Louis should be a place where they can really pursue a challenging career and feel fulfilled. All while being close to family and raising their kids here where they grew up.

And when we told more people about this story, they felt very strongly that they would love to give those opportunities to their children as well. It struck them that in the challenge of giving our children "every opportunity to succeed" those paths often lead to other cities. It was a recent college grad, though, that summed it up nicely. In explaining that none of his MICDS graduating class were coming back to St. Louis after college, I asked him why he was. He simply said "I owe it to St. Louis to come back. I owe it to the place i grew up in to try and do my part to reverse the trend." (and with the current unemployment rate of 8.9% in St. Louis County, 11.4% in St. Louis City and a median household income of just over $33k --we couldn't think of a better time to help our city flourish!)

Well, that's where we are. We need to stop the deportation of our best talent. We need to better the city we grew up in. We owe it to St. Louis to give it everything we have to change this place for the better. To change this place for our kids. To change this place for everyone that wants a thriving city with more great jobs, great companies, great ideas...for this generation...and the next.

So just simply creating businesses for ourselves and our employees was not enough, we needed to do more. We needed to find a way to enable as many entrepreneurs as we can to start companies and create jobs as well. We needed to begin to change the culture of St Louis to support small business, to support entrepreneurs, and to support the notion that it's "OK" to work at a company that's not well-known. That is IS a safe, fulfilling and challenging career. To be proud and FLOURISH in that career.

In short, we NEEDED to create Fund St. Louis. We owe it to St. Louis, our families, our kids, and the spirit of a thriving city to start Fund St. Louis. We're doing our part to help reverse the trend and we're very hopeful that Fund St. Louis is a catalyst to a more dynamic and small-business friendly St. Louis.

It's our time to flourish.

Edgerank for Brands and Agencies

Search marketing is big business.  And why not?  We've worked with clients that can monetize the traffic they get from searches placed in the major engines, as well as the negative impact of bad reviews or otherwise that show up on the first page of these search engines.  We've been working in the SEO and SEM industry since Alta Vista (remember that?).  The industry (and the major search engines) have come a long way in terms of sophistication, and so has the industry.

The interesting thing is that social media is changing the search marketing industry more so than anything in the past 13 or 14 years.  Not only do social media sites, blogs, comments and other social tools effect search rankings (and therefore how companies market through search), but Facebook and Twitter have their own search engines to surface content on their platforms.  While Twitter's may be somewhat rudimentary and giving rise to the popular #hastag, Facebook has grown a little more sophisticated as evidenced by their recent presentation on EdgeRank.

Now, this is completely expected.  With so much conversation going on in Facebook, it's getting hard to hear anything.  Imagine if your newsfeed had everything from everyone you follow (from important stuff to lost sheep in Farmville).  You couldn't keep up.  So Facebook put an algorithm in place to help decide for you.  This blog post isn't to explain what an object or edge is, or how affinity, weight or time decay do to the edge score.  For now, let's just go off of the preface that you need to have great content that people interact with recently to show up.

If it isn't heated already, this should super-heat the space for "news feed optimization" or just plain "social media optimization."  And it's like the beginning days of search marketing in the search engines all over again.  We just have a few new engines (and algorithms) to pay attention to now.

And it matters.  Businesses are utilizing social media more and more, and being "found" is crucial.  And, like traditional search engines, the basis is understanding the "rules of the game" (the algorithm), but more importantly, coming up with great content.  Now, every bit of great content still needs a boost to be seen, for sure.  Smartwater didn't just put Jennifer Aniston on YouTube and figure it would go viral.  They "seeded" it.  It's a great piece.  And with some proper PR, social media support, and seeding with influencers, it has over 6 million views in 3 days.  Well done.

EdgeRank is just the beginning.  The traditional search portals are looking at integrating what they can from the social sites, and the sites themselves will continually work on their algorithms.  Social media "optimization" is going to be the thing that the agencies all begin to start touting.

And that's a good thing.

PR and social media disasters are abound these days as companies and agencies continue to relegate their actives to young, inexperienced team members figuring they "know social" more due to their age.  Social media is quickly becoming an art AND a science.  And that should help shake out some of the so-called "social media experts" in the field.  Anyone can create a Facebook page or post on Twitter (or, or, or)…but you start to separate talent when you need engagement and results from your social media activities.  Now, you need to account for the algorithm along with creating content that engages, and figuring out a plan to make sure that great content is seen.

It's not easy anymore.  And the harder it gets, the better the agencies will have to become.  That's good for businesses as there will be fewer (but more qualified) candidates in the industry.  Although, it will be interesting when the question moves from "what's your twitter strategy" to "what's your EdgeRank strategy?"  At least the second is a pertinent and real question.  I don't think many of our competitors would have a good answer to the second.

However, if you would like to know ours, or want us to put one together for you….

 

Time to call a spade a spade (Part 2)

St. Louis is in bad shape.  And it's getting worse.  How do we start to turn this ship around?  I like the idea of withdrawing from the Midwest and looking more like a pro-business city like Atlanta or Dallas.  Boosting small business since most new jobs are are generated by new and small companies.

I like making our economy more dynamic and pushing the entrepreneurship factor up a notch instead of being complacent with the status quo.  But those have all been proposed before.  I will support those until the days I'm forced out of St. Louis, but I've got one more theory to add to the conversation:

Let's stop pretending and tell the region and the country that we are in trouble.  Let's publicize it.  Let's swallow our pride and ask for help.

But in a smart way.

What do i mean by that?  Well, let's look at Detroit for example. Mayor Bing has asked local businesses to invest and help with the recovery.  There are recovery centers being set up.  Small business is generating a recovery right alongside the auto industry.  CNN Money has a special site and says "It's a city in crisis--but with potential for a big comeback.  Despite an ailing auto industry and the highest jobless rate in the nation, Detroiters are determined to make their hometown thrive once again."  There are entrepreneurial businesses that are taking advantage of a depressed economy and finding good, inexpensive facilities and a reinvigorated skilled work force to help them out.

In short, Detroit was not afraid to show its problems to the country, and the country responded.  There is a pride in the city, but also in those not native to the city that are bringing their companies there.  They know they are getting a good deal for their business, but also feel a pride in helping the recovery of one of America's great cities.

So… St. Louis may not be as desolate as the bleak pictures we've seen of Detroit, but we're moving in that direction.  Why can't we take the same approach?  St. Louis was a phenomenal city in the middle of America and, like Detroit, has the potential for a huge comeback.  But with an attitude of "we're fine, thank you, now move on," we're never going to get the response Detroit got.

We need a focus on St. Louis.  We need a dynamic leadership that doesn't continue to paint a rosy picture of St. Louis as a great place for families.  We need a recovery effort.  We need people from around the country feeling that they can bring their businesses and entrepreneurial spirit to a region that needs it and they can feel good about the move.  We can't afford to keep sweeping the problems under the rug and putting on the stiff upper lip.  It's time to ask for help.

There are St. Louisans who are determined to make their hometown thrive once again.  Use us.  But don't hedge our efforts and water them down with counter statement on how St. Louis is doing just fine.  We're not.  (And we CAN be pro-business AND pro-family-friendly, but that's another blog post).

So to my friend graduating from college in May and moving back to St. Louis: thank you.  I hope more people follow your lead. And  I hope MICDS (and other schools) add something to their curriculum:  train and educate the best and the brightest St. Louis has to offer AND instill in them early a pride in St. Louis and instill in them a sense of duty to come back and fix this city.

And to Mayor Slay, whoever replaces Dick Fleming at the RCGA, Civic Progress, SBA, or anyone out there that is in a position to change this thing around:  I'm here to help.

Thank You, Clients (and Friends)

We are a small collection of diverse skills and we make a living by creating and executing ideas for people/companies that pay us.  That would make us an agency, a boutique, a creative shop, or any other term used to describe our line of work.  And there are a lot of perceptions about what it is like working in this type of environment.  Most of them are true. 

Let me run through a few of them. 

The Pros:

Creative agencies are fun, dynamic places.  There is a lot of energy and "play time" that goes into creative brainstorming, and you are never bored because there is always something new to do, always some new challenge to solve for your diverse clientele.  There is also the perception of the fun of taking clients out on an expense account, alcohol, and too much "play time" for the sake of creativity.

The Cons:

It's a pressure-cooker.  Deadlines are tight, and you are often asked to solve the impossible.  Inside the agency, professionals are hyper-competitive with each other (both with other agencies and within the same agency itself).  And clients are often-times over-demanding.  You never have down time because there is always a new task to be done for someone, somewhere.  It's like dog years, 1 year in an agency is like 7 years in a "regular" job.  And that creates high turn-over, anxiety, and sometimes problems at home (long hours, trips, missed family events, etc.). 

But the one thing you hear from colleagues consistently is that there is a tremendous lack of respect in all of the above, and that it is getting worse.  Blame it on the economy, blame it on a society that doesn't value manners as it once did, or blame it on the two party political system.  But the stories you hear from how agencies treat their own people, to the abuses you hear from clients' demands, to the downright childish behavior in the boardroom, you can't help but believe the trend:

People are increasingly treating each other with a complete lack of respect for the individual--as a professional, and often times as a fellow human being. 

But I titled this blog post "Thank You, Clients" so let me explain. 

Elasticity as been through several phases in its short history.  From conceiving the company, to looking for investment, working with a parent company, buying itself back and working autonomously as a stand alone unit.  But over the course of over 2 years, our success has come completely from our clients.  Now, I know this time of year (well, the end of last year) is when everyone thanks their clients.  "Thank you for sending us business that helps us pay the bills" is the typical sentiment.  But I want to go further because we have been extremely lucky these past few years: 

Thank you for trusting in a new agency, and most of all, thank you for the respect you give us as professionals in the industry and as people.  The relationships we've built with you buck the trend so prevalent in our industry and makes the work we do much more meaningful.  And that extends past "keeping the lights on" at the agency.  It extends to our personal and home lives, and allows us to focus on the "pros" of working at an agency and not have to worry about the "cons" as much.  What I value the most is not the checks as much as the professional fulfillment of working in a partnership where there is mutual respect. 

So thank you, JIm, Jeff, Luci, Laura, Jennifer, Kathy, Kate, Carrie, Andrew, John, Chris, Sarah, Nick, Pat, John, Sloan, Amy, Adam, Ken, Jenn, Scott, Branden, Joylynn, Nate, Todd, Maria, Philip, Matina, John, Brian, David, Andrew, Joe, Erika and the many others we work with every day.  You've helped us differentiate ourselves in one more way: that there can be respect and decorum in this industry.  We appreciate that rare gift.

Thank you.