Bothered

Since I presented the community presentation at the conference last week something has been bothering me. My audience at the event was comms planners of about 3/5 years experience. Part of what I talked about in the presentation related to why I thought it was professionally good for them to engage in the wider blogosphere, not least because it connects them to interesting ideas and some of the best thinking going on right now in their industry, but also because it tangibly shows the passion and interest they have for the job that they do.

The presentation I'd just given them was liberally sprinkled with references to and quotes from Clay Shirky, Mark Earls and Seth Godin (in fact Mark was kind enough to donate a couple of slides as part of the crowdsourcing idea). But when the audience was asked whether they'd read "Here Comes Everybody", nobody stuck their hand up. When they were asked whether they had read "HERD", no-one had. "Purple Cow"? No-one. So out of 50 comms planners from across a variety of different agencies, no-one had read even one of what must surely be 3 of the most seminal marketing books of the past few years.

Now, they might have just been a bit shy of-course, but I don't think so. If I'm honest, it kind of felt as though if I'd asked them about whether they'd read The Brand Innovation Manifesto or It's Not How Good You Are, It's How Good You Want To Be, or Ogilvy On Advertising, the answer would have been the same.

Of-course, it's not all about everyone reading the same books, and there are many sources of information and inspiration. But I think these recent pieces of work have all moved the debate on how we should view and practice communications significantly forward. So if I'm honest, I was quite shocked. This has been going round in my head ever since that day. Perhaps I'm wrong to be so bothered by it. Even if I'm not wrong, I'm not even sure what could or should be done about it. But I think perhaps something should.

Comments

[eaon]

mate, i must have bought Purple Cow about 20 times for various people - colleagues, clients etc.

[Michael Gross]

Well, all those books are well documented in the web. So if you read blogs, watch TED, or if you are just a curious person, it'll be quite probable that you've heard about those books and understood their basic message. Who has actually read the Long Tail? Only a few, but everyone knows what it is about and can explain the model.

The problem is, especially when it comes to comms planning: It is good that young people get to know many new ideas and opinions through reading blogs etc. and it helps them to make an impression during a conversation or a job interview, but if we don't read the real literature we won't get a deeper understanding of how things work and go round in circles.

[Ian]

I wonder if people aren't depending a little too much on microformats at the expense of longer-form expository insights. I've passed these books along to God-knows-how-many-people, a significant number of whom have returned them unread, citing either a 'lack of time' or some variation of 'I'll just get it online'.

You are not alone in your sentiments, Neil.

[Victor Houghton]

Many of us read blogs as part of our daily routine. Others don't. The same goes for marketing books. I know many who find mental nourishment from seemingly off-topic sources that still refresh their planning muscles.
I've done the Godin and Gladwell thing and, quite frankly, am bored with them. I'd rather read summaries and then find inspiration and applicable wisdom from places that have nothing to do with marketing and planning.
It sounds like you're correlating the apparently unresponsive audience with some kind of failure, which is understandable. Just because you know you're right, it doesn't mean the other person is wrong.

[RNB]

Although I'd share your "disappointment" (?) if I addressed a group of creatives who hadn't read such seminal books, I would agree with the first Gross paragraph above: it is not so essential to have read the actual books as to have understood the concepts within them.

It's not enough to simply "be aware" of those books, the language within them is now part of new media culture, so people in this industry should be able to use this language properly and understand what is meant by the newly defined terms.

Yet personal opinion - those I've encountered who read books as well as blogs are those with the best developed ideas.

[tim harrap]

Neil good post as ever. Thanks for pointing to Yammer the other day. Have sown a seed at our company and set the ball rolling. I think this is going to be a really good tool to release peoples ability to communicate. To communicate far wider and deeper than the dreaded email. After the recent years of delayering of management in so many business and seeking those on the lower rungs to take up the decision-making processes I think this type of tool can only lead to empowerment - the Razorfish "third pillar". And Yammer was so easy to get up on my blackberry why not Twitter?
Now off to the library. Ha ha!

[MHB]

Did you learn from any audience members what they had been reading?

[Clive Birnie]

Just amazed... You should have asked them if any of the could actually read!

[Kate Richardson]

Years ago I was travelling around Europe with my partner and we had taken in one museum too many. When it came to visiting the statue of David, she could take it no longer and suggested with trademark humour 'let's just say we've seen it'.

I'd suggest a lot of people who say they've read these books probably haven't and are just familiar with the concepts.

Stick it on their job descriptions under 'other duties'.

[Will]

I have never, ever read any Seth Godin - this is simply because it seems to follow the same format as his blog.

In fact, I'll release the secret formula:

1) Something happens to you.

2) Think about it in a marketing context, however difficult.

3) Suggest some form of business self improvement technique.

There's no doubt he's a brilliant speaker and thinker, but I'm reminded of what Russell Davies said about ideas - most of us have about 1 or 2 truly original ones, and we just peddle those to death.

When it comes to your audience, yes, I'd say it is a useful case study into how the web changes things. But, that said, I'm thinking about media agencies, and the ones I've worked with.

True 'comms planners' have been few and far between - it appears that a large number of those with that title are nothing more than glorified excel spreadsheet peddlers, pushing figures around morning noon and night.

That's not comms planning, and it'd come as no surprise to me if they read much at all - much less marketing textbooks. Frankly, I'd be contemplating ways in which I could elaborately end it all - using my stapler, a length of paperclips and a swivelly chair.

And it's also true of account planners who are too wedded to powerpoint, too obsessed with forming the perfect strategy without realising drawing from outside influences (such as - shock - marketing textbooks) is crucial to their day job.

Phew. So yes (rant aside), I'm not that surprised. I think i'm going to blog about this...for me, it's all about mentorship and how you get guided through your career - and I think a lot of agencies (and clients) are very culpable.

[eaon]

@will tread carefully, chap.

[neilperkin]

Good discussion - thanks for the comments all. OK, I buy that you can get a certain amount of value from understanding the main point of a book, or seeing interpretations online, but I'd question whether you're able to effectively develop you're own interpretations or conclusions from just a summary. For books that contain truly 'big' ideas (and I believe these 3 do) the only way to fully get the arguments is to read the thing.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not suggesting that every comms planner has to read lots of marketing books. But some books, I think, contain ideas that are central to new ways of thinking about how comms should work. And perhaps you would have expected there to be at least a proportion of the audience who had read even one. If I was running a comms agency, I would certainly encourage planners to get inspiration from as wide a variety of sources as possible, but would also expect that some things would be regarded as required reading

[Will]

@eaon it's not meant as an attack on media agencies (more a sly dig at Seth, to be honest). It's really concerned by the lack of knowledge/creative freedom in
agencies, media and creative - if you aren't looked after properly/encouraged to be creative, your job becomes process.

Whether it's comms or advertising, or marketing - doing things by rote without thinking about them is wrong...very very wrong.

[Amelia]

Hmmm, all the books that you mention (and many others in the same vein) sit on my bookshelves at home. Some have been read cover to cover, some have been dipped into, some I have to admit have never actually been opened.

So what does that say about me as a Planner? Maybe that I have good intentions, but don't follow thru enough? Anyway, back to your post...

I think that I might have been more depressed if every single person at your conference raised their hand and said that they had read those books. Talk about "group-think." All you'd be getting is a regurgitated mess of exactly the same pieces of pop-philosophy.

The 3 books that have helped me most as a Planner are William Goldman book about Hollywood screen-wrting' Adventures in the Screen Trade" (how to tell a narrative and sell ideas), Joe Trippi "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised" about Howard Dean's presidential campaign and the role of technology and Jon Steel's chapter on pitching the Olympics in "Perfect Pitch".

Not a Godin or a Gladwell amongst them.

[Paul]

hi Neil. Agree. When looking to hire, I wait for the marketing exec to tell me they were inspired by John Grant, Seth, Ogilvy, Drayton Bird...anybody at all actually, just so I know they are interested enough to broaden their mind. I'm generally disappointed.

[James]

Surely if everyone has read them, you're better off picking up the basic idea from blogs and spending your time reading something else?

Sticking with the crowd thing - I'd recommend crowds and power by Elias Canneti.

[georgina]

fantastic post. I agree with Paul, it's probably not about who you read is more like when my language and literature teacher asked us (class of 17yr old social science/humanities college students) if we read some newspapers, not even everyday but sometimes, even online. you should have seen his face. poor man. now I understand why :)

[Katy]

I'm always interested by people who call themselves comms planners - mainly because I don't believe that most of the people who claim to be comms planners are actually that (a bit of a case of everyone claiming to be Spartacus). It's the latest craze for media agency staff to say they're comms planners not media planners. Except that you don't tend to find them ever recommending, for example, that the solution to a brief is something that their own agency doesn't offer - eg that they should undertake a staff engagement programme, or in-store comms, or partnership marketing. Usually the comms recommended will be some variation on a media solution, because that's what they sell. Equally if you're in a digital agency, you're not really a comms planner. You might be a digital comms planner, but you're only likely to recommend a digital solution, because that's your job. Bit of a soapbox moment, but something I feel quite strongly about because everyone's claiming to do comms planning, but don't actually truly do it....