Here’s an interesting interview with a woman who, although women have been driving trucks for a long time, is still a pioneer. The stats don’t lie. Women continue to comprise a low single-digit percentage of this nation’s driver workforce. There is absolutely no reason for this to be the current state of the industry. Check out the Women In Trucking Association for more info.

I’ve noticed a subtle debate taking place in the business world (call it a dialogue for now) about e-mail — how we write them and how much they can/should communicate. E-mail is a great invention. Remember the days before e-mail? To many people all forms of written communication existing before e-mail became irrelevant the day they first logged onto “cc:mail” (or whatever archaic application showed up on their IBM PC way back whenever).

The prevalence of e-mail has been challenged over the years by other forms of electronic communications such as paging, chat, texting, micro blogging, etc. But, let’s face it, e-mail still rules in business. It satisfies a number of needs: it provides us with a tool for nearly instantaneous communications and it allows us to communicate with just about anyone, including perfect strangers (without the invasiveness or apprehension of in-person or phone conversations). We can fire-and-forget without the “on-the-spot” performance anxiety of voice mail.) And, best of all, we can scan messages quickly and weed through the noise just as fast, helping to make our days and our lives more efficient.

The sheer volume of information we can share via e-mail is astounding. To some this is a curse. But as time passes and the business world slowly forgets about artifacts like memos, handwritten letters and personal stationery, this exponential increase in information becomes the norm. Again, is it a blessing or a curse? (By the way, handwritten communications are still with us — when was the last time everyone at the office signed a happy birthday e-mail??)

E-mail, despite its value to humanity, has its share of problems too. To start, there’s lots of junk. Thank god for that imperfect yet still highly valuable tool that lets us send messages directly to our junk folders. It can also be impersonal. I, for one, used to like getting the occasional handwritten note on personal note paper. E-mail can become an obsession for many people. Everyone knows at least a dozen “CrackBerry heads” who can’t keep their hands off their cell phones when they know they’ve got messages waiting. We also know the people who leave a meeting and say, “Let me run to the office and grab that document,” only to return in fifteen minutes because they couldn’t resist checking (and answering) e-mail. E-mail can be annoying, but it’s a way of life at work. Our cultures and behavior are greatly influenced by e-mail and the velocity of information it generates.

But, e-mail’s biggest flaw is in the way it can fail to communicate — the one thing it was invented to help us do better. E-mail messages often create gross misunderstandings between two parties. I’m not referring to lack of good writing skills. Although prevalent and the subject of a future post, this problem has existed since we learned to paint on cave walls, e.g., “Thor, the buffalo goes AFTER the stick figure of a hunter!!” Actually, what I’m talking about is tone. The Wikipedia entry on tone defines it as 1. the manner in which the author uses words to convey a mood or, 2. the pitch and pitch changes in words of certain languages. Tone provides emotion and inflection to language. Without it we’d all talk like Keanu Reeves. Over time the tone we use becomes our verbal fingerprint — our own individual stamp on the way we communicate. Tone is uniquely human, just like language itself.

If used haphazardly, tone can misrepresent, hurt feelings and light the spark that leads to general mayhem. Unfortunately, since we are human (right?) we often get tone wrong when we speak to one another. However, when communicating verbally, our messages, and the tone they carry, are fleeting. We want to say something and we say it. Words come and go often faster than we can process what was said and how we said it. We (mostly) don’t get hung up on poor tone. In-person or on the phone we receive other important cues, such as visible stress levels, competing conversations, crowded environments, etc., that help us explain away unsettling or misplaced tone. When communicating verbally we also have the instantaneous ability to correct tonal errors, such as, “What I meant to say was this …” or “Sorry, that was the wrong tone.”

What about written communications? Is tone important here? Yes! Novelists, essayists, copywriters, reporters, speechwriters and anyone else who writes for a living knows the importance of tone. Pulitzer Prizes have been won by writers who used tone more than language to convey their stories. Think Hemingway. Even when casually writing a letter or a note inside a greeting card, we seem to understand the importance of tone in our message. So why then, readers, do we have such a hard time getting tone right when we compose e-mails?

Ever send a report to a client or a boss via e-mail and receive a message back like this:

“I got your report. Call me.”

Very efficient. Very articulate. Hard to miss both the message and the call to action. But if you’re like most people (me included) it’s not what the message says that bothers us, but what we think it may (or may not) mean. What is this message really telling us:

A. “I got the report you sent me and read it. I like it a lot and would like to tell you that in person.”

B. “I got the report you sent me and read it. I like it but have a few questions about it.”

C. “I got the report you sent me and read it. You’ve missed the mark and we need to go over it again.”

D. “I got the report you sent me but have not had the chance to read it yet. Let’s go over it together.”

E. Any other interpretation driven by the insecurity, fear and self-hatred created by our deeply flawed human condition.

Here’s one I received just the other day. Nothing else in the e-mail:

“Where are we with the project? I need to answer some questions around here.”

Immediately I gulped and began to doubt things I knew to be the truth, such as the project is on time and under budget, we have received clear direction and positive interim feedback just a few days ago, we have been communicating progress biweekly as previously scoped, I’m a good guy, husband and father, my parents love me, my fly is zipped, etc. Of course I dropped what I was doing, called the right people internally, learned what I needed and “penned” off a response that resembled a full status update. Hit the send button.

Received a message back:

“Thanks. I was just wondering what may have changed since Tue so I have the latest.”

Sigh.

So why don’t we pay attention to tone in e-mail and why do we read tone into an e-mail that is devoid of it? Because that’s what we do. We can’t help it. And seriously, God help us as a species if we begin not to care. We got the big brains and have been trained over eons to use it. We are creative creatures and interpretation is one of the things we get to do differently than every other animal. It’s a privilege really.

Let’s go back to this this earlier example:

“I got your report. Call me.”

What if, instead, it was written like this:

“I liked your report. Call me.”

It’s a simple word change resulting in a dramatically different tone. Now our brains are interpreting the requested call to action not as a negative event, e.g., a beatin’, but rather, any number of constructive, positive events. We still don’t know exactly what the content of the call will be, but we feel a lot better about making it. Life is good. We are motivated. Even if the e-mail called out a flaw in the report, we still have a better sense of what to expect and that is way better than the great unknown.

There’s an entire field of thought about how the business world spends too much time drafting and reading e-mail, and how the prescription for curing this waste is to write short, curt and to-the-point messages. I am all for spending less time drafting and reading e-mail, and agree with most of this thinking. Notice, however, the value that was added by changing a single word. No efficiency lost. Indeed, I believe it created it. Ignoring tone when drafting e-mail messages may seem safe but the very lack of it can create obfuscation and delay.

And we don’t have to be Hemingway when we draft e-mail messages either … wait … let’s see …

“It was all as I had left it except that now it was spring. Can discuss at 3:00 EST. Will send meeting request.”

Not bad.

-Dave Goldberg

Nice going GM.

Destroying Pontiac and Oldsmobile, once iconic brands on the American landscape, and Saturn, a fresh idea with lots of potential, weren’t enough. Now it seems due to your utterly irresponsible management of Saab, it too is being scrapped. So utterly valueless have you made it, GM, that you can’t even sell it to the lowest bidder. Now you are forced to take it out behind the barn and shoot it.

Remember when Saab was cool? It was a car you noticed and got you noticed. People who drove them were cool. We all remember the kids in high school and college who drove the Saab beaters. They drove their rust and torn upholstery with pride. It was exotic, but in a confident and subdued way. It was Swedish. Those feelings were strong. They easily overcame its hard-to-maintain, expensive-to-fix reputation. Saabs weren’t for everyone.

Then GM bought it and it quickly morphed into every other car, both in design and the image it promised its owners. Nice.

GM only has two iconic brands left: Corvette and Cadillac. Somehow they have survived relatively in tact (although I know a few Corvette fans who would argue, quite adamantly, to the contrary). Bets on how long GM will take to bury them too?

It’s holiday time. The cards are arriving in the mail, the party circuit has begun and the malls are filling up fast. On this last point, let’s face it, sometimes we shop and shop and shop and just can’t find that thing for that someone no matter how hard we try. There’s nothing like beating your way through holiday retail traffic only to come home empty-handed!!

Wouldn’t it be nice to have admitted to yourself beforehand that you had no idea what to get that person and avoided the headache? Wouldn’t it be tremendous to have found a way to send a gift that says, “I tried, I really did, and failed,” without actually having tried or failed??

Well friends, now there is a way. Check out notyouraveragefruitcake.com.

It’s the 2009 version of that venerable yet universally re-giftable holiday artifact, the fruitcake. But instead of a sweet, heavy hunk of confectionery delight, choose from literally thousands of items that are absolutely free. With a little help from Craigslist, consider this a gift from KG Partners. No traffic, no cost, no hassle - it’s what the holidays should be! The best part? If your friend, sibling or colleague doesn’t want it, it’s just as easy and free for them to simply pass it on … and on … and on …

So sit back, relax and let the gifting (and re-gifting) begin.

Happy holidays from everyone at KG Partners.

Every message is both broadcasted and, hopefully, received. As “broadcasters” it’s important to start with relevant content and then craft a message that provides a clear signal (vs. noise) to the intended receivers.  But to successfully communicate, it is just as important to understand the influences and environmental factors that affect your audience and how they will process the  message. Failure to do so adds noise to the signal and may very well obfuscate the content, no matter how strong.

Check out Ellen Goodman’s syndicated column published on Thanksgiving day. She laments, and rightly so, how an otherwise great communications opportunity built around important information ended up with an outcome very different from the one intended.

Here’s what we came up here at KG to measure success …

I just finished PR Week’s 2009 Social Media Survey issue. The survey measures just how pervasive social media has become among companies as a marketing communications tool. There is oodles of interesting telemetry emanating from the results. What I found most compelling, however, were the results from this question: What are the biggest barriers to successfully incorporating social media into your marketing campaigns?

It turns out 37% of companies are not including any social media efforts as part of their marketing program. Is this a big number or not? On the one hand, 63% adoption for something that has only existed in a practical way for a few years seems significant. On the other hand, the answers to this one survey question, laid out below and accompanied by KG Partners‘ point of view, show that there’s still a lot of reluctance, hesitation, misunderstanding and fear present when it comes to social media.

Here are the top reported answers:

#1: Lack of internal resources/time (53%).

KG’s take: Every company is strapped for resources these days. Actually, forget “these days” - companies are strapped for resources all the time - during periods of growth and recession. That’s how we do it in American business. So this makes some sense. However, getting started with, and stewarding a social media program doesn’t really require much time or energy, at least as compared to some of the other grueling, time-sucking things we marketers do. Suggestion: start slow and small. Try, learn, try more. In the case of social media knowledge is definitely a good thing. But you don’t have to be a social media guru to achieve success (despite what the many social media gurus out there would have you believe). It’s like deciding to try sailing but thinking the only way you can is to go out and buy a 53 footer and sail across the Atlantic. Try dinghy sailing first, then step it up.

#2: Lack of knowledge, expertise (43%).

KG’s take: Even before social media became the main topic of the marketing and PR trades we were experimenting with it. And guess what? The learning curve proved to be steep and sticky. We learned a ton about how to use it and how to advise our clients on the topic very quickly (see #1 above). Don’t forget that behind it all it’s still the web, and the web makes us learn fast. We’ve been here before (at least those of us who are over 35 … and those of us who are under 35, I guarantee, didn’t answer “lack of knowledge, expertise” on this question). Assign someone to spend a few minutes a day checking out other companies’ Facebook pages, tweets, blogs, Flickr sites, etc. or do so yourself after hours. You’ll recognize the benefits and risks quickly.

#3: Not convinced about the value/ROI (39%).

KG’s take: ROI? Social media? Huh? Those who answered the question with this response, I guess, are waiting for the magical ROI calculation to finally be developed. News flash: that ain’t happening. What I can tell you is while there is no good data to prove it, the ROI is quite high. Not because we can accurately measure significant incremental revenue, market share or [insert your metric here], but because it’s cheap! Check out the denominator in this equation. It’s really, really small. I bet most companies spend more money developing the first draft of a creative brief for their next ad campaign than they would attracting 500 followers on Twitter.

#4: Lack of clear guidelines/policies (38%).

KG’s take: OK, that’s it. Get out of the car. Right now.

Seriously, I don’t mean to belittle this objection too much, especially when it comes to those of you in large companies with lots of employees, but c’mon…really? Remember, and this is often forgotten by in-house council, we marketers are actually trying to do something productive, most notably sell more stuff. With that in mind there is only one important guideline/policy to consider before launching a social media program: don’t publish a blog post, tweet, YouTube video or anything else that will hurt your company’s ability to sell more stuff … or else!! (There’s another: make sure the people implementing your social media program are responsible, loyal and, in short, “get it”.

#5: Lack of awareness of social media within company (37%).

KG’s take: Although the article didn’t elaborate on this, I think this means that these respondents, professional marketers all, have been unable to get anyone else to support the idea of social media because few others in the company understand it. The reason might be related to any of the above answers, or maybe it’s because everyone else in the company is over 90 years old? This sounds familiar, doesn’t it? It’s like 1995 all over again. In time, this response should fall to near 0%. To help it, keep beating the drum. Position it as a pilot. Go super-low risk, e.g. Facebook fan page. Hold a lunch-and-learn to build grassroots support. Show how a competitor is getting more visibility through social media. Be patient.

#6: Lack of budget (28%)

KG’s take: It’s, well, free. Or pretty damn near free. I’m sure all budgets can support free. But Dave, what about the time it takes to start a social media program? Time is money, and therefore not free, right? Agreed. Now see #1-#3 above. Start slow. Start small. A few minutes a day is all it takes to get going and figure it all out. Once the ground swell starts there will be budget dollars for it, trust me.

#7-10: Social media not appropriate for company/brand (18%); fear negative reaction from customers (16%); lack of global reach/scale (11%); lack of appropriate agency partner (10%).

KG’s take: Not appropriate? fear? There will always be reasons for not implementing social media and we actually have to respect (some) of those reasons. But given the relative low cost of implementation why not try? There really is very little to lose.

Conversations about your company happen every day. They happen between and among all types of constituents ranging from deeply knowledgeable insiders to those who are quite ignorant about your company … but they opine nonetheless. Social media has provided us with the tools to now be part of those conversations - to inform them, guide them and, most important, listen to them. Again, there are many reasons not to get involved in social media, but your reputation is everything and any tool that helps you adeptly manage it blows them all away.

-Dave Goldberg

How many agencies can say that a client’s brand just “rolled” by?

The old adage says that you can’t manage what you can’t measure. Marketing is a discipline whose practitioners have learned how to measure success fairly scientifically over the past decade or so. But success in marketing remains part metric, part gut. Some marketing programs, like banner ads, are easy to measure. Others, like the roadside inflatable gorilla, are harder. But the gorilla exists, still.

I asked our Creative Director, Don Fibich, why it’s important in marketing to measure success? Below are his top-10 reasons:

10. It’s the only way to prove to our parents that we actually have real jobs.

9. We’re hoping if we get good at measuring things, a career in lining football fields will still be possible.

8. Nothing says “career accomplishment” like a well-crafted bar chart.

7. It keeps the partners occupied so the rest of us can get something done around here.

6. We’re just shallow enough to believe that success is still important today.

5. Somebody’s gonna measure it. Might as well be us.

4. Nothing makes us happier than building a PowerPoint presentation that has a happy ending.

3. It’s the perfect bookend to our other skill set: measuring drapes

2. If you’re going to wear it, we want to make sure it fits.

…and the number one reason why it’s important in marketing to measure success:

1. Because it beats the heck out of measuring failure.

Wall Street gave us two notable stories yesterday. Both were reported on the front page of the Wall Street Journal. Both are reminders that there is an ebb and flow to everything in the world. What goes up must come down, and visa versa.

The first was the Dow hitting the 10,000 mark.

This is an important indicator of the direction of our economy. Is it the be-all end-all of economic indicators? No, not at all. Does it make us all happy? Indeed it does. Most American’s have no idea why, but that doesn’t really matter. If Americans get confident that the universe is heading in the right direction, then it will. The Dow has been through 10,000 before. Last time, however, it was heading the other direction. Remember that? October 6th of last year. Talk about fear! And before that?  December 2003 (going up)…May 2002 (going down). From a fundamentals standpoint 10,000 is utterly meaningless. But it just might be the thing we’ve all been waiting for - the thing that gets cars driving off dealers’ lots, airplanes full of tourists heading to Cancun and trucks full of merchandise heading down our highways.

The second thing that happened yesterday was the sudden death of Bruce Wasserstein.

Wasserstein was the commensurate M&A deal maker a la 1980s (think RJR/Nabisco, Texeco/Pennziol, etc.) He ran the practice at Frist Boston, then formed Wasserstein Perella (the shop everyone wanted to work for…and for good reason. Yesterday wasn’t quite the end of an era (do you think we’ve seen our last over-priced mega-merger?) But I did pause for a moment when I saw the headline. When I ran marketing for BankBoston’s capital markets and investment banking group, Doing Deals was required reading. If not for Bruce and his cohorts a decade earlier, books like that wouldn’t have been written. He helped define an industry and an era. Some think back on those times (and more recent, similar times) with scorn, but history is history and there are always lessons to be learned. He died at 61 worth well over $2 billion. He looked 80.

-Dave Goldberg