Is the American Government Aligned with its Mission Statement?

The government of the United States of America has a mission statement.

It's nothing new. It's not one of the "changes" brought forth by President Obama's administration. It's not something that was birthed out of the last decade's mission statement craze.

Actually, the government's mission statement is over 200 years old. You've heard it before:

"We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."

Perhaps you've never before heard the Preamble to the U.S. Constitution referred to as the mission statement of the U.S. government. But it is. It declares the exact purpose of the Constitution and of the government which the Constitution established. This mission statement hasn't changed in the 222 years since the founding father wrote it.

My question is this: if the laws and programs established by U.S. government officials fail to align with government's mission statement, are those laws and programs considered unconstitutional? And if they are not, shouldn't they be?

If a law, executive order, or judicial ruling is not helping to:

- form a more perfect union
- establish justice
- insure domestic tranquility
- provide for the common defense
- promote the general welfare
- secure the blessings of liberty to current and future generations of American citizens

shouldn't it be overturned?

And if government officials' actions defy this mission statement, should those officials be fired? They would in the business world.

Pre vs. iPhone - part 2

The saga of the Apple iPhone vs. the Palm Pre continues. (To read my first blog post on the matter, click here.) One week after Apple issued the iTunes 8.2.1 update, which blocked non-Apple smartphones (i.e. the Pre) from syncing with iTunes, Palm issued an update of its own. Among other features, the Palm webOS 1.1 re-enables iTunes synchronization. Of course.

I like Apple. It's a good company; it makes good products. Apple rose to fame for good reason - it consistently offered excellent functionality and beautiful, simple design, all for the purpose of providing the best possible user experience.

In personal computing, Apple's graphics remain unparalleled. In digital music, Apple's iPod is to MP3 players as Kleenex is to facial tissues. But in mobile communications, as Anders Bylund of The Motley Fool points out, Apple's iPhone is not the only viable smartphone anymore. The iPhone may or may not remain the best option, but it is certainly no longer the only one.

Mr. Bylund's article of yesterday reminds readers of Apple's famous "1984" Super Bowl commercial, which introduced the Macintosh computer to the world. In the ad, Apple was presented as the young, independent hero who would free the world from the reign of an Orwellian "Big Brother" IBM.

But 25 years later, as Mr. Bylund notes, Apple's recent actions seem more characteristic of "Big Brother" than of the young hero. Bylund has some intriguing speculation into why Apple might be acting this way, but I'll let you read his thoughts on your own.

My only comment is that Apple just needs to stop being so unfriendly. Stop doing things like preventing non-Apple smartphones from syncing with iTunes, and shutting down iPhone apps that use Google Voice. These actions may be within Apple's rights, but they are unbecoming to a company that once prided itself on fighting Big Brother.

So other smartphones are now competitive with the iPhone. So what? Apple knew it would happen. The proper response is not to try to stop the progress of competitors' models - progress which, by the way, attests to the excellence of Apple's products by piggybacking on iTunes and the iPhone. Rather, Apple should stop worrying about competitors and return its focus to pursuing excellence and innovation in function, design, and user experience.

That focus is what made Apple great, and that focus will enable Apple to keep pushing greatness forward. To borrow words from Satchel Paige, don't look back to see what might be gaining on you. Keep pushing forward.

Voice Mail Message = Radio Ad?

Hammerhead Advertising in Hoboken, N.J. is making a bold (read: brazen?) attempt to woo new clients. Apparently the ad agency has been leaving voice mail messages for the CMOs and VPs of Marketing at several hundred target companies. Except they aren't real voice mail messages; they are radio ads for the agency.

Neither are the radio ads disguised to sound like voice mail messages. They sound like a radio commercial that one would hear on the morning commute. You can listen to three versions of the ad here, here, and here.

I don't know about you, but if I were a busy Chief Marketing Officer checking my voice mails in the morning, I think I would be rather annoyed to find someone wasting my time with a radio ad in my voice mailbox. If you want my business, don't be spamming my voice mail. My customers don't want spam from me; I don't want it from you.

According to MediaPost's Media Creativity blog, apparently many of these targeted marketing directors feel the same way. They are disgusted with the move.

But then there are others who actually love the ads. Hammerhead has gotten a 3% response rate from the campaign; many of the respondents are delighted with the ads and excited to enlist Hammerhead in creating their own radio spots.

After listening to the ads, which are admittedly humorous, I could see how some people would appreciate Hammerhead's creativity and initiative enough to want to hire them.

And perhaps generating that "love me or hate me" attitude is good for the brand. Potential clients have to take sides. Hammerhead is defined; they're not just another humdrum agency in the sea of virtually identical ad agencies. They have personality. They are memorable. And even if that memory is distasteful to some, in others it may spark an immediate (and hopefully, lasting) fanhood.

Hopefully the customers of the clients who employ Hammerhead's unusual advertising tactics will feel the same way.

Balkanization of the Web?

In today's MediaPost Search Insider blog, search engine marketing professional Steve Baldwin wrote about what he foresees as the "Balkanization of the Web."

He says that, in order for suppliers of premium web content to stay alive, they will begin to release their information only to those search engines that cut them the best deals. This will result in information being divided among the various search engines, such that certain content is exclusive to specific search engines. Thus users will find themselves pushed to one engine or another, depending on the content they are seeking.

Baldwin thinks that this is the only real method by which search engines can distinguish themselves, since users care about the relevance of search results (which is now basically uniform across search engines), not the bells and whistles of a given search engine.

Now I'm no SEM expert as Mr. Baldwin is, but I must disagree with his prediction. I cannot see how such splitting up of web content is a good idea for any party involved. Nor would it ever begin to happen. Here's why.

One, the providers of premium content to whom Mr. Baldwin refers (i.e. The New York Times) are in no position to bargain for "better deals" from search engines. They are dying. Their readership is declining. They are trying to figure out how to renew their relevance and attract more readers. That is why they engage in SEO and SEM in the first place - so that any and every potential reader can find them in any and every pertinent search on any and every search engine. Creating an artificial scarcity, or threatening to, would be shooting themselves in the foot.

Two, search engines will not want to restrict themselves to only certain types of information. In other industries, concentrating all of one's resources in one product category enables a business to become truly and distinctively excellent in that category. This is not true for search engines. For search engines, there is no competitive advantage to ignoring some topics in order to focus on others. Nor will the search engines be forced to do so by the content providers, because, as noted in reason #1 above, the content providers have no bargaining power.

Three, users won't stand for it. Sharing and finding information on the Web should be free and easy. Users won't want to try several different search engines before they find the information they want - not when they can use Google to find virtually everything. And, as noted in reason #2 above, Google (and every other search engine) has no motive to limit the kinds of information it can find for users; therefore, users will continue to be able to find everything there.

The search engines and the dying providers of premium content will need to find another way to monetize their offerings. Sorry, Mr. Baldwin, but artificially limiting their products won't work. If they want to make money, they should try providing services that consumers perceive as worth paying money for.

MySpace Has Found Itself!

Less than two weeks ago, according to TechCrunch (yes, the same publication now notorious for publishing the stolen Twitter documents - I'm almost loathe to reference them), MySpace CEO Owen Van Natta admitted, in short, that his company was in the middle of an identity crisis.

In an email to employees, Van Natta explained, "Our users don’t know if we’re a social portal, a music site, or an entertainment hub." He also reported that MySpace was taking steps to unify the site and "lay the groundwork to provide more clarity on our brand and business."

He wasn't kidding about taking those steps. MySpace seems to have made short work of that, announcing just this Thursday that MySpace will soon be repositioned as an "entertainment destination" specifically focused on gaming.

With Facebook and Twitter leading the myriad social networking sites, iTunes and Pandora topping the various music portals, and YouTube and Hulu dominating video outlets, online gaming seems like a good space for MySpace. The site already has several games available; it seems reasonable to believe that they could successfully expand that offering to define their entire brand. Perhaps MySpace will distinguish itself among other gaming sites by reconfiguring its "social network" aspect to remarkably facilitate and supplement its new gaming core.

Doubtless there will be much public discussion and debate in the coming days, weeks, and months, about the upcoming changes to MySpace. If minor updates to Facebook's layout can spark hundreds of "Change it back!" groups among Facebook users, it will be interesting to see what outcry arises from a complete brand overhaul of MySpace.

I, for one, am happy for the folks at MySpace, and optimistic about the future of the once-leader of social networks. This new identity may or may not be successful at rebuilding the brand; but without it, MySpace had no chance in the world at holding together. As Someone Wise once said, "a house divided...."

Social Media: The Results Are In!

For organizations still wondering whether social media is worth their time, this information might be encouraging:

MediaPost's Online Media Daily announced yesterday the results of a recent study by social media platform Wetpaint and digital consulting firm Altimeter Group on corporate social media usage and revenue growth.

The researchers reviewed and ranked 100 companies on their depth of engagement across 10 social media channels (Facebook, Twitter, blogs, and others). The five most engaged companies, in order, were Starbucks, Dell, eBay, Google, and Microsoft.

Online Media Daily reports, "According to the study, companies with the highest levels of social media activity on average increased revenues by 18% in the last 12 months, while the least active saw sales drop 6% over that period."

If the results from this study can be extrapolated, it would seem that companies have one of two paths to take:

Path One: your company could spend six or seven figures on running a traditional ad campaign, not including payroll for the marketing and design masterminds behind the campaign. Your ad campaign would send an irrelevant message to potentially millions of disinterested viewers, who would ignore it, and you would fail to truly engage the customers would might really be interested. Your campaign may or may not even help to keep your sales steady in this economy.

Path Two: you could take an equally well-thought-out approach to social media, save those six or seven figures for investment in other areas of your business, and use that payroll to pay for social media masterminds. Your well-done social media campaign would engage customers (interested customers!), give you opportunities to actually converse with them to discover how you can serve them, and enable them to share their excitement about your brand with their friends. And your sales would likely grow.

I'm not suggesting that traditional advertising should be scrapped completely; I think it has its own place and purpose. But to refuse to invest in a virtually free - and shown-to-be-effective - communication tool like social media to reach your customers? That doesn't make much business sense to me.

"If I Ran the Office" - a story in rhyme

"I love my new job," the new graduate said.
"And not just because it is keeping me fed.
I love it because of the things that I do,
Like design ads, write copy, and have meetings, too.

And the people I work with are simply quite grand.
They like to include me in things they have planned.
They're nice to each other, and nice to me, too.
I think that, together, we're quite a great crew!

Unlimited coffee is another great thing
We have in supply while we are working.
I didn't drink it so much before, but, you see,
The coffee we have in our office is free!
And getting more coffee is an excuse I have found
For leaving my desk some, and walking around.

Yes, I love my new job," the young graduate said,
"but every day after work, I am ready for bed.
I think the caffeine crash is zapping my powers,
Or maybe it's the staring at a computer for hours.

Whatever the reason, the caffeine or screen,
The tiredness I feel after five is obscene.
But I've noticed a few little things I would change,
If I ran the office, to make me not feel so strange.

For one, I would insert a full beverage bar
Right next to the coffee; that's not going too far.
With waters, and juices, and nice decaf tea -
Things that won't start a great big caffeine spree.

And instead of just chocolates on each desk in a dish,
Some healthier snacks are some things that I'd wish.
Popcorn, and pretzels, and yummy trail mix,
Dried fruits and Fig Newtons might be just the tricks.

And for a break from the screen, to give one's eyes a rest,
A modest solarium, I think, would be best.
With benches and trees and green, leafy plants,
Closed in from the rain and the wind and the ants.

And to refresh at the times when the work can be draining,
Employees should have something that's quite entertaining.
But it ought to be something that requires some thinking,
Not mindless tv that makes brain cells start shrinking.

There ought to be rooms full of creative fun,
A place you can go when your mind feels undone.
One room full of Legos, for the construction geek;
Folks can work on a sculpture - a new one each week.
One room should be filled with play-dough and paint
So the staff can be artists when they're feeling faint.

And a room full of exercise balls would be neat,
For folks to use them - and not chairs - for their seats.
They could sit there and balance and bounce while they talk;
It's almost as healthy as taking a walk.

And whiteboards with markers would be great fun for all;
That's something to hang on the walls of each hall.
On the whiteboards, co-workers could generate fame
For their riddles, jokes, puzzles, and collaborative games.

Artistic folks, at the bit, would be gnawing
To use the whiteboards to do some quick drawing.
Others could scribble some words in thought bubbles,
Giving speech to cartoons like Flintstone and Rubble.

The whiteboards would also be a wonderful way
To start new traditions, like the "Joke of the Day."
Or to get folks' opinions on serious stuff,
Like which ice cream goes best with marshmallow fluff.

Co-workers could use the whiteboards to compete,
To see who can best do a mind-bending feat,
Like solving, the quickest, an expert Sudoku
Or figuring the speed at which Hindenburg's smoke flew.

These things would be great for when folks need a break
From the quite intense work that makes the mind ache.
'Cause the mind, like the body, sometimes needs a stretch,
Like the fun, friendly dogs that enjoy playing fetch.

Creative spaces like these are what we need, so I say,
To refresh the mind in a few minutes a day.
Quick breaks such as these will produce better work;
It isn't my job that I'm trying to shirk.

These will wake up the brain so much better than coffee,
Or YouTube, or Halo, or bowls full of toffee.

And so," the grad said, "that would be just my plan,
If I were the one through whom the office ran."