The Soft Pitch

Sweet home Chicago, in town at the Drake for the national Business Marketing Assoc (BMA) UNlearn conference with a crowd of approx 400 members. The theme is about how marketers must think differently…

The event started with the old famous McGraw Hill ad with the old man saying I do not know you” etc…came alive with an actor and a contemporay actor saying the samething, brillant start by Ralph Oliva.

The meeting speakers have been great…lead by one the best speakers I have seen, David Meerman Scott about a the new rules for marketing and PR …and leaders from salesforce.com, LinkedIn, and Siemens. I was impressed by the IBM Smart Planet agenda prseneted by our largest supplier’s Matt Preschen.

If you are b2b marketer you should not miss this event in future…join up.

Our past chair, and someone I truly respect Kodak’s Jeff Hayzlett was named the prestigous Crain award winner. Accenture was marketer of the year. Even the awards program comedian was good.

A few more days to go. But new chair Gary Slack is kicking off his new term in style. They only made one mistake, they voted me back as a board member.

Multi-tasking is a myth – or so-said a brain researcher interviewed on radio a few weeks ago.  Her point was you may think you’re being ultra-efficient and doing two things at once, but what’s really happening as far as your brain is concerned is more like a fast game of ping-pong, your attention is bouncing between two things and you are never really giving either one the attention it deserves. That’s why people get in accidents while talking on the cell phone and driving at the same time. 

But in today’s world, we’re all so busy, how can we not try to get two things done at once? That got me thinking about other activities that have two purposes.  Is it the same?  For example, my daughter is supposed to go to the Grand Canyon in a few weeks with the YMCA.   It’s a combo fun, outdoors trip for teens AND they are going to put in some community service doing trail maintenance, reseeding burned out areas, etc.  The teens win, the park service wins, (and parents win by sending the kids out of town for a week!). That seems to work – they’ll split their time between fun and service and accomplish more in the long run.

I’m impressed when our Avnet employees do the same thing: they plan and host events that benefit our local communities and build relationships with our customers and suppliers at the same time.  For example, employees at Avnet’s Peabody, Mass., office have started a tradition of combining an annual customer appreciation day with a Toys for Tots drive.  In the Netherlands, employees joined with reseller partners to run a marathon that raised money for Kinderhulp, a Dutch organization assisting children in troubled home situations (I’d call that a three-fer – relationship building, raising money for kids and exercise!). 

That brain scientist might understand how the brain functions, but people clearly function a bit differently.  That’s the working smarter, not harder part. Here’s another example and full disclosure on my part.  In the spirit of trying to accomplish two things at once: that trip to the Grand Canyon?  Turns out the Y needs a few more kids to go on the trip and really help out the park service.  Got a bored teen at home who likes the outdoors and can use some CR on the college resume?  Check it out here  … they leave June 21 and mom could really use the break.