For the last 10 years or so, I've had the privilege of sharing my observations on creativity and innovation in growing businesses with one of entrepreneurship classes at Harvard Business School. And while the topic is bit outside day-to-day marketing, I think many of the observations on creativity in small businesses apply to what we do every day as marketers. In my lecture, I touched on seven areas that enable small companies to achieve very high levels of creativity and innovation:

1. Limited resources. Necessity is the mother of invention.

2. Limitless upside. Incredible rewards drive incredible effort; anything seems possible.

3. Individual impact. People at all levels can directly impact the company’s success; they tend to act like owners.

4. Tight community. True interdependence minimizes "free riders," and creates virtuous culture that ensures maximum productivity.

5. Unique people. The risk profile of small businesses attracts “out of the box” people.

6. Lack of process. Little oversight and limited processes result in risk taking and non-standard approaches.

7. Extreme flexibility. The business can easily shift to accommodate new opportunities.

Creativity is very hard to measure, but it is just as much the lifeblood of marketing as it is the key success factor in young businesses. The bottom line is that creativity and innovation derive from a willingness to try new things, to be flexible and, above all, to take risks. So, the next time your boss is pressing for more creative campaigns, tell him/her that creativity is easy--as long as you're willing to try new things, and be wrong from time to time.

Posted by Bill Nussey at 09:28 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

'Nuf said.

This simple yet insightful thought was passed along to you by John Engler from UnsubCentral, quoting Datran Media Co-founder and President Matt Keiser, who spoke at the OMMA New York Conference & Exposition in September.

Posted by Bill Nussey at 06:56 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

Our chief technical officer, Chris Curtin, forwarded me an article from ClickZ highlighting how poorly some retailers are handling their crisis communications surrounding the recent avalanche of lead paint exposure recalls. Chris pointed out how the article focuses on a lack of search-based ads for communicating with the public, but never mentions an even easier, more accurate and less expensive channel: email.

Any retailer that sells children's products over the Web most certainly has a list of customers who have purchased the recalled products, as well as similar products that have not been recalled. It would be almost trivial to send out an email to all those people informing them of the recall status and instructing them on how to return the products. Equally valuable, they could send messages to customers who have purchased products that are similar, but that have not been recalled.

Perhaps there are liability concerns that I'm not aware of. Or, perhaps, as a seasoned public relations friend of mine suggested, decades of experience in traditional crisis communications could easily lead these professionals to miss the Internet as a medium altogether. As retailers take out full-page ads and run television commercials, some seem to be completely missing the Internet. What a shame.

Posted by Bill Nussey at 09:07 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

A recent blog by ZDNet's David Berlind (http://blogs.zdnet.com/BTL/?p=3697) raised an ominous question for email marketers. Could Web beacons, those invisible 1X1-pixel images we use to detect opens, become illegal?

Let me step back and explain.

If you've been reading the business news these days, you've heard all about Hewlett Packard's spying scandal. If you missed it, the short version is that HP's board went a little overboard trying to track down the source of leaks to the media. One of the tools they used was a trackable email system called ReadNotify. This tool is nothing more than an interpersonal email product (like Outlook), except that it adds in Web beacons to track whether someone opens a message. In this case, they sent a faked leak to a reporter and hoped that the reporter would forward it to the suspect board member for confirmation. Berlind has humorously named this technique PattyMail after the embattled ex-chairperson of HP's board, Patricia Dunn.

As lawmakers and the media have a field day with HP's over-the-top attempts to catch their leak, the idea of trackable email is being portrayed as spyware and personally invasive. Obviously, if used for the reasons and in the manner of HP's board, then I'd agree with this view. However, the technology itself is likely to be thrown under the bus as a result of this misuse. And, if the lawmakers get involved, we could see this technology becoming legislated or even outlawed.

Even if the worst case happens, I don't think email marketing will be hit too hard. Image suppression has already taken a bite out of the effectiveness of Web beacons, so I think marketers will survive if it gets harder to use them in the future.

Nonetheless, the HP scandal is an excellent example of how any technology can be abused. I hope the marketing world can continue to be a good example of how to use this technology and show legislators that any technology, whether it's guns or Web beacons, isn't bad in and of itself -- it depends entirely on how it is used.

Posted by Bill Nussey at 01:03 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Every year, MarketingSherpa holds a "People's Choice" for internet marketing blogs. I am very flattered that they have included this blog as a finalist in the Email Marketing Blog category.

If you are a fan, please take a moment to go their survey and submit your vote (along with the other blogs you might read).

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.asp?u=803032287919.

Posted by Bill Nussey at 08:28 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)