I keep coming back to the healthcare topic not just because as I write this, the Senate is about to start debate on the proposed new plan. No, I keep coming back to this topic because it affects every single American whether or not you currently have coverage. If you do, you are seeing your premiums (or at least your contribution) go up by double digits almost every year and if you don’t have coverage, we who do are paying your freight. This madness has to end.

But you may have wondered as did I how we ever got into this mess in the first place. How and why was our health insurance system first started through employers? What are the various roles of insurance companies, pharmaceutical manufacturers, medical facilities and physicians in this complex mix? Who is really calling the shots and what needs to be done to right the system?

These are questions that should be of interest to all regardless of what side of the aisle you sit.

Fortunately, I can point you in the right direction. It will take 2 hours of your life but given the gravity of the situation, it might be helpful to have this background information before you start sending letters to your congressional representative pleading with them to vote one way or the other.

The NPR radio show “The American Life” hosted by Ira Glass has investigated the healthcare issue from a historical perspective right up to the current crisis. I guarantee you that you will learn plenty from these two shows that you most likely did not know. I certainly did.

I challenge you to listen to these two show and then let me know what you think so we can have an informed dialogue. I assure you that it will be well worth your time.

The first program explains why costs keep rising.

http://www.thisamericanlife.org/Radio_Episode.aspx?sched=1320

 

The second program goes deeper into the healthcare insurance industry. You need to hear this.

http://www.thisamericanlife.org/Radio_Episode.aspx?sched=1321

Remember, I want to hear from you. Comment to this blog, send me an e-mail or pick up the phone. Let’s talk healthcare. It’s a subject we can all relate to.

 

I Walked Into My Office and Nothing Made Sense

I was talking to my friend Jack the other day. He is one of my most loyal readers of this blog (that means he has read at least one posting one time in his life). He commented that it had been a while since I had last offered my meanderings. So, loyal readers, I offer you the ultimate brownie sundae—three topics for the price of one! That’s right—you get three somewhat fully formed missives for the low, low price you have been used to paying in the past. So, without further ado. . .

Can Print Take On A New Life?

If you are a football fan, you are well aware of the technology introduced a few years ago that allows broadcasters to artificially show you where the first down line is through a bright yellow line. This line somehow is not “painted” over any players who may stand in front of it or even on it. Although I am not a hockey fan, I am told this same technology is used to help viewers follow the puck during the action. This technology is called AR—short for augmented reality.

It turns out that AR may play a significant role in the future of print.

The current issue (December) of Esquire magazine incorporates AR that allows the reader to hold the page up to a web cam, which, in turn, triggers a video, to play. I know. Sounds like science fiction but it could be the next wave in making print more interactive. Would B2B publishers ever consider using AR? Who knows? But since B2B publishers typically adopt ideas from the consumer world once they are convinced it will fly, we could see AR in our favorite trade magazine as early as—say—2015?

OK, if you’ve ever walked into my office, you would know that nothing has made sense there for quite a few years. But in this case, I’m not talking about your every day disorganization or slovenliness. I am talking about a much higher order of chaos.

I am talking about the fact that we marketers may not be sitting on top of the mountain preaching to the masses (our customers) for much longer. Through the power of social media, which effectively is the universe’s largest word of mouth vehicle, the masses are now talking amongst themselves. They are tired of being preached to. They want to tell US what they want and when they want it. And if we still want to get their attention, we had better find a damn creative way to do it that entices their curiosity. The world of marketing and advertising is in the midst of a mind-numbing storm that makes Katrina look like scattered showers (no offense intended to the tragedy of those who suffered and or died). I can assure you that nobody knows where this will go. If somebody does attempt to tell you the end story of this seismic shift, they are probably the same people trying to tell you which stocks will go up or down and which teams will win on Sunday. In short, they are taking educated guesses. Stay tuned because when everything in my office stops flying around and finally settles, it will be a much different world. I’ll keep you posted. Meanwhile, I’m wearing a hard hat.

What Does LeBron James Have To Do With the Machine Tool Business?

Absolutely nothing. But that is why I love Today’s Machining World.

This wonderful trade magazine is the brainchild of Lloyd Graff. Lloyd is a different kind of trade magazine publisher. First, he knows of what he speaks as he has run a company – Graf Pinkert—that actually sells equipment into the industry about which he writes. Conflict of interest? Maybe but he addressed that long ago. Other than one self-serving ad for his company in each issue, his presentation is even handed. So not being the most technical guy in the world (some would say that is an exaggerated understatement), why do I enjoy this magazine? Because Lloyd is one of the only people in B2B publishing that recognizes that if he put a variety of content into his magazine, people are more apt to read it. Therefore, each issue includes a book review, a puzzle, and an article on an out-of-the-box thinker who may or may not be part of the machine tool industry. In short, I read Today’s Machining World with the same mindset that I read magazines that I subscribe to at home. I’m relaxed. I pour a glass of wine and I dig in. It is always a pleasure. Lloyd also puts a lot of himself into the magazine both through his regular column, which includes snippets about local Chicago sports, his religion, his health, his family, and politics in addition to his keen insight on what is going on in his industry. It’s the ultimate gossip column for his readers because, after all, we are not just what we do for a living. Lloyd recognizes this and brings this to his readers. It was Lloyd who actually inspired the blog you are reading. It has been my mission to infuse my marketing blog with a lot of other issues important to me. Not all of these topics will be important to you but hopefully enough will be to keep you reading.

NOTE TO READER: Here is the self-serving part. Lloyd was kind enough to ask me to write a book review on Shooting Stars, the new book by LeBron James and Buzz Bissinger about LeBron’s high school years. He asked me because he wanted the spin of an Akron observer.

In the Wizard of Oz, it may have been lions and tigers and bears that put fear in the hearts of Dorothy and her friends but today, hush money, blackmail and extortion are much more in vogue. But be ready to pay the piper because the price of hush money has risen far faster than the cost of living.

About a month ago, I saw the Hollywood film Frost/Nixon that depicted the back-story of how the Nixon interviews with David Frost came to happen. This later inspired me to check with NetFlix to see if they had the actual Nixon/Frost interviews. Sure enough, they did. I had seen them back in the day, but I was not the political animal then that I am now so they were seen through the eyes of a 20-something college kid as opposed to a more shall we say seasoned observer. A couple of things caught my eye. First, the amazing fact that Frost was able to pull this interview off by cobbling together financing for an independent production is amazing in itself. The networks were sideline observers to an event of colossal proportions. They were not willing to offer as many hours in prime time as Frost was guaranteeing. Not only did Frost beat them at their own game, he actually got Nixon and his people to agree that they would not be privy to any questions prior to the interview nor would they have any ability to see the final program before airing. Now stop right there. Imagine an interview with any former president (or any key figure for that matter) agreeing to those terms today. Not a chance.

The other interesting thing I noticed was the kind of money being offered as “hush money” to make sure that people like E. Howard Hunt and others would not spill the beans. In Hunt’s case, the payoff being bandied about was the lofty sum of $120,000. A tidy sum to be sure in those days but certainly that figure pails by comparison to the 2 million that Bob Halderman allegedly tried to extort from David Letterman recently to keep some untimely sexual liaisons quiet.

So, the bottom line is this. In 2009, it takes 2 million dollars to keep a sexual tryst (or shall we say several sexual trysts) quiet and a mere 37 years earlier it only took $120k to keep a white house “plumber” from springing leaks. And they say we’re in a recession?

Recently, I blogged about the current healthcare debate. I noted that no matter where you stand politically, most people agree that something radical must be done.

Now here are some facts to chew on. Just 15% of the people use 75% of the benefits. This disparity will only grow as the baby boomer generation continues to age. Today, the average cost to cover a family with reasonable health insurance is $13,000 a year.
At the rate the health insurance costs have increased over the last ten years, it could cost as much as $25,000 per year to cover that same family ten years from now—if nothing is done to stop the bleeding (no pun intended). Most families simply cannot afford that. Furthermore, I can’t think of too many employers who will pay that kind of a premium for an employee and his or her family.

Add to this the fact that Medicare was not funded to handle these kinds of increases and our aging population is destined for serious trouble if nothing is done.

Yes, it is going to be expensive. Yes, it will be painful. Yes, we are leaving a terrible legacy (and debt) for our children. But in the long run, this will be less painful and less costly for all than the alternative. Nobody is saying the next few years will be a picnic while we go through this transition as a country. There is no good time to do this so we best take it on now.

Got a better idea? I’d love to hear it.

Working in a field that is in the middle of a cyclone of change, I am constantly fascinated by what the long term affects will be of some of the things we are currently experiencing. For instance, I have already instructed my staff that when preparing our e-newsletter, make sure the most important information is covered first and clearly. We know that people “scan” copy online where they are more inclined to “read” it in print. Therefore, we must make our copy “scannable”. If we are building a website, we must keep in mind that our copy needs to be “SEO-friendly”. If we are sending a Tweet, it must be 140 characters. If we are posting to Facebook, nobody wants to read a book. Keep it short and mostly inane. Where is this going to take us as a society? We are already seeing the death of print. The question is “what is it being replaced with”? Will our children and grandchildren be writing their Master theses with 3-letter acronyms since that is what they have been using for much of their correspondence throughout their life? More importantly, will their professors accept it?

I am in a quandary. I make my living in communications yet I wonder how we are communicating today and what it means for tomorrow. Am I just getting old and not in touch? Yes to the first part but I think no to the second. I think there is a real issue here that needs more attention.

In his new book, “The Tyranny of E-Mail”, John Freeman, acting editor of Granta magazine, makes some of these points much better than I could. He points out “The faster we talk and chat and type over tools such as email and text messages, the more our communication will resemble traveling at great speed. Bumped and jostled, queasy from the constant ocular and muscular adjustments to our body must make to keep up, we will live in a constant state of digital jet lag.” I couldn’t have said it better.

The US postal service is going broke because it is handling a fraction of the mail it used to. Our fax machine lies almost dormant since almost every communication is through e-mail. I explain to my 30-year old daughter that our media orders used to be mailed and the acknowledgements from the publications were also mailed. And yet, business got done.

It is our business to guide our clients through this maze and consul them about the business benefits of social media and yet, one side of my brain is saying, let’s back away and send a customer a hand written letter and then knock off early and take a hike in the park.

These days, we hear the phrase “historically speaking” a lot. It is typically used in analyzing the current economic meltdown we are experiencing. Oh, I know, things are getting better so they tell us.
But everyone admits that unemployment numbers always trail an economic improvement. But if we still have double-digit unemployment six months from now, are we really improving?
Is the average family going to feel better? More confidant? More likely to spend money on big-ticket items? I don’t think so. And since consumer spending is 2/3s of the GDP, I think we still have a long way to go.

When you delve into the phrase “historically speaking”, you are really talking about statistics about how the economy has returned after past recessions or depressions. But are all times we live in the same? Are we the same country that we were in the 30s, the 70s, the 80s? Hardly. We are now living in a global economy that simply didn’t exist during these past meltdowns. We are also living in a time when many Americans have their retirement tied up in the market. This was certainly not the case in these past times and has only been the case since 401K pension plans were created. Before then, only wealthy people were “in the market.” The rest of us saved as much as we could and planned to retire on social security.

As I’ve stated in earlier columns, I love statistics. I first fell in love with statistics because of my love of baseball. For any serious baseball fan, the game and the stats are never far apart. But in my beloved sport of baseball, where all of the lore is based on past statistics, we now have the added element of steroids and other performing enhancing drugs. So, the term “historically speaking” in the world of baseball has taken on a whole new meaning. Do the stats of Bonds, A-Rod, Ortiz, Manny, Clemons and so many others really mean anything when compared to players who accomplished their stats with no more than a couple of beers and a pack of smokes?

In a similar vein, how do we then feel that we can do comparable statistical overlays between what our country is experiencing now and what it experienced in decades past? I am of the belief that we are comparing apples and oranges and that no one really knows how we will come out of this and when and what we will look like when we do. I have read scores of articles and listened to hours of “expert” testimony on the subject, much of it one expert reading the “tea leaves” completely opposite to his counterpart. Therefore, who should we really choose to believe anyway? Look at how the big banks are bragging about huge profits in the quarter after they received billions in bale out money. Does anybody really believe they are miraculously solvent again?

Whether we’re talking economics or baseball, I say take your history, flush it and start all over again.

Back in 1981, I was not the news junkie I am today. Let’s face it. There weren’t as many opportunities to get at the news as there are today. After all, CNN had just been launched in June of 1980. But back to 1981. That was the year that Walter Cronkite retired as the long-time anchor of the CBS Evening News. As I recall, I kind of split my time between CBS and NBC in those days. NBC had the Huntley-Brinkley report early on and then John Chancellor for quite a few years after that and finally Tom Brokaw until recently.

In those days, anchors were reporters. That is, they reported the news. They did not comment on it, raise their eyebrow or show a disapproving scowl when they were reading a news report that might have upset them if they were not sitting in their anchor seat. I always felt the sign of a good newsperson was whether I could tell if they leaned left or right. There was no way to know in the “old days.” That was before news was turned over to commentators.

Today we have the Olbermans and the Oreillys purporting to deliver news. What they are really doing is serving up partisan politics and preaching to the choir. What liberal is going to watch Oreilly? What conservative is going to watch Olberman? There is nothing wrong with these shows but they are not news. You are not getting an even-handed presentation of the day’s stories. You are getting a heavily slanted view of that side’s perception of that day’s stories. If that’s what you need to make your own beliefs seem more credible, that go for it. I’m not saying there is not a place for those kinds of shows but in the old days, the “entertainment” division and not the “news” division would have produced those shows.

So what do we have for our evening anchors today? Brian Williams honed his game doing an hour news show on CNBC and MSNBC for eight years prior to being anointed anchor when Tom Brokaw stepped down in 2004. Mr. Williams is a good newsreader and plays well on TV but he has not forgotten from where he came. He still occasionally plays to the camera and makes side comments about stories that would have been sacrilegious back in the day.

After the untimely death of Peter Jennings, a consummate newsman who worked as sole anchor at ABC from 1983 until his death in 2005, Charles Gibson ascended to the ABC throne in 2006. He came from a 19-year stint with Good Morning America, ABC’s entertainment/news morning program. He does a fairly straight presentation and has actually caught NBC in the ratings and the two go head to head. Nevertheless, Gibson came from more of an entertainment background originally than news.

CBS on the other hand has never truly recovered from Cronkite’s retirement. Dan Rather certainly came from a strong news background and earned his stripes as a top-flight reporter during the Vietnam War but Rather was always tagged with the liberal badge and after 24 years (a longer stint than Cronkite), he left under controversy. Interestingly, Bob Schieffer, a true throwback to the Cronkite era, replaced him for a time. Although Schieffer would never be accused of being flashy, he has a strong delivery and a believability that comes with the credibility he had earned as a long-time reporter with CBS. When CBS decided that they needed to “go young” since their demographic was definitely skewing gray (given the age of most of their 60 Minutes reporters and Schieffer), in 2006, they threw the long ball and snagged Katie Couric from NBC. Although Couric had started out as the cute, bubbly morning co-anchor on The Today Show, she was always acknowledged as a tough questioner and a strong reporter. Even though her ratings are far behind NBC and ABC, I have watched all three broadcasts for various periods of time and, after a rocky start, I believe that Katie Couric’s CBS Evening News is by far the best network newscast on the tube. Katie has crafted her newscast to make sure that she did not carry over any morning show smiles and over the top personality. The newscast is even handed and has a number of long form series that explore important topics in ways that they other two broadcasts are not doing. Is she the reincarnation of Walter Cronkite? Hardly. But these days, I will take my real news where I can get it?

Lest I neglect to mention the NewsHour with Jim Lehrer,
the presentation is as dry as Melba toast but two sides are always presented on any given topic. Also, kudos to the News Hour for always leading with the top real stories of the day. Example, on the day that Michael Jackson died, the networks led with wall-to-wall coverage as if the president had died. Other news was relegated to a 5 minute wrap up at the end of the show. The News Hour led with the real stories of the day and included a brief segment on Mr. Jackson as their 5th story of the night.

The evening cable battles go on but I think Anderson Cooper does a nice job on CNN with a 2-hour show that allows him to go in-depth on key issues. CNN’s worldwide bureaus allow them to get right in the middle of many foreign stories with their own people.

Finally, a shout out to Rachel Maddow, clearly the most intelligent person addressing the news on TV. A Stanford grad and a Rhodes scholar, Ms Maddow is quick on her feet, extremely well read and can react to a response from an interviewee without checking her notes. She actually educates herself on a topic before engaging in an interview. Nevertheless, I would still put her in the category of commentator.

Well, there it is—the news landscape as seen by this blogger. There are still small islands of real broadcast news out there but watch out for the commentators. They are trying to convince you it’s all about them.

OK, we all know that print is in trouble. We also know that our newspapers are losing money at an alarming rate—but they aren’t losing readers! People still want news. They just want it in different ways today. So readers of the Plain Dealer (formerly the Cleveland Plain Dealer) now turn to www.cleveland.com. Readers of the Akron Beacon Journal now log on to www.ohio.com. Both sites of course offer free access. Also, both newspapers can brag about a growing readership overall but that growth is coming from the online segment of their business.

If you are on the ad side of things as we are, you are aware that online advertising is less expensive than print. But here is the dirty little secret. One of the reasons that online advertising is so inexpensive compared to print is based on an age-old model. Print journalists and photojournalists have normally been paid a fair wage for their work. Many newspapers were unionized years ago and the writers were part of the newspaper guild. Now those same writers are seeing their print columns appear online and they are NOT receiving any additional income for all of those additional eyes that are reading the fruits of their labor.

There are really two issues worth noting. First, some local, regional and even national online publications are paying slave wages or even nothing (you heard me right) to freelance writers who provide editorial content. Why do these writers do it? Some are young, and their need to get published trumps the fact that they are not paid for their work.

Secondly, for many freelance content providers, their contracts for print work INCLUDE a clause that allows the publisher to “repurpose” their work in any way they so choose. So now that print piece that they were paid for finds its way on to a website and then is picked up by other newspapers in the chain for their website–all without additional compensation. This would be like a syndicated columnist whose column appears in 50 newspapers just getting paid for the original column in their “home” newspaper. Doesn’t work that way.

Now when you combine the above information with the low advertising rates for online content, you can see that there is something wrong with this picture. You are benefiting from that low cost for online advertising because, in many cases, the writers of that content are getting paid little or nothing.

At some point there will be a revolt and this practice will stop. Music has already gone there. A few years ago, almost every college student downloaded music for free. Then Apple introduced iTunes and offered downloads at what the public felt was a fair price and the level of illegal music downloads has dropped off dramatically. Yes, even poor college students will pay a fair price for a product if the argument is made properly.

Screenwriters are also waging this battle. They write a screenplay for a movie company and then that company also sells the rights to HBO or Netflix for a streaming download. The writers want payment for this added exposure and they are entitled to it. So it seems that we consumers will eventually have to pay more in the future for our online content or music or movies (vs free). It’s no wonder, because I would say that we’ve been benefiting from a business model that can’t sustain itself. So soon the free party will be over. Enjoy it while you can.

For about a year now, I have been counseling our clients about the fact that every company needs to reinvent themselves and make themselves ready for the new reality that is forming out of this recession/depression. I have constantly preached that in this case, you DO have the throw the baby out with the bath water because the way you did things in the past and the methods that made you successful in the past just may not work anymore.

I have certainly tried to practice what I preach with our company.
Recognizing that we have to evolve with the times, we have implemented new services, re-tooled our website, started an e-newsletter and a blog (which you are reading right now). We are not done as we continue to explore new opportunities in social media that I would have thought just 6 months ago would not have been of interest or appropriate for our B2B clients. I could not have been more wrong.

If we get too complacent in our business, we are certainly going to be left behind. A great example of this is Netflix Inc. As noted in a recent Wall Street Journal article (June 23rd), currently life is good at Netflix. The company actually added more subscribers than ever in the first quarter. But CEO Reed Hastings is not happy. He sees the future and it is not DVDs mailed to customers. So here is a case where a company is very successful and could be pounding their chest about how they have bucked the odds and made money in these tumultuous times. Not Reed Hastings. He is looking at where Netflix needs to be 5 or even 10 years from now. He recognizes that people want to stream or download movies for instant gratification and, in many cases, show them on their HD TV. His biggest expenses now are negotiating contracts with the movie companies to allow him to do just that. It’s not an easy job given that he has to complete with TV networks, HBO, Showtime and the like. Will he continue to beat the odds? Who knows? But what we do know is that he is not satisfied with where the company is given the tenuous future.

What about your company? Have you thought about where your company will be in 5 or 10 years? Have you thought about whether your current business model will make sense in the future? What if the trend is for more B2B companies to go e-commerce? Are you ready?

Let’s all take a lesson from Reed Hastings and Netflix and plan for the future. Get out your crystal ball and see what you think the future holds. Once you find out, give me a call. I want to know too.

This past weekend, I went to my cousin Rose’s 85th birthday party. In addition to her children (50s and 60s) and grandchildren (teens, 20s and 30s) and great grandchildren (still in diapers), many of the party goers were her siblings, friends and cousins who were 75 plus. Her 90 year old brother was also in attendance. In talking to the 80+ crowd, I was surprised at how upbeat they were. They were all aware of the current economic crisis but they were so happy to be alive and were simply looking forward to the next day, the next hug, the next meal and the next chance to watch their great grandchild laugh.

This unique perspective was just what I needed to adjust my outlook. Let’s take a second look at what is really important and enjoy what we have. I have read some stories about people who said that getting laid off was the best thing that ever happened to them because it allowed them the time to step back and take a hard look at their life. Many adjusted their life goals and consider themselves happier now. Is this the case for everybody? Clearly not.

But as I wrote some months back, I really believe our response to this economy is as much psychological as anything else. If we get caught up solely in the gloom and doom of what we read, we can become frozen. If on the other hand, we approach each day like Cousin Rose, well then, “life is good” and we’re ready to tackle anything.