Earlier this week I found out that I passed the American Board of Genetic Counseling (ABGC) certification exam. Although the certification itself doesn’t directly influence my role or employment as a genetic counsellor, it is generally a good qualification to have and one that I am proud to have. The news couldn’t have been more timely, as it has given me an extra boost of confidence as I head into my Canadian certification exam next week.
But perhaps just as exciting as the news of passing the exam, is the launch of a new GC authored blog, “Genetic Counselors Questioning Certification,” that is dedicated to intiating and advancing an online discussion about the GC certification process itself. Because the focus of the blog is incredibly specific it will likely not be of interest to those outside of the GC world. However, I think the presence of the blog itself symbolizes a really important shift in our community. Only a year ago I was hard pressed to find other GCs online. In the past 12 months we have created The DNA Exchange and seen the birth of several other GC authored blogs (NSGC presidents blog, Martian Genetics, Gene Trends). I am happy to add Catherine Clinton and Sarah Savage to the growing list of GC bloggers and applaud them for taking the initiative to bring their questions and concerns public. I look forward to seeing how the certification conversation develops as a result.
Remember the Whopper Freakout, where Burger King played a nasty prank on customers claiming to have discontinued their champion burg? Well that clever bit of reality advertising has become too true for McDonald’s fans in Iceland. And they’re lining up in thousands to, literally, pay last respects to the Big Mac.
Godin is the master at making the complicated simple. Attention anyone working in a field where your product can be digitized (think books, music, film, photography, etc), please have a read and substitute your field for books/publishing:
Books are souvenirs that hold ideas. Ideas are free. If no one knows about your idea, you fail. If your idea doesn’t spread, you fail. If your idea spreads but no one wants to own the souvenir edition, you fail.
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No one is going to read Potter online, even if it’s free. Holding and owning the book, remembering when and how you got it… that’s what you’re paying for. Books are great at holding memories. They’re lousy at keeping secrets.
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Book publishers don’t make authors successful (clarification: 175,000 new authors a year, 300 become successful because of publishers). Authors make themselves successful by earning the privilege of having a platform, by creating ideas that spread, and yes, by building a tribe. (Source 1, 2)
In response to widespread criticism of his Brammo experiment, here’s a nice bit of thinking from ad hero Alex Bogusky on the future of crowdsourcing:
Some designers are obviously frightened by the current spectacle that is crowdsourcing, but as an optimist I think it will work out. I see several possible scenarios. The first is that this young micro-economy that is crowdsourcing evolves in the same way the off-line economy evolved. The designers with the most success begin to create tiers and depe nding on which tier the customers engage, the prices and fee structure changes with the level of quality. My guess is this will happen and different communities will develop different rules. Another and more radical change would be if the model followed more of what happened in Hollywood with scriptwriters.
In the 1930s and 40s there were huge buildings at the studios that housed all of the writers and those writers worked on salary to bang out all the movies. They made a salary, but it wasn’t very high and it wasn’t connected to the success of the film. Today most scripts are written on spec and then sold. A powerful writers guild protects the writers interest and insures that they get a piece of the back end. If the movie strikes gold the writer gets rich. A strong guild could transform design as well. Today, an illustrator who designs a cover for Time ma gazine is more or less happy with the fee. But if that cover design helps propel the highest newsstand sales of the year they don’t see any of that. We don’t feel bad about that but maybe we should.
What if the woman who designed the Nike logo had been in a union that insured that instead of a fee of fifty bucks, she received a royalty of a penny a shoe? I’m not great at math but I think that works out to about 20 million dollars in the last ten years alone.
Seems like we tend to be nostalgic about the past and fearful of the future. But each time the future actually arrives and becomes the present we feel like it’s just the way things should be.
Despite the industry outrage over spec assignments, the reality is they are increasingly happening in new and big ways. I’ve collected a long-list of crowdsourcing sites here.
As I prepare to write my American certification exam at the end of August, I haven’t been able to write as much as I’d like. In the mean time, I thought I’d share something I posted on DNA Exchange recently.
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Why we are well poised for tomorrow
As part of a committee I recently joined, we were each asked to put together a list of strengths of the genetic counseling profession. Although I’ve written about this before, brainstorming for this project reminded me how incredibly relevant our strengths are in the context of the future direction of healthcare in North America. I thought I’d share a few of my ideas here:
Our focus on patient autonomy. There is a huge trend (at least in mainstream media) towards patient-centered care. This article from the New York Times last month is a prime example. It highlights the idea that patient’s no longer want to be told what to do, but are looking for a healthcare provider that will help educate them and involve them in their own healthcare decisions. Assisting patients in making informed decisions for themselves is one of the foundations upon which our profession is built. We are, by default, way ahead of other health professions in this respect.
Our focus on prevention. “Preventative medicine” is a buzz term these days, especially given Obama’s healthcare plan, that calls for the promotion of “smart preventative care, like cancer screening.” (This strength was highlighted recently in a list serv discussion.)
Our multidisciplinary perspective. Genes are not limited to a specific organ or body part. As the medical paradigm transitions from looking at patients as a series of “parts” (cardiology, nephrology, psychology) toward a more holistic approach, we are well poised to become active participants.
I believe that knowing one’s strengths and learning to capitalize on them is essential, which is one reason why I enjoyed this activity so much. I’m interested to hear others’ perceptions of the ones I’ve listed above, and ideas about how we can build on these strengths to ensure that we maximize our potential.
I have a lot of friends who don’t care about marketing. But a couple times a year just about every one of them will mention an ad campaign they feel strongly about. Contrary to a lot of people in the business, I love hearing about people’s favourite or least favourite ads. I enjoy thinking about why it broke through.
The campaign I’ve probably discussed more than any other over the last 18 months is Dos Equis’ Most Interesting Man In The World. On paper, the concept for this campaign is nothing new. But there’s something about it that people love (myself included).
Unfortunately, I’ve noticed for all the popular praise this campaign has received, there’s been relatively less within the ad world. [UPDATE - there's been much more since they've announced sales numbers]. Which brings me to the purpose of this post: fame.
I’ve been thinking a lot about mass appeal lately. Two recent pieces on the subject have particularly stuck: The first, from Jeff Goodby, calls out the increasing irrelevance of award winning ads. The second, from Seth Godin, considers just how tough it is to breakthrough the middle of the market. In my opinion, these are very much related:
Goodby’s Cab Test…
When you get into a taxi and tell the driver that you’re in advertising, they often ask you whether you’ve done anything they might be familiar with. Well, have you? Ironically, the more awards you’ve been winning these days, the more likely the answer is “No.”
We’ve created a system that rewards work that is increasingly unknown to anyone outside the business. We have become connoisseurs of esoterica. And in the process, we’re becoming more about us, and less about changing the world. We are becoming irrelevant award-chasers.
I want to make marketing famous again, outside the walls of our agencies.
Godin’s Paradox of The Middle…
The middle of the market is the juicy part, where profit meets scale. The paradox is that it’s almost impossible to make a product or service for this segment, because they want the tried, the true and the boring.
The leading edge of the market is a lot smaller, but far easier to cater to, because those folks are looking and listening and talking… The thing is, this audience is fickle and they don’t often convert into paying customers or long-term fans. It’s not that difficult to be haute couture, to be fashionable, cutting edge or fickle. What’s difficult is figuring out how to make it pay.
Right now we’re treating the ad community as leading edge. Cab Drivers are the middle. And the gap between the two seems to be growing. Aiming for the edges not only spells irrelevance, it spells financial trouble. Let’s try not forget the fame and fortune in satisfying the middle.
I’ve been a little quiet here lately. This is because most of my attention has been directed at DNA Exchange, the recently launched group genetic counseling blog. I am really, really excited about this initiative and the response from the genetic counseling community so far has been fantastic. We have a great group of contributors, with diverse opinions and interests, as well as a couple of guest bloggers lined up. It has been a fair amount of work with some unexpected challenges and dilemmas, but overall it is well worth it.
For the next little while, as I figure out how to balance hNhN, DNA Exchange and studying for board exams, my posts might be fewer and farther between. If any prolific bloggers want to send some tips my way, I’m all ears.
If you read this blog on occasion, chances are you have read me ramble on human companies. With so much interesting thinking on this subject, I want to try to collect some good soundbites here. Please feel free to share your own submissions as I think I’ll continue to update this post. For now, though, here are 8 reasons why human companies are winning today:
1. People are more conscious than companies
‘Brands will be built on cultural and social missions, not commercial propositions. What actually matters to people is having a point of view on the world, a cultural mission to rally around.’ (Kay)
‘What would your brand do if diagnosed with just one year to live?’ (King)
2. People are more generous than companies
‘Until brands push past messaging and start more consistently providing people with ideas, emotions, actions [and utility], they should expect the consumer to avoid eye contact and walk right by’ (King)
Tom is a generous human
3. People have better stories than companies
Whereas corporate communications typically come in sporadic, repetitive campaigns, we tend to prefer ongoing stories with depth and complexity. People’s stories are more coherent and compelling – they’re made up of related smaller accounts that form an evolving narrative. (Isakson, Grant, Kay)
‘Brands live in a cultural space, and culture is far richer, deeper, complex and nuanced than 99.9% of marketing. Therefore, marketing will be more culturally interesting if it is made up of lots of coherent ideas vs consistently repeating one idea.’ (Kay)
‘If you are going to invite yourself into someone’s living room you have a duty not to shout at them or bore them or insult their intelligence. On the other hand, if you are a charming guest and you entertain them or amuse them or tell them something interesting, then they may like you a bit better and then they may be more inclined to invite you over again. (Fedwick)
4. People are smaller than companies
‘We used to rely on the security of big companies. That’s why we worked for them. And hired them. And put our money in them. But with the recent collapse all that’s changed. Now it’s a risk to do business with the big ones. We simply don’t trust companies anymore. We trust people. Small is the new big. Sustainable is the new growth. Trust is the new competitive advantage.’ (Bregman)
5. People are more accountable than companies
Sincerity and accountability are crucial when facing tough times:
“I know that many tears were shed today, both by laid-off and non-laid-off employees alike. Given our family culture, our layoffs are much tougher emotionally than they would be at many other companies. I’ve been asked by some employees whether it’s okay to twitter about what’s going on. Our Twitter policy remains the same as it’s always been: just be real, and use your best judgement.” – Tony Hsieh of Zappos
JetBlue
Maple Leaf Foods
6. People are nicer than companies
Companies are not social. Companies are commercial. They have explicitly commercial objectives… This is possibly why companies find it so hard to act socially and, by extension, in social media. They have to act without any thought to immediate financial return. (Yakob)
Frank is a real, caring, person from Comcast
7. People are quicker than companies
It’s hard for big companies (and agencies) to compete with the speed of inspired individuals. It’s hard to be nimble. It’s scary to launch and learn. It takes a lot of constant monitoring and hands on responding. (Gaffney)
Tiger Fan Commercial uploaded shortly after this unbelievable moment:
‘Without a few scatterbrains on the payroll, innovation would never happen. New ideas come from divergent thinking, not convergent thinking.’ (Neumeier)
‘The new kinds of successful mass brand do what luxury brands have done previously: give you little bits of magic that nobody will probably ever see.’ (Earls)
