Gene Carr's Patron Technology Blog

Lying and Job Hiring: A Contrarian View

Did you see the latest headline?  A MIT Dean who was recipient of MIT's highest award for administrators has admitted to lying about her academic background years ago. She's toast. What a pity.

This had a very personal resonance for me, since I've been through this very thing myself, twice – but from the other perspective - as an employer. I'm going to take a contrarian view here. There's no question that she's history, but I think the situation was created by pervasive, narrow-minded hiring practices and philosophy in our country.

Let's start with the basics. I don't condone lying on a resume or job interview. But people do it all the time, hiding small indiscretions that would otherwise have a disproportionately large negative effect on their prospects. Why?  We're all looking for the PERFECT candidate - free of any blemishes or transgressions. So, occasionally, competent people resort to lying to create the most positive impression.

Earlier in my career, I hired two people who I later found out never finished college. I can't recall if I asked them in the job interview. One of them put down her college information on the resume in a way that suggested she graduated. She didn't lie, but it was obscure. Shame on me for not asking. I learned my lesson.

However, in both of these cases, I found out more than 6 months after they were working for me. And by then they were both great workers and colleagues. So, did I fire them? NO! Sure I was mad, and felt duped. However, the bottom line was that they overcame some societal hurdle and actually did their jobs well.

What I'm arguing for here is not that people should get away with lying. Rather I'm arguing that employers should allow for imperfection when hiring. Give people the benefit of the doubt. Nobody is perfect, not the least of whom might be the interviewers themselves. Hire people who have not finished college. Hire people who have a cancelled credit card. Go ahead, take a measured risk.

The irony here is that MIT is going to lose this fine administrator and the school will be worse off for the loss.

What would have happened if she admitted it, and the school responded by saying, "Years ago we *both* made a mistake, but your performance has been terrific. Please stay on."

Stupid Ticketing Fees Part 2: The Marketers Revenge

Earlier this week, I wrote about ticket service fees, and judging from the responses and comments, clearly this is a topic that has struck a resonant chord.

Many have commented to me that they don't like charging service fees, but are hamstrung by their ticketing agencies. Some are part of universities where they don't have a choice, and must use a ticketing service, against their will.

I have two comments or suggestions. First, it's up to you as the client to scream at your vendor to give you another option rather than charging service fees to your patrons. The ticketing industry is in a state of rapid change, and I know that some ticketing software companies will negotiate fees that guarantee them a per-ticket fee, but that fee can be paid by you, rather than the customer. Try that. If that fails, don't sign a long-term contract and start looking for a more flexible vendor.

I hear some of you challenging me: "That's not practical." "This will take too long." "We don't want to change our ticketing system, it's too much hassle."  Fair enough.

Then get creative.

How about refund/rebates? No matter your ticketing system, you can always say, "buy a ticket online today and we'll refund you your ticket service fees paid when you arrive to pick up your tickets." You control their credit card, you can refund their money. Of course, it's going to lower your revenue, but isn't this a much more palatable and more creative way to offer a discount than lowering the ticket price itself? 

If you try this, will you please write in and tell me how it works? If I were a arts marketer hamstrung with per-ticket service fees I couldn’t get rid of, I'd test this immediately.

Rant: Arts Ticket Fee Policies Are Pretty Stupid

OK, I don't often rant, but here we go.

I went to buy tickets today for a concert at Carnegie Hall. I went to the Web site, (my preferred method) and navigated to the event I wanted. The site said, "these are the pricing categories we have available." And, it showed all areas with tickets to be purchased, except for one section. I clicked to buy 2 seats and then the "find me the best available seats" button. The resulting page said, "I'm sorry we cannot find you seats in the quantity you requested, please try again"

So, I then tried each available section for two tickets, and then again for one ticket. Nothing worked. That took about 10 minutes, and resulted in nothing but frustration.

So, I called the box office. After only 10 seconds I got a person! So far so good.

I told her what happened. She said that was strange since indeed there were tickets available. She processed my order and then, when she came to the end, she said, "there will be a $6.00 per ticket processing fee added to your charge."  Considering I had just invested 12 minutes of my OWN processing time, I figured a penalty of a buck a minute was a lot of dough. I asked if there was the same ticket processing fee if I had gone to the box office. "No, there's no charge if you come to the box office." 

Why, I ask, does this make any sense at all?  After all, JetBlue (see my March 20 post ) charges a $25 processing fee if you call their reservation line, and NO FEE if you use their site.

Why in this business do we insist on creating financial disincentives to using our Web sites, when it COSTS US LESS money to process a ticket that way than any other other?

One way to ramp up your Web ticket sales would be to charge no fee at all for Web sales, and assess a fee for phone and walk-up. I think every organization should do this. Radical thinking? Maybe. But, aren't we the ones that are trying to run our organizations as efficiently as possible?

And, one more thought about customer service. Seems to me if a customer calls and complains that your site isn't working - and indeed it's true, then the box office should be empowered (read: trained) to do something nice for the customer. How about "Oh, Mr. Carr, I'm sorry you had trouble on our site today, I'll look into that immediately. In the meantime, I'll waive the ticket-processing fee for you."

I love Carnegie Hall. I've produced tons of concerts there and attended hundreds of times. But, as a result of this little incident, my Carnegie Hall opinion has gone down just a notch. In a world in which we're courting every single arts-loving ticket buyer, can any of us afford to damage our organizations' reputations like this?

OK, rant over.

Back to the Future Again

Yesterday I went to a presentation and panel discussion about mobile technology, and more specifically the state of the mobile content business. I heard from several leading companies about what they were doing, and got some stats that confirmed my suspicions.

We're very much in the "not ready from prime time" stage of development. Sure, there are some (like me) who look at web sites on their cell phones or PDAs. But the experience is often far from pleasant or consistent.

It's the consistent part that caught my attention most. When Harry Kargman, the president of Kargo.com introduced his company as "the leading mobile distributor of branded content in the industry," his first comment sounded amazingly familiar to me.

He said that the biggest problem in mobile content is delivering a consistent user experience. Why? Because when you develop content for your Web site, you check it on Firefox and on the IE browser, and if it looks good, you're done.

But there are a zillion different cell phones out there, with another zillion different browsers, and a dozen carriers. Each one of them displays content from the Web slightly differently. So if you optimized your content for, say, Cingular's Treo offering, it might not look so good on a Samsung Blackjack. And so it goes.

If you had been sitting next to me you would have detected a faint smile, because this is exactly the same situation in the e-mail business. In our world, there are a zillion e-mail software systems out there (Gmail, Outlook, Outlook Express, Yahoo, Earthlink, etc, as well as all the Mac flavors) and each one of them renders e-mail slightly differently.

This is one of the reasons why we've built a simple-to-use, but very flexible "design-wizard" based content development tool into PatronMail. We test all of our templates against all these browser variations before we launch them. Then, when our clients use our system, we can assure them of consistency.

As an aside, in a few weeks, we're going to be adding a "use your own HTML" option to PatronMail. And when we do, we're going to provide a lot of education to the clients that use it, telling them exactly how to test each of their e-mail designs on all the different e-mail systems out there.

In e-mail marketing, just like in the mobile world, you're not publishing on the two standard Web browsers. Therefore it gets really complicated to ensure your content gets seen in a consistent and professional manner unless you're using the right tools.

Women, Online Video and the Arts

Way back when, circa 1995, I started my first online business, CultureFinder.com. At that time, the vast majority of Web users were young men. By many, women weren't even considered a factor, and most people didn't even know that women use the Web differently than men. But since women are the key decision makers for arts attendance, I paid a lot of attention to how women use the Web.

Years later, all sorts of research showed that there are real gender differences. Women are less inclined to use the web for "surfing" and more inclined to use the Web to "get things done."  The research I've clipped below caught my eye since the rise of online video seems to be following the same path as did initial Web usage.

Take a look at an article I read on news.yahoo.com:

About 97 million women in the United States will use the Internet this year compared with 91 million men, according to a study by eMarketer. But the report also says only 66 percent of those women are watching videos online compared to 78 percent of men.

    "Women are more likely to use the Internet to get things done, to accomplish tasks, to check something off of a checklist that they need to do," Deborah Aho Williamson said. "Men are more likely to use the Internet to have fun. And a lot of what you see on youtube.com is silly, time-wasting kinds of things that maybe women don't feel they have the time for, or don't want to have the time for."

    "The gap is going to close pretty quickly as the content becomes available that women are interested in and they become more comfortable with it," Williamson said.

I think this hits the nail on the head. The most important phrase here is "as soon as content becomes available that women are interested in."

That's where the opportunity for the arts comes in. When arts organizations regularly post video on their sites that helps women make a better informed decision about what events to select, then video will really pay off for the arts.  Far from replacing the cultural experience, video on the Web is going to enable women to make better choices, based on better information.

When that happens, (and I have no doubt that it will) we'll really be in the golden age of the Web for arts marketing.

Pay Attention to Those Who Pay No Attention

Yesterday I attended a Webinar produced by one of the leading companies that helps large corporations optimize their e-mail campaigns. Frankly, I was trolling for new ideas. What was great about it was that it confirmed a lot of my thinking, but more importantly, it shed light on one particular area that I think is often overlooked. 

The topic that caught my attention was "re-energizing your lapsed names." In other words, if you're getting a 30% open rate each time, over some period of time there is bound to be a segment of your list that just doesn't open your e-mail ever. That may not necessarily be terrible, as some people may only want that gentle reminder in their in-box. However, there may be a way to re-engage with those who don't open your email.

First, of course, your e-mail system has to enable you to segment by "non-openers over some time-frame" and then you can mail to them. I think a survey might be the right way to address this group. I think it might be really interesting to know why they aren't paying much attention to your e-mails. Or, send this group an incentive offer, and see if that gets them to bite.

 

The bottom line is that you can't think of your list as a homogenous whole. It's got segments, and you need to pay attention to each of them, particularly the segment that isn't paying any attention to you!

My Audience is Too Old for the Internet: NOT

Haven't you been in a meeting about e-marketing where someone says "all that stuff about the Internet being great for marketing doesn't really apply to us, because our audience is old?" 

I know this conversation still happens at tons of arts organizations every day. And, for years, I've been debunking this myth using our own research which I've published most recently in the latest version of my book Wired for Culture.

Last week something came across my desk which is so juicy and relevant that I'm just going to quote it pretty much in its entirely here. This came from an e-mail newsletter called the Center for Media Research.

Feast your eyes on this research, and say to yourself over and over "this is my audience." (I have added the bolds and the underlines.)

"According to a new study, by ThirdAge Inc. and JWT BOOM, with over 1,210 adults 40+ years of age, over 72% of ThirdAgers access the Internet from Broadband in their homes, which is significantly more than the national average across all age groups. And, over 82% of all respondents are researching or reading information Online on health and wellness for themselves and for their families.

Sharon Whiteley, CEO of ThirdAge, said "ThirdAgers (baby boomers and mid-lifers generally in their early 40's through mid 60's) are regularly stereotyped as being technophobes and slow to jump on the technology bandwagon. However... not only are they online, they're surprisingly a formidable presence on the Internet."

According to the survey, ThirdAgers spend time on the Internet are to:

• Seek out information (92%)
• Stay in touch with friends and family (95%)
• Shop online (73%)
• Browse the Web (95%)
• Read articles (91%)
• Research products before purchasing offline (86%)

What they're not doing is watching videos, writing blogs, playing games or downloading music, notes the report.

The report includes data that shows that

• Close to 108 million people are over the age of 45, more than 40 percent of the population, with the majority of the buying power in the United States
• In the next 15 years, the 50-64 age popular will grow by 50 percent and the 65-plus population will grow 32 percent
• The traditionally coveted 18-40 Gen-X and Gen-Y populations will grow only 3 percent combined

Whiteley says "... many marketers... (are not) building a trusted relationship with people who are over 40... These generations have grown up in the information age; they will seek facts, data and peer input..."

Based on survey findings, over 96% share information and details about new discoveries with their family, 84% with their children, 83% with their spouses and 71% among their co-workers making this cohort one of the most active groups in the viral marketplace."

One of the emerging Web technologies I keep my eye on is streaming video. It's my feeling that video on the web will totally transform the Internet. Today, people think of the Web as mostly text and pictures, but in the future I think video will dominate.

Here's some information I read in an article on Mediapost.com  that gives some perspective of what's been going on.

At the end of 2006, more than half--58%--of Americans age 12 or older with Internet access had streamed some form of video content online, according to the Ipsos Insight report. That translates to 44% of the overall U.S. population age 12 or older, or approximately 100 million consumers.

That's a lot of people doing something that only a few years ago was relatively unheard of online. But this phenomenon is still in its infancy. Just like a lot of other new technology, the path is being blazed by the very young:

By the end of last year, just 26% of all consumers who view streaming video had watched the full-length TV shows offered by networks like ABC, CBS, and NBC. Worse still, only 15% had streamed a whole movie online.

I think this is where we'll see a lot of change in the next year. More and more people will watch longer videos and finally complete movies. It also means that arts organzations will get into the action too.

How long do you think it will be before some innovative string quartet records an entire 2 hour concert on camera, and posts it to be streamed online?

 

Airline Schadenfreude

Since I fly a lot, I have a lot of opinions about various airlines.  None are as strong as for American which used to offer "more legroom in coach" but now offers very little legroom (or anything else) in coach.

So imagine my glee today when I was offered the chance to give American some feedback. This is the beginning of the e-mail I received: 

Dear Eugene Carr,

American Airlines is interested in your opinions. Please take a few minutes to complete our online survey. It should only take 5-7 minutes of your time. Click on the link below to take the survey.

Take the Survey

And then it went on to say: The deadline for filling out the survey is 11:59 p.m.(CT) on Tuesday, April 10, 2007. All answers will be kept strictly confidential From a marketing perspective, so far so good. It's personalized, it's got a deadline. OK, I'm motivated!  So, I clicked on the link and I then see:

Sorry! This survey has not started yet. The start date for this survey has not been reached. So it gave me just a wee bit of pleasure to see that big corporations can mess up just as easily anyone else. Lesson learned. Proofread, proofread, proofread. Test, test, test.

Benchmarking Online Presidential Donations

There's a lot of news today about how much each presidential candidate has raised so far. Not all the candidates have reported, and the amount of information they each disclose on their sites isn't consistent.

Far from the total amount raised, what's interesting to me is how much was given online.  Hillary raised $26 million - the most of any candidate, and of that $4.2 million was online. In contrast, John Edwards raised less, only $14 million, but $3.3 million was given online. (I can't find any simliar information for Obama or even Biden, at least not yet.)

So, it's Edwards 22% online, vs. Clinton 16% online. It could be that these numbers are skewed by all sorts of manipulation behind the scenes. Or maybe the Edwards web staff is doing a better job in this arena, or Edwards' donors are more web savvy than Clinton's?

What can we glean from this information? Since these donations are highly motivated --  let's just say that somewhere between 15% to 20% is now a good benchmark to aim for.  For arts organizations, where donors are likely to be less motivated, shall we discount this by, say, half? 

Is your organization bringing in 7% - 10% of your donations online?