Grumpy
What a lousy day.
It doesn't help that I have been working longer hours, and feeling stressed out. Nor does it help that I the morning on what should have been an easy project, but went horridly wrong due to a setting change in how our computers talk to each other.
But then the leaches (a.k.a. consultants) came in. If you know me, you know that I don't think much of these people.
It turns out they want to treat us like cattle, jab a hot metal object at us and brand us. I don't get this banding business, but some people think it is really important.
So they started off by telling me about this over priced hotel that is a great example of living out its branding. It has adopted a set of buzz words (care, comfort, style, flavor, fun) and is living them out. Now at the time I could not understand how a hotel could have flavor, but looking at their website, I see they refer to the restaurants they have in their hotels. Then I had to listen to the concept that anything French is comfortable (apparently the soap wrapper in the hotel is written in French). I am not sure I can begin to understand that logic.
So after losing my temper, I got to hear how my organization is going to change its brand and become a kinder, gentler version of itself. We are going to focus on peoples emotions and community. We are going to stop using acronyms, because that is a stumbling block for our new outreach efforts.
This may all be well and good for some organizations, but I don't see it working for us. We do technical work. The people that the leaches interviewed praised us for our technical trainings and quarterly journal.
There is another point the made that really annoyed me, but I will not describe it here, as I have promised not to give away where I work (once again I praise mini-microsoft who criticizes his company. And I praise Scoble who publicly criticized Microsoft, while working there, and posted a blog listing criticism of his new employer even before his first official day on the job). For those who know me, I am more than happy to give you my thoughts in person.
Then we got to the need to overhaul our logo. In the time I have been with this organization we have gone through a number of iterations of the logo. Amazingly so far they have always come back looking about the same. Fairly simple, no complexity. I admit that I am not in favor of changing the logo. I think an organization needs to have consistency. Especially in an organization like ours that thinks longevity is so important to what we do, that we actually use the term perpetuity. Bass beer trademarked their logo in 1876, and it has been the same ever since. My organization, which again has this long term focus, can't even keep a logo that same for a few years, let alone decades or centuries.
Well, I did not like any of the new logos. The second was the worst. It looked like someone had spilled something, attempted to wipe it up, and it left a streak of a stain. It reminded me of Lucent with its coffee cup stain for a logo, or the hideous "Brushstrokes in Flight" that you see at the Columbus, OH airport. With some of them, I had to be old what was in them to even begin to get it. Can you believe people are paid good money to do this?
I was surprised that none of the logos had a Web 2.0 look to them at all. None of the drop shadows, and reflective qualities that have come to define recent logos. Even more interesting is that are current logo lends itself to be turned into a Web 2.0 logo much more easily than any of the other logos shown.
But let's remember these are consultants. We have to account for their deficient skills. They probably don't know much about the Internet. After all, the Internet (oh, wait, consultants do not want us to use word t-h-e*, let me start over). After all, Internet is not a kinder, gentler version of world. Internet is full of technical jargon and acronyms. Consultants mentioned our website but did not even suggest using RSS. How any organization can expect to reach people without looking toward future with RSS is beyond me.
I do want to add one more piece here, and that is to fight consultants with consultants. (Now just like politics, you can always find a consultant to present the other viewpoint (except maybe the viewpoint that consultants are not worth the trouble), and I am using one just to prove my point). If I remember correctly that guy that wrote Good to Great said you should find your organization's core competencies and focus on that. Once again, leaches want us to go changing from our technical competencies to this more community and outreach organization, something we have never been good at (even over the course of multiple people leading our communications department, it have never been a core competency).
So, that was my day. Becoming more and more discouraged about my organization.
*I forget how exactly they said it, but consultants said it will feel unnatural/awkward to not use t-h-e. For a group that wants us to be more people friendly, that sure seems like an odd statement to make.
It doesn't help that I have been working longer hours, and feeling stressed out. Nor does it help that I the morning on what should have been an easy project, but went horridly wrong due to a setting change in how our computers talk to each other.
But then the leaches (a.k.a. consultants) came in. If you know me, you know that I don't think much of these people.
It turns out they want to treat us like cattle, jab a hot metal object at us and brand us. I don't get this banding business, but some people think it is really important.
So they started off by telling me about this over priced hotel that is a great example of living out its branding. It has adopted a set of buzz words (care, comfort, style, flavor, fun) and is living them out. Now at the time I could not understand how a hotel could have flavor, but looking at their website, I see they refer to the restaurants they have in their hotels. Then I had to listen to the concept that anything French is comfortable (apparently the soap wrapper in the hotel is written in French). I am not sure I can begin to understand that logic.
So after losing my temper, I got to hear how my organization is going to change its brand and become a kinder, gentler version of itself. We are going to focus on peoples emotions and community. We are going to stop using acronyms, because that is a stumbling block for our new outreach efforts.
This may all be well and good for some organizations, but I don't see it working for us. We do technical work. The people that the leaches interviewed praised us for our technical trainings and quarterly journal.
There is another point the made that really annoyed me, but I will not describe it here, as I have promised not to give away where I work (once again I praise mini-microsoft who criticizes his company. And I praise Scoble who publicly criticized Microsoft, while working there, and posted a blog listing criticism of his new employer even before his first official day on the job). For those who know me, I am more than happy to give you my thoughts in person.
Then we got to the need to overhaul our logo. In the time I have been with this organization we have gone through a number of iterations of the logo. Amazingly so far they have always come back looking about the same. Fairly simple, no complexity. I admit that I am not in favor of changing the logo. I think an organization needs to have consistency. Especially in an organization like ours that thinks longevity is so important to what we do, that we actually use the term perpetuity. Bass beer trademarked their logo in 1876, and it has been the same ever since. My organization, which again has this long term focus, can't even keep a logo that same for a few years, let alone decades or centuries.
Well, I did not like any of the new logos. The second was the worst. It looked like someone had spilled something, attempted to wipe it up, and it left a streak of a stain. It reminded me of Lucent with its coffee cup stain for a logo, or the hideous "Brushstrokes in Flight" that you see at the Columbus, OH airport. With some of them, I had to be old what was in them to even begin to get it. Can you believe people are paid good money to do this?
I was surprised that none of the logos had a Web 2.0 look to them at all. None of the drop shadows, and reflective qualities that have come to define recent logos. Even more interesting is that are current logo lends itself to be turned into a Web 2.0 logo much more easily than any of the other logos shown.
But let's remember these are consultants. We have to account for their deficient skills. They probably don't know much about the Internet. After all, the Internet (oh, wait, consultants do not want us to use word t-h-e*, let me start over). After all, Internet is not a kinder, gentler version of world. Internet is full of technical jargon and acronyms. Consultants mentioned our website but did not even suggest using RSS. How any organization can expect to reach people without looking toward future with RSS is beyond me.
I do want to add one more piece here, and that is to fight consultants with consultants. (Now just like politics, you can always find a consultant to present the other viewpoint (except maybe the viewpoint that consultants are not worth the trouble), and I am using one just to prove my point). If I remember correctly that guy that wrote Good to Great said you should find your organization's core competencies and focus on that. Once again, leaches want us to go changing from our technical competencies to this more community and outreach organization, something we have never been good at (even over the course of multiple people leading our communications department, it have never been a core competency).
So, that was my day. Becoming more and more discouraged about my organization.
*I forget how exactly they said it, but consultants said it will feel unnatural/awkward to not use t-h-e. For a group that wants us to be more people friendly, that sure seems like an odd statement to make.
posted by Andy Weaver at 21:38
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