Grumpy
{Argh. Blogger has been giving me problems and I have lsot some of my work. So a fair portion of really great writing has been lost (and some is not nearly as good in the rewrite). Remember to save your blog before posting.}
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 been generally the same, which I have found encouraging. We are an organization that always talks about longevity. So much so that we often use the word perpetuity. To me, and organization that find such a concept so important, it should have a little more permanence in its logo. Bass beer has had the same logo since 1876. And yet my organization can not go more that a few years, let alone decades or centuries without changing.
I was not impressed by any of the logos. The second one was the worst. It looked like someone had spilled something and in their effort to clean it up, it had left behind a streak of a stain. It reminded me of Lucent's coffee stain logo. It also reminded me of Brustrokes in Flight, a hideous piece of artwork that is at the Columbus, OH airport. Someone had to tell me what some parts of the logos were before I could understand them.
One thing that caught my attention was that none of the logos were web 2.0. Even more interesting is that fact that our current logo lends itself to web 2.0 style logo much better than any of the new options given.
Now we probably have to forgive them. Consultants are a bit slow on the learning scale, and probably don't know much about the Internet. The Internet (opps, consultants do not want us to use word t-h-e*...let me try over. Internet is not people friendly. It is technical and full of jargon and acronyms. While consultants mentioned Internet multiple times, they never mentioned RSS. As an organization trying to look forward and reach out to people, I can not comprehend how fail to mention RSS.
Now I want to try and fight consultants with consultants. (Just like politics, I think you could probably find a consultant to argue either side of an issue (except maybe the issue that consultants are not worth the trouble)) But guy who wrote Good to Great made a big deal about focusing on your organizations core competencies. Once again, my organizations core competencies are technical (trainings and publications often relating to legal issues and taxes). Community and outreach have never been our strong points, even with multiple people in the leadership role of communications. And yet consultants want us to change our organization and focus much more on these areas. I think we need to focus on what we already do well.
Another day with me feeling less connected to my organization.
* Interesting that at one point consultants said (and I forget there exact words) that it may seem unnatural/awkward to not use t-h-e. I thought this was very odd for a group that wants us to be more people friendly.
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 been generally the same, which I have found encouraging. We are an organization that always talks about longevity. So much so that we often use the word perpetuity. To me, and organization that find such a concept so important, it should have a little more permanence in its logo. Bass beer has had the same logo since 1876. And yet my organization can not go more that a few years, let alone decades or centuries without changing.
I was not impressed by any of the logos. The second one was the worst. It looked like someone had spilled something and in their effort to clean it up, it had left behind a streak of a stain. It reminded me of Lucent's coffee stain logo. It also reminded me of Brustrokes in Flight, a hideous piece of artwork that is at the Columbus, OH airport. Someone had to tell me what some parts of the logos were before I could understand them.
One thing that caught my attention was that none of the logos were web 2.0. Even more interesting is that fact that our current logo lends itself to web 2.0 style logo much better than any of the new options given.
Now we probably have to forgive them. Consultants are a bit slow on the learning scale, and probably don't know much about the Internet. The Internet (opps, consultants do not want us to use word t-h-e*...let me try over. Internet is not people friendly. It is technical and full of jargon and acronyms. While consultants mentioned Internet multiple times, they never mentioned RSS. As an organization trying to look forward and reach out to people, I can not comprehend how fail to mention RSS.
Now I want to try and fight consultants with consultants. (Just like politics, I think you could probably find a consultant to argue either side of an issue (except maybe the issue that consultants are not worth the trouble)) But guy who wrote Good to Great made a big deal about focusing on your organizations core competencies. Once again, my organizations core competencies are technical (trainings and publications often relating to legal issues and taxes). Community and outreach have never been our strong points, even with multiple people in the leadership role of communications. And yet consultants want us to change our organization and focus much more on these areas. I think we need to focus on what we already do well.
Another day with me feeling less connected to my organization.
* Interesting that at one point consultants said (and I forget there exact words) that it may seem unnatural/awkward to not use t-h-e. I thought this was very odd for a group that wants us to be more people friendly.
posted by Andy Weaver at 22:51
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