...they're everywhere you turn. Endlessly they push and claw to get at the pot.
Each claims they alone know the recipe; none of them prepared to serve a plate and stand behind the finished product.
The research director thinks it needs more salt. The panel people are having second thoughts about the dark roux. IT is warning that the whole kitchen will go up in flames if you don't lower the heat.
The truth is most of the people stirring the next-gen-social-media-research-3.0 stew don't have a fucking clue about cooking. They are in the kitchen because the kitchen is where the action is, and they need a piece of the action to stay relevant and get ahead. Some are talking fast and praying no one calls their bluff; others fly under the radar hoping to hitch a ride on the coattails of success. Collectively they're doing a lot of talking--not much else, and stifling the company's chances of cooking up something good.
You don't need twenty executive chefs to run a kitchen. You need one boss, and a team of doers who can execute with speed and consistency. If you're lucky enough to have one or two innovators on the team give them the freedom to try new things, but once the menu is set and the dinner rush starts it's time for everyone to roll up their sleeves, shut their mouth, and serve up dish after delicious dish of the daily special.
The client is going to walk out if something tasty doesn't arrive on the table soon.
4 comments:
Amen Brother!
Well, yes, of course. But I've got to tell you, judging from the online conversations re: marketing research that I've had on others' blogs and my own, it's the old truths and lessons I learned years - yea, even decades - ago that are holding me in good stead today. They allow me (I've learned) to step into contemporary debates without hesitation.
While I do my best to keep up with today's technologies, I'm a bit amazed to see that it's my, by no means new, frame of reference and basic disposition as a marketing researcher that still constitute my main value to clients.
So, yes, let's innovate, but let's remember - and build on - basic research design and sampling principles, sound analytical thinking and solid interpretive skills that make us, as researchers, what we are - when we're at our best.
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