Clint Poole
I am a Boston-based business-to-business marketing professional with experience developing marketing strategies for professional services and business services firms. You can view an overview of my professional background here: http://www.linkedin.com/in/clintpoole
Posts by Clint Poole
Client Conversations: Insights into the State of Employee Development
Jul 21st
Over the past few months we have been checking-in with Global Novations’ clients regarding the current state of their employee development programs. So many aspects of the workforce have been impacted by the recent economic headwinds and we wanted to hear directly from clients about how they were affected. The following two posts were an outcome of those conversations, originally published on the ViewPoint blog: http://www.novations.com/blog/
Client Conversations: Managing “What’s In It For Me?”
Motivating employees to embrace learning & development opportunities at a time of increasing disengagement is no small task (see the ConferenceBoard report “U.S. Job Satisfaction at Lowest Level in Two Decades”). It requires a purposeful acknowledgement of the “what’s in it for me” factor behind employee motivation. We culled the following approaches to this dynamic in recent conversation with clients:
1.) People want to be part of delivering great results
2.) Ongoing development paves the way for future opportunities
3.) Local recognition is motivating
Read the complete post here: http://www.novations.com/blog/?p=177
Client Conversations: What Employee Development Programs Look Like Today
For the past 15 months the Learning & Development professionals we work with at Global Novations have had the unenviable task of balancing the reduction in formal learning investments with the need to continue increasing the capabilities and contribution of reduced workforces. What resulted are some valuable lessons-learned that will shape how we manage employee development moving forward.
Employees own their own development: This was a consistent theme from clients; the pervasive belief that development may still be a shared responsibility, but employees are responsible for owning and driving the process.
Lateral movement: increasing contribution doesn’t mean changing roles: Too many employees and managers operate with an outdated belief that you need to move “up” the ladder with a formal role change in order to increase your contribution to the company. This belief-system is at odds with the current trend of organizational flattening
Development on the job: As most industry indicators continue to signal a steady reduction in formal training investments, client organizations continue to embrace the “development on the job” approach; leveraging carefully selected “stretch” job assignments, job shadowing, and job-sharing as formal learning opportunities.
Read the complete post here: http://www.novations.com/blog/?p=163
An Oscar Winner’s Lesson for Branding
Mar 11th
scene from "Logorama"
This past Sunday the Academy Award for Animated Short Film was awarded to the creative film Logorama that poked fun at the pervasive, ever-present nature of our favorite brand image – the corporate logo. If you haven’t seen it, you can watch it here (WARNING: adult language and content): http://vodpod.com/watch/3059295-logorama-15-min-oscar-nominated-short
According to H5, the French creative studio who created the film:
“Logorama presents us with an over-marketed world built only from logos… Logotypes are used to describe an alarming universe (similar to the one that we are living in) with all the graphic signs that accompany us every day in our lives.”
As fun as the fast-paced Logorama is to watch, it does channel the malaise and distrust many customers have developed regarding corporate identity and traditional branding/advertising practices. Logos are still a necessary and effective tool for consistently providing a global brand identity, but they were born from an outdated approach to brand management that doesn’t work for today’s information-connected customer.
Customers need to shape the brand
The last decade has seen a growing distrust of corporate efforts perceived as unauthentic (thank you Gen X and Gen Y). More folks understand the concepts behind branding and have a lot to say about how it’s been handled by the brands that intersect with their lives. They want to be involved with the brands that matter to them and interact with other likeminded people about these brands. They want experiences.
The traditional approach of company-to-customer brand management where the key objective was to “own” and “manage” brand channels conflicts with this new reality. The approach should be to influence, not control. Organizations must engage their customer network to manage a brand collaboratively versus “telling” customers why they should be loyal. Customer distrust is boiling beneath the surface; don’t let it sink your brand.
It’s more than the Logo
Most efforts to evolve brands have focused on the identity elements (logo, imagery, advertising), probably because they’re the easiest to execute. However, these don’t represent the experiences that drive customer loyalty. Developing a strong sense of your customers’ perceptions, needs, and expectations was once a difficult and costly exercise, requiring lengthy market research and focus groups. Today, social media provides a real-time and cost-effective way to partner with customers quickly to gain valuable insights. No doubt it can be a bit overwhelming at first, but testing, failing, learning and designing a strategy that works is no longer a “nice to have”.
The Brand is alive
Brands are a living organism and need to evolve and change over time. Your brand represents the positive experience delivered when your company meets a customer’s need. Those needs change, your organization’s approach to meeting customer needs change, so the connection point between the two also needs to change. Engaging with customers to manage this evolution will ensure you don’t make any missteps.
