Six Reasons Baby Boomers Should Be Working For Your Startup

Posted on February 23, 2012 by

A few months ago there were a series of articles about how entrepreneurs are over-the-hill by 25 years old. I knew immediately that was not true and articles have since been published showing that statistically, companies started by boomers are more successful.

Here are six reasons why that may be the case:

1. Experience
By definition, boomers have lived and worked longer than their younger peers. Particularly at startups, you will make mistakes. The experienced team members avoid basic, newbie business and technology pitfalls, reaching farther along the path to make new mistakes – the ones you inevitably have to make to be disruptive. If you’re reaching for the moon, you can get there faster with an experienced pilot.

2. Network
We all know that in business, especially with new businesses, it’s about who you know. Tapping your network is critical to early success and valuable customer introductions. Boomers have networks spanning decades, typically much bigger than those of Gen-X or Gen-Y peers and reaching higher into organizations. You cannot build that overnight and indeed, a great network is invaluable.

3. Stability
Boomers who join startups typically know what they are in for. Either they are financially stable enough to weather the storms or they have made calculated risks. You gain a broader foundation and base upon which to draw when you have lived long enough to have earned a few gray hairs.

4. People Skills
Boomers know how to engage in person, at the cafe and in the board room. You couldn’t “virtually” interact when boomers were growing up. Those real live life skills may be going by the wayside for youth today, but when it comes to developing business partnerships, negotiating deals and even hiring employees, there is no replacing face-to-face experience.

5. Crisis Buffer
Startups offer a truly fantastic roller coaster ride for those who chose that path. Sometimes, it gets a little hairy. With age, comes a mellowness that could only have been gained by knowing that however bad something is – it will change. This is what you learn in life – things change, crises pass. In life you learn, to be successful, one must look beyond near term chaos and pain to the real goal with a steady focus on the end game.

6. Efficiency
You may be thinking now that boomers are slow and methodical – which can be the case. How then, can that be better than a caffeinated 20-year-old? Efficiency. Work smarter, not harder. When you do something many times in life, you tend to figure out what you can shortcut and what you can’t. You can get 80% of the benefit with 20% of the effort in almost everything. It’s a universal rule. If you’re old enough to have heard that phrase a million times and have witnessed its raw power – you must be a boomer.

Having said all this, the very best company, large or small, has a diverse team – diverse in age, gender, background, etc. You can take any business to the next level if you can leverage the best everyone has to offer with a diverse group. There is strength in diversity. It is a universal, undeniable truth.

Posted in Customers, Ivytalk®, Leadership | 3 Comments

Personalized Customer Communication

Posted on February 10, 2012 by

Marketing nirvana is being able to reach each individual in the way they prefer with information they want. In pursuit of this nirvana, the consumer is being chased from all angles. They localize content to where you are. They push information to you based on past behavior – they don’t know if it relates to you this minute, but it’s better than random information.

Brands and advertisers are using every possible tool to diagnose your preferences – except perhaps the most obvious – let you choose.

Why is this?

For one thing, systems are not flexible enough to let you communicate the way you want, when you want, about what you want.

We want to hear from you, so please take this cash register receipt you got while in your car, then later dig it out of the bag, sit down at your computer and provide us with information so we can provide you better service. Never mind that you can’t read the 20 digit code you have to enter because you spilled your coffee. How many times have you given feedback using the cash register receipt? Exactly.

In order for a consumer to let you know their preferences – they must be able to communicate with you. If they cannot do so in a way that is convenient for them, guess what happens? They don’t just offer up that valuable information. You must bribe them or only hear from them when they are really upset with you and are forced to communicate your way – which by the way makes them even more angry. There are now many public and very convenient means for consumers to “talk” to brands – Twitter, Facebook, blogs, etc., but similarly convenient private means are extremely limited. Although companies would like to hear privately about a bad customer experience, it gets put on the Facebook page because that is more convenient for the customer than finding the right form on the website or being forced to navigate through a voice system to eventually get connected with a live person (probably not the right one).

Instead of forcing people to go to websites or call you on the phone – let them drop you an email, send you a text or interact with a smart phone app – right then and there – when they want – where they want – in the way they choose. There is only one service on the planet today that enables this integrated public inbound communication and routes all this information automatically to the right place while providing a permanent personal email address, phone number and smart phone app to the consumer to enable personalized direct communication with any brand, group, business or organization and that is Ivytalk. That is a game changer.

Posted in Ads, Customers, Enterprise Communication, Group Messaging, Ivytalk®, marketing, mobile customer service, Technology, texting | Tagged , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

What is EAS and Why Are They Testing It?

Posted on November 19, 2011 by

Baby boomers all know the deep wailing sound of the Emergency Broadcast System (EBS). “This is only a test” “If this were a real emergency, you’d be given instructions…” The EBS was created in 1963 to warn the country of pending disaster like incoming nuclear weapons. The system worked by notifying radio and TV broadcasters to transmit a set of tones and an audio message. EBS was in use until 1997, when it was replaced by the EAS, Emergency Alerting System. EBS was an analog system and EAS is a more feature rich, efficient digital system. Although you will still hear those wailing alert tones, they are now accompanied by digital messages which can flash across the screen. The difference is like FM radio vs. Pandora. The EBS was never used for a national emergency. EAS has also never been used for a national emergency.

EAS is broadcast on all US FM, AM, TV, Cable and Satellite services. EAS became part of a larger program called IPAWS – Integrated Public Alert and Warning System which involves collecting and distributing info to/from many more sources.

On Nov 9, 2011, there was a national test of the EAS system. This was the first one and as expected much of the system worked as planned, but there were issues that need to be worked out. That’s why you do tests.

My observation is that the system is kind of like using robo-dialing to reach people in an emergency. You may need a voice message if trying to reach everyone like the senior who doesn’t use email or have a cell phone or use Facebook (an increasingly rare person), but many people will get the information only if delivered a different way like email, SMS, etc. I did not see or hear any of the actual broadcast tests myself, but received info about the test from multiple online sources and other sources. That is why there is IPAWS. We all get info from many different sources now so EAS is not enough.

#IPAWS has at its core a message format called CAP – Common Alerting Protocol. #Ivytalk was designed using #CAP as the message structure because of IPAWS. Commercial systems can be an integral part of disseminating information both into and out of national systems. We embraced this vision from day 1.

The really good news in all this is that information travels around the world in real-time today. We are so informed, it would be hard to miss any major event or the billions of tiny ones every day. IPAWS is a US coordinating entity for authorization and distribution of official event info over multiple broadcast channels. In the emergency preparedness world, there is no such thing as too much information dissemination. Controlling that, however, has become a mighty big task. That’s why there is clearly a need for private means to disseminate information over multiple channels efficiently and effectively and one reason Ivytalk is being received by customers with such enthusiasm. Historically, “emergency systems” did one thing and sat idle the rest of the time. Primary communication systems need to serve also as emergency systems so contact info is current and people know how to use them without thinking. When you use Ivytalk for customer support or mobile concierge or to give your employees a heads up on the upcoming insurance enrollment period, you are testing your private “EAS.” That is powerful technology.

Given the population growth and the strain on all resources, we must look to technology for efficiency in all areas. The world’s greatest problems cannot be solved without technical solutions to improve food production, energy utilization and production, clean water availability, biodiversity preservation and communication (which enables accessibility, security and better standards of living). Embrace innovation, but also look at the long-term implication with any technology. EAS may not be perfect, but it is a good example of coordinated efforts to think ahead to solve problems. Preparation is much less expensive the alternative.

Posted in Ivytalk®, Public Safety, Technology, texting | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Wireless Hall of Fame 2011

Posted on October 19, 2011 by

The Wireless History Foundation’s Wireless Hall of Fame dinner on October 10th, 2011 was like the academy awards of the wireless industry. Everyone was there from Dan Hesse, TV commercial famous CEO of #Sprint to Marty Cooper, father of the cell phone. Every carrier’s executives and longtime industry veterans broke bread, reminisced and sincerely honored those among them who have worked so hard to change our world as we know it through mobile. It wasn’t easy to build this industry.

Washington had a major presence there with one of their own being inducted into the Hall of Fame, Nick Kauser.
From www.WirelessHistoryFoundation.org: Nick Kauser served as Chief Technology Officer of four major wireless carriers including Rogers Cantel, McCaw Cellular Communications, AT&T Wireless Services, and Clearwire Corporation, which he also co-founded. Kauser built the first nationwide network across both Canada and the United States. He led U.S. standards processes, aggressively explored new technologies, and laid the basis for nationwide automatic roaming.

Nick is now retired, but serves on several boards including Ivycorp’s board.

Nick Kauser was recruited by Craig McCaw to take cellular to the next step – build a seamless national network as he had done in Canada with Cantel. Each of the four inductees was introduced by a close friend. Craig introduced Nick. Filled with humor and charm Craig described Nick as someone everyone trusts and everyone loves. “Is there anyone in this room who doesn’t love Nick Kauser?” he asked. The close personal bond between them was obvious as Nick thanked Craig, voice crackling and then proceeded to give all the credit to Craig first, and then the teams of people who worked with him and for him. That is so Nick – humble to the core.

The shared history in the room was palpable as old friends and arch rivals all reunited with the spirit of having just spent the last several decades conquering the world in the wireless industry’s version of the Amazing Race.
Timed coincident with the CTIA Enterprise and Applications show, it was clear that there is a changing of the guard. There were many newer faces mixed among the industry veterans, many of whom have now retired.

There was something different about this group – a sense of dedication and family. They didn’t just do it for the money – it was an adventure – a chance to really change the world. Sure, many people in the room have made fortunes, but you got the sense that they’d have done it without that because they believed in the potential of wireless to change the world. They certainly weren’t wrong about that.

Posted in Ivytalk®, Leadership | Leave a comment

Biggest Mistake Companies Make With Daily Deals

Posted on September 23, 2011 by

There is a great commercial on TV where one kid is sitting in a room and another one runs up and joins him. The “newer” kid is offered an ice cream cone, but the original kid is denied because he is not “newer.” The look on his face does not require words.

I will use restaurants as the example, but this really applies to all companies and brands. First, understand it is always less expensive to retain your existing customers than to acquire new ones. Marketing, it would follow, would start with caring for existing loyal customers and then working to expand your customer base by encouraging your existing customers to buy more, refer new customers and provide testimonials to the entire world online.

Now, let’s look at the restaurant that signs up to offer a compelling deal to a huge list of potential new customers. Sounds great, right? Not if you are already a loyal customer. The restaurant becomes packed usually overwhelming the staff, the service suffers and everyone around you is getting a steep discount even though you have frequented the place for the last 5 years. This scenario is playing out nightly in restaurants near you.

Having actually owned a restaurant at one time, I can tell you that such discounts rarely bring in the type of long term customers you really want. More typically, you attract the two entrée, two waters, coming in only once because they would never pay full price but really wanted to try the place…you get the picture.

Take care of the customers you have today. Seek to understand how to best satisfy the customers you have, and then, reach out to new customers. People are creatures of habit and they would love to be loved back by their favorite brands and places giving them more reason not to change. Deals can be a great thing, just don’t forget who is financing that ad campaign.

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The Mobile Consumer

Posted on September 18, 2011 by

The vast majority of consumers in the world have mobile phones. Companies need to realize there is a mad rush to connect with mobile consumers in a way that accommodates their preferences and engages them.

In person trade lasted more than 5000 years before print engagement, i.e. mail order catalogs, came along. Only 250 years of print preceded online engagement and sales. But only 3 years of online selling preceded mobile commerce. The world is now mobile and it’s never going back. The rate of change in behavior is being driven by technology. It is the catalyst in this reaction.

Just as web technology required non-technical companies to now have IT departments and web projects, mobile engagement requires mobile expertise. The mobile experience offer an opportunity to be more interactive, more connected and more personal with consumers. Those who do this well will clearly differentiate themselves from those who do not. Just as online companies drove brick and mortar ones out of business (borders, blockbuster, etc), so too will mobile commerce companies drive online-only companies out of business.

The consumer is mobile.

Posted in Customers, Ivytalk®, mobile commerce, mobile customer service | Tagged , , , , | 10 Comments

SMS or QR Code?

Posted on September 14, 2011 by

We recently released Ivytalk Mobile which allows for an SMS call-to-action. Which is better – #SMS or #QR codes for mobile customer engagement?

QR codes have been leveraged in many ways and rightly so. QR codes offer an innovative way to transfer digital data to someone’s phone simply by taking a picture. 2D barcodes are a tool to connect with customers, but not the only one. SMS, which is the most ubiquitous communication channel in the world and the history of mankind is an excellent tool for connecting with customers or partners or anyone really. SMS is immediate, personal, secure, and private. But, SMS is not as easy for a business to send/receive, as email, for instance or to provide a weblink through a QR code. SMS goes over private mobile networks. That is where the glue is needed to make it easy.

I often use my kids as testers. We went to SeaWorld in June. SeaWorld had published a QR code which allowed you to view the park map and schedule on your phone. I thought this was pretty cool. For my kids, finding the app, snapping the picture and looking it up was too much work for the return. Customer Connection requires the user to do very little. Inertia is a powerful force. Additionally, people need incentive. There is a reason most mobile campaigns have a drawing or other incentive attached.

CBS chose SMS over QR codes for a call to action in a recent promotion. As companies learn what works and what doesn’t, SMS is likely to emerge as an excellent way to connect the dots with your customers.

Posted in Customers, Group Messaging, Ivytalk® | Tagged , , | Leave a comment