#88: No time to think, Adobe scoops Marketo, the Dreamforce zeitgeist, the power of ignorance and arrogance
Summer, you were grand. But move over, it's sweata weatha.
In this edition of The World's Best Newsletter (#88):
1. No time to think (new research)
2. Quit blaming the goldfish
3. Adobe focuses on the enterprise w/ Marketo
4. Dreamforce content pillars
5. Women doubtful the nation is ready to elect them
6. Quote of the week: Stick it out
7. Bonus quote of the week: ignorance and arrogance
Let's get into it!
1. No time to think
The team at Workfront put out some new research they call the "State of Work 2018."
Most egregious to me: 58% of knowledge workers say they’re so swamped with getting day-to-day work done that they don’t have time to think beyond their daily to-do list.
You want to innovate. To do that, you need time to innovate. So, if you’re in a management position, encourage your team to schedule ample time to brainstorm and reflect on ways to reach extraordinary goals by doing their work in a completely new way. Remember that the point isn’t to have a team that seems busy. The point is to reach results that wildly exceed prior expectations.
Other findings:
86% of us don’t have a clear sense of what our colleagues are working on
We consistently rank ourselves as the most productive employees at work — ahead of co-workers and even more ahead of company leadership.
On average, we say that 61% of the work we do matters to us personally, with Baby Boomers being more likely than Millennials to say so (67% vs. 53%).
2. Quit blaming the goldfish
"Quit blaming the goldfish. Our audience is capable of paying attention as long as we grab and hold their attention." - Andrew Davis a couple of weeks ago at Content Marketing World
Seinfeld too always felt attention span was a misnomer. "People have an infinite attention span if you are entertaining them."
Let your last Netflix binge serve as evidence...
PS: I'll explain why we need to stop begging for our audience's attention at the MarketingProfs B2B Forum this year in San Francisco. Code B2BFriend18 gets you $100 off your ticket.
3. Adobe focuses on the enterprise w/ Marketo
For a cool $4.75B. Via TechCrunch:
While Adobe is well on its way to being a $10 billion company, the majority of its income continues to come from Creative Cloud, which includes Photoshop, InDesign and Illustrator, among other Adobe software stalwarts.
But for a long time, the company has wanted to be much more than a creative software company. It’s wanted a piece of the enterprise marketing pie. Up until now, that part of the company, which includes marketing and analytics software, has lagged well behind the Creative Cloud business.
The timing was also a nice way to make sure they some buzz from Dreamforce next week and Ignite (MSFT).
CMO Sarah Kennedy shared this yesterday on LinkedIn:
“Vista will make $3 billion in two years from the Marketo sale, the biggest realized profit from a single company in the private equity firm’s 18-year history.” - Forbes
A "red letter day," as she put it, indeed. Congrats to all my friends at Marketo (disclosure: client!)
4. Dreamforce content pillars
Speaking of Dreamforce, I found the content pillars this year to be interesting:
Trust (related: truth)
Innovation and AI
Equality and Sustainability
Personal Empowerment and Mindfulness
To me, this represents the zeitgeist of the business world in 2018 in a nutshell. At least Benioff's perspective of it :) Are you tapping into these narratives?
5. Women doubtful the nation is ready to elect them
New research from Pew Research Center in the NYTimes finds that a record number of women are running for office, but Americans are skeptical that voters are ready for them.
Fifty-seven percent of women now say this skepticism is a major reason that women are underrepresented in high political offices, up from 41 percent in 2014. Just under a third of men say so, a share that is unchanged.
And, some simply don't believe in the structural issues that exist to compound this issue (gender discrimination, sexual harassment and societal expectations for women to do more than men to prove themselves):
When asked if gender discrimination was a major reason there were fewer women than men in higher office, 68 percent of Democratic women said yes, as did 58 percent of Democratic men and 48 percent of Republican women. Just 14 percent of Republican men said discrimination was a reason.
Over all, people were more likely to cite structural issues — especially women and Democrats. The minority who said women were underrepresented in leadership because of their individual traits were more likely to be Republican, men or both. Nearly half of Republican men, on the other hand, said women weren’t in higher office because they weren’t interested in it.
This isn't the f*cking Easter Bunny, your belief is not necessary for these issues to exist. It is, however, necessary if we are to overcome them. (Related.)
6. Quote of the week: Stick it out
"Record it, stick it out, if it sells... alright"
This video made the rounds again recently - Frank Zappa talking about the importance of taking risks, describing the recording industry in the 60s.
Commenting on younger music execs who say "we can't take that risk..." he harkens back to when execs just shipped it. They didn't understand it (they being the "old cigar-chomping guys") but they shipped it.
"Get rid of that attitude and get back to 'who knows! Take a chance' that entrepreneurial spirit."
7. Bonus quote of the week: ignorance and arrogance
I'm working on a project that requires long amounts of written content condensed into a single publication, (yeah, the b-word. Rhymes with nook.) and reading perspectives of creatives like Zappa and most recently, Do the Work by Steven Pressfield:
Ignorance and arrogance are the artist and entrepreneur’s indispensable allies. She must be clueless enough to have no idea how difficult her enterprise is going to be—and cocky enough to believe she can pull it off anyway.
If you're working on any kind of project that requires courage and focus and overcoming self-doubt and creativity... read this book. And remember, done is better than perfect.
Just ship it.
Thanks for reading, as always.
Katie
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Upcoming events:
So you wanna be a conference speaker? Join me and Laura Fitton (INBOUND) and Bobbie Carlton (Innovation Women speakers' bureau) at our Boston Women in Digital meetup Sep 26th, 6-8pm. Moderated by the one and only Britta Schellenberg
I've curated some of the best B2B marketing content and will be walking through them at this year's Connect to Convert event in Boston, October 3-5th, 2018. Save 20% with code BCVIP.
I am so so excited to be keynoting this year's Spiceworld 2018, speaking to a room of B2B marketers and sales teams. I'll dig into what makes the most transformative voices so effective - and how courageous brands move buyers from apathy to action. October 8-10th, 2018 in Austin TX. See you there?
Join me in SFO Oct 22 and NYC Oct 24 for Event Marketer's multi-city world tour - I'm talking activation without exploitation. This is a must-attend for conference organizers and producers.
I'll be speaking at Young Women in Digital's "Digital Marketing & Your Career" event October 25th at Google in Cambridge. RSVP here.
Can I have your attention please? Hear me share my strategies for breaking through the noise at the MarketingProfs B2B Forum in San Francisco this November. November 13-16, 2018, San Francisco. Use code "B2BFriend18" and save some cash!
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