Business History Matters

Building on the Past

blog@historyfactory.com (The History Factory) — Wed, 07 Sep 2011 14:29:00 +0000

By Scott McMurray

As the local television affiliates scrambled post-Irene to capture shots of our beloved, broken ocean front boardwalk in Spring Lake, New Jersey, they missed a telling detail: many of the boards were twisted or missing. But the squat concrete supports remain undamaged. If the camera operators had ventured out onto the beach and looked back at the supports, they might have zoomed in on three initials appearing in sharp relief: WPA.

That’s right, the boardwalk was built with labor and materials funded by the Works Progress Administration (WPA) the historic Depression-era program President Franklin D. Roosevelt created in 1935 to put millions of Americans back to work. For those of us who take a storytelling approach to corporate and institutional histories, the narrative arc of the Great Depression, of which the WPA is a key chapter, is an American mother lode. The source of much of modern-day business and health and safety regulation that reshaped American life, it continues to resonate in the ways in which society and business interact decades later. Do those concrete supports on the beach have a story to tell?

Today we have persistently high unemployment—especially in construction and related trades—and a dearth of new jobs being created. And we have billions of reconstruction work to be done just to return to the status quo ante—Irene followed months of snow, fire, drought, flood and tornado damage just this year, which caused damage across the country. Significant improvements to the existing infrastructure will cost billions more. And, of course, we have trillions in government debt created over the past decade-plus to fight wars abroad and in response to the economic crisis that began in 2008 at home.

The polarizing chill of the 2012 election cycle is already hardening political positions in Washington and around the country when it comes to grappling with the economy. Indeed, government dysfunction was cited by Standard & Poor’s as an important consideration in its recent decision to downgrade U.S. government debt. The debate enters yet another stage with President Barack Obama’s speech to Congress on Thursday, September 8.

Government-funded infrastructure spending is being touted as an important component of the plan. Some of the administration’s political opponents are telegraphing just as clearly that they will oppose such spending if it at a minimum is not offset with spending cuts elsewhere. Corporate America by and large has been squarely in the cut, or at least don’t increase, the deficit camp in order to get the economy growing, much as it was during the Great Depression.

Tome-length histories are still being written on whether and to what extent the WPA and the rest of Roosevelt’s alphabet soup of government programs turned the economy around—don’t forget the recession of 1937 after he raised taxes! And note that the economy was rebounding in 1938 and 1939 well before World War II started in Europe!

Maybe Irene will prove to be a turning point in the current debate on infrastructure spending and unemployment. Small businesses in particular stand to benefit from government-funded spending focusing on infrastructure. Tens of thousands of contractors around the country can put tradesmen and women to work almost overnight to fix and improve the nation’s roads, bridges and railways. The ripple effect benefiting related industries happens almost as fast. Taking the steps necessary to spur employment in the small-business sector is highly likely to increase consumer spending and confidence, which drives demand for a broad range of corporate goods and services.

Did the people who approved the spending on the Spring Lake boardwalk supports in the 1930s realize that decision would play an important part in attracting millions of tourism dollars to the local and state economy in the decades that followed? Odds are, they were focusing on the immediate need to create jobs for the legions of unemployed in the area. The supports were a legitimate infrastructure project with a defined scope and clear purpose. It must have looked like a pretty good investment at the time.

Patents Be Damned

blog@historyfactory.com (The History Factory) — Mon, 29 Aug 2011 16:42:00 +0000

by Anthony Crews

It could be worse; they could be hiring gangs to shoot at each other. In mid-August, Google announced a bid to acquire Motorola Mobility for $12.5 billion, a 63 percent premium over the closing price that day. If approved, the acquisition will be Google’s biggest to date and would double its workforce. Why would arguably America’s best-known tech company overpay for a declining cell phone firm? It’s the latest maneuver in the escalating Patent War.

The U.S. software patent system is routinely compared to the Cold War arms race. Companies stockpile patents and use the courts to prevent competitors from using the technology then sue if they do; everyone else builds up to defend against such litigation. Some firms exist only to trade in dubious patents and tie up companies in court—called these “non-aligned” companies. In what sounds like a Cold War ideological debate, Google accused Apple of being “anticompetitive” in its patent-amassing, while Apple CFO Peter Oppenheimer in turn grumbled “Companies should invent their own technology.” In 1999, U.S. firms profited $4 billion from patents, while associated legal costs approached $14 billion. NPR’s This American Life summarized much of this and more in an excellent recent piece on the state of patent law.

While there is a robust debate over whether one should be able to patent software at all, the general concept of patents goes back at least to a 1474 statute issued by the Republic of Venice in which the authorities decreed legal protection would be offered to new inventions if their creators filed the proper paperwork. Patents might date have originated before that in 14^th century England, or perhaps Ancient Greece. In the United States the idea of patents is enshrined in the U.S. Constitution, and the first U.S. Patent Act was passed in 1790. In short, patents have been around for a very long time and were part of the basic founding vision of American society. Of course the founders could not have predicted the implications of the digital revolution, and subsequent court decisions haven’t clarified matters. Intuitively a good idea—rewarding enterprising individuals with profit opportunity while allowing the public to access it and industry to improve it—a dysfunctional patent system can cripple an industry.

Witness the state of the U.S. film industry in the early 20^th century, which devolved into a bloody criminal mess. Motion pictures at the time were controlled entirely by the Film Trust, led by (the) Thomas Edison, who held patents on the motion picture camera, projector, and 14 other pieces of equipment crucial to the filmmaking process. He created the trust with the intention of monopolizing the entire industry, and only permitted the creation of wholesome Christian entertainment. For a time, the trust controlled every aspect of the business, from manufacturing film stock to theater distribution.

Renegade Jewish filmmakers led by German immigrant Carl Laemmle began making their own films on the Lower East Side in New York City and played them in nickel theaters throughout the city. Eventually the mayors of Chicago and New York banned the films outright, blaming them for inciting criminal acts. When the law was insufficient, the authorities hired thugs to intimidate nickelodeon patrons. Refusing to be intimidated, the independent filmmakers enlisted Jewish gangsters including the infamous Yiddish Black Hand to fight back. Soon they were pilfering Edison’s equipment and shooting at rival Film Trust toughs. Drawn by cheap labor and consistent weather on the Pacific coast, the independents moved West beyond easy reach of gangsters and patent officials alike (the Trust sued Laemmle alone 289 times in 3 years). Out of that group arose the giants of studio-era Hollywood: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Loews Theatre, Paramount Pictures, Universal Studios, Twentieth-Century Fox, the Warner Bros. studios, and Laemmle’s Universal Studios.

The major software firms haven’t quite come to blows yet, opting instead lob lawsuits. Despite the Byzantine patent system, the industry has had great recent success, so much so that some wonder if we are experiencing a new tech bubble. If that bubble pops and survival becomes at stake for some, the Yiddish Black Hand may well find more employment.

Not every industry or company has such a difficult time with the patent system. How has yours dealt with the patent system in the past? Have you had to overcome it, or has it worked for you?

(Photo: Carl Laemmle holding an Oscar in 1930. From Los Angeles Times photographic archive [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons)

Reforming Pirates

blog@historyfactory.com (The History Factory) — Mon, 08 Aug 2011 14:20:00 +0000

By Anthony Crews

I didn’t see it, but they said she was led from her dorm room in cuffs, leaving behind the treasure chest of illegally downloaded music, movies, and TV shows for which she had been detained. It could have been me. I had been pirating media for years in college through services like Kazaa and a DC++ file–sharing community on campus. Napster was fighting for its life while I was in high school. I had been assigned the topic of music piracy during a debate—I won, but don’t remember for which position—so I was aware of the issue. Whatever the facts, it didn’t feel illegal. The arrest of a fellow student might have stopped me. It didn’t. I ultimately tired of peer-to-peer file sharing for other reasons: big media files devoured computer memory, their quality was a crapshoot, and they brought viruses.

Farhad Manjoo, Slate’s tech columnist, kept to those old habits for years. His piracy was grander and longer-lived than mine ever was, but he is now a self-described “reformed pirate.” Manjoo was once a frequent user of BitTorrent, a movie file–sharing site that has typically dominated global Internet bandwidth. That is, until last spring.

Netflix made big news in March when broadband company Sandvine reported that during peak hours Netflix used about one-third of all Internet traffic, making it the single-largest source of overall traffic, surpassing illegal file sharing for the first time…ever. This came on the heels of news that Netflix will create its own original programming, allegedly outbidding giants HBO and AMC, lately the sources of the best programming in TV’s new Golden Age, to produce a David Fincher–directed drama starring Kevin Spacey.

Netflix launched in response to a broken system. Its co-founder Reed Hastings, faced with a $40 late fee from a VHS copy of Apollo 13 that he didn’t want to tell his wife about, decided to create something better. Within two years, the flat fee/no due date/free shipping model that exists in the company today was in place. Once it was created, the company’s streaming service led the industry.

In a recent article, Manjoo describes how that service dissuaded him from pirating movies. By his measure, Netflix was cheap enough with a good enough selection of titles, and the service worked terrifically. But his conversion boiled down to one factor: “Piracy requires work. Netflix doesn't.” Here Netflix should be applauded for doing something important—convincing consumers to pay for something they could otherwise get for free.

That’s not exactly a new concept in business history, and is reminiscent of the struggle between cable and broadcast television. The old guard doubted consumers would pay for content on cable when network programming was free. It wasn’t until the live broadcast of the Thrilla in Manila in 1975 and the subsequent rise of HBO and MTV that cable planted deeper roots.

The latest Netflix news might seem less encouraging. After a 60 percent price increase to their basic package, customers have been in an uproar. Many have dropped some or all of Netflix’s services. Its competitors are offering discounts to switch. One recent report finds that Netflix’s brand perception has plummeted below lowly Blockbuster.

Speaking as an historian and Netflix apologist, some perspective is needed. We learned from the rise of cable that people will pay for quality, easily accessible entertainment despite free alternatives. And the music business learned, despite its resistance, that consumers will have their media digitized whether an industry likes it or not. Netflix has a framework for even greater success, not least because you can watch it on almost any platform. The ongoing popularity of BitTorrent indicates latent demand for the kinds of services Netflix strives to offer—more, better, newer entertainment. While the film industry continues to struggle, it may be more eager to strike deals and improve Netflix’s overall library, the kind of improvement that might stop pirate dabblers like Manjoo from relapsing and more consumers to go legit.

In the early 19^th century the United States issued letters of marque to U.S. merchant ships, granting them license to arm themselves and attack foreign ships. The government would then take a cut from the sale of plunder. Piracy, in effect, was legalized and made profitable. Many companies since have followed the same principle, creating a legitimate business where only illicit demand existed. Netflix is the latest of these. Sadly, before its rise, a lone college girl in Ohio had to walk the plank.

(Photo: Netflix headquarters in Los Gatos, California. From Coolcaesar at Wikipedia Commons)

Mixed Messages

blog@historyfactory.com (The History Factory) — Mon, 01 Aug 2011 14:48:00 +0000

By: Scott McMurray

There we were with a couple weeks’ worth of conference calls with the client’s technology crew under our belts. We had been ironing out the fine points involved in inserting QR (quick response) codes in our latest corporate history book. These included some pretty cool links to extended video clips and audio interviews we conducted with company and industry movers and shakers, the kinds of sources that form the basis of our heritage management approach to producing books, videos, exhibits, websites and social media initiatives. Employees will be able to take their smartphones or iPads and scan the QR codes to have the linked material pop up on their mobile screens. It would be hard to find a handier way to reinforce your heritage messaging with newbies and frontline leaders alike.

Leave it to the nerd swarm at Google to zig just when the rest of us want to zag. I opened up the July 24, 2011, Sunday New York Times business section to find an article and photos about Think Quarterly, Google’s business-to-business publication. While the rest of us can find this very informative publication online (or if you prefer, via the QR code below), the Times pointed out that Google had printed a limited edition hardcover version of the book for select clients. As the article noted, “The fast information company is inviting its clients to a data slow dance.”

Ouch. Is Google going retro on us in the book department just as we embrace all things online? I don’t think so. Let’s note the obvious. The book looks gorgeous. What better way for Google, the doyen of data, to stand out from the social media crowd?

Messaging works across media. Sometimes one medium is the solution, sometimes many. Decrying the state of Twitter Nation is fine and good, as long as you don’t ignore the immediacy and impact it affords. As for books, it’s nice to have Google demonstrating their high-value place in the media mix. ~

Celebrating...the Birth and Coming-of-Age of the MP3

blog@historyfactory.com (The History Factory) — Thu, 28 Jul 2011 16:59:00 +0000

We love music at The History Factory.

Maybe it’s our theory that a good creative team should work like a jazz ensemble or jam band, creating a whole greater than the sum of its parts. Or maybe it’s because our Founder/CEO’s earliest business venture was the Music Box, a series of record stores he owned and operated in the Quad Cities during the early 1970s.

Bruce Weindruch’s passion for collecting, organizing and distributing LPs isn’t far from The History Factory’s early and evolving role as an archival partner for businesses. Like business history, music history is one exciting way to contextualize the human experience. There’s a reason why archives and albums are both called “records.” Our past must be played—remembered, repeated, remixed, remastered—rather than merely collect dust on a shelf. In the heritage management world, this is the difference between archival preservation versus use and repurposing.

My earliest music experience was with vinyl. The CD was the first format to offer easy “shuffle” play, taking the heretofore linear format of albums and mixing things up a bit, but those old 33- and 45-rpm LP collections were synonymous with cover art and liner notes, a visual/tactile experience that has largely fallen prey to the digital age of music. This week in history offers up plenty of related touchpoints.

On July 15, 1995, a German think tank—the Fraunhofer Society—developed the innovative audio compression algorithm (a fantastic origin story of the MP3 can be found here). As the latest (though certainly not the last) word in a lineage of musical formats, we can trace back to the days of Thomas Edison cutting grooves into wax cylinders, the MP3 gave rise to Napster, the iPod and an unparalleled era of music sharing and consumption.

On July 19, 1999, They Might Be Giants released Long Tall Weekend, the world’s first major full-length album offered exclusively online via MP3. This milestone effectively ushered in a new period of digital-only albums.

And on July 19, 2011—yes, exactly 12 years later—Icelandic sensation Bjork released Biophilia, the world’s first “app album,” described on iTunes as a “suite of original music and interactive, educational artworks and musical artifacts exploring music, nature and technology.” Yup.

Check this out:

Biophilia is heady, and won’t be for everyone (the first in-app experience, “Crystalline,” is an interactive game that, according to the app, “reflects Bjork’s spatial experience of verse-chorus form…as a tool for learning about song structure”). But it does herald a return to the days of visual/tactile music experiences, as well as an evolution on that concept—something more interactive, immersive and educational pointing to the use and repurposing of music, rather than merely preservation.

As a final celebration of musical “use and repurposing” here are a few links I love right now.

COUNTRY CLASSICS – Sponsored by Dust-to-Digital, this weekly radio show allows Joe Bussard to unearth his extremely rare 78rpm records and treat us to roots music from string bands, country blues, jazz, bluegrass, gospel and even Hawaiian music. It’s the best of deep music archives made accessible through digital technology.

THE DIARY - From “self-appointed mixtape champion of the world” Chris Read, The Diary is a “chronological mix of hip-hop’s landmark recordings by order of release from 1979-2007.” There have been countless mashups before and since, but for the uninitiated, this is a perfect example of how a storehouse of old content can be put to new use, educating and delighting us at the same time.

“Après le deluge”

blog@historyfactory.com (The History Factory) — Mon, 18 Jul 2011 13:53:00 +0000

If you want to measure how America feels about large commercial and investment banks in the wake of the Great Recession, simply open your browser, enter the search term “wall street bankers” into Google, then click on Images. The resulting pages of derogatory cartoons, photographs and headlines provide a vivid portrayal of just how much anger and ridicule is being directed at men and women who make their living at the world’s leading financial institutions. It gets very personal.

With these cartoons in mind it’s not too hard to imagine the negative effects for the financial services industry: deteriorating employee morale, the diminishing pride of the retiree community, or the weakening confidence of investors and customers. It’s also not too hard to imagine why the time-worn stories of stability, trust, service, and innovation that financial institutions previously used to describe themselves before the global financial meltdown aren’t resonating in what has become a hostile environment.

A considerable number of The History Factory’s engagements over the past eighteen months have been with financial institutions as they recast their stories to fit the new realities of the marketplace. Recognizing that rebuilding trust among a wide range of stakeholders is paramount for their success, our clients have found that heritage is a powerful resource for understanding how they’ve met similar challenges in the past, authenticating current messaging, and contextualizing their vision for the future. They’ve also found that stories—delivered via intranets, exhibits, speeches, blogs and other forms of social media—are the most effective way to ensure that credible and memorable messages get to their target audiences.

StoryArc™—The History Factory’s story-discovery and story-design methodology—is based on the most successful narrative algorithms in history. We begin with a clear understanding of the objectives that the stories are meant to serve and the intended audience. Our story-generation process then distills the client’s inventory of experience into an optimized theme and customized narrative. The result: dramatically amplified messaging power targeting specific audiences. Our financial services clients are finding that the precision of the StoryArc™ process is delivering predictable outcomes at a time when they can ill-afford any communications missteps in an already-skeptical environment.

The Modern Corporate Archive

blog@historyfactory.com (The History Factory) — Tue, 12 Jul 2011 12:36:00 +0000

After Indiana Jones retrieved the Ark of the Covenant in Raiders of the Lost Ark, having fended off hordes of snakes and Nazis to get it, he returned the priceless treasure to the authorities in Washington, D.C., where military officials promised him it would be forever displayed in a prominent museum. Suspicious, Indiana asked the officials who would be working on the Ark. Their cryptic response: “Top. Men.” The final scene depicts the Ark sealed in a wooden crate and placed in a nondescript government warehouse, presumably never to be seen again.

At The History Factory, we often work with clients who wonder who actually views their materials, and for whom the Ark storage facility in Raiders would look familiar. Perhaps these companies have a nominal archive, but it is tucked away in a forgotten closet or dank basement storage area, neglected and ill-used. For corporate communicators, this is particularly unfortunate, since the assets contained in company archives can be valuable instruments to engage employees or appeal to a market that is increasingly nostalgic and interested in authenticity. When organized properly and digitized, corporate archives can be accessed as easily as email or a search engine, making your job immediately easier. For the forward-looking archivist or communicator, there are several questions to consider.

In today’s post-recession climate when many businesses are closely monitoring costs, an archives’ relevance to larger business goals is crucial. Companies should make sure that users’ needs are met, and that the content derived from archival materials serves marketing and communications objectives, with mechanisms in place to support continuous improvement and/or expansion. Businesses have little use for archives that don’t benefit the company; ideally, an executive will champion the heritage management cause.

But no amount of lobbying will make up for a lack of gathered materials, sound infrastructure, and process. As a prerequisite, physical assets must be preserved, safe, and maintained according to the tenets of archival science. A company’s archives should have the capacity to support future additions, access, and metadata. There are many complex questions to consider, and if you are like most people, you need a professional archivist to answer them. Ultimately, your system of arrangement should collect records relevant to your contemporary business objectives and make them easily available to potential users.

Once physical assets are preserved, an infrastructure is built, and the archival philosophy is aligned with business goals, the issue most important to employees has to be addressed: ease of use. For corporate communicators, a company archive can exist on your computer screen. When you need to access an asset, it can be as simple as typing a few words and using a specialized search engine. When designing a system, it’s vital that assets are organized in such a way—tagged with the right descriptions—that users can easily find them. Companies should take an active approach to educating potential users on their system and its advantages, and encourage employees to supplement the collection in the future. Ultimately, the user interface should be simple, intuitive, and widely available. If employees throughout the company can easily use the archives, then the assets within it can directly contribute to the business, and you can begin leveraging your heritage.

While the Ark in Raiders held great power, it also destroyed any who tried to use it. Fortunately, the same is not true for the assets in your company’s archives. With sound infrastructure and the right interface, aligned with business needs, you can easily begin leveraging your heritage from your computer screen.

No fighting snakes or villains will be required.

Social Networking and Employee Engagement

blog@historyfactory.com (The History Factory) — Tue, 05 Jul 2011 12:54:00 +0000

Few companies in the United States are better-known for their corporate culture than Google. In addition to being one of the most innovative and successful technology firms in the world, it attracts top talent because of its perks, like free spa services, free on-site doctors, and a dozen free on-site gourmet restaurants—or at least it did. Even Google felt the crunch of the recession. The challenge to maintain the energy of a tech start-up multiplied after it made its first layoffs in company history in 2009 and eliminated some of those famous perks. Google remains healthier than most, but it shares a problem with many companies in the aftermath of the Great Recession: how to maintain employee engagement after a period of uncertainty?

According to a 2010 Nielsen report, 75% of global internet-users visit social networks and blogs, constituting 22% of all time spent online—and this figure is growing. Between 2009 and 2010 alone, users spent 66% more time on social networks and blogs than they did the year before. If you work in a consumer-facing industry, your company probably utilizes social media to encourage consumers to engage with your products and brands. But what about your employees? Have you asked them what they have to say?

Here at The History Factory, we have been busy helping a number of our clients develop programs that use the web to help them engage with, motivate, and learn from their employees. One of our clients, a telecommunications company with over 30,000 employees spread across the United States, partnered with us to create a cutting-edge social networking platform for their intranet. Struggling to foster a single corporate culture in a company with multiple regional identities, our client sought to unify employees around the company’s history.

By logging on with their unique user profile, answering “questions of the week” based on their personal history at the company, uploading photos and videos, and exploring what their colleagues post, employees have the opportunity to craft the company’s story through their experiences. It is also an opportunity for company leadership to connect on a more intimate level with employees and open new lines of communication. Social networking is democratic—each person can have their say.

Beyond creating a space for employees to engage with their shared history, the site benefits our client’s corporate communications in general. We incorporate materials uploaded to the site into a corporate history publication that we are also developing for this client. By creating a back-end database, the stories, photos, and videos that are collected will be accessible and available for communicators in the future.

History is a wonderful resource for engaging employees through social networking. Sharing stories about a company’s heritage grounds employee’s identities in the past while creating lasting connections for the future. New employees learn from company veterans, and everyone benefits from the sense of community that story-telling creates. By looking back at examples of the company overcoming other challenges, employees are reassured that their company has the tools to endure and even thrive in this period of economic turmoil. Establishing a positive mentality among employees is invaluable—even more than a trip to the spa.

Thinking About How to Observe the Upcoming 10th Anniversary

blog@historyfactory.com (The History Factory) — Tue, 28 Jun 2011 13:18:00 +0000

The successful military operation that eliminated Osama Bin Laden on May 2 serves as a natural coda for the saga that began ten years ago. While there are still many outstanding issues in international affairs such as the war in Afghanistan and relations with Pakistan, in the collective American psyche a chapter of history has ended. Indeed, the dramatic execution of Operation Neptune Spear caused some pundits and experts to declare the war on terror officially over.

And yet there is the popular mantra “we shall never forget.” This year marks the 10th anniversary of the September 11 attacks, which will undoubtedly garner attention from the media and all levels of government. But in the business community, there is little clarity on how to appropriately observe this milestone, if at all. As both business historians and corporate communicators, we at The History Factory feel the anniversary is a significant moment that deserves an honorable commemoration, while admittedly awkward to discuss and execute.

On the heels of the Great Recession, as a sense of cautious optimism creeps into the marketplace—and especially now that Bin Laden’s elimination has created some sense of closure—many might prefer not to look back to the traumatic events of the last decade. For some companies, holding an obligatory moment of silence and flying the American flag at half-mast may be sufficient tributes. But there are many others for whom the significance of the event on their operations and culture—or perhaps, tragic loss—impels them to pursue a more substantive observation.

In a program we undertook last year, we showcased how some of the world’s most respected companies overcame challenges on the strength of their unique cultures. To produce the program we sought out and highlighted compelling stories that testified to the value of culture as a strategic resource and catalyst for strong employee performance. Perhaps we shouldn’t have been as surprised as we were that many of the stories we encountered were about the September 11 attacks and their aftermath.

During a moment of profound challenge, many companies rose to the occasion, taking action that had lasting positive impact. Some companies can boast of heroic responses to the attacks. Staples, the world’s largest office products company, mobilized its New York-area stores to provide low-tech supplies to law enforcement, intelligence, and other responders who were working in an environment where many telecommunications were down or compromised. That experience led directly to the creation of “Staples’ Soul,” the company’s corporate responsibility initiative. This is just one of scores of examples of how September 11 was a watershed moment for businesses that affected their cultures and the standards and procedures by which they operate to this day.

There is no one-size-fits-all solution, but many companies who were deeply impacted by the events from ten years ago will need to find their own ways to observe the September 11 anniversary in a program that is authentic to their culture and their experience of history. To that end, communicators developing their company’s approach to the 10th anniversary of September 11 should consider these ideas while planning their strategy:

Be Prepared With a Program.
Especially for companies based in New York City and Washington, D.C., and those who lost personnel or had other tragic experiences, there must be a program. Without an organized plan, employees will come up with their own ideas for what should be done. They will send the message, right or wrong, that the company isn’t giving this moment the attention it deserves.

Start with The Company's Authentic September 11 Experience.
Every company’s experience was different and programming should tie directly back to it. Few will want to engage with a program that does not include a human element. It is crucial for any observation to be genuine and rooted in the lived experience of the recent past.

Create a Platform for Dialogue and Exchange.
Perhaps more than any other event in our lifetimes, everyone has a personal connection with the events of September 11, and they can identify with it in some way. Creating a mechanism where employees can share their personal experiences can strengthen a company’s culture.

Share the Company's Experiences and Assets for the Public Good.
For many organizations, their September 11 experience is a part of the broader historical record and narrative at a local and/or national level. Donating materials to cultural institutions to bolster their September 11 collections will contribute to the documentation of one of the most significant events in our nation’s history.

Involve the Community.

September 11 brought together communities and inspired a renewed sense of patriotism. Remembering September 11 by bringing people together—and perhaps honoring those who have continued to give back—provides an appropriate positive outlook to the occasion.

Be Overly Sensitive to Commercialization.
September 11 is about September 11.

Social Media, Storytelling and the Case for Candor: The History Factory and Adobe Photoshop

blog@historyfactory.com (The History Factory) — Mon, 20 Jun 2011 16:58:00 +0000

“What I have learned from our work with The History Factory is that our brand is so much more powerful when we can connect it to our history—when we can prove that we are what we say we are, because we have done this in the past. It gives us a strong foundation to stand on.” —Director of Product Management, DI, Adobe Systems Inc.

There’s a scene in the acclaimed HBO series Deadwood where E.B. Farnum, a businessman with a habit of circuitous speech, is stopped mid-sentence by the hard-talking, hard-drinking Al Swearengen, who tells Farnum: “Say what you’re gonna say, or prepare for eternal [expletive] silence!”

Words inform, inspire, inflame. In the field of corporate communications, though, practitioners too often employ vague platitudes that don’t really mean anything (“We value excellence! ”), or string enough corporate jargon together to numb their audience (“Implementing scalable functionalities through synergistic convergences of seamless deliverables…”). In an era of mass media and mass skepticism, humanity’s collective tolerance for nonsense is lower than ever. This is what brings many clients to our door.

In late 2009, we were contacted by Adobe Photoshop on the occasion of the iconic product’s 20th anniversary. They had developed some program ideas to support their anniversary, but needed our help finding content and developing authentic stories to support those programs.

While we dove into our StoryARC™ methodology, researching and crafting content for their 20th Anniversary Story Palette™, the Photoshop team tackled creating Photoshop CS5. The new version, by all accounts, had one of the most challenging development cycles in the history of the software. New challenges make for a more interesting story, and we worked with the team to capture about twenty-five oral histories, allowing the people involved to document the intensity of their multi-year experience in their own words.

The resulting video interviews formed the foundation for our ongoing “Behind the Splash Screen” campaign, which illuminates the people who build and improve Photoshop, and shares their stories of challenge and triumph. An article from Adobe’s internal newsletter Inside Adobe describes the enlightening results:

“What the DI team has learned is relevant across Adobe. The benefits of documenting and communicating a product’s history range from developing a deeper understanding of the brand and forging a stronger connection with customers through social media to giving…recognition to team members. This knowledge also enables a team to tell customers why they are doing something, not just what they are doing.”

The advent of social media allows our client to share these uniquely personal stories with a much wider audience, including their two million Facebook fans. Our first “Behind the Splash Screen” video received over 1,000 “likes” within minutes of posting, and over 20,000 YouTube views in its first week online.

The video allowed Photoshop’s external users an “honest and candid glimpse” of the reality behind the typically esoteric world of software engineering. As Inside Adobe relates, the video has also served as a way of uniting Adobe’s employees:

“I’ve got about 300 engineers…[at] sites around the world,” one Adobe employee familiar with the program explained. “I have taken the video with me on visits. It really gives people a better sense of the team’s culture; it inspires them and makes them feel part of a greater group.”

Above all, the videos work because people receive these stories without the typical filters that tend to deaden the potential effectiveness of corporate communication. A company creates authenticity by pulling back the stage curtain and revealing its actors. There is always value in carefully crafting a message, and making sure it’s fit for public consumption. But when we allow our sung and unsung heroes of business to “say what they’re gonna say,” people listen.

Listening to History vs. Histrionics

noreply@blogger.com (Scott McMurray) — Mon, 26 Jul 2010 15:08:00 +0000

Oral histories—extended interviews that capture the “you are there” feel of an executive’s career —enrich an organization’s bank of heritage assets to be leveraged in support of corporate transformation, change management, and a host of other goals. Capturing foundational stories that exemplify corporate values and “hero” stories, including lessons learned from setbacks, before they are lost to time, retirements, and changing circumstances, is an upfront investment that will pay off for decades to come.

Not always an easy sell during hard times, to be sure. But I have been pleasantly surprised, and grateful, that an increasing number of clients “get it” about oral histories as they look ahead to their next budget cycle. Here’s to a chatty 2011, and more clients leveraging their swelling banks of heritage assets.

Oral histories can also help bring to light important trends in a company’s history that might have been obscured over the years as messaging focuses, as it always seems to do, on immediate issues. This point was driven home for me recently as I was driving home from conducting a two-hour oral history with a retired executive who had been with a client for more than thirty years.

The company’s—and its industry’s—default point of view on regulation is that it has hobbled growth and innovation. No surprise there. But as we discussed the issue in depth and in the context of corporate growth and innovation over decades, a more complex picture developed. The industry probably would not have survived, let alone prospered, without protective regulations during its formative decades. And the technological breakthroughs that are driving top-line growth today for the client and the industry were essentially perfected, after a few setbacks, in the 1990s, a period of relatively tight regulation.

“I think you could say that we have benefited as much from regulation as we have been hurt by it,” the retiree reflected. Then he added with a smile, “But I am not saying that is a consensus view,” at the company.

I was thinking about that conversation while listening to NPR’s All Things Considered on the car radio. The Washington Post’s business columnist Steven Pearlstein was being interviewed about the implications of the fact that U.S. business is sitting on a record $1.8 trillion in cash, while much of the public is desperate for credit and jobs.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce cites pro-regulation Washington as a major reason business is hesitant to spend. Pearlstein had a different take. Complaining about regulation is a rationalization, he argued. Companies focused so intently on cutting over the past 18 months that too often they didn’t emphasize innovation. So with not enough in the new product pipeline, they are blaming Washington for their slow-growth woes.

Thirty years from now, will your executives’ corporate oral histories focus on that boffo job they did fighting regulation in Washington? Possibly. But for the dynamic corporate leaders, it is more likely that their corporate hero stories and the values that are reinforced over time are likely to focus on innovation and risk taking, not regulatory rear-guard actions.

Bringing Story Structure to Life

noreply@blogger.com (Christian D'Andrea) — Mon, 21 Jun 2010 13:42:00 +0000

When we work with people on finding and crafting their best stories, we use story structure to help us A) find the best material and then B) shape that material. Oftentimes when we're introducing the basic elements of story structure, we get asked, “So what do these key moments in a story look like?” Text and verbal descriptions are compelling. But nothing is quite as compelling as a visual.

So, I've been using a dynamic technique for introducing and teaching the core elements of story structure. I call it Storyboarding. At seminars and workshops, I’ll ask the participants to do some prep work beforehand. I ask them to read Christopher Vogler’s famous memo on classical story structure being used in movies, so that they will have at least a basic familiarity with the key beats of a story. And I give them a homework assignment.

Here is the assignment I recently gave to participants in a Story Structure workshop:

• By reading one or two news articles online, familiarize yourself with the story of the pirate seizure of Captain Phillips from the Maersk Alabama. This story is currently being made into a movie.

• Think about how you would tell the story.

• Start to identify some key beats of the story, using story structure. A good introduction to story structure can be found in the famous memo by Christopher Vogler. (I provide a copy of the memo.)

• The task is to pick an important element of the story—whether it’s heeding the call, the point of no return, commitment, danger, returning home, etc.— and Storyboard that scene or moment. (I provide a Storyboard as a visual aid.)

At the workshop, we project the Storyboards one at a time onto a large screen, so that we can start to see which material from the real event people chose as key moments in the story they’d craft. And the key word there is “see.” Because of the Storyboards, we can actually “see” the story take shape, see what people are thinking as they start to organize raw material into compelling narratives. The secret is in having people seek to identify the elements from the real-world events that they believe serve core dramatic functions. It allows them to focus on the craft of “picking the best moments.”

What's interesting, of course, is that one person's idea of which part of the Maersk Alabama story should be the “Ordinary World” or “Heeding the Call” is quite different from another’s. This spawns interesting discussion. And we can see where making the right choices can make the difference between a good story and a great one. If you misidentify a moment, and try to shoehorn a lesser beat into a certain part of the story's structure, try to make it play a role it's not fit for, you can weaken the ability of your story to connect with audiences.

There is a surprising outcome to this process, when one does it dynamically with a group. In the end, what you end up with is an almost entirely story-boarded project, simply by threading each individual's storyboard together into a collective storyline. The participants have, unwittingly, collaborated on crafting a story, even though they thought they were just dealing with one small moment.

These video clips, below, are from a recent workshop using the Maersk Alabama story as the basis. In these segments, we were dealing with one part of the story, what Vogler calls the “Ordinary World”:

“THE ORDINARY WORLD. The hero, uneasy, uncomfortable or unaware, is introduced sympathetically so the audience can identify with the situation or dilemma. The hero is shown against a background of environment, heredity, and personal history. Some kind of polarity in the hero’s life is pulling in different directions and causing stress.”

BP: Beyond Core Values

noreply@blogger.com (Scott McMurray) — Mon, 14 Jun 2010 19:45:00 +0000

When BP’s “Beyond Petroleum” image campaign was running full throttle a few years ago, I remember cornering a company lawyer. What was wrong with being a petroleum company, and being the best one they could be?

He shrugged. Oil was so 20th century; the company’s C-suite was focused on a future increasingly powered by alternative energy sources. Hadn’t BP’s ad agency found plenty of fresh-faced millennials to address the camera and say they expected no less of the corporate sector? Didn’t I read Tom Friedman?

BP wasn’t getting out of oil, but there was a clear sense within the company that the core business was pretty much on auto pilot. Careers were being made elsewhere, said the lawyer, who was relocating his family to keep his job.

We all know what happened next, starting with a string of serious safety and environmental failures in plants in the United States over the past few years, and ending, at least for now we hope, a mile down in the Gulf of Mexico.

Leadership in the commodity and processing industries—inherently dangerous and dirty businesses—is all about safe and efficient exploration and production that meets or exceeds environmental standards. The right thing to do, of course, but also the only way to stay ahead of the pack by avoiding regulatory pitfalls. And, yes, making a profit. Auto pilots need not apply.

It is also about pride. The best in these businesses have safety and innovation baked into their corporate cultures and values. They would no more go “beyond” them and think such core values could be taken for granted than they would walk around a drilling site without wearing a hardhat.

As a reporter for the Wall Street Journal and more recently as a writer and consultant for The History Factory, I have been continually impressed with the pride the best operators in these industries take in their work, be they Dow Chemical truck drivers in Midland, Michigan, or Saudi Aramco geologists in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia.

Working with Saudi Aramco over the past few years on a history of the oil company and the development of modern-day Saudi Arabia brought that point home. I was struck with what a central role the clean-up of the mammoth 1991 oil spill in the Arabian Gulf that occurred during the First Gulf War plays in Saudi Aramco’s corporate culture.

Company and government officials and employees rallied in an all-out effort to contain and recover the oil—and not just to protect their own production facilities and massive water desalinization plants. There was a clear sense of obligation: This was their business, even though it was Kuwait’s oil, not theirs. And this was their region. And this was their reputation at stake, as the Gulf’s largest producer and holder of proven oil reserves.

Failure was not an option. They put one of their fastest-rising executives in charge of the project, and the CEO was intimately involved in the decision making. They had the training, though certainly not on a scale matching the record-setting spill, and they had the resources, calling upon an international consortium that had just completed containment training in the area and included BP among its members.

There were setbacks, of course, but eventually they recovered nearly 1 million barrels of oil from the Gulf. The experience engendered a new level of environmental consciousness in the company culture, without anyone fooling themselves that they weren’t working for an oil company.

No one should be ready to write the last chapter on BP just yet. Beneath the tattered reputation is a company with a storied history in the birth of the Mideast oil industry, the success of the British Navy—featuring a cameo appearance by a young Winston Churchill no less—and the development of historic oil fields on Alaska’s North Slope and in the North Sea. Here’s hoping that once the oil disaster in the Gulf is contained, and a full review has occurred, BP will be able to drill down and reconnect with the core values that made it great.

Rethinking Mentors and History

noreply@blogger.com (Bruce Weindruch) — Wed, 21 Apr 2010 18:36:00 +0000

I recently became engrossed in the many obituaries of H. Edward Roberts, founder of Micro Instrumentation Telemetry Systems (MITS), who died April 1. Roberts invented the MITS Altair 8800 in the mid-1970s, often characterized as the world’s first personal computer.

It wasn’t so much that Roberts beat both Apple and IBM to the punch with his pioneering PC that interested me. Nor was it the fact that he walked away from the industry he helped create to spend three decades as a country doctor in Georgia. (A colorful man, no doubt). What struck me was the fact that both Bill Gates and Paul Allen—whose company, Microsoft, was based on the programming language product they wrote for the Altair 8800—so quickly and publicly acknowledged Roberts as their mentor.

The New York Times obituary provided detail of Gates’ reconciliation with Dr. Roberts in the final months of his life, including Gates’ visit to Roberts’ bedside in Georgia eight days before he passed away. In a joint statement on Bill Gates’ Web site, Gates and Allen said, “Ed was willing to take a chance on us—two young guys interested in computers long before they were commonplace—and we have always been grateful to him.” That’s some pretty powerful stuff.

After thirty-one years as a business historian, I’m embarrassed to admit how little attention I’ve given to the impact of mentors and mentoring in shaping the course of my clients’ histories. Not that I haven’t witnessed great examples of guidance throughout the years. I once conducted a series of oral histories that included two succeeding CEOs, whose tenure spanned almost thirty years of the organization’s greatest growth and profitability. Each CEO described a point in his career when, frustrated with his progress, he very seriously considered leaving the company. In each case, a respected senior member of the leadership team approached the CEO—almost magically, each recalled—and provided the personal encouragement he needed to stay the course. I don’t think either of the CEOs ever shared this story with the other. And I’m fairly sure no one else in the organization knows about the unsung hero who I believe fundamentally impacted the course of the company’s history.

Why don’t people know this story? Why doesn’t every corporate history book have a chapter on great mentors in the organization’s history? Moving forward, I plan to incorporate questions about the influence of a mentor in each oral history I conduct. After all, how can organizations celebrate great mentors in the workplace if no one knows who these individuals are?

Fortunately for the IT industry, Bill Gates and Paul Allen have set the record historical straight.

A Toast, and an Ear, for Living History

noreply@blogger.com (Sandy Kolman Laycox) — Thu, 15 Apr 2010 13:33:00 +0000

I found living history on the pages of the New York Times recently. The story of Joe Binder, a parking lot attendant on historic Arthur Avenue in the Bronx, caught my attention, and I couldn’t help but want to blog about it. Binder turned 100 last Thursday, and the neighborhood spent the weekend toasting its very own legend.

Perhaps I’m partial to Binder’s story because I have my own New York native, 97-year-old Jewish grandfather, whom I can’t wait to celebrate with when he turns 100. And maybe because I’ve spent so much time with my grandfather, I’ve realized the value of listening to what he has to say. You can learn a lot about history from someone who has lived it—the colorful details you won’t find in textbooks. From gambling on World War II army ships headed back from the Pacific to doling out liquor licenses to New York eateries, my grandfather has lived an American life, the kind you want to read about in history class.

I bet Joe Binder has some great stories. Maybe from his days in the navy, maybe from his time on Arthur Avenue, which has been home to Italian immigrants and their families for generations. Maybe he shares them when he sits back with a blackberry brandy at Pasquale’s Rigoletto after work. I hope he does, and I hope people are listening, because their lives will be richer for it.

From time to time at The History Factory, we have the opportunity to conduct an oral history with an elderly person: a five-star general, a free-spirited, 90-year-old philanthropist. These interviewees offer more than just business history; they provide historical perspective. They have thoughts and opinions that stretch through many years and many different experiences, which are invaluable to the corporate memory.

It’s essential to remember those elder, integral members of your organization when thinking about preserving company heritage, through oral history or some other means. Even if they retired years ago, reach out to them and ask them to share—their memories are filled with the history you want to know. You likely won’t it find elsewhere, and the life of your organization will be richer for it.

Welcome, "Collector in Chief"

blog@historyfactory.com (The History Factory) — Wed, 07 Apr 2010 14:51:00 +0000

The New York Times reports that the National Archives has hired a new “Collector in Chief” to oversee the nation’s heritage. David S. Ferriero previously held positions at both the MIT and Duke University libraries, and served as the Andrew W. Mellon director of the New York Public Libraries. Ferriero had no plans to leave New York, but the White House convinced him that “his talents dovetailed with the administration’s goals for the archivist’s job.”

Ferriero believes that each time his career has transitioned, it has “always been that I could make a difference.” This time, the difference likely comes from his stance on managing an archives, which he views similarly to managing a library. “When you cut to the quick . . . it’s the same: collecting, protecting, and encouraging the use of records and information.” Encouraging use means making information available, and for an administration that has pledged transparency, that mindset seems paramount to the job.

Archiving, like most things these days, has been taken over by the digital revolution. And while Ferriero notes that there are challenges to digital record keeping, it does help with ease of use, as it allows for online accessibility. Ferriero, in fact, believes that anything that can be digitized should be put online, thus contributing to his end goal, which is “to ensure that we have the user at the center of our thinking—historians, genealogists, open government folks. What can we do to make their lives easier?”

The History Factory couldn’t agree more. In 2009 the company launched LuminArc, a Web-delivered digital archive system compatible with advanced Web 2.0 standards for interconnectivity and interactivity. Realizing our clients could get considerably more use out of their archives if they were able to access the material from anywhere and at any time, we created a system that not only offers this option, but also constantly updates, so information is accurate and timely.

Just like the government, companies that make their archives accessible and encourage its use, can create transparency, and trust, within the organization.

Dead Livelihoods

noreply@blogger.com (Adam N.) — Wed, 31 Mar 2010 15:06:00 +0000

I’m smitten with imagery lately. Perhaps it’s our work on Adobe Photoshop’s 20th anniversary, but these days I’m hitting the Google image search like an all-you-can-eat buffet, and find myself clicking on those image-centric links I might ordinarily ignore. If it’s true a picture says a thousand words, and our ADD culture is increasingly moving away from the sanctity of the written word, imagery may soon be (if it’s not already) our primary means of communication.

As a business historian, I couldn’t help but dig NPR’s recent photo essay, “The Jobs of Yesteryear: Obsolete Occupations.” Complete with gorgeous black and white photos as well as audio narrations from a generation that remembers when these professions were as commonplace as today’s software engineer, the gallery takes us through antiquated roles of yore.

Many of the jobs, of course, were a product of pre-automated and pre-technological industries. In the absence of radios and iPods, “lectors” might be hired to read newspapers to workers in a cigar factory. Before machinery, “pinsetters” manually reset the pyramids at the ends of bowling lanes. “Icemen” and “Milkmen” delivered by refrigerated car what we now find on demand in our freezers and corner stores.

Most interesting to our work with Photoshop is the now endangered role of “Typesetter” featured in the NPR gallery. Both founders of Adobe Systems—John Warnock and Chuck Geschke—came from a lineage of typesetters and color engravers, which may in part explain Adobe’s visionary role in catalyzing the desktop publishing revolution.

But what stirs us about the gallery is not what’s depicted, but what’s not depicted. Because just as many of these professions and industries could not survive the advent of industrialization and computer automation, I can’t help but wonder: Which of today’s jobs and industries will one day succumb to change?

The study of history, in business or otherwise, is the story of change. Twenty years ago, Adobe’s founders saw the writing on the wall and placed themselves at the epicenter of the digital renaissance. Like Adobe, other industries, companies, and individual workers who can foresee change and either prepare for it or co-create the evolution themselves will always have a leg up on those who never see it coming.

Square Deal to Done Deal: Leveraging History to Change the Future

noreply@blogger.com (Scott McMurray) — Wed, 24 Mar 2010 19:57:00 +0000

President Obama reached back nearly 100 years in our nation’s history—to Teddy Roosevelt’s Square Deal from the 1912 presidential campaign—to demonstrate how long American political agendas (both Republican and Democrat) have listed expanding health care coverage as a key reform. The push to pass healthcare reform was a hard slog, but the President prevailed, using the past to help achieve his vision for the future.

The history of healthcare reform in America, as with the history of just about anything, is hardly simple. The ballooning cost of Medicare and Medicaid over the years, for instance, was cited by the healthcare bill’s opponents as a cautionary tale. Rather than ignore or explain away this inconvenient bit of history, the President put bad news to good use. He and his supporters in Congress cited recent decades’ rising healthcare costs to justify major cost-containment aspects of the bill.

It’s no surprise that we talk a lot about history at The History Factory. But we often surprise clients when we advise them to start with the future and work back.™ Imagine the goals you want to achieve. Then let’s talk about what aspects of your history—the successes as well as the challenges—we can leverage to help make that vision a reality.

The President made history his story. And in the end he made history.

Successful Succession

blog@historyfactory.com (The History Factory) — Mon, 22 Mar 2010 22:06:00 +0000

The economic crisis has offered food for thought on a number of business related issues: corporate responsibility, government control, inflated salaries, etc. Here’s a new one, offered up in a recent McKinsey Quarterly article: succession planning. The article cites Ken Lewis’s departure from Bank of America and the resulting “scrutiny and criticism” the company faced for being so unprepared for such an event as a prime example of the issue’s importance and relevance in today’s business world.

The article offers several suggestions as to why succession planning is not top of mind. But whether it’s an unwelcome reminder of the current CEO’s mortality or a sticky issue for the board—an awkward discussion in good times; a threat in bad—authors Ana Dutra and Joseph Griesedieck see all of these as poor excuses for the fact that “only about half of boards actually have [a CEO succession plan] in place.”

After identifying the issue, the authors—Dutra, a talent management executive, and Griesedieck, a board and CEO services leader—provide guidance as to the role succession planning should play in a company and ways to effectively implement it. The History Factory, however, can add to the discussion with a lesson from its own client history.

A few years ago one of our clients faced an urgent need for leadership change. The current CEO had made some questionable decisions and it had become clear to the board that he needed to be replaced. Fortunately, the company had a succession plan in place—their “beer-truck” scenario, i.e., should the CEO ever get hit by a beer truck . . .

The plan designated an interim CEO while the board found a permanent replacement, providing stable leadership and an opportunity for the board to assess viable candidates without being forced to make an immediate decision. Ultimately the board found the interim CEO to be the best candidate and installed him permanently. But the beer-truck scenario also allowed the company to review the role of the board itself and make changes. By giving the board more oversight and input into strategy, the company positioned itself to fend off a repeat of the previous CEO’s mistakes, which were enabled partially by the fact that he held a great deal of control.

The changes proved beneficial and timely, as the strengthened organization not only eased through its own turbulence relatively unscathed in the marketplace, but has also been able to pass smoothly through the economic crisis. It now stands poised for future growth and success.

Succession planning seems to be a valuable corporate strategy, during seamless transitions as well as turbulent ones. But perhaps just as important is the recognition that it is a time of transition, for leadership on down to the front lines, and the organization’s response to all that encompasses will set its course for the future.

Happy Birthday, from a Yahooer!

noreply@blogger.com (Sandy Kolman Laycox) — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 19:21:00 +0000

Several months ago, I heard a story on NPR about what your personal email address reveals about you. If you have Gmail, you’re likely young and/or Internet-savvy. If you have Yahoo!, you’re somewhat Internet knowledgeable, but clearly old school and bordering on outdated. If you have AOL, forget it.

While I understand the theory behind these categorizations, as a Yahoo!er, I am somewhat opposed to being judged simply because of my @yahoo.com personal email status. I know that Google has surpassed Yahoo! as the Internet information source of choice. Google is more than a company, it’s a verb; when you need answers, you Google . . . you don’t Yahoo! I often Google, and it would probably be more convenient for me to have a Gmail address, as I spend considerable time there. But I’ve had my Yahoo! account for more than 10 years and, besides being a reliable place to find me, Yahoo! has my loyalty because we have history.

When I graduated from college, the Internet was just becoming the general public’s go-to information vehicle, and email was slowly replacing telephone communication. I took a job with a small speakers bureau in Washington, D.C., which was run by a woman in her seventies. While once a Washington insider with a booming business, my boss was buckling in the face of change, and it showed—the booming business had dwindled to seven employees crammed into a single office suite. The seven of us shared one computer with Internet access, and no one had email.

I didn’t last long in that environment. Six months later, I found a new company full of twenty-somethings, and I was immediately given my own computer with Internet access and an email address. It took me a few weeks to get comfortable with using email, but it was the company’s primary communication method, so I had no choice. As I learned the ins and outs of Outlook, my email apprehension faded, and I soon sent messages flying through cyberspace with ease.

With Internet access at my fingertips, I quickly discovered Yahoo! as a valuable source of workday information (and, let’s be honest, entertainment). It was inevitable that I would seal my Internet arrival with my very own Yahoo! address.

To me, having a Yahoo! address doesn’t mean I’m old school, incapable of change. In fact, it’s a reminder of my willingness to change . . . and my decision to find a company that forced the issue. If I had stayed with my aging employer, who knows how long it would had taken me to discover the Internet (I didn’t even have a home computer at the time). A company that refuses to move forward does more than damage itself, it holds its employees back as well. And in turn, a company that engages in change and seeks out the next new invention, propels its employees to continue learning and bettering their professional and personal positions.

Just over a year ago, The History Factory founder, Bruce Weindruch, decided we should join the new media wave and start this blog. Once again, I found myself in an uncomfortable position, having no familiarity with blogging. But with some research, some practice, and some advice from the younger employees (Gmailers), now I even know a little HTML.

Yahoo!, you recently celebrated your 15th birthday. Congratulations. As you face the next 15 years, it’s clear you have some work to do to catch up with Google in terms of growth and innovation. But if you look to your history, you’ll see the forerunner that you once were and that you can be again. Hey, if I can dabble in new media, anything’s possible.

Happy Birthday, Photoshop!

noreply@blogger.com (Adam N.) — Fri, 19 Feb 2010 21:22:00 +0000

Today is the 20th anniversary of one of the most successful software programs in history: none other than Adobe Photoshop. No other software product has impacted the realms of art, science and popular culture quite like Photoshop, and we’re proud to congratulate them on their innovative 20 years of changing the way we view our world.

The History Factory was invited by our client, Adobe Systems, to participate in the 20th Anniversary Adobe Photoshop Reunion last month. We provided questions to help guide the discussion and captured some behind-the-scenes footage as part of our StoryARC story generation process and forthcoming corporate anniversary initiatives for the juggernaut software company.

Adobe Photoshop 20th Anniversary Reunion from History Factory on Vimeo.

In attendance were the four original PS creators: Thomas Knoll (Adobe Systems), John Knoll (Visual Effects Supervisor for George Lucas' Industrial Light & Magic (ILM) on films like The Abyss, Terminator 2, Pirates of the Caribbean and Avatar 3D), Steve Guttman (Microsoft) and original PS Evangelist and Senior Creative Director, Russell Brown (Adobe Systems). Filmed at Adobe HQ and Foreign Cinema Restaurant in San Francisco, CA, January 26, 2010.

View the final AdobeTV video at http://tv.adobe.com/watch/photoshop-20th-anniversary/startup-memories/

Further congratulations are in order as Adobe Systems was one of our seventeen past and current clients featured on Fortune Magazine’s 2010 list of the “100 Best Companies to Work For.” Lots more Photoshop material to come…

Heritage Management on TV: Holiday Edition

noreply@blogger.com (Jason Dressel) — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 16:20:00 +0000

One thing I love most about the holiday season is the traditions and nostalgia it evokes. We all have our own personal rituals we share with loved ones, whether picturesque or totally corny.

We also, of course, have our whole lexicon of popular culture seasonal touchstones. Only the magic of the holiday season can explain the continual broadcast (and apparent demand for) programs like the early ’60s claymation Christmas specials. These shows have been so thoroughly antiquated and outpaced by our current standards of entertainment from both a content and production-value perspective that they now strike me as outright bizarre. Yet just like our holiday home decorations (which also may not meet our updated aesthetic standards), we anticipate these programs and know that the season is really here when they come out.

This brings me to one of my favorite holiday season TV moments, "Peter, you’re home!" I’ve long admired Folgers’ steadfast commitment to airing this commercial and have been struck by how timeless it is—both visually and content-wise. The story of a loved one coming home for the holidays is timeless and universal, and for whatever irrational reason, this one has always tugged at my heartstrings. And considering the commercial first aired in 1986, Peter’s family, all decked out on Christmas morning in their bathrobes, pajamas, and Norwegian fishermen sweaters, have hung in there pretty well over the years, much like an L.L. Bean catalog.

But in our new high-def world, even I have to admit that the Folgers family has been looking pretty haggard. I recall thinking last year, "Damn, I have VHS tapes that look better than that."

So I was greatly amused last week when, working in a hotel room, I heard the Folgers commercial come on. But wait! It was completely different . . . yet entirely the same. Indeed, Folgers had made over Peter’s family for the 21st century. A Christmas miracle! Or I guess the Folgers folks finally accepted that the centerpiece of their holiday decorations needed an upgrade.

A quick search online provided the backstory. The Folgers brand was acquired last year by J.M. Smucker from Proctor & Gamble. In addition to revamping the commercial, Folgers is apparently bringing back their "Best Part of Wakin’ Up" theme, as part of an overall brand revitalization effort.

A further interesting point was that the new ad, which was created by Saatchi & Saatchi, references that Peter has returned from West Africa. According to the folks at J. M. Smucker, this little detail refers to the true story of a son returning home from doing mission work. While I always liked that the original ad, created by now-defunct agency Cunningham & Walsh, left Peter’s previous whereabouts unknown and irrelevant, this new detail represents the ad agency move toward using more authentic stories to inform their creative.

So while I’m glad that Peter’s family got a makeover and they’ll be around for a few more seasons, it will be fun to see if the new ad proves to be as purpose-built as the last. If you go online you will see that there are already a range of opinions out there. The skeptic in me says it won’t. It’s hard to repeat that kind of success, but maybe that’s the magic and nostalgia of the holidays.
　
　
　

"A Matter of Identity"

blog@historyfactory.com (The History Factory) — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 19:36:00 +0000

When did Apple Computer become just “Apple”? According to The New York Times, shortly after it introduced the iPhone. It’s a matter of identity. Realizing it had a transformational new product on its hands, Apple likely wanted to ensure consumers no longer thought of it as just a computer company. And as The Times emphasizes, identity awareness is paramount to business success. “As the core essence of a company, identity plays a central role in guiding managerial decision-making,” says Wharton School professor and co-author of The Soul of the Corporation, John R. Kimberly.

For Apple, a relatively simple branding tweak enabled the company to make the transition from computers to a wider variety of electronics. But for companies attempting to traverse greater identity landscapes, the move isn’t quite so simple. The article notes that a key ingredient in successful face-lifts of this sort is continuity.

For example, when Fujifilm moved beyond the imaging realm into pharmaceuticals and cosmetics, it helped consumers bridge that wide gap by advertising the links between the two. The company used television commercials to explain “how nanotechnology originally developed for photography helped skin cream to better penetrate the skin.”

Information manager Iron Mountain used its core values of customer service and building trust to ease consumers into the company’s new digital offerings, emphasizing the fact that clients’ records were safe, regardless of the format.

Both of these solutions highlight a common thread of company history, whether that thread lies in products or culture. And it is this notion that speaks to our work at The History Factory. Companies often come to us at this critical point in their history, when they want to turn a corner, change their identity, but aren’t sure how to get there.

A common identity issue we face is a recent merger or acquisition of considerable size, one that can’t easily be rolled into a parent company’s brand. How do you reconcile two disparate personalities—in the eyes of employees as well as consumers? The solution lies in history.

Sometimes it takes a bit of digging, but more often than not, the companies have more in common than they thought. If two companies in the same industry have any history to speak of, they likely share some of it. For example, we’ve uncovered personal relationships between founders of two companies that merged hundreds of years later, thinking they had nothing in common. This shared experience becomes the lifeline for both companies as they come to grips with their new, shared identity.

If identity truly does guide decision-making, it is imperative for companies to be aware not only of who they are, but who they were.

Wear It Well

noreply@blogger.com (Sandy Kolman Laycox) — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 20:59:00 +0000

On a Sunday in mid-September, I flipped on the Jets-Titans game, only to see two teams that looked completely unfamiliar. Instead of the Jets’ green/white jerseys versus the Titans’ navy/powder blue, facing each other at the line of scrimmage were navy/gold and blue/white/red . . . with oil derricks on their helmets! What’s more, the referees were wearing orange stripes!

“They’re throwback uniforms,” my husband informed me. “What’s the occasion?” I asked. I had seen professional sports teams don historical uniforms before, but nothing this drastic, and never both teams at once. The occasion was the 50th anniversary of the American Football League (AFL), which played its first season in 1960 with eight teams, the New York Jets (then the Titans of New York) and the Tennessee Titans (then the Houston Oilers) among them. The league was celebrating with “Legacy Games” throughout the season, in which former AFL teams (the league merged with the NFL in 1970) played each other wearing their historical uniforms.

When I hear of a company celebrating its history, I’m always curious about the manner in which they do it. Professional sports, after all, are a business, and the industry crosses the same milestones as any other. But as we remind our clients at The History Factory, anniversaries are an opportunity as much as they are a reason to celebrate. So, I wondered, was the NFL making the most of its history?

Sure, as a fan, I found the uniforms interesting (although slightly confusing at first), and I appreciated the historical content included as part of the NFL’s weekly programming, but what did that do for the business?

A little research uncovered two avenues. First: the fans. For many, seeing the retro uniforms sparks much more than mild curiosity and philosophical musing. To celebrate their team—and make a fashion statement—zealous fans immediately want to own a piece of football history. As NFL spokesperson Johanna Hunter said in a Knoxville News Sentinel article, “Fans are buying the retro merchandise and appear excited about the AFL Legacy project.” She added, “There has been demand by fans, and with the popularity of the Legacy uniforms we’ll see them (legacy inspired gear) again next year.” The League gets a percentage of the wholesale price of the merchandise, and has reportedly raised its fees over the years. So, generating enthusiasm among fans for throwback uniforms adds to the NFL’s bottom line.

Second: the players. While wearing throwback uniforms does bring mixed reactions from the locker room, even if they aren’t fond of the color and style of their temporary duds, many players still see the benefit in honoring the League’s traditions. “I’m not a huge fan of it, but it’s part of the legacy of the Buccaneers,” said Tampa Bay center Jeff Faine in a PewterReport.com article discussing the team’s decision to wear throwbacks in a recent game to “honor the 1979 team that made the NFC Championship Game, as well as Hall of Fame defensive end Lee Roy Selmon.”

The Buccaneers were 0-7 going into the game (against the Green Bay Packers) in which they donned the uniforms. Hungry for their first win, some took inspiration from history. “Whatever uniform they put on us, we need to go out there and get our first win and represent this man they’re putting in the Ring of Honor [Selmon]. There’s a lot to play for,” said defensive tackle Chris Hovan. The result? Tampa Bay: 38; Green Bay: 28.

For the players, taking part in these traditions can inspire them to live up to the great moments of the past. And for the business, winning never hurts the bottom line.

The Denver Broncos sport throwbacks in a Legacy Game against the New England Patriots. (Image courtesy of Doug Pensinger/Getty Images Sport/Getty Images)

Epilogue:
I settled in this past Saturday to support my husband’s alma mater, The Ohio State Buckeyes, in their traditional, end-of-season faceoff against arch-rival Michigan. What’s the first thing I noticed? The Buckeye uniforms, of course—throwbacks to the 1954 championship team, whose 55th anniversary they’d recently celebrated. By now used to seeing unfamiliar football gear, I didn’t pay much more attention to their attire . . . until the sideline reporter flashed on the screen holding a pair of the Buckeyes’ retro pants.

Apparently these were no ordinary throwback uniforms. While they looked like the originals, the material was far from it. The uniforms were made using cutting-edge Nike technology, were extremely lightweight, and had extra padding to enhance performance.

Ohio State had taken the anniversary opportunity to try an innovative new product, which, if proven effective, could become a replacement for the team’s standard uniforms. By celebrating tradition, Ohio State simultaneously took a step to move its team forward toward a more productive future. Did it work? Final score: Ohio State: 21; Michigan: 10.

History Shock

noreply@blogger.com (Scott McMurray) — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 15:12:00 +0000

Change is history, whether companies have been around for 200 years or 20. While we’re not about to rechristen the place, “The Change Factory” (or if we are I didn’t get the memo), much of what we do here is to communicate—to help companies tell their stories—about change. And regardless of how long a company has been in existence, that rate of change seems to be accelerating.

The recent, and for many, continuing, unpleasantness widely referred to as the Great Recession has lifted change in one form or another to the top of every corporate agenda. Companies are coping with dramatic changes in the way they operate and finance their businesses, and attract and retain employees. Ditto for servicing existing customers and attracting new ones.

Lately many companies are moving beyond operating in a state of history shock. They are making change work for them, rather than against them. They are discovering that change is an integral part of their histories. They realize that change is a key element of the narrative arc that describes their evolution. And that change is central to their future.

Core values enable companies to embrace change; they aren’t tossed out with the C-suite wallpaper. In fact, embracing change is likely to be a core value of highly successful companies, even if it isn’t worded as such. Tell that story, and you put your organization back out ahead of the change curve.