Brand Central Station

Think there’s confusion in the world’s financial markets?  That’s nothing compared to the world of marketing – where uncertainty, confusion and out-right panic are not out of the question.

Economic recessions are tough to understand.  For many small and mid-sized businesses, the national recession indicators manifest themselves in ways that often go unreported by the mass media.  Add to that the general sense of desperation felt by consumers and business owners and managers are often left wondering what they could have done to avoid their difficulties and at a complete loss about what to do going forward.

So, let’s try to take a step back and understand the nature of this particular recession and what options lay ahead for the small and mid-sized business when it comes to evaluating and re-loading their marketing plans for the rest of 2008 and all of 2009.  (Yeah, you heard that right – you better be thinking about a total re-boot of your marketing program starting tomorrow because the only thing you can count on in this recession is that your plans made six to ten months ago are out-of-touch with today’s economic reality.) (more…)

This article by Jim Ylisela at Ragan.com caught my eye right before the weekend hit last week. The piece talks about the attributes that make for a good mentor, and Mr. Ylisela’s point is that the people who are good mentors aren’t always the ones who are best at what they do.

Over the weekend, this concept kept returning to me as I spent time with my kids and many of the volunteer groups I work with throughout the year.  I suspect, as does Mr. Ylisela, that there are a lot of good mentors out there who have never been given the opportunity or taken the chance to be the mentor they could be just because they don’t feel like they’re ready.

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Rick Houcek, a regular contributor to the Marketing Headhunter blog, offers seven helpful tips when it comes to mentoring (no matter whether those being mentored are employees, co-workers, friends, kids, etc.).  Rick’s tips include the following:

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Kami Huyse, the pr pro and blogger who keeps the Communications Overtones blog rolling, had some great observations on the whole Northwest Airlines kerfuffle.

As we said last week when we wrote about Paul Holmes’s post, Kami has nailed some of the employee relations lessons to be learned from this whole debacle. Instructional piece.

While there’s a bit of sarcasm in our headline, Paul Holmes does, in fact, blog about a simmering conflict between Northwest Airlines and its employees. As it turns out, a booklet handed out to employees by management offered some helpful advice on how to make ends meet following the massive pay cuts required to help bring NWA out of bankruptcy.

According to the Holmes Report Blog:

“A booklet handed out to employees and posted on the company’s website (now sadly removed), called 101 Ways to Save Money, advised workers that one way to make ends meet was to fish through garbage to find things that are too expensive in the shops. So if you see a disheveled individual fishing through garbage cans in Minneapolis or Detroit, don’t assume he’s homeless; he could be one of the truly unfortunate.”

The airline eventually recalled the publication admitting that some of the suggestions may have been “a bit insensitive.”

Paul’s point to his post, however, is that NWA may be missing out on a greater internal communications opportunity here. One of the things you find about reading Paul’s blog is that he is often able to bring a great deal of objectivity and clarity to an otherwise muddled situation.

And that’s why you should have the Holmes Report blog tagged in your blog reader! Good stuff nearly every day.