#josephjaffe

Elliot Koss created a really great research, analysis, and discovery platform for NFTs and today at 1pm EDT we’ll discuss his vision, roadmap and specifically the subject of simplicity versus complexity.

There’s an amazing insight about how the Web3 space that prides itself on WE is actually about ME and by ME, I’m referring to how it’s still largely a personality driven space dominated by individuals.

It’s an interesting twist if you think about it.

That said, WE can still do a lot in terms of united, collaborating and joining forces to be the rising tide that floats all boats.

Join us!

Watch full episodes at youtube.com/c/josephjaffeisnotfamous.

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The Stack

I just returned from a vacation to Mauritius -- AKA Paradise -- and South Africa. In Mauritius, I don’t think I opened my laptop and barely accessed my mobile phone. The connection was too slow anyway and the nearest Starbucks was around 4,000 miles away -- too far to walk!

South Africa was a different story completely. For a family of five, we passed through security at the airport with seven phones: three iPhone 6s, one iPhone 5c (which I subsequently left on the flight from Cape Town to London, and, thanks to absolutely incompetent customer service from British Airways – you should be ashamed if you work for this airline – it’s somewhere in Phoenix right now), two iPhone 4s (our unlocked “local phones”) and finally another iPhone 4 (which functions as an iPod Touch for our little one).

In case there’s any doubt, we’re an Android family (NOT!).

Throughout our stay in Cape Town, we would often place all our phones on a pile in the middle of the table when we visited a restaurant. This of course was when free Wi-Fi wasn’t available and we weren’t able to Instagram all our #blessed #sunset shots and #foodporn snaps.

I dubbed this “The Stack.”

I wasn’t proud of this term and often joked that you could spot the Americans a mile away thanks to their abundance of technology.

One dinner we sat with family friends discussing a “social game” where everyone puts their phone in the middle of the table and the first to touch their phone has to pay for the entire meal. Sounds easy to avoid, but not when it becomes an obsession or even an addiction.

There’s an even an app called “Moment” that tracks phone usage via a dashboard to determine the winner (or loser) of this game. The irony of course is that this is an app, so how exactly would you monitor performance without having to use the phone in the first place?

Don’t get me wrong. I love technology. And I love my iPhone. But this trip made me take stock in what is REALLY important and how to better create balance in my and my family’s lives. There’s going to be at least one unhappy teenager around the house when phone time is limited to specific times and occasions.

Are you taking similar steps? At home? On vacation? With yourself versus your family? Are you miles ahead of me or in the same boat? What will your mobile usage resolutions be in 2015?

Incidentally, I appreciate the irony of how I am becoming my parents’ generation in terms of being crotchety, stodgy and old-fashioned. In my day, we used to…

I also appreciate the wisdom of said old-timers and how history keeps repeating itself in terms of the pursuit of balance between the best of the old and best of the new.

With this in mind, I wish you a balanced year ahead of technology usage. Should you be reading this on your mobile phone, you get a free pass from me!

I Give Under Armour's Marketing a Big Fat Z.E.R.O

Under Armour has received accolades for its marketing, including a term as Marketer of the Year.  To be sure, “I Will What I Want" is a great campaign, but at the end of the day, it’s no better or worse than anything Nike, Reebok or Adidas have done with their aspirational advertising.

Personally, I’m overjoyed that Under Armour is being recognized -- selfishly, because it's the official  sponsor of my English football club, Tottenham Hotspur. Under this partnership, Spurs have made several trips to the U.S .and given their fan base unprecedented access to their (my) beloved team and players.

In fact, I think the company deserves even more credit than it's been given, due to five key reasons.

Check out this FIR article featuring Joseph Jaffe and Marteen Albarda's Z.E.R.O. 

FIR Interview: Joseph Jaffe and Maarten Albarda, authors of ZERO 

"Our position is that a perfect storm is coming," say Joseph Jaffe and Maarten Albarda as an attention-grabbing way to start a discussion about ZERO: Zero Paid Media as the New Marketing Model, the new book by the two authors published by Wiley in October 2013.

It may already be here, adds Jaffe: "In the book, we introduce several key arguments - business, economic, consumer, media and creative cases - any of which could, by itself, be enough to be the straw that breaks the camel’s back, but when combined presents a perfect-storm scenario."

In this FIR Interview, Jaffe and Albarda describe the central premise of ZERO to co-hosts Neville Hobson and Shel Holtz, explaining their thinking and passion behind ZERO’s core principle: if media inflation continues to outpace and run away from economic inflation, the bottom may fall out the media model.

They explain the meaning behind each letter in the book’s title - Zealots (advocacy), Entrepreneurship (innovation), Retention (customer-centricity), and Owned Assets (direct-to-consumer channels).

The two men believe that "ZERO marketing" is all about slow burn and long tail. "It’s about using existing customers to gain new ones," they declare. "It’s about utilizing customers and advocates in innovative ways, leveraging existing assets as opposed to piggy-bagging on the borrowed interest and/or equity of middlemen."

Specifically written for C-suite executives who work for leading brands, ZERO: Zero Paid Media as the New Marketing Model is a ten-point action plan that responds to Jaffe’s and Albarda’s no-holds-barred call to action for corporations and their marketers to adapt or die amid an increasingly turbulent, changing, and dynamic media landscape.

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I Have Seen The Enemy -- And the Enemy Is Within

Companies are their own worst enemies. The amount of wheel-spinning that takes place to get an initiative in place or even started, only for the rug to be ripped out underneath due to “a new CMO coming in” (or an existing one going out), “a budget cut” or “a reorg,” translates into significant hours expended, and therefore has a very real price tag.

I think it’s important we recognize the tangible cost of dragging our feet, being stuck in holding patterns and/or ultimately having cold feet as a substantial cost of doing business.

The waste of time -- and therefore money -- is mission critical, especially when dealing in a complex, dynamic and turbulent marketplace, with -- let’s face it -- extremely scarce resource (and by scarce resources, I’m talking about talent and time). While we all complain about budget cuts, in reality we are swimming in obscene excessive amounts of money that go into the temporal renting of multitasking eyeballs (yes, I’m talking about YOU, 30-second spot).

As a writer and speaker, I get to clench my fist and shake it disapprovingly at you a lot. You agree with me and yet you do nothing about it.

As a consultant and “agency” guy, I get to feel the short stick by being on the receiving end of your constant “reorgs” and additional approvals and reviews.

But honestly, don’t worry about me -- this is about you. I’m really worried about you.

Did you ever stop and think that all this time lost is actually hurting the current and future state of your business? In other words, hastening the next reorg and restructure? Your inability to get anything done that is different, original, unique and/or innovative is without question putting your own continuity and value INTO question.

Seriously, consider the ROI of not doing anything. It’s a Return on Inertia that is ironically very measurable both as an opportunity cost (past/hours) and opportunity lost (future/execution).

Instead, consider the analogy of waiting in a very long line. You’ve stood for an hour and you’re strongly considering calling it quits and walking away. Only, you’ve already spent an hour and who knows, the wait might only be another 30 minutes or so. And then before you know it, it’s 90 minutes or 2 hours. Now you DEFINITELY can’t walk away, because you’ve invested 2 hours, which is much more than the hour. And then it’s three hours -- and so on.

Why not apply the same logic to your projects? Stay the course!. Consider all the hours and legwork that got you this far and use that as the incentive to keep going.

And if all else fails, consider this: “If you’re not adding to your legacy, you’re adding to your eulogy.”

You can quote me on that if you like.