Brand: Happy #FathersDay to all the dads out there! What are you doing to celebrate the day?

Of all the various manifestations of marketing that exist (97.8% of which are awful to begin with) this is absolutely the most awful and it needs to stop.

Here’s why.

It’s lazy. Marketers are now drunk on the fact that they can inject themselves into the broader conversation du jour on Twitter with bland holiday-related statements like the one above, then check the social media box for the day. Done! Social media strategy achieved.

It’s formulaic. This follows a classic social media content formula that is already overused: make a statement then ask for engagement. Formulas are easily detected by human B.S. radars and they will be ignored.

It’s not connected to any business goal.  If a form of marketing doesn’t align with a specific business goal or opportunity, then what’s the point of doing it? Especially on a platform where posts have a shelf life of only a few hours. With no strategic direction behind them, these tweets are a waste of time, a waste of data, and can easily be filed away in the happy horse shit, sunshine and lollipops folder. “Joining the conversation” isn’t a strategy.

I’m asking marketers to do better. Below is a fantastic example from State Farm that mentions Veterans Day but does so much more.

It connects Veterans Day back to a core piece of the State Farm brand: Their agents. It supplements the post with rich media, in this case a video of an agent describing how his military service impacts his leadership style. By doing this, they’ve created timely, relevant content that perfectly aligns with broader communication goals.

Now go celebrate Father’s Day. But give your audience something extra before you post about it.

For example. Every spring I spend more than $100 on new mulch. Like clockwork, a heavy rainstorm rudely drops in the next day and washes away a significant portion of what I had just laid down. The rain cuts through a side yard and carries off the mulch all the way to the street, while Mother Nature steeples her fingers and cackles madly. Like a fool, I go through the same motions every year, thinking the previous one was some sort of fluke.

This spring I decided to stop fighting nature. Years of water runoff had already carved out a natural path meandering away from the house. The solution was an easy one: Instead of dumping mulch over this area again and again, turn it into a dry creek bed.

A dry creek bed is pretty much exactly what it sounds like. Think of a dried-up creek lined with river rocks and a few boulders. That’s it. Filling this area with rock allows water to escape the property faster, and that’s a great thing.

Below is the beginning of the project. I marked off the bed with edging so I could measure how much rock I’d need. You can clearly see the pounding the mulch had taken over the years.

Next I put down fabric to keep weeds from growing, poured in a few bags of river rock and added decorative boulders. At the very end is an unobtrusive stretch of poultry mesh, just in case some of the rocks try to escape. Project done.

I’m happy to report that the creek bed performed perfectly during two back-to-back rainstorms over the last two nights. Water channels away from the house quicker than before and the landscaping doesn’t get disrupted.

Nature wins. I win. Everyone is happy. And then I celebrate with a Tank 7.

The Red Lobster family offers our deepest condolences, heartfelt thoughts & prayers to those affected by the terrible tragedy in Newtown, CT

Marketing and communication professionals aren’t trained to be silent.

Today’s mass shooting in Newtown, Connecticut, is proof of why they need to learn restraint. Here we have yet another horrific event that prompted legions of brand managers to chime in with offers of condolences through their company-sanctioned Twitter accounts.

The sentiment behind tweeting condolences is kind and decent. It’s the rubber stamp, check-the-box application that bothers me.

In 2001, I was working as a web designer at an advertising agency. After September 11th, dozens of clients emailed me requests to add tiny animated GIFs of the American flag to their website as a show of support for the victims. I couldn’t turn down any of these requests and hope to keep my job, but each time I received one, I cringed. Not because I hate Americans and support terrorism, but because I knew these animated GIFs were lazy, half-assed attempts at sympathy that accomplished nothing long-term. The GIFs were non-tangible, noticed by no one, and unceremoniously washed away six months later during the next design refresh.

Tweeted condolences fall into that same category. Digital platitudes. Going through the motions in 140 characters or less.

Lisa Grimm has a smart, prescriptive post up today about how brands should behave on social media during a tragedy. Going silent, she notes, is an acceptable and effective option.

I would also challenge companies to answer two questions before punching lukewarm sentiment into the Twitter Machine: Is the company/brand connected to the community affected by tragedy? Has the company donated money, services, food, supplies, or supported the victims in any way? If the answer is yes to either (or both) of the above, then there’s a story worth sharing.

If the answer is no to both, then your tweet becomes generic white noise and data waste. I recommend embracing silence as a show of respect. Your messaging, in this moment, is irrelevant.

Step one: Assemble a room full of junior-level marketers and ad agency hacks. Ask them to “reinvent” this classic, lovably cheesy 1980s Folgers commercial where Peter comes home for the holidays to surprise his family:

Step two: The creative team comes back with this garbage below and somehow manages to trick networks into airing it in 2009. Peter is now an insufferable tool who volunteers for a non-specific cause overseas. “It’s a long way from West Africa,” he says. We’re really happy for you, Peter.

That, folks, is how you ruin Christmas.

To put this in context, Mars was a transformative force for the city of Des Moines. It championed – and became the heartbeat of – our creative and entrepreneurial classes. It was a triple shot of weird at the exact moment Des Moines needed to be roused from its sleepy complacency.

But my post isn’t going to be a flowery remembrance of Mars Cafe. My post is about letting things end.

After the announcement on Facebook, I watched the comments roll in. Emotions ranged from shock to grief to confusion.

“This sucks.”

“Shiiiiiittt.”

“I feel like a part of me just died.”

The owner (Larry James Jr.) posted this reasoning for the closing:

…running a cafe is a full-time job. Apart from Mars, I’m an attorney with a growing practice and a wonderful young family. My career and kids require more time now, and so it is time to close the cafe.

Some commenters were asking why Larry couldn’t just sell the shop and let the brand live on. This is a natural response. So is having a heavy heart. Mars Cafe has given so much to the community over the years, and the community rightly feels a sense of ownership over the place. It can’t just go away. It’s ours.

Yes, Larry could easily sell the place and walk away. It would still be called Mars Cafe, but things would be slightly different. The DNA would slowly change over time. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, but I suspect it played into the decision to not hand it off to someone else.

I believe there’s beauty in a good ending, and I respect individuals who recognize when it’s time to  walk off the stage. Bill Watterson, the creator of Calvin & Hobbes, ended the comic strip at the peak of its popularity. Readers, fans and publishers were dismayed, but it was the right move. (Just look at how horrible Garfield is today.)

Larry built Mars Cafe the way he wanted. He deserves to turn off the lights in his own way, at a time and style of his choosing.

Corporate IT needs to be torn apart, blown up, re-imagined and rebuilt from scratch.

Today’s information technology departments are obsessed with restricting access to technology and telling you “don’t touch that.” They won’t let you access Google Docs, even though working on a centralized, collaborative document will make your team more efficient. They won’t let you transfer a large file via SendSpace, so you’ll need to burn that to a disc and spend at least $20.00 to overnight it via FedEx. They force thousands upon thousands of employees to muddle through what is certainly one of the inner rings of Hell: Internet Explorer 7. Simply put, IT has become ineffective, burdensome and downright crippling to corporations.

It’s not their fault. They were built this way. In the 90s, employees everywhere started becoming hyper-connected to the outside world via the Internet. This was deemed a risk. Solution: Build a department devoted to keeping viruses, evil-doers and digital riff-raff out.

IT became the corporate moat.

Tomorrow’s information technology departments will have a simple charter: Get the best technology into the hands of employees so they can do their jobs better. Instead of lurking in basements with no natural light and responding to support tickets, they’ll be proactive. They’ll train senior executives on the latest technology trends. They’ll ask team members what their needs are and respond quickly. They will be obsessed with keeping the corporation digitally fit and competent.

I completely understand the need for security, risk management and business continuity. But these can no longer be the responsibility of the IT department. Firing the detonation charges will take significant culture and personnel changes, but it can be done.

The IT staff of the future will be educators, enthusiasts and helpers. Not hall monitors and security guards.

CONNECTING…

Other guy: You’re friends with Brian Shaler!
Me: We both know Brian Shaler! Does he still have that mustache?
Other guy: Yep, it’s really creepy.
Me: The last time I saw Brian Shaler was in Austin, Texas on 6th Street. He was wearing full body pajamas.
Other guy: Was he jumping?
Me: No, but he was handing out gas masks to strangers.
Other guy: So, I’m disappointed that you’re not Mark Zuckerberg. I’m moving on.
Me: Good bye!

DISCONNECTING…

This will be my seventh straight year attending South by Southwest Interactive. It’s important to stay alive mentally and physically during the conference. Here are a few ways to do that, based on what I’ve learned over the years.

Wear comfortable walking shoes

You’re going to walk everywhere: to hotels, parties, restaurants, and at least 163 loops through the Austin Convention Center, which is the size of a small city. Be good to your feet. I’m a fan of Sauconys.

Avoid your hometown crew

You’ll likely feel the urge to pal around with people you already know from back home. Resist this. Meet hundreds of new people instead. Divide, conquer, and report back to them later. You’ll see your local friends when you’re back home.

Don’t cave to elitism

Like every industry, the tech world has its share of pseudo-celebrities, primadonnas and toolbags with an inflated sense of worth. Don’t play their game. Don’t fawn over them. Don’t worry about what parties they’re at. If the line to a venue is too long, ditch it and find another one.

Replace one meal each day with a CLIF bar

I eat one of these each day for breakfast at SXSW. CLIF bars are packed with protein and will hold you over until lunch. Food expenses add up fast, and you can save $100-$120 by eating these instead.

Charge your immune system

You’re going to shake a lot of hands, swap a lot of germs, drink a lot of free drinks and ultimately get very little sleep. This is a recipe for an immune system crash on your way home (known as “South by Scurvy“.) Start boosting your immune system early and sustain it throughout the trip. Vitamin C has always worked well for me.

Prepare for phone death

Your smartphone battery will die quicker that you think. To keep it alive, invest in an external battery pack or snap-on case. I just picked up a Mophie Juice Pack Air for my iPhone.

Don’t live-tweet everything

Resist the urge to live-tweet every sentence from every panel and keynote. This will kill your phone (and you). Broadcast a few choice nuggets here and there, plus your own perspective. That’s enough.

Stay flexible

There are an infinite number of parties and panels to attend. Unless you’ve figured out how to clone yourself, there’s no way you can take it all in. RSVP to as many parties as you want, triple-book your panels at austin2012.sched.org, then decide what you want to do at the last minute.

Don’t listen to “veterans” like myself

Find your own fun. Make your own path. Most of all, have a blast.

P.S. … Here are a few more tips for first-timers at sxsw.com/first_time

How does it work? You set up an account, connect it to your social networks of choice (currently Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare and Instagram are the only options) and each day you receive an email that summarizes your one-year-ago activity.

Why is this interesting to a human being? The only word to describe what I feel when I receive my daily TimeHop is delight. It’s an uncomfortable word for me, so I use it sparingly. I’m delighted by very few things, mostly pictures of Corgis dressed as lobsters. My first TimeHop reminder told me I was at Bruegger’s on Ingersoll a year ago. I’ve only been there once, and it was the day I picked up bagels for an 8:00 am client meeting with Kemin Personal Care. This one detail triggered a series of other memories about that same day, which I’d completely forgotten about. Conversations I had. People I ran into. Other things that were happening in the world.

TimeHop is helping me build and extend my offboard brain. I’ll have you know that I’ve actually been working on my offboard brain for years. Every email I’ve sent or received since 2006 is stored in my Gmail account. That sounds insane, but all of those conversations are searchable, which reduces my need to actually remember the full context of most things. This frees up my physical brain to concentrate on more important tasks, like stressing out over whether the Megatron and Galvatron Wikipedia entries should be merged or not.

In all seriousness, we humans leave a lot of ephemeral data behind on social networks, wrapped around activities that may seem mundane at the time. (Warren Ellis called this landfill of ones and zeroes the “data shadow” back in 2006.) Tweeting that you ate a sandwich – when combined with location data and the context of everything else your experienced that day – suddenly becomes more interesting. It’s interesting because human brains didn’t evolve to catalog every single detail of our lives, and now we can start unlocking some of that.

TimeHop aligns well with another trend I’m seeing, which is our need to back-fill our Facebook Timelines. We’re fascinated by our past because we barrel through life taking so many experiences and moments for granted. Now we have the tools to start organizing, beyond a dusty box of old photos.

(Oh yeah, The Des Moines Register’s Sarah Day Owen posted about TimeHop today too!)

1.) Stop using automated story aggregators like Paper.li

If you feel the urge to share an interesting blog post or news article with your Twitter audience, simply retweet or post a few choice links here and there. I’m all for individuals curating news, but Paper.li isn’t curation – it’s vomiting everything you’ve read onto the Internet. I’m not interested in everything you read. Use your filters. Know your audience and their expectations. Look up the meaning of “curate.” Stop contributing to data waste.

2.) Stop auto-posting between Twitter and Facebook

Think of these two networks as completely different worlds, with different populations and societal norms. You might think you’ve achieved maximum efficiency by writing a Facebook post and hooking up some application that auto-broadcasts that post to your Twitter account, but what you’ve really done is create a tweet that is ugly, off-putting, and typically broken off in mid-sentence. (Remember, Facebook allows more characters than Twitter’s 140 limit.) On that same note, your Facebook audience doesn’t want to see posts with @tags and #hashtags in them. They simply don’t function in that platform, and they lack context. By auto-posting between networks, you might save a few seconds in your day, but you’re also making yourself / your brand easier to ignore and unfollow.

3.) Stop scheduling your tweets

I believe that scheduled tweets are OK in moderation, but don’t ever schedule them for more than 24 hours out. You don’t want to be that guy who scheduled a promotional marketing message one week in advance, only to see it broadcast right in the middle of some huge disaster gripping the world’s attention. Like, Los Angeles collapses into the ocean after an earthquake, and you’re auto-tweeting about your next webinar. Also, if you feel victorious and productive by scheduling a week’s worth of tweets on Monday morning, your company should take the social media keys away from you immediately. It proves that you aren’t a fan of the platform. Find a team member who is.

(Do you see a theme emerging here? Automation is lazy.)

4.) Stop obsessing over your Klout score

Klout might become an interesting measure of “influence” in the future, but currently it’s all over the board. Scores vary wildly from day to day, so don’t declare a victory when you reach a 62. (You might be back to 30 tomorrow.) It’s meaningless, and so is your Twitter follower amount. Do good work and earn respect in your business community instead.

5.) Stop using social media to talk about social media

You’re a well-rounded human being, right? You have other interests and obsessions. Share those, too. Look at your feed – if 100% of it is the latest Seth Godin posts and poorly-researched Mashable articles, you need to diversify. Imagine if you picked up a telephone, called your friends and just talked about telephones. They’d hang up.