Four Seasons Hotels and Resorts Las Vegas 10 June 2000.

Four SeasonsHotels and

Resorts

Las Vegas10 June 2000

Brand Inside

Brand Org!

And Now the Equivalent …

White Collar Revolution!

RR on “Assetless” [J.B.] Sara Lee

“The most profitable businesses in the future will act as knowledge brokers, linking insights into what’s available

with insights into the customer’s individual needs

and preferences.”

The “&-!!+#$% in the middle”*

Jim Clark on Healtheon/WebMD

* ’twixt docs, patients, insurers and providers; $275B of $400B in waste; source: Michael

Lewis, The New New Thing

Buzzsaw.com

Builders, Owners, Architects, Contractors, Suppliers

$4T industry

5,300 commercial bldg. projects’ specs on-line; +70 per day

These are …

L.A.D.T.I.R.S.*

*Life-and-death-total-industry-reinvention-struggles

Brand Inside

Brand Talent!

Issue Y2K

The Great War for Talent!

“When land was the scarce resource, nations battled

over it. The same is happening now for talented people.”

Stan Davis & Christopher Meyer, futureWEALTH

“The leaders of Great Groups love talent and know where to find it. They revel in the talent of others.” Warren Bennis & Patricia Ward Biederman

John Chambers

Gets It!

So Does Lucent!

Every resume or employment question that comes to Lucent via

the Web gets answered in 30 minutes or less. [24/7.]

Red Herring [06.00], on Lucent Director of

Recruitment Jim Baughman

“Our business needs a massive transfusion of talent. And talent, I believe, is most likely to be found among non-conformists, dissenters and rebels.” David Ogilvy

What Do We Do With Him?

“He grew his hair long, played guitar in a rock band, chased

girls, got into trouble. At age 17 he was flogged by his house

master, who described him as ‘the most difficult boy I’ve ever

had to deal with.’ ”

Elect Him Prime Minister

Tony Blair*

*talk/May 2000

Talent War Y2K!

–All out!/ Time consuming!–Never ending!/ Unwinnable!–Includes everybody!/ Everybody’s

game! (“We’re all in sales.”)–Expensive!–Cool!/ WOW!/ Fun!/ Creative!–Strategic!/ Core competence!

H.R. to H.E.D. ???

HumanEnablement Department

“Firms will not ‘manage the careers’ of their employees. They

will provide opportunities to enable the employee to develop

identity and adaptability and

thus be in charge of his or her own career.”

Tim Hall et al., “The New Protean Career Contract”

Talent = Brand

Brand Outside

Context:

No “Commodities”!

Quality Not Enough!

“While everything may be better, it is also increasingly

the same.”

Paul Goldberger on retail, “The Sameness of Things,” The New York Times

“The ‘surplus society’ has a surplus of similar companies, employing similar

people, with similar educational backgrounds, coming up with similar ideas, producing similar things, with similar prices and similar quality.”

Kjell Nordstrom and Jonas Ridderstrale, Funky Business

The “10X/10X Phenomenon”

10 Times Better/

10 Times Less Different

“Customer Satisfaction” to “Customer “Success”

“We’re getting better at [Six Sigma] every day. But we really

need to think about the customer’s profitability. Are customers’

bottom lines really benefiting from what we provide them?”

Bob Nardelli, GE Power Systems

[Old view: Out of service 9 days. 4 days are transport, which is client

responsibility.

New view: ALL 9 DAYS ARE OUR RESPONSIBILITY! Why? 9 days =

Client’s world.]

Source: Steve Kerr

Four Seasons Hotel Las Vegas

MY STAY HAS BEEN LOUSY!

YOUR PROBLEM: A GROTESQUE START. To wit: 1 hour, 7 minutes in an airport cab line @ 10:30 P.M.

(1:30 A.M. EDT)

Fact:

You are responsible, in my mind,

for … THE TURNKEY TRAVEL EXPERIENCE … and I don’t discriminate among

who provides what.

Brand Outside

Strategy 1:

Lead the Customer!

“Wealth in this new regime flows directly from innovation, not

optimization. That is, wealth is not gained by perfecting the known,

but by imperfectly seizing the unknown.”

Kevin Kelly, New Rules for the New Economy

Amen!

“The Age of the Never Satisfied

Customer”Regis McKenna

P.S.: I loved having a Printer in my Hyatt Regency Buffalo room the night before last. Hint: Fax

machines [in the room] are seriously Old Economy, a cute anachronism which demos that

you don’t get it.

An Office Away From Home …

Easy physical access to plugs and phone jacks [Marriott?]

Ergonomically correct chair & desk[Nobody?]

High speed phone access [Nobody?]

Multiple [preferably 3] phone linesPrinter [Hyatt]

Brand Outside

Strategy 2:

Use E-Commerce

to Re-invent the Business!

?????

$35,000,000.

Dell’s Web sales … daily

Tomorrow Today: Cisco!

90% of $14.4BSave $500M (service and tech

support)

C.Sat e >> C.Sat H

Welcome to

D.I.Y. Nation!“Changes in business processes will emphasize self service. Your costs as

a business go down and

perceived service goes up because customers are conducting it

themselves.” Ray Lane, Oracle

Anne Busquet/ American Express

Not: “Age of the Internet”

Is: “Age of Customer Control”

“In the network economy, the Website becomes the company’s primary interface to the customer.

The user interface becomes the marketing materials, store front,

store interior, sales staff and post-sales support all rolled into one.”

Jakob Nielsen, Designing Web Usability

“Where does the Internet rank in priority?

It’s No. 1, 2, 3, and 4.” Jack Welch

“Banking is

necessary. Banks are not.”

Dick Kovacevich, Norwest/ Wells

Q: Will 90% of business meetings disappear in the

next 5 to 15 years?

A: It’s not a stupid question.

Brand Outside

Strategy 3:

Women Rule!

?????????

Home Furnishings … 94%Vacations … 92%

Houses … 91%Bank Account … 89%

Health Care … 75%Etc.

$3.3T + $1.5T = $4.8T*

* Larger than Japan!

48% working wives > 50%80% checks

61% bills53% stock (mutual fund boom)

43% > $500K95% financial decisions/

29% single handed

Yeow!

1970 … 1%

2002 … 50%

OPPORTUNITY

NO. 1!

Read This Book …

EVEolution: The Eight Truths of Marketing to Women

Faith Popcorn & Lys Marigold

“Men and women don’t think the same way, don’t communicate the same

way, don’t buy for the same reasons.

“He simply wants the transaction to take place. She’s interested in creating a relationship. Every place women go,

they make connections.”

EVEolution: Truth No. 1

Connecting Your Female Consumers to Each

Other Connects Them to Your Brand

“The ‘Connection Proclivity’ in women starts early. When asked,

‘How was school today?’ a girl usually tells her mother every

detail of what happened, while a boy might grunt, ‘Fine.’ ”

EVEolution

Weight Watchers International “Model”

“What if ExxonMobil or Shell dipped into their credit card database to help commuting women

interview and make a choice of car pool partners?”

“What if American Express made a concerted effort to connect up female empty-nesters

through on-line and off-line programs, geared to help women re-enter the workforce with today’s

skills?”

EVEolution

27 March 2000: email to TP from Shelley Rae Norbeck

“I make 1/3rd more money than my husband does. I have as much financial

‘pull’ in the relationship as he does. I’d say this is also true of most of my women

friends. Someone should wake up, smell the coffee and kiss our asses long enough

to sell us something! We have money to

spend and nobody wants it!”

Who “Gets It”?

Nobody??Wyndham??

Speaking of Enormous

[Missed] [Huge] Opportunities ...

74/55

“At each stage of their lives, the needs and desires of the baby

boomers have become the dominant concerns of American business and popular culture. If you can anticipate

the movement of the baby-boom generation’s life-span migration, you

can see the future.”Ken Dychtwald, Age Wave

Aging/“Elderly”

2X growth rate$$$$$$$$$$$$

“I’m in charge!”

Good source: Ken Dychtwald, Age Wave

Priorities: Aging/“Elderly”

Experiences … Convenience … Comfort

… Access … Respect!

Brand Outside

Strategy 4:

Design Rules!

“Design is treated like a religion at BMW.”

Fortune (10/98)

Design as Soul

“We don’t have a good language to talk about this kind of thing. In most people’s

vocabularies, design means veneer. … But to me, nothing could be further from the

meaning of design. Design is the fundamental soul of a

man-made creation.”Steve Jobs

“My favorite word is grace –

whether it’s amazing grace,

saving grace, grace under fire,

Grace Kelly. How we live contributes to beauty – whether it’s how we treat other people or

the environment.”

Celeste Cooper, designer

Please …

FRESH AIR!

Brand Outside

Strategy 5:

It’s the Experience!

“Experiences are as distinct from services as services are from

goods.”Joseph Pine & James Gilmore, The

Experience Economy: Work Is Theater & Every Business a Stage

“The [Starbucks] Fix” Is on …

“We have identified a ‘third place.’ And I really believe that sets us apart. The third place is

that place that’s not work or home. It’s the place our

customers come for refuge.”Nancy Orsolini, District Manager

Experience: “Rebel Lifestyle!”

“What we sell is the ability for a 43-year-old accountant to dress in black leather, ride through small towns and have people be afraid

of him.”

Harley exec, quoted in Results-based Leadership

“The deepest human need is

the ... NEED TO BE APPRECIATED.”

William James

“It was much later that I realized Dad’s secret. He gained respect by giving it. He talked and listened to the fourth-

grade kids in Spring Valley who shined shoes the same way he talked and listened to a bishop or a college

president. He was seriously interested in who you were and what you had to

say.”

Sara Lawrence-Lightfoot, Respect

Oxymoron: Respect from an Airline!

I can cope with delays. I cannot cope with lies … especially Sins

of Omission.

IT IS DISRESPECTFUL TO ME AS A HUMAN BEING!

5:47 “Amber light, back to you in a coupla minutes”

6:00 NO WORD YET6:08 “Be about ten minutes …

I know it’s hot in here …

it’s not our fault”GAP = 21 MINUTES

[All’s NOT well that “ends well”][21 minute “gap” SUCKS]

The Ultimate “Win”/Compliment

“It’s good to be home.”

TP to Concierge @ ???????????

Four Seasons Chicago

A League of Their Own!

WashingtonChicagoLondon

BostonPhiladelphia

Other B.I.P.s

Hotel Plaza Athenee Gidleigh Park [B.I.U.]

R.C. Laguna Niguel, rm21XXR.C. McQuarrie(?) St/Sydney

The Oberoi/New DelhiRaffles

The Oriental/BangkokCiragan Palace Hotel/Kempinski-Istanbul, rm258

L’Hotel/ParisHotel Hana Maui

Las Brisas/AcapulcoHay Adams, rooms overlooking the White House

(“Best Caesar Salad,” night chef only)One Devonshire Gardens/Glasgow

Almost anything in the Preferred Hotels & Resorts Worldwide

Some W.I.P.s

The Breakers[A league of its own!]

Hotel del CoronadoThe Windsor [Melbourne]Brown’s [great High Tea,

but hopelessly creaky & cranky]

Hotel Plaza Athenee

Really Know Me!![And, subsequently, I know their staff.]

Love My Kids!! [Roller blade from street to elevator]Fuss over Susan as much as me!!!

[And know her last name is Sargent!] Get the “little” preferences right.

[USA Today, water for tea] [You supposedly do]NOT PRETENTIOUS OR PRECIOUS!

[But, still, serve their full share of blue hairs.]

The Good Old [Calmer] Days …

The Kidney Stone Moment!

BOBOS In Paradise/David Brooks

“It’s been easy to distinguish between the bourgeois world of capitalism and the bohemian world of counterculture. The bourgeois were the square, practical ones. The bohemians were the free spirits who flouted conventions. But now it was impossible to tell an espresso-sipping

artist from a cappuccino-gulping banker. It became clear that I was observing a cultural

consequence of the information age. …

The people who thrive in this period are the ones who can turn ideas and emotions into products.

These are highly educated folk who have one foot in the bohemian world of creativity and another foot in the bourgeois realm of worldly success. The members of the new information elite are bourgeois bohemians. Or, to take the first two

letters of each word, they are Bobos. These Bobos define our age. They are the new elite. Their hybrid culture is the atmosphere we all

breathe. Their status codes now govern social life.”

Criticism No. 1:

Billy C. doesn’t phase me, but …

I am [frequently] intimidated by the 4S.

Wish List

Calm but not lifelessFriendly but not cloyingUnderstated elegance

“Comfy” [physical, mental]FRESH AIR!

The Right to Be Left AloneWIRED! [Brown’s]

Responsive/Magical Moments [e.g. roller blades in London]

24 hr room service [PCS @ Philly]24 hour health club access [rare!]

Brand Outside

BRAND POWER!

Brand It! Now, More Than Ever!

“The increasing difficulty in differentiating between products and

the speed with which competitors take

up innovations will assist in the rise and rise of the brand.”

Gillian Law and Nick Grant, Management [New Zealand]

06.08.00

Colonial Williamsburg

Scott Bedbury/ Nike, Starbucks

“A Great Brand taps into emotions. Emotions drive most, if not all, of our decisions. A brand reaches out with a powerful connecting experience. It’s an

emotional connecting point that transcends the product.

“A Great Brand is a story that’s never completely told. A brand is a metaphorical story that

connects with something very deep - a fundamental appreciation of mythology.

Stories create the emotional context people need to locate themselves in a larger experience.”

“We are in the twilight of a society based on data. As information and intelligence become the domain of computers, society will place more value on the one human ability that cannot be automated: emotion.

Imagination, myth, ritual - the language of emotion - will affect everything from our purchasing decisions

to how we work with others. Companies will thrive on the basis of their stories and

myths. Companies will need to understand that their products are less important than their stories.”

Rolf Jensen, Copenhagen Institute for Future Studies

Brand = You Must Care!

“Success means never letting the competition define you. Instead you have to define

yourself based on a point of view you care deeply about.”

Tom Chappell, Tom’s of Maine

“Create a Cause, not a ‘business.’ ”

Gary Hamel, Fortune (06.00), on re-inventing a company (Exemplar #1:

Charles Schwab)

Top Threats to the 4S Brand

Complacency! (Success Kills!)

Growth/Bureaucracy! (An EVP S.O.U.B.?)

Failure to reinforce the CultureTalent Drain (Pay the price!!)

Niche ChallengersChanging “Demographics”

(Bobos, Women, Gen X)

The Web (the DEATH of business meetings)

Message …

Personal service firms are exceedingly fragile

And exceedingly stuck in their ways

Brand Leadership

Passion Rules!

Brand Leadership!

“A key – perhaps the key – to leadership is the effective

communication of a story.”

Howard Gardner Leading Minds: An Anatomy of Leadership

“Leadership is a performance. You have to be

conscious of your behavior, because everybody else is.”

Carly Fiorina

Brand Leadership:ENTHUSIASM RULES!

“I am a dispenser of enthusiasm”/ Ben

Zander

Ann Richards’ Dogma

Show up!

Know your message!

PUT YOURSELF AT RISK EVERY DAY!