Engaging in Risky Behavior
Jun 15 2010 2:01:28 PMBy Deb Hanamura
Lots of people use blogs as an outlet to broadcast stories of their risky behavior. Courtney Love recently posted her naked nunu on Facebook. Michael Lohan has made a career of broadcasting his risk taking. You even have folks like David Blaine who take risks with their risks, then stream them on TV from Times Square for you to gawk at.
Ad agency folks… not so much. We love to tell the story of the risk we took that paid off. We love to tell the story of the risk we wished our client had the cajones to approve; but lo, we hate telling the world about the risks we as marketers took that didn’t pay off. Ugh… failure.
So let’s just put it out there… some risks backfire. I’ll even go on the record with this: some risks that I’ve taken have backfired.
There. I said it. And (call me a masochist) but I liked it – Because failure and learning go hand in hand. Risk taking and leadership are cozy bedfellows. Rule Makers and Rule Breakers often have the exact same twitter handle. This is how intertwined risk taking, learning, and leadership can be.
There are a lot of things that we do to mitigate risks (any Six Sigma Black Belts out there?). We can do market analysis, competitive landscape, focus groups (focus groups, and more focus groups). We can only do things that other people have already done and commit to a life as a close follower (second place still gets a ribbon, right?).
Here’s the deal – we are in the midst of a third-wave technical revolution. The world is changing and it’s changing fast. Innovators (the champions of risk taking) are not just playing the game – they’re changing it. There are a couple of ways that you can freak out.
Option A: Avoidance
• “Let’s hire an intern to figure out social media for us”
• “We’re not ready for interactive user experiences… maybe we can start thinking about that next year.”
• “Before we consider trying [INSERT NEW THING HERE], let’s make sure we have a policy in place to prevent misuse.”
• “Let’s keep conducting focus groups until I understand this [INSERT NEW THING HERE].”
• “I’m concerned that this may cost money. Rejected.”
Option B: Spastic Attack
• “There’s no time for strategy, let’s just put some sh*t up YESTERDAY.”
• “Stop everything – Our company mission is now to make APPS.”
• “Let’s make everything work for the iPhone. If it doesn’t work on the iPhone, it shouldn’t exist.”
Here’s what I want you to do: Experiment with risk. Try new things. Test your comfort zone. When someone talks to you about Augmented Reality, Landing Tabs, Geomarketing, 3D anything, AIR applications, immersive online experiences, API’s, HTML5, or really – anything that breaks with your convention, consider it seriously before reacting (see options A and B above).
Now is the time to take risks and explore the wonderful new things that technology is offering. You don’t have to be an expert about it – you just have to be curious and a little bit brave.
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