2 November 2015, Boston, Massachusetts, USA
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Today we're going to have a conversation and the foundation of any good conversation is trust, and so in order for you to trust me as a speaker, as an expert, which I am, you need to know who am I and why should you trust me, and trust my expertise.
My name is Orlando Scampington. This is my Twitter handle. This is my website which is under construction, but will be done by the end of the week, I've been told. What do I do? I wear many hats. I'm a consultant. I work with startups. You may recognize some of these. The Brimbbler app has distributed the way deli meats are consumed and I think it's safe to say the snow, but Google has acquired Horsepunt, which is a big win for me. I'm very proud of that.
I'm also an author. This is my first book, Marketing Cyperspace to Millennials. It is just in colleges across the country. It's very popular and if you know me for anything, it's probably my New York Times Bestseller, Milk, Milk, Lemonade. Around the Corner Existing Assets are Leveraged for Improved R.O.I.
I'm a speaker, you know that. I'm on stage speaking to you. These are some of the TED talks I've given in the past year. You can find them on ted.com, Youtube.com, and the Internet. This is something I'm very proud of, the entertainment world, this is the first movie that I've worked on. I worked with some folks from BuzzFeed and is started Melissa McCarthy and Matthew McConaughey. Matthew actually played gifs 15-25. He is very talented and is a pleasure to work with.
My question for you is, Why are you here? Why are you at Inbound? Why are you in this room? And I'll answer that for you. You are here because you want to be better. You want to be better. You want your organization to be better. You want the world to be better and the question is, for us, how do we make that happen? How do we make ourselves better? Our communities better? And the world better?
Well the answer is you need a strong foundation. You need a foundation that lets you grow and expand, and improve. What is your foundation build on now? Is it hard work? It is expertise? Is it the dedication of the people around you? Unfortunately, yes, perhaps that's the case for some of you, but what you need is The Pillars of C.L.A.M. The Pillars of C.L.A.M. are the pillars of the future, Culture, Leadership, Analysis, and Marketing. These are amazing things.
Now you can't spell C.L.A.M. without "C" and you can't have an organization without Culture, but what do we mean when we talk about culture? We can look at the etymology of the word, where it comes from, what the meaning has been in the past, but we are a forward looking people. We are looking towards the future, so where does culture fit into our current organizations and what, where we want to go?
The formula, which I think you recognize is simple. Culture drives motivation which leads to success. This is a little abstract, can we view this in a more visual manner? Is there something that we can let us understand this beyond simply words and I think there is? Bear with me. Culture is the bitter drunken coachmen lashing motivation into the ungrateful workhorses, so they drag the wagon of growth down the road of success. I think that's a very accurate analogy.
When we talk about motivation, we need to think about what motivates people? What drives us? What makes us come to work early and stay late, and help those around us, and learn more? I'm sure most of you are familiar with the concept that I came up with several years ago, the Motivation Circle. At the core of the Motivational Circle, is recognition. From a young age, we're taught that your work, your good work, your efforts are rewarded. If you do your homework in grade school, you receive a gold star. If you eat only half the glue, I got a gold star. You see these sort of things that are ingrained in us from a very young age.
The second circle is a Fear of Bats or Snakes. Now, bats and snakes are very small, very agile. They can be anywhere and strike at any time. You can see why it's a strong motivator.
The third circle is a combination. Now the puppy activates our nurturing instinct, which is very primal. Well the balloon engages us on a more floaty level and the fourth circle is, of course, free Guacamole.
Culture drives motivation which leads to success. Now I have a confession. I feel like cultures in fact perhaps the most neglected pillar in The Pillars of C.L.A.M., so I urge you to leave here with an appreciation for culture. Please focus on it. Make it apart of who you are and who your organization is.
Now leadership is exceptional. Leadership is what separates us, humans, from the animals, that and opposable thumbs, and hoverboards, and Tender profiles, but animals have no concept of leadership. There's no CMO of dolphins. There's no VP of ants. Raccoons understand representative democracy, but they function more in a futile...my point is this, we want to be and want to have strong leaders and the question is, for us, how do we show that we are strong leaders? Is it by pouring hot coffee on the worst intern? It is by bringing ninja throwing stars to an earnings call? Yes, these are both fantastic ideas, but the real lasting connection we can make with people, the real bond that we can form with those who follow us, is trust.
Trust is perhaps the most genuine currency we have as human beings, and the question for us, as aspiring leaders, is how do we fool those who follow us into trusting us? Now I pause it that we can learn from those who are already leaders, who are already successful and I'd like to show you a few examples and see what we can take from their styles of leadership.
I think that clarity is of the utmost importance. Steve Jobs made sure that everybody at Apple understood what the message of Apple was and what they were trying to accomplish. Clarity breeds trust.
The second point that I'd like to make, the second example if you will, is about transparency. If you have internal conflict. If there are issues to be resolved internally, deal with it in a direct and transparent manner, and people respect that. Transparency facilitates trust.
This is perhaps the most difficult concept and it is a concept of accountability as a leader to be trusted and to be strong, you have to accept your decisions whether they are good or bad and accountability is important. Accountability leads to those who follow you, trusting you.
Expectations. You can set high expectations for those who work with you and follow you. You can demand excellence at all levels and from all facets of your organization, or community, but you have to have clear expectations. Expectations facilitate trust and when we are good leaders, when we are strong leaders, those around us thrive and that is the ultimate thing we get as leaders. That is the ultimate gift as leaders beyond extra compensation that we enjoy, is seeing those around you really become better than they were when you started.
Now I don't want to spend too much time on analysis. Not a big numbers guy, but I think we have to acknowledge the popularity of analysis over the past stretch of time. This chart is fantastic, really drives home the point and if we double-click, if we drill down into analysis as a concept, we see that there are varieties of approaches of types and that each person, perhaps, chooses to what fits their approach, their organization, what most helps them.
If you take a slice of this overall trend and look even just in the past year, analysis has really had a great year. Struggle Q1, Q2, Q3 looked very dire to be honest, but Q4 just exceptional and I've great feelings for 2016 for analysis. One caveat to this whole section, not a numbers guy. I'm a strong believer in intuition, so I would urge you to maintain your gut feeling into all the decisions that you make, it's highly important and it leads to better decision making.
Now I reach the marketing section and I can hear you thinking, "Orlando, we're at Inbound. We know marketing. We're the best, the best. We are the cream of the crop," and I'm not going to argue with you. For example, I don't have to explain to you the zoner persuasion. You understand this concept. You know that good marketing involves steering prospects into the zoner persuasion. This is not new news to you, and I respect your talents, and your abilities and your experience, what I'd like to do instead is to look at some key moments throughout the history of marketing that perhaps gives a sense of where we've come from and then maybe in some way give a sense of where we're going. These are just sort of important moments I think is worth considering in the long, long history of marketing.
Let's start with the first log post, which is 2000 BC. Why do we share? Why do we post log posts? The answer is that we want to be validated. We want to know that our opinions are perhaps being shared by those around us. That we are, perhaps, putting some useful into the world. You know the first log post was simple. It was this: What's up with the animals, amiright?" And we don't know who wrote the first log post. We know this it was this gentleman, we don't know his name, but this first log post, or this first logger, if you will, seems like a very harsh post. What's up with the animals, amiright?, but again you consider the larger context of this situation and his post makes more sense. The animals look very organized and aggressive.
In 1476, we find the world's first embedded content. Now the bio-tapestry documents, in amazing detail, the Battle of Hastings, which is a turning point in European history, but within these moments of battle and sailing, and animals of some variety, we find first case of embedded content and for those of you can't read it, it says: 10 Manners by which to Improve Thine Horse-manship. This gentleman is a terrible horse rider. Within the same tapestry, there was also some more editorial content, which was not successful, but it was part of the tapestry.
Now this last instance I want to look at, I think is may be the most relevant to those in the room, it's the first tweet, the start of Twitter, which of course was in 1903. Kitty Hawk, North Caroline, May 14th, this was an amazing day for humanity. This is where we left the Earth. We shed the shackles of our earthbound existence and took to the skies, and that is amazing, but more importantly, the world's first tweet, which to be fair has aged very well. It still looks like it's in excellent condition, not surprisingly this first tweet lead to the world's second tweet, and in a rather unfortunate turn this lead to the world's first twitter beef, which, as you can see, a bit aggressive and sadly the whole thing added and ended on, what I would consider, rather crest node. The good news is that we've become much more civil. The Internet has become a very civil and reasonable place since 1903, so we've made progress. I feel good about things.
In closing, these are The Pillars of C.L.A.M. If you follow these, if you bring these home, you bring this to your business, you bring this to the people you know and love, you'll become a better person, the world will become a better person, your organizations, your communities, your families, it is of the utmost importance that you could take these into account at all times. Now I know what you're thinking, you're saying, "Orlando, will this work?," and I can say, "Yes, it will. I guarantee it." This is a fail safe method here.
For those of you who are encountering The Pillars of C.L.A.M. for the first time, if this is the first time you've seen this and I think, "I've been living my whole life without this," do not despair, the future is an amazing thing and there's time for you to adopt The Pillars of C.L.A.M. Thank you, Good afternoon.