NME Asia: British music brand launches in Asia
Iconic UK music brand NME has launched in Asia, even as the entertainment industry is hit by the coronavirus.
NME says its new Singapore-based website will deliver a fresh approach to the South East Asian music scene. he company says it will initially focus on Singapore, Malaysia and the Philippines and has plans to rapidly expand in the region.
The announcement comes at a time when many other media companies are making major cutbacks due to the pandemic.
“South East Asia has a proud musical heritage. Whether it’s trending pop styles, traditional music or a marriage of the two, artists in the region have pricked the ears of audiences worldwide – and we’re thrilled to be able to tell their stories,” Iliyas Ong, editorial lead of NME Asia said.
The company said its core editorial team in Singapore will manage a network of journalists across the region. Wednesday’s announcement comes after NME entered the Australian market at the end of last year.
NME also recently restarted physical publishing with a monthly magazine in Australia, its only current regular print edition.
The move comes at a time when much of the global media industry is being forced to make significant cuts as it deals with the impact of the coronavirus pandemic.
“Even though live events, tours and travel are on pause globally, there is still incredible creativity coming out of this region which we want to highlight,” said Meng Ru Kuok, the chief executive of NME’s owner BandLab Technologies.
The NME itself has seen its fortunes change in recent years in the face of falling circulation and the shift from physical sales to online distribution across the music industry.
From its roots as a trade magazine for musicians, NME rose to become a world-renowned music publication before being buffeted by changing consumer behaviours.
The New Musical Express was first published in March 1952, later that year it became the first British paper to include a singles chart.
The World’s Biggest Rock Weekly
During the 1960s NME was known for championing the British bands emerging at the time, including The Beatles and The Rolling Stones. The 1970s saw the paper at the cutting edge of the UK’s new music scenes, including glam rock and punk.
Throughout the next three decades the publication cemented its position as the world’s biggest rock weekly and independent music bible. But in 2015, faced with falling sales, NME magazine was relaunched as a free publication.
Just three years later NME announced that its print edition would cease publication after 66 years and become an online-only offering. In 2019, the NME and Uncut magazine were sold to Singaporean music company BandLab Technologies.
This article first appeared here.
4 Keys To Making Online Learning Work
Strict US lockdowns ended weeks ago, but many people across the country School closures amid the coronavirus pandemic have put many educators in an unfamiliar position, forcing them to quickly transition to a distance-learning model with very little time to prepare.
Teaching in an online environment requires many of the same strategies that lead to success in a traditional classroom setting — like cultivating relationships with students and providing them with timely, relevant feedback — but doing it right requires thoughtful planning. Here are four tactics that can help educators who are new to this experience ensure their students’ success.
Provide Ample Support
One of the primary keys to distance-learning success is providing structure for students. Virtual instruction is a big shift for everyone. Students are used to having their teacher nearby monitoring progress as they work, even in the most student-centered classrooms.
It can be disconcerting for students when they don’t have a teacher physically present to work through a lesson, identify areas of confusion or misconceptions, or redirect their attention. Teachers must find ways to provide that support online. Here are some ideas:
- Give students a way to reach you for help. Let students know how they can get in touch with you if they have any questions, and the timeframe that they can expect a response. These parameters are important. They set reasonable expectations for students and families and (hopefully!) prevent you from getting a flurry of calls, emails and texts during dinnertime.
- Check in with students frequently. Set virtual “office hours” so you can check in with students and provide extra help. You can use a video conferencing tool like Skype, Zoom, or Google Hangouts to set up and host these sessions. It will be encouraging for students to see your face and hear your voice.
- Help students manage their time. Without a structured school day schedule, some students may flounder in a distance-learning environment. Teachers must help students hone their time-management skills. Provide explicit guidance for how students should plan out their work for the week. Suggest a daily schedule to keep them on track. This will help prevent them from falling behind and getting overwhelmed by a mountain of weekly work.
- Break down assignments into manageable chunks. This provides more opportunities to give feedback and gauge progress. When students feel they are making progress, they are more likely to continue working and stay on task.
Create Sound Structure
The framing and informal explanations that teachers provide verbally in the traditional classroom are equally as essential in the online environment. Before teachers post lesson plans online, they should think about framing the work they are assigning, or students might miss the bigger picture and the critical connections in that work that they are doing, both of which are essential to their learning.
Consider recording a quick video to introduce topics and skills each week and identify the flow of work that students will complete. Make sure assignments clearly communicate instructions and expectations; teachers may need to provide additional details where they would normally do so informally in the face-to-face classroom. Provide just a few key high-quality resources; too many resources will overwhelm and distract students.
Maintain a Sense of Community
Students are motivated when they feel connected with their peers. Teachers should think of ways to build and maintain that connection online. This can help offset the isolation that many students are likely feeling with a sudden departure from their physical classrooms.
One way to do this is to facilitate virtual class discussions. You can do this synchronously (live) or asynchronously (allowing for participation at different times and across multiple days). Teachers may find that students who are reluctant to contribute to a class discussion in person are more inclined to participate online.
Another idea: offer ways for students to share their work and ideas, as they would in a traditional classroom. This might be done using Google docs, videoconferencing tools or a blog.
Provide Engaging Work
It’s just as essential to vary the types of assignments that students are provided in a distance learning model as it is in the face to face classroom. Students will get discouraged with recurrent lists of reading, videos, and worksheets.
Think about ways they can actively learn and demonstrate their virtual learning. Many of the same things done in a traditional classroom can be done fairly easily online as well; one engaging lesson can be much more meaningful than several dry lessons.
For example, get students interested in STEM content by using simple hands-on lab activities that allow them to make observations and collect data. Or consider simulations and modeling activities to practice key skills.
Don’t Worry About Having “Perfect” Technology
If your school has a learning management system, chances are it has features that allow you to perform most of these functions. If your school doesn’t have an LMS, you can use a free platform like Moodle or Google Classroom, or an online app like one of the ones highlighted here — or even just Google docs or a blog that students can contribute to.
Be sure to check in with your local policies regarding student privacy and online access when identifying technology tools. More important than finding the perfect tool is approaching this change with effective design in mind. Keeping it simple and using familiar technology, if possible, will help everyone succeed.
As teachers and students transition to online learning en masse, it’s important to keep in mind that both groups are challenged with adapting quickly in this chaotic time. Ample support, sound structure, a sense of community and engaging work are four keys for successful distance learning.
This article first appeared here.
Game lag: Poor digital infrastructure, human capital hinder gaming growth
Poor digital infrastructure and a lack of human capital are hampering gaming industry growth in Indonesia despite opportunities to expand during the COVID-19 pandemic, the Indonesian Game Industry Association (AGI) has said.
The AGI’s chairman Cipto Adiguno said on Wednesday that the gaming and digital industry had the potential to outpace other economic sectors as they were less impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic, but the lack of infrastructure made it hard for the industry to seize the opportunity.
According to the AGI’s calculation, companies that develop gaming products, referred to as the intellectual property (IP) subsector, have seen their revenue increase by more than 50 percent since the pandemic hit Indonesia in early March.
“We have opportunities right now, as our businesses are not as impacted as other industries. However, we don’t have sufficient infrastructure and our talent is not trained for this market,” Cipto said during an online webinar held by the Tourism and Creative Economy Ministry.
Market tracker SuperData reported that spending on digital video games globally hit a record high of US$10 billion in March since the COVID-19 pandemic. It also noted that spending rose 15 percent on mobile games – mostly smartphone games – to reach $5.7 billion in March.
Similarly, mobile market analytics AppsFlyer noted that more people were making in-app purchases for online games in Indonesia during the pandemic.
Despite significant revenue growth in the IP subsector, Cipto said companies who designed games to be used for companies’ marketing and product showcasing, dubbed the “gamification” subsector, had seen a significant decline by up to 75 percent as exhibitions and events are called off amid the pandemic.
“As there are currently no events being held, customers are deferring their payments, which affects companies’ cash flow. We can say that the financial damage in this subsector is pretty high,” he said.
According to a survey conducted by the AGI of Indonesian gaming companies in March, some 30 percent of respondents said they lost Rp 101 million (US$ 6,926) to 300 million in profits because of the pandemic while 10 percent reported losses of Rp 25 million to 50 million.
The Tourism and Creative Economy Ministry’s movie, television and animation director, Syaifulloh, acknowledged that the creative and digital sector were not ready to fully transform their business models and adapt to the changes that have been wrought by the pandemic.
“When COVID-19 hit the industry, the companies still needed time and funds to adjust their operations,” he said during the online webinar.
While the pandemic has inflicted revenue declines on parts of the gaming industry, it has also reduced the disadvantages of the gaming industry in Southeast Asia in regard to product marketing, Philippines Game Developers Association (GDAP) chairman Alvin Juban said.
With gaming conventions going online because of the pandemic, Alvin said developers did not have to spend a huge amount on traveling abroad and exhibiting their products, thus reducing the gap between large gaming corporation and small-scale developers.
“Reaching clients through online platforms has become very effective. This is where we have to invest our resources if we want to expand our businesses and generate more investment from people around the world,” he said.
This article first appeared here.
UMPG China held songwriting camp with League of Legends firm
The opportunities for artists to perform live at eSports events is incredible. Now Universal Music Publishing Group (UMPG) has spied an opportunity for songwriters too. Its China arm recently organised a songwriting camp with Riot Games China – the local division of the publisher of League of Legends, one of the most popular games used for esports.
With a theme of ‘esport spirit’, the camp saw 14 of UMPG’s songwriters coming up with six songs that Riot Games will be using to promote its 2020 League of Legends World Championship. The tournament begins in Shanghai on 25 September.
Riot Games is no stranger to the music industry: it has a deal with distributor Fuga for the music in its games, and has launched virtual bands including Pentakill, K/DA and True Damage, using its big events as their promotional launchpad.
This article first appeared here.
Virus Alters Where People Open Their Wallets, Hinting at a Halting Recovery
Strict US lockdowns ended weeks ago, but many people across the country are still avoiding malls, restaurants and other businesses. The shift in behavior points to a reshaping of American commerce, fueling questions about the strength and speed of the economic recovery as the coronavirus continues to spread..
Through the end of last week, daily visits to businesses were down 24 percent from last year, according to a New York Times analysis of foot traffic data from the smartphones of more than 15 million people. After an initial plunge in the spring, consumer habits have been slow to recover, the data shows.
As state and local officials have moved to reopen businesses, people have reacted differently depending on how they view the threat of the virus. Shopping behavior has varied widely by the type of business in question, how prevalent the outbreak is nearby and even voting patterns in the region.
Visits to businesses have, for example, rebounded more in Alabama, a largely conservative state, than in the more liberal Vermont. But in comparison with last year, people in Vermont have been shopping again more than people in California, where the virus remains a greater threat. Everywhere, trips to pharmacies and hospitals have fallen, while those to gas stations and convenience stores have held steady or even increased.
How people spend will determine which companies survive, and who ultimately keep their jobs. Continued weakness at brick-and-mortar stores has enormous implications for an economy that has had years of gains wiped away in the months since the pandemic hit. The disparities in how people shop hint at a prolonged, uncertain and uneven recovery.
“It’s Econ 101. People are weighing the costs and benefits of leaving their homes and exposing themselves to risk,” said Christopher Cronin, an economics professor at Notre Dame who studied people’s behavior early in the pandemic.
On Friday, federal data showed that retail sales in July rose 1.2 percent from June, the third straight month of growth. But the increase, which was largely helped by unemployment benefits that have since expired, masked major shifts across various industries.
The smartphone data, which was provided by the location analysis company Cuebiq, showed that people were less likely to visit businesses if they lived in a state with a significant Covid-19 outbreak, major urban population centers or a higher percentage of Democratic voters. New York and Massachusetts, which match those descriptions, have seen some of the lowest foot traffic throughout the pandemic. At the other end of the spectrum, Mississippi, Alabama and Oklahoma have consistently been among the states with near-normal shopping habits.
States that saw early outbreaks were more likely to have imposed longer, more severe restrictions, but their residents remained cautious even after those rules had been lifted.
Mary Taggart, an art teacher in Wakefield, Mass., has not eaten at a restaurant in months and only shops regularly at her local grocery store, she said, even though many places are open. She has gone to a T.J. Maxx once this summer. “We can all name people we know who have contracted it and died,” she said of the virus.
Similar patterns emerged early in the pandemic. In March, Mr. Cronin found, state restrictions accounted for less than half of the decline in trips to businesses. People were likely to change their behavior once there was a death in their community.
Personal and political viewpoints also appear to be influencing behavior, several studies have found. Republican pundits and lawmakers have been more likely throughout the pandemic to emphasize the importance of reopening businesses and to play down worries about the virus.
“If you had a Republican-leaning and a Democratic-leaning area with similar reopening dates, the Republican area was still more likely to have a faster recovery” as measured by the restarting of small businesses, said Zoë Cullen, an economist at Harvard Business School.
Ms. Cullen and her colleagues, who have been regularly surveying business owners, found that those who provided essential goods and services, and whose products could not be bought online, thought they would be better able to weather the economic storm.
Regardless of region, bars are emptier than they were
Even in states such as Mississippi, where many people were shopping and going out to eat, bars fared poorly in the data reviewed by The New York Times.
This article first appeared here.
Handing Off Your Business? 14 Strategies For Success
Every business owner eventually has to step aside to make room for his or her successor. Handing over the reins is more than just a formality, however—several important steps must be taken first. Without proper consideration and a clear transfer plan, the successor won’t have the necessary tools and information at their disposal to run the company competently. Similarly, if the original owner isn’t wholeheartedly involved in the handover, it can lead to awkward and even damaging situations following their retirement.
1. Formulate and write out a plan
When it comes to business succession, the one must-remember tip is don’t get in a rush. You didn’t build a company overnight, and it’s going to take some time to pass the baton regarding processes and key relationships. Take the time to write out your ideal situation and then build a plan that accomplishes your goals with clear, actionable steps
2. Build a leadership pipeline
Use a process-driven approach to integrate the development of active leaders into the talent process and look into ways to distinguish performance from potential. This helps focus development resources on individuals who have the right mindset and drive. Intent-driven mentorship programs, cross-functional training and deliberate compensation planning can build a strong pipeline of active leaders
3. Establish a vision of success and ensure everyone’s on board
The key step is the communication of a vision of success for the company under the new regime and ensuring everyone is on board with that. Oftentimes, the vision is changed to be in line with the new regime. If the change is not properly communicated, then you have people working toward different goals, which hurts the transition. If everyone knows the vision, the transition goes much smoother.
4. Get the right team around you now
A business exit could be the single biggest financial event of your life. You need a team of experts, which could include a valuation expert, attorney, CPA and financial advisor. Start building this team at least three years before your exit date so they understand their roles and what you want. It takes a team to win.
5. Don’t reward loyalty over competence
Having worked with many founder-owned businesses, I have found a common mistake is to reward loyalty over competence and appoint the most loyal successor. Founders often find it really hard to truly “let go,” and their desire to keep control may push them to pick a loyal successor—often not the person with the most relevant skills.
6. Document every detail of your role
A post that is not written up will follow the business owner for eternity. Write up the post and every detail so that it is ready for occupation and the job doesn’t turn into a boomerang. Also, hire out of power, not out of exhaustion or disorganization. Too many business owners give up the reins out of stress and because they are actually quitting on the business, not passing it to the next executive in line.
7. Slowly phase yourself out of operations
Remember that you decided to leave for a reason, and you need to have faith in your successor. Put together a plan with your successor to slowly phase yourself out of the day-to-day operations. This will give the successor the time they need to garner the respect of the employees and the employees the time they need to realize the management change.
8. Get your successor involved as early as possible
Get the successor involved in the business and introduced to the stakeholders as early as possible. This brings about at least three advantages. From a business perspective, it ensures a smoother transition in leadership. From the owner’s perspective, it enables them to further evaluate the choice of successor. And from the successor’s perspective, it provides a better platform for success.
9. Create a decision matrix for the new leader and their team
The decision matrix should include specific tasks, who has permission to complete the task or make the decision, and if anyone else is needed. For example, who has the authority to make the decision to acquire a new business or set up a loan account? The matrix should indicate which positions in the company can make that decision.
10. Get to know your successor well
The need to have a well-designed succession plan in place is critical to the long-term health of a company. A key component is to invest the time to fully know the person you intend to follow you. Spend time building a solid relationship. Get to know the person, their family and their “worldview” on things to determine if their thinking lines up with yours—are they smart, hungry and humble?
11. Give new leadership time to run things while you’re still there
The key to a successful business transition is “timing, timing, timing.” The business owner should have already stepped back from the day-to-day operations and implemented systems and processes that allow the new leader to flourish from the onset. Essentially, the new leader should be operating the company consistently, with guidance, before the old leader steps aside.
12. Continue to serve as a mentor
Rule number one is to retain the departing business owner as an advisor to mentor the new leadership team. Too often I have seen successors, in their eagerness to stamp their authority within the company, make drastic personnel and business model changes without knowing why they were there in the first place. I have seen it in banks, corporations, sporting clubs, business associations, etc.
13. Announce succession plans early on
Do not keep this a secret from your team. Announce your succession plans early and get the successor integrated into the operation and your team as quickly as possible. There can be a lot of hurt feelings if a change is made instantly, without warning, and you risk losing your team, customers, suppliers and other key relationships. Getting everyone on board early will prevent future pain.
14. Know what you want to do next
Business owners who have built daily routines over many years may suddenly find themselves with a lot of free time on their hands. If they don’t have a plan for what to do with their time, they often feel lost. Exit planning should involve some level of future planning too. What will you do to stay busy and feel the rewards of your exit?
This article first appeared here.
Report: Digital marketing agencies during COVID-19
The impact of COVID-19 was felt by agencies large and small across the globe. Read to find out what more than 130 digital agencies in the industry think about the impact of the outbreak and how they plan to navigate their business going forward.
COVID-19 versus digital businesses
The uncertainty of the prevailing coronavirus pandemic continues to disrupt the digital ecosystem worldwide.
As the world economies try to reopen, many industries, especially those in the advertising and marketing sector will face large scale ramifications and challenges going ahead.
More than 20% of business executives estimate that the effects of the pandemic will be felt for more than a year. These and more such findings coming out of “The Impact of COVID-19 on Digital Agencies” survey launched by Uplers is the culmination of the perspectives and experiences of marketers from organizations across the globe.
Fifty-seven percent of businesses expect the effects of the coronavirus pandemic to last until the end of 2020.
The rest believed the impact of the coronavirus pandemic could be felt for even longer and will have its effects on business until the mid of 2021. The future outlook on business after COVID-19 was diverse. Different regions had slightly contrasting perspectives, with Australia and New Zealand having the most optimistic view of the future wherein,
- 43% of Australian businesses expect COVID-19 to affect their business until the end of September or into early October.
- 19% of digital firms in the USA and 20% of businesses in the UK expect the pandemic to affect their business through the end of 2021.
Revenues take a hit
According to the survey, coronavirus poses acute fiscal challenges for digital organizations. For example, almost 68% of digital agencies reported having experienced a decrease in their overall revenue over the past few months.
Of the 68% of businesses, 9% experienced a significant nosedive with their revenue dipping below 50%, while 25% saw their revenue plummet 30% to 50%, and 32% experienced a revenue dive of less than 30%.
On the brighter side, 16% of respondents said they actually experienced an increase in their overall revenue.
There were a few clear winners in terms of which industries were growing the most. The technology sector emerged as the leader, seeing a 16% growth, closely followed by e-commerce at 15%, and then the health care and retail sectors at 14% and 11%, respectively.
Impact on leads
Of the 66% of companies that saw a significant dropoff in leads, 29% were small businesses whose employee strength ranged from 1 to 5 people.
Conversely, 14% of marketing teams saw their leads increase.
More interestingly, 90% of these companies said they were actively spending on marketing efforts across multiple channels.
Digital businesses look to educate clients
Thirty-five percent of businesses recommended their clients pivot to new marketing messages and cash in on the decrease in competition.
Other than that, 34% of digital agencies suggested their clients increase their investment in digital marketing during COVID-19, while 24% of them recommended pivoting to new channels altogether.
Another common recommendation was to revise the core message being sent to audiences. With the market uncertainty arising out of COVID-19 ramifications, the practice of keeping customers updated with the status of projects, meetings or any other part of the business was seen as time well invested.
Increasing flexibility
Marketers have the unique responsibility of not only growing revenue but also determining the right time to do so. Surprisingly, the aftermath of COVID-19 didn’t bring about any stiff price policies from the respondents. On the contrary, 58% of agencies offered flexibility in contract terms, while 28% reduced their fees.
Of the surveyed companies, 33% located in the UK and Europe offered the highest price reductions.
In general, 30% of digital agencies claimed to have reduced their fees to accommodate clients and help them cope with the situation while also retaining them. Agencies with a maximum strength of 25 to 100 employees offered the most flexibility in terms & conditions when compared to agencies on either side of them.
Outsourcing
Perhaps the most definitive trend to emerge out of the survey is that 80% of respondents said they will either explore, continue or increase outsourcing. Respondents said that the ability to scale up and be agile as per demand constitutes better security during unprecedented times and can often be the difference in businesses surviving or dying out.
True to this belief, 80% of the surveyed agencies who saw above 30% revenue growth indicated outsourced jobs, while another 24% of agencies said they were going to either explore or increase their outsourcing demands.
Conclusion
While it is given that the repercussions of the COVID-19 pandemic will have long term implications, there’s always the possibility of turning a tragedy into an opportunity.
Now is the time to gauge the change in the trends of the audience’s behavior and notice everything from the places they go to, the priorities they have, where they’re putting their money and how they’re spending it.
Marketers have the chance to redefine their business goals, get extra focused, keep an eye on the trends and strive to evolve continuously.
This article first appeared here.
How To Wisely Wield The Power Of Leadership
We influence, positively and negatively, in every action, reaction, and interaction. Getting excited about a topic, feeling frustrated about avoidable rework, or digging into a problem to root out solutions… each moment is one to be mindful of how we are perceived..
Why is that? Because even if we “just want to help” or are frustrated with our own contribution (or lack thereof) to a challenge, how we show up is watched. Interpreted. Assigned meaning. Usually with no request for confirmation from us.
In an attempt to navigate the workplace, all of us do this. It’s human nature. We do this in the wild too. It’s all part of the brain taking in data points, determining if the data represents something or someone “safe” or “unsafe” and then deciding what to do about it.
It sucks, but it’s part of the job. As much as we want leaders who are authentic, genuine, transparent, and human, because we are human, we are going to interpret and assign additional meaning due to one additional factor. The power of leadership.
Threat state
In the current environment, it is even more critical for leaders to be aware of and mindful about their power. We are in a heightened threat state due to health, financial, community, and home challenges.
There is not an area in our lives right now that isn’t sideways.
I’ve been fortunate to participate in several NeuroLeadership Institute (NLI) programs and learned about their SCARF model. This model was a theoretical exercise for me until COVID hit. Suddenly, I understood threat state because I was in one.
There are five types of threats that we are all faced with during the course of our interactions. Often, they are relatively easy to manage and put in context. Or get ourselves out of.
Right now we are all trying to navigate a myriad of new and highly complex status, certainty, autonomy, relatedness, and fairness threats (SCARF) regularly. Ones we have no roadmap for.
Neutral may be seen as negative
As a result, behaviors and actions that would have been perfectly acceptable a few months ago, are being reevaluated with a new lens. Relationships are tested and questioned. Trust may be shaken.
We have not suddenly become different people, but when we are all in a threat state, we are less likely to give someone the benefit of the doubt. We are more likely to see threats in what would otherwise be neutral interactions. To react with our lizard brain and go into fight, flight, or freeze mode.
While we may be leaders, we are people too. The reality is that we need to not only be aware of the heightened threat state of our people, but our own as well.
Everything that is happening in the world right now is happening to us too. Which means we are also more likely to go into fight, flight, or freeze. And our people are watching.
Toward state
How do we manage an extended period of threat state? This is an unprecedented time, where everyday we are faced with new threats and hyper vigilant to any new perceived threat.
When we are caught up in fear, our lizard brain looks for where the threat is coming from and to identify blame. That can be ourselves, or something outside ourselves. At work, that is often the leader.
Even good leaders will receive their share of blame during times of crisis or threat state. It takes awareness and a concerted effort for leaders to help their teams navigate.
To get someone (or ourselves) out of threat state, we need to redirect to a toward state. This is one where we move out of lizard brain and into executive functioning. The one that allows us to pause and evaluate a situation and respond with reason instead of fear.
In a toward state, someone can create insights, connect ideas, have patience, and give someone the benefit of the doubt. They are less likely to jump to conclusions, judge harshly, or believe something that doesn’t align with what they know to be true.
Transition from fear to forward
Moving to a toward state requires a reward response to balance or offset the threat response.
As an individual, rewards may put to mind things like comfort food or self-care. What those actions are, though, are certainty rewards. When we feel out of control (certainty threat) we may take an action that gives us a feeling of control (certainty reward), even if it’s something small in comparison.
In my marriage, I felt a lack of control in the relationship (relatedness and certainty threats). As a result, I controlled what I could. The music I was willing to listen to, the restaurants I was willing to go to and food I would eat…they were small ways I could obtain a feeling of control (certainty rewards) that allowed me to function in a negative environment.
There are many ways to reward ourselves or our teams, to help with the transition from fear to forward.
- Status rewards may include saying thank you for someone’s hard work or recognizing the effort that went into something they are struggling with.
- Certainty rewards can include insights into work in progress, or confirmation of decisions and outcomes. Even if there is much unknown, what is known and can be shared?
- Autonomy rewards might be encouraging someone to make a decision in an area that impacts them or saying “you’ve got this.”
- Relatedness focuses on relationships, so rewards may include a virtual lunch or happy hour, or simply (and genuinely) asking about someone’s family or how they spent their weekend.
- Fairness rewards could be creating insight to a process that impacts the team, outlining how it was done fairly and consistently.
A word of warning
Recognizing that we, or our teams, are in a threat state may be difficult right now. Because threats are constant, we are all figuring out how to cope and navigate the best we can. So it might seem like we are “doing okay.”
It’s possible we are. It’s also probable that we are constantly in a low to moderate threat state. Better as leaders to assume we have to help our teams move to a toward state in every interaction. Because when we are in a threat state, even neutral interactions can be perceived as negative.
In addition to approaching interactions with potential threat state in mind, leaders should also consider that what worked previously may not work in this unprecedented time.
For example, whatever regular communications were sent previously, may need to increase. They may need to be reviewed with a mind to whether they are creating certainty or uncertainty. Whether we are doing enough to recognize contributions.
We may also have to spend some time focusing on our own state of mind. Moving ourselves to a toward state before we go into interactions with our teams, peers, customers, or leaders.
While there is a lot of change going on in the world, one thing is certain. We are all going through the same storm. Our individual experiences and impacts are different, but we are all doing our best to weather current events. If there was ever a time where we could benefit from self and shared empathy, this is it.
This article first appeared here.
US Mobile Ad Spending Will Manage to Grow in 2020
Leaders who aren’t trusted – or who don’t trust others – can communicate all they want, but people will discount everything they say.
With mobile accounting for more than two-thirds of US digital ad spending, the pandemic’s economic effects didn’t spare mobile ad spend. Still, the format is faring slightly better than most other media and will eke out growth in 2020.
That is saying a lot since we now expect overall US ad spending to drop $16.40 billion in 2020 to $225.79 billion rather than gain approximately $20 billion as we expected pre-pandemic. Digital alone will grow just $2.20 billion to $134.66 billion this year—and would actually shrink without mobile’s projected growth.
In our revised forecast, mobile ad spending will increase 4.8%, or $4.22 billion, this year to $91.52 billion. This is a far cry from the $105.34 billion we had previously expected.
Barring additional waves of the coronavirus, mobile ad spending should return to a pre-pandemic trajectory next year, reaching $112.09 billion. Despite the strong growth, the figures will remain far below pre-pandemic expectations. Our March forecast anticipated mobile ad spending hitting $123.59 billion in 2021 and increasing to $167.25 billion in 2024. In our new forecast, mobile ad spending will regain some ground each year but still fall short in 2024 at $161.49 billion.
Even so, mobile continues to increase its share of digital ad spending, reaching 68.0% in 2020, up from 65.9% in 2019. This share is slightly below our pre-pandemic forecast of 68.3% due to the relatively rapid growth of connected TV (CTV) viewership and advertising.
“There’s a lot more scale on CTV than before,” said Karim Rayes, chief product officer at video advertising platform Tremor Video. “So, budgets have been able to shift there.”
March and April were brutal months for most advertisers and publishers, but CPMs and spending bottomed out in April, according to advertisers and agencies we interviewed. Some dollars began to return in May as advertisers started to grasp the opportunities better, but the rebound was minor for most platforms. Most publishers were still assessing their ad strategies with an eye to returning more forcefully in June and Q3.
“May’s purpose was around refining the scenario and contingency planning while looking toward June and July as solid recovery months,” said Albert Thompson, managing director of digital at agency Walton Isaacson.
This article first appeared here.
The New Role Of Trust In Business In A Pandemic
Leaders who aren’t trusted – or who don’t trust others – can communicate all they want, but people will discount everything they say.
A powerful effect of the coronavirus pandemic has been to expose the gap between what company leaders say and what they mean.
When a company demands that its workers produce a sick note to qualify for paid leave, it’s really saying it doesn’t trust its employees. Likewise, when a CEO restricts remote work for employees who could reasonably work from home, it often means they can’t deal with the perceived lack of control they have over people working in remote settings.
This way of thinking leads down the wrong track. Leaders today should be embracing trust, and deliberately extending it to their teams, because the currency of trust is the single most important asset they have. That’s truer now than ever as companies navigate a drastically changed economic outlook and a highly uncertain future—and they need inspired and trusted employees to help them do it.
This is how one tech industry CEO put it to me in March, shortly after the stock market’s worst day in over three decades. “Trust is baseline humanity,” he said, “and we need it to solve our problems. If we get better at trust, that will help us navigate everything else.”
By saying this, he wasn’t downplaying all the other important things companies have to do to survive the crisis, such as being agile, collaborative, creative, and innovative. He was saying that having a high-trust culture is the key to being able to do those things more effectively.
Trust is a hard asset that accelerates speed and efficiency throughout organizations. Low levels of trust create a crippling tax, snarling companies in excessive controls, endless meetings and office politics. Leaders who aren’t trusted—or who don’t trust others—can communicate all they want, but people will discount everything they say and won’t act on it quickly or effectively.
By contrast, when credible and trusted leaders share information or create a plan, their teams get to work. Teams feel safe to innovate and take risks. High trust becomes a performance multiplier.
The tendency in crises like this is for trust to go down in the workplace because leaders often aren’t deliberate and intentional about developing trust while in the midst of disruptive change. They sometimes revert to low-trust behaviors or tactics that may appear to be high trust but are really counterfeits. How leaders do what they do makes all the difference.
The good news is that leaders can build up trust quickly, even and especially during a global pandemic, by adopting several key behaviors. The following four are a good start:
1. Confront reality.
Bad news and tough decisions are pretty much inevitable at times like this. The best leaders confront these stressors head on and encourage open discussion around them, getting to the root of the problem even if it’s painful. This leads to higher confidence and trust. The counterfeit behavior is kicking the can down the road or paying lip-service to the problems while avoiding them, perhaps by focusing on busy-work or side issues.
2. Create transparency.
High-trust leaders encourage transparency because they understand that hiding bad news or controlling the flow of information is counterproductive. People are inspired by and trust leaders who are open, authentic, and real—especially with difficult news. When information can’t be shared, it’s important to be transparent about the reasons why. The counterfeit version of transparency is limited openness, sharing some things while trying to hide or control others.
3. Talk straight.
It’s instinctual to try and protect people from bad news out of concern they will panic or get fearful. But this approach betrays a lack of trust in people’s ability to deal with adversity, and only leads to more distrust as employees question the sincerity and honesty of leadership. Now more than ever it’s vital to tell it like it is. The counterfeit of talking straight is the soft-pedaling or spinning of information we see too often from organizational leaders.
4. Extend trust.
Even high-trust leaders can revert to bad habits in a crisis, when uncertainty seems to justify more of a “command-and-control” style. But this approach creates the opposite effect by denying people the trust and opportunity to rise to the occasion. Employees who don’t feel trusted aren’t going to perform as well as those who know they have their leader’s confidence. In fact, I would say that being trusted is the most inspiring form of human motivation. The counterfeit of extending trust is giving a fake trust or a false trust. It’s where your words might say “I trust you” but then you hover over, micromanage, or “snoopervise” people’s every move and activity, and your behavior says, much louder, “I don’t trust you.”
In order to create a genuine high-trust culture, these four behaviors need to be rooted in the personal credibility of leaders. Without that credibility, a leader’s actions risk being seen as manipulative, lacking in integrity, or self-serving.
Credibility stems from both our character and competence. Character needs to be founded on integrity and intent, aligning our actions with our values and basing our agenda on genuine caring and mutual benefit. Competence derives from our capabilities and results that give people the confidence that we can and will deliver. It also means acknowledging gaps in our knowledge and seeking support when needed, which is especially important during times of uncertainty.
So before implementing any changes, the onus is on each of us as leaders to look in the mirror and assess our own credibility, crisis or not. The reality is that with trust as our currency, we can be far more agile, collaborative and innovative. We can not only conquer the challenges we’re facing but can come out even stronger in the end—but only if we trust each other first.
This article first appeared here.