phil mccutchen

The Eastman Kodak company announced today that production would cease for the last member of their famed family of Kodachrome camera films, Kodachrome 64. The last of a line of superior films originating in 1935, Kodachrome 64, in 35 mm format, was first released in 1974.”

Kodachrome transparency photo image taken in 1974.

Kodak’s Kodachrome line of films proudly served in a wide variety of military, scientific, commercial and civilian roles throughout its long life, recording images of unmistakeable color and brilliance that literally helped to shape the way society viewed itself and its surroundings around the earth and in space. No other film came close to its realistic color fidelity, its incredible resolution detail, and its durable reliability.

Always willing and able to forgivingly deal with the needs of the casual picture-taker, Kodachrome truly excelled when pushed by more serious amature, artistic and professional photographers to the extremes of its performance capabilities. In such hands, the lustrous beauty of Kodachrome transparencies served to record images that impacted market and buying decisions, scientific research and development, social mores, and political actions.

Kodachrome’s proven performance never dulled, yet its health and vitality went into a long, slow decline with the advent and rise of digital photography. In today’s fast-paced digital world quality is inevitably compromised for the sake of speed and convenience for all but the most demanding of photographers. While Kodachrome’s image detail resolving power — at the equivalent of 20-to-40 MegaPixels in 35 mm format — was roughly twice that of all but the most expensive high-end 35 mm digital cameras at the time of its death, its time-consuming, complex and expensive processing could not compete with digital photo immediacy.

Kodachrome’s loss will be lamented by knowledgeable professional and amateur photographers worldwide.

Personally, I still remember when I first began shooting with Kodachrome. It was early in 1971. I had just purchased my first professional-grade 35mm camera, a Nikon F with the photomic TTL metering system, while in Singapore. Right from the beginning, I began trying it out with a variety of films, and recall my impatient wait for those photos to be returned from the processor. The vivid color of those first Kodachromes just blew me away. Only Kodachrome seemed able to capture the depth and brilliant color of Singapore’s Tiger Balm Gardens. From that moment on, I tried to shoot Kodachrome whenever possible. I was never disappointed with the results for my professional or personal photos.

Progress requires change. It does not necessarily mean “better”. For every step forward, something is left behind.

Some good sites that offer information and tributes to Kodak Kodachrome:

1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kodachrome
2. http://homepage.1000words.kodak.com/default.asp?item=2388083
3. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ujhdf9_IO4w
4. http://www.flickr.com/groups/kodachrome/
5. http://www.utah.com/stateparks/kodachrome.htm

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Be clear about your goal but be flexible about the process of achieving it.”
– Brian Tracy

Quick, what’s your “Plan B?”

The last 12 months has seen trillions of dollars go up in smoke because a lot of business “Plan A’s” didn’t work quite as well as anticipated. Unfortunately, by more than a few accounts, many of the Plan B’s that have been put into place since then by both business and government aren’t exactly working too well either.

But there isn’t much that you or I can do about the plans of somebody else’s business or the government, even if we have personally had to take the brunt of their impact.

Instead, let me share a quick story about how a marketing Plan B that I had to come up with actually ended up a pretty good success.

Exhibiting at the big computer trade shows is a necessity for small companies that are trying to establish themselves in the market. As the communications and marketing manager for a small start-up computer hardware company some years ago, I was tasked with developing our exhibit to launch a new flagship product.

Just weeks before the launch and the tradeshow, I found that the new product would not be ready for demonstration at the exhibit. I had nothing to showcase! My well-laid and meticulously crafted Plan A was in ruins!

I needed a Plan B. Fast!

Brainstorming led to a simple idea — sell the promise. Instead of a big, fancy 20 foot by 20 foot exhibit that cost tens of thousands of dollars, I had a simple 8 foot by 8 foot by 8 foot high wooden crate made. This crate stood out on the glitzy showroom floor like a construction worker at a Broadway opening. Every attendee that walked by just HAD to ask, “What’s in the crate?” The staff and I, dressed in lab coats, gleefully went into our spiel about the new product under development in our labs that would soon be delivered for firms like theirs. Would you like to know more about it?

They were hooked. And we generated hundreds of leads, many of which turned into solid sales when we began delivering product.

Read the full story here, as it appeared in EXHIBITOR Magazine.

So, what’s the takeaway for you?

I believe that Plan B’s, often driven by necessity, can be just as effective as your Plan A, perhaps even more so.

Why? Because I believe that in a Plan B you must focus like a laser on reaching your goal through creative thinking. This is not to say that you should throw out analysis or planning. That is sure to lead to failure. It means that you take your analysis and planning and then try to play with the possibilities, the out-of-the-box scenerios that can have an impact. Your Plan B becomes your fall-back, regroup, get-’er-done solution when or if Plan A goes awry.

In short, your Plan A may be the best you can come up with to be successful under ideal circumstances, but your Plan B can save your bacon when things don’t go the way you expect.

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In my 18 years of following the staffing and recruiting industry, two cliches have come up now and again.

Two and out or in for a lifetime.”

This term relates to the penchant of staffing and recruiting companies to hire freshly graduated college kids with limited experience and/or no job prespects in their chosen field. Often these young people would learn the ropes well enough to be functionally effective, then leave after a couple of years to hopefully greener pastures.

The high pressure of the job has a little bit to do with it, but it’s my opinion that hiring and training have more. This may explain in part why the staffing and recruiting industry has very high turnover rates among their own staff (studies by the American Staffing Association note that staff turnover rates can reach 70 percent or more). The flip side of course is that a certain percentage of people find the business to be a perfect fit for their own talents and skills and make a lifetime career of it.

But what I really want to talk about today is a second term.

Desert flower.”

This second term is a little more obscure. And it’s one I’ve seen applied to those in the recruiting industry in particular, especially in economy’s such as we are now in. The “desert flower” term implies that the recruiting firm or recruiter is of a type that only blooms when it’s raining orders. That they can’t survive in tough times — perhaps because they are too niche-focused, too small, too connected to one client or just too passive in their approach to recruiting and selling.

That times today are tough on recruiters and HR professionals in general is an understatement. In fact, according to recruiting industry author and trainer Steve Finkel, every recession from 1975 on has caused the number of recruiters to drop by 40 percent to 50 percent. Today’s loss rate may be even worse before it begins to improve — perhaps in 2010. In a media-hyped market where the news of mass layoffs of tens of thousands of people by GM, AIG, and other big firms take center-stage, the loss of thousands of recruiters and staffing professionals by ones and tens gets lost, but is no less important to those affected.

But there are those recruiting and staffing survivors out there who’ve been “been there, done that” and continue to prosper. They are not, and never have been, “desert flowers” who wait on the life-giving rain of orders from talent-starved customers.

They are mesquite trees.

If you’re not familiar with these hardy denizens of the desert southwest, know that the mesquite is a tough, fast-growing, drought-resistant hardwood that has proven itself to be particularly well-adapted to survival in tough conditions.

The mesquite tree is known to grow well in desert conditions when hardly anything else will. It can sink a tap root through rock-hard ground nearly 200 feet to get to water. Its pods served pioneers as a food source and its wood is among the best for smoking sweet-tasting barbeque, among other things. Cattle ranchers and farmers throughout the southwest will attest to the fact that the mesquite is one tough hombre, nearly impossible to get rid of.

In short, the mesquite tree is a revenue-producing survivor that never, ever gives up.

By now you’ve picked up on my analogy, and know which you are. If you’re a desert flower, you’ve been waiting for the orders to rain on you. How’s that working for you? I wish you well as you wait.

If you’re a mesquite tree, you’ve been very aggressively going after new business, working your customers to find unmet talent needs, expanding the envelope of your search and placement capabilities, looking for new water sources. If you’re a mesquite tree you are surviving now and setting the stage for your rapid growth when a better climate returns.

So, are you a desert flower or a mesquite tree?

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A Google search on the term “New Normal” today produced more than a million hits. It’s been in use for a while – going back to the tragic events of 9/11 in 2001.

The term is used widely today, although it applies to the economic tragedy that is still unfolding — such as GM’s new 60% ownership by you and I. That we’re in a vastly different economic world than just a year ago is a massive understatement. The challenge for small businesses is how to prosper in an economy that has fundamentally changed. Here are a few thoughts on how I think small, nimble firms like yours can and should respond to improve their marketing position for profits and growth.

First and foremost, DON’T PANIC!

As volatile as the economy seems, it is still a representative part of the “normal” up and down of business. Yes, times are tougher now for just about everyone (except for some of those in taxpayer funded positions). But it’s important to remember that this down cycle WILL end. The trick is to survive — and position yourself for the growth part of the business cycle.

To that end, you have to very carefully consider the down-stream ramifications of every decision you make if you are forced to make cuts in budget or personnel. Cutting too deeply into the muscle of your knowledge (staff) base can stall innovation, sales and customer relations. Cutting your marketing budget significantly is virtually guaranteed to give away market-share profits to your competitors.

From a marketing perspective, doing the opposite of what your competitors are probably doing (cutting their advertising and marketing budgets to the bone to maintain operations) is actually likely to improve your brand, your position and your profits on the other side of the tunnel.

Second, the value proposition you must have to win a skittish customer with a strangle-hold on their wallet, whether in the B2C or B2B world, has never been more important. The simplistic equation used by buyers that BENEFIT/COST = VALUE has taken on a new and more powerful meaning.

This means that you have to get creative with your product, your placement, your promotion and your pricing. Buyers — those who are feeling enough pain to want to buy or are strategically smart enough — know that they are in control of the purchase. So your value proposition has to offer a convincing and measurable difference from that of your competitor, or you are toast. That does NOT mean you should focus on cutting price to compete. It means that you should give a buyer every possible reason to give you a try without commoditizing your product or service.

Third, your small businesses must rightly focus on the fundamentals of effective business operations. When times were good — say 18 months ago — it was easy to let some efficiencies slide. No more. Not only must you actually cut costs wherever possible, you should consider strategic and tactical investments in business automation, tools, equipment, staff, and yes, marketing that will help improve your long-term competitiveness.

Make your marketing dollars work harder and smarter. Use social networking to get the word out and/or offer special promotions to current and prospective customers. Measure what works and do it again. While some advertising, particularly in print, is difficult to measure, electronic and direct advertising (tried and true direct mail) is absolutely measurable.

Finally, check any negative attitudes you have at the door. Ignore the pundits and the economists and focus on the game — your customers’ and your prospects’ needs. You are in it to win, aren’t you? Keep in mind that advertising and marketing is an investment, not an expense. As such, some of it will pay off and some will not, but it’s the long-term  investor that wins.

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When you are older you will know that life is a long lesson in humility.”
- James M. Barrie

Today’s economy has been tough for all age groups, but it can be argued that it has been toughest on older workers, the “boomer generation”. Yes, according to the Labor Department, the jobless rate right now IS lower for older workers than it is for younger workers. But that appears to be changing as the unemployment rate continues to climb.

There are a lot of reasons for the boomers’ angst. Many in the 45-to-65 age group have seen their own retirement plans recede into a more distant future as their 401(k)s have been decimated (assuming they have saved anything at all). Further, they’ve earned the new moniker of the “sandwich generation” — struggling with the twin challenges of child-rearing and aging-parent-care. And of course the problems for those who’ve been thrown out of work and/or are facing some other financial crisis are exponentially greater.

Exacerbating these problem are the increasing number of examples of age discrimination in the workplace. In fact, according to the EEOC, age-bias complaints rose 29 percent in 2008 over 2007 — a higher rate than for ANY other category (sex, race, disability, etc.).

And of course, it takes longer for an older, experienced worker to find new work (more than twice as long as for a younger worker). Perhaps precisely because of that age discrimination.

Yes, aging is an ongoing lesson in humility.

Yet even in the face of a crumbled economy, tight credit, dashed dreams, financial pain, anger and angst and despair, there is opportunity. For every “woe is me” story that the media would have us shedding a tear over, there are probably a hundred untold stories of the often heroic efforts of those men and women of this generation who refuse to give up, give in or take the easy way out. Experienced workers have value. Combined with knowledge, desire, perseverance and flexibility, experience can provide any business with great performance and ROI.

Age only matters when one is aging. Now that I have arrived at a great age, I might just as well be twenty.”
- Pablo Picasso

Age is increasingly irrelevant in today’s knowledge and service oriented economy. The wide acceptance and use of technology by boomers has proven their adaptability to virtually any of it. Usually, it is only those who wrongly think they don’t need to change or learn new technologies or methods who can, will and perhaps should be left behind. Where boomers differ is in their focus on the job, team or task at hand versus younger workers’ focus on balance between work and their personal/social life.

Regardless of those differences, there is little doubt that the boomers can be extremely effective contributors to corporate performance.

In fact, there literally is NO substitute for experience in some areas. Experience counts, as the 150 passengers of US Airways Flight 1549 will attest to following their landing in the Hudson river. The flight crew ALL had more than twenty years of experience.

Recognizing this, a number of enlightened firms and industries are striving to recruit and leverage those skilled boomers.

• Home Depot, Borders, John Hopkins Medicine, Pitney Bowes, AT&T and many other firms have partnered with the AARP to recruit mature workers.
• The demand for older, more experienced workers is particularly high in sectors such as information technology.
• Niche staffing firms, such as The Boomer Group, have begun to spring up focusing on boomer workers.
• Other national staffing firms like Adecco, Kelly Services, Manpower and Robert Half also focus some of their recruiting efforts on older workers.
• Health care, education and government are also active in hiring boomers to fill valued positions.

Men do not quit playing because they grow old; they grow old because they quit playing.”
- Oliver Wendell Holmes

How you approach life is far more important than age, as many studies have shown. You can be old and worn out physically, mentally and emotionally at 30 — or full of active, vibrant life at 90. That happier workers have higher morale and are more productive day-in and day-out is virtually a given. And with age comes the wisdom to appreciate, hopefully with humility, that each day is a blessing to be enjoyed. It should come as no surprise then that happiness increases with age.

Part of that happiness any person has comes from real activity, a life-long commitment to learning and gaining new experience, and other factors that contribute to a rich, full life. The “pursuit of happiness” is just that, a journey, not a destination.

So, the conclusions become simple. First, for those in a position to hire, be aware of the potential value of real experience over other factors. Second, for those seeking employment, consider how you can leverage your experience and your attitude into a more satisfying job — and NEVER stop playing.

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* I reached one of my own “aging” milestones this month. But it matters little to me now in the scheme of things. I’ve renewed my focus on living life to its fullest. I’ve dived into the social, spiritual, mental and physical aspects of life and learning and creating with gusto. Physically, I’m now 13 years younger biologically than I am chronologically according to www.realage.com. So, now I’m more ready than ever for what’s next. And looking forward to it.

How old would you be if you didn’t know how old you were?”
- Satchel Paige