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Judith Cushman & Associates Retained Executive Search in Communications
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The Cushman Report To subscribe to the email version of The Cushman Report, please send a note to info@jc-a.com with "subscribe" in the Subject line. Click here to view past editions. The Cushman Report Breaking News, Trends and Information about the Communications Marketplace November 1999 Here it is Comdex crunch week for all of us lemmings making the ritual trek to Vegas this weekend. For most of the over 225,000 attendees who fight their way through crowded aisles, poorly ventilated exhibit spaces and mind-glazing din, the purpose is commerce. They are there to buy, sell, learn and size up the competition. Layered on top of that, is what the PR and media community creates and reports. It is an opportunity for high visibility. The whole technology world is watching and so we take ourselves very seriously. Major competitors square off at keynotes and the jockeying is fierce for the right time slot, a well-attended and reported press conference. Last year, Oracle’s Larry Ellison took on Bill Gates and this year Oracle scheduled its most important global annual customer get-together to overlap and compete with Comdex – "so much for you Bill Gates", says Ellison. This year as Microsoft opens the show with Bill Gates’ keynote, no matter what he intended, Gates will be besieged with questions about the antitrust suit. The handling of that issue has been roundly criticized and the PR community has, for the most part, agreed that the effort was bungled. His recent statements, in my opinion, are masterful efforts at damage control. This will also be a major "coming out" for Carly Fiorina of Hewlett-Packard. She is the rarest of breeds – a female CEO of a high tech Fortune 100 company. She is also a PR person’s dream – an instinctive communicator, speaker and believer in the importance of strategic messaging. Hewlett-Packard is re-energizing and re-inventing itself and Carly, – the living, breathing symbol of that forward thrust, – is announcing that the company is focused and competitive. Eric Schmidt from Novell will continue to beat the drums about how well the company is doing and that there are no longer doubts about the company’s viability (despite management changes and restructuring). There are other agendas too, as Sony, Cisco, Sun, Xerox and Linux take to the stage. And so, the media and the PR community become part of the drama, part of a grand plan, but ultimately one piece that fits into a bigger corporate positioning and strategic effort. COMPRESSION CREEP And how are we faring? It’s time at this moment of impossible deadlines to take a look at how and what we are doing FOR our companies and TO ourselves – our bodies, minds and emotional strength. I thought at one time, years ago, that we simply couldn’t do any more. I was wrong. We have now found a way to work anytime, anywhere and we are doing just that for better or worse. I’ve coined the phrase "Compression Creep" to describe what's happening. I’ve said before that those who do, DO and those who don’t fall away and are left behind. This is more of a truism than ever before. Companies are growing, there is more wealth as well as the need in almost every start-up, for a marketing communications or public relations pro. The clamor for "those who do-do" at the mid-level (and up) simply cannot be met by the resources at hand. How does that play out? There is a shift in values. People expect to be working all the time in order to barely keep up. Can you get through the e-mails to do what you need to do? Are you checking for messages before you officially "start" at work? How many times a day do you interrupt your "other" work to answer e-mails? When the day is "over", whenever that is, do you answer a few e-mails? Does that happen again at home at the end of your day? Are you scheduling phone appointments when you are in the car on the way to work – or traveling from appointment to appointment? Can you be paged anytime? To me, if you have a pager, you are "on". You mentally can’t turn off. Do you alert your family that you gave your client/boss/co-worker your home phone to call because you couldn’t squeeze in the time for a critical conversation that day? How often does that occur? Are these conversations happening later in the day or earlier in the morning? You’ve given up on lunches with friends. You once dashed out of the office for a quick sandwich: now you sometimes eat at your desk or more recently you are grabbing snack food on the run. I think Compression Creep is squeezing our personal lives and activities into a smaller and smaller space. And ultimately, we are still not in control. How I know we are falling behind… Hiring organizations are throwing money at the problem, tempting relatively reasonable people to make opportunistic moves. The understood underlying assumption is that the company expects a total commitment for a relatively short time to achieve a specific objective. THE TELLTALE SIGNS OF LOSING CONTROL E-mails are not being answered for days – sometimes not at all - and they are lost. You can’t count on a response; so if the note is really important, you need to set up a follow-up system and keep track of who answers and who doesn’t. This puts an additional burden on you. Managers are saying "I can’t pay attention to that now – I have to concentrate on my day-to-day deadlines." So people are voluntarily narrowing their peripheral and distance vision and not looking for or picking up signals that could be critical to their company’s marketing or overall business strategy. We can become dangerously tactical and shortsighted. NOW ABOUT COMDEX Exhaustion impacts decision making and creativity. We are arriving at the show, on the verge of dysfunction. The complexity and scale of Comdex pushes us over the edge. We expect to be on top of our game, but we are at less than 50% unless--that is--we have a support team to keep us focused and have the luxury of a carefully crafted schedule. It’s coping with new information that requires clear thinking, decision making and keeping track of the details. Exhaustion and sensory overload lead to mistakes, missed appointments, poorly written releases and unclear memos. Expect your ability to perform will be below average--that you will forget names and phone numbers that you swear you know--and you do, except when you are running on nervous energy. COPING SUGGESTIONS A few suggestions about coping: Write everything down – put notes on your laptop or personal organizer. Keep backups handy. Don’t assume the technology will work – take hard copies of the most important documents with you. Jot notes in one place and train yourself to put all those scraps of important information, i.e., cards, scribbled to-dos, etc., in a organizer that you can seal. Have all the most important material at your fingertips at all times–not buried in a file. Keep everything simple and physically close. Do not run around. Try not to be switching locations for appointments. If you can, station yourself near a phone where someone can take a message for you (a receptionist at a booth, for example). To avoid crowds if you are entertaining, order food to be delivered to your location. No matter what the cost, it’s worth it. Don’t overbook. It will always take longer for a meeting than you think because the person you are meeting will be late. Stay healthy. For me, the most important suggestion is to drink as much water as you can tolerate. Above all, promise yourself time off to catch up – even if it is only a day or two. Then, in a quieter moment, revisit the issue of too much work – so little time and make a resolution in the new millenium that you WILL set limits. Write out your #1 resolution and post it on your bathroom medicine cabinet so you can remind yourself in those tense moments that you can pull back and that you do have choices. Remember that your boss would rather have 85% of you than none of you. And as I have said before – "May the Gods of Order prevail over the Gods of Chaos."
Comdex Notes - Please visit our Comdex page at
www.jc-a.com/comdex99. IMPORTANT MEDIA KIT DELIVERY INFORMATION Media kits MUST be dropped off at the Media Kit Center Friday, November 12, 12:00pm to 5:00pm, or Saturday, November 13, 9:00am to 5:00pm, as the Center will open to all media on Sunday morning. If you deliver your kits after this time, we cannot guarantee placement in the Media Kit Center.
LAS VEGAS HILTON, BALLROOM D. ALL COMDEX/Fall ‘99 & LINUX Business Expo Exhibitors are encouraged to bring kits to this area.
All media kits should be shipped to your booth or hotel , then hand carried over to the Media Kit Center(s). Do not ship kits directly to the Kit Center(s), as they will not be received. Please refer to your exhibitor manual for booth shipment addresses and information. Only representatives from exhibiting companies will be admitted into the Kit Center to drop off kits. This person MUST be wearing an exhibitor badge to be admitted. HELPFUL MEDIA KIT TIPS!!
Media Kit Center Hours for Exhibitor Dropoff (both locations) Friday, November 12, 12:00pm – 5:00pm Saturday, November 13, 9:00am- 5:00pm A few other bits of information: Press registration (Media/Analyst Facilities) is conveniently located in either of two places this year. Las Vegas Hilton (LVCC): Ballrooms B and C open during the follow hours:
Sunday 11/14 10:00 A.M. – 6:00 P.M. Sands Exposition and Convention Center (SECC): Hall A (upper level)
Sunday 11/14 12:00 P.M. – 4:00 P.M. The Media/Analyst Facility at the Hilton is staffed by a representative from the Las Vegas Hilton Business Center who will happily help you FedEx those heavy press kits home right from the Press Room. If you’d care to contact me so that we might get together briefly at the show, here’s how. Send an e-mail immediately telling me where you’ll be staying in Vegas and when you’ll be there. Will you be either at the Sands or the Las Vegas Convention Center (at your booth)? Or, which parties you will be attending so we might connect there? Here’s the most current information about my schedule: Arriving in Vegas early Sunday AM – Staying at the San Remo (this is a change from earlier information)
Telephone- 702-739-9000 or 800-522-7366 Departing Wednesday evening at 10:26 P.M. I will be carrying a cell phone and it will be on whenever possible 425-466-7906. Coordination will be via my office 425-392-8660. Thanks, Judy Cushman |
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Judith Cushman & Associates 15600 NE 8th St., Suite B1, PMB 178, Bellevue, WA 98008 s (425) 392-8660 Fax (425) 746-8629jcushman@jc-a.com s www.jc-a.com The Judith Cushman & Associates web team would appreciate feedback concerning this site. Please e-mail your comments, questions and suggestions to heathers@jc-a.com. |
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Copyright © 2007 JJG&R Communications Services, Inc. |
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