immersion

Book Review: Karma Queens, Geek Gods & Innerpreneurs

March 11, 2011 by Rosa Say

Karma Queens ~
Women of a certain age who combine a desire to be in harmony with the universe.
Innerpreneurs ~
Chief managers of their own ‘brand,’ they find their inspiration within themselves.

Let’s start with an abbreviated version of the Publisher’s Synopsis:

What really makes consumers tick?

It’s a question every marketer, innovator, entrepreneur, or trend-watcher strives to answer, especially in an age when certain types of consumers are increasingly instrumental in shaping national and even global buying habits.

Based on thousands of hours of consumer research, Karma Queens, Geek Gods and Innerpreneurs is your hands-on guide to getting inside the minds of the people who are setting the trends in art, music, technology, fashion, health, and every kind of consumer product and service. Consumer Eyes founder Ron Rentel not only helps you understand Karma Queens, Geek Gods and other consumer types on a deeper level in order to reach them more effectively in your marketing and advertising, he also offers fresh insight into managing your brand and your business.

The book’s goal is to share 9 different ‘C-Types’ — “a rich, three-dimensional portrait of a type of consumer derived from their key attitudes and behaviors, their social status, and other demographic factors” as defined by the Consumer Eyes Consumer Immersion process, which the author claims his company pioneered to battle “focus group speak” in market segmentation study. All sounded interesting as I scanned the Table of Contents: Besides the 3 types in the book’s title, Rentel covers “Parentocrats, Denim Dads, Ms. Independents, Middlemen, Culture Crossers and E-litists.”

Parentocrats ~
Act out of love to assure their kids security and happiness,
yet often deny them the classical joys of childhood.
Denim Dads ~
Family involvement means more to them than climbing the corporate ladder.

My Book Review as shared on Goodreads

Karma Queens, Geek Gods, and Innerpreneurs by Ron Rentel

My rating: 2 of 5 stars

This is a platform kind of book (whereby the author get his ideas published as a platform to further build a business on) which also has the potential for possible self-coaching if you choose to very diligently go that route, though I don’t feel the author has made it that clear or simple. On one hand, it’s written to be the kind of book you can just breeze through for entertainment value, and I’m guessing that’s what most readers will settle for. On the other, you can read deeper, key in on the Consumer Immersion technique he speaks of, and study to learn more if you’re able to detach somewhat objectively, but without missing the emotional clues, something I did try to do.

If you deliberately make that choice, set some goals for yourself when you read it. Is there an inner sociologist, anthropologist and marketer in you? I did find each chapter to be more comprehensive than I’d expected, sprinkled with quotations, anecdotes of still-prevalent buying habits, and covering health and wellness, beauty fashion and home, design, food and drink, culture society and spirituality, and some unusual expectations and insights. Each chapter ends with a Marketing Checklist and “Dig a Little Deeper”— suggested resources for further study.

Trend watching, and capitalizing on trends is not that easy, much less the trend anticipation postulated here, which comes from consumer typing: We don’t know what will take off, and when, so we usually are content to ride the wave however we can. I understand the authors encouragements: As a business person it’s good to have the awareness of how trend-spotting signals a result of consumer type habits, versus simply flagging a singular event. I might notice something now, but then I stop there, and often dismiss it as some quirk: I don’t think about it deeply enough in regard to seeing what other commonality exists between people with that anomaly, or with that motivational driver.

As a point of clarity between trends and C-types, Rentel explains that “trends are valuable in making certain that you’re up to speed on the present, but they aren’t very helpful in guessing where consumers might turn next… Types illuminate the consumer psyche, while trends merely articulate consumer behavior.”

So why my relatively low rating, especially in writing this much about the book? Unfulfilled promise. I feel like I really had to work on this to like it, and to gain something from it: Rentel didn’t keep me as interested as I expected him to, and he didn’t make it easy enough for me to stay engaged.

I think the author was too insulting far too often, and you need a thick skin to get the most out of this book when you read it, but achieve objectivity, and it can be a great exercise in empathetic Mahalo appreciation instead: We human beings are complex and fascinating.

A subset study here, is a question if the book was quickly dated in light of our economic climate in recent years or not: How enduring have some of these trends been in spite of it? The book was published in 2007, just prior to our Great Recession, with many of us still reeling from it and adjusting as we can: Rotten timing for this author, I’m sure. I don’t know of anyone who currently thinks of themselves as an eager consumer, whereas Rentel writes that “today’s mainstream, middle-class U.S. population lives high on Maslow’s hierarchy of needs.” Not so now, early in 2011, however I continued reading with an open mind. I may no longer agree with the 9 different types profiled, however I remain interested in the methodology: For instance, I wondered how I could apply this to a better ‘consumer typing’ of the Alaka‘i Manager.

As a manager, the immediate parallel I instinctively wondered about, was Rentel’s consumer typing as a possible new framing for workplace demographics, and in fact, it isn’t much of a stretch to make those applications between consumers, co-workers and peers, your family habits, and a multitude of other relationships.

However as I explained above, I never got that far. I was willingly distracted instead by his claim to have pioneered Consumer Immersion as his process, and once through that exploration I had enough, preferring to switch my own study habits elsewhere (within our own MWA 9 Key Concepts :-)

View all my reviews on Goodreads.

Why Goodreads? They have become an App Smart choice for me in 2011 for I want to return to more book reading, and have set a goal to read at least 36 books this year (this was book 8 for me). Read more about the Goodreads mission here, and let’s connect there if you decide to try it too! You can also follow them on Twitter.

Revisiting Value Immersion: Where are your hot spots?

March 9, 2011 by Rosa Say

Immersion has recently taken center stage in our Managing with Aloha vocabulary and Language of Intention by way of our value alignment conversations here on Talking Story, which in turn led to my newest ebook: Value your Month to Value your Life.

So as you can imagine, the concept of Consumer Immersion leapt off the pages of a book I’ve recently read by Ron Rentel (with Joe Zellnik) called Karma Queens, Geek Gods & Innerpreneurs. The book’s subtitle is “Meet the 9 Consumer Types Shaping Today’s Marketplace” and if that intrigues you, I’ll be posting a full book review before the week is over.

Here’s what we’ve said about Value Immersion here on the blog:

The most effective ‘Value Your Month to Value Your Life’ programs I’ve seen in workplaces, succeed because they go for value immersion. For example, if Kuleana is the value for the month, they look at everything happening during that month through the lens of Kuleana-colored glasses, with the intention of tweaking processes for more value alignment. People put their hand up to work on what comes up. Bosses give the green light to stretch inter-departmentally, encouraging those conversations, and knowing a welcome mat will be in place because the value has been adopted everywhere, even if temporarily.

“Everything happening” means you’re nalu-ing it: You’re going with the flow as events and activities naturally happen because of past habit or current developments, and what you’re “tweaking” is largely your responses to all those things inclusively. As you do so, you tackle everything that Kuleana affects (returning to our example) as the value of responsibility and accountability. For instance Kuleana is a tremendous help as criteria, filter, and priority-sorter when selected during times of company change, because responsibility is very much like motivation: it’s personal and self-driven.

What Value Immersion tackles best is apathy and complacency, for it uncovers the three workplace sins of auto-pilot, lies of omission, and tacit approval.

Compare this with the Consumer Eyes process of Consumer Immersion:

“Consumer Immersion involves tours of category-related hot spots, expert interviews, hands-on experiential visits, and a multitude of real-world consumer interactions. During our Immersions we break bread with consumers in cutting-edge restaurants, sip cocktails with them in their favorite bars, and query them on the street, at the gym, and in the supermarket. Together with our clients [Consumer Eyes is a brand and innovation consultancy] we see how life looks from the consumer’s perspective and let that learning inform all the brainstorming and insight building that follows.”

“Our view of Consumer Immersion is that the best place to investigate consumers’ lives is to speak to consumers where they live, to follow them as they go through daily chores and errands, and to interact with them in a variety of real-world settings. Informally stopping a consumer in the supermarket as she ponders your category on the shelf is amazingly enlightening. Hanging out with 21-year-olds in their favorite club will enable you to examine both their emotional lives and drinking habits at once. Drinking rituals are highly communal, and watching patrons order drinks in a bar can shed a lot of light on how drink choices change over the course of the evening.”

Let’s take the liberty of changing one of those sentences a bit, shifting it to workplace context:

Our view of Value Immersion is that the best place to investigate workplace culture is to speak to business partners (i.e. our preferred name for ‘employees’) where they work, to follow them as they go through daily job tasks and business initiatives, and to interact with them in a variety of their sense of place real-work settings.

Essentially, Rentel is talking about catching people in their natural element, and with their guard down:

“In these situations [of Consumer Immersion], there’s no lapse between what consumers say they do and what really goes on. No matter what a consumer might say about her condiment usage, there’s no substitute for opening up her fridge and seeing a crusty bottle of hot sauce on the back of the shelf and a well-used bottle of mayonnaise up front.”

“So that’s what we do — together with our clients we interview, observe, and join consumers in their activities everywhere from a kitchen table in Boston to behind the counter of a juice bar in Malibu.”

Return to thinking about how you use Value Immersion in your workplace:

Metaphorically speaking, where in your operation are the ‘kitchen tables’ and ‘juice bars’ where more Aloha-based values can deliciously, and nutritiously be served?

The art of managing well is a situational art in so many ways. We seek to catch people doing something right so we can applaud it, appreciate it, and yes, clone and strengthen it. We want to reward the behavior we that we want to have more of, and with value-mapping we are becoming more specific: We are appreciating and celebrating value-aligned behavior.

But so much rides on seizing those opportunities where we “catch people doing something right,” doesn’t it.

Wishing and hoping is not a reliable strategy, for all it delivers is happenstance.

So think of your value immersion design — that simple, yet strategic decision to have a Value of the Month in your workplace as the way you start — as deliberately creating the hot spot you will benefit from.

Create your fertile ground of ‘kitchen tables’ and ‘juice bars’ by choosing your values. You have to take that first step.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

The easiest way? Grab the ebook.
Just 18 pages as a printable PDF you can openly share with your team.
Read it together, so everyone is literally on the same page.

Value Alignment for Projects

January 3, 2011 by Rosa Say

I’d like to add some thoughts to this bit from Value Alignment 2011:

“Teams I have coached in the past have found great success in assigning values as the steering for specific projects.”

[Reference: It was within the Take 5 shared on how to start a Value of the Month program for your work team.]

As you read this post, do so within the following framework, keeping our vocabulary in mind:

Value Immersion — is about choosing the Value Your Month to Value Your Life program for your workplace team
Value Steering — is about using values to shape and guide specific project work
Both fall under the Managing with Aloha Key Concept of Value Alignment [Key 3]

First, Value Immersion

The most effective ‘Value Your Month to Value Your Life’ programs I’ve seen in workplaces, succeed because they go for value immersion. For example, if Kuleana is the value for the month, they look at everything happening during that month through the lens of Kuleana-colored glasses, with the intention of tweaking processes for more value alignment. People put their hand up to work on what comes up. Bosses give the green light to stretch inter-departmentally, encouraging those conversations, and knowing a welcome mat will be in place because the value has been adopted everywhere, even if temporarily.

“Everything happening” means you’re nalu-ing it: You’re going with the flow as events and activities naturally happen because of past habit or current developments, and what you’re “tweaking” is largely your responses to all those things inclusively. As you do so, you tackle everything that Kuleana affects (returning to our example) as the value of responsibility and accountability. For instance Kuleana is a tremendous help as criteria, filter, and priority-sorter when selected during times of company change, because responsibility is very much like motivation: it’s personal and self-driven.

What Value Immersion tackles best is apathy and complacency, for it uncovers the three workplace sins of auto-pilot, lies of omission, and tacit approval.

Stop for a moment here, and glance over your calendar for the coming week: Make this personally relevant.
Can you imagine the difference, if you deliberately took the time to ask yourself, “What about Kuleana? How would it affect this conversation?” …or meeting, or appointment, or new initiative… for every single thing now on your calendar.
Now what if everyone you worked with asked the same question at the same time? — and what if they reminded you when you forgot?

Your Projects, and Value Steering

Project work in Managing with Aloha is a little bit different than Value Immersion. In short, you’re framing issues, then pushing further into them and trying to do so completely. Project work should also be more creative and growth-inducing than tackling complacency and simply stirring the pot: Energies should be ramped up with idea generation and experimentation. You’re opting for Value Steering.

With Value Immersion, nothing is sacred, and everyone in the company adopts the value of the month, not just a project team (or focus group): You go All In so you can see how that value is currently interpreted, and how it plays out in different departments and divisions. You may even extend your reach to the customer. Thus all in-progress projects for the month seek the chosen value’s goodness in some way too.

However each project may initially have begun with different goals or expectations, and so the Value Immersion becomes an additional variable which will likely focus on individual behaviors as the project proceeds; it is not steering the project. In effect, the value will mostly tackle the how. As explained above, it will also focus on connections both inside and outside the project team.

In contrast, Value Steering for projects aligns the results of that project with the value; concentration is primarily focused on the what and why first, knowing that the how can be expected to follow once the project exploration and experimentation is over. The value you have chosen as your steersman is a big influencer, with pilot projects being the safest place that can happen.

Thus projects with Value Steering goes much further; the team works “short and deep” wanting to cover all their possibilities. From the very beginning, the project expectations are rooted in that particular value; that’s why we call it “value steering” versus “value immersion.”

A key advantage of both Value Immersion and Value Steering is that decisions get made much quicker, and with greater clarity because criteria parameters have selectively, purposely been narrowed. However this is also where your leadership makes your influence known (assuming you have led the charge to select the value in the first place.) The caveat therefore, is to choose the value carefully (and yes, deliberately.)

Perhaps most important, is the authorship shift when you employ Value Steering in projects: You have led (creating the energy resource), but you’ve effectively delegated too: The project team does the managing (executing = channeling the energy).

Along the way (in both value immersion and value steering), so much will be rooted in the personal link to the value chosen.

Let’s look at Kuleana again, the value of responsibility and accountability: The responsibility a person has accepted for something is strongest when fulfilling the obligation connected to it satisfies their personal values. They take ownership for it easily, because they feel emotionally connected to it. When you are a responsible, loving parent, no one has to tell you to accept responsibility for your kids. When you love your job, no one has to tell you to take responsibility for doing it well.

Value immersion can start this process, and the very savvy Alaka‘i Manager will then assemble future project teams with those who feel the strongest connection to the value concerned: No convincing is needed, for they want to be involved, feeling emotionally invested in it.

Some wrap-up help on logistics

This post has already been longer than I intended it to be, but I don’t want it to be incomplete for you either. So here are some of my lessons learned on a) the Take 5 I had shared in Value Alignment 2011, and b) in timing when you use Value Steering for your Projects.

The Take 5 is largely the same, but in the project context we’ve just discussed:

Choose the value carefully. Consider using the MWA values so you can open up thinking with a new Language of Intention [MWA Key 5]. Since my book dedicates a chapter per value it is really easy to distribute some reading for background.
Vitally important to make your intentions clear. If you felt it necessary to get the blessing of some higher-up on the project, ask them to attend your kick-off meeting and voice their support in visionary terms (the why.) Concentrate on just the project scope (short and deep) and on expectations voiced with the value chosen.
Third was “stick with it and go the distance.” You’ve done project work before, and you know the importance of this.
Fourth was about communication. You’ll find more help in MWA in chapters 8 (Lōkahi) and 9 (Kākou) with this — not as more “value steering,” stick with just 1 value per project — but in regard to teams and communication, and for you as the project leader or facilitator.
The offer in 5 still stands: Reach out to me, or to others in our Ho‘ohana Community anytime you have questions or need help — or you may want to reach outside the project team, but still inside the organization.

About timing. I’ve found that 6 weeks is more than enough time to dedicate to a project, even in large organizations; you don’t want to drag it out.

Week 1 – Select your project team, define scope clearly and set your expectations, commit to a specific calendar and make initial assignments.
[e.g. The Alaka‘i Manager is in start-up mode, coaching beginning well.]
Week 2 and 3 – The work of the project itself.
Week 4 – Pilot test-run (i.e. Execution without risk: final decisions haven’t been made yet.)
Week 5 – Evaluate the pilot and adjust. What will it take to Finish Well, with subsequent agreements?
Week 6 – Final decisions and business direction. Wow! campaign to get everyone on board.

If you can make this shorter, do. We never go beyond 4 weeks in my business entities, and we start by aiming for 2 weeks. The two parts you want to be generous with, are with giving enough time for team authorship (projects suck when all the team really does is carry out the boss’s orders) and with your communications campaign to get everyone excited and on board.

Have I got you thinking about your upcoming projects now? Great! If you have more reading time (or want to come back to this) here is some related reading from the archives: