Organizations and people lose focus. It messes with our ability to get press coverage. Journalists can’t see where we fit into their stories. If we can be the go-to for a quote on a given subject, we’ll find ourselves getting quoted more often. If we have something commonplace to say about everything we’ll get lost in the mix.
I heard someone say recently, “we’re everything so we’re nothing.”
It’s what I mean, and it has implications for life beyond media strategy.
The Japanese painter Hokusai learned to cut out distraction. He said he only started to feel like he could paint in his last years. He painted until he was 89. His focus paid dividends and the more I find out about him the more fascinated I am. There’s a great documentary about Hokusai on BBC Select/Amazon.
To reach our potential in any field, we need to concentrate. The short-term incentives are always there to do the opposite. Particularly for my corporate clients it’s truer than ever in the age of the so-called “pivot.”
I’ve met a firm recently called “Dog Treats” (*NOT THEIR REAL NAME*) who pivoted. Now they focus on cats. They still have the same name so it’s a challenge to convince journalists to cover them on the meow beat. Meanwhile, the woof journalists are also confused. One senses they might pivot again to bees if it gets them to another funding round, but it won’t help them generate more buzz with the press.
It begs a question. Is the way we fund many businesses conducive to building sustainable, meaningful entities? If it isn’t, where do coherent communications strategies fit in?
To quote Shakespeare’s Macbeth, the world of tech funding can sometimes feel odd. It’s like “a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.” There was a great trend piece in the New York Times last week that captures the zeitgeist.
How crazy is the money sloshing around in start-up land right now?
It’s so crazy that more than 900 tech start-ups are each worth more than $1 billion. In 2015, 80 seemed like a lot.
It’s so crazy that hot start-ups no longer have to pitch investors for money. The investors are the ones pitching them.
It’s so crazy that founders can start raising money on a Friday afternoon and have a deal closed by Sunday night.
It’s so crazy that even sports metaphors fall short.
“It’s not like one jump ball — it’s 10,000 jump balls at once,” said Roy Bahat, an investor with Bloomberg Beta, the start-up investment arm of Bloomberg. “You don’t even know which way to look, it’s all just wild.” He now carves out two hours a day for whatever “emergency deal of the day” pops up.
The NASDAQ index of tech stocks has now lost all the gains it’s made in the last six months and it looks like there are choppy waters ahead.
Never mind tech stocks, Macbeth, and Hokusai. I’m an old man who’s getting sentimental. I read Laserwriter II, a coming-of-age novel set in an apple repair shop in 1990s Manhattan. It’s by Tamara Shopsin. It reminded me of my mum, an elementary school teacher. She brought a computer home for my brother and I to “play with” during the holidays. I learned to type 100 words per minute at the age of seven and it felt revolutionary. Neighbors came round to watch me do it. I felt like that little girl in Lourdes. The possibilities of technology were miraculous.
I’d love recapture that sense of wonder. I lost my fervent interest in computers when I had my first kiss. It left me like a sci-fi robot burbling “does not compute.” The complex layered feelings explain my long-term obsession with a film. It’s about love flummoxing robots. It’s called Bladerunner, and the whole thing is a marvel.
Pivots and technology aside, there’s still something valuable about sitting still. It’s about asking yourself: “What do I want to do in my short time on earth?” Then, you do that thing for as long as possible for the love of it. Whichever “tech stack” you’re using. Whether you’re a human being, or a robot.
Even in the nonprofit and foundation world, focus is a challenge. Everyone wants to talk about COVID because it’s all journalists want to write about. What were you doing before COVID? Can you even remember? I’m not sure I can. It’s brought such tremendous reorder to my life.
People also talk about “intersectionality”. Everything connects to everything else. I agree. COVID has made that clearer. But if your funders thought they were giving you money to do one thing, isn’t there a danger in mission creep? The way we fund nonprofits isn’t ideal, either. There’s a valid critique that foundations wouldn’t need to exist if society was fairer. Individual donors are fickle too.
Still. I live in New York City in the United States of America. It is what it is. I do love the energy of this place, a city built as a trading center. I love Ken Burns’ 14-hour documentary about its history. The ability to trade defines the city’s physical construction, and everything else. It’s an energy that in many ways sustains and engages me more than anywhere else I’ve lived. I live in the West Village. Jane Jacobs resisted efforts to raze the neighborhood in the 1960s. The contradictions of this city appeal to me as much as its dubious hot dogs do.
Meantime, speaking of focus, I now have a business consultant. Thanks to New York State’s amazing small business advisory service, I got hooked up for free. Well, I pay New York taxes. So, it’s not free. But the advice has been amazing, and did I mention, almost free? If you know any New Yorkers in need of similar help I couldn’t recommend it more highly. And there is this sketch from Taskmaster, the British TV show. Contestants had to make a coconut look “like a businessman.” I’ve linked the clip to start at comedian Bob Mortimer’s effort. It’s got some bad language in there, but it never fails to make me chuckle. If you have the stomach for an f-word today, then I hope it makes you chuckle, too.
The most important thing is to be able to laugh.
Thanks for reading, as always. Have a good week. Can you believe it’s February already? What a relief.
