Over the last few months, several of our corporate clients have discussed significant changes in how they execute their marketing and communications efforts. Several are planning to drastically shift how they use their agency partners and will bring key projects in-house. Others are looking to outsource marketing and creative functions to concentrate on their core business. These clients differ across industries and size including global b-to-b manufactures, financial services firms, non-profit organizations and professional services firms. Because of the number of clients grappling with the same issues, we want to dive in further to find out if these are unique occurrences or growing trends.

We are turning to the marketing and communications community to hear from you. How are you executing marketing and communications efforts?  Take our poll and check back for results: TAKE POLL NOW

In the mean time, here are a few articles I have come across recently on related topics that may also be of value in this discussion. Feel free to share your comments, insights and opinions on the topic here and on our poll.

Tough economy forces marketers to reorganize http://tinyurl.com/yfjghjd

Small ad agencies go over big http://tinyurl.com/yg98soe

Down economy drives small businesses and EAG http://tinyurl.com/yghcv6h

Marketing Business Services in Down Economy http://tinyurl.com/yl8etfc

Avoid the temptation to cut marketing budgets http://tinyurl.com/yf9ahe2  

In-house SEO vs. SEO Provider http://tinyurl.com/yf87yr9

Last month I wrote a blog highlighting a hiring trend I’m seeing recently at Paladin. In short, we found that although a recession typically leads to an increase in mid-level interim staffing needs within corporations and agencies, our clients were disproportionally hiring senior/executive level marketers for both direct-hire positions and for interim roles.

To gain a larger perspective, we asked the marketing community for feedback via a LinkedIn poll. We wanted to determine if what we are seeing at Paladin is an anomaly, or actually a hiring trend in marketing departments.

The Findings:

Nearly 60% of the respondents polled said their companies were not hiring at all in 2009. Not shocking given the current state of the economy.

However, what’s interesting is that 30% of the remaining respondents said their organization was hiring due to one of the following three reasons:

-         The need for a fresh marketing approach

-         A shift in business direction

-         Business growth

We also saw that enterprise and mid-sized organization were seeing the least hiring of senior level marketing talent. Small and large organization were the most active.

So, how can this information help marketers who are looking for work? The good news is that there are opportunities, and in order to find those openings, you should keep an eye out for companies that match the three indicators for hiring.  As you network through organizations like the BMA or CIMA, read key publications such as Crain’s Chicago Business and The Chicago Tribune or leverage corporate Facebook accounts and Twitter feeds, keep an eye out for corporations that are taking a distinctly different approach to marketing or to their actual business model.  As always, those companies that are experiencing rapid growth are ideal opportunities for senior marketers as well.

The poll is still up and active. Feel free to participate and add comments. We continue to be interested in tracking this trend. 

The old adage that “time flies when you’re having fun” really hit home for me this morning. As I was reflecting on the last ten years I’ve spent in the professional working world, I realized that one of the common denominators in each of my positions has been healthcare. 

I began my career on the public relations side, working with healthcare systems and big pharma. That interest has carried over into my role in the recruiting world. In the last four years at Paladin, I’ve worked with nearly 30 healthcare associations, providers, insurers and pharma companies, providing a vast array of talent for marketing, creative, programming, membership, training, event and communications departments.  Working with marketers and creatives in this space has allowed me the opportunity to stay abreast of trends, pressures, challenges and nuances in the field.

To get an even deeper understanding of these trends, I launched a survey of my healthcare association clients last month. The goal was to better understand the marketing, membership and staffing trends within these organizations.  I think you’ll find the survey results interesting.

A few key findings:

- The healthcare association world is a “healthy” one, despite the turbulent U.S. economy. The majority of respondents noted that their overall membership base in continuing to grow and that from an organizational perspective, they plan to continue expanding in other markets.

- As with many organizations, healthcare associations are embracing the new social media movement and offering new online and interactive forums to help their members and employees communicate. Facebook and Linked-In are becoming the top social media tools in the communications arsenal of these organizations.

- In order to remain competitive, healthcare associations are expanding their product and service offerings in 2009, including e-learning programs, online conferences, and social  media tools.

I encourage you to review the full survey findings in the hope that you’ll be able to leverage them as you continue to build marketing and communications campaigns and products for your members this year.

http://www.paladinstaff.com/promo/survey-results/

I also welcome your insights and hope you will help create a larger dialogue on this topic.  Feel free to comment here, or to contact me off-line with questions, ideas, suggestions, requests or additional resources: elise@paladinstaff.com.

“Why must this scene take place?”

This was a question asked by a teacher in an acting program I attended (long ago, far away).  The question served as the spark for a frequent conversation that took place after actors in class performed a scene.  That conversation centered on two basic ideas:

1. What were the actors trying to say?
2. Did they say it?

Creativity is nurtured in an environment based on the premise that ideas are taken at face value and evaluated on whether or not they achieve their goal.  Did they achieve what they set out to do?  If so, great.  If not, work on it some more.

This approach works not because, as that worn aphorism goes, “all ideas are good ideas.”  The approach nurtures creativity because it allows us to fail.

For most of us, failure is an option that facilitates learning.  A business colleague recently stated his belief that “if you don’t fail often enough, you aren’t trying hard enough.”  In fact, in industries where R&D is all about pushing the edge of the envelope, failure is expected much of the time (just ask the pharmaceutical companies).  Not all ideas are good ideas; some just won’t work.

But we don’t always have the luxury of failure.  Companies and careers are often riding on critical decisions made every day.  If that’s the case, then how can we help create an environment of sustained creativity?

They’ve figured it out at Pixar, the animation studio behind the movies Wall-E and The Incredibles, among others.  Here is a company that expects risk; no, it encourages and apparently thrives on it.  Failure can cost a lot for movie studios but, as Fast Company pointed out, Pixar has developed a culture of sustained creativity that generates hundreds of ideas for every movie and can survive when failures occur.  It didn’t happen all at once but the approach appears to be working for them.

How do we take the Pixar model and nurture creativity in business?  Here are a few simple ideas:

• Speak up – This is especially difficult in hard times where everyone is worried about saying something awful that will be remembered at evaluation time.  If you don’t speak up, so the thought goes, you won’t say something stupid.  Yet it is important - particularly during difficult times - to discuss and try out new ideas.  Those in leadership need to assure their colleagues that creative ideas are critical to success.  Let them know that it is the generation of ideas that will be remembered during evaluations, not the silence.  No one remembers the ones who were quiet all the time.  Not in a good way, anyway.

• Reward the effort – Take a look at that presentation, proposal or report sent for your review.  Watch that video or speech.  Listen during the brainstorming.  Before you pass judgment, first ask “What are they trying to say?”  then, “Did they say it?”  From there you can provide feedback and, as appropriate, build on or turn down their ideas.  But first reward the creativity by giving it due consideration and judging its merits – not just dismissing it out of hand.

• Ask about what works elsewhere – Find out what worked for people in formal classroom settings and other companies – in other words, beyond your office’s walls.  Compile a list of learning experiences that had the most impact, then use them to see what works.

• Make it a habit – There is always so much talk about being creative and approaching problems from a new angle, yet how are these ideas put into practice?  How do they become part of a company culture?  As David Brooks pointed out in his New York Times column, success isn’t a mystery.  People wear the Master’s green sports coat, write wonderful poems or bring their organization into the black the same way they get to Carnegie Hall: practice, man, practice.

While it may be true that one person or one team alone may not be able to change a corporate culture, people will emulate what works.  If they see that innovation and creativity is successful, they’ll want to know how it was done.

Now go practice, man, practice.

Contributed by: Frank McGee
Business writer, trainer, coach