George Costanza on Pinko Marketing

Thanks to Sean Coon for clarifying to my readers who got a little stuck on the Marxist stuff (and, really, I have no business mixing politics with marketing - the analogy, although fitting, was bound to raise more eyebrows than make my point). Sean is right. George Costanza's Seinfeld persona had quite a bit of wisdom to offer the philosophy of Pinko Marketing.

So, summoning the character, I imagined a fictional interview where George would describe Pinko Marketing to the world. It goes something like this:

Interviewer: So, George, I've heard a good deal about this Pinko Marketing stuff lately and I'm not quite sure what it all means. Care to enlighten our viewers?

George: Well, Oprah, get this. The strategy of Pinko Marketing is to....(looks around slyly)...do nothing.

I: What? What do you mean? Do nothing? I don't understand.

G: That's the beauty of it (waves arms wildly). Nothing! You do nothing! Nada! Nit! Not! Zilch! It's about doing nothing! Beautiful, isn't it? I'm such a genius!

I: Ummmm...k...well...erm....back after these messages? (cuts to commercials, replaces George with emergency fill-in guest)

So, it's a marketing philosophy about doing nothing?

Well, like Seinfeld, if it had truly been a show about nothing, nobody would have watched it. But the writing was really funny (I do love Larry David's stuff) and the situations were absolutely absurdly common (we could all relate to losing ones's car in a garage while carrying heavy parcels - the way they took mundane situations and made them hilarious was the beautiful simplicity of Seinfeld).

It is, however, about doing nothing in the sense that you get out of the way and let the community take you where you need to go. As soon as you feel like planning anything, stop it. (ie. do nothing on the planning end).

I've had some great conversations with people since I started posting this. First, I had a conversation with the brilliant Brian Oberkirch of Weblogs Work, where he asked me:

"So, no outbound messages at all?"

I instantly answered "No", but quickly reconsidered. That's not accurate. You have to say something at some point, but only when it's natural to do so. Example? Um. Me. How many times do I mention Riya on my blog? I once had one of our VC's ask me why I don't talk about Riya very much here. I replied, "Because nobody wants to read that we are going to launch soon for six months." But even beyond that, there is a Riya blog for updates and kudos and all of that stuff. That's not community, that's news. Still, who doesn't associate me with Riya on some level. Even when I say really stupid, embarassing things. Egad, what kind of a company representative does that make me? Well...that's a whole other post. ;)

But my point is that I use my blog to just talk about stuff that interests me (and sometimes out of my rss). My 'marketing' comes into play in how we design the product.

Seven months ago, when I arrived all bright-eyed and naive, Riya was Ojos, Inc. and the site was clunky, convoluted and confusing. The team of brilliant engineers and researchers had an amazing vision, but very little grasp of how to design UI for people. The best thing I could do was to get involved with the design and direction. I took feedback from the community excited about the ideas and my interaction with many of the Web 2.0 tools out there and brought it back to the team.

I talked to them about tagging, why we tag and how people tag.

I tested oodles of amazing new web apps with brilliant ideas for solving complex issues with simple UI. I watched to see what other pe0ple were picking up on. I live in the community of the people who build, use and enjoy these apps daily. I live my life online.

I started collaborating. I got involved with BarCamp, Microformats and many other commons-based movements. Not because I wanted to sell Riya to anyone. Nope. I want to learn. Absorb. Get ideas. Share ideas. Build relationships. Care. Get passionate.

And I continue to bring to my team the voice of the community. Sometimes it's just my voice as an individual with personal needs. Sometimes I'm speaking for a wider audience. Sometimes I bring other people I meet in to speak for themselves. Sometimes I dead wrong.

But I'm always fortunate. I work for a company that 'gets it'. They actually pay me to be passionate about this stuff, because they know that whatever it is I do (really, Munjal still can't quite put his finger on it, but he has oodles of faith), it's working out nicely.

So...do nothing. Really. If you think of a good marketing plan or campaign or scheme, do the opposite. Instead, become the person you want to meet.

[tags: pinkomarketing, cluetrain, marketing]