You know when you feel like the kid in the proverbial "candy store" and you feel almost overwhelmed by all the choices and options of sweets in front of you?  Every once in a while I feel like that.  I felt like that last week...

We just hosted our annual Advisory Council meeting.  Its the closest thing we have to a Board meeting, only its not.  We were fortunate enough to have Jeanne Sullivan of Starvest Ventures, Bill Hewitt, CEO of Kalido, Inc., Helen Donnelly, Meritage Marketing Group, Sam Whitmore, Sam Whitmore's Media Survey, Judith Hurwitz, Hurwitz associates, and Bruce Richardson of AMR with us for a half day discussion around our business, where it is, and where its going.  We talked about how Horn Group can grow by assessing our strategy of geographic, services and market expansion.  The greatest takeaway I from that meeting was FOCUS.

Focus is such a wonderful thing.  In business, in relationships, when you're deciding what to wear...  Horn Group is at a very interesting place right now.  We are a firm of smart people, capable of doing many things.  There are some things we do better than others.  I guess the trick is knowing which things we do best that people will buy and pay for. Then you have to put your best resources behind those things to make them fly. Even though we may do other things well, we have to zero in on only those that we are the best at.  I detest the feeling that I just can't get to everything that requires my attention.  More than anything, those things then become a distraction, consuming valuable mental calories just sitting there, doing nothing, and wanting my attention.  Maybe those other things need to preoccupy someone else's mind.  And, as much as I trust my instincts, (and usually make mistakes when I don’t), our business has grown to the size where real factual information can play a critical role in making a different kind of decision.  Instinct is after all based on information, feelings and vibe you have at any given moment in time. 

Simplicity is a beautiful thing.  Less is more.  You get the idea.  When something is simply orchestrated it just feels good.  I'm one of those people who feels better throwing things out that aren't used.  I feel like I can breathe.  Take software upgrades for example.  They are supposed to give us new features and functions to make us more productive.  Why don’t I feel that way?  I like the old version that only needed one click to take me where I needed to go. Much in the same way that short sentences are more powerful than multi-syllabic, long winded sentences, press releases are the same way.  It must be that humans in the technology industry like to make things complicated.  If something doesn't make sense, we just add more words, rather than finding a simpler way to say the same thing.

Right now, our agency is at a point where we know we could truly serve as the marketing department for our clients.  We can actually handle all their advertising (why, we even did a billboard the other day for our client BlueRoads), direct mail, web design, collateral, search engine optimization, and of course PR.  But it’s interesting that PR, which is EVERYTHING we used to do, is quickly becoming ONE of the things we do.  At least in technology, traditional PR is stagnating as a means for gaining awareness.  Traditional PR is being complemented and supplemented by social media: new people, new approaches, new ways of communicating, new styles...  Some of our clients just want traditional PR, some want nothing to do with it and need a blogging strategy, others want Horn Group to handle all their channel marketing and corporate branding needs.  Interesting right?  It’s incredible.  Our value proposition has a new lease on life.  Our employees are now exposed to a whole new dimension of communications they never thought they'd get at Horn Group.  Our clients have a one stop shop for practically all their communications needs.  But with opportunity comes responsibility.  Our people need to understand what these new capabilities are.  Our company needs new people who can deliver these new services.  Our clients need to build trust in Horn Group as a well-rounded provider. And importantly, we need to remain experts at what is still the core of our business: public relations.  Without that, there would be nothing.

This is the part of business I love.  It’s a puzzle.  (Thankfully I'm good at puzzles...) We've got to identify the right people to deliver the right services to the right clients at the right time.  And then we need to focus on that, leaving other initiatives on the backburner for a while, or redirecting them in some different way. So stay tuned for more on all this.  The technology industry is all about change.  By communicating through different means, we make change ok for people, so that they can use it, try it, explain it to their kids...  Now we must appropriately deal with our own change amidst a changing industry.  All good stuff!

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