Ooooh Shiney!

Today's Marketing Cookie is about the balance between discovering new worlds and building a familiar foundation.

In the wide, wide world of marketing, change seems to be the only constant. Many marketers chase what's new before it can become old. They want to be what's hot before it's not, and try the untried before the other guys. They want to jump into the next big thing today, before the new thing they just jumped into yesterday has had a chance to grow.

I am tempted this morning to begin listing the newest marketing strategies, tactics, and tools I've seen come from out of nowhere in the past three months. I hesitate to do so, however, because no sooner as I write them for you, they will likely become obsolete. Besides, if I did give you what I think is new and exciting this morning, you'll go off looking at it and probably ignore the rest of this post. So, what I think I will do instead, is illustrate what may be my first grand chase after what's new.

In 1993, I had taught myself HTML and developed a simple website for the company where I was working. As simple as it was, our website put us well out in front of our competitors, and new customers who were seeking access to our data flocked to us in record numbers. Our adoption and use of innovation from the very beginning gave us a clear advantage, and I felt like a hero.

Then, in the fall of 1994, the "Mosaic Netscape" browser was finally released with what were called "HTML extensions." HUH? Say what? They've invented more HTML we can use? Oh man. The race was on!! One of the newfangled features was the ability to change font colors and font sizes. This was big! I went totally crazy with fonts and could not be stopped.

With each new release of Netscape, they continued adding more extensions to HTML. Every new tag and feature created a madhouse frenzy to adopt the next new thing. In my book, no new feature would be bigger perhaps than the introduction of tables with borders and colored backgrounds. It was really just too much excitement all at once. In fact, I am breaking into a sweat just thinking about it.

My mother used to say, "If you do not change direction, you may end up where you are heading." Well, my friends, this is true. Through all the excitement of chasing change and falling in love with innovation, the original purpose of having the company website had been long lost along the way. I had completely morphed the company image from a trusted information resource into a gaudy display of stupid HTML tricks.

This would become quite apparent to me on the day when the founder took a look at our company website and his voice was then heard over the office paging system saying, "Myles. Come to the conference room right now!" I went in to see the boss and he reset expectations with me.

You see, he loved my energy for finding and testing new ideas, but he hated that I adopted them so blindly. He wanted me to build a strong foundation for the business and add only the elements that make it stronger. He wanted me to ignore the elements that only add distraction. I had become so caught up in chasing every new trick and feature that I had completely lost sight of the goal. It was an important lesson I have carried with me through my entire career.

I thought change came quickly in the early days of the Internet, but it was like a tortoise walking uphill in cake frosting compared to how rapidly things are moving today. Be careful not to try new things simply because they are new, or adopt new things just so you can be first. Rather, you have to examine new innovations to determine which ones are most likely to help you achieve your goals.

Be warned. It is tempting to settle in and get comfortable when you find something that works, but you must also keep pace with the world. Always be careful with what you adopt, and never stop trying new things. As today's fortune says, "Even if you're on the right track, you'll get run over if you just sit there."