Experience Matters

The Cobblers Children: Are We Investing In Ourselves?

The story of the Cobblers Children is an all-too-familiar one. The town’s Cobbler is a busy man—he’s so busy making shoes for his paying customers, that he neglects his own children. It’s a story based on truth and while common sense tells us that the Cobbler should take care of his children as well, reality tells another story. As a follow up to Dave’s recent post about “lights out” and the feedback we received on our blog design, you should know that we heard you and would have even acted sooner—if it weren’t for those clients who pay the bills. Truth is, this is a topic worth thinking about. In the race to exceed client expectations, can we sometimes lose sight of our own “children”?

Here at CM, we recently made a few self-investments and hope to continue the trend. First thing you’ll notice is that we upgraded our blog design to be more readable while still aligning the look with our other digital properties. Speaking of those, we recently launched a beta version of a new company site. It’s actually a work in progress and a stepping stone to a broader initiative as we continue to evolve our own brand. And lastly, we invested in an iPhone application that was originally an experiment. If you like the idea of having “space in your pocket” then point your iPhone to criticalmass.com/exploration.

But even with these recent milestones—the issue of “the cobblers children” is a very real one for any organization, especially those who make money by aligning talent to client work. How can we service clients to the best of our abilities while making sure we don’t neglect our own development? There are a few examples that I always like to use whenever I get into discussion of this topic. Like many of you I’m sure, I am a big fan of IDEO’s method cards. Not only are they helpful and convenient, but in fact they are a brilliant marketing tactic. Yes, marketing. The best marketing is when it doesn’t feel like it—which is why IDEO’s cards are so remarkable. They provide value while positioning the company as a thought leader. In my mind, this was the equivalent of the cobbler saying—”it’s time to make some shoes for myself“. And everyone including themselves benefits in the process.

I’m also in the process of reading The Open Brand. A book by Kelly Mooney and Nita Rollins of Resource Interactive. The book is wonderfully reminiscent of The Brand Gap in it’s design and it also provides value by pulling together cohesive thoughts about how brands are being impacted in a 2.0 world. And it can all be digested on a plane ride.

These are just a couple of examples related to our space, but I can’t help but think about how they help the organizations in the long term. What if IDEO said—nah, let’s put that card idea on the back burner. We have client work do to! My guess is that they figured out a way to do both, but at some point they probably had to prioritize the internal effort while making sure clients were well taken care of.

Much of this is my personal opinion. I think as the space gets more competitive, we will all need to figure out how to do the best work possible for our clients, while avoiding the temptation to under invest in our own development. I have a hunch that the organizations who find that healthy balance will be rewarded. Well, I’m encouraged that we’re taking steps to improve the continually evolving ways you interact with us. Please keep that feedback coming in, whether by comments, Twitter or e-mail. We’re listening.