The Real Mike Clemente
Jun 03
The Intern Epidemic
Here is a post many will agree is long overdue. The number of interns and more importantly the percentage of interns in relation to an organization’s overall size has rapidly increased over the last several years. Perhaps the economic decay acted as a catalyst for the “intern epidemic,” or maybe it is simply because businesses are legally allowed to employ free labor, but, whatever it is, I think internships have exploded and spawned into something they weren’t when I first remember interning while in High School.
This is not the case of every business “employing” interns, but I think many businesses have realized entry level positions have gone the way of VCRs and are increasingly becoming useless, so they thus begin eliminating entry level positions that are now to be filled by unpaid interns. Again, I stress this is not true of all firms with entry level positions, but many require the new employee to do meaningless tasks I believe will soon be outsourced. Can anybody even doubt one day soon there will be an executive whose “administrative assistant,” aka secretary will be an aspiring Bollywood actress answering calls from India? While one of the main benefits of interning is the ability to see if you, the intern, likes the industry you’re interning within, doesn’t it seem meaningless to have interns doing the tasks that will one day be unneeded?
A second flaw I find with businesses employing interns, especially start ups, is the percentage of interns in relation to the business’ overall size. I’m borderline embarrassed to say I interned without pay for a “company” with more interns than full time employees! As an unofficial official guideline to hiring interns, I want to recommend to employer’s a proper ratio approach. At a minimum, a firm should employee 2 full time (and paid!) employee’s for every 1 intern (paid or unpaid). The ratio strategy is similar to what you will find at a nightclub where the full time employees are girls and the interns are guys (sorry guys). Girls are of more value to nightclubs for obvious reasons, so they are the businesses full time employees while the interns are the guys who are less valuable.
I’ll continue on with the nightclub example to mention how a business can determine whether or not they need to compensate interns. When there are too many guys (interns) and not enough girls (full time paid employees), money is usually involved at the door of most nightclubs where the guys are forced into table service. Money acts as the equalizer to make sure the group is bringing something to the table (literally). So, in the office type of situation, for an intern to actually get something out of the internship, shouldn’t there be more full time employee’s around to impart wisdom? How much is the intern going to learn if he or she is mainly amongst people with the same skill sets and level of education? So, at least if you’re not going to learn too much as an intern, you might as well be paid, right?
Then, there are always the people who will say “internships are so vital to have on your résumé.” While this may have been true of most internships in the past (where, from my memory, internships were a little tougher to attain), what part of doing something meaningless is important for a future employer to see on your résumé? If an intern isn’t truly active in helping with the decision making processes and execution (the things of value), allowing them to show off their creativity, how valuable is intern experience to a future employer? On the reverse side of the coin, if the employer views a résumé with useless typical internship-esque bullet points all over the place and actually buys into the “internships are vital” viewpoint, how much should anybody really long to work for that employer? The employer clearly does not understand ideas and creativity are at a premium, not commodity type functions the résumé claims the applicant is fluent in. So I ask, with that hiring mentality, how long do you think it will be until that company goes the way of the VCR?
While I agree many great opportunities are the result of internships, the point of this post was to expose some of the negative, but often true aspects that come along with “the epidemic.” If you are an intern, ask yourself “am I a mere plug covering a hole in the ship (that is the business) bound to sink?,” or “am I helping charter the seas?” If you’re an employer, it is important to understand your duties when hiring an intern. It is your responsibility as the employer to make sure interns are doing meaningful work. Lastly, I apologize to employers who just lost their intern(s) who just read this post.
Jun 02
Doing What You Don’t Know
“When we write only what we know, we limit ourselves to territory we’ve already covered.”
The above is a quote from Steven Pressfield’s blog which I read no more than two minutes before I started writing this blog post. The quote is completely about creativity and how we create art. Rather than looking at “writing what we don’t know,” I’d rather explore the implications of “doing what we don’t know.”
Sometimes the more knowledge we have of a certain subject, the less likely we are able to make change in the category. Our biases and often times expert-like knowledge and abilities of something we do sets up parameters limiting our true creativity potential. To offer up an example, I’ll talk about about wine, a topic I’ve recently been actively seeking more information on, either in the its actual form through tastings, (to which I’ve found myself staring at many empty bottles) or in the form of different sommelier and wine expert writings online. The one downside of learning is: the more you learn, the less creative you’ll become if you were to produce art or in this case, wine.
Since I only have the primitive know-how I’ve read about wine making, anything I create is sure to be wildly interesting. Interesting can mean the worst wine, ever, or perhaps something truly great, garnering a cult like wine aficionado following. Or maybe what I will have created wouldn’t be wine by definition, but more of a new of a form of alcoholic beverage, assuming I have the fermentation process down pat. My limited resources (knowledge wise) will “unbound” me from certain traditions other’s with knowledge would never dare stray away from in the creation of something new.
One of the only reasons businesses seek out information on processes they undergo while making a product/service is to help protect themselves from taking a loss, money wise. While it seems like a grand idea to protect yourself from losing money by doing massive amounts of research, what you wind up doing is similar to every one of your current and future competitors. If you can research something and find information on it, well than so can your competitors and it is certainly not art if you’re set out on reproducing what is already available.
Here is something you can do. Attempt to produce something, it can be anything you are interested in but have little to no knowledge of. When you are done producing “it,” go ahead and Google it. If nothing comes up, well then you’ve created something new; no matter how good, bad, minuscule or majuscule it is, it is new and therefore, art. When nothing comes up on Google, you have beat Google, so pat yourself on the back; you’ve just won, and winning is what counts, right?
Now it’s on me to create something great, so I’ll get back to my production of ice wine from grapes crushed by penguins wearing custom Tom’s Shoes - I think I’ll call it “Waddle Wine.”
Jun 01
The Tipping Point
No, this is not a post about anything Malcolm Gladwell related or how Hush Puppies took over the world; instead, it is about about an unused method in which restaurants and bars can implement for their tipping/gratuity policy. In the 1980’s, you (and I stress you because I wasn’t tipping in the 80s, but maybe you were) would leave 10-15% of the bill as gratuity. Since the bottle service era really kicked into high gear in the early 2000’s, an increased mandatory gratuity of 18-20% of the bill (sometimes higher) has become an accepted tradition for most people when dining out in a restaurant or partying at a nightclub with table service. While I may sound a tad “out there” with this, I believe gratuity can easily be based on the actual tangible service provided to the table, rather than based off a percentage of the total bill.
Say there is a table of four people dining at a restaurant and each person orders two drinks, an appetizer and an entrée — total, it is sixteen items brought out by the waiter or waitress (four items per patron). Each restaurant can set a certain suggested or mandatory amount to be tipped per item, perhaps based upon how upscale or not the restaurant is. So, let’s say it is $2-3 per plate/drink in this case; total, it adds up to $8-12 per person or $32-48 total using the previous example. The overall effect taking place leaves the patrons tipping on the actual service, rather than a percentage of the bill, as I previously mentioned in the opening of the post. Gratuity will be roughly the same amount per table of “X” amount of people no matter what the table’s tab adds up to.
It seems odd that the service we are accustomed to tipping on is based on menu prices and not the actual service. By no means do I believe waiters and waitresses (and even bussers) should be compensated less than they are now, but I do believe they should be compensated around the same amount for every table of equal size they serve. Whether it is a $55 dish of truffle oil mac ‘n cheese, or a $8 side of steamed asparagus, you will tip equally ($2-3 for example) for the service using this method, which I am in no way claiming to have created. How much more difficult is it for your waiter to bring out one dish over the other? Not much more difficult I bet, so why are we tipping $9-10* for one (truffle oil dish) and $1-2* for the other (asparagus)? Finding a common ground somewhere in the middle seems wildly more appropriate, unless of course, we were tipping the chef who clearly put in more work with one dish over the other - but we aren’t.
In lounges and bars, we can appropriately use the same method for gratuity. This is a case where you are tipping the chef, in the form of a mixologist or bartender, which are not considered one in the same. A $14 complicated cocktail from a mixologist and a $14 simple gin and tonic from a bartender should not warrant the same tip based on their $14 price point. The amount of work and time put in by the mixologist to muddle, shake and garnish your cocktail should be directly correlated to the tip you leave. So while it may be fine to leave a $2 tip for a gin and tonic, it isn’t as fine to leave $2 for a true cocktail. Again, we can see how irrational it has become to tip on price and not service.
The last case I’ll make is that of bottle service in nightclubs. Again, I believe there should be a set service charge per bottle regardless of its price. Often times, the less service you’ll receive, the more you end up tipping. Case in point: champagne. Many brands of champagne are usually the most expensive bottles on a bottle menu and currently come with the same 20% gratuity you’d pay on a far less expensive bottle of vodka. With vodka, the 20% of a $350 bottle comes with the actual service of having your chasers (orange, cranberry, soda, etc) and bucket of ice refilled throughout the night; vodka also lasts longer than champagne by means of consumption and more glasses for the table are usually required. On the flip side, champagne usually requires no more than 5-7 flutes for the table per bottle, no chasers unless you’re making mimosa’s and very few refills of ice, yet, 20% on a bottle of champagne that can very well be $1,000 is $200 and 20% on a $350 bottle of vodka is $70.
By now, it is clear a set service charge amount regardless of menu price seems to be the most rational way of going about tipping. Call it “socialized tipping” if you’d like, but it does make sense. To take it a step further and really make it socialized tipping, somebody or rather, some website can come about to have customers decide what the tipping policy should be for every restaurant; it is the customers who are leaving the tip, not the restaurant itself, so why wouldn’t it be up to the customers to decide? If this change is to ever actualize, many will agree an established and well used website like Opentable can lead the change and make it known as you reserve a table how gratuity should be handled for every restaurant from past customer reviews and beliefs.
I plan on following up with another post about gratuity in the near future to touch upon other areas not talked about in this post. For anybody reading this who works in the hospitality industry (waiters, managers, hostesses, etc) who have any comments or suggestions, leave them in the comments box below or email me - I’m especially curious to see your response(s).
(* - based on 18% gratuity)
May 28
The Caring Mistake
Earlier today, I ordered a pizza to be delivered to my apartment. Oddly enough, the delivery itself spurred on today’s post, and not just because I was so hungry before the pizza, I could not seem to write one. When the pizza I ordered was delivered, the delivery guy did not have exact change, so I was semi-forced to give him the $20 in my hand and have him keep the change he nor I had. While the $2 extra tip is hardly a big deal, it was a reminder of my reading of Danny Meyer’s book, Setting the Table.
One thing I recall taking away from Setting the Table is how Danny talks about dealing with mistakes. The delivery guy not having change was probably a mistake (or a clever move in hindsight), but mistakes are the easiest ways to show you care. Making mistakes is part of what makes a person or a brand human, so it is likely they’ll occur at some point or another. How a brand, for example goes about handling mistakes can make a world of difference.
Had the delivery guy taken my money, went back to the pizzeria, pulled some change from the register and returned to my apartment door with it, I for one would have been surprised. Would I have taken the $2 back? Absolutely not. But would I be a customer who is likely to continue tipping well and returning often? Absolutely. One simple misstep like the delivery allows a person or a brand to do something extraordinary. The ability to show you truly care is one of the last factors going unnoticed with brands and is also one of the last factors that can uncommoditize (I think that’s a word) a product/service in a category full of similars.
The act of caring is free and usually yields high returns. A walk back to my apartment with change: free; being loyal to the pizzeria and tipping well: high returns. It is hard to deny the overall power of caring in people, brands or even TV for that matter (it was why Vinny Chase fired Ari). While the delivery faux pas didn’t result in the pizzeria doing something extraordinary, it did result in a valuable business lesson reminder about caring.
May 27
Twitter Advertising 2.0
Twitter has been reluctant to fully launch their advertising platform for all brands to use; instead, a handful of early adopters, like Virgin Mobile and Starbucks are the guinea pigs of the program to work out any snafu’s that may show up. By now, you’ve probably seen ads when you search trending topics or terms on Twitter. What you’re seeing is what I call Twitter Advertising 1.0. As Twitter users are more comfortable with seeing ads and ad agencies find out ways to maximize the use of Twitter, surely the advertising on Twitter will evolve. Here is my guess as to where it will go.
Most agree the background space of Twitter pages is mainly useless. If you don’t believe me, follow this link to Twitter creator, Jack Dorsey’s page; he is using a beyond simple brown background with a generic picture of five flying seagulls. Even if you use a custom background to match your personal brand or company’s brand, there is little to no functionality of the background. The inability to put hyper-links as your background image is very much the main issue. Without links, the internet is very brochure-like and just as bad as any other traditional media, if not worse. Linking images to other websites can be for personal advertising or for corporate advertising in what I call Twitter Advertising 2.0
With Twitter Advertising 2.0 (T.A. 2.0), Twitter will allow brands to choose and or bid on certain Twitter pages to advertise on, similar to Google Adsense, if not exactly the same. Every account will either allow or deny ads on their background space depending upon their preference. For those who choose to allow it, there will be a revenue sharing model used for the account holder and Twitter based on click throughs or impressions. Obviously, the more followers and influence a Twitter user has, the more they will be compensated for the ads on their background due to the higher demand for the page’s space.
Advertisers can use websites like Twitter Grader to determine the value of an individual’s Twitter account; maybe it will work in conjunction with T.A. 2.0. With Twitter Grader, every page is given a score out of 100 points and ranked among every active account based on a secret algorithm. I wouldn’t even doubt various marketing firms going as far as concocting their own algorithms to suit their own needs and beliefs.
With T.A. 2.0, bloggers and other types of influential individuals will be able to monetize their blog or personal brand from more than merely their website. For example, campaigns can be started where a blogger has Whole Foods advertisement on their Twitter page AND their blog. Most advertisers are well aware a consumer needs to see an ad an average of three times before it really sticks, so, a Twitter and blog combo campaign will already have two impressions down.
Visualizing what Twitter can be for advertisers as well as users puts everything into perspective where we now realize how primitive Twitter currently is with respect to its overall potential.
May 26
Show & Tell
When we were kids, we all participated in show & tell. It was a break in our stressful day from learning cursive and the fundamentals of math - it was a time to learn about the Venus Fly Trap and Canadian Money (or maybe A-Rab Money). You’d show something unique and educate your classmates about it. Such a simple concept, right? So how come many of us aren’t embracing show & tell anymore?
As we’ve grown up, we have gone away from “show & tell” and have gone on to “tell & maybe show.” As adults, there are plenty of things we all are guilty of saying we’ll do, but either never get around to, or get discouraged and simply quit on. Show & tell is not just a child learning technique, it’s more of a man’s (and woman’s) game than you realize. The ability to go out and show something you’ve already done and tell people about it is much harder than saying what you will do; it is also more valuable.
Imagine a child going up in front of his or her class and telling them about something they will show in a few weeks before returning to their assigned seat. Unless the child promised to bring in Hannah Montana or Justin Bieber, how engaged do you think the group of seven and eight year olds will be if he or she had nothing to show during the presentation? Just like children, adult’s do not want to hear what will happen, they want to see something tangible and they want to see it now! As we grow older, our attention span shrinks because of all we have going on. I’m probably not half as busy as most of the people reading this, but at times, I think my attention span is shorter than one of a gnat - an intelligent gnat on Adderall, if that helps me out at all.
With the help of Twitter, Facebook and other social networks, it is easier than ever to “tell” and forget about doing. All you have to do is update your status and pow, everybody knows what you’re planning. If you’re a Twitter/Facebook addict and must talk about what you’re going to do, but still want to embrace the show & tell technique, try speaking in the past tense (despite what your English teacher told you in Junior High). Speaking in the past tense allow you to show what you’ve already done. Take it a step further by including a “&” and talk in the future tense about what you want to do with your idea you’ve already established in the first half of the sentence.
Now, if I were Seth Godin, I’d say “Go do the work,” if I were Gary Vaynerchuk, I’d say “Crush it!,” if I were Nike, I’d say “Just Do It,” but I’m The Real Mike Clemente, so I’ll simply say: “Show me!”
May 23
My Background, Your Background
Above lies my current background for my Blackberry. If you get past my self-branding attempt, you’ll see a highly practical background for your phone. How many times are you exchanging your name and number with a new acquaintance at a loud club? Probably quite often, so this makes it a whole lot easier to exchange your info. Not sold yet? Fine, take the quiet and reserved type of person who doesn’t want justanybody to have their number; when you say your number aloud, you run the risk of other surrounding unsavory characters taking your number down as well! And a final use: the one digit off trick. Maybe you don’t want to give your real number out to a person you meet out, so you show them your phone with your fake number. Once they get passed your cleverness, they’ll never suspect it isn’tyour real number.
So, if you’d like your very own The Real Mike Clemente type of background, email me your full name and number and I’ll send you a MMS back with your picture (with your name/number, not mine) for your phone.
I should also note, up until now, I didn’t realize I would be sharing my number with the internet - unless of course, I’m using the one digit off move? Tricky, tricky.
May 22
DJ’s Can Do This
Over the past year, I’ve found myself downloading more and more mixes and sets put online by DJ’s; so much so, I’d bet I have more memory taken up by mixes than individual songs on my iPod. It’s pretty practical to press play on one mix, go for a run and when the mix is done, so is your run! There are some DJ’s who clearly put in more time and effort with their productions than others and because of it, now have demands for their mixes even before they drop. The new demand for DJ mixes (as opposed to traditional musicians’ albums) got me thinking as to how DJ’s can come to leverage their somewhat new found celebrity to continue to get their mixes downloaded outside their immediate cadre of fans.
While I hope this does not deter rookie DJ’s, the idea I have will work easily for mid to well known DJ’s who put out mixes on a semi-set schedule. If you’re a DJ who puts together a set to share every month for example, your fans are aware of it and look forward to downloading it as soon as you tell them it is available. With that sort of demand, albeit from a small circle of people, you have the ability to create a substantial amount buzz for yourself - here’s how. Tell your fans you’re going to release your latest mix several days before it is officially available for those who want to donate money to your favorite charity. Pair the mix with a story fans can read explaining why you are passionate about the cause while stating you hope your latest set can benefit others. Set a goal, a manageable one, and communicate it with your fans where you tell them you’re looking to raise “x” amount of dollars. With the internet, donating and raising funds for charity is easier than ever for most causes, so you’ll be able to track everything online and see (and have others see) who is donating. Make sure you’re the first donor so everybody knows you’re dedicated to actualizing your goal.
To my knowledge, I haven’t witnessed any DJ attempt this (I can be wrong and I hope I am) but what I have seen is DJ’s tweeting their mixes all day long to their followers, attempting to spread it to raise awareness for themselves. When you do something like this however, it is special and bigger than the mix itself, so it is more likely to get retweeted on Twitter and shared on Facebook and other social media outlets without you self promoting for hours upon hours.
If you’re making the mix anyway, you might as well set out to raise some money for charity, while increasing your brand image as a DJ; philanthropy is always in style! Borrowing this idea will also allow you, the DJ, to monitor who is downloading your mix because you are individually emailing the link/file to them, so you’ll now know who your true fans are to better pay attention to in the future. You’ll likely be surprised at the number of people who will be down to donate to get a copy of your mix ahead of time.
I’ll even take it a step further for the first DJ who attempts this and be your second donor (because you’re the first donor, remember?). Sound good? Email me at: Mike@TheRealMikeClemente.com when the mix is complete and you’re looking to kick off your campaign and I’ll throw in $25. Scouts honor!
May 21
Don’t Make This Twitter Mistake
If it isn’t every day, it is every other day I see people or brands trying to persuade others to follow them on Twitter. The best way to get followers is to engage with amazing content day in and day out; however, it seems like people and brands like giving things away to the 100th or 1,000th (or whatever number it may be) follower they get on Twitter. Let me tell you why this strategy, well, sucks.
When somebody’s Twitter page is up to it’s 97th follow, it makes that person or brand long for its 100th follower, for example. You didn’t get the first 97 people to follow you by giving out something publicly, so you don’t need to start now. When you tell somebody the 100th person will get something, like a free drink or free food if it is a bar or restaurant, or a discount on clothing if it is an department store, you are setting yourself up for failure. Not only are you talking to those who already follow you (so it is useless), but you are going to halt those who are likely to follow you. Who will want to be the 98th follower and miss out on the drinks/food or discounts?! Not me for one; most will just wait until the 99th person starts following you and swoop in to claim their prize. This is similar to a radio contest, where the 100th caller wins tickets to a concert, except, Twitter, unlike radio, is transparent; you can’t see the 99th caller with radio, but you can see the 99th follower. For that reason, it’s a pretty ineffective tactic.
Moving forward, let’s not oversee what effects this has on the original people who have been following you since day one. I’m a firm believer of inbound marketing, or focusing on those who already focus on you – so in this case, the original 97 followers. When you offer somebody new something, you are in a way screwing over the original people who saw something in you to follow you. While this may be unintentional in your attempt to garner new followers, it is happening. My recommendation is to engage with your original 97 followers in ways where they’ll want to share your Twitter page with friends, family and colleagues.
The best way to give out free things in an attempt to do something for your original followers is to do it unexpectedly. If you have a Twitter tactic where you follow everybody who follows you, then you’ll be able to direct message (DM) people and be very personal with them. Maybe you want to reward somebody for having the insight to follow you and being your 100th follower. While you’re not announcing you’re giving out a free drink to your followers, you are still doing something for your follower, who will hopefully be grateful and in turn likely tweet your page to their friends saying what they’ve just won and how awesome you are. Having them, rather than you talk about your page is so much more effective. It’s why people have agents, managers or PR teams working for them – you always want a third party talking about you, so you don’t seem like a self-promoting machine.
A final reason you do not want to announce the 100th person will get X, Y & Z is because you never know who that person will be. It is out of your control who decides to eventually be the 100th person, so if you’re deciding to give out a free dinner to that person, and that person lives in New Hampshire and your restaurant is in New York, for example, well how likely is it that they’ll be able to come enjoy a dinner at your place? Not very likely. So now you have done something negative to the person who will clearly miss out on the deal. And that was just an example of an actual person following you, but what about if the 100th “person” it is one of those accounts following 1,507 people with 3 following them – do you really want to reward a robotic like Twitter account? Didn’t think so.
Here is what you can do if you’re adamant on telling people you’ll be giving something away for your Twitter followers. Tweet that you’re going to do something special for one follower who emails you at your personal email address. State what the prize will be, so if it is a geographic sensitive prize, like dining at a restaurant, only those who actually live in the vicinity will email you, this way, no body will be let down. If you’re a department store, you don’t have this problem because you should have a website where people can shop online; in that case, just give that one person a special code they can use at the checkout for a discount. When your inbox starts filling up with people who are interested in winning, you’ll need to respond to each and every person, whether they are the winner, or not. These are clearly your fans who care enough to email you – if they took out 2 minutes of their day to email you, you most assuredly better respond even if they haven’t won to keep them engaged with you as a person or brand. They’ll still feel like it was worth their time to email you, so they’ll likely email you again for your next contest.