How We Think

This morning I began my “fun” vacation trip to visit my daughter in Denver. She recently moved from Boston to Denver to be ‘among her people’, seeking a professional job in a city that promises outdoor adventure and folks who balance boardrooms and mountain tops in one day with ease.

Thank goodness it’s Friday! What a week here at KHJ. If celebrating Friday wasn’t enough, we have something BIGGER to celebrate. Our very own Judy Habib is being celebrated for her accomplishments that led to her becoming one of the top 100… no scratch that… one of the top 50 women led-companies in the state by The Commonwealth Institute and the Boston Globe magazine. 

GE may have changed their tagline more than a decade ago after almost 25 years but they are still bringing good things to life… and I’m not talking about lightbulbs and appliances or jet engines and wind turbines. In September, GE launch a new campaign called “What’s the matter with Owen?” on late night TV. This campaign featured in AdAge and AdWeek is designed to serve a dual purpose: to position GE as a digital industrial company AND to recruit young professionals to join GE. 

The idea that “there’s no such thing as bad publicity” is often attributed to P.T. Barnum, 19^th century circus owner and showman, but today it is KFC putting the old adage to the test by bringing back the late great Colonel Harland Sanders. In May, KFC launched a new campaign featuring SNL-alum Darrell Hammond as the Colonel. The ads generated quite the buzz both in industry publications with features in both AdAge and AdWeek on the same day, a week before the campaign went live, and in the popular media landing the No. 3 spot on the Viral Video Chart with almost 10 million views in the first week.

Recently Larry Page wrote a short letter that had a seemingly large impact on the world. The behemoth that is Google and all of its entities, has now become a subsidiary of something else, what Larry Page and Sergey Brin are calling Alphabet. Is this a joke? How can this thing that has become the de facto answer to any of life’s questions, the thing that billions of people use, talk about and rely on every day, be something that is now a child of something else? Sounds a bit crazy, right? Well, that’s just how Larry Page likes it. “We are still trying to do things other people think are crazy but we are super excited about it.”

It was in the middle of the day on a Friday when I remembered I was tasked with coming up with a plan for a friend's last hurrah before leaving Boston that very night. I immediately jumped on to my favorite Boston event aggregator, The Boston Calendar, and picked an event to pitch to the group. "Free- Floating Silent Disco Party" was the title. “Yeah, it’s like a dance party that travels from place to place around Boston… Oh and everyone wears headphones tuned to the same playlist… Oh and did I mention it's FREE?” I tell my cautiously interested friends.

There’s a lot of banking in the community, but how much community is in the bank? Today, people are seeking brands that demonstrate a commitment to the community. So to banks that are pushing product to prove their value, we ask: what’s your community strategy?

What exactly do we mean by a commitment to the community? I am not just talking about your CRA obligation, which belongs in the realm of “need to have.” I am talking about your authentic commitment to community that will make a meaningful difference and get people talking.

An alarming statistic was published several weeks ago by Gallup: only 33% of fifth through 12^th grade students surveyed felt they were success-ready. When breaking down the factors that lead to success, Shane J. Lopez, Ph.D., suggests hope, engagement and well-being. Also telling about student attitudes today: they were asked to imagine a ladder with zero at the bottom and 10 at the top – 10 is the best possible life and zero the worst. Not only did students feel unprepared for success, but their “life ratings” also diminished from fifth through 12^th grades.

Let’s put aside how gut-wrenching it is that we are failing the next generation and focus on what Lopez suggests can be done. Survey results show that those students with teachers who make them excited about their future show higher percentages who feel hopeful, engaged and thriving.