Oh hello, oh good day, how are you today?

I’m well, I’m good, just enjoying the Baja peninsula and avoiding all the pumpkin-spiced nonsense in the States this time of year

Happy almost Halloween!

It may have occurred to me, recently, that a perfect title for a new Halloween movie would be Live, Laugh, Blood.

Hollywood: call me. ☎️

Moving on!

It being spooky season, I’ve a marketing horror story to tell you all.

As longtime friends will know, one of the fun and exciting things that I do (👋 jazz hands 👋) is help companies optimize their marketing and content operations, especially around creative content like newsletters and blogs and such.

This story is about that.

It’s truly terrifying.

I would like to apologize in advance for writing a full-on story below, which is incredibly geeky and departs from my customary habit of being effortlessly detached from the world, human emotions, everything. But I had a glass of mulled wine and well, this is what happened.

Anyway there’s some actual marketing insight in the story below, somewhere, and plenty of living, laughing, and blood too. Also! It has the virtue of being true. Even the part where I imagine I’m a sexy 18th century detective with a morphine habit.

My clients love that.

-s.

Here’s a thing that happens quite often

I get this pain in my left shoulder.

Right under the scapula. Hurts like a hullabaloo. Sub-dermal inflammation, a doc said once. Some kind of muscle tension.

AKA, a knot.

A painful, recurring, quite annoying, no good knot.

Now, how would you fix this knot?

You can massage it of course, and take aspirin, or swallow a few OTC opioids, and each of those things relieve a bit of the immediate pain.

But as anyone with a body knows, with the exception of some of your more obvious physical traumas—e.g. a gunshot wound—the place where you hurt isn’t usually why you hurt.

Since I don’t recall having been shot recently, I have to wonder: why does my shoulder hurt?

Well tbh my sitting posture sucks.

Why? Because I have too-tight hip flexors, and my abdominals aren’t helping me sit up straight.

Why? Well I don’t really stretch enough after I run, and also I have a tendency to lie on my left side when I sleep, which impinges blood flow to my shoulder overnight, which causes more inflammation, which is then exacerbated by my running posture, which is also affected by those too-tight hip flexors I mentioned, and all these things affect each other etc etc and around we go.

The point is that fixing this pain isn’t really about fixing the shoulder, but about fixing the pretzel logic of actions and muscles which affect the shoulder.

Any major dude will tell you, the site of your body’s pain isn’t usually the cause of your body’s pain.

Organizational Pain

Here’s a thing that happened earlier this year.

A client called me and said their Marcom department wasn't functioning too well.

Our newsletters are taking too long to produce, they said. Our staff feels overwhelmed. Our executives are being pulled into supervision. We don’t know what’s working with these newsletters, and what’s not, or how to improve.

These newsletters are important to you, I asked.

Yes, he said, we rely on them for quite a lot.

He explained that his org uses newsletters to publish research and announce events. The org earns revenue through those events, and through membership dues. And also the newsletters contain news about their industry, which reminds their audience about the org’s expertise.

So yes, he says, we rather need these newsletters, and also we have plans for more newsletters, but we can barely complete the ones we produce now.

Ah okay, I say, massaging my aching shoulder, sounds serious.

It being Halloween, I then began to imagine I was a handsome surgeon, dramatically snapping on a pair of surgical gloves and saying, confidently but also sexily, like I was going to save you but also sleep with you:

Take me to the patient.

In which the patient and surgeon are both confused

I hold my surgeon’s hands before me, in that way they do before they operate, I guess, maybe, I don’t know, I only saw ER once.

So this newsletter in question ... I say.

It’s published once a week, says my client. The Marcom team begins planning at a meeting on Friday, when the team chooses the information to go in the next newsletter.

And the team? I inquire, arching my well-groomed, Ive League-educated eyebrow.

A director of marketing and three coordinators, he says. The director edits, while the coordinators are responsible for writing.

You’ve got three people writing one newsletter, I ask.

We’ve got three people writing one newsletter, he says.

I see, I say, picking up a scalpel from my tray. And when does this newsletter get published?

Tuesday at 9am.

I narrow my eyes. To my highly trained sense of calendrical progression, Tuesday is two business days after the marketing meeting on Friday.

What’s happening though, my client continues, is the newsletter usually doesn’t go out until 5pm.

And why do you think the newsletter is late, I ask, while thinking to myself that I don’t want to be an imaginary surgeon anymore.

We think it’s because of the editing process, he says. Besides the three writers we have four editors, including two from departments outside of Marcom.

Actually, you know, I feel more like a sexy 19th century detective with a morphine habit. I raise my detective’s seeing glass to my eye.

If my calculations are correct, I say, that’s … seven employees working on one newsletter?

Indeed, says my client. Most of the edits are done live in Google Docs, but the Marcom team also receives edits via Slack and there’s also a final editing session via email.

As in you send the draft email to several people? I ask, stroking the back of my Tibetan Mastiff.

Ten people, he says.

All ten people give edits? I ask, as I gaze out my casement window at shadows of clouds falling on the Pyrenees.

All ten people, he says.

Over email? I ask, really feeling this detective role now, as I remove my Meerschaum pipe and stroke my Hungarian mustache.

Yes, he says.

And this happens when? I ask, as I expertly play Finale of Der glorreiche Augenblick with my pinky finger using only the rim of a crystal brandy snifter.

All day Monday, he says.

All day Monday??, I ask, as I spit Remy Martin in my client’s face.

And also Tuesday.

I turn to look directly into the camera.

Sacre f’n bleu.

More difficult than it should be

Ok so, right away we see there are some things we can fix.

The editing process could be tightened up, yes. We could put constraints on the editing window, and mandate it all be done on a single platform. And there’s good reason to limit the number of writers and editors.

Addressing all these problems would indubitably reduce the amount of time spent working on the newsletter.

But then, that would just be looking directly at the pain in the shoulder, so to speak.

We can and should fix the pain in the shoulder, but if there’s a systemic reason why the pain recurs, well, oughtn’t we address that, too.

Otherwise the pain will recur.

I place my imaginary Meerschaum pipe back in the corner of my mouth.

Could it be, I ask myself, mid-puff, that there is something outside of the marcom department that is affecting this workflow?

I turn to my client.

Tell me more about the content of this newsletter, I say, as I lean back into the velveteen softness of my high-backed drawing room chair.

Let’s take a closer look

Well, the newsletter has two sections, says my client. Events and News.

And am I to presume, I ask, that news is about recent news within the market space that this newsletter covers?

Yes, our first writer gets that information from the Research department. Research provides the blurbs. Our writer copy edits those blurbs.

Only copy editing?

Only copy editing.

Hmm, doesn’t sound too difficult, I think.

And am I also to presume, I respond, narrowing my eyes and pointing my pipe at the middle distance, that the events section tells readers about upcoming events that the organization is hosting?

Exactly, my client says. To write this section, our second writer requests information from each department that's hosting an upcoming event.

I fluff the tails of my waistcoat triumphantly.

And is this copy editing as well?

No, there’s quite a bit more actually. Our writer needs to get the info from the department, and describe the event, and get photos, and make the landing page …

I cut him off.

I’m sorry, he has to do what?

Well if it’s a new event, he needs to create a landing page …

But surely, I say, interrupting him, this landing page has been created well before the newsletter production process?

Well, no, the upcoming events aren’t approved until the Friday meeting.

My good man, I exclaimed, jumping to my feet, that’s it! Don’t you see, your newsletter isn’t actually written by the Marcom department!

Outside, over the Pyrenees, thunderclouds gathered.

I continued: In point of fact, it’s not even writing they’re doing! They’re producing. And they’re producing at the last minute. Are you telling me that there’s no event approval process separate from the newsletter production process?

My client stammered. I don’t think so…

There’s no shared organizational calendar?

No …

They don’t create these landing pages and web sites and what have you *well before* they make each newsletter?

No, sir.

Well then, my good man, I’m afraid you’re wrong about your Marcom team.

My client furrowed his brow. Outside, lightning crashed.

Marcom isn’t taking a long time to write a newsletter. They’re taking a modest amount of time to produce a multi-channel marketing presence for the entire organization. And they’re doing it every Friday.

The casement window opens with a bang, white curtains billowing into the study.

Judged by that standard, I say to my client, your Marcom team is quite prodigious.

The systemic root of the pain

I remove my Meerschaum pipe from the corner of my mouth. But I keep it in my hand to gesture with, because I feel like that’s a powerful affectation. So imagine me with the pipe, gesturing.

The marcom team certainly had some challenges. But with every challenge, an opportunity.

First of all, their editing process was a mess. That needed to be tightened up, toot suite. It wouldn’t do to have a weekly newsletter edited over the course of two full days. And certainly not by so many different people. The politics of accepting edits alone must be exhausting. To address, we needed to refine the roles and responsibilities and timelines, and then communicate those changes out to the org.

But fixing the editing process would only be a half measure. For the Marcom team, that would only mean better managing themselves.

To achieve a modicum of control over their own process, Marcom needed to better manage the departments they relied on for information. As in manage sideways.

That meant creating a structure for teamwork with other departments. Regular meetings. Deadlines. A shared internal calendar. And an internal mandate to get approved information weeks before a newsletter’s publication date.

This would be a larger organizational change that required executive support.

But when the whole org moves in sync, one department won’t be in pain.

Fix the body, not the pain

As I rubbed my shoulder and swore to myself that I would start doing more yoga, I offered a final piece of advice.

What you have is a process problem, not a people problem or a technology problem.

It’s unlikely you can hire new mid-level staff to address the problem. And it’s more unlikely you’ll be able to address your problem by changing, say, email platforms.

Better to untangle the process knot, then judge how your people and technology perform when the system is working better.

Help the team manage itself, and help them manage their peers in other departments, so that everyone works together … instead of allowing every other department to just drop their work on Marcom at the last minute, and blaming Marcom when something goes wrong, and then hiring a sexy 18th century detective with a morphine habit to fix it.

Anyway, ahem.

I remove my Meerschaum pipe and place it on my desk.

Happy Halloween, mis espookys, this was longer than I meant!

Next year I’m going to dress up as something different.

Like maybe as a silly newsletter writer with chronic, sub-dermal inflammation of the word count.

Adios!

More delightful resources

The Creative Problem Solving Reading List

You don’t get it, you’re not the point

Make relationships, not things

How can I help? This is a 100% organic, free-range, desktop-to-inbox newsletter devoted to helping you navigate uncertainty, seek the most interesting challenges, and make better creative decisions in ~~marketing~~ life and beyond. Your host is Steve Bryant, who is for hire.

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Nightmare on newsletter street