How does a company change part of its public face to attract a different/younger market, without alienating its current base?

Kmart, which is not exactly known for its cutting edge ads, did it by finding a way to the right kind of edgy using a great story with humor.

15 million-and-counting YouTube views says it worked.

Doubly impressive because it’s family-friendly—nothing for the modesty police to condemn; everyone is dressed and everything is covered—unlike women’s underwear ads.

Victoria’s Secret it’s not, but I’m willing to bet it sells a whole lot of boxers!

YouTube credit: Kmart

2014 is just around the corner for most of us, but for some women it might as well be 1814.

How else would you explain women being fired for their good looks, with at least one termination upheld by a state Supreme Court?

After James Knight, a dentist in Iowa, fired his assistant Melissa Nelson because he found her “irresistible” and a possible threat to his marriage, according to reports, her subsequent suit made it to the state’s all-male Supreme Court. Over the summer, the justices affirmed that Mr. Knight was within his rights, writing in their opinion that “close personal relationships between men and woman can often produce personal emotions and conduct that are unfamiliar to the workplace relationship.”

Makes you wonder in what century those judges were raised.

Of course, the hilarious part is Knight’s assumption that his attractiveness is so extreme that Nelson would find him irresistible.

People like Knight and his ilk will always blame their lack of self-control on others as they look to shift the blame for their own actions.

Society’s job is to shift the responsibility to where it really belongs, not sanction the avoidance as did the Iowa Supreme Court.

Flickr image credit: Lee Wright

Just a note to say that I’m taking tomorrow off. Have a fabulous Thanksgiving and I’ll see you Monday

Every now and then an anonymous Internet goody is sent to me, often by KG Charles-Harris.

Here’s the latest.

Everything I need to know, I learned from Noah’s Ark

ONE:  Don’t miss the boat.

TWO:  Remember that we are all in the same boat! 

THREE:  Plan ahead. It wasn’t raining when Noah built the Ark.

FOUR:  Stay fit. When you’re 60 years old, someone may ask you to do something really big. 

FIVE:  Don’t listen to critics; just get on with the job that needs to be done.

SIX:  Build your future on high ground. 

SEVEN:  For safety’s sake, travel in pairs. 

EIGHT:  Speed isn’t always an advantage. The snails were on board with the cheetahs.

NINE:  When you’re stressed, float awhile. 

TEN:  Remember, the Ark was built by amateurs; the Titanic by professionals.

Flickr image credit: Ken’s Oven

I just read an article about hurricane employees; referring to employees who “destroy the social fabric of the organization by creating friction, drama, tension and hostility among other employees.”

It’s an excellent article, but what struck me is how often good team players turn toxic during the holidays.

I’ve always said that people aren’t water faucets, i.e., there is no way they can spend 8-12 hours daily in a toxic culture or with an abusive boss and not have it affect their relationships and non-work actions.

By the same token, what happens outside of work affects attitudes and actions at work and what happens during the holidays is quite different from the rest of the year.

The holidays, starting at Thanksgiving, often include exposure to hurricane family members and excessive and/or unrealistic expectations that overwhelm normal coping capability.

That greater stress can disrupt mental equilibrium and negatively impact attitude.

The take-away here, whether you are the boss or not, is that if a team member becomes disruptive or has a sudden personality change talk with them and see what you can do to help.

Flickr image credit: Ducklover Bonnie

Whether you like it or not, agree or not or just consider it unfair, what you say/write/tweet and pin is who you are to the world.

Based on what comes out of his mouth, Mel Gibson is a not only a bigot/raciest/anti-Semite, but a thoroughly rotten human being.  

Twitter CEO Dick Costolo claimed there are no qualified women for his Board, but it didn’t take much for outside experts to identify 25 women who are more than qualified. Of course, Costolo has a lot of company in that mindset.

In a blog post, AdRants Steve Hall self-proclaimed that for “salaciously selfish, purely prurient, Neanderthal-ish reasons” he wanted to work at ad firm Young & Laramore, because of the hot staffers; he also identified several other women he considered hot, then informed everyone via Twitter that he didn’t mean to be insulting and was, in fact, a “nice guy.”

Celery founder Peter Shih of wrote a post citing everything he thinks is wrong with San Francisco that was a cornucopia of “misogyny, homophobia and a general disregard for socioeconomic inequality” that, in the subsequent storm, he tried to pass it off as “humorous satire.”

The thing that all these have in common is that the protagonists were all innocent.

None of them meant anything bad, and some, like Gibson, even denied that they actually believed what they ranted.

They blamed booze, misguided humor, lack of context, ignorance, third-party misunderstanding and a myriad of other reasons why their words shouldn’t define them.

But your words reflect your thoughts and, thanks to the Internet, they will be around forever.

Flickr image credit: Steven Cateris

A Friday series exploring Startups and the people who make them go. Read all If the Shoe Fits posts here

Everyone is talking about Steve Ballmer’s words in a WSJ interview, “Maybe I’m an emblem of an old era, and I have to move on,” and the agreement it drew from Salesforce.com’s CEO Marc Benioff.

Benioff doesn’t care about age, born in 1964 he’s no spring chicken, but he does care about attitude.

“The world has changed. The companies that are struggling in the market today have not gone cloud. They have not gone social. They have not gone mobile. They are still trying to sell the same old stuff.”

Consider all the folks you didn’t hire because they “didn’t fit in,” which was a nice way of saying they were older than you/your friends.

Now consider that in 2009 80% of “total entrepreneurial activity” was over 35 and that hasn’t changed.

No one accuses Salesforce.com of lagging behind or slacking on innovation.

Larry Page turned 40 this year, but Google isn’t exactly sitting back on its laurels or ignoring whatever part of the changing landscape they aren’t changing themselves.

If someone said they knew a great 46 year old design guy how interested would you be?

Is 46 a turnoff?

Oops; you just missed out on Jony Ive.

Image credit: HikingArtist

Globally, 2.5 billion people don’t have access to a toilet.

1 in 6 people don’t have running water.

Problems like these cry out for innovative solutions, but innovative doesn’t necessarily mean technically sophisticated.

A few years ago Cynthia Koenig saw the water problem first hand in South Africa.

Koenig launched a nonprofit organization to help distribute a locally available water transportation tool. In order to address the issues of poor quality control, corruption, and limited geographic distribution, she soon found herself at the helm of Wello. The social venture manufactures and distributes the WaterWheel, a 20-gallon drum that moves four to five times the amount of water possible using traditional methods of collection and carrying.

Simple, inexpensive and can even become a micro-business for an owner.

In contrast, five years ago the Gates Foundation issued a toilet challenge, with daunting parameters.

Make sure it takes in the bodily waste of an entire family and outputs drinkable water and condiments, like salt. And while you’re at it, make sure that the toilet is microprocessor-supervised and converts feces into energy. And all this has to cost just pennies per person per day.

That description is akin to a silver bullet, not a toilet.

The results, to date, are sophisticated, costly and unsustainable ideas, with prices north of $1000 per toilet.

How different from an available solution that, while it doesn’t do everything, does solves the basic problem and is amazingly cheap.

The Peepoo bag, which inexpensively (less than 2 cents per bag) sanitizes waste before turning it into fertilizer, are huge improvements. They can also be critical in saving lives after natural disasters.

Just think what a few thousand cases of these would mean right now in the Philippines—or in Illinois, for that matter.

Too often, sexy and elegant ends up being complex and expensive, whereas plebian and boring equates to simple and affordable.

Flickr image credit: bjornmeansbear

In this age of hyper connectivity it is easy to forget that when all is said and done the only person who will always be there for you is you.

Rather than fearing this truth, embrace it.

Doing so will give you the courage to follow Mark Twain’s wise words—instead of chasing the approval of others.

Continuous improvement is better than delayed perfection.

Flickr image credit: Kyra Savolainen

Everyone has an opinion on Snapchat turning down a $3 billion offer from Facebook (here’s the thinking of others who have been there), but the comments that caught my eye were from Gary Burnison, Korn/Ferry’s CEO, who focused on the cultural aspect.

Burnison said that based on his company’s experience, “…people are hired for what they know, they are fired for who they are.”

Very true, but it shouldn’t come as a surprise, as I said five years ago when I wrote Culture Trumps whether Hiring or Acquiring.

The problem is that managers often ignore culture, because they believe they that theirs is ‘right’ and the other will change. It’s not a case of you/your company being right and ‘her/them’ being wrong, it’s a case of the pieces don’t fit—and 98% of the time you should see it coming.

The power of culture has been at the forefront of many discussions, with top CEOs focusing on culture above everything, including strategy. When his investors wanted to cash out, Tony Hsieh knew going public would destroy the culture, so he sold Zappos to Amazon instead.

Burnison also said, “I never thought I would see culture trump money with $3 billion on the table.”

I did, but I thought it would take a lot longer before a CEO, let alone a founder, had the insight to understand that a successful culture is priceless.

Flickr image credit: Neil T