An author, public speaker, and marketing strategist does not even begin to describe the man who sat in front of me on Friday morning. He spoke boldly and clearly about his ideas in accordance with marketing and the (hopefully) future success of the D.C. metro area's business scene.
Geoff Livingston is a man who bears many hats, but his main passion circulates around social change by bringing people together to create a more knowledgeable society, both virtually and physically. With the launch of his book two weeks ago, Geoff Livingston, along with his co-author Gini Dietrich, have joined forces to work on growing, changing, and evolving the development of integrated marketing communication.
A District resident since the early 90's, Geoff is no stranger to D.C. He watched over the years as up and coming businesses moved as the dullest biotech corridor in Maryland disintegrated during the infamous tech crash in 2000, and rose from the ashes in the form of a bustling startup core in D.C. and Northern Virginia.
"The first wave of D.C. companies that did well, AOL, Nextel, etc. were baby boomers, now it's time for a new wave," explained Geoff. "Generation X's have been spearheading the companies, the Millennials too, but rather than keeping their innovative inspiration within the District that fostered their growth, they leave, just like JESS3."
"From a consumer tech perspective, we don't have the mechanisms to keep companies here - They head to California and New York. The consumer face just isn't here. Viget labs is an anomaly. Corbett3000 is also an anomaly. They want to stay here, that's not usually the case."
If you think about it, there is a great deal of truth behind Geoff's words. A lot of business-to-business folk do stay, but they have "unsexy" businesses." They aren't exciting and don't involve Pamela Anderson, Britney Spears, etc. They don't have the glitz even though they are making million dollar or billion dollar businesses.
"We should talk about them," he recited forcefully. "Are we trying to look famous, or build really strong substantial businesses?" That's a question we should all be asking ourselves.
As we sat around chatting, I asked one question that I found critical to our conversation: How do we focus on the successful businesses as a society? The response I got was nothing short of brilliant. His eloquence, cadence, and clearly knowledgeable feedback were a welcoming surprise:
Black Box IT is all about missiles, defense, etc. We don't talk about these things because our government is so closed, but by forcing the business of government to be more acceptable and transparent, more conversation will spur and those businesses will flourish. If we talk about governmental businesses as an economic driver, we make it easier to see the people behind the blinds and make it safe at the same time. Ultimately, Washington is still tied to the Capitol and White House, that's just the way it is.
I can't help but completely agree with Geoff. As we chatted, I started thinking about other ways to stimulate business growth in D.C., including one particular method which would require encouraging economic development agencies to build support for the local economy and summon businesses back in. Each local body has governments to track Fortune 500 businesses like Geico, Audi, and Volkswagon. We have Excel Mobile and living social, but we lost Sprint and AOL. There aren't many consumer businesses here that are large and substantial, but by creating more cohorts to aid in the progress, start up businesses will be more likely to stay in their original homefront.
Geoff's most recently published piece of literature, Marketing in the Round, covers all of the areas mentioned above. Basically, it's about "how to go out and kick ass as a company," said Geoff proudly. Marketing effectively is difficult in this day in age due to the inexplicable difficulty with new media. No one goes home and says "I'm going to Facebook for three hours now." We have to draw context to a larger hole: presenting unified experience/picture that may have different levels of storytelling and engagement so people bounce back and forth between different types of media, a comprehensive marketing experience.
The two primary theories of his book revolve around the marketing round theory and Musashi. The marketing round theory, developed by his co-author, Gini Dietrich, is about how we aren't talking to each other. We need to work together and talk together and start acting as a comprehensive organization, rather than people defending their turf.
Musashi (a Japanese samurai from the 17th century) is the rather odd reference they use within the book, the man whose ideas are what brings readers to the edge of their seats, wanting more. You don't want to kill your customer, you want to love them. That's what Moosashi's ideals are all about, a perfect reference to the marketing world. There are four approaches to marketing, an easy method for integration. With history as our greatest teacher, why not use a samurai in a marketing book?
[Image via ITC]
