Miles To Go.

Good Knight

We recently took an investment from an angel who was graduated Cambridge and shared this tidbit:

One enterprising undergraduate examined the University statutes prior to an examination and discovered that all students sitting exams in full fusc are entitled to a glass of sherry. He demanded his due in the exam, and the University’s Proctors duly responded, before fining him one shilling for failing to wear his sword, allegedly also part of the archaic statutes. 

The point he made was, he fully expected that if I ever sat for an exam again I would cite a medieval code, perhaps in Latin, to set the playing field in my favor. I laughed it off at the time as a Frasier-Crane like idiosyncratic remark. But it got me thinking…

I have actually walked Temple Church in London, trekked the Crusader Castles from Syria to Jerusalem, visited the site of Jacque Demolay’s burning at the stake by King Philip IV, and never pass a chance to hoof through a cathedrale on any of my many visits to France. My family name is Norman French (the De Spencer meant warehouse manager, back in the day) and became English a bit after 1066 (lineage impossible to prove, or disprove). So if I wasn’t actually a Templar in training all these years, I certainly went through the paces. As per usual with Spencer’s, I did it without even knowing why.

Irony is, of course, none of these experiences hold a candle to entrepreneurship when it comes to having so many chances to do something with purpose, and to hone a craft in pursuit of that goal. There are so many risks to combat, so many people to inspire and lead, so many “bet the holy sites” decisions to be made every day I have come to rely on a basic code that I recite every day, and spend hours meditating on: my mission statement as taught to me by Steven Covey of Seven Habits. I have become a crusader for doing what is fair and best for the company and all its stakeholders while building enterprise value along the way. And I take it seriously enough to blank out everything else around me when I am engaged.

But to be honest, that’s about the only way to succeed in start ups today.

So what’s my point?  None really. I just consider start ups to be the great Crusader challenge of the 21st century.

I love what I do. And I have a sword. Touche’ BB

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No, they don't.

It’s been said 2012 will be the year of Social Media in Business; for the meta travel site KAYAK, it couldn’t come soon enough.

While some businesses are evolving or even transforming how they buy and sell products, many are fast becoming social businesses. In a Fast Company article by Drew Neisser, “Move Over Social Media; Here Comes Social Business” he explains the reasons why every company should be thinking about becoming a social business. According to Neisser, IBM is moving themselves and their clients “well beyond social media into a new era of collaboration, insight sharing and lead generation it calls social business”.

It only takes one disaster, and the whole company focusses on getting social media right.

So big news this week was KAYAK pulled some ads from TLC recently on a previously under the radar show called “All-American Muslim”. In fact, seems 65 other advertisers have done the same, including Lowes. None cited any reason for pulling ads, and so the logical media man assumes it was for underperformance. Advertisers advertise because they are in business. They want to reach customers and have a finite marketing budget to do it.

KAYAK is a small entrepreneurial company, the type that we need badly in America. Unfortunately, KAYAK’s explanation came out in the form of a (likely) hastily written blog post from the CMO right out of the classic Gas-on-the-fire PR strategy. It starts with a typo (as I often do as well), and rambles just enough to contradict between backing a show for moral reasons and pulling out for performance reasons. I’ve written worse. (full disclosure: I know the CEO and have shared beers on occaision).

Here’s that first post:

We would like to apologize to anyone who was offended by how we handled our decision not to continue advertising on All-American Muslim when it
returns in January. We decided to advertise on it in the first place because we  adamantly support tolerance and diversity. Our 150-person team includes people
from all over the world, and from all walks of life. Our team includes people who are descended from early Europeans who came here escaping religious
intolerance, and newer Americans who include many religions. We get what America is about.

For the record, we didn’t “pull” our ads. Our ads kept running on this program, but we have made the decision not to give TLC more money when the show returns in January.

Unfortunately, this decision comes across as bending to bigotry. It also appears that we did not support people who deserve support as people and as Americans. For that, I am profoundly sorry.

I should have communicated more clearly. We would not want anyone to think that we caved to hatred. I wish I could share some of the emails I’ve received from our team. They are also very unhappy with how I handled this. Please allow me to explain the decision. First, our approach to advertising decisions is to choose advertising based on who watches it, not the political leaning of the program.

When we decided to give our money to TLC for this program, we deemed the show a worthy topic. When we received angry emails regarding our decision to advertise, I looked into the show more thoroughly. The first thing I discovered was that TLC was not upfront with us about the nature of this show. As I said, it’s a worthy topic, but any reasonable person would know that this topic is a particular lightning rod. We believe TLC went out of their way to pick a fight on this, and they didn’t let us know their intentions. That’s not a business practice that generally gets repeat business from us. I also believe that it did this subject a grave disservice. Sadly, TLC is now enjoying the attention from this controversy.

I then checked the Florida Family Association website to see how this was portrayed. Besides the regrettable hatred, I also noticed that we weren’t listed. The email was a template, so people who sent thousands of emails seemed to be unaware they were sending it to us. The amount of vitriol in the emails was saddening, but I didn’t exactly feel pressured (not to mention we wouldn’t bend to such pressure). Many of the emails I’ve received expressing disappointment in our decision have been much more civil, and I applaud you for that.

Lastly, I watched the first two episodes. Mostly, I just thought the show sucked. Based on our dealings with TLC and the simple assessment of the show, I decided we should put our money elsewhere. Apologies again.

- Robert Birge, KAYAK Chief Marketing Officer

But then social and traditional media kicked in, picking apart the post and accusing the company of pandering to religious groups (who pointed out, correctly, the show had no bomb makers). This, to them, implied TLC was going light on Islam and they called for support to be pulled. Meanwhile, support was being pulled, likely for entirely different reasons- economics. But I think the big lesson learned is that businesses are beginning to wade into social media, and they have to get a handle on the tremendous benefits and swift dangers of living in that world. As for KAYAK, the best thing they can do in this Holiday season is to focus. Sure enough, this clarification just came out from CEO Steve Hafner.

This is actually my first blog post ever. Frankly, I wish it was on a different topic.

I want to respond to the questions and comments we’ve been receiving about KAYAK’s advertising on the TLC show “All-American Muslim”. We’re a small company with fewer than 200 employees, and we advertise on a lot of TV shows. We don’t have the resources to vet the content of each show. We also continually adjust our media mix – meaning we start, stop,  and restart advertising on specific shows periodically.

Our decision regarding advertising on All-American Muslim was in no way influenced by demands from third parties such as the FFA. We do try to avoid advertising on shows that may produce controversy, whether we support the content or not. We simply don’t want people to confuse our choice of where we spend our TV dollars with a political or moral agenda. Plus there are plenty of shows that are just as effective from a marketing perspective.

We’re not bigots, and we’re not experts in TV programming. We are trying to make the world’s best travel site. I hope this blog post puts this issue to rest and allows us to get back to work.

Please enjoy the holiday season. Steve Hafner

 Simple, focussed and to the point. Good CEO reaction.

From my UN field trip...

The streets of new York City are clogged with tyrants, powerbrokers, divas and muses these days… and I don’t just mean Fashion Week! The Isle of Manhattan yields to the UN General Assembly’s Fall Gathering, and while I passively observe both, Melissa reminds me I am more useful commenting on the latter.

I spend a fair amount of time and capital in my own quest to understand the Middle East, but it doesn’t take all that to know this week brings a seminal moment in our influence there… it’s a whole new ball game if you haven’t noticed.

Wednesday’s Sarkozy rebuke of Obama was legendary, but Friday brings us the big squirm: the Palestinian quest for membership at the U.N is driving the US to the brink of sanity as throwing a veto on behalf of Israeli interests will surely off the rest of the Arab States. In the morning, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas is scheduled to speak. He has said that after he gives that speech, he will deliver a letter for application to the U.N. secretary-general. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is scheduled to speak a little later in the day.

What makes me interested in this business is that the Arab Spring has set in motion a Rube Goldberg progression with no known end result. What Cairo unleashed was the power of  mobile social media among restless people, aided by the most unlikely of news sources al-Jazaeera. Long running dynasties in are running scared. And the West and the US in particular has at least one eye on the oil spigot, at least one toe in the Israel camp, and one hand in their pocket looking for the any loose change to help their ailing economy. Meanwhile, with this “people’s democracy” thing being bandied about as the likely solution to the vacuum left by the tyrants I have to believe everyone at the UN Cafe is wondering where it all leads and who leads after all.

Many of us Americans were only recently introduced to Islam in a most unfortunate way 10 years ago, as Irshad Manji points out in her blog . The Middle East is beginning to get its footing in modernity after a long and deep slumber with a rich cultural and religious legacy. That footing will displace our world order. As Robert Fisk opines in the Independent  this vote at the UN – General Assembly or Security Council is going to divide the West – Americans from Europeans and scores of other nations – and it is going to divide the Arabs from the Americans. It is going to crack open the divisions in the European Union; between eastern and western Europeans, between Germany and France (the former supporting Israel for historical reasons, the latter sickened by the suffering of the Palestinians) and, of course, between Israel and the EU.  Ten years ago on 9/11 OBL succeeded in polarizing the West and the Muslim world  Zach Karabell, from Daily Beast reminds us, but a decade later, in the wake of the Arab Spring, that seems more transitory than permanent. We are living one of Thomas Friedman’s four ruling bargains, and it is going to probably hurt.

I was fortunate enough to join US Ambassador Frank Wisner for breakfast this week at the Next American Economy gathering put on by Bo Cutter. Reflecting on his overview, and I paraphrase here and am not quoting or mis-quoting,…the glide path from hegemony to responsible power is an important one for the US to manage. Letting domestic politics trump global influence will make the landing a hot mess. We must remember the importance of events, stay engaged, and remain cautious.

So while the Middle East and  the Arab spring may seem far away to us most of the time, this week the whole show is right here in Manhattan and the effects of how it all plays out will have profound influence on how we are viewed in the world. It will be a painful reminder of just how vulnerable we Americans really are.

No fashion runway ever had so much riding one show!

Errmm, all's well here...

The beatings will continue until morale improves…

That about sums up the Assad’s family strategy for dealing the outbreak of “Arab Spring” in Syrian towns as it continues into “who’s next to Fall, this Fall”.  I think it is a country worth keeping an eye on, though it is very difficult with limited social media permitted.

Fellow Americans know so very little about the little country wedged between Lebanon and Iraq. I know just enough to be dangerous: my trek through the country with Tad Jones gave us a very unique perspective and continues to be the influence for our singular effort to inform our kin with our in-development play, A Line in the Sand. As we’ve said before, the region may look differently if TE Lawrence used twitter. We have tried piecing together Syria’s history enough to understand its future. But we’ve only been noodling it for five years, while they’ve had centuries to create the puzzle. Here’s a few pieces:

First: Syria is a key domino in one of the four big tectonic changes that will define the next generation: access to oil. While they have little oil themselves, they have long been a keystone in the strategic interests of the region, crossing both ethnic and geographic ties. Many of the current conflicts in the region lead back to Damascus, one way or another: Baghdad, Tehran, West Bank, Golan, Beirut, Israel proper, the Palestinian question, etc. etc. The entire region has a long history of being tribal, and Syria has exploited those gaps for centuries.

(for the other three, and a lot more eloquent grasp of geo-politics, see Thomas Friedman and the world’s four ruling bargains): 1) The world’s oil tap is deposing its old regimes, 2) Europe is unravelling as PIIGS spend and Germans save, 3) China’s deliberately undervalued currency and export-led growth keeping the Communist Party’s in power by providing rising living standards, and 4) In America, a credit-consumption-led economy, whereby we maintained a middle class by using steroids (easy credit, subprime mortgages and construction work) and less muscle-building (education, skill-building and innovation).

Second: It’s strategic. because of this  position, the region has been fought over for centuries. Long before there was oil, there were the Crusades whereby the Catholic church essentially invented the jihad, IMHO. Teutonic Knights were promised eternal gratitude and absolution in advance for re-taking Jerusalem and slaughtering anyone that stood in the way. This generally meant Muslims. In support of the thousands that made their way to the Holy Land, huge logistical challenges were met as Hospitallers literally paved the path from France to Palestine with roads, castles, and supporting infrastructure provisions (and became rich in the meantime).  I have personally visited Krak de Chevaliers in Homs and I can attest to the awesomeness of the work as well as the brilliance of the positioning. It was clear the spot was very important and was not going to be given up easily.

Third: Syria is the ultimate state controlled, exterior influenced, family business. Bashar al-Assad is the current president, and was preceded by his father Hafez al-Assad. Bashar’s prior occupation was ophthalmologist, so it was likely his family connections that got him the job. With very few natural resources and de-minimus GDP (#67 thank you, just beating Oman) sometimes it seems like the whole country gets by playing two rivals against another, or one against the middle. Iran and Russia have deep ties, obviously. The former a result of Cold War support, the latter more like neighborly politics. Syria has been under Emergency Law from 1962, effectively suspending most constitutional protections for citizens, and its system of government is considered non-democratic. Many citizens I know live between terror and resignation. If the Arab revolt continues, hope will replace resignation, but terror will continue.

Fourth: Syria has stunningly rich history. The near future is likely to take inspiration from its past. I had the good fortune to tour just a bit of it, including Jerash which was one of the great Roman outposts and remains today one of the finest of Syria’s 50,000 archeological sites. The Crusaders rolled through a thousand years later and left an amazing collage of castles and fortifications. The French have stuck around for the past millennium in the Levant, and it shows. In this century, Lawrence of Arabia organized the tribes of the dessert into revolt against the Turks by promising Damascus as the prize upon victory. For a people raised in the sands of the deserts, there was no more fertile green imaginable. The bait worked, for at least as long as Lawrence’s promises weren’t already undercut by French-English back-handedness. The West is still reaping what was sown in post WW I Syria it’s no wonder Lawrence is called by one biographer ”A Prince of Our Disorder”.  

So, far as I can see, the beatings in Syria will likely continue. It will not fall easily because we have little leverage, outsiders are too interested in the status quo, and the insiders are not interested in anything short of carrying on. Change will depend on those who see the benefits and are willing to risk to consequences of the process. In the meantime, I wish my Syrian friends their safety, peace and a better place than yesterday.

PS: the best damn rose petal jam in the world is served with the french croissants at the Biet al mamlukkka hotel.

A uniformed military officer is approaching me quickly in the Jeddah, Saudi Arabia airport thrusting an A-4 envelope in the air and speaking way more Arabic than Rosetta Stone has managed to teach me so far. Our local agent is gesturing at me, but I can’t quite make out why. I stand my ground and try to keep my cool. I notice his weapon is holstered, his beret is pretty cool looking, and he is sweating in the 72 air conditioning.

Twelve hours later, I am in a London café having tea and shisha with a new friend named Ahmed, and the smile in the photo pretty much says it all.

What was said and done in the interim says a lot for what I have come to believe in about our world and its people. Basically, the message is this: if people are willing to do a teaspoon of good when they can, one day, quite unexpectedly, the scale will tip the right way. Here’s the rest of the teaspoon?

Mohammed was an Air Force officer, but I chose not to ask him why he was here. He asked the first question, and in the interest of time I’ll use the kings English instead of trying to re-create the pigeon Arabic/English/hand gestures we were using. Will you take this envelope to London with you? Oh boy. Heathrow hasn’t exactly been on low threat level lately. And I’m walking in with what? Well, turns out these were the passports for a small young family. Saudi law requires a woman to be accompanied by a man to enter the country, or prove she is a family member. So, if she comes to visit for the holidays before he does she must bring his passport with him. Problem is, if dad wants to follow before fedex can deliver, he’s outta luck.

So, on the spot, as the last passenger to board the flight for London I had to make the call. My downside appeared to be some punishment for bringing passports into London. Or worse, demonstrating my lack of trust in plain view of a local business associate when one of his countrymen was in need. It had to boil down to the simplest base terms: do a teaspoon of good or turn my back.

My actions would likely shocked 99% of Saudis (that I would even bother) and 99.9% of Americans (that I would have the guts), but amidst all the noisy conflicts covered so completely by the media on our shrinking globe, it’s the people that make peace. And personally, the best way to prove that to yourself is to go meet a few. Spending a few minutes with Ahmed seemed to prove that rule once again.

Note: Many of you know of our journey through the Middle East in April, and some know of our plans to return and expand the franchise of what we have learned (or been taught) there.