New Year New Newsletter
5 in 5 - Brave & Heart HeartBeat #138 ❤️
New Year New Us.
Just kidding, in this newsletter you’ll find all the usual work, tech and marketing news that you signed up for – why fix it if it’s not broke!
And that’s the same for your resolutions – if you survived last year without waking up at 5am every day to read a motivational book, we’re sure you can do the same this year. We believe in you!
Now, we’ve got the dangers of New Year’s resolution (told you) to the new work war coming in 2023, and the “trends” to look out for in marketing this year.
Let’s get into it.
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#1 - The Dangers of New Year New You Social Media
As ours is, we’re sure your Social Media will have been inundated this week with the new year new me spirit, can’t beat a bit of positive influence in the form of others sharing their amazing new resolutions and how much they could improve your life, right?
Wrong.
The constant sponsored posts from influencers, not to mention the ads littered through your Instagram stories, are pretty much all focused on the new year, and which resolution makes the most money? Ding – the diet industry.
These posts are rife in January, and the pressure to lose weight through dieting or joining this particular gym or signing up to this particular online work out class is targeted during this time of the year when we’re more open to making lifestyle changes. A slap in the face when you think of all the targeted ads you got over Christmas about baileys and mince pies, right?
For those with eating disorders or body image issues, the ads are going to be targeted towards them even more – impossible to escape and more dangerous to them than anyone else. Instagram has admitted this, previously apologising for promoting diet content to users who are open about having eating disorders on their profiles.
Advice from experts if it’s all getting too much is to unfollow accounts that make you feel this way, and flag ads asking not to be shown those kind of ads and content in the future.
Put your foot down, don’t let the algorithm tell you what to do this new year!
#2 - 2023 – The Year of The Work From Anywhere War
It turns out that it’s not bosses who call the shots on how many days you end up working in the office, and they’re starting to realise it. The people really calling the shots, according to Raj Choudhury, Harvard Business School economist are the elusive “top talent” all companies are trying to attract.
According to him it’s always been the most saught-after job candidates who end up shaping what our jobs look like, and the next conflict to come will be the demand for “extreme flexibility”.
Choudhury argues that top talent don’t just want hybrid work, they want to work from wherever they want. He describes two kinds of companies, one who will embrace it, and the second who are in denial (we’re looking at you Musk) – and he thinks those companies are going to start losing their workforce.
Start-ups will have a strong advantage in comparison to more established firms, who will apparently be faced with the decision of whether to hang on to expensive real estate in the form of offices and slow-to-evolve managers holding back change, or get on board.
One of the most interesting points made is that according to a report by workplace research firm Leesman, office-based working has been most popular with one group alone – senior leaders with their own offices. We’ve been thinking this for a while too – especially looking at the most vocal commenters on our recent divisive LinkedIn post about working from home. Those shouting the loudest about how great the office is are very often senior leaders with comfortable office lives.
Choudhury predicts that in 2023 veteran corporate managers will likely use the economic turndown to fuel a final attempt at dragging workers back to the office, but if top talent has already made up their mind, it may be too late.
#3 - Happiness Should Be The Top KPI For Tech Employers
New McKinsey & Company research shows that 55% of are finding it challenging to hire key data and tech roles, such as data and software engineers, data architects, machine learning engineers, and data scientists.And despite offering more attractive compensation and flexible work, the majority say it’s only getting harder.
The real question for CEOs then, shouldn't be how to cut tech costs, but how to retain and excite their best tech talent. Basically: How do you make them happy?
In an interesting follow up from the previous article, tech investor Marc Andreessen says business should find the “smartest technologist in the company and make them CEO” – again focusing on the top talent that makes these companies tick.
Not to say CEO’s who can’t code need to get out of the way, but they do need to learn to be real advocated and enablers of their best technologists.
Beyond the coffee and foosball tables of the early 2000s, happy tech talent will gravitate to cultures where CEOs give them an active role in the business and treat them as innovators rather than order-takers.
What if, in 2023, more CEOs were to think of themselves as chief product managers leading an outcome culture, in the same way that product managers think of themselves as “mini-CEOs”? In other words: Let the top tech talent focus on their craft.
#4 - 2023 Marketing Trends To Look Out For… Apparently
Every year these lists of the marketing trends to look out for in the coming year appear, and every year they pretty much say the same thing…
For a couple of years it’s been Metaverse this, video campaigns that, building a community the other, and this year we’re sorry to report that it’s much of the same again, all three are up there. Similarly, the focus on “building a brand” which is literally just the basics of marketing, makes the cut.
The few that stand out to us as actually being something new include:
New search engines. Apparently Gen Z are using Tik Tok to carry out their searches rather than Google, and advertisers may have to pivot to reach that audience.
The cost efficiency of user-generated social media videos. TikTok and user-generated social media videos that organically draw in an audience or create word-of-mouth give results for less spend. Think low production cost – no more flying influencers out to huge events.
There’s also a lot of waffle about AI, automation and voice search, and emerging social media platforms – but proof is still needed there.
#5 - LinkedIn Farewell Posts – Tacky or Tactical?
Apparently the new trend kicking off the year is to post a long goodbye to your company on LinkedIn…. when you get fired.
These long posts aren’t the ranty kind either, but full of praise for their boss and their company, often blaming outside factors for them being let go rather than the company themselves.
They serve two purposes. One, they notify your LinkedIn contacts that you’re available for work, obviously. Two, they’re basically a sort of virtue signalling. They communicate to any future bosses that you won’t be resistant to change from above, and you won’t kick up a fuss if you’re “wronged”.
And yes, a lot of the people writing these posts have confirmed that they don’t really believe what they’re saying – but you’ve got to play the game.
Brave & Heart over and out.
Bonus
You Can’t Quit
This employee has gone viral for trying to quit his job, and receiving as an answer from his boss - computer says no.
His employer basically said, sorry you have to be with us for a minimum of one year, no can do.
Check out the back and forth email and marvel at the complete nonsense.
To find out more on how you can retain your top talent, or how we can help you with digital solutions to your business and marketing challenges, check out our case studies.