Does it pay to be authentic?

An email sent to the Academy recently touched a nerve with me. A young BD manager in a small company expressed great interest in securing our certification but was frustrated with our high prices.

Her email reminded me why I created the CIP™ in the first place back in 1999 when no one even dream about certifying intel professionals: to raise the profile of competitive intelligence in all companies, small and medium, large, gigantic, and Galactic. But as the CIP™ grew globally to be the leading certificate in CI (way beyond my initial plans, shows how good my forecasting was), I had to make some tough choices: I chose to keep the classes small,  I refused to organize conferences (a.k.a “pay-to-play” festivals) where the exhibit hall and free tote bags were more important than original content for analysts, I refused all commercial sponsorships, so I don’t have to endorse stick-fetching products, I refused to let managers pay for the training from their own pockets, and finally, I refused to paint (or pencil) an exaggerated value of CI with bad surveys, and/or with A/I empty hype

Readers familiar with Porter’s definition of strategy will note that strategy is more about what you say No to than to what you say Yes. These choices led to the reality of high prices (I am a devout and proud capitalist and I work for profits) and gravitating towards the Fortunate 500. That wasn’t my initial vision but economics trumps or even bidens vision.  

There is a price to saying No to things you don't believe in. For me it was MOOC, tote-bags conferences, bad sponsorships, and hype. Are you willing to pay it?

My original dream was to charge $99 a course, build an Ashram for CI (still ACI, no need to change acronym), have a hundred thousand managers a year train in competitive intelligence, wear long, flowing robes, and be called a “guru.” But living in Florida, it’s too hot for long robes, and so far, my loyal followers didn’t come up with an idea of how to reach these many people who need CI. I am waiting.

Authenticity by the hour

Just as I agonized over how to offer this prospective customer training on the cheap and still put gluten-free, ancient grains bread on my table, a sponsored ad popped up in my feed from a startup called Master Class. I never heard of it before, but then it’s just one of a zillion online courses platforms. For $15 a month one can get free access to 100+ courses covering everything from cooking to gardening! It also offers courses in survival in the wild (!) and in business (probably the same course?). The subscription model is of course all the rage these days. Paid annually this model is a bonanza for vendors (way more profitable than old fashion, pay per product models as most subscribers don’t bother to cancel even if they don’t use). The business courses are composed of 10 short talking-heads videos (at least from what the free sample showed), each about 10 minutes long.

The roster of “teachers” is beyond impressive: Annie Leibovitz teaches photography (yes, it’s part of the business offering). Howard Schultz (of Starbuck fame) and Bob Iger (of Disney fame) teach leadership. Anna Wintour of Vogue teaches creativity and leadership both in dark sunglasses; Robin Roberts of CNN teaches communication (it should be Tucker Carlson, but the App is from San Francisco, you know?), and that’s just the tip of the Hall of Famous Teachers list. The only question is: Is being famous means one can teach? And the second question is: What do people get from this? What do they retain? Do they think listening to short videos from Bob Iger will make them CEOs of Disney one day?? Do they truly believe the material is authentic, honest and not carefully curated, edited, formatted to fit the small minds? I-can’t-believe-it’s-not-butter type education is not teaching. It’s entertainment. It’s a peek into famous people’s living room to satisfy Peeping Tom curiosity. What are they like? Are they mortal like us? It’s equivalent to letting the Kardashians teach you physics. After all, they know all about fighting gravity.

Is being famous means one can teach? I-can’t-believe-it’s-not-butter type education is not teaching.

I never understood people’s fascination with celebrities. I’ve never once read autobiographies by successful leaders. What do you learn from these carefully curated tales written by ghost writers- that they got a lucky break somewhere but then worked very hard to benefit humanity? But then I never understood people’s fascination with Influenzers and their clichés, either. It’s like enjoying secondhand food.

People want to be inspired. I get it. Inspiring them to do a great job by giving them real tools is one thing. But watching a Disney executive will not make you Scarlett Johansson. At most it will teach you how to cheat a Scarlett Johansson of a few millions.  

The Master Class platform doesn’t offer a course in competitive intelligence. This is a real skill that can actually help professionals on their job, but it is hardly gained by watching a famous talking-head former CEO relaxed in his armchair at home.

If anything, a course on competitive intelligence will make you relax less.

Alternative perspective: One course I was tempted to take out of sheer curiosity was Economics by Paul Krugman, but then I remembered that as a classical economist (of the Austrian school) I don’t consider him an economist at all (he is a political columnist who believes national debt doesn’t matter, Keynes isn’t dead and inflation is nothing to worry about), so why would anyone learn economics from him?

But if he offered fashion design, and maybe wear dark sunglasses indoors, I may reconsider.