Rajesh Jain

Webinar with Forrester’s Shar VanBoskirk

The theme is: “Bold Moves, Rich Rewards:A Playbook for Profitability.”

More: “In today’s era of escalating customer acquisition costs (CAC) and
diminishing customer lifetime value (CLV), businesses need to optimize marketing programs for increased ROI and profitability. You need to take bold actions to combat profit killers and build a Martech stack designed for growth. This on-demand webinar provides insights on leveraging innovations for results-driven performance. We’re delving deep into strategies with industry experts, Shar VanBoskirk, VP and Principal Analyst at Forrester and Rajesh Jain, Netcore’s Founder.”

Thinks 1225

Douglas Irwin: “Protection had insulated less productive firms from foreign competition and allowed them to drag down overall productivity within an industry, whereas open trade weeded out inefficient firms and allow more efficient firms to expand. Thus, trade brings about certain firm-level adjustments that increase average industry productivity in both export-oriented and import-competing industries.” [via CafeHayek]

Jason Lemkin: “In the early days of SaaS, we looked mostly at ARR growth. Then, we realized NRR was just about as important. NRR is the mathematical key to keeping growth going and going. But now fast forward to today, and we have a large swath of public SaaS and Cloud leaders. And one thing that’s become clear is that not only does high NRR keep scaling well past $1B in ARR … so can net new customers. Yes, you will exhaust your core ICP and buyer at some point. But you have to keep growing that circle, that sweet spot of customers. So you can keep growing new customers ideally at least +20% a year, even at $100m+ ARR. And yes even at $1B+ ARR…Your net new customers are your future. This probably is your most important metric at all.”

NYTimes: ““We have to move away from the idea of classic development stages, that you go from the farm to the factory and then from the factory to offices,” said Richard Baldwin, an economist at the IMD in Lausanne. “That whole development model is wrong.” Two-thirds of the world’s output now comes from the service sector — a mishmash that includes dog walkers, manicurists, food preparers, cleaners and drivers, as well as highly trained chip designers, graphic artists, nurses, engineers and accountants. It is possible to leapfrog to the service sector and grow by selling to businesses around the world, Mr. Baldwin argued. That is what helped India become the world’s fifth-largest economy…In the new model, countries can focus growth around cities rather than a particular industry. “That creates economic activities which are fairly diverse,” Mr. Baldwin said. “Think Bangalore, not South China,” he said.”

Ethan Mollick: “Generative AI, and the LLMs that power it, are different. Every previous method of organizing was intensely human, built on human capabilities and limitations. That is why traditional organizational models have persisted for so long. Human attention remains finite, so we needed to delegate our tasks to others. The number of people who can work in a team is limited, so we needed to break organizations into smaller parts. Decision-making is complicated, so we embraced layers of management and authority. The technology changes, but workers and managers are just people, and the only way to add more intelligence to a project was to add people or make them work more efficiently through tools that helped them communicate or speed up their work. But this is no longer true. Anyone can add intelligence, of a sort, to a project by including an AI.”

Martin Wolf: “For all its faults, democracy is still better than autocracy. All the evidence shows that despotism cannot consistently deliver the economic goods for developing countries…Democracy is a recent innovation. But he was also wrong: that democracy is recent, does not mean it is not valuable. This is true even if democracies are imperfect and autocracies sometimes work for a while. Democracy delivers accountability for governments and voice for citizens. That is far better for us than serving the whims of despots.”

IndiaVotes YouPredict: An Elections Game

Published May 9, 2024

Background

I was recently thinking about how to combine multiple of my interests: elections, email (E3), and prediction markets. And that’s where the idea of an email-based election results predictions game came up. I should probably have thought about this a few months earlier, but it’s never too late! I don’t know whether it will work out or not, but it’s too good an idea not to be tried.

Let’s start at the beginning with IndiaVotes. Here is the story from a previous essay The Battle for 2024: “I like doing election analysis. I had created an election data website, IndiaVotes, as early as 1998. I had even created an “Indian Political Stock Exchange”. Both those were when I was running IndiaWorld. After I sold the business to Sify in late 1999, my direct interest in elections data waned. It was only in 2009 that I got interested again. In 2011, I wrote a blog post suggesting a path that would get BJP to a majority in the 2014 elections. Later that year, I bought the domain IndiaVotes.com, and (re-)launched it as a website with in-depth data on all Lok Sabha elections since 1952 and all State elections since 1977. While the site probably needs a refresh, it remains one of the best sources for data and some basic analyses on Indian elections.” Incidentally, traffic on IndiaVotes is at an all-time high. (Given the interest, maybe I will get an AI-first redesign done after the Lok Sabha elections.)

Next comes email. I have been writing about how to popularise AMP in Email and make email a more powerful marketing channel in India. In a recent essay An Email 2.0 Newsletter for All, I wrote: “The key to making Email 2.0 as the next new channel for marketers for their customer engagement messaging is by bringing attention to the email inbox with a service which becomes part of our lives. What is needed is an Email 2.0 newsletter which we all want to subscribe to – and read as a daily habit. This is the mountain which needs to be climbed to make Email 2.0 a commercial success. WhatsApp grew thanks to its easy personal and group messaging capabilities on the mobile, which started replacing the clunky SMS which never grew up. Email 2.0 needs a “killer app” – something which gives us a reason to open our inboxes, and then share with our network. What can such a service look like?” I then went on to describe the solution: “The Email 2.0 newsletter is built on the foundation of three key ideas: the interactivity AMP brings in, the incentives and gamification that Atomic Rewards enables, and the ease of content creation and personalisation that Gen AI can power. These together are the pillars of creating a new type of daily email service delivered to the inbox, garnering attention, and demonstrating to marketers (as consumers of such a service) the infinite possibilities of what Email 2.0 can do for their brands.” Could a short-term elections “newsletter” for a game do the trick?

Which brings us to prediction markets. In Mu and Prediction Markets, I wrote: “I have been fascinated by prediction markets for some time. The idea of using the wisdom of crowds (or a subset) to predict future outcomes as opposed to relying on a few experts is quite compelling… While opinion polls and surveys are the norm globally for political predictions, prediction markets could provide an interesting alternative…While we can rely on experts (or even the grey market – the satta bazaar) to get some answers, the “wisdom of crowds” can provide an alternate (and perhaps better) view on outcomes.”

IndiaVotes YouPredict brings the three ideas together into an email-based predictions game for the ongoing Indian elections.

The Rules

Here is how the game can be played. Participation is open to everyone with an email address. Like I wrote, it is an experiment by which I hope to popularise AMP in Email and demonstrate how building a B2C property does not necessarily need a website or app; it can all be done inside an email.

The IndiaVotes YouPredict game is about predicting which party will win each of the 543 Lok Sabha seats. (It has been kept at the party-level rather than alliance-level because in Indian politics, there is no guarantee that today’s pre-poll partner will continue post-poll!) Players can predict outcomes for any number of seats. Winners will be determined based on a simple scoring system for the 543 questions: +2 for every right answer, -2 for a wrong answer, and 0 if no selection was made. (It is a bit like our scoring system for quizzes. Try QShots in case you haven’t.) Answers can be changed till the close of the last round of polling on June 1. Players can share their predictions on social media or keep it private. The daily emails to subscribers will have the aggregate predictions.

Players subscribe to the game with their Gmail or Yahoo ID. (AMP does not work with other email domains.) All actions after that are done in the email itself. (The email needs to be opened in the Gmail or Yahoo apps, or the browser; Apple’s iOS native mail client does not support AMP.)

There are no prizes, just bragging rights after the election results come out on June 4. I know that for a true predictions market, participants need skin in the game and therefore needs money. In India, the rules (and taxes) with real-money gaming are complicated so we decided not to go down that path.

What is novel is the fact that the entire game is to be played within the email. From selection of a state, then a seat, and eventually a party – everything is done in-place. All the data is stored on a server and the email interacts with the backend in real-time to create an engaging and mesmerising experience.

This is a very different approach from surveys and opinion polls which asks a random sample about who they are likely to vote for. In this game, the aim is to predict who will win. So, it is about collective intelligence – wisdom of crowds. In that sense, it is like prices in a market – all the info is baked in. Of course, since there is no money involved, results can be skewed by simply guessing, but that’s something to be addressed in future versions.

Enhancements

There are some enhancements which I am hoping we can do in this election, and then there are many ideas for the future.

To make the game a success, it will need to spread virally. I am hoping that happens! These games only work well when there are many participants. This may not be easy for the first iteration since there are no rewards to be won, other than a bit of fame post elections. Maybe we can offer Atomic Rewards (Mu) for referrals.

One possibility is to have Mu as a token/currency for participation. I had discussed a similar idea in Mu and Prediction Markets: “As consumers own (“mine”) Mu for their attention, data and other brand-incentivised actions, prediction markets can be a good potential redemption (and additional earning) mechanism. It brings out the latent wisdom each of us have in our interpretation of future events. By removing the need for real money, MuCo’s Prediction Markets also eliminate the need for regulation. The use of crypto tokens ensures that MuCo cannot debase or devalue the tokens, and there are rules that govern it. Google helps us search the past, Twitter the present, and Mu-powered Prediction Markets (MPM) can help us with the future… The working of MPM would be very much like prediction markets today which are fuelled by real money. People could launch their own public or private bets and contracts, and invite others to compete against them. A contract needs two parties. MPM would, in the initial days, work as a market maker to ensure liquidity. There should be clearly defined outcomes to determine payoffs.”

Another idea is to create a “league” – where people who know each other can share more detailed predictions and later compare their scores. (Future: there could even be a “league” entry.)

We could show how predictions are changing over time.

We could give greater weightage (or credence) for those predicting outcomes for the seat where they are voting. Presumably, they will know the situation better in their own constituency than elsewhere. For this, we will need to allow players to pick their “Home” constituency.

We can adapt the game for the state elections. Elections keep happening every few months in India!

We could also ask players for more personal information, so predictions can then also be shown by profiles (gender, age, income levels, urban/rural, and so on).

One big idea for the future is to bring in payments. While the “Free” version of the game can continue, there is a “Paid” version – where players pay Rs X for every prediction they make, and then the winners share the kitty. (Taxation will eat away a chunk as has happened with real-money games. Presumably, this will be seen as a game of skill, rather than chance.)

Another idea in the future is to create the equivalent of a real-time predictions market like the Iowa Electronic Markets for the 2024 US elections.

In future, predictions could be expanded to many other areas: economic indicators, government policies, box office outcomes, rainfall, food production, sports, current events, company announcements, and so on. See Polymarket for the possibilities.

So, a fascinating new world awaits! Go, play, and spread the word.

AI Inputs – 1

I asked the AIs what could be done to make the game better. Here are the inputs.

ChatGPT

User Experience and Interface Enhancements:

- Improve Visual Design: Ensure the email layout is visually appealing and intuitive. Use interactive elements like buttons and sliders that are easy to use within the email environment.
- Mobile Optimization: Given the high mobile usage in India, ensure that the game interface is fully optimized for mobile platforms, particularly for Gmail and Yahoo apps.

Incentivization and Engagement:

- Introduce Rewards: While real-money incentives are complicated, consider virtual rewards like badges, levels, and leaderboards to motivate participation and retention.
- Referral Programs: Implement a referral program that rewards users with points or virtual currency for bringing new players into the game.

Community and Social Interaction:

- Social Sharing Features: Enhance the ability for players to share their predictions and scores on social media. This could help in virally marketing the game.
- Create Groups or Leagues: Allow players to form groups or leagues where they can compete against friends or colleagues, adding a social layer to the game.

Data Utilization and Transparency:

- Real-time Updates: Provide real-time updates on predictions and results, making the game more dynamic and engaging.
- Detailed Analytics: Offer players insights into their performance and the overall trends in the game, which could help in strategizing their predictions.

Gamification Elements:

- Progressive Difficulty Levels: Introduce levels of difficulty with progressively harder predictions that offer greater rewards.
- Milestone Achievements: Set up milestones for participation, such as completing predictions for all constituencies in a state, and reward players upon achieving these milestones.

Educational Components:

- Informational Content: Provide background information on constituencies, historical voting patterns, and key candidates to educate players and help them make informed predictions.
- Tutorial and Guides: Offer tutorials on how to make predictions and how the scoring system works, which could be particularly useful for new players.

Integration of Advanced Technologies:

- Artificial Intelligence (AI) Insights: Use AI to provide predictive insights based on historical data and current trends which players can use as a reference.
- AMP and Interactivity Enhancements: Continue to explore and implement Advanced Mobile Pages (AMP) features that enhance interactivity within the email, such as dynamic forms and real-time result display.

Diverse Participation Encouragement:

- Localization: Ensure the game content is available in multiple regional languages to broaden its appeal across different linguistic demographics in India.
- Accessibility Features: Implement features that make the game accessible to people with disabilities, such as screen reader compatibility and alternative text for images.

Claude

Incentives/Rewards: Since there are no prizes currently, introducing incentives or rewards could increase participation. You mentioned using Atomic Rewards (Mu tokens) for referrals or as a currency within the game. Offering prizes (even small ones) for top predictors could drive more engagement.
Social Features: Adding social sharing and league/group features could make it more viral and competitive. Allowing people to create private leagues with friends/family and see comparative predictions could boost interest.
Enhanced Analytics: Providing data visualizations on how predictions are changing over time, by demographic groups, geographic regions etc. could make it more insightful and sticky for participants.
Credibility Weighting: Giving higher weightage to predictions from people’s home constituencies, as you mentioned, could make the aggregate predictions more accurate.
Expanding Scope: Adapting it for state elections and expanding to other domains like economic indicators, policy predictions etc. after this pilot could make it an ongoing, sustainable platform.
Payments/Real Money: Introducing a paid version where users have skin in the game with real money predictions could increase strategic participation, like other prediction markets.
Improved UX: An AI-first redesign enhancing the user experience, making it more interactive and visually appealing within emails could drive better engagement.
Marketing Push: Promoting it effectively across social media, news websites and with influencers could help get a critical mass of initial participants for better crowd wisdom.

Gemini

Offer rewards for participation: The game currently offers no prizes, relying solely on bragging rights. The author suggests using Atomic Rewards (Mu) for referrals, where users can earn Mu for referring others to the game.
Introduce a league system: Create a league system where people can compete against each other and compare scores. This can be done by allowing users to join groups or “leagues” with friends or colleagues.
Track prediction changes: Implement a feature to show how predictions change over time. This will allow users to see how popular opinion sways towards different candidates or parties.
Weigh predictions by location: Give weightage to predictions made by users for their own constituencies. The assumption is that users will have better knowledge about the local political situation and candidates in their area.
Adapt the game for state elections: Since elections in India happen frequently, the game can be adapted for state elections as well.
Allow users to share profiles: Collect optional demographic data from users such as gender, age, income level, and location (urban/rural). This will allow for segmenting predictions by these profiles.
Introduce a paid tier with real money rewards: Create a paid version of the game where users pay a fee to participate and the winners share a prize pool. This would require navigating legal and tax implications.
Develop a real-time prediction market: The author envisions creating a real-time prediction market similar to the Iowa Electronic Markets for the US elections.
Expand predictions to other areas: Broaden the scope of predictions beyond elections to include economic indicators, government policies, and other events. The author references Polymarket as an example for exploring various possibilities.

AI Inputs – 2

I then asked the AIs: “What other email-based prediction markets could I create for India?”

ChatGPT

Bollywood Box Office Predictions:

- Participants could predict the opening weekend numbers, total box office collection, and longevity of major Bollywood releases. This could also extend to regional film industries like Tollywood, Kollywood, and others.

Cricket Match Outcomes:

- Cricket is a major passion in India. An email-based prediction market could focus on outcomes of IPL matches, international cricket series, and other domestic leagues. Predictions could include match winners, top scorers, and tournament standings.

Economic Indicators:

- This market could involve predictions about key economic indicators such as GDP growth rates, inflation, and stock market indices. Participants could predict quarterly or annual economic outcomes based on current events and policies.

Monsoon and Weather Predictions:

- Given the significant impact of monsoon on agriculture in India, a prediction market focusing on rainfall levels, timing, and impact on crop yields could engage a wide audience, including those in the agricultural sector.

Government Policy Outcomes:

- Participants could predict the outcomes of proposed government policies or legislative actions. This could include predictions on the passage of key bills, policy implementation success, or even outcomes of government initiatives.

Television Ratings and Reality Show Winners:

- With a vibrant television industry, predictions could be made about ratings of popular TV shows or winners of reality shows like “Bigg Boss,” “Indian Idol,” or “Dance India Dance.”

Technology Adoption Rates:

- Predictions could focus on the adoption rates of new technologies such as electric vehicles, solar power installations, or digital payment systems in India.

Real Estate Market Trends:

- Participants could predict housing market trends in various cities, including price increases or decreases, demand in commercial versus residential sectors, and the impact of new infrastructure projects.

Social Trends and Public Opinion:

- Markets could be created around major social changes and trends, such as shifts in public opinion on critical issues like education reforms, privacy concerns, or public health initiatives.

Educational Outcomes:

- Predictions about results of major examinations like the UPSC, JEE, or NEET, or the performance of educational institutions in national rankings.

To implement these email-based prediction markets effectively:

Leverage AMP in Email: To make the prediction experience interactive directly within the user’s inbox.
Incorporate Real-Time Data: Ensure that the data used for making predictions is up-to-date and reflects the latest trends and information.
Engage with Experts: Partner with industry experts to provide insights and analysis that can help participants make more informed predictions.
Promote Community Engagement: Encourage discussions and community engagement around predictions to build a more active participant base.
Ensure Compliance: Be mindful of the legal implications, especially with topics that might involve sensitive data or privacy concerns.

Claude

Economic Indicators: You could run prediction markets around key economic indicators like GDP growth rates, inflation rates, interest rates, forex rates etc. There is a lot of interest and speculation around these numbers.
Corporate Earnings/Events: Allow people to predict quarterly revenues, profits, major announcements etc. for leading Indian companies across sectors like IT, banking, automotive etc.
Sports Events: Cricket is a national obsession in India. You could have prediction markets for outcomes of major tournaments like IPL, World Cups as well as individual match/series results.
State Elections: As you mentioned, running prediction markets for state assembly elections that happen every few months could sustain interest.
Annual Budget: Every year’s Union Budget is widely discussed. You could let people predict tax rates, spending allocation, fiscal deficits and other key budget numbers.
Monsoon: Rainfall Given the importance of monsoons for Indian agriculture, predicting rainfall levels across regions could have wide interest.
Policies/Legislation: There could be prediction runs on whether certain economic policies or legislations get approved by the government or not.
Blockbuster Movies: The Indian movie industry could lend itself well to predicting opening week/lifetime collections for major film releases across languages.
Reality Shows: Popular television reality shows with a voting process like Bigg Boss, Indian Idol etc. could leverage prediction markets.
Startup Unicorns: In the dynamic Indian startup environment, you could let people predict which startups will attain billion dollar valuations or get acquired.

The key would be identifying areas of wide public interest and information gaps where the “wisdom of crowds” prediction markets could provide unique insights compared to traditional expert forecasts. Frequent event-based cycles can help sustain consistent engagement.

Gemini

Current Events and Pop Culture:

Cricket Matches: This is a huge potential market in India. You could offer predictions on match winners, top scorers, or specific events within a match.
Movie Box Office Performance: Generate predictions on opening weekend collections or total box office gross for upcoming movies.
Reality TV Show Winners: Capitalize on the popularity of reality shows by creating prediction markets for winners or specific outcomes within the show.
News and Events: Allow users to predict the outcome of ongoing news stories or upcoming events, like policy changes or celebrity actions.

Business and Finance:

Stock Market Movements: While regulations might prevent real-money trading, you could offer a prediction market for stock price movements within a specific timeframe.
Interest Rate Changes: Let users predict the direction of upcoming Reserve Bank of India (RBI) interest rate decisions.
Company Announcements: Create markets for users to predict upcoming company announcements, mergers, or product launches.

Other Ideas:

Weather Forecasts: Allow users to predict seasonal rainfall or extreme weather events.
Food Production: Generate predictions on crop yields or food price fluctuations.

General Considerations:

Focus on Specific Events: For each market, choose a well-defined event with a clear outcome to avoid ambiguity.
Data and Information: Provide users with relevant data and news articles within the email itself to aid informed predictions.
Engagement Features: Consider incorporating features like leaderboards, discussions, or social sharing to boost user engagement.

Remember, the success of these markets will depend on attracting a large user base.

Partnerships: Collaborate with media outlets, sports teams, or other relevant organizations to reach a wider audience.
Social Media Integration: Promote the game on social media platforms to attract new users.

Thinks 1224

NYTimes: “David Autor seems an unlikely A.I. optimist. The labor economist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology is best known for his in-depth studies showing how much technology and trade have eroded the incomes of millions of American workers over the years. But Mr. Autor is now making the case that the new wave of technology — generative artificial intelligence, which can produce hyper-realistic images and video and convincingly imitate humans’ voices and writing — could reverse that trend. “A.I., if used well, can assist with restoring the middle-skill, middle-class heart of the U.S. labor market that has been hollowed out by automation and globalization,” Mr. Autor wrote.” More: AI Could Actually Help Rebuild The Middle Class.

FT: “Social media platforms such as X, Facebook and Instagram make it easy to express approval: I can share, like, or “heart” a post. But showing instant disapproval? There isn’t an option for that. I could leave a negative comment, of course — but it is time-consuming both for me to write and the post’s author to read. The critical feedback drowns in the sea of noise. What does this mean for the content itself? In a collaboration between Warwick Business School and Pompeu Fabra University, our team hypothesised that such imbalanced feedback led to more extreme opinions being expressed online.”

WSJ: “Long beset by a labor crunch, the skilled trades are newly appealing to the youngest cohort of American workers, many of whom are choosing to leave the college path. Rising pay and new technologies in fields from welding to machine tooling are giving trade professions a face-lift, helping them shed the image of being dirty, low-end work. Growing skepticism about the return on a college education, the cost of which has soared in recent decades, is adding to their shine. Enrollment in vocational training programs is surging as overall enrollment in community colleges and four-year institutions has fallen. The number of students enrolled in vocational-focused community colleges rose 16% last year to its highest level since the National Student Clearinghouse began tracking such data in 2018. The ranks of students studying construction trades rose 23% during that time, while those in programs covering HVAC and vehicle maintenance and repair increased 7%.”

NYTimes: “On a windswept Icelandic plateau, an international team of engineers and executives is powering up an innovative machine designed to alter the very composition of Earth’s atmosphere. If all goes as planned, the enormous vacuum will soon be sucking up vast quantities of air, stripping out carbon dioxide and then locking away those greenhouse gases deep underground in ancient stone — greenhouse gases that would otherwise continue heating up the globe. Just a few years ago, technologies like these, that attempt to re-engineer the natural environment, were on the scientific fringe. They were too expensive, too impractical, too sci-fi. But with the dangers from climate change worsening, and the world failing to meet its goals of slashing greenhouse gas emissions, they are quickly moving to the mainstream among both scientists and investors, despite questions about their effectiveness and safety.”

FT: “India and its neighbours are not creating enough jobs to sustain their young populations, the World Bank has warned, putting the region’s demographic dividend at risk even as it enjoys the world’s fastest economic growth…The World Bank said the region’s employment ratio, or share of the working-age population in jobs, was falling, a sign that the countries were failing to create enough roles for their young, growing populations. “It’s a missed opportunity,” Franziska Ohnsorge, the World Bank’s chief economist for south Asia, told the Financial Times. “It’s almost like the demographic dividend is being squandered.” The employment ratio for south Asia was 59 per cent last year, the bank said, compared with 70 per cent in other emerging markets. It added that south Asia was “the only region where the share of working-age men who are employed fell over the past two decades”.”

Why CMOs Don’t Become CEOs – and How They Can (Part 13)

Summary and Critique

ChatGPT

Summary: The text delves into the challenges and pathways for Chief Marketing Officers (CMOs) aspiring to become Chief Executive Officers (CEOs). It highlights the rarity of such transitions, underscoring the need for CMOs to broaden their skill sets beyond traditional marketing domains, including strategic decision-making and financial management. The narrative presents a structured plan for CMOs to demonstrate their capability to lead as CEOs, emphasizing entrepreneurial mindset, cross-functional leadership, and the ability to envision and adapt to future market disruptions.

Critique: The discussion presents valuable insights into the professional journey from CMO to CEO, yet it predominantly relies on anecdotal evidence and hypothetical scenarios, which may not capture the full spectrum of challenges or opportunities in this career transition. The emphasis on a singular pathway overlooks the diverse backgrounds from which successful CEOs can emerge and the varied nature of organizations and industries that might influence the feasibility of such a transition. Furthermore, the narrative could benefit from a more nuanced exploration of the role of organizational culture, mentorship, and external market factors in shaping the career trajectories of CMOs. Additionally, the portrayal of marketing functions might inadvertently reinforce stereotypes about the limitations of marketing professionals, potentially overlooking the strategic depth and impact that seasoned CMOs can bring to their organizations. A more balanced view would acknowledge the intrinsic value of marketing leadership and its potential to contribute to broader business strategies and success.

Claude

Summary

The document explores the reasons why Chief Marketing Officers (CMOs) rarely ascend to the role of Chief Executive Officer (CEO) and provides advice on how CMOs can position themselves for the top leadership position. It begins by narrating a fictional story about a CMO named Maya who successfully became the CEO of a company called A1Books. The document then delves into the common challenges and perceptions that hinder CMOs from becoming CEOs, such as a lack of broader operational expertise, limited financial acumen, and the perception of marketing as a cost center rather than a revenue generator.

The document aggregates advice from various sources, including executive search firms, industry experts, and thought leaders, on how CMOs can overcome these barriers. The recommendations include broadening expertise beyond marketing, developing financial acumen, building cross-functional leadership, cultivating industry respect and thought leadership, fostering strategic alignment and a commercial mindset, seeking mentorship and networking opportunities, and embracing a growth mindset and customer-centric approach.

The document then presents a structured 4-year, 7-point action plan for CMOs aspiring to become CEOs. The first three points focus on excelling in the CMO role, such as becoming a “Chief Profits Officer,” creating a “Profits Flywheel,” and pioneering market innovations. The next three points involve leading a mini-business P&L to cultivate an entrepreneurial mindset, expand expertise across various business functions, and build ecosystem connections. The final point emphasizes preparing for the future by envisioning opportunities and disruptions.

The document also includes a letter from the fictional character Maya, offering additional advice on writing, teaching, reading widely, maintaining health, and achieving work-life harmony.

Critique:

The document provides a comprehensive and well-researched exploration of the challenges CMOs face in becoming CEOs and offers practical advice from various reputable sources. However, it could benefit from a more concise and focused structure, as some sections feel repetitive or tangential.

Additionally, while the fictional narrative of Maya adds a storytelling element, it might be more effective to integrate real-life examples of CMOs who have successfully transitioned to CEO roles. This would provide more tangible and relatable insights into the strategies and mindsets that enabled their ascent.

The advice and action plan presented are sound and actionable, but the document could benefit from a deeper dive into specific tactics and case studies to illustrate how CMOs can effectively implement these recommendations within their organizations.

Finally, while the letter from Maya offers valuable advice on personal growth and development, it feels somewhat disconnected from the main theme of the document. Integrating these insights more cohesively into the overall narrative and advice could strengthen the document’s overall impact.

Thinks 1223

NYTimes: “One of my favorite Hindi terms is “ghar ka khaana.” It literally means “home food,” but it also encompasses the singular joy and unfussiness of meals made in your own kitchen — the dishes that remind you of childhood, the ones you won’t often find in restaurants. My quintessential ghar ka khaana? Dal…Cheap, unfussy and adaptable, these lentils call up warming memories of home and family for many South Asians.”

Charles Duhigg: “The easiest way to explain a supercommunicator is to describe one. You probably know who to call if you’re having a bad day and need someone to raise your spirits or make you laugh. That person that you know to call is a supercommunicator to you. Conversely, you’re probably a supercommunicator for them. There are even some people who can be supercommunicators for almost everyone—and can do it consistently. They tend to think about conversation and communication deeper than everyone else. They consider everything before they open their mouths, and they’ve developed listening habits that enable them to find out what’s going on. Supercommunicators ask ten to 20 times more questions than the average person. Those questions can include something like, “That’s interesting. What did you think of that?” or “What did you say next?” They pose questions that invite us into the conversation.”

Engadget: “WhatsApp’s scale dwarfs nearly every social network and messaging app out there. In 2020, WhatsApp announced it had more than two billion users around the world. It’s bigger than iMessage (1.3 billion users), TikTok (1 billion), Telegram (800 million), Snap (400 million) and Signal (40 million.) It stands head and shoulders above fellow Meta platform Instagram, which captures around 1.4 billion users. The only thing bigger than WhatsApp is Facebook itself, with more than three billion users. WhatsApp has become the world’s default communications platform.”

David Boaz: “The essence of libertarianism is the nonaggression principle. You have no right to initiate force against people who have not initiated force against you. From that comes freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom of property and markets, ideally within an ethos of cosmopolitanism and pluralism and tolerance. At that point, we’re kind of talking about liberalism, and these days I’m worried not just about libertarianism, but about liberalism.”

WSJ: “Some of the biggest U.S. companies in artificial intelligence have asked their Taiwanese manufacturing partners to step up production of AI-related hardware in Mexico, seeking to diminish reliance on China. They are taking advantage of the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement, the free-trade deal that took effect in 2020. It has attracted billions of dollars from manufacturers aiming to move operations from China to Mexico, a process known as nearshoring. The North American nations “hope to replace products imported from Asia as much as possible,” said James Huang, chairman of the Taiwan External Trade Development Council. “Based on this consensus, Mexico is poised to become the most important manufacturing base for the USMCA.””

Why CMOs Don’t Become CEOs – and How They Can (Part 12)

A Letter from Maya

Here is a letter Maya has written to those wanting to emulate her ascent.

Dear CMO-and-Aspiring-CEO,

By now, you would be familiar with my story and the 4-year, 7-point plan. In this letter, I want to share a few additional things which can help you as you craft your journey to the top. (They are inspired by these Life System notes.

Write Long Form: I cannot emphasise this enough. Writing provides a clarity that no amount of short, witty tweets or pithy LinkedIn posts can ever do. Write for yourself – without worrying about who will link, like, or repost. Since times immemorial, writing has provided the best way to learn and synthesise. It is like giving people a window into your mind. As you write, you enter a different zone, a flow – where your thoughts and subconscious coalesce together to create a magical river of ideas.

Teach Others: This works at three levels. First, it enables your N-1 and N-2 colleagues to get a peek into how you think. Second, the stories and wisdom enables them to fast-track their own journey. Third, their probing questions gives your feedback and makes you think further, thus leading to a refinement of your ideas. A good teacher can become an even better writer!

Read Widely: As has been written, “Books have served me well through the years: which other product gives you a person’s lifetime of knowledge for a few hundred rupees? It is we who have to make an investment many times greater – with our time – to absorb and learn. And in today’s world of instant-everything and tweet-sized content, a book is a true joy to behold. Ploughing through the daily social media feeds may seem exciting but most are empty – like junk food. They can provide that instant gratification but they do not provide the depth needed to enhance our learning. That is something only good books do.” Carve out a few hours every week for deep reading.

Stay Healthy: Nothing impacts you negatively than poor health. Start early, build a routine, and stick to it. The work you are doing will demand your best at all times. Good health is entirely in your hands. Don’t leave it until it is too late.

Work-Life Harmony: And finally, don’t ever compromise on your family. No success is worth it without having loved ones to share it. Remember these words from “Startup to Proficorn”: “Create time and space for family. They are not just another ‘meeting’ to be scheduled in the calendar. They are the only ones who will also experience your highs and lows—perhaps even more than you. They are the ones whose unstinted support will push you to greater heights. Make sure you are always there for them.”

Focus on the journey, not just the destination. As Jerome Chouchan put it, “Right shooting always results in a hit.”

Wish you the very best!

Maya.

Thinks 1222

William Easterly: “Markets everywhere emerge in an unplanned, spontaneous way, adapting to local traditions and circumstances, and not through reforms designed by outsiders. The free market depends on the bottom-up emergence of complex institutions and social norms that are difficult for outsiders to understand, much less change.” [via CafeHayek]

Big Technology: “As chatbots expand beyond conversational partners — becoming agents that take action on our behalf —[DeepMind founder Demis] Hassabis’s fundamental research is poised to play a leading role. OpenAI is already developing agent software that autonomously takes action, and Hassabis says DeepMind is working heavily on this too. “We were steeped in agents from the beginning, right? That’s what all of our games work is,” he says. “We believe that agent systems are actually what you need for intelligence.” Just like AlphaGo mapped out its environment using Hassabis’s beloved reinforcement learning, AI agents could use similar technology to map out our world and take action on their own. It’s a big step beyond today’s conversational models, which require users to initiate the interaction and only then deliver information.”

Deion Sanders on the best book he has received as a gift: ““The Little Engine That Could.” This book completely changed my life, and is my favorite book, next to the Bible. Several engines passed that train up — because they were too good or too mighty, too this or too that — and they wouldn’t dare waste their time because it didn’t fit their ideal description. Some of y’all in life “don’t fit the ideal description” and are working to get over that track. Sitting on the side of the road, on that track, just waiting and saying, “I think I can, I think I can.” What are you gonna attach yourself to in life to get you to the other side, where you can bless a multitude of people that have faith in you?”

WSJ: “Data is among several essential AI resources in short supply. The chips needed to run what are called large-language models behind ChatGPT, Google’s Gemini and other AI bots also are scarce. And industry leaders worry about a dearth of data centers and the electricity needed to power them. AI language models are built using text vacuumed up from the internet, including scientific research, news articles and Wikipedia entries. That material is broken into tokens—words and parts of words that the models use to learn how to formulate humanlike expressions. Generally, AI models become more capable the more data they train on. OpenAI bet big on this approach, helping it become the most prominent AI company in the world.”

Arnold Kling: “One should not think simply that creative types are good and management types are bad, or conversely. For startups, creativity is most important. But as a firm matures, it needs solid management. The transition is often painful and unpleasant. A firm will last longer if it can manage the transition from novelty-seeking to process reliability without completely losing its ability to foster creativity.”

Why CMOs Don’t Become CEOs – and How They Can (Part 11)

Next Chapter

The final point for the leap from CMO to CEO is:

Prepare Future Agenda: Imagine tomorrow’s world and opportunities which disruptions will bring.

Envisioning the future and crafting a winning strategy in a competitive marketplace is one of the key responsibilities for a CEO. CMOs need to think beyond the quarter and the year to what technologies and disruptions can shape the future. Like a chess grandmaster, the CMO needs to start thinking several steps ahead. Let’s listen of what Maya may have said when she took over as CEO of A1Books.

As we prepare for the next chapter in A1Books, there are three big ideas that can shape our tomorrow: Digital Twins, AI Marketer, and MarCo.

Digital Twins: Imagine a virtual replica of every customer, which is a few steps ahead of the real customer. We can leverage the data and behaviour of customers, along with insights from similar “Best” customers and real-time event streams, to predict next actions and nudge customers along their buying journey, ensuring personalisation and a deeper understanding of their paths in the digital and physical worlds. This represents a groundbreaking approach in customer experience. We will call it A2D2: A2 representing the next evolution of A1Books, and D2 to signify the Digital Twin.

AI Marketer: No, we are not replacing our marketing team! We are creating “AI Assistants” for every one of you to take away the drudgery of daily, repetitive work. These AI tools are designed to handle the routine and time-consuming tasks that often bog you down, thereby freeing you to focus more on strategic thinking and deeper customer engagement. This shift allows you to leverage their unique human skills more effectively, fostering innovation and improving customer relationships by dedicating more time to understanding and anticipating customer needs. In future, I envision an AI Assistant tailored for each individual, streamlining their tasks for efficiency and quality, thereby elevating them to focus on more complex, value-added activities.

MarCo: A1Books will becoming a “market consolidator” – much like Constellation Software has done with niche software firms. By reinvesting our profits, we aim to undertake strategic acquisitions of smaller, specialised entities to enhance our market presence. This approach will not only expand our footprint but also diversify our product portfolio, enabling us to better meet the dynamic needs of our expanding customer base more effectively.

Articulating a compelling vision can significantly bolster a CMO’s candidacy in the eyes of a CEO search committee. When combined with a proven track record of performance and strong endorsements from references, this forward-thinking approach can effectively position CMOs as prime candidates for future CEO roles. It underscores their strategic acumen, ability to drive growth, and readiness to lead at the highest level, making them standout choices for succession.

To summarise: the 4-year, 7-point plan outlines a clear path for CMOs aiming to reach the CEO role. It focuses on achieving exceptional marketing results for two years, followed by two years leading a business unit. Throughout this journey, CMOs should actively articulate their vision for the company’s future. By demonstrating both marketing excellence and strong leadership across different business functions, CMOs can follow in Maya’s footsteps, overcoming the traditional barriers to emerge as prime candidates for the CEO position.

Thinks 1221

Arnold Kling: “Probability can be purely mathematical. You can insist that the probability of a coin flip turning up heads is exactly 0.5, because that is the mathematical definition of a fair coin. You do not need to flip any coins to prove it. Probability can be purely empirical. You do need to flip a lot of coins and show that the number of heads approaches 50 percent as you do more coin flips. Probabilities apply to events in the world, not mathematical definitions. Probability can be neither mathematical nor empirical. Instead, probability is subjective. It’s not in the math. It’s not in the data. It is one person’s opinion. If your opinion is that the probability of heads is 0.6, so be it.”

Economist: “A new book by Karthik Muralidharan of the University of California, San Diego, called “Accelerating India’s Development”, argues that the crucial barrier to faster development is a lack of “state capacity”. Mr Muralidharan describes this concept as the “effectiveness” of government. Throwing money at a state lacking capacity is like adding fuel to a car near a breakdown: it won’t get you very far. Currently, the Indian state succeeds when on “mission mode”, achieving clearly defined goals…[India] struggles with mundane, everyday aspects of governance, such as education and health. Three in five rural children in the fifth year of school cannot read at a second-year level—and in the past five years the failure rate has only worsened…The Indian state does a lot, but little well. In his 800-page tome, Mr Muralidharan lays out fixes. The book is crammed with details about how the Indian system works and could be improved. Three ideas stand out. They concern how the state should manage people, use technology and improve its federal system. And they hold lessons for other governments.”

Jonathan Haidt: “What the smartphone user gives up is time. A huge amount of it. Around 40 hours a week for preteens like your daughter. For teens aged 13 to 18, it’s closer to 50 hours per week. Those numbers—six to eight hours per day—are what teens spend on all screen-based leisure activities.” [via Arnold Kling] Haidt in the NYTimes: “The Great Rewiring is a five-year period in which technological changes interacted with social trends to radically transform the daily lives of teenagers in the United States and many other countries. In 2010, few teens had a smartphone, few had high-speed internet, few had unlimited data plans, nobody had Instagram and kids still sometimes went over to each other’s houses and spent some time with other kids. By 2015, everything changed at a faster pace than ever before in human history. For evidence showing how radical this change was, look at the millennial generation, which got most of the way through puberty before this happened, and their mental health is fine. Gen Z, I believe, is defined by the fact that they went through puberty on social media, without spending much time with other kids, and their mental health is the worst ever recorded.”

WSJ: “The world’s most valuable tech companies were founded in dorm rooms, garages and diners by entrepreneurs who were remarkably young. Bill Gates was 19. Steve Jobs was 21. Jeff Bezos and Jensen Huang were 30. Never has anyone so old created a business worth so much as Company, known simply as TSMC, the chip manufacturer that produces essential parts for computers, phones, cars, artificial-intelligence systems and many of the devices that have become part of our daily lives. Chang had such a long career in the chip business that he would have been a legend of his field even if he’d retired in 1985 and played bridge for the rest of his life. Instead he reinvented himself. Then he revolutionized his industry. But he wasn’t successful despite his age. He was successful because of his age. As it turns out, older entrepreneurs are both more common and more productive than younger founders. And nobody personifies the surprising benefits of mid-life entrepreneurship better than Chang, who had worked in the U.S. for three decades when he moved to Taiwan with a singular obsession.”

FT: “Not long ago, societies looked destined to become ever more secular as they grew richer, and religion’s influence on politics would ebb away. That has not happened. In developing countries, the very mixed record of secular models — communism, socialism, nationalism or western-style democracy — in delivering equitable material growth set the stage for a return of religious fundamentalist politics, whether in governments or in violent non-state movements. Resentment against lingering power imbalances and alienation with western-led globalisation has also tempted authoritarian leaders to use traditionalist religion to win support: India is a case in point; so is Vladimir Putin’s Russia. In the west, too, the barriers between politics and religion have been disappearing. A traditionalist backlash can be seen in phenomena as superficially different as the nostalgia of Europe’s populist right or the undermining of abortion rights in the US.”