Magnus Marketing Blog

A great post was offered by Maureen Sharib - guru of phone sourcing on her Sourcers Unleashed messageboard. She talked about how a leading organization in sourcing had taken material from a well known authority in the industry and was offering it up as their own. This particular organization seems to have a history of taking other peoples stuff and co-opting it as their own.

This raises a question of ownership and credit. Some companies like Microsoft or Sun Microsystems openly credit employees past and present with contributing to the organization. But there are some that do not, even if the employee contributed to the organization.

My former employer was great at claiming ideas and employee contributions as their own invention. For example, a process I had developed for account research - something I had done for many years before - was co-opted by my boss and credited to himself. The man once actually got angry with me when I had said that I knew whatever the issue was he was discussing- because I had developed it. I think he and his partner believed they, like Al Gore, invented integrated sales and marketing. Such is the case with "intelligent prospecting" - some companies now claim this as a service. My boss conferred that phrase on me many years ago as he heard me engage yet another c-level executive, I am sure someone else in the interim had coined it also. Just like RTD (research, target destroy), it is my methodology - only mine - and I am the best executor of it.

Which raises a point also, these companies who steal ideas and contributions without attribution will never operate at the level as the originator. They are second rate or third rate copycats who evidently have nothing of their own to offer, ergo they take from other truly innovative and exceptional people.

So what of best practices? Best practices are such I believe because they are non-proprietary, generalized, processes and methodologies that diffuse over many companies. They may be observed. They may be repeatable and easily implemented. They are not based on the unique talents or delivery of a person.

I wish there was some way to reclaim credit for contributions made and get back what was taken away. Of course in the end, my clients will benefit from top notch original contributions while others will be paying a lot more than they should for the knockoff. Aint no substitute for the real thing is there? Why have a reproduction when you can have the original?