My tummy is finally famous. My big round
belly, which no one ever thought would be up to any good, was one of the stars
of a video that’s gone (somewhat) viral over the past few weeks, and is now the
cause of lots of palpitations in corporate boardrooms all over town. What am I
talking about?
A few weeks ago, my colleague Larry Madowo
decided it would be a good idea if he brought in a really loud stereo system to
the office and made everyone dance to a goofy song. The song in question –
‘Happy’ by the hip hop musician Pharrell Williams – is the theme to the
animated movie ‘Despicable Me 2’, and was nominated for an Academy Award. It
lost out, but became the theme to the Awards ceremony when many of the stars danced
to it (our own Lupita Nyong’o was the first out of the blocks, twirling merrily
to it a few minutes before she won her Oscar).
The song became a viral hit, especially
when Pharrell helped to make what he called the first 24-hour music video,
which consisted of crowds dancing along to the song for (you guessed it) twenty
four hours. The nature of the video meant that many people the world over
decided to do their version of the ‘happy dance’, and upload the results onto
the internet (there are now thousands of versions out there).
To cut a long story short, the wave hit our
shores, which is how we ended up with a very loud newsroom and people dusting
off their rarely-used dancing skills. As far as I can tell, the NTV version was
the second one in Kenya (Safaricom had done theirs two days before), but soon,
everyone wanted in on it.
Why am I bringing all this up? A few days
ago, I happened upon a conversation about how corporations are ordering up
their own versions of the ‘happy dance’, in the hope that it will inject some
vim and hipness to their (often) stodgy image. There is an unstated hope that
the videos, once uploaded, will go viral, and finally help some crack the
oft-stated desire to be ‘digital’.
There’s nothing particularly wrong with an
organisation wanting to be ‘with it’. Especially in this digital age, with all
its fads, inevitable trends will pop up with annoying regularity, and there
often is some social pressure to get with the programme. Or some version of it
anyway. It can be argued that this started with the Macarena around 1996, and
has progressed through last year’s obsession with the Harlem Shake (if you
don’t know what that is, don’t bother).
The problem with the corporate version of
the viral trend is that it sounds exactly as pathetic as it actually is. You
cannot order up a ‘happy’ moment. Your organisation is simply a ‘happy’ one, or
it isn’t. When a company orders up choreographers to synchronise what should be
a spontaneous set of interactions, it looks forced and pitiful. Workplace
chemistry is a difficult thing to pin down (and consultants are paid millions
to supposedly deliver it), but it either happens or it doesn’t – there are few
shortcuts.
The other thing is that the ‘happy dance’s’
moment has passed. The viral trends nowadays are so ephemeral that trying to
re-create a ‘happy dance’ in late April looks like an attempt to pull off a
haircut that was trendy ten years ago. You may think you look hip in your
middle age, but you have to wonder why everyone is looking at you a bit
funnily. You have to catch the wave in its moment, or else give up and wait for
the next one. Which leads to yet another problem, when an organisation (or its
leaders) tries to catch every trend. A few years ago it was putting together
vision and mission statements (and plastering them everywhere), and now it is
‘happy dances’ and Twitter handles. Even the most staid, backward companies
assume that coming up with a Twitter address will make them look trendy, when
in point of fact many of them don’t actually have any clue how to use it. This
then leads to frustrated customers who do not get the quick interaction they
crave (and the Kenyan Twitter crowd can be a vicious one if they get on your
case).
So here’s my advice: forget Pharrell
Williams and the ‘happy dance’. If your organisation did not do it when it was
the ‘in-thing’, then don’t bother doing it now (so please stop stressing your
communications people). But if you insist that you must, then we’re available
to be consulted on exactly how to do it. Larry Madowo will show you how to be
energetic. Ephy Mwangi is a genius with a computer, and will put a brilliant
video together (he’s the gent right at the end of our video). And my (now
famous) tummy can be hired to give your video the touch of magic.
Also published in the Business Daily on 22 April 2014 at http://www.businessdailyafrica.com/Opinion-and-Analysis/Why-firms-should-always-catch-a-wave-in-its-moment/-/539548/2287922/-/item/0/-/f8hq5g/-/index.html
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