The Science Behind Structuring Roles

David reveals some of the science behind the extensive research he has done over the past couple decades to develop a key part of his Total Business Review. Blair asks him to explain the three roles principals cannot let go of, along with the three roles they should give up first if they want their firms to really thrive.

Transcript

BLAIR ENNS: David, how are we doing?

DAVID C. BAKER: We? I don’t know about you, but I’m doing very well, thank you.

BLAIR: I mean… I guess as a podcast. We’ve been doing this for a little while. Is it still working?

DAVID: Oh yeah, it’s still working. I’m getting tons of feedback from people that love my contribution.

BLAIR: (Laughs) Are they all named Baker?

DAVID: Oh you picked that up, huh? You picked that up…

BLAIR: Yeah OK.

DAVID: Half of the podcast is doing very very well.

BLAIR: I just wondered - we’ve been doing this for awhile. I’ve lost track and I don’t know how many will have gone to air by the time this one does. We’ve recorded a lot more. We’ve talked before about the idea that there’s probably a limit on this thing. We’re going to have to put a bullet in it at some point. I just wonder if we’re getting close.

DAVID: I don’t think so. I will need a new partner at some point, but…

BLAIR: (Laughs)

DAVID: I’ll let you know. I’ll let you know. I’ve only got like 20 requests, suggestions that way.

BLAIR: Yeah. Are you open to the canine variety, or is it important that it’s human?

DAVID: (Laughs) How do you feel about it? How do you feel about how it’s going?

BLAIR: I feel like we’ve got like two or three more in us…

DAVID: You feel that way every month.

BLAIR: It’s my 25th wedding anniversary next week and my wife was saying today, “I think we should do an after action review.” (Laughs)

DAVID: Oh. Now that’s a good idea.

BLAIR: I said, “yeah - see if it makes sense to keep going? We should just commit to 25 year blocks. Let’s not get carried away.”

DAVID: Yeah.

BLAIR: Yeah we’ve got a few more in us, right? Let’s keep going.

DAVID: Let’s keep going. OK.

BLAIR: And when it’s done are we going to know it’s done or are we gonna just keep going long after we should have hung it up?

DAVID: If we look at the stats we’ll know it’s time. (Laughs) 

BLAIR: Yeah. OK.

DAVID: If we look at the download stats, yeah.

BLAIR: OK. Today we’re going to talk about the science of structuring roles. I’m going to interview you on this, and I proposed this one to you because of all of the work that you do, this is among the most fascinating to me. I think you’re probably the only person who’s really gone in and mapped out all of the different roles in a kind of a standard independent creative firm. And then you’ve applied all kinds of science against how those roles should be structured, and in some of the roles what the profiles of success look like. Now have I kind of summed that up accurately?

DAVID: Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. And it also includes like which ones the principals shouldn’t be doing, which ones they should be doing, how much of each role is necessary, what are the dangerous combinations. So it actually… it sort of unfolded accidentally years ago and I’ve just kept adding to it over the years. It’s been really fun. I love the science part of things, so when I can move beyond just instinct and quantify some element of what I do… I love that. And this is an example of that.

BLAIR: So I’m looking at this beautiful diagram. It’s called the “Recourses Functional Model.”

DAVID: You can charge more if you call it something.

BLAIR: Yeah. So tell us a little about the science behind this and then I want to ask you about… I want to go role by role about the 12 different roles. I want to hear which ones can the principal let go of and which ones can they not. Where is there tension or where maybe the problem roles are. But let’s begin the science behind it. How long have you been collecting data how much data did you have?

DAVID: Sure. So I started advising clients or victims - they were more victims at the time - in ’94 and about four years into that process I was sitting down one day and I noticed that making similar recommendations to what I had recommended the week before, and it really just jarred me. Well first of all I thought, “am I just being lazy?” Then I realized - no I’m starting to see some patterns here. And that was when I started to take this whole pattern matching thing seriously. So I decided to name the functions, but to use nondescript or non-loaded terms. So I didn’t want to call anybody an account executive because some people hate account executives. Some people have no problem with them so I just named it something else. And went through all the roles that way. And then just started to make observations about what were safe or unsafe combinations. And the first one that came up - I’m sure you’ve noticed this - is that even though the skills for managing an account are very similar to new business skills, it’s pretty dangerous to combine the two because the client work is always more urgent. It’s no more important, but it’s more urgent. So it pushes out the sales stuff. So we have to be particularly careful if the same person happens to be doing both. So that was just one observation. I made tons of other observations.

The next step was to figure out how much of each function was necessary, because I was getting these calls from principals saying, “Hey - the accounting people are whining and they say they need more help. And if they really do need more help I’m glad to give it to them. But how much accounting to we need at a firm like ours?” And so I calculated that and that began the process of calculating that same thing for all the different roles. That prompted me to go to the next stage, and it was just kind of like this pandora’s box honestly… Because some firms - like in-house departments for instance, which I was working with back then - didn’t have three functions. They didn’t do their own accounting. They didn’t have their own IT. And the didn’t have business development because they had a built-in client. So all of those ratios were a little bit different. And then fast-forwarding to the place where roles were happening, and I was just curious to find some other way for principals to be able to make better hiring decisions. I tried all kinds of things. We’ve got to talk about this someday. I tried intelligence testing - that was a disaster. I went on and tried a bunch of things and finally landed on personality profiles. And I was doing a seminar for creative directors. There were 50 of them coming for two days to San Fransisco and I thought, “Ah! I’ve got all these people here. I’ll just give them all a personality profile and see what it shows.” Well there was no pattern whatsoever. And I almost gave up. But I noticed that I had another event coming up in six weeks for account executives, and so I have all of them a personality profile. And the similarity between them was just staggering. And that was what pushed me in the direction of spending, well, more than $300,000 over the years. So 14,000 people initially, and another 9. So 23,000 people have gone through this study. Each one of them had three things: they had that personality profile; they had a 30 minute interview from me - face to face, in person; and then they did 25 question qualitative/quantitative survey. So that’s the background and that’s where all the data comes from.

BLAIR: That’s a ton of data. Wow. 

DAVID: I’m tired just thinking about it.

BLAIR: Oh - I’m just doing the math on how many years of your life you spent interviewing people. But it was all part of your consulting engagements I imagine?

DAVID: Right. Yep. Yeah. I should have stopped interviewing people way before that. It was too much. They say, “How many people do you need to interview when you’re trying to figure something out at a company?” And basically the flip answer is: when you quit learning things. I should have quit earlier, but… It’s still pretty interesting. There’s still so much in there that I haven’t even explored, that I have digitally that I need to analyze at some point.

BLAIR: Let’s get into the roles. Where do you want to start? Is there… Should we start with… Well is there a role for Owner?

DAVID: There is. I call that “directing.” Again, I use - like - sort of non-loaded language.

BLAIR: Yep.

DAVID: So there’s 12 roles all together. And there are three of those roles that the principal must always do. In other words, they cannot safely delegate these three roles. So you can envision a thousand person firm with just one principal, and it can thrive as long as the principal is touching these three roles. So one of them is running the firm. That’s “directing.” That’s deciding about the culture, about the positioning, looking at the financial performance, and so one. All of those things that only a principal can do. Second is deciding on what the positioning should be and revisiting that - however frequently they need to. And then third - this doesn’t take much time - but just showing up at some point when you’re closing really massive accounts. And as long as the principal is doing those three things, then the firm can thrive. A lot of principals think they are more important than that. And of course in a smaller firm they can do a lot more than that, obviously. Like, I’m a one man shop and I do all 12 roles. But if I were going to have a lot of employees - if I decided to go down that path - as long as I’m still doing those three things, the firm is not at any disadvantage.

BLAIR: Yeah. So you mentioned three roles the principal cannot let go of, or at least completely: “directing,” “positioning,” and “closing.”

DAVID: Right.

BLAIR: And as you mentioned, sometimes their involvement in closing is just cursory. So the idea is, somebody starts a new business - maybe it’s a design firm - and that person is effectively wearing, we like to say, “wearing many hats.” But you’re saying, according to the Recourses Functional Model, they’re effectively wearing 12 hats. And as they hire people, they start to hand off hats.

DAVID: Right.

BLAIR: And you’re saying the last three hats that they do not hand off are “directing,” “positioning,” and “closing.”

DAVID: Yes, exactly. 

BLAIR: OK. So moving away from the principals, I don’t know if there’s one that you can identify as the first one that should be handed off - the first hire. But let’s just think in that order. What roles does the principal begin to staff for?

DAVID: So the first one that they would give up is what I call “resourcing.” And that’s basically the control tower - the information control tower. The firm around projects. It’s project management - I call it “resourcing.” For years I used to say, “All right Mr. or Mrs. Principal - you’ve gotta give this up.” And they would say, “Oh, I have! That’s not a problem. I’ve already done that.” And I’d just say, “No, you haven’t. You’re still doing it.”

BLAIR: You’ve gotta really give it up.

DAVID: Yeah. Like, I’m serious. And so I had to come up with a simple question that enabled them to see whether or not they had given up these three roles that we’re going to talk about next. And so this first one, the question was: all right, if you bump into somebody at some social event, just by accident you bump into a client. And the client’s talking, you each have a drink in your hand. And they say, “Oh, by the way - what’s the status of such and such?” You as the principal should never be able to answer that question without consulting somebody else first.

BLAIR: “Such and such” being a project of the client’s that your firm is working on.

DAVID: Yeah. Exactly. If you know the status of something, then you’re too close to it and you haven’t given this up. So when the firm grows you give this up first. The reason you give it up first is because it’s the least expensive to replace, because if something goes bad it doesn’t put any of your client relationships at risk like some of the others, and you know, there are some other reasons… But that’s the first one you give up.

BLAIR: OK. So “resourcing” is the first one. What’s the profile of a successful “resourcer?”

DAVID: So that one I’ll kind of hold close to my vest. But I will say that this is the only… So there’s only five roles of the twelve where there is some degree of personality profile match, and there are different degrees of match. So on the four personality profile axes - like with the principal there’s only a match on one of them. With account service, on two. With accounting, on three. Resourcing, there’s four. So there’s only five roles where there’s any degree of personality profile match out of the 12 roles, and there’s only one of those five where we’re looking for something so specific that on every one of the four axes this person needs to be in a certain place. 

BLAIR: It makes it sound like this is a pivotal role, and in fact in the model it’s kind of right at the center of the model - of the diagram. DAIVD: It is. It actually is. And it relates so much to client experience, profitability, and quality. It’s like it really is the control tower of the firm. It’s so critical to get this one right. So you’re looking at somebody and saying, “Could they be a great ‘resourcing’ fit?” And so you look at the personality profile. Now just because the profile is a match, doesn’t mean they are going to be a great"resourcing"person. But if they are not a match, then they’re going to struggle. They could be effectively doing this job over time. But they’re going to revert to who they naturally are when they’re tired or mad, and it’s going to take just so much energy out of them. So yeah. It’s a very close match, and it’s one of the most… I think it’s the most important role at a firm. I think account services is the most difficult role. But I think this is the most important role of a firm. 

BLAIR: I think of the first ad agency that I worked for, I was 22 years old. And the person who really ran that firm - made everything happen - everything flowed through her. Her title was Production Manager.

DAVID: Yeah. Back then, yeah.

BLAIR: It was the flow of jobs. It was the assignment of people to jobs. It was costing. So there may be a few different… or even price setting. Um, there may be a few different kind of roles wrapped up in who this person was. But she didn’t have the most seniority. She wasn’t…

DAVID: Right.

BLAIR: But she was kind of the person behind the scenes who really threw most of the levers. Is that a"resourcing"person, or are we talking about a different role?

DAVID: Yep, that’s exactly right. It’s sort of like uh…make the trains run on time. That’s lower on the totem pole of what they do. But you know at the very top they’re responsible for objective pricing because they’re driven by objectivity, to use that word again. They’re not driven by what a client wants to see or what a clients says they can pay. It’s really driven by objectivity. So yep. They’re absolutely critical to a firm.

BLAIR: And is that the person where there’s often some tension between that person and others in the firm?

DAVID: Yeah exactly. You know… I don’t hear this any more, but back then the joke was always… the consultants use to always use the same joke - it was like: if you like your production manager or your “resourcing” person or whatever - we don’t use production manager any more because the world has changed so much. But if you like your “X” then you know you have the wrong one. That was the joke, you know? Because it’s…they were a little bit bristly and that’s also why principals have so much difficulty hiring for this role. Because principals have this um…they’re very sensitive to somebody who’s not deferential by nature. And these people are not deferential by nature. And so they’ll often skip over somebody who would make a perfect “resourcer” because they’re not deferential.

BLAIR: Yeah, they see themselves - quite rightly I think as a pragmatist in an environment where sometimes a lot of people including the people at the top are a little bit unrealistic at times about deadlines, about budgets, about what price should be. I think of them in a lot of firms as the defenders of the margin. The account person who wants to sell something comes back with a price and this person says, “No. No. That’s going to be close to cost. You need to go get 50% more.” And he or she doesn’t really care. That person isn’t on the front lines with the client, but they know. They have a sense of how everything works and the resources required to pull off the commitment that the sales person, the account person is proposing to make. So they’re a lot more realistic and I think that’s… So I can see the tension. I’ve seen it in a lot of firms I’ve worked in. I can see it in my clients’ firms. And I think for the most part that’s what you’re saying. That’s a healthy tension and you shouldn’t look to ease that tension. It’s there for a reason and it’s a good thing.

DAVID: Yeah. It’s the kind of healthy tension that hold bridges up. It’s not the kind of tension where you’re not speaking with your spouse. That’s unhealthy tension. Right.

BLAIR: Right.

DAVID: Yeah. And I was just smiling to myself as you were talking because the first word out of this person’s mouth is usually “no.” 

BLAIR: Yeah. One of my favorite words. (Laughs)

DAVID: (Laughs) Yeah. And you know the first words out of an account service person’s mouth is “yes.”

BLAIR: Yes.

DAVID: Right? So that’s the healthy tension between the two.

BLAIR: OK, where are we going from “resourcing?”

DAVID: OK. So the second role that they’ve got to give up would be managing accounts. And in the same…using the same premise that we need to have one question to keep principals honest, it’s like if I sat down as an outsider with everyone one of your clients and said, “Who…give me the name of your day-to-day contact.” As I go around the list with all the clients, none of them should give me your name. If that’s the case, then you’ve given that up. And again, this is…there is a very specific profile this person has. And you hire somebody with that profile. Just because they have that profile doesn’t mean they are a good fit, but that’s a great place to start.

BLAIR: OK. And what do you call that role?

DAVID: I call it “engaging.” I don’t really like that word all that much because…I don’t know I’m looking - I’m still searching for a better word. But “engaging”… I’ve thought about changing that to leading because I think that… especially… you talk a lot about how these folks - they’re not order takers, they’re leading the relationship. You’ve talked a lot about that over the years and that’s made me think maybe I should rename this to “leading.” Without giving you any credit for that of course.

BLAIR: Of course, yes. Or it could be “facilitating” or something else.

DAVID: Yeah.

BLAIR: OK. So that’s “engaging.” You said that’s… it’s one of the most difficult ones but maybe not one of the most vital ones. Not as vital as “resourcing.”

DAVID: Yeah exactly. Difficult because they have a leg firmly planted on both sides of the fence, right? And they’re really an ambassador that sometimes they’re fighting for the client, and other times they’re fighting for their employer. It’s… I am just amazed at the skill that comes with being a great client interface person. Not the most important, but the most difficult job at the firm for sure.

BLAIR: Yeah. Um OK. So far we’ve covered “directing,” “positioning,” “closing” - and those three are the roles that the principal cannot give up, at least completely. Right? And then we’ve talked about “resourcing” and “engaging.” Now let’s go to the third one after that.

DAVID: The third one - and most firms don’t need to give this up because it can be done pretty easily and almost on a part-time basis - but that’s managing the people doing most of the work. So they at some point need to put a layer between them and the people doing most of the work. That comes as the firm grows and there are tipping points that certain…like as you add bodies you invoke the next change as you climb up that employee count. And this would be the last one that you would give up. What’s unique about these three things that you have to give up is that they require full-time access. They also require you to be um…you know…on site all the time. So it’s…that’s what wears out principals. It’s like being on call all the time. It’s the most unsustainable part of their job. I think of it as like, for anybody that’s had young kids…you know…even though there’s not enormous physical requirements - the kid only weighs…you know…eight pounds at birth, and then up to thirty later or whatever. You know…it’s not that - it’s more just the notion of being on call all the time. All these three jobs requires somebody to be on call. And that’s what makes a principal’s role unsustainable unless they give these up over time.

BLAIR: And sorry - what’s the name of the role that you just talked about?

DAVID: I call that one “shaping.”

BLAIR: “Shaping.”

DAVID: Yeah.

BLAIR: OK. So the first three roles that the principal wants to give up in order are “resourcing,” “engaging,” and “shaping.”

DAVID: Yes.

BLAIR: And is there a profile for “shapers?”

DAVID: There’s not actually. There’s very f… yep. No profile for that one.

BLAIR: OK. Where do we go from “shaping?”

DAVID: So we’ve got… So we’ve talked about three that they have to give up, three that they have to keep - that leaves six. And so if you’re thinking about… And this all gets fairly complicated. You have to write all this stuff out. What I do in actual consulting with firms through the Total Business Review process - that’s the only way I basically deliver this. I’ll actually make a specific recommendation for every single individual, then talk about what’s going to happen over the next eighteen months, and then the long term plan four to five years from now. And part of that means like… OK. What’s the principal going to do very specifically at this firm because of how many principals there are in the partnership, and how big the firm is, and what their particular strengths are? So let’s say they’ve given up these three things they should and they retain these other three things, and they’ve still got time on their hands. What do we want to do with that? Then we’ve got to answer that question. Usually we would think about maybe strategy. Or maybe it’s creative direction. Or maybe it’s on the ground doing new business development besides just the positioning and the closing, but all the stuff in between - all the lead generation activities. So we have to take into account what somebody really wants to do in that process. And then we also have to think about how do this “resourcing” and “engaging” - how do those two things come together? You were talking earlier about how there has to be a healthy tension between these two. I call that sort of the center of tension. And the easy way to divine basically where the center of tension is, is to think through… think about the perspective through the eyes of the account person. Who is the account person afraid of? Is the account person at your firm more afraid of “resourcing,” or are they more afraid of the client?

BLAIR: (Laughs) Yeah.

DAVID: And I actually picture a real situation. I picture the account person off site at the client’s, and the client is telling them what needs to happen, and the account person is nodding saying, “yep, yep, yep, no problem.” And if they’re not afraid of the “resourcing” person that’s exactly what happens. But at some point if there is a healthy fear they say, “Ah. Got it. OK, I need to check with ‘resourcing’ (whoever that is) and we’ll get back to you right away.” And I developed this system that has like 26 steps in it. And one of those steps is that all promises made by the account people need to be delayed, centralized, and remote. And just that one out of those 26 different principles comes from deep research into used car sales people and how they gather power in the car dealership. And so anyway… It’s pretty involved but it all makes sense as a system.

BLAIR: How decision making is removed from the front lines so the uh…

DAVID: Yeah.

BLAIR: So the car salesman will take your offer or your counter-offer and say, “well let me bring it back to my boss.” And they don’t have the authority to actually accept the price that you’ve offered.

DAVID: Right. In fact they say the offer is so ridiculous it’s like… “oh, I gotta run this all the way up the flag.” I’m not sure they’re even doing that. They’re probably just getting another donut, right?

BLAIR: Sometimes they just go into the back room - and I know this, I worked in automotive advertising for six years. Sometimes they just go in the back room, tell the sales manager what’s going on, put their feet up, read a magazine for a few minutes…

DAVID: (Laughs) Make you sweat.

BLAIR: And then go back out and um…and you know, with the orders “go get $500 more” or $2,000 more, or whatever. It’s actually quite a fun game as long as you’re not the one on the front lines.

DAVID: Yeah, I know. (Laughs)

BLAIR: OK. So we’re trying to think of… The principal’s kept three things, given up three things, and now there’s six roles left. And we need to figure out which of these roles does the principal - if any - to keep, to keep that person busy. Do you want to name those six, and then we’ll dive into the ones where it makes sense to dive in.

DAVID: Yeah. So the six that we haven’t really addressed yet would be… I call it “attracting” - and that’s just the whole implementing the lead generation side of things. Another would be “planning,” and that’s just a nod to the fact that we really call it “account planning” - something that was created in the UK in the ‘50s and ‘60s.

BLAIR: So would another term for that be “strategy?”

DAVID: Yeah.

BLAIR: Stating the strategic direction for the clients.

DAVID: Yep. And then another one would be what I call “developing,” which is the front line - the “doing” folks. The coders, the writers, the designers, the UX people.

BLAIR: The people making the sausages.

DAVID: The people really doing the work rather than the rest of us just sitting around watching them do the work. Yep.

BLAIR: Yep.

DAVID: And then another one would be “measuring.” So that’s the financial - the CFO, the accounting side of things. Another would be “facilitating,” which is just my term for the IT function. And finally, just “supporting,” which is just the admin support. But the admin support is usually focused in three areas: it supports business development, it supports project management, and it supports accounting. So those are the other six roles. Some of them obviously wouldn’t…although, I mean I was just going to say…obviously the principal wouldn’t do that. But I’m not sure that’s really true. I mean, like I do all twelve of these roles. So the huge downside in not having employees is that you have to do all of these things, right? But if you have employees you want to use your time well. So as I mentioned earlier, you know that it’s pretty easy eliminate some of these. So if a principal’s got extra time, they’re doing everything the way they should, they’re not doing things they shouldn’t, then usually we focus on one or more of either business development, planning, or creative direction. Those are usually the ones that make the most sense. Those three.

BLAIR: Gotcha. You’ve gotta give that person something to do.

DAVID: Right. Or they’ll muck up everything, right? Keep them busy.

BLAIR: I think we’ve um… I don’t want to assume anything here, but I think we talked about the hardest… You said the hardest role to fill is “resourcing.” You said um “engaging” or account management/account services - that’s a difficult one to do but it’s not necessarily a hard one to fill. What are the other… Where are the surprises in here? We all listen to this and I think if we own a firm or if we have a management position in a firm we can identify with every one of these. We can think of the people that we have or have had or were hoping to put into that role. And you have talked about some surprises. But what else haven’t we talked about here? Things where you just never expected that you were going to learn, that somebody who does measuring… It was really important that they have red hair, or whatever it is that your research has uncovered?

DAVID: Yeah. One thing that’s a little surprising but mainly amusing to me when you look back over the history of roles in the marketing field, is that most of the big changes in how we’ve looked at these roles have been a reaction to try and tamp down the power that account people have taken. And it’s really true when you really start to think about that. Most movements in history around roles in the marketing field have been to put account people back in their place. They are so good at what they do that they amass power. And so one of the first ones that came into play was basically, you know, this whole project management feature because they were not being objective about pricing, they were waiting too long till the end to get things done. And really some of the best account people usually have to have resourcing people sort of following around behind them with doggie scoops to clean up the messes from the promises they’re making. That was one.

Another was separating business development. Because for decades there was not a separate business development function. And that one wasn’t so much about power, it was about the fact that a new person that you hired to do sales would be effective and then they would get all involved in keeping the client happy - the new client happy - that they would not go back. Like, you talk about leaving the cave, killing something, and then dragging it back. So that was another one. The “planning” one was the third in the ‘50s and ‘60s because account people were making so much shit up, that they decided that they need to have a separate function that was a strategy function to keep account people honest. You know, that is why account planning started. It was to pull power away from account people who gathered power again. And I don’t know where they’re going to sneak up on us next in history - this fourth generation - but it’s gonna happen at some point and we will be there to smack ‘em on the head.

BLAIR: As a former account person I’m just grinning broadly. (Laughs)

DAVID: (Laughs)

BLAIR: And I have counseled so many clients who have had really good - as in effective - account people just amass so much power that the principal could not sleep at night. So it is a recurring problem, right?

DAVID: Yeah, right. And then you can’t fire them, you can’t shape their behavior… Yeah. Exactly.

BLAIR: This is great. I love this model. I’ve loved it for years. I love listening to you talk about it. I’m really impressed by the amount of research that you have underpinning it. The patterns… What I didn’t realize until today is that you have these key questions - one question that you can ask the principal to determine if they really have let go of this function. I think that’s really powerful too. I want to close by asking something that I was thinking throughout as we were going through this…is the fact that creative firms - especially via technology but in other ways… Creative firms have changed over the years. And we have roles - I mentioned production manager - that’s not a term you hear much any more. And so, how have the kind of the changing roles and tools of the creative firm over the years impacted your model? Have you had to go back and tweak or do you find that holds up over time?

DAVID: I have had to change things a lot. Like when development shops showed up it really threw me for a loop because their relative mix of roles was very different. And so how much account service and how much project management, those were actually reversed - flipped on their head. So I’ve had to actually re-do the model and actually have a specific application for digital firms. So that’s one.

The other… I’m sure you’ve noticed this as well. It used to be so common that you had to hire a sales person with a very specific personality. Those days are gone. You could have somebody who’s a great writer and doesn’t necessarily have the same personality like everybody else does. So that’s one thing that’s changed.

Uh… I would say theres anther change coming - actually I need to catch up with myself here too. And thats that the whole IT function is largely not separate any more. So that’s another change. It’s actually been fun - the fact that it’s not static has really kept me on my toes and I’ve enjoyed seeing where those changes come.

BLAIR: Thanks David. This has been fantastic.

DAVID: Thanks Blair.