theIdeaStudio (Customer Crossroads)

A modest proposal about procurement: let's turn the RFP process on it's head

The procurement process, and it's main product, the Request for Proposal or RFP, was once useful, but has become a barrier to innovaton and productivity.

Let's look first at the reasons why:

There is a desire for fairness and consistency.

While fairness is admirable when it is reducing corruption and patronage, it also suppresses merit. It favors the familiar. It favors the formulaic.

The investment of time is all on the side of the supplier.

The decision-makers sometimes decline to meet or talk to the suppliers being asked to bid. Usually. The rationale - hey, they're busy people, they don't have time for a bunch of conversations. This is a major suppression of collaboration and idea exchange, which again results in a suppression of innovation. Buyers who had to invest the time to actually talk to all suppliers would reduce their short list. They might stop focusing on price, and instead focus on judgement. Like who they are motivated to work with. Who they think is triggering useful thinking. Who has better ideas.

There is frequently no clear definition of the challenge, but there is sometimes a specification of solutions.

This is so upside down it would be laughable if it weren't so common. The best consultants are those that help redefine the essence of the problem, then engineer elegant ways to address it. Sometimes much less expensive ways.

Systematic extraction of collaborative effort. Lack of trust

It is through collaboration, especially in the discovery phase, that considerable value is added. If there is any hope of collaboration throughout the project, it should start at the beginning, when the work is being designed.

One of the worst parts of the whole procurement process as it exists today is that new relationships begin with a lack of trust and a lack of disclosure. Not a great way to start a working relationship where trust and disclosure are going to be absolutely essential for success.

When you are awarded a project under these conditions, you are often starting over when you actually sit down with the client.

The traditional RFP starts with the notion of specifying the process or "work product", and asking for pricing.

While this may make sense for road-building (road builders may disagree!), it rarely makes sense for the kind of squishy and amorphous situation that most business executives are facing today.

No budget disclosure

The underlying belief here seems to be that if you tell the supplier your budget, they will spend all of it. Or perhaps they will not fine tune their proposal enough, not be as aggressive as they could have been on pricing.

This lack of budget disclosure also leads to a frequently encountered situation. The client suggests they are prepared to invest in a BMW. So you propose a few options. BMW, high-end BMW, and perhaps a very nice Toyota, in case they didnt know what BMWs actually cost.

Client then discloses that in fact they were thinking in terms of a BMW motorcycle. Yikes. I just spent three days wasting my time and a bunch of other people's time designing the wrong thing.

Plus, there almost always is a budget. On a recent situation, a team I was on was asked to trim a very specific amount of money from a large quote, in order to fit a budget window that we had not been given. Where is the logic in this?

Let's turn this upside-down

Start with the investment

An improved RFP process would start with the investment -- what the client is prepared to pay for a solution -- and invite proposers to say how much they can offer within this budget (or perhaps less).

This approach would solve a problem that we often face as suppliers -- an unwillingness to state even a range of value. It means that the suppliers, without the benefit of looking at your financial information, have to determine what the value of a good solution is to this specific challenge.

But inside the firm, you do understand if it's worth $10,000 or $100,000 to get a grip on this issue.

This virtually guarantees you will receive a template solution. Or your bidders have to take some wild guesses about what might be going on and design to that.

Disclosure

Make me sign the non-disclosure, then give me some real disclosure to work with.

Focus on capabilities and fit, not pricing

You don't want to wear the cheapest shoes, do you? Did you choose your employees based on getting the cheapest people you could get?  Or were you looking for a combination of skills and fit? When you go for a haircut, are you going for the $10 standard bowl, or are you paying a fat premium for skill with scissors?

A focus on price can only be based on an underlying assumption that every haircut is the same. Of course they are not the same.

Knowledge-based services are not as fungible as they might appear on the outside.There are tiers of value. If you want the top tier, you have to pay for that.

It's time for a change

Managers regularly try to circumvent the purchasing process. I do not think they do this because they are lazy, corrupt or incompetent. I think this is solid evidence that the process is not serving them well.

All processes must evolve. It's time for purchasing to evolve to fit the needs of a knowledge-based economy and the need for innovation to drive competitive success.

Today's article was triggered by seeing a post on LinkedIn from Solution Focused Alan Kay, which instantly combusted with a pile of simmering frustration to produce this article. And therein is the virtue of collaboration -- the best stuff comes from human interaction, not isolation. Something to consider the next time you want to issue and RFP.

Related articles

Death by RFP: 7 Reasons Not To Respond

We have questions about your website RFP

Humans love to compare: People Like U makes it even easier

In my little neighborhood in a big city, the local talk generally follows the same few topics, which we all love.

A perennial favorite relates to house prices. How much did they get for (or pay for) the house? Did you get your new tax assessment yet and what was the value?

We ask about roof replacements, new driveways and air conditioning units. We'd love to ask about the cost of the addition to your house, but that feels personal, so we mostly try to guess.

There's a feature in my weekend newspaper called Financial Facelift that let's us all look at the financial snapshot of someone else -- while they get advice from a pro about how to save for retirement, or solve their financial problems. I'm sure it's one of the best read columns in the business section.

We all love to peek and compare.

A new service from an Australian bank lets people peek in a more organized way. People Like U let's you compare your spending habits with other Australians.

I particularly loved the easy-peasy 6 questions you use to categorize yourself in thedatabase.

Don't you totally wish you had one of these for your own region?

• 

My take

This interest in comparing applies to pretty much any human endeavor from sports to hobbies. If you are seeking a way to engage people more in your product, service or category, consider the possibilities of letting your consumers compare themselves to others.

Dear Mr. Google - please can we have more like Scholar?

On some projects, I need to do a lot of secondary research. You could call it desk research.

The web has made some of this exponentially easier to do -- like figuring out interesting trends around the world. No idea how you would have done that kind of work in 1980, say.   

The web has also made some of it exponentially harder to do -- like finding authoritative information on a topic. You search something like "customer loyalty" and you could spend a year sifting through meaningless dreck. The only alternative was expensive library-type document repositories and searches, which took a lot of time, and weren't always that productive. [For me, a non-librarian, and never any good at that stuff in university]

Then [cue the heavenly sounds and light] I discovered Google Scholar. Where have you been all my life! Google Scholar lets you search for a topic and only gives you academic type publications. And you can sometimes get really good stuff about a single author.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Where is Google Tech Support?

So Dear Mr. Google, we want -- we need -- Google Tech. It would only give us authoritative answers on questions like "how do I install a new video card" or "what is the meaning of error 404". [I know these are feeble examples, but you get the picture.]

We have all, I think, spent time on the web trying to find an answer to a question that may well be simple, really simple, if you are a computer engineer. And has probably been answered somewhere in some knowledge base. But we can't find it. We get a bunch of *%^&$^%$* and you KNOW what I'm talking about here.

So I think the answer is Google Tech -- a search engine that looks only for authoritative things regarding technology questions and answers.

What do you think? Could you build it? I bet you could, you seem to be able to build almost anything. If you build it, we will all come, I promise.

Thank you Mr. Google.

Sugru - cool stuff to modify your own stuff

I stumbled across this interesting new product call Sugru.

It's sort of like plasticine with a purpose -- it hardens at room temperature into a soft, pliable, silicone rubber. It adheres to lots of materials, and you can form it by hand. (Don't you just want some already??)

Quite apart from the cool factor here, and the general usefulness of such a product, I think it could be awesomely good for design purposes.

Here's how we could use Sugru to support our own innovations:

• Watch the web to see what people are doing to modify products, especially YOUR product
• What new features are people making to standard products, such as bicycle pedals?
• How about giving people some Sugru in a customer innovation lab or workshop, and asking them to modify your product?
• Send people home with some Sugru, and visit their house a week later to see what they've done with it

The photo at top shows a great example of what I'm talking about, from one of my favorite innovative web sites, Instructables.

It's a camera that has been modified so it's easy to hold by a child, and won't easily break when dropped. The fun colors are just a bonus.

Here's the lovely video from the creator that tells you all about it.

 

 

Keeping things in context: what can happen in 5 years, and what it means for planning

I was doing a client debrief today related to a long-term technology project. Things in the planning stages will take years to build and launch -- 3 to 5 years, most likely. I wanted to help the client team remember that our research looks at where people are at today -- their expectations and experiences. But the planning needs to be out where people are headed, not where they are today. Such a cliche, right? But true.

Customer expectations are constantly moving. These days, customer expectations are moving fairly quickly.

We did a little exercise together to think about what has changed in the last five years. Here was the list I prepared for them.

5 Years ago: May 17, 2006 – what has changed since then:

• Netflix introduced downloading of video Oct 1, 2008
• Kindle launched Nov 19, 2007
• iPhone released June 29, 2007
• Nintendo Wii – November 19, 2006
• Facebook opened to non-students – September 26, 2006
• Google bought YouTube for $1.65 B October 9, 2006 (YouTube launched Feb 14, 2005)
• Twitter launched July 2006

When you think about what you or your company needs to deliver in the future, you might ask yourself what has changed in the last few years in the relevant dimensions in your industry. Then springboard from that into the future.

Some of these changes were so profound that it's hard to believe they are so recent!

What would YOU add to this list?

The virtues of simplicity, clarity, obviousness and elegance

This is an interesting analysis of the Steve Jobs phenomenon -- and speculation about whether Apple is actually his greatest product.

However, the thing that most stuck with me was actually how John Gruber captured the essence of the product philosophy: "Simplicity. Clarity. Obviousness. Elegance."

If we all made those four words our mantra for a week, our work would surely benefit, and so would the lives of our customers, clients, consumers. Thanks for those four words, John!

http://www.bnet.com/videos/the-steve-jobs-effect/395402?promo=664&tag=nl.e664

Is DIY research going to put us all out of work? The debate rages on!

There's an interesting debate raging around about Do-It-Yourself Research. I posted this comment earlier today on Power to the People, an article by Joshua Hoffman on the Research Access Blog.

As a quallie, I am well aware that lots of people think what i do looks not just easy, but dead simple. Relatively few clients want to do their own, although some do. The usual reason appears to be cost, from what I can see, as recruiting is no faster or slower for them or me.

I find client's analysis of qualitative is usually of the fast kind -- first impressions. If they did more analysis, many of them could come up with what i come up with.

The real issue for me is more one of raw capability. People who have the capability to do from an analysis perspective what I do certainly exist inside client companies, but they are typically senior managers and executives, and are primarily in a managerial or strategic role.  If client companies were prepared to hire people at a senior level to do this work, they could likely obtain great results.

A couple of other things are often missing when clients DIY on qualitative. The longer the person is in the job, the less breadth of exposure they get, the less ability to bring in contextual learning from a broad base of clientele. 

For some methodologies, it could be difficult to get people to tell you the unvarnished truth -- i say this because even as an independent, I (and my colleagues) often have to go to some lengths to assure people of true anonymity in their feedback. I struggle to see how this could be done by an employee.

I also -- as do many consultants -- spend a truly massive amount of time and money on my professional development every year. I attend conferences, I speak at conferences, I attend training events of various sorts, I participate in several professional organizations, I read widely.

My clients, on the other hand, are as busy as small mammals, scurrying on their wheel, often without the time to really think about anything in depth. Their voicemail says they are "in a series of meetings", and that menu rarely seems to change. Of course they have access to learning opportunities, but most are mandated by the company, not chosen by themselves for what they bring.

Even large research organizations have relatively few qualitative people involved in the world outside the corporation, which I would guess to be for cost containment reasons. They send one person to a conference with the idea that they will share the learning.

There is a lot to be said for people who strive to invent new things every year to compete. If I worked inside the client organization, I might not feel the same level of pressure to keep up and be inventive to get ahead. It would be easy to fall into patterns. As it stands now, I am constantly trying to figure out how to either add more value, or ratchet down the third party costs somehow.

Finally, I think the cost argument is upside down where qualitative is concerned. The senior people in qualitative would be prohibitively expensive to hire on a full-time basis, with the benefits and associated overhead.   Just think of the lost productivity in meetings alone!  

It is great to see the tools getting better to do technology-supported qualitative. I love it. I hope that the price drops, as surely it must if DIY is going to take off. Because feature-creep in online research has led to price creep, when it should be going the other way.

Some of the things raised in this article and others are relevant to the qualitative world as well.
* I wish that I could have more access to the learning from the CRM system when i am in the planning or reporting stages. I think clients themselves are struggling to integrate and effectively use all their many sources of data.
* I wish for better long-term collaboration. The best do it, the rest should.
* I wish for better semantic analysis tools -- not to replace me, but to make the work faster and cheaper.

But the good news in all of this is that clients want and need insights. And they don't want to pay 24 carat prices for fool's gold. And that's a good thing for those who can embrace the new reality.

What do you think about all this? I would love to hear your comments, and I know others would too.

[Hey, if nothing else, you can avoid writing that report. And that's gotta be good, right?]

Bathroom Blogfest 2010: Bathrooms are aspirational

 

We haven't seen a lot of bathrooms in Mad Men, but you can bet Betty aspired to one with two sinks in the kind of iconic 60's colors shown in this year's blogfest logo.

The bathroom is aspirational, as are many of the things in it.

If you have been using a modern bathroom much of your life, this may sound silly. So consider the many countries in the world where most people do not have good sanitation facilities. A small market of about 2 billion people.

Or ask someone who grew up in the Great Depression, as my parents both did, when many were still using outhousees, but aspired to indoor plumbing. (Okay, you walked to school. Fine. But a lack of indoor plumbing in a Canadian winter is a genuine hardship.)

The most successful development projects now consider a marketing angle to behavior change, and positioning the latrine an affordable luxury is a stroke of brilliance. Here's the story of Easy Latrines, an organization designed to support small businesses and improve sanitation in Cambodia.

Easy Latrines in Cambodia

globe+mail image

 

Canadians Tamara Baker and Cordell Jacks are part of a booming new business in latrines in Cambodia, a country where more than 80% of the population defecate in a field.

Sanitation updates video stills

Quoted in the Globe and Mail in October 2010, Mr. Jacks said, "somehow we had to make the world’s most unsexy product seem attractive to people who knew very little about it". They created an appealing latrine for a price of about $30, compared to the existing market price of about $150.

Ms. Baker took a marketing, rather than a public health, posture to market the new product. "So we sold sanitation as something that will make you feel proud, something that fits the budget, as achievable aspiration,” she advised the Globe.

As the video from the Sanitation Updates story shows, the aspirational marketing approach, combined with the health benefits and the affordable price, is helping people make a decision to improve their lives. What at first seemed like a luxury, perhaps unnecessary, is becoming something a family would aspire to in these villages. "Now when relatives from Phnom Penh visit we have somewhere good for them to go," a quote from the video, is a statement of aspiration achieved if I've ever seen one.

Resources

Improving Third World health one toilet at a time, Patrick White, Globe and Mail, Monday October 18, 2010       

Cambodian “Easy Latrine” wins international design award, Sanitation Updates, June 27, 2010

The first few paragraphs of the Wikipedia article on aspirational marketing are worth looking at, but use a narrower definition than what I am using here.

Other innovative projects for third world latrines are described here, and here.

Bathroom Blogfest

This little project, launched by Christine Whittemore, Stephanie Weaver and me five years ago has taken on a life of its own. Here are this year's participants, ably co-ordinated by Ms. Whittemore, with graphic support from yours truly inspired by Mad Men. Our theme this year is "Still Stuck in the 60's?".

Blogger	Blog Name	Blog URL
Susan Abbott	Customer Experience Crossroads	http://www.customercrossroads.com/customercrossroads/
Paul Anater	Kitchen and Residential Design	http://www.KitchenAndResidentialDesign.com
Shannon Bilby	Big Bob's Outlet	http://blog.bigbobsoutlet.com/
Shannon Bilby	Carpets N More Blog	http://blog.carpetsnmore.com/
Shannon Bilby	Dolphin Carpet Blog	http://blog.dolphincarpet.com/
Shannon Bilby	From The Floors Up	http://fromthefloorsup.com/
Shannon Bilby	My Big Bob's Blog	http://blog.mybigbobs.com/
Toby Bloomberg	Diva Marketing	http://bloombergmarketing.blogs.com/bloomberg_marketing/
Laurence Borel	Blog Till You Drop	http://www.laurenceborel.com/
Bill Buyok	Avente Tile Talk Blog	http://tiletalk.blogspot.com/
Jeanne Byington	The Importance of Earnest Service	http://blog.jmbyington.com/
Becky Carroll	Customers Rock!	http://customersrock.net/
Marianna Chapman	Results Revolution	http://www.resultsrevolution.com
Katie Clark	Practial Katie	http://practicalkatie.blogspot.com/
Nora DePalma	American Standard's Professor Toilet	http://www.professortoilet.com/
Nora DePalma	O'Reilly DePalma: The Blog	http://www.oreilly-depalma.com/blog/
Leigh Durst	LivePath Experience Architect Weblog	http://livepath.blogspot.com/
Valerie Fritz	The AwarepointBlog	http://www.awarepointblog.com/
Iris Garrott	Checking In and Checking Out	http://circulating.wordpress.com/
Tish Grier	The Constant Observer	http://spap-oop.blogspot.com
Renee LeCroy	Your Fifth Wall	http://yourfifthwall.com/
Joseph Michelli	Dr. Joseph Michelli's Blog	www.josephmichelli.com/blog
Veronika Miller	Modenus Blog	http://www.modenus.com/blog
Arpi Nalbandian	TILE Magazine Editor Blog	http://www.tilemagonline.com/Articles/Blog_Nalbandian
Maria Palma	People 2 People Service	http://www.people2peopleservice.com/
Reshma Bachwani Paritosh	The Qualitative Research Blog	http://www.onqualitativeresearch.blogspot.com/
David Polinchock	Polinchock's Ponderings	http://blog.polinchock.com/
Victoria Redshaw & Shelley Pond	Scarlet Opus Trends Blog	http://trendsblog.co.uk/
David Reich	My 2 Cents	http://reichcomm.typepad.com/my_weblog/
Sandy Renshaw	Around Des Moines	http://www.arounddesmoines.com/
Sandy Renshaw	Purple Wren	http://www.purplewren.com/
Bethany Richmond	Carpet and Rug Institute Blog	http://www.carpet-and-rug-institute-blog.com/
Bruce Sanders	RIMtailing Blog	http://rimtailing.blogspot.com/
Steve Tokar	Please Be Seated	http://stevetokar.wordpress.com/
Carolyn Townes	Becoming a Woman of Purpose	http://spiritwomen.blogspot.com/
Stephanie Weaver	Experienceology	http://experienceology.blogspot.com/
Christine B. Whittemore	Flooring The Consumer	http://flooringtheconsumer.blogspot.com/
Christine B. Whittemore	Simple Marketing Blog	http://www.simplemarketingblog.com/
Christine & Ted Whittemore	Smoke Rise & Kinnelon Blog	http://smokerise-nj.blogspot.com/
Christine B. Whittemore	The Carpetology Blog	http://carpetology.blogspot.com/
Linda Wright	LindaLoo Build Business With Better Bathrooms	http://lindaloo.com/

Marketing in a recession: Indigo MBA

During difficult economic times, lots of people take the opportunity to "reboot" by going back to school. Of course now, you need serious dough to do that.

Book retailer Indigo is positioning to tap into that trend by offering "the 12 month MBA" featuring  "24 books, 12 months. $0 student loans."  The additional pitch is an opportunity to discuss the books on the Indigo Community.

Very clever idea. And not a bad selection of books, either. (With the exception of Who Moved My Cheese, which surely must be added by way of contrast.)

Who else do you see that is doing some clever recession marketing?

Data visualization as a path to insight

I write a lot of large-ish reports for clients to capture the work I do for them. And I work hard to make them interesting, but at the end of it all, there's still A LOT of reading to do. And the clients are already swamped. Panic ... what if they never glean the amazing insights???

Solution: In the last few years, I've been trying to condense more and more of the insights into compelling graphics that condense and distill the key ideas into something memorable.

I was truly delighted to find a fellow traveller in this regard, Barbara Egel, a quallie based in Illinois. I attended a really great conference presentation with Barbara about a year ago, and she has recently written an excellent article on the same topic -- what she calls "the one page debrief."

Here's the link to the article: Meanings, Metaphors and Maps, the Power of the Visual Summary.

The challenge with this kind of thing is that you need a really great metaphor to link together your ideas. For example, I'm into a report right now where I'm using an iceberg as a metaphor.

 

I've used hills and valleys. I've created giant pipeline diagrams with whirring things at their centre. When unable to find a fabulous metaphor, I've used simple timelines or arrows between bits of stock art.

Finding a good graphics tool is of course tremendously helpful. I often use SmartDraw, which is not perfect, but it does simplify the process. You can do a lot with PowerPoint, but my advice is to stay away from the canned diagrams and figure out your own thing with boxes and arrows. Stock art can be helpful, too.

But I kneel at the feet of the graphic brilliance you can find here, the

50 most stunning examples of data visualization and infographics

A few of these are incredible, either for the information (like #22 about PETA), or for the graphic brilliance (like #6, the human subway map), or the great metaphor (#32, The Periodic Table of typefaces)

Kulula Airlines (#9) takes infogrpahics to the outsides of their planes. Makes me wonder what other businesses could do with murals, for example.

Need an edge in a competitive job market? You could try showing your stuff as an infographic, which is, let's face it, a lot more fun than reading a conventional resume (#13).

Thanks to @CBWhittemore on Twitter for pointing to the data visualization and infographics link

By the way, if you are interested in qualitative stuff, you can get our magazine Views free. Yes, free. Sign up here, or just read it online.

The wisdom of CK Prahalad

Strategy + Business recently published an interview with CK Prahalad conducted prior to his sudden death in April 2010: “The Life’s Work of a Thought Leader,” by Art Kleiner.

It's a delightful read, and a reminder that interviews with really fascinating people, conducted by skilled interviewers such as Art Kleiner, can provide a real window into someone's thinking.

CK Prahalad is best known for his books, The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid: Eradicating Poverty Through Profits and The New Age of Innovation: Driving Cocreated Value Through Global Networks.

Here are a few of the quotes from the article that I particularly liked:

“A lot of times, research tends to start with the methodology. I prefer to start with a problem that’s of interest and apply whatever methodology is appropriate.”

“Every one of my research projects started the same way: recognizing that the established theory did not explain a certain phenomenon. We had to stay constantly focused on weak signals. Each weak signal was a contradictory phenomenon that was not happening across the board. You could very easily say, 'Dismiss it, this is an outlier, so we don’t have to worry about it.' But the outliers and weak signals were the places to find a different way to think about the problem.”

"Big impactful ideas are conceptual breakthroughs, not descriptions of common patterns. You can’t define the 'next practice' with lots of examples. Because, by definition, it is not yet happening.”

“If your aspirations are not greater than your resources, you’re not an entrepreneur. For large companies to be entrepreneurial, they have to create aspirations greater than their resources. You can call it 'strategy as stretch' or 'strategic intent.'"

“No entrepreneur starts with adequate resources for his or her aspirations. If you want to create entrepreneurial drive in a large company, you have to create aspirations that lie outside your resource base.”

“Strategy is about creating new competitive space.”

“If I had to characterize my deepest belief, I would say it’s the centrality of the individual.Institutions are not central. Institutions are different ways of combining skills and capabilities of the moment.”

“When you look at an organization’s core competencies as its most valuable resources, you can begin to think of learning, creating strategy, and innovation as parts of a single long journey. The journey is iterative, interactive, and full of small steps. Nobody gets a big aha one day. Instead, there is searching; there are missteps, experiments, and doubt. … There are breakthroughs, but they happen over a long period of time.”

Products versus services - what's the difference?

From time to time I hear the question raised about whether something is a product or a service. This comes about, I think, because marketers and brand managers in service businesses often refer to products as a matter of convenience. For example, a mortgage product or a vacation product.

However, there are some substantial differences between products and services, which definitely affect how you think about managing both the customer interaction and the marketing generally.

For example, services tend to be perishable in the sense that they cannot be inventoried -- what you don't sell today cannot be sold tomorrow. Consider the impact of this element on airline seat pricing -- it's a huge driver in that industry! 

Service quality is notoriously difficult to control. For example, one lawyer is not interchangeable with another lawyer, even though they may work for the same firm and have similar training.  This is very different from the world of products, where we fully expect two boxes of laundry detergent to be virtually indistinguishable.

I've attached a PDF you can download that gives you some examples as well as some criteria for consideration.

Download a PDF of "Is it a product or a service"

Wishing for pleasant surprises

I am just writing up the report for a big project that has to do with computerization / automated functions.

Our experience of automation - which is pretty extensive now -- is usually that any random event is a negative event. Computers break. Software does not work. Orders do not go through. I'm sure we could create a long list of such things. Ticket dispensers on the fritz.

When we talk about customer experience and customer service, very often people talk about surprise and delight. I'm not totally a fan of this idea, because i think it creates a standard that is ultimately not meetable. However, that's not what i want to talk about today.

Today, what is on my mind is that we haven't built much surprise or delight into our automated world. Your machine doesn't give you a lollipop. At best, it does what is is supposed to, and it does it correctly. It also does it the same every time.

There are no random acts of delight in the automated world. Unless you are at a casino. That needs to change. We need to start making it a lot more fun.

Multiculturalism: what's really going on

I had the pleasure of hearing Will Kymlicka from Queen's University speak on the topic of multiculturalism at a CIFAR event recently. Fascinating topic, and his paper on the subject is available here.

Multiculturalism in this context does not mean having a lot of immigrants in your society -- it actually references a policy about supporting cultural heritage for immigrants, as opposed to a policy of assimilation.

If you are running a business in a nation with a lot of immigrants -- and who is not, now? -- you need to consider that the mindset of your customers may not be what you think or expect it to be.

Some excellent research has been compiled and analyzed by Dr. Kymlicka, some of it showing surprising results.

Let me see if I can distill this down to the key points. [But you should read the paper, it is fascinating stuff.]

[1] the debate on this subject is highly ritualized, and hasn't changed much in the 35 years Canada has had a formal policy. But it needs to change now, because the situation has actually changed.

[2] success of such a policy is measured in terms of economic, political and social integration of immigrants. According to Dr. Kymlicka:  "On all of these dimensions, there is growing evidence that immigrants to Canada fare better than most if not all other Western democracies." [WD for short] 

I was actually surprised to hear this. Which shows you how often public discourse is dominated by positions, not facts.

Immigrants to Canada are more likely to become citizens, more likely to vote, more likely to run for political office than in other western democracies. There are more foreign-born citizens elected to Parliament than in any other WD, in numbers and as a percentage.

Dr. Kymlicka's conclusions are striking in their directness:

"The evidence generated by these recent studies – all of which appeared from 2006 to 2008 – provide strong evidence that multiculturalism in Canada promotes integration and citizenship, both through its individual-level effects on attitudes, self-understandings and identities, and through its society-level effects on institutions."

[3] There has been some apparent pulling back from multicultural policies, notably by the Dutch, but not only them. "If we look below the surface, we find that several de facto multiculturalist programs remain in place in several European countries even when their governments disavow the term – the “retreat” from multiculturalism is more rhetorical than real."

Many of the problems attributed to multiculturalism in other countries don't have strong factual support.

[4] There are real issues, however. Religion is the big one. Immigration in Canada was largely from Judeo-Christian traditions until relatively recently. So people brought with them values that were not at all in conflict with the core values of the population. 

As you have likely noticed, this is no longer the case.

As Dr. Kymlicka points out, we can't expect the Supreme Court to adjudicate every problem -- we need to come to some kind of public consensus about what is reasonable and what isn't.

Media is another real issue. Who can forget the Danish cartoon debacle?

In Canada, we have constitutionally entrenched rights for founding groups: English, French and Aboriginal. We're going to have to figure out how multiculturalism fits in. 

Racism and discrimination have not gone away. Many of our institutional responses relate to "visible minorities" but this distinction doesn't adequately describe many groups experiencing discrimination. Anti-Muslim predjudice is not the same as anti-black predjudice as anti-Aboriginal predjudice. [Yup, it's complicated.]

Finally, the economic progress of recent immigrants is far below that of previous generations of immigrants. They take longer to catch up to the mainstream.

Resources:

Will Kymlicka, The Current State of Multiculturalism in Canada. Downloaded 2009.

Mindcamp 09: Fun with Triz + Pecha Kucha; rethinking the value proposition; consultant heal thyself

I was at Mindcamp09 a few days ago. It's an unusual event in many ways. It really is a camp, for one thing -- it's held at a YMCA camp location in the countryside. Even though the urban sprawl is alarmingly close, you can stand in the main dining hall and look west to a fabulous vista of rolling hills and see only trees and sunsets in the distance.

My Pecha Kucha on TRIZ

I did a Pecha Kucha session this year, which was very interesting. Talk about a high-energy way to spend time after dinner at a conference! Fast-paced sessions 6:40 minutes in length, on a wide variety of topics.

I've been working on ways to modify the structured approach of TRIZ to the kinds of projects I usually work on -- things related to people, brands, customer experiences, employees, organization design, and so on. So this is what I presented. I posted my slides on Slideshare. [This presentation is downloadable, if you want to see the speaking notes. Please note the images are from iStockPhoto.]

Seeking Triz For Services

View more presentations from Susan Abbott.

Rethinking the value proposition: Consultant heal thyself

Mindcamp was a chance to clarify a few things I've been working on in the business -- kind of revisiting the value proposition. When you are at a conference devoted to creativity, you are naturally tapped into your inner voices in a lot of the sessions, so a lot of people find they gain new insights into their own problems or challenges.

The value proposition for any organization is never finished of course, and we all have to constantly work on our brands.

One of the trickiest things for an organization -- including my boutique firm -- is to decide how to handle things you are a) good at, and b) make money on but c) don't fit that well with the strategy or future direction. Because brand and value proposition are as much about what you leave out as they are about what you put in.

But you can't just drop things and leave people behind. We always need a transition strategy, no matter how large or small your business is. Example: I had once subcontracted some analysis to a freelancer, who called me mid-project to tell me he could only work on my stuff on the weekends because he had taken a full-time job. Clearly, no transition strategy.

One of my big Ah-ha's was the realization that I haven't done a very good job of informing my own customers (aka clients) what our value proposition is. Too funny right? It's a consultant heal thyself situation if I ever saw one. Like somehow our customers can figure this out without us telling them. D'oh.

Repersonalizing the blog

The other big realization was that I had let this blog become far too dry and depersonalized. It was starting to feel like corporate-speak to me, and was less fun to write as a result. I've given a lot of people advice about how to blog, and I always emphasize the importance of a personal voice. [Yup, we should all take our own advice.]

As blogging has become known as a business strategy, a lot of the fun has been sucked out of it. Many bloggers don't have a blogroll [no link love sharing]. Lots of blogs don't permit trackbacks, another way the conversation has been built.

My considered opinion is that it is not better for blogging, more interesting for readers, or even better for business to take those approaches.

The blogs I actually enjoy reading are the ones where there is real serious opinion (not what someone ate for lunch), but it feels like we are having a coffee talking, not like someone's brochure.

The human voice, the personal voice, is what the new information era is all about. It's Cluetrain Manifesto all over again. But it's easy to forget, even for someone [me] who should know better. 

What do you think?

And this is a picture of Jim Ridge, who did a wonderful   session on graphic facilitation that I thoroughly enjoyed.

ideaCity last day... and now i'm really worried about the oceans

If there's one thing I'm taking away from this conference, it's that we need to get serious about the environment, and most specifically the oceans.

One of the creatures in serious trouble is the shark, due to, as you may know, shark fin soup.

Sharks have been around for 450 million years, and have survived five major extinctions. As Rob Stewart said today (he made Sharkwater documentary), everything in the oceans is below them in the foodchain, so they were responsible for the rebuilding of the ocean ecology. "Shark tested" as it were. 

And because the sharks are in trouble, some troublesome and very large squid have now expanded their range up and down the western coast of North America, and will round the cape to the east soon.

Estimates of the death of the oceans are by 2048, and some even sooner, within 25 years.

I was so impressed, however, by the passion and brains of the Millennials that spoke, that I hope they can mobilize the rest of us to do the right thing.

**********************

Worst one-liners:

 

Yesterday I was having a perfectly delightful discussion with Preston Manning, who spoke brilliantly about human rights. And a strange man came up and entered our conversation with these words, directed at me: "The trouble with women is..." It was such a bizarre thing to encounter at a conference about ideas.

*****************

Best one-liners today:

"People always make the right decision when they're given the facts."

"If the oceans fail, so does our species. We have to make a choice."

Squids: "Earth's resident aliens."

"Success is not about how much money I have in my bank account," -- from the guy who ran across the Sahara, Ray Zahab

"It's not about outdoing yourself. It's about expanding your personal limitations." 

"That's when I got it. These people [scientists] had stuck with those boring classes and now they could do cool stuff." Ben Gulak, inventor of the Uno.

"It's like being on a personal cloud."

"Being in the joy business."

"Governments and corporations do not have long-term human survival at heart."

"People that know what's going on have escape plans."

"The wild lies all around us + we take it in like breath. Our lives are inseparable from the lives of insects."

"I am a philosopher, which means I know nothing about anything."

"Why should we now block the further evolution of our species." 

"Genes are nature's nanotechnology."

Back to listen to a Klezmer band, and then one more session of speakers before we all roll off to the last party. This is a conference that spoils you for other conferences. Even the jaded among us are in awe of the science, the personal stories of struggle and achievement, and the passion of the speakers.

ideaCity Day 1

ideaCity (or as I keep mistyping it on this Mac, ideaCuty) is showing signs of the recession. And that's all I'm saying about that for the rest of the week! 

My buddies here have opinions:

 

Kara says: Irwin Cotler and Laura Archer were inspiring. [This is good evidence for the recency effect, since they were both in the last session.]

Pat's faves were: the assisted-death doctor. His volunteers are getting arrested in the US. In Georgia, they ran a sting operation and arrested some 80 year olds. This was truly shocking to a group of urban liberals, such as this audience is filled with. [Richard MacDonald, a very impressive man, Final Exit Network.]

Here are my top "heard and overheard" today. 

Galileo saw Saturn 400 years ago. Now, they know that the rings have spiral ripples. One of Saturn's satellites has a large underground water reservoir, and evidence of carbon atoms. (Encilidas?) Too bad it's so far away. 

"Space is really empty. Even when it's full."

"If the Sun was in Toronto, and was 15 cm across, the nearest star to us would also be a similar size, but would be on the Yukon/Alaska border."

"Religion is mythology misuderstood." 

"Organized medicine is an oxymoron if I've ever heard one."

"Democracy was born 27 centuries ago. It's enemies are war, tyrranny, ideologies of opression. These days, democracy fights back, and often triumphs, but sometimes at great cost."

"Only people in the provinces talk about being world class."

"Aboriginals make up the source of the root of the ideas upon which we are acting, when we (Canadians) are acting at our best."

"Are they really human rights, or are they privileges, when only the privileged can exercise their human rights?"

OK, off to refill on caffeine, and take a bio break. Catch you later, and thanks for stopping by.

Northrop Frye apparently said: "If there is anything historical in the Bible, it is there by accident."

"Myth is what never was, but always is."

Off to ideaCity09

I'm off for three days of brain feeding at ideaCity. In prior years, I did try to post to the blog from the computers in the lobby. But this year, my plan is to Twitter.
If you want to stay tuned, you can follow me on @susanabbott
And I hereby promise to tweet about interesting stuff, not hors d'oevres and such. Will try for some pix too. [If i can figure out how to do it ok? I may look like a tech head, but it's sheer fakery.]

It looks like there might be an official Idea City Twitter this year,  @IdeaCityNews.

Regular programming will resume next week.

And thank you for reading.

Your humble servant, etc.

Susan

Marketing in a down economy

Be an aspirin, not a vitamin.

This bit of wisdom came to me via Cathleen Colehour, and I think it captures exactly what we need to do to be successful.

Some inspiration for the alternative New Year

I often think that September is really the start of the psychological New Year. All those years of back to school.... The summer break that re-energizes. [This is clearly temperate climate, northern hemisphere thinking, so global readers are invited to translate into suitable metaphors!]

I was thinking of this today when I got this quote from Franca Leeson, one of the Mindcamp organizers. The quote is from Oliver Schroer, a violinist and composer who wrote this not long before he died of leukemia. It speaks to creativity in a different way, by talking about accepting all the ideas, even the things that look like mistakes.

"A few years ago, I reached a point in my music making that I called Total Music. For me that meant, when I played, particularly in improvs and such, there were no more mistakes because I could use everything ... in my own playing, I was not rejecting anything that came up. It was all valid, because it could all be contextualized to make sense, to be meaningful and useful and musical. Well, maybe I have reached a point in my life where it is Total Life. As in, all of what I am going through can be used; none of it need be rejected. This is a very freeing perspective. It means you can stop editing your life and the bits you don't want, because you realize you have been given these things, and strange as it may seem, they are actually gifts ... Use it all, I say. And don't wait, either." -- Oliver Schroer

Wishing you a happy psychological New Year.

Three big takeaways

A reader suggested I try to summarize the key themes from this year's Idea City. I could hardly lay claim to customer experience expertise and fail to respond to readers, now could I?  So here are my big takeaways, along with what I think this means for marketers and those who create customer experiences. [And thanks for the suggestion, Estaban.]

[1] The information technology curve is not linear, it's exponential. It is still picking up speed.

This might sound pretty pedestrian at the outset, but it isn't. Exponential curves tend to look slower in the beginning and faster later on. We've seen this many times in terms of adoption rates, improvement in technology performance, total production of information in a year, etcetera. [Example: for a long time, people thought there was no role for computers in the home. Now we have computers everywhere.And we keep finding new places to put them.]

What I learned at Idea City was that human biology has been treated somewhat mechanistically in the past. Now it is being treated -- by scientists -- as an information system. So things like medical research and commercialization of that learning will now start to follow this pattern.

There are many societal implications of this, but I see a number for marketers and customer experience folk as well. One is that social networking applications are going to just get better and better. It is not a passing fad. The future might not be Facebook, but clearly we like the possibilities of connecting virtually. Whatever clunkiness exists will disappear. There is not going to be an easier time to get in the game and start the organizational learning process. Further delays will only leave you behind the curve.

[2] People are going to start living a lot longer, and this is going to happen faster than we expected

Boomers have no plans to fade into the sunset. We can already see the impact of this. But science seems to be on the verge of really making an impact on aging.

If we get longer lives with reasonable health -- say the health and vitality of a fifty-year-old  into our nineties -- every institution, public and private, is going to be affected. Most of the speakers focused on the science that is going to make this happen. A few touched on the implications for public policy, like pensions. But the impacts will be pervasive.

[3] There are no rules

People who make big advances in any field are the ones who ignore the conventional wisdom. Jun Ye, the builder of an atomic clock that ticks 430 trillion times per second said this: "At the edge of the universe, you are looking at the universe that was just formed. At the beginning of the universe, physical laws could not all be the same as they are today". So even the laws of physics may not be immutable.

If you want to do something in your business that is exceptional, you need to extract the conventional from your thinking.

[4] Teaching is not as interesting as sharing the experience of passion. Humor is also highly engaging.

The best speakers are always those that just talk about what they are interested in and do it in a way that the foundational knowledge for their field does not become a barrier. They tell stories. They talk about implications. And they make people laugh. They are not all serious.

If scientists can be this interesting, surely we can do better in our customer communications: stop being so serious; tell more stories; and show some passion for the content.

 

Idea City 08 - what I learned about ideas today

The best speaker this morning was Matthew Diffee, who does hilarious cartoons for The New Yorker. And had some pretty interesting things to say about ideas as well.

"In any business, coming up with ideas helps."

He says the question he gets asked most often is, how do you come up with your ideas? His answer: "Like you, I think of them."

He went on to explain that ideas are actually work, and require thinking. He suggests that it is a good idea to get in the habit of creating new ideas frequently. The important thing is not to have "one great idea" -- it's to have "thousands of good ideas."

His closing thoughts were also pretty wise, despite being humorous: "You're probably not as good as you think you are. But you're also probably not as bad as some other people think you are."

Good words to remember on those days when you think you might never have another good idea.

Idea City 08: more great quotes and snippets

We had a great party last nite at Spice Route. Good wine from Dan Akroyd's winery, and a lot of interesting nibbles. But I know you really want to hear more of the great quotes from these amazing speakers at Idea City.

Curtis Suttle, a CIFAR scientist, and microbiologist on viruses, provided some amazing information about the smallest life forms.
"You are actually carrying around five to 10 kilos of bacteria [in your body] right now."
"95 per cent of the living material in the oceans is microbial, by weight."
He also told us that of the new DNA sequences they are mapping for microbes, more than 90 per cent represent undiscovered organisms.

Trying to use Typepad on the Macs here is making me sympathetic with Mark Chen, the cosmologist who spoke about the search for dark matter happening two kilometres under the surface of the Earth in Sudbury. At one point he explained why he could not show us the short video clip he had planned: "My movie is collateral damage in the Microsoft vs. Apple battle." It turns out that the atoms we are familiar with only constitute about 4.6 per cent of the universe. The rest is dark matter and dark energy.

Alan Broadbent, one of those guys with a list of titles as long as your arm, spoke about the need for governance reform for Canadian cities. He summed up the situation as follows: "Cities are like Blanche Dubois in A Streetcar Named Desire -- dependent on the kindness of strangers." He noted that Toronto exports tax funds amounting to about $15 billion annually to the rest of the country. "If we could keep even $1 billion of this, we could realize our dreams, and the whole country would be better off."

Bill Marovita, a senator from Illinois and gun control activist, gave us shocking statistics about gun crime and children dying from guns in the U.S. The truly shocking part was the stories he told about the NRA efforts to stifle political change in this area. He also shared for us his hope for a change of government in the U.S. in November. "Never in my lifetime has the U.S. been held in such disrespect, disregard and distrust as it is today. If Obama is elected, it would send a message to the world that America is back." I only wish I could have written more of these inspiring words. I sure hope he is right.

I'm not going to take time to add links or pics, but I think you would be as fascinated as I was to learn about the 100 square foot house that Jay Shafer lives in. He also builds these gems for other people. (You can find out more at www.tumbleweedhouses.com). He said something that we should all emblazon above our desks or on our office doors: "If a project doesn't seem absolutely necessary from the get-go, I don't even start it."

I'm going to wrap by telling you a bit of what Ezra Levant had to say. He's a far right-wing writer and I wasn't expecting to agree with much of what he said. However, he spoke about how out of control the human rights commissions now are in Canada (as a victim himself), and how they are now truly abridging our rights to free speech.

Much of this is due to complaints from parts of the Muslim community, who believe that being offended is tantamount to being discriminated against. Levant noted that it is OK to make fun of every other religious group, and even to make offensive art using other religious symbols. The public pressure amounts to a "soft jihad" where we lose our confidence, start to doubt ourselves, and self-censorship becomes pervasive.

Levant believes this trend has "devastated our western traditions of healthy vigorous debate." He believes that the proper response to offensive speech is social control (eg. ostracism).

What is less political, and more relevant to our pursuits was this thought that he closed on: "You need to hear ideas you don't like because all progress depends on it."

It's so joyous to take a walk with these brilliant minds. Now, off to grab a snack before the late afternoon session starts, and another party tonight!

Idea City 08

I'm blogging from Idea City this week, Toronto's answer to TED.
We had a wonderful line-up of speakers this morning, and I'm not going to try to capture all the good stuff. Instead, I thought I would just share a few of the most interesting quotes, and a couple of personal insights.

First insight: A very lively rendition including a drum solo is a great way to energize the start of a conference. [Note to self: use music more often everywhere to set the mood.] Isaiah Gibbons, 12, was our drummer.

From Chris Wood, author of Dry Spring: The Coming Water Crisis of North America: "We're in ecological overdraft".

From Donald Yeomans, who studies asteroids at the Jet PRopulsion laboratory: Asteroid contact "is the only natural disaster that you can actually do something about."

From Alfons Weersink, a food economist: "Human creativity is not finite"

From Gina Mallet, food critic and author: "There's been a rise in the puritanical eater; you're either saving your life, or you're saving the planet's life."

From Claudio Aprile, molecular chef, talking about his first job at a donut shop at age 14: "I filled the donuts up with three or four times the prescribed amount of jelly. I pushed the envelope to see how far I coud go before the donut exploded."

Steve Scherer, molecular geneticist, called a standard medical visit an "observational interview".

There's more, but I'm keeping people waiting who want to party and eat. So there's more tomorrow.

Don't give up too soon: keep tweaking a good idea

Almost three years ago, I bought an orchid. It was beautiful, but after the first flowers faded, that was it. I thought I was caring for it properly, having listened carefully to the salesperson, read the brochure, the fertilizer label and several online articles. After more than a year of frustration, I couldn't figure out what was wrong.

Then I spoke to my friend Andrea who has many beautiful orchids. She helped me sort out correct watering. I was letting toxins build up in the soil because I wasn't soaking the plant.

I repotted, trimmed off the dead roots, used cinnamon to protect the cut spots from fungus and diligently watered using Andrea's method. The plant loved it, but still no flowers.

Then I tried changing fertilizers. Several weeks ago, I decided to give it a rest for the winter, and cut back on the fertilizer. Things would either happen in the spring, or they wouldn't.

Finally, incredibly, there is now the beginning of a flower spike. It's probably the wrong time of year, but I don't care. I feel so vindicated for my efforts to learn, and my testing of different approaches.

In business, we often give up on our orchids too soon.

We blame the idea instead of looking for the tweaks that would make the idea work. [That orchid won't bloom. Too bad. Nice idea, but it's time to move on. Apple is having great success with dendrobiums. Google is all over azaleas. Gartner says the future is in geraniums. Time to get with the program.]

We think the program is implemented just because we announced it. [You told me we'd have flowers. Where are the flowers? What happened to all that fertilizer we invested in? If we're not getting flowers this quarter, we need to seriously rethink our investment here.]

We focus on new sales and forget to keep tending the customers we already have. [You shouldn't be spending so much time on that plant. Forget it and move on. There's hundreds of them at Home Depot.]

To really move things forward where people are concerned, you need to invest real time. Customers take time to forgive you for the mistakes of the past. Your staff won't think you're committed unless you hang in with a program for at least a year. Hiring and training don't happen overnight. Launching a new brand or fixing an existing one is a multi-year mission.

Don't give up on your orchids.

Idea City 2007 wrap-up: intellectual property protection

My brain was in overload after Idea City, a three day conference about ideas, based on TED, but held here in Toronto. I've pulled out a few of the most interesting tidbits that I think relate to our theme.

• A new way of protecting intellectual property
• How to teach people to do things according to Jane Juska (the round-heeled woman)
• Greenification of everything -- Electric cars and car sharing
• The science of aging
• Mammals with empathy, and a sense of justice

New model for protecting intellectual property

I heard inventor Alexander Bock, inventor of the PowerSkip boot, talk about his new method for protecting his intellectual property. His concern, of course, is that unlicensed fraudulent goods would leak out of China, and his small company would never be able to police the situation. He has come up with a clever solution. I had the chance to talk to a few people there who have more experience in these things than I do, and they agreed that it was a radically different concept, and definitely worth exploring. So here's a fuller explanation, with visuals.

And here's the Zurich Insurance video link on YouTube that shows the boots in action. Or you can see them at the PowerSkip web site.

Idea City Day 2

After a rocky start yesterday, we had an amazing line-up of speakers.
A couple of the highlights...

Co-creation is everywhere. Robotics manufacturers like Roomba are creating platforms that are hacker friendly. You open up the top and the circuit board says 'welcome'. Even better, the company has contests and prizes for the best hacks and inventions on their platform. Helen Greiner, co-founder of iRobot, was one of the speakers. She believes robots are a potential solution to many risky environments --they build military robots that are currently in use in Afghanistan. She also believes they are a potential solution to elder-case, so that people can stay in their homes longer.

Alexander Bock, the inventor of the power-skip boots that are featured in a Zurich Insurance advertisement told us a bit about his invention. But he really caught my attention when he discussed the problem of preventing counterfeit goods being sold. I believe his approach relates to licensing the wholesaler, rather than the manufacturer of the goods, to choke off illegal distribution, and improve the ability of the patent-owner to monitor royalties. If I can find out more, I will post on this later.

The best speaker in many respects was Dr. John Helliwell, who is researching the economics of happiness. He researches SWB -- subjective well being. It turns out that a major contributor to well-being, to our subjective report of our overall life satisfaction, has to do with how much time we spend with friends and family. We also feel better about our overall lives if we trust our neighbors. And we feel better about our work if we trust management. He wrapped up his session by getting all of us to sing "the more we get together, the happier we'll be". And we all sang.

Dr. Helliwell, it turns out, is part of a program funded by the Canadian Institute for Advanced REsearch. I heard four of their scientists speak yesterday, and they are an impressive bunch, including several Nobel winners. One of the things that interests me personally, is how applicable to our day-to-day challenges much of this academic pure research actually is. I spoke later on to some of the CIFAR people at lunch, and they are trying to get this message out to people.

More later. Ciao for now.

Interview with Jonathan Tisch about Reinventing the Customer Experience

This blog tour by Jonathan Tisch has been interesting on a few levels. What a creative idea, for starters. And what a clever publicist to pick up on it.

I knew we'd be up at the end of the tour week, and I thought that things might be getting repetitive by now. So I sent questions that I hoped were different, and might scratch through the polished package that accompanies anyone who occupies a corner office, to say nothing of someone who is also on the speaking circuit.  I don't think we got anything unvarnished, but I think we did get some frank and forthright commentary.  Here's our e-mail Q&A, as conversational as we could make it.

"[It is] challenging for CEOs to balance service versus profits"

Susan Abbott: Jonathan, I first wanted to tell you that I read a paragraph from your book to kick off a recent client working session about customer experience. It was about how everyone in the organization actually needs to think about and be focused on customers. I was happy to hear people repeating this stuff a week later to others.

I only wish it was so easy to get people on board, especially at the top of the organization.   I know some are -- Lafley at P&G of course is a great example. But it seems like the exception, not the rule. Why aren't more executives on board?

Jonathan Tisch: With the focus coming from Wall Street on quarterly earnings for public companies, it becomes a bit challenging for CEOs to balance service versus profits. The enlightened leaders of some companies have figured out that great customer service usually leads to an enhanced bottom line. That is the ultimate challenge – to find ways for your customers to receive the service that they deserve, turn them in to life-long customers, and ensure that they don’t go to the competition should they have a bad experience. 

"What has changed is the business of hotels, not the hotel business"

SA: One of the things that immediately drew me to your book was your genuine understanding of the vulnerability of the traveler who is a guest in your hotel. I spent a few years where I was continually on the road, and it can be a lonely and frustrating place at times.

Still, I recognize that my expectations are very high. But of course this wasn't always the case -- I can't imagine what travel in the 1800s must have been like. It makes me wonder how customer expectations will change in the future. You mentioned the importance of staying on top of emerging trends and the next demographic shift. Could you comment on that? 

JT: What is happening in the lodging industry today relates to the old saying, “the more things change the more they stay the same.” What has changed is the business of hotels, not the hotel business.

Our business has become highly sophisticated with very large, corporate entities becoming players. When you look at the Marriotts, InterContinentals and Hiltons of the world – all with many thousands of properties, at different price points and market niches – you understand that the big are getting bigger and that, through acquisitions and strategic alliances, they have become formidable competition with tremendous offerings.

There has also been a greatly enhanced focus by Wall Street and private equity on the hotel business, so many of the new players are very well capitalized and have extremely bright people as part of their organizations.

That’s the business of hotels.

But what hasn’t changed since the first person checked into a hotel 1,000 years ago, is the hotel business. At its core, our business is based on hospitality and making people feel welcome, comfortable and safe. The companies that continue to thrive are the ones able to skate the line between profitability and hospitality.

Going forward, we will always have new technological advances to deal with. But once again, our industry is extremely biased toward interpersonal and human relations.   

"The companies that thrive are able to skate the line between profitability and hospitality"

SA: You mentioned several instances in the book where staff quite correctly bend the rules to look after a customer. But you also note consistency is critically important -- customers need to know an organization is reliable and dependable.

Is there a tension between customization and consistency? And if so, how does an organization deal with this tension?

JT: If your co-workers are properly educated and trained, then customization and consistency can, indeed, be compatible. That’s the nature of crisis resolution. What I like to discuss with my Loews Hotels co-workers isn’t about the problem necessarily. It’s about the recovery.

With so many options for the consumer, recovery from a problem is paramount because that’s how you keep one of your customers from going to a competitor.

It is a very fine line that has to be taught to, in some cases, entry-level individuals – how to get involved and what opportunities for crisis resolution are available to them. At Loews Hotels we pride ourselves on balancing consistency with customization to provide the level of service our guests have become accustomed to. 

"The CEO cannot be involved in every decision -- nor should they be"

SA: I'd like to ask you about managing a culture of innovation. If we want to harness the creative talents at all levels of an organization, how do we do that? What specifically does the CEO need to do to role model the right approach? Short of writing a book, of course.

JT: The CEO always sets the tone for an organization. Due to corporate hierarchy, it can get a little lonely at the top if there’s not complete buy-in at every level of the organization.

Due to physical and time constraints, the CEO cannot be involved in every decision – nor should they be involved in every decision. It’s extremely important for middle and senior-management to have a very clear understanding of the goals and objectives of the company. In addition, creativity is an important tool that should be harnessed to effectively manage toward these goals. This is something that needs to be taught to all the individuals making decisions.

"The CEO always sets the tone for an organization"

JT: It’s very important to always monitor the touch-points of your organization so that you can see where the customer intersects with your product or service.

As the CEO, there are times when I find myself talking to clients about their experiences, in a sense pleading with them to be honest and candid with me. It really is important for the CEO to hear everything – the good and the bad. Because much of what gets to a CEO on a daily basis is somewhat sanitized by those working for them, I find it important to regularly speak with our guests.

Additionally there are always letters, observations, comments and criticisms that come across the transom. CEOs always need to understand what’s being said about their organization so that they can deal with the situations appropriately.

SA: Thank you, Jonathan. It's not often that a CEO of a major organization lets themselves be interviewed by a blogger. I really appreciate having your executive level perspective on things that my readers and I think about!

JT: Thank you, Susan, for this dialogue! I’ve enjoyed this week immensely. Thank you for welcoming me to your blog.

SA: We talk a lot on this blog about the need to stay close to customers, and the tools that help you do that effectively. I'm wondering what some of your favorite methods are?

Jonathan Tisch to visit May 25

Jonathan Tisch, author of Chocolates on the Pillow Aren't Enough: Reinventing the Customer Experience (with Karl Weber) will be visiting this blog for a Q&A next Friday, May 25. 

It's all part of a blog book tour.
(And isn't that just a cool idea, courtesy of David Polinchok at BrandExperienceLab)

Jonathan's the CEO of Loew's Hotels, so he knows a few things about chocolates and such. I have been pleasantly surprised at how meaningful and meaty the book is.  In fact, I read an extract from the book at a recent client working session to get us all into the right mindset.

So I am delighted to be able to have Jonathan as my virtual guest. I don't think we have the capability of virtual autographs, for which I'm truly sorry. However, we're very big on co-creation around here, so if there's something you'd really like to know or ask a hotel CEO or experience leader, please e-mail me.

Other blogs will be hosting Jonathan as well.  Here's the schedule:

Monday 5/21

http://blog.brandexperiencelab.org - Q&A format

http://customersrock.wordpress.com/ Q&A format

 

Tuesday 5/22

http://theengagingbrand.typepad.com/ Podcast/Q&A format

 

Wednesday 5/23

http://www.grokdotcom.com Podcast format

http://www.vacantready.com Q&A format

 

Thursday 5/24

http://www.lipsticking.com/ Podcast format

http://experiencethemessage.typepad.com/blog/ Q&A format

 

Friday 5/25

http://www.arc.typepad.com/customercrossroads Q&A format

http://experienceology.blogspot.com/ Podcast format

Two events you need to know about: Ideas and Innovation

I'm delighted to be attending two cool events in June that you should consider adding to your calendar. Both these events have the potential to refresh your thinking, and recharge the spirit. Plus, they are both highly participative, so you'll get a chance to really engage with the ideas.

Business Pulse '07 -- Innovation Summit

Where: York University Executive Learning Centre, Toronto

When: June 5, 7:30 am - 5 pm with reception following

A one day event that will wrap an 18 month research project on best practices in innovation. Good speakers, and an interactive program will make this a memorable event. Hosted by Schulich Executive Education, York University.

The conference web site is here, or you can go directly to the brochure by clicking here.

[Full disclosure: I'm part of the facilitation team.]

Idea City

Where:Toronto

When: June 20, 21, 22

Three days of stimulating speakers and engaging with others around ideas. What could be more fun?

I've been hearing about this event for years, and this year I shifted my continuing education budget around in order to attend. [People tell me it's life changing. In a good way.]

The event site is here.

I'll probably blog about the event while I'm there, but wouldn't you rather be there than just read about it? Tickets are now getting expensive, but there are still one or two early-bird tickets around. If you want to snag one, please e-mail me.

Clayton Christensen: Back to the beginning

Doing a little year end file clean-out, I came across a wonderful interview that Inc. did with Clayton Christensen in 2002. Reading it reminded me of the brilliant simplicity of his ideas, and how often we hear someone spout a muddy version that clouds the picture.

On strategies for growth when competing with established leaders:

The leaders in every industry have vast resources at their disposal. If I try to grab a piece of real estate that the established leaders want, where the customers are attractive and the business is attractive ... the leaders will win. So what I want to do is to craft a strategy that takes advantage of what I would call asymmetry of motivation. That is, a situation where I'm motivated to go after the business of the market leaders, but the piece of their business that I can most naturally go after is the one that they're the least motivated to defend.

This wonderfully clear idea, four years before Kim & Mauborgne published Blue Ocean Strategy.

Defining disruptive innovation:

A disruptive innovation is a technologically simple innovation in the form of a product, service, or business model that takes root in a tier of the market that is unattractive to the established leaders in an industry. Very often this occurs at the low end of a market ... Or it takes root by providing a simple and inexpensive product that enables a new population of customers to begin participating in a new application in the market.

I think Nintendo Wii meets a number of these tests, by the way, including being less costly, with lower overall processing horsepower than competitors, and appealing to a market that hadn't before used this type of game. They also developed a distribution system for Wii games that enables them to sell and make money on games at a very low price -- too low for existing distribution channels.

Litmus Test: Is this market suitable for disruptive innovation?

First ... Is there a larger population of less skilled, or less wealthy, customers who could be pulled into that market? ... If there isn't a larger population of less skilled and less wealthy people whom you can identify to pull into the market, it's a strike against the disruptability of that market.

Second ... An innovation will get traction only if it helps people get something that they're already doing in their lives done better....The safest assumption is that people won't change the fundamental things they want out of life... You need to be very observant about what people are trying to do -- not what they say they wish they were doing. If you can facilitate what they're already doing -- maybe make it cheaper, easier, and more convenient to do -- then your disruption has a much better chance of success.

Some good thoughts to take into a new year.

References:
The Disruptive Start-Up: Clayton Christensen On How To Compete With The Best, by Nancy J. Lyons, Inc magazine, Feb 1, 2002. Available online via Sherpa Partners Resources for Entrepreneurs

Nintendo President and CEO Satoru Iwata interviews the Wii development team about their philosophy and approach to the design and technology in Wii here. A fantastic read, and gives a lot of insight into how an innovative process unfolds inside an organization.

Customer Driven Innovation

At a qualitative research conference a while back, I attended a session on using games to support innovation. The people you see above are other researchers, holding up their "product box". [Sorry the pics are so small, all I had was the camera phone. And it's taken me this long to get the darn pics out of the phone, but that's another story!]

This method was laid out in Luke Hohmann's book, Innovation Games, and this was a nice chance to see it in action. Tables were given lots of materials to work with, and a plain white box. The task was to create a box for an alarm clock that they would like to buy.

Participants came up with lots of interesting ideas. For example, at my table we wanted an alarm clock that knows what time it is, just like a cell-phone does. A smart clock.

Many people mentioned Apple inspired design -- features and controls so easy to use you don't actually need to read the manual, because it's intuitive. Can you tell that this group spends a lot of time in hotel rooms, trying to set yet another clock radio, or figure out what the current local time is?

What I found especially interesting about the exercise was that the room seemed to divide into two larger groups: those who were concerned about clock functionality, and those concerned about managing the morning mood and ambiance. Could these be segments, I wonder?

During the debrief, the facilitators asked multiple questions of each spokesperson, to uncover the needs and ideas around the benefits sought.

You'll find lots of people who will tell you that "focus groups can't lead to innovation", and other blah, blah of that nature. I say it depends a lot on who is running the event. If you ask customers literally "what should we do?", you may not get that much you can use. 

But the joy of this exercise was that it focused people on unmet needs, and benefits they would derive from the features they proposed. A development team could definitely learn a lot from the output of that.  And the act of creating the box helped all of us get past "design issues" and focus on what we'd really love to have.

References:
Summary of keynote speaker Paco Underhill from the same conference, talking about global trends in retail.

This method first came to my attention through Luke Hohmann's book, Innovation Games.

 

Co-creating with your customers: a TTC story

Our local Toronto Transit Commission is not known for its usability or customer experience.  I tried to figure out which one of four buses would be most likely to come by one day recently, and was completely unable to decipher any of them (see above map, which defies all cartography conventions).

The TTC's web site is no better, either from an aesthetic or informational standpoint.

Bringing bloggers into the design process

But let's get to the co-creation, and see what can happen with even a little effort to invite your customers inside the tent...

The story is best told by the blog that started it...Reading Toronto:

"The Toronto Bloggers' website challenge to new TTC Chair Adam Giambrone gathered steam with postings on readingtoronto.com, Spacing.ca, Torontoist.com, Blogto.com, and transit.toronto.on.ca. It seems that Toronto's netroots can influence city hall. In case you missed the news, bloggers in the city were embarrassed by the transit commission's online presence. We asked our readers - people who tend to use the site every day - how they would improve the TTC website. Their answers are honest and insightful."

The new TTC chairman, Adam Giambrone, seems to have accepted the challenge. Today's Globe and Mail reports that he will be meeting with the bloggers to discuss their ideas, and a new site should be up and running by the summertime. !!! 

This is a big step for an organization I've heard described as insular, rigid and paramilitary in outlook.

And the input is excellent.  Here are a few of the suggestions made via comments on the various blogs:

"Like Google Maps, I want to be able to type in a destination address, execute a search and be taken to a map segment that shows the nearest TTC route; then I’d like to be able to use that route information to construct a travel plan from my point of origin....
The current system expects a user to know what route number he/she wants which is, of course, backwards thinking."

"As well as a journey planner, simple printable maps should be available to broswers, maybe with operation schedules/wheelchair accessible stops/other related information provided."

"Information like closures, schedule changes, or route disruptions should be available on the site, as an RSS feed, as an e-mail subscription, or as an SMS subscription that can be signed up for from a page on the TTC website."

"Trip planner please. Vancouver’s Translink already has one that on their website that’s very helpful. Also, most Translink stations display a phone number which you can call en-route and speak with an attendant regarding Transit schedules, like how long until the next bus, and route information.
http://tripplanning.translink.bc.ca/hiwire?.a=iTripPlanning&.s={$SID}"

I thought this recommendation was particularly insightful...

"...the TTC should hire a someone to head up a Design department. This person will be in charge of formulating standards for TTC advertising, route/schedule information posters, website design, and station/vehicle signage. ....If that doesn’t happen, this will just be a one-off, and like all one-offs will end up decaying into another sloppy mess. The TTC needs design everywhere, not just on its web site."

Another commenter has created a TTC schedule for their Palm, that you can download!!!!! 

Another great suggestion from several people: the TTC should make their database available to developers, to enable just this sort of open-source innovation.

So what?

The learning here: if people care about your service, they are receptive to helping you improve it to meet their needs better. The insights generated on these blogs contain real insights, the sort of ideas I'd be delighted to generate for a client as part of a research project. And this organization is getting them for free. Let's hope they have the brains to listen.

If your customers built a web site about your organization...

You might ask yourself this: if your customers built a web site about you, what would be there? What tips and tricks would they share with others? What navigational aids? What contact points? What secrets would they share?

References:

"The TTC gets some online help", by Bert Archer in the Globe & Mail, January 6, 2007. [free for 7 days]

Reading Toronto, founded by architect, urban planner and columnist Robert Ouellette, looks at the city from the standpoint of the creative arts.

Spacing Wire, a blog about public space issues in Toronto. Here's the TTC post with comments.

Blog TO, a blog about Toronto events, with an emphasis on the arts. Here's their post about the TTC with comments.

Torontoist, their TTC post and comments are here 

Transit Toronto shows how a dedicated fan site can actually provide significantly more useful information than the corporate site.

Qualitative Research Conference: Toronto October 2006

Why you need rubber soled shoes

It's cheaper and faster than ever to collect reams of information: it's wisdom in using this information that is in short supply. And you really should have some rubber soled shoes.

These were some of the things Paco Underhill talked about in his keynote last week at the joint QRCA/MRIA-QRD conference. Paco is the hugely successful analyst of shopping behaviors and author of very successful books on the subject, Why We Buy and Call of the Mall. 

Inner Context of the Shopper

One of the most interesting observations he made is that we all shop more often, even though we live in a state of accelerated time. We go into a store with a specific mission, and if we don't fulfil it, may leave empty handed.  That mission, even for the same person in the same store in the space of the same week, could have very different characteristics, based on the value system and emotion at play due to the inner context.

For example, shopping for a child's birthday cake, shopping for tonight's dinner, and shopping for the weekend when the relatives you dislike will be visiting. And in some respects, we need to treat each of those scenarios as if we were dealing with a different customer.

The Key Question

The key question, for Underhill, is always: "how do I respond to local market conditions and build same store sales?"  Depending where in the world you are, these challenges are vastly different.

When speaking of the global middle class, 2/3 of our expenditures are discretionary. We don't need to spend money on much -- someone has to entice us to spend.

In other parts of the world, money is a new and exciting toy, and that's where all the innovation is happening in retail.  Underhill shared some excellent examples of this.

Roppongi Hills, Tokyo

Underhill described Roppongi Hills as the "All Mall". It has hotels, an art gallery, residential towers, and a multitude of recreation facilities. One of the unusual elements is the large amount of public art that has been included throughout the facility, both inside and outside.

Creative use of space in Johannesburg

What you are looking at here is a drive-in movie theatre on the roof of a shopping mall (the Menlyn). A great use of space, and a good way to bring more traffic into the mall.

Another example cited by Underhill was a mall owner who built a stadium for student athletic activities on adjacent land, solely to drive traffic into the food court of the mall.

Forget about Parking in Sao Paolo

In order to bring traffic into the mall from the nearby office towers, this mall offers a free shuttle bus service that will pick people up and then run them back in complete safety so they can shop over their lunch hour.

Finding Happiness in Tokyo

Three Minutes of Happiness is the name of a chain of stores in Tokyo that sell inexpensive items for everyday use. Here's the description from Frommer's guide:

Bargain yen shops have opened all over Japan the past few years, but this is one of the best I've seen. It carries tableware, household goods, office supplies, cosmetics, watches, sunglasses, some basic clothing, and many other simple items, mostly in bright and happy colors like lime green and sky blue.

Although these shops seem very well designed, they are reminiscent of one of the fastest growing categories of shopping at home: the dollar store, and other deep discount formats, that are the antithesis of good design.

Dubai, Dubai

Underhill compared Dubai to the cantina scene in the original Star Wars movie, and called it the first place on the globe that is ready to receive the intergalactic traveller. You can get anything you want, and you can pay in any currency you choose.  Dubai apparently has fifty major shopping malls, in addition to the more traditional souks.

The Challenge

Underhill believes that landlords of shopping malls must go from being landlords to being placemakers. And the best ones are reaching for this. But there is still a lot of room for improvement.

His main recommendation, which we heartily endorse: get some good shoes, and get out the office to see what's going on.

MBA via iPod

This morning I was browsing my bloglines feed and came across this comment in a discussion of Web 2.0:

"Audio Books on an iPod. I’ve listened to audio books for years, mostly on cassette tapes in my car. They fill in driving time with a motivational or teaching message. Now with my iPod I can listen to books anywhere. It is amazing to listen to business oriented books while walking through different business districts. These books suddenly come alive. This process has actually become the subject of a new blog for me. Called “MBA on the Run” it talks about using audio books as part of a personal MBA program. Simple technology that takes the message to the medium."

MBA on the Run is indeed all about listening to business books on your iPod. Not a bad business idea, but even cooler as a not-for-profit:

"All proceeds from book and technology sales as well as ad revenue over the next two years will go to help build a youth center and computer lab. Please consider helping out our future entrepreneurs and career seekers by buying books and equipment through links on this site."

I love the creativity that the web has unleashed in people. Before the web, this kind of cool idea might never see the light of day. Now, it can be up and running in an afternoon with no capital, no fixed organization structure, and no overhead. 

Katrina Relief Effort

Remember how good you felt when you gave to the Red Cross to help the West Indies after Hurricane Ivan?  And then again, after the Asian Tsunami?  It still works. 

My favored charity for this kind of relief is the Red Cross.  I was happy to see that the Canadian Red Cross is sending 25 volunteers to Houston.  [There are lots more charities and helping organizations listed here.]

I don't know about you, but I'm finding this event tremendously distracting, if you'll forgive me for being trite about another huge disaster.  I spent half the morning today looking at all of the New York Times' pictures, amazing as always.  (free registration). 

What's very different about this situation than the ongoing catastrophe in Africa, for example, is that it's much easier to identify with people who shared a lot of lifestyle characteristics with you and I.

I've been to N'awlins three times now, and loved it every time.  But have never been to Indonesia or Africa.  Or Iraq.  Or Israel. 

So it's suddenly a lot easier to understand what it must really be like to be living in a refugee camp.

At one point yesterday, as a helicopter-mounted camera showed a teeming swell of furious, gun-toting Louisiana residents mobbing a busload of supplies, a stunned British TV anchor spoke his mind on the air: "I'm having trouble believing that we're watching the continental United States of America. I mean, it looks like Rwanda."  (Globe & Mail, Sept 2, "Nasty, brutish -- society's net snaps")

I'm also following with considerable interest the big thinkers who are trying to help the rest of us understand a few things:

1. Why people stayed
2. Why social structure broke down so quickly

The most useful thing I've read about #1 is that people routinely underestimate the risk in these situations.  A good problem for some psychologists or economists to study.

And #2 is so far being attributed to culture.  The companion to all the incredible independence and can-do thinking that has made America great is a rapid shift to "every one for himself" in times of trouble.   

In U.S. cities like New Orleans, in the analysis of the American-British organizational psychologist Cary Cooper, social cohesion depends on a shared belief that individual hard work, good luck and God's grace will bring a person out of poverty and into prosperity. But those very qualities can destroy the safety net of mutual support that might otherwise help people in an emergency.

"Fear itself motivates people in the U.S. -- the fear that you could lose everything," Prof. Cooper said in an interview yesterday from his office at the University of Lancaster. "That creates the best in American society, the inventiveness, but the moment the net is pulled out, it becomes a terrible jungle."

Observers have long recognized this tendency to societal breakdown concealed within the mass psychology of U.S. success.

"The moral mandate to achieve success exerts pressure to succeed by fair means, if possible, and by foul means, if necessary," the sociologist Robert Merton wrote in the 1960s. In times of crisis, fair means are too often replaced by foul.

There are exceptions: The extraordinary mass acts of mutual support that followed the Sept. 11 attacks in Lower Manhattan or the floods in the Dakotas, for instance, or the charitable activity that has all but ended the AIDS crisis in the United States.

But historians point to a constant threat of self-destructive breakdowns that seem to dot U.S. history, belying the thin veneer of civility that sits between entrepreneurial prosperity and mass chaos. The individualistic, egalitarian, anti-authoritarian values that have made the United States succeed have always been accompanied by an every-man-for-himself ethos that can destroy the system itself.  (Globe & Mail, September 2, "Nasty, brutish")

Social breakdown has apparently not happened to this extent in other disasters, such as the Montreal ice-storm, where people were without power in the middle of winter for extended periods, and food supplies became problematic.   I don't remember hearing about a lot of crime in the Tsunami aftermath either. 

I did, however, read that in a recently flooded neighborhood in Toronto people are finding their treasures being stolen from the piles of stuff in their front yards.  Not looting exactly, but pretty slimy.  

Back to New Orleans. It is easy to understand why all those people in the pictures are ANGRY.  Waiting for days with no food or water.  Being prevented from leaving the Superdome.  Having police drive by you without stopping or offering help.  It's truly shocking to see this catastrophe unfold. 

It's hard not to make linkages with the color of people's skin.  Or perhaps it's rich versus poor.  Here was another report that horrified me:

The residents remaining in the city are overwhelmingly black and extremely poor. At times, the racial divide evoked images of the Old South. At one point in midafternoon, a group of heavily armed state policemen, all of them white, ran into the cavernous Amtrak railway station, apparently to check out reports of looting. The black families congregated outside waiting for transportation looked on in fear.

The French Quarter seemed to draw particular attention from the Municipal Police. "Now be careful. Don't stop for anybody," said one young policeman, his wraparound glasses on his forehead, his hand grasping a very large handgun. (Globe & Mail, September 2, "All you can do is fend for yourself")

Apparently some tourists have been abandoned by authorities.  In one case, buses hired by a hotel to take tourists to safety comandeered by the police. 

In the meantime, show YOU have a heart and make a donation.  Because it's not over for those people, and it isn't going to be over for a very long time.  Thanks for listening.

We now return to our regular programming. 

Steve Jobs Inspirational Commencement Address: "Your Time is Limited, so Don't Waste it Living Someone Else's Life"

If you haven't yet read Steve Jobs' commencement speech to Stanford in June, you're missing out on something that will inspire you.  Find the whole text here, grab a coffee, and keep the Kleenex (r) handy just in case.

Having now read this, I'm going to press through the administrivia clogging my desk and try to mobilize something a little more meaningful this afternoon. 

Thanks Steve.  That speech is just one more amazing gift you have given the world while you were creating your own life story.