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“I am your father…” (Service, Public Perception, and Your Bottom Line)

Was at dinner a few nights ago with friends,* and we got around to talking about smartphones & service providers.  And - as always happens - we eventually concluded AT&T was the Darth Vader to Verizon’s Luke.  Goliath vs. David. Starsky and Hutch.

…. You get the picture.

I’ve noticed this almost always happens, whether I start the conversation or not, whether I participate, or not.  And there are only two complaints:

  1. My Service Sucks (and this is always secondary to….)
  2. Those bastards are so mean to me when I call!!

I can’t speak to AT&T’s service, whether personal or of the celltower variety. I’ve never been a customer.** And given all the bad reviews, I may never be one.

This is bad news for AT&T. And here’s why:
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Service trumps price trumps service

Service>$$>Service.
Rock, paper, scissors.
Bottom line: When given a choice between decent service and a decent price, or good service and a high price, most people will choose the mid-to-low range. They assume nothing’s perfect anyway, that marginally better service isn’t worth the extra money.
In other words, if  you and your competitors all check off the same basic features (”available everywhere,” “free text messaging,” “can stream videos..”), people make decisions based on price.
BUT:
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Good service - human service - trumps both price and actual service.

Hence the whole AT&T/Verizon debate.  Maybe Verizon’s better here in the city. Maybe not. I’d certainly like to think so.*** But it doesn’t matter. Phone pricing structures make it hard to leave (2 year contracts, expensive phones for free if you stick around..) and - therefore - new customers make up a significant portion of growth.****
And this is where Service starts to look a lot like marketing.
Aside from using the product, the only other touch most people have with your company will be the phone call, the visit to the store, the email.  The bill.  And the discussion thereof.
Usually people only call in - or come in - if they want something to change.  A new phone. An upgrade. A downgrade. A cancellation. Fix my bill.  WHY DON’T I HAVE SERVICE AT HOME….?
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And this is where I see Verizon doing something genius:
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It’s a Policy: Make Customers Happy.

Fix customer’s problems.
I can only back this up anecdotally, but I’ve heard a lot of stories by now.  ”I went in to Verizon,” he’ll say, “and they gave me a cut on the bill. They upgraded my phone when they didn’t have to. The agent threw in a free battery…”
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Assuming this is policy on Verizon’s part (and they can’t have that many customer-focused agents by chance), the bottom line is they’re spending money to keep customers - and they’re spending money, at the same time, to get new ones.
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Good Policy. Good Service. And Scalable!

This, unlike Morton’s over-the-top-let-me-bring-you-a-steak service, is a scalable service policy.  It can be implemented every day. It’s one that works for a large company like Verizon specifically because it is scalable.
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SO:  Is Verizon the best phone company out there? Do they have better service than anyone else? Are their
prices reasonable? No idea.
But I do know they found a way to upgrade me to an iphone early.  Which generated this blog post.
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And that is clever marketing.

*the place: “Q Restaurant,” inner Richmond.  Have the burger.  And the garlic fries.  You’re welcome :D

**This is the part, incidentally, where I reiterate the point that I’m speaking on my own behalf, and not that of my employer…

***And I’ve sunk enough money on my phone bills to think it’d better be…

****The other growth area, if you made me guess, is upsell to existing customers..

Posted in Choice, Comparison, Customer, Experience, Incentives, service. Tagged with , , , , , , , .

By LNIngram
9 January, 2012

No comments

New Year’s Resolutions - 2012 Version

A new year. New year’s Resolutions.

Some people love ‘em. Others, not so much.  I’m a fan - gives me something to work toward - and something to look back on later…. if only see how much harder the resolutions were than I thought they’d be ;)

There are two theories to resolutions: the specific and the general variety - goal oriented and process-oriented, if you will.

I’ve always thought goal-oriented resolutions are good for things like losing weight, blogging (see below), etc - because they demand specific action. Pick the goal, do the math backwards, put action items on your calendar, and you’re good to go.

On other end of the scale are general resolutions; “be less like X” or “Do more of Y” - harder to measure (more than what? less than now?) and harder to certify success or failure.  They’re great for getting a new mindset going, though - “do more crunches” inspires me to keep trying, where “do 100 a day” is a pass/fail kind of game.

In any case, here are mine for 2012.

“let it hereby be known that Lauren Ingram resolves to…”

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Generally:

  • Stop spending on things i don’t have to pay for
    – in a few categories:

    • Stuff work will pay for: Transit fees, phone bills, massages (no, really), lunch while travelling…
    • Stuff I pay for because I’m not paying attention: Parking tickets, late payment fees, etc.
    • Pretty clothing i’ll never - or almost never - wear. This one’s hard.  But I’d like to make some headway… :)
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  • Get (much) better at the Politics of Motivation (enterprise version)
    I’m still working on finding a happy medium between:

    • On the one hand: pushing to get things accomplished (danger: people think you’re a total asshole) vs…
    • on the other: waiting for things to run their course (”check in, tune out..”)
      … but it’s so very important to learn the subtleties of working with other teams, other leaders - how to drive development and change whilst maintaining salary, serenity, and sanity…
      .
  • A Long-term finance plan. Make one.
    … essentially: how do i plan to pay for all the big things in my future? Everything from school to travel to my (future, possible) kids’ college education…
    .
  • Do more crunches!

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… and In Specific:

  • Call my mother once a week (hi mom! this one’s for you!)
  • Take an economics course (or two)
  • Take a 2-week vacation somewhere - Europe, SE Asia, South America … Just because.

Posted in Institutions, Motivation. Tagged with , , , , .

By LNIngram
6 January, 2012

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Everyday > Extraordinary. Encore!

“Excuse me,” said the guy behind the Wynn’s checkin desk, “did you know you’re actually booked at the Encore?”

“Um.” I said. “Really?” (I am, you see, as eloquent in real life as on the screen)

“I can check you in here,” he said, “and you can walk over, go straight to your room. It’s really easy. I’ll show you on the map…”

And then he handed me this:

The right key, for the right resort (not a repurposed Wynn key), with all the info I need - the location, my name, and my guest ID#.
Want to charge something to the room? Just show your key..

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In Vegas - as everywhere, only more so- the experience is key. Per Wiki:

Encore Las Vegas and its sister property, Wynn Las Vegas collectively hold more Forbes five-star awards than any other casino-resort in the world and it is considered to be one of the finest hotels in the world.[4]

So if you were to study good hotel service, anywhere - you’d study it here.

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About that Experience…

Compared with other Vegas hotels, The Wynn and Encore feel like upscale southern hotels - warm, bright, tasteful. Definitely not overwhelming. The atrium has a miniature forest with hanging lights, curving walkways. Angles are carefully calculated so no hallway seems too long. Checkin is a small room off to the side (versus the Venetian or Caesars, where the desks go on forever..)
The experience is closer to exclusivity than carnivale (for Vegas).**

The room: wall-to wall mirrors reflecting a full-wall window view of Vegas. Beige carpets. Black furniture. An enormous TV. Wifi and an impressive range of snacks. Pretty much your average Vegas, only with modern decorations. ***

I called room service. They said half an hour. They showed up in half an hour, to the minute.

It was very nice.

It wasn’t wildly impressive.

But it was consistently good, and it was what I’d expect from the Encore.

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So … why write about an average experience?

Collectively, the Interweb has made a great deal out of over-the-top, extraordinary service - like Morton’s bringing a porterhouse to the airport for Peter Shankman.

That’s a level of service you and I are unlikely to ever experience. And we shouldn’t have to.

Freebies, when done well, go above and beyond - but they should go above and beyond service that’s already strong, already a great experience. Freebies should be an attention-grabbing gesture pointing toward an awesome average experience.****

Sometimes, over-the-top service promotes an already strong brand - and sometimes it’s meant as a bandaid, to cover the gaping wound of bad service and (or) worse products.

In other words: If your service is lousy, or all you hear from customers is product complaints, fix that first! The extraordinary gesture brings more attention - but it doesn’t fix anything. Extraordinary service makes a very bad bandaid.

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The Bottom Line

An extraordinary service experience is marketing - especially when had by a carefully-chosen social influencer.  It creates buzz.  It brings in new business.

The average experience is the one that defines your brand, and keeps customers coming back for more.

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So yes - the extraordinary experience gets all the press, but it’s not the most important.  To be successful at service, it’s imperative your day-to-day service experience is consistent, good, and as expected.

A t the Encore, that means linen napkins, hot soup, and real silver - all hand-served by a butler.  I’ve gotta go back and try the steak…

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* I blame this on the corporate reservation system, and not my own absentmindedness.  Honest.

** An interesting point here: Is miniaturization in electronics, mass-produced ‘luxury’ goods, and interaction with Europe and Asia driven a new concept of luxury — the new apogee is a smaller, impeccably tailored experience (vs. an overwhelmingly grand one?)

*** also condoms and a series of ‘adult games’ right next to the bottled water…

**** Like Mortons’ :)

Posted in Customer, Social Media. Tagged with , , , , , .

By LNIngram
14 November, 2011

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About this Collaboration Thing: Do I Get To Keep my Job?

Social Enterprise: Scary?

I recently briefed a customer on the Social Enterprise; the idea that internal collaboration (between employees) and external conversation (employees/enterprise to customers) makes a business faster, stronger, and ultimately, more successful.

In essence: the customer is now in the driver’s seat; s/he should be the focus of your organization.

But I’m not bringing this up to talk about Salesforce itself.(1)  I want to talk about something my customer said:

(Salesforce.com)

“In theory this whole social enterprise thing is great - but in practice, we find people are afraid to share anything. They think they’ll become redundant if they digitize everything they know - and then they’ll lose their jobs…”

Bottom line: employees often don’t see the point of collaboration - and even if they do, they think the social enterprise is more likely to hurt than help them professionally.

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Even as we see US unemployment climbing, we’re asking people to do the unprecedented; to digitize their knowledge, make it easily transferable.  We’re asking people to transfer their skill set from knowledge hoarding (”you have to ask Mary for the answer”) to knowledge creation/dissemination.
The implication is we’ll reward people based on current performance (knowledge creation), not their acquired knowledge base (ie, seniority). That, in turn, implies better (or faster) digitization will mean job security - and, someone, tell me please, who’s perceived as better at the digital world? It’s not people over 40. (2)
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So let’s talk about democracy.

No, really:

Democracy is a form of government in which all people have an equal say in the decisions that affect their lives. …  It can also encompass social, economic and cultural conditions that enable the free and equal practice of political self-determination.

(via Wikipedia)

OK (you say) - “I learned that in grade school.  How’s it related to the social enterprise?”

A: Democracies are a system set up to drive personal and social benefits to coincide.
When what’s good for you is good for the system (in theory) everyone prospers.

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And of course, it’s the same with the social enterprise.

In the best possible world, the social enterprise drives collaboration so that:

  • what’s good for the employee (visibility, productivity, connectivity, etc) …
  • is good for the company (better knowledge base, faster work, lower turnover)…
  • is good for the customer (the right support/product, at the right time, with minimal frustration..)

That’s the real trick, of course; Setting up rewards so people do what you want them to do
[in corporatespeak: setting up rewards that lead to productive collaboration and knowledge transfer...]

And that means setting up to reward people who contribute value, not just commentary.

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So: How do you get your messaging right?

… how do you convince people to try collaboration, and to stick with it?

I spend my days working with companies doing social media.  The successful ones know the following about messaging:

Sincerity matters.  People can sense insincerity a mile away, even on the internet.  And they *hate* it. (3)

  • Personality matters: Does your brand personality make sense? Does it match other company personalities?
  • Content matters.  Content is king (or queen!) - people come to your site looking for information and deals - not to see the new storefront.
  • Consistency matters: Get in a rhythm, get content out the door.
  • Don’t Oversell: The only thing worse than a company with a once-in-a-blue-moon social profile is the kind that posts 3, 4, 10 times a day.
  • Reward your fans (this one’s obvious)

Point is: When you market internal collaboration to your employees, your messaging should have the same characteristics as a good social media campaign.

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Companies (like Salesforce) that move to internal collaboration are good at the following:

They ensure users get something vital from the system. This is the most important, so I’ll say it again in red. THEY ENSURE THE SYSTEM CREATES VALUE. You can do everything else wrong and still succeed (sometimes), but you have to get this right.  No value = no use. Moving on:

  • They reward voluntary participation - punishing non-participation  just makes people resent the system
  • They consistently, sincerely encourage collaboration - across the org chart, and especially top-down.  Marc Benioff posts to Chatter (Salesforce’s internal collaboration tool), answers questions during his quarterly briefings, on Chatter - and recently rewarded the most prolific Chatter users by inviting them to one of his upper-management offsites.
  • … which of course, also illustrates the importance of rewarding the behavior you want to encourage.
    Note: if you’re encouraging public collaboration, public rewards are definitely the way to go.
  • They don’t oversell social collaboration as the fix-everything solution. Even Benioff doesn’t say social will fix everything. Frankly, your company needs to be running strong for this to work in the first place… (4)
  • They ensure collaboration creates value not duplicated elsewhere. (I’ll say it again..) If you encourage Chatter use (for example) and require everything be double-checked on email, people will never collaborate online.
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The Bottom Line

Yes, internal collaboration is scary.  People have legitimate reasons for concern - and not just the one I mention - but there are ways to pull even the reluctant into the system.  And if you’ve set it up right, messaged correctly internally, and have the right expectations, you can make the social enterprise work for you.

So? Check your messaging. Recognize and reward contribution. Reassure people who’re worried.  And do keep it fun :)

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(1) I do work for Salesforce, of course, so I spend a lot of time talking about Salesfore anyway… ;)

(2) I did just sit in on a different briefing with a fast-moving web company run by a guy in his 70’s.  Perception ain’t necessarily reality…

(3) There’s a whole different blog post (about insincerity) in there, but another time..

(4) http://www.convinceandconvert.com/social-media-monitoring/70-of-companies-ignore-customer-complaints-on-twitter/?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter

Posted in Culture, Incentives, Knowledge, Networking, Philosophy, psychology. Tagged with , , , , , , , , .

By LNIngram
20 October, 2011

No comments

Social Media: 3 Steps To Findability

“My manager wants me to start Tweeting.  A lot.” She sighs, “And I was like, I already have a day job…!”

This isn’t the first time I’ve had this conversation. Or the second.  Or the tenth.  One (unforseen) effect of working in Social Media is that people talk to you about social.  Randomly. A lot. (and I love it :) *

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Social Footprint: Everyone’s Doing It

There’s any number of good reasons you’d want a social footprint, even if you personally aren’t into posting online; you might want to boost sales, do customer support, talk to other people in your industry, increase your influence and reach, understand the market… And then, of course, there’s the unspoken: everyone else is doing it.

It’s the snowball effect: everyone’s on Facebook because everyone else is on Facebook.  Everyone is reading Harry Potter because everyone else is reading Harry Potter. (Or is on foursquare.  Or has the flu, I guess.  But I digress.)

Bottom line: You now have to have a social footprint because you need to be findable, professionally. It’s like a suit jacket - just have to have one. You need to be seen to participate.

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OK, but I also have a real life

If you’re not participating, you’re invisible - but not everyone’s up for creating content in Twitter-sized bites (or in Facebook-sized ones, or in blog sizes, or whatever). Or maybe you don’t have the time to be Hugh MacLeod.  You need an easy way to participate.

So how do you become visible without giving up your life in the process? I present to you:

3 steps to findability

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1. KISS

About.me is awesome. As is a personal website. As is your email address. And Twitter, and Foursquare, and Quora, and your work address, and Orkut, and Myspace, and …..  Give people one (or two) ways to find you.  Link out to the rest. If you keep it simple it’s easier for you to maintain, and you don’t vomit your solipsism on anyone else. Simple is better. People will love you for it. You will look put together**

In general it’s better to point people to one or two places, and link out from there. Saves effort, makes it easy to find you, and ultimately gives you more time for canoeing (or whatever it is you do in your spare time!)…

For example, I’m a fan of Matthew Thomson’s profile (VP, Platform, Klout). It’s simple, links out to everything else, and isn’t too terribly specific (it’ll take a long time to become outdated).

Goal: Keep it simple.

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2. One Name To Rule Them All  (Or Two..)***

There’s no good way to hide your personal identity online.  Even if you have two accounts for everything, you’ll eventually wind up working with a friend (or befriending a colleague), and all your bipolar posting goes out the window. They’ll know it’s you.

Your goal, therefore, is to make sure that your professional and personal identities are clearly defined. Don’t try to keep either of them divorced from you - just from each other.

To that end, use one handle for everything professional (like “lningram”), and use other names for anything that isn’t directly professional.
In general, you’ll want your Twitter/About.me/Quora/blog/etc linked together, and Facebook/XBox/porn/etc separate (or locked down). Don’t autopost your professional Twitter to your personal Facebook.  Or the reverse.

I know a number of professionals that have done this successfully; the best I’ve met to date is a DJ with an entirely separate professional life (or vice-versa) - unfindable unless he tells you one handle, or the other.  He freely admits to both - it’s just really difficult to run into one while searching for the other.

Goal: a search for “myProfessionalHandle” brings up only the suit-and-tie.

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3. That meme.  Spread it.

If your reason for creating a social profile is to be findable, contactible, and associated with your (professional) interests, find an easy way to funnel high-quality interest-specific content through Twitter. Or through Facebook, or wherever. There are lots of ways to do it, easiest is:

  • Set up a web reader (like Google reader) to follow well-known authors and content creators.
  • Set up an automatic posting agent (like coTweet) to automatically post a certain number of articles/day, from that readers’ feed to the web.

… toss in a post when you think of it or when you run across something intriguing, make sure any @messages or DMs go to an email inbox you actually check, and you’re good to go. Instant footprint.

Note: This doesn’t take the place of serious participation. It won’t jack up your influence scores.  What it will do is establish you as a bona-fide live, existing person (mostly), someone who (in theory) knows what’s going on in the industry. You’ll have a footprint.  You’ll be searchable (huzzah). You’ll be associated, online, with the stuff you do for a living.

Don’t forget to check back every now and then to be sure it’s working. And I do of course recommend actually reading the articles occasionally.

Goal: They look for you on Twitter (or on Google) and they find you, associated with the stuff they’d hire you to work on.

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… And a warning:

You should not introduce yourself as a content creator unless you’re planning to create content, consistently.  This will backfire: generally you’ll look worse than if you’d never started.

Same goes for halfhearted content creation.

Consistency is key in social media.  If you set yourself up as (primarily) a content creator, you have a pact with your readers - anyone you start to accrue as a follower - that you’ll keep creating content at the same rate at which you began. On the other hand, if you set yourself up to be a content funnel, and succeed, it’s easy later to experiment - successfully - with content creation.

This is one place where it’s genuinely (marginally) better not to get started, than to try and fail (say, publicly, by running out of steam).

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Fait Accompli

… so there it is:

- Keep it Simple

- One professional handle, only used for professional activities

- Automatically promote industry-specific content

This will not make you a social media master (man, I wish).  It will, however, put you on the map, and get your boss off your back - so you can get back to your real life (or whatever your psychologist’s calling it these days…)

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* … and I do like talking about social, or I wouldn’t have the job. Or the business card. So keep it coming! :)

** like a good pair of heels. you stand above the crowd and look good.  Gentlemen, maybe a good shave is the right example. Dunno :)

*** aka, I Was A Tolkien Nerd In Grade School

Posted in Career, Control, Networking, Social Media, Social Networking, Software, Technology, corporate. Tagged with , , , , , , , , .

By LNIngram
31 May, 2011

No comments

Doing it Right (The First Time)

My mother always told me to do things right - “the first time, Lauren!” I thought it was a moral enjoinder - a good person is  on time, kind to small children, and does things right the first time ’round.
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However: These days, I’m finding that, whether they’re done right or wrong, the way a project is done the first time is often the way it stays.
Take, for example, the two images to the left:
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… Which of these belongs to the new, much-improved, includes-Knowledge-and-Chatter-integration, totally-awesome (and it is) Salesforce for Twitter, v3?? That’s right, the one with the added-at-the-last-minute number three after the name. *

One day I was busy enough to say “let’s just add a 3, and I’ll come back and redo the page later when I have time…”

But I didn’t go back.  More accurately, I don’t go back. I rarely have time, and even when I do, I don’t generally want to rewrite a product specification, or the documentation, or that blog post. Or even the homepage: I wanted to do this new product justice.  But there were other things to get finished, things that mattered more (functionality. Dreamforce. I can go on).  If I was going to spend any time on the homepage, I should’ve spent enough time to make a serious difference.

I do this with email too (All of us do, or Google’s Priority Inbox wouldn’t be so popular) - “I’ll answer that later…” and I do it with the gym (”Walking to work is enough exercise for today…”) - and I could go on and on and on.

But I won’t.

Point is: with respect to products, or documents, or images, or emails - that last-minute fix often becomes the final fix, the final design, the final idea. After all, once it’s done, it’s done - and iterate just isn’t as exciting as create.

Bottom line: whether the work was planned months in advance and well-executed, or simply hammered out at the last minute as a stopgap solution, it’s still my work.  It’s still my name, my reputation on the line.  Which (naturally) leads me back to the title of this post.

Anything worth doing, after all, is worth doing well.

* I own this product, so of course, I’m biased.  But still ;)

Posted in Career, Choice, Patterns, Procrastination, Social Media. Tagged with , .

By LNIngram
12 January, 2011

1 comment

Making Remote Meetings Work

So you’ve read all the advice about working with remote teams, and it boils down to this: Communicate, communicate, communicate.  How do you  make communication work on the phone?  How do you get what you need, when you need it, effectively?

I’ve spent the last two and a half years owning and participating in remote teams - England, France, Uruguay.  All are a several time zones ahead of San Francisco.  Many of the participants have had limited or no English.   Our goals have included get-to-know-you, software design, development, and quality work, debugging, security and performance changes, customer cases, customer support calls, and more. Here’s what I’ve learned:

Relationships matter

  • Meet in person - even if only once.  It is several orders of magnitude harder to work someone you’ve never met, then with someone whose hand you’ve shaken. There’s simply no substitute for knowing if that hesitation on the phone is a language thing, a personality thing, or an I-didn’t-actually-do-it thing.
  • Respect their time.  Don’t ask them to attend 8pm or 6am meetings, leave their weekends intact.  Save the word ‘emergency’ for times it’s needed - then if you have to fire drill, they’ll know it’s important.

Own your phone lag

People wait for a natural break in a conversation to ask a question, or to say something.  Without visual cues, they wait longer. Combine this with VOIP or phone lag, and you’ve a recipe for disaster: a longish pause, followed by everyone talking, followed by another pause …  To fix it:

    • Use short, clear sentences with definite endings. Complete thought, full stop.  Complete thought, full stop.
    • If caught in the start/stop pattern, say “Go ahead, James,” and then wait as long as it takes for your pause, the sound’s travel time, their pause, the response, and the return trip.  Pick a person, ask for a response, wait.  Don’t repeat the request until it’s very clear you’re not getting one.
    • If people are having a hard time with the lag, take charge: ask for clarification on someone’s last point, ask if they understood, etc.  Pick a person, ask for a response - same as above.  This makes it clear whose turn it is, and resets the conversation.
    • If you have new members on the phone - a consulting expert, etc - be sure to cue them in, first thing.  “We have a bit of lag on the phone, Kristen.”

They can’t read your mind (Watch your assumptions)

A boot in American English is a specialized shoe.  In Britain, it’s the trunk of your car. “I checked, and it works” also means different things to different people, depending on the company, the culture, and how important they think checking really is. Ditto with everything.

  • Give context:  Don’t just say “this has to work.” Say “we don’t have time to do this twice.  If we find a problem after install, we lose the last three months of work.” Say it once when everyone’s on the call, be sure everyone understands, and move on. This helps people think about their actions and responses.
  • Ask for more detail:  Don’t just say “Did you check it?” Say that, and  then say “how?” and “how many times?” and “what edge cases did you try?”
  • Get off your high horse: You’re on the phone, so they have to let you look over their shoulders. So don’t ask questions to catch them in a mistake, and don’t make them lose face in front of their peers. Ask for detail, and then LISTEN. WAIT. CLARIFY.


Get groups of people on the phone (in each location)

I know this runs counter to conventional wisdom; most experts advise having everyone on the phone if even one person is remote.  I disagree. I strongly disagree!

  • Dialed-in members have a harder time hearing each other, and there are no visual cues for spaces in the conversation. They talk over each other more often.
  • More callers means more technical problems - everything from signin/signout notifications to multiplied background noise (five people’s office background noise vs. one or two).
  • It’s easier to zone out - or attempt multitasking - when you’re on a call, so overall participation drops

Ultimately, the more people you have on the phone, the more difficult communication and consensus become. To that end:

  • Have as few meeting places as possible - get groups of people on the phone, in a conference room. (A group here, a group in France…)
  • Make sure everyone sits as close to the telephone as possible, and have people speak loudly and clearly  - and more slowly, if you have foreign language speakers on the phone.  Don’t allow side conversations, while you’re at it.
  • Encourage people to ask for a repeat if they can’t hear, or didn’t understand.  I also like to repeat information (especially technical information..) when I’m leading the meeting: “Let me be sure I’m getting this.  You’re saying …” This isn’t just for my benefit; it keeps everyone on the same page, and wakes people up.  Participate!
  • Check up on people to ensure they’re getting it “Francois, is that clear for you?” This is especially important for foreign language speakers.
  • Finally: EVERYONE SHOULD DIAL IN AT LEAST ONCE - so they know what it feels like.  Banish people to a separate conference room one at a time, if you have to.

Keep meetings short and to the point.

In my experience, (almost) no phone meeting over 30 minutes in length yields more than a better-conducted 30-minute meeting. There are a few exceptions, of course - information-driven meetings and design meetings spring to mind.  But your average, run-of-the-mill, checking-up-on-you meeting?  1/2  hour should do it.    Be useful. Don’t bore your participants.  Stop talking and start getting things done. Give speeches on your own time.

  • Have an agenda, and stick to it. You may have to do a lot of legwork beforehand to have an effective agenda.  So be it.
  • Ask people to take side discussions offline.
  • Set a meeting for yourself at the other end, if you have to

Have a call every day

This is a corollary to the above.  Have short-and-sweet phone meetings, and have them at least once a day.  It’s important to have a presence in your remote teams’ workday - even if it’s just a five-minute call  to be sure they’re on track.

  • In general, I don’t recommend requiring people to attend a meeting if they don’t have to be there - with the exception of your daily checkup call.  Get everyone on  the phone once a day.

Make yourself available

The farther away your team, the harder this is - but:

  • Answer their email first
  • Give them an easy, casual way to reach you - Instant messenger, your cell number, Skype, whatever works for you. Fast, simple communication gets a lot more done than formal meetings.
  • At the end of every single call, ask if they need anything - and if they do, get it done ASAP.  Even if you have to go down to the HR department and fax the form yourself.

Visuals can be useful.  Or not.

This is last because it’s least important.  I haven’t done many visual conferences, but I’ve found the setup more trouble than it’s worth. Once I’ve used some really good videoconference tools, I’ll come back and update.  In the meantime:

  • GoToMeeting (or something similar) is great for demoing features, going through lists, showing ongoing project work (we use a computerized ‘wall’ for agile scrum meetings), and giving powerpoint presentations.
  • It is *not* great for large spreadsheets, many-paged/tabbed demos, or you talking while showing everyone your awesome background image.
  • In general, people are easily distracted by visuals. Use yours with purpose, or don’t use them at all.

A lot of these points are applicable to meetings in general, but they’re especially important for teleconferencing. When done well, working with remote teams is a pleasure, something I’ve come to enjoy. Now: Is it 5pm in Paris yet…?

Also worth reading:

Ten Tools for Remote Teams and Making the Most of Virtual Meetings (BNET)

Posted in Career, Meetings, Software, Technology, Teleconferencing, corporate. Tagged with , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , .

By LNIngram
7 June, 2010

1 comment

Facebook’s Monetization Scheme Should Be: PayPal, Penny-Sized

Last month, Facebook - for the first time - got more US hits than Google.

.. but only for a moment

And despite its world-renouned status, wild international growth, and one-up on Google - Facebook still isn’t turning a profit. We used to see Facebook as a refuge from the wild, untamed, marketer-riddled WorldWideWeb.  We trusted Facebook to host our most personal information.  And now -  a technofable gone horribly wrong - Facebook is using our information against us.  The FBI is searching your photos for terrorists, your boss is searching your unintented-for-a-wider-audience drunk college photos, and your friendly neighborhood marketer can tell from your profile you’re just the right person to see adds for “intelligent funny tshirts” (someone, shoot me, please …).

If this continues, Facebook will drive its fans to niche sites. In the long run, marketers will follow these most active users, and Facebook will be back where it started - without the page hits. On the other hand, if they don’t start profiting, the VC money will go away, and they’re also back where they started - as a college website, bereft of features and hosting space.

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So: Besides Marketing, how can you make money on the internet?

  • Sell something (Amazon, Netflix, porn sites)- or let others sell (craigslist)
  • Services (hosting/domain names, match.com, craigslist)
  • Leave Me Alone money (the antimarketing; you pay Pandora to not show you ads
  • Insider features (anyone can use the free version, but you have to pay to use better/faster/larger features…)
  • Pay To Use It (Salesforce.com, most enterprise solutions)

… there are more. but these are the basics.

The point? 

Selling ads is the least creative (and most user-alienating) way to make money from your website.

Facebook needs another monetization paradigm

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Maybe Facebook’s strengths are a clue where to go next.

Facebook does the following superbly well:

  • Identity: Letting users be their Real Selves on the internet.
  • Connection
  • Causes: Grassroots interest/movement on
  • Simplicity: Making the internet approachable - they’re the entirety of the new, social world for milions of otherwise non-internet or web 1.0-type users.
  • Security: This is last - because it used to be a safe place to hang out. Now ….?

Any monetization on Facebook’s side has to flow from its strengths, without being so annoying we quit using it.

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Things Facebook cannot do:

- Become a pay-for-service.  This will coincide with a sudden, huge rise in Orkut and MySpace’s popularity.

- Sell stuff.  Wrong business model, and they couldn’t compete with Amazon or anyone else on delivery.

That said:

  • They can certainly sell better features without subtracting from their current set.
    • How about a somewhat-more customizable UI (green Facebook pages/headers? Allow smilies, longer profile limits, yadda). This should be simple to implement, and they could give away previews/etc to get the ball rolling.
    • Business features: Have a few business-specific features (Fan-type views, better mass-messaging for fans of your page, etc) and charge for them.
  • They can go for the leave-me-alone money - Sell an ad-free Facebook for $1/month.  (please. please, i’m begging you). To be honest, I’m surprised they haven’t done it already.

OR: Facebook can try something entirely new.

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What about: PayPal, penny-sized???

The Red Cross keeps asking me to donate - and, let’s face it, i’d do it if i didn’t have to navigate a website and enter my credit card information (yet again) - and i don’t really want to give $100 right now. I want to give 5. Or 10. Or $1.  And come back later, if i feel like it, and do it again.

And the New York Times? Remember their disastrous pay-to-view scheme, the one where you could view three articles and then got locked out until you logged in as a paying user?  … what if, instead, you could pay a penny - or half a penny - to read an article?

What if you could pay very small amounts - say, up to a dollar - in a two-click process on any (participating) website, debiting directly via Facebook?  Just click “pay,” enter the value (1c, 2c), and fill out a capcha for verification. I could…

  • Donate to Haiti and other causes in 10c increments.
  • Get quick-look access to images on websites (porn rather springs to mind, but there are lots of other examples…
  • Get read-access to papers

Facebook could profit on a 1% charge on all transactions, or on a very low yearly fee; it’s infinitely more money than zero, after all, and it’d almost certainly deliver more money than ads once it got rolling.

We have VISA, we have MasterCard, we have automated checking and etrade and Paypal and so on.  But none of these things are small enough - or ubiquitous enough - to work for these use cases. On the other hand, Facebook’s creating a Like feature; soon, you’ll be able to Like! anything anywhere on the Internet. They’ll already be popping up everywhere.  They could easily harness this framework.

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To be honest,

I don’t expect this or any other daring, innovative step from Facebook.  We’re talking about a company that’s never done one innovative thing in its entire existence.  Frankly, Facebook itself was a copycat idea:  “let’s do this facebook thing online instead!”   Zuckerburg’s consistently made safe choices and market-driven choices that seem like they’ve been made by someone held captive by his own success.
(Ever wonder if Zuckerburg would be happier as a star developer in some hightech company somewhere? I certainly think so …)

… and so I rest my case.  Facebook’s got all the ability - and fans, and page hits - in the world; if they can’t capitalize and think outside the box, it’ll be disappointing, yet -sadly- expected.

Posted in Creativity, Prediction, Profit, Social Media, Social Networking, Software, Technology. Tagged with , , , , , , .

By LNIngram
8 April, 2010

4 comments

The Balancing Act

I just linked to this blog on my email signature at work - and people keep coming up to me going Where do you find time to get everything done??  … which is funny, ’cause last I checked we all get the same 24 hours/day.

I think.

Which means it’s really about efficiency.*  How do we become efficient (so we can do more of the things we want to)?

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You Already Know:

  • Stay off your email / No useless meetings / Use Prioritized lists
  • Go to they gym / Sleep/ Eat/ Have friends
  • Have lovers (there’s an almost-surprising number of NYT articles on the subject, look it up)

And of course, you’ve got to care to begin with.

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But assuming you’re semi-balanced in your daily  existence… Here’s how I’m Getting Things Done on my side of the fence:

Serialize

Cut everything you do into smaller pieces - and always have a way to get at those pieces.  Never just sit there reading Wikipedia (ok, almost never).

Pursue things you enjoy,  break each task into small pieces, and just keep pulling pieces off the stack and getting them done.

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Streamline

Get serious about efficiency.

When I’m hung up (or procrastinating) on code, I work on a blog post. When I’m reading the web, I’m reading the tech industry. I post interesting articles to my Twitter. Then I can get at them later (to write blog posts), and I accrue a Twitter following…

… and so on. Try to have everything you do serve a couple purposes (if possible).  Try to always work on the next piece of something.

Make it a habit.
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Sort: Don’t do What you Don’t have to

The biggest trap of the modern world is the Important Paper trap.  A lot of people spend life agonizing over their TPS reports. They’re mired in the details.

If you’re focused on the bigger picture, the details generally take care of themselves.
(disclaimer: this does not apply to taxes, foreplay, or code reviews)

For example: If i spend all my time worrying about my total bugs open - I get lots of small, unrelated tasks finished.  If I focus on the bigger picture, I know how I want things to work. I find the bugs - and know when they’re fixed - without spending so much time clicking around.

In the long run, people don’t care whether or not you filled out the Requisition form; they care about the work you got done, and whether or not you were fun to talk to while you did it.

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Start:

If it will take ten minutes or less, do it now. Don’t wait ’till later.

If it needs doing, get moving. I try not to procrastinate on starting anything; I get the first piece done, and the rest flows naturally from there.

You will also win a reputation for brilliant (read: irritating) decisiveness. Can’t hurt.

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Centralize/Automate: Make info come to you.

… In general, I try to get technology working for me, so I don’t have to think about it.

So: It’s  highly uncool to say, but I really do like Outlook; it tells me where I have to be next.  And it’s (almost) always right.

I use Google Reader to collect news from all over the web

And so on.

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And finally: don’t take things so seriously

The whole point of efficiency isn’t to spend the same amount of time at work getting more done.  It’s to get things done better, and have time to finish that novel.  Or go for a ride with the top down.  Or get laid. Or whatever it is you’re denying yourself.

The work doesn’t matter. Results do.  And if you’re not seeing the forest for the trees, seriously: You’re working too hard. Put down the mouse. Play a chess game. Take a walk.  Come up with your next big idea.

Or work on your taxes.

Yeah.

* … and probably insanity. But sanity’s overrated, anyway …

Posted in Career, Motivation. Tagged with , , , , .

By LNIngram
23 March, 2010

No comments

The Book of Jobs (When is an AppStore Not a Store?)

If you haven’t heard, Apple’s diving headfirst into the hypocrisy pool these days: Apple, There’s Pornography On My iPhone. The App Is Called Safari. You Made It.
In short: Apple recently dumped a whole bunch of ’sexual’ applications out of the AppStore - despite their parental-ratings system, despite the fact they’re featuring Sports Illustrated’s Swimsuit 2010 app.  And the Playboy app. And despite the fact the Internet at large - sex included - is available through this little app called Safari…

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On to the good stuff.  Check out this quote:

Of course this sad shiny-headed onanist [Michael Wolff] can’t just admit that he’s pissed about the fact that we’ve ruined his beat-off hobby, so instead he launches into a screed about how Apple is so controlling. Because what? Because we run a store and decide what stuff we’re going to sell in our store? Well, guilty as charged, Sir Flogs-A-Lot. I run a store, and I choose what to put on the shelves. This is an outrage? Stores sell what they want to sell. Do you walk into Macy’s and start screaming because they don’t sell Astro-Glide and Fleshlights next to the men’s shoes? ….

– FakeSteveJobs (emphasis mine)

Context Matters.

I’m a huge, huge fan of FSJ, though i wish he bit as loud as he barks (Read: Calling off Operation Chokehold).  Sometimes I read for the comedic value (hookah, anyone?) and sometimes - like here -  he sees something profound. I’ll say it again:

Context.

Apple is all about proprietary: proprietary software built for in-house hardware, pristine interfaces that often defy (ignore?) the laws of customer success.  (Copy/Paste? Nobody really needs that…)

Furthermore, Jobs’ products have earned him a rabid fanbase; people who really, truly like and care about the product, and who - for the most part - have genuine loyalty to his company.  Seriously: who waits three days in the snow to buy a $400 telephone?

However, with this skin fiasco, Jobs has made two serious contextual/conceptual mistakes, which will come back to haunt him. Here’s what he’s missed:

1.  The market has changed.  Users today (especially GenY) aren’t passive fanatics. If they support a cause, they create a Facebook page and get their friends to join.  If they (we) buy a new gadget, we talk about it online. And if we’re software engineers, if we love a product we want to make it better.

You know that already, just like you know this:  If we try to contribute, and feel that - as a group - we’re not getting listened to, we’ll spam our known universe with our frustration.  And listen to other people’s spam. And make decisions based on said spam.*

This is not a stretch - in any way -  for a group of people who spent highschool updating their every move on IRC, IM, Chat rooms, and ubiquitous two-toned blogs.

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This brings me to point number two: Like it or not,

2.  Jobs is running a platform, not a store. This goes back to FakeSteve’s original post - the bolded part.  Does Jobs see the AppStore as a kind of glorified BestBuy? I didn’t see any porn - even the artistic variety - at BestBuy last time I was there.**  This would explain the Swimsuit-issue-vs-porn-app thing.  AppStore Deciderator asks: Would they sell this at walMart? If the answer’s yes, go for it. If not, just say no.

Reality Check: Jobs is running a platform. He’s advertised it as a platform. He’s turned many of his most fanatic users into a fanatic developer base. He’s made a lot of money for a lot of people. ***  … it’s pretty hard (i’ll go with almost impossible) to go back to Just A Store after this.

Jobs has a problem.  He’s got a bunch of users who expect to be listened to, who conceptualize the AppStore as a platform.  In the user’s (read: buyer’s) context, Apple’s created an environment meant to be navigated - created, controlled, and experienced - by Us.

In Job’s context, we’re his from the time we type “iphone AppStore” into our Safari search engine.

Even if we’re suppliers.

It’s a context conflict!  … hence all the bad publicity.

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Where does this leave us?

  • For now, it tells us Jobs - despite his incredible talents - doesn’t get it at a gut level. I just don’t get it when people at work don’t want to collaborate. (Seeing Red is a better way to put it, actually).  Maybe there’s something about the contribute/collaborate world that just doesn’t make sense for Jobs.
  • It tells us Apple has to make a choice: Collaboration, or In-House? It can’t sit on the fence forever without looking badly indecisive.  Google’s less organized, Microsoft is less disciplined - but they’ll catch up to Apple in the end.  Suing for patent infringement only delays the inevitable.
  • Finally, it demonstrates how much context matters; not just how you see it, but how everyone else does, too. In a hyperconnected world, consumer empathy is more important than ever.

* On a related note: This is why progressivism has a long future in US politics; the upcoming generation is very comfortable with sharing, groupthink, and a kind of diffuse empathy.  We’re more tuned in to  the group mind than any generation before us. We’ll make decisions in a different paradigm - now, in buying. In the future: in politics. And the trend points upward.

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** … not that I was looking for porn in BestBuy. Or anything.

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*** Google “Make a million dollars iphone app” for more on this - although imho the market’s about tapped out. New money’s in ipad applications appealing to the Baby Boomer set.  But I digress.

Posted in Choice, Culture, Customer, Philosophy, Prediction, Social Media, Software, Technology. Tagged with , , , , , , , , , , , , , .

By LNIngram
3 March, 2010

2 comments