Confidences

Rethinking the Housing Market

2010-04-12T06:52:00.000-07:00

When you normally think of houses and housing, once you get past the recent debacle and ponder the norm you assume the conventional wisdom: buying's better than leasing, property rises in value, good investment, etc. This is generally borne out as you peruse a real estate section of a newspaper, noting rising prices, or drive through some neighborhoods and admire architecture of years, even decades past.

So I had to stop and think a bit when I read an article about Welsh company Affresol developing building materials and even entire homes from recycled plastic. I thought it was a wonderful idea until I read the sentence "The company estimated the life of the houses at more than 60 years and said the TPR elements were recyclable at the end of that period."

Hmm, 60 years. I looked up and realized the house I'm paying a mortgage on was built just over 80 years ago, with little sign of degrading, melting, anything you'd imagine plastic would do at the end of its lifecycle. Sure it needs some work - some cracks in the plaster (yes, plaster not drywall), painting, etc. but it's essentially the same as when the craftsmen first erected it in the mid-1920's.

I then paused and wondered a bit about the logic of the conventional wisdom. Once you factor in mortgage interest, taxes, insurance, utilities, maintenance, etc. a house seems like a pretty lousy investment. There's no way I could recoup all that outlay, and I certainly don't make money off my property (renting/subletting). In purely finance ledger terms, it's really an expense, not an asset. Not to mention the frustration I have in trying to make the layout work - with two college age girls and both my wife and I as freelancers, we have four adults working from home!

If nearly all other major purchases (from cars to appliances) depreciate in value, why not buildings? (Actually, I think they do according to the tax code, but don't quote me on that.) Plus, if you know that a building can be reused and recycled every so often, why not plan for it - it could open up a whole new world of possibilities for remodeling (think trading up to a new layout, like trading up for a new car every few years). The whole structure could be modular and "plug and play" if utilities outlets could be standardized: just reset the new building on the slab, connect the wires and hoses, and walk in.

We'd definitely need to rethink our approach to housing, financing real estate, and investments - holding on to certain properties and presuppositions more lightly, to be sure. At the least, we'd be buying/owning land and leasing nearly everything else. Maybe if we thought about it hard enough, we'd realize we're really doing that now - we just never stop to separate the building from the land unless a flood, fire or tornado does it for us.

The end of the article hinted at a more realistic application for now: a heating and water system company planned to contract for some buildings; as part of the deal, Affresol would use that company's recycled plastic for building materials - an ingenious way to close a waste loop. At the least, a promising start to some potentially radical thinking about how we live in this space.

Thoughts on Telecommuting and Work-life Balance

2010-03-19T08:24:00.000-07:00

I suppose, given the nature of freelance, I naturally ponder the concept of telecommuting. The term first cropped up in the mid 1970's, as workers cut back on driving in response to the Arab oil embargo.

So, first point to ponder: the idea, growing up with the "Information Age" and technology, has been around as we are familiar with it, for well over three decades; demographically, that's nearly a generation. Gen Y/Millenials, to be exact - young adults fully accustomed, even expecting, NOT to live out their careers in a building.

Another idea - one of the first pictures that pop up is the bed-head padding down to the basement in their PJs to work (by that we assume surf the web for half a day). This derogatory stereotype is not only passé, it's inaccurate.

Passé - I drive my eldest daughter down to college from time to time (we live in town so mostly she takes the bus), and at first I was confounded by the number of people milling around in UGG-style - slippers? shoes? and lounge pants. A generation ready to push "corporate casual" off the cliff.

Inaccurate - I feel much more to the point. Again, technology reshapes the notion of telecommuting. People read, study, write, talk, on buses, trains, planes, autos (as passengers, please?), or while waiting for their transport, or at coffee shops, restaurants, libraries. Nearly anyone can and does telecommute for work at some time in a typical work year.

More industries push the envelope defining telecommuting, the most sensational examples being in medicine, with physicians consulting with one another in real time across continents to analyze lab results or MRI scans, or even remotely controlling robots for surgical procedures. Doctors without borders, indeed.

Will offices ever go away? No. We need spaces dedicated to allowing people to work together: meet, collaborate, accomplish specific tasks. Real, not virtual face time. However, I question the viability of future commercial real estate booms, given the number of workers capable of executing most or all of their work remotely.

Which leads me to a concern voiced by critics, usually leveled at technology in general, the perceived inability to separate work time from personal time - you can't get away from the office." My answer: you're right, we don't get away from work. I argue that as humans we never really have.

Most of humanity through the ages worked, can-see to can't see, seven days a week in order to survive, from hunting and gathering to domesticating cattle and crops. Throughout the agrarian age, people literally lived at their workspace, down on the farm. the Industrial Revolution drew people away from one workplace, to work insanely long hours for a pittance in another place they had literally no ownership in. Mid-20th century, with the rise of information management and white-collar workers, we saw people once more lugging work back home, in briefcases bulging with paperwork to review evenings and weekends.

The very idea behind the phrase "getting away from the office" connotes this rather arbitrary compartmentalization of life into a work area and personal area. The separation is akin to "work to live vs. live to work;" defining oneself by one's livelihood; deciding what one's life work will be, or laboring under the assumption that life is work (as opposed to play?)

I see a generation making the most of it. So, work's a huge part of life, a necessity; then deal with it. Find a vocation you like, with people you like, and integrate your work into life. Nurture friendships and romances based in the workplace, right alongside social networks dedicated to dating life; attend "work family" reunions thrown by co-workers who used to work together at a business or even from folded businesses (which I have participated in myself).

We forge links with people we spend so much of our lives with, working together on common goals. For me it goes back to a fundamental tenet I've posted on in my first blog, a counter to the "nothing personal, it's just business" saw: nothing can be more personal, more human, than business.

The technology exists that lets us accomplish this transparently, effortlessly, across borders and time zones. We can see this as a chain shackling us to a treadmill, or as cords linking us closer together. How we view our life, our work, is up to us, because more than ever, how we live and where we work is more closely intertwined than ever.

Mulling Over Information Design

2010-03-11T12:04:00.000-08:00

In the beginning of the year I posted a single question 'pop quiz' on a couple of LinkedIn discussion boards: When you see the phrase 'information design' or 'information designer' the first thing that comes to mind is...

I got a few hits back, primarily focused on graphics (flow charts, dashboards, mind maps), as well as a little direction or planning of information (insights or story lines delivering more than data clutter). A secondary direction led to web site design and navigation.

My (extremely) qualitative sampling seems quite close to the mark. Tech Head Stories offers this definition: "the practice of gathering, filtering, and presenting information in accordance with effective design principles in order to understand and communicate to others the essence, the meaning of that information." As a corollary, Donna Ford, member of the Information Design and Architecture Special Interest Group, notes information design "is not designing information the right way; it is finding the right way to design and deliver that information. Too often a print document is well laid out without any flaws (designed the right way), when it really should have been released on CD or the web for easier updating on a regular basis (the right design)."

One discussion from my pop quiz centered on content versus channel. A picture may be worth a thousand words, but who chooses the words? Who decides on the story - which pieces of data get included or excluded? One respondent noted "I don’t want to design information. I’d rather design and oversee/execute the process that identifies, collects/gathers and analyzes the information..."

So, at first pass the information design emphasis is primarily on how best to present the data available, not on what information to gather or even necessarily how best to interpret it. However, I believe that interpretation becomes part of the presentation process: by editing for channel and audience you choose to highlight or eliminate data, thus shaping the message.

Content and channel continue to converge: what’s said with how it’s broadcast. We started with the press, moved that content over the airwaves with radio, then added moving pictures. Think back to high school lit class: can you imagine anyone trying to use Nathaniel Hawthorne as a radio script? Listen and look at old clips of 1950’s and ‘60’s advertising compared to ten years ago or today.

Now in the digital epoch, with everyone transceiving / produsing all together, the confluence surges ever stronger – more than ever, Marshall McLuhan’s maxim rings true: the medium is the message. And I am eager to follow where it flows.

A Cynic’s Definition of “Consultant”

2010-02-21T09:34:00.000-08:00

"A consultant is someone who borrows your watch to tell you the time…”

- David Owen, quoted in David Olive’s White Knights and Poison Pills: a Cynic’s Dictionary of Business Jargon.

Okay, as I understand it, David’s saying that someone takes information you already have of state the obvious, information you could see for yourself. Well, can you? To use another old saw, have you lost the forest for the trees?

All right, for the sake of argument here, let’s work with this watch analogy. Consultants borrow your watch; at least you know you're both working in your time frame, and they're not wandering in from halfway around the world saying “awfully bright here for 2 a.m." Let’s check assumptions:

Your watch functions: charged battery, working gears, unbroken hands, etc.
Your watch is set correctly, not off by minutes much less hours.
Your watch doesn’t run fast or lose time. (no kidding – we have to reset our VCR clock once a week or so because it can lose 3 – 4 minutes.)
You know what day it is (really, how many weekend days have you mixed up?).
You grasp the bigger time frame: season, zone, etc.

So your watch reads a certain time, which (unpacking the analogy) your company is at a certain stage in time (production, marketing, what have you).

Is your watch working, or has time stood still for you?
Is your watch in synch with your suppliers, customers, competitors, industry?
Does the watch always seem to be running ahead of, or falling behind, everyone else?
What’s the difference in your business between 9:15 Monday morning and 4:45 pm Friday afternoon?
Has your industry just started budding, is it in growth mode, or are the leaves starting to turn, so to speak?
As a corollary - are you planting when everyone else is harvesting?

Now, let’s talk about what time it is…

Ready for a Jihad on Capitalism?

2010-02-01T12:09:00.000-08:00

I just set down my Sunday paper that carried an AP report about the latest message from Osama - "bin Laden Blasts U.S. For Climate Change." On the surface, it seems he's on the record as being environmentally friendly, concerned with industrialized nations' effects on global warming. The article posits the idea he's trying to broaden his appeal to people otherwise turned off by the hard-line Islamic diatribes he usually broadcasts.

As I read further, I was drawn to phrases quoted in the report: references to corporations as "the true criminals," guilty of both climate and financial crises; "punishing and holding to account" corporate executives, specifying those living in "Washington, New York and Texas"; plus wanting to "stop the wheels of the American economy" ostensibly by boycotting American goods in general and refusing to use the dollar in particular.

Here's the thing: bin Laden doesn't strike me as the kind of guy content with boycots and placard-fannned protests. Could we read a shift in strategy, away from primarily political and military posts to softer targets in the private sector - far more open, more numerous, and less guarded? Sure, it's a pitch to the populist vote: get more people to empathize with terrorists, or at least not judge so swiftly or harshly when they attack - "they're just after those greedy bastards, is all." It becomes just as easy to separate 'us' from 'them' then, when 'them' becomes not the Imperialist Americans, or even warmongering government bureaucrats in general, but now the ravenous capitalists with no attachment or loyalty to a particular nation-state.

I believe we have little to no time left for the luxury of just doing our jobs, leaving our politics to hide behind the voting booth curtain. Conventional wisdom has long operated under the notion that a divide exists between private enterprise and public governance, careening between de-regulation and micro-management, with the two institutions at continual loggerheads. Closer examination reveals this rift is much, much thinner than we assume; in many societies, the line has been erased. More people across the globe see no difference between Wall Street and Capitol Hill; it's a matter of time before a jihadist acts on this view.

We need to work toward meeting and building common ground between the two camps, for the safety and security of the citizens/employees both institutions share and fundamentally rely on for their existence. To paraphrase one of America's founding fathers - and great entrepreneur - Ben Franklin, they must learn to hang together lest they hang separately.

Breaking Past the Demos

2009-12-29T08:43:00.000-08:00

Consumers view their interaction with providers in general, and review that interaction via survey in particular, very differently. As you mine through your customer database, perhaps in preparation for a formal survey, think through two related questions:

What mix comprises a given customer base? Are you attracting certain customer types to your business?

What drives their consumption interactions - what makes them shop in the first place?

Customers approach and engage in the consumption/purchase process for different reasons, asking and answering different questions as they walk through the process. Let's make up an example: three families with an annual income of $59,000, with two children aged 10 - 14 years, living in single-family housing. All three families have two heads of household; married; both wage earners, with both kids in school; and college education. In other words, identical demographic profiles. They should answer the survey pretty much the same way, right? Yet, when asked about discretionary income:

Family A spends their vacation time in spurts, on long weekend getaways or family reunions with family close by. They've purchased a newer, larger home to make it easier to entertain when it's their turn to host reunions, and have new cars to run their kids and friends around to the after-school activities they're heavily involved in and contribute to.

Family B owns a smaller fairly new home that's lower maintenance, and buys cars just off lease to minimize repairs without buying brand new. They take extended vacations, including several trips to Europe.

Family C owns "well-loved" cars and a "handyman special" home. They spend vacation time on renovation projects around the house, and do most of the maintenance work on their own cars. They have substantial education trust funds established for their kids' college education.

This fictional "profile" highlights what researchers refer to as psychographics - emotions, beliefs, attitudes that explore why people do what they do. It adds an important dimension, giving you much deeper insight into consumer motivation - it helps you understand what makes shoppers open their wallets:

Desire for conformity/conscientious of what others think

Strong self direction/Sense of achievement, power, security

Act out of hedonism/impulse

Understanding your customers is not just a good thing, it's mandatory: several trends noted in Mashable point to business and marketing not only getting faster, but flowing non-stop, 24/7. You must engage, listen, understand, converse with your customers, to have a story that they connect to, identify with. To do that, you need to know who they are and where they're coming from.

Shortest Survey Ever?

2009-12-07T10:44:00.000-08:00

Reading through the October issue of Quirk's Marketing Research Review, I finished a 3-part series on customer satisfaction research that I may blog more about in the weeks to come. For now I'll focus on one nugget, dubbed the ultimate customer satisfaction survey, consisting of one question: "How did we do?" Like most things simple, it carries a real punch as you unpack it.

It's brief. One of the greatest crimes committed against respondents is the never-ending survey. It’s not just about length of time. If the questionnaire is convoluted or tedious or repetitive, respondents will at least drop out or at worst zip through it and insert random scores and mumble “don’t know” into every open-end, leaving you with a pile of inaccurate data you’ll base business decisions on.

It's geared to the customer's interests. As a corollary to point 1, if the topic doesn’t engage the respondent, they have no real reason to talk to you. They came to you with expectations for a certain product or service to be delivered at a certain level at a certain price. By definition they’re very interested in that outcome.

It relies on stated versus derived importance. Add #2 to #1: you now have little need to run respondents through a gauntlet of attributes with an “overall sat” anchor, then draw data through convoluted computations to arrive at an estimate of what’s important. Just ask them. Then listen.

It puts the customer in the drivers' seat. Let the customer tell you what (in their mind) really happened and how they really feel about it – no preconceived assumptions, no pre-set battery of questions that may or may not measure what’s most important, or scales that fail to measure how they really feel.

It relates to a concrete customer occurrence. It anchors your feedback instrument at a specific point where your customer engaged you, rather than in the abstract transaction stream, somewhen in a fuzzy phase in the past xx number of months where they’re sure you exist in the market (“overall awareness”), and they’re pretty sure they’ve shopped you before (overall usage”), but...

Like most things simple, it’s not easy. You relinquish control; you make yourself vulnerable to criticism; you set expectations that you may not be able to meet. That’s to me is what’s so thrilling about market research: I think when it’s done correctly, the risk is well worth the reward.

Ready to move in real time?

2009-11-13T07:17:00.000-08:00

In my 30 October blog post I expressed some hope that the future of market research can address quality issues by focusing on dialog up and down the "value chain," from research clients through suppliers to include respondents, namely a renewed call to quality with new modes of thinking through research.

I was very excited to read over Bernard Moon's four trends of the real-time web, namely:

Collaboration: individuals and businesses continuing to exploit capabilities to work on projects, reports/papers etc. simultaneously rather than iteratively, getting feedback while you're on the line with them (e.g., finding out from engineering if your new design idea is really doable right then instead of waiting for faxes or e-mail replies);
Search: Google announced its intent to include tweets in search results. So? You hear about a new restaurant opening, or that blockbuster film that opened over the weekend. Good place to spend money or a lot of hype? You can now focus on results that provide up to the minute intel, that gets updated the more people interact (eat at the restaurant or see the movie and comment);
Analytics: real-time data analysis, continually updating models and testing hypotheses on the fly rather than setting up a weeks-long analysis plan (first the questionnaire, then the fieldwork, then tabulation, etc.);
E-commerce: by now you can see how this can build. With information flowing between suppliers, producers, and consumers, the whole marketing mix can flex in real time - from inventory management to spot promotions and introductory to final clearance pricing, all updated continuously.

I argue this makes the quality question nearly moot. The old adage used to be "pick any two of the three: fast, cheap, good (or right)." If these tools are adapted, fine-tuned and managed carefully, we may find a way to finally get all three. In my next post I'll link you to a site that demonstrates a way to model this real-time testing for market research purposes.

Questions on Quality: the Future of Market Research?

2009-10-30T06:50:00.000-07:00

Rockhopper Research's Research Industry Trends 2009 report talks about clients' willingness (come could even say demand) to sacrifice quality for cost.

What does this mean? will we:

see a permanent degradation of sevice, where we get ever-lower standards for "good enough" (a quote from the new release: "RFPs from purchasing departments that seem to treat research consulting as if it was a flatcar of widgets" - we've ALL been there!);
see a reversal of fortune, with both supplier and client-side industry leaders declaring "no more - quality's back";
or an even more profound shift, with some modes of research simply fading off, replaced by new survey modes (witness the increase in social meda research and blog monitoring) and completely new research models, including ways of ensuring quality.

I hope it's a combination of 2 and 3. We need a holistic view of research. I feel research as a discipline has succumbed to capitalism's "specialization" aspect, which is a double-edged sword. Suppliers focus on what they do best: honing the discipline of better research (more accurate, more timely, keeping up with societal and business trends, etc.) while clients focus on improving the execution of their respective business models as they interact with the bigger business world - fine.

The problem in the resulting fault lies on both sides of the divide. Suppliers assume they can post and read a few blogs or ask a few people some questions on their mobile phones and they're 'good to go,' while MR lab-coats and academics have lost touch with how to answer "so what?" to the "significant findings" derived from the data they've collected.

I over-simplify, I know, but I still believe both sides are guilty of devaluing the other. Maybe the next study to conduct should be a social media event with clients and suppliers talking - and listening - to each other.

Observe the Law of Unintended Consequences

2009-10-26T08:48:00.000-07:00

Before launching a new initiative, from product development to advertising, most reasonable business people would agree some customer research is in order. Sometimes I wonder about the research budget size, or the type of research done. How much thought do you put into investigating consumer behavior? Sometimes your only cost is your time.

The "fifty-cent" term for the research I suggest today is Ethnography, but really it's about simple, careful observation of your customers in their native habitat: your store. Because people don't behave the way you think they will, or like them to behave. Sometimes they don't behave, period.

For example: cross-selling products. My favorite: placing rolls of Tums in front of the medium and hot salsa jars. This straight-forward idea seems downright thoughtful to the customer, and can lead to more sales.

Now, someone in merchandising has the bright idea of including a rack of athletic socks with exercise shoes. Again, makes sense: customers buying a new pair of running shoes might grab a pack of socks on their way to the register; more revenue from a quick cross-sale.

Sit in front of the security monitor or just hang around the department, and watch the number of six-packs ripped open as customers grab a pair - or even just ONE SOCK - to try on the athletic shoes before leaving a crumpled pile of plastic, paper and cotton all over the floor for the next customer to drive a cart over before a sales clerk can clean up.

How many packs can you afford to go through, and expect to sell, to offset your costs: repacking socks (depending on how frugal you are, including the "used" sock or socks) or damaging out packs, plus associates' time cleaning up the mess instead of helping fit customers or restocking the floor with new shoes, not to mention any opportunity costs of that pack sitting unmolested for sale in the basics department (people usually don't bring a pack over to rip open and try on). For a larger store, maybe this is no big deal. For a smaller store, this can impact the bottom line from damaged goods, lost time, and an unkempt floor leaving a negative impression on customers.

Make the time to really people watch: how do they use your store? If you make a change, make it small then watch again, looking for those unintended consequences. Can you afford the costs? Do you realize increased revenue, and does it offset those costs?

High-speed rail: bold move forward or old-school scam?

2009-10-13T07:31:00.000-07:00

Grand Rapids Community College hosted a presentation sponsored by The Grand Valley Metro Council. In the presentation, the Interstate Traveler Company proposed building a hydrogen-powered high-speed "maglev" rail system along the highway, a corridor between Grand Rapids and Detroit. Cost: over half a trillion dollars. Projected annual revenue: a quarter billion, have of which would go back to the state. Funded by private investment: "no cost to taxpayers."

The key phrase I picked up on, looking over the presentation: "right of way." At first I thought, this is a land grab - they're looking to get a state waiver for development rights along the most populous corridor in all of Michigan!

That may prove to be the case. Currently parts of West Michigan may be getting embroiled in a class action law suit pitting government "rails to trails" development against residents and small businesses whose property abuts the rail bed; the property owners want compensated for the original easements granted the railroad, which no longer owns the property (since it's carrying walkers and cyclists rather than rail cars). By getting right of way for their maglev, they circumvent all that entirely.

Then I wondered whether "right of way" is the same as outright ownership of the land? Would the State just give up land like that? Doesn't seem likely. So, I looked at the Interstate Traveler Company website itself. (If you haven't already, by all means do so. I'll wait.)

Did you scroll down, really look at the plan? The reason investors are willing to plunk down half a billion has nothing to do with the rail cars - that's chump change, a tax write-off. This corridor they'd build carries a conduit producing AND running utilities: photovoltaic solar electric, hydrogen/fuel cell electric, plus (as a by-product) water; and since it uses TCP/IP for traffic control, communications. By obtaining right of way, it generates and distributes its own utilities, paid for by private funds and operated on property (due to the "right of way” clause) with – well, what kind of regulation? Would the State get direct revenue from it? They’ve already been promised over a hundred million dollars a year from the high-speed rail cars. I question whether they’d be too focused trying to keep that up and running to focus on the utilities aspect – and that’s where the real money is.

And if the project goes belly up? Well, guess who keeps development rights along that corridor…

GM vs. Retail addendum

2009-10-05T07:10:00.000-07:00

So, not only is the General pulling out of eBay, Penske's walking away from the Saturn deal. Three possibilities to take away:

Retail's not the model for automobiles to follow. This seems least likely. While Saturn as a company failed, I doubt anyone can blame their woes on their no-dicker pricing idea. Plus, dealerships still tout eBay pricing on banners, and aggressively promote partnerships with local financiers and "shop in your PJs" Internet browsing to push tin. This "no hassle" simplicity and speed proves too alluring for consumers used to buying nearly everything else in their lives this way.

We're witnessing early missteps any industry/business model fumbles through as a new paradigm emerges. This seems more likely, as GM is still one of the largest corporations period, much less in automobiles. It takes time to turn a ship that size. But, as noted above, several automotive / transportation companies (e.g., motorcycles and used car dealership chains) have used retail-style promotion and pricing for some time; long enough to get bugs worked out and see at least moderate success, so I'm not convinced retail is in its infancy here.

GM simply is the wrong company at the wrong time to pull this off. This to me seems most likely, as GM lumbers on burdened with a legacy of management miscues. It's not for lack of trying, so to speak. It just seems to me that, as usual, they're taking on too much too soon, hoping something will stick; in the end, it could all fall off the wall.

Retail: A Future Perfect?

2009-09-14T07:09:00.000-07:00

I'm reflecting on General Motors' latest moves as this summer winds down: actively courting eBay as a sales channel; selling Saturn to Roger Penske; and now, a 60-day money-back guarantee. On cars. The second largest "durable goods" purchase behind houses, and you have two months to take your car back to GM the same way you'd take back a pair of shoes or a coat that doesn't fit.

Sign of desperation? Perhaps. I prefer to think of it as a prime indicator of the predominance of retail as THE commerce model for the 21st century. Break it down: e-commerce; brand management; customers given a no-hassle assurance of product satisfaction with stores absorbing potential losses as a cost of doing business.

eBay, while still ostensibly an on-line auction bazaar, has been co-opted by professionals - from power brokers with their own brick storefronts people can drop off goods for sale to, to dealerships expanding their lots' sales territory over hundreds of miles. Now, with GM's foray, we edge closer to "manufacture-direct" that we enjoy from personal goods like clothing to smaller durable goods like appliances. Plus, the customer gets to hunt and compare new to used, expanding the options and shifting prices in unexpected and less predictable directions.

Penske, already moving Smart cars by Mercedes, now tackles brand management directly. He leaves open the option of negotiating with manufacturers to develop models for the Saturn line. Imagine a GM/Saturn, a Toyota/Saturn, a Hyundai/Saturn, or say a Volkswagen/Saturn on the same lot. GM/Toyota has already given us the Matrix/Vibe and Ford/Mazda a small truck line, so we've seen these partnerships before. Penske's next step is to push manufacturers back into pure production mode, taking over marketing and distribution to build brand value. A car with a "store" brand?

Customers even more firmly in the driver's seat. Bad pun intended - it's too apropos to ignore. Consumers don't think twice about taking products back to a store, with or without receipts - it's fully ingrained in the retail customer service model. Don't like it? Don't live with it - just get another one. Think about it from a store side, though. Someone brings back a coat because it doesn't fit. The store (supposedly) looks it over to ensure no damage, retags it and puts it right back out on the sales floor. Larger durable goods don't have that luxury. What does this do to the notion of "car depreciation"? Can GM retag a vehicle the same way? "Odd lots"? Scratch and dent? How much depreciation can the car take, and who absorbs the loss?

Even if GM backs away from the guarantee, I see the door open for more retail-oriented transactions across the board, with no turning back. Business must adapt to the speed - the suddenness - of the retail model: no protracted negotiations, little "relationship building" or courtship involved. You lay out your product and price and trust the package is competitive enough to stay in the market, while customers quickly, silently compare you with any number of competitors and make up their minds, with no alert to their decision until it's over. Then they don't come back unless they want more or they want their money back.

Ready for a future in retail?

The Only "Must-Read" Market Research Book

2009-09-02T07:37:00.000-07:00

...in my opinion, anyway; but I strongly hold to it!

Smith and Fletcher's The Art and Science of Interpreting Market Research Evidence lays out a comprehensive approach to market research for anyone in business tasked with conducting or applying research within their organization.

Smith and Fletcher step you through the development of research as a "holistic" process that:

takes into account what your organization already knows about its business and the industry in which it works - knowledge base, experience, even intuition;
develops an ongoing 'give and take' dialog between qualitative and quantitative research;
nurtures market research as an ongoing, forward-moving process rather than as discrete, stand-alone projects that leave a company looking backward at snapshots frozen in time.

They even make available a 10-part PowerPoint series summarizing the book - perfect for profs using it in class or managers training staff in-house. The 10 stages, each with its own chapter and corresponding presentation:

Analyze the right problem
Understand the big information picture
Compensate for imperfect data
Develop an analysis strategy:
a. Organize qualitative data
b. Organize quantitative data
Establish interpretation boundaries, or how far we can take the results of a particular project
Apply knowledge filters, or the limits of what we know about survey research in general
Reframe the data
Present the integrated research evidence as a narrative
Facilitate informed decision-making
Learn from successful practice to develop a holistic analytical approach

Good foundational theory, plenty of charts illustrating their points and lots of real-world examples as case studies form a framework for any company using or considering market research in building their business strategy. It's my primary reference book on the subject, and I ecnourage you to get it for your library.

Let Go of the Words: Effective Site Building

2009-08-24T12:33:00.000-07:00

Ginny Redish, renowned expert on web site design and usability, has authored an excellent how-to on creating, maintaining, or renovating anyone's web site: Letting Go of the Words.

She focuses on the interaction of user and site, recognizing the obvious that many sites seem to have missed: people don't curl up with a computer the way they do with a book.

Employing the mantra "scan, grab and go," Ginny walks the reader the whole way through the process, from envisioning the potential audiences visiting your site (right down to exercises on how to develop personas) though final information pages.

She covers the basics of content, graphics, illustrations and links, and their interplay in creating a site people want to use and come back to.

I encourage you to include this book in your library. At the very least, you'll better understand my web content development process as we have opportunity to work together!

The Unexamined Strategy Is Not Worth Executing

2009-08-19T08:02:00.000-07:00

I'm struck by the number of people who preface their titles and pepper their bios with the term "strategic." One person I read used the "S" word SIX TIMES in one paragraph!

I fear for the semantic life of this term, its potential blunted by overuse. If you want to use the term, much less manage by it, define it first. I like Mintzberg's 4 P's to choose from. Is your strategy -

a plan: a manual decribing how to develop the company

a pattern: a motif or routine derived from habits, repeat decisions management makes

a position: a map to locate your organization relative to competitors or customers

a perspective: a business philosophy or viewpoint on how you want to run a company

Talk all you want about strategy and strategic thinking: you need to think strategically, to have a strategy. But how well do you know your thought process? Do you really grasp your company's fundamentals: who you are, why you're here, where you want to go? Not to mention, how far down the org chart have you instilled that understanding? Back in the summer of 1956, Lionel Urwick wrote in the Harvard Business Review: "There is nothing which rots morale more quickly and more completely than . . . the feeling that those in authority do not know their own minds."

Finally, let's not give the term tactical short shrift, either. Nothing will force you to critically examine and fully embrace your strategy than will the discipline of developing step-by-step orders necessary to achieving the specific objectives laid out within your master plan. Tactics tell them what they must do; strategy explains why they must do it.

2009-08-18T09:22:00.000-07:00

FUTURESHOCK - READY FOR THE 21ST CENTURY?

Which of the following is likely to occur in the 21st century?

China will implode by mid-century, either fragmenting along geo-ethnic lines or walling out any international contact
Russia will start and lose a second Cold War
Japan and Turkey will emerge as major players to rival the US
Space-based solar energy will power the planet
Mexico will begin to openly challenge the US to regain control of the Southwest, from Texas to California

According to George Friedman in his book The Next 100 Years: a Forecast for the 21st Century, all of the above.

Granted, right now some if not all of these ideas seem far-fetched; but given his expertise in geopolitics and forecasting, coupled with the research resources of his company Stratfor, I can't fault the geopolitical underpinnings he builds his case on: any nation-state's menu of choices have been, continue to, and will be governed by the considerable influence from the triumvirate of land, labor, capital.

What does this mean for business? Consider labor and capital. Friedman analyzes UN population forecasts and contend that not only has the population explosion subsided, the 21st century may end with a global contraction. So, immigration policy will gain prominence as countries worldwide compete for talent from outside their borders while trying to guard against brain drain from within.

Now, capital. Labor-saving techology will move from luxury to necessity. Dusin Hoffman's character in "The Graduate" was given one word of advice: plastics. Friedman would give today's graduates another word: Robotics.

Which begs the next question: how do we power the robots? Utilities across the US already have witnessed a jump in consumption driven by personal devices (cell phones, iPods, Blackberries, netbooks, etc.). The more automated we become, the more power we'll need. How will we generate it, and what will it cost?

A final thought. Friedman notes an aphorism from British politics: there are neither permanent enemies nor permanent allies - only permanent interests. An interesting worldview to consider for business. Have you clearly defined your interests? Who are your current rivals, allies? Can you envision your permanent interests shaping, affecting relationships going forward? Think back to the posed questions: what is your makret plan or investment exposure in, say Asia versus Europe or the Middle East? (hint: Maybe, just maybe less China more Japan; less Saudi Arabia more Turkey; less Western Europe more Eastern Europe.) No matter what, peruse this book and you're less likely to read your current news feed the same way.

Is Breaking Up So Hard to Do?

2009-08-11T06:51:00.000-07:00

You've already spent resources putting together a perfectly fine document on a fairly complex topic - a white paper describing the intricacies of a more complex product; a detailed outline of a new procedure being implemented; a how-to article several customers had asked for.

Naturally, you'd like to get your money's worth; have that doc do double duty. You think, post it on your site -just upload the document, or scan and save it as a .PDF file. Simple, right?

Think again. That paper document people may read, study, mark up and file for later reference just looks like a wall of text on line.

People don't use the Internet the same way they use hard copy. They read over, mark up hard copy because it's static - the only way they can use it. Eyes glaze over at a screen-shot of nothing but words; they may just back out and search again.

Break down the wall:

What key points do you need to convey?
Can you create a quick Q & A format with the information?
What segments can you lump into brief bursts of info?

Remember: scan, grab, go:

Decide what the main topic or topics are, and create a mini launch page for people to scan.
Don't fear the click-through. Create links from the launch page to separate discussion-point pages.
Add pages as necessary to keep the screen uncluttered, focused on one point or topic at a time, for people to grab which particular info bit they need.
Once they go to the page, they can skim over or print off just the bit they need without slogging through the whole manuscript.

Call me if you want further assistance on breaking up a doc for your site!

Score an "F" on Your Site

2009-08-04T13:39:00.000-07:00

Since grade school, we've had drummed into us the need go for an "A." Or least a "B-." Who wants an "F," especially on something so public as a website?

Depends on whether you want your site to excel. The test: how easily can someone can spot what they need, grab it and go?

Site usability researchers track eye movement across a screen as someone peruses a site, and develop a "heat map" showing where the eyes spend the most time.

Typically, the heat map looks a lot like a capital "F."

So, to help people scan, grab and go:

Summarize the topic with a key sentence, title or heading.
Bullet-point the most pertinent information underneath.
Chop content into terse phrases.
Add links for more in-depth subjects.

More links? Absolutely! Bust up those text walls; people need info, not manuscripts.

I'll tell you more about that next time, with "Breaking Up is Hard to Do."

Define Good Writing

2009-07-29T06:53:00.000-07:00

We're not talking Pulitzer Prize prose. We want results: more sales or leads, happier customers, smarter employees, more in-tune suppliers.

How do we get results? Stickiness.

Is it memorable, yes, of course, but - does it gain traction even as you glance over the lines?

Do you just slip over phrases and slide down to the bottom "back" link?

Or do you absorb line after line, let the content soak in?

Walk away; the gist lingers:

Customers know whom to call when the urge to buy arises.
Employees execute their tasks, sure of the right procedure, the best practice.
Suppliers flow through the fastest, most effective process chain.
The public has your brand, motto, tagline tripping off their lips.

The message sticks.

You may ask if I can write such "sticky" copy.

You're still here, aren't you?

My Philosophy On Business

2009-07-20T11:41:00.000-07:00

By way of introduction, I thought I'd share a couple of ideas, to give you a sense of my attitude toward business in general and marketing in particular.

First, marketing. I cobbled together my favorite definition from two marketing wizards of times past: "the creation and delivery of a standard of living to society." I've adopted this definition for three reasons:

It’s all-encompassing. The whole organization must market holistically. It’s not enough for any one department to only know their own specialty. It’s good to master what we do best, but we also must be mindful of our place in a company, in an industry, in business overall as we create and deliver goods and services.

It establishes a benchmark that defines the quality of life. As we witness what happens in rapidly developing countries, we could witness a living standards shift that hasn’t occurred since the Industrial Revolution, affecting everyone from First through Third Worlds, well into this century. What are we doing to make that happen? Are we helping out or holding back?
It can benefit humanity. Note: we must determine whether it will. We set and test business ethics bounds here. Where do we cross from enough to too much? At what point do we stop producing goods and services that truly benefit our fellows, and start pushing product to bolster our own bottom line?

Finally, just a note on business in general. I've struggled for years to phrase my feelings just right, then I stumbled across a web site by ad agency Brains On Fire that summed it up perfectly. I quote them now:

Great organizations are driven by purpose, not just profit.

They grow relationships, not just transactions.

And they thrive through movements, not campaigns.

Words to strive for, yes?