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Technology can act as a wall or a door between the organization and the customer. Too often it is becoming a wall....
I embrace technology. I love it. I'm surrounded by it. What I have to keep reminding myself is that it's not about the technology itself; it is about what we can do with the technology.
Peter Drucker is just a genius. I can't help being astonished by his insights, by the simplicity of his language and the clarity of his visions. In an article, Info-Clutter, for Forbes, Jack Trout quotes Peter Drucker:
"Computers may have done more harm than good by making managers even more inwardly focused. Executives are so enchanted by the internal data the computer generates--and that's all it generates so far, by and large--that they have neither the mind nor the time for the outside. Yet results are only on the outside. I find more and more executives less and less well informed (about the outside world)."
Here we get to a crux of a key challenge of the modern age. Computers give us this vast access to data. Some of this data is valuable information, but much of it is just useless noise. Even if we get rid of the noisy data, we may still be left with far too much "valuable information."
Jack Trout claims that:
"Currently, information processing accounts for one-half of the gross national product. A lot of it ends up on paper that someone has to read."
Could that possibly be true? Could it be even remotely true that HALF of gross national product is taken up in information processing?
"The following statistic might threaten you," Trout writes, "but today's business managers are expected to read one million words per week."
Let's do some basic math here. I estimate that we can comfortably read about 150 words per minute.
So, if you need to read one million words, that would take you 6,666 minutes. That's 111 hours, or almost 16 hours a day, seven days a week. And that's reading non-stop, without any coffee break!
So, that statistic couldn't possibly be right, could it? But even if you were supposed to read 250,000 words per week, that still requires four intense hours of reading every day, seven days a week. Now, I like reading, but reading for more than a half hour tires me out.
The first book I ever wrote was called The Caring Economy. Its basic message was that the more technological the world became, the more of a competitive advantage understanding what people
really cared about would become. That technology would ultimately look after all the repetitive tasks and that what we would be left with is feelings and emotions.
That an organization's technology would be pretty much identical to any other organization's. What would make it different was its relationships--its relationships with its staff, its customers, its suppliers, and with the general public.
A study by NFI Research found that 33 percent of senior managers believe that they are receiving significantly more regular communications from both internal and external sources than needed. However, only 3 percent feel that they send significantly more stuff than necessary.
Working with computers should carry a health warning:
WARNING: COMPUTERS ARE NOT PEOPLE. INTERACT WITH REAL PEOPLE FOR AT LEAST ONE HOUR AFTER USING THIS COMPUTER.
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Comments
Thank you for the insight Gerry. It remains important for us to frequently be reminded that technology is simply a set of tools. We should embrace them. But not in ways that separate us from our audiences. We need to focus on the "who" not the "what." And if technology can help us better communicate with the "who," great. When we are using it for any other purpose, we should keep in mind that we likely are not better understanding our customers and employees, which ultimate represent those who purchase and use our products and services.
Posted by: Lewis Green | 09.18.06
Hi Gerry,
Good post. While technology is strong in some respects, it also presents us with problems. You've already put your finger on one of them: an overwhelming amount of data; a lot of it useless and too time consuming. The other problem is that B2B and B2C businesses use email and automated phone systems as primary means of communications with their customers. We seem to have lost the "art" of picking up the phone and speaking with our customers on a personal one-to-one level, and being accessible to them in the same manner. If we all got back to that to some degree, we might find out what the customer is really thinking and feeling about us and our products or services. And we might make the customer experience with our companies more meaningful--something we are all striving to do.
Posted by: Claire Ratushny | 09.18.06
Hi Gerry,
An excellent and relevant post. While the science is in processing and printing an avalanche of data, the art lies in turning it into actionable business intelligence. It is those actions that get us closer to the customer, add value to the relationships, and create value for the stakeholders and employees. While we can utilize science, it is the art that resonates with those we serve.
Posted by: Scott Miller | 09.18.06
Thanks for the feedback, Claire and Lewis. I think your posts indicate an important point. We rarely set out deliberately to remove ourselves from customer interaction. It's like we get carried along by the relentless current of technogical innovation.
We would like to get out more and talk to customers, but we have becomes slaves to the email. Basically, to interact with the customer takes more and more deliberate effort. It's so much easier to stay in the office.
I just listened to an interview with Terry Leahy who is the CEO of Tesco, a supermarket chain like Wal Mart. He spends one whole week every year working in a supermarket, packing shelves, on the till, etc. This does not include time he visits supermarkets. Now, that is customer focus!
Posted by: Gerry McGovern | 09.18.06
Gerry,
When I was at Starbucks, all partners (employees) who did not work in the stores, from the Chariman and Ceo to Administrative Assistants, were "encouraged" to spend a week each year in a store. Why? So that in their real jobs they could better serve both customers and partners.
Posted by: Lewis Green | 09.18.06
That's a great idea....walking a mile alongside your customer, or alongside their soy vanilla lattes, no foam. Whatever the case may be.
Posted by: Ann Handley | 09.18.06
Hey All, I work with Trout and thought you'd find this interesting...
This week Jack Trout interviewed Chris Anderson author of The Long Tail. What was most interesting was the discussion about the "old school" business heads, and traditional companies who are staring at the pages of the Long tail, wondering why it's a best seller and asking "what the heck do I do with this stuff." As producer of the program, I was a fly on the wall. Though I've read the book, followed the discussions online and read a few of the research papers; I found several good "Ah HA's" in the interview. Here's the link:
http://www.troutandpartners.com/radio/strategy.asp
Posted by: Errol Smith | 09.21.06
As a beginning advertising and marketing hopeful, I've learned that it's more about customer emotions than customer statistics. I'm an advocate of 1) qualitative feedback and 2) customer empathy, or putting yourself in the customer's shoes. The marketing should be thought about from the bottom up...what does the customer see first, then what he or she think, first about the product, then about the experience, then about the brand, etc.
These are two approaches I feel are essential in avoiding the endless amounts of raw data and figures. Then again, what about Second Life, where "real-world" interaction takes place virtually? For instance, take the new SL Business magazine in PDF format, which Steve Rubel posted about back in July. How does this new virtual society factor into the faceless world filled with "Info-Clutter"?
Posted by: Daniel Monday | 09.22.06