Manage To Change

In Search of WOW

A while back I stumbled on Michael Hyatt’s blog: From Where I Sit.  Michael is the CEO of Thomas Nelson Publishers.

Regardless of where you sit, two of his recent posts are “must reads” for any one!

Creating WOW Product Experiences includes a list of ten common “WOW experience” attributes that he and his management team identified. Why would we aim for anything less than WOW in product development?

In the comment section the names Disney, Pixar, and Apple come up as companies that deliver WOW products. Can we name some more?

What I Have Learned in Four Years of Blogging is an excellent summary of the benefits of blogging in general, CEO blogging specifically, and experimenting with new things (not just technology!).  I couldn’t agree with him more.

Michael has been publishing online since 1998.  As someone who often manages and advocates change in publishing environments, I am thrilled to see a publishing CEO so openly experimenting and sharing his experiences.

Check out the quotes on his left side bar.  Some of them are priceless!

Bad Words

Are these bad words?

• Conflict
• Power
• Discriminate
• Manipulate

Are words ever bad?

Have any more candidates for the list?

Who’s the Customer?

At a recent parent teacher conference with my son’s Science teacher, I happened to notice that the best overall grade in the class was a 76.  There were another two passing grades and every other student was failing!

Out of 16 students 3 (20%) were passing.

I asked the teacher about class performance. 

“This is a really bad group of kids.  I’m not doing anything differently than I have for the past 28 years and I’ve never had this happen before.  I know it’s not me.”

You haven’t changed your approach for 28 years and you consider yourself blameless? 

Let’s contrast this with Jeremiah Owyang’s moderation of a Web 2.0 Expo panel.

Jeremiah monitored Twitter while moderating the panel.  As audience comments appeared saying the session was getting boring, Jeremiah shifted the focus of the speakers and addressed the comments real time.

Instead of using Twitter, he might have interpreted body language or facial expressions to figure out that a change in direction was needed (less direct, but still effective).

The point: He got customer feedback and adjusted!

If your customers are leaving, if they’re bored with your product, or if 80% of your class is failing, isn’t it time to adjust your course?

Web 2.0 Expo: Fake Steve Jobs

Dan Lyons, a.k.a. Fake Steve Jobs and a senior editor at Forbes, gave one of the Web 2.0 Expo keynotes this morning.  Dan was both hilarious and thought-provoking.

So how does someone become the Fake Steve Jobs?

Dan asked, but Forbes wouldn’t let him start a blog.  Apparently Dan was “old media” and Forbes didn’t have confidence in his “new media” abilities.

So ... Dan started Fake Steve Jobs (anonymously of course). 

Within six months he had 90,000 readers!  One of them was the publisher of Forbes who regularly emailed Fake Steve with comments and ideas.  He also offered a reward to anyone that could find out who Fake Steve was in real life.

“Oh crap!

What now?”

Once again, Dan asked Forbes if he could start a blog.  For a second time he was told no. 

Hmmm?

Back in his NY hotel room Dan emailed Forbes (as Fake Steve Jobs) and asked the publisher if he was interested in having Fake Steve work for Forbes.  As you would imagine the publisher was thrilled.

Dan’s identity ultimately came out and he came clean with Forbes.

What a story! Dan didn’t take no for an answer, proved himself, and simultaneously learned a ton about a medium he had never used before.

I hope Forbes learned something too!

Dan’s closing remark: “We focus so much on destruction that we lose sight of what’s springing up around us.”

Web 2.0 Expo: Creating a Coherent Social Strategy for Business

Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff, authors of the book Groundswell and analysts with Forrester Research, lead the Web 2.0 Expo session Creating a Coherent Social Strategy for Business. 

Download the presentation from Forrester and look at the “Social Technographics Ladder” (slide 8) and the authors’ mapping of key roles within a company to the key business objectives of a social strategy (slide 9).

One point that I particularly enjoyed was their classification of personalities within a company: purists, pragmatists, and corporatists. 

Corporatists are the ones saying “Online activities must deliver business benefits.”  I can’t help thinking the label “corporatists” was a bit of a slam!  Although, the corporatist perspective seems pretty reasonable to me – to a point. 

At the other end of the spectrum were Purists.  They believe “People are the most powerful force on the net.”  They don’t really think of business per se just the purity of the medium and expression.

Of course, I found myself in the middle, a Pragmatist, “People are in charge but corporations can benefit.”

Keys to success (offered for pragmatists):
• start with your customers
• chose an objective you can measure
• line up executive backing
• romance the naysayers
• start small, think big
• and act fast

Personally, I think these are keys to success for most any change management effort – but good advice none the less!

Working with Publishers 101

Lately I’ve found myself talking to companies that want to work with publishers, but they’re having a difficult time getting any business.

In almost every conversation the same issue surfaces.

The vendor wants to make the publisher understand their unique value proposition.

However, the vendor’s general knowledge of publishing is often lacking and their specific understanding of the publisher they’re “targeting” is virtually non-existent.

The vendor wants to be treated like a partner, but they don’t act like one!

All publishers may create and manage content, deliver it via multiple channels, and engage in marketing activities, but they are all different.

A publisher’s ability to innovate around content is critical, yet many publishers are having a hard time evolving. They know it too!

Many would like to explore vendor partnerships, but few vendors take the steps needed to gain the publisher’s trust and respect.

If you want to work with a publisher, start by remembering these points:

You don’t know everything.

You need to listen.

It’s good that you know your product’s strengths, but you must respect the publisher’s strengths too.

Be confident and offer your expertise, but understand that there is no plug and play.

Your expertise needs to be combined with their experience and reconfigured to arrive at the right solution.

Times are changing. Some publishers will make it and some won’t.

None of them will engage you along the way unless you take the time to understand their business and culture.

(Reposted from June 2007)

Powerlessness

I was in line to get bagels last weekend.

Half of the people on line wanted individual bagels – just a bag with bagels in it.

I suggested to the person behind the counter that perhaps they should have a line for people that just want bagels.

She looked at me funny, smiled, and then helped the next customer.

The woman on line in front of me said “She doesn’t have the power to do that.”

WHAT?

Of course she does! She has a mouth doesn’t she?

She can make a suggestion, can’t she?

She can also start asking people on line if they just want bagels all by herself too!

Sure there are instances when we lack real power or authority.

But, I believe that we think we lack power far more often than we actually do.

What do you think?

Exercise

The more I write, the more I read, the more questions I have, and the easier it is to write.

The more I exercise, the better I feel, and the more productive I am.

I wonder if there are other extensions of this principle - counterintuitive places where if we spend time we ultimately save time and are more healthy.

The more I talk to my customers the easier it is to develop better products?

Your turn.

What’s a “pet” activity that you know is good for you (or your company) and yet it’s so easy to put off?

Getting Used to a Mac

As of yesterday I’m a Mac user!

Why did I switch after 26 years on a PC?

Vista.

Even though Vista was the “straw that broke the camel’s back” this has been coming for years.

As soon as Apple started to care about the business user PC’s were in trouble.

The transition hasn’t been flawless but I’ve been very impressed with how Apple has handled issues.

One thing I find interesting is that they are less willing to put up with imperfections than I am.

It made me realize how often I’ve “lived with” something on a Windows machine that I shouldn’t have.

As long as my machine wasn’t blowing up and I could get my email, drivers that weren’t compatible and other glitches were tolerable.

Shame on me!

Google: The Pot Calling the Kettle…

Does anyone else find this amusing?

Microsoft makes a bid for Yahoo! and Google screams monopoly.

I am a big Google fan. While some of their tactics are questionable (especially if you are a publisher), their overall mission is admirable.

But, who has more of a monopoly on all things Internet than Google?

According to the Outsell Inc report Information Industry Market Size and Share Rankings: Preliminary 2007 Results (purchase required): “Total information industry growth with Google included as 5.3% but without Google this figure falls to 3.8%.”

That represents a 1.5% impact on growth in a $381B industry (as estimated by Outsell in that same report).

That statistic only talks about their percentage as an information industry application, service, and content (?) provider.

What about Google’s position as the purveyor of online advertising? What percentage of that market is controlled by Google? I don’t know, but I bet it’s pretty near a monopoly standing.

So is it okay to be a monopoly if you’re Google but not okay if you aren’t?

See also: Google Works to Torpedo Microsoft Bid for Yahoo! in the New York Times.