Let me start with a story.

It’s a common tale, one of ambition and good-intent. Happens all the time. People in a company (or, “resources in an organization” if you talk like a corporate-weenie) figure out how to solve problems, often working around parts of the company that would rather prevent things from happening.

For example, I know someone who initially started with Amazon Web Services to quickly prove something out. All he needed was permission from his boss to expense the small monthly charges. And, they were small, until he proved it out… then they got bigger. And bigger. And he could no longer expense on an expense report what was effectively an outsourced data center for his solution!

I know another person, a developer, who was doing some internal coding to an HR system and took the initiative to expose a few services (API’s) around the HR information he had available. I personally asked him who else was using his service. His response: 5 or so other projects. Well, it turned out that it was a lot more than 5. It was more like 25¹.

What if, instead of it being an HR service backed by an internal system it was a search service using the free Bing search engine API?

People do stuff like this all the time — it’s available, it’s free, I’ll just solve this problem and move on.

Then, the solution becomes a bit widespread. Because it solves a real problem.

Well, what if that Bing search API were unknowingly used by 25 different teams when THIS HAPPENED? (cue thunder in the background). For those too lazy to click, Microsoft recently announced that they will start charging for the API.

Forgetting for a moment the not-significant impact of the changes to the API this entails… all of a sudden the company is tied into this service for 25 different solutions, and now has to start paying or it will stop working.

Or, they could change providers. That’s right, they would change API providers.

The same thing could happen even if it were originally a paid service like Salesforce.com or WorkDay. What if an API you used were acquired and shut down? What if the API you used all of a sudden cost a whole lot more than it did yesterday? What if the privacy terms on an API you use changed unfavorably?

If that weren’t enough, here in enterprise software land our customers are always trying to “avoid vendor lock-in” to make sure vendors don’t have too much leverage. Doing everything you can to make it easier to change API providers helps avoid lock-in in a very constructive manner. And, that’s always a good thing too even if you don’t care much for my stories.

1. In truth, I’ve forgotten the real number and I think it was much more than this. But, 25 serves to prove the point.

That’s why I so delighted to announce my friend’s new project: Happy Birthday Muffin (no comma).

Celebrate a birthday with a muffin, beautifully packaged and personalized for the birthday boy or girl. Simple.

In keeping things really simple, I like how they’ve packaged everything up into a single price — so no extras for shipping, and they pay sales tax out of their price.

I ordered my sister-in-law a muffin for her birthday yesterday and she was delighted (or so she said in voicemail). Frankly, I was surprised it got there in time. I ordered mid-day Thursday and she had The Muffin on Saturday. Sweet! (Literally)

Anyways, I’m going to put a little graphic on the front page of my blog to show my support. Why not give it a shot?

It’s exciting to think about the brand innovation possible as technology spreads through every aspect of our lives.

While watching TV last night I saw a Charles Schwab commercial. The commercial talked about all sorts of “regular people” who trade and invest with them.

The commercial triggered an “eh” response in me, followed by a “why don’t they do this…” moment.

I’d like to share.

There’s nothing like personal finance. We know so little about managing our money, or investing. Banks are no help. Their education materials are thinly veiled sales pitches that don’t do anything to raise the level of overall customer competency.

Most information seems to be a rehash of a small number of topics — like how much should I save for retirement, or which mutual fund is best, or how to minimize my tax burden. I’m given answers, but not enough information to make discerning and actionable decisions for my personal situation.

In the end, most people create a personal financial plan based on fear, or based on what their friends tell them that they do. People do more research before spending a couple of hundred dollars on clothing or electronics than they do before investing thousands¹.

Maybe I’m overly influenced by American Greed (the TV show). On American Greed I regularly watch people (yes, even “smart” ones) invest in schemes they can’t possibly understand simply on the recommendation of someone they trust. Invariably, what sounds too good to be true is, and they lose tons of money.

Here’s the insight:

We have all this formal education but most never learn anything other than the basics about personal finance (and some don’t even get the basics).

Why not educate people to build loyalty? Why not educate to build the customer habits you want to create?

And, it’s not just loyalty, it’s stickiness. A company that uses its online trading platform as the basis for the training, creates trained users of that platform while they educate customers about trading. Same for online banking or bill payment.

And, this brand innovation strategy is one that can be executed broadly which should excite creative teams.

This becomes a very sticky endeavor. People will be comfortable with the bank’s trading/banking software and they’ll have the opportunity to create new habits that are associated with the brand. With all the Macs around, why haven’t people adopted Apple’s iWork suite? In large part² it’s because we know how to use Powerpoint and Excel. Apple’s versions are different enough that it’s too hard to change.

And, by the way, with the right approach the bank would learn tons of invaluable information about their customers financial behaviors. (See this Forbes article for how Intuit is using “big data” to deeply understand their customer behaviors and to share for the benefit of all their customers.)

And here’s the punchline.

Why not create online training and reward consumers who complete the training with free services? Or with extra personal assistance and advice? Banks have the opportunity to educate consumers on their platform, build personal relationships, and teach customers how to interact with the bank in a constructive and confident way.

Even less obvious, let’s say a bank educates customers on how to not bounce checks (and how to use the bank’s tools to avoid bouncing checks). Then, as a reward for the training, they get a few fee-free-check-bounces… my thinking is that now that the customer knows how to avoid bouncing checks, the free ones are because the bank realizes that it must be a mistake or a real need in a particular month. So, in exchange for taking responsibility to be more careful about bouncing checks, we (the bank) will work with you to forgive a couple of mistakes, or give you some leeway when it’s a tight month. Banking would become a more positive experience with both sides working towards the same goal, instead of the current highly adversarial model.

Capitalizing on Emerging Technology Trends

Many people have heard of “big data” these days, but what about online learning?

I bet non-technical people don’t realize the newly emerging trend around online learning.

Companies are interested in applying branding innovation by capitalizing on the latest technology trends… why not online learning? Maybe it’s not as sexy as social media, or mobile (though in truth, an online learning solution should leverage both) but when a technology can drive user engagement and satisfaction while increasing stickiness it’s a sure thing.

Take a look at emerging distance learning technology like Udacity to deliver a high end course with a real curriculum. It’s not about more “marketing materials” but about a structured education and curriculum just like you’d get in university.

For the banks, I’d even create different levels of education, and create a benefits platform that rewards customers at different levels (similar to the way Frequent Flier programs have multiple tiers of benefits). Then, it’s easier to create education targeted at different experience levels.

Why Udacity? They’re not the only ones, but check out this interesting article on how Udacity was launched out of Stanford.

When it comes to “big data” — remember earlier how I said “people do financial planning based on what their friends tell them they do”. Yeah, people often “say” and “do” different things. Imagine knowing that all of a bank’s customers with salaries in a particular range, in a particular geography, behave a certain way? That’s powerful insight, and can be used to educate households on how to better manage their finances. Really, read the Intuit article and you’ll see what I mean. In the article they’re talking about small business financials, not household financials. I believe the same conclusions can be reached despite the different target audience.

Technology is making a lot of brand innovation possible, but I think it’s the minds that can bring it together that are really holding us back now. I hope brands can get a little more innovative in how they think about their brands, and the possibilities that technology brings for brand engagement.

1. My opinion, not a statistic
2. Another opinion, they’re so much easier to use than statistics. Though, seriously, these are the sorts of things that could be validated through research if pursuing a strategy like I’m outlining if they’re relevant.

I keep hearing about how few apps are making money, and how hard it is. I’m sure it is. But I think that’s the wrong lens to view your idea through.

Look at your app as a feature in your overall business model, not as the business model itself, and you’ll come up with a much greater value proposition to the community you wish to serve.

Read Neil Ward-Dutton’s analysis for good perspective.

Answer: Do what the MTA in NYC did… set your data free.

I’ve seen this MTA/Subway ad before, but its implication hadn’t sunk in until yesterday. The implication being that the New York Transit Authority has an advertisement for their data APIs on the subways. And, in the ad they’re poking fun at themselves by acknowledging that they’re not innovative enough to create their own apps like true “whiz kids” can.

This tells me a few things:

1. APIs are no longer important only to edgy companies and startups,

2. APIs and the strategies around them are reaching consumer awareness, and

3. APIs can be a component of a companies marketing and brand strategy — which means they’re not just about developers.

And, if that weren’t enough, in searching online for more information about this ad campaign I found an even more interesting article. The (reasonably) new MTA Chief made a personal effort to convince developers that they MTA’s attitude towards them was going to change. It’s about 15 months since the MTA shut down an independent developer who created an iPhone app with their data, so this is a real about-face. And, if the article title is any sense of how they’re doing, it’s working.

To the list of key points above, we can add one more biggie:

APIs can be important to the board room.

WIth all this visibility outside of the developer community, it’s becoming increasingly important to deliver API’s in a way that’s manageable, scalable, and secure.

Or,  you can choose to tell your customers you don’t want their money, just like LinkedIn did this week.

This post was written for in January 2011, and originally appeared on my client OpusGrid’s blog.

Bank of America has a social campaign that lets consumers create their own BoA Ads, and calls it “Your Bank of America”. The first few times I looked, I didn’t realize the fun you could have by clicking on the ads that customers have created.

Please, go see what people are saying about BoA, and then click on your favorite and see how much fun you can have!

This reminds me of the McDonald’s #McDStories campaign that went horribly sideways.

By the way, if you have a social media campaign/strategy, it should include a crisis management plan.

It’s often unprofessional to use words like “morons” or “shit heads”, but fortunately for companies, not uncommon.

Why fortunately? Well, they’re getting honest feedback. And, while it’s best to keep it “professional” cursing in writing/online has a different impact than cursing on the phone. Cursing a person is perceived as personal and offensive. Cursing in writing, in my opinion, shows frustration more than offensiveness.

This article about Rogers’ horrible customer support is hilarious. As are the comments. Make sure to read those too.

I’m writing this because I think there are some important lessons lost on executives at big companies. When I was in b-school, I was amazed that they had to teach people what a megabyte was, and what ethernet was. In fact, I regularly speak to people who don’t know the difference between wifi and their carrier networks (3G/4G, etc).

Non technical executives, and executives who (like me) grew up (older?) before technology don’t have a framework for understanding how this stuff “works”. And by “how it works” I mean, “what matters when they approach it.” Let me give a similar example. I was talking to a marketing person yesterday about what it’s like to plan an event. She had been talking to someone who was like “I figured I just need a room big enough for 50 people.” Turns out there were a lot of other considerations (is the room easy to find, are there signs, is there enough space at check-in for 50 badges, what’s the parking situation, and so on).

For whatever reason, companies/executives fear technology. I know that I often procrastinate when I don’t want to deal with something. If I were a non-technical executive, maybe I’d find other really important things to do rather than take a close look at social media and what it means to my business. After all, I’d have technical people who can tell me what to do (Block it! It’s insecure! It’s a time waster!).

I don’t think today’s executives realize the effect and the power of social media to their business.

Do you think Rogers knows about Jim’s post?

Do you think they’d feel Jim was a jerk? Do you think they’d thank him? I think the former mostly.

Do you think they have an “crisis management” strategy for responding to stuff like this? Or, an order of escalation so the right people know and can respond.

If this were a regulatory related item (as it might be with a pharma company, or a bank), and they don’t know it’s being said for a few days how is that going to look? “We didn’t know about the problem” won’t work. It’s been out there for X days. And, look at the comments, it’s obviously been a problem for a while. Why wasn’t this resolved when customers first told you?

And, the big question why are these customers having these problems in the first place?!

What should executives be doing? Here are a few suggestions:

1. Have a crisis management plan. Brainstorm about what might happen, and how you’d respond. Document it, train people on the process. Then document the results.
2. Figure out a plan for listening. The feedback that Jim and the commenters on this article is invaluable. It’s like they’re unpaid process improvement consultants. I’d send these guys a personal thank you.
3. In addition to listening, figure out how to measure the results and benefits. In this case, it seems like there’s an opportunity to improve telemarketing efforts and device activation procedures. They seem pretty important areas to me!

Of course, some people are never happy (I can be one of those people sometimes, though do try to fight it.). You’re never going to please them. But… Jim is not one of those guys. You please one Jim, and you’ll outweigh the hundreds of people you’ll never please. You have to listen to know who’s who or which complaints are constructive (or if there’s a constructive message in a negative delivery). Companies should love this opportunity to do better business. But, like anything else, we need to learn to listen. And, the only way to do that is to build our “listening muscles” by starting and practicing. I wouldn’t expect companies never to make a mistake, but like my interactions with people, really admire companies who learn from their mistakes.

Ignoring social media by blocking it from your organization is frighteningly naive. There are tons of excuses. It’s a time waster. It’s insecure. Guess what? You’re right. Being right (in this case) doesn’t matter. You could be the next Rogers. In fact, you might already be.

Social media presents an unmatched opportunity to connect humanly with customers and get honest feedback. You can make the choice. Head in the ground or success. You choose.

First companies asked employees to work harder, then pursued acquisitions (in part) to bring “economies of scale,” then layoffs made companies look more efficient, now companies are only left with “tricks” to keep things going in the hope that maybe something will happen that will make all the industry’s problems go away. AOL’s patent sale might make AOL look like a going concern for a little while longer, but is not really adding any long term value to the franchise.

Think about AOL for a minute. When you get an email from a person who uses AOL email, what’s your impression of them?

Why can’t we get back to the basics of just “building great shit that does cool stuff which people want to buy,” as the foundation on which lasting companies are built?

PS Have you seen? Sony just ruined another 10,000 families.

Will the ‘personal cloud’ replace the PC by 2014?

The question is driven by a Gartner position that the personal cloud will replace the personal computer as the center of users’ digital lives by 2014. One of the fascinating things about the conversation is how seemingly few of the respondents bothered to click through to the Gartner article. They’re answering Peter’s short-hand and not responding to Gartner’s title. The difference being “cloud replacing PC” or “cloud replacing PC as center of users’ digital lives”. Two very different things!

I have this “feeling” about how things are evolving (devolving?).

A hundred years ago, people were craftsman. You didn’t hire a carpenter and give him tools. He and his tools came together. A true craftsman took pride in the tools to get his job done, and the tools had real meaning to him (maybe they were handed down? maybe they were his custom design that differentiated his work?).

The industrial age brought in the factory floor, and people became replaceable like widgets. People were slotted into their place, their machine, and they were productive.

I believe we’re moving back to a “craftsman” work model. We’re knowledge workers, and our tools are our own. Those tools we choose, we cultivate, we care for because they enable us to deliver a differentiated product. They enable us to deliver the quality that we believe, based on our specialized knowledge of our markets, allow us to deliver the best product possible.

You can see this trend a lot in people who don’t go into an office (me). Or, in the large dependency on project-based freelance work. Look around, there are signs of this trend everywhere… from coworking¹ spaces, to BYOD, to cost-cutting and the need to find solutions, like healthcare, for independent knowledge workers.

That said, the cloud is like a magic portal. Where you can keep 100lbs of stuff in some secret space that can be accessed by a simple spell (URL/username/password). The foundation for our knowledge work and the tools we use to get the job done are an irreplaceable part of who we are.

For the consumer, the cloud enables the incremental addition of hardware to our own personal computing ecosystems. Adding devices that quickly and easily take advantage of our digital baggage.

Think of it a different way, at least from a consumer perspective. How many times have you heard “I’m not sure what happened to my old music. It was on my other computer, but then I got a new one.” Five years ago it was pretty common for people to use their work laptops for their personal stuff. Quit the job, and you think you’ve copied your music over… but maybe not.

It’s not just that we’ll “replace the PC” (a phrase I find nauseating), but that cloud and knowledge workers’ dependency on the cloud will highly trivialize the use-model of the PC. Companies that want to take advantage of my knowledge are going to have to figure out how to slot in my “cloud personality” to their IT infrastructure, or I won’t be able to effectively get my job done.

It’s like hiring a master craftsman, then handing him chinese-made tools from Home Depot and saying “here you go, have at it.”

I believe that’s what Gartner was talking about. And, for once not only do I agree with them but this is an important concept for IT to get their heads around.

1. If you are in NYC, why not check out the space I use, New Work City on Canal Street & Broadway?