Information Imbalance and Roach Motels

Last week this piece on TechCrunch about social CRM startup Nimble, caught my attention, as interest in business systems that can more effecitively connect with and leverage the social graphs of customers, prospects, and employees is certainly a hot topic for many organizations today. Nimble attempts to re-think traditional CRM systems, which have primarily functioned more as data stores and repositories of information rather than truly dynamic systems of engagement and added value by connecting contact, company, and deal information with external social networks, (LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, G+), as well as internal and enterprise sources. Dead End

The trouble with traditional CRM, and likely other slices of the enterprise technology stack, is that there often seems to be an imbalance, or at least a perceived one, in the information flow to and from these systems in the minds of those that the systems are ostensibly trying to serve. If you think about it, administrators, managers, and employees can pretty easily get the sense that they have to spend too much time feeding these beasts, without getting that much in return. A telling quote in the TechCrunch piece from Nimble's founder Jon Ferrara sums this feeling up well:

“CRM tools are not about communications,” he says. “It is a management tool, a way for managers to keep a hand around the neck of managers. CRM doesn’t tell you anything, you have to tell it everything.”

The quote is very instructive, and kind of reminds me of the old 'Roach Motel' line - 'roaches go in, but they don't come out.' Substitute roaches for data, and you are pretty much there.

Contrast that concept of an information imbalance with some recent ideas about the value derived from participation in social networks, where it has been posited that the average user or consumer of social information gets way more value out than they have to put back in. Some of that positive information imbalance on social networks like Facebook and Twitter can be attributed to the 'power users', the ones that feed the platforms with copious updates, tagged photos, 'likes', and re-tweets. While sometimes kind of annoying, they do have the effect of generating significant interaction, content, and perceived value for these networks. Ultimately, most network participants feel like they are getting more value from their participation than they have to contribute.

The net-net of this for folks that have to design, deploy, and convince sometimes less than excited users to actual engage with enterprise systems that perhaps they don't really feel that excited about? Think long and hard about how to tip the imbalance scales more in the direction of the everyday user. Think about ways the systems can tell the users something they might not already know, and present that information to them in way that is easily consumable. Recruit a few more 'over-sharers', I mean, 'power users' that understand the problems that the everyday users need to solve, and can help you architect your solutions so that they don't seem so needy.

There are lots of reasons why Facebook and the other social networks have proven to be so successful and popular, but the idea of 'I get out more that I put in' is probably the most important, and the one to think about as most of us try to create that same value and power inside our organizations. 

From Evil to Good, One Download at a Time

Remember just a couple of years ago when it was timely and hip to lament the loss of hundreds if not thousands of small, independent bookstores that were being crushed by the big box mega-purveyors like Barnes & Noble and Borders? Similar to the ire that Walmart tends to engender in some communities, the loss of long-established and local businesses that simply cannot compete with the purchasing power, time-proven strategies, and ruthless execution of many of the big chains, makes most of us want to root for the little guys. Well, at least we like to say we are rooting for the little guys, but once we got a taste of the massive in-store book selection, lower prices, on-premise cafes, and free wifi, well, like I said, we like to say we are rooting for the little guy.It's a niche

Heck, there was even a big Hollywood feature film made not that long ago that starred Tom Hanks and his very B&N like giant forcing poor Meg Ryan's cuddly little bookstore on the corner out of business.

Fast forward only a few years and the retail book industry looks almost nothing at all like it did when Meg and Tom were flirting by email at night and trying to destroy each other's business by day. Borders is bankrupt, and Barnes & Noble too is likely in the early stages in a battle for its own survival, under increasing pressure primarily from Amazon.com and its Kindle ecosystem. B&N has been able to survive and compete this long where Borders could not, mainly due to its Nook e-reader, and its commitment and willingness to take at least some of the fight to Amazon.

But today for many book lovers, Barnes & Noble represents in some ways the last stand for not just a retail model, but for the idea of the printed book at all. If you think about the town where you live, if the closest B&N were to close ip shop, just exactly where would you shop for real, actual printed books? Forgetting for a moment that walking into a large B&N it might be actually hard to locate any books, as they are often obscured by the Nook demonstration area, the kids' toy section, the coffee shop, and the thousands of other things in a B&N that are not books. Where I live, there are two B&N's within about 10 miles, and I can't think of another place anywhere that sells real live printed books.

So for those that cling to the almost prosaic notion of browsing through the shelves, picking up and touching the books, paging through the images of a $125 coffee-table art book that no one ever would buy, if the B&N goes, well, all of that likely goes with it. Maybe something else would come to fill in that void, in the larger cities something probably would, but for many other places book buying would almost certainly become an 100% virtual proposition.

And that might not be a big issue at all, who knows. But for me the interesting thing is how through all this change and technological progress in e-commerce and e-readers that the massive, powerful, and formerly evil megastore like B&N has come full circle to represent all that used to be good and nostalgic about the book buying experience.  B&N has gone from being the malicious, heartless competitor to the underdog that many people who love physical books are rooting for. 

It's really hard to pull off that kind of corporate reputation transformation, even if you wanted to. Once evil, always evil is more typical. Although I suspect B&N would have been happy to continue laying waste to little shops all over the world, evil or not.

What do you think - would you care if there were no more physical bookstores?

Have a Great Weekend!

Siren fatigue and the danger of being tuned out

Last weekend this headline, 'Did Global Warming Destroy My Hometown?' from the POPSCI blog caught my attention, and indeed it proved to be a really interesting and personal read about the effects of the devastating tornado that descended on Jopin, MO last spring.  In fact to me, the piece was interesting not for its ability to answer the question expressed in the title, (I suppose the answer is really 'Maybe' or 'We don't know'), but rather it's examination of what happened in Joplin before, during, and after the tornado tore through town.Joplin tornado path - Click for a larger image

The Joplin tornado of May 22, 2011 would eventually be categorized as a EF5 storm, the strongest and most dangerous classification, result in 161 fatalities, 1,150 injuries, and cause over $2B in damages. Of course none of this, the seriousness of such a massive and deadly storm, and the impact and devastation it would render, could have been known in advance by the people of Joplin that day. While the full nature of the fury could not be known in advance, there was at least some indication that something bad was about to happen in Joplin. By most accounts, the series of steps conducted by the various national and local authorities responsible for weather forecasting and public safety resulted in the sounding of the tornado warning siren in Joplin about 30 minutes prior to the tornado's arrival functioned as designed and expected. But despite the advance warning, and other precautionary measures taken by an area well accustomed to potentially dangerous weather, significant fatalities and injuries still occurred.

One reason, and probably the primary reason, was of course the sheer size and destructiveness of the May 22 tornado. As an EF5 storm, packing 200+ MPH winds, there is little that even the most soundly built structures and safty shelters could do to withstand that kind of assault. But in addition to the fury of the massive storm, some reports, including the above-referenced POPSCI piece call attention to the idea of something called siren fatigue, the tendency for people in high-risk tornado areas to downplay the significance of, and perhaps to fail to take appropriate safety precautions when the tornado siren is called due to the high volume of tornado false alarms that have been previously sounded.

From the POPSCI piece:

But the biggest concern was what the investigators called siren fatigue.

Like many other towns, Joplin’s policy is to sound a three-minute siren when a storm with winds stronger than 75 mph is approaching town, regardless of whether an NWS agency has issued a watch or warning. So at 5:11 on May 22, after local emergency managers were informed that a funnel cloud had been sighted over southeast Kansas, the city sounded a siren. But warning too early can be dangerous, particularly in a siren-jaded area. The NWS study describes one man’s confused, lackadaisical response: “(1) Heard first sirens at 5:11 p.m. CDT (estimated 30–35 minutes before tornado hit). (2) Went to the TV and heard NWS warning from TV override that indicated tornado near airport drive seven miles north (polygon #30) of his location. (3) Went on porch with family and had a cigar.”

Twenty-seven minutes later, the man heard another set of sirens. At this point, he “thought something wasn’t right,” so he went back inside and turned on the TV, where meteorologists were still warning that the threat was north of town. Then his wife yelled “Basement!” The report concludes this summary of events thusly: “Tornado hit as they reached the top of the basement stairs, destroying their home.”

Wow. Some gripping, riveting stuff. The kind of thing that should make most of us glad we don't have those types of life of death kinds of calls to make. Sounding the alarms and sirens when there is the just the chance of a dangerous storm, most of which either do not materialize or are relatively minor, has the tendency over time of dulling the siren's effectiveness, and introducing a kind of complacency in the minds of some residents.  While the problem is fairly easily identified, the right solution to combat siren fatigue is less clear. Different signal sounds for different local conditions is one option, better and more accurate forecasting is another, but eventually when faced with the decision of whether or not to sound the sirens, the need for erroring on the side of safety usually prevails.

It's just a couple of months until the start of the active tornado season in many parts of the US, and no doubt once the storms start forming in the Midwest and South the siren fatigue discussion will be continued. The larger point in all of this, and why I thought it relevant to write about on a site (mostly) about the workplace - if people can be conditioned to tune out messages meant to quite possibly save their lives, then it is about 100% certain that at least some of the important messages you are sending to your colleagues, your staff, your friends - whatever, have a good chance of being tuned out as well.

Even if the message you need to convey is an important one, like a tornado warning siren, if it keeps coming in the same manner, at the same time, delivered over and over again, eventually it becomes just another piece of noise in the stream. Fortunately for most of us, the consequence of our messages being tuned out probably isn't terribly significant in the big picture. Most people will carry on just fine by ignoring our message.

Fortunately, I suppose, the danger is probably more to our own careers.

The Other One Percenters

The entire '99% vs. the 1%' is now a well established concept (thanks to the 'Occupy' movement), or method of describing in very broad terms the income, (and some might say opportunity), disparity that exists in the US economy. When you hear these terms, you immediately understand the concepts, take your own position on the merits of each point of view, and sometimes self-identify with one group or the other.Let's hug it out

But recently I read an interesting piece on the AdAge Digital site about a different kind of 1%, (that was an awkward transition, admittedly), specifically the 1% of a company or a brand's social media fans that seem to actively engage with said company or brand. The article, titled 'Study: Only 1% of Facebook 'Fans' Engage With Brands', recounts a recent piece of research conducted by the Ehrenberg-Bass Institute that claims to show that only about 1% of the self-identified 'fans' of a brand on Facebook, (certainly not the only social platform, but indeed the largest), actually 'engage' with the brand by commenting, tagging, sharing, etc. actively with the brand and the content.  The vast, vast majority, the other 99%, simply identify as fans, get exposed to some of the brands' content, and continue on with whatever else they were doing.

While seemingly offering a really low return on investment to marketers, at least according to the study's authors it doesn't paint a totally bleak picture. From the AdAge piece:

"I don't think it's a bad thing," said Karen Nelson-Field, senior research associate for Ehrenberg-Bass Institute who describes herself as a "Facebook advocate." "People need to understand what it can do for a brand and what it can't do. Facebook doesn't really differ from mass media. It's great to get decent reach, but to change the way people interact with a brand overnight is just unrealistic." 

In this understanding of the marketing and media worlds, social is just another media channel useful for its reach rather than any notion of engagement.

While this article and the study it refers to are in a strict sense focusing on consumer brand engagement, I think they offer some food for thought for the Human Resources and Recruiting professionals who are increasingly looking to social platforms like Facebook and Twitter to create interest, conversation, and dare I use the word again, engagement for their own purposes. The main point, that an engagement level of 1% might be the baseline is instructive as HR pros create their forecasts and plans. 

But the second point the AdAge piece brings up is even more thought provoking -  namely whether or not social platforms like Facebook are truly brand engagement platforms, or just another marketing and messaging channel like newspaper ads, company web sites, or large job boards.  I know we like to think that with social all or at least many of the traditional rules no longer apply, but this study (and others), suggest that maybe the change is not happening so fast.

What do you think? Does the 1% number hold up in your experience? And does it even matter?

The Pace of Change

One of the best ongoing online series on leadership and business is the New York Times fantastic 'Corner Office' interviews conducted by Adam Bryant. In each piece, Bryant talks with a company CEO about business philosophy, their thoughts around people management, and often, and of particular interest to HR and recruiting professionals, the hiring and interview process.

In the most recent installment, Bryant talked with Harry West, CEO of the innovation design firm Continuum, and while Mr. West had some interesting things to share about interviewing and hiring -  'I ask a few very basic questions. “What is it you want to do? What is it that you’re good at? What is it that you’re not good at? Tell me about what you’ve done.”, the most intriguing part of the Corner Office piece was an observation West made about change, and specifically the speed in which change can be effected inside an organization. 

Here's the passage from the Times article:

Pacing is really important in an organization. When you’re leading, you’re generally trying to lead change, and I think it was Roy Amara, who said about technology, “We tend to overestimate the effect of a technology in the short run and underestimate the effect in the long run.” And I think the same applies to change within an organization.

Let that sink in for a second, we overestimate the impact of a (technology) change in the short run, and underestimate it in the long run. I think with the relentless, powered by social networks, 24/7 news and information cycle that can often lead to even more hype and therefore expecations about new technologies, that managing expectations and understanding an organization's ability to navigate through any significant change is more important than ever. But don't take my word for it, check what CEO West has learned about the pace of change in his career:

And so I’ve learned that it’s critical to think carefully about the pace of change, and it’s something that I’ve learned the hard way. It’s important to manage that carefully, because it’s not just about the pace of change that certain people in the company can manage.

It’s about the pace of change that the company as a whole can manage. You can push and push and nothing seems to happen, and then suddenly it takes off and you’re sort of running to catch up.

Look, we all know that change management is critical in any major process, strategy, or technology program or implementation. But I think it is incredibly easy to fail to have the proper appreciation and empathy for those whose worlds our great ideas and plans are going to impact. In other words, it often isn't about your ability to handle change, ambiguity, or stress  - it's about everyone else's too.

Neither West, nor I are advocating standing still, or waiting for the perfect conditions to effect change, but an occasional reminder that the pace of change might be equally important as the nature of the change is a good one.