Features vs. Benefits

You probably have a smartphone with a data plan. When you turn on the phone you see those little bars letting you know the strength of the current signal, (sort of easy to understand - more bars is better even if we aren't totally sure how much better).Do I need this? I don't know, really.

You probably also see on the phone some kind of 'network' indicator as well - it could be something like 3G or 4G or LTE - that kind of thing. And while we recognize, or at least assume, that '4G' has to be better than '3G', after all it's a whole additional 'G', once LTE or LTZ or any other tiny technical code gets introduced to the equation, well then it gets much tougher unless you are really into this kind of thing, what is better or worse and how much better or worse. I suppose there are folks who have upgraded their devices or switched carriers in order to obtain that additional 'G', and have some direct and hands-on experience that allows them to more precisely judge the addtional benefits of the extra 'G'. But most of us, and for sure most non-technical folks, or as they are sometimes called 'normals', we only know that 4G is better, somehow, and we think we should want it. 

A message certainly, reinforced by millions and millions of dollars of carrier and device manufacturer advertising. If you don't think so, just think about the AT&T TV spots with the little girl going on and on about 'more' and 'we want more.' I'm sick of that kid.

But 3G or 4G or even the things like coverage maps that the carriers talk about all the time aren't really why anyone has a smartphone and pays for a data plan. The 'G' level is just a feature. It matters to engineers and I suppose marketers, but not to probably 95% of the actual smartphone users. What matters is what additional work or entertainment or fun that the extra 'G' will provide. What matters are the benefits of the technology.

Almost no one not directly involved in the creation of a technology cares all that much about features.

But just about everyone cares about benefits.

Even the little girl who can't stop talking about 'more'.

Email Chains and The Price is Right $1 Bid Strategy

I bid one dollar, Bob.

Email threads with more than three people Cc'ed remind me of the classic game show, The Price is Right.

No matter the subject, the email thread starts more or less in the same way. The writer poses a question, asks for feedback on the matter in question, and sits back and waits for responses. And the responses she gets are usually pretty predictable.

An Alpha dog type on the copy list chimes in immediately with their opinion. Sort of a strike first and strike quick kind of mentality that they hope frames the discussion. They want their opinion or position to be the default simply by virtue of being the first one that is revealed. This strategy can be successful - they have staked a claim to the high ground and need to be pushed off by anyone who responds after them.

Next, someone, let's call them Beta dog,  will either (gently) question Alpha dog or offer an alternative approach to try and take or re-take some territory and mindshare. 'What about this way?' they will ask. Alpha dog will immediately respond, (possibly with a 'Sent from iPhone' footer), re-stating their position and making sure that no one else gets a 'I agree with Beta dog' in the mix before they remind everyone they are running this conversation.

Then as the thread progresses, and depending on how many folks were included on the original message, you will get a few 'I agree with Alpha or Beta' messages. These add almost nothing to the conversation, save for reminding us that the senders are indeed still alive, and despite the fact they have nothing to say about the discussion, they want to be sure to be included on future, similar discussions that they will also contribute nothing useful towards.

Almost every time I get pulled in to one of these mass email threads I like to lay back and wait. I want to see what Alpha dog says. I wait to see if anyone wants to step up and challenge. I like to observe if any of the players on the edges want to get into the mix. 

I want the last word after everyone has had a chance to state their case, reveal their intentions and interests and show their cards. I like to jump in then.

It's like being the last bidder on The Price is Right. That spot, if you could get there and not run out of time, was the prime position to be in. You held the cards. You had the knowledge of everyone else's position.

If everyone bid too low, you'd drop in with the 'Highest bid on the board plus $1' bid.

If you thought everyone was too high, you'd drop a classic 'I bid one dollar, Bob', and wait for your shot at the Showcase.

Both strategies give you a great chance to win. But you have to be patient. You have to bide your time to let everyone else show what they are thinking. 

And once they do, you can drop the $1 bid on everyone, and more often than not, win the game.

Spring Break Rewind #3 - How many ways can an object be moved?

Note: It is Spring Break week here in Western New York, (for the school-age kids anyway), and while I will still be working and traveling to New York City to present at a conference, this week will be busier than most. So this week on the blog I'll be re-running some pieces from the last 12 months or so. Yes, I am being lazy. Cut me some slack. Anyway, if you are on Spring Break this week, I hope you have a great little vacation!

This piece - 'Fun with job requirements: How many ways can an object be moved?', originally ran in June 2012.

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I have a friend in a job search and last week he forwarded to me an online posting for a position he was considering applying to, and wanted some feedback from me about the job, the organization, and whether I felt it was a potential fit for him. I took a quick look and it mostly seemed pretty standard, a technical system admin-type job working on company systems, some different programming languages they were looking for, working on-site in the company offices, etc. Again, nothing really noteworthy or quite frankly interesting about the listing until I got to the end.But can you do this?

This 'requirement' is taken word for word from the job description in the 'Physical requirements' section of the posting:

"Primarily sedentary work with the need to exert up to 10 pounds of force occasionally to lift, carry, push, pull or otherwise move objects."

For some reason, this requirement just about made me spit coffee all over the keyboard, if nothing else for its surface absurdity, but also the thought of someone sitting down, perhaps even having a conversation with a colleague or the hiring manager, when it came time to draft the language for this requirement.

Perhaps it went something like this:

HR/Recruiter -Ok, we have the skills, education, job duties down. How about any special physical requirements for the job?

Hiring Manager -  Well, it is a computer admin job. Just normal work on a computer, you know, typing, working a mouse, that kind of thing.

HR/Recruiter -Would the person have to lift or carry anything?

Hiring Manager - Not really, I mean the occasional report or print out. Maybe a technical manual now and

then.

HR/Recruiter -Ok, so lifting and carrying are needed.

                         How about pushing or pulling? Any pushing or pulling involved?

Hiring Manager - Uh, I don't know. Maybe. Sometimes we move the chairs and tables in the conference room around for meetings. 

HR/Recruiter -Ok, I better add pushing and pulling too.

                          Anything else?

Hiring Manager - I can't think of anything. I mean, how many different ways can an object be moved?

Classic. Maybe I am being too hard on the HR person here, maybe the conversation went the other way around and the Hiring Manager insisted the nonsensical requirement made the copy. Either way, the idea at some point, a conversation like the above might have actually happened was enough for me to take notice. Good times.

I'll sign off with this question - Lift, carry, push, pull - what other ways can an object be moved? 

Have a great Tuesday!

On phone calls and productivity

Yesterday I took a fairly easy shot at everyone's favorite communication whipping boy, email, comparing the typical send/receive ratios of email to SMS, which continues to be the most engaging two-way communication medium. Today I want to think about another method of communication that perhaps is not examined nearly as much as the many electronic means of communication at our disposal - the old-school phone call.

Yes, the phone call, a real live one person talking to one other person conversation, that (normally) requires just about 100% attention and concentration from the two participants.  The phone call - that personal connection and interaction that many of our social media and networking 'experts' exhort upon us to pursue with our online personal and professional connections - ostensibly to make the connections more 'real', (as if the millions of emails, texts, Tweets, and status updates we are sending are somehow 'unreal').

Regardless, I caught a really interesting piece recently on the Big Picture blog, where the author Bob Lefsetz calls out the phone call as a colossal waste of time for anyone whose business is information or data or even 'Big Data'.  Here are the key passages from the piece I want you to think about:

Prior to the Internet era, an entertainment titan would make in excess of a hundred phone calls a day. Do you think he was making deals? No, he was learning things. Extracting information that would help him proceed.

Now most of this information is available to everyone.

Yes, I’ve established a Grand Central of information. If you say you talked to me on the phone, you’re lying. Because I almost never do. Maybe one business call every other week. Usually to an oldster who is not net-savvy. You see just like the Wall Street traders I know it’s about speed. I haven’t got the time to waste on the phone, where you take twenty minutes to talk sports, kiss my butt and then ask for the favor. Let me know in an e-mail, instantly.

'If you say you talked to me on the phone, you're lying.' That is probably my favorite line of 2013 so far.

But think about it, maybe your job or most jobs even are not completely about gathering, categorizing, analyzing and making decisions based just on data. But as the level, complexity, volume, and speed of data about business, people, markets, customers, candidates, etc. continues to accelerate it makes at least logical sense that time carved out of your schedule to talk on the phone, (or sit in a meeting) with only one other person is going to impact and possibly detract from your ability to see, gather, and understand all this data.

The person you are talking with might have something you need, or, you might have something they need, but can you afford in the words or Mr. Lefsetz the 'twenty minutes to talk sports' in order to get to those needs?

Data might kill the phone call I suppose, if more people take Lefsetz' 'I don't have time to talk to you because I might miss something' approach, but then I suppose better tools to automate and synthesize the oceans of data that are important to us today then it might actually save the phone call as well.

I'd have the time to spend with you one-on-one if after I hung up the phone and could look at a dashboard or a consolidated activity stream or a report that told me exactly what I just missed, what I need to look at, what actions I should take, and why it's important to me.

If you know of that kind of a tool and how I can get access to it, give me a call.

I promise I will pick up.

The most engaging method of communication you're not using

Let me clarify the post title a little - maybe it should be 'The most engaging method of communication you're organization is not using', but I read somewhere the best titles connect with people personally, so I left the 'organization' part out.

Two charts below will lay it all out for you. The first, courtesy of Business Insider's Chart of the Day:

Most people read this chart with the 'big' takeaway being something like 'Wow, young adults send a ridiculous amount of text messages each month'.  But that's not the only, or I'd submit the most important bit of insight from a chart like that.

What am I getting at? 

Take a look at the second image - a snippet from my personal Google account activity report from last month, the section that reports back my email aggregate usage for the month. Think about what this data says (admittedly just for my, but I am betting your experience is similar), compared to the text message data above.

The Google data shows that in the month I received almost 10x more email messages than I sent - and that is not accounting for spam and other stuff that I have filters set up for to skip my Inbox entirely - add that stuff in and I bet the ratio of emails received to sent would balloon to 20x. Email is essentially a massive ocean of noise with a tiny bit of signal mixed in, and that requires really close and dedicated attention in order to monitor.  I am in email multiple times a day, have been using it as a communications tool forever, and STILL miss or lose track of important messages more often than I care to admit.

Mine (and yours too I bet) experience with text messaging however much more closely resembles that even received/sent ratio we see in the first chart. Look at that chart again - while absolute volumes of text messaging decline as age groups advance, there are still more texts sent than received across the spectrum. Think about that again - every age group sends more texts than they receive.

Email is a mess - we are constantly looking for the important stuff, hoping we don't miss anything, and engaging with, at best, 10% of it in total.

Text on the other hand is almost all signal - we read all of them, we respond to just about all of them (and usually within minutes), and we send more than we receive. It has to be the most engaging popular method of communication - and yet I bet most of us have not tried to incorporate it into organizational communications in a meaningful way.

I'm not saying it's easy - but if you can figure out a way to get permission (bought or earned) to the SMS Inbox, the one really important Inbox people monitor - then you are playing a different game than your competition.

They're spending time, money, and talent trying to avoid the dreaded 'Mark as spam' designation.

Have a great week all - and please don't send me any more email.

Just kidding. Sort of.