How do these people get to work?

I travel, a lot. Kinko's has become a sort of office-away-from-home for me, and I am always dialing 411 on my cell to find their nearest store. Once 411 connects me to the store, I give them my approximate location and ask for directions from where I am to where they are. It shouldn't be a difficult question - but I am amazed at the number of Kinko's people who have no idea where their store is.

Here's how the conversation went yesterday:

Kinko's, can I help you?
Yes. I am heading north on Whittier from Harbor and need to know where your store is? (Note, the store in on Whittier).
You need directions to the store?
Yeap. I'm heading north on Whittier.
Ah, you'll need to hold on. (click - hold - NO MUSIC)
Kinko's (new voice), can I help you?
Yes, I am heading north on Whittier, from Harbor and need to know where your store is.
You need directions? To the store?
Yes.
Where are you now?
On Whittier, heading north.
Just keep coming, all the way down, it's a long way.
SIGH - What's the damn address?
Of the store? (I am NOT kidding about that one).
YES
Ahh, 16330 - -
At which point I cut him off because I had just driven past the store and now had to make a U-Turn to get back.

My point is: wouldn't it make sense to have some basic directions by the phone? Helping new customers find the store is a key element in getting them to spend money IN the store.

Another thought - shouldn't Kinko's have a database on their website that I could download to my PDA, listing all their locations, phone numbers and street addresses?

It must have something to do with a razor

Haven't had time to read the cover story from this week's TIME, but after looking through the pictures I have concluded that success must have something to do with trimming one's hair and beard very close to the skin. Perhaps the incremental minutes of time saved each morning add up over weeks and months to provide a slight advantage. Just a thought - gotta run, my barber is waiting.

The ultimate TiVo example

If you still have any doubts as to who is in charge of business relationships, hear this:

"I TiVo church every Sunday."

That may sound innocuous, but let me explain. The 37-year-old who told me that wasn't talking about recording and playing back his favorite television preacher. He was talking about the way his family attends a live Sunday morning worship experience.

The church has two services on Sunday morning, with a social time in between. His family is a bit too crazy to get ready in time for the 8:45 start time of the first service and they'd rather not be in church past noon, which is when the later service is dismissed. So they come around 9:15, listen to the sermon, enjoy the coffee time, and then leave after the music in the 10:30 service.

They have designed the Sunday morning experience to fit their lifestyle. They've changed the product to meet their needs.

Brand managers used to get excited when users would alter their lifestyle to fit the product - but we're going to see fewer and fewer examples of that as we move ahead.

Here's the point - if you provide a service or a product and you haven't started to think about how to make it accessible to people on their own terms, you are in danger of losing them to someone who has.

To explore this a bit deeper, check out my comments from October 12.

Breathing "In"

When I started this blog in August 2005, my personal goal was to write something every weekday. My gut told me that frequency and regularity would be key to building a base of habitual readers who would then sneeze the blog to their friends and colleagues.

I stuck to the schedule for the first two months, even posting while on vacation and while taking my daughter to college for Freshman orientation. But, over the past two weeks, I have been less regular and I think it's a type of "inhaling" that's necessary to the creative process.

There are times when we need to stop and allow our souls to catch up; to let the dust settle; to straighten up the garage.

In the biblical story of Creation, even God took a break. The book of Genesis says God rested on the seventh day. God took a nap, so should we.

When was the last time you did something really foolish like stepping away for a few days to organize your sock drawer? How long has it been since your leadership team went on a real retreat? Have you been exhaling from a set of empty lungs?

On the "Tech Bus" - Are you a rider or a driver?

Wired News editor Tony Long writes about the Dark Underbelly of Technology in a recent column.

The blind worship of technology makes me very cranky, indeed. At heart, I'm a wick-and-tallow man, although I freely concede that technological advances have achieved some great things. You can kill your enemy without ever laying eyes on him. You can consume, consume, consume to your heart's delight. You can have a dog without actually taking the responsibility of owning one. You can infect other people's computers with viruses. You can burn a hole in your corneas and drain the color from your flesh by playing video games for a hundred hours every week. And you can blog because everything you say is so interesting it should be shared with everyone. (OUCH)

I can't go all the way with Tony's endorsement of a luddite existence, but his piece did provoke me to wander into an area of thought I'd not been in some time.

Question:

Do we drive technology? Or, are we driven by technology?

Don't be too quick with your answer. Jumping to a conclusion too soon will ruin any chance you have of REALLY enjoying the mental calisthenics this poses?

TiVo to GO

Users of iTunes version 6.0 can now buy - for a buck-ninty-nine - entire episodes of their favorite ABC and Disney TV shows to watch at the leisure - commercial free.

Holy smoke.

TiVo allowed me to watch WHEN it was convenient for me, now I can watch WHERE it's convenient for me.

This is going to kick the crap out of the hotel in-room movie business - among others.

Dylan was right:

"You'd better start swimmin', or you'll sink like a stone."

Wet Fingered Leadership

In his book God's Politics, Jim Wallis offers this tip for anyone wishing to identify a member of Congress on the streets of Washington, DC:

"They're the ones . . . who walk around town with their fingers held high in the air, having just licked them and put them up to see which way the wind is blowing."

Far too many politicians, Wallis writes, come to Washington with plans to affect REAL change, only to discover that it's impossible to make a difference without public support and that wetting your finger is the only way to measure that support.

Now - take a look at the decision process in your own company.

How often are choices made in your organization that simply maintain or enhance the status quo? Is there a chapter in your most recent growth plan that should be titled "Same Stuff - Only Bigger"? Congress is a mess, but it doesn't hold exclusive rights to the practice of wet-fingered leadership.

Wallis is absolutely correct when he writes that substantive change - real change - occurs only when someone stops following the wind and takes steps to "change the wind."

Changing the wind in your company will mean seeking solutions that aren't "Same Stuff - Only Bigger."

If you're an airline - you change the wind by scrapping the hub-based model and flying direct between cities that are close to the most popular destinations.

Changing the wind for a large hospital with extreme over-crowding might mean looking for opportunities to spin off some services to satellite clinics instead of building a bigger facility in the same place.

The owner of a neighborhood retail shop can change the wind by not trying to compete for low prices (with Wal-Mart) and by offering a better selection, more knowledgeable clerks and a warm-inviting atmosphere.

Assignment:

• List a few examples of "wet-fingered" decisions that have been made in your industry or organization.
• Pick one or two and discuss how outcomes might have been different if those involved had "changed the wind" instead.
• Answer this question - When is it OK to use the wet-finger approach?

Let me know how it goes.

Problem solving? Sometimes the best choice is to do nothing

I've been mining some nuggets of wisdom from the web pages of Berkery, Noyes & Co., an investment banking firm specializing in information media.

This is from CEO Joseph Berkery on the subject of setting priorities:

When we commit our time and energy to fixing what isn't working, we risk under-investing in what is. Senior executives rightly pride themselves on the ingenuity and tenacity they bring to their role as problem-solvers. But very often the stronger virtue is courage – the courage to admit that a problem isn't worth fixing, and to face the hard facts of reality. The ability to distinguish opportunity from distraction is partly innate, rooted in the “fight or flight” response on which survival in the natural world so often depends. But successful individuals can train their minds to daily weigh the costs and benefits of fixing a problem or redirecting assets to more profitable pursuits.

What a refreshing thought. Not every problem needs to be fixed. Imagine how much extra time you'd have if you stopped trying to fix everything and concentrated on the stuff that already works.

Unhappy customers are a good thing

I am reading a white paper on the information and media industry written by the investment banking firm Berkery, Noyes & Co., LLC. It's a fascinating look into what could be the future for companies that provide information content such as books, music and news.

I am appreciating the style of the report because it comes from a purely objective perspective. The degree to which these folks understand the future will have a direct impact on the success of their investment clients. There's no rosey-eyed bull**** in this report. In the words of Detective Joe Friday, "Just the facts, ma'am. Just the facts."

One of the ideas I've pulled from the pages is the concept of learning from customers who are not satisfied with your current product offering. Here's a taste:

Customers [have been] relatively passive players in the process, acquiring content as it was packaged and presented to them.
But we see a radically picture today. Users have become active participants. Technology has enabled them to actively select content, to manage it, to use it in different ways, to create it, to add to it, to manipulate it, analyze it, and, importantly, to be a powerful force in distributing it to both mass and highly targeted users.

So?

Take some time to think about how you can make your product or service more like iTunes. Instead of buying the entire CD from you, could you allow your customer to manipulate your content and create their own unique version of it?

Are you ready to give up that much control?

You better be.

Note: The report is lengthy and will take a few minutes to download on some connections.

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eComXpo - If you're "different" don't bother

I was pleased to get a complimentary "pass" to the online exhibition and was looking forward to hearing Seth Godin's speech this week at eComXpo - until I received this little notice via email:

We would like to thank you for registering for the eComXpo show to be held October 6-8. We noticed that you register using the Mac Computer. Please note that access to the eComXpo show requires the use of a Windows PC and Internet Explorer version 5.5 or higher. We want to make you aware of this ahead of the show so you can prepare accordingly to access the show and enjoy the Affiliate Marketing experience.

Just a guess, but wouldn't it safe to assume a fair amount of what's being done "on the edge" these days is being done on Macs?

I am disappointed and even a little bit ticked at Seth for offering me something I can't use.

Knowledge is Over-rated

Note: Once a month a select group of clients and friends on 6 continents receive Market Intelligence, a longer edition of my thoughts and advice. Since many of them are now blogging, I've decided to offer it each month here in the Fool's Box, as well.

Market Intelligence - October 2005

Knowledge is Over-rated

Emeril Lagasse and I purchase the same ingredients at our local grocery store and people flock like wolves to his table, but not mine.

John Steinbeck and I have the exact same 26-letter alphabet from which to construct stories and there are entire shelves of books in the library, but not mine.

Both football teams walk on the field with an equal amount if time to play; one wins.

Pianos have 88 keys. Whose would you rather listen to? Norah Jones' or mine?

So what?

The basic ingredients to nearly everything are a collection of commodities. You can distill it all down to sand & gravel, ones & zeros, time & space. Knowledge itself is ubiquitous. We are living in a post-information age when everyone has access to everything.

Philip Evans and Thomas S. Wurster in Blown to Bits: How the New Economics of Information Transforms Strategy (1999-Harvard Business Press) call this the "deconstruction of [traditional] information" channels. They make the point that having information is not nearly as critical as knowing what to do with it.

I'm one of those people who thrive on knowing new stuff. If I don't learn a new thing every day, I feel as though I've been cheated out of a pleasure.

And I don't mind sneezing what I've learned to anyone who'll listen because the knowledge itself isn't worth much more than a pocketful of pebbles. When I pass along knowledge, I haven't given up anything because the real value - the worthwhile intellectual property - exists in my ability to fashion IDEAS from the knowledge I've obtained.

Knowledge, facts, data, ingredients, time, space, experience - are ALL over-rated as something to horde or keep to one's self. Holding on to what you KNOW only gains you an advantage among those who lack the ability to execute new ideas based on the pebbles in their pocket.

Besides, the ingredients are there for the taking, so why waste energy locking them up? If you don't share what you know, someone else will - and they'll reap the benefit of building relationships while you're building bunkers to protect something isn't worth much in the first place.

Exercise:

Step one: Make a list of "ingredients" your organization uses to do what you do. Start with physical things, move to intangibles such as data, talent and time, and finish the list with meta-physical elements such as innovation, relationships and passion.

Step two: Make a similar list for your competitors and then cross out everything that shows up on both lists - or that COULD be on both lists with a little effort or a well-timed staffing change.

Step three: The items you crossed out are the "pebbles." These are things you can easily share without giving away what's really valuable - because they are commodities. So, make plans to stop hoarding the ingredients and concentrate on developing the nuggets of real value that remain.

Until next month,

Jim Seybert

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