Think about the best thing you’ve ever bought. What makes it so satisfying? My guess is – if you thought really hard about it, you’d say something that you use every day. So much so, that it’s become intuitive. Something with which you were able to achieve lightning-speed mastery over.
In short: it was a product that just worked.
For me – it’s my iPad.
I’ve always hated the clunkiness of a laptop (a supposedly portable computer). I still love my laptop – but damned if I wasn’t enthralled by Netbooks and then those hand-held nanocomputers running XP… But my Netbook was not as satisfying a work platform as I’d hoped… just a miniaturized version of something that, in all honesty, did the job much better. Clunkiness was still a problem.
Then I broke down and bought an iPad. Suddenly, I was reading more books, catching up on my blogs, able to maintain inbox zero, had a centralized calendar that I could update on the fly, a mobile word processor and presentation builder with a touch-screen keyboard I could actually hit the keys on, a large-screen portable computer that could surf the web from anywhere – without a clunky card or power concerns. Simple to use, intuitive interface, I had mastered it in a day.
It just freakin worked.
This sort of thinking isn’t limited to products, though – I loved the now-defunct Google 411. You could call it up, say a business name and city and state, and it connected you to a set of listings. You could ask for a text message – and it’d send you a text message with the phone number and a link to the map. It just worked.
I love calling my doctor’s office. No stupid phone tree automated “our menu options have recently changed” bullshit (have you noticed – EVERY automated phone system’s menu options have recently changed?). A real person. Every time. The receptionist knew my voice after one call and one visit. The Doctor is friendly and doesn’t make me wait and lets me ask as many questions or raise as many problems as I have on my mind that day. They worked really hard to make sure their service just freaking works.
On the other hand – my Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield insurance… that’s another story. Insanely friendly customer service reps, but they can’t do anything for you. Need an x-ray? Better hope you didn’t break your ankle without telling them you were planning to break your ankle. They’ve even asked for another copy of medical records that THEY ALREADY HAVE. Worse: I can’t pay online. I can’t change my coverage online. I can’t set up auto-pay without faxing my member ID or social security number. It’s almost like they tried really hard to make sure nothing worked.
Same story at University of Phoenix – a complete ping-pong situation for one student I know – nobody will take responsibility for a HUGE problem there that so negatively affected a student that their career, and their GPA, has been sidelined. Each customer service rep along the line passes them to another department or just gives a flat-out “no” to reasonable requests. “I’m a Phoenix” indeed – you apparently have to go up in flames first and restart somewhere else. If they put as much effort into supporting my friend as they did their ad campaign, maybe they wouldn’t have to spend so much on advertising. It’s pathetic to see an educational institution turn their backs on customer service to a student just to make a few bucks.
Want to try it out for yourself? Try to get contact information for the dean. You’ll be redirected time and time again to the Office of Dispute Management – the highest entity that any student can contact. If the highest point of contact is a department to handle complaints (typically, the lowest point of contact in an organization’s structure) – that should signal something’s wrong with the organization.
And that’s the rub, right? When something just works, you don’t have to convince people to use it.
(Header photo: iPad and Friends by Yutaka Tsutano)
Calling Bullsh!t: BS Titles
I recently overheard a conversation where a non-profit’s Marketing Director felt uneasy with his title because, and this is verbatim what he said, “I don’t have any marketing experience, I’m just a designer.”
I think we’ve known that titles are a load of crap since the first “guru” appeared. It’s not like anyone actually believed that some mystic shaman of social media blessed a dumbass selling twitter auto-follows with permission to “go forth and multiply”. Bad managers play the title card when they don’t want to pay you more money.
So what’s the deal? I’m the first to admit – I got caught up in it. I’m not exactly sure what a Business Storyteller is… or a Brand Storyteller. Those were my last two job titles. The story I told myself was that I was helping the businesses relate their story to their customers and employees using different mediums. In short, I was PR and Marketing rolled into one – but it’s still a BS, if not somewhat creative, title.
I’m pretty sure there’s no such thing as a social media strategist, even though I called myself one at one point. Same thing with a Generation Y Strategist (the idea was helping businesses manage Gen Y employees). All on my resume.
The Geek Superhero, to be fair, is more of a personal affect than anything else – I don’t see it as a job title; it’s who I want to be.
Gen Y is big into made up titles; we love ‘em because a lot of us feel like outsiders in the business realm. We have experience that isn’t recognized and simultaneously don’t recognize that some of our “experience” is no match for years of hard-earned gut-wrenching trench dwelling that some of the baby boomers have in spades. Even so, that’s no excuse to go making up titles to market the skills you think are most effective.
The problem is – if you pick something Google-able, it works. Typically, a Google-able title has some basis in reality and also has merit because people know enough to search for it. Effective branding is effective branding. You don’t buy Nike because you need something to protect your toes. You don’t buy FourLoko because you’re thirsty.
Important skills will always be in demand – but only the people who are highly visible, great at workplace politics, or in good with someone big will be implementing those important skills. Everybody else will just playing with their titles and networking to try and get a piece of the action.
(Header photo: Act As a Guru by Rionda)