thinks

I started my career in show business, which also means I waited tables a fair bit. I learned valuable lessons from each about satisfying customers. Entertainment audiences want to be surprised. They want to see something they’ve never seen before. Customers of a business, by contrast, simply want you to meet their expectations. They don’t want to be surprised, unless those surprises are really, really good ones.

Seth Godin notes how the expectations you create often lead to disappointment and how important it is to match the expectations you create to the experience you deliver. A colleague of mine coined a term that illustrates the risks of failing to meet heightened expectations. He calls it “antici-pointment”. When a customer has heightened expectations, the failure to deliver on those expectations hits much harder.

As “The Sopranos” completed its storyline Sunday night (or didn’t, depending on your point of view), it disappointed a great many among its audience. * In film and television, though, that’s not always a bad thing. Great art takes risks that may disappoint its audience. The art of great service requires that any surprises delight the customer, every time.

Thanks to Fred Wilson, BTW, for a couple of really useful links. He never fails to meet my expectations.

The Sopranos Finale capsule review - I disagree with the folks who didn’t care for the ending. I thought the final scene was a brilliant example of how a guy can spend his life looking over his shoulder to have it either amount to nothing or to have everything go dark in an instant.

And so the Google backlash begins.

• Privacy International ranks Google last among Internet service companies…
• Then they follow it up with a letter to Eric Schmidt.
• Donna Bogatin gives one point of view on the issue…
• While Duncan Riley at TechCrunch just lays out the facts.

Also, MySpace is taking a hit with the recent efforts by Facebook.

• Ben Gold lays it out in a straight comparison, noting, “Facebook hammers MySpace on almost all key feature.”

Is this the beginning of Implosion 2.0?

So, Anne and I continued the dialogue from the other day regarding Peter Drucker and paradigm shifts. While we’re not 100% aligned, one of the key points where we agree is that what defines an organization now is changing. Companies are (very, very slowly) shifting away from the last-century, hierarchical model of Drucker’s day, moving towards more transient and transparent arrangements among employers and employees. The future model that makes the most sense to me - and which definitely would represent a paradigm shift for most businesses - actually isn’t new, at least in one industry. Davidow and Malone talk about it in "The Virtual Corporation" from 1992(!), as does Tom Peters in the excellent "The Circle of Innovation". It’s the film industry. Many film “companies” leverage the talents of free agents who come together only for the time it takes to complete their production, after which most move on to their next project. The “group-based, collaborative, wisdom-of-crowds” approach Anne points out definitely seems to require these fluid connections, where each member belongs to the “organization” only as long as necessary. This “free agent nation” definitely doesn’t mirror where most folks work today, but it certainly seems to signal where we’re going.

As an alternative approach, Eric Raymond in “Hacking the Noosphere” and "The Cathedral and the Bazaar" (also freely available here) discusses how some free agents truly are free. Enhanced reputation represents their only compensation. Now this “free-conomics” approach may have real, long-term economic benefits for its participants (i.e., better work based on that reputation), but, at its core, it provides a true alternative to the more common arrangements. The success of many open-source initiatives certainly demonstrates both the value of this approach and a true paradigm shift. That said, I still tend to prefer the paradigm where I get paid.

A funny thing happened to me today. I got accused of putting down a new idea because I didn’t understand it. While I think I neither misunderstood, nor belittled the idea in question, it never hurts to expand one’s mind. With that thought, here are four steps everyone - even me - can use to grow their skills and their perspectives.

1. Reading - Read everything you can get your hands on. The more diverse, the better. Magazines for the train or bus (I particularly like Wired, The Economist, Business 2.0 and Esquire), books for the beach (Blue Ocean Strategy”,Radical Evolution” and, yes, The Essential Drucker” represent the best books I’ve read lately) and, of course, blogs (check out Anne 2.1, Guy Kawasaki and Fred Wilson). Of course, some folks don’t learn from reading as well as other forms, so consider…
2. Taking a class - Check out local community colleges or online offerings like Stanford on iTunes U and (OK, back to reading) MIT’s OpenCourseWare. If you’re more into the human touch, focus on…
3. Networking - Connect to everyone you can. Along with LinkedIn or Facebook, find groups within your field in your local area. Finally, almost everyone can benefit from…
4. Mentoring - Musicians and runners have long recognized the benefit of practicing alongside veterans who can set a more intense pace. Why not you?

These might not expand every mind. But they couldn’t hurt.

Oh, Anne. I’m a huge fan. Always have been. Likely will remain so. You often provide amazing insight into the meaning of work in an increasingly connected society. Imagine my disappointment to see you take on Peter Drucker and find him wanting. Now, clearly, Drucker needs no defense. His writings stand on their own. But, I think you might want to examine the connection between the knowledge economy and the attention economy. They’re not as disconnected as you seem to think.

Here are four quotes from a piece Drucker wrote in 1996. I’ve emphasized key points, where appropriate.

“Charles Handy predicts that by the year 2000, practically nobody in the U.S. or U.K. will be an employee. I think that’s overreaching slightly. But the trend is clear: the employee society of organizations is mutating.”

While it doesn’t necessarily predict current working arrangement, Drucker recognizes the relationship between companies and employees will change. Further, Drucker recognizes the changing relationship between managers and employees, noting:

“We know that knowledge people have to be managed as if they were volunteers. They have expectations, self-confidence, and, above all, a network. And that gives them mobility…They carry their tools in their heads and can go anywhere.”

That sounds a fair bit like today’s web workers to me. Drucker continues, stating:

“I think we are going to have to learn to develop more kinds of working options… And we need to provide them much earlier so that people want to stay involved but can also be mobile.”

Again, it doesn’t exactly mirror web work, but it recognizes the common themes. Finally, Drucker often discussed knowledge work in the context of a larger organization:

“…the first constant in the job of management is to make human strength effective and human weaknesses irrelevant. That’s the purpose of any organization, the one thing an organization does that individuals can’t do better. The second constant is that managers are accountable for results, period… And the last thing to say about what remains constant — actually, it will become even more relevant — is that people in developed societies will become increasingly dependent on access to an organization. Because they are specialists, they need access to the specialized knowledge of others in order to do a job.”

That sounds mighty collaborative to me.

Anne, I agree with your points about the ongoing change from a busy to bursty culture. I also agree you do not lack for insight. You may just lack enough Drucker in your library.

Cnet published an article Friday outlining the latest spat between Slingbox and Major League Baseball. As I noted a year ago - almost to the day, no less - the league doesn’t seem to want its customers to view its content unless it’s paid for. Repeatedly. It didn’t then and doesn’t now strike me as either a good way to satisfy customers or particularly sound strategy.

I don’t own a Slingbox, but MLB’s concerns illustrate pretty effectively what a valuable product it makes for those who travel a lot and are really into live programming, a la sports. Those concerns might be justified. But legal proceedings rarely equal the best solution. MLB needs to address the ability of its customers to access games regardless of where they are. Why not offer a Season Ticket package that provides access to games online and broadcast for a single price? Clearly demand exists or Slingbox wouldn’t cross MLB’s strike zone.

Ironically, all MLB has done - apart from making a brilliant case to its customers of the value Slingbox provides - is timeshifted the argument from last season to this one. I wonder who’ll sue them.