Monthly Archives: July 2014

July 17, 2014 · 12:41 pm

Being Accountable

Here is something to ponder as we get to the end of the week.  No real answers today, but an important question for us.

justice #2

(Photo credit: InsideMyShell)

We’ve all seen instances of companies facing consumer backlash from their business decisions.  For example, many people boycotted adidas products over the company’s use of kangaroo hide in a line of soccer shoes.  A number of companies (Wal-Mart, Nike and others) have faced boycotts over their alleged use of sweatshops to manufacture their goods overseas.  These consumer actions are not particularly new.

What is new, however, is consumers taking action over not a “what” but a “who”.   The personal (non-business related) activities of executives are now seen as fair game in assessing one’s willingness to do business with a company or, in extreme cases, organize people to avoid the company.  A few recent examples:

  • LGBT rights activists called for protests and boycotts of the Chick-fil-a when it became known that the CEO had made a series of remarks opposing gay marriage.  In addition, the company’s charitable arm had made millions in donations to political organizations which oppose gay rights.  Counter-protestors rallied in support by eating at the restaurants. National political figures both for and against the actions spoke out and some business partners severed ties with the chain.
  • After learning that Condoleezza Rice was joining Dropbox’s Board of Directors, many people loudly and publicly (by web standards) deleted their Dropbox accounts.  Some also deleted the Mailbox app from their phones.
  • The incoming CEO of Mozilla (which oversees the Firefox browser) stepped down from his new position after news of his support of a 2008 anti-gay marriage campaign came to light.

There are many more I’m sure you can cite but the business question is this:  how far into a person’s political and religious beliefs do companies have to go in hiring?  How do we reconcile wanting to do careful checks to prevent external response with the laws that are in place precisely to prevent discrimination in hiring over someone’s beliefs?  Is it “fair” (whatever that means) for companies to be held accountable for the non-business activities of an endorser or a hire?

Weigh in!

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July 16, 2014 · 10:20 am

The Skills That Matter

Some of you know that my professional training was as an educator.  Hopefully that shows on the screed from time to time.  In fact, my wife and eldest child are also trained teachers and my youngest does education as part of her profession.  Focusing on the skills people need is a big deal in our house and that got me thinking about what those skills might be.

I spend a ton of time in the tech world.  There are new skills that my clients feel as if they need to acquire almost every day.  What is the latest and greatest way to code?  How do we employ the social media platform du jour in order to stand out and engage our customer base?  What’s the best way to run an A/B test of landing or other pages to optimize conversion rates?  Those are only a few of the components of the rapidly changing skill set business people might need these days.  You probably won’t find me working with them on those initially.

Instead, I like to start with the skills that matter.  First and foremost of these is critical thinking.  How would I define that?  This is from The National Council for Excellence in Critical Thinking, way back when in 1987 and I think it says it pretty well:

Critical thinking is the intellectually disciplined process of actively and skillfully conceptualizing, applying, analyzing, synthesizing, and/or evaluating information gathered from, or generated by, observation, experience, reflection, reasoning, or communication, as a guide to belief and action. In its exemplary form, it is based on universal intellectual values that transcend subject matter divisions: clarity, accuracy, precision, consistency, relevance, sound evidence, good reasons, depth, breadth, and fairness.

That skill trumps the others.  It’s the ability to figure out what data points matter and why.  It’s understanding core business issues and not permitting the noise of the business world to clutter up that understanding.  It’s what you use, having achieved that understanding, to choose the tools with which to carry out the business goals, strategies, and tactics.  The point is this:  the tools will change; the need to possess the ability to think critically won’t.  Kids learning Word in the schools today may not use it in 10 years.  I guarantee they will need to be able to figure out the world around them.

There are other key skills, of course.  Writing and speaking clearly are the next in line for me since if you can’t explain your excellent thinking it does little good to the business.  First things first, however.  That’s how I see it.  You?

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July 15, 2014 · 11:07 am

I Need To Know

I was reading about a study done by the Nielsen folks which measured how people are influenced by different sources of information.

Tom Petty

Since it’s Tuesday and we usually turn it into TunesDay, the song that popped into my head is Tom Petty‘s “I Need To Know.” OK, maybe not my best musical connection to a business point ever, but I think you’ll see why I chose it.

The Nielsen/inPowered MediaLab study measured the impact of product reviews by users, experts and brands to understand if one form provided a higher impact with consumers than another.  You can read about the study here.  The results show that expert content— credible, third-party articles and reviews—is the most effective source of information in impacting consumers along all stages of the purchase process across product categories. Frankly, the results gave me hope.  After all, many of the marketing tactics I see suggested by some of my less scrupulous peers seem not to have the sort of impact their advocates would suggest.  Advertising disguised as content, fake reviews, or even “unbiased” product information on the company website seem to have been sussed out and dismissed by consumers if one believes the data.  I particularly liked this:

The perceived partiality of the source was especially critical in setting expert content and branded content apart. The third-party element was important to consumers: 50% indicated that they wouldn’t trust a product’s branded website for an unbiased assessment of a product, and 61% were less likely to trust product reviews paid for by the company selling the product. Expert content can provide an unbiased and honest assessment of a product, particularly important during the final stage of purchase consideration.

There are cases such as with video game reviews where user comments and reviews are perceived highly.  Obviously someone who has played the game has the low-level of expertise needed to be reliable and trustworthy.  As the report I read states:

The report concludes by noting that, overall, the research suggests that there is a higher degree of trust from consumers when they are reading content from credible, third-party experts. This trust is demonstrated by the higher lift scores with regard to product familiarity, affinity and purchase intent and its perception of being highly informative and unbiased.

So what the song says is appropriate because consumers do need to know and do a lot of research to find out:

I need to know, I need to know
Cause I don’t know how long I can hold on
If you’re making me wait, if you’re leadin’ me on
I need to know

Even if the above refers to a romantic relationship and not to a purchase.  Then again, isn’t that sort of what a product purchase is?

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