Monthly Archives: May 2017

May 10, 2017 · 11:43 am

Considering The Optics

The President fired the Director of the FBI yesterday. Even though such a thing had only happened once before (when the FBI Director was accused of using funds for personal stuff), it is well within the rights of the President to do so. In fact, the head of the FBI, like US Attorneys and White House staff, serve at the pleasure of the President (which always brings to mind this scene from The West Wing in which the staff pledges loyalty to the President using exactly that phrase).

No, I’m not (finally) wading into politics, but there is a tremendous business point to be taken from yesterday’s action. The FBI is investigating if and how the President’s campaign was (is?) tied to Russia. Firing the man who is heading an investigation into your campaign is bad optics, especially when you do so on the day when subpoenas go out. It’s also bad optics to give as a reason something for which you praised that same person a few months earlier.

Bad optics is a phrase typically used in politics which describes when politicians fret about the public perception of a decision more than the substance of the decision itself. It has little to do with right and wrong and a lot to do with the perception of right or wrong. We’ve seen a few cases of this in business very recently:

  • United Airlines kicked doctor off a plane and he was beaten up when he refused to go. Were they within their rights to involuntarily bump a passenger? Yes. But the optics, both in front of other passengers and, since everyone has a camera, the rest of the world are horrible.
  • When public schools refuse to give a hot lunch to a child or give them a cheese sandwich instead of what the other kids have because the kid’s family can’t afford to pay, are they within their rights? Yes, but the optics…
  • When a business asks workers to train their (foreign) replacements, they’re helping their bottom line but killing their reputation because the optics are so bad.

One thing we all need to do as part of our decision-making process is to consider the optics. How will this appear, regardless of the right and wrong? It does little good to be in the right when you seem to be very wrong. You with me?

 

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May 8, 2017 · 12:05 pm

Legalized Discrimination

I work with a number of startup companies, as I’ve mentioned before. There are a whole host of issues that these newbies face but one they don’t, if they’re digital, is the same sort of access to their potential audiences as is enjoyed by their much larger, entrenched competition. The reason for this is an underlying principle of the Internet which is that all traffic – those little packets of information that carry data, pictures, sound, etc. – is handled equally, both by the “backbone” companies responsible for transport and by your Internet Service Provider. You know – the folks (or folks, if you have a cable provider that provides internet access and a wireless company) to whom you send a check each month in return for the ability to send cat videos to your friends.

The reason for this post is to call your attention to the increasingly loud noises out of DC about giving those ISPs the ability to discriminate. Three years ago, John Oliver did a fantastic job of explaining why this issue is important and last Friday night, he did so again. Why did he need to? Because rules that were put in place to protect everyone are being changed.

Suppose you watch those cat videos on three different video platforms: YouTube, Vimeo, and a startup called CatVideosRule. You notice that the first two are crystal clear and in full high-def, while the last takes forever to load, buffers a lot, and isn’t very clear. It’s likely that the reason for that isn’t that the startup is using bad technology but that your ISP is prioritizing traffic. Maybe they are getting fees from YouTube and Vimeo. Maybe they don’t like cat videos and are slowing down the startup. The reason doesn’t matter. What does is that it’s discrimination and it’s going to be legal. In my mind, once ISPs get to pick and choose, it’s not a big step for them to begin censoring the content as well. You know: if you want to be on our network at full speed you will not criticize us, etc.

The new head of the FCC is suggesting that we just ask the ISPs to promise they’ll play nice. These are the same ISPs that promised you 50MB speed and deliver 30MB with no fee adjustment or apology. We are already seeing some services become “zero-rated”, which means that using them doesn’t count against any data plan you may have. It’s bad enough that the ISPs are boosting their own services at the expense of others. Legalizing another form of discrimination could be the death knell of one of the things that have fostered the dynamic, disruptive growth of our digital world. Do you agree? Are you following this story?

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May 5, 2017 · 12:48 pm

False Pretenses

It’s Foodie Friday and it’s also Cinco De Mayo. Contrary to popular belief, what’s celebrated today is not Mexican Independence Day. Rather, it’s a celebration of the Mexican victory at the Battle of Puebla during the Franco-Mexican War, which came after Mexico’s independence from Spain, the Mexican-American War, and the Mexican Civil War. It centers around Puebla which, coincidentally, is really the heart of Mexico’s food world.

Coat of arms of Mexico. Español: Escudo Nacion...

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Just as there really isn’t a lot of corned beef and cabbage eaten in Ireland on St. Patrick’s Day, so too is this not a day of taco and frozen margaritas in Mexico. Not that it stops damn near every “Mexican” restaurant in this country from pushing those things today. Hitting a Taco Bell up to celebrate doesn’t happen in Mexico. In fact, Taco Bell doesn’t exist there (they tried; Mexicans won’t eat there). Instead, the cuisine of Puebla features moles (the sauces, not the critter), chalupas, and Chiles En Nogada, a stuffed poblano pepper with a walnut and pomegranate sauce.

Why do I raise this? Because it raises an issue that applies to any business. Actually, it’s sort of the “fake news” issue. Just as political entities will raise money based on a widely believed, but false, narrative, so too are all of the places serving tacos and margaritas selling a lie of sorts. The question is should we as businesses engage in that?

Some people might say that “ethical marketing” is an oxymoron. A lot of marketers are happy to bend the truth if in their minds what they’re doing is inconsequential. In this case, I suspect that the perpetrators don’t even know they’re misrepresenting the facts and, frankly, I’m not very sure that it matters. But it raises a point that very much does matter. If a business is willing to stretch the truth on things that don’t matter, at what point do they cross the line and do so when it really does?

We’ve all seen ads that lie. Ads for “male enhancers,” cures for the common cold, or even just photoshopped photos are rampant. While promoting a frozen margarita to celebrate something that didn’t happen on this day is far from an outright lie, you take my point. There’s nothing wrong with selling and using the language of sales to promote but we need to remember that we live in a world where information is easily found and lies are rapidly debunked and the truth disseminated. And with that, I’m off to find a torta for lunch!

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