Category Archives: Consulting

February 28, 2013 · 10:35 am

Taking “No” For An Answer

Suppose your car dealer put a device in every vehicle they sold that would allow the dealer to know where you’ve been.

English: This is a icon for Firefox Web Browser.

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Maybe they’d bury something deep in the owner’s manual that explained what it was and how to turn it off, but how many people really read the car’s manual cover to cover? Of course, such things do exist – the OnStar service tracks you, as does the smart phone you have in the vehicle much of the time. The “creepy” factor is off the chart but unless you’re a criminal it’s not something we think about a lot. It doesn’t really affect you (at least not until you’re in an accident and the “black box” data from the vehicle is used to raise your insurance rates!).  I don’t think, however, you’d be very happy, especially not if you don’t have OnStar or keep your phone on to prevent the tracking.

I bring this up because the digital ad industry is in a panic over the announcement by Mozilla the other day.  They announced that new versions of the Firefox browser would block third-party cookies, those little bits of code ad networks use to build profiles of your web surfing.  The Safari browser has done this for a while, and as I wrote a year ago, researchers found out that the ad guys were going to great lengths to get around the blocking.  There were other nefarious things going on as well.   Some folks used “history-sniffing” to figure out which sites users visited in order to compile marketing profiles of them. Ad networks and other companies that use the technology are able to determine which sites users have previously visited.

Now many observers are speculating how the trackers will get around the privacy measures being implemented.  The Chrome browser allows you to turn off the tracking although it’s not a default setting, and there have been add-ons available for all browsers that did it for a long time.  Maybe it’s time to reiterate the point.

People don’t like you to follow them around unless you’ve been invited.  Not on the street.  Not in their car.  Not on the web.

That’s about as plain and common-sense as I can state it.  I don’t think many of you would disagree.  Yes, I completely understand the content/value equation – you’re giving me free content and in return I’m giving you access to a little data about me so you can sell ads.   Why not make that blatantly obvious to every user?  Maybe when I get to a site an overlay should say “Welcome!  You have cookies turned off so we’re guessing you don’t want us to track you.  Fair enough.  Click here to pay us $1 or click here to enable cookies and access the site for free.”  It’s now MY choice.

As one article said:

It doesn’t mean that circumventing settings in order to track people is a good idea. If nothing else, it violates users’ assumptions about how their data is being collected and used. When they discover the truth — as they inevitably will — some proportion will be more inclined than ever to support restrictions on companies.

In other words, place nice, be transparent, and treat your customers like adults.  Take “no” for an answer and move on.  Otherwise, some legal authority will move you on.  Is that really so hard?

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February 22, 2013 · 10:06 am

Immersion Blenders

Do you own an immersion blender? They’re the Foodie Friday Fun topic this week.

This is a wand blender (also known as a stick ...

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Maybe you call it a wand blender or a stick blender or maybe you call it the “boat motor” as do a few TV chefs. Whatever you call it, the tool is a sharp blade at the end of a stick that a cook uses to blend food in a pot or bowl. Soups, whipped cream, mayonnaise, and pesto are all things for which I’ve used mine.  Restaurants use much larger versions in their kitchens and they’re really useful to have in the home kitchen.

There was an article on them called “Bandages Not Included” in the NY Times two months ago.  One thing that happens fairly often in the home kitchen is that cooks try to clean food off of them while they’re still plugged in.  The blade is very sharp.  The on/off switch is under your thumb by design.  What could possibly go wrong?   While I’ve been fortunate never to have pureed a finger into a stew I was thickening, the article got me thinking about business.

A lot of firms use the business equivalent of an immersion blender: social media.  Like the stick blender, the tool seems very simple and is easy to use.  A business can also cut off a finger pretty easily.  In the last year, KitchenAid, McDonalds, StubHub and others have been in the spotlight for doing exactly that.  Personal tweets sent from a company account, commercial messages tied to trending topics without understanding why they were trending, and “set and forget” use of automated tools have caused brands massive headaches and public black eyes.

Companies perform the  social equivalent of cleaning off the blender blade without unplugging it first every day.  Simple tools often lull us into a sense of complacency and that’s dangerous whether we’re in the kitchen or on the Internet.  That’s why your business’ social media activity needs to be managed just as professionally as the rest of your business and not by an unsupervised intern or someone unfamiliar with each medium’s particular potential pitfalls.  These tools are dangerous even though they’re incredibly useful.  Like the immersion blender they can be the best way to accomplish a branding task.  Provided, of course, you do so and hang on to all your fingers.

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February 5, 2013 · 12:18 pm

Early Dismissal

It’s snowing lightly here this morning. We’re a couple of miles from the local schools but I can hear the minds of every child putting out vibes for early dismissal. That’s a fine thing when you’re sitting in a classroom but it’s a very dangerous thing in business. Let me explain with a something that’s going on in my business.

I was speaking with a business partner a couple of weeks ago and in the course of conversation he asked me a question that was a complete nonsequitur. He asked if I knew anyone who wanted to buy a large quantity of something (yes, it’s totally legal). He is not in the business of brokering purchases of this stuff and neither am I. After I stopped laughing I asked him to send me more information. Rather than dismissing the idea of brokering a deal in a field that’s unfamiliar, I spent a few minutes running through my contact list and thinking about his question. I sent out a few emails to folks I knew who might know a buyer.

Strangely enough, a little while later I received a response from someone who had a buyer. This was not a person who has anything to do with what is being bought and sold but in his network he had a friend who is in that business. While we’re still putting the deal together, it’s looking good and could be a nice piece of business for everyone involved.

All of this happened because I am an advocate for never dismissing any idea out of hand. How many opportunities can you think of in your business that went by the wayside because someone with less vision than you dismissed them too early?  I’m not naive enough to believe that every good idea is fully formed when it first emerges from its cognitive womb, but I do think that in almost every bad idea is the germ of something that might be worth pursuing.  The problem comes when we dismiss them on the basis of the obvious bad thinking and ignore their potential.

Early dismissal is something that should appeal only to school kids.  It can be fatal when it’s practiced on a regular basis by business folks.  Think about that and let me know if you agree.

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