Category Archives: Reality checks

July 1, 2016 · 11:01 am

Domo Arigato, Mr. Roboto

English: pizza) Polski: pizza

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I know what you’re thinking. Why does the Foodie Friday post have a song lyric as a title? Well, that’s the song that popped into my head as I read a piece about Zume Pizza, a food delivery startup.  The Ad Age article begins with this:

In the back kitchen of Mountain View’s newest pizzeria, Marta works tirelessly, spreading marinara sauce on uncooked pies. She doesn’t complain, takes no breaks, and has never needed a sick day. She works for free. Marta is one of two robots working at Zume Pizza, a secretive food delivery startup trying to make a more profitable pizza through machines. It’s also created special delivery trucks that will finish cooking pizzas during the journey to hungry customers…

Ouch.  Putting aside yet another human or three being replaced by a machine, I have other issues with this which are captured nicely in the Styx song:

The problem’s plain to see, too much technology
Machines to save our lives. Machines dehumanize.

Business needs to be about people.  When I eat, I want to taste the cook’s soul. I like the imperfections and that my pizza is different from how it will be the next time I order it. I enjoy personal service and the quirks of every individual with whom I deal no matter what the business. We need to be responsive to each customer in a human way. It’s why customer service agents reading from a script are just as bad as automated menu trees in my book. Who doesn’t prefer speaking with an unscripted human?

Do I think the hungry stoner calling for a pizza at midnight cares? Nope, and I suspect this startup will do well. I guess this is just the cranky old guy in me bemoaning yet another little bit of dehumanization in business. It’s right up there with programmatic media buying and selling and push-button espresso makers. Let’s stay human, people. Less efficient? You bet, but gloriously personable. You in?

1 Comment

Filed under food, Huh?, Reality checks

Tagged as , , , , , ,

June 23, 2016 · 10:44 am

Out Of Your Head

I’ve come to the conclusion that many, if not most, of our ills both in business and society are caused by not listening. It’s not that we’re deaf nor that we’re often failing to pay attention. The issue is that as we “listen” we’re focusing on our own thoughts and how we’re going to respond or react rather than on what it is the speaker is saying. That makes it difficult, if not impossible, to give fair consideration to the other speaker’s concerns.

This isn’t a brand new thought, I know. Maybe you’ve heard the term “emphatic listening.” Maybe you’ve heard it labeled “empathetic listening.” This is how Stephen Covey defined it:

When I say empathic listening, I mean listening with intent to understand. I mean seeking first to understand, to really understand. It’s an entirely different paradigm. Empathic (from empathy) listening gets inside another person’s frame of reference. You look out through it, you see the world the way they see the world, you understand their paradigm, you understand how they feel.

In other words, you need to get out of your head and into theirs.  You need to be quiet and listen.  REALLY listen. Don’t fidget with your phone nor check your computer screen. Give them your undivided attention and don’t judge as they are speaking. It’s also something that is way better if you’re face to face with them so you can read their body language. You ought not to respond immediately to whatever they’re saying as you THEN form your thoughts.  When you do, it’s often helpful to confirm that you’ve really heard them by playing back what they’ve said.

I can tell you from having tried to do this that many people are often quite rattled by it.  Most of us aren’t used to having someone get out of their own heads and listen. I think you’ll be surprised how the nature of conversations change as they become true dialogs.  Let me know, won’t you? I’m listening.

1 Comment

Filed under Helpful Hints, Reality checks, Thinking Aloud

Tagged as , , , ,

June 14, 2016 · 10:10 am

You Always Hurt The One You Love

There is an old song made famous by The Mills Brothers. The first two lines are:

You always hurt the one you love
The one you shouldn’t hurt at all

Today’s screed is the unbelievable tale of a media entity that is doing just that. Why unbelievable? Because if I asked you to tell me the absolute dumbest thing any company could do you just might respond with exactly what this company is doing. Let me explain.

The Walking Dead is AMC’s (and maybe TV‘s) biggest show. Not unexpectedly, there are many fan groups that interact via social media. One of the biggest – about 400,000 strong – is a Facebook group called “The Spoiling Dead Fans.” As you might guess from the name, part of what the group does is to make predictions about what will occur in upcoming episodes, and lately, it’s about who was killed by a barbed wire coated baseball bat (named Lucille). These fans, as you might guess, would be classified as “hard-core.” They watch the show, the discuss the show, they pick apart every episode for clues. In short – they’re what every media entity wants: engaged, excited consumers.

So how has AMC rewarded these loyal fans? In their words:

In the past two years, AMC has filed several wrongful DMCA notices against us with full knowledge that we could not file counter-notices, hired investigators to intimidate our members, and threatened our local members with arrest, among other questionable acts.

Yep. They’re threatening to sue them. AMC believes “the predictions on the board are based on copyright protected, trade secret information about the most critical plot information in the unreleased next season of The Walking Dead”. If you’re not shaking your head about now, you should be. It’s not as if the fans have released footage or are torrenting purloined episodes. All they’re doing is keeping the show top of mind while it’s off the air between seasons. Is suing them for that really the best response?

If you’re over the age of 30, you’re old enough to remember when the music industry spent a lot of time and money suing consumers rather than using those resources to come up with a better business model (Steve Jobs did that for them). I think that alienation persists to this day.

I can’t imagine any instance where suing your best customers – hurting the ones who you shouldn’t hurt at all – is the best solution to a problem. Frankly, I’m not even sure that in this case there even is a problem. You?

Leave a comment

Filed under Huh?, Reality checks

Tagged as , , , , , , ,