November 6, 2015 · 11:09 am

Being There

Our Foodie Friday Fun this week revolves around a question that keeps getting asked in foodie circles: do you care if the chef is in the kitchen? Many of the top chefs in the country have multiple restaurants, and obviously they can’t be in each kitchen every night. Does it make a difference and, moreover, does it say anything to us about how we run our businesses?

Augustin Théodule Ribot: The cook and the cat

 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

In my mind, it’s immaterial. The chef is responsible for the overall menu and for developing the recipes. Once that’s done, the chef needs to hire and train an Executive Chef or Chef de Cuisine, or Sous Chef to execute those recipes to the chef’s standards each and every time. From there, maintaining the standards (and changing the menu once in a while) is the main thing that should be required.

I think people get more upset when they know the namesake isn’t there in the restaurant business than in others. Surely they don’t think that the fashion designer is walking the factory floor as clothes are made. In music, have you ever heard a really good cover band? For example – The Dark Star Orchestra plays set lists from Grateful Dead shows and on many nights they play them better than The Dead did originally. They are executing the recipes to perfection, much as a well-trained brigade does.

What does this have to do with your business? Let’s use an example I hear a lot in consulting. A big time firm comes in to pitch a potential client with a top-tier crew of executives. Generally, there is no chance those people will be working on your business. They key question, then, is what sort of training and tenure do the people who will be handling your business have? Many Sous or Executive Chefs have been with the “name” chef for years. Many of these consultants are fresh out of school.

You see the same thing with ad agencies and in other sectors. My feeling doesn’t change from the kitchen – the “name” being there isn’t critical if, and only if, the staff has been properly trained and is constantly checked on maintaining standards. You’re not going to eat the chef; you’re going to eat his or her food. Your clients, partners, and customers are expecting your business’ “food” to taste the same no matter who prepares it.

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November 5, 2015 · 9:47 am

It’s Not Just Data

There is an interesting case that was argued before the Supreme Court the other day and it just might have an impact on your business.  There was also a lawsuit filed in an unrelated matter that could have the same effect.  A third item is a study that’s kind of scary. Let’s have a quick look at them and think about what they might mean to anyone who gathers information about their customers. 

First, the case before The Supremes.  It involves Spokeo, one of the large data aggregators.  Spokeo’s information about a consumer was almost 100% wrong.  As Justice Kagan said, “They basically got everything wrong about him. They got his marital status wrong. They got his income wrong. They got his education wrong. They basically portrayed a different person.”  The plaintiff was seeking a job when he filed suit, and worried that the errors in the report would affect his job search.  The other suit involves Ashley Madison.  They were sued for allegedly misleading users by inflating the number of women who belonged to the service.  As we have found out from the data hack, only a small percentage of the profiles belonged to actual women who used the site.  The company hired employees whose jobs were to create thousands of fake female profiles.

I suspect that a third form of data abuse will be in the courts shortly, as a recent study found that the average Android app sends potentially sensitive data to 3.1 third-party domains, and the average iOS app connects to 2.6 third-party domains.  None of the apps notify users that their information is being shared with third parties.  Data that’s wrong, data that’s fake, and data that’s shared without permission.  I suppose if we could get the fake guys to populate the wrong guys, sharing it without permission wouldn’t be a big deal.  Since it’s your personal information, it is.

If you gather data (and who doesn’t), you have a responsibility to keep it secure and not to use it for purposes beyond what the owner of the data (that would be you and me) reasonably expects you’ll be doing with it.  If you’re disseminating data, especially data that could impact someone’s life and not just your own business, you need to be sure it’s accurate.  And if you’re making stuff up, please just go away.

They’re not just data points, folks.  They’re people.  Maybe they’re lawsuits in waiting, or maybe they’re your spouse, kids, or parents.  Let’s be careful out there, ok?

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November 4, 2015 · 11:31 am

Who’s Working For Whom?

Ever encounter a situation where things seem backwards? Maybe you’ve seen a parent being told what to do by a child or a customer being berated by a service rep. It makes you wonder who is in charge or who is working for whom. I have another thought along those lines today, and it has to do with data. There was a post from AdAge by their data reporter, Katie Kaye who wrote the following about the NY Times piece on Amazon: 

The article should inspire us to question the value of decisions based entirely on data to create business efficiencies at the expense of human empathy and the arguable imperfections that can benefit any organization or project.

I like that. It makes you ask who is in charge here: the humans or the numbers. We all ingest more data than we can consume, and, unfortunately, some of us allow that massive intake to be regurgitated as unconsidered decisions. That’s a bad idea. The data is there to serve us, not the other way around.

I’m the first to say that we need lots of data. Without impartial feedback, we’re flying blind, and data can help us make better decisions. The key there is “help US”.   Data without the context of a plan is useless. Data that’s not actionable is useless.  Data that causes us to overreact, however, is  dangerous.  If you watched any election coverage last night, you probably heard a lot about early results and the need to wait for data from key precincts.  How many times has someone in your organization overreacted to an early piece of data, only to find out that it was not at all typical of the overall results?  We need a plan, we need context, and we need a little patience.

When we chase after outliers, we’re working for the data.  That’s backward.  Data, and all the other technological tools in our arsenals, needs to work for us.  Make sense?

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