Tag Archives: Business and Economy

August 9, 2016 · 11:48 am

Is Knowledge Power?

I’m sure you’ve heard the expression that “knowledge is power.” A version of that saying has been around for a long time, so much so that a version is found in the Bible. This is what Wikipedia says it means:

Though its meaning varies from author to author, the phrase often implies that with knowledge or education, one’s potential or abilities in life will certainly increase. Having and sharing knowledge is widely recognized as the basis for improving one’s reputation and influence, thus power. This phrase may also be used as a justification for a reluctance to share information when a person believes that withholding knowledge can deliver to that person some form of advantage. Another interpretation is that the only true power is knowledge, as everything (including any achievement) is derived from it.

We hear about “confidential information” all the time in business. The state version of that is “Top Secret.” Yet does such information exist? We humans have done a wonderful job of putting nearly all the world’s information into the hands of anyone who seeks it. We can ask our mobile devices just about any question and gain knowledge. Every confidentiality agreement I’ve ever signed always exempts information one can find “publicly available” or obtained from other sources. Those are increasingly easy to find and readily available.

Brands used to know more about their products than did consumers – how well it performed, how well priced it was for that performance versus the competition. That information was hard to obtain and so the brands had the power as they dispensed only the knowledge that wanted consumers to have. Local retailers and services used to be able to keep mediocrity a local secret. Have you tried a new restaurant win the last few years without checking out the online reviews?

Knowledge IS power, but the power had shifted to the masses. Advertising, which is how brands used to impart the knowledge they wanted consumers to have, is increasingly ignored. Consumers are educating themselves. I think brands and businesses that behave as if they know more than their customers or partners are going to lose. Do you?

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Filed under Helpful Hints, Thinking Aloud

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August 5, 2016 · 10:45 am

The Problem With Talking Eggs

So guess what else falls on this Foodie Friday? My birthday! Naturally, wanting to be prepared for the inevitable rush by friends and family to buy me gifts, I was rummaging around the web for more useless gadgets I could add to my kitchen. I might have found just about the most useless one of all and oddly enough, a business lesson as well.

I think you’ve probably heard of the Internet Of Things. It seems as if almost everything – your fridge, your thermostat, your dishwasher – connects to the Internet. Maybe, however, this thing (thank you, Business Insider) carries it a bit too far:

The Quirky Egg Minder solves a question as old as time itself: “Why can’t I connect my egg tray to the internet?” Made in partnership with GE, this thing syncs with your smartphone and sends you push notifications when you’re on the verge of being eggless. LED lights on the tray itself tell you which of its 14 eggs nearing their expiration date.

I don’t know about you but generally, I don’t need an app to tell me when the egg tray is almost empty. My eyes aren’t quite that bad and I can still see when there are more openings than eggs. In my mind, this is the classic solution in search of a problem. While you know I’m all for solving customers’ problems (that’s the basis for any great product, after all), we can’t create problems to match our solution. It’s actually more rampant than you might think – witness the plethora of new drugs that fix issues we didn’t know we had (and probably don’t!).

I suppose there are some folks who would buy this just to be able to show their friends that their egg supply is sound. I’m not sure that will get you on the subway or a mortgage. I’m also willing to bet that any product that creates a problem in order to solve it is walking on egg shells.

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August 2, 2016 · 11:23 am

When Is “After Hours”?

I’m going to sound a lot like the cranky old guy I am today. This fit of pique has been brought on by a new study called “Exhausted But Unable to Disconnect”. It was authored by Liuba Belkin of Lehigh University, William Becker of Virginia Tech and Samantha A. Conroy of Colorado State University, and it shows it’s not just the amount of time spent on work emails, but the anticipatory stress and expectation of answering after-hours emails that are draining employees. 

When I got into the business world, neither email nor cell phones existed. When you walked out the door to go home, you really did leave the office behind unless you chose to take some work home with you. There was little fear that the boss would summon you to do something since to get you the message to do so would involve either a telephone call to your home landline or sending a search party to find you. If you were out you were pretty much unreachable. Disruptions to your downtime were rare.

Obviously, that’s not the case today. I’m sure you’ve had the experience of not responding to an email and receiving a phone call from someone not very long after the mail was received. It’s bad enough when that’s a client or vendor or friend. When it’s a boss, it’s worse since there’s very little ability to ignore it for a bit. This study bears that out:

The study is not the first research to find after-hours emails hazardous to workers. It breaks new ground in focusing not primarily on mail volume and the extra time it adds to the workday but on a little-explored aspect of the problem: the mere expectation that workers will respond to email in their off hours. Such a job norm, the professors write, “creates anticipatory stress” and “influences employee’s ability to detach from work regardless of the time required for email.”

All of us need time to recharge. The study shows that just the expectation that a nastygram from the boss could be coming is just as bad as the actual demands. As managers, we need to make it clear that disrupting our team’s downtime is not going to be the norm. Our organizational cultures need to demonstrate respect for the need to disengage. There needs to be time that truly is “after hours” or the odds are that there will be a breakdown of some sort during business hours. None of us want that, do we?

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