I had two conversations in pretty quick succession that pointed towards the extremes of service we face every day.

Both talking about (different) new products. The first, a “name” advertising guy, said,

“It’s possible to cover up a bad product with good advertising.”

The second, a middle manager at one of the world’s biggest computer companies, said,

“We need to make sure the back end is bomb proof before we get the sales force excited.”

Which product would you rather buy?

I’m not suggesting that the advertising guy was recommending what he was saying, or even liking it. He wasn’t. But the fact that he had this answer down pat shows that too few companies take the approach of the computer guy.

Faced with an opportunity to make money, which option do you take? The quick don’t-ask-difficult-questions-how-many-can-we-shift approach or the slower hold-on,-let’s-make-sure-we-do-this-right approach.

Where’s the money?

A certain big computer company might say, “go slow, add a few steps, make sure the back end is bomb proof.”

I’d say, “skip.”

Neatly filed under Keeping Promises,Making Promises,Skippiness
Tags: advertising, marketing

I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about names recently. Working in a team, we’ve come up with a bunch of alternatives and pretty much settled on one. On the way through though, someone asked, “how do we know when we’re ready?”

For that matter, how do you know when anything is ready? The name, the new product, the presentation, the logo, the promising member of staff being considered for promotion. Are they ready?

“When can you have the report ready?” says the client.
“Er. When do you need it?” says the consultant.

After a point, state-of-readiness is really state-of-polish. Could something or someone be better? Yes. Does it matter? That depends on the answer to another question:

• Will it do what you promised?

Almost everything could be better, but if it does the job you need it to do, and in the way that it should, then it’s time to ship.

No name is perfect but now we have one that works, it’s time to move on.

Neatly filed under Keeping Promises,Making Promises
Tags: idenity, marketing, naming

This week I got involved in a conversation that had lawyers sitting on the other side of the table. Thankfully not the kind of discussion that happens when things go bad, but the other kind, when things haven’t quite started yet.

This happens a lot in organisational life. Employment contracts, licensing agreements, partnerships, outsourcing, non-disclosures, service level agreements. Internally and externally, we rely on bits of paper to nail the detail. These things are so common that it’s easy to believe that this is the way to do business. That this is how to deal with difficult possibilities. That this will make everything ok. But it won’t.

Lawyering like this is good, but it will only reduce some of the wriggle room for some of the arguments that normally come up. Not eliminate disagreements altogether. Not stop problems happening. Just squeeze some of the juice out of the lemon – it’s still going to hurt, but not as much.

If it’s going to hurt, why do it? Why employ, agree, partner, outsource or do anything else that puts us in the hands of others? The promise of working together is that the business of the organisation will be better than before. An organisation’s success will increasingly be determined by its ability to work across formal boundaries – whether than means inter-department or inter-company.

• Go in with eyes wide open. By all means clock up some billable time with lawyers but don’t kid yourself that this means plain sailing from start to finish. There will be problems. Expect them to happen, however good your relationship and however willingly the parties sign at the start.
• Work through the bad times. When things start going wrong, put your collective heads down and work it out. Nobody wins when you walk away or run to litigation. Remind yourselves the reason you got together – to both be better than before – and find the path through the mountains.

When choosing which person or organisation to share ink with, work out who you’re dealing with (which is more about values than names or capabilities), and ask yourself “can I work with them when things go wrong?”

Ultimately, never allow the desire for a deal to cloud the needs of the business.

Neatly filed under Leading,Managing
Tags: partners, values

A little bit of presentational magic goes a long way, as Hans Rosling’s TED presentation shows.

I came across Prezi this week who offer an interesting take on delivering screen content. Promising stunning presentations is a pretty bold claim. We’ll see.

Chapeau to the interesting Explainist blog for pointing Prezi out.

Neatly filed under Innovating
Tags: meetings

Take 20 minutes to watch Hans Rosling present statistics third world issues. You heard right, take 20 minutes for statistics on issues. Can’t do it? Take 1 minute. Commit to watching 1 minute from any place in the presentation.

Stay for longer than a minute? Why?

The data, the presenter, the story?

Neatly filed under Focus
Tags: meetings, story, TED