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Boring Work? Or Your Missed Opportunity?

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Doing the Impossible Wasn’t as Valuable as Doing One Thing

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I worked my way into publishing through the back door. First I freelanced for magazines. Then I worked for a developer who built projects for corporations. Then finally one of the publishers hired me. My first title as a really publishing company employee was Executive Editor. I was delighted and excited to be taking on this new huge responsibility.

This happened long before personal branding. Tom Peters had not yet coined the phrase or the idea of Brand You. But if that had been vogue while this was happening, my personal brand for that stage of my career was clear. I even had named my self definition as …

I wanted to be the one person known through the industry who consistently did the impossible.

I liked the charge of solving high-risk problems. I liked the adrenalin rush of winning in a high stakes game when everything seemed unlikely. That’s what challenged my intelligence and my creativity to higher level problem solving.

When I got to my new job, my desk was too empty. My job description and job role said I had to stay in the realm of possibility. The situation was so not me. Impossible situations weren’t happening, because I had more time than I needed for everything. And other people’s impossible situations were hands off to me.

It was boring.

When the situation gets boring, I do drastic things. I started thinking about what it is what we were doing. and a question struck me …

What if I used all of the time I had to do something of a drastically, emphatically, elegantly higher quality?

What if I changed my self-definition to

I want to be the one person known through the industry who consistently delivers the highest quality on schedule on budget.

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Doing the impossible consistently didn’t seem as noble or valuable as doing the best quality work in the industry. That simple change in perspective pushed me back into learning.

Suddenly my desk didn’t seem so boring or so empty.

I became a better publisher, manager, product maker and even a better person because I learned the value of a new way of thinking. Any work can offer an opportunity.

Next time you think what’s in front of you is boring, look for the opportunity you could be missing. It could be a doorway to a new way of thinking.

How might a new view of what you’re doing change what you’re learning to get you where you want to go faster?

–ME “Liz” Strauss
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Michael Jordan, The Old Spice Guy: Why Characters and Celebrities Can’t Humanize Your Brand

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A Celebrity Doesn’t Humanize a Brand

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I don’t watch TV much, but lately when I do this Hanes commercial with Michael Jordan keeps cropping up.

Does this commercial “humanize” Hanes? Of course not. It’s a traditional celebrity endorsement and if anything, it makes the celebrity look smart and the customer look informed, but not so socially adept. We may want to ibecome a bigger fan of Michael Jordan, but do we want to join a group of the guys who act like the guy talking to him?

Is the commercial really about making a relationship with Hanes or with the celebrity who wears Hanes? I say Hanes built a commercial about humanizing Michael Jordan, not Hanes.

The Old Spice Guy and Mr. Clean

Last year when the “Man Your Man Could Smell Like” Old Spice Campaign came out, everyone I knew passed on it on to someone else. We sat at lunch at SxSW sharing it on our iPhones because the clever copy and innovative camera work made it fun and worth talking about.

And then, the Old Spice Team at Wieden and Kennedy knocked our socks off when the Old Spice Man started answering comments with YouTube Videos.

But did the Old Spice Man humanize the brand? Again, I think not. What is the Old Spice Man? A celebrity work for hire? A human Mr. Clean? A character we can make a relationship with?

We’re still not making a relationship with Old Spice or the people who work for the brand.

Why Characters and Celebrities Don’t Humanize a Brand

Being human is about having humanity — a benevolent compassion for other members of the species. That’s a job that doesn’t stay on a TV screen, in a magazine, or on a website. It’s a relationship that goes both ways. It responds to questions, finds solutions, picks up the phone, answers the email, and celebrates great ideas.

As much as they add personality and glamour, even a sense of the way that people who run the brand want to relate with us, characters and celebrities can’t humanize a brand. They are cardboard cut outs of people not real people we can form a relationship with.

Here’s just a few things they don’t do.

  • They don’t listen and respond in meaningful human ways. They don’t ask us about our ideas, thoughts, wishes, needs, or the real ways we use their products. Surveys and questions are about them, not us. How do you like me? Isn’t a relationship building question.
  • They don’t act on our behalf. They don’t carry back our thoughts, ideas, and information to the people who make the products, do the marketing, and solve the problems when something isn’t working.
  • They don’t have true two-way conversations. They are paid or made to represent the brand in the same that packaging does — to underscore and represent an idea or a feeling in an outgoing direction.
  • They don’t build communities. Their work is not intended to help customers connect as people, but rather to connect customers to their products or the brand.

In other words, characters and celebrities don’t build relationships. They keep the brand conversation all about the brand. Humans who only talk about themselves, think about themselves, and work to promote themselves are considered lacking in humanity as well.

It takes real people who love their work and care about real customers, who work with real vendors, partners, and customers to reach real customer goals and solve real customer problems to humanize a brand.

Celebrities and characters don’t do that. People like @AmberCadabra @GeorgeSmithJr @ZenaWeist @vick08 @bsimi @connieburke and @LionelatDell do.

What brand do you know that’s done a great job at showing its humanity?

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz on your business!!

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Thanks to Week 267 SOBs

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Successful and Outstanding Bloggers

Let me introduce the bloggers
who have earned this official badge of achievement,

and the right to call themselves
Successful Blog SOBs.

I invite them to take a badge home to display on their blogs.

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They take the conversation to their readers,
contribute great ideas, challenge us, make us better, and make our businesses stronger.

I thank all of our SOBs for thinking what we say is worth passing on.
Good conversation shared can only improve the blogging community.

Should anyone question this SOB button’s validity, send him or her to me. Thie award carries a “Liz said so” guarantee, is endorsed by Kings of the Hemispheres, Martin and Michael, and is backed by my brothers, Angelo and Pasquale.

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Want to become an SOB?

If you’re an SO-Wanna-B, you can see the whole list of SOBs and learn how to be one by visiting the SOB Hall of Fame– A-Z Directory . Click the link or visit the What IS an SOB?! page in the sidebar.

–ME “Liz” Strauss

Vitamin Angels Doubles Their Reach and We Can Too!

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Last year at SOBCon was one of four nonprofits the entire group worked with on the Give Back Challenge Day. We talked about their work in help children grow with the right nutrition. They told us of their quest to increase distribution of vitamin A to reach 20 million children and supply over 100 million multivitamins to children and mothers. By connecting essential nutrients with those most in need we can reduce child mortality.

This year they have doubled their reach and they’re on the brink of being able to that again!!

Marine Nutriceutical is matching your contribution dollar for dollar through the end of 2010.

Just click the image below to chip in to help any little bit with be worth twice what you give.

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Want to do more? Just pick up the badge and pass this message on to your network for them too. See what a community can do.

Thanks.

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz on your business!!

I’m a proud affiliate of

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Technology shouldn’t torture people

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by Patty Azzarello

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Really?

I was traveling in Cincinnati recently, and was greeted with the following in my hotel room. I was staggered.

I removed the actual hotel name, but this was real.

Is it just me, or are these 19 steps to program a wake-up call a bit much?

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Technology and Humans

I built a successful career in technology by following one guiding principle:

Make the technology less painful for humans to use.

Focus as much (if not more) energy on the human interface as on the technology itself.
Don’t ever show of the richness of your technology in the user interface. 

Focus completely on the user’s task. Understand how people are thinking about the task they need to do, and help them do it the way they are inclined to do it.

The point is never to show that your technology is smart and powerful, it’s to make your user feel smart and powerful.

Patty’s 3 Laws of Technology

(Break them at your own business peril.)

1. Technology should not rob people of their humanity
2. If you present technology instead of a human interface it HAS TO WORK
3. Technology should never make people feel stupid

Here is what I mean:

1. Technology should not rob people or their humanity.

Probably the best example of this are those voice automated systems that make you talk to a computer on the other end of the phone.   I don’t know about you, but I hate this. I would feel much less robbed of my humanity if I was greeted with a computer voice that said…

I know I’m not a person like you are, and that you’d rather talk to a person, but we think we can help you faster if you are willing to give this a try. We won’t make you talk to a computer and pretend it’s a person, and feel like an idiot shouting answers and phrases repeatedly because we can’t actually understand them… Please help us route your call by keying in your account number and answering ONE question – then you’ll be connected to a real person.

Any time your user interface makes a person translate something they are thinking or feeling into a narrow input that your technology will accept, you have robbed them of some humanity.

2. If you present technology instead of a human interface it HAS TO WORK

If you want me to sign up for your service on your website, don’t require a special new version of a flash plug in for me to do it.  Don’t invite me to leave you feedback, only to have a link that doesn’t go anywhere.  Don’t optimize your interface so much for one platform or environment that it doesn’t work right in others.

When something goes wrong…

A human can recover and use creativity and judgment (and opposable thumbs)  if the transaction does not work. Technology just sits there there not working, and the user goes away having failed to complete the task.

I was duped recently at the airport when I accepted a boarding pass sent to my mobile phone and got to an airport that didn’t have the ability to read it.

I was promised I could pick up a prescription after hours, from an automated pharmacy dispenser, and they had mis-spelled my name when they input the prescription so there was no way I could pick it up and no way for the machine to recover.  There was a phone support number on the machine connecting me to a line which was un-manned after hours.

Make it fool proof
Test everything.  One of the best software tests  I ever saw was a CEO who sat on the keyboard.  The system broke.  Test your technology in ways users are not supposed to use it, because they will always do things they are not supposed to do.

Use Standard (boring) components
Go out of your way to use technology components that are as standard and hard to break as possible.

Don’t try to make your screens extra-pretty, or use bleeding edge widgets and gadgets in your user interface because they amuse you, you are trying to be impressive, or you want to try something new — especially if if there is to be no-human back up when it doesn’t work.

Set your standard to “It has to work”.  Not “It has to be leading edge”.

Don’t lose customers
If you replace humans with technology, if it doesn’t work you will lose customers because you have given them no possible alternative but to go away. There is a corollary to this law which is “Don’t make people work hard to give you their money”.

3. Technology should never make people feel stupid

This issues is starting to go away as technology is actually working better and young people are immune to thinking that it is their fault if it doesn’t work.

Complexity is the enemy
But when technology is unnecessarily complicated and hard to use, it makes (us old) people feel inadequate because we can’t accomplish the task at hand.

I don’t think I have ever got through a self-checkout lane without requiring assistance from a clerk and feeling a bit stupid.

If you buy wine, someone still needs to check your ID. You Fail.
If you by an item that is too large to put in the bag, the system will freeze because it can’t sense that you put it in the bag after you scan it. You fail.
If you buy organic produce, it doesn’t have a selection for organic. You Fail.

At this point you are given the choice either to wait for help (you feel stupid) or to steal money from the store because you can’t find a way to pay the organic up-charge (robbed of your humanity, and being made to work too hard to give them your money).

The good, at least mitigating, news is that most self-checkouts follow rule number 2.  It HAS to work – so they put human backup there.

Making technology better for humans is good for business.

Apple is an obvious example. But even putting Apple aside as an outlier, I can tell you that in every business where I had responsibility to bring technology products to market, focusing on the human interface was good for business.

We put extra effort on the user’s thinking process, the user interface, the install, the demo, the “start here” experience, the documentation, the customer support help desk, and the sales and contracting documents and processes.

By doing this, my businesses were able to steal share from competitors who were overly focused on the features of their technology alone, and tortured their customers and partners because of it.

What do you think?

Has technology ever tortured you? Do you think it helps business to make technology easier to deal with? There’s a comment box below, what’s your view?

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Patty Azzarello works with executives where leadership and business challenges meet. She has held leadership roles in General Management, Marketing, Software Product Development and Sales, and has been successful in running large and small businesses. She writes at Patty Azzarello’s Business Leadership Blog. You’ll find her on Twitter as @PattyAzzarello

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