Answer Guy Central

Imagine you’re in business, and you want to keep in touch with all your clients, friends, contractors, and everyone else you’ve ever touched. What do you do, write a newsletter? Do you mail that? Does anyone read it?

Today, of course, it’s likely that you don’t mail your newsletter, or even most of your promotional pieces. You send them out by e-mail (using permission-based standards, of course!). Or maybe you realize that even that’s become inefficient and ineffective, because most of your recipients never open those e-mails. Check out the article “FREE IS BAD” here. I wasn’t kidding when I wrote this!

Enter Social Networking. There’s never been a bigger business change, and I’ve never seen a better starter example of why you must begin thinking about these methods than this one.

Sometimes called “Social Networking”, Social Media has gotten a tremendous amount of attention at sites like Twitter and Facebook. And much of that attention—and rightly so—has been bad. But take the idea of Social Media / Social Networking in the right direction and you see something else: not only is “everyone doing it”, but it’s become the most effective way of keeping in touch with people. And keeping them interested in what you’re doing.

Get it? Want to? If you have any questions, just reach out; we’re here to help.

I don’t get to defend telcos very often. AT&T, Verizon, and the like make up rules, enforce government regulations in a way that hurts their customers, and generally are questionable corporate citizens so much that it’s hard to be on their side.

Today I am. Thanks, Google.

AT&T is all over Google for violating Net Neutrality. Umm . . . AGAIN.

Google’s approach on this particular business change is wrong. No, as pointed out in this article from the New York Times they aren’t obligated to do the same things that regulated telcos do. But in holding themselves out as poster children for “don’t be evil” (this is an actual Google slogan, in case you weren’t aware), they’ve taken on an even more important position.

Very bad move, Google.

Hey, I have an idea . . . let’s all default on our mortgages!

It isn’t really a surprise, is it? Enough people now see this kind of thing as  “standard operating procedure” that the Los Angeles Times is reporting on an epidemic of folks walking away from their mortgages as a strategic financial planning maneuver.

So today’s question is this: Is taking whatever actions are necessary to come out ahead an acceptable way of dealing with your existing contractual obligations?

I’d like to counter-argue this point as “it’s what the banks do, so do it to them!”, but it isn’t, actually; what banks do is work according to existing contracts. And yes, they take advantage of every possible loophole to see that their desire for more profits through business change can be made into your life change. But you signed that contract.

On the other hand, there’s no reason in the world you can’t approach your bank to negotiate a new deal.

And that’s the lesson here: business change often comes about when you look at a contract from a new perspective, and renegotiate. Most people we work with see that as too hard, and so they avoid it. The people who hire us to help create their business change know better.

Ask for what you want. There’s no harm in that.

Sounds like fait accompli, does it not? Google enacts one form of business change or another pretty much every day, and every one of their changes puts someone else out of business. Yesterday, they outdid themselves.

Google’s business change (and business changing) idea o’ the day was the introduction of a feature that lets Google Toolbar users comment on web pages they visit. Interesting? Stupid? A little of both? I say “genius”.

If we start with the very idea of people being interested in other people’s comment on the items they’re reading, we immediately get to what’s driving the Internet. For better or worse, we’re all reading the rantings of strangers who may or may not have expertise in the subject they’re writing about. You’re reading this because you’ve come to believe that I have some expertise in business change, business operations, technology, business ideas, or . . . something. OR: you’re here because you followed a link. And that link may have been one I planted out there to draw you here, or it could have been put up by somebody else who thinks I’m smart. BUT YOU’RE HERE.

(Thanks, by the way!)

There are any number of web page commenting platforms out there, and Google is saying something clear by launching their own: they want a piece of everything we do. Now, tie it to their toolbar. The toolbar drives adoption of the new feature, and the feature drives adoption of the toolbar. This may not be business change for Google, but if they change the way you do business, it sure is for you!

My concern is this: Google is controlling which comments actually get posted. They’ve detailed the rules in typically non-specific Google fashion, which in itself is fine, but by being both the people who show us search results and controlling which results are available for search, they’re going a bit too far. I commented earlier this week about Net Neutrality, and Google’s been a big proponent. Now this?

When technology, business change, and ideology cross paths, this is what we get. Let The Answer Guy help manage your business change.

Did you hear the one about the blogger who lost his job because not enough people were reading his words?

It’s not actually a new idea. The companies that aggregate blogs figured out quickly that if nobody was reading what one of their bloggers had to say that they were paying for nothing of value. The Gawker Medias of the world have been ruthless toward their mostly-underpaid staffers for years.

Now, The Washington Post is in on the act.

Is this bad business, or just another example of necessary business change? More of the latter, I’m afraid, but imagine you were writing a column for a big newspaper, were asked to do the extra work of writing a blog, had that blog promoted via means you weren’t told about, didn’t understand, and had no control over, and as a result of not enough traffic finding its way to your blog entries lost the job you had been doing for years. Ouch.

Now here’s a funny extension to things:

A couple of months ago, David Pogue, the New York Times’ lead technology journalist and the 935th most popular blogger in the world, suddenly became a non-force. His ranking dropped to zero. Why? Because somehow, the forces that make the Internet work got confused and though THIS blog was his. Yes, the problem has been fixed.

Which explains how I know that David is only the 935th most popular blogger. And raise the question: if David Pogue ranks 935, what chance do lesser lights have when their bosses start measuring them?

And firing them.

Watch the way you business goes, and the way you manage business change. Watch very carefully.

I hate textbooks. I hate pedagoguery. And I’m having a hard time finding a way through that in a world where computers and the Internet play such a large role.

Actually, I’m having an incredibly easy time of it, but the models aren’t changing fast enough.

I’m now in my personal ‘year four’ of watching children go to college and be told that old models still apply. Textbooks are mandatory, and not only cost too much, but cost WAY too much. Professors want their feet kissed.

So here’s a business change: outlaw textbooks. Then, outlaw people who tell you how to do things and instead create relationships that run both ways (PC-VIP’s Computer Care is an example). Then, look at your business models, and enact the same kind of business change that what I’ve just suggested would force upon schools and textbook manufacturers.

I haven’t seen a good reason for break/fix services in a long time. No one fixes radios or much of anything that’s designed for consumer consumption any more; they just throw them away and start again. Break/fix computer care? How quaint. Buy a new one.

But is it that simple? No; you need to have you data backed up and you need to have a way to restore everything about the way your computer works to the new computer, or you may as well stay with break/fix computer care.

MANAGE your resources, though, and moving on to a more productive world works, whether you’re talking about computers, human resources, or pretty much anything else.

The Internet makes managing your resources easier. Now, if I only had someone to manage my use of the Internet.

And so it Begins. Or Ends. Or Begins to End . . .

Does the company from which you get your internet access have the right to decide what you get or how fast certain things get to you? Maybe. In the USA, though, that right may be about to come to an end.

In today’s Wall Street Journal, an FCC proposal limiting the way that your favorite bit purveyor moves your information gets outlined. Business Change, indeed! Now, the way your stuff gets to you might become set in stone.

Let’s back up: the Verizons and AT&Ts of the world have been threatening to control our web browsing habits for a few years now. Their rationale is that certain things take up more bandwidth, thereby changing both the economies of scale for their businesses and the overall experience that their customers have. So besides charging more for higher-bandwidth customers (an idea I can get behind as long as there are clear and flexible options), your provider wants to be able to exert some control over what you do/say/see/etc. on-line.

Umm . . . NO!

I could pull out a freedom of speech argument here, but I’ll go even lower than that: I don’t want Time Warner, Cablevision, or anyone else telling me what they think is “right”, even if they have a business case. And that doesn’t even touch the real issue: if telecommunications companies control the prioritization of traffic, they will become the ultimate advertising gatekeepers.

Tell your Congressman, Senator, and any other government figure you can reach that this is not OK. Tell them that stopping this business change is what you want. Tell them today.

So here we go: The government is finally going to do what everyone thought they would do months ago: it’s time to control bankers’ compensation packages. Talk about Business Change!

Start here: I think these guys make WAY too much and there’s NO reasonable way to justify it.

Continue: as “investors”, the government has every right to have and attempt to put forth/impose an opinion.

But combine those statements with federal position when Goldman Sachs et.al. started showing good numbers again. There was an outcry, and they said that the goal of the bailout was SO good results would happen, and the position that the government needs to intervene at all fell down, hard.

What’s lacking is consistency. And even in change, consistency matters

OK, So Computers Don’t Care that the ongoing demise of the printed word is their fault. The Internet doesn’t care either. But there sure is a lot of talk about this kind of change floating around lately!

This week, there’s an article in Time Magazine bemoaning not the death of newspapers, but their new form as they struggle for life. And the answer? Maybe newspapers need to be in the local news business.

I was watching RealSports on HBO the other night, and Mr. Gumbel and Mr. DeFord were bemoaning the death of local sports coverage. And their point was well-taken: where will analysis of local content (like sports) come from if newspapers die?

The bigger question of course, is about the form of change, and not merely that change in business, the world at large, the media business in particular, or whatever is happening. Newspapers have always been best at serving their local audiences; listen to how almost everyone talks about USA Today, for example. Do you know anyone that likes it?

As the Internet continues to evolve, we’ll see more and more local content produced. It’s a question of hitting your niche. Newspapers may in fact stop “printing”, but they’ll continue to be needed in some form. And so yeah, computers care about newspapers, because without them growth will stop. And that’s not good for computers, businesses, or you and I.

Imagine someone asked you to completely change the way you do business. Then they offered you insurance to make sure that the business changes you were taking on would work. Would you do it?

Your answer is probably “yes”, if only because of the insurance component. Or maybe it’s still no because change scares you, but the insurance part at least made you consider the idea.

There’s a fascinating article in TIME magazine this week, about how in poor countries where insurance is a new idea it’s viewed with suspicion. The very idea that you are protecting against bad things happening makes insurance a tough sell, even if the ‘price’ is free. Even when, as in the case of poor people receiving micro-loans, it clearly improves their lives! Look; it’s universal: change is hard. Change needs to be managed. But how can you manage something that’s new to you? Seems hard, right?

One part of our company offers managed computer care for small business. Another does traditional break/fix computer care in New York City. The managed computer care option is almost always a lot cheaper and keeps them running better, yet we find that when New York City businesses hire us to handle their computer care they almost always opt for the break/fix model.

Why? Because change is hard to accept, even when it makes sense . . . even when the change is good for you. Even when the change saves you lots of money.

But change is coming. More and more. Embrace change; it’s way better than having change squeeze you.