Return on Intention

Everyone has a story like this. They go to a place where their experience wasn’t so great, and are compelled to say so. Here is my latest.

After returning form Toronto I went to my bank to exchange the rest of my Canadian money into US money. Only one person at the branch could help. I approached the window and handover my currency. Now, I don’t claim to be an expert in other countries practices, but while in Canada I didn’t see a single one-dollar bill. In Canada, at least in my few days there, it seemed that one dollar is produced as a coin. A lot of what I had to exchange were these one-dollar coins. I have a habit of paying with paper money and ignoring the coins, so I had a lot of coins. The teller then proceeded to tell me how it is not common to exchange coins. Throughout our transaction she continued to make reference to how much easier this would be if we didn’t change over the coins, and even took the time to complain to a co-worker about the situations as she walked away form her work area at the counter to gather paperwork.

There are two things to take away from this story. One is, don’t expect your customers to care what is easy or hard for you and your employees to accomplish. It is really amazing to see how many practices and attitudes develop out of what is easier to for the company to do. Efficiency is important, but not at the expense of the customer.

The second is how interesting it is to watch the dynamics of an organizations. These employees spend a good amount of their time at work and with their co-workers. All this time spent creates a social system within the division. These systems seem to work well until the customer interrupts the arrangement. It is a sign, I believe of the strength of a company’s customer focus and culture that manifests itself in these moments. The socially accepted norm of this group did not seem to favor the customers.

This seems to be particularly prevalent in tradition media. Anyone who has ever done a media buy knows the drill, especially in newspaper advertising. It makes sense for a publication to bill by the column inch, but what about the graphics department who has to layout an ad in six different sizes to fit each publication. It wouldn’t take too much to fix, just add a page to the media kit including how wide a column inch is in regular inches and picas. It is very surprising, though, that i have seen more media kits that don’t even disclose the size of the pages, much less the width of a column inch.

Take a look at your work and organization. Are you doing anything that excludes the customers in the sake of the company’s own practices? Are your employees more engaged with them selves than with the customers needs?

Its been an interesting trip. I have to say that the entire trip was worth going to. The conference was great. Toronto was great. My hotel, was not great, but I wasn’t there much and was asleep when I was, so I guess I will survive. Before my next trip I’ll have to remember to check out Shel’s travel blog to find out where to stay.

In case you were not able to joins us, the conference was held in a nightclub. No hotel conference rooms for this shindig. The place was called the Guvernment and Kool Haus. Looking at http://www.theguvernment.com for the venue before leaving, I got these notions of how cool the conference was going to be. After spending two days there; however, the choice in location really only gave us one advantage over using a hotel conference room, and that was the sound system. We had no problem hearing the speakers.

Speaking of speakers, here is a tip to all you presenters out there…DON’T READ YOUR PRESENTAION!!! I have no problem with notes, but reading a presentation word for word is very frustrating to watch. Reading a presentation creates the impression that the speaker does not have a good knowledge of their chosen topic. All the presenters had valuable information to share, but let me just say this: If you ever have the opportunity to see any of the following people talk, don’t miss the opportunity: CC Chapman, David Weinberger, Brian Eisenberg, Mitch Joel or Joseph Jaffe. These guys all share the ability to speak well and engage an audience.

Here’s a tip to make you popular and build name recognition at a conference, Only go to conferences very far away from where you live, preferably in another country. I went to the Digital Marketing Conference in Toronto Ontario Canada from my home in Rio Rancho New Mexico USA. I heard about the conference on Six Pixels of Separation a little while back, and after reading the list of keynote speakers from the Canadian Marketing Associations website made arrangements to go. How could you not go and see the group previously above. I contacted Mitch, CC, and Joseph through email and skype to let them now I was coming, and the word spread. It was pretty strange; I’m not a really important person by any means. I haven’t cured cancer or ended poverty, but was greeted at the conference as “Oh, you’re the guy that came up from New Mexico!” This was also usually followed with “Where is New Mexico, anyway?” It was cool being a novelty for the day or two because it allowed me to talk to a lot of people that probably wouldn’t have sought me out otherwise.

A few of the committee members from the Canadian Marketing Association blogged about the conference, from the conference and posted it at http://www.canadianmarketingblog.com/. This is a good collection of what was said by the presenters. Check it out and make sure to come next year.