Quick: tell me where that line come from without clicking on the link to the source.
I'm still struck with wonder how often these truisms are so easily accepted, and how rarely they are actually practiced. On the net, users are customers, yet the distance makes it easy to treat as medians, averages, percentiles, cohorts, even objects of ridicule, contempt, dismissal. This is the same anonymity psychology behind road rage!
This can't be faked. Occasional mistakes aside, a company without users at its core values will eventually show its true colors, whether it's being cavalier with user privacy, spamming their contacts with promos, lose user data, etc. And users will know it. Example: what measures have you taken to protect your users' privacy from yourself?
I'm working hard to instill this value at Bluepulse. We all mean well, but that's not enough. As management approaches go, I'm a big proponent of real clarity and focus, mainly because we never have time or resources to waste. So here's a pop quiz. If you have to make a short-term choice between (a) benefiting users and hurting your business, vs. (b) hurting users and benefiting your business, what would you really choose?
In October 1994, Dr. Thomas Nicely reported that Intel's Pentium chip had a floating-point division bug. Facing a massive recall, Intel reacted by pointing out that the practical impact was extremely rare, with an MTBF of something like 27,000 years. In other words, just ignore it. The cavalier handling resulted in a huge public outcry and a PR disaster for Intel. It would then be discovered that Intel had known about this problem since at least May 1994. Eventually Intel did an about-face and proceeded with the recall; it turned out very few people actually bothered to swap chips. Dr. Andy Grove himself later admitted that Intel had much to learn about how "things are different now with consumers".
OK, if that wasn't you, try this: in a strategy/business/feature development meeting, how much time and effort do you devote to doing things that (a) directly benefit users, vs. (b) directly benefit your business?
To increase the odds of your business's success, make sure it's "a" at least 80% of the time.
I'm still struck with wonder how often these truisms are so easily accepted, and how rarely they are actually practiced. On the net, users are customers, yet the distance makes it easy to treat as medians, averages, percentiles, cohorts, even objects of ridicule, contempt, dismissal. This is the same anonymity psychology behind road rage!
This can't be faked. Occasional mistakes aside, a company without users at its core values will eventually show its true colors, whether it's being cavalier with user privacy, spamming their contacts with promos, lose user data, etc. And users will know it. Example: what measures have you taken to protect your users' privacy from yourself?
I'm working hard to instill this value at Bluepulse. We all mean well, but that's not enough. As management approaches go, I'm a big proponent of real clarity and focus, mainly because we never have time or resources to waste. So here's a pop quiz. If you have to make a short-term choice between (a) benefiting users and hurting your business, vs. (b) hurting users and benefiting your business, what would you really choose?
In October 1994, Dr. Thomas Nicely reported that Intel's Pentium chip had a floating-point division bug. Facing a massive recall, Intel reacted by pointing out that the practical impact was extremely rare, with an MTBF of something like 27,000 years. In other words, just ignore it. The cavalier handling resulted in a huge public outcry and a PR disaster for Intel. It would then be discovered that Intel had known about this problem since at least May 1994. Eventually Intel did an about-face and proceeded with the recall; it turned out very few people actually bothered to swap chips. Dr. Andy Grove himself later admitted that Intel had much to learn about how "things are different now with consumers".
OK, if that wasn't you, try this: in a strategy/business/feature development meeting, how much time and effort do you devote to doing things that (a) directly benefit users, vs. (b) directly benefit your business?
To increase the odds of your business's success, make sure it's "a" at least 80% of the time.
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