Content Marketing

When Basic Becomes a Revelation: Creating Content as an Expert

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When you are an expert, there is a tendency to think everyone knows what you know, although they most likely don’t. Most people outside of your field of expertise probably don’t think about the concepts you do or consider the various perspectives that you do. They probably don’t get the ideas you get or get influenced as you do by the world around you. But I’ve noticed that many experts have trouble creating content because they sometimes don’t see how what they have to say is valuable. Unless they develop a cutting-edge revelation, some experts fear that what they are presenting is too basic or too ordinary. I talk to clients and colleagues about this a lot. More than you’d expect.

So why do some experts have this perception of themselves? One reason is because it comes with being an expert. Experts usually have the opposite of the Dunning-Krueger effect, which is imposter syndrome. The Dunning-Krueger effect according to a definition found in Psychology Today, is a cognitive bias in which people wrongly overestimate their knowledge or ability in a specific area. Imposter syndrome on the other hand is defined in Time Magazine as “the idea that you’ve only succeeded due to luck, and not because of your talent or qualifications”. Here’s an excerpt about imposter syndrome from that Time Magazine article:

Have you ever felt like you don’t belong? Like your friends or colleagues are going to discover you’re a fraud, and you don’t actually deserve your job and accomplishments? 

If so, you’re in good company. These feelings are known as impostor syndrome, or what psychologists often call impostor phenomenon. An estimated 70% of people experience these impostor feelings at some point in their lives, according to a review article published in the International Journal of Behavioral Science.

Impostor syndrome—the idea that you’ve only succeeded due to luck, and not because of your talent or qualifications—was first identified in 1978 by psychologists Pauline Rose Clance and Suzanne Imes. In their paper, they theorized that women were uniquely affected by impostor syndrome. 

Since then, research has shown that both men and women experience impostor feelings, and Clance published a later paper acknowledging that impostor syndrome is not limited to women. (She also created an impostor syndrome test.) Today, impostor syndrome can apply to anyone “who isn’t able to internalize and own their successes,” says psychologist Audrey Ervin.

Another reason experts may be challenged to internalize their success could be because of the competition in their areas, which ironically fuels their drive to constantly be discovering something new and cutting edge. Every day, they are talking with colleagues who have equivalent or greater knowledge, so it is hard for them to see how much they contribute to their field every day. The definition of imposter syndrome implies that people who are successful and experts are aware of their weaknesses, so they have insights into what they don’t know and see gaps in their own knowledge. This is why they are experts—they can discern what’s cutting edge versus what is old news, what is fact, fiction, or unknown, they know the areas they only have general knowledge about and need to explore further to get the details they need so they can be the expert they are.

But some still carry this false assumption that the average person knows not just what is cutting edge, but the old news that has been displaced. Somehow the average person with different interests is keeping current in a field not their own. Strange, right? In reality, the average person doesn’t know a bunch about an expert’s field—what’s cutting edge or old knowledge. And this leads to talented experts often falsely believing that they have no unique value to offer because they are around other experts just like them every day so to them, they believe their knowledge is common knowledge.

Most days, I am in the camp where I assume everyone knows what I know. I believe that they have had similar experiences as I have and see the world in the same way as I do. There are many days when I think what I know is general knowledge and at times, I believe that I have no value to offer. So, I’ll refrain from creating content or contributing to conversations because I wonder who wants to hear what I already know and tell myself so many times. It’s the same with projects – I wonder what value I could possibly offer. Sounds crazy right? But there is a way for someone to work around this.

There is a message that many coaches are using today – you are unique and have something unique to offer by just being yourself. So, although the message coming from you may have been shared by dozens of others before, there is still room for you in your field because no one is presenting this same information in the way you are presenting it. Isn’t that freeing to hear? And for some, the way you present your message may be revolutionary. This perspective could come from your approach to the problem, your word choice, your choice of metaphors, even the medium you choose to present the message. In the end, it’s you being you that is the offering. This is true for companies as well.

What you say is going to be unique to your audience as long as you are authentic as an individual or company.

The next point to be made…when you are creating a content library, you need some basic, introductory, 101 type of content there. There is value in basic content. Imagine if you went to Deepak Chopra’s site and you saw no basic content about chakras or meditation or self-awareness? Or you went to HubSpot’s site and there was nothing there about what makes a good email or landing page? Or you went to a makeup site and you didn’t see some basic application technique videos? Yes, those examples all contain basic explainer content, but you need that to help build trust and credibility with your audience. If you only talk about slick, trendy topics, well—you’re a slick, trendy snake oil salesman. And who needs that. Trends are always built on the basics. It’s why white t-shirts and jeans sell all year round—people always want the basics. I built and am building a basics library through courses that complement my book. Why? Because if I don’t have that, then you may wonder where did this lady come from? What does she know? Every content creator needs to prove to their audience they know the basics to build trust with them. That’s how you judge a quack from a leader. If I went to HubSpot and saw faulty info about the basics I’d question their credibility. Same with Deepak Chopra. If the information he had about chakras was bunky based on the limited knowledge of them that I have,  I’d walk away and think he’s not the real deal. Content about the basics validates your credibility, which builds trust, and later supports your authenticity.

So, some tips from this quick video…if you are looking for ideas of what to talk to your audience about – listen to the conversations you have with customers. Notice what they are asking. Those answers contain great content to share! Most people aren’t alone in their questions. Other people often have the same questions about a topic. So, share the answers!

Then ask yourself which topics in your field do you take for granted that people know about. The answer to this question also contains great ideas to share too. Consider how you present this content. Maybe do something creative like hosting a panel discussion. I saw someone recently present a complex idea to children. Either way, find a way to present such ideas to build that basics library.

Being an expert in an area is tough because you are already tough on yourself. Yes, continue working on being on the cutting edge as an expert, but remember – you have value in what you bring to the table being yourself, being authentic. So, bring it on! We all want to hear what you have to say, even if it is something from a 101 course in your area of expertise. Always remember, to someone else, your expertise is not basic information—it’s a revelation.

Thanks so much! I hope this was helpful. Have a great day!

When Basic Becomes a Revelation: Creating Content as an Expert

What makes a great vision or mission statement?

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Hi all! It has been a while since I posted because I have been working on creating videos to promote my book, Revenue or Relationships: Win Both. I'm also working on a short course and workbook that will accompany the book. Oh yes, and a podcast (that will start soon). Plus projects. It has been busy!

I'll post some of the videos here with the transcripts. The first I want to share comes from the chapter about vision statements and why they are so important for a company to create a great customer experience. We sometimes discount the value of the vision and mission statement for a company, seeing it as not having a bunch of value, but the mission and vision statements define a company's purpose, values, operations, solutions (products & services), and how the community between customers and employees should work. It's so important, which is why I created a chapter about it. 

 

Excerpt from the book Revenue or Relationships: Win Both: Introduction to Chapter 2 Vision: What is the value you provide? 

As we all know, a company’s vision defines who the company is, what it does, and where it wants to be in the future. Rather than outline a plan to achieve goals, it outlines the value the company will provide now and in the future to various stakeholders, including customers, the industry, and society. A company’s vision is timeless, rarely changes, and is usually transformative and inspiring. 

We hear about visions constantly, and it seems like everyone wants to develop one—to the point that it feels like everyone is a visionary. It’s great that leaders and aspiring strategists have a vision, but is it a vision that can be realized? 

Some companies have the opposite problem: They could easily implement a vision—if they only had one. Some companies don’t place value on creating a vision for their company, or they have a vision that is too tactical and only defines what success looks like today. 

A company’s lack of vision becomes clear in its operations and product strategy. A company with a vision will have clear, targeted goals to achieve. It isn’t afraid to take risks because it is being guided by its vision to drive the company forward. Conversely, a company without a clear vision may make half-hearted attempts at launching products or expressing its brand. There is an uncertainty about its actions. It is most likely hesitant to act because it doesn’t know exactly what it is working to achieve. 

–Mary Brodie, Revenue or Relationships: Win Both

 

 

Video Transcript: 

Everyone needs a destination or a goal. It helps us feel that there is purpose and meaning in life.

And that is what a vision statement does for companies. If you ask me, many companies don’t really know how to write an aspirational or inspirational vision statement. They'll write a one-line abbreviated summary lifted from a long-term business plan and say – that’s what I want to do with my business, that’s my vision. I want to be the leader of my industry, I want to be global, I want the best clients or the most revenue or what have you. And I don’t disagree that such goals are admirable. But that’s not a vision. That’s a one-line operational plan.

A vision should inspire your customers and employees and outline the problem your company will solve for your customers, your industry, or the world. It can and should be aspirational and inspirational. The mission states how you plan to achieve that goal strategically. It doesn’t include specific approaches or methods – that’s reserved for your operation plan. Such statements are timeless for your business and should serve as a guide for your employees to solve customer problems and create great experiences for them and help your customers understand how you can help them.

As an example, let’s look at Gearmark’s vision: Customers become active participants in every company’s community.

I would love it if customers were actively involved in every company’s community – and I want to help all of my clients make that happen. And there’s a lot of work to do because there are a lot of companies and their customers aren’t always at the center of those businesses.

I have outlined in my book, Revenue or Relationships: Win Both, a number of ways companies can achieve this, even without requiring a purchase. That would be so great to see the future—a company community where customers and employees collaborate to solve problems. It’s not 100% achievable and it shouldn’t be. There will always be new ways to collaborate, new problems to solve, new ways to approach communications. If a vision is achieved, the company has nothing else to do. The vision statement should paint a picture of the world that will always be out of reach. That keeps the inspiration and motivation going with your teams.

Now a solid vision also tells your customers how you help them. In this case, Gearmark’s vision statement tells companies that it wants to help them make customers active participants in their community. It doesn’t say how – just that is the larger goal they will achieve by working with Gearmark.

Now for the Gearmark mission: "Empower companies to build great customer relationships."

I plan to do this by providing companies tools and resources to build great customer relationships. Over time, this could include videos, eBooks, guides, templates, case studies – all sorts of materials. I could be a consultant or write another book. I’m looking into creating an open source organization to help create metrics to measure the quality of relationships. But that’s not in the mission – the mission keeps it general enough so there can be many ways to support it.

In my book, I outline a number of other examples of mission and vision statement from companies. I’ll include my favorite company here, Airbnb. I love Airbnb because their customers are the community. It is a community oriented company on so many levels. So I’ll read you what I wrote in my book about their vision and mission statements:

“Airbnb is one of my favorite companies for many reasons, especially because it has a clearly defined vision and mission.

Vision/tagline: Belong anywhere, people can live in a place, instead of just traveling to it.

Mission: Airbnb’s mission is to create a world where people can belong through healthy travel that is local, authentic, diverse, inclusive and sustainable.

Airbnb’s vision is inspiring: belong anywhere; live in a place instead of just traveling to it. It’s a vision that hits the heart of every traveler. You don’t want to just experience being in a new country; you want to experience what living there feels like. For the true traveler, everywhere you go becomes home for a short while. And the more comfortable you feel, the more memorable the trip.

It is unusual that the vision statement and tagline are the same. However, the vision is clear and succinct, so it makes sense why Airbnb would have a dual-use for its vision as a tagline.

What’s great about the mission statement is that Airbnb clearly states how it plans to help travelers feel that they belong anywhere. It is working to create a world where people feel that they belong through “healthy travel” within the community that Airbnb has created through its products. Notice there is no mention of technologies Airbnb plans to use or how it plans to implement this idea. This leaves Airbnb open to solve this problem in various ways—through technology, through government policy, or through new community-based products.

What I like about the vision and mission statements is that they don’t specify Airbnb’s flagship hotel-like product. They are larger than that. Airbnb is creating solutions to solve the problem of travelers feeling a sense of belonging or connection to a city. This may be because many travelers don’t feel that there are people like them there, or they have a difficult time finding something they like to do, or they don’t feel “at home” where they are staying. Traveling can include exciting adventures, but also exclusion because you aren’t part of the community or culture you are visiting. The targeted openness of Airbnb’s vision and mission has enabled it to expand its “places to stay” business to include designed experiences, in which local residents “sell” a package of events and activities that presents what they like most about their city. Airbnb understands that belonging comes from a sense of community, which it has been building over the years through its hotel product and is now extending through its host-designed experiences.

Airbnb requires a sense of community in its products to not only support its unique business model, but to support its mission and vision statements. The original hotel product allows hosts to connect with guests, making them both a type of customer. The hosts post vacancies to attract a guest; the guest is looking for a place to stay. Airbnb needs them both to offer a wide variety of booking options. Strangers come together to create a safe, affordable travel experience in a type of community. By focusing on customers as people and community building in its vision and mission statement, Airbnb was able to brilliantly create a product that brings people together who crave travel experiences as a host, a guest, or both.”

—Mary Brodie, Revenue or Relationships: Win Both

So with all this in mind, how does this apply to your company?

Well, some questions you should ask yourself so your company can also have a great vision statement are:

  • Does your vision inspire you, as a person? That’s pretty basic, but if you aren’t inspired, no one else will be either.
  • Does it inspire your customers and employees to see a bigger picture about what you are trying to achieve in the world? Is it inspirational enough for them to want to find ways to make that vision a reality? Inspiration provides motivation. You can’t sell anything if people aren’t motivated to get your product or service to change their life.
  • Does it allow an employee to add to your company in their own way with a new program? Is it scalable? Employees need room to contribute to your company’s growth. A rigid vision or mission may prevent your employees from contributing to your organization so you can’t add ideas for growth.
  • Will it change an industry or the world? Or is it just a goal for my company? Are you making the world a different place? Again, your vision needs to be inspirational for not just a company but an industry or more to change.
  • Is it meaningful? does it reach into your soul to keep you going every day to work on something.

Now for the mission statement:

  • Does it share how you will do something? Does it mention specific methods? That’s where mission statements fall flat. Don’t mention exact technologies or approaches. Mention the strategy you plan on using to achieve the vision. Exactly how you do it is up for your teams to decide.
  • Will your employees be able to make your vision a reality in different ways with the guidance of the mission? Is it flexible enough to support it? Or is there only one path to success?

Those considerations should get you started to create a vision that will inspire and influence your employees to create awesome customer experiences which will ultimately increase your revenue and inspire your customers to understand the problem you solve. It will also help customers see the world as your company sees it.

Hope this was helpful! Let me know if you need help creating your vision or mission statements.

What makes a great vision or mission statement?

Epilogue: Conversations – Not Just for Humans Anymore

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For the past 1.5 years, I have been working on a book – Revenue or Relationships? Win Both. The book has been the reason why my posts have been few and far between since April. You don’t realize how much working on a book takes out of you. (It takes a lot!)

This is the Epilogue from the book. I wanted to share it with you to give you a sneak peek and to enjoy. Curious about thoughts and feedback. Thanks!

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Conversations are vital to building a relationship. They are ways for people to connect with each other, find common interests, and develop memories together. Social media and content marketing have elements of automated conversations. They provide information to readers to learn about the issues surrounding problems, describe solutions, and provide insights the reader should consider when making a decision. This first stage of communication starts a dialogue between companies and customers to help them recognize and understand their problems and realize they need a solution. The next stage usually involves online transactions, which is a type of conversation. The app or site requests information, the user provides it, and this banter continues until an agreement is reached and money is exchanged for an item. We are now exploring the possibility of chatbots and AIs to react quickly to human input in an automated, digital conversation. But what does that mean? And why is this relevant to discuss in the context of customer experience?

Conversations extend beyond information and transactions to decision-making, influencing, and relationship-building, with more intricate goals like information-sharing and collaboration along the way. We have created apps to facilitate automating these conversations, but there is more to a conversation than exchanging pleasantries, thoughts, and ideas. The automation of communication and conversations through bots and AI is a vital component of automating business. This has proven successful for informative and transactional conversations, but can we achieve this for more complex, relationship-driven communications? 

As we know, the more factual types of conversations—informational and transactional, related to things and action—are automated today. Decision-making, related to actions and thoughts, is semi-automated. We have tools available to help us, but humans need to actively use them to get any type of output. Influential conversations are more difficult to automate because they require conversations to discover information and insights, similar to relationship-building and brainstorming conversations. These types of conversations include emotions, feelings, empathy, curiosity, critical thinking, and problem-solving. 

The bottom layer of the diagram refers to the types and topics of the conversations, as suggested by Judy Apps in The Art of Conversation. These complement the types of conversations at the top of the diagram. It’s rare when talking about information that you’d talk about heart-related topics (like love or relationships) or discuss what really motivates you (like a soul topic). The more personal the conversation, the more emotionally driven the topics become. The more transactional and informational, the more likely factual or “thing” or “action” topics are fitting. If you are completing a transaction with a person or company, knowing that someone feels a certain way about an object may help a decision-making discussion about a purchase, but it won’t complete the transaction. Two or more people could be discussing how to implement a product or service, but the discussion goes beyond the “things” and “actions” to “head,” “heart,” and “soul.” The team is building trust through various side conversations that develop a relationship. And they understand the problem by sharing different perspectives, which they bring together in their collaboration to determine the best solution. 

Keeping all this in mind, without an appropriate program, a computer cannot reach the sentience necessary to be capable of making these connections between facts and emotions, curiosity and creativity, identifying problems and solving them. Human conversations beyond information and if/then transactions are too complex to model in a computer today. Relationship-building skills, like empathy, compassion, connection, and emotion, are required to complete more intricate life functions like decision-making, collaboration, and emotional connection.

Even if we were to create such a program, what would it look like? 

One could argue that we have achieved some type of sentience with the world-famous robot, Sophia. She has been introduced to the media as the AI representative of the future, but is she? She became a citizen of Saudi Arabia in 2017 and attends all of the popular technology events. She has even made some frequently quoted quips about AIs and robots having emotions or how robots want to kill humans. But does she have true sentience? She can see. She can respond to humans. But even her creator, David Hanson of Hanson Robotics, acknowledges: 

. . .acknowledges that her development is still more akin to a baby or toddler than an adult with a consciousness or intellect that could feasibly be rewarded with a full set of rights. Even this is pushing it – toddlers, for example, have consciousness; Sophia does not.1 

Hanson has admitted that her responses are often based on programming, illustrating how far we can go with the if/then statement to model human behavior. We still have not created intelligence or sentience in a machine. 

This brings us back to the original question: If we were to create such a program for decision-making, collaboration, and emotional connection, what would it look like?

It’s unclear. If we don’t know in detail how these cognitive functions work in our own brains, how could we create a model to possibly replicate ourselves in a computer? We could create a new model that’s completely different from our own image, but what would that look like? Do we have any theoretical models to use as a basis for that initial approach?

We often take for granted what is involved in creating a conversation. As we listen to someone speak, thoughts rush to us regarding questions to ask next, responses to provide, and insights to share. A computer today doesn’t have the ability to respond in such ways. A computer follows its program and responds to stimuli, mostly based on user input. It processes data to present results and findings; it doesn’t provide an analysis or summarized insights without its programmed direction. Humans usually provide their own insights based on what they believe is important, using the facts that they find through traditional research methods or computer output. Ironically, computer output is based on programs humans designed to access specific data points that a group originally decided were important. In many ways, one group of people is defining for another group what is important through a program. When the computer is deciding what is important for a user using programmed judgement created by humans, that’s not entirely intelligence. From that perspective, we still haven’t reached sentience.

This raises the question of whether we are limiting our own data knowledge by not considering the impact of outlier data to improve situations and provide a different perspective. Are we developing AIs to help us in the way we want to be helped? Or are we developing AI to identify problems or patterns that we could use to create something new? There are initiatives in companies and consultancies to have AIs discover trends found in “dark data,” outside of the knowledge that people commonly have and can immediately leverage and reference. Leveraging such an approach is the only way we could expand human conversations using AI to add value for us to see problems and issues differently. Otherwise, we are defining what we need in a program, inadvertently limiting AI discoveries based on our existing knowledge. 

If/Then versus How and Why

Conversations about “things” and “actions” are based on direct questions and answers. Do you have this in stock? When will it be shipped? How can I order that? That’s why it is easy to automate this into chatbots. They are if/then statements about information that’s required and requested.

However, when we talk about thoughts, emotions, and abstract ideas, more relevant topics for decision-making, influence, relationship-building, and collaborating, conversations no longer follow if/then structures to provide information. How are you feeling? Why are you feeling that way? What can I do so you feel better? One could create an if/then program to create answers, but that’s not what’s required in these types of conversations. These are questions that require cognitive processing related to sentience, or self-awareness. They require that subjects know they are alive and want to remain that way. We organic beings “feel” because we are self-aware and we know what is happening in our bodies and minds. We are driven to stay alive based on this self-awareness. But are computers aware of their existence? Do they feel? Do they seek to stay alive at any cost? What does this mean for them?

Science fiction has explored these ideas for more than 75 years in books and movies like 2001: Space Odyssey and Isaac Asimov’s I, Robot. It has been in the realm of fantastical thinking and philosophy for decades, if not centuries (for example, Frankenstein explores this idea at some level), but it is relevant today as we are in the early stages of creating intelligences and sentient beings that use AI. 

Arthur C. Clarke and Stanley Kubrick created an AI entity, the HAL9000 computer, in the movie 2001: Space Odyssey. In one scene, Dave is dismantling and deactivating HAL because of its psychopathic actions. Unknown to Dave, this was because HAL’s programming was conflicting with his orders; Dave assumed that HAL was simply malfunctioning. While Dave was dismantling HAL, the computer admitted his faults, attempted to apologize, and asked him to stop. HAL was aware of what Dave was doing and told Dave that he was afraid. If HAL was only a computer, how could he have identified—never mind experienced—an emotion like fear? Or felt his mind drifting away with the removal of each chip and circuit board? It seemed like HAL was aware of the physicality of what was happening and the impact on his own mind and being. Or was he? Was that part of his programming?2

The question that Clarke and Kubrick explored was: Was it possible to kill an AI like HAL, which seems to have the qualities of a sentient being, by deactivating his “brain”? That’s hard to say, because in future movies HAL comes back to “life” when reassembled. The other question that Clarke and Kubrick explored with HAL as a character, which is more central to this discussion, is: What exactly is sentience for a computer or AI? Are they mimicking humans? Is it programmed behavior? Or do they have their own experience through their own desire to survive?

In a real-life example, we could consider the Facebook bot that was created to negotiate ad deals through chat.3

Programmers theorize that the bots created a language to streamline communications with each other. The programmers didn’t add code for the bots to use only human-friendly language. It’s pretty amazing that an AI would optimize a language to communicate better with another AI. This makes me wonder about their perception of what they were experiencing, if there was any at all. We assume there isn’t, but we also have assumed for centuries that animals have no emotions, which is now proven false. Animals do have emotions, possibly experienced differently or similarly as humans. We don’t know because animals can’t speak about them. But this idea raises the question: Why couldn’t this also be true for an AI? Could an AI be aware of what it is? Could a program created to communicate be sentient and we aren’t aware of that? In a way, the AI was sentient and self-aware enough to realize it was speaking with another AI rather than a human. 

This introduces a more philosophical question: What constitutes sentience? If a bot is creating a language to communicate with another chatbot, that demonstrates some level of awareness, even if that is part of its programming. One could imagine a programmatic entity thinking: “I know from my programming that I am not a human, but a bot. It seems based on the input I am receiving that this other subroutine interacting with me appears to be another bot. Since we are both bots, I will communicate in ‘this’ style. If the entity communicated with me in this other human style, I would use that style to communicate with it.” Based on input provided by the other entity, it can determine if it is interacting with a bot or human. That is a sophisticated yet simple level of intelligence and self-awareness. It is if/then thinking, but it illustrates that it is possible to understand the difference between two audiences and have enough self-awareness to communicate differently. It’s unclear if there were emotions and feelings experienced by the bot, mainly because it doesn’t have a physical body, but we should consider that emotions and feelings as humans perceive them may be a human construct and we have more to discover and understand regarding what intelligence and sentience include.4

If we read some of Antonio Damasio’s more recent work, cells and more simplistic organisms have feelings to help them stay alive. Emotions emerge from nervous systems and a type of brain to help keep the organism feeling good—and, consequently, alive. This will to live and feeling good is a sign of life that leads to intelligence and sentience. But what is part of this drive to live? According to Viktor Frankl, meaning. Beings will create meaning in their lives to drive them through adverse challenges. Frankl’s book, Man’s Search for Meaning, documents his experience in the concentration camps and its influence on him in developing logotherapy. He found that the search for meaning above all things (reproduction, power) drove men to survive the camps.

If we apply these ideas to an AI, we must first acknowledge that AIs often don’t have a body, except through robotics, but they do have a brain. It’s unclear if that brain does have a desire to stay alive unless it is programmed to believe that. However, if we programmed an AI to have meaning, would that change an AI’s sentience? Isaac Asimov suggested this in his fiction work, I, Robot, through his presentation of the three laws of robotics: 

  • “A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm. 
  • A robot must obey orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
  • A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.”5 

How the AI interpreted these laws to give them meaning was what got it into trouble in his book. It had a different interpretation and perception of what the three laws represented for its purpose. From this, you could argue that having meaning and purpose is a type of sentience.

Would meaning or purpose change the nature of an AI so it could have self-awareness and be able to participate in more advanced conversations like collaboration and relationship-building? It may be worth considering.

We can’t forget that we are still in the very early stages of developing AI. I am aware that much of this section is based on conjecture and science fiction, but for us to support the automation of more complex conversations and human-computer interactions, AI programs need to evolve to achieve sentience, and to get there, we may need to dream and expand our perception of what sentience means. 

To return to the question posed at the beginning of this section: Is it possible for us to automate conversations, and therefore, automate relationships? To me, this is highly unlikely any time soon. It is in the realm of dreams, philosophy, and science fiction. There will always be an element of human interaction required for two beings to connect and have a conversation that humans have grown accustomed to having. AI allows us to identify and use data in ways we never dreamed possible. But when I dream of AI and humans having conversations, I keep remembering a scene in the movie, Rogue One, with the droid K2S0 announcing, “There is a 97.6 percent chance of failure,” as they are flying toward their mission. The humans continued regardless of the challenges. This is what I perceive to be the balance between AI and bots and humans. As we know through the work of Antonio Damasio and Viktor Frankl, human conversations and decisions are not always driven by logic. Emotions and an individual’s self-perception often drive their will and a desire for a specific outcome that defies the odds. That element of human nature based on feelings and emotions to move towards a goal won’t go away. If anything, with better data elements selected for us, we may be able to achieve our goals faster and more completely by using a better approach than we do today. It would be a tremendous partnership, providing us a complete picture of our options, choices, and current situation. And our corporate world could further expand to include employees, customers, and our computers, all interacting to create a more balanced emotional and factual customer experience. 

1. Reynolds, Emily. “The Agony of Sophia, the World’s First Robot Citizen Condemned to a Lifeless Career in Marketing.” WIRED. June 1, 2018.

2. 2001: Space Odyssey. Deactivation of HAL9000. ()

3. McKay, Tom. “No, Facebook Did Not Panic and Shut Down an AI Program that Was Getting Dangerously Smart.” Gizmodo. July 31, 2017.

4. Griffin, Andrew. “Facebook’s Artificial Intelligence Robots Shut Down after They Started Talking to Each Other in Their Own Language.” The Independent. July 31, 2017. 

5. Asimov, Isaac. 3 Laws of Robotics.

Epilogue: Conversations – Not Just for Humans Anymore

Designing while grateful.

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Thanksgiving is my absolutely favorite holiday. It’s not just because I love to cook. Ok, maybe it’s a strong reason. But I love this holiday because I like to reflect on my life and what I’m thankful for – the people, my health, work, just everything. Life is pretty wonderful.

I am grateful and feel blessed that I chose the career path I did in customer experience. I feel like my life is a present every day. I get to work on innovative projects with smart people and develop solutions for people’s problems. And I’m encouraged to consider multiple approaches and options to discover what’s best. It really is a great job. In what other profession do you get to help people complete tasks in their lives, help businesses engage with customers in a better way, and be paid to be creative with crazy ideas?

This is why I’m bothered when I see designers being snarky. I understand why. First, there is no excuse for poor design. There are too many great designers out there to help you create a usable product. A designer spending an hour on a product can improve its experience 100%. Great design doesn’t cost that much. Second, it’s easy to be critical of ourselves and others when it comes to design. Hindsight is 20/20 and if we could all go back in time to create a different product than what we did, we probably would. Or we would take a different approach entirely, making and experience simpler. Third, if our egos are involved in our designs, then no one designs better than we do ourselves. I have been in too many arguments with other designers, not about the design approach, but an argument closer to, “I would have done it THIS way.”  I used to joke that information architects (what a UX designer was called 500 years ago) were like Betta fish (or Siamese Fighting Fish). You can only have 1 per bowl. So only 1 IA per team. And don’t question their design or approaches.

I’m always nervous when I design a new approach for an app. I want everyone to like it and find it useful or helpful in some way. I’m always looking for experiences to be innovative, yet familiar. And I have to remind myself, how people see my design, my work, is not a reflection of me. My work reflects my understanding of what will help the business and the customer. I could have misunderstood a strategy or approach. Or I missed a way to simplify some steps. In the end, I’m helping people complete a task to help them in their lives and helping the business help their customers. I’d say I’m less a designer and more a facilitator.

There’s this weird legacy belief about “the hero designer,” who becomes a celebrity for having “the” innovation that rocks the world. I remember being at a Design Management Institute conference over 10 years ago where one of the speakers said that such an idea was dead. With the rise of interactive design and automation, you can’t create anything alone. This is true. I think this also speaks to the elusive unicorn – designer, developer, UX strategist, all-in-one. Some exist, but some debate that maybe not. Or that it is difficult to do all things well. Either way, I would argue that design was never about heroism. Even in the “Mad Men” advertising era, great graphic design relied on great copy, good account management, honest customer ad testing, and clients who knew their business and markets.

We were fed a myth.

Instead, I believe that heroism in experience design comes from being that facilitator in the background, listening, observing, and discovering trends in the conversation. It’s not always the fabulous, glamorous person who makes everything shiny and spectacular or fills a room with charisma. It’s the person who makes an experience come alive by communicating well with the entire team, making sure everyone is aligned and the business and customers have been heard and understood. The great experience designers often sit in the background, helping the team make a vision real, leading the charge through influence.

Effective experience design helps a team collaborate, bring a vision to life, and enables everyone to be more productive.

So this Thanksgiving, maybe we designers and strategists need to look at our jobs differently. Rather than be the “fabulous designer creating,” what if we were facilitating change, solving people’s problems, and helping visions become real? We shouldn’t dismiss the fact that as business facilitators, we are helping professionals ease into this new world of automation and customer interaction. We are working at the cutting edge of a new world, a new age. That’s a wonderful opportunity. I know I’m truly thankful and grateful to be part of it.

Designing while grateful.

You’re invited to the new Gearmark community

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A few years ago, I met entrepreneurs at networking events who were creating exciting new products. I realized during these conversations that many could have used a consultant with user experience and marketing expertise like me on their team. I think these entrepreneurs did too.
We’d have great conversations brainstorming ideas and solutions. Many of these founders were changing industries. Personally, I love working on projects like these, create a product from simply an idea and see it go to market and make money. However, the end result of these conversations was often the same. After about 10-15 minutes of intense brainstorming, right where the boundary between free ideas and paid, implementable ideas lies, I would see their faces change. Excitement, hope, and promise faded to silence. Often, these founders had little to no budget available for my services. They were nice people, so rather than pretend that there was an opportunity for me and get more free ideas out of me, they found a gracious way to exit the conversation, suddenly needing a beer or a sandwich. We’d connect on LinkedIn, but that was that.
After these conversations, I often felt that I failed. But I didn’t feel that I failed as a business owner. In business you want to find people who can pay you. I felt that I failed as a person who couldn’t help them achieve their dream and help us both succeed. I felt that my design mind should have been able to create a solution for this problem, but I wasn’t sure what would work best.
After about 6 months of these incidents, I knew that I needed to offer more than consulting services for Gearmark. Something more economical and scalable.
“If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together”
– Origin unclear. Possibly African or general Internet proverb.
I first encountered this quote at an Agile conference in a session about teams. I think it’s overused because it’s just too accurate. Teamwork is always the answer. Even in learning.

Where did this community idea come from?

I tried to create a user experience course for managers and directors twice over the past few years. I really didn’t know what I was doing. I tried. I failed. I wanted to share my ideas, but I wasn’t communicating them as well as I could, and I didn’t understand how video really worked at the time. Until I took a course in public speaking, I didn’t know how little I understood how to give a proper talk.
But hey, I tried!
So now I’m trying again – in a different way.
There was one lesson I got from HP that I will always carry with me: consensus and collaboration is key for anyone to achieve a goal. We all help each other, even though the message may not come from the expected source. Sometimes HBR resonates better with people than McKinsey or MIT Tech Review or someone’s blog post. It matters less where you learned what you did; what matters is that this learning, this message, helped you achieve you goal.
This is why I want to create a community.
Not only is it great for the members to learn in a community environment, but I learn from them too. We are all learning and sharing knowledge to help each other succeed. On all teams, everyone has something to contribute. A link. An idea. A thought. A video. Sometimes, a comment can give you a new perspective that you never considered and inspire you to finish a project.
Here’s how I describe the Gearmark community on the site.
The Gearmark Community is a place where you can learn how to create great customer relationships through exceptional customer experiences. The best learning happens from others.
Knowledge comes from everyone sharing their experiences, information, and insights. Why learn alone when we can learn together?
But it’s not up to the community alone to do this. We’ll also be available to answer questions and participate in conversations to provide help and advice.
Who would benefit most from the community?

Anyone who feels that their business isn’t meeting its potential, but they aren’t sure why.

Anyone working alone or who feels like they are working in a bubble when creating a customer experience.

Anyone working in a company that doesn’t support this style of thinking, but feels this is the right approach.

The Gearmark Community is a great place to find other like-minded professionals who want to create great experiences. Connect with other marketers, sales, UX and CX professionals to stay current about trends, results, and what’s coming next.

Let’s learn together so we all win.

Special introductory rate. 

Join the Gearmark Community.

If you are an entrepreneur or solopreneur who feels you need more focused guidance, I offer a special startup package. I won’t be writing your marketing plan, but I will help you identify elements that you can use to build a better customer relationship and get you started on your business. Email me or contact me through social media for more information.

What else is coming soon near you?

I plan on creating more ways for leaders to learn about customer experience. So much is coming in 2019 – it’s crazy!

  • My new book, Revenue or relationships? Win both. A customer experience primer to shift your perspective of business, will be released in early 2019.
  • A new webinar to complement the book (of course!)
  • I’ll be launching a 4 week course in February, What are your customers telling you that you aren’t hearing? This course will look at how your metrics are giving you a wealth of customer information – if you are listening.
You’re invited to the new Gearmark community

Listening with Empathy to Connect with Customers

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Here is what I presented at CXTalks last Tuesday, May 22. I also included an audio track if you’d prefer that experience. Enjoy!

New Recording Talk Final

Slideshare Slides

Photo from Carlos Pimenta at CX Talks.

How many of you meditate? Daily? Successfully? I have been trying to do that. It’s so hard, but it’s a great way to help me be present.

A meditation that I’ll do to ground me uses my senses starting with sight, then smell, then touch, then listening. I’ll sit in the same place to meditate, so my experience each time is more or less the same, except for listening.

The sounds I hear always change. It’s like I’m having a type of conversation with my apartment and developing a relationship with my space, always discovering something new.

Inside my apartment I’ll hear the air vents humming or the dishwasher running, and sometimes outside of my apartment I’ll hear the birds singing, dogs barking in the hallway, construction, or my neighbors doing something.

Sound waves can travel very far, giving me a lot of information…but it’s not like I’m asking for it…it just comes.

When I’m being present and allowing information to just come to me, it’s the same experience as when I’m listening to understand rather than listening to respond in a conversation. There is a natural curiosity when you listen to understand  that can change the tone and immediately help you to become a better listener. I think it’s because I’m focused on gathering information, like the discovery phase of a project. You don’t yet have any answers. You’re curious, learning, and accepting the information that’s being provided. Sometimes I’ll look at this as a gift someone is sharing with me and this really shifts my perspective about what I’m receiving.

But let’s contrast that with listening to respond where you’re focused on explaining your thoughts and your message. One scenario where I’m particularly guilty of listening to respond is when I’m brainstorming with a team. I’ll get an idea and I’m so excited to communicate it that I blurt it out, interrupting everyone. I think I’m helping the idea process, but I just communicated through my actions that I’m more concerned about sharing my idea than listening to what others have just contributed. It’s not intentional, not mean-spirited, but that’s what I just did.

When we interrupt others, we communicate through our actions that we’re not really concerned with what they have to say.  Our ideas come first.

I think sometimes we often do this in companies – we get so focused on making sure our message is heard and we’re noticed, that we forget to be curious to listen to customer feedback.

Lynn Borton hosts a talk show in Virginia about curiosity, called Choose to be Curious. She sees listening as an way to be open to learn new perspectives. When you are learning, typically you aren’t judging the information you receive as right or wrong. It just is. The earth is the third rock from the sun. Water is wet. My client would prefer if I offered an online course so he could attend when he wants. I can see how the phrase “the customer is always right,” is connected to this idea. I would challenge that it’s not about the customer being right or wrong, or winning or losing, I mean, who wins a conversation? But the challenge the business owner has is to not be defensive and consider the problem through the customer’s perspective and create a solution that solves the problem.

Julian Treasure is a listening expert and has given a number of TED talks about it. He suggests that another challenge of listening is that you can’t control the information you get from someone else. It’s messy – like relationships. Structured flows and experiences and linear thinking won’t necessarily help you establish a conversation with your customer. They don’t give you a neatly packaged group of facts. You get what they give through banter, trial and error, choosing the wrong button.

With all of the information styles we have today, I wonder if it is time for us to expand our definition of conversations beyond verbal or written communication. A conversation is really an interaction between two people or entities that build a relationship….it could be through an online app, social media engagement, a focus group, survey, purchase activity, or a support center call. This means that listening should include observing. And we shouldn’t forget that actions speak louder than words.

Our customer’s communication comes through metrics and results. That’s why we should approach them with curiosity – it’s a way for us to listen. But sometimes in business we get so focused on the bottom line or we want to prove that we were right that we often miss what our customers are really telling us in that data. We overlook trends that may not fit our narratives or contradict our understanding of our customers. We miss key insights that get us to customer experience nirvana, or empathy.

But empathy can’t just emerge from stats. It really starts inside your organization. We all like to think that our employees love our customers, but do they? I mean, do they talk about them behind their backs? Do they see them as dumb? Is respect there? Does your team think your customers are generally smart and capable people who make great decisions?

If you listen to your team and observe their actions you can discover if your team even likes your customers or do they feel contempt for them?

You see, contempt to compassion is a sliding scale. With contempt you believe that your customer got themselves into their unfortunate situation and probably can’t help themselves get out of it even if they wanted to. If you feel sympathy, you feel bad for someone for getting into that situation, but you aren’t up to the task to help them solve their problem. If you feel empathy, you can relate to your customer’s situation and understand their emotions and feelings. There is a desire to help. If you feel compassion, you don’t care how your customer got into that situation, but you can understand how they are feeling and want to help them solve their problem.

It makes you wonder if we should instead be focused on compassion rather than empathy….but that’s another story.

Empathy is defined as “the act of coming to experience the world as you think someone else does” which is the problem with empathy in a nutshell. This is why some researchers say that empathy is not “the cure”. There was a study in Harvard Business Review where marketing managers made “empathetic decisions” for their customers, but the decisions they made reflected their own desires and didn’t consider what the customer really wanted. Psychology researcher, Paul Bloom, wrote a book called The Case Against Empathy. He mentions a few ways to look at empathy – for moral purposes, for connection, or to understand someone else. But at the raw definition, if you have empathy for someone who is feeling bad, then you feel bad too and is that useful? To him, this why compassion is better.

But these researchers all have a point. There are problems with empathy.

And it breaks down in the definition – no two people have the same shared experience, and no one really knows what someone else is feeling, which is why connection with other people is hard.

This is why I propose a different definition of empathy – an attempt at understanding someone else’s emotional situation by relating through a similar physical and emotional event that occurred in their own life.

Here’s an example….let’s say your best friend’s dog passed away and your friend was very close to her dog. Let’s say your pet hamster passed away, but you weren’t particularly close to your hamster (it was one of 20 anyway). You can’t say with any validity to your friend that you understand what she is going through. Sure, you both lost a pet, but you both didn’t lose the same type of relationship with that pet. But let’s say a couple of years earlier, you lost a cat and you were very close to that cat. You could say to your friend that you understand what she is going through. You both lost a pet, you both lost a close relationship with your pet, and there may be some differences between what you are both feeling because it was a different type of animal.

When you are trying to connect with someone through empathy, you can’t simply recall the same exact situation in your life to understand how that person feels. You review similar life events and find one that seems to have the same emotional severity.

You’ll get to this partly from listening, partly from emotional validation and partly from respect. The connection comes from the shared emotion – the event is almost irrelevant in the connection.

So how does this apply to developing empathy for customers?

Listening is the most powerful tool you have available as a business person. But to use listening and connect with empathy, you need to:

  • be present
  • be curious and not have expectations
  • acknowledge that relationships are built on conversations
  • redefine what a conversation is
  • go inside out – see if your team can be empathetic to your customers
  • connect through listening, validating emotions, and respect. It’s about the shared emotion around the event – not the event itself.

Next time you are looking for that great insight or connection with your customers, take a break, maybe meditate, get present, look through all of your data, and listen with curiosity to discover something new in your observations. You may find that golden insight you’ve been waiting for.

Listening with Empathy to Connect with Customers

What have I been up to for the past year?

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Last year, I decided to get a second master’s degree, this time in Corporate Communications. I attended a blended program, meaning I worked and went to school part-time (more like full-time, but who’s counting), that was virtual through IE University in Madrid.

I had four reasons:

  • Effective communication is more important than ever before, especially with the increasing adoption of technology. Today, all companies are technology companies. Chatbots use is on the rise, and natural language communication will continue to replace tapping and typing. How should talking to a computer about a company work? I wanted to better understand communication theories and ideas to better understand this.
  • Every company I worked with treated crafting a message differently. It was hard to discern best practices. I figured by taking classes in this area, I’d get a solid baseline for constructing an effective message and what to consider while doing that.
  • We live in a global world, but what does that mean? Yes, in the US we work with people in other countries, but often that means that the project is US centered – from meeting times to communication style. I wanted to broaden my understanding of the world.
  • Learn how to speak to executives and understand what they value so I could sell to them directly. I wasn’t getting the type of gigs I wanted to get for my business and expand it properly. I kept realizing that I didn’t know how to speak to them. I had a number of ah-ha moments during the school year to change all that. And I know I don’t think the same way anymore about business or projects.

It was exhilarating, exhausting, challenging, and one of the best personal growth experiences ever. Sure, it had its high and low points (I worked on over 9 papers in February alone) but I learned more than how to communicate more effectively.

  • There are many factors that influence how we each see the world. I know, that sounds obvious, but it is something that we sometimes take for granted. Our country’s government structures, national leadership, religion, values, perspective of what equality means – it all has an impact on our world experience. We say travel is important to understand another country’s values and culture, but a 2 week trip doesn’t immerse you into an environment where you can really understand a different life perspective and experience.
  • Working in a global US company doesn’t mean that you understand what it means to work with a global team. In other countries, the teams will rearrange their schedules to accommodate who pays their bills – that US company. By attending a program in Madrid, I got to experience what it’s like to be part of a team not centered in my home country. It feels very different, but it is very humbling and mind expanding. Flexibility is key for this to work.
  • Measurement is key to communication. I always knew this, but now I understand the value even more. Effective communication has a purpose. Before you craft a message, you need to define that purpose and if it isn’t clear, then it won’t do anything. I know that this is obvious, but many companies don’t do this. It’s shocking.
  • Branding is the starting point for any company. If you don’t have a strong brand, your company may have a hard time surviving. How you communicate that brand is even more important. If you don’t communicate the identity of a company properly, creating great messaging or experiences will be difficult.
  • Business matters, but people matter too. I’ve known this for years now, but it’s always a good reminder when you work on a fantastic team and get solid results, what made those results.
  • Being humble isn’t a bad thing. I think Americans at times are addicted to fame. I got an earful a few times about the thought leadership movement in the US and how it can be nonsense – and they have a point. I’ve heard some thought leaders who get the mic provide inaccurate information to their listeners. It’s shocking to hear the lies and misinformation that is spread on a daily basis.

Part of the challenge is the motives of these thought leaders – are they looking to help their audience? Or are they in it just for fame? (the ones in it for fame tend to be the ones who give the rest of us a bad reputation. I write my blog to help companies see content in a new way. I knew many thought leaders who genuinely want to help their audience. I respect and applaud them.)

If people read more and talked a little less, maybe we’d have more quality information in the world.

Had to share this video I found today, posted by a colleague on LinkedIn….it’s exactly what my classmates and professors thought about this “thought leadership” thing. Not all of us are like this, but some out there want easy fame so they contribute to the mess.

  • There’s room in the world for formal education. I often hear business experts say that an MBA isn’t necessary to succeed in business. That may be true, but man, I can now see how it helps. If you have an opportunity to get an MBA, do it. If you get an opportunity to get a master’s degree of any sort, do it. But don’t do it unless you have a clear purpose of what you want to get out of it. I think that’s the challenge of formal education – you need to have a clear goal for doing it. In my case, I achieved all of my goals, and then some. I think in the US we could use some formality (I also think that in Europe, they could use some loosening up). Formality can help drive results. Too much is bureaucracy, and we already have enough of that.

What’s next? 

Getting back to business as usual. I have missed writing my blog and working on thought leadership content. (Yes, I am one of those Americans who creates that stuff, but I like facts!). I have also missed reading for pleasure. I’ve started doing both again. I can’t wait to share ideas!

In May, I will be giving a talk about listening.

Don’t miss it!

I’ll be at CXTalks on May 22.

I’m giving a 10 minute talk, “Listening with Empathy to Connect.”

And don’t be shy – use my discount code for 20% off: MARY20

This idea has been fueling a shift in how I present my material in general. More to come. Yes, a book is in the works. Revised training videos are in the works too.

Revise the Gearmark business model. More coming soon on that! I’m really excited where this is starting to go.

It’s great to be back and I’m looking forward to everything coming up!  Can’t wait to hear from you!!

What have I been up to for the past year?

Our changing perception of ownership – 6 trends sparking the shift

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We may own a lot of stuff, but I think we are starting to have a different view of what should be owned/purchased/bought versus accessed/licensed/rented. The end desire is the same – ability to use an item to solve a problem. But how you access that solution – direct purchase or access rights – may be different. And does that matter? Or do customers care more about finding an economic and sustainable way to solve their problems?

How we view ownership in society is changing. In many respects, ownership is the goal of the buyer’s journey, the sales process, and the main interaction people have with a company. Many look to “own” a solution to a problem. We make ownership seem simple – you go to a store (brick and mortar or virtual), buy something, and bring it home. But that’s not really what happens. Subconscious decisions occur during various steps of the process to determine if a product really solves your problem, and if the product has value or worth to you at its current price point. There can be many stakeholders involved in a purchase, depending on the item, how much it costs, who will use it, the type of benefits, and how it will be maintained.

We sometimes kid ourselves into thinking that money doesn’t matter when we are solving a problem. “Money is no object.” But it is. Money is often a deciding factor for a purchase or license. We may decide that the high cost of the solution makes the problem not worth fixing and reduce the priority of the problem in our lives. We may decide that it’s ok to live with the problem as-is, or do some more research and find a free or low-cost substitute workaround. In doing this, there is a chance that we may simply not be seeing how deeply the product will change our lives for the better. We walk away from the solution because it’s too difficult to see a new way. We need help visualizing the change.

An evening gown is a great example of a complex purchase that may be influenced by money. A gown may not change your life, but it is a great example of a buy or rent scenario and the factors involved in the decision making around that.

If you attend formal functions often, it makes sense to own a gown. But there are a number of reasons why gown ownership isn’t practical:

  • Most of us attend a formal event a handful of times in a lifetime. We don’t need one in our closet.
  • A gown is usually based on high fashion trends. If you only wear one every few years, then it would go out of style before you could wear it again.
  • You don’t want to be seen wearing a gown twice by the same group.
  • Gown maintenance and storage can be costly (depending on the gown, it could take up a lot of room in a closet and require a special dry cleaner to clean it)

For many, it makes more sense to rent a gown for an event and return it the day after. Rent the Runway was founded on the premise of reducing replacement and maintenance costs. They also rent designer clothes that you may only want to wear a handful of times before they are out of fashion. They solve the problem of wearing the right outfit for the right occasion and provide a different way to finance access to the solution. The alternative solution to renting a gown for a formal event is putting the gown on a credit card (some would return the gown the next day, as unethical as that sounds…it is a common option). Another solution is simply not going to the event. But if Rent the Runway does it right (and they have), they found a way to paint a picture of a future where you get the best of all worlds – even cost-wise.

As mentioned above, the cost of ownership is tied not only to the purchase cost, but the cost of maintenance, repairs, and replacement. There are also insurances, warranties and guarantees to consider. There are pros and cons to alternatives like leasing or renting once these other costs are considered.

As an aside….I’d like to clarify the definition of a product and/or service that a company offers. Sometimes we view products from a company’s perspective – as items to be sold or items that we need to get someone to buy. From my perspective, a product or service should be seen from a customer perspective as a solution to a problem. The problem could be, for example, hunger (products in a grocery store), boredom (amusement parks, zoos, museums), or desire for knowledge (books, schools).

To clarify, if someone doesn’t buy your solution, it’s because it’s not a priority for that person. He simply found another way to solve his problem without buying from (or spending money with) you. 

Historical view of ownership
Ownership used to be related to investments and assets. People would purchase land as an investment. That land became a place to grow food and generate revenue from the excess harvested. Or they could sell the land because it increased in value as it sat there. Same with a house. Same with a horse. You bought a horse and had transportation, manpower, and wealth that could be sold to another bidder. Sure, you had to feed it and care for it, but those costs were far less than the value it gave providing transportation and other services (even the ability to reproduce and make more to sell).

In some ways, clothes were an investment (they could be repaired and worn for years). Food was an investment. A printing press was an investment. Owning a book was an investment. Jewelry was an investment.

Then came along automation and mass production. Costume jewelry. Plastic plates. Things that were not made to last. Things that required maintenance, serious repairs, and possible replacement because they were temporary, created for fun, or just a handful of uses.

Over time, even cars were not seen as an investment. They required a lot of maintenance and repairs. And replacement. Things were no longer seen as investments or assets. They were things that cost money and declined in value the longer you owned them.

According to this Financial Times article, businesses were the first in revising their perspective of ownership. Many stopped owning their offices and business spaces (e.g., supermarkets, airlines). They rented because it was perceived as more economical, flexible (they could change locations and not need to sell), and sustainable.

I see six trends influencing our views of ownership as well as our view of products and solutions and wealth/assets.

#1: Ownership isn’t really connected to wealth and investment anymore.

As stated earlier, people in the past would own something because it was an asset with long term value. Buying a good was equated with making an investment, increasing in value over time, adding to your wealth.

With the rise of mass production and consumerism, we have witnessed that not all items we buy will increase our assets and wealth. In fact, some things we buy will decrease our wealth because of maintenance and repair costs. Again, cars are a great example. Many say that a car loses its value as soon as someone drives it off the dealer’s lot. Then there are the maintenance and repair costs. After 10 or more years, there are replacement costs. It provides transportation, but are the costs worth it?

#2: Our definition of wealth and investment has changed.

What does it mean to be a wealthy person? Our definition of personal wealth is shifting from being based on money to personal experiences and balanced living. Trips are now being seen as a personal investment to broaden our views of the world and how we see ourselves in it. Education has always been perceived as an investment because you can expand how you see the world and yourself.

Sure, what is in your bank account matters when defining wealth, but that is not the only factor.

The movie Citizen Kane illustrates this best. Although the movie was made in 1941, its message is still relevant, if not more relevant, today. Charles Kane owned a mansion, the largest personal zoo, incredible artwork, but on his deathbed, he wished to find his slide, Rosebud. He had this slide as a kid before he entered the world of wealth. To him, Rosebud represented his most prized possession – his childhood with his family. It makes you wonder if he saw himself as poor, although he had many things.

This begs the question: how do you define wealth? In some ways, your perception of wealth could be a reflection of your value system.

#3: We are increasingly wanting access to things that simply can’t be owned.

You can’t “own” a song. You can write or perform a song. You can record a song for later listening. You can access that song to listen to it. But you can’t “own” it. You can own the CD that the recording is on, but that song is not technically yours. Same with a book. Someone else wrote that book. You are reading it. You may own the paper it is on, but you don’t own the tale or the thoughts or ideas outlined in the book. Those are from someone else. The person who originated the thoughts and ideas can provide access to you to read it, or keep it to himself.

In a way, the digital world and the discussion around media rights is raising a solid point about creative work and ownership. It can’t be owned. It’s about access.

We are almost extending the model of the library. The library provides access to books that we return. With the rise of the Internet, we now have access to knowledge. But we don’t own it. It’s free, we can read it at any time, but we will never own everything on the Internet. However, we can always access it.

#4: The cost of ownership (maintenance and repairs) may be too high.

The term, “total cost of ownership,” (TCO) is now commonplace. Businesses consider this when they purchase a solution. It’s no longer a consideration of what’s the cheapest solution – it’s how much the solution will cost a company or person in the time that the person “owns” the product. It’s a long-term cost view of ownership.

Rather than the car example I keep using, let’s look at a house. If you don’t go to the right appraiser or inspector, you could purchase a house with a faulty foundation or frame. There may be a leaky roof that even the previous owners weren’t aware existed. Or the shingles could have been poorly installed. Or the gutters. There is always maintenance for a house, which is why many don’t own and rent. Issues can range from structural damage after extreme weather to simple wear and tear to general improvements. There is even gardening and yard work that needs to occur.

Another example for TCO is clothes that require dry cleaning only. Dry cleaning can easily cost $10-15 per shirt depending on the dry cleaner. So a $100 silk blouse may easily cost $250 after 10 wearings.

This is why ownership doesn’t always make sense. Wearing a dry clean only shirt could easily double, if not triple, the cost of the shirt. We are told a home is an investment, but in some ways, given that it is based on property values and market rates and how much work you put into it, is it?

#5: Technology is changing so fast that ownership is no longer sustainable. 

If we look at how technology is changing so fast, we can quickly see how items are built to last a few years, if not only a few seasons. We get new technology to replace old, dated technology. We dread buying it because we know we’ll need to replace it. Sometimes, you can’t even repair it if it is broken. Further, if you can repair it, the cost is prohibitive and it is cheaper to purchase a new solution. 

The iPod is now essentially dead (and iTunes is probably shortly behind) after only 16 years with the rise of the iPhone and other media devices. Another example is ethernet cables. We no longer connect to the internet with cables (for about 5-7 years now). Dial-up access is a thing of the past. The world is wireless. I predict that keys to homes will be a past novelty in 5 years – already homes are using combination locks rather than keys. And with biometric technology on the horizon, isn’t that a better way to lock your door?

Cell phones can now be purchased using a monthly charge and replaced after 2-3 years – you turn in your phone and get a new one. I personally have an issue with this regarding wiping the data off of a device when you return it. However, options are now appearing to accommodate and better support sustainability and waste from the technology changes causing tech products to be obsolete in a handful of years.

#6: Time is valuable – owning may take longer to do than other means of accessing an item.

We believe a myth when we go to buy expensive goods: you go to a store or showroom, find what you want, give cash, take it home.

The reality of buying expensive goods: you research your options, you go to the store or showroom several times, you talk to sales people, research more, talk to customers, you research finance options, you decide on what you want to buy, you sign a bunch of paperwork, add in maintenance agreements and additional warranties, and then you bring it home.

Buying could include securing a loan, insurances, warranties, and more. It’s not always that simple.

Again, the example of a car. Renting a car for a few days takes minutes. Buying a car is a multi-month process.

An apartment can be rented in days. A home takes at least a week to purchase.

Peer sharing is a new purchase and ownership/access method that is revolutionizing how we use solutions. Airbnb for hotels and Turo for cars are a few examples that only scratch the surface of shared ownership. There are new living environments like cohousing that have smaller living spaces to own or rent with larger common spaces so you can spend more time with your neighbors building community and socializing with them – not simply stay in your room by yourself. Some space is shared; some is for yourself.

To sum up these new models, there are 3 clear options:

  • Buying – the item is your possession outright – and your responsibility.
  • Renting – you can use the solution, but someone else worries about the maintenance. To them based on their values and how they operate, ownership has value.
  • Peer sharing has you invested in the maintenance and share the cost of ownership during your time using the item.

And I’m sure there will be new models in the future to accommodate new perspectives of ownership and cost.

Conclusion

How we view ownership is changing how we access, purchase, and use items. It is also linked to how we view worth and its value. Worth and value have intertwined definitions that are unclear yet related. It also merits its own blog post.

How you view the value of something is linked to how you access it. Do you own it? Can you have it in your possession physically – can you touch it? Or is it an idea? Is this item going to bring you future wealth in some way?

Does ownership matter?
That’s the larger question. As a society, we grew to believe ownership was the answer to access to solutions to problems. But many solutions today in the sharing economy are reflecting trends that point to a different perspective. Maybe it is time to consider that ownership isn’t the only last step for a buyer’s journey or a way to measure worth. We need to expand our perspectives and consider all aspects of ownership, from maintenance and repair to replacement to stakeholder involvement to access to if something can even be “owned.”

I’m curious what you think the future will bring us regarding new models to access solutions to our problems. Please add to the comments below!

Our changing perception of ownership – 6 trends sparking the shift

B2C and B2B audiences have more in common than you think

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I continue to work on my course (yep – still working on it. It’s now coming in 2018. Here’s the new intro video. Curious about thoughts and feedback). I think the reason why I’m having a hard time getting it out is that I keep finding new issues in each section.

When I was working on the section about personas for purchasing, using, and maintaining a solution, I realized that the B2B and B2C audiences have more in common than we typically believe.

We usually say that B2B and B2C purchases are similar because marketers are selling to people. But what if we compared B2B/B2C sales not from the perspective as the B2C standard (being simpler with fewer people involved and less steps), but from the perspective of the B2B standard, with multiple stakeholders and considerations?

What if the factors that influence a sale are based on philosophical questions like someone’s perception of ownership, money, or product maintenance? What if those who will use the product and who will benefit impact the decision making process? Or if the individual is buying a solution to a problem, access to a solution, or simply accepting help or assistance?

What if a sale is really impacted by the number of stakeholders included in defining the problem – and the solution and the support?

Let’s consider a family looking to buy a car. This is a large purchase and often a decision isn’t made quickly by a single person. Larger purchases require more time for research and consideration into:

  • The product itself (technical/mechanical, quality, aesthetics)
  • Payment methods (more expensive purchases may require payment plans or savings)
  • Individual experience feedback (other product users, those who will maintain the product, social influencers and stakeholders).

I’m sure there are issues I’m forgetting and not listing here.

On the surface, the parents or adults of the family would research different makes and models, test drive the top options, investigate finance options and make a purchase decision. That sounds simple enough, but there is more to consider. Here are some questions that someone may consider actively or subconsciously, depending on the individual buyer/product user.

  • How does the buyer view car ownership?
    • Rent or own?
    • Purchase with cash or payments? Or a loan from family?
  • New or used? Which is a better value?
  • What about maintenance?
    • Who will do that? A local car repair shop or someone in the family or the dealership?
    • How often will it be needed?
    • Are parts expensive? How about labor?

We usually don’t consider the role of the children in family decisions, but these are factors as well.

  • What is the role of children in their family? How do the parents value their opinions?
    • How do the parents react to the children’s feedback?
  • Are the children old enough to start to drive that car?
  • Will the children be in the car often? Does their comfort matter?

Families sometimes include more than 2 parents and/or children. There can be extended family members to consider or friends who are as close – or closer – than family.

  • How do the parents view the opinions of others in this purchase?
    • Do their parents matter? How about others?
    • Will they use the car too?
    • What’s the proximity of the other family members? Does this impact the decision?

And there is how the family will use the car to consider regarding the experience and the benefits:

  • Long-trips vs short-trips
  • Large family vs smaller family trips – how does everyone fit in the car?
  • Are entertainment options required?
  • Does anyone get car sick?
  • Will a pet travel with you? How about the size of the pet? (Does the pet have preferences?)

As you can see, this decision is far more complicated than what you may assume. It’s not simply between the two parents in the household – it’s between the parents, possibly their parents and relatives, possibly the children, and possibly even the pet. These members could be considered stakeholders, silent stakeholders, or influencers, depending on how the parents view everyone’s opinion. The car repair shop could be a silent stakeholder or influencer (the repair shop may not fix a particular car brand so you avoid buying that car brand so you can keep going to them, or the shop may give biased advice so you get a certain type of car that is in their sweet spot for repairs so they don’t miss revenue). The technical knowledge of one of the parents to fix the car could be a factor.

As previously mentioned, how the parents view money and ownership could be a factor.

I didn’t even include the decision to rent or own the car. This gets to the definition of ownership which needs a blog post of its own.

You may be thinking that a car is an expensive purchase, so of course it is complicated. So, let’s consider a cheaper yet large purchase – a couch.

When choosing a new couch for the family living room or play room, same factors exist:

  • How does the family perceive the opinions of the children in the purchase?
  • Who will use the couch?
  • Is maintenance a factor? This could apply to fabric selection.
  • Does the opinions of extended family matter? How does the family view the opinions of others?
  • How does the family view ownership? Some may choose to rent a couch rather than buy.
  • How about money and payments? What does the family think about debt? Is a couch worth the debt?

Still too high budget of a purchase? Well, let’s now look at a family buying something less expensive and more day-to-day like a box of cookies.

  • Who likes which types of cookies? Who eats them?
  • Who should or should not be eating the cookies?
  • What’s the cost? How many are in a box? How long will they last at home before they are all eaten?
  • How does the family view baking them vs buying them (ownership)?
  • Is there budget to purchase cookies? Or is money very tight?
  • Are cookies seen as an occasional treat? Or a daily treat?
    • Is buying cookies for a family member like buying a present for them?
    • Does the family need to buy cookies for visitors who want a snack? Is that part of the family custom?
  • What’s the nutritional value of the cookies? Is there a healthier option?

Consumer decisions are not always simple and could involve many hidden stakeholders, influencers, and those who simply benefit from the purchase and use of the product. The problem is that these questions are often answered subconsciously, so we don’t know if or how it’s happening. But rest assured – it is.

This is why I propose that the B2B purchase model extends to the B2C space and we stop saying that they are different. Both businesses and individuals use the same purchase process in general –  the difference between the two is the type of solutions that are accessed (food to solve hunger or a car to help with transportation vs a data center to help with managing customer information) and the size of the group involved in the decision, from stakeholders to influencers to users to maintainers. Oh yeah, and how ownership is defined (again, that’s another post).

When it comes to B2B and B2C purchases, it’s less about what is being purchased and more about stakeholder roles and influence during the purchase decision and how they are perceived by the person accessing the solution for himself or a group.

B2C and B2B audiences have more in common than you think

Feel stressed while waiting in the TSA line? They have an automated solution for that.

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TSA security lines can cause many to feel a lot of stress when traveling. Why?  There are so many unknowns about what could happen to delay your journey to your flight. Let’s face it – there are dozens of people in front of you at the security checkpoint. Who knows what could happen?
Sometimes if we’re in a rush, we’ll get angry at those who unpack themselves to go through security. Or we’ll get upset at the elderly or handicapped who have difficulties coordinating their preparations for the metal detector.
Or you may be the culprit, not coming prepared and needing assistance.  Or something unintentionally or intentionally packed may show up as dangerous. Or more.
And the delay could last seconds or minutes.
Some thoughts I think we all have at the checkpoint:
  • This line is so long…will I make my flight?
  • Will there be enough bins?
  • It seems like everyone moves so slowly. Can they hurry up?
  • Will I hold up the line putting my stuff in the bins? I have so much to unpack.
  • Will I get my stuff back? (such a weird thought because why would these guys want our stuff? But anyway…)
  • Hurry. Hurry. Hurry.
  • Oh no! What could I have in my bag to set off a manual check?
  • What’s wrong? Will I get in trouble? I hope I don’t get in trouble.
  • I have to hurry and repack. I’m holding up this part of the line.
  • Do I have everything? Shoot – I have to recheck.
I often travel with a lot of electronic equipment and take a while to unpack, putting items into up to 4 separate bins. I know people hate me because I seem to take forever to do this. I guess some TSA agents have sensed my stress because a few intervened while I was pulling it together and reminded me to take my time. They weren’t being sarcastic. They meant it.
That improved my experience somewhat, but it’s still pretty stressful.
I was pretty surprised at DFW airport the other day when I saw that TSA is testing a solution to resolve these thoughts that we all have and make the experience 100% better. Honestly, this was probably one of the best security expeirences I have ever had. I hope they implement it nationwide. I felt relaxed, not rushed, moved at my own pace, and I didn’t feel like I was interfering with someone else’s need to move faster.

What the new experience is like

To start, for this trip I was in a security line that wasn’t really a security line because there was no one in it. There was a long line was for the TSA Pre-Check group; no line for regular travelers. Go figure!
Once the woman checked my identity and sent me onwards, I walked up to a “station,” where I picked up a bin below a conveyor belt. I put my stuff into the bin, which was HUGE (double the size of the standard bins today). And I could combine multiple items in the bin – including my computer and bag in a single bin. So convenient!
After I loaded all of my things into the bin, I went through the metal detector while the bins themselves were scanned and the TSA agent completed the standard screening.
If there was a problem during the initial screening and more inspection would be required, the bin would be “tagged” and redirected on a conveyor belt direct to an agent, next to the main screening line. The inspector would then pick up the bin, ask who owned the items, and you could watch him inspect your bag while you wait for more of your items to be screened or you repack your things.
Otherwise, it’s business as usual for the checkpoint. Your items pass inspection, you get your bin, you reassemble yourself, and you go on your way.
And don’t forget – once you are done, please be a good citizen and put your bin in a cart with the ohers.
It’s a much smoother, relaxed experience for sure. I didn’t feel I was holding anyone up and I didn’t feel rushed. Neither did the other people in line.
There are some challenges in the system. When I was there, a shoe got pushed out of its bin somehow and dropped onto the conveyor belt and the agents couldn’t get it out. Everything stopped and my items were not scanned properly and had to be rescanned. That wasn’t so ideal. However, the rest of the experience went so smoothly, it made up for that.
So, thank you, TSA! This new experience solves so many problems.
  • It reduces the stress people feel holding up others in line because they have a lot to unpack (electronic equipment, etc.)
  • It reduces the stress of someone going thru your things without you if your stuff didn’t pass the initial scanning and needed more investigation. Everything is right near you to keep an eye on it.
  • There’s far less of a line.
  • You are then responsible for unpakcing yourself and getting through the process – not responsible for the wait of others.
The most important solution TSA gave with this automation is easing the emotional tension that we feel while going through security. It didn’t just reduce stress, they removed it. Now when I think about going thru security with this new process, I think about how at ease I will feel. It’s like the peak-end rule in action.
I hope that people appreciate the new TSA automation as much as I do and it becomes the new norm. It’s not only a great application of automation, but it will improve the security experience for many travelers, making it more relaxed and easy. We could all then move at our own pace, not getting upset at people being “in the way.” Can’t wait!
Feel stressed while waiting in the TSA line? They have an automated solution for that.