Category: 100

In most cases, every customer is already empowered. They can choose whether or not to do business with you. In some cases, as in the case of a monopoly holding, a company may not have a choice about whether to do business with you. For example, any business operating in the late 90s would have had to think long and hard without giving some money to Microsoft as their monopoly hold on the market was such that there were few realistic options. These days almost the opposite is true – giving money to Microsoft, especially considering their hash of a release of Windows Vista – is considered a sign of poor judgement. Yes, there are some businesses who will always depend on them, but for a greenfield site it’s not so clear. The writing was on the wall in 2002 when the Alpha Geeks started to move to Mac OS X, now that transition is almost complete. If you’re not running Mac OS X or Linux then you deserve a funny look. (Why do I lump Linux in there? Consider the Nokia N-series of Internet Tablets, the Chumby, the ASUS eee PC).

If you have customers you can then empower them further by giving them choices. Allow them to tailor your offering to their needs. Give them visibility of the options.

This is something we are developing currently for Mac-Sys. Customers will be able to look at their current status for every piece of work. They will be able to add hours, remove features, request additional support, change the terms of the contract and also view trends in their support needs so they can better estimate their IT budget for the coming year. Mac-Sys had previously tried to do this using open source software but nothing managed to fulfill the specific needs of their business. As a result, they brought in software developers to provide what they could not.

This sort of empowerment begs the question about why so many company web sites are so opaque. Okay – the Infurious web site is nothing to write home about because it’s currently being developed but we maintain a degree of transparency through the blog and through our dealings with contract clients.

That said, don’t just provide choices and think you are empowering the customer. Too much choice can be a much worse thing than too little – consider the problems Microsoft has experienced with the various SKUs and price points of Vista. In comparison, the XP Home and XP Pro SKUs were just about right. Separating these into six different products just meant they confused and segregated their market.

Pay attention to the desires of the people paying you more money. They’re valuing your services higher than others and don’t be afraid to go the extra yard for them. One client of ours told me last year that they deal with several very large companies as suppliers. Their own company is huge as well and the paperwork to get something simple done is often prohibitive. Therefore their client manager asks them to do it and charge it to them, with a premium, in their normal bill. The big client is happy. The smaller supplier has a little extra work to do but gets rewarded for it and at the same time builds a better relationship with the bigger company.

About the worst thing you can say to a good client is: No, we don’t do that.

I honestly have no idea.

I’ve made a couple of short videos in the last, say, 8 years which is an appallingly slow rate of frames per year and I feel terrible remorse for not being more active.

I’ve not made a single podcast though I’ve been a guest on the Spodcast (RSS, episode #28 if anyone cares). Again I feel like I should be doing more.

In terms of audio/visual media I’ve really only spent time cutting together some audio clips for friends who are organising Christmas plays and splicing some ringtones for my iPhone (which is ten times easier with the latest Garageband update).

In terms of writing, I’ve been getting a lot more done and that’s because lately I have a lot to say in terms of technology/startups. My gaming writing, in comparison, has waned because I tend to switch between the two topics: technology and gaming and get a little focussed on one or the other. I enjoy the writing to the extent that I’d love to do it for a living but that’s pretty much never going to happen (the top 5% of blogs account for 50% of blogging revenue, Reference) so I’ve got to investigate other options and new challenges rather than staying in my comfort zone.

So how do I find time?

Opportunistic Sniping.

Being mobile helps. I write using my iPhone, I write using my MacBook Pro. I write when waiting for the dinner to cook. I write when my SO is watching TV. I write when waiting in the car. I write during coffee breaks at work. I write late at night when the rest of the household is asleep. I write early in the morning as the household starts to wake. If out and about I email myself reminders or set alarms with reminders about writing topics.

I pretty much don’t write on the crapper, in the shower, while driving or while engaging in the crazy monkey sex, The rest of the time I’m reading, writing, reading up for the writing or thinking about writing. One day I’ll refocus and write the Great Irish Novel. Or not.

marketing: the total of activities involved in the transfer of goods from the producer or seller to the consumer or buyer, including advertising, shipping, storing, and selling.

To be honest, advertising is good fun. Putting an ad together and then seeing it in the flesh is fun.

But other than that, the only part of marketing I really enjoy is the result. Now others may disagree and I’ve been known to talk animatedly about this product or that product which means in a very real sense I do a lot of marketing.

We discussed a few days ago on our company Jabber server that the RDF (Reality Distortion Field) is the core asset of marketing. If you can convince someone, even for just five minutes, to rethink their position and reconsider their preconceptions, then you’ve just hit the sweet spot of marketing.

Making someone believe.

[Chris Brogan’s 100 topics]

…and I’ve developed a reputation as being a bit of a git so why shouldn’t it be me?

Talking to the Infurious team this morning over IM, Aidan reckoned this would simply be an example of the “Wise Fool”, better known to me as the “wisdom of innocents” – the idea that some people speak the plain truth because they do not perceive the social mores which prevent some people from being honest. I remember talking to a friend of mine a few months ago and we had some issues. We agreed to be totally honest. Turned out that wasn’t such a good idea as many people are not ready for absolute honesty.

The worst thing about home truths is given away in the name. They are home, or relative truths – which is why I have been variously called everything between “the most honest man” someone knows to “a monster, a brute, a savage”. Both can’t be right? But yes, of course, both are right.

So, today I’m going to rant about religion.

I was reading on the OSX-Nutters list about what a great theory Buddhism is, how it encourages compassion for your world and yet the Dalai Lama considers homosexuality a sin.

There is no god. Get used to it. God, and religion, should be used as intended, simple parables for simple people to help condition them for life as an adult and instilling them with simple moral values. There’s nothing supernatural about Buddha or any of the other paths. They’re all just fables.

How can anyone read Genesis and take it literally? Why do people need the idea of a supreme being? What’s his motivation? Why does he consider homosexuality a sin? Why is he opposed to gambling? What basis does he use to consider birth control sinful?

For all of my life, my mother has been a devout catholic and it goes far enough that when she’s looking for something she’s also praying to a saint. And when she finds that something it becomes proof that the saint intervened. A similar example in the not-really-real religion “wicca” would be their steps to perform a “getting a new job” ritual. My friend, who allowed herself to be deluded by wicca for a few years, explained it to me. Essentially, you do all the things a normal person would do – like applying for jobs you’re qualified to do, researching the post, turning up to the interview well turned out, being personable…and then you perform a wiccan ritual. These steps will possibly get you a job. I beg your pardon?? Seems to me that if you did all of the preliminary steps but left out the silly ritual you’d get the same result.

There is nothing wrong with being gay. I’m a heterosexual man. I have friends who are homosexual men. There’s nothing wrong with them. I don’t understand how they can like guys because I find guys to be really ugly but they like nothing better than a stubbly chin and strong arms. There must be something in it because my Better Half also likes the stubble and the arms.

As he doesn’t exist, it’s impossible for god to hate gays. And even if he did exist, why exactly does he hate them? It doesn’t make any sense.

It seems to me that religion started out as a social contract. Respect your elders, don’t steal or kill in your community, don’t lie or spread malicious gossip in the community and don’t chase someone else’s wife.

Taken as a social contract, the ten commandments make a lot of sense. It’s only when someone added the godly bits that it seems to be become a load of codswallop. Don’t worship idols other than this one? Don’t use his name in an oath? Don’t work seven days in a row. What the hell is that all about?

In my Magnum Opus, Qabal, I wrote how primitive peoples added a face and a name to the sky, the storms, the sea in an effort to provide some understanding. We now know that these things are moved and changed through the operation of physics and chemistry. We don’t need to have a guiding supernatural intelligence to explain it when these things work according to observed principles. Isn’t it time we moved on from making up fairy tales in order to help us sleep at night?

I look around today and consider that money, religion and love have to be the three greatest evils in the world.

We’re not going to be able to get rid of love. It’s intrinsic to human nature. And our society is built upon trade, so money – or barter – will always remain. But religion? Let’s start to take a stand and consign God and religion to where it belongs – the province of children’s stories; comparable to the Tooth Fairy, Santa Claus and the Bogeyman.

[Chris Brogan’s 100 topics]

To be honest, I’m not entirely sure. I read a lot of feeds usually several hundred posts in a single sitting and while reading I tend to create placeholder posts in my blogs so that they can serve as reminders of things I want to write about later.

For example, the current placeholders I have are regarding digital nomads, the ghost (which CB calls the context engine), a comparison of the iPhone to a modern Blackberry and some commentary on recent posts by A-list bloggers. Not all of them will make it into final posts – some will be repurposed and/or deleted. But it serves as a digital notepad where I can leave some ideas and try them out later.

This serves me for the several blogs I write for – be that NiMUG, cimota, infurious, Mac-Sys Ltd, lategaming or the other couple. I don’t tend to write with an agenda – I write about what interests me at the time and so it’s possible to have blog post reminders wait for weeks and weeks while I organise my thoughts about it.

[Chris Brogan’s 100 topics]

Now this is a tough one and really speaks to the angry raving lunatic in me (the guy who writes probably 85% of the content on here).

Companies tend to have two sorts of blogs – corporate and employee. At infurious we just really have employee blogs. We aggregate them into one but they’re really just space for us to muse loudly about the things we like to talk about which may have a tenuous connection to software development for the Mac.

Corporate blogs are slightly different. The message is controlled and often peer-reviewed. If you read a selection of “Mac” blogs out there on t’internet then you’ll see that some of them are definitely indie Mac guys who have very “employee” focussed blogs (Daniel Jalkut, Gus Mueller) and some have a more corporate line (Martian, SpanningSync, Pixelmator).

A blog is really just the new way to communicate with your customers. If updated it provides them with some transparency. It’s understood why we don’t tell everyone everything but it can really help in a PR situation (in terms of reducing costs and increasing awareness). Enabling comments means you can have fully fledged dialog with your customers – and that can only be a good thing (if you’re actually trying to please them).

Commenting on a corporate blog is not as intimate as on an employee blog but that’s because the subjects are, for the most part, more detached and drier. It should therefore be handled in much the same way. Keep to the facts – engage with them – if you’re taking time to comment you obviously care but keep your angry head locked down if the comment is going to be negative.

I guess it’s no different to any other method of communication if you’re trying to achieve something. Be on topic, be polite and be friendly. Don’t jump on their latest PR blog post with a customer complaint, they’ll likely ditch it. There’s a good time and a place for anything.

Of course, if they’ve been ignoring you then by all means! 😉

[Chris Brogan’s 100 topics]