The importance of storyboards and the greater importance of gaining consensus!

For all those folks out there that work on bridging teams and systems, you'll be familiar with the importance of building both consensus and storyboards. System functionality can be described and presented in a variety of ways - and if you don't storyboard with your constituents of what they will see & do, you will inevitably end with a solution that you will have to re-engage at some point in the future (unless you are born under a lucky star).

But the other half of matching business needs with system design is gaining consensus.  If you are relatively new to this, THIS will take the most time out of your project plan.

If you do it right, you will have to:

• Explain the current situation
• Explain why something isn't working, not giving them what they expect, educating them on why something won't do something, pointing out 3rd party data that validates what you just explained to them, remind them of their objectives, remind them of the system limits, play judge and jury when two parties can't agree, start all over again, explain again why something isn't working, point out that the current solution is not giving them what they expect, educating them on why something won't do something, pointing out 3rd party data that validates what you just explained to them, remind them of their objectives......
• Take a coffee break
• Show them the storyboards of recommendations
• Explain the storyboards
• Explain the storyboards again
• Explain the storyboards to the group that weren't paying attention the first two times
• Realize that you're out of time during this meeting
• Set up another meeting
• Start back in gaining consensus by explaining the situation......

And so the cycle continues.....

For all the #nerds and #nerdgirls out there, THIS is why you not only have to storyboard the solution but GAIN consensus!

What metric are you measuring? and did the Biggest Loser lose TOO MUCH??

I don't know about you - but I was taught that things come through perseverance (i.e. no shortcuts).

So as a system designer, I ask the hard questions: what is your expectation? How will this translate as this process gets rolled out to other regions?  Can this be easily replicated? Is this realistic (i.e. 80/20 rule)?

On a totally different note, I watch "The Biggest Loser" each season - and there is much controversy going on right now about the crowned winner being too thin.  Keep in mind, the winner gets $250k.

Many folks argued that it was against the mandate of "The Biggest Loser" to have a player deliberately go that low in BMI to win the show.  Essentially, they are teaching and evangelizing a healthy lifestyle while incentivising folks to get the highest numbers on the leader board.

But even if that did not happen - is not the metric of % of weight loss a flash in the pan metric that - in the grand scheme of things - the wrong metric?  How about BMI?  How about inches lost?  Issues resolved (since so many have health issues)?  Should the metric be as simple as percentage of body weight lost?

BTW Couple of things folks: it is proven season over season that the somewhat unhealthy weight that the winner gets reverses itself once the camera and $250k are not on the line.  

It is sort of like my conversations with sales management: what do you measure your people on?  And when do you call their BS?

A great example of this is when you have a team helping support the quota carrying folks - do you care how many meetings they set up or demos they did?  Maybe.  Do you care about how many opportunities they created?  Maybe.  But how about a tangible, repeatable, trend-making fact that would measure how many opportunities/meetings/calls/emails etc yielded in revenue?  And taking it a step further, the algorithm if that revenue was from a new source or a repeat customer.

I can show examples of "outstanding" biz dev folks - that when you hold them to a tangible metric versus an arbitrary one - don't look so "outstanding".

The issue is to cut through the BS.

So like "The Biggest Loser", are you looking at the right metric?  Is that metric going to serve you short-term or long-term?

(btw - I think that "The Biggest Loser" should do a combination of % lost coupled with BMI in case you were wondering)

Graphic credit: By MR LIGHTMAN, published on 05 April 2012

Understanding what is important to reach your goals - but making sure that the way those goals are measured in imperative in the long-term health of your analysis.

When Nerd Girls Run The World

Recently, the hair care company Pantene released a video promotion that captured the phenomenon of "Labels Against Women" - specifically in the workplace.  Why are strong, smart, capable legions of #nerdgirls - who are valuable to a company's productivity, culture, and performance - treated this way?

The answer is not a simple one.

Corporate culture, individual ignorance/intolerance, and poor HR policies/interventions can be held up as part of the problem.  Personally, I think a big contributor is the idea that, for women to succeed in business, we have to be a) Wonder Woman and b) the same as our male counterparts.

Note to audience: bouncy hair does not make you Wonder Woman.

As the Harvard Business Review stated: Organizations inadvertently undermine this process when they advise women to proactively seek leadership roles without also addressing policies and practices that communicate a mismatch between how women are seen and the qualities and experiences people tend to associate with leaders....The context must support a woman’s motivation to lead and also increase the likelihood that others will recognize and encourage her efforts—even when she doesn't look or behave like the current generation of senior executives.

Even publications that are geared toward men (for example - AskMen.com) have tackled this topic - and despite some of the empirical data, women are routinely put down in subtle fashions every day.  Talking over us in meetings, grouping us together by addressing us as "ladies" (condescending tone included), and in the case of #nerdgirls, dismissing our ideas as wrong without even considering them.

So why do women allow this to happen - why are we not hearing about radical change and/or discrimination lawsuits out the wazoo for this behavior to exist?

As the creator of FBomb.org hypothesizes in a Forbes.com op-ed piece, "We addressed laws and policy, but failed to acknowledge or alter the psychological factors that prohibit or encourage women to want to lead and which allow society to embrace female leaders and take them seriously."

I'm proud to be part of an (almost) all #nerdgirl group of people who runs two massive corporate systems. Our mandate is to streamline the system while optimizing it for the business - while going a million miles a minute.  I'd like to think that between our democracy in leadership, system knowledge, and our consensus building, we run a pretty tight ship. But like the Pantene video, I could be viewed differently than a male counterpart if I disagree with, or assert myself, to internal constituents.

“These qualities combine to create a leadership style that is inclusive, open, consensus building, collaborative and collegial,” according to Herb Greenberg, Ph.D., President and Chief Executive Officer of Caliper.

For #nerdgirls who are responsible for systems (i.e "Run the World"), it is important to be strong in our leadership.  Just because you disagree with someone does not make you a b*tch.  In meetings, you have every right to voice your thoughts/concerns.  You do not have to "wait" your turn or feel bad that you are disagreeing.  As Joseph Nye (former U.S. assistant secretary of defense) hypothesized: Women’s non-hierarchical style and relational skills fit a leadership need in the new world of knowledge-based organizations and groups that men, on average, are less well prepared to meet..... In the past, when women fought their way to the top of organizations, they often had to adopt a “masculine style,” violating the broader social norm of female “niceness.” Now, however, with the information revolution and democratization demanding more participatory leadership, the “feminine style” is becoming a path to more effective leadership. In order to lead successfully, men will not only have to value this style in their women colleagues, but will also have to master the same skills. 

#nerdgirls should embrace their leadership and UNITE!

 As an FYI, our anthem should be Queen B's "Run the World (Girls)".

How to lose a customer in 5 easy steps......

Change is inevitable.  Companies get purchased, systems get changed, processes become more/less automated, and data corruption occurs.

How companies handle this delicate transitions is critical to keeping loyal customers - but some organizations still don't get it.  They obviously have not done the math/ROI on recruiting a new customer versus keeping an existing customer!

Here is an easy guide to lose a customer in 5 easy steps!  Hopefully, your team won't do any of these steps!

1. Make the transition hard for the customer (how many steps on their side versus vendor side to work through)
2. Ignore the impact of a transition (call volume, UI issues, not enough staff to deal with problems, lack of communication, too short a window to transition, etc)
3. Show customers that your data is corrupt (email communications sent out to consumers on incorrect data)
4. Ignore a blatant mistake - and make no actions to correct it (knowing something went out due to bad data but no plan to rectify it or at least acknowledge it)
5. Ignore social media and/or online/telephony data trends when it comes to performance (customers get angry quick - and they have a variety of mediums to vent such pain)
6. BONUS: have no way to "win-back" lost customers

A recent example that I experienced around this topic was when my one credit card vendor became another.

Approximately two months in advance of the transition, they sent out (paper) communications around the transition plan and what it meant to customers.  Needless to say, I ignored them - they were after all, paper!

Then, while following instructions provided, I could not migrate my account from vendor #1 to vendor #2. Literally following instructions provided, I was sytimed.  This went on during multiple attempts. Reaching out to phone service, I attempted to rectify this - but was left in a 20-min queue hell of MUZAK.

In this specific case, my payment was due - and since I was without any other method,  I made a payment by phone.  Which was recognized by their system - even though a day later, their database kicked out a no-payment message to me as a "courtesy".  My first reaction was, "shit, my payment via phone was not recorded".  But since the very nice phone system had provided confirmation numbers and such, I knew that their data was corrupted or out of sync.

Given all of this, I called the vendor about these issues - and like most telephone technical support nowadays, the first responder was useless.  Nice guy - don't get me wrong. But he was not trained to shoot my call above him to a manager - I had to ask for it.

The manager, again - a very nice individual - was forced to reiterate corporate BS language from a binder manual (just to cover her ass) versus truly dealing with the problem: acknowledging the mistake, apologizing for it, giving some insurance it won't happen again, etc.  Instead - at the end of the pre-selected scripts they were to follow - I had to make myself an EX-customer.

Based on all of this, I don't expect a strong win-back strategy from the vendor - but here is why they should care: it costs most companies upwards of 4-10x to land a new client versus retaining an existing one.

In the case of credit card companies, I'm sure that there is another algorithm (as in how much money will we make off of a client - in this scenario, I'm not a profitable customer for them.....I pay on time and in full) - but guess what?  I have a social circle of thousands based on social networking and in-person interactions - and I have a personal preference to alert others to shady/bad/horrible vendors.  

How does that translate to the vendor in terms of potential revenue?  

Have they run those numbers?

7 weeks + 3216 oz of Diet Pepsi

Unusual title, right?  I'll get to that in a moment......

There are numerous things to do to bring a marketing automation system online - there are setup decisions, building (or re-building) asset fulfillment, building numerous smart campaigns to run behavioral scoring models, etc.

For most small(er) businesses, setting up a MA system can be relatively painless.  Your Salesforce.com environment is without a lot of customization, you have less records to account for, and your sales teams are pretty straight forward (one lead owner, one product line, one lead routing plan, etc).

My plan is to share our trials & errors, funny stories, lessons learned, and best practices to setup a highly unique, highly customized Marketing Automation system for an Enterprise sized deployment connected to a highly customized, highly unique Salesforce.com environment.  Hopefully, others can learn from our adventures!   And as for the title of this blog installment?

My UK colleague came to Detroit to "build" the Marketing Automation system on September 10th - and we joked about how many Diet Pepsis it was going to take for us to bring the system operational in 7 weeks (our "Go-Live" date).

So at the conclusion of our build/setup over the 7 weeks, I snapped pictures of my growing Diet Pepsi soldiers that contributed to my contribution to helping take the system "Live".

Here is the "final"* picture of the soldiers that I collected over the 7 weeks:

All in all, I consumed 3216 ounces of Diet Pepsi.

Not that I'm recommending this approach - but this is the first part of telling our journey.  It takes a lot of patience, a lot of note taking, a lot of test/re-testing - and in my case - a lot of Diet Pepsi.

Hopefully, you'll find some nuggets of wisdom that you can take away toward your Marketing Automation project.  If nothing else, you'll read some funny tidbits about our adventure.

Until the next installment!
B

*I know that I missed some of the soldiers that went missing - so the final number is much higher.

Forcing motorists to drive the right way.....

So I lived in Boston for a long time - and driving in Boston requires a certain ability to navigate tight spaces, traffic that won't grant you a pass, and the need to know how to parallel park.

Upon moving back to MI, I have been disappointed by the fact that the Michigan population has somehow lost their ability to drive.

If I had better insurance, I would use the Kathy Bates/Insurance line from "Fried Green Tomatoes."

TOWANDA!!!!

That said, I will do my best to use my car horn and my evil look to combat:

• Not signalling when you decide to merge into my lane.
• Driving 40MPH in a 45MPH zone - in the left lane.
• Drifting over the lane markers as you text your girl/boy friend.
• Staying in the left lane for miles (under the speed limit BTW) until you make a radical shift (without blinker) to the far right lane.
• Slowing down to 0 MPH to go over train tracks.
• Parking your mega-SUV across parking spots simply because you can't aim straight.
• Knowing how to dodge pedestrians - and when they are in the right and when you are (as a driver).

Might seem irrelevant on this blog - but NerdGirls know how to drive. :)

On corporate letterhead...

How proud am I that I'm published on "official" letterhead?

http://application-performance-blog.com/end-user-experience-and-50-shades-of-grey/

Blending my insane reading ability with my fascinating work life is the inspiration of this post.