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Google apps are free. Not!

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I posted a comment about the new Gmail interface on a social media site. One responder said, “you get what you pay for. Gmail is free.”

Reading that, I realized that the “Google is free” argument used to work for me, but it no longer does. Google apps are not free at all. You’re paying in the currency of giving them complete access to everything you work on, so they can analyze it and target ads. If someone were to make that explicit and ask me, “How much would you charge to give someone the right to scour every email you send and receive and every document you compose so they can build a profile on you for targetting ads?” I would name a figure far, far, FAR in excess of what I’ve paid for desktop software in my lifetime. In terms of my own value system, I’m only now realizing that Google Apps may be the most expensive software I’ve ever used.

What do you think? What would you charge to give someone the right to analyze all your email and documents to build a profile of you? What would you expect in return?

My content isn’t free.

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I just received a tweet from a follower asking that I stop spamming him with ads. Do I spam with ads? Well, sort of. I’ve scheduled four tweets in the last week to go out advertising my upcoming Do-It Days™, interspersed with three or four times as many content-laden tweets.

Chapter 1 of my book is about “Living on Purpose.” It basically boils down to: “know why you’re doing something.” Let me be very clear: I’m not producing 1100 words of transcripts, a podcast, two free newsletters (my own and the Get-it-Done Guy), and providing ten years’ worth of blog posts and 12 years’ worth of articles every week because I feel a deep moral obligation to help the human race be more productive. This is my business, and as much as I like providing value for people, if the only rewards are spiritual, then I’m outta here so fast it’ll make your head spin. At some point, I actually need people to spend money with me, or I’ll go broke.

I have busted my butt creating more free, high-quality content in the last 12 years than most people produce in a lifetime. I’ve produced hundreds of podcasts, hundreds of newsletters, two books, and dozens of articles. All free, except the books, which economically haven’t even covered the cost of printing, yet. I’ve also produced a few for-profit products which have gotten great reviews on the free file-sharing sites of stolen content, but haven’t proven to attract the millions of dollars of income that I’d hoped.

If you like what I produce, please consider buying one of my for-profit information products, or attending a Do-It Day™. But for those who write, telling me how pissed you are that I spend too much time writing humor and (gasp) send 3 promotional tweets a week, please consider it from my point of view: I can’t afford to do this for free indefinitely. Either find a way to help me make money or I’ll have to stop. Complaining that my free material doesn’t meet your exacting specifications, however, is not the way to get my attention.

(If you pay for one of my products and it’s not what you want, however, I’ll listen quite closely.)

Should we take personal responsibility for business’s impact?

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Many businesses do things that are legal, are in fact good business practice, but which are shown later to have bad effects for society. In some cases, these effects are huge. For example, the contribution of fast food cooking and recipe practices to obesity and heart disease only came to light 40 years after the founding of the fast food industry. And tobacco was only shown to cause cancer hundreds of years into its trade.

If these had caused immediate obesity or cancer, they probably wouldn’t have succeeded in the market. But human beings have an odd quirk: if the effects of something don’t happen quickly, we discount them in favor of immediate gratification. Our compulsion to eat that extra cookie (like I did last night) is immediate, and we act on it much more than we act on the hypothetical, imaginary future world in which we have added a few inches to our waistline.

Then we came up with science and started uncovering these longer-term cause and effects. If a new product were to be introduced that was known to have such negative health effects by triggering short-term gratification impulses, I’d like to think we wouldn’t rush to embrace it.

But even if we’ve gotten smarter (debatable), there’s an even trickier question: some things are fine when done individually, but disastrous when everyone does them. Skipping college is a great example. We’re living in a moment in history where our college costs, educational outcomes, and job prospects are such that it makes very little economic sense for most people to go to college. There’s just no way they can get a job that can pay back their tuition, and we don’t provide enough national educational assistance or reimbursement to encourage people to go unless it has a direct effect on their future income. (Let’s leave out for a moment the recent studies that show that many 4-year colleges are nothing but an extended party and don’t seem to teach very much.) For any one person this makes sense. When an entire generation does it, 20 years later we’ll have a workforce unsuited for anything but manual labor and jobs as check-out clerks. Bad check-out clerks, I might add.

Outsourcing is another place where the individual benefit leads to bad things societally. Any one company can be more profitable through outsourcing. When all companies start doing this, however, it leads to higher domestic unemployment and the gradual deskilling of our workforce. Why would anyone put in the time and effort to develop a skill when they can’t compete with $3/day people of similar skill overseas?

Our economic system is clearly set up to reward the individual, short-term decisions. Sometimes that produces the larger good outcomes, and sometimes it doesn’t. If we as businesspeople are concerned about our larger societal outcomes, how can/should/could we change the system to deal with (a) profitable short-term gratification businesses that have long-term negative effects, and (b) individual incentives that lead to rational individual behavior, but when everyone does them, larger Very Bad Problems?

Do we have any responsibility to address those two flaws in the system? If so, how? If not, then how should we handle the very real societal problems that result?

Thanks, Teachers, Firefighters & Others!

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Thank you, firefighters, soldiers, teachers, policemen, doctors, nurses, pipe fitters, teachers, civil servants, electricians, plumbers, utility workers, and people who keep our everyday lives running smoothly. Thank you, artists, dancers, actors, volunteers, and housewives. In terms of the actual value you provide and difference you make in my life, you trump 25-year-old billionaire tech entrepreneurs any day of the week. It’s just you do your job so well, and your jobs are so necessary, that it’s easy to forget that they’re the most fundamental to our well-being. (Please feel free to add to this list!)

The potential of the one stop shop

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Autumn is here, with a chill in the air. Which is why it was especially traumatic when our Rheem hot water suddenly stopped working last week.

Ever since we had this hot water heater installed 3 years ago, it’s been a problem. We went without hot water for almost a month while going through the Rheem step-by-step troubleshooting procedure, which involved sending us spare parts one at a time, scheduling a repairman to come out and install the parts, and then calling in again when the part didn’t work.

So far we’ve been 11 days without hot water this time (thank goodness for the gym showers!). We’ve been going through the customer service dance again. The contractor who originally sold us the unit is telling us to call the manufacturer. Rheem is saying we have to remove the hot water heater and return it to the contractor and then they’ll replace it. Really? Remove the hot water heater and bring it back to the contractor? By law, we aren’t even allowed to do that, since it connects to a live gas feed. It has to be done by a licensed plumber. Rheem may think it’s very clever, selling us a lemon and making it virtually impossible to get it fixed. The contractor, of course, is telling us that they can’t do anything, and we just have to deal with the manufacturer directly.

What neither seems to understand is that with this kind of behavior, we’re never going to be customers again of either the contractor or the manufacturer. The inability to get decent service has soured us on both parties.

People Want Solutions, Not Vendors

What customers want (in other words, what I want) is one person they can call to solve their problem. They don’t want you to forward them to your vendor, or to some third party. They want to call you and have you work the magic it takes to get the product working again.

Furthermore, you want them to call you, too. That’s the only way you can make sure the service experience is a good one. Our contractor is going to lose our business through no fault of theirs, but through the fault of the manufacturer. The fact that it’s “industry standard” for customers to deal directly with manufacturers does not matter to me. It’s a stupid standard that is making my life miserable.

What I wouldn’t pay for … a contractor who would sell me a hot water heater, install it, and be a one-call service center for me. Would I pay more for this than simply time + materials? You bet. The contractor would quickly get the experience dealing with the various manufacturers, and could streamline which products they recommend to be the ones that don’t break, or that can be quickly fixed when they do break. If they have enough customers, they could even get some negotiating leverage, either for service response time or price. (“I have 100 customers with your hot water heater in the Chicago area. Let’s negotiate a discount on replacement parts.”)

There’s a market niche, but so far, no one’s filling it.

What experience do your customers go through when your product breaks? Is there a chance for you to deliver serious extra value by being a one-phone-call provider for your customers? If so, will it give you the extra bonus of developing relationships or expertise that ultimately helps you work even faster, cheaper, and more easily?

Think about it. There’s power to being the only person someone calls when they need a solution, and that can be turned into a seriously valuable business.

Did I go too far with this response?

A publicist just pitched me a story about carbon monoxide detectors, which isn’t really a good fit for my podcast. I sent the following response. One person thinks I went a little too far. What do you think?

Hi!

Did you listen to my podcast before sending me the below pitch, or did you simply mass e-mail me? Either way, you’ve hit the nail on the head.

My podcast is about personal productivity, and occasionally features zombies. Most publicists pitch me on personal productivity. Since your pitch clearly has nothing to do with that, I assume you’re pursuing the zombie angle. Thank you! You’re the first publicist who has actually spent the time and effort to understand both aspects of my podcast.

After giving your pitch careful thought, I think we could feature your clients in an episode about their tragic deaths and rebirth as zombies. How did they come to grips with body parts that ooze pus and fall off? Was eating raw brains as satisfying as making Betty Crocker brownies (they died while cooking, after all)? I’ve always wanted to include a good zombie origin story.

The death scenes would be too boring, though. Carbon monoxide is odorless, colorless, and pretty much painless, but I’m sure Candace and Elizabeth wouldn’t mind us taking small liberties. Perhaps they needed to open the box of brownie mix, so they rushed to the basement to grab a chainsaw, and even though the light was burned out, they ran down the stairs and … Well, I’m sure I don’t need to tell you what happened next. We’ll capture the 13-18 year-old teenage male demographic for sure! Maybe we can even raffle off a free copy of “DeathSpank” by HotHead games.

This is going to be BIG!

What’s the best way to move forward from here?

Excitedly,

Stever “Stephanie Meyer Eat Your Heart Out” Robbins

If you want to reward your customers, reward them!

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I went shopping at RITE-AID today and saw one of my favorite products advertised as: “Buy 2, get $2 off your next purchase.” I grabbed two bottles and made my way to the register … where the clerk informed me that I could only get the deal if I had their frequent buyer card. To join the program, however, I had to give them personally identifiable information. I declined both the membership and the purchase.

There’s no reason a frequent buyer program needs to have my personally identifiable information. As long as all my purchases get charged to card #4234, they can print the offer coupons for card #4234 based on the purchase history of #4234. There is never any need to get my personally identifiable information unless they plan to sell it or cross-index it against other databases to find out more about me.

This seems like RITE-AID wanting to reward me as a frequent customer by giving me future deals that will encourage me to shop there more. In that, we’re aligned. I want to let them do that. But I’m not interested in giving them personally identifiable information that they can sell or use in ways other than encouraging me to shop there more.

If you want to reward your customers, find ways to reward them that does not infringe on them. Most people, if they like you as a merchant or service provider, will be happy to accept and respond to incentives. If you want fanatically loyal customers who rave about you, make it possible for people to have a great experience without stepping beyond the bounds where they stop being comfortable with the relationship. Otherwise, you end up with people like me blogging about your intrusion into their lives, instead of praising you for giving you such a great deal.

Be present: Put down your #@*($& phone!

I’ve noticed that more and more, people walk around with their phones glued to their ear or to their hands. They stand in the middle of hallways with the phone pressed against their ear, as if their life depended on it. They block stairways, staring entranced into their smartphone as it delivers some absolutely vital nugget of information or entertainment, without which their life would come to an abrupt and bloody end.

Not.

In a few short years, the cell phone has become the ultimate “Somewhere Else is Better Than Here” device. The problem with that is that you’re actually living here and now. Important things are happening here and now. When you’re in public, or around other people, get off your cell phone. Put it on vibrate. Even better, turn the darned thing off. Pay attention to what’s happening around you.

Friends of mine who are parents can’t do that. They literally can’t turn the phone off. They have all the symptoms of an anxiety attack at the thought of their kids being unable to reach them for more than three to five minutes. Really? You’re that worried about your kid? Why? Is he or she really so incapable of coping that you can’t turn your phone off? How will they survive when you die someday? It could be today. You could be chattering so intently on your cell phone that you step off the curb in front of an SUV going 90 miles per hour in an attempt to make it to a gas station before they run out of gas.

If you’re really worried about your kids, make sure they’re in a good school, surrounded by peers who will encourage and support them. If your local public schools suck, cancel your cell phone contract and use the money you save to put them in private school. Keep them away from swimming pools—kids mostly die in swimming pools, and their cell phones won’t work under water, so the cell phone won’t save them, anyway.

In short, come back. People are trying to walk by you as you stand transfixed playing Angry Birds in the middle of the hallway. The friends you came with are just two feet away (staring into their smartphones, too). Bring them back. You have a life. You have a world. And you’re missing it!

Success Starts When You Stop Using Your Own Product

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Have you checked out your competitors recently? I was just reading a review that says the new Blackberry smartphone is by far the best, speediest, most elegant Blackberry ever. But the reviewer would not recommend anyone buy it. Why? Because it’s still missing a lot of the key functionality that other smartphones have. The hardware is leading edge, but they haven’t truly made the device do anything better.

What I want to know is what kind of smartphone the co-CEOs of RIM use? Do they use Blackberrys? I can’t imagine a worse choice. They should be using iPhone and Android devices for 95% of their calls and computing. We’ll let them use Blackberrys, but only on Sunday. And they’re not allowed to have their IT people set them up; they need to do that themselves. Then they’ll start to understand fundamentally what it’s like to use these devices, and why Blackberry is increasingly falling behind.

I’ve been in Blackberry’s marketing research list for years. I want so badly to tell them why my next phone will be an iPhone, and exactly how and why their platform falls short. But they never ask that. They ask too-specific questions about their guesses as to why I might prefer an iPhone. And their guesses are wrong, because they’re so steeped in their own product.

If you’re in a competitive market, you owe it to yourself to adopt your competitor’s product. Don’t just use it for an hour or a couple of days; really integrate it into your life. Understand its strengths and its shortcomings. Do this a couple of times a year. Only then will you have a hope of being able to take the next step and leapfrog what they’re doing with your own next product. Otherwise, you’re playing guessing games. You might get lucky once or twice, but at the end of the day, you can’t create a vision of a next generation product when you don’t even know what this generation holds.

Use An Editor!

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If you want to produce extremely high-quality work, it may be wise to find someone to help. It’s hard to be objective about our own work. Almost by definition, we believe if we did it, it must be good. But yet, sometimes an objective eye can help us take our good work to the realm of greatness. The objective eyes I’m talking about belong to editors.

Editors ROCK! When I’m writing a Get-it-Done Guy episode, my natural sense of humor comes out. My natural sense of humor was developed doing comedy improvisation with college audiences. “Decorum” is not high on the list of words you would use to describe my first draft material.

Fortunately, there’s a very dedicated editor at Macmillan publishing who reads my drafts. She sends them back with paragraphs circled in red pen. In the margin, she writes notes like, “If you say that, the FBI will open a file on you, start wire-tapping your phones, and put you under 24-hour surveillance. Again.” While most people would enjoy free protection services, I find it cramps my style when I go out clubbing. So I rewrite the paragraphs she highlights, this time using Goldilocks and the Three Bears as the central metaphor of my piece. My editors approve, and another Get-it-Done Guy episode is born.

Editors come in many varieties. Some editors can make sure your humor is appropriate. They can make sure your text flows, that you don’t repeat yourself, and that your points build on one another. Copy-editors handle editing the details. They double-check your spelling, your grammar, and your punctuation. I was a copyeditor for the school newspaper when I was a student at Harvard Business School; I need to give my marketing staff a special therapy budget, so they can deal with me.

If you have to write reports, pamphlets, or anything where quality matters, get yourself an editor. It doesn’t have to be a professional, a colleague who writes well may be all that’s required. If you’re worried about letting your coworkers see your work before it’s polished, find a friend who has the write skill set, but works at another company. You can be an outside helper for each other, without worrying about work-in-progress-quality work getting out to the people in your company.

If you’ve never worked with an editor, give it a shot. You’ll discover that having an extra pair of eyes double-check your work can often produce something better than either of you could have written on your own.