Shumsky Idea Box

By Evan Scott

The fact that the business world got drunk on dotcoms during the late 90s is well documented. Yet, in 2008, many companies still think of the Web as a technology issue. It is not. The Web is, and always has been, a business and marketing issue. The technology behind the Web should be considered much like the technology behind a television set – it should be understood and expected to work.

Let me take you on a quick trip through the land of fairy tales.

The Emperor’s New Clothes

Big Business is the emperor. Web applications developers have been like the sly weavers, assuring the Emperor that they can produce beautiful new business models. But there’s that kid in the crowd saying, “Hey….” Here’s the deal: Technology is not a business driver. It never has been and it never will be. Business has always been and should always be dressed in sales and marketing strategies, not technology strategies.

Technology has always served industry as a business tool rather than as a business driver. From automated assembly lines to computer processing -- manufacturers and service providers alike recognize that it’s not these means that grow the business but, rather, the ability of the organization to make use of them to bring down costs, improve work conditions, or enhance productivity.

Only in the last few years have we seen so many businesses seemingly lose their heads over the next evolution in technology. All of a sudden, the Internet and the host of other Web-enabled advancements have been positioned as business drivers: “This technology will grow your business!” “If you don’t use our technology you’ll sink!”

At the core of business-to-business is a hand shake. It can be summed up in three words: meet new people. The messages ought to honor the fact that we are in the business of creating and building relationships, not jargon or schemes.

The Three Little Pigs

Of course, the third little pig won the day. To make a predictable analogy, we realize that many of the dotcoms and independent technology start-ups built houses of straw and twigs. The survivors are the bricks-and-mortar companies with existing relationships.

They have withstood the onslaught of technology-mongers who are convinced that it is they who should be driving business rather than sales and marketing folks. Like the wolf trying to blow down the pigs’ houses, new markets, competition, and the complexity of establishing solid relationships are constant forces that threaten to blow away your house; unless they can be harnessed into opportunities.

Does technology allow us to harness these forces? Not at all. Marketing strategy and managerial execution make all the difference. Does having the latest design in rope allow someone to climb Mount McKinley? Do tennis rackets win the US Open?

To take a different turn on the same track, Geoffrey Moore, in his book, Living on the Fault Line, Managing for Shareholder Value in the Age of the Internet, writes,

What we have learned from the study of earthquakes is that buildings with rigid structures fare the worst when the ground underneath them shifts. By contrast, buildings engineered to sway with the wave of force are able to restore themselves to balance safely.

As an ironic twist, we see now that the seemingly hip, slick, and cool dotcoms – along with a multitude of other technology-based startups were, in fact, much more rigid than the supposedly stuffy bricks-and-mortar companies they were supposed to obliterate.

How can this be? The dotcoms failed, in part, because they developed their business model on a technology rather than on sound marketing or business principles. But technology is flexible, you say. Yes, it is, but as a tool, not as the foundation for a business.

It turns out that companies that have a flexible business model – to accommodate new tools – will win. Companies that have technology at the center of their business model are actually rigid because as soon as technology changes – a huff and a puff – their business blows down.

Alice In Wonderland

The emperor and the three little pigs are not alone. Many b-to-b executives don’t know how far down the rabbit hole technology-mongers have taken us.

Many executives still think we’re headed toward being even more plugged in rather than reaching our threshold of technology-based business models.

The evolution of this trend takes us to the vision in the movie “The Matrix,” where we become tools for technology.

So here’s how far we’ve come: many people in business think we should be in this place where technology rules; where cool software can replace human relationships because it’s more efficient or easier to implement a knowledge management system.

I’m convinced that it’s time to return to the practical matter of building solid, personal relationships; a handshake, eye-to-eye contact; and a direct commitment to serving our clients.

Of course it’s not as efficient. But then, not until this so called information age has efficiency been so revered in the world of sales and marketing. Efficiency used to be the mantra of operations.

The Velveteen Rabbit

You may remember that the subtitle to this children’s story is How Toys Become Real. In our world, we may apply the same ideas to how businesses become real.

The Skin Horse, as the story goes, had lived the longest of all the toys in the nursery and knew all about nursery magic.

He was wise, for he had seen a long succession of mechanical toys arrive to boast and swagger, and by-and-by break their mainsprings and pass away, and he knew that they were only toys, and would never turn into anything else. For nursery magic is very strange and wonderful, and only those playthings that are old and wise and experienced like the Skin Horse understand all about it.
"What is REAL?" asked the Rabbit one day, when they were lying side by side near the nursery fender, before Nana came to tidy the room. "Does it mean having things that buzz inside you and a stick-out handle?"
"Real isn't how you are made," said the Skin Horse. "It's a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real."
"Does it hurt?" asked the Rabbit.
"Sometimes," said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. "When you are Real you don't mind being hurt."
"Does it happen all at once, like being wound up," he asked, "or bit by bit?"
"It doesn't happen all at once," said the Skin Horse. "You become. It takes a long time. That's why it doesn't happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in your joints and very shabby. But these things don't matter at all, because once you are Real you can't be ugly, except to people who don't understand."

In the end, all organizations must learn to become real if they are to succeed. Our job as marketers is to help our client organizations develop and embrace a personality. It is this personality that employees, clients, and constituents must love into becoming real. No wind-up-mainspring-web-strategy is going to do that for us.

---

Leave a comment:

Your name
Email	Email will not be shared
Comment	500 character limit
Note: All comments are subject to review before being added