by etcname
I Should Have Majored In Psychology:
[Via Chuck’s Blog]

Way back when, I thought it useful to do two courses of study. I wanted that CS (computer science) degree, but the whole topic, while fascinating, seemed so self-contained.

At the time, I thought adding coursework in economics was the right thing to do. Even way back in the late 1970s (yes, I’m that old), I could see the two interweaving in very interesting ways.

I was wrong. I should have chosen to add in psychology rather than economics.

Because — at the end of the day — I’m finding that success with technology has more to do with how people perceive things rather than the hard facts we all work with every day.

Ever Rolled Out A Big IT Project?

I have. Several times, as a matter of fact. And — each time — I spent an inordinate amount of time lining up approval and support for what I was proposing to do.

The least of my problems was making sure the darn stuff worked as expected. My most daunting challenge was usually changing perceptions with hundreds — sometimes thousands — of people who had a vested stake in the outcome.

If you work in IT, you’ve probably come to the same conclusion — the technology will probably be ready far in advance of people’s willingness to embrace it.

Accelerating Change Creates Value

I’m not just talking about IT here — I’m talking about any leadership role in a large organization. To create unique value, we have to change the way we do things. The faster we can change and adapt, the more value we create for our organization and our stakeholders.

And — more often than not — it’s people’s perceptions that stand between where we are — and where we’d all like to be.

A while back, I was chatting with people who put together MBA coursework. Since I tend to work with freshly minted MBAs here at EMC, they wanted to know what I found missing.

My answer was pretty clear: they need at least some sort of background in behavior psychology if they expected to be successful in any organization.

After all, organizations are nothing more than collections of people.

And If You’re In Marketing

I don’t see how anyone could be successful in any form of marketing these days without a deep and empathetic understanding of the human psyche, and how it manifests itself in your target audience.

Yes, showing ROI and “business value” is essential. But I’d offer that’s just table stakes. There’s so much good technology out there today that there are many ways to solve a given enterprise IT requirement.

Worse, when we as vendors come up with something new and interesting (as is frequently the case at EMC) but is a departure from conventional thinking, it takes an inordinate amount of time to get people comfortable with the new approach.

People will often say things like “well, we need time for the technology to mature”. Fair enough. But more often, I’m thinking it’s less about the technology, and more about time needed to have perceptions change.

One of the most frustrating recent examples for me personally was enterprise flash drives. EMC launched them at the beginning of 2008. They worked absolutely perfectly at the time. But adoption was slow, mostly because it was an entirely new idea.

Adoption started to pick up dramatically during 2009. Not because the technology was any better — it was simply that people had gotten more comfortable with the concept.

Since EMC’s business model involves investing a lot in new and disruptive technologies, this inherent psychological barrier to “something new” is often front-and-center in my mind.

[More]

Read the whole thing. This is a great discussion by someone on the ground, detailing ow hard it can be to get people to adapt to new technology.

I’ve written about how change and innovations traverse a community. A better way to facilitate such things is to put disruptive innovators and mediating early-adopters in place to evaluate new technologies. That is what they are really good at and actually enjoy. If they see the value, especially the mediators, they can often speed up the rate the new technology diffuses.

Because, after all, failure is just another change. and organization that deals well with change will have little to fear from failure because it knows that is a faster route to success.

Technorati Tags: Social media, Web 2.0

How Heartfelt Marketing Delivers:
[Via chrisbrogan.com]

Dave Delaney and his company, Griffin, put on quite a great little project with CESBound. They took an old VW bus, after hours, and restored it, and then drove it from Nashville all the way to Las Vegas for CES. Along the way, they made media, met friends, told stories, shot photos, froze a bit, played music, and had a blast.

When they arrived at CES, the thing they kept hearing (and I heard it when I visited the booth, too) was, “Man, it’s so cool that you restored this bus and took it on a huge road trip. That’s so much more genuine than renting a nice car and putting it in the booth.

The side of the van was covered in little Polaroid photos from the road trip. The back of the van was playing some of the CESBound TV episodes. Everyone around the bus, whether they were from Griffin or not, seemed really happy.

Dave and the whole rest of the team (we know Dave because he’s one of us, but there’s also Melanie Pherson and tons of other names that Dave or someone will add when they see this post) really did a lot to make the >Griffin Technology CES story into more than just a company selling iPhone and iPod accessories.

They made a special site, CESBound.com. They befriended the VW community via some forums, where they were told that, when the bus breaks down, someone will come and help them out, no matter where they are in the country. They did all kinds of gatherings and other on-the-road relationship building on the way to the event.

[More]

This is a nice example of how the creativity of people who have a vested interest in an organization can be harnessed in completely novel ways. New technologies now allow the end users with the most passion to create the materials they need, without having to rely on outside vendors.

Using photos, videos, the web and more Griffin produced something quite novel, something that helped demonstrate their brand as well as show what a ‘fun’ company they are.

But, while these technologies allowed them to produce material cheaper and more directly, the success of this project really still depended on how they connected with other human beings. They needed to create, activate and stimulate human social networks in order for this to be a successful project.

As Chris mentions, they connected with a wide variety of people, including many who would not be at all interested in an electronics convention. They extended the reach of their social networks and produced a project that almost markets itself, with continuing connections as people find their website.

What this tells me is that Griffin listens to its innovative talent instead of ignoring their disruptive actions. This is really necessary for an organization that has to remain nimble and resilient in an industry that changes daily. Being able to leverage its own internal creativity increases the chance that Griffin will continue to be successful.

Being able to use technology to enhance social interactions is a given these days. But having the organization that successfully takes its own creativity and extends it with technology is rare. It requires a set of management tools that are not well codified in many MBA programs.

It seems to me, though, that Griffin is one of those rare companies.

Technorati Tags: Technology, Web 2.0