“User Experience” is nonsense

 Business, Management, organization, stupidity, Uncategorized  Comments Off on “User Experience” is nonsense
Sep 022014
 

God damn Steve Jobs! It’s hard to dredge from memory or history another huckster who left behind such a legacy of dreck. Jobs was a tireless promoter who innovated relentlessly and—as legend would have it—single-handedly changed the face of the consumer world from personal computing to animated movies to music consumption and mobile telephony/computing. Love it or hate it; he did it.

But that’s not what I mean. The detritus in his formidable wake is all of the half-baked nonsense that others less capable have picked up. Where for Jobs the result if it would be a gastronomic delight, in other hands it becomes fast food. Nowhere is this more evident than in the Web world.

You see, Jobs was a man with vision, drive, and—to switch metaphors—the skills of a utility fielder. He was a showman and marketer with a sense for the appealing. He was an evangelist and salesman with a feel for the con. He was an industrialist with a grasp of production. And, allegedly, in his later tenure, became something of a strategist and commanding agent of change. What this adds up to is a well-rounded entrepreneur who knew inherently that even though he was reducing a complex mix of ingredients to a single catchy phrase, there was a lot of magic going on.

Those who worship at the alters of his several business religions are not so well versed. They do not appreciate that, just to hold the mystique for single-minded people like them, Jobs oversimplified and reduced to an aphoristic sound-bite, very complex conditions. They don’t get that Steve Jobs was a sophisticated carney and they are his marks.

Why do I rant? Because I am now fed up by the noxious and excessive blather from all levels of so many organizations about consumer experience or customer experience. Don’t get me wrong: such concern is paramount, or at least it will be until it proves unprofitable and therefore unacceptable to the stock market. To satisfy the customer—to make him or her or it categorically happy with your wares is fundamental to loyalty, repeat business, referrals, buzz, and ultimately revenue if not profit. And there is truth to the causal connection between the visceral experience with a product/service and the good outcomes noted above.

That said, the ham-handed Webheads roll this all up under the aegis of user experience. And then they reduce all of that holistic business complexity to what would properly be limited to user interface. When gullible and complicit executives support the cause user interface gets conflated with customer experience and the absurdities begin.

“So what’s the problem with that Mr. Pedant?” You ask. Not much except for how the UI (user interface) people—interaction designers really—get up on their hind legs and throw their weight around with the support of improbable, linguistic overreach. All of a sudden the interface carries dominion over all other possible aspects of customer experience. For instance:

  • A customer’s preconception of the product, from which his/her experience is anchored, starts with the ads and promotion. Shouldn’t Marketing Communications be in charge?
  • A customer’s sense of proportional value and the resulting positive/negative experiential feeling is critically related to the price paid. Why wouldn’t Pricing get the last word?
  • In the highly probable event of a problem with the product/service/Website, how the various customer service channels respond has enormous impact on customer experience. Why then does Customer Service not hold sway?
  • Let’s not overlook that an offering simply working (or not) has a clearly enhancing or detracting effect on one’s overall impression. So it seems that Operations ought to be the final arbiter of customer experience.
  • All this without even considering that the product group determines market need and value, and orchestrates all the above-noted constituent players and more—including the interface designers—to create and provide an offering to please customers and fill the company coffers.

Let’s agree that customer experience is valuable, but that it is the complex output of many inputs. Even if you make the dubious causal leap that customer experience equals success, it may or may not recognize that ultimately success is profit. And on this it merely muddies the simplicity to note that while touting the experience, Steve Jobs could shave Lincoln’s beard off of a penny. (Maybe that has had a little to do with Apple’s commercial success…)

To blithely dictate that user experience equals customer experience is wrong to begin with. To push that further and allow customer experience, which is actually now equal to user interface, to be the start and end or at least the dominant element of commercial input is simplistic, naïve, and unduly credits user interface (i.e., design) with too much.

Besides, isn’t this kind of hyperbolic overextension what “Marketing” is all about? Does nobody care that now Marketers have no real purpose let alone dominance?

Holacracy… old wine new bottles

 Business, Management, organization, society  Comments Off on Holacracy… old wine new bottles
Aug 292014
 

Found this article in the Globe and Mail (Say goodbye to hierarchy, hello to holacracy) about the disappearance of hierarchy at some “cool” businesses (such as Zappos). It’s essence is per the following definition:

Holacracy is a social technology or system of organizational governance in which authority and decision-making are distributed throughout a fractal holarchy of self-organizing teams rather than being vested at the top of a hierarchy

Since it’s only been in existence since 2007 and seems to be favoured by new economy, technology-based businesses and not-for-profits, it might be a little early to tell whether there is broad merit in the approach. Having self-contained, self-directed units makes complete sense and aligns with many features of nature and certainly of “Complexity” and “Emergence” theories. I’d say generally I’m in favour with the caveat that there are limits to its relevance.

Take the military, for instance and as a deep-relief example of where hierarchy is necessary. While it makes sense that battalions or platoons or fleets or squadrons, in combat, be enabled with self-direction over their own activities to achieve clear goals (this is fundamental), you can’t run an army that way. That kind of organization needs, at its broadest levels, timely and ongoing coherence in purpose and action fast. Holacracy would tend toward incoherence in the short run, though it might be more valuable and effective in the long run. So, organisations that need to be coherently directed toward a possibly fluid goal with a minimum of evolutionary trial and error as the holocratic parts bump into one another might not be right for this structure.

That generally describes large enterprises of the money making or other variety. But even as I type this I wonder if the issue is not black and white but many shades of grey. That is holocracy at one level does not mean hierarchy at another. Perhaps there is harmonious combination of these two structures that would be generally applicable. Maybe that’s been considered by the creator of the idea and/or its various evangelists, including Ken Wilbur.

The article I’ve tagged makes the point but, truth be told, I didn’t read it that closely to know whether it only mentions government or dwells on it. There is a statement to the effect of this being how government works and isn’t it ironic that after so long being told government should be more like business, it’s business that is now being told to be more like government… is? I don’t know about that, but again it could be the degree of magnification. Yes, government departments and agencies do operate as holon. So in that respect, I get it. But, within those departments and agencies I’ve yet to see anything but wicked, rank-respecting, bloated and unwieldy hierarchy.

There is, however, one area of government that is definitely holacracy. That is the confederation as Canada is structured with its provinces being largely independent parts loosely held together by the national centre (federal government), and as Switzerland is with its cantons being practically distinct and unrelated units. These work to greater and lesser degrees. One can find wonder or horror in the structure depending on what you choose as a focus.

In any case, it smells a bit like old wine in new bottles. Nostalgia being dusted off and sold for more than its worth. Harumpf.

 

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