If you are working for someone else, anyone other than yourself, your job is temporary. It may last 30 years, but it is temporary because you are working for someone else. You may lose your job. You would need a crystal ball to know when your job.
Given this challenging economy, and the fear that comes from having a temp job in a difficult time, you may ask yourself, what can you do? This is a complex question because it is really several questions:
- What can you do to keep your current job?
- What can you do to get your next job?
- What can you do to get a new job at your current employer?
- What can you do to have the most job security?
I don’t like asking 4 questions without answers, so here are some answers to these questions. Here are my 4 brief solutions:
What can you do to keep your current job? You can be so valuable that you your employer cannot do without you. You can become the best known, the best educated, the best qualified for your job, and as long as you are not the CEO of your company, you can become trained, certified, educated and experienced at doing your boss’ job, your co-workers’ jobs. But there is more to it than that. You need to help your managers and executives KNOW that you are the most well qualified, the smartest, the most creative, in short, you need to make sure that the people responsible for hiring and firing YOU, know that you are the very best at everything that you are the best at.
What can you do to get your next job? First, figure out what and where your next job will be. Figure out what you want to do, and who you want to work for. Find out what that person or company needs, and figure out what YOU can do to contribute to their success. When you are looking for a job, it is NOT about you, it is about what you can do for someone else. Know what that company needs and be the person who can do what is needed.
Hired!
What can you do to get a new job at your current employer? Here is an important thing to remember. The company that you already work for is likely to be the best place to find a new job. There are two great reasons for this. The first is that they know you. They know your performance. They know your skills, your abilities. They don’t have to figure out anything about hiring a new employee, adding a new person to their payroll, onboarding a new person. The second reason is that for you to get a job at a new employer, your package of knowledge, skills and abilities have to be so overwhelmingly positive that you are worth the risk. Look where you are at, talk to people. Find your opportunity!
Which brings us to my 4th solution.
What can you do to have the most job security? The answer to this question is simple. Work for the one person in the world who would NEVER fire you. WORK for YOURSELF. Find a passion, develop your abilities, learn something unique and valuable, start your own company. Provide something new, something great, something unique, something creative. Figure out what gives you your own unique and personal professional competitive advantage, and figure out a way to profit from it. Charge what you are happy receiving, work at what you are proud of and carve your own niche, whether it is microscopic, or enormous.
If you know what you CAN do – your next question is, what SHOULD you do? That is an answer for another day.
July 29th, 2010
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Fortune Magazine interviewed Jeff Bezos recently in Seattle. He drew a difference between Kindle and the iPad – “I think there are going to be a bunch of tablet-like devices, its really a different product category. The Kindle is for readers”
“Amazon accounted for about 80% of all electronic book sales last year” Amazon reported a profit of $299 million last quarter, and electronic book sales are a huge component of that. Amazon has about 600,000 books available, and sells, on average, about 24 eBooks per year, per Kindle. I understand the Kindle. (I may understand it better than investors, who have lowered Amazon’s stock since the recent Kindle price cut.) Amazon’s profit from the Kindle works like Gillette’s profit from selling its latest razors. The razors don’t matter. Sure, Gillette makes money from the latest, but the blades are the real source of profit. That article suggests it, but it is easier to understand when you realize the math behind 24 ebooks per Kindle, per year. Apple hasn’t released numbers for their iPad, but the iPad isn’t limited to books. It can download apps, music, books, and every other “blade” that Apple can make available to it.
So – back to the Ipad. 
From a technology perspective, from a capabilities perspective and from every other perspective, it is crystal clear that there is nothing unique, revolutionary or special about the iPad. I didn’t understand why Apple would build it or why users would buy it. It made no sense to me. The market slice is between Kindle, Nook, Droid, iPhone, Netbooks and PCs is razor thin. Why build and position a device between them?
Yet, for some reason, iPads sell, amazingly. Why? I’ve tried to make sense of the iPad. I’ve tried to figure out why and failed repeatedly. Is it the existing user base? Certainly that has a lot to do with it, but if you already have an iPod touch, an iPhone, an iPod, and an Apple Mac, do you really need an iPad? Conversely, if you have an app, or a song and it is already in the iStore, do you need to sell to the same user-base that’s already bought it? When you’ve seen Microsoft’s Origami succeed at nothing and it was essentially the iPad minus Apple’s marketing, when you’ve seen Dell and HP fail to sell touchpad computers in any real volume, and when you already have iPod, iPod touch, and iPhone – why put the money into development of an upsized iPod touch-like “me-too” device.
I’ve found the answer in a most unlikely place. I was amazed when it finally clicked. I was reading Eddie Alterman’s editorial in the July 2010 Car and Driver magazine. I thought it was such an odd place for digital and technology enlightenment. Shoot, it was in the PRINT version, and I couldn’t find a link anywhere to a web-version. The interesting thing were his thoughts about the iPad. He sees the iPad as the cutting edge slicing the distinctions between print and digital media. The iPad is a “convergence of print and digital values (that) will give writers, editors and art directors all kinds of opportunities to deliver more engaging, more entertaining and more useful stuff.”
The iPad is an animal that eats brand new kibble. Media wants to feed it. Media wants it to succeed. For every small-town or mid-market newspaper that has canned its entire local news group. iPad might be an answer for all the people who want media in the 21st century to find a way to be profitable. Eddie suggested how this one device acts as a shining star lighting up a dark sky – beating back the gloomy futures that writers feared. Creators of content and consumers of content can converge at the iPad. In that place it makes enormous $ense. For media that wants to feed the iPad in a quasi-desperate sort of staving off extinction gasp, iPads, Nooks and Kindle’s are magical. Still – does the iPad make sense for Apple?
Of course, and it goes way beyond Amazon’s philosophy for the Kindle. Look at it this way: If you could sell 3 million razors in the first 80 days - you might not need to sell any blades at all. At this point, I could buy a fair netbook for $300, a kindle for $169, and have two devices instead of an iPad. Those two devices would enable me to read anything, go wireless, Skype, run a bunch of programs, and generally do a dozen times what the iPad does. So, in those terms, the iPad makes no sense. Somehow, Apple sells millions of “that which makes no sense.” That makes enormous financial sense for Apple. iPad = $$$$$.
Do they truly have no competition able to compete with their marketing prowess and consumer evangelism?? Why not? What do you think the next Apple media-consumption device will be?
June 29th, 2010
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Mark Richtel has a great article in The New York Times today about “Your Brain On Computers.” In Mark’s article, and in another by Christine Lagorio on Inc Magazine, the following scenario is described:
Someone wanted to buy Kord Campbell’s startup for $1.3 million dollars. They sent him an email. He didn’t see the email for 12 days, and only saw it when he was sifting through old messages.
Most of both articles describe the kind of constant attention deficit disorder inducing characteristics of technology. They describe email, chats, web browsing and an “electronic flood.” Kord’s electronic flood is pictured here. My personal own electronic flood that looks like this:
The thing is – EVERYONE has an electronic flood. In view of that fact, losing a million dollar email… is silly.
To clarify – It is NOT silly to lose an email. I get hundreds of emails daily; I have filters that delete many of them before I ever see them and I assume MOST people have filters and volume attached to their own personal floods. What I want to more clearly say is that it is silly to begin a million dollar deal with just an email. Email has lots of great characteristics, but it doesn’t generally have any verifiable receipt. I’m not talking about doing the return receipt requested. When you fire off an email and send a message, there is really not an adequate way to know that the person you sent it to has actually gotten it. If they do get it, you really have no way to know when they got it.
Given the electronic flood that everyone now lives with: Anyone who wants to do a million dollar deal should send a paper copy, a fax, make a phone call, send a text AND follow up with a phone call and/or a face-to-face meeting. (via Skype or whatever, if there are geographical considerations) This would be a great idea for deals done via fax, mail, phone, text message, instant messenging, tweet, Facebook, or any other type of other new or old media.
Newer electronic forms of communication are tremendously convenient, but as the saying goes, there’s no substitute for being there. If the offer is that valuable, then it merits sending in multiple communication formats – and at least one of the types of communication used really ought to be a bit traditional.
When you reach out and touch someone with a valuable message, even if it is not a million dollar offer, you have a responsibility to be certain they get the offer that you sent. If a message is valuable, spend the time to make sure it gets to the intended recipient with the intended information. Put time, effort and yourself into your communication. When a message is likely to be valuable, use a shotgun approach. Send multiple formats to ensure that your million dollar offer survives the electronic flood and then like the multiple pellets in a shotgun shell, you will have a greater chance of hitting your target.
Nobody wants to miss or lose a million dollar offer.
June 7th, 2010
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Mark Cuban is a billionaire, and is also a big fan of Reed Hastings. I am a very big fan too,
– because Reed has a strategy for competitive advantage that cannot be duplicated or beaten by any inauthentic company. Reed’s strategy is here, and also on SlideShare.
Mark points out one key element of Netflix success is that ”almost no customers leave cable for Netflix” That is important because it means that subscribers value Netflix in addition to cable. But why not? The most important competitive advantage that gets to the heart of “why.” The complete question – to be articulate – is WHY do customers value Netflix, and why will they continue to value Netflix?
Reed reveals that on slide 21 with a simple yet effective philosophy. His philosophy is to provide the best customer service. He stakes Netflix’ success on the ability to be a service of choice, to perform with and deliver to Netflix’ customers, to lead customer satisfaction across all of his current and potential competitors. He understands the amazing depth of competition coming at him from all directions. He understands where his business is going. He thinks that having the best customer service will be his singular competitive advantage.
Even if other companies never get the value of superior customer service, it would be to everyone’s advantage if they would try. It worked for Zappos, it is working for Netflix. I guess the real question is why WON’T other companies try harder?
In this presentation, Reed gives a great overview Netflix’ history of customer service leadership, and their go-forward strategy for “running fast” as he puts it. For Netflix, running fast is a race to provide the best customer service. They win when their customers win.
I like that and admire pretty much every business that uses innovation and superior customer service as a competitive advantage. Unfortunately, I suspect the effectiveness of superior customer service as a competitive advantage is only valuable because it is so rare.
How could that be changed?
June 4th, 2010
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Perhaps I should have said that Privacy Dies When Surrendered.
I think it is important to point out that when it is surrendered, Privacy dies. It evaporates. It withers. And privacy is essential. 
Shamable posted an interesting thought – on “Why Foursquare Will Trump Twitter.” Although they have a written an interesting article that explains what Foursquare does, and why it is useful, they are absolutely wrong. The problem with Shamable’s argument is that four-square is one more step down a slippery slope of privacy’s death. Since Privacy is essential to SO many people, Shamable isn’t right. How do we get from Foursquare to the death of Privacy?
There is a continuum between applications and the way they are used:
- Twitter= What are you doing?
- Foursquare = Where are you?
It isn’t going to be long until there are other killer apps that answer:
- What are you spending on?
- What do you want? (enough that you’re willing to spend for it)
- What do you have?
- “What do you hate?” (which may already be encompassed by Yelp)
- “What will you lie about – or – what have you lied about?”
- “What will you cheat on – or what have you cheated on?”
Microsoft probably missed an opportunity when they didn’t build “Where do you want to go” years ago when they used that phrase as their slogan.
So – here’s my point. Telling people… telling EVERYONE where you are, what you want, where you are going, what you want, and where you want to go… is like Orwell upside down.
There is no need for 1984 big-brother type government apparatus in a world where everyone abandons, surrenders and advertises the elements of their lives which they optionally could keep private. It would get VERY difficult for the Secret Service to meet their primary responsibilities if the President started using Foursquare on his blackberry. Imagine seeing things like this on Twitter:
BarackObama: I’m leaving the White House on Marine 1 headed to Andrews AFP on @foursquare!
BarackObama: I’m new Mayor of Washington D.C. “5-Guys” on @foursquare!
If it is so obvious why there are privacy issues for a public figure, why does everyone else want to advertise what they’re doing? When there are enormous downsides to giving up our publicity – aptly displayed by sites like “PleaseRobMe.com” explained in this Denver Post article. I was amazed to read that one of the people who’s information was shared on “PleaseRobMe” was interviewed and said that
“the power of wanting to share where you’re at and what you’re experiencing at the time is going to trump most people’s wariness.”
HUH? He is saying that people WANT to surrender privacy. People WANT to? Really? Why is that? Well, it is because sharing where you REALLY are, is real. I’m a big fan of Jesse Schell. He points out two important factors in his presentation:
1) Life is becoming very much LIKE a game and perhaps, life IS becoming a game
2) Because of everything simulated in our lives, authenticity has enormous value.
We have to be careful about surrendering privacy because surrendering privacy is surrendering liberty. Bruce Schneier explained it in one of my favorite articles in Wired a few years ago. He wrote in a simpler time, in a Pre-twitter, pre-Foursquare world. What he wrote is more applicable every day:
“The real choice is liberty versus control. Tyranny, whether it arises under threat of foreign physical attack or under constant domestic authoritative scrutiny, is still tyranny. Liberty requires security without intrusion, security plus privacy.”
Liberty requires security without intrusion, security plus privacy. When we surrender our own privacy, it dies. When privacy dies, Liberty may not be far behind. I’m not going into a future-courtroom where foursquare provides an alibi, or destroys one. The agents who killed Mahmoud al-Mabhouh – the Hamas operative, Assassination Tango would NEVER have checked in. Just imagine: @Gail arrives in Dubai on flight AF526 on @foursquare!
My argument is that Foursquare is not going to “trump twitter” as Shamable suggests. Both are components of privacy’s self-inflicted death. But people are not going to give up their privacy when they realize the enormous value of what they are surrendering. Privacy is a fundamental right. If you look at the Orwellian nightmare where War is Peace, Freedom is Slavery and Ignorance is Strength, foursquare is an example of… Privacy is Public. But it isn’t. It really isnt.
March 1st, 2010
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I was reading Kyle Lacy’s guest post in Dan Schawbel’s Personal Branding Blog this morning. In it, Kyle talks about reading Seth Godin’s blog post: “Sing It”. That feels like a horribly derivative place to begin. But neither Kyle nor Seth focuses on the right kind of Passion.
Passion is essential and it is elemental. Passion comes through crystal clear in writing and in life. Passion pushes words out like the Old Faithful geyser – prolifically, frequently and most of the time it pushes them in the same
direction, with great forceful power. Passion is fire below the geyser. Without passion, writing becomes a slow dripping faucet, simply irritating listeners, creating nothing but distraction. That provides zero appeal for the writer, and translates to zero appeal for readers. Without passion, ANYTHING you do will work in sort of the same way. Think about that. Without passion, you are just going through motions that you don’t even care about.
Passion is essential, necessary and sufficient. It cannot be simulated or faked and like Tom Cruise said about Porsche in “Risky Business”, there is no substitute. Kyle writes in his blog post, “Devote time and energy to the process and you will experience return.” That is wrong because it misses the point. I think it is important to:
Find a process that inspires you so that time and energy flow out with passion. Find a subject that stokes the creative fires under your personal geyser until the pressure forces your ideas out – repeatedly, powerfully and prolifically.
February 18th, 2010
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Brian Solis makes a point on his blog that Social Media Optimization is the new SEO. He makes great points, but he is wrong. To me, the funny thing is that it is NOT. Social Media Optimization is merely one component. I think what we want is discovery optimization.
Discovery is an ocean, and Social Media Optimization is just one branch of one river that leads to the ocean. Search Engine Optimization is another, advertising is another, word-of-mouth is another… Every method that customers traditionally use to find – to DISCOVER – are valid rivers. Every method of impacting or producing content that potential customers can use to discover is a river. If we want our oceans to get the most traffic, we should optimize the all of them. There should be optimized video feeds, blogs, micro-blogs, events, magazines…
Admitting that I have a problem is the first step to my personal recovery, and the problem here is that that there is no way to optimize EVERYTHING. Time, Money, Skill, Knowledge, and Objectives are all barriers to optimizing everything. My problem is that these resources are finite. They are limited. At times these resources are scarce.
Jeff Bullas latest blog entry looks at the relationship between social media and content marketing – and he has some numbers and some extremely effective charts displaying what marketers think they should know – what they think they should focus on. These charts show the things that marketers most want to concentrate on in 2010. (as a side note, Jeff”s is a great article also). My question is… WHY are these particular techniques, strategies and tactics the most important?
Given scarce resources, are these methods of Discovery Optimization the most EFFECTIVE? IS there data to suggest that in a world of
I think that given scarce resources, it is essential to put the most effort into the methods that produce the greatest return – the largest streams of customers, the largest conversion rates, the largest purchasing percentages.
What do you think? Is there a good way to tell which techniques and strategies are the most effective?
February 16th, 2010
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I ordered 2 dozen flowers and a vase on February 4th. I ordered it from 1-800-Flowers.com for February 11th delivery. I ordered it for delivery on the 11th because I wanted to make REALLY sure that it would be delivered by the 12th. I wanted to make REALLY sure that it was delivered in time for me to give to my wife on the 14th. Valentine’s day is not really a big holiday, but I didn’t want to forget it. I knew that there was bad weather, so I assumed that by ordering it 10 days before Valentine’s day and specifying
delivery 3 days before Valentine’s day – I would get it in time to deliver, yes, on Valentine’s day.
So – WHY did I order from 1-800-flowers.com? There are two reasons. The first is that I usually order from Teleflora, but last time I ordered through Teleflora for a delivery in Caribou, Maine, they delivered it to Danvers Massachusetts. Really? Yes. Seriously. They missed it by an entire state. Teleflora doesn’t really do flowers every time. In the case of the flowers that I ordered for my Mother’s Birthday, Telaflora sent the order to a local florist in Danvers, Mass. Those flowers weren’t delivered on time. I put time and effort into getting flowers, and after getting some serious run-around from Teleflora, I decided to never order from them again. So I decided to either use Proflowers, or 1-800-flowers. Here’s where the second reason comes in. I saw an episode of “Millionaire Matchmaker” on TV and Patti Stanger was pushing 1-800-flowers. That was the tipping point for me. If these flowers were good enough for MILLIONAIRES, they were absolutely good enough for my wife.
Really? Yes. I am not a millionaire, but I want my wife to get some nice flowers for Valentine’s day. She deserves it. I have never really understood jewelry or flowers, but I understand that they are special to her, and that is important to me.
On the 10th, I got an email from 1800 Flowers. Things were starting to go downhill in my flower experience. The email said, “due to the extreme weather conditions, your order(s) may be delivered later than your requested date. “ That wasn’t any newsflash. I knew that weather was bad. That is why I ordered on the 4th. The 4th !!! Really. They also said that I could “get the most updated information by tracking your package on the carriers’ web site using the tracking number that we provided to you in the Shipping Confirmation email.” That was a problem because I did not get any shipping confirmation email. I was able to take my ORDER number, from my original order, and get a tracking number from the 800-flowers website. What it told me, on the 10th was that UPS had been given information, but had not picked up the package yet. This was on the 10th, but I had ordered it on the 4th. Valentine’s day is, like, a BIG day for flowers, right?
To clarify – On February 10th, my order for the 11th had not yet been picked up, and yet the flower company was blaming a late delivery on the shipping company.
Really. (*sigh*)
I thought – there was really NO excuse for this, so I called to cancel the order. They wouldn’t cancel it. I asked for a supervisor. They wouldn’t cancel it. It had not been shipped yet, but they could not cancel it because it had been ordered. Not shipped… ORDERED. Really!
Finally, I started emailing, chatting, and calling trying to get the order cancelled. I got the order cancelled. I thought my ordeal with the flower company was done. They promised a refund. I realized that there was a flower delivery service that could provide worse service than Teleflora – and I had picked it.
On the 11th, I drove to the local Lowes Foods Grocery Store and bought 2 dozen of their roses, recycled a vase from a previous rose gift/purchase, and put together an acceptable floral gift for my wife. Not great, but much better than nothing. She was thrilled. Really. Those are the roses above. They were very nice.
On the 12th I got an email saying that “Your Order number W00652302*****, detailed below, has been picked up by UPS and is on its way” Really? Yes. They cancelled the order, but they shipped the order.
So – I’m writing this because of two things. At 12:08pm today, I got an email from 1800 flowers.com “thanking me for shopping with them.” Did they miss the part where I cancelled the order? Really? At about 3pm, I got a knock on my door, and there were roses. Not the beautiful roses I expected – but a set of wannabe-roses that were NOT NEARLY as nice as the grocery store roses. Here’s a photo.
What’s the frosting on the cake? After I got that pathetic excuse for flowers, I went back to the email from 1-800-flowers. Sure enough, there it was “We’d love to hear about your experience. Click here and tell us what you liked about it or what we can improve–we welcome and appreciate feedback from all our customers.”
So – I thought, bad delivery, bad customer service, bad communication, bad flowers, bad timing – I will let them know what I thought. I clicked on the “click here” and guess what – the link goes to a survey that is “closed!” ARGH. I would like to say, there might be another way that they could have done worse, but I just can NOT imagine what it might be. In the same way that “Websites that Suck” taught good web design by showing the worst, I’ve learned so MUCH about good customer service… but experiencing the opposite. Really.
As a post script: I got an email about these, here’s the photo of both of them. The Grocery store roses, from Lowes foods, were about 36.00 for 2 dozen. The 1-800 flowers roses were about $64.
February 15th, 2010
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The Internet Wins the Nobel Peace Prize!
Well, this is a bit preemptive, but it is still serious.
The Internet has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize. Wired Magazine nominated the Internet, and it has been endorsed, and is being seriously considered. The Nobel Peace Prize is extremely prestigious and I’m sure that the Internet is delighted to win. But what about the monetary award that goes with the Nobel Prize?
During WWI and WWII, there were several years when the prize money was added back to the prize fund. I am curious though – When the Internet wins, who gets the prize? 4 people come to mind: Vinton Cerf, Tim Berners-Lee, Bob Kahn and Al Gore. Any of them might be deserving, and all of them might have good uses for the money.
I propose that when the Internet wins, the Nobel Foundation should donate the Nobel Prize money to the International Red Cross, to help Haiti. I ask that each of these deserving recipients, and also Wired Magazine individually and collectively support that, as well.
This is fitting for a number of reasons. The Internet, as a Prize Winner is strong and valuable in times of political unrest; but it is most powerful in situations of strife and tragedy. The International Red Cross has won the Nobel Peace Prize 3 times – in 1917, 1944, and 1963, and the human suffering and human toll in Haiti is current, tragic, and perhaps the best place for those funds to go, today. Donating that prize to the International Red Cross for Haiti Relief efforts would do the most good, now.
What do you think?
February 7th, 2010
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One of the most difficult things to do in business and in life, is to Sell. It doesn’t matter what, or why, or where, or in what context, or even to whom. It is very difficult to sell because under almost all circumstances, when you sell something, you are getting someone to pay for something. They are paying with currency, with time, with attention, with something that they already value. That payment has existing and perhaps intrinsic value to them, but the thing they are buying, or buying into – it only has potential value. At its heart, the act of selling, is giving someone the confidence that the value they will receive equals or exceeds the value they are voluntarily giving up. To sell someone requires that they have faith. That is the singular reason why it is difficult. You are getting someone to give something that they know is already their hand for something that might be in a bush.
Mark Cuban recently wrote an insightful article asking “Why have so many internet people lost touch with reality.” His point, distilled to a sentence was: “Content changes, the value of content changes, and those changes require reevaluations of where value comes from and the business models that harvest that value – and some executives don’t understand.” He was discussing the value of search, the value of information, the value of aggregation – and how, when those values shift, it is important to keep up. Competitive advantage and value is available for people who read the tealeaves of the changing internet accurately – with regard to content quality, information, aggregation search and sales. With regards to content, that means finding the value at the intersection of these qualities:
(a) timely, intelligent, reliable content
(b) thoughtful management of that content
(c) structure that is helpful, useful and functional
(d) interested users (information consumers)
(e) unique elements
I think that interesting, deep thought in people who can eloquently communicate is nearly extinct. So it is a winning formula to find a way that information consumers can reliably find useful, functional, intelligent unique content, services or products when they need it. The reason it is important to give consumers that sort of information was aptly described by Jonathan Schwartz (the former Sun CEO who playfully resigned via haiku) wrote this in his blog:
“why is the search business so valuable? Because it’s an exceptionally efficient means of harvesting intentionality – if a consumer is searching for “flights to Cairo,” the odds are good she’s in the market for a trip to Egypt. That intent represents a ton of value for the airlines, hotel chains and car rental companies that serve travelers to Egypt. Whoever first recognizes that intent can broker a relationship between the traveler and those businesses, and charge a healthy toll for the privilege (that’s the heart of on-line advertising). A discount airfare to Cairo, presented alongside the results of a “flights to Cairo” search, has a far higher likelihoodof generating a ticket purchase than an unqualified billboard or ad in a newspaper. It’s easier to find needles in haystacks when the haystacks are sorted by needle count.”
I love his idea of sorting haystacks to find needles and his concept of harvesting intentionality… Search is a great business because it is constantly evolving and constantly producing value. It is one of the many ever-changing things about the internet. There have been search leadership changes since the internet was created – and at various times the quantity of total search has gone to various search engines. I’ve personally gone from AltaVista, Yahoo, to Google, and over the years used at least a dozen other engines and aggregators – Excite, Hotbot, Dogpile, and many others.
There are two constants to search engines:
1) It is ENORMOUSLY easier to discuss and theorize about “sorting haystacks by needle count” than to it is to actually sort them.
2) Although it is easier to find needles in haystacks when you can sort the haystacks by needle count – the easiest way to find a needle in a haystack is to have a great big powerful magnet in a world of great big metallic needles and non-metallic hay.
For a consumer trying to find something, search gives an idea of which haystacks might have needles. But from the search engine company’s perspective, we live in a world where haystacks are consumers, and needles equate to a really nebulous “purchasing-intentionality.” Jonathan Schwartz discussed harvesting them. Mark Cuban discussed harvesting them. Google, currently, is harvesting that as well as anyone because they have a sort of magnetic control. (and a >85% market share)
Mr. Schwartz was correct in pointing out that people searching for “flights to Cairo” are probably considering a trip to Egypt… but he could have gone further and added that people searching on weather forcast in Cairo might also be interested in that trip. There are long lists of haystack sort algorithms that come from search engine activity. Advertisers, marketers and SEO experts and savvy business people have analyzed tha for yars. How about “hotel reviews in Cairo” or Searches for Egypt Air CAI”. Getting access to this sort of intent enables Google and Bing to harvest the intent.
The intent, however, is not the sale. The intent is not the trip, or the purchase. So – what is MY point?
Harvesting intent has amazing value, but harvesting action is a more valuable objective. Harvesting interest is great, but businesses wants results. A business wants to harvest sales. The closer the intent is to the action, the more intrinsic value that intent has. Bing has named itself a “decision engine” because they want to be closer to the action than the intent. If they can produce on that, their data will grow exponentially. From the reverse perspective, if Google or any other SEARCH engine really wants to maximize the revenue from their search data (to clearly enumerate how organized their haystacks are) they need to get more ingrained in the entire purchase process. Bing is investing in that process now, and Yahoo has had an internal shopping site for years. It seems a missed opportunity that the data from years of running Yahoo’s shopping site doesn’t seem to have given Yahoo any significant competitive advantage.
Microsoft’s failure to acquire the complete Yahoo, although not necessarily a good thing for Microsoft if it would have been completed at the astonishing $44 billion that they first offered, ultimately means that Microsoft can’t use Yahoo’s internal data. As a condition of Microsoft’s agreement with Yahoo,
“The agreement protects consumer privacy by limiting the data shared between the companies to the minimum necessary to operate and improve the combined search platform, and restricts the use of search data shared between the companies. The agreement maintains the industry-leading privacy practices that each company follows today.”
Microsoft wants Bing to be a decision engine. Why call it that? To me, that subtitle suggests an engine for harvesting decisions -
for harvesting action. They probably wanted Yahoo’s data to provide magnetism to their Bing. Not having that data doesn’t mean they can’t give Bing that quality, that value, that ability - but they must still transparently, logically, clearly and reliably aggregate activity, and more clearly connect search activity to harvesting intent to predicting and facilitating sales. That will be serious paradigm shift. I almost named this entry “When a piece of metal hits a magnet it makes a “Bing” sound.” That may yet be a more appropriate title. It will be important to keep up with the changes, going forward.
What do you think? Drop me a note.
February 5th, 2010
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