ChaosScenario

The Value of Y-O-U

2009-11-19T09:30:38-06:00

Recently I read Value-Based Fees: How to Charge and Get What You're Worth by Alan Weiss. I've coveted this book since I wrote Innovation by the Hour last year. After I worked through my rather large (and growing) stack of reading material, I finally was able to get my hands (and eyes) on it, and I am glad I did! (Thanks to Lisa for the recommendation).

Many, if not most, people in service industries bill for time and material. This is problematic in industries whose output includes ideas, for who is to say when (or on whose dime) ideas were generated? Who owns the idea formed in an employee's head if it never sees the light of day?

Weiss argues that the problem is far more pernicious. Many of the headaches involved in consultancy or agency relationships stem from a systemic flaw in their billing methods. Weiss says it plainly: It's "simply crazy" for consultants to base fees on time and materials. When you sell value and do your job correctly, you maximize your margin while ensuring the client feels like they got a bargain.

That is the definition of a "good deal."

The book is well-written, memorable, and at times shockingly honest. Weiss says he's glad his accountant hasn't read his books, because he'd pay a lot more if he had to pay for value, not for time and materials.

He also practices what he preaches. The Kindle version of the book, which obviously does not require printing or distribution fees, is still $32, which is much more than typical new releases sell for on the Kindle, and not much less than the printed version, brand new. This is because Weiss is selling an idea and techniques to implement it, not paper and ink.

That idea in the book is worth the same regardless of the method in which it's distributed. And if you're currently billing by time and material, at $32 or $100, it really is a bargain.

The Supply and Demand of You
Weiss claims that "There is no law of supply of demand in the consulting profession." What he's referring to is that the fees you charge should have nothing to do with your supply of hours in a day, week, month or year.

However, as Weiss himself iterates elsewhere, there is only one person in the universe who is the product of your education, skills and experience. The supply of you is exactly one.

The question, then, is what is the demand for that product? It depends on what value you mutually establish.

What are the client's business objectives?
How will success be measured?
What results can you deliver against these objectives and metrics?

You, as a product, may be of significant value to a client, regardless of how much time you need to spend on a project, as long as you are willing to believe in your value enough to make yourself accountable to actual, measurable results. Do the work necessary to educate the client and establish agreement on what your goals are.

Then you can both come away confident that you've been successful at meeting those goals. The client will feel like they got a bargain, and you will come away knowing you've been adequately compensated for your expertise.

Pick up the book today. You'll be glad you did. - Cam Beck

What is "The Fun Theory" really worth?

2009-11-13T08:23:59-06:00

A couple of people took note of VW's campaign "The Fun Theory." Most recently Corley suggested it "further's VW's corporate social responsibility." Ultimately, I believe she is correct in saying that, but it's a broad statement begging to be unpacked.

To be sure, this campaign isn't about VW being socially responsible. It's about VW wanting others to associate the word "Fun" with VW.

The campaign is simple, unexpected, concrete, and each of the demonstrations have the trappings of a story, and presumably the effort is designed to get people excited about the possibilities (emotion). Together, all of these are components of a sticky message (PDF).

But is it credible?

Let's take a look at some of the videos that are currently on their website.

One is the piano. The question is "How do we get more people to take the stairs instead of the escalator." According to VW, the answer is to make the stairs FUN, of course.

I guess that's one way to do it, if you have $40K (or whatever) to spend on labor and materials. The problem, in this case, is that the owners of the stairs get no benefit from such an investment.

Additionally, their efforts may actually lead to injuries due to people trying to play a song on the stairs. There's no fun in that. I'll bet VW won't post any videos of anyone falling down the stairs.

The other, more cost-effective way to do it, without unnecessarily increasing the temptation to be careless on the stairs, is to turn off the escalator. It doesn't cost a thing (it actually saves electricity), and the number of people who use the stairs instead of the escalator increases to 100%.

It reminds me of something I read from Roger von Oech. I'll do my best to not butcher it in my retelling.

Villagers of a certain town were horrified to discover evidence that they had been burying people alive. Exhuming a coffin, they found that the lid had been clawed by the (currently) deceased. Upon this discovery, they exhumed a few more graves and found many others with these same characteristics, letting them know that it was a normative problem.

The elders were gathered together to figure out how to deal with this. They came up with two ideas.

One idea was to run a string into the grave with the person believed to be deceased. One end of the string would be tied to the hand of the one they buried. The other would be tied to a bell in the graveyard. If the grave keeper heard the bell, he'd discover its source and save the person buried alive. The focus of this effort was to ensure no one was buried alive.

The other idea was to build a large spike into the coffin top, so that when it was closed, it pierced the heart of the body in it. The focus of this effort was to ensure that everyone buried was dead.

As I mentioned to Corley, the issue I have with the effort is that some of them are impractical, and I suspect VW knows that. What they're trying to do is give people a reason to think of "fun" when they think of VW. Regardless of whether the association has validity with respect to their automobile choices, if people believe it to be true, it may as well be.

However, if this effort gets people thinking about the ways they can increase the "fun quotient" in their user experience, they can increase adoption rates. This is laudable not only from a social standpoint, but also from a business standpoint.

Notably, it doesn't have to be an investment of tens of thousands of dollars unless there is a corresponding financial benefit for making the investment.

Whatever the case, I'm interested in seeing other entries in this campaign. Keep track with me at TheFunTheory.com, or enter one yourself. - Cam Beck

Happy Birthday, U.S. Marine Corps

2009-11-10T08:00:49-06:00

Follow @USMC on Twitter.

Have a Solemn "Freedom Appreciation Day"

2009-11-09T09:10:24-06:00

For the East-bloc countries and those bordering them, there was a long buildup to November 9, 1989 -- now recognized as the day the Berlin Wall fell. Those of us living in West Berlin were abuzz with anticipation because the cries for freedom began to crack the Iron Curtain.

Still, if you'll pardon the pun, nothing was set in stone. In February of that same year, Chris Gueffroy and Christian Guadian, believing the standing order to shoot those who tried to escape had been lifted, made an attempt to breech the wall. Guadian was captured, and Gueffroy was shot dead. The border guards fired 10 bullets into his chest.

In March, an electrical engineer named Winfried Freudenberg and his wife, Sabine attempted to build a balloon to carry them both across the wall, but when a student reported them to the police before balloon was ready, the Freudenbergs decided to send just Winfried across. The police did not attempt to shoot at Winfried as he crossed, because they feared causing an explosion, since the balloon was filled with natural gas.

The balloon crashed in West Berlin, and Winfried died instantly.

In the course of the Berlin Wall's existence, official records indicate 171 people died trying to escape to freedom, including 18 year old Peter Fetcher, who bled to death after being shot in 1962. You can imagine the impact seeing a grave marker dedicated to him had on me, a 15 year old high school student.

How could they not know it would come to this?

Three days into the wall's construction, East German guard Conrad Schumann, seeing his opportunity to experience freedom coming to an end, famously abandoned his rifle and darted to the West. Now free, he settled in Bavaria and lived a long life separated from his former friends, colleagues and family, but never felt at ease about the entire experience. Said Schumann, "Only since 9 November 1989 have I felt truly free." Sadly, he hanged himself in 1998.

The grass is always greener on the outside of the prison bars, but as the tragic case of Conrad Schumann shows us, being outside of them doesn't guarantee happiness.

The curse of freedom is still superior to the blessings of compulsion

In history we have seen plenty of formidable walls. However, in most cases, they were constructed to keep enemies out and to protect their own citizens and property. Until the Berlin Wall, they were never meant to keep entire peoples prisoners in their own countries.

But in the years since reunification, the people of the East have discovered that freedom isn't easy, and it certainly isn't free. The blessing of freedom is that people may succeed as far as their abilities, will, and not a small amount of luck allow them. However, success is not guaranteed. It's assured, in fact, that some efforts will fail -- and fail miserably. And sometimes it's hard to recover from failure.

Not only that, but there are plenty of fraudulent peddlers, hooligans and ne'er-do-wells willing to separate a fool and his money. Having once been separated of one's life savings, it's natural to be skeptical of one's own judgment -- or the system that doesn't protect ourselves from it.

Without the symbolic -- but tangible -- manifestation of oppression that the Berlin Wall gave us, I fear we may be blind to the invisible barriers erected right before our unseeing eyes.

Yes, being free means we can go from place to place without fear of being shot in the chest and be left to die in a puddle of our own blood.

But that's only part of it.

Freedom also means we may risk everything -- dedicate all of the time we spent learning how to do something and the money we've accumulated in our lives -- for a chance to provide something of value to others -- even if our motivations are self-serving. We have the freedom to succeed, yes. But comparable social reciprocation means that we cannot compel others to keep us from failing. That would infringe on their freedom.

Or so goes the theory. Recent events show us that even countries we consider to be bastions of freedom may contradict the values they claim to aspire to.

What will we do about it? Are we so dedicated to the proposition of freedom that we are willing to face whatever consequences come in its pursuit?

The good news is that we probably don't face the same risks that Chris Gueffroy, Winfried Freudenberg and Peter Fetcher faced.

The bad news is that we still may be compelled to keep others from failing under penalty of imprisonment (try to not pay your taxes that are paying for the bailouts if you doubt me).

But, unlike Conrad Schumann, we have nowhere to run.

Our best hope, then, is to guard the gates of freedom so that we are the place everyone wants to escape to. We must jealously protect our freedoms, which means we must know history well enough to recognize when they might be in jeopardy.

Today, the anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, is as good a day as any to remind ourselves of that. But instead of wishing you a happy "Freedom Appreciation Day" just to give you another reason to celebrate with fireworks and barbecue, let me wish you a solemn one, instead -- so that we never forget our awesome responsibility. - Cam Beck

Beware of Zombies

2009-10-20T08:21:31-05:00

Facing a deadline for my contribution to the Click Here blog, I finally settled down on a subject. However, it was a bit different from the one I previously said I'd write about. John Keehler asked to see it before I posted it, so I took the opportunity to tell him that I had changed subjects, but -- not to worry -- he'd love it.

"Is it about zombies," he asked.

And I thought about it.

No, it really wasn't, but it with a tweak here and an insertion there -- it very well could be. Or at least I could use them as an analogy to make the point.

Home pages have historically been a hotbed of contentious debate. Because of this, they are what Steve Krug called “The First Casualty of War.”

Why are they so controversial?

Because everyone wants a piece of the action. Because organizations typically work in silos, different departments feel slighted if their discipline isn’t “adequately” represented on the home page. One would think by all the name-calling and weepy eyes that the home page is kind of a big deal.

And they’re right. The home page is – kind of – a big deal. But not for the reasons people tend to get worked up about. After all, typically, only 40% of traffic to a website comes through the home page.

But as a consequence of their inability to set boundaries and priorities, they compromise the very purpose of the page. Every piece of real estate is up for grabs. The result of all the haggling may actually, as Krug suggests, kill the home page. But unlike a typical dead thing, it doesn’t go away. Like a zombie, it is reanimated into an unrecognizable abomination of its formal self.

Read the rest of Your Home Page is a Zombie at the Click Here blog. - Cam Beck

The Lesson of Flight 93: Hope and Responsibility

2009-09-11T12:49:12-05:00

Like most of us, the events of September 11, 2001 affected me profoundly. I can still recall -- to the point of almost reliving it -- the shock, grief and disbelief that followed the most heinous attack on U.S. soil that cost about 3,000 lives in a day. Though we are still actively engaged in the global struggle against those who still wish us harm, it is wholly fit and proper to mark the anniversary by reflecting on the bravery and nobility of all of those who strive to protect us from harm. Perhaps no act of sacrifice and fortitude deserves more attention and appreciation than that of our true first responders: The passengers and crew of Flight 93.

Whether by chance or fate, these passengers found themselves in an untenable position. Their plane had been hijacked, and the hijackers led the passengers to believe that they would be held for ransom -- which had been a fairly common practice of pirates and terrorists for centuries. There was sufficient precedent to believe that would be their fate.

However, when they discovered that other terrorists had flown into the World Trade Center in New York City, while everyone else was scrambling around trying to figure out what was happening, the passengers of Flight 93 detected the intent of their abductors and made a crucial, defiant decision.

Here we stand or here we fall. We know not what others will do, but as for us, we will not let that happen.

Self-preservation can be a powerful ally or a deceptive mistress. It would have been very tempting to assume, in spite of their knowledge of what was happening elsewhere, that somehow their situation was different -- that those other flights were the warnings, and their aircraft was meant to be the bargaining chip.

I'm constantly humbled and will forever be grateful for their example.

Though I pray I never find myself in a similar situation, I remind myself that life is made of a bunch of choices -- both big and small. We may fight or wait. Struggle or malinger. Speak up or sit down.

Our responsibility as a human beings, as citizens, is to take whatever circumstances that come to us -- big and small -- and to apply the example of our heroes from Flight 93 as best we can.

As demonstrated by those who murdered thousands on that day, there is surely evil in this world. But the very fact that those passengers -- of different backgrounds and motivations -- could set aside whatever their differences were, recognize their responsibility to unite as one to fight injustice where it stood -- and do it -- gives us hope for humanity.

The police, firefighters and military members who responded on that day and since to nobly take up arms in defense of justice did so willingly and ably, and they deserve our respect and gratitude.

But we must also recognize the limitations of any system that strives to protect liberty. These people take precautions and set up barriers against those who would do us harm (or against us, if our actions may be harmful to others), but too many times they cannot act until after the fact. They cannot always be there at the point of need, at the time of need.

Therefore it is upon us, in times both dire and seemingly trivial (such as in the course of our everyday jobs as marketers, designers, etc.), to follow in the footsteps of the passengers and crew of Flight 93. To stare injustice in the face, no matter what is happening around us and say, "Here we stand."

Then, unified by our common understanding of justice, speak in one voice:

"Let's roll."

A Case for Moral Selfishness

2009-08-13T08:25:42-05:00

"[H]aving lived long, I have experienced many instances of being obliged, by better information or fuller consideration, to change opinions even on important subjects, which I once thought right, but found to be otherwise. It is therefore that, the older I grow, the more apt I am to doubt my own judgment of others." - Benjamin Franklin

I am a skeptic.

To an outside observer, my skepticism may look a lot like cynicism. I don't just believe people and companies are motivated by self-interest, I've seen it with my own eyes.

A person doesn't simply buy a book from Amazon because they believe it will help Amazon make money or employ more people. They buy it because they want or need the book for themselves -- either to inform, improve, or entertain. This is most often true when people realize that they're spending their own resources - they tend to spend it in a way that benefits them, not others.

If they're spending other people's money, they tend to be less careful with it.

This doesn't make everyone manifestly selfish, necessarily, because self-interest can indeed be naturally reconciled with service to others, without requiring one person to pick another's pocket to do so.

For instance, recently I bought and read A Project Guide to UX Design because I believed it would make me better at my job. Continuous personal improvement improves my marketability (self-interest), but only if my improvement leads me to help others get what they want (service to others).

I also get a lot of joy (self-interest) by making a tangible and substantial contribution to the financial success of other companies (service to others), their employees (service to others) and the satisfaction of their customers (service to others).

It's remarkable how often those things go hand-in-hand, when you work in a service industry, when regulations do not unnecessarily restrict your abillity to operate freely.

Once you realize that no one is more important to individuals than themselves, you tend to require stronger evidence that supports others' claims of all the great things you'll get if you just follow their lead.

A personality or "brand" may persuade you to be either less or more stringent with your requirements for evidence, which is just another way of saying that you trust those people and companies who have previously delivered on their promises, to the best of your knowledge.

However, healthy sketpicism, in light of moral self-interest, will allow the evidence to lead you wherever it may, even if it contradicts what you previously believed.

As a skeptic, I'll be the first to admit that the process is sometimes uncomfortable, but it also allows you to be less judgmental of other people's errors in thought and deed (which are intertwined), because you will realize that, in pursuit of your self-interest, you've managed a few whoppers yourself.

However, if there is a self-interest that should transcend all others, it should be the pursuit of the truth, which requires being capable of contradicting yourself when you find your thoughts and deeds to be erroneous. Do not let love or hate of either personalities or brands to stand in the way of your dedication to think critically. - Cam Beck

The Palmer Brothers Save Your Bladder at the Movies

2009-08-10T17:30:00-05:00

This is too long for a tweet and too good a nugget to neglect.

Here's a short snippet from Peter King of Sports Illustrated.

I think one of the things you may learn from the new season of Hard Knocks, beginning Wednesday on HBO and featuring the Bengals this year, is how open the network presents the normally reclusive Mike Brown, the club owner. And you may see a different side of Carson Palmer, who is bonding with brother Jordan, the backup quarterback, by developing iPhone applications in their down time. I'm praying for the network to use the story about runpee.com, which the Palmers developed to tell moviegoers when the best time would be to take a bathroom break. When you return, the iPhone could be programmed to tell you what you missed.

Little Wallet. Big World.

2009-07-28T12:37:16-05:00

The prevailing social climate suggests that the word "Big," put in front of everything, is arguably bad. Let's take a look at some of the bogeymen that pervade our popular lexicon:

Big Business
Big Tobacco
Big Banking
Big Media
Big Government

Opponents of such things derogatorily use the term when they're trying to incite public opinion against others. Typically (but not always), those who rail against what they describe in the first three groups are the same folks who are in or advocate the third and fourth.

Of the five groups, I've always tended to be more ambivalent to the first three than I have been to the last two, simply because they have the fewest opportunities to compel me to do anything.

Wal-Mart may be a big business, but I am not forced to shop there.
Phillip Morris may have a huge tobacco empire, and tobacco may be harmful to my health, but I'm not forced to smoke or to be around people who do, if I found the practice obnoxious.
Bank of America may have one of the world's largest banks, but I have plenty of options at my disposal if I did not care to use their services.

Freedom to Act
In each of these cases, I have meaningful choices. Collectively we determine the success of these enterprises, but someone else's choices, if he were to make different decisions, do not compel me to behave in the same manner as he.

By contrast, big government can compel both business and individuals to do any number of things. All they require is the full force of the law, the power to compel others, and either the willful compliance or apathetic acquiescence of the body of the people to get away with it.

In U.S. society, the durable power to compel is established through the Constitution of the various governments, and the particular powers and laws established under them represent the generational interests of society. However, the powers and laws of each generation have increasingly been created and enforced without respect to the durable law of the people.

Foxes and Hens: Natural Enemies
"That's democracy," you say.

But two foxes and a hen sitting around a dinner table voting on what's for dinner is not a durable basis for justice. A well heeled hen may be able to buy off the foxes for a while, but eventually all foxes reveal their true nature.

The Responsibility to Make a Profit
One would think that big businesses would recoil at the prospect of sharing a dinner table with those who can crush and are likely to eat them, but we've seen instead that they are more inclined to lie in bed with the foxes than try to fight them off.

In the short run, it's far less expensive to cope with unjust regulations than it is to fight them. Both turning public opinion and litigation are costly matters, especially when one of your opponents controls the lion's share of the media and the other can coerce even the unwilling to pay for investigations (no matter how rigged) and lawyers.

But large businesses have another motivation: The more regulations government passes, the more expensive it is to comply. The more expensive it is to comply, the better insulated larger businesses are against smaller competitors.

In other words, big businesses just stay big, or get bigger -- until at last the regulations by which they are bound strangle them out of existence, and government either lets them fail or "rescues" them with taxpayer money, with big business CEOs' willing hands extended, claiming they are "too big to fail," frightening just enough people to assent to the handout.

Just as Ayn Rand Predicted.
In this way, big business becomes virtually indistinguishable from big government in that, instead of relying on liberty-based market forces to determine their success or failure, they are able to manipulate the money right out of taxpayer hands, without respect to each person's individual choices to buy or not buy the products they make.

Everything has a cost, and sometimes we have to admit to ourselves that we can't afford it. The world is just too big to pay for everything for everybody.

We can mask the costs through layers of bureaucracy, but we cannot eliminate them. When we allow individual freedom to choose winners and losers in commerce, we can identify success and failure by the market's reaction to the collective personal choices each person willingly expresses for himself through his pattern of consumption.

Or we can take the position of the foxes sitting at the dinner table -- eager to take from others something that by right does not belong to us -- all the while claiming moral superiority behind a specious ruse of "democracy."

You can call that a lot of things, but it isn't liberty. - Cam Beck

Your Brand is Not My Friend: SXSW Extended Content

2009-07-09T09:20:01-05:00

Awhile back I nominated Alan Wolk's seminal work on branding through social media for a panel at South by Southwest in Austin, TX. They selected his topic for inclusion into their extended content.

The panel is moderated by AdWeek's Brian Morrissey.

Panelists, besides Alan, are Ian Schafer, Noah Brier, and Michael Lebowitz.

Unfortunately, there doesn't seem to be any way to embed the video directly, so I'm just providing a link to it from here. It's less than 20 minutes, long, but well worth the time.

Check out the SXSW Panel Discussion (Extended Content): Your Brand Is Not My Friend. - Cam Beck