|
|||
|
|||
|
FOCUS-POCUS B. Joseph Pine II and James H. Gilmore’s article debunking focus groups [The Great Lie, April/May 2001] raises a number of important questions about the state of market research today. Nearly everything about traditional qualitative and quantitative market research is used to reduce customers’ experiences to the lowest common denominator. Stale questions asked in stale environments don’t produce innovation. Besides, focus groups and most quantitative surveying techniques count on people to accurately describe what they do, but people are notorious for not behaving the way they believe they do. To Pine and Gilmore’s fine principles, I’d like to add a few of my own:
—Dave Norton
WISHING ON AN ONSTAR A recent experience reminded me of Dales Buss’s article on OnStar, the communications system that General Motors Corp. is installing in its vehicles [“Wishing on an OnStar,” October/November 2000]. I left Chicago one Saturday morning bound for Minneapolis in my company-owned GM Blazer equipped with OnStar. I was determined to make my daughter’s 2 p.m. volleyball game. I had had the vehicle for nine months. At the time of purchase, the dealer said that I’d have access to OnStar for one year. I had never used the feature until that Saturday. Five hours into the trip, I realized I was cutting it close, and I didn’t know exactly how to get to the high school in Blaine, Minn., where my daughter’s game was being played. I had an inspiration. I’d push the OnStar button, get directions to the game, and make it with time to spare. Wondrously, I would use the uplinks to geosynchronous orbiting satellites to communicate with an information-rich database manned by GM call center agents whose job was to make my driving experience a delight. I pushed the button. The link connected rapidly. The voice that was piped into my vehicle was loud and clear. It was pleasant. I asked for directions. Then began a litany of unexpected questions. When did I buy the car? What color is it? Who is the owner? Who is the corporate person responsible for fleet purchasing at my firm? Am I an OnStar member? Exasperated, I finally pleaded that I just wanted directions. “Please hold,” I was told. After 90 seconds, the verdict came back: “You only have emergency privileges at OnStar. I cannot give you directions. Thank you for calling OnStar.” Technology was then replaced by dead reckoning. I arrived at the school 30 minutes late for the game. It wasn’t the end of the world, but the almost-hostile response deeply lodged in my mind four thoughts:
Regards to your fine magazine and staff. —David A. Johnson
CONTEXT I subscribe to many magazines, but the quality of this magazine far exceeds the rest. Thanks. —Joe Gillespie
‘RAMPING’ UP THE WEB We greatly appreciated Peter Rosen’s article [Virtual Horizons, April/May 2001]. There is a terrible perception that disabled persons are all poor and rely on the government for their welfare. Not at all true. Our blind friends work very hard at their jobs, and they are very tech-savvy. They buy computers and software so they can see the world their own way. —Jay and Marie Berman
REVIVAL OF THE FITTEST Roger Fillion has hit the mark in his article [“Revival of the Fittest,” April/May 2001] on how Paul Julius Reuter—or “the Baron,” as Reuters employees still call him—and his successors grew an information business from sending news by pigeon to speeding it through cyberspace. His article, while strong on the technical advances that Reuters has always seized to its advantage, could have used a few more paragraphs about the guts of the Reuters business: its tireless journalists (including Fillion, some years back). Andrew Nibley’s anecdote about slipping and falling and crawling with a tattered suit to grasp a phone to call in a “snap”—the one-phrase flashes of top news that moved markets—was just one example of how a reporter’s best efforts would be greeted with, “So what have you done for me this hour?” Many risked their lives—some lost them—in covering stories that made front-page headlines in conflicts around the world. Still, I give Fillion an “A” for giving readers an inside and understandable view of the nuts and bolts of a worldwide information business. By the way, Nibley, despite being president of a major Internet music company in New York, is still wearing that same suit. —Michael L. Posner
COLLUSION DAMAGE David Choi’s article [Digital Strategy, April/May 2001] correctly pointed out that the Internet will have a far smaller impact on prices than had been imagined, despite a government-subsidized advantage (no sales tax). The Internet will still have a major effect on commerce, because it provides the convenience of anytime shopping, lets people buy in the privacy of their homes, and makes it easy to compare products. The only sustainable way to reduce pricing is to reduce costs. The key to selling commodities is cost. The infusion of “dumb money” created an illusion of lower costs by letting companies price unprofitably with a vague promise that scale would make everything better in the future. Internet companies rarely demonstrated any sustainable cost advantage, which is why many of them are fading as fast as the mirage of a consumer revolution around pricing. —Doug MacGregor
|
Get out into the field. What made General Electric Co. Chief Executive Jack Welch so successful was the amount of time he spent with his customers. At Yamamoto Moss, when we do field research for clients, we take them with us. They get to interview, observe, and interact with real people doing real things related to their business. The experience is revealing; it can even be transformational.