Tip from the Moderators

The Coherency Imperative

Art Kleiner of strategy+business wrote an article a couple of weeks ago that invited readers to take a survey developed by Booz & Co. that tells how coherent your business is. In reading through Mr. Kleiner's review of The Essential Advantage: How to Win with a Capabilities-Driven Strategy, by Paul Leinwand and Cesare Mainardi (Harvard Business Press, 2010), one thinks about a variety of companies and comes to the inescapable conclusion that most businesses are pretty incoherent.

Coherence, Mr. Kleiner says, is a lot more than just "having your act together;" in order to be coherent -- and thereby positioned to be successful -- the business has to be "resolutely focussed" on

• Market position -- how it stacks up against others who do what it does;
• Distinctive capabilities -- what makes it stand out, and how those capabilities work together; and
• Its products and services -- a list that maximizes the capabilities and market position.

We will grant that, if you look at the survey, the people Booz and Co. want to address are the big boys out there: the Hewlett-Packards, the Fords and the Universal Studios. For one thing, smaller businesses aren't usually in the mergers and acquisitions market -- and if you don't answer the question, the survey tells you to do so anyway, even if you have to lie about it. There are a couple of other questions that don't give you more than a yes/no option ("Is this way to create value understood by your customers and employees?"); we know of a lot of businesses where the answer is "no and maybe", but that's not a choice.

Still, Mr. Kleiner does list what the authors say coherence will bring to one's company:

• Effectiveness, meaning that a company puts its resources into not just the products and services that give the company the best chance to succeed, but also puts it into its own internal systems;
• Efficiency, meaning that instead of having (for example) accounting departments for each division, the company has a consistent, uniform system throughout.
• Focused investment, meaning that the company puts its resources into those capabilities that differentiate it, as opposed to those capabilities that equate to "me, too."
• Alignment, meaning that the company clearly articulates, not just to its employees but its customers as well, what it does -- and that forms the basis for all decision-making.

One has to be a little liberal in one's definitions to put that into the context of small- and medium-sized businesses, but the same rules apply. It's not enough to "have your act together"; nobody cares if you think you know what you want to do if you can't communicate it to both the people who have to do the work -- your employees -- and the people who you're dependent on -- your customers.

Running a business -- in case you haven't been reading the papers for the last couple of years -- is tough. You can be the best furniture store/restaurant/plumber in town, but if your employees aren't buying it, and your customers are getting the message from your employees, then it's a good bet that someone will come along to compete with you. There's nothing wrong with competition; most of the time, having someone competing with you doesn't make your slice of the pie appreciably smaller; it makes the pie bigger. But if you want to maintain your market position, you have to look at what you're doing, and ask yourself "is what we're doing the best we can do for our customers?"

Most people don't ask; for that matter, most people don't realize (until it's too late) that they can ask, and that they can answer "no, it's not." Ask the good people from GM who decided that investing in an entire division to build Hummers about that. Not only were they already in a bit of trouble because they were up to their elbows in a lot of bad loans through their financing division; they then went out and decided to build big huge gas guzzlers at a time when gasoline prices were on the rise. Brecht might as well have said "Grub first, then extravagences."

That's a decision that wasn't made by the factory workers in Shreveport (who were probably happy to have the jobs); it was made at the top. But it's a pretty good bet that the people in Shreveport knew that most people weren't going to be able to afford to drive the cars they were building -- had anyone stopped to ask them.

Coherence is a three-way conversation that requires that decision-makers, staff and customers -- three distinct groups whose interests overlap but whose responsibilities in the conversation are mutually exclusive -- recognize their role and focus on it, and communicate their vision of the task at hand to the other two groups. The restaurant owner creates the menu based on what customers buy, and hires a staff to cook and deliver it; the chefs and waiting staff prepare it and deliver it promptly; and the customers order what they want to eat. If any of those three groups fails -- so does the business. More importantly, if any of those groups tries to usurp the task of any of the other two, it's a recipe for disaster.

That's not to say that Bobby Flay needs to put every suggestion from every customer on the menu at the Mesa Grill. His clientele knows the food he likes to prepare, and those that can't handle chipotle peppers probably aren't among them. But it is his job to pay attention to what his customers are buying and what they aren't. His creativity and leadership aren't so much focused on whether or not to put chicken on the menu as much as they are on whether it can be integrated into the menu, complementing the rest of his bill of fare. Similarly, his staff is going to tell him why roller blades -- though they may be unique to a Fifth Avenue restaurant -- won't work, and he'd be foolish to ignore them.

That emphasis on a coherent vision has rarely been more evident than it was last week, when Mark Zuckerberg, the CEO of Facebook, announced "Messages", a unified system incorporating SMS, instant messaging and email as part of his network's offerings. It takes what people want, puts them in one place -- and not all all coincidentally, gives his company a ton of data to analyze, letting him target advertising directly to the half a billion people who have signed up for his service. He was able to communicate that experience clearly and in context to a staff of 15 engineers who put it all together in a little over a year. Will it be popular? Mr. Zuckerberg says that two-thirds of his customers already use Facebook's existing messaging service; what he's doing is simply the next logical step.

That's coherence.

More News and Notes

Another step to assimilation: Faceborg announced that email is "showing its age" (where have we heard that before, because apparently, AOL disagrees) and that it would be offering its own service, called "Messages" that integrates email with instant messaging and SMS. There's no question as to why the company would embark on such a mission: money. There's also no question that a lot of people are going to be worried about the big roadblocks in Mark Zuckerborg's quest to be The Internet: privacy and safety.

Resisting assimilation is Google, which tweaked its Terms of Service so you can't import Google contacts into Facebook. Not so determined is MySpace, which will allow its members to log in using their Facebook IDs.

The Thirty Second Review: Courtesy of demazter: The new Harry Potter film has a lot to offer anyone who likes sinister. There are teacher-eating snakes, one of the twins being maimed and Hermione being tortured -- and since we know this is part 1 of 2, it's no surprise that Voldemort winds up being ready to wreak havoc on the world. See it -- especially if you like special effects and the escapism of unreality; besides, the lead characters are better-looking than EE's Admins are.

How To Take Your Nice Little Magazine And Turn Not Only It But Your Own Reputation As A Publisher Into A Steaming Pile Of Doo-Doo In Less Than A Week: First, steal other people's work, and second, blame the author. The results are predictable and the advice you will get on avoiding a repetition printable, so you can tape it to the wall of whatever non-computer-related job you're able to get.

Feel good story for the holidays: A superhero grandmother.

Hey! Here's how we can make some coin! After suffering the slings and arrows of jealous wannabes who aren't getting the venture capital attention it has been getting, Twitter has come up with a concrete way of improving its balance sheet: it is going to sell its data to other people who will in turn sell it to other people. One piece of information certain to be included: your super double top-secret reputation score (one can only wonder what someone like Alyssa Milano's is). One thing is certain, though: depending on where you are, as with any other social site, you should be careful what you twit.

All I want for Christmas is Abbey Road on my iPod: With one iconic image on its home page, Apple started selling Beatles music, not quite half a century after the group released its first album and appeared on US television. What's more scary is that your humble editor remembers the first rock concert he attended (thanks, Mom!). Still, the world isn't completely right with Apple; they still don't have anything by Garth Brooks or AD/DC.

In requiem: Xserve (Apple's server line, for the non-fanboys out there), and film producer Dino De Laurentiis. Circling the drain: the white pages of the phone book, at least around Washington DC.

See, America? The EU has money issues, too: We've had items fairly frequently about "Net Neutrality" -- which is a code meaning "can the government keep big providers like Comcast, Time-Warner and AT&T from charging higher rates for higher bandwidth users (read: Google, Yahoo, Skype, et al.)" -- and how every time someone wants to do something, it gets stalled in threatened lawsuits and interference by legislators who are getting campaign donations. That's fine; Judge Tucker's admonition regarding the safety of life, liberty and property is still valid. But Americans are not alone in this discussion; the European Union is meeting this week in Brussels to have the same discussions. Note to EU Internet users: don't expect to hear anything new; just expect a lot of talk.

Yeah, but Steve and Carol say there are 350,000,000 of them: Don't ask me; my father is Li Gang. So what if they jail journalists and Nobel peace prize winners, embargoed the rare earth elements used in high tech devices and monkeyed around with Internet traffic? They have the world's fast computer (sort of), and they have 350,000,000 potential customers... (which makes a zombie attack seem like serendipity...)

We'll wait to see the Dell version: IBM has put together a group of Yale and UC Santa Barbara reearchers to start looking at the possibilites of quantum computing. We can just see MASQUERAID licking his chops over a new gaming machine. Speaking of games (and the need for quantum computing), you can try to fix the US federal budget.

Just make sure you take your shoes off: If you're planning on flying anywhere between now and January 2, you can take advantage of a WiFi connection during the flight, courtesy of Google, as long as you're on an AirTran, Delta or Virgin America plane. It'll be a lot easier if you just got a nice raise, too. Or you can stay home, away from the crush of stressed-out holiday travelers who are missing connections because of the weather and dealing with the TSA.

Wink, wink: "Officials" still haven't figured out where Stuxnet came from, but they're also saying grudgingly that it's a pretty nice piece of work if you like that kind of thing.

So where's that ANY key again? Rule number 1 if you are a high-level corporate executive who wants to find out what people are saying about your company's controversial activities: Don't try to join a private discussion group by hiding behind a Gmail account if you don't know anything about how email works. Similarly, if you're a hacker who has been caught with drugs in your apartment (along with 114,000 SIM card serial numbers of iPad users), don't go sending "hugs and courage" to the guy prosecuting you.

But will it see the alien ships before they blow up the White House? John Tonry, a University of Hawaii astronomer, has a plan to build an early warning system for asteroids on a collision path toward Earth. We have more faith in Bruce Willis.

WTF? OMG! Ben Schott has much more entertaining list of words that can be used in place of phrases.

Signs of the Apocalypse: The FDA and FTC are cracking down on caffeinated drinks, destroying productivity at software companies nationwide. The National Labor Relations Board said that a woman fired for ripping her boss on Facebook had to be rehired because it could be construed as a step to organizing a union. Research into the typical smartphone user. Someone sold (and someone else bought!) a non-existent piece of property for $335,000. Bonus: a real sign (if you're in California).

Nata's Corner

Maybe it's the holidays coming, but one thing is for sure: I'm John Tyner's biggest fan right about now. The people out there who know me know that my picture at left isn't that accurate (I have blonde hair); among other things, I also have knees that set off metal detectors like this woman, so I've been going through pat down searches in airports for quite a while, and there have been a few in which the TSA person seemed a little too frisky for my own tastes... and they may even be illegal.

Probably trying to put out what might be a wildfire of good old fashioned civil disobedience at airports around the country over the next few days, the TSA announced that it is dialing back some of its searches and scans (which is great if you're a pilot who is carrying a biometric ID card), but that hasn't stopped the Twitteropolis from having a field day with the agency. There's even a movie, and it's a reasonable bet that Michael Moore has a script in the works for one, too.

But there is hope: Orlando's Sanford International Airport has opted out of having TSA screeners. I'm going to Disney World!

My annual public service is this week: a list of tech products, Black Friday sites and other information, just to get you in the holiday spirit before your editor starts running the annual Experts Exchange Gift Guide:

• The Washington Post's list of nine gifts to think about (and one to forget)
• MIT's list of innovative tech products
• Time magazine's 50 best inventions of 2010
• The New York Times' ten best free iPhone apps.
• Susan Wojcicki, who is the head of shopping at Google no matter what her title is, has her list of five ways Google makes it easier to shop -- and get the advertising it sells.
• Five websites where you could have gotten Black Friday prices before Black Friday.
• The National Retail Association's tips for Black Friday shopping. If you shop online, you'll probably even find free shipping at a lot of places. (Editor's tip: Just say no... )
• A wish list for Facebook.
• Ten traditions you never thought needed protecting.
• Stone cold locks for what science won't accomplish next year, along with five examples of science going backwards.
• A list of 18 free programs everyone should at least look at once.
• And last but not least, the 2010 Black Friday site.

Finally, for all you Facebook fans out there, there is a browser built with you in mind. Built on the Chromium engine, it is backed by the people who brought you Netscape -- the first entry (and casualty) in the browser wars of the last century.

Milestones

New Geniuses: One of Experts Exchange's seasoned veterans has picked up his fourth Genius certificate, while two other Experts picked up their first. sdstuber's fourth million point t-shirt came in Oracle 9.x. ikalmar and broomee9 eached earned their first Genius certificates in Routers and MS Excel respectively. Well done!

Milestones:

• jkr became the seventh member of Experts Exchange to reach 13,000,000 points overall.
• RobWill has earned 9,000,000 points since joining EE.
• johnb6767 set the bar for entry into the Top 50 at 6,000,000 points by becoming the 49th member of EE to reach that level.
• cyberkiwi has reached 5,000,000 points overall.