WHEN TECHNOLOGY GOES MAD

Some time ago I seem to remember Toyota had some quality problems which involved accelerators in their cars remaining depressed and the vehicles speeding out of control and impossible to stop. Nothing could be more frightening.

Now imagine writing a document in pen and ink (hard to do unless you are old fashioned like me) and imagine the pen suddenly starts spurting ink and writing “fuck, bugger, shit and bollocks” over and over again in capitals.

I think that would be even worse.

Well it’s my PC that’s got Tourette’s Syndrome and it’s much, much worse.

I’m revising one of my books, Brilliant Marketing, for the 2nd Edition and decided that a fairly substantial rewrite was needed given the pace of change in the recent marketing world. All was going swimmingly until this morning when something somewhere went mad and now I can only get one paragraph a page which given I’m prone to use short paragraphs looks pretty silly.

In fact, very silly.

And then all the fonts change to large bold and Ariel when they should be small not bold and Times New Roman and then as I watch everything turn to shaded blue. By now I’m going at 80 mph and the steering wheel has come off in my hand. I’m told it isn’t my PC at all but the printers’ word files I‘m using in which there are embedded templates so as I achieve my peak of brilliance in my changes some Dorset gremlin, because that’s where my printers live, decides to restrict the changes and makes me go mad by mucking it all up and in a west country burr says “how’d you enjoy that my dear?”

I don’t.

This sort of thing didn’t happen to Dickens or TS Eliot. I am a victim of 21st century technology or worse, a 21st century disease. Some mischievous editor virus that is sitting in the in the machine at random taking things out and putting things in?  Bugger. Bugger. It’s all very, very disconcerting.

Cars that never go wrong and brilliant computers are all very well until they do and when they do you are f……the quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog…..bugger, bugger.

FIRST OVER THE TOP GETS SHOT!

Even the originators of the FMA theory (“First Mover Advantage”), Lieberman and Montgomerie, seem to have had a change of heart. Last week I heard the eloquent Professor of Marketing at IMD, Seán Meehan, define Apple as a fast follower and not an innovator as such at all.

Hurray!

At last the dumb truth about innovation is being laid to rest. Be best not first. That ‘s also what Jonathan Mills, Director of the Edinburgh Festival, said in laying into “premieres” in the arts.

The secrets of success lie in listening to the customers who use the products, fixing the problems that exist, constantly improving the product (iPad2 looks like being a bigger triumph than iPad1 just 8 months later) and being totally clear about the promise - in Apple’s case a confident “thinner, lighter, faster.”

I loved this assertion about clarity. Most mission statements are a confusing mish-mash.

Better to be a Ryanair saying “we are the cheapest” – and reacting with surprise and indignation to the question “do you do customer satisfaction surveys?” No, they focus all their attention on their core promise. They are living proof that it is better to be respected than liked.

So the message is to nail down brilliantly what you have in that box before you think of getting out of it. Stop trying to be an “original.” Focus on getting better and better and better.

And this is a tough new world.

Motorala’s global market share in mobiles fell from 45% to 9% between 1994 and 2008 whilst Nokia’s rose from 20% to 40%. And now Nokia are facing a near death experience. Brands are not immortal. Not Nokia. Not GM. Not Toyota. Not Apple.

Which is why life is so exciting.

Anyone out there who wants to be the next Steve Jobs might make it if they are as demanding about relentless improvement, brilliant design and speed to market as he is.

They don’t have to be first, though, just much better than the others.

Although looking at the Boat Race on Saturday I wondered if there wasn’t something in FMA after all.