What's the value in that?

Inverse relationships

If you have children, I’m sure you know that feeling when an insight they share makes you almost burst with delight.

Well, I had that feeling with my almost 14yo son, Jasper.

We were talking about where teens get information about complex topics (drugs, sex, politics, social mores) and I quoted one of my clients who’d done research on exactly this. They found that — in this order — teenagers get information firstly from their friends, secondly online, thirdly from family and lastly, from school.

Then Jasper said this: “You know, it’s funny because that’s the opposite of how trustworthy the information is”.

I asked him to explain and he said that schools have to vet their information well; parents are usually quite well-informed (thanks Jasper!); online is a mix of high-quality information and memes. And, friends, well, they’re your friends.

I drew a double-axis chart showing information likelihood and reliability, and together we drew the curve. It looked something like this:

Yes, a proud parental moment, because he showed a natural propensity for understanding inverse correlations. Or, maybe, he’s been paying attention at school.

Question: What inverse patterns exist in your work and life?

Scarcity, or plenty?

I like to do my conceptual work listening to music (sometimes loudly) and, because I can’t listen to lyrics when I’m concentrating, ambient electronica is my go-to.

And, one of my fave artists of late is Trent Hawkins, who does something I find remarkable.

Every week he performs a concert, live, online, for free. It’s whatever length he’s inspired to improvise as a single flowing, mesmerising piece of music, gently rhythmic but with enough ‘edge’ to keep things interesting. Hawkins has now put out 90 of these, clocking in at almost 50 hours (as a comparison, the entire Beatles’ oeuvre is just 10 hours).

So, is it all uniformly brilliant? No, but that’s not the point. His strategy is based on plenty: produce lots, put it out there, make sure it’s at least good, but doesn’t have to be brilliant.

And, plenty of other enterprises use this ‘strategy of plenty’.

Think professional sport: hundreds of games are played in a season - most at least good, a few brilliant. And, some movie studios: the Marvel Universe is now at 31 movies, with 11 in the pipeline right now. And, even what you’re reading now, 5MSM, is an example of the ‘strategy of plenty’.

But, what’s the opposite?

It’s a ‘strategy of scarcity’ which is from a fundamentally different premise.

Instead of Marvel, think of James Cameron, who’s made just four movies in 30 years (three of which top the highest box office revenue lists). Think of Malcolm Gladwell, whose just 7 books in over 20 years are all deeply insightful. And, think of the Olympics, or the football World Cup, or a tennis Grand Slam tournament, where pretty much every event or game has its moments of brilliance.

A strategy of scarcity is high stakes: every pitch doesn’t have to succeed, but every product does. But, the strategy of plenty is also highly demanding: it requires consistent production of at least good quality, to stop customers wandering away. And, occasionally giving them a taste of scarce brilliance too, perhaps when they least expect it.

Question: Is your strategy one of scarcity, or plenty?

When switching simply isn’t worth it

A colleague showed me this and asked, “What do you think?”.

“Um, it’s a keyboard. So what?” I hear you say.

But if you look carefully its letters are not the traditional QWERTY configuration that I’m typing on now. I’ve been a 60wpm typist since the age of 12, when my mother, a former stenographer (anyone remember those?), taught me on her old portable. The skills transferred over to PCs in my late teens, and they’re still with me.

This is a Colemak keyboard, and the reason my friend showed me is because he’d spent dozens of hours training (or I should say, re-training) his hands and brain to use it.

Why?

He claims it’s fast and ergonomic: in fact, it’s true that my hands on a QWERTY keyboard have to move twice as much as his do. Colemak keyboards have 35 times as many words able to be typed only using the home row. And, most of the typing is done with the strongest and fastest fingers, reducing strain and injury.

So, am I convinced?

No.

And it’s not because I’m a Luddite. It’s because of switching costs. It will take me dozens of hours to get up to my existing typing speed. Plus, I’ll likely lose my QWERTY ability, meaning when I type on someone else’s keyboard, it will feel very slow indeed.

But, fundamentally, the issue is this: the benefit simply isn’t big enough. I’m happy with 60wpm and don’t need to get faster.

I notice the same issues about some change initiatives in organisations. An argument is presented (‘quicker’, ‘easier’, ‘cheaper’), but without a ‘user-based’ understanding of the switching costs, and a realistic assessment of the incremental gain that the ‘new’ solution offers.

Question: When is switching systems worth it? When is it not?

Thanks as always for reading. I love knowing you can use the questions above to stimulate your own strategic insights or those of your colleagues or teams. Do drop me a line to let me know.

Also, check out my short videos on strategy, if you haven’t already - and drop me a line to let me know whether you agree with my thoughts on how organisational strategy should best be developed collectively.

Until next time, look out for businesses that offer you a ‘value-add’, and analyse how and why these attract you (or not).

Andrew