Archive for the Organization Centric category

Is the organization the enemy of the customer?

What is good for the organization and what is good for the customer are not always the same thing.
Organizations are used to saying to customers: “Here’s what we have. If you like it, you’re going to have to adapt to how we do business.” But on the Web, the customer has much more control. The […]

Web professional: Are you ready to serve?

Those who enjoy serving customers will be the ones who create successful web careers.
A website is self-service. Customers do things on websites that they would otherwise have needed help doing. Self-service is attractive to organizations because it reduces staff costs. It is attractive to customers because it is convenient, fast and generally discounted.
Self-service is […]

Thinking Web, not website

The Web is the network. The Web is the organization. Your website is not important. Reaching your customers is.
A website has substance. You can count the number of webpages and the number of visitors. It is something you can show to your manager. It is something you can talk about in a way that others […]

Web changes nature of the organization

From a closed, centralized, cohesive unit, the organization is being changed by the Web into an open, dispersed, cohesive network.
There are few better websites than the BBC, and there are few organizations that truly get what the Web is about better than the BBC. I came across a set of 15 BBC Web Principles some […]

Are you an Omnivore or a Connector?

What kind of digital citizen are you? Pew Internet and American Life Project have conducted a survey designed to classify Americans into different groups of technology users. The survey results shows just how many people still find the web unsatisfactory
49% of Americans only occasionally use modern gadgetry
and many others bristle at electronic connectivity
In our industry […]

Heathrow airport: customer-unfriendly

Last night, as I walked towards security at Heathrow Airport (London), I took my computer out of my bag, as computers need to be scanned separately. Someone walked up to me and said:
“Is that a computer?”
“Yes.”
“Put it back in the bag.”
“Why? I have to take it out for scanning.”
“You must put it back in the […]