Archive | 2010

Tales from Waikiki: Imprinting and the Power to Change

by on October 23, 2010 in Life

Earlier this month, my extended family and I spent a week vacationing in Hawaii. Out of that experience exploring the wonders of Oahu came some juicy ideas well worth sharing over the next few weeks. So, here we go…

We stayed at the Hilton Hawaiian Village at Waikiki based on a spot-on recommendation that it was a great hotel for families. Besides the beachfront access and several pools for my daughters to swim in daily, (not to mention all the shopping for my mother and sister), the Hilton had a waddle of tropical penguins. The birds were conveniently located right outside our particular hotel tower so we stopped to visit them pretty much every time we passed. These Hilton penguins are called African Penguins so they’re adapted for tropical environments. Over the week we learned a lot about them as a species (endangered) and some of their quirks (they sound like braying donkeys which is why they’re sometimes called Jackass Penguins).

We also learned about something called imprinting. Turns out penguins – as well as many other birds – learn how to be birds shortly after birth by observing the characteristics of the other birds around them. It’s a rapid process…and it’s fairly permanent, meaning what is learned through this process cannot easily be undone. So if a young hatchling observes not a bird but a human, they’re going to be imprinted with human characteristics. In other words, you’re going to have a rather confused bird who is going to try and act like a human. One penguin at the Hilton named Icarus had this sort of human imprinting, which is immediately noticeable because she (yes, she…these penguins are also notoriously difficult to sex) is fairly tame by penguin standards. Icarus will also never mate because she’s not attracted to other penguins; case in point: she mercilessly attacked the last male who tried to get it on with her because he was too penguiny.

Where am I going with all this? Let me ask a question: how many times do we behave like we’ve been imprinted by our past? Except we’re not holding on to the actions of others we’ve observed, but our own actions. We say – either openly or quietly to ourselves – that we’re a failure or stupid or not talented enough for what looks like a great job opportunity. Every time we do this, we’ve essentially confirmed our own imprinting by not letting go of that past behavior. The good news is that we’re not easily imprinted birds, but humans capable of flexible thought. We can retrain ourselves to think differently about who we are and what we’re capable of achieving in our lives. We can reimprint ourselves whenever we choose.

Notice what’s holding you back. The key is self-awareness. Get mindful of thoughts that contain images involving past failures and weaknesses. Listen for words like can’t and never. If it feels like a barrier, then it probably is. Say you’re holding on to an image of failing at starting a business or bombing an assignment. Now imagine taking the picture out of your head and tossing it into the fire. You’re not forgetting the lessons learned…instead, you’re torching their power to hold you in your present position. You’re claiming your right to be free of all the past crap that’s simply not serving you right now.

Re-envision what you want. Time to re-imprint our thinking and behavior with something different. You’re free to be as creative as you want now. Imagine vividly yourself as successful. What would it look like? And perhaps more importantly, what would it feel like? Imprinting isn’t a logical, rational process; it’s a visceral, emotional one. The stronger you can cement the images in your body, the better you’ll be able to hold on to these newly imprinted images.

Maintain awareness. Even though we can change how we think and feel, it’s still not a walk in the park. Change takes dedication and commitment. Remain vigilant when it comes to how old imprinted behavior reenters your thought process. Remember: you’re not a penguin…you can do this.

Anthropology And Freelancing

by on October 18, 2010 in Work

Last week, I delivered a presentation to Freelance Austin called, Being A Margaret Mead For Your Freelance Business…Or, If Margaret Mead Had To File A 1099. I argue that the toolset we anthropologists use can provide useful ideas for helping freelancers improve their business.

Thanks to the good folks at Freelance Austin for offering me a stage to talk to their members.

Anthropology And Freelancing

View more presentations from Chris Bailey.

Best Consumer Intel Found In The Wild

by on September 13, 2010 in Customer Experience

My regular readers know how much I love talking about market research where consumer intelligence is gathered “out in the wild” rather than through artificially contrived environments and methods (e.g., focus groups). I argue strongly that it yields far more reliable information about interests, needs, and desires.

All of which is why Joshua Black’s post, 5 Sneaky Ways to Find Out What Customers Really Want… Without Asking Them, over at Men with Pens is a real keeper.

See item #2:

Go to Wal-Mart: This expression means you should get out there and eavesdrop on your customers in their natural environment. Hang around the lions while they’re kicking back in their den complaining about their biggest problems to other lions (like who left their dirty undies lying around the cave).

Customers will never really tell you their problems if you ask directly. They often don’t exactly know what their problems are.

Listen to what customers say. Are they complaining? About what? Are they sighing over something they wish they had? What is it? What problems keep them from getting the results they want?

Don’t say a word. Take copious amounts of notes and quietly leave the scene like an entrepreneurial ninja. I like to hang out at coffee shops and use my Blackberry for this kind of covert operation, because it just looks like I’m texting someone and being oblivious to people at other tables.

And as a smart commenter responded, another method for gathering similar intel is to run Twitter searches for keywords and themes related to your product or business.

What other ways of uncovering consumer intelligence out in the wild have you found most beneficial to your business?

The Greatest Threat To Innovation? Our Impatience

by on September 5, 2010 in Customer Experience

I’ve worked with customers and around technology long enough to see something disturbing happen. I’m not sure when it all started. Maybe it was always there but only exacerbated by the 24/7, always-on nature of today’s news machines. But regardless of how it began, this trend right now has the potential to destroy everything it touches. What is this trend?

Our impatience and cynical criticism of anything new that isn’t absolutely perfect.

We’re like Statler and Walforf from The Muppet Show whose sole role was to throw barbs at the performers (except most of us armchair pundits are not quite as witty or endearing as our Muppet counterparts). Oh and I’m not throwing my own criticism out to everyone else but me. I’m putting myself squarely in the middle of this trend. As an anthropologist, I can see the fingerprints of cultural entanglement all over this problem. None of us are immune from feeling impatient with technology (or really any customer-related experience) that doesn’t meet our ever increasingly high expectations. And therein lies the key problem.

We’ve assumed a sense of entitlement which is nothing more than consumer empowerment gone awry and to the extremes. We think we’re entitled to a perfect first product with no flaws. Witness Exhibit A: Dell’s try at building their first tablet, the Streak. Yes, I was a beta tester and have been using the Streak for a few months so can attest it has some significant issues. But I hope Dell doesn’t pull up stakes and quit because of all the fierce condemnations they’ve received from several tech publications. Instead, I hope they have guts and a long-term strategy that sees this as a building block.

Exhibit B (and actually what provoked this post) is how fast we’ve decided that Apple’s Ping is a failure. Dammit, it just started…and yet here’s a perfect example of how quickly the critics will descend on anything new. Anyone who has started to look at Ping should have instantly recognized it is an emerging work in progress. And whether it ultimately works or not, it deserves a chance to try and make it.

And here’s another one about Ping as a spammers delight. Yeah, Apple’s engineers should have foreseen this. But anyone who knows how tech products get to market also knows the challenges of sealing up every single hole in a first release. The beauty of web-based apps is how quickly things can get resolved once they are put out into the wild.

And lest you think I’m defending Apple and Ping, I’m actually defending the product’s right to get itself into the consumers’ hands and make necessary adjustments through time. And to do that, we have to be patient as consumers and not expect demand perfection from the get-go. If we can’t manage to do this, we’re looking at a very unattractive future possibility:

The idea of new takes on a different, ever increasingly derogatory meaning. Fewer and fewer companies will decide to take risks and build new technologies for fear of getting blasted (at best) or ignored (at worst) because they didn’t meet increasing standards that become nearly impossible to meet in first iterations. And then we are only the poorer for our own lack of patience.

Plan Ahead To Your Next Job

by on August 22, 2010 in Career

Last week I started a new job as a marketing manager for a software company here in Austin (which I hope offers a sort of apologetic explanation for my hiatus). The first week is always a mix of excitement, bewilderment, and high anxiety. It was also a chance to practice some ethnographic techniques which I’ll explain in greater detail in an upcoming post. But as I experienced the full rush of being back in steady employment for the first time in 20 months, I was constantly reminded of this bit of conventional wisdom:

Start looking for your next job as soon as you start your current job.

In my younger, more naive days, I thought this advice was tantamount to disloyalty to my new employer and a sure way of getting myself blackballed from the get-go. Now, as a (late) thirtysomething professional who has been through the fire and smart enough to see wisdom when it appears, there’s quite a lot of good we can gain by heeding this guidance.

First, let’s be honest…this isn’t our grandpa’s professional world and loyalty in employment doesn’t exist like it did two generations ago. So we have to take care of ourselves and be constantly vigilant with our careers and employment. This last economic downturn should have made that 100% crystal clear. Sadly, it’s a realistic and somewhat cynical perspective. On the other hand…

Here’s where we can take a more positive and forward-focused view. I’ve started to think clearly about:

  • what kind of tangible experiences I want to include in my professional portfolio
  • what kind of stories I want to tell at an upcoming interview
  • What kind of kickass results I want to market on my resume

By imagining into the future, we practice the kind of goal-setting we typically do with any sort of project: we begin with the end in mind and work backward. What this encourages us to do is frequently think about our resume and focus our actions toward remarkable results. And it’s not at all disloyal: we can’t build experiences, create stories, and generate results without completing our objectives for our current employers.

photo credit: Alexandre Moreau Photography (via Flickr)