Target of my Wrath

This is a rant. And I haven't done one of those in this space in awhile. If you don't want to read a good, old fashioned, flame-on rant, and would just like a quick laugh, try out the Nietzsche Family Circus Mash-Up. Hysterical. For those of you inclined to stay on-board for the ride, here we go...

Happy Valentine's Day from Target.

BEEEEP! BEEEEEP! BEEEEEEEEEEEP! BEEEEP! BEEEEEP! BEEEEEEEEEEEP!!!

BEEEEP! BEEEEEEEEEEEP!

BEEEEP! BEEEEEP! BEEEEEEEEEEEP!

(pause)

BEEEEP! BEEEEEP! BEEEEEEEEEEEP!

I'm not even sure "BEEEEEEEEP!" is the right phonetic representation for the noise in question. Poing? Boitch? Doong? Boooop? I don't know. I just don't know.

Hard to tell through the blood build-up behind my eyes. Hard to concentrate when the fight-or-flight reflex has kicked in. Hard to remember when the retail-joy impulse that decades of "shop-is-love" American consumerism has bred into me has fled. A lifetime of social, big-box, mall interactions and happy-happy buying glee has been pushed out of my cerebral cortex by a noise that sounds like the Chuck E. Cheez version of the sound a hospital monitor makes when something wrong... something VERY VERY WRONG is happening to the patient in Room 209.

My God... MY GOD!!! What is happening? Why are they making that noise?

BEEEEP! BEEEEEP! BEEEEEEEEEEEP!

At first I thought is was localized, behind the new displays of Ninetendo Wiis. For a moment, I even thought the noise was coming from a Wii, and was maybe some weird, loud, Japanistic auditory approximation of  "Pain-of-Loss." That would make sense. OK. Game pain. I can live with that. But no... it was coming from a wall or a pillar or something.

We've just had a "snow emergency" here in Central Ohio. Level 3 in some counties. In Boston (where I'm from) or Buffalo (my wife) or Ithaca (where I went to school) the volume of snow we've had would count as "light to moderate." Here it is worthy of writing on stone tablets. And so, for a moment, when the noise came back...

BEEEEP! BEEEEEP! BEEEEEEEEEEEP!

I thought, Maybe the snow has done something to the nice Target store... Maybe there is an emergency here? Maybe somebody has slipped and fell on ice and they need the... the... most able Target-person to go and... do the emergency thing. Whatever.

It was that loud a noise. It triggered the, "Where's the fire?" response.

I'd stopped by Target on my way home from work to get two things: a Lego kit for my son (his Valentine's Day gift) and some milk. A quick stop. And I like shopping at Target. It's well lit. It's clean. It's well laid-out. You can get seasonal stuff, cards, a few food items, clothes, best-selling books, videos, games and...

BEEEEP! BEEEEEP! BEEEEEEEEEEEP!
BEEEEP! BEEEEEP! BEEEEEEEEEEEP!

Sweet mother of pearl!!! The noise went off again! This time I was up in the toy aisle and trying to find the right Lego kit, and it started hammering right next to me. Wow. It was loud. Really loud. I'd been in the big, main aisle before. Cruising along at finding-my-sector speed. Now I was in careful-hunting-mode. Leaning in close. Examining package details. Retail graze. And directly next to the post-thingy with the speaker up in its posty groin.

Now... I'm not a noise hater. I like loud music. I don't mind big cities, traffic noise, airports, children playing, trains, concerts, action movies or Robin Williams. Noise is fine. And I've been accused on plenty of occasions of being a loud bastard myself. What I mean to say is that I do not require quiet, nor am I repulsed by simple loudness.

But as I grabbed my Lego kit and headed through Men's Wear towards (whatever they call) Food, the brazen peal let loose again...

BEEEEP! BEEEEEP! BEEEEEEEEEEEP!

And I felt the beginnings of madness. Seriously. This was dentist drill pitched noise. And at a volume that drove any thoughts other than, "Escape!" out of my head. This is the noise they should generate in buildings when there's a gas leak or a bomb threat to make sure that kids aren't hiding in the broom closet.

I did not linger.

I got my 2% and headed directly for check-out and, while waiting, asked a clerk who was working on a nearby end-cap:

"What on earth is that horrible noise I keep hearing? The 'beep! beep! beep!' thing? Is there some kind of emergency or something?"

Reply: "No. That's just our phone system."

I was stunned. The phone? THE PHONE? THE FRIGGIN' PHONE???!!! Having the phone "ring" with a noise that loud and piercing and terrible is the equivalent of "pointing" at someone with a flare gun in order to single them out in a crowd.

"Uh," I asked... "Why is the phone so insanely loud and annoying?"

Answer, punchline and cause of rant: "Because when it's any less annoying, we don't answer it."

I replied, "You may want to rethink that particular retail philosophy. Driving customers out of your store with the equivalent of audio napalm because you can't train employees to answer a reasonable, human-level tone is arguably insane."

He nodded and said, "We hate it, too."

There you go. It sucks for everybody. So it must be OK.

Last time I checked, I pay about a 7% premium to shop at Target as opposed to some other big-box stores. I've gladly paid it in the past because I like their selection, service, lay-out, lighting, cleanliness and general ambiance. I say this, though. If I go back and get hit by that air-horn phone-from-hell again... I'm taking my business back across the street to Meijers, even though shopping there always makes me feel... well... a little sticky.

The Side Ways 3.1: Judge the Book

Latest portion of the novel-in-progress has been posted. A bit of it to whet your whistle...
*  *  *  *  *

Kaolyn and Wallace continued to peer at various objects in the room, not touching anything, but looking for… something… they knew not what. Tess sat quietly on the back of the chair, grooming her wing feathers, waiting with the patience that seems innate to crows, carrion birds and certain appointed bureaucrats.

After a few minutes, Mrs. McKey returned. “Step out of the room, please,” she requested. “You too, please, Tess,” she added when the bird remained behind. The others crowded the landing behind the woman while she knelt on the floor, just outside the doorway to Kendra’s bedroom, and placed the stub of a pencil on the floor. She passed her hand over the pencil, murmured a few soft words, and stood up.

As they watched, the nondescript, yellow stub of wood and lead began to move, first standing upright, then tracing a line into the bedroom. It left no mark on the thick carpet, but seemed to be drawing a series of long, flowing curves, something akin to the movement of a symphony conductor’s hand.

As the pencil moved further into the room, Mrs. McKey stood and leaned forward to keep it in her view, but she did not yet set foot in the room. The pencil continued to curve and weave across the rug, stopping for a moment here, circling in another spot for a time, finally coming to rest against the backpack that they’d come to examine.

“Whatever it is,” Kaolyn suggested, “is in there.”
*  *  *  *  *Check out the main page for "The Side Ways," and request the password for all parts after "Chapter 1.1: Stray Girl," if you’ve got a mind to.

I am Isaac Asimov

I am: Isaac Asimov One of the most prolific writers in history, on any imaginable subject. Cared little for art but created lasting and memorable tales.

Which science fiction writer are you?

Which is way cool. But I was so hoping to be someone who wasn't dead. Or a chick.

[Note to self: in order to be "prolific," must finish at least one major writing project...]

Walls That Aren't and Never Weren't

In a recent post John Battelle talks about a NYT article on social networking in which (according to John... and me) the Times gets the whole idea of user generated content wrong, wrong, wrong. He quotes the part of the article that says:

User-generated content is basically anything someone puts on the Web that is not created for overtly commercial purposes; it is often in response to something professionally created, or is derivative of it. So, it could be a blog, a message board, a homemade video on YouTube, or a customer’s book review on Amazon.com

And then makes the point that,

there are so many examples of great conversational media [John's term for user created content] that is both commercially driven and entirely independent of "professional media" (in our industry alone, there's Om, there's Matt, there's Mike, there...and, and, and....), that making such a sweeping statement seems either ignorant or simply wishful thinking. Harumph.

I don't think John goes far enough. Here's the short version of why I think that:

There ain't no such thing as somebody who ain't a user. Or, to put it in the positive: we're all users, and all content is user generated content. Or to put it in John's lingo: it's all part of the conversation.

The mainstream media seems to forget sometimes that its not "the originator" of what it reports on. That if a tree falls in the woods and there's film at 11... the tree falling is the "thing" in the news. The news isn't the news. The reporters are "users," too.

And so are movie directors and bestselling novelists and product design folks and advertising agency owners.

My 7-year-old son, Dan, just wrote a short book about dragons. It's about five pages long. It has drawings and text, all of which he made up himself. It includes information about how to look for signs of dragons, types of dragons, what they eat, a dragon potion that will make you fly, and plants that grow near where the dragons live. I've also got a store-bought book about dragons that I picked up a few years back. It's neat, has lots of cool pictures and even some stuff tucked into pockets and what-not.

Which book do you think is more valuable to me?

The idea, in our culture, that the value and worth of a piece of creativity, writing, content, etc. is inherently linked to either a monetary valuation or, similarly, to audience size or some kind of "official" authority ranking is, at times, almost offensive. Yes, in the abstract, I know that I am probably going to want to read a best-selling novel 99 times out 100 as opposed to one written by some random dude in a basement in Jersey. Unless that dude is my brother. Or my friend, Jake. Or... or... or... And, at some point, my brother and/or Jake are going to be bestselling novelists, so there, too.

Reporters, directors and published authors are just people. The words are the same. A 16-year-old can write poetry and post it on an open writing site or her blog... and it has just as much "right" to be beautiful as the words of a 54-year-old professor publishing in a magazine of the arts.

The wall was never there. Blogs and other cheap, easy tools just make it more obvious.

Novel Post: "The Side Ways 2.3: What the Crow Saw."

New section of the novel-in-progress is up. A bit from the middle of it...

*  *  *  *  *

Bran led Kendra and me to a car, the door of which opened at his touch. He gestured for Kendra to get inside.

“That’s not your car, is it?” she asked.

“Of course not,” he replied, as if she’d just asked him the most insane question in the world.

“You can’t just take it,” she told him.

Again, he looked at her as if she were stark, raving mad.

“Why not?” he asked.

“It’s not yours,” she replied. “That’s stealing.”

He grimaced and nodded his head. “I keep forgetting that you were, until this morning, a chronic. Or, more delicately, a mundane. Their rules of property don’t apply to us. To Reckoners.”

“Why not?” she asked, clearly incredulous.

“For the same reason that your laws don’t apply to animals, at least in most cases,” he replied. “There may be specific rules about animals, but a sheep can’t own property and a dog can’t sue a person. Or be a senator. Or be charged with a crime. Now. Do you want to get to your job on time or not?”

She was clearly conflicted, and bit her lower lip as she thought about the situation.

“All right,” Bran gave in. “If it will help you in your transition, I’ll bring the car back here after I drop you off. OK?”

Kendra made a face. She wasn’t totally satisfied, but she finally nodded and got in the passenger side. I ducked under the door frame and flapped into the back seat. Bran got in the driver’s side and started the car with the touch of a finger to the ignition lock.

“How did you do that?” Kendra asked, both impressed and slightly shocked at the same time.

Turning the wheel to pull out into traffic, Bran shrugged, “It’s a very minor thing for one who walks our Way,” he explained. “Electronic locks seem much more complicated and impressive to chronics, but they’re much easier for us to negotiate.”

Kendra nodded, frowning. “Could you teach me?” she asked.

Driving comfortably through light midtown traffic, Bran turned and answered, “Sure. It’s funny, but jumping an electronic starter is so basic that the Way isn’t even aligned to our Station. If you ever came across an old manual ignition, though, it wouldn’t work. And the Way to unlock it is slightly more complicated and requires someone fixed in the Station of Release.”

Sighing, Kendra complained, “You keep forgetting that I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

*  *  *  *  *

Check out the main page for "The Side Ways," and request the password for all parts after "Chapter 1.1: Stray Girl," if you’ve got a mind to.

Good Friction: Authority vs. Score

I've often used the following definition of marketing with my students:

Good marketing removes friction from an economic process.

That is, you can sell a great product with no marketing. But there will be friction between a possible sale and potential customers. You have to show the horse an ad with a pretty picture of the water. Offer a discount on the water. Have a map on your website so that he can be led to the water, etc. All ways to remove various frictions.

Here's a question, though: does removing friction actually ever become a bad thing from a marketing/economic standpoint? My gut reaction is to say, "No." Because friction is bad, right? It slows things down. In business terms, it costs money to overcome all kinds of friction (geographic, time-related, information and language barriers, etc.). For centuries of business development, the manipulation of various "frictional deltas" is what has allowed companies to make profits (sometimes insane ones) not necessarily based on the merits of products or services, but on the relative inability of consumers to utilize or even understand those relative frictions.

For example, if there is any kind of monopoly in a given market, you have the issue of "information friction," where the lack of competition will keep the monopoly provider from really needing to be in any way open with data about products. Trade regulations that encourage competition help inject transparency and remove that friction.

Another example: better communication and transportation. If the only thing that allows me to make a profit on "Product X" is my ability to move it quickly from the point of manufacture to the point of sale, then the only friction I am overcoming is geographic. That is certainly not inconsiderable, and (until we have Star Trek transporters) will never be eliminated. But if a company relies on that as its sole value proposition, then it is at the mercy of anyone who can move stuff with less friction.

The same for communication... which is the basis of most marketing and advertising. If I can do a better job of informing you about the benefits of my product than can my competition, I've decreased friction in my process more than have they. That should help smooth the way for customers to get to me. Whether we talk about hard-sell, data-specific, promotional communications (product benefits, costs, FAQs, where-to-buy, etc.) or emotional, branding communications... both types provide, when done well, the means for customers to more smoothly identify the products in which they have an interest.

So, again... I'm sitting here thinking, "There's no such thing as good friction." Any time you can get something out-of-the-way and make it easier to get that horse to the water, or help the horse decide which water he wants... hooray for marketing, the economic lubricant. All friction is bad.

Except... when you want to slow down.

The Side Ways 2.2: Now You See Her...

New section just added. Here's a chunk from the middle of it...

*  *  *  *  *

The girl was in my office?

After she’d spent the better part of the night trying to escape from it? She has a few waffles, a glass of orange juice and then comes straight back for more?

“Mrs. McKey?”

“Yes, sir?”

“Why didn’t you put her out of my office?” I was calm again. No use getting flustered. The situation would be well in hand soon enough.

Now Mrs. McKey hung her head and studied her shoes. She looked, for all the world, like a sixty-year-old school girl. I lowered my head and tried to catch her gaze, but she avoided my eyes entirely. I do not repeat myself, so I simply waited for her answer. Eventually, I got it.

“She’s locked herself in, sir.”

This was too much.

*  *  *  *  *

Check out the main page for "The Side Ways," and request the password for all parts after "Chapter 1.1: Stray Girl," if you've got a mind to.