Is Subscription Pricing Fair?

Is subscription pricing fair to those involved? Who typically wins and who typically loses in these schemes, the seller or the buyer? 

Subscription is defined as:

"the action of making or agreeing to make an advance payment in order to receive or participate in something."  It should also be added that subscriptions typically happen on a recurring basis.

Modern subscription pricing models give discounts for longer commitments where paying and renewing per-month, for example, is more expensive than paying or renewing on an annual basis.

What is driving buyers (businesses as well as consumers!) to decide to pay for a subscription?  Sometimes it's the only option available.  Some of it can also be explained by FOMO (Fear of Missing Out).  The opposite scenario, would be grandpa Murray's saying, "Tell me what you need and I'll tell you how you can get along without it."

Here is what is driving the move to subscriptions:

1. Limited choice. This affects both seller and buyer.  Barry Schwarz has been absorbed, but the result is sometimes perversion of the intent.
1. Seller – Offer buyer fewer choices to make the sale faster, train sales people on “value” of having all options available
2. Buyer – Less to think about
2. Don’t need to worry about a varying usage pattern.  Big decisions up front (sports or not in package), but then it doesn’t matter if there is a sleep over.  At a business level, I may not be using a specific feature now, but it’s expensive to add.
3. Aspirational.  If I pay for the gym I’m more likely to guilt myself into using it.  If I buy a media subscription, I may come back to read it later, and I know it’s much more expensive to buy single copies.
4. FOMO.  Perhaps.  Water cooler talk about a new show?

We further dissect the elements of subscriptions:

Ease. The ease or simplicity of subscription pricing can be quite disturbing: in a 'set it and forget it' fashion, consumers basically sign up for services that they may never use and grant an annuity payment to the seller if their subscriptions go unmanaged.  It's interesting to wonder how many subscriptions people have versus those that are actually used.  The difference represents waste and likely profit for the seller.

Popularity.  Subscriptions likely take up an increasingly large mix of consumers' market baskets.  This perhaps relates to the previous concept and the perception of abundance: and it is generational to some extent. Taking care of the pennies and the dollars will take care of themselves has been replaced by “it’s only $25 per month” and buyers forget how much all the $25 adds up.

Partiality.  Rather than paying for the entire value of the item up front, in subscription pricing, it is like leasing or renting: it creates a price that may seem more affordable or attractive to the consumer and makes the buying decision easier.

Waste on the Consumer End.  There can be waste for consumers of subscriptions: we sign up and don't use them. Magazines arrive, for example, accumulate and don't get consumed. Subscriptions if used well directly align supply and demand but when the buyer does not make full use of the subscription and its benefits, there is misalignment and therefore waste; the system can be inefficient.

Waste on the Seller End. There are also examples of waste where the company gets the model wrong and loses: a recent example of this was MoviePass who offered for $9.99 nearly unlimited access to movie theaters.  The company quite famously experienced major challenges with this model and folded badly.  Fast followers and larger, more established organizations like AMC quickly swooped in on the opportunity and figured out a set of economics that could more sustainably provide a subscription service to this market.

Returns.  When there is waste it may be the duty of the seller to both detect and re-adjust the subscription plan to better fit the usage pattern of the user. An example of this is cell phone carriers who are willing to recommend a better plan based on the observed usage of the service by the user.  Consumers will expect and want more of this kind of governance and value.

Options and Complexity.  Another common example of waste in subscription models and a "good thing" for sellers are gym memberships: consumers keep paying regardless of use.  Gyms would perhaps be delighted if their members never showed up as long as the revenue stream kept flowing.

Option Time Frames.  Options can be offered in both "pre-facto" and "post-facto" contexts.  For example, in the pre-facto sense, consumers can choose whether or not too add cheese to their burger. This is a competitive differentiator for some: have it your way vs. limiting options by policy because the seller knows what their consumers like.  An example of a post-facto (after the purchase) option would be returning the burger for a full refund if unsatisfied.  A better example, related to subscription, is a refund for unused services or carry forward minutes, as it were.  Carry-forward is not necessarily in the buyer’s interest if they aren’t going to binge to catch up.  This also happens in employment scenarios when employees accumulate "sick days" that expire at the end of the year.  Have an inexpensive service where what the consumer pays seems worth the price, but it's messed up if it's only used as a small fraction of the number of available annual uses.

Increasing Complexity.  It is likely that pricing models will only increase in terms of their complexity over time and this will lead to increased confusion and dissatisfaction of consumers.  End-User License Agreements (EULAs) of software, for example, are notorious for their complexity and consumers are known to just skip over them rather than understanding the language and implications of their engagement with the offering.  Consumers are likely to get tired and "don't have time to do a spreadsheet every time they are going to buy something." There used to be a place for consultants between business buyers and vendors – interpreting what the prospect really needs.  Computers are driving this innovation and ability to deliver more complex mechanisms successfully.

Overwhelm.  In Barry Schwartz's The Paradox of Choice it is argued persuasively that not everyone needs or wants more choice and at some point the buyer becomes overwhelmed with options and relies on gut, emotion, bias or instinct to decide.  From an engineering and innovation perspective more options,  bells and whistles are valuable but it is the job of the marketer or product manger to bundle and package only these innovations into bite size chunks that the end users will actually use, consume and from which they will, at scale, actually receive value and benefit.

Base Plus and Hybrid Models.  Some new pricing models start with the base service and then offer add-ons or subscriptions on top of the base capability.  These can be thought of as hybrid models with fixed and variable expenses.  As if lots of features and pricing models were not enough to confuse the consumers, "modes" and options of features (like colors) add yet another layer of complexity to considerr.

Bundling, Tailoring and Customization.  Rather than one-size-fits-all strategies, companies are starting to play with services that better fit the consumer. Although a side effect is too much choice for the consumer, one benefit is (if the choices can be simplified) that the services and prices can be directly tailored and fit to the needs of the buyer.  There are opportunities to tailor based on buyer psychographics that aren’t being fully utilized, for example, as well.

Returns and Less than Full Utilization.  Return  policies in some way are linked into pricing benefits, perceived value and purchasing decisions.  For example, some snow chains can be returned years later if not used for full money back.   Organizations like Costco and Nordstrom are known for great return  policies.  There could be scenarios in subscription pricing models where the unused portion of the service could be returned for all or a portion of the money back but these seem rare today.  Said differently, rather than consumers having to 'eat' the difference, the seller could detect unused capacity and give the consumer some money back, making the exchange more efficient and less one-sided. Another example of seller graciousness and service is Les Schwab changing unused snow chains for those fitting a new vehicle.

Lack of Ownership.  Traditional, basic pricing models of music, for example, where an entire CD
is purchased and owned may also demonstrate waste but the goods at least become an asset to and property of the buyer.   Possession and ownership also provides the ability to transfer, trade or sell the item post-facto and buyers can recuperate some of the cost.  Leases, subscriptions and downloadable music do not typically exhibit an ability to transfer. Perhaps an album as a coherent offering from an artist whereas streaming services muddy the waters.

Delivery Method.   Many new delivery models are available today as well, which also play into consumer perception of value.  For example, Amazon  Prime's home delivery and one-day delivery are extremely convenient for users and create excitement.  Similarly, Amazon now does delivery to vehicles, garages, and lockers. Innovation in delivery can be captured in pricing.

Customer Service and Trust. The quality of customer service and in some cases access to human representatives of the organization also plays into consumer thought on value and price.  Painful customer service experiences, ridiculous hold times and no access to qualified and capable humans is largely dissatisfying for consumers, resulting in customer loss.  What is driving consumers' perception of trust in providers?  The relationship and perception of care and personalization is a big part of it.   For example, Verizon and Pemco keep good records about customers so the relationship with the organization is maintained over time building trust.  Some businesses calculate Customer Lifetime Value and tailor services based on the perceived (most likely remaining) value of the customer.  There are of course examples where the provider bends over backwards and goes above and beyond what is reasonable to delight a customer or prove a point in the market.  The book Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson tells fictitiously of a Pizza Company CEO who travels to the dissatisfied customer to apologize in person for a poor delivery, then harms the delivery person.

Justice and Equity.  When both parties feel like they have compromised an equitable amount or given up something of equal value during the exchange, interests are aligned and growth can flourish.

Geography, Regulatory Context, Risk-Transfer and Taxes. Sales taxes and their avoidance also plays into product pricing strategies and distribution methods.  In the Supreme Court case of South Dakota  vs. Wayfair, it was ruled that, "states can  mandate that businesses without a physical presence in a state with more than 200 transactions or $100,000 in-state sales collect and remit sales taxes on transactions in the state."

Criticality for Businesses.  Not only are companies thinking about how to avoid tax expenses, they're also thinking about how to best finance their operations.  And what better way to get cash in hand to fund future activities than to get recurring payments from consumers rolling in?  This is one of the key reasons for subscription pricing, and also results in many of the problems and examples of misalignment.

Buyer Beware.  From an early age, as consumers, we are hopefully trained to question what is being sold and marketed to us both in terms of value, price and supplier quality.  As consumers we are raised in a culture of skepticism and a lack of trust for sellers and sales people, for example.  Other cliches abound such as The Customer Is Always Right.  And in practice that principal is not regularly honored.

To Summarize a Few Points:

Special thanks to Mike Pritchard for his great edits and additions to this body of work.  And to Carrie Dugan, Larry Gales, Berry Zimmerman and David Slight for their awesome contributions, experiences, knowledge and ideas.

Please join us next time for a dinner conversation and following article that will address the question, "Is Automation Progress?"

Remaining Human in a Technology World

The AppsJack crew gathered to continue their discussions on causality.  This month, the topic was about humans and we talked about benefits.  Benefits accrue to entities whereas outcomes are higher level.  David talked about their being only two types of jobs: service jobs and design jobs.  Service jobs directly interface with customers and design jobs do not.  There seems to be quite a gray area between these distinctions and most jobs are probably a mix between service- and design-related tasks.

In the house we had Berry Zimmerman leading us, a new attendee named Louis Sweeny who was smart and awesome, Susan Stringer, Reba Haas, David Slight, Jean Bishop and AppsJack founder Eric Veal.

Reba recommended the Humans are Underrated book and was telling us about Amazon getting into the real estate market with a new set of services.

Someone made the claim that, "People are informed but don't care." ie they are often apathetic.

The group talked about the influence that marketing and other people's designs has on us on a daily and unconscious level.  People need to be aware and alert of their environment and recognize what kinds of messages they may be receiving from the designers of their environments. An example of this is our "feeds" online and how they may be curated and presented.  Clearly the tech services providers have a lot of power over our perceptions and what inputs we receive for processing.  We need to be conscious of what we are processing and mindful.

Louis mentioned some innovation that Uber is doing in helping its riders find drivers and vice versa.  They are releasing a flashing colored light called Beacon.  With Simbi.com, users can barter skills and services online.

Eric made the point that being 'humane' is far more easier to understand and think about than being 'human'.  Being human includes everything, whereas being humane is only a subset of the features we would value and want from an individual.

Berry shared several human-defining traits with us: choice, a belief of control, unique experiences, independent, social.  Berry also dropped big questions on us like, "What is the purpose of humanity?"  The group thought the question was perhaps a bit too broad but it definitely got them thinking.

Louis mentioned the 2016 feature film Arrival and others agreed it was a good one.  "Linguistics professor Louise Banks (Amy Adams) leads an elite team of investigators when gigantic spaceships touch down in 12 locations around the world."  And he also shared that he likes the book The Top Five Regrets of the Dying.

The movie The Perfect Human Diet was also cited as an interesting watch by Berry.  "Filmmaker C.J. Hunt searches for a solution to the obesity epidemic using dietary science, historical findings and ancestral native diets."

Also mentioned were Esther Perel's TED talks.  David is a fan of Jeremy Rifkin who stars in the 2017 film The Third Industrial Revolution and also really likes what he sees from organizations that follow the Holocracy practices of self-organization.  The group talked about Dunbar's Number which states that a human can't scale beyond 148 meaningful relationships.  Humans on BBC was recommended as was the Seattle Liberating Structures group and Crucial Conversations book.

Join us in May to contribute to the fun.

The Latest in e-Commerce Tools, Tech and Techniques from Pros in Seattle

We showed up at an e-Commerce Meetup in Seattle last night and learned a lot.  The group is called Seattle Profit Pirates Mastermind Group - Ecommerce & Amazon Entrepreneurs and was meeting at a coffee shop on Capitol Hill.  We got a lot of tool and tech recommendations and met some thought leaders in the field.  Here are some details for all you e-Commerce and digital marketing people out there.

Terapeak shows you what to sell online.  MerchantWords helps you find more buyers.  Google Adwords is a classic and key tool.  Many people use Facebook to create ads and funnels.  Text / SMS is another technique for capturing emails.  Shopify was considered to be the best e-Commerce tool.  James who runs Wooly Clothing and was telling us about Amazon's practice of  Brand and Category Gating.  Benjamin, who runs the group, was asking about Liquidation services.  He said he's tried FoxBox.  I mentioned Alternativeto.net as a method of finding technologies in a category to support a business process or function. 

We didn't talk about but I was reminded of Mautic, HubSpot and my buddy with Conversion Wizards.  Benjamin says it's important to consider Cost Per Email as a metric.  He also mentioned that MailChimp has an advanced, for pay, feature that provides additional metadata for email addresses to extend marketing.

James was asking about managing multiple channels and Benjamin swore by Skubana, a multi-channel inventory management system, which is $1,000/mo.  He says it's well worth it if you have the volume. 

Flexport, a freight forwarding method, and Keepa, an Amazon price tracker, were also mentioned as useful tools. 

Thanks to all attendees.  Great event and lots to learn.  A whole new domain and area to explore.

AppsJack TECH DRIVERS Debate Highlights - November 2017

We had a motley crew of 16 awesome people at the kickoff of AppsJack Season 2, where our topic is causality and business dependency networks (BDNs). 



We were led on Tuesday evening by management consultant David Slight who is basically awesome. David came very well prepared with handouts for the guests and a meetup host sign-up sheet.  David led us in topic 1 of 12: TECH DRIVERS. 

The dialog went far and wide and was fascinating.   The discussion touched on:

• The 3rd Industrial Revolution wiki
• 5G mobile networks wiki
• Humans are Under Rated video
• GM says it is leaving the automotive industry - Richard Webb statement, needs source
• Bonini's Paradox - contribution by newcomer Lucas Parker - "explains the difficulty in constructing models or simulations that fully capture the workings of complex systems (such as the human brain)."  wiki
• "Things don't just happen, they happen for a reason."  ~ David Slight quote.
• Drivers are things we can't change.
• Richard spoke about the technology having been ready and done for five years but regulation and its impacts are the things holding its implementation back.

The main lessons that I took away as a facilitator and leader of this group were A) we need to tell people to create a small team of at least one other person so they are engaged and can break out if needed (and not just be quiet or disengaged in the discussion).  Having small groups is one thing that makes us identify as part of the big group.

Join us for our next gathering in a couple of weeks when we'll take the HUMAN side of the DRIVERS debate.  Details and RSVP here.

The Plan for 2017 and 2018

By David Slight

We'll Talk About Causality and Business Dependency Networks. For a YEAR!

Given our mission to talk about business and technology and learn from diverse perspectives of the group members, we are suggesting and going forth with this self-organizing charter for the coming year. For each of the six BDN perspectives, we will look first at the technology followed by the human perspective. So our calendar for the year looks like the following:

The WHY

November: 

Drivers Tech: what is coming for robotics, automation and futurism

December: 

Drivers Humans: how to evangelize the humanist and people perspectives

Drivers explain why an investment is being made. These are the reasons that senior managers believe will have an impact on the business in a given time frame, yet they are outside the direct control of the organization. A driver requires responses from the business. Drivers can be external (listed first), something in the larger market environment, or internal, an improvement initiative or mandate generated within the organization by senior management.

January: 

Outcomes Tech: What technology and automation do we want to adopt? How far are we willing to let the robots go?

February: 

Outcomes Humans: Define the outcomes we as humans want to achieve.

The outcomes define the end point, or the state at which an investment is aimed.  They are the agreed-upon achievement targets  that help address the drivers. Outcomes are derived from the envisioned changes indicated by the drivers, and help define the benefits that are to be expected.

March: 

Benefits Tech: What benefits can automation and technology provide? How do we measure the benefits?

April:

Humans: Benefits: Who should get the benefits? Large tech corporations or everyone? The developer or sales?

Benefits describe what will happen in the business to help achieve the outcomes. These are advantages to an organization’s stakeholders that can be realized by business changes. Every benefit stream must have an owner who is part of the analysis process. The expected benefits types must be determined, along with how they will be measured. The organization’s key performance indicators (KPIs) are a good source of measures. Inclusion of quantitative measures is preferred, if a reliable number can be obtained from the customer.

The WHAT

May: 

Changes Tech: Where is the tipping point when AI starts to think for itself?

June: 

Changes Humans: Can people change, can culture change?

Business changes are new and permanent ways of working within the organization to realize benefits.  The changes come in three forms: 1) Doing new things, 2) doing things better, and 3) stopping counterproductive things.  These can be shown at a high level in several ways, depending on the organization’s preference: as a business process to be changed, a description of the changes to be made, or as organizational capabilities or functional units.

The HOW

July: 

Capabilities Tech:  What capabilities can we rely on from technology?

September: 

Capabilities Humans: What are the essential human capabilities that should be retained and nurtured?

Capabilities are that must be at the required level of maturity in order to support the desired business changes. Multiple capabilities may be required to change an individual process, and some changes may affect more than one process. Training, implementations of new standards, policies, and procedures, or acquisitions and reorganizations are included in this category.

October: 

Enablers Tech: Which technologies are ready for prime time?

November: 

Enablers Humans: What can technology still not enable?  

Enabling technologies  provide the lowest level answers to the question of how  business changes will be achieved.  The items in this column are the IT systems, projects, or product features that will support needed changes. They can support changes in a business process, as well as the introduction of new technology or the work required in a project .

WRAP UP

December: Discuss our charter for 2019

AppsJack Capable Communities Podcast Season 1 Completes - Check It Out

We started out with this idea and framework and made it work.  Congrats and thank you to all involved.

It's amazing!  We just finished year one of the AppsJack Podcast: Capable Communities.  How awesome does this feel.  We had this idea a couple of years ago so it's amazing to see it come to frution and be so fun.  

Huge thanks to producer Christian Harris for all of his time and grace, Steve Kubacki for awesome support and content, Ele Munjeli for being so great, Richard Webb and David Slight for their amazing contributions.  We've truly built an amazing community and I am so proud.  

The Season 1 guests are listed below in alphabetical order.  We recorded 30 episodes with 30 guests and published over 16 hours of content, covering each of APQC's 12 areas of business processes.  We ate a lot of breakfasts and brunch, drank a lot of coffee and beer.

Tech Staffing CEO Aftab Farooqi

Leadership Coach Alan Andersen

Lean Agile Fellow Alan Sebring

Smartsheet Developer Andrea Cremese

Developer Andrew Sengul

Executive Andy Scott

Podcast Producer and Real Estate Mogul Christian Harris

Creative Data Genius Dave De Noia

Finance Expert and Restaurateur Dave Niederkrome

Security Expert and All-Around Brain Don Alvarez

The Inspirational and Motivated Ele Munjeli

IT Champ James Murray

Entrepreneur and Sales Professional James Tuff

CEO Joe O'Konek

Startup Attorney and Podcaster Joe Wallin

Patent Attorney Jonathan Olson

Security Expert Josh Barrow

Front-End Developer Josh Bosworth

International Marketing Wiz Kifaya Dawud

Tech Consulting Business Developer Lee Carter

Startup Wonk Leo Lam

Crypto Currency Consultant Mark Mueller-Eberstein

Author and Speaker on Focus and Clarity Michael Cavitt

Author and Conflict Management Specialist Rachel Alexandria

Lean PM and Business Continuity Expert Ralph Kliem

Business Attorney Reuben Ortega

Architect Richard Webb

CEO and Member of the Board Scott Davis

Clinical Psychologist and Very Creative Steve Kubacki

Stay tuned for what will happen in Season 2!

APQC Acquire, Construct and Manage ASSETS and Mega Project Management Meetup Summary

The business group met at its usual place and had a good turnout. The topic was Acquire, Construct and Manage Assets and I wanted us to explore 'mega projects'.  It was summertime and I hadn't promoted the event much but we had some old faces show up and some new blood as well.  In the house for the first time was Sri, a friend of Richard Webb's, and an incredibly sharp and talented management consultant.  Our topic for the evening was 'Mega Project Management Techniques' and it was within the context of APQC PCF's Acquire, Construct and Manage Assets category.  For fun, Richard and I sat on opposing ends of the large table so we could battle.

We had a $150 + tip minimum we had to meet so attendees were encouraged to eat and drink to their heart's content.  I enjoyed two IPAs and even sprung for the Filet Mignon (medium rare, of course), which was served with broccolini and I got fries and there was a slight truffle flavor happening somewhere on the plate, which was good.  Overall the meal was quite good, although the filet did not compare to the quality available at Jak's.

And so our discussion of ASSETS began and Richard, as is somewhat typical, took the lead and shared what he knew and thought about the topic.  Also in attendance were yours truly (Eric Veal), Bruce Follansbee, Thomas Mercer, James Murray (thanks for showing up, James!), Alan Andersen, Steve Kubacki.  Richard's friend Sri arrived toward the end as we were closing up shop.

Thomas offered that assets were rent producing.  We were working on a definition of asset that we could all get behind and I was also preparing for the recording in early September of the AppsJack Capable Communities Podcast on the Asset Management topic.  We wondered if assets were investments and thought they may need to have a positive ROI.  I suggested that assets created passive income.

We discussed the modes of acquiring assets: with cash, by making them, and by financing them through other means.  Richard talked about two main classes of assets: Cost of Doing Business Assets (like printers, for example) and Intellectual Property assets.  We wanted to keep drilling down on the definition of assets and more fully understand their properties and methods. So we did: we wondered if assets had a property of technical debt and we spent quite a bit of time considering if technical debt was an essential property of an asset (since assets, like anything, are probably not perfect).

The conversation shifted from technical debt (bad design and things requiring rework, really anything imperfect) to the role of the architect as the key person who creates and hands over assets.  Richard, who has been an IT architect for years had many things to say about the topic.  Richard shared some stories with us including a multi-million dollar project where he and the team dropped off a very large stack of documents off to the client about how to make a data center.  He described the pile of paper being feet-tall and the 'thud factor' of dropping off all that intellectual property to the client.  Richard pointed out another distinction in that 'only humans create IP'.  He described assets as an object with a unique ID, that they are "sellable" and containerized.  Assets have clear scope and their boundaries (what they are and are not) are well defined.  Richard wondered if there could be an Operating Expense asset and we discussed the new billing models with the cloud where people are renting services.  We also spoke about the cloud as a utility and some issues relating to the regulation of the cloud providers by providing some sort of efficiency index.

Examples of Goldman Sachs' position in the market came up for the second time in as many weeks.  On the last podcast episode, guest Mark Mueller-Eberstein made some guesses about how Goldman could enter into the crypto-currency space. Studying more about Goldman could be a good thing as for innovation.

James pointed out that business brokers use the formula EBITDA x Risk to get the business value.  So risk (in our case technical debt, for example) is a fundamental aspect of reducing the value of a firm.  Getting to a reasonable risk quotient is a trick.

We debated issues of "boutique services" and wondered how one-to-one services like Alexa and Google Home would be regulated in the future.  Richard shared about three key properties of modern software services, a subclass of asset: UX, Adoption, and Consumption.  The consumption part is what is metered in modern systems such as Microsoft Azure and Amazon Web Services (AWS).

Bruce cited the book Fumbling the Future about Xerox's fall from its central role in office automation.  The group also had a long and detailed conversation about practices at Boeing.  Someone in the group stated that, "Boeing doesn't make ariplanes, it moves money."

Join us soon for podcasts on the Managing Assets topic and join us at the meetup in September when we will discuss Risk, Compliance, Remediation and Resiliency.

Managing Information Technology Meetup - Kirkland, WA - 6/20/2017 - Recap Notes and Podcast Prep

In attendance were: Richard Schurman (Attorney), Mark Mitchell (CFO), Eric Veal (Technologist), Richard Webb (Technologist), Dominic Wong (Management Exec), Steve Kubacki (Psychologist and Inventor), Kifaya Dawud (Marketer)

RW talked about “Business Stacks”.

RW talked about how good the Amazon TPM (Technical Program Manager) role is:

They own the architecture, PM role and tech

They have clear scope

They are organized to work together

They are measured objectively and fairly: difference between TPM doing poorly themselves (as a leader/worker) and the thing they are producing failing

Example TPM role: there is a person who is responsible for running “events” for Amazon (like father’s day).  Mark: Walmart did this as well with stores in Texas with stuff like Cinco de Mayo.

Amazon TPM rollup structure:

TPM

Regional TPM

Top TPM – meets with Bezos

Same role with widening scope that aggregates

Communication flows up and down this TPM chain

Tools for organizing management:

- Mark: adaQuest has a way to communicate strategy throughout the org

- Also ManageHub - Eric and Mark to further look into ManageHub for organizational uses for process improvement with Doug Hall

CRM Systems

Are they important?  Eric says they are central but there is an issue of adoption and data capture, data quality and people playing games with their data like hiding it strategically.

Examples of modern integration frameworks: Zapier, IFTTT, etc. for integration vs. old tools and people that integrated systems.  "We don't do it like we used to.  It's all as a service now." - EV

RW coined that these types of integration utilities are “(Hardware and Printer) Drivers at a different level”.  Totally agree, very interesting.

Drivers are hard to write because they break if either end changes, which prevent scale.

RW had some funny commentary about SOAP and REST and why one didn't work and other did: "SOAP didn’t work because programmers are dirty.  REST worked because programmers are lazy."  Microservices architecture becoming a big deal.

Eric had a recent VR experience with HTC Valve simulating “in the office” where he made coffee, 3D printed things and ate a donut.  Very amazing stuff.  Changes your mind and belief of what's possible.

Current “dialogs” and programs are too linear in their current form and are too project/product-oriented (developers need to finish and can't guild the lily, just want the basics to get done). 

Eric's vision of the world of the web now (as different from APQC + Process Triggers 10+ years ago):  There are "Listeners" (the people gathering the data with instrumentation and telemetry) + they provide or sell WebHooks to others who + People that write services that hand off of the events.

EV had a question, “Can we teach computers how to HARD SELL and effectively CLOSE a person on a big transaction while the person knows it is happening?”

We seemed to agree that we could and that it was actively happening now.

RS said that it depended on how the information is presented and when.

Richard gave examples of Blue Apron knowing if he read an email from them or not (by tracking a pixel).

Mark said that Google know if you walked into Nordstrom (location services on).  This is clearly very powerful for very many marketing-related things.

Companies every day are designing and running campaigns that work against (with/for) people’s weaknesses, predilections and interests.  Insidious from one perspective, genius, smart, intelligent and useful from another.

Excellent sales processes happen all the time in games (in app purchases), etc.

This can get into some edge / unethical realms if there is blackmail, for example. Open issue/question:  What's a person's recourse against these systems?

Richard talked about how Americans respond best to English and Australian accents, so they are used a lot in advertising to us.

We talked about humans training computers (other-learning) vs. computers training themselves (self-learning).  Humans can also train humans and computers can train humans and humans can train themselves.  Lots of vicious loops and cycles here.

We wondered, "What are the limitations of IT today?"

Richard said, "We have to get rid of the I.T. and make it “we” (make it work for us)

Eric and Richard talked about Enterprise Architecture, strategy and a recent HBR article on data strategy which talked about Offensive and Defensive uses for data.

Steve Kubacki showed up and was entertaining as usual.  Steve, “How many project managers does it take to screw in a lightbulb?  It depends on the location of the lightbulb?”  Har-de-har-har but also fairly insightful and true in my opinion; everyone is or should be a PM.

SK when talking about Virtual Reality applications and Andrew Sengul's work with Scenario Tech, "You want people to come forward with their own imagery."

LISP.  Andrew Sengul and Ben Sidelinger are both working on modern applications using the LISP language now.  What's up with that?  List of JavaScript LISP implementations.

We had a discussion about the design/experience of video games being way too open or way too closed/structured and cited examples.

Eric talked about a future computer design where there is immediate feedback between the writing of code and the existence of the application (run time and design time).  "Real time run time."  You heard it here, folks!

SK had many great quotes:

“The Theory of Totality”.  Everything is incomplete.  Goedel. 

SK: Can a corporation have empathy?

SK: “A corporation “has a” sociopath.” (as a property) pretty funny

SK: “We are fundamentally social creatures.  Self-interest is directed by the social interests.”

SK: “Brownian motion” how things aggregate

Eric made the point to Steve at some point about different types of grouping: Aggregation (requires a common interface of the members) vs. Composition groupings (no commonality required, they are simple assembled and joined...but could be very well designed to work together systematically like a car has many parts).

Steve made some great points about how we need to intentionally design and implement systems that decentralize.  Such a great point and such an interesting area.

Someone said that IT Development has been declining over the last 20.  I guess this was something Eric Schmidt of Google has said.

Steve says that we are seeing an increase of democratization within the workplace which sounds like a really good thing to me.

Eric made the point that "ownership" (of the work ie things were fully delegated) was previously delegated to the VPs (for example, the APQC model would probably recommend that someone owns each area and are responsible for throughput and continuous improvement of it) and is now delegated to actual and real units of business (products and projects).  This is the TPM role and how this power has shifted/is shifting from functions and processes to products, which is generally great for innovation, for example.

Steve shared more ideas about how different the culture will be on Mars: it is an un-earth-based culture.  Totally different than anything we have ever known?

Richard Schurman talked about some book tech and mentioned Scrivner, 

Kifaya showed up, too.  Thanks for coming, Kifaya!

Developing and Managing Human Capital - Notes from the May 23, 2017 AppsJack Business Services Meetup in Kirkland, WA

"Human Capital" was the topic to be discussed.  It was a sunny late-May afternoon and I headed down to Big Fish Grill to have the discussion with about 10 others who had gathered.  Unlike the normal gathering, we were given a smaller table, which in the end wound up being a little better: cozier and easier to hear people.  We never broke into smaller groups and had a good dialog with a big group.

At first it was just me, leadership coach Alan Andersen and coach Susan Stringer.  I had never met Susan before and was immediately impressed by her grace, experience and knowledge.  She has a great present and is a very fun conversationalist.  Eventually, more arrived and we kicked off the discussion about "Developing and Managing Human Capital", the first support process in APQC's process classification framework.  The first thing that was made clear is we all agreed that the CAPITAL word in human capital is evil, wrong, etc.  Richard Webb suggested that thinking of people as money is no worst than thinking of them as slaves.  There was agreement on this point.

In search of a starting point, I rattled off the APQC's subtopics:

• Develop and manage HR planning, policies and strategies
• Recruit, source and select employees
• Develop and counsel employees
• Reward and retain employees
• Redeploy and retire employees
• Manage employee information

I told people that I was personally most interested in the "Manage Employee Information" area, where I had the most experience.  It's subtopics are as follows: Manage reporting processes (who reports to whom), Manage employee inquiry process (how management gets info from employees), Manage and maintain employee data, Manage human resource information systems (HRIS), Develop and manage employee metrics, Develop and manage time and attendance systems (we agreed this was an optional step for some places), Manage employee communication.

No one seemed to bite on the above high-level concepts so I started rattling off the discussion topics that we'd covered over the last year: good books we'd read about HR and people-management, alternatives to the resume and is the resume dead, how to get a great job, how to get maximum wages sustainably, what are the current trends and issues, problems in HR management, what does the modern worker like, what do they expect and need, what is the future of employment, what will technology do to HR and management with tools like LinkedIn and CrystalKnows?  Before I could get too far down the list, people locked on the resume topic and we were off on our first big topic.

The resume, truth, recruiting and qualification

Susan gave us some great and interesting facts about millennials in the workforce: that 50% of the workforce will be millennials by 2020 and 75% of the workforce by 2025.  Incredible statistics.  Susan is doing a presentation soon on millennials in the workforce that I will plan to attend.  She is a student of the topic.  I raised issues about complexity dealing with individuals vs. working with people in populations.  Working with 'classes' and things in groups is far easier than but as humans we seem very reluctant to exclusively deal with things in groups and need to give the attention that people and organizations need at an individual level.  

Richard said that the age of authenticity is what's next and was seeking a term for millennials.  I suggested that they were Generation M to keep it simple then we laughed about sequence issues.

We talked about predictive analytics and the power of organizations like Facebook and LinkedIn to predict events from data such as divorce with very high confidence.  Data is a very powerful thing.  

  

I suggested that the resume is just one signal in the collection (stack) of things necessary to understand and work with a person professionally.  Other signals include online profiles like LinkedIn, social media presence, reference checks and the interview.  We didn't believe that the resume would be going away and generrally believed that i was a gateway and door-opener to other aspects of the person.

Susan impressed us with some of her experiences doing hiring at the executive level and gave examples of people she had vetted by requesting 12 references from them: 3 supervisors, 3 peers, 3 suppliers and 3 others.  This sounded very rigorous to me but I could appreciate just how important getting this information really is for some high-risk, high-reward opportunities.

Susan shared that she asks these questions to the candidate, "How would your former managers describe you?" and to the former managers, "How would you describe your former employee?"  They are very open questions and she would listen for incongruity between the stories.  She said she had been referred to by some in the past as "the female version of Columbo", the TV show detective.  What an amazing skill to go this deeply into someone's background not make sure they are who they say they are.

Talent

We got off on a discussion about the quality of leaders and the leadership and it was stated that only A players can hire A players.  Richard told us stories about the Drugstore.com days (joint-venture between Microsoft, Walmart, and some India companies) and how complex and different those cultures were and how they used a 'bus' to communicate effectively.  Another aspect of that collaboration that worked well was to pass information through a key resource they called the seamstress (it was a man) who would bridge the gap and coordinate between the three different teams.  

Books

We talked a little about books here and there and Andrew Sengul regaled us with stories from Aaron Hurst and The Purpose Economy.  The book says that people can be broken up into three categories: those motivated by money, prestige/fame or a deep personal commitment.  The book suggests to only hire the people with deep personal commitment.  Andrew cited quite a few examples of how it is hard to manage and create organizations of these kinds of individuals.

Alan and Susan both highly recommended the book Leadership and Self-Deception.  Alan believes that everyone is a leader (at least sometimes) and they have to start by leading themselves.  

Corruption

Richard is obsessed with the idea that things and people are corrupt.  He believes and here was agreement in the group that one thing we are trying to do with all of these systems and controls in businesses is to weed out corruption, corrupt people and takers.  Richard says that there is a worthy goal to "instrument corruption" (develop systems that can measure and detect corruption at all levels).  Andrew jumped in and offered that experts at corruption really are good at it: that low-grade corruption is easy to detect and that some people really are grade A snakes.  

Steve Kubacki showed up a bit late (but I had already referenced a couple of his ideas) and we talked more about his idea of random firings to weed out corruption and sick cultures.  

Steve says that more of this needs to happen at the top of the organization than the bottom.  Susan said that, "A good leader assesses the talent and weeds out the tenured people."  So her theory is that this can be done by good people but I agree with Steve in some ways that this needs to be done by policy and not just by people (heroes).  We went into a discussion about CEO and he Board and how those two things should work together for control and regulation of the organization.  

Richard wanted to know how to test for integrity.  Everyone agreed that business and corporations really was a battle or war and that more people need to understand that situation.  We went into a discussion about the role of the HR department (few liked it) and Susan gave us examples of HR departments that provided coaching through the "HR Business Partner" who coached the manager of the group.  I have personally witnessed limitations of this model, especially when the management is not ready for coaching.  

"Balancing the bottom line and people" is a big topic that Susan thinks is a key challenge for organizations.  

We went off on a long rabbit trail tangent about sociopaths and predators (evil people) who are ladder climbers.  We tried to separate between those who are sick, ambitious and charismatic.  There is a desire by people to detect and weed these people out.

We talked about the authoritarian personality and how many people are okay with it (even seek it out) and like to live inside of authoritarian structures because they are given something from daddy.  

Conclusions and Next Steps

We had a great turnout.  It was me, leadership coach Alan Andersen, executive coach Susan Stringer, technology architect Richard Webb, professional services pro Lee Carter, delivery operations pro Dena Carter, operations manager Dominic Wong, business owner Thomas Mercer, business leader Thomas Mercer, software product developer Andrew Sengul and creative psychologist Steve Kubacki.

Please join us soon for Episode 8 of the AppsJack Capable Communities Podcast on the HR/Human Capital topic which will feature consulting business owner Aftab Farooqi, coach Rachel Alexandria, psychologist Steven Kubacki, executive and consultant Joe OKonek and professional services sales director Lee Carter.  We will record on Saturday 6/10 and the conversations will be dripped to the major podcast outlets each Sunday morning during June and early July. 

Our next topic for the meetup and podcast will be managing information technology, a topic near and dear to my heart and another key enabler to business.

Show Notes - Episode 7 - Managing Customer Service

Recorded: May 13, 2017
Host: Eric Veal
Guests: Ele Munjeli, Michael Cavitt, Andrew Sengul
Legend: Bold = key point

Chat 1 - Strategy

• Intros
• EM: devops engineer, JPL contractor, open source org "devopracy" and virtual democracies
• MC: advisor and organizational consultant, helping leaders think
• AS: SW dev, interactive narrative
• EV: Strategy, management, measurement, is customer service dead and why?
• AS: has it been killed by a new generation of services?  Venmo scams
• EM: modern online businesses have much less cost. Reputation if bad can be resolved through re-branding.  Businesses more transportable.
• MC: yellow page ads scams.  Bad service and scams is nothing new.
• AS: scalability.  people don't scale and there are many humans potentially required.  
• EM: expectations have changed.  People prefer automated service.  When is it appropriate to have a servant in a democracy?
• EV: improved skills at delivering service through tech.  
• EM: do people prefer or trust an ATM more than a teller?
• EV: strategies can make customer service "dead" by demoting it and not having it be foremost.  Still examples of very high touch services.
• EV: what was high-touch back in the day is not high-touch now (things change)
• EM: two channels of people who prefer high touch and people who do not.
• MC: "how much engagement you want" (depends on the customer).  DIY people vs. people looking to outsource something.  Pricing and services, product mix differs for each audience.
• EV: markets and populations have people with both types of service needs (high and low).
• AS: segmentation based on the significance to the buyer.  Segment based on if people see it as significant or not..
• EV: don't just think about the human interaction part, consider the delivery and automation part other than just the human part.    Human touches diminishing over time?
• EM: we may be replacing the "real" human interfaces with new human-like interfaces like voice.
• EV: need to consider the customer service part from the beginning (common mistake).  
• MC: need to build customer service experience vision into the corporate vision, mission values and long-term strategy.
• EV: How do we include customer service during our strategic planning?  Looking at failure modes and the dark side?  Possible complaints, issues.
• MC: need to consider risk and build a "ratchet" so you can go two steps forward but only one step back, for example (build in quality).  "The Luck Factor".  Write scenarios for the business.
• EM: repair-driven systems design.  Program around areas where you know you'll have problems.  Build tools as you build products (comprehensive).
• AS: Picture the failure from the eyes of the customer and design / build /release accordingly?
• EM: Uber having issues now.  Transparent remediation.  
• MC: Need things pre-emptively and to consider beforehand so we are more prepared?
• AS: Humans encouraged to remove themselves from the sphere of customer interaction over time? 
• EM: how do you build trust in automation? 
• MC: customers really don't care, they just want their outcome.

Chat 2 - Managing customer service operations

• EV: workforce, requests, and complaints
• MC: Geico experience.  Sales and service tightly coupled.  Goal to resolve quickly with as few calls as possible.  People managed to reduce time on the phone.  Policies created conflicts.  You get what you measure in a lot of ways.
• EM: Geico very pro-automation.  They have a non-human representative.  "Golden age of phone service".  More companies doing voice-to-text analysis.
• MC: Hiring problem: no easy way to tell if a person is going to be good in customer service until you hear someone on the phone or see them in front of a customer.  
• AS: Business and HR likes rote checklists
• EM: wants more analysis on exceptional customer service.  What does it look like?  Predictive and anticipatory.  Are the best ones teachers?
• EV: Skill required at many levels and a lot of risk.
• AS: Human Competence book link.  People get stuck in 'cargo cults' who build a culture around checklists but have no agility, creativity or out-of-the-box thinking. What is the desired result?
• EM: Humor plays an important role of moving from business-only to personal / deeper relationship.  
• AS: The "Cute-ify-ing" of authority.
• EM: Citizenship and extending government services.  Can't force adoption.  
• EV: The weight of service delivery can be a lot when you are a consultant.  Working as a team way better, reduces the risk.
• EM: Great delivery comes from empowerment.  Career "pathing" makes a difference.   What paths are available for people that start as customer service?
• EV: People who start in the field can wind up in powerful positions.  But is this a common path?  Methods: 1) revolving door 2) isolated service org 3) one where people go to other departments.
• AS: Institutions act primarily to further their own existence.
• MC: Going from line / delivery into managerial roles is not necessarily good.  Army did specialist ranks.  Managerial routes don't always make sense.
• EM: Tech support should get into UX at some point.  Need a closed loop.  Tech support part of the design process, instrumental in designing the requirements, for example.  50% of problems are usability problems.  

Chat 3 - Measuring customer service

• AS: Cargo cults further explained.  Tribes would keep hoping for the planes would keep coming.  Doing non-value adding things and hoping.  Opportunity to find low performers and bring them up (low hanging fruit).  Need to set priorities and focus.
• EM: What and how are you measuring success and failure.  What is a meaningful failure?  Some people rewarding the wrong things and behaviors (like people fixing bad issues)...as it encourages more bad behavior in the future.
• MC: Celebrate the architects or the recovery team?  Information overload can be bad.  Not good to just get all the info.  Know the questions.
• EM: Designing good metrics is a trick.  Need to avoid bias and ask good questions (need good science).  There's a wrong way to ask questions and gather info.  Witch hunts, for examples, not a great way to gather info or do science.
• AS: Absurd metric examples.  "How slurred is their voice?"
• EV: Instrumentation and telemetry a big part of this (more is good) but still need filters and need to roll it up, prioritize, control, etc.  But more data generally a good thing.
• MC: Text-to-speech analysis is important and good feedback source.  Changes many things.
• EM: The relationship and rapport allows us to get better data.  Have users participate in the process.
• EV: Cost of getting feedback reducing through better instrumented products.  Doesn't require customers to actively give feedback but do through use instead.  Build the feedback system right into the product like a vacuum could detect it being kicked or sworn at.
• EM: Want a closed feedback loop where the feedback you gave was finally told to you that your comment mattered, when and how.  
• AS: Investment and significance.  
• EV: Investment happens on both sides: the customer and the provider.  Both need to be invested and quid pro quo may be needed.
• AS: Speculation and investment.  A financial question.
• EV: Human capital is next.

AppsJack Capable Communities Meetup – March 2017 – Delivering Product & Services Discussion

Tuesday, March 28, 2017 4 PM
Kirkland, WA

A few business associates and I gathered last Tuesday to talk about challenges relating to delivering products & services.  Delivering products and services is the fourth element in the APQC model.  I showed up at about 3:30 and struck up a conversation with Alan Andersen who was already there.  Alan is a leadership coach and consultant.

I’ve been fortunate to get to know Alan better over the last couple of months and it’s been a good experience for me.  Alan is well read and has so many experiences working with leaders and teams from which he can draw experiences and stories.  We sat and chatted and then a few more people showed up at our table, the Captain's Table.

Richard Webb, always a powerful and interesting force, showed up and we started to get into the meat of the delivery topic.  James Tuff, an entertaining and vivacious technology sales executive and entrepreneur, showed up and sat at the head of the table.  After long we had eight at the table including clinical psychologist and writer Steve Kubacki, an intelligent, insightful, opinionated professional and mountaineer.  Steve is great at these events in that he helps us stayed grounded, balanced and on point.  Steve regularly shares perspectives that help us see things from a more human, less business, perspective.  Tonight was no exception.

My new friend, Thomas Mercer, was sitting to my right.  I was drinking iced tea in copious amounts; I had been sick with a fever earlier in the week but was starting to spring back to life.  Spring was upon us indeed.  12 years prior, Thomas and I had finished the same master’s program at the University of Washington Foster Business School: information systems where we learned about the internet, networks, business.  And when things like Facebook were brand new.  Thomas previously ran a medical practice business that helped people with irritable bowel syndrome with diagnosis and treatment.  He explained to us his time working on that project and ho it related to the challenges of delivery.

Lee Carter, sitting to my left, is a business development manager for Ciber, a technology consulting firm with some major clients in the area, recently relocated to the Seattle area from Dallas, TX.  We were also graced by Bruce Follansbee’s presence.  Bruce is always good for conversation, putting people at ease, and book references.

One of the first things I asked about was blockchain and its relationship to delivery.  Per wikipedia:

blockchain is a distributed database that maintains a continuously growing list of ordered records called blocks. Each block contains a timestamp and a link to a previous block.[6] By design, blockchains are inherently resistant to modification of the data — once recorded, the data in a block cannot be altered retroactively. Through the use of a peer-to-peer network and a distributed timestamping server, a blockchain database is managed autonomously. Blockchains are "an open, distributed ledger that can record transactions between two parties efficiently and in a verifiable and permanent way. The ledger itself can also be programmed to trigger transactions automatically."

Richard and Thomas seemed to know quite a bit on the subject and shared what they knew with us.  There was discussion about whether the blockchains should be open or closed, transparent or not.  Issues related to security and privacy were major pivot points for our discussion.  Richard suggested that we loop in Ellen Mooney into the conversation; I guess she is an expert on the topic of digital democracy.

We were pretty much all over the map in the beginning of the discussion, going from micro levels of delivery (firm or product perspectives) up to the macro levels (global supply chains, politics and economics).  Richard talked about Amazon’s CIDC pipelines and brought up the term “logistics engine”.  Many at the table agreed that Amazon is doing very amazing things these days and that their ability to delivery and run supply chains is amazing.  For many years, Walmart, the world’s largest company by revenue in the world, has been known for its logistics and methods like “cross-docking” but it seems that Amazon, between its online presence and many innovative new products and services has begun to eat into that area of innovation.  Much is happening with Amazon.

We talked about hypothetical scenarios where Amazon could, for example, run dentist offices and use 3d printing for delivery of replacement teeth.  It didn’t seem very far-fetched.  Richard mentioned and recommended the movie Elysium which has some interesting and futuristic elements to it where people get scanned with lasers and good things happen.

I realized at some point in the bubbling conversation that the differences between delivering services and delivering products really are stark.  APQC has even recognized this issue by breaking them out into different L1 elements, making the model 13 items, no longer 12.  I think it’s important to pick one or the other for the sake of focus, clarity and conversation.  Delivering products seems a bit easier in that they are tangible and “real”, whereas delivering services seems a bit more human and ambiguous and challenging, at least to me.  Richard doesn't believe that the distinction is all that different.  Similarities between delivering services and managing customer service (the next area in the AQPC model) seem obvious and will be the target of future exploration.

We got into a pretty detailed conversation about banking, the flow of money, financial systems and corruption.  Richard is very passionate about the many issues of corruption and it helps to have Steve there for his thoughts on humanity as well.  Richard gave examples of Visa being able to run all transactions in the world on its system alone.  Steve made some interesting points about capitalism, such as:

“Capitalism is about wiping out the competition as much as possible so you can waste as much as you want.”  

Steve’s a funny guy and I don’t disagree with the point.  I know some people who definitely act that way.  For these people I know, the goal is to get really rich and make a lot of money now so they can chill out, retire and do very little later.  They aren’t trying to create economies or markets or anything, they are trying to dominate existing ones.  In a word: take.  Not my kind of verb.

Someone mentioned the book by Chris Anderson “Free: The Future of a Radical Price” and cited that it was interesting.  James Tuff shared about a new business idea he is working on in the transportation and informatics areas and we all found it interesting helping him think about how he could deliver that set of products and services.  We had a lengthy and fruitful conversation with Reba about her challenges and ideas for competing and delivering value in the very rapidly changing real estate industry.

Business is highly complex and so is delivery.  Delivery is where the rubber meets the road.  Analyzing any business from the perspective of delivery is difficult because of the natural complexity.

Stay tuned for the upcoming podcast episode on delivery when I will sit down with Josh Bosworth and Steve Kubacki to bat the topic around.

About Vision & Strategy - How to develop it, other challenges and considerations

We had a motley crew of awesome people show up to the AppsJack Share gathering last in Kirkland to talk about Vision & Strategy. I got a lot of great input (see everything below) that will help me better direct the January version of the podcast.

Key Takeaways:

1. Strategy and approach (what to do) depends on the stage and situation of the business
2. Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) a good way to break down complex projects
3. Internal and external lenses/views/perspectives key to understanding and thinking about strategy
4. Personal and corporate authenticity key to successful implementation
5. Aligning an essential skill
6. Nuance and readiness for seeing, understanding, integrating and working with outliers and anomalies is another key
7. Timeframe matters for strategic thinking
8. Context matters (and therefore controlling/limiting scope and having focus)
9. There is a general prerence toward rapid tests of assumptions (failing fast) rather than long and protracted 'strategic' actions but there are times when the latter tactics (strategic actions) matter
10. We couldn't determine whether or not models mattered. Models are meant to be broken, so why manage to them or even think about them?
11. The mitigation and reduction of risk is key to successful strategy
12. Design thinking is a key and related skill
13. Strategy isn't and shouldn't be thought of as linear

We wondered at the very beginning if we should start by discussing vision or strategy and the answer, perhaps not surprisingly, was 'it depends'.  Chris brought up a good point that it very much depends on the stage, phase or status of the organization.  Assessment and triage (qualification) is first needed.  Steve raised challenges he has about breaking down a compelling vision into the component parts.  To me, these are the skills of project managers and other leaders who make complex and challenging things easier, that can be communicated to the necessary suppliers.  Work breakdown structure is a common method.  Mike Pritchard shared that he thinks there is an internal and external vision.  Joe Okonek refers to the vision, values and valued behaviors as things that can / should be externally communicated and publicly shared.  Missions, for example, can be internal documents and communications that help internal relationships focus on comm and strategic goal.  Public/open and private/closed is another dimension on which to explore strategy.

Good parts / what attendees liked: mentions of sex, swearing, arguments, passionate discussion, British accents, food, beer.  Authenticity was brought up as a key factor in this area.  Without true authenticity (and value, quality) your audience will see you as a fake and disengage (won't authorize).  Berry talked about the importance of alignment.  For example, aligning yourself and your company with the market and environment and their vision, values, purposes, needs, interests, ideas, etc.  Dominic talked about the difference between power (which can be personal and thought of as influence) and force, which can be applied from the tops down if someone has a lot of money or ability to coerce.  10 types of power are discussed in this article.  David brought up the point that strategy usually requires a longer and more futuristic timeline.  For example, he said that it's hard to be strategic for two minutes.  

Dominic led us in a discussion of the definition of a strategy and there were many different thoughts and opinions.  Someone defined a strategy as choosing an approach or an approach chosen ie a decision and commitment was necessarily made. I brought up the notion that it is hard to create a perfect product but many people disagreed: that within a domain, there can be a perfect product.  But there is a context, and knowing this context well is critical for product success.  Dominic wanted us to separate 'strategy' generically with 'strategy with a purpose' (a clear why). I brought up an issue I was having at work making a decision to build a feature for a big customer or not.  I am in the process of determining whether their request is qualified or not.  There is much skill required in qualification of certain issues.  Many at the table believed that 'if you are going to fail, fail fast' and people didn't like the idea of dragging on some elaborate process but others believed that caution and due diligence, not just action, were required in certain ambiguous political situations.  There are also scenarios where people cannot afford to fail fast, especially when there is not yet a powerful coalition, agreement and a clearly articulated and communicated vision.  

Richard wanted to know, "How do you know you have strategy?"  It's a good question.  We agreed that force, power, belief, authenticity, conviction and in many ways consistency were required for strategy.  But flexibility and other leadership qualities are also required.  We talked for some time about whether models were important or not.  David did not believe they were beneficial.  I gave the example of NoSQL database strategies where the data gets stored independent of a rigid table schema.  Many new data storage strategies do not rely on a centralized schema.  Differences between abstractions and concrete proof, evidence or data were interesting.  "Insight" or mental models are interesting when derived from data or science.  Steve talked about millennials and their needs.  He says that they share a desire for a better world and have this impediment of the rest of the world who is still alive, their elders.  

Someone pointed out that it is important to seek out anomalies in your data and to test assumptions.  Andy Scott made the point about the import of assumption testing on Episode 2 of the podcast.  Assumptions are a category or area of risk.  Steve shared the saying, "The presumptuous assume, the sumptuous consume."  People do need to build and test (at least mental) models.  Jean brought up the saying to test early and test often.  I shared about test-driven development (TDD), which is about only writing enough code (doing enough) to pass the next test.  It is a Lean approach.  Richard talked about the Site Reliability Engineer (SRE) role at Netflix and how they have build their strategy and plan around mitigating risk.  Managing and reducing risk is a key element of good strategy.  We talked a lot about design, design thinking and its import and spent quite a bit of time talking about Steve Jobs as a visionary and who else he surrounded himself with that helped make him successful.  It was suggested that Jonathan Ive at Apple was very critical to Steve's success and controlled and manipulated him in many ways.  He did of course have many failures as well.  Someone shared the idea of designing for failure, not success.  

Dominic wanted to make it clear that strategy was not linear and that it runs off of principles related to non-linear dynamics and non-linear systems.  Berry shared that it is our intention as managers to create systems that control and constrain--and this is necessary--but does indeed rub up against the truly dynamic nature of people and systems; feedback loops and quality systems that continuously transform and improve systems are indeed required.  We talked about automation and its important and how design decisions like 'who does what' plays big-time into strategy.  In my opinion, users should be the preferred and default / de facto actor and some (many?) of them should have the option to do a task themselves (value add) or delegate a task to a computer or someone else.  We started talking about the podcast toward the end of the event and Bruce recommended The Boss Show, which is a Seattle-area recording about bosses.

Berry posed the question, "How do you know that your vision is not a unicorn?" which is basically to say that you are not living a delusion or tilting at windmills.  The book Black Swan was recommended.  Richard talked a lot about the many types of currencies which relates to the idea of non-monetary economies.  I wondered out loud and Steve agreed that there is some sort of harmonic mathematical equation that describes a leader's oscillation between hypothesis tests and failures.  Bruce brought up 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Steven Covey and I mentioned that The 8th Habit is about "finding your true voice and helping others find theirs".  The book also talks a lot about connecting strategies of the head with those of the heart which is probably truly about authenticity, believe and conviction.

Questions and topics for further consideration:

• A Strategy (noun) vs. Strategy (verb) - What are the differences?
• The skill of qualification; how to qualify, what to qualify, what to ignore?
• Modern automation thoughts - who does what and what to do with the displaced workers?
• Why do the ideas of internal/private/closed and external/public/open help us in thinking about strategy?
• How do you know you have strategy?  (What is strategy?)
• What are the differences between real-world models and mental models and/or thought processes?  
• Test-driven design in management?
• The applications of flexibility and rigidity in strategy development

Which topics, ideas and points would like to see covered on the podcast about Vision & Strategy?