Shape of Things

Isn’t it time that we celebrate the people behind the technological success stories?

If you’ve been a part of a marketing, PR or news organization involved with technology, you’ve dealt with press releases, case studies, technical articles and white papers that purport to show how a product makes a breakthrough in solving a vexing problem.

I’ve been on both sides of the desk, as a journalist and a content provider for technology companies. Beyond the task of convincing marketing managers that superlatives and hyperbole  simply don’t work for jaded engineers, developers, researchers and others on the front lines, there’s the challenge of injecting the human element into corporate content.

We get it that technology is the great enabler, but sometimes technology stories are the equivalent of giving credit to Aaron Judge’s bat, Serena Williams’ racket, Jimi Hendrix’s guitar or J.K. Rowling’s word processor. 

I’m not talking about praise for the achievements of the CEO, but recognition for how people are applying technology to solve day-to-day problems: The people who are discovering new ways to adapt technology-driven processes to make their organizations more creative, productive and cost-effective.

For some reason, the victories of these people — the unsung heroes of technological revolution — are largely missing from case studies, blogs, websites and other corporate communication channels.  We get it that technology is the great enabler, but sometimes technology stories are the equivalent of giving credit to Aaron Judge’s bat, Serena Williams’ racket, Jimi Hendrix’s guitar or J.K. Rowling’s word processor.

The logical question, of course, is this: What’s in it for the organization to shine a light on its innovative users or best technological minds? There are many benefits, but here are a few:

• It creates a story-line for which everyone can identify, but especially your current and potential customers.
• It positions your company as an organization that has a culture of sharing credit for achievements.
• It brings the rare element of emotion into the story; something sorely lacking in most technology company content.
• It allows the story recipient to share his or her achievements with families, friends and others who might not understand what she or he does.
• At the most commercially crass level, it makes your organization stand out from your competitors.

So, hooray for technologically innovative humans. Now give them their due.

At Convergence 2009, I heard a lot about technologies that connect different entities: physical with digital, humans with products, different functions within the product development cycle.

As Ping Fu pointed out in her keynote, technologies run in advance of social and cultural change.  The big challenge: How do you get people to cooperate and share for the benefit of the greater whole?

Rus Emerick of Schneider-Electric points out that almost every company uses individual achievement as the basis of its personnel evaluations.  As a teenager, Rus was told by his grandfather that he knew nothing until he shared knowledge.  He’s taken that philosophy to Schneider-Electric, implementing DSSP throughout the company for annual savings of millions.

Sadly, most of us aren’t like Rus.  We use knowledge like currency, keeping it to ourselves and meting it out grudgingly in small drips.

Companies need metrics to award knowledge spreading, and it can’t be competitive.  Otherwise, we get into an “I share better than you” competition.

Maybe we can take a cue from the NBA.  In an article in the NY Times magazine, Michael Lewis talks about non-traditional measures of performance used by the Houston Rockets to gauge the contributions of Shane Battier.  By conventional statistical measures, Battier is an average player.  By the Rockets’ measures, he’s an MVP candidate.

Are there measures out there to reward those who are exemplary in coming up with new ideas and spreading them throughout the organization? Send your comments here.  I have a few good books to give away for the best ideas.

Life would be hard without assumptions.  We assume people can understand us when we speak.  Otherwise, we’d have to get painful verification one….word….at….a….time.  We assume if that engine light doesn’t come on our car is running OK.  We assume we’ll be allowed a certain amount of behaviorial leeway from friends.

Sometimes within companies, however, we can assume too much, especially when it comes to our internal language.  The same lingo that greases the skids inside our companies might bring communication to a screeching halt in the outside world.  I was speaking to a phone rep today and he was telling me that I would need to call back when “my order was provisioned.”  Huh?

This style of tribal language runs rampant within technology companies.  A suggestion: Anytime you are communicating something to the outside world, run it by a few friends or customers to see if it makes sense.  Doesn’t take much time, and it could prevent a big assumption gap.