Google Contacts Beta

Dear Google Friends,

The new Contact interface is terrible. Please understand that I'm a strong advocate for Google - some would call me a fanboy. I really want Google to succeed and to demonstrate that a corporation can grow large and successful without turning to evil.

BUT -- the new contacts subsystem is terrible. It's sluggish, it's inconvenient, it's often inexplicable, and it's absolutely NOT an improvement on the very functional and completely satisfactory predecessor that was once integrated with Gmail.

How You Manage Passwords

Okay now, tell the truth.

With all the passwords you have to manage just to do your job and stay in touch with friends and family, you cannot possibly have a separate password for every account you manage, can you?

Some systems want you to have the password be a certain length, some want you to use at least one digit and one special character, (but it can only be from a certain subset of acceptable characters,) and some insist that you change the password on a periodic basis.

So you do what almost all the rest of us do. You use a standard personal password for most of your trivial accounts (like the Hilton Honors program and the Starbucks rewards program and your local gardening community forum site), and something special and (hopefully) secure for your online banking or your important social media accounts. But even with that strategy,  it's unlikely that you can keep all those passwords in your memory. So you write it down somewhere, don't you?!

Yes you do! Even the more progressive companies that require you to maintain credentials are beginning to acknowledge this age-old fact. No security system is stronger than the Post-It™Note.

So what are your alternatives? There are two. We'll talk about one today because it's something that's completely within your control

Vend Locally, Speak Globally

I can remember how in 1997 when I talked to small local business owners about the excitement of the Internet and what it would make available to them, many of them told me, "I don't need people all over the world to know about my business, my marketplace is right here in this town."

Today if your business does not have a web site however, it's like not having a business phone number. (In fact, even if your business has not yet opened its doors and doesn't actually have a phone number - you still need a web site in place for many purposes.)

The conversation today is very different. I talk to business owners about how they can use a social media strategy and they say something that sounds a lot like what they said in 1997. They ask me if it matters to their bottom line that Twitter readers in New York City can read about their local flower shop or restaurant.

This article makes a great case for how it DOES matter. (Why Online Reputation Matters - Small Business Trends, Jan 2012)

Here's what I have to add in the way of a cautionary tale.

A certain business with prominent success in the Southeast US recently leaned hard on a small business owner who makes t-shirts in his garage. (They may have believed that they had to do this in order to protect their trademarks.) The business owner struck back by mobilizing a veritable army of fans and friends of friends to expose the bullying. He used Facebook, YouTube, and a network of cost conscious blogger moms to spread the word.

Even when the outrage belonged to someone in a distant geographical region (like California or Colorado) where the prominent brand had no business -- the reach of these social media participants did bring the message back into the core markets for the brand.

The t-shirt guy is doing very well, thank you so much. The impact of the boycotts and bad publicity for the larger brand is difficult to measure given that it's a family owned company without a requirement to expose its sales figures.

I can attest that others have told me that they like the larger brand's products, but they will not be purchasing them any more.  Guess the family that owns the company will have to just Eat More Kale.

For you as a business owner, this should serve as an indicator that if you don't use today's tools strategically to manage your brand's reputation, someone else will be doing it for you.

Giving us Choices or Restricting Them?

Look! It's really simple here.

Some companies are working to give us choices in the marketplace.  Some companies work very hard to limit our choices.

Google works to give me choices through innovation and by empowering businesses that surround it in the marketplace. (Android phones for instance, are available from a number of vendors, and on a number of cell phone carriers' platforms.)

Apple endeavors to limit my choices. (The iPhone will at soon be available at last, on more than one cell network, but is still available from only one vendor. And of course, some of us are having a hard time believing Steve Jobs' claim that Flash is unfit for the iPad.)

Hulu and TiVo work to give me choices. (The ability to select programming according to my wishes and schedules is no longer revolutionary, it's what I demand.)  Comcast and Viacom endeavor to limit my choices.

Memo to the marketplace:  If you actively engage in an effort to restrict the number of choices in the marketplace, we will see who you are and you will fail.  Players who work to innovate and compete in the marketplace by innovating and standing for excellence will be the winners.