Posts tagged ‘Consumer Culture’

January 27th, 2013

Bad Systems Often More Frustrating Than No System At All

On January 23rd, I received an email from Delta airlines about my flight from LaGuardia on the 26th. The subject line was “Confirm Your LGA Terminal 24 Hours Before Departure,” and the gist was: Delta now operates out of two terminals, so check before your flight and we will make sure you get to the right one.

As a frequent traveler, I appreciate this sort of thing. Racing from one terminal to the next to catch a flight is exhausting, and I thought it was great that instead of forcing me to guess or sort it out when I got to the airport, Delta was telling me ahead of time.

Unfortunately, the email was about as good as it got. Yesterday, I looked at it again, in preparation for today’s travel. The Delta website link helpfully took me to a page where I could access flight schedules–but not directly info about my flight and its terminal. The Delta mobile app–otherwise helpfully designed–showed me my boarding pass, but no terminal or gate info. The “Flight Status” function showed gate C29–presumably Terminal C–but since getting this info was otherwise difficult, it was hard to know if that was accurate.

The app included a link for easy Tweeting to Delta (@DeltaAssist) so I did. The response did not confirm the terminal–the whole point!–and instead said “@DeltaAssist: My apologies for the inconvenience. Some flights are not assigned a gate until the day of departure. Thank you. *CS”.

So here’s a tip, Delta: good on you for trying. But either take the user directly to a page with the relevant info–clearly marked and displayed–or just send a letter saying “Heads-up, we run out of two terminals, so leave yourself extra time because we may not assign a gate until shortly before your flight.” I would rather spend 10 more minutes in the airport to make sure I have the time I need than 20 minutes trying to sort through multiple computer systems for buried or unavailable information.

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Speaking of systems and airlines, TripIt is a great system–web, iPad, iPhone, etc.–for those who travel a lot. Itineraries are automatically uploaded just by emailing them, and the “Pro” version tracks flight delays, can provide directions, and links to relevant travel providers easily.

So it is a real shame that Delta, United/Continental, American, and other major US airlines refuse to let TripIt users have access to their mileage point systems via the app. Given the level of hostility towards airlines, because of their often poor service and even-poorer communications skills, it seems like a ridiculous step to prevent flyers from using this tool to track their points in one place. Especially when more than 100+ other airlines and systems are part of the system. What gives?

Probably that they don’t care, much the way airports don’t, as astutely noted in this recent post by Seth Godin.

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October 4th, 2012

All the world’s a stage

One of the more interesting (and consistent) challenges I deal with at work is explaining to potential clients (and sometimes current ones) the fragmentation in the media world. On one level, this is understood; it is precisely because people understand there is a challenge that they seek out a company like ours.

At the same time, it can be difficult to grasp. The major opinion-leaders and “influencers” remain, but their overall impact might be diminished. Or they may exert influence, but in ways that require support. Where there was once an audience–perhaps 85% of that audience were your subscriber base, and another 15% were the random people inspired by specific programs–there are now many different audiences, consuming many different sources of information in just as many different forms.

Here is one more very blunt way to think about it.

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June 5th, 2012

Mission, Vision, Values, and…

For years–decades, even–the triumvirate of “mission, vision, values” has reigned as the core of strategic planning for non-profits. Putting a plan together often meant starting with those three elements and then endlessly word-smithing them into the appropriate degree of institution-speak.

But it is time for a change, especially for organizations focused on the arts and culture.

What is missing is an articulation of “service”: how an organization will activate those three other elements–mission, vision, and values–and make good on its ability to serve its audiences.

As a society, we are long past the point where audiences see themselves as mere consumers of cultural offerings provided by others. Today’s audiences are participants, with a stronger role in creating and validating the programs they choose, beyond simply purchasing tickets for them. Moreover, audiences increasingly gravitate towards those institutions, programs, and activities that welcome their new modes of engagement and that offer greatest flexibility around how they choose to engage. Those points of engagement may be driven by technology, but are not necessarily; technology is only a tool to support an organization’s customer service, not a replacement for good service itself.

In an age in which there are a million and one distractions beeping in a person’s pocket, and another million distractions prepared to offer you free or low-cost entertainment right from the comfort of your couch, it is no longer enough to think that organizations can reserve “service” areas as something to be addressed tactically, programatically. Any (arts) organization that wants to maintain or grow its audience needs to start thinking at the highest levels about its customer service experience. The organization must be prepared to speak to its goals, strategies, and tactics from the perspective of those customers–no longer just from the perspective of the organization’s presumptive mission, vision, and values.

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May 8th, 2012

Book Juggling in Mid-Air

I’m writing this at 37,000 feet (36,988 to be precise), presently somewhere over Iowa. Moments earlier, I downloaded volume one and two of the collected works of Ambrose Bierce from Project Guttenberg onto my iPad, thanks to the inflight wifi on Virgin Atlantic.

And you’re thinking: Ambrose Bierce? Yes. Reading a review of a new edition of his “Devil’s Dictionary” in The New York Review of Books convinced me that his stories from the Civil War sound like must-read material. Now I have them, and you can too. (I’ll let you know if the stories meet the hype.)

The thing is: I’m a book junkie. I am not entirely agnostic on the question of e-books versus the old-fashioned kind (though my views are, you might say, “evolving”), but I am certainly pragmatic. It will take me years, possibly decades, to approach the level of well-read-ness I would like. And much like the survivalist hoarders who build bunkers with freeze-dried food to last 99 years, one thing I am sure of is that I won’t run out of reading material in this lifetime. I am more than ok with that, and e-books may help with the “space permitting” portion of the equation.

Now I can read Bierce–literally, right now. If I like the stories, I may invest in a hard copy, the kind my children will be able to pick up and read for themselves in a few years, when iPads are gone and we are all on to the next big thing–which may or may not be better for books than the current set of e-readers.

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UPDATE, somewhere over Wisconsin/Michigan: Bierce’s “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge” is an amazing short story. Totally captivating! Five stars! Read it–for free!

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