Business @ the Speed of Stupid 170
| Business @ the Speed of Stupid | |
| author | Alan Morrison and Dan Burke |
| pages | 256 |
| publisher | Perseus Books |
| rating | 8.5 |
| reviewer | Steve MacLaughlin |
| ISBN | 0738205427 |
| summary | Things not to do, unless looking stupid really is your intent. |
Alan Morrison and Dan Burke have written the first meaningful post-mortem on the New Economy in their new book Business @ the Speed of Stupid. At its core the book clearly explains how the disregard for strategy and sound management principles doomed many a company and Internet project. If this sounds like a lot of other books currently hitting the shelves, then I should point out that Business @ the Speed of Stupid is one of the only books not willing to pull punches.
As you can probably tell by the title, Business @ the Speed of Stupid is not one of those cutesy sugar-coated business books. Consider the opening of Chapter 1: "Most companies of any size have a Web site. Most suck! They suck because they simply fail to communicate with the intended audience." And there's a lot more where that came from! The book is divided into two sections: "@ the Speed of Stupidity and Accelerating" and "Decelerating the Stupidity." This format proves to be a good way of presenting their observations and recommendations.
The "@ the Speed of Stupidity and Accelerating" section is filled with stories about companies that remain nameless to protect both the guilty and the innocent. Some readers may be disappointed that Morrison and Burke have chosen not to reveal the true identities of the companies and people they profile, but I think it actually strengthens the usefulness of the stories. You're not distracted by the sensationalism, and you're not fed the rose-colored version that things just didn't work out for these companies or their ventures. The stories are even more useful because they reveal the real situations, conversations, and decisions that led to failure.
Morrison and Burke are able get their ideas across without sounding like dusty old professors or techno-Latin writers trying to sound intelligent. They are quick to point out that there are no silver bullets and that cutting corners is a recipe for disaster. Consider their take on phantom sales predictions: "A common and widely held misconception is the idea of magic conversion ratios that convert the number of hits on a site to projected customer leads, e-commerce sales, or whatever. Let's be clear: This type of thinking is 100 percent crap."
A major theme in the first section of the book is how the apparent simplicity of the Web lulled business leaders into a trap. The brochureware sites that companies first launched appeared to be simple. But when it came to real e-commerce or real e-business companies quickly learned that these projects were much more complicated. The notion that you could throw together an Internet project without any planning, without any processes, and without experienced professionals was foolhardy. As the authors accurately point out, "the frequency of this type of foolishness is increasing dramatically as more and more projects are sponsored and managed by nontechnical professionals and staffed by zealously ignorant technologists."
This comment illustrates another main point of the "@ the Speed of Stupidity and Accelerating" section: "Get the right people in the right roles or you will find yourself facing insurmountable problems." The wrong people are those that consistently contradict their words through their actions. They say they want things done right, but they end up cutting corners to get the job done fast and cheap. They hire the best people or companies to do the work, but want to totally ignore the processes that create good work. The authors quip, "it is amazing how often executives hire experts and then completely ignore their advice" instead of remembering to "hire smart people and listen to them." Balancing people, processes, and systems is critical to being successful.
Business @ the Speed of Stupid also provides readers with a much needed smackdown about the importance of sticking to the "old rules" of business. Morrison and Burke contend that "technology must take a back seat to core business and customer needs, not the other way around" and that "the 'new rules' are simply a recipe for disaster, and those who continue to propagate them are completely irresponsible." The technology shakeout taught many business leaders just how important planning and communication were to developing successful initiatives. Of course Morrison and Burke get that point across in a less subtle way: "There is a generation of lemming managers who actually believe that telling people 'Just do it!' is the right way to manage because that's the way they've read it in a book or magazine."
The "Decelerating the Stupidity" section of the book tries to bring a lot of the key messages and concepts together, and offers a well-presented framework for putting the brakes on stupidity. I think the "Do's and Don'ts" at the end of each chapter of the first section will give readers more immediate solutions to their problems, but the second section takes a much more big picture approach. The framework the authors put forward is based on the concept that thinking strategically means always balancing the "Organizational Domain" and the "Competitive Domain."
The "Organizational Domain" is made up of the people, processes, and systems that allow your company to get the job done. The "Competitive Domain" is made up of your presence in the market, customers, and your competitor's presence in the market. The connection between these two domains is your strategy, and it acts as the ultimate fulcrum to keep things balanced. The authors note that "to emphasize one thing (e.g., technology) while you slight another (e.g., people) guarantees you will look stupid."
Business @ the Speed of Stupid is a well thought-out book by two people who actually know what they're talking about. The 230 pages of content move at a steady pace, and the accompanying charts and illustrations don't require a PhD in fluid mechanics to understand. Footnotes throughout point readers to other outside resources and a handy "Glossary of E-Terms and Phrases" are nice touches as well. I'm sure you could scan through a lot of the book over an over-priced cup of coffee at one of those bookstores, but I think you'll quickly find it's a book you'd be stupid not to buy.
You can purchase this book at Fatbrain.
Another possible good title along those lines... (Score:3, Interesting)
dark (Score:2, Funny)
Intended audience != /. (Score:1)
Huh?
Going by the (nicely written) review, it seems that this book might be of interest to newly-unemployed MBAs and PHBs, trying to understand what the **** hit them.
Not much in there that would be of interest to the typical
Perhaps if the book would have been written by Ed Yourdon [yourdon.com]...
Re:Intended audience != /. (Score:1)
Ed Yourdon? Mr. Y2K Bug? *yawn*
Re:Intended audience != /. (Score:3, Insightful)
Even smart people can benefit from reading about mistakes that stupid people (or even other smart people) have made.
Re:Intended audience != /. (Score:1)
The authors don't believe that technical superiority will attract the biggest audience, and they don't believe that most developers can do market analysis.
It seems to me that that's a message lots of Slashdot readers should take to heart. Knowing how to program doesn't mean I know how to sell my work.
Guinea-Pigs (Score:5, Informative)
Can we really point at companies that failed and say "they were stupid"? It may be the case for some, but a number of companies run by very smart people failed the same way. They were just experimenting, and now thanks to the companies that failed and those that succeeded, we have a better idea of what works on the web, and what's "stupid".
Re:Guinea-Pigs (Score:1)
Re:Guinea-Pigs (Score:1)
The 'problem' is that people haven't learn't from their mistakes and are still acting stupid (on the web).
I really like the title, I always knew the 4 dimension wasn't time. It's either stupiddity or smell.
Re:Guinea-Pigs (Score:1)
Re:Guinea-Pigs (Score:5, Insightful)
I have been in the Internet business now about as long as it has been around, and I can tell you that for every MBA who used to manage a carpet business who decided to get into Internet development (yes, thats a real person), who ended up tanking a company or two, there were 20 engineers sitting there telling him he was being wholy stupid, and maybe an accountant telling him he cant manage a business that way.
This is my best example: I am an engineer. I read in the WSJ that you can make alot of money growing rare orchids, so I get some capital and hire a guy who is an orchid expert. He tells me I need a 50,000 USD greenhouse, but I say no, he can get by with my garage. He tells me it will take 6 months for the first crop to come out, but I give him 4. Then, I wonder why my product looks like crap, and the people whose money I took up front for a product 4 months ago are p***ed off.
These people ARE stupid. Scott Adams: Risk takers by definition often fail, so to morons. In practice it is hard to tell the difference.
Re:Guinea-Pigs (Score:1, Flamebait)
Engineers are just as qualified at making stupid, stupid business decisions. How many stupid features in products/websites/programs have you seen because of something some engineer almost certainly put in or decided? Wasn't "Clippy" of Microsoft Word just "put in" by an engineer ? Isn't that one of the stupidest things ever ?
Just as you and I wouldn't place our faith in an MBA doing web development (I assume you mean coding) just because he used to manage a carpet business, I wouldn't put any faith in some engineer running my business just because he's a engineer and knows Linux, Java and HTML.
Re:Guinea-Pigs (Score:1)
Wasn't Melinda Gates responsible for that one?
Re:Guinea-Pigs (Score:1)
Hence the ridicule.
[1] No, not all of them, just the ones who refuse to listen to experts in their area of expertise.
almost certainly put in (Score:1)
Re:Guinea-Pigs (Score:3, Insightful)
In my experience (and yes, I'll admit to finding a few rare exceptions) MBAs are not smart people. They're generally slightly above average intelligence, but no more. That said, they will still be better than the average engineer at running a company. Again, there are exceptions to that
What it boils down.. (Score:3, Insightful)
Stupid people exist in all professions. As a race at least 90+% of people are idiots. I've yet to work for a company that doesn't have an idiot for a boss, nor yet seen a company without at least one primodana engineer.
If your full of sh*t to begin with, you're not going to listen.. REALLY listen to others opinions because you're too judgemental already.
Open minds, good reserach, well thought out plans and executed strategies will give you the best survival ratio out there.
-M-
Ps.. Schooling really doesn't matter.. School gives you a foundation of knowledge. I've had little schooling but I've been a magazine cover artist to Manager to Director of technology .. Its all about how you apply yourself and having the will to get there.
Re:Guinea-Pigs (Score:1)
Re:Guinea-Pigs (Score:3, Insightful)
And any asshole knows that the paperclip was put in by people in marketing. Actually, I don't care who actually did it. Just go back and read the article until my comment makes sense. Better yet, go buy the book and see how many engineers were running those companies. Then ask yourself which successful tech companies were created by carpet-cleaning magnates. Look at the 10 biggest companies in computing and see how many were created by those with non-technical backgrounds.
Re:Guinea-Pigs (Score:3, Insightful)
I've dealt with my share of MBAs at various stages of developement, from the larval student stage when I was a math tutor, up to the aged veteran who made his fortune bringing failing companies back from the brink of death. Every one of them was just barely smart enough to get into college.
All the schooling in the world won't help if you're incapable of learning from your mistakes, listening to the experts you hire, or thinking beyond the next quarterly statement. I read an article about 10 years ago (I think it was in the Wall Street Journal) that said most companies would rather hire someone with an English degree than a Business degree. The reasoning being that someone with an English degree knows how to communicate, and they can learn the business stuff easily enough. The converse didn't seem to be true.
I'm not saying an engineer would do a better job of running a business, but at least an engineer has the training to make logical decisions based on the facts they are presented with.
The CEO of the company I work for now is the best businessman I've ever met. He's been, at various times in his life, a carpenter, a machinist, a welder, and an engineer. He took some time to read a few books on sales and hired a consultant to teach him business management and strategy, and I have no problem puting my future in his hands. His background and experience with the things my company does are extremely helpful, but what really makes a difference is his ability to listen to others and plan for the long term.
MBAs don't seem able to learn either of those.
Re:Guinea-Pigs (Score:2)
Frankly I'm sick of all the ragging on MBAs. For every story of "this stupid PHB who didn't understand his business at all," I can point you to at least 2 or 3 "engineers" who picked up enough ASP or javascript at a summer internship that they knew all the buzzwords to put in a resume, and were TOTALLY out of their depth in a real job.
Of course there will always be stupid MBAs. This doesn't change the fact that, to run an engineering shop, you really do need someone who knows the business end of things. If you're a solo engineer or IT guy (like that guy who runs Trilucid), you'll probably do okay filling out your incorporation forms and tax forms. But when you grow to a point that you actually have employees with individual tasks, you need someone to coordinate the effort. This is a person we call a "manager," and he/she is not always evil and stupid.
As for the comments that "those who can, do, those who can't, get MBAs," consider: you can argue that a good website is important to most businesses now. You'd probably even be right. But having decent management goes to the very core of any business endeavor; managers (with MBAs!) will always be in demand. Many companies focus their marketing efforts on phone, direct mail, print media, radio, or TV, and do very well. These companies might only have websites as formalities, as an auxilliary endeavor. So what seems like the brighter career path now: web site coding, or learning to effectively manage a business?
In the end, I picked software engineering, as well. But I don't have nearly the disrespect for all management that most coders have, and I'm getting tired of it. These people enable your employers to exist, shut your piehole and appreciate them sometimes.
Re:Guinea-Pigs (Score:2)
First, I was speaking from personal experience and presented several observations to support my inflamatory statement, which I'm guessing you didn't bother to read.
Second, not everyone who reads /. is a web monkey. I mostly do mechanical design, and take care of IT stuff and maintain the website as needed.
Third, I've worked under some excellent managers, and it hasn't escaped my notice that not one of them had an MBA! I even went so far as to describe one of them. It also hasn't escaped my notice that the MBAs that I've worked under have universally been morons with no managerial skills, and the only apparent benefit they brought to their respective companies was the ability to manipulate the quarterly statements in order to raise the stock price.
Fourth, the whole problem with MBAs is that they generally go into it because it's a bright career path. Conversely, most engineers go into engineering because they like it. Anyone who chooses a career path based solely on how much money they can make is going to be bad at it.
Fifth, yes most companies websites are mostly formalities, and that's probably because most companies websites suck. For an example of an extremely useful and well-designed website I encourage you to visit McMaster-Carr [mcmaster.com]. The first thing you will probably notice is the lack of gratuitous graphics. What's less obvious is that they took a 3000+ page catalog with over 370,000 products and made it so usable online that the person at my company who still uses the print version is a part-time machinist who's a total technophobe. If more companies made their sites that useful and usable, they'd be a much bigger part of the business world.
Re:Guinea-Pigs (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Guinea-Pigs (Score:2)
Often Yes they are, but for a very specific reason, the problem with MBA's is ego it prevent's them from listerning, taking criticism on board and modifing their ideas/proposals to counter the criticism, their ego prevent's it.
The same goes for all the many of the so call Dot-Com entrepreneurs. The might be able to talk the talk to get their Venture Capital on board but they don't know how to build some thing. It's not their skill. You only need to look at the DotCom boom to see this. The companies built by Engineers, Yahoo, Lycos, etc are still here, the companies started by MBA's/entrepreneurs have disapeared. LastMinute.com for example, perhaps the biggest DotCom failure was started by a Fashion Model and MBA who (describes him self as a Poet at heart).
Engineers are, for the most part, good at engineering but not necessarily good - or even schooled at - running a business.
So what good Accountant are 10 a penny, and good Lawyers even more common, but good engineers are a rarity. Secondly Enginners by their very nature are builders, they build things by solving problems, even buisiness.
Re:Guinea-Pigs (Score:1)
I imagine this is a bit off-topic since this all seems to be more about businesses actually somewhat based off of the web, but something I had to rant about none the less...
Re:Guinea-Pigs (Score:2, Interesting)
Most of these executives weren't pioneers. They were con-men.
Pioneers into modern fields of business started, in the past, often with little cash and no backing. Instead of depending on venture-capital funding and highly-promoted IPOs, pioneers of modern business relied on ingenuity, determination, and luck. If their idea couldn't stand in the marketplace, it died a small and insignifigant death. Today, we call these concepts capitalism and free-market economics.
Re:Guinea-Pigs (Score:1, Offtopic)
Re:Guinea-Pigs (Score:1)
You would be surprised how often smart people do stupid things
Re:Guinea-Pigs (Score:2, Insightful)
Selling dog food over the net was stupid. Selling luxury items, where tactile sensations are important, over the net was stupid. Asking for money while vaguely promising to pass it along is stupid. Oh wait, paypal is still in business.
We all knew at the time a lot of these web sites sucked, and business models sucked. Just because something is new doesn't mean common sense doesn't apply.
Re:Guinea-Pigs (Score:4, Insightful)
I would say no. I started up a small company back in 1997 to 'exploit the power of the web' for businesses. The projects we took on without exception saved or made money for our clients. We turned away projects like 'its a website where people check if the weather suits a stretch of river for fishing - we'll make money on ad revenue' and 'its a way for people to buy and sell crap - and we'll charge 10%' because we knew that either they wouldn't work or eBay got there first. The stuff we did was streamlining business processes, increasing connectivity of staff, basic stuff, not sexy, but it worked and they got back 2 or 3 bucks a year for every buck spent.
But we had to think about it - and it wasn't obvious - and if 'sell crap' had turned into a $20Billion company within 12 months we'd have looked like prize twats!
The number of times I said 'just because the CVs buy the idea doesn't mean anyone will buy the damn thing in the real world - your not allowed to just take the CV money and go home you know!'
We got lucky, a lot of people didn't - but they thought they did at the time. Books like this are necessary, but they need to name the companies so we can look em up and see what really went wrong.
Re:Guinea-Pigs (Score:3, Interesting)
That's not luck. That's smarts. You had them. It's clear that a great many people did not.
Re:Guinea-Pigs (Score:3, Funny)
Experience dictates that if you have the right people with sound business experience -and I mean across the board, engineering, marketting, finance, etc- you can make money producing shit on a stick. If you have a good product you will simply make a whole lot more money.
--locust
Re:Guinea-Pigs (Score:2)
Experimenting with stupid people's (venture capatalists) money may be a great way to blow through a million or fifty, but its a dumb way to build a business.
But when looking for an example, look know further than Nortel who recently lost something like 17 Billion in a single quarter. The only way to do that is to buy a whole bunch of companies that don't actually have a product and then run them out of business.
Re:Guinea-Pigs (Score:2)
Or the notion that you could use the web to sell low-profit-margin items like groceries. Supermarkets are expert at keeping all costs down, or they don't survive, because people will go to a different store just because milk is 1 cent lower. Dot-coms weren't into extreme cost-cutting, never mind that UPS delivery alone costs more than the price at a supermarket.
Preaching to the choir (Score:4, Insightful)
Unfortunately, the managers who need this the most will never see it. The ones who read this stuff are the ones who already have a tech clue.
1Alpha7
Re:Preaching to the choir (Score:1)
hindsight (Score:1)
More angst (Score:3, Interesting)
Sometimes I wonder if the only real thing that happened during the last 8 years since Mosaic was exploitation, lies, and hype. Even Netscape itself, when it went public, was largely an exploitation of Mosaic. I refused on principal to buy into their IPO.
There's still only one good way to success. And that's hard work. (Maybe a little luck)
A good review, tho.
Re:More angst (Score:2, Funny)
Wait! The socialists keep telling me that you have to be born into money and privilege and it's impossible for a normal person to become rich! Occassionally they allow someone from the ghetto to become rich so that the illusion is maintained.
They keep telling me that hard work is totally useless and my only hope is for the government to run all corporations!
Re:More angst (Score:2)
Re:More angst (Score:3, Insightful)
Perhaps Netscape (the company) could have spun-off from NCSA. Bygones. But taking something free and trying to make money on it was the name of the game. Thats my point.
I am also not debating the correctness or timeliness or any other "ess" in this thread. Keep in mind the subject of my posting.
Re:More angst (Score:2, Insightful)
I find no motivation to study the failures and misconceptions which were so widely purveyed and deployed.
IANAMBA, but I actually find it to be very important to study failures, and it seems to be an aspect of business that is not so much overlooked as avoided. The key is how you study the failures. It is not enough to say "Here is a failure. What can we learn?" You have to say "Here is a failure. What was the underlying problem that caused it? What was the 'fatal flaw'?" Lack of revenue is not an underlying problem. When studying failure, we must abstract the problems further than that.
Wow talk about an easy target (Score:2, Interesting)
Seriously though cynicism and critical hindsight is pretty easy to find these days. I'd respect the book much better if it were released 3 years ago. The sad thing is that the same people who today are bemoaning the terrible lack of planning and logic behind the net revolution (or alternately talking about how obvious the tech crash was to anyone with half a brain, which means most of you [bwahahahaha]) were the same people who were pimping the bubble or writing the next "How to e-volize your business!".
Re:Wow talk about an easy target (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Wow talk about an easy target (Score:2, Informative)
Anyway, WebVan (like Beenz & Flooz, but don't get me started...) was obviously going to be an enormous waste of money, from the beginning, and I said so at the time. Nobody listened, and the result has since served shareholders right. One of the things to keep in mind is that the media played favorites depending on who wastes the most money on ads (and to hell with covering anyone who spends what could be ad-money hiring smarter nerds). For an example of this media-coverage phenomenon, see the now-dead "Industry Standard" magazine. I doubt playing favorites based on ad spending died with that phone-book-sized magazine, so it's a good idea to keep it in mind when reading coverage of certain companies, IMO.
JMR
How does this help get rid of lemming managers. (Score:3, Interesting)
Having met both great and terrible programmers, periodic weeding is a necessary part of every industry. Books like these are no different to books that analyze the early years of a new industry. Perhaps a better question to ask or better book to write about is "why don't people learn from history?"
But then again maybe this book is written for a laugh and some humor.
An untimely book (Score:2, Interesting)
To have published this book during the "go go" days of the dotcom phenomon would have been another story.
Its kind of like reading a post mortem report on failed business philosophies. At best you might get some insight into what to avoid the next time. Still, "the next time" happens because people are too overcome with greed to consider the lessons of the last bubble.
details (Score:4, Funny)
Well, the bit about "karma prostitution" and "John Dogz" in chapter 5 certainly was enough detail to clue me into what site he was talking about in that section.
The writing on the wall usually read: (Score:4, Insightful)
2) "This page requires flash" (non skippable intro)
3) Be sure to click one or more of the dozen pop-uder ads!
4) PSST! You must have cookies enabled (a la microsoft.com) with big brother overtures.
A host of others I forgot that said "Warning! WARNING! Danger Will Robinson".
Oh, and didn't www.cluetrain.com do something like this?
Suppose the summation of most business plans/venture capatialists could have come down to one question:
Got Clue?
Cheers.
Re:The writing on the wall usually read: (Score:1)
PhD in the Bleeding Obvious (Score:2)
Scott Adams has made a career out of clueless managers; to an extent so has the BOFH. Both frequently cite PHBs reading up on the latest advice, and forgetting it ten minutes later.
I'm not saying that the book isn't well written - I haven't read it - but I am saying that I don't think it'll accomplish anything except in the immediate term. Let's face it; anyone who needs to be told they should listen to the advice of experts isn't going to be swayed by a mere book.
There were plenty of good ideas (Score:2)
And how about selling groceries over the internet. Who wouldn't pay more just for the privilege of buying food online? Who really wants to select their own fruit and vegetables anyway? And who wants a good selection of food? I guess if they got another $1 billion in financing they were going to make it up on volume.
And of course everyone knew the future of cinema was watching a 1" by 1" sized picture on your monitor that takes 12 hours to download over a 56k connection.
But the
Re:There were plenty of good ideas (Score:1)
Hey, we order our groceries that way. Works great. The company happens to follow a number of good "old business" rules like: service, selection, consistent quality, and dependability.
They (simondelivers) do it so well that a local warehouse store ran an ad saying, "Look, shop us and save 10% over ordering online." We said, "What? Only a 10% premium to have 4 totes of groceries sitting in our garage when we get home from work on Friday? Hooya!"
Re:There were plenty of good ideas (Score:1, Interesting)
So many ideas are good on their own. Placed within the context of an actual company or a real market, and un- or under-considered dimensions reach out and kill the idea.
Privacy, or insufficient low-common-denominator users, in the case of CueCat.
Paraphrasing Clausewitz (though it might have been Sun Tzu) "No plan survives contact with reality".
Re:There were plenty of good ideas (Score:2, Insightful)
That is a great idea for the infirm/elderly, and others who going to the store is difficult, if not impossible. It's alot cheaper than getting a taxi to the store if you cannot drive, too. Hopefully, the idea will come back as a sustainable business model.
-asb
It is sustainable! (Score:2)
For the first half of the year, they made £146 million of sales (~= $211 million) and made a loss of £3million, much of which was due to costs in setting up their wine retailing business. They expect to make a profit by the end of the year.
That's not bad considering Tesco.com hasn't been going very long.
Tesco claim to be able to deliver to 90% of the UK population.
I use both Teso and Sainsburys online shopping, and they're very useful. It seems many other UK shoppers agree with me. However, I can see that it is the kind of thing that could work better in the UK than US... The UK is much more densely populated, making deliveries more economical (especially as 80% of the population is urban...), and because of the thinner roads (less space to make 'em in, and a lot town centres are many hundreds of years old) driving to the supermarket is considerably less attractive due to congestion...
Re:There were plenty of good ideas (Score:1)
Actually, that's what I do here (in the UK), it costs me 5 UKP for next-day delivery. Much better than having to drive to the store and push a shopping cart around for an hour.
Re:There were plenty of good ideas (Score:2)
In Hong Kong, Park and Shop [parknshop.com] will let you order over the internet and it's free delivery if you order over a certain amount (hkd 400. about usd 50). It's great for ordering a ton of booze for parties, large bags of rice, etc. I don't think I'd trust the box boy in the supermarket to pick out decent fruit and vegetable or meat for me.
dave
Speaking of other media where ideas failed... (Score:3, Insightful)
Speaking of other media where ideas failed.. Who remembers the goofy Commodore Amiga ad that ran during a Super Bowl? Science fictiony man walks down a hallway of shimmering walls, climbs a stairway and puts his fingers on the keyboard of an Amiga as a voice over says something like "get ready for a whole new experience in home computers" They shot around $1 Million for 30 seconds and left everyone thinking, "Huh?" IIRC, at the same time IBM was using a Charlie Chaplin look-alike to successfully move PC's and sign businesses.
Communication is the key, but often the suits pay too much attention to style over substance, as presented by ad or web design agencies. A good web designer should care about the welfare of a client, because repeat and ongoing business with a client is less costly than trying to bring on new ones, also works great for building good references.
I definately need to get this book... (Score:1)
Sounds Like a Mandatory Book for Web Designers (Score:4, Insightful)
I talked with United Airlines a couple years ago about how bad their site was, bulky, difficult to navigate, lacking information and the IT guy I talked with agreed, but it was already their *new* site.
Too many minds don't think three dimensionally and others think a presense on the the web is all that it takes to succeed, although that old paradigm should be breathing its last gasp, after the fall out of the past year.
It's the duty of every websurfer not just to point out difficult to navigate or uninformative sites to webmasters. I take the opportunity whenever I can. Some appreciate input, others seem to ignore it (maybe it's a precious design, close to their heart and criticism hurts too much to ever consider that they may be wrong.) Telling someone their site or design sucks isn't going to improve anything, now it's worth emailing bad site hosts and designers and telling them about a book they might read. Include this link, too. [websitesthatsuck.com]
FWIW, I come from the school of design where it doesn't have to look pretty, but better work. Checkout my own site and feel free to tell me how much I don't live up to that ;-)
Re:Sounds Like a Mandatory Book for Web Designers (Score:1)
Re:Sounds Like a Mandatory Book for Web Designers (Score:1)
Yeah, I've been too occupied elsewise to put the non-frames version in. It's around here somewhere... too bad I just got my Garmin GPS yesterday, that's also likely to interfer with website quality, though I'll try very hard to put up some GPS maps and profiles and how I go about it (to increase content value(!))
Re:Sounds Like a Mandatory Book for Web Designers (Score:2)
I see this sort of thinking a lot. Too many companies treat their websites their annual reports. You make an edition, and then a few months later you start thinking of the new one. In between you might tweak a few pages, update the content on some of them, but nothing major. The problem is that every 'edition' of the website has new major issues. If they treated it as an evolution, where each time they keep the same basic site but fix particular issues, and did it more frequently, then they'd get much better sites.
Re:Sounds Like a Mandatory Book for Web Designers (Score:3, Insightful)
New names for old meanings: I find Microsoft applications famous for this, but I went through school learning one terminology for things and they come along and rename it all so I never know where to look for stuff in help or on web pages. (Note: I'm not just blaming M$, just using as example, many do this)
Customer service was what every user expected from the start. In the past couple years, though, I've seen fewer phone numbers and email addresses on Contact Us pages, often replaced by forms, which who knows whatever happens to. When I want to contact someone, now, I make a pest out of myself by getting their number of a whois lookup and calling them. (Ha-ha!)
Re:Sounds Like a Mandatory Book for Web Designers (Score:1)
Book: Web Pages That Suck (Score:1)
Brochures vs Stories (Score:2)
Your basic brochure is something that a lot of people can do, but even there, a good eye for design is needed to get the balance right. Design philosophies for websites are probably available by the dozen in the bazillions of books that have been published on the subject.
Key point being: Don't Drive the Customers Away.
of course when people want site that will actually do something, that requires a whole additional level of expertise. This is an obvious point to most readers here, but often the technical view is radically missing from managers.
We have all known the type that says "just make it happen"
[insert diatribe against clueless managers here]
Target missed. (Score:1)
Now, every company leader wants to be on the Internet, and has to be on the Internet.
First, because it makes them feel more confortable when they're talking to their friends of other companies, second, a lot of them think it will help them to reach new markets, and third, you're not seen as serious if you're not.
The problem is not to be or not to be on the Internet, the problem is to find a good use for the wonderful tool that the web is.
That's were so many companies are lost, spending a lot of maney for sites of poor quality, without any practical use for their consumers.
different standards for the web (Score:4, Interesting)
I'm sure that everybody else here has examples of the same problems.
I'd like to pose a challenge:
Give one example of a site which uses java, javascript, or frames, where the same think couldn't have been done better with simple, single frame HTML.
Re:different standards for the web (Score:2, Interesting)
I once tried to access a companies website to look at their products - I was seriously shopping for a $2500.00 item. Well, their website used java, but only MS java, and would not work with netscape at all. So I bought one elsewhere.
-asb
huh (Score:1)
"I should point out that Business @ the Speed of Stupid is one of the only books not willing to pull punches."
hmm
Re:huh (Score:1)
brocures online (Score:2, Insightful)
I think that there is a middle ground between giving name and address and offering online shopping.
I know that they want the feedback, but for a lot of the equipment I'm searching for, mainly scientific apparatus, price variations of 10 times the cheapest price are not unusual, this is really stupid.
Why can't they use the same trick as the paper version and print a disclaimer about the price changing without notice?
Re:brocures online (Score:2)
Fortunately, there are "tools" available to get around this kind of crap but we really shouldn't have to jump through hoops for this kind of thing.
Rich
Zen of new economy (Score:5, Insightful)
In other words, the word "fail" sorta implies that there was a snowball's chance you would succeed. I mean, let's say that I'm going to create a business that will build rockets and provide vacations on the moon. When the business fails, you don't do a post-mortem and ask why it failed. It doesn't take a genius to figure that out.
The same was true of the dot-com era. There was a suspension of disbelief -- people actually thought we really could provide moon vacations. BTW, I use "rockets" because I suspect that the next overhyped tech bubble is going to space (that, or biotech).
We geeks are often frusterated by websites that come up blank because we use Netscape on Linux without Flash. This isn't the cause of their failure, but a symptom that businesses were run by people that didn't understand business.
For example, in order to tested out the famous flop "boo.com", I attempted to buy something from their website. It was very pretty and artistic, but no matter which browser combination I tried, I simply could not get the website to work. To the business owners, actually fulfilling customer wishes was a minor details that the techies could work out. Like building rockets, business owners couldn't build what they were promising -- an much of what they were promising would be impossible to build.
BTW, I created an enormously successful new-economy business that was profitable for 3 years. We had to be profitable. We went to the VCs with the business model that we were going to build a better mouse-trap, and leverage word-of-mouth. They laughed at us and told us it wasn't about product, but "branding", and how naive we were. Since we got no VC funding, we didn't have the luxary of building a loss making business.
There are no lessons to be learned from the failed dot-coms, any more than lessons to be learned from a failed moon vacation business. This means that there is no magic formula for building a successful new economy business.
PS: The funny thing is, despite the lack of super bowl commercials and absolutely zero advertising, we built a strong brand. The VCs are right -- you do need branding, it's just that vapid commercials don't build strong brands -- satisfied customers do.
Re:Zen of new economy (Score:3, Interesting)
The question is not "why did they fail" but "why anybody thought they would succeed".
You mention moon rocket vacations, but we've seen insane market speculation before, in the late twenties. It was a time very similar to the late nineties in terms of the delusions of profitibility-for-everyone, and it ended in a very similar way. I found an interesting primary source reflecting on Black Friday (1929), saying that nobody called it that at the time (of course), because it wasn't understood then that that day was the onset of the Depression, only the end of wild speculation.
We had a day like that not long ago ourselves, and our pundits have been proclaiming that it's not the beginning of another contraction/recession/Depression, only a downturn/contraction/recession. The same message prevalent for years after Black Friday. Stocks fall, but slight rebounds at the end of the day, investors encouraging optimism, etc.
The problem was that then, as now, it was a pyramid scheme. The VC was there, even as every start-up was losing money, because the bills were paid with the money of new investors. Send a five dollar bill to everyone whose name is above yours on the list,etc... works great until your name is the last one on the list, and no one is left to send you money.
What's hilarious is that this wasn't enough for a few enterprising folks, who actually set up more recognizable (illegal) pyramid schemes in the middle of the larger one the world economy was caught up in. I remember an article in Wired about Russian gangsters starting some magical online casino where everyone makes money* (* for awhile).
The lesson I take away is not the one learned by looking at failed dot.coms, but by a failed market model. Will those good times ever return? Count on it. It's just waiting for a new generation of suckers to be born. Let's see, at a rate of one a minute...
Aaaargh! Fatbrain! (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Aaaargh! Fatbrain! (Score:1)
Anyway, bookpool.com usually has the lowest prices for new tech books.
Hints for making a countercultural business book. (Score:4, Flamebait)
Step 1. Use words and phrases such as 'sucks!', '100 percent crap', 'let's be clear', 'lemmings', etc.
Step 2. Complain about everything anyone does in the field you are studying.
Step 3. Forge a 'correct' way of doing things from whatever someone else is not doing. Do not actually spell out this 'correct' way of doing things using full descriptions or logic - but through insults of the current methods and twisted catch phrases.
Step 4. Edit, publish, and hope people can use your book as an excuse to use common sense.
(Optional) Step 5. Wait one economic cycle, go to step 1.
Ryan Fenton
and the worst thing is.... (Score:3, Funny)
Use wireless when I could be using a cable
surf the web on my phone.
have my personal documents on somebody else's computer.
do anything in virtual reality.
oh, and I'm never going to bug groceries, clothes or pets over the web, or install linux on my grandmother's computer.
Here's a great business plan: If nobody wants to buy what you're selling........
Sell it on the web.
Re:and the worst thing is.... (Score:1)
Re:and the worst thing is.... (Score:5, Insightful)
I do, and the marketplace has determined this a big hit. The RIM Blackberry being it.
Its a PITA having to log in all the time to check email. That and email being paged to me is better in so many ways than a cellphone (I'll list them if you care to ask...
>surf the web on my phone.
Used to do that on my Blackberry, but the cost is just too high right now. My Blackberry's just a tad smaller than most cellphones so I'd say it counts.
>have my personal documents on somebody else's computer.
Millions of ssh users would disagree.
>do anything in virtual reality.
Yes, most VR stuff on the market is lame. However, at one time 3D shooters were almost considered "VR" and they're pretty popular. I'd probably want to do that in VR if the price were right.
>and I'm never going to bug groceries, clothes or pets over the web, or install linux on my grandmother's computer
I'd buy groceries on the web. Nearest store is almost 20 mins away and I'm lazy. Don't think they ship pets over the web (seems like a logistical nightmare considering how UPS handles non-living packages). I buy christmas presents over the web since with christmas traffic makes getting to the store a 1 to 2 hour escapade of sliding around broken down cars in -15 deg C snowstorm weather at 1.5 mph (ahhh, that quality city planning at work).
I wouldn't install windows on Grandma's computer because she wouldn't pay $300 for windows XP, and doesn't want something out of date. Doesn't leave much. However, since I still consider linux moderately difficult to configure, I'd probably get her one of those webterminal deals.
>If nobody wants to buy what you're selling........
Then you just don't know what they want.
It's all in the implementation. A phone is not a web device. A RIM pager is. idrive is an inconvenient way to access your files across the 'net. ssh isn't (the windows and linux clients easily fit on a disk). VR is badly implemented. I think when someone can finally get it under $200, make it high enough res and refresh you're not sick 5 minutes after using it, and actually get popular games to run on it it would be HOT.
Getting groceries on the net is moronically implemented. It is marketed (and only availiable to) downtown city folk who have a supermarket in walking distance. Uhhh, hello McFly? There's millions of us out in the counrty who are used to paying premiums to get what we want (eg. I pay $150/mo for high speed internet) and would be willing to do that for the groceries.
Shipping pets from a website or a real paper catalog is probably a great way to get sued.
Getting christmas presents on the web is actually good, if you can find a store that doesn't have sucky stock. Maybe again, city folk find it useless. But in the country it's great!
All those web ideas would have failed in the real world too, IMHO.
Time for people to realize selling stuff on the web is identical to selling it from a catalog. And, surprise, surprise, a lot of catalog business comes from people "out of the way".
[Oh, and wireless access is another thing. Idiots who market it seem to think the best way to make money on it is to put their towers in big cities. Why? These people already have cheap ways to get on the net and you can't compete. Go where there's less competition, and where there's people willing to pay more. Go outside of the city. Think outside of the box (literally)].
Isn't this book late? (Score:1)
Just because you are deploying on the Web... (Score:3, Interesting)
There were a whole lot of really smart business people who seemed to turn their brains off when they started talking about making money on the web. They thought that since they were doing business on the web, then needed the newest technology, to give them the competitive edge, when the reality was their sites sucked because their content sucked, and their business was crappy because they had ignored all of the basic principles they should have learned in Business 101.
Y?know what?d be really great? (Score:1, Offtopic)
Re:Y?know what?d be really great? (Score:1)
http://www.fourmilab.ch/webtools/demoroniser/
Hail, princes of the Obvious. (Score:3, Interesting)
"There's no point in flash intros".
"Website hits don't mean instant cash."
"If you hire experts, listen to them."
"Get the right people into the right places."
Seriously, I don't think any of this is a problem anymore. Perhaps this book would have made sense two years ago, but working in the business today is a totally different experience. VC funding for the stupid dried up a while ago, and this just seems like a dumb attempt to cash in on hindsight.
Cluetrain (Score:2)
Does anybody else look for their name? (Score:2, Funny)
Business Solutions (Score:2, Interesting)
I do find that all too many points brought up with this book are completely true. One of the things we're persuing, is re-doing the current web pages for several of our customers. Most, if not all of the ones we've looked at are absolutely horrible!
I guess the best reason for using this book is to at least show you that pile of shit that the last few failed companies stepped in on their path to wealth.
Rather obvious... (Score:1)
Granted, they do have situational anecdotes to illustrate this, but anyone with any business sense and a peek into the failed dot-com era could have put this together. This book is only of value to those still interested in the billion-dollar start-ups of 2 years ago.
Sorted. Not. (Score:1)
Hang on though. Two wrongs don't make a right. Not doing things wrong does not mean that you do them splendidly.
Now if only you could write a book that explains in foolproof ways how to do the latter ...
Stupid smart quotes (Score:1, Offtopic)
Mistakes we knew we were making (Score:2, Insightful)
Really stupid sites (Score:2, Funny)
Just in time for Christmas (Score:2, Insightful)
She'd surround herself with lots of smart folks and then just ignore what they had to say.
It might also explain the 50% turn-over rate thay have.
However, The one thing about books like these is that the "folks in charge" won't read them. As a front line techie building websites, we often have to explain to the account reps the why and how things work on the internet. No matter how many times you tell them that it's not "business as usual" and that the "if you build it, they will come" mentality is off base, they still want things their way.
In many ways I wish things were like it was two years ago. Far too many stupid people willing to throw money at a project. Now, it seems that they've all gone the way of the dinosaur.
Thank god for the brochureware sites or I'd be out of a job!
Goran
You seem unsure of yourself (Score:2)
Did someone forget to demoronise [fourmilab.ch] their MS-HTML? Or are you really that unsure of yourself?
The answer is legendary (Score:2)
KFG
Re:Bill Gates' book? (Score:2)
Perhaps this is why I saw it in the bargain bin at my local Waldenbooks last night.