Communicating With Users
As I was browsing this morning I found a couple of intertwined nuggets of wisdom from Chris Dowse (CEO of Neochange) and Dogbert (yes, Dilbert’s dog).
Chris wrote a nice article on Sandhill.com titled “Beware of the Missing Value Dialogue”, which discusses a subtle but important communication issue: connecting with your existing customers. All too often, we are focused on growth, which means appealing to new customers. However, if our existing customers aren’t happy then we have to grow faster just to keep even. We are forced to tread water faster and faster just to keep afloat. You might call this the AOL effect (although not the AIM effect).
Just after I read this article I caught the RSS feed of Dilbert’s latest missive on the Blackberry.
Although these might seem very different, both the CEO and the comic book highlight how easy it is to let things get inbetween us and what is most important. As a consultant, I am forced to be a lot more focused on my customers than I was as a permanent employee. However, communication and customer service are still a struggle, every single day. The “now” distracts us from the “eternal”, and most of the time we don’t even notice it.
It might be form, function, ideas, or technology, but whatever it is it saps our energy and forces us to stay in place instead of heading for shore. Let’s keep focused on who we are and where we need to go, for the sake of ourselves and our customers!
