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Motivation as a design assumption

Holacracy. MOOCs. Food labels.

Holacracy isn’t working. MOOCs have low completion rates, and an estimated 90% drop-out rate. Food labels to help consumers make informed choices show mixed effectiveness and decidedly no downward impact on public health concerns re obesity.

Other than not working as well as optimistically assumed in their wake, they have one more thing in common.

Their design assumes that people have self-motivation in heaps, and when faced with choices, they draw upon that self-motivation to make the best decisions for themselves.

From organisations, to education, to nutrition and health, the assumption of the “highly motivated and self-interested individual” does not stack up.

The reality is different from the design assumptions made.

As Buffer found out from its year-long no-managers experiment, people were expected to direct and motivate themselves, the lack of managers soon became overwhelming, and an implicit hierarchy emerged nonetheless.

Similarly MOOCs assume that a highly motivated and self-driven student is the only kind around. A self-motivated student will benefit from auto-didactic methods disproportionately more than a peer who isn’t so driven. As a teacher, I can attest to these phenomena too: students have variable levels of motivation, cognition and learning capacity; they may or may not understand the sequentiality of learning certain modules i.e. prior art in a field, which, of course, is more essential in some fields than in others; they may not understand some content and that can be demotivating in itself; they may not have the time or dedication to complete assigned readings; and last but not the least, they will always have have questions and if not, a facilitator teacher can make them question their tightly-held beliefs in a setting that makes them think.

In other words, willpower depletion, by the many demands made on us by life, is a real phenomenon.

The design problem that technology entrepreneurs keep dreaming of does not have to bring about “disruption”. It is more complicated than that.

The design problem is to keep people with varying motivations involved, and progressing.

If at all we achieve step change or “disruption”, the design challenge is to do so the existing tools of facilitation and enabling, along with new tools of technology and emergent social contexts, to address the same problems of variable motivation, cognition, and commitment to learning.

A designer assuming a bottomless pit of self-motivation in its audience sooner than later discovers the ordinariness of the human condition.

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Influencer marketing and the luxury marque

Eight years ago, I was pondering the meaning of “authority” on the web. Fast forward to 2016 and the language has moved on. It is no longer about authority but about influence. Brands, including some luxury brands, are engaging in “influencer marketing”.

The web is awash with “advice” for luxury brands on the criteria for choosing the right influencers; these include relevance, reach, engagement, previous brand endorsements, and that old chestnut called authority.

But should luxury brands engage in influencer marketing at all?

I have no doubt there are some, who were influenced into buying a Breitling because of John Travolta, a bonafide and accomplished pilot and a 2007 inductee into the Living Legends of Aviation. Travolta was the face of Breitling until in 2012, Breitling shocked many by picking David Beckham. Beckham is a famous former ace footballer but now mostly a celebrity model, who reportedly turned down Calvin Klein but later appeared in Giorgio Armani and H&M ads — for underwear.

How are Breitling’s brand values aligning with this new choice of influencer? What aspirational quality or relatable values is the brand projecting with David Beckham? Notwithstanding his sporting prowess, Beckham is a peculiar and unimaginative choice of influencer for a brand that, since 1884, has been known for engineering innovation driven watches.

IMG_3407During the AW16 shows in Milan, Gucci’s Alessandro Michele officially invited — and collaborated with — Trevor Andrew whose love for Gucci had made his “Gucci Ghost” persona well known and gained him a huge following on Instagram (31K at the time of writing). Andrew bought his first Gucci watch at age 17 with the money he earned snowboarding. Gucci wasn’t giving him money to talk Gucci all this while (for the various shades of disclosure between bloggers and luxury brands, read this). He is no ordinary influencer for Gucci to engage with. He has his own creative lens on things, including to his music — he is a man of many talents — with a rip-mix-burn approach he puts to practise and that resonates with web users. Web culture has indeed moved on from the early binarity of creator v consumer, to co-creation and hacking.

Does Andrew resonate with Gucci’s brand values? They are, after all, rooted in the Italian and Florentine heritage and craftsmanship. Where does Andrew fit in? Perhaps with Gucci’s fashion leadership and success with authenticity? Andrew is authentic, creative, successful with his own style of craftsmanship. There is synergy perhaps, and Gucci put its money where its mouth is by producing a collaborative collection with Andrew.

Both brands Andrew and Gucci have influence over their audiences.

But in the collaboration, who influenced whom? It is hard to tell. It is more like a circle of virtuous mutual influence! This kind of serendipity, overlaid with a strategic twist is not available to all luxury brands.

Luxury brands are currently torn between many dualities. The democratic nature of the web, versus the exclusive, aspirational image of a luxury brand. The reality of who is spending the money now, versus the need to build relationships with the potential customers of the future. Even the heritage claim becomes difficult to ride on, when the brands are addressing markets with their own heritage vastly more expansive and richer than the luxury marque’s own.

Amid all this, the question — should a luxury brand engage in influencer marketing at all?

My considered answer to that is No.

A luxury marque is, at its core, a Veblen good. Influencer marketing — including the lazy marketer’s option of celebrity endorsement, never mind their tenuous relationship with sales — on the other hand is an attempt to get in on the bandwagon effect (economists call it “interpersonal effects on utility”). Influencer marketing, given all the variables in the mix including the influencer’s own “brand” and its values, is cognitive dissonance-inducing in the luxury brand discourse.

“But, but what about the young generation and our engagement with them?,” some might ask.

The clue might lie in a 600 year old brand that somehow survived and thrived.

With the old fashioned idea of always being the keeper and regaler of the brand story, the craftsmanship story, the collection story. Even the influencers it has worked with in recent times are now collaboratively embedded in its glorious historicity.

When it comes to influencer marketing, true luxury marques need to remember just this:

Don’t borrow someone else’s influence. Be the influence.

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Luxury watches and tech: who is driving whom?

Luxury products, it seems, are being trampled over by technology-enabled products enticing luxury customers.

Apple created its own version of ceramic enforced gold. The real number of the Apple watches in gold casing shipped remains a mystery although an estimated total of 10M pieces are expected to have shipped by the end of 2015.

Apple approached Hermès, the 600 year old luxury marque for a collaboration. Possibly so Apple could open a new market for itself and Hermès could make its mark on tech savvy luxury buyers.

Hermès, however, is an odd choice, seeing as it is far from being the top luxury watch maker and seller. Apple gets to borrow Hermes’s aura, their channel and possibly their customer base — Hermès does not market aggressively to its masstige customer while its prestige customer may or may not like being sold to — and Hermès gets to sell some fabulous leather straps to Apple. The collaboration looked like Apple is driving it.

Meanwhile out of Rolex, Omega and Breitling, the top 3 luxury watch marques, only Breitling has dipped its toe in the smartwatch waters. With its Breitling B55 Connected.

Brietling’s vision is to make the phone subservient to the watch, to enhance the watch. To wit: “In creating its first connected chronograph, Breitling has applied a new philosophy placing the smartphone in the service of the watch so as to enhance its functionality and conviviality. The instrument of the future.” The Breitling B55 Connected builds on the earlier launch of B50, which is an an electronic multi-function chronograph movement, with analogue and digital displays. The idea was to serve pilots — Breitling’s primary audience, but also its aspirational audience — better and to pave the way for other developments.

A few others have made their first moves too. Gucci unveiled a high fashion version of Will.I.Am‘s smartband. Will.I.Am’s role as the creative innovation lead in Intel’s wearables business is not widely known. He is not afraid to fail or experiment. Movado has teamed up with HP to create an Android and iOS compatible watch – the Movado Bold Motion – which uses Bluetooth connectivity and vibrations and visual cues to upcoming important things, all while looking stunning as Movado watches do. At Baselworld 2015, Bulgari unveiled its Diagono Magnesium Concept watch. The watch uses WISeKey’s NFC chip to unlock an application that can store encrypted data on the cloud and communicate with other devices within its range. The data is reportedly secure in an underground bunker in the Swiss Alps. Um, ok. WISeKey’s technology works with both Android and iOS. Then there is Tag Heuer’s Connected, which runs Google Wearable OS, and the order numbers have just been upped significantly to serve the upcoming holiday demand.

With all these options, one wonders: What does a customer choose first — the watch or the technology platform/ OS? More to the point, will the technology platform ever drive a watch purchase?

Curious, I conducted an unscientific survey of (admittedly male) friends, who own watches each costing over £10,000. Unsurprisingly they are all eyeing the Tag Heuer and the Breitling, but not as their main watches.

“Look, I need the battery to last weeks not 6h. I sometimes have two flights to catch in a day and a tight meeting schedule in between.”, said one.

Another said, “As I become more senior, I am less interested in being available to all messages and people all the time. I need time to reflect, uninterrupted by pings and notifications, and as far as I can tell that is all smart watches are doing right now.”

“Whatever it is, I ain’t changing my mobile phone for a god-damned watch. Something will come along that suits me and does not ask me to suit it. Capiche?”, said another. Ooh, burn.

So, if the smart watch is not the main watch, is the connectedness spiel just another nice-to-have and not really a need-to-have feature?

What does that mean for the market that can actually afford luxury smart watches?

Who understands this subtlety of customer behaviour in the luxury market?

It sure ain’t Apple. Or HP. Or even WISeKey.

The luxury brand, on the other hand, owns the customer relationship and understands their customers’ behaviour and quirks. The brand also gets to choose which tech to use, and may choose technologies that are OS-agnostic so as to serve all of their existing customers. The brand, if not inclined to investing in development by itself, could always reach out to wearable companies such as Olio Devices, which were among the first to understand that the customer doesn’t want to change her phone OS, based on the watch she covets.

So, back to — who is driving whom as far as luxury watches and tech go?

Tech may have started it all but tech isn’t driving the conversation in this space any more.

As luxury goes, consumers rule, and luxury brands are expectedly showing a more subtle understanding of the consumer than tech players may assume.

PS: I am an all-in Apple ecosystem user.

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Four For Friday (27)

This was a week of critical reading of articles discussing the nature of work, the workplace and the worker. The customer should be the centre piece in any discussions about the workplace. That does not seem to be the case.

We must redefine employment and work, argues Andrei Hagiu in this op-ed. His piece frames ‘work’ and the nature of employer-employee/ contractor relationship as something legalistic. This is a limited point of view. We work and live in an ecosystem. With players such as insurance providers, mortgage lenders, landlords, phone companies, and credit scoring agencies. Unless the metrics of creditworthiness and other ways we engage with the ecosystem shift wholesale — that is, not just between employer and employee/ contractor but also how businesses see customers — this proposal is at best incomplete.

Work 3.0 must retain the principles underlying the employee/contractor dichotomy, guaranteeing employer flexibility and worker protections while permitting a spectrum of options: “employee” at one end, “independent contractor” at the other, and lots of novel ideas in the middle.

Holacracy is Zappos’s much watched experiment in a flat workplace with self-managed teams. Here Chuck Blakeman talks about self-managed teams, using a football metaphor. The metaphor while fascinating is limited. In a football match, both teams have loyal fans, whose ordered “product” — an enjoyable match, preferably a win — is delivered instantly. No returns are expected even if there are quibbles later in the newspapers and on social media. I could go on but I leave the rest as an exercise for the reader’s imagination.

When building self-managed teams in the emerging work world, there is no place for big egos. Leaders who want to make others successful and then get out of the way are building remarkable companies everywhere. Those who want to use people to make themselves look better will be left behind. Zappos will know they have arrived when people at Zappos see themselves in the pictures above, and there are no managers in sight.

Chris Yeh argues for a more radical approach to workplace relationships — and a company’s relationship with its alumni — something he calls “advanced common sense”. Of this week’s readings this was the cleanest argument, and the one that promised no magical thinking. In my reading, Chris is arguing for humanity and trust rather than rigid processes and structures. What huge changes will every employee have to make in his or her psychology, risk taking abilities, ongoing learning and ambitions to make this work?

Bringing this all together, Yeh refers to his approach to employee engagement as “advanced common sense”. Instead of promoting employees to management without any instruction, companies need to provide them with the tools and support to have open and honest conversations with their employees and to treat talent with the respect they would want themselves.

I share this reading mainly because it seems to use the words “manager” and “leader” interchangeably, and is first in a series from the Drucker Forum. The Forum is named after the late intellectual Peter Drucker, who famously said: “Management is doing things right; leadership is doing the right things.” Do tell me if you think my objection is over-reaching in its criticism. The piece titled “How Managers Can See The Future More Clearly” ends with a screed for leaders.

Every leader must cultivate these four skills in his or her own way. When leaders are not sure about the future, the entire organisation suffers. Turbulence becomes the norm. Confusion reigns. What lies ahead is painfully unclear; and, for humans working inside the firm, there can be little joy. These four skills will equip your leadership circle to clarify what’s next for your organization, and focus your management lens on the future.

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The design challenge called Indian traffic [2]

An earlier, admittedly ranty post documented the weirdness that is Indian traffic. Though it focused more on vehicular traffic than on pedestrians, any good traffic system design should enable peaceful co-existence of both vehicles and pedestrians.

I have spent some time thinking about traffic systems since I have been able to observe traffic in several countries outside India, especially the UK, for a few years now. I’d say it largely works well in the UK. Except when it does not, say, when we have the wrong type of snow. Roads don’t work, trains don’t work, almost nothing works.

Yet, some sincerely wonder if traffic in India can be improved to the level it is in developed countries.

Jokes apart, traffic in developed countries, when it flows, has mainly three component parts, although not all developed countries are created equal in their traffic discipline. These component parts exist in a Nash Equilibrium, which keeps the traffic flowing.

Rules

Unlike India — where most people with driving licences have done few, if any, lessons, and most driving licence owners have never been subjected to a rigorous examination of car knowledge and driving skills — it is near impossible to get a driving licence in most developed countries without passing multistage tests of road rules, car knowledge, and driving skills.

As far as I know, road rules — that would cover speed limits, lane discipline, overtaking procedures, use of indicators and other functioning lights on the vehicles, driving behaviour during egregious weather or road conditions, prioritisation of emergency vehicles, required civic behaviour during emergencies — aren’t even fully documented in India. Documenting them and then making them available in the many Indian languages would have to be the step that precedes training and testing for licensing purposes.

Licensed trainers and an incorruptible testing procedure would be the next essentials.

Then the state of the roads. It shouldn’t be down to a High Court to pronounce that citizens have a right to good roads. Because, so what?

Rule followers aka the social contract

Then comes the harder part. Of making a citizenry — of whom many are accustomed to saying “do you know who I am?” and “ok, do my work first, here is the cash!” — follow the process of learning and being tested to obtain a licence, with knowledge and humility, and not by sending someone else to get the paperwork done.

Some positive change, led by citizens themselves, is in evidence so there is hope on this count.

Enforcement and punitive measures

The third crucial part of a functioning traffic system is a traffic police force that catches, penalises and prosecutes if necessary the violations, no matter how minor, of road rules. This is helped by clear rules, along side specification of punitive measures for breaking them. This is further supported by a judicial system that lets traffic violation cases be tried swiftly instead of dragging them on for years, as Indian courts often do with many court cases.

So to return to the question, whether road traffic in India ever be improved to the level it is in developed countries, the answer is both Yes and No.

Yes, if India can arrive collectively at a new Nash Equilibrium of the above-mentioned factors.

No, if any of the above is missing.

The challenge for India is where to start.