They Really Don't Get It.

At the risk (i.e. certainty) of attracting some snarky comments, I have to admit that I sometimes feel like I'm sending out the same few ideas here - over and over again. But, then I notice another example of corporate idiocy and realise how far there is to go.

Today's two examples:

1) A television advertisement breathlessly announcing the details of a business conference. It managed to register the name of the event in my head but not the contact details - there wasn't enough time. No matter, the internet is a wonderful thing. I google that name. And what do I get? Not the event site, but a couple of local listing sites that mention the event yet have no link to it. The reason? The official website - where valued customers can book tickets - turns out to have a slightly different name from that of the conference. Go figure.

2) I try to contact the local council to report a collapsed manhole cover in a nearby street. My phonecall is answered with a message telling me that, if I don't want to wait on hold, I can make a report online by "typing the following name into the search engine of the council's website." Not only do they not realise that I'm more likely to use the search engine of my choice rather than jump through their hoops, they then go the effort of spelling out the url of the county site rather than that of the sub-site they know I'm seeking.

I've heard similar stories this week from across the corporate globe - colleagues and friends frustrated by encountering walls of ignorance, inertia and incomprehension. Within agencies, within giant organisations, within whole countries even. The amazing reality is this. They really don't get it.

But there is a silver lining. Although many of the "players" haven't noticed that the environment has changed, at best, are trying to adapt their old models to the new reality, a significant proportion of individual people (aka customers) have done so. They know what's possible. They'll increasingly demand it. If your organisation is one of those that does "get it", you are so far ahead of the game, it should be hard for you to fail to clean up.