Why it’s critical to understand that your work takes place in a system

Terri Griffith — Mon, 04 Jul 2011 21:04:10 +0000

Last week, Colleen reported on the email Amazon sent to all California-resident Amazon Associates warning them that if California enacted a law imposing new taxes on Internet sales their participation in the Associates affiliate sales program would be terminated. I received my notification of termination Wednesday. Others will have deeper insight into the legal ramifications, as California is not the only state in the U.S. moving in this direction. My contribution is on how to work within such a complicated ecosystem.

It is important to understand that our work takes place in a system. In this case, the system is shifting quickly and is not well understood. Individuals, organizations, states and countries (recall the recent e-G8 meeting in Paris) are all trying to both understand and create reality in the Internet-enabled world. To be an effective web worker, it is vital that you think about the whole system that you work in, not just the critical dimension of the moment. Here are five dimensions to consider as you think about your own work in this system:

People. Who are the people that you must engage with? Knowledge, skills, abilities, preferences.
Organizational process. This includes policies, procedures, workflows, and standard ways of operating.
Organizational structure. The organization chart/reporting structure that you work within, which is often a good indicator of what an organization thinks is important.
Technology. Both electronic and physical, on-hand or available.
Context. The legal environment, your organization’s strategy (early mover, follower, growth, etc.), whether your organization is local/global, etc.

To make effective decisions about your work, understand that you can never change just one thing. There is no such thing as a single silver bullet that will solve a problem. Fredrick Brooks, summarizing the issues in a classic 1986 article, writes, “There is no single development, in either technology or in management technique, that by itself promises even one order of magnitude improvement in productivity, in reliability, in simplicity” (pdf). Even just changing from one email client to another has a human learning curve and may also affect your workflow.

Do a quick mental scan of the five dimensions in your situation. Focus on the two or three that you expect to have the greatest initial impact (this keeps you in tune with another piece of advice: go for small wins rather than stretch goals) and will help you understand how things are working. If you change everything at once it is difficult to track the causes and outcomes.

For California residents, our context has just shifted. The most effective web workers had this possibility on their radar well before receiving the letter from Amazon and were proactive about their options and how the different dimensions were part of those options. For example, they have been lobbying their legislators, hopefully considering multiple dimensions as they thought about how to persuade them: Understanding their particular legislators’ priorities and the organizational process to reach them. For some, moving to a different state may be an option, and again, multiple dimensions should be considered: The human costs of moving, supplier costs of moving, whether the new locale is next in line for a tax change. There will be no one right answer for the web workers affected by this change. The only “right answer” is that for this adjustment, and any other organizational decisions that you must make, you need to consider the entire system as you come to your understanding and choices. You can never change just one thing.

How are you preparing for changes in your working environment, regardless of whether or not you live in California and/or were a member of the Amazon Associate program? What were the dimensions you considered as you thought about the future?

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
Subscriber content. Sign up for a free trial.

Going Virtual: Can It Work for Your Business?

Amber Singleton Riviere — Thu, 17 Mar 2011 17:00:53 +0000

As someone who works exclusively via the web, it’s interesting to talk with brick-and-mortar business owners who haven’t yet considered the possibilities of working remotely. The conversation quickly moves to ways to streamline work, increase the talent pool available to the company, and — most fun of all — unique and exciting ways to promote the business online.

Going Virtual With Products

Especially if you’re dealing with a physical product, there will always be a need for manufacturing facilities, but unless you’re creating a custom- or hand-made product for each and every customer, it’s likely your company already outsources, or in some way remotely manages, production.

The key then becomes creating a virtual setup to replace the traditional brick-and-mortar model, such as needing a physical storefront for customer experience or to showcase products and allow browsing. There are many examples, however, that prove it’s perfectly possible to create an amazing customer experience that’s also completely virtual.

Heartbreaker Fashion

This is one site that demonstrates how the virtual experience may even trump the in-person one. Heartbreaker Fashion offers vintage-inspired clothing, and as with many online clothing retailers, the way it beats the brick-and-mortar shopping experience is by displaying every single outfit on a live model so that customers know, at a glance, whether outfits will work for them or not.

What makes Heartbreaker Fashion stand out is in its branding. Their website provides a boutique experience that makes the customer feel special, beautiful and feminine, and like they are getting to treat themselves to something out of the ordinary — all with simple, unified website branding!

Amazon

Amazon is great example of a company that has been a purely virtual business right from the very start. As the website explains, Amazon “strives to [be] Earth’s most customer-centric company,” and in my experience, it’s achieving just that.

While Amazon’s headquarters are physically-based, their products have always been sold exclusively online, and in fact, Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon, was named as Time magazine’s person of the year for his “vision of the online retailing universe [that] was so complete, his Amazon.com site so elegant and appealing, that it became from Day One the point of reference for anyone who had anything to sell online.”

Going Virtual With Employees

As even Amazon has seen, setting up remote employees can be the most challenging part of creating a completely virtual business, but for many businesses, it’s highly possible to set up a distributed team for managing the work of the company. Here, it’s not so much a matter of examples as of logistics.

Collaboration

Although you may be able to forgo a physical location, it’s still important to have a centralized place (even if virtual) where employees can gather to communicate, collaborate and even socialize. Here are just a few of the options for online communication and collaboration for your team:

Unified Communications

It’s important to maintain a unified front with communications (email addresses, phone numbers, etc.), especially when working with independent contractors and freelancers, who generally have separate business-branded emails and may be dispersed around the world.

Services like Google Apps, Google Voice, and RingCentral can easily and seamlessly tie communications together for all employees and remote workers, without costing a lot in money or setup time.

Going Virtual with Marketing

Marketing is perhaps the most interesting and fun part of taking a company virtual. The possibilities for creating unique and memorable promotional campaigns online are truly endless and can actually be a great way to interact with customers to strengthen brand loyalty and recognition.

Honda

According to Dachis Group, Honda is one company successfully integrating online social media for business. Through their “Friending Honda” efforts, they reportedly “increased fans from 15k to 422k, generating over 3,500 dealer quote requests.”

Blendtec

Blendtec became a YouTube sensation with its “Will It Blend?” series, which generated millions of views of Blendtec “lab technicians” blending everything from iPods to glow sticks.

Smaller companies need not be afraid of big name power when it comes to online marketing, since it’s possible for almost any company to create successful strategies and campaigns around their products to help grow their customer base.

These days, with rapidly developing technology that’s available to businesses, as well as the Internet becoming the go-to method for staying connected as individuals, going virtual is not only possible, but in fact, quite necessary.

How much of your company operates virtually?

Photo courtesy Flickr user Meanest Indian