Every Service Failure Levels the Playing Field

A mammoth corporation like this―it embodies too much experience. 

It possesses in fact a sort of group mind.

― Philip K. Dick

Organizational theorists believe every big business is a collective mind, and that performance "depends on coordinating the distributed knowledge and activities of the collective’s members."

When a big business screws up a simple transaction―more and more the norm―it obliterates the value of that vast, collective mind―opening the way for a small business to steal the disaffected customer.

Execs should think about that when tempted to cut more corners on talent, technology and time-frames.

All the money, bravado and best-practice babble in the world won't make you stronger than your weakest link.

Unbodied by Books

I am unbodied by thy books, and thee, and in thy papers find my ecstasy.

— Henry Cornelius Agrippa

Your worldview—your set of beliefs and assumptions about reality—is bred in your teens, according to psychologists.

Mine were filled with the usual distractions—schoolwork, buddies, rock music, substances, girls, urban adventures—and books.

The four that more than any other formed my worldview were all written by men, and all in the 20th century. I can't say precisely why they made such a mark on me, but I'll describe the mark they made.

Portnoy's Complaint (Philip Roth, 1969). I was born in Newark, New Jersey (the novel's setting), so I just had to read what The New Yorker was labeling in 1969 "one of the dirtiest books ever published." Roth blew my 16-year-old mind. I learned from the novel the adult world wasn't too different than my own. Everyone felt childish. Everyone felt inadequate. Everyone felt guilty. Everyone felt trapped. If he didn't, he was a schmuck.

Catch-22 (Joseph Heller, 1961). A high-school English teacher assigned this novel. I still remember he called it "an existential picaresque." The novel showed me the system was a racket run by preening half-wits; the rules were cruel and absurd and made up by self-serving hustlers; and the good died young. I was 17, a year from the draft and a possible tour in Vietnam.

The Sound and the Fury (William Faulkner, 1929). Another English teacher assigned Faulkner's family saga, considered by the author his personal favorite and by many other writers as the best American novel of the 20th century. The Sound and the Fury showed me at age 18 that myths, secrets and "family politics" can condemn you.

Being and Time (Martin Heidegger, 1927). I encountered Heidegger's masterwork in college. From it I learned in painstaking detail why we're so crazy, fragile and nervous: we're all bozos on this bus, and it's heading for a cliff. Being is time and time is finite, Heidegger makes clear. Or, as Samuel Beckett wrote, "They give birth astride of a grave, the light gleams an instant, then it's night once more."

Which books formed your worldview?

Reading is Fungible

An investment in knowledge pays the best interest. 

— Benjamin Franklin

According to Pew Research Center, 47% of adult Americans read every day keep up with current events; 35%, for pleasure; 31%, for work or school; and 29%, to research topics.

The majority who don't read every day—for whatever reason—represent tomorrow's economic losers.

When their jobs are automated, they'll be tossed out on the street, unable to compete even for scut work against their robotic replacements.

It's a simple fact: most highly compensated people read—many for hours at a sitting (Warren Buffet reads five hours a day). They know knowledge—not effort—is the world's new currency.

Not many years from now, knowledge will be the human's value; effort, the robot's. 

People will be paid for their grasp of reality, their foresight, their vocabularies, and their empathy, while robots produce all the products, stock all the shelves, drive all the vehicles, and serve all the coffee. Their effort will be demonetized.

If you want to help someone this holiday season, give him a book. If you're at a loss for titles, check out these bookworms' picks:

• Maria Popova
• Oprah Winfrey
• Barack Obama
• Bill Gates
• Stephen King
• Phillip Roth
• Don Draper

Things Worth Reading

The things worth writing about, and the things worth reading about, are the things that feel almost beyond description at the start and are, because of that, frightening. 

— Douglas Coupland

Andy Crestodina's annual survey of bloggers is out. It shows 2 of 3 bloggers focus on SEO, up from 1 of 2 three years ago.

Given people's content shock, why bother?

Why write for robots, when you could write things worth reading?

Fat, Dumb and Happy Revisited

I guessed eleven months ago American Society of Association Executives wouldn't contact me after I'd enrolled—even once—until it wanted me to renew my membership. I guessed correctly.

Associations need to do better than that, to stay in business. 

Perhaps ASAE should consult the FBI. It would learn the Bureau frowns on advance fee schemes.