Strategy. Innovation. Brand.
Genes and Memes. Who’s In Charge?
Obey!
Suellen loves to garden. When she’s digging and sweating and shoveling, I often wonder if she’s training the flowers to do what she wants or whether the flowers are training her to do what they want. Somehow, flowers have made themselves so seductive that they can convince humans to feed, water, shelter, and reproduce them. Humans do all the work. Plants enjoy the benefits. Who is serving whom? (For a more elegant exploration of this theme, see The Botany of Desire).
We could ask the same question of our genes. In theory, our genes transmit information about us to the next generation. Elliot looks like me because of the genetic material that I’ve passed on. Fortunately for him, Suellen also passed on her good-hair genes. But did we really reproduce ourselves? Or did our genes use us to reproduce themselves? Genes could influence our behavior to cause us to reproduce. As Richard Dawkins has pointed out, “A chicken is just an egg’s way for making another egg.” (Perhaps Suellen is just a bulb’s way of reproducing itself).
And that brings us to memes. The term seems loose and slippery in today’s web usage. So I decided to track down its history and … lo and behold, Richard Dawkins pops up again! In his book, The Selfish Gene in 1976, Dawkins suggested that ideas have the same characteristics as living organisms, including the desire and ability to replicate themselves.
Dawkins coined the term meme and wrote, “Memes propagate themselves in the meme pool by leaping from brain to brain via a process which, in the broad sense, can be called imitation.” As James Gleick writes, “Memes emerge in brains and travel outwards, establishing beachheads on paper and celluloid and anywhere else information can go. … The number three is not a meme; nor is the color blue, nor any simple thought … Memes are complex units, distinct and memorable – units with staying power.”
Like a gene, a meme can influence our behavior. Save for a rainy day is a “good” meme – it influences us to behave prudently. As Nicholas Humphrey notes, a meme can also be a brain parasite. I got a good taste of this on a long bike ride when I couldn’t get the theme from Gilligan’s Island out of my head. It had wormed its way in and wasn’t going to leave.
Of course the idea of a meme is also a meme in itself. We use the term regularly (and somewhat loosely) in the digital world. We think of a meme as any popular idea that travels easily and quickly from brain to brain. They don’t have to be true; most conspiracy theories are memes. They don’t have to be original; clichés are memes. But they do have to replicate themselves and stick around for a while. As Daniel Dennet notes, “A meme is an information packet with attitude.”
So, if we humans are merely the servants of our genes and memes, does that make us bit players in the great, wide world? I’m not sure. But I am sure that a meme is emerging that says just that.
(I adapted much of the meme content for this post from James Gleick’s book, The Information: A History, A Theory, A Flood).
Title Inflation
My next title.
When I began my career in industry (as opposed to academia), I was a product management specialist. It was a modest title for a modest set of responsibilities. We had a vice president of engineering and a vice president of marketing but the top person in product management was a director. The top dog at the company was the president; he was not referred to as a CEO. We had a rule (unwritten apparently) that no more than 1% of our employees could hold the title of vice president. I don’t recall that we used titles like senior vice president or executive vice president. The president ran things; vice presidents reported to the president.
When I retired from industry (as opposed to academia), I was senior vice president of marketing. For a time, I had six vice presidents reporting to me. My company didn’t use the title chief marketing officer but I might have held that title as well if I had worked at other companies. Neither title — SVP or CMO — existed in my first company.
A number of writers and management theorists have commented on the rampant title inflation of the past 30 years or so. Most have condemned it as a sign of ego, self-importance, faddishness, or just plain silliness. One of my favorite members of the commentariat, Lucy Kellaway, just wrote a blog about the execrable use of American title terminology in the UK — as witnessed by the recent appointment of Charlotte Hogg as the first chief operating officer at the Bank of England. Kellaway seems to be offended that American terminology has infected the old world.
Certainly, we have plenty of ego in the corporate world today. But I think something deeper is going on here. Why do we have title inflation? Because it’s so much cheaper than real inflation. If we teased out the average raise that goes with an “inflated” title change, I think it would be smaller than the raise given with a “non-inflated” title change. (This would be a good dissertation topic). Getting a promotion to vice president makes you feel good. It strokes your ego. That make your compensation less likely to trigger a round of flinty salary negotiations. When you’ve just been made a member of an exclusive club, you’re less likely to wheedle about the salary. It may be cynical but it seems to work. Otherwise, it wouldn’t be so pervasive.
Local, Personal, Social, and Always On
The Boston Consulting Group (BCG) just published a new study that compares 16 industries in their ability to deliver digital satisfaction to American consumers. What’s the worst industry? The telco/cable industry is at the bottom of the heap. What’s the best industry? Surprise … it’s personal banking.
BCG surveyed 3,135 consumers in March 2013 and measured satisfaction with 17 different digital “interactions”. These were grouped into four broad categories:
- Research – interactions include the ability to find information quickly and easily, the ability to find better prices, etc.
- Transactions – the ease of making the transaction, the ability to buy what I need, etc.
- Post-transaction activities – including social features, customized communication, and mobile access.
- Other – including quick access to help and the degree to which I trust this transaction.
The researchers asked consumers to rate each interaction in two ways: 1) how important is it?; 2) how satisfied are you with it? With these data, we can compare expectations and how well those expectations are met.
The researchers crunched all the data and compiled the 16 industries into four categories:
Leaders – consumers had high expectations of leaders and, by and large, their expectations were met. In general, the leaders scored well across all four interaction categories, from beginning to end. (Actually, the process never really ends). The four leading industries are (in order) personal banking, online merchants, media retail, and electronics retail. Personal banking leads by a wide margin, with a total satisfaction score of 15.2, compared to 11.8 for online merchants, the second ranking industry.
Aspirants – these industries do well on the research interactions but lag on the transaction and post-transaction categories. In other words, they get off to a good start but don’t follow through well. Consumers are not displeased with aspirant performance but think it could be improved. Industries in this category are: apparel retail, airlines, investments, and hotels.
Sleepers – consumers have low (digital) expectations of sleeper industries … and those expectations were fulfilled. Sleeper industries are: supermarkets, automobiles, and real estate.
Laggards – consumers have higher expectations of laggards (than of sleepers) but low satisfaction. Laggards fall behind in all interaction categories, from research to post-transaction. Laggards include: utilities, government services, health care providers, insurance, and (worst of the worst) telco and cable
Consumers want the digital experience to offer more than the physical experience. Digital might offer more options, more information, better prices, or more convenience. It might even be fun. Generally, consumers “expect the digital experience to be local (recognizing where they are), personal (tailored to their individual needs and preferences), social (shared with their friends) – and always on.”
The study also points to the growing importance of mobile access. Roughly half of Millennials (born 1980 – 2000) use mobile devices while shopping. For older consumers, the rate is approximately one-fifth. Mobile access enables two key trends:
Showrooming – check out the merchandise in a brick-and-mortar retail outlet, then compare prices and buy online.
Omnichannel – use the entire array of online, mobile, virtual, social, and real world channels to make a buying decision.
As the authors point out, the purchasing process is no longer linear; it’s now fluid and dynamic. To succeed, companies will need to enhance satisfaction through the entire range of interactions and do it through all channels. It’s a daunting challenge. The reward, however, is a slice of the $450 billion e-commerce market that BCG projects by 2016.
Creativity and Caffeine
Gosh, I’m feeling so creative.
Last December I wrote a brief article asking, Are You More Creative When You’re Sleepy? The general idea is that you’re less likely to stick to nonproductive routines when you’re tired. Let’s assume that you know the “right” way to do something. When you’re fresh and energetic, you may repeat the process multiple times, even if it doesn’t work well. You’re more likely to assume that the process is correct but you’re making a mistake. Thus, you repeat the process, expecting to correct the mistake and achieve success. When you’re tired, you’re more likely to give up, and try something different — perhaps something more creative.
This week The New Yorker has an article looking at the same phenomenon from a different perspective. The question: does caffeine inhibit creativity? Caffeine tends to stimulate and focus the mind. If you’re more creative when you’re tired — because your mind wanders — then caffeine should reduce your creativity.
Maria Konnikova — who wrote Mastermind: How To Think Like Sherlock Holmes — wrote The New Yorker article and it’s well worth a read. Even if you’re not interested in creativity, you’ll be fascinated with the way Honoré de Balzac inhaled ground coffee dust because the brewed stuff just wasn’t strong enough.
Nothing Buttists and Physics Envy
It’s so precise!
Physics is beautiful. It’s precise, it’s elegant, it’s mathematical, and it explains and predicts. If you know the inputs, you also know the outputs.
Perhaps that’s why so many other sciences (and pseudo-sciences) seem to have physics envy. Envious sciences can’t simply explain; they also have to predict. That’s where they get into trouble.
Take economics. It used to be about markets and policies and people and behavior. Then it succumbed to physics envy and grew (in my opinion) far too fond of calculus. Economists seemed to think that calculus would provide the same predictability as physics. Just remove the human element, forget the politics, and focus on the math. As Roger Lowenstein writes, “The modern economist employs mathematics as a badge of neutrality.” We should all be thankful that Daniel Kahneman et. al. have restored human behavior to economics.
Physics envy seems to have invaded neurology as well. As David Brooks points out, we now have “nothing buttists” – humans are “nothing but a bunch of neurons.” Taking this view supposedly leads to predictability. Indeed, Adrian Raines believes that we can predict violent crime. (My low heart rate may consign me to jail).
Ultimately, I think it’s all just silliness. Professors are trying to put the gloss of scientific certainty over their incomplete theories. They’re trying to predict what humans will do with precision and certainty because that’s what physicists do. Fortunately, humans don’t behave like subatomic particles. Life is unpredictable – that’s what makes it fun. Just remember to eat dessert first.
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