So I challenged myself to come up with a new slide theme and I unreasonably constrained myself to the “RQ” which I had already created as a category for my [tag]slideshare[/tag] quote [tag]project[/tag].
I just get a little nervous when I convert a category to a tag in [tag]wordpress[/tag].
I continue to read that Bob book and it again has an analogy which rings true for marketing professionals, the 5 Stages of Surprises. I’ve of course re-labeled it like a good [tag]marketer[/tag]. No such thing as a new idea – just new packaging. The trick is remembering it at the right time.
The 5 stages of Market Initiative Surprises typically apply to both the good surprise and the bad surprise. If you get a crazy good response rate and [tag]ROI[/tag] or the opposite, no ROI, either way the phases are applicable – I think. So what are the phases? Confusion, Anger, Denial, Rejection and Oh Well.
These stages only apply to successes, if you in fact acknowledge you are not the alpha and the omega of all things known to marketing. If you are the alpha marketer, then maybe not, but as an average Joe who is typically surprised by the wildly successful and the not successful intiative – I think it works. I’m in the “Marketing is a science with a good deal of art infused camp”. So let’s understand the phases:
Confusion: You launch something out to the market and start getting confusing responses. A confusing response could be a series of inbound inquiries which are off topic, a high volume of response or just no responses.
Anger: So anger comes on both sides. You get angry on a successful initiative because it becomes a “why haven’t I thought of this before?” situation. As for a not so good initiative, you become angry because you just don’t understand the limited uptake – I mean it was a GOOD idea after all with a compelling message.Denial: Denial only works on a successful campaign if you understand that every idea can’t be wonderful or a hit. It’s easy to understand the denial on a negative campaign or outreach initiative. Admittedly – this is a short phase in the good initiative.
Rejection: There has to be something wrong with the metrics in either scenario. So you wait it out a little.
Oh Well: This is the final stage and it basically is the “Hey this thing worked” or “This thing didn’t work”. For the final stage to add value, this is where you have to acknowledge the outcome in earnest and learn from the activity. Either way, this is also the rationalization phase and where you create the story of the initiative, since you now know where it is landing and what you need to do.
The timeline for each phase depends on the the level of trust in your processes, organizational resources and systems. The denial and rejection phases get bloated if you have limited trust in the infrastructure (people, processes and technology). It is possible that this look at the 5 phases of surprises may not be correct, I’m just going to wait the metrics out on this post and see if I get surprised.
I’ll be at lunch with folks from AMR on Tuesday and saw Chris’ post and clearly agree – no ads please. What’s really weird is when I saw the note on friday, I too thought it would be a good , but being a slacker, chris beat me to it.
You suck chris! My two posts this week so far are only because of you – oh wait, I think that means I suck and I should be thankful for cool people I know. Anway here’s the quote:
The more I think about [tag]social networks[/tag] in the enterprise, the more convinced I am that there are great business applications for the technology. The networks won’t be ad based, though.” – Bruce Richardson, [tag]AMR Research[/tag].
I guess I meant chris is one of the coolest guys I know and ever worked for. I’m not saying it again! Thanks for the license plate photo too!
So I got this note, which ended up in my junk folder and I found by accident:
Dear Yahoo! Small Business customer,
We’re writing to notify you of an important change to your [tag]Yahoo![/tag] Domains plan. On December 4, 2007, we will change the email service included with your plan to provide the best service for all of our customers.
We understand that this change may inconvenience some of our customers, but we hope to make the transition as easy as possible. Please read on for important details about your new service.
How This Change Affects You
On December 4, 2007, we’ll replace your current email service with the more-powerful Yahoo! Business Email. During the switch, you will not experience any interruption in your domain service, and your domain name and account information will remain intact.Please note, however, that your existing email addresses and messages will not be transferred automatically to your new service. To avoid losing important messages and prevent email from “bouncing” (returning to their senders) during this transition, complete these two steps:
Set up POP access to save messages received before December 4, 2007, and to receive email during the transition.
Re-create your existing email addresses in your new email service as soon as possible after December 4.Re-create Your Email Addresses
On December 4, your existing email tools will be deactivated. At that time, you’ll need to prepare your new service to receive email by re-creating your existing, active email addresses with your new tools.To help you avoid losing incoming emails during the transition, we’ll continue to route messages to your old account for seven days after December 4 (you can use POP to receive this mail). After seven days, we’ll disable your old email service and reroute your emails to your new Business Mail addresses.
Please be sure to re-create any active email addresses with your new tools by December 11.
To reach your Business Mail tools, you’ll click the “Manage Email” link on your Domain [tag]Control Panel[/tag] as you do today. Learn how to set up Business Mail.
When the transition to your new email service is complete, you can continue to use POP to manage your email and transfer saved messages to your new service, but you will need to change your POP settings.
Please note that you will continue to access your account by signing in to Yahoo! with your Yahoo! ID and password. If you don’t remember your Yahoo! ID or password, please visit our reminder page now for assistance.
Review Your Terms of Service
Before you begin using your new features, please review the Yahoo! Small Business Consolidated Terms of Service, which reflects recent enhancements to our products and services. Your continued use of Yahoo! Small Business after December 4, 2007, constitutes your acceptance of these terms and conditions.To ensure uninterrupted service, we also recommend that you visit our billing center and verify that your payment information is up-to-date (you’ll need to sign in with your Yahoo! ID and password).
Get Help
We expect you’ll have questions about the upcoming changes, so we encourage you to visit our online help center, where you’ll find answers to common questions about the changes to your service, managing your email, and more.Best regards,
The Yahoo! Small Business team
So are they or aren’t they interrupting service? Is your target market not so technical folk? Why didn’t you build a transition tool to the new environment. Isn’t this a service people pay for? Isn’t long term storage for data part of the offering? Isn’t that the value of using Yahoo!?
So why do you explain “Bouncing”, but not POP? Perhaps it’s because your users are technical, but don’t know the jargon – wait – is POP jargon?
The folks at Yahoo not only need to learn change management but more efficient way of managing progress. The “upgrade” to Flickr was a “your hosed” message as well. Very disappointing execution. I’ll be watching my domains to ensure they aren’t impacted, but have already left yahoo due to poor follow and live assistance for hosting/email. Go [tag]media Temple[/tag]!!!
