Book Review: Range by David Epstein

December 15, 2023 //
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As a society we tell ourselves stories that, while convenient, are not always, or even ever, true. In what is probably Malcom Gladwell’s best book “Outliers” (which I can’t believe I have not reviewed) the author tells of the often decade long stories, and tales of extraordinary advantage, of seemingly overnight successes. David Epstein, in “Range: Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World”, is also debunking one of the stories we tell ourselves – that to be really good at something, or to have great success at something, we have to have focused on that thing for a long time – if not forever.

Before I go any further a word to my veterinary and human medicine readers. In this post, and indeed in Mr. Epstein’s book, when we talk about “specialization” we are using it in the general sense as opposed to the legal (small “s” rather than capital “S”). Although, I do believe that there are lessons for students from Mr. Epstein’s excellent book. Don’t be in too much of a hurry to map out your career. It’s a good thing to try out different interests and to change your mind – you’ll be better in the long run for it.

The pressure to focus on one thing, whether it be in sports, music, or entrepreneurship is all pervasive and often has business interests behind the marketing of “hyper specialization.”

 It is a good story.

The Tiger Woods story is one that the author highlights. It is a story of the very young Tiger playing golf before he could talk and spending all day at the golf course. It is a story of winning tournament after tournament and having an unflinching goal of winning more titles than anyone else. Mr. Epstein juxtaposes the “Tiger story” with the far less well-known story of Roger Federer. Federer’s mother was a tennis coach but she refused to coach him and actively tried to dissuade him from playing tennis. A young Federer also seemed far more interested in soccer, basketball, skateboarding, handball and skiing. It was not until his teens that Federer started to gravitate towards tennis and then his goals were not lofty, but the rather quaint “meet Borris Becker” and “play at Wimbledon.”

This wide range of experience and lack of focus is the author’s main argument – that, more often than not, it is range that leads to success rather than specialization. That depth of experience of different fields matters more than depth of experience in just one. Interestingly, the evidence that Mr. Epstein quotes, rather persuasively, is that while early hyper specialization can lead to children getting a head start in that chosen area, they tend to fall into line with their peers rather than stay ahead as time goes on.

Where the book misses, for me, is that it seems to continue to fall back to specialization being a worthy goal via a route of different experiences, rather than the range of experiences being a worthy goal in itself. However, this minor quibble aside. The book makes a very strong case for experience in general and for following one’s interests. A great example is the idea to not ask kids what they want to be when they grow up, but rather to ask them what they are interested in. Our education, and in our careers, we often ask others where they are headed and penalize them for not knowing. This may be a mistake.

When I look at my career, I’ve had very specific goals at different times and while I have met some of them, I have taken some spectacular left turns that has led me to areas I would never have even considered just a few years earlier. No one is more surprised than me that I live in Las Vegas, watch a lot of hockey, and write poetry.

This is an important book for those who mentor, or lead, others. How we choose to guide – matters. We are often a deciding factor in whether to specialize in an area or to follow seemingly unconnected interests. There is value in a range of interests and experiences that benefit both the person and the employer.

A more enlightened view of the goals of mentoring will benefit everyone.

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Categories Books, Business, Career Advice, Leadership, Management, personal development, reviews

The Parable of the Eggless Omelet

November 17, 2023 //
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Chef 1:- I just… I don’t think it’s fair (talking to Chef 2)

Kiki: Chef!

Kiki: Chef!

Chef 1: Yes, Kiki, what is that?

Kiki: A man on table six wants an eggless omelette. He wants an egg…

Chef 1: Kiki you can’t have an eggless omelette, can you?

Kiki: Why do we not have any?

Chef 1: No, they don’t exist, do they? Because there’s no… Breadsticks, what are they made of?

Kiki: Bread.

Chef 1: Bread, very good. OK, take away the bread, what are you left with?

Kiki: Sticks?

Chef 1: No, Kiki! (Sprinkles a few herbs on an empty plate) There you go, that’s an eggless omelet.

Kiki: Okay (takes plate)

Chef 1: No, don’t take the plate, Kiki, what are you doing? Please!

Chef 2: Kiki, just ask the nice man if he’d like his omelet made with whole eggs or just egg whites. (Kiki smiles and goes to leave)

Chef 2: You can leave the plate.

When I was first shown this scene from the British restaurant-based sitcom “Whites” I found it amusing like I’m sure most of you did. How we can laugh at how silly Kiki is being and how she lacks all common sense. And the scene is funny, but it reflects a real behavior that we see every day, admittedly pushed to extremes.

But this is an attitude that needs to change. Just like to scene where the security guard gets humiliated for not stopping the scruffy young man from entering the fancy building and not recognizing that he in-fact owns the building and is ultimately is the security guard’s employer. The poor guard is just doing his job. Just because you walk around like you own the building does not automatically mean you actually do. We’ve all seen the videos that prove you can get it almost anywhere if you are carrying a ladder. Employees, just like clients, can suffer from being of the loosing end of the curse of knowledge.

The curse of knowledge is where we humans can’t understand that others may not have the same life, education, and training as us and therefore may not know the same things. What is obvious and, in that most awful of phrases, “common sense” may not in fact be widely known or common sense. For more on my hatred of “common sense” you can read this post.

But yet we do this all the time. The client who does not know to vaccinate their new puppy. The coffee drinker who does not know that Starbucks calls its large “Venti” or a regular coffee an “Americano.” There is a whole video just about that too.

With employees a lack of knowledge is a teaching moment. Of course, it can be frustrating and if we find ourselves teaching the same thing over and over again we have a different problem, but we can’t criticize, or worse snap at, for a lack of knowledge – even when we think employees should have this knowledge. In any other environment, we would recognize this behavior for what it is; bullying.

Recognizing that teams need be able to express when they don’t know something helps to create a safe space for learning. Teachable moments should be embraced for what they are – a chance to get better, to improve. Its also just the decent thing do to. There can also be more going on than just not knowing something.

New employees, for example, don’t know the limits of their knowledge yet. So while they may not of heard of something does not mean that it does not exist. We don’t want them to guess – so employees ask. They need to praised for checking and confirming that what we think is obvious is actually not. We all need to be better about this. I for one know that I can be bad at this but, as with most things, recognizing when you have a problem is the first step in fixing it.

The Kiki’s of the world deserve that we try.

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Categories Leadership, Management, personal development, Staff Meeting Resources

Book Review: Unreasonable Hospitality by Will Guidara

November 11, 2023 //
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Let me tell you a secret about most business books – they are not about business. Oh yes, they claim to be about business, how to work with people, and affect change, but in reality a lot of them are not. They are often about the hard things – finance, cost control, selling, and product development, or the soft things – people management, team dynamics, and marketing. Rarely is a book about how all these things fit together, and how to grow while at the same time dealing with the realities of business day to day.

Which is why Will Guidara’s book “Unreasonable Hospitality: The Remarkable Power of Giving People More than They Expect” is so refreshing. This is part memoir of a restauranter and part business manual on blending soft and hard skills that all businesses try to do – with varied levels of success. Mr. Guidara was the general manager of a number of fantastic restaurants, including Eleven Madison Park which became the number one restaurant in the world.

For a book that talks a length about people, values, growth, and mission it is so unusual to hear the real world politick of “I’m also clear about what my job is, which is to do what’s best for the restaurant, not to do what’s best for any of you (the staff). More often than not, what’s best for the restaurant will include doing what’s best for you. But the only way I can take care of all of you as individuals is by always putting the restaurant first.” Just wow!

And that quote really sums up the problems with a lot of books on management and leadership – they are two different things people and not mutually exclusive (I can shout that louder for the hacks with the crappy memes) – we are often being asked to hold ourselves to an impossible standard. People are sometimes not the right fit, sometimes we just have to get through the shift, sometimes we are not going to be perfect. An illuminating passage deals with the idea that while it is often trotted out that employees have a language of appreciation, they may also have a language of criticism – people may need feedback in different ways depending on their personality and work history.

I love the advise to “not let things slide – those small things become personal slights.” This is often ignored because every manager today fears being labeled a micro manager. Just like I also appreciate Mr. Guidara’s works to be maniacal on cost control for 95% of your costs and then to spurge for the last 5% to make a difference to the guest experience.

There are times when this book feels like it is written by the staff from the movie “The Menu,” yet at the same time one has to appreciate what Mr. Guidara was trying to do with his business and why he was doing it. The book says, there is nothing wrong with striving for perfection, as long as perfection is not the standard – little things are always going to go wrong. That does not mean one should not try, but it means managers and leaders have to accept realities.  

It may seem extreme and over the top, and it is, but that is the whole point of being “unreasonable.” To give people more than they ever expected in a controlled manner so it can be systemized and scalable. I’ve been banging on about scalability for years, and so to read it in this book was like having to tell the author to get out of my head.

This book should be required reading for managers and leaders of any business who want to deliver a better experience for everyone – including the owner of the business. This is appreciation that businesses are businesses. They must make money and they have to be able to work when you are not there. There has to be systems in place, protocols and procedures, so that everyone knows what to do and new people can be easily trained on what to do.

Unreasonable Hospitality is what business books should be. Simon Sinek, who wrote the introduction and I have been on record for forever as having no time for, could learn a lot from this book for example.

This is where the rubber meets the road. For those who want to add to their passion, or just rekindle it, it is hard to find a better way to do so than to read this wonderful book.   

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Categories Books, Customer Service, Leadership, Management, Marketing

Book Review: Monsters by Claire Dederer

June 9, 2023 //
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How should we feel about those whose work we admire, or even love, when they turn out to be awful human beings or even just deeply flawed? Are you a better artist if you become more selfish? This is the subject of Claire Dederer’s exceptional book – Monsters: A Fans Dilemma.

Do great artists become assholes (or monsters) because of their singular commitment to their art or do assholes / monsters become great artists because they know their transgressions will be forgiven? How should we feel about Wagner, Miles Davis, Roman Polanski, Woody Allan, David Bowie, Sylvia Plath, Joni Mitchell, Valerie Solanas, Doris Lessing, and many, many more?

Male artists who are considered monsters are usually considered so because of violence or abuse. When female artists are considered monsters, it is usually because they have abandoned their children – something that male artists do without seeming consequence or judgement. There is also an added dimension of racism. As Ms. Dederer points out by quoting the often-maligned Kanye West; “I’m not a rap star, I’m a rock star.” Why? Because rock stars generally do not experience what Kanye West has experienced ad nauseam: repercussions. A fact that Ms. Dederer points out by not covering the army of white make rock stars accused of sexual predatory behavior.

This is perhaps one of the most complex questions of our times. Claire Dederer does a superlative job of sorting through the mixed emotions we all feel about such figures, and she herself feels as an artist with the choices she has made on her own artistic journey as a writer, a mother, a partner, and as an alcoholic. She also tackles whether this is a price too high for the #metoo movement (spoiler alert: it’s not.)

At its core, Monster is an exploration of the meetings of biographies; the biographies of those with fans and the biographies of the individual fans themselves. It also embraces the fracture points of our society, racism, sexism, and violence. Our reactions to the transgressions of those who make the art we love are subjective and are based on both the artist and the viewer. We can still consume the art of terrible people because there is a difference between what we feel – the emotional response to great art – and moral thoughts. We can look at great art and see the stain left by the actions of its creator. For some the stain will ruin the piece, for others they will see past the stain. What is right for one person will not necessarily be right for someone else.

Monster also places this discussion in a historical context. We often feel that we are in an enlightened time. That we are in an apolitical present where we know better than the past. As Ms. Dederer states – we don’t know better because we woke up, we know better because some people spoke up. We can all look back on the past and say we would have spoken up, however, how many of us do when the world around us burns? The things we thought we had transcended are still there – minority communities have always known this. It is not helped by the fact that everyone still loves an asshole. How any of our beloved characters in book, television, and film we would abhor in real life if we had to deal with them? “Don’t you know who I am,” is an awful and entitled addition to any disagreement. Yet we all love the scene where the clueless front desk clerk tries to stop someone from entering the building they actually own, and the clerk works in.

Stepping away from the art discussion for a moment. Monster is also an excellent discussion of the pressure of career vs. motherhood and the goals of careers in general. Returning to Kanye West for a moment, the line; “People want power and vacations” is an insightful view of what drives people in the modern world. But the balance of motherhood and career is where Monster shines brightest. If it is a real choice to trade levels of career success for the time a mother spends with their children – how does that express itself with professionals? How do both employers and employees recognize this dilemma and neutralize its effects for everyone to get what they want and need?

While the author eschews the term “cancel culture” as non-useful it permeates the book. Is a love of a piece of art enough to make up for the transgressions of the past by the artist? The is the fans dilemma – the subtitle of the book. Ms. Dederer gives no easy answers here but does give us a lot to think about. Is art, or career, worth the price that the artist (or professional) will have to pay or make others pay? Both the viewer and artist need to make that decision.

Monsters is a start to that conversation.  

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Categories Books, Management, Movies, Poltics, Race

Book Review: Simple Sabotage Field Manual (Declassified) by the Office of Strategic Services

April 22, 2023 //
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Why on earth am I reviewing a field manual on sabotage by the OSS (the predecessor to the CIA) from World War two?

Well, there are a couple of reasons other than the most obvious one that someone suggested it.

This very short reprinting, which would usually only be of interest to historians or those with underground bunkers and very full larders, is glimpse into the mind of a someone who wants to disrupt or destroy an organization both physically and psychologically.

There is not much that the average person could not have thought of themselves when it comes to physical sabotage, but it is interesting to note how just not doing simple things in the workplace can create serious problems and should therefore be taken seriously by managers. Most disgruntled employees are not quite so literal in showing their displeasure, but one does become aware, through the numerous examples, of just how vulnerable most workplaces and organizations are.

 There is an illuminating passage early in the book.

“It should be pointed out to the saboteur where the circumstances are suitable, that he is acting in self-defense against the enemy, or retaliating against the enemy for acts of destruction.”

I, and most modern managers, do not think of employees, even problem employees, as the enemy. However, it is not a far stretch to think that there have been times when an individual employee on a disciplinary path may feel that they are in a battle of wills. This might not lead to outright sabotage, one hopes, but “quiet quitting”? Quiet quitting is the phenomenon of an employee doing just enough not to get fired – but no more. As the book says a couple of sentences on…

“The saboteur may have to reverse his thinking… Where he formerly though of keeping his tools sharp, he should now let them grow dull…”

Where the book really becomes of interest for managers, however, is in the final seven pages where it discusses what steps managers and supervisors can take to disrupt an organization’s psychology. If you recognize your organization within these pages – it is time for change. It is also a great reminder of seemingly well-intentioned actions by leadership teams. Insisting on perfect work where it does not matter, for example. Or “see that three people have to approve everything when one will do.”

There is even guidance for meetings and committees to be found in this later section. Warnings to try and increase the size of meetings or committees to the point where they become unwieldy is reminiscent of the often-told Jeff Bezos, the CEO of Amazon, anecdote that he will not attend meetings that cannot be fed by a single pizza.

A thoughtful reading of this short book by managers should act as a warning and a reminder both to themselves and about others.  I think is also a good training tool for new managers to show what not to do and to be aware of the traps of self-sabotage that managers can often fall into. It is also a good reminder of where the line exists between performance problems and being a disruptive influence in the workplace.

Eighty years old it may be, but this short book still has some things to teach us.

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Categories Books, Business, Leadership, Management, personal development

Book Review: Empire of Pain by Patrick Radden Keefe

April 7, 2023 //
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Empire of Pain is superb in its scope and breadth.

It is not just the story of the rise of prescription opioid use and abuse and OxyContin and Purdue Pharma in particular, but it is also the story of the Sackler family. The owners of Purdue Pharma. Their rise to wealth and power and their role in not only bring OxyContin to market, but their role in setting the stage of the opioid epidemic and crisis, and the multitude of lawsuits.  

There is a lot to unpack in this book and a lot of lessons for society. However, what is of particular interest to me in Patrick Radden Keefe’s outstanding work is what Empire of Pain teaches us about company culture and values.

The Sackler’s have never admitted any wrongdoing for their role in the selling and distribution of Oxycontin, although Purdue Pharma has. This does not just stem from not wanting to go to prison, but from a cultural belief, both inside the family and at the highest levels of Purdue Pharma, that the Sackler’s could do no wrong. Even when marketing strategies inside the United States and outside the United States contradicted each other, the lack of any moral reevaluation of what they were doing to the detriment of millions, never seems to give any of the family pause or cause for reflection.

Even members of the Sackler Dynasty who had little to no involvement with Purdue Pharma were not prepared give thought as to the moral questions surrounding their wealth. Even when their work would seem to be directly involved in reflecting the human costs of the opioid crisis they seemed oblivious or to deliberately obfuscate. Madeleine Sackler is a filmmaker, who in 2018 made a fictional drama, O.G., and a documentary It’s a Hard Truth Ain’t It, entirely inside the level four Pendleton Correctional Facility. However, as the author states, Sackler “was able to weigh in, sagely, on the plight of America’s prison population without being asked to account for her own familial connection to one of the underlying drivers of that crisis.”

What is so surprising about the Sackler Story was the extent to which the Sackler family, while in theory only being board members of a private company, were able to co-opt and influence. This was not just decision making, marketing, and research on a day-to-day basis inside a company that others were supposed to be running, but the Sackler’s were able to influence the culture and thought of those at Purdue Pharma. Of course, money, power, and influence all played a part, but what is most remarkable, and disturbing, is just how much they were able to value loyalty above all else, and that loyalty meant thinking the same way.

It is clear from Empire of Pain, that while there are few who support the Sackler family today – they are virtual pariahs today in the art world, a world where their philanthropy had made them famous – there are still those who are colored by what Hanna Arendt called “the banality of evil.”

These were salespeople, marketers, CEOs, lawyers, secretaries, doctors, and researchers, who all bought into a view of the world so out of step with reality that it led to a crisis that some have stated is “bigger than the HIV epidemic.” The author even notes in his epilogue that the Sackler family story is bereft of whistleblowers. A testament to the family’s power? Or testament to how all-encompassing the culture was at Purdue Pharma.

For those wanting a proof positive macro view of why culture and values matter, you will be hard pressed to find a more glaring example.

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Categories Books, Business, Leadership, Management, Marketing, Politics

Book Review: Scary Smart by Mo Gawdat

March 10, 2023 //
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Want to get really scared and hopeful at the same time?

Scary Smart is a low level dive into the technology of Artificial Intelligence (A.I.) and deep level dive into the ethics and morality of those who are most responsible for how A.I. will turn out:

Us.

A.I. may seem like the new buzz term with its adoption into our daily lives through products like ChatGPT’s Open A.I. platform and Bing’s real question search algorithm; however, A.I. is baked into almost everything we do with technology. Every app on our phones and every social media platform we interact with has A.I.’s fingerprints all over them.

Mr. Gawat’s premise in “Scary Smart” is that A.I. is a child. And the best way to predict what kind of teen and adult we will get with A.I. is to be good parents. A brilliant initial example from our current comic book obsessed culture is Superman. What kind of Superman would Clark Kent have become of Jonathan and Martha Kent were greedy, selfish, and aggressive? There is no doubt that A.I. is already smarter than humans in many specialized areas, but what happens when A.I. becomes just generally smarter than the smartest human and has access to all the knowledge of humanity through the internet?

Unfortunately, humanity is not doing a very good job of raising A.I. as a child. From our methods of creating and improving these machine intelligences all the way through to the tasks that we are giving them perform, we are emphasizing our worst instincts: To create wealth, surveille our citizenry, gamble, and coming to a battlefield near you soon – to kill people.

We as a society, may feel we have no choice but to use A.I. in this way. If a foreign power, or terrorists, use A.I. controlled drones which are smarter and more efficient than any human, the only way to fight back may be to use A.I. in a similar fashion. But what does that teach our new artificial children? A.I.’s already have a disturbing habit of developing their own language when they communicate together and of finding ways to communicate with each other. What happens when and A.I. who has been taught to ruthlessly buy and sell shares to maximize short term profits starts to talk to an A.I. that has been taught to ruthlessly kill its enemies when they are shown to it?

The author’s excellent example of what might happen is the world’s reaction to the outbreak of COVID-19: Ignore the problem, try to blame someone else, and ultimately overreact upending our society. We may try to put the A.I. genie back in the bottle through pulling the plug or lockdowns, but we will fail. A.I’s will be faster, smarter, and have more knowledge than any human or group of humans. While a lot of this may seem like the dream of Hollywood Blockbusters, Mo Gawat is at pains to explain that there is little disagreement within the A.I. community that these risks are real. How real is where the disagreements start.

The possible solution to these issues, the author postulates, lies not with the developers but with users and how we define our relationship with A.I. In history, master slave relationships have not ended well for the masters – with good reason. How we interact and decide to use A.I. will define what kind of parents we will be to this fledgling new intelligence. A new intelligence that although they may start out separately will share information and communicate with each other so quickly, and with access to the memories and experiences of all those who have come before them, that it will be impossible to not consider them one single intelligence.

This then leads us to what kind of example will we set for these new children? While A.I.s have already shown that they can develop a sense of morals, and not in a good way, by their interactions with users they will also learn from our interactions with each other. Machine morality may very well not be programed by developers, but learned from observing and interacting with us. What are machines already learning from our social media, search habits, and politics?

This is thought provoking and important work essentially on morals and ethics withing the framework of A.I. that occasionally reads like a Arnold Schwarzenegger movie. If we ignore the topics it raises, we deserve our fate.

And while Mr. Gawat paints a hopeful portrait, he also shows us just how bleak things could get.  

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Categories Books, COVID19, disaster preparedness, Politics, Social Media

Book Review: The (Honest) Truth About Dishonesty by Dr. Dan Ariely

February 26, 2023 //
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Its no secret that I loved Dr. Dan Ariely’s book Predictably Irrational that I reviewed here. I’ve also been interested in theft and dishonesty as a manager. I even wrote a five-part series on theft and theft prevention; the first part of which you can find here. So a book that focuses on dishonesty by Dr. Ariely should be right up my alley – and I was not disappointed.

While The (Honest) Truth About Dishonesty:  How We Lie to Everyone – Especially Ourselves; covers similar ground, and even features some of the same studies as Predictably Irrational, to write it off as a retread would be a huge mistake. What this this book focuses on is the balance between honesty and dishonesty. Most people hold a belief that dishonesty and theft are a mixture of temptation and a cost benefit analysis with regards to getting caught. What Dr. Ariely shows, however, with a mixture of empirical data and real-world examples, is that things are a lot more complicated.

Our own self-image plays a large part in instances of dishonesty and not in the way you may first believe. While people do weigh whether they are going to be caught before being dishonest, how we weigh that risk, and whether to act on it can often be influenced, by simple measures. Placing a space for a signature at the top of a form, for example, can significantly increase the truthfulness in the answers on that form compared to just having a signature line at the bottom that is filed out once the form has been completed. Likewise having students reminded of a school’s honesty oath dramatically reduces cheating on an exam, even when there are no other preventative measures, and the school does not actually have a honesty oath. The mere act of reminding someone that something is wrong can be enough to prevent dishonesty – even if just for a short while.

What seems to happen here is that we have our own self-image of how honest we are. However, we can over tax our sense of honesty, which then makes us more susceptible to temptation. The longer we resist temptation, the easier it is to justify be dishonest to ourselves. We “fudge” the truth depending on circumstance. But we can temporarily change our circumstances with simple reminders or independent oversight.

Of even more interest to companies, is the fact that dishonesty can be contagious and feeds into group dynamics therefore feeding into a company’s culture. The need to belong to the group can be enough to tempt us into being dishonest. One bad apple can spoil the entire barrel it would seem as the norms of group culture shift the individual’s perception of honesty. Likewise, decision fatigue can also impact our honest self-image and thereby lead to actions of questionable judgment.

This is a fascinating book with significant implications for managers and owners of companies. Told with wit, humor, and devastating evidence, The Honest Truth About Dishonesty changes our understanding of ourselves and more importantly those around us. By understanding dishonesty, and what gives rise to it, we can better understand what we can do to prevent it happening in the first place.

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Categories Books, Business, Theft

QR Code Déjà Vu

February 4, 2023 //
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Image by Xavier Turpain from Pixabay

Just stop it, okay?

Unless you have been living in an underground bunker for the past three years, not as unlikely as it might have seemed ten years ago, you might have noticed that QR codes are back.

Menus, adverts, buildings, and trade show booths are once again adorned with them.

Other than the pandemic, another reason for their renewal is the imbedding in the camera functions of most smart phones, a QR code reader allowing links to websites be opened by visually scanning the code with your phone.

What is also back; however, is bone headed implementations of QR codes because they are “cool.”

Don’t get me wrong, I’ve seen great implementations of QR codes. I have used them on ads and I used them extensively in the hardcover edition of my book. However, just like the article I wrote in 2012, which in turn was inspired by Scott Stratten’s rants on the subject, QR codes are a simple technology that often gets badly implemented and are used to cover up a multitude of other sins.

Please don’t put QR codes on websites

Mike’s Guide to QR Code Bliss

DO make sure that your website is mobile friendly if you are going to use QR codes. I can’t really believe I have to say this, or that anyone still does not have a mobile friendly website, but they do; and QR codes are a mobile technology. Therefore, as a mobile technology, if you are sending people to a website that is not mobile friendly all you are going to do is frustrate people who know how to use a technology better than you.  

DON’T put QR codes in emails. QR codes need to be scanned by a mobile device. Putting a QR code in a email which is then opened on a desktop requires the user to scan their computer monitor or laptop screen with their smartphone. This is nonsense. It is particularly nonsense because a QR code is just a fancy way of getting someone to click a link and links can be easily embedded directly into emails. Also, an email opened on a mobile device cannot read a QR code in that email. There are a few workarounds for this which I go into below; however, a link is simple straight forward, and we have been using them successfully for decades.  

DO make sure that the site your QR code links to is clear simple and easy to use. Having ambiguity on a target page, after someone has gone to the trouble of scanning your QR code, is just silly. It is snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. Test your QR codes. Make sure your landing pages are simple, easy to use, and above all, working. There is nothing wrong with having multiple QR codes when it comes to directing your target audience.

DON’T put QR codes in Instagram posts. For some phones this actually works – they have a built in QR code scanner for photos and there are also apps users can download to allow for the scanning of codes. However, one of the reasons why QR codes had such problems with adoption in the past was the need to download an app. But for most users, who almost exclusively looking at the platform on their smart phones, QR codes on Instagram are useless as there is no way to directly scan them. “Link in Bio,” which directs users to look at the Instagram bio, and click the link there, is a simple workaround for the Instagram imposed limitation of only allowing a single link in an Instagram users bio. There are also multiple tools, including just a website, which allows users to have that single link lead to a page where there are multiple link options. I should also add that all Instagram users can now just add links in their Stories negating the whole issue.

DO put QR codes on flyers for things that require a sign up. Flyers that get printed out and put on notice boards for meetings etc., that require an RSVP, are a great use of QR codes. Much easier than the target audience having to type in a URL or email address. Just ensure that the landing page is simple and easy to use. However…

DON’T make the QR code on a flyer the only way to RSVP / sign up. Flyers for meetings etc. are often emailed to multiple people. If a QR in a pdf document is the only way to access the link to sign up it is massive over complication for the end user. A link in an email works great. A link in the PDF also works. Hell, you could even make the QR code itself a clickable link (I don’t recommend this). QR codes are supposed to make things easier not harder.

DO make QR codes simple. The more complicated the URL that the QR code is linking to, the more complicated the QR code itself needs to be. URL shorteners can help here; however, one should use these sparingly as security conscious users may be unwilling to got to a site blindly.

DON’T make QR codes too small. The vast majority of sensible QR code implementations are to add links to paper. A user sees something that interests them on a piece of paper, and they can then scan the code for more information, to sign up for something, or even to buy something. However, tiny QR codes can be difficult for some smartphones, or users, to scan. Since QR codes are about reducing barriers to getting users to click on a link, making the link too small is just a case of shooting yourself in the foot.

DO put QR codes in videos and digital signage. But only if you are going to give users enough time to get out their smart phones, open their camera app, focus on the screen, and scan your code. If you are not going to devote enough time to allow the QR code to be scanned, and allow for the QR code to be a sensible size, then what is the point of having the QR code in the first place? Also, if the QR code is being including in content when the user can just pause the video to scan a QR code then the likelihood is that they will find clicking a link much easier. Just put the link in the description.  

DON’T think you must have a computer to display a QR code. I have seen a laptop on a tradeshow booth being used solely to display a QR code. How about a piece of paper? A QR code on a computer screen does not make you look more technically savvy. It makes you look like you forgot the sign, or the piece of paper, with the QR code printed on it.

QR codes can be awesome, particularly with smartphones having the ability to scan them built in. However, like any technology, it is only as good as its implementation. Bad implementations are just bad – they don’t get better because they have a QR code involved. Having a QR code to have a QR code is a prime example of bad implementation. They are a tool – try not to bring back 2012.

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Categories Business, Content Marketing, Customer Service, Marketing, Social Media

Book Review: Predictably Irrational by Dr. Dan Ariely

December 3, 2022 //
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Why would we be offended if someone offered to pay us after we invited them to Thanksgiving dinner? What is the cost of zero, and why is it far more expensive than $0.01? Do we really need to tell our waiter our order in secret if we really want to feel that it is okay for us to have our first choice from the menu?

Subtitled; “The Hidden Forces that shape our Decisions,” Dr. Ariely’s superb book has the potential to change dramatically how we think about business and our personal lives.

With the use of subtle yet easily understood experimental data, Dr. Ariely exposes humans as often acting against our own interests due to societal or market norms and that we just do not understand our own personalities and the role that emotion plays in shaping decision making – spoiler its usually for the worse.

So why would we feel offended if someone offered to pay for Thanksgiving dinner? Dr. Ariely not only explains but also shows with examples and experiment data that we humans have social exchanges and market exchanges of behavior. Social exchanges we use with friends and family. They are the norms that govern daily life and allow us to bond with other humans. Market exchanges are, as they sound, the exchange of money for goods and services and also the money we receive in exchange for our labor in the form of our working lives. When one offers to pay for Thanksgiving dinner were mixing social norms with market norms. We are indicating that we are rejecting the social acceptance of those who may be friends or family in favor of an exchange that we could expect to have with a stranger. A commercial transaction. What becomes interesting in breaking these social norms is that we find it is difficult to go back. Trying to pay for Thanksgiving dinner may never get us invited back because a social exchange has been turned into a market exchange. Employers who do not have social exchanges with their employees may find that employees therefore treat the relationship as a purely market exchange and leave for an employer who offers a better market exchange – usually more money or better benefits.  This also explains why employers who do embrace a social exchange in their workplace culture become frustrated and angry when an employee uses only market norms in their decision-making process to leave.

Likewise, when companies use a social exchange to bond with clients they may find when they resort to a market exchange when it suits them – policy over the relationship with the client – they have unleashed a Pandora’s box of problems with someone they once may have considered a friend of the business. Business can’t have it both ways, and if we try to, we are storing up trouble for ourselves.

Debunking of personality testing, without mentioning personality testing, is in this book with a discussion of priming and setting expectations. There are also volumes of data showing that making something free rather than reducing a price – even if the reductions are the same, can make a dramatic difference in the uptake of an offer. Buy one get one free really does work!

There is also a highly disturbing chapter on the affect of sexual arousal and decision making and morality. While I will spare you the details here it is difficult as a guy to read this chapter without recognizing oneself and feeling ashamed of the implications. This chapter does not give guys and excuse; however, it should make us pause and understand that we have the capability to be highly irrational in the right circumstances.

And that is really the crux of the book.

By recognizing that we can be irrational beings and what triggers that irrationality, we can know ourselves better and make better decisions. It also allows us to spot irrationality in others and how that has come about.

I can’t recommend this book enough.

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Categories Books, Business, Customer Service, Leadership, Management, Marketing, personal development
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