Vestiges of Dot-Com Arrogance

March 31, 2003

If you look at it a certain way, the Dot-Com experience was a very adolescent one. Hallmarks of dot-com management:

* Declare the “old ways” have been discredited by a “new world.”
* Sheer willpower is enough to achieve.
* Everyone but the CEO is lazy and/or overcautious.

Most importantly:

* Marketing is worth more than substance.

I saw a lot of this while I worked the dot-com boom. In one staff meeting I was lectured by the senior management on giving “negative” answers. “We should our problems ‘challenges’ or ‘opportunities’ and find creative solutions. I don’t want to hear ‘no’ for an answer.”

She then asked me to build a wedding gift registry site that would link all the local mom-and-pop stores on one site and keep track of everyone’s purchases online. An effective system would have required equipment installed at each purchase point to track sales, a dedicated server, a programmer (I was merely a designer at the time), secure certificates and probably credit-card processing software, and a significant amount of book-keeping work. She wanted it in a few months, in time for the spring weddings. “You think you can do that, John?” she asked, having just told me “no” was not the correct answer.

“What budget do I have for software and equipment?” I asked.

“There is no budget.”

“What budget do I have to hire a DBA and programmer?”

“None, we can’t hire anyone else.”

“What budget do I have for training?”

“You can get a book.”

“Then, given current laws of physics and budget constraints, I think it we will find the project prohibitively difficult.”

I got a nice glare out of that. I didn’t, apparently, have enough willpower.

The fact is a lot of managers, CEOs and such, were absolutely convinced that technology made everything possible. Furthermore, they were certain that their association with the “cutting edge” made them smarter and more capable than everyone else. This faith in technology — and themselves — was grossly overplaced. Technology is a wonderful thing, but it is not a magic wand and it is just as subject to the real world as flint and animal tendon is.

In another company I was asked to design a page for a major computer manufacturer. They had requested bids and spec designs, and I was asked to make a design. I read their requirements carefully and built a design to their standards, only to have the CEO choose another designer’s design over mine. “It *pops*,” he said. When I said it specifically did not address the requirements in the application (specifically, maintaining the company’s identity and visual branding elements), he said “Yeah, well, I think what they _really_ want is for us to be creative and show them something hot! We can do so much better than what they want!” I hadn’t taken enough risk for him; and he believed the corporate entity we wanted for a client was too stupid to know what they really wanted.

We never heard back from them. A while later their new site relaunched — with a design similar to what they had before but much more refined.

The most vital lesson I learned, however, was the percieved value of marketing. When the dot-com I worked for was purchased by a major national company, our name was changed. The new company was so well-known, they said, that the new brand (which incorporated their name) would have our customers *begging* us to work on their sites. Then the new parent company decimated the ranks of our employees through layoffs and atrocious company policies; when the parent company’s stock fell, they had to change the name of the consulting arm to remove the “stigma.”

None of these were life-or-death situations. But I am seeing the same kind of behavior come out of the Pentagon. Rumsfeld was so certain of his strategy that he “forced out those who disagreed with him”:http://www.newyorker.com/printable/?fact/030407fa_fact1 , revoked much of the advice of career millitary officials (who may have been cautious, but were dealing with people’s lives), and even “rigged millitary war-games”:http://www3.warblogging.com/archives/000593.php to get the predicted result he wanted. Rumsfeld knows best and everyone else is just a selfish obstacle.

[This might, in fact, be why criticism of the President's plans threaten the Pentagon so much -- Rumsfeld's "shock and awe" depends on the Iraqis not noticing our enormous force is something of a paper tiger thanks to Rumsfeld's frugality. The Powell Doctrine of overwhelming force may have been slow, but it resulted in a millitary force that moved with brutal efficency. Not so the Rumsfeld plan: "if they surrendered Kuwait for 500,000, they'll surrender Baghdad for 250,000 and lots of _really scary talk_ ."]

It’s the same thing with the President’s “economic recovery plan.” Everyone says it won’t work. They have reasons it won’t work. They have data that shows it won’t work. Common sense says it won’t work. But the President thinks if he has enough willpower — enough faith — “he’s going to go right ahead”:http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A45064-2003Mar28.html . And if it doesn’t work, well, he’ll just spin it. Maybe people won’t notice.

People tend to notice, though, when they can’t get medical care or food. Just as the so-called “first responders”:http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A29270-2003Mar25.html have noticed that the truckloads of money they were promised on September 12 have not started arriving.

It’s sad that a progressive like me considers himself old-fashioned. But I believe in listening to the wisdom of your elders and the experts. I believe in listening to people even when you disagree. I believe that people are more important than profits. I believe that when you say one thing and do another it’s a lie — not a public relations issue.

And I believe that quality is the first step to good marketing, and not something that can be replaced with a great brand name — or loud, empty propaganda.

But I was too old-fashioned for the dot-com era.

Of course, we know what happened to the dot-coms, right?

Posted in Archived Unsorted