The last bit of friction
This is the front door of my office, in Fitzroy in Melbourne. It’s about 1km from the city centre, where I often go for lunch, or client meetings.
And, that orange device is a public electric scooter. It runs via an app on my phone, and I can get into the centre of town in 5 minutes, for about $5. Yes, I could walk (15 minutes), or catch a tram (10 minutes), or drive (5 minutes). But, if the weather’s fine, I don’t.
What I like about it is its utter frictionlessness.
It takes less than a minute to get going (open the app, scan the scooter to gain access, helmet unlock, go). No waiting, or stopping (as with a tram). No congestion or parking headaches (as with a car). No trudging with a heavy bag (as with walking).
1500 of these scooters are being trialled in three local government areas, including mine, as part of a vision for zero emissions city transportation. To be truly part of a system, though, they need to be ubiquitous (there isn’t always one outside my office), rules need to be known and enforced (I see kids riding 2 to a scooter, crossing roads with abandon), and they need to be cost competitive (I think they’re at the upper end of what’s reasonable).
Question: What can you do to reduce friction in your service or product offerings?
Broadening the palate
Today I had a haircut with the inimitable Des Mason, my long-time barber. Des’s Scottish accent is well suited to a Sean Connery impersonation, but with the noise of clippers and scissors, sometimes I don’t grasp everything he says while he’s barbering.
But I thoroughly enjoy his company, and his insights, and today he said something profound.
As I walked in, he proudly showed off a bottle of Spanish vermouth that a client had given him. I asked him how he drank his vermouth and (I think) he said: “You know, I haven’t drunk it before. But I want to broaden my palate”.
Now, Des and I are both middle-aged fellows and it got us into a conversation about whether people our age tend to get stuck in our ways: habituated to foods, locations, friends, clothes. We both agreed that we — and people we know — do.
I observe the same thing in ‘middle-aged’ organisations. They become acculturated to running meetings the same way, developing business plans using the same templates, using the same consultants even. I frequently advise them to change, to interrupt muscle memory, and form new associations and pathways. Why? Because if they don’t do it willingly, it will happen unwillingly.
So, if you’ve seen me lately, I’m sporting a beard these past two months. Why? For no other reason than to see what it’s like. Do something different. Change it up. In Des’s words, “Broaden my palate”.
Question: What are you consciously doing differently to step outside your habitual ways?
One word only
I found this amusing map while trawling around cartographic websites recently. Can you guess what it depicts?
It shows results when you fire up Google and let auto-complete finish the search term “Why is [INSERT COUNTRY] so . . . “. I tested it out, as I was suspicious about some of these — and most are correct (although a couple are certainly not!). I won’t tell you what happens when you do it for Australia, or New Zealand, or the USA, or Canada, which is where most 5MSM readers are, but you can find out.
My point here, though, is this.
Whether you are aware of it or not, your organisation — and even you — are known for something. The problem is that, very often, that one thing, for better or worse, overwhelms all other attributes. And then, that attribute is difficult to undo, or alter.
What I frequently do with my clients, in strategy development is ask: “What do you want to be known for?” and then ask two further questions: (i) “What would give us evidence that we were that?” and (ii) “What factors will accelerate our progress towards that?”
Question: What single attribute do you want to be known for?
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Have fun playing with something new until we meet again next Friday.
Andrew
Loved the change it up piece.
JJ
Regarding the map and google searches - there's a lot of factors that lead to different people getting different answers: google uses everything it knows about you (past search history, country, likes and dislikes, etc.) to tailor the results to you and "results" includes what it shows you in autocompletes. You get more neutral results if you use an incognito window but even then, it's not entirely anonymous (IP address, computer used, etc). And, of course, results will change over time as search frequency changes.