Service Aggregates - Systems, not Silos

We consciously design items for efficiency and intuitive use - it's time we start doing the same thing with service systems.



Operation: Integrate All the Things!

 

A few nights ago, I was sitting on my couch about to get down with a bottle of wine and some Netflix. I grabbed my phone and opened the XBox SmartGlass app, which basically works like a virtual game-slash-remote controller. As I was mindlessly scrolling, my dude and roommate — an audio engineer — walked in with his iPad, frustrated and annoyed that this new interface app he’d downloaded allowed him to create and manipulate different sounds, but didn’t automatically sync up with his main program, or allow him to save audio files to Dropbox.

 

Totally ridiculous, I thought. I’m a social media manager for a software company, and if there’s anything I know, it’s that there’s little point to using multiple tools if they don’t work together. First world problems, right? Even so, if we’re supposed to be working towards a more intelligent internet — especially in an era of unapologetic demands for instant gratification — we have to anticipate that people expect everything (and I do mean everything) to integrate and operate seamlessly, regardless of platform, device, or even location.

The Privilege of a Never-ending Curve

There’s a reason I mentioned SmartGlass. In my world, being able to use a phone to control my TV is a given, and you’d better believe I’m throwing a fit if I have to take more than one photo of a check in order to deposit it. We’re technologically spoiled, yes, but if history serves, it’s always the most innovative solutions that are born from the pursuit of efficiency, convenience, and an inherent need to take human genius to the very edge of inception.

 

Product and service integration is a huge part of that in our ever-more-digital world, and it’s forcing us all into an environment rife with opportunity and driven by assumption. It’s not quite like when I tried to lock my apartment door with my automatic car key, but the shock of non-integrated systems is always, at best, unpleasant and confusing — we’re no longer equipped to comprehend disparity, and the vast majority of consumers depend upon all industries to understand that, avoid it, and visualize solutions before they’ve become problems.

 

Deep-seated psychological issue? Maybe. But what’s kind of beautiful about this never-ending curve everyone’s so desperate to stay ahead of is that it’s a catalyst for inspiration. It’s no longer an option to wait it out and jump on the bandwagon when it feels safe and secure to do so. And, as the market ramps up its demand for confluence, we’re watching the interconnectivity and interoperability of platforms and applications explode into mainstream development tactics. The result is an impact on the internet-centric market that’s still strictly tied to supply and demand, but that’s also more consumer-focused than it’s ever been — a shift of power that’s opened up tons of new room for exploration, testing, and valuable failures.

Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes

Obviously, consumers don’t expect companies to be clairvoyant in the literal sense, but it’s important that organizations don’t rely too heavily on market empathy, either. Mainly because it doesn’t really have any, but also because the average customer doesn’t always consider themselves responsible for driving invention. A business creates a new toy or cool service and they adopt it; meanwhile the business is combing the market for clues and patterns, simultaneously dreading and dependent on peer-review threads.

 

Regardless of the fact that new options continuously pop up,  integration strategies — and the protocol to execute them — have to be at the heart of all business initiatives, particularly those that are web, mobile, and cloud-based. And that can be exceptionally intimidating for enterprise architects and project managers, two groups of industry players facing a level of disruption that’s changing more than how they think about product expansion; it’s changing how they conceive of what they do, period.

 

Dave West, CPO for Tasktop Technologies Inc. and former president and research director at Forrester, said in arecent Q&A with TechTarget that application integration problems are a primary reason why businesses — and the aforementioned architects and project managers — “can’t deliver business innovation at the speed demanded by customers using all these application platforms.” He cites three major shifts in consumer behaviors for this issue: the maturation of SOA, or service-oriented architecture, which encourages developers to create with collaboration in mind; the similar acceptance of platforms as a service (PaaS — think companies like Zapier and CloudBees); and the total outbreak of new devices and the rise of mobile technology.

 

What this means is that integration architects can quickly turn into human roadblocks if they’re not central to strategy conception, and project managers lose out on their favorite thing — control. Both roles have to maintain a more flexible, react-and-respond attitude towards their work, and that’s miles away from what these forever-prepared folks are used to. That’s unfortunate news for companies that are hesitant to let go of honeymoon-era approaches, but it’s better to be unsure than be unheard, right?

 

As a social media manager, I’m less concerned with this high-level stuff in my day-to-day, but it affects me nonetheless. I need my aggregate services, the ability to deploy content across platforms, and I have to be able to do it whether I’m pushing my way onto a crowded train or grabbing lunch with a client. The perpetual connectivity of the modern world demands our constant attention. And so, my dear, sweet, resistant creators, open your eyes and brace yourselves. There’s an electric, impatient urgency forcing the integration revolution, and the market doesn’t really care if we’re ready for it or not.

Oakville vs. Boston: Where Ozymandias Went Wrong

Two tales of humanity today:

At some point, this so-called power plant scandal will run out of steam (“so-called” because it’s more of a boondoggle), while the bills keep piling up. Never mind the seemingly scandalous amounts of money that have gone down the drain to bury a gas plant. The real electricity scandal was our own wooly thinking — a highly charged blend of NIMBY myopia and privatization mania.

A Political Party looking to squeeze out another win.  A wealthy community with the highest energy consumption rate in the province wanting to eat their cake but not have the bakery next door.  Companies seeking to be the most competitive to get the gig successfully misrepresenting their capacity and taking the taxpayer for something of a ride - only feasible because it was the lowest price, not the best service, that was prioritized.  Opposition Parties looking to beat down the Governing Party so that they can take the reigns themselves.  Everyone circles the wagons, claims the high ground and looks for ways to undercut others.

It's free-market competition at its best; people compete, out of the competition comes failures, someone gets punished and then the cycle repeats, looking for the next massive failure to pin on others for strategic personal gain.  Oakville threatening attack ad fire and electoral brimstone on anyone that doesn't enable their ridiculously-high energy use but keeps energy generation troubles away from their shores is like North Korea threatening the West for humanitarian aid instead of better managing their own resources.

What we're looking at is a classic example of the tragedy of the commons - people looking to protect their own interests in a social setting cause the system of which they are a part to fail.  Political Parties do it when they put the win above accomplishment.  Voters do it when they put their narrow wants ahead of broader social planning.  Institutions both private and public do the same when they target support for their niche areas in isolation.  When media inflates or creates problems for headlines, they are simply adding fuel to the fire.

Theoretically, we could do what Amazon does successfully; instead of chipping away at the failings of others and denying any failings ourselves, we could aim higher. 

We have it in ourselves to get past the failings of dog-eat-dog politics and collaborate on generating and maintaining systems that work well, when we have the right motivation.

Gestures as small as offering a drink of orange juice and use of a home bathroom were recounted on Twitter in an ongoing online recollection of the fellowship that emerged in the wake of Monday's devastation.

Then, there's the Boston Marathon bombing.  The event itself was horrific; I have been close enough to bloody chaos to know the powerful cocktail of emotions that rise up in true crises (which differ from the PR kind, believe me).  There's the pervasive fear of not knowing what's going on, where safety is, who is in charge.  You also get bravery, self-sacrifice, people spontaneously working together and finding meaning through common purpose - helping your fellow human beings in a collaborative, dare I say social way.

EMS forces using an efficient, universally-recognized Emergency Management System quickly swung into coordinated action.  Hotlines were set up for people to find news of their relatives.  An effective runner-tracking system made the process of identification and reconnection that much easier.

Then, God bless em', there were the people - offering their homes, offering food, offering whatever they had help those in need.  Twitter became an information management system, with instructions being conveyed and re-tweeted, supportive resources being connected with real-time need, second-tier concerns like "do the blood banks have enough plasma" were raised and circulated.  By working together, these individuals have been able to accomplish what none could alone.

Here are some tweets, taken from this site:

N.E. Alerts@NEincidents

BOSTON POLICE IS REQUESTING THAT ALL SOCIAL MEDIA PAGES TO TELL PEOPLE TO GET OUT OF THE AREA OF THE MARATHON ROUTE. DO NOT STICK AROUND

Boston Police Dept. ✔@Boston_Police

BPD asking for tips #tweetfromthebeat via @CherylFiandaca

Amanda Soehnlen@asoehnlen

Just called MGH - they have enough blood on hand for the tragedy today, but will need blood later this week to replenish. #boston

The Boston bombing is an example of what's worst about humanity - our capacity to inflict suffering on others for our own personal gain.  It was also an example of what makes us strong - our ability to rise above challenges and create coordinated, effective solutions.

Here's where Ozymandias went wrong - it doesn't take a crisis for people to work together.  The reason crises work best is because they trigger a powerful, emotional response: what led to people the world over contributing their prayers, dollars, resources and tweets wasn't a compulsion to react to a problem but the desire to be part of the solution.  It doesn't take a crisis to trigger proactiveness; the latent urge is always there.  It simply takes leadership to get the ball rolling.

 

As the globe becomes increasingly crowded, the opportunities for social friction are only going to increase.  Think what we may, we cannot silo ourselves off from the problems of the world - there are no Elysiums to be found.  When we attempt to think selfishly, we're simply creating new problems for ourselves down the road.  Fortunately, our increased exposure to diversity also provides us with opportunities for collaboration; as we have seen time and again, we can make the system work when we all find a way to contribute. 

 

None of us are tourists in this world.  We're in this together.  If we're to make a better world, it has to be one designed for all of us to live in.

 

Are Silo Walls Starting To Come Down?

There's certainly a growing chorus us voices suggesting that's in our collective interest.

There is a lot of danger with the silo system. So why is it still so prevalent?

This issue goes way, way beyond the topic of social media. You can apply the same types of questions to customer experience, or org design, or innovation, or ethics: who owns these things? When it comes to fundamental issues such as these, shouldn’t everyone own them, across all of the silos?

The problem with the silo system in modern corporations is, when everyone owns something, no one does.