March 31, 2006
ama-zone: since when does wage-slave cowardice count as brains?
[Inspired by Amazon CTO, Werner Vogel’s recent post. More backstory from Shel and Rick.]
[Update:] Scoble pipes in.
Where I gave them stuff like “blogging doubled sales at Stormhoek winery, according to its CEO.” Or “Munjal Shah, CEO of Riya, says blogging is very important to his new company.” Or “Axosoft raised more than $14,000 in just a few days with nothing more than a few links on some blogs.” Or “Foldera got more than one million signups for its service in 17 days by doing nothing more than talking to six bloggers.” Or, a tailor in the UK saw his sales go up by 10x by doing a blog. That probably wasn’t well enough communicated, or it wasn’t the kind of answer that would convince Werner. That means I need to go back and do some more homework.
And this is really rich: Here’s some anonymous Amazon folk in the comments bragging about how smart they are. OK, if they’re so smart, [l.] Why are they working for somebody else? [2.] Why are they posting anonymously? Since when does wage-slave cowardice count as brains?
Sure, Amazon offers a great product for us online shopping folk. And I’m sure Werner’s not a bad fellow, just a guy with strong opinions who likes a robust debate. But this episode [the anonymous commenters, more so than Werner’s opinions] made me very glad I don’t work for them.
[UPDTE:] Dennis Howlett pipes in here:
* First it is about ROi (little i is deliberate here.)
* Next it is not about predicting outcomes in the way Werner wants. It23 Responses to “ama-zone: since when does wage-slave cowardice count as brains?”
ROI, ROI, ROI, Roi, Roi.…we’ve been there eh Hugh?
Dead-tree books are dead, anyway.
Long live e-books.
Hugh, you’re acting like a child. If you read Werner’s post, it’s quite well reasoned. And the best you can do is try to mock a stance he doesn’t hold!
I think the difference is that Amazon has already hit it big before the whole blogging thing came along, whereas the examples you provide were only semi-successful beforehand. Blogs are great to promote businesses (Tom or Stormhoek) or to promote a new image (Microsoft, for example), but I’m not so convinced they’re particularly worthwhile in successful, but relatively stagnant businesses (such as Amazon). Of course, when Amazon face some sort of crisis in the future, however, and want to rapidly portray a new image, they may be in trouble.
i think the real question is this:
why is the CTO of Amazon being intentionally rude to guests who came to visit (for free, I’m guessing)?
How does that help amazon? or Werner for that matter?
Well, it sure got him some traffic, Seth. I’d never heard of Werner until today.
Good question, Seth. I have a feeling I know the answer…
Barry, it looks like you didnt read my post, either.
I’ve read Vogel’s post and the responses, and to me he’s the one coming off as reasonable. Amazon was/is way ahead of the game when comes to social software (reviews, listmania, large editorial staff) and personalisation (recommendations).
“why customers would get a better Amazon product if we would institutionalize blogging at a wider scale around Amazon?”
That is a very valid question for me. Amazon is a store not a product. You go in to find a book, there are lots of people talking about it, good and bad reviews, you’re shown similar books, there’s a lot more going on than just a book description.
I do almost all my book shopping at Amazon because I can discover a lot of things I didn’t know about, and I can weed out crap books easily. How would conversations with people behind the scenes improve the buying experience for me, the customer?
How do you see blogging improving Amazon?
Miles, however reasonable Werner was being or not being, I find the behavior of Amazon’s wage-slave cowards FAR, FAR more telling.
Is that just me?
Hugh, I perfectly get the value of blogging for a corporation. The point in the discussion was that (I thought) Shel & Robert were not willing to answer that question in a coherent manner, with for example your 4 points. It went downhill after that.
The rudeness part is something strange as that is a new characterisation for me. I don’t believe we were rude to you when you visisted Seth?
ps. can you reuse your drawing without you going all corporate on me and drag me to court?
The comments seem mixed. Post 4 is reasonable, post 8 is on a bit of a high horse. I can see why some of them are annoyed. The talk was essentially a sales pitch for the book. It would be a huge coup to say you’ve converted Amazon to the world of blogging, and Shel and Rick do come off as a bit miffed that they didn’t succeed.
Since all the Amazonian comments are anonymous (except for Vogel) I suspect it’s either a corporate policy, or they’re in fear of doing a Mark Jen. I wouldn’t read too much into it.
I’m with Miles. How, exactly, does blogging help Amazon sell more books? Or make more money on the books that they do sell?
Yes, Werner, feel free to reuse the drawing =)
Oh, and thanks for stopping by…
Hugh
There’s lessons for everyone here. I didn’t buy the ‘rude’ thing — heck I’m accused of the same when what ‘I’ think is I’m being blunt. But I also didn’t buy what I ‘heard’ in Werner’s post — ‘not made here — f**k off.’
It’s a bit pointless poking for an answer you already have unless all you’re doing is seeking to ridicule someone. I’m sure that’s not the intention but it’s pretty hard to take that kind of questioning when you’re in the cross hairs among a large crowd.
Hugh and I have been here before on this ROi thing. I learned, I changed, I prospered as a result.
Amazon may be right — for Amazon — but that doesn’t negate the value of what Scoble and Shel are doing. Next time around though, if they’re not sure of an answer — I’d recommend that good old fallback: “I’ll get back to you on that.” That IS the correct answer in those corcumstances.
I don’t think the key benefit from blogs for Amazon is selling more books, I think it’s making Amazon a ‘smaller’ company. Blogs are great for large companies because it gives them a natural defense against becoming so large that they lose touch with the individual customer. The individual customer that gets pissed off about his crappy service, then gets on his blog and broadcasts his experiences to the entire internet.
Again, I don’t think the key benefit that blogs provide for most large companies is growing the bottom line, it’s ‘shrinking’ the size of the company.
Hugh,
I love the cartoon. I also love the dialog it generated. Thanks, Hugh.
i dont know but if i was amazon CTO i would be kind of worried that when people outside the US click on an amazon url it takes them to the .com domain — if you are a .co.uk domain customer there is no record of your account. so in other words blog recommendations to amazon urls dont work internationally, as a few click scenario. sure i can remember the book or item in question — and go log into my own domain, search for it, and buy it. but thats the kind of barrier to commerce that will drop you sales over time. i cant tell you how many times i have said what book is that? oh i must buy that. then i end up not doing so.…
i think mr werner should maybe think about how to try and solve that problem. maybe if he reached out to bloggers they could help come up with a solution.
i would love to see a photo of werner smiling.
while i agree amazon was way ahead of the game-that is no excuse for not reaching out to new methods and so on.
as amazon increasingly tries to build a developer community around its APIs such as SSS blogs are an obvious mechanism it would make a lot of sense to be more blogalicious. but that’s not a hard count benefit necessarily.
werner could ask claire giordano, at a9, about her experiences with Sun as it built the opensolaris community…
just a couple of thoughts
I’ve been a CTO (of a very tiny dot-com so doesn’t compare) and my & engineers ALWAYS asked tough questions. When salesperson from vendor walked in the door with the sales engineer, we’d already done our homework, read the white papers, blah blah, and now were on to the real meat, not fluff, on exactly how this product was going to meet our specific needs and help our business. I’m not just on a buying spree to buy the next thing (and mind you this was dot-com days).
I didn’t see anything rude in Werner’s post itself; whether his demeanor, tone, body language conveyed that in person at the presentation, I have no first-hand knowledge but what others have said.
Also in giving blog examples, often companies aren’t necessarily looking for ROI numbers or general examples, but specific ways to use a blog in context of their business.
English Cut is a great example that I use to illustrate the power of blogging to a great artist friend of mine — but I wouldn’t use it for Amazon. The power of blogging is that I have read tons of posts offering great ideas that are tailored for Amazon’s context. Some have never been done before because they are great precisely for Amazon. (can’t find post had in mind; thought it came from Joe Wikert’s book publishing blog?)
How small companies and large approach blogging may bee different. I once wrote: “Small businesses often have the high-touch and informal trust built, but may lack broader credibility and stature. I met the owner of a new dive shop, Wet Zone, in Khao Lak, Thailand. Michael competes against the more-established large operators because of his tailored approach. He doesn’t have a blog, but he instinctly ‘gets’ the mindset as word of mouth is spread diver to diver in online diver forums so every customer experience counts. His reputation is what drives business, he said.
You don’t need to be a dive shop — most small biz is driven by reputation-spreading.
For larger companies, they have ‘name’ and credibility covered, but may lack likeability and a sense of a personal touch.”
p.s. I used to read Werner’s blog when I worked in enterprise software; so I don’t believe this was linkbait — it’s known in its own circles.
Hey Hugh…
I attended the Lift Conference in Geneva via my computer a few nights ago. I thought yours and Robert’s presentations were brilliant. I took careful notes and I’m off to buy Robert’s book today. I think it’s incredibly difficult for gargantuan companies (“let’s name the company Amazon, then NOTHING can be bigger.”) to subscribe to the idea that inviting and inspiring greatness all around you (through transparency and blogging conversations) is a great way to do business. “You can’t teach us anything, we’re Amazon” seems to be their mindset. Let me say, as the owner of a company the size of a speck of dust in a gnats eye, I am VERY inspired by yours (and Robert’s) openess and ideas. And how cool is it that Robert actually works for Microsoft, a company that can cast a shadow over Amazon? Thanks for the inspiration. Next time I hope to actually be in Geneva. Or wherever.
Rand,
“You can’t teach us anything, we’re Amazon”
reminds me of
“You can’t teach us anything, we’re Leo Burnett”.
Sound familiar?
I hope Amazon is listening.
[Rand and I worked at Burnett together, years ago.]
This blog is from a former Amazon employee and addresses this issue:
http://tedder42.livejournal.com/79667.html
http://img92.imageshack.us/img92/724/doesroimatter4rp.gif