#144: “Real people,” what is justice in business, and why this software CEO removed Trump-Pence as a customer
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Hello again.
Since 2016 I’ve sent this 143 curated collections of interesting things near-weekly.
After a two month hiatus, I’m delighted to begin again.
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Now, enough of this housekeeping, on to the good stuff…
In edition #144 of The World’s Best Newsletter*:
Meet the Experience Makers
Software firm deletes Trump-Pence user account
How we got here re: COVID-19
Image searches for “real people” up 115%
Advertisers: 2/3 won’t stand up to scrutiny
Quote of the week - what is justice in business?
1. Meet the Experience Makers
Happy to share a new series in partnership with Adobe Experience Cloud.
I’m getting to know the 2020 class of Adobe Experience Maker Award winners after hosting the star-studded virtual gala event. Our first two interviews and articles are live:
Executive of the Year Nitin Sethi is cooking and dreaming with eyes open
“A lot of leaders only talk about return on investment. But they should think about return on experience,” he explains.
“That’s the secret formula. People don’t buy products or services anymore. People buy experiences. When someone buys a ticket, they are buying an experience.”
Dopamine detective: The redemption of Aris Kinnas
Confession: I wanted to be a detective when I was younger. There’s something massively rewarding (probably a lot of dopamine involved) about piecing together clues to form the right narrative.
It’s how Kinnas sees his team’s role in crafting the right kind of narrative and journey for customers within a “test-first” approach.
“You’re like a detective trying to weave together an understanding of what people are doing or not doing on a website, which isn’t very easy, especially because you can’t actually talk to them,” he said.
2. Software firm deletes Trump-Pence user account
CEO software firm Hotjar, David Darmanin, recently removed the Trump-Pence campaign customer account from their behavior analytics platform.
Read his letter of explanation:
"We generally don’t disclose publicly any information about accounts we terminate, but in this case we feel we owe it to our community to explain where we stand in such a polarizing time. We also want to take the opportunity to invite other tech companies to honor their values and take a firm stance against hate and racism."
What’s going on here?
All brands have a set of values - some are explicit about it, some show theirs more implicitly. In this case, Hotjar is a completely remote company run by a team across 20 countries, with global customers.
Outside of the highly-polarized POV you may take as someone in the US, think about this from a global perspective. The Trump-Pence campaign has aligned itself both explicitly and implicitly to a set of values.
For Darmanin, those values ran counter to that of his firm:
From our approach to Privacy to our support for causes like Black Lives Matter and setting one of our company objectives to fight the climate crisis, we continually push ourselves to do what we believe is right.
And that means following our hearts and our convictions, even (and especially) when it’s difficult.
I first learned of Hotjar’s usage by the campaign in a Twitter thread from Nandini Jammi highlighting all software firms supporting the campaign via usage. A month later, this CEO took decisive action.
As Nandini, says:
“Tech platforms should be able to stand by their client list.”
3. How we got here re: COVID-19
In this long read for The Atlantic, writer Ed Yong offers a metaphor for the US right now as we enter fall/winter with the pandemic:
Army ants will sometimes walk in circles until they die…
The workers navigate by smelling the pheromone trails of workers in front of them, while laying down pheromones for others to follow. If these trails accidentally loop back on themselves, the ants are trapped…
The ants can sense no picture bigger than what’s immediately ahead. They have no coordinating force to guide them to safety. They are imprisoned by a wall of their own instincts. This phenomenon is called the death spiral.
I can think of no better metaphor for the United States of America’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
I know… bleak.
But, he offers something that resembles hope:
Ant death spirals break only when enough workers accidentally blunder away, creating trails that lead the spiraling workers to safety. But humans don’t have to rely on luck; unlike ants, we have a capacity for introspection.
This is the most introspective and comprehensive explanation I’ve found yet for where we are as a nation re: COVID-19. It is stark, frank, and alarming. Give it a read.
Errors we’ve been making since the spring:
A serial monogamy of solutions - attention for only one “solution” at a time. Seeking easy fixes for what is a complex social problem. Not fully implementing what’s needed (e.g. more testing / contact tracing).
False dichotomies - save lives or save the economy, survive or die (many have endured months of debilitating symptoms), shutting down or opening up completely.
The comfort of theatricality - showiness mistaken for effectiveness AKA “hygiene theater” where businesses scrub and bleach their way to reopening despite the virus spreading through the air.
Personal blame over systemic fixes -
”Without paid sick leave or a living wage, ‘essential workers’ who earn a low, hourly income could not afford to quarantine themselves when they fell ill—and especially not if that would jeopardize the jobs to which their health care is tied.”
[ A systemic problem. ]
"Tattered social safety nets are less visible than crowded bars. Pushing for universal health care is harder than shaming an unmasked stranger. Fixing systemic problems is more difficult than spewing moralism, and Americans gravitated toward the latter.”The normality trap - In times of uncertainty, we crave the familiar.
”The powerful desire to re-create an old world can obscure the trade-offs necessary for surviving the new one.”Magical thinking - “maybe this goes away with heat and light”
The complacency of inexperience - prevention is invisible, leaving those efforts ignored or under-funded. We ignore threats until they directly affect us.
Reactive rut - we are several steps behind the coronavirus.
The habituation of horror - daily tragedy is ambient noise.
Like poverty and racism, school shootings and police brutality, mass incarceration and sexual harassment, widespread extinctions and changing climate, COVID-19 might become yet another unacceptable thing that America comes to accept.
Give this piece a read. Know thy enemy.
4. Image searches for “real people” up 115%
New Getty Images research shows searches on its site globally have increased in alignment to worldwide trends:
‘diversity’ up 133%
‘inclusion’ up 126%
‘real people’ up 115%
A study also found that 8 in 10 people expect companies to be consistently committed to inclusivity and diversity in their advertising.
What’s more, 10 in 10 Katie Martell’s expect companies to be committed to this outside of their advertising efforts as well.
🙃
5. Advertisers: 2/3 won’t stand up to scrutiny
In July, advertisers estimated that two-thirds of companies speaking out on racial justice might not stand up to scrutiny of their own corporate track records and business practices.
This data comes from a survey from Advertiser Perceptions.
So, knowing this gap exists is step one.
Step two?
Know the dangers of this.
>>> Read my article on the 7 dangers of performative brand allyship.
6. Quote of the week - what is justice in business?
“...justice isn't limited to making sure a company's employees are getting paid fairly for their work. It's making sure that the net impact of an organization's existence in the world is positive.”
via Lily Zheng on LinkedIn who I HIGHLY recommend following.
Thanks for reading the World’s Best Newsletter*, Shanah Tovah to those celebrating, and have a great weekend.
xo,
Katie
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Katie Martell
*LOL