Business @ the Speed of Stupid

Steve MacLaughlin writes with this review. Any book that points out bluntly that most web sites suck already has me nodding, but I wish the authors would have included all the details, instead of protecting the guilty by anonymizing individual failure stories. Business @ the Speed of Stupid author Alan Morrison and Dan Burke pages 256 publisher Perseus Books rating 8.5 reviewer Steve MacLaughlin ISBN 0738205427 summary Things not to do, unless looking stupid really is your intent.

Alan Morrison and Dan Burke have written the first meaningful post-mortem on the New Economy in their new book Business @ the Speed of Stupid. At its core the book clearly explains how the disregard for strategy and sound management principles doomed many a company and Internet project. If this sounds like a lot of other books currently hitting the shelves, then I should point out that Business @ the Speed of Stupid is one of the only books not willing to pull punches.

As you can probably tell by the title, Business @ the Speed of Stupid is not one of those cutesy sugar-coated business books. Consider the opening of Chapter 1: "Most companies of any size have a Web site. Most suck! They suck because they simply fail to communicate with the intended audience." And there's a lot more where that came from! The book is divided into two sections: "@ the Speed of Stupidity and Accelerating" and "Decelerating the Stupidity." This format proves to be a good way of presenting their observations and recommendations.

The "@ the Speed of Stupidity and Accelerating" section is filled with stories about companies that remain nameless to protect both the guilty and the innocent. Some readers may be disappointed that Morrison and Burke have chosen not to reveal the true identities of the companies and people they profile, but I think it actually strengthens the usefulness of the stories. You're not distracted by the sensationalism, and you're not fed the rose-colored version that things just didn't work out for these companies or their ventures. The stories are even more useful because they reveal the real situations, conversations, and decisions that led to failure.

Morrison and Burke are able get their ideas across without sounding like dusty old professors or techno-Latin writers trying to sound intelligent. They are quick to point out that there are no silver bullets and that cutting corners is a recipe for disaster. Consider their take on phantom sales predictions: "A common and widely held misconception is the idea of magic conversion ratios that convert the number of hits on a site to projected customer leads, e-commerce sales, or whatever. Let's be clear: This type of thinking is 100 percent crap."

A major theme in the first section of the book is how the apparent simplicity of the Web lulled business leaders into a trap. The brochureware sites that companies first launched appeared to be simple. But when it came to real e-commerce or real e-business companies quickly learned that these projects were much more complicated. The notion that you could throw together an Internet project without any planning, without any processes, and without experienced professionals was foolhardy. As the authors accurately point out, "the frequency of this type of foolishness is increasing dramatically as more and more projects are sponsored and managed by nontechnical professionals and staffed by zealously ignorant technologists."

This comment illustrates another main point of the "@ the Speed of Stupidity and Accelerating" section: "Get the right people in the right roles or you will find yourself facing insurmountable problems." The wrong people are those that consistently contradict their words through their actions. They say they want things done right, but they end up cutting corners to get the job done fast and cheap. They hire the best people or companies to do the work, but want to totally ignore the processes that create good work. The authors quip, "it is amazing how often executives hire experts and then completely ignore their advice" instead of remembering to "hire smart people and listen to them." Balancing people, processes, and systems is critical to being successful.

Business @ the Speed of Stupid also provides readers with a much needed smackdown about the importance of sticking to the "old rules" of business. Morrison and Burke contend that "technology must take a back seat to core business and customer needs, not the other way around" and that "the 'new rules' are simply a recipe for disaster, and those who continue to propagate them are completely irresponsible." The technology shakeout taught many business leaders just how important planning and communication were to developing successful initiatives. Of course Morrison and Burke get that point across in a less subtle way: "There is a generation of lemming managers who actually believe that telling people 'Just do it!' is the right way to manage because that's the way they've read it in a book or magazine."

The "Decelerating the Stupidity" section of the book tries to bring a lot of the key messages and concepts together, and offers a well-presented framework for putting the brakes on stupidity. I think the "Do's and Don'ts" at the end of each chapter of the first section will give readers more immediate solutions to their problems, but the second section takes a much more big picture approach. The framework the authors put forward is based on the concept that thinking strategically means always balancing the "Organizational Domain" and the "Competitive Domain."

The "Organizational Domain" is made up of the people, processes, and systems that allow your company to get the job done. The "Competitive Domain" is made up of your presence in the market, customers, and your competitor's presence in the market. The connection between these two domains is your strategy, and it acts as the ultimate fulcrum to keep things balanced. The authors note that "to emphasize one thing (e.g., technology) while you slight another (e.g., people) guarantees you will look stupid."

Business @ the Speed of Stupid is a well thought-out book by two people who actually know what they're talking about. The 230 pages of content move at a steady pace, and the accompanying charts and illustrations don't require a PhD in fluid mechanics to understand. Footnotes throughout point readers to other outside resources and a handy "Glossary of E-Terms and Phrases" are nice touches as well. I'm sure you could scan through a lot of the book over an over-priced cup of coffee at one of those bookstores, but I think you'll quickly find it's a book you'd be stupid not to buy.

You can purchase this book at Fatbrain.

Comments

Guinea-Pigs

[Man of E]

It's so easy to write a book like this now that so many companies have failed because of building stupid web sites. How could they not? Back then nobody told them how to work with the web, because everything was new! In effect, everyone was a guinea-pig for the web and e-commerce, and some got lucky enough to find the right formula. Most didn't, but they couldn't know they were wrong when they started out.

Can we really point at companies that failed and say "they were stupid"? It may be the case for some, but a number of companies run by very smart people failed the same way. They were just experimenting, and now thanks to the companies that failed and those that succeeded, we have a better idea of what works on the web, and what's "stupid".

Re:Guinea-Pigs

[Anonymous Coward]

Please, get over it.

I have been in the Internet business now about as long as it has been around, and I can tell you that for every MBA who used to manage a carpet business who decided to get into Internet development (yes, thats a real person), who ended up tanking a company or two, there were 20 engineers sitting there telling him he was being wholy stupid, and maybe an accountant telling him he cant manage a business that way.

This is my best example: I am an engineer. I read in the WSJ that you can make alot of money growing rare orchids, so I get some capital and hire a guy who is an orchid expert. He tells me I need a 50,000 USD greenhouse, but I say no, he can get by with my garage. He tells me it will take 6 months for the first crop to come out, but I give him 4. Then, I wonder why my product looks like crap, and the people whose money I took up front for a product 4 months ago are p***ed off.

These people ARE stupid. Scott Adams: Risk takers by definition often fail, so to morons. In practice it is hard to tell the difference.

Zen of new economy

[RobertGraham]

The question is not "why did they fail" but "why anybody thought they would succeed".

In other words, the word "fail" sorta implies that there was a snowball's chance you would succeed. I mean, let's say that I'm going to create a business that will build rockets and provide vacations on the moon. When the business fails, you don't do a post-mortem and ask why it failed. It doesn't take a genius to figure that out.

The same was true of the dot-com era. There was a suspension of disbelief -- people actually thought we really could provide moon vacations. BTW, I use "rockets" because I suspect that the next overhyped tech bubble is going to space (that, or biotech).

We geeks are often frusterated by websites that come up blank because we use Netscape on Linux without Flash. This isn't the cause of their failure, but a symptom that businesses were run by people that didn't understand business.

For example, in order to tested out the famous flop "boo.com", I attempted to buy something from their website. It was very pretty and artistic, but no matter which browser combination I tried, I simply could not get the website to work. To the business owners, actually fulfilling customer wishes was a minor details that the techies could work out. Like building rockets, business owners couldn't build what they were promising -- an much of what they were promising would be impossible to build.

BTW, I created an enormously successful new-economy business that was profitable for 3 years. We had to be profitable. We went to the VCs with the business model that we were going to build a better mouse-trap, and leverage word-of-mouth. They laughed at us and told us it wasn't about product, but "branding", and how naive we were. Since we got no VC funding, we didn't have the luxary of building a loss making business.

There are no lessons to be learned from the failed dot-coms, any more than lessons to be learned from a failed moon vacation business. This means that there is no magic formula for building a successful new economy business.

PS: The funny thing is, despite the lack of super bowl commercials and absolutely zero advertising, we built a strong brand. The VCs are right -- you do need branding, it's just that vapid commercials don't build strong brands -- satisfied customers do.

Aaaargh! Fatbrain!

[MajorBurrito]

Slashdot must have some sort of contract to sell only books from FatBrain (stupid name, BTW). If you want the absolute best price on a book, check out Add All.

Re:and the worst thing is....

[shepd]

>Use wireless when I could be using a cable

I do, and the marketplace has determined this a big hit. The RIM Blackberry being it.

Its a PITA having to log in all the time to check email. That and email being paged to me is better in so many ways than a cellphone (I'll list them if you care to ask... :-)

>surf the web on my phone.

Used to do that on my Blackberry, but the cost is just too high right now. My Blackberry's just a tad smaller than most cellphones so I'd say it counts.

>have my personal documents on somebody else's computer.

Millions of ssh users would disagree. :-)

>do anything in virtual reality.

Yes, most VR stuff on the market is lame. However, at one time 3D shooters were almost considered "VR" and they're pretty popular. I'd probably want to do that in VR if the price were right.

>and I'm never going to bug groceries, clothes or pets over the web, or install linux on my grandmother's computer

I'd buy groceries on the web. Nearest store is almost 20 mins away and I'm lazy. Don't think they ship pets over the web (seems like a logistical nightmare considering how UPS handles non-living packages). I buy christmas presents over the web since with christmas traffic makes getting to the store a 1 to 2 hour escapade of sliding around broken down cars in -15 deg C snowstorm weather at 1.5 mph (ahhh, that quality city planning at work).

I wouldn't install windows on Grandma's computer because she wouldn't pay $300 for windows XP, and doesn't want something out of date. Doesn't leave much. However, since I still consider linux moderately difficult to configure, I'd probably get her one of those webterminal deals.

>If nobody wants to buy what you're selling........

Then you just don't know what they want.

It's all in the implementation. A phone is not a web device. A RIM pager is. idrive is an inconvenient way to access your files across the 'net. ssh isn't (the windows and linux clients easily fit on a disk). VR is badly implemented. I think when someone can finally get it under $200, make it high enough res and refresh you're not sick 5 minutes after using it, and actually get popular games to run on it it would be HOT.

Getting groceries on the net is moronically implemented. It is marketed (and only availiable to) downtown city folk who have a supermarket in walking distance. Uhhh, hello McFly? There's millions of us out in the counrty who are used to paying premiums to get what we want (eg. I pay $150/mo for high speed internet) and would be willing to do that for the groceries.

Shipping pets from a website or a real paper catalog is probably a great way to get sued.

Getting christmas presents on the web is actually good, if you can find a store that doesn't have sucky stock. Maybe again, city folk find it useless. But in the country it's great!

All those web ideas would have failed in the real world too, IMHO.

Time for people to realize selling stuff on the web is identical to selling it from a catalog. And, surprise, surprise, a lot of catalog business comes from people "out of the way".

[Oh, and wireless access is another thing. Idiots who market it seem to think the best way to make money on it is to put their towers in big cities. Why? These people already have cheap ways to get on the net and you can't compete. Go where there's less competition, and where there's people willing to pay more. Go outside of the city. Think outside of the box (literally)].