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How Would You Like a Business to Behave?
professorhojo asks: "These days on the 'net, it seems like a company can go from being regarded as a Good Citizen to Evildoer in a matter of hours (witness Yahoo!'s willingness to time and time again reinterpret their own privacy policy as it suits them and their advertisers). I am at the helm of a new software company and I want us to stand apart from the rest with rock solid ethics, and policies that put the user first, that won't change or waver at the behest of advertising money. What I want to know from you is simple:what are the essential things a company has to promise and stick to? More importantly, what things have companies done, which have made you do a double-take and totally reconsider doing business with them? Why am I asking this? Well, I believe that in the future, the ethics of a company will greatly impact on their bottom line. What's good for our customers is good for us, and customers will be drawn to us BECAUSE of it." It sounds good, but reality has a tendency of getting in the way of good ethics. What suggestions would you make to keep difficult choices from compromising the ethics you would like your company to embody?
For your customers who are individuals (vs companies):
Simple pricing structures with simple paper work and no hidden costs.
Simple, honest price increases. If you just need more cash, say so. Don't blame it on "market events."
Especially in advertising. You know how a company will compare their product to their competitors? One example comes to mind: Medicine. Tylenol, for years, compared the effectiveness of extra-strength Tylenol to regular-strength aspirin. Do your comparisons honestly.
Itemized features? The kind that have a column for yours, and a column for theirs? Shock your potential customers by putting in a few of the features they have but you don't, and put a "NO" in your column and a "YES" in theirs. This kind of advertising would make me move the despisometer from zero to "surprising respect".
I've gotten to where I automatically reject as dishonest EVERY ad I see on TV or read anywhere.
Honest advertising that was obviously honest would be such a huge change from the norm that you would definitely stand out in a positive way. (Think "Miracle on 34th Street")
Pavlov wouldn't be so famous if he'd used a can opener instead of a bell.
"Don't be evil."
Buy Steampunk Clothing Online!
Whatever you see SCO do, do the exact opposite.
Pavlov wouldn't be so famous if he'd used a can opener instead of a bell.
However, the founder of the Computer Game Developers' Conference, Chris Crawford, wanted to CGDC to be a non-profit organization. But their treasurer wanted a for-profit corporation, he convinced the other members of the board that this was the way to go. Eventually the board members kicked Crawford out, took his stock and sold the conference for $3 million, giving Crawford only a small piece of what the others got.
I had second thoughts when I read this in the book "Chris Crawford on Game Design." All it takes is the other people in your company to decide your ethical ways of doing things are compromising profit. If this happens your screwed.
But by all means don't let something like this stop you from trying, I'm sure there are ways to prevent take overs, I just don't know what they are.
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What I want in a company is a good product that has a niche. Not just a code monkeys college product turned commercial (not that that is always bad... think samba).
Provide a good product that does something your competitors dont do or dont do well.
Document it and make it idiot proof and then back it up!
Good luck, good ethics will help you alot. Keep to your goals.
Boredom's not a burden anyone should bear.
Well, two things come to mind instantly.
First, register your software's copyright, and include a full and complete copy of the source, sufficiently well-commented that once the copyright expires, people will be able to make reasonable use of it. (not to mention learn from it whilst still copyrighted)
Second, don't use adhesive use contracts e.g. EULAs. There's nothing wrong with just outright selling software instead of making dubious claims of licensing it, and it doesn't leave you unprotected to do so. The last book you bought at Amazon didn't have a EULA -- why should your software?
-- This and all my posts are in the public domain. I am a lawyer. I am not your lawyer, and this is not legal advice.
One of the most important commodity you'll have to maintain is trust. This is not simply not changing your policies repeatedly; it is a combination of factors:
Privacy
Your customer's data is important information. Almost every type of company imaginable now takes andvantage of it, and shares it with others. This includes, but is not limited to: banks, phone, cable, utility and insurance companies, subscription-based services, etc. It's scary just how many companies will "opt you in" to their marketing schemes, some of which they no longer control once it leaves the company.
It is important that you protect your customer's data, both from fraud and industrial espianage... as well as from your own company. It's pretty straightforward: Think about what your company will do with the data, then ask yourself if you would trust your own personal information to your own company. If the answer is no, you might want to make some policy changes.
Customer Service
The United States is an interesting place. Customer service seems to be a far greater deal than it is elsewhere, according to all of my international friends and relatives. Because of this, your customer-facing employees can win you evangelist customers, or sink your company just with words over the phone. Here's a couple of tips:
Communication
Your actual policies aren't all that important. You will discover which ones will work, and which ones won't, based on customer response. But you must stick with those policies. From a customer perspective, what you tell them you will do is your policy. If you break your policy for a customer, you'd better be damn sure that they know that they shouldn't expect it in the future. It's even safer to not break your policies at all... but that is sometimes necessary to appease a disgruntled customer. But also bear in mind that this customer might not be in the right. If this is the case, it's not necessarily y
#1: Don't lay off people when you're posting record profits.
#2: Don't get yourself a generic patent meant to serve as suing fodder years down the line instead of something being designed for a specific product/piece of S/W.
#3: Check out any downbeat memo at internalmemos.com or stories from fuckedcompany.com and try not to re-create them.
#4: Don't sacrifice experienced employees for cheap ones.
#5: Try not to have employees living under the constant threat of layoffs. Sticks instead of dangling carrots get annoying after a while.
Most of these points run into each other. A lot of them seem like common sense and can be boiled down to "Don't be a greedy bastard."
There are people out there in business who aren't complete sleazeballs, who understand that spamming (either via email or fax) is not an ethical way to grow a business, that 'human resources' means more than just hiring and firing. Find them and hire them. Listen to them, and let their ethical lead create an honest workplace.
While we're at it, resist the lure of VC funds for as long as you can. VCs are (almost-universally) ethically-suspect, not-very-smart people who have too much money and lots of friends at the golf course. As soon as they get a hook into your company, the rot will set in - even if it's only you having to BS them at board meetings.
Just be yourself. I'll figure out for myself an appropriate level of trust and respect. I mean, I don't really understand your question. What people want is usually pretty obvious. It's also impossible to give everyone everything they want and remain in business. Figuring out the balance between those two is what management is there to do. It's not something you can sum up in a neat formula.
make the bug reporting/documenting process open, so that when we do run into a suspected bug we can do a quick search to find out if you know about it.
Nothing I hate more than doing a google search, not finding anything, then spending time to prepare a tested step by step description to repeat the bug, only to have a 2nd level support guy tell me that it's been in their private bugbase for months.
When your company is down on its luck, it's easy to say things like, "oh, our customers would really love to hear about all of these great offers we have for them," as opposed to, "let's not spam these people who trusted us not to inundate them with crap."
It's probably a fair guess that most companies don't start making ethically questionable decisions like the above example unless they would otherwise go out of business. What you really need to ask yourself is whether or not you are prepared to let your company go under rather than letting go of your ethical standards. It's not an easy question to answer.
Well, I believe that in the future, the ethics of a company will greatly impact on their bottom line. What's good for our customers is good for us, and customers will be drawn to us BECAUSE of it.
I'm glad you said that, because "future" is the key word here. I believe that libertarian and Adam Smith economics can work, but they're based on the idea of people looking at what's in their own long-term best interest.
Every time you make a decision, ask yourself how it impacts your profits in the long run. If you maximize your long-term profits, you'll automatically -- invisible-hand style -- make the decision that best serves both you and your customers.
Five percent of one year's DoD budget puts us on Mars.
Just having that kind of a desire to be ethical is a step in the right direction. One thing to keep in mind is that when you are fixing bugs and implementing features it is plain as day to the customer weather your priority is yourself or your customer. A perfect example of this: We use an accounting package where I work that is licenced on a concurrent users model. We have run tight on our licences and people are regularly not able to log in. However getting another five seats is so expensive we can't get approval to buy more. We discovered that lots of people have the application open for long periods of time with out using it. Ever since we ran tight on licences we have been begging to have a feature in the software that will time out and log off a user if they are inactive for an hour or two. Is the company going to give us that feature? Of course not. There is no incentive because otherwise we will eventually have to break down and buy more licences. This leaves us feeling like we are being taken advantage of. We are loyal customers, we do beta testing for them, but they still pull this little stunt that makes them look money hungry. Just remember that your customers arn't all dumb, and your true priorities come through if you like it or not.
SCO.com uses Linux
The #1 thing that pisses me off about many companies is their disregard for the customer when they discontinue products. One month they are hyping the product as the optimal solution to your problems, the next month, they kill the product, drop support for it, remove all references to the product from their web site, and pretend it never existed.
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
Furthermore, the big disappointment will be the customers themselves. As you strive to ship a quality product for a fair price, they will beat you up wanting more, for less before it's done. Or as a friend said, "they want God in a box for free"
I wish you well. You will live in exciting times.
"Eve of Destruction", it's not just for old hippies anymore...
As a consultant / system administrator / programmer in business for myself, I have one rule: all I sell is labor. Because of that, I don't sell software and I don't charge a markup on hardware I recommend. It makes everything so much simpler, and I never have to defend my choices as being self-serving. Here are some other suggestions, some of which I've learned the hard way:
sigs, as if you care.
Providing the consumer with something that they actually want and feel value for is something that can make a difference. In reference to you question, take the RIAA, SCO and Amazon as examples:
... also bought ..." feature. I don't mind paying a little extra than other Internet retailers (it's still cheaper than the local bookstore anyway).
Amazon aren't the cheapest place to buys books from. But I have remained a loyal customer due to the excellent "people who bought
However take the RIAA. Or the music industry in general. I feel quite strongly that the rise of napster and subsequent p2p networks is to do in part with the quality of the product. And the fall in music CD sales is also due to the quality of the product and not to do with p2p. Consumers aren't interested in pop music which is samey and generic and meaningless. A boy band in 2000 regurgitating the same cheesy song the Osmonds sang in the 70's isn't appealing to most. What the music industry today has done is instead of making music that some consumers will really enjoy (and some will detest) they have created a bland product which everyone finds inoffensive.
SCO have got people's backs up because they are appear to be trying to destroy Linux, which many people are passionate about. However I would argue that the reason they are probably currently the most unpopular company in the technology industry is because they don't have something of their own which they can sell to consumers but instead are taking advantage of others hard work.
My point is that if you create a good product and don't just adhere to the risk averse bean counter methodology then people will notice this. Promote what makes you stand out and if it's good enough people will love you.
The Romans didn't find algebra very challenging, because X was always 10
There are some businesses who say, obeying the law and keeping people safe is all business ethics should be about.
To me, though, great businesses are all about truth. They know the truth of their own capabilities, the truth of what their customers need, the truth of what works and what doesn't, and without bullshitting anyone, they just get on and do the business.
That's not to say you dont have marketers or lawyers or accountants: you need these in modern business. But as soon as you have marketers and lawyers battling over just how much to lie to the public, and accountants doing "creative accounting", you might as well shut up shop.
"Well, put a stake in my heart and drag me into sunlight."
Speaking as one who has been in business for some time, I'd say if you think being ethical is going to help you get ahead in business you are engaging in wishful thinking.
What is right is not always expedient.
What is expedient is not always what is right.
Honesty starts with yourself: exactly how much are you willing to compromise on your beliefs? Which ones are really important?
If the answer to the first is zero and the second is all of them, then you either are purer than virtually anyone else in business or you haven't really figured out where you want to draw the line. If you don't decide in advance then you'll probably end up letting circumstances draw the line for you.
In the end, the main check is this: what would be the result if the thing I am about to do were made public? In a sense, ethical behavior can help reduce certain downsides from recklessly unethical behavior. On the other hand, in extreme circumstances, if expedience is your only guide then you will take the Faustian bargain: either your company continues with tainted ethics, or it dies and the people workig for it are let go. This is hard because, selfishness aside, people depend on you and if you are sensitive you will feel this as a moral obligation, and you will have a hard time teasing out what is purely selfish and what you are doing for your people.
Integrity is the one ethical virtue which is a true business asset.
Integrity in the business sense is when your deeds reflect your words. This can be a competitive advantage. But it's harder, because it means knowing when (and how) to say no.
But in the end, the full spectrum of ethics doesn't do much for your business. You must choose the ethical way because it is what you believe in, because of your self-regard, the desire to preserve your own character.
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I would take issue to the oft-quoted (even in this discussion) statement "The customer is always right".
.0001 point microfont on the bottom says "by cashing this check you agree to join this plan that is going to cost you and arm, leg, and the gonad of your choice, for a cost orders of magnitude greater than this check is worth."
The customer is not always right. However, the customer always thinks he is right.
If you blindly follow your customer's whims you will end up with a car designed by Homer Simpson that nobody wants.
If you LISTEN to your customers, and then THINK about what they said, however, you will end up with a product that they will want to buy.
However, the tricky bit is dealing with a customer that you disagree with - you must show tact in how you blow them off.
Case in point: I used to be a regular customer of the Super8 motel chain when I travelled. I would stay there preferentially to other chains. (you may note the use of the past tense in those statements).
One day I received one of those "fake check" mails from them - what looks like a real check, but in
Those sorts of things piss me off. I found the name of the CEO of the company, and sent him a nice letter explaining that I felt such advertising was unacceptable, and that while I was sure that they didn't really MEAN to do that, they should look into the company that they hired to do this and re-evaluate their position.
In short, I gave them every possible out to use to say "OOPS! Sorry!". I was NOT accusitory in the letter.
I seriously injured my jaw on the floor upon reading their response. It wasn't a polite-but-bland "YourConcernsAreImportantToUsThankYou" form response. It was not a "You are right, the responsible individuals have been sacked" reponse.
It was a "Shut up! You Suck! We aren't doing anything wrong! This is NOT misleading! IS NOT! NEENER NEENER NEENER! We are making money doing this, HOW DARE YOU CRITICIZE US!" response.
Needless to say, they lost my business, and I take every opportunity to pass this story along to others.
In summary - listen to your customers - they may not always BE right, but they always THINK they are right. If you don't THINK they are right, then DON'T just blow them off.
www.eFax.com are spammers
I'm sure this isn't the ONLY reason you want to be ethical, but it's a little disconcerting that you cite it as your main one. I'm not saying I'm the MOST ethical person out there, but I do believe in an absolute standard for what is right and wrong, and I believe that a person should adhere to those standards regardless of wether it makes more or less money.
I do believe that the ethics of a company will have an impact on its bottom line. However, at times you may be tempted to suspect that good ethics are having a negative impact. It's at those times when, if your ethics are fundamentally based on economics rather than unshakeable principles of what is good and evil, you may lose your way.
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