Zuckerberg: Great Innovator, Terrible CEO?

Jun 042011
 

Over the past few years Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg has had more than a few inappropriate gaffs. These seem to be getting worse, and more importantly they are quite ill timed if Facebook plans an IPO. It was reported back in 2010 that Zuckerberg thought Facebook users were dumb fucks. More recently, Zuckerberg would love to get information about, and advertise to, tweens. This is somewhat disturbing because below a certain age children do not necessarily understand the difference between reality and advertisement. Then most recently, Zuckerberg just prays on our collective short-term memory to forget things such as privacy issues. Regardless of how he personally feels, as the public face to an extraordinary influential company he should probably not be saying these things.

With skill, and I imagine a lot of luck, Zuckerberg created Facebook into the social media beast it is today. However, running a large multi-billion dollar international entity is a bit different than creating a startup. When venture capitalists or angel fund investors fork over money to startups, they typically want a seat at the table, usually in the form of a board seat (arguments about fiduciary conflicts aside). When serious money is changing hands, it would not be unheard of for the VCs to request an experienced Chief Executive to take the helm, for example Eric Schmidt at Google. They want to make certain that their investment is going to give them a nice healthy return. The behavior of the entrepreneur needs to be appropriate for the situation.

Without a doubt, I imagine Zuckerberg has oodles of talented and experienced folks managing the Facebook Empire (not to mention his technical wizardry). It is not a question of technical competency. It is a question of public relations. This is a guy whose business cards formerly read, “I’m CEO. . .bitch!”

Zuckerberg may have been the best fit to run Facebook, The Startup but is he the best fit to be CEO of Facebook, The Billion Dollar Global Giant?

The Point: Managing a startup is not the same as managing a large public company. Is it prudent for a successful entrepreneur like Zuckerberg to step aside, if only temporary (e.g. Larry Page of Google), and allow a seasoned CEO to take the company public? Is the CEO’s role more of a political position than managerial?
 June 4, 2011  , , , ,

Managing the Writing Skills of Customers

May 292011
 

The Harvard Business Review (HBR) had a piece on well-written customer reviews on websites such as Yelp:  The Value of Teaching Your Customers How to Spell – Justin Fox – Harvard Business Review.

I am not an expert on grammar, and I am a terrible speller (thank you spell-check). However, like many others in the world, I have a pet peeve for the atrocious spelling and grammar that is so readily found on the web. For example, I am a big fan of Amazon, and part of my fandom is the ability to read customer reviews. Very often those reviews have been the deal-maker when buying, or not buying, a product. In many of the customer reviews, I have considered the quality of the writing more so than the actual content. I figured that if the reviewer cannot construct a somewhat coherent review of the product, then their opinion is worthless. This may not be fair. It may be closed-minded of me. I doubt I am the only one that thinks this, though.

Occasionally I come across a website in which the text box offers a spell check. This does not seem to be typical. Perhaps a spell check feature for text boxes could help customers correct spelling errors. However, I know my browsers of choice, Opera and Chrome, have spell checkers and I assume other browsers (Firefox and Internet Explorer) do as well. Therefore, it may be reasonable to assume that people have access to spell checkers and either choose to ignore corrections or that spelling itself may not be a problem. Perhaps companies can go one step further. But, how would customers react to a Microsoft Office Word style grammar check that lights up a poorly written review like a Christmas tree?

Have any of you been influenced one way or another based on the writing skills of a customer’s review?

The Point: The voice of a customer influences acquiring or retaining other customers. Companies have an incentive to make certain that the customer’s voice is coherent and reasonably well constructed. How can companies incentivize customers to improve their writing skills?

 

 May 29, 2011  ,