The Cost of Doing (Good) Business

agardina — Fri, 05 Nov 2010 20:30:19 +0000

I took one accounting class in college. And, honestly, I really enjoyed it. Something about the evenness of liabilities, assets and equities appealed to me. So, with that expertise in mind, let’s talk about the cost of doing business.

The cost of doing business, by definition, is overhead. It’s the cost of anything you have or do that doesn’t have to do with actually producing a good or service. These include: insurance, utilities, accounting services, attending networking events.

Every business incurs some sort of overhead, and tries to limit it as much as possible. After all, these costs impact the company’s revenue, and overall financial well-being. However, I think there’s a fundamental difference between the cost of doing business and the cost of doing good business. And great companies see the distinction between the two.

For example, here are two articles posted today on The Consumerist. The first was about a customer’s interaction with OXO. A customer had received an OXO Salad Spinner as a wedding gift, and was disappointed when it broke after a few months of use. Like many customers, he reached out to OXO via their online contact form, but wasn’t hopeful about getting a response. Surprisingly, OXO responded a few days later, saying they would send out a replacement part. No hassle, no cost to the customer.

For an accountant, this is the cost of doing business. For a marketer, I’d file this under the cost of doing good business. The company incurs costs here – the cost to manufacture the part, the cost to ship and the cost of having an effective customer service department. But they also gain value – goodwill from one customer, who by sharing his story with the Consumerist, spread the awareness to a massive audience. And take a look at the comments:

On the flip side, there’s also a cost of doing bad business. Again on the Consumerist, a user tells a story of their interaction with customer service. This time, though, it’s not so positive. From the user’s email: “DirecTV will never have my family's business again and via Facebook, Twitter and obviously email, I plan to tell everyone I know about this horrid experience with a company that evidently wants my business so bad.”

Instead of generating goodwill on a heavily trafficked website, DirecTV brings out feelings from the other side of the spectrum:

In this new, more social, world, is it more important to calculate the cost of doing traditional business, or the cost of whether it’s good or bad?

Blizzard, privacy and personal security - would you use your real name online?

agardina — Thu, 08 Jul 2010 02:56:29 +0000

So here's my first confession: I'm a gamer girl. Not only that, but, as an undergrad, I researched and wrote a comprehensive paper on the "Use of Computer-Mediated Communication in Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games." What I'm saying is, I know the gaming space, and I'm pretty surprised by an announcement Blizzard made yesterday

From their forum post:

The first and most significant change is that in the near future, anyone posting or replying to a post on official Blizzard forums will be doing so using their Real ID -- that is, their real-life first and last name -- with the option to also display the name of their primary in-game character alongside it.

This is a frightening and, honestly, confusing proposition for many reasons:

Personal Security

My friend Mikey Il first pointed out the article to me, and we had an interesting discussion about personal security. On one side of the debate, there's the fact that we, as gamers and as Internet users, already put a ton of information out there about ourselves. On the other side, we choose to put that information out there. As a gamer, I chose a handle that doesn't have my name anywhere in it, and, in forums and in gameplay, I expect that level of anonymity.

As a Gamer Girl

Yes, I know, this is pretty much the same thing. But, as a girl who chose to use an actual girl character in gameplay, I have experience of what can happen - even before my actual name is out there. Raunchy dancing, awkward chat interactions and shocked audiences whenever you jump on voice chat - it comes with the territory. In forums, the same applies - if you choose to use a picture of yourself or publicize that you're a woman - watch out.

All things said, this atmosphere is expected. When you add in identifying information, especially for those of us with unique names, the awkward interactions can move from iffy in game to downright frightening.

Reputation Management

In the social space, your reputation is essentially whatever shows up on the first page of Google. Forum posts with your real name? Fair game. As one poster in the Blizzard forum points out:

People play this game for relaxation on their off time. But, for example, if you had a unique name and applied for a job and the potential employer googled your name and found posts on a gaming forum they may not hire you because they have ill conceved notions about gamers.

In my research on the interactions in the MMORPGs and their forums, there were trolls aplenty. But, like in every other forum, social network or blog comment thread out there - you take the good with the bad. Impeding on your users' basic expectations of privacy is unconscionable.

What do you think? Would you tie your full name to everything you do online?

alyssagardina.com - reputation management

The Cost of Doing (Good) Business

Blizzard, privacy and personal security - would you use your real name online?