The Indiefield Blog

When I was a kid my dream was to be Head of the British Library. Lofty ambition I know! I had this dream of being in charge of something that was truly worth sharing, where people could come and read things that they did not have to own. I now realise that a librarian is so much more than a cataloguer of books. A librarian is a data hound, a guide, a sherpa, a sheepdog, and a teacher. The librarian is the interface between reams of data and the highly motivated user. Somehow that's exactly what we have ended up doing at Indiefield.

The original library was all about educating the working man who would work all day and become a more civilised member of society by reading at night. Things like Netflix are an even better library, with a librarian who knows almost every single film, and also knows what you've seen and what you're likely to want to see. It connects viewers with films. The way Indiefield connects clients with respondents.

We need librarians more than ever to figure out creative ways to find and use data. The modern library is so much more than just a warehouse of data and the modern librarian is a producer, concierge, connector, teacher, and fixer because with literally every book now available on a Kindle (cheap, not worth warehousing) the scarce resource is knowledge and insight, not access to data. The librarian is the gateway to the information economy and for the right librarian, this is the chance of a lifetime.

Many years ago Arthur C. Clarke said "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." And wow isn't that true? If you time travelled back to the 1600s with an iPhone or a Tesla you would probably be worshipped (or burnt at the stake, who knows?). And the magic continues today with biotech, quantum mechanics, and of course AI. There's so much magic around us that we've probably started taking it for granted.

It's easy:

1. See me
2. Love me
3. Interact with me
4. Do what I ask
5. Miss me when I'm gone

Obviously your company is the best. You work there, you helped build it, everything it does makes sense to you, you have been involved from the start. So that means your company doesn't do anything wrong, and it always does the best it can do under the given circumstances. Everyone should use you! But the problem with truly believing that you are the best is that it leaves very little room to innovate and change. After all, the only reason to ever change is to be the best but you are already there so...

Being humble is the best response to a fast-changing and competitive marketplace. The humble company understands that it needs to re-earn attention, re-earn loyalty and reconnect with its clients as if every day is the very first day.

Has anyone ever looked you in the eye and said "I expected more from you"? Or asked why you are not making a difference? Or demanded that you set aside your fear and try anyway. Or accused you of holding back? If they have it's because they are showing you love and kindness and want the best for you.

People use personal trainers because the trainer pushes you to make more of an effort - you'll do more push ups or another lap if someone is shouting at you. So we hire a trainer or a coach or a whatever it is that we are into in order to make us do more and whip us into shape. Effort is transitory and hard to measure and even harder to do on a regular basis so it requires oversight. But ultimately, if we only grow on demand are we selling ourselves short? Can the student ever really become the master if the master is there simply to keep us motivated? Are you really helpless without someone telling you what to do?

We don't need cameras or watches because we have our phones. Nobody buys cameras. Nobody buys watches. Books are on our Kindles now. Nobody buys books. The market to nobody is huge and sometimes it's better to sell your product to nobody than to try to sell to everyone. Companies selling to nobody outperform those that are trying to sell to everyone

If I invite you to a party there is very little resistance. You either immediately say yes or if you have a diary clash, you tell me you can't make it. Either way, the decision is instant. So if your marketing and product departments are doing their job every sale is more like an invitation. It's hard to argue that the guys in the Apple store on Regent Street are really selling iPads when there's a queue out the door. You don't want it? Next! So the idea is to align everything in the company so that a sale is not a sale - it's an invitation. We all know that the salesperson's job is to help people overcome their fears so that they can purchase something they will ultimately be happy with. The goal of the marketing and product offering is to turn your salesman into an inviter.

If you are building something new, particularly a new digital product, you can't be online with your users to help them and guide them and show them how it works. Instead you need to build something that works intuitively. But something that's definitely worth doing is to have a "share your confusions" button. This is not about comments and suggestions it's about allowing users to help with your work and bring to your attention things that are not as clear as they should be.

There are companies that have been around for hundreds of years and plan to be around for hundreds more. No doubt their long run is more than ours. But too often we think in terms of the short run only. Do we really know what our long terms plans are? And how long is long?