Staying Human

I know the pressure of keeping costs low.
Books, conferences–even movements–don’t create or market themselves.
It’s a bring-your-cash-or-go-home world.

So a lot of companies are cutting costs.
And I’m sure you’ve noticed one of the go-to ways for doing this?
Automating things.

Machines replace humans on the manufacturing lines.
Robotic voices answer phones and respond to prompts.

And now the Gartner Group is predicting that within five years, even the people who man companies’ online communities won’t be PEOPLE anymore.
They’ll be software.

This news probably doesn’t phase us much as most of us aren’t too attached to the human behind, say, the Urban Outfitters Facebook profile.

But it’s another reminder that taking advantage of every possible technology in every possible situation tends to subtract from a company’s human face.

If you want an extreme example of this, take a guy who figured out that bad business–literally purposefully treating his customers rudely–would generate enough online complaint traffic to raise his place in the google search algorithms. It’s a scary world, my people.

In the face of all of this, I’ll make a prediction of my own: In this increasingly technological world, there is going to be a ripe opportunity for companies (and organizations) who are wise enough to prize their human touch.

The ones who don’t neutralize their human personality and emotion, who maintain a vibrant love for their tribes, will be the ones that customers are intuitively drawn to for reasons they might not even be able to articulate.

Humans were designed to connect with other humans.  Want to build off that natural wiring? Every time you make a drive for efficiency, ask yourself a corresponding question: “How can we intentionally maintain a human face with our customers?”

Look for every opportunity to be flagrantly human. After all, last time I checked, robots weren’t buying your products, reading your books or attending your conferences.