International Process and Performance Institute

The Five Man Electrical Band was far more clairvoyant then they probably knew when they wrote their song “Signs” in 1970. But what they were talking about was Freedom and there is one freedom that has been purged from the annals of Business, Government and Technology – the freedom for our lives to be simpler, easier and more successful.

It doesn’t matter where you go or what you do, that freedom is being stripped away faster and faster. Governments are making more laws, rules, and interpretations of the same (SIGNS) that try to dictate our lives into a nice, neat package devoid of anything remotely human.

Businesses are organizing around perceived risk and short-term financials to assuage their fears and satisfy disgruntled shareholders. But what about customers and employees? You guessed it, more SIGNS going into place all the time, “blocking out the scenery, breakin’ our minds.”

Where’s technology fitting in to the big biz and government picture? It’s being slapped down religiously to directly support the making and managing of SIGNS... as a means to try and control the one variant in this sorry mess – people. Do you think so or not? If not, think again. That’s all it takes is a brief bit of introspection and we see the SIGNS everywhere, and their stealing the joy from our lives.

But change a couple of things – actually just change one. What if Businesses, Governments and Technologists focused on only one thing – the group of people they serve – and that focus was based on the question “what would be do if we wanted to make our [target group’s] lives simpler, easier and more successful?

Can you see getting that one question right changes everything?

Some people don’t. They can’t really see what the possibilities are because they’re too deeply enmeshed in the muck. Yet if we see what this one simple question does, then the affects are revolutionary... evolutionary... man, they’re really, really COOL.

Think about. If you really get it then you can probably glimpse the affects. Suddenly we begin to challenge things. Why are we doing that? What is the point of this? How does that make any sense? Who would treat a customer like that?

Water Cooler questions, right? The scuttle and the butt. The grapevine’s been humming with this stuff for years and years and years. It’s the subversive underflow of the real world that the higher we go in authority the more we make sure we don’t acknowledge its existence.

But not everyone is lending a deaf ear. Virgin did the unthinkable with no-contract, simple, easy, fun cellular service with Virgin Mobile USA, and is still revamping the world’s airline businesses and a couple hundred more examples.

While lots of insurers are spending a lot of money telling you WHY they are great, State Farm has been quietly chugging away on their customer focus making people’s live simpler, easier and more successful – and dominating their industry.

Best Buy broke the mold with their Instant Rebate on everything in the store (no asterisks allowed thank you) obliterating this horrid inconvenience placed on customers (a part of the US retailers SOP - Standard Operating Procedures). Zara is delivering high street fashion lines from trend-spotting to stores in days rather than months and years.

CEM is about creating organizations that are constantly recreating customer value in the customer’s image. It’s a non-stop ride that employees thrive on doing and the customers recognize with loyalty and viral marketing. Apple is completely unraveling the vested technology mess and complexity of personal computing devices with the new Macs, Macbooks, iPods, iphones and iTunes.

These are the new signs of our times, the signs of companies optimizing, aligning and innovating on their customers. No financial gloom and doom signs here either, they are doing the right thing and their future is bright indeed.

Isn’t it about time you starting paying attention to the signs?