Framing, Russia and the US Election

Russia just voted to recognize the independence of two regions of Georgia, South Ossetia and Abkhazia. 

As background, Georgia claims these regions are part of its own territory, although it has also treated the breakaway republics as being de facto independent since the 1990s. The UN and other bodies encourage Georgia to continue dealing with these two regions diplomatically, which seems to acknowledge their status as valid independent negotiating entities. In short, the issue is truly unresolved.

But criticism of Russia's move around the world is muted because the United States led a similar initiative to recognize Kosovo's independence, which was declared on February 18 -- to much controversy, given that this was seen by many as an attempt to shift Kosovo from a traditional Russian alignment to a NATO/US alignment. 

In a way, Russia's move to geld Georgia is a way of punishing Georgia's president Mikheil Saakashvili, and in another way, it's a poke in the eye of the United States, which has been perceived by Russia (probably correctly) as the architect of a restraint policy. With the Russia/EU split in Ukraine, a Western-leaning Georgia and now missiles going into Poland, Russia is feeling as though it has to play some chess moves.  By recognizing the autonomy of Abkhazia and South Ossetia (partly protected by Russian troops as a bulwark against Georgian incursions), Russia has taken advantage of the moral high ground many believe the US (and hence Georgia) ceded with the Kosovo recognition.

The frame in political terms here is "fair is fair." The US is largely hamstrung on the issue. Any outrage would now be seen as hollow, or -- worse -- hypocritical. 

This frame works because the United States needs to present itself to its own citizens as being sincere and plain-dealing. If this issue were not part of a US government initiative to isolate Russia in US public opinion, then Russia's frame would lose a lot of its power. Frankly, the United States over the years has had a free hand in being insincere or obscure in its dealings with other countries. (The United States is not alone in this -- after all, the German word realpolitik has been conspicuously a part of our foreign policy DNA since Henry Kissinger's days.) But when the US needs to convince the American people that it's doing something based on ideals, it needs a believable frame. Russia has exploited the Kosovo declaration for both tactical and strategic purposes, because the United States has chosen a weak frame.

Now, to the US election. 

Have you noticed how, in the last several presidential election cycles, somehow gay marriage has bubbled to the surface immediately prior to the election? Why is this? My own view is that the conservatives in our country believe that gay marriage is a divisive moral issue that helps them preserve their social conservative base, and by carefully managing the state legislative agendas, they can get states to at least bring up the issue -- and ideally to pass pro-gay-marriage laws -- so that it plays in the national press. The frame they want to use: Marriage is a traditional ritual between man and woman, for the purpose of creating a family. The frame that progressives and liberals want to use (but cannot gain traction for): Marriage is a civil right. Conservative political strategists want this issue to come up, particularly in a legislative context, because it puts our very laws "at risk" of being tainted by ... fill in the blanks -- the tactic is fear-mongering at its worst, in my view.

I won't go into my own views on how progressives and liberals should change their strategy. That's for another posting.

What I want to do here is to warn progressives about another frame that's being introduced, and it will bite the Democratics in the rear if they don't start thinking about it. That topic is underage drinking -- right now framed in the press as reducing binge drinking by lowering the drinking age.

Think about how this is going to play out. If Obama supports it, social conservatives will rally to McCain. He might preserve some of his youth vote, but Obama had better be sure how young people really feel about changing the drinking age. If Obama comes out against it, you can bet that conservatives will say that he doesn't trust American youth, and that he's a hypocrite, since he drank and used drugs as a young man.

And you can hardly be called anything worse in America than a hypocrite. (See the Russia story above.)

So, what do I recommend for the Democrats?

Simply this: Nothing is more important for the future of our country than the health and well-being of our youth. We should not lower the drinking age without looking at the overall risks. And we cannot craft the best solution by leaving families out of the conversation. 

This frame has the merits of being based in values: patience, family, collaboration. The story is probably one of the government being a mentor to the real hero (the family). This shifts the government from the role that conservatives might prefer: the gatekeeper or -- even worse -- the villain. 

It will be worth watching to see how this is going to play out in the next few months. Of course, I could be wrong that the drinking age issue is a stalking horse designed to pull the Obama campaign into a lose-lose situation. We'll see!

Blockbuster finally gets a strategy. Uh huh.

Kiosk at BART/Muni Station, Photo from Metropolitan Transportation Commission, mtc.ca.gov. Not representative of Blockbuster's kiosks.

I teach customer experience management. In the context of customer relationship management, CEM includes the usual stuff: identifying your customers, differentiating your offering (which now comprises product, service and experience, chopped up in new ways), interacting with customers (or letting them interact with you in new ways), and customizing your offering (or letting people customize it themselves). You know, IDIC.

Well, I teach people about Blockbuster and Netflix when I teach customer experience management, and I gotta say, it drives the point home. All the things you have to do in modern IDIC are done really well by Netflix, and terribly poorly by Blockbuster. Blockbuster has improved things quite a bit, but they basically affirmed their traditional retail model with their new CEO pick. Their online service, designed to compete with Netflix, is OK, and getting better, but Blockbuster does not have a customer culture. Process improvement in their online offering, and supply chain improvements and store closures in their brick-and-mortar offering, just don't show the passion for the customer that Blockbuster needs to show.

That said, check this out. Reuters is reporting that NCR and Blockbuster have joined forces to create DVD vending kiosks. The idea may be the beginning of a new strategy.

And a flawed one. 

Think of it this way: They are trying to put lots of kiosks in convenient places so people can get a movie NOW, no lines, no waiting for something to be mailed to them. The value proposition is CONVENIENCE. And it might work to move some DVDs.

But will it work to restore Blockbuster's brand? Will customers become loyal to Blockbuster through attitude and behavior? That's what wins total return to shareholders.

Think how this is going to play out. The kiosks go in your drug store, your grocery store, maybe your gym. In a corner. With a skirt of trash and obstructed by chairs or baskets or candy bar racks. 

Kiosk at BART/Muni Station, Photo from iekiosk.com. This is an NCR kiosk that may not be representative of Blockbuster's kiosks.

Not a lot of brand building going on. Not a lot of customer data being grabbed and stored and used to serve the customer better next time (although I suppose Blockbuster may have something up their sleeves here, exploiting online channels cross referencing your credit card with your email address). No, it's just Blockbuster leveraging what they know how to do better than Netflix: ship things forward and store them. 

Where's the customer? Where's the exerience? Where's the increasingly intelligent level of service? 

Here's what I see. Netflix will continue to keep medium- to high-use customers, those folks who feel as though they want to have more than some low threshold of DVDs in their queue at all times. 

And Blockbuster will get the rest -- people who don't want to commit to a Netflix subscription, so they can just rent the occasional DVD. 

These are, behaviorally, the worst customers.

Go for it, Blockbuster!

Apple's Introduction to the Wild West

Apple has been a beautiful company. People think of it as a superb marketer. It is. It is also a super design company. Apple, finally, is also a world-class logistics company. 

But now, with the iPhone AppStore, they've thrown themselves into new territory. Application developers get to sell their products through the AppStore, with Apple's approval, which helps Apple build a huge repository of software (read: complex code with a multitude of risks) without having to write it all themselves.

Note the paranthetical comment about multitude of risks. 

If Apple approves something for the store, great. Unless it doesn't work. Who gets the heat? The app developer. Some, sure. But so does Apple. And suppose it does work -- but it creates a functional issue for an Apple partner such as AT&T (for example, the "modem" software that allows an iPhone user to set up the phone as a local hotspot for WiFi access). Does the app developer get any blame? None. But Apple does.

And so Apple yanks down software it had previously approved.

And annoys an entirely new community -- app developers. Who blog. And blog. And complain to the tech media -- who blog, and investigate, and so on.

Is there a way around this? Yes. 

1. Apple slows down its approval process and has applications reviewed by a panel of stakeholders. This will probably catch the majority of issues, and the internal nature of the process allows Apple to capture business/decision rules and apply them effectively in the future, whether in EULAs or developer agreements, or in their own processes and R&D.

2. Leave things the way they are and jump in the middle of the conversation. In short, treat the Wild West of the AppStore as an opportunity to influence and balance the conversation, since it cannot be directly managed. 

The first option is more in line with Apple's DNA. The second one is more in line with the open nature of the new economy.

My own advice to Apple? (As if they'd ask.) 

Ride the horse headlong into the Wild Wild West (cue Will Smith). You can't avoid it, and while you have good will with the great iPhone, you can afford to stumble a few times, as long as you wind up in the conversation, publicly, with developers and customers. When you rely on them for your economic strength and good reputation, they don't want to be at arm's length. App developers are hungry for information about what Apple wants to and CAN sell. Customers are hungry for apps, and don't want to be confused by having them constantly yanked on and off the virtual shelf. If that confusion is inevitable -- and I think it is -- then Apple has to figure out how to be more public about the process it uses to approve or disapprove these apps.