October 7, 2008
Gimme That Old Time Religion?
Posted by Kevin | Print This Article
My brief excursion into Apple fandom is officially over. I’ve had nothing but problems with their hardware recently and am transitioning back to full-on PC-dom.
My MacBook Pro gets mysteriously sluggish, has weird power things going on (it will frequently turn itself on in the middle of the night, which is kind of creepy) and I have to buy a rather expensive replacement battery because the one that came with it doesn’t exist anymore, as far as my laptop is concerned. My aluminum iMac at the office was a thing of beauty except for the fact that it crashed all the time, and it suddenly died altogether last week at an extremely inopportune time when I was in the midst of major deadlines. I didn’t have time to worry with it and immediately got a replacement Dell.
I never cared for the iPhone concept (for a touch-typist like me, the smooth touchscreen is an invitation to errors, and I like my blackberry thumb-board just fine) so that isn’t an issue for me.
But even my iPod, which is only a couple years old (but that makes it two-generations-ago ancient) has been doing strange things lately. I’ll probably replace it with another iPod, because they’re easy and basically disposable, and they are the easiest way to transport videos and music from my computer to my sound system.
The point of this mini-rant is that Apple has long had a core of faithful loyalists whose zeal for the company is near-religious, and for a while their fervor seeped out into the general marketplace. Now, even Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak (who apparently retired from the company in 1987, which was a really looooong time ago) says that Apple needs a correction, the iPod is fading, and the company is not served well by overly loyal customers.
Wozniak says, “With a religion you’re not allowed to challenge anything. I want our customers to challenge us.”
Well, one thing I’m always grateful for in the association world is that a lot of our members love us and what we do for them, but few of them put us on a high pedestal (and almost all of them are happy to challenge us).
Because when a customer (or member) believes that fervently in an organization, then the inevitable failures are not just lessons from which to learn, but downright disillusioning. And I’d rather have a disappointed customer than a disillusioned one. (Well, I’d rather have neither, but you get my point.)
I am not a religious person, per se. But I do believe that there are better things in which to place your faith than a manufacturer of consumer products. Or a chain of coffee shops. Or an association.
How about we all agree that people are imperfect, and make the wrong decisions as often (if not more) than the right ones, and organizations and companies are nothing but those same people trying, usually, to do the right thing. When they do something you don’t like, it doesn’t necessarily mean they’re evil, and when they screw up, it doesn’t necessarily mean they can do nothing right.
And when they do something you like, it doesn’t necessarily mean they’re brilliant, and when they do something that works really well, it doesn’t necessarily mean they can do no wrong.
Hey, like the song says, people are people. Seek perfection elsewhere.
As for me, it’s time to boot into Vista and shop online for a new iPod.
Actually, admitting that we are not perfect and need help is the first step on the pathway to faith. So maybe you are a more religious person than you think. Tony