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Lethal Generosity: Contextual Technology and the Competitive Edge
Lethal Generosity explains why technology and social changes are causing companies to lose control of their brands as their customers gain it. It argues that this power shift will be good for the businesses that adapt to it faster than their competitors do.
164 pages, Kindle Edition
First published September 20, 2015
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17 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
September 21, 2015
Let me say from the outset: Most adverts suck and I hate being marketed at. There’s a special place in hell for people who pollute my digital stream with pop-ups.
And for creators of pre-roll commercials that play unprompted, I have reservations for you in Hieronymus Bosch corner where you’ll be assured of extra special attention.
Given how much data I’ve surrendered and the liberties taken with it you, the marketing and advertising people, really should be doing better but old habits die hard.
The banners you place are as welcome as wasps at a picnic and yet you persist with your poorly-targeted petitions urging me to click, to endorse, to buy, items of which I have no need, nor interest.
When you take people’s money and use it in this way how do you convince them that it’s good for business? It escapes me. If the messaging subliminally enters my head at all, it registers as the don’t-touch-this-with-a-bargepole kind.
Happily there’s a shake-out on the way and digital dinosaurs that use new technology to deliver old marketing methods will be flushed away with the detritus they promote.
Shel Israel declares that the balance of power is shifting from sellers to buyers and “traditional marketing, even in digital form, often damages the brand trust it attempts to establish”. Halleluiah!
In his previous publication, Age of Context, co-written with technologist Robert Scoble, much of Israel’s emphasis was on connected data using time, place and context to deliver better customer experiences.
This sequel continues that theme but looks more closely at how technology and social change affects retailers and other public-facing businesses. Get it right and customers become loyal brand advocates, get it wrong and the results can be devastating.
Successful bricks and mortar businesses have always known this as evinced by the maxim: “The customer is always right”.
In the UK, department store John Lewis stands behind its slogan “Never Knowingly Undersold”, Marks & Spencer identifies with value and a quibble-free returns policy and Nordstrom is known for its exceptional service.
Good as they are, success in the past is no guarantee of success in the future. Shifting social and demographic trends plus new devices and new expectations mean upstart enterprises can swiftly undermine the foundations of even established businesses.
Just seven years after its launch in 2007 Airbnb became the world’s biggest hotelier, yet it doesn’t own a single hotel, or room, or bed and has fewer staff than a modest hotel chain.
It’s a software strategy eating into the profits of bricks and mortar businesses, one that The Economist predicts will cut hotel revenues by 10% by 2016.
Israel warns companies to actively listen, to treat customers as relationships to open, rather than as sales to close, and to treat them in a generously memorable way – even if it means sending them to a rival.
It’s easy to write about, much harder to do, and there are multiple examples of behaviours from companies that he thinks are on the right track and others that are getting it wrong.
Uber is a good case in point. At one stage, Uberize Everything was Scoble’s suggested title for the book but, wisely, given the controversies around the brand, Israel thought better of it.
Still, Uber stands as an example of a company that began with customer service at the heart of its operation and one which has delivered new norms of expectation from cab users.
There’s a really good segment on why millennials matter – they’re digital natives, the largest age-based demographic, born in the age of context and influenced by peers more than brand messages – and a follow-on chapter about kieretsus, a Japanese term for interlocking relationships between businesses which millennials favor.
Beaconing customers, frictionless interaction, contactless marketplaces and human-centered design all lead on to what Israel calls: The Road to Pinpoint, where “close, personal service is scalable on a global level for the first time”.
Never mind the marketing-speak, for our world to become that personal we’re going to have to get comfortable with much greater levels of intrusion, data surrender and secondary uses of that data. Who owns it, what can be done with it and where should the boundaries be drawn around individual rights to privacy?
The answers to those questions are likely to be different for everyone and will be traded between perceived usefulness of a service and the amount of information required to be given up for it.
Israel covers a lot of ground in his dash towards the future and doesn’t dwell on this since it had an airing in the Age of Context book. But with so many data breaches, so much hackery and so much suspicion about data mining, breezing over this topic gives the book an unrealistically optimistic outlook. It’s a safe bet that the spammers and scammers, crooks and chancers, won’t be far behind.
No matter, it’s still a great starting point for businesses to re-evaluate what they stand for and to look at ways they can deepen customer relationships, gain market share and increase profitability.
Whether you’re won over by the conversational tone and largely anecdotal evidence will likely depend on:
How closely your views align with his
Your technophile/technophobe tendencies
What your peers say
The last word goes to the author whose final paragraph reads: “Entrenched brands may shrug all of this off. They will point out that they are doing just fine, that this is just a prolonged down cycle, and they will keep doing what they have always done. They will be the earliest victims of lethal generosity.”
And for creators of pre-roll commercials that play unprompted, I have reservations for you in Hieronymus Bosch corner where you’ll be assured of extra special attention.
Given how much data I’ve surrendered and the liberties taken with it you, the marketing and advertising people, really should be doing better but old habits die hard.
The banners you place are as welcome as wasps at a picnic and yet you persist with your poorly-targeted petitions urging me to click, to endorse, to buy, items of which I have no need, nor interest.
When you take people’s money and use it in this way how do you convince them that it’s good for business? It escapes me. If the messaging subliminally enters my head at all, it registers as the don’t-touch-this-with-a-bargepole kind.
Happily there’s a shake-out on the way and digital dinosaurs that use new technology to deliver old marketing methods will be flushed away with the detritus they promote.
Shel Israel declares that the balance of power is shifting from sellers to buyers and “traditional marketing, even in digital form, often damages the brand trust it attempts to establish”. Halleluiah!
In his previous publication, Age of Context, co-written with technologist Robert Scoble, much of Israel’s emphasis was on connected data using time, place and context to deliver better customer experiences.
This sequel continues that theme but looks more closely at how technology and social change affects retailers and other public-facing businesses. Get it right and customers become loyal brand advocates, get it wrong and the results can be devastating.
Successful bricks and mortar businesses have always known this as evinced by the maxim: “The customer is always right”.
In the UK, department store John Lewis stands behind its slogan “Never Knowingly Undersold”, Marks & Spencer identifies with value and a quibble-free returns policy and Nordstrom is known for its exceptional service.
Good as they are, success in the past is no guarantee of success in the future. Shifting social and demographic trends plus new devices and new expectations mean upstart enterprises can swiftly undermine the foundations of even established businesses.
Just seven years after its launch in 2007 Airbnb became the world’s biggest hotelier, yet it doesn’t own a single hotel, or room, or bed and has fewer staff than a modest hotel chain.
It’s a software strategy eating into the profits of bricks and mortar businesses, one that The Economist predicts will cut hotel revenues by 10% by 2016.
Israel warns companies to actively listen, to treat customers as relationships to open, rather than as sales to close, and to treat them in a generously memorable way – even if it means sending them to a rival.
It’s easy to write about, much harder to do, and there are multiple examples of behaviours from companies that he thinks are on the right track and others that are getting it wrong.
Uber is a good case in point. At one stage, Uberize Everything was Scoble’s suggested title for the book but, wisely, given the controversies around the brand, Israel thought better of it.
Still, Uber stands as an example of a company that began with customer service at the heart of its operation and one which has delivered new norms of expectation from cab users.
There’s a really good segment on why millennials matter – they’re digital natives, the largest age-based demographic, born in the age of context and influenced by peers more than brand messages – and a follow-on chapter about kieretsus, a Japanese term for interlocking relationships between businesses which millennials favor.
Beaconing customers, frictionless interaction, contactless marketplaces and human-centered design all lead on to what Israel calls: The Road to Pinpoint, where “close, personal service is scalable on a global level for the first time”.
Never mind the marketing-speak, for our world to become that personal we’re going to have to get comfortable with much greater levels of intrusion, data surrender and secondary uses of that data. Who owns it, what can be done with it and where should the boundaries be drawn around individual rights to privacy?
The answers to those questions are likely to be different for everyone and will be traded between perceived usefulness of a service and the amount of information required to be given up for it.
Israel covers a lot of ground in his dash towards the future and doesn’t dwell on this since it had an airing in the Age of Context book. But with so many data breaches, so much hackery and so much suspicion about data mining, breezing over this topic gives the book an unrealistically optimistic outlook. It’s a safe bet that the spammers and scammers, crooks and chancers, won’t be far behind.
No matter, it’s still a great starting point for businesses to re-evaluate what they stand for and to look at ways they can deepen customer relationships, gain market share and increase profitability.
Whether you’re won over by the conversational tone and largely anecdotal evidence will likely depend on:
How closely your views align with his
Your technophile/technophobe tendencies
What your peers say
The last word goes to the author whose final paragraph reads: “Entrenched brands may shrug all of this off. They will point out that they are doing just fine, that this is just a prolonged down cycle, and they will keep doing what they have always done. They will be the earliest victims of lethal generosity.”
July 31, 2023
Privacy is gone.
The author Shel Israel talks about the pro and cons of us giving up privacy for convenience of smart phones and the ease of shopping.
Jeffery Kafer is an excellent narrator.
I recommend, people need to know !
Oded Ostfeld.
The author Shel Israel talks about the pro and cons of us giving up privacy for convenience of smart phones and the ease of shopping.
Jeffery Kafer is an excellent narrator.
I recommend, people need to know !
Oded Ostfeld.
October 27, 2015
Bringing Marketing into the 21st century (where Millennials thrive)
5 out of 5 stars
Shel Israel writes and coins the phrase Lethal Generosity which is meant to explain what companies are doing now to dominate their field and get the new generation (Millennials) to interact with brands. He talks a lot about the different brands that have succeeded and where other brands have failed.
I had never really considered listening to an business focused book on audio (I felt like the typical businessperson driving to and from work listening to an audiobook on how to be better at business). But I’m really glad that I did. Jeffrey Kafer provides the perfect “soundtrack” for this book. His calm and understanding tone allows for a breezy and quick listen to this short book. Kafer had the benefit of this book being written to be easily understood — which makes the audiobook version even more valuable. It reads like a fiction novel, but is a non-fiction book with lots of really great details in it. This was my second book from Kafer among a (now) growing list in my backlog. I’ll listen to pretty much anything he narrates now.
As a preface I must mention that I am a marketing guy. I work for myself and I am finishing my degree majoring in Marketing. I also usually hate being considered a Millennial. This book took some of the stigma away from the name Millennial and explained how to market to and employ this generation of people. Israel explains in detail how to work with Millennials the right way, and how to advertise to them.
If you have been out of the loop for a while and don’t understand what it means when someone says “Uberize” or the Uber of something — this book will help you understand that a bit more.
My favorite part is the real stories that Israel employs to make the points/topics incredibly easy to understand. This book would make a great “text” for a Marketing class–especially a new media marketing class (which sadly not many universities are making required yet). A quick read at 134 pages and a great audiobook performance by Jerffrey Kafer.
I received a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest and unbiased review.
5 out of 5 stars
Shel Israel writes and coins the phrase Lethal Generosity which is meant to explain what companies are doing now to dominate their field and get the new generation (Millennials) to interact with brands. He talks a lot about the different brands that have succeeded and where other brands have failed.
I had never really considered listening to an business focused book on audio (I felt like the typical businessperson driving to and from work listening to an audiobook on how to be better at business). But I’m really glad that I did. Jeffrey Kafer provides the perfect “soundtrack” for this book. His calm and understanding tone allows for a breezy and quick listen to this short book. Kafer had the benefit of this book being written to be easily understood — which makes the audiobook version even more valuable. It reads like a fiction novel, but is a non-fiction book with lots of really great details in it. This was my second book from Kafer among a (now) growing list in my backlog. I’ll listen to pretty much anything he narrates now.
As a preface I must mention that I am a marketing guy. I work for myself and I am finishing my degree majoring in Marketing. I also usually hate being considered a Millennial. This book took some of the stigma away from the name Millennial and explained how to market to and employ this generation of people. Israel explains in detail how to work with Millennials the right way, and how to advertise to them.
If you have been out of the loop for a while and don’t understand what it means when someone says “Uberize” or the Uber of something — this book will help you understand that a bit more.
My favorite part is the real stories that Israel employs to make the points/topics incredibly easy to understand. This book would make a great “text” for a Marketing class–especially a new media marketing class (which sadly not many universities are making required yet). A quick read at 134 pages and a great audiobook performance by Jerffrey Kafer.
I received a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest and unbiased review.
October 13, 2015
Shel Israel's latest book is one of those anecdotical, descriptive and well supported researches that very thoroughly explain "where" the idea of doing business is currently going to and most importantly, "why" it is going in that direction. Yes, marketing basically is still and shall always be "how to sell something", nothing new there, however, the "how" part (selling strat) is dramatically changing and will continue to do so in the very near future = as soon as 2016. Mr. Israel explains the current and upcoming technologies, trends and behaviours -this last one, derived from the first two- that make easy to understand why so many businesses are already dead (some of them even without knowing it!) and how the new rules of engagement imply for those businesses, I mean those which are serious about offering value for $ and keeping their customers, the necessary adoption of current and upcoming tools. Either it is beacons at supermarkets, LTE-D technology to "connect with everything" wherever you are, smart vending machines that "recognize" you, next generation intelligent phones and / or apps that will work them to allow you to live safer and buy more conveniently, very specialized social networks that work more as point of sale places, etc. this is the book to learn from them and to how to take advantage of them. By the way, the only reason it took me 2 days to read Israel's work, is that it is full of interactive links and I could't resist clicking and exploring each one of those, so, in addition this guy walks the talk! Brief: friendly reading, this is a very well "designed" book that you should read.
November 19, 2015
FASCINATING LOOK AT SUCCESSFUL BIZ STRATEGIES
Shel Israel explores the concept of providing customer centric service vs. business centric service and how that works in today's world.
While the regular practices of business over the last 100 years have focused on how to make the most money by telling the customer what they need to buy...Lethal Generosity is about LISTENING to the consumer and providing them with the best possible solution. Even if that means sending them to another store to get a better deal. By doing that, you lose the initial sale, but gain a loyal customer who will champion your brand.
It was also interesting to hear about some of the technologies that businesses are implementing to make the shopping experience more customizable and helpful. It'll be interesting to see where this beacon tech will take us over the next few years.
Jeffrey Kafer did a great job narrating this book. I kept forgetting that he wasn't the actual writer because the stories sounded as if they were experiences he himself had.
This audiobook was provided by the author, narrator, or publisher at no cost in exchange for an unbiased review courtesy of AudiobookBlast dot com.
Shel Israel explores the concept of providing customer centric service vs. business centric service and how that works in today's world.
While the regular practices of business over the last 100 years have focused on how to make the most money by telling the customer what they need to buy...Lethal Generosity is about LISTENING to the consumer and providing them with the best possible solution. Even if that means sending them to another store to get a better deal. By doing that, you lose the initial sale, but gain a loyal customer who will champion your brand.
It was also interesting to hear about some of the technologies that businesses are implementing to make the shopping experience more customizable and helpful. It'll be interesting to see where this beacon tech will take us over the next few years.
Jeffrey Kafer did a great job narrating this book. I kept forgetting that he wasn't the actual writer because the stories sounded as if they were experiences he himself had.
This audiobook was provided by the author, narrator, or publisher at no cost in exchange for an unbiased review courtesy of AudiobookBlast dot com.
October 7, 2015
Shel has written jet another wonderful book on how technology and social media are changing the world. Lethal Generosity does a great job of highlighting companies who are using these new tools to reach their customers and change their experience for the better. Shel writes in such a way that you feel he simply having a conversation with you, all with a great depth of knowledge and information at his fingertips.
The only reason I've given it a 4 star instead of a 4, is from all the mapping. Reminders about topics in previous chapters or past books, are a bit distracting to me. It pulls me out of story.
All and all it is both a great followup to "Age of Context" or a wonderful stand alone book on business today.
The only reason I've given it a 4 star instead of a 4, is from all the mapping. Reminders about topics in previous chapters or past books, are a bit distracting to me. It pulls me out of story.
All and all it is both a great followup to "Age of Context" or a wonderful stand alone book on business today.
November 23, 2015
A thought-provoking look into of the future of marketing to millennials. What we all need to learn from Uber and AirBnB and why we need to stop telling our customers what they need and start listening.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews