The whole idea of trying to negotiate a new price with stores and companies is pretty messy. Companies are used to setting the terms and conditions of a sale. They’re not going to understand why they might want to change their stance. Even as customers are more empowered to make offers, and payment systems more flexible as to what works to transfer or exchange value (usually money), we will friction before we see acceptance.
Coaching moment: As a general rule, your negotiating position is stronger at the beginning of the transaction, as shown by the man offering to buy the CD or DVD, and the woman requesting highlights with her trim. The couple at the restaurant have already accepted (and presumably eaten) the food without expressing any hesitation or wish to negotiate price later. That’s not as strong a position for changing significant terms such as price of your meal.
I’m sure that there is at least one company that you wish you could negotiate a different price with. What would your terms be like?
Perhaps you’ll remember a story from a couple of years ago in the Washington Post about internationally acclaimed virtuoso violinist Joshua Bell. The Post put Bell in a Washington DC Metro station to play his Stradivarius for the passers-by during a 43 minute period.
It was 7:51 a.m. on Friday, January 12, the middle of the morning rush hour. In the next 43 minutes, as the violinist performed six classical pieces, 1,097 people passed by. Almost all of them were on the way to work…
Bell received donations amounting to $52.17 for his venture.
Watching the video weeks later, Bell finds himself mystified by one thing only. He understands why he’s not drawing a crowd, in the rush of a morning workday. But: “I’m surprised at the number of people who don’t pay attention at all, as if I’m invisible. Because, you know what? I’m makin’ a lot of noise!”
If you’re curious, here’s a link to Bell’s full performance. I love Bell’s playing, and have a bit of cognitive dissonance hearing the background noise. It’s playing in the background as I write this post. I was reminded of The Post’s story by a few random, passing incidents where people seemed a bit out of their element.
Coaching moment: Have you ever been in a meeting or part of a conversation where you felt that you weren’t being heard? Or that you were in a job that wasn’t right for you but you didn’t know how to escape or what a better job might be? Or that you were in the right place at the wrong time, or wrong time and place altogether? Yeah, you’re not alone.
Lacking proper training, connections, and insights about who we are or how to connect with our right livelihood, most of us do the best we can to identify our strengths and make the most of who we are. That’s good and bad. Once we think we know who we are, we have set our context in a way that may be hard to break out of.
The future holds a different story for us. Jobs and opportunities will develop in ways we could not dream of today. I’m reminded of a line from a Star Trek episode when Captain Picard is asked what people do with themselves in the 24th Century. “The challenge [...] is to improve yourself… to enrich yourself. Enjoy it.“
If you could write a new story for yourself–in a new time and place–what would your life be like?
I attended and taped several sessions from the IIW8. These are all in Quicktime .mov format, and the files are rather large. If you want to see them in a different format, leave a comment and I’ll see what I can do. The videos are generally an hour long, so YouTube is not an option (they limit files to 10 minutes each).
Coaching moment: Being curious is great because it generally leads to learning new things. Learning can sometimes be overwhelming. If we stick with our curiosity and ask questions, we learn more. Learning, thinking, and processing new ideas are valuable life skills, and will be extremely useful as our technology-enriched world develops and affects our social, political, and economic lives.
This conference, the 8th one, was a meeting of coders and technologists, facilitators and educators, newbies and experts. If you’re checking this blog and these videos out for the first time, there may well be ideas that you may not have heard of before. Consider yourself ahead of the curve for visiting and wanting to learn more.
Yesterday was my first of three days at the identity Commons’ Internet Identity Workshop. I posted about this workshop earlier, and how I was excited to be attending. Now that I’m here, the conversations and technology are more fascinating, and the people way more engaging than I indicated in my earlier post. You can get a remote taste of the conversations by checking the twitter stream while its available.
One of the sessions I attended was about the Information Card and various selector software. I’ll be looking at these in a future post. For now, think of information cards as the digital equivalent to the membership, identity (e.g., driver’s license, health care card, etc.) and credit cards in your wallet. Think of the selector software as your digital wallet, but with some smarts to suggest cards that have the appropriate credentials.
Coaching moment: You have a wallet, and likely there are many cards inside. The idea is that a digital wallet is portable, and pictures of various cards might work easily for people that don’t want to know any more about identity than which card is the right one to use. We do that every day anyway. What if that were easier, and more secure? Might you be interested in this?
Yesterday and today I’m attending a VRM gathering in northern California. This is where conversations are happening–some technical, some organizational, and some theoretical–about putting people in charge of their relationships with the world. One important part of the world is the marketplace, which includes all of the stores and people that we do business with.
The notion of VRM is about enhancing the personal control that we have over our data, our money, and our lives. The people here, many of them developers and marketing people, are discussing structures, formats, and methodologies on how to do things with technology that is all about your needs.
Today, for example, the discussion I’m sitting in is about how to make a personal request for something (like a request for proposal, or RFP). A couple of examples of a personal RFP:
I need new shoes, of a specified size, color and style, in the city that I’m now in, at the best price available today
I am looking to buy a car within the next two months, and only want to know about used cars listed in my neighborhood as they get published, or new cars from specific dealers or people.
I need a ride downtown tomorrow sometime between 8-9am. Is anyone going that way that I could catch a ride with?
Some of my friends are talking about something new. It sounds interesting and useful, and I need to learn about that. I’m new to this subject area.
Some of the questions raised here: is this request shareable or tweetable? is it going to lead to a purchase or is the request just information-based? how do vendors or stores find your request? do (specialized?) search engines fit into this picture? Do you need help building specifications for your goods or services (which somehow implies that you are a qualified and ready buyer)?
Coaching moment: This post isn’t about answers. It’s about thinking about how we recognize ways that we need or ask for things, how we learn, and how technology can help. If you have thoughts on how YOU would like to process this very complex area, please add your thoughts to this post.
Our achievements of today are but the sum total of our thoughts of yesterday. You are today where the thoughts of yesterday have brought you and you will be tomorrow where the thoughts of today take you. — Blaise Pascal
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