The Fordian Technology Gap
America's modern era produced many visionaries whose individual contributions are still imprinted on contemporary society. Thomas Edison and his many practical inventions, like the incandescent light and the phonograph, certainly fit this profile. Almost 60 years after his death, Americans are still under New Deal influences of the world according to President Franklin Roosevelt. And you can't talk about visionaries without mentioning the man who arguably had the most influence on modern American culture, Henry Ford.
Of course, Mr. Ford wasn't the inventor of the automobile. And in the first quarter of the 20th century, his was merely one of literally hundreds of car companies. But what made Henry great was his ability to deliver on a vision for an America's car culture.
Fordian Technology = Good Deflation
According to our friend, Burt Folsom, author of Empire Builders, How Michigan Entrepreneurs Made America Great, when the first Ford Model Ts rolled off the line at a rate of one every half day, the sticker price was $850. That's hard to believe today, but this was still more than the average American earned in a whole year. Motivated to find a magic price point, Ford changed the way Model Ts were made by creating a system where the cars came to the workers, instead of the other way around.
Here's the rest of the story: Henry Ford's Model T didn't create America's car culture - his technology - an automobile assembly line - did. With a "Tin Lizzy" now rolling out the factory door every 90 minutes, the sticker price dropped to under $500. In his book, Deflation, our friend, Gary Shilling, tells us that good deflation results from increased productivity, usually associated with technology. More than anything or anyone, assembly line technology and the associated good deflation, gave birth to the American car culture. It also made Ford the number one car company, and its founder the richest man in the world.
The World According To Ford
One of the hallmarks of Henry's populist car strategy was the Fordian approach to options: There were no options. You want a Ford? You get a black Model T. When asked about this, he is reported to have said, "You can have any color you want, as long as it's black."
Henry Ford was nothing if not irascible. But there actually was justification for his unicolor intransigence, which was merely an extension of his price point vision: Black paint dried quicker than colored paint.
The World According To Blasingame
One thing we know about humans - especially the American species - is set out in Blasingame's 1st Law Of American Culture: American's are never satisfied with the status quo. Mr. Ford believed that the American family needed a car they could afford more than they needed colors, shock absorbers, and electric starters. And he was right, but only for a while.
You may recall that I have identified in this space in the past a phenomenon called The Technology Gap. In its simplest form, a technology gap is where the motivations of innovators and consumers are out of synch. Today's version of The Gap is where consumer adoption of technology lags availability of innovations. Almost a century ago Henry Ford literally manufactured his own brand of Technology Gap, but today, we would say his was upside-down: Ford's customers wanted more than he was willing to give them. He actually withheld innovation.
You may also remember a previous reference in this space to what happens in a free market when there is a war of motivations between innovators and customers. This is called Blasingame's 2nd Law Of American Culture: The customer ALWAYS wins.
Ford learned this lesson too late, and he crashed head-on into what is now known as Blasingame's 3rd Law Of American Culture: Today's genius is tomorrow's passé. Henry Ford may have been the first person to ask, "Did anybody get the license number of that truck?"
Ultimately, Ford's management team dragged him, kicking and screaming, to offer options to customers: electric starters in 1917, then colors and body styles came later, for example. According to Burt Folsom, by 1929, the year the Ford Model A was launched in four different styles, and after selling 15 million Model Ts, the man whose vision changed American culture forever was no longer America's leading car manufacturer. Relegated to being merely one of the Big Three, Mr. Ford became a victim of Blasingame's 4th Law Of American Culture: If customers don't get what they want from you, they will go somewhere else.
Here are Blasingame's Laws Of American Culture listed together. You'll need them in a minute.
• Blasingame's 1st Law Of American Culture: American's are never satisfied with status quo.
• Blasingame's 2nd Law Of American Culture: The customer ALWAYS wins.
• Blasingame's 3rd Law Of American Culture: Today's genius is tomorrow's passé.
• Blasingame's 4th Law Of American Culture: If customers don't get what they want from you, they will go somewhere else.
Latter-Day Fords
The Technology Gap being watching by interested observers today is the one where consumer adoption is lagging innovation. One such group of observers, of which I am a member, is the Global Consumer Advisory Board (GCAB), organized by Advanced Micro Devices to study this phenomenon.
I have become concerned that a latter-day form of the Fordian Technology Gap - where availability of technology lags consumer demand - might be occurring. And the latter-day Henry's I'm concerned about are small business owners.
Here are just a few examples of what the 21st Century Fordian Technology Gap looks like:
A small business that has tech-savvy customers but no website.
First let me say that there are no small businesses that do not have tech-savvy customers. Your customers want to visit you online. Their motivations could be as simple as seeing if you're "with it," or they may actually be seeking information or product at a time when your doors are locked and your answering machine is on.
The technology is readily and affordably available to make it easier for your customers to reach out and touch you online. Are you withholding this capability from your customers? See Blasingame's 4th Law Of American Culture.
A small business that has a web site that serves the business more than the customers.
Long, long ago, in a land far, far away (1997 in the pre-dot bomb era) I posted my first website. I was so proud of it. But when I asked a friend who was MUCH more net-savvy than me (he had been online six months longer) to check out my site, he rained on my parade with this observation: "Jim, your website is all about you." It hurt my feelings, but he helped me understand what websites are supposed to be all about: your customers - not you.
If your website is all about you, you're withholding innovation from your customers because there is a wealth of information and resources you could be delivering. Refer to Blasingame's 3rd Law Of American Culture and get some useful content on your website.
A small business that doesn't use email to connect with customers.
After the PC, THE most productive tool in my life is email. Never mind emailing your daughter in college or your brother in Hoboken. I want to know if you are connecting with customers by email? Are you asking them if they can be reached by email? This will be on a quiz at the end of class, so I'll say it again: Ask your customers if you can reach them by email.
With their permission, and with a little effort and planning, that's ALL you have to do to become the leader of a community of customers. Since email marketing is not exactly rocket science, and since the technology is available eight-ways-from-Sunday to do this successfully, if you are not building an email customer community, you're guilty of practicing the Fordian Technology Gap, and should see Blasingame's 1st Law Of American Culture.
A small business that doesn't incorporate technology into serving customers.
One of the best ways to be successful is to do business while you sleep. Today, that's e-commerce. More and more, your customers are doing business online. You may be tracking inventory electronically, but are you letting customers see what your inventory is on their own?
The list is long of the technological capability that's available - affordably - to better serve your customers. If you're not maximizing the technology available, you're withholding technology from your customers, which will result in them withholding their business from you. See Blasingame's 4th Law of American Culture.
There are many other latter-day examples of the Fordian Technology Gap, but these are enough to help you get the picture.
Write this on a rock... The only thing worse than innovators not being able to motivate customers to try new stuff, is a small business withholding innovations from its customers. (See Blasingame's 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and 4th Laws of American Culture.)
