HistoricalTownMaps Blog

Good morning from a cold and snow draped Connecticut.  A February day in New England like it ought to be… I’m headed to down to even snowier Washington DC for three meetings next week, then further south to Miami via Atlanta to speak at a global industry conference, and then I head out west to St. George via Las Vegas to speak at the Family History Expo all in the next two weeks.  It my own lap around America… 

I am also fascinated by the personal dichotomy represented by my participation in these two conferences in the same week.   One conference is a unique forum for global industry leaders and key decision makers to discuss strategy in the face of the global recession and electronic substitution driven by advances in information and communications technology.  The other is an equally unique forum for individuals to learn and discuss new research techniques, methodologies, and opportunities in genealogy and family history from industry leaders whose content and offerings were made possible by those same advances in information, communications, and genomic technology.

By living in these two very different worlds - I have been exposed to the most brilliant minds and fascinating people.   But instead of living a dichotomous life - I am constantly synthesizing my experiences from these two worlds and reporting back what I see and have learned.   Thats why part of my keynote address at the St. George Family History Expo will be addressed to vendors and their relationship to their customers.

Vendors need to let their light shine so that their customers light can shine too. 

Let me tell you what I mean.  Seven years ago I was assisting our sales force in some big deals.   My signature deal was a $9MM contract for a well known high-end retailing conglomerate.  It involved the integration of a vast array of software and equipment and radically altering and improving their business processes to improve productivity,  cash flow, regulatory compliance, and customer satisfaction as well as cut costs.  After the deal was signed, the technology integrated, and the customer up and running, I was asked to fly out to the mid-west for the first operations review of all of the key metrics of this re-engineered operation.   What happened there I will never forget…

Instead of starting the meeting with spreadsheets, pie charts and bar charts, and process maps, the executive responsible for our customer’s operation started the meeting like this: “For more than two years I have not been able to take a vacation with my family.  If I left this operation for a more than a day things would get so screwed up to the point of unrecoverability.  Because of you I was able to take a vacation for two weeks with my family.  And when I returned - everything was working just as it should have been when I left.  You saved my marriage and saved my family. Thank you.”

There was not a dry eye in the house.  The customer was weeping tears of joy and we the members of the vendor team were weeping right along with him.  An emotional connection was achieved between our customer and our brand.

In my last blog I reviewed the emotional motivations of why people are interested in family history and genealogy.  At the St. George Expo, I will use part of my address to lay down a challenge to the vendor community to self assess the state of their emotional connection to genealogists and family historians in the context of those emotional motivations.  According to Derrick Daye and Brad Van Aucken people become emotionally connected to a brand for a number of reasons.  Among them

• The brand stands for something important.
•  The brand is intense and vibrant. 
• The brand connects with people on multiple levels across several senses.
• The brand is unique.
• The brand is admirable.
•  The brand consistently interacts with them.  It never disappoints them.
• The brand makes them feel good.
• The brand encourages frequent, pleasant, and beneficial habit-forming interactions
• The brand finds ways to build cumulative value for customers over time

Noted Professor Clayton Christensen who writes on disruptive innovation associates a connection by how well a company understands “the job your product was hired to do.”  When customers find that they need to get a job done, they “hire” products or services to do it. Companies therefore need to understand the jobs that arise in customers’ lives for which their products might be hired.  Successful products are from individuals and companies who sensed the fundamental job that customers were trying to get done,  found a way to help more people get it done more effectively, conveniently, and affordably, and established an emotional connection with the customer while getting the job done. 

What are the “fundamental jobs” of a genealogist and family historian from beginner to expert?  How do they change over time?  How well are genealogy and family history vendors encouraging frequent, pleasant, and beneficial habit-forming interactions that create cumulative value over time while getting those jobs done?

Christensen has noted that customers rarely buy what most companies think they are selling him or her.  Like my experience with the retail conglomerate - we thought we were selling efficiency, productivity, regulatory compliance and cost savings.  All true, but what the customer was buying was piece of mind and the chance to connect with his wife and children.  In the world of genealogy and family history vendors sell software, information subscriptions, books, charting tools, and consulting.  But what many of the customers are actually buying is an opportunity to fulfill their religious convictions, meeting a need to place themselves in context, creating an opportunity to reconnecting with distant family, discovering their roots in an unrooted age, or finding the truth about their lives and their past . 

Vendors need to let their light shine so that their customers light can shine too. 

Some thoughts as I get ready for my lap around America and the keynote in St. George.

Good hunting,

Bernie

I have been given the honor to keynote the 6th annual St. George UT Family History Expo on February 26-27.   This will be a very different talk then the others I have given throughout the United States in 2009.    For two years I have been lecturing and blogging about technology, techniques, methodologies, and case studies around the conflation of physical geography, culture, historical maps, and genealogy as a strategy to crash through brick walls and create deep insight into our past.  I have been happy to share what I have learned in 11 years of field based research.

But what has been deeply moving for me - since my first lecture at a local genealogy club 6 years ago to my last talk in Northern California is the emotional connection - with real people looking for real answers.    I cannot tell you how many times in the last year I have been approached for help by people looking to reconnect with distant relatives, or having discovered that their parentage was in question, or that they were adopted,   or that their family had a horrible congenital condition and needed to warn unknown relatives, or just wanted to know where they come from - to have some sense of rootedness in this very uncertain age.  One woman in Redding California grabbed both my hands and with tears in her eyes said she was attending my DNA course because I was her last hope to find out who she was because her “life was a lie…”

I had blogged earlier about research that delved into the motivations of why people are interested in genealogy:

I think these are all very accurate - but the terms “desire”, “creative outlet”, “fulfilling a need”, “activity”, “coming to terms,” or “self discovery” obscure the underlying raw emotional motivation of millions of people researching their family tree.  Whether from religious conviction, a need to place themselves in context, reconnecting with family, discovering roots in an unrooted age, or finding the truth about their lives and their past - many people are looking for help, guidance, information, and support - especially the newbies.  And from those requests for assistance to the many tearful hugs and grateful notes of appreciation once help is provided - you know you can make a difference in peoples lives. 

In these days of Web 2.o, global connectivity, user generated content, social networking, and collaboration - all of us have an opportunity to “let our light shine” and make a difference.  Come to St. George and hear my unconventional and hopefully motivational keynote “Let Your Light Shine.  Let Their Light Shine.”   It will be addressed to vendors as well as genealogists, and family historians.  You won’t want to miss it!

Good hunting,

Bernie