McDonald’s, PlayStation, and a Desk – The Humor and Fallacy of #YouHadOneJob
Just this morning, I’ve seen:
A news story by Wired on McDonald’s revenue troubles, with a comparison to Starbucks and the assertion that Starbucks’ mobile strategy accounts for its success. The article ends: “Mobile has changed people’s expectations to be served in context, in their moments of need.” Wow – classifying lattes as a need – would that fit in the love/belonging tier or up in self-actualization?
Social rants on Down Detector about gamers not being able to log into PlayStation. “WHY CANT THEY FIX THIS PROBLEM ALL I WANNA DO IS PLAY GTA 5 ONLINE!!!” reads a post I can actually quote without substituting #&%@ anywhere.
An animated gif of computer desk evolution, cleverly making visual the “there’s an app for that” meme. The gif shows a whole range of physical desktop items disappearing, substituted with app logos on a screen.
How are these disparate stories related, and what’s the connection to #YouHadOneJob?
All three stories vividly show how much life has moved online and woe to the business that fails to please today’s demanding customers. But they also, together, teach a less obvious lesson – this “consumer expectation” demand isn’t just a McDonald’s problem, and meeting that demand isn’t as simple as #YouHadOneJob.
Whatever business you’re in, you serve someone. And those customers – be they inside or outside your company – are less patient today than they were last week. To serve them, you rely on a set of interconnected online systems. One eCommerce exec noted it took 23 tech integration points for his company to complete a transaction. Your systems may not be that complicated, but it’s a heck of a lot harder than the #YouHadOneJob storyline.
Tying together apps and networking and data is hard, and ensuring they’re “always on” is harder still. Helping companies deliver zero downtime for one of their systems’ weakest links – the database – has given ScaleArc a front row seat in the challenges of evolving systems to serve the ever-more-demanding buyer.
You’ve got lots of reasons your service could be down. We don’t think the database should be one of them. Because I’m warning you, those Down Detector folks have a knack for finding the most colorful of your angry customers.
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