The Problem with ‘No!’

First, please forgive me for the gaps in posting. I’ve found that writing and maintaining a blog can be challenging. It requires thinking of frequently thinking of witty things to say about events that are covered ad nauseum in other venues. It’s tough work. That being said, I’ll do what I can.

Now, to my rant…

My heart goes out to the members of the Virginia Tech community. There’s been some question about whether the police did enough to protect the campus. There are people better qualified to than me to answer that question. One of the pundits I was listening to last night proposed that they could have used text messages / SMS alerts to notify the community of the danger. One of the pundit’s guests reacted immediately with “No” and further went on to explain how SMS isn’t reliable for such things. The question becomes what other methods are more likely to reach college students wherever there at on campus? There aren’t any. College students are glued to their cell phones. It’s a reality those of us who are (unwillingly) older have to deal with. But people who say ‘No!’ get in the way of implementing solutions that can help save lives.

Brings me to business. I’m of the mind that the popularity of YouTube is due to ‘No!’ When the Internet began being recognized as a place that people could view videos due to increasing broadband penetration, entertainment companies balked at the idea. ‘No!’ is what they said. They didn’t want their content out there. They didn’t think the world was ready. The people spoke and YouTube was born. A resounding ‘YES!’ is what the founders of YouTube said and Internet community agreed.

It’s harder for companies to say “No!” today because the marketing rules have changed. It used to be that if a company didn’t want some information to get out, it didn’t. If one customer was frustrated, so what. Companies said “No!” to caring. Today, one disgruntled customer can tell a story that is shared by thousands — or millions. Additionally, competition has a different face. The Internet, combined with offshore manufacturing, has significantly lowered the barriers to entry in many markets. Startups are saying “YES!” and proving to be admirable rivals to much larger companies.

It’s time for more people and more companies to start saying “YES!” The key is to remember that saying “YES!” on the Internet doesn’t have to require a lot of expense. Come up with ideas and instead of finding reasons not to do them, find reasons to at least try them. Share the idea with a couple of developers and let them build it in a week or two. It’s not always necessary to put a project manager, 2 business analysts, 3 information architects, a tech lead, 2 developers and other assorted staff on a project. Sometimes, it’s okay to pass it off to a couple of guys who are just interested and see what comes of it.

Let’s stop saying ‘No!’ and starting saying ‘YES!’. It will make a world of difference in the way your organization works.