Debra Goldman's Postscript: Running in Place

Silicon Valley is not just the source for computer chips and software. It's also our Delphi, from which prognostications about our future emerge. Prominent among these oracles is Regis McKenna, high-tech marketing whiz, star of the business- seminar circuit and author of Relationship Marketing. Now comes Real Time, another up-to-the-minute report from the future's front lines. The book's big news is that soon, there will be no future, and no past. Just a present. Time and distance are collapsing; action and response are simultaneous. At the center of this implosion is what McKenna calls "the never-satisfied customer," who, as described on the book jacket, "demands instant gratification or else." Real Time is aimed at managers who are urged to rip up their corporations and reorganize them into feedback loops, the better to satisfy the unsatisfiable. But it is the "twenty-four-hour consumer," the one we're destined to become, who fascinated me. So who is he? To give us a feel of the 24/7 consumer life, McKenna offers this creature's (call him 24/C) average day. Because the prototype spends his final waking hours watching reruns of the Atlanta Olympics on pay-per- view, we assume 24/C is a man. He is, moreover, a man with no partner, children or parents, nor any interests besides his body-"11:30 a.m. Beeper reminder. Keep appointment at Weight Watchers"-his business-"9 p.m. Prepare sales presentation on multimedia PC"-and his possessions-"12:30 p.m. Receive car fax from Lexus dealer: 30,000-mile checkup due." He also spends a lot of time trying to get somewhere else as quickly as he can, while interacting with the fewest number of human beings on the way. What 24/C doesn't spend much time doing is serving the needs of his never-satisfied customers-customers who are presumably the reason he can afford a cell phone, multimedia PC, Nautilaus and Lexus in the first place. Maybe he fits it in between his 11:45 a.m. custom jeans fitting and his lunch at Burger King. I wonder how well 24/C's calendar describes the typical day of the American Express representative who is praised by McKenna. It seems that, thanks to the rep's instant access to McKenna's billing history, a potentially disruptive electronic funds transfer foul-up was resolved on the spot. Luckily, this guy wasn't at a Weight Watchers meeting when McKenna needed him. Instead, he and his colleagues have their butts glued to their chairs, the better to provide personal service on demand. Like most bold looks into the future, this book has that familiar quasi-prophetic tone, warning that exile and disaster await those who don't follow the faith. But even as McKenna urges us to get with the Silicon Valley program, I detected a bit of doubt shadowing his ever-forward-looking market think. There are many people who aren't comfortable living with chaos, he admits. Sorry to say, they are disoriented by the prospect of "continuous discontinuous change." But people will get used to real time, he avers, because they won't have any choice. Technology will win-it always does. And we won't even notice the endless escalation of our expectations. McKenna may be right. Who hasn't experienced the transformation from wonderment at the ease of email to intense irritation at the 30 seconds it takes to access it? If serving the never-satisfied customer is a daunting task, it somehow is not quite as dismal as the prospect of being one.

Brand Marketing

Debra Goldman's Postscript: Running in Place

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