For an in class project for my IT-enabled business course at UMSL, we were discussing how Land’s End differentiates itself from its competitors.  We noticed the “Get Live Help” button on their website and figured we might as well ask them.

Here is the transcript:

Susan M: Welcome to Lands’ End! My name is Susan M.. How may I help you today?
you: hi..
you: q:what differentiates you from your competitors? a question from an mba class.
you: thank you.
Susan M: Our friendly people and our service.
Susan M: Our standard shipping is UPS 2-Day delivery.
you: ok, what else?
you: thanks, good answers.
Susan M: Ask me a more specific question, please.
you: why would i choose land’s end over gap, for example.
you: let’s say for a pair of jeans.
Susan M: Our quality of fabric is by far better…made of good quality ringspun cotton and we go to great length to work on fit based upon customer comments.
Susan M: We offer jeans in a variety of styles so that we can accommodate varying figure types.
Susan M: Our turtlenecks wear like iron and last forever. I have many that have lasted 6+ years.
you: ok, thank you very much. you have convinced us of your quality for our mba class discussion.
Susan M: Great! Thanks for chatting this evening. Good night.
you: thanks! you too!
Susan M.: You’re welcome. Bye!

Anyways, I thought Susan did a pretty good job of answering our questions. And, her answers were pretty remarkable considering that our questions were less than typical.

Update #1: @Oldangerous points out that it could have been a bot.  I did consider this a possibility.  Before I wrote the article, I did a quick search to see if there was anything online that said whether it was a bot or not. Either way she (robot or not) answered the question well.  Anyone know for sure?

Update #2: I fired up the chat one last time with Land’s End, and the new operator (Elaine M) said she was not a bot. I am convinced.

Over lunch, I was reading my text Electronic Commerce - A Managerial Perspective (Turban, et. all) for my IT-enabled business course.  They mentioned a few lessons-learned for creating a successful e-tailing operation:  don’t ignore profitability, manage new risk exposure, watch the cost of branding, do not start with insufficient funds, create an effective website, and keep it interesting.

I think all of these are pretty good advice, but they somewhat ignore the ecosystem of the web.  So, here are my additions based on what I have observed with e-business.

1.  Be Open—A retailer hoping to do business online must be open.  This is a lesson described in Wikinomics and it certainly applies here.  What does this mean?  If you are selling a product online, do not put restrictive terms-of-use on the content your company produces for its website.  This includes text, brochures, and most importantly multi-media (images, demonstrations, and videos).  For bloggers, this material is a life-line for describing your products to their audience.

For example, take a look at the terms-of-use for CB2, one of my favorite furniture retailers.  If you were a blogger, you might think twice about posting a picture of one of their products.  But, if you do a quick search on blogsearch.google.com, you will see a lot of sites doing just that.  This might be the intention of the retailer.  But by having restrictive terms-of-use, they miss out on a lot of free press that may have led to additional sales.

Contrast the CB2 example with Microsoft, a company that has more than its share of bad press.  It has a whole section of its site dedicated to the press that includes releases, images, and RSS feeds.  It was because of this that I felt comfortable, as a blogger, posting an image in my post about the Zune.

2. Accept Criticism—I think one of the fears of being open for retailers is the (somewhat) irrational fear of criticism.  If I was a retailer, I would look at this criticism as simply free research.

Take for example, the case of Palm.  They had been a leader in PDAs and had some early success in the smart phone arena.  But, as often happens, some new players came into their market and they were no longer the king of the hill.  Engadget, a popular technology weblog, criticized the company in an open letter entitled Palm: It’s time for an intervention.  Not only did Palm respond to the letter, but the company made substantive changes based upon it.  And, its new device the Treo Pro, is getting a warmer reception than its past devices.  This is an example of how a company accepted criticisms and actually turned that criticism around to create a better product.

3.  Provide easy access to information—After you have become more open and learn to accept criticism, the final stage is to provide easy access to information.  If you want to lure content creators, you should have an often updated RSS feed detailing information about your company and your new products.  This is the easiest way to disseminate information about your products and your company.

If you followed lesson one, you should know by now that the feeds should not have any restrictive terms-of-use attached to them.  StlToday provides a how-not-too on displaying feeds for your site.  Restricting use of your feeds will only reduce its dissemination and destroy any potential of receiving traffic from useful content mash-ups.

So, there it is.  I personally believe to be successful in e-business you must (1) be open, (2) accept criticism, and (3) provide easy access to information.  Do you agree?

So, I had a Securities Analysis final this week and it really took over my life.  Summer classes wear me out.  Cramming a semester’s worth of work into 8 weeks is tough.  I said it last year, and I am going to say it again this year…I will never take another summer class .  With an anticipated graduation date of spring of 2009, hopefully, I can stick to it this time.

I definitely had some problems on the final.  I completely forgot that when a portfolio is efficient, it has a correlation with the market of 1.  This really set the stage for some problems on the test.  I think I tried to put too much into my head three days before the test, and that little knol slipped.  Overall though, I am not disappointed.  With any luck, I will still slip by with an A or B in the class.

Regardless of the grade, I learned a lot from the class.  I interviewed a financial analyst concerning a stock that I was researching.  I was completely amazed at how much he knew about the company.  It really impressed upon me the amount of time and energy that goes into setting the prices for securities in our financial markets. We also spent a lot of time covering portfolio theory and capital market theory.  These are two somewhat related theories on how to manage risk in your portfolio.  I took a number of ideas from these lessons that I can use with my own portfolio.

So, overall it was a successful semester.  I look forward to reading and learning some more about finance.  And, I feel like I have a somewhat better understanding of the subject matter.  So, that is about it.  I am on to the next semester of my MBA…this time featuring a course on IT business processes and one on supply chain management.

It might seem a little strange to think that an MBA student (and really any business professional) should spend time learning a software package targeted at the graphic design and photography industry. But, for me, knowing how to use Photoshop has provided a significant advantage in both my professional career and in my MBA courses. Let me explain.

As an MBA student, you spend a significant amount of time working on presentations. For me, it has been a regular course requirement to give 1-2 presentations per semester. As a result, I have prepared anywhere from 5-10 presentations since I have started school. And, I probably have seen more than 50 presentations. This amount of exposure has really made me somewhat of a connoisseur of the medium.

Now, I do not plan on going into all aspects of what makes a good presentation, but I will tell you that one of the major aspects is visual interest. I could be listening to a great orator (think Al Gore or Steve Jobs) and if they do not provide compelling visuals to go along with the speech, my mind starts to wander. For me the charts, graphs, and pictures really pull me into the speech and hold my attention.

That is why I think learning Photoshop is important. It provides you with the basic tools necessary to provide visual interest in your presentations. It allows you to edit images (cropping, resizing, distortion) and also create new visual elements (charts, graphs, layouts, etc). I use Photoshop for a number of things—to stylize text, to cut out pictures of people to put next to quotes, to create custom layouts, etc. You can see a lot of these effects in my blogging presentation.

I am far from a graphic designer, but, I have used Photoshop for a number of years. In my experience, it is not too hard to learn the basics. There are a number of courses at local colleges and universities to help get you started. In the St. Louis area, UMSL offers Photoshop courses as part of their Micro-computer program and St. Charles Community college offers courses, as well. You can also start learning online. Adobe’s Video Workshop and Lynda are a good place to start.

While Photoshop skills are not common curriculum for MBA students and other business professionals, I think the skill itself will pay dividends in your course work and future career.