September 02, 2006: Thinking about Subject and Objects in a CRM Society

Two themes seem to be merging together into a common perspective. The more vivid is the impact that When the Levees Broke is having, the more I watch of it. The other is the impact that CRM technology seems to be having on our view of the world, which, in the past, I have considered primarily from the point of view of service. However, what I now have to say applies to all aspects of "customer relationships" purported to be covered by CRM technology. More recently I have also been exploring this theme in my comments on the Confused of Calcutta blog.

Let us begin with one fundamental premise: The name "Customer Relationship Management" is nothing more than (to try to use polite language) a linguistic deception. Anyone who thinks that this technology "manages customer relationships" probably has a thoroughly impoverished view of management, an absolutely distorted conception of the nature of relationships, and nothing less that total ignorance of who the customers are. It is that last point that inspired the title of this entry, because, at the end of the day, all CRM technology is based on the assumption that customers are viewed as objects, rather than subjects who, for one reason or another, have been motivated to engage with the vendor.

Then, while watching When the Levees Broke, it hit me: This is an assumption that has extended beyond the scope of CRM! Listening to a victim's account of the evacuation of the Superdome, the description came to a head when she finally blurted out that the evacuees were being treated like slaves. (Spike Lee may be the only film-maker not afraid to take such racially charged material and put it on the screen rather than bury it in a wastebasket.) To defuse the racial connotations, what she was saying was that the evacuees were being treated as objects. This may have been a matter of expediency or efficiency, but the people managing the evacuation made a calculated decision to deny subjectivity to each evacuee. Where this women invoked the image of the old slave markets, my wife invoked the image of Auschwitz, the other classic example of "mangement by objectification."

Were the victims of Katrina being treated as objects by people hooked on CRM technology? Probably not, but those folks did have the same worldview one finds among CRM promoters and users. Will vendors ever get back to those "good old days" when customer engagement was important? I shall not venture a guess, but I will confess to a strong streak of pessimism!

July 14, 2006: Cole's List

In reviewing Bruce Ackerman's Before the Next Attack for The New York Review (July 13 issue), David Cole offered his own list of "measures that are legal and appropriate in responding to a terrorist attack and seeking to prevent another attack." Here is the list in bullet format (which Cole did not use) but otherwise in Cole's own words:

• increasing security at borders, airports, and other sites of potential attack, such as chemical plants
• using military force, detentions, and trials, so long as they are consistent with the UN Charter and the laws of war
• investigating potential terrorists pursuant to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act
• prosecuting those who conspire to engage in terrorist acts or aid or abet such acts
• securing nuclear materials to keep them out of terrorists' hands
• improving coordination between law enforcement and intelligence officials
• increasing aid to foreign communities where poverty and resentment toward the US have been exploited by terrorists
• reducing US dependence on oil to offset the perverse incentives that such dependence creates for American foreign policy
• making progress toward global disarmament

Cole summarizes his list as follows:

Such measures, and they are only a sample, would increase US security without necessarily undermining constitutional principles, and most significantly, without encouraging the rampant anti-Americanism that the Bush administration's disregard of the rule of law has exacerbated around the world.

Personally, I think it is about time that the last remaining superpower show some signs of being a "responsible citizen of the world." I have my own list, which is of the key events that I felt led up to 9/11:

• Refusal to accept or negotiate the Kyoto Protocol
• Refusal to acknowledge the International Criminal Code
• Refusal to acknowledge the riots taking place at key economic summit meetings

Happy Bastille Day!