Connected Customers
As mentioned in the previous post, I attended the INSNA Sunbelt conference and had a wonderful experience. The only negative with the event was the conference hotel's awful WiFi service -- and their response to it.
Hotels are used to dealing with disconnected customers -- hotel guests who do not know each other. They can tell these guests anything. Since most guests do not talk to each other, nothing is verified, no action is coordinated. In terms of social network analysis: the hotel staff spans structural holes between the guests -- occupying the power position in the network. Below is a network map of the situation. The centralized hotel staff are shown by the blue node in the middle, while hotel guests are represented by the green nodes. The green nodes only talk to the blue node and not to each other.
When INSNA arrived, the hotel guests were no longer disconnected -- many people in INSNA know each other and after initial greetings started to talk.
The conversation soon went to the lack of connectivity in the hotel -- no one could get a connection out of the hotel to the internet. Not only did everyone discover they were having the same bad experience, but they discovered they were receiving the same lie from the hotel staff -- "everything is fine, no one else is complaining". Being lied to made "being disconnected" all the more infuriating.
Soon "emergent clusters" of INSNA members went to the front desk as small groups and started demanding better service -- after all we were being charged for WiFi. The front desk manager became overwhelmed by the coordinated action and soon went into hiding and refused to talk about the topic. A network illustration of the connected INSNA hotel guests looks different. Because the green nodes are talking to each other and coordinating a strategy, the big blue node is now more constrained in it's response, and ability to act.
Eventually, wifi service improved, but not to the level one would expect in a business class hotel.
This white paper shows how power dissipates when people in a hub-and-spoke network [a.k.a. hierarchy] start to talk to each other.
Power dissipates, but learning begins.
Hotels are used to dealing with disconnected customers -- hotel guests who do not know each other. They can tell these guests anything. Since most guests do not talk to each other, nothing is verified, no action is coordinated. In terms of social network analysis: the hotel staff spans structural holes between the guests -- occupying the power position in the network. Below is a network map of the situation. The centralized hotel staff are shown by the blue node in the middle, while hotel guests are represented by the green nodes. The green nodes only talk to the blue node and not to each other.
When INSNA arrived, the hotel guests were no longer disconnected -- many people in INSNA know each other and after initial greetings started to talk.
The conversation soon went to the lack of connectivity in the hotel -- no one could get a connection out of the hotel to the internet. Not only did everyone discover they were having the same bad experience, but they discovered they were receiving the same lie from the hotel staff -- "everything is fine, no one else is complaining". Being lied to made "being disconnected" all the more infuriating.
Soon "emergent clusters" of INSNA members went to the front desk as small groups and started demanding better service -- after all we were being charged for WiFi. The front desk manager became overwhelmed by the coordinated action and soon went into hiding and refused to talk about the topic. A network illustration of the connected INSNA hotel guests looks different. Because the green nodes are talking to each other and coordinating a strategy, the big blue node is now more constrained in it's response, and ability to act.
Eventually, wifi service improved, but not to the level one would expect in a business class hotel.
This white paper shows how power dissipates when people in a hub-and-spoke network [a.k.a. hierarchy] start to talk to each other.
Power dissipates, but learning begins.
posted by Valdis at
1:01 PM
7 Comments:
Valdis! there are so many excellent lessons in this, I don't even know where to start. But I can guarantee you, the next time I'm having service problems of any kind in a hotel? I'm going to make sure I ask people in the elevator if they're having the same problems! Thank you. And sorry about your experience. Wendy Hoke and I were in Las Vegas in 2005 for a Society of Professional Journalists conference - and there was no wifi. In a hotel - where you are hosting more than a thousand journalists.
To be fair, that was probably partly due to the SPJ people themselves, being a bit of the dinosaur species anyway (ooo dig - bad, I know!).
By
Jill, at 2/06/2008 9:44 PM
Yeah, Jill you don't even need a whole group -- just one other person [preferably a stranger] verifying the complaint and the lie makes a BIG difference.
By
Valdis, at 2/06/2008 10:05 PM
So now we know what social network analysts do when they get together: analyze themselves!
By
Jon Udell, at 2/12/2008 2:04 PM
Valdis -
There's a relatively new technology from Meraki that lets you build mesh networks that take advantage of all available outside sources of connectivity. The Meraki boxes are $50 and should be portable enough that you could deploy them to a hotel and build your own infrastructure - don't know if anyone has done that yet.
The heavy duty network people bring their own network operations center to a hotel when they host a conference, and have a fiber lit to the hotel that they control. That at least was my experience watching my Internet 2 friends manage the hotel net at the 20th NSFNET reunion, which streamed video live from the hotel floor.
By
Edward Vielmetti, at 2/15/2008 9:42 PM
Ed, we have to invite you and your friends to the next Sunbelt which I believe is in San Diego. Feb is a good time to get out of MI and OH!
By
Valdis, at 2/15/2008 9:47 PM
Interesting example.
There is also an information/communication network inside the blue box. Desk clerks and other staff may implement policies differently than each other and management, or may establish ad-hoc practices to solve problems, different managers may not be communicating, etc.
By
Reed Hedges, at 5/12/2008 1:04 PM
Good point on communication within the blue box! It is intra-box and mostly the formal policy is communicated outward.
Some customer focused blue nodes may help a customer get around a difficult policy, but that usually not something offered up right away. May depend on the blue node's risk-reward calculation...
By
Valdis, at 5/12/2008 1:56 PM
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