Destroy Your Artifical Barriers
January 16, 2009
Author 
In 
How many barriers are there between us right now?
Just one – a little button that says publish – that’s it. It’s simple. It’s insanely efficient.
What about for your company? How many barriers exist between you and your customers? Probably many – lawyers, supervisors, departments, consultants, procedures, forms – all of these things are artificial barriers.
Artificial barriers:
- Are expensive
- Slow the process to a crawl
- Kill creativity
- Water down ideas
- Destroy efficiency
- Make you late to the party
The web has destroyed the physical barriers.
So why are you keeping the artificial?
You can’t win in the ultra-competitive attention economy against a world of nimble, smart content creators who know the tools intimately and are incredibly good (and getting better every day) at creating things that spread. Not if you sound like a warmed-over press release because your content has been removed of personality by filters with the unspoken purpose of risk-aversion.
It is actually riskier to “play it safe” because you risk not being heard at all and lost in the oceans of information our world is perpetually publishing.
Don’t believe me?
Go look at the content on PR Web or Business Wire. Nearly everything published there is unreadable. The honest truth is the content there is tiresome, boring and not even scanable. These are communications still being created for a pre-internet age. Who are we kidding?
All of that material has gone through layers of artificial barriers and filters. They strip away the sharpness, edge and creativity of the content.
What if you removed the inefficiencies and superfluous layers and put a few smart, web savvy, highly trusted people out front to communicate your business with the world in a multi-directional format without oversight? Let them loose and give them carte blanche to use all the new tools to build real value. Let them communicate honestly without removing the personality and character that make your brand special. Let them format it in creative ways to keep attention. Let them create things that will actually move people emotionally.
Small companies or underdogs take note, it has never been easier to run circles around the 800 pound gorilla if you are organized for it. Nimble companies have always had the advantage over slow-moving, but the web has enabled this to a tremendous degree.
The gap between nimble and slow has become too great to ignore. Destroying the artificial barriers in a world with no physical barriers frees you in a way which is highly disruptive to competitors who can’t let go.
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Susan/Second Income Business replied | Jan 16, 2009 (2 comments)
Ah, freedom. Perhaps we really are in the midst of a paradigm shift. It’s very exciting to think of a wold of communication without barriers.
Tim Jahn replied | Jan 16, 2009 (59 comments)
“…and put a few smart, web savvy, highly trusted people out front to communicate your business with the world in a multi-directional format without oversight?”
I’m not sure they have to be smart, web savvy people necessarily. I think the important part is that they’re people. Not machines or cyborgs who’s purpose is to strip all personality from the content they filter.
As you discuss, the biggest problem with these artificial barriers is the watering down of any personality, any connection with humanity.
Joel Brown replied | Jan 17, 2009 (2 comments)
Another artificial barrier that i would say far to many people create is stopping themselves, for fear. Fear of anything really failure, or even success.
stetoscope replied | Jan 17, 2009 (2 comments)
Hi Adam,
I think the most difficult barrier is our incapacity to understand others. I agree with you the web separates people with a single click but sometimes this click is really hard to do. Why, because we just do not know what to say, we do not understand well enough the woman or man behind the click.
That is what is so hard for a brand now is how to create a coherent and vivid community.
Very hard challenge and still not really well explored.
The facebook community is a very good example to study deeply.
Adam Singer replied | Jan 17, 2009 (563 comments)
@Susan – I agree, a world where we all communicate openly is an exciting possibility.
@Tim – You’re right, but hopefully they do understand at least the basics of netiquette, HTML, etc.
@Joel – Fear is definitely a factor, one which must be removed from the equation altogether by everyone from the top down for success to happen.
@stetoscope – In the beginning it may be difficult, but I think it is definitely something which gets easier and more natural with time and experience.
Paul Hassing replied | Jan 19, 2009 (1 comment)
I think you’re spot on, Adam. I’ve been writing (what I thought was) concise copy for 20 years. Now that I’m on Twitter, I’m learning a whole new way to get gripping messages widely read with only 140 characters. Never has ‘the quick & the dead’ rung more true! Best regards & keep up the ace work! P. :)
Tel replied | Jan 22, 2009 (1 comment)
You miss a few important points. Many of those barriers are designed primarily for the purpose of protecting the middlemen who make a profit being gatekeeper. These people will not take kindly to being cut out of the deal, and they tend to have some power (that’s how they got to be gatekeepers in the first place). So you find that the 800 pound gorilla spends a fair bit of time and money “consulting” with important government industry regulators, and the expensive lawyers that you don’t think are good value actually know of some obscure and rarely used law that just happens to cover your business model and now they are working for your competitors.
Yes these people are expensive, and stifle creativity and efficiency but the one thing they are exceptionally skilled at is protecting their own back. Just a word of warning.
The other point is that procedures are necessary even with a relatively small team, just to keep the team together and make sure things get done. No one can be bothered updating the key points of documentation when they are in a rush, but that documentation becomes very valuable down the track. Cutting corners boosts efficiency some of the time, for a short while, then it comes back to bite.