Interesting Reading

Came across two very interesting (and very long) articles/posts this week that are worth sharing. The first is from Wired about Gavin Potter, a retired management consultant who's working on a solution for the NetFlix Prize that relies on heavily on psychology. Unlike most other developers competing for the prize, he approaches the problem by focusing on human behavior.

Key quote from the article: "The 20th century was about sorting out supply," Potter says. "The 21st is going to be about sorting out demand."

The second article is a blog post from Seth Godin. I've been critical of some of Seth's thinking in the past, but his thoughts on the music industry are right on—and apply to a wide range of companies and how they interact with their customers. A lot of this goes along quite nicely with what I wrote here about the New PR.

Key quote from the post: "Customer support isn’t as important as consumer support. How do you get people to help each other?"

Despite the obvious differences the two articles go together quite well. Sorting out demand requires new thinking on how you interact with your customers. The world is changing. And how we respond to it demands a more (not less) human approach.