(12/7: Thanks for catching the typo, Orlando!)
Whoops, I forgot something.
Bredemarket hasn’t proposed any rules.
This may not seem to be a significant gap to you, but it is to me.
I’ve proposed rules on my prior platforms, but haven’t proposed one from Bredemarket. Here’s a list of some of the “Empoprises Rules” I’ve proposed in the past. My favorite:
The Phineas-Hirshfield score measures, on a scale of 0 to 100, the probability that someone will ask exactly what the Phineas-Hirshfield score is.
From https://empoprise-bi.blogspot.com/2012/12/what-is-your-phineas-hirshfield-score.html. The Phineas-Hirshfield score is copyright 2012 by John E. Bredehoft.
Time for me to make a cryptic LinkedIn post. Although now that I’m sharing the secret here, I’ll have to lower the score to 89.
Bredemarket’s first rule
But before I share my revised Phineas-Hirshfield score, I need to share the first Bredemarket Rule, the Bredemarket Rule of Corporate Tool Adoption. (Copyright 2023 Bredemarket.)
In any organization, the number of adopted tools that perform the exact same function is always in excess of one.
In other words, if there’s someone in your organization who is using an iPhone, there is someone else in your organization who is using an Android phone.
Or someone has a Mac, and another person has a Windows computer.
Or someone has one brand of software, while someone else has the competitior brand.
Even if an organization dictates that everyone will use a single tool, there will be someone somewhere who will rebel against the organization and use a different tool.
Three reasons why the Bredemarket Rule of Corporate Tool Adoption is true
Here is why this rule is true:
- Except in very rare circumstances, there are always multiple tools that perform the exact same function.
- Except in very rare circumstances (Bredemarket being a counter-example), organizations are made up of multiple people.
- In all circumstances, different people have experienced different realities and therefore like different things.
For example, on Wednesday morning I attended a Product Marketing Alliance-sponsored panel discussion in which one of the panelists mentioned that Asana was a valuable tool that helps product marketers get work done.
Another panelist was a Monday user.
Presumably the first panelist was exposed to Asana at one point and liked it, while the second panelist was exposed to Monday and liked it.
Or, since the panelists were from two different companies, maybe each company standardized on one or the other. Or maybe the departments within their companies standardized on a particular tool, but if you poll the entire company, you’ll find some Monday departments and some Asana departments.
Multiple tools in a single department
Even in the same department you may find multiple tools. Let me cite an example.
- Several of the people who were in the Marketing department of Incode Technologies have since left the company, and I’m working with one of them on a project this week.
- I had to send a PDF to him, and was also going to also send him the source Microsoft Word document…until I remembered from our days at Incode that he was (and I guess still is) a Google Docs guy.
- (As I’ve shared previously, I’m not a Google Docs guy except when a client requires it.)
Even brute force will not invalidate the Rule
Of course, there are times in which an entire organization agrees on a single tool, but those times never last.
My mid-1990s employer, Printrak International, was preparing to go public. The head of Printrak determined that the company needed some help in this, and brought several staffers on board who were expert in Initial Public Offerings (IPOs).
One of these people took the role of Chief Financial Officer, preparing Printrak for its IPO and for two post-IPO acquisitions, one of which profoundly and positively impacted the future of the firm.
Along the way, he established the rule that Printrak would become a Lotus Notes shop.
For those who don’t remember Lotus Notes, it was one of those Lotus-like products that could do multiple things out of the box. And because the CFO was the CFO, he could enforce Lotus Notes usage.
Until the CFO left a couple of years later to assist another company, and the impetus to use Lotus Notes dropped off significantly.
And that, my friends, is why my former colleagues in IDEMIA aren’t using HCL Notes (the successor to Lotus Notes and IBM Notes) today.
So how do you settle the Tool Wars?
Do you know how you settle the Tool Wars?
You don’t. It’s an eternal battle.
In the case of Bredemarket, I can dictate which tools I use…unless my clients tell me otherwise. Then the client’s word is law…unless there’s a compelling reason why my tool should be used instead of the client’s tool. In Bredemarket’s 3+ years of existence, I haven’t encountered such a compelling reason…yet.
Just be flexible enough to use whatever tool you need to use, and you’ll be fine.
Bredemarket 