Dreamforce: WalMart activists have designs on Marissa Mayer
- Summary:
- Lessons I learned at this year's Dreamforce: design is important - even when it’s designing a protest about one of the world's biggest capitalist brands. Who did I learn this from? Two CEOs who head up a couple of the tech industry's best known brands. Frankly I wasn't expecting that one.
Lessons I learned at this year's Dreamforce: design is important - even when it’s designing a protest about one of the world's biggest capitalist brands.
Who did I learn this from? Two CEOs who head up a couple of the tech industry's best known brands. Frankly I wasn't expecting that one.
Mind you, Dreamforce this year had already seen a protest outside the Moscone centre relating to the presence of the Prime Minister of Haiti and actor Sean Penn who’s become an activist in Haitian politics. (That was before he got to the St Regis hotel later...)
But when the top-billed keynote session with Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer was briefly disrupted by protestors bemoaning her role as a WalMart board member, it took everyone by surprise - not least I'd assume the security team surrounding Mayer and Salesforce.com CEO Marc Benioff! (I wonder how that conversation went after the keynote? )
Activists have been pursuing Mayer at public appearances for the last year, seeking attention for the company's treatment of Walmart workers who say they were fired for protesting unsafe practices at the retail giant. They don’t usually get this close to her however so it was a surprise when they started shouting from the audience at the filled-to-capacity session.
Both bosses remained calm however with Benioff doling out advice to the protestors:
“We don’t want any more protests … but if you want to protest, No. 1, you can do it outside.
“No. 2, it’s better to split up when you start. Then when those people get arrested, then a second group stands up. Then a third … I’m just saying.”
To which Mayer chipped in:
How humorous you found such quips may perhaps depend on preconceived perceptions of WalMart's business practices and employee relations. (US government officials said this week that they're ready to file formal complaints against Wal-Mart for allegedly violating the legal rights of protesting workers last year.)"That's a design problem right there.”
But it was a neat enough put down as the topic of conversation at the so-called ‘fireside chat’ - in front of thousands of delegates in a cavernous aircraft hanger of a conference hall - had been very design-centric.
Design for living
Mayer explained her product design philosophy for Yahoo:
“I think that if you look at the progress in design and the value that’s placed on design in our culture over the past five to 10 years, it’s really remarkable.
“In the past it was really an afterthought. Get it working and then make it pretty.
"Some companies aim to connect and some aim to organise. Yahoo is really around entertaining informing and inspiring.
“When you look at those values design is inherent to all of them, you can’t have entertaining, delightful, inspiring experiences unless they are well designed and well thought out.”
Yahoo is now putting its money where its corporate mouth is on that front with a search for an SVP of Design who will report directly into Mayer.
But Mayer added a cautionary note:“Companies can fall, quite frankly, too in love with design.
“At the core you need to have something users want to use every day, like Salesforce. Yahoo focuses on the daily digital habit, stocks, news, email search.
“You need to have a core value proposition, be useful then have design as a core part of that product offering.
“I’d argue it’s important not to lead with design but have design be part of your product process.
“We don’t think of ourselves as a design first company, but mobile first.”
Mobile momentum
With Benioff having just ‘bet the farm’ on mobile apps, it was clear where the conversation was heading.
To her credit, Mayer has beefed up Yahoo’s mobile team to a headcount of around 400 - up from an official number of three in her first week in the CEO hot seat - and the firm can now boast 400 million monthly mobile users.
She admitted:
“I think mobile caught a lot of people by surprise. It’s really amazing how much people use their phones and how quickly it’s happened.
“When you look at the history for Yahoo, it was not clear how quickly to make the move.”
“We think of ourselves as mobile first – it is clear it is a wave large enough you can ride it to reinvention.
"[Mobile] was sort of everybody’s hobby and nobody’s job.
“I guess it was a crisis, it was an immediate priority.”
Prioritization is hugely important, she added, citing a never ending ‘to do’ list that she maintains:
"One of [former NFL Coach Vince Lombardi's] sayings was, ‘My priorities are God, family and the Green Bay Packers in that order.
“I now joke that mine are God, family and Yahoo. Except I'm not that religious, so it's really family and Yahoo."
Quite where WalMart fits in was unclear.