The Chevy Volt TestDrive That Wasn’t

When I was first approached with an offer to TestDrive a Chevy Volt as part of a GM Public Relations campaign, I was unsure what to make of the offer.  Why was I being included? Am I a media source now?  I tend to think of corporate blogging in separate terms from what I’ll call media blogging and traditional reporting.  A corporate blog is less about reporting “the news” and more about building understanding of a company; the culture, the people, and the product, within the public sphere.  In my view, this specificity of purpose imposes a certain amount of discipline and etiquette upon the writer.  For example, I would not consider it appropriate to rant or “bag on people” in a corporate blog.

In accepting the offer to TestDrive the Chevy Volt, as a corporate blogger, I really had to seriously consider how doing so would relate to Indicee.  What connections could be made that would justify the inclusion of the experience on the blog?  How would it relate to what we, as a company, are trying to achieve?

The offer included both a TestDrive of the pre-production vehicle as well as the opportunity to speak with some of the GM engineers in the Volt product group.

Upon reflection I found that, despite the obvious differences  between the Chevy Volt group and Indicee, there were some commonalities that warranted accepting the invitation.  So, I accepted.

I distilled the commonalities down to 4 themes:

1. Try before you buy: The TestDrive is a time honoured tradition of car companies.  It’s a core cultural belief infused with enough historical precedence that you could probably even call it dogma.  It’s interesting that no one has ever come up with a similar concept for buying a house considering that, apart from Detroit, you’ll pay way more for a house than for a car.  In Vancouver right now, the vast majority of homes are being sold without providing the prospective owners with so much as the opportunity for an inspection the market is so exuberant.  But I digress.

In software circles, particularly in the Saas market where we play, companies have taken that TestDrive concept and added a turbocharge.  We call it “freemium” and it’s a core cultural belief at Indicee.  For us, it’s critical for users to experience an initial success in order to engender belief in the product.  Try before you buy.

2. Performance Management: Indicee is in the business of Performance Management for business, but we’re not the solution that a company like GM will likely seek out.  Although I can’t be certain, I expect GM has highly complex and integrated systems to manage every element of their business; from supply chain all the way to the point at which the car drives off the lot, time and effort is accounted for.  The interesting conversation would be related to how these systems interact and what it means for how these guys do their job; I can become application agnostic for a few moments and investigate the mechanics of their information delivery system.  Who knows; it may well be they are completely underserved by their internal systems.  When it comes to performance management, we have seen some departments in large companies living in the dark ages even while their colleagues enjoy all the best new toys that B.I. has to offer.

3. Innovation & Change: Within the walls of a big company like GM are, effectively, a bunch of smaller companies.  I expect the Chevy Volt product group is like one of these smaller companies.  In a sense, they are a start-up that exists inside GM.  The guys within this group have been tasked with deliberately venturing away from conventional automaker thinking in the same way that Indicee has ventured away from the traditional path with respect to delivering Business Intelligence software.  I was interested in seeing what similarities may exist between some of these guys and the team at Indicee.

4. User Experience: It’s not always easy to try something new.  There’s a risk; and, although it’s not always spoken it is present.  The risk is, “what if I fail?” So really, this speaks to the larger issue of infusing a product with trust.  Following someone into uncharted waters is ALWAYS a trust exercise, and trust is only gained through interaction with the product.  Like Indicee, the Chevy Volt guys are in the trust game.  So, what considerations went into ensuring the Volt user experience instilled that trust?  What feedback mechanisms are in place?

The Result

In the end, the Chevy Volt TestDrive didn’t happen for me.  Without rehashing the specifics, let’s just say I received an apology in place of a car ride.

I’m going ahead with my post about the Volt, not as some kind of social shaming exercise, but to illustrate a point.

Understanding business is a game of questions

Good questions don’t simply materialize out of thin air.  Good questions are the result of thinking through the activities, behaviours, concepts, and relationships at work within the context of what you are trying to achieve.  Thinking about how things connect.  What are the commonalities?  Where do the commonalities diverge? What’s the essence of the matter?  What are the themes?  In my view, this is a strategy for finding answers.

Enabling answers, an answer-friendly environment, should be the overriding consideration when asking questions.  The motivation underpinning a question should always be getting an answer.  Therefore, framing your questions within a context familiar and relevant to the person being queried is probably going to be helpful.  After all, how much good is asking questions when there is no one around left to answer them?

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Focus on outcomes

For example, what outcome was I trying to achieve with this Chevy Volt thing?  Was the outcome being able to say I drove the car first?  No, probably not.  I would say, despite not driving the car or meeting the guys, that a positive outcome was achieved.

I was able to relate our product, Indicee’s Saas Business Intelligence platform, with a product that folks will likely feel like they understand, a car.  In that sense, I consider the experience a success despite not having any questions answered.  In this case, my questions were academic.  There was no pressing business problem to solve (or media story to break).  The questions, these connections, were more important than the answers.

That said, my prepared questions did go unanswered.  So, below I will list a few of them.  If there are any GM guys reading this, feel free to take a shot at answering in the comments.

1. What do you think companies can learn from the TestDrive concept?

2. What would you consider the defining moment of this project and how did you come to this realization?  Was this a “measurable” moment from a performance management standpoint?

3. A lot has been said recently about how Design Thinking contributes positively to innovation. Are you familiar with the concept and do you subscribe to it?

4. What was done to ensure a positive user experience?

Enjoy.