These days, the slightest interaction you have with a website or a customer service interface is quickly followed by a request for a survey. This is of course considered good practice and in line with continuous improvement and customer care principles. But it has also become evident that these surveys and questions have exploded to the point of bordering on spam. In addition, I am not sure if anything useful generally comes out of them, although I am sure the analysts behind those surveys constantly draw conclusions and draft insights and recommendations.
Similarly, although not as bad yet, with the onslaught of COVID and the explosion of remote and virtual interaction, there has been an explosion of webinars and virtual conferences. Some are paying events, but most require just a sign up. Any known and unknown, established or aspiring organization, group or individual can and does bombard the web (LinkedIn or Facebook, for example) with yet more ground-breaking and insightful conference and webinar. On a typical day, I get 2-3 invites, and I am not even a sought after professional. The explosion of these webinars is also bordering on spam.
Putting these together the other day, I came to the conclusion that technology facilitation and COVID disruption have turned these once distinctive activities into a commodity within the reach of any skill and budget level. On one hand we can laud this democratization as an advance, but the sheer numbers that one gets bombarded with on a daily basis are fast transforming them into fancy spams.
Paris, March 10, 2021
Zeejay