You Can't Always Get What You Want

And sometimes, you are better for it.

Do you remember "Datsun" cars? They are called "Nissan" now, but in the early days they were not convinced they were going to be successful. In fact, there is evidence to support the theory that the whole USA beachhead was put in place to bring shame and disgrace to a Nissan executive, Yutaka Katayama, to force him out of the company.

Let's put a minimal framework in place. Let's get the bare minimum of service and support. And let's call the whole operation "Datsun" so when we get our act together and go back to the American market in a few years, nobody will have a bad taste in their mouth over the name of the company. The idea was that in several years they would bring all new models, and new executives and a new will to succeed to the market. Few would associate Datsun with Nissan and 'Mister K' would have long since resigned, in disgrace.

Well, it didn't turn out that way. Datsun hit the USA at a time when people were ready for such cars. Our family had one and loved it—a little 510 sedan. Mom liked it because she could see every corner from the driver's seat, it handled well, got terrific gas mileage and didn't break down.

Mister K put in an order for little trucks. Nissan balked, but eventually sent some over. Mister K chided the factory and told them that he wanted the next batch to have carpeting, radios and other sedan-like "luxury" features. The factory wrote back and told Mister K he was nuts. The people in southern California were misusing their little trucks! These were working vehicles, not family transport! But Mister K had launched the little truck craze and Nissan had to swallow hard and work harder to get back out in front of it all, again. One by one, Mister K went from success to success and by the late 1970s, the cars started to be badged "Datsun by Nissan" and a short while later, the Datsun name, with all of its goodwill, was gone.

Sometimes things don't work out the way we have them planned. And that's not always bad. Sometimes it's terrific. Mister K retired a hero to Nissan and to thousands of American fans.

I had a situation like this, this last. Up until today, my training consisted of booking a classroom and making a dozen or so seats available. Folks juggle their schedules so they have a Tuesday morning free, or a late Wednesday afternoon, or whatever it works out to be, and they travel from wherever they work on campus to the classroom. We wait patiently for a few minutes for any last-minute stragglers who might be struggling with parking or walking all of the way to the West coast of UNL. And then we begin a face-to-face, hands-on training that walks people through the subject. There are opportunities to ask (a few) questions. For the most part, we spend the next two hours listening to me rattle on about whatever the subject is, then waiting for one or two of the students to complete an exercise before moving on.

I thought maybe, in the twenty-first century, there might be a better way to learn this. So I set about the task of building a bunch of videos. These each explained how to do one or two things, on more of a "molecular" level. I literally made videos explaining how to log into the system, and how to log out. There's one on how to edit the page footer. Click on the link and How To Edit The Footer is all you learn. The whole thing takes just a moment or two.

So, from the comfort and convenience of your own office or cubicle, you could learn only as much as you cared. As much as you had time for. As much as you wanted to learn, today. You could come back tomorrow and watch the same videos, or pick new ones. So there would be no waiting for two weeks until training you wanted was offered again. There would be no need to clear the decks of any other engagements and meetings on that day, so you would be able to commit a couple of hours or more to getting over here and going through it all.

I thought I would get the Nobel Training Prize for coming up with that. And I actually have gotten good feedback from it, and suggestions for more little movies. But there are a lot of people who need to actually sit and do something, to learn it. Some people can read something and they know it. Others can hear something and they absorb it best that way. Others have to actually do it, for something to sink in.

I had made no provision for those folks. I'm working on stand-up training, now. Things don't always work out the way we would like for them to. But sometimes, the result is even better than we had originally imagined.