In Sunday’s The New York Times Magazine (21 Sept 2008) was a Questions For with Mr Charles Murray (as interviewed by Deborah Solomon). Murray wrote “The Bell Curve” back in 1994 and has a new book out called “Real Education.”

In short, this guy has issues. Marketing issues to be exact. He might be right, not everyone is cut out for college. However, where he goes wrong is taking such an exclusive position. The fact that he’s an old white male only compounds that problem (but we’ll leave that discussion for another day.)

He would have been much better off selling this idea as being inclusive. For example, he would get a lot more buy in if his message is, “We all need to find what we love. What we’re best at. What will make us get out of bed in the morning. For some of us that’s college. For some of us it is not. Regardless, we as a society need to be firing on all cylinders. We need everyone to contribute the best they can at what they’re the best at…” He could have went on to talk about the number of people who get a degree and never use that degree. He could talk about the number of people who go to college because their family expects them to and they just end up dropping out.

Ultimately, he should be talking about how it’s best if everyone is happy and doing something they’re happy doing. How his new plan is about getting everyone to where they need to go – not telling people, “Sorry you, you and you can’t go here.” Being exclusive is only going to alienate those who you’re not including. Duh! And in this case, Mr Murray is excluding quite a few people. This is an idea that needs to be addressed. Mr Murray just needs to use a message that raises the tide instead of trying to sink other boats.

As a side note, and somewhat in the defense of Mr Murray, the fact is there is a certain amount of intended “‘over-booking” built into the college admissions system. Colleges admit students knowing they probably won’t graduate but also knowing they’ll pay. Like they say… When you want the truth, just follow the money.

“Rewards That Reward” by Lars Meyer-Waarden and Christophe Benavent is a fairly insightful overview of what are commonly called customer-loyalty programs.

“Rewards That Reward” was mentioned in an article in the WSJ print version but for some reason it’s not (yet?) on the WSJ web site. That’s certainly disappointing to say the least. Luckily it could be found on MIT Sloan Management Review (http://sloanreview.mit.edu).

Naturally, there are a couple things worth pointing out:

- In the 3rd or 4th paragraph they state: “Indeed, the proliferation of loyalty programs offering the same kinds of rewards has destroyed a key reason for them in the first place: differentiation.” We disagree – somewhat. It’s not the programs that lack imagination, it’s the marketing departments behind them. The last thing the world needs is another cookie cutter answer. Having a loyalty program isn’t enough to differentiate. The program itself must differentiate, or at least somehow be positioned to appear that way.

- This study was done in France between 2005 and 2007. How French your customer might be is up to you to decide.

- About half-way in they add, “Companies can use customers’ ages, incomes, sex and other factors to draw general conclusions about what motivates them…” But there’s a far better idea – just ask the guests  One-size-fits-all is obviously out, but there’s no reason to guess. Chances are pretty good the solution is going to be web based so just let your guests decide what they want for dinner and how they want it cooked. Obviously, that too becomes part of the guest’s profile that can be used to customize other communicated with them.

- They later say, “… An important step in designing rewards, then, is to make sure customers perceive them as being valuable.” Needless to say, duh! Sadly, there are companies who are going to find that level of guest-centricity as being some sort of stroke of genius.

For further reading the WSJ article did recommend for reading: SloanReview.mit.edu/wsj.