Lessons Learned
The last several weeks have been weeks filled with a number of painful lessons learned.
Some of you might have seen the announcement we made with FedEx Kinko's regarding putting a "Send to FedEx Kinko's" button in the 8.1 version of Adobe Reader and Acrobat Professional. And you might have also seen the blogs and articles about the reaction of many members of the print community. The reaction was immediate, strong, and negative. That was our first lesson learned. We met the objective of developing new business opportunities for our technology and addressing a customer's print workflow problem, but did not engage with print industry thought leaders and influencers early in the deal cycle to determine how to best implement the program. We have a long-standing, very supportive relationship with the print community, so getting their input should have been baked into the process.
Bruce Chizen, Adobe's CEO, immediately acknowledged that our process, and therefore the end result, was flawed. We received a number of letters and emails letting us know just how problematic this is for print service providers, universities, government agencies, etc. We initially attempted to respond to each and every email. But as the volume built, we had to resort to a standard letter and a posting on our website. Another lesson learned. Immediate response is great, but the community wants action -- and quickly. What we really needed to do was sit down with them and have a conversation to see if we could find some common ground.
So Tuesday, Bruce and I met with a representative group of print industry leaders. They were tough on us. Big time tough. They told us exactly how they felt and the hard truths of what this deal means to them. We heard them. And they clearly told us what their expectations for next steps are. They had a lot to say, we had a lot to listen to. At the end of the discussion, we committed to coming back to them within two weeks with a decision on how we will move forward. We are going to do everything possible to find a way to deliver a win - win situation on all sides. It's the right thing to do. Another lesson learned.
In the meantime, some good has come out of all of this. We finally got many of the industry leaders in the same room and we spent the last 20 or so minutes of the meeting talking about what we could work on together once we resolve this big hairy issue that is on the table. And we will resolve it. That's the other lesson learned. At the core, we all want to work together, support each other, and ultimately, succeed together.