Netflix, a US company that started life as a DVD-by-mail rental service, then added digital movie streaming to its offering recently announced a poorly-received corporate restructuring. In addition to a price increase for the mail and streaming services, the company split the offering into not only two products, but two separate companies with their own billing, recommendation, and customer account systems. Whereas a customer could formerly login to the Netflix website and manage a queue of movies for mailing or streaming, the split would create two different, non-integrated places for customers to do the same tasks, and even charge two separate items to a customer's credit card each month, a move akin to a restaurant forcing you to go into a different room, with a different waiter, and pay a separate bill for your appetizer and entrée.

Historically, the company has often been regarded as consumer-friendly, and technologically advanced, so the move legitimately offended a highly vocal group of customers. The CEO of the company offered a non-apology, and attempted to convince customers that splitting their service, creating more administrative hassle, and effectively increasing the price for less convenience were in their favor.

These types of maneuvers can best be described as a kind of corporate narcissism, where companies focus internally and treat customers as an inconvenience, rather than the reason they are in existence. The US-based airlines have been guilty of this for years, with flight attendants literally rolling their eyes while dealing with customers as if the flight was scheduled for the airline staff's personal amusement, and then those pesky paying customers rained on the party.

This narcissism can also occur internally, with corporate divisions passing inane policies and procedures that scratch some parochial itch, while inflicting hours of extra administrative burden on the larger organization.

The element I feared most upon entering my first triathlon was the swim portion. It has literally been a decade since I've done any type of formal swimming, and nearly every triathlete who started with running or cycling mentions a similar fear.

During my first several pool sessions, and first two triathlons, all my fears seemed justified. Despite being fit enough to conquer long runs and cycling sessions, a dozen minutes in the water turned me into a panting, whimpering, soggy mess, barely able to climb aboard my bicycle to catch my breath.

I remembered seeing people doing laps at my local pool, amazed at the sheer effortlessness of their swim, and the countless laps they would churn out while I struggled to wrestle through a couple dozen. Thinking there must be a better way, I asked my uncle, a long time triathlete for his advice, and he recommended some swimming books and videos that emphasized form and comfort in the water. My first couple of pool sessions where dramatically different from my former sessions, and the video's admonitions to work with the water, and strive for efficiency rather than power stuck with me. The videos also encouraged one to regard their swims as practice rather than training, a seemingly subtle shift, but one that I found revolutionary since my focus has shifted to perfecting form and technique, rather than pounding out laps.

What was most interesting to me is that what works best on land can be harmful in the water. Want to become a better cyclist? Spend more time in the saddle cranking out miles. Want to successfully run a marathon? Put in the miles. But if you want to be a better swimmer, one must stop, and focus on technique and movement in the water, rather than thrashing through painful laps that will never improve ability to the same extent.

There's a strikingly obvious lesson for other aspects of life, especially for hard-driving people who have been able to achieve success by the equivalent of sweating through more miles than anyone else. Sometimes stepping back, focusing on efficiency, and practicing form rather than pounding the pavement can have dramatic results, and feel far better than self-imposed flagellation. 

Since living in Paris I've come to appreciate baguettes, the signature long French loaf. I have many fond memories of buying a steaming hot baguette from our local bakery, and walking home from work nibbling on the end in true Parisian style.

While not much of a baker, and dissatisfied with what I could procure locally, I attempted to recreate baguettes at home. While quite simple from an ingredients standpoint, and containing only flour, water, yeast, and salt, the baguette is apparently rather difficult to make. The internet was rife with bread "experts" debating various techniques, one of the most elaborate requiring a dozen rising and kneading sessions over the course of nearly 24 hours. I selected a middle-of-the-road recipe, which still required an overnight rise although allowed the seemingly unholy use of a mixer, which the "experts" frowned upon. The end product was decent for a first attempt, and striking that I could get 80% of the way there with about 40% of the effort the more elaborate recipes would have required.

There's a danger in fast, easy, and cheap access to unlimited information, in that a bevy of experts offer conflicting and needlessly complex advice. There's a risk of debating nuances between experts, and acquiring additional equipment and skills to "do it the right way" rather than sitting down and attacking the task at hand. At the end of the day, I'd rather be pulling my baguettes out of the oven than sitting around debating kneading techniques while my stomach rumbles.

He Speaks:

I will be returning to Greece this year to speak at the Thessaloniki Business Conference. I'm looking forward to returning to this beautiful country and interested to see the changes since I last visited, before the economic turmoil.

In case you missed them, my regular column on CBS' Tech Republic contained the following articles in the month of September:

The great shared service question

Reactivity is not heroic; it's a leadership failure

Don't try to avoid hard work by automating

And in my new "Tablets in the Enterprise" column:

IT leadership often determines iPad success in the enterprise

Three reasons why Microsoft will never regain tablet dominance

Four missiles I'd launch to re-write Microsoft's tablet battle plan

Attention Podcast Fans! The Foresight Newsletter is now available in Podcast format on www.itbswatch.com as well as via iTunes. I make no warranties about the quality of the host however!

We spent the last weekend in Walt Disney World, near Orlando Florida. Our son is nearing 2 years old, and still a bit too young to enjoy the place, so this was more of an adult-oriented trip. We met with friends who also have a young son, and were able to consolidate babysitters while mom and dad had some fun, and also travel as a group through some of the theme parks, occasionally taking a break from the toddler-oriented rides to hit a faster ride while one of the parents watched the two boys.

Our son is at the age where he can walk rather well, and has a vocabulary of around 100 words. Traveling with a little guy who always wants to be walking and running can be a bit difficult, and he's occasionally "sentenced" to stroller time against his will to mitigate the risk of him running away from Mom and Dad.

After a long day in the Magic Kingdom, we put him in his stroller where he promptly began to attempt to squirm out of the restraints. When we sat down on a train out of the park, he noticed a sympathetic eye of a stranger, pointed to the belt holding him in his stroller, and began to shout "STUCK!" Everyone had a good laugh, although trying to explain to a two year old that he's intentionally "stuck" was unsuccessful at best.