Professor Elam

Tuesday April  15, 2014

I will be teaching Managerial Accounting in Summer I. I ran across this post, all about how

Social Media, advertising, needs to focus on the customer.  The author writes as though this were a new Revelation. It is not.

As you will learn in ACCT 3314, Dr. Edward Deming introduced this concept to the Japanese way back in the early 1950s. Ironically Deming honed his theories in WW II production for the US. But it was the vanquished Japanese that took advantage of the concept.

Make the customer the center of your focus and the world will beat the proverbial path to your door, Deming intoned. And so they did.

The result was a huge leap forward as the Japanese came to dominate manufacturing of cameras, stereos, television, and yes motorcycles. By perfecting the four cylinder Double Overhead Cam Motorcycle Engine, the Japanese assured their success in later translating that engineering to automotive four cylinder engines of the same design.

While the cyber world is all agog over social media, it is really just the latest development in communication. Think about it

US Post Office 1790

Telegraph 1840

Newspaper 1851

Pony Express, Atlantic Cable 1861

Telephone 1890 widespread use

Magazines 1905

Radio 1920s

Television, invented 1930s widespread adoption early 1950s

and since then internet, cell phones

and now social media, the telephone conversation spread to the masses all at once

Why is Facebook so popular?

It lets everyone have their own O for Oprah magazine….