On the whole I would agree with you. Certainly communication seems to be the biggest issue, and - somewhat ironically - in many ways the easiest to solve. I do understand the frustration of constantly having to bring bad news. But not bringing any news because of that is certainly not helping. I do understand they want to work as hard as they can to fix things and get the device out to the general public, but not having some dedicated resource(s) put aside to take care of regular, predictable communication seems so easy to fix.

But what I have learned from following this journey (and I totally agree with you that most of it is based on assumptions, simply because I do not have enough information to do anything else - so I will try very hard to be absolutely fair to WayTools and give them every benefit of every doubt I have) is that even regular communication doesn’t help, if there is no clear structure and clear handle on the situation underneath it. Communication with customers is not just about giving updates, it’s also about setting and managing expectations. When expectations have been set and turn out to be wrong, it’s the company’s responsibility to address that. But to address that, the company itself needs to have enough certainty about what it can and can’t promise. And that seems to be lacking.

Let’s assume WayTools honestly thought they were very close to general release in January 2015. Confident enough to offer the TB for sale, not to a small group of early adopters willing to take a chance (the Kickstarter way) but to the general public ready to buy a cool new keyboard and expecting it to arrive within a few months at most. From what I saw that seems to be what WayTools thought and acted on.

But then things went pear-shaped. They made last-minute changes to the hardware, which caused unexpected side-effects. In my personal opinion they should have expected some side-effects - which ones exactly may have been hard to predict, but changing the material in one of the key components (pardon the pun) and NOT expect side-effects seems a bit naive. But, OK, side-effects happened, adjustments had to be made, pushing back the release schedule by an unknown length of time.

And that’s when - I think - the first moment of truth arrived. This is where someone inside WayTools should have realized that the situation had fundamentally changed: from a product about to go into production, to a product that was back in beta-testing or even pre-beta-testing. This realization is crucial for how a company then communicates. Because it undermines so many certainties and planning assumptions that communicating and setting any delivery expectations becomes virtually impossible. And when you cannot set any realistic expectations your relationship with your customer-base fundamentally changes in nature. THAT is what WayTools should have realized and acted upon.

Many possible courses of action were open to them, including offering a public apology and a admission that they no longer had a clear sight of a possible release date. I know they’ve apologized but they kept suggesting that release was imminent, where they had no factual basis to make that claim. I am not suggesting they deliberately lied to their customers, but do think they quite likely lied to themselves by not admitting they had no clear line of sight to delivery anymore. Had they be honest to themselves they could have frozen their online sales, made the situation clear to customers that had already paid, and offer them the choice, there and then, of a full refund (a choice that was there anyway, so nothing new there) or becoming crowdsources instead, with no clear delivery date but a chance to be early testers of the coolest keyboard soon to be on the planet. Had they thrown in some immediate compensation - rather than the mythical ‘reward’ for people that ordered early - I, for one, had been very happy to sit back and see what happened.

That ‘mythical reward’ by the way is another big communication mistake. I know that TREGgers now say it’s well worth the wait. But why then keep it a secret? What is the point of that? How can I be placated and come to terms with not getting what I paid for when all I’m promised is some totally unknown entity? If it would be clear what kind of reward it is, even in general terms, at least I would feel in control of my own decision. I could then weigh reward against frustration and make up my own mind about the balance. But this promise is too vague to do that, and therefore adds to the frustration, rather than diminishing it. Even TREGgers telling me it is well-worth the wait is MORE frustrating, not less. I want to be able to make that judgment, not told by someone else. That’s patronizing and irritating.

WayTools could also have decided to pull back completely. Refund prospective buyers, explain the situation, and tell them they would be the first to be contacted when production and general release were again back on track and imminent. They could then have done rounds of beta testing in relative obscurity, iron out as many kinks as they needed, and come back with a triumphant “veni, vidi, vici - we’ve done it this time!”.

But limping on with everything being unpredictable, including the frequency, depth, and breadth of their communication was problematic to say the least. Remember the long technical articles they started with? Many people thought that was over the top. But at least it gave us concrete information, technical insights, and some sense of progress. It also showed a propensity to use flowery, obfuscating language - a sign things were not as much under control as they were trying to convince themselves of. And then the information stream dwindled and faltered, like a river turning into a creek that was quickly running dry. So now they have added more uncertainty and unpredictability to the equation, rather than less. Not only do we still have no idea (or indication even) of when and what to expect in terms of general release; nor do we know how many units are being tested, and what state they are in (if it wasn’t for the diligent work of dabigkahuna we wouldn’t even have a first clue about this); we don’t even know when to expect more information, in what form it will come, and how useful it will be. Now THAT’s what I call adding insult to injury. I think I can forgive them everything else, knowing how bleeding edge this thing is they’re trying to do. But to get something that is so easily fixable so wrong (i.e. the communication piece), that’s just - forgive me for saying it out loud - stupid! Makes you wonder how such incredibly smart people can sometimes be so incredibly stupid, doesn’t it?

OK. This has already become much longer than I ever intended it to be. I wasn’t trying to prove my point or anything. I’m just trying get some learnings out of this whole mess. For myself more than anything. I coach and advise IT leaders for a living, and am always looking for ways to help them become better strategists and communicators. Seems to me WayTools offers plenty of examples how NOT to do things. Even if their TextBlade ends up being the keyboard to end all keyboards. And that is both unfortunate and - in my personal opinion - unnecessary.

The End (I promise)