Feb

Mobile Utility

thebrandshow-mobileutility

Here’s another piece I recently wrote for The Brand Show, repurposed here because I’ve been so slow to update.

We see it every day:
Retail brands pushing promotions to shoppers through mobile devices in the name of ‘engagement’.

The retailer’s goal is to demonstrate the value of its brand through emotion and experience using mobile. The problem with this push approach is that it’s shortsighted and sometimes annoying to the shopper. In fact, people pay money to remove ads and opt out of messages (or ‘engagement’) just to get them off their device.

Why do people download apps?
Shoppers download and use mobile apps for utility – to help them find something cheaper, to help them find their car, to entertain their kids while waiting in line.

So there’s a disconnect between what retail brands want and what shoppers do (or desire). And there’s a need to help connect or engage shoppers, to meet them where they are. Retail brands need to see mobile more as a utility and less as a place to push a message.

Here are a couple examples of what true mobile utility might look like:

Movie theaters spend thousands to produce spots prompting you to turn off your phone in their theaters. A mobile utility could easily turn off your ringer at theater locations using location services. And maybe, just maybe, the theater rewards you for installing its app. Here’s a free bag of popcorn.

iPhone and Android developers observed people using their mobile device as a flashlight. So they built apps that use the camera flash or screen as a light source. What a simple, purposeful innovation. Now, what if the flashlight app was branded? Or maybe even the LED flash itself? It would raise awareness of the brand, keep it top of mind and build loyalty. How many impressions is that? How valuable is that? Maglite, are you listening?

For the CFO this may begin to sound like a money pit of development (or acquisition) costs and promotional costs. The point is to look past the immediate balance sheet and numbers. To look at ways that don’t just appease the shopper, but ways that boost loyalty and value.

Mobile utility can easily become the best approach to win the hearts and minds of your shoppers. Engage with them on their terms. Why do it? Because happy shoppers are worth more.

834 days ago Short URL Comments

Design/Digital/Ideas/Innovation/Marketing/Mobile/Process/Strategy/Trends

Sep

Social Commerce (on The Brand Show)

I’m a guest blogger on The Brand Show this week – The Brand Show is a weekly podcast (and blog) produced by Two West (The company I work for). The post is titled, “Why Social Commerce makes dollars and sense.” The premise of the article is to help businesses and brands understand how social features can provide immediate measurable value. Below is a copy.
–
Why Social Commerce makes dollars and sense.

A friend walks up and asks, “Are those new shoes?” “Where did you get those, how much were they?” Casual conversations regarding retail purchases happen all the time, between friends at the local coffee shop or with a stranger on the street. Yet, with sites like TOMS Shoes or Nike ID people can share their shoe purchase with the entire world, instantly. But how do you translate social interactions into sales?

The answer is social commerce. Social commerce is the term used to describe collective sharing and buying of products and services. It’s an approach that allows companies to more effectively measure social media’s ROI – which, up until now, was a major roadblock for implementing a social media strategy. Not anymore.

A great example of using social commerce and instantly reaping the benefits (monetarily and promotionally) was the recent nationwide Gap deal on Groupon. Gap sold 441,000 deals with their nationwide Groupon, bringing in $11 million in revenue. The offer brought subsequent in-store visits and millions of mentions and impressions.

Groupon is a social commerce service that continues to provide a source of conversation AND conversion for businesses. Did you catch that? Conversation and conversion. Both are equally important, yet those hesitant to implement a social media strategy often focus too much on conversion. The benefits from social commerce strategy are two-fold. The idea is paying off, and the proof is in the repeat business – 97 percent of featured businesses on Groupon want to be featured on the site again.

Many brands understand that social promotion of their product is worth a lot – and in some cases worth everything – specifically when we look at Pay with a Tweet. Pay with a Tweet allows you to virtually purchase an item by talking about it (online of course). The approach reverses the ideal of sharing your purchase after the fact.

Uniqulo (an e-commerce site in the UK) recently featured 10 products on their site that were progressively discounted as more people talked about them. They assigned a certain limit to the discounts, but understood that the social capital of sharing was worth the cut in immediate revenue.

What do these examples and the overall concept of social commerce demonstrate?

It’s evidence that social features influence sales.
It’s proof that results of a social commerce strategy are measurable and the benefits can be directly translated into ROI.

How can you use social commerce to your advantage?

Assign a value you’re willing to spend to market your product or service.
Plan either a promotion strategy or a discount strategy.
Utilize a service or build incentives into your commerce offering that provide valuable value or savings.

Social is currency.

961 days ago Short URL Comments

Branding/Conversation/Digital/Social/Social Media/Strategy/Technology/Trends

Aug

OpenIDEO

“OpenIDEO is a place where people design better, together for social good. It’s an online platform for creative thinkers: the veteran designer and the new guy who just signed on, the critic and the MBA, the active participant and the curious lurker.”

Tim Brown CEO and president of IDEO shares that

“The idea of crowdsourcing innovation is, in my view, still a big experiment. Conventionally the question has been whether the crowd can outperform the internal team. Our view is that small teams are good for some things and the broader community is good for others. The goal of OpenIDEO is to find out whether it is possible to orchestrate a collaboration between the two to achieve better results…”

I just signed up for OpenIDEO and am excited for its potential. Those of you who follow this blog may have noticed that I enjoy looking at crowdsourcing and collaborative platforms. In ’08 we saw kluster, a year later we saw Idea Bounty (a couple other projects here and there). And now OpenIDEO.

Tim Brown is correct, there are a lot of challenges with online collaboration and it’s still an experiment. One of the main hurdles being the collaboration, one of the main opportunities being the removal of time and place. These platforms must also include a process and system that lands on ‘the best design’. Kluster has shown strengths in the evaluation phase with weighted voting. Idea Bounty skips out on the limitations in collaboration (because it’s a competition), and encourage collaboration outside the platform.

OpenIDEO begins with a noble premise to generate ideas for the greater good. And at first glance a future challenge from SONY and WWF raises the question of true altruism. Somebody has to pay the bills, right? Reading the FAQs helps clarify that “Depending on the engagement level required by IDEO, we may ask for a contribution to help cover the costs of the challenge.”

The strengths of OpenIDEO I see at this point are
1) Enabling the Innovation Process – The platform uses a simple process to problem solving. One that helps translate field notes into ‘Inspiration’. Then by moving Inspiration to > Concepting (idea generation) to > Evaluation (idea selection). Mirroring Bill Buxton’s view that ‘Design is Choice, and there are two places where there is room for creativity.‘

2) The Challenge Question – In my opinion a question is the best way to solliciate a creative response. An issue I have with the traditional creative brief (used in advertising problem solving) is that it doesn’t demand a response. This approach typically provides context and ‘one thing’ focus statement VS asking for a creative response. Reference this video by Continuum to see how they shape an insight into an inspirational question. A question that demands a response.

3) The Field Notes (or Inspiration) – Field Notes help uncover additional insight to inspire better solutions, or to ask a better question. They also show the need to understand the system (or human problem) before a well-informed solution can be designed. Wouldn’t it be interesting if this phase helped re-shape the original question? Quick Plug: At Two West we’ve been prototyping the idea of the Citizen Anthropologist to help us uncover more insight – we call it ESP, or the Ethnographic Sampling Project.

4) The Design Quotiant – Linkedin Answers is a platform where question-askers vote a ‘Best Answer’ based on their subjective opinion (I’m surprised there isn’t community voting). This ‘Best Answer’ is a badge-of-honor designed to display a command of subject matter. The Design Quotient provides a similar opportunity to demonstrate your value, but in collaborative capacities. A badge that could easily be more marketable to collaborative organizations.

5) Innovation Street Cred and More – IDEO has a solid reputation for innovation, and with OpenIDEO they understand that past success does not necessarily equal future success. And with their OpenIDEO venture they will generate lots of intangible value (and street cred) regardless of a direct financial ROI. They’re growing a participant group (recruiting new talent), learning from the experiment (potentially building a proprietary solution behind the scenes?), gaining insight, press, and innovating publicly for the social good.

Overall, like I said, I’m excited for the potential and hope to find time to participate. Try it out and know they’re fixing those beta bugs. I really want to see platforms like this succeed. And ultimately see learnings for enabling and building collaborative experiences online.

1013 days ago Short URL Comments

Collaboration/Design/Design Thinking/Digital/Discovery/Ideas/Innovation/Interaction Design/Process/Social/Strategy/User Experience Design

May

My first portfolio site

first-site

http://www.justinpowelldesign.com/V1/
Or very close to it. I’m pretty sure I had a couple KU-hosted versions in early 2000.

Here are all versions since; version 5 is the latest but I really haven’t updated in 3 years (I’m working on it, kind of).
http://www.justinpowelldesign.com/V1/
http://www.justinpowelldesign.com/V2/
http://www.justinpowelldesign.com/V3/
http://www.justinpowelldesign.com/V4/

Looking at these early versions I see HTML tables, meaningless flash animations and pop-ups, and I ask myself what was I thinking!? But stepping back from execution, its interesting to see where things have come. Not just for myself, but for the web, design and visual trends in general. Its also interesting looking through the current trend-lens of ‘personal brands’ and ‘personal branding’. And I can’t help but notice we’re all a product of the industry, market and trends (even though we like to think we’re not a product of trends). This environmental influence seems especially true in professional fields driven by technology and innovation.

2002 (or so) I believed it was a differentiating characteristic to design for print and the world wide web. And in a way, it was break-through to work in both mediums 8-10 years ago. I labeled myself a ‘multimedia designer’, even though my ‘web design’ was pretty much all for looks. I sorted my site by print and web, print and digital, online and offline. I now say work is ‘integrated’. I’ve had a handful of motion projects. I saw ‘ideas‘ as increasingly valuable in early 2005. I wrote confident descriptions (maybe a bit cocky?) of myself. I used sharp angles and trendy typefaces (and ugly typefaces). I used pixel fonts and so-so usability practices.

What stands out as trendy, funny, or interesting for you over the years?

Even though some design elements and concepts trended with the market, some things remained consistent and true. I appreciate beautiful design and technology – or the age-old theory that form and function can work together. I’ve been (and will be) a fan of simplicity and great ideas. And finally, although its not from my portfolio portion, my 10 things I believe (so far) still ring true too.

Maybe it just takes 10 years (give or take) to figure things out for yourself professionally? Or 10 years (give or take) to establish a role where you don’t depend on the eves and flows of trends? It’s easy at this point to look back and say I’ve got things figured out (with grad school, my current role etc). And yet the year 2020 might come along and say those concepts of ‘digital strategy’ and ‘interaction design’ are so 2010!

And so I’m reminded of Bob Dylan’s lyrics,

“I was so much older then. I’m younger than that now”

Or in other words, stay consistent with who you are, but don’t think you have it all figured out. Stay young. “Stay Fresh. Read and learn. Experiment and explore. Never quit pursuing your passion and trade.”

1100 days ago Short URL Comments

Design/Digital/Interaction Design/My Own Work/Personal Branding/Strategy/Trends

Mar

Virtual People

Over 35,000 members and growing rapidly is a facebook group dedicated to the KU upset in the NCAA tournament: Remember when KU choked in the 2010 NCAA Tournament? That was AWESOME. A social media phenomenon and compelling display of convergence theory in the ‘virtual’ space.

I don’t want to get caught up in the KU/MU border war stuff or talk about K-State fans cheering a Kansas loss. I have my opinions, but the discussions don’t go very far. Overall, the primary motivation for the ‘hate’ in the group is that for some reason the KU fan base is collectively seen as ‘smug’, ‘arrogant’, and deserving of a humbling loss.

What I do want to discuss is a huge shift. A shift from conversations that typically happen on sports forums where ‘MUfan23′ or ‘KSUcats’ can anonymously post derogatory things about ‘KUfan2008′ (and vice versa). To a new ‘virtual world’ where personal facebook profiles are affiliated with content and groups with the same sentiment. Where a picture of a sad, KU-supporting, child displays the comment, ‘kid gets what he deserves’ from a father pictured with his own child.

These are real names, real people, possibly real professionals. People you work with and potentially consider for employment. It’s a powerful display of ‘virtual’ behavior with neglect for reality. The reality that there are real people on the other end of a hateful comment or classless piece of content. The reality that these actions are on public display with permanent records. Yes, the inter-web remembers.

I assumed the group to be primarily driven by high school and college-aged guys jeering KU in a ‘just for fun’ facebook group. But in reality its a mob-rule ‘hate’ group composed of parents, women, teenagers, and professionals. A fairly clear example of crowd psychology and convergence theory for a couple reasons.

“Convergence theory holds that crowd behavior is not a product of the crowd itself, but is carried into the crowd by particular individuals.”

1) Negative behavior has been on display via internet chat rooms and online forums since they were invented. The primary difference is that this behavior is no longer annonyomous. It only takes a few particular individuals to transition the behavior from anonymous digital platforms to very personal facebook profiles.

“Convergence theory claims that crowd behavior as such is not irrational; rather, people in crowds express existing beliefs and values so that the mob reaction is the rational product of widespread popular feeling.”

2) The existing beliefs and feelings of hate (or rage) were more than likely with the participants for some time. This latent emotion manifested itself through the crowd in what appears to be irrational behavior. And yet, like the definition states, the reaction is a rational product of widespread popular feelings.

These popular feelings of negativity are more than likely a result of history, attitude, and population demographics – another topic of discussion altogether. What we can see is a very clear pattern of real people and ‘virtual people’ being blended. And the participants either don’t see it cause they’re ‘in it’. Or they don’t care and are proud of it. Either way these ‘virtual people’ are part of an interesting behavioral trend that could damage their real-world reputations.

1150 days ago Short URL 3 Comments

Behavioral Science/Conversation/Digital/Social Media/Trends

Justin Powell

Filed under Digital …

Mobile Utility

My first portfolio site