Open up your mind and say, ahh...

Content marketing? That takes a lot of time, doesn’t it?

Are you in a hurry to get somewhere? Yes. Content marketing takes time. And getting it right takes a lot of work, and by work, I mean practice, not research. You can look at demographics all day, but if you really want to get going, you’ve got to start doing, start failing, learning where to avoid the failures if you can, and keep going.

Pick Whatever Platform You Want

Have you seen Vine yet? Twitter just launched it. It lets you record six second videos. Like this:

Sweet yet healthy treat. Micro cooking show. vine.co/v/bJtLu2VYeDa

— Chris Brogan (@chrisbrogan) January 29, 2013

Can’t see the video? Click Here.

I just started using it. There’s probably a few ways it could be useful. I thought of one right away, and some of my friends are already making their own version. I promoted who was on my radio show like this:

Radio show guests this week on hbway.com/radio vine.co/v/bJMtr7EbqwL

— Chris Brogan (@chrisbrogan) January 28, 2013

Can’t see the video? Click Here.

So maybe little six second videos aren’t your thing. Maybe you prefer text? Great! Blog. And keep a great newsletter going.

A photo person? Swell! Use Instagram. Or Facebook. Or Flickr. Who cares? Pick whichever platform you want.

But How Do You Find Ideas?

You try things. You see what people are asking about. I dipped into Twitter and saw people asking about details of social media for customer service purposes. Pow. I could write a post about that. I looked on my free health and nutrition group and lots of people are asking for smoothie and juicing recipes. Maybe I’ll make a quick ebook and pop it into the Amazon store. Or I’ll have a live Hangout on Air and share recipes in real time with people from my kitchen.

Ideas are all around you. You need only scratch a tiny bit to find them. But you also have to have your “and this relates to the people I share things with like this” hat on.

Content is a “Pick and Scratch” Process

If you’re looking to build media and get some attention, you need to produce more content than just a little. Where do you find the time? You pick at it. I wrote this while I waited for a YouTube video I was uploading to process. Where did I find time to do the YouTube video? I had a space between two meetings and I knew I needed to shoot this particular video so I got things ready.

It’s the same answers I can give you for living in a little house. You find ways to keep everything functional instead of wasting it. Small houses save space. Content marketers find time. It’s related.

Serve Your Community Passionately

I think about you when I sit down to write. I think about how I can help you. I think about whether I can educate or inspire or instruct. You’re the only person I think about when I create. I don’t wonder what my colleagues are doing. I don’t wonder what’s trending. I work on finding something I can share with you to be helpful. You’re the focus. And that makes it work.

Here’s a formula I love to remember daily: First, earn an audience. Second, nurture a community. Third, empower a network. (feel like tweeting that?) If so, then maybe I’m doing my job well. If not, I’m still on step 2.

You Must Be Responsive and Fast

Gone are the days of “working on a blog post in drafts for the last week.” If the idea’s worth anything, post it. Even unfinished if you have to. You’re not being graded. You’re being consumed, absorbed, and if you’re lucky, passed around. If you don’t have time for the best blog post ever, what are you doing with your time? Reading Mashable? You have work to do.

Utterly stuck? Go for a walk. Ask yourself over and over again what your community wants. Don’t have a community of your own? Write for the community you want to serve! ( tweetable).

This is bigger than “just business.” This isn’t an avocation. This is a path. Are you willing to put in the work to earn what you want?

Ezra Stoller was an architecture student at New York University when he bought his first camera, sometime in the late 1930s. But that purchase marked a significant shift in the trajectory of his career. Over the course of the next several decades, Stoller would become known for photographing buildings, not designing them. His shots of modern masterpieces like Ludwig Mies van der Rohe’s Seagram Building and Frank Lloyd Wright’s Fallingwater and Guggenheim Museum often helped those structures attain their iconic status. Now, his work is being collected in a new book, Ezra Stoller: Photographer, that includes many of those famous photographs as well as much of his lesser-known work.

Stoller was a meticulous photographer. According to Nina Rappaport, a professor of architecture and the editor of the new book, it was common to see Stoller “exploring every angle, spending a day on site to understand the passage of the sun on the building.” Of course, with a career that coincided with the golden age of modern architecture, Stoller had plenty of good subjects to shoot. But he had a way of composing and framing shots, Rappaport says, that brought out the formal and structural qualities of those buildings.

“He was an artist,” she contends, “but never considered himself as one.”

In the preface to the book, Erica Stoller, Ezra’s daughter, offers an anecdote that transpired when he was shooting Louis Kahn’s Salk Institute, illustrating the photographer’s exacting eye:

I recall hearing about a problem at the Salk and his fearing that the equipment had been damaged; even with the tilts and shifts of the view camera, he couldn’t get the lines straight. Finally, he realized that the camera was okay–it was the building that was the problem. In construction, some of the concrete pours had bellied, creating vertical lines that were not exactly straight.

While Stoller’s architectural photography has proven to be his most enduring work, Rappaport points out that his oeuvre is a bit more diverse. In addition to photographing interiors for publications like Ladies’ Home Journal, he also had a great deal of personal interest in industrial subjects, shooting factories, machines, and equipment “in a time of a postwar optimism, focusing on the idea of production and progress,” Rappaport explains.

The new book, published by Yale University Press, is the first complete survey of Stoller’s career, during which he took nearly 50,000 photographs. It’s currently on Amazon for just over $40.

For the founder of a company as hot as Pinterest, Ben Silbermann has been awfully quiet of late. After claiming the title of fastest-growing web site ever (according to Comscore, at least), wowing audiences at the South By Southwest Interactive conference, and bagging a cool $100 million in venture capital from the Japanese retail giant Rakuten, Silbermann went off the grid this summer to address what has been in the eyes of many a rare shortcoming: The lack of apps. Despite Pinterest’s exploding web traffic, the three-year-old company has not had a presence on either the iPad or Android platforms.

“Pinterest was made for tablets,” Silbermann confided to me last month. He agreed to temporarily lift Pinterest’s summer-long lockdown to give Fast Company an inside look at its development process. (It was the first time he’d spoken with a reporter at length; the results will be published next month in a cover story as part of October’s Design Issue.) During a visit to the company’s new headquarters, an expansive loft in San Francisco’s SoMa neighborhood, I sat in on a design critique for the new iPad app and got to play with an early version, which Silbermann unveiled at a launch party last night.

Sharp, on the left, and Silbermann Pinterest calls this their biggest launch since the grid design was unveiled, in 2009.

Reporters and some of Pinterest’s most active users were treated to a make-your-own terrarium station (terrariums being a popular Pinterest meme), as Silbermann showed off the new iPad app as well as a new app for Android devices and an updated version of the Pinterest’s iPhone app. It was the biggest, Silbermann told me, the most important launch since he and co-founder Evan Sharp created the original Pinterest grid at the end of 2009. “In perfect world we would have had this a year ago,” says Sharp.

Though the update to the iPhone app and the new Android offering give Pinterest an improved presences on mobile phones, the big news is the iPad app. Even before last night’s launch, iPad use accounted for more than 50 percent of Pinterest’s mobile traffic—despite the fact that the company had no app—according to data from AddThis. More than that, iPads, which tend to be used in more relaxed settings, seem perfectly attuned to the laid-back user experience Silbermann and Sharp are trying to cultivate. “You want to be comfortable and just let yourself really explore things,” says Silbermann. “Pinterest is a discovery experience.”

The iPad app largely mimics the look and feel of Silbermann and Sharp’s popular website. Users can share, or “pin,” images and can explore the pin boards of users they follow. But crucially, the new app uses a feature called “sheets” designed to make it easier to skip between pin boards in a manner similar to tabs on a web browser. Another nifty tweak: A button that allows users to see all the pins from a given web site. The idea behind both features is to subtly encourage users to find new people to follow, and ultimately, to create a way for users to easily discover new stuff without going to a Google search box, the Amazon.com homepage, or anywhere else.

That’s important to Pinterest as a business. As Silbermann told me repeatedly—and as the forthcoming Fast Company feature will explore in depth—Pinterest isn’t trying to be just another social network. Silbermann and Sharpe are trying to solve the problem of discovery, helping their millions of users find (and eventually buy) new things. “We want to build a service that helps you discover things you didn’t know you wanted,” Silbermann says. “There’s a ton of opportunity in that core behavior.”

Top image: Africa Studio/Shutterstock

As competition in the fast-growing mobile web space continues to heat up, Amazon is working on a device to grab a slice of the pie currently dominated by the iPhone and Android smartphones, according to a Bloomberg report.

Interestingly, the hardware, cloud computing and e-commerce juggernaut is said to be working with Foxconn — which has come under intense scrutiny in the past year for working conditions in the Asian factories where it manufactures Apple gadgets — to create the Amazon iPhone competitor.

Bloomberg‘s report is based on “two people with knowledge of the matter.”

Amazon is also reportedly seeking to acquire a wide range of smartphone-related patents to guard against infringement accusations. That’s likely motivated in large part by Apple’s recent success in getting a U.S. District Court judge to grant a preliminary injunction blocking sales of Samsung’s Galaxy Nexus — currently the only smartphone capable of running the Android operating system’s most recent version.

Amazon’s Kindle Fire tablet has emerged as a very popular lower cost alternative to the iPad among consumers, so an Amazon smartphone does have some precedent for potential mobile success. A decent Amazon smartphone would also help it continue to reap profits through selling digital media including books, movies and music.

The future of the web is widely accepted to revolve around mobile access — and competition among tech companies is becoming increasingly fierce as hardware and software manufacturers jockey for position and profits in the next generation of consumers’ online lives. Last month, for example, Microsoft and Google announced tablet offerings meant to take on the iPad as smaller, more portable alternatives. In response, Apple is now said to be planning an “iPad mini” for release in time for this year’s holiday season.

Do you think Amazon would be wise to get into the smartphone market — or is that waste of time and resources for Jeff Bezos and company? Share your opinion in the comments.

Image courtesy of iStockphoto, tumpikuja

As competition in the fast-growing mobile web space continues to heat up, Amazon is working on a device to grab a slice of the pie currently dominated by the iPhone and Android smartphones, according to a Bloomberg report.

Interestingly, the hardware, cloud computing and e-commerce juggernaut is said to be working with Foxconn — which has come under intense scrutiny in the past year for working conditions in the Asian factories where it manufactures Apple gadgets — to create the Amazon iPhone competitor.

Bloomberg‘s report is based on “two people with knowledge of the matter.”

Amazon is also reportedly seeking to acquire a wide range of smartphone-related patents to guard against infringement accusations. That’s likely motivated in large part by Apple’s recent success in getting a U.S. District Court judge to grant a preliminary injunction blocking sales of Samsung’s Galaxy Nexus — currently the only smartphone capable of running the Android operating system’s most recent version.

Amazon’s Kindle Fire tablet has emerged as a very popular lower cost alternative to the iPad among consumers, so an Amazon smartphone does have some precedent for potential mobile success. A decent Amazon smartphone would also help it continue to reap profits through selling digital media including books, movies and music.

The future of the web is widely accepted to revolve around mobile access — and competition among tech companies is becoming increasingly fierce as hardware and software manufacturers jockey for position and profits in the next generation of consumers’ online lives. Last month, for example, Microsoft and Google announced tablet offerings meant to take on the iPad as smaller, more portable alternatives. In response, Apple is now said to be planning an “iPad mini” for release in time for this year’s holiday season.

Do you think Amazon would be wise to get into the smartphone market — or is that waste of time and resources for Jeff Bezos and company? Share your opinion in the comments.

Image courtesy of iStockphoto, tumpikuja

The United States Postal Service has banned all international shipments of electronics with lithium batteries effective May 16–including iPads, Kindles, smartphones, and laptops. Here’s the scoop.

Starting on May 16, new United States Postal Service (USPS) regulations will prohibit iPads, Kindles, smartphones, and other electronics with lithium batteries from being mailed to overseas troops or foreign customers. American firms with customers outside the country’s borders or people with loved ones serving overseas will have to use private parcel services at higher prices. The news is a headache for USPS employees, military families and electronic manufacturers and resellers… but a boon for private delivery firms like UPS, DHL, and FedEx.

Lithium batteries, which power many personal electronic devices, can explode or catch fire in certain conditions. In order to get around this, consumer electronic manufacturers such as Apple or Amazon ship their products with a minimal charge–which mitigates the safety risk. Fully charged, improperly stored, or improperly packed lithium batteries do pose a risk of explosion, however. Lithium batteries have been implicated in at least two fatal cargo plane crashes since 2006, including a UPS jet in Dubai.

For cargo shippers and postal services, this poses a quandry. Improperly shipped lithium batteries are a serious safety risk. However, shipping of personal electronics is a multibillion dollar business annually. According to the USPS, they will prohibit shipping of lithium batteries and any device containing them effective May 16. In a publicly issued document, the USPS says that the ban was made because of deliberations between the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) and the Universal Postal Union (UPU), two international bodies which issue semi-binding guidelines for global trade. The IATA’s 2012 regulations for lithium metal and lithium ion batteries allow for the shipment of consumer electronics with proper safety precautions, while the UPU’s lithium battery regulations are ambiguously worded–worthy of an entire phalanx of lawyers.

Lithium batteries have been implicated in at least two fatal cargo plane crashes since 200.

The USPS tells customers they anticipate “on January 1, 2013, customers will be able to mail specific quantities of lithium batteries internationally (including to and from an APO, FPO, or DPO location) when the batteries are properly installed in the personal electronic devices they are intended to operate.” In the meantime, Americans hoping to send iPads, Kindles, laptop batteries, and smartphones overseas will be forced to either break the law by lying about their package contents or to shell out dearly for higher-priced private shipping services.

Fast Company spoke to Darlene Casey of the Postal Service, who explained the new regulations. According to Casey, the revision was required by ICAO and UPU standards, both of which prohibit lithium batteries in mail shipments on international commercial air transportation (while allowing them in non-mail shipments such as private courier services). The May 16 start date was chosen “to provide mailers with time to make shipping adjustments;” the Postal Service also acknowledges that the change will be an inconvenience to cus­tomers and that the “USPS is working with expert organizations to determine if any new exceptions can be developed prior to January 2013. Further announcements will be made should USPS be able to accept lithium batteries in certain types of mail shipments as soon as any new options become available.” As a courtesy, Fast Company was provided with a graphic of consumer electronic items which will be forbidden on outbound U.S. international mail after May 16 (below).

Of course, the group hardest hit by the USPS decision are American troops. Servicemembers residing overseas with APO and FPO addresses are served only by the USPS and FedEx. Neither DHL not UPS deliver to APO or FPO boxes; however, both do ship to countries and cities where troops are based. After May 16, friends or family members hoping to send low-cost tablets and ereaders to servicemembers abroad will no longer be able to send parcels by US Mail. It’s important to note that the restrictions do not reply to shipping lithium batteries domestically or to American residents receiving lithium batteries; the ban only applies to outbound lithium battery products shipped international.

Winnie Pritchett of non-profit organization iPads for Soldiers, which ships iPads without any financial assistance from Apple to troops overseas, notes that they currently send the bulk of their iPads overseas via USPS.

Pritchett calls the new regulations a case of the Postal Service “shooting themselves in the foot.” iPads for Soldiers sent over 600 iPads to Afghanistan in 2011; each iPad took approximately two weeks to make it from the United States to Afghanistan. According to Pritchett, the iPads were a particular hit with wounded warriors with missing hands–they were able to use the touch-based iPad much more easily than a conventional computer.

As private parcel services, FedEx, DHL and UPS all permit shipping of lithium battery-powered electronic devices. UPS’ Mike Mangeot told Fast Company that the shipping giant handles lithium battery-containing electronic devices in compliance with U.S. and international shipping regulations, conducts extensive employee training for handling lithium battery shipments, and audits customers for proper packaging, handling, and documentation of lithium batteries.

Although the Postal Service claims to be adhering to international regulations, their strict ban on any international lithium battery shipment is semi-exceptional–among major worldwide postal services, only the Australia Post has a similar regulation. Other major postal services have less stringent rules; the Royal Post (UK), for instance, allows smartphone, iPad, and Kindles while forbidding laptop computer batteries, and Japan Post restricts lithium batteries to slower sea mail. Yet other services, such as the German Bundespost, still allow international air mail of lithium batteries within stringent safety requirements.

Another group hard hit by the USPS lithium battery ban are commercial resellers. Aaron Hall of bay.ru, an American firm specializing in consumer electronics exports to the Russian market, told Fast Company that “few outside of our industry realize that world’s best express shippers like FedEx, DHL, and UPS still have major challenges in Russia. That said, there is often one preferred shipping solution for any given good.” Hall’s firm will use alternate shippers for the Russian market; the issue is a large one for giants like Apple and Amazon, along with smaller resalers.

Other services, such as the German Bundespost, still allow international air mail of lithium batteries within stringent safety requirements.

In the end, the USPS’ rush to ban lithium batteries is surprising. Although the Postal Service claims they are just getting in line with international regulations, the Bundespost and Royal Mail either successfully straggled getting in line with overly cautious (and ambiguous) safety regulations, or find loopholes to get around them. The USPS has legendary financial difficulties and a track record of institutional paralysis and poor decision-making. Despite implied promises of a January 2013 policy change, shutting off Kindle exports to Amazon and iPad shipments to American troops is simply puzzling. The root of the matter is that lithium batteries, with proper safety precautions, are safe for air shipping. While it is the job of the ICAO and UPU to enact overly-stringent bureaucratic restrictions, a blanket ban offers minimal safety benefits and massive economic damage to the USPS.

Top Image: Fickr user Wheat_In_your_Hair/ Bottom Image: USPS

Via Fast Company: http://www.fastcompany.com

According to a leaked memo acquired by The Verge, retailer Target is instructing its staff to remove Amazon own-branded hardware from its shelves. That means the Kindle suite.

Target’s memo says simply that it’s reviewed its product lineup and decided not to carry any further Amazon hardware. Stock will be replenished through May 13th, Mother’s Day, and the memo notes that the Kindle Touch will be in an ad campaign for the week of May 6th. Staff are instructed to follow best practices to “remerchandise” remaining stock, and to explain to customers who ask that it’s all just part of the normal flow of business, continually evaluating products they stock and so on.

A swift and decisive halt, then, carried out even as the store tries to maximize customer interest and, of course, its revenues by popping the Touch on an ad promotion just before Mother’s Day. The Internet has a pretty clear idea of why Target is doing this, and it comes from Target’s own words: The move is due to a “conflict of interest.” That conflict is Apple.

Target and Apple got all chummy with each other recently to launch some of those in-store “mini” Apple stores–also seen in other U.S. retailers and big-box vendors elsewhere around the world. No matter that Amazon’s Kindle Fire has snapped up over 50% of the Android market in the U.S., Apple products are selling like crazy right now–and for higher price tags. They also have an identifiable cachet which will attract customers to Target stores where–whadya know?–they may spend a little extra cash on other items too. That is to say: any one of the hundreds of iPhone, iPad, iPod and Mac accessories. Ironically, Target’s keeping Amazon-compatible accessories on its shelves for exactly this reason: They may be impulse purchases, ensuring stores like Target get a steady dribble of cash from low-value items sold in bulk.

Would Apple have insisted, though, that Target only sell Apple’s tablet devices (and other hardware) because Amazon is aiming squarely at Apple’s markets in tablets, music, video, and so on? It’s not beyond the pale. Apple does, after all, have a thing about controlling the market space.

As an interesting counterpoint, it’s common in Europe to see an in-store mini Apple store right alongside a shelf of rival tablet PCs from competitors, which could be a hole in this logic. But the Kindle isn’t really a presence among these devices because Amazon’s taking ages getting its international thinking straight, and while there are a ton of peer tablets, none is quite as much a “threat” as the Kindle (at least, right now).

And if it is an Apple dictate that Kindles don’t get sold alongside its precious tablets, then there’s one very good reason Target could be persuaded to go along with it. It’s because Apple isn’t a threat to Target’s business model in quite the same way that Amazon is. Amazon has oft been credited with the death of the physical bookstore, and nowadays sells all sorts of equipment and hardware that are typical Target stock. So much pressure on prices and convenience is exerted by Amazon that it may be one of the main factors behind Target rival Best Buy’s decision to close many big-box stores and totally alter its strategy. And while Amazon just needs efficient, low-staff distribution centers, Target needs a whole infrastructure, sales staff, and space. It can’t afford to “pile it high and sell it cheap” in the same digital way Amazon does.

Target’s just trying to avoid Best Buy’s fate. Or perhaps it also thinks e-readers aren’t the wave of the future.

Image: Flickr users Team Traveller, Tony Buser

Via Fast Company: http://www.fastcompany.com

Last month, I talked to Amazon customer service about my malfunctioning Kindle, and it was great. Thirty seconds after putting in a service request on Amazon’s website, my phone rang, and the woman on the other end–let’s call her Barbara–greeted me by name and said, “I understand that you have a problem with your Kindle.” We resolved my problem in under two minutes, we got to skip the part where I carefully spell out my last name and address, and she didn’t try to upsell me on anything. After nearly a decade of ordering stuff from Amazon, I never loved the company as much as I did at that moment.

I never loved the company as much as I did at that moment.

Remember, this was a customer-service call, so I was fully prepared for it to suck. Like most American consumers, my experience with service interactions is largely negative, whether it’s on the phone, in the murky depths of a commerce site, or in the aisles of an electronics store. I’m accustomed to the company being in control, and for our communication to be cold, scripted, and inhumane. Barbara’s congenial but no-nonsense approach was part of what made this experience different, but more important, she had access to exactly the right data about me, and that made the favorable exchange possible. The fact is, Amazon has been collecting my information for years–not just addresses and payment information but the identity of everything I’ve ever bought or even looked at. And while dozens of other companies do that, too, Amazon’s doing something remarkable with theirs. They’re using that data to build our relationship.

The Most Useful Data Set in the World

Big Data has gotten a lot of attention over the past 18 months as retail, manufacturing, and technology companies realize the gold mines they’re sitting on and rush to scour them for competitive advantage. Nearly all of this discussion, though, revolves around consumer trends, marketing guidance, new product planning, and other market-level insights. When McKinsey wrote its omnibus report on Big Data last year, the consulting company identified five different ways it can be used to create value, but only one of those methods mentions customers at all, and then only in terms of improved segmentation. The Wall Street Journal outlines several business success stories in its Big Data blog series, but it focuses almost entirely on smarter market visualization, better process maps, and other efficiency enhancers. Efficiency is a worthwhile goal, but from a customer’s perspective, data has far more power at the personal level.

In order for interactions to feel individualized and human, they must be well informed.

Perhaps the only business and marketing topic that’s been talked about more than Big Data recently is the evolution of brand relationships into two-way conversations. Now that consumers have seen what social media and mass customization are capable of, they increasingly expect this kind of personalization in their communication with favored brands, not just a passive role absorbing marketing messages. Combine this insight with the rise of Big Data, and you have a clear mandate: In order for interactions to feel individualized and human, they must be well informed. That makes data about the customer you’re talking to right now the most useful data of all.

Technically, this is hard to do. Amazon has grown large while staying fairly consistent as an organization, but most big companies got big through acquisition, and that makes synchronizing data a massive chore. Getting targeted information in front of the person who’s dealing with an individual customer, or designing for one, is still a low priority. Customer service in its various forms is still treated as an expense to be minimized, not an opportunity to be developed.

Service designers know that the opposite is true. When a customer calls the support number, sends an email, or talks to a store employee, he is initiating a conversation. You have his undivided attention, even if he’s annoyed, and that makes it a crucial brand-defining moment. He’s hoping for a conversation, but bracing for an ordeal. He knows you’ve collected information on him for your own purposes and wondering why you don’t do something useful with it. Not useful to you–useful to him.

Synchronized data is worth the expense because it’s a hallmark of human interactions. If I talk to a friend and they keep asking me for information I know they already have, I have a right to get irritated. In the age of Big Data, I hold brands to the same standards. The few that meet those standards earn my trust and loyalty. But if you’re hoping to use personal data successfully, there are a few things you have to get right.

I have no idea what Barbara was looking at on her screen when she called me up, but it gave her the information she needed about me in a matter of seconds. Someone designed the tool that delivered it and made sure she had access to it. Despite your internal divisions, I as a customer have only one relationship with your brand, and it has to be seamless. That’s what makes information tools so vital. They transfer data that’s been collected automatically or through form-filling into the personal realm, allowing us to get the awkward, impersonal, corporate conversation out of the way, and make way for the human one. The rise of portable platforms makes this possible for designers and store employees, too, not just the headset-wearing call-center folks.

When I meet an old acquaintance at a party, she remembers my name and asks one or two questions about things we discussed last time we spoke. The fact that she remembers establishes rapport; the fact that she doesn’t list out every bit of information she possesses makes me feel comfortable. Without even thinking about it, humans are very good at conveying just the right amount of information in personal conversation.

She only referenced the data that was necessary. It quickly disarmed my self-defense instinct.

Companies need to do the same. When I spoke with Barbara at Amazon, she had access to plenty of data, but only referenced what was necessary, starting with my name and the problem I was trying to solve. It quickly disarmed my self-defense instinct and made me comfortable referencing facts we knew in common but hadn’t explicitly stated. “Can you send it to the Northeast Ninth Avenue address?” I asked when we got to shipping options, even though I hadn’t asked if she had it on file. “Sure,” she said, and I smiled.

Many of us have read the story of Target’s uncanny ability to recognize a customer’s pregnancy based on her purchasing habits. At first frightening, this revelation sounds reasonable on further review, but no less creepy. Target quickly learned to get nuanced about using this insight. To avoid upsetting these customers (and their parents), they now send them flyers customized to include just a few coupons for prenatal necessities, mixed in with a random assortment of others.

That’s a partial solution at best. In the future, smart retailers will be more transparent about their data-gathering efforts and use the results more appropriately. They’ll give customers more options for controlling how much they share and how that information gets applied. Regardless of who gathered it, customers still see it as their data. They expect to be treated like the owners.

The power of being known

There’s a quiet race going on right now among brands to form customer relationships that earn loyalty in the face of increasing competition, and personal data is the surest way there. Brands like Zappos, Netflix, and Amazon are already showing the power of such an approach. Not only does smart data use empower you to treat customers as individuals, it does so without invoking many of the fixed expenses associated with improved service. Good data support doesn’t require a vastly expanded workforce, or even a new type of employee–these are conversations that people already know how to have.

In the future, customers will expect these sorts of interactions.

But imagine the benefits if you get it right. An auto mechanic who’s smart about data could tell you that your fan belt is due for a change in 2,500 miles and suggest doing it today to save future labor costs. An airline that knows more than just your frequent flier number could propose a seat based on your past selections, offer discounted upgrades tailored to your preferences, and let flight attendants know you prefer tomato juice to orange juice in the morning–even if you’re just flying coach. If they’re really paying attention, they could even learn whether or not to offer you an upsell, and in which categories to do it.

As long as they’re given transparency and control, consumers are becoming quite comfortable with these kinds of interactions. In the future, they’ll expect them. When that happens, the question won’t be “How much do you know about me?” but “What are you going to do with what you’ve found?”

Images: almagami and Everett Collection via Shutterstock

Digital services, such as Google Maps and Foursquare, are a fast-growing part of our daily lives. These services can be beneficial and much loved, like Amazon Prime, but poorly designed services can revile, causing customers to terminate brand relationships.

Designing living entities

So what is service design all about? At Fjord, we use service design to shape delightful experiences wherever people meet the products they use. Service design is about creating living entities that evolve and change over time. This is fundamentally different from other forms of design, which generally aim for permanency. Successful service design changes in three ways:

• In response to people’s evolving needs and expectations.
• According to feedback loops from users and related service systems.
• Natural growth and added functionality over time.

It’s not that the design of services is inherently better or more important than other forms of design. But it’s different. It’s more multidimensional, and it requires different skills and a different approach–because digital services are living entities, not static or one-off things.

Designing for love

Instead of getting stuck in industry jargon, we like to compare services to human relationships. After all, people’s relationships with services mirror their relationships with people. Users go through different stages of service engagement, and when service design is great, they have a long-lasting relationship of trust–they might even fall in love. It’s been proven through many studies that users’ relationships to their mobile phones (and the digital services that they use) can be as powerful as their relationships with people. They feel incomplete or cut off without their gadgets and services.

Delightful experiences can make people loyal and valuable advocates.

At Fjord, we aim to design services that people fall in love with. When you design for love, you have to design for the heart, for an emotional connection, rather than merely for the mind. When you appeal to the heart, you can usually create more value. Compare Alessi and Ikea dinnerware–the functional utility is similar, but people pay way more for Alessi objects that are designed with passion and for the heart. Or you can compare Manolo Blahnik shoes to Skechers–arguably Blahniks have worse utility, but people are still willing to foot the cost.

The same logic goes for digital solutions. In a recent post explaining why Facebook bought Instagram for a whopping $1 billion, GigaOm’s Om Malik put it this way: “People like Facebook. People use Facebook. People love Instagram. Facebook lacks soul. Instagram is all soul and emotion.”

When the iPhone first came out in 2007, it wasn’t the most feature-rich phone, and an over-burdened AT&T network made voice calling a real pain. However, the iPhone design and overall package was so good that people were effectively prepared to give up calling in order to have one–and pay very good money for the privilege.

At its best, digital service design helps create a strong bond between a company and its customers. Disjointed and impersonal solutions are a real turnoff, but delightful experiences can make people loyal and valuable advocates. At Fjord, we often talk about “the service as the marketing,” meaning that the most powerful marketing is the “Look at this!” or “Let me show you!” effect that well-designed and considered digital and mobile solutions can have in the real world. Investing in carefully crafted and well-packaged digital service experiences is probably a better investment than sinking money into traditional one-way marketing to create buzz about something that doesn’t buzz on its own.

Three stages to true love

Just like love in real life, falling in love with a service is something that happens gradually. Yes, love at first sight does exist, but it’s an exception, not the norm. Usually there are three stages of engagement with the service:

1. MATCHMAKING

The matchmaking stage is about people discovering and understanding the service in the first place. Services must be designed so that they are easily discovered and understood. They have to feel real and relevant, by way of meeting real human needs. Importantly, there should be a strong “hook” or strong point of differentiation–the thing that people will mention to their friends. If you’ve done a good job designing for this first stage of engagement, you can hope for a user reaction like “aha!” This type of reaction indicates that they understand it, and could see how the service could be useful for them.

If you’ve done a good job, you can hope reactions like ‘aha!’

Fjord has collaborated with Foursquare, and the company offers a good example of how to do matchmaking the right way. It has a focused offering that is both social and approachable, and a playful personality that appeals to a diverse group of users. As a result, Foursquare has become the winner in its domain. With more than 20 million users and over 2 billion check-ins, the three-year-old business has clearly earned more “aha!” reactions than its direct competitors.

2. DATING

The dating stage is the first trial of the service, and it’s really important to reduce all barriers to usage in order to make it as easy as possible to get going. It’s also very important to appeal to the heart and make people really engage with the service. Gaming dynamics, social service components, and beauty can be very powerful at this stage. Great content, humor, and a winning personality are key. A successful design for the dating stage often results in the famous “wow!” reaction from the user.

When we worked with Citibank to design its iPad app, there was a clear focus on rethinking how to represent financial information on the tablet. The service makes it easy for Citi customers to visualize and understand their finances–a first for many users just getting started with online banking. It’s a true post-PC user experience, and the app succeeds in making Citi customers feel that their money is more tangible. Results show that during the first six weeks after the Citi iPad app’s release, the number of downloads was more than five times that of the number of Citi iPhone app downloads. And more than 5,000 Citi customers who had never created online or mobile user IDs signed up for the iPad app, suggesting that the tablet application had managed to woo users trying online banking for the first time. Citi has clearly done a good job in getting that “wow!” reaction that is fundamental to success during the dating stage.

3. TRUE LOVE

The third and most powerful stage is true love. If you’ve designed a service that adds value and is meaningful over a long period, users will stay loyal and let the service become a life companion. Consistency and trust will be essential during this stage. Just like with a human companion, you want to be able to always rely on the service. As you trust the service with more of your content and more of your secrets over time, you should never have doubts about privacy or the true intentions of the service provider. An ability to fluidly use the service across platforms and locations will be important. But with multiple touchpoints and interactions, complexity is a real issue–both for people using the services, as well for companies that provide them. In digital, there’s a tendency for complexity to take root and grow like weeds in a garden. For service designers, the trick is to make complex systems simple and elegant. When users fall in love with a service, a typical reaction is “of course!”–an indication that the interaction feels intuitive and natural.

Consistency and trust will be essential during this stage.

Fjord partnered with Qualcomm and the Prevention Plan to design Macaw, an app that turns your smartphone into a personal wellness monitor. The service takes a proactive approach to helping people understand and improve their health. Macaw turns a topic that could feel heavy and dry into the opposite–fun, engaging, social, and immediately understandable–through the use of clear visual information. The app effectively uses gaming dynamics and empowers people to take their health literally into their own hands. While some users may start with Macaw as a simple experiment via their mobile device, the app’s ability to make managing your health simple and accessible gives it the power to become a long-term and cherished service companion.

Just like any great romance, getting to that “of course!” reaction is never easy. But as anyone who has ever fallen in love can attest to, when it happens, it’s magic. The companies that design seductive digital services will ultimately be the ones that create the most successful and long-lasting bonds with their customers.

Images: IngridHS, Lori Sparkia, Antonio Abrignani, Everett Collection, and Battrick via Shutterstock

The publishing industry has a problem. The old guard haven’t innovated. And neither their business models nor their products embrace the digital books revolution.

Take the ongoing and complicated spat between Apple and the Justice Department over the agency pricing model and alleged collusion which ended up with consumers being forced to spend more than they needed to. The battle may expand internationally, in fact. Apple tried to expand its 30% revenue share model, which has done very well in the billion-dollar app economy, into books. It also pushed publishers to agree to a very different way of selling their products: Instead of buying books traditionally, at a pre-agreed wholesale price and then pricing them as Apple saw fit in the iBookstore, it would let the publishers set their own price and extract its usual fixed share of the income … as long as the publishers wouldn’t sell e-books elsewhere.

It was a bold move, and one that could and did shake up the industry a bit. Amazon, the publishers contend, had established a monopoly on e-books, and was selling their wares at overly discounted prices. With Apple’s model they could choose to price e-books lower than physical books cost (appeasing consumers who expect to pay less for a non-physical product), and yet extract more money due to the cost-savings of e-publishing.

The DOJ disagreed, and says Apple’s deal meant consumers ended up spending much more than they needed to, hence its action against Apple and a laundry list of the bigger U.S. publishers. Amazon is now free to renegotiate deals with these publishers and push cover prices lower, which will save consumers cash but may both eat into publisher’s profits and, ultimately, author’s payments.

As such, it’s not a wholly well-received decision as Scott Turow, president of the Author’s Guild, recently noted: “Today’s low Kindle book prices will last only as long as it takes Amazon to re-establish its monopoly. It is hard to believe that the Justice Department has somehow persuaded itself that this solution fosters competition or is good for readers in the long run.” Because when Amazon does re-establish its monopoly, and nudges prices upward, it’ll be operating on the wholesale model–with the extra money sunk into its coffers, not the author’s or the publisher’s.

But as novelist Barry Eisler notes in the Guardian newspaper, there is actually a glimmer of hope in the DOJ’s decision. Amazon could, by sheer pressure of business, force a breakup of the old guard of publishers in the U.S., and make them adapt to the new digital realities or face extinction. In short, they’ll have to radically adjust their business models, and also embrace writers who can deliver new rich-media books, if they’re to keep the book-buying public enthralled and thus make money. Amazon’s quick-growing self-publishing enterprise is an example of how the publishing business may evolve without them if they don’t do this.

And what do we, the book-buying public, want? Cheaper prices, as ever, but we’re also all expecting books to move beyond dead text and into something much more dynamic, something loaded with rich media, something that makes use of the color and graphics of our tablet screens, and perhaps the social networking powers they also sport as apps. Because those kinds of books sure as heck aren’t in Amazon’s top-selling Kindle list right now.

Image: Flickr user dno1967b , and Isriya Paireepairit