05 April
0Comments

The 10-Minute Strategy Session That Will Recharge Your Business

Posted by Valve Interactive in The Flow

This blog is written by a member of our expert blogging community and expresses that expert’s views alone.

My recent post, “Why Small Businesses Should Scrap Strategic Planning,” set off a barrage of conversations, mostly from entrepreneurs who agree. Big companies have to make all their strategic decisions at once during an annual strategic planning session because it is too difficult and costly to get their team together more frequently. Small companies get to take the opposite approach: They tackle strategic choices as they come.

Consider Zor Gorelov, the CEO of SpeechCycle, a company transforms how phone and cable companies like Telstra, Cablevision, and Cox deliver customer service. Last week I got a chance to sit down with Zor in the SpeechCycle headquarters. Deep in Wall Street, next to a sunny window overlooking the Statue of Liberty, I asked him to lay out the strategy that’s driven such dramatic growth (SpeechCycle was recently recognized by Deloitte as a “Technology Fast 500”). He walked through five pivotal decisions that collectively compose a disruptive strategy that, so far at least, position them as the uncontestable leader in what they do.

1. The perfect exit: Before launchined SpeechCycle, Zor, a 25-year-old Russian engineer, recognized that while Soviet-era hospitals could not afford even basic sheets, they still wanted cutting-edge IT systems to keep up with the West, so he started building them. He launched a software company and saved just enough to buy tickets and get out of the Soviet Union with his wife and young son.

2. The search for meaning: After a stint at Bell Labs and Microsoft, followed by launching and selling BuzzCompany.com, one of the first Internet messaging software companies, Zor became fascinated by how humans extract meaning from speech. This lead him to launch SpeechCycle with several cofounders to realize a simple insight: They could help large firms use software to listen to and understand their customers better. Because they focused early and intensely, they now have unparalleled expertise using proprietary “High Definition Statistical Natural Language Understanding” technology to understand certain types of conversations.

For example, they know the virtually infinite ways a customer might complain about a slow Internet connection. Do you? If you don’t, you might want to try SpeechCycle, which would enable you to have your phone system simply ask, “What is your problem?” while your competitors guide their customers through the torturous “Press 2 for an option you don’t want” process.

3. Borrowing a road: In their first days, Zor and his cofounders, who bootstrapped the company, figured their best target customers would be electronics firms like HP. They were desperate to win clients so they sat down with a list of 1,500 consumer electronics companies and started cold-calling to win their first customer, a second-tier printer manufacturer. It soon became clear they were barking up the wrong tree because most customers call their phone and cable service providers when they have a problem. You don’t call Linksys when your router is down, do you? You call your Internet service provider first. SpeechCycle now serves leading telecom service providers instead.

4. Use the cloud: On a high-stakes phone call with HP, their target client told them that HP is very unlikely to buy software from a small software company. They simply don’t do that. So years before “software as a service” or “the cloud” were known terms, SpeechCycle adopted that model.

5. Sell value: Early on it was difficult to get customers to take a leap and pay this relatively young, unknown company to do something they were not convinced yet was possible, so the SpeechCycle team pivoted their pricing plan, saying, “Only pay us when it works.” If a customer calls and cannot solve their problem through the automated SpeechCycle enabled system, if they hit “zero for an agent,” SpeechCycle does not get paid.

Now, somewhere at Harvard Business School, a professor is telling impressionable students that the way to create a strategy is to sit down, think, and then document a set of decisions like this. They might even call up SpeechCycle as an example, and argue the company’s strategy is disruptive because they focused on:

1. Getting better than others at extracting meaning from utterances

2. Serving service providers, not hardware makers

3. Moving early to the cloud

4. Adopting value-based pricing

5. Creating a pricing plan that makes it easy for potential clients to sign on

And while this is true, it overlooks how innovative disrupters like SpeechCycle arrive at their strategy. They strategize immediately, as needed, not in November every year. They strategize in 10 minutes in the hallway, not over three days in a boardroom.

The key to outthinking your competition is to make smarter decisions at every turn. So the next time you make a decision, stop what you are doing and think for 10 minutes. Break your thought process apart into five steps. My book, Outthink the Competition, provides tools to manage these steps precisely, but here is a short version:

1. Imagine: What do you want to achieve? Real-life example: I am about to get on a phone call and want the others to hang up motivated and in action.

2. Dissect: What must be true? They have to (a) see we are making progress, (b) hear excitement in my voice, and (c) know what to do next.

3. Expand: Come up with 10 or more ways to achieve what must be true. I can list out all my achievements this week, I can put them in the right order, I can drink an espresso, etc.

4. Analyze: Choose the 1-3 ideas that will have the biggest impact and that are the easiest to do. I decide to list out my achievements and put them in an order that weaves a narrative of momentum.

5. Sell: Think about how to communicate your plan. Since the people on the phone are analytical, I will communicate my achievements with numbers (e.g., we had 2 new pitches, raised $3 million in new commitments, etc.).

Try it out–and if you have a breakthrough, tell us about it in the comments.

Image: Flickr user Michael Broxton

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

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
06 February
0Comments

Usability Is King For Your Product. Here’s How We Can Finally Measure It

Posted by Valve Interactive in The Flow

“Life used to be simpler,” my mom says while making her fourth attempt to update her Windows firmware in order to install Office 2011 on top of Office 2008.

I don’t correct her, but I don’t believe her either. As far as I can tell, life has always been complicated; and certainly as long as my mother has been alive, there has been incredibly sophisticated technology in the world. (When she was my age, people were landing on the moon. Nothing simple about it.) What I do believe, though, is that life used to be more usable. What’s different now is that complex technology has become so freakin’ cheap that it seems free to include “one more” feature in your product. The unforeseen cost, of course, is that those extra features hurt usability.

But we know all this. There is plenty of literature on the subject, and good usability is table stakes for a modern product. If your product isn’t usable, your business is in a dangerous position. Maybe you can get by in the short term by boasting your killer feature set; but the fact is that if people can’t figure out how to use your bells and whistles, you’re going to feel it on your bottom line sooner or later.

It may be old news, or even obvious to some, that poor usability can hurt customer relationships and hold back sales. But what isn’t obvious to business leaders is: How do I tell if it’s happening to me?

Before I get right to answering that, consider customer service for a moment. The adage “the customer is always right” has been uttered many times, in many languages, for many years. Long before the cash register was even invented, businesspeople intuitively knew that cultivating relationships with loyal customers was key to long-term success. Yet still, even in 2012, there is no end of companies who find ways to pull short-term profits out of their customers, at the expense of the longer-term customer relationship. (Example: So-called free three-month magazine subscriptions that you have to remember to opt out of before you get automatically charged.)

As the service economy continues to evolve, more and more companies are working to measure and improve their customer-service performance as a key indicator of success. And to this end, a minor revolution occurred in 2003, when the corporate world was introduced to Net Promoter Scores (NPS). In only a few years, NPS had become far and away the leading measure of customer loyalty.

Here’s the beautiful thing about NPS: Organizations get results from the data, but it’s amazingly simple to collect. You simply ask your customers, on a scale of 1 to 10, how likely they are to recommend your company/product to their friends and colleagues. People who give high marks are “promoters,” (i.e., will recommend you) people who rate low are “detractors,” (i.e., will bad-mouth you), and in the middle are “passives” (i.e., don’t care enough to do either one). The theory, which has been backed up by evidence, is that companies who have more promoters than detractors (i.e., a high Net Promoter Score) will win. They will acquire more customers and make more money.

Critics of the metric say it is a blunt instrument, and maybe it is. But if your NPS is -20, and your biggest competitor’s is 80, you had better do something about it. It could certainly be argued there are better ways to measure customer loyalty; but the success of the Net Promoter Score was closely tied to being the most usable way to measure customer loyalty. This is all by way of saying that even one of the oldest goals in the business world–to keep the customer happy–has only recently been armed with a really useful, usable metric.

Now, back to usability. I suspect that even if you believe wholeheartedly in the power of usability, you probably aren’t measuring it in a useful way and making it a key part of your business strategy. I am willing to bet that one of the major reasons people don’t effectively measure usability is that they don’t know how. One of the other major reasons is that the established usability metrics take a lot of effort and analysis to get anything out of them, so ironically, the usability measurements themselves aren’t terribly usable. So here’s my thought. Let’s apply the broader lessons of the Net Promoter Score to usability. No complicated metrics, no long surveys, just one “ultimate question for usability” that lets us know if we need to invest more in making our products intuitive.

What, then, should that question be? When I was in college, we were taught that the quantitative measures of usability are efficiency (how long a task takes), effectiveness (whether or not a subject can complete a particular task), subjective satisfaction (whether or not the experience is enjoyable), and error rate (how many times the subject makes a mistake, even if they eventually complete the task). All good stuff to know, but too low level for this purpose.

The famed usability expert and evangelist Jakob Nielsen says that quantitative measures of usability are low bang for the buck; he favors qualitative evaluation instead. When it comes to making a product better, I also firmly advocate qual over quant. But qualitative evaluation is just too much work to answer the simple question, “How do I know if I need to invest in usability?” I asked all of my “usability guru” friends, dug into the existing metrics, and came up with some of my own ideas; and the one I came across that most succinctly captured it was “How confident are you using this system/product/service?”

Unfortunately for me, this wasn’t one of my original ideas. It is a question I poached from the System Usability Scale (aka the “SUS”), originally published by John Brooke at Digital Equipment Corporation in 1986. It’s actually a nice survey in and of itself, but it takes several minutes to complete and doesn’t overtly tie to business goals, and I’ve never actually seen it done. Put another way, it’s usable but not usable enough to actually ever get used.

I settled on that notion of self-reported confidence, because it captures two important factors from both a human and business perspective. First, technology is supposed to work for people, and not the other way around. Second, as my uncle Fred once told me, “The worst thing you can do to an adult is make them feel stupid.”

In our modern world of automated interactions, the usability of your product or service is an important part of your relationship with your customers, and it had better not suck. If people knew that the complexity of their products was causing serious brand damage, they would surely make the investment to prevent it. But by no fault of their own, people outside of the design and usability world just don’t necessarily know when there is a problem. So even if this one question is under-nuanced, over-generalized, and does not tell you how to fix your usability issue, it does answer the question, “Do I have a problem I need to address?” with a yes or no.

So I propose that we all ask one simple question of as many potential users of our products as we can. The question I asked above was “On a scale of 1 to 10, how confident do you feel using this system?” But in truth, the question itself is less important than making sure you ask it. It’s a well-understood quirk of human nature that we tend not to take things seriously unless we’re measuring them. Whatever you ask, pay attention to the percentage of scores that are under 7. Those are all the customers you’ll lose, customers you’ll keep without delighting, or customers you’ll perennially frustrate, and for an embarrassingly fixable reason. It’s easy to do, and it might just move us toward a more usable world, which I know my mom would appreciate.

Images: urfin, Olga Danylenko, and Triff via Shutterstock

Via Fast Co Design: http://www.fastcodesign.com

Tags: , , , , , , ,
02 February
0Comments

6 Ways to Give Your App a Leg Up on the Competition

Posted by Valve Interactive in The Flow

Paul Baldwin is the chief marketing officer of Outfit7 Inc., a subsidiary of Out Fit 7 Ltd, the leading entertainment app developer. Paul has more than 17 years of experience developing, marketing and monetizing digital entertainment content.

Spend a few minutes browsing through both the Android and Apple app stores and it’s easy to see the fierce competition for user attention. The number of apps has grown to more than 1 million, each vying for downloads and market share.

The app development world is still very top-heavy, with a very small percentage of developers controlling the majority of downloads and revenue. But that in no way means that a newcomer can’t build a successful app that captures the hearts and minds of consumers, and becomes the next big thing.

Since the app stores themselves control which apps are elevated and highlighted, how can you ensure your app gets time in the spotlight and the attention it deserves? Here are six tips drawn from experience.

1. Focus on Product

The best way to get your app noticed is to build a unique and engaging product. Although that’s an article all on its own, let’s sum it up in a few key points.

Know your exact market and who you’re competing against. This will help you understand your target user — what he expects and likes and who else is offering apps to him.

Great apps are also usually the first in their category, or apps that completely reinvent existing categories. A big sign that you have a great app is when you start seeing copycat apps. Embrace them and use them as motivation to continue.

Another element that great apps have in common is fun. You want to make your app something that users will come back to again and again, rather than a one-time, disposable thrill. Whether that means creating lovable characters or tapping into the human desire to compete, remember to deliver fun the first time and every time after.

Also, great apps are simple. No user guides should be necessary to participate, and there should be nothing to “figure out” from a user standpoint. They are intuitive and immediately easy to grasp.

Finally, the last big hallmark of a phenomenal app product is the ability for users to make the app personal through customization features. Today’s app audience is constantly wondering what’s in it for them. Allow them to make it theirs and they’ll more likely become instantly enamored.

2. Allow Users to Engage Others with Your App

These days, more developers are using social media as part of the app as a major key to its success. Your customers’ word-of-mouth multiplies your network a hundred times over without costing you a dime, so be sure to put mechanisms in place that allow users to talk about the app and share experiences with friends.

For example, if your app enables users to create fun videos, make sure they can share those videos with others. This type of direct experience sharing will go a long way in spreading the word about your app.

Caveat: Don’t “over-viralize” your app with too many social features that don’t make sense.

3. Get Media and Blogger Attention: Make It Simple

Media attention and especially reviews of your app can really help to spread recognition. To get that kind of attention, though, you have to have a solid app to begin with, a great story around your app, and it absolutely must be easy to talk about.

The tendency is to come up with the most ingenious, compelling app, filled with loads of features but none that really stand out. This is called “feature creep” and usually spells disaster. Remember, the launch is just the beginning. Successful apps are always adding new content months after launch. If reporters and bloggers (and users for that matter) have a hard time explaining what your app is, what it does or why they like it, they’re less likely to talk about your app. Keep version one simple.

To make your app easier for media to cover, provide materials like press kits, beta codes (if necessary) and reviewer guides. It also helps to identify technology and pop culture trend stories that your app can fit into.

4. Continue Your Marketing Efforts

When your app launches, you’ll definitely want to have a marketing strategy in place to seize your launch window of opportunity, but it’s also important to continue marketing long after launch.

Many developers find pre-launch strategies helpful for grabbing attention. This includes creating a “coming soon” page that teases your app a bit, collecting emails for those interested in the first look, and even extending first invites to target publication audiences.

Make sure you exhaust every “co-marketing” opportunity out there with other app developers. Some major publishers will trade their app installs for your app installs. Everybody is in the same boat, in the same huge ocean of apps. You might be surprised to find that other developers are more than happy to participate in reciprocal marketing.

The important thing to remember is that app marketing windows are perpetual, meaning you should establish marketing vehicles that you can trigger at your discretion over long periods of time. That means plan, plan, plan.

5. Use Analytics

When developing apps, you have all kinds of data at your fingertips to evaluate how your app is being received. Use analytics to monitor your ranking and as a marketing tool.

Become a student of the Android and iOS category rankings (e.g., entertainment vs. games). Each category has its own nuances for determining “top” rankings, so be sure to evaluate each one. Understand why the app moved up in the rankings in order to iterate and improve your own ranking over time. Additionally, if you have a good sense of what is moving the bar for your app, you can also learn from what the top developers are doing.

More importantly, in my opinion, is that you leverage the wealth of analytics available from your app to make your app better over time. Not only will the data help you iterate and improve your app from a technical standpoint, but it will also allow you to create the right content to which users connect. Once the app is live, analyze the data to update your release schedule and product roadmap.

You can also learn when your customers are willing to “rate your app” or be pitched another app in your portfolio. Analytics can shed light on how frequently you should attempt to cross-sale or suggest another item for purchase.

6. Prepare for Success

This tip may seem a little strange at first — who wouldn’t be thinking about success? But in reality, many apps start strong then fade and fizzle. Preparing for success is as much about your product as it is about the team behind it.

It’s crucial to structure your team in a way that supports hyper growth. It’s good to rely on a more fluid and dynamic network of expertise and project teams than a rigid structure.

Think of your app as a brand that will enable you to leverage brand extension opportunities. Build your apps to welcome future cross-promotion opportunities, rather than intrusions on the user experience.

The best way to prepare for app success is to constantly focus on keeping your users engaged. Give them more than just product updates once they’ve downloaded and become fans of your app. Give them instant fun, addictive experiences that they will want to share with friends.

Whatever your secret sauce is or has been, be sure to nurture it to keep your users wanting more — and deliver your app in a way that surpasses user expectations.

Image courtesy of iStockphoto, svariophoto, Flickr, ItzaFineDay

Via Mashable: http://www.mashable.com

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , ,
27 January
0Comments

When the world changes…

Posted by Valve Interactive in The Flow

It’s painful, expensive, time-consuming, stressful and ultimately pointless to work overtime to preserve your dying business model.

All the lobbying, the lawsuits, the ad campaigns and most of all, the hand-wringing, aren’t going to change anything at all. In fact, instead of postponing the outcome you fear, they probably accelerate it.

The history of media and technology is an endless series of failed rearguard actions as industry leaders attempt to solidify their positions on a bed of quicksand.

Again and again the winners are individuals and organizations that spot opportunities in the next thing, as opposed to those that would demonize, marginalize or illegalize (is that a word?) it. Breaking systems that benefit your customers is dumb. Taking money from lobbyists to break those systems is dumber still.

By Seth Godin: http://sethgodin.typepad.com/

Tags: , , , , , , ,
20 January
0Comments

Chobani Yogurt Tickles The Tastes Of Pinterest Addicts, And So Can Your Brand

Posted by Valve Interactive in The Flow

Emily Schildt, Chobani’s digital communications manager, continues to be in awe of how many surprisingly rhapsodic tweets and Facebook comments she’s read from devotees of the Greek yogurt brand.

“We call it ‘flavor Turettes’ in-house,” she quips. “We get about a tweet per minute, and I would say 50% are about our newest flavor, apple cinnamon.” But regular declarations of love for the dairy treat didn’t end there. Schildt started noticing that fans were “pinning” images of the yogurt and recipes on the most of-the-moment social sharing network, Pinterest.

Schildt admits that Chobani isn’t out to make a land grab on every new social media platform. “There’s a new thing every minute and it’s not to our benefit to spend time on every one,” she says–who can argue wtih that? However, the fact that photo sharing is natural extension of food conversations on the web is not lost on Schildt. “Instagram is big for us, and there is a lot of recipe sharing on our blog. When we saw how many were being shared on Pinterest, we decided to host that conversation ourselves.”

Chobani’s now got 17 “boards” on Pinterest and 582 followers, positioning the largest yogurt manufacturer in the state of New York well ahead of global juggernauts such as Dannon or Yoplait, neither of which have a Pinterest presence yet.

Schildt sat down with Fast Company to talk about the brand’s strategy for curating boards, repinning relevant content, and building customer loyalty. What emerged were best practices for any business to continue the conversation with its customers in an enterprising new format.

Get Discovered 

“People are on Pinterest to learn and discover,” says Schildt. “While Pinterest is a good search tool–for instance, if you are looking for ‘oven mitt,’ you will immediately find a myriad of mitts in a search– brands are learning to be more human. Sharing content that is relevant and valuable and not overly promotional so people are able to discover new things is part of that. Facebook is not a place that allows for that kind of discovery, and the kind of conversation you have on Twitter and the feedback you receive is very different.”

Show Off Your Core Values–All of Them

“Pinterest allows your brand to show different facets of its personality because there isn’t just one. Pinterest gives a more visual look into Chobani’s personality and the core values behind our brand. For example, we compile inspirational quotes on our “Nothing but Good” board and motivational quotes on “Chobani Fit” board. On Twitter, those same quotes would get retweeted, but on Pinterest the visual impact makes content very shareable and shows a lot of different sides of our brand.”

Micro-Target Your Customer

“Pinterest gives people the option to choose what information they are getting. Unlike a general Twitter feed with all of our tweets, Pinterest users can choose to follow certain boards and select the kind of conversation. So our travel board has photos of destinations and our Chobani Champions has tips for moms. Neither may be relevant to our larger audience, but curating boards allows a brand to target to different groups and engage them in a very direct way.”

Don’t Go Over-Board

“You are at a disadvantage with one board because it doesn’t allow your brand to show its different facets. That said, I don’t think you should go board crazy. The pin boards need to make sense for your brand and you need to have enough content on them to be worth following. If you have a bunch you may spread yourself too thin. Chobani has 17 boards and we set it up naturally, where each pin has a place. If ever we were to pin things that didn’t have a board, we’d create one.”

Share

“We are confident in our product and how we do business, so it’s not a risk or an endorsement to link to other brands. We are not directly sharing other competing brands’ links, but we are sharing generic yogurt recipes. People are going to buy yogurt based on taste and price so there is no harm in sharing recipes with yogurt as an ingredient. We want to encourage consumption of yogurt in general.”

Be Responsive

Our team is pretty small and we do all our social media in-house. While we are incredibly responsive on Twitter and Facebook, we don’t comment that often on Pinterest. We do “like” and repin, though. Pinterest is refreshing in that way because it requires a bit less involvement, but get out of it what you want, which is content sharing.”

Pin Hopes, Dreams, and Goals

“We see all of our social media platforms as away to deepen our relationship with our customers. Pinterest has given us a lot of insights. With repinned recipes, one that we find may be something that enters into our test kitchen. If we see a location get repinned, we may eventually offer a promotional trip there.  We always used most shared content as a way we can improve how we speak to our customers, our products and our promotions.”

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

Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,
19 January
0Comments

Microsoft Designs Great Things. Here’s Why It Seldom Helps The Brand

Posted by dave123williams in The Flow

I can’t find Joe Belfiore. It’s November, and I’m at a Windows Phone event in New York’s Hammerstein Ballroom, where the lobby walls are caked in banners of pink and blue, colorful hues that Microsoft’s mobile software has become known for. But Belfiore is nowhere to be found. He’s hidden himself behind a set of side doors, where he’s crouched down on a dark staircase, munching on a sandwich.

To hear Belfiore tell it, not even Metro is being rolled out in any uniform way.

Belfiore, 43, oversees software design for Windows Phone, and is tasked with the unenviable job of making customers think different about Microsoft. The company has lagged far behind Google and Apple in the mobile space, where tablets and smartphones running its once-mighty Windows operating system have a minuscule market share. But Microsoft’s latest offering, Windows Phone 7.5 Mango, has been a hit among critics from The New York Times to Gizmodo to TechCrunch, who’ve gushed over its slick, playful user experience. Now, the company hopes to breathe this software’s newfound design aesthetic into many of its products, from Windows 8 to Xbox 360, and to do so, Microsoft is taking a democratized approach to design that focuses on collaboration rather than top-down decrees.

“We’re at a point in our history where the product groups, by and large, operate independently–they make decisions that they think are best for their customers and users,” Belfiore says. “It’s not a case where there’s a top-down mandate: everyone go do this…There are few cases where senior management says, ‘Everyone is going to do this.’ Those instances are the exceptions rather than the rule.”

To hear Belfiore tell it, not even Metro, the tiled UI that’s being pushed across many Microsoft products, is being rolled out in any uniform way. Collaboration between these independent product groups, as he describes, almost happens serendipitously. “To the extent that we’ve found something that people like, it’s easy for us to jointly adopt it,” he explains. “To the extent that the Bing team does something really good on Xbox, I want it on my phone.” Belfiore cites the Windows Phone team’s use of avatars as another example of cross-pollination in design. “We didn’t invent the avatar,” he says. “The Xbox team built the animated 3D avatar. They popularized it. They made it a part of what their service is about, and we came along and said, ‘That’s a good idea. People like it. We like it.’ And then we collaborate.”

I asked Belfiore how such a democratized-design approach could work at a company of roughly 90,000 employees.

“Are you saying what I’m saying feels unlikely?” Belfiore responds, with a smile. “On the one hand, it seems in a way you’re saying it seems unlikely, but it’s very rational.”

So who is driving that collaboration across Microsoft?

“Why do you assume someone has to be driving that?” Belfiore wonders, laughing.

So it’s just happening naturally?

“Yes, yes,” he beams.

At this point, John Hipsher, a PR rep for Windows Phone, piped in. “It’s unbelievably collegial,” Hipsher says, describing the collaborative atmosphere. “For instance, the Xbox team sees a good idea like Metro, and they adapt it to Xbox.”

So there’s not someone at Microsoft saying we should unite all these products around Metro tiles?

“No,” says Belfiore.

What if Xbox said it didn’t want to use Metro tiles?

“Then they would not have tiles,” Belfiore says. “Microsoft doesn’t work that way….We all use each other’s products, and we are all aware of what everybody is doing. When there’s an idea that’s good, you’re motivated to deliver it to your customers to make it part of your product.”

“There isn’t a UI czar at the company saying, ‘Thou shalt do Metro,’” adds Hipsher.

“Are you saying what I’m saying feels unlikely?” Belfiore responds.

It’s a unique if not risky approach to design, especially given the endless array of products on Microsoft’s shelf: Office, Explorer, Bing, Xbox, Hotmail, Sharepoint, Outlook, and soon Skype, as well as the Windows operating system in various shades for PCs, tablets, and smartphones. Even the Windows Phone, Belfiore says, has taken recycled elements of Microsoft’s Windows Media Center, Zune, discontinued Kin, Xbox, and Internet Explorer–a collaboration of design, talent, and ideas, he believes.

But the question remains whether such a loose, bottom-up design approach will work for Microsoft, a company traditionally known for its engineering focus and disregard for aesthetic. (“Now, instead of 80 percent of its efforts being unenlightened, just 20 percent are unenlightened,” Bill Flora, one of the designers of Windows Phone, said recently.) After all, democratized design has its downsides–just look at Google’s many UI hiccups.

And that’s not to mention how Microsoft’s democratized approach is the antithesis of the formula perfected by Apple, which meticulously manages all aspects of its product designs, from the hardware and software down to the typography and pixels. It’s a top-down approach that provides a visual thread to Apple’s UI across iPhones, iPads, and Macs, uniting the devices into one accessible family of products for consumers. Each one sells the other, with the promise of a similar look and user experience.

At Apple, Steve Jobs was the design czar. At Microsoft, who’s in charge?

Via Fast Co Design: http://www.fastcodesign.com

Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,
11 January
0Comments

Ten Social Media Strategies to Define a Successful 2012

Posted by Valve Interactive in The Flow

Welcome to another New Year! While everyone else is busy thinking about or already breaking their New Year resolutions, it’s time for us to take a moment to rethink what it is we can really do better now and over the next 12 months.

I’m sure you heard it everywhere last year. Experts found the highest blog mountains and social network skyscrapers to Tweet in concert, “You need a Facebook brand page! Why are you not on Twitter yet? Have you checked-in on Foursquare? Hurry up and get set up on Google+. If you don’t get on social media, you’re going to go out of business!”

And, here you are…still in business, I presume. But like any keen business leader or entrepreneur, you’re avidly thinking about your next move and your social media strategies for 2012.

You already know that running the show in a mode of “business as usual” is not only limiting, it’s terribly complacent.  But if you are to change, you need to better understand exactly how technology is influencing the behavior of your customers and why.

The truth is that you can create your company brand pages on every social network you can imagine and you won’t succeed unless you know whom you’re trying to reach and where, what it is they expect and value, and how these channels represent a meaningful opportunity for you and your consumers to connect.

You first must answer what’s in it for them and what’s in it for you.

Defining your Social Media Strategy

Social networks, smartphones, tablets, review sites, gamification, geo-location, et al. are producing a new breed of consumer, and businesses are largely missing them altogether. In fact, the emergence of this more “connected consumer” is forcing the end of business as usual.

At the same time, the decision patterns of these connected consumers has ushered in an era of risk where any business, large and small, is vulnerable to digital Darwinism — the evolution of consumer behavior when society and technology evolve faster than the ability to adapt.

Ten Social Media Tips

In 2012, consider yourself a digital anthropologist or sociologist as you immerse yourself in a day in the life of your connected consumer and seek to close the chasm between you and them.

There are many professional social media analysts, researchers and strategists who can help you find the answers you seek.

Starting now and forever, technology and empathy are now part of your business strategy. To what extent disruptive technology impacts your markets will depend on your industry and the rate of adoption within it.

Priority areas for your social media strategy should include an understanding of the following:

1. Social Networks from Facebook to Twitter to Google+ and how they’re connecting to influencers and businesses

2. Geo-location check-in services such as Foursquare and Facebook location updates to share locations and earn rewards or opportunities for discounts.

3. Crowd-sourced discounts and deals including Groupon and LivingSocial and what’s valued and why.

4. Social commerce services like Shopkick and Armadealo and how they create personalized experiences that are worth sharing.

5. Referral based solutions like Yelp, Service Magic, and Angie’s List to make informed decisions and how shared experiences can improve your business, products, and services.

6. Gamification platforms such as Badgeville and Fangager, and why rewarding engagement improves commerce and loyalty.

7. How your consumers using mobile devices today and what apps they’re installing. Also, how they’re comparing options, reviewing experiences and making decisions while mobile?

8. The online presence your business produces across a variety of platforms such as tablets, smartphones, laptops and desktops. You must realize how consumers are experiencing the online presences you create and whether or not they deliver a holistic and optimized experience for each platform.

9. The consumer clickpath based on the platform consumers are using. Are you steering experiences based on the expectations of your customers? And are you taking into consideration the device or network where the clickpath begins and ends? Are you integrating Facebook F-commerce and m-commerce into the journey?

10. The expectations of connected consumers, what they value in each channel and platform, where they engage and how your business can improve experiences and make them worthy of sharing.

This is your year…

2012 is the year for you to grow your small business while earning relevance among a growing class of connected consumers.

Regardless of technology, the future of business isn’t created, it’s co-created. To succeed, it takes a culture of customer centricity and the ability to recognize new opportunities and adapt based on what they present.

In the words of Charles Darwin, “It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent. It is the one that is most adaptable to change.”

Originally published on Monster.com
Image Credit: RedKid.net

Via Brian Solis: http://www.briansolis.com

Tags: , , , , , , , ,
22 December
0Comments

How to Build an Effective Google+ Brand Strategy

Posted by Valve Interactive in The Flow

Lawrence Mak is the product marketing manager at Context Optional, an Efficient Frontier company, where he covers product positioning and communications while moonlighting as a writer for all things social media.

Having surpassed one billion unique visitors this past May, Google has become a part of our daily online lives. Yet Google’s impact is expanding even further. Google+ has now grown to more than 40 million users.

Recently, the company introduced Google+ pages for businesses, designed to help brands connect with customers. While Google+ pages is in its infancy, the social network’s user base is growing, warranting brand attention and testing. Now is a good time to explore how Google+ works and what impact it can have upon the way your brand communicates with customers.

As with any social media channel, begin by asking yourself what your communities want and expect when interacting with your brand, and how this platform ties into your larger business goals. If Google+ makes sense for your brand, create your Google+ page and take a look at these recommendations to develop your Google+ page growth and engagement strategy.

Here are six steps to help jumpstart your brand presence on Google+, and what you should consider when communicating and engaging followers in the Google+ environment.

1. Drive Follower Growth

When Google+ users arrive at your page, they’ll see a big, red “Add to circles” button. After clicking this button, users follow your brand and receive its updates in their streams. But how do users get to your page in the first place?

  • Place a Google+ Badge on your website that redirects users to your page.
  • Drive viral growth by asking your employees and partners to share your page with their Circles. For businesses with multiple brands, create one Circle and share a portfolio of those brands with friends. Then, users can decide which ones they want to follow.
  • Direct Connect is an interesting search tie-in that enables users to automatically add brands to their Circles by including a “+” before a brand name in their Google search queries. Similar to call-outs in advertising that ask consumers to “Like us on Facebook,” brands can say “Search for +Mashable on Google,” and the action will take users directly to the brand’s Google+ page.
  • Leverage existing best practices for increasing likes on Facebook and follows on Twitter, then apply the same principles here. Just remember, a user must add your brand to a circle on his profile in order for you to publish content to him. The +1 action does not automatically create that connection.
  • And of course, use advertising and media to drive traffic directly to your page.

2. Segment Followers with Circles

Once you have followers, you’ll want to consider how to segment those audiences so you can target the right followers with the right messages. Your Google+ page comes with the ability to create custom Circles as well as four default Circles: Following, Customers, VIPs and Team Members. Once users add you, they’ll show up under the “People Who’ve Added You” tab. You can then drag and drop certain users to your Circles to share content with them.

Because Google+ pages do not currently support geo-targeting, effective Circle management is crucial to properly connect with followers and drive engagement. You’re trying to build loyalty, and the quickest way to turn users off is by spamming them with irrelevant and untimely information. Approach Circle creation as you would audience segmentation in ad placements. Who would respond best to which message?

The great thing about Circles is you can get as nuanced as you want. For example, in addition to lumping all your customers into one Circle called “Customers,” you can segment them by product affinity, preferences, likeliness to influence others, or even history of engagement. The downside, at least currently, is that without location, demographic or preference data that allows for scalable segmentation, Circle management is a manual process. Be vigilant early on about adding followers to Circles daily, or you’ll wind up spending a lot of time sorting through user profiles.

3. Understand Your Google+ Audience

Because Google+ is only six months old, and its user base is changing daily, it’s important to gather insight on who your audience is and determine how best to capitalize on those connections to build an engaged following. You should not assume that your Facebook fans and your Google+ followers are the same people. Are your customers on Google+? Which of them actively use it? What type of content resonates with them and drives +1s or comments? And what content encourages shares that spread brand awareness and drive follower growth?

Google will soon launch data tools that give a brand insight into typical areas like user demographics and social engagement, as well as unique views into influencers and trends in your community. Tracking engagement metrics per Circle will give you perspective into how effective your publishing strategy is and how likely it is that certain groups will share your content. The Google+ Search tool can help identify trends based on keywords and the Ripples tool provides insight into viral shares and identifies influencers.

4. Differentiate Google+ Content

Once you take the time to analyze and understand your followers, you’ll likely find that interest and engagement differ from your Facebook and Twitter communities. Therefore, differentiate brand content among social platforms. Twitter content leans towards short, informative, witty posts that typically link away from Twitter to an article, blog post or website. Facebook thrives on a mix of informative posts, links, marketing campaigns (deals, coupons and initiatives) and easy questions designed to drive engagement. What type of brand content might flourish on Google+?

Google is an information powerhouse that hosts over 11 billion monthly searches. People are searching for relevant and timely content – like product and services information, local content, news, deals, how-to videos and behind-the-scenes photos, and other interesting stories they can consume and share. While Google+ is in its infancy, stick to Google’s roots and publish informative content about your brand that customers will find relevant and share with others. It never hurts to ask your community directly what type of content they want from you on this platform.

5. Take Advantage of Google+ Features to Engage

If you’ve been thoughtful about the last four steps, you should have a solid foundation for a Google+ publishing strategy that aims to engage the right followers with relevant content.

In addition to a text-based status update, each post can attach a photo, video, and URL link to make the post richer. Directly engage your followers by asking questions that start discussions and lead to +1s and Circle shares. The more users engage with a post, the greater the viral effect, and thus, brand awareness. This keeps your brand top-of-mind and drives interest in your offering. Here are other Google+ specific features you should consider.

  • Google’s +1 button can be placed virtually anywhere, including your website, articles and even ads. Each time a user +1s your content, the action creates a personal recommendation for your brand that appears in the user’s stream and is shared with his Circles. By strategically placing +1 buttons on engaging content and connecting them to your page, you’ll create a targeted Google+ experience for your fans.
  • Hangouts give brands a very cool opportunity to connect directly with customers in a video chat environment. Think about virtual wine tasting events, Q&A sessions, new product demos, webinars and customer service calls — all with a real, live person on the other side of the camera.
  • Cross-product integration opportunities abound with Google products like YouTube, Picasa, Reader, Documents and Calendar. There is tremendous opportunity to effectively integrate those elements into Google+ to engage followers even more deeply.

6. Analyze and Adjust Your Google+ Strategy

Google has made a huge investment in Google+, and it’s here to stay for awhile. Because of this cross-product integration, brands may see some exciting effects from Google+ social activity, like increased lift in search results and traffic from +1 buttons embedded in display ads. Consider how to integrate Google+ into your overall Google strategy — from SEO and ads to mobile and video –and view it as the social layer that ties all Google-owned properties together.

Brands should stay focused on follower growth and improved engagement rates by analyzing Circle trends and user behavior. Regularly assess data to improve page performance and brand awareness. The more viral your content, the more engaged the audience and the greater the likelihood of new users following your brand.

Managing Presence on Google+ Pages

Navigating a new social platform can be challenging, especially for larger brands that have a global presence, multiple brands and millions of fans. Last week Google announced its relationships with a handful of third-party social media management software companies that will provide tools for brands to manage their presences on Google+, including the ability to manage Circles, publish to Google+ and access analytics. These tools will help streamline publishing to multiple Google+ pages and effectively manage Circles in a scalable manner, while enabling access to analytics across a brand’s Google+ presence.

Via Mashable: http://www.mashable.com

Tags: , , , , , , , ,
16 November
0Comments

The unreasonable customer

Posted by Valve Interactive in The Flow

There are a few reasons to tolerate the customer who makes unreasonable demands:

  • You promised you would
  • She helps you raise your game
  • Her word of mouth is very powerful
  • The cost of frequently figuring out which customers to fire is too high compared to the cost of putting up with everyone

It’s probably worth firing a customer if:

  • He willfully corrupts your systems at a cost to other customers
  • Your employees are prevented from doing their best work in the long run
  • His word of mouth can’t be changed or doesn’t matter
  • He distracts you from delighting customers that are reasonable

In general, organizations are afraid to fire customers, no matter how unreasonable. This is a mistake. It’s good for you.

By Seth Godin: http://sethgodin.typepad.com/

Tags: , , , , , , , ,
06 November
0Comments

7 Ways to Design a Memorable User Experience With Social Media

Posted by Valve Interactive in The Flow

Dave Toliver is the Director of Corporate Marketing at Angel, a leading provider of cloud based customer experience solutions. By developing innovative IVR, call center and voice applications that put the customer first, Angel is changing the way enterprises serve their customers.

There’s bad news and good news about the way consumers interact with brands on social media.

The bad news? When customers complain on social media, those complaints can tarnish your brand’s name for a wide audience faster than ever.

The good news? Just as complaints travel at light speed thanks to social media, so do compliments.

If you think you’re not “on” or “doing” social media, you’re wrong. Your company may not be active, but I guarantee your fans and your non-supporters are there. Because of this, it is the brand’s responsibility to create a social media experience that can turn a dissatisfied customer into a raving fan.

To help your brand do this, here are seven ways to create a memorable customer experience on social media.

1. Give Your Customers a Place to Talk

Some companies are afraid to set up Facebook pages because they allow customers to comment, which means someone might write something negative. It seems counterintuitive, but you should actually want customers to complain on your company’s Facebook page. If your customers are complaining about you on their personal, privacy-protected Facebook profiles, you have no way to know if they’re complaining, much less reach out to them and make it right.

When customers complain on your brand’s Facebook page, you can respond and resolve issues. If you do it right (and get a little lucky), unhappy customers will turn their opinions around and recommend you to friends because of your fantastic customer service.

2. Integrate Social Media Into Your Customer Service

Neglecting your social media properties when they’re full of customer complaints is suicide for your brand. It’s like publishing a customer service hotline phone number that no one ever answers. (Except worse, because the whole Internet can see your negligence.)

Don’t open up the floor for complaints without a plan to handle them. Predict the complaints you may get and construct policies for replying to them. You should also plan on responding to fans who compliment you. At the very least, you should thank customers for the compliment. But if you really want to make customers happy, show happy customers your appreciation with coupons or other rewards.

3. Activate Your Existing Customer Base

Most brands have more customers than they do Facebook fans and Twitter followers. Start building your social media fan base by reaching out to your current customers — after all, they already “like” your brand in real life.

Think about how you currently contact your customer base and how you can use those communication channels to draw customers to your social media properties. For example, you could run a contest or promotion on Facebook and then include that promotion on your product’s packaging, in your next email, and in any touch point you have with your customers.

4. Be Proactive

Don’t just wait for someone to post on your wall or tweet your account. It’s especially easy on Twitter to monitor for mentions of your name and reach out when someone has a problem, even if they haven’t mentioned your account. Set your brand apart by proactively interacting with customers who are talking about your brand, whether you’re thanking them for a compliment or helping them solve a problem.

Think about why your customers use social media sites like Twitter — it’s because they want to “connect” and to have a voice out there. Make them happy that someone, most importantly your company, is listening to what they have to say.

5. Reward Influencers

Find the social media influencers for your audience and give them extras. This could be as simple as giving them advance notice of a special promotion, or complex as giving them a free trip and tour of your facilities. For example, check out what Musselman’s apple sauce did for its blogger network. Making people feel special will help turn them into advocates for your brand. Reward your brand ambassadors when they least expect it and you’ll see some pretty phenomenal results.

6. Create Compelling Content

Give your fans something of value on your page. For example, Nordstom’s “Beauty Central” on Facebook provides a ton of relevant, useful content. You can do something similar to this in every industry. If you’re a movie producer, post behind-the-scenes photos, and if you’re a bank, write money saving tips. It’s hard to get people to engage with your brand when you don’t have anything interesting to say. Every brand can (and should) create quality content.

Social media can be a channel to make customers or followers feel special, like they’re in an exclusive club with your brand because they follow you. Make them feel this exclusiveness whether you have ten social media fans or 100,000.

7. Stand Out From the Crowd

Some of the most memorable social media experiences are created by going beyond text. This can be as complex as Starbucks’s Pumpkin Picture app, or simple as using voice applications to let your brand’s spokesperson actually speak to your fans. The more interactive and engaging your social media presence, the better. In part, social media is a little anti-social because there can be a lot lost in plain text. By giving your fans a true voice on social media, or encouraging participation through photos and videos, you humanize the experience that much more. You’ll be doing so when most of the other companies out there aren’t really participating effectively this way.

Has a brand ever given you a truly memorable social media experience? Let us know in the comments.

Via Mashable: http://www.mashable.com

Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,
← Newer Entries
Older Entries →
Subscribe to RSS

Valve Interactive
An online marketing and design agency in Portland Oregon