startup spaces
9. Photo/video sharing services. A lot of the most popular sites on the web are for photo sharing. But the sites classified as social networks are also largely about photo sharing. As much as people like to share words (IM and email and blogging are “word sharing” apps), they probably like to share pictures more. It’s less work and the results are usually more interesting. I think there is huge growth still to come. There may ultimately be 30 different subtypes of image/video sharing service, half of which remain to be discovered. I love-love flickr but I have to admit that that’s only one way of sharing photos. What about sharing where graffiti is encouraged? Or where camera phones, not PCs, are the based platform? Or where geography trump ownership as the primary means of organization? 13. Online learning. US schools are often bad. A lot of parents realize it, and would be interested in ways for their kids to learn more. Till recently, schools, like newspapers, had geographical monopolies. But the web changes that. How can you teach kids now that you can reach them through the web? The possible answers are a lot more interesting than just putting books online. Amen. I run into people all over who are looking for practical education to help their career or fit their interests without having to go back to school. On the flip side, Adaptive Path has started virtual seminars and the tools are lackluster. They’re all stuck in one-point-oh-land, mimicing offline presentation behaviors. Why would you mimic something that didn’t work that well in the first place? 28. Fixing email overload. A lot of people, including me, feel they get too much email. A solution would find a ready market. But the best solution may not be anything as obvious as a new mail reader. If this isn’t a problem for you now, it might be a problem soon. Emails are easy to cc and forward, but hard to consume and manage. It’s become a feed, not an inbox. People and organizations are ready to pay money to solve the information anxiety from email. Somebody save us.
Need a startup idea? Venture firm Y Combinator has already done some of the intial thinking for you, classifying the spaces in which they’d like to see startup ideas. Some of my favorites from their list:
Peter focuses on experience with Businessweek
On of my favorite points from the podcast was on lessons learned from our recent Managing Experience Conference. Peter put together patterns he was hearing from design leaders like Cordell Ratzlaff of Cisco and Chip Conley of Joie de Vivre Hospitality, California’s largest boutique hotel company: “They both talked a lot about culture, and corporate culture… In order for an organization to successfully deliver great experiences, it’s a matter of mindset of people in the organization, that that is their orientation—to deliver great experiences. You need to have a corporate culture to do it.” Here’s the podcast, which you can also get through iTunes.
This week Peter talked with BusinessWeekreporter Matt Vella about Subject to Change and the approaches necessary for focusing on experience as the product you deliver to customers.
background on ‘the long wow’ at the IASummit
Tomorrow at the IASummit I’ll be presenting on The Long Wow, a systematic approach for building great customer experiences that lead to real customer loyalty. It’s one of three approaches to practicing design differently that I outline in Adaptive Path’s new book Subject to Change. This is a talk that I have a lot of fun with, so I’ll looking forward to doing it. The premise of these three approaches is simple: If we all practice design (or IA, or UX, or whatever you call it) the same way within organizations, then no design practice will be considered truly strategic. Strategic applications of design only exist when design practices are focused on the aspects of an organization that make it distinct. Otherwise you’re just employing best practices, and your executive leadership will only see you as a cost center. I’ll work to get the presentation onto Slideshare soon, but until then, here’s some detailed notes on some of the references I made during the talk: And here’s where you can download a PDF of the slides (48.5 MB) from the talk. As a reminder, you can register for upcoming Adaptive Path events in San Francisco and Minneapolis for 15% off by using the code FOBS.
Don Norman’s “one perfect book”
We’re glad to see that Don Norman liked it to. After some grumbles complaining that we wrote a book that he couldn’t put down, he said Subject to Change is: “Short, but powerful. Easy to read, yet profound. I’ve been searching for just this book: the one perfect book that summarizes the essence of modern product design. This is it. The lessons are as powerful as they are simple: The product is NOT the goal. Successful products are systems. Focus on the experience. This requires empathy, agile product management, real understanding of the target audience. This book practices what it preaches. I will use it in my courses for MBA students. You should use it for, well, for everyone. Short, simple, persuasive, and powerful.”
Over the past year-plus, I’ve been working on a book with my colleagues Perter Merholz, David Verba, andTodd Wilkens. The result is an interesting take on how organizations can embrace both the emerging and the long-held concepts behind research, design, and agile development to become more nimble and prepare to succeed in an uncertain future. We called it Subject to Change.
The year in ideas — for UX, strategy, and fun
In the New York Times Magazine’s 7th Annual Year in Ideas I found a few interesting experience and strategy related ideas: Two-Birds-With-One-Stone Resistance Telltale Food Wrapping Zygotic Social Networking Rock-Paper-Scissors Is Universal Left-Hand-Turn Elimination And a few just-plain-fun entries that made the list: Fake Tilt-Shift Photography Mob Jurisprudence The Self-Righting Object
Multipurpose tools are less likely to be selected by people for real-world tasks. It’s explained that, “connecting one tool or method to multiple goals weakens the mental association between that means and any one goal.” So remember that iPod-speaker-slash-toilet-paper-despensor? Not such a good idea.
Contextual clues about the safety of our food can be conveyed on the packaging that surrounds it anyway. Best news is that the biological detectors can be applied to the packaging via ink-jet printer. Would love to design packaging that intermediates between people and their food.
Using DNA to establish your social network — because everyone’s related genetically to someone, so everyone shows up online with an instant friend-base.
The different strategies of rock (smash ‘em!), paper (sneak up and smoother ‘em!), and scissors (divide ‘em!) seems to be baked into competitive lizard mating strategies, bacteria, and perhaps the corporate world. I’m not sure I buy that all strategies can be boiled down into a rock-paper-sissors metaphor, but something seems right about there always being a second and third strategy for any situation.
Large scale change of tiny behaviors: U.P.S. has further limited the number of left-hand turns its drivers make: not for the time savings but for the energy savings. It turns out idling in the left-hand lane is a small wasteful practice that has big impact when the behavior is changed across the entire fleet. I can imaging more UX and service design being applied to these types of mass-greening solutions — we’re already talented about getting people to switch channels, adopt new services, and other behavior modifications.
Flickr’s Tilt-Shift Miniature Fakes group made the list too.
The New Zealand police force posted the 1958 Police Act online for wiki-style revision. One of the superintendent’s favorite suggested revisions was submitted by a user who requested that the name of the police force be changed to “The New Zealand Yum-Yum Teddy Bear Strike Force Z.”
Two scientists mathematically proved and then manufactured a self-righting object. Called the Gömböc, it’s an object that no matter how you set it down will always turn over and rebalance itself to the same position. See the animation. Two cool observations: (1) It’s similar to beetle shells and other naturally-occuring evolutionary adaptations that first reach the design through trial-and-error; (2) It’s a physical proof of a mathematical problem.
prototyping business concepts
What’s interesting is how the entrepreneurs initially tried out (or stumbled upon?) their business venture: They combined Snapvine andEventful into a service for bands’ MySpace pages. “They added these features to the MySpace pages of client bands like Mudvayne and HellYeah, and fans loved them.” So with very little work on building out technology, they were able to quickly experiment with a service, find out what worked well, and then expand to realize the full business opportunity. Now they play a concierge service to celebs who want to engage with their fans online, focusing as much on the service they provide as the software tools that make the logistics possible. Business concepts can be easily prototypes and tested, especially with so many LEGO-like mashable services available. The question for Buddylube wasn’t about technical feasibility or even what the tools looked like, it was whether a service could become a valued go-between for celebs and fans. With little investment, they learned the answer is “yes” and the right way to go about it.
This week’s Consumed column in the New York Times Magazine is about Buddylube, a “middleman” service (part software, part consulting) that helps celebs manage their online identities across multiple social networking services.
The long wow — experience as a strategy for customer loyalty
But even though it’s become much more simple to measure customer loyalty, it obviously isn’t simple to create it. This contrast is probably what led to Orbitz Chief Marketing Officer Randy Susan Wagner to quip, “If you want loyalty, get a dog.” Rewards cards, frequent-whatever-programs, and other popular attempts at loyalty are artificial and just get in the way. Instead, engaging customers in more meaningful relationships over time is what builds true loyalty. And that’s where great experiences can play a big role in creating loyal customer relationships. In the essay “The Long Wow,” I lay out an experience-centric approach to fostering and creating loyalty by systematically impressing your customers again and again. I’m curious as to what you think of it.
Customer loyalty, the idea that a customer will return to you again and again, is a hot topic these days. It’s enjoyed plenty of focus ever since Fred Riechfield shared a simple calculation to measure the loyalty of your customers.
Netflix talks
NetFlix is continuing to differentiate itself from Blockbuster, this time by shutting down its email channel for customer service and prominently displaying its toll-free number on their website. The increase in call volume is a conscious choice to improve service. They chose to put their call center in Oregon, because people seem to be more empathetic there and you don’t see the high turnover in other call center hot spots like Salt Lake City. Empathy — that’s something that Blockbuster will never try to compete on.
NetFlix is facing increasingly stiff competition from Blockbuster as the fee-loving behemoth attempts to copy NetFlix’s mail-based DVD rental service. The growth of NetFlix’s customer base has slowed, which might cause most organization to take cost-cutting measures in preparation for pricing wars. Thankfully, that doesn’t appear to be how NetFlix is thinking.
Why i heart ClearRx
I’ve known about the story of Deborah Adler and the design of the ClearRx pill bottle for a couple of years. In my mind, it was another design feel-good story that didn’t have much in common with my everyday design work. But that changed a few months ago when I happened across a BusinessWeek podcast of Deborah talking to one of her past professors Brian Collins. The passion and perseverance of the ClearRx story kept my attention, but it’s the way it changed Target’s pharmacy strategy from the outside in that really got me excited. Since then, I’ve blogged about it, I’ve included the story in many of my public presentations, and I interviewed Deborah as a lead-up to her presentation atUXWeek. What gets me so excited is that Deborah understood that the healthcare system wasn’t meeting basic needs of people who relied on it (SAFETY!), and so she designed and prototyped an obviously better solution that anyone could look at and appreciate. And that’s exactly what Target did. Seeing the promise of the design, they bought the patent from Deborah and redesigned their IT, printing/labeling, training, and marketing around the vision of the new pill bottle. Deborah showed how things should be, creating a picture of how target could be play a more meaningful role in the lives of their customers. Target built backwards from that vision, reorganizing their capabilities. Target immediately increased their pharmacy customer base, and had something truly valuable to offer their customers rather than hard-to-keep promises of nicer service. The ClearRx story exemplifies experience strategy — working from the experiences with the user back through the organizational systems that support it, to create something useful, human, and valuable. Thanks Deborah for keeping me inspired!
Why strategies fail
Michael Porter has a nice essay over at Wharton on why strategies fail. I always enjoy how for Porter it all comes back to understanding what strategy is. Some of my notes and excerpts:
