Sample Maggi's new Pasta at the online store-'Sense'ible way

The dot com boom in 90’s was raucous with every company trying to get a whacky idea and make money out of it. One such endeavor was the ecommerce. The thought of buying and selling using the internet was fascinating and innocuous that every company which jumped into the bandwagon. The justification was solely based on appealing to one's rationales. This includes:

• Convenience
• Better deals
• Speed to market

While all these are true, the dot com marketers were up against a monster called ‘ human behavior change’. The pros of eCommerce was up against few compelling downsides:

• Absence of Touch, feel and trial
• Credit card security
• Customer Trust
• Promise vs delivery
•  Sticker shocks
•  Delays in delivery

The rationales which appeared convincing no longer holds water. Building an ecomm website, driving traffic, increasing customer stickiness, losing customer due to poor experience and trying hard to get  the customer back is turning out to be a Sisyphean element for companies. Gone are the days when customers pickup brands blindfolded. The offline brand building exercise have lead to brand awareness and purchase predisposition but the consumers tend to drift at the time of purchase.


‘Enter online customer experience’. The latest report from Razorfish( quote by Garrith Schmidt – expert in Experience Planning) has indicated that 65% of the customers are influenced by their online experience and  will eventually determine purchase. This is termed as Digital Primacy.


I am true believer that any of today’s much talked about online experiences are inspired from offline experience. In that case it would useful to look at how sale happens in a retail store and what is that we can take as inspiration. So what is the science of shopping and why do we buy? I am truly inspired by Paco Underhill’s book on ‘Why we buy’. His recommendations for a physical store is after thorough research at store fronts and is truly amazing. Some of them which caught my attention includes:

Events in a store	Offline retail store
Traffic into the store	Entrance is a runway – Customer takes time land  and to adjust to the shopping store
Exits at entrance	Cognitive drift – It is very easy for the customer to  drift given the multiple options. Potential reason  for exits
Navigation	Butt brush effect – Woman in particular get put off if somebody brushes past them while shopping .  Importance on spacious aisles( navigation)
Shopping	Sensory marketing: what appeals to the senses  and how customers  are lured to a notion  of purchase.
Metrics	Closure rate · Interception rate · Waiting rate

If customers were to buy what they planned for then the economy will collapse. So what is that the online marketer needs to do to lure the customer for more purchase and repeat purchase. What are some of the best practices that one can take from the offline store experiences. I will just take one aspect of retail shopping that will have an impact on purchase behavior and explore possibilities in the online world – Sensory Marketing


Touch and Trial are very crtical to customers shopping experince. Imagine how you would explore things in a supermarket before you buy it.The customer would expect a close to offline experience in the online shop before a purchase. How do we appeal to the senses of the user and enable purchase? If touch and trial are very vital for a purchase, how can we make it available to the online user or provide compelling alternatives ? Lets take the case of an offline multi brand retail store wanting to make an impact in the online world.I will try and attempt to give tactical solutions to solve this issue.


Touch: Lets assume that the customer wants to buy a camera at the store.This is being handled very well by most online shopping stores through interactive 3 D demo’s, product pictures in actual size to reduce dissonce, user reviews about the product etc which act as a surrgogate to touch. The launch of Apple’s iPad will further enhance it because the interactive sessions done through mouse and keyboards will be replaced by a stylus called fingers. This will get it closer to the actual touch we may desire.


Trial: Lets take for example a customer who wants to buy monthly groceries using the online shop (assuming it will happen one day). This is an ideal platform to induce trail.This can be achieved using a dextrous combination off offline and online.Lets say Maggi wants to promote its new Pasta and they have decided to do a sampling exercise. Customers never say no to incentives or freebies.This can be done either when the customer is about to check out or while he is browsing for products in similar categories. The sampling can be done as follows:

• Either at check out or while browsing for similar products show the Maggi Pasta sample to the customer
• The customer has a choice to try the sample
• Once he/she chooses the option, the sample is delivered to the customer along with the grocery
• The next time the customer logs in to make purchase, solicit feedback about the sample and check if he is interested in purchasing the product
• If yes, add to shopping cart, else seek feedback

This will be a good opportunity for marketers to induce trial and close loop with a possible sale.


‘Sense’ible way

B2B Content Marketing for SMB Businesses

A wonderful blog on B2B marketing using online medium especially through social media. This is very timely as many sceptics believe that social media marketing can be used only for B2C.The essence of this article is that B2B marketers need to focus on strong content strategy and innovative ways of building relationships. Sounds so simple... but with some dedicated efforts. Thanks Bernie for this post

B2B Content Marketing for SMB Businesses

Posted using ShareThis

Know your Customer(KYC) - B2I2C?

I had a chance to see this commercial on advertiser vs consumer.The clip was part of a presentation shown at Idea Forum 2007. Although this commercial is dated, I still find it relevant in today's marketing world.The best part is that some marketers are still ignorant about some colossal mistakes. To name a few:

1. Marketers seek confirmation to their assumptions/theories than seek information when they go to a market or talk to a customer - When you see this ad, you will find couple of instances that justifies this statement

2.Outbound Marketing or interruption marketing is still preferred over inbound marketing - Organizations may get some leads from Outbound telemarketing but end up irritating the customer. This has an impact on brand.

3. Know your customer(KYC) doesn't necessarily mean just demographics. Today, we have too many tools to understand usage, behavior etc and present relevant offer to customers.But the last mile is certainly about humanizing such interactions to make it meaningful.I remember an anecdote mentioned by my client when he visited India. He stayed in a 5 star hotel. During his first visit, he mentioned to the hotel staff that he had mosquitoes in his room. The hotel staff were apologetic and made necessary arrangements to satisfy him. The next time he came to India after 2 years, he stayed in the same hotel and to his surprise he saw a liquid mosquito repellent in his room even before he checked in. I guess the surprise part was this effort by the hotel staff and he is now a loyal customer of Taj.

4. Irrelevant retention or promotional offers despite proper tracking for personalization. Especially in website interactions, I am not a big fan of tracking every move of the customer and achieve implicit personalization.This is truly a privacy issue.Lets set it aside. Despite tracking the customer, most often customers get irrelevant offers because these are product mappings done by marketers in the cross sell/up-sell tool(CRM/ecommerce) without understanding customer expectations.

All this leads to one big revelation in my mind. In the Marketing 1.0 school, marketers did agree that KYC is the most important aspect of marketing but some how fell into the trap of using more tools and technologies without much of effort to interact with customers for better understanding.

In the Marketing 2.0 ( social Media Marketing)paradigm, the wow in the beginning was on the various social media tools, technologies and platforms( Facebook, twitter).But customer anonymity,change of market/customer dynamics has forced marketers to understand forces which influences a customer to buy and sell.This is being achieved through meaningful interactions/collaboration with customers.Guess the paradigm has changed from just B2B/B2C to B2I2C ( Business to Influencer to Customers)

KYC is a continuous process and is constantly evolving. As sensible marketers, we need to let go of some archaic approaches to survive in this new paradigm.

Human Universals vs Plurals in the 2.0 paradigm

The word xxx 2.0 ( call it Web 2.0 or any 2.0) is turning out to be truly fascinating as any form of 2.0 has given the power to the consumer.Let me quote examples from Bernie's book on Marketing 2.0:

Music 1.0: audio cassettes and tapes with content given by music power houses
Music 2.0: Music downloaded from iTunes, Napster and passed on to peers

Encyclopedia 1.0: purchased as 15 volumes of books
Encyclopedia 2.0:content generated by users and millions of pages available freely over the Internet as Wikipedia
and so does many things like software 2.0, sales 2.0 so on and so forth. What about markets,celebrities and consumers? Why not this argot of 2.0 be applied to them?

Few things that prompted me to take this topic:

1. Malcolm Gladwell's reference to Universals and Plurals in the world of mustards and Ketchups

2. Marketers shift to micro Markets over traditional Mass Markets

3. Emergence of Social Influence:"Not just friends, but friendsters, will start to matter" - Shiv Singh's reference to this term in is article titled "Trends in Social Influence Marketing"

What is wrong with the conventional marketing approach and will it sustain in the new 2.0 paradigm?

The conventional marketing is pretty much top down and approached as mass markets( markets 1.0) .This approach worked in the past as humans were/are perceived to be universals and homogeneous ( consumer 1.0)in thought process and buying behavior.Mass media is used to reach out to the customers and celebrities are used to break clutter in media and achieve AIDA (advertising model). But consumers have more choices be it the plethora of media or number of products available to address their needs and wants.This leads to possibly couple of inferences

1. With increase in disposable incomes and growing choices, consumers preferences are getting to be much more granular and niche. Ex:Consumers preferences have moved from strong coffees to cappuccino, espresso to cappuccino made from organic milk and natural sugar.Companies are moving away from demographic based targeting to more behavioral targeting. This has led to micro markets( Market 2.0). There are no more homogeneous universal products but plurals.

2.In the 1.0 paradigm, marketers interrupt the consumer than interact.The interruption was through a celebrity or a company speak to a consumer through a one-way communication channel.This has lead to discrimination of marketing messages by consumers. In an era of social graphs, consumers now tend to look up to their friends/friendsters( celebrity 2.0) in interactive channels for authentic recommendations than the celebrities used by conventional marketeres.Authenticity trumps celebrity.

3.With increased penetration of social networks,consumer clustering has moved away from demographics to behavioral( consumer 2.0). Groups formed on Facebook,Twitter and other social networks based on affinity are a good example of this fact.

While I say it is a fact, most success stories are rationalization of events/facts or as Steve Jobs calls it as connecting the dots backwards. Otherwise how can Heinz, in 2.0 paradigm, still defy the theory of plurals and continue to be a universal product.A Ketchup which is sweet,salt, sour, bitter and umami yet appeal to the mass. Guess thats what makes consumer insights a complex yet interesting area to explore.

Zero to 60: Ford's Social Media Story

Check out this SlideShare Presentation:

Zero to 60: Ford's Social Media Story

View more presentations from Scott Monty.

Tweets for Radio Show

I was driving my car in the morning and felt monotonous. So I switched on the radio. They were 8 channels and each one putting up some kind of a 'me too' content.The caller speaks to the RJ on some absurd topic and this goes on for a couple of mins and then you get to hear the latest song, repeated a 100 times in each of these channels. Truly uninspiring!!!!.

Suddenly, 3 disjointed things popped out of my head:
1. In the new age marketing/ Marketing 2.0( thanks to Bernie Borges for this term)content and relationships are the most important things for a consumer

2. How can I connect a Marketing 1.0 medium like radio with the buzz media/Web 2.0 channel

3. Most important of all, how can I make the content interesting, engaging and entertaining.

Big Idea:The Venn diagram of these 3 disjointed things led to an idea. MTV used to have this show in which when the song was playing, some interesting trivia's about the song, artists, music directors et al was displayed as a runner. The content was generated by the producer of the TV show.Things have changed a lot in the last 4 years. We are living in an era where consumer is generating content and consuming content.

New kind of Radio shows:: Lets say the program is an Michael Jackson (MJ) special. The RJ, while introducing the song, can provide one trivia to start. The show is about encouraging listeners of this show to tweet their trivia to the RJ. The RJ will then get to pick and choose the best of them and share it in the show. Mind it all this will happen real time. For example if the song to be played is 'Heal the world'. imagine if the RJ gets a trivia tweet from one of the listener as " In a 2001 Internet chat with fans, Jackson said "Heal the World" is the song he is most proud to have created". To many a Jackson fans any news about him will get them ecstatic...Am sure this will create a postive WOM for the radio shows. The obvious thing is that you get away from monotonous content and get in to engaging content which will help build relationships.. Such is the power of web 2.0 tools

So can we start hearing more tweets :-)

New Roles

Its almost inevitable that the marketing/media managers are forced to look at internet as a medium for brand building. While the inertia was high to move to Internet, thanks to the overwhelming adoption of social networks, marketers are now looking at more ways of permission or collaboration marketing than marketing through intrusion ( imagine a banner on the road screaming for attention when you are busy driving).

This gets to me to think as to how the marketing team of the future is going to look like... Some trends to justify this thought:
1.Social networks are proving to be new ways of engaging customers
2. Interruption marketing moves way for permission marketing
3. Rapid progress on the social media measurement. What is spoken about your brand in www is often asked question. Seth Godin has launched brands in public(BIP).
4. Emergence of measurement tools from radiance, hubspot gives enough opportunity for marketers to focus on the activities online.

As web 2.0 is proving to be an interactive medium, marketers are sure to put in additional resources not just money but create new roles like:

1. Chief Engagement Officer - Online( CEGO):-)
2. Engagement manager - Facebook appverdising ( applications+ advertising)
3. Customer Response Manager - Twitter ( kind of work Comcast is doing using Twitter)

Cool... Let me look for new designation :-).

Whose Word is it anyway?

Imagine a scenario.....You are computer literate, savvy to the extent that you know how to use excel, word or power point. A persona of this nature when asked to buy a computer will be quite unsure on what to do and what to buy. I am quite confident that at least 30% of the associates in a given organization will be of this nature.

The obvious thing is to reach out to a super computer savvy associate or friend to get some help in purchase. Conventional wisdom will make you believe that its the best way to purchase.

I see a challenge with this approach.

Usually as early Majority ( refer to Moore's idea diffusion curve) when we seek for referrals, we reach out to innovators or early adopters.The kind of conversation early adopter persona will have about computers includes RAM, Processor, Multimedia Card, OS ( Linux), DVD + /-RW with Dual Layer Write Capabilities, Optical USB Mouse and all possible jargons which will be confusing for the Early/Late Majority.

It will be an information overload for the buyer hence the best option is to choose the path of least resistance. Go ahead and ask your geek friend to chose the desktop for you. I am sure it will be a good purchase.

The problem is post purchase... You spend so much money to get the best configuration but you have no idea how to put it to use.. What you do is the same Word, excel Power point.. This could possibly cause discontent and may eventually create some resistance for new technology adoption.

This gap will serve as pointer for marketers who intend to build long term relationship with their customers

If a good majority of the consumers fall into this category , marketers may have to try innovative ways to reach out this segment. May have to help them take baby steps by involving consumers of similar behavior and aptitude.

The Quest is to find new way to identify the right sneezers (influencers) for the Early majority or Late majority.. Whose word is it anyway?

Tring Tring- Please Listen

I wanted to purchase a mobile phone over the weekend.Went to one of the leading stores in Chennai. I wouldnt argue that I am gadget freek but fairly technology savvy.

I had a few specs for phone which I duly communicated to the sales person. This includes:
1. Not a heavy phone
2. Easy to Use
3. No need for a slide phone
4. Shouldnt be fragile as my 1 year old daughter may want to use it :-)

I always believed that there are too many options and I will be confused what to buy. Contrary to my belief, the sales person came back with very few options or rather non options..

What makes it even more confusing is the model numbers and the laundry listing of features which are supposed to appeal to our rational minds.

Take care to look at my specifications. It has nothing to do with 8 mega pixel camera or Document scannner etc.. No brochure states consumer terminologies.My guess is that a section of consumers are overwhelmed by these terms that they choose path of least resistance like sales person's choice or friend's suggestion.

I see an opportunity. Can these mobile companies start listening to these conversions? Capturing these adjectives stated by consumers on an ongoing basis will certainly help them get product or communication ideas..

I will try and see how to capture this conversation.After all this tring is worth listening..

Say no 2 Mass marketing - look for trenches

I remember reading an article on how New Zealanders marketed their gooseberry in USA. All they did was to call it a 'Kiwi' and put them in niche Latin food stores as Latinos use gooseberry,which is similar to mangoes and peaches, in their kitchens. If the new Zealanders had gone to WalMart's or COSTCO ( any American stores), there will be no takers. Look for the trenches and the risk takers will ensure that they market the products through word of mouth.

This inference inspired a thought. Chennai, a metropolitan city in India, has recently seen a surge in floating population thanks to IT and auto companies. Many people from the Northern part of India who come to Chennai loathe Chennai as it is hot and humid and the only thing that gets discussed is movies and only movies.

Contrary to a lot of beliefs Chennai has changed a lot. It has many multi cuisine restaurants ( Malaysian, Koren,Japanese to name a few), some excellent theatres and stage plays( both English and Hindi), pretty active night life for nocturnals.. Chennai has changed a lot...

Here is a marketing idea. Intend to launch a news letter to non Chennaites which will higlight on some of the super cool events/hang outs in Chennai. The newsletter will be titled ' F N C O' ( For Non Chennaites Only). Instead of trying out a mass marketing approach, the goal is just to target people who are in need of such information. Naturally, these risk takers will be keen to experiment and sneeze ( word of mouth). That way the proliferation will be much faster and better than launching a me too mag.

Hopefully after the launch of this news letter, am praying that people will discuss not just the weather of Chennai alone. Hope it takes away the heat from Chennai!!!!!

Enter ebusiness

As we look at the world wide web, we find organizations at different ends of the spectrum. At one end we have brick and mortar companies which use the web as brochureware and at the other end we have companies which do business in the online space..

In general, the web has moved away from a static medium which has a meager capability of static information, simple transaction to a medium which encourages multichannel buying. But traditional marketers still perceive web as a supplementary channel and not so much a standalone channel which has the capability to address all aspects of the marketing mix. Some Marketers believe that the web cannot be used to:

1. Generate consumer insights
2. used for category expansion
3. Reinforce Imagery
4. Service customers through online as there will be no personal touch

The web is doing all is this and much more. Thanks to web 2.0, consumers self expression,a manifestation of their thoughts, are well captured. Just that it is an arduous task of sifting through voluminous data. Consumers expression about products, services etc can be captured through videos, photos and comments written in youtube,flickr and blogs respectively.

Web is utilized as a persuasion medium. Lets take for example the travel industry.First time customers for a specific travel product are well enticed through peer comments, Photos, videos and ratings. Websites of car manufactures are good example of how to build imagery and encourage multichannel buying.3D demo of cars gives a good perspective of the user for color choice, interiors and dashboard appearance. The other product literatures reduces information asymmetry thus giving the control to the user as far as purchase is concerned.

Banks are good example of how they have pioneered channel migration strategies.Avatars are used to give a personal touch to the experience.Personalization as feature is provided by default to give the user a perception of familiar territories..

Thought leaders in this space are modelling the movement to online as a mimic of the real life so that the transition is seamless for the users. iPhone's user experience won rave reviews because of this aspect.

As marketers, you have a business case.It is only fair to state that for your business to succeed, a strong ebusiness strategy is a must...

New Generation Search- My experience

I google every day like any other normal human being and truly believe that it has been the next best thing after internet which has helped reduce information asymmtery in the world. You wanna buy a phone or a camera or know about renewable  energy, google will pull up relevant pages... But the intent of this blog is not promte Google but to look at what is missing in the current search?

Why is this important? If we look at the trend/growth of a search engine, there emerges a strong pattern with the changing requirements of users. The first generation of search were more focussed on key words based results... While the users were happy with these results, prolonged exposure was pushing for a change.... In comes google with a search which based on fabuluous algorithm which includes one key attribute of references, aka, refernce notes in reserach papers. What google achieved was no ordinary effort....Their algorithms were so strong, that search results became more relevant... Both the hardware and the algorithm created a huge entry barrier that Google became a behmoth with small businesses mushrooming around it. This includes SEO specialits, PPC specialits.

Google made it even more interesting by having a sponsored link which came up with relevant pages closer to the search key word of the user.. Excesive exposure to search is pushing the user for even more relavent search... The new search should achieve what Google is not able to do it in its  current avatar. Let me substantiate this with an example.

If you are searching for a footbal club and its merchandise, google will come up with an answer in 0.12 seconds ( not sure if this matters to anybody). But what it will fail to address is the intent of the user.. Lets make the search for any day - day activities for which you need an answer. For example, you buy a DVD in the US and trying to play it in the DVD player purchased in India..The DVD player does not read the disc. You want to solve this issue desperatly. Turns towards Google.. The commoly used key words will be

• DVD disc US DVD player India
• US disc compatible with player in India
• Not able to play DVD purchased in the US

Fo all these keywords, the result returned will be meaning less as nobody creates a page matching you intent and keywords. This is an ardous task as every human being thinks differently.

Your search will be become meaningful only after you get the keyword called 'region code'.This will be achieved only after 15-20 attempts. Most people give up by then...

So what does it mean? The current search helps search for keywords and not for the users intent... Hypothetically, twitter helps achieve that because, what is in the mind is captured on Twitter. It is better than FB as the relationsip is asymmetric. Use search.twitter.com to find out what is in the mind of the human race? Sounds very ambitious.

So what should the Gen 2.0 search engines do to make them more relevant to users?

While,we have many startups which has started designing the Search 3.0. Please read http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/search_20_vs_tr.php

But  I have a few suggestions to the enhance the exisiting search functionlity:

• Build an intent list:With every search result, ask the user to rate the quality of the search. If the result is not satisfactory, ask the users for exact explanation of requirement 
• Suggested terms: Based on the intent list,pls suggest alternate list to the users and ask them to rate it.
• Build a community/social network based search

Let me explore these ideas and build a PoC for the new generation search.. I am in search of it

Some random Thoughts

• Can Facebook look at User Generated ads? 
• Was Maslov's hirerarchy inspired from Taitreya Upanishad? Brighu's explanation of happiness
• Modern inventions are inspiration from epics... Swipe card, iris scanner, air missles
• Why do I belive that Second Life will become popular?
• The marketing concept for the age can be understood if you watch movies of that age...
• Concept of anchoring is very popular during appraisals
• Game theory is interesting....
• Why does one upload on social networks.... Possible to tell the world that they are happy thereafter....
• Did Biz Stone believe that Twitter will give FB a run for its money when he launched? Is there a prescription for success?
• 
  

Spritual Sojourn

The last 6 months in New Jersey has been really hectic and mechanical. Its been work, work and only work. I really felt that I missed the spiritual sojourn which me and my wife used to enjoy when we were in Chennai.

Quite a few questions come to my mind and thankful I am having a long weekend to sit back and think about life, immediate tomorrow and anandham (eternal bliss). Why are these questions arising in my mind? I realized that am get sucked into this materialistic life and one reaches a point of saturation. The Atman is truly deprived of its share of time.Leave alone state of consciousness.But for me to reach the state of consciousness, I need to redefine my paradigm.

This word'Paradigm'is very special in my dictionary as I have a realized that many a times when I am faced with a challenging situation redefining the paradigm has helped look at the issue in a pragmatic manner.To further elaborate on this word,[aradigm', I wish to share an anecdote from Steven Covey's book Seven Habits of Highly effective people. The story goes like this:

" A father and 2 children head to the New York Sub station and were waiting for the train. The kids were really naughty and their decibel levels were very high. The other passengers and onlookers were really upset with the kids behavior that they went to the father and questioned as to why the father is not controlling the kids? One of the onlooker asked the father about the kids mom and why was she not around to control the kids? The father with a heavy heart replied saying that they just finished the mother's funereal and were getting back home. Immediately the whole paradigm changed. Everybody looked at the kids with sympathy." The situation was the same but when the paradigm changes our reaction changes.

Coming back to where I left.... Paradigm... I have decided to redefine my paradigm. If the goal is to seek the Uultimate then my current paradigm does not help me in achieving it. It is too busy mending my ways to achieve incremental progress in my materialistic life.

Just when I was thinking on these lines, I had a chance to listen to one of the spiritual leader about bramha anandham. Looks like the solution to the puzzle is falling in place and am starting my spirtual sojourn. Am beginning to believe that once the paradigm is set then things that you encounter will be in line with your paradigm... For the last 2 days I have managed to read and practice few things which will fuel my quest for consciousness This includes:

Vedas
Upanishads: Knowledge of Realty
Yoga
Paranayama
Dvaitha
Narayaneeyam: Sung in praise of Guruvayoorappan
Thiruppavai: Andals hymns on Lord Vishnu
Chakras: Bioenergy centers within the body
Kundalini: Coiled serpent

I am encountring works of authors whom I have never heard off:

susan Shumsky:How to hear voice of God
Leo Buscaglia: Bus 9 to Paradise

Call it fate , destiny or as I would like to call it as divine intervention. The paradigm is right and my only prayer to god is bless me and fuel my thoughts so that the spitual sojourn turns into an odyssey.

Leverage the Social Media-- the Gillete way

A unique initiative taken up Gilette and Digitas to infulence behavior change in men which will eventually result in more sales. The movement was called as National Organization of Social Crusaders Reuplsed by Unsahaven Faces ( NOSCRF)with the motto called " Lets end the trend of prickly, scratchy, stubble faces" This is a classic example of using the new Age social media to create a need for the category or to infulence behavior change. Since Gillette is the market leader, the out come of this surrogate intiative resulted in good sales numbers for Gilette although the numbers could be linked to this intiative alone.

The good thing about this initiate is that neither Gilette or Digitas branded this infocommercial or promote the site noscruf.com. The video was posted in youtube and in 6 weeks had a million visits to the site.

This leaves me with the thought that consumers will not go to marketers site to look for products and be infulenced for a behavior change.Probably, the approach would be to create entertaining and unbranded commercials which will infulence and engage the users.

Intranets and User Experience

I was reading few articles on "intranets and its role in employee satisfaction and productity" this artcile from the NNgroup caught my attention.This article talks about a the role of UX in intranets. There are 2 points which presents a compelling case to do a deep dive into this space..

1. Integrating Day to Day work task with the intranets
2. Leveraging the Social Networking Platform.

A must read.......


Some of the key areas for which best practices are :

Encouraging employees to self-publish content
Training intranet publishers
Keeping the intranet up-to-date
Supporting factory-floor employees
Supporting branch-office and in-store users
Onboarding of new employees
Consistent navigation
Intranet favorites / Quick Access lists
Task-based information architecture (IA)
Multilingual intranets; supporting international employees
Mobile intranet access
Multimedia and video on intranets
Collaboration tools and discussion boards
E-learning features on intranets
Internal weblogs
Intranet search
Development process for intranet redesigns
Staffing of intranet teams; where they report in the organization
Updating and maintaining standards and guidelines for intranet design
Intranet branding
Advertising and promoting intranet features
Polls
Staff directory and employee profile pages
According to the usability consultancy's findings, too few intranets perform careful studies of productivity improvements, and thus rarely have hard ROI numbers

Branding took a major upswing this year. Whereas in previous years, 59% of intranets were branded, and 41% were simply called 'the intranet', now 80% of the winners had branded their intranet.

"There's no need to overdo the branding: intranets are for internal use, and you're not competing against fifty other intranets," Jakob commented.

Among the notable trends from past competitions are a consistent look and feel across the intranet, special training activities for content contributors, and the use of task-based information architectures.

Video and mobile access on the rise

"Poorly used intranet videos can substantially reduce productivity," Jakob warned. "(...) It's important, for example, to correctly set users' expectations so that they only click through to videos they actually want to see."

"(...) Mobile devices are no longer just phones; they're also intranet extensions - at least when the intranet has features designed for smaller screens. (...) O2 has a special mobile edition of its intranet that's optimized for the BlackBerry and strips the homepage down to a few of its most useful links. (...) Vodafone's mobile intranet scales back content services. (...)"

The Nielsen Norman Group also spotted a contra-trend: "(...) the first good use of overlay graphics (where an image appears on top of the content). On the Web, this is one of the most annoying and repellant advertising techniques. Nonetheless, Allianz Australia effectively uses overlays to highlight and explain useful new intranet features. (...)"

Usability Testing. Oh, The Things You Can Learn.

This is an excellent article on Usability testing.The most impressive aspect of this article is that author talks usability testing as a continuous process and the purpose is look for consumer insights and not any kind of confirmation of our design thinking.This is truely a marketing speak.

Read the article.

Steve Jobs Stanford Commencement Speech 2005

This is one of the best speehes that I have heard. Experiences from a organization called Life.

The Science and Art of User Experience at Google

I had a change to view this video.This is presentation made by Jen FitzPatrik who currently manages UX at google.She talks about how Experience analysis and log analysis is at the forefront with every google's initiative. Interesting one!!!

Best practices - Is it the best practice?

Best Practices - Is this the best practice?

This is a rhetorical question in my mind.

I am a consultant and whenever we get to do some work for the client or even when we pitch for new business, we end up doing competition landscaping and highlight either their pit falls or come up with best practices.

I don't think it is the right approach. Especially if you are in the business of providing the solutions for customer experience.Let me try and back this statement using some logics which I think will be deemed fit. Ofcourse these logics are not as a result of any best practices exercise.

The justification are as follows:

• The inferences and recommendations as best practices pre-supposes the fact the customers have accepted that idea/initiative in a over whelming manner.God knows what they think.
• The subset of the earlier point is also the fact that the best practice is the interpretation of the expert and not the customer. Ultimately, it is pretty obvious that your opinion is not the same as that of the universe. So what if you are an expert? It still doesnt make sense
• I come from the school of thought that only original ideas sell. The "me too's" do not survive. Forget my belief. Lets take it objectively:best practice always leads to incremental progress. It is never radical coz you are just packaging what somebody has tried. Customers do know about it. I know some people will be ready to pounce on me to say that few companies have been successful ( I do not want to take names). But as you rightly said, its few and will only be few. They probably got their chemistry right in the other aspects of business.
• The key aspect about customer experience is innovation. Innovation clearly would mean that it its your idea and not a copy of somebody's idea.Customer would remember for your originality and not when you get somebody's idea and make a statement " I have that as well with me".
• Forgot all the other aspects.... Best practices approach is a clear shot cut and an excuse for not meeting your customers and trying to understand their experience. Best practices is the dampner for the concept called "out of box" thinking. It would probably mean out of business. No short cust please. Please make a sincere effort to understand your customer.

Google's and Ipods were born coz somebody soiled their hands to find out what customers want? What kind of experience is desirable? No best practices would lead to break through innovation.

So my suggestion is drop the practice of best practice. Get to know your customers better instead of learning from your competitors. The devil is in the details. May be ethnography will help. That'ss my next topic and I had to make a mention of it.. Fits in well I guess.