tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-72391868747187832002024-03-04T23:34:10.924-08:00schemepunkEnchanted with the power of an idea, and breathless at the accelerating rate of change. Hold on tight.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11258898645067417448noreply@blogger.comBlogger136125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7239186874718783200.post-35798280257902175932014-05-06T14:17:00.001-07:002014-05-06T14:17:17.345-07:00It's not you, it's meA few days back Techcrunch published a terrific <a href="http://techcrunch.com/2014/04/25/a-personal-reflection-on-google/" target="_blank">behind-the-scenes account</a> of Google+'s early days, written by someone who was an intern on the project.<br />
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There's a ton of dishy details on the social network that so many people love to hate, but ultimately I think it boils down to insight into two fundamental mistakes that Google made.<br />
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The first is a common pitfall for engineers: they fall in love with features and capabilities. They focused on building things like "social circles," privacy controls (ironically, as it turned out), and even wasted time arguing whether to enable logical operators in search, when the only thing that matters to a social network is the social element (namely, are the people you want to connect with already there)?<br />
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Technology is not the destination. Technology only matters so long as it's a means to an end -- in this case, a socially desirable end.<br />
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Google's second major error is similarly widespread: Google+ was always far more about what the company wanted than what its users wanted.<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>It was clear that Facebook, with its ever-expanding social graph, was developing an extraordinary dataset that could undermine the supremacy of Google’s key search product. At the time, Google had a relationship with Twitter to access the social network’s firehose of data, but that agreement expired in mid-2011. Google needed a way to get social data, and fast. ... These fears manifested themselves in what would eventually be called Google+. The vision for the product is clear, albeit complicated: create a social network for everyone that would simultaneously provide Google with enough data about each user to ensure its search engine could adapt to a more social world.</i></blockquote>
Google needed user data, and so they created a network by which users would furnish them with data. The problem was that its would-be users, of course, cared quite a bit less about Google's data needs than Google did.<br />
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Whether you're building a product or crafting a message, the first requirement is to connect with the end-user/audience. Those people don't care what you want and need; they care about what they want and need. Focus on the former, and (like Google+) you'll end up with something that no one has much use for.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11258898645067417448noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7239186874718783200.post-39196175227438873812014-03-18T11:01:00.001-07:002014-03-18T11:01:20.107-07:00When less is moreMy alarm didn't go off this morning. Well actually, it did—and that's the problem.<br />
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For several months now I've been using my iPad as an alarm clock. It has a number of advantages over a more traditional alarm: I can set alarms for different days of the week (so, for instance, I can wake up at 6:00 on weekdays, 7:00 on Saturdays, and sleep in on Sundays). If I get sick of the alarm sound, I can switch to something else. And it's very portable, so I don't need one alarm solution for home and another for when I travel.<br />
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For months the solution worked flawlessly, until just recently. Possibly as a result of the iOS 7.1 update, now sometimes the alarm doesn't sound. Technically it does go off on schedule, but every now and then it's completely silent. I have no idea that it's time to get up until our hungry cat wakes me up and I see what time it is.<br />
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This reminded me of something important. In general I like iOS 7. It's full of features that I use and enjoy. But an alarm clock going off on time is a completely feature that is both completely unsexy and non-negotiable. I need that to work reliably, and if it doesn't, it won't matter how cool all the other stuff is.<br />
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You can give me a device with 1,000 features, but I'm only going to depend on three or four. If delivering 1,000 features means that those three or four things become unreliable, don't do it. Focus on the fundamentals and make sure they're rock-solid. That's the cupcake; everything else is frosting.<br />
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This is true of any project: there is some core element that might not be exciting at all, but it is indispensable. When you push to include extra elements in that project, you can't allow your unexciting, indispensable core to suffer.<br />
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Less is more, when giving less makes less better.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11258898645067417448noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7239186874718783200.post-75770546456856106592014-03-07T14:35:00.001-08:002014-03-07T14:35:14.356-08:00Strength is not in numbersThe backlash has already begun against content marketing. We're all going to be drowning in content, they say. Brands will flood their platforms with mediocre, me-too filler that accomplishes nothing, except to the extent that it trains customers to stop listening.<br />
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Just when everyone was gearing up to start developing their content, that approach to SEO has already been declared passé.<br />
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If you're listening, though, you can hear the sound of opportunity. When everyone else is chasing after content quantity, the opportunity is in content quality.<br />
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I spent years as an editor, and the method I always applied—the method that always worked—was to cut and condense. Fewer words work better than more. Shorter headlines drive higher engagement. Customers almost always prefer less content to more—particularly if we use the "less" requirement as an opportunity to make your content better.<br />
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The people who never really had a content strategy in the first place have devised plans built around empty numbers, and now they're adding their weight to the backlash against that non-strategic strategy. Your focus, though, should be on quality, not quantity: fewer, better, and shorter pieces that answer questions and solve real problems in your customers' lives.<br />
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When the world is full of noise, your opportunity is to provide a clear signal.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11258898645067417448noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7239186874718783200.post-20272927219933016552014-02-18T13:01:00.000-08:002014-02-18T13:01:42.779-08:00Your face, at restRecently the College Humor video "<a href="http://www.collegehumor.com/embed/6895812/bitchy-resting-face" target="_blank">Resting Bitch Face</a>" made the rounds on Facebook, which reminded me of something I've fought with all my life: people think I'm angry, but that's just my resting face.<br />
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It usually happens when I'm thinking Deep Thoughts. My wind will be wandering, when someone I know happens upon me and asks: "What's wrong?" I always answer that nothing's wrong, that just what my face looks like when it's in a neutral state. Sometimes they believe me, but not always.<br />
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That's just my cross to bear: I have an angry resting face. There's no anger behind the face, but unless I make a conscious effort to smile, I come across as angry and hostile.<br />
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This morning I was talking with my wife about how different local companies approach content marketing. The challenge with content marketing is you need to try to give something of value away for free, even though every mercantile bone in your body is screaming: "Don't do it!" You need to offer your readers (or video viewers) something that has intrinsic value, and you need to consciously not market to them in the process, because your aim is a long-term relationship and your potential customers need to trust that you won't ping them with constant marketing for them to opt into the relationship.<br />
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It's a hard task. Many companies fail at it. They set down the content marketing path, but with every piece of content there's a catch: fill in this form; give us your email address; fill out this survey; tweet this sentence. Every time a company tries to monetize its relationship with you, you're reminded that you don't actually have a relationship with them. Relationships are mutual and long-term, and these attempts to show short-term ROI sabotage both of those elements.<br />
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I was talking about this with my wife when it hit me: companies have resting faces, too. Companies like <a href="http://moz.com/" target="_blank">Moz</a> and <a href="http://hubspot.com/" target="_blank">HubSpot</a> present a stream of content with no catch; their resting face is a friendly smile that says, "Come sit over here; we have something you might like." Companies like <a href="http://simplymeasured.com/" target="_blank">SimplyMeasured</a>, meanwhile, have a resting face that looks like a gleam in their eye; it says, "I have something I want to sell you."<br />
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(Not to pick on SimplyMeasured; they're just the first example that came to mind of a content marketer who repeatedly requires me to "sign up" for everything they have to offer.)<br />
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Whether you like it or not, your resting face has a huge effect on how others perceive you: whether they expect that you'll be likable, interesting, approachable, and trustworthy. What does your business' resting face look like?Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11258898645067417448noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7239186874718783200.post-75377262915477494582014-02-10T12:20:00.002-08:002014-02-10T12:20:20.665-08:00Things I Learned from Dan BrownThe next time you’re in a coffee shop, look around at the people who are staring earnestly at their laptop screens, pecking away at the keys in a desultory, dispirited fashion.<br />
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There’s a good chance that those people are working on their novel.<br />
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There’s an excellent chance that they really hate Dan Brown.<br />
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Now, I don’t mean to imply that their hatred is exclusive to Dan Brown. Rather it’s Brown and authors like him - the ones who seem to effortlessly ascend the best-seller charts, pumping out one international hit after another - that draw their ire. Partly it’s just jealousy, but mostly it’s resentment. They resent that Dan Brown can be so richly rewarded when he’s such a terrible writer.<br />
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It’s true; Dan Brown’s characters are paper-thin, his dialogue is bombastic, his historical and scientific research is spotty at best, and his intricate, conspiracy-driven plots only occasionally hold water. (He also has an irritating tendency to create new words all his own - “symbologist,” anyone? - and then pretend that everyone in the world knows that word and uses it in casual conversation.)<br />
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And yet readers love him. This is the sort of thing that drives would-be writers crazy, but the reason is actually quite simple: Dan Brown is good at the things that matter to sales.<br />
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His chapters are extremely short. They present a single piece of information - the crumb that leads you one step deeper into the forest - and then they end, abruptly, when you’re right on the point of learning something important to the story. He teases you constantly to just read the next chapter … and then the one after that, and the one after that.<br />
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His plots invariably promise to teach you something about religion, history, and science, but Brown doesn’t confuse instruction with entertainment. He gives you enough to feel like you’re a little smarter once you’re done, but he doesn’t bury you under detail.<br />
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If you’ve read one of Brown’s novels, you know exactly what to expect in the next one. You’ll get some of the same characters, you’ll get another vast conspiracy, and you’ll be taken through one or two exotic settings. Brown is the McDonald’s of popular fiction, which is to say he’s predictable enough to be comfortable. Readers like it when they’re comfortable.<br />
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These principles - plus a heaping load of good fortune - have made Dan Brown a millionaire. They can improve your content, too.<br />
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Dan Brown teases his readers with carefully-crafted chapter endings. You should think about how you can develop content that teases the reader (or the viewer) to go a little bit further, a little bit deeper, rather than abandoning your content halfway through.<br />
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Dan Brown talks about religion, history, and science - but not too much. You should focus on giving your audience something of value, but be careful not to overwhelm them. Provide links to those who want to delve deeper into a topic, but your readers’ first view of a topic should be a quick, engaging overview.<br />
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Dan Brown creates comfort via familiarity. Give some thought to how predictable your content is. Are your articles written with a common voice and presented with a standard look and feel? Does a certain personality infuse everything that you publish? These are the elements that can make your content more predictable, familiar, and comfortable.<br />
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Even now I can’t recommend that you read Dan Brown’s work, but we can all learn something from the method he brings to that work. If there’s one thing the author of “The Da Vinci Code” understands, it’s how to satisfy an audience and keep them coming back for more.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11258898645067417448noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7239186874718783200.post-60361174801523837082014-02-05T11:13:00.002-08:002014-02-05T11:13:56.541-08:00A is for "audience"It's a standard writer's trick: when you first set out to fill a blank page with words, begin by imagining who you're writing for. Is it your mother? Your best friend? The professor in that one class you took? It doesn't matter nearly so much who that person in your head is, than it is that you don't make the fatal mistake of writing for yourself. Writing for yourself causes you to make selfish choices. You don't explain your terms. You don't take the time to consider where you might be misunderstood. You don't make any effort to be interesting, and as a result—not in every case, but most often—you will come across as a long-winded, self-indulgent, self-obsessed bore.<br />
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I keep coming back to this when I think about content marketing. We all know bad marketing: it's like the salesman in a shop who comes over with a smirk on his face, eager to sell you something and not particularly interested in what you want. Bad marketing articulates the company's position and expects you to care. Bad marketing and bad writing have a lot in common.<br />
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Marketing needs to think more about audience, and this has never been more true than today. Everyone's talking about content marketing, and I can promise with 100% confidence that you can't create good content without a clear and constant focus on your audience: what they want, what they need but maybe don't want yet. What are their questions? What do they worry about? Who are they, and what do they aspire to be?<br />
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These are audience questions, and answering them involves a choice: we will focus on him, but not her. We will delight her, but not really bother with those guys over there—at least not this year. We will do everything in our power to make this specific sort of person's nostrils flare with enthusiasm the first time he sees our blog or finds us on Twitter or clicks over to our Facebook page, because this is who we have in our head when we think about the people who (eventually) will be equally delighted with our product.<br />
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Bad marketing might make a sale if it's delivered in the right place at the right time, but it won't reliably build a relationship. Good content marketing is all about that relationship. In effect, it says: "Don't worry about our product. That's not the point right now. For now, let's just talk." If you can say that with your content marketing—and really mean it—then you can build a relationship, and the sale will come from a foundation of trust.<br />
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Every day I see fresh articles on how to form your content marketing strategy, but it's pretty simple, really, and it boils down to a two-step process:<br />
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<ol>
<li>Envision your audience.</li>
<li>Publish content that answers their questions or solves problems in their lives.</li>
</ol>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11258898645067417448noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7239186874718783200.post-74882938953704807302014-01-20T15:55:00.002-08:002014-01-20T15:55:50.862-08:00Mind Your P'sI recently heard that every business in the world boils down to three P's: people, process, and purpose.<br />
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(This is probably something that everyone learns in business school, but I was trained in the humanities. Bear with me.)<br />
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All three P's are important, it goes without saying. The third P, though, has wrinkled and ramifications that I've been thinking about lately. Namely, when we talk about a business' purpose, we need to distinguish between big-P Purpose and little-P purpose.<br />
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Purpose, capitalized, refers to the reason the business (or the team) exists. "Put a computer on every desk, running Microsoft software" was the Microsoft Purpose during its golden years. Every business has a Purpose, even if it's the most basic one: to make money. Everyone who works at a business is required on some level to contribute to that Purpose, and most all-hands meetings dedicate at least part of the time to infusing the workforce with a shared enthusiasm for that Purpose.<br />
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The reality on the ground, though, is that every single employee at a corporation has a purpose of his or her own: to make money, to have dental insurance, to build a career, to overcome challenges, to make customers happy, to impress their Mom. Everyone, without exception, has a purpose—though they may not be willing to admit what it is. Our purpose is what gets us out of bed in the morning. Our purpose is what lends meaning to what we do; it's the narrative in our life story.<br />
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It would be simplistic, then, to imagine that a business has one Purpose, because the first P (people) comes into play as well. There are a variety of purposes floating around in the air inside every office building, and I suspect that a dysfunctional team is, at least in part, made so by the fact that team members have little-P purposes that don't align with one another. This part of the team wants to make changes that will delight the customer; that part of the team wants to minimize risk; this other part is focused on what they want to do next in their career. Discordant purposes within a team are like horses pulling in different directions.<br />
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This is a big part—and maybe the most important part—of a manager's job. She needs to know her reports well enough to understand what purposes drive them, and she needs to be sufficiently engaged with them to help them develop purposes that align both with the business' Purpose and with the purposes of the other members of the team. After all, a collection of individuals becomes a team when all the horses are pulling in the same direction. It's the manager's job to align these various purposes, because no one else can.<br />
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Of course, nothing can degrade a sense of Purpose quite so effectively as bad Process. More on that later.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11258898645067417448noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7239186874718783200.post-24325112341920408452014-01-08T10:23:00.000-08:002014-01-08T10:23:05.488-08:00Remember thisIn our modern, data-driven world, one of your greatest challenges is memory. We're constantly besieged by information, some of which is interesting and could influence our personal and professional lives in powerful ways.<br />
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First, though, we need to remember it.<br />
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How do you hold on to the good ideas you encounter? How do you keep them in your mind long enough for them to move from short-term to long-term memory, where they might be accessible at the moment you need them? Businesses have been struggling with this issue for years, of course, and this struggle is at the heart of the knowledge management industry. Businesses are not the only entities that struggle with the issue, though.<br />
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A good idea that you encounter and consider for a moment before moving on to the next thing is like a leaf blowing through your patio. How do you capture and preserve the few that could transform your life?Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11258898645067417448noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7239186874718783200.post-58122481733032656602013-12-11T15:51:00.004-08:002013-12-11T15:51:55.834-08:00Funnel LoveI'm not much of an email guy, but the one newsletter that I really like comes from <a href="http://www.jetsetter.com/" target="_blank">Jetsetter</a>. The travel site's special focus is big, beautiful images: they can make a hotel room look so delicious, you want to lick the screen. I've been a fan of Jetsetter for years now, but I've never booked a trip through their site. Their content succeeded with me—it engaged and informed, and it built my appreciation of their brand—but it also failed to convert me into a paying customer.<br />
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Why is that? The answer is in the sales funnel.<br />
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Whether you're talking about the process of buying a car or the logic behind an infomercial pitch, there is a "sales funnel" that describes the stages customers go through on the way to making a purchase. Different people assign different names to different stages in that process, but by and large it all boils down to the following:<br />
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Awareness --> Desire --> Evaluation --> Commitment<br />
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First you need to know the product exists. Then you need to want it. Then you need to ask yourself whether you're making the right decision. Finally, you're all in: you make the purchase.<br />
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Jetsetter, like many other online marketers, loses the sale because they skip steps in the process. Jetsetter wants me to jump from liking the photo (awareness and the beginning of desire) straight into booking the trip (commitment). That leaves out evaluation, though, and I'm not going to spend thousands of dollars on a trip without first evaluating my options. On some level, Jetsetter is aware of this, and they try to compensate by offering limited-time offers ("sale expires in 5 hours") to force me to commitment. I'm sure that works with some customers, but not me.<br />
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What you need to understand is your customers will go through every stage in the sales funnel, whether or not you assist them in that process. If your site doesn't help with one of the stages, they'll go somewhere else to perform that stage; when they're done, maybe they'll come back to your site, and maybe they won't.<br />
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Respect the funnel, and give your customers the time they need to make a decision. If you try to hurry the process, you might just be driving them to a competitor.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11258898645067417448noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7239186874718783200.post-86080227250229612302013-12-03T17:06:00.001-08:002013-12-03T17:07:28.303-08:00Cognitive Biases and You: Confirmation Bias<i>This is one in a series of posts on <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cognitive_biases" target="_blank">cognitive biases</a> and how they apply to digital content and strategy. If you'd like to learn more about the thinking and experimental work behind these theories, I highly recommend <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Thinking-Fast-and-Slow-ebook/dp/B00555X8OA/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1383067963&sr=1-1&keywords=thinking+fast+and+slow" target="_blank">Thinking, Fast and Slow</a>, by Daniel Kahneman. </i><br />
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Confirmation bias is one of the most common and pervasive cognitive biases you're likely to see. It is the human tendency to preferentially accept information that appears to confirm already-held beliefs, and question evidence that calls those beliefs into question. Confirmation bias is particularly evident in the context of controversy. If you believe that something is true, and I appear with evidence that you're wrong, you're much more likely to question my evidence (or my motives in presenting it) than you are to change your mind.<br />
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For an extended (and passionate) presentation on confirmation bias and its effect on American history and politics, see <i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Political-Brain-Emotion-Deciding-Nation-ebook/dp/B0049MPKAU/ref=sr_1_4?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1386118635&sr=1-4&keywords=the+political+mind" target="_blank">The Political Brain</a></i>, by Drew Westen. As Westen documents, confirmation bias played a significant role in presidential politics over the past 30 years. Westen also draws on behavioral research to provide the solution: confirmation bias is evoked when you confront a difference of opinion with evidence. The way past it is first to establish an emotional connection with your audience.<br />
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For example: let's say that you're developing content for an environmental activist organization. You have a set of content on global warming, and you're not interested in preaching to the choir. You want to convince global warming skeptics, but how do you go about that? If you present facts and figures, Westen argues, you will get nowhere. Your skeptical readers will believe that you're cherry-picking your data, or even that you're quoting from studies that were drawn up in service of a conspiracy.<br />
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Instead, you need to begin by connecting with your readers. Think emotional themes: the welfare of our children, our shared hope for the future, the beauty of growing things. Open with this content to establish a set of values you share with your readers, the skeptics included. Then, from there, you move on to aspects of your argument. Westen argues that you can make an evidence-based argument, but not right away. Opening with inspiration and closing with evidence gives you the best chance of success.<br />
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One last thing about confirmation bias: it applies to everyone, you and me included, but it's far easier to spot in others than it is in ourselves. It might be worth asking where your own confirmation biases lie—those are the places where your own thinking breaks down.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11258898645067417448noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7239186874718783200.post-62258918456605782022013-11-19T14:11:00.003-08:002013-12-03T16:49:58.370-08:00Cognitive Biases and You: The Bandwagon Effect<i>This is one in a series of posts on <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cognitive_biases" target="_blank">cognitive biases</a> and how they apply to digital content and strategy. If you'd like to learn more about the thinking and experimental work behind these theories, I highly recommend <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Thinking-Fast-and-Slow-ebook/dp/B00555X8OA/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1383067963&sr=1-1&keywords=thinking+fast+and+slow" target="_blank">Thinking, Fast and Slow</a>, by Daniel Kahneman. </i><br />
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The bandwagon effect is a mental heuristic with an unusually self-explanatory name: it refers to the common human tendency to go along with the judgment of the people around us.<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>The general rule is that conduct or beliefs spread among people, as fads and trends clearly do, with the probability of any individual adopting it increasing with the proportion who have already done so. As more people come to believe in something, others also "hop on the bandwagon" regardless of the underlying evidence.</i></blockquote>
An excellent example of the bandwagon effect is the iPhone app store, where the vast majority of the money is earned by a very small fraction of available apps. We like the songs that other people like, we go to the restaurants that are already popular, and we buy products that we've seen other people using.<br />
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Heuristics exist for a reason: they're convenient rules of thumb that allow us to make quick decisions when it will take too much time or effort to reach a more well-considered decision. The modern world presents us with a bewildering array of choices, and in most circumstances there's not enough information ready at hand to decide which of our choices are best. When you go to the store and are confronted with 15 varieties of peanut butter, you're probably not going to set time aside to research your options. You'll buy a brand that you recognize because the fact that it's already popular insulates you against the possibility that it's a really terrible brand of peanut butter. It might not be excellent, but it will probably be OK, and sometimes that's all we need.<br />
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The implications of the bandwagon effect on digital strategy are profound. First, be aware that, in the presence of multiple options, your customers or readers will look for social indicators about which choice to make. If you have a "most popular" list on your site, that will strongly affect user behavior.<br />
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When you're selling a product online, the bandwagon effect shows up in user ratings. Whether or not you list ratings of the product you sell, you can expect customers to find ratings somewhere and rely on them in making the choice of which product to buy. If there are no ratings, your customer will feel vulnerable in making the choice to purchase your product and you must make some effort to reassure them.<br />
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In short, there's safety in numbers, and danger in their lack. Create confidence by letting your customers know that there's a large and happy community around the product that you're selling.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11258898645067417448noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7239186874718783200.post-22354815277711648712013-11-04T12:20:00.001-08:002013-11-19T13:54:56.312-08:00Cognitive Biases and You: The Availability Heuristic<i>This is one in a series of posts on <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cognitive_biases" target="_blank">cognitive biases</a> and how they apply to digital content and strategy. If you'd like to learn more about the thinking and experimental work behind these theories, I highly recommend <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Thinking-Fast-and-Slow-ebook/dp/B00555X8OA/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1383067963&sr=1-1&keywords=thinking+fast+and+slow" target="_blank">Thinking, Fast and Slow</a>, by Daniel Kahneman. </i><br />
The availability heuristic is "a mental shortcut that occurs when people make judgments about the probability of events by how easy it is to think of examples." When the news media report night after night on incidents of violent crime, the public comes to believe that crime is on the rise even when actual crime rates are falling. Similarly, the likelihood that you will refuse to go scuba diving in Hawaii is a function of how easy it is to remember stories about shark attacks.<br />
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The availability heuristic also has a social dimension: the easier it is to think of someone within your circle who believes in something, the more likely you are to believe it as well. When you market to a tribe, building a strong relationship with one member of that tribe has an indirect impact on every other member.<br />
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This heuristic has a very strong "what have you done for me lately" aspect. If your brand has been in the market for a number of years, your customers have a series of mental associations with that brand, but the most recent associations are the ones that will most easily be recalled. If you lie to them tomorrow, it won't matter that you spent twenty years telling the truth; they'll more easily remember the lie and be disproportionately affected by that one incident. Conversely, it's never too late to do the right thing. You can resuscitate a brand by giving your customers a new set of positive experiences.<br />
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When it comes to content strategy, the availability heuristic means that you're not just dealing with your content and the claims it makes, you're also dealing with whatever happens to be resident in your customers' memory. You can be a passive victim of that, or you can engage with it. Are you asking them to overcome a challenge, such as get into better shape? If so, prime their short-term memory by asking them to recall incidents in which they faced challenges and succeeded in the past. Then, when you later hit them with the call to action, you've helped them feel optimistic about their prospects.<br />
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In short, the availability heuristic suggests a small revision to Nike's famous tagline:<br />
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"Remember how you did it? Just do it again."Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11258898645067417448noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7239186874718783200.post-8766278500752467032013-10-31T09:33:00.003-07:002013-10-31T09:33:53.089-07:00Cognitive Biases and You: The Anchoring Effect<i>This is one in a series of posts on <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cognitive_biases" target="_blank">cognitive biases</a> and how they apply to digital content and strategy. If you'd like to learn more about the thinking and experimental work behind these theories, I highly recommend <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Thinking-Fast-and-Slow-ebook/dp/B00555X8OA/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1383067963&sr=1-1&keywords=thinking+fast+and+slow" target="_blank">Thinking, Fast and Slow</a>, by Daniel Kahneman. </i><br />
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The anchoring effect should be familiar to anyone who's been on the wrong side of a low-ball offer. This cognitive bias refers to the terrible, irresistible effects of the opening bid (or offer, or estimate) on subsequent attempts to find the correct value of something.<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i><span style="font-size: xx-small;"><b style="background-color: white; font-family: sans-serif; line-height: 19.1875px;">Anchoring</b><span style="background-color: white; font-family: sans-serif; line-height: 19.1875px;"> or </span><b style="background-color: white; font-family: sans-serif; line-height: 19.1875px;">focalism</b><span style="background-color: white; font-family: sans-serif; line-height: 19.1875px;"> is a </span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_bias" style="background-color: white; background-image: none; color: #0b0080; font-family: sans-serif; line-height: 19.1875px; text-decoration: none;" title="Cognitive bias">cognitive bias</a><span style="background-color: white; font-family: sans-serif; line-height: 19.1875px;"> that describes the common human tendency to rely too heavily on the first piece of information offered (the "anchor") when making decisions. During </span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decision_making" style="background-color: white; background-image: none; color: #0b0080; font-family: sans-serif; line-height: 19.1875px; text-decoration: none;" title="Decision making">decision making</a><span style="background-color: white; font-family: sans-serif; line-height: 19.1875px;">, anchoring occurs when individuals use an initial piece of information to make subsequent judgments. Once an anchor is set, other judgments are made by adjusting away from that anchor, and there is a bias toward interpreting other information around the anchor. For example, the initial price offered for a used car sets the standard for the rest of the negotiations, so that prices lower than the initial price seem more reasonable even if they are still higher than what the car is really worth.</span></span></i></blockquote>
You may have run into this when negotiating the salary for your current job. If you allowed your employer to make the opening offer, and if that offer was quite a bit too low, there's an excellent chance that you settled for too little money <i>even if you were happy with the ultimate offer</i>. In one famous study, participants were asked to estimate a number they had no reason to know off-hand: the percentage of countries in the U.N. that are African. Before they submitted their guess, they watched a roulette wheel stop at a number; the wheel was set to stop on either 10 or 65. Participants who saw the wheel stop on 10 submitted estimates that were, on average, 25% lower than participants who saw the wheel stop on 65.<br />
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The anchoring effect is powerful and unavoidable. Even if the participants are experts in the field they're quizzed on, they are affected by anchoring. Even if you tell participants about the anchoring effect, instruct them to correct for it, and offer a monetary reward if they succeed in doing so, they are still influenced by it.<br />
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In brief: <i>numbers have a context</i>. When we see a number, our first reaction is to compare it to another number, and the number we use for the comparison is whatever we already have in mind.<br />
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This has tremendous implications for your communications. If you are trying to communicate that a number is small (for instance, the price of your product), you need to be very careful not to introduce that number immediately after another number that is smaller. If you are trying to communicate that a number is large (for instance, the number of deaths from something that your non-profit is targeting), you cannot introduce that number after another that is larger.<br />
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It's easy to look at the anchoring effect and think that using it to your advantage is unethical. It smacks of the used car salesman or the hard-nosed negotiator who refuses to pay a fair price. That would be a mistake, though, because <i>the anchoring effect is</i><i> unavoidable</i>. The anchoring effect is not a technique, it's a description of what will happen whether or not you choose to engage with it. If you're not consciously thinking about this effect, you're leaving things to chance, and your business/campaign/cause deserves better than that.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11258898645067417448noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7239186874718783200.post-38184585046924476752013-10-29T11:08:00.000-07:002013-10-30T11:50:43.631-07:00Cognitive Biases and You: The Ambiguity Effect<i>This is the first of a series of posts on <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cognitive_biases" target="_blank">cognitive biases</a> and how they apply to digital content and strategy. If you'd like to learn more about the thinking and experimental work behind these theories, I highly recommend <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Thinking-Fast-and-Slow-ebook/dp/B00555X8OA/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1383067963&sr=1-1&keywords=thinking+fast+and+slow" target="_blank">Thinking, Fast and Slow</a>, by Daniel Kahneman. </i><br />
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Whenever you build a site, write an article, film a video, or plan a campaign, the first thing you should be thinking about is your audience. Who are you trying to reach/persuade/convert/entertain? What do they want, and what is motivating them?<br />
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For a long time, economics was dominated by the rational actor theory, by which everyone is motivated to produce the best possible outcome for themselves. For just as long, economists and policy makers have been perplexed by peoples' stubborn insistence on not acting rationally. They smoke cigarettes in the full knowledge that it will hurt their health, they drink and drive, they eat unhealthy foods, and they have a bad habit of hanging with the wrong crowd rather than doing the things that will keep them healthy and happy throughout their lives.<br />
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The problem is that the rational actor is a mirage. None of us are calculating machines. We come into situations and make judgments as best we're able, but at the same time we're dealing with whatever emotional baggage our day has heaped upon us, we don't have all the evidence we might need, we're subject to social pressures, and so on.<br />
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We are not rational actors, and neither are the visitors to your website. The decisions they make on your site—the links they click, the videos they watch, the options they select—are not always rational, but they do follow certain rules or heuristics. One of these is the Ambiguity Effect.<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-size: x-small;">The ambiguity effect is a cognitive bias where decision making is affected by a lack of information, or "ambiguity." The effect implies that people tend to select options for which the probability of a favorable outcome is known, over an option for which the probability of a favorable outcome is unknown.</span></blockquote>
Examples of the ambiguity effect include the Wall Street investor who favors low-risk investments that bring a more certain return over high risk/high reward alternatives (even if, over the long term, the safer investment is unlikely to bring a higher return), or the customer at an ice cream shop who always goes with chocolate because she knows she likes that flavor and is a little uncertain about the others. When we are presented with ambiguity, there's a cognitive cost in figuring out whether it's worth our while to jump off into the unknown. In many circumstances, we won't bother thinking it through. We'll simply opt for the more certain outcome, even if the other might have been better.<br />
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Consider the newspaper paywall. Just now I visited the online version of the Financial Times. I found an interesting article and clicked on the headline. I then immediately ran into the subscription screen. I certainly wasn't in the mood to sign up for one of the paying options. I hadn't even read a single article yet, the value was not clear to me. But I also felt reluctant to sign up for the free option. I have to hand over my email address; will they spam me? I'm allowed eight free articles per month; is this more than enough or will I run out? At the point of making my decision I don't have the answers to these questions—I am operating in the context of ambiguity—and this fills me with a somewhat irrational reluctance to sign up for any of the options. I close the window and return to my usual browsing habits.<br />
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So what are the positives that emerge from this situation?<br />
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<ol>
<li>Clarity is possibly the most important element of your content strategy. If you want readers to click a link, make it extremely clear what's on the other side of that click. If you want them to sign up for a service, be extremely clear and succinct about what they get (and don't get). When the ambiguity effect comes into play, the more understandable of two options will win.</li>
<li>Anything that produces even a hint of distrust is death. Use your digital platforms to present yourself and what you stand for with honesty, transparency, and authenticity. Give your customers a reason to trust you, and much of the ambiguity guiding their decisions will be dispelled.</li>
</ol>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11258898645067417448noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7239186874718783200.post-41744690730499068052013-01-23T16:19:00.001-08:002013-01-23T16:19:09.669-08:00The problem with post-mortemsIf you've worked in a large-ish operation for any amount of time, you've almost certainly found yourself in a project post-mortem: a meeting in which the highs and lows of the project are dissected and examined, toward the goal of extracting lessons learned and doing things better the next time around.<br />
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If you've worked long enough to get a little cynical about the process, you've probably noticed that the lessons learned in post-mortem meetings almost never result in better process going forward. Generally speaking, no one in the meeting is responsible for taking the lessons and enacting them, and in most cases no one will have the authority to change organizational procedure even if they want to. As a result, the post-mortem meeting is almost always a well-intentioned failure. You may talk about good things, but you won't change much if at all.<br />
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The problem, ultimately, is one of memory. If you've ever studied a foreign language, you know that there are two types of memory: short-term and long-term. You can study vocabulary or verb conjugation and have pretty good recall 10 or 20 minutes later. Remembering the same material the next day is quite a bit harder, though, and remembering it a week, month, or year later is harder still. Knowing something now doesn't mean you'll know it later, when you need it.<br />
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Language students spend a lot of time struggling with this problem and slowly, methodically moving items from their short-term to their long-term memory. In grad school I had a flash card system that was my evolved solution to this problem: I would test, and re-test, and re-test myself again on vocabulary words at specific and carefully-chosen intervals until I could be confident that I had memorized them. It was sometimes time-consuming, but that was a lot better than not learning the material.<br />
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The post-mortem meeting is akin to taking the vocabulary card out of the box and looking at it once. That's a start, but no one learns from that. Learning comes through repetition and review. Has any business collected and reviewed project insights in this way?Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11258898645067417448noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7239186874718783200.post-90211468128100400172013-01-20T12:45:00.004-08:002013-01-20T12:45:53.712-08:00Hear the noiseWired has <a href="http://www.wired.com/playbook/2012/09/deep-blue-computer-bug/" target="_blank">a short article</a> on how a software bug might have helped Deep Blue defeat Gary Kasparov in their famous match in 1997. The bug caused the computer program to choose a play at random; the play wasn't devastating in itself, but Kasparov was so flustered by how counter-intuitive it was that he was thrown off his game. Kasparov assumed that the move had an intellect behind it, and since the move didn't appear to make sense he assumed that the machine was looking very deeply into the game and seeing something sublime. He assigned a meaning to randomness and was dismayed at what that implied.<br />
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This is something we humans do all the time, and we're only occasionally aware of it. We see something in the world and construct a story that makes sense of that thing. We weave a narrative that includes character and motivation; only sometimes are we in the position of knowing whether our story actually makes sense.<br />
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Consider web analytics. You have pages and articles, clicks and time spent on page. From numbers your goal is to derive meaning: customer intent that is either frustrated or fulfilled by your site design. You isolate a feature -- your home page bounce rate, for instance -- and tell a story: we're disappointing our customers. You're never going to meet more than a handful of those site visitors, though, so the story you tell exists entirely in the realm of the hypothetical.<br />
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You do what you can to make things less hypothetical, of course. You aggregate numbers, for instance, and resist the urge to find too much meaning in smaller collections of clicks. But another feature of human intellect is we notice irregularity. The familiar, day-to-day rhythms of your life and your website soon cease to capture your intention. Instead, your eye is drawn to what's new and different, the things that you didn't expect. Like Kasparov, you obsess about what you can't understand. And, like Kasparov, you probably don't take the time to think that something that's inexplicable might simply lack a rational explanation.<br />
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There is noise in your signal. Practice the art of hearing the noise and not mistaking it for a hidden, more meaningful signal.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11258898645067417448noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7239186874718783200.post-54870259379045278552012-11-26T15:04:00.003-08:002012-11-26T15:04:42.507-08:00Five to SevenA few weeks ago I went through a change management course. If you haven't heard of it before, change management is one of the more recent business terms to achieve buzzword status: it describes the process of strategically managing change within an organization, rather than simply inflicting it on employees.<br />
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The meat of the course was on a painstaking process for managing change that my employer is teaching throughout the organization, but as a communicator a few things stood out for me. First was the importance of managers -- studies show that they're the most resistant to change in any organization, and they also exert a great deal of influence on their subordinates in determining whether they'll be open or resistant to change (or any communication for that matter).<br />
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Even more striking than that fact, though, was my other takeaway: you have to communicate something five to seven times before people will remember it. Think about that: five to seven times, or your message will be forgotten.<br />
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The implications are profound. If you take that number seriously, it means that the core task of communications is not informing, it's reminding. If there's something you really need your readers / followers / customers / employees to remember, your communications must be circular rather than linear: communicate, then remind, then touch on it again, then connect to it again, and finally offer a final reminder -- and that's at a minimum. When was the last time you authored a communication strategy that had so many touch points?<br />
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Do you think this point is worth remembering? Put it on a Post-It and stick it to your screen. You'll need to see it another four to six times before it's yours to keep.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11258898645067417448noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7239186874718783200.post-17609671772559875162012-09-25T15:50:00.001-07:002012-09-25T15:50:09.204-07:00The critical kairosWired has <a href="http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2012/09/ff-corning-gorilla-glass/all/" target="_blank">a great article</a> on Corning, makers of Gorilla Glass -- the remarkably strong glass that famously forms the screen on iPhones and iPads (as well as products from a number of other companies). The entire article is a great read and well worth your time, but I took special pleasure in this line, toward the middle of the article:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>Innovation at Corning is largely about being willing and able to take failed ideas and apply them elsewhere.</i></blockquote>
This is a great point that often gets overlooked in discussions of innovation. Back in the day I studied classical Greek, and one of my favorite words from that language is <i>kairos,</i> which refers to the right time for something. In my experience <i>kairos</i> is critical to the success of an idea -- it's not enough for it to be a good idea, and it's not enough for it to receive the necessary backing, it also needs the elusive element of <i>kairos</i> (a.k.a. good timing) or it won't have the impact that it deserves.<br />
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Functionally, of course, this can seem like a difficult requirement to satisfy, because you can work to make your ideas better but, unless you're Dr. Who, you have no control over time. The bottom-line lesson, though, is that you should keep failed ideas in your back pocket. When you put something out there and it fails, either it was a bad idea or it was a good idea at the wrong time. Put the good but failed ideas to the side, out of sight where they're safe, until the circumstances have changed and it's time to try again.<br />
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Sometimes innovation is a function of memory. Remember your failures, because tomorrow they might be the seeds of your success.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11258898645067417448noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7239186874718783200.post-45765253062789553192012-09-11T16:02:00.002-07:002012-09-11T16:02:10.309-07:00Follower fallaciesWired has an article arguing that "<a href="http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2012/09/smartphone-hardware-experience/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+wired%2Findex+%28Wired%3A+Top+Stories%29" target="_blank">focusing on hardware is the wrong way to compete with the iPhone</a>." It's an indisputable point. The Apple aesthetic has always been a combination of hardware and software; the hardware on its own conveys a simplicity and elegance that has value in its own, but Apple's devices also show that a lot of thought has gone into how the hardware supports the software and the software supports the hardware. Imitate one and not the other, and you might get a good device but you're not going to get a great one. (Which is pretty much how I'd sum up the entire Android ecosystem.)<br />
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So the point in the article is valid, even important. It's not new, however -- people have been making the same point for years now. The question, then, is why it never seems to stick. In part, I think this is a function of the engineer culture. For an engineer, flexibility and power are synonymous with quality, and if you have two devices that are otherwise similar the engineer will look for the one that has the superior processor power and other quantifiable specs.<br />
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However the primary reason, I suspect, is that followers are simply not in the position to do anything other than tweak the leader's designs. Apple personnel have testified that the iPhone was five years in development before it was released; meanwhile other smartphone designers were so far removed from what Apple was thinking that RIM's leaders responded to the first views of the iPhone by refusing to believe that the phone could be as good as what Steve Jobs demonstrated. Since then everything has flipped; nearly every phone that comes out is directly inspired by the iPhone. The designs we're seeing on the market today are rushed copies, rather than concerted design efforts. They're not the product of five years worth of iteration and refinement; they're me-too efforts in which the only chance for distinction is to say, "We're just like that other phone, only better!" When you're in a hurry, software+hardware is too big of a problem to solve. Instead you make the screen slightly larger, or the camera slightly better, and hope that consumers will see that as a compelling difference.<br />
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My hope for the market is that, behind the scenes, R&D efforts are going on at these various companies in which they pursue singular visions and are willing to tweak and fuss and polish until everything is just right. The first iPhone came out just about five years ago, which means that companies like Motorola and Samsung have had enough time to begin with iPhone inspirations and develop their own designs that marry hardware and software in unique and compelling ways. I have my doubts, but we'll see how it goes and hope for the best.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11258898645067417448noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7239186874718783200.post-59570395260356008212012-08-23T14:25:00.003-07:002012-08-23T14:25:49.575-07:00Preaching to the unconvertedVia Daring Fireball I came across <a href="http://www.pcgamesn.com/article/why-i-m-uninstalling-windows-8" target="_blank">this scathing review of Windows 8</a>. I've come across two very distinct takes on the Windows 8 experience. More positive reviews come from those who've tried it out on tablets and are excited about the experience. The negative takes tend to come from those who are more or less happy with the traditional Windows experience and, by and large, hate Microsoft's combination of two distinct interfaces. This is the risk that MS is running: by "refusing to compromise" and combining a tablet interface with a traditional Windows desktop, they're providing a one-size-fits-all experience that, in the end, doesn't fit all.<br />
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If you want customers to learn a new interface, you need to make the value proposition very clear. Apple had a relatively easy scenario, because the iPhone/iPad experience was marketed only to people who wanted a phone or a tablet and so could easily see the benefit of a touch-optimized experience. Microsoft, on the other hand, is confronting a very large body of customers who already use Windows, are already comfortable with a certain way of doing things, and may have no intention of buying a tablet in the near future. For them, all they want is to use the interface conventions that they've already learned, and the new design gets in their way without offering anything very compelling in return.<br />
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Touch interfaces and mouse/keyboard interfaces are very different, both functionally and conceptually. At work I use an iPad and a Dell laptop, and with the magic of screen-sharing software I'm able to load my Windows desktop on my iPad screen. To some extent I can get it to work using multitouch and pinch-to-zoom, but it's an awkward experience and it's very much slower than using the tools that are specifically designed to work in that scenario. I do it when I need to -- when doing so solves a problem -- but otherwise I prefer to wait until I'm back at my desk.<br />
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Microsoft's design decision removes that choice. The touch-optimized interface presents itself wherever you are, even if you don't have a touch-sensitive screen or trackpad to work with. That's probably fine -- great, even -- if you're using a tablet device, and maybe Microsoft's true bet is that the desktop is going the way of the microcomputer and soon we'll be laughing about the days when we used two-button mice to select things on our screens. If they're wrong, though, and the traditional desktop interface has some life in it yet, then Windows 8 could be a latter-day Vista: a version of Windows that customers choose to skip, in the hope that the next version will be better conceived.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11258898645067417448noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7239186874718783200.post-38563795118122195422012-07-31T17:01:00.001-07:002012-08-23T14:29:16.466-07:00First principlesWired.co.uk has a brief interview with Jonathan Ive, in which he <a href="http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2012-07/30/jonathan-ive-revenue-good-design" target="_blank">reiterates a point</a> first made by Steve Jobs:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Tahoma, Geneva, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 21px;"><i>"We are really pleased with our revenues but our goal isn't to make money. It sounds a little flippant, but it's the truth. Our goal and what makes us excited is to make great products. If we are successful people will like them and if we are operationally competent, we will make money."</i></span></blockquote>
I suspect that there will be two reactions to this statement. Those who are inclined to hate Apple will think, "What a bunch of self-serving bull$%&^." Those who are sympathetic to Apple will think, "Yes, exactly -- and that's what makes all the difference."<br />
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My own orientation is that Ive is on the level, and for one reason: it explains something that is otherwise inexplicable. The puzzle with Apple isn't how it managed to get so big -- other companies have been big before, and others will become big in the future. The puzzle with Apple is how it manages to overcome the famous innovator's dilemma. Companies are not supposed to be able to disrupt themselves, as Apple did by naming the iPhone the best music player it ever built at a time when the iPod was critical to its bottom line, and by releasing the iPad in the full knowledge that it would cannibalize sales of the highly profitable Apple laptops. The principles of sound business management are supposed to make it impossible to choose an uncertain market over a certain one. And yet Apple has done this repeatedly.<br />
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The key, I believe, is in Ive's statement. The innovator's dilemma describes a manager's inability to abandon a profitable position in order to develop a market that might become profitable later. A manager whose professional well-being depends first and foremost on profits will experience this problem. But take the same manager and focus him instead on making the best product, tell him not to worry about profits, and that changes everything. Then the company disrupts itself as a matter of course. With that one change in perspective, the innovator's dilemma becomes almost irrelevant.<br />
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If this orientation accurately describes what it's like to work at Apple, building that culture within the organization was Steve Jobs' greatest achievement, and the biggest test of his successors at Apple will be how long they can maintain that focus on product over profits. It's the key to everything.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11258898645067417448noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7239186874718783200.post-43861006988778602482012-07-27T09:44:00.002-07:002012-07-27T09:44:21.196-07:00Razor thinThere are some headlines this morning on Amazon's quarterly earnings, in which their razor-thin margins got even more so. MG Siegler opines thusly:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #616566; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px;"><i>Yes, I realize Amazon is viewed as a growth business (forgoing short-term profits for long-term gains). But these numbers keep going the wrong way. At some point, they have to start going the right way, right?</i></span></blockquote>
I suspect that the answer to that question is "wrong" -- at least for the foreseeable future. Jeff Bezos plays one card consistently, and that's the "trade profits for market share" card. If you look at Amazon's historical earnings, they have a remarkable ability to stay just above (or below) the break-even line. Bezos is in it for the long term, and his long-term play is to keep prices as low as possible until his competitors either go out of business or leave the market in search of profits.<br />
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Lately I've heard Amazon compared to Apple, but that is a fundamental error. Amazon is not the new Apple, and has no intention of becoming so. Amazon is the new Dell.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11258898645067417448noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7239186874718783200.post-21273512268307378252012-07-01T16:41:00.004-07:002012-07-27T09:53:16.153-07:00AntisocialOn Gizmodo, Sam Biddle asks the provocative question: "<a href="http://gizmodo.com/5921823" target="_blank">Does Google Have Any Social Skills At All?</a>" Biddle questions whether, despite all the money that Google has poured into social media lately, the company really understands social at all.<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i><a href="http://gizmodo.com/5878987/its-official-google-is-evil-now">We've had privacy concerns before</a>, but could it be more? Could it be that Google just doesn't get real people?</i></blockquote>
Of course there's an unsavory normative quality to that question: Biddle presumes that his vision of "real people" is more valid than Google's. But at depth the article exposes a real quandary that Google must address as it attempts to make its products more sccial: not everyone shares the company's values.<br />
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It's a problem for any tech company. When you design, if you want to design well, you must design for yourself first. Begin by trying to make something that you want to use, and then maybe you'll design something that lots of other people want, too. Steve Jobs famously scoffed at the need for focus groups; when Apple designed the iPhone, he said, they were merely building the phone that they themselves wanted to use.<br />
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That may well have been true, but it would be a mistake to think that the iPhone was a design that began and ended with the sensibilities of engineers. Anyone who's spent time around developers knows that they love power and functionality. An engineer-designed product tends to have 20 buttons on the front, dials on the side, and an easy-access hatch on the back that allows you to swap out the motherboard and install custom cooling systems. It may be ugly as hell, but it does a lot of cool things (at least when it's working properly, which is sometimes) and it's fun to tinker with.<br />
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That is not the iPhone. The iPhone is a device that may have begun on an engineer's screen, but along the way it was filtered through the values and desires of Jobs and Jonathan Ive and what resulted was an embodiment of that image Jobs liked: a product at the intersection of technology and the humanities. It's the combination of those two qualities that makes the iPhone and iPad so distinct, and so controversial within the technology community. Many engineers hate exactly those things that consumers love about both devices. So what are the odds that engineers, left to their own devices, can develop anything with such broad appeal?<br />
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This is Google's quandary: it's a company of engineers run by other engineers. There are no significant clashes of culture internal to the building, so those clashes occur on the outside, when product (or product vision) encounters the marketplace filled with people like Biddle who do not share Google's values. Maybe Google's ahead of the game and everyone else just needs to catch up, or maybe they're blinded by an excess of engineers.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11258898645067417448noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7239186874718783200.post-55363649982406667812012-06-25T16:10:00.001-07:002012-06-25T16:10:18.910-07:00Fear the middle managerToday while pondering Microsoft's pending acquisition of Yammer, I came across another corporate acquisition story: how WinAmp went from the cusp of domination in the digital music market to where it is now -- basically forgotten in the continental U.S. -- because of <a href="http://arstechnica.com/business/2012/06/winamp-how-greatest-mp3-player-undid-itself/" target="_blank">interference and indifference from its corporate overlords at AOL</a>. <br />
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Whenever a story like this comes along, it's tempting to rant and rave at just how <i><b>stupid</b></i> corporate leaders can be. I mean, they thought highly enough of the company to buy it, but not enough to give it any air to breathe. That explanation doesn't really hold water, though; the managers at AOL didn't wander in off the street, and neither did the ones at Yahoo, Microsoft, HP, or any other major corporation. They got where they are because they're hard-working and reasonably astute. So how is it that, time after time, small companies with momentum get sucked up by larger units only to be destroyed from within?<br />
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As I was reading the article, I kept thinking back to a post that Seth Godin made some time ago, on the "<a href="http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2012/05/a-hierarchy-of-business-to-business-needs.html" target="_blank">hierarchy of business to business needs</a>." Seth makes the point that, with the exception of the CEO and anyone who holds a lot of stock, the people who work there are not immediately focused on growth or profits. Instead, their highest needs are largely personal: the reduction of hassle and the avoidance of risk.<br />
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I could be wrong, but this is what I think tends to happen: startup companies are purchased at the instigation (or at least with the approval) of company leaders, who see the company's potential and want to add that to their own company's bottom line. Once in the door, though, those companies become subject to mid-level managers whose primary drive is avoiding risk and trouble. Those are two completely irreconcilable goals: you can't grow or disrupt or evolve without creating trouble for somebody, and now you're reporting to someone whose primary intention is to stop that from happening within his neck of the woods. From that perspective, it's not surprising that fast-rising companies sometimes fail when they're bought out. It's surprising that sometimes they succeed.<br />
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The way out of this scenario would seem to be the one that Amazon took when they bought Zappos: they left it running as a quasi-independent company, and it seems to be working out OK. If Yammer was able to negotiate a similar relationship with their new <strike>insect</strike> corporate overlords, things might go similarly well. You do have to wonder, though -- considering that Microsoft bought the company because they were beginning to disrupt the market dominated by SharePoint, how much room for disruption is there going to be now?Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11258898645067417448noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7239186874718783200.post-59045107681977987472012-06-25T15:22:00.002-07:002012-06-25T15:22:59.390-07:00Xobni ApocalypseI just un-installed <a href="https://www.xobni.com/" target="_blank">Xobni</a>. Allow me a moment to explain why you should care.<br />
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I used to think Xobni was cool. Working under a freemium model, it offered an extension to Outlook that dramatically improved the email search experience. It also had some social elements that I never really used, but I thought there was some potential there.<br />
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Somewhere along the way Xobni disappeared from my machine, and by the time I noticed the change and went back to re-install it, something had changed. Now Xobni was annoying. It was a serious drag on my day, because Xobni actively interfered with the creation of email -- every time I opened a new message window and started to type an address, Xobni would try to upsell me to the Pro edition by showing that its address book was so much more effective than Outlook's. The window dropped down far enough to cover the CC and Subject lines, and, worst of all, if Outlook recognized the name and auto-filled it, the Xobni box would enter the name a second time if I tabbed out of the address field. I had to learn an entirely new action -- click to exit the field, rather than using the tab key -- to fix a problem created by an overzealous marketing effort.<br />
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Presumably Xobni's freemium model isn't working out too well, but I don't care. I wasn't inclined to pay for the Pro account before, because I didn't see enough value there. Now that I'm expanding my definition of "four-letter word" to include the occasional five-letter exception like "xobni," they have lost me for good.<br />
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Marketing is a delicate effort. On the business side, it's driven by the urgent need to make money, pay the bills, and satisfy the shareholders. The mandate is on the business, though, to put that aside and look at things from the customer's point of view. If your marketing effort makes things worse for your potential customers, even if you manage to convert some of them in the process, you are destroying your brand and sentencing your company to a long and lingering death. This is the road that Real Networks went down, and the outcome is not pretty.<br />
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Marketing is not about what you want, it's about what your customers want. Forget that at your peril.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11258898645067417448noreply@blogger.com