How Does Your Technology Shape Experiences?

How does your customer experience your business? How does tech help facilitate or exacerbate that experience? 

Is your website mobile aware? That is to say easy to view on mobile devices, click-to-call options, immediate capability to chat or leave a message, or, self-service an appointment? 

On the other hand, is it not? Where mobile users have to resize the screen, cut-n-paste a phone number, or email you to contact you?

When people visit your service counter, how quickly does it take them to check out? Do they have to perform an endless array of clicks and checks and confirmations? Or is it slick, fast, painless? Is there a counter at all? 

What kind of experience do you give when invoicing your customer? Are they presented with a variety of online and offline payment options? Do you make it easy for them to review their invoices, dispute them, review their statements, pay you? Or are you still expecting a check to be dropped in the mail? Or cash to be exchanged? Or physical check to be written?

When doing business with you, are you taking their order by pen and paper, or, electronically? Or, do you have to wait, crack open a laptop, login, perform a bunch of rituals to open a document, edit it, and finally get down to business? How is the process of conducting your business elevated by technology, or, distracted by it?

How does your use (or ignorance) of technology shape consumer expectation? Do they expect you to be slow, make mistakes, deal only in paper receipts? Or can they expect you to be faster, respect their time, pass receipts electronically? How are you changing your business processes to meet changing consumer expectations?  

What kind of consumer experiences are you creating anyway? How does that impact your brand? What people are saying about you?

R

The Dangers of 3rd Party Apps and Keyboards

Apple released a new capability in IOS 8 that allows the user to replace their phone's keyboard with an alternative provided by a third party.

Applications like these can also replace the calendar functions on a phone as well as its contact functions.

When these apps are installed, the user gives permission to third parties (the developer of the app) access to their device. If it's a keyboard, that developer can convievably see anything that you type (like passwords, account numbers, or confidential information); like your calendar (which you may presume is private); or your contact list (who may not appreciate you sharing their information).

If you are subject to federal or state restrictions over classified forms of information (like HIPAA, GLB, or transferring social security numbers or drivers licenses), it's absolutely vital that you do not install these kinds of applications on your mobile device when working with your business account for mail, contacts, calendar, or drive. Just don't do it.  Don't install these applications. There's no guarantee of privacy if there's a middle man between you and your data.

if you're at all concerned about privacy and security, just don't do it. Don't install these applications.

if you use your device to take credit cards for your business, please - for the love of everything holy - do not install these applications.

If you do use these applications, bear in mind that the licensing agreement for use may stipulate what those third parties do with their access to your data. You may want to read those end user license agreements, usually found within the app or on the developer's website.

And if you have any questions, please feel free to reach out to me. I may be able to help coach you through your options.  Thanks.

R

Our Attention is Very Tiny and Very Competitive

Oh ... just look at those adorable puppies!

Hey - welcome to the Attention Economy, and like all economies, our attention is extremely scarce, extremely competitive. It's very, very tiny. It's real tiny. It's wee-minuscule. Why?

Well, we're human beings. We're not always plugged in. Sometimes we're eating, sleeping, traveling - interacting with and being limited by the physical world and the requirements of our bodies - and that prevents us from consuming information.

Further, even when we are consuming, we can consume only so much information. Our tiny brains and sensory mechanisms only allow for this wacky analog input through our eyes. 

And when we're not consuming information, we may be out doing what humans enjoy doing like hiking, camping, water-skiing, or reenacting medieval army battles, whatever. We can actually choose not to be consuming information. Crazy, I know.

But the point is our attention is scarce. A great example of this is Twitter. There's a ton of noise in Twitter. A zillion people are saying a zillion things all at once. It's like a crowded square with wall-to-wall people armed with bullhorns, screaming into your face: we can only take in so much information at a time and we can only listen to one or two speakers at a time.

That sliver of time where you actually read one tweet for that one moment is our attention.  It is a small thing, a tremendously tiny thing, as compared to the vastness - the surplus - of information out there that's demanding it. Think of it: every second, on average, around 6,000 tweets are tweeted on Twitter which corresponds to over 350,000 tweets sent per minute or 500 million tweets per day. If every tweet was an inch, in just one day, your tweet would just ONE INCH in 7,891 MILES of crap. Seriously. That's a small, tiny, insignificant sliver of zilch. And THAT's just on Twitter. Now take into consideration Facebook, Pinterest, and every other place we might spend our online time.

If you're a small business and you're attempting to use social media as a medium for conducting guerrilla marketing, I want you to see what you're up against. It's a fun, rosy picture ("Oh, I'll just market myself on Facebook!") until you start looking at the reality. You're that fraction-of-an-angry-inch in nearly eight thousand miles of possibility every day. Wee tiny. Facebook - or any other social networking marketplace attempting to get you to spend your precious attention - isn't a good strategy. The odds are way against you. You've got to ask yourself: how will this ever work? How will you ever get the attention of your customers, or potential customers? How will you out compete others with larger staff and budget and attention-hogging techniques? How will you get past all of the filters people have put in place to block you? How will you connect with others?

Unless you're very good at creating noisy, distracting content that captures eyeballs, or spend money on relevance and advertising, it's not going to be a strategy that works for you. Yet on the off-chance that you do get somebody's attention online, you must get really good at converting online attention into offline conversation. In the real world, there are fewer distractions, less noise, greater rapport, and more direct, meaningful conversations. The electronic space is an opportunity to drive someone into the real world, to engage in a real conversation, to create a real relationship.

Want to think strategically about IT spending in the Attention Economy? Look closely at your website. Your Twitter profile. Your Facebook page. How does it immediately try to convert the electronic visitor into a real-world relationship? How does it foster or encourage real human connection? Or, how much is it just more, needless distraction? Like ... puppies?

R