Category Archives: Helpful Hints

June 27, 2012 · 9:24 am

I Can’t See You

Once in a while we play a little game of compare and contrast which is what we’ll be doing today.

Person with PDA handheld device.

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The two items causing a bit of cognitive dissonance are studies from Pew and from Mongoose Metrics.  Let’s start with Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project:

  • Nearly a third (31%) of adult U.S. mobile Web users say they now go online mostly through their cell phones
  • Leading the mobile-only Web trend are young people and minorities. Nearly half of all 18- to-29-year-olds (45%) who access the Internet on phones do most of their online browsing on their mobile device. Half (51%) of African-Americans and 42% of Hispanics in the same category also mostly go online through their phones. By contrast, only 24% of white mobile Web users turn mainly to their devices for Web access.
  • Less affluent (income of under $50,000 annually) and less well-educated people were also more likely to rely mostly on their phones for Web browsing than those with higher incomes and college or higher levels of education.

OK – pretty straightforward.  Nearly everyone has a mobile device, more than half (55%) use them to go on the web at some point, and as incomes go down the mobile device tends to become the primary point of access.  Got it.  Next.

Part of the 2012 Mongoose Metrics Data Series found that mobile internet access accounts for approximately 9 percent of all traffic. However, the report also found that about 10 percent of websites are fully optimized for mobile access, which means 90 percent are incapable of serving these users completely.

Oops.  You can read the study here if you’re interested.  It also reminds us that 80% of users preferred mobile sites when searching for prices and product reviews.  But then again, if they can’t see the great content you have, what difference does it make?

We’re at yet another point of change.  The desktop computer is dying a lingering death, and I think it will be an enterprise-only device within 5 years.  So why are a lot of us behaving as if nothing has changed?  We need to be thinking and building mobile first, as the data points out.  After all, being discoverable and social is useless if you’re not optimally visible.

Right?

Enhanced by Zemanta

1 Comment

Filed under digital media, Helpful Hints

Tagged as , , , , , , , ,

June 25, 2012 · 8:40 am

What A Soccer Player Teaches Us About Business

I spent part of the weekend watching the UEFA Euro Tournament.

European football government body badge

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

If you’re into the sport of soccer, it’s must-see TV and the matches have, in general, lived up to the tournament’s stature as the best football tournament on the planet behind the FIFA World Cup.  During one of the games, the commentator described a player in a way that triggered an immediate business thought and that’s today’s topic.

The defender was described as having “a lack of pace but always a perfect reading of the situation so he’s quite valuable.”  In other words, he has the ability to read the situation on the field, react appropriately, and is rarely out of position even though he’s pretty slow relative to the other players on the pitch.  In my mind, that’s a good description of some desirable business traits as well.

How many executives do you know that act on knee-jerk reactions?  When they’re right, they’re often ahead of the field or have headed off a problem before it starts.  When they’re wrong, however, they often spend resources chasing markets that don’t develop or betting on new technologies that never pan out.  They end up out of position.

As businesspeople we can’t confuse activity for progress.  Moving quickly is always desirable but moving a bit more slowly while compensating for our lack of speed with a much better understanding of the situation is even more desirable in my book.  It’s not a particularly new thought:  we’ve all heard the fable of the tortoise and the hare and I expect we all know a few folks we’d describe as “slow.”  Slow is, in my mind, a relative thing – if they get to where they need to be because they can analyze a situation and react appropriately within the available time frame, they’re pretty valuable.

How about in yours?

Enhanced by Zemanta

Leave a comment

Filed under Helpful Hints, Thinking Aloud

Tagged as , , , , , , ,

June 22, 2012 · 8:24 am

Is Your Menu Out Of Style?

For our Foodie Friday Fun this week I refer you to an article on the Eater/Philadelphia blog.

menu

(Photo credit: pomarc)

It makes a statement about food that just might have some business implications too.  Let’s see what you think.

In a piece entitled The 10 Signs Your Menu Is Out Of Style, they assert the following:

…what we eat is strongly influenced by the trickle-down effect of creative ideas and the cultural atmosphere we’re making decisions in. But, at what point does an ingredient or dish that once seemed utterly fresh become completely stale?

A classic like roast chicken may be safe, but most dishes are not so timeless. For example: The Korean taco. What started as a food-truck highlight from Kogi in Los Angeles has wended its way to TGI Friday’s menus everywhere. And recently, a bacon-studded sundae has appeared at Burger King. When a dish turns up on a chain restaurant menu, it’s over.

I agree – there’s a huge difference between a classic that’s widely executed with varying degrees of success and something “trendy” that loses its cutting edge.  Of course, that’s kind of true about anything in business, isn’t it?  The problem with trendy is that it becomes passe.  Or as Yogi once said about why he no longer went to Ruggeri’s, a St. Louis restaurant: “Nobody goes there anymore. It’s too crowded.”

If your business is built around catering to the masses, grabbing the latest thing and making it widely available is a good thing.  More often than not, we’re not about mass anymore – we fulfill niches, we serve highly segmented audiences, and we can’t afford to let the rest of the world catch up or dilute our magic potion.  Apple is the best at this (and yes, they serve mass markets but they’ve moved on by the time others catch up).

So what’s on your menu these days?  Classics?  Something others will be dumbing down for their own menus in six months?  Or are you trying to stay afloat serving up stale versions of other’s creativity?  Think about it!

Enhanced by Zemanta

Leave a comment

Filed under food, Helpful Hints

Tagged as , , , ,