Category Archives: Thinking Aloud

January 12, 2015 · 11:55 am

Self-driving

You might have seen some news stories about CES over the course of the last week.  It’s a huge tech trade show that starts every year off with a glimpse of what technologies are down the road.  In many cases, not very far down the road either.  One of the tech area that was most prominent last week was automotive; specifically, autonomous cars.  While you might have heard about Google’s work in the area of self-driving vehicles, many other automakers – Audi, Mercedes, and others – are quite far along in developing this technology and Audi even let a car drive itself to Las Vegas from San Francisco to show how well their prototype works.

Honda-like steering wheel vector graphic

 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Maybe you find that creepy.  Maybe the thought of sitting down in a vehicle that moves along pretty quickly and letting that vehicle control itself scares you.  I guess you haven’t flown lately, since most airplanes do exactly that.  Some even land themselves.  So what is the business point?

This thinking isn’t new.  Way back in the 1990’s engineers were re-thinking the automobile and the way in which humans interact (or don’t) with it.  The Saab folks designed and built a car without a steering wheel.  The driver used a joystick instead. As the Wired folks reported:

It turns out that the steering wheel is an excellent way to steer a vehicle, and really tough to improve upon. That’s why they’ve been used on ships for centuries. The key to controlling any vehicle is to make smooth adjustments to keep it going where you want to. Steering wheels allow this. Most turn 1,260 degrees—3.5 turns—from lock-to-lock, that is, from all the way left to all the way right. That allows the driver to make very precise corrections to get the car pointing the right way, or quickly make big corrections to, say, avoid hitting something.

There were other problems too but the business point is this.  All of us need to constantly challenge our paradigms.  Maybe we don’t need people to drive the cars, or even BE in the cars.  BMW showed a car that you could “call” to you and which would go find a parking space for itself and park once you were done with it.  That redefines how a designer might think about the vehicle.  So the real question is this:

How have you challenged your paradigms today?

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January 8, 2015 · 11:39 am

Getting A Chance

English: Food2u running on an Android phone. E...

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Anyone who has played sports has had the thought about getting a chance to prove their worth.  If I could only get a few more at bats, I know I could show what I can do.  I need more shifts on the ice. Throw the ball my way.  I suspect many of us hold the same thinking when it comes to our products or services.  If I can only get a sample in the consumer’s hand, they’d be a convert and a customer for life.  How do I get their attention?

The odd thing is that marketers are getting those chances more now than ever.  The sad thing is that many of us haven’t adjusted our strategies and tactics to take advantage of it.  It’s almost like the coach says “get in the game” and we are taking a nap on the bench.  Here is what triggered my thought.

The Harris Interactive poll discovered years ago in a survey of US adult smartphone owners that 63% of female respondents and 73% of male respondents don’t go an hour without checking their phone.  Much of it is messaging as Pew found that cell phone users between 18 and 24 exchange an average of 109.5 messages on an average day, more than 3,200 per month.  A lot of it is in apps.  An academic study of Android users’ app-habits revealed that while users spend nearly one hour on their devices a day, the average app session lasted only just over a minute.  Both messaging and apps hold the potential for communication to consumers.  The issue is that many marketers ignore those opportunities or use them badly.  You only get so many strikeouts before the coach decides the bench is a better place for you.

Example.  Ever see ads on your phone?  Most are cheap-looking banners reminiscent of the web in 1999.  Others interrupt your experience and as the above data points out these user sessions are brief, implying a time sensitivity.  We need to embrace the micro-experience and add value.

The above is easier said than done, I’m well aware.  The thing we can’t do is complain that we’re not getting any chances.  Instead of complaining about micro-segmentation and new technologies/platforms, let’s embrace them.  Consumers are more connected to one another and to us than ever.  How are we going to use that opportunity?

 

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January 7, 2015 · 11:35 am

The Future At The Gates

Over the holidays I spent time catching up on a lot of video content I had missed.  Not unusual, I know, but what was different was how I accessed it.  Some I watched using the VOD capability of my cable provider.  Some I streamed via an Xbox and either Hulu, Amazon, or Netflix.  That video came via my internet connection which was not through my cable provider.   It got me thinking about the gatekeepers, both current and future, and why the battle over Net Neutrality is so critical.

You probably haven’t read the latest PWC study on how consumers are using video.  You can read it here – it’s an excellent study.  The term they use is “videoquake” and I think it’s apt:

This is a wake-up call not just for cinemas and film studios, but also for traditional cable and satellite players and anyone involved in video content production and distribution. The shift is here—alternative forms of video content will continue to rock not only what we watch, but how, where and with whom.

Most of us don’t have more than one high-speed internet provider from whom we can buy service.  There is very little competition and, therefore, no market pressure for many of these ISP’s to upgrade their services.  In many cases it’s the cable TV provider who is also the ISP.  Part of this has to do with the legacy of how cable came to be.  The companies were granted local monopolies in return for building out the systems.  Seemed like a fair trade at the time.  Data to the home was not on many people’s radar when this went on and today these systems are under no obligation to allow anyone else to access their poles or wires.  Building out a competitor is extremely difficult.

You might be aware of the impending FCC rule making on net neutrality.  I won’t write to 3,000 additional words it would take to explain it but in brief many are calling on the FCC to reclassify ISPs as common carriers under Title II of the Communications Act of 1934. The popular belief is that Title II classification would allow the FCC to protect net neutrality by regulating against paid prioritization.  You can read a longer explanation here.

While I’m not sure that’s the right answer (rules from 1934?  Seriously?), one effect this would have is to require access to those poles making build out much easier.  If you’re a business that has made money (a LOT of money) from a monopoly on bringing content into the home via coax (cable TV) or ethernet (internet service), you can hear the future at the gate and it’s banging rather loudly. Imagine what happens when not just Google Fiber but companies such as Apple or Yahoo offer internet service (everything old is new again – AOL, anyone?) via their own pipes.

With more and more content being delivered on a stand-alone basis via our internet connections, the gatekeeper (now the wireless carriers or the cable companies in most cases) will collect not just the monthly fees but the data associated with the usage.  That data might be even more valuable (hmm – a free high-speed internet provider who just sells data?  Investors?).

Are you hearing the banging at the gates too?  What are your thoughts?

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