January 22, 2013 · 12:11 pm

Borderless Consumers

Not to sound like Jeff Foxworthy, but if you own a computer, a tablet, a smartphone, and a TV, you just might be a “borderless consumer.”  That’s what the folks at Harris Interactive called people who have those devices when they did a survey for Verizon a couple of months ago.  You can see the results at BorderlessConsumer.com and, as the site says “Borderless consumers are an important and rapidly growing segment, almost 40 percent of U.S. adults. These consumers use several devices and require connectivity, flexibility and choice whenever and wherever possible. They are defined as consumers who own a laptop or desktop, own a smart phone or tablet, have an Internet-enabled device at all times, are motivated to make technology and connectivity upgrades and are interested in the benefits of a connected home.”

It appears as if there is an ongoing update of information, which is probably an excellent idea given how rapidly media consumption changes among this group.

Among the other findings:

  • 40% of borderless consumers are interested in interacting with TV commercials via their phones or tablets.
  • 74% of all consumers believe all the electronics in the house should be connected both to the internet and with each other (90% of borderless consumers want this).
  • 60% of all consumers want to access their files and content on any device, at any time, and anywhere (82% of borderless consumers want this).
  • While only 32% of all consumers want the ability to control or influence TV shows via second screens, 48% of borderless consumers want this.

It’s easy enough to dismiss this as a bunch of early adopters except that we’re at critical mass and many of the big players in the media and content distribution world are reacting.  While watching a lot of content on a phone or tablet still usually requires that you subscribe to the cable or satellite TV distributor, we’re starting to see “cord nevers” in addition to “cord cutters”.  It’s not just about media either as the shopping data shows borderless consumers shop in person quite a bit less than do non-borderless types.  Think about that as you read today’s announcement of Blockbuster closing 300 more stores.

No massive revelations here today – I thought you might find this interesting – I certainly did.  It’s data that reminds us that we need to be focused on changing models and methods since the world is already doing so.

Enhanced by Zemanta

Leave a comment

Filed under Uncategorized

January 21, 2013 · 12:35 pm

Social and Shopping

How do you think social media influences what people buy?  If you believe a recent report on the influence of social media on shopping this past holiday season, the answer is not much.  As the article said:

online shoppers mostly ignored social channels as purchase influencers,according to survey results from Baynote. Pinterest and Twitter influenced online and in-store purchases for just 1 in 10 shoppers surveyed, with Facebook garnering only slightly more interest. Instead, online ratings and reviews were most likely to influence both online and in-store purchases (33% and 24%, respectively), with Google search results including a pictured product available by the retailer coming in next for online purchases (26%) and paper catalogs (21%) second for in-store purchases. Not surprisingly, social channels were most influential among younger consumers (aged 25-34), while paper catalogs got the attention of the 45+ crowd.

This was accompanied by another piece which announced that “only 2% of traffic to retailers during the holiday season came from social networks, per figures released by Adobe Systems.”   The article then goes on to say “Adobe isn’t the first to detail social media’s rather small influence over the holiday season.”

I could be wrong about this but given that Adobe is the parent company of one of the large analytics firms, I’m assuming they looked for traffic into shopping carts from social media.  Their question – is social media converting into sales – isn’t the right one.  How about “does social media influence sales?”  I’m willing to bet that a large percentage of what’s on Pinterest is aspirational – something the user wants or acknowledges as desirable.  Maybe it’s a place people use to research gifts for friends?   You will have a hard time convincing me, just based on what crosses my Twitter stream and Facebook news feeds, that people aren’t researching purchases via social media.

The Baynote data is a survey – let’s always remember that what people say and what they do sometimes don’t align.  That said, I think taking “catalogs” as a whole while segmenting digital into pieces (search vs. social vs online stores) is a bit misleading.  It also doesn’t reflect how users may begin with a search, move over to social to check out their connections’ thinking on what they’ve found, and then their use of the online store to buy, perhaps several days (and sessions) later.

Given the continuing and impressive growth of online shopping during the last holiday season I’m a believer in social as a influence.  People spend more of their lives online and that includes shopping.  Maybe these folks are asking the wrong questions.  I’m sure they’d have just as hard  time proving that TV or print resulted in the conversions they’re discussing yet very few people deny those media have an impact.  What do you think?

Enhanced by Zemanta

Leave a comment

Filed under digital media, Thinking Aloud

Tagged as , , , , , , , , , ,

January 18, 2013 · 9:33 am

Leading By Keeping Quiet

If you’ve been reading the screed for any period of time you know that I’m a huge fan of Top Chef.

Top Chef Middle East

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

This week’s episode provides us with the raw ingredients for our Foodie Friday Fun.  It was “restaurant wars” week, in which two chefs each conceive of and open a restaurant in 48 hours.  The chef selects other contestants as team members to serve as their staff and it’s not unusual for the losing head chef to go home.  What happened this week made great television, but it also demonstrated a fantastic business point for anyone who wants to lead a team.

One of the team captains selected a contestant who probably should have gone home several weeks ago.  It’s obvious that her talent and work ethic are not up to the standards of the other remaining contestants, much less up to those of the woman who chose her for her team (and no, she wasn’t a top pick).  Over the course of the prep day and the service day, the slacker chef delayed preparing a critical part of a dish which resulted in the dish not matching the head chef’s vision for it.  At judges’ table, the head chef did not complain about the other chef’s refusal to work as instructed. The judges had no way to know what had caused the offending dish to come up short.  All they knew is that the head chef said she was responsible, both for the dish and for the overall meal.  She went home.

The business lesson is critical   The leader’s taking responsibility and refusing to complain about her subordinate when she could have done so in order to save herself shows the type of character that makes a great leader. More importantly, it show that she understands that real leadership means assuming accountability to go along with your organizational authority.

That’s not to say she demonstrated perfect leadership skills.  As things weren’t going her way she got very frustrated.  Like many perfectionists she was  hard on herself and she shut down to a certain extent when she should have been more assertive. Things often don’t go the way we envision in business (in life to, come to think of it) and we  need to face the situation, adapt, and be flexible.  If we’re not confident we can’t possibly instill confidence in our teams.

The web is filled with the comments of outraged fans of the show screaming how the “wrong” chef was sent home.  Maybe the verdict was misplaced but the leadership lesson certainly wasn’t.

Enhanced by Zemanta

1 Comment

Filed under Uncategorized

Tagged as , , , ,