Tag Archives: Business model

August 26, 2015 · 10:01 am

Idiotic Injecting

No one that I know enjoys going to the doctor and getting an injection. Whether it’s as simple as a flu shot or something more complex such as a regimen of allergy shots, it’s not a particularly enjoyable experience. 

Today’s topic is an injection of another sort, but the experience isn’t enjoyable either. It turns out that AT&T has jumped on the “no free lunch” bandwagon with respect to offering wireless hotspots to its customers. A Stanford computer scientist and lawyer was travelling and discovered that the AT&T hotspot to which he had connected was serving ads over web pages he was accessing. When he went to Stanford’s home page, for instance (a page that has zero ads on it), he saw a pop-up ad for jewelry and AT&T itself, and the ads persisted for several seconds until he could close them.

He discovered that the ISP was tampering with HTTP traffic – that’s what serves web pages. It is using a service from a third party to inject the ads and to monetize the traffic. AT&T is far from the first “free” service to do this – Comcast and Marriott are just two others. But as the professor wrote:

AT&T has an (understandable) incentive to seek consumer-side income from its free wifi service, but this model of advertising injection is particularly unsavory. Among other drawbacks: It exposes much of the user’s browsing activity to an undisclosed and untrusted business. It clutters the user’s web browsing experience. It tarnishes carefully crafted online brands and content, especially because the ads are not clearly marked as part of the hotspot service. And it introduces security and breakage risks, since website developers generally don’t plan for extra scripts and layout elements.

In other words, while you might have accepted that as your ISP the folks at AT&T will see and record everything that you’re doing, you might be concerned about an outside company doing so.  Moreover, as a publisher, your beautiful content environment is now sullied by ads from which you derive zero revenue.

If you’re on an AT&T hotspot, you’re already an AT&T customer.  I don’t believe you can log on if you’re not and you’re probably paying them handsomely each month (I know I am).  This sort of nickel and diming might help revenues (I wonder how much in the scheme of things) but it doesn’t help with customer satisfaction. That’s a point from which any business can learn.  Idiotic injection from my perspective.  Yours?

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Filed under digital media, Huh?

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August 17, 2015 · 11:02 am

Business Jams

Grateful Dead: Backstage Pass

 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I was driving around this weekend listening, as I often do, to The Grateful Dead. Like them or not, you probably are aware that they were the world’s preeminent jam band, even if jamming as a concept that is as old as music itself. What’s interesting about jamming is that the music is never the same. Oh sure – ideas get recycled from one night to the next, but the entirety of the piece of always pretty different no matter if we’re listening to The Dead or to some great jazz.

What’s interesting is that some bands will cement the better ideas into songs. That is how some bands write. They just start playing until some good ideas surface. Those ideas are memorialized, lyrics added, and voila – a song. It’s not a bad business concept either.

When musicians get together to jam, they come from a place of openness and collaboration. They are there to experiment. While some jams start with the framework of an existing song or just a blues jam in G, most of the time you’re off following musical ideas thrown out there by the other musicians. You’re guessing about what will work at some points. To do that well, you need to keep an open mind.

Brainstorming is business jamming. You need an open mind and a willingness to go where the music (thinking) leads. Sometimes you happen upon a great riff – a fantastic business thought – that can be preserved and turned into a song – a product, or maybe an entire business.  You might think that some brilliant new innovation was the result of careful planning.  The execution probably was, but I’m willing to bet that the underlying idea came out of some mental jamming by a person or a group of people.

When I used to play music seriously, jams were fun.  They involved getting the right people together – people who have both the technical and mental abilities required as well as whose musical styles meshed well with the others in the room.  I can’t think of a better way to lay the foundation of a successful enterprise, can you?

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August 12, 2015 · 10:36 am

The Problem, Not The Product

You’ve probably invested a lot of time in developing your business’ product or service. You might have spent a lot of money researching things such as packaging, color, price, and the best marketing tactics. After all, back in the day before digital, consumers usually had to get in the car and drive to a competitor if they were unhappy with your offer. At a minimum, they had to pick up the phonebook and let their fingers do the walking. So not true today, where your biggest competitor is just a click away. Is all of that investment in product or service design and marketing worth it?

Maybe not. Marketing today is about one thing: explaining to potential customers how you are solving their problem. That means you need, first and foremost, to understand what that problem is. In other words, it means listening. Once you’ve done that, it means speaking to the consumer in words that mean something to them, and not in jargon. Explain your approach to solving their problem. That can reflect your brand persona, whatever you’ve chosen it to be.

You’ll notice none of what I’ve said so far requires the gathering of any personal information about your customer. In my mind, that’s asking them to marry you on the first date. Once they’ve bought in, demonstrating to them why they should share their personal information with you (and how you will guard it with your life) can only make the marketing better. After all, a customized solution to their problems is better than the generic one you already have.

The point today is that developing a pretty product or an appealing service is fine but it’s step 3.  First comes identifying the problem and then the customers who have that issue.  It’s the problem, not the product. How you solve it – and  how you present the solution – is the game from that point forward.  Have you done that? Does this make sense?

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