Tag Archives: technology

May 14, 2014 · 8:12 am

Love It Hate It

We all have people with whom we have a love-hate relationship.

"No Mom, I can't explain this any more cl...

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Maybe that starts with our parents as we’re becoming adults or maybe it’s with that dear friend who constantly drives you nuts.  We extend this sort of relationship to inanimate objects as well; technology specifically.  I want to ramble on about people and tech for a second but I think you’ll find that it has implications for your business as well.

A question for you to begin.  If you left your cell phone at home and discovered you had done so, would you be willing to turn around and go get it or could you get through the day without it?  A survey by the USC Annenberg Center for the Digital Future and Bovitz, Inc. found that nearly one‐third of respondents said if they left home without their mobile device, they would return for it no matter how much time was needed to get it.  Only 23% said they’d never go back.  Technology has become indispensable in most of our lives.  We love it.  Turns out we hate it too.

Those same folks did another survey and found that

  • Thirty-one percent said technology has made it harder to separate their work and personal lives.
  • Twenty-six percent said they are stressed because technology has made them always on call for work.
  • Twenty-five percent report they struggle to figure out new technology.
  • Twenty-one percent said being accessible through a mobile device has made their lives more stressful.
  • Twenty percent said they frequently resent having to work at home because of what technology makes possible.
  • Sixteen percent said their personal lives have suffered because of technology in their work lives

Yet we’d go back for the phone.  It’s become an addiction of sorts although there are a lot of positives too.  People are able to do more in less time with their technology.  We have more time for family and friends because technology enables us to do work from anywhere.  The broader point is this.

If we can provide a product that offers benefits which far exceed the potential downsides, we’re going to be in it for the long haul.  One could argue that many pharmaceuticals stay on the market for exactly that reason despite a laundry list of nasty side effects.  Smoking is vanishing for the same reason – the downsides far outweighs the positives.  I don’t think the device manufacturers have figured that out yet.  A Harris Poll found that more people find technology too distracting than in prior surveys and fewer say they find it has improved the overall quality of their lives.  Fewer think technology enhances their social lives and the proportion who say it has improved their relationships with their family decreased.  Maybe they need to rethink marketing?

It’s ok to engage in a love-hate relationship with your customer provided, of course, that your product becomes as indispensable to their lives as mobile devices have.  How are you going to make that happen?

 

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March 26, 2014 · 10:01 am

That Does Not Compute

One of the challenges any of us have in business is to predict the future.

English: Knuth's version of Euclid's algorithm...

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The hardest part of my job – and maybe yours – is seeing over the horizon to help my clients get prepared for what is to come.  That might be a change in a market or it might be a change in technology.  No matter what it is, any of us who look ahead do so by gathering data.  In many cases that data is some measure of past behavior – how people bought from your website for example.  In many cases, those data points are put into some sort of algorithm which predicts what is to come.  Increasingly, many marketers and others use these models to drive their own business behaviors as the amount of data available grows exponentially.  While I’m not a believer that “big data means big problems,” a blind reliance on these algorithmic predictions can mean just that.

Let’s take one simple form of algorithm.  You probably see it every day.  it’s known as collaborative filtering and if you’re on Amazon or Netflix or any other site with a recommendation engine you’ve used it.  You may also have seen things offered to you as content on YouTube.  The algorithms use measures of your past behavior as well as of others like you (“people who bought XYZ also bought…”).  But what if you were buying a gift and the purchasing is not reflective or your tastes or interests at all?  What if someone else used your browser to search and purchase?  Cookies are browser-based – they have no way to tell if the activity is from one person or six.

Another problem.  Algorithms are built by people and those people are..well…human.  They might have confirmational bias operating as they refine the formula to eliminate noise – data that’s not germane to the prediction at hand.  The problem is that you don’t really know if it’s noise until it proves to be not significant.  Maybe it’s a new trend that your model misses altogether.

The thing to keep in mind is that modeling can only go so far.  It’s not very good  at predicting the unexpected.  It tends to ignore outliers.  As with all things, you need to ask questions, search for facts, and draw your own conclusions.  Yes, it’s impossible to make sense of all this data without algorithmically based analysis.  Just remember that while machines don’t make computational errors it was a human that gathered the data (or installed the code that does) and wrote the formula.  People often don’t compute.  Make sense?

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January 29, 2014 · 8:27 am

Is Creepy Dead?

I’ve had beacons on my brain lately.

Start Point Lighthouse, in the south of Devon,...

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I’ll explain what they are and why in a second but they raise a larger question in my mind, which is our topic today:  has the “creepy” factor left us?  Not long ago, the notion of someone, much less some business, tracking our every move and approximating what we’re thinking would be…creepy.  Have we become so immune to the fact that said tracking occurs almost constantly caused us not to even care any more?  Let’s see what you think.

First, why beacons and what are they?  Here is a good explanation:

Beacons are devices that communicate with a shopper’s smartphone in the hopes of improving the in-store shopping experience. When placed in a store, beacons use Bluetooth technology to detect nearby smartphones and send them media such as ads, coupons or supplementary product information. They can also be used as point-of-sale systems and to collect information on those consumers — particularly how consumers maneuver through stores.

Who you are, what you’re looking at, where you go and how frequently you shop there are all part of the equation.  Maybe not so awful.  A store with an attentive staff can generally say the same about any regular customer and the information delivered about a product should be more complete than any clerk can remember across hundreds of products.  Many stores use cameras to do just that.  Apple, of course, is in the forefront of this with their iBeacon.  It’s built into every device – iPhone or iPad – sold in the last few years.  They recently deployed the technology in all of their Apple stores:  what they set up uses the Bluetooth technology of the iBeacon to detect where a shopper is within a store so Apple can send location-specific product information to his or her Apple device.  Helpful or creepy?

That’s one example.  Combine the beacon with an app and it becomes simple to send targeted messages to devices.  For example, at a sporting event, you might get messages providing discounts on concessions and merchandise or maybe even seat upgrades if you’re a VIP.  Of course, in the process a lot of information about you is gathered.

So back to the question:  is it creepy or don’t we care?  If we use credit cards, our purchasing habits are known.  If we use an in-store scanner at the supermarket, how we wander the store is recorded along with what we buy even as we’re offered coupons and discounts.  Is the prospect of a better shopping experience worth giving up yet another remnant of our privacy?  Amazon and other retailers know how we wander their virtual stores via click-tracking.  Why should physical outlets be disadvantaged?  More importantly, when the online experience can be mirrored and continued by a retailer’s brick and mortar store, doesn’t the shopper benefit?

I don’t know how many iPhone users know they have this technology in their pockets already.  I don’t know how many people realize what they’re giving up when they opt-in to this technology.  Google has deployed something in newer versions of Android that will allow retailers to bid on serving ads to people conducting product searches and Google can then track the person via their phone to see if they visited the store.  I do feel that many wouldn’t be quite some comfortable if they knew all this.

Are you, or is creepy dead?

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