Archive for July, 2008
Efficiency Innovation
Posted by Jamie Hutson | Filed under Life, Start Ups, The Future
When I was in college I used to say that I wasn’t lazy but I was energy efficient. Now I’m beginning to worry that as a nation we are becoming more lazy.
Hundreds of new applications and devices are being introduced each year that reduce the effort it takes to do something, and people are waiting in throes to purchase these things. Take the new iPhone which combines the internet, elements of a notebook PC, your mp3 device and a camera. With the new version comes an app store that allows you to upgrade and add to the already potent functionality of it. Here is a device that allows you to take several unique actions and communicate quickly and easily in many different ways, connecting you to the world around you better than ever before. Think back 10 yrs to putting dimes (now quarters) in payphones.
Let’s move on to another phenomenon that’s taking early adopters by storm - Twitter. Twitter takes two already efficient mediums and combines them: email and SMS. Taking quick blurbs about our lives we can quickly share them with the people around us who want to know.
Don’t take my tone to be overly negative, these efficiency innovations go right to the heart of capitalism. Creating something that makes peoples lives better or easier. A good example, I’m writing this from my blackberry poolside, and I will email it to my posting address and it will appear automatically, with minimal extra effort.
Humans have come so far in the past 30 yrs, just in the short lifetime of many of the entrepreneurs leading these new developments. Its fascinating to see how far we’ve come and where it might lead, but it all truly comes down to effeciency innovation.
How can we take this thing we enjoy and do it better and faster? The question that defines much of what we do today.
Where is the future leading?
Posted by Jamie Hutson | Filed under Life, The Future
The future is coming at us more rapidly than ever before. A robot on Mars is having conversations with people via SMS, GPS is becoming a new way for people to connect to each other and everything seems be advancing at a frenetic pace. With all this madness, what do the people on the forefront of the technology field have to say about their predictions and outlooks.
Darren Herman began a new project called futurememe.org. The idea behind it is that “anyone can become a futurist.” I was able to be one of those anyones and posted some of my thoughts here. From the about page:
With people contributing their visions for the future from all over the globe, we can amass all of this information in one place and hopefully take action on it for positive change, be it social, technological, or economical.
The future of our world can be a scary or a wonderful place, and there are plenty of varieties for those visions. In college I got really into utopian/dystopian societies and see so many similarities in todays world to those dystopian visions of the 60’s, 70’s, and even back to the 30’s and 40’s. In Fahrenheit 451 people take heavy doses of relaxants and anti-anxiety pills and tune in every night to their “wall screens” (flat screen tvs?) where reading books is illegal and information is largely distributed in “factoids” short pieces of information devoid of context (twitter?). 1984 features new speak, where people combine words into one thats quicker to say (web log=blog), and people communicate via two way telescreens (video-conferencing). These dystopian novels of so many years ago reflect with amazing accuracy current situations.
With one notable difference, the vast majority of our current technology is a result of efficiency innovation. I don’t know how often that phrase is used but I’m coining it as one that I will be using often and reflecting on frequently. Our current level of efficiency innovation is unparralled in our history - it took 500 years to advance beyond the printing press, yet only about 100 yrs to advance from radio to tv to the internet. From records to tapes to cds to mp3’s - 30 yrs. From disk drives to dvds to solid state drives ~20 yrs. Think about where cloud computing will take us, imagine what the next Mars Rover will discover.
Its a great time to have an imagination, and an exciting time to play a part in the forefront of technology. The idea of futurememe.org gives everyone a place to share and grow their ideas of the future. I personally hope it grows and gets some of the lofty and interesting contributors Darren is seeking. The future is ours…
Mobile Opportunities - 2D Barcodes
Posted by Jamie Hutson | Filed under Local Search, Mobile, Mobile Web, Small Businesses, advertising, marketing, web 2.0
Ok, so the iPhone phrenzy has calmed down slightly and every major news outlet or blog has covered their view of the device. Now lets examine how the opportunities in mobile have evolved with this fancy new device.
The GPS capabilities have been upgraded so my iPhone friends will be able to easily figure out, not just who, but also where they are. This brings a variety of Location Based Services to the iPhone that are more readily available now. Local coupons, location aware information and a slew of soon to be spammy SMS services are sure to be around the corner.
I’d like to focus on an interesting new technology that is very popular in Japan, and I’ve mentioned before - 2D Barcodes. Google made these next generation bar codes available in their print ads. Heres an excerpt from their explanation:
Recently, you may have seen newspaper ads for ServiceMagic placed through the Google Print Ads platform. These particular ads include a Google Consumer Response Tag (CRT) with multiple response mechanisms: URL, search terms, phone number, coupon code, SMS code, and 2D barcode. This test is part of our efforts to make print advertising more useful for readers and more measurable for advertisers. 2D barcodes are an especially exciting part of this because they allow readers to “click” on interesting print ads with their cellphones and seamlessly connect to relevant online content.
Whats really exciting about these “Quick Response” codes, is that many features of these 2D bar codes will soon be reaching consumers and connecting them instantly with businesses. With their application to convert local search online to the real world (and vice versa) these QR codes could be extremely valuable to marketers and small businesses.
To the right is an example of a 2D Barcode from the website semapedia.org. Semapedia.org lets you take a link from wikipedia, wikimedia and several other wikis, create a 2D Barcode to link back to specific articles, then print it and place it where ever you wish. Their goal is to “connect the virtual and physical world by bringing the right information from the internet to the relevant place in physical space.” Now picture this applied to your favorite restaurant, or take out place.
You’re walking down the street, right around the corner and you see an ad for the deli. You whip out your phone and snap a picture of the code and bang, you just got a free beverage if you come into the deli and order a sandwich in the next 10 minutes. Just bring your phone.
This technology has applications across many mediums, business types and ad types. Use it to get more information on cars at the bus stop, movies on the subway, hotel rooms at rest areas or just about anything - on demand, on location, while the consumer is in purchase mode. Talk about ROI, send the coupon to a tracking URL and see how many coupons are redeemed from your coupon.
No Nigerian Spammers, no number harvesting, just on demand information. Brilliantly simple.
I see an opportunity in a tinyurl style “QR” generator. Although there are a couple companies doing it in Europe and Japan (Kaywa seems to be the most friendly). They currently offer personal QR codes free as well as enterprise and API use for a fee. Unfortunately there is little traction in the market here in America, as usual we are behind the mobile curve.
Here is an example of mobile marketing from Sweden: Crossmedia Avenue ran a MMS campaign for a pension insurance company that invited users to send in a picture of themselves and see their face transformed 70 years in the future. With over 262k photos sent via MMS in one month! That is a powerful response in a country of 9 million people. I can’t imagine that we are more than 9-12 months away from these sort of campaigns coming to the US.
With over 14 million BlackBerry’s sold last year in the US, iPhone sales expected to reach 10 million world wide by the end of this 2008 and analysts expecting the pie to keep growing, the proliferation of smartphones into our lives is close to reaching a critical mass.
Now if only I could grow a second set of thumbs…
Thank You, You’re Welcome
Posted by Jamie Hutson | Filed under Life
How was your day today? How’s business? Good to hear.
I use these words everyday, in every little, seemingly meaningless conversation I have. It makes life easier, and dare I say better. Ask the cashier (if there still is one where you shop) how she is doing today. Speak to the call center guy like he is actually a real person. Engage your audience.
See how I slipped that in there? Engage your audience, thoughtfully. Make them understand that you care. It doesn’t matter who your audience is, and it doesn’t matter what you are talking about. Don’t make them think you care, show them that you do. Its all part of the story you tell; about you, about your product, about your business, about how you got here.
People are receptive to caring, especially when they are least expecting it. Make someone smile, and you will smile. See how much happier you are?
American Ramble
Posted by Jamie Hutson | Filed under Life
Alright, I was watching CNN today during lunch and they were discussing the “Obama Children-On-TV Story.” While two panelists where discussing the incident (which couldn’t be less important to anythingI), I noticed “Iran conducts missile tests, intl community worried.”
So the ring leader of the “Axis of Evil” with a president who doesn’t believe in the holocaust, launches a missle tests and says “Our Finger is always on the trigger” and we are talking about whether or not Barak Obama bringing his children on an interview during his daughters birthday party is good for his electability. No wonder the news is losing its credibility. These people were having a serious debate over how Obama’s children will affect his public perception, while one of the biggest issues in the middle east became even bigger.
Iran is testing long range missiles to shoot at Israel and we are concerned over the vanity of who is on TV. That is what is wrong with our country, we have no idea what is going on and the majority of us get our information from major media outlets. The media has its own agenda - the people making news have their own agenda. The news media should just be reporting what happened - all of it. I watch MSNBC because I like their point of view; I listen to conservative talk radio because it gives me a middle ground to compare to the liberal news. But what about the people who only listen to one. Is it so ridiculous that some of our opinions might be slightly biased?
Jon Stewart made a good analogy to our current outlook in Washington. If we are addicted to drinking and we are all out of alcohol, getting more alcohol doesn’t solve the problem - it makes it worse. We shouldn’t be concerned over getting more oil and destroying our native earth to get more oil - even thought it won’t matter for 5-10 years - we should be concerned about fixing our problem: inefficiencies. Its the same with newspapers, its the same with oil, its the same with just about every struggling industry these days.
Stop trying to hang on to the old way and embrace the new way. And seriously America, lets take a look at what is really important to us - I love this country.
Just Give it a Fresh Coat
Posted by Jamie Hutson | Filed under Life, marketing
I was at my parents yesterday for my fathers birthday. This morning while I was reading the paper (yes,my parents still get the paper and I actually read it today!) I noticed something different. It had a whole new design; new font, new colors, it was brighter. Well, I didn’t like it, but thats ok. The main reason I didn’t like was that it was a waste of their time, and it reeked of arrogance.
Maybe its just me, but I really feel newspapers need to bite the bullet and go to town on their websites. The Day has a pretty good website, but it doesn’t do anything different its just a website for a newspaper with news. How about instead of spending time and money, giving an old car a new coat of paint, throw a new engine in there, give it some new brakes. MAKE IT BETTER.
A couple weeks ago I was pondering what I should do to make this blog look better. Then I realized that it doesn’t really matter what the blog looks like, as long as it isn’t making you vomit, its what I write here that makes you read, or come back. It wasn’t really news to me, but its interesting to see how so many organizations are unable to think that way.
A coat of paint can make a big difference on a room, but if there isn’t something provoking or interesting about what or who is in the room, why should I stay - or come back?
Correcting Myself
Posted by Jamie Hutson | Filed under Life, Start Ups, analytics, marketing, measurement
Ok, anyone who knows me knows I can get pretty fired up. And sometimes in the privacy of my computer I can get a little overzealous about my thoughts/feelings, especially related to recent experiences. I am also pretty good at acknowledging these blights, and when necessary correcting them. In the past few weeks, I think I may have transmitted some of these blights into this blog, so I’d like to address them.
I have of late been very hard on the financial markets and the coverage of them RE: their view on the internet. And in fairness, I live alot of my life on the internet, I run an internet company and I know a few people who do as well. However, coming across a few data points (particularly this one from Greg Sterling) about E-Commerce having basically flat growth and a few fairly average earnings reports, I think I was getting a bit ahead of myself. I know a good bit about the markets, I know alot more about the internet, but the internet is still a small piece of the economy, and as a whole of our nation, only the early adopters are really savvy to its power and potential. I guess I just never really considered myself and early adopter.
On a second point, I recently remarked on a meeting I had a few weeks ago and used the term “don’t get it.” After reading this post from Mark Cuban, I realized that in some way I was being lazy when discussing the potential project. I didn’t drill “it” down enough for them. Although I never actually used this term with them, nor would I (it is rather insulting), it hit me that in many ways I’ve rationalized deals that never happened or meetings that didn’t go well as them “just not getting it.” The important part of this is that it made me a little better, and now I realize I have alot more work to do to get to a level I didn’t realize I wasn’t already on. If that makes any sense.
You can’t manage what you don’t measure, or something like that.
The Worst Starbucks Ever
Posted by Jamie Hutson | Filed under Life, marketing
I found a new Starbucks location (that has assured me they won’t be closing anytime soon) in White Plains, right next to the new Ritz Carlton. Its a swanky joint and reminds me of somewhere that isn’t anything like what I pictured would be going on in White Plains.
I hadn’t planned on writing anything (my life never stops), but I was thinking about my different Starbucks experiences and thought I’d make a note of a few of the good and a few of the bad. Most notably the bad.
Starbucks can be viewed as a microcosm for the world, you find people of all walks of life, all shapes and sizes here, and its a great place to observe how people interact with each other. Particularly the way the baristas interact with customers.
I’d have to say that my favorite Starbucks is across from Yale on Chapel St in New Haven. It has an incredible blend of higher-ed, Ivy League types, statesman, businesswomen, students and your standard toothless chess players. But the real reason for my affinity here is that the customer service is always excellent. “Hi how are you today?” and they wait for a response. You have a conversation with someone, which is often more refreshing than the coffee you’re about to have.
The worst Starbucks I’ve ever been to is in the Biltmore Hotel, Providence, RI. No class, mean spirited baristas (with one exception) and you practically have to beg for a key to the bathroom. In my mind, a key to the bathroom is a rather overt way of seperating people into classes, and making them feel less welcome and important. I mean this place is just mean, and its a great example of why there are so many Starbucks closing. I feel bad for the good people and baristas that actually care, who will be losing there jobs in this upcoming layoff. But not for the rest of them.
Starbucks was created as a place to get a great cup of coffee, and I thought that the notched up prices meant you could get a smile with that. As they grew so quickly, they lost both of those elements, burnt coffee and bitter employees (or was that the other way around). The worst Starbucks isn’t about one particular place, or one bad experience, its about many particularly bad places and thousands of bad experiences.
Coffee can be about the coffee, it can be about the experience drinking it, it can be about the caffeine, it can be about alot of things. But the constant, as with any purchase, is your experience as a consumer. And in the rare chances I get to be the consumer, I’d like my experience to be good.
This isn’t really about Starbucks, its about why they are failing, and how when they stopped focusing on giving people a great coffee drinking experience, they stopped doing what they do best - Making Coffee.
Make coffee people!
