Yesterday I was referred to a blog post written by Danah Boyd, an academic researcher at Microsoft and Harvard.  Her work focuses on the impacts of the internet and social networks on society.  She wrote about a horrible experience she had while presenting at the Web2.0 Expo.  The post is long but worth reading.  While Danah did take responsibililty for content or delivery problems with the talk, there were several lessons to be learned by those of us whose job it is to create thoughtful, intentional experiences.

First, Danah mentioned minor issues such as the fact that she was not allowed to have a laptop from with to present.  She then went on to describe that the podium she had to use was flat, which enabled the audience to see that she might be reading from notes.  This was exacerbated by the fact that the lights were so bright, she could not see anyone in the audience, making it hard to connect and establish a rapport with them.  And the final kicker, there was a running twitter stream that was displayed behind her, so that she could not see it, but the audience could.

What this created was an open invitation for the audience to carry on a conversation about the talk as it was happening. Not only was it distracting from the talk, it was happening literally behind the speaker's back.  This behavior is rude enough to begin with, and sadly, this audience devolved to the point of making rude comments and juvenile wisecracks.  It was like a bratty kid looking for attention in public.

New technology allows us to do many things we couldn't do before.  But the freedom to do these things comes with the responsibility to use the tools wisely.  I'm sure someone thought it was 'cool' to display a live twitter feed about the talk.  If handled responsibly and with a little more forethought, it could have served to engage the audience and allow Danah to better connect with them by seeing where their interests and energy were going.  Critical thought, active listening, and discussions that challenge existing ideas respectfully all help us to move further faster.  New technology can facilitate that type of interaction better than ever before.  However, when something like this happens people tend to shy away from the technology itself, which could actually set us all back.  It would be much better to stop and think about the experiences we want to create, and question whether what we are doing will actually help us to deliver them.

As you develop products and services at your company, how much thought is given to the actual experience a consumer will have when trying to learn about, purchase, and use your offering?  When developing a new technology, or launching a new product, are there unintended consequences that could result in the actual experience of use?  Obvoiusly there are no right answers to these questions, but it is important that someone is asking them.  Are they being asked at your company?

Seth Godin had an interesting post about how people cling to old ways of doing business, and approach fast-growing new ways with trepidation.  He uses the newspaper industry as an example.  People are clinging to the old business model, while online venues are showing much more promise.  The most interesting point he makes is that the people who are best suited to developing the new model are often the skilled hands that created the old model.  Yet they are the ones who are leaving this task up to those who are less experienced.

How often is this happening to you, every day?  It's easy to point to such glaring examples as the newspaper industry or the airline industry, and from the outside it's easy to point to several things that are going wrong.  But these companies are run by smart people, so I can only think that this tendency of human nature must be so strong that it is surely affecting all of us every day.  We don't see it because we don't perceive that it is affecting us measurably.

Find ways to see your blind spots.  Ask friends, coworkers, and anyone who's opinion you respect.  Remember, it will be easy for the outsider to see things that you do not even know exist.

Here's the final step in translating your consumer insights into a viable product or service offering.  At this point, your people are aware of the role their discipline plays in delivering on the consumer insight.  They also have the capability to actually do what needs to be done.

The final step is figuring out whether or not they got it right.  At this point, we'll assume that you've done all your traditional market-sizing, etc.  You know that the opportunity you've identified, based on your consumer insight, is a good one.  It's now time to check in with consumers again to see if your work hits the mark. 

Doing the right evaluation is of utmost importance here.  You don't want to know whether or not the consumer "likes" the offering.  You don't want it to be offensive to them, but you don't need them to "like" it.  This is a difficult concept for most companies to grasp, so stick with me while I explain it.  When you ask a consumer whether or not they like something, they will think about things like - Do I like that color?  Do I think that design is cool?  Do I like those words?  What you need to know instead is - Which design will make their work easier?  Which example looks like it will help them to acheive [stated] goal?  If they also like it, that's great.  But ultimately, people are more likely to buy products based on how well they will work for them, and are less likely to buy based on whether or not they initially like them.

This is especially true when you are trying to introduce a new, game-changing product.  New things are weird to people, and they tend not to like them.  Over time, however, if they realize that the new product works well for them, they will buy it.  Another example is the fact that more people tend to like BMW's than actually buy them.  On the other hand, if you're introducing a simple upgrade to an existing product, you may be able to get away with asking whether or not they like it.  Just make sure it's not inching you away from providing the ideal experience to meet their needs.

Don't forget to evaluate your ideas, especially if they are new.  And please, don't get caught in the "consumer said they liked it" trap.  Many companies have failed to launch new ideas based on this information, only to watch their competitors beat them to the punch.

I recently attended a reunion event for a company I worked for a long time ago.  It's one of those big companies that has several decentralized divisions, and people would often move between them, resulting in  some very intertwined networks.  Having worked at three of the divisions, it was fun for me to see how many of us knew the same people, never knowing that we had them in common. 

We all have access to networking tools like LinkedIn (and this was definitely more of a LinkedIn crowd than a Facebook crowd), and I had online connections with many of the people I saw there.  But there was nothing like getting a group of former coworkers together to nostalgically remember the old times, and catch up on the new times.  Something else happens that you can't quite capture online.  Coworkers get a good sense of who you are professionally.  But this view somehow stays frozen in time.  When you catch up in person, you have a chance to readjust your mental image of what this person does.  Of course some things never change, like basic fundamental values.  The people who were trustworthy will always be that way.  But along the way we all collect new skills, and it's fun to see how we have grown.

So we reconnect again, and hopefully use the online tools to facilitate the maintenance of these connections.  But it's just not the same as the face-to-face.  Everyone approaches these events with a bit of trepidation.  My suggestion is that you should always go to them if you have a chance.  If nothing else, it's good for the ego.  You realize that you had many more fans than you ever knew at the time.

Seth Godin made an interesting reference to the usage of the words friend and google this weekend.  He talks about how they have become valid verbs.  "I'll friend you", on Facebook , for example. 

He makes a good point, but what I found interesting is that this usage depersonalizes the meaning of the word.  Typically, you "make friends" with someone because you share interests, circumstances, or you just genuinely like them.  When you "friend" someone, what is the nature of that relationship?  It signifies that you are willing to share information with them that is consistent with the nature of the website.  For example, on LinkedIn, you "connect" with people who want to network for professional purposes.  There is no question about the nature of the relationship.  But on Facebook it's a little different.  Are all your "friends" truly friends?  Do you have any friends in real life that you have yet to "friend"? 

I have met several people who are experiencing a backlash against making "friends" through websites.  One young woman from a consumer interview said, "This friend thing is getting out of hand.  I'll be your friend in real life.  That's what freinds are about.  Don't bother me online.  That's different."  Yet another consumer reconciled this question with "It's just a word.  It doesn't really mean anything."

And they are right.  "Friending" doesn't really mean anything.  Hopefully being friends still does.

 This is a great example of how the ultimate execution will make all the difference.  The Wall Street Journal today had a story about how new mobile phone services enable people to know where their friends are.  The video gives a good overview of the service, and acknowledges the balance between privacy concerns and convenience.

This balance is very delicate.  I'm not sure where I will fall on this one.  I'm all for convenience, and I can easily see the benefits this service could provide.  On the other hand, this certainly has the potential to be a bit too revealing for comfort.  What do you think?

One conclusion drawn in the article amused me.  They suspected that younger people would like the service.  Sure.  When it's their friends who can see them.  What if this becomes a prerequisite for any parents who pay the cell phone bill? 

ReadWriteWeb had an interesting post about Best Tools for Visualization.  While I found the post to be full of interesting information, there was an obvious omission that I feel compelled to point out.  No visualization tool, regardless of how technically clever or unique it is, can take the place of clear thinking.

Visualization is a term whose meaning in popular culture is beginning to stray from its original intent.  (Isn't that the fate of most words that become popular buzzwords?)  In the pure sense, visualization is the visual expression of an idea.  The information in that idea can take many forms.  It can be literal, like a picture of an object, or it can become abstracted, such as images that convey emotion.

Most frequently, the term visualization describes visual representation of how informational elements are connected.  In the offline world, this is usually called Information Design.  Two main skills are required to make Visualization useful.  First, the complexities of interrelated information must be untangled.  The causes, effects, and connections must be clearly understood.  The second step is to figure out how to represent this information visually so that it can be easily understood. 

The upshot is that these tools can be helpful aids in visually representing information.  It is up to the person who is trying to communicate their ideas to: a) understand what the information is, and how it is connected, and b)  choose the right visualization tool to best communicate that information.  No tool can do those two things for you. 

These tools are very good at making cool images of information.  Most people have a difficult time making compelling images, and they are often seduced into falling in love with these tools for the wrong reasons.  Please do not fall into the trap of confusing the quality of the content with the quality of the image.  Good Information Design will help to ease communication, and provide common understanding.  If you are using one of these tools, and your discussions still keep spinning, go back to the drawing board and start clearing up your thinking.  Then visualize it.

My money's on SocialThing! 

If you're like me, you don't even want to think of joining another social networking site.  It takes time to create a good profile page for each site you belong to, and then there's the constant maintenance of keeping the profiles updated.  And of course you want to be a member of the "right" community, which may require that you are a member of many, just to hedge your bets.  (Remember Friendster?)

I began thinking that there must be an opportunity to break down the walls between all these Social Networking sites.  Can I just be one person who interacts with multiple groups of friends?  Well, now there are two options that claim to let you do that.  SocialThing! and FriendFeed.  There is a very good snapshot on TechCrunch , which compares the two services quite well.  ReadWriteWeb also has a good interview with the CEO of SocialThing! 

As I see it, the main difference between the two is that Socialthing! allows you to multitask.  It simplifies the job of updating Social Networking sites because it will post your updates to all the profiles you maintain.  FriendFeed basically aggregates what you are doing on all the other sites, and posts that activity on FriendFeed.  So, FriendFeed doesn't ease the pain of updating all the sites.  It just allows my friends to monitor my activity on all of them.

Earlier I talked about how good Social Networking allows people to do things online that they would already want to do.  From what I can tell at this point, Socialthing! does that very well.  It allows me to communicate with all of my friends more easily.  Information flows from me to others.  I can use it how I want.  FriendFeed allows my friends to watch what I am doing with all my other friends.  Information about me is exposed to others.  Historically people tend to shy away from that, even if they like the novelty at first.

So my prediction is, if people value simplicity, then Socialthing! will win.

I saw this video  in a post on Seth Godin's blog.  As a person who studies consumer behavior, I found it analogous to the work I do.  Before you read on, you should watch at least the first half of the video. 

I did not miss the bear the first time.  Most likely, this is because it is my job to pay attention to what's going on behind what consumers are telling me when I interview them.  Most consumer interviews go exactly like the video.  Consumers go on and on about the game; how they played it, what they were thinking, etc.  They are so used to playing around the bear, they don't even think that he might have an impact on them.  And he IS having an impact on them.  They are careful not to hit him, and that impacts their choices.  So many companies are trying to learn to integrate consumer feedback into their processes.  It often goes wrong for several reasons. 

First, consumers are typically not overtly aware of what drives them.  You can talk to them, they can tell you what they like, but they cannot tell you what to do.  If you literally do what they say, you are doomed.

Second, the web makes it easy to get consumer feedback.  In terms of the video you just saw, getting self-reported, written feedback is like trying to understand what's going on in the video while wearing a blindfold and having someone describe it to you.  And most likely the person describing it does not see the bear.

Finally (for today at least), companies often have trouble translating what a consumer says, does, means, or needs into a viable product offering.  This is true whether they see the bear or not.

I'm interested in the human aspects of what's going on with technology and the web.  People get so carried away with the mechanics of what they are doing, they often lose the point behind it.  And losing sight of the main point is usually the reason for losing relevance in the market.

Find the bear, understand his impact, and keep your eye on him.

I had AIM several years ago.  I had to remove it from my computer because it was too distracting.  IM has a way of being intrusive and distracting, and I was not going to fall into that trap.

Now, my needs have changed, and I decided to try IM again.  I installed the new AIM, and it was a mess.  It messed up my computer's ability to find the right wireless networks, and just had too much distracting stuff going on.  I couldn't just do what I needed to do without a three-ring-circus of web pages opening, email messages for accounts I didn't want or know I had...YUCK!!

And then a colleague suggested that I try Pidgin.  It has just what I need, and is an inobtrusive as IM can be.  It also has a Babelfish quality to it that I love, but have not had the need to use.  It basically enables you to integrate all your IM accounts.  Ahhhh...Simplicity!!  I only need one solution.  As I said, I don't need that right now, but I love the idea of it.

Pidgin may not be the best solution out there, but my experience proves a couple of things.  Technology is best when it lets you do what you need to do, and gets out of the way.  The other thing is that people will try what their friends suggest, and those are the things that have an opportunity to become loved.