• The End User is Not the Only User

    Posted on May 10th, 2012 by and currently 0 commenting.

    I am not a product designer. I’m not even a designer. But I noticed something recently that made me think hard about the process of developing products and experiences.

    My wife and I were eating at a burrito chain where one of the new Coca-Cola “Freestyle” drink machines was installed (1). I’m not a soda drinker, so I didn’t experience it for myself, but I could tell that other restaurant patrons were really enjoying the futuristic interface and the impossibly broad number of drink choices available from one machine. (I read later that the number of available drinks is over 100.)

    My first thought was, “That invention made a giant step.” Again, I don’t use the machines often, but I think the traditional soda fountain has at best maybe 10 or 12 choices.

    Increasing the number of available products by a multiple of 10 – in a machine that’s really not too much larger than the old version – is a pretty significant product.

    Here’s the interesting thing, though: about halfway through my burrito, I noticed one of the employees pouring a giant pitcher of steaming water into the tray beneath the nozzle that sprayed carbonated syrup into people’s cups. I was interested enough in what he was doing to get up out of my seat and ask him, “why in the world are you pouring hot water into this new Coke machine?”

    “Well, the ice gets backed up in the tray,” he said, “so I have to come melt it down with hot water so that people can keep using it and it doesn’t make a mess.”

    I want to reiterate that I’m not a product designer. I also want to point out that I have no idea if this is a common issue in the Freestyle machines, or if the people who installed it made a mistake or messed up the drainage system. In short, I realize that this could be an edge case.

    That being said, talking with the pitcher-toting employee reminded me of a really great lesson: the end user is not the only user.

    I thought about how disappointing it would be to create a product that the manufacturer and end user love, but everyone in between hates.

    Happy employees make happy customers, and if you can develop products that do both, everyone wins.

    • (1) – You can read about the Ferrari-influenced Coca-Coal Freestyle machines here.

  • Hello (and some photos) From Chicago

    Posted on May 9th, 2012 by and currently 2 commenting.


    We’re at the WIT. Love the little brilliant details in this hotel, like birds quietly chirping in the halls.

    I’m in Chicago this week at Womma‘s womm-u with Cordell and Geno. And I’m so glad we all came. Honestly, I wish everyone from Brains on Fire could attend. Yesterday’s keynote speaker Steve Knox is shiny brilliant (he spoke at the FIRE session two years ago and was a huge hit). Every time I get the chance to be in Steve’s company, I take it. And every time I hear him speak, I learn something new. Here are just a couple of things that stuck in my mind:

    (I love to write from memory after I hear someone speak and not notes. The little nuggets that stick in your heart and mind are usually the ones worth sharing.)

    Steve stated “advocacy marketing can be your new competitive advantage.”

    The opportunity for brands today is to understand and practice being “neighborly”. And oh my goodness, he said it, LOVE their customers. If you ask your neighbor for help, they usually just do it. They don’t write it down. They don’t keep track of what you do for them (like loyalty cards).

    He also quoted one of his former associates at P&G.

    Start small to go big. Go slow to go fast.

    So many people are caught up in quick numbers and instant scale. But it’s not about volume.

    Ed Keller and Brad Fay also gave a great talk. It was their first time sharing their insights from their new book, The Face to Face Book. They are a steady reminder to all of us that 90 percent of all WOM is offline. Still. Watch for a Q+A guest post from Ed in the coming weeks.


    Ed Keller with Suzanne Fanning, Womma’s President

    Rod Brooks gave a presentation on his work with Pemco. I love how they start every single meeting with a customer story. He also talked about LOVING your customers.

    Geno and John Moore put together a presentation on WOMMology: Dumbing Down Smart WOMM Research. The beautiful slides (from Greg Ramsey) are online if you want check it out. Then last night Geno shared Justin Gammon’s amazing artwork in 10 Rules for Your Community to Survive a Zombie Attack.

    We’ll let you know as soon as this prezo hits slideshare!

    I loved a comment from someone in the audience.

    You need to be lovable to be loved.

    So with that, I will say bye! Off to catch a plane. Here are just a few more pics from our happy hour at Edelman’s crazy cool offices.

    David Armano, Geno and Greg.

    Geno, Jackie Huba, and Rick Murray (Edelman)


    The amazing, wonderful view from Edelman’s offices.

  • 6 Things Food Trucks Can Teach us about Social Media

    Posted on May 7th, 2012 by and currently 0 commenting.

    Food trucks are all the rage. They’re popping up everywhere, embodying the principles of not only fine dining, but fine design on the go. There are food truck lunch breaks, food truck festivals, even food truck weddings.

    And now food trucks are teaching us a thing or two about social media.

    This weekend I came across a must-read article: 6 THINGS FOOD TRUCKS CAN TEACH US ABOUT SOCIAL MEDIA.

    Consider it an essential Monday morning read. Not only will it get your wheels turning, it may get your stomach rumbling, too.

  • The things that make us happy. And human.

    Posted on May 3rd, 2012 by and currently 1 commenting.


    Poster available via weareyawn.com

    Hmmmm.

    The things that make us happy are not really “things” at all, are they?

    Today Cordell sent me this brilliant Harvard Business Review article.

    I love the question that Umair Haque asked his social media friends.

    What makes us human? In one word, preferably.

    The most common answers were: empathy, consciousness, compassion, love.

    From the article:

    …few of us go the office, the classroom, the bank, or the clinic to expect, evoke, elicit, or enjoy anything resembling empathy, consciousness, compassion, love. I’d bet the farm, the house, and the Apple shares on the following proposition: Our institutions are failing not merely because they’re bankrupting us financially, but because they’re bankrupting us in human terms — that, having become something like Alcatrazes for the human soul, they fail to ignite within us the searing potential for the towering accomplishments necessary to answer today’s titanic challenges.

    I hope I have inspired you to go read Umair’s words.

    So what do you think? What makes us human and how can an organization be built on love, compassion, consciousness, joy, empathy, or kindness (the things that make us happy)? What would that look like to you?

  • Arousal, Word of Mouth Marketing and WOMM-U

    Posted on April 23rd, 2012 by and currently 0 commenting.


    Yup. Kind of blurry iphone photo. But that’s Geno.

    Quick — before you read this post, drop and give me 50 push ups. Nope. I’m not kidding. I’m doing an experiment. Do your push ups, (I’ll wait.) Then keep reading!

    Ok. Done? Good.

    I’m getting excited about going to WOMM-U in May.

    Are you going?

    For one thing, Chicago in the Spring is magic. Another reason I am excited is somewhat self-promoting but the honest truth.

    Geno and John Moore(part of our extended tribe and Brand Autopsy Founder) are teaming up again to teach a class on Monday (5/7) afternoon. This go around, they’re taking some high profile super smart research and boiling it down to bite-size nuggets of marketing know-how. We’ve been doing a lot of learning and talking around here as they prep. It’s been good for all of us.

    We’re all in marketing grad school.

    One of the interesting studies they’ve dissected is from Jonah Berger. It hits on WHY people share stories and ideas.

    Berger sites arousal as a key trigger for sharing.

    From the Association For Psychological Science:

    “In a prior paper, we found that emotion plays a big role in which New York Times articles make the most emailed list. But interestingly, we found that while articles evoking more positive emotions were generally more viral, some negative emotions like anxiety and anger actually increased transmission while others like sadness decreased it. In trying to understand why, it seemed like arousal might be a key factor,” says Berger, the Joseph G. Campbell Jr. Assistant Professor of Marketing at the University of Pennsylvania.

    In the study, Berger suggests that feeling fearful, angry, or amused drives people to share news and information. These types of emotions are characterized by high arousal and action, as opposed to emotions like sadness or contentment, which are characterized by low arousal or inaction. “If something makes you angry as opposed to sad, for example, you’re more likely to share it with your family and friends because you’re fired up,” continues Berger.

    Hmmmm. Lots of good insight in this for those of us in the conversation business.

    Here’s how they went about verifying this concept:

    Two different experiments were conducted to test Berger’s theory that arousal promotes information sharing. In one experiment, which focused on specific emotions, 93 students completed what they were told were two unrelated studies. In the first study, students in different experimental groups watched video clips that made them either anxious or amused (high arousal emotions) or sad or content (low arousal emotions). In the second study, they were shown an emotionally neutral article and video and asked how willing they would be to share it with friends and family members. The results demonstrated that students who felt high arousal emotions were much more inclined to share with others.

    The second experiment dealt with arousal more generally. 40 students were asked to complete what they assumed were two unrelated studies. First, they either sat still or jogged in place for about a minute – a task proven to increase arousal. Then they were asked to read a neutral online news article and told they could e-mail it to anyone they wanted. The findings showed that students who jogged in place and were aroused were more likely to e-mail the article to their friends and family, as opposed to the students that just sat still.

    So back to my experiment. Were you more likely to share this post if you got your heart rate going before you read it?

    Hmmmm.

    There’s a lot of smart research going around. What do you find most interesting and why?

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