Kid Confidence

My son is doing his first science experiment at school.  I convinced him, even though the electric principles are beyond his 3rd grade curriculum, to build different sized batteries from quarters from a project in The Dangerous Book for Boys, and to measure the difference in voltage.  The principles of electricity were easy for him to pick up using the analog of water flowing through a river.  My greater hope was just that it would force him to focus, to read and understand reasonably complex instructions, and to apply a discipline to perform and report on his work.  Regardless of the outcome, that is what his teachers are looking for, learning and applying the scientific method.

He Blinded me with Science!

He's been worried about this project for a while.  Last night, we built a test battery, so he could become comfortable with it.  Today, he presents his project and the hypothesis he wants to test to his classmates.  I told him, as we built the battery, to document the steps in his notebook, to help him commit them to memory.  We built the battery successfully, and he measured the voltage with a multimeter (~1.7V, for those morbidly curious).  We then ate Pork Meatball Banh Mi sandwiches, which were awesome, but that's another story...

After we built the battery, documented it, and ate our sandwiches, he had to practice his speech.  This terrified him.  I gave him all the usual tips: to relax and breath, to simplify messages so they were easier to remember, and to practice.  The most important advice I gave him, though, was when I asked him if anyone in the class knew how to make a battery, he told me no, not even the teacher.  So, he was the expert.  His little Chicken McNugget brain lit up, and he got more and more confident while he practiced.  He stopped sticking his hands in his pants.  He stopped rocking back and forth and making us seasick.  He starting nailing his speech.

It's tough to separate which comes first, confidence or focus.  This morning, my son woke up and gave an excellent speech about his project and what he was going to prove, in front of the camera.  He wondered out loud if he would become a scientist, or maybe a sports broadcaster.

Either way, be the expert in everything you do.  The confidence and focus it provides is incredible.  It even keeps you from putting your hands in your pants while speaking in public.

When Mobile Stole Xmas

From the initial indicators, mobile is having a distinct impact this holiday shopping season.  With online sales growing almost 40% during Thanksgiving, mobile traffic almost tripled!  iPad and iPhone traffic alone accounted for 10.2% of Black Friday traffic, according to a report from IBM Coremetrics.  There are recommendations for apps to load to simplify or make holiday shopping better.  Holiday couch commerce is born.

The important point for most retailers and consumer package goods companies to realize is that mobile, even more than traditional PC, has an impact all the way through the consumer journey: from awareness through loyalty.   Sometimes the shopping experience might start with the PC web or tablet or even the mobile, if the consumer is on-the-go, but can be finished through any other channel, often in store.   For what can be controlled, it's important that the experience is holistic, and the consumer state is passed seamlessly from one channel to the next to continually crown the customer and make them feel special.

There's no one-sized-fits-all strategy for mobile, as many consumers start with web or mobile search and end in the store.  However each consumer uses mobile this holiday shopping season, one point is clear: consumers don't leave home without it.

What's in the Cookies?

My mom bakes a lot.  Some people bite their nails when they are restless or nervous.  Bubs bakes.  She can whip up some chocolate chip cookies like others blink.  She puts everything in the cookies: raisin, nuts (or as my niece instructed once, "no gnats, please"), raisins...you-name-it.  We joke that if you're too quiet or still in the kitchen, you'll end up in the cookies.

She used to bake cheescakes for local restaurants.  She had a list of 49 different flavors that the restaurants could choose from, to rival Baskin-Robbins' 49 flavors of ice cream, at the time.  We used to help her bake them sometimes, after school, up at the fraternity on Lafayette College, where she used to cook after my parents were divorced.  It was all fun, however, I rarely eat cheesecake anymore.  Like maybe once or twice in the last 30 years.

There's always a cookie jar at my mom's house.  Always a stash of something sweet somewhere.  Always some new baking idea that must be discussed and obsessed over.  My wife also loves to bake and bakes well, too.  I think of it as a gauntlet for my health and waist.  Kind of like Cookie Frogger.  We find ourselves baking with the kids on Saturday or Sunday afternoons, when there is nothing to do.  Some brownies.  A batch of Alfajores.  Some Dulce de Leche Cheesecake Bars, which may have been one of the times I ate cheesecake in the last 30 years.

The children are easy to corrupt in this way.  And, the cycle continues.

Free Beer

I live in Texas, and I’ve dreamed of improving my guitar skills, starting a band, and leaving the marketing and technology world behind.  I would name my band Free Beer.  We’d play Texas Rock, some Blues, and throw in an occasional Radiohead song to keep the audience on their toes.  You’d drive down the local Farm-to-Market road by Joe’s Roadhouse, and the sign would read, “Free Beer Tonight.”  Sure, we might need to find a new town to play in, every night, to make the marketing ploy effective, but, hey, Texas is a big place!

Jamming or constipated?

Yesterday, our excellent Marketing Director sent me a link to a new mobile app produced for Moosejaw outfitters, called Moosejaw Xray (Android, iPhone).  Download it.  It corresponds to their winter catalog, and it uses augmented reality to give shoppers a more risqué view of the models in their catalog, without all those puffy, winter outer garments. 

As the male of the species, I found the marketing ploy intriguing.  I must study this catalog, intently.  As a marketer, however, I wondered if their budget would have been better spent elsewhere.  Hey, I admit, I downloaded it and looked at their catalog.  I even tweeted about it, and now I am writing a blog entry, referencing their campaign.  It’s got sexy women in lingerie, for Pete’s sake, what am I supposed to do, ignore it?

The reality is, however, they don’t sell the under garments, from what I can tell, so the campaign is really about generating buzz and brand awareness.   I don’t know Moosejaw, but I’d guess that the campaign is in line with their brand, as well.  It’s probably not a bad idea, in the end, but I just wonder if they will need to find a new town to play in the next time.

When Good Mobile Design Goes Bad

The average Joe or Josephine thinks of good design, and they think about how good something looks.  As my user experience colleagues would argue, beauty is not skin deep.  Many excellent designs are the results of tireless and maniacal focus to a tight set of goals and inherent acumen to user design that is applied to a product, from components to packaging and everything within.

When something is designed well, it appeals to you from the first look, the first touch, and every interaction you have with it through your experience.  I was reminded of great design and poor design at the same time, from the same product, this weekend.  My Sony Ericsson Bluetooth HBH-IS800 Headset.

Recently, I learned that I could link my American Express points with Amazon (awesomeness!), which has led me to buy many things that I may not have necessarily needed, including this headset.  I bought it so I could jog and listen to podcasts, without the nuisance of the cord that I occasionally yank out with my clumsy arms.  I am not beauty in motion, mind you.

So, as you can see from the photo, the headset is amazing, in that its minimal, simple, and extremely light for a stereo wireless headset.  Exactly what I needed for running.

Now, look at the power adapter.  This has been my pet peeve for years with mobile phones and laptop computers.  Electrical designers would skimp on the power design and have these massive bricks that you would need to charge the phones.  So, the phone would be thin and light, but the power brick would be just that, a brick!

Sony-Ericsson has had this particular accessory/power adaptor for at least 13 years.  Look at the sleek, simple headphones plugging into this odd adaptor.  There are multiple ways to plug it in, but only one of them is right.  The power brick is bigger and heaver than the headphones.  Looking at the two connected puts visions in my mind of a nice sports car with rims from low-cost, value car.  Ideally, this should be able to plug in to a USB port, so I would not have to bring this extra cord when I travel.

Needless to say, with good design, the experience pleases from start to finish.  There's no use having a tiny laptop with a huge power brick, unless you are promising unlimited battery life, so I can travel without compromise.  Focused goals and vision, attention to every detail, and a disciplined regimen of user experience from the beginning of the produce process to the end.

3 Fatal Misuses of Market Research

I'm not blogging to knock audience measurement or market research.  It put bread on my table for 3 years, while I worked at The Nielsen Company.  My advice, if the numbers don't help your story, turn the graph 90 degrees and check again.  You won't be the first marketing person to do so.

Do blogger moms think I'm sexy?

Having seen the sausage being made, I can say there is more science to it then some would care to recognize, but, still, I see people quote stats all the time and make three fatal errors of market data usage:

1. Asking and understanding the methodology: What were the questions asked, or sometimes, more importantly, what was asked?  Who did they ask?  How many people did they ask?  Was the sample representative?  One classic case you see in reporting on mobile phone sales is comparing sell-through numbers with sell-to numbers.  What's in consumers hands vs. on shelves.  Big difference.
2. Market research is only directional for the innovator: If research data could predict the future, a lot of Nielsen, Gartner, Forrester, IDC, etc. analysts that I know would be retired on a beach somewhere.  They're not.  Data can definitely give you both a status of where the world stands today, and trends, so they offer great directional insight.  When it comes to innovation, however, that's probably the limit.  I've had people ask me if I had research which would validate the innovations they had planned.  That's equivalent to expecting people to say they wanted the Facebook before it was available.
3. Cite your source: If you are going to use some data, cite the source and date of the data.  Otherwise, I can assume you made it up, or its 3 years old, which is okay if your nostalgic, but not so cool, if you are trying to make informed decisions.

Have a good weekend.  I don't have the data to prove that it's going to be good.  I just have a feeling.

Android, Screen, Me, Tide, Bad

The Weekly Wrap

Monday: Android

Tuesday: Screen

Wednesday: NFC

Thursday: Me

Friday: Tide

Saturday: Bad

Sunday: Family

Enjoy!