All projects: Gel, Good Todo, Games, Uncle Mark, Bit Literacy
Archives / June 2011
To create a great customer experience, throw out a customer or two
Not long ago, a moviegoer was escorted out of a theater in Austin, Texas. The Alamo Drafthouse Cinema has a policy of no talking and no texting. But even after two warnings, the customer persisted in texting during a movie. Out she went.
In a blog post called She texted. We kicked her out., Alamo Drafthouse founder Tim League explains:
When we adopted our strict no talking policy back in 1997 we knew we were going to alienate some of our patrons. That was the plan. If you can't change your behavior and be quiet (or unilluminated) during a movie, then we don't want you at our venue. Follow our rules, or get out and don't come back until you can.
That's one of the most pro-customer experience posts I've seen in awhile. Because this theater is willing to filter out some customers it doesn't want, it creates a much better experience for the customers who stay.
Or to put it another way: if you really love your customers, you'll be willing to point them elsewhere, if the relationship just isn't working.
The Alamo Drafthouse put it in even starker terms by creating this video containing a voice mail left by the offending (and, apparently, offended) customer. The cinema clearly enjoys emphasizing the benefit of its customer experience: watch movies here without distractions from other customers.
How might you apply this case study to your own business, organization, team, or project?
• If you're at an agency or other service firm, tell prospective clients that you'll be happy to point them to competitors if they'd be a better fit. (We do this all the time at my customer experience firm Creative Good, telling prospective clients that we'll point them to whichever company we think might help them best, whether it's Creative Good or not.)
• If you're creating an app for the Web or mobile devices, be clear about the key benefit you're creating in the customer experience. Instead of trying to create an app that does everything for everyone, focus on that benefit - even though some of your prospects will then go to competing apps. (Example here is my todo app Good Todo, which is super-simple and thus not for everyone.)
• If you're a professor, health care professional, cinema owner, or otherwise creating an in-person experience, be clear with yourself - and your students/patients/customers - about what you're offering, and what your expectations are of them. (If they shouldn't text during the movie, say so, and enforce it!) Whatever experience you promise, be sure to deliver on it. Integrity matters.
And there are other examples. Do you have clearly stated benefits and expectations in the customer experience you create? Post them in the comments below.
(P.S. See also Phil Terry's calculation of how many rude moviegoers there are in the U.S.)
Videos to explore while I'm out
Three to watch..
• Watch two guys go crazy in an empty airport
• Video about NYC Salt, a unique photography program for NYC teens. (The founder, Alicia Hansen, spoke at Gel 2011 a few weeks back.)
• Progress bar for Nyan Cat is now Nyan-ified. So nyan the nyan a bit more nyan. (Nyice job, Nyoutube.)
The blog now takes a week's break, but you can follow me on Twitter here.
P.S. Want more videos? Check out all the Gel videos from past years. Gel 2011 vids coming soon - stay tuned.
Play "guess the IPO company"... and learn a business lesson
Given the massive amount of attention being paid to Internet IPOs recently, I was interested to come across the CNN story excerpted below. I'll link to the story below, but first, can you guess the company?
A pair of Internet-related initial public offerings made highly successful Wall Street debuts Thursday, signifying renewed investor enthusiasm for new dot-com issues.Shares of [company name here] closed at a price up 364 percent from an offering price of 14. ... The company's goal is to "humanize the Internet," according to [company name]'s filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
That plan has yet, however, to translate into profits. [Company name] reported a loss of $4.9 million, or 29 cents a share on a pro-forma basis, in the quarter ended March 31. According to its SEC filing, [company name] plans to derive a significant portion of its revenue from e-commerce and customized corporate solutions, though it has yet to garner any revenue from these business models.
Could it be LinkedIn? Or Pandora? Surely not Groupon?
Actually, it's none of them. The company in question is owned by Barry Diller's IAC, and was covered by this article on CNN.com back in 1999. It's Ask.com, known at the time of its IPO as Ask Jeeves. (The other IPO mentioned in the CNN story was that of Commerce One, which filed for bankruptcy in 2004, (source).)
The article above could practically have been written today, with some other company name slotted in.
I was there in 1999. I remember how the bubble felt at the time... and I certainly remember what happened next. Anyone who was there would probably tell you that they'd like to avoid that outcome again.
Writing online at that time, I tried to point out the value of focusing on the customer - despite all the attention being paid to which companies got rich with which investors, and who was spouting which high-tech buzzwords. (Sound familiar?)
Just for kicks, I looked up my newsletter column from back then and found one dated June 15, 1999. Note the bold sentence in the second-to-last paragraph - I added the emphasis today, just to show the point I was trying to make in the middle of the 1999 bubble. (Anyone who's paying attention today, learn from history!)...
-------------------------------------------------------------------- Exploding Cows (Really)
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Tipped off by Evan, our ever-vigilant intern, I recently visited the
designreactor.com website to play a Java-based online game called
"Udder Insanity." Loosely based on the old video game Tapper, the
game challenges the player to milk half a dozen cows as they inflate
at various speeds. Let a cow inflate without milking it, boom! What
a mess. But milk a cow too much, and the poor heifer implodes --
not pretty.
While the exploding cows are entertaining, the real lesson of the
game is in the message the game designers wrote:
> Udder Insanity was designed to be a very small and simple game
> that didn't require a Pentium 300+ Mhz computer to play. The
> problem that plagues most applets and Director-based games out on
> the Web is the fact that they were created with the assumption
> that the end user has a high-end machine. Most people don't, and
> we bet that an award-winning 3D-game applet won't look so great to
> them if it plods along at 0.5 frames per second on their computer.
Even though it's a Java applet -- and I find little use in most Java
applets I see on the Web -- Udder Insanity shows how an advanced
tool like Java can yield great results, if customer experience is
the focus.
The game designers didn't set out to "push the envelope" of Java, or
to "do something no one has ever done before" with Java. They didn't
make technology the focus of their efforts. Instead, the designers
created a good game. They wanted to design "a very small and simple
game" that would be enjoyable for a wide range of Web users. And it
just so happened that the game used Java.
This is the mindset every e-business site should be aiming for: use
technology only where it supports the customer experience. Don't use
technology for the sake of using technology. Don't use the high-tech
solution just because you paid a lot of money for it, and certainly
don't build a product just because the media says that's "what's
hot."
The winners in the Internet economy will be those companies
who make the customer experience their focus -- not the
technology. Yes, they'll use the whizbang tools and solutions, but
only where they support the customer experience. As we see above,
Java can be a great technology when you need to put some exploding
cows on the screen.
Finally, by its simple design, the game is accessible to many more
players. Not only does it make more business sense to be
accessible to a large audience, but it also makes the Web a better
place overall for the average customer. Since the game is simple,
many more people can have fun milking the cows. And that, after all,
is what it's all about.
Udder Insanity:
http://www.designreactor.com/mutations/udder
Some things never change, eh?
By the way, the game is still there, 12 years later.
What feels "great and weird at the same time"? Something you should try.
Some people claim it's impossible to empty the inbox and liberate themselves from overload.
Take a look at this email. Came in this morning from Sean D., who gave permission for me to share it. His inbox now has zero messages in it:
Hi Mark. Well I'm there......ZERO!
From 1,900 last Friday, to zero today.
It feels great and weird at the same time. I've come to the conclusion that I utilized too much time just reviewing emails but not really getting much done with them. Those languishing in the inbox were a big distraction and were "time robbers". Being near zero afforded me to "do" more of what needed to be done. Now that I'm actually at zero, I'm certain I'll be on top of my game.
I'm also using the iPad app and the categories to split home and work.
Great tool and great experience all round.
Regards.
Sean.
You can learn this system in a matter of minutes and begin practicing immediately. Read my book Bit Literacy (free in the Apple iBookstore, and 99 cents in the Amazon Kindle store).
A song to inspire confidence
A little Monday fun. First watch this video, of the boy who just learned to ride a bike. Then watch the auto-tuned version - a rousing song to inspire confidence in just about any endeavor.
The song composed by The Gregory Brothers (watch their Gel video). Oh, and if you really do need to teach a kid to ride a bike, here's a quick video describing just that.
Manage your email... or just wait for the world to change
TED host Chris Anderson has posted Help Create an Email Charter!. And Seth Godin reposted his Email checklist. Both make good suggestions, like "choose clear subject lines," and "save as draft" if you're writing while angry. Helpful, well-intentioned lists.
Now, with that said. Just in case the people who send you email don't abide by all those suggestions, you'll still have the same problems: too much incoming email, often irrelevant or poorly written, CC'ing too many people, distracting and slowing you down unnecessarily. (And the problem will continue to get worse.)
Your options at that point:
1. Continue to wait for the entire world to learn how to email you more effectively.
or
2. Learn how to manage your own email, no matter what the world sends you.
Whenever you're ready to try option 2, read my own post: Once again, how to manage your email. It takes less than 60 seconds and could change your life.
(And read Bit Literacy. Free in the iBookstore.)
Cheering for a hologram
The digital world will continue to challenge us with two questions:
1. What's real?
2. What's meaningful?
(I turned off comments - something wrong with the blog comment system. Post to @markhurst.. sorry for the inconvenience.)
Dear NPR, "delete" isn't the solution in this case
From NPR today, Is Sexting Cheating? Read This Before You Hit 'Send' covers the problems Rep. Weiner and others are facing after engaging in dumb behavior.
The story ends with this conclusion:
Blake's advice, for ordinary sexters and high-profile politicians alike: delete, delete, delete.
In other words, the best advice for someone sending this stuff is "be sure to delete the lewd message from your Sent Items."
Really, NPR? That's the solution?
(It's not often that I disagree with "delete," but really.)
To solve info overload, make friends with The Nothing
Did you ever hear about "The Nothing"? Anyone who has read "The Neverending Story" by Michael Ende, or seen the movie (though the book was better), might remember it as the villain of the story, sweeping through the world and destroying everything it encounters. Once a place is visited by The Nothing, all that's left is an obliterated void.
In the digital world, the equivalent villain would be called The Everything. Because the only way to really make information disappear, these days, is to surround it by a sufficient amount of competing information.
Case in point is Side Effects? These Drugs Have a Few. Here the NYT references a Harvard study showing that there are, on average, 70 side effects listed on drug labels. Some labels contain over 500 side effects.
What would be the possible benefit of a drug maker listing over 500 side effects? Easy: it gives coverage in a liability lawsuit. If a patient sues the drugmaker due to a harmful side effect, the pharma company lawyers can claim - accurately - that the patient was warned by the label. (Who's really at fault here - litigious patients or overcautious companies - is a chicken-and-egg question that's hard to unravel.)
What's clear is that the patient experience is harmed by these labels. Patients now know less about side effects than they did before. Sure, a drug might hypothetically bring about any of 500 side effects, but what are the few most common ones to look out for? We don't know. Once the drug label is visited by The Everything, all that's left is, well, something resembling an obliterated void.
The drug label story teaches us that we have to change our perspective in the digital world. In a world full of information, the villain isn't The Nothing - it's actually The Everything.
Put another way, too many competing inputs are the same as not using the inputs at all:
• Having too many emails in the inbox, competing for our attention, is equivalent to not using email at all.
• Seeing too many action items on today's todo list is equivalent to not having a todo list at all.
• Trying to consume too many sources in our media diet is equivalent to not consuming anything at all.
In the digital world, information will find us. It's inescapable, and if we're not careful, The Everything will arrive and paralyze us. So the challenge is to find The Nothing, and make friends with it, to solve overload permanently. Let the bits go.
(And read Bit Literacy.)
"Wave at the bus" dad chooses different costume every day
In Utah, a dad dressed up in a different costume every weekday, for 170 days, to wave to his son passing by on the schoolbus. Pictures of the costumes are at waveatthebus.blogspot.com.
I love projects that create a good experience just because. Just because it's fun and creative and gives people a laugh. This one reminds me of Noah Scalin's Skull A Day project and his subsequent book, 365: A Daily Creativity Journal: Make Something Every Day and Change Your Life. I wouldn't be surprised if the dad used the book for inspiration. (Watch Noah's Gel video.)
(via metafilter)
One professor turns off email (in exchange for 12 other methods)
One easy solution to email overload, albeit a little extreme, is to just turn it off.
At UNC Chapel Hill, one professor has quit email. He's apparently very strict that you can not contact him via email. Instead, you'll have to rely on text messages, AIM, G-chat, Facebook, Facebook chat, Skype, Doodle, Google Docs, or others of "about 12 different means of contact."
Well, at least he's eliminated overload. (!)
Seriously now. I find the "email is dead" argument to be a little tedious - I wrote about it here - but even if it is dead, it seems a little counterproductive to monitor twelve different bitstreams instead.
To give Professor Jones his rebuttal - he co-authored Are technology's early adopters abandoning their email? I'd just point him to Once again, how to manage your email.
Update (June 30, 2011): Professor Jones marks his first month with absolutely no email, noting that he uses email only "to see if there's stuff I should pay attention to" and to email his son in Serbia (source).
(Thanks to Mike B. for the pointer.)
To fully embrace technology, we must learn to let it go
In Techno Life Skills, Kevin Kelly lists some rules of thumb for mastering "how technology in general works." I especially liked these two:
• Technologies improve so fast you should postpone getting anything until 5 minutes before you need it. Get comfortable with the fact that anything you buy is already obsolete. Therefore acquire at the last possible moment.• You will be newbie forever. Get good at the beginner mode, learning new programs, asking dumb questions, making stupid mistakes, soliticting help, and helping others with what you learn (the best way to learn yourself).
Kelly calls these skills, collectively, "techno-literacy" - which of course isn't too far from "bit literacy," as described in my 2007 book by the same name. The skillsets are different but complementary: Kelly is talking about how to master the tools we encounter - the sites, apps, software, gadgets, devices, packages, platforms, and so on.
Bit literacy, on the other hand, is talking about the bits themselves - the text, photos, video, audio, and others; in formats that are open, closed, legacy, or new; variously streaming, accumulating, changing, disappearing. We need to understand how bits work, and how to work with bits just as much as we need to learn about tools. A good first step is to acknowledge that bit literacy is different from, and complentary to, tool expertise (or "techno-literacy," as Kelly puts it).
I think ultimately the change we're undergoing as a digitized culture is due to the bits - their power to engage us, and their paradoxical nature (both physically light and psychologically heavy; permanent, perfectly retaining form, yet shockingly ephemeral). The more we interact with bits, the less time we have for our traditional analog experiences.
For years people have read Bit Literacy and indicated that they were mainly engaged by the section on managing email. Which is a fine outcome - I'm happy for people to find anything in the text helpful - but it's still just a fraction of the book's full message. Bit literacy exhorts the reader to let the bits go so as to live live more fully, while in control of - and, whenever we choose, away from - the bits. (You can only do this if you have certain skills - hence the how-to nature of several chapters.)
Now in 2011, there are early indications that the culture is turning the corner to a new awareness about the scope of the issue - a sense that "we like gadgets" isn't the whole story behind this societal transformation. Novelist Jonathan Franzen gave a commencement address last month reprinted in the New York Times as Technology Provides an Alternative to Love. And MIT researcher Sherry Turkle was profiled in an interview summarizing her book Alone Together (see also the companion video). Both Franzen and Turkle suggest that we've allowed digital technology too infiltrate our lives, yet we feel powerless to do anything about it.
Writing such as Kevin Kelly's - and his recent book What Technology Wants - offer helpful guideposts as we continue our embrace of digital technology. Just make sure to learn how to work with bits, too.
Once again, how to manage your email
Forbes just reposted How to conquer your email inbox, a piece from a year ago summarizing my thoughts on the process.
It's funny (or not) how urgent this issue has become just in the past year or so. When I originally developed the empty-inbox method in the mid-1990s, it was a bit foreign, to say the least, to the people I shared it with. By the late 90s, I was able to teach a few employees the method. In 2007, when Bit Literacy came out, a few thousand people found it relevant. Now in 2011 it seems like everyone is dying to find some way to get out from under the load.
The method is very simple: separate your todos from the rest of your emails, so that you can work from a todo list, rather than an inbox (which wasn't designed to manage workflow). If and when your todos are on a todo list, you can remove everything else from the inbox - by archiving, filing, or deleting various bits to suit your own tastes. Once an inbox is empty, it's really difficult to be distracted by email any more. You're forced to get your work done - from the todo list.
If you want to give this method a whirl, you could do worse than to try my own todo list called Good Todo. It also has apps for iPhone, iPad, and Android.
(And read Bit Literacy.)
P.S. I wonder if todo lists will be the next area of intense interest, much like email is now. Perhaps not coincidentally, the Morgan Library's next exhibition is called Lists: To-dos, Illustrated Inventories, Collected Thoughts, and Other Artists' Enumerations from the Smithsonian's Archives of American Art. Through October 2.
