All projects: Gel, Jobs, Good Todo, Games, Uncle Mark, Blog, Bit Literacy
Remaking school, news, art crit: new examples of actual innovation
If everyone's doing it, it's not innovation.
But if it's new, and useful and inspiring and creative, then it's the genuine article: actual innovation.
Launching a me-too social media strategy, or some other buzzword-laden project, is not innovation. It might generate some benefits, but by definition it's not innovative.
You want to find real innovation? Look for the creators, the eccentrics, the people with a spark and an edge and a willingness to take risks. They're doing something new, which generally makes them harder to find and riskier to bank on. Everyone else is doing the old thing. Only a few are doing the new thing.
Examples. Here are three projects that actually are innovative - that is, they're doing something actually new with the available technology and media.
• Sal Khan runs the world's biggest school, and it's completely free. The Khan Academy is a collection of 1,600 instructional videos, all posted on YouTube, all designed, illustrated, and narrated by Sal himself. Anyone with an Internet connection can learn math - from "one plus one" all the way through advanced calculus - or various topics within biology, history, and finance - just from watching Sal's videos.
• The Gregory Brothers are creating hit music in a brand new way, by auto-tuning popular news clips they find on YouTube. Their Auto Tune The News project recently spawned two songs that made it onto the pop charts - Double Rainbow and Bed Intruder.
• Louise Sacco helps run a Boston museum spotlighting "bad art" - called, yes, the Museum Of Bad Art. Sacco and her fellow curators pursue a mission of "bringing the worst of art to the widest of audiences."
All three projects have gotten a fair amount of press recently - including Fortune magazine covering Sal as Bill Gates' favorite teacher, a New York Times article about the Gregory Brothers, and an NYT article about MOBA.
And all three projects show similarities in being (a) labors of love, (b) created for the quality of the work, and (c) delivering the goods as simply and elegantly as possible, without any froo-froo features or idolization of technology. In each case, technology is simply the tool, a means toward the end of a good experience. True innovation tends to be like this: created for the love of it, for the good of the user, and with technology operating solely as a tool. Compare this with the typical hyped-up project that is solely based on a short-term profit motive, spotlights technology as the be-all and end-all, and has little regard for the user experience. I'll choose the Khan/Gregory/Sacco approach any day, and I think most other people would, too.
I'll also note that all three - Sal Khan, the Gregory Brothers, and Louise Sacco - presented at my Gel 2010 conference earlier this year - the first major conference appearance for all of them. Gel attendees saw them first! But you can watch their videos: here's Sal, the Gregory Brothers, and Louise.
Finally, you can sign up right now for Gel 2011. See them first at Gel!
Is customer experience a chore or a passion?
From the current New Yorker, James Surowiecki writes about customer service:
C.E.O.s routinely describe service as essential to success, and they are well aware that, thanks to the Internet, bad service can now inflict far more damage than before; the old maxim was that someone who had a bad experience in your store would tell ten people, but these days it's more like thousands or even, as in Carroll's case, millions.On the other hand, customer service is a classic example of what businessmen call a "cost center"--a division that piles up expenses without bringing in revenue--and most companies see it as tangential to their core business, something they have to do rather than something they want to do.
Oh, the bitter medicine of having to actually serve the customer. Is this really how most companies consider the customer experience - a necessary chore? The winning companies of this century will be those who make customer experience their passion, their central driver of strategy, their reason for being. (This includes customer service - and all other aspects of the entire customer experience.)
To put it another way, "The purpose of a business is to create a customer." That's what Peter Drucker said. He knew how companies became successful.
Are companies willing to take Drucker's advice and focus on creating and keeping customers? Or is customer experience just a chore that takes time away from the fun stuff?
Gmail's Priority Inbox and email overload
Several people have asked my opinion of Google's Priority Inbox, the newly announced Gmail feature that promises to help users "identify your important email and separate it out from everything else, so you can focus on what really matters." (See Google's explanation.)
I haven't used the feature yet, so I have to offer a grain of salt along with my comments. But I understand the gist of the thing: Gmail watches who you email, which message threads you reply to, and allows you to flag certain threads or senders as important - and then shows those important messages more prominently in the inbox.
So - what do I think of Priority Inbox? My short answer is what I tell people a lot for any feature: if it works for you, if it actually makes you more productive and less stressed, then great, go for it.
My longer answer, though, is that I don't understand the need for an inbox feature like this. The inbox should be a temporary holding location only, before emails are spirited off to a better place: an archive, a folder, a todo list, the trash, anywhere but sticking around in the inbox.
Here's a thought experiment. If you were hired to design a subway platform for the best user experience, what kinds of features would you make available? The train comes every few minutes and the platform is already clean and well-lighted. What else would be helpful - perhaps some bench seating? A vendor selling quick things like water and candy? All good ideas.
Now how about this proposal. Someone is offering to bring in a sit-down restaurant and a yoga studio, right there on the platform. Interesting ideas, but are they necessary?
The inbox - at least for people who empty it at least once a day - is like the train platform. Messages are headed out soon, so beyond a few basic features, there's no need for shiny new tools that offer to keep things under control. The solution to email overload is already available, for free, without any extra technology. (I've been teaching an easy solution for over ten years - here's a quick description I wrote recently.)
But Priority Inbox, if it's implemented well, will probably do just fine. This is because of the reality of users and Google's business goals:
• The user reality is that most people don't practice bit literacy. Instead they maintain an inbox of hundreds, or thousands, of messages, a jumble of personal notes, meeting invites, attached photos, long-term action items, reminders, spam, and urgent todos, all constantly competing for the user's attention in one chaotic mosh pit of a pile. For users who have to endure this day to day while still holding down a job, a feature like Priority Inbox might make their overload slightly less stressful. Priority Inbox doesn't offer a cure - just a patch for some of the symptoms - but as I say: If it works for you, go for it.
• The business reality is that Google benefits from this feature by (a) making it more difficult for users to leave Gmail, once they've set up their Priority Inbox filters (because who's going to switch to Yahoo Mail if they have Gmail calibrated just how they like it?)... and (b) encouraging users yet again not to delete their email but to store everything on Google's servers... and the more of your data that Google stores, the more intelligently they can serve you up to advertisers. (But then Gmail is free. As the Blues Brothers would say, whaddya want for nothin'?)
Personally I won't have much opportunity to even try out Priority Inbox, since my inbox frequently has no messages at all inside. I won't be able to mark any of them important. (If you'd like to solve email overload for yourself, once again here's my quick post on how to do so.)
Still, I can't help but think that Google is missing an important opportunity with this kind of mail feature. Yes, lots of users might get some incremental value out of Priority Inbox. And Google certainly gets immediate business value out of it. But imagine if Google actually tried to eliminate email overload for all Gmail users, regardless of the alignment with their short-term business goals. This might yield some very different features: for example, a prominent display of how long it's been since the inbox was empty; or a graph of the lowest message count in each 24-hour period in the past month; easier ways to get action items out of the inbox and onto a todo list; sorting features to allow for bulk-selection and delete (Gmail still doesn't allow sorting by sender or subject!); and so on.
So far, Google has opted not to develop those types of features, and that has opened an opportunity in the marketplace. Plenty of entrepreneurs are surely paying attention. I hope Google is, too.
Seeing an empty inbox for the first time is "incredibly liberating" and "exhilarating," says Rachel Reuben.
Cool retro-steampunk car spotted in NYC
Walking down a stately New York avenue the other day, overlooked by grand pre-war architecture, I was delighted to see a very new take on an old automotive architecture.
I'm not sure what to call it - steampunkgothmobile? - but it was a very impressive, obviously handbuilt, vehicle.
Maybe my favorite feature was the custom-created grill in the shape of a spiderweb.
And I'm sure Noah Scalin will appreciate the big skull-shaped '1' on the passenger-side door.
Solving media overload takes a single word
As the digital vanguard goes, the rest of the online users eventually follow. Consider this example: noted designer Khoi Vinh wrote a few days ago...
I have access to Netflix, DVDs and torrents for everything I could ever want to watch and yet no time to watch them. #torture
If you're not there, you probably will be soon: infinite bitstreams beckoning from every corner of life and work. The question, then, is what sources will you not dive into? Or to put it in more practical terms...
• Work: You have plenty of ways of tracking the 1,000 things you need to get done. But which are the three most important tasks for today?
• Music: You can listen to any song (via Youtube), any genre (via Pandora), any radio station (via its online stream), and any music you've ever bought (via iTunes). But which is right music for this moment?
• Movies: You could easily have a to-watch list spanning Roku, DVDs, iPad, TiVo, Boxee, and so on... but which one do you want to try to watch this week?
• Books: You can download any book you want, to join the 100 others you have on the kindle/iPad/iPhone you have now. But which one should you read now? Will it keep your interest for more than a page?
Will anything keep our interest for more than a page, a kilobyte, a second? The only way to answer "yes" is to say "no" to the thousand other available options.
P.S. #1: The New York Times today reports that overuse of digital devices may lead to brain fatigue. In other words, it's important to say "no" to everything digital once in awhile. (This was the key message of Bit Literacy and its mantra of "let the bits go.")
P.S. #2: One might consider "water, water everywhere but not a drop to drink" as an analogy for information overload. But keep in mind that this flood of information isn't really a problem, comparatively. A real problem, from a real flood, is what's going on in Pakistan. See a list of organizations helping with relief, Big Picture photos from the flood zone, ontheground.pk displaying messages support for flood victims.... and here's a map showing how big, really, the flood area is.
The Trader Joe's customer experience
Trader Joe's is a hugely successful grocery chain that has built its success on creating a good customer experience: friendly staff, low prices, and most importantly, high-quality items.
The twist is that there are only a couple of options in any given product category. A new profile in Fortune describes how it works:
Customers accept that Trader Joe's has only two kinds of pudding or one kind of polenta because they trust that those few items will be very good.A closer look at its selection of items underscores the brilliance of [Trader Joe's] limited-selection, high-turnover model. Take peanut butter. Trader Joe's sells 10 varieties. That might sound like a lot, but most supermarkets sell about 40 SKUs. For simplicity's sake, say both a typical supermarket and a Trader Joe's sell 40 jars a week. Trader Joe's would sell an average of four of each type, while the supermarket might sell only one. With the greater turnover on a smaller number of items, Trader Joe's can buy large quantities and secure deep discounts. And it makes the whole business -- from stocking shelves to checking out customers -- much simpler.
Trader Joe's increases sales by reducing choice. And that's a good customer experience because it makes shopping much simpler. As long as all the options are good products, it's quicker and easier to choose from three options than to choose from 30.
If this discussion about choice sounds familiar, you might refer to my interview with Barry Schwartz, the Swarthmore professor and author of The Paradox of Choice. He also spoke at Gel 2005 - here's the video.
In general, though, Trader Joe's teaches once again that creating a good customer experience is the key to long-term success.
(hat tip to andy)
Worth a read: the Paradoxical Commandments of Leadership
Here's a gem to start off the week. These are the "Paradoxical Commandments of Leadership," by Kent Keith (source):
1. People are illogical, unreasonable, and self-centered. Love them anyway.
2. If you do good, people will accuse you of selfish ulterior motives. Do good anyway.
3. If you are successful, you win false friends and true enemies. Succeed anyway.
4. The good you do today will be forgotten tomorrow. Do good anyway.
5. Honesty and frankness make you vulnerable. Be honest and frank anyway.
6. The biggest men with the biggest ideas can be shot down by the smallest men with the smallest minds. Think big anyway.
7. People favor underdogs, but follow only top dogs. Fight for a few underdogs anyway.
8. What you spend years building may be destroyed overnight. Build anyway.
9. People really need help but may attack you if you do help them. Help people anyway.
10. Give the world the best you have and you'll get kicked in the teeth. Give the world the best you have anyway.
Keith wrote these when he was a 19-year-old Harvard sophomore, in a booklet for high school leaders. This was 1968, when students were organizing everywhere. In the three decades since, the commandments have been drawn upon by everyone from Mother Theresa to Superman. (See sightings.)
I also really like the context (here) set out before and after the rules. Here's the setup before...
[The rules] assume that you care. I mean, really. Not just because it's fashionable to appear concerned for those who are "less fortunate." Not because you know that pretending to care is going to earn you the title of Mr. Nice. Not because the redhead in the next row loves charitable people. Not because it's a good way to get attention in the public spotlight. No. Something deep, something sincere and real. Being interested in what others think, how they feel, what's important to them, what they need. ... A lot of sentimental hocus-pocus? Maybe. Personally, I am convinced that unless you really care for the people you are going to lead, you'll never do anything meaningful - except by accident.
...and here's after...
Personally, I'm convinced that if you are helping people for your sake and not theirs, you'll never be satisfied: either the "return" in personal glorification won't come, or if it does, it won't for long appease a constantly growing ego. If you're out for glory you'll never have enough, and you'll never be happy. On the other hand, if you really care and want to help, then a lack of recognition is no great tragedy.
Amazing that this sprang forth from the pen (or manual typewriter) of a 19-year-old.
How do you know what to create for customers?
How do you know what product to create, that the customer will want, unless you involve the customer in the process?
I don't mean to sit customers down and say, "you want this, right?" That's a bad focus group.
And I don't mean asking, "Would you like this wonderful new thing? Click yes if so." That's a bad survey.
I also don't mean asking, "What do you want?"
I mean observing the customer experience - learn from the measuring cup! - and drawing conclusions.
More in the Good Experience Archives
