Jennifer Davis contributed to "Forecasting the Top Trends of 2017" by Kirsten Nelson, originally posted on Systems Contractor News.
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Each year, the National Basketball Association (NBA) has a fixed number of games among a fixed number of teams. This means each season is a zero sum game. There will be equal number of wins and losses. Those wins and losses might fall on different teams each season, but still they are equal to the number of scheduled games.
Like other things that are fixed in this scenario, we have to optimize within those constraints or work around them.
This creative thinking lead to the development of fantasy leagues. When you pick players from multiple franchises and pit them statistically, you aren’t as limited to the same number of games or teams. In fact, a fan can have multiple teams, each created with different players and played with different strategies.
"You don't want a theory about the customer. You want to really know the customer." - Norman Winarsky
You can imagine the excitement of the first tribe to learn to control fire. Maybe the remnant of a lightning storm or perhaps the spark from a flint tool, it was probably lauded as the greatest invention of the age. “Better than sliced bread,” the patriarch announced. “What is bread?” replied his confused, but adoring family. Anthropologists claim that the discovery was a turning point in the cultural aspect of human development and it is no wonder. Fire has a lot to teach us about innovation.
It’s intuitive.
Professor Chris Dede from Harvard commented in a seminar recently that fire is a wonderful technology, because you can get warm just by standing beside it. It’s purposes are obvious.
Intuitive interfaces and natural technologies are very important to modern technology advancements as well. The best products tell you how to use them using only the basic human senses of sight, hearing, smell, taste, or touch. Buttons are meant to be pushed. Tones to be answered. Doors handles opened. At my company we make electronic displays and video walls, and some of the best innovations we have invented are things that can be appreciated simply by passive observation. The displays simply look better.
It is multi-functional.
Fire can be used as a source of heat on a cold day, a source of light on a dark night, and as a way to cook food. It is also a useful weapon unto itself and can be used to forge weaponry. It was and still used in ceremonies, religious and secular. After all, what is a prayer service or a birthday cake without candles? Even the sight or sound of it can be a source of comfort (as evidence by the cable channels that present a virtual, crackling fireplace). The product manager for fire, didn’t have to spend time doing in-depth research or SIC code analysis to determine the target market or problem it solved. In the ancient world, fire solved them all.
Most technology advancements since fire have had to pick a problem (or few) to solve. The need for relevant information drove the printing press, newspapers and Twitter. The need for better return on marketing investment has driven innovations as far flung as the questionnaire to Google Analytics. The needs solved by our modern inventions, like the smart phone or cloud storage, solve multiple problems. But at the core, the best technologies offer their users multiple ways to use the technology.
It scales.
Fire is infinitely personalizable. You can collaborate at a bonfire or you can use a personal lighter on your cigar. You can ignite a gas burner on a stove to make yourself a pot of tea or you can use a grill to cook food for a crowd. The same fire that creates the fearsome scene of a forest fire blazing out of control is the same in the fireplace where you sit and rock your sleeping infant.
As we think about technologies that have impacted our world, they also can scale up and down. They can improve individual lives and the experiences of groups. This is a holiday week in the US and I am reminded that airplanes, such an amazing invention, started in the early 1900’s by moving a person or two (either the Wright brothers or the New Zealand farmer, Richard Pearse, or the Brazilian, Alberto Santos-Dumont, living in Paris, depending on which account you read) and now allow families to be reunited across the continents. And yet, this same technology is used by aviation enthusiasts individually and many of the aerodynamic concepts forms the basis of today’s drone technology and helps fuel innovation in our space exploration and automotive industries as well.
It changes lives.
Being able to control fire allowed the expansion of human activity to the darker and colder hours of the night. It wasn’t a technology just for those who learned to use it. It was a technology the changed lifestyles, which changed lives, which changed the course of history.
The technologies that I think the most fondly of are ones that changed my life. My RIM Blackberry (and the Palm Pilot before that) changed the way that I waited and communicated. Uber has changed the way I move about a city and think about material assets. And business to business innovation changes lives as well, enabling new business models, customer connections, and efficiencies never before possible. I am sure you have similar examples of how technologies, both consumer and commercial, have changed your life.
The smart phone alone has changed so many things about our lives. Your elementary school math teacher would tell you that you need to learn long division because “you won’t always have a calculator with you.” Boy, we proved her wrong!
It can be used for both evil and good.
Fire can be used to warm and comfort or burn. Seven people die each day in home fires (National Fire Protection Association Report 2013). According to the US. Fire Administration (did you know there was such an agency?), the risk of dying in a fire was 10.7 per million in 2014. Strangely, the highest risk states of fire death is Mississippi, Oklahoma, West Virginia, and the highly urban Washington DC. It seems no one is safe. There is even a special name for intentional fire starting (arson) and experts attest that most fires are caused by children just playing around. Even in a world where we control fire, it can sometimes get out of control, if we mean harm or aren’t careful.
The guiding principle of physicians – primum non nocere or “first do no harm” – illustrates that innovation or knowledge in itself is no enough. It must be accompanied by ethics. Whatever the intervention, medicine, or procedure, the person who knows more has an obligation to use the technology for the benefit of the patient or mankind. “Don’t be evil” was famously the corporate motto of Google. It is said to have been suggested in an employee meeting on corporate values. According to the founder’s letter in their pre-IPO filing in 2004, the motto prohibited conflicts of interest and required objectivity, and perhaps the elevation of long-term good, over short-term gain.
I think the recent US election coverage illustrated how technology can be used for good and evil. How many of breathed in the noxious fumes of fear, misinformation, or tragedy in our social media feeds? Often without taking the time to put out the fire or at least check to see who started it (and why). And messages can resembled a fire in so many ways. Both the good (as information illuminated or revealed) and evil (as lies spread like wildfire or good ideas or even relationship were burned, or at least singed).
It is taken for granted.
Earlier this year, LiveScience published a list of the top inventions of all time. The top of the list was the wheel. Strangely missing was fire. Although both the nail and the internal combustion engine (both made possible by fire) made the list. The light bulb was included (which for many applications, including street lighting and the Easy Bake Oven, replaced fire). It does make me wonder what other technologies or innovations we are inventing today that will be so ubiquitous, so understood, and so taken for granted that they won’t make tomorrow’s list?
This article was originally posted on LinkedIn Pulse.
We have seen a number of celebrities and taste makers go from representing brands to becoming a brand of their own. Actresses going from being a “Cover Girl” or spokesperson on late-night TV for the latest acne cream, to launching their own line of skin care or cosmetics. Reality TV stars who went from having their wardrobe supplied by brands doing product placement to them having their own lines for sale. It is happening with increasing frequency among consumer goods, but what about B2B products?
In the future, I see more opportunity for this as well. Thought leaders, influencers, business consultants, and others creating their own products. They have long created services, in the form of trainings and consulting engagements. Sometimes that extended to a book publishing deal or some syndicated programs or online classes (which are more of a product). But would your business be more likely to buy an ERP system named after a large, respected accounting firm? Would you specify a video conferencing system if it bore the name of a major publisher or business luminary? It is more of a stretch in some cases, but not only is it possible, I think it is the next wave of how B2C business successes are influencing B2B practices.
Paying attention is the key to ongoing relevance and evolution in our businesses and in our careers.
Some of you will excel at the ideation that comes from seeing what others are doing in different markets or segments. Others will excel at refining and improving the concepts once they are proposed. Others will focus on implementation. Some will enable ideas to reach their potential with proper funding and leadership. And others will make their mark in measurement and analysis. All of those super powers are required.
But no matter if you have super strength, super flexibility, or super speed. We can all improve our power of observation with practice. And we can all enjoy the payoff of paying attention.
Read more about companies can take inspiration from other industries to grow their businesses. Download the free eBook “The Payoff of Paying Attention”.
Read about Edward Teach and tell me that he wasn’t the world’s first master brand manager.
He had the look, with his thick black beard and how he’d light his hat on fire to frighten his enemies. He flew the skull and crossbones symbol over his ship (an early example of a logo?). He had the catchy name. He had the reputation that would cause ships to surrender without a fight (useful for a pirate who wants to preserve his crew and his ammunition). He literally got paid more because of his strong brand. And, thanks to creative work of his biographers over the years he has the legacy, having inspired popular lore, books, films, and even amusement park rides.
In Alice Rawsthorn’s TED talk, she talks about “pirates, nurses, and other rebel designers,” and what we can learn from them today. Check it out.
I had a fascinating discussion the other day with someone from Jawbone about the differences between data sources. Jawbone and many others allow you to count steps using an instrument in a device. It’s a sensor. The data, within a few degrees, is accurate. It can be tallied, analyzed, and predicted.
On the other hand, food journaling is a reporting exercise. Many apps allow you to jot down what you have eaten and when. Either with manual entry or database look-up the nutritional content can be tabulated. But it’s prone with human error and ego. Not all sugary snacks get recorded. Whole days and weeks can be missed in the data stream. This is exactly a problem that faces all self-reported data that the healthcare industry has faced for years. People lie. To themselves. To their doctors. And now, to their devices.
So, is there a way that we could sensor things that were once reported? Patients who have pacemaker/defibrillators don’t have to report their heart rate or even their level of activity. Their device does it for them by monitoring their heart from the inside. An insulin pump doesn’t require a pricked finger in a blood sugar test. It notes the change and dispenses the intervention automatically. But those with chronic, life-threatening diseases like heart failure or diabetes will accept these invasive sensors. But what about the average person just wanting to improve their life and health?
Would you, as a consumer, sign up for a ring or bracelet that tracks your heart rate so you don’t have to record your exercise? I think the answer is “yes,” due to the broad adoption of FitBit, Apple iWatch, Jawbone, Polar, and other such devices.
Would you sign up for blood sugar monitoring (if it could be done without drawing blood), so you didn’t have to register your food and you could enjoy personalized recommendations and recipes that might give you what your body needed next?
Would you sign up for a virtual assistant that would block your calendar and tell you to get up and walk in the middle of the day?
What would you be willing to sensor to avoid reporting and to gain the benefits of the data?
I had a neighbor recently diagnosed with breast cancer and as the community has risen up around her to provide her encouragement, gifts, meals, and shuttling-children-to-soccer services, it has got me thinking about tests.
Tests in school are an opportunity for you to demonstrate your mastery (or lack there of) of a subject. Your grade on a well-written test should tell you where you are relative to the standard set by the course and perhaps relative to your peers in the same field of study.
Medical tests are different. They test for the presence of something or the degree of something. Not against some standard (a good score is always 100), but against a backdrop of normal ranges. They can show progress, just like school tests, but interpreting them can be a challenge.
But both type of tests strike fear into our hearts. Being measured is hard. But is it better to avoid the test? Is it ever better not to know?
I certainly am thankful that my friend’s test results indicated that she could take action to rid herself of cancer and she is taking those actions. Had she not had the test, she would not have known to take action and the cancer might have taken her.
And without grades on tests throughout a semester, your grade at the end of the course would be a surprise, and perhaps an unpleasant one. As I was reminded by my children's teachers, tests early in the school year are meant to provide direction and insight. And without constant feedback, you might not know what to focus your study time on and you might not seek out the help or assistance that you need to master a concept or skill.
In marketing, there has been a huge push for measurement and metrics in the past decade. Online advertising has made it possible for even smaller companies or smaller marketing budgets to rely on metrics to help them make investment decisions. Advertising is measured in clicks and conversions. Events can be measured by attendance and a follow-on marketing automation lead nurturing program. Even digital signage can be measured with sensors and cameras to deliver metrics like impressions, dwell time, and even basic demographic information. Goals can be set. Campaigns measured against those goals. The value of the campaign taken all the way from the lead to the sale.
And I have seen marketers both embrace and reject this kind of analysis and the impact it has on their decision making. Some use the metrics to validate experiments, to test variants, and to invest in what has been working. To let the data lead them. Others use it as a source of insight, but choose not to reduce their decision to a scientific equation. To recognize that there are some things that can’t yet be measured. As in medicine and in education, there is both art and science in marketing.
John Wanamaker, the pioneering retail merchant of the turn of the 20th century, is claimed to have said “half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is, I don’t know which half.” Despite all the progress, I still feel like that is true. Although I do believe that our probability of success is higher than 50/50 with today’s toolkits, there is still an art to the process of reaching people in a way that affects their thinking and their actions. And throughout, more relevant insight and data can provide confidence. And just like the healing processes in our bodies or in our ability to learn something new, that confidence can make all the difference!
This article was first published on LinkedIn Pulse.
I moderated a panel at the recent SEGD Xlab event in New York City with Jared Ficklin from Argodesign and Darren David from Stimulant. While these designers couldn’t be more different, they agreed on a fundamental idea of human-centered design, whether that be of devices or spaces. Technology should create magicians. It should bestow the users with super powers. They should act and see things changing in their world.
Technology should read their minds. It should make previous hard things easy. It should create conveniences and comforts. It should support their decisions and their goals. It should allow them control of their world and environment.
This month, I presented at the luncheon series for the Portland Chapter of the American Marketing Association (or AMA-PDX). The presentation that I delivered has been reconfigured into an eBook which is now available for free download.
This ebook outlines three approaches for finding inspiration for your business or products in the most unlikely places and shares some case studies. From Charming Charlie retail stores, to the National Basketball Association (NBA), to "So You Think You Can Dance?" on FOX, the stories illustrate how to find new approaches, broaden your perspective, and to make the most out of all of your experiences.
Feel free to share this post and the eBook with others that might be interested. You can tag me on Twitter @jenniferdavis.
A lot of brands are talking about user experience. Products from Apple, Intuit, and so many others are lauded for their intuitiveness and great customer experience. But that brand experience extends beyond the product to how the customer is engaged in the store, on the website, in mobile apps, on social media, and the like. The brand experience is a venn diagram. You can’t just create a great product, you have to have great service. You can’t just provide an incredible in-store experience. You must also have high product quality. These things all go hand in hand.
While American Idol recently said farewell finishing its final season in 2015, it was once the most loved television show in America. Looking back on the early days of the show, we learned that there are three types of judges in this world.
- The Simon Cowells - harsh and brutally honest (ahem, rude) with their criticism, but usually accurate
- The Paula Abduls – sweet and supportive of all the contestants with genuine concern for their success
- The Randy Jacksons - fun loving, knowledgeable, with a knack for soul
So, I am set to judge the Max Awards for the American Marketing Association’s Portland Chapter this year and I am wondering what kind of judge I will be. Coming from the client-side, instead of the agency side, will I be quick to criticize or encourage? Will I keep my comments short (like the commercial break is approaching) or provide specific guidance? And like the open auditions, will the entries provide me enough information to truly judge the talent of the submissions?
Get your submission in by this Friday, August 26th and let’s find out what kind of judge I will be!
Jennifer Davis shares about Planar System's recent successes and about her work with Marathon Scholars in an interview with Hayley Platt on Output PDX.
American Marketing Association’s Portland Chapter Max Awards 2016 are underway and Jennifer will be judging the projects to determine the most talented and exceptional marketers in the Portland area.
The submission window is open until August 26th and they welcome agency submissions in a variety of categories ranging from print to social, from branding to video, from email to integrated campaigns. The awards will be announced in September. Nominate your projects at http://ama-pdx.org/maxawards/.
I am joined on the judging panel by industry luminaries Kerry McClenahan, Tore Gustafson, Simon Tam, Bill Piwonka, and Lisa Williams.
Often we get obsessed with new ideas, new technologies, and new initiatives that we can forget that a key part of strategy is what you are going to say “no” to. This applies to us individually, in our companies and as an industry.
So, what are five things that I think the AV industry should stop doing?
1. Holding onto the past
Those of us who have been in the industry for a while like to attend the InfoComm trade show and reconnect with old friends and colleagues. This is great and useful. However, we should avoid reminiscing to the point of distraction. We should not romanticize the “good old days.” There are a lot of exciting things going on today in the industry and in order to maintain our enthusiasm, we have to make sure we are not looking backward. We must contain our cynicism, approach innovation with open minds and be constantly advocating for our customers, who may not have our experience, but whose needs are real and fresh.
2. Caring more about the technology than our customers
All the manufacturers and brands in the AV industry are proud of their innovations. The news feed around InfoComm is always crowded with “new,” “never before,” “biggest,” “brightest” and “best.” But all of the speeds-and-feeds don’t matter at all if we are not solving problems for our customers and providing them real value. They don’t care about what adjectives we use to describe our innovations or our business. They care about their own business and they care that we care about their business.
3. Treating every customer the same
Most of us in the AV industry sell to multiple vertical markets and applications. For instance, in the display space customers’ needs for large-format displays or videowalls can span multiple vertical markets. This doesn’t mean we shouldn’t provide tailored solutions for different market segments. Although some high-level specifications are applicable everywhere (for instance, inches diagonal, brightness, etc.), other features are uniquely suited for particular uses. As an example, our Planar UltraRes Series UHD/4K display has features that make it perfect for executive offices and conference rooms, where there is a need to switch between full-screen presentations and the view of multiple sources at once. I love to see customers stretching a desktop across the bottom two quadrants of the display and two other sources in the top two quadrants, like a broadcast news feed or a real-time corporate performance dashboard.
4. Hiring people who fit a stereotypical “AV” profile, instead of the profile of our customers
Closely related to #2 and #3, we have a real opportunity to be increasingly relevant to our clients. I mean no offense against the exceptional professionals in the market who are white, male and highly-technical, but the market is changing and the profile of the buyers is changing and we must adapt. Those making AV decisions are increasingly diverse teams. They want partners with technical capabilities, of course. They want partners with experience, naturally. And they want more. They want teamwork, exceptional communication, a willingness to partner with the design community, the ability to speak other languages (literally and figuratively) and a deep understanding of the needs they bring to the table. Our customers want the benefits of diversity, in background and perspective. People buy from people and having a diverse workforce is increasingly important. The work that the Women of InfoComm Network council is doing is a strong step in this direction. We all have a responsibility to think about this as we make hiring decisions and as we develop our employees.
5. Assuming that the pipeline of talent is someone else’s responsibility
We all know that the key to a successful enterprise is the quality of our employees, especially in a service-dominated industry like the AV integration space. They must have the winning balance of technical chops and customer empathy. It’s a hard combination to find and some of the necessary curiosities and abilities are difficult to teach. Most integrators have developed their own hiring practices over time (starting with friends and family, advertising in local communities, poaching from other local firms, etc). There is a huge on-the-job element to most jobs in the field, which is why CTS certification and other tools from InfoComm can prove useful as we develop employees. But taking this further, we all have a responsibility to not just provide job opportunities for those who are already qualified for the work, but to develop the pipeline of talent. This could include partnerships with placement offices at local community colleges and technical schools. This could include offering an internship program for college or high school students interested in display experience. This could include participating actively in STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) education in the local schools in your area (where your future employees are currently studying). It’s a responsibility we all share, to ensure that the talent pipeline for your business and the AV industry is strong into the future.
This article was originally posted by InfoComm International and was reposted by Rave Publications.
Jennifer Davis was featured in an interview video by Display Week.
Jennifer Davis' podcast interview with David Haynes is featured on Sixteen:Nine.
Jennifer Davis' preview of what to expect at InfoComm 2016 from the June issue of Systems Contractor News.