Shaping up beautifully

Wow. Times they are a changing… rapidly.

The world has ground to a halt for a number of months as Covid-19 has tragically spread rapidly, closing countries borders, taking airplanes from the skies and cars from the roads, teaching us all what “social distancing” means and that’s before we get to the economic or sociological effects of this pandemic and our response to it.

Pause. Stop. Breathe.

Is now the time for a reboot?

The pandemic, that we’re still in the midst of, was just one of many signals that change is needed in our approach to life as a species. Prior to the Covid-19 pandemic we were in the thick of a global environmental crisis dealing with the growing carbon impact of our growth and evolution as a species, to many seen as an indicator of success. We’re still in the thick of the environmental crisis. Our evolution can’t continue on its current trajectory, we need to evolve our thinking as a species to make a new mainstream mindset.

Brands, organisations and their products, services or events and we, as individuals, need to take a collective responsibility to enable this change, or evolution to happen. We all need to take a look at our objectives and rationales for conducting the business we do and establish what we can do to evolve our behaviour for the better. This isn’t a finger pointing exercise, it’s a mature, adult conversation, based on pragmatic and practical goals that we can aim for, that will yield better results for everyone.

Over the last few years we’ve been evolving our rationale for selecting the projects we want to work on, to invest our energy into, to reflect our belief that we all need to evolve our approach to work. This seem somewhat idealistic to many, but if we don’t attempt to weave this into our way of working now, how can we claim to offer future thinking strategic consulting services.

To support and evolve those that strive for successful businesses, but a success built on the right values and ethics, not profit at any cost – we need to create a more sustainable approach to how we do business. The Covid-19 pandemic wasn’t necessarily the tipping point to indicate that we need a reboot now, that has been coming for a while, and to be fair we were all slowly starting to listen. But it’s certainly a big line in the sand.

• We need to think about how we work collaboratively, showing greater respect for each other and working together to achieve shared goals that we can all benefit from.

• We need to think about the resources we’re working with, are they sustainable and what’s the output of any manufacturing, transport or operating process that we might need to achieve our products or services?

• We need to think about our audiences or customers more carefully than ever, as we move to a more enlightened, liberated (in some ways) and vocal feedback loop. Who are they and are they getting what they need from our products or services and are we making them accessible to the people we’re aiming them at? Do we need to evolve products and services to make more accessible versions to reach more people?

• We need to think clearly, in an informed manner, about our objectives and strategies. Are they aligned to our values and beliefs, are they for the greater good, value focussed or are they focussed on purely personal ambitions to the detriment of others? Do we need to evolve our values to address the new challenges that face us?

• We need to think about how we market these products and services. We need to move society away from the current disposable economy, where only this year’s model or colour will do, to a world where we think beyond that tribal approach to consumerism.

We want to play a role in this evolution of organisational and strategic change, in an effective, positive way that brings real value to you and the services and products you deliver. We want to use the experiences that we’ve built up over the decades of working for organisations that both see this change coming and are evolving and adapting for the good, and those that didn’t or choose not to see it as it might diminish their own personal gains.

Our cultural desires and values as a species are evolving, organisations and brands need to evolve to meet these desires and needs, or fall by the wayside.

To be clear, this isn’t about halting business growth (wellness sector grew by 6.4% in 2018 from 2016/2017), this is about intelligent design, built on insight and clear strategic planning, understanding and sustainable objectives, rather than an opportunity to exploit a growth sector.

Image credit – Luca Bravo – https://unsplash.com/photos/-grKZ-GzWyU

The power of Insights in Product and Service Development

We’re going to be starting a series of interviews with leading lights in sectors we love about the importance of insight in the process of product and service delivery and development.

Using our adage of “Do more, say less”, we want to find out what makes the brands and organisations tick that are striving to deliver what their customers or market wants through true innovation or development in both product and service delivery and experience.

In the first of this series, we’ve had a chat with Michael Price – Product and Marketing Director from inov-8. inov-8 are a brand that we’ve been familiar with/had a love for, for a while now. The global running shoe market was estimated at $64.30 billion* (£49.37 billion) in 2017 and not showing many signs of slowing down. inov-8 forged ahead into this market in 2001 with innovative approach, at first in the off-road and then later road, cross fit and weight training shoes.

Recent product development has seen them use emerging materials such as Graphene in their product development, indicating that they’re not going to shy away from innovation going forward.

The interview

Q: Michael, tell us a little about yourself and your role at inov-8?

A: Michael Price: I’m inov-8’s Product and Marketing Director. I’ve been with the brand for 2 years, having previously worked at several other running companies, including Asics and Reebok. I am passionate about marketing and helping runners of all abilities achieve their goals with the help of outstanding product. A runner myself, I love getting to grips with new sporting experiences, and most recently this has included pushing my limits over trails and fells.

Q: Tell us a little about your organisation and its products and services?

A: We’re a UK based sports business, exporting to 68 countries. Our focus is on running and fitness, producing the best gripping shoes and award-winning apparel for these markets.

Q: How do you find out what your customers think about your products and services?

A: Through the sales team, sponsored events, the inov-8 website and social media channels. Effectively everybody within the company is a salesperson.

Q: How are customer insights used by your product or service delivery teams?

A: All the time – customer service feedback from social media/website all feed into product development in one way or another.

Q: Do you have an example of successful product or service development that was driven by customer insights more than usual?

A: Innovation is about leading. inov-8 have produced a world first in innovation using Graphene in a new range of shoes called G-SERIES. This has significantly enhanced the grip and durability of our sports shoes and is a major innovation on the world stage.

Additionally, the successful launch of the X-TALON 230, created to supply the customer need for a running shoe to tackle soft and muddy ground, has improved grip and reduced water retention.

Currently, the product team are redesigning the ALL TERRAIN PRO VEST in response to customer insights – it has been requested that packs are simplified and more ergonomic for long races.

These products were developed directly off the back of customer feedback and insights.

Q: With the growth of customer feedback channels and global communication over the last decade, how has this affected your product and/or service delivery?

A: The company is closer to the wholesale customer, gaining lots of feedback during this process, meaning inov-8 can filter common themes and gain an insight into product improvements which can be made. This traditionally would have been a more distant relationship.

Q: What’s your understanding of “product truth” and how important is this as a concept to you and your organisation?

A: What can be delivered within the context of human attitudes & behaviour. This aligns with inov-8’s mantra to constantly innovate – challenging the perception that consumers do not expect to find two certain attributes co-existing within the same product. The product truth is thus the culmination of these ‘contradictions’.

Q: If you had a mantra for product success, what would it be?

A: inov-8’s mantra for product success is constant innovation.

After Thoughts

It’s interesting to see Michael’s observation that the change in the relationship between producer/brand and wholesale customers we’d imagine mostly during the evolution of e-commerce and greater direct sales, has led to greater insight into customer needs at any one time.

With a mantra of constant innovation the brand can actively encourage product development around customer needs and feedback, the challenge in many respects will be deciding on which aspects of the product to maintain as other elements evolve around them.

If you’re interested in taking part in our Thoughts from the Frontline series and play a role in a organisation or a brand’s product or service delivery, get in touch via our contact page and we can speak further.

Or, if you want to learn about how we might help you to gain further insights into your product sector and customer base to change the product or service experience or perception you deliver to market at the moment, drop us a line. We like to talk.

*taken from Grand View Research – Athletic Footwear Market Size, Share & Trends Analysis Report – 2018 – 2025

Plant based futures

A few weeks ago we travelled down to Plant Based Live, a vegan food show, held at the Excel Centre in London. We like to get along to trade exhibitions and shows every once in a while, they’re always great places to get a view on a sector and develop insights, with new startups often present alongside more established brands. But it also gives you a sense of the pulse of a sector, what trends are emerging, who the customers are and what they’re looking for. It’s a great space to walk around and catch up with brand owners, talk about the challenges the market is facing and product or service developments in the sector.

We thought we’d share a few thoughts that we took away from the trip down and what we saw as key themes.

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Red Red

Red Red had what could fairly be described as the most intriguing or extravagant stall at the show. A relatively new player in the market, Red Red Super Stews are a Unilever funded startup that is vibrantly and vigorously entering the market with a big push. In their words “A Lunch Less Ordinary – Mixing up the energy of Africa with vegan vibes and fast-paced London lifestyles, Red Red is an all-singing all-dancing mouthwatering meal pot that cooks up the kind of kicks you wouldn’t have thought possible in just seven minutes.”. With their brightly strewn Instagram channel and event activity, it’s clear that Unilever see a large market in the Gluten Free and Vegan sector and want to ensure they have their share. Whilst it’s not unexpected to see large global brands making their footprint in a growing market, it’s both a reassuring sign that the sector is growing and profitable, but equally that it’s no longer just the domain of small to medium sized businesses.

https://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/markets/article-5341485/Unilever-bets-Korean-make-Ghanaian-stew-pots.html

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mages courtesy of VeganNightsLdn

Social is where it’s at, still…

Along with a the vibrant stores and exciting new product appearances were the smiling, healthy looking faces of the young, socially motivated ambassadors and advocates of the rising vegan community. Bloggers, Instagramers, YouTubers, Snapchatters were in full attendance. From the speakers on the various stages, to interviews and live streaming that was going on during the event, this is a vibrant and in-touch community that is social by its nature. Whilst the vegan market might have been the domain of a different consumer profile a decade ago, all of that has changed now and the new faces of the vegan world are very much talking about it. We all need to embrace the energy and enthusiasm of this audience and ensure we get the right partners and ambassadors that correctly match our target audience and reflect our brand vision and values. Take some time to review some of the Instagram accounts of the new vegan generation, it’s bright, colourful, sporty and young.

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Product packaging and the plastic problem

It was talked about several times over the weekend, from casual conversations, to Paul Brown talking about BOL‘s attempts to reduce packaging and plastics from their product range. It’s a big conversation that’s going to take some serious action from the main supermarket buyers in the market, but it’s a conversation that’s not going to be going away any time soon. In a recent survey by ThoughtWorks, 57% of respondents put reducing packaging and plastic use ahead of price – https://www.thoughtworks.com/news/groceryretail2030 . If you’re not addressing this concern already, you’d be advised at least to start talking about what you’re doing to do to address this and other environmental issues that many brands face and share this as an insight to your customers.

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Vegan Products vs Vegan Producer

The event was predominantly attended by vegan producers as you’d expect, however one of the busiest stalls at the event was that of HECK Foods. Despite the fact that HECK sell many products that contain meat, let alone are not vegan, the HECK stall did a roaring trade by giving away products all weekend in return for a social “like”. This might be down to lack of consumer knowledge about their other products or it could be down to the simple fact that no one turns down a freebie – but HECK weren’t hiding the fact that they also produce meat based products, although obviously they didn’t have any on display that day. But one thing was clear, a producer could have success in the vegan market without necessarily being a vegan only brand. The sector seems no longer the domain of pure vegans. Flexitarian is a term that was coined not so longer ago in the vegetarian food sector, those looking to actively reduce their meat consumption, but still eat the odd meal containing meat. Who are the consumers in the vegan food sector, are we seeing a similar reflection of the flexitarians that are now common in the vegetarian sector and what are their buying concerns?

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Protein is king

We all know it already, but the conversation about the importance of protein in our diets continues to dominate consumer questions about products. The outcome of this is that consumers are becoming for more educated in the types of protein sources available and the best methods of hitting their protein daily goals. From growing families to those looking to carry a bit more muscle weight, protein is going to continue to be of interest to those taking care in what they eat; who are growing in number by the day. Being aware of the protein values in products and how you might better highlight those on your packaging or improve the quality of the protein in your products, is going to continue to grow in importance.

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Plant Based Live

It was the first run of Plant Based Live and overall it felt like the event was in the right spirit, but perhaps felt quieter than might have been hoped for such a vibrant, energising sector. Whilst there were numerous live talks, cooking sessions etc. it felt like it missed something more dynamic and perhaps engaging in terms of format, aesthetic and use of the space. We don’t have any fast suggestions on how to achieve this, but it may be related to reflecting the wider community space and lifestyle choices that many who are opting to be vegan are also adopting.  We’d been to the Balance Festival earlier in the year and this did feel like it fulfilled the “festival” title it had given itself. Tying into more of the lifestyle aspects of the new generation of health seeking, food conscious, active individuals seeking a “better self” through choices such as a vegan lifestyle. Whilst it would be daft for Plant Based Live to replicate the Balance Festival, they do need to find create their own space, it felt like some of the broader sense of the vegan sector could have somehow been further integrated into Plant Based Live. We saw the team at Plant Based Live actively engaging with both exhibitors and consumers over the weekend, so hoping that next year’s exhibition will build on this year’s good experience to make it even better.

If you need help further insights into your customers or developing market trends, get in touch to see how we might be able to help you and your organisations get the insight it needs.

Evolving audiences in the arts through experience design

A few weeks ago I listened to a radio programme that explored a wonderful example of experience design in action in the arts and its role in helping to develop their audience.

The programme was BBC Radio 4’s Behind the Scenes, focussing on the amazing work of Marin Alsop and the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra. Whilst the programme covered a range of issues, from the challenges of a male dominant industry to the social challenges of inner city Baltimore, the parts that really resonated with what we do here at Beautiful Everything was the work Marin has done to change the experience the orchestra delivers to its audience.

In a world where the relevance of orchestral music experiences have been lost in a flurry of social media, Apple music and the latest meme, Marin works to redefine perceptions about the orchestra’s role within Baltimore’s ever changing urban and social landscape.

Working with the local Peabody conservatory, where Marin spends her time helping the next generation of conductors, and the BSO to create a series of orchestral outreach programmes such as pop-ups in public spaces such as the train station, Marin and the orchestra are working hard to change these perceptions and bring orchestral experiences to a new audience.

This hard work and passion is driven by Marin’s belief in the importance of music in people’s lives and the role that the BSO can play in the local urban environment. When Marin joined the BSO, it was running up debts, its audience was growing older and was suffering from ever shrinking attendance figures. Now, bucking a nationwide trend, the BSO audience is growing and attracting a younger and a more social diverse demographic, reinventing itself and the role of orchestral music.

The talk of “citizen artists” takes an ownership of the role the musicians have beyond that of playing chamber or conservatory music. The musicians have been empowered as passionate advocates and tasked with going out into the community to find and activate the audience.

They discuss the challenges and tensions of broad access and still achieving artistic excellence, but Marin talks about being the best that you can be in front of a more democratic audience – “playing to people that respond to you, that’s what musicians strive for really”.

“I don’t think creating an atmosphere of accessibility and inclusion takes away, at all, from one’s artistic excellence, in fact I believe it adds to it. I believe that diversity in every form and collaboration creates depth of experience and richness of experience, and this is the change.”

In terms of objectives and targets Marin states “Occasionally, we will put human experience and human interaction at the top of that list”. Creating human social interactions, rather than always striving for artistic excellence.

Implementing change.

One of the initiated programmes, The Rusty Musicians, encouraged musicians from the community that might have previously played an instrument to become part of a playing group with the professional musicians of the BSO. Empowering and creating a new experience for these music lovers that turned them from past musicians to enthusiastic and keen BSO fans.

A series of young people’s programmes such as Orchkids and other barrier breaking ideas are evolving the role played by the BSO in Baltimore. The BSO isn’t sitting on its laurels, it isn’t dying quietly, it’s addressing its problems head on and it feels like it’s creating a platform for the city as a whole to do the same. Take a look at their website to get a feel for what else they’re doing, it looks great, I want to go.

Whilst it’s a completely different type of experience in the music sector, it takes me back to the sluggish response from the likes of HMV to the rise of online music and their arrogance that online music represented no threat to their position in the market.

Audiences and customers evolve, your product and services need to evolve to with them. Identifying your audiences’ needs and your current service or product capabilities can help you match them to those audience needs. This not only applies to what you might see as your core audience now, but also what your audience might need to evolve to be in the future, in order to survive.

Listen the BBC Radio 4 programme and be inspired about change, take a moment to think about your audience and the role your organisation has in delivering its service to your existing audience. But also how that audience might need to change and evolve in the future to ensure it and your organisation survives. There’s a moment at the end of the programme that should grab anyone running an organisation as an inspirational and transformative moment to be proud of, whether in the arts or not. These moments only come if you reflect on where you are, embrace change when needed and be bold in your actions.

Behind the Scenes – BBC Radio 4 – January 31st 2018 

Do more, say less.

When we started Beautiful Everything just over 3 years ago, we found ourselves adopting the phrase “Do more and say less” frequently.

It’s simple phrase that neatly delivers what we believe in. Through the careful consideration and focus on customer, audience or user needs, your organisation should be able to make greater differentiation and value by analysing and potentially adapting a product or service delivery, than it could ever do by purely shouting about it.

We’ve spoken before about Jim Carroll’s views on this and the importance of product truth and how any communication should be rooted in this truth.

But it’s easier said than done. That’s why a marketing department at any organisation often spends more time focussing on the “saying” rather than the “doing”. It’s not just the marketing department’s fault either, let’s be clear about that. Organisational change or flexibility can be essential to allow a change in direction around a product or service and that’s not always seen as the marketing departments remit. However, if this product or service development is not the responsibility of the marketing team, that shouldn’t stop them from raising a concern or pushing for change from whoever is responsible from within their organisation.

So why isn’t it easy? Well, any change can be seen as a daunting prospect – why rock the boat when it’s still afloat? And once you’ve started rocking, what’s the next step? How do you suggest where to focus your energy on?

The power of insight

Well we’d start with insight. If there’s a belief or concern that there’s an issue around a particular product or service, it’s going to be best to try and establish more details and move that belief into an insight powered objective view – these are much harder for anyone to ignore.

Insights can be gained by many methods – user experience testing, face to face interviews, secret shopping to name but a few. With a number of research and insight activities a better and clearer picture starts to take shape. A picture that should hopefully allow you to change a product or service for the good of the user.

Investing time and money into projects such as these is the start of moving your organisation into one that does more and says less, creating a greater value for your users/customers/audience and differentiating you from your competitors.

I’ve been reviewing the latest work to come from the world-renowned agency Wieden & Kennedy’s London office this week on the F1 brand redevelopment, some really lovely creative work has come from it. But what really stood out was the clear role that research had played in this brand development work, conducted by Flamingo. The hope here is that the research is now not only informing the brand identity of F1, but is also playing a role in shaping the way F1 delivers its products and services to its customer/fan base.

Be brave and face real change, rather than rolling out the same plan as last year. But when you do, do it properly with an informed strategic plan based on genuine insights.

A strategic approach to transformation

I’ve just finished reading the MIT/Deloitte research paper on the importance of strategy in the hunt for digital transformation. There’s some really telling data in the report about the state of play in many business today with regards to approaching technology and its implementation.

We strongly believe that businesses will only really succeed if they approach their future development from a holistic standpoint. Digital strategy (or its younger brother, IT strategy) needs to be aligned to an overall business/brand strategy, which might in turn inform marketing strategy, customer acquisition/retention strategy, recruitment strategy and many more internal strategies that a business should be considering.

I’ve spoken in the past about the misguided approach of technology led decision making and this report highlights further the need for strategic planning first that can lead to the implementation of technology in a considered way after. As opposed to implementing technology in a rash attempt to modernise a business without any real thought into how best to do it and where it could have the most positive impact.

In the report it mentions the Harvard Business Review article called “IT Doesn’t Matter” from 2003 , where Nicholas Carr argues that the trap to avoid is focusing on technology as an end in itself. Instead, technology should be a means to strategically potent ends.

It seems, given the data in the report, that the challenge still for many businesses is that they don’t know where to start with writing a digital strategy due to a lack of digital skills within the senior levels of their management team. Instead, many businesses find themselves either doing nothing, or even worse investing significant amounts of funds into projects that are led by technology rather than strategy in an attempt to transform their business.

Here at Beautiful Everything we use Experience Design to help us look at the bigger picture of how customers or users (as often called when talking about technology) interact with brands, products and services. This helps us identify where we can improve customer experiences most effectively, which in turn is the foundation for developing a strategic approach to addressing business objectives in a customer focussed way. This can, by design, lead to the implementation of technology and potentially digital transformation for businesses in a strategically defined way.

Let’s hope that if/when this report is published again in 5 years time that we’ve seen a significant improvement in the strategic implementation of technology and a knock-on effect in improved customer experiences with brands and services in line with this.

The challenges of innovation and experimentation

’ve just finished listening to a great podcast from the guys at prehype. I found it whilst browsing Soundcloud, an app that I’m using more and more recently. I like it when apps that have been around for a while find their feet and grow at a later stage after surviving for a while, it makes me think that they were based on a real need. Anyway, I digress.

The podcast was an interview with Beth Comstock, CMO at GE on innovation. We like Beth, she seems to have a really good sense of how to improve things and what it takes to be truly innovative, but also an ability to communicate clearly.

It’s going to be a short post to encourage any readers to simply take the time and listen to the interview themselves. But there were a few gems of quotes from Beth that I thought worth pulling out, but you should find them yourselves to digest the context as well.

Listening to a CMO of a large organisation like GE talk about what it takes to be innovative with what seems like a real understanding of the challenges you can face is reassuring from a small business perspective of an organisation such as ourselves. We truly believe that the approach we want to take with clients and the development of our own products is one that is based on identified needs and experienced based. But it’s not always easy, it requires a true belief on behalf of ourselves that we genuinely are approaching the work in the right way, but also a trust and belief from our clients that what they’ll get at the end is a far better result than it might have been had they not put the extra energy into exploring the customer/user experience in such detail.

Beth also talks about failure. It’s a common subject amongst the start-up groundswell that’s dominating the tech industries, “fail fast, fail often” is a mantra that many live by. We’ve had several experiences since starting up that live up to this, but you’ve got to pick yourself up and get on with it, learning and changing as you go.

Finally, and in part this relates to both of the previous paragraphs subject matters, Beth talks about the importance of understanding and how it’s such an important part of getting it right. Getting a true understanding of problems, issues, failures, needs and overall the experience undeniably put you in a stronger position to act with positive results.

So if you’re interested in innovation and improving experiences then take the time to listen to what Beth’s got to say, but also explore, experiment, test, fail and fail fast in what you do. The end result will nearly always be better.

Some nice quotes from Beth in the podcast:

“you’re not really trying to sell to someone, you’re understanding a need”

“understanding innovation requires sitting with start-ups to see how they operate”

“we’re about big experiments, but there’s no guarantee that any of these are going to work, but hopefully enough good will come from them”

“tension is essential for creativity, we create tension between technical innovation and market innovation. Sometimes technology creates opportunities that you never thought possible, sometimes you take existing technology and create new benefits just from combinations and business models”

“this isn’t about financial success for GE, it’s about improving culture, speed and strategically developing the company”

“instead of getting executives to mentor start-ups, get the start-ups to mentor executives”

I’ve tried to take the quotes word for word, but in some cases there’s a little bit of interpretation that’s gone on. Listen to the podcast to get the full insight.

In praise of the storytelling engineer

We founded Beautiful Everything to allow us to focus on the sort of work we love doing. One thing we love doing is finding ways to communicate complex products by creating stories and experiences. Finding ways to tell the product’s story in a way that engages people’s interest and communicate its relevance and benefits. This can be a challenging process. Complex products are exactly that. Complex. Everyone in the company sort of knows that they’re selling something amazing. But sometimes the whys and wherefores get a bit lost in the complexity of what it is. Or the uniqueness of the product starts to blur into all the other similar products. It’s just another plane. Or engine. Or printing machine. Or investment fund. Or chainset.

In my experience the answer usually lies hidden away within the organisation. I’ve found lots of the best stories when we go exploring to find the people closest to creating the product. Engineers, developers, technicians, product developers. They’re often the back room people, hidden away in the lab or dev suite using their skills to bring the product to life.

They’re not always the first people to come to mind when we ask about storytellers. And they don’t always get to the heart of the story straight away. I often find that the breakthrough moment comes a little way into the conversation with them. Initially they repeat the story everyone else tells about the product. Then they start to realise I’m interested in what they really think. Then they start to roam around the story trying to get to the heart of the matter. Often they’ll then stand up and start drawing fascinating diagrams on a whiteboard and talking passionately about what’s really great about the product. Quite often that’s the moment we’ll go back and capture to put at the heart of the story.

So yes, we’re big believers in finding the expertise within the organization and helping those experts to tell their stories. It’s a technique Apple understand. Who better to explain a new piece of tech than the man behind the design. Jonny Ives is the perfect example of the quiet, non showman sort of design engineer who can explain just what it is about a new piece of tech that will make it an amazing part of our lives

We’ll leave the final words to Beth Comstock, Head of Marketing and Innovation at GE. She’s a passionate advocate of using storytelling as a means to inspire people about technology and help people connect with the benefits to their lives. And has helped produce some amazing stories about the amazing innovations GE bring to the world.

“You can’t sell something until you’ve entered someone’s mind. We talk about market share but its really about getting mind share, getting inside people’s minds and creating a story for what’s possible. If you begin with the premise that your company can be a storyteller you find storytellers everywhere. I find some of the best story tellers are engineers. For us it was a big awakening to say, you know, we’re geeky, we love it, the kind of things we make are badass, they’re big, they’re amazing works of mankind. “

Engineers telling stories about their badass inventions. We love it.

Photo credit from Flickr – Nick Cross

UK Parcel Delivery – How experience design can help

In my spare time I help organise a large running event in The Peak District to raise money for our local school. It’s an off-road event over 21 miles, so we use electronic equipment to record the participants times and also to ensure that everyone runs the course as designed. The rented equipment to manage this usually arrives only a few days before the event itself, we then quickly configure it (it’s mostly pre-configured by the equipment owners) and get it out on the course and setup at the registration venue for the race day.

This year that equipment was part lost (1 of 2 parcels) by the parcel delivery service used to get it to us under those tight time restrictions. By coincidence at the same time another parcel delivery service was also unable to deliver a far less important parcel to my home (a bottle of whisky) and had returned the item to their delivery depot. It’s at times like this when your experience of a brand and the service that they offer comes under intense scrutiny.

Initially I was unaware that one of the parcels was missing, there was no notification that the parcel had not been delivered. It wasn’t until we unpacked the other parcel that evening that we realised we were missing another parcel. This prompted me to visit the service providers website, where I established that we’d had a part delivery. On the website there was no other details available that might have given me further insight into what had happened. I notified the sender that this had occurred to ensure that the other parcel had been collected okay from them, they started their own investigation. A journey of frustration started.

I call my local delivery depot for the service provider first thing in the morning. They are helpful, confirming that they can see that we’ve had a part delivery and that the last time the parcel had been seen was at the depot in Carlisle. They call me back with other pieces of information, which gradually concludes that the parcel has seemingly been lost. I try finding a number online for the depot in Carlisle, but all of the information I find online is for telephone numbers no longer in service, with no further contact details I reach a dead end. I then speak to the sender to see if they’ve managed to establish any further information, the sender has a good relationship with the service provider and has a direct contact at the Carlisle depot, he speaks to the driver who confirms he remembers dropping it at the depot, but then is unable to establish any further information. He also provides a description of the parcel to the depot and they perform a search but to no avail.

If you haven’t guessed by now, this is going to be a long story. If you’ve got the gist and you just want to jump to the conclusion, then go ahead jump.

I decide to call the national helpline number for the service provider. I eventually get through after waiting for a while on hold, the operator quickly confirms what we already know, the parcel was last seen at Carlisle and is seemingly lost. The conversation literally finishes with the operator say “It looks like the parcel is lost”, there was no sense of responsibility, or really an apology, nor some sort of solution or move towards a sense of compensation or next steps. I left the call realising this avenue of enquiry was now effectively closed.

I call the sender, taking him through what I’d learnt, we decide between ourselves that we’re going to need an alternative box of equipment delivered using our own transportation, we agree a time and place to meet halfway between our two locations.

At this point I returned to my other delivery. I go online to see if I can rearrange for the parcel to be delivered on another day and to my work address rather than home. There’s an easy to use “track your parcel” tool on the website home page, I enter the postcode and tracking code, it takes me to the next page. I can’t see where I can change the address, but I can change the delivery date. I can also choose to collect the parcel from one of their depots, but not until a day later, I’m starting to think I might pick this parcel up when I set off to get the other parcel. I try to enter a message in the comment field to ask if I can get it delivered elsewhere (my workplace), but then find that the comment field only has space for about 100 characters. That’s about enough space to fit this sentence in, not much use really. Frustration builds further.

I ring their national helpline number and establish that I’ll only be able to change the delivery address if I contact the sender, I’d ordered via Amazon, so as most know finding contact details for a reseller on Amazon is often challenging.

I turn to social media. I drop both providers a tweet to see what the response is like. Both follow the same tactic (which I’m fine with), which is to ask me to follow them and then move to private messages.

The firm I use for the whisky delivery tells that I won’t be able to change delivery address without contacting the sender, but they offer to contact the local depot and see I can collect the parcel today. They come back and confirm that I can collect from the depot, good news. I visit their website to get the depot address, no address, present. I find it via Google maps, but without a postcode for navigation. I drop a note back to someone on Twitter private messages and they come back with the postcode. I find the depot on my way to collect the other parcel and get my hands on the whisky parcel without much issue. I then receive what seems like a personal message from the advisor on social asking me to help “impress their boss” by tweeting a thanks if I found them useful, which I thought was a nice touch until I received exactly the same message on the Monday morning after the weekend, making me realise that it was effectively an auto-response.

I’m now in the car driving to a destination that I’ve agreed with the sender of the other parcel that’s halfway between our two locations, it’s about a 2-3hr drive, not ideal with all I have on over the next few days. Prior to setting off I’d dropped them a note on a private message on Twitter to see if I can get any further resolution. There seems to be no Customer Management System that lets the staff who are dealing with customers on Twitter see what previous conversations might have been had on other channels. I briefly explain the predicament, I confirm some details for information security, I also tell them that whilst I arranged the delivery I’ve asked for it to be delivered to our village school for convenience (we’re out usually during the day at home). This causes some confusion, but we resolve it, but the tone of the messages is very dry and no sense of apology in the offing. I then get a message back telling me that the goods have been delivered . . . really? I drop them a note back telling them it was a partial delivery and one parcel is missing still. I get one last note back asking for a description and they will arrange a depot search. Still no apology. I’m back to where I was with other lines of enquiry, I leave social.

I’ve now collected the parcel from the sender, we have a brief chat about how infuriated we both are and then set off on our merry ways back to our destinations. 

How can Experience Design help?

This is a relatively long story and you might ask what it has to do with what we do here at Beautiful Everything, well it has everything to do with experience. I left the day feeling slightly jaded about one delivery service/brand and unquestionably never using another service/brand again.

There were several easy fixes that would have improved my experience of working with these brands that could be identified by simply mapping out the customer experience as they engage with the service. This is where we like to start, we use a hybrid experience map that we’ve adapted for our needs to help us map what a customer might experience with a particular service.

We’ve mapped out my experience below using a cut down version of our template. Normally we map the customer experience in full to identify not just issues, but also opportunities to really improve a service/experience with a brand.

Photo credit from Flickr – Lydia

Parcel Delivery Firm 1 Experience Improvements

Simple fix to web form to allow more characters in the comment field

• Have an option to speak to an operator on the automated telephone service

• Have a find a depot tool on the site

• Allow you to change delivery address online

• Quality control over automated social feedback response or even better keep it personal

Photo credit from Flickr – Lydia

Parcel Delivery Firm 2 Experience Improvements

• Track my parcel tool to actually display where the parcel is rather than “on route”

• Customer contact to have access to all communication channels to ensure they are informed about previous conversations

• Customer contact to be able to see status of parcel to ensure misinformation isn’t passed on

All of these points are from a customer view perspective, but their b2b tools might also include a better inventory/parcel management to ensure parcels “can’t” get lost at depots.

I’ve used DPD recently and their parcel tracking is second to none and my impression of them as a service as a result is very positive. Their “track my parcel” app is a wonder of experience design, offering features such as:

• Changing delivery address whilst the parcel is in motion

• Text and e-mail notification of when your parcel is expected to be with you at the beginning of the delivery day to the minute

• Updates through the day to inform you of any issues

• Live tracking to show where your parcel is at the moment and when it’s expected to be with you

But then if I’m fair you don’t have to use their website for too long before you find some UX issues there too.

However with all three, it’s not until you try to view the experience of either brand/service as a whole do you identify the issues that a customer could have with the experience when they engage it. Using experience design to look at a business can identify opportunities to improve the experience tactically rather than defaulting to the usual channels, i.e. we need a new website, we should use Twitter etc without working out how they work in combination and how a user might move through the service as they experience your brand. One of the issues above is a likely a 5 minute code update to the brand’s website, but might never be discovered unless someone takes themselves through the full experience (to be fair it should have been picked up in user testing on the site).

Using experience design at Beautiful Everything we aim to help businesses/brands to discover existing experience issues that they may be unaware of themselves and/or opportunities that they may not have considered previously to improve their current service/experience delivery using technology. We aim to run experience mapping workshops with key stakeholders from across the business to ensure we get the full service delivery view, rather than the narrower view you get if you work only with specific teams.

Interested in how experience design could improve your customers experience of your brand and service then get in touch.

Nurturing and Activation of Urban Innovation

I attended the Business and Innovation Network session on Innovation and Urban Manufacturing a few weeks ago and I’ve been meaning to write a post on the experience since.

Excluding the fact that I stumbled upon the session simply by the fact it was hosted in the building in which we now work (but I otherwise wouldn’t have known about it) and that it was poorly attended (two are likely directly related . . .), I really enjoyed the session.

The session revealed many of the challenges that urban communities have in protecting existing manufacturing and innovation, but also in nurturing new innovation, specifically in the UK but I suspect the same challenges apply across the globe.

It was attended by a number of local advocates and activists from both areas (innovation and manufacturing) who all had slightly differing perspectives on the issues that are faced in trying to activate and sustain positive innovation and manufacturing within a urban environment.

Speakers included representatives from The Portland Works  (in their words – a community owned home for traditional crafts and creative arts in a unique settings), Access Space  (UK’s longest running free, open access digital media lab), Chop Shop  (a CNC fabrication and design facility for creatives, start-ups and social enterprises), Roco Creative Co-op  (a creative co-op in development in Sheffield, with lab and shop facilities) Manchester FabLab (an open access lab offering the latest in digital fabrication equipment) , MakLab  (Scotland’s first open access digital fabrication studio), IDEIA.M  (a Porto based innovation lab based in UPTEC  funded by Porto University).

The overwhelming sense I got from the day was that of independence or self-reliance (not unexpected) and small networks of like-minded people, driven by self-motivated individuals. It was interesting to hear the varying models that were applied/required to allow these entities to exist, some of which had a greater dependence on funding (in some respects challenging their true independence) others based more on a co-op/membership model.

It felt a number of these operations had been ignited or born partly from the ashes of central government funding at the start of the period austerity, but also potentially in defiance of the organisations that fuelled the recession in the first instance, the large and growingly faceless commercial organisations that are moving themselves further from their social responsibilities within the economy in a bid (on the whole) to appease shareholder demands.

This independence and self-determination had driven them to make/find their own way into existence, learning along the way the pitfalls, but all seemingly fighting for a sense of a shared/communal common good.

The success of these enterprises at driving innovation and attracting interest from everyone from individual maker/hackers through to SME’s and the education sector has raised their profile to a point now where more established organisations are turning to them for inspiration, but also with a sense of wanting a piece of the action. The event on the day was organised by The University of Sheffield, who showed a keen interest in the various operations and revealed on the day plans of something similar in the offing driven from within the University.

However, whilst it was great to see these organisations get the recognition that they deserved, it felt the very spirit of this independent and naturally forming network was an inherent part of the strength and success of these operations and that the interest now being shown by larger, more formally structured organisations could easily be a threat to the organic environment within which they currently thrive.

On the day I light-heartedly likened the situation to that of the British brewing industry. A once proud and globally recognised industry, brought to its knees by the greed of large brewing corporations through the destruction of the pub business across the country and the homogenisation of their products into an unpalatable, but efficient, smaller selection. From that destruction has risen the micro brewery and craft ale sector, driven by individuals that wanted better and is now recognised once again as global leader.

In a similar tale, from a sector I’m very familiar with, larger agency players in the media/creative/advertising sector have been trying to replicate the success of smaller agency businesses at creating incubator/lab programmes within their existing business to try and change the way they operate to varying degrees of success. Often finding that their nature (size, scale, existing processes, philosophies etc.) gets in the way of real success (they need to let go of the reigns more than some are comfortable with), but also some struggle to find the right type of thinking to make it a success.

This challenge of how we bring real innovation into our society/economy without it being affected by the problems of scale and bureaucracy (that can be the very death knell of the process that we’re trying to grow) is something that drives us in our work here.

In order for this type of innovation to happen in larger organisations it’s going to take some very open thinking and collaboration to crack the real challenges that key decision makers face – something that some are going to find really uncomfortable or even too hard to accept.

Whatever happens with larger organisations and their drive to adopt new methodologies to improve their own innovation process, let’s hope it’s never at the expense of the smaller networks that have done it off their own backs through hard work, self determination and belief.

Here’s to innovation.

How google works…

I’ve been a fan of Slideshare for a while now. It’s a great resource for sharing ideas across a range of disciplines. A great example that I came across last week was from Google ex-CEO Eric Schmidt. It’s worth reading for anyone interested in creating products and companies that attract great talent.

The presentation gives a taste of the content in the new book written with Jonathan Rosenberg. They describe how most companies are ‘slow by design’ and how to capitalise in a world where change is accelerating.

While much of the advice looks to be geared towards companies that are still planning their culture and strategic foundation, it still provides useful advice for more established organisations that are looking at change through better internal communication and decision-making.

The book is on order so we’ll wait to pass judgement for now. In the meantime there are some additional insights on the accompanying website.

How Google Works from Eric Schmidt

Tech for tech’s sake

I’ve just listened to a short radio programme (Hidden Histories of the Information Age) on the momentous occasion of the first live international satellite television production, the broadcasting of the Our World television programme.

Broadcast on 25th June 1967, featuring a number creative luminaries such as Pablo Picasso, Maria Callas and the first public airing of The Beatles – All you need is love, it was a ground breaking and technologically innovative moment in media history.

It was easy for me to take a leap forward in time to our current day and draw analogies between this event and some of the recent groundbreaking moments that have happened with technology, the potential from the likes of Google Glass spring to mind.

However it was apparent that following the broadcast of the Our World programme that not all the feedback was glowingly positive. Whilst there was no doubt that this was a technology first, had it brought the sense of global harmony that had been hoped for? It seemed the answer was no.

It’s the expectation or reliance on the powerful aura of doing a technology first that has been the pitfall of too many marketing led events and product launches over the last few decades. The fact that you’re doing something first (or even just trying to jump on the early adopter bandwagon) isn’t necessarily a reason for success.

Instead the focus should be on solving tangible issues or providing something people actually want through the innovative use of technology. I’m sure that when Aubery Singer devised the programme concept his aim was to deliver this sense of one world and one race, a global message of potential harmony. To be fair to Singer the majority of the reviews following the programme’s broadcast gave the sense that he achieved this to some end, however other feedback focussed on a disappointment in the overall content quality. It felt there was an underlying sense of a reliance on the wonder of a global live broadcast rather than ensuring that the content and programme’s reason for being achieved goals that were befitting of the overall project’s objectives.

In our current fast moving and democratised technology sector new apps and platforms come and go by the week, these are adopted and dropped by brands and individuals alike in a never ending circle of trying to be the first to do something and expecting that to be newsworthy in itself. Instead we all need to stop, think and work out why and what value does the new technology add? Take the time to be thoughtful in it’s use, inventive. Don’t use new technology for the sake of it being fresh, you’d be far better off using older technology in new and more productive and innovative ways.

I’ll leave you with a recording of the Beatles broadcast of “All you need is love” on that day June day in 1967.

Sources:

Wayback Machine copy of Air Space Mag article by Tom Huntington

Success through product and service obsession

In 2009 Jeff Bezos famously told Amazon’s shareholders that “advertising is the price you pay for having an unremarkable product or service.” In 2014 Amazon produced its own TV ad for the Fire phone so maybe Jeff didn’t intend for it to be taken too literally, or enough had changed in the following 5 years that it didn’t count anymore.

Regardless, the idea that an organisation can build brand value with its users through product or service led communication alone isn’t completely without merit. A number of once unknown technology brands have built much of their reputation in this way.

As Jim Carroll puts it:

Tech brands spend the vast majority of their time and energy in the pursuit of innovation; creating astounding products is their main obsession. There is always something new to say, whether it’s a big breakthrough or a modest upgrade. Which is why their communications are so firmly rooted in product truth.

Obviously working with a brand which wants to broaden its audience and already has a genuinely innovative and useful product or service is helpful. However there is something incredibly rewarding about working with a client to create, or improve something, that in-itself delivers a brand experience. Certainly it’s better to create a product or service with marketing baked in from the start.

It requires trust to make effective changes within a client business, with wider departmental involvement than marketing. For a business to deliver on what it promises it can require real change in areas such as customer services and product delivery.

The established premise that marketing should work back from consumer needs requires clients, and in turn their partner agencies, to consider what they can do to meet or even surpass customer needs.

As Helen Edwards described it:

What consumers need is better products, improved service, easier lives, a cleaner world, and more health and happiness. The proper job of marketers is to identify, or better still, anticipate, these needs, and imagine ways to fulfil them that might lead to sustainable returns.

Being an organisation that invests in product innovation and improved services should be central to delivering a brand ambition and in turn market success.

Sources
Jim Carroll, ‘Talk like a tech brand’
Helen Edwards, ‘Too many marketers ignore their primary task’

The Future is Unwritten Originally uploaded by William Hartz

The subtle influence of passive technology

I wouldn’t lay claim to be the first to say this (as people have been saying it since time began) but the world is changing. What is different is the rate at which it’s changing, technology development in particular is accelerating at a rate that has never been seen before.

There’s a term or movement called technological singularity, which has a global following. The Wikipedia definition of this is “a hypothetical moment in time when artificial intelligence, human biological enhancement, or brain-computer interfaces will have progressed to the point of a greater-than-human intelligence, radically changing civilisation, and perhaps human nature”.

Now while I believe we’re sometime off this actually happening, we are entering a phase of both technological advancement and human evolution whereby we’re becoming more comfortable with technology taking care of “things” in our lives passively in the background. Examples of this could include automated Google Alerts for things that may interest us, fitness applications that monitor our progress and prompt activity and more recently the advent of smart objects in the “Real World Web” that are intelligently working to optimise their performance for our benefit.

This technological advancement is no where more visible than in the proliferation of mobile smart devices. This combined with the hand in hand development of global network infrastructure (Wifi and mobile data) has taken the world to its most connected state that our race has ever seen. This trend will only continue until we have faster and faster, more seamless data connectivity.

In turn what we’ve seen this connectivity drive is the ability for the global brands of the world to pursue us more and more accurately, in a way that some would deem intrusive, with their targeted advertising. We’re now able to target advertising on demographic (defined by postcode and now IP allocation), purchase behaviour, geo-location, social associations and this will continue to become progressively “smarter”. We’re able to serve interactive media, contextual media, and personalised media.

At the same time as all this progress is being made, we’re also recovering from a globally disabling recession which, if we’re honest, has predominantly been driven by global greed. Service levels had been forgotten about and the world’s economy was predominantly being motivated by shareholder desires for ever greater dividends, cut the bottom line and push profits. Was this progress?

The opportunity this presents us all with is a convergence of a human desire for a simplification of their complex every day lives to allow them to focus on the more important matters that require greater thought and then technology developments to allow this to occur. Whilst some might fear that this reduced requirement to make decisions for ourselves might result in a decline in human endeavour and output (e.g. we’ll all just get lazier), the last time a convergence like this happened it was quickly followed by one of the most dramatic artistic and intelligence booms in the Western World – otherwise know as the Renaissance.

It’s this opportunity that I believe we should grasp. We need to now use the technology at our disposal to create applications and experiences that assist us all in our human development. Help us to cope and understand the world around us in simplified and tuned in ways that feel complimentary and beneficial in our day to day lives, not intrusive and indicative of the era that has gone before.

It’s not the start of the technological singularity yet, but it can be the start of an era of positive technological application.

Sunset

What’s in a name?

Coming up with a name for our new company took a while and a flip chart full of crossed out possibilities. Beautiful Everything arrived out of a conversation about the scene in American Beauty where a plastic bag blowing in the wind is captured on film as an articulation of how the beautiful and fascinating can be found all around us in everyday objects and moments of wonder. We are interested in how beauty can be found in the most unexpected things. We’re interested in how technology and digital experiences can help find that beauty and bring it to life; how beauty has a fascination through revealing some sort of human truth or insight, and makes people want to spend time experiencing it and reflecting upon it.

In this world of ever faster evolving technology and media, holding any of your audiences’ attention seems increasingly difficult. Standard advertising and brand communications are less and less effective. Against this backdrop there exists enormous potential for brands to create natural emotional connections through meaningful experiences with their audience. We help to identify where best to improve people’s relationship or experience with your brand. Then we find ways to create beautiful experiences that form part of the brand story to help customers stop and reassess their relationship with the brand. Beauty in everything. Beautiful everything.

American Beauty

“It was one of those days when it's a minute away from snowing and there's this electricity in the air, you can almost hear it. Right? And this bag was just dancing with me. Like a little kid begging me to play with it. For fifteen minutes.”