Like so many of us, retailers have grown nostalgic for the good old days, when customers only had two choices for a cell provider, when a broadcaster could make everyone huddle on the couch to watch NBC’s “Must See TV” on Thursday nights or when retailers controlled the customer experience. In the nostalgic era of Mad Men, retailers felt very much in charge. They decided the flow of information, managed a consumer through their processes and ultimately dictated choices and price because of scarce information.

Today, our world is much less Mad Men, and much more reminiscent of a scene from Fast Times at Ridgemont High. Our friend Steve Smith from MediaPost clued us into this concept, using as an example the dating advice that one of the main characters, Mike Damone, dispenses to his desperate friend, Rat. Among his five tips for dating is a credo that speaks to the future of mobile — “Act as if where you are, that’s the place to be.”

That’s exactly what a mobile device does for a customer — anything an individual wants to do, and any information desired, can be done or obtained anytime, anywhere, any place, on any device. With possession of a phone that nowadays packs as much technology as the Apollo 11, consumers can harness the power of the Internet to compare prices, look up reviews and learn about products before, during and after a visit to the retail location. Bottom line: the traditional retail business model based on scarce information disappears.

So what does this shift in power mean for the retailer? How does it impact their business? What about the “Amazon effect,” whereby a shopper visits a brick-and-mortar store to check out, try on and price compare before buying on Amazon? Have brick-and-mortar shops become showrooms for online-only retailers?

The answer — and the real challenge for retailers — is in bridging the virtual world with the physical one, the digital/e-commerce world with the brick-and-mortar shops. Their ability to connect these experiences and complete the consumer journey, thus successfully combating the “Amazon effect,” is essential in order to stay relevant to the modern, digitally enabled consumer.

Consumers have evolved in how they make their buying decisions. Their journey from awareness, to consideration, to intent and ultimately to buy is no longer a linear path. The dynamic has shifted from the traditional model to a more comprehensive, multichannel journey where not one, but many, elements are involved. Shoppers may engage several different media, people and devices before settling on what to buy and from whom. They will traverse across multiple “digital islands” (Web, app, social) and physical ones (print, billboards, flyers, ads) before ultimately making a purchase decision.  Mobile is the vehicle that retailers rely upon to usher consumers across these islands.

Digital and brick-and-mortar retailers can evolve business models to better align themselves with the way consumers shop, and most have done this successfully by creating more channels (e-commerce included), using social media to connect with consumers and building brand presence in non-traditional places like Foursquare and 2D barcodes.

Value-added services such as gifting, rewarding, loyalty programs, on-the-spot deals and the opportunity to purchase at precisely the moment of inspiration are all necessary ingredients for combating the “Amazon effect,” primarily because they help establish lasting relationships with consumers. Target and Nordstrom are great examples of companies embracing (or countering) showrooming. Nordstrom allows customers who shop in their stores to get free shipping for any purchased items. In January, Target sent a note to vendors pleading with them to create special versions of their products so prices could not be easily compared online.

Given the opportunities for retailers who are flexible and willing to invest in digital tools, it stands to reason that a mobile app can serve as the ideal instrument for facilitating the connection of the online and offline consumer experiences. With a well-designed mobile app, experiences that start at home or on the go can continue with ubiquity and continuity as consumers enter the physical store. The mobile app can serve multiple purposes such as in-store check-in, e-commerce and in-store checkout, endless aisle (ability to order products that are not present in the brick-and-mortar store inventory) and virtual aisle (ability to scan and order products via other media such as billboards and flyers).

Showrooming does not have to be the kiss of death for the traditional retail experience. Retailers who wish to stay relevant in a digitally complex ecosystem would be well-served by creating a virtual or digital environment within the physical store and by creating loyalty and reward programs that make consumers feel appreciated and engaged. Doing this turns showrooming into an opportunity and creates real and lasting value for both parties.

Only a two-year-old startup out of Silicon Valley, Pinterest, an addictive social networking site in which users, or “Pinners,” collect and share images on digital pinboards, has set the social media world on fire and has everyone wondering if it’s the next Facebook.

Pinterest’s explosion in popularity is closely linked to our emerging societal trend to organize and share the things we are interested in. Brands have recognized this trend but have yet to understand what it means for their business and how they can take advantage of it. Here are five reasons why brands should integrate Pinterest into their social platforms:

1) Augment Effectiveness Through Design Simplicity

The Pinterest website design supports an excellent user experience through its cognitive load minimization – essentially, a reduction in the mental effort required to do what the site wants the user to do. Its website allows users to collect and share content through images, which is easier to consume than text-based content. This makes consuming Pinterest content easier to understand and use, which leads users to engage in desirable consumption behavior.

2) Empower Consumer-Curated Content

The rise of social media has emboldened consumers to demand a more curated shopping experience in which they drive what they consume and brands are there to inspire them, not sell them. Pinterest is unique in that it allows users to capture and collect inspiring images from the web. By pining web content and repackaging it within the context of their digital pinboards, Pinterest users are creating content. This curation of public content creates tremendous value among Pinterest users by providing inspiration from like-minded consumers, which leads to the point of sale organically.

3) Help People Discover New Things To Consume

Current social networking sites make it easier for users to talk to each other and share, but not necessarily on the platform where consumers are trying to buy. In contrast, users join Pinterest with the hope of finding inspiration to consume. Common boards include “dresses I love,” “places to go,” and “stuff for kids,” indicating that users engage Pinterest as a source for finding things they want.

4) Increase Website Traffic

The “Pin It” button is inherently simple in that it allows users to save their findings and refer to it later within a user-generated categorization. The addition of a “Pin It” button to brand websites would allow Pinterest users to add brand images to their digital pinboards while leaving a link back to the brand’s website for other Pinners to see and use. If Pinterest users are encouraged to pin things from the brand’s website, the site could see a significant increase in traffic.

5) Amass Relevant Consumer Insights

“Repinned” or reposted content allows Pinterest users to express interest in an item and place it within one of their digital pinboards. This action reveals their tastes and preferences within a consumer framework, which provides unparalleled insights into consumer behavior. The act of “Repinning” reveals who inspires users, what inspires users, and how users consume this inspiration.

	About the Author Sam Stein is a graduate of SapientNitro’s Spring 2012 Marketing and Strategy Internship program. He graduated this past May with degrees in Economics and Political Science from Emory University. When he is not relentless digging up consumer insights, Sam enjoys playing tennis, watching Jim Carey movies, and grabbing a craft beer.

It’s been over a month since I landed back at my desk here in London after a whirlwind few days in Austin, Texas and, to be completely honest, I’ve needed all that time to process the unbelievable range of different ideas, conversations and thinking that I found myself exposed to.

The sheer breadth of the festival is something to behold and almost impossible to comprehend with thousands of sessions on offer.

The great thing about this is that no one person will have the same experience across the five days, and everyone will come away with something different on their mind.

The drawback of this being the inevitable feeling that the session you’re currently sitting in is nowhere near as good as that other one you were thinking about attending. (And the constant stream of commentary online does absolutely nothing to discourage this feeling.)

This fear of missing out runs through the whole event, and its something that you really need to come to terms with to make the most of it. This feeling reminded me of the last Glastonbury Festival I attended; you know at the start that you’re not going to get to see every great band on your list, but once you’ve come to terms with that, you can relax and enjoy the wealth of possibility that lies at your feet.

So in the few weeks that have passed, surely everything that could be written has been written?  Well, I’m not sure that’s possible with the multitude of different experiences possible.

Looking back, my experience of SXSW feels like it was intrinsically linked to the subject matter on offer (or maybe that’s just the way my brain works).

A New World of Branding?

Two talks on ‘open’ branding corresponded very closely with my experience of the event. This idea as discussed in “Brands as Patterns” and “Brand as API” that goes completely against the way communications have taken shape for a long time (and something I should vehemently oppose given my grounding in brand strategy) rings very true when you look at the SXSW experience.

The patterns session looked at how a brand should build in flexibility and rhythm to its communications with great examples from the world of music and genetics. Their view is that branding in today’s always-on world needs to move towards a perpetual sequence with built-in variation rather than one consistent set of messages executed through pre-determined campaigns and bursts. It felt that this was more evolutionary than revolutionary and is something that has happened organically within branding and communications, rather than representing a complete step-change.

Saying that, it couldn’t be truer of SXSW as an event; you have an idea of what you’re going to get from the experience overall but the variation and unexpected elements within are what makes it so worthwhile and so exhilarating.

SXSW definitely embraces the idea of the ‘brand as API’, which was eloquently defined as opening up the brand fundamentals or ‘primitives’ to their audience and seeing what happens. Using examples such as Domino’s and Charmin, creating a pizza tracker and bathroom locator, respectively, the presenters illustrated that all brands have an API (Application Programming Interface) that they can access to allow interaction with the brand without purchase. LEGO has opened up its brand API spectacularly well to allow its passionate audience’s imaginations to run wild and create designs online that can later be printed in 3D when they complete the purchase.

This angle provides an interesting way of looking at any marketing challenge: by asking the question ‘what is the brand’s API?’, there is likely to be a range of new and interesting thinking that can be brought to life to deepen the connection with consumers.

SXSW’s API is the conversation and flow of ideas that rumbles through the event and this burst into being back in 2007 with the explosion of Twitter allowing people to share every piece of inspiration coming their way. While SXSW has grown through this openness in ways the founders would never have imagined, this has created a powerful entity, indeed, that is showing no signs of slowing down, there are still ways that they could embrace this currency even further. For example, building in locational activity relevant to tweeted content or identifying which talks are really trending around the event in real time and on the ground to create a more tangible buzz.

The Fear of Missing Out

The clear social one-upmanship of many of the tweets running through the festival and all over the world creates the Fear of Missing Out, or ‘FOMO’, that was discussed in a session from JWT. In a place where there are potentially 50+ different options for the next hour slot, they couldn’t have picked a better location for the session, but it did feel slightly cynical with the main message of the session being to exploit the trend by exacerbating the anxiety within the individual rather than find ways to help people deal with it, as done so elegantly by 303 in Australia with their “Enjoy the Ride” road safety campaign.

Transmedia

Multiplatform storytelling, or transmedia, was a big theme on show at the event and was exemplified by the way Nike went about its business with an interactive billboard that ran the length of a city block, a light show on a skyscraper, slam dunk, skateboarding and football demonstrations all in place to complement the online launch of FuelBand (which we’ll come back to later) with Nike adapting the message across each channel. An Angry Birds flash mob featuring birds attacking pigs outside of the Convention Centre was another nice example of transmedia in action, but the lack of a digital link-up felt like a missed opportunity.

Multi-platform is a concept that has been embraced to some extent within the advertising industry with cross-channel campaigns, but there are real insights to be gained from looking at the way its being done elsewhere. Lance Weiler made a stir at Sundance with Pandemic 1.0, the story of a the onset of a mystery sleeping disease which featured a mission control centre, Twitter commentary and mobile phones in biohazard bags that linked people on the ground with those watching the endemic unfold online.

Jay-Z and the Rebirth of Lego

Jay-Z proved indisputably that the SapientNitro talk ‘Y Rappers R Better Marketers Than U” was the truth by linking up with AmEx to promote their sync service and causing the biggest line of the week, even though it meant queuing at 7am on Saturday morning. We can all learn lessons from the rappers out there making us look bad; you need to stay ‘legit’ to your core audience while still forgetting the rules and innovating; and if you’re looking for social media inspiration then a lot can be learned from the rap game.

The story of LEGO’s rise out of the darkness mirrored the change in mood at the festival on the Saturday afternoon as the weather started to lift. In 2002, LEGO had lost their way and were in dire straits after innovating too much without an area of focus.  By focusing back on their customer and the core brand essence of ‘systematic creativity’ and aligning the entire business to deliver this better, LEGO turned around the fortunes and has been growing at an remarkable rate ever since.

Self-Actualizing Gaming

The sense of optimism was even more evident during a sunny Sunday breakfast in the Google Village; key players in the industry were talking about the positive impact that the tech community could have on the world. Various sessions looked at addressing health issues, especially in the US, with obesity high on the agenda and ‘Gaming for Good’ as a theme running through the week.

The session on how to get ‘SuperBetter’ proved a great example of this; game designer Jane McGonigal turned her recovery from serious concussion into a game. With her movement severely limited, each tiny action was designed to boost her emotional, physical, mental and social resilience so that she could stay focused on the difficult road to recovery. Since then she has been working with Doctors and Academics to create a game that can be played to help with recovery working on the theory that “people of action think big and act incrementally’.

This is one of a number of actualizing games or tools that are on the horizon including Lift, the new venture from Twitter co-founders, which is designed to help people to ‘achieve anything’ (but is currently shrouded in mystery) and Everest, which is billed as a tool to help people ‘live their dreams’.

Taking Austin to London

SXSW fever was still running high this week in Shoreditch with the UK launch of the Nike Fuelband causing some serious congestion in the area. The Fuelband was the launch of SXSW following on from the likes of Twitter, Foursquare and GroupMe. It is a hugely exciting concept and potential ‘game-changer’ with its ability to track physical activity combined with an enormous API that should throw up some interesting uses in the coming months.

It’s great to see the passion of SXSW transfer over to the UK, and the founders of Digital Shoreditch have been very bold recently in their aim to be as ‘significant as SXSW within four years’. They’ve definitely picked the one place in London that will have no problem embracing Austin’s ‘Keep it Weird’ mantra.

The biggest challenge I see is ensuring that the massive local digital and creative community take that dedicated time away from their desks to reap the benefits of something that reminds you why love what you do and can spark inspiration in numerous directions. Unfortunately, this is something that is very difficult to do when the office is so close, and the phone is on.

Interested in hearing us speak at Digital Shoreditch? Catch Idea Engineers Malcolm Poynton and Omaid Hiwaizi on May 30th.

Photo credit: grandlifehotels

We wrote an extended deep dive yesterday, sharing some unique thinking around benefits and implications of mobile payments.

Perry Chan and Emily Caufield for the design!

We wanted to inspire thinking around not only mobile payments, but the true nature of money, currency, and understand the motives and behavior that drives it. Check out our Future of Money Infographic showcasing our train of thought, also available as a deck for easier reuse.

It’s amazing how studies forecasting mobile payment penetrations could be so disparate. Pew Research report on The Future of Money claims that by 2020 we all be solely making mobile payments and cash will cease existence, quoting “the majority of the respondents supported the scenario that by 2020 most people will have embraced and fully adopted the use of smart-device swiping for purchases they make, nearly eliminating the need for cash or credit cards.”. While a study by University of California revealed that most Americans don’t plan to use mobile payment systems.

Whilst both studies might be skewed, it’s hard to predict the future 8  years out. No matter what industry we look at, the pace of evolution keeping accelerating. Looking at the history of money, it slowly evolved from bartering, to standardizing coins, paper money, the creation of banking institutions, but technology drastically accelerated the pace the past few decades, with credit cards, e-commerce, person-to-person transfers, and virtual currencies.

Similarly, the pace of mobile penetration within the telecommunications industry opaqued every other medium; and not only eclipsed telephone lines, but presently [is the US] 50% of all mobile phones are smartphones.

With two booming trends, it is only natural that mobile payments will emerge as well – and it is. From the merchant side to the consumer side, we need amazing innovation in the market every day. Perhaps kickstarted with Jack Dorsey’s Square: amazing simplistic approach to mobilize credit card payments and bring the point-of-sales to the masses. Or perhaps the fact that Google launched the first mainstream mobile wallet?

Mobile Payments

Google Wallet vs Mobile Payments

These emerging technologies are topic of conversations at every fortune company – not just because the way payments and experiences are changing, but because the very nature of money and currency could evolve.

Visionaries dream of cash-less societies - some more radically than others – and different surveys show different predictions. The truth is that we will get there – we just don’t know exactly when. There are many problems to solve such as global acceptance, trade, roaming, and standardized approach to technology and ecosystem.

This technology ecosystem is pretty complex, with options ranging from simple SMS/USSD, to mobile apps, and hardware integration such as NFC and RFID. Most agree that the future is all based on NFC, which is secure, fast, reliable, simple, but also it is the most expensive option since the entire ecosystem has to be upgraded. There are a few companies trying to get a head-start with NFC, like Facebook’s new spinoff company “Presence”, or new promising startup Flomio, that provides a simple NFC-as-a-service solution that allows integration with Stripe and can get a business receiving mobile payments in minutes.

But technology is not impediment for entry; while everyone is waiting for the holy grail [aka NFC]. Some companies are chasing the NFC standard, like Google, ISIS, or Visa, whose launching V.me in Europe this fall, and partnered with Samsung to make an impact at the London Olympics.

But some companies built very successful solutions for today’s consumer. Starting the popular Starbucks Mobile App, a simple pre-paid account that ties to your Starbucks card and allows for simple barcode scanning. Nothing too innovative, but an amazing testament to the power of mobile payment: one in every four transaction is done via mobile, accounting for 26 million transactions and over $100 million in 2011.

Another innovator in the space is TGI Fridays, who is using a service called TabbedOut which allows customers to sync their app to the store PoS, browse menu, order, watch their tab and pay their bill from their mobile phone.

Most people speculate that Apple will enter the mobile payments area strong. They have already applied for patents that could lead to an end-to-end system that would include mobile marketing, mobile payments and mobile retailing. Back-of-the-napkin calculations show how easy they could become a trillion-dollar company overnight.

… And while some contenders opportunistically enter the market, others actually exit. Nokia just announced that they will exit the mobile payment services in India knowns as Nokia Money, to focus on handset manufacturing. According to a company spokesperson “the mobile financial services business is not core to Nokia, so we plan to exit the business.”

Beyond these large players, there are a few smaller ones worth noting. Two of our favorites are: Zoosh, which aims to deliver all the benefits of NFC (near-field communication) with any device that has a speaker and microphone. Instead of relying on NFC chips, Zoosh uses ultrasound to perform secure mobile transactions. The second is Geode from iCache, popular kickstarter project that that stores credit cards, loyalty cards, gift cards, and membership cards and protects the information with biometric security; then uses an onboard universal card and e-ink barcode screen that allows to use any card, anytime, anywhere.

Then of course, the visionary Square; a unique innovative small device that started by connecting to any iPhone through the audio jack, and allowing anyone to accept credit card payments. Square is currently processing about $5 billion a year, behind PayPal, which is expecting to do $7 billion in mobile payment volume this year. Amazing achievement for a small startup that competes with massive giant who processed $118.7 billion in net payment volume PayPal did last year.

Talking about Paypal, they are going all in on mobile payments. They launched a point-of-sale integration already live at over 2,000 Home Depot stores, a tiered suite of online, offline and Mobile Payments options for small businesses, and an intelligent wallet, with personalized deals and flexible payments that let you choose a payment method seven days after a transaction. Paypal truly understands the unique value proposition of mobile payments: leverage the digital channels, cloud, big data, to provide intelligent-interactive-value-add at the point of purchase. If you think about it, mobile payments are almost inconvenient: they take extra steps to set up, open apps, enter pins, it’s actually a hard sale for people to switch over from a swipe-and-sign credit card. So why should someone switch?

What are the key benefits?

1. Flexibility & Convenience
   • All your cards in one place: credit, debit, loyalty.
   • Choose method of payment, even after the purchase.
2. Interactivity & Recommendations
   • Personal Financial Management (PFM), recommending the optimum payment method. Since the wallet has the knowledge of all your cards, ARP, limits, rewards, it can recommend which car to use for each transaction.
   • Furthermore, if you take the time to personalize your goals, objectives, the wallet could help you accumulate points, save, and reach them by optimizing every transaction.
   • In the future, integration to PoS will allow to do this at the line-item level.
   • There will always be one and only one optimal way to pay.
     • Payment method becomes logical as opposed to emotional.
3. Real-Time & Inversion-of-Control
   • Real-Time interconnectivity will allow for reverse bidding auction: all lenders will have the chance to bid with their best terms to win your business.

We’d love to hear your thoughts! Agree, disagree? Do you see different uses within other verticals? Please share and keep the conversation going.

China and India are the two key markets in this region that have massive growth potential in this sector. Some of the popular web marketplaces in the region are Taobao Mall, ULE, Yahoo Marketplace in China and APAC region; and Junglee.com from Amazon, eBay, Olx and Flipkart are doing brisk business in India. The Chinese eCommerce industry is expected to grow at the rate of 22–26 percent touching $1.3 billion, while the Indian eCommerce industry is headed to trade close to $1.4 billion in 2012 with a phenomenal growth rate of 30-35 percent. In such a scenario, innovative offerings and capturing customer interest will be the key to success.

Listed below are a few essential factors which will significantly contribute to the boom of the eCommerce industry in emerging markets:

Customer convenience: Flipkart and various other eCommerce websites have started offering cash on delivery (CoD) payment option that has further eased the online buying experience. Customers have been wary of vendors’ credibility; and thus shy away from providing their credit/debit card details to unknown entities. Hence, providing CoD option has increased consumer confidence, thereby culminating in almost 40 percent online orders.

Replacement guarantee: Customers can now breathe easy with vendors offering a 30-day replacement guarantee, provided the product had delivery-related issues or defects. This acts as an additional point of solace for customers who are worried about defective products or inefficient delivery services.

Reach: Mobility is a huge focus in Asia. As many as 500+ million customers in China and 235+ million customers in India are expected to shift to smart devices by 2015. Hence, it is not only sufficient to have a good online presence, but enabling mobile-capable sites and supporting mCommerce capability becomes crucial.

Location-based services: Since customers these days are always on the move, promoting the right product at the right time and location becomes an integral aspect.

When a customer is in a store browsing a particular product, understanding customer preferences and targeting the customer with an eCoupon while in store is a great way to capitalise on the location-based services. Smart devices play an important role in this aspect by supporting the location-based services.

Multiple payment options: All eCommerce sites in the APAC region (China, India, Hong Kong and Taiwan) support payments via an escrow account, this is besides the standard credit cards, debit cards and bank payments. Alipay and Tenpay seem to be the leading providers of escrow accounts in China while BillDesk and CCAvenue are the leading providers in India and AsiaPay in Hong Kong. Providers have also started supporting co-branded EMI (equated monthly installment), CoD options for easy payment facilities.

Content: Getting the right content and targeting customers with crisp and relevant information is of utmost importance to users on the move. Smartphones, tablets each have different resolution capabilities and screen sizes, hence customising content for all these devices is critical to provide the right amount of information and better conversion rates.

Price Comparison: Customers in this region are extremely price-sensitive by nature. Providers offering instant price comparison are highly popular amongst the price conscious customers. This feature increases consumer confidence resulting in closure of sales.

Shipment option: Low cost of shipping ($1) in China is a huge advantage in eCommerce. However, there may be issues in guaranteed deliveries. Customers placing high value orders may need to spend additional money on delivery confirmation and tracking services. Providers in Taiwan have tied up with popular convenient stores like 7-11 and a few others to deliver orders closest to the customers’ workplace or residence (delivery at convenient stores). The convenience of collecting orders post work while returning home has become a popular and economic method of shipment.

Logistical challenges: Both China and India are vast and spread-out, posing huge logistical challenges. A country as huge as China would require two logistics providers – one to cater to the customers in northern China and the other one for customers in the southern part. Similarly, in India, the geographical spread throws logistical challenges. The kind of products being offered by providers should determine the logistics planning.

Legal challenges: Some countries have a legal requirement of generating invoices for online transactions and reporting periodically. Few commodities in India may necessitate the collection of octroi and other taxes, which need to be taken into consideration prior to the transaction.

The eCommerce market is thriving and poised for robust growth in Asia. There are players who made a good beginning. Their success depends on their understanding of the market and offering many of the stated features. Over the ne­xt 12 – 18 months, the market will see a consolidation where serious players with suffici­ent capital will be able to sustain, or else they might be bought over by larger players.

I’ve been working on creating set of best practices for mobile healthcare solutions during the past few months, and it has made me think about the evolution of user experiences and their underlying technology.

Back “in the old days,” at the beginning of my career, I was designing and testing screens at IBM for mainframe Database Applications that ran on 3270 terminals — you know those green screen monitors that you see in 80’s movies. When Graphical User Interfaces, or GUIs, came out, companies were scrambling to get existing applications ported to this new platform. We user experience professionals made mistakes in the first few generations of the GUI platforms. We did not have a full understanding of the capabilities of these new environments, so we ended up recreating existing interactions on a new platform. Many of the same mistakes were made once again when these applications were ported once again to the Internet as web-based applications.

Currently, we are at the “elbow” of the exponential growth curve for mobile, connected applications. In order for a mobile application to be successful, it cannot be a simple “port” of an existing web-based or GUI application. A successful mobile health application needs to fully embrace the connected mobile technology and the power that a ubiquitous network, along with a touch screen, a GPS, an accelerometer, a camera, and a Bluetooth-enabled device with serious amounts of computing power and data (and cloud) storage.

Location awareness is a must. Connecting to the fastest network available given the current location seems like a no-brainer. Maybe you can change the interface based upon the current location and accelerometer data. Why not update things in the background while the clinician is walking down the hall? Wirelessly connect to various medical devices via Bluetooth and analyze the data in real time (like an EKG). Use cloud-based expert systems to help analyze this medical data and help make a diagnosis or prescribe a drug. Some systems are already using barcodes, and/or QR codes for linking to databases – it is much quicker and eliminates data entry errors. How about a system that can use distributed cognition models integrated with social media tools and physician calendars to provide real-time updates on the medical research associated with the patient that they will be treating next? An automatic link to medical billing systems based upon the data flow could free physicians from the medical insurance code system and allow them to concentrate on providing better patient care.

There is so much that these devices can do, that we know about, and probably much more that haven’t been thought of yet. If you are designing a mobile application for healthcare do not settle for a recreation of an existing system to a new platform. Push the edge of the envelope! You can improve the quality of healthcare and might even save a life.

For those seeking to play a role in the incipient mobile wallet space – from carriers to software companies to hardware manufacturers – take note of Machiavelli’s counsel to royals in Europe on the dangers of creating new orders. Visa, MasterCard, American Express, and Discover represent those wanting to “preserve” existing business models. Carriers, Internet companies, and a plethora of others want to take money away from the incumbents. But before either goes to battle against the other, a few matters must be addressed first:

• Retailers must be convinced to play ball with any changes to existing processes.

• New ecosystems and processes must be created and secured in the digital world.

• Of course, let us not forget the ultimate user, the consumer.

The first challenge involves retailers. From the big boys like Target and Walmart to the small fries like a neighborhood dry cleaner, transaction fees related to mobile wallets represent significant costs for retailers. For decades, retailers have sought to lower their transaction fees. Enter the promise of mobile wallets – finally, a way for retailers to lower their costs, or so they thought. However, that hasn’t been the case for some time. To date, no one is giving retailers a break on transaction fees. Whether it is ISIS, Google Wallet, Amazon, or PayPal, the fees are just being passed on to the retailers. That is not what retailers expected, and why many are just sitting it out right now.

Compounding the problem for retailers is the need to upgrade their POS (point of sales) systems or back-end infrastructure to support NFC (near-field communication) or cloud-based solutions. Google, for one, offers to subsidize the cost of these upgrades, but at the expense of sharing customer data, something retailers are reluctant to do. Who is going to lay out this capital expense for the promise of mobile wallets, as opposed to a firm commitment of a lower transaction fee?

The second challenge for mobile wallet entrants is the layers of complexity involved in creating a cohesive mobile payments ecosystem. For both the cloud and the NFC space, creating a comprehensive ecosystem is not a simple endeavor. When one examines what it takes to create a mobile wallet network, as many as nine moving parts must be cobbled together to support a payment from a mobile device to a retailer. Then there is the trust factor, convincing businesses and consumers alike that their digital money and information is safe in a digital wallet. The more complex the ecosystem, the more potential for a weak link somewhere in the chain.

Lastly, and perhaps the most pressing challenge, is that of consumer behavior. While getting rid of the Costanza wallet may be good for your back, swiping a card is pretty frictionless, so many consumers don’t currently see the benefit of waving a phone over a POS or opening an app on the phone to complete a transaction. Moreover, people want to know exactly what they are getting if they do use a mobile wallet. Right now, there isn’t a consistent user experience. Today, one retailer might have tap and pay, another may display coupons upon tapping, and yet another may pose a challenge question like asking for one’s PIN.

These challenges are not insurmountable. Industry players in the NFC and cloud space must win over the retailers by lowering transaction fees, creating an ecosystem broad enough to cover as many consumers as possible yet tight enough to be considered safe and trustworthy, and convincing consumers that it indeed is to their benefit to use a phone as a wallet. Otherwise – and unfortunately for the mobile wallet industry – Machiavelli’s premonition may come to pass.

Photo: Google

Follow me @WeNeedMoreThan140CharactersToTalk

As a French citizen who has traveled and lived in different countries, I can explain the specificities of French culture. Call us chauvinistic or reactionary, but we can be very proud of our Latin cultural patrimony and our way of life. Most of us believe that we own the art of being social. Throughout my exploration of the world, I myself often felt homesick, missing the long hours spent at coffee shops with friends, the extended dinners where hearty meals and long discussions are almost compulsory, or the stupendous encounters that are likely to happen on the crowded streets of Paris. France was, for me, one of the few places where the ideas of community and interactions are still alive.

However, at a time when being social also means social networking, I recognize how far behind we are. I know that stereotypes and generalizations are not without danger. But now that I live in Atlanta, and have become addicted to “RT”, “Share”, “Foursquare check-in” and “Like,” I enjoy looking at how French people interact online. The fact is that Facebook and Twitter are not that popular in France — at least amongst the 25 and over demographic. The behavior of users is also quite different — stronger concerns about privacy issues limit chatter.

The success of two French social networks, “Skyrock Blog” and “OverBlog” (10 million visitors), shows that there might be a double standard… But besides being French, these networks tried to develop an original formula to be different.

Let’s look at Skyrock Blog for instance: the network which was created by a traditional media company, “Skyrock,” which is the most popular French radio station among the 13- to 24-year olds. The promotion of the network, launched in 2002, was probably boosted by this legitimacy, along with additional services like Skymail and dating, the option to pick one of the 24 skins to customize the blog or the one that allows the user to reverse the order of his posts. Most French users also claim that Skyrock Blog is far more intuitive and easy to use than the other networks.

Now, let’s try to understand again why Twitter and Facebook are not doing that well. I think that the main explanation to this gap would be the linguistic barriers. I remembered that a lot of my friends finally opened a Facebook account when the platform decided to create a French version. Twitter also presents challenges for a language that is known for expansion — it is hard for us to combine ideas in less than 140 words. This platform might be more convenient for English which is known for being a concise language. Similarly, the concepts of smileys, teasers, hot trends, friendly stranger might be harder to export. Interestingly, despite the lack of passion for the two networks, French regulators passed a new law in June 2011, forbidding the use of the words “Twitter” and “Facebook” on TV and radio in order to prevent “clandestine advertising”.

Because of all these barriers to entry, the “think global, act local” motto is a must for marketers targeting France. Here are three tips for those who want to cross the Atlantic:

Tip 1: Simplicity! At the end of the day, French want to keep some time for face-to-face social interactions. An easy friendly tool will amaze them more than a high-tech platform full of fancy acronyms.

Tip 2:  Freedom! French people like content and modularity. It takes longer to say things in French and people want to feel that they have enough space and flexibility to express themselves.

Tip 3 : Legitimacy! Working with a local brand or sounding a little French might give you some credit.

What? You think it sounds a bit revolutionary? Well it’s French!

	About the Author European (born in Paris) and Caribbean at the same time (both her parents are from Guadeloupe), Magaly Losange had always been passionate about global encounters, cross-cultural contacts and internationalization in general. Thanks to her extensive travels and an education in different countries, she decided to focus on international marketing. After having worked as a marketing specialist in different countries, she completed her MBA at Kennesaw State University and settled down in Atlanta.

A new visual design and home page:

The visual design is cleaner and more contemporary, feeling one part Safari and one part Google tools. The use of warm greys and understated gradients have replaced a more cartoony use of blue and orange in all of the Amazon-specific elements in the interface. Overall, these changes have quite a dramatic effect by really highlighting the merchandising slots and the products themselves rather than drawing a customer’s eyes to the interface itself.

While the visual changes are significant, Amazon’s stripped back approach to navigation may be both more significant and more refreshing. The company has gone back and forth in extremes of showing all of their top level product categories to very few across a range of permutations. To see a detailed documentation specifically on Amazon’s navigation, it’s worth taking a quick look at the excellent overview of The History of Amazon’s Tab Navigation provided by Luke Wroblewski. I like their new approach for a lot of reasons I’ll touch on momentarily.

One final thing to mention about the new home page is their use of the “feature” space in the middle of the home page just below the tools and primary navigation. Where typically you would see one larger promotional image – generally for Amazon’s own Kindle or (worse) a giant “Letter from Jeff Bezos” – there is now the introduction of two merchandising carousels. The top carousel highlights all of Amazon’s own digital media products: the Kindle family, MP3 Store, Cloud Player, Appstore, etc. The bottom carousel has switched between three (as in the screen shot above) and two items displayed. Having just revisited the site, it’s clear that the bottom includes one personalized slot given it’s pushing a category at me that I had very recently visited. Neither the top nor bottom carousels cycle automatically. Amazon is clearly outlining top and center what they are betting their future on: their digital media and app ecosystem. Overall, their approach to introducing customers to Amazon products and promotions seems both more clear and yet more subtle than what we’ve seen in the past. The jury is out on whether it is too subtle.

Investigating the navigation and tools header more closely, we see some radical design decisions:

At rest state, none of Amazon’s departments are displayed and only a single, understated “Shop by Department” tool is shown. Pushing the visibility of Amazon’s product range out of obvious view of customers is a radical departure from other commerce sites and more extreme than Amazon has ever done before. Rolling over the “Shop by” tool invokes a set of “stacked” fly-out navigation with two levels. The first level is similar set to what Amazon has been showing recently in a static state, in a similar upper left hand position. This first level has three clearly demarcated areas: Amazon’s digital products, other common categories, and the “Full Store Directory”. It’s hard to understate the importance of this change. By placing all of Amazon’s categories behind a “Shop by Department” stacked fly-out and search, Amazon is assuming that (1) customers already know what Amazon sells, and (2) they have comfort that customers will intuitively get to products through subtle navigation, on-sites search or from general web search.

The second level, offers a combination of both text links and visual merchandising. As documented above with the Clothing category, Amazon introduces a flexible double column navigational space. In this case, it uses the left column for text links in the clothing category and the rest of the space for a large, visual for the “Resort Trend Report”. The use of a full-length woman breaking the edges of the fly-out navigation makes it feel more organic, more magazine-like and, conversely, less web-like. Different categories receive different treatments. Some have just a single column of text links and others mix text links and visual merchandising between two columns. Overall, it seems much more flexible and much more effective. I love the stacked navigation and seeing Amazon use it will help other clients see the potential value of a bit more progressive disclosure in primary navigation.

Looking across the top navigation and tool bar, we see Amazon is delivering a lot more utility and access to deeper levels of the experience:

An account pull down now (finally) offers up access to really obvious functions customers would expect to get to quickly. Orders, lists, and similar account related functions are now accessible directly from anywhere in the site. The “Your Account” area also seems to be evolving into a space to manage your digital media and Amazon cloud services. We could see this continue to grow or maybe even break off into a similar but separate tool set.

The shopping cart is also (finally) upgraded:

First off, we now have an item counter in the cart itself, clearly visible at all times. In this case, I happen to have four items in my cart so the number “4” appears in the cart. When rolling over the cart navigation, a drop-down spawns with photos, linked product item names, quantities and the ability to view cart. Pushing this type of really critical information and functionality up in the hierarchy and making it available from anywhere in the experience is an obvious move that Amazon should have already introduced years ago. If I didn’t believe in the notion of “best practices”, I would probably say this is a best practice.¹

Looking deeper in the site, not much has changed in the experience outside of the visual design:

This books department page is pretty representative of the treatment for the rest of the site. While there are subtle changes, the information architecture and the visual design below the top navigation and tool bar is essentially identical to what came before it. The funny thing is, the effect is still quite dramatic. The experience feels contemporary and more useful because Amazon has driven a lot of understated power in a header which was before, most positively described as, “dated”.

Obviously, this is a test so we’ll see what changes really do get rolled out in the coming days, weeks or months. We would assume there are a series of other variables or versions Amazon is testing. That said, I would argue what we do see here is evidence of definite improvement. Overall, the visual design effectively makes the experience feel more modern while simultaneously delivering a cleaner slate on which to set products and promotional opportunities. The new radically stripped back – no departments showing at rest! – navigation both depends more heavily on a user’s intuition yet also delivers greater access to deeper areas of the site as well as more effective visual merchandising. The complimentary header toolset delivers both more information and more functionality.

If these changes go live, and I believe they will, this should help prove that we don’t necessarily need to pander to “obvious” navigation or lowest common denominator interactions. Instead, we can introduce more information-rich, more useful and more responsive design which enables us to provide more power to customers with less interface junk. That said, it also shouldn’t usher in an era where other retailers seek to hide their primary departments. Amazon is a special case playing to their long-tail business model, their move to a cloud-based digital-media/app ecosystem and a legendary in-site search and SEO capability. What’s great for Amazon is not necessarily great for everyone.

¹ You’re probably asking yourself, “How could he not believe in best practices? Doesn’t everyone?” More on this in a later post.