Andrew Kinnear

7 Management Qualities to try at work

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 06 Jan 2022 16:43:00 +0000

I've had a hand written sheet on my desk for a few years, and I've always tried to keep it top of mind. Ever since I became a people manager back in 1999, though not in a professional environment, I've always tried to build high-performing teams, and lead by example. I saw a comic recently that said you're not a real leader until you've made a leader who is leading others. I think I've done that, but there's always room to improve.

Here are some thoughts in no particular order:

Give real-time feedback as much as you can, with the intention of providing an improvement over the past. This can be for behaviour, work skills, output, presentations, etc. Even things like You've got mustard on your cheek I've always felt the need to let that person know immediately. I would want them do do the same!
Support diversity and demonstrate inclusive behaviours. I think (as a white male) it's my job to look for the best in all cultures, genders, and ages. I've worked with those much older than me, and worked for and hired many women over the last ten years. I think the key here has always been to try to demonstrate the inclusivity, not just pay it lip service.
Create a positive Team environment. When people are pulling their weight, it's easy. When there are challenges on a team, this becomes even more important. Teamwork is about pulling together, finding strengths, leveraging skills and staying positive about an outcome. Even in the face of delays, budget cuts, resourcing issues--- I've always felt it was my role to be the positive engine on the team. That's good leadership.
Discipline, ensuring compliance and controls. There are always to get around a rule, but usually there is a reason a policy or rule is in place. Sometimes the hard decision is taking the slow way, because it's the right way.
Keeping the team informed /Informing the team. There's news, changes, updates and important business information that needs to be shared. A good manager shares news in a timely way, with context, supports questions, and find answers. Just having a team that feels informed is great for morale. When questions arise, uncertainty spreads and productivity drops.
Allocation of projects and workload. Not always the easiest of the manager's duties, but allocating projects and workload across a broad team, where subject-matter expertise exists, is critical to ensuring successful projects. Knowing what your people are capable of, and how they can adapt is often the key.
My Favourite-- the challenge/enhance proposal. This is where you take someone out of a box they've built. I try to live my life outside that box, but most organizations need people in boxes. So what's the Challenge/Enhance Proposal? A staffer suggests a solution to a problem or an idea for a new channel or product: They're already within their own box typically. Counter with "This is great-- if you had more money, more time, or less hurdles, how would this be different? Instead of 10%, think 10x". Because these conversations often need to be reigned in after some exploration, this is about managing expectations, ideation, challenging status quo and giving employees and teams freedom. That's what makes work fun for me.

Bricks & Clicks: Merging Interactive and Land-Based Retail

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 10 Dec 2015 13:44:00 +0000

Retail and Lottery both recognize that “Interactive” is more about creating the optimal consumer experience than it is about selling products online. How are progressive lotteries leading the charge into an “Internet of Things” future that integrates digital technologies into the fabric of all we do? How are Retailers doing the same thing, and how can we join together to forge the most productive and mutually beneficial pathways to integrate Interactive and Land-Based initiatives?

Moderator: May Scheve Reardon, Executive Director, Missouri Lottery
Panelists: Richard Weil, Chief Executive Officer, INNOVA
Tom Shaheen, Executive Vice President Business Development, Linq3
Duncan Malyon, enior Vice president of North America, Camelot Global
David Barden, Executive Director, New Mexico Lottery
John Pittman, Vice President Marketing, INTRALOT
Andrew Kinnear, Senior Manager, Marketing Communications Ontario Lottery & Gaming
Matt Beddow, Director of New Media, Pennsylvania Lottery
Michael Lightman, Senior Vice President Lottery Interactive, Scientific Games

This video presentation is brought to you by Public Gaming Research Institute and was recorded live at LOTTERY EXPO 2015 in Miami, Florida September 2015. Copyright © 2015

On Lottery and Technology

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sat, 09 May 2015 01:50:00 +0000

OLG Logo Source: Wikipedia

I'll be joining many of my colleagues at OLG and our partner agencies in sharing insights and opinions as a speaker at the La Fleur's Lottery Forum in June. Here is the summary of the event:

La Fleur’s 2015 Global Lottery Forum is our first educational conference to be held in Canada. TLF Publications, based in Rockville, Maryland and publisher of La Fleur’s Magazine, has been organizing lottery conferences since 1995—there have been a total of 39 lottery symposiums and lottery conclaves held.

OLG is the host jurisdiction of La Fleur’s 2015 Global Lottery Forum, which will be held in Toronto, from June 14-17, 2015 at Ryerson University’s Ted Rogers School of Management. A university setting is a new venue style for a La Fleur’s conference which we believe will accentuate the opportunity for white paper presentations, academic discussion, networking and roundtable discussion. The Forum will also include the La Fleur’s Sustain- ability Awards competition for lottery organizations for the areas of corporate social responsibility, responsible gaming and the environment.

In addition, Canada is home to the best-run lotteries in the world. Our feeling is that the lottery world will come for the Forum’s cosmopolitan location and return home abuzz about the valuable content.

The Forum program will feature in-depth presentations by key lottery organizations invited to talk about topics key to the lottery industry’s growth, including future ready network, retail channel diversification, mobile ready, corporate social responsibility and changing consumer demographics.

In addition, the Forum will feature content streams featuring the La Fleur’s signature 15-minute speaker presentations on topics ranging from national scratcher strategies and hybrid draw game design to ilottery, lottery advertising/research and national game programming.

To promote interaction and discussion between attendees, the main program will end at 3 p.m. Attendees can choose between two 2.5 hour breakout sessions, such as draw games, scratch games, iLottery and retail sales expansion. Each evening will feature social networking opportunities for attendees to enjoy cosmopolitan Toronto. Opportunities are available for Education Program Partner, Hospitality Event Partner and Webinar Partner.

Make plans to join us and discover why we call her: “Toronto, the City That Works.”

I'll be speaking on the second day of the conference, with Geoff Lee from Olson Canada. The summary of our talk, although vague, is as follows:

Mobile technology, multiscreen experiences, and the future of lottery and gaming.

Want a glimpse into the future of lottery and gaming? Join Andrew Kinnear (Senior Manager, Marketing Communications at Ontario Lottery & Gaming) and Geoff Lee (Group Creative Director at Olson Canada), the marketers behind OLG digital and mobile properties like “Group Play” and “Pro•Line”, as they share best-in-class examples and insights on how to take the gaming experience to the next level.

See what’s happening today, what’s coming down the pipe tomorrow, and what’s going to change the game forever.

We'll look at what understanding the customer can do for marketing, taking technology to the next level with mobile and other awesome stuff. You should definitely come.

Cheers!

How to avoid blogging for over a year...

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 19 Jun 2014 19:05:00 +0000

Answer: Change Jobs and have two babies.

In July of 2013 I joined the Lottery Marketing team at OLG in Toronto. I took on a dept with responsibility for all the owned and earned media, digital and traditional as well as all below the line marketing at OLG's over 10,000 authorized Lottery retailers. Change is good. After developing the team over the past 12 months, aligning strategy both for digital and traditional marketing, and getting plans and budgets approved for this year, we're off on an amazing journey that keeps getting better.

Claire and I also had two boys. Monty and Eddy joined us in November and have been winning the hearts and minds of the nation ever since. or pooping-- whichever comes first.

It's amazing how busy you can get if you don't carve out time for a blog. Maybe I just never liked my previous jobs as much, or maybe with two boys there just isn't enough time in the day. Either way, I decided today that I should get a new post on here so I don't feel like such a liar when I read a bio that says Blogger, and my last post was in 2013.

Oh, and kitchen reno--- did I mention the kitchen reno? ~A

Responsive Design vs. Adaptive or 'Screen Specific' Design

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 10 Apr 2013 14:19:00 +0000

We're trying to understand some of the nuances that marketers are taking into their decision making process when it comes to mobile design philosophy. What makes an organization, either from a build & deploy point of view or a 'customer experience first' point of view, choose what they choose when it comes to mobilizing their web properties.

This is not the Apps vs. Mobile Web debate.

What we're discussing is Server vs. Browser decisions about the mobile presentation layer. There are roughly two schools of thought (though lots of versions and variations) when it comes to mobile design philosophy:

Responsive Design - This is where you build a site that adjusts itself in the browser based on how big it is. On a small mobile phone screen, you may have some navigation at the bottom, big easy to follow text titles and large fonts for easy reading. However as you scale up this same code into a tablet or desktop experience, the presentation layer is shifted at different 'break points' and nav may move around, fonts become more appropriate for a larger screen and images fall into place.

Responsive design is also primarily happening on the client side, with the work being done by the browser.

Adaptive or 'Screen Specific' Design - This is a different approach. Designing for each screen is about creating an experience specific to what a user may need. Depending on the industry, this usually manifests as 'mobile sites for specific purposes' trading copy and elaborate image-heavy design for simple buttons, location-based features, click-to-call functionality (since they're on a phone) and that sort of thing.

This is typically handled server-side, detecting a 'User Agent' (the thing that the site uses to determine what browser, resolution, version, etc) and then serving the correct site, be it a mobile site or tablet or desktop or even Smart TV. For brands that want to control individual experiences differently, or simply strip away the web-chaff from the inter-wheat, approaching mobile design from this perspective makes sense.

So is there a right answer?

Different brands have different needs. Like any tactic, there is often a blend of both approaches depending on the user/audience, the product, vertical, as well as real business considerations like budget and speed to market.

Some brands simply let their customers decide. When Google says that 50% of searches are happening via smartphones, companies who pour millions into search marketing need to have an approach to acquisition through mobile. When analytics tells you that 98% of your customers viewing your site from a mobile device are using Safari on an iPhone, iPad or iPod Touch-- this should inform your strategy in the short term at the very least. Companies are still using giant Flash elements for promotions and even navigation on their sites.

So which factors are informing your decision making process? You can help by telling the Canadian Marketing Association what you think: http://4qr.me/cmamobile . It's a ONE QUESTION survey about your approach or philosophy when it comes to mobile design.

Andrew Kinnear is a member of the Canadian Marketing Association's Digital Council, and works at JPMorgan Chase managing digital strategy in Toronto. Follow him @andrewkinnear

Crowdfunding a Movie: Veronica Mars on Kickstarter!

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 13 Mar 2013 20:22:00 +0000

So even though it's a little bit '90210' for someone in my demographic, I've been a fan of Veronica Mars since it/she appeared on the scene. It's sort of a Sherlock Holmes meets High School Drama kind of show, with episodic adventures but a season long mystery to solve. (Bus Crash anyone?).

Anyway, years later, Kristen Bell and Rob Thomas are on board with the studio's blessing to try to fund a movie in a way that's never been done before on this scale. Basically, the more money they raise, the cooler the movie they can make. From Rob's Bio:

Rob Thomas is the creator and executive producer of VERONICA MARS. He is also one of the co-creators and executive producers of PARTY DOWN. This particular Rob Thomas never fronted Matchbox 20. He did, however, put 20 points up on Greg "Cadillac" Anderson in a high school basketball game in 1983.

I Kickstarted this project, but beware that items won't ship to Canada... That's a feature of Kickstarter, not the project, so I opted to get a virtual reward-- though the movie will be reward enough.

What amazes me is the devotion and willingness of casual fans to spend literally more than what some DVD sets cost-- just to get a movie made. Not even to actually get the movie. In this case though, some of the rewards are pretty awesome, including personal voicemail recordings by Kristen Bell, Red Carpet experiences, and even ROLES in the movie itself.

NOTE: This project launched TODAY (March 13th) and at the time of this posting had raised over $1.2mil so far. They have 30 days. This is crazy.

Changing an organization--because of Facebook?

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 04 Mar 2013 18:46:00 +0000

From the 2012 Facebook Best Practices Guide for Marketers

Isn't it interesting that certain changes in the world affect a marketing team, and others, though seemingly important, don't?

That's the approach I took with a recent blog post on the CMA Blog. As part of my work with the CMA's Digital Marketing Council, me and another awesome dude named Steve Mahoney took time out of our busy day to sit down with Facebook Canada's managing director in 2012. (Actually, he took time out to talk to us-- we weren't doing much other than waiting to get some quotes from him...) And quotes we did! ...get?

Jordan Banks, who is the Mark Zuckerburg of the Great White North, was happy to share some insights about how Facebook has affected marketing teams and brands in Canada:

In any given day on Facebook, there are 100 million connections being made between people and brands,” said Banks. “That's 100% YoY growth - so in 2011 that number was 50 million connections. So to me, that's really a proxy for the increased importance of brands in this thing we call the social graph.

What I liked most about speaking with Jordan Banks, and trying to understand the marketing world from Facebook's perspective, was that Facebook is something that is truly new and has never been possible before. Even today, when you go to send a DM to your database or decide on some search terms for a paid-search campaign, you can't target based on who the potential customer IS, only what they've done, or what you see as their intent. With Facebook, (and more recently other platforms) you can finally target that 18-35 demographic you so covet, not based on indicators that lead you to believe they are 18-35, but because they have said their birthday was in 1987. Exactly. And you can wish them a happy birthday too.

To have a look at the full post with awesome perspective from Jordan Banks, as well as my attempt to write a blog post that was a little less conversational, check out the post here: Facebook's Impact on Business: Organizational Changes in Thinking.

Special thanks to Jordan for your time, Stacie and Carrie from High Road for setting it up, and the CMA for publishing.

Scanning at POS: The Past is the future

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 26 Feb 2013 15:50:00 +0000

Myself and some colleagues went down the rabbit-hole on this one a while back. What's the difference between a Laser scanner and a CCD scanner? Won't everyone use NFC in the future? Will payments and loyalty be synonymous?

This is a big nut to crack, because we're talking about physical hardware differences, emerging trends in payment and loyalty technology, ability or willingness for retailers to upgrade or even change POS hardware, retailer requirements for payment type, loyalty card tracking and more.

Let's start with the hardware. Most retailers that scan a barcode on a product when they sell it to you are using some form of laser scanner. These scanners typically have moving parts so as to make the scanning process easier for the employee, but not always. Sometimes you see the straight-beam hand-held scanners in older retailers. The pros here center around flexibility, distance of the scanner from the code and cost. The cons are that there are moving parts that wear out and laser-diodes don't last as long as LEDs (found in the other major type of scanner).

The other major scanner type is CCD. This is the kind they use at the airport and at Starbucks. It has no moving parts and can read codes from shiny surfaces like phones, because it's essentially a camera. It's important to note that in most cases, scanners plug into a POS system just like a keyboard would, so most systems are expecting a string of numbers or other simple data. Most of the time.

I think we're going to start seeing more and more 'low basket' retailers (like Starbucks and airlines, not Walmart or grocery chains) move to the CCD. Reasons why are coming later on. As well, we may start to see retailers like Walmart or grocery chains go dual, to have the speed of a bouncing laser but the versatility of a CCD.

So now we have to talk about 'other ways' to read things. RFID was pretty hot as an 'emerging tech' ten years ago, because everyone thought that the RFID tags would get so unbelieveably cheap that they'd be in everything, and as a result, everyone would need a reader too. Nope. Everything from privacy and security to production costs has slowed the adoption of RFID as a replacement for the UPC. Plus, would manufacturers ever have replaced the barcode, or simply added an RFID for enhanced and evolved retailers...?

NFC is very hot right now and has similarities to RFID in that it's a communication protocol between two 'near' things... Easiest example is your phone with an NFC chip and a reader. We went from putting chips on everything and paying with money to paying with chips and leaving the products alone.

So much technology--- who will win? Can anyone really win? Will the consumer win? I don't know.

Here are some scenarios that make me think we're not even close to the end of the game:

Starbucks: You walk in and show your phone screen, opened on the starbucks app, the CCD reader picks up your account number encoded in a 2D Barcode, validates that there's money in the account in milliseconds (as it would if you handed a gift card) and the drink is paid for. FUTURE: Your actual drink request is encoded in the code as well, so ordering is even faster. Or, even better, you're wirelessly transmitting the order AND payment to Starbucks through the internet. Fast and Secure. Would Starbucks go to NFC? It's a payment channel really, so they couldn't evolve their ordering process or loyalty as easily as through their mobile apps. Plus, lots of phones can show a code, but not many (yet) are NFC enabled.

Apple: You walk into an Apple retail store, pick up an accessory off the shelf. Scan the code on the product using the camera on your phone. Pay using your itunes account already linked to Apple via your credit card or other payment method. The app could make a recommendation based on other purchases or what's in your iTunes or App Store library already. You walk out of the store without even talking to someone. The app is both the sales associate and the POS and the currency is itunes.

Google Wallet Retailer: You walk into a store, pick up an item and proceed to check out. You tap a small NFC reader at POS with your NFC-enabled Android device which transfers both your loyalty and payment information to the retailer. You can engage at that point as well-- do you have points to redeem or a coupon to claim? No problem.

Payments are too easy... What about Loyalty?

Old Navy: You walk into Old Navy. You have ShopKick on your phone and the ultrasonic sound being emitted by the ShopKick hardware in store is picked up by your phone popping a notification about an offer you may be interested in in another department. You check it out and as you walk over, you're rewarded just for visiting the department you may not have normally visited.

Savvy Retailer: You visit a physical store. Your phone pops a notification about an offer to play a game in store. Find a particular product, scan a code and a virtual version of the product will be added to your Sims wardrobe on Facebook. Buy the product and you'll earn your purchase back in Facebook Credits. You get home, visit the game on Facebook and are presented a complimentary offer based on your in-store behaviour. The loyalty loop is completed, backwards.

Everyone has their phone with them at all times. That's the new assumption for retail loyalty, POS, payments and offers. The race now is how easy can we make it for the consumer, how cheap can we make it for the retailer, and how much value can we generate by doing both. We also need to think about how fun it is for the consumer-- can we make it a game. We don't always want ordering our morning coffee to be a game, but for those that want to play, they'll buy more, more often.

So, bringing it all back to the technology: Does the scanner matter? Do you need an NFC reader if you're a retailer? Who is your audience and how do you want to engage them? I don't know, but I think if the consumer is happy and having fun, everything will work out in the end...

Google Page Rank: Dating Edition

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 19 Feb 2013 15:36:00 +0000

Just an interesting discussion from the weekend: Applying the Page Rank/Ad Rank equation for Google Ad Words to dating and social settings. As I understand it, the simple formula is PR=QS x Bid. That is--- how your Page will Rank for a certain keyword equals the product of what you're willing to bid and the quality score of the page.

Quality score is that closely guarded secret of Google, but it comes down to a lot of factors that we could apply to a real world social situation. Google looks at technical things like load speed, site architecture, intellectual things like number of inbound links and the quality of the pages linking, and on-page factors like content, its quality, and how fresh or original it is.

If you think of two people at a party sizing each other up, they can look at many of the same things... What does he look like? Who at the party thinks he's good looking? Is he smart? Who thinks he's smart-- Do smart people think he's smart? Is she rich? Is she well connected? Does she say intelligent, well researched or original things or spout the latest thing she saw on Facebook? We can connect a lot of dots between attraction and Quality Score.

So what about Keyword Bid? Well-- if you have a lower quality score, you can increase your page rank by increasing your Bid. I see this as the equivalent of Breast Augmentation Surgery or a Fancy Mid-life-crisis Sports Cars. (Trying to be non-gender specific here). If quality is low, you must make up for it with money to have the same effect. There certainly is a point (as my friend from Google will gladly point out) that no amount of money will make the page rank higher. In the math world, this is multiplying by ZERO. If quality is ZERO, then no amount of money can make the product something other than Zero. Zero x $1,000,000 is still Zero... :(

So, like any society, those with lots of money (or more than average) seem to be able to attract beutiful partners, even if they are of lower average quality. And-- thankfully, those of high quality character, intelligence, looks, personality, etc manage to do o.k. as well. It's the people with no money AND who are 'low quality' (according to the vanity measures just outlined) that seem to have the hardest problem finding love.

Broke, Not intelligent, Not great looking?? You'll find someone, but they're likely to be of similar 'Page Rank'. Don't worry though, you likely won't notice. It's natural selection, some would say.

A Customer Lifecycle Model: The Tornado

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 08 Nov 2012 20:20:00 +0000

I've always thought of the customer experience cycle or loyalty life cycle as similar and ever-evolving constructs. I developed a model that I've used over the past few years in various capacities and either expanded it or simplified it for the context. Basically, it's a tornado. Customers are sucked in at the bottom when they become aware of a product, program or brand, and from there, they can either fail to convert or get sucked in even further.

The idea is that you can't really become aware of something a second time, only be re-engaged or reacquired. If you end up abandoning the brand or program or product, you're classified as attrition-- but you may get sucked back in with the right motivation or message.

Anyway-- take a look. Let me know what you think...

Here's the link to Youtube.: http://youtu.be/fNzDvYUSYiM?hd=1

The Top 7 'Best Practices' for Travel and eCommerce Sites

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 31 Oct 2012 17:34:00 +0000

If we look at some trends in web design, functionality and usability when it comes to eCommerce, we'll find a lot of them tie back to the customer. Make the experience great for the customer and you'll sell more. Make items or products easier to understand, and you'll sell more. It's common sense, but many sites struggle with the right mix of usable features, understandable benefits and great value.

Here's my list of the top Best Practices any digital marketing team should throw on the front burner during a re-design or strategic development:

1. Invest in quality visual and copy elements. For travel sites especially, customers are doing SO MUCH RESEARCH before they buy. Assume that they're going to hit all of your competitors for price. What's going to keep them on your site longer and give you more chances to sell? Content. Take the time to develop great descriptive copy-- not just fluff, but useful insights about the product or destination-- so that readers can get intimate with what you're selling. Pictures are worth a thousand words, and video is worth a thousand pictures. The more visual and exciting you can make the product appear, the greater chance of conversion. For travel sites, if you're just licensing content from a 3rd party, what is making your site stand out? For products, if you can show me the item in different uses--- not just from different angles-- I'm going to be more engaged.

2. Social Selling is not a myth. Be Social. There is certainly a line between being social and invading a customer's privacy, but finding that line, and approaching it, will help with conversion. The more interactive and 'share-able' your products are, the more likely that you'll benefit from increased awareness. However, Social Proof is a powerful mechanism, and influencers can change behaviour without even knowing it. Make your products easy to share, easy to comment on (and by easy, I mean either wide open and moderated or Login with Facebook, Twitter, Disqus, Google, etc), and easy to keep track of (wishlists, pin to pinterest, etc).

3. Mobile is next. If you're not there now, get it in your plans! If I had my way, every website would be optimized for mobile. People use their phones and tablets for so much these days that building only for a 'desktop' experience is like letting half your customers walk out the door. A friend from Google told me today that 20%+ of searches are happening on mobile devices. Sure, we hear a lot about 'Showrooming' these days, where savvy customers will use a bricks and mortar store to browse and then buy online. The funny thing is that if that store had a fantastic mobile experience-- and by fantastic I don't just mean mobile web, but also thinking about tailored or custom mobile apps, mobile wallet, mobile offers, mobile loyalty and mobile payments--- if they had all that, why would anyone use a different site? If on top of that great mobile experience a layer of social and location data were applied--- customers would be ecstatic.

4. Service and Support will make or break the customer relationship. Put the tools right on your site. Things like live chat, toll-free Click-to-call (another mobile feature...), amazing self-service tools and FAQs that work; these are what every site that is selling something needs. A web form on the 'contact-us' page doesn't cut it. Depending on the size of your brand, you may need a whole team dedicated to social customer service, because people are going to have issues with you, and to our dismay, they will take to twitter sometimes before they find the live chat on your site. The key is to be nimble, and accessible. The customer doesn't care that implementing site features is hard for you, they just want you to solve their problem as quickly as possible. It's basic.

5. Pre-sell your offers from a benefit perspective before the cross-sell and up-sell happen. Give customers a chance to understand the offering available before they have to make a buying decision. For a travel website, these are things like insurance products, rental cars, hotels, etc. Soft sell the availability and benefit of these additional services so that when it comes time to buy, they look no further. In retail, this can be as simple as putting 'Free Shipping' somewhere that follows the user through the experience. When they go to a competitors site and don't see it (whether they do it or not) you're going to make a better impression.

6. Offer a non-traditional way of searching (retail) or booking (travel) to give the customer options. Most retailers have a set and traditional hierarchy: Ex. Mens, Womens, Kids. But taking a different approach, like recommending items based on activity: Ex. Outdoor Fun, Working at the Office, Home with the Kids-- something non-traditional can both set your brand apart from your competitors, but also help your customers discover items they may not have found. What data is available? Do you have data on purchase path, customers who bought x like y, and that sort of thing? How are you using it to shape the experience of the next customer, or even easier-- the returning customer!

7. Gamify the experience to simplify it. Did you know that a simple progress bar is considered a game mechanic? There are many, many tactics that you can use to gamify your site and the buying experience of your customer, but most importantly, evaluate each element for simplicity. If the game mechanic doesn't add value, simplify the experience or increase conversion, don't do it for the sake of doing it. (Sites that give unnecessary badges--I'm looking at you here!) Often, the simple elements like progress bars, star ratings, etc-- the ones that have been proven on billions of transactions from the likes of Amazon and others---these are the tactics to incorporate.

What are some other great things that those in marketing, specifically in charge of ecommerce, travel booking and the like, should pay attention to? At the end of the day, the goal is sales, but if you're only measuring one thing, you're sure to miss a few other important things.

Mobile Payments and Loyalty via NFC

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 09 Jul 2012 14:48:00 +0000

Small businesses and national retailers alike are learning about the advantages for emerging payment tech like NFC. Near-field Communications is the broad term referring to standards for wireless communications typically between a reader and a chip. The chip can be in a phone or a card or a sticker, and the reader can be at a POS terminal, in a phone or another handheld.

The nature of NFC and loyalty working together comes down to the transmission of secure personal information, transaction data, offers, and payment authorization, all of which is facilitated by a mobile wallet of some kind.

There are also other ways small businesses can take advantage of value-added services at retail POS using innovative alternatives like geo-fencing, code scanning, and more.

[Worst thumbnail ever!]

Canadian Innovations in Payment

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 15 Apr 2012 20:15:00 +0000

This is a web-friendly version of a presentation for the Canadian Innovations in Payment Conference. My talk is about leveraging technology to attract and retain customers using various tactics, platforms and approaches.

I also dive a little bit into what customers are like these days, the tech they're using and how psychology plays an important role.

Many of the speakers will be tackling the highly changing and complex world of mobile payments and what's involved in accepting them from a merchant or bank perspective. I took a different approach and decided to look at some of the things that happen before, during and after the payment that can affect customer loyalty, retention, engagement and long-term customer value.

If you attended the presentation and want to connect on LinkedIn, feel free to find me here, or follow me on twitter.

McDonald's Canada and old school loyalty

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 11 Apr 2012 18:14:00 +0000

McDonald's Restaurants of Canada Ltd is doing an interesting thing in Kitchener-Waterloo, Ontario and some other locations with its McCafé Coffee Loyalty Program. I'm not sure if it's a test, a pilot, a powerful franchisee with a penchant for old-school tactics, but they have an 'on cup' loyalty program that must have taken some significant effort to implement. It's in Edmonton,AB, KW/Cambridge/Guelph, and Atlantic Canada.

One side of the cup has a fancy sticker (pretty sure all sizes have the stickers) and the other side of the double walled cup has a 'pull-out' perforated oblong loyalty card. As per the picture above, you simply take the sticker, stick it, and collect 7 for a free medium hot drink.

And now the real question--- Why ?

This kind of program is elaborate from a production standpoint, having to make special McCafe Loyalty cups with extra steps for stickers, perforations, etc. They could have done a separate card and done the stickers like their monopoly execution, but they've gone this route. Ok. Fine.

What about the financials? If I'm a McDonalds coffee drinker, it's likely because of price and convenience, not a loyalty to either the coffee itself OR McDonalds. I like the coffee because it's close to my work and cheap-- it's also pretty good, but that isn't my deciding factor. So why reward with a free beverage? On a side note: Tangible Goods are one of the oldest forms of loyalty, though they still work. They are one of the least 'sticky' and most expensive ways to deliver a reward to a customer, --but they do work.

But then we have the real clincher when it comes to Loyalty and brand engagement, especially in this day and age, and especially for the largest and most sophisticated QSR in the country--- DATA.

They get absolutely no data from a program like this. They don't know who the customer is. How much she buys, how often, with what other products, during what times of day, etc--- Sure they can get most of that from their own POS analytics, but they can't tie that to the customer. They can't reward ad hoc, develop any kind of 1:1 communications with the customer either to promote or simply to solicit feedback for the operations of the business, or build engagement outside of the restaurant.

For all they know, homeless guys are picking stickers off discarded cups and coming in for free coffees. I shudder to think...

So, if this is a pilot, and they are attempting to learn from it, here's what I would do:

Determine what data we can get from these kinds of interactions, beyond just coffee. Issue cards, fobs, mini-fobs (or partner with a solution provider that does something else like SMS codes or apps) to every customer that wants one. Start to tie the purchase behaviour of every customer to a unique identifier. Make sure that there's a reason to show the card (like every 7th coffee is free) but also make sure that the incentive to present is widely appealing. You don't want to ignore a segment and lose out on valuable intel, but you need to balance that with starting to segment into customer value groups.

Learn about your customers. Give them an incentive to share VPI (Volunteered Personal Information) as far as interests and preferences, but also allow them to connect other data sources like Facebook's Opengraph API that can enrich the data with even more usable intel. All this links up with the purchase and frequency data from the POS (to the product level...) to create an amazing picture of what's happening in store. Another side note-- this analytical power can also help store operations in numerous other ways beyond marketing. Marketing is just the tip of the sword.

Develop communication channels and preferences. This is not new, but it's about tailoring the conversation. If Customer A likes getting an email once a week, then do that. If Customer B is fine with getting a mobile alert with a great deal with a 1-hour countdown-- do that. Make sure everything is tailored to the customer and don't feel like you have to blast everything to everyone. Not everyone needs a coupon, so don't waste money on them. When those coupons come in the mail, how much are we really learning from their redemption. (...and don't ask the folks at Canada Post...)

Gamify the experience for the customer. This could put a new spin on a QSR loyalty program. Since you know what restaurants the customer visits, when, what they buy and in some cases who their friends are--- use that to motivate them and change their behaviour with game mechanics. Imagine if I get a free Big Mac when I visit 5 different McDonalds over the course of a month? Or if a family is always buying Happy Meals (again, you know from the data) then reward them with virtual rewards (online gaming credits, Club Penguin credits, fun desktop backgrounds, etc) when they complete a challenge. Gamification can include mechanics that are Behavioural (Status, Exploration, Discovery, Lottery, Free Stuff, etc) or Progression (Achievement, Levels, Points, Movement) or Feedback (Bonuses, Comboes, Challenges, Countdown timers, etc). Not everything has to be a free coffee.

Don't forget about the employees. McDonalds is known for being a great place to work with excellent training, employee engagement and management training programs. Employees can be an amazing asset to any loyalty or engagement program that faces customers, because they control so much of the customer's experience and first impressions.

So--- Million dollar advice I'm sure. What would you do if you were McDonald's Restaurants of Canada and you were looking to enhance customer experience and drive SSS revenue YoY?

Applying Bartle's Player Types to Customer Loyalty Design

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 26 Mar 2012 22:07:00 +0000

Richard Bartle is a British writer, professor and game researcher. He is a pioneer in game design and was instrumental to the popularity of Massively Multiplayer Online games. He's the author of Designing Virtual Worlds and is credited with inspiring the Bartle Test, an online questionnaire that determines a gamer type based on a number of criteria.

The Bartle Test of Gamer Psychology, or simply 'Bartle Test', lumps people into four categories: Explorers, Socializers, Achievers and Killers. Lucky for us, those nicely line up with the four suits in a deck of cards, so we can easily follow a design description that works for Achievers (♦ Diamonds), Explorers (♠ Spades), Socializers (♥ Hearts), and Killers (♣ Clubs).

As intuitive as the four categories are, we still need a basic understanding of the player types before we compare them to a customer in the midst of a brand loyalty engagement. As well, understanding how a Bartle Player-type applies in a single vs. multi-player situation is also relevant to how a customer would interact with others within a program.

♦ Achievers, also known as "Diamonds," are players who prefer to gain points, levels, equipment and other concrete measurements of success in a game. They look for prestige and will go to great lengths to achieve rewards that give them little or no game-play benefit to get it.

Sound familiar? Canada is ripe with Achievers as a highly-penetrated loyalty market. We love our points! In a loyalty context, an Achiever is trying to get everything they can, whether that's collecting an Air Miles Reward Mile at Rexall or earning Aeroplan Status Miles for flying with Air Canada on every trip.

Achievers are attracted to any game that can be "beaten" or won in some way because it appeals to the Achiever play style. Games that offer some kind of special bonues or achievement for beating it appeal to Achievers.

In loyalty, rarely is there an opportunity to "Win", but the act of 'maxxing out' becomes the Achiever's crack-cocaine of winning. If they can double-dip at the grocery store by using a Club Sobey's BMO Credit Card along with the Club Sobeys card and earn twice as many points, they feel like they're winning. If a triple dip opportunity arises with a manufacturer's bonus, the Achiever is over the moon.

One thing that Achievers really like is the opportunity to show off their skill or elite status. They don't particularly like competition from other achievers, and look to the ♥ Socializers to give them praise. The more they achieve in a game, the less likely they become a target for ♣ Killers. These are also the players that enjoy seeing their names at the top of a leader board or ranking. In XBox Live, gamers can earn achievements that they can show off to others all around the world.

In the loyalty world, an achiever is looking for status from the ♥ socializers in the form of recognition, as well as status for statuses sake. Forums and blogs that discuss earning and redemption 'tricks of the trade' often highlight the Super-Users who are avid collectors of the virtual currency or masters of the skies with their un-reachable airline status levels. Much like MMOs, almost every loyalty or engagement program has an element of achievement. Since the psychology of an Achiever is to set sometimes obscure goals for themselves (in the game world) in the real world that can mean going incredibly far out of their way or repeating an action numerous times simply to achieve one more goal. Gas retailers love the Achievers since their product and reward mechanism often requires a customer to go just a little further for the payoff.

♠ Explorers, dubbed "Spades" for because they're the ones who dig around, are the players who prefer discovering areas, creating maps in a game and discovering hidden places. They don't like games that have time restrictions or count-downs as that doesn't allow them the freedom to explore at their own pace. These gamers are also the ones who take pleasure in pointing out a glitch or finding an easter egg.

In loyalty, an Explorer is someone who wants to figure out the challenge. That's their reward. They are the ones scouring the flyers for bonus offer of pudding purchases that they can turn into trips around the world. They're also the ones that baulked the loudest whenever a loyalty program announced they were adding a time-limit or expiration date to their points. They earned them fair and square and getting boxed in to redeem goes against the grain with them.

Explorers aren't as into one on one fighting games and the concept of beating levels or earning points is secondary to the Explorer. The Explorer will try to learn any back story they can find about the people and places in their game, hoping to discover something that nobody else has. Different from an ♦ Achiever who is all about moving on to the next-- an explorer will remember all of their rich adventures and history.

How does this relate to loyalty and engagement? Think about it from a speed perspective. Explorers are the ones that are methodical, read the rules, understand the program and try to seek the best benefit. They also want to go where nobody has gone before-- think exclusive experiential travel redemptions or 'Money Can't Buy' merchandise rewards!

And the reason the Achievers and Explorers share so much in common when it comes to loyalty?

The Explorer and Achiever benefits in much the same ways in a multi-player environment. They are surrounded by people who will benefit from their wisdom and can swap experiences. ♥ Socializers do not mind listening either. The interactions between an Explorer and a ♣ Killer are usually hostile, as the play-type interferes with exploring. However, Explorers will lose interest with any game when they feel it has become a chore to play, with only more of the same ahead. This kind of makes sense for all gamers, but Explorers can be the most fickle when it comes to doing more of the same.

For those designing loyalty and engagement programs, it's the explorers that are the first to attrite from the program or churn as a customer. Once they've figured it all out and get to a point where the only action left is to continue like before, an explorer loses interest in the program and looks for something new. They may keep an eye out for new promotions, contests or challenges that allow them to benefit from trying something new, but a program rooted in change and adventure will keep them engaged longer.

♥ Socializers are are those who play games for the people, not the game itself. They're known as "Hearts." Most of the enjoyment they get from a game they get by interacting with others in a multi-player environment, either people or sometimes even computers with personalities. The game becomes simply a tool that allows them access to people within the game and outside it.

Next generation loyalty and engagement is social by design. Without quantifying the impact of social networks, socializing, sharing, advocacy and other social elements into the value of a program, we would miss the biggest of opportunities. Since a Socializer's objective is not so much to win or explore but to be social, they don't need to find a game that has good game play on it's merits, as they are not there for the game. It seems counter-intuitive. Instead, they are attracted to popular games as they have the most opportunity for interaction.

Online games are very appealing to the Socializer as there is an almost limitless supply of new people with whom they can build relationships. Socializers are the first to import an address book, fill a friend-list and invite others to join in for the fun. For any loyalty program with Social by Design as a key pillar, Socializers are the ones that increase the Virality of the program. (Virality, meaning the likelihood that an idea will propagate between two people). They aren't there to win. They're there to have fun! In many cases they help people out in a game to make friends and see everyone do better. Socializers often become well-known names on discussion boards and forums and can build an offline following as well.

♣ Lucky for us, Killers in the game world refers to a player-type that is vastly different from it's description in the real world. In loyalty, you don't need to kill anyone else to win-- however there are similarities. The "Clubs" of the game world thrive on competition, and specifically from other real players as opposed to computers or simulations. They don't just want to win, but they want others to lose!

Game mechanics used in loyalty design to appeal to a Killer are auctions and races. Not only does the killer get to win, but everyone else loses. Limited-time offers at retail, auction sites like EBay, and even to some extent daily deals like groupon (though you could argue that's awfully social for a Killer) are appealing to Killer player types. They like the idea that they should be "watched out for" since they're so dangerous to the game.

Killers also like to control the environment in which they play. Contests where the audience decides who the finalists will be would appeal to a Killer, as the control over the end result could wreak chaos if they so choose.

Killers are also active the social and economic sides of a game. Market control appeals strongly to Killers, many of whom have a natural talent for reading markets (likely an extension of their common aptitude for sizing up strengths and weaknesses, vital to their play style). Social Killers tend to be community leaders—or trolls. Thinking Killers are antisocial or without friends is a mistake. When designing a loyalty program to appeal to killers we have to remember that they're not actual killers--- they simply thrive on competition. Interesting to be aware of-- if your community has a bored Killer, you could be sitting on time bomb, as their natural drive to compete and possibly destroy can push them to stir up trouble.

So now that we've applied Bartle's 4 Player-types to customers in a loyalty or engagement program, along with some examples, how can we design better programs?

The key when using game mechanics or gamification in a program design is to understand that only certain levers will affect certain people. People are unique and like different things and respond in different ways. By knowing what you're looking to achieve as an audience, you can choose the right motivators and mechanics to get you there.

Thanks Wikipedia for all the examples and whatnot...

How Apple will reach $1 Trillion.

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 29 Feb 2012 18:09:00 +0000

Valued at around $500 Billion today, Apple certainly is doing well for itself. Lot's of iPads, iPods and iPhones continue to roll out of Foxconn in China and into the hands of the masses worldwide. Including China.

That's where it started. Where it'll end up is somewhere amazing. I predict as soon as NFC is added to iDevices rolling off the line, the Apple ecosystem for payments, loyalty and other channels will be firmly in the clutches of Tim Cook and co.

Think about this:

Banks want to own mobile payments, but can't because they hate risk, are laggards in technology and can't innovate.

Merchants want to own mobile payments, but can't because there are too many of them and they're too busy competing to cooperate on something this big.

Startups want to own payments, but can't because as soon as they get a good idea, they need adoption which eventually leads to acquisition by a big tech player. OR they get kicked in the nuts by others in the payment world on things like security, encryption, accessibility, availability, etc.

Credit Card companies (you would think) are poised to own mobile payments, but can't agree on technology, form fragmented relationships with carriers, hardware providers or others and generally don't interact with customers directly anyway (See Banks above).

Telcos and Mobile Carriers want to own mobile payments since they are the link between the customer and the world and already have a billing relationship with every customer, but can't because they won't innovate fast enough. They're also fragmented and would require cooperation beyond just oligopoly-like partnerships like ISIS.

Paypal would love, love, love to own the mobile payments space. They're trying hardware solutions, software solutions, POS workarounds, cloud solutions, mobile app solutions, merchant integration and everything else you can think of (including making awesome videos to convince everyone they're the right choice)...but they can't do it. Why? Because no matter what, they still have to make nice with the merchants to make it work for the consumer, and there are a LOT of merchants.

And that leaves... The Tech Giants.

Google is on an interesting path with Google Wallet. Payments and Loyalty in one slick NFC-enabled experience. The problem for Google is that it's limited phones (the Sprint Nexus) on one carrier, with one bank partner. If I'm the consumer, am I going to switch Carriers and banks just to be able to use it? Nope. But eventually I'm sure it'll open up. The problem becomes adoption.

So, that brings me back to my title. Apple and the $1 Trillion dollar market cap.

Apple doesn't have to worry about adoption. They have have a billing relationship with over 225 Million credit cards (and since I'm sure some of those are one-to-many examples like a family) that's even more actual customer relationships. They don't have to pick a bank or a Credit Card company to work with, because to start, the existing relationships are there. They don't have to pick a Carrier, because they work with virtually every carrier already and they control the hardware AND the software.

I will be able to walk into a retailer that has any NFC enabled payment terminal (and there are lots) and tap my iPhone5 (or other iDevice) to pay. Authentication will be through the AppleID and payment will be to the credit-card connected to my iTunes account. Loyalty and other value-added services can then be integrated into the experience at payment or as a 'trailer' experience back on the phone using an app

Here's where this gets sick. Could Apple become a bank? They've got the cash. Imagine if I made a deposit directly to apple (like we do already with PayPal) and it's held by Apple--- accessible via AppleID or iTunes at any partner. Credit Cards no longer have clout in the relationship chain as their influence diminishes. Retailers continue to work with their merchant terminal and POS providers eventually upgrading to NFC (which everyone says is coming) but some decide that they would rather explore Apple's more novel payment approaches: Geo-aware, iTunes-enabled, non-POS, cloud-based check-out, etc...

Disruption occurs in: Payments, Location marketing, Loyalty & Retention, Customer Rewards, Billing & Accounting, Offers & Daily Deals...

They've got the devices which means penetration, reach, ubiquity and brand appeal. They've got trusted billing relationships with over 200 Million for things like apps, music, movies and TV-- why not extend that to sandwiches, t-shirts and diapers?

When they do adopt this strategy, it will be a lot of regulatory hurdles in each country in which they operate, but this could be what creates the worlds first $1 Trillion company.

How close are we? When the LTE capable iPhone 5 reaches consumers in the fall, it will undoubtedly have a fast chip and a better camera, but it will also have NFC. This will be the catalyst.

Digital Loyalty Data for CPG

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 15:50:00 +0000

Lumping CPG companies together, across different categories, can blur a lot of what makes each category unique. The difference between Baby Care and Ready-to-Eat cereal is staggering-- when you're deep into it, but from the surface, these are all categories that are getting tossed in the same baskets at the same retailers by roughly the same customers.

So how do you leverage Data and Customer Experience to drive loyalty?

First you have to understand that everyone is different. From the moment that mom discovers she's having a baby, until junior goes off to University, she is on a journey along a unique path of the customer life cycle. She'll be exposed to many things that others go through, but she'll go through them at her own pace. Her basket's product mix will shift slightly with each passing week as the baby grows and develops different tastes, habits, visits new places, goes to the beach and take their first fall.

There's only so much data you can infer from a postal code. CPG manufacturers need to understand their customers at a much deeper level if they want to change behaviour, build brand loyalty or anticipate needs to drive sales or product trial. We can look at aggregate purchase data of a 'typical' customer from sources like Coalition loyalty programs, Proprietary retailer programs or measurement data like Nielson. --But this doesn't let you understand your customer to the point where you know the day they switch from toddlers to cruisers or from formula to baby food to solids. You don't know her birthday so you can surprise her or her baby's birthday so you can keep track of their progress. You just know generally what people who look like your customer are doing.

How do you develop a relationship with a stranger?

Answer? You can't. If you want to develop a relationship with a customer, one that's meaningful to your business and their lives, you need the whole picture. You need to know where they're shopping, what they're buying, what they're not buying, when they shop, what their family looks like,-- you need to understand them.

So how do you mesh understanding across an array of categories?

Think of each category like a piece of the puzzle. Understanding everything about one category will still not show you the big picture. You need to try to incorporate all the pieces you have to form the full picture. Some pieces aren't even in your business: The Social Graph. How your customer interacts with others, their friends and family, other brands, all feeds into a holistic view of that customer that is unique to them.

So do we need to know everything to make a marketing decision?

Of course not. Just like when you're starting a puzzle, you have the box to give you a rough idea of what they'll look like at the end. Call this the aggregate or persona data. You generally know it's a bird flying over a lake with trees. But how all the pieces fit together and bring clarity to the image require many pieces of the puzzle.

Where does digital fit into all this?

Everything is about data and learning and understanding. Businesses want to Get, Keep and Grow their customers. Acquisition, Retention and Up-sell/Cross-sell. They want to take all of this understanding and turn it into some kind of offer that creates an incremental lift in sales. That's what it's all about. So what about when you know different things about every single one of your customers? You need automation, machine learning, real-time analytics, real-time customer experience changes, tailored business rules and of course personalized and customized communication deployed automatically. You need a system that can take all of the data from purchase, data from referrals, reviews and preferences, historical data, geographic data, layers of social data and turn that into an experience that scales for every customer. Sounds good right?

This is happening now. Some companies get it and some don't, but most companies that have any SKU level data about purchase behaviour tied to the customer level have started down a path towards this data utopia.

The Illogical nature of a gift card

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 23 Dec 2011 16:52:00 +0000

You can't think of what to buy. You know you want to spend $50. You buy a gift card to a store you know they like. Perfect right? Nope.

If you have to spend that money, either buy an actual gift with a gift receipt (like a gift card, except bigger) or give cash. Why? Well, I've explained it a few times here, and here, but the gist of it is this: You're admitting failure. You're saying "I can't think of something meaningful, but I will have the balls to tell you where to spend my money". That's not a thoughtful gift, that's formula. They do, so I must do.

What about this: Donate the $50 to a charity in their name? Send/Give them a nice card with all the things that $50 is going to do or the number of people it's going to feed over Christmas. That's sweet and thoughtful.

Also-- if you are going to give someone cash, why do the bills have to be new and crisp and right from the bank? The person you give them to is going to A) Spend them, at which point, it won't matter if they're creased or dirty or B) Deposit them back into the bank, which of course will take the dirtiest of money anyway...

One last thing--- Never get those Visa Vanilla Gift Cards. They have all the drawbacks of a regular gift card with the added benefit of an activation fee... GIVE CASH!

Carbon Neutral Beef

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 22 Dec 2011 19:45:00 +0000

It was an interesting idea. Take the cost of off-setting carbon emissions of a major GHG contributor (namely beef for all purposes) and build it into the product's supply-chain, spread over multiple levels, to create a new category of product.

People seem to want to pay more for 'Organic' and other feel good labels. Why not for Climate Change.

Here's how I sold it:

Our goal is to not to simply burden production with the cost of offsetting, but like many other industries, efficiently pass that cost to the consumers who choose to buy and enjoy beef and related products through management and effective consumer and industry publications. By doing so as an aggregate entity, our industry can benefit from scale, and more efficiently convert the mindset of the average consumer to a new, responsible way of thinking.

In almost every scientific study on the topic of climate change, greenhouse gas emissions and global warming, the world's 1.5 billion cattle are most to blame. Livestock (specifically ruminent animals) are responsible for 18 per cent of the greenhouse gases that cause global warming, more than cars, planes and all other forms of transport put together.

As demand for meat increases in our global economy, it is irresponsible of us to believe that humans will become vegans overnight. People love beef. It's what's for dinner! Change needs to happen, but that change can be positive, and have a positive effect on an industry that feeds our world. By creating demand and consumer awareness for Carbon Neutral Beef, we can, as an industry, cater to the changing needs of our consumers.

I decided to shut this project down since 99 out of 100 emails I get regarding the concept are companies trying to sell me SEO services to get me more visitors... I think that's irony, but I'm not sure.

I'll keep the domain forwarding here, since the idea is still valid, and so far I haven't seen this anywhere else in the world. Most of the interest has been from Australia, believe it or not. From that movie with Wolverine and Moulin Rouge, I guess they have a lot of beef down under.

More awesome facts about BEEF:

Burgers
A typical beef cow produces approximately 500 lbs of meat for boneless steaks and ground beef. By regulation, a beef cow must be at least 21 months old before going to the slaughterhouse; let's call it two years. A single cow produces 114 kilos of methane per year in eructations and flatulence, so over its likely lifetime, a beef cow produces 228 kilos of methane (not including the methane from its manure). Since a single kilo of methane is the equivalent of 23 kilos of carbon dioxide, a single beef cow produces 5244 CO2-equivalent kilograms of methane over its life. If we assume that the typical burger is a quarter-pound of pre-cooked meat, that's 2,000 burgers per cow. Dividing the methane total by the number of burgers, then, we get about 2.6 CO2-equivalent kilograms of additional greenhouse gas emissions from methane, per burger, or about 5-10 times more greenhouse gas produced from cow burps than from all of the energy used to raise, feed or produce all of the components of a completed cheeseburger!

At 2.85-3.1 kg of CO2 (equiv) per burger, then, that's 428-465 kg of greenhouse gas per year for an average American's burger consumption.

Game Mechanics you can use tomorrow

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 28 Oct 2011 13:48:00 +0000

I work with a lot of very smart people. Among other things, they design and develop proprietary loyalty programs for some of the worlds biggest brands. One thing that has been around for years but is getting new attention these days is the idea of Gamification; that is, using game theory and specific game mechanics to manipulate or shape consumer behaviour.

Before I get into some tactics and ideas, you have to answer the question 'Why?'. Why add game mechanics to your website, to your business or to your loyalty program? The reasons are easy to understand and ultimately will make you more money:

They focus the attention of a consumer, user or member on a goal or achievement.

They reduce attrition by creating an incentive for continued interaction

They help a business to get users to adopt new features, try new products, or other desired behaviours-- ultimately making the business 'stickier'

From that short list, I'm sure you've already started thinking of the things you could do for your brand or clients or in the retention program you currently use to increase engagement, stickiness and reduce the rate of attrition.

Here are some simple ideas that you can put in play tomorrow:

Status - Whether a badge, a colour or a level, people like to compete and collect. We've seen status used as a game mechanism since the first days of internet forums, but also as one of the easiest to understand in an airline frequent flyer program. Are you super-ultra-elite-deluxe?

Achievement Unlocked - Completion of a task, objective or challenge. This can be simple stuff like a check-in using a location-based application---or something like Do X, Y, Z and get 25% off your next visit.

Turns - Just like a board game, if two or more users have a single goal, making everyone take turns increases the amount of engagement and can help with the social stickiness by pushing some of the social psychology 'buttons' around peer recognition and competition. Promoting multi-customer goals was how the daily-deals business took off... Only 100 more people have to buy and we all get the deal, it's your turn...

Bidding - Probably one of the reasons eBay is so successful-- people like to be the winner in an auction scenario. It's pushing all the same buttons as gambling (which is why casinos are so successful) Just a little more and it's mine! Just yesterday, a colleague of mine told me that someone had bid $20 for a $15 iTunes gift card in a recent internal auction. Sometimes winning overcomes logic.

Capture - Using a mechanism where one user can capture the achievements of another may seem complicated, but it can be very simple in context. Foursquare's Mayor functionality is all about the capture. I get to oust someone else (sometimes a complete stranger) from their achievement and get to sit on my spoils and brag--- until someone does the same to me.

Building or Construction - Just like a board game, building something from nothing is fundamental. On Farmville, it's about growing your farm. In SimCity it was about growing your city. This idea is actually fundamental in loyalty, because it's what drives the desire to collect points or miles and build towards a single aspiration, like a Cruise or Vacation or Big Screen TV.

There are more ideas that you can use in a loyalty program, or in your business operations in general. Some more subtle than others. The beauty of this stuff is that they don't have to be secret or subversive--- you tell your customers what you want them to do, and if it pushes one of those buttons--- they'll do it.

What other levers can you use to increase engagement or reduce attrition?

Check out Mark Sage's Playful Engagement on SlideShare.

LinkedIn recommendations. Why wait?

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 03 Oct 2011 13:17:00 +0000

In the past I've found that people typically only give recommendations after working with someone, not while they work with them. Why is that? Good employee engagement programs have mechanisms for peer recognition that work all the time. Why has LinkedIn evolved in such a way that the positive feedback or kudos mostly come as a past-tense blurb?

I think there a few reasons, and I plan on attempting to shift behaviour in myself and my colleagues over the coming months. My personal challenge is to write a LinkedIn Recommendation for a current or former colleague, a few times a week for the next few months.

So why don't people do it all the time?

The first reason is that it may seem awkward to say something nice about someone and then see them in the hall the next day. I'm not trying to date you! I just think you did a good job, and if that means that all your current and future connections see it, then so be it. I happen to be not much of an introvert, so if I say something nice and public, I'm ok with it. ---the other side of the coin is that you may choose not to display it on your profile if it doesn't quite fit with the persona you're trying to present to the outside world. That's fine. It's your choice.

Why recommend someone? Well-- what's in it for you?

You get the added benefit of real estate on that persons profile, assuming that what you're writing is positive and that they're proud to show it off. If my colleagues read this they may think that the recommendations I write in the next few weeks are for that reason alone, but they're not. Here's the other big reason: It helps us both. Out in the world, where the recruiters lurk, searching people out for jobs and stalking our every move, positive connections help to differentiate you from the next person.

If the recruiter sees two similar profiles, but one has a recommendation-- that's a big differentiator. Sure, maybe that other person could go and get a letter of recommendation, but you've already got it. You've got the social proof that says, "Hey, this guy didn't just sit in his cubicle or office and do work, he made an impression. He was a go-getter". Those kinds of things matter.

What if you're in a fairly senior role with no inkling of leaving? Why bother?

Think of the other person. Even though recommendations can be from peers, reports, bosses, clients, or teams-- it's likely that if you pick one person a week to write something positive about, the good karma will come around. At the least, they know that you value them (along the same emotional mechanics as the peer recognition strategy) but beyond that, you may unwittingly help them to get their next job. For you, it polishes the reputation you've built for yourself in the market. You may be a strong 'networker' but nobody may know that.

What are some other benefits of the recommendation?

For those junior peeps at the company who may not have a ton of experience, it can be a way to say to a recruiter "Sure, I may not have the 5+ years experience you're looking for, but look at what these senior dudes say about me. I'm the person you want."

I touched on it before, but the last thing I'll bring up is of course peer recognition. By sending a recommendation on LinkedIn, you're publicly validating the work someone does in a general sense. Lots of programs have peer recognition mechanisms for specific acts or behaviour but a LinkedIn recommendation is more of a generalized recognition. It says, "Overall, this person was good enough, smart enough or did good enough work, that I thought the whole world should know.

So-- here's my challenge to you. Pick one person a week from your past or your current place of work and recognize their efforts, expertise or enthusiasm.

Technology ideas for meetings and events

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 28 Jun 2011 20:24:00 +0000

I recently wrote a piece for Meetings & Incentive Travel magazine which has also been featured online. The gist of the article is to spark some ideas, stimulate the creative/technology juices and get event planners and others who have to deal with events (like personal assistants, venue managers, etc...) thinking about their audience and some minor details to make things go smoothly.

Part of the team at Carlson Marketing, our M&E folks have tight deadlines, various kinds of clients, group sizes all over the map and a lot of 'balls in the air' to juggle to ensure success. I figured a fresh look at what's being done currently and what slips through the cracks would make a great checklist.

Have a read and leave a comment. If you have other ideas that will be good additions to the list, I'm sure the audience wants to know.

5 things your business should be doing online

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 14 Jun 2011 20:04:00 +0000

1. Listening

I do a few things. I have google alerts set up to alert me of any mention of a variety of keywords that appear in the news, on twitter or in blogs. I want to know when people are talking about me, but I also want to know about what people are talking about. In my field, I need to know about the latest and greatest news of the world. The fact that today, Apple and Nokia came to an agreement on Patents may not necessarily be something I care about, but if someone at my company asks, I'm probably the guy that should know. So how can I make sure I get all the details about everything? Feeds. Reading my feeds.

I probably spend at least 2 hours a day (not all in one chunk) reading the various feeds that come into my Google Reader. Why Google Reader? So that all my feeds, what I've read and what I haven't are always in sync whether I'm at my desk, at lunch, or at home in front of the TV. There's enough duplication between Gizmodo, Engadget, Techcrunch, Techmeme and others that I want to make sure I don't read anything twice if I don't have to. I subscribe to RSS feeds for all kinds of publications and blogs. Everything from Mashable and Hubspot for social media news and tips, to the aforementioned gadget and technology blogs, to mobilesyrup, MMA, Mobile Marketer and the like for mobile news and more. I want a taste of design so I subscribe to Brand New, Logo Design Love, Yanko Design and more.

You can also aggregate site feeds from other places like LinkedIn. I have all the Q&A posts from certain topics go into my Google Reader, since it's not a lot and I want to get them all at the same time.

Even images from your favourite Flickr photog can be fed via RSS into Google Reader.

When it comes to actual conversations, you need to actually read/listen/learn. As much as there are fancy filters, finders, monitors, feeds, apps and plug-ins to make the job easier, sometimes it comes down to reading what people are saying and responding. Being a human is the best part of listening.

2. Protecting your brand

If your business sells a product, you have a reputation to worry about. 9 times out of 10 it's a bad customer service or product experience that has led to someone raging online. If the concern is legitimate, do yourself a favour and come clean. Admit your mistake, be very public about how your fixing the situation, give your detractors nothing to focus on except the positive and move on. It's simple.

When you have someone with a beef who cannot be helped, or who has a problem that has already been fixed, but perhaps not to their satisfaction-- your options start to look limited. Assume everything you say will be made public. Assume any attempt to circumvent a process or bully will be showcased for the world to see. Pretty soon you'll realize that it's better to let some things die off on their own.

3. Make life easy for your customers

Do you sell a product online? Make it easy to return if it's broken, wrong size, wrong colour, etc... If I bought from a store down the street, they'd let me do that. The easier you make your customers life from first click to follow-up email, the more 'good karma' you'll get on the back end. People will recommend your business because of the great experience and pretty soon things like whether or not your 5 cents cheaper.

I tell people all the time about the service I get from ManPacks.com. They're so flexible, their site is easy to use, their customer service emails are answered by a human that I can reply back to with a followup. ---and because of that, I tell people how great they are and continue to buy my underpants and socks from them. Yes seriously. It's awesome.

4. Keeping it real

I touched on this with the ManPacks reference, but how many times have you tried to email a company and received an automated ticket reply or some kind of robotic response. They aren't awesome, but for the most part they're in place because of volume. That I understand.

What about PR then? If you're not actively trying to engage your customers in forums, on Facebook, through Twitter etc... you're missing a golden opportunity. I'm not talking about Auto-replies, Auto-retweets, Scheduled Facebook posts or things that can make your life easier. I'm talking about things that make your life take time. Actual work. Reading something from a customer and responding like a human. Tell them you're the Product Marketing Manager or the Public Relations Coordinator, but make them feel special.

Every time I've ever experienced an 'inside scoop', a secret deal, a VIP experience or reward--- it's always been worth it to the business.

5. ...The same things you do offline.

What's worse than a business who has terrible customer service? Trick question. Answer: A business that has amazing online community management and PR skillz, get's me to friend, follow, like, listen, subscribe, etc--- then when I get into a bricks and mortar location--- everything falls down. Great example: When the waitress looks at you like you have a third eye when you tell her you're the Foursquare Mayor, and would like your free dessert. Ha!

If you are going to do wonderful things online-- make sure you're doing them in the real world too. Training and rewarding your staff (which can translate into good karma online as well). Informing everyone about things you're doing online like blogging, tweeting, etc--- Maybe in the day to day humdrum your staff hear people talking about trying to find the right outlet for a question or comment-- if your staff know to say "You can speak directly with our president by tweeting us @ourcompany" --everything will go better than expected.

Stealth Marketing - would it work?

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 14 Apr 2011 22:56:00 +0000

I'm pretty sure I thought of this idea prior to seeing this preview. The problem is now, people may pick up on the idea...

Google Search Story maker

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 07 Apr 2011 17:08:00 +0000

It was fun, so I tried it.