On a related note about karma, BP is at the top of the bad karma list for sure for its oil spills in the Gulf. During moments like this, it’s usually the true test for the public relations department to come out and perform some kind of crisis management or publicity “clean-up”. Check out @BPGlobalPR on twitter – after reading a few tweets I realized that their PR strategy is to be truly honest. In fact, BP is admitting that they are the bad guy and they are also selling “BP cares” t-shirts to benefit healthygulf.org.

If twitter activism is not enough to keep you informed and entertained, JESS3’s oil spills Firefox plug-in will certainly put a smile on the face – If you visit the site, your screen page will be covered in oil whenever the word “BP” appears. While the above mentioned might not have immediate impacts to the act of bad karmas, it sure is a great outlet for more public awareness and engagement.

From April 7th – April 10th, I’ll be attending and speaking at the eMetrics Marketing Optimization conference in Toronto. These are my thoughts, feelings, and (hopefully) epiphanies from interacting with the world’s best and brightest in the world of digital measurement.

WEDNESDAY – APRIL 7TH – 9:35 PM

eMetrics day one. First off, the conference director Andrea Hadley did an awesome job putting things together. As with any conference, the true direction of thought leadership happens over dinner (not on stage), and sadly my inbox had to take priority this evening. So at this point, all I can offer is a quick rundown and a few opinions from the first sessions of the day.

Kickoff

After Andrea gave a quick intro, Alex Langshur, President of the Web Analytics Association, talked a bit about the WAA. A good summary highlighting the emphasis on community beyond Web Analytics Wednesday, legislation of privacy information, and education. I’m a big supporter of the WAA’s agenda, so it was a great way to start.

NHL.COM

Theresa Locklear, the director of Web Analytics & Customer Insight talked extensively about the reporting practices of the NHL. I was impressed by their degree of transparency – sharing numbers, talking about real case studies (albeit, mostly wins), and highlighting a few examples of real life optimization success. She also showcased an analyst team bigger than many (five to be exact). Clearly the NHL sees value in data driven decision making.

But at the same time, something kept popping into my head. There were quite a few examples of web optimization in the presentation, and when I asked about testing, they said they did none. In my mind, that means the decisions are largely left up to heuristics. Can’t black box that.

Qualitative vs. Quantitative panel

I’ll be honest – I caught what I could of the panel. But I’m trying to buy a house right now in Toronto, and in this market when the phone rings, you answer. But I did see enough to have a few observations.

A. I’m not sure I fully understand the logic behind having five people with (or formerly with) “Analyst” or “Consultant” in their title debating the merits or uses of qualitative data. I think we lost an important perspective by having no pure qualitative researchers representing their field. Back in my old web days, I used to think anyone could do qualitative research. When you work with PHD’s in the subject, people trained in observing and interpreting human behaviour, you recognize that there’s a difference. A few discussions at the WAA Mixer after the session reinforced my thinking.

B. When did “Quantitative” and “Business” become interchangeable? As the discussion progressed, it felt like a bit of a B-School / D-School discussion – not in terms of one versus the other, but in terms of purpose. Research is used for a lot of reasons, and yes, in some situations one is preferred over the other. Tonight felt rigid, like every situation was an either/or but not a both. Marko Hurst was the exception who I thought represented both disciplines well.

So tonight was largely a technology, mathematics, and alienation free evening. A positive in my eMetrics journey. Looking forward to a big day tomorrow.

WEDNESDAY – APRIL 7TH – 7:54 AM.

Today is my start of the eMetrics Marketing Optimization conference in Toronto, an event I am simultaneously looking forward to and dreading. On the “looking forward to” side, there are many, many awesome speakers presenting. From Avinash Kaushik to Jim Novo (a hero in the space) to my always entertaining former co-conspirator Christopher Berry, it’s an all star lineup.  I’ll also be presenting the numbers behind the Aviva Community Fund, a marquee project for Idea Couture in the social innovation and cause marketing space.

On the “dread” side, I can’t help but feel this conference is going to be the end of my formal association with the digital measurement community.I’ve been a practicing Web Analytics analyst for about 6 years now – an old guy in digital terms. But even in that space, I always felt a bit like an outsider as a user experience strategist (researcher) first and an analytics practitioner second – a divide that is becoming an argument of validation versus prediction.

Meanwhile, many of the dominant conversations are distant and foreign. As Web Analysts, we focus our efforts on what will derivate the largest impact. Usually that means optimizing the user experience around the highest revenue-generating opportunities. Rather than focus our efforts on any one individual, we analyze patterns because it’s a better use of our time. But it seems as though we’ve lost our own way – now focusing in on technologies and methods designed to derive actionable results around strategies that most clients can’t afford to build in the first place.

Over the past six years, I’ve seen an industry migrate technologies, define definitions, formalize education, and find its way onto the book shelves of many of my friends (a big win when you feel you’re in a niche space). Our current direction has me concerned that everything’s about to get effed up.

For the rich few, yes, these new methods and technologies can (and will) create a competitive advantage. But for the poor greater, this only further creates barriers to entry – introducing alienating languages, foreign skills, and high costs. I’ve heard many people in this industry talk about how wonderful Web analytics is because it’s accessible to marketers and (with a little help), it can be understood all the way to the top. Because of this, there is power in our recommendations.

While I can’t be certain yet, I get the sense that digital measurement is going the way of the great black box – a fifedome for a chosen few to understand. It’s also focusing on things most clients simply can’t resource against. While, yes, the decision support may push us towards greater accuracy, we can’t forget the politics behind all of this. I’ve been in enough Marketing Business Intelligence briefings to know (whether right or wrong) who makes the final decisions. In the world of mixed quantitative and qualitative data, whoever tells the best story usually gets the most attention. Black boxes don’t make for good stories.

If you ever visit MIT, you’ll see that their floors look antiquated and cracked. It’s because, in many cases, the hallways of MIT were  where the building materials and construction methods were first developed, and they want every student to now, and remember the origins.

Evolution and revolution are both needed, but that doesn’t mean we should ignore where we came from. I’m hoping as the conference moves forward I see a little humanization in the midst of our attempts to automate human behaviour.

I stumbled upon this very innovative magazine that you can actually wear it.  Like the regular subscribed magazine, each “issue”, designed by T-Post will focus on one news issue. In this past issue, you can play rock, paper, scissors with the t-shirt through a webcam. Not only it take publishing to next level, the AR feature just make this wearable magazine much more interesting.

As reported by the New York Times, 2009 was a rough year for the hotel business- budgets were cut, conferences were cancelled, and many of hotels have had to think of new ways to market themselves. What set Hyatt apart from their competitors however, is the fact they did not turn to traditional ad agencies to create a 15 or 30 second spot on TV. Instead, the Hyatt turned to Funny or Die- the direct source for quality comedy material and for a fraction of the costs than traditional agencies. In addition, the fanfare of Funny or Die is unstoppable; they have almost 1.5 million followers on Twitter and almost 50,000 Facebook fans.

Funny or Die’s 2 viral videos for Hyatt can be seen here: Ultra Lounge and Benihana.

Now you’re probably wondering, how does this piece of news have anything to do with Mad Men? On Mad Men, there is an episode in Season 3 where Conrad Hilton asks Don Draper to work on his business in the1960s. The interesting contrast here is that 50 years ago businesses would go to ad agencies for ad’s because agencies had exclusive access to top talent and resources to produce a brilliant TV spot that cost marketers top dollars. In 2010, the tables have turned and the recession has forced businesses to look outside of ad agencies to create viral videos that go beyond TV channels, that will live online, and that will include social media space in turn generating more buzz. The Hyatt versus Funny or Die example is a wake-up call for traditional agencies who are still in the dark, refusing to innovate and rethink their business models. As glamorous and nostalgic as Madison Ave was in 1960s, 2010 is no Mad Men.

So, Facebook is evolving.

With emphasis on at least 3 core web services – search, chat and the upcoming email – Facebook is getting more serious about functions that Google, among others, are doing well at providing. It makes sense. So here are some quick thoughts on what 400 million users are experiencing on Facebook these days:

A bigger search bar, center stage.

Why it’s good for Facebook:

Keeps users in the site; search is clearly important, if it’s done well people may use it. Facebook controls not all but a lot of social capital on the web. Social search has obvious value for them (and us), but will it be enough? Not quite. Then… wait for it…. Bing! At least it’s trying now. With a lot of help from Microsoft meaningful search results can surface from within the Facebook wall.

Why it’s lame:

Integrated search is not executed well at all. Maybe I just don’t know about the secret and strategic plan to roll out reasonable usability at a snail’s pace? The search results don’t integrate with the Bing-driven web results that remain a click away from the sidebar. Google is always atop my browser, one click or keystroke away (F6 for those who don’t know). Why would I switch? Un. Bloody. Likely. Here’s a free tip for you, Facebook: if you can’t solve the true integration challenge, simply try placing Bing results right next to social results. Make that more visible right off the bat and some of us might actually intend on typing something into your search box rather than doing so accidentally. (But as of course that’s unlikely to happen, because we’ve got F6.)

Slightly more accessible chat.

Why it’s good:

Keeps users in the site; chatter is constant. Lots of people sign into this feature already. Maybe now the rest of us who don’t use it a lot will think of turning it on now and again. You know, because your chat box isn’t only available from the bottom-right anymore (a location also known as “the last place a person in the western world naturally directs their eyes towards”)

What’s missing:

3rd party email service integration, Facebook content integration, voice and video chat. Lots of work to do here, but doable, and potentially very useful. What else is missing? My objectivity. At some point in this post I began addressing Facebook as “you”. Ha.

Upcoming email service.

Why it’s good:

While they won’t likely get my business in this area, if rolled out properly they could get a lot of newcomers rockin’ the …@fbmail.com or ….@fb.com – if they could somehow pry that domain from the American Farm Bureau Federation.

Why you’ll wait for version 2:

Facebook will probably push social context down our throats, ignoring that email experience that do not need to evolve into a frenzy of likes and threaded rambling. After all, Google provides Wave for that. If my email procedures get just 5% less efficient, a huge time-suck will ensue. I can’t risk that. This’ll be a tough one for Facebook to generate conversion from, but new adoption is another story.

Ready? Set? Now race to the middle!

In a way, as Google gets more serious about the social game and Facebook moves towards the domains of the Mountain View Machine, we’re looking at a race to the middle that will have some very interesting outcomes, and perhaps some friendly ones as well. Clever mashups are already around; check out Threadsy. Some cool integration there. Now if only it was executed by the data sources themselves, in collaboration with each other. Imagine if Google and Facebook innovated together? Unlikely, I know. But the economies of scale could be there for their servers appetites. Lotta pictures on that site. And growing. Okay okay, enough economic rationale. It’s complex and they are fighting for glory. One is focused on implicit results and the other, explicit. And yes, the fight is too good for now. Like most of us, I enjoy watching it. I also find value in multiple services. I enjoy many benefits from several cloud services, and as for the drawbacks, I try to minimize my encounters with them. I like that the industry is busy and competitive because it’ll make result in better products, ones of better value. Mistakes along then way, for sure. But reasonable competition for the masses. I like that they’re trying.

Trying… and killing it out there… here are some recent stats… go to Facebook the source.

More than 400 million active users

50% of our active users log on to Facebook in any given day

More than 35 million users update their status each day

More than 60 million status updates posted each day

More than 3 billion photos uploaded to the site each month

More than 5 billion pieces of content (web links, news stories, blog posts, notes, photo albums, etc.) shared each week

More than 3.5 million events created each month

More than 3 million active Pages on Facebook

More than 1.5 million local businesses have active Pages on Facebook

More than 20 million people become fans of Pages each day

Pages have created more than 5.3 billion fans

For the last several weeks, much has been written about Rupert Murdoch’s plans to de-index from Google and put up pay walls for News Corp’s digital media properties.

Variety.com (the Hollywood trade publication) has also announced that it will revert back to erecting a pay wall for its content.  Variety.com had this model in place as recently as 2007 when it decided a pay wall didn’t work.  Well, I guess that was then…

And now, we have three major publishing houses announcing that they will hold back e-book versions of some titles, making them available several weeks to several months after the initial launch of the hardcover.  Hey, movie studios have been doing that for years, right?

Finally, the major music labels have announced that they will cease the production of all recordings, digital or otherwise, and force people to attend live concerts if they want to hear their favorite music.

OK, I made that last one up.

Where’s the innovation?  It’s undeniable that traditional media companies are under a lot of pressure to hold on to their revenues.  Some are fighting for survival.  But shouldn’t such circumstances spark innovation?

Let’s look at publishers’ plans for holding back e-book versions of some of their titles.  Is it really a good idea to force consumers to buy hardcover versions when so many of them have already demonstrated that they want e-books?  Is it really a good idea to artificially prop up the value of a hardcover, at the expense of making an e-book a less attractive product, when the trend seems to clearly favor e-books going forward?

Insights into customer needs (e.g. people want to buy, carry around, and read books conveniently) and foresight into the evolving market (e.g. e-book market is growing very quickly; and every electronics manufacturer and their cousin are readying better, faster, do-more e-readers) should be driving innovations at these media companies.

Instead, they seem to be gripped by the fear that consumers who grow accustomed to paying $9.99 for an e-book won’t want to pay $25 for a hardcover.  That may be true.  But what exactly are they hoping will happen?  That consumers who have already invested in an e-reader, and who have already been enjoying e-books, will be willing to pay a premium for a product they don’t really want?   Or that, by making e-books less attractive for consumers, they will simply forget about them and return to buying big, heavy hardcover books?

The ground around media companies is definitely shifting.  The environment is ripe for innovation.  Some will survive.  Some will not.  But I think the ones that will thrive will be the ones that innovate.  I just haven’t seen any shining examples of innovation from the incumbents lately.

What do you think?  Am I glossing over any innovations from the big media companies?

A retailer’s primary role may be that of curator and tastemaker, but that doesn’t mean that the crowds can’t pitch in to help. Modcloth is a Pittsburgh-based online retailer that sells affordable, independent designer women’s fashion. With a recently launched initiative called Be the Buyer, ModCloth encourages its customers to help choose which items to take into production, effectively turning a customer into a virtual member of their buying team. E-commerce functionality + community participation = We-Commerce, and it’s a very efficient method of building both brand awareness and driving advocacy.

The retailer was founded by Eric and Susan Gregg Koger, a husband-wife team who are recent graduates of Carnegie Mellon University. Susan says, “Our customers know our brand best. They’re trendsetters, and we really want to take this opportunity to listen to them, and produce and sell items that they want to see on our site”. This is keen acknowledgment of brand ownership and the value of really letting the voice of the customer be heard — insights not always recognized by more established marketers. There are some designs that the owners think will be hits, but the designer can only put them into production and at a sell-able price if they’re made in a large quantity. As a small company, it’s difficult for ModCloth to make big inventory commitments without knowing if customer demand is necessarily in alignment with the owners’ tastes in style.

ModCloth’s crowd-sourced voting process is reminiscent of t-shirt retailer, Threadless. While t-shirts are almost a commodity from a manufacturing perspective, ModCloth sells dresses, shirts, jackets and skirts that are more complicated to produce. And this is where the virtual buyers come in.

ModCloth’s fans currently have 65 designs to vote on by selecting an item, then choosing whether to “Pick it” or “Skip It”, along with the option of submitting amplifying commentary each design, and to share their voting decisions on Facebook and Twitter, turning the voting process into a useful marketing tool for ModCloth. If a design is taken into production, customers who voted for it receive email notifications as soon as it’s available, allowing them to be the first to buy and wear it. Winning designs will normally be for sale a few weeks after voting ends.

This isn’t the only way that ModCloth involves their shoppers – periodically they invite customers to become fashion writers through their Name It and Win It contests, and features on their website, like reviews and ratings, equal even more involvement. Susan thought it would be wonderful for customers everywhere to get a chance to become a virtual buyer, which was the inspiration for Be the Buyer.

While the concept won’t work for every retailer or manufacturer, it’s definitely one that many could benefit from: by making customers feel more involved, by taking some of the guesswork out of buying decisions, and by empowering customers via social media channels to drive brand awareness and capture customer sentiment and insights. We-commerce initiatives like Be the Buyer are allowing savvy merchants to drive active engagements with their customers that can efficiently drive loyalty, advocacy, and truly meaningful relationships based on that participation.

How do you see the future of multitouch heading? Something more along these lines? I’ve personally found touch desktop all-in-ones to be somewhat pointless, and the only time I use the touch feature is for switching my media.

Check out this amazing video, you’ll be amazed.

10/GUI from C. Miller on Vimeo.

Here it is: my crazy summer project to reinvent desktop human-computer interaction.

This video examines the benefits and limitations inherent in current mouse-based and window-oriented interfaces, the problems facing other potential solutions, and visualizes my proposal for a completely new way of interacting with desktop computers.

There’s more information at http://10gui.com .

The lines between science fiction and the world as we know it are certainly blurring. While we don’t have autonomous machines walking among us today, the technologies in both robotics and artificial intelligence are progressing significantly. We may not have cloning machines, but 3D printers have become an essential tool in the prototyping of new products. And while we’re a long ways away from the ubiquitous computing vision presented in Wall-E, where people live their lives with no awareness of the digital environment they live in, our behavioral dependency on ubicomp, even now, makes it seem as though Pixar’s view of the future is a possibility (albeit, a bleak one).

Ubicomp is not Black or White

Ubicomp is a vision of the future. But if we think of it as all or nothing, we’re sure to miss out on an incredible transformation of society. The ubicomp vision presented in films, academic literature and Microsoft promotional videos seems to be an “all” – everything, every object, contains computing capabilities and works perfectly in unison with its environment.

If we accept that a full-fledged, overnight transformation to a ubicomp society is never going to happen, then we can recognize that we’ve already taken several giant steps towards integrating ubiquitous computing elements into our every day lives. Behaviorally, we’re already well on our way. We’re living in the gray.

Ubicomp & You

Small ubicomp interactions have been around for quite some time. You probably don’t realize it (that’s sort of the point), but there are hundreds of examples of invisible interactions with sensing, inferring, data transferring machines that have made their way into our lives already. From sensors at stop lights that help manage traffic flows to weight sensors in elevators to the automatic shutoff switches that turn off your iron when you’ve let it idle for too long , simple, single function computing has been making our lives safer and more efficient for over a decade. However, most of the examples we have from the past decade represent little technically-enabled blips in our life line that are the ubicomp equivilent of dipping our toes in the water.

This is not the future but the past.

These days, ubicomp has taken on a significantly more important role in product design, serving as a key form of product differentiation. In fact, it’s difficult to find a category of products that hasn’t in some way been “upgraded” with new computational capabilities.  And with this new form of invention, streams of products are  seamlessly replacing the skills humans have relied upon for thousands of years. It’s no longer about efficiency and safety, but about enhancing (supporting, replacing) skills.

Stop light sensors change the rules of how the world works, today’s ubicomp is changing who we are as a species.

Case  1. GPS & Where We’re Situated

For thousands of years, humans have relied on instincts, heuristics and tools to tell us where we are. Maps & compasses required a distinct set of skills, and in their absence, we relied on the stars to direct our path. Fast forward to today, and it’s difficult to find a car that doesn’t contain a GPS system. Humans have embraced the GPS technology so fully that there are literally hundreds of online stories of “car meets lake,” when enthusiastic GPS owners trus their electronic maps over their own visual skills. This isn’t an evolution of the tool. GPS is a complete overhaul of a skill (and clearly before the technology is perfected). We’re always somewhere, and ubiquitous is fulfilling the need of telling us where that is.

Case  2. Ambient Communications & What We’re Doing

While GPS is causing us to lose a skill, the ability to push status notifications to social networking sites has created a new behavior – updating. The desire to feel connected by letting the world know what where why and how we’re doing everything has created a consumer-side demand for devices that facilitate that process. Mobile phones, often considered the gateway to ubiquitous computing, are currently the tool of choice to provide these updates, but with examples of ovens that automatically update Twitter when fresh bread comes out of the oven, input sensors that update facebook when a baby kicks in the woumb, and shoes connected to communities of runners, there are plenty of examples of trigger-based communications that automatically inform the world when something worth mentioning happens. The demand for updating has demonstrated an interest in ubiquitous computing products that do the work for us. Real time is the new status symbol.

Case  3. There’s an App for That!

Over the past year, Apple has successfully popularized the catch phrase there’s an app for that. Since the iPhone app store’s introduction, more than 2 billion apps have been downloaded (with a half billion downloads in the last quarter alone). The total number of apps in the store currently exceeds 85,000. With an app for every scenario, there is a clear, consumer driven demand for computing to take a more prominent role in our lives. People are appifying every aspect of their lives, relying on a form of ubicomp to do everything for them, from telling them the whether when they’re already outside to calculating their tips to keeping them entertained on the street car in to work.

What’s clear from all of these examples is that there is a consumer driven demand for ubiquitous computing in our lives. While we may not be living out Pixar’s fantasy of the future, the foundation of who we and what we do is changing based on the availability of ubiquitous computing. I’m not here to convince you that it’s a good or a bad thing (I have my own opinions). But no matter how you feel about it, our evolution to a ubicomp world is happening.

Look around a bit and I’m sure you’ll notice.