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.

Don’t forget about us.

A core component in the Singularity-conversation is the topic of the evolving humanization of computers. But how come we don’t speak much of the reciprocal mechanization of man? It’s a two-way street, but most of us don’t consider this in the big picture. Our natural processes are constantly influenced (for better and worse) by the machines in our lives.

I suppose we’re victims of our own subjectivity and don’t quite consider it, or maybe we’re in a collective subconscious state of denial. Whatever the reason, it’s happening, and we ought to start paying more attention because we just might lost the very thing that makes us human, the je ne sais quoi that computers don’t have but we’re trying to provide them with.

They learn from us.

In his book The Age of Spiritual Machines, Ray Kurzweil discusses the future course of humanity, particularly relating to the development of artificial intelligence and its impact on human consciousness. The book predicts that machines with human-like intelligence will surface and be readily available, revolutionizing most aspects of life, and that eventually humanity and its machinery will become one and the same.

As we journey toward the realization of his prophesy (*crosses fingers*), we will continue to encounter the progressive humanization of technology all around us. Today, this idea is fairly well known due to the exponential progress rippling through our world. More and more, we are redesigning our technology to merge into our lives as opposed to the inferior method of attaching to our lives. The merge-factor provides a more physical (sometime human-like) vibe.

Example: Instead of scanning headlines from site to site while scrolling your mousewheel (think: attached), throw them away along with your newspaper and pick up an iPad and flip away with the more natural behavior (think: merged).  This is pseudo-empathetic technology that feels more like Mom than it does Microsoft. The iPad promises a more physically intuitive interface that sympathizes with our workflows and playflows.

And the idea of intuition is key, as it’s a core differentiated human capability. Consider that your word processor has never corrected you by articulating “ummmm… I think you really meant to say it this way.”  Aside from spelling and grammar correction, MS Word can’t do that (yet), because it’s stuck with the intuitive abilities of a plastic bag. However, progress is indeed happening.

Example: New, intuitive features in Gmail Labs. Google presents us with some cool tricks, such as the “forgotten attachment reminder” that knows if you meant to include a file with your message. Also, there’s the clever “do you also want to send this to these people”, the feature that learns your patterns of group addressing so no body gets left out. Wonderful examples of progress in this space surface all the time, you just need to learn how to recognize them. Keep watch.

We learn from them. (Sometimes not in a positive way.)

So the code is getting smarter, more human-like, more intuitive. Intuition and intelligent choice-making are key elements of humanized computers. Intuition is understanding intention, and that’s something people do very well compared to machines today. Intention is often removed from our overt behavior, and is something interpretive, fueled by creativity, pattern recognition and emotion. Computers can’t really see something if it’s not in front of them, if it’s not overt or somehow defined. To date, most technological intuition is merely faked. It’s nothing but a sham, incapable of trusting it’s gut and relying on immense computation procedures (think of Chess applications that use brute force calculation instead of creative approaches).

But here’s the thing. As machines learn from us, we learn from them. The relationship is remarkable, and we best not lose the plot, because we’ll need the things that differentiate us as humans to get to the Singularity. We must not lose ourselves to the seduction of passive, predictable calculating behaviors of Turing machines.

Are our intuitive abilities degrading with each Google search? Are we sacrificing the capabilities of deductive logic reasoning with each query or Excel calculation? I think we are, to a certain extent (although not quite with the drama of recent headlines: “Is Google Making Us Stupid?”).

What about the sense of exploration? The hunger to discover wanes in some way with every “recommended” book, song or blog post. Sure, we’re still discovering, but we’re not being psychologically gratified the way we used to be when we figuratively hunted for our dinner. This must have an effect on the thread or our psychological evolution. For example, I used to enjoy the magic of discovering a new album. It was like winning the lottery. Today, Pandora, Last FM and the like have contributed to the demise of such experiences. Instead of feeling the awesome sensation linked to the victorious discovery of something great, I find myself more often disappointed with the less-than-accurate suggestions of the recommendation engines of the web.

The fundamental approach that we take to problem solving today must be taking it’s toll on our thinking patterns as well. We used to think differently. Maybe not more (we’ve never enjoyed more access to more information), but definitely differently. We are being rewired to operate in ways that are aligned to the mechanical behaviors that we increasingly depend on to get us through the day.

What have we become?

Why develop a sense of direction when your car’s GPS system can lead the way? Why hone mathematical estimation skills when your spreadsheet’s got them covered? Is the art of  creative writing hindered by the guidance of Microsoft language tools? Vonnegut’s texts would undoubtedly be underlined green throughout. With Guitar Hero at their fingertips, will the musically-inclined youth realize potential skills and contribute to the creative catalogue, or will they be satisfied with the gratification of 87,000 points and an unlocked song?

The use of computers has clearly altered the human way. And maybe that’s okay. But at what cost?

My favorite example is Chess. In his excellent review of the book “The Chess Master and the Computer”, god-like Garry Kasparov explains:

The heavy use of computer analysis [by professional chess players] has pushed the game itself in new directions. The machine doesn’t care about style or patterns or hundreds of years of established theory. It counts up the values of the chess pieces, analyzes a few billion moves, and counts them up again. (A computer translates each piece and each positional factor into a value in order to reduce the game to numbers it can crunch.) It is entirely free of prejudice and doctrine and this has contributed to the development of players who are almost as free of dogma as the machines with which they train. Increasingly, a move isn’t good or bad because it looks that way or because it hasn’t been done that way before. It’s simply good if it works and bad if it doesn’t. Although we still require a strong measure of intuition and logic to play well, humans today are starting to play more like computers.

Will innovative chess die with the dependency on computer analysis and training? Perhaps.

The message that I want to leave you with is this:  don’t enslave yourself completely to whatever digital tools you’ve got in your life. Keep an eye out for areas/skills in which you particularly rely on technological support. In a simple application of this, don’t be afraid to rely on your own brain to remember a phone number or address, and don’t shy away from performing calculations in your head when performing quick estimations.

Use it, or lose it.

While the ticket prices are predicted to go lower than their current price tag of $200K, it is foreseen that the general public will soon have the opportunity enjoy the experience of weightlessness. Getting the public engaged and updated on the progresses however, is certainly one challenge that needs to be addressed now. The role of education in doing so is extremely important in order to prepare the next generation for the future’s new travel destinations. If people and the private sector are going to play key roles in the future of the private space travel, it is crucial for them to be well informed about the hurdles and the benefits of the space travel. This will in turn lead to better engagement by a larger population and will culture a new generation of entrepreneurs and innovators who understand the challenges and complexities of living and working in this new environment. 

Credit: Virgin Galactic

I recently attended the Next generation of Suborbital Researchers Conference in Boulder, Colorado and I’d like to share some observations that I found very interesting. Firstly, the involvement of the female researchers in this conference, was notably higher than any other professional conference I had been to in the field of space studies. It appears that there is going to be a shift in the male dominated field of Aerospace.

There was also a tremendous amount of attention and time centered around education and the future of suborbital flights. Teachers, professors, and government workers seem to all agree that the K-12 and university institutions need to be more involved in the future of suborbital research and it is the space sector’s role to be more open with their present material, future plans, as well as be willing to get involved in all layers and stages of the education.

T use of social networking sites to publish and engage people was one of the great ideas that was discussed in the conference. The initiative to involve the public by use of social media was brought to out attention by the Planetary Institute- an organization that runs different projects to involve public in their missions. 

An example of this is the mars express visual monitoring camera. European Space Agency’s operation center began a blog in August 2008 to invite the public to process the images received by the camera. They asked the public to take the raw images and process them further. What was important in this initiative though, was the trust created between the space institutions and the general public. It was the first time that data was provided to public as well as the first time public involvement was used in the creation of the final work. Within a few hours someone responded to the post and sent this image back:

This view of Venus is processed by an amateur, Mattias Malmer from 78 Mariner 10 frames captured through orange and ultraviolet filters.

On October 2008 Richaerd Garriet, the game designer and entrepreneur took his first flight with the Space Adventure to the ISS for his 12-day travel in space. Since the flight, Garriet has been giving talks and lectures in number of conferences and has shared his journey to researchers and people in industry. One great innovation by him is the Sports in Space website where people can play different sports on different planets. The interactive design of the game is a great tool to teach people how certain actions vary under different gravitational conditions. 

http://www.challenger.org/sportsinspace/

Whether you dream about playing football in space or simply gaze at the blue planet from the window of the spaceship, the sky is the limit. So, buckle your seatbelt, we’re on the root to an exciting time in the history of flight.

References:

http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2007/08/virgin-galactic/

http://www.planetary.org/explore/topics/imaging/data.html

http://www.challenger.org/sportsinspace/

Being the dean of a design school is no easy job today. Design schools are struggling to serve three masters: the student, the industry and society. The last one is a new one as generally designers have now come to a consensus that designs for social change is a part of the design agenda. With limited time and resources, design educators need to define a strategy for the D-schools’ future. Is it to teach the person/artist to create?  Or about training craftsmen (both traditionally and with software tools) to supply to the industry? Or to develop thinkers to be able to solve wicked problems?

Three Things They Don’t Teach You In Design Schools

Design education is becoming so broad that educators are finding it difficult to balance breath and depth, not deep enough in some areas and not general enough to cover the ever-expanding design practices. I am afraid we have not come to a conclusion as to what design education should be like and are simply continuing to train the design thinkers of tomorrow in the techniques and tools from the past.

Here are three lessons from industrial design on engineering desirability that are borrowed from sociology. After all, industrial design is about getting humans to buy, use and love products. If you sent your ID designers to talk to the dating experts (generally not free), here’s what you’ll get:

1/ A few mmms here and there can make a big difference. According to the Journal of Psychopharmacology, when we’re drunk, guys look cuter because we don’t notice the asymmetry of their face. The biological explanation: A symmetric guy is less likely to have genetic defects and makes a better mate. Male or female, the sex appeal lies mainly in face shape. One example according to paleontologists, the dimensions of the region between the mouth and the eyebrows are crucial in determining how attractive a man’s face appears to the opposite sex. For product design, there is specific asymmetry that determines the attractiveness of a product, and they may not comply with human factors or ergonomic principles, but what’s more important? An attractive boyfriend or an ergonomic boyfriend? Not sure if people know it, your nose should be part of foreplay, not only in sex but also in product design and marketing.

2/ The power of smell. Smell is a relatively new element outside of the personal care and cosmetic industry. Here’s an example from the work of the Smell and Taste Research Foundation based out of Chicago, the blend of lavender and pumpkin turns guys on. Do you remember the smell of leather (real leather) in a new car, it didn’t last very long but it felt so good. My favorite is the smell from an Abercrombie store. Every time I bought something, the smell is there and that reminds me of my fun college days.  I wonder why my iTouch, MacBook, Blackberry or Canon Powershot don’t have any smells on them; particularly because it is something I carry all the time. Wouldn’t it be great if my Blackberry had a unique smell that corresponded to and changed according to who was on the other end of the line? Another million-dollar idea here.

3/ Colours are always sexy. Why aren’t your products colourful? According to research, men are attractive to women who wear a particular colour and find them more desirable. Pantone can make us more desirable to the opposite sex (email me and I will design your personal colour mood board). These are cultural specific naturally. Why red for Valentine’s Day? That’s a colour associate with romance and the primal instincts that links the color to sex. That’s also the reason why the butts of some animals turn red when they are ready to mate. Look at the red colour interior of Bugatti Veyron! It is not just about using colours, but using it strategically.

Here’s a simple test, have your girlfriend or boyfriend try on different colours of sweaters from J.Crew and you will see why he/she looks particular attractive in certain colours. There is research to show which colours work better when creating desirability. But 90% of products out there were not designed with that in mind. More often than not, someone randomly decides on what colour should be used. If you want your product to be sexy, spend more time with the Pantone guide and your customers. Colours can always add magic.

I’m not sure how your snow adventures unfold, but mine usually begin with a vain attempt to coordinate more than two carloads arriving at the mountain at different times, followed by a ride up a lift and a good long stare at the trail map at the top during which we try to memorize a way down, hopefully bumping into our friends without too much grief.

On the way down I frequently veer off onto the wrong run by mistake, sometimes even ending up in the wrong place altogether, annoying my riding companions in the process.

Mobile phones and two-way radios have gone a long way toward helping with these situations but there’s still room for more comprehensive ways to a) not get lost, and b) more thoroughly enjoy time on the mountain with friends.

This goggle concept pulls together a heads-up display, GPS/accelerometer technology, and mobile messaging. Available functions at any given time depend on whether they’re set to Stop or Go mode.

In Stop mode there are several things a wearer can do:

• Read incoming messages from friends as text, or voice converted to text
• Activate an interactive target marker to geo-locate spots on the slopes he wants to find again. Perfect while on the lift scouting terrain to hit on the way down.
• See which three runs are closest or most readily accessible from the top of the current lift or gondola

In Go mode, a wearer can:

• See his speed
• See which two lifts he can most readily reach from the trail he’s on
• Track his set targets

All modes show a compass, live trail map, time, temperature, altitude, current location (trail or lift), song selection, and the locations of up to five customizable friends who have the same goggles or GPS-enabled mobile devices. Any of these functions can be programmed to disable in either or both modes at the user’s discretion for skiers or riders who prefer less of an interface.

Goggle view in Stop mode, targeting

Goggle view in Stop mode, accessing message

Goggle view in Go mode

The relation of conceptual design and social interaction is an important issue that influences the future of industrial design management. The Social Web has made astonishing progress the last two years, while advanced manufacturing technology emerges in an endless stream. The results are an extensive amount of accessible data that can promote endless new ideas for innovation. The environmental effect and social moral concept of design, the manufacturing place and method of product, the materials, function and usages of product, as well as abandonment and recovery of product, have become the new connotative meanings of conceptual design. This goes beyond traditional product design.

From the design of product into the design of service, the design of material object into the design of virtual product and the design of service into social interactions… a completely new mode of industrial design is emerging. The whole world is moving into the era of accelerated digitalization and extended collaboration. Then, maybe we should be training a new breed of design called “Social” Design? Well, that’s sounds like “Anthropology meets Human Factors”.

There’s a NY Times article on Japanese industrial design guru Naoto Fukasawa. It is an interesting story about his design journey. He is being called a later day Charles Eames and is highly respected in his field. According to Brown, “He is able to interpret the relationship between people and objects in a way that is at some level obvious, yet nuanced and sophisticated. His approach to design isn’t intellectual, it’s human.” This is an interesting one, I find that architects can design great things while striving for an unrealistic level of perfection, yet industrial designers are looking for all the human elements or solving little problems of our lives. And, product development folks just want the coolest features they can add to it. Three very different schools and these are just my personal experience working with some of the best people in the business.

The world of industrial design is a great culture consisting of humanistic spirit, appealing aesthetics, human factors, philosophy, science, human interactions, space and technology. The industrial design culture is a product of this period, stigmatized distinctly with times. It is easy to see that the method and means of industrial design needs to evolve. I propose we stop calling it “Industrial” Design. Let’s use “Sustainable” Design and “Social” Design instead. After all, these names are way cooler.

Image Source: http://farm1.static.flickr.com/182/381627583_64915bfae0.jpg ;http://www.bdonline.co.uk/Pictures/web/u/p/p/Naoto_Fukasawa_for_web.jpg

Innovation doesn’t have to invent new products. It unlocks hidden value in existing ones – thereby reinvigorating a business without completely reinventing it. It is a disciplined process by which an idea is generated and that results in significant economic value creation and improved customer experience. Many of today’s ideas on innovation are about coping with unpredictability rather than understanding the key forces that create it.  There are “predictable elements or pathologies”. Once you know what those pathologies are, the process of creating profitable innovations is not as inherently unpredictable as you once thought. Because of today’s exaggerated sense of uncertainty and foreboding about the future, foresight is in great demand.  The future is much more important than the new, the hip and the cool; we need to develop a deeper understanding of change. Strategy must be created from the future backwards, not from the present forwards. This underlines the short-termism of many of today’s innovations which place too much emphasis on what your market research reported this month. The future is often a mix of revolutionary change and continuous evolution. Management teams must accept the challenge of innovation in a way that is appropriate in context and differentiates them from the competition.

Look at the media industry, we have more media options than ever, except that less and less do they include print newspapers. So what to do with those media options? What opportunities does a newspaper-less future afford? What about the auto industries? We are not seeing a future without cars, just very different kind of cars or different ways to own cars? For those who take seriously the idea of creative destruction—that innovators destroy business structures in order to create something new—how do you envision reassembling the essential parts of a media business? In the future of media, which is now, everybody is a network. In the past, networks were defined by control of content or distribution. But now, you can’t own all distribution and content is controlled where it’s created.  The problem newspapers face isn’t that they didn’t see the internet coming. They saw it but instead putting the energy and resources to preserve the old business model rather than inventing new ones.