12 March 2017

Posted at 10:13h in Uncategorized by

Uber had a rough month in the media. A former female engineer exposed their culture of sexual harassment and Newsweek best highlights a dozen other problems with the company. Rationally, knowledge of these might be enough to impact one's use of the app. Much of their behaviour is really not cool. But I continue to ride with them. I can't really justify it, but Uber retains a high enough level of motivation and ease - the two factors you need to impact in behaviour change. That is, until this week. An Uber trip that was fine until I got out of the car, when the ride wasn't terminated by the driver. I realised five minutes later, took a screen shot and cancelled the trip (automatically paying the full fare as it was at the time I cancelled). A disappointing experience, but one that could be easily corrected when I sent Uber the screenshot. Sadly, more than a week and eight emails later, as well as several attempts on social media - I still have not been refunded that portion of the trip. Here's how a driver's mistake becomes an incompetent company cheating a customer. An infuriating loop of scripted responses quickly shows how poor their system is. Particularly when none address my actual problem, and are always condescendingly signed off with how much they appreciate the time I've taken. When I finally get through to a human, I'm told "the fare you were charged is within our estimate for the trip [...

02 March 2017

Posted at 20:34h in Uncategorized by

I had a great idea. Based on an old blog post, I intended to remove all unnecessary uses of the word "that" from Wikipedia. I created an account called removesthat and got started. Using the random page feature I spent an hour finding dozens of inappropriate uses of "that" and deleted them. He was dismayed to discover that his granddaughter did not know what coal was. became: He was dismayed to discover his granddaughter did not know what coal was. It makes the writing more concise and saves five bytes of bandwidth on every page load. Once I'd done a few thousand I was going to write up the stunt and see if it could get some traction in PR. It was going to be a fun side project to kick off the year. But less than an hour after my first edits, they were reverted: I attempted to point out Mean as custard's arbitrary decision making and the irony of indiscriminately reverting all changes, but ultimately I ended up dealing with a troll. And you shouldn't feed trolls. (Interestingly the Washington Post has covered this user before!) I guess not every idea is a good one. All I got out of it was this crappy blog post!...

04 February 2017

Posted at 12:19h in Uncategorized by

I do not like junk mail. Which is why I have a No Junk Mail sticker on my letterbox. It's meant to stop catalogues and flyers, although is frequently ignored by businesses big and small. Last year I got six from one pizza shop who each time assured me it wouldn't happen again. They always blame the distributors. It's difficult to find research on how many Australian households have these stickers, so I conducted my own with a sample of 500 properties. (Happy to admit this was not random, but based on the first 500 mailboxes I came across in the northern suburbs of Melbourne.) 30.4% had No Junk Mail signs. I wondered, what would be the impact if the junk mail system was opt-in, instead of opt-out? As behavioural economist Dan Ariely tells us, the default option in a system has a significant impact on how we make decisions. We see this most dramatically in organ donation around the world, where countries similar in culture, religion etc. have very different outcomes. The critical factor is opt-in versus opt-out. [caption id="attachment_1201" align="aligncenter" width="474"] The difference between opt-in and opt-out of organ donation.[/caption] A month later I measured how many had been removed and how many remained. 61.3% of the No Junk Mail stickers were still on the letterboxes.Applying this thinking, I conducted an experiment by printing 150 No Junk Mail stickers and placing them on letterboxes around the neighbourhood. Imagine our junk mail system was opt-in instead of opt-out, where people would put a Junk Mail Please sticker on their letterbox if they wanted to receive catalogues. We'd shift from 30.4% of households not receiving junk mail to 73.6%. [caption id="attachment_1202" align="aligncenter" width="470"] The difference between No Junk Mail and Junk Mail Please systems.[/caption] The industry would more than halve over night. And so too would the landfill.And this doesn't account for how much harder it would be to source a Junk Mail Please sticker than taking off one of my homemade ones. Nor does it account for the social norming which would shift perceptions once it had a majority. Of course, the marketer in me knows the channel is an effective one. Retailers invest in catalogues because they work. I have a client whose most successful marketing activity to date was a fridge magnet drop. Doesn't mean I wouldn't mind seeing the end of junk mail though!...

15 January 2017

Posted at 12:38h in Uncategorized by

[caption id="attachment_1191" align="aligncenter" width="700"] Kittens (or memes) aren't a social media strategy.[/caption] Our Global Chief Strategy Officer says "Everything communicates." Not just your communications. Your product, your customer service, your price point. The perception of a brand is informed through experience, not just ads. Your social media strategy communicates too. Obviously the content itself, but so too does the way you approach the channel, where you invest your time and money. Everything communicates. And these days social isn't a single line item on the bottom of a media plan. Bigger budgets every year support the channel which is long over due - too many brands over invest in production relative to distribution. As the channel matures, so too must our approach. Unfortunately brands still think the answer is memes - attempts to 'hijack the conversion' with reactive content. Now, armed with a media budget, they have reach. In two days I've seen half a dozen attempts by local brands to jump on the salt bae and jacketgate memes (don't worry, I had to look them up as well). And there's more every day. Please, stop doing it. Far more often than not: It's too niche or early for people to have context (so much wastage) It's off brand (and it's not distinctive if everyone is doing it) It's off strategy (if you even have one) You don't own the image/video rights or talent usage (ask your legal team) It's lame (especially when you PR it in trade press) No doubt it's more engaging than the shitty content you put out every other day. But if you wanted to be popular, you'd just post photos of kittens. Just because it's getting lots of likes doesn't mean it's working....

09 January 2017

Posted at 23:19h in Uncategorized by

[caption id="attachment_1193" align="aligncenter" width="700"] Your lizard brain slows ideas.[/caption] It's nearly a decade old, but as relevant as ever: Always. Be. Shipping. I'm very slow at shipping ideas. From big side projects to short blog posts (like this one). They often float around in head for weeks, then longer as notes on my phone. Only much later do they turn into something. Sometimes. Seth Godin says it's our lizard brain. It slows down ideas and kills them through inertia. I also find it stops new bulbs from lighting up - there's only so many ideas I can keep in my head at once. If I don't get them out fast enough new ones don't come. But it's never been easier to quickly get from light bulb moment to shipped product. It takes almost no time or effort or cost to gauge demand or build a prototype. Technology let's you make things (or break things) fast. Or bash out a hundred words. There's probably something to be said for letting ideas sit to evolve. They "stew". But I find it doesn't happen without action - researching, brainstorming, writing. Especially when Mario Run doesn't let you get bored enough to stew them over. (That's why you have your best ideas in the shower.) I love pushing things out into the world. Even pressing the Publish button on a post. Not just because people engage with your idea, but shipping one creates space for the next to exist. If you don't, your current small ideas (or bad ones) might be blocking that next big one. I'm not very good at it. 73% of my blog posts last year were published in the last week of the month. I don't have a schedule or volume target - I post whenever I have something worth sharing. Yet my lizard brain apparently likes an artificial monthly deadline. Rarely do I post more frequently, unintentionally holding out on a post idea to 'tick' off that month. And while my brain is holding ideas, it's not generating new ones. I'm not really one for New Year's resolutions, but this year I want to move faster with ideas. Get them out into the world sooner (and not just one at the end of each month). Starting with this post, based on a conversation I had with a colleague only three days ago. Normally it would take me a fortnight. And I've got another post to write tomorrow. Freeing up the mind keeps it hungry....