Productivity squared? Future productivity vision 2011 (video)

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Many of us web techies have seen the 2009 version of Microsoft’s productivity vision. In their video, Microsoft offered an outlook on how technology could “transform the way we get things done at school, at work, and in the home over the next 5 to 10 years”. Some things have become real in their vision…

Many companies fear that productivity might get lost with the advent of Millenials working in companies in the future. And one things is for sure, screens will change our productivity and our daily working habits in the future.

Also, in their latest version 2011 we can find visions that seem to be not too far away from us, not even visions any more. The video gives still some interesting aspects to think about on how future technology could make our time more efficient to focus our attention on productivity. Now, whether this really strenghtens our relationships when we do different things at the same time, needs to be seen.

Watch it and tell us if this is how you would like to see your productivity squared, and if this is to become real in your future…?!

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Is this how Google affects our memory? (infographic)

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We all rely on Google search to find the truth on our current questions, right? Isn’t it scary in some way? Is Google becoming our brain in the future? What if you cannot find the answer on Google? We all use Google – and not only search. But do we use it too much? Could Google become an intelligence pitfall?

An interesting infographic by Onlinecollege.net on “Google and Memory” explains the impact Google has had and will have in our daily life in the future, especially on our collective memories. The infographic is well created as it separates “The Google’s Brain” into four separate quadrants. And all of us who use Google can see what effect this has on our habits… We don’t need our brain anymore it seems. Google give us all information: “just a click away”, “available all the time” and makes us remember where we stored the information we needed.

Will we forget to memorize? Will we lose conceptual thinking? Will we be misinformed?

1 in 3 of 18-34s will do mobile shopping this christmas

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Harald Wanetschka/pixelio.de

Are you going shopping in stores to find some christmas presents? Or will you be doing your shopping tour via mobile? Well, if you use your mobile you are not alone…

According to a UK survey by marketing community site UTalkMarketing and online survey platform Toluna. 32% of 18-34-year-olds will use their mobile to buy Christmas presents this year.

However, this might sound as if only the young generation is shopping via their mobiles, the study makes clear that also older age groups are purchasing mobile with an increasing amount: 14% of 35-54 year-olds and 9% of over 55s year-olds also plan to get their presents for Christmas by using their mobile.

“The fact that a third of young adults are planning to buy their Christmas gifts via their mobile device is proof that the year of mobile-commerce is finally upon us. The fact that most mobile shoppers will do so directly via a retailer’s app is also strong proof that brands wishing to contend in the mobile-commerce arena must do more than simply provide a mobile optimised website,” says Melanie McKinney, Publisher, UTalkMarketing.

The survey questioned 1,300 UK consumers and found that iPhone users are the most likely to make a Christmas purchase via their device. 42% said they will make a Christmas purchase via their iPhone devices. 31% of those that say they will make a Christmas purchase via their mobile will use a BlackBerry and 27% will do so via an Android phone.

However, the advent of HTML 5 is near, apps are the retail channels of choice for the survey’s respondents. 88% of mobile shoppers will only make a purchase this Christmas if their retailer of choice has a transactional app. Only 12% of mobile shoppers will make a purchase directly from a retailer’s mobile-optimised website.

“The results of this survey are a clear indication that retailers cannot ignore the mobile-commerce wave. They need to adapt to and embrace the changing ways consumers now shop,” states McKinney.

Spot On!
Poor shops on the streets… The study is a good proof that mobile commerce is on it’s way towards mainstream. Also, the tablet movement, especially with the increasing use of iPads these days, will change consumer habits to go shopping in the future. Another YouGov survey released earlier this week suggests that 84% of consumers will buy at least one gift online this year with a third saying they will buy all of their gifts online. However, marketers have to be clear about the fact that more than a quarter of consumers (26%) are concerned about privacy issues when it comes to shopping via mobile according to the uTalkMarketing survey.

The Virtual Handshake

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Marko Greitschus / pixelio.de

When I was a kid, my grandparents had a little pub. Nothing special. Nothing glamorous. Just a comfortable meeting point for friends or business partners to catch up for a drink. The best day always was the “market day”. Merchants were setting up their booths at the marketplace in the little village my grandparents were living in, early in the morning when most people were still snoring in their beds. When their job was done, they popped up at the pub around 7am when their wives took over to sell their goods.

The guests in the pub did not expect very much. A drink was their desire. A tasty sandwich was luxury to them. Competition amoung pubs was tough, even in this little village a long time ago. There were many pubs around in that coal distrinct north of Germany. The owners of the other pubs in the village changed more or less every year, some even earlier. My grandparents’ business stayed for over a decade, until they decided it was time to stop working. The guests loved their attitude, their individual touch, their personalized way of talking to them. My grandparents’ business was successful.

What was the key to their success story?

Before I answer this question, let me ask you something… When did you shake hands last time with a friend, or a business partner? Do you remember? Did you ever think about why we are shaking hands with people? Have you ever not returned a handshake? It is a common habit of introducing ourselves and of saying Goodbye. We just do it. Well, let’s say in the offline world we do it…

Those days, whenever somebody came into my grandparents’ pub, my grandma and granddad gave them a personal handshake, embedded in some small talk about the weather or last nights sports results. The conversation made people feel good, feel wanted, not just being anonymous guests. They created a living room. People started talking with them about their personal hopes, fears, issues. The handshake had broken the ice…

In our social web world of today, customer relationship management and social networking become an increasingly important factor to be maintain a successful business within a more and more challenging and competitive world.

Many relationships today begin with a virtual handshake. So you may ask: What is a virtual handshake? Today, it comes in the format of a comment on a blog post, a LIKE on a status update on a Fanpage, an introduction mail inside a social network, or an invitation to join a community (Facebook or LinkedIn or a company specific).

In the offline world, nobody would turn away and not return the handshake. However, in the online world individuals put effort in terms of writing, talking and engaging with companies and brands, making their brand passion transparent, or just opening their minds to “business” (or privat?) conversations. All of that often before having received a virtual handshake with those companies that are reaching out to them via their -often anonymous- social hubs.

By participating in a community or engaging in conversations, customers take the initiative, they state a case and describe an act of will. Companies tend to forget that this is a virtual handshake. “Hello! Here I am! Look what I am telling you…”.

Many companies and brands do not answer. They don’t reply on social networks. They don’t value the hand that is right in front of them waiting. The hand which feeds them and their business. The free opportunity to connect, collaborate, or convert. Lack of time and resources is the killer of many of their social web activities.

My grandparents never forgot to shake hands with people that came to visit their pub. This was their success story. So simple, right…?

Think about it next time you set up a group, start a community or approach someone on a social network (be it via InMail on LinkedIn or a status update on Facebook). Relationships start with a handshake – whether real or virtual. There just needs to be somebody that returns the handshake. For some this might be a change management process, for some it is just natural attitude towards customers…

Prime Time in TV and Mobile Apps is similar

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The prime time for TV broadcasters is 7 p.m. to 11 p.m., for radio it is all about commute time, and for the web it is completely different. While news sites have their peak in the morning and midday, the internet at 7 pm. Social Media sites have their main usage time in the evening like TV. And how about mobile web usage? Is it following TV’s prime time?

A study by Flurry shows the audience for iPhone and iOS apps increases during the day and finds it’s peak at about 9 p.m. “Mobile consumers are using apps either instead of, or along-side prime-time television and the Internet,” tells us a Flurry blog post on the study. Well, it is a US usage study but I can imagine that many people in the rest of the world also change their habits and use mobile devices while watching TV. The two-screen viewing seems to become common standard.

Nevertheless, the relative size of the TV audience during prime time was larger than that for mobile apps with over 60%. And when app usage remained higher than TV from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m., and higher than the Internet, it suggests that people spend quite some time accessing the Web during their working hours. Still, mobile apps already reach over 20 million U.S. consumers per hour in the time between 7 a.m. to 11 p.m.

The numbers come as no surprise, seeing that Flurry estimates the combined number of active iOS and Android devices in the U.S. at 110 million. If produced properly and promoted correct, apps could act like TV shows in the future. Although it will be difficult to target apps through app stores by age, gender, dayparts like TV, the future could look different and these targeting opportunities might evolve over time.

Spot On!
The question is what the future of app usage will look like (think about HTML 5 and some other reasons) and how this will affect the advertising industry. At the moment, many companies focus their main interest on apps but mainly to push their brands, and not often to create something extraordinary that really competes with TV. Although, there s a massive opportunity to reach mobile consumers overtime, everywhere, companies are not very innovative in establishing TV like series that could affect the TV world – neither in Social Media, nor in Mobile. If this remains as it is, TV will not have to fear the Prime Time power of mobile.

Studies: The internet is more important than water…?!

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Can we access the internet if we have nothing to drink anymore, if our water is poluted? No, we can not! Sometimes, adults should ask themselves about, and quickly start to re-think, the values that they hand over to our kids. I am happy to have spoken with mine about this topic last year around the Blog Action Day 2010…

Some weeks ago, I have written about a UK study from the London Science Museum made clear that UK people rather prefer to have sunshine and internet connection than clean water. Now, Cisco comes up with a similar study.

The Cisco study states that one in three college students and young professionals consider the Internet to be as important as fundamental human resources such as air, water, food and shelter. The study is based on the second annual Cisco Connected World Technology Report. It examines the relationship between human behaviour, the Internet and networking’s pervasiveness across 14 countries in the world (United States, Canada Mexico, Brazil, United Kingdom, France, Spain, Germany, Italy, Russia, India, China, Japan, Australia).

Mahesh Gupta, Vice-President, Business-Borderless Networks, Cisco (India and SAARC), said in a teleconference on Thursday that about 33% across the globe and 95% Indian college students and young employees admitted that Internet was as important in their lives as water, food, air and shelter. The internet has become a crucial important thing in peoples’ lives. More than half of the respondents (62% of employees and 55% of college students) said they could not live without the Internet. They see it as an “integral part of their lives”.

From a face-to-face social perspective, it is also quite amazing to see that people had indicated that Internet was more important to them than meeting with friends, dating, or listening to music. Like in the UK study, updating Facebook seems to be of the highest priority – higher than socializing. Gupta stated that within certain countries 91% of college students and 88% of employees globally had Facebook account and check it on a daily basis at least once. Furthermore, seven of 10 employees have “friended” their managers and coworkers on Facebook, and 68% follow their manager or their work colleagues on Twitter.

From a hardware point of view, mobiles rank highest as their important technology device, as high as being “the most important technology”. Two-thirds of students and 58% of employees felt that a mobile device (laptop, smartphone or tablets) was the most important technology hardware in their lives. Young employees in the UK (74%), India (71%) and Australia (66%) ranked highest when it comes to the importance of mobiles devices.

Spot On!
The study also shows some trends that other industries should watch out for. When two of five students have not bought a physical book (except textbooks) in two years, this is a clear message to the print industry. And when 2 out of 3 choose Internet connection over cars, the it becomes clear why concepts like BMW Drive Now and Smart Car2Go become popular. However, the new trends also need to be watched from a distraction point of view when being online.

Let’s hope they don’t forget to drink some water…

And we will say… These were my Facebook days!

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Facebook is not new? Well, correct… Facebook is complete new! It writes our lives…

I just realized how Facebook ruled my last three days offline and online…

On Tuesday, I was shaking hands with Carolyn Everson, (Vice President, Global Marketing Solutions) after her presentation on stage at the dmexco Conference 2011. Yesterday morning, I enjoyed an espresso with Scott Woods, Commercial Director DACH at Facebook. In the afternoon, I was moderating a panel on engaged consumer advertising strategies. Topic: Facebook. Obviously, Facebook was one of the main topics we discussed…

And then, the evening came with the big announcements. I was on the train watching the announcement of the new Facebook features at the f8 conference. Techcrunch told us how to get into the new Facebook in minutes. However, only the owner can see it until the 30th of September.

And what can I say… Welcome to my Facebook life!

The main three changes for me…
– the massive lead picture – reminded me of a former Myspace design.
– the two frame structure – offers a quicker overview on personal infos, updates, activities.
– the missing picture gallery – enables people to do some personal or company branding with these pictures. Cool!

The main three “Likes” from me…
– The coolest feature is the Timeline. If Google is changing our brain, then Facebook is pre-writing our autobiography.
– People can be creative in terms of the mixture of their conversational ingredients – text, video, audio. This makes a profile colorful and lively, apart from finally understanding that we do not “LIKE” everything – we shop, we act and we like!
– It is much easier to see which updates were uncool and not engaging. Kill them to make your profile look conversational. Aren’t we kind of authentic…?

Facebook wants to get away from throwing sparks in our days – it aims for long-term relevancy. It wants to be the ever-lasting spark. Our memory…?! And when we are old, we won’t tell our grandchildren stories of the past. We will say… Just read my Facebook days!

Incentivized ads boost brand perception, study finds

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According to a recent study by KN Dimestore and SocialVibe brand messages and incentives influences most consumers to pay more attention to ads. In fact, if companies combine these two advertising and brand strategies, the interaction of consumers with brands increases by 91% and brand perception by 38%.

The study -which gathers data from more than 30,000 survey respondents- reported that when 48% of survey participants initially opt-in to engage with a brand for the incentive, they stay and pay attention to the brand message.

The aim of the study was to find out if and why incentives prompt people to engage with the advertisements, how they affect consumer perception of the brands, and if they influence people to visit the company’s website or „buzz“ their friends about the offer. Respondents gave feedback on ads from U.S. brands across financial services, CPG, entertainment, e-commerce and technology categories between June and July of 2011.

Some key findings of the study…
48% of those interact because of the incentive but pay attention to brand
12% interact purely based on brand
31% interact for brand and incentive
9% interact purely for the incentive

The results summary makes clear that engaging with the ad increased the odds that the consumers would purchase the product. Above that, incentives through ads drive website and in-store traffic, as well as purchases – and also conversions. Happy customers are coming back more often to the website when initially satisfied with an incentive through incentives. 36% of respondents were more likely to purchase brand-related products at physical store after interacting with the ad.

SocialVibe names the strategy “value-exchange brand advertising”. The company defines it as ads that ask for a consumer’s attention in exchange for something they want, such as virtual currency for social games or making a donation to charity. There is a clear differentiation from sign-up and straight purchase intended offers like cost-per-action (CPA) advertising.

Spot On!
The study is an interesting step in indicating the value of ads for branding. Generating consumer interest and awareness get’s more and more challenging these days with the masses of advertising we are faced with on a daily basis. Mobile advertising shows some similar development in terms of incentivization and engagement. Often companies said that the value of ads is getting lower as they just value it from a conversion-based ROI perspective. However, the study now shows that earning points, virtual currency or some other rewards finds the atention of customers. That’s when conversion comes into play, and that’s where brands need to foster engagement to a purchase via the right communication tactics.

Criminology and Law Enforcement Officials Using Social Media To Fight Crime

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For years now, the world has become a very high-tech place, and just like with everyone else, criminals are also becoming more astute and coming up with more technological ways to break the law. Ever since the Internet started seeing widespread use, Criminology and law enforcement officials have been playing catch-up to try and monitor all of the offenders that are currently on the web. Now, as social media has taken hold, it seems that officials now have a new tool in fighting crime.

Social media has allowed the world to become interconnected and interface with one another through the digital format of social media. More and more of our connections are going through online forums, but it’s also having the side-effect of keeping track of everything we say. Law enforcement agencies around the country are beginning to realize the power of social media for their own purposes.

Police blogging has become relatively popular lately, and it’s beginning to allow police stations across the country to keep up on the events of the day. Many people are already familiar with the police sergeant sitting at the registry desk, but now a station can keep track of Twitter feeds, blogs, and updates. It offers officials and the public a real-time way to see the crimes that are being committed in their area. These blogs are publishing crimes and arrests and keeping track of the real-world activity through online avenues. This is becoming a very useful tool to keep an open dialogue and exchange of information between citizens and police. Average citizens can also post on these blogs to let police know about what’s going on and it’s quicker than a phone call.

There have been sites where people could go online and see the latest wanted criminals, but now different law agencies are beginning to use Facebook, Twitter, and other social media platforms to update and keep people aware of local criminals that are at large in their area. The great thing about social media is that it’s instantaneous, and officers can keep the public aware of what’s going on up to the minute. This has been done through fan pages as well as local and district specific pages. Their usage has become more fine-tuned over time, and it’s increasing in regularity. It’s another example of how much social media is changing our everyday lives.

Many aren’t aware of the term, but social media stakeouts are becoming a popular tool to find criminals in every background. Some social media advocates argue that this has become a sort of invasion of privacy but police and law enforcement officials aren’t hacking into anything, they’re merely listening in. Whether you agree with it or not, it’s given police the ability to track important information and search real-time for offenders and key words and phrases that are of particular interest. This social media monitoring is a preemptive measure that’s getting a lot of attention. There exists the possibility that these social forums could be abused by officials but there’s no doubt that it has helped them to keep up with the times.

It’s not clear as to how much control different offices of enforcement really have over our personal and social media accounts. There’s been a lot of speculation over Facebook’s complicity in working with companies and governments and sharing personal information. Currently, it’s only through accusations. People are worried about “big-brother,” but it’s essential that we give our law enforcement officials the tools they need, within reason, to combat crime in an evolving society. Otherwise, we could run the risk of giving criminals a better ability to curtail the law and hurt others.

This post is a guest post from the Davenport Institute.