Blog
News, insight and tips from the social web.
The Hoop blog covers the evolving digital landscape, social media, mobile communications, content marketing and also includes 5 top finds and Fish on Friday. Feel free to make comments.
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How are things for you? »
Most of the people we work with are facing big changes. Rather than batten down the hatches, this is the ideal opportunity to innovate.
As business considers the challenges that lie ahead it can, with the right advice and help, discover, trial, and adopt new web based tools that increase workflow, improve customer engagement and drive down costs. These new tools, coming in from the edge to the mainstream, can deliver huge downstream benefits and help make change exciting rather than onerous, and free up people to do more with less.
Now is the time to innovate
Economic pressure, a new Government agenda and a general change in the wind are forcing many organisations to rethink how they do things. As the digital infrastructure around us becomes ever more sophisticated, people are finding new ways to design and deliver services in more agile, efficient and user friendly ways. This is an era of innovation, driven by those that have the vision and guile to make things happen. Many of them responding a social, rather than business need.
The signal we are getting from the people we work with is very clear - with so much technology around, how do we know we are making the right choices? It's a valid point. Keeping up with the pace of digital business is beyond many. But technology isn't really the issue. There's a lot of it around and it's getting smarter everyday. It's what people do with that really matters. And that's where it gets interesting.
In our research work we talk with people about their experiences of using technologies business and consumer technologies. The insights we gain into their needs, frustrations, requirements and capabilities are accumulating in our research knowledge bank. Certain themes recur: (ease of) access, (fair) value, (good) usability, relevance and (quality) service. Compare this desire with the experience most of us have of using existing technology. It's generally the polar opposite.
Fat technology - or light and fast
Many organisations are tied in knots by technology that is no longer fit for purpose. Bloated, over-specified enterprise systems, conceived in a different era, and with little involvement of the poor folk who have to use them every day. It's not easy for a business to uncouple from such systems, but if a strategic decision to do so is not taken, frustrated staff simply work around it in any case.
They generally seek out and recommend to others, web based tools and applications that enable them to work in newer, smarter ways. These tools tend to be easier to use than the systems specified by their employer. By working around complicated and cumbersome IT systems they become freer, more connected and more productive.
Employers should not try to crack down on this and force their people back behind the firewall. Instead, they should empower their people to work in the way that best suits them. Encourage this user led innovation and go with it. Enterprises that embrace this shift away from IT specification enjoy many benefits. Staff are happier, productivity increases and costs are reduced.
People are choosing their own preferred tools
The emergence of web based tools that can be adopted by even large enterprises is part of a wider shift from ownership of technology to subscription. It also marks a shift towards people self selecting the technology they find most useful. What this tells us is that people are taking technology into their own hands and completely redesigning the way they work.
This is another step change in the evolution of the web that's being driven by people, not technology. Many enterprises however, adhering to the top down rather than bottom up change approach are too inflexible to grasp the opportunity. This is unsurprising, and will continue until a move away from IT is common place.
Much of the real innovation in people's hands now happens on the edge, and is often a response to a social rather than business need. In trying to meet or improve a social need, these new tools can reveal new and exciting benefits and even entirely new business models. Tools such as Patient Opinion and MyPolice are bringing service providers and the public closer together and delivering improvements and efficiencies that weren't possible by any other means. School of Everything is revolutionising learning and has the power to make massive savings for Local Authorities. And the king of edge innovations - Twitter - which started out as side project - proves that small tools that aim to do one thing brilliantly can be much more effective than a big one that does many things badly.
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The game’s up »
Traditional advertising is missing a trick - that more and more purchasing decisions are based on the customer’s online experience.
And when that online experience doesn’t measure up, as is so often the case, it doesn’t matter how creative the idea or how extensive the media spend, people are just not going to buy.
Wrong message
Now, before we buy almost anything, we seek out comparisons in performance, price, customer service and after sales support. This change in behaviour affects every business, brand, product or service. It also calls into question the advertising business model. How does it add value online exactly?
Customers have a choice
Sitting between seeing an advert and making a purchase is the online experience. And it’s an experience that often doesn’t meet expectations. However memorable or stimulating a TV commercial or a magazine spread might be, consumers increasingly make their decisions to purchase based on their online experience, on the product detail available, on the belief and confidence the website gives them in the brand and of course, the word of other customers.
Switching over
Companies that fail to grasp the importance of the online experience for their customers and that don’t invest in content or integrate their communications, will soon find those customers have deserted them and gone where they will be valued.
Disappointment is no basis for business
We’ve all been there. You see an advert, find the website but then you can’t find the information you want. Where are the decent product shots? Why is the product description only five words long. No dimensions? Colours? What about finish and material?
Worse still when you Google the product you find a site where somebody has posted a message saying, “Don’t buy this, it’s rubbish”.
So even where the advertising effort hits home and the desire to buy is highly stimulated, if the online experience lets users down then that’s the advertising budget blown, game over.
New game
The advertising industry doesn’t want to hear that their efforts will eventually be directed towards promoting the internet. But that’s where we’re heading. And when this day comes, top of the pile of customer needs will not be brand or price, but user experience. Online, in use, after sales and support.
Online shoppers have a huge choice, they can immediately find and see what the competition have to offer and, if the experience is better, then it really is game over.
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Communication strategy »
Are you tired of being told by consultants what you 'could' do and wish someone would stick their neck out and say what you 'should' do?
Could, should, shouldn't, wouldn't
'Could do' is flimsy nonsense and closely associates with tactics. In our view strategy is about working out first what you shouldn't do, and then being brave about what you should.
Straight talking strategy
We are helping some of the UK's major businesses understand how to develop integrated communication strategies that harness widely available online tools such as social media, user experience, natural and PPC search and content marketing.
Businesses tell us they want
- a marriage of business and digital strategy
- meaningful advice
- creative problem solving
- first rate planning & project management
- measurable RoI
Simple is good
We ask a lot of questions but we like to keep it as simple as possible. What are you doing now that works and what doesn't? What needs to be done to put it right? How do we get there and what needs to happen? Who are we targeting and why do they care? What RoI do we need to achieve?
User centred thinking
We hammer home the importance of user centred thinking because it is users - customers, staff, people - who are in charge of your fate now. Should you be in any doubt just think about your own behaviour and that of those around you. People simply don't work, shop, find or share in the same way as they used to. Expectations are high and bad experiences are never forgotten.
New tools for new markets
The organisations we work with, and the ones that will survive this downturn, are already adapting to keep pace with their customers, staff and future talent.
How can we help?
We can help you understand this changing landscape and introduce practical, cost effective measures to bring your business up to speed. We won't shy away from giving it to you straight. Anyone can suggest what you could do, we'll tell you what you should.
What next?
Our top level service is UXB. It helps you understand your strategy from a user perspective and unleash new opportunities around customer needs. To talk through your issues and see how we can help with some UXB, call Sean O'Halloran on 020 7690 5431 for a confidential chat.
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Education — the next big thing »
Participative culture is connecting people all over the world and creating unimaginable new realities. Welcome to the future of learning.
Being involved in education since Hoop began in the mid 90s, we’ve witnessed many changes in how it’s funded, organised, delivered, marketed and valued. But the changes of the last 10 years are chicken feed compared to those that lay ahead.
As it is in so many areas of our lives, so too is it in education - the web changes all the rules. The teaching and learning opportunities offered by connecting people and content across networks that ignore boundaries are literally endless. And new achievements are being reached every week - think Genome or Wiki and you’re in the right zone.
In an intriguing piece entitled Re-imagining Higher Education, Andy Polaine questions the role of buildings and architecture in education and asks whether we need them for teaching and learning when we can collaborate online?
Those of you who have, or know, children between about 7 and 17 will have witnessed their effortless and simultaneous communications: on myspace, msn, on their mobile. These future doctors, lawyers, footballers and traffic wardens truly are natives in a place where many of us are mere tourists. And so natural is it for them to be sharing, learning, entertaining and creating in this multi-channel way, that from now on, they will demand that this is facilitated - in school, at university and within a year or two, the workplace.
To add value for clients Hoop look for great ideas at the margins of thinking in this area. Some of the ideas explored there will be common place in a few years.
So if you are in the sector or you have kids, hold on to your hats, it’s going to be a thrilling ride!
And if you’re an employer in an organisation that has more than 25 people, get with now, or watch all the talent go work for someone else.
This theme is taken much further by some great people writing inspirational blogs. Recommended reading includes Euan Semple’s blog and Charles Leadbeater, whose brilliant insights on digital culture are not just informative and engaging, they are visionary and highly influential - www.charlesleadbeater.net
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