im-media-te impact by Brian Reich

09:39 am | 0 recommendations | Be the first to comment

A Better Recycling Plan for Boston?

Will you help me create a better recycling plan for Boston?

I live in Cambridge and commute to Boston every morning. I subscribe to the print edition of the New York Times and read it every morning as I commute into work on the T. I always carry the paper into my office and recycle it when I get here -- the T stations I frequent (Harvard Square, Park Street, and Copley) don't have recycle bins. Most of my fellow commuters throw their copies of their morning paper (generally the Globe, Herald or the Metro - our daily tabloid) away in the garbage cans near the exit to the station.

This seems like a tremendous waste and environmental disaster that can be easily avoided. So, how can I get commuters in Boston to recycle more?

I haven't visited every station in our T system, but among the ones I have, I don't recall seing any recycle bins. Other cities have them -- most notably Grand Central Station in New York. When commuters arrive on one of the Metro North trains from Connecticut they can recycle their papers in a giant metal bin before leaving the platform.

I presume there is a reason that the MBTA (our local transportation authority) doesn't have recycle bins in the train stations. One reason could be security -- the DC transportation authority, WMATA, removed garbage and recycling bins for security purposes at one point -- its not unreasonable to think maybe Boston did as well. Another possible reason could be cost -- it is expensive to sort, haul, and then recycle newsprint and neither MBTA or the City of Boston may want to be saddled with. A third reason might be ingenuity -- nobody has yet come up with a good way to do it.

Let's assume that it is the third reason -- and therefore a very solvable problem. And that is where I would like your help. What should the solution to this recycling problem be? What process, or product, or tool, or message would compel people in Boston to recycle their morning newspapers? A local business student created a solar powered garbage can and won the endorsement of the Mayor for his efforts. What could we, as a community of marketing, business, technology, inventor, creative types come up with to solve this issue?

Please help me figure it out. Let's put our innovation caps on and try to build a better recycling plan for Boston. I look forward to your thoughts.

Direct of New Media, Cone Inc. • Boston, MA • breich@coneinc.com • www.coneinc.com

05:45 am | 0 recommendations | Be the first to comment

Can Wal-Mart become the new third place?

Wal-Mart, Home Depot (and surely many others) are designing smaller stores to help simplify the shopping experience and better address the needs of female customers. According to the retail giant (quoted in Marketing Daily), the company studied customers to better understand their preferences and habits. What was the result?

"The new design package is a great example of what we know customers are seeking in this type of store," the company adds. Aimed at women, the store has a "warm ambiance," lots of fresh and organic foods, a bakery, sushi bar and "a uniquely designed health and beauty department."

It sounds like Wal-Mart is trying to create more of a shopping experience -- perhaps because low prices alone are not enough to distinguish them from the competition anymore.

07:42 am | 0 recommendations | Be the first to comment

Lost Satellite

I travel a lot for work, and as a matter of practice will rent a car with a GPS navigation system included. My trip earlier this week – first to San Francisco and then to Los Angeles – taught me a valuable lesson. All in-car navigation devices are not created equal.

When I arrived in San Francisco on Sunday night I rented a car with a Garmin device in it. If you don’t know already, the Garmin device comes in a little pouch and you put the pieces (a screen, a stand that affixes to your dashboard and the plug) together yourself. I successfully assembled the device and turned it on, but my device wouldn’t affix to my dashboard. I had to hold it in my hand in order to read the instructions (leaving only one hand to control the wheel and my attention elsewhere at times). The real problems, however, were with the directions themselves. The system would warn me about upcoming turns but fail to give me a street name or similar guidance – resulting in missed exits off the highway and similar. The signal from the satellite would be lost routinely leaving me driving through the streets of San Francisco without a route to follow. It got so bad that on the way back to the airport on Tuesday morning the Garmin device actually suggested a path that would have taken me more than 30 miles past my airport destination. I ended up stopping to ask a gas station attendant and received better directions to my location.

When I arrived in Los Angles I rented from Hertz and had one of the NeverLost systems in my car. The NeverLost system is in the car and permanently affixed to the dashboard. Selecting your destination requires locating your series of letters or numbers using a rubber keypad, but the system automatically narrows your options based on early selections (i.e. I type in L-O and it gives me two options for cities in California near my current location to help limit my need to type further). More importantly, as you drive, the system offers both written and verbal instructions that include street names or other directions and even suggests early that you move to the left or right lane to prepare for your next action. The only time I lost satellite coverage was when I went underground in a parking garage and service was immediately restored when I emerged again later.

I will only rent from Hertz going forward because their NeverLost system is clearly superior and my travels are less stressful when my navigation system functions as intended. But, this is not intended as a product review or endorsement. With all the technology that we have available to us today and all the opportunities to innovate and improve – how does it happen that I am left roaming through downtown Oakland in the middle of the night without appropriate guidance? How can one navigation system perform so much better – not only in usability, but in reliability? And how can any company, recognizing that the system they offer to customers is so inferior to another, not recognize it has to make improvements (and I mean that for the satellite navigation people and the car rental people)?

Don’t we deserve better as customers and travelers?

Update: Engadget reports that GPS devices are also prone to hackers. Read here.

Direct of New Media, Cone Inc. • Boston, MA • breich@coneinc.com • www.coneinc.com

01:43 pm | 0 recommendations | 8 comments

So, Design is Biased By Class. Now What?

The South-by-Southwest Interactive Festival (SXSWi) brings together many of the best and brightest minds in the technology, design, and communications/entertainment world for four days of panels and parties. The crowd here seems to be largely on the same page – they are comfortable with the (very rapid) pace of innovation in this space, desperately anxious for new insights on what the next big thing will be, and confident (at least on the outside) of their own abilities. Almost by definition, we are an elite group of thinkers and doers for this space.

The goal of the event, now in its 14th year, is to tap the collective brain trust of this elite audience and channel their knowledge to keep the interactive industry all on the bleeding edge. The secondary goal, of course, is to find better ways to engage the audience who will ultimately use the technologies and content we create. What does the bleeding edge look like to us? In the first four panels that I attended on Saturday (the first full day of events) the bleeding edge included things like advergaming, widgets, and the future of movie and television production and distribution via the web. From my perspective, none of those discussions pushed much beyond the basics and certainly didn’t challenge me to think very far (if at all) outside my current experiences and understanding. I’m sure there are lots of people who don’t live and breath this stuff every day that would have found it all very interesting.

Then the last panel of the day convened.

I don’t know what the capacity crowd was expecting when they gathered for the “High Class and Low Class Web Design” panel. The four design experts were supposed to discuss whether high-end products like Apple and the New York Times design up to their elite customers while Wal-Mart, Fox News, and World Wrestling Entertainment target their working-class customers very differently (read: design down). The underlying question was whether there is a class system in the design world.

The panel didn’t do much with the topic. The meandering discussion touched on everything from user-process testing and audience panels to accessibility. There were some definitions of class offered and some bland answers to questions provided. What was striking, however, was how defensive the panelists became at the thought that their design work, or their approach to that work, could have a class bias. The crowd also reacted, with uncomfortable laughter and shifting in their seats when ads for Apple.com were compared to foot fungus medication ads. In the end, I think we all got a figurative kick in the head.

Why was everyone so uncomfortable? I have two thoughts. My first thought is that it is true -- there is a difference in how design is applied to different products or issues based on the educational or economic status of the target audience – and that is sort of painful to acknowledge. There is nothing inherently wrong with this practice of targeting ads based on what the audience knows. After all, the purpose of advertising is to sell products, build brand or sway people’s perspectives about an issue. The more closely aligned the ads are with the experiences of the audience being targeted the more likely they are to resonate and be effective. But if we are deliberately dumbing down our ads or design because we think that is what the audience is capable of (when they are capable of more) then we are unfairly stereotyping. My second thought is that the assembled crowd at SXSWi, and those who we represent in the interactive design and communications space in particular do not acknowledge widely and publicly enough that this is what we do. As such, we feel guilty when we are called out for it.

With that in mind, I want to issue a challenge for the interactive industry – and the designers in the group in particular. I think most marketers underestimate their audience. I think we too often believe that our education, creativity, and experience separate us from the people that we are trying to reach – that we are more sophisticated or know better than they do. It is grossly unfair to generalize, I know, but I see it all the time and I am guilty of it at times myself. So, I challenge the marketers, and designers, and others who are gathered at SXSWi to change our thinking – as individuals and as an industry. We should evolve. We should do better. Next year at SXSWi we should not debate whether there is class bias in design (we should accept that there is) but rather identify where the opportunities are for improving design across the board. We should get hands on, work with both our audiences and the designers, to understand how a rising tide can lift all boats.

Good design is absolutely subjective, but as long as we as an audience of elite thinkers in the interactive space snicker and look down on the design used to engage audiences who are not in a position to attend SXSWi, we are only contributing to the problem. A powerful innovation in our space would be to help the practice of design, and web experience, to truly challenge our audiences differently. I believe that we can use design to inspire and help all audiences learn and experience new things, instead of playing down to a lowest common denominator. Over the next year, and particularly at SXSWi 2008, I think we should prove that.

Director of New Media - Cone Inc. • Boston, MA • breich@coneinc.com • www.coneinc.com

03:28 pm | 0 recommendations | 9 comments

Are Websites Not Innovative Enough?

I asked a group of people recently what they thought were the most exciting things happening in the new media space right now. I got a range of answers: mobile messaging and advertising, games, social networking, video, even podcasting made the list. Nobody mentioned a website they were blown away by or something innovative that an organization, or even a media company, had done with their site. Sure, all the elements they mentioned live on or launch from a website, but they could just as easily be free-standing (and they have become destination elements for most of the people I talked with).

The consensus: Websites are pretty boring right now.

Apparently my little focus group is right on the money. A new study by the Web Marketing Association found that most website development is not keeping pace with consumer expectations. The results were released along with the results of the WMA’s 2006 Web Awards.

To determine the best sites the WMA examined entries from 97 different industries in seven different categories (design, content, technology, interactivity, copywriting, ease of use, and innovation). The top award for sites went to TBS's Department of Humor Analysis site, which helps to promote the network's various comedy programs through Web video and viral features. The airline industry was the category that was seen as the most advanced in Web development. The site in the airline space that has received most of the accolades was American Airlines’ Why You Fly campaign site.

It seems to me that the TBS site is successful because it is focused, easy to navigate, and still manages to deliver some very compelling (read: funny) content. The American Airlines site, meanwhile, provides all the services you would expect in terms of booking flights. But the site can also help you with trip planning details – and American is not the only airline to offer that type of add-on. There are a lot of sites that are easy to click around but have boring content. There are even more sites that offer compelling content but are hard to navigate. The true innovation with both these sites is that they offer users a complete experience when they go online, not a one-trick pony or something that has all the bells and whistles but no substance behind it. The judges obviously recognized what us web users have known for a long time.

There were some dogs among the bunch as well – the financial services industry, for example, was considered to be very short on innovation. Financial services companies spend millions of dollars a year to recruit new customers through online advertising and have invested heavily in technology for data security and to support accessibility for aging and disabled users. But in terms of customer experience and ease of use once someone is signed up and using the site regularly -- most fall well short.

Designing focused and engaging sites for the web is not that difficult. Too often we let technology drive our decision making and we forget what its like to be a web user – what information is compelling, how to help someone through the process of completing an activity on our sites, and similar. Study up on the results from WMA, there is much we can all learn.

Direct of New Media - Cone Inc. • Boston, MA • breich@coneinc.com • www.coneinc.com