Mobile is New and Disruptive — How Are You Going to Meet the Challenge?

Harvard Business Review (HBR) published a graphic today with the title, Vision Statement: How People Really Use Mobile, and I've emailed and shared it with hordes of people. It's commonly accepted that mobile is one of the top disruptive technologies (arguably the top), and I think we're all watching and waiting as to exactly where and how far it's going to go. Today's HBR piece was an interesting piece of the puzzle.

In summary, a study was completed in two phases in 2012 by InsightsNow for AOL and BBDO.

• In the first phase 24 users completed a seven-day diary and in-depth interviews. 
• In the second phase, 1,051 U.S. users ages 13 to 54 were surveyed, data on 3,010 mobile interactions were collected, and the mobile activities of two-thirds of those users were tracked for 30 days.

An easy-to-follow infographic was created to show how smartphone users are using their phones and includes the breakdown of the seven primary motivations of phone usage. (The limitations of this blogging platform do not do the graphic justice, so look at the original HBR graphic here for best clarity.)

Harvard Business Review graphic from Vision Statement: How People Really Use Mobile

1. The largest motivation, 46%, is "Me time", where the user seeks relaxation or entertainment such as watching a video, playing a game, window shopping, or reading a gossip site.
2. The second motivation is socializing and interacting with other people, but excludes email, SMS messages and voice calls. Facebook and Twitter perhaps? The study doesn't tell us.
3. Shopping is next, at 12%, 
4. Accomplishing things such as managing health, finances and productivity are a close fourth at 11%.
5. Preparation/planning for upcoming activities comes in at 7%.
6. Discovery/seeking news and information is 4%
7. Self-expression, participating in hobbies and interests comes in at a lowly 1%.

I ws surprised by several of these study results:

1. The majority of users, 68%, are using their phones at home. (Did they exclude maps and directions? Did no one in their study use their phones as GPS devices?)
2. Email and SMS are specifically excluded from the study, with no obvious explanation, and is called out in the comments. And is email really dying the death we keep hearing about? Surely I'm not the only one who checks my email before I fall asleep.... (Or am I?)
3. Where is listening to music on this list? Is it included in "Me Time", or not included? When I was on the Metro in Paris a few weeks ago, half of the people I saw were plugged into their smartphones. What were they doing? Listening to music? Podcasts? My teenager and every teen I know have their music libraries loaded onto their phones, and listen to them constantly. Their smartphones have replaced iPods and MP3 players.

As a top disruptive technology, we can only try to anticipate where mobile is going to go. Brian Solis has a great article, Forget about Social Media for a moment. What’s your mobile strategy? that digs deep and gets to the crux of the matter with these strategic questions all businesses should be able to answer:

Customer behavior is evolving. Technology is evolving. Is your digital strategy evolving? Is it considering shifts in attention, activity, and expectations and designing new experiences to react and lead accordingly?
Who on your team is thinking about designing mobile experiences? How is mobile tied to the overall digital strategy? How is social and mobile complementing your web strategy? More importantly, how are people connecting or attempting to connect with you and how would they define the experience?

Does your company have a mobile strategy? And if not, what are you waiting for?

Great Innovations — Crowdfunding with Innovocracy

I'm a huge fan of crowdfunding, and recently wrote a 3-part series on the IBM Social Business Insights blog that I'm in the process of reposting here on my blog (Part 1). But I'm so impressed with this crowdfunding site, innovacracy.org, and at least one of the projects on it, that I wanted to give it a special shout out.

According to the website, the idea behind Innovocracy is bridging the gap between ideas and reality in academic research:

"Both pure and applied research often reveal potential products and services that can have a positive impact on society. But taking that research and developing it into working prototypes or demonstrating a proof of concept can be challenging. In the academic environment finding the funds to build out and test ideas with commercial applications is often a challenge. Yet finding those funds can unlock the potential of the millions of dollars and thousands of hours spent on research programs. Innovocracy was created to bridge the gap between powerful ideas and beneficial applications of those ideas. We offer a funding source that connects people who want to support innovation in academic research and those innovators found on campuses around the world."

The innovation that really caught my attention is the Web-Based Volunteer Support Network for Blind and Low Vision People.

Screenshot of VizWiz in action.
The captioning reads: iPhone: Double tap the screen to take a photo.
Double tap again to post card and start asking question.

The basic concept is a wonderful example of crowdsourcing at its best. VizWiz is an iPhone application that blind people can use to answer visual questions in their everyday lives. Users simply take a picture and speak a question they’d like to know about it, and their questions are answered by people out on the web, usually in under a minute and all for free.

It was released to the Apple® App Store a little over a year ago, and has been a booming success with more than 5,000 users asking over 50,000 questions. So successful in fact with both users and potential volunteers that the current setup is unsustainable and the creator, Jeffrey Bigham, PhD, from the University of Rochester, is looking for $5,500 by September 14th to expand the service by creating a web site hub and answering center.

 Crowdfunding sites are an amazing way of enabling via small amounts of one-on-one funding creativity and ingenuity that might otherwise not see the light of day. Check this one out and make a difference in someone's life.

Note: In researching this blog post, I found a few additional articles about VizWiz that might be of interest:  

• VizWhiz–Take a Picture, Speak a Question, and Get an Answer
  Smartphone cameras bring independence to blind people 
• VizWiz website

Repost from IBM Social Business Insights: Five new social networking applications: Cool or creepy?

Earlier this year I started blogging for the IBM Social Business Insights blog as part of a team of IBM Redbook Thought Leaders. I'll be reposting those blog posts here on my personal blog.
Five new social networking applications: Cool or creepy?  was co-written with my talented colleague, Brandi Boatner, and originally published on April 17, 2012, and is owned by IBM.
I recommend checking out the IBM Social Business Insights blog for some compelling and though-provoking content. 

Five new social networking applications: Cool or creepy?

By Brandi Boatner, IBM Global Business Services
and Holly Nielsen, Human Ability and Accessibility

The different ways social networking can connect people is constantly expanding, with new applications announced daily. There are so many new ideas and technologies, that privacy laws can’t begin to keep up with the various ways of seamlessly sharing your online data and preferences.

For instance, most people are familiar with the most popular geo-location applications such as Foursquare and Google Places, where users can check in when they’ve arrived at a new destination, and notify their networks of their latest location. Below is a list of five new applications that beg the question: Are these cool or creepy?

1. In late February, KLM Royal Dutch Airlines announced they were introducing a new program called “Meet and Seat,” enabling passengers, through either their Facebook or LinkedIn profile, to not only select their seat on the plane, but to select their flight seatmates. KLM is looking to improve the entire customer experience by including this mechanism for travelers going to the same conference or convention to self-connect. And taking it even further, KLM is encouraging seatmates to meet before the flight for coffee in the terminal or perhaps even sharing a taxi at their new destination.
   
   Cool/creepy factor: For a single person, this could feel like a speed date that continues hours past the normal five-minute limit, with little hope of escape. For someone looking to network with potential partners, employers, and so on, this could be a great opportunity.

2. After you sign up for an application called Tripl, a new social travel service, you can interact with recommended locals and travelers connected to your existing network. You and your friends can recommend “must meet” locals on your trips. When you add your trip plans, you can find out who – local and traveler – will be at your destination. And locals are notified when other Tripl members are visiting.
   
   Cool/creepy factor: It really depends on your network doesn’t it? If members are vetted, you might feel comfortable meeting a visiting member for coffee, or contacting a local when you reach their city, but if not, then what?

3. Fashism is a web and smartphone app that lets community members give and receive real-time feedback on photos of outfits with a love it or leave it voting and comment feature. Editor-selected accessories are available for purchase from within the app.
   
   Cool/creepy factor: Pretty cool, actually. It would be a lot of trouble for someone to join just to make snarky comments about random people’s outfits, so it seems like a decent way to put together great outfits for the fashionistas among us.

4. According to the website, Highlight gives you a sixth sense about the world around you, showing you hidden connections and making your day more fun. If someone standing near you also has Highlight, their profile will show up on your phone.

As you go about your day, Highlight runs quietly in the background, surfacing information about the people around you (up to a football-field length away). If your friends are nearby, it will notify you. If someone interesting crosses your path, it will tell you more about them.

You can see their name, photos of them, mutual friends, and anything else they have chosen to share. When you meet someone, Highlight helps you see what you have in common with them. And when you forget their name at a party a week later, Highlight can help you remember it.

Cool/creepy factor: Highlight does have the promise of making people-watching fun by allowing you to get information about those you watch, however, who is watching you? Do you want a stranger on the street to know so much about you; or are strangers just friends we haven’t met yet?

5. Pair is a social app for couples; it lets you communicate with one other person – ideally a spouse or romantic partner. Upon signing up, you provide an email address for the person you want to pair with, and that person gets an invitation to the service. You can unpair whenever you want, but you can’t pair with more than one person at a time.
   
   The main section of the app is a single stream of communication between you and your loved one, with pictures, video, and shared locations posted directly on the timeline. When both partners are online, the app becomes like a chat program, letting you know when the other person is typing, and lighting up a button at the top of the screen that lets you initiate a Facetime conversation.
   
   Cool/creepy factor: This too is actually cool especially for those who find themselves in a long-distance relationship, given the current economy and state of employment for many. Pair is unlike Facebook and Twitter; it’s inherently not a place for narcissism. Anything you were going to brag about –such as a promotion or well-crafted meal – is merely conversation when it’s between you and a close companion. There’s no social pressure with pandering for Likes or Retweets.

The proliferation of smart phones and the social networking explosion have created new and uncharted opportunities for expanding our social networks and meeting people in ways unheard of even five years ago, as our survey of new apps has shown us.

Arguably, each of these apps potentially has factors of coolness and creepiness, depending on who is using the application, and why. Seamless data sharing means that we no longer have to give applications permission to use our public data. It’s a reminder to us all that we’re responsible for regularly checking and managing our privacy settings on our social networking sites and applications.

Free images from FreeDigitalPhotos.net