I have learned a lot by having the opportunity to work on my Insight/Experience Audit and Prototype this semester. I was able to understand personas better as a result of working on this group project. I was also able to better understand about the process of gaining insights about our persona to create a product that truly was based on our customer.
Persona:
By developing our persona, Mr. and Mrs. McAllister, we were able to make sure that our focus stayed with our customer. This persona helped have an early and continuous focus on our users’ needs and goals by focusing on the user even before the development of the product. Before working on this project, we learned about the persona lifecycle, which, to me, was just a way to describe the target market of a product. I was not able to comprehend how marketers could start with the persona first and then come up with a product. I thought that marketers had to be very creative and make products based on a vague idea of who they thought would use it, and once the product was developed, they worried about learning more about the user.
After working on this project; however, I learned that this is the wrong approach to generate a product that truly reacts to the customers’ needs in order to cultivate a meaningful relationship with them. As my group dug deeper into what Mr. and Mrs. McAllister’s hobbies and lifestyle were, I still did not fully comprehend the importance of the persona. I did not comprehend it until we started to generate ideas about our product based on the insights we gathered.
Our persona was Mr. and Mrs. McAllister, an active, just-retired couple that enjoys an upper class lifestyle. They love to stay active with the community, and love to travel to exotic places. When we started to conduct surveys and interviews with couples that fit our persona, we were able to find out that some of our assumptions were wrong, while others were correct. We were also able to delve even deeper (I didn’t think this was possible since we put a lot of details into developing our persona).
By having a persona before we started to interview couples to generate insights, we were able to focus on a particular segment of just-retired couples instead of including everyone that was 50 in our interviewing part of our project. By having a detailed persona, we were able to gain insights about a specific target, and develop a product to that target.
When we started to look at all of the data we received about our couples, I was able to fully understand the importance of a persona. As I mentioned before, I thought you first developed the product and then marketed it. The thing is that, had we not developed a specific persona, we would have come up with something that might have been “cool” but would probably not fit the exact needs of our couple. For example, our couple needed an oven that kept them safe from the heat, but still looked modern. Had we not talked to our couples, we would have thought that the couple liked old-fashioned appliances due to our assumption that they didn’t understand how to use modern technology very well. I’m sure that there are 50-year olds that don’t understand how to use modern technology very well, but our couples did. If we had not developed this person, we would have interviewed any 50-year old and we would have thought our assumptions were validated when, in fact, they were wrong about every single person in this market.
Process of gaining insights to create a useful product:
I was able to better understand the process of gaining insights that would capture our couple’s desires. Before doing this project, I thought that generating insights meant asking the customer what they want, but according to “Turn Customer Input Into Innovation,” this is incorrect. We must ask them what they want our product to do for them. By doing this, we were able to gain the insight that they wanted a product that made their kitchen safer for them and for the guests that they have over on occasions. By us getting deeper into their thoughts through using qualitative methods such as open-ended questions during our interviews, and the image collage, we were able to understand our couples better. We took heed of the advice that Professor Walls gave us to dive into ambiguous words such as “safer” and “more comfortable”. By us delving deeper into these ambiguous words and asking why they used the kitchen, we were able to not only understand our couples, we were able to understand what they wanted from their kitchen. What their pain points were. What they loved about their kitchen. How they used the kitchen, etc.
The image collage was great for some of our couples, but when couples took the task to be literal, we did not gain that much information. For example, one of our couples said that they picked the image of soup because they liked soup. However, our qualitative methods generated a revolving theme of wanting safety. Three of our couples even described how they love to cook but constantly get burned when reaching over and getting the food out of the oven. Had we not used qualitative methods, we would not have generated these insights.
Qualitative methods are great, but quantitative methods validate the insights. Once we analyzed our data and generated a rough draft of our product, we took it back to our couples. We had them rank certain features based on importance. Had we not done this, we could have created a product that was all wrong for our couples. How did we know that we hadn’t made the wrong assumptions, or that we interpreted their open responses wrong? Thankfully, based on our quantitative approach, we were able to conclude that we were not wrong. We were able to gain even more feedback about our product that was highly useful in creating a product that truly is customer-centric. We had thought that our couples’ need for good-looking, modern kitchen appliances meant that they would want a shiny black oven. All of our couples disagreed. They actually preferred stainless steel. This helped me understand the need of both methods: qualitative and quantitative methods.
This also helped me really understand the need for a prototype. Had we not had a prototype, our couples would have not given us as valuable feedback and information about how to improve it. This gave them a tangible product that they were able to touch and see so their feedback was more exploratory rather than imaginative and limited.
Feelings about the group process:
I feel like working with my group contributed to my learning of this material. We all had different ideas, and each of us had paid attention to different things when our couples talked about themselves. We each had different perspectives that helped us develop our persona, prototype, and interview couples. These perspectives helped us make sure every little detail and aspect of our product really did fit the insights that we gained. I feel that we had a good mix of personalities, which will help me learn how to work with different personalities when I am in the “real world” working in marketing teams.
I was the detail-oriented person, and I shared the leadership role with Jacklyn. Bailey always gave new ideas and expanded on ideas in our group while Jason gave us the non-marketing perspective we needed to make sure that our prototype gave a holistic experience to our couples. Derek was the most troublesome, but we were able to learn how to use it to our advantage by questioning our assumptions along the way. He would be the only part of our group experience that made me have a negative emotional reaction during our group project, but I learned to work with it, which gives a useful application to the real world. Our group was able to make sure we made each process right, which helped me understand the process even better.
The only part of our project that was nerve-wrecking was finding couples to interview. We didn’t really know too many couples that fit our persona; therefore, we started getting really scared. We ended up having to get creative and finding couples through our professors, which really helped us find these difficult to reach (at least for us it was) couples.
I feel that having Professor Walls guide us throughout the process was also wonderful. Thanks to his feedback, we were able to understand that we needed to make sure that we gained insights before creating our product. Had he not guided us in this way, we would not have generated these insights and would have started on a product that we thought would be useful to our couples. In this way, we were able to understand that as marketers, we need not just throw another cool product out there to market, but we needed to develop a product that truly would make customers’ lives better… and I believe we did!
Sunday, December 6, 2009
Wednesday, November 11, 2009
Blog 5: Social Media and Corporate America
All companies should take advantage of social media to enhance their customer’s experiences and gain insights. They should be taking advantage of the tools offered by social networks such as Twitter or Facebook in order to run a continuous search for any status updates that mention their company or brand. This is especially helpful for enhancing the customer experience. They should also continuously look at reviews about their products in order to create experiences and gain insights from their customers. The importance of companies using social media can best be illustrated by my recent experience with my phone provider, Cricket.
This past Saturday, I called Cricket to talk to a representative about the problems that were occurring with my phone. The representative I got to talk to had a very heavy Asian accent, and did not understand English very well. I talked to him about my problems with my phone, and told him that I wanted to get another phone with a discount allotted to me by Cricket for having to buy a new phone. He thought I wanted to disconnect my service… and he did! He disconnected my telephone service despite the fact that I repeatedly told him that that is not what I wanted to do, and that I wanted to talk to someone else. He took the hook off of the object that no one can live without in this day and age! I was angry!
I quickly got onto Twitter, and tweeted away about the horrible service I got with Cricket. I wanted the whole world to know about how horrible Cricket was. About 10 minutes later, I got a customer representative from Cricket talking to me through Twitter. He was so helpful, and immediately connected my service again, and offered me a discount for a brand new phone. The bonus was that he even offered me a free month of service with Cricket due to the mistake on their end. I became the happiest being alive! I instantly tweeted about the awesome experience I had had with Cricket, and started looking for a new phone using reviews and blogs. (No, my using social media to enhance my experience did not end with Twitter.)
This is only one of many examples that illustrate how important it is for companies to continuously monitor social media. Imagine what would have happened if I had not been contacted by a Cricket representative when I tweeted about Cricket. All of my followers would have seen my status, and possibly held a negative view on Cricket’s customer service based on my status. Cricket would have also lost me as a customer to another phone service, and I would have talked to anyone that would listen about how horrible Cricket was. This could all be avoided by simply using social networking sites to enhance customer service. People are so connected that word spreads very quickly now; therefore, companies should use social networking sites to get to customers quickly and enhance their experience quickly.
Let me continue my story to show you how blogs and Google’s BlogSearch can also help companies create an experience and even gain insights about their customers. In order to choose what Cricket phone I wanted to buy, I looked at blogs and reviews for Cricket’s top three phones. I was going to pay over $200 on a new phone and wanted the most bang for my buck. By reading many blogs, responses to blogs, and reviews, I was able to make my decision based on what was important to me. Texting ease was very important to me, so when I kept on seeing that most bloggers/reviewers mentioned that one of the top 3 phones was difficult to text with, I automatically scratched it off my list.
Now, imagine if I hadn’t read those blogs with comments and reviews and I would have purchased that particular phone I scratched off my list. My experience with that phone would have been horrible, and would have probably resulted in a loss of a customer. This shows how even negative comments about products can actually help the company. The company would not want someone to buy something and completely hate it. On the other hand, if texting was something I did not like to do, the phone would have been perfect; therefore, negative comments might be disregarded about products if that is not what is important to the customer.
Now, some customers experience buyer’s regret when making a purchase that breaks their bank account… that’s me! The product might be the best, but when you actually take a look at how it impacted your account balance, you are tempted to return the product (something companies do not want to have happen). This is where my experience with blogsearch comes in. I used this tool to search for more blogs about my new phone… since I read the great reviews again, it reaffirmed that I made a great choice. It helped me remember what was so great about my pruchase. It would have also helped me make my choice about phones had I used this blog tool.
From the company’s perspective, blogs can not only enhance the experience by helping the customer make an educated decision and make the customer feel great about their purchase, it can also help companies figure out what their customers actually like. They can gain insights. They can see what the most important part of their products people are commenting on. They can see why people like/dislike their product and fix it or enhance it based on those comments. Through these insights, they can create an even better experience!
In conclusion, social media such as Twitter and blogs can help companies enhance their customers experiences if used correctly. Customers use it to make a lot of buying decisions; therefore, companies should actively monitor these sites to respond and react when appropriate. They also don’t want to automatically delete negative comments, because in the long run, this will help the customer become more satisfied with their purchase… like me!
This past Saturday, I called Cricket to talk to a representative about the problems that were occurring with my phone. The representative I got to talk to had a very heavy Asian accent, and did not understand English very well. I talked to him about my problems with my phone, and told him that I wanted to get another phone with a discount allotted to me by Cricket for having to buy a new phone. He thought I wanted to disconnect my service… and he did! He disconnected my telephone service despite the fact that I repeatedly told him that that is not what I wanted to do, and that I wanted to talk to someone else. He took the hook off of the object that no one can live without in this day and age! I was angry!
I quickly got onto Twitter, and tweeted away about the horrible service I got with Cricket. I wanted the whole world to know about how horrible Cricket was. About 10 minutes later, I got a customer representative from Cricket talking to me through Twitter. He was so helpful, and immediately connected my service again, and offered me a discount for a brand new phone. The bonus was that he even offered me a free month of service with Cricket due to the mistake on their end. I became the happiest being alive! I instantly tweeted about the awesome experience I had had with Cricket, and started looking for a new phone using reviews and blogs. (No, my using social media to enhance my experience did not end with Twitter.)
This is only one of many examples that illustrate how important it is for companies to continuously monitor social media. Imagine what would have happened if I had not been contacted by a Cricket representative when I tweeted about Cricket. All of my followers would have seen my status, and possibly held a negative view on Cricket’s customer service based on my status. Cricket would have also lost me as a customer to another phone service, and I would have talked to anyone that would listen about how horrible Cricket was. This could all be avoided by simply using social networking sites to enhance customer service. People are so connected that word spreads very quickly now; therefore, companies should use social networking sites to get to customers quickly and enhance their experience quickly.
Let me continue my story to show you how blogs and Google’s BlogSearch can also help companies create an experience and even gain insights about their customers. In order to choose what Cricket phone I wanted to buy, I looked at blogs and reviews for Cricket’s top three phones. I was going to pay over $200 on a new phone and wanted the most bang for my buck. By reading many blogs, responses to blogs, and reviews, I was able to make my decision based on what was important to me. Texting ease was very important to me, so when I kept on seeing that most bloggers/reviewers mentioned that one of the top 3 phones was difficult to text with, I automatically scratched it off my list.
Now, imagine if I hadn’t read those blogs with comments and reviews and I would have purchased that particular phone I scratched off my list. My experience with that phone would have been horrible, and would have probably resulted in a loss of a customer. This shows how even negative comments about products can actually help the company. The company would not want someone to buy something and completely hate it. On the other hand, if texting was something I did not like to do, the phone would have been perfect; therefore, negative comments might be disregarded about products if that is not what is important to the customer.
Now, some customers experience buyer’s regret when making a purchase that breaks their bank account… that’s me! The product might be the best, but when you actually take a look at how it impacted your account balance, you are tempted to return the product (something companies do not want to have happen). This is where my experience with blogsearch comes in. I used this tool to search for more blogs about my new phone… since I read the great reviews again, it reaffirmed that I made a great choice. It helped me remember what was so great about my pruchase. It would have also helped me make my choice about phones had I used this blog tool.
From the company’s perspective, blogs can not only enhance the experience by helping the customer make an educated decision and make the customer feel great about their purchase, it can also help companies figure out what their customers actually like. They can gain insights. They can see what the most important part of their products people are commenting on. They can see why people like/dislike their product and fix it or enhance it based on those comments. Through these insights, they can create an even better experience!
In conclusion, social media such as Twitter and blogs can help companies enhance their customers experiences if used correctly. Customers use it to make a lot of buying decisions; therefore, companies should actively monitor these sites to respond and react when appropriate. They also don’t want to automatically delete negative comments, because in the long run, this will help the customer become more satisfied with their purchase… like me!
Wednesday, November 4, 2009
Blog 4: Wal-Mart, the Giant
What do you think about the privacy issues associated with all of that data and the amount of personally identifiable data they are able to capture. Does it bother you? Do you trust them with it?
Wal-Mart knows too much about consumers, and I am very concerned. They are able to capture data about customers such as mortgages, how much debt they are in, etc. Most consumers have no clue that their habits are monitored to such an extent, which makes me wonder what they would do if they realized that there was a huge privacy issue. I honestly do not believe that Wal-Mart can take absolute measures to protect all of its data. Wal-Mart has more than twice the amount of data than the Internet! Google has been taking a long time to try to sort all of the data in the Internet; therefore, I cannot imagine how Wal-Mart would be able to take all measures to guard its data against inappropriate use.
To start off with, people within Wal-Mart have access to this information. What prevents these people from using this data for their own personal gain? How can Wal-Mart prevent them from “remembering” personal information about people? The answer is that no matter what Wal-Mart does, someone can potentially come in and use the data inappropriately. Not only am I concerned with hypothetically bad employees using the data inappropriately, I am also concerned with employees using it appropriately. How is Wal-Mart using information such as my court dates? I honestly cannot find a satisfying and non scary answer to this question, and I honestly do not trust Wal-Mart with all of this information. I am concerned with the ways in which this data could be used and is being used by Wal-Mart.
Wal-Mart cannot possibly safeguard all of its data, but it should not even have all of that data. They have crossed the line between gaining as much information about customers to enhance their experience, and customer confidentiality. If I wanted my daily habits recorded by any company, I would give it to them. Seeing that I have never done this, I do not want my personal life to be stored by companies! I feel that Wal-Mart should limit the amount of data that it has on its customers to establish more trust among its customers. Knowing court dates and about mortgages is way too much. They have much too detailed information, and I believe that everyone should have a huge concern with this.
What impact do you think they are having on their suppliers - making them better and more efficient or driving them too hard and reducing their profitability.
Wal-Mart has complete control over suppliers. It turned the supplier-retailer relationship upside-down where the supplier no longer has the control. Wal-Mart determines what prices suppliers will charge Wal-Mart, and suppliers want to comply because of how big Wal-Mart has become.
What has made Wal-Mart gain the control over suppliers and their executive decisions is Wal-Mart’s demand for efficiency. Let me explain. The cornerstone of Wal-Mart’s efficiency is its trend-forecasting software, which tracks consumer behavior. Wal-Mart developed a program called Retail Link which delivered information on consumer behavior which was drawn from the data imbedded in the barcodes that passed through the checkout process. Wal-Mart shared this program (actually commanded suppliers to use it to improve efficiency), and gained command over every supplier by sharing Retail Link. Wal-Mart gained access to supplier’s books; therefore, Wal-Mart can now dictate the terms of all contracts… price, volume, etc. Wal-Mart even controls what profit margin a supplier can gain.
By Wal-Mart gaining such control over the supplier’s decision making, suppliers are forced to be more efficient. They have to keep up with Wal-Mart’s price standards so that what happened to Rubbermaid does not happen to them. If a cost goes up, they cannot increase their price to Wal-Mart; therefore, they have to gain even more efficiency somewhere to lower costs somewhere else.
Wal-Mart uses its buying power and its information about consumer buying habits to force vendors to squeeze their costs and keep their profit margins low; however, because Wal-Mart is so difficult to deal with and is so demanding on its suppliers, suppliers have specialized offices just for Wal-Mart which can bring expenses up for the supplier and can make it more costly to produce products. Instead of making the product better, or doing other marketing functions, a lot of personnel is busy only handling Wal-Mart. This actually reduces profitability by a lot and yet Wal-Mart’s demands make it where even General Mills has to have corporate offices in Bentonville to deal only with Wal-Mart.
Wal-Mart’s next demand is that suppliers have RFID tags on products. RFID tags cost about 17 cents each (according to Professor Patton), and suppliers will have to incur these costs without bringing up the price. By implementing RFID tags, even more efficiency will be gained. RFID would reduce shrink in the supply chain, improve on-shelf availability and reduce out-of-stocks, and increase productivity and labor efficiencies. Both suppliers and retailers are expected to achieve time and money savings by eliminating manual entries and bar code scanning. Since the suppliers can’t raise prices for Wal-Mart, they have to make other things more efficient; therefore, gaining more efficiency. However, all of this shows the lack of value Wal-Mart has for suppliers (it demands) and how difficult and costly it is to deal with Wal-Mart (but it’s also costly to not deal with Wal-Mart).
Wal-Mart demands efficiency and for the most part gets it; however, by the very demand, profitability is getting lost in many companies such as General Mills. This is a hard situation for suppliers since they can’t just say they won’t deal with Wal-Mart anymore. Wal-Mart does not accept failures, which is sad because, according to “The New, Faster Face of Innovation” “Genius is born from a thousand failures.” Wal-Mart might be limiting itself by its demand for perfection and efficiency.
Wal-Mart knows too much about consumers, and I am very concerned. They are able to capture data about customers such as mortgages, how much debt they are in, etc. Most consumers have no clue that their habits are monitored to such an extent, which makes me wonder what they would do if they realized that there was a huge privacy issue. I honestly do not believe that Wal-Mart can take absolute measures to protect all of its data. Wal-Mart has more than twice the amount of data than the Internet! Google has been taking a long time to try to sort all of the data in the Internet; therefore, I cannot imagine how Wal-Mart would be able to take all measures to guard its data against inappropriate use.
To start off with, people within Wal-Mart have access to this information. What prevents these people from using this data for their own personal gain? How can Wal-Mart prevent them from “remembering” personal information about people? The answer is that no matter what Wal-Mart does, someone can potentially come in and use the data inappropriately. Not only am I concerned with hypothetically bad employees using the data inappropriately, I am also concerned with employees using it appropriately. How is Wal-Mart using information such as my court dates? I honestly cannot find a satisfying and non scary answer to this question, and I honestly do not trust Wal-Mart with all of this information. I am concerned with the ways in which this data could be used and is being used by Wal-Mart.
Wal-Mart cannot possibly safeguard all of its data, but it should not even have all of that data. They have crossed the line between gaining as much information about customers to enhance their experience, and customer confidentiality. If I wanted my daily habits recorded by any company, I would give it to them. Seeing that I have never done this, I do not want my personal life to be stored by companies! I feel that Wal-Mart should limit the amount of data that it has on its customers to establish more trust among its customers. Knowing court dates and about mortgages is way too much. They have much too detailed information, and I believe that everyone should have a huge concern with this.
What impact do you think they are having on their suppliers - making them better and more efficient or driving them too hard and reducing their profitability.
Wal-Mart has complete control over suppliers. It turned the supplier-retailer relationship upside-down where the supplier no longer has the control. Wal-Mart determines what prices suppliers will charge Wal-Mart, and suppliers want to comply because of how big Wal-Mart has become.
What has made Wal-Mart gain the control over suppliers and their executive decisions is Wal-Mart’s demand for efficiency. Let me explain. The cornerstone of Wal-Mart’s efficiency is its trend-forecasting software, which tracks consumer behavior. Wal-Mart developed a program called Retail Link which delivered information on consumer behavior which was drawn from the data imbedded in the barcodes that passed through the checkout process. Wal-Mart shared this program (actually commanded suppliers to use it to improve efficiency), and gained command over every supplier by sharing Retail Link. Wal-Mart gained access to supplier’s books; therefore, Wal-Mart can now dictate the terms of all contracts… price, volume, etc. Wal-Mart even controls what profit margin a supplier can gain.
By Wal-Mart gaining such control over the supplier’s decision making, suppliers are forced to be more efficient. They have to keep up with Wal-Mart’s price standards so that what happened to Rubbermaid does not happen to them. If a cost goes up, they cannot increase their price to Wal-Mart; therefore, they have to gain even more efficiency somewhere to lower costs somewhere else.
Wal-Mart uses its buying power and its information about consumer buying habits to force vendors to squeeze their costs and keep their profit margins low; however, because Wal-Mart is so difficult to deal with and is so demanding on its suppliers, suppliers have specialized offices just for Wal-Mart which can bring expenses up for the supplier and can make it more costly to produce products. Instead of making the product better, or doing other marketing functions, a lot of personnel is busy only handling Wal-Mart. This actually reduces profitability by a lot and yet Wal-Mart’s demands make it where even General Mills has to have corporate offices in Bentonville to deal only with Wal-Mart.
Wal-Mart’s next demand is that suppliers have RFID tags on products. RFID tags cost about 17 cents each (according to Professor Patton), and suppliers will have to incur these costs without bringing up the price. By implementing RFID tags, even more efficiency will be gained. RFID would reduce shrink in the supply chain, improve on-shelf availability and reduce out-of-stocks, and increase productivity and labor efficiencies. Both suppliers and retailers are expected to achieve time and money savings by eliminating manual entries and bar code scanning. Since the suppliers can’t raise prices for Wal-Mart, they have to make other things more efficient; therefore, gaining more efficiency. However, all of this shows the lack of value Wal-Mart has for suppliers (it demands) and how difficult and costly it is to deal with Wal-Mart (but it’s also costly to not deal with Wal-Mart).
Wal-Mart demands efficiency and for the most part gets it; however, by the very demand, profitability is getting lost in many companies such as General Mills. This is a hard situation for suppliers since they can’t just say they won’t deal with Wal-Mart anymore. Wal-Mart does not accept failures, which is sad because, according to “The New, Faster Face of Innovation” “Genius is born from a thousand failures.” Wal-Mart might be limiting itself by its demand for perfection and efficiency.
Wednesday, October 14, 2009
Blog 3: Innovative Product - Windows 7
I am very anxious for the Windows 7 operating system to finally be on my computer. I currently have Windows Vista, which has a lot of problems and gives me a headache. It shuts me down all of the time, and is quite annoying since it gives me so many security pop ups. I honestly feel it is the worse operating system ever! It is no wonder that I am waiting anxiously for Windows 7!
I would argue that Windows Vista is highly innovative, because it is a revolutionary change in operating systems. It will finally compete against Apple with a new product. It is a new way of using your computer. According to the Wall Street journal, even though it was meant to be evolutionary, it is a revolutionary product. “Windows XP is packed with features and tweaks that make using your computer an easier and more satisfying experience” – WSJ.com.
It has a new taskbar where you can permanently pin the icons of frequently used programs. Windows 7 has taken the Apple concept to a revolutionary experience, allowing you to actually view these icons in a preview if you mouse over it. Windows 7 introduces real advances in organizing programs and files, arranging the taskbar and desktop, and quickly viewing and launching the page or document you want. It has cool built in touch screen features that have never been on a personal computer before. It removes clutter and is fast. Microsoft paid attention to the customer and took off built-in applications that a lot of its users were not using. They can still be downloaded for free, but this frees up a lot of memory that many people did not need to be used up. I believe this is highly important, because in the lecture on September 16th, Professor Walls mentioned the fact that experiences need to be about something important and personally relevant. Windows 7 can have all the features in the world, but the reality is that the features should enhance the experience and actually be an attribute to the user. If it hadn’t been for the intense testing that Microsoft conducted, I doubt that Microsoft would have realized that all the cool features that it had were just that – cool. They weren’t getting used and were actually slowing down user’s computers.
I am not only waiting for this operating system for its new features, I am also waiting anxiously because Windows 7 will allow me to have a strong modern successor to the sturdy and familiar, but aged, Windows XP. Windows XP is the most popular operating system, even though it came out in 2001 and is outdated. Windows XP was designed in 1999 and did not come out until 2001; whereas, Windows 7 is coming out in less than 9 months from its design. Microsoft was able to intensely test the final version in this short amount of time. According to the article “The New, Faster Face of Innovation”, this is due to how advanced technology has become.
Thanks to technology, innovation is becoming faster and cheaper due to the fact that it takes so little time now to experiment and test out new ideas. Innovation initiatives that used to take months and megabucks to coordinate and launch can be started in seconds. I was able to test the effectiveness of banner ads in seconds this summer during my internship. I wouldn’t have been able to do this 5 years ago. I argue that Windows 7 is one of these innovation initiatives that was coordinated and launched very quickly. Because of technology, Microsoft had a better idea of how their customers behaved and what they wanted, which gave them a better shot of success with Windows 7. According to experts, Windows 7 truly does pay attention to what we need in an operating system and is the best operating system that Microsoft has come out with. This is due to the large amount of testing that Microsoft conducted and was able to do quickly and efficiently due to our advanced technology. Microsoft was able to test out new features with a quick bit of programming and see how users respond to those features quickly. Microsoft was able to actually observe users without physically being there, thanks to how advanced technology is. This is important, because as the article “Insights Into Customer Insights” mentions, the research tool kit needs to be augmented with observational techniques to gain insights. With technology, what would take years to test and observe, only took 9 months to make it perfection.
Overall, I believe that Windows 7 is innovative and absolutely fantastic (even though I haven't tried it yet). I have heard from many experts that it is going to be an amazing operating system and will be a revolutionary change! I can't wait!
I would argue that Windows Vista is highly innovative, because it is a revolutionary change in operating systems. It will finally compete against Apple with a new product. It is a new way of using your computer. According to the Wall Street journal, even though it was meant to be evolutionary, it is a revolutionary product. “Windows XP is packed with features and tweaks that make using your computer an easier and more satisfying experience” – WSJ.com.
It has a new taskbar where you can permanently pin the icons of frequently used programs. Windows 7 has taken the Apple concept to a revolutionary experience, allowing you to actually view these icons in a preview if you mouse over it. Windows 7 introduces real advances in organizing programs and files, arranging the taskbar and desktop, and quickly viewing and launching the page or document you want. It has cool built in touch screen features that have never been on a personal computer before. It removes clutter and is fast. Microsoft paid attention to the customer and took off built-in applications that a lot of its users were not using. They can still be downloaded for free, but this frees up a lot of memory that many people did not need to be used up. I believe this is highly important, because in the lecture on September 16th, Professor Walls mentioned the fact that experiences need to be about something important and personally relevant. Windows 7 can have all the features in the world, but the reality is that the features should enhance the experience and actually be an attribute to the user. If it hadn’t been for the intense testing that Microsoft conducted, I doubt that Microsoft would have realized that all the cool features that it had were just that – cool. They weren’t getting used and were actually slowing down user’s computers.
I am not only waiting for this operating system for its new features, I am also waiting anxiously because Windows 7 will allow me to have a strong modern successor to the sturdy and familiar, but aged, Windows XP. Windows XP is the most popular operating system, even though it came out in 2001 and is outdated. Windows XP was designed in 1999 and did not come out until 2001; whereas, Windows 7 is coming out in less than 9 months from its design. Microsoft was able to intensely test the final version in this short amount of time. According to the article “The New, Faster Face of Innovation”, this is due to how advanced technology has become.
Thanks to technology, innovation is becoming faster and cheaper due to the fact that it takes so little time now to experiment and test out new ideas. Innovation initiatives that used to take months and megabucks to coordinate and launch can be started in seconds. I was able to test the effectiveness of banner ads in seconds this summer during my internship. I wouldn’t have been able to do this 5 years ago. I argue that Windows 7 is one of these innovation initiatives that was coordinated and launched very quickly. Because of technology, Microsoft had a better idea of how their customers behaved and what they wanted, which gave them a better shot of success with Windows 7. According to experts, Windows 7 truly does pay attention to what we need in an operating system and is the best operating system that Microsoft has come out with. This is due to the large amount of testing that Microsoft conducted and was able to do quickly and efficiently due to our advanced technology. Microsoft was able to test out new features with a quick bit of programming and see how users respond to those features quickly. Microsoft was able to actually observe users without physically being there, thanks to how advanced technology is. This is important, because as the article “Insights Into Customer Insights” mentions, the research tool kit needs to be augmented with observational techniques to gain insights. With technology, what would take years to test and observe, only took 9 months to make it perfection.
Overall, I believe that Windows 7 is innovative and absolutely fantastic (even though I haven't tried it yet). I have heard from many experts that it is going to be an amazing operating system and will be a revolutionary change! I can't wait!
Monday, September 28, 2009
Predictably Irrational Blog # 2
This article is truly fascinating. The main lesson is that our expectations influence our views of subsequent events. If you tell someone up front that something might be distasteful, the odds are very good that they will end up agreeing with you. This is not because their experience tells them so, but because that is their expectation. So, when we believe beforehand that something will be good, it generally will be good-and when we think it will be bad, it will bad.
The main example that the article used to depict this irrational behavior is the glasses of beer experiment. The setup of the experiment is that there are two types of beers offered to people entering a bar. One is just Budweiser and the other is Budweiser with two drops of balsamic vinegar for each ounce of beer. The result of the experiment was that if the person was told before drinking the beer that there was vinegar in the beer, the person would prefer the Budweiser and be disgusted with the other, typically. However, if they did not tell the participants that there was vinegar in the Budweiser, they would typically prefer the one with the vinegar. Even if they were told after drinking the beer with vinegar, they still preferred that one over the other. What this exemplified is that people’s expectations before an event play a big part in the overall experience they will have. If you tell them that the beer tastes bad, they will more than likely end up agreeing with you.
I find this very fascinating, and have done my own experiments to verify this in another class my freshman year. We conducted an experiment in which one group was told before going into a lecture that the lecturer was very mean and boring. We told another group that the lecturer was super nice and engaging, while another group was told nothing beforehand. All three groups took a seat and heard the lecturer together. After the lecturer was finished, each participant from each group was asked what their opinion was of the lecturer. Surprisingly to us, we found out that, typically, the participants that were given the negative opinion/view of the lecturer found the lecturer to be mean and boring, while the ones that were told that the lecturer was nice and engaging agreed. The ones that were told nothing had mixed feelings.
I find this very interesting, as does the author of this article. All three groups watched the same exact presentation given by the same exact lecturer at the same exact time, and yet they all had different opinions depending on what they were told or weren’t told. Actually, I feel that this happens every single day. For example, if we are told that someone is promiscuous, and talks behind peoples backs before we meet them, we are less likely to like the person (unless we view these two things as positive qualities). We are more likely to describe the person negatively, and even use the same exact description that was given to us.
I once went into Kanobe’s. It was my first time going; therefore, I asked what some items were on the menu. The waitress gave me such a great description of the plate. She described it in depth and with a lot of detail, including information about the texture of the food. I automatically picked the one she described to me, and was completely delighted with my dish. The ingredients might not make the dish any better in a blind taste test; but by changing my expectations, she effectively influenced the taste. Not only did the waitress describe the dish with depth, but the presentation of the food was splendid. This automatically made me know that the food was going to be amazing. I still hadn’t tasted the food, but I already had high expectations that were confirmed when I tasted the food. Kanobe’s definitely enhanced the customer experience at their restaurant.
We can use this information given to us in this article about pre-knowledge and experiences in our quest to gain valuable insights and/or design valuable experiences for our customers. As has been mentioned in class, customers usually can’t articulate what they want or why they buy certain items. Some may say that they want one thing like eating healthy, but when you observe them, they are actually eating things like pizza. This article validates this point. I don’t think anyone told the experimenters that the reason why they chose the beer without the vinegar was because he/she was told that the other beer had vinegar. The participants would just say that the beer was distasteful with the vinegar. My point is that, in order to gain valuable insights, we must not rely too much on what customers tell us. Like “Insights into Customer Insights” said, qualitative research is what generates insights, while quantitative research validates insights. We must use both. Quantitative research that is not informed by insightful qualitative research may end up being precise but lacking in customer insight. On the other hand, customer insights that are not validated with quantitative research may end up being interesting but not representative of mainstream customers.
This article validates that, although most consumers would say that their purchasing behavior is rationat, it isn’t always that way. For example, most people actually preferred Pepsi to Coke in a blind test, but when told that one was Coke and one was Pepsi while drinking it, most preferred Coke. This preference was due to Coke’s brand and not the chemical properties of the drink. I can’t think of anyone that would tell us that the reason why they like Coke over Pepsi is because of the brand. Most would say they like the taste better, or something along those lines; therefore, we can’t rely on these types of answers… customers simply don’t understand their own behavior as much as they think they do. Their behavior isn’t as rational as they would like to believe; therefore, we must gain insights by observing rather than simply asking people what they want.
We also want to pay very close attention to the way that the product or service is presented, for as the article has described, presentation matters as does the way that the product or service is described. I feel that this is important, because we may have the best product that truly does meet customer’s deeper needs, but if we don’t present it in certain way or describe it according to the target market, the product may fail. This failure would not be due to not paying attention to customer needs; therefore, we would almost have had it but weren’t quite there in presenting a product or service that makes a positive impact in our community.
The main example that the article used to depict this irrational behavior is the glasses of beer experiment. The setup of the experiment is that there are two types of beers offered to people entering a bar. One is just Budweiser and the other is Budweiser with two drops of balsamic vinegar for each ounce of beer. The result of the experiment was that if the person was told before drinking the beer that there was vinegar in the beer, the person would prefer the Budweiser and be disgusted with the other, typically. However, if they did not tell the participants that there was vinegar in the Budweiser, they would typically prefer the one with the vinegar. Even if they were told after drinking the beer with vinegar, they still preferred that one over the other. What this exemplified is that people’s expectations before an event play a big part in the overall experience they will have. If you tell them that the beer tastes bad, they will more than likely end up agreeing with you.
I find this very fascinating, and have done my own experiments to verify this in another class my freshman year. We conducted an experiment in which one group was told before going into a lecture that the lecturer was very mean and boring. We told another group that the lecturer was super nice and engaging, while another group was told nothing beforehand. All three groups took a seat and heard the lecturer together. After the lecturer was finished, each participant from each group was asked what their opinion was of the lecturer. Surprisingly to us, we found out that, typically, the participants that were given the negative opinion/view of the lecturer found the lecturer to be mean and boring, while the ones that were told that the lecturer was nice and engaging agreed. The ones that were told nothing had mixed feelings.
I find this very interesting, as does the author of this article. All three groups watched the same exact presentation given by the same exact lecturer at the same exact time, and yet they all had different opinions depending on what they were told or weren’t told. Actually, I feel that this happens every single day. For example, if we are told that someone is promiscuous, and talks behind peoples backs before we meet them, we are less likely to like the person (unless we view these two things as positive qualities). We are more likely to describe the person negatively, and even use the same exact description that was given to us.
I once went into Kanobe’s. It was my first time going; therefore, I asked what some items were on the menu. The waitress gave me such a great description of the plate. She described it in depth and with a lot of detail, including information about the texture of the food. I automatically picked the one she described to me, and was completely delighted with my dish. The ingredients might not make the dish any better in a blind taste test; but by changing my expectations, she effectively influenced the taste. Not only did the waitress describe the dish with depth, but the presentation of the food was splendid. This automatically made me know that the food was going to be amazing. I still hadn’t tasted the food, but I already had high expectations that were confirmed when I tasted the food. Kanobe’s definitely enhanced the customer experience at their restaurant.
We can use this information given to us in this article about pre-knowledge and experiences in our quest to gain valuable insights and/or design valuable experiences for our customers. As has been mentioned in class, customers usually can’t articulate what they want or why they buy certain items. Some may say that they want one thing like eating healthy, but when you observe them, they are actually eating things like pizza. This article validates this point. I don’t think anyone told the experimenters that the reason why they chose the beer without the vinegar was because he/she was told that the other beer had vinegar. The participants would just say that the beer was distasteful with the vinegar. My point is that, in order to gain valuable insights, we must not rely too much on what customers tell us. Like “Insights into Customer Insights” said, qualitative research is what generates insights, while quantitative research validates insights. We must use both. Quantitative research that is not informed by insightful qualitative research may end up being precise but lacking in customer insight. On the other hand, customer insights that are not validated with quantitative research may end up being interesting but not representative of mainstream customers.
This article validates that, although most consumers would say that their purchasing behavior is rationat, it isn’t always that way. For example, most people actually preferred Pepsi to Coke in a blind test, but when told that one was Coke and one was Pepsi while drinking it, most preferred Coke. This preference was due to Coke’s brand and not the chemical properties of the drink. I can’t think of anyone that would tell us that the reason why they like Coke over Pepsi is because of the brand. Most would say they like the taste better, or something along those lines; therefore, we can’t rely on these types of answers… customers simply don’t understand their own behavior as much as they think they do. Their behavior isn’t as rational as they would like to believe; therefore, we must gain insights by observing rather than simply asking people what they want.
We also want to pay very close attention to the way that the product or service is presented, for as the article has described, presentation matters as does the way that the product or service is described. I feel that this is important, because we may have the best product that truly does meet customer’s deeper needs, but if we don’t present it in certain way or describe it according to the target market, the product may fail. This failure would not be due to not paying attention to customer needs; therefore, we would almost have had it but weren’t quite there in presenting a product or service that makes a positive impact in our community.
Wednesday, September 9, 2009
Persona Blog # 1
Many companies are trying to react to and anticipate their customers’ needs in order to cultivate a meaningful relationship with them. According to lecture, it is important to gain insight about what customers want out of their products, services, companies and brands. As a matter of fact, in my internship this summer, this was my main goal/project. I needed to think about the customer and gain insights from a lot of information we have about them throughout every step and function of my job including content creation for our website, promotions, new ideas for products, etc. This helped us reach our users in our marketing efforts.
One way of gaining this insight and making sure companies stay in focus with their customers is by using the persona lifecycle. This cycle helps have an early and continuous focus on users’ needs and goals by focusing on the user even before the development of the product. This cycle supports the 4 p’s talked about in class which are product, place, price and promotion. In order to start off the cycle, marketers can begin with family planning where one of the things to do is to generate and gather data about the customer in order to gain valuable data that can be extracted to build personas. Some information a marketer would need from me to create an accurate and rich persona of me is as follows:
1. I am taking 16 hours at the University of Texas at Austin, and am the Director of Public Relations for one of the most professional organizations on campus, the Hispanic Business Student Association that puts on more than 90 events throughout the year.
2. I am very time-oriented, meaning I plan out every minute of my life. This does not mean that I do not easily adapt to changes in my schedule, rather that, in order to not get overwhelmed with what I need to do, I need to map out my days. This also helps me not forget to do things, because I write everything in my planner and Google Calendar. I would not be able to function without these two things.
3. I am always busy. So busy, in fact, that I can never sit down to eat a meal. I grab my food and go; therefore, I make food purchases based on how easy and fast it would be to make and eat. I am also so busy that I rarely have time to watch TV; therefore, I always watch shows that are not in a series, and are about 30 minutes long.
4. I have a boyfriend that just graduated from the University of Texas at Austin. He is living one hour away; therefore, I am always looking for new ways to stay connected with and communicate with him.
5. I am a 19 year-old Hispanic female. I support many Hispanic advocacy organizations and companies. I think diversity is important in a company, and I take that into account when I purchase items at the store or online.
6. I love to read all kinds of books, newspapers, magazines, research, and different studies. I especially love to read articles and studies on what makes people and customers happy.
7. I am a bargain shopper! Price is usually how I decide between two products. The only reason that I may pay more for a recognizable and reliable brand is if I am buying health-related and skin-related products.
8. I absolutely enjoy the outdoors! I am not a sports type of person, but I love seeing a lot of green, and strolling through a park, and even studying outside. I would have my office or desk outside if I didn’t have to worry about the weather ruining my work or computer.
9. I prefer to buy or have experiences that create memories such as going jet skiing, on a road trip, or going to the movies, then purchasing products.
10. I live in a bad neighborhood in Austin. I live on Riverside where you always hear police car sirens going off due to the amount of crimes that occur in the area; therefore, I am very safety-conscious. I always carry around my pepper spray, and never go outside by myself at night when I am at home in my apartment.
4/4
One way of gaining this insight and making sure companies stay in focus with their customers is by using the persona lifecycle. This cycle helps have an early and continuous focus on users’ needs and goals by focusing on the user even before the development of the product. This cycle supports the 4 p’s talked about in class which are product, place, price and promotion. In order to start off the cycle, marketers can begin with family planning where one of the things to do is to generate and gather data about the customer in order to gain valuable data that can be extracted to build personas. Some information a marketer would need from me to create an accurate and rich persona of me is as follows:
1. I am taking 16 hours at the University of Texas at Austin, and am the Director of Public Relations for one of the most professional organizations on campus, the Hispanic Business Student Association that puts on more than 90 events throughout the year.
2. I am very time-oriented, meaning I plan out every minute of my life. This does not mean that I do not easily adapt to changes in my schedule, rather that, in order to not get overwhelmed with what I need to do, I need to map out my days. This also helps me not forget to do things, because I write everything in my planner and Google Calendar. I would not be able to function without these two things.
3. I am always busy. So busy, in fact, that I can never sit down to eat a meal. I grab my food and go; therefore, I make food purchases based on how easy and fast it would be to make and eat. I am also so busy that I rarely have time to watch TV; therefore, I always watch shows that are not in a series, and are about 30 minutes long.
4. I have a boyfriend that just graduated from the University of Texas at Austin. He is living one hour away; therefore, I am always looking for new ways to stay connected with and communicate with him.
5. I am a 19 year-old Hispanic female. I support many Hispanic advocacy organizations and companies. I think diversity is important in a company, and I take that into account when I purchase items at the store or online.
6. I love to read all kinds of books, newspapers, magazines, research, and different studies. I especially love to read articles and studies on what makes people and customers happy.
7. I am a bargain shopper! Price is usually how I decide between two products. The only reason that I may pay more for a recognizable and reliable brand is if I am buying health-related and skin-related products.
8. I absolutely enjoy the outdoors! I am not a sports type of person, but I love seeing a lot of green, and strolling through a park, and even studying outside. I would have my office or desk outside if I didn’t have to worry about the weather ruining my work or computer.
9. I prefer to buy or have experiences that create memories such as going jet skiing, on a road trip, or going to the movies, then purchasing products.
10. I live in a bad neighborhood in Austin. I live on Riverside where you always hear police car sirens going off due to the amount of crimes that occur in the area; therefore, I am very safety-conscious. I always carry around my pepper spray, and never go outside by myself at night when I am at home in my apartment.
4/4
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