Wearable Tech and The Lazy Consumer

I’ve had my eye on wearable technology for over a year, perhaps even two years. Being a user of fitness wearable tech such as jawbone, Nike + etc. has kept me interested and the massive potential it offers to brands and consumers alike. It’s amazing how it has exploded, although not totally unexpected.

A year ago, I asked the question how wearable tech could be integrated in fashion and watched the increase of fitness tech hop on board and grow exponentially. CES this year has reflected that growth. One could ask, ”Is it a fad?”, in fact Cassidy himself has asked this question being a sceptic.  One journalist from Mashable cited that all things that get massive media coverage from CES normally die a quick death. But like all the trends that come and go, there is definitely something in wearable tech.

Already as an industry, wearable tech has evolved. Interestingly enough in recent news, we now have something called Smart tech – which is a form of wearable tech but more advanced. Such as in recent news – Google announced smart contact lens that monitors blood-sugar levels. If you could imagine it these days, it can become a reality.

To me it’s simple. The brain is a lazy organ, it is trying to find the line of least resistance in everything that it does, and wearable tech that is integrated, seamlessly, easy to use and useful will be successful. Anything that is complicated, not easy to connect, will just join the long list of failures.

This is a well-known principle in marketing and especially realised in digital marketing. Although funny how many brands don’t follow this simple tenet to encourage customer adoption. It starts at the product, companies will fail if their product does not satisfy the new lazy consumer and no amount of smoke and mirrors will make a difference. I have Yahoo! And Facebook in mind….

Looking ahead to 2014

My year has been dominated by trying to take my health and fitness to a new level; I have managed to do duathalons, triathalons and even a half marathon. It’s been mostly painful and sometimes fun, but always “fuelled” by technology. I have gone from Fuelband, to a Jawbone Up and back to a Fuelband. Nike has got the design, simplicity and now accuracy to a “T”. As a recent Wired article stated, “data will not help you if you can’t see it when you need it.” I would add and “how you want to look at it”. We have seen wearable tech enter the fashion industry; a big development being Apple recruiting from the fashion industry. Then the Google glass arrived, making Star Trek fantasies a reality.

Virtual reality and AR were once niche, nice to haves, but they are now creeping into the digital mainstream. The catalyst and support for this….the humble smartphone. It’s taken our everyday lives to a new level of digital engagement and some would say information overload. The rise and rise of the mobile phone has been rapid. I reckon the growth curve of wearable smart technology will be much shorter and will create numerous opportunities and surprises; more so than even the mobile phone. For example with some of the moves Apple is now making, you could almost imagine them buying Nike or Burberry. You would have been taking a massive leap of faith to think that 12 months go. Now, that leap is slightly smaller.

I’m looking forward to 2014. Firstly, I am interested in what brands will use wearable tech to offer consumers in real tangible ways and expect it to deliver in a way social media has not. 

Secondly, I am interested in behaviour and how technology has handed consumer more power, which changes the ‘big corporations’ game and competitor set. 2014 could see seismic changes in the marketing industry as the effect of big data and engineered marketing begins to take effect.

The Mark of the Beast is coming…or is it here?

Because of what I do, I have an interest in technology and technology trends, particular those that relate to financial services. Some of the things that are currently going on have got me thinking…

We are seeing a convergence in payment systems, wearable tech and biometrics that somebody could foresee in the Bible 2000 years ago. Gulp! In Revelation 13:15-18 it references the ‘Mark of the Beast’ as something that forces people to wear something in order to buy or sell, read here:

“It (the second beast) also forced all people, great and small, rich and poor, free and slave, to receive a mark on their right hands or on their foreheads, ¹⁷ so that they could not buy or sell unless they had the mark, which is the name of the beast or the number of its name.”

As I hear daily of the innovations in new technologies that enable the consumer to purchase (tap to pay for example, or the iPhone 5S with its biometric reader) so it seems we have arrived in this future that has been foretold. We may all be about to inadvertently adopt the “Mark”…As I say, I am not religious and am not remotely worried about Beasts etc., but I do think that there is cause for concern over this trend.

So…there is an absolute logic as to why things like wearable tech will become digital wallets and converge with biometrics to become key authentication tools (for example very recently wearable tech was released that can use your heartbeat as identification and authentication). The more you use the body, the more secure a system becomes and the more convenient it becomes for the consumer. But the flip side is we become more traceable. We are trading security and convenience for traceability.

Traceability…the NSA debacle demonstrated that ‘big brother’ is listening, but the scary thing is it hasn’t really bothered most people, including myself for that matter. Yet governments and agencies can see what’s going on with any individual, regardless of the device or platform they use (terms & conditions become inconsequential), we’ve clearly tipped into the ‘big brother’ world. Wearable payment solutions and biometrics offer those that are listening another rich seam.

I think we all assume (probably rightly) that our governments are decent people; even if they are, there is no guarantee that will always be the case. We are heading towards an era where things are more embedded into us and know a lot more about us and our movements. I’ll be keeping a watch on this space, will you?

Digging deeper in digital

The other day I watched a programme on TV. Yes broadcast TV… Anyway the program was all about a (lady) palaeontologist, who had started looking at fossils of T-Rex under a microscope. She eventually discovered the remnants of T-Rex DNA and is in the process of trying to sequence it. If she can sequence it, then the possibility of cloning a new generation of T-Rex’s is here. She looked where nobody else had thought to look. As consequence, she could see life, where only fragments of mineralised bones exist. She talked about the fact that most palaeontologists are interested in the form of fossils, i.e. their size and structure, and not in the biology, where she wanted to understand what made the T-Rex tick. She also made mention of the fact that most palaeontologists are men. 

It got me thinking about the industry we are in and the parallels between some of the themes that I have started thinking about. It may be a sweeping generalisation, but the “Digital” industry is male dominated. It is an industry obsessed with size and form. We measure success in terms of downloads, uploads, speed, channels, etc. We generally take a macro-view, rather than examining the detail.  This is a generalisation of course or a mere hyperbole for demonstration purposes.

If we were the lady palaeontologist what would we be interested in? Where does the real value lie? What forms the biology of the Internet? I think it is the content and more importantly, the source behind the content. The content of the “Web” is life blood. The thing that gives the structure meaning and life. Rather than thinking about the structure, form and channels, we need to start with the content and use this to build out. Returning to a previous point that I’ve made previously, we need to stop building architectures first and filling these with content. We need to start with the content first…

So how do we start with content first? You dig deeper and try to understand your audiences. Who are your audiences, what makes them tick? That’s the question to ask and to be honest, it’s not a dominant male trait to dig deeper, nor a brand’s one for that matter. In my experience, brands don’t want to do the leg work to dig deeper, they just want to talk about themselves. The gender metaphors could go on…

Driving force behind the future of ‘TV’

With the launch of Google Chromecast, reports that Twitter will soon resemble TV and a multitude of other features of late talking about the future of TV, it comes to no surprise to me that people are now talking about the disappearance of traditional broadcast TV.

Of course broadcast channels themselves may survive, albeit purely within a digital environment or framework. It may be old news, or new to some that Twitter is working on the ability to reset your twitter feeds to align it to a particular programme i.e. you can sync your twitter feed to the timing of the your desired programme. That shows 1) power of 2^nd screening and also 2) people aren’t going to have to worry about the 2nd screen live TV experience happening in real-time.

This changes the TV landscape in its entirety; from content, advertising and media consumption – the three key pillars that form the foundation of TV broadcasting. Conventional wisdom in the advertising industry has been that as the rise of Digital would mean the death of TV; Digital killed a TV star.

Interestingly enough it turns out the complete opposite is true: Digital increases TV usage and media consumption as was recently cited in a WIRED article. Going back a few years, I had suspected that, that might be the case based on nothing more than watching my kids and analysing my own viewing habits. I was fond of saying in JWT where I worked, that Digital did not mean less TV, it meant more.

Another example of new ways to consume digital media, is the Ultraviolet cloud based TV storage system from Sony whereby you upload your DVD or recorded shows onto the cloud based platform and can stream onto any tablet or device anywhere and at any time. You can access content regardless of the device and location. This blurs the line between physical and digital. Ultimately, it gives the consumer more choice and greater options.

Ultimately it re-enforces the point that video is now the primary driving force of content and content marketing. I do not know how much video content is uploaded to the Internet and consumed at any-moment in time, but I am guessing it’s rather a lot. As digital professional, we all have to sit and think about this and its impact on the business we’re in. Video production, design, site architecture, all of this now needs to evolve together to align itself as “content journeys”.

We see this change as a massive opportunity for us – we are learning how to include and utilise video content within the information architecture and design process; so that it forms a seamless part of the customer journey, enhancing, rather than disrupting experiences. We are learning about production values, and story-telling and making it part of the experience. The lines between “Experience” companies like us and the “Traditional Ad” companies are blurring. Our focus on structure and process, lends itself to what needs to be done.

Consumer behaviour is continuously changing and is enabled as the power of technology advances. The future of broadcast is here; the consumer now has control of what they watch and they are grabbing that control.

One last question arises… How on earth do we buy media in this new world?! Thankfully it’s not the business I’m in, so I can let someone else worry about that!

Where is Digital Leadership in Businesses today?

There has been something that I have been musing over lately. To be honest to the point of irritation, even annoyance.

Why is it so difficult for clients to execute digital in their businesses? I know I’m generalising here, so please bear with me. Why are many of the businesses we work with and for so out of step from a digital perspective? The gap between their skills and the required skills is increasing exponentially. The only conclusion I can get to is; there is  a lack of digital leadership from the top.

The current digital landscape looks like this:
You have digital “directors”, but their position sits below board level. You don’t have anyone solely responsible for driving digital customer experience. This baffles me, as from a customer experience point of view, the majority of consumer touch points are now digital. Until businesses recognise that there needs to be digital leadership, they will continue to struggle.

To execute digital effectively, you need a well thought out strategy that needs to span across the entire business. Then you need vision and political power to drive this forward. This is the most difficult part and biggest challenge to overcome. I personally feel it’s very difficult to 1) find that kind of person in most businesses today, and I’m talking agencies to brands and everything in-between and 2) have the leadership support at board level to make the difference.

The other side to this is there seems to be no imperative to get this right. This absolutely needs to change in the next few years. Our kids’ generation or the bottom-end of our generation expects so much more. Because of the nature of the working generations, we can still make excuses for not getting things done properly, this will not be acceptable within the next few years.

Change will only happen with the right digital leadership. The Problem is that businesses don’t have the talent pool to pull from. Next year I celebrate my 20^th year of “being” digital and if truth must be told, I don’t see many others around with that amount of experience. I don’t want to be egotistical, but many of the people that work for me were wearing nappies or weren’t even born when I started my digital career!

Based on what I can seen and have learnt, I understand what needs to be done to align the business landscape to the realities of life in the 21st Century. But, I need other digital champions who have the experience, knowledge and political clout and sit at the right organisational level. There…rant done!

Changing our ways…

When writing the LinkedIn post, I started going on a UX bandwagon which I decided to leave for another time…that’s now. It’s insanity really, how we follow the same process in developing websites. I must be careful in what I say here, as it’s the business we’re in, but I can honestly say things need to change and we (HeathWallace) can potentially be that change.

Traditionally, the UX process thinks about a business OUT point of view. How ever you do it, you start with what the business has and then try to connect with consumers, assuming they will come to your website. What you then develop is framework, a series of templates which you then fill with content. It’s only at the end of this process that you really worry about the words. I don’t think that’s how people are consuming things any more. Most people are deep linking to content i.e. via twitter, Google etc. and finding their way to a page of content, not the home page. I’m trying to think of the last time I went to a home page of a website!

This ultimately changes the role websites play, it has evolved. It’s more dynamic and can be a repository of content. In my experience we skim the internet for information then deep dive to find what we want. I Googled HSBC recently and I can see Google prioritises most visited and up-to-date pages, what I’m exposed to is a portal of content and this becomes a self-fulfilling experience. It’s more acute now as people are more informed in what they want to do and what they want to buy. I think it’s crazy how we create all these websites for nobody to visit or read, it’s like the definition of insanity, still doing it even if we know it’s wrong and expecting a different result.

And it’s a vicious circle, for example, does a start-up really need a website or rather, fragments of content? Fragments which talk about the business concept in snackable and shareable pieces of content, which point people to something that needs to exist, to either close the sale or provide more information. Instead of putting all your efforts into creating a website, you rather put your efforts into the content and think from the content back and how it all pieces together.

The industry (everyone in it from clients to agencies etc.) who is set up to deliver, understand this is the issue but are loathe to implement it. It’s a heretical point of view I know, as you then have to go unpick everything that we’re doing, and all our clients have to do the same. If I’m honest, it means we have to change how we do things, which is possible as I work with some of the most talented minds in the industry. So watch this space…

LinkedIn, endless opportunities

This last week we had a workshop with LinkedIn. We discussed content development and how LinkedIn can become a more valid place to go. The more LinkedIn can create better content, the more of a valid place it will be to go. They need corporates and industries to create better content, so it becomes a virtuous circle.

This is interesting as B2B is their sweet spot and it’s our strength. I’m seeing LinkedIn as a new channel. So what does a corporate need? A website, mobile site, and intranet, but they also need to be fit for purpose on LinkedIn. It becomes a more of a necessity something they have to do. The potential opportunity is integrating LinkedIn as a platform with corporates’ internal systems; this could open new opportunities for LinkedIn to reinvent themselves as potential a software company.

I’m sure they recognise that they have all this data which they could leverage and that’s fantastic but the more they integrate into businesses, the better the kind of content will be. I could almost imagine them having all of a corporate’s employees on their platform and then you could start thinking about intranet groups. As soon as you start talking about this, it opens up huge opportunities. Why do corporates do the same old in creating intranets where most staff (this is a generalisation) don’t go and ultimately pump huge amounts of money into it and it fails? Use the same external marketing approach and go where your employees are…LinkedIn.

So the gap really is the content publishing side, the more valuable LinkedIn becomes as a publishing property, the more they integrate with businesses, the stickier and valuable they will become. It transcends the thinking about content and what people are reading and what they’re likely to consume and build out from that point where at the moment we come up with a framework for a website and fill it with content, it’s really a stupid thing to do…it’s old (this leads me onto another blog post).

LinkedIn can become a destination for you to discover more about what you need to know and who to follow, but it’s only as good as the content and network of users that underpins it. If I’m a company who understands that most of my staff is going to LinkedIn, then I should invest in being there. It can become a place where people can manage their careers not only a relevant content hub. That’s just the start of the potential opportunity in my opinion, a small one at that!:-)

Sport leading the way in tech?

Some of you may know I have a keen interest in sport, in particular triathlons. I was at the Windsor triathlon this last Sunday, people are paying for bikes, wheels, gear, you name it. We are a bunch of 40 something’s with money to spend, trying to keep hold of our youth doing this stuff.

Over the last week or so there has been an impressive amount of news in the sport world. I’m not talking about the usual sporting escapades but rather technological innovation.

I could almost say that sport is leading the way in digital trends – wearable tech is the way of the future. Having something on your wrist is less intrusive than something on your face like Google glasses for instance. There is an enormous world of innovation going on with smart socks as your coach for goodness sake and not 1 but 8 fitness social networks!

It makes the point that as society gets older i.e. living for longer, political power panders towards the older generation, who ultimately have the means to invest. Youth can come up with ideas but innovation only happens in a mature market.

A company like us (HeathWallace) have the experience in digital to really impact and influence technological innovation. If you understand users’ behaviours, you can influence customers’ experiences. For instance I can plug my Jawbone Up in my iPhone which then gives it a really nice display, using mobile to be the window. Nike+ fuelband provides instant gratification and feedback whilst syncing your experience online. Nike is always leading the way because they build products that consumers love and naturally talk about it.

This topic is becoming dearer to my heart and I have no doubt that these devices and apps actually make a real difference with the feedback they provide to improve one’s performance. Hopefully one day I’ll actually crack my own running best, which at this point in time any granny can beat! Watch this space…

Innovation through practicality

I’ve personally experienced Google glasses, and to be honest although I enjoy looking out for new innovative technologies I do wonder if this is a red herring, or is there something more here? I agree with the Mashable article the glasses are clumsy and it is interesting to read what other experts have to say about its potential future. I can see the technology intertwine with fashion and there seems to be several new examples of this already happening.

However what fascinates me even more at the moment, is watching my kids and their adoption of technology. In my opinion, it’s a warning to Facebook. How kids use 5 different platforms across several devices simultaneously to consume content and connect with each other is extraordinary. They’re more versatile with multiple platforms than us Gen X’s. Platforms quickly become commodities and the question should be, “Who is going to win?”

At the moment LinkedIn is my bet. It acts as a business driver and provides users with reasons to come back day after day. LinkedIn has reinvented itself and  Is becoming more of a content provider. you can know you connect with others and consume content that is relevant to you. People and organisations generate that content. The LinkedIn platform remains central to the business, person and digital life.

My answer to ‘who is going to win’ is to ask yet another question which is, ‘what are users experiencing’? This will ultimately determine the evolution and destination of our current social media platforms.

2 years ago it was about user experiences through desktop, now mobile, tablets and wearable devices atomising content. They don’t need to go to destinations any longer. Google is becoming more of a portal where users get to consume content across the internet and this ultimately impacts our traditional views of information architecture. Augmented reality brings content to the user via multiple platforms as an example, hence my warning to facebook and information architects!

So I challenge conventional thinking with information architecture. I can imagine walking into a branch of HSBC (or any other bank) and my experience is virtual. As I enter, they know who I am and the content that comes my way is relevant. You don’t have to experience information through traditional means. We’ve passed the tipping point, content is now above everything else we considered king.

6th June Update:

I came across this interesting article on the future of facebook  which confirms my sentiments on the youth’s decline of engagement – http://www.siliconvalley.com/ci_23393500/you-may-not-like-facebook-much-anymore-but Only time will tell if Facebook will be a Yahoo! in a few years time…