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HoHoTO – Toronto tech community opens its heart to fight hunger

A loving heart is the truest wisdom.

– Charles Dickens

As the holidays approaches each year, while many gather to celebrate their many blessings they have received over a feast of food, many go without. There are many families struggling to put food on the table, especially during the holidays. The Toronto Daily Bread Foodbank valiantly tries to make sure every table has food, but even do-gooders need help.

With a shortfall of 140,000 pounds of food and $85,000 from the Fall Drive, Daily Bread is looking to raise 1.2 million pounds of food and 1.2 million dollars by January 4 in order to ensure that food continues to go out over the winter months to families struggling with hunger. Most-needed food items include peanut butter, rice, dry pasta and sauce, baby formula and food, dried or canned beans, canned tuna and meat, canned fruits and vegetables. Enter a merry band of social media enabled individuals bent on mobilizing the Toronto technology community to give back and help those less fortunate. In response to the growing need from the community for food, HoHoTO was born.

Using little more than their Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn rolodexes, the organizers have made sure that HoHoTO has become a regular fixture on the Toronto tech event calendar. For those interested in this event, it is recommended that they move quickly. This event is a regular sell out and tickets are on sale now here. Essentially, for every ticket a person can eat for a week.

One of the defining elements of the event is the support from our community – the corporations and individuals who make the lion’s share of donations to the event. You can see the long list of sponsors who contribute and are classified by the holiday theme that is a hallmark for the event. While HoHoTO has an impressive list of sponsors, the fight to keep Toronto fed is not an easy one and they are looking to surpass last year’s goal of $65,000.

Boots to Asses – WWE social media strategy leaves others in the dust

Over the past year the WWE has continued to push the social media envelope by integrating Twitter and Facebook further into its regular broadcasts. Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, now a cross-over star in both the WWE and Hollywood, cut a promo on WWE Raw to hype the upcoming pay-per-view “Survivor Series”. During that promo, the Rock quickly coined a new catchphrase “Boots to Asses” and said it was now trending worldwide. Before he mentioned it there was no mention of it on Twitter. Shortly after he said it, not only did it start a new chant throughout the arena, but it proved that Mr. Johnson was prophetic as minutes later the term “Boots to Asses” was trending worldwide. One might say this is a one off, but for anyone observing what the WWE has been up to this can be seen as only a small part of a much larger social media strategy.

In the last year, the WWE has bolstered it’s already strong web presence with a very savvy social media offensive. Now every performer who appears on WWE TV has their own Twitter handle which they use to build a fan following and actually continue storylines started from the show. During the broadcast, whenever a wrestler heads to the ring, their Twitter handle is prominently featured next to their name on the screen graphics. Their strategy is obvious and effective, providing a method to allow their show to be more interactive and leverage casual fans to tune in more regularly especially when something eventful is on the screen. Throughout the show, it is quite common to hear announcers talking about whether something is trending worldwide.

Some wrestlers who are trying to increase their standing in the company have actually taken to social media to build an audience. Zack Ryder and his self-styled ”Jersey Shore” persona created a series of YouTube videos to drive interest. To his credit, not only has he been successful driving nearly 100,000 people to become subscribers on Youtube, but he also has 300,000 followers on Twitter. He essentially went out and built a new fanbase for himself and received more airtime and interest as a result.

Wrestlemania is by far the biggest event held by the WWE. To hype the main event, they have already launched a separate site to highlight their main fight, John Cena vs. Dwanye “The Rock” Johnson, and to encourage fans to choose whose side they’re on. The site is integrated with both Twitter and Facebook pages. On each side they have attracted huge audiences. Here is the tale of the tape so far, and it is pretty impressive.

Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson John Cena
Twitter Followers 1.6m followers 1.1m Followers
Facebook Likes 4.4m Likes 9.2 Million Likes

It begs the question why aren’t other sporting or entertainment broadcasts integrating social media as aggressively into their broadcasts or event marketing. WWE uses social media to increase controversy and drive further interest while others shy away from it. It’s obvious that WWE is Sports Entertainment with more of a scripted product, but why can’t other entertainment channels adopt some of these social media strategies to drive interest and live involvement in their product. Why isn’t Monday Night Football doing the same when a big game is coming up?  They could use this strategy to hype, drive interest and attract new viewership or followers. I would offer two rationales, either they are afraid of the spontaneity of social media or don’t feel like they need to adopt it.

Aaron Rodgers, who is having the season of his life for the Green Bay Packers, only has 385,000 Twitter followers and the defending Superbowl champions only have 160,000 followers. Surely there is a bit of a disconnect here if someone in the NFL in charge of marketing hasn’t been able to better connect and market this budding superstar and his team with fans in realtime. It seems like a missed opportunity, and while Aaron Rodgers is a huge WWE fan and loves to sport his “World Title” belthe does not have the social media presence of a World Champion.

On the other side of the spectrum, the NHL has banned players from using Facebook and Twitter on game days. Several traditional entertainment channels including the major 4 professional sports leagues (NFL, NBA, MLB, NHL) have all instituted stiff penalties . Chad Ochocinco in 2010 was fined $25,000 for Tweeting during a NFL gam. Not only do the Big 4 lag behind, but they haven’t understood yet how to really leverage social media effectively for their product or audience, which is a bit of a shame when you think about it.

The UFC, like the WWE, on the other hand, is another example of a sport with real personalities that is leveraging Twitter to drive interest. They have adopted some savvy social media strategies including showing the Twitter handle of a fighter as they approach the octagon. UFC events often drive trending topics throughout their events. The UFC president Dana White is out in front tweeting his live reaction to the fights like other fans out there. And it’s a two-way conversation. He actually takes feedback from the fans directly and learns how to make his product better. By letting fans interact closely with the fighters, the UFC has been able to humanize, grow interest and significantly increase buy-rates for their pay-per-view shows.

Any entertainment brand that fails to interact with its fans is missing a huge opportunity. Especially in sports, it is really up to the brand or league to provide a proper outlet to hype and get their fans excited about upcoming events or games. The WWE, while an unconventional example, is easily leading the pack of this strategy to drive interest in their product and interact with their fan base. If you take a look at what the WWE is doing on social media compared to their counterparts in other sports, they are truly putting Boots to Asses.

Reflections on being a father

In and out, in and out, I quietly sit, watching my daughter breathe while she is sleeping truly a miracle. Anna lays between Laura and me peacefully sleeping on the eve of her surgery. I can’t help but feeling such a huge range of emotions. Over the past 10 months I have built such a tight bond with my little girl, my first concern is providing for her, protecting her and keeping her safe. Since Laura has to go to work early in the morning, she feeds her in the morning and then leaves my little daughter next to me to let us both a little extra sleep. Sometimes I wake up before her and I watch her wake up and it is one of my favorite moments in the day.  For such a little person, she has so much personality and has brought so much happiness into my life and into the life of our entire family.

Since becoming a father it is amazing how a switch flips inside you, and your world turns upside down.  You grow a parental 6th sense for your child, learn their little idiosyncrasies and what makes them an individual. As sappy as it sounds songs, I find myself getting really moved songs that choke me up inside. I mean I love Guns N’ Roses, but when I hear sweet child of mine I well up inside. The song The Suburbs by The Arcade Fire really touches me especially this lyric:

So can you understand?
Why I want a daughter while I’m still young
I wanna hold her hand
And show her some beauty
Before this damage is done

It touches me especially because I want to show my daughter beauty and protect her.

It has been 19 months since I found out I was going to be a father and 10 months of actually getting to hold my little girl in my arms.  I find I am getting to re-experience everything through my child’s eyes.  On a trip to the zoo, I get so much joy watching her eyes light up. As we get closer to Christmas, I look forward to seeing Anna get excited as she gets to experience it for the first time.

I write this blog tonight because I can’t sleep. I haven’t been able to sleep much lately. Tomorrow will be a tough day, but we will get through it. Anna is a tough little girl. While she woos everyone with her cuteness and personality, I know she is a fighter like her parents and will be fine. This year I have felt the full range of emotions for absolute joy to sheer dread.  I look forward to having tomorrow behind us so we can continue to watch the evolution of one of the most amazing people I will ever know, my daughter Anna.

 

Winston: Order A Limo Or Cab At The Touch Of A Button

Have you been waiting for a taxi to come take you to an airport and it never comes? Or worse yet, you have ordered a car and don’t know where it is. A Toronto based company named Winston aims to change the way you call for a taxi or limo. Launching today exclusively in Toronto, Winston is going direct to cab or car companies and pitching a different way to operate. Instead of high overhead dispatch, which can be hit and miss they are leveraging the customer, GPS and integrated credit card functions to change the game.

Sounds a lot like  Uber, but Winston’s prime focus is around the business user. The business traveler typically has very different needs than an average traveler. The launch of the app is currently limited to Toronto, Canada, but they will be rolled out in New York, Chicago, Los Angeles and San Francisco by the end of the year. Winston is negotiating agreements currently with international providers and will be in multiple markets in Europe and Asia in 2012. Winston believes it will win out by leveraging broader distribution and greater adoption across more cities. Uber is currently available in 5 cities.

“Our customers will be everywhere, we need to be everywhere they are” says Aidan Nulman CEO of Winston.

With Winston, rather than picking up the phone, you will be able to order a cab at the touch of a button using the Winston app. While waiting for your ride you can track it approaching via GPS. When you complete your ride, rather than having to reach for your wallet, you just leave the car and the payment is handled via Winston. The payment is tracked via the app, it tracks the pick-up and drop-off location and time spent and charges a credit card on file appropriately.

Whether you want either a cab or a limo, a prospective passenger can order either. Limousines obviously come at a premium and a minimum cost of 50 dollars. Winston has already negotiated numerous agreements with cab and limousine companies.

Winston has received significant interest from corporations looking to manage employee expenses. One of the key reasons for this is that tax chits can often be abused by employees while traveling. As well, for employees, keeping track of travel expenses is often the last thing they want to do. All in all, this is ideal for a busy business traveler who is getting off a flight to catch a business meeting. This expedites and automates the entire process. Winston derives revenue by taking a percentage of each ride and sees many other potential revenue streams.

Winston was founded In January 2011 by Aidan Nulman, Yilun Zhang, and Krista Caldwell. Winston is in The Next 36 program, an entrepreneurship program designed to groom the next generation of entrepreneurs. Winston has worked closely with advisors from Canadian incubator MaRs and other entrepreneurs to get this venture off of the ground.

The Winston app is now available on the App Store here, check it out.

I drink your milkshake – Top 5 tips to steal your competitors’ clients

Here, if you have a milkshake, and I have a milkshake, and I have a straw. There it is, that’s a straw, you see? You watching?. And my straw reaches acroooooooss the room, and starts to drink your milkshake… I… drink… your… milkshake! – There Will Be Blood.

Daniel Plainview was brilliantly acted character played by Daniel Day Lewis and this scene won him the Oscar. It does say something about competition and going after your competitors’ resources. Your competitor’s most valuable resource is their customers. So how do you “Drink Their Milkshake”?. These strategies are really suited to a David and Goliath approach.   Here are 5 really simple steps (some are quite aggressive) to target and win over your competitors customers in a digital age.

Here are some top tips:

1.     LinkedIn – LinkedIn is a powerful tool for understanding competitive information. There are a number of different ways to effectively poach your competitors clients.

a.     See what their sales force is doing – Watch what the sales reps from your competitors are doing, and see who they are connecting with. It is likely that those people are either their leads or customers. Target those people and begin discussions of your own.

b.    Infiltrate their LinkedIn groups – Most of the people who manage LinkedIn groups quite honestly don’t pay attention to who they let in. Some of the people there are likely either users or power users. You have to be discriminating to who you begin to contact, as usually these groups are teeming with consultants and members of that company. It can be a quick way to generate a really quick list.

2.     Twitter – It is very simple to go after your competitor’s customers in Twitter. The rule is simple: if they are following your competitor, it is likely they are customers. So the next step is easy – you follow them 500-1000 at a time. You wait a week and see who follows you back. By virtue of them following you back, they have self-identified that they might be interested in trying a different service. At the very least, you see what topics are resonating and can derive new messaging from that.

3.     Facebook – Fans and people who actively post on their wall are obvious targets. Depending on the product or service you can begin to run ads for anyone who “likes” your competitor. This is a hyper targeted approach to catch the eye of these potential clients.

4.     Event Sign-ups – Many companies are using 3rd party sign-up tools for their events or webinars. Search and scrape any sign-up sheet to see the names of people signing for your competitors events. You can effectively use their own marketing and lack of security to tell you who you should be targeting.

5.     Competitors’ websites – Look at the client roster on the websites. Look for case studies, client names etc. Now I will warn you this is a tougher slog due to the fact that people are the most devoted advocates of their brand. That said, if you can steal a few of them it could be a huge coup. Depending on the website, you might want to use a website downloader. Why a website downloader you ask? It is simple – a lot of companies don’t effectively manage their content and information. There can be a lot of hidden information that those companies don’t want you to see. It could be the result of lazy web development or otherwise. Sometimes people leave some very sensitive information within public view.

These are a few of many powerful tools to help “Drink Your Competitors’ Milkshake”. Conversely, make sure you are careful in how you manage your customer data and don’t make it easy for them to target your customers. I will close by saying that none of these strategies work unless you are willing to invest time and hustle. You can’t win over your competitors’ customers just merely by sipping them up with a straw.

You are building too slowly

When I was a child I played with Lego. If I was at home, I had the leisure of playing with my own Lego, and I could take my time and build an elaborate creation. I would go to meticulous detail in building ships, castles or other buildings. I realized there was a certain serenity to playing my own sandbox at my own pace. When I went to kindergarten, I noticed they had a large box of Lego. When I went to play with it for the first time, I got upset that there were other kids taking blocks I wanted to use. I wasn’t afforded the luxury of taking my time, because if I did, I wouldn’t have the pieces needed to complete what I wanted to build. This is a simple parable but it made me realize that I was building too slowly, and not afforded infinite timelines.

I thought back to this during Democamp, where a company named VidYard built an impressive application in 16 weeks, got funded and are now on the upswing. This example made me realize that if you think you are building something quickly, you probably aren’t and will pay the price for it. The level of competition in the software/web application space has only gotten more intense. The ability of a focused and dedicated team to build something quickly is needed more than ever. What I have come to realize is that zealotry of innovation is powerful. People with a taste for both innovation and building something are hard to stop.

Last week, due to this epiphany, I decided to try to tackle something in one week that would normally take me multiple weeks. I refocused, got team buy-in and went to work. This didn’t come without bumps – the time I would normally take to think out every nuance was not there. I stayed up late and built and tweaked until it was ready. I would argue that a perfect plan with nothing built takes a backseat to something that works that perhaps isn’t perfect. It may sound cliché, but a good plan today is truly better than a great plan later. At the end of the week, I lost a lot of sleep and built out something cool. I didn’t quite hit my timeline, but when I looked back at the week, I saw that my team and I had built a lot and learned a few lessons.

So you want to build something quickly? How do you do it?

  1. Set an unrealistic timeline. How better to start this project? Ask yourself how long it would normally take on this project and cut it in half. Setting an unrealistic timeline does two things: 1) it makes you scramble and 2) if you manage to pull it off you will get a huge amount of wind at your back and it will inspire you to do it again. Even if you miss your mark, you will accomplish a lot in that time because you are working your ass off. Think of Darth Vader in Return of the Jedi. He lands on the incomplete Death Star and basically says this thing will be operational or you have to deal with the emperor. Without some brash ambition and, frankly, a bit of fear, you won’t know how fast you can move.
  2. You need to be 126% committed to building something quickly. What does that mean? It means while you are building it, you need to detach from the outside world. Cut out the distractions (Twitter, Facebook, casual web surfing). As much as we love these things, you need to cut them out. Get your team onside, lay out the parameters and just start building. Reconnect regularly with updates, but focus on moving forward. You need to be willing to sacrifice a little bit of sleep and fun, but you will be happy when you get the results. Distraction is the enemy. I can virtually guarantee that someone else has shared that same idea. It is question of whether you want it more than someone else.
  3. When you’ve finished it, evolve it. Like any good lean agile project, as soon as you are done your project, evolve it. This can’t be a one off; you need to evolve. There are reasons that many agile methodologies use the concept of sprints. Those “sprints” can’t be leisurely strolls. After you are done your sprint take a quick break, re-evaluate what you have built. Determine what mistakes you made, fix them and try it again.

These are the caveats to taking this approach

  1. Whatever you build needs to work – if you build, make it functional.
  2. Whatever you are building needs to scale – If you Frankensteined something together with a sloppy code and approach, it is not going to work.

 

Going back to my original point, the luxury of building something slowly in this day and age is gone. You will get beaten to the market and beaten because those going to market faster will be able to iterate circles around you. It is time to ask yourself, am I willing to bust my ass to get this done quickly or do I perpetually want to come in second place?

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Google+ will not dethrone Facebook because my mom doesn’t use it

My parents have become an informal guidepost for technology adoption. Whenever I come home to visit them, they usually ask me if I have heard about some new technology. It is that point that I know that the tech they mention has reached a certain level of critical mass. My parents are by no means tech neophytes, but conversely, they aren’t cruising tech blogs attending regular tweet-ups.

Facebook is a regular part of my mom’s life. I often get messages and Wall comments from her, and in quite a few instances, our Facebook communication has replaced picking up a telephone. So, this weekend I asked her whether she uses Google+ or has heard about it. She said she had heard some buzz about it, but had no intention to change from Facebook. I started to think about this, and wondered if this trend of one would hold true in other demographics. I also began to wonder whether Google+ might be in for a slog trying to convert my mom and others who share similar usage patterns and demographics. Before I make such a bold blustery claim, we should evaluate why my mom uses Facebook.

The biggest reason? Because everyone else uses Facebook too.  Facebook has built a competitive advantage that will make it difficult to overcome, especially in the older demographic. The younger generation has less of an issue trying something new and flipping between multiple services (Google+, Twitter, Foursquare, etc.). One could easily make the argument that Myspace was well ahead of Facebook and they caught up. This is a totally different game due to the three principle ways my mom uses Facebook:

1. Playing Games with friends – Facebook has become an impressive platform for non-immersive pastime games I consider myself a gamer, but still play Facebook games from time to time. For my mom, on the other hand, Facebook’s game offerings are often at the perfect skill level for her and others in her generation. These games also attract users who don’t have the time to commit to an engrossing game and just want a five minute distraction. Facebook Scrabble is one of my mom’s favourite games, and she plays with all of her friends from the comfort of her iPad. Facebook quickly become one of the strongest gaming platforms out there over the past 3 years. The Google game strategy is emerging via the Google App store, but currently is both under-developed and not tightly integrated into Google+.

2. Seeing what we are up to – With a new baby in the family, my mom is quick to check for photos or keep in touch with friends. I haven’t felt the need to really post pictures on both services (Facebook and Google+) because when posting those pictures, I consider my target audience. In this case, I want family to see them, so naturally they get posted to Facebook. This is part of the problem for Google+. If I know that the people who are looking to consume the content are on Facebook, I will naturally upload more material to that site. Content is king, and if a network is drawing more people to post, it is a natural assumption that more users will be drawn to the network with more content from people they care about. The interaction between family and friends is paramount and if that connection point is not there for my mom (not to mention the many users like her), she will not convert.

3. Connecting with people overseas – My family is Italian, and we still have a lot of family back in Italy. My mom has continued to stay in touch with them, and Facebook has been her bridge. Facebook has slowly fought over years to capture regional markets (sometimes against local social networks or other social networks that had, for whatever reason, caught fire in that region). Even if Google+ is to convert my mother, the other issue is to connect my relative at the other end of the equation. It is admirable that Google+ started with so many languages natively, but I still think they will have an adoption problem, especially in regional markets. Consider how hard it was for Facebook to unseat Okurt and other localized networks in certain regional markets.

 

Summary

It is obvious that getting people to convert from one system or another will not be a simple conversion. One of the barriers to entry with any social network will be the level of personalized content and interaction. This is not to say that Google doesn’t have the raw tools to convert people (they have obviously made it easy for the bulk of the population to use their search engine). The 50+ crowd will be slower to convert. Part of this is due to the fact that Google+ doesn’t offer a differentiator (other than the fact that it’s not called Facebook). This isn’t to say that age is the only limiting factor, as immersion to technology and the willingness to try new things.  I strongly contend, it is unlikely that people will change just for change’s sake.  Social networking seems to be a different game, unlike the email wars in which companies competed to see what service they could convert people to. The interconnectedness of the service plays an obvious and undeniable role to keep users where they are.  How do you react when you receive an email from AOL or another old proprietary domain? Many of the people sending those emails belong to older demographics haven’t changed their service. In a week where people have played pile on with Google+, I wanted to take a step back and evaluate things from another perspective. The barriers to convert people to change to Google+ are higher than you may think and my mom just helps underscore that point, especially when targeting an older demographic with fixed usage patterns.

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How Zerofootprint Uses Data To Make Schools Greener

he word “green” is tossed around a lot as a catchall term to describe sustainable or environmentally friendly projects, businesses, energy, and more. Green construction and architecture, for one, are proliferating across the world, but when it comes to gauging how “green” a building is, for example, one finds that there are more than a few standards by which to determine its efficiency and sustainability.

Enter Toronto-based Zerofootprint: A cleantech software and services company, which is leveraging competitive benchmarking between peers to help determine the “green” factor for any given building. Ron Dembo, the founder of Zerofootprint, contends that, if you want to motivate developers to improve the efficiency of a building, one can’t simply benchmark against everyone else, because each community has a different climate. Thus, the founder says that Zerofootprint aims to focus on benchmarking buildings against other buildings within a community to achieve maximum community efficiency.

Zerofootprint uses its mapping and analytics engine to correlate multiple consumption and usage data points, like power usage, costs, emissions, etc., that it then plots on an interactive map for easy viewing. Currently, the company is working with over 100 customers that include entities like school boards and municipalities, and is leveraging its data in school districts to drive change at a school-by-school level.

By tracking power usage at this local level, Zerofootprint is quickly able to see which schools are using higher amounts of power and thus incurring a higher cost. Through some quick analysis, it’s able to track and see that a school board may be paying $2,500 per child in electricity vs. $800 in another school, for example.

Some of these differences can be traced to age of the building, but another key component is behavior. By sharing this information with key stakeholders (including students, teachers, parents and administrators), the schools can then work to reduce energy costs. It is the hope that by reducing energy costs, school districts can focus on using those funds towards education instead of just keeping the lights on.

According to Dembo, through realtime feedback with its system, Zerofootprint has already been able to help certain schools achieve 20 percent energy reduction. He also says that it’s been interesting to see the reaction from stakeholders for installations that have not even taken root. Zerofootprint has recently deployed their solution with the Halton Catholic District School board.

“Even in the early stages of this initiative, teachers and principals are excited about using the
Zerofootprint tool to engage students and encourage behavioral change when it comes to energy use in our schools. Our Board looks forward to using this tool to track carbon emissions and strive to continuously improve energy conservation”, says Erin Holko, Environmental Sustainability Officer of the Halton Catholic District School Board.

Time will tell as to what the ultimate impact will be of actively monitoring power usage, but it is clear that they are getting traction from multiple levels of stakeholders. The key will be to see how this translates both in different regions and in both government and the private sector.

As to cost, the minimum for a Zerofootprint installation is $25,000, which pays for the analytics and dashboard that help track the progress within the organization. For many companies with ever growing energy costs, this can help properly identify where the issues are and address them.

While school boards have been a key client, this is the tip of the iceberg as to who Zerofootprint wants to reach with this technology. The hope is that by empowering multiple stakeholders with information, it will act as a catalyst to spur behaviour change in many sectors and industries. This will not only change how people use power but how people use buildings. With a clearer understanding and correlation of these factors, it hopes to enable administrators to make clearer decisions.

Zerofootprint has been challenged lately by competition from a new company in the space calledOPower. But Dembo maintains that it has an edge over OPower, as it has begun to partner with banks to give special financial benefits to those who reduce their eco footprint. In any case, the entrance of OPower into the market is helping to draw more attention to both their offerings, indicating that there is room to grow, as the race to connect the dots between behavior and energy patterns is just beginning.

The key going forward will be not just the creation of linkages, but identifying which systems truly spur a ground-level change in behavior. Zerofootprint’s key differentiator will be tying performance to financial incentives. Zerofootprint has been courting banks and financial institutions to give preferential rates and products to organizations that become greener. If there were more incentives to operate in a more energy efficient manner, this could be a game changer for green initiatives. By involving real financial incentives, it is more likely to take hold in the mainstream rather than just with those who pursue green initiatives for altruistic purposes.

It is clear that information is the first step to making a decision. Zerofootprint hopes that once information is put in the hands of multiple people, innovation will occur and people will formulate their own solutions to increase energy efficiency.

Originally Published at on TechCrunch

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4 (Fantastic) Steps to Help Your Website Succeed

1.  Create several key use cases for people to use your site – Why are people on your site? You spent energy getting them there, so now what? I always advocate to create a really few well-defined and streamlined use cases. You may already have a working site or be in the process of designing it from scratch. Ask yourself this question: If a visitor to your site was a tourist, what would you like them to see in your “site” or “city”? Are you sending them to a bad neighbourhood, or are they seeing the sights? Here are some examples of use cases:

  • Get them to sign-up
  • Find out more about your service/product – watch a video or read more
  • Get them to purchase or sign up for your product/service

These seem simple stupid, but it is shocking how many sites (especially web start-ups) don’t seem to have simple use cases defined to push people to these important steps. Don’t be one of those sites, make sure you have tightly defined use cases and your website is tuned around them.

2. Make it super easy for them to sign-up, so you can get their information – When a person comes to your site and is about to make the leap of faith to share information, make sure you are there for them. This is a big psychological leap for many; you need to make sure you do the right things to help them take the next step. Here are a few suggestions:

  • Keep your form clean (don’t ask for information you don’t need)  – People don’t want to feel like they are doing their taxes by entering countless pieces of personal information. Keep things lean and mean, get some initial buy-in and you can always ask more questions after you get to know them. Think of it like dating.
  • Add options like Facebook or Twitter connect – This has become a no-brainer these days. Gone are the days where some get uber-concerned about their personal profile (well some people at least). It is amazing how the click of one button vs. filling out a form has reduced inhibitions to share information.
  • Style sometimes means substance – People are used to the finer touches when it comes to UI.  This could be a refined button, and it could be AJAX/JS pop-ups. The days of boring Post forms are dead. Take a little bit of time and even a bit of money on your primary form to ensure it looks the part in today’s web.

People are not only looking for these refinements, they are expecting them. The bar is set so high by the quality of execution by web start-ups out there. Make sure to spend some time on this. Here is a particularly good article by Smashing Magazine on the topic:

http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2011/05/05/innovative-techniques-to-simplify-signups-and-logins/

At the end of the day, if you don’t get their information in many ways you are back to square one.

3. Make it easy for people to tell others – So, people came to your site. Did they do what you wanted them to do? Got their information?  What happens next? Everyone knows that word-of-mouth is the best form of advertising. Why not make it easier for people to share their glowing recommendations? I know what you are going to say – I have a share button on my site, isn’t that enough? The problem is everyone has a share button and it no longer stands out. You need to spice it up, and make it a part of your process flow. An example in the process flow is when a user completes a key step or  when they upload something. Gamification is emerging as a trend to help capitalize on this.  If you aren’t familiar with this current trend (not sure how you couldn’t be) but Gartner pegs half of innovation to be gamified by 2015 – http://www.zdnet.com/blog/gamification/cios-pay-attention-gartner-says-over-half-of-innovation-will-be-gamified-by-2015/312

Here are the key reasons that Gartner cited: (I could paraphrase, but copy and paste works so well)

“1. Accelerated feedback cycles. In the real world, feedback loops are slow (e.g., annual performance appraisals) with long periods between milestones. Gamification increases the velocity of feedback loops to maintain engagement.

2. Clear goals and rules of play. In the real world, where goals are fuzzy and rules selectively applied, gamification provides clear goals and well-defined rules of play to ensure players feel empowered to achieve goals.

3. A compelling narrative. While real-world activities are rarely compelling, gamification builds a narrative that engages players to participate and achieve the goals of the activity.

4. Tasks that are challenging but achievable. While there is no shortage of challenges in the real world, they tend to be large and long-term. Gamification provides many short-term, achievable goals to maintain engagement.”

4. Up-sell, cross sell, sideways sell, recommend, suggest, etc. etc.  – Your site is chock full of goodness, products and options, but it is more than likely your customer doesn’t have a clue. Connect the dots for them. Why have you turned your site into a scavenger hunt?  There is a good chance that if they bought something from your site, you might have something else they might like. The Amazon recommendation engine has set the standard in this regard, but it doesn’t take a genius to figure out if they like product A they might want product B. Leverage things like confirmation pages and confirmation emails to get your message out there and get them coming back for more. If you use those tools it won’t be considered as a marketing impression, yet it might spur them to action.

Summary

At the end of the day there are some really simple tools and processes you can use to help your next site or even overhaul your existing site.

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5 Things a Good Product Manager Should Think About

1.     Minimal Viable Product thinking can be a trap – there has recently been a huge movement toward creating a “minimum viable product” and then going out to market as quickly as possible. I would argue it is important to temper this trend. This has turned into a tendency to quickly roll out half-baked functionality because developers believe they are following the MVP mantra.  Well thought out features that deliver value, even if they take a bit longer to come to market, will (in my opinion) deliver more ultimate value to the product and to the user experience. I am all for iterating something early on once it is in the hands of the customer, but I would argue that some companies have misconstrued this and roll out an untested, half written piece of functionality

2.       Keep an eye on what really matters – Many good product managers fight with this all the time. How many times do people from different lines of business ask questions like “wouldn’t it be cool if it could do this?”. When I really boil it down, there are only 3 reasons why you should build any given feature in an early-stage start-up. Here they are:

  • It will help make money – If you are a start-up working towards break-even, then this needs to be ever present in every decision you make. If it won’t help move the needle and get you closer to profitability, you may want to reconsider it. I come from a school of thought in which you want straightforward business models with a straightforward path to cash. There are few out there with unlimited runways and you always need to be concerned with this in your approach.
  • It will improve the user experience – User experience has become such a core function to any product manager. Is this easy to use? Do people get pissed off when they have to use key features on the site? Will it cause people to abandon your site?  UX can be a core competency and key differentiator. Always focus on this! Even if it is as simple as a nicely done pop-up or a cleanly designed button, it all matters when it comes to UX.
  • It will improve efficiency and scalability – Will this feature allow you to do more with less, does it allow you to hold off hiring more people to do the same function, or does it make the people you have more effective? You should always consider this to stay lean and mean as possible

3.       Create a vision for the product – it is important to not limp forward from one feature to the next. This can be an easy trap to fall into. Having a tight 6-week development cycle is important, but having a grasp on what you want this thing to look like in a year or 18 months is important. This isn’t to say that you should wireframe the thing to death and do work for something that may or may not be built. Rather, have a feeling for what you want the experience to evolve into.

4.       Beware the “Frankenstein” product – Every product manager should ask them this question on a regular basis.   This ties in with the above point about product vision, but I generally find this can be more of a tactical problem. Does each feature compliment the next, is it tied together in a comprehensive UX flow or does it feel tacked on? “Frankensteining” new features into a product can be fraught with danger for the long-term health of a product. A good product manager needs to fight the urge to quickly throw a button into the UI to satisfy a line of business, but rather should look for a way to re-orient the UI. Sometimes you have to go a step further and actually yank or pull old functionality out to keep things clean. Pulling the bolts out of Frank’s neck can be painful but is sometimes necessary. It forces you to step back and refocus on your goals for the UX.

5.       Know your customer, and then start to segment – it is very difficult to create a one size fits all approach. As you get new and different user groups you need to make a critical decision. Either try to serve all people with a reduced product or split the product up into different lines. Each are faced with their own set of products, you begin to fragment your offering. There is an argument to be made creating upgrade paths are a logical and allows power users progress to a rich feature set of products.

In summary, the role of a product manager is never easy. They are constantly getting pulled in 50 directions by constant and evolving requests. That said, if you keep these 5 core principles in mind it will make it easier next time you embark on building a killer product.

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