The rise of the creative technologists

I just completed a piece over on threeminds about the rise of the creative technologists. Check it out!

This was what had been seething below the surface, this was what had been bothering me about engineering. In light of this, I began to envision how to create a creative technology team. A team that can seamlessly integrate with creative concept teams, design teams, quality teams, clients, and customers. We will need some new skills, a re-prioritization of current skills, and an refactoring of how we work together. The first step down this path for us is a simple rebranding. 

Today, developers at Organic are no longer Engineering. We are Technology. We are masters of our Craft. We are strong. We are conceptual, we are creative, we are the total experience engine that powers the modern agency. We are Technology.

Filed under: advertizing, big thoughts , Code refactoring, Craft, Creative Technology, Technologist, technology

Customer Service 3.0

So I have over the last few weeks I have had several major customer service interactions that I think sum up the current state of flux in the current marketing world. We live in some complicated times. The economy is hoving on the brink of a macropocalypse, the web has evolved from this static thing to a dynamic thing to an almost all pervasive thing. People’s expectations for products and services have gone way up, beyond those of the industrial or information revolution, towards those of the conceptual and design revolutions.

First off let me begin with my stay at an aloft hotel. I was excited about this stay, not only was aloft a Starwood brand hotel, but I heard they were known for cutting edge design, but a resonable price point (unlike say a NYC W or SF St Regis, both very nice, but $$$$ per night). My first impressions were not good, hard to find entrance, no “hotel door”, just an unmarked elevator. Ok, but once inside, a nice bar, interesting food choices, and the rooms were really nice. A hip, clean, new feel to the whole experience. All in all I liked it. However, despite the automated checkin/out counters purchasing an espresso and bowl of cereal at re:fuel their “self service eatery” involved a lengthy 4 minute front desk credit card transaction, multiple “manager keys”, and not even a pointer to where to pay or pick up my food. A highly variable experience all in all. The hotel invoked modernity though, the feeling that I was in Tokyo not Charlotte, NC.

On my return, I observed a young “lady” whose choice of apparel um, caught my eye. I tweeted:

mtbdeano: thinks that faux leopard skin short furry jackets plus daisy dukes plus ripped black tights plus overstuffed ugg boots should be illegal

to which I got an almost immediate reply of:

FluffyFootwear: @mtbdeano Get your ugg on with the original Australian ugg boots ..http://is.gd/iqJu

Now, of all the brands to be monitoring twitter, I expected aloft to be totally on top of web2.0 and Ugg to come in somewhere near the bottom of the pile. How pleasantly surprised I was to receive my Ugg coupon (despite my derogatory comments). Now, I’ll never buy a pair, but I am talking about it. Why wouldn’t aloft (who I also twittered about) not respond? Why are my expectations so high after just one simple interaction like this? I now EXPECT all brand s to be monitoring twitter, despite most marketing budgets still going to sign on a stick and mass media 30s spots. This is the wonderful world of Customer Service 3.0.

I’d also like to contrast two other customer service interactions that surprised me this weekend. Returning a piece of jewlery to Macy’s and a Verison FiOS failure. I purchased a nice piece of jewelery for my wife a week or two ago, long story short, it was not what she was hoping for. We went to return it to Macy’s, in my mind a king of customer service. My wife spent 45 minutes trying to return the item to a store in NJ, only to be finally told (after being alternatingly ignored and avoided) that since that store didn’t carry that item, she couldn’t return it. My wife stormed out, disgusted, horrified, and vowing to never shop at Macy’s again. I tend to agree, I have never had a problem with them in the past, never had a concern about returning an item (we had the receipt and everything). The modern consumer is mercurial!

My previous post on Circuit City also caused me great customer service grief. Now they are closing, I am a little worried, maybe I tipped them over the edge? Nah, how could I have had that effect?

So my final example is from the customer service black void that is (was) Verizon. In the past, I have had nothing but confusing, difficult to understand, frustrating customer service experiences with ISPs and Verizon in particular. This weekend our FiOS went out, inexplicabily. I rebooted all devices I could find, still nothing. I called Verizon, only to be greeted by an automated phone system that “ran some online checks” and after a brief 3 minute wait by Brian. He asked me to check a few things, then offered to send an SMS when a Verizon field tech was dispatched. 30 minutes later a tech was on the way. When he arrived he was (coincidently) also a Brian, introduced himself, explained carefully what he was going to check for, what he couldn’t check for, and got quickly to work. When he was done he spent 5 minutes explaining FiOS to me and why a wire guy would come out late that night to find the break in the fiber. He explained, the 3 frequencies of light, why I was getting TV, but no phone or internet, and how long it would take to fix. I felt informed, happy, trusting that Verizon was looking out for me. The next day still nothing fixed, but a new tech arrived checking two other things. Again, he explained what happened, apologized because it appears there were two problems, not the one they suspected the day before. He gave me his cell phone number. Let me repeat that, the Verizon guy gave me his cell. Said I could call any time if I had questions. Again, I felt like I was informed, connected, and that I trusted these guys. Within 2 hours all ws fixed and well with my intertubes. About 30 minutes after that I got a call, on my cell, asking if things were ok. Nice follow up, an overall a great experience. Not at all what I expected after my last encounter with Verizon.

So what does this all mean? The modern consumer has much nigher expectations of customer service. She/he is much more likely to want to feel informed, trusted, and trust worthy. Simple interations, simple things still work. Responding in a timely manner, informing your consumer (not treating them like morons), and connecting with them is ever more important.

Filed under: big thoughts, marketing , aloft, crm, customer service, fios, macys, marketing, service, twitter, ugg, verizon

Smart growth

Image via Wikipedia

I am stuck in the “can’t post yet” loop of a new year. i know it’s been a few months since my last post, and a lot has happened ( macropocalypse, move to Scarsdale, bought a house in Scarsdale) and I feel like I need to do one of those cathartic end of year wrap up posts. But just I had to post this link. I think this HBR artricle is one of the most poignant pleas for a restart of our values and economy I have seen.Here’s some high points:

20th century capitalism is eating itself.

Reigniting growth requires rethinking growth.

20th century growth was dumb.

So what to do about it? The article suggested refactoring our existence on these four principles:

1. Outcomes, not income.

2. Connections, not transactions.

3. People, not product.

4. Creativity, not productivity.

It lines up with my own ideas about creativity and design, but couches it in something much more far reaching. Big props to @audreycarr and @davidfeldt for passing this along. Now what can I do to help?

Filed under: big thoughts , 20th century, economy, growth, Harvard Business Review, People and Society, rebuild, smart growth

Thoughts on Interaction Design

So as some of you may know, I have been on a tear through book-space exploring the design mind, creative side, and experience design. I have read a series of great books (started by one my sister bought for me for Christmas). Now I come to find one of those books is now available online for free! John Kolko’s Thoughts on Interaction Design, which is a protracted, sometimes elitist missive on why experience design matters and why you should give designers free reign. It is thought provoking, but in my mind a little extreme for today’s business climate. But don’t listen to me, read it yourself!

The other books in order of excitement are:

• A Whole New Mind: Why Right-Brainers Will Rule the Future – An awakening about why consulting is not going to get us to where we need to be to compete in the global economy
• Sketching User Experiences: Getting the Design Right and the Right Design – A fantastic guidebook for how to design holistic experiences
• Subject To Change: Creating Great Products & Services for an Uncertain World – A thoughtful look at how to add customer insight, research, design, and agile practices to an organization

Once I had read the first book, I knew that moving to NYC to take my new creative/design focused job was the right thing to do. A Huge thanks to my sister Jan who picked this off my Amazon Wish List and started the revolution!

Tags: books, left brain, right brain, design, experience, change, interaction design

Filed under: big thoughts

The tactile interface

So over the last few weeks a kernel of an idea has been forming in my wee pea-sized brain:

• When we began interacting with computers, we used numbers … abstract numbers turned into characters, punched into cards or tape. This was a very low bandwidth and low empathy connection with a computer. Our interactions were abstract, structured, and concrete.
• As computers matured, we began to interact with them through text (commands, special keys, saving text and information to disks). This communication was higher bandwidth but limited in emotion. Literate (or computer literate) people became (sometimes) emotionally connected to their machines (programmers). People used their critical reasoning skills to interact with the machine.
• Once we broke “beyond the character” into the display of graphics and simple sounds our connection to the machine became stronger. We were able to create art and music on our machines. This was the beginning of the current state of the art in empathy with the machine. People can interact using sight and sound, two much stronger senses than abstract reasoning or writing.
• Technology has matured and now almost every PC has close to photorealistic graphics rendering hardware and immersive audio capabilities. Our emotional connection to the machine has reached a whole new level. Halo 3, Gears of War, iTunes, flash, silverlight, papervision 3d … We can now interact with a fully immersive 3d visual and aural environment. Interaction design is bringing together video, motion, audio, into a strong emotional connection with almost any kind of application.
• Now play this scenario forward … what is next? With the advent of cheap multi-touch displays (John Chen’s wii-mote hack, iphone, surface) we have now begun to introduce the idea of a tactile interface. With the eventual breaking of the rectilinear box (OLEDs) we have removed the need for a computer interface to be flat. Will this extend our emotional connection to the machine to our sense of touch? I don’t know about you, but for me touch is a much more “intimate” sense than vision or hearing. What will this mean for interaction design? What will this mean for application designers? What will this mean for technology?
  

Filed under: big thoughts , design, experience, experience design, interaction, interaction design, interface, iphone, multi-touch, multitouch, OLED, surface, tactile, technology