Word of Mouth

In the past 10 weeks, I have been fortunate enough to be part of a unique learning process: D.Studio.

Design Studio is an upper level elective in Sauder that was created to foster design thinking in a Studio context. The atmosphere of the studio is much more relaxed, accepting and fosters creativity more than any other traditional classrooms. And I have proof!

1. Everyone became a good presenter – Any student, from any option can register for 388. It is not an “elite” class like 486R or New Venture Design where only students with an impressive resume and able to pass two rounds of interviews can attend. Thus, people in the class can be assumed to be representative of the student body. After the first round of presentations, I was surprised to realize that everyone in the room is a good, confident, natural presenter with their own style. No one single person used cue cards. No one read from a paper. Which has never happened in any other class in my experience, even when the professor strongly discourages it. My theory is that only in this class where people feel comfortable with not only their teammates but also the professors that they do not feel pressured to say the perfect line. Even the exchange students for whom English is not their first language feel accepted and valued more than other classes.
2. The creativity in the output – Tomorrow is the final presentations day. I am really excited to see them and I also felt that most people in the class are eager to showcase what they had accomplished. Because we work in the same space, we have caught glimpse of each other’s project. The diversity of media use from interactive websites to hand drawn videos, each team challenged themselves beyond Powerpoints and Prezi. While in other marketing classes where attendance are made mandatory and students dread the ideas of listening to their peers, we find ourselves excited to see each others’ final deliverables.
3. We are friends – the format of the class really allows us to get to know everyone in class. The connections I made in this course helped me a lot in my other projects.

One of the key learnings was the ASK. TRY. DO process.

What seemed like a very intuitive way of problem-solving has proven to be especially useful. I had the good fortune of having had instructors who pushed us to question everything. I had also taken a course on creativity previously and was convinced by the importance of fast prototyping through the marshmallow challenge. However, at the end, I was left with a pool of ideas and tools that hindered my thinking process. Every time I approach a problem, I could only think of how to think and how NOT to think. ASK. TRY. DO streamlined the process for me. The projects I worked on were proof that there was knowledge to be learned at every step.

ASK. Den and I had gotten so much unexpected insights from asking the right questions to the drivers.

TRY. Prototyping with Ben the night before our presentation gave us the much-needed confidence. Once we saw our design in print, our ideas seemed a lot more viable.

Do. Although we did not get a chance to see our project being launched, knowing that Morten will be actualizing part of the plan was very satisfying.

Another key takeaway from this course for me personally was the role of business in terms of sustainability. When our group sat down with each other and talked about what we would like to get out of our project, we all had a curiosity to learn more about sustainability in businesses. None of us had an expertise or a personal passion for the subject at the time. Over the course of the project, we were all very inspired by Morten. I had the chance to speak to multiple businesses’ employees about the issue of being more green in their offices. I realized that many, if not most employees echoed our skepticism towards sustainability.

We have spent the past few decades educating people about sustainability. I think the scientists have convinced people that global climate change is neither a fad nor a scheme. People believe that we should take steps towards a greener planet, but they don’t know how. I believe that the biggest job is still education. The focus should now change from “we must save the planet” to “HOW you can save the planet”. It is not a job left for the scientists or the hippies. It is everyone’s responsibility and every business can make a large impact. That is one of the many things I have learnt from Morten. Also drinking 12 cups of coffee per day can give you great ideas.

Picture this: Busy and hectic morning, you are on your way rushing to work. You desperately need a cup of coffee and pick up something for lunch, dreading the idea of having to eat at the cafe in your work building once again. At this specific moment, your phone gets an notification from a nearby restaurant that is offering a special lunch pre-order deal. Another notification lets you know which coffee shop near you have the shortest line.

Sounds unrealistic? not so much. Localized mobile marketing is the newest trend in mobile advertising.

Google had recently released that 40% of searches come from mobile. With almost all Smartphones with the ability to track real-time location of their owners. There is potential for companies, especially retail to collect valuable data on their consumers. Businesses can find out what are the regular path of their consumers, where do they regularly visit, what time of day and even how often they visit each location.

Right now, mobile is mainly focused on pull strategy. People have to look up the places they want to go, but the future trend for mobile is a push strategy. As people pass near the retails, companies would be able to actively reach out to them.

The strategy already exist. Now the barrier is in application and adoption.

Twitter has 500 million users.

Yes you read that right 5oo million. So why would anyone read your tweets? How would you stand out from a crowd of 500 million?

• Have a personality. Online conversation are just like real life conversations. Imagine an online cocktail party, everyone is drawn to people with a personality. People like to have conversations with others who seem interesting, and who are not solely focused on themselves. Take the time to not only post about your own company, but also about things that your audience might find useful or interesting but might not aid direct sales.

• Be involved in the industry. There are so many people online, you can not possibly speak with everyone. Speak within your industry. Also similar to real life. we have all heard the age-old advice of ” Surround yourself with influential people”, which is much easier on the Twitter community. Do not be afraid to speak up t industry leaders. Connect with companies you think might be beneficial for the future of your business.

That is all the quick tips I have so far. Stay tuned as I discover twitter further.

One of the biggest barriers for me personally was the language on Twitter. Yes it is english, Yes there are some acronymes, but as a digital native, I didn’t understand how people were communicating with less than 150 characters. The trick is the hashtages (#) which expressed thoughts in words instead of sentences. In fact, most tweets are phrases and words jumboed together to make up a thought.

Here’s a quick link that explains the layout and content of a tweet perfectly.

Now that you understand the language, you can explore other compagnies in your industry that might have a active twitter account. From the amount of followers and retweets, you can gather an idea of what the relevant informations are for your customer. What their interests are. That could bea good first source of looking for content idea.

What is all the fuss about Twitter? If you dont know by now, you are just like me. I had recently dived into this tweeter land and gained much value so here is my quick guide on finding out whether this is a good fit for you or your company.

Why do you need tweeter?

• That’s where your customers are. That is where they communicate. you will not only reach a larger number of potential clients online, but they will also be better targeted and more relevant users.
• Get live-time updates from your competitors. If another customer is complaining about them, be aware and offer something to them that your competitor can’t. Tweeter gives you unrestricted access to your competitor’s clients.
• Monitor what your customers are saying about you, live.
• Be able to respond to any concerns, live
• For all this greatness. It is free.

And you can get started in less than 10 mins.

Using social media for Businesses to reach their clients is an overdue topic. However, social media has also proven to be a useful tool in the B2B world.

In an article for Direct Marketing News, Ryan Joe, Senior editor explained that business professionals are also watching people from their industry online. Anything from new technologies  to their competitors. In fact, he noted that especially the IT employees are 4 times more likely than others to follow Tech companies.

The suggested tactics in the article are similar to the ones used to engage customer. Creating a conversation online instead of broadcasting information. The idea is that people might not always need and tech company’s service, but they want to maintain relevancy. What is more difficult is how to be constantly present with interesting content in a B2B context.

Social media can no longer be ignored. They are unarguably a great way to gather customer feedback. What your consumer are saying about you online form a great pool of ideas to improve your business. Hence, the importance of monitoring the conversation that are happening around your Brand.

But another important piece is the fact that everything you can see, your competitors can see as well. In fact, these are public discussions that anyone can track and monitor. What does this mean? As a Brand, you must spot the need, and be the first to fix it. Otherwise, the entire world is watching to take that opportunity.

A recent example is “Fancy” which Ali raved about in her blog. Pinterest caught everyone’s attention early last year. However, since its beginning, users had often had the issue of not being able to find an item that they desperately desire sold anywhere. We all know or have heard of someone speeding through the retail stores trying to find that “thing I saw on Pinterest”.

“Fancy” took this opportunity and created an entire businesses model. I have not yet become a regular user of this site, but from what I gathered so far. It is a lot like Pinterest minus the things that people keep on complaining. They allow users to mek immediate purchase on anything they see on the site. They also look a lot more like Tumblr than a pin board which some have complained that it was too overwhelming.

The future of “Fancy” is yet to be determined. I am excited to see how loyal the Pinterest customers are.

I had just discovered a great post by Agatha about how Translink is using Twitter to connect to their users.

I must say that I share her excitement. Translink’s official twitter page has a majority of replies. When they are making announcements  they always make sure to hashtag #RiderAlert. So I looked though a few pages of the tweets to see how are commuters’s taking advantage of this service.

1. Questions about services, mostly buses not showing up  or breaking down. Translink’s response in this department is so precise and personal. Not to mention the quick speed. Within 3 minutes, Translink avoided a potential frustrating rant and offered good information for the user to make an informed decision.
2. 
3. Positive Feedback: Translink’s tweeter is not about the negative either. This is also a platform that allow people to appreciate the drivers who go out of their way to make our days better.
4. 

Essentially, I am very impressed with what Translink has been able to achieve. Their spokesperson, Erin McNeill gave an interview with October 17 Media about how they use social media. McNeill spoke about an very important issue that I had not previously given any thought.

With so many communication channels available, companies try to push everything through every channel with hope that it would reach as many people as possible. But most people are both on Facebook and Twitter and they are likely to have other social media accounts, they do not want to get the same information repetitively through all the channels. It would probably drive them to unsubscribe. What Translink is doing is target different channels with different messages. Community events on Facebook and live updates only on Tweeter. It keeps people engaged without getting the same message repetitively.

We watched the Internet produce unimaginable beauty such as this 185 online voice choir.

But the exact thing that the Internet thrives on is also its weakness.

Anyone can spread ideas about anything. People can claim expertise or even worse, authenticity. Indeed, we can rarely be sure who is sitting on the other side of our monitors, and know even less about their intentions and affiliations.

Apart from the more obvious topics such as identity theft or never trusting what one reads online, there s a more disturbing fact of using social media as a new form of censorship.  Counter-intuitive, yes I know. But it has been done.

Please take the time to watch this video. Internet does not always bring freedom of expression. Similar to greenwashing, the availability of information and easy of access enabled by the world wide web may just have given us too much confidence in it. Here’s how Russia and China have both used the trust people have in bloggers and online influencers to silence a curious population.

Internet was a novelty concept for GenXers, but for Millennials, it represents unlimited potential just waiting to be uncovered.

What the internet offeres is access.

It breaks down financial barriers by allowing anyone to easily raise funds from anyone who believe in them. With website such as Indiegogo, creators are no longer restricted to convincing the bankers and high-interest creditors to lend them money. It allows for diverse projects that serves the interests of many to grow and flourish.

It breaks down social barriers by allowing every niche groupe to find people who share the same interests as them across the world. People are coming together under the things that they have in common. There are countless forums with thousands of active users for any topics imaginable. Whatever your strange interest is, the one that no one else likes in your school, town, city or country, there are probably many others who worship it as much as you online.

It breaks down information barriers. Wikileaks is the most recent and prevalent proof that democratization of media is inevitable and those in political power no longer hold information power.

But what about language barriers?

Machine translation is still very very veryyyyyy far away from being a substitute for human translators. For English speakers, it might seem like the internet already gives us more than we could ever process in ten lifetimes, but there are still so much knowledge hidden in the millions of pages in foreigner languages. Also, for instance, the Spanish Wikipedia page has 900,000 pages compare to 4,000,000 pages in English.

These are the two reason that set off a dream for Luis Von Ahn, who wanted to translate the internet. Every single page. in every language possible. Ambitious? Definitely. Impossible? Definitely NOT.

Take a look at Duolingo:

The website was launched in 2011 and has been successfully running for a year.

I do not wish to learn a new language, but I feel a desperate urge to join the team, using the two language that I am fluent with to help translate the web. Sounds crazy, but I believe him. Do you?

For more information, check out his Ted talk:

Duolingo