We live in interesting times. Did you know that many people now access their Facebook profile the first thing in the morning and It is difficult to communicate with some people, because they are not social media savvy.
In an interesting info-graphic of a recently published research titled “How Social Media is Ruining Our Minds“, it was observed that, over the course of the last ten years the average attention span has dropped from 12 minutes to a staggeringly short 5 seconds. That’s right! Just 5 seconds! People around the world spend close to 700 billion minutes on Facebook every month, and there handling over 1.6 billion search queries per day on Twitter and 250 million tweets per day (Oct 2011). Those are huge numbers!
In such times, there ought to be better strategies for Social Media engagement for individuals as well as business. Almost as prevalent as blind social media evangelism is the level of fatigue and ennui around it.
Driving social Media or being driven by it ?
Understanding the Why
Information as the building block for Social Media Platforms
In my opinion, one of the key influencers of the Social media phenomenon is around the word Information. In an article first published in 1995, advances in computers and data networks inspire visions of a future “information economy’‘ in which everyone will have access to gigabytes of all kinds of information anywhere and anytime. Ten years from now we may find the economic institutions of the information economy a similarly unremarkable part of our day-to-day life. (The Information Economy: How much will two bits be worth in the digital marketplace? – Hal R. Varian, 1995).
I would like to believe that the Social Media is a direct consequence of this information economy and its main drivers are . . . → Read More: The Social Media Fatigue – Life in the Information Economy
Everyday I log onto twitter, I read about someone complaining about a problem they are facing with a particular service that they use. In almost realtime, a lot of others who face similar problem simply re-tweet the initial tweet about the complain. What this could result to is a negative publicity of the service, to the extent of a fear of losing a customer. In almost no time, there are the representatives from the company in context, replying to the tweets and assuring of a quick turnaround to the customer’s concerns. If that is not enough there are social channels that people reach out to, these days when they do not get a response.
That’s the new age customer relationship management and goes by the term Social CRMs. A lot of debate goes on the legitimacy of the phrase Social CRM. On one side of the argument, there are the believers who think that this is just another fancy term, riding the Social Wave, and on the other side of the argument you have people who swear by anything social and believe it to be of an immense value add. I for one do think that SCRM is here to stay, and it can only promise to grow with more and more businesses adopting social media technologies.
I deal with design and through this article I wish to seek out the challenges that designers face and should consider when designing for Social CRMs. It may be noted that these are just an indicative list and not a definitive one. With changes happening almost everyday (Facebook introduced the Timeline as I write this), the challenges can only increase.
In the earlier days of the traditional CRMs, the engagement with the customer happened around three domains, ie. a. Sales, b. Marketing and . . . → Read More: The designer’s challenge to Social CRMs
Read the second issue of the Social Technology Quarterly, published by Kuliza Technologies here.
Social Technology Quarterly (Volume 1| Issue 2) View more documents from Kuliza Technologies
They say that the Social Media Technologies is the in thing right now. Some call is fashionable, while some call it a necessity to keep up with the times, while some see a real value add in it. While many companies adopt it, not all understand it completely. It is now well accepted that the Social Media Technologies (SMT) are an integral part of the marketing budget of any company. The adoption of SMT should be tied down to a business need and an assist with the business processes. Apart from the usual goals of increase in sales, the one thing that the social media technologies has done is, making the consumer more informed and help them in taking decisions that are influenced by a gamut of reasons. Come to think of it, the advent of SMTs follow a similar pattern. resulted in the way the audiences are exposed to media. We consume stuff in a different way than we used to in the days prior to the SMTs. To support the claim of Social Media technology being omnipresent in the lives of many now, one has to understand where this comes from.
The notion of followers
Over the course of this article, I wish to do a construct of the notion of the Social Media Technology as a new kind of media. I shall refer to Bolter and Grusin, amongst others to understand why the notion of the Social Media technology is a New Media that plays out on the notion of remediation. I shall be looking into this with the example case study on Social Commerce and how the notion of media and Social media is changing and will continue to change the way we do our commerce.
Marshall McLuhan one of the greatest writers on media . . . → Read More: The Social Media Construct – a case in remediation
Recently at the WWDC 2011, amongst other things, Apple introduces iCloud, OS Lion and the new iOS5 that wowed audiences. A week before that, Microsoft releases a video of the Windows 8 Operating system that customizes the operating system depending on the platform they are accessing it. In another phenomenon now, an app is being created for cross platform compatibility on Android, Blackberry and iPhone, to join the billions downloaded already, and Angry birds is taken the world by storm, with its awesome experience that it provides. Somewhere else Twitter is being touted as the most happening social network routing Facebook, with Apple integrating it in the schema of things for the days ahead, and Google is still struggling with its take at Social Network.
Just to go by the set of events in the past few weeks, it is beyond doubt that, we User Experience (UX) professionals are living in exciting (and challenging) times. Exciting because the whole domain of User Experience is growing at an unprecedented rate. Over the years it has gained enough traction, that it is now become the core of discussions and across boardrooms. The stakes have increased and that is precisely why the role has become more challenging over time.
On the other hand the rise of social media technology has had a huge impact on the very functioning of the UX field. I do not think there is any other field that has embraced Social Media to such a large extent. That has opened the gates for a huge opportunity for discussions and collaborations. Sub-consciously we UXers are getting inputs from a gamut of sources, and what we are actually doing is co-creating UX.
Just look at the things around you and you would be surprised by the word experiences and the frequency . . . → Read More: Co-creating the User Experience
Let me start with a question. Would you be willing to pay extra to have a particular content delivered to you at a premium price, so that you can access the same information faster? Or would you be willing to pay for a service that can be delivered on a higher priority as compared to its competitors? These are some of the issues that one needs to grapple with when we talk about Net Neutrality.
A quick search for it on Wikipedia mentions this: Network neutrality (also net neutrality, Internet neutrality) is a principle proposed for user access networks participating in the Internet that advocates no restrictions by the Internet Service Providers (ISP) and governments on content, sites, platforms, on the kinds of equipment that may be attached, and no restrictions on the modes of communication allowed.
The principle also states that if a given user pays for a certain level of Internet access, and another user pays for the same level of access, then the two users should be able to connect to each other at the subscribed level of access. This video on CNET demonstrates the concept very well.
Some of the proponents of Net Neutrality are large organizations like Yahoo, EBay, Amazon and individuals like Tim Berners Lee and Barack Obama. Groups like savetheinternet.com have been pretty active in promoting Net Neutrality too.
Looking at the other side of the coin, in simple words it means that in a non-net neutral world, if you are wanting to get a particular content, say like a video, and were willing to pay extra for it, the ISP would be able to do that for you as the information dissemination is at their disposal. If you wanted a Value Added Service (VAS) at a premium, there would be an . . . → Read More: On Net Neutrality
In one of my earlier posts, I had written about analyzing logos by using Semiotic Theory. What it basically was to take a closer understanding through different point of views related to the viewer, the designer, etc. Of late one notices that even the governments have been interested in getting their logos designed, and seeking inputs from designers. It is a healthy sign indeed. One such example is the Government of India working hard on the Unique Identification Project under the name of Unique Identification Authority of India and headed by former Infosys co-founder, Nandan Nilekani.
Nandan Nilekani launching the new logo and name
They recently had a new name (Aadhaar) to the whole project and a new logo unveiled.
I am going to do a critical analysis of this logo based on the semiotic theory and seeking the explanations from the phenomenological understanding that I have developed over the years of designing logos and branding solutions.
To start with, when trying to understand the semiotics behind the logo, one first has to understand the referential function i.e. the content of what the logo is composed. The Aadhaar logo is primarily composed of three parts namely, the sun and the finger print and the text below the logo. There are two prime signs in the logo in terms of the imagery. These signs signify certain attributes independently and then as a collective they have a different meaning. While doing a critical analysis, it is important that we understand the signified meaning of all the individual signs and what they signify and then finally the overall logo.
Being an Indian, I understand that the association with the Sun is perhaps more than any celestial body out there. The sun is an element that is worshiped across the country and hold . . . → Read More: A critical analysis of the Aadhaar Logo
I have been out of blogging much for quite some time now.
It has been mostly due to the startup Deskala. We recently completed 6 months there and the journey there has been truly fascinating. During this period we have interacted with a lot people, and me personally got to know a lot more because of my photography workshops too. The other reason is the travel, which if something I just love, so cannot put an end to that too.
One of the biggest challenges that we have faced as Design Entrepreneurs, (Designpreneur) is to sell the service of design to people in the Business tea. And when this happens inspite of having close to 10 years of experience between us, it surprises me. My friend and co-founder of Deskala; Porus wrote an interesting article on this phenomenon, and what both the parties namely the Business and the Design team should work towards.
In my opinion, I think that its relatively easier to become a Designpreneur, but more difficult to sustain oneself as that. It’s easy, because right from the college days, one is designing and creating products and services. The innovations is happening then and there itself and its actually their first meeting with the entrepreneurial life. Now let’s see what happenes when that particular developed idea is marketed and sold properly. Viola! you have the idea for the company that you are going to put up.
The other big challenge that we have is to position Deskala as a design firm and not a development firm. There are already numerous firms who start off with software development and slowly add designers to the team. As Deskala, we are going the other route, wherein we say build a design centric team first and then we move forward.
As mentioned . . . → Read More: On being a Designpreneur
Of late there has been a sudden rise in interest in the propagation of Design Thinking. The impetus to this has been hugely due to some articles in the Harvard Business Review(last year), and Businessweek (this year).
If the need of the hour is to think innovation and think beyond the obvious, Design Thinking is definitely an essential tool. A lot of companies like Apple, who are driven by Design, have been doing it for years now. A few more have joined the bandwagon, as mentioned in this another post by BusinessWeek.
Apart from these above, there has been the recent publicly available talk by Tim Brown at the TED conference this year. Brown is evangelizing that Design Thinking needs to go to a much larger scale and also that designers should start to think big.
Everyone seems to be acknowledging it. A few seem to understanding it, and a fewer seem to be to be understanding it. The interesting point about Brown’s talk is that he looks at going beyond the notion of consumerism with which Design has been traditionally associated with.
One of the other great design thinkers, who I admire, and have been a student of myself, Erik Stolterman also talks about the notion of Design Thinking in his blog Transforming Grounds. He also makes the very valid point that Design Thinking is been there since a long time and has found its applications in numerous fields.
I strongly believe that one of the areas where Design can play a huge role is Design for Social Impact. This also happened to be the topic of my Masters thesis at Indiana. The challenges are immense, and the solutions are rarer to find, and that is why Design Thinking becomes important.
The outcome of the application of . . . → Read More: On Design Thinking and Beyond
I think these two below are interesting artciles.
I have been in a similar position of trying to explain people what I do for a living and the moment I say Experience Design, it becomes more abstract. The moment I say Graphic Design, it becomes too narrow. People ask me to consult on Usability, but I think that a person trained in Usability should do it. But since I learnt it and done different kind of Usability Activities, I agree to it. Some people ask me to do a look and feel of their website. I think that this is a area of expertise for a person trained in Graphic Design working in Web Medium (often called User Interface Designer).
Below here is the link to an article that I recently read on Coroflot. Its thought provoking. In the end one is left with the question whethere the field really requires a formal definition of some kind, or should it be happy where it is and keep exploring newer ventures within the context of interaction design.
An extract from the piece… Like most of my friends and colleagues in the creative professions, I have trouble explaining to my mom what exactly I do for a living, so it’s not like confounded laymen are an indicator of intentional obscurity. But IxD seems to be in a different category entirely. Not only does it confuse outsiders, it confuses Interaction Designers too.
Read more here
You could also read up the discussions on this topic at the IxD discussion forums at this location.
While you may agree of disagree to the things that are said in the above two links, it gives a fair amount of understanding to the kind of confusion that exists within and outside the field.
. . . → Read More: 5 Things that is NOT Interaction Design
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