Who would solve my customer problem - portable music device for running

I have problem with current music players. Most of the music on the go is listened in smart phones. These smart phones are getting bigger and bigger on display size. At the same time music is going to monthly payment mode where you can always listen all the latest music.

I'm really happy on both of the trends at their own, but these create a problem for me when put together. I would like to listen music while running and smart phones are too big to carry with. On the other smart phones are the only platform where you can get your monthly music with you.

Old iPod shuffle is by far the best music device for running ever made. There's this easy clip on, it weigths nothing and it's easy to use with single clicks. Perfect for any sports and sports wear.

Here's a challenge for some hardware product company. Create a device which can hold for example 200-500 songs from Spotify or some other monthly based music service. Create it to be small enough for small pockets in running wear. Make sure there is a large enough button to change songs when it is in the pocket. And keep it simple.

I can guarantee there will be many sports people who will buy it.

Written by +Henri Hämäläinen

P.s If this device exists already, please hire a proper product manager and marketing people to let the running audience to know about it.
 

Don't listen to your customer, watch them

One of the best advices, for creating great products and services, I've heard is: "Don't listen to your customers, watch them". Asking people what they want or would prefer often gives irrelevant answers. When watching how people behave, there can be noticed patterns, that will tell how they would like things to work. Their verbal answers might tell a different story.

Watching people's behavior will guide to the sources of what people really are missing. It's quite common to say different things than actually do. People try to be smarter than they really are and try to give creative answers to the question about how would they like things to work. Watching the behavior, is for that reason, more important than just listening.

Written by +Henri Hämäläinen

Idea to Reality - Cartoon of our product

One morning several months ago I got an idea to create a cartoon of our product at work. The idea came when I started to think what would be the simplest possible form to explain what our new product actually does.

I drafted a version of this cartoon to a paper shortly and went off to introduce it to my colleagues. I was happy to notice they were excited about the idea and we started to improvise even more what the cartoon could be like.

Panel from Contribyte Asset Browser cartoon

Next challenge was to find someone to draw it. That turned out to be much simpler task that I anticipated. I just googled for finnish cartoons and found one, that had done in a style we wanted. Then we mailed to her and she promised to make it.

After specifying the cartoon in more detail, we explained it to the artist to draw it. She understood us easily and well and we got beautiful cartoon in couple of weeks. .

I'm quite proud what we as a small team were able to pull out. Check out the full cartoon from our company website to judge yourself: Asset Browser Cartoon.

This is part of the productizing process of our new product. Based on feedback what we have received this was definitely a good exercise. This was a lesson that even with limited resources it is possible to do really many things on supporting the productization of a new product. It didn't actually cost us much in money or in time compared to so many other things in marketing.

I urge everyone to be more playful and fun even in business to business marketing. Nowadays it is mainly just plain boring. It doesn't have to be.

Written by +Henri Hämäläinen

How easy it is to lose a customer in web

I'll tell a story about me. I'm a web consumer, I buy lot of things from many different webstores around Europe. I have been quite loayal consumer of Chain Reaction Cycle's, but they lost my loyalty with a thing that wasn't really their fault. I think it's a perfect story of how easy it is to lose a customer in web nowadays.

For my triathlon hobby I was looking for aerobars for my bike. As I've used to I headed to CRC to check their offering. And as usual they had really good offering and very competitive prices for aerobars. I selected one set of aerobars and checked from the details view, that clamb diameter 31mm was suitable for my handlebar. I went on and I bought the item.

About week later aerobars arrived and I went straight on to try those on my bike. I was bit amazed to notice those didn't fit, those were for 26mm handlebar. I started to investigate why this had happened and noticed that CRC had different information in buy and description sheets of that product. I had actually ordered aerobars for 26mm handlebar by accident.

I mailed them to tell what had happened. In couple of hours they mailed me back saying that this was unfortunate, but it my own fault due that information next to buy button had said it to be for 26mm handlebar. I could return the product, but I would need to pay the postage.

I do agree that it was part of my fault, but that is not the point in web consuming. Person who was handling my ticket should have noticed that I was a loyal customer. I had ordered within 6 months 953 euros worth of equipment from them in six different orders. He could have said that they are sorry for the mixup and pay the postage back for replacing aerobars to suitable ones.

What did happen was that I started to look for other options. I hadn't even looked for options for a long time. Now I started searching and got a really nice deal from another webstore. Just like that they lost one loayal customer.

These type webstores are all about small profits and they are trying to cut down costs on every possible place. These kind of webstores are still more than anything else all about cash flow and masses. They should do everything possible to keep customers happy. And this was all about 15 euros worth of postage expenses. Not much for me, and nothing for CRC.

To note, I have nothing against CRC. I still think it's an exceptional webstore with really good pricing and product catalog. This is just a story of me noticing they are not the only ones.

Written by +Henri Hämäläinen

Perfect customer experience, answer questions before those are asked

I was reading Trendwatching latest issue on (R)etail (R)evolution and they mentioned Threadless in their article. I went to their website, because of interest on cool concepts and T-shirts.

Living in Finland has one disadvantage, often the new cool stores don't deliver to here. Often you need to go through the whole website to find out if they deliver here and what it costs.

I was so pleased, when after skimming 10 seconds of skimming thought the website, I noticed that they answered to my question before I even asked it.

As a customer experience fanboy and product manager, I just love what they do. This is the perfect way to serve a customer. Surprise customers with answers they haven't yet even asked. Thanks to Threadless.

Written by +Henri Hämäläinen

Why there is so much Business Jargon?

I'm nowadays working in business to business environment. There, even more than b2c, everything is said with business jargon. It seems to be much better to say things with terms that doesn't really mean anything or are hard to understand. I keep on wondering , what is the point of that?

I define business jargon as explaining things more complicated than what they really are. For example email could be defined in business jargon as rich multi point communication platform enabling visual messaging between small or large groups. And camera would be a small carryable technical device, with possibilities on capturing thousand of moments to visual images anywhere in the world.

I hope you understand what I mean with business jargon with those examples It's hard to pick examples without embarrassing anyone, but the main point is that business jargon is saying easy things in really complex ways. If you want to check some examples there are many companies creating services or products in b2b sector that have some level of business jargon visible in their website.

I honestly don't understand it. Why couldn't things be said as those are. The same happens often in b2c business also. Take the mobile world as an example. Everybody is talking about, that there will LTE or 4G in this and that device. What they should say, there's going to be 10 times faster network speed on those devices. For normal people LTE doesn't mean anything.

Companies are often quite bad with communication. I believe one problem is the center of universe effect I blogged few weeks ago. They think that they need to tell every little detail on themselves, rather than focusing on getting the basic message through. Another thing is, that people in an industry get so familiar with their terminology they believe that everyone knows the terminology. That problem is part of business jargon effect. People are using terms that other people don't understand.

I've been doing lot of communication material in my new job at Product Manager at Contribyte. That's the reason communication issues have been in my mind lately. In few weeks we going to release some of the material to public. It will fun to hear and see how well I've managed to tackle the center of universe and business jargon effects. Maybe I have walked to the exact traps I'm saying everyone else does. Maybe that's too common to avoid. I at least know that those effects exists. Let's soon see what people think about those.

Written by +Henri Hämäläinen

Book review - Inside Steve's brain - expanded edition

I read book about Steve Jobs and Apple written by Leander Kahney. Book's name was Inside Steve's brain. Copy I had was an extended edition of this book. I figured out from the name, that the book would really dig into mindset of Steve Jobs. I knew that writer Leander Kahney didn't have the permission from Steve Jobs for this book, but still I assumed he had second hand material which would open up the mind of one interesting technology leader.

I have to start with the negative side of the book. It promises in the name that it would be "inside Steve's brain" and would really tell why Steve Jobs behaves as he does, what are his motives and driving forces. Unfortunately this is not what the book really is about. Book really is an entertaining and excellent one, but it doesn't really fulfill it's promise from the name. I expected it to be different than it was, but when I got over the disappointment, I realised there's lot of good in this book.

If you admire Apple products, like most of us do, this is the book that tells more about how Apple creates it's products. It tells about excellent people and their processes to create these innovative and cool looking products of theirs. It could almost work as a bible for those who believe that Apple's way of building products is the best and only way. It really gives lot of food for thought about importance of design, product thinking, innovation and clear focus, when creating products.

I specially loved the parts where it told how innovations and designs are created at Apple. Innovation and beautiful designs don't just come from great thinkers, but they need hard work and lots of iterations even from some of the best guys in the planet.

For guys creating any types of products, you should be aware how Apple has done theirs. Understanding that methodology will give you good ideas how to improve your own organisation on improving the ways you create products. That's the reasoning I would sell this book to you if not an Apple fanboy. If you are, then I guess I don't need to sell it to you.

I have to admit I was hoping the book to be more about Steve Jobs. This book was mainly about Apple, which for some might equal to Steve Jobs, but not for me. I've found Mr. Jobs personality and experience such an interesting, that I hope to find more about that on the soon to come book Steve Jobs.

Written by +Henri Hämäläinen

This type of marketing and innovation I admire - Reaction ball

I run into reaction ball by accident, when checking some other sports equipment. The idea is marvelous. Someone invented a ball, which is not round and can bounce in any direction. This kind of stuff can be easily made by accident.

In this case, someone realized that this could have business value. There's lot of athletes who train to be fast to react and this ball if any needs fast reaction skills to catch.

Here's a video from CorePerformance about training with reaction ball. It looks just like the one's from TV shop, but I believe this really works.

Even the idea feels really simple, even a silly one, this excellent example of how innovations don't need to be that complex. I've played a long time different sport requiring fast reactions and this would have definitely been a good addition to reaction trainings. This one of those things that everyone can say that: "I could have invented that one." The thing there is that, you didn't. It required someone with vision to productise this worthless piece of rubber to actual product.


Written by +Henri Hämäläinen

Innovative idea from airline: Get gift card insurance for delayed flights

I was checking out vacation possibilities for trip this fall and run into AirBaltic airline, which flies mainly around baltic and nordic countries. It's one of these low fare airlines. They had interesting concept to share with you: you could buy "an insurance" for getting a gift card for flights which are delayed over one hour.

That's a great idea for airline flying these short routes. I would think this airline is used a lot for short trips to nearby countries. In those type of trips, delayes flight will eat up important time from vacation. If'you are only travelling for weekend, being delayed couple of hours on Friday, will easily ruin your day and leave only Saturday for vacation. Now with this delay you would get gift card for new trip in future to get back that stolen time.

This type of innovative services from these low fare airlines I appreciate. Many of these type of airlines have went to the other road of billing about everything. That's just annoying. This is good lesson for them to learn that they could be innovative and sell services that add value, not just piss off people.


Written by +Henri Hämäläinen

Lying have become big part of social media marketing

Do you remember rear view girls? What about Jesus loves KitKat? Or Future of Digital Camera demonstrared in CES 2011. I do. All of these got viral and got lot of attention. All of these turned out to be adverstising campaings instead of real stuff.

Rear view girls was the latest of these. It was presented so that two girls came up with idea to attach camera on their back to see how guys and all others are checking their asses. Couple of days later it turned out to be a Levis jeans sponsered thing and not really real. Original video was removed from Youtube, but was at least available at time of writing this in Dailymotion.

Another one was Jesus loves KitKat. Nestle or their ad agency sent some photos to different news or websites with a picture of KitKat candy bar, where after a bite there was a picture of Jesus shown. They where hoping that it would get viral and it got. I blogged about that sometime ago already. Then after some time they actually told that it was done by them and not by any real KitKat buyer.

Then there was Future of Digital Camera demonstrared in CES 2011. Guys made a video at the time of CES, which is the world's largest consumer technology tradeshow, which seemed like they were annoyncing this camera at CES. This soon got viral, even though it raised some questions in many forums. This one turned out to be a concept from ad agency and not really a real one.

I bet there are lot more of these, but the common thing in all of these were, that the purpose was to make these look like a real thing and get free publicity because of this. These all were big fat lies.

These kind of publicity stunts, make us question everything there is in the web. It starts to be imppossible to know what of it is real and what is not. News sites and other media sites are also sharing all these content with everybody as fast as they can to be on top of the media stack, and they are not being critical with any of these content. This will cause that all these stunts get lot of attention really fast.

So is there a harm in this? I think there is. I see it to be dangerous when ads and real life are being mixed. People trust less and less on news sources if they often find out that the content they thought was real, was just another ad.

I already once made a mistake with questionable campaign againsts McDonalds, I thougt it was just another PR stunt, but it turned really to be a campaign against McDonalds. I think I'm not the only one doing these mistakes. I believe many don't even know that all of those three examples I told about are actually fake ones.

I admit I have enjoyed all of these stunts. Still I don't like they intentionally lied to me and made me believe these stuff were real. I would appreciate there being a small disclaimer saying that this is an ad campaign when it is. It would help us all to make a better and more transparent web. I guess I'm just dreaming.  

Written by +Henri Hämäläinen

Extending experiences

For many things we do, actual doing is not the all we get from it. Like vacations for example, all the planning and checking out the places in advance are big part of joy. Same goes afterwards. People want to extend the experience by telling others about past vacation or showing photos from places they've been.

I wanted to share how I extend my holidays for example. I like to build photobooks around those. One important thing is the cover. I try to do something different each time. This one on the rigth is from out trip to Santorini. I wanted to try this nice collage this time. Front cover is on the right side and back in the left.

This one on the left is from Switserland, like you can guess from the photo.

I really like to build these for myself. This is kind of like playing Simcity or some other Tycoon games for me. It's just relaxing to work on the details of the books. And I don't mind paying from that fun.

I'm currently working in product management and I think these are things we often forget. People want to extend their experiences. It's not only about product, but it's everything around it. Some people like to discuss about products in the web. Others want to pimp their products with additions. Some like to take extra good care on their stuff. There's so many different people around, that there's always room to engage someones experience. There's always possibilities to make someone feel bit more happy and at the same time, make some money for you and your company.  

Written by +Henri Hämäläinen

Update: They totally nailed it. Consumer promises in tes..

Now they came back to me, only couple of hours after working time in Germany had started. They said to be really sorry about what had happened, and promised to send new one right away. Then they asked me to sort out how much it would pay to send package from Finland to Germany and tell them.

Wanderer: Consumer promises in test, faulty product delivere...: "I am quite heavy user of webshops. I've ordered lot of different kind of stuff from all over the world. Now for the first I really got my fi..."

That's just beautiful service. I'll update you if this changes, but so far, really exceeded my expectations. Thanks Smoothy!! (http://smoothy-beanbag.com/)

Consumer promises in test, faulty product delivered

I am quite heavy user of webshops. I've ordered lot of different kind of stuff from all over the world. Now for the first I really got my first faulty product.

I ordered from Smoothy (from Germany) about month ago bean bag for kids and it was so excellent, I decided to order another one. It came yesterday and it's surface had couple of big scratches and bag was about half as full as the previous one.

I'm not upset yet, I understand that mistakes happen, but now it's the time this company is really valued. They have in their website these promises on quality and money back guarantee and other customer focused grap. Let's now see how they really walk the talk.

This is the point I'm either gona start promoting or dismissing them. I really loved the first bean bag, so hope that they serve me well.

How looks of a brand was changed in a day - Old spice guy

Month ago, when word Old spice would have come up, I would immediately think of older men, who have put bit too too much fragrance in morning. No offense to Old spice users, but that's just how I did see the brand still month ago.
Then end of last month they pulled a trick from their pocket and gathered group of social media and advertising experts together and launched new "campaign" in YouTube and Twitter etc. First ads were funny and got lot of views on the web, but when they started to answer with video commercials to tweets almost real time, then they really hit the spot.

Here's one for example:


These ads worked at least for me. Next time I'm searching for new fragrance, I at least will check Old Spice out.

If you wanna know more how they worked it out, there's and article in ReadWriteWeb on it: http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/how_old_spice_won_the_internet.php  

Written by +Henri Hämäläinen