The BBC, Facebook and ‘The Supermarket Effect’

September 23, 2011 By Leave a Comment

With the BBC unveiling a new homepage and Facebook rolling out a whole raft of new features, the predictable ensuing uproar at change is taking place.

Back in 2008, I wrote about what I termed ‘The Supermarket Effect‘ when launching a new design or features on an existing site. As Hugh McLeod once memorably illustraed – ‘Technology Changes, Humans Don’t‘. And I’m not sure the business/media owner approach to unleashing their latest effort to guess what we all want has changed much in the last 3 years, either…

Filed Under: website design Tagged With: , , ,

Deconstruct your content, SEO and social media regularly

September 22, 2011 By Leave a Comment

I don’t always agree with everything entrepreneur and author Tim Ferriss writes, but I definitely agree with his approach to challenges. In The 4-Hour Body, he frequently refers to the ‘Minimum Effective Dose’ which is what allows you to achieve big changes in short periods of time by focussing on the minimum you need to achieve results.

And you find out what that is either by reading his books, or by doing the work of deconstruction yourself. Here’s a TED talk from 2008 where he covers his approach to swimming, learning languages and ballroom dancing.

Why deconstruct your content and marketing?

It’s easy to spend a lot of time and money on the seemingly endless churn of creating content, improving your SEO or connecting to new people on Social Media. And if you can cope with that workload, you’ll certainly learn to create content quickly, and benefit from the sum of your connections (with reference to Stowe Boyd).

But what is actually working? What’s the Minimum Effective Dose for publishing content? How long should you spend on optimising your headline or link building to improve your search rankings, and how much of your social media promotion is actually worthwhile?

It all comes back to how you generate revenue, and learning how to track everything back to that end goal with your analytics software.

I don’t propose that every tweet needs to show a positive ROI, or that you shouldn’t try new things. But you’ll be better placed to enjoy the experimentation and fun of connecting and chatting if you know you’ve already covered the foundations of your digital business by doing the effective dose for the day/week/month, and any additional work is a bonus on top of that.

If you can combine the Minimum Effective Content and Marketing Dose with the three layers of asking ‘So What?’ when you’re measuring/tracking something (with credit to Avinash Kaushik), then you’re well on the way to making yourself and your business more efficient in the basics, and giving yourself more time to either devote to fun projects or relaxing in front of the TV.

ipod deconstruction - 5

A useful skill for everyday life and business:

The ability to look at models and mechanisms and deconstruct them isn’t just handy for digital marketing. It’s a lifehacking skill which applies to most areas of your profession – how long does it really take to fill out your tax form? How about your bookeeping? And what it you apply it not only to the gym, but to housework, or or areas of life? How much time could you free up for other things?

And I don’t believe you have to be naturally analytical to achieve it. I spent the years between school and working explicitly in SEO doing a number of very creative roles, mainly as a journalist and writer. In that time I’d forgotten basic math, let alone what I’d learnt in statistics classes, and viewed Excel as an instrument of torture. But since I began working for myself, it’s been utterly essential to figure out what needs to be done on a daily, weekly or monthly basis, and how to achieve it as efficiently and effectively as possible, or the workload would be completely overwhelming, and I’d never be able to spend any time working on my own websites (Another one of which, Rescogs, has just launched by the way).

I’m still at an early stage in learning the art of deconstruction, but both the 4-Hour Work Week and the 4-Hour Body provide some valuable insight into how it can be achieved, even if you don’t intend to work out even for that long each month.

And if you need any help, there are people you can turn to. Find your nearest talented software developer/programmer or master criminal, and watch them deal with their professional problems with analysis and deconstruction, even if their personal lives might still be a shambles. In fact, combine the two professions and you’ve pretty much found a typical hacker from my experience, who will happily deconstruct a lock, a software program, or Western society over a beer or two.

Filed Under: Blogging, Business, Digital Culture, Entrenpreneurship, Freelancing, journalism, marketing, Search Engine Optimisation, social media marketing Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Waiting for the connected ‘Internet of Things’

September 21, 2011 By 2 Comments

Slowly the idea of everyday appliances and devices being connected to the internet and communicating has gone from the initial mocking of ‘internet fridges’ to being increasingly accepted and desirable, particularly withe the ‘Internet of Things‘, which refers to ‘uniquely identifiable objects and their virtual representations in an Internet-like structure’. That’s because business will have far greater information and control over every single object in their inventory and can respond to stock level changes effectively in real time.

But I’d just really like to have an internet-connected washing machine right now.
Zanussi washing machine broken yet again....

Meet my washing machine. It’s a Zanussi, bought almost five years ago. And roughly once or twice a year it has a complete breakdown, which happened again yesterday with a load of bed linen inside it, just to make it particularly inconvenient.

It was after office hours, so this morning I had to phone the service centre. They then have to contact the local engineer, which they no longer do directly. Instead (presumably due to sub-contracting), I now have to wait for that engineer to call me to arrange a time for a visit, and due to my own work commitments, it’s likely to be two days.

He’l then come and inspect the machine, decide whether he can repair it, or if he needs to order new parts, or if it needs replacing, at which point I may be able to convince someone to provide a replacement, by which time my young family will have created an epic backlog of washing, and I’ll be desperately hoping not to have any client meetings in the meantime.

If only my washing machine was connected:

But if my washing machine was connected to the internet of things, then it could be slightly different. As with more critical business equipment, when the fault appears, the washing machine could inform the service centre and the local engineer not only that it has broken, but also any appropriate fault code to indicate the problem.

It wouldn’t have to wait for office hours, or sit around for a call back to arrange a time. And with an accurate fault code, the engineer would already be able to decide whether a repair or replacement is likely, and could put everything in place to minimise any delays.

And most importantly, I wouldn’t be sat here slightly fustrated by the very helpful but inevitably hamstrung call centre staff, and would probably be praising the companies involved, rather than regretting the fact I ever bought an unreliable Zanussi washing machine and their ‘Mis-Appliance of Science’.

 

Filed Under: The Internet of Things Tagged With: , , , ,

The two sides of 3D Printing

September 20, 2011 By 10 Comments

Any new technology gets defined by the way it is used, particularly when it comes to deciding whether it is generally a positive or a negative influence. For example, videogames are either portrayed as improving reaction times and problem-solving, or as creating couch potato serial killers. Meanwhile the internet is either a way for the world to connect and share, or a destructive force on our ability to form coherent thoughts.

And in a sign that I might have got my prediction right for 2012 as the year of 3D printer, it seems like the same debate, praise and outrage will be coming to a 3D printer near you very soon, as various use cases are starting to be picked up by increasingly mainstream media.

The nice side of 3D Printing:

Currently representing the nice and lovely side of 3D Printing could be the Origo, which is a concept for a 3D Printer aimed at children, enabling kids everywhere to create real physical interpretations of their imagination. The focus is very much on simplicity, with the description of a product which is about the size of three Xbox 360s, costs about the same as three Xbox 360s, and is quite, easy and simple in the manner of an appliance like a toaster or a microwave.

Sounds pretty good for adults too, considering the need for simple effectiveness to bring 3D Printing into the mainstream, when the concept itself can still be slightly weird for a lot of people. As much as I like more DIY approach, the simple fact is that not only does it limit the number of people willing to experiment with it, but it also means people can relegate it to something for the geeky engineers in life, and therefore ignore it.

“Origo: 3D Printing @ Home” by Artur Tchoukanov from Umeå Institute of Design on Vimeo.

 

The naughty side of 3D Printing

At the same time as we’re sat considering the joy that 3D printing could bring to children, a debate has been breaking out on the Thingiverse site which allows people to share Makerbot projects.

The cause? Two creators have uploaded guides to making parts of an AR-15. The first is an AR-15 Rifle Magazine, which is potentially slightly odd, but is also greatly overshadowed by the presence of an AR-15 Lower Receiver, which is the frame which holds the other parts of the weapon together, and is apparently the only part which requires a background check before purchase in the U.S. The uploader claims he has shared the details as a response to the presence of the magazine, in an attempt to get clarification on what is or isn’t allowed on the site, as there isn’t a clear-cut rule.

AR15LowerReceiver3DPrintingImage

As John Biggs points out in his post on the subject, what’s interesting isn’t whether this particular case is allowed or not – what’s fascinating is that we’re at the point where working parts for weapons can be created by anyone with a 3D printer and the required files. That’s not to say that repairs to the ubiquitous AK-47 haven’t been carried out in the unlikeliest of places for the last 60 years, but suddenly new technology makes it quicker and easier.

It’s not possible yet to print an entire working gun from scratch as far as I’m aware, but it can’t be far away, and what implications does it have for not only weapons manufacturers, but for licensing for gun owners? Or for the availability of weaponry around the world.

Technology doesn’t kill – People do:

It’s an interesting point in the evolution of 3D printing, but it’s also a reminder that has been true for every piece of technology invented in the history of humanity – the way it is used will always be defined by the person using it. We’re getting to the point of algorithms going beyond their creators and self-replicating robots, but we’re not quite there yet.

Whether the internet, videogames, mobile phones or any other technology is good or bad is really meaningless given that all technology is simply subject to the useage of humans, which are inherently both (often at once). After all, at the same time as Call of Duty is sucking up an enormous amount of human endeavour in finding ways to kill each other online, gamers have also solved a problem in Aids research which has puzzled scientists for years. The Philosophy of Technology could be a field that becomes amazingly important in the modern age.

Filed Under: 3D Printing, Digital Culture, Disruptive Technology Tagged With: , , , , , ,
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