I've seen a lot of talk about agile and scrum. And frankly, it's usually just someone spouting a lot of buzz words and urging agencies need to adapt. But its generally someone from the outside without a lot of credibility on how to improve what we do.
But I've clearly never seen Made by Many talk about it. And there are few agencies on this planet I hold in higher esteem. And true to form, I found their presentation deck insightful, inspiring and dead on as to where we need to get to.
So many gems in here! How about a dozen user testing and engagement tools we could be all be using in our project development processes? God I love these guys. I think I want to have their baby. Shit.
I'm honored to know Mr. Arauz and pray one day we have real drinks as he keeps tantalizing me with his drink mixing tweets.
Mike's framework brought me back to some earlier blog conversations he had initiated around systems of rewards. 1
He was exploring game design and behavioral psychology to understand how to create rewards that incent ongoing engagement and even addictive behaviors. Why we love to play some games for hours on end.
The answer was a very academic approach to "combine unexpected rewards together with reward mechanics that are clear and predictable" to best achieve sustained and steady engagement with our audiences.
What I love about what Mike has done in his latest presentation is he's managed to make a cohesive and powerful argument for relegating "engagement" to it's proper place in the digital landscape - the closet of less important measures. All hail the belittling of engagement!
So in a world where the real game is driving participation, what reward mechanics should we be putting in place?
In "Drive," Daniel Pink outlines the dilemma of external rewards in what he calls motivation 1.0/2.0. 2
"CARROTS AND STICKS: The Seven Deadly Flaws 1. They can extinguish intrinsic motivation. 2. They can diminish performance. 3. They can crush creativity. 4. They can crowd out good behavior. 5. They can encourage cheating, shortcuts, and unethical behavior. 6. They can become addictive. 7. They can foster short-term thinking."
Pink talks about the need to "instead emphasize the elements of deeper motivation - autonomy, mastery, and purpose." He explores the disconnect between our rewards systems of old which were built around repetitive tasks and the present where people are being challenged to accomplish creative tasks.
Pink cites a study where two Swedish economists tested the effect of incenting people with a monetary reward to donate blood. The book is full of study and examples galore that show how external rewards often backfire. In the case above, it led to 20% less people donating than those who were offered no incentive other than doing their social duty. "It tainted an altruistic act and 'crowded out' the intrinsic desire to do something good."
How many contests are plagued by contest hounds who care nothing about the contest, brand or issues at hand?
Interestingly, when a reward is money for a charity, the negative impact to motivation can be avoided (if done properly.)
All of this made me once again question whether the campaigns we build truly reflect the proper motivational or reward structures. And if we are building systems that drive participation, fueling the intrinsic motivators will be critical to creating systems that have higher levels of participation and more importantly that will self sustaining.
All of this caused me to pencil this slide together. It's rough and likely anything but complete but it captured some of my thoughts.
I thought I would close with my favorite quote from Pink's Drive as it points to the opportunity at hand.
"Human beings have an innate inner drive to be autonomous, self-determined, and connected to one another. And when that drive is liberated, people achieve more and live richer lives."
Hopson is attempting to open up the world of behavioral psychology to game designers.
Namely the idea of rewards and contingencies.
Rewards are pretty self explanatory.
And contingencies are simply the "rules governing when rewards are given out."
Now we add in the user and their actions.
"there are actions on the part of the
participant which provide a reward under specific circumstances."
Hopson defines two types of reward rules (or contingencies): Ratios and Intervals
A ratio example would be a game where you gain XP for every monster you slay. [And after so many monsters you go up a level (reward)]
An interval example would be Space Invaders where power-ups appear based on what level you are on.
The biggest breakthrough in behavioral psychology came when B.F. Skinner was running low on rat pellets and began giving out rewards intermittently.
"Experimenting
with different regimens of reward, he found that they produced
markedly different patterns of response."
And I had to realize we've gotten lazy.
Too many of our experiences tie a reward to every desired action.
A coupon for every friend you delete.
A free VIP gift for becoming a fan.
Points for every tweet!
Or worse, our rewards are completely "random" in nature.
Win a camera! Win a car! Thousands of prizes!
Hopson points out that ratios alone lead to long pauses between flurries of activity which can be a challenge if we want to keep people consistently engaged in something.
As such, Arauz is recommending we explore using Variable Ratio Schedules in experience design.
This is a fancy way of saying we combine unexpected rewards together with reward mechanics that are clear and predictable.
"If you want to see sustained steady engagement, then the best approach
is a Variable Ratio Schedule. In this approach the number of activities
required to trigger a reward changes randomly, so the first time the
player may have to kill 10 monsters to get an extra life, but the next
time they only have to kill 5. The promise of the next reward is always
on the horizon."
I like the idea a lot. But is it realistic? Is it actionable? How would we apply it to an experience we create?
I'm quite amazed at the whiplash from the tech-heads and geeks around the iPad.
Is the name unfortunate? Yes.
Does it do everything under the sun? Hell no and thank god!
Will it be a game changer? Yes. No question.
But, Sean, "It's just a large iTouch!!!"
I hear this over and over. In fact, I predicted it would be a large iTouch.
So here's what I say back to all the geeks.
"Boo Hoo."
Because what people are really saying when they complain about this is "I wanted something new that was alien and inconceivable."
"I wanted to be surprised more!"
The iPhone was not alien and inconceivable. We all knew it would be a phone and iPod with applications.
What made the iPhone so wonderful was the focus on design and the experience of using it.
I believe and predict that the iPad will be a game changer and here is why.
It is what we all needed and the industry was waiting for.
But no one had ever produced it.
Amazon came close with the Kindle. But it failed to allow for further innovation by third parties out of the box.
Amazon also failed miserably with rolling out their device internationally.
Let's also keep in mind that the publishing industry is in need of some serious innovation here.
The content industry is still reeling from the financial shocks they have had to endure.
And to date there has been no easy way for traditional publishers to reach a global audience while also adding unique value.
With the kindle, every publisher is the same.
This is assuming publishers don't make the same mistake as NBC and publicly state they will never be on iTunes (which NBC then had to take back many years and lots of missed dollars later).
The iPad will see a global increase in purchased consumption of eBooks and rich publishing content.
Will publishers make as much per title as they want? no. But it will drive revenue.
And yet the savviest amongst us are shouting out the perceived faults of this device as loud as they can.
So let's look at these complaints.
One of the biggest complaints is the lack of multi-tasking. You can only run one application at a time.
Geeks are aghast.
"Boo Hoo," is all I can say back.
The average person won't care. Nor will they care that the bevel is "large" or that there is no camera on their media reader.
Now... no flash sucks... but that's not a deal breaker. That's just Apple being stubborn. Again.
Here's the kicker.
The geeks clearly have their pocket protectors in a wad over this. But mark my words, almost all of them will have one of these.
They will all own an iPad.
Or they will go and buy a Sony Reader and we can all sympathize with their sad, poor little ebook content.
So let's assume it's just a fanatical few who are up in arms.
What will people care about?
That's easy. The battery life, the responsiveness of the unit, and the experience of using it. The experience being tied to the content available.
Design is a hard game. It is a game of constant restrictions and constraints.
You can't have everything. You have to make intelligent compromises.
Note: you can have everything with bad design. Tried to use an alarm clock recently with 325 functions but only 3 control buttons? It's three years later and I still can't operate my alarm clock reliably.
Apple made the right choices. 10 hours of batter life together with a form, size and weight that is f'ing amazing.
So I believe quite strongly that the iPad will be a game changer.
I have long stated my belief that piracy will not go away. In fact, it will get worse.
The only solution for the publishing industry is to make their content ubiquitous to the user (digitally) and easy to purchase. Easy, easy, easy!!
I spend quite a bit of money a month through my Apple TV because it's the highest quality HD content and it's one easy click with millions of titles at my fingertips.
But when something isn't there... hello torrent.
Remember this presentation from Sports Illustrated?
We all thought of it as science fiction. Who in their right mind in the publishing industry would pump this kind of money into something this risky? Only a moron looking to do a Kliavkoff. [edit: correction to name made]
Only now, the hardware exists to exactly enable this vision.
The iPad.
Sport Illustrated just has to write an app. No hardware risks. No crazy licensing deals.
Anyone can take their publishing vision and move it onto a platform that will have a global rollout and support.
I would like to applaud Jobs and Apple.
This larger than life iTouch may just change publishing.
Slide 81 is a simple yet powerful statement for why design matters in a world of focus groups, usability testing and efficiency over all things human.
This presentation reminds me of the Yahoo Pattern Libraries for Communities. There was a great presentation on game theory some time back and how it applies to building products/communities online but I can't seem to dig it up again.
I would think that writing an article titled "F*ck Influencers..." would have halted some of the SPAM PR email I receive every day, but alas, just last week I received yet another in a steady stream of such emails. This one stood out as it actually referenced the "F*ck Influencers..." post.
All of these emails tend to follow a very simple format.
Dear Mr. Howard,
[Introduction on how they love and follow my blog.] [Crafty little segue into their new product and service they are launching.]
[Calling out a post they liked by its title] [Some reference about how their service may be of interest to me (call to action)]
[One or more paragraphs on their service/offering that appears to be cut and pasted from a press release.]
Signed,
Name, Phone, Email, etc.
The email I received last week actually appeared to be written by hand and not by a PR firm. I can only assume this individual had been told "how" to email blog owners, had paid someone to do this on his behalf, or is perfectly harmless and just stepped into a hornets nest. So in an effort to help this individual out...
I AM NOT AN "INFLUENCER" AND WE ARE NOT FRIENDS.
That's not to say I don't have influence. And that's not to say we couldn't one day be friends. It simply means I am not a vehicle sitting around idly waiting to SPAM my friends no matter how "awesome" this piece of PR news is.
Let's talk about what influence I have and how to get me to one day care enough about your service to potentially share it within my circles of influence.
It's amazingly simple.
1. Have a conversation with me.
Don't call me and don't email me. So where can you have a conversation with me? Well, here's a crazy idea, how about on the very blog that brought me to your attention?
2. Have a conversation with ME about what matters to ME.
Every article on my blog has a wonderful little comment feature. Here's an "out of the box" thought. What about leaving a comment on the very post you were about to say your really liked in the spam email?
But there's a catch, you have bring some value to the conversation or I'm going to assume you are a spammer and press "mark as spam."
But that's a lot of comments you have to leave and monitor. What is a PR lackey tasked to incent and measure massive viral reach via SPAM emails to do???
Die, hopefully.
3. Create a Relationship
Relationships are two way streets. They are touch and go. They take lots of time and enormous amounts of effort. Which may be why everyone, including PR firms and agencies who should know better, spam everyone by email.
But it's only when we have a relationship that you are then able to leverage my influence. It's only when we have a relationship that we are able to determine what is of value to each other. The relationships that bring value to each of us as well as our extended circles of influence become stronger and open up new opportunities.
4. Relationships are complex
Here is the good news about relationships: they are not an on/off switch. There are more contexts for relationships than I think can be defined or addressed. I may think you are cute. You may think I'm nice but too big for my boots. I may disagree with everything you say but admire your transparency and openness. We might see the world the same way or from radically different perspectives.
Or we may only have a relationship built around a topic or area of interest. Something I'm interested in and you are able to provide insight or access to.
I am 100% in the Herd camp. Influencers don't exist, only influence. Step 1 is to have a relationship. I'd go so far as to say that the person with the most relationships wins.
Updates via Email
Updates via RSS
Recent Comments