All through the Windows 7 promotional tour, Microsoft demonstrated the many ways that the new operating system simplified the PC. Product managers and executives gave the following explanation: They watched the way people work in the real world. They realized these people want to take fewer steps to accomplish the things they do most often. Users don't like to be told what to do, or led into one way of doing things that the designer of the software may prefer. People feel better about their computers when they're not thinking about them as computers - when they can concentrate either on their work or whatever they may be having fun with. The operating system should say hello, welcome, and then get out of the way.
If these things were all true as recently as 2009, what manner of cataclysm upset the balance of the universe so horrifically as to have made black white, and to replaced Windows 7's design philosophy with that of the Windows 8 Consumer Preview? As I run through these examples with you, as an exercise, imagine explaining them to your mother.
The Search for Start
Dividing a smartphone's small screen into eight or nine tiled blocks, makes sense and makes the phone easier to control. Using the same logic to divide a larger PC screen into dozens of mosaic blocks, does not do either. Does any Web site you've ever used, work like this? Or to be more specific, any Web site since 1998?
What makes the Windows 7 Start Menu work well (which I said at the time of its release) was its simple, two-column division: things you typically use on the left, things you typically do on the right. I typically open a Network window to see which computers in my office are functional. I open up documents I've been working on recently. And to search for stuff, what could be simpler than simply typing what it is you're searching for?
One aspect of Windows 8 design - which was literally explained to me in a positive light using these words - is that you'll learn how to do something once you've discovered it for yourself. It is not obvious from the Windows 8 Start screen that you can still just type something and Windows will search for it. There's no search control that says that. However, this is still how Start works - you type a character, and search begins.
But in everyday work, you shouldn't have to go searching through the entire file system for stuff you did just yesterday. Not everything in life requires search, contrary to whatever Google design philosophy Microsoft has commandeered.
Zones Instead of Buttons
When the Start Button premiered in Windows 95 (to the Rolling Stones singing backup, you may recall), it was with the idea of giving the user one obvious place at all times for beginning any task. The most sensible place to put something that will most always be on the screen, at that time, was the lower left corner of the Desktop.
As you may already know by now, in Windows 8, the Desktop is one of two staging grounds for applications, the other one being the "Metro-style" world where the easier, device-like apps will run. So there is no longer any one single place on the screen that will always, or most always, be visible. How does one get to "Start" if she can't always see it? Microsoft suggests that you might try looking at the keyboard - and indeed, on most PCs made in the last decade, there's a Windows logo button. (Of course, the Windows logo has changed with Windows 8, but that's not too confusing - just uninspired.)
With the Consumer Preview, Microsoft addressed this for the first time by adding a zone in the lower left corner that brings up a kind of Start button when you hover the mouse pointer toward that corner (assuming you're one of those old-fashioned folks who still use a mouse).
In the Developer Preview, it was difficult to control the Metro-style apps, the new class that uses the WinRT library. When I asked why Metro apps couldn't share the Taskbar with the other Desktop apps, the response I got was that the Taskbar would not always be on-screen. Why wouldn't it be on-screen all the time? Because sometimes you'd be running a Metro-style app.
Well, so much for that explanation. If you hover the mouse over the Start zone button, or if you hover it in the upper left corner of the Desktop, you'll get what amounts to the taskbar for Metro-style apps. Yes, friends, you are now looking (above) at a Desktop with two Taskbars (which calls to mind the lyrical phrase, "And now for something completely different"). Typically, bringing up a Metro app replaces the entire Desktop with the app, in which case, the Desktop gets miniaturized and changes places with the app you just clicked on.
Why is any of this important? Imagine the following situation: You want to play a song. Sounds simple enough, right? Assume you've made it through to the Desktop, you've opened an Explorer window, and you have a list of your MP3s in front of you. When you double-click on any of these, your Desktop goes away.
Within 20 seconds, the Desktop is replaced by this thing (right). It's not a list of the music you own - it's a piece of wallpaper containing some random album covers from music published in the last century. Granted, you'll be listening to your song now, but you'll want to return to your work. This is something the former designers at Microsoft (whom I guess were all sacked) used to know: Sometimes you do other things while you work, and sometimes you do more than one thing at a time.
Getting back to your work is a matter of rearranging the screen. First, you click on this wallpaper in order to get the music player controls back. (Ask yourself, on what class of device whose screen is larger than a postage stamp is it absolutely necessary for the music player to consume all the real estate?)
Then you grab the top of the wallpaper as though you were about to rip it off of your screen (above), and drag it to one side or the other of your screen. You'd think the Desktop would come back now, but no. Although you've zoned your music player, you now have about 84% completely blank screen. How many of your co-workers do you know who would be freaked out by even a partially blank screen - doesn't that mean something's gone wrong? The next step is for you to fill the remainder of the space with the Desktop.
So you point to the upper left corner to bring up the Desktop miniature (above), and click on that. This restores the Desktop to the scary blank space, and now you can continue about your work (below). Now, this is not Windows Media Player we're looking at - although it's offered in the Windows 8 Consumer Preview, it's as a kind of fallback alternative. This Music app, which replaces Media Player as the default, takes up either the rightmost or leftmost 16% (roughly) of the screen. Although the border between the Metro and the Desktop world looks like it includes a handle, in practice, you can only change the app's relative size to 84%, 100%, or zero.
When you size a Metro app to 84%, it reduces the Desktop space to 16%. For the moment, there is no functional reason to do this. Like in the screenshot above, the Desktop doesn't shrink or partition itself; it just makes itself a big taskbar. In Windows 8, there are quite a few surprisingly detailed procedures for doing things that accomplish nothing whatsoever, this being one of them.
(This just in: If you happen to own a mouse with one of these programmable page up/page down buttons, pressing it when you're listening to a song in the Music app will bring up this little box in the left corner for about five seconds, whether or not you have the app showing along either side. You won't know this fact unless and until a) you discover it accidentally for yourself, therefore "learning;" or, b) I tell you about it.)
Next page: Share what with whom?
See Also
zondag 18 maart 2012
If Windows 7 "Simplifies" the PC, What Does Windows 8 Do to It?
dinsdag 13 maart 2012
How social business will transform B2B Sales & Marketing
BigStockPhoto mage by kentoh
B2B must evolve to meet clients’ changing needs
Client work for B2B and B2C organizations has me reviewing thousands of conversations in social venues every month, and it’s becoming increasingly obvious that much of Sales and Marketing as we know them is significantly out of alignment with B2B clients. They are much smarter now and want a new style of relationship with their business partners (erstwhile “vendors,” “providers”). Social business is permeating client networks throughout the economy and changing client behavior and expectations.
This has created a rare opportunity for B2B sales and marketing people who understand and respond ahead of the market. Here I’ll do a deeper dive into how legacy Sales and Marketing functions will evolve, using social business as a lever.
Reexamining B2B Sales and Marketing
Marketing assumes it’s not economically feasible to have large-scale one-on-one client conversations. Sales assumes it must rely on one-on-one prospecting to drive value. Both assumptions are increasingly false.Two examples of misalignment: One of Marketing’s underlying assumptions is that it is not economically feasible to have large-scale one-on-one client conversations, so marketing must achieve scale through secondary research (and remain isolated from the client). One of Sales’ key assumptions is that it must rely on primary one-on-one prospect/client/customer communications to drive value. Both of these are increasingly false, so I’ll drill down on them before offering practical recommendations for how Sales And Marketing can explore social business at a new level.
As head of marketing for several B2B firms with direct sales forces since the 1980s, I have worked with my fellow execs in Sales, Operations, Finance & IT to drive the top line. As a management consultant, I have advised clients in adopting numerous disruptive technologies that have confronted enterprise functions with change. These experiences lead me to believe that social business will transform B2B Sales And Marketing during the next 5-10 years. Moreover, organizations that begin the transformation process earlier will profit at the expense of laggards because social business will improve enterprises’ communications and collaborations with clients by an order of magnitude.
B2B Marketing usually refers to several practices that vary with the type of business, but the end game is to define/control message and produce leads that are worked by Sales:
- Defining the firm’s brand, strategy, value proposition and “message”; this includes managing how various brand elements are used (elevator pitches, logos, colors)
- Designing and running outbound “campaigns” via email marketing, snailmail
- Attracting/capturing inbound leads via rich media, SEO, SEM, thought leadership
- Conducting database management (CRM..)
- Producing “collateral” (websites, brochures, templates for use by Sales)
- Managing the firm’s participation in conferences and trade shows
- (often) Managing the firm’s channel and strategic alliances
- All of these practices are grounded in scaled group communications; i.e. Marketing communicates with researched demographics, not individuals because they usually have no relationships with individual prospects.
B2B Sales/Business Development is a contact sport that usually refers to a direct sales force, which is sometimes supported by indirect or inside sales:
- Identifying leads via face to face, telephone or email interactions with their individual professional networks; often salespeople are hired for their career-accumulated networks
- Working leads sourced from Marketing and their individual work according to a gated pipeline or funnel along which leads approach conversion
- Conducting (telephone) calling and email campaigns
- Getting and conducting meetings with prospects
- Working conferences and trade shows under Marketing’s direction
- Entertaining clients and prospects (golf, opera, sports, other events)
- Collaborating with channel partners’ representatives to exchange and work leads
- Closing deals and handing off to “delivery” teams (or, in the case of professional services, managing delivery)
- All of these practices are based on communications with individual prospects.
In summary, Marketing has served as the firm’s research and scalable communications arm while Sales has been responsible for doing the deals. Marketing’s value proposition has been researched intelligence, strategy and scaled communications. Salespeople would develop intelligence based on direct feedback with their own networks.
How B2B Sales and Marketing can evolve with social business
Marketing’s biggest mental roadblock is the habit of being isolated from the client/customer. “But I don’t touch the client, that’s Sales.” No, Marketing has to evolve its approach. Marketers that realign themselves will unleash value that they could only dream about before. Here are a few specific ideas to get your evolution thinking started:
- Marketing makes most decisions in isolation from real clients (research and focus groups are too artificial because they rarely focus on client-to-client interactions, which are an order of magnitude more enlightening). Marketing can start infusing marketing research with direct communication with prospects and clients.
- Conferences and trade shows can be fantastic opportunities to connect with differentiated prospects, but few firms even come close to realizing the ROI. The opportunity here is to reimagine events as connection opportunities that happen to have a geographical/time dimension to them. Marketing currently spends most of its attention on physical event logistics. What if they used the event as an excuse to involve prospects in discussions leading up to the event? Onsite, they capture the most relevant client/prospect conversations on video, which can enable other prospects to get engaged. They design programming that engages attendees and non-attendees in what happened “after” the event. But “the event” is no longer bounded by the physical event.
- Transform the channel by organizing online collaboration spaces that connect various channel partners in ways that are meaningful to them. Most parts of the channel have information that is useful to others, but it’s almost impossible to get someone on the phone. Email is very inefficient. And people need guidance for how to interact in transparent social venues.
- Here’s how many-to-many communications in social venues have different economics: Research has consistently showed that, in most online social venues, about 10% of participants are interacting while 90% are observing. And they can go back to it. Moreover, anyone interested in that topic can find it. Now. Email is a closed system that has no leverage in comparison. High-quality, relevant digital conversations are almost always superior to any “content” that any company can create because the prospect is involved. It’s more relevant, it’s more individualized.
Sales needs to come out of its shell. Many salespeople are actually shy in front of large audiences they don’t know personally (how many times does the sales team gab among themselves at the trade show booth?). So, it’s a stretch for many salespeople to converse with “strangers” in social venues. Many of them are afraid of writing (they’re talkers). Here are specific examples for Sales:
- Although many people have learned this, I’ll repeat just in case: In general, writing questions and responses in public is held to a fairly low standard grammar-wise. Most people aren’t going to attack you if your sentence structure is horrid. You can spell-check words. Get over this fear if you harbor it. (Rare exceptions apply.)
- Like Marketing, Sales need no longer accept assumptions about “market conditions,” or prospects’ needs. Find and interact with people in social venues who are talking about things your clients care about. Observe what they think, and ask them questions.
- Think about yourself compared to people in your firm and outside. What knowledge or interest do you have that you have related to the product/service that lets you add unique value? Experiment with search: create keyword combinations that find these conversations, and observe them for a while. Then jump in and add your perspective. Remember, these conversations are your thoughts immortalized. Even better, you can bookmark the best ones and share with prospects later. In the LinkedIn forum, the prospect will see you offering value-added information and guidance; when people thank you, your credibility goes way up. In forums, other prospects are setting the table for you to help them and gain huge, immortal visibility.
Net net
Disruption always serves to elevate threats and opportunities. I hope you can see that “traditional” sales and marketing practices developed in an era in which B2B clients had relatively little opportunity to find information independently or to connect with other people with similar challenges. Social business has changed the game, and early movers have the opportunity to profit to the detriment of their competitors.Christopher S. Rollyson is a partner in Socialmedia.biz and managing director of CSRA, a management consultancy that advises enterprises and startups on social business strategy and execution. He is also the founder of Social Business Services, The Social Network Roadmap and the Executive’s Guide to Social Networks. See his business profile, contact Chris or leave a comment below.
Categories: business, business use, JD Lasica, social marketing
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zaterdag 3 maart 2012
A TED-talk from the future in 2023
Conceived and designed by Ridley Scott and Damon Lindelof and directed by Luke Scott. See this TED talk from the future in 2023
About the talk:
Peter Weyland has been a magnet for controversy since he announced his intent to build the first convincingly humanoid robotic system by the end of the decade. Whether challenging the ethical boundaries of medicine with nanotechnology or going toe to toe with the Vatican itself on the issue of gene-therapy sterilization, Sir Peter prides himself on his motto, “If we can, we must.” After a three year media blackout, Weyland has finally emerged to reveal where he’s heading next. Wherever that may be, we will most certainly want to follow.About the Speaker
Sir Peter Weyland was born in Mumbai, India at the turn of the Millennium. The progeny of two brilliant parents; His mother, an Oxford Educated Professor of Comparative Mythology, his father, a self-taught software Engineer, it was clear from an early age that Sir Peter’s capabilities would only be eclipsed by his ambition to realize them. By the age of fourteen, he had already registered a dozen patents in a wide range of fields from biotech to robotics, but it would be his dynamic break-throughs in generating synthetic atmosphere above the polar ice cap that gained him worldwide recognition and spawned an empire.In less than a decade, Weyland Corporation became a worldwide leader in emerging technologies and launched the first privatized industrial mission to leave the planet Earth. “There are other worlds than this one,” Sir Peter boldly declared, “And if there is no air to breathe, we will simply have to make it.”
