4 posts tagged “web2.0”
Twitter. Flickr. Facebook. THE GPHONE! As everybody well knows, the current pile-up of web 2.0 services promising to revolutionize personal communication will settle into a virtual junk yard we'll laugh about years from now, if we even remember the names (Alas, poor Kozmo). Among the very few web 2.0 services used by the Hoole Intelligence Report, the awkwardly named del.icio.us is a jewel you really should consider trying.
del.icio.us is a social bookmarking service which allows you to store, organize, cross-reference, and share all the interesting stuff you find on the web. When you find a blog entry, magazine article, or site you like, you click the "post to del.icio.us" link on your bookmarks toolbar, which brings you to the del.icio.us site, where you can add a description to the bookmark and tags.
I tag my del.icio.us links with the key words that identify the content. I further organize my links by grouping them into "bundles" of related tags. In the main bookmark navigation pane, tags are grouped by bundle and appear in darker, bolder, larger type depending on how frequently they are used. In the capture on the right, you can see that "mobilebanking," a tag I frequently use, is a whopper, whereas "demography" is teeny and in a lighter font.
If you regularly use a particular tag like "puppies" to label bookmarks, you can click through that tag's link and see what other del.icio.us users who have an abiding interest in puppies have bookmarked. If you find a user who frequently bookmarks interesting content, you can set up del.icio.us to show you what they've added when you visit the site. I have the RSS feeds for a couple of people's del.icio.us selections hooked up to my Google Reader where any additions show up as headlines.
del.icio.us is loaded with subtle features that will aid avid web surfers and bloggers in their dorky pursuits. If you have a large collection of browser bookmarks, you can get started with the service by uploading them to del.icio.us, which will assign them tags based on your bookmark folder names. Firefox users (superior beasts, in case you were wondering) can download a slick del.icio.us toolbar, making the service that much easier to use. There are widgets available for Facebook and major blogging apps that display your latest del.icio.us links. For those with a couple of web surfing minutes to burn, you could do far worse than clicking the "popular" link at the upper right hand side of the main page, which represents the cream of the web at any given moment.
Mark me, dear Hoole Intelligence Report reader - all the brilliant, provocative scraps you come by on the web today will be displaced by equally interesting jibber jabber tomorrow. For me, del.icio.us is the tool that forms the web into an ongoing reference and a source of learning instead of a pleasant waste of time.
When a business pitches customers just out of their teens with jargon usually heard in MBA programs, you know something special is going on. American Apparel, a tee-shirt manufacturer that caters to the hip 18-25 year old set is equally renowned for the soft-core porn aesthetic of their ads and for being a "sweatshop free" enterprise. How is this feet accomplished? "Vertically integrated manufacturing," they assure the cool young things who buy their clothes.
Businesses are recognizing that their customers are interested in the chain of events that bring products to the shelf and they've found some ways to assuage their concerns -- various third-party certifications, a section of the annual report devoted to the environment, purchasing carbon offsets, or adding words like "earth friendly" or "sweatshop free" to packaging.
As more companies adopt tokens of transparency, crises like the recent toy and pet food recalls further undermine the trust of consumers, who opt for products they feel are demonstrably safe, healthy, and in line with the values they hold dear. The balance is shifting from disclosure, where corporations mollify their customers with a narrow marketing message, to transparency and participation, where business throws open the door and invites customers in to see for themselves because their trade and manufacturing practices are attractive features of the brand.
Participatory retail and transparent supply chains are two related, often overlapping strategies forward-thinking companies are using to improve their offerings and intensify brand loyalty. The transparent supply chain enables consumers to directly verify a product's claims about health, environmental impact, or social justice. Participatory retail describes products that allow the consumer to engage with and shape some significant aspect of the production process. As you'll see in the account that follows, participation and transparency have novelty and virtue to their credit, but above all they are good business.
Mass Customization - This year at it's annual "investor days" meeting, Nike announced a new global marketing theme -- "the customer decides." CEO Mark Parker described the move this way:
We've spent the last, or in our case, 20 or 30 years trying to bundle things, adding value to a purchase or a relationship. And now, it's almost in reverse, because you have to unbundle everything if it's going to become customizable.
Nike's most avid customers feel themselves to be unique and demand products tailored to their specifications. The strategy is to cater to their needs with a customizable product experience and convert them into champions of the brand rather than plain old customers. The flagship product of the new theme is Nike Plus, shoes with a sensor that transfers performance data to a runner's iPod, allowing the user to track performance, map routes, set goals, and participate in a community of Nike Plus users.
Scion, a youth-oriented division of Toyota launched in 2003, is designed to be a customized experience over the life of the car. Buyers who visit a Toyota dealership go to a separate Scion space inside where they are guided through the process of choosing colors, wheels, stereo, and a host of aftermarket items like a ground effects kit or an illuminated cup holder. Alternately, buyers can build the car and get an accurate price tag online before they set foot in the dealership. Scion car clubs are active across the country and the trade in accessories likely to be installed after the sale is growing precipitously. According to Toyota, about 80 percent of people who buy a Scion are new to the Toyota brand and, when they trade their car in, 8 of the 10 cars they choose next are Scions or Toyotas.
On the production side, Rapid Manufacturing (RM), a new additive manufacturing technique that produces fully functional parts directly from 3D CAD models without the use of any tooling, offers imminent possibilities for product personalization. Prostheses, motorcycle seats, helmets, and backpacks formed to the bodies of individual users are all projects being explored by Custom-Fit, the European consortium developing the technology. The implication for customization is that RM will allow a manufacturer to make a one-off, on-demand product without the costs of retooling.
Paradoxically, mass customization, a response to consumers' desire for a unique product, works best when marketed to a community. The products above have been developed in the context of user communities, online or in the real world, where sharing individuality is a core value, which brings us to the next trend.
Retail Communities - Brands have long catered to consumers' desire to belong, but have done so only in abstract terms -- belonging to a brand community is an increasingly literal proposition.
At Threadless, users participate in the production process by submitting their own tee-shirt designs and/or voting on the best design submitted. Designers upload their T-shirt designs to the website where they are rated by users. On average, around 700 designs will compete to be selected in any given week. The process creates a virtuous circle in which everybody benefits -- ambitious designers become superstars in the Threadless community (and potentially beyond), users get the products they voted into existence, and the folks who run the company sell to an engaged, self-selected community. Nike and Microsoft's Xbox division are both experimenting with developing products on the community model.
Trends toward transparency and participation have the most urgency for business in the LOHAS (Lifestyles of Health and Sustainability) market segment, which captures consumers who need to know and participate in the supply chain for ethical and even spiritual reasons. For this reason, Zaadz, an online social networking site recently acquired by the biggest player in the LOHAS market, Giaim, is at the vanguard of the new retail communities. Members are what might be called the "lead users" of the LOHAS market segment -- the yoga instructors, the reiki masters, the meditation gurus. Paging through the member profiles, it's clear that the majority have a product or service to sell. In short, they are the tastemakers and the early adopters.
The difference from conventional retail communities like the examples above is that, instead of developing around an existing brand or product, Zaadz has developed around loose set ideals. Given that they are essentially a market segment organized as a community, there are reasons to believe that Giaim will find a more focused audience than others have found at other social networking sites like MySpace. The challenge with this retail community building strategy, as evidenced by rumblings among Zaadz's membership about their relationships being sold, is balancing the goals of the community with those of companies attempting to monetize their investment.
Transparent supply chain - Business has long established the provenance and quality of its product by helping consumers visualize a key part of the production process. Think of the "inspected by" tag included with Fruit of the Loom underwear or commercials featuring mythical Columbian coffee grower Juan Valdez. Among today's wised up consumers, such wan efforts will be seen as little more than marketing hustles.
Consumers from all walks of life and of every political stripe have grown suspicious of traditional guarantors of product safety and quality, like the FDA and the corporations themselves. Consumers increasingly consider themselves the best judge of product health and safety and, instead of taking the company's word for it, will intensify their demands for specific, accurate information.
In 2005, mandatory food chain traceability regulation came into effect across the European Union requiring that "Information on the name, address of producer, nature of products and date of transaction must be systematically registered within each [agricultural business's] traceability system." Though the information is primarily to aid health officials in tracking food-borne illness, the European Union has mandated "farm to fork traceability" for European consumers as well.
In the US, Illinois-based EggFusion etches expiration information and tracking codes on the shells of eggs. You enter the code from your egg on EggFusion's website, and get information including processing plant, product brand, processing date, and retailer.
The increasing prevelance of web-enabled mobile phones is likely to bring the web into conventional brick and mortar retail transactions. Shoppers in Japan already scan items with their phone's camera to access product information on the web. Look for links from products on the shelf to in-depth information on the web in the near future.
Whether or not companies go through the trouble of getting their products Fair Trade certified, more and more are feeling the need to demonstrate that the people who make them are getting what they deserve. In the fashion industry, prime example of supply chain transparency is Made-By, an initiative of Solidaridad, a Dutch development organization. Used by a growing number of luxury garment brands, their "Track&Trace" system allows the purchaser of a garment with the Made-By label to find out where their garment was made and by whom. The back end of the tracing application is Made-By's network of organic cotton farmers and sewing factories that meet ILO labor standards utilized by participating brands. Try out the Track&Trace interface -- it's easy to see how the process of looking up a newly-purchased garment's origins adds value to the product by making it a globe-trotting, educational experience with story value.
Even as the notion of fair trade has gained wide currency, like kissing and telling, keeping mum about costs is considered a retailer's prerogative. The traditional bargain is that the entrepreneur will do what he has to do to get the price right (his business) and if you like the price and features of the product (your business) you will buy. Fair Trade certification and other similar programs simply inform consumers whether or not producers of a given product are getting fair shake -- not how, or to what extent.
The Hoole Intelligence Report predicts that the trend toward more unmediated relationships between consumer and supply chain will move toward it's logical conclusion -- customers will be able to verify the split of the retail price between retailers, distributors, manufacturers, and producers and choose the product they believe represents a fair deal.
Why Bother? The Business Logic of Supply Chain Transparency and Participatory Retail
The Economist, taking Google to task for its intent to do good in the world in a recent article, writes "from the public point of view, the main contribution of all companies to society comes from making profits..." It continues, "Google's 'goodness' stems less from all that guff about corporate altruism than from Adam Smith's invisible hand. It provides a service that others find very useful..."
The bald reality is that "the public" has never held dear old saws of classical economics like the invisible hand, with its naively absolute identification between profit and the common good. On the contrary, today's business environment proves in no uncertain terms that consumers across the political spectrum demand virtue from business and will even reward it by paying a premium.
Transparent supply chains are good marketing and good customer service. Participatory retail, which tends to have more value-neutral applications, works as a business strategy for the same reason -- it makes consumption a vehicle for self improvement and for connecting intimately with the broader world. "Altruism," transparency, participation -- what these notions really describe is a level of customer engagement that goes beyond features and price and investor engagement that compounds the benefit of profit.
Classical economics be damned, the details of sourcing and manufacture are in the headlines every day. The decision for business is whether to proactively leverage a supply chain they're proud of or attempt to stop the bleeding when the next scandal goes down. By abandoning its proprietary stance toward product design, sourcing, and manufacture, business has an unprecedented opportunity to capture a new breed of customer for whom brand loyalty is a matter of principle rather than price.
Lately, I've been on a quest to figure out what all this Web 2.0 business is about and make full use of it to improve the virtual part of my life. RSS is the talk of the town and the RSS icon shows up on just about every site I visit. The concept is simple enough -- you subscribe to an RSS feed for a site and content updates are delivered to you via an "aggregator" or "feed reader." What can be more daunting is figuring out how they get to you and where to view them once they do. This here is a primer on RSS feeds -- what they are and how to use them.
Like many web innovations, the exact origins of RSS are murky and hotly contested. The first time a web syndication format went by the initials RSS looks to be 1997. Back then, Netscape had developed a "Rich Site Summary" format that allowed it's users to enhance their "My Netscape" homepage with regularly updated data flows. After that, Netscape abandoned RSS and it was taken up by different developers with different agendas. By the time a single version -- RSS 2.0 -- rose to the top (there are at least six other formats still in use), RSS stood for "Really Simple Syndication."
For the user, RSS fundamentally changes the shape of the web. The typical routes to web content -- links, searches, bookmarks, e-mail updates -- tend to be inefficient, often leading to stale content, tedious detours, or dead ends. RSS offers a pipeline channeling new content from all the far-flung sites a user might be interested in directly to a single location on their desktop -- the aggregator.
Your Web, Delivered to You - I've looked into several aggregators including Bloglines and the one built into my Explorer browser, but the one that made RSS feeds practical for me is Google's Reader. To include a site on the reader, all I do is click the "Add Subscription" link and paste in the URL. By adding the Reader to my iGoogle desktop, I get updated content (podcasts, blog entries, del.icio.us link updates, anything really) from all my favorite sources in the form of headlines in a pane right along side my gmail, IM, weather forecast, calendar, etc. As with other Google apps, it's just as easy use the Reader from my PDA as from a desktop browser.
Personal Blogs sans Tedium - The idea of keeping up with people by reading their personal blog is great, but practically speaking, impossible. There's too many of them and who's got the time to read every bit of content on every one their friends' blogs? Using feeds, each new blog entry shows up on my Google Reader as a headline -- if it seems interesting or I have the time to read it, I can click through to the original article.
Reduce E-mail Clutter - feeds are rapidly replacing e-mail newsletters as a means of communication. This is great news for the individual web user, because you control the subscription (no more e-mail unsubscribe requests) and your e-mail inbox can be dedicated to communication that requires a response. According to Fast Company, the Union Bank of California has replaced broadcast e-mails with targeted RSS feeds based on job description and location, saving time and money.
The Hoole Intelligence Report enthusiastically advocates the use of RSS feeds as a way to make the web a richer, more efficient resource. If you haven't yet dived in, it goes without saying that subscribing to the Hoole Intelligence Report's RSS feed is the right place to start.
Magic in the Marketplace
The last decade has seen the emergence of a new breed of consumer whose demands go far beyond traditional concerns like price and performance. They are empowered by unprecedented access to information, take charge of their own well being, and insist that sourcing, materials, and trade practices are key features of the brands they endorse.
Collectively referred to as the LOHAS (Lifestyles of Health and Sustainability) market segment, these consumers are interested in products like green building supplies, socially responsible investing, alternative health care, organic clothing and food, personal development media, and eco-tourism. Annual US sales in this market segment amount to $335 billion -- an impressive total said to be growing by 10 percent every year.
From freshly greened-up oil giants like BP to upstarts trumpeting their carbon neutrality via press release, corporations kick up considerable dust trying to get the attention of this powerful new consumer. More profoundly, the shift in consumer desires has prompted a new generation of start-up to take environmental, health, and social issues as profit drivers rather than a PR problem or footnote in the annual report. The meeting of these social entrepreneurs and LOHAS customers represents an historic opportunity to make what's good for the bottom line good for the world.
The purpose of this document is to explain how a new venture called Sortilege Mystical Solutions is uniquely positioned to take advantage of this opportunity. Sortilege is an online service that facilitates direct access to authentic magic from around the world. We have not only a magical product, but a magical business proposition -- that in their quest to improve their health, financial fortunes, and relationships, our customers will directly and visibly improve the lives of small producers in the developing world.
The Products
We carefully select products from around the world that are known to offer protection, healing, and fortune. Our expertise and global reach allow our customers an authentically supernatural experience, otherwise available only to a few. Our core products are from Senegal, a former French colony in West Africa, where they are alternately called tere, lekki, or gris gris.
The price tag for a basic off-the-shelf Sortilege product will be around $20. Our offerings come in all shapes and sizes, from glass jars containing bundled twigs, to hollowed out animal horns filled with powder of unknown origin. The the most basic Senegalese gris gris is a small leather amulet, which makes for a distinctive piece of jewelry to be worn around the waist, neck, arm, or leg. You'll find among our offerings protection from specific injuries, assurance that the person of your choice will think of you favorably, and the guarantee of fertility. As we grow, Sortilege will continuously incorporate new products from different countries and traditions that broaden the range of benefits available to our customers.
Emphasizing the novelty and wonder of trying a new, one-of-a-kind product, each order we fill features unique product packaging. From re-purposed dyed glass bottles to intricately folded paper packages, the presentation of every product is calculated to surprise. Our reference point for package design is the innovative literary journal, McSweeney's, whose presentation changes radically with each issue.
Each package comes with detailed instructions for use, information about the producer, and the part the product plays in local tradition. Our products are a window onto life in a place our customer wouldn't otherwise be able to see. Unlike watching a movie or reading a book about people in a far away place, Sortilege products allows the consumer to actually participate in the experience of a radically different culture. The Sortilege experience is an adventure to be pondered and shared with others.
How do Sortilege Products Work?
When the famed 19th Century German writer Goethe described superstition as "the poetry of life," he put his finger on the source of magic's persistence through the ages -- the common feeling that profound forces are at work in the world that defy natural explanation. Even as science gives us an ever sharpening picture of the workings of the physical world, the belief that religion and magic offer fundamental insights about life has never flagged.
The marketplace for products and services that baffle science has flourished with the rise of the internet. According to the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine, 50 percent of U.S. adults age 18 years and over have used some form of alternative medicine -- a percentage that grows each year. At the root of this trend is a profound distrust in mass marketing, politicians, the healthcare industry, and large corporations in general. From reiki to tai chi, consumers are seeking options that put them in charge of their own well being instead of relinquishing it to an outside authority.
Straddling the alternative medicine and personal development categories, Sortilege offerings are like nothing available today in the marketplace. Different from familiar "new age" and "occult" fads, Sortilege products come with a long history and a large body of satisfied users in their country of origin. How do they work? We do not know. Like many practices under the umbrella of alternative medicine, the "technology" behind of our products is known to only a few, but hundreds of everyday users confirm that they offer personal, spiritual, and hence, real physical benefits.
Our motto, "Why leave your fortune to chance?" expresses the desire of our customers to venture down unfamiliar avenues in the quest for self-improvement. It also positions magic as a leg up in the face of uncertain, momentous events -- a new venture, striking out alone in the world, having a child.
To seek the aid of magic is to allow that the normal means of accomplishing our aim may not be enough. By the protection it offers or the good fortune it promotes, magic is a kind of insurance for our aspirations in the world -- a mysterious advantage, but an advantage nonetheless. Sortilege customers can find their way to a drug store, a financial planner, or a church -- what we offer is a compelling set of options that can complement the well-worn, but uncertain paths to health, success, and happiness.
Participatory Retail -- The Web 2.0 Experience
The experience of corporations like Nike and Starbucks has shown that, in response to consumer demand, manufacturing and sourcing have taken a place alongside marketing and design as key ingredients of the brand experience. Information about who makes a product, how they are compensated, the environmental impact of production, and the safety of inputs will play an increasingly important part in the decision to buy.
The aim is to do for retail what Kiva, a site that allows users to loan directly to small entrepreneurs in the developing world, did for philanthropy. Before Kiva, philanthropy was a black box -- money disappeared into the coffers of a charitable organization and the donor was gratified in the hope that it did some good. The only significant control conventional donors have is how much and to what organization they'll give.
With Kiva, no matter how small the contribution, the lender chooses the recipient with a clear understanding of how it will be used. Just as important, feedback on the effectiveness of the giving is built into the process. If, for example, you pitch in $25 toward and $800 loan to a seamstress in Nigeria and she is able to pay the loan back on a regular schedule, it's a fair indication that your giving provided her with a real benefit. From a lender's perspective, a Kiva transaction is direct, transparent, and participatory.
Transactions in the retail sector are similarly opaque and ripe for Kiva's brand of transparency. Consumers who plunk down money for products labelled organic, healthy, eco-friendly, or fair trade must take these claims at face value. Catering to the desire of LOHAS customers to understand and control where their dollar goes and what it buys, Sortilege will leverage information and self-service functionallity to create a mindful, participatory retail experience. Let me count the ways:
1. Retail as Social Networking - The average consumer is an anonymous individual standing before a brand, a product, some minimal specifications, and a price tag. The Sortilege customer links herself purposely with a named producer in a specified location who can tailor a product to her stated needs. The retail transaction becomes a social relationship. Sortilege users will be able to connect with like-minded people who care deeply about social justice, wellness, and personal growth. Sortilege aims to be a MySpace-style community for the LOHAS consumer.
2. User generated content - As a Sortilege community develops, we will cultivate a body of user feedback, reviews, and recommendations. This will add depth to our original content and provide users with another means of engaging with and shaping the experience.
3. Customization - In societies that traditionally rely on it, magic tailored to the needs of individual customers is the norm -- the power of the internet is to extend that personalization across the globe. Sortilege will be a platform for delivering made-to-order products and interaction between consumers and service providers. The website interface will allow the customer to choose off-the-shelf products or from many levels of customization, including one-on-one consultations.
4. Transparent Transactions - From production to distribution to fulfillment, the Sortilege website will present a compelling graphical representation of the step-by-step progress of each order. For each item they purchase, Sortilege customers will know the producers, understand the production steps, and the split of the purchase price among the producer, distributor, and retailer. The guts of each transaction, traditionally concealed behind the slick veneer of the brand, are on prominent display at Sortilege -- the process is the product.
To Wit
In a recent issue of Fast Company magazine, the editors named its "Fast Fifty" emerging innovations in business. Among them is Village-to-Village Networks -- connectivity, knowledge, and financial exchange that will "become significant new means for the spread of innovation across the developing world, even as they become conduits for first-world businesses to deliver low-cost services everywhere."
Ultimately, this is our unique value proposition as a business -- we will provide the infrastructure for transparent, participatory village-to-village retail channels that enrich users at both ends of the retail stream.
Sortilege Mystical Solutions:
- offers a unique, compelling range of self-improvement options in an underdeveloped area of the alternative health/personal development category -- authentic magic,
- provides an information-rich, radically customizable retail experience,
- positions the retail transaction as a personal relationship -- it is the ultimate extension of the Fair Trade concept, allowing one-on-one interaction that is verifiably ethical and results in a personalized product.
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If you're interested in getting more information about this business proposal or would like to become a partner, contributor, or investor drop me a line.
