Let's get social

One of the best examples I have personally seen of a B2B company successfully leverage social media is National Instruments (NI).  NI offers sells hardware and software products to businesses and academic organizations globally.  Recognizing that the end users of their products are engineers and scientists, NI uses social media platforms to engage them in co-innovation that results in a win-win situation for the customers and NI’s business. NI customers are members of an online community where they actively engage in giving feedback on the products they use and brainstorming new ideas for future product features. The community platform gives customers a voice and makes them feel involved in the process of creating products that will ultimately benefit them by helping them do their jobs better. They consider themselves ‘geeks’ and enjoy conversing with other fellow geeks around the world as they share their knowledge an strive to be recognized within their “community of practice” as the knowledge expert. One active user spent as much time on the community answering questions and helping fellow members as seven NI support staff combined.  NI nurtures and encourages their participation by recognizing the most active users publicly as “superfans” and bestows upon them the coveted title of “Knights of NI” at an annual conference hosted by NI. Some superfans have been known to attend the conference dressed up in knights costumes! NI has been successful in creating a valuable experience for their end users by providing a public forum for customers to give voice to their needs and connect with other fellow users.  NI builds and maintains the high level of trust and loyalty that their customer community gives them by actively listening to customer conversations and incorporating their feedback into every product upgrade or release.  You can read more about the NI case study here.  

While there are several B2B companies like National Instruments that have succeeded in using social media to build active and engaged communities (see more examples here), most companies struggle with doing this. When I interned at BMC Software, which sells system management software to other businesses, I conducted a customer survey to gather information about their pain points and social media habits.  What I learned was that end users’ biggest pain point was not getting prompt, helpful support for questions they had with BMC’s products. Their solution was to create independent mailing lists for different products where users could collaborate in helping each other with answers.  Even though BMC has an online community forum(similar to what NI has), BMC’s customers preferred to go to independent sites because they felt that BMC would use their own site to market sales messages to them. The users had a strong perception that BMC only uses social media as a marketing tool to try to sell them more business.  This negative perception has made it difficult for BMC to create engagement on their forum.  In order to combat this issue, BMC is working with NI to learn from their experiences and try to replicate their success. One of the first actions BMC took towards their social journey was to take steps to change the internal company culture first by encouraging employees to engage with each other using social media.  The thought behind this strategey was that once employees get comfortable in various media they will be better equipped to "play where the customers want to play" and to be able to engage appropriately.

Since I am currently interviewing with HomeAway for a post-graduation job, I decided to analyze their use of social media. I was surprised to find that on HomeAway’s main site there is a link to Facebook but their links to other sites such as Twitter, Pinterest and YouTube are buried under a link at the bottom of the page titled Media Center. I would advise them to make the popular sites more easily accessible. HomeAway also hosts an online community which has moderately active engagement but the overall sentiment seems to be quite negative as most members use the forum to complain about issues and chat about how the competitors are better. There are some members who are more helpful than most in answering questions and HomeAway launched an Ambassdor program in 2012 to recognize key contributors but there doesn’t seem to be much support from HomeAway experts.  I would advise HomeAway management to invest some resources into making the forum a more valuable platform for customers.  They could involve customers in the R&D process by giving them specific opportunities to co-create and contribute their feedback on the forum by suggesting new features or voting on them.  They could create an exchange program where HomeAway property owners can stay in each others’ properties and get to know each other personally.  HomeAway can help create valuable experiences for travelers by giving them additional ways to enhance their vacation stay – they could give travelers a convenient way to plan, track and share their entire journey. For example, if a group of friends are planning a trip, HomeAway can give them tools online to share their plans with each other before they travel, to track each others itineraries during their travel, to share pictures and videos with each other and optionally with others.  By giving travelers a way to create and share memories of their wonderful stay, HomeAway can create valuable experiences that will delight their users.  

Reading the Groundswell chapter 3 made me reflect on my own reasons for joining the groundswell and I discovered that my main reason for joining was “Succumbing to social pressure from existing friends” but my reason for staying is “Keeping up friendships” although I must admit it has been turning to the “Prurient Impulse” of late.  I observed that the likely primary reason social business users at NI, BMC and HomeAway engage in the groundswell is “Validation” and perhaps “Paying it forward”.

Experiences in Creativity

Personal Experiences

   Creativity was not a word that I came across much at all as I was growing up in India. The emphasis in educational institutions was on rote memory and acing standardized tests so that one could pepper ones resumes with academic degrees that were a prerequisite for a good job. It was believed that professions that required creative skills were related to art and there was no sustainable future in that field. In a country of a billion people, most of whom were struggling to make ends meet, success was defined by financial accomplishments rather than by job or life satisfaction. 

Because of this background, I did not think of myself as a creative person at all. I enjoyed drawing as a past-time but I considered myself primarily an engineer that solved problems by applying knowledge gained from books or tasks. It was only after reading books and articles related to creativity in my late teens that I learned that there was so much more to creativity in all aspects of life. One book that influenced me early on on this topic was “How to think like Leonardo da Vinci: Seven Steps to Genius Every Day”. He was well known as a creative genius and reading the book made me realize that creativity is a skill that can be learned. So I became a student of creativity and consciously nurtured the spirit of curiosity in my life. I exposed myself to new ideas from different sources – books, movies, people. I solved lateral thinking puzzles to train my mind to generate fresh perspectives, even on the mundane. 

   I think that I feel the most creative when I am confident, energetic and optimistic. I tend to generate the best ideas in areas that I consider myself to be knowledgeable about. Perhaps my lack of ideas in areas that I am unfamiliar with may rise from my feeling of incompetence in the field and the fear of being wrong. Fear and ignorance has certainly been a barrier for me. I also feel less creative when I feel low in energy or distracted by hunger or passive entertainment such as watching some shows on TV. In terms of environment, I find that a hot shower, although clichéd, has often been the place I get my best ideas. I am an introvert by nature and I like to think about hard problems on my own, in a quiet space. I do find a lot of power in team work and bringing different perspectives to the table but I think that the best solutions are often arrived at when I have done in-depth research on my own, then discussed them in a team-setting to consider different perspectives. 

Organizational creativity

   At my previous company, one of the things that I felt fostered creativity was the diversity of the workspace. It was a very global and inclusive organization where I had at my disposal several collaboration tools available to interact with my colleagues near and far in different ways. The diverse background of team members brought out interesting new perspectives and ideas that I don’t believe could be solicited from a homogenous group. Periodically, there were Hackathon events where employees had autonomy and the time off to solve problems or implement new ideas that they were passionate about. Several innovative ideas were discovered at such events. I think that organizational culture plays a big part in nurturing creativity. 

   I have also found that open work environments are more conducive to creativity as it facilitates interactions among employees and more visibility of work that is being done. Creative ideas often come out of connecting the dots, so it is beneficial to the firm to have employees network with each other, collaborate and exchange knowledge. I think that it’s also important, for the same reason, to have less formal hierarchy in the structure so that people are more approachable for collaboration on new ideas. 

If employees are encouraged to experiment and are rewarded based on their efforts, not on the failures, then I believe people would be more creative. At Facebook, they have a sign that says “What would you do if you were not afraid?”  

Do you think you, as an individual, are even capable of being creative by yourself?  And, better yet, do you think a group within an organization is capable of being creative?  

   Yes and yes – absolutely!  I think that creativity is a skill that can be learned. Some people are fortunate in having grown up in an environment that was more conducive to learning these skills – where they had the freedom to explore, be curious, experiment and learn. But I believe that even individuals like me who did not have that privilege, can learn these skills if they put their mind to it. 

Groups within organizations can certainly be creative. I have worked for managers both good and bad at encouraging creativity within the same organization and I have found that a manager’s actions and behavior can be a big influence on an individual or teams’ creativity output. Managers that penalized failures and discouraged experimentation created an environment that was especially bad for creativity. 

What do you think about this article and the way this author describes different creative types of problems and, thus, different creative processes?  Should we trust ourselves just to know or sense when we need one type of approach versus another?

   I think that as with any skill, one gets better with practice. As each individual is unique, I don’t think that there will be a universal answer for what creative process is best for what kind of problem. But I do think that everyone can learn from what has been shown to have worked in the past and by exposing oneself to diverse experiences and practice connecting the dots, one can get better at the skill. 

   

   As we saw from the in-class exercise, a number of ideas can be generated from random connections between insights and patterns.  For a difficult problem, one could try different approaches until they hit upon one that works.

Simple design - is it for everyone?

After the success of Google and Apple, there have been several articles on the importance of simplicity in design.  Here’s a recent one - http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2013/01/the-simple-complex/. It suggests that good design is really about removing everything that is not necessary. Simplicity is sticky, it says.  But I think that the article is missing a big point.  I agree that simple design is very powerful for mass consumer products but when it comes to the B2B world of enterprise software, I think that simplicity takes a backseat to other considerations such as customizability, sophistication, reliability, consistency and scalability.  

Prior to business school, I worked in the B2B space, designing, developing and delivering enterprise applications to large airlines to help them run their operations.  In my experiences engaging with users, I’ve observed that all the assumptions about who the user is and what they care about change dramatically. First, the users tend to be extreme expert users.  They want to be able to shape and mold whatever solution they get to meet their exact requirements.  Off-the-shelf doesn’t exist. Ease-of-use is low priority.

It appears to me that there are a few key differences between designing solutions for customers in the B2B and the B2C markets.  Given my experience, when I read articles about good design, my mind naturally tries to apply it to the context I am familiar with and sometimes I find that my experience does not agree with the design principles being recommended.  I would like to explore this topic more to find out how much research has been done in this area and if the design experts have any opinions on this. Can the Bauhaus design philosophy – that Steve Jobs was such a big believer in – actually be applicable in the B2B world? I would like to validate my experiences and assumptions against these and form my own perspective about the key differences in designing for these two markets.

Yet another reason I am interested in this topic is that after graduation I plan to work as a Product Manager in a B2B firm. Much of the literature I have read and that we cover in class is applicable to individual consumers.  It is possible that these same guidelines would also apply to products used by customers in enterprises but I don’t know that.  I would like to study this topic deeper to gain a better understanding of the differences, if any, so that I can apply the knowledge I gain in my job.

My thinking is that as users of these two markets use the products, they ask different kinds of questions.  A consumer of a TV remote would ask questions such as “Why do I have so many remotes?”, “How many of the buttons do I really use or care about?” and “Why can't things just work?”.  An expert user of airline flight software would ask “Why can’t they add some more labels to the screen to give me more information?”, “What else can I do with this?”, “Can I have the functionality of 3 different department products in one so that I can make better decisions?” Now, there are ways to give expert users what they want without cluttering the design by understanding their problem space and designing by context.  It is much more important in B2B product design to understand the domain deeply and hear about the problems from several different users in order to design a solution that works.

Just because B2B customers ask for customization, it doesn’t mean that we should custom-build products completely for them.  The best approach when we get a request that the system can’t match is to ask the question “What configuration is missing that isn’t allowing them to get what they need?” And then we can focus on adding that configuration option.  Or we can focus more on modularization and license keys that serve the same purpose while not adding features unnecessary for other customers.

It is important to note that even in B2B applications, there is a place for simplicity. Simple design matters for novice users who are just beginning to use the products and will gain from mastering the capabilities of the products in increments and not all at once.

I think that creating and managing customer experiences in the B2B world is much more challenging than in the B2C world because for product, there are many different touchpoints in the firm. The decision makers for the product purchase are often high-level executives and not the end users (although they may have some influence).  As the price of the product and the impact of change on the organization can be higher, the average sales cycle is longer and the due diligence (research) phase can be very intensive. As different people get involved in the pre-sales, sales and post-sales efforts, it can be difficult to maintain a consistent experience for the customer. 

This article http://www.webcredible.co.uk/user-friendly-resources/ucd/enterprise-applications.shtml lists some guidelines to follow when designing for B2B and enterprise applications.  I would like to research to find if there are more articles on the topic.  I will also interview my ex-colleagues and others I know in the B2B space to learn what their observations have been in this matter.

Generative Research Design - I, me, myself

What I can't live without:

Love - I treasure my relationship with my husband, Matthew, above all other stuff.  He is my soulmate, my adventure buddy and my best friend.  I love the life we share and eagerly look forward to raising a family with him to increase our inner circle of love and joy.

Nature - Transporting myself to remote parts of the natural world is somewhat addictive for me.  It never fails to rejuvenate, inspire and amaze.  My favorite kind of vacations have lots of trees, big rocks and waterfalls.

Books - My Mother is an English teacher and she is instrumental in instilling in me a deep love for reading when I was very young.  As a girl growing up in a conservative society in India, I felt very constrained as I had to live by societal norms that I didn't agree with.  Books were an escape to whole new worlds that I could experience vicariously and it tasted like freedom.  Books were also teachers and mentors to me as they helped me through somewhat tumultuous adolescence as I questioned the world around me and formed my own identity.

Adventure - I love the rush I get from activities where I'm pushing myself to go further than I've gone before or further than most people I know would go.  That feeling is what drove me sign up for scuba classes even though I couldn't swim (just barely float!) and then I went through hours and days of coaching both in the US and in Thailand just so that I could see what the world looks like 60 ft underwater.  My vacations have always been packed with some adventure.  I've hiked in the Rockies, Andes and Himalayas.  I can't wait to get to the Alps!  I like the fast speeds, the surprises and the skills that make each adventure unique.

Relationships with Family and Friends - I am very close to my brother who is like a rock to me - I can talk to him about anything, at any time.  He is the most non-judgemental, wise person I know.  My close friend Priya is like a sister to me.  Even though she lives in the UK, we stay connected through skype, phone and email and somehow have managed to meet at least once a year on average.  I talk to my Parents once a week and see them once every other year because they live far away in India.  I try to keep in touch with my Mom over emails as she prefers that over the phone.  I think she worries about me spending too much on the phone calls but she doesn't understand (or accept) that this is not a problem. She and I have grown much closer over the years through our long private, email conversations.

What I care about:

Travel - I enjoy meeting people from different cultures and seeing how they live, how they interact with each other and what drives them.  I like comparing what is similar and finding differences between the culture in India where I was raised and what I see in the US which is now my new home.  I have been to 26 different countries, and returned to some more often than others.  More than the food and sightseeing, I seek personal encounters with local residents and to explore the natural world in these new lands.

Noodles - She is our silly cat full of purrs and sometimes little bites.  It is very comforting to see her when I get home and to have her company next to me while I'm studying.  She is often a great source of entertainment too!

Helping others - I realized early on in my life that I get a lot of satisfaction out of doing things for others.  It is not a universal desire to please people, but instead I like to find problems, or people in pain and I like to remove that pain.  A friend once told me when I was 16 that she thought I had a gift for always saying the right thing at the right time to make people feel good when they were having a bad day.

Laughter - When I watch TV or am asked to choose a movie, I almost always will choose a comedy.  I like how comedians look at the world in a unique way.  I think it's very creative.  One of my favorite shows growing up was "Whose line is it anyway?" which had a lot of improvisational comedy.  A few years ago I took improv classes to find out what it was like.  It was very hard and I found that I am not a natural at it.  But I did enjoy it very much.

Learning (eg TED talks) - I enjoy reading or watching anything that opens my mind to new ideas and ways of thinking.  I also like learning new stuff.  In my previous job, I was very good at absorbing details of complex software and explaining it to customers in simple terms to answer questions or solve problems.

I get most of my information through Google web searches.  I use Google news and the search bar to find out what's going on and follow links to popular reads or videos. I like using Google because it is easy to use and very intuitive.  I like that it gathers all the information that I seem to find useful. I typically check national news first, then international news. I like to know what's going on in the world.  For most articles, I usually only read the headlines and one paragraph. I find that I spend the most time on opinion pages as I like to get into peoples minds to know what they are thinking and make guesses as to why that may be. I rarely check local news.  I enjoy listening to National Public Radio whenever I am driving(news reports) and on the weekend("Wait, wait, don't tell me"). I like the reporters' styles on NPR -- their use of language, tone and humor.  I also like that they cover different kinds of news (financial, global, local) in small slices of interesting nuggets as well as opinion interviews in larger chunks.  I check my Facebook page on average once a day to get information about my close friends.  I sometimes click on news articles that they recommend or have commented on and I find it interesting to observe how the same news article is shared by more than one friend with sometimes polar opposite opinions in the comments.

On reflecting about my day I find that I seek the most information when I'm about to start a long period of study or when I'm taking a break from studying(both in the middle of the day and late at night after dinner). I think that I view the process of seeking information as a kind of reward because reading the news satisfies my curiosity to know what's going on and to learn random new pieces of information.  Checking email and facebook satisfies my need to stay connected with friends and family.


The process of going through the above exercise of deep introspection into what really matters to me, what channels of information I do and digging into the underlying purpose of why I make the choices I do has really made appreciate the depth of how complex and unique each individual's experiences are.  I found patterns of behavior and bent emerging that I had not realized about myself before.  I can see how this would be extremely valuable to a business that is trying to build a customer experience around me to delight me.

Mapping Andy

“Some people collect things. I collect people”, Andy once told me. I asked him to explain what that meant and his response gave me a tiny glimpse into the inner workings of his fascinating mind. He told me that one of the things he most loves to do is listen to people’s personal stories. When we met over a meal, he would often ask me “Tell me a story about your life in India”. He would listen intently and ask me further details with sincere curiosity. As soon as I finished he would say “That was oh so interesting. Please tell me another one!”  He treasures the connections he makes with people he meets on travels around the world. Wherever he goes, he has a natural knack for easily making friends with strangers, many of whom invite him to join them in their journeys and often times, even into their homes and lives. 

Andy was my favorite colleague to travel with on business trips because he was a globe trotter and no matter what country we traveled to, he had already been there before (usually several times) and knew exactly where the most interesting restaurants and live music clubs were. While our other colleagues met in the hotel lobby after dinner to go over PowerPoint presentations for the umpteenth time, Andy and I would sneak out from a side exit door and go enjoy a fun night in the city. He is always seeking to explore new places, try interesting foods and experience new adventures. He prides himself on knowing and experiencing what the world’s best(in his opinion) of anything is – for example, he can tell you what dinner is like at the world’s best rooftop restaurant and where to get the world’s best ice-cream sundae. He always plans his business trips around the weekends and makes sure that each weekend that he is traveling will be spent in an interesting city. I always wondered how he gets away with so many personal excursions while on business trips but I know that he is very conscientious.  He also discovered clever means to find the cheapest flight itineraries and hotel deals. He is the best example of “work hard, play hard” that I know as he works intense 10-12 hour days on weekdays and some weekends just so that he can enjoy the evenings and most weekends the way he pleases. 

Andy’s Facebook profile picture shows a tall (6 foot 7 in), white, big man, in his 40s, with a full beard, kneeling next to a large, magnificent animal with antlers that he had just hunted in Namibia. His appearance might be intimidating to some people, but once he starts talking, he quickly puts people at ease. He is also exceptionally good at taking command of the room when delivering presentations to executives. He told me once that he often uses his larger size and loud booming voice as an advantage to entertain, engage and win the audience. Customers love spending time with him because he takes genuine interest in their business problems. He likes to observe them at work and ask lots of open questions. He uses his creative and artistic skills to quickly sketch wireframe designs and co-create solutions with them. He cuts through bureaucracy to find solutions that make sense to him. For example, in order to get input from customers on product enhancements, he uses a public blog site to post design proposals and solicit feedback from customers. I asked him if the company could have any objections to using an unsecure public blog site for business purposes and he responded that he had no choice because there was no such tool made available by the company. He wasn’t going to let that get in the way of getting stuff done. He is passionate about building solutions that delight customers. He is the first person in my company that I heard talk about creating not just products, but inspiring experiences that customers will be willing to pay a premium for. 

Since Andy is the single earner in his family, he supplements his full-time salary by working part-time on his own personal business designing websites. With so many demands on his time, Andy has to be very efficient and organized.  Since he works for a global company, he often works late into the night or wakes up very early to connect with customers and colleagues in other time zones around the world.  He often works from home in order to have the flexibility to meet both personal and business commitments.   

Andy has a very interesting professional background and he has many talents. He worked in sales, construction, film-making, high-school (as a teacher), online training software and user interface design. He is exceptionally intelligent and has an amazing command of vocabulary which allows him to write beautiful prose and poetry. He has a deep, baritone voice which makes him a popular band member that entertains at company events. But what is not obvious to most everyone who knows him is that he suffers from Asperger’s syndrome. He first found out that something was wrong when his boss told him that his teammates had complained about him. They told her that he sometimes criticizes them too harshly and they feel intimidated by him. He started going to therapy and discovered that he has a tough time empathizing, that is, knowing what other people are feeling or thinking. He often takes the literal meaning of whatever someone says and sometimes has a tough time understanding non-verbal cues. This could lead him to offend or hurt others unintentionally.  He does understand sarcasm and irony though which might mean he has a milder form of the syndrome. 

Andy has two young children – a boy who is 5 and a girl who is 12 years old -- whom he loves very much. They mean the world to him and he loves to spend time with them. When his son was diagnosed with Autism, he and his wife moved to Texas to enroll him in the best school they could find. Because of his Asperger’s, Andy feels that his genes may have been responsible for his son’s ailment. Whenever he can, he tries to take his children on his travels so that they can experience the world too. He shares his deep love for nature with them by taking them on nature hikes, horseback riding and staying up with them at night to count shooting stars when the meteors put on a show. Being the best Dad he knows how to be is very important to Andy. His children feel very close to him and although they miss him when he travels for business, they seem to know deeply that they come first in his life. They are a family that loves to cook together and they will often invite many friends over for a meal. One Thanksgiving, they invited over 40 people to their home! Andy will often bake and gift fresh loaves of bread to friends. Sharing food is one way he likes to connect with other people in his life and I suspect it’s possibly also a way to bribe them to reciprocate by sharing their personal stories with him :)