Welcome to the Brave New World of Persuasion Profiling

• By Eli Pariser, Wired Magazine

"Welcome, [FIRST NAME], to the era of personalization. Amazon.com recommends books you might like, Netflix tailors your movie menu, and Google customizes your news. And in exchange for this friendly algorithmic assistance, targeted ads follow you wherever you navigate online.

"Most of us have accepted this bargain, but it turns out that taste profiling is only the beginning. A technique called persuasion profiling is just around the corner, and it doesn’t just find content you might enjoy. It figures out how you think."

Read the full article on Wired...

The 3 First Steps to Implementing CRM

When implementing a CRM (Customer Relationship Management) approach to your business you need to plan carefully what you're wanting to achieve. If you make an error early on, it can likely set you seriously off-course further down the track.

As with all things, planning is crucial to the overall decisions made regarding developing a model for successfully managing customer relationships.

Before you commence your planning, factor in these three items:

1. Be Honest About What Isn't Working

Few of us like to have our failings talked about or mentioned. Yet usually when it comes time to consider implementing a CRM approach to our customers it's because something isn't working. At this time, you need to be brave and realistic in assessing what needs to be addressed and deal with it openly.

This may require dealing with egos, particularly if it has involved problems being hidden or not discussed. If you are going to look at a technology solution, this is important to ensure the underlying assumptions and business rules you establish are based on truthful assessment.

Ensuring their is honesty at the start is crucial, so if you find that your team is unable to achieve this, look to a third party who can assist with an impartial view of the situation.

2. Don't Rush to a Technology Solution

The very core of CRM is about relationships. It's not just about technology.

While technology will be able to assist in delivering the information you need about a customer at the time the customer needs it, or at the time you wish to start a conversation with them, it is still only a part of the overall picture.

Building relationships by their very nature requires interaction in many forms. It involves people, processes and technology – in that order.

So before jumping on the technology bandwagon, you need to assess how your business works, look at its processes and importantly how your people use them. Once this is done, you can look at the applications which improve on these.

This evaluation will likely identify ways to do things better and then when you're looking for software, identify what you need that software to do. It will also provide important business rules which all of this operates under.

3. Lock In Your Goals

When you complete your assessment it will deliver a list of goals and importantly the Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) by which to measure the success of the implementation.

It's essential to lock these goals down, as this will help minimise the moving of goalposts as the project unfolds. I would also recommend that you use a phased approach – break the implementation down to manageable elements, implement them over time and ensure they are functioning as expected before implementing the next. One of the main reasons for this comes back to people. Your staff need to be able to adapt to the new environment and understand how to effectively use it. This takes time and if you put too much onto them at once, it can be overwhelming.

The way technology is evolving to assist business in managing their customer relationships is truly awesome. Keeping it balanced with the realities of people – both customers and staff – will ensure it delivers on your expectations.

Our Phones Connecting Us More & More

With the power of smartphones now reaching a level of maturity, some significant usage patterns are emerging that show we are now using our phones more and more to find information, make decisions and purchase products – as well stay connected with family and friends.

A new survey The Mobile Movement: Understanding Smartphone Users commissioned by Google to promote their Mobile Ads service has delivered some surprising results. One quirky statistic is that some 39% of us are using our phones while using the bathroom!

Seriously, there are some revealing statistics from this survey, conducted by Ipsos OTX, an independent market research firm, among 5,013 adult smartphone users in the US at the end of 2010. For example:

• 81% of smartphone users browse the Internet, 77% search, 68% use an app, and 48% watch videos on their smartphone
• 72% use their smartphones while consuming other media, with a third while watching TV
• 93% of smartphone owners use their smartphones while at home 

Then there are the other revealing details, such as 95% of smartphone users have looked for local information, 79% of smartphone consumers use their phones to help with shopping – from comparing prices, finding more product info to locating a retailer.

With all this use of the internet from smartphones, a surprising statistic from the survey is that 79% of businesses don't have a mobile optimised site – showing there's a lot of catchup to happen.

If you want the visual brief, take a look at the Google highlights video:

Changing Behaviour and Having Fun

What a great idea – get people to change their behaviour by introducing "fun" into the activity. Volkswagen have been running a campaign designed to encourage people to do things they don't necessarily want to by introducing a fun element.

The winner had a simple idea – help reduce the incidence of speeding, using speed cameras. We all know how most people hate speed cameras, but Kevin Richardson's simple modification was to turn it into a lottery. As you'll see in the video, the results are impressive – during the lottery, speed on the selected road was reduced by 22%.

Some of the other ideas include getting people to use the stairs instead of escalators, encouraging recycling glass bottles and using the bin instead of throwing rubbish on the ground.

To see all the fun ideas, visit Thefuntheory.com

The Launching of Taste

Building a completely new retail concept from scratch can be a daunting task. It takes courage, fortitude and a great deal of professional capability to achieve.

That is exactly what the principals of Taste are doing – with the help of a team of dedicated professionals and qualified designers.

Located in Sydney, Taste is launching with 3 concept stores in the suburbs of Concord, Willoughby and Brookvale as well a comprehensive online offering. The stores will be delivering an exceptional array of European products and homewares for kitchen, bedroom and bathroom renovations.

Having been responsible for project managing the internet developments for this project, I feel extremely privileged to be part of such an incredible undertaking. When you visit the stores you are blown away by the quality of design and products that are available and the beautiful manner in which they are displayed. I feel that my design team have also been able to reflect this quality and detail in the site's design and content.

Taste is offering a full range of design services for amazing German manufactured kitchens and bathrooms, as well bedroom and other home renovation needs. You can also buy all your homeware needs for the kitchen – including cookware, cutlery, dinner settings and accessories – as well appliances, lighting, flooring, manchester, living room and dining room furniture.

The site has been launched initially without the ability to purchase products, to allow the stores an initial period of settling in and allow customers the opportunity to browse what Taste has on offer. Shortly we will be switching on the ecommerce component and visitors to the site from anywhere in Australia will be able to take advantage of the incredible range and amazing prices that Taste is offering.