Christopher Carfi

A nice article from CRM Magazine about the work we did with OK Labs. -cfc

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• Tell us about your organization.
Open Kernel—OK Labs—is a three-year-old start-up that was born in
Australia and is now headquartered in Chicago. My role when coming on
board was to build up the brand and, most importantly, create awareness
among the technical developer community who work on developing mobile
devices. Our area is mobile open virtual solutions. We are in the
innards of mobile handsets. It’s not at the application level, but it’s
embedded within the device.

I realized initially that the company
wouldn’t exist if Google didn’t exist. The first commercial
opportunities came through online inquiries. The obvious thing to do
was to find out who these people are, what their needs are, and what
kinds of places they go to find information. I tried to figure out the
types of things these global engineers care about and tried to address
their thirst for information that was accurate, technical, and in a
peer-to-peer venue. 

• At what point did you turn to service provider Cerado for strategic support?
I found Cerado through networking and I said, “I’m building a community
of developers and I know this community behaves differently from other
communities. Can you help me build this?” I knew I couldn’t do it on my
own. Cerado did the typical things of defining the behaviors of the
community—and came up with something I loved. Cerado reinforced the
notion of creating elements that can be shared easily—or “social
objects”—and showed us lots of practical, real-world examples,
ultimately taking us down a path toward building an online community.
In addition to the community-development plan, Cerado introduced us to
the overall concept of social media and, of course, Twitter—before its
big ascent. What started out as a community-development plan evolved
into a complete sharing plan—which included viral videos, webinars, and
social networking—to grow organically and accomplish brand awareness
along the way.  

• What results have you seen from your online efforts? Our
goal after developing the community was to have 1,000 members within a
year. We’re at about 1,500 now. And, in our realm, when you consider
the size of the developer community, that’s substantial. 

We
definitely have increased our online footprint and visibility. Now when
OK Labs releases a press release, for example, we launch a webinar
surrounding that news and we might ask a person with an impressive list
of industry followers to twitter about our event or accompanying white
paper. That leads to increased participation in our webinars. When we
deployed new social sharing tactics during our last news launch on the
topic of Google Android, we had the longest number of days in which
people participated with a sustained increase in traffic. 

OK
Labs’ GeekTV videos are viewed via YouTube and Vimeo approximately 70
to 100 times per week. We know that we have not scratched the surface
of what can be accomplished by actually promoting the videos with
social media tactics. Most of our traffic for videos comes from links
through our email nurturing program.

The majority—about 90
percent—of our leads come from Web searches and through email queries.
Google search is the reason that the OKL4 technology was discovered by
developers and led to our first design-in solution for a major chipset
manufacturer for mobile phones. 

It’s a challenge at this point
to keep up with lead qualification. Twitter and LinkedIn will play a
larger role in OK Labs’ social media strategy in the coming months.

---

source: CRM Magazine

Just tripped across a great turn of phrase from Peppers and Rogers: “Transaction Myopia.”  Good stuff, and worth checking out. (Via CRMAdvocate)

The key bit:

“It’s far easier for almost any business manager to think in terms of
transactions completed-whether you talk about products sold, or calls
handled, or loyalty points awarded-than it is to think in terms of
asset values improved (i.e., lifetime values increased because of
strengthened relationships). And obviously, having better transactional
data will help any firm do a better job in making customer-centric
decisions. But even sophisticated statistical analysis will not
necessarily change the mind-set of the executives involved. 

We
often say that thinking in customer terms, rather than transaction
terms, is like seeing a different dimension of your business. Rather
than focusing on one type of transaction (or product) at a time, and
trying to sell that transaction to as many customers as possible, the
truly customer-oriented firm will focus on one customer at a time, and
try to line up for that customer as many transactions as possible, over
the life of that customer’s relationship with the firm. 

For
most businesses, the product transaction is the hero. But for truly
customer-centric businesses, the customer is the hero. So, rather than
trying to find more customers for your products (which is the primary
objective for product managers), a customer-centric approach involves
trying to find more products for customers. And this means someone has
to be in charge of the customer relationships, one customer at a time.”

You can read the whole thing here.

(N.B. Unfortunately, it’s behind a not-customer-friendly registration wall.  A wee bit of pot-kettle-black…)

photo: chuck revell

Morgan Stanley’s uber-analyst Mary Meeker recently published her 671(!) page report on the state (and future) of the mobile internet.  Of her eight “key themes” in the report, one really stood out:

Mobile is Ramping Faster Than Desktop Internet Did and Will Be
Bigger Than Most Think – a confluence of five factors (3G + Social
Networking + Video + VoIP + Impressive Mobile Devices) Are Driving This
Change

Whoa.  Think about that for a second. Mobile Internet usage is ramping even faster
than Desktop usage did between the early 90s and today. As soon as
2012, smartphones are predicted to out-ship worldwide PC shipments. Because of this advancement in the way the internet is consumed, there are now wireless bundles (https://att-bundles.com/wireless/) that families can use to put everyone in the home on the same plan, helping them save money.

So what does this mean to the customer conversation? Two things:

• You need to be thinking now about how you reach customers via the mobile channel
• More importantly, you need to be thinking now (or, perhaps even last week) about how customers reach you via the mobile channel

Now, this was the slide that blew me away:

Check that out.  Not just the rate of growth, but the magnitude as
well.  While the iPhone does not equal the entirety of the mobile
market by any means, it’s stunning to see that the iPhone + iTouch have
8x the amount of market penetration that AOL did at a similar point in
its trajectory, and over 5x the number of users that Netscape did.

This isn’t just a wave, or even a tsunami.  Mobile is going to
fundamentally change the landscape with respect to how customers and
companies connect.

You think I’d learn.

I’d been scheduled to go on an embark aboard the USS Stennis this week, on a trip similar to this one taken by Guy Kawasaki and others.  (Thank you, again, USNavy for the invitation, and Andy Sernovitz for facilitating.)  However, the storms hammering the West Coast changed the plans, and the embark was cancelled.  No problem, these things happen.  Totally understand.

I’d split my flights so the outbound to San Diego was on American Airlines, and the return was on Southwest in order to get the best fare.  When I found out the trip was canceled, I pulled up the two respective emails to try to see what could be salvaged from the trips.  Here’s what happened.

Southwest:

• Opened email.
• Clicked on “Refund Information” right there in the email.  This took me to the refund web page.
• Clicked on “Cancel your flight reservation.”
• The ticked was non-refundable, so was given a dialog box that said “Hold funds for future use,” and I clicked through.
• Done. Flight cancelled, flight funds banked, and I can use them for another flight within the next year.

American:

• Opened email.
• Clicked on “Refunds” right there in the email.  So far so good.
• Went to the web site, entered my ticket number.
• Uh oh. Big red error message: “The refund
  request you submitted is for a non-refundable ticket. In some cases,
  you may be able to apply this value towards the purchase of another
  non-refundable ticket. Certain restrictions and fees apply. Please call
  American Airlines Reservations at 1-800-433-7300 for further assistance.“
• Fine.  I’ll fail over to the call center.  I call the number.
• The CSR was pleasant.  I give her my info.  Then we have The Conversation.

CSR: That’s a non-refundable ticket.

Me: Yes, I understand.  Can I apply to fees to a future flight?

CSR:  Yes, as long as you take it within a year.

Me: Cool.  Thanks.

CSR: The change fee to do that will be $150.00.

Me: ‘Scuse me?

CSR: The change fee is $150.00.

Me: Um…but the ticket was only $98.

CSR: Yes.  It’s not worth it.

Me: So…you’re saying I’m hosed?

CSR (verbatim): Yup.  Pretty much.

Stellar. 

Had a rare chance to see the great El Vez* (along with the Elvettes) at The Independent last night.  Los Straightjackets were the backing band.

As always, big, big fun.

* – Yes, indeed.  El Vez, the Thin Brown Duke, the Mexican Elvis, was in town for his bi-annual holiday show.  Woot!

Originally posted at http://supernovahub.com. By the way, if you’re not currently following @supernovahub on Twitter you’re totally missing out.

AT SUPERNOVA 2009, Chris Anderson (Wired, @chr1sa) “beta tested” his newest thesis: “Atoms are the New Bits.”

Here is the presentation:

Here is the video (@chr1sa presentation starts at the 10:00 mark in this clip):

In his presentation, Chris noted that personal “3-D printers” can now be had for about $750, down from about $25,000 in 2004, which puts them in the range of a mid-quality wide-screen TV for a typical household. So, what does this mean?

Here are seven implications that I see:

1) The rise of an App store for designs

In the same way the Apple redefined how distribution of first music, then applications, was done via its iTunes Store and App Store, there will be the rise of an “App Store for Designs.” From it, individuals will be able to download “designs” that can be printed on their 3-D printers in their office (or garage, or even kitchen). The implication: whoever owns the distribution of the bits will own both the distribution and manufacturing worlds. As I type this, I realize that creating a 3-D printer would be a perfect product line extension for Apple, and enable Cupertino to replicate (pun intended) the strategy it pursued first in computing then with the iPhone into even more areas of the household.

2) The rise of a new open-source movement

Of course, as someone creates the App Store for Designs, there will be an open-source counterpoint. They key bit, again, will be findability and usability for the mass-market. Watch the Android market (and, in particular, how apps end up on Android phones) for clues to see how the open-source side of the personal manufacturing market evolves.

3) Disruption of supply chains

If you are a manufacturer or distributor or transporter of any commodity-type hard good that’s under, say, the size of a breadbox, prepare to have your world rocked. Just looking around my home office, I see hangers, a file box, picture frames, bookends and a portable camera tripod that all are candidates for MIY (“Manufacture It Yourself” or “Make It Yourself”). A glance into the kitchen reveals the same results: stirring spoons, cups, plates, bowls and utensils all could be made on-demand, right here, right now.

Unless you are (a) creating designs or (b) creating or distributing the feedstock that goes into a printer, at-home manufacturing is your Tunguska event. Deal with it.

4) A counter to the offshoring of manufacturing

Ok, Detroit. Here’s your chance. Ok, NAFTA-haters, you too. All the stuff that’s cheaper to make overseas or south of the border no longer needs to be. If you’ve been downsized, hone up your design skills, or join the Assemblers Local 517.

5) Assemblers Local 517

Just because everyone can manufacture their own things at home, doesn’t mean that everyone will want to. IKEA cracked the code on “design for transportability” and, in the process, outsourced assembly (and a few hammer-smashed thumbs) into all of our living rooms. Smart designers in the MIY realm will create designs that can be assembled into a final product, much in the same way that IKEA designs the Bjørn bookcase to be put together by the end customer.

This means that there’s an opportunity for a new role for the neighborhood handyfolk: the Assemblers.

6) A “new green”

We need to start thinking about out to how to make affordable, sustainable (either recyclable or compostable) feedstock from the get-go. There is a huge opportunity here. Think about it — we have the chance to eliminate the carbon impact of transportation (again, oftentimes from overseas) for billions of manufactured goods every year. Let’s not screw it up.

Again, judging from the incredible stacks of paper that are strewn about my “paperless” home office this morning, we are going to be 3-D printing stuff willy-nilly. Can’t find a bottle opener? Print one. Need a doorstop? Print it. This will lead to an even greater creation of disposable stuff in a disposable culture. Let’s make sure that that disposable set of coasters you printed up don’t end up being taken out of the loop, but instead get refashioned into next week’s utensils and then into next month’s shower squeegee and next year’s whisk broom, none of which should have to cross an ocean on a container ship.

7) FedEx and UPS play out their strategy

As I was thinking about the supply chain and distribution impacts, I realized the two folks in the economy who also will be hugely affected by this shift are FedEx and UPS. Now, both organizations have moved past their transportation-only roots and into local markets here in the States, where FedEx purchased Kinko’s and UPS purchased Mail Boxes Etc. This means that both organizations are sitting on the “danger/opportunity” saddle point.

On the “danger” side, there is the likelihood of massive dropoff in the amount of “stuff” that will be shipped through both of their networks. That said, there is huge opportunity here. Both offer local points-of-presence in tens of thousands of neighborhoods, an existing culture of “printing” and a control of the supply lines for feedstock. If FedEx and UPS are smart, they will turn those former Kinko’s and MBE locations into the corner manufacturing centers. In fact, they both have the opportunity to jump in front of this game now, and be the ones to challenge Apple to create the Design Store noted earlier. Yes, the Network Age is the time and place where FedEx and UPS compete with Apple in the manufacturing industry. Rock on.

The comments are open below. Do it.

Am at Supernova today.  Follow along here on Twitter, if you're so inclined.  There's also a video stream here.

(That's Jonathan Zittrain on stage in the photo.)

As part of some of the work I'm doing with Supernova, had the chance to have a great chat on this week's Network Age Briefing regarding "social objects" with Rashmi Sinha, who is the CEO of Slideshare.net.  It's a completely different way of looking at "sociality" online, and worth checking out.

The conversation is now encoded and live. Take a listen: http://bit.ly/691wYo

On the subject of frequent flier miles, Gary says:

“Miles are evil. They create apathy on the end of the service
provider.”

The he asks the real question:

“Have decades of frequent flyer programs instilled institutional apathy on the part of customer facing employees? Perhaps we are talking about apathetic DNA across entire corporations or even within the entire airline industry. If one believes customers won’t
leave even when treated poorly, where is the incentive to ‘step it up?'”

Back in the late 1990’s, I was flying weekly between Chicago and Palo Alto. 1,846 miles out on Monday, 1,846 miles back on Friday, week in, week out.  I racked up hundreds of thousands of miles, was “1K” on United, got an upgrade every flight, and was willing to put up with a lot of their crap. 

Flash forward a bit, and then I’ve moved to the Bay Area proper, and am no longer flying over 100,000 miles a year.  Now, all the compensating behaviors have gone away from the United side since they no longer view me as a “high value” customer since I’m no longer part of their super-premier program.  I’m still flying a lot, but not on a route that they have a lock on.  And instantly, all the poor service that I used to tolerate became untenable.

Since that time, I may have flown on United half-a-dozen times in the last ten years.

So, it’s interesting.  For me, it was less about “loyalty,” and just about the fact that I happened to frequently travel a route that they had a systemic lock on (since I was flying between two of their hubs).

I agree with Gary.  The mileage program did nothing to induce “loyalty” for me.  Once there were trips on other routes, all bets were off.

Kudos to Seth Godin on fixing the most very broken thing about his 2005 book "All Marketers are Liars."  He convinced the publisher to change the cover on future editions, and the book is now called "All Marketers Tell Stories."

Seth says:

"So, go tell a story. If it doesn’t resonate, tell a different one. When
you find a story that works, live that story, make it true, authentic
and subject to scrutiny. All marketers are storytellers, only the
losers are liars."

I was fairly harsh when I read the book in 2005, and while some of those criticisms still stand, this is definitely a step in the right direction.

Well done.