Category Archives: Apple

Are we ready for real 24×7 connectivity?

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We’ve had the key note and it was impressive – I’ve never had my family members watch one with me, and all be excited by the new technology!  What technology you say?  The Apple Watch…

Apple Watch

Yes I’ll admit I’m an Apple fanboy at heart – it’s their whole customer experience and the simplicity of the Apple ecosystem that does it for me.  It’s the idea of a “service bubble” again (as I’ve blogged about before – i.e. when you’re there with a brand and the whole experience is just right – from every interaction you have and you know it’s them), it just works.

The Apple Watch won’t be the first smart watch on the block (just like the iPhone wasn’t the first smart phone), but it will work and it will sell and it will have the same consistent simple experience we expect and that we want.

I don’t wear watches any more and I haven’t now for probably 30 years, but I’ll be one of those looking at spending £300 on an Apple Watch when it comes out.  Yes it will tell the time like a traditional watch but I don’t need it for that (when in 2014 are you somewhere where you can’t find the time out?).

It’s the ability to do so much more without having to find your phone and pull it out.  Maps telling you the direction to go, a heart rate monitor (that you don’t have to strap around your chest and get friction burns from – that’s another story), messages from friends and family, access to my photos, online shopping, a camera and access to passbook (boarding cards, loyalty passes and more), to name a few.  It will ultimately replace my trusty Garmin Forerunner 305 (that’s beginning to drop the signal a bit more than it should) but maybe when v2 comes out with GPS included (running with the Apple Watch and having to have an iPhone on me, doesn’t work for races just yet).

Apple Watch apps

But – and this is the big question – am I prepared to never be offline?  Never offline – this was the title of Time Magazine this week – have we even considered what this means?

Time Magazine Never Offline

You may say that you’re never offline now, with a smart phone always near by.  But you can put it down.  How often do you take a watch off?  Rarely if ever.  Always reachable, location always known and apps reacting to you realtime giving advice and directions – 24×7 365 days a year wherever you are (yes assuming you have a mobile data connection).  We’ll get to a point when retailers know where we are and can automatically make recommendations on what to do, where to go and what to buy.  We’ll see consumer behaviour changes that we’ve not even thought about yet.  A lot absolutely will make sense and after a while we won’t know what we did without them (just like smart phones).  But we need to consider the implications of some and work to make sure we don’t create a situation where having a smart watch becomes a necessity and if you don’t have one you lose out, to some extent.

We need good – no make that excellent – mobile data coverage everywhere as well, to make most of the use cases for smart watches work.  Not just global coverage, as in in all countries around the world, but even within countries and regions.  Even near the great city that is London, solid 3G and 4G coverage isn’t there yet.  And then there’s good old network roaming – just imagine travelling around the globe as we do, and suddenly being hit by extortionate data charges – it won’t work.  Telco’s and other businesses will need to rethink their existing business models and come up with ones!

It’s an exciting time!  I can’t wait to see how things go when the Apple Watch hits the streets in 2015!

Apple Watch this space!

CIO Connect 2013 conference – thoughts, ideas and observations

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I was invited recently to attend the CIO Connect 2013 Conference in London, billed as the IT leadership conference in 2013 and this year with a theme on the gaming changing CIO. It was a great 2 days spent listening to global technology and business leaders’ key note sessions, attending workshops and networking with IT leaders from around the world.

CIO Connect

Most definitely a conference that should be in your diary if you’re a technology leader and more importantly if you share an interest in the major business changes and disruptions, that are happening now and how technology can play the best role in them – and add the value to your business it should.

CIO Connect 2013

They had none other than Brian Cox presenting last year – sadly I couldn’t go – and the final presentation this year on day one was by Dr. Steve Peters, author of the Chimp Paradox (billed as a mind management programme to help you achieve success and almost gospel for the Team GB Cycling team and many other leading sports teams and players). Day 2 was rounded off with a session from Fraser Doherty who founded Super Jam.

Super Jam logo

I always find it useful to capture comments, thoughts, notes, observations and light bulb moments from conferences like this and play them back after the event. A blog gives you the ideal forum to do this with and to share them with a wider audience. Any comments and questions are very welcome!

The thoughts and more…

  • Kevin Segall was presenting on the idea of keeping things simple and reflecting on his time at Apple and working with Steve Jobs. I had the privilege of seeing Kevin a few years ago and he’s a great speaker and very entertaining. The simpler things are the better and simplicity never fails. People love simplicity. Even in the organisation structures we see in business these days, the simpler they are the better and more powerful. A great example of Apple and how Steve Jobs was the ultimate decision maker and could make or break ideas. It might sound harsh but at Apple it works.
  • The “I” in CIO is no longer just about information.  It’s now far broader and covers innovation, integration, intelligence, implementation and imagination.
  • CIOs need to be compelling in improving the digital customer experience.
  • As CIOs we need to work with our peers to define the business decision making criteria. Help build and maintain a “make $ and save $” register to record technology successes.
  • The concept of the PR of IT as people, processes and best practices and CIOs working to ensure these are all aligned.
  • We must see how the overall customer experience works for the business and how this fits with technology. How do we serve the customers (better)?
  • Big themes in 2013 for the CIO are (and continue to be) the cloud (and moving services to the cloud), BYOD (good old bring your own device into the business), big data and security (which ties in to all the above).
  • View IT as a benefit centre, not a cost centre. And as a benefit centre IT is then a value contributor to the business. This represents a big shift for many businesses where IT can still be viewed as a back office service provider for the business. But this is changing and there was a general consensus on how this change is accelerating now.
  • With IT as a benefit centre, prioritise what will get these benefits as early as possible.
  • Focus on people, not on technology and be compassionate.
  • CIOs and their (technology) teams will be the engine rooms for major business changes, over the next 3-5 years.
  • The new norm for how technology teams need to be focused is as 50% strategic, 30% tactical and 20% operational. This is a big shift from now where only 20% is strategic and the vast majority of time and energy is spent maintaining the status quo and keeping the lights on (i.e. BAU). This is all about looking at the commoditisation of IT and moving the BAU parts to be run as lower cost (well) managed services.
  • For business programmes and projects, move to working with the key stakeholder at the business owner, not just the project sponsor. And with the programmes being business investments, not IT projects.
  • The CIO needs to be viewed a business leader. And as CIOs we have a unique understanding of the complexity of the business processes.
  • In many companies there is a vacant seat on the board for the “Chief Customer Officer”.  This is someone who acts as a bridge between the CMO, the COO and the CIO divide, and most importantly this person owns the overall end-to-end customer experience.
  • We need to test the public view of stuff (services that we provide) and to get out and be a consumer of our services. Do they work like they should? And like we expect?
  • The “Chief Customer Office” is the new board member who represents the customer experience in the market.
  • Stop talking about something called digital, as something different. It’s all one now. Platforms, channels and media. We need a more holistic approach – something I’ve blogged about before.
  • We are now in an exponentially changing world, no longer a place where business is linear. Technology is a critical game changer in this new world.
  • And finally from Dr. Steve Peters, the two key areas to focus on for performance and success, are emotional skills and impulse control, and everything is about probability.

 

Have you been caught in a service bubble?

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Bubbles everywhere

Service bubbles?  So what are they?  They’re the places you are when you’re being looked after and experiencing a brand’s great and amazing service – and caught in their bubble.  You may have never thought about it before, but we’ve all been there.

You’re shopping and having a great experience in the shop, or in a hotel and being looked after by their team – and getting great service.  The service is personalised to you, it is provided by service professionals whose job it is is to understand what delivering great service means and what makes it special, and it’s specific to that brand.

Apple Store

Take Apple – yes one of my favourite service brands:  you step into their Apple stores and are greeted by their Geniuses – easily recognisable, all smiling and friendly and all there to make sure you are helped in the way that you need.  And they’re proactive in providing good service.

Shangri-La Hotels

Another great example – is good hotel chains, like Shangri-La (well known in the Far East but with some great hotels now in Europe as well).  You arrive at the airport in a different country, quite often tired from a long journey.  You’re met after security by a hotel representative to take you to the hotel and you’re then in their bubble.  Again, friendly staff, personalised service (often greeting you by name) and with a smile.  Whilst you’re staying with them – as their guest – and being looked after, you’re in their care and their bubble.

The usual result of the bubbles?  You go away a happy customer, you remain loyal to the brand and come back for more, and you tell people about it.

Bubble

So what makes them bubbles?  They’re normally temporary for you – you step into them when you start an experience or journey and step out when you’ve done (a good example being when you leave a hotel, are taken to the airport and dropped off – everyone knows that feeling that it’s back to normality), the bubbles normally grow whilst you’re in them – with the service getting better as you complete your purchase or transaction and there is a only a thin line between the bubble and the outside world.

Many bubbles

You can imagine different service bubbles coexisting for different businesses and organisations, and moving from one to another and receiving different experiences in each – some good, some great, some maybe not so good.  Businesses that work well together as partners can even have bubbles that join together and your journey from one to the other, is seamless and there’s no need to step outside of them.

Airlines (and other forms of transport – e.g. trains) are another great example of service bubbles and they differ widely from good old economy, business class and first class!

How do different companies bubbles differ from each other?  How can you rate and compare them?  Quality and size?  Does and should good service demand a premium price tag?  Stay tuned for more on this in a future blog post.

Whose service bubbles have you be in and what were they like?  Do let me know…

And that is how you do good service – thank you Apple!

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Apple Store

My trusty iMac (from 2008) decided to not play ball earlier this week.  It was way outside Apple’s warranty (even Apple Care) – by over a few years – but trying to fix it was beyond me and I needed help from Apple.  A call through to the local Apple Store (in the Bentall Centre in Kingston) and they advised that they had no Genius appointments that day but to come in with the iMac and they would see what they could do.

When we got to the store we spoke to one of their guys who said all the iMac tech team were busy all day with no slots, but to hold on and he would see what they could do.  A very friendly iMac Genius then came to have a look and ran a series of quick tests on the iMac.  As typically happens in these situations, everything worked fine and the iMac passed all the tests.  A number of restarts were done – where the problem had been before – but all working fine.

Apple Genius

The guy took down all the details of the problem as I’d seen it and advised that I could leave it there for them to take a more detailed look (which would probably take a few days) or take it back home and see how I get on (which I did and typically again the problem has re-occurred and I’ve booked to go back in tomorrow).

But, the whole point to this post is the exceptional level of service that Apple provided here, going way beyond what they were obliged to do, going out of their way to help as best they can, to listen to the customer and check and test accordingly, to offer options when the standard response (booking a slot for that day) was a no-goer and doing all of this in a friendly professional manner.

This level of service is what makes Apple so great and why people – like me – will now go back and go nowhere else.  It is exceptionally good service and yes you do pay a premium for Apple products but this is one of the major reasons why; it’s not just a great product, you’re buying it’s a full service experience.

It’s not the only reason of course, there are 3 reasons generally why you are willing to pay extra for a product or service.  These are:

  1. The quality of the product
  2. The level of service received
  3. The overall experience of using the product or service

These 3 are the major drivers to creating loyalty for you business and Apple yet again are are leaders here.  Fingers crossed that my visit tomorrow fixes the problem once and for all.

Bentall Centre

Connected content – it’s nearly time!

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I’ve long preached the time when we’ll be paying a single fee that covers all our home connectivity and includes unlimited access to all the content we would ever want (music, videos, games, books and more), and all through a single joined up service provider that knows what they’re doing and where it all just works (including how I access everything and when – so a big mobile and hardware bit).

Are we there yet?  Nope, but there are some very clever interim solutions and ways to almost get some of this.

I caught up with a good friend this week who I’ve not seen for some years and we were talking about the joys of using Apple devices and in particular how good Netflix was on it.

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So far I’d resisted the Netflix move.  Just couldn’t convince myself it was worth it and that it would be that good.  But I took the plunge today and boy am I impressed.  On the Apple TV it really is as if it’s a content channel with the same great Apple usability as the Apple TV box.  And even the little Nobles can successfully navigate it.  There are box sets on there to watch, that I’ve recently bought the physical DVDs for – yes I know it’s physical but I couldn’t find digital anywhere for the right price (until now).  My DVD collection (that has been getting smaller as we move to a digital world) is now pretty much obsolete thanks to Netflix – minus Disney and Star Wars (technically though that’s also Disney).  They’ll all come I’m sure – they’re already on Lovefilm and similar.

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So my Apple TV is now looking even more appealing.  The music link is still missing – sure I can link to my iTunes library but I want more content streamed, not my library only.  Spotify can plug that gap for the music but it’s not on the Apple TV (yet).

I can only see this getting better and very quickly.  Whether we need Apple to bring out a physical TV box I’m now not sure.  Their little Apple TV box of magic does it all and plugs into any screen I want.  I can control it with my iPhone and it works.

Total connected content as I described above?  Not yet.  My broadband, phone, TV and content are all with many different (carefully) selected (good) providers – including Sky, BBC (care of the license fee), BT, O2 and now Netflix.  But thanks to good devices it’s all joined up and it won’t be long before we see some very clever services coming in that offer more or all of it in one package.

Anytime, anyhow and anywhere – IS coming soon…!

Do digital and online mean the end of the high street?

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I’ve long been a big fan of digital content – in all its forms – and how it’s changing our lives for the better.  More choice, more variety, better (read cheaper) prices and convenience.  It’s all about the anytime, anywhere and anyhow philosophy – with us consumers far more in control of when, where and how we consume.  But, this clearly has an impact on the more traditional world of content in its physical form.  And also drives our retail experiences – beyond simple content.

Digital media and content

Some interesting questions come up…

  1. Can digital/online and physical/traditional retail co-exist peacefully?  Yes they can.
  2. What about our traditional high street shops?  We need them but they need to change.
  3. Should we all buy online?  A good question!

It’s not just about digital content – going online for content ultimately impacts my other retail experiences and drives me to the same retail channels, online, for other products.

It’s number 3 that right now is the big one.  In the UK we’ve seen some major high street shops go under recently – or change hands and scale down.  Including – Game, Jessops, Comet and HMV.  Some with years and years of history going right back to when consumers started listening to and consuming content (and buying products).

Consumers

So why are they struggling?  I think it’s quite simple – a reluctance to change and move with what consumers want (all of the above in the introductory paragraph).  Cheaper prices, more choice and one not mentioned above better service.

This last one is important and maybe something not considered as much as it should be.  Good service – or even excellent service (of which I’m a huge fan) – is crucial to build relationships with your customers and get them back and get the all important repeat business going.  Just look at how Amazon do customer service.  No quibbles when taking items back – fantastic return policies – and people to help when you need it, however you want to contact them (not waiting round for someone who might not be the right person to help).

Customer service

Another big plus online is the whole idea of reviews – from consumers just like you, telling you exactly what they think of the item, good or bad.  This helps you make your decisions.

Your typical high street shops now are used more for browsing – and people then compare prices with online retailers, go away and order online for it to be delivered a couple of days later.  Sure there are some purchases that don’t make sense to do this way but more people are going this way.  And yes I’m one of them.  How can I justify a book in one of the few remaining high street shops, when online (and by online I mean Amazon) it’s half price (with great service and quick delivery) – there just isn’t any competition.

Traditional UK high street

I can shop when I want and even when mobile.  It’s all so convenient.

Everyone talks about how much of their Christmas shopping these days is done online and typically this means Amazon.

It’s another post about whether Amazon’s business models (pricing) are sustainable or not for them – but so far it’s working and their bottom line is healthy (now)!

So now to the crunch question – is there still a place for the traditional high street?  I think there is.  A lot of change is needed and retailers need to embrace online and digital as well as their traditional retail arms.  This is critical.  If they don’t – and don’t do it quickly, they’ll sadly go the same way as others.

For us consumers, it’s an exciting time but will be a sad one as well if we lose well known names from the high street.

It’s time to change!

It's time for change

The future of games is also mobile

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A great post on PocketGamer.biz from Keith Andrew talking about the new CEO of smartphone studio Kwalee – David Darling – and his recent blog.  David founded Codemasters so he knows a fair bit about games and games consoles and what games’ players want and what they like.

Darling rightly states that the industry is transitioning from boxed to digital games and it’s not just games that are transitioning but all types of content – see my previous blog post on this very topic, “How digital are you?“.

Here’s my big statement – games consoles have a limited lifespan.  They’ve served a great purpose and given millions top quality interactive entertainment in the living room and most of us have grown up with them.  I remember well the Atari 2600 my mum and dad got us when we were 10 and but we then moved to pc’s like the Apple 2 fake (yes fake – we grew up in Hong Kong) and all the delights they brought with them.  Then the BBC Micro at school and IBM style pc’s at home!

A quick detour via the Nintendo Gameboy – the original (that must have been the original mobile gaming computer, with more than one game and great controls).

Then more consoles – Sony’s PlayStation 1, Microsoft’s Xbox, Nintendo’s Wii, Sony’s PS3 and Microsoft’s Xbox 360 – our current console.  Yes we missed the SNES and others but pc’s were the gaming platform of choice for me at home then.

Console games – and pc games – have always been a bit pricey though and as David points out that’s one of the problems.  They typically cost £40 or more.  Compare that to the £0.69 game on a phone – that’s a huge difference and it’s such a difference that it changes how you view the value of games.  Don’t get me wrong, I’m not undervaluing games – not at all.  I know what goes into making them and particularly making the best ones.  It’s just the pricing and models – we need to rethink these.

Now with the AppleTV and the ability to stream games from my iPhone directly to my HD TV in the living room, why do I need a console?  Yes consoles now act as media centres and you can watch movies, play music and mess about with social media but I can do all that on my phone and my phone is always with me.  And yes everybody has a phone.

That’s the fundamental difference – everyone has a mobile phone and everyone now has access to great, and good priced games.  You don’t need a separate games console any more.  Some maybe yes – e.g. the more hardcore gamers – but the vast majority no.

Unless of course they come up with some new killer feature that only the consoles have.  Like gesture control with Microsoft’s Kinect or the Wii before that.

With mobiles the whole experience buying the game is much much easier, the different app stores we use already and know how they work and don’t have to go anywhere to buy the games!  We can also read reviews our friends and peer groups have written for the games, giving critical feedback to the games developers to improve the games.  And new levels, new characters, bug fixes and more can easily be pushed out via updates.

Tablets add another dimension to this but for me they’re still mobile devices just different ones.  They use the same basic technology as phones (operating systems).

Another great dimension mobile games add is the ability to play a game whilst out and about – e.g. on a train journey – and then continue it on the big screen when you get home from exactly where you left off.  This is the concept of content anytime, anywhere and anyhow again and it’s coming.  Back in my Sony days, part of the digital services roadmap I put together was all about this.  It makes so much sense and it’s what consumers want.

Apple are making great strides in this space – they don’t need a separate console.  They’ve got iOS on the iPhone and iPad and then the AppleTV and the actual Apple TV (note the space there) – when it’s released.

Add GPS location tracking, multi-player, game centres where your ranks and scores are stored, cameras (and video cameras), AR (augment reality) plus more mobile innovations and this gets very very exciting.

The future is not about consoles, it’s about mobile.

Sometimes a phone isn’t a phone. So what is it?

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Well worth a re-blog. Along the same lines as my post earlier today about what mobile is all about. These are no longer phones – they’re very powerful computers, that we can use anywhere we want due to their size and do anything we want to do. And oh yeah, you can still call someone if you want to…

The future is mobile!

Everything will become mobile – fact

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Lots of people are still referring mobile like it’s a different channel these days – be it for computing, retail, consumption, gaming, distribution or anything.  A few years back maybe that was valid but since the birth of the iPhone back in 2007, things have changed and changed radically.  Mobile phones are now everywhere and yes pretty much ubiquitous.  Not just mobile phones but smartphones with technology and computing power in them that we couldn’t have dreamt of back when mobiles first came out.

The slide below says so much.  Think about it.  There’s more – and that’s a lot more – computing power in a mobile phone today (2011/2012) than was needed to send a man to the moon back in 1969.  That’s in my lifetime.  What about the next 40 years?  It’s the first time in a long time, that it’s virtually impossible to say where the next 5, 10, 15, 20 years or longer is going to take us.  Technology is changing so fast and is having a massive impact on our lives!

A nice video showing the evolution of mobile phones up to today…

So what do we do with all this computing power in our hands (quite literally) 24×7?  A lot yes, but no where near as much as we could do.  We listen to music, take photos and videos (and edit them and view and play and distribute them); play games, read books (and magazines and newspapers – if you’re so inclined yet – we’re well and truly getting there now; “It’s official the 6 year olds verdict is that digital magazines are better”), find out where you are and get directions to where you want to go (visual or verbal ones); track a run (or bike ride or swim or any physical activity for that matter) and improve your training times and distances; communicate with friends, family and pretty much anyone else (not just by calling them – yes you can do that as well on smartphones); buy and sell shares; take notes; give and write presentations; write (and publish and sell) a book; buy and sell just about anything to anyone anywhere; send cards (and postcards), control your TV; listen to the news of the hour in any country; make music (with drums, pianos and guitars and lots more); find your away around the tube; figure out which London 2012 Olympic events you want to go to and more!  The list is huge and it’s growing and it’s fast moving away from just consuming content.

Breakthroughs – and they are breakthroughs in how simple (that word again – “How simple should it be?  Insanely simple”) the technology works – like Siri are changing how we use them and what we use them for.  Equally impressive is Microsoft’s Kinect.  Voice control and gesture control are the future!

Apple’s strap line for Siri – above – says it all.  Imagine all technology with this level of intuitive control – it’s coming and soon.

I digress slightly – back to mobile…

Another slide (this one and the one above are from the McKinsey June 2012 web presentation on “Understanding consumer behaviour” – well worth a read) that illustrates the growth of traffic (lets call it data or usage) for mobile and desktop computing over the last 4 years.  So during the time since the iPhone’s been around – and look at the trend, mobile is growing…

Now this is my point – mobile is growing but it’s becoming the normal way we (as consumers and more and more as businesses) interact with content (that word again – and there is a risk that we could over consume it – “Content over consumption coming soon”).  It’s no longer another or a different channel.  More and more of our time with technology and content is spent on our smartphones and yes while mobile – and by that I mean when not at a desk.  We need to think differently about how we embrace a mobile world – both in the workplace and at home – and how we interact with it.

Business strategies need to change and make sure mobile it’s part of the core business – both for your teams and your customers.  Along with mobile comes digital – another word that means so many different things to different people.  But it’s the same – it’s another channel and distribution method that’s fast becoming the norm – and it’s not just marketing.  One for another blog post.

On a similar thread see this post from The Guardian this week…

It asks, why mobile for business and has some good points.  But I think it misses a critical point – mobile is not an option.  This is happening now.  It’s more what strategy should you take to get on-board with mobile and how to best make it an integral part of what you do.

And another post this week by Rene Ritchie…

This one I really like.  Apple brought the computer and the power that brings with it, to the phone.  They fundamentally changed what phones were and how people – consumers (pretty much everyone I know – any age) use their mobiles (and what they now expect from them).  Rene’s last line is poignant and carries a very simple message…

All back to Apple’s drive for simplicity.  Yes I am an Apple fan and love what they’ve done with technology generally, but for mobile they changed the way phones were perceived and used and now everything is becoming about mobile.

The Orange T-Mobile strap line from their merger last year fits very well and this is what mobile is now and the key is understanding consumer behaviour…