Tag Archives: Apple

How does your company culture stack up?

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A great article from Mashable – by Lauren Drell on improving your company culture.  All the tips make perfect sense and are not too difficult to do – but they may require change in your thought process.

Take a read… 9 Tips for a Better Company Culture.

Google company culture

Your company culture is the killer differentiator between you and the competition – it’s why guys want to work for you in the first place, and why they will in many cases go out of their ways to secure a position with you.  They like what you do, your vision and the opportunities with you and want to be part of your journey.  Take Apple, Google and Amazon as prime examples of well known companies with great cultures where people want to work.

Apple company culture

Lauren suggests a number of different tips on how you can change your company culture for the better.  I’ll summarise these below:

  1. Hiring should be a continuous process and not just when you have specific vacancies.
  2. Encourage entrepreneurial thinking.  What would people do if it was their company.
  3. Hire fantastic people, remember people are your business.
  4. Lead by example – culture starts with you.  Show passion for the company and vision.
  5. Character counts – hire people for attitude and positivity.
  6. Don’t forget the freelancers or recent graduates.
  7. Your gut reaction is more often than not right – listen to it more.
  8. Encourage ownership and flexibility – we want happy people.
  9. Continue to build your company culture.

Lauren sums it up very well in one sentence…

“Hire in tech, product or business, but only take people that really wow you.”

A great culture, means an even better team, resulting in better productivity from the guys, improved services, better relationships with your customers and a great vibe in the market about you.

Culture word cloud

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

But it does depend on good connectivity

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All nice having streaming content when and where you want as per the last post BUT – and a big but still in 2013 – we have the limitations of our current ADSL broadband connections.  Generally they work fine, still down the same old telephone line we’ve always had, but now demanding more and more – and we’re pushing the limits!

Netflix working well today – some great kids’ programmes – and then Spotify through AirPlay on the iPhone to the Apple TV.  But struggling – jittery – playing a few of the tracks!  It’s ok but with more and more of us now getting everything online when we want is the infrastructure behind the scenes ready?  Not yet….

Telegraph poles

Telegraph poles

iBooks – yes it works (or digital books are now main stream)

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Another nail in the physical content coffin – books. Back on the commuter trail into London, I’ve been using iBooks on the iPhone (my trusty 4S) for a while now. It’s near perfect for train reading. You can hold it in one hand, navigate through the book with your thumb and one finger and with the right type of books, you couldn’t ask for a better reading (consumption) experience.

The books I’m reading right now are a series of history books – “History In An Hour“. Ok so they do take me, a bit more than an hour – 20 minutes here, 20 minutes there (journey in isn’t one hour) – but they’re very readable and hey I’m learning something. South African history, World Wars One and Two, The Afghan Wars (there have been a few), The Cold War and The American Civil War to name a few.

The huge plus with reading them on the iPhone, is the convenience. The phone’s pretty much always with me and very accessible. No more having to carry books around with me, that take up more shelf space at home. Yes I am a huge fan of printed books and my home office wall resembles a small library. That bit about physical books I love and also reading for the little Nobles, but there is a need now for me for digital books and Apple’s iBooks application is the answer. The genius of Apple usability and customer experience helps big time!

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.

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…

Simple does work – another good example of how to do great service

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Apple have done it again.  A nice post from Cult of Mac on plans by Apple to improve their Genius Bar services… 

Very simple really – change the tables to get more customers in.  I don’t doubt they’ll also bring in more Genius staff to help.  Bigger tables with more customers and the same number of staff won’t work – and Apple know that.  See my earlier blog post – “How simply should it be?” – that talks about keeping things simple at Apple and it’s part of the culture there and it works.  Great services, great technology, great products and the rest.

This table layout change is another great example of this approach.  It’s easy to do, very simple and won’t cost much, but the impact on the customers will be huge and very positive – more great service.  The Apple Store at the Bentalls Centre in Kingston has done something similar recently but expanded their store at the same time – clearly not always an option.  But they’ve now got more tables, with quite a few of these new long ones, lots more staff and the kids’ tables.  These stores where they’re testing the new layouts minus the kids’ tables, should think again.  The kids love them and they work.  Kids are kept quiet, so parents can browse and interact with the Genius staff more (and yes ultimately buy more Apple goodies) and the kids are playing with great apps on the iPads so very quickly learn to love iPads and Apple and become little fan people in their own right.  Genius!  Getting the next generation into good service from Apple – now that’s long term investment planning at its best.

The challenge – as the Cult of Mac post rightly points out – is providing this improved great service when space is a premium.  How do they do it?  I’ll tell you how – as they’ve done in Kingston here, have less space geared to selling products, as bizarre as that sounds and more geared towards service.  It works.  People coming into Apple shops have a good idea what the products are and want to see and play with them – the big ones (like iPads and iPhones and iMac and MacBookAirs).  Not so much the accessories that take up lots of space.

Does this approach work for you?  Is it about service for retailers like Apple or do you prefer the PC World, Curry’s type approach of products, products, products everywhere and hardly any staff who’ll stop and listen?

On a side note, what do you call more than one (Apple) Genius?  Genius’s?  Geni-i? Guru’s?  One to Google…

How simple should it be? Insanely simple. Please don’t complicate it.

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I was invited to a conference at Imperial College last week – my old college from a few years back – given by Ken Segall, the author of “Insanely Simple, The Obsession That Drives Apple.”.  The conference was part of the Business Leaders Network (BLN) CEO Tales series of talks and kindly arranged by Mark Littlewood and his team.

As strange as it was sitting in the chemistry lecture hall, for a physicist from Imperial, it was a superb evening. Ken’s talk was inspirational and gave some unique insights into that amazing company that is Apple.

For more info on Ken you can visit his own blog and web site at…

Some great quotes from Ken’s talk were:

  1. “The customers’ job is to be amazed by our products.”
  2. “Apple is all about passion, simplicity and technology.”
  3. “You have to work hard to get your thinking clean to make it simple.”
  4. “Simplicity is not a trend. Simplicity is permanent.”

Number 2 is mine but fits the general theme of the evening and Ken’s talk.

The most profound thought for me was this:

Simplicity = Brains + Common Sense

It really does sound so simple.  What do customers actually want?  Things to work, products they like and good service – that’s it.  But too many companies get bogged down in complexity – the world is by it’s very nature complex and we are, but simplicity is where we want to be.  Too often I hear of companies saying they can’t do x, y and z because of their processes and the individual you’re speaking to is given no leeway with processes – they have to be followed, or else!  Why?  Surely the processes exist to ultimately find and retain customers.  Banks are a prime example of this.  A great example this week, trying to reset the password for an online account of Mrs. Noble and being told we then had to be sent the new password in the post.  Say what?  It’s an online account.  But processes were in place and it seemed there was no way around them.  Even trying to then close the account provided a challenge, though we got there eventually.  A surprising call from the customer complaints team the next day who couldn’t believe how the call had gone and were very apologetic.  These guys weren’t all singing from the same song sheet.

This call could have been handled so differently – the results were the same, but the reluctance to listen and to stick with complex processes that no-one quite knows why they’re there, is a common problem.  Thankfully it’s one Apple have dealt with and simplicity is at the very heart of their culture.

On a similar theme, the Apple Store in the Bentalls Centre in Kingston-upon-Thames, has undergone a facelift recently.  The store has been expanded and whilst expanding their moved upstairs they borrowed someone else’s shop.  Temporarily smaller, but the same great Apple experience and recession or not, the same high volume of shoppers in there and coming out with lots of new “i” somethings.  The new shop opened this Saturday and by complete fluke we went in to sort out an iPad problem.  Booking made for a genius appointment about 45 minutes before the slot and very painless on Apple’s support web-site.  Booking slot missed, as we were late but no problems, rebooked there and then by a friendly staff member and seen within 2 minutes of arriving.  Nice!

I’ll sidetrack a little to fill in gaps about the iPad problem – as it also nicely illustrates how good Apple are.  We bought our iPad back in 2010 when they first came out, and it’s been working perfectly and kept in perfect condition (touch wood) despite being actively used by the 2 growing up fast little Nobles.  It had to be replaced earlier this year as the screen was scratched by a car game that we bought in the Apple Shop.  Not their fault but they sold the product that caused the damage (when it shouldn’t have) and they swapped it no questions.  The replacement one has had issues with the USB connection since we got it but it’s taken me until now to go back with it – and 5 months after replacement it’s well outside of the normal replacement warranty.  The Apple genius listens, says he needs to check if they can swap it, comes back in 2 minutes and sorted – swapped at no cost and the replacement has another 90 day warranty.  This sort of service is exceptional, no-one else does this.  And this is why the shop is always so busy – people get this type of service and great products.

Back to the shop expansion itself, this was the morning the newly refurbished shop opened.  And wow, it’s nice.  Still the same amount of shelves selling kit but twice as many tables now for people to talk to Apple staff on and try out products.  And – and this is the good bit – more than twice (at least it looked that many) the previous number of staff in the shop all helping people.  This expansion has all been about expanding the service, it’s so very clever and very simple.

They even now have 2 kids tables set up, with kid’s cool chair things and lots of new iPads for them to play with, with kid’s games installed.  Again a very simple idea.

Apple do it right.  Sure I’m a huge fan but there’s a reason – these guys are passionate about technology and service and the customer, and so am I.

And finally a link to some pictures from Ken’s talk last week and a write up from the BLN.  Thanks Mark for the invite and a very enjoyable evening.