InnovationJam

InnovationJam is a contest website by IBM to collect creative idea. There are some interesting ideas and like BBS, that people can command on the idea to create some interaction. I am not sure what is the purpose for the website or competition. IBM is on the trend to utilize Web2.0 to imporve business therefore this is probably another method to gain more idea or feedback via interuption.

Decision Maker Style

Working at IBM Asia Pacific Headquarters, I am surrounded by all kind of top management executives. Normally we would categories their management style and preference by origin and normally it would give us a good general idea. It is because of the difference of working environment and culture in different countries, the executives from different countries are different.

Base on the "Change the Way You Persuade" article, I categorize the decision maker I currently work with as a Thinker. As a VP of a regional sector in IBM, data and information play an important part of the decision making process. Not only the information and number are very important, they will have to be well organized and detailed. Normally multiple options would have to be given to him; it won’t be accepted or even look at if it was presented with one choice only. Both positive and negative will all need to be presented for him to make the decision. Even thought the result may seem to be obvious, it would still have to leave it for him to decide. Right after the proposal presented, if he is interested, he would request meetings with related department or executive for more information. Depends on the project, more meeting would be arranged and more information would be collected presented before the final decision were made. It was him who told me not to rush to anything before thinking thoroughly.

Normally when his decision is needed, detail data has to be presented clearly for him to be able to understand and make the decision necessary easily. Charts and PPT always help. It would be more effective if it can be presented in short time because he is always busy and having too many meetings. So if a quick decision is required from him, more time needed to prepare the data for him. He would challenge you sometimes therefore it is important to know everything clearly. Often I would need to be prepared for any question he may ask at anytime. After working for him for a period of time, I started to memorize detail, not on purpose but just to be prepared. And knowing he would always follow up on things, I also learn to be proactive and ready or taken care of his request before he asked. And you won’t have his answer if it is still too early or timing is not right. Often he would ask the data to be presented only when time is closer or more input has been received. He won’t give you any hint or feedback if nothing is presented to him.

At work, he is my “client” and my job is to ensure of his satisfaction. Understand what his preference and style is help to make my job easier. But working with a decision maker like him can never be easy or relaxing. It is important to know your information well in preparation for any questions that he might have. I learn to be well prepared with all information needed before talking or seeking for his advice. Even thought he may seem to be tough to deal with but you can always expect to receive compliment or appreciation from him when all is successfully implemented and that is the biggest satisfaction and motivation of the hard work.

More after thought

Our booth was simple and the message was delivered clear. It was really interesting to have the real life trade show as a school project for a learning experience. I did enjoy it a lot. And glad to share our project idea with so many companies. It was very encouraging when they were actually thinking of how to improve their website and maybe considering using the tools we proposed. It was like having a real live test of our idea and project and judged by real companies.

The biggest different with trade show from the traditional in class presentation was to be able to receive the client feedback from real company executives right away. We were able to improve for our next "presentation" with customer feedback. The compliment and other accomplishment contributed to this wonderful learning experience.

Synergy in Fashion - eMarketing Trade Show

It is the world of internet generation. Almost all companies have company websites to be on the trend. But many fail to maintain or update their websites thus defeat the purpose of it. To analyze how companies synchronize online and offline business, we selected fashion industry which changes constantly and should be the on top of trend.

The industry is categorized into three segments. For the high end, using Gucci as an example, the internet is to promoting brand awareness and product searching. Product availability in store can be searched on website is one of the example to drive the traffic to offline stores. Most of the high end brands do not offer online shopping but Gucci does offer some limited selection online in US and UK. People can watch the fashion cat walk show online which used to be exclusive to VIPs only.

For the basic segment, we have Land’s End which was originally a catalogue business then move to internet business. Internet helps them to expend the market further. Since it concentrated mainly on its online business therefore there is more features developed for the website.

Then we take a look at the Armani Exchange (AX) for the example of the middle segment. This is the good example we find the better synchronize their online and offline business. For their online business, there is shipping discount and online sales. Customer could sign up to be on their mailing list. To promote their offline store business, occasionally offering online coupon to be printed for offline store discount. This would be a good tool to track the number of customer visited their website and shop in the store to know how effective the online promotion is. Merchandise bought online can be returned in stores in Canada too. Most of the consumer dislike shopping online beside high shipping cost is the return or exchange issue. By provide option to return offline, consumer may be more willing to take the risk to shop clothes online. If they do need to return in store, traffic to store will be created as customer walked in stores and may shop for more.

The synergy is the consistancy between the online and offline promotion event were in place at the same time. AX collectes customer’s contact information to send them text message the latest event and promotion. AX used the e-technology to connect their customer to drive in store traffic. We believe this is a good promotion tool and will talk more about it later.

Here we evaluate the websites base on the “7Cs of Customer Interface”.

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Then we compare Armani Exchange with Lands’ End. From the chart we can tell there are still some areas they can learn from each other to improve their website. But by looking at it, we can easily tell the different characteristics and target customer of each brand. For example the target customer for AX are younger therefore the website is more creative and interactive. There are more audio and visual content. Because Lands’ End focuses more on their online business they provide more features to improve online shopping experience like online live customer services and customized model in your size.

Then, we would like to talk about using text message as a tool to synchronies online and offline business.

Using wireless technology (text message) to promote offline business is used widely in Asia. Many stores will send promotion message to their loyal customers who have provided their numbers voluntarily.

Text message promotion can work for small or large companies. In compare to traditional printing advertisement this method is cheaper and environmental friendly. It can also reach its target customers more efficiently because those are the one sign up for the notification. Text message can be easily forwarded and it can be another way of “word of mouth”. If the message can be designed to have customer show the message to receive a surprise gift or discount, it can be utilized to trace the effectiveness of the method. It is always very important to trace the effectiveness of the marketing strategy or plan to know whether the investments were well spent or where need to improve.

Then we would like to take a look at a good example of online shopping websites

Because customers can not try on clothes when shopping at Lands’ End, it provides a virtual model that can be customized in size and specific measure. Customers can virtually try on the outfit using the model in their sizes. Then turn the view to see how it would look like.


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Generally, to offer customer a good shopping experience, it should be user friendly. Often customer could get lost or stuck. Exclusive offer and more interactive function would definitely help. Since consumer can’t see the actual product, more detail description is necessary to help with customer’s shopping. And a good shopping website would have “recommendation” section that is easy for customer to find similar item they may like for saving time.

A good website would promote better brand image. If companies fail to update their website or synchronize their online and offline business, it may create mix message and confuse customers therefore would create a negative impression toward the company.

Our study found many companies’ website was identical or structured like a catalogue. Many companies still concentrate on their offline business and using traditional advertisement. Most of the company websites still served as information database but fail to spot the great marketing opportunity if they can better design and maintain the website. We believe there is still a big “market” for website improvement on online offline synergy.

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TeAM mates:

Terence Wang (http://bdcinternational.blogspot.com/)

Mitch Lyons (http://mitchellclyons.blogspot.com/)

Annie Yu (http://newvalleygirl.blogspot.com/)

For handout of our project, please visit Mitch's blog
For Trade Show board detail and other thought, please visit Terence's blog

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Work in process....

I am working on the blog to show you what my team did in eMarketing trade show. Unfortunately that I did not have a chance to take a picture of the whole trade show and hope someone can share.

Here is the photo of how it looks half completed. Remember to come back for the completed version and detail.

Google Analytics and privacy

Thanks to Taylan's advise on Google Analytics. I have been using it to check the traffic of my blog. Then started to wonder am I the one who visited the most. Then we had the guest speaker in class talked about Analytics tool and also recommend Google Analytics. It is actually quite amazing how it can trace the source, the country of the viewer, number of new visit, etc. But it also make me think about the privacy issue. If Google can trace every step of my Internet habit, then they can also analysis consumer/ Internet surfing behaviour. So where do we draw the line?

Thinking about the privacy issue also make me wonder about blog or other social networking website that we purposely leave a trace or tell the world about our life. How can we complain about how company is spying on our life while we just published in public. I guess the difference is that is my choice to tell my about my life that I don't mind share but don't like the idea of commercialize activities that is spying on me.

The recent article "Surveillance of Skype Messages Found in China" is about Skype in China were under surveillance and the conversation were found recorded in system. Now we would start to wonder who is listening to our conversation? I wonder with the modern technology these days, are our life under surveillance or will come to that? What will our life be then?

Trade show preview

Two more day before our trade show. For your sneak preview, here is the design done by Terence for our team. Don't you think it is nice and cool. We are still looking for stuff to make it more eye catching.

If you are free at 6 pm next Monday, Oct 6, please come and check us out at Robson Square.

Trade show topics:

• In-game advertising
• Online-offline synergies and failures
• Genuine Conversations - how to optimize the customer blog experience to draw customer
• How to Measure the Success of the Business Objects Technical Community
• Marketing the Brainify.com Web 2.0 Application
• ...and more!

Setting is not working here...

Just mentioned about complain, I do have a complain. I can't find a way to feedback to Blogger technical support therefore I am going to blog it here.

I am not happy with my blog layout but I can't change it. The setting do provide a option for me to shorten the blog feed which mean when you open up my front page, it should only show one paragraph of each post. But after I tried to set it many times, it is still not working. Actually many of my classmate who uses Blogger all have the same problem.

My apologize for the long postings and the inconvenience to locate the old posting when visit my blog. But I don't know how to reach the tech support to fix this on my blog setting.

BUZZ = customer feedback

We talked about Viral or "BUZZ" in class as one marketing technique which may be utilized by the company but mostly by accident. Today I found out there is a company actually research and study buzz /internet word of mouth(IWOM) in China to understand the customer for purpose of product improvement and PR.

I guess study of "buzz" or what consumer is blogging about the company or product is also a way of "listening" to the customer. Customer won't necessary tell the company about their complain or what they like or dislike about the product but they may blog about it. Especially, it is easier to blog it then to find the company website for complain. We don't even know whether they are listening or even care but we know our friends are reading the blog.