Memo to RIM leaders and team captains everywhere: If you think you are going to keep winning, you are going to lose

This past Monday, I woke up to the news that Jim Balsillie and Mike Lazaridis were stepping down as joint CEOs of embattled tech giant Research in Motion (RIM). Waterloo-based RIM’s descent has been well documented; and we know, too, that this decline has continued even as RIM continues to do well in the business market as well as elsewhere in the world.

Considering “elsewhere in the world,” most of my friends and colleagues know that I am a big fan of cricket. Right now India is wrapping up a test series (long form of the game) against the Australian team and have performed poorly. The Indian cricket captain, M.S. Dhoni, like his RIM counterparts, helped build India into a cricketing powerhouse, leading them to victories in the World Cup T20 Tournament and the coveted World Cup of Cricket Limited Overs tournament last year in India. Notwithstanding the greatness of these leaders in delivering many solid wins, in both cases their organizations have been in decline since attaining their creative peak.

So what is going on here?

Let’s consider five things:

The “what’s new” business is a high-pressure game. While the mobile market is effectively a utility, its devices, functions and capabilities are not. They are actually all about the latest and greatest, keeping users at the cutting edge and having a host of online capabilities at your fingertips, literally. RIM was caught off-guard first by the rise of the iPhone. Then came Google and Android, and an incredible array of low-cost devices with high capabilities and superior function, and in a heartbeat RIM found itself far behind in the touchscreen market. It is in this sense – that they were no longer innovating, instead remaining complacent with the steady growth of their core products in the business market – that RIM failed to respond to what the “what’s new” market demanded.

Losing touch with the hyper-engaged. Based on the tracking in our ongoing study, The Bridge, Zinc Research has for several years flagged the demise of RIM and the ascent of Google and Apple in Canada. Our key point here is that this trend was seen first specifically by the user segment we defined as the hyper-engaged. While these data are specific to Canada, the numbers are also applicable to the US – and in both cases the hyper-engaged segment is far and away the most critical market in terms of who drives the trends in the mobile market (and many other technologies). The take-away? If you stay committed to your products and your service platform, you will remain attuned to the hyper-engaged market. If you fall out of favour with them, it is your company’s imperative to move quickly to understand, and respond to, their changing preferences.

Brand. This is about the way you do business, the belief in your business, and the culture of your business. It is the alignment of all these elements that has the potential to create a powerful brand. For many years, through the vision and application of Lazaridis and Balsillie, RIM was at the top of their game. They focused on the key constituents of their product, primarily corporate security and e-mail, and delivered superbly for many years. However, once the game had changed to more touchscreen-oriented devices, their brand and the culture of the company were not able to align with the way they were doing business and with their belief in where the business was going. As a result of this misalignment and shift in culture, as well as RIM’s paucity of  innovation, the premium attached to the RIM brand was severely eroded. Further, the cache of the RIM devices declined rapidly in comparison with the increased functionality of touchscreen devices and the integration of online marketplaces and apps.

Knowing when to leave. Returning briefly to cricket captain M.S. Dhoni, again there is little doubt that he is a hard-working genius. He delivered India’s greatest cricketing championships and took his team to the top of the world test rankings. However, over the last year, India’s test performances have been poor. It’s true that India’s team is aging, but the fact is that Dhoni’s captaincy has lacked creativity.  After taken India to the top, it is likely that given the demands of the modern game, fatigue was setting in. Similarly, the fatigue factor for RIM’s CEOs has been well-documented, i.e., Balsillie’s distraction with the NHL and Lazaridis’s activities in other initiatives, such as the Perimeter Institute, all of which have affected the success of RIM. Much was invested in the leaders’ vision with respect to how RIM would evolve, and by the time the market was well in decline, the grave realization of their inability to turn the RIM ship around was evident.

This aspect of departing post-crest has many implications in terms of “going out on top,” but more importantly, going out only after you have invested the time and energy to ensure that creativity and product innovation will be sustained. (As noted before, mobile telephony is no longer a utility business (that’s the service providers); it’s a “what’s new” business). One can look at Steve Jobs and consider his initial departure from Apple: He had delivered a substantive win with the Macintosh but was forced out shortly thereafter. We can only imagine what would have happened if he had stayed on, but on the other hand, as Jobs himself often said, during this time away from Apple he renewed his passion for the product and the company. On his return, he was committed to making great products and building the Apple brand. Consequently, this time he had the foresight to consider the legacy of what Apple could become; indeed, even before his tragic death last year, that foresight had already become a cornerstone of Jobs’ own legacy.

The Canadian entrepreneurial climate. Canada has a good track record in innovation. However, it has a poor track record in taking the next step. Canadians are very adept at building solid companies that perform well but which then falter when they hit that critical point of staying attuned to the market. Part of the fault is the culture of complacency fostered in Canada. This is akin to seeing first-generation business leaders doing exceptionally well, followed by the next generation that squanders their hard-fought gains. But this problem runs much deeper. Today in Canada there seems to be a greater sense of self-interest, and an unwillingness to share, compared to other centres of innovation. RIM under Balsillie and Lazaridis hit that point about five years ago. Things appeared to be on a solid roll, but in fact the truth was that some of these bad behaviours were starting to set in. Entrepreneurial success is more about sharing and being connected to the world than about absolutely locking in and protecting your product and market. It is about striving for excellence and commitment to being a great business.

Returning to cricket, one can look at the Australians, whose team culture is one of constant re-invention. Apart from a period in the doldrums in the 80s, the Australian cricket team has always been effective in knowing the right time to change leadership and the composition of the team. There have been many unpopular choices that have made it onto the field, but the team has done remarkably well based on a willingness to give such players a chance, and to learn-by-doing in the theatre that international cricket affords. Over the last 20 years, the shift in captaincy from Allan Border from Mark Taylor to Steven Waugh to Ricky Ponting and now Michael Clarke has demonstrated a commitment to staying innovative and true to the “Baggy Green” brand, but also to staying in tune with the shifting tides of what the demands of the global game require. For entrepreneurs and other business leaders, there is much to learn from successes, and losses, like these.

Giving Research the NOS Effect. Betty Amadou, Research Through Gaming (Net Gain 6.0 Presentation)

Key points raised:

• NOS – Nitrous Oxide – Go faster! But make research more engaging!
• Games harnesses lots of things. While research too… but lacking creativity and don’t demonstrate our industry’s passion.
• People have a voice, but not willing to share as it appears that we are listening poorly.
• Culture: What I want I get… 2 way communication.
• Surveys are not interactive.
• Can we improve through gaming?
• Start you research via storyboarding.
• Built in timing mechanism – becomes a data stream onto itself.
• Share information among respondents.
• Coin the term: Playspondent!
• Give people a WHY to participate in the research.
• Kids would love this stuff. Young adults (especially male) – hard to reach – would find this engaging.
• Respondents don’t see the cool things the MR industry is doing!
• Better to focus on game mechanism (no bright colours, etc.)
• Good example of gamification: Pottermore, Weight Watchers, AnUvaHood.
• Gamification has associated affects… may promote actions within “real life.”
• Rule, mechanics, guidelines and rewards.
• Get at introversion and delve into creative thinking.
• Avatars help cross the empathy gap.
• Have a clear goal in mind!
• Keep it social.
• RAVA & CABIN (follow up with @BettyAmadou on that!)
• Really make the rules of the game clear!

Finding the right media mix to drive insights and co-creation. Julie Wittes Schlack, Communispace (Net Gain 6.0 Presentation)

Key points raised:

• MR is mix of feedback and discovery. Feedback is about the brand. Discovery is about consumers. Co-creation encompasses both.
• Panel: The Project is the centre of gravity.
• Social Network: Profile is the centre of gravity.
• Community: PURPOSE is the centre of gravity.
• Social Networks – great grounds for discovery. Use listening platforms – only access to public content. Inherently passive. Great for monitoring trends and looking at indirect feedback.
• Private Online community: Communispace typically recruits to the point of 300 to 500 persons. People’s identity are private.
• Opportunity: Listening, trusting conversing, connecting emotionally, inviting relationship building, participating, respecting, understanding, ongoing.
• People invest energy as the feel that they are known and heard.
• Contribution rates: 64%. Highly engaged.
• Can do open end forms of engagement: e.g., image annotation, ideation (and iteratively), mind-mapping (visual free association)
• Most people averaged approximately 7 contributions a month.
• Rising use of mobile ethnography (yup, old school diary study)
• Good question with emotional resonance: “What annoys you?”
• People have an inherent need to connect and be heard (and willing to be intimate). (Are people inherent exhibitionists?)
• Heatmapping within community also a handy technique.
• With webcams, have the ability to do facial expression analysis.
• There is information you will share in a private community (because you are asked) that you will not share on Facebook.
• Visibli Research: Looked at brand fan page. Over 100,000 members – 54 comments per post.
• Co-creation: Options are open source or closed/invitation.
• “Growth is not a matter of selling more of what you produce, but expanding the domain in which you can respond to your clients, consumers, and customers.” Joe Batisita, Hewlett-Packard.

Engaging the high tech consumer: the promise and tradeoffs for survey research: Bob Fawson, SSI (Net Gain 6.0 Presentation)

Key points raised:

• Data comes from three consumer studies.
• “Smartphones are becoming the norm.”
• “Texting not a fad.”
• We have intimate relationships with our mobile device: 1 in 10 keep in by bed at night.
• Social networking major mobile use. And common across all ages.
• Avid social network users NOT JUST teens.
• Avids are engaged in the social fabric offline, more politically engaged.
• Judging quality of products via social networks.
• Most have recommended a product or service.
• Negative reviews from friends or families has more impact.
• Connecting via mobile device more prevalent among the avids. (Connecting between source and the moment.)
• Mobile phones make us feel like better shoppers.
• The more devices owned, the more willing to participate in research.
• Stimulate participate: Text message, accessing online survey, a phone call, downloading software directly to phone.
• Mobile is still largely and untapped source.
• People are hesitant to download a research app. More inclined with an incentive… BUT HIGH incentive.
• Reaching avid users – invitation sent through social networks, a post on social networking site.
• Avids more like to respond outside of online panels.

Insights from other studies.

• Who takes mobile surveys? Cuts across all age groups. SMS skews younger, while IVR skews 55 years+.
• Mobile panel – stronger response from 25 to 34 years age group.
• Mobile respondents – younger, educated, high income and employed.
• SMS drives the highest level of immediacy.
• Abandonment rate on mobile web is massive… so Choice is key.
• YES, there are mode effects!
• If willing to take survey little difference between “light” questionnaire design versus detailed version with grids.
• Sometimes cash in where people are bored and willing to take a survey.

Riding the Change Wave: Architecting Market Research for the Future – Leonard Murphy (Net Gain 6.0 Presentation)

Key points raised:

• Connecting the dots to identify different trends.
• Future role of market researchers: consult, synthesize, tell a story, take a stand.
• Clients are demanding industry to change.
• Drivers of change: New competitors, social media, data collection is a commodity, economics, business intelligence, technology.
• Large players – IBM, Google, SAP – moving into insight space.
• Consumers: seeking engagement, socialization, fun and rewards.
• Think: one third of world’s population is online BUT 6 billion mobile cellular subscriptions. Latter potential 87% of world population.
• There are now 60 mobile apps for mobile surveys. And rising.
• IBM $100 million in acquisitions in last year for “big data.”
• Emerging future model for Industry: Data oceans, methodological agnostic, narratives, implications, outcomes, high touch, integration with client orgs, leading technology, people-driven, global focus.
• Greenbook Industry Trends Study (since 2003)…
  • Lot of change happening, and coming.
  • People are generally optimistic about it.
  • Threats: companies doing survey in house (e.g. SurveyMonkey) (DIY is here to stay!), lack of skills to compete effectively, low cost opportunities.
  • Opportunities: Innovation will save sector, social media research, neuromarketing, mobile research.
  • Factors in selecting suppliers: still boils down to dimensions related to relationships. Price is not always driving decision.
  • Firms repositioning to more strategic insights and business consultants.
  • Growth areas: discussing, observing, analysis, foresight, emotional, mobile, MROCs. What emerging in 2011 is doubling in planned activities in 2012.
  • Greatest growth: mobile and gamification. Emerging “hows” and “whys.” Emerging means of how to sell more is what clients are seeking – resolve my business issue!
  • Human capital is an issues – the data river concept requires researchers to become synthesizers. Activities: Business knowledge, consulting skills, understanding of wide range of info sources, synthesize information from large range of sources, storytelling skills.
  • Hiring: More social media experts, marketing strategist, data integration experts. More “thinking” type roles.
  • Forecast: Telephone/Web-based decline dramatically, surveys become shorter, more mobile and time focused, emotion-based decisions and emotional measurement, data-insight consulting, merger with management consulting, social media listening, CRM, shopper trends, neuroscience, predictive analytics and strategic-foresight. We live in the world of “psycho-history” (Isaac Asimov).
  • “Strategic differentiation does not occur by delivering data, it occurs by redesigning thinking.”
  • Considered innovative firms: #1 BrainJuicer, #8 iTracks, #11 InSites, #12 Affinnova, #22 Hall & Partners… but a whole new range of brand new “agency” oriented firms. FreshMinds, Firefish and Truth among these firms.

Involvement + Entertainment? Now that’s what I call…

Over the last decade we have seen the rise of reality TV, YouTube and social media, to the extent that we have reached the point where traditional entertainment and online media cannot do without each other.

This merging has led to interesting experiments, in which online platforms provide valuable content that complements game, existing story lines and performances, and even augments them with entirely new content. Then we have Bjork’s highly acclaimed Biophilia “album,” which is more about exploring the art and the process of making music than just listening to it.

We are now at an interesting crossroad in entertainment. “Infotainment” is passé. In its place, I propose the establishment of INVOTAINMENT.

Here’s a breakdown on where I’m coming from and where I’m going with this:

Entertainment + Involvement: This is what happens when an audience has direct involvement via web vehicles, where they can share content, discuss events, story lines and characters – either in real time, or, by time-shifting, jumping in later at their own convenience. The more the participant is engaged, the higher the perceived value of the entertainment experience.

Entertainment + Innovation: This is what happens when audiences have the opportunity to actually co-create activities, stories and character development alongside the content’s producers and writers – more of a crowd-sourced approach, where engaged audiences are party to and/or participate in the creative process.

And now the new equation:

Involvement = Research = Innovation: In this scenario, audiences are involved right at the development stage, sharing their thoughts and ideas. Content producers and writers have an opportunity to listen to this feedback and in some cases even guide the discussions. All aspects of an audience’s involvement now become a platform for accountability (measurable media), research (learning what consumers like, prefer, and find most engaging), and creation (engaging, testing, and [collaboratively] refining content).

Through these aspects of creation/innovation, audiences have an added incentive to get involved – very literallly. And content producers, in understanding their audience segments, can quickly determine the paths by which audience feedback travels and spreads, and also identify those key influencers who spread the word most often and with the farthest reach. These are invaluable insight in terms of assessing the content’s potential success.

Beyond entertainment: I believe we are at a critical and very exciting juncture, wherein all content producers need to grasp the concept of InvoTainment regardless of their respective industries. The onus is on every content producer to grasp their content’s invotainment value – the factors that drive audience/customer involvement – and through that interaction and engagement, to then identify where new opportunities for innovation and change can be pursued. And, again, this is about the on-the-ground, real-time dynamics of content in online, traditional media and real-life environments that are all co-existing right now.

In learning and embracing the principles of InvoTainment, organizations can build trust, loyalty and fans – whether the end result is a television show, a podcast, or consumer product. Now, really, what could be more entertaining than that?

Customer experience research & behavioural economics is no gamble, even in Vegas…

As indicated in an earlier blog post, I am a big fan of podcasts. Especially, National Public Radio’s (NPR) Planet Money. Last November there was one in particular that caught my interest: “From Harvard Economist to Casino CEO.”

Click here to listen: NPR Planet Money –  From Harvard Economist to Casino CEO.

While I have not done any work in the gaming industry, there are many aspects of this story that parallels the work we do at Zinc. We look at behaviours of economic agents and behavioural change to improve the customer/stakeholder experience and an organization’s bottom line.

I encourage you to listen to this podcast and consider the following points that Gary Loveman addresses:

• Experiments in behavioural economics matter. Wherever possible, organizations need to design experiments in which actionable, efficiency-improving and potentially profitable benefits can be explored in environments and processes that are easily understood. Only by having a point of reference between two groups – i.e., with one control group where there has been no alteration in behavioural process – can organizations learn how to constantly improve and connect with the people that matter.
• Every interaction and touch point matters. Only by breaking down processes into their fundamental elements and doing an environmental audit of potential stresses or ways to create value, can the full customer experience be properly mapped and graphed to create improvement.
• Means of anticipating and engaging customers leads to better experiences and loyalty. As discussed by Mr. Loveman, it is essential to Caesar’s Palace that they focus on ensuring that specific customer segments do not have a poor experience. Using various tools, Caesar’s is able to triangulate data and better anticipate a negative customer experience, thereby ensuring they have the ability to intervene quickly. Through the use of incentives (see below) and interruptive behaviours, they make sure that their customers are aware that they are being attended to and that their best interests are being taken care of.
• Incentivization. Mr. Loveman highlighted that, in the midst of a poor experience, the ability to intervene to mitigate a potential poor experience and offer an incentive can substantially reduce any potential long-term negative sentiments. Such an incentive may come at a cost to Caesars, but in terms of the lifetime value of such a customer, this cost becomes relatively small compared to what that person may spend over a number of years. Incentivization also means that everyone within the corporation can benefit from understanding the customers’ operational processes that deliver upon, and hopefully exceed, the expectations of colleagues and the all-important customer experience.
• Behavioural economics can be a brand differentiator. Customers can easily recognize when they have had a more positive experience at one business compared to a competitor, thus investments in such research – to understand these dynamics, create experiments, and constantly do research into business processes – can lead to higher value and brand loyalty.

With this podcast in mind, consider how you would want to take such a learning into your organization.

Cute kittehz, social upheaval, and… market research?

Over the holidays I was playing catch up with a number of my podcasts and a fascinating one I encountered was “Cute Cats and the Arab Spring” with Ethan Zuckerman from CBC’s Ideas series (originally broadcast December 8, 2011).

Listen to Podcast here: CBC Ideas – Cute Cats and the Arab Spring.

This podcast is worth listening to as it delves into some of the phenomena that led to the waves of protests that swept over the Arab world in 2011. It also encapsulates many of the thoughts we have shared in our presentations and ongoing research  (notably, our syndicated study, The Bridge) on Canadians and social media. I encourage all to put aside an hour to listen to this fantastic presentation.

There are four aspects that I would like people to think about when they are listening to this presentation:

1. Never underestimate the simplicity of people’s need and willingness to share. As noted by Mr. Zukerman, much of the sharing that happens online consists of jokes and pictures of cute animals. He also notes that understanding the dynamics of that presents an opportunity for understanding how pathways of information are shared.
2. The deployment of an epidemiological approach in the search for “Patient Zero” for the Arab Spring. Given my training within an epidemiology program back in the 1990s, we have adopted such an approach frequently with the work that we do for our clients (i.e., relating to our work in technology, tourism and government policy and setting up experiments and considering a “disease-based” approach to marketing and communication). It is refreshing to see someone delving into this method to grasp some of the underlying processes as to how the protests evolved from the actions of one individual to reach millions of people across multiple countries.
3. Things are way more complex than they appear. Mr. Zukerman flags one of our frustrations with “social media experts” who establish a point of doing certain actions and then say “and then it goes viral.” The reality is that only rarely does something like that happen; there are many necessary and sufficient conditions that need to be established and in place for something to gain momentum. Many of these things happen outside of an online environment and the dynamics between social media/additional online media, interpersonal interactions, and traditional media, need to be mapped and understood.
4. Social media offers multi-layered context. What may be a familiar context to North Americans in their ability to maintain an address book and interactions with friends and colleagues may take on a completely different interaction amongst an Asian or Arabic population. With the the latter, populations in countries with a different system of government (i.e., not a Western democracy), individuals are aware that their online behaviour is being monitored and consequently they use the medium in dramatically different ways with different language.
5. If it is obviously missing, it becomes important. In any crisis, people look first for information on what is happening on the ground. If people are unable to find the information they need, they automatically assume (within certain environments) that that information, given the issue at hand, may be censored. Thus, they start to seek other means, but also this raises their level of suspicion about why something is being censored. As Mr. Zukerman has indicated, the very act of shutting down cell phones networks and access to the Internet actually motivated people to go out on to the street to find out what was going on. Thus, unintended consequences of incomplete and missing information do result in actions which force people to forge stronger bonds – such as events – where true, real-time, in-person interactions can occur.

I hope you do take the time to listen to this podcast as Ethan does a fantastic job of presenting this information in an entertaining way.

Zinc survey links tourism branding with community development

Tourists bring their dollars when they visit our communities, but economic development planners can leverage tourism branding to help them turn visitors into residents. This summer Zinc conducted an online survey in partnership with Calgary-based Twist Marketing, highlights of which were presented today at the annual Travel Alberta Industry Conference.

For highlights, including a PDF brochure, click here.

A market researcher’s take on Gigwalk

Gigwalk

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Laptop Magazine Article on Gigwalk: Click here

Gigwalk Website: www.gigwalk.com