Category: Friday

Friday, March 13th at 03:30 PM
Presenter: Paul Annett – Clearleft Ltd

Product:

• Clearleft Ltd created Silverbackapp.com. Before the application was even released, people noticed the intro site had 3D vines on it. Users thought they were on to something and tweeted it, giving a bump in traffic. They thought they’d found a little gem in the site that added value.
• FedEx logo arrow between E and X. When it was pointed out, it is an ah-ha moment that adds value to the design.
• Toblerone bar has a bear on the mountain on the package – again, it is somewhat hidden and adds a little something to the logo adding value.
• Truce Vodka and Aerosmith have logos that can be flipped over and have the same look (ambigram).
• All this hidden stuff in logos make you want to look for more. Disney films, and Disney World have hidden mickey heads all over.
• Innocent Smoothies says “stops looking at my bottom” or “Boo” on the bottom of the carton. Small hidden messages add delight to products and designs.
• Moo Stickers packages have hidden messages inside the packages ripped apart “ooo! you broke me”
• Apple mighty mouse shows a little mouse in the red light at the bottom.
• Firefox, typing about:mozilla gets a message from “The Book of Mozilla” which changes from version to version.

Web:

• Silverbackapp.com layered vine effect was accomplished with three vine images placed in front of each other and offset. When the screen is resize you have a 3D effect.
• TweetOne uses the same effect with a hidden item.
• Tweetquency does the same 3D effect.
• Zoetrope is created with the web layer effect as well, making an animation of a horse.
• Ho ho ho Hat and beard on flickr. When you added a note with that comment, a hat and beard shows up on photos
• Google Moon zooming in showed the moon is made of cheese.
• dconstruct.org has a style switcher and specifically hid certain pieces of the site to gain interest.
• Kyan media has a little worm at the bottom hiding a full lab underground
• Modernista is simply a nav menu sitting on top of other websites, starting with Wikipedia, them moving to their other stuff on other sites. (skittles.com stole their idea recently).
• Able Design shows the scroll behind the logo.
• WeBleedDesign drips paint down the page through the entire site.
• Youtube video for Wario and Apple Yahoo video for iTouch moves the rest of page around – breaking things we’re used to.

The effects of these delighters are explained by the Kano Model of customer satisfaction. Horizontal axis is the quality of execution. The vertical axis is how happy the customer is. The diagonal axis is the performance needs of the customer. Second diagonal axis is the basic needs – what a customer takes for granted. Web: it simply needs to work, if it doesn’t, you’re disappointed, but if it does work, it is what you expect to happen. Third diagonal is excitement needs. In a hotel is free wifi, or a fun hidden little trick on a website fits this. This changes over time, if you were excited about free wifi last year, this year it becomes an expectation

It’s not enough that we build products that function that are understandable and usable we also need to build products that are useful to peoples lives.

Friday, March 13th at 02:00 PM
Presenters: 
Miles Sims – Small World Labs
Peter Kim – Dachis Corporation
Michael Wilson – Small World Labs
Rebecca Caroe – CreativeAgencySecrets.com
Christian Caldwell – Small World Labs/American Heart Association

When pitching, "the man" is the person with some sort of budget authority.

Why is it going to make sense?
How much does it depend on standard ROI? There is a measurable return of some sort. Reach is probably the biggest metric that is achievable. It can internally include the entire organization, and not just communications to get the messages out.

How is ROI Demonstrated?
6 weeks to create a plan to present to the board. Again, the important metric is "reach." Where is the value you want for your organization? It isn’t always in dollars, or concrete. This is what can drive other metrics though. Honestly, you can make an ROI say anything.

What Metrics?
First, what areas need it? Departments? It can be a way marketing/communications and IT can come together to save expenses. It can help with customer retention, employee retention and support.

Non-financial Considerations

• Many times the questions come after it’s been out.
• How does this help my customers?
• What dedicated resources can we (the company) put towards this?
• How can we show small successes?
• What is the company culture? Can you handle loss of control (especially negative)?

What about Legal?

• Guidelines: Don’t be stupid! (see MS blogging policy)
• Legal wants to reduce all risk to zero – so there is a balance.

How do you get executive buy-in?

• Some are under the radar
• You can get some to buy-in and help with the rest of the company
• Helps if the competition is doing it

There are many misconceptions out there, getting people educated is important to kill the misconceptions early on.

Questions:

What do you do when social media creates a culture change or it requires one to be effective?
-Show small successes and demonstrate the changed culture.
-Learn from failures – it helps if others see what doesn’t work.

When championing a social media project ho do you pitch?
-Play to the psychology you’re pitching to
-Find out individual motivations and pitch to appropriate groups.

Success/Failures?
-When you open it up, make sure you have reasons to handle the influx (many videos coming in at once needing review before going up).
-Sometimes recruiting the worst curmudgeons and find out what interests them, then find the best way to get that information out there (possibly through social marketing, but ease them into it).

How do you ensure projects are successful?
-Ongoing evolution – this isn’t a short term game – to change culture
-Build communities and cultures and have/support ongoing conversation.
-"If you can measure it, you can manage it" – set expectations at the beginning

Top Challenges to get approval?
-be realistic, keep it simple, show the business value

Top way to ensure success?
-good planning – who you want to reach, tell results back to everyone, build a culture in the community and monitor it – what are the metrics – define them up front.

What if "The Man" is corporate communications?
-Find their peer group, and show other are doing it (subtle).

Aside from money, what demonstrates success?
-recruiting new prospects details (valuable
-speed of research using the crowd
-Money IS the bottom line