This weekend I'm bound for Finland to meet with the folks at Nokia. I've decided to arrive a day earlier to spend some time in Helsinki. I've never been to Finland so I'm really looking forward to it, even though it will be pitch black most of the time and probably pretty cold (although it doesn't look much worse than Boston). I'm sure I'll need to stop at a Marimekko store at some point for...

Expanding on my previous research on engagement (Marketing's New Key Metric: Engagement, 06 August 2007 - Forrester Research), I'm kicking off a new research plan to publish an updated report that get's into more of the nitty gritty. The first report developed the working framework for understanding and measuring engagement (involvement, interaction, intimacy, and influence). Unfortunately, many people think engagement is time spent on a site. That's just boring, narrow, and just plain lame. There's...

Show some real corporate responsibility. I'm working on other research (at Forrester) in the area of Corporate Social Responsibility, Green Marketing, and Green Design. My research associate, Evadne Cokeh, will be working on this with me and she's already contributed some great ideas so I'm excited to get this project moving. With all the talk of environmental issues and fair labor treatment, companies really need to think of a way to be a good corporate...

Bring on a designer at a senior level to change your perspective. Design thinking is where the real differentiation is going to be in a few years. If you don’t start taking steps now, you’re going to have a tough time catching up. You may even get scooped by your competitor, or even worse, a company from a completely different industry could come in and redefine your business—on it’s terms, not yours. Think I’m crazy?...

Reconsider your business models. Can the RIAA sue any more people? We all need to stop and reconsider how we define and earn value (see Henry Chesbrough’s Open Business Models for an excellent treatise on the subject). Think about turning your business on it’s side, or even on it’s head. How can you morph your business from a commodity to a value added service. Consider outsourcing that core competency and sell the service around it....

Be a little more fearless and experiment more with social media. Transparency is coming, I’ve already talked about it before and the consequences could be dire. Companies need to open their minds to negative feedback—they need to embrace it, not run away and ignore it. People increasingly expect firms to behave like people in social media settings. That means if you make a mistake, own up to it, say how you’re going to fix it, and...

Measure engagement—the real engagement. It’s funny, marketers dump 92% of their budget into traditional channels that are extremely difficult to measure, the other 8% go to interactive channels where they basically use the same metrics they’ve used for the past five decades. Then they complain that they can’t determine the value of social media. Yawn. My sympathy is wearing thin. Social media is trackable. Every time someone comments, rates a product, reviews a product, connects to...

Get to know your customer’s better. As an analyst at Forrester, I’m always talking to companies about opportunities with social media, marketing, new product development, and design. I’m constantly appalled by how little companies know about their customers. So few have any actionable knowledge beyond the standard demographics. I hope firms will put a little more time, effort and money into the research process – and yes, that means qualitative research.Having past experience with...

Yes, that’s a ‘V’ not an ‘S’ in the title. We’ve got a fresh new year ahead of us here are a few things I hope to see happen in 2008. I know they won’t all happen, but I hope to see a few progressive companies set the tone and make some headway.Get to know your customer’s better.Measure engagement—the real engagement.Be a little more fearless with social media.Reconsider your business model.Bring on a designer at...

I've posted a bunch of pictures from my trip to CES on flickr. As I mentioned before, I was a bit surprised by the lack of innovation. One thing that did stand out was Powercast which essentially provides wireless power. Now you can power all of your personal devices without power cables strung all over. If this technology, or something like it is built into devices, that could make things very interesting. [Standing room only...

It's a new year, and since I have nothing better to do with my time, I decided to take on a site redesign. Part of my motivation was a move to the latest version of Movable Type 4, which pretty much changes the way the sites are assembled. Either way, here it is -- my new minimalist design. You'll notice that my URL changed from birdahonk.com/home to thoughts.birdahonk.com. The RSS feed should still work fine,...

I'm plugging in to day 3 of CES. The first day was a bit overwhelming. This show is so massive and it can be a bit confusing wandering around trying to figure out where things are. Additionally, wayfinding is a BIG problem here. I'm surprised after all these years that conference organizers haven't found a better way to help people navigate the spaces and events. I had to rip an ADA map out of a...

I just landed in Las Vegas for the 2008 Consumer Electronics Show (CES). Pete and I are hitting the floor to see the latest and (possibly) greatest technology from all of your favorite engineers. I’ll be curious to see if there’s anything actually useful there, or if it’s just a bunch of technological bullshit. My big question that I’ll ask all of the vendors is “why this.” I’m seeking any insight into how they ended...