Why would employees participate in prediction markets for internal company initiatives?  Some will see it as a game, and if they enjoy playing games or are otherwise competitive, they will naturally want to participate. But for those not intrigued by the gaming aspect, there may still be a desire to build their reputation. Through participating in the community with their colleagues, employees may find that they stay “in the know.”  They may discover a new avenue for contributing to corporate strategy and feel a greater stake in its success.

Other employees will not be interested, invested, or informed enough to care. Some will try it once or twice because it is a novelty, but it will not keep their interest (like my experience with HSX.com). This group will have to be incentivized (or forced) to participate. Greater participation may contribute to greater value for the markets, as additional perspectives are informing the market. But how rational is a market made up of participants that are not genuinely interested or informed? It would be better to wait for the company culture to evolve to a point that participation in the markets is the norm, like completing the employee satisfaction survey.

An interesting use of a prediction market might be to use it as a tool for determining which features should built into a product. The outcome of the market could be compared to other data, such as a survey of consumers on the same topic. Between the internal market insight and external research, a set of product features will rise to the top.

This post was written for MBA 734 in response to the HBS case study “Prediction Markets at Google”, 2007.

In the case of Threadless, the community was involved in design and marketing while the firm handled all of the operational and supply chain issues. The community generated ideas for t-shirt designs. Not only did this serve as free labor for Threadless, feedback from the community practically guaranteed demand for products.

Threadless built a loyal and engaged audience. There is no reason why this could not extend to retail stores. The community can still be involved. In fact, they would probably feel an ever greater sense of pride and ownership if they saw their or a friend’s design appearing in the window of their favorite store.

This post was written for MBA 734 in response to the HBS case study “Threadless.”

The speakers were not the usual suspects that present at UX events but the memes were the same. The unique needs of users groups like doctors, patients, and caregivers shaped all discussion. Broader experience design discussions touched on industrial products, physical spaces, and service design. I appreciated the attention on “experience design” more holistically. The “how” of our craft – the tools, techniques, and methodologies – were not covered in much depth (at least in the sessions I attended). I was pleased that game-changing business models in healthcare were presented as a separate track. However, quite a few sessions, in this track and in others, felt more like commercials than studies of our craft.

A few key takeaways:

BJ Fogg on behavior change – Build a little machine that works. If it doesn’t work, throw it away. When it works, and it repeatable we can add to it. Everything big started small.

Peter Jones on experience design in healthcare – We are new to them. We have barriers to overcome. We need to learn to speak their language. We will have to justify our work in terms of risk and cost.

Tim Kieschnick on building systematic empathy – Use personas, describe your roadmap from the customer’s perspective, prioritize small enhancements over new features, require usability testing, make research easy, calculate all costs (and more).

Rick Lee on consumerizing healthcare – customer-centric features permeating healthcare: transparent pricing, gaming, social media, crowd-sourcing, pattern recognition, badges, choice architecture (take the anxiety about too much choice out of decision-making), self-service/self management, engagement tactics

Alex Fair on doing the impossible – design the solution, design the business model, get out and engage, make mistakes, stick to your vision, inspire, think big and start small, repeat.

Art Swanson on learning from politicians – lie, cheat, and steal. Don’t scare people off by telling them everything about our discipline (“Yes, UI and UX are the same thing,” or, “The product really isn’t that bad, it just needs a few tweaks”), just tell them how it will make their lives better. Don’t expose your process (“Of course, UX works well with Agile”). Build social capital. Smile and kiss the babies. Do the dirty work.

The folks at LinkedIn must be watching Facebook carefully and considering ways to grow its network by borrowing tactics from social network sites, opening up the platform to application developers and adding more engaging tools.

LinkedIn offers a unique value proposition for professionals and should stay focused on their needs. Users do not join LinkedIn because they want another venue for sharing photos of their dog or playing games. Maintaining a community of high quality professionals that trust the platform is critical. Adding new features simply to increase the size of the network could take away from its value. As we’ve seen with Facebook’s evolution, users revolt when they feel like their information is not taken seriously. Professionals concerned with their image would be even less tolerant of such gimmicks.

The size of a network does always not equate to the quality of it. Social theories like Dunbar’s number suggest that the size of a social network that humans can maintain close social relationships with is around 150. As Facebook as grown, we have “friended” hundreds and hundreds of acquaintances. I know a lot of people that stopped sharing personal information as their network grew. Features like “lists” and “groups” emerged to help manage contact lists and access levels, because the information we share with family, friends, and coworkers differs. On LinkedIn, the quality of the contacts matters as much, if not moreso, than the quantity.

If I were running LinkedIn, I would focus on partnerships with sites like Meetup, Ning, Slideshare, and other tools that professionals are using to network and promote themselves. I would find new ways to connect participants at a conference who do not want to share personal information but share professional interests. I would build in some social features to increase the stickiness of the site but would make sure they are positioned professionally. For example, coworkers or conference participants may want to share photos from an event.

This post was written for MBA 734 in response to the HBS case studies “LinkedIn Corp., 2008″ (2009) and “Facebook’s Platforms” (2010).

The primary reason is that peer review reduces bias. Content becomes more neutral and verifiable the more people review and revise it.  ”Over time quality is anticipated to improve in a form of group learning as editors reach consensus” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reliability_of_Wikipedia). Additionally, reliability can be assessed through ”examinations of how quickly false or misleading information is removed” (ibid).

Consensus-based decision-making is “a group decision making process that seeks not only the agreement of most participants but also the resolution or mitigation of minority objections” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consensus). Group decision-making is “a situation faced when people are brought together to solve problems in the anticipation that they are more effective than individuals under the idea of synergy” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Group_decision_making).

Another reason may be that the “community is largely self-organizing, so that anyone may build a reputation as a competent editor.” Participants are responsible for their own reputation; good or bad their thoughts are out there for the world to see. Hence, Wikipedia balances high quality free labor with “editorial control, that ensures the bulk of its quality,” through “the sheer volume of well-intentioned editors who regularly and constantly watch over its articles” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Editorial_oversight_and_control).

These arguments may help us understand the social phenomena that drive people to participate but “groupthink” is typically not considered to be a good thing (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Groupthink). Unique and contradictory points of view may be suppressed by this mentality. While this may also be the case with Wikipedia, debates are completely transparent, perhaps mitigating the effects of groupthink.

Regardless of your opinion of its quality and accuracy, Wikipedia is a unique and valuable resource that should not be evaluated with same criteria as traditional encyclopedias.

This post was written for MBA 734 in response to the HBS case study: http://courseware.hbs.edu/public/cases/wikipedia/main.html

Hyperbole aside, the web has given consumers a voice at the big shiny table in the corporate board room. Our experiences – good and bad – can be shared with millions of people instantly. Bad press spreads quickly, virally, and without the support of traditional media channels. How should firms deal with the technology-enabled social forces of groundswell?

By participating in the social web and accepting loss of control, organizations can gather feedback from customers. They can find ideas on new products or solicit input on existing ones. Most people are unusually willing to share their experiences. Some customers are extremely brand loyal. Firms can participate in community-building to leverage and build upon that loyalty. Firms no longer have to be nameless, faceless entities; they can break down the communication barriers between the organization and the public. Positive buzz and reviews can increase sales. In a nutshell, the social web is not going away and firms should embrace it.

While we used to believe that no PR was bad PR, negative comments can be harmful to a brand. Misinformation can mislead people. A critical thing to remember about users that participate in social media and generating content is that they too have their own motivations. In 2008 I shared advice for organizations dealing with user-generated content. I wrote, (yes, I am quoting myself), “consider their motivations – whether self-expression, a connection with others, economic gain, or notoriety.” Organizations need to put strategies in place to deal with all types of groundswell. For example, empowering customer service representatives to resolve customer complaints without needing supervisor approval, or having plans for monitoring social spaces for mentions and developing guidelines for turning every negative situation into an opportunity to improve.

Television is a platform for connecting content owners, viewers, and advertisers. The web is simply an extension of this platform that offers new opportunities to grow and connect the network. It is a crucial new channel for syndicating content (defined as rebroadcasting “older episodes on a channel other than the one on which the show first aired”). Older material that appeals to niche audiences can be dusted off to capture revenue from the long tail. Both Hulu and TV Everywhere are aggregating content and increasingly, users are gravitating towards aggregated offerings and away from the “walled gardens” setup by individual networks.

Hulu has optimized the experience of the platform to attract users and advertisers alike. They have built in flexibility and innovative options that were not previously available to either party. TV Everywhere is only available to users that subscribe to cable operators (Comcast, TimeWarner, etc.)  They are not changing their model at all, they are still requiring users to pay a subscription and still subjecting them to the same amount of advertising. They are simply offering an additional distribution channel online.

Perhaps TV Everywhere will keep a few cable subscribers from leaving, like I did, but it is certainly not a compelling enough reason for me to subscribe.

This post was written for MBA 734 in response to the HBS case study, “Hulu: An Evil Plot to Destroy the World?” by Elberse and Gupta, 2010.

It started with a better search technology. By incorporating incoming links into their algorithm they were able to predict relevance and quality more accurately than the other players in the search space. They focused on creating the best possible search technology and licensing it to other sites. At the time, most search providers also included other offerings in their “portal” including content and services like email, but they remained focused on search. When they incorporated advertisements into their results Google ensured these were highly relevant, too. They gained market share with very little advertising.

Google combined their ability to assess the relevance and quality of web pages with the ability to assess the relevance of advertisements. They extended this capability to display ads on third-party websites. These two core competencies – search and advertising – were continuously refined to gain market share. Users preferred Google because it was faster and provided better results. Advertisers knew they could reach a larger market at a lower cost-per-click. In such, they were becoming the provider of a platform and mediating a network of users.

Google’s early success stems from their focus on developing a strong core platform, connecting audiences, and continuously building on new components. Users are subsidized in this network, reaping the benefits of extremely powerful software for free (business users are now also subsidizing public users by using Google applications in the enterprise). New Google products benefit from network externalities including large existing audiences, available components, and lessons learned over time. For example, super fast search queries are applied in Gmail search, and so on.

This post was written for MBA 734 in response to the Ivey case study, “Google Inc.” by Edelmen and Eisenmann, 2010.

UX employs user-centered methodologies. Agile software methods focus on quick, iterative, constantly improving products with small teams. Clearly, principles from UX and Agile can be applied to developing a business, not just its product and services.  The Rise of the Fleet-Footed Start-up mentions these concepts and adds to the mix the principles of lean manufacturing: “quick development of a ‘minimum viable product,’ designed with the smallest set of features that will please some group of customers. Then, the start-up should continually experiment by tweaking its offering, seeing how the market responds and changing the product accordingly.”  For more on Lean Startups, see the lean.st (mostly marketing for his book but provides the author’s definition of lean startup principles).

The UX community is buzzing about this:

• An excellent overview of the converging themes at Agile UX? Lean UX? Customer Development? A multiple discovery moment (9 December 2010)
• Lean UX, Product Stewardship, and Integrated Teams (14 February 2011)
• My friend Jeff’s Lean UX presentation on SlideShare (he is also presenting this at SXSW)
• Can User Experience Designers be Lean?

Why?  We’ve known for years that we have highly effective tools and techniques for understanding user needs to design products and services that are useful, enjoyable, and valuable.  And we tend to get really, really excited when others realize that we can do more than make wireframes.

Last week, reading Irrational Design, a San Francisco Start-up, Tries to Fly Solo about a bootstrapping (avoiding VC) design firm, I noticed the same themes.  They are ”releasing a series of experimental products” with ”a fresh experimental perspective.”  Sound a bit 1990s at first glance? Throw a few ideas out there and see what sticks?  Not exactly.  Strapping startups are not raising tens of millions of dollars before their idea is proven out.  As pointed out in the article, “bootstrapping forces you to become risk-averse to whatever doesn’t help you prove a core business hypothesis.”  In other words, with limited resources businesses can’t afford to waste money.  Eliminating waste is a primary goal of lean.  Carefully picking and choosing the features we add to our products is just one activity that can be described as user-centered, agile, and lean.

MusicJuice.net needs to build all of the following audiences to be successful:

Talent – musicians will flock to the site if they see that other talented musicians are finding success, especially if they are seeing other tangential benefits like marketing, such as concerts and events that promote them.

Fans and Investors – will come if there are good musicians, but will also come to and participate in the site if their friends and family are buzzing about it, and especially if others are findings success by either making an social impact or earning real gains on investments.

Community – other than the musicians and the investors, an audience is required to see, believe, and consume the outputs.  Therefore, the site must have features that keep people interested.  These eyeballs are the ones you can monetize in other ways, such ad advertisements.  In time, they may turn into investors as well.

MusicJuice.net needs to understand what each of these audiences needs and wants.  What motivates them to participate?  Is MusicJuice providing some unique value that users cannot find elsewhere?  How can they best convey this message?  Before spending money on expensive marketing campaigns or building new features for the website, they need some understanding of these issues.  That is not to say they have to spend months doing market or user research.  They can start small and test their results, and adapt quickly as they go.

This post was written for MBA 734 in response to the Ivey case study, “MusicJuice.net: The Challenge of Starting up a New Internet Venture” by Lui and Parker, 2010.