Mobilized

Mutual Mobile presents 'Mobilized', a quarterly newsletter.

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Looking back on an amazing year

It's hard to believe 2012 is nearing an end. Looking back, I couldn't be more proud of what we've accomplished with our client partners. Here are just a handful of those amazing achievements:

We helped Zynga drive over 80% voluntary adoption of their mobile employee portal, giving users up-to-the-minute company information

We helped a premier menswear company, J.Hilburn, increase average order size by 67% with a delightful iPad sales tool

Our work with ESCORT Live! won numerous awards, including the Innovation, Design and Engineering Award at CES

Now more than ever, our clients expect measurable results and nothing less. And rightfully so! In a noisy market full of platforms and products that claim to do everything, we set out to do just one thing incredibly well — improve the way people do business. That we usually do this with beautiful mobile interfaces is merely a by-product of our philosophy. 

The result has been another year of exceptional growth; 85% increase in revenue over last year and another 170 mobile experts added to our now 300-person team. This is Mutual Mobile's 16th consecutive quarter of growth, supported by a growing client roster across the Fortune 1000, including new relationships with AutoTrader.com and Jaguar Land Rover.

To celebrate an amazing year, we've compiled some of our favorite blog posts and resources for your reading pleasure. You'll notice a few themes, specifically the value of outlining a coherent mobile strategy and how iPads are breathing new life into sales teams. You'll also see some bold predictions about Apple and a thoughtful infographic outlining Android's coming of age.

We hope you have a great holiday. Here's to an exciting 2013!

John Arrow CEO, Mutual Mobile

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Mobile Strategy: Four Areas To Focus Your Thinking

by Stephen Brown, Director, Mobile Strategy

Mobile strategy isn't a technology or a project. It's the constant alignment of user needs, business goals and evolving mobile technologies. It provides ready answers to questions you and your teams may already be asking.

To develop an effective mobile strategy, you must consider the following key questions:

Business transformation How can mobility shift business processes, products or services? How will it reshape the way you market, sell, service or collaborate with customers, employees and partners?

Digital experience What do users expect, want and need? How can you create desirable mobile experiences that also meet business objectives?

Technology What's the technical architecture and application blueprint required to support mobile initiatives today, tomorrow and into the future?

Governance How does your organization need to adjust to incorporate mobility into planning and decision-making? How will mobile initiatives be evaluated, refined and prioritized over time?

Due diligence in these areas will provide a solid rationale for mobile investments, as well as create momentum towards meaningful mobile innovation. Remember, just as your business strategy changes to exploit changes within the market, your mobile strategy must adapt too.

By taking the time to clearly define your strategy — and revisiting it as needed — you'll ensure your mobile efforts are:

Informed by actual user needs and expectations

Coordinated and aligned with overall business strategy

Aligned with current mobile best practices

Pursued with clear ownership and cross-discipline participation

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Three Phases Of Mobile Strategy Roadmapping

by Stephen Brown, Director, Mobile Strategy

Developing a strong mobile strategy requires cross-discipline participation and focus. We recommend a three-part process that allows for careful exploration of your users, goals, drivers and challenges.

While the level and depth of each phase should be specific to the needs of your organization, a typical roadmap exercise consists of:

Information gathering Get to know internal stakeholders; leverage or conduct user research; look at competitors and market trends; assess the constantly evolving mobile landscape.

Evaluation of mobile practices Analyze each aspect of your mobile practice in light of your goals; create a project prioritization matrix; devise a model for accurate mobile benefit analysis.

Definition and dissemination Articulate your business goals; assess each goal against specific mobile objectives and capabilities; get buy-in from appropriate teams as needed.

Upon completion of this exercise, your organization will have a concrete plan with actionable steps for realizing short term wins, making smart mid-term investments and achieving long-term transformational goals.

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Infographic: What Is Mobile Strategy?

The call to “do something with mobile” has sent teams scurrying in all directions. As a result, many are stuck in the day-to-day churn of how to do mobile. 

Defining a mobile strategy allows teams to align business goals, user needs and evolving mobile technologies. Here’s how to get started:

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Six Ways Tablets Are Transforming Sales

by Mike Nowlin, Engagement Manager

70% of sales organizations using tablets are seeing a positive ROI. So how can a mobile sales enablement solution benefit your sales force?

The right content, at the right time Providing sales executives with tablets allows them to easily access content quickly, thanks to a multi-touch tablet interface and advanced search tools.

Compelling sales support Instead of forcing your sales team to explain the advantages of your product or service, you can empower them to share rich video, 3D animations and other visual aids, strengthening their respective pitches.

Higher client engagement Tablet use encourages prospective clients to interact with your sales presentation — something that doesn’t happen with a sell sheet. The result is a dynamic experience that’s ultimately more memorable.

Robust client data In addition to capturing a prospective client’s attention, sales executives can record a client’s info via image and voice capture, interactive survey tools and location-based services.

Ready communication tools Equipping your sales team with tablets doesn’t just allow for greater communication during presentations, it permits an easy dialog after the fact with “anywhere” access to email, videoconferencing and social media.

Expedited sales While on-site quoting and digital signatures help close deals faster, the ability to instantly submit orders speeds up the process even more. That’s a win for clients and a win for you.

With all mobile sales enablement offers, it’s no surprise over 90% of firms are actively using or starting to use tablet devices in their sales organizations. These enterprises have come to realize how simple, intuitive and easy tablets are — and what a tremendous effect they can have on sales force productivity.

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Infographic: A Supercharged Sales Force

Mobile Sales Enablement does more than simplify and streamline the sales process, it differentiates the buying experience for customers, unlocks the power of analytics for marketing departments, and impacts the entire organization.

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Five Benefits Of A Custom Solution

by Dan McCall, General Manager

There are a variety of ways to approach mobile sales enablement. Many organizations start by experimenting with third-party, single-point solutions while others build homegrown software.

With experience, many business leaders realize a more customized approach is needed to see ROI and sustainable success. As you think through your approach, consider these factors:

Control The low-cost, intuitive nature of sales and marketing technology has led to a proliferation of “one-off” sales applications on mobile devices across large enterprises. These independent mobile sales experiments create management issues for sales, marketing and IT.

Continuous innovation The mobile environment is very dynamic, with new advances, operating systems and device options coming out at a rapid clip. Frequently accommodating changing buyer needs and opportunities makes ongoing management of an in-house application challenging.

Sales process alignment Third-party, single-point solutions and independent development efforts may not realize end-to-end benefits if they don't support the entire selling process. In general, the ROI of a sales enablement solution is proportional to how well it supports your unique selling approach.

User experience A well-crafted user experience is a core driver of ROI — it directly impacts sales force adoption, revenue lift and differentiation in the eyes of the customer. Having a partner who can create a rich, immersive experience is very important to generating the most value from tablets.

Time to market Working with an expert in mobile can be the fastest way to deploy a solution across the enterprise, particularly with the relative scarcity of in-house development resources and the headaches of customizing out-of the-box solutions.

If you're interested in exploring customized mobile sales enablement, I recommend you:

Get educated Expose your team to best practices in mobile sales enablement by showing “first-to-mobile” innovations, as well as examples from your industry.

Develop a prototype Given the range of ways tablets can create value, a good idea is to devise a prototype of what sales enablement might look like in your unique selling approach.

Create your own vision Conduct a strategy workshop to explore the opportunities to transform your go-to-market process and formulate a plan for the coming year.

Define your roadmap If you're ready to deploy a custom application, conduct a discovery exercise to define a design and deployment strategy that'll put you on the path for success.

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Case Study: J.Hilburn

In this three-minute video, Veeral Rathod and the rest of the J.Hilburn team talk about how we helped them launch a tablet-based sales tool that drove a 67% increase in orders.

If you'd like to be featured in a video, email our Client Insights Manager at [email protected].

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Thoughts On The iPad Mini

by Conrad Stoll, iOS Architect

In this article:

First impressions

What you gain vs. what you give up

Predictions on what’s next

For me, it's all about the weight. Period. It used to be about the Retina Display. When you looked at the screen for the first time, your eyes could never again ignore the pixels in other displays. It's the same with the iPad mini. After you've picked one up, everything else just feels unbearably heavy. It's really that striking of a difference.

I think that like most developers, I was skeptical of the value of a smaller iPad. The general consensus has been that 3.x-inch smartphones work very well, and that 10-inch tablets are similarly well suited. Few were clamoring for a 7-inch device, so it's been interesting seeing the positive reception to the iPad mini.

After just a few days of using the iPad mini, it became my go-to device for general computing, which means reading, browsing, emailing, tweeting, messaging, etc. I take my iPad everywhere, so the mini being lighter makes it even more practical. It's light enough that I can simply rest it in my hand and let friction keep it from slipping out. And in terms of using the mini, all I need is my thumb.

It's clear to me that the iPad mini is going to be a big deal. The only bummer is the lack of a Retina Display, but that's not something I've missed all that much. I peered closely at it and said "yes, I can see pixels," then I stopped worrying about it. Going back to an iPhone 3GS after using an iPhone 4 would've been impossible. Going back to a non-Retina Display iPad may be hard for some, but it's been easy for me.

There's been some talk lately about what the ideal iPad would be like. A few have speculated that an iPad mini with a Retina Display would be the ideal iPad. But what if the iPad weighed the same as the Mini does now — or even a tad lighter? I think my ideal iPad would actually be the full-size device, but one which is as thin and light as the mini is today. I'm betting that the mini will get a Retina Display in two years and can't wait to see if I am right in my assumption. For now though, I'm perfectly happy with what I have.

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Four Reasons Apple Will Release A Universal OS

by Tarun Nimmagadda, Chief Operating Officer

On October 29th, Apple announced iOS and OSX would be unified under a single leader, SVP Craig Federighi. I see this as yet another signal of Apple's desire to have a universal OS all across all devices. 

Four other factors shaping my prediction:

Processors Apple is exploring a shift from Intel to ARM chips in desktop devices. iOS already runs on ARM chips, making it easier to share code across platforms.

"Back to the Mac" Since this event in October 2010, Apple has brought many design elements and naming conventions from the iPhone and iPad to the Mac, including:

FaceTime

Launchpad

Multi-touch

App Store

Full-screen mode

iCloud

Universal binaries In 2010, Apple introduced the ability to share a significant amount of code between the iOS devices, thereby paving the road for developers to release over 275,000 iPad optimized apps. A similar move could include Macs and accelerate the creation of desktop applications.

Windowed mode, mouse support One of the biggest advantages of PCs are the availability of windows for multi-tasking as well as the ability to use a mouse for spreadsheets and other business tools. Now that Windows has made both possible with the Surface, it's only a matter of time until Apple follows suit — once they've figured out how to do it right (much like cut-and-paste in 2009).

I firmly believe a universal operating system is an important step towards ensuring a consistent user experience across platforms — a move I'm confident Apple will soon make. This shift will be yet another example of how mobile devices are taking center stage in the post-PC era, ceasing to become mere accessories to their predecessors.

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Infographic: Android's Coming Of Age

by Ajay Pall, Director of Android Engineering

With over 500 million active devices and another 1.3 million activated every day, Android is a force to be reckoned with. And this isn’t 2009′s Android. The Android of today is beautiful, fuels a consistent experience across devices and powers a fleet of devices that buyers are scrambling for.

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White Paper: Designing For The New Android

by Adam Beckley, Senior Interaction Designer

Android’s troubled history is over. Gone are the days of device fragmentation, a foggy and undefined navigational structure, and clunky frame rates that crippled the user experience. 

Today’s Android not only stands toe-to-toe with iOS in performance and appeal, but in many ways surpasses Apple in innovative design and providing a seamless user experience.

We have finally entered the Golden Age of Android.

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How To Design For Windows 8

by Amanda McGlothlin, Group Creative Director

Microsoft has recognized the value of simplicity with an incredible shift in the new Windows 8 user interface. Co.Design is calling Windows 8 the boldest redesign in Microsoft’s history.

Not surprisingly, Windows 8 gives those of us at Mutual Mobile an opportunity to rethink designing for mobile. Here's how:

First, user experience goals were redefined during the Windows redesign process. The key areas of emphasis:

Fast and fluid With layouts that expand to any screen, along with scalable vector graphics and navigation that's optimized for touch, users can quickly navigate through content. 

Authentically digital In a deliberate attempt to remove the decoration and excess chrome from the interface, the Windows 8 ecosystem immerses the user in the content.

Works anywhere The Windows 8 ecosystem works across devices, scaling and snapping to multiple form factors while changing the input method used.

As our team has gained experience building applications for Windows 8, we’ve found the following items to be very important design considerations:

Content first Windows 8 is a content-driven experience, and early in the process it's critical to determine where the content can have maximum impact. Information architecture is at the heart of the design process.

Persona-driven Personas aren’t new, but a deep understanding of the user and their tasks is even more critical, since Windows 8 focuses on creating a set of related apps available on different form factors.

Page types Page layouts utilize a grid system, and there are best practices for how to approach regions, such as the app bar and hub pages. By building on a standard set of page types, users more easily understand the information they're presented.

UX guidelines I recommend utilizing Microsoft’s UX guideline documentation to get a feel for the breadth of user interaction controls. 

Of course, being brand new isn’t always a great thing. With existing paradigms from iOS and Android becoming more ingrained in people's minds, care must be given to acclimating new users. We conduct regular usability tests and follow articles on how users are adopting the platform. 

To learn more about Windows 8 — and experience the ecosystem first hand — we recommend checking out the apps for Greenway Medical, Box.net, Kayak, Evernote and USA Today.

Back in October, we hosted Win 8 Week, a series of workshops on Microsoft's new OS. This six-minute video is an excerpt from one of these sessions. It features Amanda McGlothlin, our Group Creative Director, talking about what Mutual Mobile faced as we designed our very first experience for Windows 8.

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