Panlogic blog

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Turn on, tune in, drop out

The huge increase in listening to David Bowie on Spotify (an increase of 2,822% in global streams) or downloading his songs on iTunes (all but three of the top 10 spots in iTunes’ UK album chart belong to Bowie) since his death on 10th January is of course, understandable. After all that is how the majority of us now listen to recorded music. It's heartening to have seen that listeners to his music is across the ages; not just the 40-60 year olds who would have listened to Bowie's latest releases on transistor radios. For those of us listening to music in the 70s and 80s, beyond waiting for your favourite song to be played on the radio, the only way to ensure repeated plays was to buy the album or single. But the psychology of that purchase was greater than its representation on vinyl. A purchase was a personal statement. Our stack of LPs and singles defined who we were and made a statement to others of what we listened to. It was a semi-public statement to those who flicked through our collections of what we stood for, how cool and contemporary (or not) we were and what we believed in. There is a permanence to vinyl that cannot be deleted without retrospective thought because of that personal commitment. That's not true of Spotify and iTunes - we drop by, listen and move on; if you like we've become 'aural tourists' who cannot make the same statement as was done through a collection of vinyl or even CDs. Worse than that, many of us create pseudonyms for our shared playlists showing we are less willing to be identified by our musical tastes. Is this just another example of social media making us too concerned what others think of us, greater homogeneity and fewer individuals?

[panlogic]

Learning from Uber, Spotify and Amazon

Why do so many digital projects fail to deliver against expectation?  Many of the reasons are known eg. misaligned expectations, change requests leading to delays and vice versa, content and editorial delays, legacy databases - the list goes on.

However, the reasons listed above may not be the problem; rather each is a symptom of a requirements gathering process that is often flawed. Web projects, even in this era of rapid digital transformation, can be seen as tactical projects; fulfilling a business need that has identified a digital requirement but where the future financial business value has not been fully evaluated. Down the road the business benefit of the implementation is consequently hard to determine.

Uber, Spotify and Amazon are often termed ‘disruptive’ because they have changed the basic economics of their industry. It is the approach of considering an economic paradigm shift that creates successful businesses. Here at Panlogic we believe this philosophy should guide all our clients’ projects be that at a business, system or component level. We call this approach Digital Value Mapping®.

Digital Value Mapping® unlocks digital value; be that by taking cost out of an existing process or identifying where additional value can be created. We have developed a trademarked process that works with clients to concentrate on breaking down existing processes into units that have costs and values attached to them. Armed with this information we identify, using an Agile discovery process, the systemic or incremental opportunities to provide improved digital value. And, as you would expect, such opportunities are backed up by a rock-solid business case.

Industries and clients successfully implementing the Digital Value Mapping® process include BIS, Skills Funding Agency, Financial Conduct Authority, RNIB, Association of Investment Companies and Mazda amongst others.

Read more about Digital Value Mapping® here (links to: http://www.panlogic.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/Panlogic-Consultancy_2014_2_LR.pdf)

[panlogic]

Delivering User Experience - a series of blogs and papers

Maximising charity donations

Over 17 years Panlogic has worked with a wide range of charities; from the national to the local. Most have had a similar brief; to provide an improved donation journey. We believe this comes down to three core elements:

1. Tell me what my money can achieve

Average online one-off donations hover around £30 and yet all charities have substantial needs; sometimes running in to the millions of pounds. The website journey needs to reassure the prospective donor that their money is going to a worthwhile cause and that it will make a difference. Tell your donor what their donation will provide; ideally show what incremental amounts will deliver. £5 supports our advice line, £10 pays for essential medicines, £50 monthly provides emergency pet treatment. This approach has two benefits; firstly it reassures the donor their money is going to a worthwhile cause but secondly it encourages larger donations. The more explicit you are the easier it is for the donor to convince him/herself that the donation is needed.

2. Let me hear it from the recipient

Ideally previous recipients will tell the prospective donor how previous donations have helped. Use all the digital means at your disposal to tell these human and real stories; from images and video to social media, all should be utilised to get your message across.  Images should be carefully selected to produce an emotional reaction but video does not need to be professionally crafted; it should however be sharp, to the point and be no more than 90 seconds long.

3. Tell a consistent story

Donation journey drop out rates of 60% are not uncommon meaning two thirds of intrigued donors fail to make their donation having either started the web journey or clicked on a promotional link. The biggest cause of this fallout is the lack of care in stewarding the donor through the process. Make sure you use the same language on the Google AdWord/email/banner etc as on your website landing page and make sure your organisational logo, images and colours are consistent. New donors don’t need much to distract their attention to end up moving away from donating.

[panlogic]

An art or a science. Where does digital belong?

Some time back I listened to a debate on the BBC between great luminaries on which was the greater discipline, the arts or sciences? It was a good debate with luminaries postulating their arguments drawing examples from the likes of Heroditus and Copernicus to Michaelangelo and Darwin. It got me thinking about digital, which of course carries both artistic and technical endeavours. Usability, design and all other aspects of user experience might sit inside the arts discipline; functionality, coding, API and other technical integration would then be scientific. It might be divisive to come down on one side or the other but the outcome from the BBC debate could be illustrative. They decided that the arts won the argument in so much that it created something new whilst science explained only what already existed.

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The content jungle

Websites, apps, intranets, extranets... they all cause headaches for multi-stakeholder organisations and yet nowadays they are of course essential tools for communication and business promotion. The challenges are numerous and cover not just the initial systems requirements and development but content creation and approval, content updates, data integrity, security and resilience and many other aspects too.

Most media has self-imposed limitations (tv and radio is limited by licensing, newspaper by physical weight) but digital media has no such limitations; arguably its Achilles heel. Such limitless boundaries mean huge discipline and consideration is required when developing digital products. Discipline to ensure messages are crisp and content cut in half (then half again, and again and again...) and consideration as to how on earth your content is going to be found in the ever growing jungle of digital stuff.

In a multi-stakeholder organisation the creation of the initial sweep of, say, intranet or internet content can be a significant challenge; after all it's not one or two people developing the content (or having a view on it). In our experience the secret to success is the creation of a content matrix outlining the department responsible, the tone of voice, type of content required, the length required, its metadata, the frequency for any refresh etc. Once the matrix is created then what looked like a mountain to climb becomes a set of foothills, easily conquered. 

Of course, a systematic approach to content creation and archiving has the double benefit of easing discovery by colleagues, customers and prospects. But be warned; a yearly chop and prune of entangling branches will still be required.

[panlogic]

Digital Disruption (and how it affects multi-stakeholder organisations)

In this our first post in a series about multi-stakeholder organisations we look at how digital disruption affects such organisations.

Digital disruption is all around us. Social media break down the relationships between individuals and firms, Blippar will change how we look and interact with the world and Uber might yet change our view on getting between meetings. But what does this mean for organisations that are complex, have multiple stakeholder groups and have embedded cultures that are the sum of those individuals?

LinkedIn has changed how we recruit. Here at Panlogic we no longer use recruitment companies. Our recent hires have either found us through our digital presence or we have sought out specialists using LinkedIn. Digital disruption for recruitment companies has meant a greater effort on service, more personal contact with their clients and less of the ‘spray and pray’ approach to their cold calling. That’s all to the good.

Inside an organisation rules and best practice around social media usage have needed to be developed. Does the CEO of a multi-national run their own ‘rogue’ Twitter account (“views expressed are purely my own...”) or is this run by the comms team? Do employees have open access to Facebook from their work computers and if so, how does this impact on their working day?

 But beyond the more consumer end of digital disruption the way in which we work with digital media is disrupting our normal work patterns and norms. The 1990’s transformation from an Information Systems department to IT (Information Technology) has now been replaced by a similar migration of power and influence to digital comms. This macro departmental change signifies the move from fixed hardware to mobile and cloud systems, greater penetration of Google Docs, Dropbox, MailChimp and Salesforce.com.

The loss of hierarchical control has been noted by many but in its place has come greater individual responsibility and autonomy. This in turn has impacts on how we mentor and train our employees to ensure they feel comfortable making decisions which will impact on the reputation and visibility of our organisations. The increase in individual responsibility also connects to what Hofstede[1] called the ‘power distance index’. Hofstede studied how power was distributed across organisational units be that a family or workplace and looked at this by countries and cultures. Perhaps it is not surprising that the internet has had most transformational impact on those countries where the power index is low (UK, USA, Israel) which present power relations that are more consultative or democratic.

In our next article we will look at how such multi-stakeholder organisations promote themselves externally using their web presence and the challenge this medium presents. 

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hofstede%27s_cultural_dimensions_theory