Blog 6- Project Reflection

Part 1: Research and Data Collection
We spoke a lot about the process of performing research and collecting data. There are many many ways to do this and not all methods make sense for every situation. Even with all the creative ways to try to gain insights on customers, we also discussed how it is often very difficult to get meaningful data. It is also not always easy to come up with methods of research that will properly extract/surface the data/insights you are hoping to receive.

This is something we experienced during our project. First, we struggled to determine the best ways to perform research and collect data. We explored various methods, including surveys, interviews, photo journals, etc. We actually ended up trying most of these methods with the people we worked with.

We also found it was very difficult to get people to give you their time when you really don't have any incentive to offer them. Again, this is something we discussed in class and we certainly faced this struggle first hand. Even once we had people say they would help us out, we only ended up getting half the people to actually follow through.


Part 2: Brainstorming and Idea Creation
I have always been quite fascinated with product design and innovation process. My senior year in high school I had the opportunity to hear Kate (Burch) Canales speak about her (then) role at IDEO as a toy designer. She spoke about drawing insights from “play sessions” with children. Observing them in active play; taking note of their actions, frustrations, motivations, etc. Engaging with them at times and asking questions to better understand what they enjoyed and why they acted certain ways. She would then take her insights back to the drawing board and “chew on them”, usually with a team who had also been gathering information from similar scenarios. The next HIT product wasn’t typically something that jumped out at them from the start. But IDEO’s open and creative approach to brainstorming created an environment that fostered idea creation. By the end of a typical day, it wasn’t unheard of for the team to come up with ideas for multiple product transformations and innovations.

Two years later, in an engineering course at Vanderbilt, my professor (Joel Barnett) played a video covering the design process IDEO took to transform the typical grocery cart. Again, the IDEO team observed real situations and then came together to brainstorm. No idea was a bad idea. The environment was safe and energetic. As I watched the video, I couldn’t help but feel excited and even started to think of other cool concepts and approaches to the grocery cart transformation. 

Throughout my life I have encounter environments where creativity is nonexistent, situations where creativity is “encouraged” but not really fostered, and situations where creativity is embraced and almost unavoidable. My ability to work productively and produce outcomes that I am happy with has always been greatly influenced by the type of creative environment I am in. Additionally, I have found it difficult to push boundaries and “think creatively” when working in teams who were very comfortable with status quo and didn’t desire to be creative/innovative. 

Throughout this course, we were presented with many opportunities to brainstorm and innovate with our teams. At the beginning of the course, I found it very difficult and even frustrating. Each member on our team brought their own individual strengths, weaknesses, and work styles- which was awesome, but coming together to attempt to create something quickly was a challenge. As time went on, we got to know each other better and progress began to take place. Some days were better than others. As we tried different brainstorming techniques, we found that some worked better than others. In the end I believe we really determined a way to best work together as a team.

As we discussed in class, there are many different ways to brainstorm, create ideas, and prototype. Not every method will work for every project or team. But repetition helped us reach a point where we were experiencing success more than failure. Which was AWESOME and rewarding.

Part 3
Barely anytime was spent learning about the current product offerings at Samsung and we were never given a Galaxy Note to experiment with.  The lack of this was not of value...in other words, I felt it restricted us and wasn't representative of what a consultant would necessarily experience while working with Samsung (or another company). I do understand that this limitation might not be something we could have changed, due to the arrangement with Samsung.

Our team worked around this as much as possible by doing research on Samsung's current products and watching videos on the Galaxy Note.


Part 4
As described above, it did take our team some time to learn to work well together. As with any team, this caused moments of frustration. However, as we began to "click" in our meetings and brainstorming session, those frustrations naturally lessened. I think this was a valuable experience to have because in work situations you do not typically choose the team you are working with and you have to learn to connect with each other over time.

This class felt like trying to run a marathon at a sprinter's pace. So much was required and so little time was available. While I think it would be very difficult to do this project without a team (and I believe having a team is important for discussing new ideas and brainstorming), it also was really hard to find time to get together to work on group assignments, and then still get our own individual assignments done. Additionally, due to time constraints, the turn around time from feedback to producing more work was often very short, which caused frustrations for our team.

I believe this course could still achieve it's current goal without having the final paper and blog posts.  This would create a healthier workload balance and would give people a bit more time to focus on the project and still learn along the way. Countless hours were spent on the assignments and as seen with these blog posts, tradeoffs had to be made at times. (Late blog posts, not completing blog posts, etc)

Blog 5- Integrating Social Media Experiences

From Merriam-Webster’s online dictionary, social media is defined as “forms of electronic communication (as Web sites for social networking and microblogging) through which users create online communities to share information, ideas, personal messages, and other content (as videos).” Merriam-Webster states that the first use of the word was in 2004 and the word “social media” was added to the dictionary in 2011. In such a short period of time, social media has essentially gone “viral”. “According to a recent study conducted by Edison Research on social media behaviors of modern users 58 million Americans are hooked to social media sites and use them on daily basis. This has risen to 22% against 18% in 2011.” (Corelynx, Importance Of Integrating Social Media To Your CRM)

As social media continues to evolve and quickly transform, companies are facing major decisions on how they should integrate social media into their corporate strategies, both internally and externally. Unfortunately, there isn’t a perfect solution or an exact number of steps a company needs to take in order to have “successful” social media efforts. Everyday a new platform is released, privacy policies change, and best practices are adjusted. So how exactly can a company make the most of this new social era? Here are some tips that will hopefully be helpful. 

1. Don’t be social for the sake of being social. 

It is very important to have a well thought out strategy and goal for your social media efforts. Just because there a multiple platforms: Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram, LinkedIn, Vine, Google+, the list goes on, doesn’t mean you have to be using every single one. It is better to do a few things well, than to spread yourself too thin and fail across all the platforms. Additionally, it is important to remember that each platform requires more investment from you or your team. A lot of people and companies fall into the trap of believing the hardest part is getting up and running. In reality, maintaining a successful social media strategy requires a lot of work as well- it is an investment. I would even argue setting it up might be the easiest part.

2. Plan. Plan. Plan. 
Take a step back and ask yourself why you believe your company should be social. What value can you add to your customers’ lives and how they interact with your company? What insights and benefits are you hoping to gain as a company? Where are your customers currently engaging in social media? Why are they engaging in those platforms and what information are they seeking or sharing? The more you can align your social media strategy with your corporate goals as well as the desires of your customers, the more successful you will have with your social campaigns. Don’t forget to integrate your social strategy with your other marketing practices- you want to create a seamless campaign across all your media channels: email, print, web, etc.

3. Features and Tools.

With a strategy in place you can begin to think about the “tools” you will need on your social platform. For example, do you want to share a lot of photos with your customers? Do you want your customers to share photos with you? Do you want to create two way dialogue? (Example: company-to-customer and/or customer-to-customer) Will you provide customer support through your social channels? If yes, how do you plan to integrate it into your current customer support structure? If no, how do you plan to direct support questions to the right location? Further, how can you prevent support questions from ever being asked on your social channels? Think proactive, not reactive when it comes to your customers posts. A reactive social response plan is one that is not scalable as your customer posts and activity increases.

4. Platforms. 

Once you have a better grasp on the social tools/features you need, you can begin thinking about the platforms options. Take time to research the current social channels that are available and pay special attention to the ones your customers are using most. For each channel, think about how you can provide and gain value. You also should consider whether you want to create your own “social space” within your company website. This could be a discussion forum, blog, or even an entire online community. A couple companies that deliver these solutions are Jive Software and Lithium.

5. Insights

At the end of the day, you need a way to capture insights about your customers and the health of your campaigns.  If available, sit down with your Business Intelligence or Data Analytics group to work through what information you plan to capture, how you will capture it, how you will measure success, and what your plans are for the data. Depending on the size of your company, you may want to invest in a tool that integrates social channels with your current CRM platform. Check out Salesforce.com.

6. Whats Next
We are only getting started! A couple things you will want to do next is make sure your solution is scalable, determine how to enable your employees to be social, encourage engagement from your customers, and eventually try to build an “unpaid army of customer advocates.” (Owyang, How To Create A Customer Advocacy Program)

Sources:

• Framework and Matrix: The Five Ways Companies Organize for Social Business by Jeremiah Owyang, Posted on April 15th, 2010 
• Importance Of Integrating Social Media To Your CRM by Corelynx Inc, Posted on February 14, 2013 
• How To Create A Customer Advocacy Program by Jeremiah Owyang, Posted on July 12, 2010

Creativity

In response to Jonah Lehrer's recent article "How to be Creative", I have been asked to discuss my thoughts on creativity and innovation as an individual and within an organization.

1. What are your personal experiences with individual creativity? Have you had times when you felt especially creative or, even, especially uncreative?

The word "creative" is interesting as it takes me in different thought directions and I sometimes initially think "oh I'm not creative". When I think of someone being creative my initial thoughts are do they possess "artistic talent"; however, creativity is not limited to artists and can be seen in the way someone thinks through a problem, the way a business practice is carried out, or even in the way someone is able to perfectly pack the trunk of a car with all the luggage needed for a long trip.

Growing up, I often was told I had a creative mind, seeing things in ways that others did not. I had a ton of energy (often tagged as ADHD) and enjoyed participating in activities that let my imagination run free and allowed for "unstructured" play. I would tell wildly imaginative stories, I was an excellent problem solver, and LOVED to do math. I also was typically in environments that encouraged creativity. Whether at home or at school, my creative strengths were celebrated and I rarely faced situations where I felt inadequate due to my strengths/weaknesses.

As time has gone on, I have seen my creative outlets and abilities dampen. This is not due to a lack of desire to think and behave in creative ways, it is more the result of increased structure (more rules and guidelines) and the need to get things done as quickly as possible (even if that means the results are subpar). I often times have a strong interest in something, may initially feel creatively inspired by the topic, and yet don't have the time or energy to really invest and allow myself to explore it in a creative way.

I am very affected by the environment I am in and find it harder to be creative in traditional classroom/work settings. For example, I have found it beneficial to walk around when exploring a topic rather than sit still at a desk and hope my mind goes in the direction I am taking it. As discussed in class, I loved my high school classes that would allow us to meet outside for class - the discussions always seemed more vibrant and full of life and deep thought. I believe changing up the environment can allow people's minds to have more room to explore, the boundaries are removed.

I find it difficult to be creative when I am tired and grumpy, or feeling particularly lazy or uninterested in something. I find I am the most creative when I remove preset expectations, formal structure, and rigid guidelines. Additionally, when I am encouraged and given the time to be creative, I have found it is easier to act in a creative way.

2. What are your personal experiences with organizational creativity? Have you worked at companies that felt or behaved in ways that made them more creative or, even, especially uncreative?

I have not seen sustained organizational creativity. I have experienced spurts of creative energy at both a personal and team level in my past jobs, but often this was the result of "creative" brainstorming practices, and the creativity very rarely carried through to the remainder of the project or the creative ideas would later be "shot down" as they required too much time, resources, and money.

When given more freedom to explore a topic and set project goals, I often felt more ownership of my work and found it easier to creatively approach each step. I would say that because of lack of practice, it sometimes took me longer to get going with a creative solution than it did to take the typical path of completion. However, as discussed in the article, creativity is something that can be learned, practiced, and strengthened. I definitely believe that the more I have been encouraged to be creative- the more I am able to produce creative work.

Another aspect that I feel can greatly hinder or promote creativity is the team dynamic and desire to be creative. In team environments where ideas are constantly shot down and trust is not valued, I have found it particularly difficult to work and produce creative results.

Overall, I do feel that I am capable of being creative by myself and that groups within organizations are capable of being creative. I don't think it is always easy to be creative, but I certainly enjoy when I am able to be creative. I believe it must be encouraged, practiced, and celebrated in order to make people more comfortable with acting in a creative manor.

Current Topic Report Idea - Exploring Social Business and Online Communities

For my Customer Insights course we have been asked to “identify an area of research related to customer insights or experiences that seems particularly important for [our] professional use”. For some time now, I have been increasingly interested in the online customer experience on company owned websites. I would like my paper to fall somewhere within this VERY large umbrella topic. There are many ways I could take this paper so I will need to flesh through some of the different options before narrowing things down. 

I have always been an “early adopter” of online technologies which is probably due in large part to my strong interest in human behavior and experiences, and how the internet has brought this to a new level. I enjoy learning about how current advancements in technology are transforming consumer behavior and marketing practices. I am fascinated by what can be learned by the plethora of data being created on the internet daily and sometimes alarmed to find that many companies don’t know where to begin when parsing through this data. I also am quite interested in how the layout and design of a website can make or break a customer experience. There are so many points along the customer journey where a customer can be lost, but when used properly the internet can help keep customers moving down the sales funnel. 

In my last role at National Instruments, I managed NI’s customer-facing online community. I drove the strategy for platform development while always keeping a focus on the customer experience. The goal of most of my projects was to gain deeper customer insights, grow brand awareness, increase customer loyalty and advocacy, ensure customer success, and drive new and repeat sales. This role was both exciting and challenging as it dealt with an area of business that is rapidly developing and thus required me to define new strategies on a regular basis- there was a lot of trial and error! I found that research in this area and best practices were still being defined, which made it difficult when designing a business strategy around involving the “social space”. 

I would like to analyze the available literature on this topic and read blogs/books/articles on online innovation, social media, Internet marketing, and social collaboration. Some topics I am interested in exploring are:

• How companies can leverage online social business practices to meet their corporate goals
• Understanding your customer and their online behavior.
• When does it make sense for a company to be “social” (would look at Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, but also owned platforms like Customer Communities/Forums).
• The benefits and drawbacks of online discussion forums and online communities.
• Best practices for running a successful customer community. 

I see this paper covering both the gathering and identification of customer insights, as well as designing valuable customer experiences. 

Some articles and scholars I will look at are:

• Jeremiah Owyang (http://www.web-strategist.com/blog/ ) I have been very impressed with the work and research performance by Jeremiah over the last two years. I had the opportunity to learn more about him and his work last year at SXSWi and I believe he has many articles that give a thorough look at the social business world.
• I also was able to attend the Dachis Social Business Summit last year and felt a lot of valuable content was presented. I have access to the slides/content from last year’s event and will also try to look at the information from this year’s event. (http://www.slideshare.net/dachisgroup/)
• Another conference I attended was Jive World- which also provided valuable best practices and analysis of how companies can use online communities.
• Managing Brands and Customer Engagement in Online Brand Communities (http://bschool.nus.edu.sg/Marketing/Jochen%20papers/WirtzetalJOSM2013OnlineBrandCommunities.pdf)
• Social media competitive analysis and text mining: A case study in the pizza industry (http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0268401213000030)

As mentioned before, this is an area where there are a still a lot of unknowns. My plan to select a focus area and then reference scholars, articles, and best practices from companies who are already implemented a strong social business platform. 

Generative Research Design

1. What I "can't" live without and what matters to me...

Well I must admit this was harder than I expected. I went through multiple variations before I ended on what you see above. Prompt: identify the "stuff" you can not live without, seems easy enough, until I really began to think about it deeply. I love my cellphone- anyone who has seen me walk around McCombs could tell you that. It rarely leaves my side (even when I am asleep). But is it the physical iphone that I love so dearly? No. I'm pretty active on Facebook and Instagram, but if they were gone tomorrow would my world collapse? Nope.

These items and technologies are just a means to an end. What I can't live without is my faith, my family, my friends, and the ability to remain connected with these things. On top of that, I have developed a deep, deep love for good ‘ole Texas (specifically Austin): the people, the weather, the summer heat, the big blue skies, the lakes, the green belt, the good, the bad, and the ugly…ALL OF IT.

Outside of that, what I care about is having a place to call home, good food and good drinks, living in a walkable, open, friendly, cute neighborhood (LOVE Clarksville), and music. A place to call home: I have moved around for much of my life, I have lived in DC, Chicago, Boston, Austin, Dallas, Nashville, Toronto, Sydney, and I finally ended back up in Austin. I have lived in 19 homes and attended 9 different school. You would think I would be comfortable with change and travel, and yet I am the biggest homebody you will meet. "Home" isn't the house I grew up in, it's the place where my family comes together, relaxes, laughs, and enjoys each other's company. Right now that is my parent's house in Dallas, but I've been "home" when on vacation with my family as well. "Home is where the heart is"- so cliche and so true.

Music calms my soul, which is good, because I can get pretty worked up and stressed. I love music that makes me want to sing, that gives me energy, that makes me feel at peace. I LOVE listening to someone play the guitar around a campfire. I didn't grow up playing musical instruments but I learned to play the piano by ear and at the beginning of this school year I bought a guitar and have been teaching myself to play. I am not good, but it does something to me that nothing else does, and so I keep practicing and playing. My mind is always all over the place, I can rarely turn it off, but I have found that music, singing, and playing piano/guitar allows me to zone out the rest of the world for just a second.

2. Digital Ecosystem...

I receive the majoring of my news, information, updates, etc from facebook, google news/web search (which compiles information from various online new sources), and via communications with my family and friends through email, text, etc. After that I do look at the occasional blog, tv broadcast website, newspaper online, video, etc. But for everything outside of email, texting, facebook, and google news/web search I almost rarely would go straight to that online source. I typically end up there due to a search, or a link someone sent me.

Life is so busy, and I usually only have a few minutes here and there to catch up on news and updates. I know that my family/friends will inform me if something major has happened, Facebook will usually be buzzing, plus I follow local news channels on facebook which allows me to follow the news. Additionally, which a quick look at Google news, I can get a pretty good idea of what is going on around me. It isn't perfect- I know that, and it is most likely bias, but in my opinion it is better than nothing! I use my cell phone and computer to access most of these things.

3. Typical Weekday (Went with Tuesday)

I had the hardest time with this one, simply because each day is so different for me and I feel like I am constantly accessing information/content. Technology has really made it possible to access almost anything at any time as long as you have the right device (phone, computer, car radio, etc). I don't really have a routine for when I access the majority of information and content I consume in a day. 

Times that I access content most: Right when I wake up and right before I go to sleep are two times that I regularly consume content (via my phone and sometimes my computer). 

Times that I access content less: during class, meetings, church, driving, meals (unless eating alone), sleeping, etc.