#Amazon Direct ideo

[wordsmadevisual]

Towards Relational Design by Andrew Blauvelt

Is there an overarching philosophy that can connect projects from such diverse fields as architecture, graphic and product design? Or are we beyond such pronouncements? Should we even expect such grand narratives anymore? 

I’ve spent more time in the field of graphic design, and within that one discipline it is extremely difficult to pinpoint coherent sets of ideas or beliefs guiding recent work — certainly nothing as definitive as in previous decades, whether the mannerisms of so-called grunge typography, the gloss of a term such as postmodernism, or even the reactionary label of neo-modernism. After looking at a variety of projects across the design fields and lecturing on the topic, new patterns do emerge. Some of the most interesting work today is not reducible to the same polemic of form and counter-form, action and reaction, which has become the predictable basis for most on-going debates for decades. Instead, we are in the midst of a much larger paradigm shift across all design disciplines, one that is uneven in its development, but is potentially more transformative than previous isms, or micro-historic trends, would indicate. More specifically, I believe we are in the third major phase of modern design history: an era of relationally-based, contextually-specific design. The first phase of modern design, born in the early twentieth century, was a search for a language of form that was plastic or mutable, a visual syntax that could be learned and thus disseminated rationally and potentially universally. This phase witnessed a succession of “isms” — Suprematism, Futurism, Constructivism, de Stijl, ad infinitum — that inevitably fused the notion of an avant-garde as synonymous with formal innovation itself. Indeed, it is this inheritance of modernism that allows us to speak of a “visual language” of design at all. The values of simplification, reduction, and essentialism determine the direction of most abstract, formal design languages. One can trace this evolution from the early Russian Constructivists’ belief in a universal language of form that could transcend class and social differences (literate versus oral culture) to the abstracted logotypes of the 1960s and 1970s that could help bridge the cultural divides of transnational corporations: from El Lissitzsky’s “Beat the Whites with the Red Wedge” poster to the perfect union of syntactic and semantic form in Target’s bullseye logo.  

The second wave of design, born in the 1960s, focused on design’s meaning-making potential, its symbolic value, its semantic dimension and narrative potential, and thus was preoccupied with its essential content. This wave continued in different ways for several decades, reaching its apogee in graphic design in the 1980s and early 1990s, with the ultimate claim of “authorship” by designers (i.e., controlling content and thus form), and in theories about product semantics, which sought to embody in their forms the functional and cultural symbolism of objects and their forms. Architects such as Robert Venturi, Denise Scott Brown, and Steven Izenour’s famous content analysis of the vernacular commercial strip of Las Vegas or the meaning-making exercises of the design work coming out of Cranbrook Academy of Art in the 1980s are emblematic. Importantly, in this phase of design, the making of meaning was still located with the designer, although much discussion took place about a reader’s multiple interpretations. In the end though, meaning was still a “gift” presented by designers-as-authors to their audiences. If in the first phase form begets form, then in this second phase, injecting content into the equation produced new forms. Or, as philosopher Henri Lefebvre once said, “Surely there comes a moment when formalism is exhausted, when only a new injection of content into form can destroy it and so open up the way to innovation.” To paraphrase Lefebvre, only a new injection of context into the form-content equation can destroy it, thus opening new paths to innovation.

The third wave of design began in the mid-1990s and explores design’s performative dimension: its effects on users, its pragmatic and programmatic constraints, its rhetorical impact, and its ability to facilitate social interactions. Like many things that emerged in the 1990s, it was tightly linked to digital technologies, even inspired by its metaphors (e.g., social networking, open source collaboration, interactivity), but not limited only to the world of zeroes and ones. This phase both follows and departs from twentieth-century experiments in form and content, which have traditionally defined the spheres of avant-garde practice. However, the new practices of relational design include performative, pragmatic, programmatic, process-oriented, open-ended, experiential and participatory elements. This new phase is preoccupied with design’s effects — extending beyond the design object and even its connotations and cultural symbolism.

We might chart the movement of these three phases of design, in linguistic terms, as moving from form to content to context; or, in the parlance of semiotics, from syntax to semantics to pragmatics. This outward expansion of ideas moves, like ripples on a pond, from the formal logic of the designed object, to the symbolic or cultural logic of the meanings such forms evoke, and finally to the programmatic logic of both design’s production and the sites of its consumption — the messy reality of its ultimate context.

Design, because of its functional intentions, has always had a relational dimension. In other words, all forms of design produce effects, some small, some large. But what is different about this phase of design is the primary role that has been given to areas that once seemed beyond the purview of design’s form and content equation. For example, the imagined and often idealized audience becomes an actual user(s) — the so-called “market of one” promised by mass customization and print-on-demand; or perhaps the “end-user” becomes the designer themselves, through do-it-yourself projects, the creative hacking of existing designs, or by “crowdsourcing,” producing with like-minded peers to solve problems previously too complex or expensive to solve in conventional ways. This is the promise that Time magazine made when it named you (a nosism, like the royal we) person of the year in 2006, even as it evoked the emerging dominance of sites such as MySpace, Facebook, Wikipedia, Ebay, Amazon, Flickr and YouTube, or anticipated the business model of Threadless. The participation of the user in the creation of the design can be seen in the numerous do-it-yourself projects in magazines such as Craft, Make and Readymade, but they can also be seen in the generic formats for advertisements and greeting cards by Daniel Eatock.

Even in most instrumental forms of design, the audience has changed from the clichéd focus group sequestered in a room answering questions for people hiding behind two-way mirrors to the subjects of dogged ethnographic research, observed in their natural surroundings — moving away from the idealized concept of use toward the complex reality of behavior. Today, the audience is thought of as a social being, one who is exhaustively data-mined and geo-demographically profiled — taking us from the idea of an average or composite consumer to an individual purchaser among others living a similar social lifestyle community. But unlike previous experiments in 1970s-style community-based design or behavioral modification, today’s relationship to the user is more nuanced and complicated. The range of practices varies greatly, from the product development methods employed by practices such as IDEO, creators of the famed Nightline shopping cart, to the “social probes[,]” of Anthony Dunne and Fiona Raby who create designed objects, not to fulfill prescribed functions but instead use them to gauge behavioral reactions to the perceived effects of electromagnetic energy or the ethical dilemmas of gene testing and restorative therapies.

Once shunned or reluctantly tolerated, constraints — financial, aesthetic, social, or otherwise — are frequently embraced not as limits to personal expression or professional freedom, but rather as opportunities to guide the development of designs; arbitrary variables in the equation that can alter the course of a design’s development. Seen as a good thing, such restrictions inject outside influence into an otherwise idealized process and, for some, a certain element of unpredictability and even randomness alters the course of events. Embracing constraints — whether strictly applying existing zoning codes as a way to literally shape a building or an ethos of material efficiency embodied in print-on-demand — as creative forces, not obstacles on the path of design, further opens the design process demanding ever-more nimble, agile and responsive systems. This is not to suggest that design is not always already constrained by numerous factors beyond its control, but rather that such encumbrances can be viewed productively as affordances. In architecture, the discourse has shifted from the purity and organizational control of space to the inhabitation of real places — the messy realities of actual lives, living patterns over time, programmatic contradictions, zoning restrictions, and social, not simply physical, sites. For instance, architect Teddy Cruz in his Manufactured Sites project, offers a simple, prefabricated steel framework for use in the shantytowns on the outskirts of Tijuana — a structure that participates in the vernacular building practices that imports and recycles the detritus of Southern California’s dismantled suburbia. This provisional gesture integrates itself into the existing conditions of an architecture born out of crisis. The objective is not the utopian tabla rasa of architectural modernism — a replacement of the favela — but rather the interjection of a micro-utopian element into the mix.

Not surprisingly, the very nature of design and the traditional roles of the designer and consumer have shifted dramatically. In the 1980s, the desktop publishing revolution threatened to make every computer user a designer, but in reality it served to expand the role of the designer as author and publisher. The real “threat” arrived with the advent of Web 2.0 and the social networking and mass collaborative sites that it has engendered. Just as the role of the user has expanded and even encompasses the role of the traditional designer at times (in the guise of futurist Alvin Toffler’s prophetic “prosumer”), the nature of design itself has broadened from giving form to discrete objects to the creation of systems and more open-ended frameworks for engagement: designs for making designs. Yesterday’s designer was closely linked with the command-control vision of the engineer, but today’s designer is closer to the if-then approach of the programmer. It is this programmatic or social logic that holds sway in relational design, eclipsing the cultural and symbolic logic of content-based design and the aesthetic and formal logic of modernism’s initial phase. Relational design is obsessed with processes and systems to generate designs, which do not follow the same linear, cybernetic logic of yesteryear. For instance, the typographic logic of the Univers family of fonts, established a predictive system and closed set of varying typeface weights. By contrast, a Web-based application for Twin, a typeface by Letterror, can alter its appearance incrementally based on such seemingly arbitrary factors as air temperature or wind speed. In a recent design for a new graphic design museum in the Netherlands, Lust created a digital, automated “posterwall,” feed by information streams from various Internet sources and governed by algorithms designed to produce 600 posters a day.

Perhaps the best illustration of this movement toward relational design can be gleaned through the prosaic vacuum cleaner. In the realm of the syntactical and formal, we have the Dirt Devil Kone, designed by Karim Rashid, a sleek conical object that looks so good it “can be left on display.” While the vacuum designs of James Dyson are rooted in a classic functionalist approach, the designs themselves embody the meaning of function, using color-coded segmentation of parts and even the expressive symbolism of a pivoting ball to connote a high-tech approach to domestic cleaning. On the other hand, the Roomba, a robotic vacuum cleaner, uses various sensors and programming to establish its physical relationship to the room it cleans, forsaking any continuous contact with its human users, with only the occasional encounter with a house pet. In a display of advanced product development, however, the company that makes the Roomba now offers a basic kit that can be modified by robot enthusiasts in numerous, unscripted ways, placing design and innovation in the hands of its customers.

If the first phase of design offered us infinite forms and the second phase variable interpretations — the injection of content to create new forms — then the third phase presents a multitude of contingent or conditional solutions: open-ended rather than closed systems; real world constraints and contexts over idealized utopias; relational connections instead of reflexive imbrication; in lieu of the forelorn designer, the possibility of many designers; the loss of designs that are highly controlled and prescribed and the ascendency of enabling or generative systems; the end of discrete objects, hermetic meanings, and the beginning of connected ecologies.

After 100 years of experiments in form and content, design now explores the realm of context in all its manifestations — social, cultural, political, geographic, technological, philosophical, informatic, etc. Because the results of such work do not coalesce into a unified formal argument and because they defy conventional working models and processes, it may not be apparent that the diversity of forms and practices unleashed may determine the trajectory of design for the next century.

Andrew Blauvelt, Towards Relational Design (2008) Design Observer, 07.09.20 

[localbizlift]

How to use Amazon and advertising to build a D2C startup

Matt Altman & Tyler Elliston Contributor

Matt Altman runs the Amazon practice area for VMG Ignite, an eCommerce consultancy that helps early to mid stage CPG companies achieve growth. Tyler Elliston is the founder of VMG Ignite. Clients include Sun Bum, Perfect Snacks, Aloha, Pill Club, Solid Gold, and many more.

Entrepreneurship in consumer packaged goods (CPG) is being democratized. Every step of the value channel has been compressed and made more affordable (and thereby accessible).

At VMG Ignite, we have worked with dozens of direct-to-consumer startups trying to both find product-market fit and achieve scale through Amazon and online advertising.

This article focuses on customer acquisition, particularly Amazon and online advertising, for the direct-to-consumer (D2C) CPG venture. Selling on Amazon, specifically third-party (3P), has become an increasingly important component of the D2C playbook. About 46% of product searches start on Amazon, which makes it a compelling source of sales even for early-stage ventures.

Table of contents

How to find product-market fit

How to get started with Amazon

Maximizing sales on Amazon 

Titles

Image stack

Bullet points

Descriptions

Backend details

Browse nodes

A+ content

Ads

Getting started with Facebook ads

Growing sales after you have product-market fit

What tools and technology to use for your D2C business 

How to find product-market fit 

People say that ideas are a dime a dozen. They aren’t valuable. But finding product-market fit? Now, that’s hard. The gap between an unexecuted idea and proven product-market fit can seem vast. Yet it’s a critical first step because, ultimately, marketing amplifies your product and value proposition.

If they aren’t compelling, marketing will fail. If they’re compelling, even mediocre marketing can often be successful. So start with a great product that people love.

How do you create a great product, you ask? A/B test your product configuration like you A/B test your landing page, copy, and design. Your product is a variable, not a constant. Build, ship, get feedback. Build, ship, get feedback. Turn detractors into your customer panel for testing.

Early-stage D2C companies typically get their first customers through three channels:

Begging your friends and family to buy and promote your product.

List it on Amazon as a 3P seller. Figure out the platform and start selling!

Advertise on Facebook. Start with a daily budget of 10x your price point to get started and start tinkering with creative, audiences, and settings to minimize cost per order.

The companies that succeed are often the ones that iterate the fastest. In his book Creative Confidence, IDEO founder David Kelley and his co-author (and brother) Tom relay a story of a pottery class that was split into two groups.

The first group was told they would each be graded on the single best piece of pottery they each produced. The second group was told they would each be graded based on the sheer volume of pottery they produced.

Naturally, the first group labored to craft the perfect piece while the second group churned through pottery with reckless abandon. Perhaps not so intuitive, at the end of the class, all the best pottery came from the second group! Iteration was a more effective driver of quality than intentionality.

Don’t know how to manage Amazon or Facebook? Here are some best practices:

How to get started with Amazon

[pmsocialmedia]

How to use Amazon and advertising to build a D2C startup

Matt Altman & Tyler Elliston Contributor

Matt Altman runs the Amazon practice area for VMG Ignite, an eCommerce consultancy that helps early to mid stage CPG companies achieve growth. Tyler Elliston is the founder of VMG Ignite. Clients include Sun Bum, Perfect Snacks, Aloha, Pill Club, Solid Gold, and many more.

Entrepreneurship in consumer packaged goods (CPG) is being democratized. Every step of the value channel has been compressed and made more affordable (and thereby accessible).

At VMG Ignite, we have worked with dozens of direct-to-consumer startups trying to both find product-market fit and achieve scale through Amazon and online advertising.

This article focuses on customer acquisition, particularly Amazon and online advertising, for the direct-to-consumer (D2C) CPG venture. Selling on Amazon, specifically third-party (3P), has become an increasingly important component of the D2C playbook. About 46% of product searches start on Amazon, which makes it a compelling source of sales even for early-stage ventures.

Table of contents

How to find product-market fit

How to get started with Amazon

Maximizing sales on Amazon 

Titles

Image stack

Bullet points

Descriptions

Backend details

Browse nodes

A+ content

Ads

Getting started with Facebook ads

Growing sales after you have product-market fit

What tools and technology to use for your D2C business 

How to find product-market fit 

People say that ideas are a dime a dozen. They aren’t valuable. But finding product-market fit? Now, that’s hard. The gap between an unexecuted idea and proven product-market fit can seem vast. Yet it’s a critical first step because, ultimately, marketing amplifies your product and value proposition.

If they aren’t compelling, marketing will fail. If they’re compelling, even mediocre marketing can often be successful. So start with a great product that people love.

How do you create a great product, you ask? A/B test your product configuration like you A/B test your landing page, copy, and design. Your product is a variable, not a constant. Build, ship, get feedback. Build, ship, get feedback. Turn detractors into your customer panel for testing.

Early-stage D2C companies typically get their first customers through three channels:

Begging your friends and family to buy and promote your product.

List it on Amazon as a 3P seller. Figure out the platform and start selling!

Advertise on Facebook. Start with a daily budget of 10x your price point to get started and start tinkering with creative, audiences, and settings to minimize cost per order.

The companies that succeed are often the ones that iterate the fastest. In his book Creative Confidence, IDEO founder David Kelley and his co-author (and brother) Tom relay a story of a pottery class that was split into two groups.

The first group was told they would each be graded on the single best piece of pottery they each produced. The second group was told they would each be graded based on the sheer volume of pottery they produced.

Naturally, the first group labored to craft the perfect piece while the second group churned through pottery with reckless abandon. Perhaps not so intuitive, at the end of the class, all the best pottery came from the second group! Iteration was a more effective driver of quality than intentionality.

Don’t know how to manage Amazon or Facebook? Here are some best practices:

How to get started with Amazon

via Social – TechCrunch https://ift.tt/2ZrQ6tU

[un-enfant-immature]

How to use Amazon and advertising to build a D2C startup

Matt Altman & Tyler Elliston Contributor

Matt Altman runs the Amazon practice area for VMG Ignite, an eCommerce consultancy that helps early to mid stage CPG companies achieve growth. Tyler Elliston is the founder of VMG Ignite. Clients include Sun Bum, Perfect Snacks, Aloha, Pill Club, Solid Gold, and many more.

Entrepreneurship in consumer packaged goods (CPG) is being democratized. Every step of the value channel has been compressed and made more affordable (and thereby accessible).

At VMG Ignite, we have worked with dozens of direct-to-consumer startups trying to both find product-market fit and achieve scale through Amazon and online advertising.

This article focuses on customer acquisition, particularly Amazon and online advertising, for the direct-to-consumer (D2C) CPG venture. Selling on Amazon, specifically third-party (3P), has become an increasingly important component of the D2C playbook. About 46% of product searches start on Amazon, which makes it a compelling source of sales even for early-stage ventures.

Table of contents

How to find product-market fit

How to get started with Amazon

Maximizing sales on Amazon 

Titles

Image stack

Bullet points

Descriptions

Backend details

Browse nodes

A+ content

Ads

Getting started with Facebook ads

Growing sales after you have product-market fit

What tools and technology to use for your D2C business 

How to find product-market fit 

People say that ideas are a dime a dozen. They aren’t valuable. But finding product-market fit? Now, that’s hard. The gap between an unexecuted idea and proven product-market fit can seem vast. Yet it’s a critical first step because, ultimately, marketing amplifies your product and value proposition.

If they aren’t compelling, marketing will fail. If they’re compelling, even mediocre marketing can often be successful. So start with a great product that people love.

How do you create a great product, you ask? A/B test your product configuration like you A/B test your landing page, copy, and design. Your product is a variable, not a constant. Build, ship, get feedback. Build, ship, get feedback. Turn detractors into your customer panel for testing.

Early-stage D2C companies typically get their first customers through three channels:

Begging your friends and family to buy and promote your product.

List it on Amazon as a 3P seller. Figure out the platform and start selling!

Advertise on Facebook. Start with a daily budget of 10x your price point to get started and start tinkering with creative, audiences, and settings to minimize cost per order.

The companies that succeed are often the ones that iterate the fastest. In his book Creative Confidence, IDEO founder David Kelley and his co-author (and brother) Tom relay a story of a pottery class that was split into two groups.

The first group was told they would each be graded on the single best piece of pottery they each produced. The second group was told they would each be graded based on the sheer volume of pottery they produced.

Naturally, the first group labored to craft the perfect piece while the second group churned through pottery with reckless abandon. Perhaps not so intuitive, at the end of the class, all the best pottery came from the second group! Iteration was a more effective driver of quality than intentionality.

Don’t know how to manage Amazon or Facebook? Here are some best practices:

How to get started with Amazon

[theforbiz]

We review 11 fundamental points to create a solid, convincing and personality brand image, touching on key points such as humor, the logo, the naming process or the importance of storytelling.

Oscar Wilde said that of “be yourself, everyone else is already caught.” To make your brand image breakthrough, attractive and uniform, do not miss the opportunity to squeeze the following tips.

Squeeze the naming process

Choose the name of your project is essential and if not, think of the names with more hook of the market, from Microsoft to Nike, Amazon, Samsung, Windows or Nestle. As notes to complete your naming process, it is essential that you evoke your own personality, be easy to remember, pronounce, spell and write, that is record able and has connotations that evoke the essence of the project. If it is short and intuitive, much better. You can also apply the principles of storytelling. Oh, and do not forget the domain!

Magnetic logo

It is one of the fundamental elements of your corporate identity and an opportunity to dazzle and captivate your followers. It is essential that the logo is simple and that it has no more than two or three colors. Including something eye-catching is the key to success, or would you remember Apple’s apple if it did not have the bite? As you want to highlight the usefulness, evoke emotions or awaken curiosity you can apply different principles of neuromarketing

Explore typographies, study sources, their size and their adaptation to digital media or mobile devices, tell a good story and reflect your brand philosophy in the symbology of your logo.

Check out the various online tools for testing and tinkering with your next corporate logo. You can also contrast its originality on platforms such as Logo Thief to avoid plagiarism.

Uses the psychology of color

Corporate colors convey sensations to consumers that vary according to their sociocultural environment, their individual tastes and even the physical effects they produce. For example, blue suppresses appetite, yellow causes more eyestrain, and red increases blood pressure.

If we talk about how colors are usually used as codes in the advertising framework, white is sober and bright and usually transmits seriousness and professionalism, so it is used by many tech and health brands. Red is emotionally intense and symbolizes very different points such as prohibition, love, passion or violence. It is usually used for sports, games and vehicles, transmitting a lot of energy.

Green is associated with safety, the power of healing and spiritual balance, representing growth, fertility and freshness. It is usually found in medical products, environmental initiatives, associated outdoor brands and also financial and banking products. For its part, blue relaxes and calms, is more linked to intelligence and consciousness, being used for cleaning products, high precision and technology. In this article we tell you how to select the most appropriate color range according to your type of brand.

Write your internal manifesto

Taking the will of numerous artistic vanguards, creating a brand manifesto can help you to proclaim the intentions of your project. Synthesizing your purposes in concise and energetic points, the values that inspire the initiative, your firm convictions and the mantras and slogans to follow, you can clearly visualize your assignment and transmit it in a powerful way. The California studios of the IDEO Company, product Development Company, encouraged the staff: “encourages wild ideas” and “takes advantage of the ideas of others.” You can inspire yourself by reading the manifestos of Surrealists, Dadaists, De Stijl and the Situationists.

Make your own storyboard

The simple fact of drawing an idea helps to develop it and allows complexing the initial approaches of any creative process, including the brand image. Storyboards are made, as you can do yours.

If you can think of something, garabatealo on a napkin, make connections and use the clarity to crystallize your ideas. The visualization and the sketches allow sharing the first steps of any project with collaborators and clients. You can also use online tools such as Pixton or Canva.

Take the ideas out of your personal life

As stated by Al Jean, one of the writers of The Simpsons is key “to get ideas from real life”. Your past, your family, your problems, your internal conflicts, your education or the news you read in the newspaper can be a source of inspiration.

Cross the borders of different disciplines

Just as the collections of the big fashion companies show on the catwalks inspirations in diverse cultures, gastronomy, design or religion, crossing borders and putting the spotlight in other disciplines can help you to scratch and find the desired originality.

Mix formats

Applying an existing format from one field to another can lead to great innovations. For example, Owen Maclaren created the first baby stroller using the system for the landing gear of the Splitfire fighter aircraft of World War II. Try to apply concepts of theater to design, to be inspired by the functional designs of everyday objects, to drink poetry or musical refrains for your slogans and a long etcetera.

Use the brain acrobatics of humor

Writing and telling jokes can be a shortcut to think creatively and boost the necessary mental agility that any brand image needs. Listen to monologues, apply a sense of humor to your campaigns, resort to parody, study irony and analyze the mechanism of laughter and its impact on consumers.

Simplify to guess

Simplifying is the key to the great inventions of history, from the wheel to the broom, going through the light bulb. Try to find the maximum meaning with the minimum means to clarify and face the challenge that your brand involves. As jazz musician Charles Mingus said, “Creativity consists in doing the complicated simple”. You can experiment writing newspaper headlines, micro-stories in the form of tweets or inspiring examples such as the Crystal Palace or the houses of Thomas Edison, created with a single type of concrete.

Trust your intuition

Your intuition is a gift and a powerful tool that you must develop, polish and use. If in solving the challenges of your brand image you perceive that kind of spontaneous conviction that comes from within, obey the hunch and do not ignore this kind of premonitions. If your insides tell you that you are taking the right direction, why deny it? Not in vain we have 100 million neurons in the walls of the stomach and intestines.

The post 11 Steps to Get the Best Possible Brand Image appeared first on TheForBiz - Change Your World.

http://bit.ly/2WuHmBF

[calumdixon]

Design Models - IDEO Design Kit

IDEO have also created their own design kit, IDEO’s approach to the design model is similar to the double diamond in that it shows two examples of convergent and divergent thinking, it differs though is that IDEO split their model into three stages, Inspiration, Ideation and Implementation. IDEO also chose to instead visualize this process using a continuous graph instead, which personally is a approach I prefer because it doesn’t imply an end point. Another interesting thing about the IDEO design kit is that it doesn’t just include their model and methods but also shows the reader the mindsets of the IDEO team and case studies where their thinking was implemented. When viewing IDEO’s design kit you can find all the method’s they use, each is colour coded in way so that you know which stage of the design process they belong to, for example I understand that “Card Sorting” belongs to the inspiration stage. IDEO provide so many activities that I would end up writing a short book if I were to talk about all of them so I will only talk about my favorites.

Mindsets

Before I get started on the methods that IDEO use I want to talk about the mindsets section that IDEO provide, simply because it ordered first in their guide to Human-Centered Design book. The mindsets presented the user cover various different concepts but are all focused on trying to get the reader to embrace the IDEO thinking process as well as to get them into the IDEO mindset so that they can get the best results from their design process.

The Inspiration Stage

During the inspiration stage your team will be open yourself to creative possibilities and attempt to identify and define problems being faced in different communities. You will be building your team, gathering knowledge and brainstorming various different ways the problem could be solved. Some of my favourite methods in the inspiration stage include, “Immersion, Secondary Research and Card Sorting.” Immersion is definitely the most intriguing of the bunch, it essentially asks the team to immerse themselves in the lives the lead, the easiest way to understand the problems they face is to encounter them yourself; obviously though this isn’t always possible for example men can’t immerse themselves in the lives of women to aid the making of a woman only product. Secondary Research was something that i included simply because in the other design model’s I’ve looked at it hasn’t been mentioned it despite it being so important. Lastly, Cart sorting is creating a set of cards of the things that are most important to your user, with these we can more easily access the level of importance these things have as well as easily discuss with the user why they are of importance.

The Ideation Stage

The Ideation stage is all about iteration and the generation of ideas, in this stage we begin by sharing what we have learned and then begin the process of rough prototyping, discarding ideas that don’t work so well and keeping those that do for further iterations and refinement, we continue this refinement process until your ready to “get your solution out into the world” Some the methods you’ll use in this stage are “Journey Maps, Mash Ups and Roleplay” Journey Maps are used to identify key moments in the a user’s experience for example on Amazon a key moment would be the buying of a product. Having a better understanding of the these key moments makes it easier to understand how people will want to use your product which also makes it easier to understand how you should make it. Mash ups are quite similar to something I talked about with Chris recently, they are essentially brain storming the combination of two different things for example when Chris and I discussed the topic we were talking about what the “Monzo of education would look like.” Lastly Roleplay is used to play yourself in the position of the user and ask yourself what exactly is your problem and how would you want it solved.

The Implementation Stage

The implementation stage focuses on bringing the solution to market, refine the your business model and validate your product and eventually realising the solution to the world.

Questions

Another thing I saw the IDEO design kit do that didn’t see in others was that IDEO included various questions, such as “how do I know if these techniques are working?” It would then bring up the various different methods you could use to find out, in the case of the example I gave you would be told to use the following methods, “Gut Check, Get Feedback, Integrate Feedback & Iterate, Explore your hunch and Keep Getting Feedback.” I just thought this was a nice additional touch, with so many methods being involved it can be hard to know where to start and can feel easy to get lost, so having these quick sections can offer some much needed direction.

Case Studies

Throughout the design kit IDEO sprinkles in case studies and spotlights highlighting how the thinking methods they are teaching you have been used in their projects and how they benefited from their use. I thought this was brilliant, examples are one of the most powerful learning tools we have so we should using any chance we have to teach concepts using them.

Reflecting on the IDEO design kit

I would say that the IDEO design kit is the best of the design models I’ve looked at, It is has all the benefits that the Frog Design’s CAT has in terms of providing a robust range of activities to help teams but it also goes the extra mile to validate their reasoning behind why you should use these techniques through the use of case studies.

[jae-bummer]

My Idol: Part Eight

My Idol From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

My Idol is a South Korean competitive reality dating game show. It currently airs on Wednesday nights on Jae-bummer’s blog. First broadcast in 2016, the show offers the opportunity for a lucky fan to go on seven blind dates with seven idols. The idol plans the date with the show throwing in specific missions to complete during the day. At the end of the initial dates, the show opens up an audience vote to decide what three idols will move on to the second date.

Part 1 - Part 2 - Part 3 - Part 4 - Part 5 - Part 6 - Part 7 - Part 8 - Part 9 - Part 10 - Part 11 - Part 12 - Part 13 - Part 14 - Part 15 - Part 16 - Part 17 - Part 18 - Part 19 - Part 20 - Part 21 - Part 22

You gasped as the handsome man before you dissolved into a soft mess of coos and gwiyomi.

“ildeo hagi ileun gwiyomi,” he murmured, his voice squeaking. His fingers fluttered against his dimples, batting his eyelashes as he went. “Ideo hagi ineun gwiyomi.”

You watched, a mix of horror and joy on your face. Never had you seen a human turn into something so genuinely pure. 

“Please just laugh,” he whispered, continuing his motions. “Gwiyomi.”

You let out a small giggle at his plea. His face immediately relaxed into a less stressed smile, his dimples as deep as caverns. 

“Does that pass?” he gasped, looking to the camera men. They both shrugged with disinterested expressions. Jooheon turned back to you, his face lit up with excitement. “That passes! We passed! We don’t take the penalty.”

He held tight to your hands, waving them up and down. His smile was contagious as you returned it. 

“You know, to be fair, I wasn’t laughing at your aegyo,” you chuckled. “I was laughing at your request for me to bring an end to it.”

“Aigoo, don’t say that!” Jooheon grumbled. “They’ll take away the pass. Just let me have my small win, Y/N!”

“Alright, alright,” you grinned. “You are so funny, Jooheon! If I let myself laugh too hard, I may have difficulty breathing.” 

“If you’re humoring me, it still hurts my feelings,” Jooheon laughed, shaking his head. He squeezed your hand, which was still encased in his fingers, before letting it go. He set his chin on his palm, stirring idly at his coffee. “Have I told you that you’re pretty?”

You lifted your brows. “You know I don’t get to decide who I go on a date next with, right?” 

“I’m not trying to win brownie points,” Jooheon smiled. “I really do think that you’re pretty. I saw the episode...”

“Jooheon,” you began, his name more of a warning than anything. You had already established that it wasn’t encouraged to talk about other dates with your current date. 

“I know I’m not supposed to talk about the other dates,” Jooheon whined. “But it’s a good show and I like to look at your face.”

You rolled your eyes, incapable of hiding the smile he kept resurrecting. 

“I saw the episode where Taehyungie was talking about how you were JIn hyung and his ideal type,” Jooheon continued. “And I can’t disagree. I can’t even be mad about you going on all these dates. Like, I’m kind of jealous that it’s not me, but also, art like you should be admired and ...and...

stared at?”

“Stared at?” you choked, spluttering out the sip of coffee you had just taken. 

“Yah, not stared at,” Jooheon sighed. “Appreciated, thought on, uh...I said admired, right?”

“For someone so good with words...” you teased. 

“My wit is rendered useless in front of a pretty woman,” Jooheon chuckled. “I guess it’s the effect you have on me.”

You lowered your gaze, not able to stare at the perfection that was Lee Jooheon for much longer. He always had the right thing queued up to say and your cheeks were ablaze from all of the attention. Even if he couldn’t see your blush, your face and neck had nearly broken into a sweat from the amount of emotions coursing through your body. The past few weeks had been a whirlwind of scrutiny. You had never imagined so many different and talented men would be even remotely interested in you, but you were completely surprised each time the words left their handsome mouths. It was as if you were living in an alternate reality, unsure if you wanted to go back to the normal day to day or live in this flux of beating hearts and nervous butterflies. 

“You want to go for a walk?” Jooheon asked, perking up at his own idea. 

“It’s cold,” you whispered, shooting a casual side eye to one of the windows of the cafe. It was steamed up from the warmth of the heaters pumping inside. 

“I’m hot,” Jooheon grinned with a wink. “Really! Not trying to make a joke. I’m kind of like a human space heater. Just hang onto me.”

You lifted your brows, biting on your lip as you considered the possibilities. Cuddling with Jooheon in the cold didn’t sound like the worst idea that had ever been presented to you. 

“If it’s too cold, we can go inside again?” you whispered. 

“Of course,” he nodded. “Here, I’ll even help you out.”

Jooheon leaned over, picking up a beanie he had placed on the chair beside him. He fluffed it out, pulling off a few stray hairs, before reaching out to you and placing it snuggly on your head. Your eyes grew wide as your hand moved up slowly, your fingers touching the edge of the knit gingerly as if to confirm that it was actually there. 

“Your head is where all of your body heat escapes.” 

“Then you need this,” you said quietly, your fingers running across the stitching of the brand. 

“I like the cold,” Jooheon nodded, putting an end to the conversation. He stood, pulling his coat on, and offering his arm for you to grab onto. You stood as well, grateful for his body heat as you both shuffled outside. 

“There’s a park a few blocks away,” Jooheon nodded, the brisk night air assaulting your bare skin. “It’s really pretty when it’s lit up at night.”

“You seem to think a lot of things are really pretty,” you giggled, content with teasing Jooheon. He was a good sport with it all. 

Jooheon grinned, looking down on you fondly as you clung to his arm. He placed his free hand lightly over the hand you were using to hold on to his coat. He calmly passed his thumbs over your knuckles, warming up the small bit of exposed area. 

“You’re a different kind of pretty from the lights, if that’s what your hinting at,” Jooheon laughed. “Granted your both pretty bright and illuminating, but I’m almost certain I already prefer looking at you more.” 

“And that’s how I almost talked Shownu hyung into selling Changkyun on Amazon,” Jooheon concluded, his story coming to a close as you finally reached the park. Your sides hurt with how much laughter he was inducing. 

‘We need to...can we...pause?” you heaved, leaning forward and placing your palms on your knees. You gasped, every labored breath causing the stitch in your side to tighten. 

“Sorry,” Jooheon sighed, appearing behind you and rubbing on your clenched side. His fingers moved gently, helping you work out the knot that had appeared. 

“Don’t apologize,” you hissed. “Laughter is good for the soul.”

“I agree,” he smiled. 

You leaned to the opposite side, finally working out muscle tightness. “I think I’m good.”

“Good,” Jooheon nodded, his fingers halting their motions, only to wrap around the front of you to encase you in a back hug. You froze, but not from the cold. You weren’t expecting this level of affection from the kind-hearted boy, but you weren’t necessarily surprised. His nickname wasn’t Honey for nothing. 

You tried to stay calm as the fact that Jooheon was wrapped around you slowly set in. “Is this too much?” he whispered, setting his chin on your shoulder. You could faintly smell his cologne, heavy with a uniquely Jooheon scent that you couldn’t put your finger on. Whatever it was mixed well with his skin, causing you to repeatedly inhale to get it ingrained in your nostrils. 

“No,” you said softly. You closed your eyes, taking another deep breath in and trying to internalize the moment. The cold air was refreshing on your hot skin. You hissed as a slight breeze kicked up, causing Jooheon to wiggle even closer to you. 

“Mission,” one of the camera men sighed, pushing a red envelope in your direction. 

“I can see how these things get annoying,” Jooheon grumbled, shuffling backwards and detaching himself from your body. Your face fell at the loss of contact. He took the red envelope from your hands and scrunched his face as he read.  

“Do you want to build a snowman? Create a three tiered snow person. Finish in two minutes and escape the penalty.” 

“It’s...it’s not even snowing,” you whispered, looking around quickly at your surroundings. “There’s like three inches of slush on everything if you want to call that snow?”

“I think that’s what they’re calling snow,” Jooheon muttered grimly. 

“Aish,” you hissed, stomping your foot. “We could lose our fingers! It’s too cold!” 

“So do you want to accept the penalty?” Armpit asked, his eyebrows lifted. 

“We’re going to do the mission,” Jooheon whined. “We’re just going to complain about it.”

You rolled your eyes, eying a bench that had acquired a good bit of wintery mix. “Start your time.”

The camera man grunted to symbolize that he had begun as you and Jooheon began to scramble around the area. You both whined as you packed the slushy-like ice, attempting to form small spheres in order to build a snow person. 

“This is ridiculous,” Jooheon griped. “How are we expected to do this? You’re making a woman suffer in extreme conditions and-”

“I have the butt!” you yelled, pointing to your progress on the bench. You had managed to quickly and efficiently form the bottom part of the snow man. 

“She has the butt!” Jooheon screeched in excitement, forgetting his previous complaint. He began rolling  his ball with a bit more fervor than he was previously. After about a minute he stood, pointing to the small snowball that had finally clung together in his hands. “I have the stomach!”

“I’m working on his face,” you grunted, pinching ice together. You had long since lost feeling in your digits. 

“30 seconds,” Sweaty sighed, looking dully down at his watch. 

“You can do this!” Jooheon shouted, jumping up and down behind you. He had added the middle part of the “snow” person. “I believe in you!” 

You grinned, listening to Jooheon’s shrieks and laughter cut through the quiet night air. Slowly, but surely, you packed enough ice to form a small ball and placed it on the tiny body of the snow man. “We did it!” 

“We did it!” Jooheon yelled, flying toward you with open arms. He wrapped them around your waist, lifting you up, and began to spin you. “We did it! No penalties! No penalties!”

You laughed as you wrapped your arms around his neck, holding on for dear life. After a few moments, Jooheon’s laughter began to quiet and he slowly placed your feet back onto the ground. His hands eased from around your waist, but grabbed at your own hands. He lifted them to his face where he began to blow warm breaths onto your frozen fingers. You looked upon him, a small smile on your face. How could you be on a date with such a considerate human being? 

“We...we should probably get you home,” Jooheon nodded, a sad smile crossing his face. You nodded, a silent agreement that you didn’t want to acknowledge. 

Most of the walk home you two continued your childish banter. You remained tight to his arm, attempting to sponge what heat you could. He wasn’t lying, his body warmth was no joke. No wonder he had leant you his hat. 

“Here,” you whispered, remembering that you did indeed still possess an article of his clothing. “Before I forget.”

You had arrived at the front of your apartment, unhappy with the evening having to end. It was well past ten at this point and you assumed Jooheon would probably have a schedule in the morning. His sleep was more important to you. 

“No,” Jooheon insisted, pushing your hands toward you. “Keep it. I can get it back from you next time.”

“But Jooheon-” you argued, shaking your head. What if there was no next time?

“I stand by my statement,” he nodded. “I’ll get it from you next time.”

Before you had a chance to argue again, he grabbed your coat by the open edges and tugged you into him. He wrapped his arms around you tightly, making you feel warm and wanted. You took the last opportunity you had to really enjoy Jooheon. His scent, his warmth, his soft breathes easing out into your hair. He was every bit as wonderful as you had built him up in your head to be. His date was a much welcomed calm you didn’t know you needed after Jay’s date the previous week. 

“I appreciated tonight,” he whispered, his thoughts echoing your own. “It’s nice to think that I’m just a regular guy in my 20′s sometimes.”

You leaned back, smiling at him. “I agree. It’s nice to think that I’m just a girl that Lee Jooheon finds really pretty sometimes.” 

He nodded, his smile growing wider as he placed a light kiss onto your hairline. “Sometimes? All the time. If you ever need a reminder, just let me know.”

Part 1 - Part 2 - Part 3 - Part 4 - Part 5 - Part 6 - Part 7 - Part 8 - Part 9 - Part 10 - Part 11 - Part 12 - Part 13 - Part 14 - Part 15 - Part 16 - Part 17 - Part 18 - Part 19 - Part 20 - Part 21 - Part 22

[sheminecrafts]

How to use Amazon and advertising to build a D2C startup

Matt Altman & Tyler Elliston Contributor

Matt Altman runs the Amazon practice area for VMG Ignite, an eCommerce consultancy that helps early to mid stage CPG companies achieve growth. Tyler Elliston is the founder of VMG Ignite. Clients include Sun Bum, Perfect Snacks, Aloha, Pill Club, Solid Gold, and many more.

Entrepreneurship in consumer packaged goods (CPG) is being democratized. Every step of the value channel has been compressed and made more affordable (and thereby accessible).

At VMG Ignite, we have worked with dozens of direct-to-consumer startups trying to both find product-market fit and achieve scale through Amazon and online advertising.

This article focuses on customer acquisition, particularly Amazon and online advertising, for the direct-to-consumer (D2C) CPG venture. Selling on Amazon, specifically third-party (3P), has become an increasingly important component of the D2C playbook. About 46% of product searches start on Amazon, which makes it a compelling source of sales even for early-stage ventures.

Table of contents

How to find product-market fit

How to get started with Amazon

Maximizing sales on Amazon 

Titles

Image stack

Bullet points

Descriptions

Backend details

Browse nodes

A+ content

Ads

Getting started with Facebook ads

Growing sales after you have product-market fit

What tools and technology to use for your D2C business 

How to find product-market fit 

People say that ideas are a dime a dozen. They aren’t valuable. But finding product-market fit? Now, that’s hard. The gap between an unexecuted idea and proven product-market fit can seem vast. Yet it’s a critical first step because, ultimately, marketing amplifies your product and value proposition.

If they aren’t compelling, marketing will fail. If they’re compelling, even mediocre marketing can often be successful. So start with a great product that people love.

How do you create a great product, you ask? A/B test your product configuration like you A/B test your landing page, copy, and design. Your product is a variable, not a constant. Build, ship, get feedback. Build, ship, get feedback. Turn detractors into your customer panel for testing.

Early-stage D2C companies typically get their first customers through three channels:

Begging your friends and family to buy and promote your product.

List it on Amazon as a 3P seller. Figure out the platform and start selling!

Advertise on Facebook. Start with a daily budget of 10x your price point to get started and start tinkering with creative, audiences, and settings to minimize cost per order.

The companies that succeed are often the ones that iterate the fastest. In his book Creative Confidence, IDEO founder David Kelley and his co-author (and brother) Tom relay a story of a pottery class that was split into two groups.

The first group was told they would each be graded on the single best piece of pottery they each produced. The second group was told they would each be graded based on the sheer volume of pottery they produced.

Naturally, the first group labored to craft the perfect piece while the second group churned through pottery with reckless abandon. Perhaps not so intuitive, at the end of the class, all the best pottery came from the second group! Iteration was a more effective driver of quality than intentionality.

Don’t know how to manage Amazon or Facebook? Here are some best practices:

How to get started with Amazon

from iraidajzsmmwtv https://ift.tt/2ZrQ6tU via IFTTT

[technicalsolutions88]

Matt Altman & Tyler Elliston Contributor

Matt Altman runs the Amazon practice area for VMG Ignite, an eCommerce consultancy that helps early to mid stage CPG companies achieve growth. Tyler Elliston is the founder of VMG Ignite. Clients include Sun Bum, Perfect Snacks, Aloha, Pill Club, Solid Gold, and many more.

Entrepreneurship in consumer packaged goods (CPG) is being democratized. Every step of the value channel has been compressed and made more affordable (and thereby accessible).

At VMG Ignite, we have worked with dozens of direct-to-consumer startups trying to both find product-market fit and achieve scale through Amazon and online advertising.

This article focuses on customer acquisition, particularly Amazon and online advertising, for the direct-to-consumer (D2C) CPG venture. Selling on Amazon, specifically third-party (3P), has become an increasingly important component of the D2C playbook. About 46% of product searches start on Amazon, which makes it a compelling source of sales even for early-stage ventures.

Table of contents

How to find product-market fit

How to get started with Amazon

Maximizing sales on Amazon 

Titles

Image stack

Bullet points

Descriptions

Backend details

Browse nodes

A+ content

Ads

Getting started with Facebook ads

Growing sales after you have product-market fit

What tools and technology to use for your D2C business 

How to find product-market fit 

People say that ideas are a dime a dozen. They aren’t valuable. But finding product-market fit? Now, that’s hard. The gap between an unexecuted idea and proven product-market fit can seem vast. Yet it’s a critical first step because, ultimately, marketing amplifies your product and value proposition.

If they aren’t compelling, marketing will fail. If they’re compelling, even mediocre marketing can often be successful. So start with a great product that people love.

How do you create a great product, you ask? A/B test your product configuration like you A/B test your landing page, copy, and design. Your product is a variable, not a constant. Build, ship, get feedback. Build, ship, get feedback. Turn detractors into your customer panel for testing.

Early-stage D2C companies typically get their first customers through three channels:

Begging your friends and family to buy and promote your product.

List it on Amazon as a 3P seller. Figure out the platform and start selling!

Advertise on Facebook. Start with a daily budget of 10x your price point to get started and start tinkering with creative, audiences, and settings to minimize cost per order.

The companies that succeed are often the ones that iterate the fastest. In his book Creative Confidence, IDEO founder David Kelley and his co-author (and brother) Tom relay a story of a pottery class that was split into two groups.

The first group was told they would each be graded on the single best piece of pottery they each produced. The second group was told they would each be graded based on the sheer volume of pottery they produced.

Naturally, the first group labored to craft the perfect piece while the second group churned through pottery with reckless abandon. Perhaps not so intuitive, at the end of the class, all the best pottery came from the second group! Iteration was a more effective driver of quality than intentionality.

Don’t know how to manage Amazon or Facebook? Here are some best practices:

How to get started with Amazon

from Social – TechCrunch https://ift.tt/2ZrQ6tU Original Content From: https://techcrunch.com

[toomanysinks]

Three keys to cultivating an effective product development culture

Scott Tong Contributor

Share on Twitter

Scott Tong is a startup advisor and entrepreneur in residence at IMO Ventures. Previously he was head of product design at Pinterest, co-founder at IFTTT, and principal designer at IDEO. Follow him @ScottTong on Twitter.

Editor’s note: This guest post is a part of our latest initiative to demystify design and find the best brand designers and agencies in the world who work with early-stage companies — nominate a talented brand designer you’ve worked with.

Chances are you’ve heard one or more of the following statements at work (or some flavor of them):

“We’re an engineering-driven company.”

“We’re a product-driven company.”

“We’re a design-driven company.”

While at first glance the statements above may seem innocuous, what they really imply is a power dynamic where a particular perspective carries more weight and influence in decision-making than others. How did it get that way in the first place? Was the founder a PM in a previous company? Did the first hires all happen to be engineers? Or does the most vocal person happen to be from a particular discipline? These are some examples of how biases get institutionalized. They can get seeded early and compound over time, or happen quickly as new leaders get installed as the company grows.

Whether intentional or not, these imbalances can disempower other disciplines, create fiefdoms, and erode trust between colleagues. Over time, these divisions kill productivity and quality. Internal factions waste valuable time and energy jockeying for influence and control, while the product gets fragmented and confusing for users.

On the flip side, when disciplines and teams are aligned there is less value placed on which person or discipline “made the call.” Over time, teams move quickly, learn together, get through iteration cycles effortlessly, spend more time producing high-quality results that reach users, and less time infighting. It’s like being in a state of flow, but for teams. So what is it that these high-performing teams align on? You’ve probably heard it before, but it’s worth unpacking:

The user.

Ideally, the most important driver of decisions isn’t one person or discipline in your organization—it should be your user. Your job is to help them navigate. Everyone building the product or making decisions about it, regardless of discipline, should understand who they’re building for, and why what they’re doing is contributing to improving that user’s experience.

User-centric thinking is the hallmark of the world-class companies because they love and obsess about you—the user. Amazon calls this customer obsession. Ideo calls this human-centered design. During my time at Pinterest, the most important company value was to “Put Pinners first.”

By focusing on serving the user, it removes the pressure on any individual or discipline to always make the right call. Focusing on what is right for the user, rather than who is right removes ego from the equation. Users ultimately decide anyway—they vote with their behavior and attitudes.

Serving your users better is a goal with no finish line. Understand that the decisions you make will sometimes improve their experiences and sometimes degrade them. Nobody has 100% hit rate, and nobody can predict the future with complete certainty. In a culture of good decision-making, the goal isn’t to get any single decision exactly right (although that’s always nice), but to make consistently good (and better) decisions over time, especially the important ones.

So how do you get your company oriented around users? Consider three important factors: (1) people with the right mindset, (2) an approach to balanced decision-making that starts with users, and (3) the mechanics and properties of high-quality decisions.

1. Identify and empower T-shaped people

Differences in opinion are inevitable. But in order to have consistently productive discussions, debates, disagreements, and ultimately decisions, you’ll need T-shaped people. A T-shaped person refers to someone who has a deep domain expertise in at least one field (the depth of their T), as well as a strong ability to collaborate with people across other areas of expertise (the breadth of their T). Here’s some examples of T-shaped people, who might also happen to make a strong team:

T-shaped people tend to be the best teammates—they have deep knowledge that they are willing to share and explain to their counterparts, as well as a built-in curiosity that welcomes new perspectives. This is especially important in leadership and decision-making roles. What’s more, their curiosity and empathy doesn’t just apply to their colleagues, it naturally extends to users.

What T-shaped people realize is that no single person or discipline is more important than the other, nor should they strive to be. Sure, there are moments where one’s expertise makes their input more credible, but It’s how their collective talents serve the user that ultimately matter most. People (and hopefully T-shaped people) are the most basic ingredients of your culture. Choose wisely.

Ways to identify T-shaped people

Look for curiosity and empathy. Top quality execution and results are a given, but don’t stop looking there. What was the user problem they were trying to solve? How did they arrived at that solution? What were the insights that led them to take their projects in a particular direction? What promising directions did they decide not to pursue, and why? Were they involved in research and understanding the users? Can they clearly articulate the needs of the customer? Does it feel like they know them intimately and care?

Look for humility. On projects, what assumptions did they make that were completely wrong? How did the user or other disciplines show them a different and valuable perspective? Do they share the credit? Did they help others succeed? Individual talent is important, but building great products is a team sport.

2. Make balanced decisions that start with users

User-centered (aka customer-centric, human-centered) thinking is a way of framing problems with a clear starting point: understanding and empathizing with user needs. If T-shaped people are your basic ingredients, then the user-centered thinking is a recipe—a way to combine and enhance the ingredients to produce amazing results. Here’s what it looks like:

Have your team start by asking “what is the user problem we’re trying to solve?” It’s a deceivingly simple focusing mechanism. It may take some rigorous debate to align on the right problem, but once that happens, decisions from all disciplines have a clear tie back to driving user value first—making the product faster, cheaper, more efficient, more delightful, easier to understand—then orienting their collective effort around providing that value.

Less user-centric teams will do the opposite: look for ways to make their own work easier or more efficient, look to optimize their own sub-team metrics, or satisfy their own personal curiosities—and leave the user to orient themselves around their organizational efficiencies. If you’ve ever felt a broken sign-up flow or confusing onboarding experience, then you know what I’m talking about.

While user-centric thinking starts with users, no single lens is more important than the others. It’s entirely possible to satisfy a user completely, while simultaneously killing your business. That’s not a good decision. Or you could dream up amazing ways to delight your user, but in ways that aren’t achievable with today’s technology—that’s no good either. The overlap of  perspectives is what leads to effective decisions and great solutions. T-shaped decision-makers will know how to make those appropriate tradeoffs.

3. Make high-quality decisions

Evaluating decisions through multiple lenses is important to getting to consistently good, balanced decisions over time. What decision best satisfies your user’s needs, is good for the business (overall, not just for your sub-team or business unit), and technically sound? The overlap is where high-quality decisions are born. But there are additional mechanics and properties that make decisions high-quality.

In my experience, high-quality product decisions are:

User-centric. First and foremost, rooted in understanding and serving user needs. Not just listening to what users say or watching what they do, but understanding how they think and feel.

Considered. They proactively seek input from, and communicate with, relevant stakeholders and examine the possibilities through multiple lenses before making decisions. They anticipate immediate effects, but also secondary and tertiary effects as well.

Balanced. It’s good for the user, good for the business overall, and technically sound.

Timely. They don’t take too long, but they aren’t made in haste either.

Calculated. It’s important to take risks, but don’t bet the farm unless it’s absolutely necessary. Start small and learn. Double down when it works, readjust when it doesn’t.

Communicated before action. They are stated as clearly as possible up-front, before taking action. Their rationale is shared, citing intended effects and flagging major risks.

Humble. Good decisions focus on what is right, not who is right. They embrace failure as part of the process, so long as there is valuable learning. For example, a decision may yield a learning that helps you not to pursue a particular direction, saving valuable time and effort.

Monitored. They are tracked closely to manage both positive and negative effects.

Shared broadly. Their results and learnings are examined and shared broadly (and especially with affected parties), whether results are good or bad; intended or unintended—giving future decisions a stronger starting point.

The case for culture

Very few companies, and even fewer startups, stand the test of time. Products and services today are all dynamic, and expected to evolve with the changing landscape of fickle users and emerging technologies. With limited time and resources, I can already hear people saying, “this seems like a lot of work” and ask, “can we really afford to invest this much thought and energy into culture?”

The bottom line is building great products is hard work. And it’s work that never ends, if you’re doing it well. Over time, your product will morph in small and big ways with each new version, to the point where it may be unrecognizable from your starting point. So what will persist, and why? Your culture—the people, their shared attitudes, values, goals, practices, and decisions—will determine that. So isn’t that worth investing in as much as the product itself? In the end, they’re one in the same.

source https://techcrunch.com/2019/04/04/three-keys-to-cultivating-an-effective-product-development-culture/

[fmservers]

Three keys to cultivating an effective product development culture

Scott Tong Contributor

Share on Twitter

Scott Tong is a startup advisor and entrepreneur in residence at IMO Ventures. Previously he was head of product design at Pinterest, co-founder at IFTTT, and principal designer at IDEO. Follow him @ScottTong on Twitter.

Editor’s note: This guest post is a part of our latest initiative to demystify design and find the best brand designers and agencies in the world who work with early-stage companies — nominate a talented brand designer you’ve worked with.

Chances are you’ve heard one or more of the following statements at work (or some flavor of them):

“We’re an engineering-driven company.”

“We’re a product-driven company.”

“We’re a design-driven company.”

While at first glance the statements above may seem innocuous, what they really imply is a power dynamic where a particular perspective carries more weight and influence in decision-making than others. How did it get that way in the first place? Was the founder a PM in a previous company? Did the first hires all happen to be engineers? Or does the most vocal person happen to be from a particular discipline? These are some examples of how biases get institutionalized. They can get seeded early and compound over time, or happen quickly as new leaders get installed as the company grows.

Whether intentional or not, these imbalances can disempower other disciplines, create fiefdoms, and erode trust between colleagues. Over time, these divisions kill productivity and quality. Internal factions waste valuable time and energy jockeying for influence and control, while the product gets fragmented and confusing for users.

On the flip side, when disciplines and teams are aligned there is less value placed on which person or discipline “made the call.” Over time, teams move quickly, learn together, get through iteration cycles effortlessly, spend more time producing high-quality results that reach users, and less time infighting. It’s like being in a state of flow, but for teams. So what is it that these high-performing teams align on? You’ve probably heard it before, but it’s worth unpacking:

The user.

Ideally, the most important driver of decisions isn’t one person or discipline in your organization—it should be your user. Your job is to help them navigate. Everyone building the product or making decisions about it, regardless of discipline, should understand who they’re building for, and why what they’re doing is contributing to improving that user’s experience.

User-centric thinking is the hallmark of the world-class companies because they love and obsess about you—the user. Amazon calls this customer obsession. Ideo calls this human-centered design. During my time at Pinterest, the most important company value was to “Put Pinners first.”

By focusing on serving the user, it removes the pressure on any individual or discipline to always make the right call. Focusing on what is right for the user, rather than who is right removes ego from the equation. Users ultimately decide anyway—they vote with their behavior and attitudes.

Serving your users better is a goal with no finish line. Understand that the decisions you make will sometimes improve their experiences and sometimes degrade them. Nobody has 100% hit rate, and nobody can predict the future with complete certainty. In a culture of good decision-making, the goal isn’t to get any single decision exactly right (although that’s always nice), but to make consistently good (and better) decisions over time, especially the important ones.

So how do you get your company oriented around users? Consider three important factors: (1) people with the right mindset, (2) an approach to balanced decision-making that starts with users, and (3) the mechanics and properties of high-quality decisions.

1. Identify and empower T-shaped people

Differences in opinion are inevitable. But in order to have consistently productive discussions, debates, disagreements, and ultimately decisions, you’ll need T-shaped people. A T-shaped person refers to someone who has a deep domain expertise in at least one field (the depth of their T), as well as a strong ability to collaborate with people across other areas of expertise (the breadth of their T). Here’s some examples of T-shaped people, who might also happen to make a strong team:

T-shaped people tend to be the best teammates—they have deep knowledge that they are willing to share and explain to their counterparts, as well as a built-in curiosity that welcomes new perspectives. This is especially important in leadership and decision-making roles. What’s more, their curiosity and empathy doesn’t just apply to their colleagues, it naturally extends to users.

What T-shaped people realize is that no single person or discipline is more important than the other, nor should they strive to be. Sure, there are moments where one’s expertise makes their input more credible, but It’s how their collective talents serve the user that ultimately matter most. People (and hopefully T-shaped people) are the most basic ingredients of your culture. Choose wisely.

Ways to identify T-shaped people

Look for curiosity and empathy. Top quality execution and results are a given, but don’t stop looking there. What was the user problem they were trying to solve? How did they arrived at that solution? What were the insights that led them to take their projects in a particular direction? What promising directions did they decide not to pursue, and why? Were they involved in research and understanding the users? Can they clearly articulate the needs of the customer? Does it feel like they know them intimately and care?

Look for humility. On projects, what assumptions did they make that were completely wrong? How did the user or other disciplines show them a different and valuable perspective? Do they share the credit? Did they help others succeed? Individual talent is important, but building great products is a team sport.

2. Make balanced decisions that start with users

User-centered (aka customer-centric, human-centered) thinking is a way of framing problems with a clear starting point: understanding and empathizing with user needs. If T-shaped people are your basic ingredients, then the user-centered thinking is a recipe—a way to combine and enhance the ingredients to produce amazing results. Here’s what it looks like:

Have your team start by asking “what is the user problem we’re trying to solve?” It’s a deceivingly simple focusing mechanism. It may take some rigorous debate to align on the right problem, but once that happens, decisions from all disciplines have a clear tie back to driving user value first—making the product faster, cheaper, more efficient, more delightful, easier to understand—then orienting their collective effort around providing that value.

Less user-centric teams will do the opposite: look for ways to make their own work easier or more efficient, look to optimize their own sub-team metrics, or satisfy their own personal curiosities—and leave the user to orient themselves around their organizational efficiencies. If you’ve ever felt a broken sign-up flow or confusing onboarding experience, then you know what I’m talking about.

While user-centric thinking starts with users, no single lens is more important than the others. It’s entirely possible to satisfy a user completely, while simultaneously killing your business. That’s not a good decision. Or you could dream up amazing ways to delight your user, but in ways that aren’t achievable with today’s technology—that’s no good either. The overlap of  perspectives is what leads to effective decisions and great solutions. T-shaped decision-makers will know how to make those appropriate tradeoffs.

3. Make high-quality decisions

Evaluating decisions through multiple lenses is important to getting to consistently good, balanced decisions over time. What decision best satisfies your user’s needs, is good for the business (overall, not just for your sub-team or business unit), and technically sound? The overlap is where high-quality decisions are born. But there are additional mechanics and properties that make decisions high-quality.

In my experience, high-quality product decisions are:

User-centric. First and foremost, rooted in understanding and serving user needs. Not just listening to what users say or watching what they do, but understanding how they think and feel.

Considered. They proactively seek input from, and communicate with, relevant stakeholders and examine the possibilities through multiple lenses before making decisions. They anticipate immediate effects, but also secondary and tertiary effects as well.

Balanced. It’s good for the user, good for the business overall, and technically sound.

Timely. They don’t take too long, but they aren’t made in haste either.

Calculated. It’s important to take risks, but don’t bet the farm unless it’s absolutely necessary. Start small and learn. Double down when it works, readjust when it doesn’t.

Communicated before action. They are stated as clearly as possible up-front, before taking action. Their rationale is shared, citing intended effects and flagging major risks.

Humble. Good decisions focus on what is right, not who is right. They embrace failure as part of the process, so long as there is valuable learning. For example, a decision may yield a learning that helps you not to pursue a particular direction, saving valuable time and effort.

Monitored. They are tracked closely to manage both positive and negative effects.

Shared broadly. Their results and learnings are examined and shared broadly (and especially with affected parties), whether results are good or bad; intended or unintended—giving future decisions a stronger starting point.

The case for culture

Very few companies, and even fewer startups, stand the test of time. Products and services today are all dynamic, and expected to evolve with the changing landscape of fickle users and emerging technologies. With limited time and resources, I can already hear people saying, “this seems like a lot of work” and ask, “can we really afford to invest this much thought and energy into culture?”

The bottom line is building great products is hard work. And it’s work that never ends, if you’re doing it well. Over time, your product will morph in small and big ways with each new version, to the point where it may be unrecognizable from your starting point. So what will persist, and why? Your culture—the people, their shared attitudes, values, goals, practices, and decisions—will determine that. So isn’t that worth investing in as much as the product itself? In the end, they’re one in the same.

Via Yvonne Leow https://techcrunch.com

[topicprinter]

Hey - Pat from StarterStory.com here with another interview.Today's interview is with Ray Li of Sene, a brand that sells custom tailored clothing.Some stats:Product: Custom tailored clothing.Revenue/mo: $40,000Margin: 60-65%ROAS: 2.5-3xStarted: January 2017Location: Los Angeles, CAFounders: 1Employees: 3Hello! Who are you and what business did you start?My name is Ray Li and I’m the founder of Sene. We take the classic idea of custom tailoring and modernize it with minimalist design and a sleek collection of styles for every day of the week.Our flagship products are our Men’s Field Jacket and Women’s Montmarte Coat. They are minimalist versions of classic styles, and then we custom-make it to fit with luxurious Japanese materials.We have a unique fitting process - we use calibration garments in your standard size to get your feedback on what you wished fit differently, then we cut the garment to order in 1-2.5 weeks. All alterations and remakes are included in the retail price.Our belief was if you combined beautiful design with a stick advantage (custom), we could create extreme loyalty. Two years in, we’ve proven that with 52% annual repeat rates on some of our top categories. We’ll do a little under half a million this year and we’ve accomplished this with very little capital.Our collection for men and women currently spans custom shirts, custom pants and bottoms, custom outerwear, custom basics (i.e. made-to-measure t-shirts), custom suits, custom tuxedos and custom blazers.What's your backstory and how did you come up with the idea?After graduating from Cornell, I was in management consulting at Deloitte doing global process transformations.Then I wanted to experience the other side of the coin, and went to Interbrand and helped companies define their global brand strategy. During my time there, I won a Rebrand100 award for the strategy work for turning around what used to be The Yellow Pages.I was fascinated with the idea of building a brand from scratch. Personally, there were a lot of brands where I loved the aesthetic but being a slim asian guy, the cut usually didn’t work on me. And I’ve had custom clothing made before, but the experience just never felt that special or elevated. The idea was - what if there could be a marriage of the luxury experience of a high-end brand, but the clothing was all custom fit instead of off-the-rack?My wife and I had just gotten married and we were excited to dig into the adventure. We started playing around with the idea on nights and weekends, and we love looking back at photos of us shipping some product from our tiny studio apartment in NYC.Take us through the process of designing, prototyping, and manufacturing the product.Fashion manufacturing is incredibly hard, to begin with, and we layered on the difficulty of the data and precision of making clothes custom accurately every...single..time.Though we now use a sophisticated online platform to manage all our orders, we started out placing orders with our first manufacturer by literally sending over PDFs we made in PowerPoint with details on each order! It’s hilarious how little we knew to start, but we figured it was better to get started and despite how messy the back of house was, the front of house AKA the brand really resonated with people.Here's a grungy Facebook photo my wife posted back in the early days:“My guy, dropping off 17 custom orders in the mail to a few of his customers.”We went through two manufacturers before we found the current two that we work with now. The lesson learned is - you get what you pay for. And if you want to create world-class product, you have to work with world-class manufacturers.For us - it wasn’t just making a beautiful clothing product, we had to figure out how you get people who would never shop custom to buy into custom clothing. And we’re not just talking suits, I’m talking about raw denim joggers and wool/silk blend field jackets. This is a radically new way to shop, and we experimented with a ton of different formats.We quickly went to omni-channel and now have our retail flagship store in LA. That was scary because most brands are digital-only for many years until they open a store.For us, because we were creating a new category, the store was like a research laboratory where we could learn about our customers really quickly. I remember signing that first rent check - it was the most money I had ever given away and it freaked me out.We also had to build a ton of technology to manage the data. We need body data, fit data, and order history data as well as how their fit evolves over the lifetime of doing business with us. We initially worked with a developer that was way too cheap and wrote really messy code and did a terrible job with QA, then we worked with a fantastic developer but unfortunately was too expensive for us. So you have to do what makes sense for where your company is and decide what you can afford, as well as what you’ll be really good at and what you’ll outsource.Describe the process of launching the business.Shopify has made the world a lot easier for entrepreneurs. I started with Wordpress, which is much better suited for blogging. Any sort of e-commerce business requires a lot of software integrations (i.e., email, app reviews, social) and Shopify is the best at this. It was a nightmare and we quickly switched over to Shopify, which today is a no brainer.We raised a 300K friends & family round and use it to launch a Los Angeles flagship store, develop a collection, and define a new way to shop. We were super frugal since we didn’t have the luxury of raising a bunch of venture capital money.Our advisory board includes the Retail Design Lead at Google who used to also lead environmental design at IDEO. He helped us create our retail concept, so we were able to launch a beautiful store from the start.At our launch event, it was pouring rain in LA and I was bummed that no one was going to come (yes LA is flaky). However come evening, we had almost 300 people show up to the flagship store. You could hardly move and people were overflowing into the street and the back alley. It was electric. We had a pretty big email list and just invited everyone who was in LA to come, and we partnered with Malin + Goetz and Hendrick’s Gin to offer free cocktails and products. A launch event is always a great way to get press, and can be cost-efficient if you can have vendors sponsor the food & beverage.However, the challenge was I had no idea how to run a store. In the first year, we went through several retail staff since I didn’t know what we were looking for and I spent a lot of time on the sales floor myself on weekdays and weekends just to learn the ropes. We learned that as a young brand that most people don’t know, the product really has to be sold - meaning you need strong sales associates who really tell the story of the brand and build relationships with customers. We’ve seen a 3x difference between really great associates who love the brand and champion it vs associates who are happy to sit on a chair and surf the internet.Since launch, what has worked to attract and retain customers?We tried most marketing tactics (that we could afford).Here’s what didn’t work:Hiring a paid marketing agencyWe hired a paid marketing agency but it didn’t work out well - our price point was too high to rely on Facebook Ads as the primary way for people to learn about us. Since most of our customers have never shopped custom, they really either needed to learn about us from sources of trust - friends, influencers and press.Hiring a PR personWe hired a PR person for a below market rate - but that person didn’t get much in terms of press hits. Then we started doing desktop research, just looking up journalists and sending them our story, and that’s when we started getting our best press stories (i.e. LA Times, WWD, Fashionista, etc).Here’s what did work for us:Influencer partnershipsWe focus heavily on influencer partnerships where we gift people free product to talk about the experience, and that started to perform quite well. For example, we worked with Sonja Rasula, the CEO of Unique Markets, to document her experience of getting suited up, and her wearing it at a wedding.Our business is very visual, and this allowed customers to see how simple it was to get custom, which most people think takes forever.Photo and video contentWe focus on creating photo and video content that is entertaining and creates value for the person. We will be releasing our first season of video features in Jan 2019, showcasing the entrepreneurial journey of someone from Death Cab For Cutie, the director for HBO shows like Insecure, and the CEO of Violet Grey.WholesaleAt this point, we’re not doing wholesale. Since we’re direct-to-consumer, we pass on the margin in the form of savings to the customer.Channels like Amazon also aren’t relevant since the process is more complex and can’t be managed on a traditional marketplace platform.How are you doing today and what does the future look like?We are pretty close to being consistently profitable, and that’s because we’re super frugal on our spend.Our business is very capital efficient. Our gross margins are 60-65% after shipping and fulfillment, and we make all of our products to order, so we hold hardly any inventory except that which goes toward the try-on experience in-store and online.My cousin Mark Zheng joined as my business partner at the start of this year and we hired Victoria, who is an amazing Retail Experience Lead, in Q2 this year. Massive positive impact on the business to round out the leadership team with people with strengths that are quite different than mine.On influencer campaigns, we see a 2.5-3x return on spend depending on the influencer, so we’re working hard to optimize our criteria on influencer selection. We have pretty high average order values, so that really helps us in terms of what we can afford to acquire a customer.Our plan in the next 12 months is to double-down on the LA market while significantly scaling our ecommerce business.Through starting the business, have you learned anything particularly helpful or advantageous?It helps tremendously to have a business partner. Before my cousin Mark joined, I ran a test with him helping out on a contract basis. We are very close and I knew it could either be amazing or horrible. I also prayed a lot about it and asked for advice from friends, and felt a lot of peace about the decision. It’s made a world of a difference to get to share the highs and lows of the journey with him.The theme is - take your time to work with the right people. In the early days, if you bring on the wrong person, it can kill the business. As an entrepreneur, you’re desperate for help and it’s easy to grab help wherever you can get it but it’s often better to wait and make sure.For consumer products, it’s also important to partner with the other companies with tight brand fit. It doesn’t matter whether you like a company personally. We had this one experience where we ran a multi-month brand partnership with a shoe brand where we personally loved the product but their customers felt our products were too expensive and it didn’t pan out.Finally, I’ve found that strong personal rhythms are important to keep you level-headed. My wife and I are part of a community group through our church and we also try to do date night often. Mark, his gf Cathy, my wife Krista and I often go out and do fun stuff together too.What platform/tools do you use for your business?E-commerce: ShopifyPersonal Email Mgmt: FrontCustomer Emails: KlaviyoCustomer service: FrontSocial Media: PlanolyAnalytics: Google Analytics, MozCollaboration: SlackUX: Sketch, InvisionContent: Adobe Creative SuiteWhat have been the most influential books, podcasts, or other resources?PodcastsHow I Built ThisBusiness Of FashionWell MadeBooksGritNever Split The Difference: Negotiating As If You’re Life Depended On ItThe Hard Thing About Hard ThingsThinking In BetsAdvice for other entrepreneurs who want to get started or are just starting out?It is not about how smart you are, it’s about the grit to stick it through the darkest and loneliest times.You may be smart, but you are not smart enough. Surround yourself with people who are better than you.Honesty and integrity matter.You run your business, your business shouldn’t run you. Never blame your business for not being able to accomplish things - take responsibility.Are you looking to hire for certain positions right now?We’re looking for a technical design lead and a content lead.Where can we go to learn more?senestudio.cominstagram.com/senestudioLiked this text interview? Check out the full interview with photos, tools, books, and other data.Interested in sharing your own story? Send me a PM

[ulyssessklein]

Why planning your release is more important than ever!

Four music promotion opportunities that are tied to your release date.

Release dates matter MORE (and less) than ever before.

On the one hand, since shelf space is no longer a factor in making music widely available, there’s less pressure to have a quick win with your new release.

And — as I often say — even your oldest music will always be new to millions or billions of people, so an older song or video can’t get stale as long as you’re serving it to new audiences.

From this perspective, it’s fine to release new music as it’s made, try some things, see what happens, and build upon what works. In the digital age, success really can accrue over the long-haul.

On the other hand, there’s still something to be said for making as big a splash as you can when a new song or album drops.

The more energy you create around your release — in the form of streaming activity, blog mentions, social shares, etc. — the further your music will travel in a short amount of time.

Before you can promote, plan your release date; and then…

1. Offer pre-saves and pre-sales

Communicating with your audience isn’t always about promotion; not every picture or tweet needs a call-to-action. BUT when you’re close to releasing new music, it’s a wasted opportunity to share info about an upcoming song or album without giving fans something they can DO with it.

Instead, choose a release date, sign up your music for distribution in advance, and then let your fans pre-purchase (on iTunes and Amazon) or pre-save it (on Spotify and Apple Music) whenever you talk about the new release.

Those sales are tallied on your release day, and that means you have a better chance of charting in the first week. Similarly, pre-saves will spike your early streaming activity, which could attract the attention of Spotify’s algorithm and lead to playlist placements, Spotify radio placements, and more.

Read more about:

pre-sales on iTunes and Amazon

pre-saves on Spotify

and pre-adds on Apple Music

2. Submit your music directly to official Spotify playlists

If your music has been delivered by CD Baby to Spotify at least 7 days ahead of the release date, you can go into your Spotify for Artists account and submit that song to Spotify’s editorial team for playlist consideration. That means you, we, and Spotify all have to know what your release date is, and you need to plan accordingly.

IMPORTANT: It can take a day or two for Spotify to display the music in your account after we’ve delivered it, so it’s best to sign up everything well in advance, and give it more than the minimum seven day window!

3. Reach ALL your Spotify followers

The above direct-submission process has one other benefit: Guaranteed placement on all your Spotify followers’ Release Radar playlists on your release day (or the Friday that follows). Spotify only has so much bandwidth for curated playlist placements, which is why guaranteed Release Radar placement might be a much bigger deal for you. It’s certainly a more reliable deal!

Depending on the size of your following on Spotify, these guaranteed placements on Release Radar can have a big impact on your early streaming activity. But it ain’t gonna happen unless you submit the song to Spotify at least 7 days ahead of its release.

Use post-launch promotion tools… RIGHT AWAY

As soon as your song is released, you want to do what you can to drive engagement. That means being ready with:

smart links

‘social unlock’ promo campaigns to drive streams on Spotify (free for CD Baby clients through Show.co)

video premiere campaigns

Audio messages to your fans via Pandora AMP

and more

Because your music stays “evergreen,” you don’t NEED to hop on all these things right away — but I would! It’s when YOU’LL be most excited about your new music, and that means your heart will be in the fight and your creativity will be flowing.

Don’t wait weeks or months or years. Get all this stuff lined up and ready to fire on Day One. Of course that means you need to set your release date in advance, and then work your way towards it.

These are just four of the online music promo opportunities that are contingent upon you planning for a specific release date well in advance. Obviously PR, blog submissions through something like SubmitHub, radio promo campaigns, and playlist promotion require lots of advance planning too.

Yes, you can finish a song today and have CD Baby distribute it worldwide right away. But why not take just a little bit more time to think ahead and get the most out of every release?

The post Why planning your release is more important than ever! appeared first on DIY Musician Blog.

[connorrenwick]

Our Favorite Technologies We Saw at CES 2018

The 2018 Consumer Electronics Show (CES) will be remembered for many things: an unexpected winter deluge that left attendees scrambling for cover and the Las Vegas Convention Center leaking from every corner, the ensuing nearly 2-hour blackout, a jaw-dropping 146-inch television, the unexpected ornamental splendor of a chandelier-like 50-Qubit quantum computer, the emerging horizon of 8K displays, and the confluence of smart home devices into cohesive experiences available wherever we go.

Exhibitors at this year’s show honed in on evolutionary refinements; compared to previous shows, the overall “wow” factor was dimmed, but there was a palpable sense the promise of smart technology was finally coalescing into a more cohesive experience versus the patchwork landscape that has characterized connecting the smart home category.

Integration of AI and voice command seemingly spilled forth from nearly every corner of the show, with personal robots continuing to dazzle attendees (despite their charm, none were truly yet ready for primetime), and the biggest players like Google, Amazon, Samsung, and Intel all staking claim to tying the loose shoelaces of smart technologies vying to take control of the home, office, and automobile.

Exciting for some, while horrifying for others, the Internet of Things (IoT) technologies at CES promise a future with an increasing amount of listening and speaking between user and machines. This also means technology’s presence is evolving beyond the need for traditional physical controls or interfaces, integrating invisibly into previously unexplored forms (though we still stand in appreciation of the tactile…long live dials and buttons!).

After surveying countless products across numerous halls and meeting rooms, we present our picks for the most interesting designs and technologies at CES 2018 below:

Samsung “Bring Objects to Life” Concept Home Samsung’s blindingly pristine concept “home” caught our eye with its futuristic interior decor, one envisioning not only a stain-free existence, but also homes where the perpetual aid of a cloud-powered AI exists everywhere. Samsung promises their SmartThings-powered ecosystem will simplify and unify the increasing amount of connected devices into a singular experience aesthetically executed (as showcased in the rest of their CES exhibit), and their all-white home of the future gave us a glimpse how it might all work.

Hidden inside furniture, underneath bathroom counters, and even inside a planter pot, Samsung’s voice-activated Bixby digital assistant followed a presenter across numerous spaces and situations, turning on and off televisions, air conditioners, ovens, and lights by voice. Privacy concerns aside, voice operated ecosystems will become the defacto standard by which users will operate smart home technologies. Whether it’s Samsung, Amazon, Google, or Apple that eventually wins out is yet to be seen.

Nokia Sleep There are sleep monitoring devices aplenty, but Nokia’s elegantly executed mattress pad is smaller and less intrusive than most. Their grey band-aid shaped Wi-Fi monitoring device slides under each side of the mattress, where it records a sleeper’s heart rate and the duration+depth of sleep cycles – including snoring – syncing with Nokia’s Health Mate app to generate a sleep score. Additionally, Nokia Sleep is engineered to work with the IFTTT app, which means sleep-beneficial settings like lighting, temperature, and blind controls can be automated to the user’s preferences each night without lifting a finger.

SimpliSafe Home Security System We’re well acquainted with the SimpliSafe security system, having owned and used the first generation system across two apartments, where it operated as a diligent and silent sentry. The latest iteration is smaller and supposedly more intelligently responsive to environmental cues when an uninvited intruder attempts to enter. But perhaps most noticeable is the security system’s refreshed design, compliments of design firm, IDEO. We can’t help but recognize and admire the keypad’s resemblance to Dieter Rams’ Braun calculator!

Beoplay H9i Wireless Headphones We’re feeling a tinge of buyer’s remorse after purchasing a pair of wireless noise-cancelling headphones (the very capable Sony WH1000XM2) after trying on a set of luxe Beoplay H9i headphones behind closed doors at CES. Bang & Olufsen’s upgraded flagship headphones are now capable of 18 hours of playback – enough for the longest direct flight with hours to spare – improved noise cancellation, and a transparency mode to permit ambient sounds and conversation filter through when conversation calls. There’s even a proximity sensor that will put playback on hold, recognizing when headphones are removed. But it’s designer Jakob Wagner’s gracefully elegant design of leather and aluminum that makes these headphones an audiophile heirloom.

Philips Skincare Assessment With its small two-pronged design, the Philips Skincare Assessment looks sort of like an overseas’s outlet adapter. What it’s really designed to do is to measure how much water and oil lays beneath the skin of your face across specific target spots. With each light press, data is directly sent to an app that in turn produces a personalized skin report. Over time, users can identify problem areas related to sun exposure, sleep habits, diet, and hydration, and change habits (and of course, products) accordingly.

L’Oréal UV Sense Yves Béhar’s “fingerprint” is all over the design of this diminutive and discreet device engineered to turn a fingernail into a solar-powered UV monitoring device. Partnering with L’Oreal, Béhar determined the most unobtrusive, yet continually exposed part of the body is our fingernails; many already accessorize their fingers with polish or fake nails, making it an ingenious spot to adhere a biometric device for weeks at a time, and possibly change sun exposure habits and save lives.

Polaroid Root Play 3D Pen Polaroid’s CES display pulled us in with their display of intricately “drawn” models constructed with their new 3D pen printer. Outfitted with filament formulated with glue mixed with wood particles, the resulting mixture is super lightweight, strong, and available in 3 different wood finishes for free-drawing creativity.

Sony Life UX 4K Projector Got $30,000 to spare? Positioned at the apex of Sony’s Life Space UX product line, their native 4K resolution projector only needs 9.6 inches of distance between unit and wall to create a 120 inch picture. The Sony projector certainly unlike any other projector, housed inside a “premium furniture-like design” with a “marble top, half mirror finished aluminum frame, and wooden shelf.” And those legs at each end? They’re organic glass tube tweeters!

LifeFuels Our very first stop at CES began with a drink…but a healthy one. LifeFuels won a CES Innovation Award in the Sports, Fitness and Biotech Category this year for their app-connected, customizable drink-mixing water bottle system intended to boost every sip of water with vitamins, nutrients, and flavor at the push of a button (I was given a sample to taste, but told formulations were still in the process of being finalized). Think of it as a personalized, multi-flavor Gatorade dispenser.

Sensio Air Is it an Art Deco sculpture? A mini bronzed football? More than a few noses found themselves pressed against the glass at the CES Innovation Awards showcase in an attempt to determine the purpose of the shiny object. Those 220 perforations on top of the environmental monitoring device monitor air for wayward particles, notifying users via app when allergens have exceeded safe amounts and could possibly trigger a reaction.

Rapael Smart Peg Board Fashioned after traditional pegboard therapy games intended to improve hand/eye coordination and upper extremity function amongst the injured, this 2018 CES Innovation Award winner utilizes auditory and visual feedback to aid patients’ progress back toward recovery. We commend the playful and simple design for inviting interaction and progress to those who most need it.

Pro-Ject  VT-E BT Turntable It’s not the very first vertical turntable, but this is the first wireless vertical stand turntable (via Bluetooth), and it’s definitely an eye-catching design that doesn’t require a lot of space. Pro-Ject carries a solid reputation for smooth and dependable turntables, so we expect this one to perform as well as their non-vertically oriented and wireless, Pro-Ject Juke Box E.

via http://design-milk.com/

from WordPress https://connorrenwickblog.wordpress.com/2018/01/12/our-favorite-technologies-we-saw-at-ces-2018/

[m-perkins-blog1]

Week 4 Assignment: Mastery Journal Michael Perkins Creativity & Innovation Professor: Paul Kegel June 23, 2017

In this post, I will be using the format of stating my original course goal, followed by the original strategy. In subsequent paragraph, I will state the outcome of the respective goal as conducted during the Creativity and Innovation course. My outcomes will contain what I learned from the course. The concluding paragraph will contain how I will apply what I have learned personally and professionally.

Goal 1: Create a customer-centric company vision Strategy: Research companies that process products that are customer to business sales cycles. These companies must put the end user first and thus leads to a customer-centric company vision. Take that research and apply to a fake company of my own to define a map of company vision that is true to the end user.

Outcome on Goal 1: I had performed independent research, combined with provided course content top develop a company vision that has a human-centric and creative focus. The information collected gave me detailed insights into company cultures that place human-centric design at the core of all actions. Companies like IDEO, Citrix and Apple use a method for product innovation & development called Design Thinking. This method contains a process that places emphases on user empathy. As a result, I outlined a company vision in week one reflection assignment that contains a vision to protect and encourage creativity from all employees. A resource that gave me inspiration was “Why startups need a strong vision” (Traynor). This article highlighted that a company vision “must be robust for years at a time” (Traynor). In the article, an example of this was Amazon’s company vision, “to be earth’s most customer centric company; to build a place where people can come to find and discover anything they might want to buy online” (Traynor). In week 3 reflection I outlined how I would build into the physical office space the Design Thinking process by designating space for each step. I then would promote connection between the empathy, define, ideate, prototype, and test stages in the process through visual and physical signals. I made a direct association with how success using this process would be tied to employee’s definition of success. I learned a lot through developing my ideas on what a company vision deeply connected to a human-centric concepts regarding work life balance, employee development, and physical elements in the office. I look forward to seeing my ideas for a human-centric, internally and externally facing, company vision in practice.

Goal 2: Practice stakeholder engagements Strategy: In my career role as a Product Manager, I will continue to conduct stakeholder engagements, but additional maintain a personal journal that has one entry per event. Journal will have summaries of my perspective, stakeholder perspective and expected outcomes.

Outcome on Goal 2: Unfortunately, in my day job, I did not have any major stakeholder engagements during the month of June 2017. However, I still looked-for opportunities to write in my journal about any event, meeting and interaction that a key stakeholder was present and participating. For example, I have been developing a business idea that a target audience would consist of my wife. I conducted a series of surveys and follow up interviews with her to understand key aspects of the perceived product and the viability against a potential consumer. In my journal, I have notes about how our relationship as husband and wife impacted her feedback and what feelings that stirred in me. I would conclude on how I felt this compressed the data and outcome of the work I was doing with her. Another example of a stakeholder meeting I had was in a job interview. I took solid notes shortly after the meeting and listed content that was covered, my input and how I delivered it. I noted in my journal the body language and verbal ques provided by my interviewees. I would conclude my entry with an expected outcome of the engagement. It has been great to review my notes days later and reconcile it against the outcome of those interactions. Some I got right, some I got wrong, but all of them provided me with great insight into any cognitive dissonance I held. I feel even stronger, and the effort has helped my entrepreneurial development because I am able to use validated learning to adjust in personal presentation, accuracy of communications and self-awareness in general.

Goal 3: Develop an understanding between innovation and economics

Strategy: Take a course on Lynda.com that drives my understanding of economics and its role in innovation. (Lynda.com Course: Business Innovation).

Outcome of Goal 3: I dedicated one hour a week to complete the Lynda.com course, which I had done by the end of week three. I found the course interesting and informative because it covered a pattern in innovation and product development that resembled The Four Lenses of Innovation (Gibson, 2015), presented in week two of the Full Sail University course. The Lynda.com course covered a patterned-based method called Systematic Inventive Thinking. Which highlight patterns that cover various concepts. One is, subtraction, remove unnecessary aspects of a product. Two, unification, that wraps an idea around consolidating functionality. Three, multiplication, that focuses on consistency through the product experience. Four, division, this speaks on the segregation provided by physical and functional elements that can recombined into a new product. I liked how this was down on the front lines of product development, that is a great extension of the four lenses of innovation that look for challenging pre-conceived ideals, taking advantage of trends, leveraging resources and identifying needs of people. Both highlight how innovation can look for economic advantages though the use of perspectives and processes to achieve meaning products. Both sets of content overlap in many ways as well. Both see challenging established thinking as a route to true innovation. Both see the value in connecting segregated ideas into new solutions. Ultimately, just like design thinking, both use empathy to drive value. By completing this course on Lynda.com and learning the four lenses approach to innovation, I know have a solid understanding of the line between economics and innovation. The limitations of economic influences, aspects of innovation that changing irrelevant activities and products into trade and industry disrupters.

In conclusion, I have learned a lot that will assist me both personally and professionally from this course. In a recent job interview, I covered the stages, process and outcomes of design thinking to great effect. I plan to keep championing design thinking that will give me, my employer, or any future business venture an advantage in the marketplace. I enjoy a new deep knowledge about empathy and why it is different than sympathy, and how empathy will guide my life. Empathy allows me to be a better husband by taking a moment to walk in my wife’s shoes, leading to true understanding that can predict her needs that demonstrate my level of care. Professionally, empathy will help me lead teams to understand who we are serving and why. This perspective will achieve better outcomes and trust that we are doing the right thing. I also will continue to apply my deep knowledge between creativity and innovation that surely to unlock improvements to existing products and services, while developing entirely new ones. At the end of the course, I have a solid foundation for what I want my company to value and how that trickles through all aspects of how the company operates. I have new processes, concepts and methods for product development, both new and improved, that have a proven track record of success. I understand the different kinds of entrepreneurship, particularly social that see entrepreneurship in new ways that are taking us back to the originally capitalistic ideas. Through the completion of my goals, I have had an interpersonal lens into my perception and outcomes allowing me to grow both personally and professionally. I have a new insight into front line product development and the economics both in development and after. I enjoyed the course and will use the many things I learned throughout my life.

References

Gibson, Rowan. (2015, March 2). The Four Lenses of Innovation: A Power Tool for Creative Thinking. Wiley; 1 edition.

Lynda.com. (2014, June 9). Business Innovation. Retrieved May 28, 2017 from URL https://www.lynda.com/Business-Skills-tutorials/Business-Innovation-Fundamentals/153123-2.html?srchtrk=index:1linktypeid:2q:innovation+and+economicspage:1s:relevancesa:trueproducttypeid:2

Traynor, Des. (n.d.). Why startups need a strong vision. Retrieved June 2, 2017 from URL https://blog.intercom.com/why-startups-need-a-strong-vision/

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3.0 out of 5 stars Less than expected

4.0 out of 5 stars A business book for design people. (And vice versa.) First, let me say what this book is not:It's NOT a granular, specific, detailed guide to product-design best practices.Nor is it "Give Your Shop The IDEO Makeover In Ten Easy Steps."What it is, and what it excels at being, is a genial, fast-paced, reasonably persuasive argument in favor of companies that more closely suit the requirements of creative human beings.Kelley's logic goes something like this:- gather insightful, motivated human beings, regardless of disciplinary background;- put them under intense deadline pressure, yet pamper them in ways that reinforce a sense of community;- challenge them to do great, creative work;- and stand back as they blow you away with sideways solutions the likes of which the world has never seen.This might sound like a recipe for a Montessori for middle-aged hippies, except that IDEO's track record is so impressively studded with design breakthroughs that those of us in the field hold them in the highest respect. Not only that, IDEO's designs have proven to be winners in the market, winning over the hardest-nosed of quants.Kelley successfully makes the case that design is rapidly becoming critical to success in business; that innovation and creativity are the engines of good design; and that environments like the ones IDEO provides for its workers are reasonably reliable incubators of same. If you find yourself engaged by this description, you'll probably, eventually, want more detail than the book is able to provide, but it's a grand place to start. Go to Amazon

5.0 out of 5 stars Innovation for Fun as Well as Profit There are dozens of excellent books which discuss innovation. This is one of the best but don't be misled by the title, "Lessons in creativity from IDEO, America's leading design firm." Unlike almost all other authors of worthy books on the same subject, Kelley does NOT organize his material in terms of a sequence of specific "lessons"...nor does he inundate his reader with checklists, "executive summaries", bullet points, do's and don'ts, "key points", etc. Rather, he shares what I guess you could characterize as "stories" based on real-world situations in which he and his IDEO associates solved various problems when completing industrial design assignments for their clients. "We've linked those organizational achievements to specific methodologies and tools you can use to build innovation into your own organization...[However, IDEO's] `secret formula' is actually not very formulaic. It's a blend of of methodologies, work practices, culture, and infrastructure. Methodology alone is not enough." One of the greatest benefits of the book is derived from direct access to that "blend" when activated.It is extremely difficult to overcome what James O'Toole characterizes, in Leading Change, as "the ideology of comfort and the tyranny of custom." He and Kelley seem to be kindred spirits: Both fully understand how and why truly innovative thinking encounters so much resistance within organizations. Whereas O'Toole suggests all manner of strategies to overcome that resistance, Kelley concentrates on the combination ("blend") of ingredients which, when integrated and then applied with both rigor and passion, may (just may) produce what Jobs once referred to as "insanely great.Read more › Go to Amazon