China leads the world in customer service, starting at its borders

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Last night I flew into Sanya, at the southernmost tip of China, to give the keynote at the NICE Interactions 2011 conference tomorrow.

When I walked up to give my passport to the immigration official, on the counter in front of me was a box with 4 large buttons. There were green 2 smiley faces saying you were happy or very happy with your interaction, and two sad faces saying you were unhappy with the service or that it was taking too long.

My passport was quickly processed and passed back to me with a genuine smile, so I pressed the happy button.

While the Chinese visa application process requires significant documentation, both times I have applied for Chinese visas in the last couple of months I was in and out of the visa application center within minutes – it was very efficient.

So, the big question is when US immigration will learn from Chinese lessons in excellence in customer service.

The 8 sources of customer value in mobile apps and marketing

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When I recently ran a webinar series for Ketchum on Tapping the Power of Mobile, our second session focused on running successful mobile campaigns. Perhaps the most important thing that companies and agencies delving into mobile marketing need to understand is that there must be real value for customers and consumers in order for the campaign to have any success. There is an enormously deep and broad pool of mobile apps and services available, and brands will only get a look-in if they are genuinely creating value. Only at that point is there any chance of marketing value being created.

Below is a summary of the 8 sources of customer value in mobile. Any campaign that has any chance of success must be creating strong customer value in at least one of these spaces, and possibly several.


Here are examples of the 8 sources of value.
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Crowdsourcing goes mainstream, shaping organizations and the future of work

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Crowdsourcing is rapidly gaining visibility as a mainstream business topic. The current issue of Outsource magazine has a good article titled The Road of the Crowd. It was written by Steve Bynghall, who produced the recent IBF24 event run by Intranet Benchmarking Forum, and who is collaborating with me on some projects.

It’s a good article providing a nice overview of the field, and well worth reading in full. Here are some of my quotes used in the piece.
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The value of retreats: How physical space and distance creates mental space

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I am returning from a leadership development offsite for senior partners from a major professional services firm, where I ran a session on the future of business and how to talk about it with your clients.

Yesterday, from the airport I was driven out of the city for almost 2 hours, to a small upmarket resort deep in the country. As the car drove further out from ‘civilization’ I reflected on the journey. 
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Changing your Twitter profile = creating a new identity

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Yesterday I updated my Twitter profile after not having changed it for well over a year. The image and words are now:

Futurist/ Entrepreneur/ Keynote Speaker/ Author and contributor to global brain. A visual slice of my neural activity: https://bit.ly/AHTGpBizModel

In my keynotes on social media and success in a connected world I tell the audience that how you are seen online IS your identity. In our social media profiles we can select just an image and a few words that many will use to form their views of you.
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‘Aussie mafia’ sets up the “biggest startup hub in Silicon Valley”

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News just in that Elias Bizannes of Startup Bus fame is helping setting up Startup House, a 36,000 square foot space in San Francisco’s hopping SoMa district where entrepreneurs will live as well as run startups. There will be 150 desks in the lower floor, with upper levels including offices of the StartUp Bus and a number of international government agencies that want local launch pads for startups coming into the US. The intention is to run hackathons, startup weekends, and anything else that will support the local startup community.

TheNextWeb says that a group of the “Aussie mafia” (the Australian tech entrepreneur network in Silicon Valley) has bought the building and will take 6 months to transform it into this space. It notes that Plug and Play in Sunnyvale and Redwood City down the valley is bigger space-wise, but StartupHouse will probably be the biggest in San Francisco, and perhaps the biggest in the valley in a single building.

Here is a video from TheNextWeb being taken on a tour of the building – it’s an impressive space.


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The next generation of computer interfaces will drive better remote collaboration

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I have long believed that the evolution of man-machine interfaces is at the heart of our future. In Living Networks I described better Interfaces as one of the three fundamental shifts that are bringing the networks to life. For over a decade I have ranted about how the mouse is antediluvian technology for interacting with computers – a great leap forward at the time but something we should have long transcended.

Among the numerous blog posts I have written about the evolution of interfaces, in 2008 I wrote about how the user interface featured in the film ‘Minority Report’ had been created by John Underkoffler, who had designed the concept for the film.

Now Underkoffler’s company, Oblong Industries, has created the collaboration platform Mezzanine, shown below.


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Marc Newson at Sydney Design Excellence Forum: the design process is always the same

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I’m at Sydney Town Hall, where iconic Australian designer Marc Newson is speaking at the City of Sydney’s Design Excellence Forum.

Marc has had a powerful impact on many facets of design. His 1986 Lockheed lounge (one of which most recently sold for $2.1 million) and the 1988 Embryo chair were early landmarks in his career. Initially working in furniture, he has now designed cars, boats, bicycles, cookware, Nike shoes, executive jets, and across many, many other domains. He is Royal Designer for Industry in the UK.


Image: Lockheed lounge, image from Dezeen
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On my 3rd Twitter birthday: 7 reasons Twitter is central to my life

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Earlier today I noticed it’s three years since my life on Twitter began. At the time I wrote about my belated entry to Twitterland.

It now seems strange to me that I was such a late starter compared to many other connected folk, given that Twitter is now so central to my life.

The primary reason I held off getting started on Twitter was that I felt that my blog was my primary space for content sharing, and I didn’t want to divide my limited spare attention across platforms. I now know that blogs and Twitter are highly complementary. Yes Twitter can be time-consuming. But the rewards are absolutely worthwhile.

Here are 7 reasons why Twitter has become central to my life.
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Seeking talent in Sydney: Amazing Content and Web Project Managers – Part-time

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We have just placed an ad on Seek for Amazing Content and Web Project Managers – Part-time.

Here is the ad below. At this point, we are looking for people who will be part of our local team in Sydney. A bit later we will extend our search for similar talent globally. We’d love to hear from you if you think it’s a fit, or please pass it on if you think there are others who would be interested – thanks!

Amazing Content and Web Project Managers – Part-time

* Drive cutting-edge content projects with global visibility
* Looking for skills in high-value reports, web publishing and communities, web apps, iPad apps, events and more
* Apply your talents within exciting new business models
* Part-time/ flexible hours – work in Surry Hills and remotely
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