Sign Language on Cell Phones: Who would’ve thunk it? (We did!)
Posted by goodmind on September 30th, 2010
In 2007 we conducted a study for one of the big four U.S. wireless providers. At the time, the company provided a service to callers who are deaf, hard-of-hearing, deaf-blind, or who have speech disabilities. The service, called Relay, connected standard telephone users via a Text Telephone (TTY), the Internet, a wireless device, or a videophone. The purpose of the research was to better understand user perceptions of relay providers and wireless service in the (at the time) growing industry.
From this research, we learned that although the TTY was a truly pioneering invention for the deaf/hh, services and devices that came later had much more of an impact on daily life, productivity, and communicating in general. When communicating via phone or internet there were methods that make speaking a lot easier, faster, and more efficient (text messaging, MMS, online video chat, etc). We also learned, importantly, it is not that the deaf want to be more like “normal”, hearing people, they just want the technology to catch up with their needs. For example, many were talking not only about wanting two-way video devices, but also holograms.
Fast forward three years… 8/16/10 cnet article on engineers testing sign language on cell phones.
We all know what it’s like to send a text message or e-mail whose tone is completely misinterpreted. A series of additional messages to better explain ourselves ensues and the efficiency of the original message is long gone.
That’s one reason engineers at the University of Washington are testing a tool called MobileASL that uses motion detection to identify American Sign Language and transmit images over U.S. cell networks. Sometimes, words alone just don’t cut it.
“Sometimes with texting, people will be confused about what it really means,” says Tong Song, a Chinese national who is studying at Gallaudet University, a school for the deaf in Washington, D.C., and participating in UW’s summer pilot test. “With the MobileASL, phone people can see each other eye to eye, face to face, and really have better understanding.”
We’re happy to learn that the deaf/hh are finally getting what they wished for over 3 years ago.
Facebook’s Open Graph & the Implications for Market Research Recruiting
Posted by goodmind on May 5th, 2010
There has been much buzz about Facebook’s new Open Graph in the past few weeks. The “Like” buttons keep appearing on more and more of our favorite websites. Not surprisingly, privacy issues abound.
As market researchers, and more specifically as social media recruiters, the implications of the Open Graph for recruitment has us more than a bit curious.
For the past few years we have been utilizing social media to provide our clients with fresh, highly targeted, and insightful participants for their studies online and off. The Open Graph could potentially take this several steps further into targeting a person for a study. Having the ability to track what an individual has “liked” around the internet is pretty unbelievable.
Imagine, for example, that you are a company that markets products that allow people to streamline their travel planning and eliminate airport hassles. Now imagine you could talk to people who have “liked” the following things in the past few months:
You would not only have the “travel enthusiasts” you were after, but on top of that a more micro and fine-tuned understanding of your sample. It’s like looking into binoculars, kind of seeing a fuzzy representation of what you’re looking at, then turning the dial to put everything into focus.
And then you get to talk to these people!
What do you think? Think the Open Graph will change how we look at recruiting for market research studies? Think it should or that there will always be privacy limitations? This is new to us too so we’d love to hear what other people think!
8 Key Take-Aways from the 140 Characters Conference
Posted by goodmind on April 22nd, 2010
I’ve spent the last day attempting to digest all that I heard and saw at the #140conf on 4/20/10. Below is just a snapshot of my tweets attempting to keep up:
8 key take-aways I’d like to highlight:
1. When thinking about whether or not to use social media for your business, think of the ROI as the “returning on ignoring” -@JeffreyHayslett CMO, Kodak
2. School is real life, not the preparation for real life – we need to rethink education or “school 2.0″ -@chrislehmann Principal, Science
Leadership Academy
3. Think about how your actions online affect the “Hive Mind” (collective consciousness) -@carr2n Writer, NY Times
4. We’re moving from “shouting & selling” to “sharing & helping” – “collabetition” -@hankwasaik Ad Guy, The Concept Farm
5. Everybody’s opinions don’t matter – it’s about building communities you care about -@jessicagottlieb Mom, Blogger
6. Location is that last piece of information people are scared to give away – how do we get past this? What do people get for “checking in”? -@cc_chapman, @dens, @jw
7. Twitter teaches you a new behavior of efficiency -@mchammer
8. Sharing is NOT creepy it’s natural – and everyone has a public life, private life & secret life and that’s OK. We’re not lying online – it’s a network of identities -@stoweboyd
Looking forward to next year! Each of the individual sessions from #140conf NYC are available here.
Please share your take-aways in the comments.
Is Research Overrated?
Posted by goodmind on December 4th, 2008
Today’s New York Times poses an interesting question: do we overrate basic research?
It’s a pretty loaded piece that takes on most of today’s favorite faux-controversial topics (Mr. Obama’s BlackBerry, the rise of China and India, America’s declining economy, and techno-nationalism). We almost didn’t make it through the entire article, when it seemed to suggest that as a nation, we ought to cut spending on research.
However, the reasoning behind this blasphemy is basically sound. According to Amar Bhidé, a professor at the Columbia Business School, the possibility for “midlevel innovation” is inevitably lost in the shuffle of a big research budget allocated from on high.
Midlevel innovation is defined as anything
…from a venture capitalist tweaking a business model to trim costs by a few percent to a technician fine-tuning his company’s business software to save a couple of data-entry steps in the accounting department.
It basically boils down to finding new ways of using existing technology, not spending big bucks to invent something totally new from scratch. It makes sense, and its something we’ve been helping clients do for a long time through research.
Most companies today need research in the first place, because they have previously relied on the latest technology to solve all of their business problems. Our task is to figure out how to help them use it efficiently, effectively, and profitably.
Black Friday Browser Wars
Posted by goodmind on November 26th, 2008
War is costly – even the browser variety. It’s never a bad thing when implicit standards (ahem, Internet Explorer) are challenged. However, as Firefox, Chrome, etc continue to gain market share, web designers are hard pressed to keep pace with the idiosyncrasies of various browsers.
According to one alarmist press release, page load times, missing graphics, and entire check-out procedures can be compromised if a website hasn’t been optimized to accommodate all manner of web browsers.
Online retailers in particular will be at risk this holiday season, for reasons entirely unrelated to the current economic landscape. The look and functionality of a single site can vary dramatically from one browser to another. For e-commerce websites, this essentially amounts to the entire shopping experience.
The conspiracy theorist in us wants to believe the entire browser war conflict is actually the collective brainchild of brick-and-mortar shops, looking to shore up their books come Black Friday. In all seriousness however, it does beg the question of how an unstable browser market will effect your business. Does it really matter whether or not customers can find your company’s website if they can’t actually use it?
YouTube Video Games
Posted by goodmind on September 25th, 2008
Remember when it was “innovative” to issue corporate mea culpas on YouTube? Well this is a truly forward thinking way to use the video sharing site. Hexolabs, a mobile game development company has put the video annotations feature to good use, linking several videos together as different levels of a single game;
The rule is simple – a button will momentarily flash on your screen while the video is playing – you have to click that button before it disappears else your car meets a crash. If you click at the right moment, you jump to the next level.
This is where it gets interesting. The next level is actually another YouTube video clip that is linked to the button you just clicked in the previous level. Good idea. (via Digital Inspiration)
Great, now Google has a gaming platform too.
Walk This Way
Posted by goodmind on September 17th, 2008
Google Maps for Mobile now offers walking directions, the convenience of which may make Google’s controversial Street View a bit more acceptable. Granted, it’s not as if GPS navigation made driving more popular, but we have to wonder if Street View level walking directions will help popularize pedestrianism.
Realistically, Google is probably just hoping the application will help popularize Android.
Dialed In
Posted by goodmind on August 18th, 2008
“Deep Dialing” is a service that might be more significant than Deep Throat;
Toronto-based Fonolo works by using transcriptions of the phone menus of large companies so that users can navigate them visually. Users simply pick the company they need to call, scan through the company’s phone menu visually, then click the spot they need. Fonolo will automatically dial, navigate the menu and then dial the user’s phone. When the user answers, they will be connected to the right spot in the menu—hence the name, Deep Dialing. (via Springwise)
It will be interesting to see if customer service satisfaction ratings will improve as a result of the service, as one of the most common frustrations is time spent on hold.
Learning to Share
Posted by goodmind on August 6th, 2008
It’s amazing how often we need to be reminded of what should be obvious – collaboration works best when everyone shares. This is because it’s so hard for community and commerce to coexist happily on the web. However;
In “We Think: Mass Innovation, Not Mass Production”, British innovation and creativity guru Charles Leadbeater makes the case, based on countless well-documented examples from all over the world, that innovation in the era of the Web has become a collective, collaborative effort. “You are what you share”, he writes. Walking his talk, he shares part of the final book and the full first draft on his website. (via SwissMiss)
Maybe this logic holds true for books sales, as Leadbeater will soon find out from his with a personal experiment.
Model UN
Posted by goodmind on July 15th, 2008
Our new friend Anthony provides an excellent synopsis of the BrandHacker event we attended last night, a lively discussion of Google’s Open Social Foundation. This analogy captures Open Social (and the ethos of the attendees) perfectly;
The Open Social Foundation is like the UN of various social media properties like LinkedIn or MySpace (or, in open social speak, “containers”). It’s supposed to be a neutral entity that’s only concerned about the development of standards. They’ve built a standard language/platform that aims to be the Esperanto of social media application development.
