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.
the importance of ‘malleable social graphs’
Posted by goodmind on March 29th, 2010
Here at Goodmind, we try to keep as current as possible with the latest in upcoming trends in social media, new technology, tools, and software. We read about it, blog about it, and participate in it via Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Foursquare, and here on our blog.
But the term ‘malleable social graph’, as blogged about by Robert Scoble last Thursday, really got us thinking.
First and foremost, what is a malleable social graph? Let’s quote Scoble:
Well, right now, if you are looking to go to a Napa Winery, or three, and you go to Twitter or Facebook everyone looks the same to you. But, now, check in in Napa with Foursquare and all of a sudden you only see people near you. I have more than 7,000 friends and when I tried this last week (I was visiting a startup near there) I only saw four other people. So, now I was talking with four other people who were on my social graph and who actually were located near me. Now, I bet I could text each of those four and ask them where to go and I’d get very good answers.
That is a malleable social graph. IE, it changes based on conditions you set in motion.
Make sense? Yeah, we gave ourselves the weekend to marinate on this… Although the idea is new, with a bit of imagination, the potential for people and companies (aka ‘malleable business graph’) is limitless.
Scoble goes on to discuss mini mobs (and referenced the video above) but we’ll save that dissection for another post.
opening up a new blogging chapter
Posted by goodmind on March 23rd, 2010
Our last blog post was almost a year ago to the day. What happened?!? We decided to focus our efforts on Twitter for the past year and our blog fell haphazardly to the wayside.
HOWEVER, as much as we see the tremendous value in Twitter as a communications and marketing tool, recently we have come to the realization that our blog is just as, if not more important as a way to communicate with our clients, potential clients, and industry friends.
So, we’re back! And here goes… opening up a new (and hopefully interesting!) blogging chapter for Goodmind with this kick-off post.
Focus Group: Dead or Alive?
Posted by goodmind on March 19th, 2009
“Listen Up, Marketers: The Focus Group is Dead”, thus begins a blog post yesterday by Catharine Taylor on Media Post. Since the article was posted yesterday afternoon, there have been over 30 (lengthy) comments/reactions to this. Some agree with her (or at least commend her for being so bold), and some do not:
For:
Bravo Cathy! Another case of calling out the old guard and questioning obsolete thinking still alive and well at many big agencies. Why still use focus groups? Because after countless days behind two way glass eating M&M’s, it’s clear to me an industrial complex has been built around the mutual admiration of this awkward tactic. In other words, agencies and research companies know how to make money doing focus groups. -Jamie Tedford from Brand Networks Inc.
Couldn’t agree more. In fact I think the old model of recruitment and focus group testing will be dead if not nearly dead in a few years. -Jim Lefevere from Independent
Against:
Ummm..let’s try and remember for what we USE focus groups. Focus groups are “directional”. That is, they should be used in the early stages of a project to get input from real life consumers. They are not intended to be the “be all and end all” of market research.
I would never say the focus group is dead. I would say that social media gives us some new tools to use to test ideas.
Nice attention grabbing headline and great quotes…but let’s get serious! -Maryanne Conlin from MMG
I think some of you are drinking your own Kool-Aid. I can’t wait until “social media” agencies have to rename themselves when social media “dies.” C’mon, why would anyone say any form of listening is dead? That’s just ridiculous. Wasn’t anyone listening to Obama? Enough with the grandiose statements and generalizations. Enough with this black and white approach. There are no easy answers to complex problems. -Jesse Dienstag from DGWB
We do not think the focus group is dead. The focus group is still an important part of the research methodology arsenal, if you will. It allows us to listen, glean insight, and move forward effectively with product or concept development. But the main takeaway is that when trying to obtain consumer feedback, it’s not just about listening, but listening to the RIGHT people, in the right context.
There’s a difference between focus group participants and the consumers you find through social media outlets. Research participants are motivated (by M&Ms & $$$) and cognizant of their role. Consumers involved in social media are motivated by a desire to participate and potentially influence an outcome. They are noticing events like Motrin Moms and Tropicana and are seeing just how potentially powerful and influential they can be.
There’s a place for focus groups. There’s a place for Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, blogs, and other forms of social media in the research process. You just need to use them smartly and responsibly.
Advertising + Word of Mouth = WOMI
Posted by goodmind on March 13th, 2009
And what exactly is a “WOMI”? The term was dubbed by SocialMedia, an ad platform for social networking sites, and refers to a “Word of Mouth Impression”.
From Techcrunch:
WOMI campaigns present visitors with ads asking them for some kind of input either though a multiple choice question or using a text field. SocialMedia then uses this input to customize ads which are shown to the user’s friends on the same social network.
For example, if an ad for Star Wars had a call-to-action asking if I was on the Light Side or Dark Side of the Force, it could take my response and then present my friends with an ad that said “Jason is on the Light Side, how about you?”. In turn, their responses are passed on to all of their friends, making this among the first kind of advertising with a viral element. This interaction makes the ads mini-social applications in and of themselves, and have proven to be very successful in trial campaigns.
In testing, WOMIs “resulted in increased awareness, favorability, and purchases for the Fortune 500 company running the campaign”. Social media marketing is finally being taken to the next level; utilizing relationships to pass on targeted content. We would love to see how use of WOMIs grows in 2009.
Facebook Owns Your Content & Now Is Going to Sell It?
Posted by goodmind on February 17th, 2009
After the Consumerist posted Facebook’s new Terms of Service yesterday, the title “Facebook owns your content. All of it. Forever” spread rapidly over Twitter and the blogosphere even on a holiday. The rapid response made other social media sites like MySpace and Twitter quick to point out that they have not and never will have ownership of user’s content.
By the end of the day, Facebook “clarified” their terms of service saying “we do not own your stuff forever”.
“We are not claiming and have never claimed ownership of material that users upload. The new Terms were clarified to be more consistent with the behavior of the site. That is, if you send a message to another user (or post to their wall, etc…), that content might not be removed by Facebook if you delete your account (but can be deleted by your friend).” Blah blah blah.
According to this article in eMarketer, at the World Economic Forum earlier this year, Facebook demonstrated a real-time targeted polling system for advertisers. Facebook quickly denied that this would be used in conjunction with their engagement ads. “However, the social network is currently testing a new type of Engagement Ad that would allow advertisers to pose questions to users.”
Facebook has yet to come up with a truly viable way to make money off of their 150 million users worldwide. Facebook says that they are not going to sell user’s information for market research purposes. At least not until Spring…
Experience Economy
Posted by goodmind on January 26th, 2009
We came across this presentation and, just like the author, experienced a zen moment about two minutes in (but for somewhat different reasons).
Joseph Pine, via Ted Talks, says “experiences are becoming the predominant economic offering.” Because of this, there is more of a desire on the part of consumers, for authenticity. And it is the job of the business to provide that authenticity.
Do you understand your users’ experiences? Are you shaping your experiences to match their expectations through design?
Ted Talks: Joseph Pine – What do Consumers Really Want?
The Face of Economic Despair
Posted by goodmind on January 5th, 2009
Images of the Dust Bowl are synonymous with the Great Depression. They are as dry and dull as an American History textbook, which is appropriate since most of these pictures can be found in one. We predict that this go round, the symbolic image of economic recession will be found and cataloged online.
The Digital Ramble has an interesting collection of such images including;
Tumblr web sites like The Brokers with Hands on Their Faces Blog or Sad Guys on Trading Floors make hay of trading-floor disheartenment.
You can check out the entire post here. Your grandkids will probably be exposed to similar stuff in their virtual American History e-books.
