The Digital Notebook of Joanna Beltowska

Here’s an interesting – and smart – idea from Swedish startup Wrapp: create a hybrid of the discount coupon and the gift card by enabling people to gift each other free and paid gift cards.

Users redeem their received gift cards through their smart phones, and Wrapp is available for both Andoid and iPhone users. For now, the gift cards are only redeemable in Sweden, but the Wrapp team has indicated that the service will be available in other markets soon.

Wrapp uses Facebook as a social component. It imports your friends list so that when you start the app, you immediately see whose birthday is coming up. Choose a friend to see which gift cards are available to you to give away freely or to buy. You’ll notice that not all gift cards are available to every friend; this is because Wrapp enables retailers to choose who to target. And naturally you can also share your gift on Facebook.

What Wrapp has done is to essentially take the discount coupon, apply to it a number of the positive characteristics of the gift card, and make the entire use case seamless and simple by digitizing the product. I’m guessing that Wrapp also provides participating businesses with more intelligence about reach and customer response. Rather than broadcasting a discount to a big group of people through display advertising, Wrapp enables retailers to more carefully chose who they want to while offering a stronger incentive for users to visit the store.

This is clever for a number of reasons:

1. Discount coupons inherently aren’t very exciting; they’re generally just a conventional promotional tool. Useful yes, exciting no. Discount coupons are also not too difficult to find, especially not if you’re shopping online. Wrapp’s cards are gifted; this personal touch along with the cards not being publicly available will make them be perceived as more valuable than a regular discount coupon.
2. Two layers of targeting. There are two filters at work here: you’re presumably getting this from someone who knows you and what you like, and the retailer has identified people like you to be interesting consumers. For advertisers, this is better than traditional display media (which uses fairly crude behavioral targeting) and Facebook ads (who offers somewhat better behavioral targeting but not a social filter).
3. Convenience. Unfortunately, gift cards and discount coupons are often physical objects. Chances are you’ll leave them lying around at home and forget to use them (at least I do). It’s not far-fetched to assume that most people carry their smartphone with them when they go outside, and so Wrapp removes the barrier of actually remembering to bring your gift card/coupon.
4. It’s an alternative to the display ad. Some research suggests that people become blind to banners. Other research indicates that Facebook ads perform about half as well as regular banners ads, but that people click more if one or more of their friends have clicked on the ad. I think it’s fair to assume that people will feel compelled to download Wrapp if they see that their friends are receiving discounts through it.

Luckily I happen to know a couple of the folks who worked on Wrapp, so I emailed co-founder Andreas Ehn with some questions.

Q: Who is Wrapp for?
A: Wrapp is for everyone who’s got a smartphone and a Facebook account and wants to celebrate friends with free and paid gift cards.

Q: What are the user needs that you’ve identified?
A: We saw a need from both the consumers’ and retailers’ point of view. Offline retailers have had a hard time to convert online marketing campaigns to new customers in their stores. They have not been able to leverage the trends in social media and mobile marketing to the same extent as online retailers have. From a consumer’s perspective we wanted to create a fun and easy way to give gifts and to contribute to other friends’ gifts. We do also believe that more people will remember to use their gift cards this way. The gift card is always with you in your phone and the app will remind you before it expires.

Q: What sets you apart from other local advertising services?
A: We are mainly a gift card reseller, and we think think that we have disrupted this industry by a new and innovative way of using gift cards. When sending a gift card it will get posted on your friend’s Facebook wall. The brand appears in a positive context (someone is being celebrated) and the sender is a friend. The retailer can target their campaigns and decide on the amount of free gift cards for every segment.

Q: Is Wrapp currently open to anyone or are you still testing?
A: Yes, Wrapp is open for everyone with a Facebook account and a smartphone. Everyone can give, but since we only work with Swedish retailers at the moment, you can only redeem your gift cards in Sweden.

Q: What can you offer brands that partner with you?
A: Brands who partner with us will be visible in a positive context: in conversations between friends. They will only pay when the customer is in the store and use their gift cards.

Q: When do you expect to launch in the US?
A: We are testing our service in the Swedish market and have already started to prepare for an international roll-out. The US is of course an important market for us.

CPA (cost per action, in this case conversion) makes a lot of sense as a pricing model and lowers the risk for participating businesses. It’ll be interesting to see whether this takes off; if Wrapp gets enough users, it might prove to be a better investment for participating brands than just giving coupons away or investing in traditional display media.

“Six Provocations for Big Data” is a new paper written by Danah Boyd and Kate Crawford that caught my attention last week. I read it over the weekend and decided to write a post about it, simply because the topic is so fascinating and also highly relevant to what I think about on a daily basis. I got my hands on an advance digital copy; the authors also presented at Oxford Internet Institute’s “A Decade in Internet Time: Symposium on the Dynamics of the Internet and Society” on September 21, 2011.

It’s a relatively quick and very fascinating read. Boyd and Crawford present a set of thought-provocing statements about the discourse and challenges of “Big Data” – the vast amounts of information that is being produced, collected and interpreted about what we do, how we do it, where we do it and who or what we’re doing it with.

I’ve provided my summations of the six key points below (in bold) – I hope to follow up shortly with some reflections on the implications of these provocations.

[A quick note on terminology: The authors speak of Big Data as “the massive quantities of information produced by and about people, things and their interactions”. Big Data is also commonly attributed to data sets that are so huge that they can't be processed with commonly available tools within reasonable time (and this is obviously a moving definition; as technology makes advances, the size of the data sets that we are able to process grows).]

1. Automating Research Changes The Definition Of Knowledge.
Similarly to how Fordism changed our understanding of labor, the human relationship to work, and society at large, Big Data ushers in a new paradigm of understanding human networks and community. This radical shift brings with it proponents of a philosophy where the numbers are left to speak for themselves, and quick analysis is favored over deep reflection over time. Because the tools currently available to us come with inherent flaws and restrictions, we must critically examine Big Data’s models of intelligibility before they become accepted beliefs.

2. Claims To Objectivity And Accuracy Are Misleading.
With the increasing number of social spaces that become quantifiable through Big Data, there’s a growing overlap between the social and computational sciences. As computational scientists begin to study society to a larger extent, there’s a danger, stemming from the quantitative nature of this research, that the results are accepted as fact rather than interpretation. The complex methodological processes that underlie analysis of Big Data must be outlined and accounted for.

3. Bigger Data Is Not Always Better Data.
Some of those who are embracing Big Data dismiss traditional methods for assessing the validity of research as irrelevant, presuming that quantity implies quality. The unknowns that researchers face when working with Big Data are many, yet these limitations are rarely acknowledged. In order to minimize misinterpretation of Big Data, we should strive to maximize communication about and transparency of the underlying research methodologies, the limits of the questions we can ask of a dataset and which interpretations are appropriate.

4. Not All Data Are Equivalent.
The assumption made by some that analyses done with small data can be done better with Big Data holds false, because it presumes that data is interchangeable and that context doesn’t matter. The authors point to social network analysis as an example. Researchers of this particular discipline study networks produced through data traces such as mediated communication and geographical movement – the networks we maintain by creating digital contact lists (‘articulated networks’), and the networks we maintain through communication patterns, cell coordinates or social media interactions (‘behavioral networks’). The trouble with this data is that, while it is valuable to research, it is not representative of the nature and complexity of our social behaviors.

5. Just Because It’s Accessible Doesn’t Make It Ethical.
Big Data rarely acknowledges the difference between being in public and being public; just because information is accessible doesn’t mean that it is ethical for researchers to use it. A good deal of Big Data is created by people who don’t understand that their data will be publicly or semi-publicly available and that it might get collected for various uses. The authors list de-anonymization of data, a lack of established ethic guidelines and the difficulties of understanding the future consequences as reasons to why researchers have a higher responsibility to uphold accountability and professional standards.

6. Limited Access To Big Data Creates New Digital Divides.
The authors argue that the ecosystem surrounding Big Data is creating a digital divide of the Big Data rich and the Big Data poor. Much of the enthusiasm surrounding Big Data comes from the belief that Big Data is easily accessible. In actuality, only social media companies have access to really large sets of data. They have no responsibility to make it available and have full control over who gets to use it. Access to it is also dependent on having the right skills to collect and to it, which generally favors computational scientists and puts the social sciences to a disadvantage. This has serious implications on the types of research questions that are asked of Big Data.

If you’ve come this far: Have you read this paper yourself? What are your thoughts?

After mental models comes systems thinking.

I’m very excited to share a brand spanking new deck with the world today. Amy Rae and I have summed up our thoughts on a second discipline from Peter M. Senge’s five guiding disciplines for learning organizations: Systems Thinking. If you missed our first deck on Mental Models, you can find it here.

Why should you care about systems thinking, or systems for that matter? Because systems are everywhere. If we understand them a little bit better, we’ll understand the world, and by extension ourselves, a little bit better. This is especially important to anyone who’s tasked making decisions – any decision you make will be more smarter, better and have more longevity if you know how to read your surroundings.

Why do we care? Because any great systems thinker is a great strategist.

I found this comment from Aaron Levie, founder of Box.net, interesting. In an interview with Business Insider, he comments on seed-stage startup funding firm Y Combinator:

It’s an interesting anthropology experiment. When you’re 22 years old or 25 years old — the Y Combinator demographic — you have no context for the enterprise. If you’re in your early 20s and you’re hanging out with a bunch of other people in their early 20s, nobody has a sense of the kinds of problems that real “workers” run into every day. They’re running into a completely different set of problems like “what’s the party going on right now that I should be going to? What are my friends looking at on the Internet that I want to read? How do I share photos and videos?” That’s their frame of reference for life.

While I think this comment is overly generalizing, it made me think that perhaps in 5-10 years’ time we’ll see a wave of interesting enterprise-focused startup ventures from former Y Combinator participants (once they’ve gotten the real-life enterprise experience piece down). But then I realized that this really – and quite obviously – applies more broadly.

Y Combinators are problem-solvers. In some sense, they’re one of the best coordinated groups of problem-solvers of their generation, a generation that is one of the first to have grown up with digital technologies permeating their existence. They’re naturally going to have a different perspective on the world than older generations. One might read Levie’s comment as a criticism of the type of utility that typically comes out of Y Combinator startups. Perhaps that is the case – but what you can extrapolate from Levie’s examples is that Y Combinator participants really apply a social lens to the world and craft solutions that (hope to) bring us social utility.

Seeing that lens – and it’s a powerful one – coming to life on a large scale across other sections of society and bringing new incarnations of social utility with it will be truly exciting.

I recently returned from a 10-day trip to Stockholm, Sweden. While I was there, I came across three interesting ads that all incorporated scannable codes.

I spotted the first one while waiting for the bus (click to enlarge).

This is the Swedish Pensions Agency advertising a new service that lets people forecast their pensions. Readers can download the app by scanning the QR code in the bottom right. There’s only a hint to what the code does: “Get The Pensions Prognosis Application!”). It seems like it would be more straightforward to download the app by simply searching for it.

I found the second ad in an issue of Swedish Metro.

This is Bonnier’s Art Gallery advertising a new fall exhibition. The ad states that the exhibition isn’t for everyone and decidedly not for you, but if you scan the QR code you’ll get a free admission ticket that you can give to someone better suited. This is a bit quirky and very opinionated, which feels like a good context for QR codes. The payoff is good – sure, you’re gonna have to put in a little bit of effort scanning the code, but you’ll get free admission to an art exhibition!

The third one is also a Metro find.

Bokus.com is an online bookstore and in this case, they’re trying to reach students stocking up on literature for the fall term. The headline reads “This ad is really a bookstore for students”. The ad further explains that if you download the Bokus.com app, you’ll be able to buy books by scanning the barcodes in the ad. On first thought, it seems like a really compelling idea – a print ad that actually is a store – but I wonder how many people will actually download the app.

A majority of marketing executions involving QR codes seem to fail to

1. explain to users what the codes are and how to use them. Keep in mind that only a very small minority of users actually use QR codes, despite the fact that the technology has been around in the US on a noticeable scale, and seemingly in the public’s eye, since 2008.
2. provide users with enough motivation to go through with the action of scanning the code in order to get to the prize on the other side.

(If you’re interested, Aaron Dignan’s book Game Frame digs deeper into these two as symptoms of user inhibition and disengagement within systems – well worth the read.)

Perhaps this is a bit of a stretch, but Malcolm Gladwell’s article “The Pitchman” comes to mind. It tells the story of Ron Popeil who re-invented the product pitch and built a multi-million dollar empire selling kitchen gadgets. Gladwell argues that in order to disrupt someone’s behavior, you have to explain the use cases of your product over and over again:

[ The Chop-O-Matic] represented a different way of dicing onions and chopping liver: it required consumers to rethink the way they went about their business in the kitchen. Like most great innovations, it was disruptive. And how do you persuade people to disrupt their lives? Not merely by ingratiation or sincerity, and not by being famous or beautiful. You have to explain the invention to customers– not once or twice but three or four times, with a different twist each time. You have to show them exactly how it works and why it works, and make them follow your hands as you chop liver with it, and then tell them precisely how it fits into their routine, and, finally, sell them on the paradoxical fact that, revolutionary as the gadget is, it’s not at all hard to use.

Brands that use QR codes are asking their consumers to rethink the way they interact with the brand. They’re asking people to find and install an app to read the codes with, and then to scan the code in order to access some information. This may sound like little effort, but it’s enough to dissuade people from even bothering.

Which brands, if any, have ever pitched the QR code to their audience?

It’s easy to see why QR codes are attractive to marketers:

1. There’s no licensing cost.
2. The technology is standardized and open-source.
3. There’s no additional cost for integration – just add the code to your campaign material.
4. QR codes have been popular in Asia for some time. Surely they could become popular in the US and Europe too?
5. The consumer reach is, in theory, pretty good. QR codes aren’t quite phone agnostic quite yet, but most smartphones support free 3rd party readers. Google’s Android OS and RIM’s Blackberry both support QR codes through native readers. Apple’s iOS on the other hand does not include a QR code reader (but there’s plenty of 3rd party apps available). The Windows 7 phone will have native support through its bing search app.
6. Lastly, but most importantly: QR codes provide brands with an additional measurement channel.

Through the use of QR codes, marketers get access to new exciting metrics like the click-through rate for real-world items coupled with timestamps as well as geographical and demographical data. Swedish startup Mopper illustrate this very clearly in their online sales pitch – measurement is a huge selling point.

The Mopper team doesn’t stop at just measurement; they make the natural progression to QR code-enabled sales. Apart from providing a QR code reader, the app also ties together QR codes with commerce, creating an additional sales channel. This I actually like a lot, provided it’s the right situation. Just like in one of the Mopper videos, I’d love to be able to buy show tickets directly from a poster rather than having to remember to do it when I get home or trying to navigate Ticketmaster’s frustrating website on my phone. [Sidenote: Mopper has cleverly rotated the QR code, added their logo to its top right corner and named the result 'mopper tag'. Rings nicer than 'QR code', doesn't it?]

A concluding thought. If you’re a brand manager, planner or marketer and you’re considering incorporating QR codes into your next campaign, ask yourself this: can you afford to onboard your audience in the usage of QR codes while keeping them motivated through the process?

Is a second cup before 10 am too audacious?

Having known of CreativeMornings for quite some time, I finally made the decision to attend one of their talks and managed to snag a ticket to July’s lecture with John Maeda (assisted by Becky Bermont). If you’re not familiar with CreativeMornings, they’re an organization that hosts free breakfast lectures on a range of creative topics in four different locations around the world. Really good stuff.

John Maeda is the president of the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD), as well as an artist, designer, computer scientist and author. He gave a short talk on creative leadership, inspired by the work that he did with Bermont in preparation for their book on leadership; together they printed and analyzed Maeda’s tweets to see what insights these digital short-form messages held about him as a leader. Maeda and Bermont distilled their findings into six principles for creative leaders. By coining these principles, they hope to raise awareness of the value of artistic thinking in a leadership context.

Without further ado, I give you John Maeda’s principles for creative leadership:

1. Build From Foundations
Sketching, drawing and the study of raw data are excellent starting point to any creative process. “Artists have to get their hands dirty, starting with core foundations and basic principles.”

2. Craft The Team
Don’t be a lone wolf creative person. Work with your team. Make sure to craft your team wisely; to do great work, you need great material.

3. Sense Actively
Our world is changing rapidly. The structures of our organizations have grown more complex as we’ve gone from organizational trees with clear hierarchies and communication paths to complex and intertwined organizational networks. These organizational changes are felt everywhere and as a leader, it’s in your interest to quickly sense them and try to understand them.

Artists sense their surroundings and communicate their impressions through their art. Maeda likens them to kitemakers who sense the wind and with their kites help others to see it. Leaders should take inspiration from this and try to reflect the winds that they are sensing in their work.

4. Take Leaps
Artists are risk takers. They ask questions (“Why is it this way? Why is it not?”) and take leaps based on the answers they find. Leaders are understandably not as eager to do this but in an increasingly complex world, leaders benefit from looking to how artists approach the process of finding good ideas.

Maeda describes a pyramid of skills that facilitate idea generation (Brennan’s Hierarchy of Imagination). Click for full version.

The top half is the most strategic span for leaders today. People generally get stuck in the bottom half because they’re afraid of taking risks (Becky chimed in to say that this is especially true for women who often set out to find the right solution in projects). Leaders should welcome more freedom in their process and not strive to be perfect; just jump in, get your hands dirty and try out different things.

5. Fail Productively
Artists fail often, but they recover quickly; they fail productively. They connect and reuse old failures and in doing so they create new things. A CEO can facilitate productive failure by connecting people and ideas. As a leader, which two people can you connect to spark a new idea or to provide a solution to someone’s problem?

6. Grow From Critique
Artists are hungry for critique because they are eager to change and grow into their fullest potential. Anyone in a leadership position is going to be exposed to critique. So how does one grow from this critique without losing oneself? The answer, according to Maeda, is to have confidence and to use the 6 principles.

If you’d like to read more:
John Maeda’s Creative Leadership blog http://creativeleadership.com/
Patti Brennan’s Hierarchy of Imagination: http://creativeleadership.com/brennans-hierarchy-of-imagination