Navigating Venus
A lot of interesting things are happening at the moment and there is way to less time to share everything. One thing that we are very proud of is our joint research project with doubleshift. Navigating Venus is an in depth research study based on observations and actual behavior on how women are acting, reacting and redefining themselves today. The study identifies four emerging patterns of womanhood and implications for brand strategies in both communication and innovation.
One year of LHBS
On the 2nd of September was the first birthday of LHBS. On this day 12 months ago Joanna and I signed the last official papers to kick off LHBS. The last year not just turned out to be the most challenging time in my life but also the most interesting time and I don’t want to miss out a single moment. We summarized 3 of our biggest learnings during that time in the weeknotes on the LHBS blog. Thanks to the great team, partners, clients and friends for the last year and get ready for the second year of LHBS 
Joanna Bakas “The Power of Unlearning”
I’m just feeling extremely lucky to have such a smart partner on board of LHBS. Joannas talk has been around the interwebs for a while now but it’s just straight to the point and so I had to post it again.
Not learning is the barrier, unlearning is the barrier!
Joanna Bakas “The Power of Unlearning” from LHBS Consulting GmbH on Vimeo.
The evolution of mobile
Great mixture of technology, motion design and story telling.
Vodafone – The Evolution of Mobile from the found collective on Vimeo.
Wiener Linien are on the right track
Up till now I have seen some interesting concepts of how airlines try to utilize mobile for faster check ins, boarding and mileage collections but only very little from the rest of the transportation industry. I never understood why airlines are leading the way? Is it because of more business travelers? Do they just have more money for innovation? Transportation is transportation and it shouldn’t matter if you board a plane, train or subway when it comes to constantly improving customer experience.
Wiener Linien (the public transport company of Vienna) just did a good step towards mobile integration. It’s not fully there yet but I’m already happy with what they have done so far. You can now register online, buy your tickets (also in advance) and the tickets get pushed on to your account on the Wiener Linien iPhone app. The system could have a better user experience but the main thing is that it works smooth. I’m curious to see the next version of the app which hopefully includes also the option to buy tickets within the app.
There is so much more potential for innovation in transportation:
Let’s see if the start of Westbahn (private railroad company) in winter will also bring some innovation and improvements in user experience to the Austrian railroad market (currently a monopoly for ÖBB). I personally still have my doubts but usually it’s the right moment for innovation when a new competitor enters the market. No matter what happens both railroad companies should take a look what Wiener Linien did and try to further improve it and make it relevant for the context of their service and their customers. Up till now the ÖBB didn’t care at all about the fact that you can buy your tickets online but still need to run around with a print out instead of a nice app that you have on your mobile which you have always with you.
Another thing that I also never understood was why public transport companies don’t offer a real customer loyalty programme, that is not just based on a pure financial benefit. A programme that connects the frequent travelers with the shops in the neighborhoods they pass by everyday. You don’t need a second miles&more programm but you should offer additional benefits to your regulars. Hopefully these companies will soon realize the potential that they have within their existing user base. Just imagine to put some learnings from behavioral economics on top of that and maybe you find yourself with a new business model, revenue stream and out of competition again.
The dark side of case videos
OMG, this week is Cannes. You can see this by your flooded twitter timeline and by the hugh amount of case video that are suddenly popping up everywhere. I totally agree that case videos are the best way to showcase your work. You can get information across in a handy and understandable way but there is also a dark side to it. Case videos and their producers can influence the audience with film, motion, voice and music. Whenever we see a case video that succeeds to trigger our emotions we run in danger of losing focus and questioning the stuff that we see. Johannes posted a short clip about this, which I found quite interesting since I just watched a documentary by Adam Curtis yesterday and without noticing it I totally got hooked in by the emotions.
The point that I want to make is that we need to resist the emotional hooks of case videos and shouldn’t forget the question the content that gets showcased.
An example of this is the Homeplus supermarket case from South Korea.
By watching the video you get the feeling that the agency invented online shopping and home delivery for the supermarket. I just can’t believe this. It’s a way to complex task, just think of the internal process that you need to change at the value chain, introduction of an online payment systems and maybe even an app, the whole logistical nightmare of setting up a fleet of delivery trucks and getting the route management right. So, why don’t you say we put up some posters mit QR codes which brought more visitor to the online store?
“New” is the wrong starting point
Somebody (I guess it was David Ogilvy) said that “new” is the most powerful word in advertising. Well, that still seems to work with advertising (which should motivate people to try or buy something). So let’s say it can lead to a some kind of call to action. So when you do something add the powerful “new” wobbler to it.
The problem is that what seems to work as a call to action – “new” – becomes to often the starting point for innovation and new product development processes. We fool ourselves that “new” is always good, we believe that people want “new” things constantly and so we focus on doing something “new”. But this is not true. “New” is just “new” and this doesn’t solve any problem or provide any tangible benefit. So need might make you buy things once, but to often is was the last thing that “new” did. Not because of the wobbler but the new things just sucks.
“New” might be the outcome of innovation but it can’t be the starting point
Instead of “new” we should shift our starting point for innovation to “better”. “Better” is a good thing. People like it when things are “better”, who doesn’t? Yes, it’s very generic, relative and “better” can mean a lot of different things depending on the context but at least it has more substance than “new”. People have dreams and people think a lot about the future and what everybody wants is that tomorrow will be better than today. So let’s stop trying to reinvent the wheel all the time and rather focus on people and their needs. We should take this as a starting point and then apply our cognitive and contextual knowledge to come up with ideas and solutions that make their lives “better”. This might lead to something “new” but I guess in most cases it will be just connecting dots that nobody has connected before.
The blog is dead, long live the blog
I’m seriously trying to reactivate this blog. Strangely enough because of two completely different reasons but somehow they seem to get me going. First of all because there are a lot of things happening at LHBS which I can’t publish yet because our website is not ready. Currently we only have twitter account and facebook page which is fine but I’m looking for something different. I want to share more about the stuff that we are doing and thinking because I think it might be useful for some people out there. The second thing is that I get fed up with facebook because a lot of reasons and I feel the need to be more open and independent again.
So let’s give it a try and great to see you again.