Argus Insights : Product Innovation

Brought to my attention by a client:  Argus Insights.  " ... Products that exceed user expectations win.  Very simply, delighted customers buy more.Companies that delver products exceeding the expectation of their users win market share. .... "

Real World Retail Analytics Using Kinect

Just brought to my attention.  Shopperception:  "  ... The Kinect sensors allow us to bring new and exciting 3D spatial recognition tools to the market research industry ...  Once in a while, a new technology disrupts a market. Find out how the Kinect is disrupting shopper analytics by giving new and powerful metrics about the shopper and his interaction with the shelf... "    Explanatory video at the link above.

We examined  many variants on this broad idea in the innovation centers and worked with business analytics  models to interpret the data .

Big CPG Ad Spenders Plan to Ease Back

In Ad Age. Detailed piece on the plans of Procter & Gamble and Unilever in ad spending. Some speculation but considerable useful information.

A Model of Human Health Behavior Change

We worked with Stanford  Professor BJ Fogg several times in the enterprise.   I am very late to discover this,  but he has created a new model of human behavior change.  " ... In 2011, the World Economic Forum selected the Fogg Behavior model as their framework for health behavior change. ....  "  Examining it now.   See also his persuasive technology site.  Also @BJFogg

Samsung Gaming for Engagment

In the NYT:  Good general piece on gaming for brand engagement.  Mentioning the example of Samsung in some detail.  " ... Samsung is embracing a business trend called gamification, which takes elements from games and applies them to other settings. Companies like Recyclebank, for example, use game incentives, like points and rewards, to prompt consumers to perform eco-friendly activities. Other businesses offer awards like virtual badges to induce their employees to embrace corporate goals and increase productivity. Meanwhile, a number of well-known retailers and brands, including Samsung and Warner Brothers, are employing point reward systems as a way to engage customers more deeply.        ... " 

IBM's Watson Changing Careers

More indications that artificial intelligence, much promoted in the late 80s, is back again.    Based on the same kinds of rule-based,  certainty quantification methods we used then to prototype AI in the enterprise.  An now supported by a Web full of readily available knowledge.  Will it succeed generally this time?   I think so, but it may require substantial time to mature.

Unilever Taps a Join the Dots Panel

Had not heard of this before, but from Research Live: Unilever is recruiting a new panel of shoppers to help 'shape the future' of its family of brands.

Home Robotics and the Mint Cleaner

I was involved with several projects in the enterprise that dealt about how cleaning products could be used in conjunction with home robotics.  We got some early experience with in-office robotics that moved mail around.  In particular which algorithms could be used to make that process efficient.  The best known example is the iRobot Roomba floor sweeper.  But a recent conversation reminded me of the mint floor cleaner.  Which has been advertised much on cable recently and received generally good reviews.  Waiting for the workable home butler.

Managing Analytic Resources

Good post on the topic. I find many groups are uncertain about how to manage the process of working with analytics. And they are also unclear about how to deal with the results discovered.

On the Size and Complexity of Data

In the Atlantic: In an edited excerpt from his new book, Too Big to Know, David Weinberger explains how the massive amounts of data necessary to deal with complex phenomena exceed any single brain's ability to grasp, yet networked science rolls on.

Practicing for the Super Bowl Ads

Sands Research sends along an item and commentary pointing to an article in the WSJ on  how Super Bowl ad companies use neuromarketing methods to test modifications of ads to see which work best.   A good example of how neuro techniques are becoming used more commonly by big advertisers.  Usually in addition to other methods.  More and more of these methods are being used mobile, in context, a further powerful idea.

Enterprise Performance Management from SAP

Good post by Laura Mikovsky on Enterprise Performance management from SAP.  A classic need for the enterprise.   A typical dashboard BI application.   How are various parts of my enterprise performing, and how do I normalize these results with other measures like the economy?    You could take this further to measure other causal interactions,  both inside the organization and outside.  The post goes on to mention how some of their new in memory techniques and data availability can make these measures real time.  Useful in some industries. 

My suggestion: Take this a step forward and construct a company performance leader board, then use game dynamics to create in enterprise competition between, say, sales districts.  Provide automatic causal suggestions as to why the leader is ahead.   With cautions about the likelihood of people trying to game the measures.  We experimented with something like this well before this kind of sophisticated technology was possible, and data was far less available, as far back as the early 1980s.

Food Lion Shares Demand Data

In a move to consumer driven demand, Food Lion shares data:    " ... Food Lion is working on changing the way CPG vendors such as PepsiCo replenish its distribution centers and stores by offering them visibility into current and expected consumer demand as reflected by store-level inventory and sales. This represents a marked departure from the traditional replenishment scenario whereby Food Lion, like most retailers, only provides vendors with information on transfer of products from DCs to stores (known as warehouse withdrawals), but not on what happens at the store level. Instead, the chain is shifting to what it calls consumer-demand-driven replenishment.... "

Conflict Management

An excellent piece by Ed Burghard on effective conflict management.  Most people do not deal well with conflict, and this chkeclist of possible solutions can be very valuable.

More on Story Telling

Steve King writes in the Small Business Blog about the rise of storytelling and a number of projects underway in that space.

Wireless Brain Wave Sensors

In SCiam:   General, non technical article on wireless encephalogram monitors.  A number of current gaming examples are mentioned.

Visual Beauty, Usefulness and Objectivity

How do you bring together objective truth, analytical precision and visually pleasing visualizations?  Can all the infographic spin be removed, or  does the mere choice of data shown have its ow spin?  Tableau software discusses in their blog.  Good examples shown. Overall the Tableau blog is worth following.

"  .... one cannot reach their potential with a publicly facing viz unless it is both analytically useful and visually stunning. No emphasis on either one. A viz needs to be beautiful to draw people in and engage them, but it also needs to be analytically valuable in order to serve a higher purpose than just beauty ... " 

Crowd Sourced Ale

A simple example of crowd sourcing, not sure if it a very good one, but the application in food and drink is unusual.

Digital Signage Continued

I will have to mention Keith Kelsen's book: Unleashing the Power of Digital Signage once again.   An excellent book that I am making my way through now.  I particularly like the fact that it includes quantitative analysis of the value of signage uses, and a useful classification of context issues.  Much more here.   

If you are considering a digital design display in stationary, mobile, interactive or other environments, this book is a great place to start.  This was one of our key experimentation topics in the innovation center,  and it is of great value to have key topics laid out.

Federal Move to Mobile

The government is usually late to such moves.  They pioneer some aspects, then wait for a long time. But when they finally decide to move it legitimizes it for lots of other parts of the economy.  The CIO on the Federal Mobile Strategy.