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Orange Balloonacy

Here it is again, the great internet balloon race - Orange Balloonacy.

I love the concept and I love how easy it is to take-part in, both as a racer and as a host:

Thought for the week

“Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind.” Theodor Seuss Geisel (1904-1991)

The Rory Yates Daily is out

Top stories today by @WiredUK @richardbranson @Wossy

TODAY'S TRENDING TOPICS:

Stories #health Politics Technology Business
#measure Art & Entertainment Education

To view a summary of what people in my network have been reading and posting click here.

Farnham Fireworks Fiesta

LORD COE TO LIGHT THE 2010 BONFIRE IN FARNHAM PARK

Farnham Round Table organise the annual fireworks display held in Farnham Park preceded by a torchlit procession through the town centre.

For more information click here

To buy tickets click here

All proceeds go towards local charities.

The Rory Yates Daily is out

Top stories today by @gcharlton @maxymiser

TODAY'S TRENDING TOPICS

* #spendingreview
* Stories
* Technology
* Business
* Art & Entertainment
* Education
* #jump
* Health

http://paper.li/RoystonVassey

I'm still waiting...

Loads of web experiences out there attempt to make things easier by using services to source data and populate fields with information on the users behalf. In principle this is a great idea - ask the user to provide one or two bits of information and then return multiple populated fields back, sounds great! In reality even simple #PAF look-ups often take an age to return addresses or there are silly little mistakes in the #UX which mean that users still have to sift through a huge drop down to find the information that relates to them. Worse still the wait for the information to return takes forever and then sometimes only a couple of additional fields are populated leaving the user asking - 'was it worth it!'

These problems are still common and with some #UX planning these can be avoided. I think E-business professionals need to start or more often identify user thresholds for these sort of things and take a lead in driving the system / operational planning as well as optimising the front-end experiences.

The key here is to maintain user momentum, if something acts as a stumbling block or takes time and means the user is likely to start up another online activity you have increased your chances of losing them significantly.


Reference: #UX = User Experience

The Rory Yates Daily is out

Top stories today by @adenhepburn @avinash @WiredUK

TODAY'S TRENDING TOPICS

* Stories
* Politics
* Technology
* #read
* Business
* Art & Entertainment
* Education
* #change

http://paper.li/RoystonVassey

Thought for the week

“There are four things that hold back human progress: ignorance, stupidity, committees and accountants.” British civil servant Sir Charles James Lyall (1845-1920)

Sound familiar?

The Rory Yates Daily is out

Top stories today by @exectweets @hblodget @adenhepburn @forrester

TODAY'S TRENDING TOPICS

* Stories
* Politics
* Technology
* Business
* #scrm
* Art & Entertainment
* Education
* #socbiz

http://paper.li/RoystonVassey

The Rory Yates Daily is out

Top stories today by @mrjoe @AmyCallaghan @Methystic @hblodget @hblodget @comScore

TODAY'S TRENDING TOPICS

* #socialmedia
* Stories
* Technology
* Business
* #measure
* Art & Entertainment
* Education
* Health

http://paper.li/RoystonVassey

The Rory Yates Daily is out

Top stories today by @comScore @technorati @therabbitagency

TODAY'S TRENDING TOPICS

* #convomktg
* Stories
* Technology
* Business
* Art & Entertainment
* Education
* Health
* #jump

http://paper.li/RoystonVassey

The Rory Yates Daily is out

Top stories today by @mikebutcher @comScore

TODAY'S TRENDING TOPICS

* #socialmedia
* Stories
* Technology
* Business
* #measure
* Art & Entertainment
* Environment
* Education

http://paper.li/RoystonVassey

Some M-Commerce Links

Here are some articles I picked up this morning on M-Commerce that I thought I'd share with you:

1. Orvis sports a new m-commerce site:
http://tinyurl.com/265cd4v

2. Marks & Spencer announces m-commerce success:
http://tinyurl.com/2d25ey4

3. Retailers Worldwide Struggle to Keep Up With M-Commerce Demands:
http://tinyurl.com/22oq95d

4. John Lewis launches mobile retail site:
http://tinyurl.com/26ynj7f

5. Shoppers opt for mobile browsers over dedicated apps, survey finds:
http://tinyurl.com/2cqmveu

I'm sort of getting the impression that m. / .mobi is starting to become a big deal (he says sarcastically into his morning coffee). Time for other market sectors (not just retail) to wake up a bit and get their mobile strategies in place.

Don't worry I'm not going to say that 2011 is going to be the year of the mobile. I will however point out that consumers needs are not being met - what happened to that good old marketing orientation eh? Put customer needs first and in the case of M-Commerce kick your competition into touch in the process.

The Rory Yates Daily is out

Top stories today by @hblodget @biz @timpaterson @comScore.

TODAY'S TRENDING TOPICS

* Stories
* Technology
* Business
* Art & Entertainment
* Education
* #in
* #fb
* Health

http://paper.li/RoystonVassey

Thought for the week

"Worry does not empty tomorrow of its sorrow; it empties today of its strength." Dutch protector of Jews from the Holocaust Corrie ten Boom (1892-1983)

The Rory Yates Daily

TODAY'S TRENDING TOPICS

* Politics
* Technology
* Business
* Art & Entertainment
* #ux
* Education
* #twitter

http://paper.li/RoystonVassey

Innovation without strategy

Sometimes I moan on this blog about the general lack of innovation out there. However, I sometimes come across a company or market that seems to be displaying a lot of innovation, loads of individually good digital initiatives just being chucked out there. After a while my E-Business head kicks in and I ask - why do these innovations exist? What are they trying to achieve? What customer needs (implicit or explicit) are they trying to satisfy? What does this all add up to? etc. I almost never come up with what might be the strategy behind it all, and I'm guessing there usually isn't one. This sort of activity is not only damaging to those trying to get serious buy-in and commitment towards innovation but it is also a waste of time.

I agree with the general sentiment out there that the traditional strategic planning processes don't allow for, or include, the idea of establishing innovative strategic goals. One way to achieve this is to run a process for 'Innovation Strategy' alongside the strategic planning process and challenge where necessary the strategic direction and or goals by offering potentially better solutions. These processes need to be creative, market & customer centric and driven by the need to discover and learn more. Strategic goals can include a notion of differentiation but perhaps the planning required to achieve this needs to include time & budget for discovery exercises to take place. Taking this further isn't innovating to achieve your strategic goals 'the cost of doing business' and shouldn't we be allocating budget to support these activities like it’s an operational cost (something we have to do)?

I think one of the key ways you can drive innovation is to create more insight. If you know and understand your weaknesses and opportunities then innovating to resolve or exploit these will become an essential strategic goal by proxy, or it will at least make it far more easy to justify in the board room.

In addition to creating a greater focus on innovation strategy, insight can also help determine how your company should innovate and of course the relative priority or importance of different innovations.

Those responsible for innovation (in some way everyone should be) need to accept that some sort of economic value model will need to be established where investment is required. There is a growing number of larger companies which are happy to work to an incremental innovation strategy framework and as aspects of a new innovation become increasingly economically viable they are approved and delivered. The benefit of establishing the vision for a particular innovation is that the decisions on how best to deliver the solutions required in each stage become far more conducive to continuing to move forward i.e. we adopt the right technologies to support the whole process from the outset.

There are some people who would argue innovation in the digital age is just another word for strategy any way and we need to give it the same level of commitment accordingly.

Thought for the week

"Data, data everywhere, but never time to think." Professor Sonia Livingstone of the London School of Economics