Freshly Baked @Foursquare Ideas – Explore events

Read Part I of the Freshly Baked @ Foursquare Ideas series.

This is Part II of the Freshly Baked @Foursquare Ideas series. In this post, we focus on exploration...particularly around events.

Exploration (or discovery) is core to Foursquare's model. You only have to view the homepage (...Find your Friends. Unlock Your City) or play with the latest 3.0 update (which features an Explore tab) to realise the value that's been placed on exploration.

Currently, users explore via direct search or through filters (food, coffee, nightlife, shops and arts & entertainment) and the Foursquare recommendation engine returns a list of locations to the user. But whilst searching for locations is an effective means to explore a city, it's just one angle, one approach.

Imagine if Foursquare were to partner with an events network such as Plancast or Yahoo Upcoming. This would add a new dimension to a user's experience of exploring their city. No longer would users just explore by locations (already added in the Foursquare ecosystem), but by upcoming events (e.g. art exhibitions, flea markets, food markets, live music gigs, etc) as well.

Imagine this:

1. You're in New York City and you have nothing planned for Sunday.
2. You load the Foursquare app to explore what's happening.
3. You're presented with a list of events on Sunday along with their opening hours and tips.
4. You see that the Brooklyn Flea Market is open till 5pm, at Williamsburg, Brooklyn. You also notice that four of your Foursquare friends have already been there.
5. Finally you read the tip, "Check out the bank vault whilst you're there...you'll be in for a treat!".
6. You add this to your to-do list, throw on a jacket and head out to check the markets.

Exploring by events...A simple, yet a new and powerful way to explore a city. No longer will you miss out on an event of interest to you. No longer will you have to read another pocket-size pamphlet or visit another external website to list upcoming events. The beauty with this solution is that the entire exploration experience from planning to physical check-in is all contained seamlessly within one convenient environment for the user: the Foursquare app.

Below is just a sneak preview of the Foursquare Events prototype I've been developing. I've viewed the 'Events' feature as an entirely new Foursquare product offering and have thought through some of the workflows.

What do you think?

Freshly Baked @Foursquare Ideas - Check into transporation, not just locations

Currently, Foursquare allows users to check into one location at a time. A local cafe. A new kitsch bar. A grubby metro station.

But what if Foursquare supported check ins to more than just locations? What if Foursquare supported check ins to major modes of transportation. A flight. A cruise liner. An interstate train.

What I find interesting about this idea is that it opens up a new dimension to Foursquare. No longer are you bound to just one location at any one point in time. By checking into a major mode of transportation, you're now interacting with an object that ties multiple locations together  - your origin and your destination. I think this could have major business implications as it could enable Foursquare to widen its service offerings in the future to both the consumer and business markets.

Let's look at checking into major modes of transportation as an example. Users are already doing this - they're just treating it as another legitimate location. How many times have you seen some flight/cruise/train code, an AA33, a QF108 or an OA815 (only if you're in LAX), already entered in Foursquare? Whilst confusing at times (surely checking into the airport tarmac isn't legitimate) it does confirm one thing: people are already familiar with checking into modes of transportation. From a UX perspective, it's somewhat reassuring to know that this behaviour is already part of a user's mental model of Foursquare.

My own personal user journey for this use case would look like:

1. I'm at JFK and I check into flight AA33.
2. Foursquare confirms this is the JFK -> LAX bound flight.
3. I am able to read up on LAX and am presented with useful data about my flight (e.g. whether it is on time or delayed, departure gate, etc.) and my destination location: LAX. In this case, I would expect to be presented with data such as the location of airline lounges, transfer gates, customs offices, rest rooms. I may even be presented with the different forms of local transport (train/bus/cab) and estimated rates (e.g. the cab fare from LAX to Downtown LA). And all this occurs in addition to the tips functionality that exists on the current Foursquare platform. Imagine how powerful and relevant this would be for travellers!
4. LAX is 'cached' on a quick-access list, so when I land and get mobile coverage, it immediately pops up for a rapid fire check in.

In this simple example, it is clear that the user group that is benefitting is the consumer group. They're benefitting from the useful and relevant data...and this occurs because we've shifted focus from a single location to an object (a mode of transportation) that ties multiple locations together simultaneously.

But what about the business group? I can feel people itching to know how this service could be monetised. I think this service is perfectly aligned with the travel guide industry - and if the recent Guardian article on Foursquare is anything to go by, it appears that Foursquare is perfectly lined up to enter this particular industry. But rather than competing against the travel guide giants, I'd recommend partnering with them (at least for the short term). Lonely Planet (@lonelyplanet) is infamous for it's PDF guides of cities, and it's pre-planned sight-seeing routes. Foursquare could be leveraged as a distribution network for Lonely Planet.

Just imagine this: Foursquare confirms that flight AA33 is bound for Los Angeles. You've never been to LA before, so Foursquare offers a $10 mobile guide to Los Angeles with all of the travel hot spots laid out on the map within the native Foursquare mobile app. Pretty neat huh? Foursquare could charge a retainer fee for being the distribution network and a percentage cut of every transaction made. Obviously, issues will have to be ironed out with pushing travel guides only when its relevant (i.e. only when users are travelling for holidays). This is just one minor example of a new revenue stream for Foursquare just by focusing not on a single location, but an object (a mode of transportation) that links multiple locations together simultaneously.

I've calculated that since the start of 2010, I've averaged at least one flight a week with business. I also know I've  personally added my weekly flights as locations on Foursquare (for both points and mayorship purposes). Crowley (@dens), please don't hate. I've seen other commuters check into my faux-locations too! But if randoms and I are checking into these faux locations...doesn't this mean something?

So readers, I'd be keen on hearing your thoughts. Do you think this functionality would be useful? What other travel-related functionality would you like to see on Foursquare? Drop me a comment below with your opinions!

Observation, Ideation & Innovation

Last night, I presented at Deloitte's Forensic Innovation Cafe in Sydney. The brief given to me was to run the Forensics team through my thought process around one of my innovative pieces. It was to keep innovation real, and really inspire them to start innovating.

I walked them through ideation/innovations in 3 different industries:

1. Airline Industry
2. Non-for Profit Organisations (NPOs)
3. Mobile

I then wrapped up with four key-learnings:

1. Observe & Reflect

What do Malcolm Gladwell, Alain De Botton, David Attenborough and Peter Williams (CEO of Deloitte Digital) have in common? What makes them great thinkers and inspirational individuals? They all take the time to observe society around them and reflect on their observations. These guys are able to weave together all of these disparate threads (observations) and synthesise them into articulate arguments.

The innovations I presented across all 3 industries spawned from individuals observing simple problems in the environment around them.

2. Don't Force it

Ideation & Innovation are akin to sitting on a toilet. They are natural processes, and you simply can’t force it. When it comes, it comes – it’ll drop like a bomb, or all of a sudden the ideas will starting flowing straight onto paper.

Want a practical example? Google Maps – that wasn't as a business-driven offering. It came out from a team of engineers, who in their 20% free time,  thought it was a great idea to map the world. Now we can't live without it.

3. Venture into new things

Get into a new skin. Learn new things. Nothing's holding you back. Don't have a skill? Identify the people who do and collaborate with them. For example, the Australian Red Cross Blood Service innovation involved me collaborating with two work mates down in Melbourne. I couldn't have done it without them.

Venturing into new things is also about creating stuff. Mark Pollard, strategy director at McCann Sydney, just recently blogged on Why strategists should make stuff. It's a phenomenal read and it ties in very nicely with this key learning.

4. Have a bit of fun

The CEO of Deloitte Australia, Giam Swiegers, couldn't say it any better, but "Have a bit of fun". Innovation is about having a bit of fun. Never let it become a dull and boring chore. Keep the creativity burning!

Overall, the response I received was positive. It was an alternate approach to looking at innovation. If there was anything I'd do differently, I would've cut down on my introduction (I thought my audience should know a little bit about me before diving into the content) and I'd tell them that ideation never really stops - can't push out an idea at the innovation cafe/workshop? That's okay. If you push it out later, add it back to the collective pool of ideas generated at the workshop.

So there you go, my presentation summed up in a quick blog post. If there's one thing you takeaway, it should be this: Take the time to observe and reflect on your environment.  You cannot innovate without insight. You cannot gain insight without observing.

If you want annotations, view the presentation on slideshare and refer to  the notes tab.

I hope you enjoy it. I'm keen for feedback! :)

Qantas Boarding Pass: Redesigned

Over the past 7 weeks, I've spent more time in the airport than in my own bed at home. What this has resulted in, is me becoming a faux-quasi-David Attenborough of the airport landscape -  I've accrued many hours just observing how passengers (including myself) interact with boarding passes. In User Experience (UX) land, we call this engaging in 'experience research' or 'ethnographic research', i.e. watching human behaviour towards a product/service to gain insight on how users interact with it (and how they don't interact with it). My finding? Current-day boarding passes aren't designed to be passenger friendly.

In this post, I will only be focusing on Qantas' boarding passes (I'm loyal to this carrier). But whilst I'm isolating Qantas, I can guarantee that it's a universal design problem across all carriers - just have a look at Boarding Pass/Fail by @tyler_thompson. I was introduced to this site by @jwswj after I had completed my re-design (see footnote).

Current Design

Redesign

My thoughts on the Current Design vs. Redesign

The placement of information in the current design lacks a natural logical flow

Many of the passengers I observed struggled to easily find their departure gate and boarding time from their boarding passes. Older-aged passengers called on the assistance of their travel companion, whilst younger-aged passengers took on average, roughly about 3 seconds to achieve this task.

I believe that this struggle is due to the lack of a natural logical flow of information in the boarding pass design. Adopting a Western-world reading pattern (from left to right) for the boarding pass, the string of information on the boarding pass can be read as:

The Carrier is Qantas Airways for Flight QF123 leaving on 15 June for me, the passenger,Jordan Sim. I will be seated in 31F in economy class travelling from Sydney to Melbourne and this flight has a boarding time of 7:40am with a sequence number of A123. I have to board at Gate 5 and my service information is Frequent Flyer Bronze QF1234567.

This string lacks a logical flow and the pieces of information do not harmoniously sit together to be easily memorised. Information accessibility is poor. Now compare this to the redesigned boarding pass:

I, Jordan Sim, the passenger, am travelling from Sydney to Melbourne on Flight QF433 on 06 June. I will board at Gate 5 at the time of 3:10pm. When I'm on the plane, my seat number is 39F.

Reading the redesigned boarding pass is easy - the pieces of information harmoniously work together to form a comprehensive string. In other words, the information is easily accessible.

The key difference is that the boarding pass has been designed through the eyes of the passenger (i.e. the customer). The information on the boarding pass directly mirrors the physical boarding process. It begins with the passenger travelling between 2 locations via a plane. The plane departs on a certain date from a certain gate at a certain time. Once the passenger has passed the gate, they  have a seat on the plane.As such, it can be seen that customer interactions have been considered in the design of the new boarding pass. This makes it passenger friendly.

</rant>

What are your thoughts/opinions?

Add your comments below :)

FOOTNOTE: Whilst I am glad to know that I share a similar opinion as the UX experts towards boarding pass designs, I am simultaneously flat as my designs look similar to Tyler's even though they were designed completely independent of his.

Bumping your bank's ATM

What's wrong with this picture?

For me, it's that too many customers are waiting to use the ATM. How many times have you had to wait in a queue, wasting your time? Why haven't banks streamlined this process already?

I propose an alternate ATM customer interaction model. I'm not trying to deliver a fully-functional solution.  I am however, horizon gazing, and want to get some creative thought juice around disrupting the current way we interact with our bank ATMs.

The new way: Bump your ATM

The new interaction model is simple. As a customer, you:

1. Define your details on your mobile device (PIN, account, withdrawal amount, etc)
2. Approach the ATM and 'bump' it with your mobile device
3. Cash is dispensed (or deposited) and the transaction is complete.

The term 'bump' may be ambiguous, but it refers to a technology that already exists- Bump App. This app allows individuals to exchange contact information just by tapping or 'bumping' their smart phones together. This interaction model has been adopted (acquired) by PayPal to provide a phone-tapping money transfer service.

Could we re-engineer this technology and apply it to ATM's?

One immediate advantage I could see with bumping an ATM is avoiding situations like this, which lead to this (HT @ScottRhodie ;) )

I ran the idea by @jwswj, @dkeeghan, @KristianTT and @haribilalic over a lunch at Captain's of Industry. The response was positive.

What do you think?

User Experience (UX). Steve Jobs'ing the Newspaper Industry.

Over the next 5-10 years, one question will cause many restless nights for the CEO's of newspaper companies. This question, one of multi-billion dollar proportions, is:

"How can we successfully convince and convert readers to pay for online news?"

Many people think this is an impossible task, and there's evidence to prove it. The New York Times launched a subscription program called TimesSelect in 2005, charging readers US $49.95 per annum. (Non-loyal) readers proved reluctant to pay for online content and the program was abandoned in 2007.

With British newspapers, The Times and The Sunday Times, recently announcing that they will charge for online content from June 2010, I thought I'd pitch in my two cent's worth.

In this blog post,  I propose 3 ideas:

1. The problem- Newspapers are not innovating enough.
2. The strategy- Newspapers need to focus on their readers...not their revenues
3. The solution- Really Rich User Experience

The problem: Newspapers are not innovating enough.

Most people think the problem is that news is free and so readily available on the web. This is what makes content so impossible to charge for online - if you can't get news from one news provider, there are many more just one click away. Additionally, there's blogs, Twitter and other social media technologies which can be leveraged for free, to obtain news and information. But these alternative are not the problem; they merely form the digital landscape which we're growing up in and currently inhabiting. More importantly, they form the baseline for all of our (user/customer) demands and expectations.

The problem is that newspapers are not innovating enough. An examination of existing and future chargeable online content offerings shows that they are nothing to be desired. In these initiatives, newspapers are re-packaging existing news services into 'sparklier' offerings and then they differentiate by the bells and whistles they hang off (more up-to-date news coverage, more images and/or more information).  In the case of The Times and The Times Select, its "video, interactive graphics, personalised news feeds and the chance to engage directly with our journalists" (James Harding, the editor of The Times). Most of these offerings we can already get on the web today. This is why newspapers have all failed in the past with charging for online content, and this is why they will fail in the future. Reinventing the wheel got nobody anywhere. The same rule applies for newspapers. If newspapers really believed in the value of their journalism, they'd provide a much superior product and service to their readers than what they area already providing.

The strategy: Newspapers need to focus on their readers...not their revenues

If newspapers really focused on their readers, they'd know that charging for online content (in the present climate) is a futile move. More importantly, they would have a better understanding of the information needs of readers today.

In no specific, order, the information needs of readers today can be distilled down to 3 key pillars:

1. Succinctness

The supply of information well exceeds our demand and consequently, we have to consciously manage the equilibrium. This balancing act is a challenge as most of us are time-poor, i.e. we don't have enough time to identify, process and consolidate information (this is one reason why RSS became popular).

We don't need more information. We don't want more information. But what we do want is information presented in a succinct-manner and then have the ability to access that information. It is maximum factual impact within minimal time (this is one reason why Twitter became even more popular).

2. User Experience (UX)

Apple is a leader in the UX market. From the time each Apple product is unpacked to the time it is retired, customers revel endlessly about their amazing experience with the product. What Apple has done is not just revolutionise the technology market, but the consumer expectation market. Consumers now demand from every new generational technology release, much more sophisticated environments and capabilities that are just as, if not even more, easy-to-use.

In addition to this, consumers want the ability to control their information. They want an information pipeline that can be tailored to their information needs and interests. It's all about personalising the user experience.

The implications of increasing consumer expectations on the newspaper industry are huge, as it creates a massive opportunity for newspaper to innovate and offer game changing products and services that will revolutionise the way we browse and consume news content.

A perfect example is the collaboration that's between occurring between Wired Magazine and Adobe to develop their magazine content on the iPad. I believe Wired Magazine will be:

1. A market disruptor within the magazine industry and 2. A market leader in shaping the way we consume print content in the future.

3. Accessibility

There are three dimensions to information accessibility:

1. Physical - Information has to be physically accessible everywhere, from the mobile to the desktop, both online and offline.

2. Time - It also has to be accessible in real-time. The quicker you have access to information, the sooner you can position yourself in front of your competitors.

3. Societal - Information also has to be presented in a manner that it does not discriminate against those mentally and/or physically disadvantaged.

The solution: Really Rich User Experience

The only way newspaper companies will be able to convince and convert online readers to pay for online news is if they completely change the way we consume news. I believe that one way to achieve this is to provide consumers with a really rich user experience.

This isn't rocket science and you'll see why in the next two scenarios.

Scenario 1: The Portable Music Industry

Just less than a decade ago, MP3 players dominated the portable audio market. They synced seamlessly with the desktop, were highly portable and allowed music to be played on the go. In October 23, 2001, Apple released the first generation iPod. It synced seamlessly with the desktop, was highly portable and allowed music to be played on the go; it provided the same services as the MP3. The technology and the functionality was not revolutionary.

What was revolutionary, however, was the way users interacted with their music content. Apple provided a completely new and refreshing user experience for managing audio content. No longer would tracks have to be viewed individually (as in the Mp3); they could be viewed collectively grouped per album or per artist. No longer would volume be increased/decreased at the press of a button; it could be increased/decreased through sliding your finger across a track pad. Apple completely disrupted the existing model of interacting with a portable music device and offered a really rich user experience. Now the Apple iPod holds over 90% of the market for hard-drive based music players.

Scenario 2: The Mobile Communications Industry

Touch-screen smartphones have been around for decades, harking back to the days when names like Palm Treo, Personal Digital Assistance (PDA) and Siemens were considered 'radical'. They were compact computers with nifty features like GPS, WiFi, calendars, calculators, notes, email and an address book. However, none of these technologies took off.

Jump forward in time by a decade - in 2007, Apple officially announced it's smart phone, the iPhone. It was a compact computer with nifty features like GPS, WiFi, calendars, calculators, notes, email and an address book amongst other things. The feature set wasn't revolutionary. What was revolutionary, however, was the way users interacted their mobile device. The iPhone user interface (UI) was sexy, intuitive and consumers became completely immersed within it (and they still are now). At the time, the phone didn't even support basic functionality such as copy and paste, or even allow for multitask processing. But users loved the really rich user experience. Now the iPhone constitutes over 60% of the Australian mobile market.

It appears that revolutionising the way we consume content and providing even richer user experiences with each new technology release is key towards shifting an entire market towards a new convention.

One idea I have of a really rich user experience that I'd like to experience in the near future is reader immersion. Essentially this is my term for virtually embedding the reader within the real-life context of the content they are consuming.

The best example I can think of is the recent events in Haiti. Our perception of the situation was only conveyed through news articles, video snippets and online photo galleries. However, each of these mediums are mutually exclusive, and as such, are unable to collectively provide a complete experience of the situation in Haiti.

Through reader immersion, I foresee technologies such as Microsoft's Photosynth and Augmented Reality being combined to provide a richer user experience. Through Photosynth, readers will be able to see a three-dimensional rendering of the environment, and they will be able to view and move around in it. Overlaying textual information, via augmented reality, within this three-dimension virtual environment enables readers to drill down to more specific news content regarding the situation. The combination of these technologies would completely immerse readers within the world of Haiti, right from their home, and would enable them to have a fuller comprehension of the situation.

Conclusion

It's not about providing more news, more video or interactive graphics. We simply don't have the time to consume more content. The existing newspaper model is bunk.

It's about disrupting the market and way we consume news content now. It's about delivering a game-changing news service with an even richer user experience than the one we have now.

If any newspaper company is able to do this, they're just Steve Jobs'ed the newspaper industry, and they've lined themselves up for the billion dollar bang.

Foursquare. Untapped Potential.

After much deliberation, I gave in to creating a Foursquare account.  The reason for my hesitant uptake boils down to one reason: I don't think it's a great investment of one's time. Stripping away the badges and points (which makes the game engaging for users), it's just Twitter...only for your location. However, after test-driving it, I've discovered that Foursquare is not just a game. It has immense, untapped potential to shift the community closer towards the 'real-time web' and make Augmented Reality a mainstream reality, rather than the experimental project it currently is.

For those who aren’t familiar with the ‘real-time web’, here is a nice primer.

THE CURRENT PROBLEM

With the ‘real-time web’ in mind, I want you to consider Google Street View. I think that one of the largest obstacles for Google Street View is the validity of its image data, i.e. how contextually relevant the data is. Have you ever looked at Google Street View and noticed that the Street View Environment sometimes differs to your real environment? A new road isn't present on Street View as it was just constructed. A house is different coloured to what it is now. A business is present on Street View and it doesn't exist now. These discrepancies exists because the image data Google stores is directly reflective of the period in time in which it was captured. In the context of Sydney, Australia, the data is reflective of the environment prior to August 2008 (when the images of Australia were introduced). Yes, Google will be doing another sweep over the city (which will be an expensive and laborious task), but that's not the point. The point is that the environment changes significantly over a year - businesses have come and gone on the same property lot (multiple times over), whilst buildings have been demolished and erected. These changes aren't reflected within the image data provided by Google Street View.

A couple months ago, at the TechCrunch 50 conference , I thought that a solution to this obstacle existed. A Japanese company, Tonchidot, presented its product called the 'Sekai Camera'. For those unfamiliar with their product, basically, it's Augmented Reality based off tagging the entire world.

Here's quick video clip, in their Q+A session with the TechCrunch 50 panel.

For me, two key questions can be extracted from that Q+A session.

1. "How do you get people on board [to tag the entire world]?"
2. "When everything has moved around and all the data has changed how do you deal with it?

FOURSQUARE: THE (POTENTIAL) SOLUTION

And so, here I bring to you the potential of Foursquare and the power of crowd sourcing.

How do you get people on board to tag the entire world?

Foursquare's model is all about exploring new locations (on top of existing locations) in a fun, and more importantly, addictive manner. The community is totally immersed in a competitive environment (that's healthy...so far) to acquire more points or out-do each other by sporting more badges. And the only way to get these? Explore your city and continuously add new locations to your city. If a thousand monkeys working with a thousand typewriters are said to be able to write the greatest novel known to man :P, it does seem somewhat more of a reality that the entire world can be tagged.

When everything has moved around and all the data's changed how do you deal with it.

Whilst this serves to be Google Street View's largest obstacle, it forms the fundamental framework on which Foursquare operates off. If data has changed, a foursquare will simply just add a new location. No biggie. Plus, there's a massive bonus for Google, Australia as it will be able to significantly reduce its operational costs associated with Google Street View.

Imagine the endless possibilities if Foursquare were to be mashed up with Google Street View, and having this data back a product like the Sekai Camera.

CURRENT OBSTACLES

Unfortunately, there are several obstacles that are preventing this from becoming a reality. Many other blog posts and articles have already covered the potential privacy issues associated with Foursquare, and as such, I wish not to rehash this.

1. Currently, Foursquare users don't have the ability to directly edit locations. As a result, a mistake on behalf of the user can impact the validity of the system. A perfect example is the location of Fitness First Gym, Maroubra Junction, which has been located incorrectly in the Sydney CBD on George St (see image below).

2. Currently Foursquare allows for multiple entities to reside at a unique address. For example, 15 Broadway, Ultimo has two different results: the University of Technology, Sydney and SuperTAFE. If we truly want to move towards a real-time web, there must be a mechanism to facilitate the processing and validating updates to the data set.

3. Essentially this (potential) solution is based off the notion of crowdsourcing. As such, the success of the project is dependent on trusting that the community will provide accurate data and will operate together towards the common goal.

Whilst I know I haven't identified every single obstacle, and that my idea of the untapped potential of Foursquare may not be bullet-proof, I do believe that it's one side of Foursquare that definitely plays in its favour of becoming potentially the next 'big' market mover.

Let's just wait a couple more years and see what eventuates.