Because most people feel the need to bring a suitcase as hand luggage, as well as a duffle coat, a pillow and handbag, overhead storage space quickly fills. One passenger’s hand luggage needed to be stowed five seats behind his, and he rounded on the air hostess. What did he hope to achieve by doing that?

The air hostess told me she had another customer fly into a rage at her when the pilot announced that they’d been put into a holding pattern by air traffic control. Normally she’d just wear it. On this occasion she said ‘I’m terribly sorry sir. I’ve been doing lots of overtime and I’ve nearly saved up enough money for the new runway’. At least this passenger had the good grace to apologise.

Here’s my suggested addition to the passenger flight briefing:

We try really hard to give you a perfect travel experience in a confined space. What we notice is that sometimes, when things don’t go perfectly, some people are generous and understanding of that. We’d just like to thank those people for their enlightened attitudes.

People are very quick to complain about low standards of customer service, but they almost never thank people for good service (e.g. most people exiting an aircraft walk past the cabin crew stony-faced). They almost never write constructive suggestions to management after the fact. When they do complain, they almost always do it to the person at the coal face. Coincidentally, that’s a person who has low status in the organisation and a limited ability to respond. In most contexts, you’d call that bullying.

Thanks to the Virgin Australia crew for repeatedly providing excellent and attentive service.

Photo of Virgin America by Albert Domasin

Pia Waugh, from data.gov.au & GovHack

 
Started by Web Directions and now powered by data.gov.au, GovHack is a push for more sharing and manipulation of the data governments collect. A delicate issue, as many government departments now monetise the sale of their data.

Anyway, the strategy here is to unleash the creative force of developers on a single weekend and then put the apps in the face of government departments. “Here: look what’s possible with your data”.

I helped judge the WA Awards and like most people there, including the government folk, I was knocked out by (a) how much data is already available, (b) the obvious public benefits that will accrue and (c) the potential (in some cases) for commercialisation of the data. Policy wonks will surely be impressed by the results.

Have a look at some of the winning entries.

Strongly encourage web devs, designers and others to get involved next time round.

I attended as an observer.

The pitches: simple ideas, simply expressed were most successful in attracting votes. So were those that included ‘I’ve already created three startups; one is turning over a million dollars a month’. Everyone wants to be on a winning team.

Interestingly, the guy with this background reeled in followers based on one business concept but his group soon pivoted; a completely different concept developed. I took this as a sign of effective collaboration though I didn’t witness that first hand.

Another group was problematic. The coders were doing their thing, apparently oblivious to foundational discussions on the other side of the table. One of the devs made two insightful comments that were completely ignored by the team leader. Not only did he miss the value of the suggestions; the non-verbals communicated a lack of respect. I think he mistook a motivated multidisciplinary team for a galley of slaves and I fear it’s going to end badly. Or at least fall short of its potential.

Elsewhere I watched technology get in the way. A white board pulled some of the group towards it. One man left at the table stared at a screen of collaborative software. The others sat unconnected; occupying their own ideas like territory.

Two adjacent groups were almost immediately fluid. Ideas flowed back and forth – everyone got heard and you could see the shape of the business move in real time. At one of these I saw the whole business case dissolve when a researcher found a web site already providing the service they were planning. Time to start over.

And another group: a stubborn attachment to a particular technology that no-one could translate into a distinctive interface or proposition. The frustration palpable; not helped by a mentor who laughed in their faces.

A fascinating view of behavioural dynamics in a pressure-cooker environment. Teams were provided with templates for starting a business (define your target market, what is your unique value proposition etc) but no framework for cooperation was provided. What showed up was the awkwardness of human interaction and the problem of the entrepreneurial ego.

Nonetheless, a great learning experience for all involved – can’t wait to see where they end up on Sunday.

Here’s my ten cents’ worth for future participants:

Well no big deal; I phoned ANZ, went through the CTI system; the usual thing. Then it wanted to connect me to an operator. So I go on hold for a while. Eventually there’s a lady; she asked me the password which I set five years ago. I remembered it.

The lady explained that the card was already active. “It’s a replacement card; they all arrive pre-activated.”

“But it’s got this sticker on it”, I say and I start to read it to her.

“No, no”, she says. “All the cards arrive with stickers on them. The company that prints the cards doesn’t know which ones are activated so they just sticker them all”.

Funny, I thought we’d signed off the visuals and functionality some time ago.

So I troop over to the client’s office. “Remember what I said to you on Day One”, the client begins, in lecture mode. And he asks for a fundamental change in the database architecture. There followed my explanation of how we arrived at the current solution. At no point did I cover my ears and start loudly singing “Walk Like an Egyptian”. Not singing worked. We established where the misunderstanding had happened and how to address his issues.

When you deal with clients who are inexperienced in I.T. you take a great risk. That risk is that you say “database” and they hear “magic data beans”. The outcome: they fail to communicate everything they need to. They have an idea in their head about how the site will work but they don’t know enough about databases to explain it. So the idea about the site takes up space in their head, and is unmodified by anything that happens during the development process.

Subsequently, you write a specification, explain what you’re doing and get it signed off at every stage, but at some point, probably the pointy bit of the point, the client properly tests the web site and realises it differs from his original vision.

Web developers have formalised approaches to specifying a client’s requirements. We write specs, develop user-cases, draw wireframes & flow charts and we learn how to cover our arses manage client expectations.

But I’m wondering if we need a more structured approach to client communication because we sometimes incorrectly assume the client knows enough to properly brief us. In the SEO world, training of clients is part of the process and part of the income stream. Perhaps we should more formally train our web development clients; assess their tech IQ, teach them what they need to know before they brief us and schedule early-stage meetings for Q&A’s.

This would mean that less sophisticated clients pay relatively more for an equivalent web site but that is a premium they must pay to offset the larger risk they face; that things might go badly wrong.

Gillian Muessig put this eloquently and I’ll paraphrase: five years ago every internet journey began with a Google search. Now, many trips begin within a social network then migrate to a Google search when that’s necessary. So you might ask your Facebook friends to suggest a holiday destination or a web designer before you start Googling.

The effect of this is to shift some power away from we clever pants SEO people who understand how to build links, to the regular people who surf the web. In Gillian’s words, ‘your momma don’t link. She don’t know how’. But she knows how to Facebook.

Another strong thread in the conference was the flag-waving for Google Plus. A no-brainer, since G+ content goes straight into Google’s index. Some also say this content will enjoy privileged SEO status. In some areas I think this is likely.

Google already weights Twitter links favourably for “breaking news” topics. I can imagine them saying, we’re getting good quality tech content shared in Google Plus, so we’ll weight that for tech searches. If Google can persuade other communities to jump in, and the content is good quality, they’ll privilege that as well. They’ll use the SEO community as one of their communication channels.

See you on Google Plus.

A few words about the relative balance between SEO and SEM prompted by discussions at SMX Sydney.

There were two streams on the first day; SEO (Search Engine Optimisation; improving your site’s position in search engines) and SEM (Search Engine Marketing; pay per click ads on web sites and search engine results pages. Google’s AdWords is the leading example).

Gillian Muessig, the President of SEOmoz (gee she was good), cited research showing that 10 – 15% of clicks are generated by Search Engine Marketing ads but many companies spend all their search budget on it. In the majority of cases, companies are underspending on search engine optimisation.

Warren Dobe from the NAB delivered a powerful case study on the value of SEO. The NAB’s 12 month long SEO project has added 2 – 3 million visits per month to their traffic. Just good SEO strategy, properly implemented.

Brent Payne from BaldSEO (yeah, he’s bald; great piece of personal branding) talked about his involvement in doubling the traffic to Tribune newspapers two years running by the application of good SEO principals. The Tribune Company is America’s second largest newspaper group so we’re talking tens of millions of new visits every month and serious competitive advantage. BTW, Brent; here’s how to disable the history on your location bar so that your previous web site visits are not visible to the whole audience.

Moving right along; the keys to success were clearly described:

(1) Get buy-in from top-level executives and (2) Train the clients’ content creators and executives in SEO-friendly business practices. In Brent’s case, this involved telling newspaper editors that they could not do what they wanted if it contravened the SEO strategy they’d agreed to.

So given these successes, why are businesses loath to spend on SEO and happy to spend on SEM?

Well SEM spending, through AdWords say, is easily tracked and has an immediate effect. People click or they don’t. Your reports (brilliantly detailed reports) tell you which of your ads are sending what percentage of clients to the particular pages you specify. Businesses love that sh*t.

And then there’s SEO. Often needs changes in site structure so involves (shudder) the IT department. Might require changes to your Content Management System. Involves link-building which is time-intensive. Has a level of risk attached, since a wrong move could get your site penalised in the rankings. And, there be monsters; how do you separate the shysters from the reputable practitioners? Finally, it doesn’t work by itself. It’s going to require behavioural change and it’s going to involve content. Harsh.

But the pay-offs are substantial. Rule of thumb? I heard more than one person at SMX say 20% of your search budget should be SEO. It kind of depends where you are in the cycle; it should be more than 20% initially, but if you’re currently blowing everything on Google AdWords, you’re definitely doing it wrong.

Oh! Thanks to Stephan Spencer for the recommendation; I read and enjoyed Influence by Robert Cialdini.

Inevitably, the scoreboard will make way for a digital substitute that will swirl advertisements across a facsimile of the traditional display. When it does, they’ll be able to dispense with the six people that work there. But the progress of technology is uneven and it respects the entrenched interests in the hierarchy. Take for instance the prestigious position of ‘Selector’. A national selection panel choses each national team as it has since the bears were batting.

Why do we use such a subjective system? That system clearly favours older players over new. We know that overwhelmingly, performance declines as batsmen reach their mid-thirties, but selectors tend to keep people in the team once they’re there. Presumably because of personal attachments and bias. Science tells us that visual acuity declines with age, though some individuals are more affected than others. Reflexes also decline with age. Fortunately, nature has a way of informing us when this happens; cricket statistics.

It would be easy to imagine an algorithm that ranks batsmen and bowlers. This could be based on a ten match rolling average but be finessed to include career average and performance on different grounds. (Actually, comparing the current 10 match average and career average yields interesting analytics).

The worst performing batsman gets dropped every match (say). And the worst performing bowler gets dropped every match.

This system has the great advantage of removing all subjectivity; all favouritism. Forget all that stuff about ‘he’s a champion and a great score is just around the corner’. Institutionalise a regular turnover of personnel so that a team is not suddenly full of 38 year olds who lose form at the same time (looking at YOU, India).

You might say subjectivity is necessary to account for teamsmanship and I would say PHOOEY. You might say it’s necessary to allow character to be taken into account and I would say that it’s only a factor in unusual circumstances. Anyway, you might design a mechanism that allows the peer group to influence decisions in that area.

Shortly after one team adopts this system, which I would call Solomon, (after the famous West Indian batsman who threw out Ian Meckiff in the Tied Test), the rest would quickly follow. In the case of Australia, you’d dispense with five selectors. They cost more than scoreboard attendants.

A footnote:
The slow ritual of the twelfth men carrying the drinks is gone; replaced by dudes on Segways with giant Gatorade inflatable bottles strapped to their backs. It’s as out of place as the cameramen scurrying on to the field like intruding insects. It’s as vulgar as the visual assault of the sponsor’s logo on every vertical surface and the grass the game is played on. Who killed off the stodges of yesteryear and replaced them with commercial administrators bereft of style and spine? And where are those administrators when infestations of drunken nobs ruin the atmosphere for those unfortunates near them? Sitting in the Members’ Pavilion? Had I the power I would have evicted a hundred or so drunks, to the satisfaction of the thousands seated around us. Nice people, Australians, but they should learn how to behave in public.

Photo: thepurpleempire

The site is owned by property developer Finbar but the question is, what should be done with it? That gentleman Ken McKay and I have put together a concept for Finbar’s consideration. Along the way we’ve had input and advice from a number of Perth’s most experienced media people. You know who you are.

People administering sports have often spent their lifetimes in the sport, just like business people spend a lifetime in the business. The reason for engaging an independent consultant is identical. Perspective. Working 9 – 5, you just get too close to it. A good marketing strategist will say things to you like, ‘actually, people don’t give a shit about that’, or ‘perhaps we should mention that in your advertising’. And if they’re good, they’ll ask you stuff before they suggest stuff.

Here’s what prompted this post: I watched a video (don’t click it yet) that if I were marketing basketball, I would have sent out to every player, coach and coach’s mother on my database. Because it sums up the reasons you’d go to a game of basketball.

So much of marketing is Point of Difference. Why is going to a basketball match different to a cricket match or a swimming meet? I think this video says something about that. It’s a crowd thing.

Basketball: Get Excited.