Xperience This!

Back in June, I was a guest VIP blogger at the World Innovation Forum here in NYC. As you might intuit, the theme of the conference was innovation, or rather the lack of innovation within many companies today. While there were many ideas and reasons why a company should innovate, one of the recurring themes for how they should innovate was through Measurement. The most passionate speaker on measurement was the opening keynote speaker Dr. Michael Porter. Dr. Porter “had me at hello” as he jumped right in and began talking about measuring outcomes in the health care industry.

Dr. Porter pointed out that while the health care industry is a science and evidence-based industry with regard to the products it brings to market, (i.e. hypothesis, testing, measurement, etc.),  when it comes to understanding how well those products actually work in the context of  patient care, the industry falls short of the mark. Why? Because other than cancer remission and organ transplant success, the health care industry as a whole does not measure outcomes of end-to-end patient care. I was surprised to learn that an industry rooted in experimentation, results and measurement does not routinely continue to track things beyond go-to-market. Interestingly, Dr. Porter noted that when the industry does measure, monitor, and optimize outcomes, the results are dramatic in a very positive way. Download Dr. Porter’s slides for details.

While Dr. Porter’s talk was specific to measuring outcomes in the health care industry, the principle is applicable to every industry and organization. While measurement is not a new concept, outcomes-based measurement is still very much an innovation; however, it won’t be for long. Because measuring outcomes has the “magical” affect of getting everyone concerned with metrics to care about what’s really important for both your business and your target audience. More »

Consider the following language from one company’s leadership regarding the fundamental principles to which they believe the company must adhere to achieve their business goals:

We must act in the customer’s best interest, not once in a while, but consistently. This means offering outstanding products and services and being helpful, courteous and quick to follow up. We need to be keenly aware of the competitive landscape and quick to act. The field – the employees closest to the customer – should drive this process and have ample resources and authority to be the best at serving customers. Our strength resides in the field. We must exceed customers’ expectations and constantly make it easier for them to do business with us. [My emphasis.]

This language may sound familiar. It may even echo the language of your own company’s mission/vision statement. Perhaps there are posters around your workplace boldly proclaiming similar corporate commitments.  As an advocate for your customer, I find these principles and posters admirable; however, I can tell you from personal experience that the mission articulated by the company quoted above and the experience of doing business with said company are in diametrical opposition.

So why does the actual experience of interacting with so many companies often belie the customer-centric principles they claim are fundamental to their success?  Here are six surefire causes we have identified as we’ve helped various companies improve their experiences. More »

The definition of functional requirements for a website or a business application is a critical phase in the development process. Aligning those requirements with the needs of your target audience is a prerequisite to launching a tool that will be quickly adopted and meet business expectations for ROI.

Prototyping is an excellent technique that enables your development team to get valuable audience feedback and address issues pertaining to functional priorities and usability before they become costly downstream problems. Prototyping provides the additional benefit of allowing the team to share its vision and begin building a fan base among your audience members. These fans can become powerful allies in driving adoption of the completed tool.

Despite its benefits, prototyping and early stage audience testing can be perceived as slowing down the development process and creating unnecessary front-end costs. We believe that when done correctly, prototyping’s benefits far outweigh its costs. Here are a few things we’ve learned along the way to help ensure the process is efficient and effective. More »