The power of crowds: wis.dm

It seems to me that there are more social networks than users. It's a joke, of course, but it's also partially true.
Indeed, each social network specializes on some kind of "environment". I am a passionate product manager with a focus on online communications, I like sailing and windsurfing, and I love torturing my family and neighbors with my clarinet.
That means that I belong to three environments, to the least:

• Online techno geeks and community passionates
• Sailing
• Classical music

For each of these environment, I feel I belong to a network. It'l like the "networks" of Facebook, or the "communities" of Orkut, or the "tags" of Spock. Sometimes people (elements of the network) overlap, sometimes they don't. But they are, and will be, mostly the same elements. It's just a collection of people I won't improve my relationship with by using the social networking tool.

But then, how can I socialize with people that share an interest in common with me? How can I do this without pretending to add people to my network in the hope that he or she will be a good "network element" to be friend with?

The wise answer is: ask.
In wis.dm you ask lots of questions. People ask lots of personal, political, religious questions.
Everybody has an opinion, you have to answer a simple "yes" or "no". It is addicting.
You can make a choice by asking the crowds, they will give you the results: like flocks protect themselves from predators using their collective behavior, we humans can use our common knowledge to empower our own decisions with the power of wisdom of crowds.

Moreover, the magic that's under the hood of wis.dm computes an affinity score. People who think alike are matched and grouped. Clusters and "sub-flocks" form, and new groups with a strong cohesion on certain topics arise.

It's like the principle of cross-selling, isn't it?
What a pleasure for a marketing manager, all these profiles available... Even Google, with its immense archive of personal taster would be interested in this kind of data...

Sitòfono Social: because relationships matter

Sitòfono is undergoing a major restyling, these days.
We realized that relationships between a firm and a customer cannot be just "phone calls". After all, the phone call is just the medium to achieve a result.

In the Real world, customers notice you on a printed ad, look for you in the yellow pages, get your name by some friend's advice. Anyway, since customers are usually located in the same place, they are naturally bound to move within a limit.
Time passing by, they will notice you again, and get information which is persistent and durable. They will remember you, and you have somehow captured their attention.

But what happens on the Web? People move, literally flock from a content to another. The very same happens on e-commerce sites, or "online shops": customers are like a frenzy swarm, some bounce on your website and do not come back again.
Customers have to cross a lot of barriers on your site.

• The first "shield" is distraction: customers can go off track if they don't get a clear focus
• The second barrier is lack of comprehension: do they understand clearly what they are looking at? Can you assure them that they got the message?
  
• The third barrier is lack of persistence: will they come back the next day?
• The fourth barrier is mistrust: can they judge a book by its cover? Don't they need direct contact to be assured that you are a trusted person? Visual contact will be the best, but even voice contact can make the difference
• The fifth barrier is hesitation: when facing the payment form, they can get scared, or they need some more information that hasn't been found on the website. At least, it wasn't noticed before

People need direct contact to resolve uncertainty and to dissolve some of these barriers.
Sitòfono addressed very well the barriers that involve direct contact, like hesitation, mistrust and lack of comprehension.
But now, with the new "social" features, Sitòfono becomes a tool which engages your customers in a more social-oriented behavior: your visitors can give advice about your website to their friends, bookmark the call-back button for future reference, share the URL on the most common social bookmarking tools...
In word, they will remember you.

Luca Filigheddu published a great review of Sitòfono with the new social features, check it out!

If you want to discuss about the new features with me,
just call me


Technorati Tags: cernio, sitofono, social, marketing, engagement,
Luca Filigheddu,

Irrelevant corporate websites

Giacomo Vacca found an earth-shaking article on traditional SEO and Google ranking:
How to evolve your irrelevant corporate website

They use instant messaging, facebook, (and other social networks) and rarely directly type in a domain name to corporate website. If this holds true, then it’s assumed that prospects make decisions on other websites BEFORE they come to the corporate website to get factual information.

This is clearly true. Before going to visit the official website of a product I am interested into (let assume a digital camera), I'd go on a product-review website (just as an example, Revoo) and select the most appropriate comments to have a quick glance about the available products.
When I go to the official website, I already know nearly everything. In few occasions, I found a n official support forum that made me choose for that product: online support and general good feedback from users are key points in my consumer habits.

You’ll no longer only be the only one publishing to your website, customers, prospects, and other members of the community will have direct access to publish on your website.

To summarize: customer feedback and engagement. That's what Sitofono is meant for.
What if you can even talk to a customer? What if you can call him free and ask him a general review of the product?
Do you think letting visitors call other consumers is a valuable feature? Since it can be done as a special adaptation of Sitofono, my company product for customer engagement, I'd like to discuss with you the feasibility and the scenarios.

Technorati Tags: cernio,
sitofono, ugc, customer, feedback, engagement,

Evaluating a software start-up

Following my previous post on "The Business of Software", I would like to introduce an interesting "checklist" that helps evaluate the potential of a software start-up, from a VC's point of view.
A good start up should be measured on these points

1. Management Team: they should be competent and experienced professionals with sufficient background on the technology/product to be marketed
   
2. Market Attractiveness: high entry barriers to keeps out competitors, negotiation power for suppliers/buyers, no good substitutes, could be a complement to dominant products
   
3. Compelling offering: it has to be a "must have" product, service, or solution
   
4. Customer interest: evidence of a large willing-to-pay user base
   
5. Credibility: a case history, a reference client, a testimonial gives credibility to the product and the technology
   
6. Business model: VCs want early growth, rapid break-even
   
7. Flexibility: strategy and product offering must be adaptable to new inputs from competitors, new technologies, new user needs
   
8. Payoff potential: the ROI must be high (>25%). It usually forces the start-up to develop a product, which could be risky but more profitable than providing solutions and software services.
   

The author, Michael A. Cusumano, explains the meaning of each point and applies them systematically on real-world companies like Numega, Cybergnostic, firstRain.
Even if it is an a posteriori analysis, it gives a clue on how to evaluate a potentially explosive startup.


Needless to say, I suggest a deep and reasoned reading of his book.

Technorati Tags: cernio, cusumano, startup, innovation, product

L'espresso praises Sitòfono

L'espresso, the weekly newsmagazine leader in Italy talks about Sitofono and its value proposition for all the activities that have a point of presence on the Internet.

Sitofono is like a doorbell for your site. If the metaphore "website" = "shop/studio" is true, Sitofono is your first voice contact, that is to say the second thing you look at after reading the bronze plate.

Luca said:

(Free translation)
At present, we are focusing on the Italian market, but we've already planned the expansion towards Europe and North America, i.e. countries where the usage and the success of VoIP technologies is really relevant.

(Source, Italian)
Attualmente ci concentriamo sul mercato nazionale, ma stiamo già pianificando il lancio nel resto d’Europa e in Nord America, Paesi dove l’utilizzo e il successo delle tecnologie basate sul Voice over ip è davvero molto importante.

That is to say: stay tuned :)


Technorati Tags: cernio, sitofono, Luca Filigheddu,

Innovation Resistance (Part Three)

Following the previous posts a bout Innovation resistance Part One and Part two, here is the third and last part.

As I already said, resistance to any form of change is a natural reaction. I tried to classify the first three forms in this "post trilogy", here is the last and more general one.

The third form of innovation resistance is the lifestyle lock-in.
When we propose innovation, we are always replacing or modifying someone's habits and way of thinking. We are removing the safe harbors of being acquainted, accustomed to this or that behaviour.
When we find someone that has made the first step to change (the so-called early adopter), he/she finds often stuck in a dilemma: "if everything has been working fine so far, why do I have to change?". People go back to their habits at the first "serious" difficulty. What's never clear is how to quantify the "serious" value. People tend to change lifestyle only if they see that there is a net advantage in changing.
Example. The video recorder allows timeshifting, so that you are not put into slavery by TV schedules: how many times you hear people saying "Sorry, today I can't go out because I have to watch the latest XYZ episode"? The timeshifting "feature" came up only after some early adopter put it in practice, in real life. Word of mouth did the rest.


Technorati Tags: cernio, innovation, marketing,

Innovation resistance (Part Two)

In a previous post I started talking about Innovation resistance (part One). In this post I presented the first (and the most common) type of resistance, which comes in the form of "Truth" by Conventional Wisdom.

The second form is the lack of necessity.
One of the most common sentences is "640 k ought to be enough for anyone". Even if it's a false Bill Gates Quote, it resembles the main idea of being satisfied with the things you already have.
Do you remember people speaking like:
- "Why do I have to bring a telephone with myself? I don't need it. If I cannot be reached right now, I'll be available at home, or at work."
- "I don't want to spend 400$ for a GPS navigator: my tourist guide and driving map are enough, for 7$ each. Anyway, I never get lost." :))

The Lack of necessity is a form of "luddism", that is to say we are skeptical about the fact that we may need something new.

An "old" story about a fisherman and a businessman describes the situation in which we find a typical "resistance" from lack of necessity. It's worth a read: even if you disagree either with the fisherman or the businessman, you've got the hint to think about it...

[Continues...]

Technorati Tags: cernio, innovation, marketing,

Innovation resistance (Part One)

The main foe a start-up company has to face is innovation resistance.
Resistance manifests itself in various forms, and in different moments of the product lifecycle.




The most common form (and the first to come up) is the Truth of Conventional Wisdom.
This form of collective knowledge, sometimes misidentified as "common sense" does not take into account new, previously unknown knowledge.
Anything that goes against the CW is slowed down in its race. Any technological innovation had to slowly permeate the collective thinking, to create awareness and confidence in order to overcome this problem.

[Continues...]


Technorati Tags: cernio, innovation, marketing,

Fast Second: book review

On the verge of writing my previous post I started writing a review on a very interesting book. I was "frightened" of being rough, impolite, offensive somehow to the readers or to the authors.
Then, I had the occasion to read a really crude and earth-shattering review by Joel Spolsky on "Dreaming in Code" (Yep, I read his blog).
All of a sudden, my worries vanished :)

So, here is

My personal review of Fast Second (by C. C. Markides, P. A. Geroski)

It is a really interesting book, where "interesting" is twofold: the ideas expressed are interesting, and the writing style is interesting too, for it provides information by repeating the same concept in different ways. It seems to me that the most interesting thing in this book is the repetition scheme in itself.

In fact, it helps the reader by just writing the concepts twice or more, in order that the reader doesn't need to re-read the same sentence more than once. Memorization is easier because information is redundant and presented from different viewpoints (like 2D and 3D representation).

That is to say, it could have been written in half the paper, but it wouldn't have been such a light reading on such a complex matter. Books like this can be read on a noisy flight near the turbines, with a crying baby on your side, without the need to concentrate on the topic.

Uhmmm, what's missing here?

Oh yeah, I forgot the topic on which this book is focused on! The book is about competitive innovation in the mass market, it clearly advocates the strategy of waiting for a settlement of the technology evolution, then enter the mass market (well, actually it is "build a rather inexistent one") just before (or shortly after) a dominant design appears, and when most of Startups are running out of fuel.

What I don't understand is how such an ecosystem can sustain itself, and how can I estimate such a high risk (technical and financial) of entering in a typically narrow time window with big investments, which are needed to consolidate the product and create the market.

My Advice

Similar "redundant" books have been written and edited by Kathy Sierra and are called "Head First": they are far more capturing and interesting than Fast Second, and I advice to buy them if you want to stuff more things in your brain with lesser effort.

Technorati Tags: cernio, fast second,
Joel Spolsky, Kathy Sierra,