How many of us have an iPhone, Blackberry or other smartphone?
How many of us Tweet, Facebook, YouTube?
The answer is pretty much all of us do. And if you don’t already, you will soon.
This is amazing. Why? It has allowed a huge shift in the way we interact with the people around us, and in the way they interact with us. It’s not only a shift in the way we think, but in the way we behave. Here’s how:
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I recently ended my contract as an Educator at Lululemon. It was a job I never thought I would have. Not in a million years. But, in fact, I did learn a lot from what is actually a pretty cool company.
I always say this, but it’s because I truly believe that everything happens for a reason, and you can take something valuable out of every single experience, good or bad. With that said, here are my take-aways:
1) Bring real insight to product development.
The company became famous for its yoga wear. How do you know what good yoga wear is when it doesn’t really exist yet? Well you go out an talk with yoga instructors, become a yoga instructor, you let them use your stuff, and then you get their feedback. You design and iterate *with* the end user. It’s a process that can never end, no matter how big the company gets. I’m not sure where I heard this, but it’s true: A good company talks to it’s customers, but a great one listens.
2) Create a product story because you know what is meaningful to your market.
Everything has a story behind it. Stories bring meaning and make things easy to understand — from the founding story (it started out of a yoga studio in Kitsilano) down to the layout of the retail space (pants are arranged from least technical to most technical). When a company’s narrative aligns with, and becomes a part of, its target market’s personal narrative, that’s when you get great word of mouth and brand evangelism
3) Make meaning.
Ok, ok… This one I learned from Guy Kawasaki. But it was reinforced at Lululemon. Clothes are everywhere; meaning is not. You are not buying clothes, you’re buying into something deeper. Their mission: creating components for people to live a longer, healthier, more fun life. Notice how it’s not something like “create the best yoga gear.” Without meaning, a company has no soul. What’s more, without meaning, there is no overarching direction, which means innovation will stagnate.
4) It’s the experience that matters.
Experiences become building blocks of how consumers think about themselves and define themselves to others in conversation; a social currency that makes them valuable – from the book Conversation Capital: How to Create Stuff People Love to Talk About
People who shop at Lululemon are called “Guests,” not customers. You’re “Educated,” and not sold to. In the fitting room, you’re called by your first name. Beyond that, there’s the lighting, the colours, the smells, and the music — they all contribute to a retail experience.
5) Product development and marketing should always be an integrated process.
The best form of marketing is to create products people love. All aspects of the product’s design affect the user’s experience, and therefore have an impact on the brand. So, creating a product should be a holistic process; thoughts about who is going to use and and why should not be an after thought. Great companies out there do this — Apple comes to mind. Of course, Lululemon does this too. Their products are definitely customer-driven. In fact, even as a “Guest,” you can give product-feedback right out of the fitting room.
6) Make something you can be proud of. And then stand behind it.
If you don’t believe in your product, don’t expect anyone else to. Those who make and sell your product must use it and love it. For that to happen, you need to make a quality product that is desirable, practical, and useful.
7) Mass Media is Expensive and Ineffective. Earned Media is Cheap and Effective.
Lululemon does not buy media; it’s all earned. A great example is Cheer Gear, the line created for the “cool global sporting event that takes place between 2009 and 2011.” The product line created buzz when the Olympic organizing committee, VANOC, threatened to following through with legal action against any businesses trying to hone in on Games trademarks.
Beyond cheeky marketing, the company reaches out to key influencers in the community (yoga instructors, fitness trainers, etc..) and makes them “Ambassadors,” employees workout in the community, and retail locations host weekly yoga sessions.
Disclosure: I’m not being paid to write this. Therefore, this blog post is another form of earned media.
9) Details are important. Very important.
No doubt, style — and success — is in the details; those subtleties that go beyond people’s expectations and make them say “Wow!” Details will set you apart and keep people coming back. They send a message to your customers that says, “I care about you, and I’m always thinking of ways to make your life better.”
10) Culture is important. No. It’s HUGE.
The manifesto. The language . The goal setting. It all contributes to way of thinking that brings a large organization together. Creating a keeping a strong culture is essential to the long-term success of a company. It also keeps employees motivated and acts as a hiring filter.
So that’s it. Not bad, eh? So, here’s my challenge for you: The next time you’re in a situation that seems like it doesn’t fit into your life’s master plan, try to see what you can learn from it. If you’ve experienced something similar, I’d love to hear about it.
This is a continuation of the “Conversation Capital” post.
1 of 1 billion. 1 of 1 million. 1 of 1000. Who wants to feel like that? I think most people want to feel unique — 1 of 1. How else will they contribute to their unique personal narrative? For example, I have a leather messenger bag that I got in Florence. It’s handmade in Italy, and I’m pretty much guaranteed that no one I know will have it. It’s all me and I effing love it.
“Consumers demand customization and differentiation…experiences that stand out by reminding us we are individuals.” - from the book Conversation Capital: How to Create Stuff People Talk About
Hence we have Exclusive Product Offerings — EPOs. And I’m not just talking about physical products (like a one of a kind iPod or something) I’m talking about *experiences* that are personalized, exclusive to you. Here are some of my favourites, in no particular order:
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We, the people, are creating a real-time data stream representing the global consciousness. It’s called Twitter.
I didn’t always get it (Twitter) nor was I always a fan. But here’s why I am now:
So that’s just it. On a personal level, it’s what you make it. Just another tool that, like any other, works for you depending on how you use it.
On a broader, holistic level — when we look at the trends and extrapolate – that’s when it gets really interesting.
The electronic hive mind.
Twitter is just another step forward in creating what Kevin Kelly at Wired Magazine described as the electronic hive mind. Yes. Hive as in beehive. What do bees have to do with humans using Twitter? Read the blurbs below, which were taken out of this Haper’s magazine article, written in May 1994.
The hive is irredeemably social, unabashedly of many minds, but it decides as a whole when to swarm and where to move. A hive possesses intelligence that none of its parts does. A single honeybee brain operates with a memory of six days; the hive as a whole operates with a memory of three months, twice as long as the average bee lives.
Just as a beehive functions as if it were a single sentient organism, so does an electronic hive… Out of networked parts — whether of insects, neurons or chips — come learning, evolution and life.
As we wire ourselves up into a hivish network, many things will emerge that we, as mere neurons in the network don’t expect, don’t understand, can’t control or don’t even perceive. That’s the price for any emergent hive mind.
I take three things from Kelly’s article:
Here are some future possibilities of a hyper-networked world that I think are really cool. And maybe a little scary…
Things, Tweeting.
It’s not only people that have useful and intelligent things to say. So do our things. A networked umbrella can let you know it’s going to be raining later in the day, lost keys can tweet their location, and a flowerpot can let you know that your plants need to be watered. Or what about tweeting mirrors? You’re shopping alone and you want the opinion of your followers. Well, the mirror can tweet a photo of you.
The point is, when our stuff knows about us, knows what to tell us and when, the possibilities for innovation are endless.
Predicting the future.
As the data we create become more robust, and we get better at understanding it, we might be able to predict the future (or at least anticipate future events). If we can tap into the intelligence of the “hive mind,” we can learn from an intelligence that is much greater than our own. This is already happening to some degree. For example, Google’s metrics sensed that the financial crisis was going to happen based on a shift in consumer behaviour. See article here.
You don’t look for what you want. What you want finds you.
Similar to predicting the future, but on an individual basis. A marketer’s dream: they know you better than you know yourself. It seems creepy now, but it’s definitely coming — slowly and incrementally. Would it be creepy if an ad at the bus stop told you you were almost out of toothpaste and your favourite brand was on sale at the drug store down the street? Hell yes! But I don’t see it as a bad thing. Think of the convenience, the efficiency, and the ultra-personalized products.