Raiha

Today’s lecture by Jonathan Briggs, was inspiring, motivating and captivating. In short, all of what I have been looking for at Hyper Island. His breadth of experience and his ease to jump from heavy technical to savvy marketing all left us spell-bound, at one of the founder’s of the school.

It was difficult to hold a critical eye to this particular futuristic sermon. The way in which he tests new techniques on his personal enterprise and creates case studies from these tests to sell to his more orthodox clients, is simple, effective and something to adopt immediately (unless you do already, in which case – bravo to you).

Two favorite topics were “app thinking” – the deconstruction of the websites as we know it, and the implementation of multiple mobile app-like solutions i.e. separate site (“app”) for customer service, location, and e-commerce solution. (A topic which Zynga founder Mark Pincus discusses in more detail as an “app economy”.)

The continual rise of Ad Networks and the dominance of the 4 big players – Google, Facebook, Apple and Twitter. The first three are obvious, and it will be interesting to see how Twitter roles out a favorable monetary solution in this arena.

Other topics of note can be viewed below:

On a side note, my favorite quotes were “Spend 50% out of your comfort zone” and ”Eat your own dog food” – two sound activities which I resolve to participate in, with a vengeance

It’s day 2 of the intensive Hyper Island way week, based on the infamous UGL courses – to learn about yourself, team dynamics and the role you play in this.

Most of our exercises are based upon the effective team leadership/membership principals by Dr. Susan Wheelan.  It is Wheelan’s  belief that it takes 6-8 months to create an efficient team – and through concentrated effect, perhaps we will reach this nirvana at an earlier stage. Although, as Wheelan states groups often do not develop past Level 1/2 and I can agree from past experience that it can be very difficult to move forward from this stage – when a group vision/understanding is not shared. Below is a quick breakdown of the 5 stages.

Stage 1: Depency and Inclusion

• Conformity is high
• A lack of group structure is evident
• Members fear rejection

Stage 2: Counterdepency and Fighting

• Conflicts about values emerge
• Subgroups and coalitons begin
• Goal clarification begins

Stage 3: Trust and Structure:

• Roles  and structure are adjusted so likelihood of achievement is possible
• Cooperation is more evident
• Leaders role becomes more consultative than directive

Stage 4: Work

• Role assignments match members abilities
• Members are clear/agree about teams goals
• Team is highly cohesive

Termination

• Reflection of how the work/group performed

To learn more about Wheelan’s methodology I reccomend reading “Creating Effective Teams”  and/or watching her lecture below. (Do note the audio/visual quality is not superb, and that Wheelan often digresses – yet the content is overall very good.)

Hyper also place great importance to reflect upon each task/day and one finds oneself considering their actions/reactions at a far greater level than experienced before. Personally, as I am by nature quite reserved in new group situations – it has been of great insight how I can improve my interaction with the team to better serve the group and ultimately quicken my learning experience.  Yet, it is only Day 2 – and I am certain there are far more joys and frustrations for the year at hand.

The last two days marked our induction program for Diploma students. The highlight of the induction was the Scavenger hunt – which transformed 7 individuals to a single entity – set on winning the task at hand.

The hunt took place in Gamla Stan, Stockholm and included fun activities, such as getting autographs from street musicians, counting the buttons on the National Guards uniform, Taking group photo’s in Stora Kyrkan – standing in mime for 1 minute at the Riksdag and creating a human pyramid at Järntorget. Most tasks weren’t for the faint-hearted, yet one didn’t have time to consider the boundaries of the comfort zone as there were 30 activities to be completed during 2.5hours. All in all, loads of fun and a great kick-start to bond with fellow classmates.

I absolutely love the concept of openIDEO – a collaborative open online tool for creating design solutions for social good.

Each Challenge (Big Question) is broken up in a four step process. Insipration. Concepting. Evaluation. Winning idea. Whether it be business acumen, creative or code – each user can contribute at different steps of the process.

One of the most compelling aspects of this, is the introduction of DQ or Design Quotent. Each community member earns DQ for each contribution they make to a challenge, earning a hirer status within the community. Although this will not be the only driving force for participation, it certainly incentives great minds to share their ideas freely.

One current challenge “How can we raise kid’s awareness of fresh food so they make better choices” is sponsored by Jamie Oliver – last year’s TED Prize winner. The challenge is barely a week old and has already received over 170 Inspirational ideas.

To learn more about this challenge – watch the film below.

I look forward to following/contributing to this and future challenges closely to see what winning solutions are chosen, and how these are implemented to solve very real issues.

The Story

I am a fool for a fun, sexy website and a good deal, as much as the next person. Usually I can remain satisfied, as long as the experience ends there. However, we decided to take an offer from the well publicized collective buying site groupon.com for a, well, ahem “All you can eat meat buffet” (okay, I know. Shoot me later) at Rodizio, Stockholm. Of course, the price was good (50% off – 245kr per person) and the imagery presented on the site was quite overwhelming:

Home page

food/atmosphere

So off we went, dragging a (non coupon carrying) friend along for the promising experience. The location was quite solid, although the interior suggested it had experienced  better days. The staff were nice, before we announced that we were (yet another) set of customers sent by Groupon – then the experience went downhill from there.

The “buffet” was infact non existent albeit leftover potatoes and soggy leaves, which could’ve been salad in a past life. Once we sat down, we were provided with a plate of mush (read tzatziki, bulgur, yesterday’s mushrooms). When we asked for a spoon – the reply ” No, use your fork”. Humph. Meat was… dry and of questionable origin (later I went downstairs to the bathroom, and saw piles of empty Lidl bags – so I guess that answered the question). We quickly ate the food, kind of pissed that we had spent 122kr on such a terrible experience, and feeling sorry for the friend who was going to have to fork out 245kr for his share.

Yet somehow, the begrudging staff and awful food all made sense, once we started to see other diners paying for their dinners with Groupon codes. Yes, you guessed it. I don’t think one of the guests, of this half full restaurant used real money to pay for the meal (besides our friend), and I can only imagine this was devastating for their obviously failing economy.

The Money

Let’s have a quick look at a few numbers:

• 245kr (full price of “All you can eat)
• 122kr (discounted “All you can eat” price offered by Rodizio, through Groupon)
• 25% (supposed comission taken by Groupon for each sale).
• 200 (Approximately the amount of Rodizio deals bought through Groupon).
• 91.50kr (the amount earned by Rodizio from each sale from Groupon).

And now let’s put that into an equation:

91.50 (Rodizio earnings)  x 200 (amount of deals bought) = 18300 kronor (final winnings from Groupon customers -not including any charges for drinks with meals)

Considering the possible winnings from the same amount of non-Groupon customers for Rodizio would be 49 000kr. That is a gross loss of 30 700kr. I wonder if the 18300kr even covered the costs for food, staff and general restaurant costs for 200 customers?

The Sell

The next obvious question, is why would a business like Rodizio consider using collective buying sites like Groupon? A common pitch by Collective-buying companies, is that they provide exposure to their large customer base through discounted rates on client services. It is quite a popular sell to luxury based businesses (such as beauty therapists, adventure sports, restaurants) which would have felt the pinch during last year’s downturn.

In terms of Rodizio’s example, a possible conclusion is that it is a failing resturant, in dire need of new customers fast – so saw this as an easy PR stunt to gain exposure to the web-savvy crowd. Possible issues they did not expect?

1) There would such a huge interest in this deal, which they would need to cover costs for.

2) The profile of a Groupon customer is “deal hungry” and perhaps not their usual target clientele.

3)A further tarnished reputation, by providing poor service/ sloppy food. (As groupon deals are web based, a high percentage of their users are engaged in social networks/blogs and often share experiences on these platforms).

The Moral

Only engage your organization in group buying sites, if you are able/willing to provide whatever high quality service you would provide to normal customers. As this is primarily a brand buiding/PR  exercise, if you are unable to hold your service high you will not only lose short term profits, but also suffer negative brand engagement.

Rather excited by this video by a group of Digital Media 2010 students from Hyper Island. Lots of insight as to thoughts/feedback from the time during their internship in NY.

Only 4 short days left until I start my journey with Hyper Island. Just the thought of it causes the same reaction as if I was wired on coffee and in love at the same time.

I will be studying the E Commerce Management program, which is a course introduced by Hyper Island this year. It is 45 weeks, including a 14 week internship period  at  one of the 600 companies in Hyper Island’s global network. The program focuses on:

- Group Dynamics and Self-Managing Leadership,
- eCommerce Market and Industry – trends, challenges, legal and ethical issues,
-eCommerce Store Development – marketing plans, strategies and campaigns,
- Design for Customers,
- Building eCommerce Business

And promises those who complete the program the ability to -

- Lead and develop new eCommerce solutions
- Identify new business opportunities
- Administer and improve existing solutions

The program seems like a natural choice to complement my current skill set and will fufil my desire to improve and lead digital teams in the future. As Hyper Island is famous for producing some of the world leading Digital Creatives of today, I look forward to working with upcoming talents and also honing my own skills.

To learn more about the program click here

Participating in the Digital recruitment process