Post on 17-Aug-2014
description
Build Systems, Not Stuff
Presented by @Abby_the_ia
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I Make the unclear, clear for people who use and make
things.
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Most recently I Have helped
• Change the audience for Sharpie from a office supply consumer to teenagers looking for a self expression tool
• Grow a 150,000 member Facebook fan base for JELL-O over the weekend.
• Pilot a revolutionary diet for people with Type 2 diabetes• Analyze and strategically prioritize digital marketing efforts
and improvements for Herman Miller in support of their movement into the B to C market
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I hear a lot of the same things over and over...
Our current digital marketing is:
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A) Embarrassingly out of date
B) Not flexible enough to support needs
C) Not able to be affected quickly because of politics and the bureaucracy
D) All of the Above (Eeeeekk)
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The behavior of the system cannot be known just by knowing the elements
- Donella Meadows
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Meet the Blind men of digital marketing
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“I post on social media and send emails”
“I manage the Websites”
“I design the marketing”
“I control the money”
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Observation:Its always the same issues affecting the same parts of the same systems
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We need to build systems, not just stuff.
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When Stuff is king...
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Spray-n-Pray is common wisdom
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Corporate Underpants start to show
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Shiny, dusty objects accumulate
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Trends win out over needs
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“Skunkworks” projects used to achieve tactical goals
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Everyone feels rushed and underserved
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vs.We need a Facebook page
We need a Digital
Recruitment engine
We ask for more stuff
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Sound familiar?
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There has to be a better way
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But we arent in manufacturing!
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isnt Creativity meant to be messy?
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One important (and easy) question:
How should we spend our finite creative energy?
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By analyzing the system, maybe we can improve the User experience of working in digital marketing
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Systems-based thinking
the process of understanding how things influence one another.
viewing "problems" as parts of an overall system, rather than reacting to specific part.
focusing on cyclical rather than linear cause and effect.
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When System is king...
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• Effectiveness becomes measurable• Solutions have longevity and reuse• Entities are able to remain in sync while
operating independently• Adequate time and budget is allocated• People feel like things just work
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Reinventing the WheelRepeatable Magic
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Systems Thinking 101
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A system is a set of stocks and flows that is interconnected in
a way that it produces a predictable pattern.
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STocks:Assets within your
organization that are able to be measured
for example:
• Knowledge of industry trends• Marketing Budget• Creative Talent
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Flows:Process that affects and
connects stocksfor example:
• How insights become strategy• How designers are briefed on
architectural decisions• How code is accepted in development
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Cold hard Facts about systems
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1. Levels of stock are only able to be affected by manipulating flows
2. Stocks take time to change, because flows take time to flow
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another fact: Digital Marketing is a system
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Digital Marketing: A common system
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Digital Marketing: A common system
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If you are doing it right, you start here
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Digital Marketing: A common system
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But, a lot of people start here...
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Digital Marketing: A common system
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And even here... eek!
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Digital Marketing: A common system
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A lot of people stop here.
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Digital Marketing: A common system
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and This part is almost always ignored or weak
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there are shared lessons that all organizations can learn from
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Five common system failures
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What’s supposed
to happen
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What can also
happen
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Symptoms
• brittle feeling interactions• Not knowing all the
incarnations of the experience• Not being able to defend cost
of improvement
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Diagnosis: Low Awareness of how something works today
leads to bad strategy
You need to work on research.
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Idea to Combat:
Measure quality of existing systems:
1. Heuristically2. Analytically
3. With real users
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Lets try to find a way to apply
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Symptoms
• All the content is there and nothing can be found
• No research has been done into what users want
• Low conversion and roi
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Diagnosis: Lack of clear goals and key performance indicators leads to confounding experience
You need to work on goal setting
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Idea To Combat:
Define S.M.A.R.T Goals and a plan to measure against them
q Specificq Measurableq Achievableq Relevantq Time bound
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Symptoms
• Content feels forced into boxes it doesnt fit into
• things are jimmied together• Creative production always
costs more than expected and often assets are reused inappropriately
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Diagnosis: silo-ed decisions on content degrade quality of
experience offered
You need to work on architecting
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Idea to COmbat:
Let the users make the call when content organization
challenges arise. Card sorting, contextual inquiry and
collaborative design can all be used for this.
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Symptoms
• Devices and tools are devised to assist people in understanding the marketing material
• Navigation is bloated, landing pages lack focus
• Functionality is heavy and unneeded
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Diagnosis: Too many things, no priority. SUch a mess.
You have to work on documentation
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idea to Combat:
Create a roadmap of features defined not
just against resources available but against user and business
goals
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74h,p://ausweb.scu.edu.au/aw05/papers/refereed/alexander/paper.html
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Diagnosis: NEver completing the feedback loop.
You need to work on measurement
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Idea to Combat: Host a conversation with
designers, marketers and researchers to talk
about improving the flow of strategic guidance
and insight
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How to get started in your organization
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to Become a system advocate in your
organization
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Lesson 1: You need pictures, because systems happen all at once.
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Pictures are thought starters
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Pictures allow you to see the connections
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pictures allow quick illustration of problems and solutions
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Pictures are great for understanding the systems, roles and rules
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Pictures can illustrate a higher level view
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Lesson 2: Evaluate the System as is
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• Get the right people in the room to discuss the results of the current digital marketing environment
• Document it in simple pictures, perhaps stocks and flows
• Highlight hardships you feel today or know about externally
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Lesson 3: Take Stock of what you need
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• Identify the goals you have for your digital marketing
• Identify the obligations you have to meet for stakeholders
• Identify the things colleagues have complained about or asked for
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Lesson 4: Prioritize issues to work on
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• Identify the issue type. Is it a lack of resource, bad process, old technology?
• Determine how much (and who) it hurts?
• Assign a internal and external priority
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Lesson 5: Try New flows
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• Get the space, team and instance needed to experiment.
• Make sure people know they are guinea pigs
• Treat it as a research assignment (try A/B testing, and asking followup questions in a focus group etc...)
• Document what you are trying, why and how you feel it will change things
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Lesson 6: Reduce, Reuse, Recycle
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• Reduce the complexity across initiatives
• Reuse technological investment across campaigns, building an arsenal of owned solutions over time
• Recycle your “stuff”: Always think about the lifecycle of the “stuff” your systems are producing.
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Lesson 7: Have the right attitude
• Be honest and transparent
• Be collaborative
• Be forward looking
• Be willing to fail and try again
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So...
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Next time someone asks for stuff
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Think...
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How can we take this up a level?
Are we thinking about the life cycle?
Can we measure our impact here?
Who else is impacted by this and how can they help solve this?
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How can we...
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Build a system, not just more stuff
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Thanks!
@abby_the_ia
Abbytheia.com
abbycovert@gmail.com
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