Mary Meeker Internet Trends Highlights

11 Highlights from Mary Meeker’s “Internet trends report”

revisited for 2020 New Year

Mary Meeker released her 2019 Internet Trends report in June but I thought it would be useful in the new year to have another look at it to see what it brings for 2020 .

This year’s total slide count came in at 333, up from 280 when compared to the previous year. And while some of Meeker’s insights may be obvious (subscriptions services are luring new customers through free trials) other observations are more insightful (Fortnite is more akin to a social media platform than video games.

1. For the first time, Americans spent more time on their mobile devices than they did watching TV. A 2019 estimate suggests that adults spent an average of 226 minutes (more than 3.5 hours) on their phones compared to 216 minutes on TV. For comparison, 10 years ago, TV reigned with 266 minutes-per-day while mobile use clocked in at just 20 minutes.

2. Multiplayer video games such as Fortnite which command some 250 million active users, most of whom are under age 17, are becoming increasingly similar to social media networks, thanks in large part to events such as DJ Marshmello’s concert, which attracted nearly 11 million people in game. Also fueling its rise are platforms such as Twitch and Discord, which act as a sort of new town hall for Gen Z.

3. An increasing number of people are using images to communicate: More than 50 percent of all tweets, for example, now include images. People are also taking more pictures than ever before and platforms such as Instagram are amplifying this relatively new style of digital communication. Text really is a less-than-ideal mode of communication, We’re translating ideas and emotions into symbols and hope they’re decoded properly. The more visual our communication platforms become, the better storytelling we as advertisers can do.

4. For the first time, more than half of the global population were identified as internet users. In 2018, the report found approximately 3.8 billion people—51 percent of everyone on Earth—were connected to the internet, up from 3.6 billion (49 percent) in 2017.

5. New platforms are emerging as hubs for internet ad spend Amazon, Twitter and Pinterest collectively saw 6-times year-over-year growth since 2017. Still, Google and Facebook reign supreme and continue to see steady growth, but watch out!

6. In 2018, American adults spent an unprecedented average of 6.3 hours per day interacting with digital media—time which was largely split between mobile devices at 3.6 hours and desktop or laptop computers at two hours. The amount of time U.S. adults spend per day online jumped 7 percent year-over-year from 2017, and was more than double the amount of hours they spent online in 2010.

Insight: “The lines between search, social and e-commerce continue to blur and Facebook and Google should check their rearview mirror for Amazon—it’s a lot closer than they think, Meeker reports that Amazon’s ad business is up 2.6-times in revenue but what she doesn’t note is that others are jumping on the bandwagon—Instagram, Google and even Walmart have all made competitive moves in the space.

“As customers spend more time than ever on digital media—6.3 hrs per day—and e-commerce contributing to 15 percent of all retail sales (slide 20), advertisers have a captive audience ready to click ‘buy.’”

7. Free trials were the most effective marketing tool for online streaming services to attract new users, with 42 percent of consumers listing “free trial tier” as the most compelling reason for trying a new service.

8. A growing number of adults report being online “almost constantly.” Twenty-six percent of American adults rarely disconnected from the internet in 2018; among the 18-to-29 demographic, that number jumps to 39 percent, according to Pew Research cited in Meeker’s report.

9. Most television viewers are multi-platform multi-taskers, with 88 percent of viewers saying they use a second digital device while watching TV and 71 percent saying they look up content related to what they’re watching mid-show.

10. Messaging platforms offering automatic or optional end-to-end encryption are rapidly rising in popularity with secured services like Telegram and WhatsApp outpacing the growth of non-encrypted messaging services like Twitter and China’s WeChat. At the start of this year, 87 percent of web traffic was encrypted, compared to just 53 percent in 2016.

11. Despite people spending more time online, digital ad revenue slowing down : The report says digital ad revenue grew 20 percent, down from 29 percent year-over-year.

Insight: “Since there is more spend on the platform and more businesses leveraging these paid media platforms, that means there is now more competition,” “In order to reach your target market, it will come at a higher price because there is the same [amount] of supply but more demand.”

Security and regulation such as GDPR are also playing a role in the slow down. “Privacy consciousness is rising and the tech industry is making changes on that front, but privacy by default is increasingly required by lead users,” “As users become more aware of surveillance capitalism, solutions that put the user first will reshape the landscape.”

Hope you found this overview useful but…. if you want to see the whole presentation you can find it at Bond Capital on the link here:

Zippin through the store

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A Bay Area startup has launched a small public demo in San Francisco that will grow into a full-sized AI-driven convenience store in the coming months.

A Cooler with soft drinks and sandwiches and a shelf full of crisps is just the beginning for this start-up Cashierless C-store concept by Zippin that launched recently. But the Beta concept will scale rapidly Into a fully fledged C-Store as learnings are applied.

The concept uses relatively inexpensive cameras and weight sensors on shelves. The camera feeds are analyzed by algorithms trained through machine learning to recognize the appearance of each product the store carries.to accurately understand when a customer picks up items and puts them in a bag or pocket.

An app is used to sign in and complete the checkout. This also improves the customer experience as customers get used to the technology, and learn how to use it by signing in ( we found that helps customers know that we know they aren’t stealing things ) as well as quick payment.

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Amazon-Go is rolling out in further stores in San Francisco and New York as well as rumoured to be looking in London. Walmart has just announced a larger less tech but still cashierless store in Dallas.

Zippin will provide another technology that will allow retailers to compete with Amazon-Go in the Better, Simpler, Cheaper stake.

Become the Future: know your customer

BECOME THE FUTURE — KNOW YOUR CUSTOMER

With every new opportunity to engage and serve we are also provided an opportunity to learn. Smart retailers will use all of this to drive singularly and powerfully toward one ultimate goal…

Creating profound, data-informed, connections with your consumer.

We must never lose sight of the big picture to connect with and enrich the lives of each consumer as a unique and recognised individual. In the new world of retail, the future is a seamless and meaningful connection … and the future is here.

As we’ve seen, both from research and in execution, using integrated technology to understand, reach and provide value to your consumer is a strategy that works. But becoming exceptional, when it comes to ethical data gathering and deployment, isn’t just a good idea, it is the fundamental route to survival for modern retailers.

In spite of the state of urgency created by the increasing demands of consumers, many retailers are still behind the curve on both industry adoption and meeting customer expectations.

From seamlessly blended digital and offline worlds to introducing products and ideas that users don’t even know they want yet, today’s leading retailers are those who are setting trends — not merely keeping up with them.

As we look toward the horizon, we will find the brands that embody progress and thrive on the bleeding edge of technology will become the aspirational beacons in their space. The ability to cultivate breakthrough campaigns and captivate both your customers and your competitors’ customers is within your reach.

Zara’s Click & Collect Robots

zara C&C

As much as a third of Zara’s online sales are picked up in one of their stores. This in turn has led to a problem for the retailer, with long queues of disgruntled customers at the Click & Collect desk.

In an attempt to make the customer experience better-simpler-cheaper, Zara has developed a robotic service that involves fetching ordered items from the back of the store and bringing them to a drop box where the customer can collect them. Customers now only need to enter a collection code when they arrive in a store which activates this process.

Better-Simple-cheaper example of using Customer Data & Robotics to improve the Customer Experience

Uber focused on data

JUMP

Uber use data to deliver against their core purpose: Travel & Logistics.

What’s Uber’s next move? Planes? Rockets? Hovercrafts? Nope, it’s bikes.

Uber has just paid $200m for Jump, a dockless bike share service that charges just $2 for a 30 min ride. The bikes are integrated with GPS, locks & a payment system so you just find one and pedal. Boris Bikes I hear you say ?

The bike-sharing market is only going one way: Up. It’s growing at 20% a year and set to be worth up to £4.6bn in 2020. Jump’s stats mirror this, with customers using their bikes 6-7 times a day and travelling 2.6 miles each trip.

With this, Uber’s bike stock rockets up to 12,000 across 40 cities and 6 countries. Their cash can help grow Jump worldwide, and quickly, but their poor reputation may also bring scrutiny to an industry which has had a few problems in the past…

Less than a decade after launching, Uber is no longer just cars. Recently they’ve launched a shipping service, food delivery, and now bikes. They’re also trialing car rental and the ability to buy public transport tickets. This appears to mark a new strategy: to own every part of the urban transport system.

Why now? 3 reasons:

Uber has changed how people think about sharing
Smartphone GPS services have made it easier than ever to get around
Uber has the cash, brand & user base to make it happen

Uber envision a world where mum bikes to work, dad rents a van to pick up a new TV, the teenager gets her food delivered, and the family books their train tickets to see their cousins. We could even see an Amazon Prime-like model whereby you pay a blanket fee for unlimited usage.

But what if you don’t like cycling:

Don’t you worry, here’s a couple ways startups are reinventing travel:

Citymapper: They’re using years of travel data from their app to create a ‘social hyper-local multi-passenger pooled vehicle’ i.e. a bus. It serves an optimised route, has USB chargers & you even get a ‘Busmoji’ when you get on
Touriocity: Bespoke walking guides given by experts
Kompas : using AI recomendations based on who you are and where you are to provide travel recommendations
Bird: Taking it even further, by making dock-less electric Scooters

bird scooters

Data-driven Pop

The Coca Cola Company is the world’s largest beverage company selling more than 500 brands of soft drink to customers in over 200 countries. It generates mountains of data – from production and distribution to sales and customer feedback, and the company relies of a solid data-driven strategy to inform business decisions at a strategic level.

In fact, Coca Cola was one of the first globally-recognized brands outside of the IT market to speak about Big Data, when in 2012 their chief big data officer, Esat Sezer, said “Social media, mobile applications, cloud computing and e-commerce are combining to give companies like Coca-Cola an unprecedented tool-set to change the way they approach IT. Behind all this, big data gives you the intelligence to cap it all off.”

Product development

Coca Cola is known to have ploughed extensive research and development resources into artificial intelligence (AI) to ensure it is squeezing every drop of insight it can from the data it collects.

Fruits of this research were unveiled earlier this year when it was announced that the decision to launch Cherry Sprite as a new flavor was based on monitoring data collected from the latest generation of self-service soft drinks fountains, which allow customers to mix their own drinks. As the machines allow customers to add their own choice from a range of flavor “shots” to their drinks while they are mixed, this meant they were able to pick the most popular combinations and launch it as a ready-made, canned drink.

Healthy options

As sales of sugary, fizzy drink products have declined in recent years Coca Cola has also hooked into data to help produce and market some of its healthier options, such as orange juice, which the company sells under a number of brands around the world (including Minute Maid and Simply Orange).

The company combines weather data, satellite images, information on crop yields, pricing factors and acidity and sweetness ratings, to ensure that orange crops are grown in an optimum way, and maintain a consistent taste.

The algorithm then finds the best combination of variables in order to match products to local consumer tastes in the 200-plus countries around the world where its products are sold.

Social data mining

With 105 million Facebook fans and 35 million Twitter followers, social media is another hugely important source of data for the company.

Coca Cola closely tracks how its products are represented across social media, mining this gives insight into who is consuming their drinks, where their customers are, and what situations prompt them to talk about their brand. The company has used AI-driven image recognition technology to spot when photographs of its products, or those of competitors, are uploaded to the internet, and uses algorithms to determine the best way to serve them advertisements. Ads targeted in this way have a four times greater chance of being clicked on than other methods of targeted advertising, the company has said.

How to win in the age of the Digital Customer?

How to Win in the age of the Digital Customer

data pulse # 19

The Chief Customer Officer has a new agenda . Creating a Customer Obsessed Organisation and designing the human and digital customer experience are top priorities to win in the age of the Digital Customer .

This battle is not business-as-usual, for the following reasons:

Traditional loyalty structures are eroding, causing companies to have to work harder to retain customers or risk driving up churn.
Customers expect high levels of personalisation, forcing companies to design experiences as close to the individual level as possible.
Agile digital companies are seeking to disintermediate the relationship between both traditional digital and brick-and-mortar companies and their customers.
Companies must now differentiate on the experiences they deliver to customers.

Each of these forces creates challenges; more importantly, the additive impact of these forces mandates deep-rooted changes in a company’s strategy and operations.

To state the obvious, customers neither understand nor care about how hard it is to deliver consistent, quality and personalized experiences.

Taking stock, the CCO’s agenda now looks more and more like the CEO’s or COO’s agenda.

The agenda

The CCO’s agenda can be separated by a line of visibility: some pieces customers can see, and some they cannot.

Key initiatives such as strategic positioning, brand and loyalty programs are traditional CMO agenda items.

The new and most important item is designing consistent, high-quality, and personalised experiences across both human and digital touch points.

The need to differentiate on the basis of experience is really what drives the deep-rooted operational changes below the visibility line. In most cases, delivering differentiated experiences is not business-as-usual; it will require more severe structural and operational changes such that a company looks and operates differently than it does today. The CMO agenda now consists of:

Making organisational changes to better align capabilities and ensure a seamless delivery of experiences across human and digital touch points.
Transitioning process design from being efficiency-focused to customer-focused.
Making hard changes in people and culture, including leadership, new roles, competencies and a customer-focused culture that fuels the business.
Putting in place an analytics capability to enable data-driven, personalised journeys.
Initiating or accelerating the business technology agenda to improve technologies that deliver customer value and drive growth.

Combined, these efforts tell us that companies, and CCOs specifically, need to think hard about making a fundamental shift in their operating model. To add to the complexity, changes to the operations across the company need to be sufficiently cohesive to ensure they don’t damage or create uneven customer experiences.

For better or worse, this is what is in front of many CCOs/ CMOs today — to lead the charge to understand the consumer mind set in the digital age and truly become a customer-obsessed organization.

This isn’t veneer or some clever tagline. It is the hard work to differentiate and win in the Age of the Digital Customer

Uber focused on data

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Uber is a people logistics service that uses a matchmaking model to connect customers directly with drivers to reduce prices for customers by optimising load capacity for drivers. It is now available in 53 countries and more than 200 cities and is revolutionising logistics and service using data. .

The app automatically detects the user’s position using GPS – so ‘riders’ can book a taxi with a single press of a button. Users can get an estimate of their fare by entering their destination. This is calculated by algorithms which consider the distance, prices of similar journeys, and the current Uber price rate.

uber app

Uber uses an algorithmic approach to account for differences in supply and demand in different areas. when supply out-strips demand prices are low, when demand increases the algorithm drives up pricing to encourage more drivers out and optimise revenue. This is called ‘surge pricing’. When demand outstrips supply in a certain area, surge pricing is applied and the usual fare rate will be multiplied appropriately. Users will be notified of surge pricing on booking, and can cancel the trip if they do not want to pay the increased fare.

When a the taxi is booked, a temporary bridge is created between customer and driver data allowing them to make contact and see each other’s location. Once the journey is over and the transaction complete, the exchange of data ends.

Uber scaled rapidly through partnership, using the best experts in any one area ( eg Google Maps, or best checkout system, or best driver id check ) and focused their development on the unique pricing model that optimises pricing to reduce prices for customers, increase occupancy rate for drivers, and drive customer growth and frequency for UBER.

UBER is changing the model for transport in cities around the world, with loyal customers, drivers clamouring to become an UBER driver, and a system determined to continually drive down pricing and increase service levels.

UBER has already changed the way transport works in London, picking up an UBER for shorter and well as longer journeys. replacing the need for a car at all. The future looks good.

Blow Up Bedrooms….

lifestyle airbnb

Data Pulse #23

When a few programmers and bloggers bought some air-beds , built a website and offered an air-bed with a coffee on their floor during a particularly busy conference season in San Francisco, they didn’t think they’d be creating a dis intermediation business to rival Marriott or Intercontinental Hotels.

Airbnb is a lodging rental platform with headquarters in San Francisco, California.

airbnb has grown staggeringly quickly over the past half-dozen years. The mind-boggling numbers show its incredible popularity; 1.5million listings in 33,000 cities in 191 countries around the world have attracted 65million guests – and counting.

Last June the company was priced at $25.5billion (above hotel giant Marriott’s $20.90bn), and ranked the third most valuable start-up business in the world, behind transportation network company Uber ($51billion), and Xiaomi, the world’s fourth-largest smartphone maker ($46bn).

airbnb has used data to deliver against the brand purpose, tell the brand story and build the customer experience . “Experience the world like a local”

airbnb describes itself as a ‘community marketplace where guests can book spaces from hosts, connecting people who have space to spare with those who are looking for a place to stay.’ A super brand that is community led.

The hosts are business partners, and airbnb is led by what the business partners say, continually getting their opinion and gauging reaction to business challenges and opportunities. It quickly builds a sense of openness, trust and meaningful interacton to form a strong community.

Every year, some 5,000 hosts from more than 100 countries are invited to the company’s airbnb Open (the 2015 edition was held in Paris) and encouraged to talk about the nature of their work. It is a great opportunity to both connect with the hosts and understand how airbnb can help serve them better. It is also a good way to feel part of that broader global community and the local area.

airbnb ran an innovative campaign to engage not only hosts but visitors in the airbnb community. The One Less Stranger campaign – where 100,000 hosts woke up on New Year’s Day, 2015, to an email from airbnb’s founder Brian Chesky saying he had paid $10 into their bank account – was an instance when “full editorial control” was taken away from Airbnb. Brian wrote that we would like the hosts to do something to help someone else, and to meet someone new with that money, It was a $1million marketing campaign where we gave full editorial control to the hosts. Some people just pocketed the money, but the idea here is that you can allow people who are your biggest advocates to be your spokespersons, and do your marketing for you, on social media and word of mouth.

It all builds up to the goal that your brand is driven by community rather than people in a marketing department.

‘It’s far better to have 100 people love you than 100,000 people sort of like you.’

airbnb also use data to make a ever growing core of people love them . The platform has disrupted the traditional hotels industry by eliminating the middle man and connecting travellers directly with people who have space to offer. airbnb collects detailed data relating to how customers are using the platform and attributes much of its success to an ability to analyse and understand how to improve the service.

airbnb employs extensive A/B testing to score multiple configurations or designs of its website and apps. Different users will also be exposed to different ranking and recommendation algorithms – the variation they experience is then linked to their next actions – viewing patterns, bookings and ultimately reviews of their stay.

airbnb uses natural language processing to decipher users’ true feelings about their stay, finding this to be more accurate than simple star rankings (which, they hypothesise, are overinflated due to the personal contact between guest and host).

Must admit i was a little nervous using airbnb for the first time ,. Found a little room in deepest Shoreditch, better than the local Premier Inn and cheaper… but now i’m a convert

TfL adds cycling routes to Open API

cycling London highways

Latest addition to portal provides potential for app development to support cyclists

Transport for London (TfL) has opened up a new open data source for mapping information on cycling in the city.

The organisation, which has been one of the leaders in making its data freely available for re-use, said that app developers will be able to use the information on its Cycle Superhighways and Quietway through its open data portal. Data on new routes will be added as they open.

This should enable developers to map out the existing networks within apps and on websites, and can be combined with previously released data, such as the location of cycle parking and availability of bikes from docking stations for London’s hire bikes, to help cyclists plan their routes.

TfL have continued to develop against their mission to keep London moving and innovating by providing data in Open Format for experts to develop into Customer Experience CX friendly Apps. Londoners already use apps to navigate around London every day, and by ensuring this cycling data is available to developers, they make a big difference to the way journeys are planned.n Cyclists can then plan the best route for them rather than simply following the way they would go by car or bus and find quieter more friendly routes

There are now more than 600 apps powered by TfL data including Citymapper. It has been very active in adding feeds to its open data portal, with initiatives last year including the provision of data on the London Trams network, historical crowding at Underground stations and road closures for the London Marathon. It also extended its APIs to include data on the Night Tube service.

A truly innovative way of using data to deliver against TfL mission, it’s commercial imperatives through delivering improved CX via data.

There’s more than one way to skin a cat

data pulse #18

Transport for London (TfL) has a purpose to ensure easy transport around London. It attempted several times to create customer friendly apps to use all the data from Train, tube and bus journeys. It couldn’t integrate the data and make a user friendly front end, to deliver this benefit for customers on its own.

TfL was very clear on its own capabilities : Good at Civil Engineering and its Purpose: Keep London moving. Instead they took a different approach to deliver their commercial imperative: TfL made their live transport data available real-time through an open API for developers. So far over 5000 users have registered, and over 300 apps created using Open Data, The most famous is Citymapper

Citymapper has created a customer app where you can look real-time at transport options to get you A to B , ‘here to Work’, ‘Here to Home’ etc. via walking, cycling, car, bus, train and Tube. The app tells you how long the journey will take, when and when it leaves from, cost, changes required, and provides a route map. It even tells you when to get off the bus, and a friend when you’ll be arriving

Transport for London benefits from this by having access to rich data on the way people are travelling around London – they can improve their transport services for the capital based on these learnings.

London was the first city but Citymapper is now in 23 cities including Manchester, Paris, Hamburg, Berlin, Milan, Barcelona, Madrid, Rome, New York Chicago, Mexico, SaoPaulo, Tokyo and Singapore. The same system is now used to provide journey times and options at Heathrow into London, real-time on screens in airport arrivals

TfL are also exporting their model to other cities in UK and internationally, starting with the new City mayors in Manchester?

Creating C.I. from B.I. for Customers

British Gas

Data-Pulse #69

Using data- driven analytics and technology to create new services that improve the Customer Experience by creating CI (customer version of BI) has emerged recently:

British Gas and Southern California Electric:

The development of SMART meters has revolutionised the available data from Energy. British Gas connect multiple sources of data to display personal energy use in simple terms: not just kW usage per day/ hour but cost per day/hour, with comparisons to average houses in the area, all presented in easy to use tables and graphs.

British Gas Hive 2

It provides clear practical information that delivers “Informed Energy”. It tells me last week it cost £3 a day to heat my home, and if i turned the thermostat down by 2 degrees i would save £1 a day……. giving me control

California Electric have used variable and peak demand pricing in California to manage energy use in area where there are energy restrictions.

The creation of Hive by British Gas allows remote control of customers’ home central heating, again with an excellent customer experience, allows customers to run their home more efficiently. I can turn the heating on as I come home from work, or manage remotely my teenage daughter who has turned up the temperature before going out herself.

British Gas Hive

Hive will continue to develop as IoT connects more devices to create a House management system. your Fridge will be connected via IoT to electricity supply and it will automatically switch itself off in periods of low use ( night time ) when no energy is needed to maintain temperature.

Hive have just launched new products in the Hive product family:

Hive Active Plug to connect home electrical appliances via your phone. eg iron or hair straighteners or schedule lamps to turn on and off when on holiday
Hive window or Door Sensor: you can find out if a door is opened or closed when you are away from the house , they’ll tell you by sending an alert to your phone.
Hive Motions Sensor: extra peace of mind with small and sophisticated sensors sending alerts to your phone if movement spotted in your house.

british gas hive 1

using my own data to tell my Fathers Day story

The weather has suddenly turned on the Pennines and summer days arrive and I’ve started to cycle again , and connect with my friends across the country on Strava. This Sunday on Fathers Day I cycled the Turnpike Challenge over the Pennines along with 100s of Lyra Clad Fathers.

STRAVA: the fitness app gives users access to cycling and running performance data.This is using customers own data combined with Google maps and geo-location to create tools and reports for themselves, a sort of Business Intelligence (BI) for customers or CI. Access is free initially but users can upgrade to Strava Premium for a small monthly fee with added features.

Strava focuses clearly on creating a great customer experience with a really simple sign up, and starting to get going, easy to use maps, and showing routes.

Users compete against their own personal best with friends or people they don’t know but run or ride the same routes as them. They can take part in wider Global community challenges such as last year just after the Nepal earthquake I was challenged to climb 29000 feet in a month on my bike.

Strava Premium users are ranked for routes of segments by day, year and all-time, and can win badges to improve their standing to become “king of the mountain”. Difficult on popular routes easier if you can find a distant and less popular cycle or running route. Friends connected can give each other kudos for a good cycle.

strava 3 strava 2

STRAVA is also advanced in several other uses of data. It has world class use of segmentation to create relevant communication and improve the customer experience. The more you use Strava the more relevant the communication , linked to running or cycling.

STRAVA links members to the wider community by ranking performance against other users. strava king of the mountain

Challenges create personal competitions as well as a digital community supporting an event e.g. cycle climb 27000 foot to raise money for Nepal earthquake appeal. Users can receive updates when their connections log activity and recently STRAVA launched the ability to message simply.

The STRAVA Community is a virtual digital community bound by the common interest of Cycling.

Taking data into communities

nike plus

Similar to Strava, Nike+ Running is a fitness tracking app which measures and records running and cycling activity.

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While the playback of exercise data to users is considerably less detailed than Strava, Nike+ has committed more energy to connecting real world communities with Nike+ Run Clubs and Training Clubs. Run Clubs are for all kinds of runners, with different types of run – Long Run, Speed Run, Track Night and more – designed to help runners achieve their personal goals. Separate to the Running app, Nike+ Training provides over 100 workout routines catering to different needs: Get Lean, Get Toned, Get Strong etc. at beginner, advanced and intermediate levels. Users can share their workouts, see how their friends are doing with their own training programmes and give and receive messages of encouragement.

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The Nike Training Club puts on free exercise classes in city locations (typically parks and shops) and also feature in some paid-membership gyms. These classes bring together people of all types, regardless of ability.

Nike also stage real world events so that the digital community can become a physical community.

Mike and I both Run Hyde Park and run around the same time.

Nike+ invite us to a NIKE event in Hyde Park,

Global Bike to Work Day 10 May

Strava is launching the first Global Bike to Work Day Challenge on Tuesday May 10th, #CommutesCount. I’ll be cycling to work using Strava will you?

Access is free initially but users can upgrade to Strava Premium for a small monthly fee with added features. Strava focuses clearly on creating a great customer experience with a really simple sign up, and starting to get going, easy to use maps, and showing routes. Users compete against their own personal best with friends or people they don’t know but run or ride the same routes as them.

Strava is a data company that collects members data and effectively aggregates anonomised data to improve the community and make a profit:

Strava Metro analyzes the millions of human-powered commutes uploaded to Strava every week, then partners with urban planners to improve city infrastructure for cyclists and pedestrians using anonymized data.

strava cast of riders

Here’s how it all works:

DATA-DRIVEN BICYCLE AND PEDESTRIAN PLANNING

More than five million rides and runs are uploaded to Strava each week, and in cities, the majority of these activities are commutes. These activities have created trillions of data points on where people actually ride, run and walk in cities.

In 2014, Strava launched a data service called Strava Metro. Since then, Metro has worked with over 70 organizations around the world to understand how more than a half-million bicyclists and pedestrians choose to navigate through cities. Each of these organizations is using the anonymized data to understand the general flow of people across their streets over time.

With data like this, cities can better understand how people choose to interact with the network of roads, bike paths and intersections. The result is improved decision-making, smarter planning, safer streets and more people biking, running and walking.

Better data is a catalyst for change.

strava bike to work day

Check out earlier Blog on Strava:

https://andrewmann.me/2016/04/23/creating-communities-using-data-linked-by-fitness/

Hitchhikers Guide to Disintermediation

# Data Pulse 42

When I was a student at Durham University we’d walk up to the A.1 , stick out our thumbs and Hitch a ride south. Sometimes we waited for a long time, and sometimes we had a very odd ride, but we had time and little money.

I’ve just driven my daughter back to Bristol University and things have changed dramatically in the last 30 years.

Bla Bla Car is a digitally enabled ride-sharing network, connecting travellers who are making similar journeys so that they can save on travel costs and meet like-minded from trusted community of more than 20 million verified members. it’s a great example of understanding customers stories and then developing a brand story using data and digital that works for customers , fitting for them .

Drivers who want to offer a seat in their car submit the details of their journey online and set a price per passenger. Someone looking for a lift can then search the offered journeys and book a place. After meeting at an agreed point and completing the journey, the users then rate each other. The feedback system promotes trust within the community so that people can feel safe and secure when sharing a journey

A fast growing example of a community sharing organisation that brings together users with excess capacity for their capital investment (someones car) with a user who has a need for that excess capacity, at in improved value for money .

Creating a data-driven delivery Service

data pulse #14

Data and technology can be used to make people’s lives easier, and continually tell the brand story to customers and colleagues. It can also be used to insert the brand story into customer’s own stories

Hate waiting in for a parcel ?

DPD delivery tracking now allows customers to track the van that will be delivering their package. The ability to view detailed delivery information – expected delivery time, queue number, the name of the driver and their precise location at any time – means customers have all of the information they need, visibility of the journey, and the most up to date expected arrival times.

dpd5

This allows us to more easily plan our day and make sure they are at home at the right time – DPD’s delivery service is augmented with an information service so it moves from just being like another courier to being informed delivery, using data to build a brand story that is consistently delivered. DPD looked at the customer journey and customer’s story and used data and technology to create a role for the brand.

Data and digital has been used to create an added value service building strategic and operational capability that is driving L4L growth. it started with a customer problem that could be solved by creating a new data-driven added value service, that was better for customers ( less waiting in), simpler for colleagues ( more deliveries right first time) and cheaper for dpd, ( less miles per parcel =£££)

data used to create story in many brands

Many other brands have made this same link of data and technology to give customers control in this way, be it Uber, Manchester Taxis. Retailers are also using it to improve internal effectiveness for customers: Asda supermarkets track their delivery lorries and let store colleagues know where and when they are arriving. this allows breaks to be scheduled and teams ready to receive, unload and refill the shelves just in time.

Another story of how data-driven customer thinking adds value.

Try this one as well:

Predictive analytics running shops

3 Single Men and a Wedding

wedpics founders

data pulse #71

First problem: They were guys. Second problem: They were all single. None of them had ever been married, and they were based in Raleigh, North Carolina, which was not a place that anyone had ever built a large consumer app company. Lastly they were entering a crowded market.

How did WedPics defy conventional wisdom?

Identify a small niche market and build a highly targeted product to fit that market’s need. After conquering that niche market, expand out to other niches until you get some real momentum.

Wedpics decided to target brides as their customer niche. Brides can’t get enough pictures and videos, not just from their wedding photographer but also from everyone else with a cell phone.

If this mantra sounds familiar, it should. Think Airbnb, Strava

When you look at WedPic’s success, there are two overriding lessons that stand out:

1.The product is simple. The UI is intuitive, and regardless of whether you are 12 or 62, if you have a phone you can snap pictures and videos and instantly share them with the rest of the wedding party. In fact, the founders claim that there are no features.

2.They understand their buyer (the bride). Out of the gates, they offered instant support regardless of the time of day. The boys each took turns on call and averaged 20 minutes to turn around any question or concern. I mean, we are talking brides here preparing for the biggest day of their life. It didn’t matter that Koren, Heymann, or Miller received calls in the middle of the night. Yes, I said calls. Not email. Not chat (though that would have been cheaper and easier). The brand said, The company is here for you; we know we only get one shot to do this right.

What I love about the success of WedPics is how Koren, Heymann, and Miller focused on finding customers. My favourite image is that of a six-foot-four tattooed guy (Miller) standing behind the company table at a wedding conference. Today, WedPics stands at 29 people and has raised more than $7.5 million from investors across the country.

Oh, all three founders are still single