Technology for the post-search world

On the road this week to attend and present at the PeopleMatter Collaborate '14 event, so today's take will be a short one, and really is not much more than a recommendation to check out this fascinating piece on Quartz titled This is what comes after search, a really interesting look at how the way we interact with the web (particularly on mobile devices) is changing.

Long story short, we don't really 'search' in the traditional sense, by typing some words into a box on Google.com, nearly as much on mobile devices as we traditionally have on personal computers, (where 'searching' was essentially the only way to find anything).

And since more and more the only thing that really matters is mobile, this change is user behavior and preferences for information discovery are having a pretty profound impact on both the major sellers or search, (Google, Yahoo, Microsoft), and the new companies that are developing technologies that are meant to deliver the next generation of 'search', where searching happens automatically, is context-aware, and is personalized for you.

Here is a excerpt from the piece on Quartz to give you an idea of what the 'post-search' world might look like:

In the old days, if you wanted to do something - navigate to the restaurant where you've got a dinner reservation - you might open a web browser and search for its address. But in the post-search world of context - in which our devices know so much about us that they can guess our intentions - your phone is already displaying a route to that restaurant, as well as traffic conditions, and how long it will take you to get there, the moment you pull your phone out of your pocket.

Manually searching for things, especially for basic information like the names of places or their locations or details about a person with which you are about to meets just seems kind of old school, kind of a 2002 way to interact with information.

Earlier this week I posted about Microsoft's Oslo project, the beginnings of their attempt at making 'search' less onerous and even unnecessary for the people in organizations that have pretty much their entire work lives tied up in Microsoft Office applications. That project, and the ones that are detailed in the Quartz piece both serve as signals of a sort, that the days of you having to figure out what it is you are looking for, then manually issuing a request to some kind of search tool to help you find the right information, and finally you figuring out which choice to make from hundreds or thousands of options are perhaps drawing to a close.

For the solution providers that will thrive in the second part of this decade, it's not about making technology that helps you find things anymore. It is about making technology that delivers the right information, in the right context, before the user even had to search.

Build a great app, destroy 90% of your value proposition

Have you been following the ongoing dispute between satellite TV provider DirectTV and the ubiquitous Weather Channel?

For those not familiar with the story, essentially it boils down to this - when it came time to renew the contract that allows for the Weather Channel to be carried on the satellite service, DirectTV, citing a 20% decline in customer viewership of the Weather Channel, has requested a commensurate decline in the fees it pays to the channel. The Weather Channel, citing, well, things other than actual ratings, is holding out for a (small) increase in carriage fees from DirectTV. While the two sides continue to negotiate and toss barbs at each other, the channel has been taken off DirectTV and has been replaced with an alternate weather information channel.

While these kinds of TV distribution service and content producer disputes kick up from time to time, (there was a pretty widely reported spat between Time Warner Cable and CBS TV a few months ago for example), they have almost always been centered about one thing - costs. Almost invariably, and not surprisingly, the content producers want increased fees from the TV distributors for the right to carry the content/programming. After all they have a compelling argument. No one subscribes to DirectTV for the sheer joy of seeing one of those tiny satellite dishes bolted to the roof of the house. The value is in the content. 

But in the DirectTV/Weather Channel spat, DirectTV has introduced another element to the mix, one that serves as a bit of a warning too - that creating an amazing, relevant, easy to use, and distilled to its most important elements mobile app might actually work against the Weather Channel in the long run. 

What do I mean by this?

That since the Weather Channel has an incredibly popular mobile app, one that millions of people check everyday, and does not typically get deleted once it has been downloaded, it has in effect, reduced the need for the 'full service', i.e., the TV version of the Weather Channel. Nine or maybe even nine and a half times out of ten the weather information that people need can be and is delivered perfectly capably on their mobile device and within a few seconds. Everyone checks the weather on their phones. And unless there is a major storm or natural disaster type event, the information you get on the phone is a perfectly suitable substitute for watching the actual TV version of the Weather Channel.

Step back a second then and think about what this suggests more broadly. Whether it is a media property like the Weather Channel or a technology solution like an HRIS system or even an organizational entity like an HR department - going down the path of mobile deployment or offering a mobile service element usually means a reduction or a distillation of the offering/value proposition such that it actually works on a mobile device.

And the service or solution has to meet the additional demands of the mobile user - simplicity, speed, ease of use, fun, and most importantly, has to deliver value at that moment.

In the Weather Channel example, their mobile app clearly delivers on those requirements. It is one of the most popular apps across all mobile platforms. And it pretty clearly demonstrates and reinforces the long standing and seems to work everywhere 80/20 rule. Except for the hardcore weather nerds, almost all of the value the Weather Channel creates comes from about 20% of what they do.

The problem now, at least according to DirectTV, is that when you give people the choice to consume only the valuable 20%, well, they don't need, want, or care about the rest of what you do.

I don't have a great big insightful takeaway on this, I just thought the story was interesting.

Mobile-first, or mobile only services certainly don't run into this problem, but for the rest of the world that continues to struggle to squeeze years and years of legacy operations onto a 4-inch screen, I think we will see this scenario playing out more often.

Giving people an amazing mobile experience might be all they need and it might make the rest of what you are doing look and feel kind of old, kind of antiquated, and kind of unnecessary.

Have a great weekend! 

WEBINAR: The Ultimate Guide to Mobile Recruiting

You know what niche industry is really suffering right now?

Ok, that was a dumb question, there are hundreds of possible answers, (luxury electric cars, shoe shine stands, sites trying to peddle surplus Jeremy Lin 'Knicks' gear), but the one I was going for was gossip magazines.

You know the ones I mean - National Enquirer, The Star, The Weekly World News. The rags that line every supermarket checkout counter in America.

Why are these publications feeling the squeeze lately? It's not for a lack of juicy news - heck the Kardashians alone take care of providing all the content they need. It's because while people are stuck waiting in the checkout line, when they used to scan and once in a while make an impulse buy of one of these magazines, now they are heads down on their iPhones.

Texting, Tweeting, Facebooking - whatever. The attention they used to pay to the starlet of the moment on the magazine rack is now diverted to their mobile device.

Face it - our attachment to our devices is changing everything - from gossip mags to reading news to looking for a job - and yes I just made that leap. Candidates are looking for jobs, (maybe your jobs), on their mobile devices instead of reading about the latest world's largest baby. And guess what? You probably are not ready for that.

That is why your friends over at Fistful of Talent have you covered with the latest in the FOT Webinar series - The Ultimate Guide to Mobile Recruiting, Wednesday April 24 at 1:00PM ET.

What will FOT's Kris Dunn and Jason Pankow cover?

Jason and Kris will lay down FOT’s Ultimate Guide to Mobile Recruiting, brought to you by the mobile sages at iMomentous by hitting you with the following:

A survey of the mobile recruiting landscape and the factors driving the need for HR and recruiting professionals to develop their mobile recruiting strategy.

Mobile site vs. Native App? FOT tackles the great debate, presenting scenarios of how each fit into your mobile recruiting strategy.

The five keys to enhancing your mobile recruiting strategy by capitalizing on features like quick apply, SMS, social media and QR codes

The ultimate checklist for selecting your mobile recruiting vendor, including the top questions you need to ask when vetting potential vendors

How to go beyond the optimized screen to attract top talent to your organization by incorporating video content and thought leadership into via your mobile recruiting strategy.

So what are you wating for, register here for the April installment of the FREE FOT webinar and start laying down the foundation for your mobile recruiting strategy.

As always, the FOT Webinar comes guaranteed - 60% of the time it works every time.

You probably already have plenty of data, Big or otherwise

I really wanted to title this post - 'There is almost certainly too much crap on your iPhone', because that is what I was actually thinking about before writing this post. This was in recollection of a few wasted moments the other day when I simply could not find the particular app on the phone that I was looking for. But then a blog post about my frustration with my inability to properly operate a phone seemed the most dire kind of post - self-indulgent, inconsequential, and worst of all - boring.

But this silly little example, the fact that I've put too many apps on my phone, combined with a lack of organization or semblance of order, with a sprinkle of 'I had a BlackBerry for so long, I am still trying to figure out how to use this thing', and I've ended up (at times) squandering the opportunities that having access to an incredible resource and range of applications should represent.Remember how your phone once looked?

The best project manager I ever had, when trying to run a year-long, 50-person plus, and technically complex systems integration and implementation project had a general rule of thumb he followed to help manage what threatened to be an impossibly growing 'Issues list.'  His rule?  No project team member was allowed, after the initial requirements discovery period was complete, to add a new issue to the list, unless he or she could prove an existing issue was closed, or was no longer an issue after all.

This rule, and the discipline it instilled in the process and the team, served to force the team members to think really critically when new potential issues arose, and kept us focused on making consistent progress against what issues had already been raised. It was not a perfect system, and the project manager did make an occasional exception to this rule when it was essential, but it basically worked. 

Why bring up an old project manager's quirky practice in a post that seems to be about my inability to use my iPhone and with a title vaguely alluding to one of 2013's 'You might already be sick of it' terms, Big Data?

Well, because for the same reason you and I have too many apps on our phones and belong to too many different social networks and sites, and spend way too much time checking for likes, follows, and retweets - Big Data at work threatens to create even more complexity, confusion, and chaos if we are not careful.

So as 2013 starts here is my first recommendation for how to approach Big Data for HR - start by figuring out just what data you already have, have been routinely collecting either by design or as a by-product of another process, and take some time to consider what kinds of insight and value could be gained by simply asking some simple questions about this information.

My guess is just like you already have 'enough' apps on your iPhone, (or at least have a few you can happily set free), you probably have plenty of internal data to commence your own version of a Big Data project without launching some kind of new initiative to collect even more data.

So that's my advice. Take an inventory. Ask around to see what data folks are collecting on their own spreadsheets. Talk to the creepy guy in IT once in a while. See what additional information is locked up by your Payroll and Benefits providers.  Start there.

And after that, and only after that, start looking for more data.

Now, I need to run I have a few more screens of Apps to delete.

Have a great week all!

How did you get this number?

The Next Web ran a short piece a few days ago about the results from a survey of mobile and smartphone usage in the UK, commissioned by the UK mobile operator O2, that revealed some interesting data about how people are actually using their smartphones.Mojave phone booth

The hook line from the piece, and what is interesting about the data, (taken from a survey of about 2,000 users), is that making actual phones calls, i.e., talking to other people, (or at least attempting to), rated as only the fifth most popular activity for these smartphone users.

According to the 'All About You' survey data, here's where people spend their time on each day with their phones:

Browsing the internet - 25 minutes

Checking Social Networking sites - 17.5 minutes

Listening to music - 15.5 minutes

Playing games - 14.5 minutes

Making actual phone calls (not including conversations with SIRI), - 12 minutes

If you read the rest of the Next Web piece on the survey data, it talks about how the mobile phone has become an indispensable part of modern life, has replaced for many users the need for other 'single-function' gadgets like alarm clocks and watches, and continues to utterly transform the way that we interact with the world, with information, and certainly, each other. And of course that is the kind of positive spin that O2, a mobile phone provider would want to attach to this kind of data.

But the cynical take on this, and perhaps backed up with we see more and more in our professional and personal lives, is that, increasingly, we don't want to actually talk to each other, at least not as often as we want to check LOL Cats, hang out on Facebook, and drop the latest Adele track.

It's not really new news that people do lots of really cool things on their phones, and I suppose it's not really news anymore that actually talking to people has become a much less common and much bigger intrusion on our time that we ever used to think. Sherry Turkle has already covered that ground better than I ever could.

But I guess I'll leave it to you to consider - the little device you are carrying right now lets you connect with the entire world, almost everyone in it, and more information than was ever dreamed would be accessible even just a few years ago. 

With that power, potential, and promise, why would you want to spend any time dedicated to talking with just one person?

We love, (especially the professional networkers out there), to say that meeting people, talking to them, interacting one-on-one is the ultimate way to connect, and is necessary to forge true and meaningful relationships. But the data keeps showing what we say we believe and what we actually do continue to diverge.

What do you think? How much less do you actually talk to people since you got your iPhone?

And you can call me to let me know what you think if you like, but I probably won't pick up. Maybe.