01 Nov 2016, by Calum Shepherd
It’s reported Uber have plans to reduce their dependency on human drivers and their vehicles through introducing driverless cars.
Uber is currently the modern day equivalent of your old school taxi company - just without many of the limitations and drawbacks that these have. However, if it does continue down the route of purchasing driverless cars and operating these directly - it becomes a company managing what could be an extremely large fleet of driverless vehicles.
Given that the rise of driverless cars will also happen within the private car ownership space initially - it strikes me there is actually a better opportunity adopting a hybrid model.
If the current appetite from people for car finance (either ownership or user-ship) continues and there is still a desire to have their own vehicle, would they be willing to offer it up during non-use for companies such as Uber?
When you think about it, people are already willing to fork out money each month for a vehicle which remains unused for the majority of the day, minus the morning and evening commute. So, why wouldn’t this continue with the introduction of driverless cars?
Though this time, your vehicle could have an Uber navigation app installed and be turned into a taxi during it’s downtime - all while you sip on your morning coffee.
Sounds good to me. Uber continues to have a relationship with human drivers, but begins to dip into driverless cars without having a massive upfront investment.
28 Dec 2015, by Calum Shepherd
I love the definition of data provided by Google - data, in philosophy is “things known or assumed as facts, making the basis of reasoning or calculation”.
There is something beautiful about this definition. It creates a relationship between things assumed as facts and their usage as a source for reasoning - ultimately helping us to make educated decisions.
Reasoning is “the action of thinking about something in a logical, sensible way”.
We know data is fundamental to what we consider to be good user centred design. However using the wrong data is sometimes worse than having no data at all, as it can support questionable decisions and go unnoticed for quite some time. When we use the wrong data to create solutions, we can get stuck in a loop of uneducated change - the opposite of what we are attempting to achieve through true iteration.
change is “an act or process through which something becomes different”
whereas;
iteration is “the repetition of a process or utterance as a means of obtaining successively closer approximations to achieve a solution”
So to really improve things we need to iterate - which can only happen if we use the right data at the right time. Our methods should be providing us with data that fuels reasoning and educates decision making - not having us bark up the wrong tree.
Understanding and proposing likely user behaviour can be tough at the best of times. Understanding the available methods, what they will provide and how to converge data seems vital.
For example, pulling some numbers out of Google Analytics is meaningless without context, which may or may not come from other sources. Context could be whether or not a filter is applied to the data. Or, it could be to find out why people are doing something, not just what they are doing.
It is also important to strike the right cadence with any research. Stages like ’research’ and ’measure’ aren’t optional, although can sometimes be seen as such - we just need to dial up or down the intensity to make it practical on a regular basis.
Thus, it feels more important than ever to ensure we get the basics right; collecting the right data, at the right time, with the right people involved to present back a series of assumed facts that help us make more educated decisions.
I have a feeling my phrase of 2016 will be ‘assumed facts’.
Have a great New Year!
05 Oct 2015, by Calum Shepherd
Thursday saw the annual occurrence of Marketing Society Scotland’s Digital Day take place at Glasgow Drygate.
Arriving slightly late and a little flustered after morning meetings, I hadn’t quite had the chance to fully digest the agenda.
What I found was a great line up of speakers with carefully chosen talks to cover a spread of topics. I would suspect that there was something for everyone who has an interest in digital, marketing or business.
Missed the event? Alan Barr, Digital Director of The Big Partnership kindly made available his highlights over on their blog (thanks for the mention Alan!).
I was pleased to be asked to join the afternoon session to listen to the experiences of others and to share my own. Thanks for being so open. Here are my soundbites:
- digital hides a modern business strategy, it’s the convergence of things like marketing, communications, change and technology - don’t expect chief digital officers to be around in 10 years
- we have to accept we won’t always be able to directly shape the experience for users. Content is being taken out of context and presented back to users through search engines and personal assistants. So, focus on structured data and help shape this
- there is a huge agenda for further digital participation, so hopefully we will see further prominence from older people in the digital space
- people in digital marketing teams have often arrived directly into the digital space. So, it’s important for them to remember that numbers represent people, so get out from behind the desk!
I was thankful to be able to catch some fantastic afternoon talks as well. Tom Ollerton from We Are Social with his pitch for social thinking, not social media and Tiffany St James both showing why they are industry figures.
See you all next year.
16 Jun 2015, by Calum Shepherd
I was delighted to speak about our learnings so far building something from nothing through empowerment, agile and responsive methods, whilst on our journey towards better public services.
With information spread across 160+ organisations, 480+ websites and over 6 million content items - the scale is staggering.
With 6 million content items, we actually have more content items than people
Think about putting yourself in the shoes of a user. What does this landscape looks like to traverse? It will likely start at Google and get muddy from there on.
Our work towards a central point of access is shaped upon user research and performance analysis, but it hasn’t all been smooth sailing.
So, what are our learnings so far?
- Understand the benefit of multigenerational organisations, explore tensions and build bridges
- Adapt and tailor principles that are a good fit for your team and environment
- Get together regularly - in person. It will increase visibility, reduce tensions, create connections and deliver better solutions
- Empowerment ≠ direction. Remove blockers, empower teams to make decisions and be clear on the direction of travel
- Mind the HiPPO (Highest Paid Person’s Opinion) - it might just be you
- It’s amazing how much free feedback you get online, from very clever people. Increase transparency and overcome your fear of criticism
I was keen to make the point that we truely are on the brink of something special in the public sector. We have the opportunity to transform our enviroments and the way deliver services.
In regards to the books I mentioned:
The slides are available on Speakerdeck - ‘We are moving the cheese’.
15 Jun 2015, by Calum Shepherd
People have been looking to search engines to answers their questions for the best part of ten years now. Searching is now baked into our DNA. Got a question? Google it.
We also know that the majority of people who visit public sector websites come from search engines. Think of search as the modern homepage of the web, where once AOL dominated search engines now rein.
There is huge demand. Information from the public sector is helping to answer a portion of approx 40,000 searches a second worldwide.
These searches commonly provide an insight into behaviour, helping us create better products and services for people.
You can read more on how Google provides it’s results through their “how search works” guide.
Search is changing however and we should change our approach with it.
Moving toward conversational interactions
Conversational search, or natural language search, is a series of features made available within UK search engines from 2013.
Conversational search allows for us to interact much like we do when conversing with a friend, through an ability to comprehend natural language.
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Unnatural, ill-formed search queries are common on desktop. Think “David Cameron age” and “age David Cameron”
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Natural, well formed queries are now growing massively on mobile - “What is David Cameron’s age?” and “How old is David Cameron?”
Conversational search is connecting search queries together as well. You don’t have to think about how you fit everything into one query, as you can refine results over multiple searches.
- “Who is the prime minister?” Response “David Cameron”
- “How old is he?” Response “48 years (October 9, 1966)”
You don’t have to provide the name twice. Search engines pick up the person in the first search and the reference “he” in the second.
This is made possible through both data from knowledge bases like Wikidata and Google Knowledge Graph. Or, from indexed information from websites such as GOV.UK.
Conversational search and knowledge graph results are making waves, and I’ve no doubt the public sector is next.
Answers are returned directly within search results. It has real potential to shake up how information is presented. It’s a real shift towards search centric, informational experiences
I want to apply for a basic disclosure
Basic disclosure is a transactional service provided by Disclosure Scotland. Information about the service and the ability to apply is available online.
Using this example, we can take a look at a possible future state.
- “OK Google” (launches Android search box)
- “What is a basic disclosure? Response “A basic disclosure is a document containing information about you that can be used by employers to make safer recruitment decisions”
- “How much does it cost?” Response “A basic disclosure costs £25”
- “Can I use a credit card to pay” Response “You can pay for a basic disclosure using a credit or debit card”
- “How do I apply?” Response “You can apply for a basic disclosure online or by post” (link to apply online)
We already hold data about Scottish public services through the Scottish Services list and the Scottish Government services review.
With both Freebase and Wikidata offering the ability to input data about public services, there is potential to adopt a common vocabulary and link all this up, going some way to realising our example.
TL;DR
We should accept that we won’t always control the experience for users. The future will likely be search centric, informational experiences that won’t neccessarily result in a visit to public sector websites.
We have an opportunity to provide the data and information needed to support such innovation. An opportunity that helps to support various Scottish Government strategies, including the Government Economic Strategy for 2015.