I recently decided to rejig my private sharing service Abelwire ( now called Bluejac). The project was shelved due to Google+ as it does private sharing via circles, which is similar to Bluejac’s approach with channels.

However, despite my reservation that family members and professional contacts would simply adopt Google+, this has not happened.

Given the current fad of Pinterest style layouts, I thought it would be fun to see whether or not that style would work on Bluejac.  To do this, I used what must be the most popular plugin at the moment – JQuery Masonry.

Released under a creative commons license on Flickr by dgray_xplane

It is always fun discussing new product ideas,  solutions to existing problems and potential new markets. A couple of markets that consistently crop up in discussions I have had lately include: education, healthcare and banking.

Healthcare

Healthcare is an emotive subject, especially in the US, and a space ready for some new innovation.

“Don’t listen to the naysayers. The time to jump into healthcare IT is now, said Frank Moss, director of new media medicine at MIT’s Media Lab.”

http://gigaom.com/2011/11/10/mit-roadmap-2011/

This is easier said than done due to the complex nature of the market. I am interested in learning more about this space and as part of my research came across a few start ups:

• Cake Health  [The best free way to manage your healthcare expenses.]
• Omadahealth [We’re revolutionizing health care through group-based programs for chronic disease prevention.]
• StickK [The smartest way to set and achieve your goals]
• ZocDoc [Find a doctor and make your appointment online]
• Bloom
• HealthTap [Answers from 7,000 U.S. licensed physicians No waiting room]

Further reading

• https://everymove.org/blog/disrupting-healthcare-is-dream-of-many
• http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/10/opinion/our-high-tech-health-care-future.html?_r=1
• http://www.fastcompany.com/1794642/12-health-care-startups-to-watch
• http://techcrunch.com/2011/12/19/are-health-startups-the-next-big-opportunity-tctv/
• http://techcrunch.com/2012/01/01/healthtech-2012/ (6 Big HealthTech Ideas That Will Change Medicine In 2012)
• http://techcrunch.com/2012/01/10/doctors-or-algorithms/

Banking

Given the current economic climate and considering many point a finger towards the banking sector, for the role they played in contributing to the problems, it is no wonder this industry crops up in discussions about change. However, like healthcare, it does not appear to be an easy space in which to innovate and disrupt. Tight rules, regulations and legal requirements along with a close knit community ensure challenging the status quo is tough. That said, we are seeing new services beginning to emerge including:

• Square
• Simple
• Kiva 
• SmartyPig 

Education

Compared to the time when I was active in the education space, we are now seeing a real increase in innovation via a range of new online services. There is no doubt that the web, technology and networks of connected users can have a positive impact on education and learning.

Here are a couple of examples:

• Skillshare
• DonorsChoose
• Codeacademy
• Kahn Academy
• Kaggle
• UDemy
• Open Sesame
• Treehouse
• Curatr  (I interviewed Ben Betts from Curatr last year)
• eduFire
• Inkling
• Dreambox

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If you are considering entering the market, this blog post provides some thought provoking, and different, commentary.

“Most entrepreneurs in education build the wrong type of business, because entrepreneurs think of education as a quality problem. The average person thinks of it as a cost problem.”

“Don’t believe that building a better product will make you successful. Delivering something for cheaper will.”

Not sure I agree, but it is food for thought.

Further reading:

• http://mashable.com/2011/12/21/education-2011/
• http://www.hackeducation.com/2011/12/18/top-10-ed-tech-startups-of-2011/
• http://mashable.com/2011/01/07/online-education-websites
• http://www.onlineuniversities.com/blog/2011/10/18-game-changing-education-startups-you-should-watch/
• http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/online_training_and_learning.php
• http://www.quora.com/Education-Startups/What-are-some-interesting-startups-in-the-education-space-Why-are-they-interesting

Finally, I would like to add one more to this list: recruitment and in particular recruitment agencies. They were the bane of my existence when trying to hire in a previous role. Job Boards and classifieds are not working as effectively as they could in matching those seeking work to those needing employees. It would be great to see something new emerge eliminating the need for these agencies and in doing so, help fill more openings, with the right people.

Image released under a Creative Commons license by Yandle on Flickr

When conducting usability testing on websites, there are plenty of online tools available to help with the process. If I require a range of different testers, who fit a series of demographics, mirroring the various users of a site, I use a service called usertesting.com. The service is well run with responsive support and has become a staple in my tool box. For around $39 you can have someone step through your site completing predetermined tasks that you set. Watching the resultant screencast, as well as listening to the user describe their thought process while completing each task, provides real insight into what is working well and what isn’t. Other options including; Loop 11, Open Hallway, CrazyEgg and many more.

A couple of alternative approaches I use include The Readability Test Tool – creating a great user experience is not just about the UI, readability and comprehension of content plays a big part in a site’s success – and the Forrester Website User Experience Review, which is comprehensive and prompts you to drill into aspects of a site that can easily be overlooked.

There are many other techniques including; card sorting, focus groups, cloze tests, observation, persona development and user scenario design.

Further reading:

• http://www.useit.com/ (A great reference)
• http://www.idatbcnmasters.com/miakos/?p=415
• http://www.masternewmedia.org/website-usability-testing-guide-to-the-best-professional-usability-testing-tools-and-services/
• Usability testing Demystified http://www.alistapart.com/articles/usability-testing-demystified/

With high street vacancy rates rising in the UK and here in Canada – at least in my neighbourhood – plenty of empty stores, combined with new retail ventures choosing to go online due to cost and reach; I am thinking through a simple idea which, for lack of a better title, I’m calling CoRetail.

Personally, I like to shop online but I don’t want to see shopping via good old bricks-and-mortar stores disappear. Local eco-systems ranging from food and drink providers, to local transport services, rely on people heading into shopping areas. These areas are often a focal point of communities.

Take the example of local farmers markets, sure you could just order everything online and have it delivered, but there is something nice about sampling the products, talking to the producers, browsing items you might not normally buy and chatting to other customers to find out how they cook braising steak. It can be a true social experience.

While some items lend themselves to online shopping, many don’t. I carried out a tiny (not representative) straw poll yesterday and found that out of 8 guys asked, 7 would not buy clothes online, apart from t-shirts.

The problem: economics. When you factor in rent, insurance, staffing, store fittings, inventory spread over several locations, security, theft and so on, it doesn’t seem to stack up versus e-commerce.

Perhaps a model for moving forward is to learn from the coworking movement, such as Citizen Space in San Francisco, and apply this to retail stores. Essentially, you take some prime retail space and allow online boutiques/stores to book time/space in there to showcase their products and interact face-to-face with shoppers. Customers would still order online using one of the available terminals, or via their own device. Just scan the barcode using a CoRetail app, and the order is placed. Vendors could also utilise something like Square to take payment for orders which are then dispatched via their online business.

An online venture might make use of the location for one day a week, or perhaps one week a month, either way, it removes the burden of a full lease on premises which no longer makes economic sense for many new/smaller retail businesses.

Warby Parker is a good example of an online business mixing it with offline bricks-and-mortar premises. While their full range is online, you can go to showrooms and try out popular items, get advice and order your selection via supplied terminals. For the holiday period they do offer product on site but usually the showrooms don’t stock inventory, you try items out and order online for home delivery.

The notion of CoRetail overlaps heavily with what you currently get at tradeshows, farmers markets, street markets and other exhibition type events that are not permanent fixtures. As more high street stores struggle vs online or out-of-town big box stores; providing high quality, prime locations, which are effectively shared, showroom style, among online retailers, might be worth exploring.

The idea for Bluejac came while waiting in line at a bakery in Leamington Spa – an assistant behind the counter pulled out a piece of card and wrote All bread 1/2 price until closing and put the sign in the window. When I asked him if this happened every day, he replied, ‘Each day is different depending on sales that day’.

This triggered a simple idea.

As he was not sure what would be left, if anything, towards the end of the day perhaps it would be possible to build a web service which could help get the word out to interested shoppers in the vicinity, when the sale was on?

While a check in style service could work, I was not sure it was the most effective approach as that can require a potential customer to check in before finding out about a sale and often the sale has to be determined ahead of time which doesn’t give the business much flexibility to adjust to a changing scenario; this service had to target people who might not know about the store, or, who were not already in the store in a way that allows the business to react in real-time to their current situation.

Twitter is an option here but that would require a potential customer to know about, and be following, the store, plus, there is a danger that a tweet would get lost in all the other unrelated tweets. I wanted the service to push out relevant messages, for a short period of time (controlled by the user), to willing recipients within a specified range based on a category rather than prior knowledge of a vendor.

The solution was to adopt a sudo geo-fencing approach. A user would select one of four options – I’m hungry, I’m thirsty, I’m bored or I’m shopping – their selection would then push any relevant specials to them, applicable to the category selected, from within a 1-2 km radius (the user would not be identified as being in the zone, or need to follow any businesses). Once they received a message, they could select ‘Count me in’ which would display a code to redeem in the store (and notify the store of a potential sale), it could also alert their social graph about the offer, hopefully driving traffic to the merchant.

I felt there was a seed of something useful in this idea. However, as with so many web based services, the problem was coming up with a solid business model especially as I feel the current ‘coupon’ culture, spearheaded by Groupon, can be unfair on local businesses. This experiment was an interesting learning experience exploring location, deals and shopping habits.

The concept behind Abelwire arose from a personal need to share family updates and photos, towards the end of 2010, in a completely private, very simple, service where the participating users owned their own data.

To achieve this, I wrapped a bundle of email addresses and/or mobile phone numbers in a unique access id, this access id formed a channel. There is no public on this service. Content could only be shared via a channel where it is restricted to the members of that channel. Search was restricted to channels and it was only possible to view the profiles of those people who are in the same channel(s).

Users could create their own channels and decide if channel members are able to invite in other people, or not.

While the service worked quite well, it proved difficult convincing people to try something other than Facebook to share baby photos and updates. Despite my privacy/ownership concerns, Facebook is such a big part of many peoples daily life and for those I was talking to, they just don’t worry about that side of things. Shortly after testing, a small company called Google announced Google+ where you could use circles to achieve something similar – that was the end of this experiment ;)

Some commentators feel brands and companies should be investing time building a presence on Google+ as the network is growing, there are unique features such as Hangouts and, importantly, there is speculation they will impact search results.

On the negative side, some feel the offering is not yet ready for primetime usage. In a nutshell, you can’t use Google pages to run contests, offers, coupons or other promotions, instead they suggest linking to an external site. There are very little, if any, analytics (they don’t integrate with Google Analytics!), administration control is limited and due to Google+’s age there is concern that is doesn’t have the required traffic, yet.

Last week, the Ann Summers decided to launch a competition to find the next ‘face of the brand’ and displayed the top 10 hopefuls in their first ever TV ad. The competition takes on an x-factor type flavour with the public now voting for their favourite.

Reaction has been mixed. A blogger on Brand Republic really dislikes it on several levels calling it a cheap stunt and commenting “If you can’t make a sex retailer sexy you’re really in trouble.”. Another review reckons the ad shows a classier side to the brand.

What do you think – does it work? Is it a good tactic for brands to copy popular TV culture? Or is it a lazy copycat approach does little for the brand?