Will fears around social engineering kill the customer experience of social media usage?

Social engineering is a nasty business with strangers able to pry into your world and piece together personal information from you social media footprint. With enough motivation it can then be possible to amass enough information to break most security questions posed even by your own bank. Taking precaution on your privacy settings in social media had been deemed good practice and the right approach to ensuring you stayed safe in the socially connected internet. But what about your network?  Are they so cautious?  And what about more public sites that promote connectivity such as twitter or linkedin?   Have you considered how a photo on Instagram by a friend could allow any stranger to have your date of birth details?  Your running records on map my run give would be burglars a pattern of your movements and understanding on your location. If security requires double authentication and a lock down on connectivity in the future it could kill social media for all but pointless comments and observations. People want to be connected and to use social media without fears but it could be well worth considering the possible implications of that tweet of a picture your front door or Pinterest snaps of your new car in all its glory parked proudly on your drive. The epic experience of social media is under FIRE. 

The Cryptolocker virus - a sure way to ruin your day

Early June the Cryptolocker virus went public and the threat of the latest wave of computer viruses was signalled with a 2 week warning. The grace period has now passed and this nasty virus is roaming the internet desperate to ruin your day and impregnate your data. The customer experience results in all of us now being super cautious while opening email for fear one of these could be riddled with this disease. The guidelines on avoidance are consistent with previous viruses in not opening up any email that looks suspicious in terms of the sender or content. In particular avoiding emails with files or zipped content which may be fostering the crytolocker virus. Once inside your system it encrypts your data files and then holds you to ransom to have this unlocked but it is extremely difficult to then determine if the virus has been removed or if you are sitting on a time bomb waiting for the next ransom request from your PC. Unfortunately the experience is painful and potentially expensive which means until this gremlin has passed the experience for all of us is to proceed with extreme caution. 

The epic experience of the Cotswold 113 middle distance triathlon

Middle distance triathlon is a modest sounding affair which positions it as an accomplishment we should be proud of but nothing ridiculous. This event also can be tagged as a half ironman which conjures up strong feeling from the ironman association but falls a bit flat with the first word "half". Sure to be ribbed with comments asking why you couldn't do the whole thing. Middle distance triathlon is a 1.9k swim following by a 56 mile bike ride finishing with a half marathon. It is not something you just rock up to without having invested some time in preparation. The cotswold 113 is just such an event held in the heart of this beautiful part of the country ( http://cotswold113.com/site/ ) with the swim taking part in the Ashton Keynes water park lake. The bike course is a 2 lap sweeping course around the nearby villages that only see 54 metres of climbing so as flat as you can achieve minus a spirit level. After all this effort you wrap it up with a 3 lap run around the lake and adjoining country park. The event is quite small with less than a 1,000 people but has everything you would expect of much bigger races with marshals everywhere and aid stations helping you along the way. The event is run twice a year in June and August with an iron distance also taking part at the later event. This years event in June enjoyed some sunshine and little wind conditions to give competitors every chance of achieving a personal best. The event this year was only tarnished by the theft of bikes from competitors camping at the nearby site. The details of the story only become worse in finding that these competitors were part of the help for heroes charity team doing wonderful work to raise money and awareness for wounded service men. 

http://m.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-gloucestershire-27858918 

Hopefully this team will get their bikes back but have missed out on competing at this great event. 

If you do enjoy middle distance triathlon this event is epic for fast times and a real close community feel. Fingers crossed for the legends from help the heroes. 

Even the BBC website has flaws in the mobile customer experience

The BBC (www.bbc.co.uk) websites are often heralded as a leading light in good practice for web design, indeed as part of the practice for checking a browser the BBC is often called up to check performance. But this isn't true across the board as the BBC is the same as many other organisations in struggling to keep up with the pace of technology for its entire estate. If you browse the site from a mobile it is very slick and really showing how mobile can be the primary platform for web browsing with optimised pages and a portal customer preferences capability allowing you to tailor how your pages are rendered. This is great but when you link through to their weather pages it all breaks down and there is the standard desktop displayed with no consideration for mobile. As a heavy user of the internet from a mobile this is not an uncommon experience but when it comes to the BBC that is not the case. As your benchmark has been raised so high finding a site needing pinch and move actions really doesn't sit right. For an epic experience the BBC needs to look across the patch and create a consistent journey. 

The Nirvana Spa - a little slice of holiday

Located just outside Reading the Nirvana spa complex ( www.nirvanaspa.co.uk ) offers facilities for those wishing to pamper themselves or their nearest and dearest. 

The complex itself is a series of pools, seating, treatment rooms and exercise facilities. If you plan your visit to coincide with a rare warm UK summers day then there is even an outdoor area with pool, hot tubs and sumptuous seating areas. It is on these blessed moments that a few hours at nirvana spa can feel like you have relocated yourself on holiday with all the same positive emotions flowing through you. A personal favourite of mine was finding the endless pools for some swim training which effectively gives you a treadmill for your swimming needs with a mirrored floor for checking on weaknesses in technique. That said the spa is more about relaxing and spoiling yourself including a wonderful restaurant at the heart of the complex. The added bonus of endless pool and gym does mean there really is something for everyone. For a cheap holiday break after a hard day in the office, nirvana spa gives you an epic slice of this experience. 

What is advertising likely to mean to the Instagram customer experience

It was announced this week that Instagram (www.instagram.com) would be introducing advertising to the uk site ( http://mashable.com/2014/06/09/instagram-international-ads/ ). Instagram is currently a beautiful site of imagery and video content allowing the sharing and distribution of this content in a social media environment. Following acquisition by Facebook in 2012 it was expected this monetisation of the site with adverts would take place much sooner. But what does this mean odd the experience?  The site is built really for consumption via mobile devices meaning opening it up for adverts is not as straight forward as Facebook where the desktop site can pull in most advertising revenue as a side panel to the core content. So will Instagram adopt a sticky header or footer with advertising space reducing the available window for displaying the amazing photos shared by corporations and individuals alike?  Adverts are a sensible and inevitable step and if you are reading this from a mobile the blogger site overlays this with some adverts but I hope Instagram think this through and come up with a fresh approach to presenting advert content that compliments the visual nature of the site. Keep it epic and consider the core site objectives when adding adverts. 

MIND THE GAP - The problem of the growing gap between digital natives & technophobes

As technology continues to transform our lives and gadget freaks wish lists grow year on year this causes a problem for supporting your customers. The digital native has high expectations and is looking for corporate world to meet their demands which is seeing multi-million pound projects in every industry to address this opportunity. But what about those less tech savvy?  Those who are still to embrace the internet let alone social media on a phablet. This cavernous gap is widening so the customer journey mapping for companies only becomes larger. This creates the new concept of a legacy of customer journey debt that you can not ignore. These complexities mean while we are looking at multi-screen omni channel experiences we need to also factor in the customer coming into store or picking up the phone that hasn't researched every online option or asked their social media followers for advice and ensure the journey is aligned go every digital path. Effectively the range of customer journeys has grown but we cannot forget those old school journeys and customers. Share the love with those less tech savvy too so that epic customer experiences are possible for all. 

Epic customer experience means knowing I have more than one customer profile

Customer insight and knowledge is of huge value to businesses from Tescos to Tom the baker. More and more investment is being poured into analytics so that you as a customer can be more deeply profiled with every aspect of information about you. Companies are using this to build more rich pictures of their customers tailoring offers and personalising the experience. But is this enough?  Will this really help or will all this investment only result in irritation for customers who previously may not have been aware of your big brother spying. For this to really work and create true value these customer profiles need to consider which profile your customer is using.  As an example I may be a customer who buys lego for my kids (my parent profile) but is that the same customer insight I want deployed when considering which smart phone to buy (my gadget profile). And what about where these profiles collide and have common interests such as cycling profile and healthy diet profile?  This is hugely complex and firms need to be sure not to limit the customer profile to a single dimension but consider that customers have different needs and may only want to engage with you in a certain profile. For epic experience really look at how customers want to be engaged. 

The fabulous tri2o swim centre

For open water swimming the options for customers are slim but growing year on year. The tri2o swim centre just outside Reading (http://www.mysportingtimes.com/tri20-swim-centre.htm) is one such location where those enjoying swimming out amongst nature can truly indulge. Open water swimming is a different prospect to popping down to the swimming baths and tumble turning in a lane with the customers at a lake more of a club than distant strangers at a pool. Customer demands are lower with the requirement of a marquee to change in and an outdoor shower the heights of luxury. As long as the lake is well marked out with bouys and the weeds are under control your laughing. The tri2o centre keep in touch with their loyal faithful with digital thermometers and a web site posting regular information on how the sun is pushing the lake up to a toasty 18 degrees. Simple needs and getting back to nature while satisfying your exercise appetite all add up to happy customers and people who come back year on year. Tri2o simply epic. Give it a go.