RonAmok!

Saturday, I had the opportunity to visit the Bren School of Information and Computer Sciences, at The University of California Irvine, the school where my son will be matriculating this fall. During the visit, I learned about the field of Informatics–the study of human/computer interaction. Anyone serious about a career involving New/Social Media should keep a close eye on Informatics, because it holds the keys to our collective futures.

Think about how we interact with computer devices today. We’re constantly updating our statuses, letting others know what we are doing, seeing, and feeling. Our GPS-enabled portable media devices know both our physical locations and our calendars, thus have the information necessary to get us from point A to point B. Add wireless connectivity to vast networks of information and these devices can route us around traffic congestion while also helping us to decide whether or not we should  carry an umbrella when we get there. The study of Informatics will add decision-making capabilities to these devices, making them Super Personal Digital Assistants.

For example, it’s almost noon on a cold and rainy Tuesday in the not-so-distant future. You haven’t eaten breakfast, are physically thirty minutes away from your 1:00 p.m. appointment and need to grab lunch. Your Super PDA takes all of this into account and recommends a restaurant less than a mile away.

But the choice isn’t arbitrary. After culling through a list of local restaurants that can get you in and out in less than thirty minutes, it suggests the one that just happens to have your favorite soup on its “Specials Menu.” Had it been 85 degrees Fahrenheit and sunny, it would have suggested a local deli that is adjacent to your favorite frozen yogurt shop.

We in Social Media need to pay close attention to places like the Bren School of Information and Computer Sciences and its study of Informatics. As the Social Web expands, adding millions of people with billions of more messages, opportunities will arise for us to help our clients make contextual-based marketing connections with their customers.

Ah, to be 18 again.

Photo Credit: Kevin Coles

Tags: Bren UCI University of California Irvine Informatics New Media Evangelist

A few months ago, my friend Rob at countdowntofifty.com leaned over his cup of coffee and described his latest fixation–Arrowhead’s addition of a convenient new handle to its 5-gallon water bottle. The handle itself wasn’t the problem, its the design that bothered him–specifically the fact that the handle encroached into the container, leading Rob to question the new bottle’s capacity.

He looked on the Arrowhead website. He searched Google. When he didn’t find what he was looking for, he called Arrowhead directly. The confident customer service rep on the other end of the call assured him that the new bottles still held five gallons, pointing out that the handle was hollow so it held water too.

But Rob wasn’t convinced. As I munched on my breakfast bagel, he described an experiment that the customer service rep suggested: to pour five 1-gallon Arrowhead bottles of water into one of the new 5-gallon versions. Before our breakfast was over, Rob decided to record the experiment and I offered to play cameraman for him.

The experiment’s conclusion matched Rob’s intuition: Five 1-gallon Arrowhead bottles of water didn’t fit into the company’s new 5-gallon container. There were 10 ounces of water left over!

The reason that I’m telling this story has less to do with the experiment and more to do with the online results. Before Rob published his video, he could find nothing about the new design on Google. After publishing it, however, the video holds the #2 spot in a Google search for “Arrowhead 5 gallon.”

Inquisitive minds are starting to find it. Two days ago, Rob’s video got its first comment:

This is priceless! My husband & I just got our Arrowhead delivery last week and wondered the same exact thing. I being the more cynical one said, “if I find there’s not exactly 5 gallons in there, we’re switching to Sparklets”. I’ve been too busy to investigate & now you’ve saved me the time…glad I Googled my suspicions first
Great job & very entertaining to boot!

Google is your company’s reputation manager. What happens when someone Google’s their suspicions about your products or services?

Photo Credit: tom.arthur

Tags: Arrowhead water countdowntofifty Google reputation