Socio-technical landscape

 

 

Open innovation is the way forward – as so many speakers at this CKIR-conference are saying.

We should be promoting common-sensical solutions for sense-making business. Are we? Maybe not… at least not often enough. The socio-technical landscape has changed so fast and we are still prisoners of quarterly capitalism (trying to create value for shareholders now staying for an average of 10 months), corporate governance models from the pre-networked age and isolated public sector services not systematically integrating themselves into private sector services and vice versa etc:

1. We seem to believe that we can see around the corner and we keep honing this imaginative skill. Technology is not the narrow sector – it is the attention of the potential end-user. We need small fast steps to get around the corner and then continue with new insight to the next corner.
   
2. We seem to have too many enterprises digging themselves deeper into vertical holes – forgetting too often that they are not alone with their customers in this world and that the end-users contexts are changing and new e-native users are stepping in with radically different expectations. Fragmentation of time and technology is a fact. Technology allows "anything" – end-users do not have the time to get acquainted with the new and have to de-choose more than ever before. If sense of urgency in actually providing customer value has moved into a sense of emergency – to deliver something – anything – then there is a clear need to change direction.
   
3. We seem to continue to move into more vertical solutions and deeper vertical solutions, when it is clear that better value for customers are delivered by horizontal solutions – those that work in the same way with all partners in all directions. There is of course space for further procurement-driven value chain building – but it should happen increasingly with generic tools.
   
4. We talk about end-user centricity – but we do not intensively enough focus on the driving wheels when it comes to the only critically important element in innovations – the critical mass of potential users taking their step (if that does not happen – all money and time spent has been lost – at least for the moment. But it is not the money lost that hurts most – it is the "ice-age" that usually follows – no further investments, no fine-tuning, no learning from mistake as those involved move elsewhere (opportunity to make same mistakes again – instead of learning from them). Which are then the wheels that have the traction needed?
   

   
    

   Wheel 1: Clinical simplicity in design, functionality and communication of user interface and tools.
   

   Wheel 2: Reuse tools that citizens already have – are using frequently and trust – create economy of repetition, economy of scope and economy of re-use.
   

   Wheel 3: Understanding the everyday practices of end-users – what all is needed to make a service complete and completed in real time.
   

   Wheel 4: Omnipresent devices create the critical mass faster – promote mobile phones (today really multimedia computers) for all information and interaction
   

   
    

Please feel free to add wheels…

Nothing matters

Nothing matters - all technology investments are made in vain, if the enduser does not take up a new service. In some cases there can be a godsend fashion that makes it happen and then the challenge is to find a relevant way to build on the new user habit. But in most cases it has to build on something the user already is doing - becoming a part of their everyday life - like Google or e-banking. The best description of this I found in Oskar Korkman's blog http://practicedesign.blogspot.com:

"THE ECONOMY OF EVERYDAY LIFE
1. People are foremost practitioners of their everyday lives
2. People want to maintain structures, and habits, and see many times technology and services as disruptive
3. People also innovate their everyday life, and find it valuable to create new forms of living
4. Companies can support their customers everyday life, but are not in most cases centralized, and important
5. Companies take the everyday life of people as the starting point for their business, and aim to “normalize” themselves to fit into it.
6. Current market logic is not adapted to serve the economy of everyday life.
7. A market logic that takes practice of everyday life as the unit of analysis, and object for activities is needed.
8. The economy of everyday life can be the basis for voluminous, stable and faster income, but also for more well-being and democracy. "

Then it is only up to progressive and agile enterprises and public sectors to hook up - provide economy of repetition, benefit from economy of re-use, get a free ride from economy of scope in the selling process and economy of scale in processing etc. No time to loose and no space for solutions not connecting to the customer's contect.

2. It is Mr Same Guy - understand how the enduser´s practise can be served in a way that makes him move faster.

This is the main point - the customer must be treated as one person - he has already learned to use and trust e-banking tools - and when other serve him they will get a much faster take-up if they let him use familiar tools - embed banking in there own service (and of course also the other way). E-banking is an ideal supplier of the tools as they are used so often, already invested in, have to be very secure and are also a part of the defence against money laundering.

Other aspects include every possible effort to simplify the service and improve discoverability with various methods.

This picture is also pointing out that customers frequently are dealing with banks, utilities, public sector, teleoperators etc in different roles - as private and corporate customers. Of course they should have a similar user experience in all cases. Economy of repetition cross sectors.