What’s the weather like tomorrow?

As a people, we generally like to figure out how something works so that we can affect and benefit from it in the future. To understand this notion, one only has to look as far as the local news broadcast to see that we all want to know is whether we have to pack an umbrella tomorrow. Of course this is not to say that our interests in the future solely reside in the realm of meteorology. Let’s face it. For the most part we are all interested in money at some level. So it should come as no surprise that experts have been trying to model economies and how financial decisions are made for decades. But while some things can be modelled faithfully through expected-value analysis, there always seems to remain a difference between what these models predict and reality. Read more…

Critical eye, Neuroscience

My local newspapers are full of great articles written by journalists about finance, how-to repair, and general sound advice on a slew of topics. However, would I pay for all this actionable insight? Let’s just say, I haven’t purchased a newspaper in a very long time – and I’m willing to wager neither have you (at least not as often as you used to). The newspaper model is collapsing. The audience at large sees information as a commodity (for the most part). Why pay for one writer’s point of view, when I can find another three writer’s points of view for free – even if it isn’t quite as good. Read more…

Critical eye, New Media, User-Experience Premium content

The theory goes, the more in-tune with the potential customer’s frame of mind a product offering is, the higher the probability that the offering will result in a sale. It just makes common-sense; Give a thirsty man water; Give a hungry woman a snack.

Large strides have been already made in terms of personalization through customized content. Visit Amazon.com for example (my site is on page 24 of that book by the way). If you’ve been there before and sign in, Amazon welcomes you by name, and suggests items that it thinks you’d be interested in. In the case of a hotel, go to a hotel enough times and they’ll remember little details like the fact you enjoy an extra pillow, or what your favorite daily is and provide both of them for you before you enter your room. However, let’s look at this in a different way.

Are the potential gains of creating a positive, customized user-experience worth the risk of getting it wrong from time to time? Read more…

Critical eye, Marketing, User-Experience Customization, Privacy, UX