Seeking consumer pain in a mobile world

For the cultural engagement strategy aka the MUSE mini-projects we have been developing and deploying new features of metroCode, in the hope of

a) learning more about what a template looks like so that arts groups and individuals can freely access the system and effectively metroCode themselves and their events;

and

b) making ourselves confront the difficult question: where's the business model in all of this?

On the one hand the MUSE consortium has been funded and is therefore obliged to leave a legacy in the form of a mobile platform for the arts and culture community in Canada. On the other hand the individual project teams have been challenged to come up with a model for sustainability beyond the funding period.

I have referenced this dilemma in some of my previous blog entries and now wish to frame it in the context of 'consumer pain'. Marketers have been known to say 'no problem, no sale'. The 'problem',e.g, Honeywell believed they were addressing with their kitchen computer (see attached photo), introduced to the public in the mid 1960s at a cost of $10,600 (the cost of four new cars at the time), was one of recipe storage. Forty years later, in a highly computerized world, we generally don't need/use computers to store our recipes. Why? Because cookbooks or print-outs, or, gasp, recipe cards do the job. There's no significant gap left unfilled.

The videophone, another interesting example. It has been around since the 1960s; in fact it was showcased at the Bell Pavilion at Expo 67 in Montreal and made available to the public in the 70s and 80s. Interest in the gadget was almost nil. Could it be because adding visuals to a telephone conversation wasn't really adding anything and just because a technology could do something didn't mean that people wanted to use it for that purpose. To this day I am grateful that when my phone rings I can't see people and people can't see me. Videoconferencing for business purposes is one thing, me in my pajamas when you call is something else. (can you tell I was never a web cam person?)

There are different schools of innovation research, some of whom are customer-centric, i.e. using tools such as focus groups and ethnography, looking to the consumer for ideas about how to improve products and services. And there are others who believe that regardless of how many focus groups you feed cookies to and probe for ideas, they won't collectively come up with the next iPod (but may come up with the next kitchen computer or videophone!).

What does all this have to do with Mobile MUSE?  I believe that as phase II of the project draws to a close we need to look at the work in our portfolio and ask ourselves not just what consumer pain does it addresses, because arguably,e.g, tamagotchi didn't specifically address any consumer pain; we need to think about what the possibilities are for creating consumer delight; little joyful mobile moments, that incrementally will contribute to changes in communicative behaviour. Partially it's about utility (what can this thing do for me now that directly helps me with the task at hand?) and partially it's about newfound pleasures (what can this thing do for me in terms of emotion/affect, recreation/fun, etc).  One of the things we heard from focus groups is that high utility, instant gratification information made available to their mobile devices is extremely appealing to them; something they would rather pay for than have an ad attached to.  Services such as InfoSpace in the US have been making this type of thing available in select U.S. cities since Spring 2006.  Is there a business model in it? It remains to be seen. The current phase of metroCode involves creating 'talking posters' for arts & culture groups; the idea is to augment print collateral of any kind -- posters, ads, postcards, stickers, t-shirts, whatever -- with SMS, MMS, and IVR capabilities. In addition to needing to get the word out that the service is available and grow a user base, we also need to figure out where the business is. When it comes to information there's a strong expectation for it to be free. Add the fact that with cell phones we're always 'on the clock' (either minutes or battery or both) and for some the expectation for the content to be free increases.  At the same time, our mandate as Mobile MUSE is to design mobile experiences that encourage interaction between the public and their cultural environment, as opposed to pointing people in the direction of the best Pad Thai. (not that there's anything wrong with that; it just isn't our gig).

When asked by people what it is that I spend so much time doing at the office lately I've been saying that I'm trying to figure out for mobile devices what people were trying to figure out for the Internet 10 years ago. Back then we knew it was capable of all sorts of amazing things, connecting people and ideas and time and space in completely new ways. In an upcoming post I'd like to look at the economics of the Internet and endeavor to correlate some of the principles to mobile devices...to see if there are hints about business models hidden somewhere in there.  In the meantime I invite your comments/ideas.

LK