The folks behind the book Business Model Generation, Alexander Osterwalder and Yves Pigneur, have come up with a business “handbook” that is not only user-friendly, helpful and applicable—but brilliant from a business model perspective.

Before launching the book, they created an innovative business model that includes some interesting ways to generate money, a unique visual design approach and a targeted marketing plan. Not only have I enjoyed the book and applied its insights to Malenke | Barnhart, but I also love the model behind it.

The business book publishing space is incredibly competitive and has a horrible reputation for producing puffery. With thousands of business books published per year, many of which fail, they had to do something really different to climb above the clutter. What I have noticed, and they certainly overcame, were common business book pitfalls. Most business books are:

• Boring
• Text heavy
• Too light on visuals
• Lacking in visual design
• Not applicable
• Not tactical
• Too theoretical
• Not modern or fresh
• Fluffy
• Too heady

Here is what they did to create a best-seller:

Made it highly profitable
470 people from 45 countries paid to be a part of the book. Initially they paid around $24, and that quickly scaled to $450 per person–just to be acknowledged in the book. This helped pay for the design and production. They then self-published.

Made it highly visual
With funds raised by the contributors, the authors were able to hire a talented illustrator and designer to create a book full of graphics that appeal to visual people—which is most people. The pages are filled with graphics that tell a story much quicker than a slew of words ever could.  The book is actually fun to read, and most importantly— easy to put to immediate use.

Made it highly usable
The “handbook” is based around the “Business Model Canvas”, a highly usable template for building a business model from the ground up. The template is downloadable from the book site, and there is also an iPad app to help facilitate the process. The canvas helps businesses quickly evaluate current models as well as establish new ones.

The model is based on nine building blocks:

1. Customer Segments
2. Customer Relationships
3. Channels
4. Value Proposition
5. Revenue Streams
6. Cost Structure
7. Key Partners
8. Key Activities
9. Key Resources

Made it highly marketable
The creators gave away the “Business Model Canvas” and a 72-page portion of the book for free. They created numerous channels for marketing: Alex’s website, the book website, Alex’s blog and numerous YouTube videos,  which share the vision of the book.  There are now seminars, conferences and webinars surrounding the “Business Model Canvas” concept. They have a huge unpaid sales staff in the form of consultants and conference speakers using the canvas in their material all over the world. Brilliant.

This book is a must-read for leaders, entrepreneurs, intrapreneurs, innovators, startups, strategists and consultants.

A few good links:
http://www.businessmodelalchemist.com
http://alexosterwalder.com/
http://www.businessmodelgeneration.com

Another interesting business model:

App Cooker: http://www.appcooker.com/Overview.php
This is a great tool for managing iPad and iPhone development, but what is interesting here is the pricing model. They have created a sense of urgency with a “sliding scale” pricing model. For a limited time, the product is discounted at $19.99, then it will scale to $49.99 as they release new features and reach milestones. But if you lock in now, you get the discounted price. What a great way to get some critical mass and some much-needed funds flowing.

We can’t automate everything. But we can come close.

Often when we start a new project that involves applications or flows there is a baseline assumption that technology should handle everything–the user shouldn’t have to be bothered. As we diagram flows and sketch interfaces, there is a nagging thrust to push every bit possible off on the technology. Many times this is a good idea. I shouldn’t insist a user learn the format I use for dates and properly map it to the day they have in mind, or click repeatedly through a calendar to find their day. Technology is more than capable of parsing a date in almost any format the user prefers and converting it to the format I need. I put the onus on technology to automate the date formatting task.

But what about a more complex task? Or something that involves interpretation, reasoning, balancing alternatives and subjective thought? Where is the line–or is it even as clearly defined as a line?

There is a continuum from users doing the work (manual) to technology doing the work (automated). Historically, all processes start on the far left of the continuum as a manual activity. Automation is introduced when the manual process becomes tedious, repetitious, overwhelming or burdensome. The intention of automation is to make a process more efficient. Automation doesn’t inherently make processes more efficient, though.

How do you know when to automate?

Variability: how much repetition is involved?

Automation favors tasks that are repeatable. The more variability a task involves, the harder it will be to automate. Tasks with a limited amount of variability (<25% of instances involve an exception to the rule) may benefit from a partially automated interface that allows for adjustment at the user’s request. Tasks with no variability are excellent candidates for automation. Tasks with high variability (>25% of instances involve an exception) should probably be left to the user.

Volume: how many people do this thing?

The more people performing a task, the greater the benefit from automating that task. If a relative few have to perform the task, carefully consider whether the effort of creating a technological solution is going to be less than continuing with a manual process.

Effort: how much time does this thing take?

Tasks that consume a lot of time are good candidates for automation. Time is relative, though, as it can be compounded by volume. In a task with high volume, a few seconds may be a long time. In a task with low volume, it may take minutes, hours or days to have the same impact.

Bottlenecks: are current executors a bottle neck?

Generally, a task considered for automation is part of a larger process. If the task in question is the bottleneck–the step that slows down the whole process–it is a good candidate for automation. The effort of automating a task that isn’t a bottleneck may not be worth it.

Susceptibility: is an error more likely by lots of humans, or a few algorithm authors?

A manual process relies on each individual user to execute correctly. A technological solution doesn’t remove that susceptibility to error, it just transfers it to a small team of algorithm authors. Both groups are susceptible to making errors. When individual users make an error, it only impacts their instance of the process. If algorithm authors make an error, though, it impacts every instance of the process. Generally, a team implementing a technological solution will exhibit more care than a standard user, but it is still important to consider which group is more likely to fail in your task.

Critical: what are the ramifications of an error?

The potential consequences of an error go hand-in-hand with susceptibility. In the date picker example above, the ramifications are very minor. In other tasks, errors could result in much larger issues. If a task is critical, it makes consideration of susceptibility that much more important. If a task is not critical, the automation versus manual decision has much less impact.

In most cases, there is not a yes-or-no answer for whether to automate. The answer lies somewhere along the continuum from user to technological responsibility. Tend toward automation for that which is repeatable and known. Keep users involved when there is high decision-making variability or a degree of algorithmic complexity that would be cost-prohibitive to get right. Most situations will land between the endpoints: some components will be automated while others are manual. The trick is to find the ideal placement for your application along the continuum.

IA Summit 2011

This was the first time I’ve attended the IA Summit, and it came with some good, some bad and some in-between sessions. I love useful, actionable and applicable sessions, and many of the sessions fell short as they focused on theory and concepts but didn’t deliver something I could take back to my office and implement.  One session stood out.

How to make a DIY mobile user testing kit for under $200

Our friend Jakob Nielsen notes that the average success rate with a mobile experience is 59%. He notes that sites that are specifically designed for the mobile device are 64% successful – better, but not great. The numbers do go up depending upon whether they are “feature phones”, “smartphones” or “touch phones”. But the responsibility is on us, UX practitioners, to both create experiences that are appropriate for mobile devices and TEST them with real users on THEIR phones.

Why don’t we? Because testing on mobile devices is often expensive, awkward and not representative of real-life situations. You can buy complicated document cameras that cost thousands of dollars, screen capture software that doesn’t work on all devices or mounted table cameras that limit range of motion. But none of those options meets all necessary criteria: easy, cheap, repeatable, one-handed and flexible for various devices.

So, on the final day at the IA Summit I attended the “DIY Mobile Usability Testing” seminar. Belen Barros Pena and Bernard Tyers walked us through how to create a testing kit using pieces from an erector set, some blue tack and a couple cameras – all costing under $200. Now this is useful stuff!

The Ingredients:

• 4 Erector set pieces (think ebay)

• 1 Jubilee Clip (gotta like the name)

• 1 HUE Flexible Web Cam (they are cute)

• 1 Web Cam (any kind will do)

• Screen Flow Software

• Blue Tack (reusable adhesive-like clay)

The HUE Flexible Web Cam connects to the laptop via USB to capture the experience the user is having in real-time, while the desk web cam captures his expressions and comments. The device is easy to handle with one hand and doesn’t require that the user interacts with it while it is fixed to the desktop to capture video. The two video streams are captured simultaneously for easy playback with your team or clients.

So, “wahoo” to Belen Barros Pena and Bernard Tyers for presenting such a useful session. And, although they were few, I will share the other usable, useful and applicable lessons learned from the IA Summit over the next few weeks.

The federal government is considering new legislation to allow users to opt-out of online tracking. The concept is similar to the national “do-not-call” list–allowing citizens to choose not to receive targeted marketing messages when online. Understandably, this has generated a good deal of concerned buzz in the online marketing world. Tracking an online user’s behaviors, website visits and content views has long been the holy grail of online marketing. The idea is that gathering all of this data on a user will allow marketers to display messages targeted to the specific user’s interests to increase the likelihood of conversion.

In anticipation of new legislation, a number of browser makers have already begun to take action to implement systems to support a “do-not-track” list. More…

One of the most revolutionary aspects of the Internet has been the ability for customers to self-serve on company websites. Rather than standing in line or waiting in a phone queue, a customer can log in to a website and immediately begin managing their relationship with the company. It may be paying a bill, changing communications preferences, updating a phone number or street address, or even tweaking the settings of a service. By 2011, most companies with these types of customer interactions have introduced a way to perform them online.

Just having the service online doesn’t mean it’s an easy or good experience for the customer, though. Companies want their customers to use online self-service because it greatly reduces costs through fewer calls to the call center, less re-keying of data and more reliable data. As such, it behooves a company to put a concerted effort into making their online self-service features as quick and painless as possible. More…

From time to time, we build websites or Web applications that are in-whole or in-part intended for use by children under 13 years old. Many people aren’t aware of it, but there are actually federal rules in the U.S. for how to collect personal information from children. The relevant act is know as COPPA–the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act. You can get lots of detail from the FTC about how to comply. Below is a good summary that we use for directing our efforts. More…

Today Google launched a new feature: Instant Previews (this hasn’t rolled out for all users, so you may not see this functionality yet). It is now possible to get a snapshot of each site in your search results before you actually visit the site (just click the little magnifying glass). This could be a useful feature. And Google has executed it in such a way that the previews show up remarkably fast. They also feature the sections of the page matching your search. Well done! More…

Just a few links this week: some oldies-but-goodies and an interesting new jQuery plug-in:

Make and receive calls in your Web browser with the jQuery Phono API: http://www.phono.com/

Yahoo! research on site optimization tools and techniques: http://developer.yahoo.com/performance/

Google APIs Console for managing and tracking API usage: Blog introduction, https://code.google.com/apis/console/

Don’t forget the offline world when building your social media campaign: http://www.openforum.com/idea-hub/topics/technology/article/5-ways-to-promote-your-social-media-efforts-offline-sarah-kessler

HTML5-compatible video on the Web, October 2010: http://blog.mefeedia.com/html5-oct-2010

Preview of Adobe’s Edge prototype tool for HTML5: http://tv.adobe.com/watch/adc-presents/preview-of-the-edge-prototype-tool-for-html5-/

Need a lot of GUIDs fast? Online GUID Generator: http://www.guidgenerator.com/online-guid-generator.aspx

Smashing Magazine’s Review of popular Web font embedding services: http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2010/10/20/review-of-popular-web-font-embedding-services/

High-level overview of JavaScript frameworks from Luke W: http://www.lukew.com/ff/entry.asp?1220

Replicating iOS pagination with JavaScript for iPad: http://insideria.com/2010/10/replicate-the-ios-pagination-w.html

UX Matters’ take on Designing for Different Screen Sizes: http://www.uxmatters.com/mt/archives/2010/10/going-mobile-designing-for-different-screen-sizes-promoting-your-mobile-app.php

iScroll – provide content scrolling inside a fixed-size element in iOS: http://cubiq.org/iscroll

Detailed, step-by-step write-up on developing for Android: http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2010/10/25/get-started-developing-for-android-with-eclipse/

We recently had a client request a splash page. They were a very data-driven client, so we immediately funneled the energy of our abject horror into research to quantify why we would never want to use a splash page. Luckily, there is an abundance of information available supporting the case against splash pages More…