Ever since Jobs and Co. created the iPhone, there has been intense speculation that Apple were going to re-invent the Newton, with all kind of rumours about what the device would be and what it would be capable of.

For those of you that have been living in a bunker, the iPad is what Apple describes as a bridge between the world of the smartphone and the laptop — a third ‘mobile’ space that sits between the two. Indeed, at first glance, the iPad looks nothing more than a giant iPhone — it features the same glass multi-touch display (albeit a huge one at 9 1/2 inches), the same buttons – it can even run the same applications.

So many are wondering, well, what’s the difference; “Why do I need one of these shiny new toys when I have an iPhone and a laptop?… I was expecting an all-singing and dancing device that could read my thoughts and intiate command for me on the impulse of a brain wave! …This isn’t the JesusPad I wanted!” Yes, many of these points are true. But what people are forgetting to remember is that content is king, and just like the iPhone and the iPod before it, if the content is good, (in the case of the iPod; huge libaries of mp3′s versus a cd, and the iPhone with the app store full of entertainment and usefulness), then it will be a must-have product.

So let’s look at the killer app, and with a screen this size, it has to be publishing — anything from books to newspapers and magazines. Both Sony and Amazon (with the Kindle) have made significant inroads in to this new area with eBook readers: devices that are like carrying whole libaries in the space of a paperback. But these devices look a generation old compared to the user experience of the iPad – gimicky it may look, but simply turning and flicking a page on the iPad instantly feels more real. The printed book is all good and well, but it’s in the magazine and newspaper area where this product will excel. Take a look at this digital version of the Sports Illustrated magazine and try to say to yourself that you’d rather have a traditional magazine:

It’s been forecast for many years that the ‘death of print’ cometh. Maybe with the iPad and devices like it, we’re at the beginning to this new era. This fuzing of new-media and traditional print publishing into a new and interactive form is going to be exciting for both consumers and designers alike, hopefully reigniting what is a shrinking industry. Take a look at this concept video for a product called Mag+ by Bonnier R&D and their digital design partners BERG – it shows off the potential experience for what a product like the iPad can deliver:

No doubt the iPad will open the flood gates to millions of copycat tablet computers, all hoping to do the same thing. Will I be getting one? Well, I’ve always said; never buy the first gen of any Apple product; but if content as rich as this comes out, I might have to change my mind.

Last weekend I had to get the train down to the coast once again, so armed with my vouchers from National Express I approached the ticket desk at London Liverpool Street and asked the man (dressed in National Express uniform) behind the counter for a return ticket.

Upon advising him that I was going to be paying with vouchers I was met with a surly sarcastic response about how “oooh, vouchers are our FAVOURITE form of payment”. Confused by his attitude I questioned if he was intending to be sarcastic or not. He replied, in an equally sarcastic tone, “no, of course not, we just LOVE vouchers. Of course come the end of the year the company accounts will be £50 short because of your vouchers so there will undoubtedly be a fare increase next year to cover the loss, but that’s just fine. Thank you.”

*BUMP*

The customer experience of National Express returns to earth with an almighty crash.

Via Adland TV

To anyone who’s read my previous posts it will also come as a surprise that I would be praising a rail company, but believe it or not here it comes…

Just before Christmas I had to make an urgent trip from London to Essex. I arrived at Liverpool Street station, checked the departure time of my train, shovelled a big wedge of cash into the ticket machine and just as my tickets printed out the automated departures and arrivals board lit up in a frenzy of flashing lights as one-by-one the trains changed from ‘On Time’ to ‘Cancelled’, ‘Bus Service’ or ‘Delayed’. Mine was cancelled. The tickets, still warm from the printer, cowered in my clenched fist.

I then embarked on the most excruciating train journey of my life. Both the outward and return journeys were subject to cancellations, delays, lack of onboard refreshments due to a broken boiler, overcrowding and general displeasure.

On my return I set about drafting a letter of complaint to the train company responsible, National Express. Seeing as there has been a lot of talk of will they/won’t they mergers with Stagecoach recently I wasn’t holding my breath in getting a positive response to my request for a full, and immediate, refund.

As Christmas set upon us I received a letter from National Express to inform me that they had read my letter and would attempt to come back to me within 6 days. Actually, it was more like 15, but hey, it was Christmas and who’s counting? I was stunned to receive another letter the other day profusely apologising for the ‘unforgiveable’ experience I had had to endure that day on the train, and explaining the reasons for the delays/cancellations but in a tone that was more apologetic and responsible than blame-ridden and bitter. Neatly tucked in the folded letter were vouchers for rail travel (on ANY network in the UK) for not only the full return fare but for the full fare + 25%.

Now, I’m not too sure whether it should be a big cheer for National Express per se, or a big cheer for the cranky insistence of a grump like me, but regardless, I thought the communications tone, and the ‘above and beyond’ value of the vouchers were a great example of a brand’s ability to create a positive experience out of a bad one. Well done National Express.

So yesterday via Twitter I received two identical tweets from the same ‘company’. Being a little more specific, one form the ‘official’ Twitter feed of that company, the other from the ‘personal’ Twitter account of the MD of that company. I say personal, however in the profile he states that he is MD of X…. so in my book, that counts as a representation of that company is a ‘pseudo corporate’ feed. So, two identical tweets, sent from the same ‘company’, to the same individual, me, in the space of a few seconds.

Now if that happened with email, to which I had subscribed, i.e. which is permission based, as is Twitter… I’d be annoyed and think ‘what a stupid company’. Well the same thing happened with those tweets, I thought ‘what a stupid company’. Just because they are short, possibly less intrusive than email, it’s still really dumb to send identical messages over different accounts when you have the same person subscribing to both accounts on the other end! We wouldn’t do that with email would we? And as the business that did this was, surprise surprise, a social media agency (ROFLMAO)… that makes it, as we say on the Internets, an EPIC FAIL.

So, to an extent you have to say ‘bless’, let’s face it a lot of people working in social media, on the face of it, aren’t that experienced in the grand scheme of things, email is for old people right? But more seriously it points to the fact that platforms such as Twitter, even when combined with some of the 3rd party corporate tools, are still massively lacking in maturity and functionality to run at the same level of ‘permission’ and accuracy as email or more traditional direct communications. To my knowledge, (I did say this was ill-informed) no tool exists to manage Twitter subscribes across a companies multiple accounts in the same way as email (i.e. with really thorough, get prosecuted if you mess up, list and subscriber management… yes I get that Twitter is a little less complex in that if you unsubscribe that’s that, to an extent). If it does I get the impression many companies aren’t using it. As far as legislation goes, again I’d welcome an update on this… however, if the law doesn’t hover channels such as Twitter in b2c communications, isn’t it about time it did?

As one of the many slaves to Apple who clamoured for an iPhone as fast as my legs could carry me, I was, once again, forced to sign up with O2 as they held the exclusive contract, with Apple, to supply the iPhone .

I had been a customer of O2 for many years previously (circa 7 or 8 yrs) before I left to join Orange for an 18 month spell. Now, don’t get me wrong, I wasn’t expecting O2 to lay out the proverbial red carpet or even wave a little flag for me upon my return, but part of me did think “A long-term defected customer is returning. What generous offer can you give me to welcome me back?”. The answer to any query I had was a big fat no. I even asked the customer service assistant in the O2 shop when I went to get my iPhone , but I didn’t get anywhere.

They just didn’t care.

They knew that they held the ultimate power in the consumer/service provider face-off. They knew that if I REALLY wanted an iPhone, I would siphon the milk from my (dead) grandmother’s tea in order to get my hands on one if need be. They didn’t need to offer me anything as a returning customer, they had me right where they wanted me (aka: signing my life away on a binding contract for an exorbitant monthly fee).

Then after the first few months of waving my iPhone around in the faces of those stuck in contracts with other providers, Vodafone and Orange announce within 48 hours of each other that they are also going to be supplying the iPhone in due course.

I quickly glanced at my phone in anticipation of a call from O2 for some serious ‘stroking’ and offers of a plentiful bounty of treats were I to stay with them and not defect, once more, to Orange or Vodafone. But that call didn’t come…and it still hasn’t. I doubt it ever will.

It strikes me, as a mobile phone user, that the service provider brands just seem to have given up the ghost in terms of wanting to create, and more importantly maintain, brand loyalty. It’s less about the service they provide now and more about the products they supply us with. They are a vehicle for the phones to market, and no more.

Sure, their advertising might be really appealing and their brand may ‘look’ glossy and attractive, but that’s really where their ‘brand’, as an experience, seems to end. Mobile service providers have become like commodities these days. They’re no longer chosen based on the strength of their brand, or how great their customer service is. They are chosen based on two factors:

1. Do they provide the phone I want?

2. Are they the cheapest?

I would like (and expect) more for my money. O2, you need to start seeing me as a ‘valued customer’ as opposed to just a standing order sum being deposited into your account each month. If not, my iPhone and I will be taking a walk down the road to Vodafone or Orange. Frying pan – fire? Maybe…I challenge you to make me change my mind.

But in this case, no such conversations need take place.  That’s because the drawing has been produced not by a well-remunerated corporation, but by a child. It is the work of nine-year-old Florence Jackson, from Bristol, who was one of 17,000 children who entered a BBC Blue Peter competition to design the new coin. The media, the public, most (not all) designers, when they know that it is designed by a child, will soften their eyes and celebrate, rather than criticise its flaws. And, even if they missed the press release, no one’s going to be in any doubt about its youthful provenance because the design is so obviously juvenile. Crude, puerile and naïve her art may be, but in the context of such a competition these are exactly the criteria that the competition judges would have desired. Indeed, I am confident to assume that many more accomplished submissions will have been rejected for being too good; not childlike enough. This competition was never about the quality of the design but what it is that the design represents.

This highlights a crucial aspect of human judgment that applies to design and much more widely beyond. It’s the reason why brand consultancy is not only the most important discipline in the marketing mix but a critical component of modern business strategy. It might even help us to define what “brand” means. Yep, I’m making a big deal of this one, because I think Florence has hit on something important here.

To up the ante a little from 50p, let me ask you a question about another piece of art. If the Madonna of the Pinks that hangs in The National Gallery turns out, as some suspect, not to be by Raphael but a fake, is it worth less than the £22M it cost to buy? Philosophically, the painting could be said to exist in two parallel universes. One, where it marks a brave and progressive watershed in the history of religious portraiture that inspired not just art but generations of social history. Another, where it is simply a derivative work by a talented, yet insignificant forger. Physically, the two universes of the paintings collapse into one – its tangible attributes are the same. Intellectually, they are forever apart.

Old Masters may be an extreme example but the point is this: we judge things not for what they are but for what we think they mean. To truly understand something we need to look beyond its tangible qualities and consider its intangible attributes too. We seek to explain what we see (hear, touch, taste, or smell) by giving it a back-story – a meaning beyond the physical experience it provides. The Madonna of the Pinks is not just a well-executed painting of the Madonna and child but a landmark moment in art history. Florence’s coin is more than a badly drawn picture, it represents the hope, potential, and the carefree joy that only a child would have the courage to see, yet to which all adult human beings aspire.

Don’t just take my word for it. This aspect of human intellect is a fundamental philosophical concept. In the 4^th Century BC, Aristotle defined hypokeimenon, literally meaning the “underlying thing”, as the quality that sits behind a thing’s physicality and persists through any change. In the 13^th Century John Duns Scotus described haecceity, literally “thisness”, as the quality of a thing that differentiates it from another with identical form (where its form expressed in generic terms is called quiddity, or “thatness”). Neuroscientists have explored these concepts in their analyses of how the human brain makes decisions, examining the complexity of the relationship between rational and emotional processing. Some, like Chris Frith, even suggest that rational decision-making is an illusion created by our own brain to defend us from the incomprehensible reality of our truly irrational selves. The scientific and philosophical facts are clear: things are not as simple as they seem.

And this helps us explain what a brand is. A brand is the complete set of criteria upon which the human brain decides. (Note that lower order mammals don’t use ‘brands’, just sub-conscious instincts; they don’t ‘decide’.) Brands are a complex interdependency between rational and emotional propositions where each works to shape and explain the other. They are about hypokeimenon (essence), haecceity (differentiation) and quiddity (experience) and touch not just logos and marketing but every aspect of what an organisation thinks and does. It follows then, that managing a brand requires profound and holistic consideration, with the intellect and imagination of a deeply enquiring mind. If we are to believe Chris Frith, then it’s the most important thing that any business should consider, overriding all the rational considerations that businesses typically prioritise in their plans.

Of course some philosophers (the empiricists and phenomenalists) disagree with this point of view. For them, a thing is no more than its tangible self: The Madonna of the Pinks is just paint on canvas, worth no more than, say, 50p. They would consider a conversation about brands to be an exercise in vanity and a waste of money and time. Such people should be introduced to Florence. Sometimes it takes the perspective of a nine-year-old to help you open your eyes.

There are some wide-reaching goals in the GLA’s brief, and some expectations that beggar belief. Come on guys, get real: the reasons why people will choose to visit London, do business in London, study in London, live in London, or invest in London will not be because of a logo. It will be because their lifetime of personal experience tells them that it offers something rationally and emotionally unique.

A logo is not a brand.  The opinion people hold of what it represents is the brand. A logo is just a convenient shorthand that calls that opinion to mind. At best, a logo is a worthy experience itself. But, in the case of a 2000 year-old city, with 10 million inhabitants, at the centre of attention of the world, it will only ever be a tiny percentage of the totality of experiences that people have.

Now that doesn’t mean there isn’t a role for an identity for London. But, in contrast to the GLA’s brief, I’m not interested in one that follows the well-worn path of a traditional corporate identity solution. Nor do I care about the bureaucratic need for it to form a coherent ‘brand architecture’ (how I hate those words) with the plethora of other London identities that already, pointlessly exist. I’m uninspired by the prospect of yet another dull, didactic wordmark that tries to tell me what I’m supposed to think.

Instead, as a Londoner, I want something altogether simpler and more inspired. Something that makes me smile and that provides a personal invitation to think. I want an iconic piece of design of which I, and all London, can be proud. If London is the greatest city on Earth, then it deserves an identity that follows suit. Where the GLA aims too broad, I want to go narrow and deep.

But by setting their expectations too broadly I suspect that the GLA is denying the opportunity for such a solution to exist. Committees will squeeze out any genius that emerges as they test it against their irrelevant criteria. Conservative forces (I don’t mean Boris) will water down the possibilities as they seek to stretch it out too thin.

Against a brief that asks for everything, they will end up delivering nothing of value at all.

The new high speed train service from Ashford to London is a revelation. It makes the journey in 37 minutes instead of the 1 hour 22 minutes that a regular train demands. The speed feels effortless, especially where the line runs alongside the Motorway and you get to see the futility of a similar journey by car. The carriage is clean, comfortable, and hardly busy. The departure and arrival (St. Pancras) points have a clinical efficiency to them meaning that you’re in or out before you really know it. The end to end journey is fast. Damn fast. And, as high speed rail rolls out to more parts of the country over the coming generation, will probably change the way, or at least where, we live.

In this business we talk a lot about brand experience, and this one has to be up there close to the best of them. It succeeds where so many others fail by delivering the thing that matters most, an outstanding product.

Where it could yet deliver more is on the emotional side of the experience. Perhaps the most surprising aspect of my journey was the absence of any surprise. As it’s generally true that most railway-bound surprises are bad ones, then that could be said to be a strength but I can’t help but feel that there’s room for something more here. This is an experience that could afford a little more celebration. No, I don’t mean self-congratulatory announcements from the driver, but more something that allows the passenger to inwardly remark on the fact that a great travel choice has been made. And with only 37 minutes to fill instead of the old-school 82, one or two great ideas could be all that it needs.

At the end of the journey an American accent announced our arrival. This felt entirely appropriate, somehow emphasising the cultural shift that this service represents – from the slow discomfort of British railway’s past, to the fast, cosmopolitan simplicity of the future.

Now, where do I catch the tube?

TED’s wonderfully generous stated purpose is to spread ideas. And it does this with such abundance that even the most closed of minds must leave feeling enriched. Whilst TED, in itself, doesn’t attempt to solve problems or draw conclusions, it’s difficult to ignore the inner calling to do so that it inspires. For sure, I will be attempting to answer that call in the weeks and months that come. I hope, indeed I commit, that it will influence my work profoundly. Please feel free to check up on me to make sure I keep that promise.

If you’re not familiar with the concept, or if you want to see some of the talks that I saw, then go to www.ted.com because it’s a phenomenon that you can share in online. I strongly recommend that you do.