Global Beach » Peter

+1 seems like a complicated solution to a problem that doesn’t exist

Peter — Wed, 13 Apr 2011 11:24:44 +0000

I am probably a typical heavy web user. I use eBay to search for those gadgets I really can’t do without, I download my music from iTunes and books from either Amazon or iBooks for my iPad. I set up a twitter account ages ago but have less than 10 tweets. I use Linked in for my work networking and Facebook for my Social networking and draw a very firm line between the two.

Of course, we include all of the Social channels when developing digital strategies for our clients and we are big fans of Facebook as a means of finding and developing relationships with brand advocates.

All of the above are easy and straight forward to use, so straight forward that even my mother has managed to join the online Social crowd (and I used to have to reset the clock on her VHS every time we went from summer to winter!)

Google +1 isn’t. When they announced +1 I was interested. I followed the links and opted in to the trial for +1 on Googles experimental page. Then I discovered I had to have a Google profile so I created one and joined the experiment again. Nada.

I’ve just conducted a straw pole of the agency and most hadn’t heard about it (a bit worrying) and those that had have had the same experience as me. Explanations such as ‘maybe it’s not available in the UK yet’ are all well and good but nobody’s telling us that.

My point is this. If this is Googles big grab for a slice of the Social pie they’ve made it far too difficult. I don’t want to have to be logged in to Google as I search the web. I am more than happy to be on Facebook and login to this when I want to. If I find something I like on a site I am browsing and I think my friends might be interested I have no problem clicking the Like button to broadcast the fact to my friends on Facebook.

Facebook is an environment for me to share things with friends and family around the world. That’s why I am on it and that’s why I created a profile and added friends over the last 5 years.

Google is a search tool. I don’t log onto it to share things with my friends or colleagues nor will I considering how complicated they are making it to even join the experiment. Google are going to have to entice me with a lot better reason to join than the fact I might be able to see a recipe that my mother +1’d as she won’t have.

Mining for Gold

Peter — Mon, 22 Nov 2010 14:11:33 +0000

One of the benefits of our approach to User Experience projects is that we collect a lot of unbelievably useful information from consumers about the sector we are working on for each project. We spend a lot of time analysing this information, both qualitative and quantitative, and ensure that it is a fundamental part of our design process to produce the right experience for our clients users.

We also undertake this approach for a lot of the pitches we are working on and this provides us with data we are able to share without breaking any client confidentiality. Having recently conducted such an approach for the Charity sector we have a wealth of information regarding the type of experience users are looking for from a charity website, including the look & feel, the donation process and what makes users want to make a donation to a particular charity.

In the first of our planned series of reports we have put together the results of our research and are happy to share this with the sector as a whole. Always remembering that it’s one thing to collect the data and quite another to interpret it and turn it into the right end user experience.

Good use of technology

Peter — Wed, 21 Apr 2010 11:54:58 +0000

Nice to see the election is providing us with useful ways to use sites like twitter to measure the collective conscience.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/rorycellanjones/2010/04/the_tv_debate_what_did_twitter.html

Here they come…

Peter — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 12:44:24 +0000

Google Set to Make Gmail Social With Status Update Features

http://mashable.com/2010/02/08/gmail-social/

A festive time

Peter — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 08:43:01 +0000

It’s been a busy and productive Autumn at Global Beach. We have had several good new business wins including some really interesting customer experience consultancy for Canon, a new global redesign and content management system for a British company called Pacific Direct and a design consultancy piece of work for a pureplay online PR business called PressLoft.

The recruitment of an experienced new Project Manager and a Business Development Manager has allowed me to concentrate on delivering the numbers we had forecast for the year and with our year end coming up in January we are looking to be slightly ahead of forecast which we can all be proud of.

I delivered our vision for 2010 at the last Board meeting which was received well. We will continue to concentrate on the areas that have been our core competencies this year, business planning & analytics, great creative and technical competence of which more later…

…taking over the world

Peter — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 12:41:36 +0000

Right. Summer break over. Went to a very slick presentation from Google yesterday afternoon. The amount of user data they have is quite scary. It’s no wonder they are…

Everything’s crossed

Peter — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 08:42:23 +0000

The worst bit. Waiting for a decision. As my wife said to me this morning it is like asking someone out. All that nervous anticipation with a touch of dread.

I feel we did a good pitch and managed to get a sense of us across well. We all came out liking them a lot and wanting to work with them. If I could cross my toes I would!

Old School!!!

Peter — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 14:34:14 +0000

Apparently I, like Web 2.0, am old school and past it. So say my designers. Apparently we should now be talking about the coming internet.

Really? I thought it was about using the best tools for any job. Whether these happen to be a Blog that allows a company or individual to express opinions, a website to sell or tell people something, a forum that allows people to interact or some careful pre-planning that allows a site and it’s content to be found easily by search engines is not important. What is important is using the right combination of tools for the job. Intelligent Interaction.

And while I’m ranting let’s not forget children (designers) that Social Media isn’t a new phenomenon. Oh no. Interactive forums have been around for years. Facebook etc. just put a pretty face on them.

Check out our Triumph Pitch site if you don’t believe me and take some time to browse the many forums. Old school. Yes please…

From Recruitment to British quirkiness on wheels

Peter — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 14:04:50 +0000

As you can probably tell from then paucity of posts I have made recently we have been pretty busy of late.

Our new Bentley project has kicked off in earnest, Dunlop Health and Safety is just about to launch and you will soon be powerboating off Gibralter.

As well as existing clients we have several interesting pitches on at the moment and we are all thoroughly caught up in them. Triumph is a fantastic British brand with an amazing worldwide following which you can get a sense of by visiting some of the online forums. We are making use of Social Media to validate our ideas and opinions for the pitch and it is a very interesting and informative process.

We are also working on a pitch for a recruitment company who have a different model to any I have seen before which could be quite ground breaking.

Off to the Ace Cafe on Sunday with the team to meet Triumph bikers. Will have to hide my people carrier around the corner!

Smile while you work

Peter — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 10:31:38 +0000

As an Australian I have always appreciated the benefits of sunshine to our outlook on life. This weather just makes you happier despite the gloomy economy and our flip flopping MP’s.

It is also makes me happy to look at a busy studio who have a number of interesting signed off projects and some great pitches coming up in June. Perhaps that economic outlook isn’t so gloomy after all or maybe it is being helped by the sunshine.