Design. Charity. Life.

What would you expect from a presentation by Facebook? A product launch, a sales pitch, a feature tutorial? The Group Director of Global Marketing Solutions at Facebook Canada, Steve Irvine, gave an impressive keynote at digital media conference Canada 3.0, covering neither of those things.

Steve manages a team focused on building trusted advisory relationships with decision makers at some of the largest brands and agencies in Canada. Steve is an executive and successful entrepreneur with a track record of success in the digital and social media marketing industry. He was an entrepreneur for 10 years before taking a corporate job at Facebook – here’s his full bio.

After attending several conferences recently, Steve noticed the topics were all either Big Data, Mobile, or Social Media. What he took away is that they seem insanely complicated. Recently a Business Insider article shows just that in an “Insane Graphic”  to show How Complex Marketing Technology, below.

On Big Data

The “Noise” is growing. Yet, our memory hasn’t changed – our ability to take in and process info is the same as it was thousands of years ago. What is the implication of this?

To filter the sea of information, people are turning to their friends. Word of mouth matters: If a business says they’re the best, only 14% believe it, but if an individual says that business is the best themselves, 90% of people believe it. That’s huge for so many reasons.

“The trick to forgetting the big picture is to look at everything close up.” – Chuck Palahniuk

On Mobile

Moving from the green “online” icon to always on. This changes the expectations of organizations and brands, but most importantly the expectations that customers have of brands.

Steve says we’re going to mess this up for a bit longer, when it comes to mobile, by not taking advantage of the power available. For example when TV became available as a new platform, they mainly sat and read information to you just like they did on the Radio, the previous platform.

The printed flyer has been the number one thing that drives people into stores, forever. But people under 30 for example, don’t subscribe to or even pickup a newspaper. Really, the flyer concept is simply pictures of flyers on sale – so it can be made digital and social.

On Social Media

Engaging in the conversation and humanizing the brand is what social media is about. He references Bodyform’s video reply to a Facebook comment of someone complaining about them not honestly representing what women go through every month (watch the video here).

“Don’t focus on the sites, focus on the people.” It’s about delivering great experiences to your customers. The new technology and networks are tools ho help. Over time, identity has caught up with technology. You can now build and maintain relationships (business and personal) anywhere in the world, rather than what limited you by distance or cost.

So what do people really want?

1. People want to feel unique.
2. People want to feel connected.
3. People communicate through many lightweight interactions.

There’s a ton of social media and marketing advice out there. But Steve shared a few of his guiding principles to simplify.

Guiding Principles for Social Media

1. Focus on Business Impact
2. Horizontal vs. Vertical
3. Always on vs. Episodic
4. People vs. Technology

When it comes to technology, the question is, what are the big problems we’re trying to solve for the people that matter to us? Then using technology and computing power to provide the best experience for users to solve these problems.

A Facebook Stories video was shown at the end – a pretty unique and powerful one. It was about an Indian man named Mayank Sharma, who, as Facebook describes, would “probably tell you that going through meningitis is hell — if he could remember any of it”. A great story:

It’s everyone’s responsibility to think about people, and how you provide them with what they’re looking for. Facebook’s mission is to make the world more open and connected. Steve is inspired by what Facebook and social media is able to do for people.

Should digital experiences should stop competing with the “real world”? As part of Canada’s annual digital media conference, Canada 3.0, a workshop answered this question with “No”.

As digital distribution disrupts media everywhere, audiences seek out concepts like ‘authenticity’ and less commodified ‘experiences’. Trends are changing, people are concerned, and there are concepts that use digital technology to enable offline activities, instead of striving to just replace them.

People exist inside their smartphones today. We become deeply immersed in whatever it is that’s happening on our phone (a text messaging conversation, a game, commenting on social media posts, reading blogs or articles, or just plain nonsense.) I’ve done it (and almost always when I’m at a store or long event), and friends around me do it (to the point where they miss things, people can’t get their attention). So this whole concept of not having digital experiences compete with the real world, but just be better integrated into it, really makes sense.

“For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.”

Right now, you have one life and another life online. You can choose what to separate. You may have given away too much information, or that you know too much information. A cab company tracks your location automatically, you know someone’s phone number just by looking at them, you go to a new location of Starbucks and they know your order already. Of course these scenarios are odd and could be awkward, but the workshop facilitator is most interested in this these moments, and using them to our advantage.

One example was about the future of Google Glass: Visualizing beyond limitations. A company called Playground is trying to dissect the human-technology relationship, and they believe Glass represents information technology at its most intimate.

Everything is possible today: Workout Path tracking, Comparison Shopping, Advertising, Secure payment experiences (Wallet), Smart Shopping, Taxi using Location services, Sports Updates, Guitar Training, Emergency Services, Presentation Aids, Gaming: Device Awareness and Syncing, and Context-aware notifications for TV Alerts. You may think some are super helpful while some are excessive in the video below.

Beyond Google Glass, which I noted is constantly feeing you information, but not giving much of a social or sharing perspective, the presenter gave 2 examples:

Findery is an example of Making places come allive. Leaving invisible notes to eachother. In Toronto we have Murmur, where you can call a number to hear a recording at a specific location (a documentary oral history project that records stories and memories told about specific geographic locations).

The Conversation: Digital Experiences do not need to compete with real life

Who is working on this conversation about merging digital experiences with real world ones? Even Jones, Creative Director & Producer of Stitch Media, who I spoke with at Canada 3.0.

Instead of quick one-time sales or ads, Jones wants to create novel-sized, extra stories with more challenges – not simple, quick experiences that you see in an everyday online ad, for example. Clients approach Stitch Media to create interactive or entertaining ideas (TV production companies to compliment their shows, for example).

Evan Jones’ work at Stitch Media is about motivating people through great stories.

More About the Speaker: Even Jones
Stitch Media partner Evan Jones, is a two-time Emmy Award® winner whose innovative work on interactive content for primetime television, radio, web, mobile and games have established him as a pioneer in new genres of Alternate Reality Games, Locative Media and Interactive Documentary. His work was recognized as one of the ‘Top 10 New Media Groundbreakers’ according to the Bell Broadcast & New Media Fund. Evan’s international clients include Microsoft, Disney, FOX, CBC, Bell, Discovery and The Movie Network.

DataWind is Disrupting Education in Emerging Markets with the World’s Cheapest Tablet

The CEO of Datawind Ltd., Suneet Singh Tuli, spoke about how his company is disrupting Education in emerging markets by creating the world’s least-expensive Tablet, at this year’s Canada 3.0 Digital Media Conference in Toronto.

DataWind is a great success story of a Canadian company identifying huge market opportunity in an international market, creating the disruptive technology capable of harvesting that potential and continuing to lever the diverse and talented labour market in Canada to make education in the third world a reality.

Scale of the Challenge: India

With India’s large population, the issue – and opportunity – is presented on a massive scale. There are 140 Million kids in the K-12 age group that are not in school. Nearly half of students in grades 5-8 drop out, and nearly 70% drop out in Grades 9-12.

We are living in the age of mediocre education. Suneet stated the average teacher is no longer relevant. What happens when you have a bad teacher in school? You learn on your own. The internet now gives students the opportunity to get a quality education anytime – at the very least, it is a valuable supplement to their traditional education.

There is a strong need for affordability. But how do we bring this technology to developing nations? Through research, DataWind determined that to reach One Billion people, the computers would need to be priced under $50. This is based on a price that is less than 20% of the Monthly Income of the most people in India.

The Perfect Storm

You can see a market worth billions emerging – you want to get in right before it takes off. The people that saw cell phone usage spreading outside of major cities in developing nations are now in the wealthiest portion of the population; it is believed we are at this stage for computers as well. The perfect storm for this needs frugal innovation.

Frugal Innovation Requirements:

• Innovative Hardware Design
• Unique Business Model
• Technological Breakthrough
• Disruptive Distribution Model

Solving the Hardware Puzzle

For the Aakash tablet, the Research, Product Design and Development is being done in Canada. The multicultural mosaic brings skills and experience that are not available anywhere else.

Instead of focusing on building the “iPad Killer” like everyone else, they looked at building the key, core, basic features needed. Designing for cost, optimizing your feature set for the target audience. This is the opposite of feature over-kill, “good enough” for the consumer. What about the physical components, the supply chain? Suneet advices you develop the high-value components yourself, instead of going to the existing major players (Samsung’s tablet touch-screens, for example).

Technological Breakthrough 

Home Internet access is only available to 50 Million people in India today – but 900 Million people have Mobile Phones. To allow more people to connect, they made the congested networks more efficient. Because of this improvement, they can add in an online Advertising system, that could lower the cost of Internet on these devices to $0.

The World’s Lowest Cost Computing/Internet Device: The Aakash tablet that DataWind developed has the same CPU as the original iPad, double the RAM of the original iPad, yet it costs 10 times less.

Opportunities for Canadian Digital/Media Companies

There are 3 billion people with mobile phones, but with no Internet access. This poses a huge opportunity. For Canadian companies, one opportunity is to discover what the killer apps will be for the devices of future users. The focus should be on making useful apps that work without even being able to read! A point of sale terminal has been created, for example, that works where users take photos of their products and inventory, and use a graphical user interface – no reading necessary. To create more apps like this, there is a global call for Socially Responsible Apps to Empower Women – AppsToEmpower.org.

Getting Tablets to the People

The Indian Federal Government has made it a strategic priority to provide a nationally subsidized mobile tablet – that’s 220 Million Tablets. Other countries, such as Thailand and Turkey, also plan on providing Free Tablet PCs to all students – kindergarten to post-secondary!

What the Future Holds

How will the world change when the next 1 Billion people get on the internet? We know today, the Internet will empower the next level of education and action.

Do we need another major online shopping space?

I came across Shop Your Way, a site created by Sears Holdings Inc. who owns Sears (the company has over 2,600 full-line and specialty retail stores in USA and Canada including Kmart). The site is described by the company as a social shopping experience where members have the ability to earn points and receive benefits across a wide variety of physical and digital formats through ShopYourWay.com.

The part that got my attention the most was the fact that ShopYourWay is duplicating and replicating features of other social networks, by asking users to “Follow” their favourite brands and create what look exactly like Pinterest boards of products right within their site on ShopYourWay.com. Users do not need another major social network like Pinterest at the moment, but does this not look too similar?

With sites like Amazon, Yahoo Shopping, Google Products, and huge retail giant’s online already like WalMart.com, there are many one-stop shops online. Through an ad I also came across a centralized online store for Procter & Gamble, the P&G eStore, for all the brands that they own – even encouraging customers to ”buy in bundles and save on your favorite P&G products”.

Sears Holdings also created mygofer, an online grocery service that “turbo-charges brick-and-mortar retailer assortments by allowing customers to get items from those stores where and when they want them in new, convenient ways”.

I would value the concept of a one-stop shopping experience, and mygofer offers a range of products including supermarket food, prescriptions, health and beauty products, and electronics.

But again, are shoppers going to turn to Sears Holdings for this, or are they already using their local grocery stores, existing online stores, and systems like Grocery Gateway?

My thoughts are that users and shoppers will ultimately decide which networks and platforms stay, but until then, all the major retailers and brands will continue to experiment and create their own to own the full online experience.

Having been graduated from university since spring 2012, it’s odd to be reflective on my “career” already. But recently a student interviewed me for an assignment, and since it was typed out, the full Q&A is shared here.

Q1: As a teenager, what did you think your career/job would be as an adult?
When younger, somewhere around a Teacher or Architect. In High School, it shifted to something in the Creative industry like Advertising or Design.

Q2: What was your first paid work experience? Was it during high school or afterward? How many hours a week did you work? What did you get paid?

First paid work experience was during high school, where I first worked at my local church office (for up to 10-20 hours per week, at then-low minimum wage). But in terms of a Graphic Design or Web Design job, my first one also took place while in high school (on a per-project basis) and although it felt like a decent amount of pay at the time, the client did not end up continuing his website project.

Q3: What three things did you learn from that job? Did these experiences help shape your career and current job?

I started learning — and continue to learn — that my time is limited and that design and tech skills are vital and valuable, so I should apply and price them accordingly. I also learned that making a plan, sketching out an idea and outlining it into a full concept, is very useful and worthwhile (instead of simply starting only with an initial thought).

Q4: As you continued on your educational and career path, did you have a mentor who inspired you to approach the working world in a certain way?

Peter Fujiwara, my high school Communications Technology teacher and Zahra Ebrahim, my professor for the Think Tank courses at OCAD University have been the most significant mentors as well as inspirations and motivators. From helping to solving crises, giving situation-specific advice, to teaching me everything from technical skills to business practices to creative thinking, they’ve been incredible resources and connectors in their own unique ways.

Q5: Can you provide a brief description of your current job position and your employer? Did you ever expect to be working in this job?

I currently operate my own business, Daniel Design Canada, where I work on design and web related projects for clients (including small businesses, school boards, charities, individuals and more). I’ve always wanted to have my own business and clients, since elementary school even (one summer I even designed posters for my “company” at that time simply an idea/dream). The new areas I dove into including social media and blogging/writing weren’t as expected earlier, but I completely love the area as well and created The Now Digital Network.

Q6: How many jobs have you had before this one? What were they and how did these experiences prepare you for your current job?

About 5 small part-time jobs and contracts elsewhere. I learned about scheduling and communication with clients including the priority of customer service. Being trained in and part of the Apple retail culture was unique and valuable.

Q7: Did you need any specific education or training in order to qualify for your current job? If so, what was it? If not, what skills or education do you wish you had? How did you get that education and training?

Along with being a Provisional RGD (Registered Graphic Designer in Ontario), I earned a Bachelor of Design degree (BDes) in Graphic Design from OCAD University, and am now adding to that with a certificate in Digital Media and Communications from University of Toronto (currently in progress).

The education has helped me approach tasks and challenges in a variety of ways and use references.
I’ve also had short internships that have helped me see the industry and system operating.

Q8: What do you enjoy most about your work and what do you find most challenging?

I enjoy the connections and relationships I can constantly begin and build with my clients and team members, as well as the flexibility of my schedule and location (anywhere with WiFi and a power outlet can work for me!). The opportunity to create something from scratch, or visualize a client’s idea, is very rewarding.

The challenging aspects are in scheduling, balancing creation and everything else since many projects are ongoing, and meeting everybody’s needs with limited resources at times (or working with such a broad range of clients).

Q9: If you could give one piece of advice to high school students about planning their careers, what would it be?

Don’t lock yourself down to one career. Keep an entire field open once you do choose. Speak to people in the industry you’re looking at. Definitely consider the Entrepreneurial option of starting your own business or nonprofit organization!

Q10: What would you have done differently in high school, knowing what you now know about careers and work experience?

Possibly would’ve taken more business courses, if anything. I had an amazing experiences in both Communications Technology and Creative Advertising, so there’s not much else I would add!

Q11: Was it easy finding your current job? Was there a lot of competition when it came to applying for it?

There’s a huge amount of competition in the design and web industries. It’s a huge risk jumping in as a freelancer and business owner, but can definitely be worthwhile in many aspects. Though I’m not looking at the moment, I’ve applied for a few positions and postings which have been rare and competitive.

Q12: What would you say is the most important thing to keep in mind when exploring potential career paths?

Don’t commit to one career path for 40 years. Be open to a path that can change and evolve and allow you to explore your talents, skills and interests. Again consider becoming an entrepreneur, creating your own business or organization. Before applying for school programs, check the job prospects and job availability.

“Risk must be taken because the greatest hazard in life is to risk nothing. Only the person who risks is free.” – Leo Buscalia