Category: Human perspective to digital

What is the value of people in digital?

One of the concerns we hear from people who we talk to about digital is about automation, artificial intelligence, and how to do more with your tech dollar. An overlooked expenditure is the people in your organization and on your team. In this post, we will break down why it is important to understand the value of people when you work in a digital world.

People are a value-add to digital.

Many tech organizations and businesses view people as resources, not as a value-add. They are seen as weaknesses or things that should be managed to prevent loss to a company. Here at Drive Digital, we don’t believe that all. We fully believe that people are the greatest strength in tech and should be treated as such. While there may be an occasional “bad apple”, more often than not people want to do honest work and do what’s right. We see each person as their: 1) their value-add, 2) their goals and how tech is aligned to them, 3) what values they have, 4) how willing they are to listen and understand to contrary points of view, 5) what transferrable skills they have from past experiences, and 6) their perception of how computers & technology can make life better for people

People make it easier to do more than math with a computer.

Computers first started out as data processing and number crunching machines. That’s still happening, and it’s an important task to help in the evolution of science. However, people are looking at new ways to use processing to complete important tasks. From scheduling a meeting to paying bills to even connecting with others, a computer’s utility has greatly increased due to the value of people and their influence over digital.

People’s needs and curiosity pushes the limits of technology.

As computers and technology are more ever-present, our need to push the limits of technology and curiosity also increases. When we work with a client at Drive Digital, we not only look at what someone needs now, but we look at what they may need in the next 2 years. This allows us to choose the right solution and anticipate the next thing. How do we know this? Because we ask many questions of our clients and customers, which allows us to envision something more powerful than just taking a recipe and making a client the same thing every time.

People teach other skills through digital.

Most websites, apps, and other pieces of technology are intended to be used as tools to complete tasks. In the hands of creators, businesses, and other developers, people have used digital to share new ideas, skills, techniques, and points of view. Without people to create these tools, we wouldn’t use, for example, YouTube to look up visual ways on how to do something, or even Shazaam to help us identify a song that we are listening to that we don’t know. These tools are people teaching others important skills, and that’s one of the major values our company has: teaching about digital as we help clients solve their problems.

People help us validate we are making the right thing.

When creating a new tool, app, or website, it is paramount to include your audience and users in the process. Ultimately, they are the ones who will determine if your piece of technology will work and add value to you. With spending time – and sometimes money – to talk to people and understand their current days, you get to understand the life factors that make doing business successful digitally. Most digital products fail because they skip these two steps. And since we don’t want our clients to fail, we have put the “V” in our process to mean that we verify and validate what clients want with their target market. It may take a second more, but we see it is a way to ensure you get to success.

People are the source of inspiration and creativity.

As a company that makes digital products, it takes time and energy to find inspiration to get to the right answer. However, people provide us with inspiration and creativity every day. For example, we were talking to a potential car shopper the other day, and they were obsessed with getting a particular color, but the dealer didn’t have that color on the lot. Instead of being frustrated, a computer can help someone with this problem. A computer can take a picture or a video, and in real time, substitute the color of the car with another color that the manufacturer makes so that the shopper can really see if that color can work for them. Without talking and listening to people, that idea for an app would never happen (or even be repurposed for other industries, like paint selection).

People are the workforce that make the magic happen.

Like most things in the world, greatness doesn’t happen overnight or at the snap of a finger. Digital takes a lot of elbow grease from many people to make the magic happen. Digital relies upon: designers, content writers, coders, industry experts, financial knowledge, and legal protection. All of those skills don’t come out of the blue, or can’t reside within one person. All of these skills come from a team of people, who work together to make digital work for you. The next time you use a piece of technology, or get frustrated by a piece of technology, know that it came from a lot of people’s time and energy to make it happen. And to make technology better, it relies on that same human talent to push it to the next level.

People provide a purpose for digital.

Without people, digital experiences and products wouldn’t exist. And vice versa. Many now have a sense of purpose now because they have been given a tool to be productive and have an equal chance at life. Technology gives people an unlimited access to the rest of the world, and this instant connection provides people with a purpose and a sense of belonging that would be harder to achieve if we weren’t connected through technology. And without people, it’ll also be harder to add new features into the technology that we already are used to using.

Want to work with someone who gets people?

Reach out to Drive Digital, and work with real people who get the impact of technology and how to make technology great.

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What should digital not do?

As we tell all our clients, digital can do anything. Computers are capable of great things, like changing the world. There’s value in keeping humans in the driver’s seat of digital; this post we break down where digital should not play a role in changing the world.

Here’s tasks digital should not do for us

1

Create information on its own.

Digital should not autonomously create unverified, unsubstantiated information. As humans, we trust much of what we read and many do not seek out information that makes us think or presents a different point of view. And since we use information to make decisions – important decisions – creating information should be left up to humans. There’s value in using digital to aggregate information, process it, and see patterns, but we should make the raw information so we can share facts with each other. And to help combat the weaponization of information and misinformation.

2

Teach lessons and parent our kids.

We should allow our kids to learn from a computer, but the lessons and skills we are imparted should be created from a human. This can allow our kids – and fellow adults – to learn new concepts, stretch their critical thinking capabilities, get new life skills, and meet new people. We here at Drive Digital believe that empowering others to think better and more critically is our job as stewards of digital, and that’s a job we take seriously. We believe that the next generation should be smarter, better, and more equipped to handle the world and digital than the current one.

3

Enact policies that affect real lives.

As tools, digital has the power to affect lives – whether intentionally or not. But digital should not create rules for our lives without our permission or understanding. We should make tools easier to create new policies and make it easier for everyone to understand them and their impacts on us, but they shouldn’t choose the new rules or incorrectly summarize them for us. These core human values we should learn from our experiences from others, and digital should help us guide us in helping us get to the best state possible for us and our neighbors.

4

Choose our interests and our professions.

The internet is full of helpful information in many forms: for example, YouTube has many informative videos that teach great skills. Sites like these do a great job of displaying information from experts. However, a computer doesn’t have the intelligence or prudence to choose how to edit information or decide what we should invest our skills and future in. This task should be left to those who are trained to do so, like trusted friends, teachers, and mentors. Digital tools can augment the skills of these people, but the agency of us figuring out our drive should be left to humans.

5

Make medical choices for us.

Digital tools and modern medical devices are great tools to help us understand our health and what is going on in our bodies. These digital tools should be praised for making healthcare more approachable and better. For example, the advances in AEDs (automatic external defibrillators) have made it such that the average person can save a life. We here believe solely relying upon digital for medical knowledge can lead to problems, and that should rather be left to a conversation between you and your doctor. Having agency in your medical choices and knowledge should be left to us humans.

6

Decide our financial standing in life.

Digital tools can easily move money from one location to another. They can also tell us how well the market is doing. While moving money is easy, getting money without working for it or a computer deciding autonomously deciding what your money does is something a computer shouldn’t do. Building digital tools to empower us to make smart moves is a great use of digital, but moving that money should be done under the guidance of a human or an authorized financial consultant.

Want an ethical and practical approach to digital?

As a leader in digital, we make our living in making computers do tons of great things. We also believe in having an ethical approach to our clients in helping them realize the ethics of their choices with technology. It’s one of the many qualities that help us drive you to success in digital.

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What makes people tune out?

Just like a real conversation, people can tune out and leave your site and offerings. This is definitely painful for many companies, but it is something recoverable. In this post we’ll go over some basic causes of why this happens and how we work to help you recover from them.

What does “tune out” really mean?

We define this phrase as the progression of not listening or paying attention to something and eventually into ignoring. Tuning out can be consciously chosen, or it can be as a result of a number of uncontrollable factors. Here’s the factors that we’ve discovered in our experience about what causes this behavior in customers and audience members.

People tune out your digital presence because:

1

They can’t find what they need.

This is usually one of the first things we look for when customers are starting to tune out digitally. In the world of digital, people are looking for information quickly, and the more time it takes for people to find this information, the higher likelihood they will tune you out and leave. You can fix this by: 1) checking the performance of your navigation, 2) checking the performance of Google and site search, 3) testing the usability of your navigation and your content with your customers. While this process may take some time, it rules out many of the other reasons why your audience may be tuning out.

2

They can’t see your value.

This is the next reason usually why your audience tunes out. As most of digital is built as tools to help others, we need to read and interpret what is presented to us. And based upon what is presented, we make a quick judgment on whether there is value for us to stay or go. You can fix this by: 1) continuously refining your elevator pitch of your product or service to ensure your audience can quickly understand your value, and 2) test your content, marketing, and messaging with potential customers to see and hear what they think the value of your product and service is. Since value is in the eye of the receiver, it is important to make sure that you constantly check on the value of what you provide. Otherwise, people will seek value somewhere else.

3

They are distracted or lose focus.

Similar to the previous point, when humans have a conversation with another person, they need focus. Focus and attention is a fragile quality, because we can be easily distracted or miss key points about something. When we miss this information, we either attempt to guess and fill in the details ourselves or ask someone to repeat something. In digital, it’s harder to repeat information because generally people look at the information on the screen in front of them, and don’t always remember what came before or after. You can fix this by: 1) asking your audience if the information is useful or relevant to their needs, 2) removing distracting information your audience sees along the way to completing their task, and 3) updating your display logic to make it more clean and clear as to what you offer and what your audience needs to do to work with you.

4

There is too much effort involved.

People use digital to help accomplish tasks in their life. And we, as humans, get frustrated and upset when we feel like something takes more effort than we expect. And in digital, like life and business, time is money. When things are taking too long, that’s costing your customer and your business money. You can fix this by: 1) test your important business features with your audience to see if it is too hard or long, 2) simplifying each task to its bare minimum (using technology to collect additional information in the background), 3) make instructions more clear to the everyday user, and 4) simplify data collection and the amount of steps it takes for a user to complete their goal. These steps make it much easier for a member of your audience to see you as easy to work with.

5

The market has changed or evolved.

Competition in real life and in digital is a natural part of the world we live in. Sometimes another service or product comes along that does a better job or provides a different insight on what you do. And that can pull away or make your current users and audience tune out to see what the competition is about. You can fix this by: 1) keeping tabs on what competitors are doing digitally before, during, and after we make something; 2) refine and polish your value proposition and story to the market to ensure you can enter digital as strong as possible; 3) map out as much of the future as you can to help make it easier to add new things, which will allow you to keep pace with the competition.

6

Their needs have changed.

One of the other ways that we’ve found out that people tune out of digital is due to their life situation. Sometimes people move, lose a job, or no longer need a particular service. Or other times their values have changed and don’t align with yours anymore. Either way, this is not your fault. You can fix this by: 1) building a feedback look with your customers with surveys, focus groups, customer panels, and VIP experiences and 2) use a CRM tool that helps you understand what each individual member of your audience has bought, interacted with, and their preferences and likes. Performing these two tasks allow you to keep tabs on each person who you communicate with digitally.

Not sure if your audience tuned out?

We are happy to work with you to figure out what your audience needs and help you make the steps to get back on the right track.

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