innovation

Trenitalia, Le Frecce, e i Treni Inibiti. Quando la customer experience non conta niente.

Published at In Category innovation, on the road, thoughts Tags: , , , , , , , , 13 Comments
il treno è inibito

Questo post non è solo quello di un utente arrabbiato e deluso, ma vuole essere una breve analisi di un progetto, di un processo e di un approccio al cambiamento destinato a fallire. O a costare molto, in termini di risorse, di tempo e di scocciature.

FORGET THE CUSTOMER, FORGET INNOVATION

Tutto succede qualche giorno fa, quando cercando un treno per Roma e utilizzando la nuova funzionalità ‘trova il miglior prezzo’ trovo un treno a 9€ per la tratta e la data che mi interessano. Super. Contento procedo all’acquisto. Ma niente. il treno è ‘inibito’. Non si riesce a prenotare. Sicuramente non online. Vado in stazione, trovo la stessa offerta alle macchine automatiche. Non si riesce però a concludere l’acquisto. Faccio la coda il biglietteria, niente da fare neppure qui. Sono arrabbiato, sono deluso e soprattutto mi sento trattato scorrettamente.

Poi trovo su twitter questo scambio tra @LeFrecce e @andrea2volte e capisco di non essere solo.

Dando una veloce occhiata all’account le rispose da parte di FS sono più o meno standardizate e vagamente inconsistenti sulla sostanza del problema posto:

-@orlandotm il fatto che sia inibito non dipende da tariffa. Se provi ad acqu. ad altra tariffa nn riusciresti cmq.Graz ancora per segnalaz.
-@andrea2volte non si tratta di offerta “fasulla”,il tr. è cancellato: bit.ly/L4TI7X non potresti acqu. a nessun tipo di prezzo :(ù

Con successiva scusante legata all’imprevisto:
-@andrea2volte purtroppo parliamo di un treno la cui cancellazione non era programmata (imprevisto)
-@wolly la cancellazione non è programmata e potrebbe essere ripristinato da qui a breve

E giusta osservazione di risposta:
-@LeFrecce Sul sito non si può prenotarla già da 2 giorni interi! Che imprevisto lungo! Perchè l’offerta c’è ancora?

Facendo un passo indietro, al livello di analisi e di valutazione del servizio vorrei sottolineare il concetto di fondo anche di questo post: nuove funzionalità non sono innovazione se non funzionano.
La spunta di trova il miglior prezzo non serve a nulla se il miglio prezzo che viene trovato di fatto non esiste.
Un’ offerta che non esiste non deve essere servita dal motore di prenotazione; e non si può pensare che l’utente vada a leggersi i comunicati dei treni soppressi o ritardati (su un altro sito peraltro) per capire che quell’offerta non esiste. I due livelli di informazione devono essere integrati e trasparenti.

MI INIBISCO

Un altro aspetto chiave della usability riguarda l’interazione con l’utente nella risoluzione degli errori.
Anche l’evenienza errore va progettata: se, come possibile output, sono stati previsti anche dei messaggi con codice di errore bisogna anche proporre all’utente una via di uscita.
Facile.
Non devo essere io a cercare di capire. Devi essere tu, servizio, a spiegarmi cosa succede. Nel sito, non su twitter. Voglio poter escludere i treni ‘inibiti’.

Altrimenti mi inibisco io.

Non devo dover andare in stazione per provare a vedere se dalla biglietteria funziona.
Non devo poi sentirmi dire: “mah, l’offerta non è prenotabile” dall’addetto alla biglietteria che non ha, sul suo sistema di vendita, neppure la possibilità di filtrare i prezzi migliori, e che alla domanda se ci fossero altre buone offerte nella giornata ha dovuto pazientemente scorrere la schermata di ogni singolo convoglio. Senza successo peraltro.
Mi inibisco sempre di più.

I messaggi di errore devono essere comprensibili all’utente. Il treno inibito non lo capisco.
Capisco il treno cancellato, soppresso.
Dalla pagina di errore devo poter procedere oltre, devo aver presentate delle alternative.
Così l’utente non si inibisce, e magari Trenitalia chiude la vendita. Sempre che sia quello l’interesse commerciale di fondo, e non di dirottarmi su altri operatori/soluzioni.

 

I POMODORI AL MERCATO

Tutto ciò premesso, resto dell’idea che un’ offerta per una cosa che non esiste non dovrebbe apparire. Se propongo in vendita qualcosa che non ho, ad un prezzo estremamente concorrenziale, non sto forse in qualche forma viziando il sistema e potenzialmente ingannando l’acquirente?
Se vado al mercato offrendo i pomodori peretti a 0,50€/kg ma non ne ho neppure una cassetta e ho solo San Marzano a 10€/kg forse nessuno compra più da me, e magari il mio vicino di banchetto si arrabbia pure per una concorrenza non leale.

Ma coi pomodori ci arrabbiamo, coi treni no. In questo settore siamo così abituati che qualcosa non funzioni che ormai siamo rassegnati.
Se un altra azienda, privata, facesse delle offerte online che appaiono come miglior prezzo a parità di servizi e che in realtà non esistono, ci arrabbieremmo moltissimo. Lo troveremmo scorretto. Lo troveremmo ingannevole. Lo troveremmo inaccettabile.
In ogni altro contesto sarebbe inaccettabile. Qui apparentemente dobbiamo solo rassegnarci.

 

MVP. SE TRENITALIA FOSSE UNA START-UP.

Da un punto di vista progettuale, di design e di innovazione del servizio e della customer experience mi chiedo (retoricamente): funziona un sito/servizio dove l’utente/pagante non trova quello che cerca e l’azienda/vendente non incassa?

Sembra che ci siano in contemporanea online il vecchio motore di ricerca, il nuovo motore di ricerca, e che i vari siti di riferimento si accavallino e si moltiplichino (es.: trenitalia, lefrecce, fsitaliane,) dando risultati incoerenti o perlomeno incompleti.

Ho provato a fare una semplice ricerca partendo dal sito trenitalia.com per domani mattina, per andare da Verona Porta Nuova a Milano Centrale a partire dalle ore 5am.


Vorrei spendere poco, e seleziono la casella ‘ricerca il miglior prezzo’. Come possibilità mi vengono presentate solo le frecce a un prezzo allineato di 20.50€.

Se invece, contro-logica, non seleziono la casella, mi si presentano soluzioni più economiche. Come i treni regionali delle 05.40 e 06.40 a 11,30€.

Mi sembra una pratica commerciale non trasparente e non corretta.
Se nella ricerca (e su twitter: @MattewFox95 ciao, il costo varia in funzione alla tariffa che acquisti,prova opz. “ricerca il miglior prezzo” su lefrecce.it ;)) mi suggerisci di selezionare la casella per trovare la migliore offerta.
Devo trovare la migliore offerta.
Non la migliore offerta delle frecce, esclusi i regionali.
Perchè se io fossi meno attento, meno tech savy, o magari semplicemente un turista potrei facilmente essere indirizzato su quelle offerte a prezzo maggiore.
È pratica commerciale trasparente e corretta?

Forse il minimum ha vinto sul viable. Sembra che succeda spesso da queste parti. Ma quello che dice Eric Ries nel suo libro ‘The Lean Sartup’, e l’analisi di David Aycan di IDEO su HBR dovrebbero farci riflettere.

Le FS non sono una start-up, ma il deployment di un nuovo motore di ricerca e di vendita potrebbe esserlo.
Perché è stato lanciato e non funziona come dovrebbe? Il brano iniziale dell’articolo di Aycan propone una riflessione interessante:

Cut the fat, not the essence
In the pursuit of a minimum viable product (MVP), we’ve seen that it’s important to evaluate early the critical components that will differentiate an offer from competition and make a product truly viable.

An MVP should be the easiest way to test your hypothesis, but that doesn’t mean that building one is easy. A common mistake is refusing to tackle the tough technical problems that create revolutionary offerings. As Ries writes, some entrepreneurs hear “minimum viable” product as “smallest imaginable” product. This misunderstanding of Lean Startup tenets can have expensive consequences. Sometimes, entrepreneurs miss a key opportunity to establish market differentiation by interpreting the “minimum” component of an MVP to mean “nothing challenging.” Worse, they sometimes create a product that’s not competitive by rationalizing that they can get ‘something like’ the core idea by replacing a feature with something easier to implement.

 

Progress is not (always) Innovation

Per concludere, come già detto, Progress is not (always) Innovation.
Qui hanno cambiato qualcosa, ma non hanno (ancora?) innovato.
Il progetto sottostante è oscuro per essere gentili. Per essere maliziosi sembra che il progetto sottostante manipoli la delivery delle informazioni all’utente.
A quali fini non capisco.
O forse si.

 

[…] FUTUR/I/O/E/ […]

Oggi si parla molto di Che Futuro, di Futuro Artigiano, di Start-Up, di nuova imprenditoria e nuovo artigianato.

Se ne parla in tante forme diverse, partendo da punti di vista e definizioni che ancora non sono del tutto condivise al nel linguaggio dei partecipanti. Ma se ne parla.
Il ministro Passera parla con questo mondo anche all’#isday (dando credibilità e visibilità al sistema).
Insomma il tessuto e le teste ci sono. Cervelli partiti, cervelli restati, e cervelli tornati.
Ci sono anche i progetti da fare, come abbiamo visto.
Per cambiare innovando bisogna progettare quello che verrà pensando in maniera sistemica, complessa.

Dobbiamo affrontare la sfida di progettare la complessità creando valore.

Design is Translation. Design in Translation

Published at In Category brain spin | 'the blog', innovation, thinking Tags: , , ,

I have been studying and working in many places in Italy and abroad. Through this I have experienced many lost in translation incidents while working in a group, especially when everybody is working in a third language that it’s not his own. Sometime it is very funny, sometime frustrating.

This same obstacles are there even when you work in your own language. This mostly happen because behind the same words we have different significances that emerges from different paths, experiences, and education.

I believe the real strength of Design is and should be that of a Translator. Be able to act as a hub. Take all the inputs and distribute mediated, designed outputs. Re-evaluate and proceed in the design loops.

I think Mediation and Translation are the central concepts on how I see Design now.

Excellence and Specialization

Published at In Category design, innovation, on the road, research Tags: , , , , , ,
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I am travelling around Europe to attend trade shows, meet with clients, find new suppliers and breath the air of the north that is usually very refreshing for my brain.

I have seen many new things, lot of innovative efforts, so many products have flooded my eyes.

Than I went out for a walk around the little streets of Amsterdam and one simple thing became clear to me looking at the little shop in the picture. Simplicity, excellence and specialization (and possibly customization) is the real key to innovation in most cases.

This shops sells potatoes. Fried potatoes, french fries, fries or however you call them. Just that.
Amazing fried potatoes, not the frozen one, not burned in black oil, not all of the same shape because they are cut by hand.
Fried potatoes and (here comes the customer) around twenty kind of toppings.

Easy and straightforward. And there is often a waiting line in front of this little hole in the wall.

So let’s look at what we do when we design some~ newness. And let’s ask ourselves what is that we want to sell, and what is that the customer wants. Innovation is not necessarily adding. Subtraction is often a much more difficult choice because we fear we will not satisfy some of our potential customers. But I say, let’s design simple and excellent platforms that we can than customize with varied and diverse topping.

Adoption and Regulation

Published at In Category design, innovation, management, on the road, research Tags: , , , , , , , ,
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One of the first thing that impressed me when I landed in China is the amount of electrical city cruiser, motorcycles, and scooters. They are everywhere. And they appear from nowhere just behind you at any moment, everywhere: on the sidewalk, on the road, at crossing. Beyond the fact that it takes time to get used to them and to develop that extra sense that allows you to survive in the city, I am amazed at the rate of adoption of those things.
I remember before leaving Italy an electrical scooter was launched accompanied by a quite visible marketing campaign. What will be its succes if everything else do not change in the system? What I want to say is that I had the feeling that a transition to new a new, and possibly better than the oil based one, energetic ‘ecosystem’ will need a thorough consideration of the complex, interwoven underlying system. I recently discovered having a ‘real’ thermal engine motorbike in cities is almost impossible. You will not get a licence plate, or you will do only with very ‘creative’ workarounds. In fact only few are seen around, and mostly those you can rent to take you around the city.

So should we rely on laws and regulation before that on people awareness?
Of course banning thermic engines would be a decision that would impact drastically our lives as well as the economic system as it is now. How can we design a way forward? Where to start and what kind of goals should we give ourselves? I believe the discussions on those issues in the policy making circles are active, but outputs are little and dis-organized. If we want (do we?) to transition the mobility industry toward a different model, we have to design the way(s) this can happen. This should take in account policies, manufacturing and industry needs, availability of resources, and many other nodes of the net.

I am convinced we cannot leave this transition to be organized by the ‘invisible’ hands of the market. Because efficiency and profitability will be hard to achieve in the beginning. This transition should be guided, helped and somehow managed at a systemic level. Should not just be market based.

On the other hand interesting and broad in scope private initiatives are arising. One example could be the Better Place Project. Companies and Countries that are keeping a careful eye on those issues like the vision of the project and decided to join in, in various ways. Obviously there is an economic interest for the car manufacture, it might only be a future oriented ‘research/experiment’ to be ready as it is obvious that this new model is in contrast with the current paradigm. But it also obvious, to me, that when countries invest and get involved in those kid of projects they are looking at a bigger value output than one that is only economic/profit based.
It is en effort to value innovate, to innovate systemically aiming to deliver results that are meaningful, that make sense. To me value-innovation is the result of a series of equations which include design-action, complexity, knowledge, multidisciplinarity, interdisciplinarity, and culture as variables.

Check Shai Agassi TED talk here:

photo via

Value Innovation and Complexity aka design as synapses?

Published at In Category design, innovation, research Tags: , 1 Comment
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As a point of departure I believe that through design we can create meaningful futures and valuable innovations. I am also of the opinion that “progress per se does not make any sense, does not generate value and [most importantly] does not add any value. It only [maybe] generates new loops of consumption.
Value-innovation is different. Value-innovation is meaningful and valuable in a systemic perspective. This kind of innovation is good progress, innovation is good design.” (Giabardo, 2010, p. 50)

But, is it really like this? How do we define/recognize a systemic good, a systemic-value, in innovation?  How do we achieve it?

We are living in a time that is very different to that of my parents. A radical shift has occurred with the digitalization of our lives. Another one is happening with the transition toward a service-intensive knowledge economy. At the same time any interaction with services, products, the environment, and other beings contribute to generate and to feed the system with increasing complexity. This is as true for individuals as it is true for organizations, companies, and business actors. There are a myriad of sub- and super- domains that converge to influence which are impacted by innovation. Whatever we want to develop, and whatever already exists, does not sit in an isolated eco-system on its own. Everything is immersed in a system – a complex one.

Fritjof Capra (1996), among others, says that we have to address this through ‘systemic thinking’. He underlines how this “new” approach implies a focus shift from objects to processes and relations; from hierarchies to networks of relationships; and from objective knowledge to the contextual one.
Embracing this organic, systemic, approach we understand that the proprieties of the parts are strongly depending on how they are inter-connected and inter-acting and not exclusively on their individual specific characteristics and qualities. This is a crucial concept in the value-innovation definition.

I want to develop my doctoral research on value-innovation through this network/system-oriented lens. In fact I would like to understand the process and method that underlies the making of those new connections, the forces and principles that guide the choices. How do we ‘interact’ with and within complexity? How do we generate new forms of user-interactions through products and services as well as new platforms or new processes in a context characterized by complexity? [And, do we really have control?]
Designers, innovators, scholars, and value-innovation-oriented business could be network-agents within complexity. Can we think, in this context, of design as synapses?

Capra, F. (1996). The web of life: a new scientific understanding of living systems. New York: Anchor Books.
Giabardo, G. (2010). Weaving Knowledge To Develop and To Manage Meaningful Innovation. Making Sense Of the Future Through Design. Unpublished MBA Thesis, ISM International School of Management, Paris.

Trans-Cultural Innovation

Published at In Category innovation, on the road, research Tags: , 4 Comments
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Design is an innovation tool as much as it is a mindset. However the design[-as-]thinking understanding of the discipline is a recent one. Much of the work designers did before was focussed on functions, styling, and finalization of innovation pushes that came from other origins. Often innovation was, and still is, a result of a technology-push.
The ‘design-thinking’ understanding of design aims to place it in a central position in organizations and in the innovation scenario. Design wants to become the hub of the knowledge wheel, whereas innovation becomes the lubricant of the economic system. Design is seen as a mediator able to speak different languages, interact with diverse actors, translate needs, frame problems, and offer valuable, innovative, results.
I wrote in my MBA thesis that “design shapes our surroundings, creates and modifies businesses and cultures, influences society and generates new ideas.”
But, are we really able to apply this —as researchers, innovators, and designers— on a global scale? Is this method and this way of thinking able to grasp peculiarity and local characteristics when acting in cultural environments that differs from the European/US based perspective? Will design be able to become the [supposed] missing link between the ‘East’ and the ‘West’?

coffee tea hack

I believe those are very interesting research questions in the perspective of understanding if our —EU/US— design&innovation approach is applicable to emerging countries/cultures as much as it is to our proximity.
Or, are we missing out completely on the underlying dynamics of the innovation trajectory happening in China and India while we keep trying to impose our system through ‘international development’?
Where should we look, and how, to understand trans-cultural, global and local, dimensions of value-innovation?

Knowledge and Innovation

Published at In Category innovation, research Tags: , , 2 Comments
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My understanding is that design is, or should be, a un-specialized activity. Even better it should be a multi/inter-specialized one. A specific body of knowledge is extremely important and helpful when we innovate punctually, on a technical level, on a manufacturing process, or on a pricing strategy. However, to systemically-innovate design should be able to interact and communicate in many different languages, to draw from different knowledge bodies, to collaborate with and through different expertise. Design becomes a strategic and managerial tool and discipline that enables the connection of loose threads and diverse knowledge to create value-innovation that answers/satisfies the problems and needs of business and people.

Starting from this assumption, how is design knowledge generated, maintained, and developed? Is design the multi-disciplinary actor of choice when we look at value-innovation, or is it presumptuous? How do we get to know what we need to know, is it a causal or a casual process?

The process of knowing, the building of knowledge, in the Husserlian phenomenological approach, happens through experience. It happens through interactions with objects, through relationships. In this understanding, knowing is a representation of reality that is characterized by being in-finite, never-complete, and un-exhaustive.
We can always weave-into the knowledge-system another point of view, another subjectivity, a new thread of knowledge that will generate new links, new connections, new opportunities. Designers/innovators, have to use many eyes, explore points of view, live the conflicts, the paradoxes and the uncertainties of the knowledge/innovation system to become aware of possibilities, opportunities, and constraints. This requires, I think, a new approach to knowledge, to theories and to learning within and for complexity.
The research questions that arise are: how do we find, choose, and weave those knowledge-threads into the system? How do we embrace complexity in a multi-dimensional and multi-stable knowledge-system? Is a phenomenological, inter-subjective approach to knowing and design helpful at all?