Monthly Archives: October 2018

Our digital well-being matters. It is best to disconnect when needed and create healthy habits for the whole family.

Originally posted at the Sunday Business & IT on October 14, 2018

Are you guilty of reaching for your phone every time you wake up in the morning to check on your notifications? I do and it has become a habit ever since I got hooked on social networking sites as early as 2007.

Proof? I spent 56 hours and 37 minutes on my iPhone for the last seven days or an average of eight hours and five minutes per day. My husband overheard me exclaim as I read the Screen Time statistics on my iPhone. He comforted me with “That’s part of your job.” Sure, I am a social media practitioner and citizen advocate rolled into one. I love to curate news articles, share photos and updates or opinions from my five blogs. It is time to audit and check if my usage is too high or excessive for my work. Is it time well spent? My Fitbit app tells me I slept an average of seven hours and a half the past week. That leaves eight hours and a half for my laptop use and other activities such as driving, walking and meeting people.

The latest iOS 12 features the Screen Time tools which show up under Settings > Screen Time. This provides an iPhone user with iPhone 5 and above to find out the time spent and limit apps’ usage. The first thing I do is to check the Screen Time report, a bar graph that illustrates the time spent on my iPhone during the day or in a week. One can see the breakdown of the time spent on specific apps. Try it. My latest weekly screen report showed:

1. Social networking — 37 hours and 56 minutes (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, messenger, Messages, LinkedIn, Telegram, Viber, WhatsApp, Local, Bubbly, Skype, Quora, Tumblr, Signal)

2. Reading & Reference — 3 hours and 54 minutes (Safari, Waze, Angkas, Online news)

3. Creativity — 2 hours and 34 minutes (Lightroom CC, camera, photos, Snapseed, Boomerang, GoPro, Unfold, Insta360Nano S)

4. Others — 2 hours and 24 minutes (browsing, shopping apps)

5. Productivity — 1 hour and 40 minutes (Gmail, Drive, calculator, Calendar, One Note)

6. Entertainment — 1 hour and 4 minutes (Spotify, Youtube, Oculus)

7. Health & Fitness — 19 minutes (Fitbit, Nike)

In the WeAreSocial Global Digital Report for January 2018 in the Philippines, the average daily time spent using the internet via internet device is nine hours and 29 minutes. Average time using social media spent via any device is three hours and 57 minutes. While my total screen time is lower than the average, I spend over four hours on social media. I was alarmed by the data. After seeing I use 15 social networking apps, I decided to prioritize them.

Using the Screen Time tools, I limited the average one hour time on Facebook to 30 minutes a day. I did not set limits on Twitter. My number one platform for social media engagement is Twitter because fewer trolls thrive in this network. Thirty minutes in Facebook is not adequate during a busy news day.

iPhone users can use the “Do Not Disturb” function that lets you turn off your notifications and calls.

The “Downtime” feature allows you to do the same for apps. Parents can manage their kids’ screen time and impose app limits on them remotely. To use Screen Time for tracking and managing your kids’ device usage, the parent must add them to their iCloud Family Sharing account. Google initiated its “Digital Wellbeing” app, which is in beta preview for Pixel devices. Facebook and Instagram rolled out digital well-being features that include an activity dashboard, a daily reminder, and a new way to limit notifications.

Although I’m committed to using technology in advocating change for social good, my digital well-being stays front and center. There is a concern about the blue light from digital devices which allegedly can damage vision and speed up blindness. Based on an optical chemistry research at the University of Toledo in the US, “blue light from digital devices and the sun transforms vital molecules in the eye’s retina into cell killers”. Dr. Ajith Karunarathne, an assistant professor in chemistry and biochemistry in the university said: “We are being exposed to blue light and the eye’s cornea and lens cannot block or reflect it”. The research published at the peer-reviewed journal Scientific Reports added, “It’s no secret that blue light harms our vision by damaging the eye’s retina. Our experiments explain how this happens, and we hope this leads to therapies that slow macular degeneration, such as a new kind of eye drop.” If you want to protect your eyes from blue light, Dr. Ajith Karunarathne’s advice is to avoid looking at your cell phones or other blue-light emitting devices in the dark and consider wearing sunglasses.

Our digital well-being matters. It is best to disconnect when needed and create healthy habits for the whole family.

 

The complete study can be found here.

First published at the Sunday Business & IT Of the Sunday Times entitled “Embracing the era of experience: Marketing redefined”

Do you recall the feeling when you purchased something for yourself? When I bought a pair of Nike shoes a few weeks ago, I felt good about my decision even if the price was higher than my budget. I did not just gain a high-tech midsole with the lightest, softest, smoothest, and most responsive foam Nike has ever produced. I bought the total fitness experience. Beyond the shoe, the brand understood a consumer’s fitness journey and complemented it with a Nike+ Training Club app. I felt more excited to carry out my Fitibit step goals together with this Ultimate Personal Trainer. This is one example of a brand that goes where their customers are. I find value in this great experience. One sees the rise of the “Experience Economy” when someone shares happy stories in social networks. It is experience embedded at every stage of the consumer journey.

The Digital Congress (DigiCon) for 2018, organized by the Internet and Mobile Marketing Association of the Philippines (IMMAP), tackled the Experience Economy (XE). The XE covered discussions beyond technology and mediums with a focus on creating an experience for the senses. Bozoma Saint John, a marketing guru and keynote speaker, reminded the delegates, “Emotion is the currency for the experience economy. We’re in the feelings business. We’re not in the data business.” If one is a marketer trying to build a business, one is talking about feelings most of the time. I love brands that understand my desires and recognize sentiments. Amazon is one company that understood my anguish when I complained that the cost of custom duties was more than the product itself. Instead of giving me a difficult time, Amazon gave me a refund. In their email, Amazon explained they valued my loyalty. It is no surprise I am still a loyal customer for over 10 years now.

The Amazon shopping experience set my standard for the customer experience. I look up to brands who provide similar seamless interactions from every touchpoint. It is the touchpoints within the customer journey that help define both good and not-so-good moments. At DigiCon, Anthony Baker provided insights into the Experience Playbook. With access to reviews and competitive pricing, customers get more control in their choices. In the past, when a product is good, it will sell. That is not the case anymore. The shift is now toward customers driving brand experiences. It is about moving from marketing to experiences. This means putting the customer at the center and in everything they do. One must rethink engagement by understanding and solving their needs.

Brands must get loyalty by giving the consumer value and making their lives easier. Amazon got my loyalty because I experienced being valued as a customer.

Customers connect with brands in the evolving digital landscape of the Web, Mobile, Social, Messaging, Augmented Reality/Virtual Reality/Mixed Reality, Voice, Artificial Intelligence, Machine Language, and Robotics.

Brands like Sephora, Nike, Alibaba, and Tencent are re-imagining consumer experiences. Value-added personalization services helped brands like Estée Lauder cut through the noise. Their chatbot finds the ideal consumer lipstick color for women. Some real estate companies use virtual reality in showing their future projects to potential customers. Mobile apps like the Nike Training app shape the in-store experience, empower the purchasing process, and create interesting and dynamic ways to interact with the customer.

Baker suggests more points for a seamless brand experience:

1. Brands have to offer great experiences across the end-to-end non-linear customer journey (awareness-consideration-purchase-usage-loyalty).

2. Think about engaging across the ecosystem, all platforms, channels, and screens.

3. Use every interaction as an opportunity to learn from and enhance every experience.

4. Look beyond the transactions and focus on building long-term relationships.

5. Manifest the brand through the interface.

6. Brands must reclaim their consumer relationship and data. Brands that think of their consumers as members focus on the long-term relationship.

7. The model is now “inside out”. Every touchpoint has the potential for branded experience and engagement.

Building customer loyalty is not enough. It’s about knowing, recognizing, anticipating, and creating value all the time and at scale. It is a promise that is compelling, clearly articulated, and makes consumers belong to something bigger. While I might not meet Nike’s promise of “We’ll make you a better athlete”, I know that I get value-added customer experiences through the tracking progress, encouragement, and clear routes to the improvement in my fitness journey. Consumers seek not only convenient service or a packaged product but a one-stop, sensorial experience.

Now is the time for business to embrace the era of experience.