Matrix Group International

Month: August 2016

  • I’ve Seen the Future and It Doesn’t Include Web Browsers

    I’ve Seen the Future and It Doesn’t Include Web Browsers

    M_and_tap_200For my birthday this year, my husband bought me an Amazon Tap. The Amazon Tap is a Bluetooth and Wi-Fi-enabled speaker that lets you use voice commands to play music, check the weather, order stuff on Amazon, look up things on Wikipedia, and on and on.

    Who knew that this little speaker would quickly become my gadget of choice? I carry my Tap with me everywhere!

    The Tap is powered by Alexa, Amazon’s voice-activated virtual assistant. I connected my Tap to my home and work Wi-Fi, my iPhone and my Alexa app. I then connected my Alexa app to my IHeartRadio app and my Amazon app. There are many more Alexa integrations to what Amazon calls Skills. And since I’m an Amazon Prime member, I have access to Prime Music.

    I mean, look at the kind of day I now have with the Tap around:

    • In the morning, I say, “Play NPR,” and Alexa starts playing the live stream from WAMU, the local NPR affiliate.
    • While I’m cooking or cleaning, I’ll say, “play 80s music,” and Alexa will say “Playing 80s on Prime Music.”
    • While getting dressed, I’ll say, “What’s the weather?” and Alexa will tell me the forecast from weather.com.
    • If I want to know about something, I’ll say, “Wikipedia Abraham Lincoln,” and Alexa will read the first paragraph about my favorite President. I can ask for more info, and Alexa will keep reading.
    • I can ask Alexa to read my Kindle books out loud.
    • And on Amazon Prime Day, I ordered a drone with just two voice commands!

    I haven’t yet tried it, but I can connect Alexa to a Domino’s account and order pizza by voice.

    I can’t do everything on my Tap, but it’s coming. And from what I read and hear, voice is the new new thing. The XFINITY voice remote already lets you search for programs by voice. We can already talk to our cars. And we endlessly give commands to Siri on our iPhones and iPads.

    Amazon allows developers to teach Alexa new skills. Apple just opened up Siri so that third parties can give Siri access to their apps.

    It won’t be long before we’ll talk to our refrigerators, stereos, ovens, and furniture, and interact with websites and apps with just voice commands.

    I’ve seen the future… er… rather, I’ve heard the future, and it sounds bright!

  • Maybe We Should Stop Trying to Generate More Traffic to Government Affairs Web Pages

    Maybe We Should Stop Trying to Generate More Traffic to Government Affairs Web Pages

    STOP_sign_smI attend a lot of redesign kickoff meetings. Clients almost always list as one of their top goals,
    “Increase traffic to the website.” Sounds reasonable, right? Organizations are competing for eyeballs, so traffic means organizations are getting attention and their content is being read and hopefully appreciated.

    Indeed, nearly every client I work with has a government affairs department that laments the low number of visits to the government affairs portion of their site. Indeed, many government affairs departments don’t post much meaningful information on their portions of the website, preferring to communicate with members and legislators via email and phone.

    So during every redesign, we discuss ways to drive members to the government affairs portion of their sites and increase engagement via the web. Again, makes a lot of sense.

    But does it? I’m told that government affairs staff at companies across the US are busy, they travel a lot, they rely on email and phone, and they are demanding. When they need information, support or guidance from their association, they pick up the phone or they send an email. Indeed, across nearly all Matrix Group clients that have a government affairs function, government affairs newsletters get the highest open rates when compared with the regular membership newsletters, journals or magazines. Moreover, they have the highest involvement in committee conference calls on important issues.

    So let’s get this straight: members interested in government affairs call and email, behaviors that are consistent with high engagement. Why are we trying to change this behavior? Is it because email and phone are high touch, labor intensive interactions? Or do we simply believe more traffic is better?

    I think the goal instead should be to get more members involved in government affairs, across the board, in the way they want to interact with the association. Getting more members interested in government affairs will likely mean getting them on the website to learn more about an organization’s issues and positions, which will result in more traffic to the website. BUT, engagement in government affairs will ultimately end up looking like traditional government affairs involvement: via phone, email and events. The challenge then becomes measuring the number of people involved with government affairs, measuring their level of involvement and getting to know them so as to move them across the continuum toward more active engagement.

    In the end, if an association has high government affairs involvement from the membership and those interactions don’t involve the website much, we should be okay with that.